Pradyu Prasad - Imperial Japan, the God Emperor, and Militarization in the Modern World

ℹ️ EPISODE INFO

Released

April 27, 2022

Duration

1h 40m

Channel

Dwarkesh Podcast

Watch on YouTube

▶ Open ↗

📝 EPISODE DESCRIPTION

Today I talk to Pradyu Prasad (blogger and podcaster) about the book "Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan" by Herbert P. Bix. We also discuss militarization, industrial capacity, current events, and blogging. Episode website + Transcript: https://www.dwarkeshpatel.com/p/pradyu-prasad Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3KxwZaO Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3KGplej Follow me on Twitter to be notified of future content: https://twitter.com/dwarkesh_sp Get the Book: https://www.amazon.com/Hirohito-Making-Modern-Japan-Herbert/dp/0060931302 Follow Pradyu's Blog: https://brettongoods.substack.com/ Follow Pradyu on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PradyuPrasad TIMESTAMPS: Intro 0:00:00 Pradyu 0:00:42 Hirohito and Introduction to the Book 0:02:42 Meiji Restoration and Japan's Rapd Industrialization 0:06:22 Industrialization and Traditional Military Norms 0:11:54 Alternate Causes for Japanese Atrocities 0:15:33 Richard Hanania's Public Choice Theory in Imperial Japan 0:17:46 Hirohito's Relationship with the Military 0:22:17 Rant on Japanese Strategy 0:25:16 Modern Parallel to Russia/Ukraine 0:33:53 Economics of War and Western War Capacity 0:39:05 Elements of Effective Occupation 0:48:57 Ideological Fervor in WW2 Japan 0:56:36 Cynicism on Elites 1:00:08 The Legend of Godlike Hirohito 1:01:12 Postwar Japanese Economy 1:07:30 Blogging and Podcasting 1:14:06 Spooky 1:21:48 Outro 1:39:15

🎤 SPEAKERS

• Pradyumna (Pradyu) Prasad

  guest

• Dwarkesh Patel

  host

• Narrator

  other

🧾 EPISODE SUMMARY

In this episode of Dwarkesh Podcast, featuring Pradyumna (Pradyu) Prasad and Dwarkesh Patel, Pradyu Prasad - Imperial Japan, the God Emperor, and Militarization in the Modern World explores hirohito, public choice, and lessons from Japan’s militarized rise Dwarkesh Patel and Pradyumna Prasad discuss Herbert Bix’s biography *Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan*, arguing that Emperor Hirohito was far from a powerless figurehead and bears significant responsibility for Japan’s wartime conduct. They use public choice theory to explain how Japan’s army captured the state, manufactured crises in China, and dragged the country into catastrophic war despite structural disadvantages against the U.S. and USSR.

🔗 RELATED EPISODES

Machiavelli is the most misunderstood thinker of all time – Ada Palmer

The better AI gets, the smaller its share of the economy might get – Alex Imas and Phil Trammell

What rebuilding AlphaGo teaches us about self-play, RL, and future of LLMs - Eric Jang

How GPT, Claude, and Gemini are actually trained and served – Reiner Pope

Jensen Huang – Will Nvidia’s moat persist?

Terence Tao – How the world’s top mathematician uses AI