/name captainreallyobvious
cause the winners write the history, and they dont get charged.
/name mdv

See Croatia won the war with Serbia and still some of our generals and soldiers were prosecuted for war crimes. To be clear I think that's perfectly OK, a crime is a crime.
This gets us to my point and my point is winers still get charged if they are not the USA

winners are almost always "good" which is why they write history, a history hasn't known a long lasting "evil" empire that didn't crumble if it wasn't "good", governments are people, people support good governments, makes sense.

a history hasn't known a long lasting "evil" empire that didn't crumble

U.S.A Warmonger since 1700's. "~0" wars won and unspeakable amount of participation and startings of wars.

roman empire has lasted much longer than that, it all depends how "evil" it is, the more "evil" the less it will last.

Evil is in the eye of the beholder. Roman empire didnt start as "evil" empire tho. Roman empire collapsed on its own might and corruption of it.

so why do you make such an exception out of roman empire, and then go on to say that somehow usa is evil. all empires eventually collapse once their people stop supporting their government.

Since when democracy is about people?

do you have any better idea for a government? most dictatorship backers say that somehow democracy is at fault.

I'm just saying democracy is perfect if you don't want to listen what people have to say.
If you are Germany and you build IV reich then it's great.

usa and england always had a much better lifestyle because their people tend to support better governments, its not simply because there is some evil empire that wants to enslave everyone.

I don't know how it works in Russia but here people don't vote. And when they do vote, they vote for what's better advertised.

all empires eventually collapse once their people stop supporting their government.

3rd reich needed external force to be destroyed,
dictatorships in the arabian world too,
dictatorship in north korea is still running although media tells the people are so well off ...

you overestimate the power of the "people" ...

french revolution also happened in a time where the military was not so advanced ... and information technologies not advanced enough for sophisticated brain washing ... and the hunger problems from that time are not anymore so prevalent ...

people once confronted with an oppressive government find many ways to sabotage their work productivity (often subconciously by being depressed or simply by having no motivation to support it) and eventually a totalitarian government falls behind others and collapses. it all takes time which is why you think that they require some outside force, when in reality even if there wasnt any outside force like it was in case of ussr or roman empire, the govt collapsed by itself because its people lost motivation to support that kind of government.

I dont think the roman empire was a united nation ...
there were many germanic "tribes" (the romans name them "barbarians", which is incorrect imho., they werent as advanced as the romans, but they could do farming, create steel goods and weaons and even build ships) around that destablized them ... rome got a lot of bad leaders after cesars son ... and they got too rich and immoral, which is also true, they werent combattive enough anymore ...
the USSR was also never really a union, there was just the big russia and the conquered states that were harvested, and the countries all had their own languages and were economically inequal ... I just do not understand why russia gave all that up, they didnt have to :-)
the EU is also not really working, with the economical inequality of states and each state having his own language ... you cant unify them as europe with these differences ... normally the same should happen as in the USSR in the EU ... but I am not really sure the directors of this construct want to give up the EU ... :-)

inb4 german will be the official language in EU (lennyface)

There is a big difference between USSR and the EU. Namely central planning, which harmed countries like poland and czechslowakia a lot.

The EU i.e the political integration of countries which were constantly fighting each other in the past centuries, has been very succesful in establishing a peaceful and relatively stable environment. The economical integration was also mostly beneficial for the countries as long as each country had control over their own currency.

The only real problem is the euro, which as you said is destined to fail due to the economical diversity. But the EU itself was a huge success.

inb4 eu is still kinda like ussr, not every country is happy to be part of it, there is still a capital state like Germany that does what it wants and then there are exploited states like Greece that are only given orders.

So why is greece still accepting all the austerity measures if they are so unhappy to be in the eu? It would be easy to just show the middlefinger to the troika and go back to the drachme. However, while going back to the drachme might be an ok idea, leaving the eu will never be an option.

How can Greece leave eu after its economy been destroyed by the integration into Eurozone, would seem twice the damage, all I am saying Eurozone is an imperialistic concept of having a centralized government that sifts resources from less developed provinces. There isn't any other way to rule, same happens in the society there is one boss and many servants.

Can you elaborate which resources are being 'shifted from less developed provinces'? You can't seriously compare freetrade among eu members to central planning in the ussr.

The only shift of ressources in the eurozone at the moment is money being transferred from germany to greece. Quite the opposite of your claim isnt it?

the resources are mostly human lives that are being ruined due to destruction of the sectors of economy that are in conflict with the central government. its not a one way street were some tooth fairy gives out stuff for free, why would it exist in a real world economy.

That's right of course there are other motives to give money to greece. At the same time it was not the eu that lead greece to have such poor productivity. It has to do with the countrie's history it's politicians who kept lowering taxes and raising pensions and the mentality of the people.

Look at other countries like poland or czechslovakia. Where were they right after the collapse of the ussr? They were economically at the bottom. However, after joining the eu both countries had very steady growth. Dont forget greece also faked their statistics to join the euro. They certainly are not the innocent victim in this case.

there is a limited growth in certain areas, but the economy of ussr collapsed ever since it joined the market economy, there is huge demographics issue now that majority of the factories were disassembled for scrap metal, they weren't top of the line, but they supplied passable goods and gave people jobs. the economics warfare is still going on and many Russian sectors of economy were destroyed because they could be a cheap alternative to western technologies.

Ok i see now where you're going. True the countries outside of the eu suffer from it due to more trade restrictions etc. There certainly are sectors which are heavily subsidized by the eu like agriculture. But it seems to me what you are critisizing is not the eu itself but capitalism in general.

Lol if Hitler would see EU he would clap his hands and smile.
Poland is in big shit just like Greece.

EU is cancer and should be wiped from this planet.
Fucking communist pieces of worthless shit.

Poland is shit
Germany is shit
Capitalism is shit
Democrazy is shit
Eu is shit

But what are the alternatives?

Good start would be stopping telling us how many cows we can milk.

What sort of capitalism is it that has roughly 50 pct of GDP spent by governments? By that measure, we're exactly in the middle and the fact that the private economy is subject to government-imposed regulations, which further limits private property rights, would tip the scale in the socialist direction. The production of money is also socialized, so that puts us even further in that direction.

I can only assume we live in a capitalist economy if by that we define an economy that has companies and people in suits working in the banking sector.

Well capitalism has different shades and includes for example also the social market economy not only the pure U.S capitalism from the 80s. But you're right 50% government quota is a lot. Didn't know it was that high.

Couple points. US government share of GDP was 30-35% in the 80s. The page count of the Federal Register, which lists all the rules and regulations imposed by the state, can be found on page 2 of this working paper. During this decade it was in the range of 45 000-60 000. It's a stretch to classify this era as pure capitalism, as you put it.

I would agree the social market economy is popularly regarded as a subset of capitalism, but I find this totally unjustified. Of course, it is a matter of degree on a practical level, as the definition of a social market economy is woefully imprecise. How far the rulers are allowed to go in their quest of bringing about a socially preferable set of property relations is arbitrarily decided by said rulers, so different people might subsume same economies differently, especially if we use a continuous measure like the share of GDP.

On a theoretical level, however, it is absolutely crystal clear: capitalism is characterized by unhampered private property rights, and a system that at its core undermines those rights to attain some other end, cannot be classified as capitalism, despite sharing certain (even significant) similarities.

In short, a consistent advocate of capitalism sees no place for state action.

I brought up the 80s because there was the mood to go to 'more pure' capitalism. Despite the number of pages being a very imprecise measure, there is a clear trend to be recognized. Within 4years the amount of pages dropped from 80000 to 50000 which is by far the sharpest decline in that graph. It doesnt really make sense to look at one point without reference. What you have to do is to see the development in relation to the starting point. Therefore i am pretty confident in my claim that the 80s were a time of (relatively) pure capitalism.

If we were to follow your strict definition of capitalism there would be no examples of it. Because even when there is a high amount of deregulation going on (as in the 80s), a country will never privatize its army or its educational system aswell as plenty of other infrastructure. In fact, the government is always the biggest consumer in every economy.

Even adam smith frequently quoted as the founder of capitalism had ideas about market failures, where the government would have to intervene.

To sum it up, there is no pure capitalism. The early 80s are an example of how close you can get to pure capitalism in reality. There is no clear line to draw and the share of GDP appears to be misleading as the early 80s are clearly an era of capitalism. or how would you describe it in one word?

Yes, in the same way there was the mood to go to 'more pure' capitalism in the 90s Russia but you wouldn't call it a pure capitalist economy.

In your initial reference to the 80s, you mentioned "pure capitalism", not "relatively pure capitalism", which would include today's European social democracies when you compare them to the Soviet Union or the Third Reich, but the former (let alone the latter) would certainly find themselves on the outside of the set of pure capitalist economies.

Your claim of no examples of pure capitalist economies is disagreeable, unless you meant only the present. (David Friedman went looking precisely for those, so it's a convenient source to get familiar with the topic - http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Academic/Course...Draft.html)

But even if we disregard that for a while, why would there have to be an example of pure capitalism for it to be a valid theoretical concept and serve as a yardstick for actual economies?

Regarding Adam Smith, first of all, it's now a settled issue that economic thought underwent serious developments centuries before Adam Smith. The Late Scholastics have held almost contemporary opinions on price theory that were lost on the classical economists (among others, Smith) and their description of the function of market prices was of equal value in underscoring the beneficial consequences of capitalism to Smith, who made contributions in growth theory, and more precisely capital accumulation. His reputation as the founder or ultimate authority in all matters capitalism is circulating only among the laymen.

Not to mention that the term is largely devoid of meaning. What does that mean for us? Did he invent commerce or private property? Are his teachings the be all and end all for discussing economic systems? If he says the government must intervene, no further arguments against that claim can be made by later generations of economists who stood on his shoulders? Economic analysis went light-years ahead of Smith in the 1870s with the marginalist revolution, let alone now in 2015. Sure, there are different schools of thought and one might argue against another that Smith's contributions are lost on them but you'll find much better arguments both for free markets and against them than those given by Smith in the 18th century.

It's an enormous logical fallacy to argue in the following way: even Smith had reservations about free markets, therefore they have no place in the provision of certain goods or services.

The last paragraph is simply untrue. Even today we have examples of regions more capitalist-inclined than the Reagan years in the US. Hongkong, Singapore and Indonesia spring to mind immediately.

If you ask me how I'd describe the 80s - interventionist. Arguments for this claim? Banking sector cartelized in the Federal Reserve System, anti-trust policies, above 30pct government share of gdp, budget deficits highest in history. There was no monumental change in policies as compared to the 1970s, maybe apart from stopping monetary expansion by Volcker for a few years, but it was resumed with a vengeance by the next appointee of Reagan to the Fed – Alan Greenspan.
Rothbard (an ardent supporter of free markets) made quick work of reaganomics as soon as 1987. LINK https://mises.org/library/myths-reaganomics

I'm arguing that your definition of capitalism is too strict. In my opinion capitalism and government intervention do not necessarily exclude eachother entirely. If the government intervenes only where markets fail it would still be perfectly legit to consider that pure capitalism.


As for your other points, i stand corrected. The 80s were definately not an era of pure capitalism in neither sense.

Thank you for sharing your informed opinion. You certainly changed the way i think about capitalism and the way politics and economics interact with each other.

Thanks ;)

There is however a huge problem with the concept of market failure. The main objection is that real world markets are compared to the perfect competition model, the assumptions of which are just bonkers and unattainable in the real world. Initially the thinking was "well the market doesn't give the outcome predicted by our unrealistic perfect model, therefore government intervention needs to bring us to this perfect state". But then, public choice economics entered the scene, which assumes self-interest that we recognize in market participants for the bureaucrats. Its conclusions are largely that governments are in practice doing much worse at attaining a perfectly competitive allocation of resources and the term "government failure" was coined to describe it.

This is an increasingly mainstream view (but subject to the underlining ideological views of the economists, as this would indicate). The Austrian school, to which I ascribe myself, heavily questions several key assumptions from the market failure body of knowledge.

