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Hiroshima's complex legacy re-examined

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So how large and detailed of a section in his book? What did he research with? While obvious difference between a mere student and a researcher, there is also a difference among researchers themselves. In any case, it is difficult to track progress of secret government programs. Think you or he can acurately track progress of various things in the US government?
 
NotMSRP said:
So how large and detailed of a section in his book? What did he research with? While obvious difference between a mere student and a researcher, there is also a difference among researchers themselves. In any case, it is difficult to track progress of secret government programs. Think you or he can acurately track progress of various things in the US government?

Nice effort at sidestepping. If it is "difficult to track progress of secret government programs", then how can your professor make the claim that Japan was mere days from a working atomic bomb?

If "I", or "he" cannot accurately track progress of various things in the US government (WTF that has to do with this discussion is quite beyond me), then how was your professor able to so accurately determine the progress of Japan's nuclear program, which has escaped the notice of the majority of WWII historians?

I'm providing evidence. Links.

You're hiding behind the words of your professor. Which you cannot provide evidence for.
 
Boogie said:
Nice effort at sidestepping. If it is "difficult to track progress of secret government programs", then how can your professor make the claim that Japan was mere days from a working atomic bomb?

If "I", or "he" cannot accurately track progress of various things in the US government (WTF that has to do with this discussion is quite beyond me), then how was your professor able to so accurately determine the progress of Japan's nuclear program, which has escaped the notice of the majority of WWII historians?

I'm providing evidence. Links.

You're hiding behind the words of your professor. Which you cannot provide evidence for.

Any professor that teaches his students that Japan was "days" away from having an atomic bomb when they were bombed obviously has some kind of agenda and must revise history to his students to back up the agenda he's trying to forward.
 
ManaByte said:
Also, after the war many many documents were discovered that show that Germany was also trying to develop the Atomic bomb as well as Hitler's designs on invading the US. There have been some great documentaries on the History Channel about how it really was a race against time because if Germany managed to develop the bomb first and use it the results would've been unimaginably worse.

What does any of this have to do with the use of the bomb on Japan? The war in Europe was over months before the bombs were dropped on Japan. You yourself laughed at the idea that the Japanese were close to developing a bomb.
 
Having a Ph.D doesn't make one always right on everything. It just provides more credibility to that person in that subject field than the words of a person with less expertise in that same subject field. Also active, expierenced researchers > newly graduated Ph.D students. Same thing. Boll does films contrary to his PhD degree.

Of course, I am hiding behind him since I myself am not a historian. If he is wrong, then he is wrong. But he did say about Japan's a-bomb development, and I can tell if a professor has a hidden agenda and he clearly has none.
 
ManaByte said:
Any professor that teaches his students that Japan was "days" away from having an atomic bomb when they were bombed obviously has some kind of agenda and must revise history to his students to back up the agenda he's trying to forward.

That's my suspicion as well.
 
NotMSRP said:
Having a Ph.D doesn't make one always right on everything. It just provides more credibility to that person in that subject field than the words of a person with less expertise in that same subject field. Also active, expierenced researchers > newly graduated Ph.D students. Same thing. Boll does films contrary to his PhD degree.

What the hell does this have to do with anything? How the hell does this help your argument?

"Having a Ph.D doesn't make one always right on everything" <-- But YOU'RE the one hiding behind your professor's oh-so-prestigious degree.

"Also active, expierenced researchers > newly graduated Ph.D students."

Yeah, and I would think that someone who publishes a book called WHY THE ALLIES WON has done extensive reasearch into the Second World War.

Good grief, what are you even arguing anymore?
 
Response to Manabyte.

The point is if I were to believe between you or my professor, I choose my professor. There's no denying that Japan has an a-bomb program going on. The question is the "progress" of such a program. And you should know that it is common for there to be disagreements on what happened in history between historians. The textbook for the class even has portions devoted to "where historians disagree".
 
