Yeah no

I haven't read all of those links, but most of them do not corroborate what you are saying, Datschge.
Most say Japan didn't capitulate until AFTER the bombs, while some sporadically say that the surrender came after Hiroshima.

You might want to bring some more convincing arguments to the table instead of a general search result.

(as a side note: I don't know the truth, so I'm being impartial here)

To be honest, I wasn't in Japan making decisions before and after the drop of the atomic bomb, but ALL historical evidence clearly shows that Japan did NOT surrender until after the second bomb was dropped. There is of course lots of debate as to whether they would have surrendered if they were given more time, should the bombs have been used at all, etc... but the fact is they did not surrender until after the second bomb was dropped.

let's all agree that it would be nice if Irem stayed in business

I'd gladly help them stay in business if they reverted their decision to outright cancel Disaster Report 4.

I haven't read any gaming news outside of these forums lately (I wonder why... could have swore there was a thread about that somewhere) but how could they in any way NOT cancel or at least delay that game given current events.

I never said that what homo sapiens did to the Neandertals was a pogrom. One of the newest theories is that we humped them into us. Just screwed them silly. The low tolerance doesn't have to be a conscious decision making process based on hatred. It really happened and our low tolerance is very real, because we are the only species of human. You can read pure negativity into my words if you want, but I am thinking of tolerance in non-conscious terms, such as what a metal might experience. The low tolerance we have for other life-forms that look similar to us (but different) is natural and not negative or positive. It's just a real and observable quality of humans. There are always deviations, but they are not (and were not) satisfactory to change the natural course of events. The fact remains that we are here and very much alone. So it makes sense to say that we do not tolerate people that look different.

Yes, it's true, one theory is that Neanderthals and homo sapiens mated together. However, I fail to follow your argument. Another way of putting it, it's not clear to me what you're trying to say. It's not at all clear what you mean by tolerance. I still don't see how you concluded that "we do not tolerate people that look different".

Most of the links highlight the fact that Japan made repeated attempts at CONDITIONAL surrender before the atomic bombs were dropped - the ONLY condition being that the Japanese monarchy remain intact.  The funny (read: sad) thing is that they were turned down repeatedly because the U.S. wanted unconditional surrender... and then when Hiroshima and Nagasaki led to that, the U.S. allowed the monarchy to remain intact anyway.  So basically the U.S. gave Japan exactly what they had been asking for, but decided to incinerate a couple hundred thousand civilians first (mostly to prove a point to Russia, as far as my readings have led me to believe).

I'm not saying I don't understand, I'm just saying I'm disappointed they cancelled a game I was looking forward to.

There was more to it than just the Japanese monarchy remaining intact. Furthermore, you're oversimplifying in stating that the US dropped the bombs just to show Russia a thing or two (although I'm sure the US wanted to prove a point). Most importantly, why would the US accept a conditional surrender? The Japanese attacked Pearl Habor without provocation and killed over 2400 people (some were civilians). The US and its Allies demanded an unconditional surrender and Japan refused. I'm not saying that justifies the dropping of the atomic bomb, nevertheless I can see why the US refused to accept a conditional surrender.

When that one condition was granted anyway, it seems to have been nothing but a show of force to demand an unconditional surrender, as Joe says to prove a point. One that apparently some deemed worth taking several hundred thousand lives to prove. Truth be told, I'm very critical of Japan's actions before and during WW2. The history is violent and cruel. 

But history is history. We are not our fathers, or our grandfathers, no matter where we come from. We can strive to do better and be better.

And, to take it back to how the topic came up, personally I think the idea of 'payback', that really I think only a vocal few have even put out there, is disgusting at a time like this because it removes and dehumanises the immense tragedy and hardship that has come out of this disaster. I think it might have something to do with getting older, or maybe having children (I really don't know), but I feel these things so much more now than I did when younger. I've had to avoid news because just those early shots had me thinking about each family member, individuals, personalities, people - they're often lost in numbers. It's too much.

Anyway, not sure what I can do short of getting on a plane and helping out (?) so donations to the Red Cross may at least help in some very small way.

Because they're not here anymore. We're the only species of human. I know I am not alone in this disturbing realization, since someone else pointed it out to me. It's not just that we don't tolerate other species of human, we don't seem to tolerate other life forms or even ourselves. (There are genocidal maniacs that must be considered. I can correctly use "we" because an outside observer (intelligent alien) would use "they", so objectively, "we" do not tolerate people that look different, whether they are alive right now or were alive in the deep past and looked slightly different from us. Good people are not good enough to outweigh the actions of an extreme minority of troublemakers. You can have 100,000 decent people and 1 corrupt person will spoil the whole bunch. Look at what happens in airports. There are a just a few troublemakers that are greatly outnumbered by decent citizens. Yet that small group of troublemakers puts everyone in serious trouble. All people are considered bad if there is potentially one bad person.)

It bothers me that I have to point out the Hitler-types, because that should have been obvious to you. An outside observer might take that single scenario of what happened in Germany and conclude "they" (referring to the totality of human civilization spread out over all of time) did not tolerate people that look different. Just like a child might conclude *all* spiders are bad after having one bad experience.

I am of the opinion that we are not permanent and it worries me to think about some of the conclusions that an intelligent observer might make about us, long after we are gone. They will think of us in terms of "them" or "they" (the way we call other groups "them" or "they"). I could be wrong and they could be fantastically advanced, completely capable of investigating every human that ever lived and reaching a more favorable conclusion.

this thread is just getting too off topic dude...