Perhaps this might interest you - it's a talk by a public choice economist turned Austrian. It's obviously just a teaser and it barely touches the subject, but there are some nifty examples of how politics work in practice.

Well there are always information asymmetries which cause conflicts of interest, if there are human agents, right? it doesn't really matter whether it's the politician or the manager who has an individual incentive to follow inefficient paths. I agree that these problems might be easier to solve in a market envoirement than in politics due to the well documented rational ignorance of the voters as opposed to say the well informed shareholders. (I hope you are able to understand my clumsy argumentation)

Still, these problems are not exclusively present in politics. And the fact that market failures are very real, like the exploitation of public goods e.g overfishing, which can not be prevented in an efficient way without government intervention. (Correct me if i'm wrong) is reason enough for me to believe that no government intervention is no solution either.

Most followers of the Austrian school you'll talk to online have a visceral and ideological distaste of pretty much everything that involves the government, including social programs. This ideological stance completely ignores the volumes of research that document the fact that government intervention is often very much needed to stabilize the economy and spur growth, and that it is in most cases absolutely necessary to ensure the well-being of the population through various redistribution programs. This is not to say that government intervention necessarily always has positive impacts, but the very ideological faith of many Austrian school supporters in the market leads them to always find excuses to dismiss evidence that does not go their way (i.e. whenever an example of market failure is discussed, it is always entirely the fault of the government and not of the market, despite evidence to the contrary). This is in part linked to the fact that Austrian economists tend to reject mathematics and econometrics in favor of a love for economic theory (and online, Austrian supporters tend to be characterized by a compulsion to post links to the mises and cato institutes' websites).

In short, if you want to look and evaluate government intervention through less ideological lenses, it's best to stay away from publications coming straight out of the Austrian school, or at the very least compare them to what can be found elsewhere on the topic.

It's interesting that I've kept most of my responses consistent with the neoclassical paradigm, while only hinting at the end how the Austrians might differ in their analysis and give additional arguments, and you spent not a sentence on neoclassicals but went on a facebook-like rant on Austrians.

This discussion doesn't happen in a void -- I know from past discussions that you subscribe to the Austrian school and I'm familiar with your distrust of government intervention, which goes beyond what can be found in mainstream economics, including neoclassical economics in particular. I did not respond to your posts but to pepidda, since he might not be familiar with the Austrian school and might be interested in knowing its criticism of government intervention -- that you share -- is not representative of mainstream economics.

Neoclassical economics is just a tool of analysis (like any school of economic thought, no policy prescriptions flow from it without first accepting an ethical system) and it's been used to serve as an intellectual backbone to such diverse economic systems like anarcho-capitalism (Bryan Caplan, David Friedman), minarchist state (Milton Friedman, Gary Becker), interventionist socialdemocracy (Joe Stiglitz, Larry Summers), market socialism (Oskar Lange, Abba Lerner) or even outright communism (Maurice Dobb).

Explain to us what the representative level of criticism of government intervention in mainstream, or even better, neoclassical economics is.

On top of that, you've used a red herring to narrate your post. In the first sentence you warned him against "Austrians you'll talk to online" and towards the end you summarized your entire post as pertaining to "publications coming straight out of the Austrian school". There is a big difference between Austrian enthusiasts and professional Austrian economists, who predominantly went through a mainstream PhD program, in the same way as there is a big difference between a Bernie Sanders' supporter and a Paul Samuelson.

I think you might have confused me with someone who replied to your original posts -- I am not interested in debating economics with you. We both know that the Austrian school sees government intervention with a much more critical eye than what can be found in mainstream economics, and I have nothing to add to what I originally said. Your expected and usual baits to drag me into a discussion on these issues still don't work, sorry.

Not a red herring -- I mentioned both Austrian school enthusiasts and economists. Most do share a distrust of government intervention that is to a large degree ideological.

I was commenting on that sentence of yours:

I did not respond to your posts but to pepidda, since he might not be familiar with the Austrian school and might be interested in knowing its criticism of government intervention (...) is not representative of mainstream economics.

And so, my question still stands - what is the representative view on political economy flowing from mainstream economic analysis that Austrians are, according to you, so far from, given that you can find prominent economists espousing views over the whole spectrum of government involvement in the economy?

Not a red herring -- I mentioned both Austrian school enthusiasts and economists. Most do share a distrust of government intervention that is to a large degree ideological.

Yes, you've mentioned 'economists' in the last 2 sentences, having earlier painted a very convenient image with those ideologically driven anti-government zealots who are on the lookout for an at least remotely cohesive justification for their personal beliefs and are reticent about the convincing empirical work that blows up their worldview. (If that work is as convincing as you claim, how come not every mainstream economist is like Joe Stiglitz or Thomas Piketty in their views, but instead vary from free-marketeers to severe interventionists?)

The second sentence is just a vague summary of what your opinion on Austrian economists is. A much less generous opinion, I might add, than that of those mainstream economists who take their arguments seriously and tackle them on their merit rather than smell ideology. You can hold that view and state it from time to time without providing anything in terms of sources for your damning claims, and I will keep trying to refute it, despite your declarations of not wanting to discuss economics.

I did not say there was a single view that represented mainstream economics in general - there's obviously a spectrum of views on government intervention. I said that the Austrian school does not have a view of government intervention that is representative of mainstream economics. You know this is true, so just move on.

Likewise, I did not say Austrian economics do not have arguments that are worth taking and rebutting seriously. I said that most Austrian school enthusiasts and economists share a distrust of government intervention that is to a large degree ideological. I'm not arguing anything else, but good luck with your inevitable next attempt at dragging me into the debate you desperately want to have with whomever dares speak ill of the Austrian school.

There doesn't have to be a single view, in order for your characterization to be invalid.

You're saying there is a class of policy views called "representative of mainstream economics" (I don't really know what that should mean but it's not important at the moment), and since I can see neoclassical economics being used to justify systems ranging from anarcho-capitalism to communism, that set necessarily includes whichever economic system any Austrian advocates.

It would help if you gave a criterion on how to differentiate between views representative and not representative of the mainstream. Until you do that, your classification lacks any substance.

You have twice said that I knew your side of the story was correct, yet kept arguing despite that. Either that is true and I'm arguing with you for argument's sake or things aren't as straightforward as you let on and there is disagreement about the issue. If you really think it's the former, simply don't feed the troll.

As to your second point, saying that you're arguing that Austrians are to a large degree ideologically driven is a big exaggeration on your part. You haven't actually argued that, but instead stated it three times without any kind of substantiation.

You can see the falsity of such accusations even by glancing at the wikipedia pages of the most prominent Austrians or their words directly in how their thinking changed over the years: Mises,Hayek, Hoppe (first 2 questions), Block. Four should be enough for now.

I know you aren't interested in debating economics with me and I don't particularly enjoy those interactions with you, since you refuse to treat me as equal in a debate and stress that my economics flows from prior ideological positions, and not the other way around. I have not intended to convince you this is not the case for a long time now. I only responded here to you because you tried to denigrate a school of economic thought that I find correct not by addressing their arguments (or pointing to others who addressed them) but by sole declarations that they're wrong (in an elaborate and nicely worded manner, as is your wont, undeniably).

If pepidda were interested in what they have to say, your remark has been instrumental in nothing more but providing undue prejudice against the Austrians.

You're committing a logical fallacy. Saying that a particular school does not represent mainstream economics is not akin to saying mainstream economics can be summarized under a single flag. If an object is blue, white and red, saying yellow is not representative of the object's colors is not akin to declaring that there is a single color that characterizes the object. Again, we both know that the Austrian school (particularly Mises and his followers) is substantially more critical of government intervention in the economy than what is found in mainstream economics. I also know that you know this to be true, so there's no need for me to engage into the debate that you're trying to push because you're trying to drag me into a wider discussion on economics and the merits of the Austrian school.

I did not say that ideology preceded analysis or the opposite, merely that it colored the analysis. Which is why, like I said, getting an informed opinion on the impact of government intervention certainly requires looking elsewhere than what comes out of the Austrian school (which does not preclude also evaluating what it has to say on the issue).

"Saying that a particular school does not represent mainstream economics..."

We were not discussing what schools of thought were regarded as belonging to the mainstream, but what policy views flow from the mainstream and if they, in some cases, are also reached by Austrian analysis. I hope it was just a slip of the tongue on your part, because it does make a difference in our discussion. Austrians employ analytical tools that are not present in the mainstream and also reject some techniques of the mainstream, so as far as schools of thought are concerned, they're apart (you wouldn't have a problem with the Austrian school if it only were a quirky term for the otherwise identical mainstream, I presume)

Your object analogy is inadequate. We agree that there is some overlap between policy views from the mainstream and the Austrians (there are a few mainstream anarcho-capitalists and lots of minarchists). So in order for the object analogy to have some bearing, you'd have to have one object with an entire spectrum of colours and the other one that's yellow and orange only. Now you come in and say the colours from the second object aren't representative of the other one. I say the other one has all the colours, so it must be that colours of the second object are a subset of the colours of the first object.

Colours the analysis, proceeds it - what's the difference when we're just asserting what we like, right? For the purpose of talking to someone who isn't interested in substantiating any of his positions and complains about "usual baits to drag him into a discussion on these issues", not wanting to push him where he doesn't want to be pushed, I say it doesn't colour the analysis and leave it at that.

My goal here is not to ferret out the details with you, since I know you're not interested in that. I want you to say to pepidda "there are arguments on why the Austrian School is partly ideological but I can't be bothered to list any of them. But there are." I will not mind if you alter the wording to your preference, leaving the meaning in tact. I am not misrepresenting your position, am I?

With regards to the first part of your post, you seem to be confused as to what I was discussing. Exactly like I wrote in the passage you quoted, I was (and still am) saying that the Austrian school does not represent mainstream economics with regards to its views on government intervention. No "slip of the tongue" there from me, but perhaps a misunderstanding from your part (or rather another ridiculously transparent attempt at steering the discussion in the direction you want it to take).

The object analogy was there to highlight that your argument was fallacious, and it did: my point was not about what is representative of mainstream economics, but about the fact that how the Austrian school views government intervention isn't.

Interesting goal -- you won't achieve it.

The Austrian school cannot represent the mainstream in policy views, because the policy views are independent of the descriptive science of economics, be it Austrian, mainstream, Marxian or any other. To claim that policy views are somehow ingrained into economics, and can therefore represent it, is a mistake.

Policy views can only be informed by economic analysis, given that one adopts an ethical system beforehand, e.g. if my goal is to enrich the workers, taxing capital gains and redistributing the revenue is the right thing to do, as Joe Stiglitz would reason. Then Milton Friedman can come along and say that the same goal will be reached by the opposite means (lowering the burden on capital accumulation) and capital gains tax will result in a net loss for the workers. This is a disagreement entirely about the analysis, not the goals and I've found two credible examples from the mainstream of economics. So which policy view represents the mainstream - tax the capital or not? Both? None?

And since economists who can be categorized as belonging to the mainstream are advocating for all kinds of economic systems (as I've shown and you have not objected to), you cannot credibly claim that there is some outlandish economic system favoured by the Austrians and unattainable by mainstream analysis.

Which is why, contrary to your declaration of success, your object analogy could not have shown I was wrong, since it had no relation to what we were discussing and I have never made an argument that would call for your analogy.

my point was not about what is representative of mainstream economics, but about the fact that how the Austrian school views government intervention isn't.

Setting aside the misuse of the word "representative", there are views on government that Austrian economists have (yellow and orange) and there are views on government that mainstream economists have (the whole spectrum). I've just quoted you saying something to the effect of: my point was not about what colours the whole spectrum has, but about the fact that yellow and orange aren't in it. Quite a point, I admit.

Your view can only make sense if by mainstream economics you mean economists who have more or less middle-of-the-road views on government intervention. Something similar to what Samuelson and Nordhaus advocated in their book. In this scenario, Austrians indeed differ, but so does Friedman, Keynes and, increasingly every year, Krugman. That, however, requires a definition of mainstream economics that is utterly false, which I presume you realize.

