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A man who saved Kyoto from the atomic bomb (2015)

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Re: A man who saved Kyoto from the atomic bomb (2015)

#61

Post by chefkoch »

rimliu wrote: post #52
jessaustin wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything I've heard/read on the vaccine topic has pegged my personal wishful thinking meter. We don't currently have a vaccine for any virus similar to SARS-CoV-2. The nearest thing is the annual flu vaccine, and while they are sometimes as much as 60% effective they're normally more like 40% effective. (Some people say that SARS-CoV-2 won't mutate as much as influenza, but the only reason to believe it won't mutat…

we currently have dozens of vacine candidates for SARS-CoV-2 not just "something similar". The reason to believe it won't mutate much is exactly in the difference of SARS-CoV-2 from influenza: coronaviruses mutate at much slover rate. I can add some wishful thinking parts though: coronaviruses usually mutate to get less severe, and the threshold for the herd immunity may be way lower than the 60% or 70% (cross-imunit…

There are less than 100 days to the election and they are only running the first human trials. Imho there is no way a vaccine makes it to public in time for Trump.

Re: A man who saved Kyoto from the atomic bomb (2015)

#62

Post by brabel »

quietbritishjim wrote: post #51
MangoCoffee wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

A country, as a whole, is not an individual person and therefore can't "deserve" anything. What you're describing are acts by citizens of Imperial Japan (some decisions made high up or at the top, some made by individual units or soldiers) and killing of other people in the country. Some people who were responsible for atrocities were no doubt affected (either personally killed or people they loved were killed which…

> The technical term for what you're describing is "collective punishment".

Which is the same kind of thinking that justifies genocide and racism in general.

Re: A man who saved Kyoto from the atomic bomb (2015)

#63

Post by chefkoch »

oh_sigh wrote: post #23
someperson wrote: post #3

On this historic day (exactly 75 years to the day since the August 9 1945 atomic bombing of Nagasaki) we should take a moment to understand more about our shared history. > But he was also behind the internment of more than 100,000 Japanese Americans because, as Mr Stimson put it, "their racial characteristics are such that we cannot understand or trust even the citizen Japanese". The internment of Japanese-Americans…

Yeah, the Japanese interment sucks, but I wonder what would have happened if there was no internment. Could US wartime industry on the West coast have operated successfully under constant sabotage? Would it be better for America to lose the war to Japan (or at least reach a deal and let Japan keep all of the Pacific islands and Chinese land holdings) if it meant that the internment didn't happen? It's impossible to f…

So why didn't that happen with the germans and italians in the US?

Re: A man who saved Kyoto from the atomic bomb (2015)

#64

Post by boomboomsubban »

mardifoufs wrote: post #48
im_down_w_otp wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I, like you, learned all the rationalizations that got to be written in history by the victor. The point at which most of it started to unravel for me was when I learned that the United States had a whole spate of atomic bombs they were scheduling to drop if Imperial Japan didn't surrender. We think of it as two because that's all the further we got, but if things had gone a little differently it would have been six,…

That's a pretty absurd take. I mean, of course the bombing wouldn't have stopped if there was no surrender...considering that was the whole point of using nuclear bombs in the first place. I can't understand how 2 nuclear bombs can be considered to be worse than the millions of deaths a land invasion of Japan would have led to. I absolutely understand why the Americans weren't willing to risk a conventional land war…

>. I can't understand how 2 nuclear bombs can be considered to be worse than the millions of deaths a land invasion of Japan would have led to.

>What's actually "rationalization" is to pretend the Americans didn't try everything to convince the Japanese to capitulate or to push for the disproven theory that Japan was about to surrender anyways

Those weren't the only two options. Many scientists working on the Manhattan Project submitted the Szilárd petition, urging the US to inform Japan of the terms of surrender before dropping an atomic bomb on them. The petition was ignored. They didn't even try something as basic as that.

Further, the bombs destructive power could have been demonstrated without dropping one on two cities. A non-inhabited area very possibly could have worked, but a military only target was also a possibility.

This isn't an example of the losers rewriting history, it's straightforward logic. The only situation I would consider launching a nuke today is retaliatory, and I don't see how being the sole owners of a nuclear bomb makes any other situation ethical.