ManaByte said:
Uwe Boll has a Ph.D

Does that mean he's always right?
1. It's a Ph.D in literature.
2. This subject of discussion is in history professor's field. Uwe Boll might know a thing or two about literature, but that's not the same as being "always right".

Groder Mullet said:
Would you have preferred we invaded, causing 10x the casualties?
You know, the US had other options other than invasion?

Deku said:
War is war.
What are you saying? War was war when the rape of Nanjing occured. War was war when Phnom Penh's citizens emptied out to the countryside. The past dictates a large part of the present.
 
NotMSRP said:
Response to Manabyte.

The point is if I were to believe between you or my professor, I choose my professor. There's no denying that Japan has an a-bomb program going on. The question is the "progress" of such a program. And you should know that it is common for there to be disagreements on what happened in history between historians. The textbook for the class even has portions devoted to "where historians disagree".

Which is one of the problems I think exist in some colleges. People aren't being taught history, they're being taught their professor's version of said events to fit whatever bias or agenda the the professor may have. This doesn't exist in all colleges, naturally, but it obviously does in yours.

"The point is if I were to believe between you or my professor, I choose my professor."

That almost sounds like brainwashing, especially in the case where someone is obviously living in his own dreamworld where Japan was "days" away from having a functioning atomic bomb when Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed. Especially when all the evidence (again, look at Boogie's posts where he actually provides links as proof) shows that the Axis countries were a bit farther out from having a bomb than the Allies were.
 
NotMSRP: PM me the name of your professor and the uni he instructs at. I would like to email him inquiring about his thoughts on the Japanese development of an atomic device.
 
Matlock said:
NotMSRP: PM me the name of your professor and the uni he instructs at. I would like to email him inquiring about his thoughts on the Japanese development of an atomic device.

PM? Naw, put it here. I'm becoming interested in the work of this prestigious professor myself.
 
How does he have an agenda? He gave a lecture on what historians argue for and against the dropping of the bomb.

Of course, if I really cared I would have asked a panel of history professors and not just one professor and do massive research just like them.

I am not sure if I want to publicly advertise his email address. Why not email several professors in the meantime while I figure out if I can disclose his email address out to you.

While it was initally fun to think about counterfactuals, this thread is sinking. Shame on you Boogie.
 
NotMSRP said:
How does he have an agenda? He gave a lecture on what historians argue for and against the dropping of the bomb.

Of course, if I really cared I would have asked a panel of history professors and not just one professor and do massive research just like them.

While it was initally fun to think about counterfactuals, this thread is sinking. Shame on you Boogie.

Shame on me?! F*ck you. I'm the one who's been trying to debate the facts here, while you've been nothing but evasive.

edit: just give his name then :P
 
I asked about the relevant parts of the book in a previous post and you evaded.

Debate? I know you are a history major and I am not. But it is common sense to take word from a higher history bluff than you. There is a possibily of him being wrong, but there is no need for him to fabricate this just to push forth an propagandist agenda. Between words of Boogie and a uni professor is an obvious choice; words between professors will provide more difficulty.
 
NotMSRP said:
How does he have an agenda? He gave a lecture on what historians argue for and against the dropping of the bomb.

See, the thing is this isn't like arguing the age of the Great Pyramids or something that old. WWII is extremely well documented; especially the dates things happened. Hell, it was sixty years ago. We have extremely well documented history for events 200 years old. Using the age Pyramids as an example again, there isn't such perfect documentation for history that ancient and as such there are many disagreements on dates (with 2580 BC naturally being the commonly accepted year).

Arguing for and against the bomb is fine, but saying Japan was days away from having an A-Bomb as one of the reasons to argue for or against it is not as that is just made up.

Boogie said:
Shame on me?! F*ck you. I'm the one who's been trying to debate the facts here, while you've been nothing but evasive.

Ding!
 
NotMSRP said:
I asked about the relevant parts of the book in a previous post and you evaded.

