Thanks. It’s refreshing that Gladwell admits he cannot answer the crucial question.

Hi Amanpour and Co, I like your content. I love watching your videos.

@Pargolak

3 жыл бұрын

It’s my favorite channel too. I learned a lot and it’s unfortunate that they don’t have bigger audiences 🙄 People are missing these quality content.

The Bomber Mafia - Like all of Gladwell's work, is a lesson in looking deeper. I remember decades ago when I first learned the story of DDT, mosquitos, birds, and raptors. As with the topic of this book, most people only knew about DDT and mosquitos. I knew that much because as a child, they sprayed my neighborhood to protect people from mosquitos and other insects. It took a Malcolm-type investigation to reveal that when the birds ate tainted mosquitos or seeds, DDT entered their system. When raptors killed and at the birds, DDT entered their system. As a result, they laid eggs so fragile that any nesting action cracked them and the bird/raptor population plummeted. In this video we hear of all the whorls and shifts that led to the most destructive bombing campaign of WWII. It's riveting, particularly when you know that there is no moral high ground.

We always have a choice Mr. Gladwell. We just don’t always have the moral courage.

I loved the original podcast of "The Bomber Mafia". I look forward to the book.

This moral question regarding bombing...which at the time was technologically no different from something like random artillery firing...an anathema to any sane military leader because it is expensive and accomplishes nothing...was a part of a centuries old question of how to morality conduct “jus bellum” (just war). This had a particular sense of urgency following the utter devastation of civilian populations following Europe’s most lethal and “total” war to date, the 17th Century “Thirty Years War”. As horrible as WW1 was, it was primarily a war of combatant armies versus combatant armies...with some naval activity. WW2 ushered in a whole new transformation where under the guise of “precision bombing”, a.significant amount of civilian “terror bombing” ended up taking place. Germany and Italy first dabbled in it during the Spanish Civil War. In the overall ark of the war, Germany’s employment of “terror bombing” during the Blitz was relatively small. The Luftwaffe was incompetently led and technology backward for and real “precision” bombing. It excelled as a battlefield force working in clod coordination with tank led land armies. England took indiscriminate “terror bombing” to new heights...for specific reasons. Revenge, it was technologically the best they could offer and Churchill had to prove to Stalin that England was “all in” on the war effort. It was politically impossible for a democracy like Great Britain to commit the same number of human beings to the meat grinder land war that the USSR could. By 1945...once Curtis Lemay moved to the Pacific and captured territory put mainland Japan within range, the USA had no qualms about applying “total war” terror bombing against Japanese civilian populations...a scenario that would have shocked military planners 6 years earlier. War does that to people.

We keep hearing comments and analyses of what might have been the consequences for Americans and Japanese if the war had not been cut short, preventing the need for an invasion or blockade of Japan. We might also remember what might have happened in china. The Japanese were brutal on the way in, and there's no reason to expect that they would not have been at least as brutal on the way out. Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed many Japanese, but arguably saved as many Chinese lives.

I had a great uncle who was a bomber in WW2. I sure wish he was alive today to ask him about it.

It is always enriching to just listen to Malcolm. And more when you listen and process.

America went into war with Japan with Torpedoes that had defective contact ignition, defective magnetic ignition, were slower than the ships they were supposed to hit, often porpoised through the water, could not maintain the proper depth (too deep), and sometimes circled back to sink the submarine that fired them. The defects in torpedoes prolonged the war by at least 20 months and made the Navy a dive-bombing and 'Gun-Club' only offensive operations Navy. Torpedo bombers were the American version of Kamikazes. That the Admiralty accepted untested (torpedoes)weapons to fight a war with, had RADAR no admiral but 'Ching' Lee understood how to use. Commanded their flotillas from ships that were most comfortable but not best equipped with RADAR is the scandal that irks my outrage. The M.I.C. loves big contracts for weapons platforms. We need an Admiralty that tests the warfighting capability of their kit. WW2 Navy torpedoes are a subject that bears scrutiny as a warning to anyone that dares to think of war as a palatable political solution. Murphy's Law is still in effect. Americans do not find civilian casualties compelling and the military considers them secrets. Every WW2 torpedo has a history attached. Tabulate that.

