• supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    19
    ·
    2 days ago

    Yes, how disturbing is it that the dropping of the nuclear bombs on Japan will be most useful to historians not as a hyperbolic tragedy that stood alone but as a way to explain the much broader mass slaughter of humans that the 20th century perpetrated and locked in for thousands of years?

    • ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      1 day ago

      TBF the dropping of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was immediately preceded by far larger slaughters of humanity using more conventional methods, a fact which somewhat minimizes their significance. I’m referring mainly to the Holocaust and the Japanese genocide in China, but even the US firebombing of Tokyo in early 1945 exceeded the death tolls of the atomic bombings.