If I were a gambling man I'd put some money on a chinese professor getting the economics Nobel Prize
You might want to consider a little more carefully before putting money down. There is no economics Nobel Prize.
Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 awarded to Nihon Hidankyo
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Re: Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 awarded to Nihon Hidankyo
#32This is indeed a very timely award. I sometimes feel like the world has forgotten that nuclear weapons still exist and are still on hair-trigger alert to obliterate major cities. Maybe the end of atmospheric testing and the success of (now defunct) weapons reduction treaties has blunted public perception to the ongoing threat that they represent, and to the need to tread carefully where nuclear powers are involved.
If I put a hammer over your head that can fall any minute you'll be worrying, but if you're born with the hammer over your head and your parents before you as well, it becomes less of a thing.
On an individual level, we all have a variety of hammers over our heads. Cancer has killed far more people prematurely than nuclear weapons. Something like 500,000 people a year are murdered. Traffic/bicycle/pedestrian accidents also kill more than nuclear weapons. Even compared to a once-in-a-century nuclear war that perhaps kills a billion people, cancer will kill roughly a billion in the next century anyway. So, for the rational/selfish person, the nuclear threat isn't worth worrying about.
Re: Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 awarded to Nihon Hidankyo
#33If I were a gambling man I'd put some money on a chinese professor getting the economics Nobel Prize
You might want to consider a little more carefully before putting money down. There is no economics Nobel Prize.
"Although not one of the five Nobel Prizes established by Alfred Nobel's will in 1895, it is commonly referred to as the Nobel Prize in Economics, and is administered and referred to along with the Nobel Prizes by the Nobel Foundation. Winners of the Prize in Economic Sciences are chosen in a similar manner as and announced alongside the Nobel Prize recipients, and receive the Prize in Economic Sciences at the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony"
Re: Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 awarded to Nihon Hidankyo
#34I visited the Hiroshima museum last year. They've got a set of stone steps, a person was sat there when the bomb went off and they were simply vaporised. The stone steps bear the residue of the person, almost like a shadow.
Visited Hiroshima over a decade ago during a school trip, and had a local guide that was a survivor. Very powerful.
As a teenager we also visited concentration camps on a school trip, and a survivor joined the trip from Norway to Germany. We got to know him a bit during the week long trip, and there was a session where he told his story. I'll never forget this, and I think it affects me to this day.
Soon we will have no Time Witnesses left.
Edit: I remembered a very specific anecdote he told, about how him randomly having learned to knit helped when in a concentration camp, as some officer wanted something to be made, and he then could sit inside and do that instead of working himself to death in the quarry. Based on this I managed to find his name again now.
Haakon Sørbye, thanks for telling us your story.
Re: Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 awarded to Nihon Hidankyo
#35In "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" by Rhodes, a poignant point was made, originating from people like Bohr, who were definitely on the peaceful side: without demonstrating the effect of the atomic bomb, the "nuclear taboo" would not have come into existence, and the first large conflict between nuclear powers would have seen a terrible outcome. The use of the bomb was inevitable, so it was sadly better to use it in a…
That might have been a better argument if the USSR[0] had had the bomb in 1945[1]?
Lagniappe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRLON3ddZIw#t=15s
[0] first test: 29.08.1949
[1] a year in which the US and USSR were, however tenuously, still allied
Re: Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 awarded to Nihon Hidankyo
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
If I put a hammer over your head that can fall any minute you'll be worrying, but if you're born with the hammer over your head and your parents before you as well, it becomes less of a thing.
On an individual level, we all have a variety of hammers over our heads. Cancer has killed far more people prematurely than nuclear weapons. Something like 500,000 people a year are murdered. Traffic/bicycle/pedestrian accidents also kill more than nuclear weapons. Even compared to a once-in-a-century nuclear war that perhaps kills a billion people, cancer will kill roughly a billion in the next century anyway. So, f…
That depends on where you live. There are people right now in certain places who are terrified of the nuclear threat.
Re: Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 awarded to Nihon Hidankyo
#37One of my friends grandmothers was an atomic bomb survivor - she was just a baby when the bomb hit and was blind the rest of her life. One thing I was surprised by was the number of survivors and also that there was at least one person who survived both bombs [1] [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsutomu_Yamaguchi
The Wikipedia article says there were at least 165 survivors of both bombings: "[Yamaguchi] was invited to take part in a 2006 documentary about 165 double A-bomb survivors".
Re: Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 awarded to Nihon Hidankyo
#38I have no issue with this laureate, but it is sad that the comittee could not find someone deserving that is working on a more current conflict. I guess this is not a positive outlook for the current state international conflicts.
Since over 2 years, we again live now under the constant real threat of a nuclear war. Or this is at least what Russia is regularly claiming. This is very current as long as Putin doesn't get his s** together.
Of course there are other current candidates who would also deserve it, but I think it might be also a matter of how hot and current the problem is, and how much political impact this message would have. Russia and their threats are cooling down for the moment, so it's "safer" to send this message, instead of anything related to the Middle East, for example.
Re: Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 awarded to Nihon Hidankyo
#39In "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" by Rhodes, a poignant point was made, originating from people like Bohr, who were definitely on the peaceful side: without demonstrating the effect of the atomic bomb, the "nuclear taboo" would not have come into existence, and the first large conflict between nuclear powers would have seen a terrible outcome. The use of the bomb was inevitable, so it was sadly better to use it in a…
That might have been a better argument if the USSR[0] had had the bomb in 1945[1]? Lagniappe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRLON3ddZIw#t=15s [0] first test: 29.08.1949 [1] a year in which the US and USSR were, however tenuously, still allied
Does it matter? It was probably obvious to the scientists working on the bomb that other countries would get it too sooner or later, including countries at odds with each other.
Re: Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 awarded to Nihon Hidankyo
#40It's a bit unclear to me why you need an organization that advocates against nuclear weapons. I'd argue the “nuclear taboo” is just the product of.. I don't just seeing one nuclear test video? It doesn't take the cataloging of witness testimony to see it's terror (though that may be important in its own right) I'm not intimately familiar with Japanese self-perceptions - but from the outside it seems like post-WW2 the…
The general human tendency to focus on single short term events seems to be the main cause.
Let's compare using Wikipedia as a source:
Atomic bombings in Japan:
50,000–246,000 casualties.
Air Raids in Japan:
241,000–900,000 killed,
213,000–1,300,000 wounded,
8,500,000 rendered homeless.