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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 16th, 2023

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  • I feel like it’s like trying to calculate if the nukes in WW2 saved more lives than they cost.

    I know you are just using this as an analogy, but if you are curious:

    According to most estimates, the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan killed between 140,000 and 210,000 people, with the majority of deaths occurring on the day of the bombings, August 6th and 9th, 1945 respectively

    And:

    During World War II, 1,506,000 Purple Heart medals were manufactured, many in anticipation of the estimated casualties resulting from the planned Allied invasion of Japan. By the end of the war, even accounting for medals lost, stolen, or wasted, nearly 500,000 remained. The total combined American military casualties of the seventy years following the end of World War II—including the Korean and Vietnam Wars—did not exceed that number.

    I think the horrors of nuclear weapons were at least responsible for ending the war quicker and saving lives that would have been lost during a ground invasion if Japan never surrendered.