Those were releveant questions? What the hell was the point of those questions? Are you trying to discredit the author? I gave a fucking link that had a profile on him. I don't have the book in front of me right now, how can I tell you how long the section was, or what the methods were.

Did you even click on the link about the author I provided?

I have provided specific information, and you have provided none. That is the bottom line.

Debate? I know you are a history major and I am not. But it is common sense to take word from a higher history bluff than you. There is a possibily of him being wrong, but there is no need for him to fabricate this just to push forth an propagandist agenda. Between words of Boogie and a uni professor is an obvious choice; words between professors and I'll be more cynical.

GOD-FUCKING-DAMMIT! I'm referencing sources here! I'd be willing to bet hard currency that Richard-FUCKING-Overy is more an expert on the Second World War than your professor, but you keep making this into some retarded Boogie Versus My History Professor competition. But it's not.

It's Boogie versus NotMSRP, and between them, I think that is also an obvious choice.
 
ronito said:
Necessary evil? Indeed. I believed that too, when I was in grade school. Hmmm...we drop the bomb just 3 days after Russia starts their invasion? We were afraid they'd get a foothold in Japan and the war would finish before we could use it. Let's bomb everything you love and then see if you still say it's a necessary evil.

Are the 2 atomic bombs really that much more harrowing and a step up from:

"Following on that success 334 B-29s raided on the night of March 9&#8211;10, dropping around 1,700 tons of bombs. Around 16 square miles (41 km²) of the city was destroyed and over 100,000 people are estimated to have died in the fire storm. The destruction and damage was at its worst in the city sections east of the Imperial Palace. It was the most destructive conventional raid of the war against Japan. In the following two weeks there were almost 1,600 further sorties against the four cities, destroying 31 square miles (80 km²) in total at a cost of only 22 aircraft. There was a third raid on Tokyo on May 26."

I think not.
 
Certainly relevant. I wanted to know the amount and detail of information in the book and the sources he collected to come to his conclusions. There is a difference in conclusions and difference in researching can lead to different conclusions. Also cause you're using it as your primary source and somehow I am suppose to just take it in and override the conflicting viewpoint of another person. What is wrong with questioning sources? Isn't this what historians should do? Scrutize all materials before concluding something?

Of course, Boogie > NotMSRP, any professor > Boogie, and professor A >?< professor B.

Look there is no way to verify this to 110% certainty unless we have a time machine. Just because it is a "well-documented" period does not mean there are no holes or gaps anywhere. It is impossible to record every single second and every portion of humanity's actions. I took the logical choice of siding with my professor cause there is a higher probability of being on the right side. If it is between professors, then it is not so clear cut.
 
NotMSRP said:
Certainly relevant. I wanted to know the amount and detail of information in the book and the sources he collected to come to his conclusions. There is a difference in conclusions and difference in researching can lead to different conclusions. Also cause you're using it as your primary source and somehow I am suppose to just take it in and override the conflicting viewpoint of another person. What is wrong with questioning sources? Isn't this what historians should do? Scrutize all materials before concluding something?

:lol

Then why are you not releasing your professors name? All you've said here is "my professor said so", so "somehow I am suppose(sic) to just take it in and overide the conflicting viewpoint of another person." :lol You just blew your own position out of the water with that one, you idiot.



Look there is no way to verify this to 110% certainty unless we have a time machine. Just because it is a "well-documented" period does not mean there are no holes or gaps anywhere. It is impossible to record every single second and every portion of humanity's actions.

Thanks for that lesson in reality. Maybe you and Animal should team up to teach me lessons :lol

I took the logical choice of siding with my professor cause there is a higher probability of being on the right side.

:lol Yeah, because you've proven that here sooo well. :lol
 
ManaByte said:
Also, after the war many many documents were discovered that show that Germany was also trying to develop the Atomic bomb as well as Hitler's designs on invading the US. There have been some great documentaries on the History Channel about how it really was a race against time because if Germany managed to develop the bomb first and use it the results would've been unimaginably worse.


