Poll: Was It Wrong To Drop The Atomic Bombs In Japan?
- Thread starter Manatee Slayer
- Start date
Yes...
No...
Depends on what ethical system you're using and how you're using it.
For instance, pragmatism might get you in a conversation about what gains we actually received from dropping the bomb but it comes down to: if Gain > Loss then Bomb=Yes.
It's more interesting to approach this from a classical Christian ethic.
There you have a belief system where Jesus dies for everyone, thus ascribing significant value to each individual. This would make dropping the bomb wrong, because it ignores the value of the individuals lost.
But too, since individuals have a significant amount of value, what do you do with people, like the WWII Japanese, who are responsible for the death of millions? Punish them?
Incidentally, this is why you get a lot of honest Christians (not just people who affix the term to themselves) who fall on both sides of the death penalty.
But there's one last tidbit here too. Certain readings of some of the passages in the New Testament imply a certain degree of separation between the State and God. Not that Christians can't be involved in the State but that Christian goals and the goals of the State are not the same.
For instance, soldiers in the NT are not told to stop killing people in wars but to stop extorting innocents. How do we incorporate that into our paradigms?
No...
Depends on what ethical system you're using and how you're using it.
For instance, pragmatism might get you in a conversation about what gains we actually received from dropping the bomb but it comes down to: if Gain > Loss then Bomb=Yes.
It's more interesting to approach this from a classical Christian ethic.
There you have a belief system where Jesus dies for everyone, thus ascribing significant value to each individual. This would make dropping the bomb wrong, because it ignores the value of the individuals lost.
But too, since individuals have a significant amount of value, what do you do with people, like the WWII Japanese, who are responsible for the death of millions? Punish them?
Incidentally, this is why you get a lot of honest Christians (not just people who affix the term to themselves) who fall on both sides of the death penalty.
But there's one last tidbit here too. Certain readings of some of the passages in the New Testament imply a certain degree of separation between the State and God. Not that Christians can't be involved in the State but that Christian goals and the goals of the State are not the same.
For instance, soldiers in the NT are not told to stop killing people in wars but to stop extorting innocents. How do we incorporate that into our paradigms?
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Well, from what I heard, Japan kinda had it coming. Don't mean to sound cruel, it's still a terrible thing that's causing problems even today, but Japan did a lot of cruel thing during WWII, not only to other nations, but to their own people as well.
Although, maybe the bombs were a bit overkill.
Although, maybe the bombs were a bit overkill.
Several things get discussed on forums that can't be changed , I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with that (in general). Sure, this is a place for debate and opinions, and that is why I still posted my view of the topic ("Who cares?") and then I gave my justification (from my point of view) then I asked further questions...or am I not allowed to do that here?Manatee Slayer said:
P.S. You may report me if you want for this, but I don't really give a damn if you find this topic to be interesting or not, I don't think that makes my post any less reasonable.
It's as if a cat scratched you and you shoot it with the BFG9000 to put it in it's place. A simple "shoo" followed by a swift kick (if you're THAT insecure) would suffice.
But then again, you have to show people you're butch, right? How DARES it scratch all-mighty me?!?!
But then again, you have to show people you're butch, right? How DARES it scratch all-mighty me?!?!
You don't get it do you...just read your comment. "IF Japan was invaded"...you present it as an undeniable certainty...put you actually just speculate. No one can predict the course of an alternate history.WrongSprite said:
Ow well, if it's a view shared by practically all historians...it must be true then. Just like the earth being flat and the sun revolving around the earth. Reality is constructed by the opinion of the majority ey?
My point is: people present as truth speculations on things they can't possibly know.
If you say "an invasion just had a very high rate of probability" my answer is: even if it was 90% (how does one even arrive at these estimates anyway?) "history" could still have "rolled" that alternate 10%....but we will never know cuz that branching path has been locked when the Americans dropped the bombs.
Just cuz an event has a high probability of occuring...does not mean it will occur with certainty.
Never good, no, but in this case it was the lesser of the two evils.Eukaryote said:
Also, we weren't exactly sure the level of destruction, and long term effects of the weapons.
America has apologized and done what it could to attempt at making amends for what it had done.
