Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 awarded to Nihon Hidankyo

https://www.nobelprize.org/press-release-peace-2024/

by danielskogly • 2 years ago

290 248 2 years ago

nobelprize.org

lode• 2 years ago

This is the organisation that has won the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize:

https://www.ne.jp/asahi/hidankyo/nihon/english/

matt123456789• 2 years ago

An excellent choice.

abe94• 2 years ago

One of my friends grandmothers was an atomic bomb survivor - she was just a baby when the bomb hit and was blind the rest of her life.

One thing I was surprised by was the number of survivors and also that there was at least one person who survived both bombs [1]

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsutomu_Yamaguchi

lqet• 2 years ago

A resident of Nagasaki, Yamaguchi was in Hiroshima on business for his employer Mitsubishi Heavy Industries when the city was bombed at 8:15 AM, on 6 August 1945. He returned to Nagasaki the following day and, despite his wounds, returned to work on 9 August, the day of the second atomic bombing. That morning, while he was being told by his supervisor that he was "crazy" after describing how one bomb had destroyed the city, the Nagasaki bomb detonated.

krisoft4• 2 years ago

That morning, while he was being told by his supervisor that he was "crazy" after describing how one bomb had destroyed the city, the Nagasaki bomb detonated.

That is one way to win an argument. Not that anyone would prefer that "win".

zczc• 2 years ago

The Wikipedia article says there were at least 165 survivors of both bombings: "[Yamaguchi] was invited to take part in a 2006 documentary about 165 double A-bomb survivors".

jsrcout• 2 years ago

I, too, was shocked to learn this. I only learned about it fairly recently, from my older brother who read a book from the school library on it as a child:

Nine Who Survived Hiroshima & Nagasaki Hardcover – January 1, 1957

https://www.amazon.com/Nine-Who-Survived-Hiroshima-Nagasaki/...

walthamstow• 2 years ago

I visited the Hiroshima museum last year. They've got a set of stone steps, a person was sat there when the bomb went off and they were simply vaporised. The stone steps bear the residue of the person, almost like a shadow.

kachapopopow2• 2 years ago

The atomic bombs weren't close enough to vaporize anyone since they were detonated in the air, what you see is disintegration which is a little bit different and instead of turning the human body into what could be considered "nothing" the materials are torn apart and get embedded into the surrounding environment. Some vaporization did occur, but only on plants and the skin tissue of humans.

krisoft4• 2 years ago

instead of turning the human body into what could be considered "nothing"

You can't turn material into "nothing". At best you can turn it into equivalent amount of energy if you collide it with antimatter.

That being said I don't really feel the difference between "vaporisation" and "disintegration". In both cases you stop being biology and start being physics in a subjective instant. (at least from the perspective of your own central nervous system, which has not enough time to even detect that something has happened)

In both cases you go from a living, breathing, laughing, thinking human being into contaminants in the air or surfaces around you.

What do you feel is the difference between "vaporisation" and "disintegration"? Is it about how big your largest continuous chunk is? Where do you draw the line?

matsemann• 2 years ago

Visited Hiroshima over a decade ago during a school trip, and had a local guide that was a survivor. Very powerful.

As a teenager we also visited concentration camps on a school trip, and a survivor joined the trip from Norway to Germany. We got to know him a bit during the week long trip, and there was a session where he told his story. I'll never forget this, and I think it affects me to this day.

Soon we will have no Time Witnesses left.

Edit: I remembered a very specific anecdote he told, about how him randomly having learned to knit helped when in a concentration camp, as some officer wanted something to be made, and he then could sit inside and do that instead of working himself to death in the quarry. Based on this I managed to find his name again now.

Haakon Sørbye, thanks for telling us your story.

LeonM2• 2 years ago

At that distance you wouldn't be vaporized, but burned. What you see on the steps is not vapor deposits, but rather they are shadows.

The immense heat and light from the detonation burned/discolored the stones, but not in the shadow of the person sitting on the steps. Hence why you can see these 'permanent shadows' in various places in the city. Some caused by humans, but most are just shadows of structures. For example bridge railings: https://www.atomicarchive.com/media/photographs/hiroshima/im...

belter2• 2 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Shadow_Etched_in_Stone

tomp• 2 years ago

Are you sure that's the explanation?

It could be (and I think it's more likely) that the rest of the stone was lightened, and the part in the shadow, wasn't.

No "residue of a person", just literally "shadow".

pyrale3• 2 years ago

I have no issue with this laureate, but it is sad that the comittee could not find someone deserving that is working on a more current conflict. I guess this is not a positive outlook for the current state international conflicts.

thimabi5• 2 years ago

At a time when Russia threatens the use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine, Israel and Iran escalate tensions, North Korea tests missiles and warheads… it is hard not to relate the award to these circumstances.

Perhaps the committee thought it was best to express its opinion on current conflicts indirectly, as it has done so in the past.

pyrale3• 2 years ago

Perhaps the committee thought it was best to express its opinion on current conflicts indirectly, as it has done so in the past.

I do agree, and this is my point: this particular committee expressing concern rather than celebrating success is a source of lament to me.

Cthulhu_• 2 years ago

I'm just glad it looks like a legitimately given out award this time, instead of giving it to e.g. Peres, Arafat, Obama, Aung San Suu Kyi, etc.

Dalewyn4• 2 years ago

Obama is by far the most vapid recipient of the award, but I wonder if he is also the best representative for the lack of peace given his legacy of "Yes we can, (but we don't)."

The reason we seemingly can't have peace is because we deliberately refuse it.

slightwinder• 2 years ago

Since over 2 years, we again live now under the constant real threat of a nuclear war. Or this is at least what Russia is regularly claiming. This is very current as long as Putin doesn't get his s** together.

