General Douglas MacArthur said in his 1961 address to the Philippines Congress: "You will say at once that, although the abolition of war has been the dream of man for centuries, every proposition to that end has been promptly discarded as impossible and fantastic. But that was before the science of the past decade made mass destruction a reality. The argument then was along spiritual and moral lines, and lost. But now the tremendous evolution of nuclear and other potentials of destruction has suddenly taken the problem away from its primary consideration as a moral and spiritual question and brought it abreast of scientific realism."
President Harry Truman authorized the use of two atom bombs in an effort to bring about Japan’s quick surrender in the Second World War and thereby save lives. In the days following the bombings, Japan did in fact surrender. The Manhattan Project was the U.S. government's program during World War II that developed and built these first atomic bombs. Why? The answer is fear generated by the instinct of self-preservation. The very same reason many people have guns. But in the case of nuclear weapons protection turned into a horror of unrestrained killing and enslavement of people. More on this below.
So how many died as a result of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
''The United States military estimated that around 70,000 people died at Hiroshima, though later independent estimates argued that the actual number was 140,000 dead with another at 70,000 Nagasaki.'' So, 210,000 people.
By trying to save lives by shortening the Second World War humanity effectively entrapped itself in a never-ending doomsday scenario where a nuclear-armed nation can invade a sovereign, democratic nation as we now see in Ukraine in 2022. Any nuclear-armed nation can hold every single life on Earth hostage to its demands. Humankind has effectively straitjacketed itself.
This is my take on why they (and all weapons) are developed:
Fear
- In humans and in all animals, the purpose of fear is to promote survival. In the course of human evolution, the people who feared the right things survived to pass on their genes. In passing on their genes, the trait of fear and the response to it were selected as beneficial to the race(Darwin).
- Competition for resources. When money is used to regulate and distribute resources for profit, and people and nations are out for themselves, they will seek advantage at any cost. They do this by establishing a competitive edge or through military intervention.
Why a new economic system and why veganism?
Nearly all of human civilization's problems; War, Poverty, Crime, Famine, and now the Global Climate Crisis had their genesis with the subjugation and abuse of animals through their domestication. The domestication of animals also begat the concept of private land ownership and the social agreement we call 'money', as well as every market system including Capitalism.
Humanity therefore must reverse course by transitioning to a global resource-based economic system as well as rejecting the use of animals for food, clothing, entertainment, or medical testing.
By eliminating the corrupting influence of money, establishing the sharing of all the Earth's resources as well as removing the moral bankruptcy of abusing and killing innocent creatures we have a good chance of saving our civilization.
________
Comments
Post a Comment