It’s a bit late, but hey I will take it still. I tend to have pretty bad luck with discovery apps as I have narrow musical tastes, but I will give it a shot for a while.

I have had the most luck with the custom Apple Music stations honestly, seems to have the best balance of songs I know and like with newer stuff in the same vein. I am not sure I would spend as much time on a playlist entirely composed of new things.

I have two major oppositions to capital punishment, and neither are rooted in the possibility of rehabilitation or not.

1. The state is not infallible. If you put someone into prison for ten years and find out you messed up, you can at least release them. You can’t give them those years back, but you can try to do right by them as much as you are able. You execute the wrong person? You’re just a murderer.

2. Personally, life in prison (and not a cushy wall street exec prison) seems like a way worse punishment. Even if I was only concerned with providing somebody the worst possible punishment, lifetime imprisonment would be worse.

Mostly though for me, it is number 1.

It makes the perfect excuse for the emperor to surrender on, no doubt about that. Put yourself into the emperor’s shoes. You’ve been lying to your people about their efficacy in the war, your country is devastated. Do you admit you led the country into war or that one singular scientific breakthrough that nobody could have seen coming was responsible? You shift all blame off your shoulders and that of your leadership, and all onto this one perfect excuse. It also placates the Americans. It enhanced the perception of US military power; whereas if the soviet entry into the war was a deciding factor, the same would be true for the USSR. Attributing the surrender to the bombs is basically better for every party involved, except the soviets.

There are a few reasons why, looking back at it, that it doesn’t make sense that the nuclear bomb was the deciding factor.

Well in advance of the surrender, Deputy Chief of Staff of the Army Torashiro Kawabe said that “The absolute maintenance of peace in our relations with the Soviet Union is imperative for the continuation of the war.” Japan always knew that they would not be able to fight that front of the war as well and that the USSR entering into the conflict would end their ability to continue.

There are the timing issues I already mentioned. The second bombing could not have possibly be involved, and a three day turnaround from the first bomb to even starting talks to discuss surrender (in fact, directly rejecting that discussion at one point) seems extraordinarily slow. Did it probably come up in those discussions? I would be surprised if it wasn’t mentioned, but the details of those talks were never made public. Was it the impetus for calling the meetings? Decidely not.

At this point in the war, Japanese leadership had little illusions that they were going to defeat the United States. They may have convinced large swathes of the population of that, but their outlook wasn’t good. So what were their avenues for the best surrender terms that they could get. As outlined by Ward Wilson, a position I quite agree with, they had two viable paths. There was the diplomatic route, with the soviet union acting as a mediator for Japanese surrender to America. Sokichi Takagi wrote about this option in his diaries if you are looking for a primary source (I can provide the Japanese if you can read it, but I am not sure where to find an English translation) . Which would undoubtedly present better terms than an unconditional surrender to the US would have. Obviously an option that was not on the table when the soviets entered the war.

The second was the military holdout, which is what people often cite as the best justification for the bombing. However, in anticipation of the US invasion, Japan had moved the vast majority of their troops to Kyushu, leaving little to nothing to defend Manchuria and Hokkaido. A last stand against one super power from one direction is one thing, the same feat from two directions was impossible for what was left of the Japanese military. The Soviets would have had met little to no resistance moving into Hokkaido from Manchuria. Any hope of bleeding the US forces out in a month long war of attrition evaporated; large swaths of northern Japanese territories would be occupied by the Soviet Union in weeks.

I don’t mean to write a full on essay here, but I am happy to go into detail on any particular subject if you would like.

This is a really common line that is patently false, the nukes had very little to do with triggering the Japanese surrender. The meeting to discuss surrender occured days after the first bombing, and started prior to the second bomb. I wasn’t privy to the Council discussions, obviously, but it is exceedingly unlikely they would sit around for days after the first bombing before meeting to discuss surrender. What did happen immediately prior to the surrender meeting was the Soviet invasion.

