Smart Guys/Gals - People who try way too hard to look smart

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This is the college equivalent of that kid in elementary school who reminds the teacher about last night's homework a couple of minutes before school lets out.
 
AnOminous said:
They were convinced of this even at the time. This is why you don't talk to Japanese people about the war. So many of them really are convinced it was just those two nukular bombs that changed everything. Those were a mercy kill. Those cocksuckers would have kept fighting until we completely obliterated every fucking structure on their island, at enormous cost to both of us.
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This was actually a thing for a while in downplaying their role in the war. It got to be so bad that you actually had people who claimed the Japanese did nothing wrong and they were all peaceful and going out their daily lives of being samurai and arranging flowers and living in harmony with nature and the Americans dropped two bombs on them for no reason.

Then there was about 10 years back the new Japanese history books had come out and they downplayed their role in the war including glossing over the rape of Nanking and creation of the puppet state of Manchukuo in China as well as the bad stuff they did in Korea. The Chinese and Koreans weren't too pleased about it.

AnOminous said:
I can't morally justify what was one of the most horrifying acts ever committed by a country against another, but it was strategically necessary.
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It's as I've always said. It wasn't the moral thing to do because the weapon itself is just horrifying. But it was the right thing to do. In dropping the bomb it showed the Japanese what we were capable of and what could become of their country. In dropping the second one it was to show that we literally could continue to do this.

What a lot of people don't realize is the Japanese were told that once the Americans were to land on the islands they would literally kill, murder and rape every Japanese citizen they would find because the Japanese would never surrender. Then of course the Russians being the opportunistic bastards they are were moving in on the Northern islands and had we gone the route of a land war we could have had a divided country like the two Koreas are now.

So it was decided to literally end it as quickly as they could. And we've prayed every day afterwards that nuclear weapons are never used in war again.

MechanicalHugbox said:
If your in-laws are Japanese (assuming you're not Japanese yourself) they probably hate you
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That's actually a very traditional thing but it depends on the family and how "Westernized" they are. I know several gaijin that have married a Japanese national and for the most part the families are very supportive. Some of the more distant inlaws maybe don't like it but the immediate family is usually all for it. It's more often when you're first dating that they're very unwelcoming in part because they see it all the time of some Westerner sweeping a naive Japanese girl off her feet, sleeping with her a couple times and saying all those sweet things to her only to dump her later for a better model. Or when things get serious they turn around and leave her in the dust.

And I can speak from experience that I do know a few things about having Japanese in-laws.
 
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Heinrich Himmler said:
A fact you can check on to see how fucked some Japanese perception is, just ask them about WWII. Unlike Germans and Italians, most of them will tell you that they were on a winning streak for the whole war (when they were losing lots and lots of troops and equipment) until the Americans dropped those pesky atomic bombs. This notion seems to be fading with the new generations, though.
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Sometimes, but there was Japanese writing critical of the war in the 1950s and 1960s. The Human Condition books and film trilogy is an example, showing abuse of Chinese labourers and the utter defeat of the Japanese Army by the Soviets (notably, the nuclear bombs aren't directly involved in this). This seems to get largely ignored by foreigners, who tend not to care about culture that isn't cartoons or video games.

AnOminous said:
They were convinced of this even at the time. This is why you don't talk to Japanese people about the war. So many of them really are convinced it was just those two nukular bombs that changed everything. Those were a mercy kill. Those cocksuckers would have kept fighting until we completely obliterated every fucking structure on their island, at enormous cost to both of us.

It really took a weapon of such existential terror that its mere existence was a horror to get them to the table, even if both combined were actually much less deadly than just firebombing Tokyo. I can't morally justify what was one of the most horrifying acts ever committed by a country against another, but it was strategically necessary.
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The nuclear bombs were the quickest way to end the war, but the winter of 1945/1946 would have brought a terrible famine that probably would have brought the war to a much more gruesome close the next year. Given that the Emperor and some others were willing to surrender if things were utterly hopeless, I doubt they would have literally fought to the last man. They weren't literally insane for the most part, they just thought that fighting long enough would give a conditional peace which let them keep their conquered lands in Korea and China. The nuclear bombs crushed that idea utterly.

