After having played with different statistical, Markov, and network algorithms to try to teach programs to do complex things like topic-classify texts, I have learned that it mostly doesn't work.
It makes sense. If something so utterly trivial (compared to the human brain) as a spam filter could learn do something as complex as play chess (well), then our brain would be a whole lot smaller. Nature doesn't waste resources.
But hey, it might always make an interesting screen saver!
It ain't as cool to be a computer nerd as it used to be. Which is really a good thing for those of us who date back to when nerds couldn't skate or dress cool or get girlfriends but just liked to play around with machine code monitors and ARP tables. Now I need to get back to my RazorBBS server...
Sorry about the multiple posts, but this is too good to leave out. Some kind soul reviewing Frank's book on Amazon, mentioned this:
'Although Frank endorses the premise that the Bombs of August were a "military necessity," he does not associate hardly any high-ranking WWII military man with this notion. Why not? Because virtually everybody at the top, with the waffling exception of General Marshall, did not buy it. In three exhaustive chapters in his 1995 book, The Decision To Use the Bomb, Gar Alperovitz documented the dissents of Army, Navy, and Air Force leaders. In addition to Leahy, Eisenhower, and MacArthur, Alperovitz cited chief of Naval Operations Admiral Ernest J. King, Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Admiral William "Bull" Halsey, Rear Admiral Lewis L. Strauss, commanding general of the U.S. Army Air Forces Henry H. "Hap" Arnold, General Claire Chennault of the Flying Tigers, Army Strategic Air Forces Commander Carl Spatz, and Army Air Force General Curtis E. Lemay, who directed the firebombing of Japan. Even the government's own 1946 study--the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey--concluded that the bombs were unnecessary:
"Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts, and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey's opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated."'
I really didn't expect so much of US military high command to agree with me, but wherever I look there are people with insight into every detail of the situation who are of the opinion that the nuclear bombs were totally unnecessary to end the war with Japan. It's been educational.
I guess you didn't read my other two posts after yours. They sort of wrap it up, so I feel done here. I feel satisfied with Eisenhower on my side, regardless of what you think about things.
'During his [Stimson's] recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of "face."'
'Apart from the moral questions involved, were the atomic bombings militarily necessary? By any rational yardstick, they were not. Japan already had been defeated militarily by June 1945. Almost nothing was left of the once mighty Imperial Navy, and Japan's air force had been all but totally destroyed. Against only token opposition, American war planes ranged at will over the country, and US bombers rained down devastation on her cities, steadily reducing them to rubble.
[...]
Even before the Hiroshima attack, American air force General Curtis LeMay boasted that American bombers were "driving them [Japanese] back to the stone age." Henry H. ("Hap") Arnold, commanding General of the Army air forces, declared in his 1949 memoirs: "It always appeared to us, atomic bomb or no atomic bomb, the Japanese were already on the verge of collapse." This was confirmed by former Japanese prime minister Fumimaro Konoye, who said: "Fundamentally, the thing that brought about the determination to make peace was the prolonged bombing by the B-29s."
[...]
Months before the end of the war, Japan's leaders recognized that defeat was inevitable. In April 1945 a new government headed by Kantaro Suzuki took office with the mission of ending the war. When Germany capitulated in early May, the Japanese understood that the British and Americans would now direct the full fury of their awesome military power exclusively against them.
[...]
In April and May 1945, Japan made three attempts through neutral Sweden and Portugal to bring the war to a peaceful end. On April 7, acting Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu met with Swedish ambassador Widon Bagge in Tokyo, asking him "to ascertain what peace terms the United States and Britain had in mind." But he emphasized that unconditional surrender was unacceptable, and that "the Emperor must not be touched." Bagge relayed the message to the United States, but Secretary of State Stettinius told the US Ambassador in Sweden to "show no interest or take any initiative in pursuit of the matter."
[...]
By mid-June, six members of Japan's Supreme War Council had secretly charged Foreign Minister Shigenori Togo with the task of approaching Soviet Russia's leaders "with a view to terminating the war if possible by September." On June 22 the Emperor called a meeting of the Supreme War Council, which included the Prime Minister, the Foreign Minister, and the leading military figures. "We have heard enough of this determination of yours to fight to the last soldiers," said Emperor Hirohito. "We wish that you, leaders of Japan, will strive now to study the ways and the means to conclude the war. In doing so, try not to be bound by the decisions you have made in the past."