And yet again I am accused of desperately wanting to talk economics with you, although it's you who joined the discussion on economics. I use the word "join" generously here - you've only declared what your positions are and when I try to show they're baseless, I'm the one dragging you into a debate on economics.

So to sum up, to your initial slanderous comment on ideological, visceral and guided by love (wow) for economic theory Austrians, as opposed to scientific mainstreamers who year by year advance the consensus by carefully and objectively studying the facts staring them in the face, I have shown that:

1) within the mainstream framework, there is ample disagreement about what the empirical work suggests as correct
2) Austrians are not ignoring the work of the mainstream. Far from it, virtually all of them studied it and embraced it before even knowing of the Austrian school
3) their policy prescriptions were evolving over time, often starting from deep statist positions that you favour and deem justified by "volumes of research"

Your only attempt of explanation or advancement over what you said initially was to state that the Austrian analysis is coloured by ideology (I assume you mean libertarianism). Quite vague, I must say, but I won't press on it. Elsewhere, you said that Most do share a distrust of government intervention that is to a large degree ideological. I would like to give you a clear-cut chance to give substance to your point of view with minimal effort - indicate which economist(s) is outside the "most" subset and give a sentence long explanation where the difference in analysis can be observed.

That would surely give pepidda a signal that you have in fact got familiar with the school of thought that you so easily dismiss and advise best to stay away from(...), and not just hoped to use hedged language in order to denigrate a school of thought you personally dislike, not because of their formal analysis, but because of the policy views its proponents hold.

My goal is being achieved through more roundabout means - with every post of yours that happily dives into semantics of little relevance for the topic discussed, but that somehow lacks the most feeble attempt at grounding your initial strong claims with evidence. I must say that's a pretty low standard for you on this forum. Usually you are very quick to provide references to what you claim. Here, however, all me and pepidda get is an elaborate version of "there are arguments on why the Austrian School is partly ideological but I can't be bothered to list any of them. But there are."

I'm impressed at how far into triviality you've decided to go to come up with something to argue about. The economic policy objectives relevant to my point were contained in my first post and included "stabilize the economy and spur growth". With those objectives in mind, different economic schools adopt different views with regards to how helpful government intervention can be in various situations. And like I said, the views of the Austrian school in this regard are not representative of mainstream economics. The objection you raise about the ethical system is irrelevant to my point, as the only relevant ethical/political positions already underpin the discussion and are that economic growth and the well-being of the population are desirable.

The analogy did show the fallacy of your argument. You asked me to present what could be seen as representative mainstream economics, while my point was about what was not representative of mainstream economics. If you fail to see the logical difference between the two, that's on you.

To answer the second half of your post, which is essentially you 1. stretching up your arguments to the extreme to give the impression of having argued something substantial and 2. going on irrelevant tangents about the value of the work done by Austrians: I did not reply to you, I replied to peppina; you are indeed trying to get me to discuss economics; I'm not arguing semantics -- pointing out the logical failings of your arguments is not discussing semantics. You can keep baiting all you want, we both know that the views of Austrians on government intervention are indeed not representative of mainstream economics.

Just before you came up with your analogy, I said:

It would help if you gave a criterion on how to differentiate between views representative and not representative of the mainstream. Until you do that, your classification lacks any substance.

It's not me who fails to see what you meant, but you who fails to respond to a very clear-cut request that would have cleared things up a long time ago.

Another simple request of mine that you haven't spent a word on is that of giving a name of at least one Austrian, whose distrust of government intervention isn't to a large degree ideological. Since you clearly said it is the case of most of them, one name to the contrary shouldn't be much of a problem.

So there it is - two requests as clear as day - what differentiates between policies representative of the mainstream and unrepresentative ones, and a name of at least a single economist. Until then, I'll assume your knowledge of Austrian economics comes from everywhere but the source, and therefore you're totally unfit to criticize it. And I hope that's the conclusion reached by pepidda.

If you're unwilling to fullfill those requests, consider your next post as the one ending all this, since I won't be carrying on a discussion consisting of vague and baseless objections.

The analogy addressed the following claim you made: Ť You're saying there is a class of policy views called "representative of mainstream economics" ť. Instead, my point was about the Austrian school not being representative of mainstream economics on the impact of government intervention. Like I said, if you fail to see the logical difference between the two, that's on you.

Your second request is again irrelevant to my point -- that's yet another failed attempt at broadening the debate.

I am indeed unwilling to engage in the kind of discussion that you immediately try to go for whenever someone speaks ill of the Austrian school -- as I made abundantly clear after you initially replied to me. Hopefully you'll have gotten the memo this time, and you'll stick to your resolution to no longer reply.

To sum up: the views of the Austrian school with regards to how helpful government intervention can be in various situations are not representative of mainstream economics. If one wants to get an informed opinion on the issue, it is necessary to look elsewhere than the Austrian school.

If one wants to get an informed opinion on the issue, it is necessary to look elsewhere than the Austrian school.

Summed up with a logical contradiction. Happy not to reply anymore.

Ah, I knew you would still reply, and with another fallacy for good measure. Like I explained previously, arguing that it is necessary to look elsewhere than the Austrian school to get an informed opinion on the issue is not akin to saying that one should not look at the Austrian school as well. Clearly logic is not your strong suit.

'Elsewhere than' isn't the same as 'not only', so your summary stands in contradiction to what you were saying in your previous posts. Before you comment on the validity of my logic, use phrases in their intended meaning.

If I were not convinced that you have not got the faintest idea about Austrian economics, other than what you may have read on Krugman's blog or a similar source, I would be astounded that you still didn't give me that name of a single Austrian economist who in your mind is less ideological on government than others. So from now on I will be pressing you on this issue alone, seeing as it greatly inconveniences you. If you have no reservations about slanderous posts without any substance followed by "I'm not interested in backing this up", I may as well have no reservations about being obnoxiously persistent. Maybe I will even start enjoying it.

Color me unsurprised that you are still incapable of letting go, despite your previous assertion to the contrary :)

Again, there is no contradiction. Like I said, arguing that it is necessary to look elsewhere than the Austrian school to get an informed opinion on the topic does not mean that one should not look at the Austrian school as well -- the statement makes no claim as to what needs to be done with regards to the Austrian school itself. Using "not only" would imply a need to also look at the Austrian school, while my sentence makes no claim one way or the other (and thus contains no logical contradiction). If you need this spelled out to you even further, don't hesitate to ask, since you seem to be struggling with elementary logic.

I'm not sure how your feeble attempts at broadening the debate and getting me to discuss the Austrian school with you are supposed to be greatly inconveniencing me. Clearly, it seems inconvenient to you that I'm not falling for them, given the frustration that permeates your posts. But sure, knock yourself out, my reply will remain the same :)

Here is your idea of an 'informed opinion': read the mainstream, do whatever you like with the Austrians. That’s ludicrous. Even the dismissal of the Austrians requires reading them first. But you have already done the dismissal for us, so we are to conclude that your opinion is a great proxy for an informed one, right?

But I don't think your words should be understood that way. You are not allowed to think up your own meaning of phrases. 'Elsewhere than' clearly means not looking at whatever 'elsewhere than' refers to. Consult the dictionaries, if such a simple thing has so far eluded you.

Furthermore, if you're so insistent that in your summary you've made no claim with respect to the Austrians on one hand, and that your summary is consistent with what you had said before on the other, a part of your initial post poses some problems.

In short, if you want to look and evaluate government intervention through less ideological lenses, it's best to stay away from publications coming straight out of the Austrian school, or at the very least compare them to what can be found elsewhere on the topic.

There is, however, a slight chance that I'm a bit fuzzy on what 'best to stay away' means. By the way, does "elsewhere on the topic" include the Austrians, excludes them, or makes no claim one way or the other? If it excludes them, that's another indication of equivocation on your part. If it doesn’t, the whole assertion makes no sense. Take your pick.

So no name after all? That's very convenient to me, if you didn't notice. You giving that name would deal a huge blow to my hypothesis that you're clueless on Austrian economics and your statement "Most [Austrians] do share a distrust of government intervention that is to a large degree ideological" was nothing more but hot air that you hoped would slip by unnoticed.

If your continued avoidance of the topic (contrary to your usual eagerness to engage others on topics you have strong opinions on and to back up your claims with either consistent theory or empirical work) were not enough to warrant my conviction, I can go back to a thread on Ron Paul's views on health care. Ron Paul is an advocate of the Austrian school and you attempted to counter his arguments by pasting a talk by Krugman and Stiglitz, in which they invoke Ken Arrow's criticism of the existence of assumptions underlying the perfect competition model in the health care industry. Perfect competition is in direct opposition to the Austrian "market process" view of competition. In fact, Hayek can be paraphrased as saying that perfect competition assumes away most of competition. Talk about not knowing what you set out to refute...

Make no mistake, this isn't me engaging you on this topic (you can reply to my original post from 2012 in that very topic, if you want to) but an obvious example of you making a beginner mistake on a topic you claim to "be very familiar with".

The narrative of me being frustrated by your reluctance to take part in a discussion on economics is a figment of your imagination. The very reason I keep getting back to that is my conviction that you have not studied what you so decisively dismiss, and you base your disdain for the Austrians solely because of conclusions that you find undesirable. The overall impression of “I could back this up but I’m unwilling to” that your lack of arguments leaves makes a better case against your dismissal of the Austrian school than a debate would.

The fact that you have not retracted your "best to stay away" piece of advice, which was uttered to someone who, as it turned out a bit later, already studied economics and is quite visibly familiar with the mainstream concepts, indicates how close-minded you can come off when the scientific edifice for statism might be uprooted (in a more or less legitimate way, but you're not in the position to assess that extent, since you have no knowledge of the content of the critique in the first place).

As you have noticed and didn't miss the opportunity to derive some strange satisfaction from, I keep on replying. Pointing out how you trip up on your words and still refuse to make the smallest effort at backing up your initial claims is preferable to allowing your weak attempts at weaselling out stay unaddressed.

Again, my statement about getting an informed opinion on government intervention did not make a claim as to what needed to be done with regards to the Austrian school itself. It didn't claim one should study it, it didn't claim one should not study it, and it did not claim, as you just pretended, that you could "do whatever you like with the Austrians" (which would be another claim) - you are decidedly terrible at understanding basic logical relationships. Dictionaries agree with me, since elsewhere means "in or to another place", which in itself makes no statement about what characterizes the initial place.

Since I'm struggling to come up with an easier way for you to process this incredibly simple matter, let's try the following: if I say "there are apples in this bowl and there are apples elsewhere than in this bowl", there is no contradiction between the two parts of the sentence. If I only said "there are apples elsewhere than in this bowl", this would not be in contradiction with the fact that there are also apples in the bowl -- the statement makes no claim as to whether or not there are apples in the bowl. Likewise, if I say "it is necessary to look at the Austrian school and it is necessary to look elsewhere than the Austrian school", there is no contradiction. And if I only say, like I did, "it is necessary to look elsewhere than the Austrian school", the same applies -- this makes no claim as to whether or not it is necessary to look at the Austrian school itself as well. There is no logical contradiction, and you were wrong.

As to the earlier statement I made, the definition of "elsewhere" remains the same, and it is used with "compare them to" so the meaning of the sentence is pretty straightforward. The "stay away" part was about looking at analyses less colored by ideological bias.

The rest of your post is you pursuing your attempts at getting me to engage you about the Austrian school, which I'm not interested in doing; also, peppida's knowledge of mainstream economics is unrelated to the validity of my claim.

Anyway, do you have any material on the basics of this Austrian School? I think I'm interested every since I've seen you mention it on here, but I never actually did read up on it.
And I've also read about another Austrian, Christian Felber. Have you heard about him and his project?
http://www.christian-felber.at/english.php

I've recently encountered this and it's very good as a starting point. If you like videos, the YT channel of the Mises Institute is full of lectures on topics that you may find interesting.

I have not encountered Christian Felber so far. I'll take a look.

Well in fact i study economics too, so i know a thing or two about it aswell. But you're right i never heard of the austrian school. I am interested in their arguments thiough, some of which don't seem that far off to me.

