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Dr. Seuss’ satirical lesson on nuclear armament and the absurdity of war (2016)
- hirundo 5y ago"The moral of this story is crystal clear: Our real-life systems of nationalism, militarization, and escalation are comically absurd and potentially lethal — it’s up to the youth to change the systems before it’s too late." As comically absurd as it might be, how should the youth change the systems to do something about it? I hope the youth don't find it comical for Ukraine to defend itself. This morning, having armaments for defense feels less absurd than it did last week.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- endemic 5y agoYeah, I mean it _is_ absurd… but also feels like Pandora’s Box. We can’t go back to pre-nuclear armaments.
- mrleinad 5y agoI found a revelation to me yesterday[1], which was strikingly simple yet mostly overlooked in terms of the implications it has. There are countries with a lot of old people, and not enough young people to replace them as they go into retirement or old age. That's not just a problem for maintaining all that old people when they retire in terms of taxes. It's a problem because when you're a really big, old, and proud country (at least in your mind), things break down faster than you can train people to fix them and to come up with new things to improve on old things. And if on top of that you are immigration-averse, you're effectively dooming yourself into extinction. Russia is one of those countries. Going to war might hurt them more than anyone else, but at this point what alternative is there for them? Just waiting for their country to tear itself to pieces? That might work if you're a country with no imperial past, and no nuclear weapons. But the Russians will go down swinging... and that's a problem for everyone. EDIT: Added reference to the video that gave me this idea. [1] https://youtu.be/MIdUSqsz0Io?t=2059 https://youtu.be/MIdUSqsz0Io?t=2059
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- car_analogy 5y ago> And if on top of that you are immigration-averse, you're effectively dooming yourself into extinction. The great majority of countries, even those with extremely low fertility rates (e.g. South Korea), are vastly more populous than at almost any other point in history. We're a long way from extinction - at least due to underpopulation. Meanwhile, a low population has a smaller ecological impact, and it's collapsing ecologies that are currently a bigger threat than running out of people.
- mrleinad 5y agoMaybe I used the term extinction too loosely. I meant the country as it is now would no longer exist. Not that there would be no people at all. For example, Russia would be split into different territories or smaller countries.
- antattack 5y agoThe story shows that if you don't have as much arsenal as your neighbor you might be toast (just consider what would have happened if the neighbor did not have the B-B Boomeroo). Therefore the youth should join NATO and work towards disarmament and tolerance. Another lesson would be that it does not matter how altruistic you are if neighboring government is nuts. Of, course definition of what's 'nuts' can vary and some will depend in part on nationalism, racism, religion and exceptionalism. All of which can be hijacked by government and organizations if one does not have access to facts and does not think independently. Which shows how important education and freedom of press are.
- xg15 5y agoAbout that... https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-europe-60542877 https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-europe-60542877 On a positive note, I guess those doomsday clock guys can finally have their 12:00 lunch.
- datavirtue 5y agoThe next political platform dujour will entail calling the other sides' nuclear bluff. I can see the slogan now: "Let's get it over with!"
- halfmatthalfcat 5y agoYou can already see it in the US's response to Russia nuclear threat. "We have the ability to defend ourselves", aka "We can shoot down any nukes headed our way". It's becoming an idle threat that, if ever executed, would probably not succeed and would in turn be the most definitive declaration of war.
- bitwize 5y agoThat's exactly how it worked in the first cold war. The Prisoners' Dilemma was formulated to model the consequences of nuclear exchange.
- chmod600 5y agoI wonder how the likes of Neville Chamberlain fit into this article?
- chmod600 5y ago"the world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything" This is a strange message, given the rest of the article. It could be interpreted to mean we need to make weapons to stop evil people around the world. But I guess the auther wants us to think all people who participate in war (defensive or offensive) are evil and must be stopped. EDIT: I sincerely don't follow the author's point with that quotation. Can someone elaborate?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- miriam_catira 5y agoHe's saying, that by saying nothing, doing nothing, to him is the same as approval of the atrocities being committed. I think this quote says it best: Bychkov said: "Silence in the face of evil becomes its accomplice and ends up becoming its equal. ... To remain silent today is to betray our conscience and our values, and ultimately what defines the nobility of human nature." It's not everyone who participates who is evil, rather it's the people who instigate, ie. Putin. It's not even saying that all the Russian people are evil, it's about standing up for them too - those who oppose the war, and are suffering because of it, especially if they can't speak out themselves. The quote is from here. https://www.npr.org/2022/02/28/1083496491/russian-performers-speak-out-putin-ukraine https://www.npr.org/2022/02/28/1083496491/russian-performers...
