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A man who saved Kyoto from the atomic bomb (2015)

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Re: A man who saved Kyoto from the atomic bomb (2015)

#71

Post by aebtebeten »

jessaustin wrote: post #25
freeopinion wrote: post #14

I grew up with a cold war era US-centric understanding of why Hiroshima and Nagasaki had to happen. I get those arguments, Later I was taught a very different, also compelling, rationale for Nagazaki from a Japanese perspective. I get that argument, too. I'm USian, so of course I like any argument that puts the US on the right side of history. But as that moment gets more and more into the past, and we lose the conte…

I'd suggest that using the bomb against Japan was not the real sin. The real sin, and the real idiotic blunder, was not to immediately renounce the use of nuclear weapons and institute an international order to safeguard that renunciation. From 1945 to 1949, Stalin did not have the bomb, and until the very last he had no good reason to believe he would have it anytime soon. USSR would have been very open to negotiati…

Being cynical, I suspect the reason "demonstration" of the bomb had not seriously been discussed as an option is because in a way Hiroshima and Nagasaki were demonstrations, if one considers the target audience to have been Stalin instead of Hirohito.

I kind of wonder about the timeline in which Kennedy and Khrushchev hadn't been cancelled by their respective hardliners. Would we have wound up with a world of laws, in which the strong are just and the weak secure and the peace preserved? Would the US and the USSR have converged on market economies with strong safety nets? Would we all now be celebrating Hearth's Warming Eve with pantomimes?

Re: A man who saved Kyoto from the atomic bomb (2015)

#72

Post by thundergolfer »

Hokusai wrote: post #45

I see how hard we are still trying to rationalize such a despicable act as the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. "We choose not to destroy cultural value" seems a compassion argument until one realizes that the atomic bomb murdered more civilians that a conventional attack would have killed. To try to justify the attack, to talk about the process, the decisions, removes a very important part of the discussion. And t…

The USA, the only country to ever use a nuclear bomb, has a population that has disturbingly not reckoned with this history.

From a recent study into USA attitudes to the usage of nuclear weapons in warfare:

> Sagan noted, “The most shocking finding of our study is that 60 percent of Americans would approve of killing 2 million Iranian civilians to prevent an invasion of Iran that might kill 20,000 U. S. soldiers. ”

I think it's pretty hard to overstate how concerning that study result is. The nuclear bombing of Japan killed 120,000 people. Here, 60% say they'd approve of killing 2,000,000 _civilians_ to save 20,000 U.S combatants.

I'd hazard a guess that more Americans are proud of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki than are ashamed of it. To not reckon with the horror and the pain of those bombing is to be open to doing the same and worse in the future.

With Fascism whipping up in the USA, that survey result becomes even more ominous.

1. https://news.stanford.edu/2017/08/08/americans-weigh-nuclear...

Re: A man who saved Kyoto from the atomic bomb (2015)

#73

Post by thedevilslawyer »

MangoCoffee wrote: post #21
freeopinion wrote: post #14

I grew up with a cold war era US-centric understanding of why Hiroshima and Nagasaki had to happen. I get those arguments, Later I was taught a very different, also compelling, rationale for Nagazaki from a Japanese perspective. I get that argument, too. I'm USian, so of course I like any argument that puts the US on the right side of history. But as that moment gets more and more into the past, and we lose the conte…

[flagged]

To actually engage with your rhethoric - a country is a conceptual entity - defined by some geo parameters.

Bombs kill people. So when you say "Japan should get 10 atomic bomb drops", perhaps you can link to the 10 cities wikipedia pages whose people you're willing to wipe out?

Re: A man who saved Kyoto from the atomic bomb (2015)

#74

Post by someperson »

chefkoch wrote: post #61
rimliu wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

we currently have dozens of vacine candidates for SARS-CoV-2 not just "something similar". The reason to believe it won't mutate much is exactly in the difference of SARS-CoV-2 from influenza: coronaviruses mutate at much slover rate. I can add some wishful thinking parts though: coronaviruses usually mutate to get less severe, and the threshold for the herd immunity may be way lower than the 60% or 70% (cross-imunit…

There are less than 100 days to the election and they are only running the first human trials. Imho there is no way a vaccine makes it to public in time for Trump.

The vaccine doesn't need to roll out and the crisis to be over for Trump to win re-election.

Just having the headlines full of promising results from the early trials, the starting of mass manufacturing and a clear timetable when the vaccine will begin its deployment may be provide enough "light at the end of the tunnel".

Biden is also turning 78 years old soon. I wouldn't count Trump out for an electoral college victory.

Re: A man who saved Kyoto from the atomic bomb (2015)

#76

Post by Ma8ee »

pageandrew wrote: post #69
Ma8ee wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can think of several west-European countries that are better models (even though none are completely without faults).

Economic prosperity does not necessarily equal freedom.

I wasn’t foremost considering economic prosperity. I’d say you are more free in Western Europe too.

Re: A man who saved Kyoto from the atomic bomb (2015)

#77

Post by Ma8ee »

starfallg wrote: post #65
Ma8ee wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course you should have aspirations! But many people seems to think that the US is this shining light of enlightenment and democracy in the world that, just a little bit, at a few occasions, forgotten they way. But that is just not true. From slavery, Jim Crow, internment camps, McCarthy, Vietnam, killing of “enemy combatants”, etc. You have never been even close to the way.

The counterpoint to that is the fact we know about these issues and can talk about them freely. In a country on the opposite side of the spectrum, doing that lands you in secret jail.

Is really your best excuse that there are countries that are worse?

Re: A man who saved Kyoto from the atomic bomb (2015)

#78

Post by toto444 »

An interesting fact that you may not know about is that Von Neumann was involved in the decision :

"Von Neumann, four other scientists, and various military personnel were included in the target selection committee that was responsible for choosing the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as the first targets of the atomic bomb. Von Neumann oversaw computations related to the expected size of the bomb blasts, estimated death tolls, and the distance above the ground at which the bombs should be detonated for optimum shock wave propagation and thus maximum effect. The cultural capital Kyoto, which had been spared the bombing inflicted upon militarily significant cities, was von Neumann's first choice,[131] a selection seconded by Manhattan Project leader General Leslie Groves. However, this target was dismissed by Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson.[132]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann

Re: A man who saved Kyoto from the atomic bomb (2015)

#79

Post by mathw »

barrenko wrote: post #46
Ma8ee wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course you should have aspirations! But many people seems to think that the US is this shining light of enlightenment and democracy in the world that, just a little bit, at a few occasions, forgotten they way. But that is just not true. From slavery, Jim Crow, internment camps, McCarthy, Vietnam, killing of “enemy combatants”, etc. You have never been even close to the way.

Trust me, to many non-Americans US remains the sole idea of a free country, whatever happened over there so far.

There are countries freer in practice if not in stated principals.

But there are definitely a load of countries which make America look great, and if that's not a sign of how much progress humanity has still to make I don't know what is.

Re: A man who saved Kyoto from the atomic bomb (2015)

#80

Post by megous »

pageandrew wrote: post #69
Ma8ee wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can think of several west-European countries that are better models (even though none are completely without faults).

Economic prosperity does not necessarily equal freedom.

https://prisonstudies.org/highest-to-lowest/prison_populatio...
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