this needs to be one of the highest rated comments squarely due to how much luck (or gruelling prep) is involved in effectively memorizing answers, i.e. the issue with technical interviews to begin with.
The problem is that there exist first-hand and second-hand (i.e. MAGIC intercepts) primary sources for decisions from both sides in the summer of 1945 (https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB162/) and they don't really support the theory. (It's possible you could find some reasoning to support the "impress the Soviets" part, but to make that the primary motive would be to ignore the majority.)
Also, keep in mind that Halsey had a bit of a problem with Nimitz and much of the Navy, particularly over the matter of two typhoons and Leyte Gulf, so he may not be entirely unbiased.
There are very few defensible historical positions that seem to rile up unreasonable criticism more than saying the use of atomic weapons on Japan might not have been justified, usually in the form of uneducated meme responses such as "they would never have surrendered" and "it's easy to say that now."
Given that we have evidence that many of those who were there at the time disagreed with the decision and that Japan had already been trying to work towards peace through back-channels, these responses seem to point to a deep need to feel like the United States didn't unjustifiably kill over 100k civilians.
There is little question that the bombings were a better strategic choice than Operation Downfall, which would likely have killed more on both sides, but to paint this as the only alternative is a false dilemma. There is even debate among (prominent, non-revisionist) historians and political scientists as to whether the bombings were the primary reason for the surrender -- contemporary letters from within Japan indicate that the Soviet invasion of Manchuria may have actually been the primary factor (though the bombings certainly played some part, and were a larger factor in arguments made by some particular officials).
I would argue the opposite; criticism of the use of atomic weapons on Japan tends to ramp up during periods of increasing skepticism toward American power (e.g., now). Unfortunately, that criticism is rarely rooted in credible historical argument. I wouldn't say you're arguing from a "uneducated meme response," but I would say that the position that you're taking is the symptom of a post-Vietnam/Watergate narrative regarding CIA conspiracies, the legitimacy of war, and the trustworthiness of American authority. It is, however, not a terribly useful way to approach the context of 1945.
While it is possible to find negative quotes from various individuals, such as the aforementioned Halsey, the question is really whether the people involved in the decision were making it in 'good faith' (i.e. out of the perceived necessity of ending the war on rational terms, and not diplomatic stick-shaking or the need to show off one's latest toys). Overwhelmingly, the primary sources argue that they were, and that the most salient concern was ensuring an unconditional surrender to avoid the mistakes made after the last war, in which the sociopolitical structures that enabled militarism were left intact. The "peace" that Japan was offering would have left its extremely dysfunctional political structures intact, and so was considered unacceptable.
The number of dead, and manner of their death, must also be seen in the context of the time. It doesn't really matter what we believe about the morality of targeting civilians in 2021; by 1945, that particular Rubicon had been crossed years before, and not just by the Allies. The Japanese Army committed atrocities on such a scale as to poison attitudes about the country to this very day; there is a good reason that people in China or the Philippines may roll their eyes when reading about poor Sadako and her thousand paper cranes (a story popularized by a 1977 Canadian novel).
I write this not to minimize any healthy sense of horror or responsibility, but to point out that "it's easy to say that now" is not merely a meme, but in this case responsible historical practice.
It is entirely possible that the decision to drop the bomb was made in good faith, but that the Japanese were already committed to surrender. The fog of war is very real (as this month has reminded us).
In context, the Hiroshima bombing wasn't the most deadly or the most destructive bombing of the war. The Tokyo firebombing takes that honor. Given that the US Army was in the habit of wiping cities off the map at will BEFORE Hiroshima, I wonder how much of an influence the bomb really could have had in 3 days...
The other side of it is that American history really undervalues the soviet contribution to the war. The US conventional story fully ignores that the Soviet invasion of Manchuria was cited by Japanese leadership as one of the reasons for full acceptance of the Potsdam declaration.
I don't disagree with what you are saying, but the conventional narrative that nuking two cities was the ONLY way to end the war really seems like an oversimplification of a very complex situation.
As you mention "total war" was already fully accepted, but I wish that that the complexity of the full situation was taught
My sticking point with that would be the point about the Japanese having "committed to surrender" prior to the bombs being dropped, which can't really be argued convincingly. The dysfunctional Japanese military hierarchy had trouble committing to anything short of aggressive militarism, which was a major reason for the war being launched in the first place, then continued despite the obvious hopelessness of the Japanese position. Even after the Emperor had officially ordered surrender (via a radio address, in which he explicitly mentioned the influence of the atomic bombs), a group of Japanese officers attempted to depose him in a coup—and this was far from an unprecedented event in a political environment that often punished any public position short of fanatical hawkishness with assassination.