Of course there are other current candidates who would also deserve it, but I think it might be also a matter of how hot and current the problem is, and how much political impact this message would have. Russia and their threats are cooling down for the moment, so it's "safer" to send this message, instead of anything related to the Middle East, for example.

keybored• 2 years ago

I have no issue with this laureate, but it is sad that the comittee

You have no issue but it is sad?

could not find someone deserving that is working on a more current conflict. I guess this is not a positive outlook for the current state international conflicts.

Just any issue would be fine for you? Or could it be some specific issue that you care abuot.

pyrale3• 2 years ago

I see no issue with this org being nominated. Their advocacy seems to be right and useful. Good for them. On the other hand, reading the declaration, it's pretty clear that this nomination does not exist to celebrate good news. That is the sad part.

Or could it be some specific issue that you care abuot.

I, of course, have causes that are closer to my heart. But even if it was a conflict I had no previous knowledge, learning about it through the news of its end, or even that people are working hard to solve it, is kind of beautiful. Peace in our time is always awing.

thimabi5• 2 years ago

Congratulations to Nihon Hidankyo!

As said in the announcement, even 80 years after those bombs were dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we still need to highlight the dangers of nuclear weapons.

The threat and use of such weapons is still allowed by customary international law. Maybe movements like this will help change this sad fact. There has been progress in this direction. However, of course, nuclear-weapon states have been vehemently opposed to that, although they are obliged to negotiate a general and complete nuclear disarmament.

gus_massa3• 2 years ago

"Customary international law" is written by countries that can win a huge wae that are countries that have nuclear weapons, so they will not forbid themself the use of nuclear weapons.

thimabi5• 2 years ago

As the name says, customary international law is not written. It arises from international practices that have become so widespread that states begin to recognize they have a legal obligation to continue them (opinio juris).

Current literature says that the non-usage of nuclear weapons has become a widespread international practice, but that the resistance of nuclear powers has prevented the formation of an “opinio juris” thus far. What is at stake is whether an international custom can be formed despite the opposition of certain states — as long as several other states acknowledge the custom.

thrownawaysz2• 2 years ago

If I were a gambling man I'd put some money on a chinese professor getting the economics Nobel Prize

thaumasiotes• 2 years ago

You might want to consider a little more carefully before putting money down. There is no economics Nobel Prize.

thrownawaysz2• 2 years ago

"Although not one of the five Nobel Prizes established by Alfred Nobel's will in 1895, it is commonly referred to as the Nobel Prize in Economics, and is administered and referred to along with the Nobel Prizes by the Nobel Foundation. Winners of the Prize in Economic Sciences are chosen in a similar manner as and announced alongside the Nobel Prize recipients, and receive the Prize in Economic Sciences at the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony"

mppm5• 2 years ago

This is indeed a very timely award. I sometimes feel like the world has forgotten that nuclear weapons still exist and are still on hair-trigger alert to obliterate major cities. Maybe the end of atmospheric testing and the success of (now defunct) weapons reduction treaties has blunted public perception to the ongoing threat that they represent, and to the need to tread carefully where nuclear powers are involved.

vasco• 2 years ago

If I put a hammer over your head that can fall any minute you'll be worrying, but if you're born with the hammer over your head and your parents before you as well, it becomes less of a thing.

sandworm101• 2 years ago

On an individual level, we all have a variety of hammers over our heads. Cancer has killed far more people prematurely than nuclear weapons. Something like 500,000 people a year are murdered. Traffic/bicycle/pedestrian accidents also kill more than nuclear weapons. Even compared to a once-in-a-century nuclear war that perhaps kills a billion people, cancer will kill roughly a billion in the next century anyway. So, for the rational/selfish person, the nuclear threat isn't worth worrying about.

vkou• 2 years ago

My parents had no problem reminding us that we all live with a nuclear sword hanging over our heads.

It just so happens that most people in the West are comfortable, are completely insulated from the consequences of war, and can't even imagine a regular war happening to them.

And nuclear war is so much more horrifying and its consequences are so much beyond the pale, that people can't even think of what it would mean.

jsbg• 2 years ago

maybe your parents aren't old enough to remember how much of the population could expect to die in wars before nuclear weapons (i.e. mutually assured destruction) existed

layer83• 2 years ago

No, it’s simply the end of the cold war that made it a possibility less present in the media. The cold war was cold because making it hot would have meant going nuclear. So the possibility was always closely linked to the state of cold war. Globalization has blurred the picture considerably.

mc322• 2 years ago

Totally agree this is very relevant today. We have heads of state in the EU and to some degree people in the USG with very cavalier approaches to the ideological war between the West and the BRICS.

I really don't know what the F* they are thinking but they keep pushing further and further and hope there is no elastic snap. It's like they forgot about diplomacy with enemies --at the height of the cold war, at its Apex in the Cuba Missile Crisis, we had communication with the enemy --it was inconceivable we would not have communications with them but now it's a wild west of bluster and provocation. I'm not saying were not right in tamping down aggression, but you have to be cognizant of the perils that exist.

Quite striking is strident opponents of the Hiroshima/Nagasaki decision have few qualms about the prospects of current escalation. It's insane.

mppm5• 2 years ago

I'm not sure why this got downvoted. The point is not to bow to Putin in all matters, but to treat the matter with extreme seriousness: Take time to do proper background research, evaluate your sources, give serious consideration to the Russian narrative -- without necessarily agreeing of course, allow for a margin of error both in your own judgement and for stray missiles entering the detection radius, etc. If it still seems like a good idea to take a stand afterwards, OK. But let's please not cause a nuclear war over Facebook likes and political brownie points.

nradov• 2 years ago

I don't know why you're bringing BRICS into this. Brazil and South Africa aren't nuclear powers (at least not anymore, and South Africa is an irrelevant failed state anyway). India isn't engaged in any sort of ideological war with the West. Their nukes are purely defensive to deter China and Pakistan.

