> On 28 Dec 2014, at 1:07 pm, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
>> On 12/27/2014 5:42 PM, Kim Jones wrote:
>> Had we not dropped the bomb on Japan we would certainly be in a different
>> universe now. Probably one in which I as a citizen of an extended Japanese
>> empire in the Pacific would enjoy bullet train (shinkansen) style
>> air-conditioned serene comfort on my daily commute over the vast distances
>> people routinely travel here, just to get to and from work. Instead we enjoy
>> some of the lousiest public transport on the planet as we struggle to knit
>> our major urban centres together even now in the 21st century. Had Japan
>> conquered Australia we would be at the hub by now of a vast
>> technology-empire and instead of our rising obesity crisis, we might have
>> adopted a more healthy Japanese-style diet. Yeah - I would chow-down on a
>> whale burger. Don't like the greasy taste of kangaroo...
>
> You'd also be living in a militaristic society as a racially inferior
> minority and possibly working as slave labor laying tracks for the shinkansen.
>
Yes, of course but I don't see the big deal. All empires are built on the backs
of slaves. It would only be for a transition period. The Japanese would have
looked at the puny Anglo-Oz population of 16 million at the time as roughly the
population of two of their smaller islands so, easy enough to herd into slave
labour armies to build the railways over the vast distances. The antipodean
baby-boomers (my tribe) would all be a slave race that would have died-out by
now to give way to a uniformly black-haired slanty-eyed population. Or, in
another version of this MV parable the slave army revolted and somehow the
population of anglos and the Nips all got together somehow to create a new
creole Euro-asian race.
It is interesting to speculate on the many alternative scripts humanity might
have played out, but for what actually happened. What drives decision-making is
always going to be limited perception. Why we need to learn moe about the brain
as a perceptual organ, as in the other thread.
K
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