In most wars the US has fought against a state army, we've at the minimum offered to aid in reconstruction, and in some cases defense while the country recovers. Currently the US military occupies Germany as well as being the bulk of Japan's military defense.
It seems to me that you're suggesting that an invasion of the Japanese mainland wouldn't have resulted in that many casualties - that is completely false - the only thing we don't know for certain is how many people would have died. The ferocity with which the Japanese fought is a historical fact, and it is also a fact that they would have fought even harder if the U.S. invaded the mainland - if you're suggesting they wouldn't of, and they would have just peacefully laid down their arms, then you're being willfully ignorant.Manji187 said:
And secondly, are you suggesting that the sun revolving around the earth is a fact generally accepted by most historians? That is an awful parallel you're trying to make - that simply demonstrates that over time, as our knowledge of our world expands, we develop different ideas of the way things actually work. There is never going to come a time where someone sits down and concludes that an invasion of the Japanese mainland during World War 2 would have resulted in minimal casualties. That completely defies all logic, and it comes into direct contradiction of what we do know of Japan during World War 2.
There is not a 10% chance that an invasion of Japan would have resulted in minimal casualties - there is a 0% chance, and we can know that based on the fierce nationalism exhibited by the Japanese people during World War 2 - one only has to look at cases like Okinawa to get an idea of what U.S. troops would have been in for had they invaded.
But really, can you actually present any sort of evidence in support of this idea that an invasion of the Japanese homeland would have resulted in less casualties than the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
Hm. Interesting question. Still, one thing on which we can all agree is that it was horrible, either because it wasn't necessary, or because it was.
It was wrong, but I honestly think that we learned how destructive they were back than when they were weaker. If we hadn't had the knowledge of the destructive power of nuclear warhead until about now, when they've gotten much more potent, we'd probably use them and blow up an entire country for no good reason, rather than just a city.
So, while I think it was a terrible thing to happen, I think it's better that they went off back then, to scare the world to prevent further use, rather than them being used in modern wars with much more power.
So, while I think it was a terrible thing to happen, I think it's better that they went off back then, to scare the world to prevent further use, rather than them being used in modern wars with much more power.
As opposed to the alternative, which would have been an invasion of the Japanese mainland, something which would have resulted in far more deaths on both the American and Japanese sides? No, it's not a moronic question with such a cut and dry answer - there are a number of things to take into consideration when considering the nuking of Japan, something people such as yourself seem to have forgotten.Evil_Noodles said:
Was it wrong? Yes, bombing civilians is bad.
Then again, bombing dresden and berlin wasn't really nice either and probably costed more civilian lives.
So dropping one bigger bomb instead of hundreds of thousands smaller ones? Let's just say that bombing civilians was just what they did back then.
Then again, bombing dresden and berlin wasn't really nice either and probably costed more civilian lives.
So dropping one bigger bomb instead of hundreds of thousands smaller ones? Let's just say that bombing civilians was just what they did back then.
Oh god...this is just a bit too abstract for you, isn't it?SonicKoala said:
I'm not suggesting anything in connection to casualties. I'm suggesting the whole invasion idea isn't a 100% undeniable certainty. No one can say "it would have definitely happened"...but people are trying to say it...and they back it up with speculations on the course of an alternate history. That's not something anyone has knowledge of...it's like saying aliens don't exist...you have no way of knowing that for certain.
The flat earth line was sarcasm..and though you do have a point...what I was actually trying to illustrate was that subjective opinion does not make objective reality. Just because you believe something does not mean that it is universally true. One person can be wrong...ten, thousand, million, billion people can be wrong. Just cuz a huge number of people say something is this or that...does not necessarily make it so. Yes, there is science..a very good exception...but history...and definitely alternate history...is a different beast altogether.
The whole percentage thing was just an example..the figures are completely arbitrary...I was trying to illustrate that a high percentage does not equal certainty.
All in all, you severely misunderstood me.
No, its fairly indisputable that the Japanese would have fought to a near-bitter end.
Its funny that people keep raising the issue of the nukes used. Right, OK, but would it not interest you that before we dropped a nuke we used Napalm to such a frequency that the canals in Tokyo boiled? I can guarantee you they also killed more people.
The Nuke stands out as the definitive weapon here because it's the one that defined national policy during the cold war.
