It is hard to argue that there was a serious attempt to work out a negotiated surrender, when the Pottsdam Declaration (which did not even mention that the Allies had and were prepared to use nuclear weapons) was July 25 and the bomb fell on August 6. Framing it as the bomb vs. invasion offers a false dichotomy. Perhaps a demonstraton of the bomb, or a few months of blockade would have made Japan more willing to negotiate, or caused the Emperor to fear a popular uprising. Certainly there were many things that could have been tried short of a full-scale invasion. The key point is that none of these alternatives were seriously tried.
The notion that the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs were targetted at military facilities and that the civilians just happened to be in the way is absurd rationalization. While modern precision-guided weapons did not exist at the time, existing, nuclear bombs were hardly the state of the art when it came to minimizing collateral damage. The US had tested the nuclear bomb, and knew that it was a city buster, not a muntion suitable for attacks on factories.
It is comforting to believe that it is OK for us to kill innocents because we are the good guys and are doing it for noble reasons, but wrong for others to do the same because they are evil and kill because "they like it." Unfortunately, this does not provide a persuasive basis for convincing others to forego terrorism, because, oddly enough, almost everybody believes themselves to be the good guys. A recent Pew survey of international attitudes found that in Palestine, bin Laden is the world figure most trusted "to do the right thing" (71% approval rating). He is the 2nd most trusted in Pakistan, Kuwait, and Jordan, and the 3rd most trusted in Indonesia.
So, according to you, the only moral way to deal with tyranny is to only attack the tyrants. I'm sure that there are millions of dead that are soooo impressed with your moral values. Maybe you can tell me how the Allies could have defeated the Axis nations without killing innocents?
Many wars have been fought without intentionally targetting civilians.
Even in a tyranny, the people are responsible for their nation's actions. They could have overthrown their leaders.
This is precisely the moral justification advanced by terrorists. By acclaiming its validity we promote terrorism worldwide. But I still don't quite understand how women and children were supposed to overthrow their leaders.
"I was just following orders" is not a morally acceptable excuse for participating in atrocity.
For participating in an atrocity, no. Are you prepared to offer evidence that the women and children of Hiroshima and Nagasaki personally participated in atrocities?
Allied troops forced German civilians to go through the death camps and bury the dead, because they thought those civilians bore some responsibility. Would you have absolved those civilians of all responsibilty?
I would not have them blown up, burned alive, or exposed to radiation to die a slow, painful death, no.
If the US hadn't dropped the bombs, millions more would have died. What reason do you have to think otherwise? You think the Japanese military leaders would all of a sudden go "me bad" and surrender?
Diplomacy? Something less than an unconditional surrender? Blockade? Some combination of the above? We don't know if any of these would have worked because they were never seriously tried. I question the "lack of ingenuity" justification as an excuse for terrorism. You can't think of a way to conduct a war to avoid what you regard as excessive casualties to your own troops, so it is OK to slaughter innocent civilians?
Yes, if you forego terrorism, it is much harder to achieve your political and military ends. That is why Hamas is unwilling to make such a pledge. And given that we were unwilling to do so when it was our military goals at stake--and unwilling, even decades later, to acknowledge that our actions were morally wrong--we are in a poor position to tell them that they should.
And if you think it's worth noting that bin Laden cited Hiroshima as precedent for the 9/11 attacks, and you can follow and agree with his chain of reasoning, you're fucking insane.
You and I may not agree--after all, his goals are not ours. But much of the Muslim world clearly does. And they can point to us, and say--when it was your military and political goals at stake, you too did not hesitate to slaughter civilians.
I think that the fact that the US has itself been guilty of attacks intentionally directed at civilians--and far worse, continues to try to justify those attacks to this day--cripples our moral authority in the fight against terrorism. It is worth noting that bin Laden cited Hiroshima as precedent for the 9/11 attacks. I believe that our ability to fight terrorism would be enhanced if we had the courage to acknowledge that what we did was wrong, even though it may have been understandable given the sentiment of the times.
You *do* know that the Japanese had caused the deaths of about 17 million people, right? They needed to be put down like the mad dogs they were.
I was not aware that the Japanese civilians whom we targetted in Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed 17 million people. In a democracy, the public might reasonably be said to bear some responsibility for the actions of the leaders they chose, but that hardly seems applicable to WWII Japan.
And as far as risking prolonging the war, by early August it had become obvious to the US military leaders in the Pacific that an invasion would cost too much in blood, and that firebombing and blockade would utterly destroy Japan, even without atomic bombs. To characterize the "Japanese" (as opposed to their rulers) as "mad dogs" seems racist.
