Europe submits voluntarily

[Speakpigeon]

Why not? Think of the bombing of Dresden, using lots of incendiary bombs, which was designed to produced lots of civilians casualties and misery to convince people to stop supporting Hitler; then the drop of two atomic bombs on populous cities in Japan, intended to convince the Japanese they should surrender sooner rather than later; then the terrorism carried out by at least some Zionist agents against the Palestinian population, resulting in a mass exodus that made Israel a possible proposition, not to mention the heavy-handed nature of the bombing of the Gaza strip a couple of years ago. The French did it quite a lot too in North-Africa. Think of the carpet-bombing of Hanoi during the Vietnam war. So I think terrorism is used not just as a last resource, which seems to be your suggestion, but also as an effective short-cut to victory, even if that doesn't always work. Of course, "we" never called it terrorism but that's still very obviously what it was.
EB

1) Dresden. I'll give you that one. But it's questionable if that counts. The object wasn't to terrorise Germany to surrender. Dresden was more just savage and base revenge. They didn't give a fuck if Germans got scared. They just wanted to see the Hun bleed.

As I understand the story, it was largely Churchill's idea so it could be construed as mere revenge for the German bombing of British cities. I accept that's very plausible, particularly on the part of Churchill. But I doubt that the Brits would have risked their military assets and personels at that point just for the sake of revenge. So, at best, revenge was the cherry on the cake. I think that they really wanted to send a message to the German people. It was the main purpose of the operation.

2) Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Again... yeah. I'll give you that one as well. But I also think this one was a special case. Japan just wasn't accepting the inevitable.

I didn't want to suggest it was a bad idea or anything. The U.S decided to spare possibly tens of thousands of its soldiers lives. Too bad it was at the cost of deliberately killing several hundred thousand Japanese, mostly civilians. Who could possibly decide it was or wasn't justified?

4) Bombing of Hanoi... well. they lost. So much for that example.

Yeah they lost but at that point I think the Pentagon thought they were winning and they thought they were winning because of the sheer scale of the destruction they were inflicting on cities.

Good work finding examples of terrorism being successful. But if you analyse these you'll see that none of them have anything in common with ISIS or Al Qaeda making attacks in the west. It's just a completely different playing field.

Well, I can see you point but then you would have to make common-sense assumptions on the psychology of the various kinds of terrorism. That wouldn't be scientific.

Apparently, ISIS terrorism is also not the same as Al Qaeda's. ISIS's seems more extreme. In a way, ISIS foot soldiers seems to be gratified with a large dose of sadistic pleasure, not entirely different from Churchill's sense of revenge, where Al Qaeda do it probably because they think it is cheap and it works. Anyway, that was my effort at common-sense psychology.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

1) Dresden. I'll give you that one. But it's questionable if that counts. The object wasn't to terrorise Germany to surrender. Dresden was more just savage and base revenge. They didn't give a fuck if Germans got scared. They just wanted to see the Hun bleed.
2) Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Again... yeah. I'll give you that one as well. But I also think this one was a special case. Japan just wasn't accepting the inevitable.
3) Irgun and Haganah in Israel. Yes, anti-colonial terrorism is examples of terrorism were it's worked. So, yes. I'll give you that.
4) Bombing of Hanoi... well. they lost. So much for that example.

Good work finding examples of terrorism being successful. But if you analyse these you'll see that none of them have anything in common with ISIS or Al Qaeda making attacks in the west. It's just a completely different playing field.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not terrorism by any stretch of the imagination. Both were valid military targets, they were simply destroyed by one bomb rather than a gazillion of them.

I'm still laughing.

What would have been the point of destroying entire cities rather than specificaly target military installations?

U.S bombing in World War 2 lacked precision, and this a French person saying that, so that civilian casualties were inevitable but in France those were not the objective of the bombings. In Japan, the target of the two atomic bombs were the civilian population of two big cities. Using them today would have the same purpose.

You would also do well to remember that non-aggression between the West and the East during the Cold War relied on what was and is still called the "balance of TERROR". It is, was, part of the official doctrine of nuclear weapons' use, both in France and in the U.S. Of course, it doesn't make governments terrorist organisations because governments are doing lots of other things but they do accept that the use of terror is legitimate. But then the difference with so-called terrorist organisation becomes rather thin.

