The general Japanese civilian population at the time was poor, starving and consisted mostly old men, women, and children. All males of 'fighting age' or capacity were either dead, or in the military. The citizenry's weapons of choice that were available to them were... brooms, shovels, and sticks. This doesn't overshadow the threat the emperor, the empire and his military machine posed. However, this doesn't negate the fact that the country was already defeated by the time the A-bombs were dropped. The majority killed by the A-bombs were civilians. Old men. Women. Children. The city of Nagasaki was a historical 'symbolic' international trade port for Japan for hundreds of years. Nagasaki even had a 'foreign quarter' reserved 'gaijin'. At the time the A-bomb was dropped, there was a POW camp in the city. Populated with both American and Australian POWs. Most were killed by the A-bomb. Nagasaki and Hiroshima were symbolic targets. Not only was it to signal a thorough and resounding crush of a defeated foe, it was a symbol to the world stating "don't tread on me".

I am not making a pro/anti A-bomb point here. I am just expressing known historical fact. War in all it's forms is horrible. It is not a game. People die. Innocent people die. It isn't a video game. No one should ever rush to war. Nor should anyone run an empire based on an ideology of military domination such as was seen by both German and Japan.

The US should learn from history and remember it's past. Hubris is what is the greatest threat to US power now. Not 'terrorism'.. yet most are still too blind to realize this.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'M83, Safe, Hiroshima, bomb, atomic' to 'M83, Safe, Hiroshima, bomb, atomic, nuclear, nuke' - edited by calvados

Fairly sure the footage has been taken from the BBC Hiroshima documentary - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiroshima_(documentary) - which is worth watching.

>> ^redyellowblue:

Take away the 2nd and 3rd nuke and I'm gona guess the death toll was near nothing over all those years, because they were tests... in a desert.. or remote area.
If each of those nukes were aimed at a populated city containing stuff people care about and infrastructure. It would be "yabba dabba doo time"


actually death toll from the radioactive fallout around those test sites and in general all around the world is probably much higher than Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.
i know my grandfather died from radiation exposure complication after his battalion was deployed to an area near an atmospheric nuke test site. they weren't told why they were deployed there and govt continues to deny that they there were any experiments involving army personnel.

>> ^MaxWilder:

LarsaruS, you are ignoring context. This was a geometry lesson, not a socio-politcal discussion. It was not intended to raise a topic for thoughtful debate. When you put together a word problem for a math lesson, you are implying that the content of the problem is something you might have to consider in real life, and in a fairly trivial manner. It is not appropriate to use immoral acts as the content of school lessons, no matter what the specific act may be. For instance, you would not want a teacher who used an example of how much children eat daily, and how much less they would need if you drowned some of them. You would not want to use the example of how many slaves you would need to buy to get a certain amount of acreage harvested. GeeSussFreeK's example above is funny because of how totally inappropriate it would be in school.
It doesn't matter whether it is a hypothetical. The context implies approval of the activities specified.


Ok, I have a couple of issues with your post.

1: "When you put together a word problem for a math lesson, you are implying that the content of the problem is something you might have to consider in real life, and in a fairly trivial manner".
1.1: No, that does not have to be the case. I never considered word problems in any lesson as something I might have to do in real life (anecdotal evidence but still). There is a skill called critical thinking, you use it to see what the lesson is about, here angles and probably Pythagoras, and learn that not just what the problem's solution is. That way you can apply what you have learnt on many things as you get the principle for how to solve all similar problems.


2: "It is not appropriate to use immoral acts as the content of school lessons, no matter what the specific act may be"
2.1: Umm, what? Not being able to use immoral acts as content of school lessons at all? Seriously? And who decides what these immoral acts are? (Hint: lobby groups) For some being homosexual is an immoral act as it is a choice/lifestyle, ergo no teachers are allowed to talk about HBTQ rights. Equality is therefore gone in school education. For some talking about evolution is immoral so good bye science. The list goes on. If you have an "Immoral list" you can always add more things to it as you see fit until only the things that the people in power wants to be taught can be taught and in a couple of generations all other knowledge will have vanished as the people who learnt it die off.

Also school is to prepare children for adult life. Adult life is filled with "immoral" actions and people. Sending kids out into the real world with a distorted world view is the most immoral act I could ever think of as they will be completely unprepared for real life and hit a lot of pitfalls that otherwise could have been avoided. "Everybody in the world is super nice and you are super special too!" so go with the man who has a rabbit in his cellar that he wants you to see...

2.2: What about classes about law or history? Lessons where criminals, or criminal acts, are discussed would have to go. For instance, lessons about the eradication of the Native Americans would have to go, No Nürnberg trials, no Pearl Harbour or nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki... the list of things which can be considered immoral or that contains immoral acts is endless. We are a violent species.


