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[Tack]

And kill the SAMURAI!?

But he'd probably get court-marshalled.
And Sweeney was convinced that he was perfectly justified doing it.

[Neruz]

I've always wondered what would've happened if the pilot, while flying over Hiroshima, suddenly had an attack of guilt and didn't want to become the killer of 40,000 people.  I mean, theoretically, he could have flown away and dropped his bomb over the mountains somewhere...

The Pilots didn't really understand, oh they knew, but they didn't understand just how big the bomb was. How could they? Nothing like it before had ever been used on people; to them it was just a bigger bomb.

Apparantly they almost didn't get out of the way in time; they just plain did not realise how goddamn big it would be. It never occured to any of them that 40,000 people would die in a single instant, with thousands more for the next few decades from radiation poisoning and cancer.


And really, it's not surprising; 40,000 is a big number, way too big in fact. Any number past around 5 or 6 just becomes 'lots'. A person knows that there is a difference between 100 and 40,000, but the mind can't grasp that difference, to the emotional, subconscious part of our mind, both numbers are just 'lots' and therefore unimaginable.

[Leafsnail]

I suppose not.  It's pretty much unimaginable that 40,000 people who were going about their normal day to day business suddenly ceased to exist.

[Tack]

"A death is a tragedy, A million is a statistic"
Someone~

Mmm... Speaking of which, just watched barefoot gin.

Makes me really sad.

[Neruz]

Yep, it's too big a number; people can't deal with numbers that big, we're not designed for it, people can't handle numbers bigger than about 5. Give or take.

[TheNewerMartianEmperor]

You know, compared to modern atomic and fusion weapons, that bomb is nothing. There are conventional explosives being develoed that are just as powerful.

[Neruz]

Yep, fortunately none of them have ever actually been used on major population centers.


Because while it's impossible to imagine what a nuke can do, it's very easy to see the result for yourself. We saw that result, and we decided it wasn't worth the cost.

[Leafsnail]

Well, yes, there are bigger bombs now, but visualizing 300,000 instantaneous deaths is just as hard as visualizing 40,000 deaths.  It seems to just be incomprehensible.

[Vester]

"A death is a tragedy, A million is a statistic"
Someone~

The man of steel himself, Joseph Stalin.

[Tack]

You know what's more scary? Neutron bombs.

Building damage withing 200 feet, Completely destroys all living matter in the area.


You can make a ghost town.

[Leafsnail]

"A death is a tragedy, A million is a statistic"
Someone~

The man of steel himself, Joseph Stalin.

Which somehow causes the quote to become even more sad.

[Neruz]

"A death is a tragedy, A million is a statistic"
Someone~

The man of steel himself, Joseph Stalin.

Which somehow causes the quote to become even more sad.

There are few better men to not only understand that quote, but to have experienced it.

[Jackrabbit]

Oh, that stupid fuck.

He wasn't the nicest of people. Also, he vanished at the start of the battle of Stalingrad and nobody did anything because they were afraid he'd kill them when he got back.

I don't really like him that much.

[Neruz]

Nobody liked Stalin that much. Stalin wasn't a 'rule through niceness' person, he was a 'rule through the fact that the entire country is fucking terrified of me' person.

Worked too.

[Cthulhu]

Part of me thinks Hiroshima and Nagasaki were a terrible but necessary thing, since Japan's unique psychology would never allow them to accept unconditional surrender and they would've ground themselves against our armies until there was nothing left if we let them.  Then I see pentacle torn, and the rubber booby vending machines, and the "Let's see how close we can get to porn" nature of non-porn anime, and I wonder...

What in the world did that bomb do to them?