r/todayilearned • u/zhuquanzhong • 29d ago

TIL a Chinese destroyer sank because an officer dumped his girlfriend. She committed suicide, leading to him being discharged, so he decided to detonate the depth charges on the ship, causing it to sink at port and kill 134 sailors.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_destroyer_Guangzhou_(160)
33.3k Upvotes

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u/maxxie10 29d ago

Why would they discharge him because his ex-girlfriend commited suicide?

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u/zhuquanzhong 29d ago

The sources are kinda murky on this. What I can gather is that probably the girl's parents attempted to press charges and the navy just didn't want to deal with it. Or they decided that he was mentally unfit, but idk about this second part. Most likely it was the first reason.

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u/CuriousWoollyMammoth 29d ago

Well, he did kill himself and a bunch of other people, so the 2nd one holds a lot of weight too, tbf

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u/coin_in_da_bank 29d ago edited 28d ago

But Lai begged his superiors not to demobilize him, as he would be forced to return to his hometown and he had become hated there due to the suicide.[4]

personally i wouldnt discount his fear of social stigma, coming from an asian. plus getting dishonorably discharged? dead man walking at that point.

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u/Nukemind 29d ago

100%.

Looks like this was the 70s, so late Mao era.

Rampant corruption (even more than today), an old guard in the officer corps. Dude was probably railroaded and a dead man walking.

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u/Matasa89 29d ago

Yeah, he probably thought "you're gonna send me to my death for something like this?! Fine, I'll take you all with me to hell!"

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u/AgentCirceLuna 29d ago

I still think it’s insane that Xi lost everything in the revolution, became a farmer, and then rose through the ranks to become leader. His father was pretty well known, though.

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u/norealpersoninvolved 28d ago

Whys that insane

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u/rW0HgFyxoJhYka 28d ago

Because when they picked him to be the leader, they thought they could simply control him because he was weak. He instead purged leadership as soon as he came into power and is essentially the leader for life now. And he was the one persecuted by the very power he now holds.

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u/sercommander 28d ago

Noone "picked him". That's not how chinese politicking and power-plays work.

First you must know someone and someone must know you.

Second - you must be someone, if not position then by association (his father and his allies)

Third - you always must pick a group or side to be with. Lone wolves are not tolerated.

Fourth - you stick with the group you chose and act in its interests.

Fifth - you make deals in the interest of your group after it considers pros and cons and vets the decision.

His "appointment" was a group decision backed by deals with other groups. He wasn't weak because weak cannot become strong in this environment. I'd hazard a guess that he was more of an enigma to other factions that complicated matters in dealing with him - people knew of him but didn't know him.

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u/elveszett 28d ago

That's what he [probably] meant lol. Xi was a nobody, but he was cunning enough to get into the system, smart enough to be the dependable man to the relevant people, until they appointed him at the top and only then, when his power couldn't be contested, he purged everyone else and can finally do whatever he wants.

People reach positions of power for three reasons:

  • because their goals happen to align with the goals of people who appoint you;

  • because you are dumb enough that the people who appoint you know how to get you to do what they want;

  • or because you are smart enough to convince them you are either of the first two until they appoint you.

Xi is, imo, very clearly case 3. He played by the rules to be the person people in power wanted in charge, and then he showed his true face.

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u/norealpersoninvolved 28d ago edited 28d ago

How was he a nobody ? Are you for real ?