The nuking, of primarily non-military targets by the way, was largely a show of force demonstration to the soviets. It was not a “necessary evil” to save lives, and it was sure as hell not a mercy.

And I’m not going to be able to argue against your first hand account of rural North Korea.

Unless you are from the US or SK, when things open up a bit more that is looking to be possible again. I would encourage you to try visiting if you have the time and means. Even if we totally divorce things from the politics, there’s a lot of beautiful nature there.

Anecdotally, you seem relatively reasonable and I think it would be an interesting experience.

However, I don’t see the people of North Korea being able to put political pressure on their government to change policies.

It does depend to what extent, people can definitely enact policy change. While all political organizations do ultimately belong to the Democratic Front for the Reunification of Korea, they have multiple political parties under that umbrella that do different on some issues. Obviously they aren’t going to suddenly pass laws making the place capitalist, but they can do and do change some things. The Social Democratic Policy is notably more liberal in their attitudes as it was formed by a lot of the petite bourgeoise. They actually have published journal articles that are critical of the ruling party.

I was there in for several months in graduate school doing research for my thesis, wasn’t part of a tour. Based out of Kim Il Sung university at the time. I spent about a year in South Korea as well prior. Since I wasn’t on a formal tour, I was left to my own devices a lot of the time unless I needed a guide to help me get access somewhere.

Technically yes, every rural farming village could have been secretly micced with hidden cameras on the off chance that a foreigner was going to stop by, but that seems unlikely. This was a little over ten years ago so cell phones (which would be a fairly common metric of government surviellence) were not as prevalent in the DPRK yet as they are now, so a lot of people weren’t carrying one. I was a no-name graduate student, not a well-known diplomat, I don’t think the government was particularly invested in spending large sums of money tracking me. So yes, technically they COULD have, but just as much as any other state could have.

Obviously anecdotal, but from the people I spoke to in the DPRK, generally very well liked. And no, I did not have government minders making sure they said “the right thing”. Several programs were quite popular, particularly housing programs. There was a big push for community-based activities during my stay, even smaller towns had community centers where people could go after work to learn new skills or continuing education. The university I was based out of was pretty international as well, but even there people didn’t spend that much time thinking about the US, nor did they have a particularly negative view of the average American citizen. More curious than hostile.

will just continue to indoctrinate its population with propaganda.

Oh yes, definitely that doesn’t happen in any of those “civilized” western countries right? Nobody making up things like “North Koreans have no word for love” or “We push trains to work every day”.

Why would the people of North Korea tolerate the current government other than to resist invasion?

The Kim family has done a lot for the people in the DPRK, and is generally very well liked. It’s not all sunshine and rainbows, but a lot of the problems stem not from the current DPRK leadership but the international (read: US) sanctions placed on them. Compared to the hypercapitalist hellscape of SK, the work-life balance in the DPRK seems downright utopian. Prior to the US invasion, the Korean peninsula was fairly unified in their support of socialism.

The people would certainly welcome peace, I just don’t know how that is possible while the threat of the USA looms. People like to portray them as an aggressive country, but they have never done anything to another coountry except threaten to defend themselves.

The South’s current government is ridiculously conservative. Rolling back labour laws and women’s rights were pillars of their election run. They’ll do whatever the US tells them to. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that peaceful diplomacy is not at the forefront of their mind.

It’s honestly pretty cyclical, they bounce back and forth between more diplomatic minded leadership and more warhungry. They are much more in the antagonistic phase of their cycle right now.

Basically yes.

The generous interpretation is that she was confused by the rules, as during the pandemic there was a suspension of handshakes in competition. I feel that could have been quickly resolved with an apology and a belated handshake though.

Their point is the double standard. Either apply it consistently or not at all. If athletes are representing their country in all aspects when competing internationally, all athletes should be held to that standard.