3: "For instance, you would not want a teacher who used an example of how much children eat daily, and how much less they would need if you drowned some of them. You would not want to use the example of how many slaves you would need to buy to get a certain amount of acreage harvested."
3.1: Kids and food problem: See this.
Also it is simple arithmetic. Example: "You have X food and Y people. Every person Needs Z food per day and you can add F food per day that can be harvested from your farms. How many people can you have without them starving?" What is the problem with a problem like this? Basic civilization survival is based on this formula. Natural resources - consumption/person = Sustainability/Starvation

3.2: Slave problem: Obsolete as slaves are inefficient compared to modern automated machines. Who would use slave labour when you could use a robot that never fucks up (unless you use Windows ofc.), never needs to sleep, never demands pay and never complains? Technological progress FTE (For The Emancipation )


4: "The context implies approval of the activities specified"
4.1: What context and why would it imply approval? That it was a lesson in a school? So if I bring up the attack on WTC in a lesson and how it was executed it means that I approve of the actions? (I guess that Nicolas Cage and a lot of other people who were in the movies about the attacks all support it then?) If I let my students calculate the forces that were subjected on the buildings from the planes mass M and its speed V + the force of the fuel exploding or the McVeigh bombing and the force that X amount of explosives generate I approve what they did? I abhor all use of violence but if I use these examples I approve of them? That makes no sense to me.

One of the best things you can do as a teacher is to ground your lessons in reality and real life events as that increases the motivation and curiosity of the students IMHO.


5: "This was a geometry lesson, not a socio-politcal discussion. It was not intended to raise a topic for thoughtful debate."
5.1: As a teacher, no matter what your subject is, you have to be able to lead discussions on tough subjects as students can come in from recess and something horrible has happened and they need to process it and be "debriefed", think every classroom in the US the hours after 9/11 or after Columbine. If a student is assaulted/gets hit by a car/whatever you have to be able to have a discussion about it.

5.2: If a meaningful debate emerges from any lesson that interests your students you run with it. Simple as that. Learning and developing a lust for learning is the main goal of any teacher worthy of that title in my book.

Wow, that was a serious wall of text. Congrats on getting through it!

*edit for getting the + to show... forgot to put in extra blank spaces...

@Kevlar, Hiroshima-sized nuclear weapons are pretty small. We dropped conventional bombs on Iraq with higher yields, though granted their energy is more concussive than thermal.

>> ^Kevlar:

Hold on, now, let's earnestly consider Fox News' point before calling them out. We may only be able to blow up the entire goddamned earth 3 times over instead of 5 by the time this deal is done.


Oh, just to make sure I'm not exaggerating: let's take a look at our old friend, nuclear winter. Turns out you only need 50 bombs to destroy the earth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_winter

"A minor nuclear war with each country using 50 Hiroshima-sized atom bombs as airbursts on urban areas, could produce climate change unprecedented in recorded human history. A nuclear war between the United States and Russia today could produce nuclear winter, with temperatures plunging below freezing in the summer in major agricultural regions, threatening the food supply for most of the planet. The climatic effects of the smoke from burning cities and industrial areas would last for several years, much longer than previously thought. New climate model simulations, that are said to have the capability of including the entire atmosphere and oceans, show that the smoke would be lofted by solar heating to the upper stratosphere, where it would remain for years.

Compared to climate change for the past millennium, even the smallest exchange modeled would plunge the planet into temperatures colder than the Little Ice Age (approximately 1600-1850). This would take effect instantly, and agriculture would be severely threatened. Larger amounts of smoke would produce larger climate changes, and for the 150 Tg case produce a true nuclear winter, making agriculture impossible for years. In both cases, new climate model simulations show that the effects would last for more than a decade."

That's actually right on the money. The Anime/Manga and Film/TV industries of Japan saw a huge boom in terms of artists/directors in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the years following the bombings. The children who were very young when it happened grew up in a post-nuke society and in the late 60's and 70's began to express themselves and the dystopia-oriented themes that were happening following the recovery. A lot of the visionaries involved in the field who would be considered as creating that "strange Japanese sense of entertainment" had direct involvement in some form or another in the bombings. It's what happens when you grow up in a post-apocalyptic minded society. So in other words, the nukes are actually a large reason why these forms of entertainment evolved into what they are today.

>> ^gwiz665:

If you look at japanese tv shows, it's fairly obvious that the two nukes already screwed them up pretty bad...

I've been to all those places and then some. The wife and kid are going to Japan to see the wife's family this week and staying for some 3 weeks. I was to go, but had to cancel due to work obligations. I am rather upset about it actually.

