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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

#191

Post by tgv »

082349872349872 wrote: post #53
cbolton wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 vi…

Hirohito was apparently convinced after the bomb on Hiroshima, the cabinet and military staff still wanted to fight on after the bomb on Nagasaki. They even tried to block his radio speech.

Personally, I think it was tragic, but there was not much choice. Forcing Japan to its knees by conventional means would have been a prolonged bloodbath (with the Soviets getting in the game as well), with probably a higher death toll.

Re: Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 awarded to Nihon Hidankyo

#192

Post by wang_li »

IG_Semmelweiss wrote: post #147
sandworm101 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If I fall 1 feet one hundred times, I'll probably be Ok If I fall 100 feet once, I won't. 1m people dying in 1 day is not the same as 1M people dying over a decade. Also. People generally dont fear death itself. This is expressed by people in pallitative care. Its the chaos and uncertainty preceding death that is really feared

If that one million people dying is followed by 3649 days of no one dying from that cause, yes it is.

Re: Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 awarded to Nihon Hidankyo

#193

Post by cynicalpeace »

fifilura wrote: post #132
cynicalpeace wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have stated you agree that wars between nuclear powers are extremely foolish. It's difficult to say how you can stop such wars if you don't know what the war is.

It was you who said that.

You responded “Yes but how?” to my question. Did I misunderstand and you meant wars between nuclear powers is not foolish?

Re: Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 awarded to Nihon Hidankyo

#194

Post by protomolecule »

fragmede wrote: post #107
timeon wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Point is that if we can not behave on Earth how can we do it in other place.

it's an open question as to how interplanetary politics will actually go. it's possible that ancient squabbles between countries will carryover, but hopefully they won't, which means that a terrorist's nuclear bomb causing MAD on Earth wouldn't necessarily carryover to MAD on a terraformed Mars and Lunar colonies, as we saw with the Russians who boarded the ISS in blue and yellow. But even if it doesn't, Earth being…

>as we saw with the Russians who boarded the ISS in blue and yellow

That's just the colors of one of the top Russian universities from which all three cosmonauts had graduated. [0]

[0] https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Московский_государственный_тех...

Re: Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 awarded to Nihon Hidankyo

#195

Post by throw903290324 »

mc32 wrote: post #152
mppm wrote: post #17

This 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.

Totally agree this is very relevant today. We have heads of state in the EU and to some degree people in the USG with very cavalier approaches to the ideological war between the West and the BRICS. I really don't know what the F* they are thinking but they keep pushing further and further and hope there is no elastic snap. It's like they forgot about diplomacy with enemies --at the height of the cold war, at its Apex…

[flagged]

Re: Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 awarded to Nihon Hidankyo

#196

Post by seabass-labrax »

palata wrote: post #85
cynicalpeace wrote: post #58

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 b…

> I think it's one of the reasons we have to be self sustaining on other heavenly bodies. I think this is a very naive take. * We can't really live on another planet in the solar system. * Look at how far the next star is and realise that we won't get there anytime soon (probably at all). * What's the point of surviving on another planet, without any other species? * Without considering the risk of nuclear war, we ar…

I don't personally believe we should colonize other heavenly bodies because of a potential nuclear apocalypse, but the negation of that is no reason to abandon space travel either. Every time we have launched a mission into deep space we have learnt more as a species about what makes Earth 'tick'. We can also do a lot without actual space travel - maybe if more people had heeded the observations of the greenhouse effect on Venus in the 60s, for instance, we would have less of an issue cleaning up our own atmosphere now.

I'm not confident that our place is in the stars, but it would be narrow-minded not to give living out there a go.

Re: Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 awarded to Nihon Hidankyo

#197

Post by jsrcout »

abe94 wrote: post #5

One 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

I, too, was shocked to learn this. I only learned about it fairly recently, from my older brother who read a book from the school library on it as a child:

Nine Who Survived Hiroshima & Nagasaki Hardcover – January 1, 1957

https://www.amazon.com/Nine-Who-Survived-Hiroshima-Nagasaki/...

Re: Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 awarded to Nihon Hidankyo

#198

Post by jszymborski »

brightball wrote: post #190
sandworm101 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I think for a lot of people, myself included, you try not to worry about things you can't control. "Worrying is like a rocking chair. It gives you something to do, but it doesn't get you anywhere. Write that down." - Van Wilder

While this apathy is an important coping mechanism to some degree, it's important not to become complacent. It's precisely this apathy and hopelessness that authoritarian regimes cultivate to prevent action.

Re: Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 awarded to Nihon Hidankyo

#199

Post by lutorm »

throw0101c wrote: post #142
cynicalpeace wrote: post #58

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 b…

> I personally think we're a button click away from going back to the stone age. One reason to use less oil now is to perhaps preserve it in case we need to 'reboot' civilization in the future in case of a future cataclysm. We were only able to reach beyond (near-)subsistence living because of cheap energy, first coal and later petroleum. All the easily accessible stuff is now kind of gone, so if there's another coll…

There is so much coal... I wouldn't worry about running out of that.

Re: Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 awarded to Nihon Hidankyo

#200

Post by seabass-labrax »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #171
philistine wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trump is all vibes, zero policy. The people working for him are zero vibes, all policy. With Trump being the complete reverse of a workaholic, his fours years in power ran on the wishes of his appointees. He was curtailed when in power. If Trump actually liked working and writing laws, he'd have probably legalized marijuana.

Trump's first term was basically another 4 more years of Bush. Without leadership from the top, his mostly Bush-era appointees kept doing what they did before. His second term will be filled with fanatics rather than Bush-era appointees.

I don't manage to keep up with Republican party machinations - please could you explain why the Bush-era staff won't be there if Trump is elected again?
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