Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 awarded to Nihon Hidankyo

nobelprize.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

311–320 of 389 posts

Re: Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 awarded to Nihon Hidankyo

#311

Post by hammock »

kaon_ wrote: post #29

At home I have a book telling stories of Dutch WW2 survivors still living today. One of them was an eye witness account of the Hiroshima bomb. He was a POW and worked in a quarry or mine on the outskirts of town. He saw a single plane fly over. A bomb dropped with a parachute attached. Moments later he was flung to the back of the quarry and the city was gone. I would never have guessed there were eyewitnesses like t…

You may be interested in the 1945 Project - which collects the stories of hibakusha,[1] or atomic bomb survivors: https://www.1945project.com/

There is also Yoshito Matsushige, a survivor and the only photographer who was able to capture an immediate, first-hand photographic historical account: https://ahf.nuclearmuseum.org/ahf/key-documents/yoshito-mats...

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hibakusha

Re: Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 awarded to Nihon Hidankyo

#312

Post by aegypti »

parl_match wrote: post #290
hereme888 wrote: post #285

[flagged]

> Also, those bombs saved a lot of lives. I know many will disagree, but it's true. This is a hotly, perhaps one of the most hotly contended, modern questions of World War II. To say what you said so blithely betrays your ignorance on the subject. General modern consensus suggests that the first is up for debate for various reasons, but that the second one really didn't do much to change the Japanese government's cou…

A specific strain of 20th century revisionism considers their use questionable in academia, it isn’t remotely a consensus (outside JP) and it certainly isn’t modern.

Re: Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 awarded to Nihon Hidankyo

#313

Post by layer8 »

vasco wrote: post #24
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.

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.

No, it’s simply the end of the cold war that made it a possibility less present in the media. The cold war was cold because making it hot would have meant going nuclear. So the possibility was always closely linked to the state of cold war. Globalization has blurred the picture considerably.

Re: Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 awarded to Nihon Hidankyo

#314

Post by aguaviva »

valval wrote: post #258
Hammershaft wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interdependence via global trade makes it unlikely that without nuclear weapons we would have nearly the number of wars we had in the 1940s.

Thats not a thing though is it? Sanctions aren’t affecting Russia in any capacity.

Sanctions aren’t affecting Russia in any capacity.

Definitely false. They were never the slam dunk that they were supposed to be, and it's true to say their effect has been significantly blunted. But that's not the same as "no effect". It's just turned out to be a comparatively mild one (but important nonetheless).

Re: Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 awarded to Nihon Hidankyo

#315

Post by layer8 »

Manuel_D wrote: post #249
cynicalpeace wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a very naive take. We could live on Mars. Just a matter of time. Let engineers iterate. We would obviously bring species here at home with us to Mars. And then new species would flourish too.

I don't think people understand just how un-feasible life on Mars would be. It's got 1% of the atmospheric pressure as Earth. It's -65 degrees Celsius. It'd be more feasible to try colonizing the Moon or Antarctica.

Don’t forget the radiation.

Re: Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 awarded to Nihon Hidankyo

#317

Post by layer8 »

dsign wrote: post #86
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. This is not a joke. But every time anybody brings it up a mob shows up saying that we must make it work here on Earth, and we should all go to hell if we can't. But we only need a few madmen in power for the rest of us to not matter.

The point is that making it work on Earth is orders of magnitude easier than making it work on Mars (or wherever). And by that I don’t mean that it’s easy by any stretch, but that establishing a self-sustaining colony on another planet is so much harder. In addition to the extremely challenging extraterrestrial environment (much more challenging than anything we have on Earth, including in the case of terrestrial nuclear catastrophe), all the problems that we have on Earth due to human nature will travel with us to any other planet if we don’t manage to solve them here.

Re: Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 awarded to Nihon Hidankyo

#319

Post by matthewfelgate »

dahfizz wrote: post #76
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…

Yeah, this is also a big concern of mine. Nuclear weapons haven’t been used since ww2, but there also hasn’t ever been total war between two nuclear powers. The current climate in Russia and the Middle East may change that.

The current situation will not lead to nuclear war.
Post reply on HN