We're lucky Hitler put the nuclear development program in germany on hold. They'd have had the bomb by 1943 if Hitler had listened to his advisors and let the program continue at its current pace.

A lot of people have NO IDEA how lucky we are that hitler lost the war. He had everything going for him. EVERYTHING. Until he decided to invade Stalingrad (and even then, they welcomed him until he started rounding up the jews and other minorities of the town for the concentration camps. Only then did the people of stalingrad rebel. Before that, they threw hitler a damn welcoming parade.) and shift his offensive focus from Britain to Russia.
 
GaimeGuy said:
(and even then, they welcomed him until he started rounding up the jews and other minorities of the town for the concentration camps. Only then did the people of stalingrad rebel. Before that, they threw hitler a damn welcoming parade.)

err, wrong. :)

edit: But on the larger point, you are correct, but I would not call it "luck". Again, I recommend Why the Allies Won. Great book.
 
Because not all professors want their emails freely publicized? Heard of privacy? Some only want a restricted audience. I did suggest you emailing other professors with public email addresses in the meantime. I will ask him about this on Monday.
 
NotMSRP said:
Because not all professors want their emails freely publicized? Heard of privacy? Some only want a restricted audience. I did suggest you emailing other professors with public email addresses in the meantime. I will ask him about this on Monday.

I said nothing about e-mail addresses. I have no interest in harrassing him by e-mail. I asked for his name.
 
Boogie said:
err, wrong. :)

edit: But on the larger point, you are correct, but I would not call it "luck". Again, I recommend Why the Allies Won. Great book.
Hmm, well, I'm speaking from what my 10th grade US History teacher told us (and what was written in our textbooks, as well). So if it's wrong, bleh. I blame the material. :lol

Actually, now that I think about it, I don't remember the book or my teacher saying anything about them giving hitler himself a parade. However, I do recall mentioning of the Russian citizens' fear of Stalin, and that many of them were optimistic towards the idea of being invaded and having Stalin overthrown.
 
GaimeGuy said:
Hmm, well, I'm speaking from what my 10th grade US History teacher told us (and what was written in our textbooks, as well). So if it's wrong, bleh. I blame the material. :lol

A great account of the Battle of Stalingrad is Enemy at the Gates by William Craig.

Stalingrad is also covered in Why the Allies Won.
 
NotMSRP said:
Look there is no way to verify this to 110% certainty unless we have a time machine. Just because it is a "well-documented" period does not mean there are no holes or gaps anywhere. It is impossible to record every single second and every portion of humanity's actions. I took the logical choice of siding with my professor cause there is a higher probability of being on the right side. If it is between professors, then it is not so clear cut.

I'm sorry but you need to think critically for yourself and not merely rely on what a person with status says. You're not in elementary school anymore, your teacher isn't always right and you should be actively challenging what you're taught.

I'm not here to smear all professors because some of them are truly great teachers and they truly give you all sides of a debate even if they have a bias. These professors usually actually tell their students what their bias is and then supplement it by teaching the entire subject, not selective texts.

But as ManaByte has pointed out, there are plenty of shoddy academics teaching on campus with a bias. Many of them skew courses to fit their biases and students who disagree will never do well.

While controversial, and I don't agree with their politics all the time websites like Campus-Watch.org does allude to the fact that professors do and say insane things. And yeah, they are human and can make mistakes.

I've had good and bad professors, and it's easy to tell where a prof falls under after the first few weeks. Usually, profs teaching highly subjective subjects like history, where everything is open to interpretation tends to be more biased.
 
Deku said:
Usually, profs teaching highly subjective subjects like history, where everything is open to interpretation tends to be more biased.

Ancient history is open to interpretation. Modern history really isn't because it's generally well documented.
 