[...]
Summarizing the messages between Togo and Sato, US naval intelligence said that Japan's leaders, "though still balking at the term unconditional surrender," recognized that the war was lost, and had reached the point where they have "no objection to the restoration of peace on the basis of the [1941] Atlantic Charter." These messages, said Assistant Secretary of the Navy Lewis Strauss, "indeed stipulated only that the integrity of the Japanese Royal Family be preserved."'
In August 1945 the Japanese Army was killing civilians at the rate of about 100,000 a month...
Source please? I'm guessing the brunt of victims were in China, where the Soviets were already on their way to kick them out. Their loss there had nothing to do with the atom bombs.
*Those* civilians didn't volunteer to sacrifice their lives to test *your* theory about whether Japan would capitulate if we'd only say "pretty please".
I don't recall presenting such a theory. But in any case, you are still resting on that dichotomy that it was firebombing innocents or nothing. I'm sorry, I'm never going to accept that eradicating innocent life is the only way. There are always alternatives.
I'll try to help you see it from my perspective. I'm going to assume that since you people who defend these actions are probably a fairly patriotic bunch, you will assume that the commanders of these operations were competent and intelligent people. However, had they been French or, say, Iraqi, you would probably have had no problem imagining that they were incompetent bastards until evidence proved otherwise. Now, since I'm not American... well, you get my drift. I see no reason to believe that what they did was the intelligent thing to do simply because that's the alternative they chose. They might simply have been belligerent and hating the Japs. Check out McNamara's documentary, it's interesting.
We used the correct logic and chose the course of action that appeared least-bad.
You keep repeating this but you give me no reason to change my mind. I remain unconvinced.
However, even with the benefit of hindsight it appears likely that what we did WAS the best course of action.
No it really doesn't. A few hundred thousand dead people and their unborn descendants would probably agree with me.
All others lead logically to a prolonged war in which almost assuredly more people died...
Again, repeating yourself. Again, making assertions over and over is not a reason for me to believe that you are right. And just for the record, they don't lead "logically" anywhere. Don't bring logic into this, it's inductive reasoning at best.
Some people claim that they had a theory that not firebombing civilian cities and nuking a few would lead to maybe MILLIONS of deaths. Maybe they didn't even believe that themselves and just constructed it as a justification after the fact. Who knows? That's after all how it usually is. In any case, there is no way that I have seen evidence and details for this theory that justifies BURNING HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF INNOCENT PEOPLE ALIVE for it. In fact, I'm not sure it's possible to present such a theory. There's a little too much hinging on human fallibility there.
I'm amazed at how poor the US is at dealing with their own sordid past, while playing the big Holier Than Thou around the world. Was it also the "manifest destiny" of those British colonizers to wipe out the native population of the land they were colonizing? I'm sure there was nothing wrong with slavery either when you think about it...
You make less and less sense. So forcing someone to live in an Islamic state is worse than blowing them up? And the people who fight for the same things as Hamas but through peaceful means are just as bad as those who blow up civilians? And, most importantly, if you blow up civilians for a good reason, it's fine!
I suspect that this is one of the worst consequences of when a nation commits atrocities. Since many of its citizens will force their world view into whatever warped shape that's necessary to defend the actions of their country, it will lead to many very morally confused individuals, who will be more ready to accept other atrocities in the future, leading to more moral confusion, and so on. (You seem to be prime terrorist material yourself, considering you don't disapprove of terrorist methods.) It's a kind of cultural trauma, and it constitutes an argument against excess violence all in itself.
It was either kill lots of our people, and many, many more of theirs, or kill fewer while also impacting strategic factory and naval targets used by their military.
Sorry, I don't buy this dichotomy. I don't think firebombing dozens of civilian cities and nuking two was the only option. I'm not the only one with this opinion, there are enough historians who agree with me.
But what he did was in a context. He was trying to exterminate a race as a side-bar project along with his larger effort to rule, at least, Europe. That's a plan. That's context.