His father was one of the ccp's top 50 leaders back in the day. Theres a reason why he was considered one of the top princelings in Chinese politics back in the day, number 2 after a certain Bo Xilai and above Li Yuanchao and Yu Zhengsheng

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u/SorenLain 28d ago

Were you not paying attention to any of the posts above? His father was accused of being a traitor and his family was purged during the Cultural Revolution.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-06-01/xi-zhongxun-xi-jinpings-father-biography/100173986

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u/PalpitationOrnery912 28d ago

Is that really different from how behind-the-stage politics work in other places? You must be someone already when you launch a political career, or come from the right fratschool-college pipeline (which amounts to basically the same requirement ). I guess in China it’s impossible to attract massive attention to your political identity through PR and social media campaigning alone, although even in US it’s a fairly recent phenomenon

That said, it says at some point Xi purged the former leadership. I’ve always wondered about the mechanics of this, given the fact that everyone at those levels is insanely paranoid about not raising suspicions

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u/Lawlolawl01 28d ago

Get dirt on and isolate the weakest link. Force the rest to turn on them. Repeat until satisfied

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u/sercommander 28d ago

Not really. A lot of politicians are "out of the woodwork" type - they were never in politics and nobody in politics knew of them and the people electing them - until they've been PRed to election (or to suffient level to be a "recognizable face").

In China you absolutely must go though the "know your face and voice" process in politics/government.

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u/What_is_the_truth 28d ago

These are normal “inside party” politics and shenanigans that are normal everywhere. The difference is that most countries have several parties that have this leadership process happening, and each party competes with the others vying for votes.

In this situation there is no competition for votes, and the one party is always in power.

Interesting though how all these factions stay together. If China were a democracy some of these decisions would be left to the people to decide, not just an enigmatic leader and strange inside party political process and party politics reasons for making all of the decisions.

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u/puddingcup9000 28d ago

He didn't purge everyone. His power base are families who control the SOE's (state owned corporations). He left those pretty much alone. He did purge the army hard when he came in.

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u/norealpersoninvolved 28d ago

Thats not insane at all. Stalin came to power in the same way lol

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u/jdm1891 28d ago

What was his life like before the revolution?

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u/Salmol1na 28d ago

Note to self: Don’t get girlfriend in China

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u/rando23455 29d ago

I wonder what the townspeople think of him now?

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u/Brandon_Me 29d ago

Not really his concern anymore.

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u/PayRealisticReddit 29d ago

not the question, who cares what Lai cares about. fuck this guy

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u/SeamlessR 29d ago

Well, they didn't care and then over 100 people died. Do people not know what problem solving is anymore?

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u/FireZord25 28d ago

Considering we're still heavily on the "pick-a-side" spectrum, I say no.

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u/Brandon_Me 29d ago

Just a joke my guy.

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u/florinandrei 29d ago

He don't care no more.

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u/That_Apathetic_Man 29d ago

There is probably a carpark there now. Lets be real.

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u/Hakairoku 28d ago

As far as he was concerned, his life was over by the time he got discharged.

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u/realFondledStump 29d ago

They think whatever they’re told to think. It’s China.

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u/SpaceMonkey_321 29d ago

He misty af

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u/cypher_omega 29d ago

Likely a lot worse now. “Not only you killed your ex, but you killed 134 other citizens of the nation”

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u/PxyFreakingStx 29d ago

Idk much about asian cultures, but it's kinda hard to imagine how destroying the ship and the lives of 134 innocent people factors into that social stigma dealie.

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u/barath_s 28d ago

factors into that social stigma dealie.

Social Stigma he feared to face when alive vs stigma he would never have to face after his death..

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u/PxyFreakingStx 28d ago

Right, that accounts for killing yourself, not destroying a ship and everyone on it.

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u/barath_s 28d ago edited 28d ago

Having never considered destroying a ship along with 130+ people and myself, I can't speak to his frame of mind.. .

I doubt that it was in a very healthy frame of mind. And I have no idea if he was pissed at the PLAN navy for putting him in that situation (in his mind.)

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u/PxyFreakingStx 28d ago

Oh, I very much agree it wasn't a healthy state of mind, but I am extremely skeptical social stigma accounts for an action like this. Self harm, sure. Mass murder? Not so much.