"I'm sorry but you need to think critically for yourself and not merely rely on what a person with status says. You're not in elementary school anymore, your teacher isn't always right and you should be actively challenging what you're taught."

Well duh. I often check out on Wikipedia and google daily on various stuff. But I am not going to go on a full-force research project to various libraries around the world to just verify a few minor things. I take in some stuff in faith but for usually good intuitive reasons and some with skepticism and goes through an analytic process before acceptence.
 
NotMSRP said:
"I'm sorry but you need to think critically for yourself and not merely rely on what a person with status says. You're not in elementary school anymore, your teacher isn't always right and you should be actively challenging what you're taught."

Well duh. I often check out on Wikipedia and google daily on various stuff. But I am not going to go on a full-force research project to various libraries around the world to just verify a few minor things. I take in some stuff in faith but for usually good intuitive reasons and some with skepticism and goes through an analytic process before acceptence.

Wiki-pedia? You do realize that anyone, anywhere, can make a wikipedia page?
 
GaimeGuy said:
Actually, now that I think about it, I don't remember the book or my teacher saying anything about them giving hitler himself a parade. However, I do recall mentioning of the Russian citizens' fear of Stalin, and that many of them were optimistic towards the idea of being invaded and having Stalin overthrown.

Oh, that's all quite true, it just has nothing to do with Stalingrad, specifically.

Stalin was a brutal, evil man, who oppressed his people horribly. With the initial German invasion, many soviet citizens, especially minorities, were hopeful that it would mean liberation from Stalin and did embrace the German armies.

Of course, Nazis being Nazis, that wasn't a good idea of them. You can't really say it was Hitler's mistake to kill these minorities, because it was consistent with who he was, and with his entire purpose of invading Eastern Europe in the first place.

And this doesn't have much to do with Stalingrad, because the Stalingrad campaign happened a year after the initial invasion, and by then the Soviet citizens, even many of the non-Russian minorities, had few illusions about what domination by Germany meant for them.

ManaByte said:
Ancient history is open to interpretation. Modern history really isn't because it's generally well documented.

Let's not go too far here. There's always different interpretations and bias.
 
ManaByte said:
Ancient history is open to interpretation. Modern history really isn't because it's generally well documented.

False. There are still some open interpretations to events even in the 20th century, such as the origins of the Cold War.
 
ManaByte said:
Ancient history is open to interpretation. Modern history really isn't because it's generally well documented.

News to me. Ever heard of revisionist historians? or marxist historians who only see the world in terms of the marxist dichotomy?
 
GaimeGuy said:
Wiki-pedia? You do realize that anyone, anywhere, can make a wikipedia page?

I know it is a public encyclopedia. But so far it certainly doesn't look like it is filled with shits everywhere. Any wrong information are corrected by others. So far it has held up as a great internet source for a quick fix on information. Definitive researches are still done the old fashion way: people, primary documents, books, etc.
 
Maybe Mana means that the very facts of ancient history are often open to debate, while with modern history, we can often verify the facts, but what those facts mean, and the reason for these historical facts is still open to interpretation and debate.
 
Boogie said:
Oh, that's all quite true, it just has nothing to do with Stalingrad, specifically.

Stalin was a brutal, evil man, who oppressed his people horribly. With the initial German invasion, many soviet citizens, especially minorities, were hopeful that it would mean liberation from Stalin and did embrace the German armies.

Of course, Nazis being Nazis, that wasn't a good idea of them. You can't really say it was Hitler's mistake to kill these minorities, because it was consistent with who he was, and with his entire purpose of invading Eastern Europe in the first place.

And this doesn't have much to do with Stalingrad, because the Stalingrad campaign happened a year after the initial invasion, and by then the Soviet citizens, even many of the non-Russian minorities, had few illusions about what domination by Germany meant for them.



Let's not go too far here. There's always different interpretations and bias.



I think someone in the class might have brought up the welcome parade thing and it must have stuck or something. I did know that the russians HATED Stalin.
 