So if he had gassed 6 million people in some other context, it might not have been bad? The context matters? Can you give an example of a context in which it had been a good thing?
Now we have vastly more precise weapons, and don't have to be as widely brutal as we used to in order to stop people like that...
And still tens of thousands of civilians have been massacred in Iraq. And this time it was the US who was the aggressor. Iraq hadn't even threatened an attack on the US. That's the real difference to WWII.
There's nothing "morally corrupt" about this situation.
So raping women, torturing civilians, and robbing and stealing private property is really necessary to stay alive in war? Those are the usual war crimes committed by soldiers. And you know, we actually know about them because every now and then some are actually convicted of those crimes. It happened in Yugoslavia, and it happened in Iraq. Might still happen in Afghanistan, since deaths of prisoners are still being investigated. We also know of war crimes committed in Vietnam because there were hearings. So it seems we do hear about it.
Which is liberal-speak for "shut the fuck up".
Well, I do try to be polite.;-)
You seem to be continually confusing "is" with "ought." We were talking about what is moral behavior. That is, how people ought to behave. That has very little to do with how people actually behave. Or do you think that how people actually behave is the measure for moral behavior? So if people set off bombs in the subway, that's not really an immoral thing to do? Or whatever happens to go on at the moment, that must be okay? If you don't think this, then start talking about your moral standard, if you have one, and stop talking about all the sad shit that happens to be going on around the world.
If you agree that your defense also works for Hamas suicide bombers, then at least you are consistent, and I can't say too much about it. It works for genocide as well, depending on your theories about the enemy. I'm sure the Nazis did not think the Jews were innocent, and their argument probably sounded a bit like yours.
No, I'm saying that sometimes you have to act in order to stop that, only more of it, from happening.
So you are saying that sometimes the right thing to do is to burn thousands of children alive. Sorry if I'm putting it very bluntly and in a way you're not comfortable with, but that is exactly the consequence of what you are saying. Sometimes that is justified. It is possible to imagine a good reason for killing civilian families in the thousands and thousands. That's what you're saying.
You've got it exactly backward. Claiming that all acts the same no matter what is moral relativism.
Not at all. Some acts are morally despicable, regardless of reasons and contexts. That is the very definition of absolutism. That is how we know that some are bad and some are less bad. That's what made Hitler bad; not that he gassed the wrong 6 million people, or that he gassed 6 million people for the wrong reasons, but that he gassed 6 million people, period. If you don't know that, you are morally lost at sea.
I don't pine quite as badly for a morally corrupt society as you do. I'm a poor liberal who actually believes that people can behave morally and not even hurt themselves particularly in the process. I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree.
You are assuming some very uncertain things about history. Cases have been made that Japan were at the brink of surrendering after having their asses thoroughly kicked out of China by the Soviets, watching Germany fall, and stalling in South Asia. We can't know what would have happened. Ultimately, we are responsible for our own actions. Should we burn these hundreds of thousands of civilians alive or should we not do that? That is our most immediate responsibility.
You might also reason as I suggest above, that this isn't even a choice you get to make. You don't get to decide who must die to save someone else. Assuming that you have that right is already a crime.
Everyone who is not guilty of something is innocent. Mothers and children and grandparents who are trying to live normal lives, threatening no one and having no influence on national policies or the movement of armies are innocent. Especially if that country is not even a democracy. What part of that are you having problems with?
Your argument justifies terrorism and the gassing of 6 million Jews as well. No one is innocent in war. I think I heard a Hamas leader say that recently.
They exist in law books, so there are definitely laws of war. (And they have nothing to do with liberals, they evolved between European nations as a matter of self-preservation. It's not about making war "nice.") That you refuse to acknowledge the laws doesn't make them go poof. It just means you are more likely to become a war criminal. And there is lots of precedence for trying and convicting those.
Sometimes, when your guesses about the future and your projections are uncertain, and the consequences of your actions are enormous, all you can do is try to act morally in the most obvious and direct sense. You have no idea what would have happened if there had been no firebombing of Tokyo and no atom bombs over Japan. No one does. We can guess and speculate, but those speculations will never justify killing innocent people. We're just not that clever, and those who think they are need to get some perspective on themselves.