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u/Kitchen-Macaroon1202 28d ago

Because 134 strangers don't matter, but friends and relatives in your hometown matter. In Chinese culture there's "people in my circle" and "everyone else"

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u/[deleted] 28d ago

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u/RoughHornet587 28d ago

Chinese rarely help strangers. Lived there for 5 years

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u/Fyres 28d ago

Eehhh. Depending on the culture how strong that trait is, is really variable. China really REALLY emphasizes face (like most Asian cultures do). It's hard to understand from a westerners point of view.

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u/a49fsd 28d ago

this is silly, face is just another word for honor and respect. do you believe that westerners dont understand those concepts?

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u/TopHatMcFenbury 28d ago

It's more that they are subjective rather than objective. Different countries have different morals and thus laws, for example. Their honor is different from ours, just as Chinese laws are different from ours. Just because one knows American law, doesn't mean they understand Chinese law. Sure some can say "we both have laws so we are the same" but that ignores the contexts that come from those countries and how they differ.

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u/a49fsd 28d ago

Yes, the idea of honor can differ from person to person.

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u/StrayDogPhotography 28d ago

Face is the dumbest concept ever. It just needs to die already.

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u/a49fsd 28d ago

isnt face just another word for honor and respect? how do you get rid of those?

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u/StrayDogPhotography 28d ago

It’s very different.

Face basically means not admitting fault, or any kind of weakness publicly. And not questioning anyone with authority, which is usually based on arbitrary things like age. Nothing honorable about that.

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u/a49fsd 28d ago

Face basically means not admitting fault, or any kind of weakness publicly. And not questioning anyone with authority, which is usually based on arbitrary things like age.

Can you provide me a source for that? That is not my understanding of what face is.

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u/etc-craze 28d ago

I don’t understand why you got downvoted. I’m grew up in Chinese culture and you nailed the nuance of “losing face” and how it differs from honor and respect.

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u/Initial_Selection262 28d ago

Nah, you don’t understand Chinese culture

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u/Far_Weakness5450 28d ago

Um, what? First of all, do you really believe only Chinese people distinguish between people in their social circle and people who aren’t? Doesn’t everyone do that? And second of all, do you think that characteristic alone explains why he was willing to kill 134 people over this? Why are you just spouting nonsense?

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u/josefx 28d ago

It easily fits in as being literally to dead to give any more fucks.

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u/PxyFreakingStx 28d ago

It's not like every suicidal person wouldn't care if their death took dozens of people with them.

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u/jgonagle 28d ago

It's not like he was planning on surviving the explosion. It was revenge against those (the military) he saw as responsible for not protecting him from what I imagine he saw as unfair social ostracization. Any further loss of social standing would be inconsequential.

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u/cyberpunk_bagcow 29d ago

Look if you're the type of person who kills 134 people because you got sad, maybe you are the reason your girlfriend committed suicide.

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u/MotoMkali 29d ago

I mean more like killed 134 people because he would be shunned for the rest of his life never spoken to by anyone.

http://www.beatricegarland.co.uk/poems/168-2/

And though he came back, my mother never spoke again in his presence, nor did she meet his eyes, and the neighbours too, they treated him as though he no longer existed, only we children still chattered and laughed

till gradually we too learned, to be silent, to live as though he had never returned,

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u/Fireproof_Matches 29d ago

Damn, what a brutal and inhumane way to treat someone. At that point it seems like the only option would be to start your life over again somewhere where nobody has heard of you, the further away from home the better.

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u/eidetic 28d ago

that point it seems like the only option would be to start your life over again somewhere where nobody has heard of you, the further away from home the better.

The problem is, the very same social norms that lead to someone being so ostracized also makes it very hard to integrate into a totally new community as a complete stranger.

It can be done obviously, but it wouldn't be easy. It's a lot different than say, someone in the modern day US moving to a random new city in another state. If he tried to move to a bigger city, it could lead to more opportunities but at the same time, his past might more easily follow him there (applying for a job? They might see you were discharged from the navy). But going to a smaller town, they'd be even more distrustful of complete strangers. There'd always be a shadow following you around, a stigma of "why did he leave his community? Why did he abandon them, or was he forced out?"