That leaves China and Russia. We learned during the Cold War that a policy of aggressive containment is effective and this should continue. Don't give them an inch.

Hammershaft2• 2 years ago

BRICS? What ideological war is South Africa, India, and Brazil waging against the west? Members of Brics such as India and China are closer to war with each other then they are to war with the West.

wdr1• 2 years ago

I sometimes feel like the world has forgotten that nuclear weapons still exist

I don't understand this. Between Iran and the Russia/Ukraine conflict, they seem to be very top of mind for many.

MisterBastahrd2• 2 years ago

The entire purpose of nuclear armaments is to make certain wars too nasty to fathom engaging in. If their organization didn't exist at all, we'd still have exactly the same number of nuclear war casualties since the 1940s.

Hammershaft2• 2 years ago

Interdependence via global trade makes it unlikely that without nuclear weapons we would have nearly the number of wars we had in the 1940s.

notthemessiah• 2 years ago

The net result of this has enabled nuclear powers to engage in asymmetric wars against countries that don't have nukes, or to engage in proxy wars between nuclear superpowers. Meanwhile, we heave come perilously close to nuclear armageddon, with Stanislav Petrov standing in the way.

contrarian1234• 2 years ago

It's a bit unclear to me why you need an organization that advocates against nuclear weapons. I'd argue the “nuclear taboo” is just the product of.. I don't just seeing one nuclear test video? It doesn't take the cataloging of witness testimony to see it's terror (though that may be important in its own right)

I'm not intimately familiar with Japanese self-perceptions - but from the outside it seems like post-WW2 the country really leaned into a view that "nuclear weapons are terrible" to the point of distraction - instead of a more self-reflective "nationalism is terrible" or something along those lines. There seems to be much less anxiety about preventing getting into a similar situations that triggered WW2: neo-colonial military bullying and domination of neighbors, xenaphobic oppression of ethnic groups, sycophantic following of cultural leaders etc. and an intense worry about the more tangeable use of nuclear weapons - which I'd argue is something that even if it were to come to pass would almost certainly never involve the Japanese people.

I wonder how this seeming diversion of public attention is perceived in Japan itself.

As I understand it, the anti-nationalist narrative was repressed due to anti-communist agendas of the occupation forces (ex: freeing of nationalist war criminals)

Would be curious to hear from anyone Japanese on the topic

nabla92• 2 years ago

The general human tendency to focus on single short term events seems to be the main cause.

Let's compare using Wikipedia as a source:

   Atomic bombings in Japan: 
   50,000–246,000 casualties. 

   Air Raids in Japan: 
   241,000–900,000 killed, 
   213,000–1,300,000 wounded, 
   8,500,000 rendered homeless.

Mass killings of large civilian populations should not happen. I don't personally see nuclear weapons as worse than incendiary bombs or artillery. It's the number of casualties that makes it horrible.

Dalewyn4• 2 years ago

I agree. I've been to the Hiroshima Peace Park or whatever it's called in English numerous times, but I can't say I've been anymore moved by it than any other demonstration of human brutality.

I can't register a difference between a nuclear bomb and, say, a GBU-12 Paveway conventional bomb. They both destroy and kill brutally, the magnitude is irrelevant and it would be great if we never have to use either of them.

defrost2• 2 years ago

The evidence we have is

* one early bomb is more or less equivilant to one conventional HE + incendiary raid.

* 2,000+ other bombs have since been detonated, a good number of which were orders of magnitudes more destructive than the early "first gen" bombs used on Japan.

Nuclear war with the larger weapons that followed would be considerably worse than incendiary bombs, in physical destruction, in immediate deaths, and in injuries and following mortalities.

gabaix• 2 years ago

The Hiroshima museum, while advocating for a nuclear free world, has an interesting take on why the US dropped the bomb on them.

According to them, the US dropped the bomb because they wanted to show their strengths against the Soviets. It makes little to no mention of the bloody battles in the Pacific.

makeitdouble2• 2 years ago

instead of a more self-reflective "nationalism is terrible" or something along those lines.

It used to bother me a lot, until I realized that

- the US purposefully left the Emperor in place with only a slap on the fingers ("you're not a god anymore...except for those who still believe you are")

- all surrounding countries have incentives to to keep distances from Japan (in particular as long as the US are there, Japan and China will never be allies, same for Russia), Taiwan being the exception.

I see no future where Japan nationalism is truly solved, short of these two things also getting solved. And boy is there no end in sight to this.

Dalewyn4• 2 years ago

the US purposefully left the Emperor in place with only a slap on the fingers

This was a deliberate political decision in an effort to not repeat the grave mistake of how post-WW1 Germany was handled which essentially led to WW2. Denying Japan of their identity and dignity would have risked an eventual WW3, and the US did not want to even entertain the possibility.

It also didn't help that practically all of Japan were not going to see their Emperor deposed or worse; Japan was willing to compromise on literally everything but the Emperor in making peace with the US and the west, and the extended Imperial family along with all the other nobles thereof lost their titles and powers in the post-war occupation and restructuring.

Dalewyn4• 2 years ago

I'm Japanese-American, so I can throw two cents in your hat.

Post-war Japan is against nuclear weapons to an absolute, but it must be admitted that the response to nukes in particular is just as much a kneejerk reaction. NHK literally spams the entirety of August with anti-nuclear propaganda every year. Japan's anti-nuclear stance is also hypocritically at odds with relying on the US nuclear umbrella for national security.

More rationally, post-war Japan is against wars of any and all kinds to an absolute. This goes as far as refusing to defend the US in the event of an attack on the US-Japan alliance; this was only changed recently in the last decade or so after strong pressure from the US to reciprocate the US's defense commitments to Japan.

