The has been a ton of debate since the war over whether Japan would have surrendered, and if so how early. The concern at the time, and it has always seemed reasonable to me, was that the Japanese were committed to fighting to the last person and to make them surrender through combat on their home turf would have killed many, many more than the two nukes did.
I don't raise that as justification and personally wish we were never stupid enough as a species to build such a weapon, but we tend to be that stupid. I do, though, agree that we likely would have lost more people on both sides and for Japan that number still would have included a large number of civilians.
Oh I didn't meant to imply that I personally see the nukes as having been reasonable or worth it.
Frankly, I don't know how one could ever make the decision that killing 100,000 is "worth it" and I hope I never have to.
Personally I think we should never have tried to invent the nuclear bomb to begin with, avoiding the decision entirely. I understand the whole "but then the enemy would have it first" argument, I just don't buy it. Sure, maybe the "enemy" would go on to invent it but that's a burden they'll have to bear.
Sometimes standing on principle includes dying on principle, we seem to have lost the importance of all that along the way. I chalk that up to the increase rate of invention making it too scary to take a step back, even for a moment, to decide whether we should do something that we know we can do.
I don't raise that as justification and personally wish we were never stupid enough as a species to build such a weapon, but we tend to be that stupid. I do, though, agree that we likely would have lost more people on both sides and for Japan that number still would have included a large number of civilians.