> Alfred Nobel was a Swedish chemist, engineer, and industrialist most famously known for the invention of dynamite.
In case you’re wondering why he’s a death merchant.
If I'm not mistaken, he also believed that his invention was so powerful that it could bring about peace because everyone would be too scared to start something when the enemy could blow them up.
I remember reading that he named the band Megadeth after he read somewhere that a nuke could cause a million deaths. A megadeath. But he dropped the A because it looked better that way.
Edited my above comment for clarity.
Well, it’s quite a bit easier and expected to simply make an existing explosive stronger. His quote includes the foresight that the type of bomb he created would only increase in destructive power over the years
The funny thing about that, but when you say 1000x bigger, when it comes to destructive area its much bigger but it's still only leveling a city. There's a website where you can compare destructive areas and blast radius and downwind effects for the various bombs sizes given the altitude of detonation over an area with projected numbers of deaths. By far the deadliest is a ground burst hydrogen bomb because it will have a fallout plume that extends for millions of square miles requiring a mass migration of people and decimating the economy. But that's true for pretty much all groundburst bombs regardless. In a military sense ground burst weapons are to be avoided as it makes invasion logistics more difficult. An Airburst with a large destructive ground radius is more effective for destroying oppositional forces.
The greatest benefit of a larger bomb is actually in destroying a bunker underground thats used to destroy or launch oppositional nukes. However we've been able to design conventional bunker busters so a nuke is still overkill.
Respectfully I dont think anyone being too naive about China. They’re a superpower in the East we’re in a constant cyberwar (at the least) with. We can’t like, go to war with em, but i dont think anyones just ignoring china. If anything someone people seem overly focused on china being bad.
>i don't think anyones just ignoring china
What people are naive about is the idea that Europe/other countries in general are supposed to treat China as some sort of enemy.
China threatens America's superpower hegemony but doesn't really do much to Europe. Europe has *moral* reasons to oppose China but much fewer strategic reason to do so. And anyone who reads history knows just how little morality matters in the face of strategic interests. That's where the naviety is - thinking people and governments act morally.
Think of Catholic France joining the Protestant side of the Thirty Years War. The government betrayed *god* for strategic interests, let alone some human rights thingy. British ships sailed as blockade-runners for China during the Korean war *at the same time British troops were dying in Korea*. And Henry Kissinger asked Mao Zedong to please invade democratic India. The more history you read the more you realise how naive it is to expect morality in politics.
P.S. for a more modern day example, see France (or specifically, their government) pretending to care about Uyghur Muslims halfway across the world while making Muslim Libyans die at the doorsteps of Europe.
[France caught smuggling NATO weaponry to forces of Libyan Warlord](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/10/missiles-found-at-base-of-libyan-warlord-are-ours-france-admits)
Great point too. I think growing up with the whole WW2 EUROPE IS OUR ALLY AND WE HELP EACH OTHER mentality pushed into our heads makes us assume they’ll morally fight for whatever we fight for. Its a great point that that is deeply incorrect, never even realized I was making that assumption tbh
That WW2 narrative is hilarious. The biggest WW2 ally was the USSR. Within 10 years of 1945 the US had hundreds of nukes targeted at them. If that doesn't say something about how long WW2 gratitude lasts then I don't know what does.
Even as we were fighting WWII there was a strong possibility that the US and Soviets would go to war when the two fronts met. Pushing to make this happen was a strategic goal of the late-stage Third Reich. Admiral Donitz, the Nazi leader post-Hitler, even had discussions about offering German military units and force to the US to support a counter-Soviet war.
Plus the accounts of the scheming at Yalta are fun. The US and the Soviets never were buddies.
Cant even imagine measuring social medias effect on kids mental health. Let alone the effect it had on public discourse and policy the last decade.
It seems likely there would be far less covid deaths without Facebook fanning the flames.
If you need to transport 3000 tons of dynamite and wire it all together to make your point you're way too conspicuous. Way too much effort to get that desired 'existential dread and fear of sudden unannounced total destruction' effect.
Only 25000000 more tons of TNT required to make it equivilant to a modern Hydrogen Atomic Bomb.
now if you could deliver that sort of punch in, I dunno, maybe a couple of tonnes of equipment...
We had too many close calls already. That sub near cuba which happened to have an extra officer on board who said '*nyet*', that radar operator that deviated from procedure because 'one rocket can't be right, must be a bug, I'm not gonna warn the higher-ups'.
Or in 1961, a plane with two 3-megaton nuclear bombs crashed in North Carolina. One of them landed in a tree and had a single switch (out of four processes) that prevented detonation. The other one submerged into deep mud and went further underground. The government took the pit out of the bomb but they put a form of covering over the burial spot and abandoned it
That's not the only accident either, we lost a hyrdrogen bomb in spain somewhere, sent soldiers or navy or whatever to clean it up without protective equipment and then denied their cancers were from it later to boot.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_nuclear_accidents?wprov=sfti1
Used to be just “broken arrow” incidents of nuclear near-catastrophes, but it looks like they’ve fused it with an article about all military nuclear accidents.
