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Comment by talmand | Hacker News Reader

Hindsight is easy isn't it?

Thoughts on the matter might be different when fighting an enemy that has more or less threatened to wipe out all who disagree with them. Including the fact they have no problem killing your women and children before you've even decided to fight back.

You should really speak to some Chinese that are old enough to remember what they survived before you start judging with your modern sensibilities.

It was total war not declared by the side that eventually won. Consider yourself lucky.

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Maybe I'm misinterpreting, but I don't think he or she is referring to only the Allies side doing harm. The same blame would be placed on any war-wager, and that includes Japan.

This feels a bit like a "the other side did worse things therefore revenge or killing is justified" type of argument to me. Using this kind of justification, either side could use it to their own advantage and we'd end up with an long spiral of justifications simply because "the other side attacked first" or "the other side did bad things, and we'll make it right by killing more people".

That said, this is just my view of what's right and wrong, and I'm quite ignorant on WWII - but the idea of attacking and invading in the name of preventing killing would seem to be not only unethical (killing is being done) but also irresponsible because the other side will retaliate with more killing. Not many people think of the responsibility.

well then I would recommend to educate yourself what lead to and happened during WWII...

If you are referring to me, I am speaking in terms of the actions of the Japanese against the Chinese. I'm not even discussing Allied behaviors. I do feel that in many ways the Allies did things I personally would not have approved of, I still have no problems that they were done.

The problem as I see it with these discussions, much as you point out you are ignorant of WWII, is that too many people do not fully understand WWII. They look at it with their modern sensibilities and judge accordingly. This is extreme ignorance in action. The simplest reason is because we are now working on our second or third generation of separation of the time. We have not had a total war like there was with WWII. People are losing that perspective, that it was total war. I would imagine many recent college grads don't even realize what the term total war means.

So, why do I not have a problem with the nuclear bombings of Japan and the potential invasion? Because the Japanese were the aggressors. I have little problems with the actions of people defending themselves against aggression.

They look at it with their modern sensibilities and judge accordingly.

It seems that they think that Hitler was evil and everyone else got taken along for the ride. It's so much more complicated than that, especially for those people who were there at the time.

I would imagine many recent college grads don't even realize what the term total war means.

A great many college grads, high school grads and people born after 1950.

We're talking about people who don't understand that "War" means more than people shooting at each other. People who don't understand that we haven't had a war in over 70 years.

The enemy has no problem killing you exactly for the same reason that you have no problem killing the enemy.

If these kids didn't listen (weren't forced by the State to listen) to older men telling them horror stories about the 'enemy', they would just hang out, drink and party together.

Anyway, it's impossible and inappropriate to explain this on HackerNews.

Above all, War is an infectious mental disease and we need to vaccinate ourselves from it if we don't want to get infected by it in the future.

It occurs primarily in our minds and then it manifests in destruction and bloodshed.

That's why I recommended Tolstoy's book. He does a much better job than I at explaining it.

Its prisoner's dilemma. If all nations would only read this book or that, then voila the world is a better place. But the first one to read and adopt (No more war!) is the first to be victimized. Its not a disease; its game theory. Tragic, tragic game theory.

Also called the human predicament.

> "If these kids didn't listen (weren't forced by the State to listen) to older men telling them horror stories about the 'enemy', they would just hang out, drink and party together."

I'm sorry, but that shows a complete misunderstanding of human nature. It's the same kind of "everyone is the same and wants exactly the same things as we do" attitude that led to the belief that we need to bring democracy to the Middle East, leading to the Arab (nuclear?) Winter there is now.

People fight wars. Always have and always will. And they don't stay out of wars in order to drink and party together - they stay out when the perceived costs are greater than the perceived benefits.

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