As I recall from studying this is a college class, we had only the two atomic bombs available. Getting material for another was possible, but I think I recall that at the time we could only collect enough for one bomb every several months.

So, a HUGE aspect of this is that we had a pretty good hand of cards in the poker game, but felt that we had to bluff to suggest that it was even more overwhelming.

To me, the interesting part of the debate isn't blockade vs conventional bombing vs invasion vs A-bombs. I think it gets most interesting to consider alternatives that involve dropping one or more of the 2 A-bombs some place where their power would be demonstrated, but where casualties would be as low as possible.

Either option you mentioned would have been GREAT, if they worked (and forced surrender). But both had potential pitfalls also. Drop one on an unpopulated area, and they might have believed we were trying to take credit for some sort of natural event (German V2s blowing up in London were often attributed to sewage gas explosions early on). Staging a demonstration for scientists and leaders to witness might have hardened their resolve and/or made them question ours.

If I had been in Truman's shoes, I feel like I would have preferred to use ONE of the two bombs on something like one of your suggestions; either unpopulated drop or demonstration. Then, use the second on a target of military significance if/when they didn't surrender.

However, in hindsight that would have been a risky move -- they didn't surrender after the Hiroshima bomb, only after both. Would a demonstration and one "we mean business" bomb have been enough to elicit the same response? Who knows. At that point, consider how screwed we could have been if it HADN'T, and it would have taken months to build another bomb (plus keep in mind that we weren't 100% confident in the bombs working reliably, even after trinity and the first two drops). I guess that we could have maintained a blockade and said "we'll give you 3 months to come to your senses" while we made another bomb, but I think that would have legitimately resulted in Japan questioning our resolve quite a lot; we'd be showing our cards too early.

I guess that at the end of the day, I don't envy Truman for having to make that kind of decision. Given the givens, I think that he probably played it as safe as possible and went with the option that was the MOST likely to force surrender. Perhaps some other option would have worked as well but avoided some of the casualties, but Truman took the information available to him and made the decision that he felt was the best -- I think that is pretty much the best we can ask of our leaders.

Yeah, everyone is poor except a few rulers and their cronies, so there is "less income inequality."

How do you read that map you sent?

China is highly regulated, yet there is a lot of inequality, having the second largest number of billionaires, and millions of dirt-poor people. Does this map equate to percentages?

North Korea, on the other hand, is as highly regulated as it gets, yet they have very few billionaires, so, in this case yes, most people are equally poor, and close to starving (or are otherwise dead).

My initial post wasn't clear, in that, rather than seeking "equality," a higher standard of living seems preferable.

(Is this about envy or about having food on the table?)

Socialism promotes equality: "it's only virtue is equal misery for all" (with the exception of the rulers, of course)

Saudi Arabia is quite regulated, you can't buy alcohol and women must wear veils, yet the income disparities between the sheiks and the average workers is quite considerable.

Perhaps you'd like to elaborate and explain that unreadable map to me, so I can comment.

Edit: Oh, I see: According to this CIA map, there is apparently more "inequality" in the U.S. than there is in India. And a lot more in South Africa (but I didn't know South Africa was a land of no regulations, whatever that means). And Greece apparently has considerably lower inequality (so what are they all complaining about?!) And supposedly there is no data about communist countries like Cuba and places like Saudi Arabia (why is that?). Mongolia and Canada have about the same level of inequality. I'm still trying to decipher the purpose that this map serves...

I've never seen a diamond in the flesh
I cut my teeth on wedding rings in the movies
And I'm not proud of my address
In the torn up town, no post code envy

But every song's like:
Gold teeth
Grey Goose
Tripping in the bathroom
Bloodstains
Ball gowns
Trashing the hotel room

We don't care, we're driving cadillacs in our dreams

But everybody's like:
Crystal
Maybach
Diamonds on your timepiece
Jet planes
Islands
Tigers on a gold leash

We don't care, we're aren't caught up in your love affair

And we'll never be royals (royals)
It's a word that I would love.
That kind of lux just ain't for us, we crave a different kind of buzz
Let me be your ruler (ruler)
You can call me queen bee
And baby I'll rule, I'll rule, I'll rule, I'll rule
Let me live that fantasy

My friends and I we've cracked the code
We count our dollars on the train to the party
And everyone who knows us knows
That we're fine with this, we didn't come for money
But every song's like:
Gold teeth
Grey Goose
Tripping in the bathroom
Bloodstains
Ball gowns
Trashing the hotel room
We don't care, we're driving cadillacs in our dreams

But everybody's like:
Crystal
Maybach
Diamonds on your timepiece
Jet planes
Islands
Tigers on a gold leash