There is also another point of view, that says that regardless of what theories you subscribe to you have no right to kill others for them. No one has given you that right and it's criminal to take it. (It is actually literally criminal, but also from a simply moral perspective.) Those civilians didn't volunteer to sacrifice their lives to test your theory about whether Japan would capitulate or not, and it's their lives. They are not yours to decide over, just as no one has the right to decide over your life.
One day, the collective human existence will realize that there is no 'us and them', there is only 'us'. We're not there yet.
And you are not really helping. Refusing to commit atrocities, whatever the excuse may be, would be a start.
As one of the Americans whose grandfather would have most certainly died on the shores of Kyushu during Operation Downfall, I would like to send the men and women of the Manhattan Project my heartfelt thanks.
I'm sure that one of the millions of potential children and grandchildren of those who were burned alive by American firebombs would love to give their opinions on this, but alas... That's one of the upsides with killing people: you don't have to hear them complain afterwards.
The moral, in fact, is a different one: If you start a war of aggression, you will reap what you sow.
Not quite. Rather, if political leaders start a war of aggression those ordinary people who happened to be born in that country will face the consequences while those leaders might at worst be deposed after spending some time confined to an apartment watching TV. Or they may never face any consequences at all.
If it's righteous to burn Japanese civilians alive because Japan had gone to war, then it must also be righteous to blow up Israeli civilians if you believe that the Israeli government is occupying Palestinian land. But of course, this idea that civilians are just targets in warfare is in complete opposition of ethics and international law. Let's hope it stays that way. But that means some people need to come to terms with their history.
Slashdot Mirror
Good one.
After having played with different statistical, Markov, and network algorithms to try to teach programs to do complex things like topic-classify texts, I have learned that it mostly doesn't work.
It makes sense. If something so utterly trivial (compared to the human brain) as a spam filter could learn do something as complex as play chess (well), then our brain would be a whole lot smaller. Nature doesn't waste resources.
But hey, it might always make an interesting screen saver!
Well, CS is about computers in the most abstract sense. As in turing machines and whatnot. Astronomy is not about telescopes in any sense.
It ain't as cool to be a computer nerd as it used to be. Which is really a good thing for those of us who date back to when nerds couldn't skate or dress cool or get girlfriends but just liked to play around with machine code monitors and ARP tables. Now I need to get back to my RazorBBS server...
Sorry about the multiple posts, but this is too good to leave out. Some kind soul reviewing Frank's book on Amazon, mentioned this:
:-)
'Although Frank endorses the premise that the Bombs of August were a "military necessity," he does not associate hardly any high-ranking WWII military man with this notion. Why not? Because virtually everybody at the top, with the waffling exception of General Marshall, did not buy it.
In three exhaustive chapters in his 1995 book, The Decision To Use the Bomb, Gar Alperovitz documented the dissents of Army, Navy, and Air Force leaders. In addition to Leahy, Eisenhower, and MacArthur, Alperovitz cited chief of Naval Operations Admiral Ernest J. King, Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Admiral William "Bull" Halsey, Rear Admiral Lewis L. Strauss, commanding general of the U.S. Army Air Forces Henry H. "Hap" Arnold, General Claire Chennault of the Flying Tigers, Army Strategic Air Forces Commander Carl Spatz, and Army Air Force General Curtis E. Lemay, who directed the firebombing of Japan. Even the government's own 1946 study--the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey--concluded that the bombs were unnecessary:
"Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts, and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey's opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated."'
It's like... clouds parting... mist clearing... reality appearing.
Is that the same Curtis LeMay who said: "The atomic bomb had nothing to do with the end of the war"?
http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v16/v16n3p-4_Weber.html
I really didn't expect so much of US military high command to agree with me, but wherever I look there are people with insight into every detail of the situation who are of the opinion that the nuclear bombs were totally unnecessary to end the war with Japan. It's been educational.
I guess you didn't read my other two posts after yours. They sort of wrap it up, so I feel done here. I feel satisfied with Eisenhower on my side, regardless of what you think about things.
I'm as nerdy as the next guy here and have played my share of MMORPGs, but puh-lease..!
'During his [Stimson's] recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of "face."'
