First of all, these are two ENTIRELY different subjects, so don’t merge the two. I put em in the same thread to not have to worry about two different threats at once. There is also a third, bonus quesiton (more a request for advice than anything else) that is even more unrelated.
Now, the first one is the subject of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
I am kind of playing devil’s advocate here, since I still can’t justify the use of nuclear weapons, but I can THINK of justifications (based more on the ends rather than the means). I would prefer someone deal with this, since it has been bothering me for ages (before you ask, no one has brought this up in a debate yet, but I considered it once and just can’t dismiss it).
So, the general view here is that, assuming we are starting from 1945 and cannot change the past, the US didn’t need to nuke Japan. This is not to say Japan should have been invaded outright instead (something that would probably result in millions of deaths), but it could have easily been starved of resources by the US navy so as to force them to cave (Japan has very few natural resources, as it relied on loot from its empire to sustain its industries), resolving that problme.
But then the other issue comes up. Some people (generally derisively) claim that Truman nuked Japan so as to scare Stalin and keep him from acting up. But then I realize; what if that really is the case? If Truman hadn’t nuked Japan in a display of force, Stalin would have probably sized up the Western allies in Europe and realized he could have easily crushed them with his army. WW3 would start shortly after WW2 ended, and it would probably result in millions (if not billions) of deaths, in addition to the use of nuclear weapons. I suspect such a world would be much, much worse than the one we happen to live in today. So while the means were unjustified, the end may very well have worked out.
Second issue, nationalization in an Anarcho-Capitalist (or minarchist, if that floats your boat) society.
I posted this in another thread, but I figure it ought to have its own thread instead. I will shorten the issue, though:
A company based in ancap country (area? region? whatever.) discovers oil in an area with a government. They obtain permission from the property owners (and, to reduce complications, from the government itself too) and began drilling. The oil in the area becomes the company’s best source of revenue, and it also enriches the people of the area (not to mention people back in the ancap country). Suddenly, the government is replaced somehow (revolution, election, whatever). Socialists take control, and seize the company’s assets. What is justified in response? Is the company simply unable to respond to the loss of their property to these thugs? Are the people of the country considered to be complicit in the crime for having supported the government in this? etc etc
Finally:
I am writing a fiction right now, and am moving along quite nicely. However, I have been criticised on one particular thing; I am apt to heavily overusing parenthesis to add extra detail, go over the thoughts of my main character, etc. which some people have told me is a bit distracting. What can I use instead of parenthesis without being forced to use an infodump every once in a while for extra detail?