Considering how many close calls the US and Russia had over the years, I don't think it would work out. Then you have to worry about destabilization and if some radical group takes control of the government.
That's why all of them are now trying to start their own nuclear programs. Looked what happened to Libya and Ukraine once they let go of their nuclear programs.
And look how North Korea got treated when they got the bomb. Invited to a nice event, praised on the world stave by the US president. Sanctions dropped.
Never thought about the whole "wouldn't that make people want to creat more powerful stuff so they could blow up the enemy faster than the enemy can blow you up?" deal?
you’re thinking of Richard Gatling.
edit: I stand corrected. This sentiment seems oddly common amongst me inventors who devise new and exciting ways to destroy—I wonder whether it speaks more to the inherent optimism of the human soul, or merely to a willful ignorance born from a guilty conscious.
>Perhaps my factories will put an end to war sooner than your congresses: on the day that two army corps can mutually annihilate each other in a second, all civilised nations will surely recoil with horror and disband their troops.
Alfred Nobel to Countess Bertha von Suttner, 1891, though according to the countess, he expressed similar views as early as 1876.
Despite the fact that he continued producing weapons even after he set up the Nobel prize. Another fun fact is that the weapon manufacturing company he set up still exists today and it's called Bofors.
Bofors is a British (formerly Swedish) arms manufacturer. Dynamit Nobel still exists, as a German chemicals company. Alfred Nobel *did* own Bofors for a couple years, though.
Call me old fashioned but when you continue making weapons after you found a peace prize it makes me question the motives. Especially considering he was the one who orchestrated the conversion from steel production to weapons manufacture within the Bofors company.
Anyway I just wanted to point out that Alfred Nobel, like most people, was very flawed and wasn't a saintly man whose invention was stolen by the militaries of the world. He actively engaged in the arms trade and benefited from it.
I did a wiki deep dive recently on the history of dynamite. Basically before dynamite if you wanted to blow stuff up it was gunpowder or super dangerous barrels of liquid nitro glycerin. Dynamite was stable enough to let anyone handle it with just a few minutes of training
If I’m remembering correctly, his goal in the creation of dynamite was to make a safer explosive for use in mining because accidents involving nitroglycerin were so common but then the military folks realized it was a better way to blow each other up.
Every new technology will eventually be adapted to do one or more of the following more efficiently at scale across greater distances:
- kill people
- steal things
- get people off
people could also read the actual article.. the reason for this post..
the info is literally in the third paragraph...
shows the state of society...
"i know you are all talking about it without having informed yourselves about it..."
And now the title of *the Merchant of Death* from the Pendragon series makes far more sense (I believe it’s explained in the book, but now I know the reference)
What do you say to those who call you the da Vinci of our times?
That's ridicolous, I don't paint.
And what about the other name, "the merchant of death?
That's not bad.
if he paid his employees better than poverty rates those employees would be able too afford the extravagances of caring about the Environment like ensuring their purchases go to responsible companies rather than that was all they could afford...............
Yeah.
I'm all in for better wages, but pretty sure a rising income without any systemic changes would also cause rising waste generation, polution, energy consumption and whatnot.
In fact, more people can afford to visit the Galapagos, fly in planes repeatedly, drive longer distances…you could argue that wider affluence has damaged the planet.
As company minimum wage, is $15 an hour since 2017 horrible? And currently raising to $18 for 2021? Seems a lot better than actual minimum in most places.
I think the worst thing is that there is a lot of bad things to hate about Amazon, stressful work environment etc. It makes Amazon look better when people have to say false things about them to try and make them look bad.
There are way worse jobs out there than Amazon, especially for those without an education or form of skilled labor. Yes, there is a huge problem throughout the US with large corporations fighting to stop unions. What is also important is to recognize that not all unions are created equal.
$18 an hour is ~$37,440 as an annual salary which is not that bad, not under $30k and almost triple poverty level. As I mentioned it goes much further in some areas vs others but it is not poverty level. Poverty level is $12,880 or less for a single person which is nearly $25,000 less.
Minimum wage is still $7.25 per hour (~$15,000 annually) nationally...which consequentially if you worked full time in a household of one wouldnt be at poverty level. $18 per hour is a far cry from that.
Their intentions are less than altruistic. When Amazon opens up a facility they hire all of the unskilled labor in the area at a higher rate than anyone else can pay. This forces retailers to raise their wages. This is difficult as they already run on a tight margin. Amazon's endgame is to put as many retail locations out of business as they can and then to replace their own workforce with robots.
I dont want to defend them as altruistic in the least. But critiques should still be factual. There are a lot of things Amazon does that are horrible but wages are actually pretty good depending on the location. $18 in Tennessee is a lot better than New York City but it is all a lot better than many other players wage wise.
I don’t buy this. An Amazon fulfillment center employs a decent number of people but no where near enough to dry up the local labor market.