The existence of information assymetry, far from being a hindrance to the orderly functioning of market exchanges, gives yet another dimension to entrepreneurial action. Namely, it creates a profit opportunity in bringing the consumer up to speed or explicitly insulating him/her from the uncertainty flowing from lack of information. Advertising's function is the former, while guarantees are ways of offering the latter.

However, this is only possible in a competitive environment where misleading a consumer may result in loss of business to a current or prospective competitor. No such pressures exist in the political realm, because acquiring resources has no relation (or at least a very indirect and inefficient one - elections or, ultimately, rebellion) to the satisfaction of government's "customers".

Your distinction between voters and shareholders wasn't made in a clumsy way but someone might object that you're giving too much credit to shareholders. That's where the discipline of corporate governance comes in - to aid the shareholder, who can be and often is insignificant and uninformed when it comes to influencing managerial behaviour, Hostile takeover is one of the most drastic measured that can be taken when the management isn't serving the shareholders adequately. Ironically, though, it's often anti-market advocates who set out to help "the little man" by in effect robbing him/her of the effective means of restoring shareholder control of the company.

I'll add a quick comment to the specific example of a public good you've mentioned - overfishing. It follows a well-known dynamic for the "tragedy of the commons" situation, This happens in a situation of perverse incentives - there is no one to reap the benefits of a given resources's capital value (it's long-term ability to provide cash flows), so there is noone to enforce the long-term preservation of that resource. Meanwhile, there are multiple parties interested in consuming the resource (which is exhaustible). It's then in their interest to consume it as quickly as possible and leave as little to the next party, because that results directly in their gain being diminished. It's hard to imagine such a dynamic in a privatized water pond, since the owner has the legal right to restrict access to anyone and balance short-term consumption with the long-term value. I'm pretty sure I didn't make it as clear as I'd like, so here's an analogy that explains it well: suppose you allowed anyone and everyone to enter your house and do there whatever they desire for two weeks and two weeks only. You can imagine the state you'd find the house after two weeks. This is the current state of our public waters.

And you cannot convincingly argue that the state can impose long-term discipline, since it's time-horizon is also short, with lucrative favours to be dispensed to the fishing industry (or other special interests) before "the next elections" serving as the short-term temptation.

I admit I have not researched the topic deeply and have no quantitative comparison between various solutions but this is what economic logic immediately suggests.

I gave more credit to shareholders because i consider it far more likely that a significant proportion of shareholders worries about a sophisticated analysis of management behaviour than the median voter doing the same for a politician/political party.
The latter will likely vote in favour of the current government if the economic state is good, attributing it to the goverment. While this is a simplification, it really only is a very slight one.
However, the politicians also have to predict the preferences of the median voter. And if these preferences reflect an understanding of the issue of sustainability, enviromental damage and climate change, you name it, the politicians have to cater to their preferences. Otherwise they will likely lose the election. Therefore it is very well possible that the government acts in long-term interest.

Now to the private water pond. Why would anyone pay to fish out of a private pond if you can just go to the 'big pond' and fish for free. I don't see how that would solve the problem. And if there was a company that bought the entire atlantic, how would that regulation differ from government regulation?

Oh, make no mistake, I do think the average shareholder is better informed than the average voter, as do you. My point was, there are well established and often practiced ways to compensate, even if that were not the case.

As to political incentives across time, it is often a case of centralized benefits against dispersed costs. Let's say there is a company looking to gain millions or billions from removing an emission cap and the consequence may be a small but noticeable decrease in crops for the local farmers. It's a long shot to expect the farmers to organize behind a candidate who's major issue is the emission cap, while the company can contribute significantly to his campaign and help him reach broader groups with the additional money, which would even further weaken his initial stance on the cap. There certainly are cases of this not being the case, but the deck is stacked against dispersed interests, especially in cases such long-term and removed from daily life as ecosystem sustainability, where the immediate burden is not noticable and requires specific effort to gain knowledge of its existence.

As to private waters, I didn't stress the necessary prerequisite for such deliberations. If there are no institutional barriers to privatization of water, it is expected that all usable areas will find an owner interested in receiving benefits flowing from that area, even if they were previously unused and unowned.

The idea of a single company buying up the whole Atlantic seems unlikely to me, since there would conceivably be multiple companies bidding for parts of it (if the parceling out of waterland would be handled by governments) and the marginal benefit from additional unit of waterland would be lower than the marginal cost at some point, so it would be against the company's interest to bid for it. You can think of it this way: BMW doesn't buy up all the steel that's produced, because at some large quantity, the demand for BMWs is not high enough to justify the expenditure on more steel. At this point, another use for steel opens up and, let's say, Roche buys it for its medical equipment and the price is justified because the supply is low. If the price of steel were 0, BMW could theoretically take it all but the fact that it isn't indicates a socially optimal point for steel usage and a switch to a different production process.

Getting back to the topic of water, there may also be an issue of estabilishing borders. A free-for-all might break out between companies. This sort of conflict could be likely if, all of a sudden, the control over Ruhrgebiet were up for grabs, since the huge benefits would justify the costs of waging war. However, the infrastructure in the middle of the Atlantic isn't established at all so far, so the corresponding benefits might be low enough as to not justify a high-cost solution. In that case, mediation and mutual recognition of borders seems like a superior solution.

Even if, as you stipulated, one company owned the whole Atlantic, its property right would extend long into the future, so it would be interested in balancing short-term consumption with the preservation of long-term "productivity" of the Atlantic. IF we assume that governments are more short-term orientated (as I've tried to argue in the beginning of this post), even in that scenario, it would be better to have a private owner, assuming your goal is to preserve the serviceability of the Atlantic into the future.

The resources flow in the opposite direction ;)

Russia was Hitler's ally too. What's your point?

Russia just like great Britain that allowed partition of Czechoslovakia was trying to buy time and not get involved in a large scale conflict with a bigger army. There was no Russian army fighting alongside Hitler's third reich including partition of Poland, which mind you was Russian territory before 1917. But all of that pales in comparison to large scale eastern front warfare that would show Hitler was never Russias ally but a western puppet who was brought to power to fight Russia.

Really? Why did Stallin order invasion on Poland few days after Hitler then?

Don't play dumb, learn some history.

Well, did you know that most of WW2 happened on Russian territory against Russia? Why so much attention to detail and completely oblivious to the big picture. The whole of Hitlers doctrine was described as a march to the east. Poland I repeat was Russian territory just 2 decades prior, its like if Texas was taken over by Mexican rebels and USA deciding to reclaim it, with a help of third party. What you suggest is that somehow invasion of Poland overshadows 80% of ww2 casualties that happened on eastern front where Germany used scorched earth tactics proves that Russia and Germany were allies.

No, I'm saying you guys were allies and it was all fine and cool until Hitler wanted Russia too. Until then you were splitting territories together.

You didn't end up on opposite sides because Hitler is evil and it was the right thing to do. You ended up there just because he got too greedy. If he didn't go on Russia, you'd be still on same sides. After all, you love genocide yourselves more than anything else as proven by Stalin and almost every other Russian ruler in history.

"There was no Russian army fighting alongside Hitler's third reich including partition of Poland, which mind you was Russian territory before 1917"

Since about 3000 BC I presume? ;D

if you follow lawful logic, it was unlawful overthrow of government that caused poland's breakaway from russia or else we could have thousands of quasi governments trying to be created based on historical records of past.

Overthrowing a government is always unlawful. It doesn't mean it's unjustified.

google partitions of poland (1772-1795). ofc during the +1000 years of history of this country the borders shifted many times. yet still it orignated streching from oder river - vistula river. after the 1st world war the contry was moved a bit more towards east. but to be fair russia did eat the biggest chunk of pre-partitions poland (as compared to austria and prussia/germany). so it was kinda logical to move it a bit more east while relatively decreasing its borders as compared to the ones from the period before anections happened. anyways, love the impersialistic thinking of your average russian, so when will you eat ukraine, is russia hungry?

Each country is an animal that fights for it survival, there is no good guy out there, even under pretexts of saving humanity countless bloody conflicts are being fought till this day.

Good to know Russia wants to wipe Polaks from the map for the greater good.
Today I learned something new. Thank you.

Hitler and Napoleon wanted and did try to wipe Russia off the map more than a few times, we have to take precautions, Russia never attacked Europe for the last 300 years, so Europe should blame themselves.

What the fuck man? Ruskies split Polaks with Germans not that long ago.

Do you realize that what you are taught in school about ww2 history is complete bs? I just have written a reply to another guy who brings up split of Poland out of context to prove that Russia supported Hitler, do you realize how dumb it sounds?

Russia didn't "support Hitler". Russia supported eating Polaks.
After war they supported Polaks with communism and Walesa ; )

But you are saying it in context as if somehow Russia had a choice of letting Hitler swallow Poland whole? Or you actually believe that Russia should have gone to war with Hitler over a neighboring sovereign state? You keep asking hard questions against Russia and yet not a single European country did anything about stopping Hitler from rising to power. All I am saying you keep playing "Russia Satan - Europe Angel" game. Russia just sits there dandy until its provoked, and then somehow its Russia's fault all the time.

I have no idea what it is but any educated person knows that there is no logical way of retelling world history events without tracing where the money went and by far and wide the only two currencies that came out as a winner after ww2 is dollar and the pound.

Surely it was a dick move by US to fuck up Ukraine but it's not like Russia spreads love over there.

Or you actually believe that Russia should have gone to war with Hitler over a neighboring sovereign state?

The United Kingdom and France did just that though.

Japan in WW2 collaborated with the Nazi's and killed about 15 million in asia. They also attacked US first and then declared war. It's not like Japan wasn't ruthless during ww2.

its going to get even crazier with human genetic engineering on the horizon, all they need is an excuse to commit a massive holocaust of "unworthy" people.

agreed

inb4 holodomor

the allies loved bombing the crap out of axis occupied cities, and they happened to win, therefore absolving themselves of all sin.

That's total war. WW2 historians constantly debate this issue (whether it was necessary, if it actually saved lives by ending the war quicker, etc.).

By the way, I think the Tokyo fire bombings actually killed more than either atom bomb. But I think the psychological effect of the atom bombs was worse. John Hersey's book Hiroshima documented a lot of the disturbing events following the bombing of Hiroshima: people blinded walking around like zombies, the radiation poisoning that effectively sterilized a large number of people, and so on.

Truly horrific. But then all of ww2 was.

Dude, get real. They were just terribly itching to try it in the field. They had it developed, tested in Nevada or wherever (exposing their own population to a good deal of radiation - thinking John Wayne here) and they knew it would be their last opportunity in the foreseeable future to give it a real run.

You may safely forget all that other smokescreen talk. It's just the mandatory fig leave excuse that has to be provided, to take care of the ethical technicalities.

No, you get real. The whole war was awful. Tens of millions died. And many were expecting a nuclear holocaust to follow the end of the war.

You're making judgment about something you have no accountability for and no comprehension of the magnitude of and implications for humanity. You're also pretending to know what was going through the minds of people fighting to end a war they did not start.

The fact is we will never know what would've happened if those bombs weren't dropped. If you think you know, you're deluded.

Please spare me those generic phrases about "implications for humanity" and such. I believe I just said what to think of those.

Fact is, even if I didn't know any particulars at all, mere analogy would already be suggestive enough. The military always wants to field test their newest, biggest weapons. Which played a major role why WW1 was started to begin with, for example, because the military had been pushing for a war.

And then, with a head start on that massive weapon over all other countries and a massive war ongoing, you seriously think the US would have gone out of that war without having it dropped at least somewhere? They considered dropping it on Germany, too, but that might have done too much damage to friendly neighbors. While Japan was a nicely isolated alternative.

Sleep on, dude, I really don't need to be the one to wake you up.

Thanks for the laugh. Hauptschule education at its finest.

Welcome, Mr. "implications for humanity". Mr. "I prefer to ignore the fact that since early 1944 it was as good as agreed upon that they would drop the bomb somewhere, they just didn't quite know yet where exactly".

Lol...

