Elon Musk on prisoners of war in WWII | Lex Fridman Podcast Clips

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GUEST BIO:
Elon Musk is CEO of X, xAI, SpaceX, Tesla, Neuralink, and The Boring Company.

PODCAST INFO:

SOCIAL:

[LexClips]

Guest bio: Elon Musk is CEO of X, xAI, SpaceX, Tesla, Neuralink, and The Boring Company.

[dferguson]

My mom was part of an interrogation team in a Texas WW2 POW camp (yeah yeah… and she was good looking). At various times it held Italian, German, and Japanese prisoners. Mostly German. The POW camp's motto was "kill 'em with kindness". That said, they separated hard core Nazis from the general population and sent them to a special POW camp. Also, the Japanese had not signed the Geneva convention and even though the US tried to treat the Japanese accordingly, the reverse was not true. My dad was a sailor who fought in several Pacific battles and he was always amazed they had any Japanese POWs at all.

[mysteriousdude]

After what USSR had endured at the invasion of Nazi Germany, it would've been more surprising if russian forces didn't retaliate with extreme violence against the germans

[daninsf]

Very thoughtful commentary here. Conspicuous acts of kindness… words for us all to live by.

[BenjaminWilson-le]

The POW example isn’t entirely consistent as some country’s treat POWs from certain places better than from others, like nazi germany who treated western POWs much better than eastern european POWs

[mustang]

There will always be violence. How individuals should best assess and act, to other individuals causing violence, is the real question.

[Quick-n-eg쿠이크앤이지]

I am an American, proud to be one. I am worried about the state it is in. Let China think it is one china, why get involved in so many places. The US is spreading itself too thin.

[Schmitty]

I think the jury is still out on China being the force we all expected this century. If they work around their current and imminent problems, then sure - and out of anyone I would bet on them to do it where others would fail. But, it is going to be hard, and from what I'm hearing I'm not sure they'll be able to right the boat.

[virginianative]

Lex never fails to talk about WW2 with everyone

[johns]

Read enemy at the gate, the Red Army pushed through massacred empty villages, then entered Greater Germany, with well fed families and pristine houses. Their thirst for vengency exploded. That German still exist says something...

[peachyt]

I don't have it in front of me, so figures are not exact (but close):

96% of POWs held by Nazis survived.
Only ~ 60% of POWs held by the Japanese survived. Unfathomable.

My grandpa was captured in Germany and was a POW for 22 months right up to VE, his "home" the infamous Stalag 17. He only weighed 90 lbs when he got out, but he survived.

The Nazis were awful sub-humans, but...I'm grateful he wasn't deployed to the Pacific theater.

[andrewareva]

Listen to hardcore history's episode on the eastern front. Musk misses the fact that most of the fighting and atrocities were in the east with Germans initially killing civilians, destroying property and assaulting women. Then the Soviets returned the favor. Surrendering to the Soviets meant taking the risk of being unalived or worse.

[hamzamustafa]

you forgot what the germans did to the russian/soviet POW's when the soviet's were losing. german POW's harsh treatment later on was soviet's vengence and germans knew that, that is why they wanted to surrender to britain/americans because their POW's were not treated in the same way. Though soviets were more brutal coz of stalin.

[Mr.Paticles]

pretty sure if soldiers killed every single living thing in an occupied territory and they began to lose, every single one of those soldiers would prefer to be captured by a distant country relatively untouched by the war.

The Germans killed not only Jews but every Slavic person they could find. Of course they would be terrified to be captured by the Soviets.

The Americans were terrified with the idea that if they leave Western Europe as they were after the war. The Soviets will then just march across the border and reach the Atlantic the same idea was used to justify the rebuilding of Japan.

If the US of A was so benevolent as such they could have prevented the Vietnam War by just supporting Ho Chi Minh's bid to establish a Democratic Capitalist State rather than helping the French hold Indochina.

Or Extended rebuilding to the Philippines, Manila of which is one of the most devastated cities during the war comparable only to Berlin and Warsaw, of which most of the bombings came from the Americans.

They should have condemned Churchill's decision for letting Millions of Bengalis to death just so that the British Public can be fed well.

Their track record in the West may be Great but not in the wider context of world history.

[Dailyvideodrop]

Except that Taiwan has never been ruled by China. Should the US take over Cuba

[AndrewBleasdale-qg]

I'm surprised Elon thinks Taiwan should be apart of CCP. My history is a bit rusty, but it is my understanding that Taiwan is actually the last remanence of the legitimate Chinese government (the Republic of China) during the Chinese Civil War, and to them, the CCP is a occupying force of the bulk of the Chinese mainland.

[devin]

The thumbnail is German soldiers in 1918 from the German empire in WW1, not WW2.

[kwspgqd]

0:46 "USA helped rebuild Japan" Wtf?

[rklkify]

Gonna have to disagree. Treaty of versailles wasn't harsh enough, and the Allies where to cowardly to keep germany de-industralised and disarmed which emboldened the Germans to prep for WW2. I recommend TIKhistory's video on how german reparations where he suggests that infact, Germany recieved more money in loans than it paid in reparations.

[thebrierpatch]

Eight comments, two showing? "Same as it ever was, same as it ever was, same as it ever was, same as it ever was."