To argue that the atomic bombs were not decisive requires ignoring a lot of primary source evidence—including the declaration of surrender read by the Emperor to the Japanese people—in favor of mostly conspiratorial innuendo that is only convincing to those already inclined to be skeptical of contemporary American power structures. Beyond that, the argument seems to assume an omniscience on the part of Allied leaders. What was known at the time was that Japanese soldiers were often fighting to the last man, holding hopeless positions for the purpose of causing as many casualties to the enemy as possible, and that because of this American political will to continue the war was wavering, putting the goal of victory by unconditional surrender in doubt. In that context it was deemed necessary to end the war as quickly as possible.
I don't think that anyone would argue that dropping the atomic bombs was the only way to end the war. Alternatives were considered—but it was thought that those alternatives would result in an unsatisfactory postwar settlement, and simply repeat mistakes made in the aftermath of the last great war. In short, if the last years of the war were conducted with great brutality, it was because they were intended to be decisive.
(I don't disagree with you that a lot of popular Western histories undervalue contributions by the Soviet Union, but that largely applies to the war against Germany and its European allies, not the war in the Pacific. The Soviet invasion of Manchuria, for example, was probably a contributing factor to the collapse of support for the war, but far from a decisive one.)
If arguing that the atomic bombs were not decisive is conspiratorial, then a lot of respected, mainstream subject matter experts are conspiracy theorists.
EDIT: For some reason I can't reply to the child comment, so I'll address it here. I'm not talking about pundits. I'm talking about historians and political scientists, arguing compellingly from evidence. This case is drastically overstated, and mainstream, pro-military sources have been on both sides of the debate since the beginning (including the US Strategic Bombing Survey, which affirmed the usefulness of most other US bombing plans, and yet found that "Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts, and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey's opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated."). The anti-bomb side also includes such obscure (/s) academic figures as Robert Pape, Gar Alperovitz, and Stephen Peter Rosen (certainly no anti-war/anti-government figure), as well as military contemporaries such as Douglas MacArthur, Chester Nimitz, William Leahy, William Halsey, Curtis LeMay, and Dwight Eisenhower.
The suggestion that this position is fringe or conspiracy-esque is simply not tenable.
I'll put it this way: in popular culture, the controversy over the use of atomic weapons by America goes beyond purely what can be proved, and has instead become a proxy war for other contemporary political issues. (This is not a new phenomenon, and the history of Hiroshima discourse is a fascinating subject in itself.) You will no doubt find some 'mainstream' pundits—even NY Times op-ed authors—willing to carry water for the notion that the use of the atomic bomb was unnecessary, and furthermore known to be unnecessary by the principals at the time.
The evidence, however, does not support it.
EDIT:
To respond to your edit, statements of opinion made by American military figures after the war are not considered convincing. A lot of our war scholarship used to be based on statements made by participants after the war, but we have become increasingly skeptical of this approach, for good reason. For example, our narrative about the German invasion of the Soviet Union used to be largely based on the postwar testimonies of Nazi generals. However new examination of primary sources—i.e. records, receipts, transcripts of meetings (some of which were previously buried in Soviet archives)—have shown that their testimonies were often extremely inaccurate, misleading, self-serving, or else calculated to produce a political effect in a Cold War context.
For the same reason, what figures like Halsey—and particularly Douglas MacArthur, an unreliable narrator worthy of "Pale Fire"—have to say about whether the atomic bombs were decisive should provoke skepticism at best. And this is not just because they were political figures and seasoned inter-service warriors, jockeying for position in a postwar hierarchy, but because they weren't there. The best way to determine whether the bomb was decisive is to examine primary sources, both in the American and Japanese context, some of which have been posted elsewhere in this thread.
By examining those sources you cannot really make the case that the bomb was not decisive, nor can you claim that the decision to use the bomb was primarily motivated by factors other than the urgent need to end the war quickly. While some people may indeed make that argument, they are relying on questionable postwar statements of opinion, with no convincing evidence to support them.
Because it's been debunked over and over and over. It's just not supported by historical evidence, even by Japanese historians interviewing surviving Japanese officials. Somebody else has recommended in this thread but I will as well: "Japan's Longest Day" makes for fascinating reading.