-Germany surrenders: May 8, 1945
-First successful test of atom bomb: July 16, 1945
-Hiroshima: August 6, 1945
-Nagasaki: August 9, 1945
-Japan surrenders: September 2, 1945

So?

U.S. didn't not nuke Germany for fear of hurting neighbors. They didn't because the war in Europe was already over.

Actually try reading some history books instead of making up your own history.

Sweet Jesus. Do you really think they started deliberating about what to do with the bomb *after* it was ready? How naive are you, exactly?

To give you a brief run down, during the early 40s the idea was that Germany might be close to having the bomb. At this point it's still been thought of as a deterrent.

In late 43 and early 44 though, it became increasingly apparent that Germany wasn't anywhere near. At the same time, the discussion shifted from deterrent to the bomb as a first strike option.

Then all the pros and cons were deliberated. Like, what if the plane gets shut down over Germany, or if the bomb is a dud. Would the Germans be able to gather anything, from what they would then be holding in their hands. And so on and so on.

And by mid/late 44 it's been pretty much settled upon that Japan would be the target. And you can be sure that those Generals were literally praying for the war *not* to be over before the bomb was ready for deployment.

Seriously, dude. You might want to consider doing a little catchup on your own country's history.

Ok, hauptschule.

That's no excuse, I'm afraid. Specifically after me taking the time and providing you with a preparatory boot camp.

I guess I should just take your word for it, then. You've totally convinced me with your argument.

I mean, the Germans do know a thing or two about testing experimental weapons on people for no other reason than out of hatred? Apathy? I'm sure the President and US military generals looked to the Nazis and said to themselves, "Hmmm, those Nazis seem to be on to something! Let's melt some people!"

No, you don't need to take my word for it. You're entirely free to inform yourself, I won't make the slightest attempt at preventing you. Promise.

Do you have an annotated bibliography, mein fuhrer?

Your Führer gladly lends you a hand googling
http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2013/10/04/ato...i-germany/

Give me a holler when you go brushing your teeth later.

PS: And seriously, how fucked up exactly do you have to be in your mind to call a nuclear bomb that you're going to drop on civilians "little boy"? I mean, that's majorly fucked up. Like, really rare.

Sweet, a blog. Top notch academic rigor.

Edit: Crap, can I borrow your tinfoil hat?

Glad you realized that much yourself. It's a "historian of science who specializes in the history of nuclear weapons", from Stevens Institute of Technology, New Jersey.

Well, looks like we're finally making some progress, slow as it may be. Frankly, I had already written you off in my mind, as a complete loss.

Edit: ;)

Please help me find where the blogger supports your claims. When I said that historians debate whether the bomb was necessary, whether it saved lives, etc., you said:

You may safely forget all that other smokescreen talk. It's just the mandatory fig leave excuse that has to be provided, to take care of the ethical technicalities.

So you're saying the bomb was not dropped for either of these reasons (necessary to end war, to save lives). You then said:

And you can be sure that those Generals were literally praying for the war *not* to be over before the bomb was ready for deployment.

So you're saying that the generals did not want to end the war so that they could test the bomb. You're saying that's the entire reason the bomb was dropped. To test it -- not to end the war, not to save lives -- it was simply to get more data on the effects of a bomb. It was, in other words, slaughtering tens of thousands of people to just get data.

You also said:

[T]he fact that since early 1944 it was as good as agreed upon that they would drop the bomb somewhere, they just didn't quite know yet where exactly.

If the bomb was not dropped to end the war, or to save lives, or any of the other "smokescreen talk" which were used to "take care of the ethical technicalities", then what you're saying is that the bomb was going to get dropped on anyone. Period.

You also said:

The military always wants to field test their newest, biggest weapons. Which played a major role why WW1 was started to begin with, for example, because the military had been pushing for a war.

No matter that the US had no involvement with the start of WW1, that it was basically an isolationist nation with no standing army at the start of WW1. But yet you think that because something was true for WW1 for other countries. Sound logic.

Lol. Dude, you're so funny.

You do realize that those things aren't mutually exclusive, do you? Of course did they want to end the war, or else it wouldn't have worked as the lame excuse that it is. But it didn't really need the bomb for that.

I know, now you'll be going on again "prevent more losses" blah blah blah. But is that really proportionate action? Did anyone drop a nuclear bomb on San Francisco for example, wiping out hundreds of thousands of civilians, thus asking for a similar answer? No!

Look, you want to keep on living in happy-america-in-denial-land that's not my problem. But the excerpts the guy quotes make it perfectly clear that they wanted to drop the bomb, and would do so if they could justify it in any way at all. That matter had practically been settled mid 44, where the target had been singled out. Of course, nobody would ever directly say that, but that's as close as anybody would ever publicly get to an admission.

Dear me. You really need a full confession before being able to come to a conclusion, right? Just looking at the evidence and putting 2 and 2 together seems to be too much to ask.

That's illogical. Why would someone pray for something (keeping the war going) they don't want?

Your third paragraph doesn't even make sense. What are you trying to say? If a conventional ground invasion of the mainland -- like what happened in Europe -- was going to be necessary to get Japan to surrender, it is a stretch of the imagination that it'd be a less bloody solution. Just look at how much blood was spilled on even a small island like Iwo Jima where 25,000+ died. If you think a full land assault on the Japanese mainland would've been less bloody, you're completely delusional.

I'm not happy-american-in-denial. Like I said in my original post which you seized on, I said WW2 was truly horrific. I said that tens of millions died, that more people died in the Tokyo fire bombing than died in Hiroshima, and that the greater horror of the bombings was psychological. Where did I say anything like, "Yah, AMERICUH FUCK YA WE WON!"?? I think the whole war was awful and the bombings were no less awful.

And all you're doing is speculating about a decision suggesting that the intentions were purely evil. That the idea was to vaporize and irradiate 200,000+ people just to test a bomb which had already been demonstrated and would be tested thousands of times subsequently. I think you're ridiculous if you think you're at that level to think about the decision to drop that bomb and looking ahead to what the U.S., Russia, and the rest of the world knew was coming. A nuclear arms race.

A nuclear holocaust does't even exist on the moral spectrum. It would mean the extinction of humanity. The period of time surrounding not only the development of the atomic bomb was a paradigm shift in what total war could come to. Never before, in the history of the world, has the world faced the reality that a total war could end in the extinction of man.

No, you're obfuscating your original argument. You said, explicitly, that they wanted to drop the bomb to TEST IT. Not to stop the war, not to save lives. This was, according to you, "smokescreen talk". Of course they wanted to end the war and if that meant dropping the bomb, that means, indirectly, they wanted to use that means.

The fact is that you're total bullshit. You say something and now you're trying to backtrack like that's not what you were saying. Okay dude.

Why some high level military guys would be praying for a war to not come to an end too soon? Think. Like, end of glorious action and opportunities to distinguish yourself? End of opportunities to check out new weaponry? Make an effort and I'm sure you'll come up with still more reasons.

As to ground invasion, that's really just the lame excuse again in its full glory. Chalk up the purely speculative worst case scenario, then take that as a justification for whatever you like to do. Japan might very well have offered peace talks way sooner.

And again, spare me those brain dead ethical arguments. It's never been about good or evil. That's not the way the military or political mindset works. That's not the category in which these kinds of decisions are made.

Fact is, the broader idea was very likely to send a signal to the Soviet Union. The "we stop at nothing if need be" signal. And I'm sure that it actually worked, to that effect. But *that's* mere speculation.

Finally, no. I'm not obfuscating anything. Rather, those who decided to drop the bomb did.

Oh, now you're saying "some high level military guys" instead of "those Generals" ("those" implying those involved with strategic planning of the war in the Pacific). Just because you can think of reasons does not make it a reality. Are you delusional?

YOU are the one speculating. You said repeatedly that you know what "those Generals" were thinking, the real reason the bombs were dropped was to test them (not to end the war, save lives), etc..

Dude, the guy is quoting a Major General and a General, amongst others (with links to pdfs of the protocols, obviously). Sorry for taking a shortcut and not listing all ranks in all their proper detail. Didn't know you were so sensitive about that.

So here's Major General Wilhelm Styer for example, in 1943:

"The point of use of the first bomb was discussed and the general view appeared to be that its best point of use would be on a Japanese fleet concentration in the Harbor of Truk. General Styer suggested Tokio but it was pointed out that the bomb should be used where, if it failed to go off, it would land in water of sufficient depth to prevent easy salvage. The Japanese were selected as they would not be so apt to secure knowledge from it as would the Germans."

Again, that was in 43. So do you see any concerns there, in terms of "ooh geez, can we upright Americans really drop the bomb on Tokyo with all the civilian casualties and such?" Your beloved ethical concerns? The fuck there are any. It's all just practical concerns. It's already implied that the bomb is going to be used. The only question being the best way. In 43, two years before it was even ready.

Dude, sorry. But if you can't see for yourself how they were set early on to drop it - and barely managed to do so at pretty much the last possible moment that could be in any way made to look justified - I have really no clue what to tell you anymore.

And if you read a bit further (by the blog's author):

This has sometimes been cited as evidence that Japan was “always” the target. Personally, I think this seems like too loose of a discussion to draw big, concrete conclusions from. It was still over two years before the first atomic bomb would be ready, and, again, it is tacked on to a much longer meeting that is concerned with much more basic, much more practical things, like whether J. Robert Oppenheimer will get an administrative assistant assigned to him. But, still, it’s a data point. Note that the context, here, of choosing Japan over Germany is reflective of how uncertain they are about the bomb itself: they are worried that the first one will be a complete dud, and so their choice here is that if a dud were to land in Germany, it would be more dangerous thing than if it were to land in Japan.

Note that “the Harbor of Truk” (Chuuk Lagoon) is not a target on the Japanese home islands — it is in Micronesia, far south of the Japanese mainland, north of New Guinea. During World War II it was the Japanese equivalent of Pearl Harbor. It was a purely military, tactical target, not a strategic one. And by the time an atomic bomb was ready, it had been made irrelevant by Allied attacks and isolation (though it was still under Japanese occupation).

The first concrete discussion of targets came in the spring of 1945. These are the famous “Target Committee” meetings at Los Alamos which discussed what kind of target criteria they were using, what cities might fit it, and so on. Grim business, but entirely focused on Japan, in part because by that point it was clear that Germany’s defeat was imminent.

And? Surely you would like to present me with some illuminating conclusions, from what the blogger reflects upon there?

Just that you're only concerned with evidence that supports your conspiracy theory that somehow the US can predict the future and wanted to nuke 200,000 people just for the hell of it. Not to end a war. Not to save people.

And how exactly would you deduce that from those notes of his? What he writes about is pretty much exclusively concerned with the selection of targets, it seems. Or am I missing something, like where there had been concerns if the bomb should be used at all or not?

You're the one saying with certainty that the US dropped bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki with absolutely no intent to end the war against Japan or save lives. You're the one making that statement and I think, given all the known facts about the timeline of events, of the known facts (even those in this blog you linked), is an argument that's basically a conspiracy theory.

Keep wearing your tinfoil hat, bud.

Again, that's wrong. I'm saying that, during the course of war, they were set to not miss the opportunity to use the bomb if they in any way could. Do you understand the difference?

They were so "set to not miss the opportunity" that they prayed that the war would not end. That the "smokescreen talk" of trying to end the war, or save lives, was a lie used to justify their use of the bomb on whoever they could use it on.

Round and round we go. You keep trying to change your tune.

Ok, since you seem to have serious trouble following let me turn it around, to make it a little more easy for you:

do you believe that EVERY IMAGINABLE EFFORT has been made back then, like relinquishing the idea of complete surrender and allowing for the possibility of peace talks for example, to NOT USE the bomb? I mean, if saving lives had been the foremost priority, some compromise should have been possible I presume?

Oh I see. The impetus was on the US to avoid bloodshed after being the victim of foreign aggression. I guess the US should've surrendered on July 16, 1945 when the bomb was first successfully tested. The US did try to end the war. It tried to end it every time it took control of another island, shot down a Zero, or sunk a Japanese carrier. At any moment from the first bomb dropped on Pearl Harbor to the moment before the dropping of the bomb in Hiroshima, the Japanese could have surrendered and the American people would've have parades in the streets (just as they did when Japan eventually surrendered).

