Forget Hashtag Activism: a Millennial's Guide To Nuclear Weapons Realism 258
Lasrick writes: Matthew Costlow is frustrated with his generation's tendency of "hashtag activism" and would like Millennials instead to get real on the issue of nuclear weapons. He writes: "Allow me to suggest a radical new mindset for my generation as it confronts the issues of nuclear disarmament, Russian and Chinese aggression, and nuclear proliferation: extreme humility. Instead of 'boldly' proclaiming the need to raise awareness, let's utilize our generation's greatest asset—access to data—and truly understand the issues before trying to solve anything. Instead of proposing 'fresh ideas' for their own sake, let's recognize that we are not the first generation to deal with these issues and probably will not be the last. Instead of studiously avoiding specifics or hard choices, let's face a messy reality and not simplify an increasingly complex world to bumper-sticker activism."
Let's start a Kickstarter campaign! (Score:2, Funny)
That will help.
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Or, we could start a kickstarter campaign to teach Lasrick how to spell "millennial".
Great Idea! (Score:3, Funny)
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Hashtag: great idea!
There, I've done my part to save the world.
#nomorehashtags (Score:4, Funny)
#nomorehashtags
the easiest way to stop nuclear aggressors (Score:2)
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America was also face to face with the army that had won the largest war in history. An army from a country too big to nuke at the time.
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America was also face to face with the army that had won the largest war in history.
Somehow that isn't quite what I heard in history class. It seems that no one won the war on their own. If the US and Austrailia weren't pounding Japan into dust, the US and Britain pounding Italy into dust (mostly in Africa), and the US and Britain pounding on Germany, how long would Russia have survived?
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You have a point with the Italians. As for the Germans, the Russians faced 10 times as many divisions as the Western Allies for twice as long.
Germany vs. Russia (Score:2)
80% of German casualties were against the USSR. And they were the ones that made it to Berlin. Once Stalin stopped interfering and let the Generals run the war, either Germany would have lost, or would have had to withdraw from all other fronts anyway and didn't have the resources for a sustained war against Russia, and would have lost (surrendered or negotiated a truce). The Allies just shortened it (not a small accomplishment though).
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But, the Germans were not the only nation on the Axis side.
Could Russia have fought a three front war had the US stayed out and Britain fallen?
Re: the easiest way to stop nuclear aggressors (Score:2)
The only way to win is to not play the game.
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Surrounded by incompetents!
"I say we dust off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure"
Progressivism (Score:5, Funny)
Data driven politics has a name. No need to reinvent it. Unfortunately, it's always struggled to get a strong following.
-Chris
Re:Progressivism (Score:5, Insightful)
That's total bullcrap, motivated only by your partisan arrogance. The attitudes of the left towards e.g. food production and the entire field of economics are just as totally anti-science and devoid of consideration for facts as the attitudes of the right towards e.g. global warming. There is no party or movement that can claim the high ground here and there is not a single single member of congress who can be said to be on the side of data driven politics.
And your assumption "my party is always right and we just need to work to get it a stronger following" is exactly the bullcrap herd activist mentality he's talking about here.
Even using the term "progressivism" to some extent involves the same kind of problematic hasty and violent arrogance. As Chesterton said,
Reaching solutions requires
(Science does not prescribe goals, but describes possible courses of action and their likely consequences; many problems, from failed social programs to environmental disasters, could have been avoided had people listened to scientists from economists to ecologists about the unintended consequences of policies.)
Unfortunately, I doubt any party in any Western nation is presently capable of any of these three things.
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It does sound too conveniently and obviously obtuse, doesn't it? I think that's why he got the funny mods, is that people thought he was trying to ironically mimic the hashtag activist mindset.
Unfortunately if you look at it shows he wasn't being sarcastic at all. Just arrogant and shortsighted enough to be blind to the irony of it. [slashdot.org]
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*sigh* The core concept of progressivism is what most of us want - policy based on our current best understanding of how the natural and social worlds work. The fact that it's been used to promote questionable policies in the past shows its flexibility: as we learn more, those policies are abandoned. The alternative, blindly holding on to policies that have been proven not to work (supply side economics on the right, Marxism on the left) just shows... what? That adherents are too proud to admit mistakes and
mmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
As near as I can tell, hashtag activism occurs in cyberspace. REAL activism occurs in meatspace. My advice to millennial "activists"? Step away from the internet and do something real.