Of course, every week the war went on, 100,000 more people perished due to famines and war crimes in the Japanese empire, so there's no doubt the bombings were better than starving them into submission.
 
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Pointless Pedant said:
Given that the Emperor and some others were willing to surrender if things were utterly hopeless, I doubt they would have literally fought to the last man. They weren't literally insane for the most part, they just thought that fighting long enough would give a conditional peace which let them keep their conquered lands in Korea and China. The nuclear bombs crushed that idea utterly.
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You forget the "Samurai Spirit" that all "true" Japanese have. That's entirely false. Modern day salarymen that work long hours and never see their families see themselves as Samurai and this is their duty to their family and to Japan itself.

But Hirohito didn't want to surrender. You have to remember that before this, he was annointed by God and was second only to God. People saw the Emperor as being divine. And he felt he had no choice but to continue this. The odd thing is the Japanese, especially at the time, saw surrender as being the greatest dishonor they could have. This is part of the reason why POWs in the Japanese camps were treated so poorly was because they themselves would fight to the end and if necessary commit seppuku if they were to be captured. To the Westerners it was seen as a way to fight another day and maybe even escape. To the Japanese they weren't even fit to be called human. I'm sure you've heard of Japanese soldiers on some small Pacific islands continuing to fight even though the war had been over for decades. One of the last ones literally said that he wouldn't believe it until his commanding officer told him to his face and this was the government of Japan dealing with him. They tracked down his old commanding officer and this little old man had to go to this island and tell him that the war had been over for years and he can finally stop.

So for the Emperor himself to surrender the people felt they had truly lost their spirit and they were broken by it.

I know this is getting way off topic so I don't know if the mods want to stop this or maybe move parts of it to the weeaboo thread or something.
 
Phil Ken Sebben said:
You forget the "Samurai Spirit" that all "true" Japanese have. That's entirely false. Modern day salarymen that work long hours and never see their families see themselves as Samurai and this is their duty to their family and to Japan itself.

But Hirohito didn't want to surrender. You have to remember that before this, he was annointed by God and was second only to God. People saw the Emperor as being divine. And he felt he had no choice but to continue this. The odd thing is the Japanese, especially at the time, saw surrender as being the greatest dishonor they could have. This is part of the reason why POWs in the Japanese camps were treated so poorly was because they themselves would fight to the end and if necessary commit seppuku if they were to be captured. To the Westerners it was seen as a way to fight another day and maybe even escape. To the Japanese they weren't even fit to be called human. I'm sure you've heard of Japanese soldiers on some small Pacific islands continuing to fight even though the war had been over for decades. One of the last ones literally said that he wouldn't believe it until his commanding officer told him to his face and this was the government of Japan dealing with him. They tracked down his old commanding officer and this little old man had to go to this island and tell him that the war had been over for years and he can finally stop.

So for the Emperor himself to surrender the people felt they had truly lost their spirit and they were broken by it.

I know this is getting way off topic so I don't know if the mods want to stop this or maybe move parts of it to the weeaboo thread or something.
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Not surrendering historically came from the fact that prisoners got tortured and killed in the samurai era (female prisoners were raped as a matter of course), and suicide was an alternative to execution. Add to that that the headhunting tribesmen and Chinese troops they faced in a lot of the Pacific tortured and killed prisoners as well, and the relentless propaganda told to them that the Americans would do the same, and you had a load of brainwashed troops who thought their fates in captivity would be so horrible they'd rather die in battle. Similar behaviour was common among headhunters who disrespected prisoners as well.

