What Is The Deadliest Weapon On Earth?
I was once asked this question by a dumb who didn’t know that ideas are always more powerful than all the deadly weapons on earth. And they can be not only powerful but also dangerous if utilized or implemented for wrong reasons. For instance, to please your toxic ego.
Regardless, still most people on the planet earth believe that Hydrogen Bomb is the most deadliest weapon on earth to date ignoring the fact that Hydrogen Bomb was also just an idea before its realization in 1952 (when United States successfully detonated “Mike,” the world’s first hydrogen bomb, on the Eniwetok Atoll in the Pacific Marshall Islands). However, the background of this development was in fact US-USSR rivalry. Although the idea of a bomb, more powerful and lethal than atomic bomb, had already come under consideration during a conversation between the two scientists in September 1941, namely Fermi and Teller and it is believed that it was Enrico Fermi (an Italian born American scientist) who first suggested the notion of a hydrogen bomb to Edward Teller (a Hungarian-born American theoretical physicist), but it was just an idea at that time and real stimulation came afterwards. According to britannica.com, on September 23, 1949, President Truman announced, “We have evidence that within recent weeks an atomic explosion occurred in the U.S.S.R.” This first Soviet test stimulated an intense four-month secret debate about whether to proceed with the (more powerful) hydrogen bomb project to maintain U.S. superiority or hegemony. Ultimately, despite all the opposition from some quarters including Fermi himself, Teller finally became successful in materializing the dream and on November 1, 1952 the first hydrogen bomb was successfully detonated on Eniwetok Atoll in the Pacific Ocean.
Thus more dangerous than an idea is “Ego” that is also more powerful even than all the deadliest weapons as all the bloodiest conflicts or wars, all the pollution, and all sort of other grave problems including crimes, poverty, food insecurity, depression, loneliness, jealousy, selfishness, failed marriages, broken relations, rat race, consumerism, individualism, terrorism etc. are the result of our egoistic (opposed to altruistic) attitude.
Although the bomb has, till date, never been used in any battle by any country, but experts say it has the power to wipe out entire cities and kill significantly more people than the already powerful atomic bomb, which the U.S. dropped in Japan during World War II, killing tens of thousands of people. But one thing is clear: this bomb is the result of an egoistic worldview.
Hence we may even say that “Ego” is one of the worst “poisons” — that can be more lethal to our well-being than anything else. When we allow our ego to take over, we destroy everything around us including ourselves and and the current global crises (social, moral, economic, political etc.) are the visible proof.
Remember that the worst problem with the ego is that it loves to win and win at all costs; whether it’s an argument, a relationship, rat race, or war against Axis alliance during WWII or against the perceived threat of communism.
Ego, in general, can be defined as the inflated or exaggerated sense of self, which can be associated with grandiosity and a superiority complex. Egotism means placing oneself at the core of one’s world with no concern for others, including those loved or considered as “close,” in any other terms except those set by egotist. It can also be explained as an “unhealthy belief” in one’s own importance. See also psychoanalysis.
Hitler is also a good example of an “inflated ego.” Some sources claim that for Hitler individuality was an egoistic and culture-corroding value because it duped people into forgetting about and thereby relinquishing their role in the collective group, which he called “race-consciousness.” But it is also believed that his parents impeded healthy development resulting in extreme imbalances in Hitler’s Id, Ego and Superego that marred his adult adjustment and cognition, sexually, mentally and emotionally.
Although, according to psychologists, ego also helps you identify your “uniqueness” and plays an important role in forming your social status/perceptions and thus relationships with others, in addition to becoming essential for your survival, but it also needs negative situations to arise and can be very dangerous if not regulated. An unchecked ego can warp our perspective, twist our values, narrow our vision, and corrupt our behaviour.
As a result, in both the life of an individual and the life of a nation, egotism can lead to a separation which sets individual or national goals that are not in touch with reality. Thus emerges the problem of fantasy that is, in the words of a mental health expert, a reality gap, a gap between what it dreams up that we should, have to, need to, want, wish and expect (the fantasy) and the feedback from “what is” (the reality).
This simple psychology of ego is also wreaking havoc in the modern world. Individualism, consumerism, civil wars, terrorism etc. are engulfing the societies all over the globe. Egotism leads to abusive behavior, a skewed experience with interactions with other people, and blindness to the reality of situations, among other negative effects. All the tyrannical (or even deceitful) behaviours too have their roots in human ego. To tyrants, winning is everything — prevail, dominate, claim victory in every interaction by any means necessary.
From the Pharaohs era in Egypt up to the present era or the era of U.S. imperialism, there is a common factor, namely, domination of tyranny and despotism, except for a few short breaks.
Although Pharaohs are notorious (even after thousand years of their death) for being egoistic (or focusing on their own selves and striving for superiority over others) and thus ruthlessly cruel to their people and their methods of punishment included impalement that was executed by Ramses III and also included burning alive, but so were/are the modern day Pharaohs, such as the Belgian King Leopold II (who is believed to have brutally seized Congo/the African landmass as his personal possession at the cost of the lives of some 10 million Congolese, in addition to inflicting punishment of cutting off the hands of slaves and causing famine). Thus crimes committed (and still being committed in the name of civilization) by European colonizers were not less horrible than Pharaohs. From Christopher Columbus to George W. Bush, the list of the modern day Pharaohs is long.
According to some historians, for over 400 years, more than 15 million men, women, and children were the victims of the tragic transatlantic slave trade, one of the darkest chapters in human history. In his book The History of the Slave Trade in France, French historian Jean-Marie Desport detailed the humiliating conditions in which the slaves were transported:
“Here is the slave ship. The captives are released from their bonds. They climb a rope ladder bridge. The men are sent to the front of the ship, the women are pushed towards the lower deck.
“The smell is unbearable: a mixture of perspiration, excrement, vomit and putrefaction. It will have to be done. In one to two months, if they survive the privations, the torture, the diseases, and the madness … they will land on the other side of the Atlantic,” Desport explained.
The latest example of the tyrannies of the ego is that of Harry S Truman who is most known for putting an end to World War II in the Pacific by dropping the atomic bomb on Japan. In mid-July 1945, President Harry S Truman had already been notified of the successful test of the atomic bomb, what he called “the most terrible bomb in the history of the world.”
it’s estimated roughly 70,000 to 135,000 people died in Hiroshima and 60,000 to 80,000 people died in Nagasaki, both from acute exposure to the blasts and from long-term side effects of radiation. And according to report of National Park service (an agency of the United States federal government within the U.S. Department of the Interior that manages all national parks, most national monuments), on that unfortunate day “The temperature near the blast site reached 5,400 degrees Fahrenheit. The sky seemed to explode. Birds ignited in midair; asphalt boiled. People over two miles away burst into crumbling cinders. Others with raw skin hanging in flaps around their hips leaped shrieking into waterways to escape the heat. Men without feet stumbled about on the charred stumps of their ankles. Women without jaws screamed incoherently for help. Bodies described as “boiled octopuses” littered the destroyed streets. Children, tongues swollen with thirst, pushed floating corpses aside to soothe their scalded throats with bloody river water.
Thus from pharaohs of Egypt to the imperialist ruler of U.S.A., tyranny continues causing large scale destruction in the world.
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Image/content sources:
i) https://www.britannica.com/technology/nuclear-weapon/The-first-hydrogen-bombs
ii)https://www.ushmm.org/m/pdfs/20090831-nazi-ideology-book-pp1-19.pdf
v) https://www.aa.com.tr/en/africa/africa-awaits-closure-of-french-colonial-crimes/2067938