(don't do it on my lawn)
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As near as I can tell, hashtag activism occurs in cyberspace. REAL activism occurs in meatspace. My advice to millennial "activists"? Step away from the internet and do something real.
(don't do it on my lawn)
But your lawn is so much ... safer ... than those sandier "lawns" ...
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Have you ever been to OWS and such? Meatspace is very much about hashtag activism these days, unfortunately.
Re:mmm... (Score:5, Informative)
It always has been. Slogans have always been part of political activism. They've found the same political graffiti in several places in pre-Christian Europe.
Just because it's given a new name, "hashtag" doesn't mean it's something new. I'll bet there were plenty of dilettante colonials who were saying "Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death" when there were no British within earshot.
It's not a new thing. Some people are Martin Luther King or Ghandi who will go to jail or starve themselves for a cause, and some people are Sarah Palin, who stands fast on the issues until she chips a nail or her gravy train gets stalled.
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I agree that it is not a new thing per se, but I feel that the balance is getting tilted more towards it simply because of all the progress in communication tech. These things are ridiculously easy to organize and amplify now (in fact, quite a few are outright spontaneous). So the sheer number of them, and the amount of time people spend involved in them, is much larger.
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REAL activism occurs in meatspace.
#GoOutside
PS: take your own advice, or STFU.
Summary and Article: Poor Trolling (Score:5, Insightful)
An article and summary using buzzwords and hashtag activism to suggest people should stop using buzzwords and hashtag activism about nuclear issues - just to make the OP feel like they did something more than using buzzwords and hashtag activism.
P.S. Hashtag activism.
Oh it's about to get very real (Score:2)
Limited nuclear attacks in a number of spots around the Earth are now assured, probably in five years or so.
I look forward to the Buzzfeed articles explaining how EMP works are why half a continent has no working electronics - or I would if SF weren't the primary target.
Good luck everyone! And don't forget to wrap at least one backup hard drive in aluminum [quora.com] foil [youtube.com].
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The responding power(s) (the US, likely also Russia) would do what they needed to to take out the attacker's nuclear capabilities ASAP, and if that happens to involve ICBMs with thermonuclear weapons, well, that's how it goes. After that, the country would be flattened by conventional forces, and all traces of the previous government removed and/or facing war crimes trials.
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Iran is very unlikely to use nukes, particularly now that they've agreed to inspections which will at worst greatly hinder their development. The Iranian leaders know what they can get away with while not being forcibly removed from power by Western countries, and nukes aren't it.
If you want to worry about a Muslim nuke, worry about Pakistan. I do sometimes.
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Stupid (Score:2)
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On the internet no one can tell you're a Millennial
Totally gave me the "chilling movie tagline" vibe.
In #space, no one can read your #hashtags........
Every new generation thinks it's special (Score:5, Interesting)
Guess what, those old people milling about in Congress and running around Iowa trying to become President, when they were young they didn't trust anyone over 30. They were the generation of Rock N Roll and psychedelic drugs. They were so special that they were going to change the world forever and usher in a new utopian age.
Now they're just old fogeys and the world still has war and poverty and nuclear weapons.
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And they did. Look at the US or the EU - or, for that matter, China. All are led by people who think they're building shining futures for themselves. That these shining futures always become nightmares for everyone else is neither accidental nor new. After all, if the parisians were comfortable rather than starving your Versailles could be a bit more opulent, whether it's personal wealth (US), new gold stan
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FYI, at this point Toyota is as much if not more domestic than Ford/GM/etc.
I think there is a fundamental problem with this.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Studying the history, reading and evaluating the various pundits, activists, experts and talking heads output is hard. Sure; any one of normal intelligence and education should be able (and willing) to do this, but it is human nature to take the easy way out if possible. How many people, even in political organizations, really pay attention to what the other guy is saying, attempt to understand what is being said and why?
It is the real world equivalent of reading all the foot notes and reading all the citations mentioned in the bibliography. It's tedious and time consuming, even people whose job it is to actually do all of that due diligence stuff tend to skimp and cut corners if they can. Only Russell's teapot knows how many student essays and theses, how many scientific papers, how many campaign and floor speeches reference totally bogus or inapplicable bullshit, counting on the audience to not bother following up on them. I am convinced however, that it is a large number.