In World War 1, Japan actually treated its German prisoners well. Bandō prisoner of war camp, holding German prisoners taken at Qingdao, was humane by the standards of the day. It was only after the rise of extreme militarism and brutalisation of the army in the 1930s that harsh treatment became the norm. Officers beat their troops senseless in training, and bayonet drills used Chinese prisoners as targets. The indoctrination and brutalisation of the IJA made men who were willing to kill and torture prisoners in large numbers. You can see the same with years of dehumanisation of the Jews and Slavs in propaganda resulting in the German troops slaughtering them by the millions. The barbarity of the Japanese army was more a product of contemporary military culture than traditional culture.

Japan offered a conditional peace to the Allies earlier in 1945, which let them keep and oppress some of their conquered lands, such as Korea. This was obviously utterly unacceptable to the Allies, who wanted unconditional surrender and the end of the Japanese Empire, with good reason. Their hope was that the Allies would invade the Home Islands, suffer severe losses, and then accept this conditional peace, leaving some of the Empire intact. When it became obvious the Allies would just kill them with nuclear bombs instead, the Emperor finally conceded. Even then, there was a coup attempt to try to stop him. But the primary motivation for fighting on was to try to keep some of their empire in the peace deal, combined with extreme fanaticism of course. Remember Germany fought well past the point where the war was lost as well for the same reasons.
 
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My (straight white cis male) brothers and I were arguing a couple years back with my (Tumblr social justice made flesh) sister about dropping the A-bombs and she was talking about how it WASN'T FAIR because the Japanese didn't have nukes, and why did we have to demand unconditional surrender and not let them dictate terms? She was getting all angry and flustered because we weren't having it and then she goes "FINE, let me check something online because apparently, FACTS are important!"

The very IDEA of using facts was something she found offensive.
 
Butta Face Lopez said:
My (straight white cis male) brothers and I were arguing a couple years back with my (Tumblr social justice made flesh) sister about dropping the A-bombs and she was talking about how it WASN'T FAIR because the Japanese didn't have nukes, and why did we have to demand unconditional surrender and not let them dictate terms? She was getting all angry and flustered because we weren't having it and then she goes "FINE, let me check something online because apparently, FACTS are important!"

The very IDEA of using facts was something she found offensive.
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There's a Something Awful moderator called FactsAreUseless. Given the current state of that forum, it's a fitting name indeed.
 
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You would think that a Cornell alumnus alumni would be smart enough to fire up Google and search for "heart attack survival rate," but I guess someone of his stunningly high intellect has no need for pesky "statistics" and "data."
 
Cosmos said:
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You would think that a Cornell alumnus alumni would be smart enough to fire up Google and search for "heart attack survival rate," but I guess someone of his stunningly high intellect has no need for pesky "statistics" and "data."
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He's probably an English major or something. But it's from Cornell therefore he knows all about medicine!
 
DrunkJoe said:
I lost a friend to this. He was never the smartest person but always studied hard trying to get better grades but was never at the top of our classes growing up. Than college hit, he became an insufferable hipster than basically decided he needed to talk down to everyone and break out a thesarus for every fucking conversation. I made fun of him the last time we spoke that he spent 4 years in college to become a giant faggot. Didnt get an invite to the wedding for some reason....
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Some people go to college, take a few courses and think they are smarter than everyone else and that people are just intimidated by the fact that they are educated. They aren't intimidated. They are tired of your insufferable ass.
 
Alec Benson Leary said:
He's probably an English major or something. But it's from Cornell therefore he knows all about medicine!
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It's like how somebody says they went to Harvard and that suddenly makes them right. No it doesn't. It just means somebody spent more on your education than other people did. It's like how Harvard Business School back in the day was the place where the rich sons of important men who weren't that academically gifted would go and they could coast through a rather simple couple of years and get their degree. That's after all what George W Bush did. When people say he went to Harvard they forget that he went to Harvard Business School. Not quite the same thing.

And then I think in the mid-70's or early 80's they actually got their act together and started actually pumping out qualified business people.
 
Senior Lexmechanic said:
Nietzsche was a postmodernist who rejected the idea of any moral code that wasn't self-created and self-enforced. This edgy teen has the reading comprehension of a piece of toast.
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He also apparently doesn't know that La Croix is a barely-flavored sparkling water.
 
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