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Watch Entire Show: www.youtube.com More Shows: www.youtube.com Episode 2 of James Burke’s most well-known series “Connections” which explores the surprising and unexpected ways that our modern technological world came into existence. Each episode investigates the background of usually one particular modern invention and how it came into being. These explorations are an attempt to locate the “connections” between various historical figures who seemingly had nothing to do with each other in their own times, however once connected, these same figures combined to produce some of the most profound impacts on our modern day world; in a “1+1=3″ type of way. It is this type of investigation that is the main idea behind the Knowledge Web project; whereby sophisticated software is used to attempt to discover these subtle connections automatically. See k-web.org. See channel page for purchase options.
25 Responses to “James Burke : Connections, Episode 2, “Death In The Morning”, 5 of 5 (CC)”
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July 3rd, 2010 at 11:38 am
@JamesBurkeWeb
It wasn’t pointless, it wasn’t shameful. Before you damn us, look at what kind of monsters we were fighting.
Murdering Chinese peasants, raping and forcing Korean girls into prostitution, torture, deprivation and murder of P.o.W.s, sneak attack on Pearl Harbor (the timing was just as treacherous had the declaration of war been translated in time).
It was a sick culture that needed a wake-up call. We gave it to them. Then we rebuilt their society in our image.
July 3rd, 2010 at 11:56 am
@rampantandroid
More importantly, it would have cost many more *American* (and British and Australian) lives.
The thinking in the U.S. generally was, “They started it, this is how they like to fight, why lose our own countrymen needlessly?”
July 3rd, 2010 at 12:35 pm
@rampantandroid
Maybe they showed no hostility because Japan won the war.
In the 1970s…
July 3rd, 2010 at 12:37 pm
@JamesBurkeWeb
Not getting into politics, however…
The firebombing of Tokyo did more damage and cost more lives than both a-bombs.
Both Hiroshima and Nagasaki were military targets as defined even in the ETO; manufacturing and port. It was not dropping bombs on peasants.
1,500 plane flights were common during the war. If we could do that much damage with one plane, they could imagine 1500 times the damage. 1500 cities wiped out in an afternoon.
July 3rd, 2010 at 1:34 pm
Thanks you for this video, it’s an addictive watch
July 3rd, 2010 at 2:24 pm
I remember reading that by the start of 1945 the government new it was over and wanted to make piece but the military(which was more or less in control) didn’t want to hear of it and several officials were killed for talking about piece.
It wasn’t until the second bomb fell that even the die hards could see there was no hope. When the russians began invading japanese held territory in the north they accepted the US’s peace deal.
July 3rd, 2010 at 3:06 pm
So what we should string up every american who ever served in the US military?
That people like George Washington, Robert E. Lee, Bernard Montegomery or Daulle are just a bunch of mass murderers who should hang from their neck till their feet quit kicking?
Is that what your saying? This country is a bunch of cold blooded killers who idolize more efficient cold blooded killers?
July 3rd, 2010 at 3:29 pm
How many civilian deaths in the U.S. where there?
July 3rd, 2010 at 4:23 pm
The Japanese navy was more or less wiped out by the Americans a few battles into the war, that’s why the nature of the campaign was island hopping, because the naval fleet was decimated.
Even if the Japanese had a submarine aircraft carrier they would have had to deal with the full strength of the US navy.
July 3rd, 2010 at 4:46 pm
The Japanese were planning an air raid over the canal in Panama and the four aircraft and crew were expendable.
July 3rd, 2010 at 5:45 pm
very nice.and an intersting story
July 3rd, 2010 at 6:30 pm
A fascinating series. Thank you for posting.
July 3rd, 2010 at 7:03 pm
Didn’t the japanese have a super weapon of their own, an aircraft carrier that was a submarine? they were going to bomb cities on the west coast of america the same week as hiroshima as i understand it.
The americans did not know this though so what they did was still horrendous, but they did stop civilian deaths on american soil at the very least.
July 3rd, 2010 at 7:47 pm
Oh man… I just came from reading Carl Sagan’s “Demon Haunted World”, in which he talks about Nuclear War…. and now I watch this and right at the end it brings it back at me again. Hmmm… beginning to ponder about mankind.
July 3rd, 2010 at 8:13 pm
Like I said before, no politics please.
I realize I’m already guilty by allowing myself to be pulled into this debate and I apologize about that.
But if you read below (the sorting order is a little fucked up) you will find that I’ve requested to discontinue this discussion and just stick to things that can be demonstrated one way or the other. If it makes you happy, we’ll define “War” as “Terrorism”. Fine.
- JBW
July 3rd, 2010 at 8:31 pm
War is terrorism. The fact they are treated separately is a testament to propaganda.
July 3rd, 2010 at 8:32 pm
The Japanese leadership was trying to make peace before the bombs were dropped.
July 3rd, 2010 at 9:28 pm
Yes, perhaps.
However neither have you done this calculation, nor have you shown that a ground invasion was the one *and only* alternative to dropping A-bombs on peasants.
btw. The US already had infinitely reproducible bombs of equal ballistics to the ones dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki (called “Pumpkin bombs”), so they could have chosen to drop those bombs on peasants instead if they so pleased.
Hence, by logic:
~(A-Bomb on peasants) => (Ground Invasion)
is false.
July 3rd, 2010 at 9:43 pm
The decision to drop the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki came after Okinawa, where the U.S. took over 50,000 casualties. It was then simple to calculate that taking Japan through an invasion probably would cost over 300,000 casualties, an unacceptably high number.
July 3rd, 2010 at 9:45 pm
Well, I’m not going to get any further into a political discussion, which is what this is.
If my statement was incorrect (about the Japanese having already been defeated as well as being aware of it) was false, then this is something that can be answered definitively.
Plans, strategic options, proposed operations etc. are always on the table. In fact they are required to be. So that carries no information.
A detailed internal strategic assessment from advisers / field commanders could.
July 3rd, 2010 at 9:51 pm
All that said, thank you for putting up this show! It’s great.
July 3rd, 2010 at 10:25 pm
– a far greater number perished in conventional fire bombings of Japanese cities. Being burned alive is hardly more humane, and the fellow who ordered the bombings (his name I think was Lehay?) even admitted that if his side hadn’t won, he probably would have been rightfully convicted of war crimes.
July 3rd, 2010 at 10:59 pm
— then at least they could make Japan so painful to take that it would not be worth taking, and some kind of conditional surrender or armistice could be arranged.
Second I am constantly confused by the fixation on the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Yes, they were spectacular shows of human brutality. Yes the thought of death by nuclear fire — or worse, radiation poisoning — fills one with terrible dread. Yet is dying in the firestorm of a firebombing any better? Please recall that
July 3rd, 2010 at 11:44 pm
JBW,
I do not know where you get the idea that the Japanese were at this time “an already defeated army that was all but throwing up the white flags.” Please look into Operation Ketsugo, the Japanese plan to counter the Americans’ Operations Coronet and Olympic. Casualty estimates from both sides ranged into the millions, and the Japanese plan called for arming every able bodied person, man or woman, with whatever was at hand. The idea seemed to be that if the Americans could not be defeated –
July 3rd, 2010 at 11:55 pm
oops “if any” not “of any” … my bad
- JBW