NotMSRP said:
I know it is a public encyclopedia. But so far it certainly doesn't look like it is filled with shits everywhere. Any wrong information are corrected by others. So far it has held up as a great internet source for a quick fix on information. Definitive researches are still done the old fashion way: people, primary documents, books, etc.

It's amazing that for such a stickler on the academic process, you haven't followed it at all in this thread. :P
 
Boogie said:
Maybe Mana means that the very facts of ancient history are often open to debate, while with modern history, we can often verify the facts, but what those facts mean, and the reason for these historical facts is still open to interpretation and debate.

Exactly.

And it's probably why I find ancient history a thousand times more interesting to study. For modern history, facts can usually be verified. On the other hand, with ancient history most of the things written are usually someones interpretations of something and the search for the actual truth is so much more interesting and for some people is a lifelong obsession.
 
Kindbudmaster said:
While looking for a page that explained why Hiroshima and Nagasaki were choosen as targets, I came across a page on BBC on the end of the war against Japan. http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/war/wwtwo/nuclear_01.shtml

Interesting read.

Perfect link for this post really.

But what is usually overlooked in this numbers game, is the number of Japanese killed on Okinawa, which amounts to a staggering 250,000 military and civilian, about 20 Japanese killed for every dead American. If we conduct the same calculation for an invasion of the Japanese Home Islands, we arrive at a figure of at least two million Japanese dead.

The losses in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were terrible, but not as terrible as the number of Japanese who would have died as the result of an invasion. The revisionist historians of the 1960s - and their disciples - are quite wrong to depict the decision to use the bombs as immoral. It would have been immoral if they had not been used.

The US invasion of Japan was scheduled for December 1945.
 
GaimeGuy said:
Wiki-pedia? You do realize that anyone, anywhere, can make a wikipedia page?

This is such a tired and dumb thing to say. It goes for anything on the web. The only real and useful exception is .gov and country domain equivelents (eg. gc.ca) and even then it's as likely to be propaganda as not.

It's so retarded to confuse wikipedia as a definitive confirmation of information for formal writing (bad) and wikipedia as a general purpose source of information (good). GAF is not formal writing.
 
I was told that the US only had two bombs after tests were made, and they were used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. True, or not?
 
CVXFREAK said:
I was told that the US only had two bombs after tests were made, and they were used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. True, or not?

Yes and it was so secret the crew of the Enola Gay didn't know where they were going until a few hours before takeoff or what the bomb would do. Colonel Paul Tibbets basically had to explain to them before they took off what sort of damage the A-Bomb would do and how it (they thought) was so powerful it could crack the Earth's crust and why they had to wear the black goggles because of the flash.

Also the two bombs were only the second and third ones to ever be used. The first one was "Trinity" and blown up in New Mexico.

My stepdad was in atomic bomb tests while in the army and has cancer now because of them. Basically they put them in a foxhole twelve miles out and detonated the bomb. He says the flash is so bright you can see it fully even with your eyes closed.
 
CVXFREAK said:
I was told that the US only had two bombs after tests were made, and they were used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. True, or not?

Here is something I found tonight while looking around for info for this thread.

After the detonation of the first plutonium bomb core in the Trinity test, the next weapon that was available was the completed Little Boy. It was this weapon that was dropped on Hiroshima. Another Little Boy weapon would not have been ready for months, for this reason only one Little Boy unit was prepared. In contrast many Fat Man bomb assemblies were on hand (without plutonium), and the actual "Fat Man bomb" delivered against Japan only existed when assembly of the Fat Man unit with the plutonium core was completed shortly before the mission. The second plutonium bomb core was delivered to Tinian for use in the first deliverable Fat Man weapon against Kokura arsenal only days after the arrival of Little Boy. Due to weather problems related problems, the Kokura primary target was scrubbed and the secondary target Nagasaki was bombed.

http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Med/Lbfm.html
 
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