Nationalism is a... complex topic. You will be considered a crazy person if you wave the Japanese flag or put up a flagpole on or around your house, but at the same time loyalty and reverence to the Emperor still remains strong and the country is politically and culturally very conservative/liberal with a very interesting mix of individualism and conformity. Most Japanese ex-pats actually leave Japan because they are more progressive and can't stand the conservative culture.

Japan is actually quite welcoming of foreigners, but there is a hard gentlemen's agreement that if you're in Japan you do as the Japanese do. Those who can adapt are welcomed, those who can't/don't are excluded and ejected sooner or later.

krisoft4• 2 years ago

I'd argue the “nuclear taboo” is just the product of.. I don't just seeing one nuclear test video?

And yet some high ranking military planers were seriously pushing for employing nuclear weapons in Vietnam. Do you think they just haven't seen any nuclear test videos?

It's a bit unclear to me why you need an organization that advocates against nuclear weapons.

Because humans keep building, and fielding nuclear weapons. Not sure where you live, but chances are good your taxes are used to build, and maintain nuclear weapons and the means to carry them.

tgv3• 2 years ago

In "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" by Rhodes, a poignant point was made, originating from people like Bohr, who were definitely on the peaceful side: without demonstrating the effect of the atomic bomb, the "nuclear taboo" would not have come into existence, and the first large conflict between nuclear powers would have seen a terrible outcome. The use of the bomb was inevitable, so it was sadly better to use it in a restricted war, before the US and the CCCP would use them against each other and the rest of the world.

0823498723498722• 2 years ago

That might have been a better argument if the USSR[0] had had the bomb in 1945[1]?

Lagniappe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRLON3ddZIw#t=15s

[0] first test: 29.08.1949

[1] a year in which the US and USSR were, however tenuously, still allied

cbolton• 2 years ago

Does it matter? It was probably obvious to the scientists working on the bomb that other countries would get it too sooner or later, including countries at odds with each other.

quickthrowman• 2 years ago

Japan was better off in the long run being occupied solely by the US instead of a split occupation with the Soviets like Germany. If we hadn’t dropped the two bombs, the Soviets were set to invade northern Japan.

smsm423• 2 years ago

They were allies by necessity, but I don't think there were a lot of illusions about where things age heading. After all, the official doctrine of the Communist Party has always been that every non-communist regime has to be violently overthrown and replaced by a communist one. USSR didn't have the bomb not because they didn't want one, but because they were incapable of building one by themselves, and stealing all the details by means of vast spy network they had in the US, and then recreating them on their side, took time. If they had the capacity, they'd do it as fast as possible.

istjohn3• 2 years ago

And to the others he said in mine hearing, Go ye after him through the city, and smite: let not your eye spare, neither have ye pity:
Slay utterly old and young, both maids, and little children, and women...

Ezekial 9:5-6

Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.

1 Samuel 15:3

And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth: and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark.

Genesis 7:23

Two and a half thousand years later, human nature is unchanged. How easily we make peace with wholesale slaughter.

octopoc• 2 years ago

All those examples are from a single ancient culture. Why did you pick only from that culture?

WhereIsTheTruth• 2 years ago

Not sure if that organisation is making progress, sounds like a smoke bomb, to please people who care about these meaningless rewards

https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/385216...

kaon_• 2 years ago

At home I have a book telling stories of Dutch WW2 survivors still living today. One of them was an eye witness account of the Hiroshima bomb. He was a POW and worked in a quarry or mine on the outskirts of town. He saw a single plane fly over. A bomb dropped with a parachute attached. Moments later he was flung to the back of the quarry and the city was gone. I would never have guessed there were eyewitnesses like this, let alone coutrymen of mine.

LeonM2• 2 years ago

Which book is it?

Metacelsus• 2 years ago

Little Boy didn't have a parachute. Maybe he was mis-remembering that.

dogben• 2 years ago

There were instruments dropped by parachute.

trescenzi• 2 years ago

The book Hiroshima by John Hersey has many accounts like this. It’s a short read and follows six people and covers the first year after the bombing. I’d highly recommend reading it if such accounts are interesting to you.

tirumaraiselvan• 2 years ago

It was published in New Yorker https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1946/08/31/hiroshima

Fun fact the cover image if this edition was kind of a decoy (perhaps to accentuate the shock): https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1946/08/31

evanjrowley• 2 years ago

My opa was also a Dutch POW and I believe he was working in that same mine on the same day. When it happened, he was deep in the mine, which was evacuated because people inside initially thought the blast was an earthquake. Being a POW was without question extremely hard, but it was the bombing of Hiroshima that resulted in PTSD lasting many years after the war. He survived, retiring in Florida, and passed away in the late 80s. Some US government scientists asked if they could study his body, believing radiation exposure affected his long term health. It seems they were correct because his bones were found to have a slightly blue tint to them.

hammock• 2 years ago

You may be interested in the 1945 Project - which collects the stories of hibakusha,[1] or atomic bomb survivors: https://www.1945project.com/

There is also Yoshito Matsushige, a survivor and the only photographer who was able to capture an immediate, first-hand photographic historical account: https://ahf.nuclearmuseum.org/ahf/key-documents/yoshito-mats...

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hibakusha

Melatonic• 2 years ago

Also POW Dutch grandfather here. He was in a giant concrete factory machining parts for airplanes. Bomb destroyed the whole city but the factory (being thick concrete) somewhat shielded the people inside. He had scars on his legs from pieces of a door blasting through the factory

ValentinA23• 2 years ago

My opa was also a Dutch POW, and his story is one for the books. He was assigned to work at a sake distillery just outside of Hiroshima. When the bomb hit, he was in the middle of taste-testing a new batch—he always claimed he was more of a quality control expert than a prisoner. The explosion sent him flying into a stack of sake barrels, and he ended up with a head full of rice wine and a newfound appreciation for the finer things in life.