The atomic bombs were numerically insignificant in comparison to napalm bombing.

Moral bombing. Ummmm........

How do you know when a news/information/analysis show has gone to shit? It invites Malcolm Gladwell to speak on a topic.

The industrial arms complex and the worst kind of corporate class possible created men of mass destruction. Not just weapons. The dependence of the economy on war that resulted created the greatest threat to humanity. Addiction to weapons and violence.

wars are brutal on property and civilians. brings out the best and the worst in people. are wars necessary? are wars moral? Gladwell (Canadian born) explores some details we ought to know and consider. worth reading.

I have not read "The Bomber Mafia," but based on listening to this interview, it should be said that the view Gladwell and Isaacson basically espouse -- that Tokyo's firebombing and the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved American and Japanese lives -- is not "revisionist" history. That is the "traditionalist" American interpretation promoted by the US government from early on. Other aspects of Gladwell's history may in fact be revisionist. In terms of the atomic bombings, the "revisionist" perspective is what's understood as the position that the bombings were more about the Soviets and other factors that ignored Japan was already negotiating surrender prior to Hiroshima. So the presentation here is an appropriation of terminology that reinforces the conventional as new.

@hannahhersko7267

3 жыл бұрын

Maybe you should read the book before you comment. Your point is valid only as it pertains to this interview.

Their idea is similar to the French underground, which I suppose any group or ideology can conduct a guerrilla warfare opposing any government...as for mass murderers, I agree, the bombing ofJapan during WWII was horribly brutally barbaric, now I have a name “Curtis Mayfield”, and yes he does belong in the same category with Stalin, and others...

@DavidSmith-ss1cg

3 жыл бұрын

Are you sure that you don't mean Curtis LeMay? Curtis Mayfield was a famous R&B singer/songwriter and very peace-loving.

@tomjohn8733

3 жыл бұрын

@@DavidSmith-ss1cg yes, you are correct, thank you for correcting me....

I love Malcom Gladwell books - I hope one day he writes about COVID19

@hannahhersko7267

3 жыл бұрын

He said in an interview that he doesn't think he will:(

Just finished reading about WW2 operation Chastise, known popularly as the dam busters. Britain had the same quandary and "Bomber" Harris embraced the ethos of carpet bombing. 18 Lancaster bombers on one mission did about the same damage as all the sorties over the Ruhr that proceeded it with far less civilian casualties. Much of the bombing of Germany was performative as noted in the comments. But they had the same mistaken attitude that air power could win the war. This ethos survives and grows with "smart" munitions. The thing that many do not want to address in the US military is the ufo/uap/usp phenomenon. This massive cover up in the name of national security has stunted our view of the universe and generated fear and confusion. If you are a sceptic, read about the ww2 foo fighters or the Nimitz encounters in 2004 to name just 2. Who or whatever pilot these craft can run rings around anything the most expensive military ever in history can offer. The hegemony of the MIC and the .01% is at stake so in this age of mis/disinformation it is our responsibility to vet any and all info related to the congressional report on ufos due in June or July. Expect the same tried and true divide and conquer strategy.

So the Enola gay dropped both bombs? B29's need a tailwind to takeoff? Good stuff!

Dream? For a demon; More like a milder nightmare for most.

Gladwell grew up in southern Ontario, not England.

I am eighty three and my father was in the army in world war 2 and the feeling st the time was that president Truman had no choice but to bomb Nagasaki and Hiroshima because the Japanese would never surrender and the war would go on forever President Truman was the president needed at thst time and he had courage to make a decision and he did

“Precision Bombing” is also know as “Tidy Diarrhea”. Disgusting topic.

@alaneee5273

3 жыл бұрын

Really? And how would you have proposed we avoided WWII? It’s not like we rushed into it. We waited while much of the world suffered. If war were the only real alternative how should it be fought? I think if you look at Afghanistan, Vietnam, etc. you see the “long, careful, path” doesn’t necessarily work better. We’re mistakes made - of course. But not even ostriches really hide their heads in the sand and “hope”.