If an athlete refused to shake a USian athletes hand because of the war crimes of their country, including ones ongoing at this very moment, you would be on board with it then? There would be precious few handshakes that could be given out on international sporting stages, that is for sure.

That comparison makes no sense at all. Her opponent didn’t assault her, nor is she responsible for the actions of any of the government involved. She’s an athlete, not a head of state. She wasn’t fencing against Putin.

A more apt comparison would be to refuse to shake hands with anyone from France because you were assaulted by a French person once. You would be widely, and rightfully, decried as racist for such a position.

Some prefectures offer free childcare services, but it depends a lot on where you live. Historically they aren’t services that have been used a lot, there is something of a cultural expectation that you or your family watch kids. As an example, babysitters/nannies are basically unheard of unless it is a relative. My girlfriend’s sister has a child and either the sister is home all day with the kid or her parents watch it; she even leaves in an prefecture with free daycare services.

There is a fairly decent maternity leave that most new mothers do end up using. There’s an initial lump sum payment plus you get about 2/3 your salary for up to a year (I think those times are right). Paternity leave technically exists as well but I have never met anyone who has used it.

which by some weird thought process becomes a pro-Russian position.

I am a communist and the prevailing attitude in most circles I am in is not an explicitly pro-Russian one, it’s just not explicitly pro-Ukraine either. There is a also an underlying understanding of the reasons why the war started. Just because you don’t support one side does not mean you have to 100% uncritically support the opposing side. The sooner we stop thinking of everything in black/white terms of Team A vs Team B, we will be a lot better off.

Now there are those who have nostalgia for the USSR, which is not the modern Russian Federation, but it’s fairly niche. Usually people understand that modern Russia is not the soviet union. There are the patsocs too, but we don’t really claim them.

I am not the Official Spokesman of Communism, but those are generally the attitudes I have seen in most of my circles.

Obviously you run into a lot of other issues with a sudden change but we are frankly pretty overpopulated and could use a decrease. It turns out that a system predicated on infinite population growth with finite resources can’t be sustained forever. Especially with how finite they are in our case.

I think even worse than our population issues is the overcentralization though. SO much is based around Tokyo, the vast majority of jobs are located there, especially if you want any upwards mobility. It’s even worse if you include areas like Chiba and Saitama as part of the greater Tokyo area. Even the other cities pale in comparison to opportunities in Tokyo. If people could spread out a bit more, it wouldn’t be nearly as bad as it is now.

I was lucky enough to be able to move out of Tokyo last year thanks to my work. I am not in a super rural area but I definitely never want to go back to Tokyo if I can help it. I am in the mountains around Mt. Fuji, and get to work overlooking a spectacular view of the mountain. Don’t have to deal with packing into crowded trains in the summer when everyone is dripping with sweat.

Maybe an unpopular take, but I honestly don’t think private jets should even exist. When does a private citizen actually need one; if you want to fly in luxury that is what first class on commercial airlines is for, you shouldn’t need more than that. I get that people operating in a government capacity might need, but that’s not really the same as a private citizen owning one.

Then again, I don’t think anyone should be rich enough to be buying private jets to begin with.

China is on the edge of a major economic decline.

People have been saying this for over a decade. It hasn’t happened. Heck, Gordon Chang’s entire career is based off writing a “China is about to collapse” book every couple years. If anything, their economic position has continued to strengthen.

Sorry I think you’re right that I might be misunderstanding you. You mean the shelling of civilian centers, including with cluster munitions, by the Ukrainian armed forces was BS? That is a verifiable fact though. That’s why I thought you must be referring to something else.

It was reported on by the UN Human Rights Council and the NYT back in 2014/2015, back when such stories could still be printed, not exactly famed Russian-biased propaganda outlets or questionable internet sources.

Apparently Russian civilians, and journalists at that, don’t count.

Disgustingly, I have definitely heard people make that case with a straight face, look at all the people celebrating a Russian civilian being killed by a shark. They only care about warcrimes from The Other Team.