So then, briefly remind me of those peace talk offerings the US made to Japan, after taking islands, shooting down aircraft or sinking carriers. Because I don't seem to recall any.

Sure, because peace only comes through peace talks. What evidence do you have that the Japanese wanted to surrender before they actually did?

Dude, this is becoming really tiresome. I mean, do you at all understand the difference between a negotiated peace treaty and a surrender, or even unconditional surrender? Because there are some, and major ones.

Assuming for now that you've taken a break and informed yourself, Japan actually tried, actively, to enter peace talks in June 45. But all the US had to offer was unconditional surrender. Quoting from the Potsdam Declaration:

"We call upon the government of Japan to proclaim now the unconditional surrender of all Japanese armed forces, and to provide proper and adequate assurances of their good faith in such action. The alternative for Japan is prompt and utter destruction."

So, that's what it was about. Not "saving lives", which could have been accomplished on the spot, with a peace treaty in mutual agreement. But more about "unconditional surrender" and "prompt and utter destruction" as the alternative.

The "saving lives" blabber is nonsense. Topmost priority were strategic goals, which were not really required for a proper peace agreement. And on the way, the military was ITCHING to use the bomb on the field. And man, they were quite lucky, weren't they.

The Potsdam Declaration which the Japaneses rejected. Again, you're saying it's on the US to make it happen.

See? That's lovely. Your complete stupidity in full display.

The Postdam Declaration wasn't a peace offer. It was an ultimatum. The Japanese made a peace offer, EARLIER. But you know what? The Americans DIDN'T EVEN TALK TO THEM. Not once. They didn't make a single, constructive attempt to end the war any sooner than it did. What the Americans did, instead of talking, was making a "declaration" which translates to: eat this shit or get nuked. Which many were opposed to by the way.

Because for peace, it does not only need no unconditional surrender. The demand for an unconditional surrender is even counterproductive, in many cases. Like in that of Germany. Where the understanding is that it not only PROLONGED the war. But also ENABLED THE SOVIETS to get that foothold in Europe they finally had. So a complete mess, actually, which that demand for "unconditional surrender" produced in that case.

No, not at one single point had it been about "saving lives". It was about the complete humiliation of the Japanese. And some happy nuking they still had to do before the war was over. No way to develop and test that baby, through all those years, without checking it out. Without doing some "prompt and utter destruction". THAT's what it was about.

Eat this shit? As if Potsdam was asking them to all fuck their moms and then commit suicide.

I suppose you think the U.S. should've left Japan in a position to possibly rebuild their military.

What are you talking about? That point could have been made part of the negotiations. Got it? Japan OFFERED PEACE NEGOTIATIONS. But the Americans didn't even hear them out. Showed zero interest in what Japan had to offer, or was willing to concede.

Eat this shit or get nuked. That, my friend, was the American mindset. Not: let's end this war asap on terms agreeable for us. to "save lives" (seriously, I'm still laughing). They made ZERO effort in that direction.

It wasn't JUST the Americans who proposed the Potsdam settlement. China, who had be fucken invaded by Japan, was involved. You have blinders on to the whole of history.

You are so focused on the idea that America just wanted to vaporize people -- like Hitler wanted to kill all Jews -- that you cannot see how narrow your perspective is. You see one or two small issues and you make this giant leap to think that it PROVES that America only had interest in vaporizing people just to test a new weapon.

I don't know what you do for a living, but you'd make a terrible scientist. Leaping to conclusions based on speculation and no actual evidence to confirm your idea of the "American mindset". Ignore the fact that the US was dragged into two World Wars which both times it tried to avoid. The US was an isolationist country up to that point and suddenly you're making it seem like America turned into Hitler and wanted to vaporize people for no other reason than that it could.

Geez, still more of your sweeping generalizations? Now even trying to drag it on the personal level? I'm beginning to feel sorry, dude.

Again, you claimed the nuclear bombing happened because the US wanted to cut the war short. to "save lives". But there had been an opportunity already to cut it short, namely Japan offering peace negotiations in June 45. An offering the US showed ZERO interest in. Obviously implying that cutting the war short had NOT been the topmost priority.

Bit amusing, by the way, to see you babble about scientific reasoning. While failing to recognize the most obvious contradictions and draw the most obvious, logical conclusions at the same time.

This is pointless.

Read my first two posts which you took issue with and started arguing that was all "smokescreen talk" to satisfy "ethical technicalities" because, according to you, "the Generals" were praying the war would not end because they wanted to use the bomb. It didn't matter on who, just so they could test their bomb.

That is what I disagree wholeheartedly with you about. Everything you've been saying is irrelevant ramblings and speculation.

How about you think why China, Britain, and the US did not accept Japan's peace offering rather than leap to the conclusion that it's proof that they wanted to use the bomb purely for a laugh.

this thread is like world war 3.

Why some high level military guys would be praying for a war to not come to an end too soon? Think. Like, end of glorious action and opportunities to distinguish yourself? End of opportunities to check out new weaponry? Make an effort and I'm sure you'll come up with still more reasons.

have you ever actually been around, spoken to, or had any contact with any sort of military personnel?

Where's the 'Hauptschule' insult coming from? German parents?

Why, is it a weak insult?

I had a comparative international education class years ago and had to learn about various education systems around the world. I just remembered that hauptschule was were all the "troubled" students go for secondary school.

No, you're right, it's a good one.

Unfortunately he's wrong though. What he describes is the so called Sonderschule. Or, in modern, politically correct lingo, Förderschule.

'troubled' doesn't mean mentally challenged afaik, no?

Hauptschule is a regular school. If you were to become a plumber for example, that's the school you would usually graduate from.

So a prospective plumber is a "troubled student" around these parts then? Is that what you're trying to say?

Now, don't get picky with me. Students with migration background could be classified as 'troubled' could they not?
Children of drug addicts, too.

Also, I think you'd need 'Mittlere Reife' to become a Anlagenmechaniker für Sanitär-, Heizungs- und Klimatechnik nowadays.

Now, that's laughable nonsense I'm afraid. You'll find students with migration background or children of drug addicts on all sorts of schools. Sonderschule. Hauptschule. Realschule. Gymnasium.

No clue what assortment of prejudices exactly you rely upon while going through life, but that particular one won't get you very far I presume.

the education system in germany has become weak,
in the previous decade it was still o.k. to have a degree from "Hauptschule" ... but things have changed now ... it is not anymore and mash is spot on ... sadly ...
I think every degree other than "Abitur" is already seen as subpar ...
because the Abitur itself got degraded already ... that's the problem now everyone gets the "Abitur" because otherwise they would have major problems on the job market ... previously it was still o.k. to kick someone out of the abiturclasses if he was not good enough, because he was still likely to be able to get a professional education with the realschule degree ... now you cant do this anymore, his chances would be destroyed, and thats why everyone passes through ... to some degree it is also unfair to those who had made abitur when it was harder to obtain the degree, when teachers were also more eager to give bad grades to pupils they don't like ... it's just a matter of time until that degree has become irrelevant, of course it will still be mandatory to have it, not having it will become equivalent to not being able to read/write/calculate properly ... soon you will be going to school 12/13 years for a degree that doesn't really matter and foremost has no good quality, what a waste of time ...

That's an entirely different issue though. The problem behind that is that companies have become more and more demanding and selective. And that jobs for those with an IQ lower than Einstein's are increasingly breaking away. Outsourced to China and India. Taken over by robots. And so on.

In particular, it's not that students of Hauptschulen were troubled per se. They're normal people, just not that bright. Like we always had them. Like any society has them. The only, main "trouble" they really have his that the job market looks increasingly bleak for them. That Germany for example is increasingly turning into a "high skill job" country. But that's not really their fault.

This is true, this is the big question of our time, how to solve the problem of unemployment ... its really hard with machines/chips/software getting better and better ... even highly qualified people might get replaced soon ...

In the grand scheme of things everything will be automated. Food production being in effect the ultimate automation. Then it comes down to equality I guess because all our needs will be taken of and the vast majority of human beings will be redundant in terms of production. In the UK now nearly all the low level jobs are logistical and service which are both at risk of being done cheaper and more efficiently by machines. That leaves jobs associated with human care which are even increasing due to longer life expectancies and a questionable mental health infrastructure made worse by our societal issues.

Ideally of course none of us would work. Everything would be taken of and we would concern ourselves with the betterment of everyone. Creativity, play and inquiry would be our pursuits.

"Academic" doesnt mean a shit though. You're handed a degree for rightfully answering what the establishment wants you to answer, not for providing new insights or anything. ESPECIALLY in a field as sensitive as History.

Actually it does if it means that you support your claims with evidence. How many blogs out there do not do this? I'd say the vast majority are rambling opinions and speculation with no citations, no references, no evidence. Exactly how is that rigorous?

The academic system of peer review is not perfect but it's vastly superior to a blogosphere where people are spewing nonsense without being checked on their facts.

EDIT: Being academic doesn't mean having just a degree. In order to get a degree from any (reputable) institution, any research you do, any claims you make, etc., must be supported by evidence.

I'm working on my doctorate right now and my major professor questions everything which is how it should be. If it's not self-evident, then it should be supported by evidence. Period.

I know what you mean and you're right, but I'm sure you also know what I mean and that I'm atleast half right.

I don't have the combination of english skill and free time right now to be able to construct my sentences and arguments the way I'd like to do it in my mother tongue unfortunately. All I can say is I'm in the process of writing my own thesis in communication sciences and I can tell you that I know for a FACT there are certain things I could NEVER say or write about if I want to get my diploma. Or a job. I just choose to ignore, like all of my student peers, some fishy areas where I know I'll rub things the wrong way.

And if it is like that in my own field, god knows how hard it must be in a field as sensitive (as I said) as History is. You don't even need to get into 'conspiracy theory' bullshit to know that is right. Not one of my History teachers in my 20 years of studying have ever even mentionned the congolese genocide and slavery by Belgian King Leopold II.

As much as you hate whatever isn't "academic" standard, I had to go through blogs to learn about these atrocities. Not in my History books.

Fair enough.

Knowing that you cannot address an issue is a problem. I don't know what the issue is or why you can't approach it, but I have to say that's not how it should be. "Academic freedom", at least in the U.S., means being able to say whatever you want no matter how controversial or problematic it is.

If you have to turn to informal places to get these issues out in the open, then that's what has to happen. But it does not avoid the that informal (non-academic) settings have the disadvantage of not being as credible as peer reviewed, vetted work.

I hope whatever the barrier is to openly discussion your research and field is overcome.

Don't worry, everyone in the academic field in Europe is free to say whatever the fuck they want as long as it is backed up by facts.
I don't know why and how he get's the idea it is not the case.
He must've had some really bad experiences with shitty Professors, or maybe the situation in Belgium is seriously worse than in Germany (lol?), I really don't know.

I have a friend who's studying history and after the first semester he told me about all these genocides I didn't know about, including Leopold, because it's not in the school curriculum.
And tbh we, as Germans, have enough history about ourselves to learn, so I don't blame schools for that.

It get's problematic if you come around saying "LOL THERE WERE NO GAS CHAMBERS"

but, you know ...

There are history books about colonization and slavery under Leopold II everywhere and it's taught in relevant history classes at the university level (I don't know about Belgian public schools), so I'm not sure how he's never been taught about it. It is true that for a few decades this part of Belgian history was mostly studied in publications read by researchers rather than exposed in classes, but a lot of progress has been made since then.

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statue_%C3%A9qu...A9opold_II

You don't get to see many statues of Hitler in Germany do you ? We have plenty of Leopold II all over the place in Belgium.

Just saying.

EDIT : this reply goes to Naghokez and kapca aswell.

I don't know, man. We have a couple of (27!!!) Kaiser Wilhelm II statues.
And streets named after von Seeckt.
(Quote regarding Hitler: "Im Ziel waren wir uns einig; nur in den Wegen dorthin unterschieden wir uns". Whip that through the google translator.)

