The mathematicians, physicists, and engineers of that era helped to preserve the survival of our civilization so you could have the luxury of being an idealistic pacifist.
Some of them worked for Nazi Germany or Stalinist regime or horrific Japanese medical "science" / torture so not all of them were working for freedom. Scientists sometimes say that science is neutral, and it's up to society to use the results wisely.
I appreciate that scientists don't always have freedom of choice under a brutal regime.
There's interesting stuff about President Truman's anti-Nazi directive (tl;dr: Don't use scientists who were (or were supportive of) Nazis) and the way that was ignored.
German scientists that helped the US, to whatever extent they helped the US, did help to preserve our civilization, even if they tried to destroy it during the war. But let's ignore them; I'm talking about the thousands of American scientists and engineers worked on defense applications in the 20th century, and to some extent about those of Britain, Canada, France, and so forth.
And so goes the populists and idealists, union makers and Jeffersonian/latent new dealers. Do not think for a second that the intellectuals that we hold in high esteem made the world better unilaterally. They were but cogs in a greater machine, and their opportunity to "preserve the survival of our civilization" was at the behest of greater men that navigated the reality of politic.
It's rather hard to be an idealistic pacifist if you're within living memory of WWII, though some people surely accomplished it. It's especially easy in this day and age to mentally evade the notion that force is sometimes not only justified, but necessary and morally obligatory. It would not have been so easy to do so during the era that countries like Germany, Russia, and Japan were invading neutral countries and mass-executing their citizens.
"We will bury you" - Soviet dictator Kruschev, addressing a gathering of Western ambassadors in 1956, 3 years before this ad.
When a man with his finger on the button of half the world's nukes says things like that, you damn well better put your best minds to work figuring out how not to let it happen.
Setting aside the fact that almost nobody would have agreed to it, surrendering and living under communism would have sacrificed human life as well, just as it did for every other communist country.
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The mathematicians, physicists, and engineers of that era helped to preserve the survival of our civilization so you could have the luxury of being an idealistic pacifist.
Some of them worked for Nazi Germany or Stalinist regime or horrific Japanese medical "science" / torture so not all of them were working for freedom. Scientists sometimes say that science is neutral, and it's up to society to use the results wisely.
I appreciate that scientists don't always have freedom of choice under a brutal regime.
I was talking about American scientists ("our civilization"), though the other western allies would qualify as well. Sorry about the confusion.
EDIT: My reply sounds bickering. Sorry, it isn't meant to!
Stalin was a western ally. Stalin was, without doubt, evil.
German scientists worked for the US; they were recruited through Operation Paperclip.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip)
There's interesting stuff about President Truman's anti-Nazi directive (tl;dr: Don't use scientists who were (or were supportive of) Nazis) and the way that was ignored.
> Stalin was a western ally.
No he wasn't; he was just an ally. The term "western allies" excludes the Soviet Union, that's why I intentionally chose it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Allies
German scientists that helped the US, to whatever extent they helped the US, did help to preserve our civilization, even if they tried to destroy it during the war. But let's ignore them; I'm talking about the thousands of American scientists and engineers worked on defense applications in the 20th century, and to some extent about those of Britain, Canada, France, and so forth.
And so goes the populists and idealists, union makers and Jeffersonian/latent new dealers. Do not think for a second that the intellectuals that we hold in high esteem made the world better unilaterally. They were but cogs in a greater machine, and their opportunity to "preserve the survival of our civilization" was at the behest of greater men that navigated the reality of politic.
You assume that idealist pacifists could only exist in the current civilization and not any other.
It's rather hard to be an idealistic pacifist if you're within living memory of WWII, though some people surely accomplished it. It's especially easy in this day and age to mentally evade the notion that force is sometimes not only justified, but necessary and morally obligatory. It would not have been so easy to do so during the era that countries like Germany, Russia, and Japan were invading neutral countries and mass-executing their citizens.
"We will bury you" - Soviet dictator Kruschev, addressing a gathering of Western ambassadors in 1956, 3 years before this ad.
When a man with his finger on the button of half the world's nukes says things like that, you damn well better put your best minds to work figuring out how not to let it happen.
The nuclear balance of power in '56 (and indeed well into the 60s) was very one sided - this, after all, was the time of the fictitious "bomber gap":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bomber_gap
The Soviets were, with some justification, terrified of a US first strike at the time.
You are still implicitly going with the idea that someone has to defend the current civilisation on behalf of inferior pacifists who won't.
What if there's a peaceful answer which sacrifices way of life instead of human life? Would supporting it be "luxury"?
Setting aside the fact that almost nobody would have agreed to it, surrendering and living under communism would have sacrificed human life as well, just as it did for every other communist country.
The original quote: "Like it or not, but the history is working on us. We will attend your funerals".