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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

#41
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…

Extrapolating from two samples to "once-in-a-century" does not strike me as rational.

Re: Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 awarded to Nihon Hidankyo

#42
Nuclear weapons are not used not because they are morally unacceptable, but rather because of MAD and their limited efficiency when used against armies.

If you wanted to give a Nobel Prize to someone for preventing nuclear wars, give it to Nuclear Winter researchers and military analysts.

Re: Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 awarded to Nihon Hidankyo

#43
post #20

[flagged]

Japan's national security policy is hypocritical given that it relies solely on the US nuclear umbrella for security despite disavowing anything to do with nuclear weapons, but unfortunately reality is not ideality. Ukraine is the perfect example of what actually happens when a country discards its nuclear arsenal. So yes, Japan is absolutely hypocritical and the Nobel Peace Prize has been the most vapid of all the N…

As a matter of fact Japan has no other choice than being under US protection.

I can't imagine a chain of event that would lead the US to get out of Japan volunteerly [0], nor Japan being able to kick the US out forcibly. It's just outside of the realm of possibility right now.

[0] they won't even move out of Okinawa as the whole island loathes the US base and gives the middle finger to their own gov to get them out.

Re: Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 awarded to Nihon Hidankyo

#44
Nice to see they do somehow recognize the whole association of people and not push to much about a single person. But the committee is trapped with the rules that push for this ridiculous individual centric point of view which is so out of touch with measurable realities considering what forces actually come at play to anything with large social impact.

Also on a side note:

>the most destructive weapons the world has ever seen.

Well, first thing, this is a quite restrictive anthropocentric and restrictive POV for what count for a weapon. Putting appart all things that triggered previous mass extinction as they might not really fit the expectation of weapon and "ever witnessed as implied agent", ok. But let's consider European invasion of America: while this was not intended and per design, it somehow greatly leveraged on bacteriological weapons.

Currently humanity is also at war with biodiversity, and the scale is massive and worldwide, using a large panel of tools.

Of course we are more prone to empathy to our fellow humans, and nuclear weapons are abominations.

Re: Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 awarded to Nihon Hidankyo

#47

[flagged]

Depleted uranium ammunition is not a type of nuclear weapon since its method of dealing damage is kinetic, not a nuclear reaction.

Ironically enough you calling these "nuclear weapons" only serves to confuse people and soften the nuclear taboo.

Re: Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 awarded to Nihon Hidankyo

#48
post #40

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…

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.

Re: Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 awarded to Nihon Hidankyo

#49

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 Hiroshima museum, while advocating for a nuclear free world, has an interesting take on why the US dropped the bomb on them.

According to them, the US dropped the bomb because they wanted to show their strengths against the Soviets. It makes little to no mention of the bloody battles in the Pacific.

Re: Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 awarded to Nihon Hidankyo

#50
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm just glad it looks like a legitimately given out award this time, instead of giving it to e.g. Peres, Arafat, Obama, Aung San Suu Kyi, etc.

Obama is by far the most vapid recipient of the award, but I wonder if he is also the best representative for the lack of peace given his legacy of "Yes we can, (but we don't)." The reason we seemingly can't have peace is because we deliberately refuse it.

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