And why was an invasion such an immediate necessity? And how was it so certain that a blockade would harm Japanese civilians more than two nuclear attacks. Seems like alternatives could be tried--especially if time was needed to build more bombs, if perhaps bombing a non-urban target was insufficient to convince the Japanese to surrender.
Of course, I never fail to notice how the people on your side of the argument never mention the 200,000 to 300,000 Asians dying at the hands of the Japanese military each month towards the end of the war. Or over a hundred thousand POWs starving to death or being used as test subjects for biological and chemical weapons. 40,000 Japanese died in Nagasaki. That many people died from Japanese atrocities in Asia every four or five days.
I am certainly willing to stipulate all of these things, if you will explain in turn how women and children in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were responsible for these atrocities. The argument is not that the bombings were wrong because of the exemplary conduct of the rulers of Japan--it is that there is never any justification for deliberately targetting civilian populations, no matter how evil the behavior of their leaders.
Again, we were decrypting all their military and diplomatic traffic. They knew it was a nuke. They thought it unlikely we'd have more than one. They were going to continue fighting. And the US leaders knew it.
That may have been what they were saying. The question was whether they had had time to absorb the impact. They might well have changed their minds, given a little time.
Mass slaughter of civilians by firebomb attack didn't sway them, why would a nuclear attack? The only reason the Emperor surrendered was because he was afraid the Japanese people would rise up against him if it became obvious to them that cities could be destroyed on a regular basis by one bomb. The deaths of innocents didn't bother him; fear of them revolting terrified him.
Yes, the argument in favor of terror is that it often works. I'm sure that was bin Laden's reasoning as well.
If we'd waited a few weeks before dropping the second bomb, they'd have been *less* likely to surrender; they wouldn't mind losing a city every few weeks.
That's pure rationalization. Nobody knows what they would have done if given time to absorb the impact. Perhaps a civilian revolt would have materialized and forced the emperor's hand. The bottom line is that the US at that point was not willing to accept any risk of prolonging the war and losing more troops. And we were willing to kill a huge number of innocent "enemy" women and children rather than risk our own soldiers.
Initial reactions aren't particularly relevant. Three days simply is not enough time to absorb or respond to an enormity like the mass slaughter of a civilian population by a nuclear attack.
Truman and his cabinet debated the merits of various approaches and concluded that the best approach was the one they followed. I think history has shown them to have been right.
Well, certainly the events of 9/11 have confirmed the effectiveness of large-scale attacks directed at innocent civilian populations. Or was that what you had in mind?
I think Hiroshima and Nagasaki (along with similar, if non-nuclear attacks on Dresden and Tokyo) forever impaired our moral standing to oppose terrorism. It was worse than embarrassing watching our leaders trying to come up with a definition of terrorism that would not include Hiroshima ("Well, it's not terrorism if it's done in the context of a decleared war by a legitimate government authority." Uh, yeah. That sounds like a moral imperative to me).
Perhaps a demonstration wouldn't have worked. But it wasn't even tried (we would still have had a city-buster in reserve). We didn't even give them much time to absorb the lesson of Hiroshima before hitting Nagasaki.
After seeing "The Last Flight of the Osirus," on the Animatrix disk, I found myself wishing that all of the "matrix" scenes of "The Matrix" had been done with similar high-quality CG, with only the "real world" segments done in live action.
I think you hit it exactly. The "future" has become mundane. People in the 50s dreamed of robots in our everyday lives. And now we have them, just not *exactly* how they envisioned them. Same with space travel and exploration. I believe that we will put a human on Mars and colonize the moon/planets. Not in my lifetime, probably, but eventually. Why imagine it?
The enthusiasm over space travel in the '50's was because people did expect to see it in their lifetimes, so they were excited about imagining what it would be like. Indeed, they expected to see a man on mars by now. And indeed, they could have, but we as a people decided not to do it. Today, people have the same pessimistic "not in my lifetime" outlook that you articulate. People don't get as enthusiastic about imagining something that the'll never see. If "not in my lifetime," then why not "not ever"?--which brings us to the land of elves, wizards and space dreadnoughts that go "whoosh".
Heinlein's body of work is strong enough that an early work, even if substandard, will not detract from his reputation. At worst, it will be of historical interest, as readers will be able to see how an important writer's work changed as he matured.
The mega stage-shows are a game of can-you-top-this, not artistry. The performance is "enhanced" with recorded over-dubs. If they even really sing and play at all...if they really even can sing and play at all.
The best stage shows are rarely the "mega" ones, although I've seen a few that were excellent. Depends on the band.
Apparently, TiVo Inc., doesn't see a market for such high-end PVRs. But the secondary market has picked up the slack. Weakknees.com sells a 320 GB TiVo for $660 (but remember that it's another $300 for lifetime service; the article doesn't state whether Sony's prices include service). The one big advantage of the Sony unit over TiVo is that it provides a save-to-DVR option--but only if you link it to a Sony-brand computer.