This is just human nature, and I've come to simply accept it for what it is. So; rather than ranting on about how people should be doing X or Y, I try to ask myself Why don't> people do X or Y, How can I make X or Y the more desirable/rewarding choice than what the people are already doing?
Why don't more people do this? Obviously because doing that is also hard compared to just ranting about what people should be doing. Frankly; I consider myself a smart person, but I haven't been clever enough to figure out a way to make active, diligent participation in the democratic process more desirable/rewarding than just sitting at home complaining about the politicians.
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Studying the history, reading and evaluating the various ... experts.... output is hard.
It's also really, really fun, once you get the hang of it.
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Checking up on these things is also time-consuming. I've run down references before, and found they didn't say anything like what some people claimed, and it's been fun, but I can't do it for everything.
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Stick with history and experts, and you'll have better results.
Hopefully after I am in the ground (Score:5, Insightful)
Really what kind of idiot wants to dismantle a system that has kept the world peaceful for 70 years.
Re:Hopefully after I am in the ground (Score:4, Insightful)
MAD may or may not be causative of our relative peace. Even if it were causative, it also doesn't mean that alternative peace-keeping mechanisms aren't possible, nor even preferable. To think otherwise is a logical fallacy (see Is-Ought Problem on Wikipedia).
Mad and the rise of democracies are the only things in the history that have actually worked. That's it, the only thing that actually did the job.
The league of nations didn't do the job. The large colonial empires didn't do the job. Interlocking alliances gave us WWI and WW2. You mention the 19th and 20th century ? I laugh, the entire millennium was painted red with blood.
The Bomb is the weapon that made war unthinkable. So you can advocate for whatever pie in the sky, maybe it works maybe it doesn't method of peacekeeping you like, I just want the beta test to happen when it no longer matters to me. Why ? Because I have no doubt there are people out there that will piss on whatever system you propose and gladly wreck half the world if they can be the uncontested rulers of whatever is left.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
No need to speculate.
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Decades is a long time, eh? What is the use of a century of peace if we destroy civilization at the end of it?
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https://www.hawaii.edu/powerki... [hawaii.edu]
The rate per population is even lower than the graph implies due to the tripling of the population over the time scale
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Wahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Sorry, you are a little to ignorant to rate a proper response.
You might want to start by getting your numbers right.
Follow your own advice (Score:2)
He writes: "Allow me to suggest a radical new mindset for my generation...blah, blah, blah....Instead of proposing 'fresh ideas' for their own sake...
The fresh idea he's proposing is to stop proposing fresh ideas. I stopped reading there.
Apparently the submitter can't spell Millennial (Score:2)
I wish Hollywood would get their nukes right (Score:4, Insightful)
The following irony scares the crap out of me:
Hollywood has exaggerated every explosion or fireball effect that they have ever tried to use in an action film to the point it no longer resembles reality. The opposite is true with every nuclear weapon that Hollywood has ever tried to use in a film.
My limited knowledge of movies confessed, I can only think of two movies that are even close: Godzilla 1998 has a fantastic opening sequence of nuclear tests, however their accuracy is only there because the footage is of real American nuclear tests. The other movie, where the effects were surprisingly well captured, was (don't laugh) Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, though the realistic effects of the blast were completely undone in my mind when Indy's lead lined refrigerator was thrown several miles to safety when it should have been crushed like a tin can by the compression force of the shockwave. Don't get me started on the 4MT bomb that was detonated a full minute (by hovercraft velocity mind you) off of Gotham's coast in the latest batman. The heat damage from that would have melted glass and given 3rd degree burns to anyone exposing bare skin only seconds before the shockwave would have leveled most skyscrapers. Instead, Hollywood gave us a mushroom cloud clipart in the distance that could at best rival Hiroshima (keep in mind a yield difference factor of 200).
This lack of appreciation for the true power of nuclear weapons is a huge problem with any real effort in nuclear disarmament or non-proliferation. I'm not sure if this is a problem of public ignorance, or if the scale shear scale of the destructive power of thermonuclear weapons is beyond the grasp of most humans. I would guess a combination of both. My recommendation to anyone who wants to get a true feel for their power is to watch the documentary titled 'Trinity and Beyond: The Atomic Bomb Movie'.