The distillery, being built like a fortress to withstand earthquakes, somehow remained standing. Opa used to say that if he ever got nuked again, he'd want to be surrounded by sake barrels—apparently, they make for excellent shock absorbers.

Every New Year, he'd tell us about "the time I survived a nuclear blast with nothing but a sake buzz." He'd chuckle, pour himself a small glass of the weakest beer he could find, and toast to "the power of fermented rice."

jojobas2• 2 years ago

Nuclear weapons are not used not because they are morally unacceptable, but rather because of MAD and their limited efficiency when used against armies.

If you wanted to give a Nobel Prize to someone for preventing nuclear wars, give it to Nuclear Winter researchers and military analysts.

js84• 2 years ago

You mean like the small guns, right? They are not being used not because society deems it morally unacceptable, but because the gun owners are afraid they will be counterattacked with guns.

I just had an argument about madness that is MAD: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41776112

Actually, it would be interesting if someone researched the relationship between gun culture and acceptance of MAD. Both on national (cultural) and individual level.

jojobas2• 2 years ago

People whose prediction skills are so bad as to use a gun without a good reason tend not to get in charge of nuclear weapons.

And yes guns are used as a deterrent a lot more than they are used to shoot to kill.

MAD is everything that held it all together during the Cuban missile crisis. Later countries agreed not to pursue ABM so as to keep the deterrent.

Your snark is misplaced.

psychoslave2• 2 years ago

Nice to see they do somehow recognize the whole association of people and not push to much about a single person. But the committee is trapped with the rules that push for this ridiculous individual centric point of view which is so out of touch with measurable realities considering what forces actually come at play to anything with large social impact.

Also on a side note:

the most destructive weapons the world has ever seen.

Well, first thing, this is a quite restrictive anthropocentric and restrictive POV for what count for a weapon. Putting appart all things that triggered previous mass extinction as they might not really fit the expectation of weapon and "ever witnessed as implied agent", ok. But let's consider European invasion of America: while this was not intended and per design, it somehow greatly leveraged on bacteriological weapons.

Currently humanity is also at war with biodiversity, and the scale is massive and worldwide, using a large panel of tools.

Of course we are more prone to empathy to our fellow humans, and nuclear weapons are abominations.

belter2• 2 years ago

Tsutomu Yamaguchi survived both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsutomu_Yamaguchi

LightBug1• 2 years ago

a.k.a. Tsutomu "Wolverine" Yamaguchi

Strawberry76• 2 years ago

A good one this year. Some past recipients, not so good...

cynicalpeace10• 2 years ago

Phenomenal choice. While 80 years is nice- it's a blip on the timescale of history.

I personally think we're a button click away from going back to the stone age. I know others will disagree, but it's not something you wanna take a gamble on.

I think it's one of the reasons we have to be self sustaining on other heavenly bodies.

And also why wars or proxy wars between nuclear powers are extremely foolish and should be stopped with great urgency.

mordae• 2 years ago

Stone age? Hardly. More like 18th century.

I am more worried that we do not have that many attempts at rebuilding, because coal and oil are finite. OTOH a slower 2nd iteration might actually work better than this one.

cynicalpeace10• 2 years ago

"I know others will disagree, but it's not something you wanna take a gamble on."

Far more important than 18th century vs stone age debate is the fact that there are people in charge that would lead us down either path.

bonzini• 2 years ago

If we lost access to electricity, we'd be completely screwed; we can't even get drinkable water in many places without electricity.

For example where I live there is water around 10-20m depth, but it's polluted (it may be usable for agriculture but not for human consumption); you'd have to dig a well over 100m below the surface.

fifilura4• 2 years ago

And also why wars or proxy wars between nuclear powers is extremely foolish and should be stopped with great urgency.

The strict interpretation of that foreign policy is that any nuclear nation is free to invade any non-nuclear nation and abuse its citizens.

Where do you draw the line? If for example an ally is invaded by a nuclear nation. Should you intervene or just call peace?

Does the rule-of-law between countries have any relevance?

cynicalpeace10• 2 years ago

You're claiming "wars or proxy wars between nuclear powers" are not "extremely foolish" and should not "be stopped with great urgency"?

dahfizz• 2 years ago

Yeah, this is also a big concern of mine. Nuclear weapons haven’t been used since ww2, but there also hasn’t ever been total war between two nuclear powers.

The current climate in Russia and the Middle East may change that.

matthewfelgate6• 2 years ago

The current situation will not lead to nuclear war.

palata9• 2 years ago

I think it's one of the reasons we have to be self sustaining on other heavenly bodies.

I think this is a very naive take.

* We can't really live on another planet in the solar system. * Look at how far the next star is and realise that we won't get there anytime soon (probably at all). * What's the point of surviving on another planet, without any other species? * Without considering the risk of nuclear war, we are in the process of destroying life on Earth.

The resources we put on that project are mostly wasted. We should try to live on Earth, I hear it's a nice place.

seabass-labrax2• 2 years ago

I don't personally believe we should colonize other heavenly bodies because of a potential nuclear apocalypse, but the negation of that is no reason to abandon space travel either. Every time we have launched a mission into deep space we have learnt more as a species about what makes Earth 'tick'. We can also do a lot without actual space travel - maybe if more people had heeded the observations of the greenhouse effect on Venus in the 60s, for instance, we would have less of an issue cleaning up our own atmosphere now.

I'm not confident that our place is in the stars, but it would be narrow-minded not to give living out there a go.

cynicalpeace10• 2 years ago

I think this is a very naive take.