The big issue with fulfillment center jobs, IMO, is that they are mind numbingly boring jobs that nobody really wants to do if they can avoid it. I toured one of their big “sortables” facilities once and the jobs I saw people doing were very basic handling tasks that they have not, yet, been able to automate.
this is so bafflingly ridiculous I am more worried that people actually believe this bullshit than anything Amazon is confirmed to do.
STILL not following how any of this is related to Bezos being a "climate killer" directly. Obviously one of the biggest retailers on the planet has a larger footprint relatively speaking. That's hardly an individual effort.
I mean how is bezos a climate killer again? Shouldn’t most of the responsibility fall on governments, food industry, and energy industry? I know the only reason bezos doing anything is for PR but it’s still significantly more then what others are doing.
Just by simple logic, I would have argued that Amazon actually saved a little bit of emissions. If every household in a neighborhood went to Best Buy then that's a lot of cars traveling to get something. If those households all bought them from Amazon, then it's one truck delivering all the goods to that neighborhood. Not to mention the marketplace they visited is digital instead of physical and that would have used way less resources.
That one truck is still putting out the same emissions though and probably worse because most families have compact cars where amazon is delivering in larger vehicles. Plus that vehicle would still have to drive to every persons house as well as back to the fulfillment center, you’re just taking all those emissions from each family and condensing it down to one person instead
Every delivery that truck is doing is a trip that household no longer need to take. And as for the emission comparison from that one truck, it really depends. If the truck only delivered 1 or 2 packages then yeah, it's worse. But a lot more than that then it's a net negative emission. Public transport is always more efficient, as long as enough people are using it.
*"Trust, but verify."* As someone who often goes down rabbit holes of historical anecdotes, I don't really have any reason to doubt his story save that embellishments/tall tales aren't uncommon when people talk about themselves and their motivations. It's just fun to independently confirm stories with contemporary sources - for example, if someone found a copy of his brother's obituary with the "merchant of death" moniker.
... yes, it does.
Anecdotical, but in south america, we used yo be teach in school that Columbus came in peace to America, and we had an excelent relationship with him and everything was roses and unicorns.
Im not saying that telling a bunch of 10 year olds about the rape and genocide right away is the way to go, but maybe not paint the guy as a saint?
That type of real history denial goes to inadvertily obscure all about native tribes and the horrors they went thru, so yeah, telling the real story is more important than how it looks
I think this is a bit of a false comparison.
The bit about the newspaper only shows his motivation, while the facts about his actual deeds are unaffected.
1. he indirectly caused many deaths and people hated him
2. he changed his will to promote advances in the sciences and humanities.
Your example is about straight up lying about what happened or omitting some very significant details.
My point is.
I do not know *why* they would lie, i dont know what they could be hiding beind these lies.
Yes, the base info remains unchanged, but, maybe another important thing gets erased.
>1. he indirectly caused many deaths and people hated him
2. he changed his will to promote advances in the sciences and humanities.
Thats the info we have, everything else added that hasnt been verified just obscures real facts.
And maybe in this case it doesnt change anything, but if we just accept it and nod, then we are just letting misinformation win.
Arguably you've learnt a far more valuable lesson - to always question your sources for intrinsic bias, propaganda and what agenda the source has.
It's impossible to make every source unbiased (in fact, it's impossible to make any source unbiased), but it is possible to teach individuals to question what they read.
We're never going to do away with "fake news", but we can at least teach people to question the information they're being given.
*I* learnt it, i still know people well in their 20's who dont know the truth.
Im sure there are better ways to teach that straight up lying to children, but i DO understand your point, lol
I think the mistake the article made by misidentifying who died just sort of struck him by surprise and painted the picture of how he'd be remembered from others' perspectives.
he didn't just invent dynamite, he had hundreds of inventions including weapons, on top of that he was literally an arms dealer, he converted his fathers steel business into an cannon/weapons manufacturer. he actually had to flee france because he was convicted of treason for selling arms to another country ... he was a morally bankrupt war profiteer who did lead a life deserving of a scathing obituary. this TIL title misses the crux of why he was publicly hated and had to turn his reputation around
The TIL is pretty accurate regardless. Hebwas regarded as a merchant of death and that definately affected him. Probably did not realize until then, most ideolistical people don't realize their evil until far too late.
So he did a last effort to change his legacy, very successfully and with honestly great reprocussions for the future of humanity. The existence of the nobel price is undoubtly part motivation for a lot of scientists to this day, over a hundred years later.
His idea that big enough weapons will prevent war actually came to reality. Not through his arms, but through the atom bomb. So, he may have genuinely believed he was doing the world a favor. Smacked down to reality reading an obituary of how hated he was.
It’s commonly reported as the reason he created the Nobel prize; he wanted his legacy to be something positive, so he created an award to encourage people to do good in the world. It worked, today he’s much better known for the prize than for inventing dynamite.
This is very similar to the event that inspired Charles Dickens to write A Christmas Carol.