The reality is that there was a peace faction in the Japanese government who did want to surrender but the ultranationalistic Japanese military was quite firmly in control and was very much _not_ interested in surrendering, even at the cost of millions of Japanese military and civilian casualties involved in continuing the war. (It's worth remembering that the Allied aerial firebombing campaigns had already devastated every other major city in Japan and caused far more civilian casualties than both atomic bombs did; both the Japanese and Allied militaries accepted this as part of the toll of war.) The aim (and preference of all factions) would have been a peace treaty that let Japan keep its ill-gotten gains in Asia. It took an unprecedented direct order from the Emperor to initiate the surrender, over the objections of the military. Even the high level overview provided by the Wikipedia article has excerpts like "[On August 9,] The cabinet meeting adjourned at 17:30 with no consensus. A second meeting lasting from 18:00 to 22:00 also ended with no consensus. ... The cabinet debated, but again no consensus emerged." and "As August 14 dawned, Suzuki, Kido, and the Emperor realized the day would end with either an acceptance of the American terms or a military coup." that directly contradict the idea that Japan was eager to surrender.
And beyond that, at the last minute, a coup attempt was made by fanatics willing to defy even the Emperor in an attempt to prevent the surrender proclamation from being broadcast (the Kyuujou incident).
Does any of this sound like a Japan that was eager to surrender? No, and that's why war historians generally deride this theory, quotes from Halsey, Eisenhower, etc. notwithstanding. Even just reading the Wikipedia article would make this clear: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrender_of_Japan
Because anyone who knows the actual history, knows that's bullshit and OP could have just looked up the facts instead of making up something.
Japan was going to fight to the last man/woman/child. They were going to have seniors and children fight with sticks. The Pacific theater was already one of the bloodiest battle fronts in the war and the US was battle weary and didn't want to expend another 500,000 Americans to invade Japan. They dropped nukes to avoid another extended and unbelievably bloody conflict.
Go listen to the Hardcore History podcasts "Supernova in the East" and it'll make it much more clear.
I don't think it's bullshit. I think Navy Admiral William F. Halsey did say those things.
"The first atomic bomb was an unnecessary experiment. . . . It was a mistake to ever drop it. . . . [the scientists] had this toy and they wanted to try it out, so they dropped it. . . . It killed a lot of Japs, but the Japs had put out a lot of peace feelers through Russia long before."[1]
Those are the facts... GP made nothing up.
OTOH - the Cold War should be ample evidence of the West's distrust of Stalin and USSR generally. I think it's entirely plausible the motivation to drop the bomb included Soviet deterrence.
I made a post about this above, but the difference between a negotiated peace and an unconditional surrender is rather crucial. The Japanese were willing to seek the former but found the latter politically unacceptable until sufficient pressure was applied.
It's not ineffective in all situations. A single soldier, isolated from his group, fighting 10 seniors or children simultaneously, is not going to do well. Plenty of people are killed in the Middle-East from rock throwing.
It's not an implausible hypothesis that an invasion of Japan would have been a larger, and proportionally bloodier, version of the takings of Iwo Jima and Okinawa, two very bloody battles.
Because there is a lot of evidence that it wasn’t the case and that we knew it wasn’t the case.
The most damning evidence against it being necessary is that the Japanese were actively trying to get the Soviets to help them negotiate peace in the weeks leading up to the bombing. The soviets played them, and didn’t carry the message since they were secretly in the process of staging an invasion against Japan in Manchuria, an event that the Japanese knew would be fatal to their war. It’s worth noting that Hirohito did not order the surrender of Japan after hearing of Hiroshima, but after hearing of the Soviet declaration of war and invasion of Manchuria, which happened a few hours before Nagasaki.
Much of the reluctance to surrender was around guaranteeing that Hirohito could remain. A concession that we granted in the end.
Also keep in mind that the nuclear attacks weren’t even the most destructive aerial attacks that the US possessed. The firebombing of Tokyo did more damage to a wider area and killed more people. In fact, Hiroshima was the 6th most destructive bombing raid as far as land area destroyed goes. American forces wiped dozens of cities off the map using conventional attacks before Hiroshima.
Before August 6 the Japanese politicians were more than aware that the war was lost, and that surrender was necessary. There is a lot of the historical record that shows this.
There is also a lot of records that the bombing was as much a demonstration of power to Stalin as anything else.
Many of the justifications that we see know don’t appear in the written record until after 1945. You are welcome to do the research.
Most serious historians of the time acknowledge that the bombings might have shortened the war, but the effect was minimal. On the order of a few days or weeks at best.
Most of this is not disputed fact. The interpretation is certainly debatable, but we hide the complexity of the situation by perpetuating the story that it was either nuclear bombings or an invasion that would have killed millions.
This is a pretty extreme failure of me to remember Poe's law, im very sorry. I just thought the reasons people find it hard to believe are extremely obvious, considering the almost existential death and destruction these bombs caused. Like, I truly can't imagine defending it in whatever way.
that said, I do really appreciate this history, and while I firmly believe that we dont even need of these reasons to assert the moral human failure of the act, knowing them makes it even more disgusting.