We don't care, we're aren't caught up in your love affair

And we'll never be royals (royals)
It's a word that I would love.
That kind of lux just ain't for us, we crave a different kind of buzz
Let me be your ruler (ruler)
You can call me queen bee
And baby I'll rule, I'll rule, I'll rule, I'll rule
Let me live that fantasy

ooh ooh oh ooh
We're better than we've every dreamed
And I'm in love with being queen
ooh ooh oh ooh
Life is great without a care
We aren't caught up in your love affair
And we'll never be royals (royals)
It's a word that I would love.
That kind of lux just ain't for us, we crave a different kind of buzz
Let me be your ruler (ruler)
You can call me queen bee
And baby I'll rule, I'll rule, I'll rule, I'll rule
Let me live that fantasy

To be fair, SOME people do work hard honestly to become rich. SOME people are merely lucky, right place right time. But as more and more people simply inherit their wealth, or get their wealth through dishonest means, it stacks the deck against the honest and the lucky to the point where hard work is the exception, not the rule. Which is where we're at now.

I also got a kick out of the difference in monopoly money, where the "rich" player got 2K and the "poor" person only got 1K. If you want to make that more realistic, the "rich" player should have received something like 50K or 100K.

If rich people merely had double what the average person had..and SOME perks, I doubt that people would be complaining as much. I think most people accept that there is always someone more well off. so the issue isn't envy as some of the pundits like to point out. The issue is not that they have more, but that they have EXPONENTIALLY more, and on top of that, they appear to be exempt from certain rules the rest of us have to follow. Justice seems to be in favor of a rich person and their expensive lawyers vs the poor person and their public defender.

We don't have lower/middle/upper class anymore, it's more like lower/middle/upper/very upper/extremely upper/obscenely upper where even the well off are paupers by comparison.

As someone who lives and goes to school in Austin... what you hear is her voice, trembling out of a mixture of range and frustration. I've been to a lot of different events and rallies over the last month and all i can say is its a feeling shared by everyone there.

I really envy someone who could keep it together speak eloquently when actually getting to see these hypocrites in person... NOT an easy thing to do.

I envy him. I can draw decently, but I have to plan out my picture, creating outlines of shapes,constantly redrawing a line till it looks right, etc. I envy his ability to just put pen to paper and come up with the picture on the fly.

Oh, how I envy a mind like that.


As a side note: this video may very well be taken right out of a typical redneck xenophobe's nightmare^^

I envy that man! Can you learn this? Imagine the pranks you could pull....
"Are there Peanuts in these cookies? You know, I'm aller... oh god... ... the goggles, they do nothing!" *choke*

That's pretty awesome. I envy their relationship.

I envy his experience. That's a roller coaster straight to nirvana. Do not pass enlightenment. Roll to get out? NEVER

I envy people that have a switch that can turn off all noise in the world entirely.

I do not envy them for sign language, or speaking disabilities, but turning off all sound when you want silence, would be pretty cool.

"This can probably be attributed to better firearms training, safety and general awareness."

I have nothing against safety training, of course. And sure, Its even a good thing to be familiar with weapons, if nothing else but to see how dangerous they are. But I'm also favouring gun control. When the ATF can't even say its illegal to sell guns to DRUNK people, I think its been heading in the wrong direction for quite some time. Its fine if you own a gun, but then you should also know how to handle one safely, and be deemed reasonably fit to own a gun. You should be required to store it safely, and so on. There's a lot of things you can do without "taking your weapons".

"BTW - I envy the firearms that you've gotten to fire."

Yeah, this was in the army, I havent touched a gun since., but shooting rockets from the shoulder with the Carl Gustav is pretty fun.(I called it M84 in my previous post, we called it RFK in the army) Also the MG3 because its such a classic (its basically an MG42) And the A3G3 is one mean-ass assault-rifle(I think we calculated that we shot 15000 or was it 30k? rounds each (in my platoon) with that gun during that year.)

I'm glad you have - the more the better - I really mean that. I've sat through the same sort of course.

I hope you agree with my point that firearms can be rendered safe for all involved if proper procedure for clearing the firearm is followed (and everyone in the party has a chance to check it). Of course safe muzzle direction rules still apply.

I'm not missing the point that you make. I just think your point is incorrect in that it essentially asserts that the rate of mistakes made cannot be altered because we are human - when it can be altered.

I've seen the video you talk about. Meanwhile, there have been tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of training days and safety demonstrations without incident. Singling out the one incident that anyone knows about does not make everyone else likely to commit the same mistake (in fact it probably lessens the chance of them making the same mistake).

The rate of firearms accidents in the USA has decreased steadily and gradually over time:
http://www.nraila.org/news-issues/fact-sheets/2007/firearm-safety-in-america-2009.aspx (yes that article may be biased but their stats are from the ATF)

This can probably be attributed to better firearms training, safety and general awareness.

BTW - I envy the firearms that you've gotten to fire.

Phenomenal. I'm green with envy.

I love Quentin's attitude. In fact I envy his ability to just not care what other people think when in this kind of scenario. He is a leader, he doesn't back down and he stands up for not only what he believes in but for his own thoughts and opinions.