sailingbythelee @ sailingbythelee @lemmy.world

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9

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684

Joined

2 yr. ago

Sure, but that wasn't known at the time so it wasn't a relevant factor in the decision to drop the bombs.

You are incredibly naive. Total war between industrialized nations, as happened in WW2, is won or lost on industrial capacity. States literally need to cripple their enemy's ability and will to wage war, which means destroying industrial production, food production, access to safe water, and civil infrastructure. And that is why there should never be another great power war.

As for the USA's use of nuclear weapons in Japan, they weren't used to "win" the war. As you say, the Japanese were effectively beaten. Nukes were used to force an immediate surrender, saving millions of both American and Japanese lives.

Great post. I'll just quibble with one word. It took 20 years to re-learn what most of our ancestors knew well. It isn't enough to occupy a country. If you want to replace an ancient tribal culture, you have to remove that culture's elites, colonize and farm the land with your own citizens more or less permanently, put down any resistance violently, and then support the colony until it finally assimilates the existing population or is assimilated by it. All of the ancient empires did that when they could, Europe did it during the age of colonization where feasible. The Arabs did it during the Islamic conquest. China has done it throughout their long history. Russia is the largest country on Earth because it colonized all of the indigenous cultures from the Ural Mountains to the Pacific Ocean during the conquest of Siberia. The Soviet Empire tried to do it to Eastern Europe too with their Russification programs, but weren't able to stay long enough because the Soviet Empire was destroyed after only 45 years.

The US was never going to colonize Afghanistan. It was folly to believe that Afghanistan was going to adopt western values in a mere 20 years of occupation.

Okay, bud. I was just supporting the conversation with what I thought was interesting contextual info, partially in support of your point. But I guess you couldn't miss the opportunity to virtue signal. Good job.

According to StatsCan, there are about 237,000 speakers of all 70 indigenous languages combined in Canada. That number declined by 4.3% between 2016 and 2021. The most common indigenous language is Cree (86,000 speakers).

For comparison, there are 667,000 Punjabi speakers, a number that increased by 33% over the same time period. I wouldn't be surprised if that number is close to a million now, given how fast our population is growing.

Yes, I hear what you are saying about having kids for sure. I remember how my brain changed after having kids. I started to experience fear in way that I didn't before I had kids. Also, abstract notions of "right" and "wrong" are far less important to me than what will be beneficial, or at least not harmful, to my children. It simplifies certain issues. For example, I have daughters. Having daughters, I couldn't care less about abstract debates about when life begins or the morality of abortion or what's best for society as a whole. Fuck that. My much simplified perspective is now this: Any motherfucker that wants to infringe on women's rights in any way is my enemy. That's some primate dad logic right there, but it is what it is.

Very true. In his new book (which I've only heard except from so far), Fareed Zakaria argues that the left/right split as defined since WW2 is being re-defined and I think we can all see that. It used to be that the left had the "radical" ideas and the right supported the status quo. Now, the left (the Democrats or their equivalent in other countries, not what Lemmy considers the left) is the status quo and the right is adopting radical reactionary ideas to destroy the new status quo and return to the 1950s.

So, yes, I agree with you that if Millenials and Gen Z are not able to generate wealth for themselves, they will not support the status quo. Whether that rejection of the status quo will correspond to what we today call "left" and "right" is uncertain since there is a major shift underway right now as we speak.

Yes, that's true. In fact, I think they call the new stuff "New Country" to distinguish it from the Ye Olde Country music.

I'm quite sure "I'm Too Sexy" is intentionally silly and meant to be subversive of industries, including the music industry, that uses sex to sell stuff. The Macarena song is part of the dance genre, like the "Hokey-Pokey" song, in which the lyrics are just nonsense.

So true. Country music was basically a variety of folk music back in the day. Now it is a twangy variant of rock music that caters to angry right-wingers, in the same way that early rap catered to angry inner city youth.

That's an interesting hypothesis. I think of it more in terms of human development over the lifespan rather than an artifact of survival bias. In my opinion, the relationship between age and conservatism is mainly because of three reasons:

1. As you get older, you tend to accumulate more wealth, responsibility, children, etc. so you have more to lose than when you are younger, which means that you tend to value the system that protects what you have.
2. As you get older, you get weaker and slower and lose the physical confidence and recklessness of youth. That feels vulnerable, so you tend to worry more about things like violent crime and disorder. You start to value stability and order more.
3. When people are young, they tend to be more prone to simplistic and radical thinking, simply due to lack of life experience. This is both a strength and weakness. It makes youth passionate and energetic, but also more prone to believing that there are simple solutions to complex problems. I say that recognizing that nowadays most Trump supporters are older and are very much embracing Trump's simplistic solutions, but I think we all recognize that something very radical is happening on the right wing.

