Some misunderstandings around war, WWII, and using nuclear bombs

The Onion ran a short piece on Obama's visit to Hiroshima.

Some not too smart US citizens took it seriously. I tried to comment - and might have been too sarcastic - to shed some light of their confusions.

One of them lectured me in a very misguided way then. Obviously, he hasn't read anything about history, about war, military strategy, economy, diplomacy, or politics. This is not a problem: most people don't have time and energy to do that. They work, care for their family, spend time with their friends, and are good people.
This doesn't change the fact that someone who does not know even the basics about the topic should not lecture anyone else about it. So: please take the following discussion as an example of what popular misunderstanding not to repeat and believe, and on how to separate issues more finely to understand them better. I'm a pro, I have been trained to do this kind of thinking, this is part of my job, and I'm happy to do it. I don't want to offend you or lecture you, I want to help everyone see clearer.



Here is his message:
"Sorry Steve, but I understand WW2 and firebombing both. The Japanese were Hitlers buddies, along with Russia - going to divide the world between themselves after they killed most of us. Well - too damn bad they got nuked. Haven't you ever studied what the allies found after the war? Americans being experimented on, with body parts removed. The Japanese dissected Americans, while keeping them alive in vats. Almost all were mercy killed by Allied troops. That doesn't even cover what the Germans did. You obviously don't know much about the cultures of the time. Besides, war isn't fair.. It's kill them - before they kill you."


And here are the corrections:

"Hi YY,

You are mixing up a number of issues.
1. You are mixing up a) whether dropping the nukes were justified, and b) whether the firebombing was justified.
2. You also mix up whether a) the nukes were justified, and b) whether Japan had to be defeated,
and
3. You mix up the a) ambitions of Japan, with b) the ambitions of Germany,
and also
4. You mix up a) the goals of a very small number of extreme radical Germans (and maybe Japanese?) with b) the goals of the fairly sane but too ambitious military of b1) Japan, and what is again a separate issue of b2) Germany.

Now first of all:
I) No matter what a country's government does, and no matter what a country's military leadership does, is it justified to drop nuclear bombs.
II) By the time the US leadership decided to drop the nuclear bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima the US leadership knew both that a) Japan would not be able to continue the war and would eventually surrender, and b) that most of the casualties would be civilians.




Next: Did either the German, or the Japanese government or military leadership plan to 'kill us all' as you say. The answer is no. The Germans had plans to eradicate masses of Jewish people, homosexual people, people with mental and bodily disabilities, and Slavic people. But that's it.
The Japanese people didn't have any such ambitions. Mixing up the German cause of eliminating Jews with the military-medical experiments that one secret and special Japanese military unit carried out is a big mistake.

Next: You say war isn't fair. Well think of it this way: It is US policy since many years ago that if any of the resource supplies of the US are threatened - meaning also: if any country doesn't want to sell something to the US - then that is to be treated as a threat to national security, and hence as a military issue.
I think that isn't a very good principle, but it is what the US follows.
The Japanese government followed the same principle when it bomber Pearl Harbor. The bombing followed years of strategic manouvering by the US government and military which aimed at cutting off the Japanese from crucial resources and supplies. If you take the US principle as the standard, the Japanese were justified in taking the US to be their enemies and attack them.

You also say the following: The Germans, the Japanese, and the Russians were going to divide the world between themselves. This is wrong again. The Germans and the Japanese were fighting against the Russians.
They both lost in the war. The world hence got divided between the US, Russia (or rather the Soviet Union) and the European powers. I don't necessarily think that this was a very bad consequence overall, although it had some horrible results in Vietnam, Korea, Indonesia, etc. I do think on the other hand that what you are saying is that only evil powers divide the world between themselves.
Well, let me tell you something: all powers are trying to dominate, the US included. The US follows a very well and carefully planned policy of keeping its borders safe, and also having allies on the other side of the oceans. Hence its alliance with the EU, and with Japan, Korea, the Philippines, and Australia. The US is not a benevolent, kind might. It is a well led huge power. When the interests of the US were threatened it stepped in with its military and didn't shy away from killing in other countries, from waging war, from killing civilians and from using torture to obtain military intelligence. It is not a saintly power, just as Germany and Japan weren't.

Also: You don't understand much about war. No sane politician or military leader aims solely at killing. They aim at winning a war. A war is won when the opponent sees that they can't continue. For this you don't have to kill their entire population. That would be a crime against humanity, no matter which country would do it. You aim at weakening the other country's infrastructure, its production lines, its access to natural resources (iron, oil, etc.), and its military. You don't aim at killing.

You might want to listen to the interview with Robert McNamara 'The Fog of War', you read the book on Japan by Ian Buruma titled 'Inventing Japan', and read in general more about history, politics, economy, and war."