What's your point?

I'm not sure where we're supposed to have been arguing about Leopold II statues. If your point is that the Belgian population is not critical enough of Belgium's colonial past, then I agree - and this goes for the populations of plenty of other former colonial powers. If your point is that it is impossible to engage in critical academic research on Leopold II and colonization, and/or that there are no courses or books on the topic, then you're wrong.

oversimplifying.

"As much as you hate whatever isn't "academic" standard, I had to go through blogs to learn about these atrocities. Not in my History books."

Sure, I'm the one oversimplifying.

Sorry,





it was my understanding you would understand that the History books I was refering to were the ones provided for the History classes I was refering to.




But keep on trying to look smart by surfing cairn.info and reading scientific articles prior to answering to anything, blowing everyone's mind.

You wrote that sentence to bash academia. There are plenty of history books by scholars (including Belgian scholars) on Leopold II and colonization, including with a critical perspective. There is no need to "go through blogs" to learn about these events contrary to your ridiculous statement - you'd have had access to plenty of books and articles on those topics through your university. Feel free to bash academia all you want, but don't be surprised when you get called out for clearly over-the-top and outright false statements.

I read the book I mentioned below on the decision to use the atomic bomb while doing my Master's thesis five years ago (and still have it in .pdf format), but keep telling yourself that if it makes you feel more secure. When I'm not knowledgeable in the topics being discussed, though, I do like to inform myself before opening my mouth.

With regards to what you replied to mash below, the reason there are certain things that you can hardly say if you want to get your diploma is mostly (at least in the context of what you're saying) that the topics in question are already studied enough to know for a fact that taking contrary positions can only be indicative of either ignorance of the facts or unwillingness to accept facts that contradict your world view - and neither attribute warrants getting rewarded with a diploma. On the other hand, there are plenty of diplomas and research grants being attributed to students and researchers engaging in critical approaches, including in security studies (see for example the Copenhagen school and the concept of securitization). Obviously, the degree of specialization in, and affinity for, critical approaches varies from university to university, and there are research centers where certain epistemological, theoretical and/or methodological stances are favored over others, but to make a blanket statement that "academia" doesn't allow critical thinking and is only about saying "what the establishment wants you to say" is simply not true. There are many ways to intelligently criticize various aspects of academic research and teaching, and the flaws that do exist in various institutions and disciplines (sometimes on a systemic level), but over-the-top statements like this are not one of them.

Edit : actually just tl;dr will do

Really tho, what's your point?

My point was made in comment 49

I know for a FACT there are certain things I could NEVER say or write about if I want to get my diploma. Or a job. I just choose to ignore, like all of my student peers, some fishy areas where I know I'll rub things the wrong way.

which means pretty much that I don't give a rat's ass if an information is given via a supposedly "academic" intermediary.

If anything I believe the best way to get as close to the actual truth as possible, when it concerns a critical matter such as the one talked about in this thread, is to gather information from a large variety of sources, including ones that are probably biased.

Why did you have to bring in the statues of Leopold then? Seems redundant concerning your point.

WHY can you never say or write these things and what are these things?

I'm just trying to understand this. Backing out of the argument now, without backing up your claims would be very weak and would make you look like just the guy who would say stuff like "I CAN'T SAY THESE THINGS ANYMORE DRRR TOOOK R JOOOOBBBSSS".

I don't know why you have to take this utterly opposing stance here using these buzzwords, while I know for a FACT that I at least wouldn't think twice about agreeing with IF YOU WOULD JUST MAKE YOUR POINT CLEARER.

Not one of my History teachers in my 20 years of studying have ever even mentionned the congolese genocide and slavery by Belgian King Leopold II.

Wonder how unfortunate you must have been to continuously get the worst teachers one after an other.
I can't think of a valid reason why would a history teacher avoid such subjects when one of the great teachings of the history of science is to know about the mistakes made in the pasts and learn from them.

It's called shame! I grew up 10km from KZ Mauthausen, and had to reach age 28 to actually go there and see wtf was going on. Not the only reason the educational system is making me sick to the stomach.

I know how that feels, it was about 10-15 years ago when documents started surfacing about the horrors the Hungarian army did in Russia in WW2. Earlier our history books only told that because of the summer cloths and the frozen weapons (stupidity level maxed out), the Hungarian army suffered a devastating defeat, and 84% of it was destroyed, but - on the other hand - same said books detailed the horrors the Russians did when they arrived here (it was true horror indeed), but we didn't know much about "our" doings there (same true horror sadly), ...but to our defense, the Russians didn't knew much about it either, it was a severely under-researched area of our history).

Now those terrible shameful acts are taught in school finally.

They dropped the bomb to impress Stalin and keep him off the Pacific, first. Then if Japan would have not surrender fast the Russians would have intervened for sure -they liberated China and Vietnam and those countries automatically felt under their communist influence. The atomic bombs in Japan were drawing the lines of influence of the next half century.

yep

This is correct. The bomb didn't win the nor was it supoused to. They threw it because they could and they saw killing 200k civilians as a fair retaliation for pearl harbor

Dude, from the geostrategic standpoint you can't even blame them. Towards the end of the war it's been already clear that the next, fucking major problem would the the Soviet Union, and their foothold in Europe. It would have been majorly stupid to miss an opportunity of showcasing that muscle.

Why not nuke Tokyo (which is where the Emperor's Palace is located), Kyoto, or another more populated city if it was just about murderous revenge? Why drop bombs, instead, on smaller cities that had major military industry and headquarters?

In fact, both Tokyo and Kyoto were considered as targets but ultimately decided against. You would know this if your opinions were informed by fact and not by speculation.

Why drop bombs, instead, on smaller cities that had major military industry and headquarters?

two birds with one stone.

Tokyo had military installations AND the Emperor. It would've been three birds with one stone.

Edit: Also the symbolism of Tokyo would be a fourth, pretty much.

Dude, you earn solid Lol+ grade.

the cities all over Japan already were bombed ...

You're saying they didn't have any other cities to bomb because they were already completely destroyed?

Comment #156

In the documentry i saw (Nagasaki), the flight way and clearence of the sky was not directed to Tokyo, i don't know the reasons.

Needs some investigations, i don't have the willpower to do it :)

I consider the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings to be absolute tragedies and I sincerely believe that the U.S. government could have, and should have, proceeded differently (namely by 1. expanding/increasing the blockade of Japan and the bombing of strategic targets, 2. waiting longer for the impact of the USSR's entry into the war, and 3. offering earlier to Japan an "unconditional surrender" that would in reality not have been that unconditional through the assurance that the institution of the emperor would remain in place - which ended up being the case anyway).

This being said, you are painting a very inaccurate picture of Truman's decision to use the atomic bomb. I suggest you read J. Samuel Walker's Prompt and utter decision: Truman and the use of atomic bombs against Japan (London, The University of North Carolina Press, 2004). It is a detailed and extremely well-researched study of the topic.

The prime reason for using the bomb was Truman's desire to end the war as early as possible. This reason trumped, by far, the other reasons that were considered "added bonuses". Truman simply did not want American casualties to continue to mount if there was a way to prevent those casualties from happening. American decision-makers were not sure that an invasion of Japan through Kyushu would not be necessary at one point (in fact they actively prepared for it and considered it the best option they had to end the war early until the atomic bomb credibly entered the picture), and even without possible invasion deaths there were thousands of Americans still dying every month as the conflict continued. Truman wanted to end the war as fast as possible, and therefore decided to use the atomic bomb as a means to achieve this objective.

Next to this are several reinforcing reasons. Firstly, the costs of not using the bomb: there was an impetus to justify the high costs that went into the Manhattan project, and it would have been politically costly not to use a weapon that could have helped save American lives. Secondly, there was the reason you mentioned below: impressing the Soviet Union and using this as diplomatic leverage. James Byrnes, in particular, thought using the bomb would be useful in his dealing with the USSR. Again, however, this was a secondary reason among others, a bonus. Thirdly, JSW argues that there was a lack of incentives, in the minds of U.S. decision-makers, to not use the bomb, on the diplomatic, political and military fronts. On the moral front, it was an established practice at that point to bomb areas occupied by civilians. There were still some moral objections, and Truman was later disturbed by reports of the destruction at Hiroshima, but those moral objections paled compared to the desire to end the war as early as possible. Finally, another reason which probably played a role to some extent was the fact that the Japanese were viewed in a very negative light due to Pearl Harbor notably (and racism), and it contributed to making bombing them more acceptable.

In short, if you take a look at who actually took the decision to use the bomb, your position is simply inaccurate. Of course, there were other people in the U.S. government that had more specific reasons for wanting the bomb to be used, but at the end of the day it was used first and foremost to end the war early and save American lives.

"U.S. government could have, and should have, proceeded differently"

With all due respect, I think they didn't really have a choice. Japan - (while they made some diplomatic moves towards the US indeed), didn't really want to surrender on Potsdam terms, because they wanted to negotiate with the "neutral" USSR since they believed it would lead to a "better" treaty for them.

The US (after battles like the one at Okinawa) knew it very well that they would probably never capture the entire Japan if the Japanese would not surrender. The tunnel-digging tactics the Japanese used was very effective against conventional bombings (like the firebomb in Tokyo) and against armored vehicles, and since there were also a lot more Japanese infantry soldiers (+ the civilians who would have joined to defend their home), it would have been much worse than what the US had later in Vietnam.

Also, it was a race again like at Berlin between the US and the USSR (who were coming fast towards Manchuria), and the US "had to" win earlier at Japan, so they really had no choice imo, they had to drop those bombs fast.


I found this book worth reading on this subject: https://books.google.com/books?id=A2Zv3VD6ptQC


It may sound obvious, but war is really terrible, and brings out the worst from humanity. The fact that we nuked each other in the last century is still shocking to me.

Oliver Stone's Untold History of the United States

Cheers.

Oliver Stone... lol?

Imdb#Peter Kuznick

Not to take away from this tragedy, but the whole 20th century is so fucked up any way you look at it. I haven't had time to figure out why yet, so, help me if you like.

US - between things abroad - Japan, Conras and funding half of the world's massacres, and local - black people, womens' rights (STILL WTF)
USSR - revolutionary cleansing and "the greater good" sacrifices of red party and Stalin in particular
Germany - duh
Rape of africa by european colonists
Various regimes in Asia that slayed people by millions
etc
Pretty much everyone got blood on their hands by millions, in direct way or capitalizing on it.

After reading about these things, dropping 2 bombs becomes somewhat... expected? And it's a war move with no casualties on 1 side, so kind of makes sense why they didn't stop this initiative. Besides, no one really knew what's going to be a result of the bombing, even at the time of the 2nd bombing. I'm not justifying anything here, just saying people were/are so fucked up in 20th century, this is like a tiny fraction of war crimes civilized society committed and keeps going.

This last part is especially a shame because with emerging technologies and communications and rich reporting we ALL know exactly where the murdering and raping happens, but we just go ahead and do it again under different flags and our own interests.

Not here to defend the US, but Hitler and his corps were a tooth fairy compared to what the Japanese did in China, and let's not forget that they attacked the US first... It's terrible what happened, and inhuman ofc, but all I'm saying that "they had it coming".

The Germans (and Austrians) systemized murdering and killing to an extent never seen before. It was cold, it was cruel, yes. But you are right, what the Japs did in Nanjing especially was uncomparably disgusting.

Geh.. i find, wir sind ein freundliches Volk :)

The irony is that the US thinks it should have any say in who can have a nuclear weapon (the Iran case for the past decade).
Looking at the foreign policy of the US every country on earth should have the bomb just so they could prodect themselves from the US invading them when they feel like it.

It pretty much ended the war though, so like most things in life you can often extract good outcomes from bad things if you're brave enough to punch through it and look at the big picture.

There should always be some kind of standards of conduct, even in war.

Chemical Weapons or Large Scale Bombs which kill indiscriminately are no longer acceptable or even if you win the war by such methods, you can lose the will of the people.