The entire point to the nukes was to bring a swift end to the war- it was very much a sign and very much not an actual tool. Everyone was just tired of the war- Europe was tired of it, the US was getting tired of spending gobs of money and resources and lives taking small little spits of land in the Pacific, and the Japanese at that point were grasping at straws. More prominently though, the Russians were getting ready to throw their clout around, and there was valid concern from within that the Japanese were starting to see the signs of a revolution.
The Japanese were ready to surrender, but not unconditionally. That's the big part of it- it made no sense to have the Japanese surrender without dismantling the system that let the shit happen in the first place. It'd be asking for a repeat of Germany after WW1.
Its funny that people keep raising the issue of the nukes used. Right, OK, but would it not interest you that before we dropped a nuke we used Napalm to such a frequency that the canals in Tokyo boiled? I can guarantee you they also killed more people.
The Nuke stands out as the definitive weapon here because it's the one that defined national policy during the cold war.
The entire point to the nukes was to bring a swift end to the war- it was very much a sign and very much not an actual tool. Everyone was just tired of the war- Europe was tired of it, the US was getting tired of spending gobs of money and resources and lives taking small little spits of land in the Pacific, and the Japanese at that point were grasping at straws. More prominently though, the Russians were getting ready to throw their clout around, and there was valid concern from within that the Japanese were starting to see the signs of a revolution.
The Japanese were ready to surrender, but not unconditionally. That's the big part of it- it made no sense to have the Japanese surrender without dismantling the system that let the shit happen in the first place. It'd be asking for a repeat of Germany after WW1.
Yes, I did misunderstood you, as I can't really comprehend why you feel it necessary to bring into a historical discussion all this philosophical nonsense concerning the nature of truth. Stating that an invasion of the Japanese homeland would have been the likely alternative to the nuking of Japan is a perfectly valid and defendable statement, and I suppose I just don't see the point in arguing against such a statement from a philosophical standpoint - it would make a lot more sense to argue against that statement from a historical perspective.Manji187 said:
I wonder what the poll would look like if this was a japanese gaming site?
It's okay for people to talk about the lesser of two evils, using the bomb as a preventative to further conflict and a great deal of other things at the end of the day we don't know what would have happened next. Yes Japan were fanatical in their defence of their land, but most of those used as examples were soldiers who had been filled to the brim with patriotic propaganda. We don't really know what the civilians in either Nagasaki or Hiroshima thought of the war, but they died because of it.
Was it necessary to bomb both cities? Or to do so in such a short period of time, before the Japanese government could even recover after the first? Yes there are reasons for and against the use of atomics in the war. Sure there are a lot of justifications for the sudden and horrific destruction of life by nuclear fire. I think the question that I ask myself is if I was the one sitting in the control chair would I press it?
Would you?
It's okay for people to talk about the lesser of two evils, using the bomb as a preventative to further conflict and a great deal of other things at the end of the day we don't know what would have happened next. Yes Japan were fanatical in their defence of their land, but most of those used as examples were soldiers who had been filled to the brim with patriotic propaganda. We don't really know what the civilians in either Nagasaki or Hiroshima thought of the war, but they died because of it.
Was it necessary to bomb both cities? Or to do so in such a short period of time, before the Japanese government could even recover after the first? Yes there are reasons for and against the use of atomics in the war. Sure there are a lot of justifications for the sudden and horrific destruction of life by nuclear fire. I think the question that I ask myself is if I was the one sitting in the control chair would I press it?
Would you?
I'd just like to start with saying that I'm not going to report you for anything in this thread because everything you have said, from where i've been standing anyway, has been a perfectly reasonable viewpoint, and you haven't been a dick about any of it either.
I also never stated that you weren't allowed to state your opinion. In fact I'm glad you did because I have read what everyone has had to say throughout this entire thread (all 26 pages..no life >>)
What I am questioning is your reasoning about talking about things that can't be changed. The point I made is that there are MANY things on forums that can and are debated about and this doesn't stop most people from posting, including your good self. So why bring it up? I could go into nearly every thread on the first pages of most of the forums and say what you said, it doesn't add anything to the discusion.
All i'm asking really is why, if we are both agreeing that it can't be changed but is still OK to talk about, is that point still being brought up?