Looks like Eisenhower agrees with me.
'Apart from the moral questions involved, were the atomic bombings militarily necessary? By any rational yardstick, they were not. Japan already had been defeated militarily by June 1945. Almost nothing was left of the once mighty Imperial Navy, and Japan's air force had been all but totally destroyed. Against only token opposition, American war planes ranged at will over the country, and US bombers rained down devastation on her cities, steadily reducing them to rubble.
[...]
Even before the Hiroshima attack, American air force General Curtis LeMay boasted that American bombers were "driving them [Japanese] back to the stone age." Henry H. ("Hap") Arnold, commanding General of the Army air forces, declared in his 1949 memoirs: "It always appeared to us, atomic bomb or no atomic bomb, the Japanese were already on the verge of collapse." This was confirmed by former Japanese prime minister Fumimaro Konoye, who said: "Fundamentally, the thing that brought about the determination to make peace was the prolonged bombing by the B-29s."
[...]
Months before the end of the war, Japan's leaders recognized that defeat was inevitable. In April 1945 a new government headed by Kantaro Suzuki took office with the mission of ending the war. When Germany capitulated in early May, the Japanese understood that the British and Americans would now direct the full fury of their awesome military power exclusively against them.
[...]
In April and May 1945, Japan made three attempts through neutral Sweden and Portugal to bring the war to a peaceful end. On April 7, acting Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu met with Swedish ambassador Widon Bagge in Tokyo, asking him "to ascertain what peace terms the United States and Britain had in mind." But he emphasized that unconditional surrender was unacceptable, and that "the Emperor must not be touched." Bagge relayed the message to the United States, but Secretary of State Stettinius told the US Ambassador in Sweden to "show no interest or take any initiative in pursuit of the matter."
[...]
By mid-June, six members of Japan's Supreme War Council had secretly charged Foreign Minister Shigenori Togo with the task of approaching Soviet Russia's leaders "with a view to terminating the war if possible by September." On June 22 the Emperor called a meeting of the Supreme War Council, which included the Prime Minister, the Foreign Minister, and the leading military figures. "We have heard enough of this determination of yours to fight to the last soldiers," said Emperor Hirohito. "We wish that you, leaders of Japan, will strive now to study the ways and the means to conclude the war. In doing so, try not to be bound by the decisions you have made in the past."
[...]
Summarizing the messages between Togo and Sato, US naval intelligence said that Japan's leaders, "though still balking at the term unconditional surrender," recognized that the war was lost, and had reached the point where they have "no objection to the restoration of peace on the basis of the [1941] Atlantic Charter." These messages, said Assistant Secretary of the Navy Lewis Strauss, "indeed stipulated only that the integrity of the Japanese Royal Family be preserved."'
http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v16/v16n3p-4_Weber.html
In August 1945 the Japanese Army was killing civilians at the rate of about 100,000 a month...
Source please? I'm guessing the brunt of victims were in China, where the Soviets were already on their way to kick them out. Their loss there had nothing to do with the atom bombs.
*Those* civilians didn't volunteer to sacrifice their lives to test *your* theory about whether Japan would capitulate if we'd only say "pretty please".
I don't recall presenting such a theory. But in any case, you are still resting on that dichotomy that it was firebombing innocents or nothing. I'm sorry, I'm never going to accept that eradicating innocent life is the only way. There are always alternatives.
I'll try to help you see it from my perspective. I'm going to assume that since you people who defend these actions are probably a fairly patriotic bunch, you will assume that the commanders of these operations were competent and intelligent people. However, had they been French or, say, Iraqi, you would probably have had no problem imagining that they were incompetent bastards until evidence proved otherwise. Now, since I'm not American... well, you get my drift. I see no reason to believe that what they did was the intelligent thing to do simply because that's the alternative they chose. They might simply have been belligerent and hating the Japs. Check out McNamara's documentary, it's interesting.
We had several choices.
Indeed.
We used the correct logic and chose the course of action that appeared least-bad.
You keep repeating this but you give me no reason to change my mind. I remain unconvinced.
However, even with the benefit of hindsight it appears likely that what we did WAS the best course of action.
