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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

#181

Post by MisterBastahrd »

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.

The entire purpose of nuclear armaments is to make certain wars too nasty to fathom engaging in. If their organization didn't exist at all, we'd still have exactly the same number of nuclear war casualties since the 1940s.

Re: Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 awarded to Nihon Hidankyo

#182

Post by MisterBastahrd »

exmadscientist wrote: post #120
tomp wrote: post #97

[flagged]

It is, as so often the case, a classic prisoner's dilemma problem [0]: "no nukes" is pretty clearly superior to "any nukes at all", but "they have nukes but we don't" is game over, so... nukes for all (major world powers)! It's awful, but that's the prisoner's dilemma for you. I have a hard time respecting any anti-nuclear activist who doesn't at least acknowledge this facet of things, even if "no one has nukes and n…

If the past 8 years have shown us anything, it's that we are capable of electing incredibly stupid people who likely would get us into war if being blown back into the stone age weren't a possibility. I like nuclear weapons for that reason. It scares tyrants into complacency on the larger scale.

Re: Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 awarded to Nihon Hidankyo

#183

Post by mistrial9 »

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…

I once knew an academic who would not fly in an airplane. He was invited to a distinguished conference across the country, but complained to me that he was too scared to fly. "Why?" I ask.. "Terrorists" he replied.. "it is too serious. I just can't do it". so a year or two pass and then I see this Academic again. While talking he mentions that he just returned from a great conference far away. "What? I thought you were afraid to fly in an airplane!" .. He replies "that was true, I was scared of someone carrying a bomb on the flight. But, I calculated the statistical odds of there being TWO bombs on a single plane, and it was infinitesimal..."

"So now I carry my own!"

Re: Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 awarded to Nihon Hidankyo

#184

Post by ralfd »

tirumaraiselvan wrote: post #166
trescenzi wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The book Hiroshima by John Hersey has many accounts like this. It’s a short read and follows six people and covers the first year after the bombing. I’d highly recommend reading it if such accounts are interesting to you.

It was published in New Yorker https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1946/08/31/hiroshima Fun fact the cover image if this edition was kind of a decoy (perhaps to accentuate the shock): https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1946/08/31

Wow, brutal!

As an aside I would never had guessed this artstyle was a 40s cover.

Re: Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 awarded to Nihon Hidankyo

#186

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

protomolecule wrote: post #185
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if a fanatical leader has them? Castro said he would have nuked the US if he could and didn't care if Cuba gets destroyed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtUfBc4qQMg

[flagged]

Not at all. A fanatic wouldn't feign it, they'd do it. Self destruction be damned.

Re: Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 awarded to Nihon Hidankyo

#187

Post by AlbertCory »

The chances of a nuclear bomb being used in the next 30 years is at least 90%. That's an opinion so don't ask for a link.

Why? Purely because of the combinatorial math of proliferation, and the likelihood of either an accident or a crazy person getting control of a bomb.

I wish it weren't so, but eventually your luck runs out.

Re: Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 awarded to Nihon Hidankyo

#188

Post by seabass-labrax »

mppm wrote: post #172
mc32 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'm not sure why this got downvoted. The point is not to bow to Putin in all matters, but to treat the matter with extreme seriousness : Take time to do proper background research, evaluate your sources, give serious consideration to the Russian narrative -- without necessarily agreeing of course, allow for a margin of error both in your own judgement and for stray missiles entering the detection radius, etc. If it s…

I haven't downvoted it, but one issue with parent's post is that it applies double standards to our nations' responses to those of the Cold War. During the 20th century, the public impression of diplomacy was the very same 'wild west of bluster and provocation' - only nowadays, we get to see more behind the scenes of the Cold War as files are declassified and then-current affairs become history. The propaganda from the American and Soviet leadership was no more nuanced historically than it is now from contemporary leaders like Putin and Trump (and since parent mentioned the EU, we could include European figures such as von der Leyen here as well).

I predict that future history books will observe a certain amount of care and diplomatic engagement in our era that isn't visible from the press releases and the ways in which politicians want to be seen.

Re: Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 awarded to Nihon Hidankyo

#189

Post by nradov »

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…

I don't know why you're bringing BRICS into this. Brazil and South Africa aren't nuclear powers (at least not anymore, and South Africa is an irrelevant failed state anyway). India isn't engaged in any sort of ideological war with the West. Their nukes are purely defensive to deter China and Pakistan.

That leaves China and Russia. We learned during the Cold War that a policy of aggressive containment is effective and this should continue. Don't give them an inch.

Re: Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 awarded to Nihon Hidankyo

#190

Post by brightball »

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…

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

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