The Power of Man...To Destroy

The human race is a very beautiful one. Its full of diversity, opinion, religions, interests and races (amongst other things.) As we grew and devloped, groping with our enviroment- adapting, changing, learning- achievements were born that were never seen again and are truely magnificent on any scale. As the human intellect was fostered we became like little children in a candy shop, eager to engage on what resources we had to build, create beautiful things. Or destroy beautiful things.

I had a dream last night about nuclear war, and all I can remember is the nuclear weapons were in boxes that were dropped as supplies. This truely shook me up, but also stirred my curiosity. I went on the web and watched nuclear weapon tests from several countries, mainly the US, Russia and China. I have an intimate knowledge into the workings of both nuclear fusion and fission, both on a conceptual and technical level, but the power that I saw in my dreams and on these videos (it would seem that the videos showed my dream to be pretty accurate in the description of the nuclear blast, assuming the videos were real) but I was still amazed at the awesome power that I was witnessing. It was a bitter sweet feeling: I actually was excited because it was amazing that a species of animal could really build such a weapon and develop the theories that made the weapon a reality but at the same time I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach because such awesome power was actually used as a weapon.

I feel that such use of knowldege is abusive of our intellectual rights-and the humane rights of others. At the same time I don't particularly have a problem with what happened at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in a practical sense: it was perhaps necessary to stop World War II (I have doubts about that though, but it did actually stop it). One drawback of the Japanese nuclear bombings is introduced the concept of a nuclear reaction as a weapon inflicted on other human beings into the international circuit and so, considering extemes, any leader with enough resources could bring about the death of thousands of individuals with one bomb. It truely is a power that one should respect and be reverent about- but its human nature not to be that way. It makes sense to me that if one country used a nuclear weapon on another's people, then a retaliation in self defense would ensue with a launch of a nuclear weapon (or if that particular country did not have the resources or the actual weapon some other country would out of fear) and it would be similar to a game of tag until either all the weapons were exhausted or the human race was extinguished or endangered. One could argue that a peaceful negotiation would be constructed and the bombing would have stopped before either of the two cases presented; and perhaps it would be that way but the way I understand some countries have a "counter nuclear attack" system where if that country is attacked then in self defense they would counter with even more attacks then the country that attacked, a sort of destroy you or punish you before you do more harm to me. Thus, if I am correct with how I understand the system, it would seem that a large amount of damage would have been done by the time of the negotiations and maybe even too late. Whats even more petrifying is that a country leader, such as a dictator, could order a nuclear strike on a whim or out of instantaneus emotion or rage and not out of careful thought (but I also feel that if one used careful and rational thought one would not actually USE nuclear weapons except out of self defence, as I figure was Wilson's rationale for the Japanese bombings.)

I don't necessarily dwell on these issues, but I try not to be naive about it either. The suspicions of nuclear weapons in Communist countries, though a year or two in the past, still pose a real threat and it would not come to any surprise to me at all if the world, and America in particular, fell into another Cold War. At the same time one has to wonder if it is an actual issue, and I would argue that it is to a certain degree. One accident, spiteful order precise attack could thrust the world into a conflict in which it could never recover, and that is my worst fear- man's own ability to destroy themselves and the surrounding enviroment.