No it really doesn't. A few hundred thousand dead people and their unborn descendants would probably agree with me.
All others lead logically to a prolonged war in which almost assuredly more people died...
Again, repeating yourself. Again, making assertions over and over is not a reason for me to believe that you are right. And just for the record, they don't lead "logically" anywhere. Don't bring logic into this, it's inductive reasoning at best.
Some people claim that they had a theory that not firebombing civilian cities and nuking a few would lead to maybe MILLIONS of deaths. Maybe they didn't even believe that themselves and just constructed it as a justification after the fact. Who knows? That's after all how it usually is. In any case, there is no way that I have seen evidence and details for this theory that justifies BURNING HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF INNOCENT PEOPLE ALIVE for it. In fact, I'm not sure it's possible to present such a theory. There's a little too much hinging on human fallibility there.
I'm amazed at how poor the US is at dealing with their own sordid past, while playing the big Holier Than Thou around the world. Was it also the "manifest destiny" of those British colonizers to wipe out the native population of the land they were colonizing? I'm sure there was nothing wrong with slavery either when you think about it...
You make less and less sense. So forcing someone to live in an Islamic state is worse than blowing them up? And the people who fight for the same things as Hamas but through peaceful means are just as bad as those who blow up civilians? And, most importantly, if you blow up civilians for a good reason, it's fine!
I suspect that this is one of the worst consequences of when a nation commits atrocities. Since many of its citizens will force their world view into whatever warped shape that's necessary to defend the actions of their country, it will lead to many very morally confused individuals, who will be more ready to accept other atrocities in the future, leading to more moral confusion, and so on. (You seem to be prime terrorist material yourself, considering you don't disapprove of terrorist methods.) It's a kind of cultural trauma, and it constitutes an argument against excess violence all in itself.
It was either kill lots of our people, and many, many more of theirs, or kill fewer while also impacting strategic factory and naval targets used by their military.
Sorry, I don't buy this dichotomy. I don't think firebombing dozens of civilian cities and nuking two was the only option. I'm not the only one with this opinion, there are enough historians who agree with me.
But what he did was in a context. He was trying to exterminate a race as a side-bar project along with his larger effort to rule, at least, Europe. That's a plan. That's context.
So if he had gassed 6 million people in some other context, it might not have been bad? The context matters? Can you give an example of a context in which it had been a good thing?
Now we have vastly more precise weapons, and don't have to be as widely brutal as we used to in order to stop people like that...
And still tens of thousands of civilians have been massacred in Iraq. And this time it was the US who was the aggressor. Iraq hadn't even threatened an attack on the US. That's the real difference to WWII.
There's nothing "morally corrupt" about this situation.
;-)
So raping women, torturing civilians, and robbing and stealing private property is really necessary to stay alive in war? Those are the usual war crimes committed by soldiers. And you know, we actually know about them because every now and then some are actually convicted of those crimes. It happened in Yugoslavia, and it happened in Iraq. Might still happen in Afghanistan, since deaths of prisoners are still being investigated. We also know of war crimes committed in Vietnam because there were hearings. So it seems we do hear about it.
Which is liberal-speak for "shut the fuck up".
Well, I do try to be polite.
You seem to be continually confusing "is" with "ought." We were talking about what is moral behavior. That is, how people ought to behave. That has very little to do with how people actually behave. Or do you think that how people actually behave is the measure for moral behavior? So if people set off bombs in the subway, that's not really an immoral thing to do? Or whatever happens to go on at the moment, that must be okay? If you don't think this, then start talking about your moral standard, if you have one, and stop talking about all the sad shit that happens to be going on around the world.
If you agree that your defense also works for Hamas suicide bombers, then at least you are consistent, and I can't say too much about it. It works for genocide as well, depending on your theories about the enemy. I'm sure the Nazis did not think the Jews were innocent, and their argument probably sounded a bit like yours.
"...concerning the obvious that you are willing to let MILLIONS die because of them."
Well, that's a theory you have. I on the other hand am talking about actual deaths by actual American firebombs. That's the difference.
No, I'm saying that sometimes you have to act in order to stop that, only more of it, from happening.
