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Podcast: The Ayn Rand Institute Podcast
Episode: The Moral Justification of the Atomic Bomb
Description: In this episode of New Ideal Live, Ben Bayer and Nikos Sotirakopoulos analyze the moral justification and the criticisms of dropping the atomic bombs on Japan in light of the movie Oppenheimer. The episode features audio clips of Ayn Rand discussing the right of military self-defense and the issue of “innocents in war.”
Among the topics covered:
The claim that Japan would have surrendered before the US dropped the bomb;
Why the Japanese military kept fighting despite knowing the war was lost;
Why the bomb was dropped when Japan was already defeated militarily;
The crucial distinction between military defeat and unco...