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Bletchley code breaker Betty Webb dies aged 101

bbc.com

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Re: Bletchley code breaker Betty Webb dies aged 101

#111

Post by [deleted] »

DocTomoe wrote: post #110
fifilura wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes but the cause was not American. And USA was pretty reluctant to be dragged in (not Roosevelt but the voters). I am just pointing out that you can make up any list in hindsight and make it look like Nostradamus prophecies. Where is french revolution or the great war in that list?

> Yes but the cause was not American. Yes, it was. America was setting up the scene for the pacific war by raising customs and tariffs on Japanese imports with the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act (1930). The Japanese were just democratizing when the US decided to kill their economy. Thus, the Japanese had one of two choices - take needed resources they purchased before by force, or accept a massive decline in standard of liv…

[deleted]

Re: Bletchley code breaker Betty Webb dies aged 101

#112

Post by fifilura »

DocTomoe wrote: post #110
fifilura wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes but the cause was not American. And USA was pretty reluctant to be dragged in (not Roosevelt but the voters). I am just pointing out that you can make up any list in hindsight and make it look like Nostradamus prophecies. Where is french revolution or the great war in that list?

> Yes but the cause was not American. Yes, it was. America was setting up the scene for the pacific war by raising customs and tariffs on Japanese imports with the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act (1930). The Japanese were just democratizing when the US decided to kill their economy. Thus, the Japanese had one of two choices - take needed resources they purchased before by force, or accept a massive decline in standard of liv…

Yeah I guess the great depression was one of the reasons for WWII and USA had a stake in that.

My objection was just about bringing numerology into the discussion.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numerology

Re: Bletchley code breaker Betty Webb dies aged 101

#113

Post by andrepd »

wil421 wrote: post #70
andrepd wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's insane how the largest conflict in human history is just now passing out of living memory. It's also insane how 1 in 4 Americans under 40 believe the holocaust is a fabrication or exaggeration.

Do you have a source or are you flamebating[1]? The myriad of trash google results on the topic aren’t even close to 1 in 4. Even an Israeli tabloid says it’s 1 in 10. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html

I am not flamebaiting, but I was wrong. See the economist link in the sibling comment, which contains the original story as well as an explanation why the results are inflated.

Re: Bletchley code breaker Betty Webb dies aged 101

#114

Post by andrepd »

tehjoker wrote: post #77
kiba wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is rather lazy that people 'prefer' patriotic history and 'disciplined workforce'. I see no evidence of this. I do gather that some parents are rather sanctimonious and scandalized about their children learning anything but the most sanitized version of history. That seems so far to be the most presence in banning anything. Witness Harry Potter being listed as one of the most challenged book at the height of popul…

Perhaps I wasn’t clear. Real history is much more persuasive. US elites love patriotic history and try to enforce it in schools.

The vast majority of nations teach an (at best) sanitised or (at worst) jiongoist version of their own history in their classrooms. The US is not an exception.

Re: Bletchley code breaker Betty Webb dies aged 101

#115

Post by nonrandomstring »

DocTomoe wrote: post #109
nonrandomstring wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of them were told "Never, ever speak about any of this". And they didn't. Like the Zanryu Nipponhei [0], they were loyal to the last. Even my own father kept things about his airforce days way too tightly wrapped up long, long after the official secrets sell-by date. I have some admiration for this, but in the end it's a loss to historical record. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_holdout

Consider it a blessing. Those orders were about controlling history much more than 'secrets': Many things done in war are later considered war crimes. Your admiration might have taken a hit had he started talking gleefully about the time he - just to pick a random example of things that happened - heroically shot fleeing "enemy" children on the ground.

You're absolutely right. I did hear a few of those. And there was as much shame as pride in the old stories.

Re: Bletchley code breaker Betty Webb dies aged 101

#116

Post by robertlagrant »

ArnoVW wrote: post #92
robertlagrant wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inequality is very different to no prospects, or no hope.

Totally agree. But does that not reinforce my point? Or are we saying now that 50%+ of the US has “no prospects or no hope”? Really? Anyone thinking that is sorely mistaken about how good we have it, and I’m afraid is soon to find out. Destroying the apparatus of state and destabilizing international relations is not going to be good, certainly for those “with no prospects or hope”. And that was not difficult to fore…

> Totally agree

I'm a little confused - if you agree, then why did you mention inequality in the first place?

Re: Bletchley code breaker Betty Webb dies aged 101

#117

Post by ArnoVW »

robertlagrant wrote: post #116
ArnoVW wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally agree. But does that not reinforce my point? Or are we saying now that 50%+ of the US has “no prospects or no hope”? Really? Anyone thinking that is sorely mistaken about how good we have it, and I’m afraid is soon to find out. Destroying the apparatus of state and destabilizing international relations is not going to be good, certainly for those “with no prospects or hope”. And that was not difficult to fore…

> Totally agree I'm a little confused - if you agree, then why did you mention inequality in the first place?

the original statement was "they feel they have very little and no prospects or hope."

As I said in my original comment, I think that is hyperbole at best, and deluded victim-thinking at worst. But I do consider that there is an issue of inequality.

So I softened the original statement, and then showed that it still did not explain or even justify the massive vote for Trump ("Inequalities exist but they do not justify everything, neither do they explain everything")

In other words, I interpreted the original statement generously and replied to the best possible version of the argument. That is one of the unwritten house rules, and it is what keeps HN a nice place.

Re: Bletchley code breaker Betty Webb dies aged 101

#118

Post by tehjoker »

andrepd wrote: post #114
tehjoker wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps I wasn’t clear. Real history is much more persuasive. US elites love patriotic history and try to enforce it in schools.

The vast majority of nations teach an (at best) sanitised or (at worst) jiongoist version of their own history in their classrooms. The US is not an exception.

some are worse than others, or at least, the consequences of the world hegemon teaching jingoistic history has really terrible results for all of humanity. one can envision an ideal world where the most powerful countries both emphasized a scientific and empathetic understanding of history combined with a sense of responsibility to decolonize the world and shepard institutions for constructing a more equal world, but we do not have that. instead we have a murderous former slaver settler-colonial nation that used to pay lip service to human rights doing realpolitik regime change around the world and settler-colonialism in Palestine.

Re: Bletchley code breaker Betty Webb dies aged 101

#119

Post by slavik81 »

fifilura wrote: post #112
DocTomoe wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes but the cause was not American. Yes, it was. America was setting up the scene for the pacific war by raising customs and tariffs on Japanese imports with the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act (1930). The Japanese were just democratizing when the US decided to kill their economy. Thus, the Japanese had one of two choices - take needed resources they purchased before by force, or accept a massive decline in standard of liv…

Yeah I guess the great depression was one of the reasons for WWII and USA had a stake in that. My objection was just about bringing numerology into the discussion. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numerology

It's not numerology. The length of time is roughly one human lifetime, which suggests a possible causation.
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