http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070611/ap_ … nddaughter

"Japan did not fight a war of aggression. It fought in self-defense," she said. "Our children have been wrongly taught that their ancestors did evil things..."

Um, HELLO! Japan did HORRENDOUSLY evil things during WWII! In fact, Japanese soldiers were typically as barbaric as the worst German soldiers! Just look at what they did to British POWs in Burma, and also the infamous Rape of Nanking. People who want to rewrite history scare me very much... I hope she loses BIG TIME!

cheers,

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lest we forget modern day atrocities such as Morning Musume and the Kana album...

I always found it an interesting read about how Japan ended up entering the war. I still don't understand all the political mumbo-jumbo, but it's wild comparing the Japan of today vs a hundred years ago (hell, not even a hundred years ago, they were our allies in World War 1).

*Shrug* Given their nationalistic tendancies, I don't find it hard to believe some in Japan still support their actions in the war. From an internal perspective, you can make any justification. I mean, Americans could justify their mistreatment of the Indians or slaves if they really wanted to. Of course, the external view will rarely match up with that perspective...Technically though, she's right about the oil embargo, as its' widely agreed that it was a major factor in the decision to attack Pearl Harbor.

The facts are: Japan was in a fight with China. Japan lacked resources and got a large portion of resources from US imports. The US declared an embargo because of Japan's aggression (against China), leaving Japan to find their own resources. They had to take the Dutch East Indies, which they knew would draw the US into the war. Meanwhile, the US had their forces in Pearl Harbor partially to keep an eye on the Japanese and they felt threatened by this. So the reality is, if they wanted to continue fighting in the Pacific, they had to find oil. The only way to get the oil in the DEI was to piss off the US forces. Japan, being the nationalistic monster that it was and with the military in large command, didn't want to lose face and give in to demands to back down. That's probably what she's getting at. I wouldn't expect anything less from a relative of Tojo's.

I wasn't around in WWII and most of the people alive at the time are dead right now. One might as well talk about the wars the Romans fought. It's a done did thing and only of interest to historians; the 'right' and 'wrong' is too far in the past to be of any concern. If you really want to complain about acts of evil, the Americans of the past were even worse than the terrorists of today. I must refrain from using 'we' because I have nothing in common with Americans of the past; they might as well be aliens. They essentially took a large broom and swept away millions of lives. That's how the Americans of the past dealt with problems - wholesale killing. Much like Hitler (his problems were mental, directed at others). But I have to keep things honest: The Americans, Terrorists, Japanese, etc. - those that are humans - all employ wholesale killing methods. Observed from above, with no knowledge of nationalities, it's merely humans killing humans. In fact, there is nothing unusual about killing. It's about as common as eating.

I would imagine that if we dispatched a colony of several hundred people to an alien planet, with aliens that had observed us at length, there would be certain expectations. The aliens would expect us to clothe ourselves, eat certain things, produce waste, make noises, and kill each other - to the very last one. This would all be expected and not raise eyebrows, or their equivalent.

Well there are crazy right wingers everywhere   What can you do?  That said she doesn't sound nearly as bad as the anti-immigration, racist (and in the US, ultra-religious) zealots we've got in the West.

Heh, wholesale killing.

It's amazing how primal that all is.

Jodo, read this article.  It's pretty insightful and amusing:

http://www.pointlesswasteoftime.com/monkeysphere.html

I have to disagree with both you and Jodo. In the case of Jodo, well it's hard to know where to start! I guess this line is a good beginning: "It's a done did thing and only of interest to historians; the 'right' and 'wrong' is too far in the past to be of any concern." Come on Jodo, I'm sure you know that those who don't learn from history are damned to repeat it! In fact, one could argue that the whole point of recorded history is so that we learn from the past and don't repeat the same mistakes. I suggest watching this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_world_at_war

the whole point of the series is "never forget".

Now, as for the primal wholesale killing (which is really a very interesting topic), I disagree with that too. Yes, chimps have killed opposing groups, as we all know thanks to the famous primatologist Dr. Jane Goodall. Still, that doesn't mean that wholesale killing is primal. On the other hand, if you had a group of chimps methodically search the entire forest and then kill every chimp group they found, then yes I would say wholesale killing is at least common to both man and chimps, but that's not the case. Furthermore, all animals have primal instincts. Other than man, what animal has killed wholesale? None. Therefore wholesale killing can not be primal, except perhaps to man. But then, if you look at history, although there have always been travesties and killings, by FAR the greatest murders have happened in the last 100 years (World War I, World War II, Stalin, Mao, The Killing Fields, etc) therefore, this seems to almost contradict the notion that mass murder is primal, because most of it has occurred recently, when humanity is supposedly the "most advanced" and thus farthest removed from primal.

Also, I only skimmed through the monkeysphere article, but here is one tidbit I noticed:

"Even Gandhi most likely has hotel rooms and dead hookers in his past."

Eh? I'm not sure what the author is trying to say, but it really doesn't seem all that insightful...

