by ericmay | 2026-01-07 19:39:08+00:00
> This is not an argument for "civilization", so it's very hard to follow your point.

I don't know what you're talking about anymore with this. Can you elaborate?

> If you don't care what I think, why bother debating with me at all?

You keep replying.

> On the contrary, it does change the categorical debate because the original argument ("it also saved Japanese lives") depended on those numbers. You seem to want to argue about something unrelated to what I said?

If it saved Japanese lives that just makes it all the better, if it didn't, it doesn't matter. I think you're just not understanding the point. You're trying to make this calculation about how many lives equivalent to a moral choice made by the United States and Japan in the conduct of their war. I reject the calculation of the numbers of lives saved.

> On the contrary, it does change the categorical debate because the original argument ("it also saved Japanese lives") depended on those numbers. You seem to want to argue about something unrelated to what I said?

That's not convincing at all. If Japan had formally surrendered the United States would have not then, post-surrender gone and dropped an atomic bomb on a Japanese city. You're crazy if you think that is the case. There is no room for debate here and nothing you can say, including showing me letters, papers, whatever will change my mind. I'm close-minded to that idea.

> Puzzling strawman. Did I say this?

> I'm struggling to see the connection here. Was it because I mentioned the Bomb was also signalling to the Soviets? But that'd be true regardless.

Nope, not puzzling. It's just a common theme. It's always "question the United States actions", "talk about the United States", "the United States is bad and does bad things all the time" and saying things like the US would have dropped an atomic bomb on Japan after it formally surrendered is aligned with the same kinds of things people say about the Soviets or whatever. It's just the same playbook of anti-Americanism propaganda that serves just one purpose which is to make people in the United States (and honestly the west in general) want to withdraw from the world and let autocrats and their toads take over.

The common themes are:

US bad for dropping atomic bomb on Japan, all the calculations about lives saved are wrong
The US didn't do anything of consequence in Europe it was all the Soviets because they lost the most people, despite the fact that they started the damn war alongside Germany and are the bad guys too
The western front was only full of old Germans, if the rest of the allies had to face the real German army like the Soviets did they wouldn't have done XYZ

You hear this all the time on the Internet. It's just recycling of effective propaganda campaigns leveraged against the west. Soviets good, West worked with Nazis, West didn't do anything, bombing Japan to end the war is immoral, blah blah blah

> That's a very simplistic take, but I suspect you aren't interested in more nuanced takes.

Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. I'd encourage you to read up more on the Soviet - Nazi alliance. Both governments were evil. The Soviets got what they asked for by trusting the Nazis and invading and annexing another country. While there is undoubtedly nuance to that arrangement, at a high level the Communists and Nazis got together and decided to start partitioning Europe.

Rejecting this is like the whole "clean Wehrmacht" thing or how Rommel was a "good general" since he wasn't in Europe. No, both groups were just as bad as the Nazi regime they fought for.

> Also, "our soldier's lives are worth more" is an argument, but not one out of civilization, which is what we were debating. As in "dropping the Bomb was a civilized option because [...]".

You are implying that the Japanese were civilized at this time.

> I was just telling you how you sound when you say "our lives matter more..." as if everyone here was US American.

I know how I sound. Our soldiers lives do matter more than the lives of enemy soldiers. In the case of the war against Japan they mattered much more than Japanese lives, soldiers or otherwise. I know you think this is some sort of controversial thing to say, but this seems rather routine to me.