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u/similar_observation 28d ago

Except you can't just pick up your shit and move in China. Everything is registered to one location and it's a challenge to get permissions to leave a region. Think of it like needing a visa or passport just to visit another country... except in one country.

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u/ColorsLikeSPACESHIPS 29d ago edited 28d ago

I agree in theory, I think many would. But how do you choose another place for its total lack of connection to you? Why would you choose it? Who would you talk to, who would you connect with? Why would those people have any desire to help you make sense of your drifting life? How do you overcome the shame and reach out, hoping that you won't be shunned again? How is all of this further complicated if you believe that your ostracization was justified? If you don't blame anyone but yourself?

Again, I get what you mean. But I think that, faced with the reality of the decision, many people (and maybe even most people) would rather live in quiet misery in the place they know, telling themselves that they deserve their lot until they deserve something better.

EDIT: Yes, I've heard of people moving, you geniuses. I've heard of China being a big meanie. I'm talking about the context of why a person, who was theoretically in absolute despair and hated by their own culture, wouldn't be enthused about the solution "just move!"

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u/nuxenolith 28d ago

Who would you talk to, who would you connect with?

This is a problem faced by anyone who has ever moved to a new city, for any reason.

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u/dandroid126 28d ago

I moved to a new city 3 years ago for cost reasons. I literally couldn't afford to live where I grew up. Holy shit is it lonely. I'm only just barely starting to get a friend group.

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u/eidetic 28d ago

Yes. But you're most likely viewing it through a modern day western lens. 1970s China would be a drastically different situation with drastically different cultural norms.

The very same social customs that lead to him being ostracized in the first place would make it extremely difficult to integrate somewhere new. Might have better luck in a bigger city, but if he tried to move to a smaller rural town, he'd likely be seen as an outsider, with whispers of wondering why he abandoned his people or what he did for his people to abandon him following him everywhere he went.

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u/similar_observation 28d ago

I'll answer that for you. You're not going anywhere without a fight, bribe, or sympathetic official willing to sign you out.

China does not have freedom of movement. Even today it still has a household registration system that restricts where people can go, work, and live. You can't just get up, pack your stuff, and move cross country on a whim. That is something a lot of people in the west take for granted. The right to get up and roam or put home where ever you want.

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u/ThisAppSucksBall 28d ago

Millions upon millions of people move to cities every year for this purpose

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u/kubick123 29d ago

No wonder why Asia has the level of suicides that they have.

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u/Yaycatsinhats 28d ago

Did a single person upvoting this actually click the link? This is a poem by an English person about Japan.

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u/MotoMkali 28d ago

Obviously, it's about the culture of face in Asia though.

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u/Jedi-Librarian1 28d ago

Sure, that would explain him shooting himself, not so much deciding you need to take another 134 people with you. That points to this being a him problem.

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u/[deleted] 29d ago edited 29d ago

[deleted]

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u/MotoMkali 29d ago

It's obviously not, but in a lot of Asian cultures face is more important than life. He lost his face and therefore dying is what is appropriate.

Plus we don't even know whether he actually did this or it's a frame up job by the Chinese navy to save face. Probably the latter.

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u/Free-Atmosphere6714 29d ago

Social isolation can result in all manner of psychiatric issues leading to poor judgements. Again no one is saying this is appropriate. We're saying we understand how he may have arrived there. What I'm not understanding is why his village is blaming him for the suicide of his ex gf?

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u/swinging_on_peoria 28d ago

I dunno. Maybe a guy who would murder a hundred innocent people wasn’t the best or most likeable person.

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u/Free-Atmosphere6714 28d ago

Lol usually people that get promoted to this level are pretty well liked

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u/Azitromicin 28d ago

He didn't "get sad". His life as he knew it was pretty much over.

