Facepunch Anonymous Political Confessions Thread: I just want darkness for all

[Croatsky]

Uh, yes it had?

Japan refused to surrender unconditionally and their conditional terms were unacceptable. They wanted to keep all of their colonial territories pre 2nd Sino-Japanese war, prosecute war criminals on their own( Germany was allowed to do that after WW1 and only handful were prosecuted while those who were only got slap on the wrist), pay little to no war reparations, demanded for all economic sanctions to be lifted and etc.

And alternative to nukes was Operation Downfall, which would killed far more Japanese civilians. And Japan almost didn't even surrender after Nagasaki was nuked, as there was a military coup right after Hirohito declared to surrender. And coup failed because of another US bombing campaign that destroyed communications for homeland military so coup was a disorganised mess.

[Stev]

Some people just want to tear things down. Some people just want to break shit. Some people just resent everything because deep down they simply just don't like themselves very much.

Reminds me of this bit from Dostoyevski's Notes from Underground

Now I ask you: what can be expected of man since he is a being endowed with strange qualities? Shower upon him every earthly blessing, drown him in a sea of happiness, so that nothing but bubbles of bliss can be seen on the surface; give him economic prosperity, such that he should have nothing else to do but sleep, eat cakes and busy himself with the continuation of his species, and even then out of sheer ingratitude, sheer spite, man would play you some nasty trick. He would even risk his cakes and would deliberately desire the most fatal rubbish, the most uneconomical absurdity, simply to introduce into all this positive good sense his fatal fantastic element. It is just his fantastic dreams, his vulgar folly that he will desire to retain, simply in order to prove to himself as though that were so necessary, that men still are men and not the keys of a piano, which the laws of nature threaten to control so completely that soon one will be able to desire nothing but by the calendar. And that is not all: even if man really were nothing but a piano-key, even if this were proved to him by natural science and mathematics, even then he would not become reasonable, but would purposely do something perverse out of simple ingratitude, simply to gain his point. And if he does not find means he will contrive destruction and chaos, will contrive sufferings of all sorts, only to gain his point! He will launch a curse upon the world, and as only man can curse (it is his privilege, the primary distinction between him and other animals), may be by his curse alone he will attain his object--that is, convince himself that he is a man and not a piano-key!

I think this recent scourge of unironic "revolution now!" types is that while we have problems these days, we still have it better than anyone, anywhere, at any time in hisotry. Even poor people today live better than 19th century royalty (central heating, no plagues etc to worry about, you can just mosey on out and get blueberries in january etc), and so in that state of perpetual "pretty swell", even the slightest of speedbumps seems like insurmountable threats. Couple that with a pretty active movement away from cultural or national identities, leaving most people derelict of any easy meaning to latch on to, and we have a dangerous mixture, where resentment can very easily take over.

[Stev]

I didn't know about that coup, that's nuts.

And yeah, look at it this way. We nuked japan from an imperialist evil, who's worst excesses even outlcassed the nazis (Unit 731, basically every part of the chinese campagin, their treatment of POW's etc) into a nation so averse to violence that guns are 100% banned and having an armed military in any capacity is concidered a sombre and shameful thing, and any increase in that military is an act of grave reluctance. Compared with settling japan through traditional means, the bombs were a mercy to all parties involved.