|
|
 Originally Posted by Monty3038
This could be very interesting. The first people I thought of when you mentioned this were the rocketeers and physicists who worked on the technology that eventually led to nuclear missiles, most are often portrayed as troubled by their discoveries and advancements leading to weaponization, so they could I suppose be said to be idealists... but was it their idealism that led them to their discoveries (advancement of science) which then their discoveries led them to violate more basic humanitarian ideals?
That is a pretty convoluted thought pattern, but is what I first came up with, if it makes any sense, I'll try to hash out some of the other thoughts in a bit... doing this at work now...
Actually, I'm not sure if this is a topic I can provide much for because I view micro behaviors ultimately as products of macro realities. Under that paradigm, its not ideals that affect society, but environment. Any time I see an ideal affecting things, I can see how they're more basic than assumed, and can't be isolated from environmental factors.
As for the Manhattan Project specifically, I think the ideals were normal social protections and other ones that are found everywhere human society exists, and that it's largely deterministic since any individuals without those ideals would simply be replaced by ones who do, and that it was really the natural progression of physics at the time. Ideals may even be a red herring since the causes of those ideals are biology and environment
|
Reply With Quote