I seen people lose fights IRL, and they won the hearts of people and came out the real winners of the fight.

Battle can be a tricky thing.

Ye we should just nuke middle east to get rid of ISIS. Fuck all the civilians, its their problem that they happened to be there at the time

hopefully ww3 gets some nice responsive netcode, my granpa said they would have surely won with proper ping and without the lag

It's the worst case of tier slumming I've ever heard about. These noobs were fisherman.

sadness

can't judge the victorious side.

now onto the debate...

did the US have to do it? hmmm... well.. like all things everything has two sides.
US invading Japan would lead to numerous US soldier deaths? - Yes, that is a certain fact. The Japanese were fanatical and they wouldn't give up without a fight. Their history proves that.
On the other hand - yes, the US wanted to test the real effect of the atomic weapon, but not only that as to prove to the rest of the world (especially russians) what they are capable off.

The other side of the situation or resolution was to starve the Japan to death.
Question is, when would they give in? How many would have to die? How long would it take? How costly would it be for the US?
Let's not forget US citizen's founded this was by buying bonds and you don't want to tell them (like shareholders) that their investment will take years and years to show results.

So, yes the US took it upon themselves to determine the end of the world world by themselves.
But I do have something to add to this. Looking at US history they usually pick the lesser evil, at least at keeping their people safe. They did solely battle the Japanese in the Pacific and had many casualties just like in Europe. Did they make profit of it? Yes, they did.

The US always take everything into account expenses, gains, profits and losses and then work around that.
Yes, they are the prime example of double standards so to say.

One thing is for certain, they give everything a lot of thought, just like the Russians who they hate. They always weigh pros and cons and act accordingly.
It's a game of chess they are playing and it's always hard to tell what their next move is.

If Japanese were so fanatical why did they give up after losing 80.000 civilians? They lost more in regular bombardments. Probably because they understood they had no chance. Wouldn't dropping it on some military installation have the same effect?

US citizens - shareholders? As a citizen you're always a shareholder in some sense. This is just an instrument to get money for war. If it didn't work they would increase the taxes or force ppl to work. We're not talking about war in Europe.

Looking at US history they usually pick the lesser evil, at least at keeping their people safe.

Finally someone notices it. This is why Mao is so rarely mentioned together with Hitler and Staling, even though he was probably worst of the bunch. People who are trying to argue that US isn't any better than Soviet block, or China, or Third Reisch as superpower always seem to forget that. Had they lived in one of these other countries they would have probably changed their point of view.

It wasn't just the 80,000 people (not just civilians, by the way, Hiroshima did have military bases) they lost. They were losing the war seriously by the summer of 1945. At one point, Japan was occupying vast portions of southeast Asia and the islands in the Pacific. By summer 1945, their forces were in retreat but due to internal politics, it was a struggle even for the Emperor to surrender.

You read only first sentence, didn't you? :}

A conventional war with Japan would have taken months and millions of deaths between the two parts.

That's agreed by the majority of historians.

So the nukes just ended the war quickier and with less casualities and injuries overall. Much less.

It was their psychological effect that did the trick. The majority of the damage and the deaths were caused by the fires that spread between the rice paper and wood houses.

The fact that those bombs had "the power of the atom" and were basically science fiction at the time convinced the Japanese zealots to surrender without additional things.

Those nukes dropped on solid European or American style cities wouldn't have had remotely the same impact. Little interesting side detail.

Additionally, and that's even more crucial, it showed the world and the USRR the power and the risk at stake with a nuclear war.

Average people don't think about it or don't like the idea, but the mutual destruction concept saved the world from the third world war, until now, at least.

Had there not been the atomic weapons, URSS would have probably invaded the on-its-knees weakened european states.

the nukes acted like deterrents, on both fronts, because they also kept the americunts shy from invading the URSS first.

So, for strange and bitter it is, we must thanks the nukes, for having saved us from millions of other people dead.

How about you nuke this shit thread, almost as bad as that found em morbidly obese cross-eyed mutant sleep-apnea mask wearing landwhale drama tripe, looking forward to your apollo moon-landings thread.

u fukin wot m8

m8 that's what shining is all about m8

Hiroshima - Uran [check]
Nagasaki - Plutonium [check]
sending in Hundreds of Scientists a week after, not Doctors.. [check]

It was an experiment, before Hiroshima they used rabbits.

Poor rabbits :(

Do I think it was the right choice? Never

But how would the scenario have played out if the United States never dropped that bomb? Could potentially many more people have died?

It's something we'll never know unfortunately; but all we can do is pay our respects for the many innocents who died.

THIS

Gene Hackman once quoted in the movie Enemy of the State

If you ask me, drop the f***er twice, pisses me off :)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120660/trivia?tab=qt

(Baka)yarou: Bastard

I like this szene :)

Takeshi Kintano in Brother "fucking japanese"

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Hiroshima: The tram that survived the atomic bomb - BBC News


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@ warcrimes, normal ppl behave bad in crisis all over the place, even this days rape :/

this goes to you all with russian flags :P

Lol. It's a war situation. Of course you don't get charged for killing your enemy, because that is the entire point.

Since the holocaust comparison is immediately going to come up, the holocaust had nothing to do with war. Germany just happened to go to war at the same time. Ironically, I think if they hadn't pushed out to their fellow countries so agressively, they wouldn't have gotten any charges for the holocaust. Look at mao's or stalin's death count.

This is false. There is an entire body of public international law that deals with the conduct of war: jus in bello, also known as international humanitarian law. It is for example illegal to murder civilians of the state you are engaged in warfare against - see notably the 1949 Geneva Convention (IV) relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War.

With regards to the OP, the reason the U.S. was not taken to court on accusations of war crimes is a combination of them winning the war and, I believe, of war crimes not being as enshrined in treaties and customary law at the time as they are today (see for example the aforementioned 4th Geneva Convention and subsequent protocols, and article 8 ["War Crimes"] of the 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court), although this did not prevent the Nuremberg Charter and trials (among others) from using the term.

Don't try to reason where there is nothing to reason ...
bringing up fake arguments based on laws etc. are senseless imho ...
If there is something I understood pretty well by now, it is that laws themselves don't guarantee anything!

There are always double standards ... ALWAYS ...
It just depends on who you are if the laws are applied or not!
Laws are only applied on the "bad" people, never on the "good" ones :-)

Killing two cities worth of civilians is not the same as "killing your enemy".

Just imagine if the axis forces had developed a nuclear weapon in secret at the same time as the USA and fired one back.. Highly unlikely.. But the next nuke that detonates will no doubt be the beginning of the end for earth.

Nice? 70 years last and still japan occupied by usa army. Hundreds of thousands kids and wifes are died and now japaneese ppl kissing usa ass with great pleasure......


P.S. BUT At least they invent hentai with tentacles! GJ

Ameritrash and eurotrash genes have shorter lifespans. They kiss our ass out of pity, not admiration.

Who wants to live so long that you look like Beef Jerky?
Not me.

you will look like beef jerky nevertheless, what you gona do? ... die young and beautifull like you are now, you beast.


Send me your baftas after your done.

Japan forgives but never forgets , at least of the last survivers at this moment.

Who will tell the stories of burned ppl and family menbers.

I just saw a picture, a jung girl in Nagasaki and near by her mother burned to a pile of ASH ... nice foto, have it as desktop ... NOT ME !

btw: she could not pick her up, had nothing to hold her in and if she touches her, she broke apart.

War - the futile attempts of humanity trying to justify their flaws. No different than these discussions.

This debate if the bombs should have been dropped is no longer relevant when we ask the question, was the war actually necessary?

The bombs dropped had such a negligible increase of the total casualties sustained in the war.

So, whatever.

"The bombs dropped had such a negligible increase of the total casualties sustained in the war."

Except wars fought by military, and the targets/objectives should be the military establishments and forces of the enemy. Deliberately mass murdering women and children is never "negligible", not in the slightest.

Go search the civilian and military force casualty distribution in the war overall. For example, there have been probably 10 (random ass number to illustrate the point) times the toll of the bombs, women raped in the war, and probably the same amount raped to death. Just go read about how many women were raped by the Soviet army alone that was marching towards Berlin. These bombs are fucking nothing what happened in the concentration camps of let's say Auschwitz, or the Soviet gulags.

NEGLIGIBLE.

That's all I got to say. So, you can take your moral rubber stretching and fuck off.

I'm from Hungary. In ww2, only the Germans and Poland had worse from the Soviets than us in Europe, and if you add in ww1 and 1956 too, then nobody was anywhere near to the level of shit we went through, so please, tone down yourself and don't tell me about rapes and whatnot because we had our share big times.... but I still wouldn't ever consider disintegrating hundreds of thousands of people NEGLIGIBLE (perhaps because I also have manners, not like you?).

The whole war was fucked. 70 million people died because of it.

The best thing to wish for and try our best to prevent is that World War 3 never happens.

now there are 7 billion people, and african/arabian countries there is still more growth, with more aid from western nations, they only get more children ... who all want to come to europe as refugees ...
what is they are saying? "We are coming to your country, wether you want it or not", and you see all these senile politcians around, that want to concentrate all the resources of the state into welcoming these refugees ... just like you got your EU, just like you are getting all these refugees ... just like all this, you will get your WW3, whether you want it or not :-)

"The best thing to wish for and try our best to prevent is that World War 3 never happens."

The world is a cauldron of shit and its going to blow :)

Religion
Population
Money
Poverty
Capitalism
Immigration (traitors in your own land)

Will ensure things end badly, of which I have no doubt, elevate yourself above the shit and try and get yourself a good spot when it starts to turn nasty.

Pretty sure the film Elysium is a good blueprint for where society is heading, but I'll either be dead or living the good life on the winning team so I don't care too much.

Shit happens and nothing lasts forever.

Indeed.

i'd say your right.

It just amazes me how we are out here on this rock, in the corner of some back water galaxy and all we do as a species is be meanies and try to own each other in some way or another.

Humans are stupid.

Can't blame them for wanting to feng shui up the place. Do you know how much interior decorators charge for their services? Sure, there's a war going on and all, but it's a matter of aesthetics, gotta have some class and culture if nothing else. And nothing says class and culture like several hundred thousand melted ash-shadows on the ruined husk of city walls.

I just saw two documentries, one german (Nagasaki) with this guys here:

The Bomb (2015)

Imdb#Martin J. Sherwin

Martin J. Sherwin

Peter J Kuznick

Truman lied or hide the fact at Berlin Potsdam Conference, 1945 2 that they alredy have a bomb tested and ready to go, and Japan had a surrender 2x in mind.

Little Boy has USSR already frightened and Fat Man was expensive to made just to throw it away ...

They dropped FatMan anyway just to prove a point of research pfffffffffffff

Besides the fact of research of radiation injuries, wich was not know @ this time ...

Good ol' US of A o7

Whiplash is so fucking sick, lost a good chunk of my audition blasting Power and pain ultra loud

This thread should be nuked.

SYL - Strapping Young Lad - Love Nuclear Bombs Compilation

DONE

Good pick.

Meshuggah - New Millennium Cyanide Christ (Mayhem Version)

This is quite interesting ...

Operation Overcast / Paperclip , look at the diff between german & english version lol


Operation_Overcast#Beschlagnahme aller deutschen Patente und Industriegeheimnisse

GoogleTranslate DE>ENG

NHK World Documentary Hidden Exposure The Truth about the H-Bomb tests @ 45Min into it !

NHK World Season3 Hidden Exposure The Truth about the H-Bomb tests
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/

All history books are biased because there written by the victor.

University of Hiroshima ^ ^
http://www.hiroshima-u.ac.jp/en/hosp/dental/

reconstruction of lost electrons in the remains of the teeth, while theeth do not reproduce itself.

the maschine who did this is a special one, can't remember the correct name ...

how to measure radiation exposure from teeth of lost electrons

Wikipedia#Atomic Warhead B61-12
Google#Atomic Warhead B61-12

German # Frontal21-Magazin-TV # Atomwaffensperrvertrag Sendung vom 22.09.2015

CNN#Putin responds to reports of new U.S. nukes