We could live on Mars. Just a matter of time. Let engineers iterate.

We would obviously bring species here at home with us to Mars. And then new species would flourish too.

dsign2• 2 years ago

> I think it's one of the reasons we have to be self sustaining on other heavenly bodies.

This is not a joke. But every time anybody brings it up a mob shows up saying that we must make it work here on Earth, and we should all go to hell if we can't. But we only need a few madmen in power for the rest of us to not matter.

fifilura4• 2 years ago

I imagine that if you can colonize other planets you can also target them with nuclear weapons.

It is like saying that the solution to all problems is colonizing Antarctica.

timeon2• 2 years ago

Point is that if we can not behave on Earth how can we do it in other place.

palata9• 2 years ago

But every time anybody brings it up a mob shows up saying that we must make it work here on Earth

Yeah, we must. As in: it's not rational to even consider that becoming self-sustaining on other heavenly bodies is an alternative.

It's fun, it's interesting, it's many things. But it's not an alternative.

layer83• 2 years ago

The point is that making it work on Earth is orders of magnitude easier than making it work on Mars (or wherever). And by that I don’t mean that it’s easy by any stretch, but that establishing a self-sustaining colony on another planet is so much harder. In addition to the extremely challenging extraterrestrial environment (much more challenging than anything we have on Earth, including in the case of terrestrial nuclear catastrophe), all the problems that we have on Earth due to human nature will travel with us to any other planet if we don’t manage to solve them here.

mihaaly• 2 years ago

Humanity en masse are superficial ignorant pretentious idiots. They are so pretentious that they pretend they are not pretentious and they care a lot ('It is utmost important for us [arbitrary lie here]'). Except Trump kind of people. They honestly and proudly announce that they give no fuck about anyone but themselves.

psychoslave2• 2 years ago

Humanity en masse are superficial ignorant pretentious idiots.

Oh I see how I can perfectly fit this role sure, I tell you so as the most humble entity that universe ever spawned.

It was of the outmost importance for me to deliver this lie: I don't care about anyone, humanity can go extinct, self included, and it doesn't trigger any emotion in me.

throw0101c4• 2 years ago

I personally think we're a button click away from going back to the stone age.

One reason to use less oil now is to perhaps preserve it in case we need to 'reboot' civilization in the future in case of a future cataclysm.

We were only able to reach beyond (near-)subsistence living because of cheap energy, first coal and later petroleum. All the easily accessible stuff is now kind of gone, so if there's another collapse (which may be more likely to be global in nature: see pandemics), then depending on how much knowledge we lose it could be hard to get back to the say level without the previously cheap/easy energy.

In past collapses (Europe: Western Roman Empire, Black Death) we were able to eventually recover because we at a simply technological level that could keep going even with the loss of a lot of knowledge.

I think it's one of the reasons we have to be self sustaining on other heavenly bodies.

I think this will be impossible given advanced countries can't even be self-sufficient on Earth.

Is there oil on those heavenly bodies? Probably no, so you're importing your lubricants and seals/o-rings. Advanced fabs? No? Well you're importing your electronics. What kind of silica is there, because if you don't have the right kind of sand, you're mot making your own solar panels. How much radioactive material (uranium, plutonium, thorium, etc) is around if you want to try nuclear power.

lutorm• 2 years ago

There is so much coal... I wouldn't worry about running out of that.

palata9• 2 years ago

I think this will be impossible given advanced countries can't even be self-sufficient on Earth.

And that's only after you've passed the fact that it's impossible for us to reach the next star.

EasyMark• 2 years ago

So like usual I offer up "what's your alternative" ? Is it to ignore Russian's invasion of countries? Ignore Iran's chaos it wants to sew constantly in the Middle East? It's easy to say "just be peaceful" but history shows that countries are not peaceful towards one another, they constantly want to take other's resources, or force their way of life on others, or settle some vague issue they have with another country (or people there). I think most people would love if countries would just stop attacking others. right now we don't have the tech to live on "other bodies", that is pie in the sky. I would love if nation-states just stopped the nonsense and were good to one another and their inhabitants, but that has never been the case.

quotz• 2 years ago

Irans wants to sew chaos? The whole conflict with Iran started because the US and UK installed a puppet government (Pahlavi) so they can control the oil. After Pahlavi was ousted, the religious extreme took control, and cut ties with the west as a result. Its more like the west wanted chaos and started this whole mess

exoverito• 2 years ago

The CIA was actively involved in the Maidan revolution, which sought to pull Ukraine out of Russia's sphere of influence and into the EU / NATO. Obviously this is antagonistic towards Russia, especially when they have so few natural barriers to defend against invasion of their land. Look at how quickly the Wagner group reached Moscow after defecting from the Ukrainian front.

If the shoe were on the other foot, and China had supported a revolution in Mexico and was setting up military bases, the American government would not take it lightly. The US would cook up some reason to wage war against Mexico as a continuation of the Monroe Doctrine. These wars are not about good and evil, as much as it's about empires and power.

cynicalpeace10• 2 years ago

You realize achieving a compromise is not simply "ignoring" or surrendering to Russia?

Putin and Biden haven't spoken in years. I would say you're proposing ignoring the situation until it becomes even more of a powder keg in a decade or two.

Alternative is accepting some territorial losses, compromising, soldiers go home. Doomsday clock ticks back to 5 minutes to midnight.

You're acting as if this is the first time anyone has annexed territory. Do I like it? No. But you gotta manage with the cards you're dealt and that territory is not worth decades long conflict with two major nuclear powers.

walrushunter• 2 years ago

Yeah, we should just stop all wars. Great idea! How has nobody thought of this before???

tredre3• 2 years ago

I think it's one of the reasons we have to be self sustaining on other heavenly bodies.