I would actually like to see a live action movie where effort is made into the accuracy of the effects of nuclear weapons. Why do people fear the radiation released by nuclear blasts far more than the damn blast itself? If you are caught in a nuclear blast, there's at least 5 likely causes of death that I can think of that would kill you long before the effects of any radioactive fallout are even noticed.
rant over
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There was Terminator 2, though with the artistic license that flesh is stripped to the bone leaving a distressed skeleton while the very weak fence it clings to is intact.
There's even a very good depiction of AI and computers as far as movies go lol.
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"I would actually like to see a live action movie where effort is made into the accuracy of the effects of nuclear weapons."
I'd say Baltimore's ~20KT explosion in "The sum of all fears" film was quite spot on.
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"The shockwave was satisfying, but it would have crushed that helicopter long before it hit the ground and those cars would be crushed by the rapid pressure increase of the shockwave before being lifted up"
No, it wouldn't and no, they wouldn't. They were about 3 to 5 miles from the (ground-level) explosion by then so both pressure wave and wind speed would be "moderate" (probably well below 3psi/100mph). If any, the effects were too strongly depicted, not too lightly.
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Why do people fear the radiation released by nuclear blasts far more than the damn blast itself?
My mother once told me she would rather be in the blast radius so that she would be instantly killed than suffer a long grueling death due to radiation poisoning.
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I recommend you watch "Threads" (made in 1983 when many of us thought nuclear war was imminent, but didn't really understand what it meant). However I wouldn't class it as entertainment, and it was not made by Hollywood (it was made by the BBC). Or "The War Game" (made for the BBC in the 1960s) or QED's "A Guide To Armageddon" (also made by the BBC in the 1980s). "A Guide to Armageddon" is available on YouTube.
What do we want! (Score:3)
Evidence-based policy making!
When do we want it!
After a thorough examination of all the available data!
Let's create a petition! (Score:2)
Because that'll stop nutjob regimes like North Korea, or a bunch of terrorists from using nukes to wipe out people.
Right?
How the fuck are people nowadays STILL this naive? (I'd use "fucking moronic", but I'm trying to be nice.)
Millenials are 15 or younger (Score:2)
Re:that's some serious hubris! (Score:5, Insightful)
Thank you for offering a great example of what Costlow says is wrong with Millennials. Outrage, minimal analysis, bumper sticker solutions. The only thing keeping it from being a perfect example is the use of actual hashtags.
Bravo!
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"Never trust anyone over thirty" is the mantra of the radical left, and among the many reasons the left has put so much effort into politicising third level education since the 70s. Don't take my word for it, go look up the Harvey Silverglate interview, the co-founder of FIRE. And he identifies as a leftist.
The reason for this shibboleth is another old adage - nothing takes an impression like youth and white paper. By the time you get into your thirties you've had a chance to experience the world and unders
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You know, pointing in the general direction of a single interview with one person I haven't heard of who is co-founder of something that's apparently an organization I've never heard of either isn't a good basis to characterize "the left" in general.
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Fairly sure my rates are beyond your ability to pay Dave, so feel free to hit Google and educate yourself.
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"eep the exuberance of youth tied to the farm?"
Well its a good thing some kids stay on the farm or we'd all be rather hungry. But I take your point.
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Thank you for offering a great example of what Costlow says is wrong with Millennials. Outrage, minimal analysis, bumper sticker solutions.
I lack to see how that differs from any other generation. "Outrage, minimal analysis, bumper sticker solutions." is a prefect description of not only my generation for the most part (Gen X) but certainly the current state of mind of the Baby Boomers as evidenced by my parents and their friends.
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3) politics
* How would unilateral nuclear reductions enhance our security? It would ensure that these dangerous weapons are not used on humans.
So... can we do those or are you going to just bitch about other Millenials on the internet?
Um ... you did see the "unilateral" part, right?
Re:that's some serious hubris! (Score:4, Insightful)
So, if WE get rid of our nukes, that'll ensure that North Korea never uses a nuke? Interesting theory. Got any evidence it'll work?
Re: that's some serious hubris! (Score:2)
I continue to be amazed that people actually want to abolish nuclear weapons just so we can all-out conventional slugfests again. Just the battle of the Marne.
The best way to prevent large wars is to make sure that the old men and women get to play too. The thought of living in a bunker for a few years then ruling a world of ash seems to calm down even John McCain.
