Very interesting thoughts Sam. I agree that once something has been discovered or invented there's no way to uninvent it. It's also quite likely that nuclear weapons played a very big part in preventing WWIII athough we came pretty close to a full nuclear war more than once. During this period (1960s) the trend seemed to be towards bigger & better versions of the basic weapon with other countries wanting to join the club with their own independent nuclear ability. The tests had already been done by others so what was the point of continually repeating them? That was what I couldn't understand then & now, 40 years later.
As you said, there was a lot of sabre-rattling with both sides trying to beat the other. The old 'mine's bigger than yours' schoolboy boast. What I find hard to take is that supposedly responsible politicians & scientists on all sides were acting just like schoolboys & prepared to destroy the planet we all live on just to prove a point. This is no exaggeration as there was a theory that a big enough explosion could start a chain reaction which would do just that. The point is that they simply didn't know but were prepared to risk it anyway. They had no idea of the effects their experiments would have on themselves or others, many of them completely innocent people living 1,000s of miles away, either as a direct result of their experiments or the more frightening long-term effect on the environment & the food we eat. It's quite likely that we're all still suffering from that terrible legacy. I would like to think that they learned their lesson but I'm not convinced of that.
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