Hiroshima (1946)

Writing style and cultural tempo

• Several comments note the article’s long sentences and dense prose as emblematic of a past era with longer attention spans, contrasting it with today’s fragmented online/LinkedIn style.
• Similar observations are made about old films: slower pacing, extended scenes, and theaters as social venues where viewers weren’t expected to give undivided, silent concentration.

Hiroshima vs. conventional bombing

• Many argue that, from a Japanese civilian’s perspective, Hiroshima was not unique: dozens of cities (e.g., Tokyo, Toyama) had already been leveled with firebombing, sometimes with comparable or greater casualties.
• Others insist Hiroshima is “special” because it introduced nuclear weapons and created a lasting global taboo, regardless of body count.

Ethics, necessity, and alternatives

• One camp holds the bombings were the least-bad option: invasion and/or blockade were expected to cause millions of deaths (including Japanese civilians), and Japanese leadership was preparing for suicidal total resistance.
• Another camp argues Japan was already strategically defeated and exploring peace; they see the bomb as unnecessary, possibly aimed at impressing or deterring the Soviet Union and locking in a U.S.-dominated peace.
• Specific alternatives discussed: demonstration blast, offshore detonation, prolonged blockade, more time between bombs, accepting conditional surrender (retaining the emperor).
• Some describe all area bombing—including Tokyo and Dresden—as war crimes in moral terms, even if not illegal under contemporary law; others emphasize that “total war” norms then blurred civilian–combatant distinctions.

Japanese leadership, culture, and surrender

• Thread highlights internal splits: militarists vs. those seeking surrender; fear of coups; the emperor’s late but decisive intervention; and even a failed coup after the surrender decision.
• There is disagreement over whether Soviet entry or the atomic bombs were the primary trigger; commenters note Hirohito gave different emphases in different audiences.
• Cultural explanations are offered: Confucian-influenced hierarchies, distance from governance, and mobilization of “civilians” (including children) for national defense.

Legacy, development, and future risks

• Some focus blame on the decision to develop the bomb at all, not just to use it; others say development was inevitable given physics and wartime fears about Germany.
• The article and later reporting are praised for restoring individual human stories amid abstract casualty debates.
• A recurring tension appears between universal empathy for victims and arguments about responsibility, deterrence, and whether such acts “saved more lives than they took.”