Curtis is a great story teller, and I'm yet to find a factual inaccuracy in his storytelling style of reporting. Full recommendation on anything by this guy.
The descriptions of what went down there are almost too much to read, this is some straight up dr. Mengele shit.
Most interestingly:
The researchers involved in Unit 731 were secretly given immunity by the U.S. in exchange for the data they gathered through human experimentation... More reading at [0]
While further down the linked article is written:
There was consensus among U.S researchers in the postwar period that the human experimentation data gained was of little value to the development of American biological weapons and medicine. Postwar reports have generally regarded the data as "crude and ineffective", with one expert even deeming it "amateurish".
I once read similar sentiment regarding the nazi efforts. I was curious, because I saw, probably like the U.S. did when they agreed to the exchange, that experimenting on humans like we did on animals could not possibly fail to give insights that would be almost impossible to get otherwise.
Reading what they did, however, it really looked like the valued cruelty over science. The people they hired for that were not qualified (heh, turns out that sociopathic biologists who bought into nazi racist theories were not the brightest) and disregarded any kind of scientific method.
Also one of their goal was to prove the inferiority of some races. Many experiments only had this goal in mind.
I thought they experimented on humans like we do on animals. Animal experimentation may be cruel but cruelty is not the point, actually stress can impact the result in a big way.
I remember they made experiment to see what temperatures the human body can handle. So they subject prisoners to various extreme conditions and... do not even note the time they were exposed to it. It was THAT amateurish. I really feel it was just torture renamed. "Hey, let's burn some Jews! We'll call it science!" "Ok, I'm in." Experiment result: the untermenschen died.
Read about "German physics". Third Reich Germany's scientific community suffered greatly because they had purged all Jewish people, many of whom were highly qualified and disciplined. Fortunately for the rest of the world, this had a deleterious impact on their war machine as well. I've heard it quipped that "Jewish physics" ended the war.
The most caricatural example was Heisenberg, who was working on the German nuclear program, made a lot of experimental mistakes (he was a very good theorist, an average experimenter) and it turns out that his assistant, who had been designing a lot of experiments, was Jewish and had fled a few years before.
He made a crucial mistake in an experiment that was supposed to gauge the amount of uranium necessary to make a bomb. He failed to take into account impurities in a material. It made him assume the crucial mass necessary was 10x what it is.
Ultimately nazi Germany, after several drawbacks, decided an atom bomb was too far away to pursue.
> I was curious, because I saw, probably like the U.S. did when they agreed to the exchange, that experimenting on humans like we did on animals could not possibly fail to give insights that would be almost impossible to get otherwise
Exactly! In that light, these war crimes were doubly atrocious. They weren't even doing actual science.
> I really feel it was just torture renamed. "Hey, let's burn some Jews! We'll call it science!" "Ok, I'm in." Experiment result: the untermenschen died.
In most cases they were doing actual science, just divorced from any recognizable morality. I'm less familiar with the Japanese case, but many of the Germans who did similar things were respected scientists (Carl Clauberg is an example). The desire to say "that's not real science" is emotional, but it's not accurate.
The truth is that these kinds of studies used to be not all that rare. The most famous is the Tuskegee syphilis experiment, but there are others. In The US, in the 1920s, at least 800 prisoners were infected with Malaria. Joseph Goldberger similarly experimented on prisoners in attempt to understand pellagra (and refused to let them drop out when their symptoms became unbearable). Richard Strong famously injected people with plague. In some of these cases, subjects signed a waiver, but in others they didn't. Internees in camps could have been induced to sign a waiver if the Germans or Japanese had cared about that.
Morality constrains science. That's a good thing. But it requires us to admit that we could learn more and more quickly if we had no morality. Understanding how radiation affects human reproductive systems or what the human body can withstand is valuable information. It just isn't information that we can obtain while staying with the guidelines of our morality.
"The desire to say "that's not real science" is emotional, but it's not accurate."
I thought that. I was like "OK, no one wants to touch this and they are right, but there has to be some valuable insights!" IIRC the only thing that they learnt was that the human body can survive longer than they thought in very cold water, but even that was hinted by tons of anecdotal evidence.
Really, the lack of protocols and basic measurements looks like it was sub-highschool level. Go read some of the reports, it was mostly about cruelty.
I'm sort of surprised that the US was more interested in biological weapons here than the Soviet's but, on reflection, that probably has more to do with post Eisenhower US strategy. The later attitude was that weapons that take over a day to kill wouldn't be useful in a nuclear war that would be over in hours but of course nobody was thinking in those terms in 1945. But the Russians had a different view and kept anthrax warheads on their ICBMs pointed at US cities through the Cold War. I'm not sure which attitude is scarier.
Perhaps it also had to do with the extreme risk of collecting equivalent data in the US, whereas the Soviets had similar programs already operating for decades at that point.
This also looks like a suspicious account, at best ideologically motivated, at worst state sponsored. Look at his comments on p.3 of his comment history.
