Japan agreed 46 to 1 about a TV fee. About the atomic bomb, 1.5 to 1.
Yesterday's thread, about a television licence fee, agreed 46 to 1. Today's thread is about the atomic bomb, and it agrees 1.5 to 1.
How the votes fell
Ranked by upvotes. Left of the slash is agree, right is disagree. This is where the resentment actually sits.
- 1 2268 ∕ 221 Anyone who has walked through the Hiroshima or Nagasaki museums understands. Other countries still do not. Japanese people should not only be teaching Japanese people — America and the nuclear powers are who we should be telling.
- 2 947 ∕ 170 In Hiroshima and Nagasaki children are taught this over and over. With almost no survivors left, the duty to keep teaching it falls to us. As the only country bombed, this principle must not waver.
- 3 919 ∕ 326 Whether to hold nuclear weapons is not a question with a quick answer. But asked whether she intends to uphold the principles, the prime minister described the present state instead of answering.
- 4 711 ∕ 241 The mayor of Nagasaki gave a remarkable speech. Views on the bomb differ, but the delivery took hold of the room.
- 5 520 ∕ 57 Nobody actually disagrees with a world without nuclear weapons. And yet the moment interests and suspicion enter, the conflicts never stop. A comment about that emptiness.
Across 1,017 parent comments, upvotes total 12,828 and downvotes 8,394 — one and a half to one. The television licence thread I counted the day before ran forty-six to one, which makes these two threads hard to place in the same country. 334 of the 1,017 comments finished with more downvotes than upvotes: one in three. And the sinking follows a rule. The 91 comments that touched Japanese nuclear armament or revising the three principles drew 1,247 upvotes against 1,985 down — the only group in the thread where the balance inverts. What rose to the top instead was a call for Japanese people to tell other countries. The comments proposing that Japan change something sank. The comments proposing that Japan explain something floated.
The thread I counted yesterday was about a television licence fee. 20,068 upvotes against 438 down — forty-six to one, a comment section with effectively one opinion in it.
Today's thread is about the atomic bomb.
One and a half to one.
Context for readers outside Japan
On 9 August, Nagasaki held the memorial ceremony marking 81 years since the bomb. In her address, Prime Minister Takaichi said this:
Our country is upholding the Three Non-Nuclear Principles, and under the vow to make Nagasaki the last atomic-bombed city…
Some vocabulary first.
The Three Non-Nuclear Principles were set out in the Diet in 1967: Japan will not possess nuclear weapons, will not manufacture them, and will not permit their introduction into the country. They are not a law. They are not a treaty. They are a government policy backed by a parliamentary resolution — a very Japanese arrangement, and one that could be changed without amending a single statute.
What the article put in its headline was a change of two characters.
| The wording | |
|---|---|
| Last year (PM Ishiba) | …while upholding the Three Non-Nuclear Principles, I vow to… |
| This year (PM Takaichi) | Our country is upholding the Three Non-Nuclear Principles… |
In Japanese: keiji shi-tsutsu versus keiji shite-**ori. That is the whole difference.
But the grammar carries weight. "While upholding them, I vow" places the upholding inside the vow. "Is upholding" is a report on the present state, and the promise about the future falls outside the sentence.
Takaichi has long been read as the politician most open to revising the principles. So two characters got read very closely indeed.
What the comment section is saying
I read all 1,017 parent comments, and this thread would not settle. 334 of them finished with more downvotes than upvotes — one in three.
Start with the most agreed-with comment in the thread.
[...] Anyone who has visited the museums in Hiroshima and Nagasaki will have understood, but other countries still do not know what the aftermath of the bombings was actually like. [...] Japanese people should not only be educating other Japanese people — America and the nuclear powers are who Japanese people should be telling.
［…］広島長崎の資料館を訪れた方々はわかったと思うが原爆投下後の悲惨な現状をまだまだ他国は知らない。［…］日本人が日本人に教育するだけじゃなくまずアメリカや核保有国も日本人が伝えて行くべき。2,268 upvotes — the largest figure under this article.
"Other countries still do not know." Eighty-one years on, that is the bombed country's own assessment. Peace education inside Japan is relentless and thorough; the audience it was meant for has not received it.
Now the person who read the two characters.
[...] Takaichi's 'is upholding' states the present situation; it does not form part of a vow extending into the future. Ishiba's text read 'upholding ... I vow to', which makes the upholding part of the vow. The two mean different things.