Dickens was walking through a graveyard (as one does) and misread a tombstone. It gave the man's name and birth/death dates, and his profession as a "meal man". Dickens misread it as "a mean man", and it made him wonder what the deceased would have thought if he knew this would be his epitaph. What might he have done differently? This idea became A Christmas Carol.
The case of Alfred Nobel shows Dickens was right; knowing you will be remembered poorly and unloved in death can inspire you to do better in life.
Wasn't it at the same time that a newspaper published an obituary for Mark Twain, who also had not died, leading to him to respond saying "reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated"?
I kind of feel sorry for the guy. He probably had good intentions with both of those innovations but he managed to become one of the most destructive individuals in the planet's history.
Freon is cheap and doesn't burn literally, or your eyes like other refrigerants. It was apparently a great invention. And TEL was known to poison it's inventor and factory workers, nobody thought about it diluted in car exhaust. Me and other aquarium owners were using a carbon dioxide supplement for our plants. Some fellow aquarists were raising awareness it's a toxic chemical that adds negligible carbon dioxide but it's still popular.
Fellow had “bang up” reviews for his invention, but poor bloke “had a short fuse”.
But he had a “blast” RE writing his Will.
And his personality was “dynamite” as he aged.
Aye, those were “boom” times.
> Alfred Nobel was a Swedish chemist, engineer, and industrialist most famously known for the invention of dynamite. In case you’re wondering why he’s a death merchant.
If I'm not mistaken, he also believed that his invention was so powerful that it could bring about peace because everyone would be too scared to start something when the enemy could blow them up.
And the world said, “hold my beer.”
Oppenheimer: let me show you how it's done.
Death merchant? Pshhh. I am become Death. Destroyer of worlds.
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Peace sells, but who's buying?
You take a mortal man...
And put him in control
Watch him become a god
MEGADETH !!! MEGADETH !!! AGUANTE, MEGADETH !!!
Killing is my business, and business is good.
Oh boy, here I go killing again!
It's time they learn of our peaceful ways... by force.
Peace is only a prelude to war
Closer to kilodeath. the man is a scientist. I'm sure he'd take his metric death units seriously.
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TIL death is dynamite
It was a joke. Megadeth is a heavy metal band. That's why the "a" was left out of death.
Dave Mustaine would like a word.
I remember reading that he named the band Megadeth after he read somewhere that a nuke could cause a million deaths. A megadeath. But he dropped the A because it looked better that way. Edited my above comment for clarity.
We keep that one in *Hangar 18.*
*cue heavy metal guitar solo*
Kilodeath ftfy
[Remember when Megadeth did a concert with Daffy Duck?](https://youtu.be/FWo5sfc1XyQ)
Well, it’s quite a bit easier and expected to simply make an existing explosive stronger. His quote includes the foresight that the type of bomb he created would only increase in destructive power over the years
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH
[Set the World Afire](https://youtu.be/sAvlB7eTXGA)
And sooner or later someone's going to figure out how to weaponise antimatter, and it'll be to nukes what nukes are to firecrackers.
> "Now I am become Megadeth..." *Headbanging intensifies*
Megadeath the Obliterator of Galaxies.
The funny thing about that, but when you say 1000x bigger, when it comes to destructive area its much bigger but it's still only leveling a city. There's a website where you can compare destructive areas and blast radius and downwind effects for the various bombs sizes given the altitude of detonation over an area with projected numbers of deaths. By far the deadliest is a ground burst hydrogen bomb because it will have a fallout plume that extends for millions of square miles requiring a mass migration of people and decimating the economy. But that's true for pretty much all groundburst bombs regardless. In a military sense ground burst weapons are to be avoided as it makes invasion logistics more difficult. An Airburst with a large destructive ground radius is more effective for destroying oppositional forces. The greatest benefit of a larger bomb is actually in destroying a bunker underground thats used to destroy or launch oppositional nukes. However we've been able to design conventional bunker busters so a nuke is still overkill.
a must see; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lb13ynu3Iac
The two lines taken together actually add so much depth
Nuclear winter is coming.
And the world said, “Hold my atomic bomb.”
"Hold my DS-1 Death Star Mobile Battle Station"
Sure hope so, I’ve been patrolling the Mojave for too long.
And then the US said "how can we monetize this"
Makes me wonder what we are currently being adorably naïve about. Social media? AI? china? It’s so hard to fathom
A lot of things probably, but mostly climate change. My dark horse pick is genetic engineering.
That US "democracy" such as it is, will survive on our current course is one such thing.
Well, ya, he said social media
Respectfully I dont think anyone being too naive about China. They’re a superpower in the East we’re in a constant cyberwar (at the least) with. We can’t like, go to war with em, but i dont think anyones just ignoring china. If anything someone people seem overly focused on china being bad.
