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Oppenheimer was naive bordering on stupidity. He advocated against nuclear weapon detection systems. Somehow the foremost expert on nuclear weapons believed these detection systems would not work but some random amateur physicist that happened to be head of the NEC was right in that they would. This was also how we learned that the Soviets had a bomb. Oppenheimer advocated for cooperation amongst nations in nuclear weapons and guess what, the Soviets rejected it.

Von Neumann was right about everything and him having personally experienced Soviet brutality didn't have the luxury of being ignorant of reality.


> him having personally experienced Soviet brutality didn't have the luxury of being ignorant of reality.

Allied troops didn't reach Hungary until 1944, and the Soviet-backed coup occurred in 1947. von Neumann moved to Germany in 1926, and to the US in 1933.

> Von Neumann was right about everything

He wanted the US to start WWIII with a nuclear first strike on the Soviet Union.

> He wanted the US to start WWIII with a nuclear first strike on the Soviet Union.

Source?

I'm having trouble finding a primary source, but here's a paper discussing the issue.

Field, A. (2014). Schelling, von Neumann, and the Event that Didn’t Occur. Games, 5(1), 53–89. doi:10.3390/g5010053

https://sci-hub.se/10.3390/g5010053

I think you are thinking of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertrand_Russell Who having visited the Soviet union after the revolution didn't think much of it.
> and the Soviet-backed coup occurred in 1947. von Neumann moved to Germany in 1926, and to the US in 1933.

He personally experienced communism.

> He wanted the US to start WWIII with a nuclear first strike on the Soviet Union.

If we look at the past 100 years of Soviet existence what can we say has happened?

The spread of soviet arms across all of the world, hundreds of millions dead from famine, war between Russia and Ukraine today.

What is the alternate history where the US does invade the Soviet Union?

Also given we are talking about the smartest person from the 20th century, I'm going to guess his logic when coming to the conclusion of first strike was sound.

> Von Neumann was right about everything

For all of the recent attention Oppenheimer is getting, we all are living in Von Neumann's world.

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