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Re:Hollywood Movie Aside, Just How Good a Physicist Was Oppe... by atoav on Friday July 21, 2023 @02:23AM (#36810612)
The knowledge of hindsight can be a curse. Don't forget that Oppenheimer is to a certain extent seen as the guy who is responsible of giving humanity the tools to kill itself a thousand times over.

The fact that we didn't is good luck, but it could have gone different during many points in the cold war and then you and I wouldn't be able to discuss about this on here. But if you knew about Oppenheimer and still were alive you would probably not think highly of the man.

So it doesn't have to do with anti-nuclear (as in: against civil nuclear use) — Oppenheimer was just the prototypical smart guy that failed to predict the consequences of his own actions and by that nearly ended humanity. This makes him an ethically ambivalent figure, and that ambivalence has become a defining trait of the public image of Oppenheimer.

Re:Hollywood Movie Aside, Just How Good a Physicist Was Oppe... by tivert on Friday July 21, 2023 @10:55AM (#36814550)
> So it doesn't have to do with anti-nuclear (as in: against civil nuclear use)

That's not my understanding. I don't think you have anti-nuclear activists that are totes fine nuclear weapons and just don't like powerplants. The activists who oppose civil nuclear use are a strict subset of a broader anti-nuclear activist set that includes nuclear disarmament.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-nuclear_movement:

> The anti-nuclear movement is a social movement that opposes various nuclear technologies....Major anti-nuclear groups include Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, Peace Action, Seneca Women's Encampment for a Future of Peace and Justice and the Nuclear Information and Resource Service. The initial objective of the movement was nuclear disarmament, though since the late 1960s opposition has included the use of nuclear power. Many anti-nuclear groups oppose both nuclear power and nuclear weapons.

Re:Hollywood Movie Aside, Just How Good a Physicist Was Oppe... by atoav on Friday July 21, 2023 @05:25PM (#36820009)
So how does that refute my point about Oppenheimer's infamy being a result of the actual risk he produced and not the technology behind that risk?