I note also that these are general trends across the lifespan, not deterministic or true for every individual.

That's what every generation says. Problem is that by the time a generation actually does step up to vote, they've become more conservative than when they were younger. Maybe it'll be different this time.

I'm looking forward to reading Fareed Zakaria's new book. He argues that we are at the beginning of a new age of revolutions.

You make a great point about Netanyahu. He's a terrible person. But he didn't start Hamas or write their charter for them, nor did he create the Iranian theocracy or force them to create and support terrorist proxy groups. Netanyahu is an opportunist. He took advantage of an existing situation and made it worse.

Also, unfortunately, there are plenty of people on Lemmy who do rationalize Hamas's actions as a justified "lashing out" by the victims. I don't buy that argument for a second. No society is entirely just and history certainly isn't fair, but that doesn't mean we should allow murder, rape, and torture as a response. The armchair revolutionaries on Lemmy disagree. What they don't realize is that most real revolutions look less like George Washington crossing the Potomac or Ukraine's Maidan revolution and more like Mao's Cultural Revolution.

In fact, you are describing what most of the IDF operation has been. The most dramatic video makes the news. But look at the numbers instead of the emotional propaganda.

2.3 million people in Gaza. Almost 5 months of modern war in one of the mostly densely packed places on earth. 32,500 Palestinian deaths, including Hamas militants since the Hamas government doesn't count civilians and militants separately. That is 1.4% of the population. It is obvious that the IDF isn't just mowing down civilians or bombing them indiscrimately. All deaths are bad, yes, but 1.4% deaths is hardly a program of indiscrimate civilian annihilation. Should it be fewer? Sure, I'll give you that. But do you have the expertise to judge whether 1.4% mortality is good or bad, given the mission to root out Hamas? What should it be, realistically? How the hell would a couple of keyboard warriors like us know? Most people are just reacting to the tragedy, not really thinking about the logistics of carrying out the IDF mission. And make no mistake: murderous groups like Hamas, ISIS, Hezbollah, the Taliban, the Houthis, and Iran are a menace to be destroyed. They are the enemy of civilization and have vowed to eradicate Israel and the Jews from the river to the sea. If the militants hide among the population, it will always cost civilian casualties to root them out. There could be fewer with even more restraint from the military, but collateral damage will never be zero as long as militants use human shields.

Totally agree. Let Haitians figure it out on their own with zero involvement from the West or any Western-funded entities. I'm sure Haiti will be fine just as soon as we back out.

I guess the civilians could out the militants themselves, no? Then the IDF could take out the militants with fewer civilian casualties.

It's easy to criticize from your armchair, but what is your solution to the ancient problem of militants who commit heinous acts and then hide among the civilian population? If you don't have a realistic alternative, then complaining about civilian casualties is just virtue signaling. Lots of people on here have obviously never had to make a hard call to accomplish a mission. The IDF is using conventional military and siege tactics, while Hamas is using human shields and terrorist tactics. Civilians lose either way. That's war. At the end of the day, however, I would rather see Israel win, not Hamas.

Also, when people say "but what about the children", it sounds just as disingenuous as when conservatives say it. You should remember that Hamas and their ilk are not your friends, nor are they liberal or progressive or Marxist. They are brainwashed religious zealots who would happily torture and kill you if they could.

Whatever. The point of the article is that Hamas committed many acts of rape and torture on Oct 7. You guys don't like that narrative so you are trying to draw me off topic by focusing on Israel's crimes and making a false equivalence between overzealous military tactics and rape-happy terrorists. These are the kind of people that Hamas recruits. Think about it. Hamas is the enemy of civilization, not your friendly neighbourhood Starbucks revolutionary.

You really went there? Ouch. Get help.

You mad, bro?

Nope. As I said in my other comment, cutting off aid to Gaza in order to starve out the militants hiding in the civilian population is a military operation that is at least plausibly justifiable. And I acknowledge the argument that Israel has taken it too far.

But what is your justification for raping people? What sort of military operation is that, exactly?