 

[Speakpigeon]

The chances are, that some of them will.

I doubt it. Mortality spikes dramatically once you reach about 90 years; None of the nearly 8 billion people alive today have made it past 116, and nobody ever made it to 123. The number of people who make it even to 110 is tiny.

For even the most long-lived to reach 130 would require a major medical breakthrough. I won't say it's impossible, but it's very implausible indeed. Human somatic cells simply reach their replication limit at circa 100 years, and extending their viability by as much as 50% would be a massive breakthrough. In recent years, mortality in the developed world for the over 90s has actually increased - likely due to the success in reducing mortality at younger ages, which has led to more people making it to their 90s in worse health than before. The small size of this group tends to amplify minor changes in mortality amongst the very old.

Here are the figures for the percentage of Australians who are deceased by a given age:
[table="width: 500"]
[tr]
[td]%[/td]
[td]Age (Female)[/td]
[td]Age (Male)[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td][/td]
[td][/td]
[td][/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]50%[/td]
[td]87[/td]
[td]83[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]60%[/td]
[td]89[/td]
[td]85[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]70%[/td]
[td]91[/td]
[td]88[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]80%[/td]
[td]93[/td]
[td]91[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]90%[/td]
[td]96[/td]
[td]94[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]95%[/td]
[td]98[/td]
[td]96[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]99%[/td]
[td]103[/td]
[td]101[/td]
[/tr]
[/table]

By the age of 109, only 28 of 100,000 (0.028%) males and 61 of 100,000 (0.061%) females remain alive - the Australian Government Actuary doesn't even bother to calculate mortality above 109 years, as the numbers are too small to yield significant results. Of the 89 per 200,000 who survive to 109, more than 53 of them will likely not see their 110th birthday, and fewer than 10 will see 112.

Even if everyone in the world got modern medical care from birth, the chances of anyone out of a population of 10 billion making it to 130 are minuscule; and 150 is simply out of the question, absent some major new medical technique with a dramatic effect on the replication abilities of somatic cells.





(Figures calculated based on the AGA tables available here).

It's not practical to have this conversation, you will be dead long before I prove you wrong.
EB

 

[angelo]

If Mo wasn't a paedophile and a rapist, then what is such a monster called?

 

[whichphilosophy]

1) Dresden. I'll give you that one. But it's questionable if that counts. The object wasn't to terrorise Germany to surrender. Dresden was more just savage and base revenge. They didn't give a fuck if Germans got scared. They just wanted to see the Hun bleed.
2) Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Again... yeah. I'll give you that one as well. But I also think this one was a special case. Japan just wasn't accepting the inevitable.
3) Irgun and Haganah in Israel. Yes, anti-colonial terrorism is examples of terrorism were it's worked. So, yes. I'll give you that.
4) Bombing of Hanoi... well. they lost. So much for that example.

Good work finding examples of terrorism being successful. But if you analyse these you'll see that none of them have anything in common with ISIS or Al Qaeda making attacks in the west. It's just a completely different playing field.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not terrorism by any stretch of the imagination. Both were valid military targets, they were simply destroyed by one bomb rather than a gazillion of them.

They were valid civilian targets and designed to kill as many people as possible.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Apparently, ISIS terrorism is also not the same as Al Qaeda's. ISIS's seems more extreme. In a way, ISIS foot soldiers seems to be gratified with a large dose of sadistic pleasure, not entirely different from Churchill's sense of revenge, where Al Qaeda do it probably because they think it is cheap and it works. Anyway, that was my effort at common-sense psychology.
EB

The best theory I've heard regarding Islamic terrorism is the fear hypothesis. They perceive Islam being unfairly under attack by Crusading conspiratorial Christians who want nothing better than to destroy Islam and occupy the holy land. Possibly to touch the Kaba in shameful places. Also known as the Islamic tin foil hat club. If our side has them I'm sure they do as well. That would explain how they keep doing these in spite of it being, militarily, worthless and politically counter productive.

An Islamic version of Angelo. I think that theory makes a lot of sense. It is unverifiable. But anyhoo... I like the theory.

- - - Updated - - -

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not terrorism by any stretch of the imagination. Both were valid military targets, they were simply destroyed by one bomb rather than a gazillion of them.