But who will inhabit those other bodies? Humans? The same species that destroyed earth in your scenario? What makes you think that living on Mars would suddenly make everybody peaceful and enlightened?

melasadra• 2 years ago

As some other commenters have pointed out: It is lamentable that the focus is almost always on the atomic bombing itself instead of why it came to that point at all.

Many Asian countries feel scant sympathy toward Japan. From Indonesia to Malaysia to the Philipipines or even worse and for much longer, in Korea and China. In each of these countries the Japanese perpetrated massacre, forced labour, gang rape and forced prostitution in the millions. Even European women who were stranded in their former colonies were not spared. In fact their diaries are the foremost historical sources.

Their brutality is such that the hatred towards colonialist European nations were ameliorated and pretty much forgotten these days. It's sickening to me that outside East and Southeast Asia itself, most of the world only remember Nagasaki and Hiroshima when it comes to casualties in the Pacific theatre of WW2.

This sympathy felt even more misplaced considering even to this very day, unlike Germany, Japanese historiograpy deliberately downplays Japan brutality during occupation or that there was any aggression on their part at all. Most Japanese college mates in the US that I've talked to were not even aware that Japan occupied my country for years resulting in millions of casualties.

yread• 2 years ago

There are also well-maintained shrines (like Yasukuni) to the Japanese war criminals frequented even by high-level politicians (former PM went there, current ministers went there). Imagine that in current Germany!

glandium• 2 years ago

The Yasukuni situation is more complex than "the shrine for war criminals". A lot more people are enshrined there, the war criminals are a tiny fraction (and were only added in 1978, while the shrine was established 109 years earlier). To give you an example of an important and less controversial figure enshrined there: Sakamoto Ryōma. There are 2+ millions souls enshrined there.

Foreignborn2• 2 years ago

You can separate one group of innocents killed horrifically from other innocents killed horrifically.

No one goes around expecting New York City to attone for the events that led up to 9/11.

ghysznje• 2 years ago

What did nyc or the US do to deserve 9/11? On the other hand what Japan has (usually brutally) killed way more innocent people in Asia than those killed by the A-bombs

matthewfelgate6• 2 years ago

[flagged]

gus_massa3• 2 years ago

What about right wing dictatorships backed by the CIA?

wtcactus• 2 years ago

Is there any right wing dictatorship backed by CIA that has nuclear weapons?

aguaviva4• 2 years ago

while Iran has them,

Present tense, you say?

dang2• 2 years ago

Can you please make your substantive points without name-calling and flamebait? We've had to ask you this before!

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

matthewfelgate6• 2 years ago

What's name calling?

Timari• 2 years ago

I watched the film “Threads” last night, anyone in any doubt about the horrific consequences of a nuclear exchange should watch it. The speed at which society falls apart is simply terrifying. Those poor souls unlucky to be in a war zone will understand better than I ever will. The world needs a new order.

satvikpendem3• 2 years ago

I recently went to the Hiroshima museum. I had originally thought that people simply vaporized when the bomb hit, but that is not the case. The museum shows how people's skin simply sloughed off and some were holding parts in their hands as they walked around to find their loved ones.

But the worst part was radiation poisoning. Many that did not initially get hit and burned directly went towards the center of the city to find their families and over the course of days, months and years, they almost always died a slow, painful death, with their teeth falling out and their skin and organs becoming necrotic.

Truly, everyone should visit Hiroshima or Nagasaki at some point, if only to understand what true horrors nuclear weapons create. And those are only atomic weapons of the 1940s, the hydrogen bombs we have today that fuse instead of fiss are orders of magnitude more powerful, but at least those under their effects (near the epicenter) will die a quick vaporized death instantaneously.

mppm5• 2 years ago

As an addition (and correction) to this, powerful thermonuclear weapons don't vaporize anyone either. They are targeted for high-altitude airbursts and kill through a combination of burns and building collapse, plus secondary fires, infection and breakdown of emergency services. The majority of the victims would not die an instant death.

For more information: https://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Nwfaq/Nfaq5.html

dredmorbius• 2 years ago

There are multiple lethal effects from nuclear weapons, and a person inside the 100 million Celsius fireball itself (TK-radius), yes, will be vapourised.

Fireball size depends on weapon yield. For a 1 MT weapon, the radius is roughly 870m, at 5 MT ~1010m, at 150 KT, about 250m.

Most US nuclear weapons yield between 600 to 2,200 KT (0.6 to 2.2 MT).

Whether or not individuals are within the fireball radius depends on the height of detonation, parameters of the nuclear explosion itself (shaped nuclear charges are theoretically possible, though I'm not aware whether any present weapons are designed as such), and of course the local population density.

Outside the fireball, the principle lethal mechanism is the shock wave, though thermal pulse can still provide severe burns, and initial and fallout radiation can also be lethal, though over longer periods (hours, days, weeks, or more).

Effects generally fall with the inverse cube law. Larger weapons also experience an inverse cube effect, such that a one thousandfold increase in weapon yield delivers only a tenfold increase in effects at a given distance.

People may be vapourised, though most within a blast effect area will likely not. They may however be severely burned if directly exposed to the thermal pulse. Near in, other lethal effects, which may be delayed by a few seconds, principally from the blast wave, should predominate.

Air-burst attacks would likely decrease vapourisation. Penetrating / shaped charges would have markedly different and highly directional effects.