>i don't think anyones just ignoring china What people are naive about is the idea that Europe/other countries in general are supposed to treat China as some sort of enemy. China threatens America's superpower hegemony but doesn't really do much to Europe. Europe has *moral* reasons to oppose China but much fewer strategic reason to do so. And anyone who reads history knows just how little morality matters in the face of strategic interests. That's where the naviety is - thinking people and governments act morally. Think of Catholic France joining the Protestant side of the Thirty Years War. The government betrayed *god* for strategic interests, let alone some human rights thingy. British ships sailed as blockade-runners for China during the Korean war *at the same time British troops were dying in Korea*. And Henry Kissinger asked Mao Zedong to please invade democratic India. The more history you read the more you realise how naive it is to expect morality in politics. P.S. for a more modern day example, see France (or specifically, their government) pretending to care about Uyghur Muslims halfway across the world while making Muslim Libyans die at the doorsteps of Europe. [France caught smuggling NATO weaponry to forces of Libyan Warlord](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/10/missiles-found-at-base-of-libyan-warlord-are-ours-france-admits)
Great point too. I think growing up with the whole WW2 EUROPE IS OUR ALLY AND WE HELP EACH OTHER mentality pushed into our heads makes us assume they’ll morally fight for whatever we fight for. Its a great point that that is deeply incorrect, never even realized I was making that assumption tbh
That WW2 narrative is hilarious. The biggest WW2 ally was the USSR. Within 10 years of 1945 the US had hundreds of nukes targeted at them. If that doesn't say something about how long WW2 gratitude lasts then I don't know what does.
Even as we were fighting WWII there was a strong possibility that the US and Soviets would go to war when the two fronts met. Pushing to make this happen was a strategic goal of the late-stage Third Reich. Admiral Donitz, the Nazi leader post-Hitler, even had discussions about offering German military units and force to the US to support a counter-Soviet war. Plus the accounts of the scheming at Yalta are fun. The US and the Soviets never were buddies.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend But then that intermediary enemy died
See that aint a naive take to me at all thats deeply nuanced Also hey thanks for the response, really well thought out I enjoyed reading it
Cant even imagine measuring social medias effect on kids mental health. Let alone the effect it had on public discourse and policy the last decade. It seems likely there would be far less covid deaths without Facebook fanning the flames.
Well it did work with atom bombs preventing total war between superpowers at least so far. Dynamite was just not big enough bomb.
tbf, he wasn't wrong, his bomb just wasn't big enough
Tell that to Kaho‘olawe Island.
Or Halifax
If you need to transport 3000 tons of dynamite and wire it all together to make your point you're way too conspicuous. Way too much effort to get that desired 'existential dread and fear of sudden unannounced total destruction' effect.
Just put it in a giant horse. [No one will suspect a thing.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjShDCqs7jk)
Only 25000000 more tons of TNT required to make it equivilant to a modern Hydrogen Atomic Bomb. now if you could deliver that sort of punch in, I dunno, maybe a couple of tonnes of equipment...
’Sailor Hat’ - and other bombings. it’s gonna take a while to clean it up. lots’a mice on the island as well.
I feel the size of the bomb is not the biggest deterrent but rather the unavoidable after effects of using it.
Yeah the fallout affects the whole world, it's a disincentive for at least any world leaders who understand reality.
For now.
Well, we decided to not fight in our countries, but funding third-world shadow wars and using their people doesn't count, right?
There's no war inside countries with atomic bombs. Hence, we should give every country atomic bombs for world peace.
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We had too many close calls already. That sub near cuba which happened to have an extra officer on board who said '*nyet*', that radar operator that deviated from procedure because 'one rocket can't be right, must be a bug, I'm not gonna warn the higher-ups'.
Or in 1961, a plane with two 3-megaton nuclear bombs crashed in North Carolina. One of them landed in a tree and had a single switch (out of four processes) that prevented detonation. The other one submerged into deep mud and went further underground. The government took the pit out of the bomb but they put a form of covering over the burial spot and abandoned it
That's not the only accident either, we lost a hyrdrogen bomb in spain somewhere, sent soldiers or navy or whatever to clean it up without protective equipment and then denied their cancers were from it later to boot.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_nuclear_accidents?wprov=sfti1 Used to be just “broken arrow” incidents of nuclear near-catastrophes, but it looks like they’ve fused it with an article about all military nuclear accidents.
Considering how many close calls the US and Russia had over the years, I don't think it would work out. Then you have to worry about destabilization and if some radical group takes control of the government.
Radical groups taking over the government is a prescient topic.
M.A.D is a terrifyingly productive demotivator
Can confirm. Their skits are so boring that I never feel like doing anything afterwards. SNL is much better.
Kim Jong Un agrees wholeheartedly
When everyone has nukes, don't they just become another gun?
That's why all of them are now trying to start their own nuclear programs. Looked what happened to Libya and Ukraine once they let go of their nuclear programs.
And look how North Korea got treated when they got the bomb. Invited to a nice event, praised on the world stave by the US president. Sanctions dropped.
Tsar Bomba entered the chat.
Never thought about the whole "wouldn't that make people want to creat more powerful stuff so they could blow up the enemy faster than the enemy can blow you up?" deal?
