Hiroshima

[Martyr]

[silent_brian13]

Originally Posted by Martyr

i spent two days in hiroshima. sad place. there are shadows of people on some buildings, they were burnt on there. plus alot of stuff is tagged with little signs about the amount of radiation still on them.

[Martyr]

The video mentions the shadow thing. Pretty mad stuff.

[silent_brian13]

Originally Posted by Martyr

The video mentions the shadow thing. Pretty mad stuff.

yea it is. at some museum they have a picture of a child melted onto his tricycle. traumatic.

[disslunker]

so incredibly fucked up.

[???]

i would be great if there was a trampoline that could safely catch a falling bomb, then bounce it back so it hits the plane that dropped it

[disslunker]

Originally Posted by ???

i would be great if there was a trampoline that could safely catch a falling bomb, then bounce it back so it hits the plane that dropped it

I could have sworn theres an ACME product like this, but the best i could find is:

http://home.nc.rr.com/tuco/looney/acme/bed.jpg
http://home.nc.rr.com/tuco/looney/acme/acmebed.jpg

[ravenguy2000]

tl;dw

[Mariner]

the day the end of the world began

[smurfing]

this was the united states' proudest moment. never again will we be so far ahead and so ready to put the pedal to the metal as we were then

[undersco_red]

what's funny is that the russians knew about the manhatten project before truman did.

so fucking horrible and fucked up though.

[Chuck=Zero]

A terrible tragedy in human history, but the other option, a full-scale island invasion, would've taken a much deadlier toll. Also, if it weren't for the bomb, Japan would've had to endure the democratic/communist split of their country as Germany did. The Soviets were just days away from starting their own invasion in northern Japan, a reason why the US was so quick to drop the second bomb on Nagasaki.

[???]

i'm just so glad that that one general stopped them from bombing kyoto. cause that was the original plan, yknow

[Luke de Spa]

Originally Posted by ???

i would be great if there was a trampoline that could safely catch a falling bomb, then bounce it back so it hits the plane that dropped it

the 2nd law of thermodynamics has defeated greater men, don't let it get you down

[sleeper]

Originally Posted by Chuck=Zero

A terrible tragedy in human history, but the other option, a full-scale island invasion, would've taken a much deadlier toll. Also, if it weren't for the bomb, Japan would've had to endure the democratic/communist split of their country as Germany did. The Soviets were just days away from starting their own invasion in northern Japan, a reason why the US was so quick to drop the second bomb on Nagasaki.

i think that first thing is just a false choice. it wasnt a choice between ending the war with the bomb or ending it with some bloody invasion. japan was being starved by the allied blockade and they had no capacity to resist. militarily, the war was over, it was just a question of ending it politically. japan intended to continue on fighting, but only to secure better peace terms (namely keeping the emperor, which the US refused for the longest time and ended up accepting anyways), and the US knew this from intercepted communications.

if they wanted to hasten the end, they shouldve dropped their demand for unconditional surrender and, at worst, just demonstrated the bomb in tokyo harbour. the bottom line is that it would take something enormous to justify vapourizing two entire cities, and that justification just wasnt there. the motivation for the US was totally political (in respects to the soviet union), which really doesnt justify shit. there was a "race" with the soviet union, yeah, but i dont think dropping those bombs was the only way of winning that.

[smurfing]

young men are human beings just the same as women and children. it's stupid to say blowing some 17 year old boy's face or limbs off is OK but bombing some village with women and kids in it is not. it's all hellish and the idea of a "clean" war is ridiculous, especially if youre paying with the lives of your countrymen to save the lives of the wives and children of your enemy, who after all share the sentiments of their husbands and sons.


and the japanese would have fought to the bitter end. why take even another american or british youth's life trying to put them down when we can just nuke a few of their cities and get the message across really quick. they started the damn war and they bombed us without warning on a sunday. it was never a gentleman's bout

[sleeper]

cant tell if youre trolling or actually this stupid. depressing that its probably both.