Compare that to Eduard Pernkopf‘s Topographische Anatomie des Menschen[1] still regarded by many as the most accurate anatomy book and highly sort after by surgeons.
The history of how the book was created is so disgusting that it’s no surprise that it’s no longer in print (that I know of).
I find it very hard to decide what I think about that. I’m glad that any personal opinion I have has no weight.
Heads up that OP seems to have posted a disproportionate amount of pro China comments in the past year. This just looks like another attempt at psychological manipulation and generating more sympathy for the Chinese. Don't fall for it. Unfortunately dang given some of things he said recently can no longer be relied upon on these matters
One can never be sure given that Wikipedia articles are open for anyone to edit (it's interesting to note that there's a tremendous amount of controversy over whether these atrocities indeed happened, and that Britannica did not even have a single article on it).
Regardless of the factual accuracy of any assertion, it's always important to point out when nefarious motives are behind it. Analogy: suppose every time a black person commits a crime the city newspaper publishes it and every time a white person does the same the newspaper does not cover it. Then the newspaper cannot be criticized on grounds of inaccuracy, for nothing it said is untrue. But obviously it can still be criticised for nefarious motives
The Rape of Nanking, and Imperial Japan's actions, not just of Unit 731, in the war are well recorded and cited fact.
Talking about it is "nefarious motives"? What nefarious motives are there to remind of a particularly dark period of Japanese history?
Pre-revolutionary China was disproportionately a victim of Japan's actions in the 1930s and 1940s. That should be remembered, not taken as cause to make ridiculous claims of psychological manipulation.
It was interesting how people operating Unit 731 were dealt with after WW2 ended. Specifically, note how some were punished, but a small number of others went on to distinguished careers - sort of like the Nazi rocket men. The USA wanted the knowledge without the publicity associated with large tribunals / criminal trials.
If you can spare a few hours, find the podcast or visit YouTube for Jocko Podcast 133 "Face History so You Can Learn From It. The Horrors of Unit 731."
The section about Japanese research into developing a plague weapon made my blood boil. Even worse was experimentation into spreading disease with artillery shells coated with pathogens. The infection method was by detonating shells near prisoners whose legs and arms are exposed to the blast.
Those fascists were attempting to seize the Asia-Pacific region and enslave it. We are on the brink of another similar episode, this time, ironically, from the country where Unit 731 was located.
The Rape of Nanjing episode is particularly interesting since he goes over the book "The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II" by Iris Chang in the first part, following that up with readings from "The Woman Who Could Not Forget" by, Dr. Ying Ying Chang which goes over how researching the Nanjing Massacre affected her daughter Iris deeply enough to the point of ending her own life.
Usually this is stuff that people avoid, but I feel that knowing what people are capable of doing gives some perspective in my life.
Any speculative fiction about the horrors of runaway AI or the supernatural or some form of extraterrestrial life pale in comparison to what our species has done to itself over the years.
Any horror you could possibly imagine, some wanker has probably already done it to someone else for real.
From what I gathered talking to Chinese fellas I worked with (in Canada), this is one of the main reasons why Chinese still strongly dislike Japanese people. In a stereotype sort of way.
They also really don’t like discussing this topic and will answer with much hesitation and only if pressed. So it appears to be a wound that didn’t quite heal yet.
It should be no surprise that it's a wound that hasn't quite healed yet.
Comfort women [0] is another one. Before I immigrated as a kid, HK victims were still trying to sort that out with Japan. South Korea is also a victim, among other SE Asian countries.
I don't dislike the people. I dislike the successive administration that wants to ignore what their country have done to many different groups around that time.
And seeing how the West is complicit, is it that hard to understand there's still mistrust there?
41 comments
[ 0.22 ms ] story [ 106 ms ] threadMost interestingly:
The researchers involved in Unit 731 were secretly given immunity by the U.S. in exchange for the data they gathered through human experimentation... More reading at [0]
While further down the linked article is written:
There was consensus among U.S researchers in the postwar period that the human experimentation data gained was of little value to the development of American biological weapons and medicine. Postwar reports have generally regarded the data as "crude and ineffective", with one expert even deeming it "amateurish".
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_cover-up_of_Japanes...
Reading what they did, however, it really looked like the valued cruelty over science. The people they hired for that were not qualified (heh, turns out that sociopathic biologists who bought into nazi racist theories were not the brightest) and disregarded any kind of scientific method.
Also one of their goal was to prove the inferiority of some races. Many experiments only had this goal in mind.
I thought they experimented on humans like we do on animals. Animal experimentation may be cruel but cruelty is not the point, actually stress can impact the result in a big way.
I remember they made experiment to see what temperatures the human body can handle. So they subject prisoners to various extreme conditions and... do not even note the time they were exposed to it. It was THAT amateurish. I really feel it was just torture renamed. "Hey, let's burn some Jews! We'll call it science!" "Ok, I'm in." Experiment result: the untermenschen died.
