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Why Japanese leaders attacked Pearl Harbor

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Re: Why Japanese leaders attacked Pearl Harbor

#91

Post by mirimir »

lsc wrote: post #77
PhasmaFelis wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> + perhaps most importantly, were out of their depth when it came to assessing a political risk, namely the extent to which a surprise attack would bring down on them the implacable fury of an enraged and industrially-powerful United States. By "out of their depth" do we mean "dumber than six pounds of gravel"? I admit that the fantasy that slapping someone in the face will instantly cow them, instead of provoking a…

>(See also Every Terrorist Ever, with the exception of the ones who want to provoke angry retaliation.) I don't pretend to know what a terrorist's goals are, but my observation, as a US civilian is that our responses to terror have harmed us a whole lot more than the terror attacks themselves, so assuming that a terrorist's goal is to maximize damage to my country, it would be rational for them to focus not on how ma…

As I understand it, the goals are to provoke overreaction and sharpen the conflict. And so to radicalize supporters, and build support among potential allies. Except for the violence aspect, the strategy is not all that different from nonviolent resistance.

Re: Why Japanese leaders attacked Pearl Harbor

#92

Post by protomyth »

merpnderp wrote: post #76
protomyth wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that is what Wikipedia is claiming then it is off by orders of magnitude on the the Native American genicide.

If you try to prove this you'll find the problem. There is very little evidence to go by except guestimations. You can say it is off by orders of magnitude (which is silly because 2 orders of magnitude would be the total estimated population of N. American before Columbus), but you certainly can't back that up with evidence.

18 million was the estimated population for North America alone. So, yes, the population drop has been in the millions. the Trail of Tears alone would cover half the 30k. U of OK did a lot of the research.

Re: Why Japanese leaders attacked Pearl Harbor

#93

Post by _nedR »

nkurz wrote: post #81
dang wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, we changed the headline to the more generic HTML doc title.

For future reference, the previous title was "Japan attacked Pearl Harbor to avoid embarrassment", which is the title that appears at the top of the linked story. While clearly a proposition rather than a solid fact, I think it's an accurate summary of the thrust of the article.

I think a lot of wars, murders, suicides, as well as a great many companies, inventions, organisations, movements happened at least partially to avoid embarrassment.

In such cases, people prefer terms like "honour", "principle", "fear of failure", "perseverance", etc.

Re: Why Japanese leaders attacked Pearl Harbor

#94

Post by merpnderp »

protomyth wrote: post #92
merpnderp wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you try to prove this you'll find the problem. There is very little evidence to go by except guestimations. You can say it is off by orders of magnitude (which is silly because 2 orders of magnitude would be the total estimated population of N. American before Columbus), but you certainly can't back that up with evidence.

18 million was the estimated population for North America alone. So, yes, the population drop has been in the millions. the Trail of Tears alone would cover half the 30k. U of OK did a lot of the research.

18 million is the max with other estimates being much lower. That's certainly not a fact. And the only source for deaths on the trail of tears is the US government which gives 4000.

Re: Why Japanese leaders attacked Pearl Harbor

#95

Post by _nedR »

Cieplak wrote: post #44

"Instead of being tried for war crimes, the researchers involved in Unit 731 were given immunity by the U.S. in exchange for their data on human experimentation." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731 A bit off topic but perhaps interesting to some.

Not just Unit 731, but a lot of America's rocketry experience was imported wholesale from Nazi Germany. We are talking 1500 scientists, technicians and engineers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip) including Wernher Von Braun, the designer of the V2. Indeed , Von Braun had been advocating space flight since the very beginning- all the evidence suggests that his tryst with the Nazi weapons program, was merely in order to further his ambitions for human space flight.

Where would America be in the space race, had they not done this? I think in hindsight, it was a pretty clever decision - these people were probably the most valuable war bounty America got out of the whole deal.

Re: Why Japanese leaders attacked Pearl Harbor

#96

Post by lsc »

mirimir wrote: post #91
lsc wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>(See also Every Terrorist Ever, with the exception of the ones who want to provoke angry retaliation.) I don't pretend to know what a terrorist's goals are, but my observation, as a US civilian is that our responses to terror have harmed us a whole lot more than the terror attacks themselves, so assuming that a terrorist's goal is to maximize damage to my country, it would be rational for them to focus not on how ma…

As I understand it, the goals are to provoke overreaction and sharpen the conflict. And so to radicalize supporters, and build support among potential allies. Except for the violence aspect, the strategy is not all that different from nonviolent resistance.