The interesting part is that there are a lot of people in this comment section that are 100% convinced that the nuclear option was the only one. Your extreme take is a pretty standard one in the US…
Affinity Photo has already been my go to for performance reasons (how is it so usable and snappy on an old iPad???). exciting to see it get faster yet.
That's already been established. Many cases are asymptomatic or present mild symptoms that won't motivate the ill to seek out a test. Testing by country, state (province, etc.), and even region varies wildly.
right, i'm not making a new claim. i'm saying, that's one of the few conclusions we can draw from this data. it doesn't say anything about e.g. catching covid at the hospital, whether existing data on health consequences and mortality is less relevant, or that "covid is mild / just a flu" as some people seem to be concluding.
This was apparent last year from serologic antibody testing. The prevalence of antibodies was anywhere between 2-10x what we were finding in the tests, which made it pretty obvious that way more people had mild COVID than is being reported. Unfortunately, if someone picks up a runny nose and mild cold-like symptoms and then recovers, it doesn't make the news. But if you have a one-in-a-million freak case where a 25 year old ends up in the hospital testing positive, it gets plastered on every news publication and is repeated ad-nauseam even though it is a misrepresentation.
Well, yeah, but we knew that already. The UK has been monitoring the actual number of people infected with Covid via random sampling of the population for well over a year and it's always been rather higher than the detected cases, despite having a lot more mass testing than other countries.
> sitting in the back seat, with nothing to do but continually recalculating if / how long your nest egg will last
this problem doesn't exist if you correctly math out your existence to guarantee survival. having the ability to choose how to spend your time is the definition of agency.
You missed my point. Said another way, "mathing out correctly your existence to guarantee survival" generates a type stress no one warns you about. Consider yourself now warned. Twice.
why should we compete? what does "victory" amount to? i'd gladly give up winning in favour of some form of survival guarantee and freedom to choose work rather than require it for survival.
You're thinking of this from the wrong point of view. This is about evolution and dominance. A culture in which work is highly valued (even so far as at the expense of the individual) will expand and squeeze out other cultures. The same way a successful gene will reproduce and take over.
Two excellent books that delve into this area are "Stumbling on Happiness" and "Sapiens".
i think "evolution" is not some purely natural process that plays out separately from how we think. e.g. forming societies where we support and elevate each other instead of competing is also a potential evolutionary future. societies where whatever means are necessary _results_ in an evolutionary advantage will "win", not those who necessarily work harder. capitalism-driven competition is just gamification of exploitation and doesn't inherently lead to an evolutionary advantage. it's just one of many ways to get there.
This is actually a pretty important thing to understand. It can be better to rewrite than fix an existing mess. It’s similar to construction work in that sense: if you rebuild, you know what’s inside the walls.
That's why this copilot won't fly. The junior programmer will not be able to spot subtle errors but will kind-of feel "productive" by some random pastes from a giant brain, which cannot be interrogated.
If anything, I see copilot generating more work for existing, senior programmers - so there you have it.
Is that your main argument against Stack Overflow? Because for some percentage of people the use cases will be similar (that is, learning some quick ways to do something that they can then explore and learn about).
Sometimes resources like these are used as references and the solution is used as is. Sometimes they are used as a survey, and it's more like asking a librarian "I want to learn more about how to X" and having them give a short exposition and point out some sources to study. It's important not to let you view of it's usefulness as one type of resource bleed into your view of how useful it might be for the other.
When one gets snippets from Stack Overflow, he/she doesn't assume it is tailored specifically for the task, so extra check, modification are applied. With copilot people (eventually, especially beginners probably) will assume that the code produced by "magic" AI does exactly what they asked for.
Funnily this problem seems trivial when you have good test coverage for your code. Especially trivial compared to the insane amount of help you could get in writing boilerplate and simple logic from a magical tool like this, if it delivers on its promises.
Plus if you use this for anything non-trivial, it's functionally similar to using a third-party dependency, except the licensing terms are vague and there's no one to ask for help.
I could see it being useful maybe for testing. Even if it straight up copies code from the Linux kernel, you don't usually ship tests to customers so the GPL (probably) isn't a problem.
But the problem with testing is that you need to be 100% sure about how it behaves, and an AI generated test might not be reliable enough to be useful.
i'd argue the danger is even greater with tests bc the entire point of tests is to provide certainty. wrong tests are a false sense of safety that's unquantifiable without understanding every single line.
Yeah. I don't see them either. There are probably very well-organized people out there with a crack habit. The ones I see are the dead-eyed fuckups on the street spreading misery to themselves and their surroundings.
But it cuts both ways. There's a phrase "high-functioning alcoholic", meaning someone who still holds down a job, wears respectable clothes and all that. I grew up with a drunk: "high-functioning alcoholic" just means the worms are well concealed inside the can.