They were valid civilian targets and designed to kill as many people as possible.

Civilian targets aren't valid under the Geneva convention. USA had signed it. It doesn't matter that Japan hadn't. USA was still bound by it.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not terrorism by any stretch of the imagination. Both were valid military targets, they were simply destroyed by one bomb rather than a gazillion of them.

No, they weren't. They were cities with lots of civilians in them. They had easily been able to find targets with only military targets. The object of the nuclear bomb bombings was exactly that... too terrify the Japanese to the point where they would have to give up.

Granted that this is nitpicking, and I really don't have a leg to stand on. You could argue any case and be correct. Is it terrorism if there's a full blown war on. Mmm... it's a question of definitions. I say yes, but I'm aware that it's quite possible to make a valid case against it as well.

Having lots of civilians in them doesn't make it terrorism. It would only be terrorism if they had only civilians in them--a totally nonsensical assumption as by then our primary bombing target was military production. Given the dispersed nature of that production the only way we could actually destroy it is to destroy the cities it was in. Thus our bombing campaign at that point was the systematic destruction of Japanese cities.

Whether it was by nuke or firebomb is irrelevant. Without the bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki would have been destroyed anyway.

 

[jonatha]

Whether it was by nuke or firebomb is irrelevant. Without the bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki would have been destroyed anyway.

They would have been bombed earlier. The US refrained from targeting those cities (and others on the potential atomic bomb strike list) in order the better to gauge the effect of the bomb.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Whether it was by nuke or firebomb is irrelevant. Without the bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki would have been destroyed anyway.

They would have been bombed earlier. The US refrained from targeting those cities (and others on the potential atomic bomb strike list) in order the better to gauge the effect of the bomb.

Agreed but irrelevant.

 

[angelo]

The best theory I've heard regarding Islamic terrorism is the fear hypothesis. They perceive Islam being unfairly under attack by Crusading conspiratorial Christians who want nothing better than to destroy Islam and occupy the holy land. Possibly to touch the Kaba in shameful places. Also known as the Islamic tin foil hat club. If our side has them I'm sure they do as well. That would explain how they keep doing these in spite of it being, militarily, worthless and politically counter productive.

An Islamic version of Angelo. I think that theory makes a lot of sense. It is unverifiable. But anyhoo... I like the theory.

- - - Updated - - -

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not terrorism by any stretch of the imagination. Both were valid military targets, they were simply destroyed by one bomb rather than a gazillion of them.

They were valid civilian targets and designed to kill as many people as possible.

Civilian targets aren't valid under the Geneva convention. USA had signed it. It doesn't matter that Japan hadn't. USA was still bound by it.

So in your own words, what could the US supposedly have done since Japan had no intentions of surrendering.

 

[angelo]

Neither was the Nazi dictatorship about to surrender. Hitler had the nation by the balls!

 

[whichphilosophy]

The best theory I've heard regarding Islamic terrorism is the fear hypothesis. They perceive Islam being unfairly under attack by Crusading conspiratorial Christians who want nothing better than to destroy Islam and occupy the holy land. Possibly to touch the Kaba in shameful places. Also known as the Islamic tin foil hat club. If our side has them I'm sure they do as well. That would explain how they keep doing these in spite of it being, militarily, worthless and politically counter productive.

An Islamic version of Angelo. I think that theory makes a lot of sense. It is unverifiable. But anyhoo... I like the theory.

- - - Updated - - -

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not terrorism by any stretch of the imagination. Both were valid military targets, they were simply destroyed by one bomb rather than a gazillion of them.

They were valid civilian targets and designed to kill as many people as possible.

Civilian targets aren't valid under the Geneva convention. USA had signed it. It doesn't matter that Japan hadn't. USA was still bound by it.

So in your own words, what could the US supposedly have done since Japan had no intentions of surrendering.

Japan was already on the retreat. Most of its colonies were recolonized. The allied powers dominated the land, sea and air in the Western Pacific and were already starting to bomb Japanese industrial areas.

So really we can question whether the bombs were necessary except for accelerating the end of the War for a couple of years.

