Hmm, I dont remember a hiroshima scene in Oppenheimer…
There isn’t one. I watched it yesterday. There’s just a scene where the bombing is announced to the scientists
there are a few short second cuts to a burn victim and whatnot. other than that, idk
Best part of Oppenheimer was when he said „ITS MORBIN TIME“ and morbed all over Hiroshima
As awful as nuclear warfare is, people tend to think the moral calculation is easier than what is actually the case. For those unaware what was going on in China at the time:
Under Emperor Hirohito, the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) and the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) perpetrated numerous war crimes and crimes against humanity which resulted in the deaths of millions of people. Estimates range from as low as 3 million to as high as 30 million victims. Various related crimes include sexual slavery, massacres, human experimentation, starvation, and forced labor directly perpetrated or condoned by the Japanese military and government. […] The Imperial Japanese Army Air Service took part in conducting chemical and biological attacks on civilians during the Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II.
The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which were the only things stopping this onslaught, caused between 129,000 and 226,000 deaths. this puts them (individually) in the ball park of the bombing of Tokyo (using traditional bombs).
There’s a very solid argument to be made that nuclear bombs should never have been deployed, or developed for that matter. But the calculation of good and evil is a lot more complicated than people tend to accept.
People tend to forget that carpet bombing cities with millions of pounds of traditional and/or incendiary bombs was the status quo for all sides. Not even factoring in the troops that were soon to land on Japan, many more likely would have died from the continued bombing campaigns.
The common debate is that the bombs didn’t exactly force Japan to surrender, and that it was the threat of the imminent USSR participation in the war that did.
I believe the reason for this is that there are transcripts as well as timelines of the Japanese government’s upper echelons that sort of demonstrate the bombs didn’t have as big of an impact on them as a potential USSR participation.
But the whole thing is a bit hazy, and I have no doubts the bombs at the very least put a big amount of pressure on the Japanese government at the time.
Yeah I think anyone trying to reduce it to something as simple as good/bad is effectively lying by omission. Of course it was bad because a lot of people died in a particularly awful way but it was believed many more would’ve died had another path been taken. It’s not at all clear that imperial Japanese surrendered because of the bomb, but it was a contributing factor, I think tragedy is a good encapsulation
Interestingly, some countries don’t hate Japan despite a pretty rough history with them. Taiwan, for example, is generally quite positive about Japan, and I’ve even met some elders who say Taiwan improved under the Japanese.
I’m not sure that’s completely true, but some people definitely believe it. I think Vietnam and Indonesia also have pretty positive relations with Japan. But China and Korea absolutely despise them, and I’m not sure about the Philippines, but they have enough reasons to hate them, too.
When I lived in Japan, my class watched Grave of the Fireflies and some kids were crying, but the Chinese kid said “well… you shouldn’t be sad, because they deserved it” and that challenged my thinking on the issue. I’m grateful for your perspective little Chinese kid
North Korea cheering hardr TBH