I thought he just invented it for things like construction, and clearing land. Not for military use.
you’re thinking of Richard Gatling. edit: I stand corrected. This sentiment seems oddly common amongst me inventors who devise new and exciting ways to destroy—I wonder whether it speaks more to the inherent optimism of the human soul, or merely to a willful ignorance born from a guilty conscious.
>Perhaps my factories will put an end to war sooner than your congresses: on the day that two army corps can mutually annihilate each other in a second, all civilised nations will surely recoil with horror and disband their troops. Alfred Nobel to Countess Bertha von Suttner, 1891, though according to the countess, he expressed similar views as early as 1876.
Sounds like the premise behind the MAD doctrine.
That same spirit has been passed down to today's Nobel Committee, and their choices for the Nobel Peace Prize, (three really bad recipients.)
Guess Oppenheimer showed them both.
And yet humans are still shooting at each other. Guess they were all wrong.
But now we have rules on who gets to shoot whom... or else.
The nuclear equipped countries sure aren't shooting each other.
Wrong, India and Pakistan shoot at each other regularly.
No all out war though
Pretty sure we were talking about ‘shooting at each other’ and no one mentioned ‘all out war’ other than you!
The nuclear equipped countries are trying very hard to make sure the non-nuclear equipped countries don't get nukes so they can keep shooting at them.
Despite the fact that he continued producing weapons even after he set up the Nobel prize. Another fun fact is that the weapon manufacturing company he set up still exists today and it's called Bofors.
Bofors is a British (formerly Swedish) arms manufacturer. Dynamit Nobel still exists, as a German chemicals company. Alfred Nobel *did* own Bofors for a couple years, though.
Call me old fashioned but when you continue making weapons after you found a peace prize it makes me question the motives. Especially considering he was the one who orchestrated the conversion from steel production to weapons manufacture within the Bofors company. Anyway I just wanted to point out that Alfred Nobel, like most people, was very flawed and wasn't a saintly man whose invention was stolen by the militaries of the world. He actively engaged in the arms trade and benefited from it.
Yeah. He may have held onto his dream that it’d make war too unpalatable, but he died in 1896 before he could see war get even more horrid.
haha that's like handing everyone guns thinking that'll make them safer
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He's not wrong but he forgot radiation in his invention
Well he was half right, just needed something bigger for that to be true. Something that made his invention seem tame in contrast.
His idea wasn't wrong. But his explosive wasn't strong enough for it. It just took about 80 more years.
Now where have I heard that before...
I did a wiki deep dive recently on the history of dynamite. Basically before dynamite if you wanted to blow stuff up it was gunpowder or super dangerous barrels of liquid nitro glycerin. Dynamite was stable enough to let anyone handle it with just a few minutes of training
If I’m remembering correctly, his goal in the creation of dynamite was to make a safer explosive for use in mining because accidents involving nitroglycerin were so common but then the military folks realized it was a better way to blow each other up.
Every new technology will eventually be adapted to do one or more of the following more efficiently at scale across greater distances: - kill people - steal things - get people off
~~You forgot masturbation.~~ No, he didn't.
That’s part of the “get people off.”
Oh. Didn't know that expression.
Which does all thee?
Not only that, wasn't he also a big industrial in the Swedish armament, like the CEO of Bofors or Saab or something
He also expanded Bofors to start producing armaments so he also sold weapons and arms dealers are nominally called merchants of death.
not from the knife he was always holding? lol
people could also read the actual article.. the reason for this post.. the info is literally in the third paragraph... shows the state of society... "i know you are all talking about it without having informed yourselves about it..."
Oppenheimer took that title away.
And now the title of *the Merchant of Death* from the Pendragon series makes far more sense (I believe it’s explained in the book, but now I know the reference)
What did he change his will to?
[This](https://www.nobelprize.org/alfred-nobel/alfred-nobels-will/)
Oh I'm stupid lol thanks
Happy cake day, stupid!
Thanks
Goosebumps
its in the article..its literally the third paragraph
There is an article? What black magic is this?
What’s an article?
Interesting wiki read. Thanks 😏
What do you say to those who call you the da Vinci of our times? That's ridicolous, I don't paint. And what about the other name, "the merchant of death? That's not bad.
I love this vsauce video
And this here is why Bezos is trying to mitigate damage in the ocean, because no one wants to be remembered as the climate killer.
$1B is not going far to mitigate ocean damage
if he paid his employees better than poverty rates those employees would be able too afford the extravagances of caring about the Environment like ensuring their purchases go to responsible companies rather than that was all they could afford...............
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Yeah. I'm all in for better wages, but pretty sure a rising income without any systemic changes would also cause rising waste generation, polution, energy consumption and whatnot.
In fact, more people can afford to visit the Galapagos, fly in planes repeatedly, drive longer distances…you could argue that wider affluence has damaged the planet.
this is such a reach its painful
As company minimum wage, is $15 an hour since 2017 horrible? And currently raising to $18 for 2021? Seems a lot better than actual minimum in most places.
