tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2182962435875556601.post569838302998973722..comments2023-09-24T08:04:06.909-04:00Comments on FSK's Guide to Reality: Is Jon Stewart a Wimp?FSKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11903396202330950362noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2182962435875556601.post-23513084174903699902009-08-14T18:38:34.391-04:002009-08-14T18:38:34.391-04:00"There are some ideas so wrong that only a ve..."There are some ideas so wrong that only a very intelligent person could believe in them." -George OrwellAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11009138953269257402noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2182962435875556601.post-41073360409064559562009-08-11T18:35:09.448-04:002009-08-11T18:35:09.448-04:00"Never apologize or explain. Your friends do..."Never apologize or explain. Your friends don't need it, and your enemies won't accept it anyway." -- Mark TwainMaster Doh-Sanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08253282508454605041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2182962435875556601.post-47453043739842823472009-08-11T17:42:28.821-04:002009-08-11T17:42:28.821-04:00On the other hand, you could make the case that dr...On the other hand, you could make the case that dropping the nuclear bomb was a better option than the other real alternative (real used in this case as "likely" and "realistic", when considering the government that was in power and government in general). The other alternative was a systematic carpet bombing of Japan, which would have resulted in even more deaths than the nuclear bomb had (and would have also led to a landing on the Japanese islands, which would have claimed hundreds of thousands of lives).<br /><br />I'm sure that accepting Japan's conditional surrender (if that is true: I don't doubt it, but neither do I endorse it, since my area of expertise is the European Theater, not the Pacific Theater) would have been a better option than the above two, but I think that the nuclear bomb was not the worst of all possibilities. It was certainly not the worst of the most likely routes the government would have taken without having the nuclear bomb at its disposal (or had Japan not agreed to surrender after the bombs were dropped).<br /><br />I guess you could make a case against the above argument by claiming that the nuclear bombs did not ultimately impact the Japanese enough to catalyze the surrender. The surrender came due to other reasons. I have read this, although I don't know too much about it (or have forgotten why). And so, ultimately, a possible rejection of the above defense of the use of nuclear bombs was that they were eventually ineffective.Jonathan Finegold Catalánhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16710256011291680376noreply@blogger.com