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Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 awarded to Nihon Hidankyo

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Re: Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 awarded to Nihon Hidankyo

#51

Post by defrost »

nabla9 wrote: post #40
contrarian1234 wrote: post #19

It'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. Mass killings of large civilian populations should not happen. I don't personally see nuclear weapons as worse than incendiary bombs…

The evidence we have is

* one early bomb is more or less equivilant to one conventional HE + incendiary raid.

* 2,000+ other bombs have since been detonated, a good number of which were orders of magnitudes more destructive than the early "first gen" bombs used on Japan.

Nuclear war with the larger weapons that followed would be considerably worse than incendiary bombs, in physical destruction, in immediate deaths, and in injuries and following mortalities.

Re: Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 awarded to Nihon Hidankyo

#52

Post by faggotbreath »

sandworm101 wrote: post #32
vasco wrote: post #24

Earlier 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…

[flagged]

Re: Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 awarded to Nihon Hidankyo

#53

Post by 082349872349872 »

cbolton wrote: post #39
082349872349872 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't know.

Could Hirohito (Suzuki, etc.) have been convinced by bombs dropped elsewhere?

(our physicists were able to back-of-the-envelope; should their physicists have needed hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths to calculate what an A-bomb could do?)

So I think it's not obvious (multiple books have been written on the subject) what could or should have been done or not done back then; now, from my point of view, those cards have been dealt, for good or for ill.

Re: Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 awarded to Nihon Hidankyo

#54

Post by makeitdouble »

contrarian1234 wrote: post #19

It'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…

> instead of a more self-reflective "nationalism is terrible" or something along those lines.

It used to bother me a lot, until I realized that

- the US purposefully left the Emperor in place with only a slap on the fingers ("you're not a god anymore...except for those who still believe you are")

- all surrounding countries have incentives to to keep distances from Japan (in particular as long as the US are there, Japan and China will never be allies, same for Russia), Taiwan being the exception.

I see no future where Japan nationalism is truly solved, short of these two things also getting solved. And boy is there no end in sight to this.

Re: Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 awarded to Nihon Hidankyo

#55

Post by thimabi »

cbolton wrote: post #39
082349872349872 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But was it really obvious? From what I can tell, much of the nuclear arms race happened thanks to espionage. Had information on warheads and the like been properly contained, maybe other countries would not have so easily developed the bomb.

Re: Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 awarded to Nihon Hidankyo

#56

Post by Dalewyn »

contrarian1234 wrote: post #19

It'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…

I'm Japanese-American, so I can throw two cents in your hat.

Post-war Japan is against nuclear weapons to an absolute, but it must be admitted that the response to nukes in particular is just as much a kneejerk reaction. NHK literally spams the entirety of August with anti-nuclear propaganda every year. Japan's anti-nuclear stance is also hypocritically at odds with relying on the US nuclear umbrella for national security.

More rationally, post-war Japan is against wars of any and all kinds to an absolute. This goes as far as refusing to defend the US in the event of an attack on the US-Japan alliance; this was only changed recently in the last decade or so after strong pressure from the US to reciprocate the US's defense commitments to Japan.

Nationalism is a... complex topic. You will be considered a crazy person if you wave the Japanese flag or put up a flagpole on or around your house, but at the same time loyalty and reverence to the Emperor still remains strong and the country is politically and culturally very conservative/liberal with a very interesting mix of individualism and conformity. Most Japanese ex-pats actually leave Japan because they are more progressive and can't stand the conservative culture.

Japan is actually quite welcoming of foreigners, but there is a hard gentlemen's agreement that if you're in Japan you do as the Japanese do. Those who can adapt are welcomed, those who can't/don't are excluded and ejected sooner or later.

Re: Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 awarded to Nihon Hidankyo

#57

Post by faggotbreath »

Dalewyn wrote: post #48
nabla9 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Mass killings of large civilian populations should not happen. I don't personally see nuclear weapons as worse than incendiary bombs…

I agree. I've been to the Hiroshima Peace Park or whatever it's called in English numerous times, but I can't say I've been anymore moved by it than any other demonstration of human brutality. I can't register a difference between a nuclear bomb and, say, a GBU-12 Paveway conventional bomb. They both destroy and kill brutally, the magnitude is irrelevant and it would be great if we never have to use either of them.

[dead]

Re: Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 awarded to Nihon Hidankyo

#58

Post by cynicalpeace »

Phenomenal choice. While 80 years is nice- it's a blip on the timescale of history.

I personally think we're a button click away from going back to the stone age. I know others will disagree, but it's not something you wanna take a gamble on.

I think it's one of the reasons we have to be self sustaining on other heavenly bodies.

And also why wars or proxy wars between nuclear powers are extremely foolish and should be stopped with great urgency.

Re: Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 awarded to Nihon Hidankyo

#60

Post by Dalewyn »

makeitdouble wrote: post #54
contrarian1234 wrote: post #19

It'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…

> instead of a more self-reflective "nationalism is terrible" or something along those lines. It used to bother me a lot, until I realized that - the US purposefully left the Emperor in place with only a slap on the fingers ("you're not a god anymore...except for those who still believe you are") - all surrounding countries have incentives to to keep distances from Japan (in particular as long as the US are there, Ja…

>the US purposefully left the Emperor in place with only a slap on the fingers

This was a deliberate political decision in an effort to not repeat the grave mistake of how post-WW1 Germany was handled which essentially led to WW2. Denying Japan of their identity and dignity would have risked an eventual WW3, and the US did not want to even entertain the possibility.

It also didn't help that practically all of Japan were not going to see their Emperor deposed or worse; Japan was willing to compromise on literally everything but the Emperor in making peace with the US and the west, and the extended Imperial family along with all the other nobles thereof lost their titles and powers in the post-war occupation and restructuring.

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