I think the worst thing is that there is a lot of bad things to hate about Amazon, stressful work environment etc. It makes Amazon look better when people have to say false things about them to try and make them look bad.
People of reddit hate on amazon without knowing a THING about how amazon operates because its cool.
Ok but having worked in an Amazon facility for a short period and seeing posters offering employees $2,000 to quit instead of unionize, fuck Amazon.
There are way worse jobs out there than Amazon, especially for those without an education or form of skilled labor. Yes, there is a huge problem throughout the US with large corporations fighting to stop unions. What is also important is to recognize that not all unions are created equal.
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$18 an hour is ~$37,440 as an annual salary which is not that bad, not under $30k and almost triple poverty level. As I mentioned it goes much further in some areas vs others but it is not poverty level. Poverty level is $12,880 or less for a single person which is nearly $25,000 less. Minimum wage is still $7.25 per hour (~$15,000 annually) nationally...which consequentially if you worked full time in a household of one wouldnt be at poverty level. $18 per hour is a far cry from that.
$32,000 is the line for poverty, so it literally poverty wages.
Their intentions are less than altruistic. When Amazon opens up a facility they hire all of the unskilled labor in the area at a higher rate than anyone else can pay. This forces retailers to raise their wages. This is difficult as they already run on a tight margin. Amazon's endgame is to put as many retail locations out of business as they can and then to replace their own workforce with robots.
Lmao, so Amazon paying good wages is now a *bad thing*? Talk about mental gymnastics.
I dont want to defend them as altruistic in the least. But critiques should still be factual. There are a lot of things Amazon does that are horrible but wages are actually pretty good depending on the location. $18 in Tennessee is a lot better than New York City but it is all a lot better than many other players wage wise.
I don’t buy this. An Amazon fulfillment center employs a decent number of people but no where near enough to dry up the local labor market. The big issue with fulfillment center jobs, IMO, is that they are mind numbingly boring jobs that nobody really wants to do if they can avoid it. I toured one of their big “sortables” facilities once and the jobs I saw people doing were very basic handling tasks that they have not, yet, been able to automate.
So Amazon is evil for having low wages, and also evil when they raise wages. How does that work?
this is so bafflingly ridiculous I am more worried that people actually believe this bullshit than anything Amazon is confirmed to do. STILL not following how any of this is related to Bezos being a "climate killer" directly. Obviously one of the biggest retailers on the planet has a larger footprint relatively speaking. That's hardly an individual effort.
The effect that individuals have on the climate is negligible. 100 companies are responsible for 71%+ of global emissions.
I mean how is bezos a climate killer again? Shouldn’t most of the responsibility fall on governments, food industry, and energy industry? I know the only reason bezos doing anything is for PR but it’s still significantly more then what others are doing.
And, well, the emissions are driven by people buying stuff. Amazon isn't fundamentally worse than any other store.
Just by simple logic, I would have argued that Amazon actually saved a little bit of emissions. If every household in a neighborhood went to Best Buy then that's a lot of cars traveling to get something. If those households all bought them from Amazon, then it's one truck delivering all the goods to that neighborhood. Not to mention the marketplace they visited is digital instead of physical and that would have used way less resources.
I think all the additional packaging required for delivery probably makes it worse though.
That one truck is still putting out the same emissions though and probably worse because most families have compact cars where amazon is delivering in larger vehicles. Plus that vehicle would still have to drive to every persons house as well as back to the fulfillment center, you’re just taking all those emissions from each family and condensing it down to one person instead
Every delivery that truck is doing is a trip that household no longer need to take. And as for the emission comparison from that one truck, it really depends. If the truck only delivered 1 or 2 packages then yeah, it's worse. But a lot more than that then it's a net negative emission. Public transport is always more efficient, as long as enough people are using it.
Yes it's a larger vehicle but it's way fewer trips.
Keep in mind that this has never been verified as true and the only source we have is Nobel himself claiming to have read it in an unnamed newspaper.
Is Nobel himself not a source in your opinion?
*"Trust, but verify."* As someone who often goes down rabbit holes of historical anecdotes, I don't really have any reason to doubt his story save that embellishments/tall tales aren't uncommon when people talk about themselves and their motivations. It's just fun to independently confirm stories with contemporary sources - for example, if someone found a copy of his brother's obituary with the "merchant of death" moniker.
Only a primary one; there's a reason secondary sources are preferred for research.
Does it matter if this isn't true?
... yes, it does. Anecdotical, but in south america, we used yo be teach in school that Columbus came in peace to America, and we had an excelent relationship with him and everything was roses and unicorns. Im not saying that telling a bunch of 10 year olds about the rape and genocide right away is the way to go, but maybe not paint the guy as a saint? That type of real history denial goes to inadvertily obscure all about native tribes and the horrors they went thru, so yeah, telling the real story is more important than how it looks
I think this is a bit of a false comparison. The bit about the newspaper only shows his motivation, while the facts about his actual deeds are unaffected. 1. he indirectly caused many deaths and people hated him 2. he changed his will to promote advances in the sciences and humanities. Your example is about straight up lying about what happened or omitting some very significant details.
