I like how the guy who thinks Hitler was a good thing because the war he caused spurred a great number of technological (including, incidentally, the nuclear bomb) and societal advances found something that was too utilitarian for his taste after all.

I think his claim was that the utilitarian analysis is flawed because if you accept it, it may force you to justify Hitler, which is morally unacceptable, so the utilitarian premise that forces you in that direction can't be accepted, and therefore can't be used to justify nuclear weapons either.

I think by "lessons learnt" he meant learning about the dangers of fascim, racism, nationalism, etc. Not necessarily technological advances.

I think defending Hitler (millions massacred, world order turned upside down, massive economic damage) is much more utilitarian that defending MAD as a peace-keeping force.

Don't worry. In a thread w/300+ comments a hitler reference was inevitable. Real question is whether humanity is capable of learning the lesson about war in the modern age. Nukes make it so that no leader can start a war without risking their own life. Sending others to their doom is much easier, especially when there's the potential to profit. Censorship on the other hand is a sign of weakness/fear and is eventually self defeating.

> In a thread w/300+ comments a hitler reference was inevitable

Indeed -- it's Godwin's Law[1]!

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law

So the murder of 8 million innocent people in gas chambers justified the means of teaching us a "lesson?" That is the sickest thing I've ever heard on here. That attitude is right up there with Stalin, Pol Pot and Mao. You aren't defending the third reich, you're worse; you're intellectualizing the "value" of Hitler. Millions of people killed. Babies grabbed from their mothers and stomped under bootheels. People dissected while stile alive. Woman (and men) raped in unimaginable ways in the name of science. Chemical agents administered to children simply to watch the effects.

Sure, Hitler was "good" in the long run. You should be ashamed of yourself. The ends don't justify the means. Perhaps when the next madman starts up extermination camps, your family ought to be first on the list. Perhaps that would be fitting since, after all, it would be good for Western Civilization.

> gas chambers ... sickest thing I've ever heard ... dissected ... raped ... You should be ashamed of yourself

I've asked you before not to bombard HN with political rhetoric. From an HN point of view, it's tedious, off-topic, and leads straight to incivility, which as you know is the thing that's most against the rules here.

Please really stop.

You misunderstood me. What you said was exactly my point: Just because something bad leads to something good, that doesn't make it good itself.

Don't worry, chronial, the meaning of your post was crystal clear.