@caballosinnombre3981

3 жыл бұрын

@@alaneee5273 ah yes...the Good War

Compelling arguments in war to justify mass killings is such a bizarre rationalization of unjust death.

Neither Hiroshima or Nagasaki were strategic targets, I dont know how that doesn't get recognized. Both were war crimes. Truman called Oppenheimer a cry baby. But it started out with incredibly talented idealistic people hoping to keep the death count down.

@PushPullPp

3 жыл бұрын

All wars are crimes. You fail to lay at least equal blame on the rulers of Japan, who did begin it, and sacrificed their own people.

@kennmossman8701

3 жыл бұрын

That they were not strategic targets is widely known. Such targets were already highly bombed. They were chosen largely because such a bomb's effect could easily be seen.

Instead of 100s of thousands of bombs he does one bomb that's 100s of thousands times bigger

Best boo ever

Bolsonaro is the new # 09 probably

I like the way you think Malcolm Gladwell

Everyone says this guy walks on water, everything he says annoys the f**k out of me.........so it's me I guess??????

@whazzat8015

3 жыл бұрын

Yep, prolly you.

@BCThunderthud

3 жыл бұрын

He also annoys everyone with genuine expertise in the fields that he stumbles into. He's a stupid person who flatters rich people into thinking they're geniuses by offering "one-neat-trick" explanations for every question he addresses. I don't even think it's a scam, he's genuinely dumb enough to believe the nonsense he peddles. You're in good company.

Hell ooooo you experienced, expertised, experts, as for a filo of phy, or anything similar, you all, have given it up, once you set foot, on your first, five star, beach holiday (Giving you the false narrative of, "This must be what democracy is, after all, it is very similar to what, it must have been, in Greece, at the supposed time, of it's conception".) For quite a while, I have heard you all blab, in the most seriousness, about the rising China, and how the West, should address it, to say it mildly. First of all, that is disgusting, anything that is rising, should not be addressed in the open, nor talked about addressing it, in the open. But as it seemingly, seems to be a problem, quite well "invested" throughout many years (should be noted), here is a point of view. It might be a strange point of view, to all of you, as your current location, is still to be determined, in regards to the point of view, I am about to present you all with. How do you address all, that is, or could be a threat to democracy? With democracy, this time a real one, in combination with some Roman persistence. The true ideals of democracy! When taken, and used to surround, what is not democracy! That which is not, will find it self in a disadvantage. Not half, of democracy, or three quarters, of democracy, but the fully com option, with all the parks, justice, economics, health, education, living with a purpose, etc etc. Then, and only then, somthing which is not, will have a spotlight on, showing that it is not democracy, making it's people want what is better for them. (I choose this clip, because why not, plus the thinkers here, are renowned, as thinkers 🤔, but I have to stress, that if you all, had read past history, or past philosophers such as "some of them" you would know, that this is, the only way, to address somthing that is rising, because of your, arousing initiation. But as you all, keep on neglecting such solution, than, I have to assume, that you have not read, none of the past philosophy, and China has.🤔🤣😘) Stay away from, elephants, bowling, or treś expensive batting 😁.

The ready gladiolus suprisingly list because vacation implicitly clean past a low pipe. direful, bawdy curler

He owns a podcasting company and his setup looks like crap.

@keithklassen5320

3 жыл бұрын

Do you know what a podcast is?

@seanwebb605

3 жыл бұрын

@@keithklassen5320 Damn right I do.

What the hell are they talking about?!! There is no rationale for war and no dignity in praising war mongers on either side. "Curtis LeMay is not the villain in this story" -- what?!! "Bomber Mafia B.S.! Surely you can find something better to write about, Mr. Gladwell.

Proverbs 21:13🤐😹👇🙉🙈🙊🙏🙌💪

This book is trash. It’s really bad history.

How much did you guys pay for your educations