By the way when the American invaded Iwo Jima they found no Japanese troops there but still managed to kill hundreds of their own troops with friendly fire. (Murphy's Law: Friendly Fire isn't friendly)


This is quite interesting

http://www.history.army.mil/books/wwii/MacArthur Reports/MacArthur V1/ch14.htm

 

[repoman]

I thought the Atomic bombs were to keep Russia from getting any more of Japan than Sakhalin and a couple smaller islands. Would Russia have taken Hokkaido otherwise?

 

[repoman]

This is feeding into it:



Trendy cultural self hatred. Fuck that, all cultures can suck and Islam sucks diarrhea as much or more than Christianity. Now I can understand it being that you have more "rights" to talk shit about your own culture than others, but why do we allow Muslim to talk shit about christians and put it on places like taxpayer supported German TV? Do they understand Christian "lived experience" to sarcastically use a leftist bullshit jargon?

Western atheists should defend Christianity over Islam since it is more tamed at this point and Islam may be untamable at its root. Truly a lesser of two (three actually) evils situation.

 

[DrZoidberg]

So in your own words, what could the US supposedly have done since Japan had no intentions of surrendering.

You're missing the topic. The topic is whether or not Hiroshima and Nagasaki, on completely technically and legalistic terms count as "terrorism". Whether or not they were justified was not the topic.

BTW, by using "they had no intentions of surrendering" as a justification for terrorism you've given anybody a free pass to commit terrorist acts against anybody. A clue that a country has no intentions of surrendering is the fact that it is still at war.

"Is USA about to surrender to Al Qaeda? No? Destroy those skyscrapers with the planes. Hurrah for we are morally in the clear".

 

[Bomb#20]

That made me laugh, but it's stupid to call Muhammed a paedophile. A political marriage back then was just a way for medieval rulers to sign along the dotted line in an agreement. Calling Muhammed a paedophile is like calling everybody in the EU a paedophile for being in the EU or everybody in NATO for paedophiles for being in NATO. Yes, I really think it's that stupid. Medieval European rulers wed their children off left and right. Often to other children. ...

I don't think I'm unique in realising this. So I suspect that when you mention Muhammeds alleged paedophilia (he most likely wasn't) you're just making a fool of yourself and you just come across as a loon. I'm not saying you aren't a loon. You may be. What I'm saying is, if you aren't a loon and you don't want to come across as one this isn't helping.

Narrated 'Aisha: that the Prophet married her when she was six years old and he consummated his marriage when she was nine years old, and then she remained with him for nine years (i.e., till his death).
— Sahih al-Bukhari, 7:62:64​

People talk about Aisha's age at marriage because it makes for good ridicule; but the actual reason that for ages people have been calling the guy(pbuh) a pedophile is because according to the Hadith she was nine when he raped her! You dismiss Aisha as a mere political marriage that means nothing about his sexuality, because you make up stuff, and you believe what you make up because you want to believe it, and you want to believe it because it helps make you feel like a superior life form. I'm not saying you aren't a loon. You may be. What I'm saying is, if you aren't a loon and you don't want to come across as one this isn't helping.

 

[DrZoidberg]

That made me laugh, but it's stupid to call Muhammed a paedophile. A political marriage back then was just a way for medieval rulers to sign along the dotted line in an agreement. Calling Muhammed a paedophile is like calling everybody in the EU a paedophile for being in the EU or everybody in NATO for paedophiles for being in NATO. Yes, I really think it's that stupid. Medieval European rulers wed their children off left and right. Often to other children. ...

I don't think I'm unique in realising this. So I suspect that when you mention Muhammeds alleged paedophilia (he most likely wasn't) you're just making a fool of yourself and you just come across as a loon. I'm not saying you aren't a loon. You may be. What I'm saying is, if you aren't a loon and you don't want to come across as one this isn't helping.

Narrated 'Aisha: that the Prophet married her when she was six years old and he consummated his marriage when she was nine years old, and then she remained with him for nine years (i.e., till his death).
— Sahih al-Bukhari, 7:62:64​

People talk about Aisha's age at marriage because it makes for good ridicule; but the actual reason that for ages people have been calling the guy(pbuh) a pedophile is because according to the Hadith she was nine when he raped her! You dismiss Aisha as a mere political marriage that means nothing about his sexuality, because you make up stuff, and you believe what you make up because you want to believe it, and you want to believe it because it helps make you feel like a superior life form. I'm not saying you aren't a loon. You may be. What I'm saying is, if you aren't a loon and you don't want to come across as one this isn't helping.