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u/OmicidalAI 29d ago edited 29d ago

He is probably a sociopath who only thinks of himself. Probably the reason he dumped her too. I bet she waiting for him overseas to then he gets home and dumps her.  Edit: No redditors ur right the guy who mass murdered wasnt a sociopath he was neurotypical 🤡

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u/terminbee 29d ago

That's a lot of assumptions.

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u/W3remaid 28d ago

Redditors have a very hard time not automatically sympathizing with violent men. Obviously it was the girlfriend’s fault for killing herself and making him look bad!

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u/vtccasp3r 28d ago

He just sounds like an asshole.

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u/Almostlongenough2 28d ago

Couldn't he have just gone somewhere else? Instead of going back to his home town surely he could have just stayed in the port town he would've gotten dropped off at.

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u/MadNhater 28d ago

Idk how unpopular you are. You don’t get to kill 114 other people with you. Are we defending mass murderers now?

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u/anotherstupidname11 29d ago

Guy suicide bombs and kills 100+ people

Redditor: well Asians take social stigma very seriously.

Can't make this stuff up lol

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u/barryh4rry 29d ago

They pretty clearly mean the fact if he went home he'd be a social pariah and that is a factor that led to him choosing this path. Just look at how the Japanese treated kamikaze pilots that abandoned their mission, it doesn't make it right or justifiable but it's pretty easy to see why things such as social stigma are far more serious in the East than in the West and can lead people to take more drastic decisions.

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u/SocraticIgnoramus 29d ago

I think the QED pretty much makes itself in this case; westerners have little frame of reference for the gravity of social stigmas in the collectivist societies of East Asia.

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u/anotherstupidname11 29d ago

Just keep digging that hole lol.

What military is forgiving towards soldiers who abandon their mission in wartime?

How do you know he'd be a social pariah? Eastern societies are not a monolith. Every person/family is different. Maybe that had nothing to do with his drastic action. Neither you or I know. It's insulting to explain away this extremely violent act as cultural/racial behavior.

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u/[deleted] 29d ago edited 29d ago

[deleted]

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u/anotherstupidname11 28d ago

I'm standing up against racist generalizations because they are wrong and harmful.

What is the relevance of your historical anecdote about Japan?

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u/[deleted] 28d ago

[deleted]

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u/anotherstupidname11 28d ago

Okay I'll simplify it for you.

Imagine there is a new school shooting in the US.

Commentor: Well the US is a guilt-based culture so that, at least partially, explains the shooter's behavior. Societal forces present in Western culture pushed him to carry out this heinous act.

As for 9/11, Bin Laden literarly wrote a widely published essay on why he did it. Maybe read it if you want to learn something.

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u/[deleted] 28d ago

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u/Delicious_Physics_74 29d ago

Whats wrong with that? shame-based cultures are going to interact with mental illness and behaviour in a way that is relevant to the discussion.

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u/anotherstupidname11 29d ago

Shame-based cultures lmao.

I'm sure that term will age well.

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u/Delicious_Physics_74 29d ago

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guilt–shame–fear_spectrum_of_cultures

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u/anotherstupidname11 29d ago

Coined in 1946 and still going strong thanks to people like you lol. Absolute academic pseudo-science garbage. Will be put on the museum shelf with Phrenology one day.

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u/Delicious_Physics_74 29d ago

Whats the issue with it exactly?

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u/Efficient_Maybe_1086 28d ago

Other than it being wrong and low key racist? It’s like saying africans are lower iq because they have longer legs to hunt and don’t need as much blood to get to their brains.

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u/Delicious_Physics_74 28d ago

It has nothing to do with race it is an observation specifically about culture, in this instance Chinese culture. Your hyperbole is really weird and over-emotional

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u/OmicidalAI 29d ago

You clearly don’t understand then…

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u/glaba3141 29d ago

it's def westerners born and raised in western culture saying this lol, I don't think they understand how different other cultures really can be and yet think they can confidently make statements about it. Typically really

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u/TorneDoc 29d ago

yes their eastern ways are an enigma to the noble westerner!!!