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My read on the WWII advancement is that it was cashing in on what more basic research we had while not replacing it. Sort of like eating some of the seed corn because there's an emergency. Some of the progress was because we accepted more risks. The B-26 and the Navy SB2C dive bomber would not have been put into service for a lot longer in peacetime, if they went at all. Wartime warships were generally way overcrowded for peacetime use.
While there were fabric-covered biplanes in WWII, they were mostl
Re:that's some serious hubris! (Score:5, Interesting)
What specific actions would free humanity from the threat of nuclear catastrophe?
1) nuclear disarmament is a start.
That's like saying, in response to a question on how to solve world hunger, that "coming up with a magical device that just produces free food for everyone is a start". I mean, yes, it technically is, but you haven't made anything clearer.
2) advancing our nuclear technology to use thorium would eat up nuclear waste and not produce plutonium.
That's one valid point. Of course, it doesn't really solve the problem that states want to produce plutonium, because they want to have nukes. Until you address that part, the rest is immaterial.
nuclear disarmament has been going on for a LONG time!
Yes, except that it, for the most part, hasn't been unilateral (in cases where some countries did unilaterally dispose of their nuclear programs and/or arsenals, there was always an implicit assumption that they have a bigger ally who'll step in for them for MAD purposes).
Furthermore, that process, despite going for a long time, has not really resulted in disarmament. There has been a significant reduction of stocks compared to the height of Cold War, but it basically went down to the level that's necessary for MAD and then stopped. If you want full disarmament, past experience is not necessarily helpful. And it's not even a given that the present configuration is stable, in light of the recent developments in world politics...
it will take time and money to fully develop and the public has been conditioned to be terrified of nuclear anything.
How much time? How much money? Where do we get those resources from? How do we recondition the public?
politics
Politics is one of the major factors in the development of human society - indeed, any coherent plan you might have for making things better is by definition also "politics". The question you should be asking is, how to rally people [who make decisions] behind your politics. If they aren't there already, it's either because they don't know about it (in which case, how can you make them be aware?), or because they perceive it to be conflicting with some of their other interests (in which case, how can you make it not conflict, or convince them that this is more important?), or because they don't think the plan will work (in which case, is it perhaps because there are some objective flaws in the plan, and how to address them?).
* How would unilateral nuclear reductions enhance our security?
It would ensure that these dangerous weapons are not used on humans.
Yes. A unilateral nuclear disarmament (especially complete) would indeed ensure that these dangerous weapons won't be used on humans. It will be some other dangerous weapons, of a country that did not disarm, that will be sued.
So... can we do those
Who is "we"?
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The question you should be asking is, how to rally people [who make decisions] behind your politics.
Well said
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Let the old, infirm generations perish and you'll eliminate most of the worlds despots and imperialists.
Sorry, the world's despots and imperialists mostly took power in their 30s and 40s, when they were still young enough to want to change the world. Most people who want to change the world simply want to impose their will on others through force - left and right, that's the same. That's the upside of hashtag activism: it's meaningless, which is generally for the best.
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oh yes because they're the ones who used nukes on civilian population, invaded countries which didn't attack them on the opposite side of the world from them, provided dictators with money and dual-use tech to build chemical WMD.....yes those are the warmongers of the world who export death
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As someone once said in a movie, the only winning move is not to play the game. Before nuclear weapons it was possible to win a war by playing the game
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I say this as someone who studied physics in college and worked at Fermilab, those that had radiation sickness from prompt exposure of the fission bombs were maimed in ways that no ordinary bomb could do.
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However, unlike regular chemical explosive weapons, nuclear weapons pose an existential threat to the whole of civilisation. Even a relatively small nuclear war (let's imagine India and Pakistan exchanging 50 weapons in the range of several tens of kilotons at each other) would cause climate change that would even impact countries thousands of kilometers from the conflict for many years afterwards.
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Both Hiroshima and Nagasaki were legitimate military targets. What was illegal about Hiroshima is that the main Japanese headquarters for the defense of Kyushu (the southernmost of the four big islands) was in a city, surrounded by civilians.