Mistaken stereotypes about 'women logic'

I've just recently been to a coffee in town. At the table besides me a few engineers (young professionals, not students) were chatting. I overheard them entertaining each other with the difficulty of programming a robot which can understand 'woman's logic'. I guess in most cases it is actually quite easy to explain to people like them the lack of sophistication behind such a label. But just to make sure, here are a few easy pointers to why talk about 'woman's logic' (especially in a demeaning sense) is just plain stupidity.

We have different concepts of rationality. Some of these applies to the capacities we posses as the types of animals we are. Such are our basic spatial positioning skills, our mathematical logic, our abilities to make inferences based on evidence, our mathematical skills, our skills tracking regularities in changes, etc. These are not specific to any gender.

'Rationality' is sometimes also used to stand for intelligence. Intelligence is gender independent - you find researchers, doctors, engineers, skilled professionals, mechanics, soldiers, and pretty much anything - requiring skill and doing well at school - among female population. Of course this only applies to countries where woman are allowed to get schooling, and throughout their upbringing and schooling aren't held back by harmful stereotypes they are made to adhere to, or pressure from peers.

What female agents seem to be more prone to do is placing value on emotions, personal relations (especially kin relationships). I emphasize 'seem' because I'm almost sure that most males are worried about, care about, etc. much more than they admit. Even if not, the explicitness is a difference. By explicitness I mean things that males often consider repugnant about female behavior, and hence, use discriminating terms like 'woman's logic' to talk about them. (Quick additional remark: valuing emotions and stable relationships is crucial to society.)

Such cases of making something explicit are for example being often worried about health of family members, about their emotional balance, getting stressed by cheeky remarks, etc. I do not even mention cases when females ask a male 'Do you still love/Find me attractive/etc.?' If you don't understand such games, teasers and affectionate jokes, you are not yet mature enough for a relationship. Just say something nice, complementary, and funny. No need to think your girl is really worried, expect if you start taking the question seriously. After all, that sends the message: 'Oh, I really have to think about this.' Silly response, isn't it?

So, what about the less obvious cases? Why do 'woman make so much fuss about things'? One obvious reason is evolutionary: females are hard-wired to care a lot about offspring. Also, social structures enable better survival chances for them and their kids, and more protection. A larger, healthier, more successful group can do better in terms of evolutionary fitness. These things do not depend on culture. They have evolved long ago, when small changes had higher stakes for staying alive.

Some other issues are culture influenced. Most of our societies are still male-dominated. Being male-dominated does not (only) mean that most good jobs are occupied by guys, and they get to make decisions for woman as well in many situations. It also means that this has been the situation for quite a long time, and hence the shape social institutions took, including norms of interactions, what's right and what's not, etc. have been heavily influenced by guys. I'm not making here any claims about this being good or bad. Just saying that this is the way it is. It seems to be quite likely that in many respects our communities are more physically and overtly aggressive than they would have to be given our current rates of food production. There is no need for as much vicious competition as was a long time ago. Of course competition does not disappear if more woman are elected. They also have in them to secure the necessary means for themselves and their groups. But the forms of aggression are different.

The male dominated character of culture places many normative behavior on woman. In most societies if one is not a good mother that still stigmatizes one strongly. Whereas if one is an awful father, one is reproach but not held responsible and blamed for the same degree.

Still, one might ask, if man and woman aren't so different then why are there so many visible differences in behavioral patterns? Well, already the question shows the fallacy of mixing up cause and effect. It is not that there are some differences in man and woman which would ground all of the behavioral differences between them. It is rather that there are some cultural expectations, stereotypes, social pressures, and basic hormonal processes, that are all involved in leading to such differences in behavioral patterns. So, it's not just inherent differences which cause different behavior, and then lead to different treatment. It is rather different treatment that causes different behavior.

One more thing. Different behavioral patterns aren't in themselves bad. If I would say 'let's change some of our social institutions which influence woman to behave in ways that bother man' that would not be much more than saying 'oh, yes, of course guys are always right, so if some of the less emphatic/sensitive/intelligent don't understand a piece of behavior without effort we have to change it!'. And that idea is bollocks.

Accepting the possibility of there being different but still okay patterns is a good step. And no, it does not mean 'anything goes'. It just means that you first think, and assess whether the difference is okay, or not. Obviously, differences in female and male behavior are perfectly fine. And, ideally, up to choice.

In general, if you don't understand someone, first don't blame them for not adhering to your standard of rationality (or 'logic'). Always try out different interpretations to see how you can make sense of their behavior. In most cases you simply don't exert enough effort to understand the other person. These skills can be learned and enhanced. So, before making jokes about 'woman's logic' think a bit about how logical your behavior would seem when you are emotional, moved, angry, stressed, tired, worried, etc. to others, who don't know you and are not sympathetic. See, you aren't that much of a role-model of rationality.