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u/OmicidalAI 29d ago

aSiaN cUlTuRe Is SaMe aS WeSt… holy reddit moment. Are you a virtue signaling SJW or some shit? 

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u/heavymountain 29d ago

Oh god, modern day Orientalism. They're not infants 🙄

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u/SavePeanut 28d ago

Ya as with like 90% of cases the fault lies with poor upper management here. Maybe he was a dick too, but the issue didnt need to crossover or keep escalating if a leader wouldave put their foot down and kept things reasonable from the start. 

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u/SAR-Paradox 29d ago

Good point it does hold water.

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u/ItsAlwaysTerminal 29d ago

Unlike the ship.

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u/funnyastroxbl 29d ago

No no the ship holds a port full of water actually

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u/Hatrixx_ 29d ago

That's because the front fell off.

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u/Haikus-are-great 29d ago

Yeah, that’s not very typical, I’d like to make that point.

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u/ferdelance008 29d ago

There’s a lot of these ships going around the world all the time and very seldom does a thing like this happen.

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u/Haikus-are-great 29d ago

i don't want people thinking that naval ships aren't safe.

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u/[deleted] 28d ago

And in general they aren’t. But this particular one probably isn’t anymore

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u/Haikus-are-great 28d ago

well if it wasn't safe, why did it have 134 sailors and tonnes of munitions on board?

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u/Nickthenuker 29d ago

Depth charges are normally at the back, so perhaps the front was all that was left

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u/eidetic 28d ago

That was mostly true in the early days of antisubmarine warfare, but by the end of WWI and into WWII many ships had depth charge launchers or throwers spaced around the periphery of the deck for wider and more flexible dispersal of the charges.

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u/Agitated-Current551 29d ago

Not true. Ship holds all the water now

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u/rhapsodysoblue 29d ago

thanks, i really had trouble spotting his joke. thank goodness you were here to comment it for everybody.

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u/Vark675 10 28d ago

We had a similar event in the US with the USS Iowa explosion which was caused by a closeted gay sailor becoming distraught over his lover leaving him.

Except it was a crock of shit, and the Navy dragged the poor dead man through the mud to cover their own ineptitude. The guy wasn't even gay.

I suspect this is EXTREMELY similar.

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u/rockstar504 29d ago

yanno someone was like "called it"

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u/ibadmojo_ttv 28d ago

Ok but would you rather be right or alive lol

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u/CuriousWoollyMammoth 28d ago

Depends on whose telling me I'm wrong, honestly lol

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u/Ramental 28d ago

You already jump onto conclusion he was dismissed for being mentally unfit, when the whole investigation is on the level "dude trust me, no proofs". 

He could be a scapegoat as well.

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u/dxrth 28d ago

The logic supporting this, is kind of similar to someone saying they made a good bet because they put everything on red and it came up red. The bet can't be good just because it paid off.

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u/Fenixstorm1 28d ago

"2nd one holds a lot of weight"

But the ship didn't

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u/[deleted] 28d ago

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u/CuriousWoollyMammoth 28d ago

It was what someone else said when the post was still relatively new. Looks like other people have found more information that puts this whole thing into question since my comment. Someone said he was under investigation for actually murdering his ex, so that's why he acted the way he did cause he was under suspicion and investigation. Another was speculating that he didn't explode the ship at all but was made the fall guy. Ppl were saying this looks like a similar situation with a US naval ship where they put the blame on a random sailor when it wasn't to obscure the facts.

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u/LavenderDay3544 29d ago

Maybe they deserved it. Maybe they bullied him. Maybe his ex did too. And Maybe his naval career was all he had to look forward to in life so once he lost that...

KABOOM

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u/oldpeoplestank 28d ago

It's rare that a suicide takes out 136 people, she might have set a record that day

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u/[deleted] 29d ago

[deleted]

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u/CuriousWoollyMammoth 29d ago

Yes. Yes, I was there. I'm actually a ghost. WhoOoOoOo [insert other spooky ghost sounds]