Re: A man who saved Kyoto from the atomic bomb (2015)

#65

Post by starfallg »

Ma8ee wrote: post #31
someperson wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't disagree that the values of the United States have always been an aspiration rather than actual reality. Thomas Jefferson wrote that "All men are created equal" in 1776 as part of the United States' founding principles, but it took until 1865 for slavery to even be abolished in the United States. He even owned slaves himself and famously bore 6 children with his slave, Sally Hemings. As recently as 155 years…

Of course you should have aspirations! But many people seems to think that the US is this shining light of enlightenment and democracy in the world that, just a little bit, at a few occasions, forgotten they way. But that is just not true. From slavery, Jim Crow, internment camps, McCarthy, Vietnam, killing of “enemy combatants”, etc. You have never been even close to the way.

The counterpoint to that is the fact we know about these issues and can talk about them freely.

In a country on the opposite side of the spectrum, doing that lands you in secret jail.

Re: A man who saved Kyoto from the atomic bomb (2015)

#66

Post by boomboomsubban »

jessaustin wrote: post #25
freeopinion wrote: post #14

I grew up with a cold war era US-centric understanding of why Hiroshima and Nagasaki had to happen. I get those arguments, Later I was taught a very different, also compelling, rationale for Nagazaki from a Japanese perspective. I get that argument, too. I'm USian, so of course I like any argument that puts the US on the right side of history. But as that moment gets more and more into the past, and we lose the conte…

I'd suggest that using the bomb against Japan was not the real sin. The real sin, and the real idiotic blunder, was not to immediately renounce the use of nuclear weapons and institute an international order to safeguard that renunciation. From 1945 to 1949, Stalin did not have the bomb, and until the very last he had no good reason to believe he would have it anytime soon. USSR would have been very open to negotiati…

I don't understand how we would stop other countries from building one by saying the US wouldn't build any more. It seems more likely that someplace like Israel would have still developed one in secret and then used it for widespread conquest.

Re: A man who saved Kyoto from the atomic bomb (2015)

#67

Post by Ma8ee »

mlindner wrote: post #57
Ma8ee wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You write like there are dangers that the US might forget or lose their values, like innocent until proven guilty or that everybody is created equal. The US has never lived up to those. Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp (I hope no one forgot about that one) or all the tragic events that ignited the BLM movement are just current examples.

The fact that there have been unfortunate exceptions is proof that they are actually followed. Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp notably was done in secrecy so as to prevent the general populace from objecting. What's needed to fix that case is more transparency and I don't take that as an example of values being forgotten. > all the tragic events that ignited the BLM movement are just current examples. A tiny minority o…

The Guantánamo Bay camp has been known for three administrations and it still remains.

The violence against black people has been going on since the beginning with impunity. And people continue to elect the people that pay and control the police force.

Re: A man who saved Kyoto from the atomic bomb (2015)

#68

Post by starfallg »

someperson wrote: post #9
pm90 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am afraid that what happens in the upcoming election will be a referendum on what kind of country the US will become, and what kind of reaction it will have to the urgent existential problems the world faces today. If the current administration persists, I do not see any genuine way that the country could tackle these problems. Just look at the completely botched non-response to the current pandemic at the Federal…

It's off-topic, but (as a non-American) I personally believe Trump will win re-election. Steve Bannon (the architect of Trump's 2016 election win) has said Trump will win re-election if the Chinese Communist Party is the central issue of the election (which it increasingly is). Come November they'll likely be multiple vaccine candidates in late-stage trials, and the compelling argument can be made saying the botched…

The problem here is that 'conservatives' in the US have been conditioned to blame all of societies ills on 'progressives'. It's a culture war. To pivot, you need to convince that China is the greatest threat and that the 'progressives' are in bed with them. With 11 weeks to go and no groundwork having been done already, it's unlikely this strategy will stick at all.

Re: A man who saved Kyoto from the atomic bomb (2015)

#69

Post by pageandrew »

Ma8ee wrote: post #55
barrenko wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trust me, to many non-Americans US remains the sole idea of a free country, whatever happened over there so far.

I can think of several west-European countries that are better models (even though none are completely without faults).

Economic prosperity does not necessarily equal freedom.

Re: A man who saved Kyoto from the atomic bomb (2015)

#70

Post by [deleted] »

Ma8ee wrote: post #31
someperson wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't disagree that the values of the United States have always been an aspiration rather than actual reality. Thomas Jefferson wrote that "All men are created equal" in 1776 as part of the United States' founding principles, but it took until 1865 for slavery to even be abolished in the United States. He even owned slaves himself and famously bore 6 children with his slave, Sally Hemings. As recently as 155 years…

Of course you should have aspirations! But many people seems to think that the US is this shining light of enlightenment and democracy in the world that, just a little bit, at a few occasions, forgotten they way. But that is just not true. From slavery, Jim Crow, internment camps, McCarthy, Vietnam, killing of “enemy combatants”, etc. You have never been even close to the way.

[deleted]
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