I feel that the second wasn't really necessary, and the war would've been ended just as quickly.

First off the number of lives saved by avoiding a Japanese invasion are completely speculative, while it’s nice to sit back and believe that our predecessors made the right choice 70/80 years ago, but the truth of the matter is we really don’t know what would have happened. Hell the Japanese emperor at the time was even talking about a peace treaty before the bombs were dropped. However one thing that isn’t speculative is the effect of the bombs themselves. You said the bombs were the more morally right choice, do me a favor and look up the effects of radiation poisoning, or even better yet look up the stories of some of the people who managed to survive the initial blast. There’s this one story I know of about this nurse who managed to survive by hiding in a basement, when the bombs fell and she finally got to the surface and she saw a mass of people walking around like zombies. Most were naked, and their skin was in the process of melting off of their bodies. You see the funny thing is most people think the worst of a nuke is either the initial blast or the radiation, but they have far more deadly tricks up their sleeves. You see when the bomb hits it releases a flash of heat so hot that it will, as stated above, melt your skin off, the funny thing about though is that it’s more like a really bad sunburn, as a lot of the time the skin under your clothes will be perfectly fine. But the fun doesn’t stop there, no after that initial heat wave fires ensue, combine that with a shockwave that’s basically the equivalent of an earthquake, and you get massive damage on an unimaginable scale. And you know what the greatest part about this is for Nagasaki and Hiroshima? Most of their emergency response buildings and hospitals were based in the centers of the city, which basically meant all of those people who were unfortunate enough not to get evaporated would have likely died in the most agonizing ways possible. But hey what do I know. On the note of mutually assured destruction, people tend to completely overlook how close we have come to nuclear killing ourselves. You see after wwii the US had a monopoly over nuclear weapons, and do you know how many brass hats were biting at the bit to use them? A lot. Mutually Assured Destination didn’t happen over night, and in many ways nuclear weapons have only strengthened animosity between other nations, not help to resolve them. In fact the very reason Stalin pushed so hard for nuclear weapons was because he saw what they did in Japan. And the awesome thing is we are still in a position where nuclear holocaust could be a very real reality. If you stop and think about it we are essentially a group of children pointing guns at each other. And sure we can sit here and say that no one will ever pull the trigger, but the sad truth of the matter is single individuals can effectively end the world. But anyways that’s my thoughts, if you took the time to read them then I hope you have a wonderful day.

People are such bleeding hearts today

Our fire bomb campaign that preceded the nukes were many times more devastating. Japanese cities were still wooden back then. Conducted by Gen. LeMay, America razed Japan to the ground. The nukes were redundant.