Performance is more than music, however. For most artists, listening just to the audio part of their performance is a bit like going to a movie wearing a blindfold. Some artists perform much better in front of a live audience. And unless you have an extremely expensive stereo, you will not experience the dynamic range of a live performance (not to mention the fact that many CDs are clipped). And then there is the whole sound field thing, which audio engineers have been struggling to capture for many years--a difficult task because it involves the way omnidirectional sound interacts with the structure of your head and ears. If the live experience doesn't interest you, I suspect that it is because you haven't much experience with it..
If it predicts just as much observable phenomena as the standard model and quantum mechanics, wherein lies the value?
"Observable" is a difficult term; often, it just means that we haven't been clever enough to recognize the observable consequences of a theory yet. People are still figuring out new ways to test aspects of quantum mechanics that were once thought to be beyond the scope of experimental test, and that theory is decades old.. There are certainly areas of physics, such as the early universe and near singulatirities where "or" isn't good enough. You need "and". And General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics don't play well together. And a better understanding of black holes and the early universe could well yield predictions about the universe today.
From the article:The new calculations suggest that this dark energy cannot last forever, that it will disappear sometime in the far future
Or maybe it already has. Presumably this is something like tunneling between different geometries, so the decay time would be stochastic. So there might be a bubble of unfolded space coming at us right now. And since it is expanding at the speed of light, we'll never see it coming.
I remember reading a science fiction book by Greg Egan ( Schild's Ladder ) in which the universe was in danger from a bubble of expanding space with a different geometry, created as a result of an unfortunate outcome of a physics experiment (although in that case the bubble was expanding at only c/2 so that the characters in the book at least could try to do something about it).
Frankly, I still view superstring theory as a fringe science, considering the fact that it holds merit (many of it's hypothesis are built upon solid scientific foundations), but none of it's claims can yet be tested and verified
So we can use the word "theory" for a hypothesis that we know to be wrong, such as General Relativity, but not for one of the currently most popular models? Actually, model testing is going on constantly, because the first test of a theory is to determine whether it is able to accomodate what you already know to be true about the universe. Many models get disproved at this early stage of development. So far, string theory sounds like it is doing OK in that regard, although the current concern seems to be that it may have an excess of free parameters. Unfortunately, theories with a lot of free parameters are difficult to test, and often are of little practical value.
I thought that Byrne owed very little to Kirby's style. Byrne's anatomy is realistic, and his perspective is meticulously accurate, as compared to Kirby's extreme exaggerations of both anatomy and perspective. I don't know Byrne's background, but I expect that he has had formal art training. Starlin's work is not as realistic as Byrne's, but I see very little in common with Kirby.
As an artist, Kirby was one of the great innovators. But as an influence, he was a disaster, because he convinced a whole generation of comic book artists that they didn't need to bother with things like anatomy or perspective. Kirby could ignore all of that stuff, but that was because he was a genius. When other artists tried to draw like Kirby, the result was always dreadful.
If you read the solo work of Jack Kirby (or worse, Steve Ditko), it is hard to doubt that Stan Lee had significant input. On the other hand, the "big ideas" of the Lee/Kirby collaborations have Kirby's stamp all over them.
Artists are treated as talents rather than commodities
It is worth noting that Stan Lee's Marvel was the first US company to treat comic book artists as talents, by crediting them on stories. Of course, they still made them sign away virtually all rights in "work-for-hire" contracts. Still, by turning comic book creators into stars, Marvel ultimately improved their bargaining power.
Slashdot Mirror
The notion that the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs were targetted at military facilities and that the civilians just happened to be in the way is absurd rationalization. While modern precision-guided weapons did not exist at the time, existing, nuclear bombs were hardly the state of the art when it came to minimizing collateral damage. The US had tested the nuclear bomb, and knew that it was a city buster, not a muntion suitable for attacks on factories.
It is comforting to believe that it is OK for us to kill innocents because we are the good guys and are doing it for noble reasons, but wrong for others to do the same because they are evil and kill because "they like it." Unfortunately, this does not provide a persuasive basis for convincing others to forego terrorism, because, oddly enough, almost everybody believes themselves to be the good guys. A recent Pew survey of international attitudes found that in Palestine, bin Laden is the world figure most trusted "to do the right thing" (71% approval rating). He is the 2nd most trusted in Pakistan, Kuwait, and Jordan, and the 3rd most trusted in Indonesia.
Yes, if you forego terrorism, it is much harder to achieve your political and military ends. That is why Hamas is unwilling to make such a pledge. And given that we were unwilling to do so when it was our military goals at stake--and unwilling, even decades later, to acknowledge that our actions were morally wrong--we are in a poor position to tell them that they should.