［…］高市の「堅持しており」というのは、現在の状況を述べているのであって、将来にわたる誓いの内容にはなっていない。石破首相の読み上げは「堅持し…することを誓う」となっているので、堅持が誓いの内容になっている。両者は意味が異なる。248 up against 34 down — one of the least contested comments in the entire thread.
What this person is doing is parsing a verb. Which inflection it takes, and whether that places it inside the scope of a vow. Written by an anonymous stranger under a political news article, and 248 people agreed. Japanese comment sections do this.
Plainer anger also collected votes.
[...] Asked whether she intends to strictly maintain the Three Non-Nuclear Principles, Takaichi confined herself to explaining that she is maintaining them, and never properly answered the question. A head of government offering nothing but evasions strikes me as somewhat problematic.
［…］高市さんは非核三原則を厳守するつもりはあるかの質問に対して非核三原則を厳守していると現状の説明に終始し質問に対してまともに応えていない。
一国の最高責任者が誤魔化しの応答しかしないのはちょっと問題かなと思う。919 up, 326 down. Supported and opposed at once — which is the ordinary condition of this thread.
And here is the most rejected comment under the article.
To get through these chaotic times, Japan too will need nuclear weapons as a means of defence. With Russia, North Korea and China as our neighbours, holding them on equal terms is a must. As Ukraine shows, opposing war does not stop anyone from attacking when they decide to. [...]
この乱世を乗り切るためには、防衛手段としての核保有が日本も必要になる。ロシア、北朝鮮、中国が近隣諸国の日本なので、そこは対等に核の保有がマストである。ウクライナを見ても分かるように、戦争反対でも攻めてくる時は攻めてくる。［…］207 up against 456 down.
Note the 207. This is not the thread turning on a stranger the way the Chiikawa section did. 663 people registered an opinion and split three to two.
That distinction matters, so let me put it beside the other threads I have counted. Under the film article, the most rejected comment ran 7 up against 177 — twenty-five to one, a comment section closing ranks against one person. Under the licence-fee article, the heaviest rejection in 751 comments reached 134, and it landed on the mildest thing anyone said. Here, the most rejected comment in the thread still holds 207 people. Nobody is being ejected. The room is simply divided, and it stays divided all the way down: the fourth-placed comment, which only praised the mayor's delivery, still carries 241 downvotes. Even the compliments are contested.
What I make of it
Here is what counting made visible.
The 91 comments that touched Japanese nuclear armament or revising the principles drew, in total, 1,247 upvotes against 1,985 down. That is the only group in this thread where the balance inverts. Every other subject here nets positive.
So the thread is angry at the prime minister's phrasing — and it buries the people who say the policy should change.
Meanwhile the largest number in the article sits under America and the nuclear powers are who we should be telling.
Every comment at the top of this thread is addressed to somebody else. The prime minister should have said more. The world should know. Other countries should learn. Not one of the top comments describes something the writer will do.
I do not think that is insincerity. I think it is the absence of any available move.
Nuclear deterrence is a word only the countries holding warheads get to use. A country without them can be afraid, or pray, or stand under somebody else's umbrella. Japan is the only country in the world to have had these weapons used on it, and being bombed is not leverage. Eighty-one years were enough to establish that.
You can watch that arithmetic happening inside the thread. The people arguing for warheads point at Ukraine and North Korea and conclude that possession is what stops an invasion. The people arguing against point out that almost every nuclear power has gone to war since acquiring them, so possession stops very little. Both sides are reasoning from the same premise — that the weapons decide who is safe — and neither side is describing anything Japan is currently able to do. The disagreement is about which kind of powerlessness to accept.
Which is why the thread elevated we should be telling them. Telling is the one instrument a country without warheads still holds. And the very same comment says that other countries still do not know — the thread reporting, in its single most agreed-with sentence, that its only instrument has not worked in eighty-one years.
I do not think this article is really about two characters.
I think it is about a country that cannot get past 1.5 to 1 among its own people on the subject of the atomic bomb — the same country that reached 46 to 1 over a television licence fee. An argument that cannot be settled at home is not going to carry across a border.
If you take one thing from Japan today, take this. On 9 August the comment sections talk about peace, and they do not agree about it. Everyone agrees as far as nuclear weapons are wrong. From the next line onward, everyone faces a different direction.
And a prime minister's address is written for all of them at once. Which is why only two characters moved.
I will keep counting, and I will keep watching.
Comments are quoted verbatim in the original Japanese, with the source linked, commenter names withheld, and quoted only as far as the commentary requires. Translations are mine. Source articles may expire (retrieval dates noted). The substance of this piece is the author's commentary.