- clevergadget 5y agoyea classy guy https://i1.wp.com/www.themarginalian.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/drseusswartime5.jpg https://i1.wp.com/www.themarginalian.org/wp-content/uploads/...
- chmod600 5y agoWhat year was that published? I read the message as "support the US war effort so that we don't get conquored by our enemies". That doesn't seem like a bad message to me. The main problem I can see is the depiction of the Japanese person (the emporor?). That's pretty offensive by modern standards, but I don't see a reason we should apply those standards here. Even today, cartoonists regularly exaggerate facial features of almost anyone to serve their purposes, so if you think that's wrong you simply don't like the medium. And we were at war, do you expect him to show reverence for the foreign leaders who are making war against his country?
- z3c0 5y agoStrange to think that the caricature is quickly dying. It was a crux of political cartoons throughout all of the 1900's, and also a common form of street art.
- themaninthedark 5y agoLooks more like a caricature of Tojo than emperor Showa to me. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caricature https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caricature https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hideki_Tojo https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hideki_Tojo https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hirohito https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hirohito
- Borrible 5y agoOf course, Dr. Seuss should have been more sensitive back then and shown more real Japanese, not atrocious caricatures. For example this one: [NSFW and especially not for the faint hearted] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_war_crimes#/media/File:Japanese_bayonet_practice_with_dead_Chinese_near_Tianjin.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_war_crimes#/media/Fil... The Japanese would have taken the heart of the public in seconds, so to say.
- chmod600 5y agoThe butter side up/down does make war seem absurd. And a lot of war has happened over things that seem that absurd to me. But war also happens over important things. The USSR really did have a different political and economic system. Was it really a threat to the U.S. or its allies? Maybe not. But the issue at hand was not a trivial one. And I'll point out that the U.S. Constitution is still a radical document even among Western countries. Rights to speech and peaceful assembly, and the right to due process of law are not universal. Even some aspects of Canada's handling of the trucker protest would probably have been unconstitutional in the US.
- marcosdumay 5y ago> But war also happens over important things. The USSR really did have a different political and economic system. That's a funny example. The moment Russia had its communist revolution and people got from semi-slavery into a minimum of empowerment, the first thing they did was taking their country out of an international war. Important things are almost never far away, so if the fight is there, it's almost never important.
- watwut 5y agoThe abolishement of monarchy was followed by years of incredibly bloody civil war between like 5 sides.
- chmod600 5y ago"That's a funny example." It's what the article and book are clearly about, it's not just a random example I invented. "Important things are almost never far away, so if the fight is there, it's almost never important." Can you explain your point? Are you saying that important differences are just excuses?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- steve76 5y ago[dead]
- mrtnmcc 5y ago>> [Defensive escalation] is common in nations where people are not taught the art of systems thinking. I see that as the moral of the article. Sometimes feedback loops can make a joint system unstable even though they appear to ostensibly be stabilizing locally. When observed over longer time periods, negative feedback drives the system off the rails. Perhaps resisting the impulse to react, or reacting minimally would seem like a general policy to consider (damping).
- DoreenMichele 5y agoYour comment prompted me to read the piece. Let me just quote this bit as well: According to Senge, individuals who fail to recognize or acknowledge systems like this one are “bound by invisible fabrics of interrelated actions, which often take years to fully play out their effects on each other.” He says this is common in nations where people are not taught the art of systems thinking. In fact, Senge argues that most children are taught just the opposite — how to break apart problems, instead of how to connect the dots and see related issues as part of a bigger picture. There's more of value in that section. I'm just reluctant to quote at excessive length.
- DoreenMichele 5y agoDr. Seuss authored political cartoons during WW2 so this is perhaps less out of character than one might think at first glance. Dr. Seuss is a pen name. His real last name is Geisel. My recollection is he needed a pen name either to break some rule or because he had broken some rule in college. He lived in San Diego County for at least part of his life. It is an area with an unusual biome. Some of trees have pink bark and/or other unusual features. If you've spent time there, his drawings look less whimsical and creative and more like he just drew the world around him and his world didn't look the world I grew up in in Columbus, Georgia. The Geisel Library at the university there is named after him. On the grounds is statuary showing The Cat in the Hat as part of a tribute him. He wrote for children but never had children of his own. He had an affair while his first wife was battling cancer. His first wife ultimately killed herself and he married the other woman. It's perhaps a little late for the world to be reading children's books and wondering how to stop the current mess, though the works of Dr. Seuss are typically a good read and he lived an interesting life from what I gather.
- euroderf 5y agoThe Sneetches are a similar story. Two groups (races?) differing only by markings. Hucksters exploiting the difference.