I'm having trouble with the plural in "invaded countries...". I'll give you Iraq, but what other countries? In Afghanistan, Vietnam, and Korea, we came to the aid of what we recognized as the legitimate government, and that's not invading. In WWII, we invaded cou
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Actually, to most of those, yes, they in fact have.
invaded countries which didn't attack them
Why yes, China has invaded other countries, such as the current slow invasion of the Philippians and Vietnam, and Japan, or the old in support of North Korea, though I will give you Vietnam, as the US was supporting the rebels in that war. Russia most assuredly has as they are currently occupying parts of Georgia and Ukraine and are currently invading Syria. Where in the world these countries are matters very little, it just makes the invasion easier.
provided dictators with money and dual-use tech
Snip
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How many people did the Chinese leadership murder? Somewhere north of 50 million?
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How many people did the Chinese leadership murder? Somewhere north of 50 million?
Murder implies intent. Most of those millions died through economic incompetence. The leadership of China did not intend to kill them.
Also, keep in mind that the people running China today, are the political descendants of the people that opposed the excesses of the past.
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"The leadership of China did not intend to kill them." Mao certainly did intend to kill everyone and anyone who questioned his leadership in any way. He didn't give two shits about the famine killing millions and he is on record stating he was willing to sacrifice half the Chinese population if that was what it took for his policies to succeed.
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Interestingly that sort of bodycount is nothing new for China, at least according to this [necrometrics.com]. Fall of the Ming Dynasty, 25 million, 17C. Taiping Rebellion, 20 million, 19C. An Lushan Revolt, 13 million, 8C. Xin Dynasty, 10 million, 1C. Fall of the Yuan Dynasty, 7½ million, 14C. Chinese Civil Wars, 7 million, 20C. Mao Zedong (mostly famine), 40 million 20C.
Just as Chinese "communism" is nothing of the sort but rather a return to its centuries-old beurocratic-Imperial tradition, complete with caste sys
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Bush/Cheney on Iraq, Hollander on Libya, or Obama on Syria
One of these things is not like the other. Not that I support Obama in many things, but Syria is the way it is because Obama refused to interfere. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. The US has this habit of responding to every cry for help, then getting bitched out by the world for interfering in other country's politics. It is unfortunate that whenever the US helps militarily to stop civil wars and the like, we are the ones blamed for all the bloodshed, and when we don't interfere, we are blamed fo
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"Murder implies intent"
At a minimum, you could at least admit that it was negligent homicide.
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Name one time that the US did that. Do the homework, I expect links.
If you are referencing Iraq, that is laughable. Before the Iraq war, there were sanctions preventing Iraq from selling their oil, all we had to do to access those natural resources was to relieve the sanctions and they would have sold to us at any price.
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The US has fought no major wars in the name of protecting corporate access to natural resources. (There have been incursions into South America to rescue United Fruit, for example, but we didn't kill millions in those interventions.) Could you list major wars, the sort that kill at least tens of thousands of people, because of corporate access to natural resources? The Iraqi invasion might possibly count, but I really don't know why it was started, and it was certainly not successful at getting US comp
Re: What about American agression? (Score:2)
"disciplined, analytical and sane"
Qualities that should inspire concern, fear, respect, and caution when displayed by your enemies.
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they're stealing islands from filipinos and vietnamese, and mountains from indians. americans do many fucking stupid things, but they're not a traditional imperial power like russia or china: digesting and absorbing neighbors
if you disagree with me, ask any canadian mexican or caribbean how worried they are about the usa coming in and taking their land
then ask china and russia's neighbors how they feel about their wonderful large neighbors, old imperial powers who have been encroaching on, splitting up, and
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china is building airstrips on islands right now it stole from the philippines in the last year
russia last year annexed crimea and is occupying ukraine, and vivisectioned georgia in 2008
please describe similar american actions in latin and central america
you can't. they don't exist
america has been quite retarded in its middle eastern adventures, but no neighbor of the usa is in danger of being invaded and absorbed into the usa against its will
Re: What about American agression? (Score:2)
Re:Aggression My Ass (Score:5, Funny)
If you know a better way of making more virgins, I'd like to hear it.
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Get kids interested into /.
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One issue with the US is that we're the world's superpower. If we make a bad decision, and people suffer, other people blame us. If we make a good decision, and people suffer, same thing. We've made our share of stupid and/or completely self-centered decisions, of course, but so do other countries.
I've read enough of the WWI and pre-WWI period to know that Imperial Germany had a worse double standard. The German alliance with Italy and Austria-Hungary was natural and defensive, while the later French