He made a crucial mistake in an experiment that was supposed to gauge the amount of uranium necessary to make a bomb. He failed to take into account impurities in a material. It made him assume the crucial mass necessary was 10x what it is.
Ultimately nazi Germany, after several drawbacks, decided an atom bomb was too far away to pursue.
Exactly! In that light, these war crimes were doubly atrocious. They weren't even doing actual science.
In most cases they were doing actual science, just divorced from any recognizable morality. I'm less familiar with the Japanese case, but many of the Germans who did similar things were respected scientists (Carl Clauberg is an example). The desire to say "that's not real science" is emotional, but it's not accurate.
The truth is that these kinds of studies used to be not all that rare. The most famous is the Tuskegee syphilis experiment, but there are others. In The US, in the 1920s, at least 800 prisoners were infected with Malaria. Joseph Goldberger similarly experimented on prisoners in attempt to understand pellagra (and refused to let them drop out when their symptoms became unbearable). Richard Strong famously injected people with plague. In some of these cases, subjects signed a waiver, but in others they didn't. Internees in camps could have been induced to sign a waiver if the Germans or Japanese had cared about that.
Morality constrains science. That's a good thing. But it requires us to admit that we could learn more and more quickly if we had no morality. Understanding how radiation affects human reproductive systems or what the human body can withstand is valuable information. It just isn't information that we can obtain while staying with the guidelines of our morality.
I thought that. I was like "OK, no one wants to touch this and they are right, but there has to be some valuable insights!" IIRC the only thing that they learnt was that the human body can survive longer than they thought in very cold water, but even that was hinted by tons of anecdotal evidence.
Really, the lack of protocols and basic measurements looks like it was sub-highschool level. Go read some of the reports, it was mostly about cruelty.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_biological_weapons_prog...
So the CIA had no other way to get that data, whereas the Soviets did.
covered in part by this errol morris(!) documentary miniseries:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wormwood_(miniseries)
The history of how the book was created is so disgusting that it’s no surprise that it’s no longer in print (that I know of).
I find it very hard to decide what I think about that. I’m glad that any personal opinion I have has no weight.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eduard_Pernkopf
As documented as the material is, the current state is basically just a pile of descriptions of attrocities committed. With many duplicated.
Compare to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust
I'd guess because no one wants to spend their time reading primary sources about something so terrible, and straightening it out.
Regardless of the factual accuracy of any assertion, it's always important to point out when nefarious motives are behind it. Analogy: suppose every time a black person commits a crime the city newspaper publishes it and every time a white person does the same the newspaper does not cover it. Then the newspaper cannot be criticized on grounds of inaccuracy, for nothing it said is untrue. But obviously it can still be criticised for nefarious motives
Talking about it is "nefarious motives"? What nefarious motives are there to remind of a particularly dark period of Japanese history?
Pre-revolutionary China was disproportionately a victim of Japan's actions in the 1930s and 1940s. That should be remembered, not taken as cause to make ridiculous claims of psychological manipulation.
Wiki is quoting stories someone heard, not actual testimonials. This is a road straight to fake news. We saw it in the Iraq wars constantly.
Anyway, the source country wiki version is always interesting to compare for some topics.
https://ja.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/731%E9%83%A8%E9%9A%8A
If you can spare a few hours, find the podcast or visit YouTube for Jocko Podcast 133 "Face History so You Can Learn From It. The Horrors of Unit 731."
The section about Japanese research into developing a plague weapon made my blood boil. Even worse was experimentation into spreading disease with artillery shells coated with pathogens. The infection method was by detonating shells near prisoners whose legs and arms are exposed to the blast.
Those fascists were attempting to seize the Asia-Pacific region and enslave it. We are on the brink of another similar episode, this time, ironically, from the country where Unit 731 was located.
The Rape of Nanjing episode is particularly interesting since he goes over the book "The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II" by Iris Chang in the first part, following that up with readings from "The Woman Who Could Not Forget" by, Dr. Ying Ying Chang which goes over how researching the Nanjing Massacre affected her daughter Iris deeply enough to the point of ending her own life.
Usually this is stuff that people avoid, but I feel that knowing what people are capable of doing gives some perspective in my life.
Any speculative fiction about the horrors of runaway AI or the supernatural or some form of extraterrestrial life pale in comparison to what our species has done to itself over the years.
Any horror you could possibly imagine, some wanker has probably already done it to someone else for real.
They also really don’t like discussing this topic and will answer with much hesitation and only if pressed. So it appears to be a wound that didn’t quite heal yet.
Comfort women [0] is another one. Before I immigrated as a kid, HK victims were still trying to sort that out with Japan. South Korea is also a victim, among other SE Asian countries.
I don't dislike the people. I dislike the successive administration that wants to ignore what their country have done to many different groups around that time.
And seeing how the West is complicit, is it that hard to understand there's still mistrust there?
0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comfort_women