I think that nonviolent resistance is different because the nonviolent resistor is saying, essentially "give me what I want or I will put myself in a position where you have to hurt me." - which only works if the authority in question has some problem with hurting the nonviolent resistor.

Terror, on the other hand, seems to be saying something more like "no matter how powerful you are, you can't prevent us from coming in and inflicting shocking, unexpected violence on you."

Do you see the difference? one relies on fear, while the other relies on... well, I had it called guilt, but a better person than I am would call it 'empathy' or something like that.

Re: Why Japanese leaders attacked Pearl Harbor

#97

Post by stickfigure »

dctoedt wrote: post #68
PhasmaFelis wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> + perhaps most importantly, were out of their depth when it came to assessing a political risk, namely the extent to which a surprise attack would bring down on them the implacable fury of an enraged and industrially-powerful United States. By "out of their depth" do we mean "dumber than six pounds of gravel"? I admit that the fantasy that slapping someone in the face will instantly cow them, instead of provoking a…

> By "out of their depth" do we mean "dumber than six pounds of gravel"? There's no excuse for the Japanese militarists' infliction of millions of deaths and untold suffering, but please keep in mind that they were doing the best they knew how at the time with the hand they were dealt (genetics, education, training, experience, social pressures, etc.), in a situation with enormous risks for their nation, which they b…

There's no excuse for Adolf Hitler's infliction of millions of deaths and untold suffering, but please keep in mind that he was doing the best he knew how at the time with the hand he was dealt (genetics, education, training, experience, social pressures, etc.), in a situation with enormous risks for his nation, which he believed to be on his shoulders. I'm curious what if anything you know of such pressures.

Seems like you can plug just about any name you want into this paragraph. What are you trying to say?

Re: Why Japanese leaders attacked Pearl Harbor

#98

Post by prodmerc »

merpnderp wrote: post #58
Cieplak wrote: post #44

"Instead of being tried for war crimes, the researchers involved in Unit 731 were given immunity by the U.S. in exchange for their data on human experimentation." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731 A bit off topic but perhaps interesting to some.

An absolute disgrace that so many monstrously evil war criminals were let off after the war. But the US is currently shipping weapons and money to brutal dictators in several countries in a horrible display of RealPolitik, so not much has changed.

Well, what's the alternative?

"Yeah, these guys have some impressive technology and ideas that can revolutionize our world. But they killed a lot of people, so we're gonna just kill them"

Very rarely those who take the absolute high road win...

Re: Why Japanese leaders attacked Pearl Harbor

#99

Post by rhino369 »

protomyth wrote: post #92
merpnderp wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you try to prove this you'll find the problem. There is very little evidence to go by except guestimations. You can say it is off by orders of magnitude (which is silly because 2 orders of magnitude would be the total estimated population of N. American before Columbus), but you certainly can't back that up with evidence.

18 million was the estimated population for North America alone. So, yes, the population drop has been in the millions. the Trail of Tears alone would cover half the 30k. U of OK did a lot of the research.

90% died from diseases. That's why it was so easy to settle North America. The socities collapsed before settlers even expanded westward. The diseases traveled much faster than European contact. That's why Europeans thought much of North America was wilderness.

There were certainly acts of genocide (like Trail of Tears) and Indian Removal was a form of ethnic cleansing.

But there was never an attempt or policy to kill Native Americans off.

Plus a lot just blended into society. Intermarrying has always been common. Both on and off the reservations. Most native americans aren't full blooded anymore, but a mix of white and black too.

Re: Why Japanese leaders attacked Pearl Harbor

#100

Post by PhasmaFelis »

dctoedt wrote: post #68
PhasmaFelis wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> + perhaps most importantly, were out of their depth when it came to assessing a political risk, namely the extent to which a surprise attack would bring down on them the implacable fury of an enraged and industrially-powerful United States. By "out of their depth" do we mean "dumber than six pounds of gravel"? I admit that the fantasy that slapping someone in the face will instantly cow them, instead of provoking a…

> By "out of their depth" do we mean "dumber than six pounds of gravel"? There's no excuse for the Japanese militarists' infliction of millions of deaths and untold suffering, but please keep in mind that they were doing the best they knew how at the time with the hand they were dealt (genetics, education, training, experience, social pressures, etc.), in a situation with enormous risks for their nation, which they b…

Certainly the situation as a whole was quite complex, but when you get down to the details, dctoedt specifically asserts that there were people who thought the US would roll over and cower if attacked once, and if that is true, then those people were bloody great idiots.

If it's not literally true, then perhaps they were something else.

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