If you get a chance. Go. Miyajima is very beautiful. If you time it right, you can see some amayzing 'No' plays. Go up the big hill there to see the monkeys. I spent a night in the area. It is worth it. Easy access to Hiroshima across the water. See the war museum (a humbling experience). Try Hiroshima style Okonomiyaki for lunch. Great stuff.

Fuji was also a wonderful trip. I spent 4 days at a Ryokan. Amazing traditional food. Bathhouse, and everywhere in was views of the mountain. From the room, the bathhouse, everywhere. Expensive, but worth every single darn penny. Also went up Fuji for some CRAZY panoramas. You do not have to go to the top to get amazing views. Easy to get a bus ride up to about the half way mark. Great for the young or old, or those who cannot hike the mountain. Shelter and services are there. Don't be fooled. It is a HUGE mountain you will be above the cloud line most likely. See the sunrise. It is something to not be missed. Scream banzai as the sun rises (leave the old WW2 movie prejudices behind.. shouting banzai has nothing to do with dive bombing).

Other places to see. Kyoto (temples, Maiko dance), Himeji (amazing castle), Nara (giant Buddha, temples, and wandering deer). If you can.. go west towards Beppu and Nagasaki. The Kyushu area has the best natural hot spas. Nagasaki has great seafood and fusion with Chinese and Dutch influences. The war museum is also a must stop. Learn a bit about the US and Australian POW's interned in a camp there that were killed by the 'bomb', which we in the west simply do not learn about in school.

Learn a bit of the language, absorb the culture. Have fun. It is easier to get around Japan than you realize. Most major train lines and roads in the larger cities have English lettering to help tourists.

Food isn't that expensive, and bargain hotels can be found easily enough. Even better if you know a local to tour you around!

* I thought scientists were going to find out exactly how everything worked, and then make it work better. I fully expected that by the time I was twenty-one, some scientist, maybe my brother, would have taken a color photograph of God Almighty — and sold it to Popular Mechanics magazine.
Scientific truth was going to make us so happy and comfortable. What actually happened when I was twenty-one was that we dropped scientific truth on Hiroshima.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'Post Rock, Instrumental, Indie, Soundtrack, Alternative, Ambient, Experimental' to 'Post Rock, Instrumental, Indie, Alternative, Ambient, Experimental, Hiroshima, Nuclear' - edited by calvados

Give me back my broken night
my mirrored room, my secret life
it's lonely here,
there's no one left to torture

Give me absolute control
over every living soul
And lie beside me, baby,
that's an order!

Give me crack and anal sex
Take the only tree that's left
and stuff it up the hole
in your culture

Give me back the Berlin wall
give me Stalin and St Paul
I've seen the future, brother:
it is murder.

Things are going to slide, slide in all directions
Won't be nothing
Nothing you can measure anymore
The blizzard, the blizzard of the world
Has crossed the threshold
And it has overturned
The order of the soul

When they said REPENT, REPENT
I wonder what they meant
When they said REPENT, REPENT
I wonder what they meant
When they said REPENT, REPENT
I wonder what they meant.

You don't know me from the wind
You never will, you never did
I'm the little Jew
Who wrote the Bible

I've seen the nations rise and fall
I've heard their stories, heard them all
But love's the only engine of survival.

Your servant here, he has been told
to say it clear, to say it cold:
It's over, it ain't going any further.

And now the wheels of heaven stop
You feel the devil's riding crop
Get ready for the future:
it is murder.

When they said REPENT, REPENT
I wonder what they meant
When they said REPENT, REPENT
I wonder what they meant
When they said REPENT, REPENT
I wonder what they meant.

There'll be the breaking of the ancient Western code
Your private life will suddenly explode
There'll be phantoms
There'll be fires on the road
And a white man dancing..

You'll see a woman
Hanging upside down
Her features covered by her fallen gown
And all the lousy little poets
Coming round
Tryin' to sound like Charlie Manson
And the white man dancin'.

Give me back the Berlin wall
Give me Stalin and St Paul
Give me Christ
or give me Hiroshima
Destroy another fetus now
We don't like children anyhow
I've seen the future, baby:
it is murder.

Things are going to slide, slide in all directions
Won't be nothing
Nothing you can measure anymore
The blizzard, the blizzard of the world
Has crossed the threshold
And it has overturned
The order of the soul

When they said REPENT, REPENT ...

>> ^dag:
Gee, I'm really sad to be missing this unique Australian experience. FTR, it's a lovely and sunny in Hiroshima today. Please try to have all this cleaned up by the time I get back next week Australia. kthanksbye

It's Austraria to you now mister

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Gee, I'm really sad to be missing this unique Australian experience. FTR, it's a lovely and sunny in Hiroshima today. Please try to have all this cleaned up by the time I get back next week Australia. kthanksbye

Thank you, squire!

In reply to this comment by Deano:
*promote