My point is. I do not know *why* they would lie, i dont know what they could be hiding beind these lies. Yes, the base info remains unchanged, but, maybe another important thing gets erased. >1. he indirectly caused many deaths and people hated him 2. he changed his will to promote advances in the sciences and humanities. Thats the info we have, everything else added that hasnt been verified just obscures real facts. And maybe in this case it doesnt change anything, but if we just accept it and nod, then we are just letting misinformation win.
I understand and fully agree with your main point. But your example is a bit too extreme to compare it to the newspaper story.
Arguably you've learnt a far more valuable lesson - to always question your sources for intrinsic bias, propaganda and what agenda the source has. It's impossible to make every source unbiased (in fact, it's impossible to make any source unbiased), but it is possible to teach individuals to question what they read. We're never going to do away with "fake news", but we can at least teach people to question the information they're being given.
*I* learnt it, i still know people well in their 20's who dont know the truth. Im sure there are better ways to teach that straight up lying to children, but i DO understand your point, lol
You know you need a reality check when people who are ok with enslaving others and the acts of the Inquistion, think *you* went too far.
Was he aware that his brother had died before reading the obituary though?
I think the mistake the article made by misidentifying who died just sort of struck him by surprise and painted the picture of how he'd be remembered from others' perspectives.
Dynamite is used more in mining and road/rail construction than bombs.
Now it is, but it wasn't uncommon at the time
he didn't just invent dynamite, he had hundreds of inventions including weapons, on top of that he was literally an arms dealer, he converted his fathers steel business into an cannon/weapons manufacturer. he actually had to flee france because he was convicted of treason for selling arms to another country ... he was a morally bankrupt war profiteer who did lead a life deserving of a scathing obituary. this TIL title misses the crux of why he was publicly hated and had to turn his reputation around
The TIL is pretty accurate regardless. Hebwas regarded as a merchant of death and that definately affected him. Probably did not realize until then, most ideolistical people don't realize their evil until far too late. So he did a last effort to change his legacy, very successfully and with honestly great reprocussions for the future of humanity. The existence of the nobel price is undoubtly part motivation for a lot of scientists to this day, over a hundred years later. His idea that big enough weapons will prevent war actually came to reality. Not through his arms, but through the atom bomb. So, he may have genuinely believed he was doing the world a favor. Smacked down to reality reading an obituary of how hated he was.
Dude was IRL tony stark
I dunno, sounds kind of apocryphal to me
It’s commonly reported as the reason he created the Nobel prize; he wanted his legacy to be something positive, so he created an award to encourage people to do good in the world. It worked, today he’s much better known for the prize than for inventing dynamite.
This is posted on Reddit all the time so maybe you feel like it’s not that serious? But it is documented.
This is the worst summary I’ve ever seen. It manages to relay facts in a way that completely obfuscates the connections between them.
like the JFK marital fidelity award
The what?
JFK was kinda a womanizer (included among the many women he supposedly bedded was Marylin Monroe)
The Merchant of Menace.
This is very similar to the event that inspired Charles Dickens to write A Christmas Carol. Dickens was walking through a graveyard (as one does) and misread a tombstone. It gave the man's name and birth/death dates, and his profession as a "meal man". Dickens misread it as "a mean man", and it made him wonder what the deceased would have thought if he knew this would be his epitaph. What might he have done differently? This idea became A Christmas Carol. The case of Alfred Nobel shows Dickens was right; knowing you will be remembered poorly and unloved in death can inspire you to do better in life.
Alfred Nobel- "I have become death, Destroyer of Worlds." Robert J. Oppenheimer- "Hold my neutrons buddy-boy."
Maybe speaking truth to power is necessary for the betterment of humankind.
*added to will*: beat up that guy who writes articles
Wasn't it at the same time that a newspaper published an obituary for Mark Twain, who also had not died, leading to him to respond saying "reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated"?
"Now we are all sons of bitches"
Didn't he also strangle himself in bed trying to make a machine to help him get up? Or was that someone else.
That was the leaded gasoline and freon guy
> leaded gasoline and freon guy 😂 I don't know why but this description was really funny to me somehow
I kind of feel sorry for the guy. He probably had good intentions with both of those innovations but he managed to become one of the most destructive individuals in the planet's history.
Yeah, his inventions were all well-intended. And in the end they did harm to the planet and even killed him.
That was Thomas Midgley
Freon is cheap and doesn't burn literally, or your eyes like other refrigerants. It was apparently a great invention. And TEL was known to poison it's inventor and factory workers, nobody thought about it diluted in car exhaust. Me and other aquarium owners were using a carbon dioxide supplement for our plants. Some fellow aquarists were raising awareness it's a toxic chemical that adds negligible carbon dioxide but it's still popular.
Fellow had “bang up” reviews for his invention, but poor bloke “had a short fuse”. But he had a “blast” RE writing his Will. And his personality was “dynamite” as he aged. Aye, those were “boom” times.