SEVENTY-TWO YEARS AGO . . .

An admirable goal.

Sorry if this seems a bit irreverent, but I read the OP and it set this off in my head.

Ten years after we used the atomic bomb on Japan, I was in the USAF working with atomic bombs. My ancestors were from Hiroshima. I found it interesting for the simple fact that I didn't see another Asian working with nukes during my four years in the Air Force, and I was stationed at Travis AFB in California, Ben Guerrer AFB in Morocco, and Walker AFB in New Mexico. Walker AFB was where they planned the bombing of Japan.
http://www.strategic-air-command.com/bases/Walker_AFB.htm

Here's the patch I desgned. https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/1950s-usaf-37-aviation-depot-squadron-418963297

You designed that? You're a part of history.

Would the world have been better or worse if it wasn't dropped?

The Germans had taken a wrong turn in their development of atomic weapons. Japan had their own program, and didn't respond to the Hiroshima bombing because they believed the United States only had one bomb. They thought that the United States must be using gaseous diffusion, as they were; but the bomb dropped on Nagasaki convinced them that the U.S. must have a fission reactor. It also convinced the Emperor that it was time to throw in the towel. The only substantive difference that I can see is that people may not have taken the threat as seriously without Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Even then, we didn't yet know the full extent of the danger. By analogy, navies around the world had planned for air attacks launched from carriers on enemy naval bases, but it wasn't really taken that seriously--it was just an exercise. On the night of November 11-12, 1940, the carrier HMS Illustrious launched 21 obsolete biplane torpedo attack planes against the Italian naval base at Taranto. Despite a hastily and ill-planned attack, one Italian battleship was sunk, and two were heavily damaged (one was only saved because the quick-thinking officer of the watch had gotten a head of steam up, and ran his ship aground so she wouldn't sink), and a cruiser and a couple of destroyers were slightly damaged. When the news, which ran around the world of naval staffs like wild-fire, reached Japan, Admiral Yamamoto ordered his chief of staff to begin planning for an attack on the U. S. Pacific Fleet in Hawaii.

Until a thing is done, it's not really real to the world. To that extent, the two bombs were probably a positive thing, because it brought the reality of atomic warfare directly before the public. Apart from that, it probably prevented hundreds of thousands, if not millions of deaths which would have resulted from a conventional invasion of Japan.

I also see another view of our bombing of Japan. They attacked the US first at Pearl Harbor that started the war. "December 7, 1941, a date that will live in infamy."

During the early 20th century, Japan was a country that saw the emperor as their god. The samurai code was called "Bushido." Give your life for the emperor. Surrender was considered a shame. There were photos taken of women jumping off cliffs, because they were taught that Americans would torture and rape them. When General MacArthur took over Japan after the war, he understood the Japanese people's reverence for the emperor, so he showed respect to the emperor. That made the occupation of Japan easier.
http://www.historynet.com/american-proconsul-how-douglas-macarthur-shaped-postwar-japan.htm

Set is a good historian. He may wish to correct my opinion and/or add his own.

I don't know, it saved the lives of many American servicemen who would have died in an invasion. The Japanese had fiercely resisted the advance up until then, with most fighting to the death, it would have been a bloodbath in any event.

Maybe it did act as a warning, they thought it would just be a big bang, the horrors of fallout and radiation sickness only became apparent after it was dropped on people.

I wouldn't want to say one way or another.

When the Allies invaded France in Normandy and the south of France, aerial bombardment and naval gunfire were restricted because of the danger of killing French civilians--and still 3000 French civilians were killed on June 6, 1944. There would have been no such restraint in an invasion of Japan. Very likely, the area behind any invasion beaches would have been carpet-bombed, and there would have been no restriction on naval gunfire. In effect, the two atomic bombs saved hundreds of thousands of Japanese lives, too. In the fire-bombing campaign, more than 60 Japanese cities were targeted, and it is estimated that more than a million Japanese were killed. The bombardment from the air and the sea of an invasion could easily have been just as devastating.

To answer a question with a question: Would the US and USSR have been afraid to use their nukes on each other during the Cuban Missile Crisis if not for the examples of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

A very good question. Did you mean for it be salient???

Given humans is well known have poor memory, maybe there is a purpose to North Korean rise to long distance nuke capacity. That is, judging by the logic going around the thread...I say **** ya all!

If North Korea nukes one or more American cities, just don't complain when our nuclear counterattack obliterates them.

All these long years later, I hate all of it, but that isn't useful whining.

I'm the one whose father was in the plane, sometime later, Commander or whatever the word, of the Bikini bomb tests, photographing.

I am not a bomb liker.

Nobody in their right mind is.

Rating your own posts has the danger of total ignorance.