So you are saying that sometimes the right thing to do is to burn thousands of children alive. Sorry if I'm putting it very bluntly and in a way you're not comfortable with, but that is exactly the consequence of what you are saying. Sometimes that is justified. It is possible to imagine a good reason for killing civilian families in the thousands and thousands. That's what you're saying.
You've got it exactly backward. Claiming that all acts the same no matter what is moral relativism.
Not at all. Some acts are morally despicable, regardless of reasons and contexts. That is the very definition of absolutism. That is how we know that some are bad and some are less bad. That's what made Hitler bad; not that he gassed the wrong 6 million people, or that he gassed 6 million people for the wrong reasons, but that he gassed 6 million people, period. If you don't know that, you are morally lost at sea.
That obviously says a lot more about your preconceptions than about me. But just out of curiosity, what does Hamas have to do with "the Bomb"?
Yes, it does.
:-)
No it doesn't.
Only if you lose.
I don't pine quite as badly for a morally corrupt society as you do. I'm a poor liberal who actually believes that people can behave morally and not even hurt themselves particularly in the process. I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree.
You are assuming some very uncertain things about history. Cases have been made that Japan were at the brink of surrendering after having their asses thoroughly kicked out of China by the Soviets, watching Germany fall, and stalling in South Asia. We can't know what would have happened. Ultimately, we are responsible for our own actions. Should we burn these hundreds of thousands of civilians alive or should we not do that? That is our most immediate responsibility.
You might also reason as I suggest above, that this isn't even a choice you get to make. You don't get to decide who must die to save someone else. Assuming that you have that right is already a crime.
There are no innocents in war.
Everyone who is not guilty of something is innocent. Mothers and children and grandparents who are trying to live normal lives, threatening no one and having no influence on national policies or the movement of armies are innocent. Especially if that country is not even a democracy. What part of that are you having problems with?
Your argument justifies terrorism and the gassing of 6 million Jews as well. No one is innocent in war. I think I heard a Hamas leader say that recently.
They exist in law books, so there are definitely laws of war. (And they have nothing to do with liberals, they evolved between European nations as a matter of self-preservation. It's not about making war "nice.") That you refuse to acknowledge the laws doesn't make them go poof. It just means you are more likely to become a war criminal. And there is lots of precedence for trying and convicting those.
YrWrstNtmr,
Sometimes, when your guesses about the future and your projections are uncertain, and the consequences of your actions are enormous, all you can do is try to act morally in the most obvious and direct sense. You have no idea what would have happened if there had been no firebombing of Tokyo and no atom bombs over Japan. No one does. We can guess and speculate, but those speculations will never justify killing innocent people. We're just not that clever, and those who think they are need to get some perspective on themselves.
There is also another point of view, that says that regardless of what theories you subscribe to you have no right to kill others for them. No one has given you that right and it's criminal to take it. (It is actually literally criminal, but also from a simply moral perspective.) Those civilians didn't volunteer to sacrifice their lives to test your theory about whether Japan would capitulate or not, and it's their lives. They are not yours to decide over, just as no one has the right to decide over your life.
One day, the collective human existence will realize that there is no 'us and them', there is only 'us'. We're not there yet.
And you are not really helping. Refusing to commit atrocities, whatever the excuse may be, would be a start.
As one of the Americans whose grandfather would have most certainly died on the shores of Kyushu during Operation Downfall, I would like to send the men and women of the Manhattan Project my heartfelt thanks.
I'm sure that one of the millions of potential children and grandchildren of those who were burned alive by American firebombs would love to give their opinions on this, but alas... That's one of the upsides with killing people: you don't have to hear them complain afterwards.
The moral, in fact, is a different one: If you start a war of aggression, you will reap what you sow.
Not quite. Rather, if political leaders start a war of aggression those ordinary people who happened to be born in that country will face the consequences while those leaders might at worst be deposed after spending some time confined to an apartment watching TV. Or they may never face any consequences at all.
If it's righteous to burn Japanese civilians alive because Japan had gone to war, then it must also be righteous to blow up Israeli civilians if you believe that the Israeli government is occupying Palestinian land. But of course, this idea that civilians are just targets in warfare is in complete opposition of ethics and international law. Let's hope it stays that way. But that means some people need to come to terms with their history.