By: Greta McGlawn
Graphics editor
Recently I attended the 2026 Undergraduate Philosophy Conference hosted by the Meramec Socratic Society. It was an amazing event per usual; all the speakers were interesting and well-spoken. Dr. Sahar Joakim Resch did an amazing job organizing it, as well as all the volunteers who helped.
The conference is a collection of presentations about students’ essays, which are selected by a team of peer reviewers. Each presentation is then followed by a commentator and audience questions. It is a great event to meet others interested in philosophy and learn some new things. There was a wide variety of topics from God to fashion to culture to purpose to art back to God and to death.
When looking back at my notes from the event, one thing that caught my eye was this quote that I wrote down.
“Without the fear of nuclear weapons, we would never have gotten this far.”
That is all I wrote down, so I have no idea who said that. My best guess is it might have been a person from the audience asking a question to the presenter speaking about artificial intelligence and international law. If it was, I do not remember what the presenter said in response nor what the question was in full.
Nevertheless, this is an interesting idea. Was the creation of nuclear energy and weapons necessary for technological growth? Is the fear of nuclear war necessary for advancement? Can innovation be possible without fear?
Nuclear fear was, and is, a powerful thing. Since the bombing of Hiroshima, everyone has feared nuclear war because it is incredibly destructive on site and in areas around. In a matter of hours, the entire earth could face destruction. But it did not start that way. At first, nuclear science was seen as this potential for easy, clean energy and could have fostered positive growth. Even so, at this point in history, nuclear fear is not what is driving innovations. Scientists are still working on nuclear science and possibly developing nuclear bombs, but not as extensively as in the past.
Considering that our current technology is not nuclear energy based and nuclear science in general is incredibly expensive and often not worthwhile, the nuclear arms race only fostered a lot of hatred and fear. For a long time, nuclear weapons were a secret thing as well, and there was advancement happening in the public. The Industrial Revolution can easily be looked at as necessary to get to this point in history, but not so much for nuclear fear.
