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naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   4097 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for October 9, 2022

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And, iirc, Japan was close to surrendering even if the nukes hadn't been used.

I wouldn't bet on it. After one nuke they didn't surrender. After two nukes their hardliners nearly pulled off a self-coup to prevent a surrender. After zero nukes? Japan wasn't "close to surrendering", they were planning "The Glorious Death of One Hundred Million". Civilians were supposed to fight with rocks and sharpened sticks until the point of capture, then kill themselves before they could be taken alive. The only debate about the civilian mass suicides that had already occurred is to what extent they were prompted by coercion vs deception vs voluntary choice.

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