Major Kong would not have felt a thing.

seatac76• 2 years ago

I had a similar experience, looking at the contorted metal lunchboxes and other household items was more terrifying, I always used to think things just go poof.

justinpombrio• 2 years ago

Regardless of how big a bomb is, there's going to be a distance at which it's no longer immediately lethal. Inside that radius you die quickly, outside you die slowly.

userbinator2• 2 years ago

You should also visit the Pearl Harbor memorial, to understand what lead to the events at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

satvikpendem3• 2 years ago

Indeed. I did find it interesting that the museum made no mention of the atrocities committed by the Japanese military in China as well, or even any discussion of Pearl Harbor beyond a mere mention that Japan attacked it. But then again, that doesn't really have anything to do with the suffering experienced by the populace, as the sins of the government should not be atoned by the governed.

gklitz• 2 years ago

I’ll assume that you are American, so you obviously don’t understand how tone deaf that suggestion is to the current thread. Imagine someone commenting on horrible Auschwitz’s is after they visit and someone commenting “you should visit the Reichstag building to understand what lead to it all”, or a thread about 9/11 and someone suggest visiting a museum about the conflict in the Middle East to learn what lead to the events.

Obviously we are talking about completely different types of events and magnitudes of death and destruction, and the very notion that you should try to find justification for murder by events you can correlate to people who share ethnicity or nationality with the victims is just a cruel insult to anyone with a hint of human decency.

ChrisArchitect• 2 years ago

Of course the reminder of the impact there and the ongoing risk is nice but is this really a relevant and current choice? Why not last year? Why not ten years ago? What success have they even had? Considering where we are right now. This isn't a group making an impact on the ground anywhere right now. Many of the winners in recent years have been civil & human rights activists in real fights on the ground in their countries/regions. The public will take the reminder but mostly shrug the news off.

istjohn3• 2 years ago

This discussion proves the importance. We are so far from properly appreciating the horror of nuclear weapons. One would think that after nearly eighty years Americans would be able to apprehend our crimes against the innocents of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with clear vision.

AlbertCory• 2 years ago

The chances of a nuclear bomb being used in the next 30 years is at least 90%. That's an opinion so don't ask for a link.

Why? Purely because of the combinatorial math of proliferation, and the likelihood of either an accident or a crazy person getting control of a bomb.

I wish it weren't so, but eventually your luck runs out.

hruzgar• 2 years ago

So US has nuclear bombs, but japan is somehow not allowed to make their own? Seems like controlled oppression to me

khuey• 2 years ago

Japan is free to withdraw from the NPT at any time.

retrocryptid• 2 years ago

i'm confused. what does Hidankyo have to do with large language models?

deanCommie2• 2 years ago

The Hiroshimia/Nagasaki situation is one of the best examples I can think of with plenty of evidence of the "history is written by the winners" concept.

It has been justified repeatedly over the years both in terms of relativism ("The firebombing of Tokyo killed more people, yet isn't so controversial"), and in terms of hypotheticals becoming certainties ("The empire was never going to surrender without a massive fight. The US anticipated unprecedented losses from an invasion of the main island, and is still giving out purple hearts printed in anticipation of this invasion")

In the end the historical narrative was that dropping the bombs was necessary to end the war, as written by the winners.

The reality is that we just don't know what would've happened if the US waited. Japan was not an active threat any longer. What was? The Soviet Union that would've certainly "helped" invade Japan, and would've also demanded to carve it up post-war the way they did with Germany.

From evaluating the overall evidence it seems pretty clear that this is what was driving the urgency to drop the bomb, not once, but twice.

The irony is that it's entirely possible that for the population of Japan this ended up a better outcome than having half of it face the "East Germany" scenario for the next 40 years.

And while the "blight" of having actually used nuclear weapons to kill civilians may be on the US forever as the only nation to have done so, the horrors of Hiroshima or Nagasaki almost certainly helped prevent nuclear weapon usage throughout the cold war. If they were never tried, it's almost certain that either the US or the USSR would've been itchy to be the first in some future engagement, and then who knows what would've happened.

So the truth is messy. My position is that the Hiroshima/Nagasaki bombings were NOT necessary to end WW2 and did not reduce the overall bloodshed within THAT conflict. But this action counterintuitively helped improve Japan's prosperity over the rest of the 20th century and may have reduced the likelihood of an actual nuclear war over the rest of the Cold War.

js84• 2 years ago

Your last paragraph makes a terrible moral argument: Yeah, maybe I am waging a war today, but's in the interest of the future peace!

I don't think your hypothetical assumption that 20th century peace could not be made without using nukes in WW2 is valid.

Why not even turn it up and say that future peace from nuclear weapons is impossible without living through the global thermonuclear war? Clearly, most people can imagine dangers of that, so they are perfectly capable of imagining dangers of only 2 nukes being used, without them actually being used.

deanCommie2• 2 years ago

I wasn't trying to make a moral argument.

With the information available at the time, dropping the nukes was immoral, and unjustifiable. The public justifications and the ones accepted by the standard western historical narrative do not hold up to scrutiny.

Despite that, I'm claiming that the decision probably inadvertently saved lives.

But that's not a moral argument. There were other means to save lives from nuclear apocalypse, and the US is complicit in its own actions that they've done to ensure a cold war with the Soviet Union.

matthewfelgate6• 2 years ago

  - Liberal democracies should have Nuclear Weapons.
  - Dictatorships and Communists countries shouldn't.

pajeets• 2 years ago

What makes me really angry are the NPCs that constantly try to justify the bombing and that it was "painless". When I visited Hiroshima and I read about what had happened, I realized our history books were egregiously nonchalant about quite possibly the worst acts of crime against humanity.

Now that it appears the world is once again creeping towards nuclear stand-off this time with a very large non-zero chance that a country pushed towards existential crisis will not hesitate to detonate a nuclear device, it makes the people justifying Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuking as completely deranged.

I urge y'all to visit Hiroshima and see first hand the horrors of nuclear terrorism. When you attack civilians directly, its terrorism no matter what side of the fence you are on.

matthewfelgate6• 2 years ago

Not than many people died.

Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 awarded to Nihon Hidankyo

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