BTW, no hard feelings I hope! We're all entitled to our opinions, and some of you have really weird opinions

cheers,

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"But then, if you look at history, although there have always been travesties and killings, by FAR the greatest murders have happened in the last 100 years (World War I, World War II, Stalin, Mao, The Killing Fields, etc) therefore, this seems to almost contradict the notion that mass murder is primal, because most of it has occurred recently, when humanity is supposedly the "most advanced" and thus farthest removed from primal."

The new technology makes the realisations more possible?  Thats my best response to that.

Yep, I agree csK. In general, societies these days are far more peaceful and far more respectful of life. It just so happens that, when we do go a-killing, we're bloody good at it.

Amber, that article on the Monkeysphere was EXCELLENT. Thank you!

Ramza

Hehe...  I think the point the author is trying to make is that everyone, regardless of their social status or anything like that, is a person who does personal things that nobody may ever hear about, including having skeletons in their closet and stuff.

Read the whole article.  It's pretty cool.  The author uses hyperbole often to get his points across.

Yeah, that article was a great read. I saw it as something that asserted kindness and consideration toward people that may be outside of your Monkeysphere.

Hmm, that's certainly a good point. Technology makes killing easier, at least on the massive scale, still if you look at the recent mass murders (during WWII, Stalin, Mao, Killing Fields) those are cases when an entire nation or nations are involved in murders! I think this is different than say a terrorist exploding a dirty bomb and killing many that way. See what I'm saying? Overall though, I certainly agree that while our technology pushes new frontiers people have remained the same... for the most part. Heh, philosophy is fun

cheers,

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Ah, I totally agree with that! I would also add kindess and consideration toward all life By the way, all this talk of monkeys has reminded me of this silly, rather strange, but amusing little joke...

http://people.redhat.com/blizzard/monkeys.txt

cheers,

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I liked that article and others at the site. Thanks for the link. But about these garbagemen...although they are generally outside of one's monkeysphere, I witnessed (and participated in) something contradictory to the article. I had a 35" Sony, years ago, and it broke down. The shop wanted around $250 to repair it, so I decided to throw it away and buy a new set. I left it out for the garbageman and he came knocking on the door; he had hurt his back trying to lift it. My Mom gave him some aspirin and I went outside and helped him lift it into the compacting mechanism of the truck.

I had once read something similar to the idea of the monkeysphere. However, I tend more towards melding quantum physics with human interaction. In quantum physics, it is not possible to know simultaneously the location and speed of a particle; the more you know about one, the less you know about the other. In fact, it's not until you take a measurement and disturb the particle that you can learn something about it. Like with those aloof particles, we must also disturb each other. With disturbances come knowledge. By my reckoning, the monkeysphere does not exist. We are disturbing or we are ignoring (which is another way to disturb). How irritating...

"Technology makes killing easier, at least on the massive scale, still if you look at the recent mass murders (during WWII, Stalin, Mao, Killing Fields) those are cases when an entire nation or nations are involved in murders! I think this is different than say a terrorist exploding a dirty bomb and killing many that way. See what I'm saying?"

I understand what you mean, but I think, in addition to our guns being better then that of our ancestors' so is our mass media.  I mean, today, or even fifty years ago, you can deliver a message so easily and effictively with the use of television, radio... something that was unimaginable two hundred, five hundred years ago.  Its much, much easier to 'sell' a message now, y'know?

Heh, I kind of didn't get that monkey joke article, by the way.

Stephen Pinker wrote an interesting essay on the decline of violence for The New Republic earlier this year. The money quote:

Also, there were actually some really spectacular pre-20th-century bloodbaths that, at least in population-adjusted terms, were comparable to the wars and genocides of the 20th century (though the recordkeeping wasn't great in those days, so the body counts may have been exaggerated). For example, the Mongol conquest, or the Anshi or Taiping rebellions in China.

That's very interesting, thank you for sharing that! I would like to point out though, that while it's true that X deaths Y years ago is a significantly larger percentage of the population than X deaths today, I think there are a few things to consider.

a)As you mentioned, numbers (murdered and population statistics) are not very well established.

b)Because there are many more people on this planet alive now than ever before, it's much harder to kill people in similar percentages.
     i)It takes longer.
     ii)There are opposing factions, namely because information travels more quickly.
Thus, as an example, Hitler was not able to wipe out all the Jews because there were millions of them, and of course he was opposed by the Allies and other pockets of resistance. However, given enough time, Hitler certainly would have murdered all the Jews. Furthermore, if things had gone differently, say Germany would have invented the atomic bomb, then who knows what would have happened? Hitler may very well have dropped nuclear bombs on England, completely destroying it, and perhaps done the same on the US.  Thus, WWII could have amounted to many hundreds of millions murdered instead of the already astronomical figure of 60+ million. I would also contend that the same thing happened in the other cases, such as with Stalin. Granted Stalin murdered some 20 million, but he probably would have been able to double that figure had other factions not interfered (ie, political opposition, not to mention the fact that there is evidence he was poisoned to death, although that of course is not entirely known for certain).

So anyway, those are a few points I bring up, but again that's a very interesting read, thanks!

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