You and I may not agree--after all, his goals are not ours. But much of the Muslim world clearly does. And they can point to us, and say--when it was your military and political goals at stake, you too did not hesitate to slaughter civilians.Initial reactions aren't particularly relevant. Three days simply is not enough time to absorb or respond to an enormity like the mass slaughter of a civilian population by a nuclear attack.
I received far more mistaken bounces--and virus-infected attachments--than original Sobig-sent copies
Well, certainly the events of 9/11 have confirmed the effectiveness of large-scale attacks directed at innocent civilian populations. Or was that what you had in mind?
I think Hiroshima and Nagasaki (along with similar, if non-nuclear attacks on Dresden and Tokyo) forever impaired our moral standing to oppose terrorism. It was worse than embarrassing watching our leaders trying to come up with a definition of terrorism that would not include Hiroshima ("Well, it's not terrorism if it's done in the context of a decleared war by a legitimate government authority." Uh, yeah. That sounds like a moral imperative to me).
Perhaps a demonstration wouldn't have worked. But it wasn't even tried (we would still have had a city-buster in reserve). We didn't even give them much time to absorb the lesson of Hiroshima before hitting Nagasaki.
After seeing "The Last Flight of the Osirus," on the Animatrix disk, I found myself wishing that all of the "matrix" scenes of "The Matrix" had been done with similar high-quality CG, with only the "real world" segments done in live action.
Heinlein's body of work is strong enough that an early work, even if substandard, will not detract from his reputation. At worst, it will be of historical interest, as readers will be able to see how an important writer's work changed as he matured.
Apparently, TiVo Inc., doesn't see a market for such high-end PVRs. But the secondary market has picked up the slack. Weakknees.com sells a 320 GB TiVo for $660 (but remember that it's another $300 for lifetime service; the article doesn't state whether Sony's prices include service). The one big advantage of the Sony unit over TiVo is that it provides a save-to-DVR option--but only if you link it to a Sony-brand computer.
Performance is more than music, however. For most artists, listening just to the audio part of their performance is a bit like going to a movie wearing a blindfold. Some artists perform much better in front of a live audience. And unless you have an extremely expensive stereo, you will not experience the dynamic range of a live performance (not to mention the fact that many CDs are clipped). And then there is the whole sound field thing, which audio engineers have been struggling to capture for many years--a difficult task because it involves the way omnidirectional sound interacts with the structure of your head and ears. If the live experience doesn't interest you, I suspect that it is because you haven't much experience with it..
With startling insights like that, it's no wonder that Microsoft is the games industry leader
I remember reading a science fiction book by Greg Egan ( Schild's Ladder ) in which the universe was in danger from a bubble of expanding space with a different geometry, created as a result of an unfortunate outcome of a physics experiment (although in that case the bubble was expanding at only c/2 so that the characters in the book at least could try to do something about it).
So we can use the word "theory" for a hypothesis that we know to be wrong, such as General Relativity, but not for one of the currently most popular models? Actually, model testing is going on constantly, because the first test of a theory is to determine whether it is able to accomodate what you already know to be true about the universe. Many models get disproved at this early stage of development. So far, string theory sounds like it is doing OK in that regard, although the current concern seems to be that it may have an excess of free parameters. Unfortunately, theories with a lot of free parameters are difficult to test, and often are of little practical value.
Oops; that should have been 60 days
One more: All identified software defects must be remedied within 60 months, or the user is entitled to a full refund.
I thought that Byrne owed very little to Kirby's style. Byrne's anatomy is realistic, and his perspective is meticulously accurate, as compared to Kirby's extreme exaggerations of both anatomy and perspective. I don't know Byrne's background, but I expect that he has had formal art training. Starlin's work is not as realistic as Byrne's, but I see very little in common with Kirby.
As an artist, Kirby was one of the great innovators. But as an influence, he was a disaster, because he convinced a whole generation of comic book artists that they didn't need to bother with things like anatomy or perspective. Kirby could ignore all of that stuff, but that was because he was a genius. When other artists tried to draw like Kirby, the result was always dreadful.
If you read the solo work of Jack Kirby (or worse, Steve Ditko), it is hard to doubt that Stan Lee had significant input. On the other hand, the "big ideas" of the Lee/Kirby collaborations have Kirby's stamp all over them.
All those graphic novels were comic books first.
Yeah, bring back the good days when comic book distribution was controlled by the Mafia, and there were no independent comic book publishers at all.
It is worth noting that Stan Lee's Marvel was the first US company to treat comic book artists as talents, by crediting them on stories. Of course, they still made them sign away virtually all rights in "work-for-hire" contracts. Still, by turning comic book creators into stars, Marvel ultimately improved their bargaining power.