[smurfing]

stock reply to anything out of bounds /\

[sleeper]

its idiotic to both troll relentlessly and fault someone for not giving you a serious reply. maybe you are being serious (your loss) but theres zero reason to take your word on it. again, boy who cried wolf.

its also worth pointing out that when you have been serious, like with those threads you made on the politics board, your arguments have been quickly and humiliatingly dismantled. might be best to stick with trolling

[smurfing]

so far as i know i've only made one thread there and it was the only politicalish thing ive posted anyone ever replied to seriously because youre all so well versed in the patriotism VS dissent debate. the democratic party has prepped it's constituency enormously for the charge that undermining our military operations with protests or acts of congress is not in the country's best interest

[sleeper]

again: is this the kind of stuff mayfuck is referring to when he praises you for your brilliant trolling? because this reads like boring fucking stupidity to me

[sleeper]

mayfuck, if youre reading this, i dare you to justify your praise for alexs trolling. try to honestly argue why its funny/interesting/has any merit, because im not seeing it

[smurfing]

i never troll. mayfuck probably just thought i was so he wouldht have to wrap his brain around the boards most intelligent poster being a fcsit

[sleeper]

yes yes very clever response.

seriously, is that what passes for subversive wit these days? hipinion is rotting your fucking brain

[Martyr]

Originally Posted by sleeper

i think that first thing is just a false choice. it wasnt a choice between ending the war with the bomb or ending it with some bloody invasion. japan was being starved by the allied blockade and they had no capacity to resist. militarily, the war was over, it was just a question of ending it politically. japan intended to continue on fighting, but only to secure better peace terms (namely keeping the emperor, which the US refused for the longest time and ended up accepting anyways), and the US knew this from intercepted communications.

if they wanted to hasten the end, they shouldve dropped their demand for unconditional surrender and, at worst, just demonstrated the bomb in tokyo harbour. the bottom line is that it would take something enormous to justify vapourizing two entire cities, and that justification just wasnt there. the motivation for the US was totally political (in respects to the soviet union), which really doesnt justify shit. there was a "race" with the soviet union, yeah, but i dont think dropping those bombs was the only way of winning that.

great post

[Ihaman]

There was an interview with a survivor on APM the other day, it was amazing.

She described the airplane as the most beautiful thing she had ever seen...followed by the scariest thing she had ever seen.

It was a magnificent interview.

[TuralyonW3]

Originally Posted by sleeper

i think that first thing is just a false choice. it wasnt a choice between ending the war with the bomb or ending it with some bloody invasion. japan was being starved by the allied blockade and they had no capacity to resist. militarily, the war was over, it was just a question of ending it politically. japan intended to continue on fighting, but only to secure better peace terms (namely keeping the emperor, which the US refused for the longest time and ended up accepting anyways), and the US knew this from intercepted communications.

if they wanted to hasten the end, they shouldve dropped their demand for unconditional surrender and, at worst, just demonstrated the bomb in tokyo harbour. the bottom line is that it would take something enormous to justify vapourizing two entire cities, and that justification just wasnt there. the motivation for the US was totally political (in respects to the soviet union), which really doesnt justify shit. there was a "race" with the soviet union, yeah, but i dont think dropping those bombs was the only way of winning that.

the only thing with this is, why didn't Japan surrender after the first city was vaporized?

[Martyr]

Vaporized is such a great word in this context. It really hammers home the point.

[Nate the Grate]

I'm of the opinion that bombing Hiroshima was, unfortunately, the best way for the US to quickly end the war. After the bloodshed at Okinawa, coupled with the whole "Japanese honor" thing, we would have lost a ton of lives with another invasion.

[sleeper]

Originally Posted by TuralyonW3

the only thing with this is, why didn't Japan surrender after the first city was vaporized?

it actually wasnt so huge a deal as it seems to be in retrospect. it took a while for them to really even figure out what was going on (there was some distrust over the US's claim that it dropped an atomic bomb) and it was kind of thought of as secondary to the question of the soviet unions potential involvement. remember that this wasnt even the deadliest attack of the war for japan, the firebombing of tokyo killed more (not counting radiation deaths). their cities were being carpet bombed day after day. i remember reading this quote from curtis lemay or somebody that after such and such a number of months they would "run out of targets."

for a while there was a lot of internal debate in the emperors circle on not really whether to surrender but how. there were different factions with different ideas and that bomb did empower the more lenient side, but even they demanded that the emperor be kept. the bombs were important in the end but it was really the soviet entrance into the war that sealed the deal.