Still doesn't make him a paedophile. I'm sure people back then only saw him fucking her as him fulfilling his duty as a husband and whatnot. Children back then were seen as little adults. People then didn't have a special moral category for children. It wasn't taboo having sex with children. That's a modern thing. We have no way of knowing how common paedophilia has been historically. The causes for paedophilia is barely known today. But we do know that Muhammed would have been forced by social convention to put his penis in her no matter if he liked it or not. Considering how rare paedophilia is today and that he had access to grown women to have sex with, it's highly unlikely that he was a paedophilia.

You're outraged because you're applying modern moral values on an ancient person. There's tonnes of stuff people did in the bad old days that we today consider morally reprehensible.

 

[whichphilosophy]

This is feeding into it:

View attachment 6860

Trendy cultural self hatred. Fuck that, all cultures can suck and Islam sucks diarrhea as much or more than Christianity. Now I can understand it being that you have more "rights" to talk shit about your own culture than others, but why do we allow Muslim to talk shit about christians and put it on places like taxpayer supported German TV? Do they understand Christian "lived experience" to sarcastically use a leftist bullshit jargon?

Western atheists should defend Christianity over Islam since it is more tamed at this point and Islam may be untamable at its root. Truly a lesser of two (three actually) evils situation.

I don't get the significance of the Holocaust and the Torah nor art and the bible, Maybe I'm missing something. There are some perceptions of Islam being related to hate crimes, though very few Muslims do this. My argument against mass immigration is that small amount would also increase.

As for religion, the Jews simply don't care whether someone converts to Judaism or not.

- - - Updated - - -

Narrated 'Aisha: that the Prophet married her when she was six years old and he consummated his marriage when she was nine years old, and then she remained with him for nine years (i.e., till his death).
— Sahih al-Bukhari, 7:62:64​

People talk about Aisha's age at marriage because it makes for good ridicule; but the actual reason that for ages people have been calling the guy(pbuh) a pedophile is because according to the Hadith she was nine when he raped her! You dismiss Aisha as a mere political marriage that means nothing about his sexuality, because you make up stuff, and you believe what you make up because you want to believe it, and you want to believe it because it helps make you feel like a superior life form. I'm not saying you aren't a loon. You may be. What I'm saying is, if you aren't a loon and you don't want to come across as one this isn't helping.

Still doesn't make him a paedophile. I'm sure people back then only saw him fucking her as him fulfilling his duty as a husband and whatnot. Children back then were seen as little adults. People then didn't have a special moral category for children. It wasn't taboo having sex with children. That's a modern thing. We have no way of knowing how common paedophilia has been historically. The causes for paedophilia is barely known today. But we do know that Muhammed would have been forced by social convention to put his penis in her no matter if he liked it or not. Considering how rare paedophilia is today and that he had access to grown women to have sex with, it's highly unlikely that he was a paedophilia.

You're outraged because you're applying modern moral values on an ancient person. There's tonnes of stuff people did in the bad old days that we today consider morally reprehensible.

Japan was virtually defeated anyway which made the atomic bombings even more illogical. The West controlled the Air Sea and Land and was already bombing Japanese industry.

As for Islam my only real puzzle is why so many people had to write interpretations Hadiths rather than use the Koran on its own.

 

[DrZoidberg]

As for Islam my only real puzzle is why so many people had to write interpretations Hadiths rather than use the Koran on its own.

I can explain. Sometimes religious people want to do things that go right against what their holy text says. When that happens they re-interpret the holy text in whatever way is the most self serving. Sometimes the person doing the re-interpretation needs to have a funny hat. There may be money involved. The word "metaphor" is really useful.

 

[Jayjay]

Civilian targets aren't valid under the Geneva convention. USA had signed it. It doesn't matter that Japan hadn't. USA was still bound by it.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the Geneva convention of 1929 that was in effect during WW2 was only about treatment of prisoners during war. The third Geneva convention that broadens the scope to other warfare wasn't written until 1949. So basically, there wasn't really any legal agreement not to target civilians at the time of Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings.