Frankly I think the way forward isn't to have less war. It's to develop defensive technology so good that war itself is pretty pointless and/or casualty-less.
We've already done this. The only effect is that we never get to fight any wars, and the people fighting us make damn certain that the only fighting that occurs is horrible diffuse civilian campaigns of low-tech attrition in settings where the technology doesn't apply.
Frankly I think the way forward isn't to have less war. It's to develop defensive technology so good that war itself is pretty pointless and/or casualty-less.
We've already done this. The only effect is that we never get to fight any wars, and the people fighting us make damn certain that the only fighting that occurs is horrible diffuse civilian campaigns of low-tech attrition in settings where the technology doesn't apply.
Frankly I think the way forward isn't to have less war. It's to develop defensive technology so good that war itself is pretty pointless and/or casualty-less.
Superior defensive tech alone doesn't prevent wars, it just leads to long, drawn out conflicts like the first World War.
For something to be illegal, there'd need to be a law. For there to be a law, there'd need to be enforcement. There's no one to enforce this. Yet. Give the Zionist Regime more time.
Frankly I think the way forward isn't to have less war. It's to develop defensive technology so good that war itself is pretty pointless and/or casualty-less.
Superior defensive tech alone doesn't prevent wars, it just leads to long, drawn out conflicts like the first World War.
WW1 was characterized by a defensive technology that was still dependant on physically destroying your enemy (machine gun) vs one which your enemy simply could not breach, but did not require destroying them - like a really high wall.
Frankly I think the way forward isn't to have less war. It's to develop defensive technology so good that war itself is pretty pointless and/or casualty-less.
Superior defensive tech alone doesn't prevent wars, it just leads to long, drawn out conflicts like the first World War.
WW1 was characterized by a defensive technology that was still dependant on physically destroying your enemy (machine gun) vs one which your enemy simply could not breach, but did not require destroying them - like a really high wall.
It's actually something I almost made a thread about yesterday afternoon; With the way that combat has traditionally fluctuated between Manoeuver and Attrition warfare, I was wondering where we are going to have to be technologically before we go back to massed formations and attrition tactics.
Knuckle Dragger on
Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion.
Unfortunately this pretty much requires us to have forcefields we can erect anywhere, around anything, and I'm pretty sure we'd eventually figure out how to get through them anyway.
So uh
Just curious, is there actually any candidate technology in the entire world which could eventually lead with development to forcefields or anything that acts like them
Unfortunately this pretty much requires us to have forcefields we can erect anywhere, around anything, and I'm pretty sure we'd eventually figure out how to get through them anyway.
So uh
Just curious, is there actually any candidate technology in the entire world which could eventually lead with development to forcefields or anything that acts like them
Unfortunately this pretty much requires us to have forcefields we can erect anywhere, around anything, and I'm pretty sure we'd eventually figure out how to get through them anyway.
So uh
Just curious, is there actually any candidate technology in the entire world which could eventually lead with development to forcefields or anything that acts like them
Concrete?
You know there was actually a big shortage of concrete in Iraq at the beginning of this year, to the point there was not much available for construction, because our strategy for securing large parts of baghdad was to just throw up big concrete walls everywhere to absorb the blasts of car bombs and whatnot
Unfortunately this pretty much requires us to have forcefields we can erect anywhere, around anything, and I'm pretty sure we'd eventually figure out how to get through them anyway.
So uh
Just curious, is there actually any candidate technology in the entire world which could eventually lead with development to forcefields or anything that acts like them
Hershcovitch likens the plasma window to the “force field window†in the shuttle bay area of the Starship Enterprise in Star Trek. The “force field†separates atmospheric pressure in the Enterprise from the vacuum in outer space. In the plasma window, hot ionized gas particles are trapped by electric and magnetic fields. The particles, like any gas, exert pressure, which prevents air from rushing into the vacuum chamber housing the electron gun.
The plasma window is about 40 times as hot as the air at room temperature. This intense heat makes the ionized atoms and molecules move around faster and collide more often with air molecules, thus stopping most of them when they try to cross the plasma window. The electron beams can still pass through it unharmed, making it a viable non-vacuum electron-beam welding device.
Knuckle Dragger on
Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion.
Unfortunately this pretty much requires us to have forcefields we can erect anywhere, around anything, and I'm pretty sure we'd eventually figure out how to get through them anyway.
So uh
Just curious, is there actually any candidate technology in the entire world which could eventually lead with development to forcefields or anything that acts like them
Hershcovitch likens the plasma window to the “force field window†in the shuttle bay area of the Starship Enterprise in Star Trek. The “force field†separates atmospheric pressure in the Enterprise from the vacuum in outer space. In the plasma window, hot ionized gas particles are trapped by electric and magnetic fields. The particles, like any gas, exert pressure, which prevents air from rushing into the vacuum chamber housing the electron gun.
The plasma window is about 40 times as hot as the air at room temperature. This intense heat makes the ionized atoms and molecules move around faster and collide more often with air molecules, thus stopping most of them when they try to cross the plasma window. The electron beams can still pass through it unharmed, making it a viable non-vacuum electron-beam welding device.
That's... extremely interesting. Of course since that's like... what, twenty thousand degrees? I guess no humans are going to be touching that, but in a military setting I guess that's the point.
Is the size of the window, like, inches, or could they set one up the size of a conventional wall? And considering how hot the plasma is, does it leak heat?
Why are those the only two options? At present war is illegal except for in self-defence, or for collective defence. (ie, the first Iraq war, when the US was attacking Iraq not to defend itself, but to defend Kuwait.)
This is an example of ElJeffe's "War is legal only when there's a really good reason, with "really good reason" defined however you please." option.
The guy with the bigger guns can always say ANYTHING HE WANTS was self-defense, even after it's been conclusively demonstrated it wasn't.
Hell, didn't Hitler claim at the time that the invasion of Poland was self-defense?
Well, here's the point; America can say that they attacked Grenada (say) in self defence. But in a circumstance where reason, rather than violence, were the arbiter of what is true and what is not, this argument would fail completely. In the present moment, in the world of international affairs, violence comes first and reason is a distant second. But in the long run, I think the pattern is that more and more things that were once determined by violence come to be determined by reason.
Unfortunately this pretty much requires us to have forcefields we can erect anywhere, around anything, and I'm pretty sure we'd eventually figure out how to get through them anyway.
So uh
Just curious, is there actually any candidate technology in the entire world which could eventually lead with development to forcefields or anything that acts like them
To my knowledge no. Obviously you'd want to do something with anti-gravity I guess, but what that'd look like I have no idea since AG is basically "it would be really cool....but if I think I've got it, then I probably fucked up"
That said I want to screw around with magnets more often so I can imagine what a really big, really power hungry and impractical magnetic shield that would stop bullets would be like. For no practical reason whatsoever.
I'd like to point out that during thousands of years of human history, the greatest technological and scientific breakthroughs have been made during wars.
Without war, human beings stagnate in comfort and affluence and lose the capacity for great thoughts and feelings, they become cynical and subside into barbarism.
I'm of the opinion that war is inevitable and permanent world peace is a noble but impossible ideal. As long as there is more than one person on this planet, there will be conflict, and sometimes that conflict will turn into war. As Robert Green argues in his book 33 Strategies of War, it's through conflict that real problems are solved and real differences are reconciled.
It's not whether or not we resort to war to solve our problems that matters, but rather how we wage that war.
No problems are solved through war, how can you kill off a thought, or an ideal, that you can't match with your tounge?
As for the most important inventions being made during war i don't know, i would say they have been made during hardships, but not necessarily war, fire, was it invented during war? Probably not, not was probably the wheel.
As for what Dostoyevsky said, i am just curius what he would say about us here in Sweden, we have not been in war for about 200 years, are we all sloths?
There has been alot of romantizising about war during the ages, before WW1 war was something noble, praised, afterwards people realised that well, war is just people trying to kill other people.
War should be avoided as much as possible, and i have no doubt that it is possible to avoid it. By accepted that it is inevtivable, it will also be so.
fjafjan on
Yepp, THE Fjafjan (who's THE fjafjan?)
- "Proving once again the deadliest animal of all ... is the Zoo Keeper" - Philip J Fry
No problems are solved through war, how can you kill off a thought, or an ideal, that you can't match with your tounge?
False. Hitler was solved through war (ahhh Godwin!) and it's not like we didn't make efforts to do it other ways. Your statement sounds pretty but does not address the real world limitations of various kinds of war which do involve what you can and can't destroy/seize control of, versus the fact that war is very good at solving direct issues - "I want your stuff."
As for the most important inventions being made during war i don't know, i would say they have been made during hardships, but not necessarily war, fire, was it invented during war? Probably not, not was probably the wheel.
This is a retarded argument, because both these things also did not exist at the time that nation-states or the concept thereof did. Or you know, really any kind of specialization.
As for what Dostoyevsky said, i am just curius what he would say about us here in Sweden, we have not been in war for about 200 years, are we all sloths?
You stayed neutral and got fat of Nazi gold if I recall correctly however. Don't pretend you didn't barter your way out of at least one of them.
There has been alot of romantizising about war during the ages, before WW1 war was something noble, praised, afterwards people realised that well, war is just people trying to kill other people.
War should be avoided as much as possible, and i have no doubt that it is possible to avoid it. By accepted that it is inevtivable, it will also be so.
It is inevitable if someone decides they want your stuff, but you want your stuff, and you can't talk them out of it. We gain nothing from assuming war is not coming except to make it more likely that when someone with the resolve to do it comes along there is no counter-force to meet theres.
As for the most important inventions being made during war i don't know, i would say they have been made during hardships, but not necessarily war, fire, was it invented during war? Probably not, not was probably the wheel.
Humankind has evolved in terms of technology considerably during both world wars.
Aside from that, science and technology really kick off during wartime because there is nothing like a quest for survival and victory that stimulates us. The human mind is capable of incredible things when it is desperate and under pressure. We not only try to come up with new ideas to prevail over our adversaries, we try to make the existing ideas more effective and efficient.
And I'm sure the people starving to death really care about moon landings
Hitler was only a manifistation of a problem, namely the problem of A the poverty of germany, B the ideal of Nazism and hate of Jews.
That's like saying killing osama bin laden will end the war on terror, you can kill a terrorist but you can't fucking Bomb away the hatred for america in the middle east (and all the other underlying factors of terrorism)
War can be necessary to solve these manifistations, but you can't have a war on poverty, or on segregation (unless you want to bomb all hte poor people, or the ghettos)
I think inventions come from hardships, and war being the main one, that is when we invent most. Does that mean it is 'good'?
And yeah, it is inevitable in "omg this scenario", yet if you don't fuck up people won't just go in and take your shit. Now atm, there are still scenarios where was is inevitable, but i'd say war is a far too popular solution, rather than trying to solve the underlying problems of a war.
fjafjan on
Yepp, THE Fjafjan (who's THE fjafjan?)
- "Proving once again the deadliest animal of all ... is the Zoo Keeper" - Philip J Fry
Hindsight is 20/20 and all that. Hitler was not the obvious result of bankrupting Germany. Because seriously, who the fuck expected that a nation recovering from a major war and paying bitter reparations would rebuild into an economic powerhouse and fight another war in a decade(?)
The rest of what you wrote is just absurd. It's pretty fucking obvious we're being symbolic by declaring we're having a war on poverty.
And I'm sure the people starving to death really care about moon landings
YES. BECAUSE WE MUST SOLVE ALL OF HUMANITIES PROBLEMS ONE AT A TIME, IN ORDER OF IMPORTANCE.
electricitylikesme on
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AthenorBattle Hardened OptimistThe Skies of HiigaraRegistered Userregular
edited November 2006
Not to mention the moon race and its spinoff technologies have done fucking wonders for the state of agriculture in the world. Even natural, non-enhanced and non selective breeding agriculture has learned new methods of preperation, cultivation, and efficiency. All because part of the space race was figuring out how to grow plants in space, which thus led us to a greater understanding of how crops work.
Do you also enjoy the poetry of Rupert Brooks? You're endorsing war as not only inevitable but actually a good thing. Are you/have you been a soldier in military conflict? I haven't, so if you have, then I'll have to take your word for the awesomeness of war's 'stimulation.' If you aren't or haven't been, go enlist, now please.
Electricitylikesme, you're right--very few people would have expected that. I think we tend to expect it now, though... but I'm not really advocating total disarmament in favor of humanitarian aid programs. It's fair to call work towards a situation where nobody needs to want my stuff idealism, because it's impractical, but also because it would be ideal. This "war is the force that makes us stronger" is also idealism, and I find this ideal completely abhorrent.
It's like it's okay to purchase technological advancement with human blood. BOGGLE
AthenorBattle Hardened OptimistThe Skies of HiigaraRegistered Userregular
edited November 2006
I don't think anyone is arguing that War is a good thing. I think he's saying that the upswing in innovation and survival mechanics caused by war is a good thing, which is different. Remember, the Cold War wasn't technically a war, but it still spurred on untold human innovation.
Electricitylikesme, you're right--very few people would have expected that. I think we tend to expect it now, though... but I'm not really advocating total disarmament in favor of humanitarian aid programs. It's fair to call work towards a situation where nobody needs to want my stuff idealism, because it's impractical, but also because it would be ideal.This "war is the force that makes us stronger" is also idealism, and I find this ideal completely abhorrent.
This is quite retarded, I agree, at least in a vacuum. However it is also true, it's just not the sole thing that is true - war is only good at driving the development of certain types of technologies, and it's only been good at it historically - today may be a different case. However, it is certainly true that the preparation for some future potential conflict does drive a lot of innovation - the US has internalized this to some degree in that it feels it must always be the very best in the world in order to win every possible future conflict. I see this as somewhat constructive provided it isn't coupled to an incentive to exercise it's military - whether it is, I couldn't say.
What really irritates me though is any time someone derides a form of technological development with "but people are starving". It's short sighted, ignores the myriad of factors contributing to that, of which, most are in fact related to armed conflicts in Africa. It also ignores the fact that science doesn't start by saying "let's do X" since that doesn't help you in anyway actually work out how you might do X, which in this case is solving some complicated nuanced problem.
I'd like to point out that during thousands of years of human history, the greatest technological and scientific breakthroughs have been made during wars.
Without war, human beings stagnate in comfort and affluence and lose the capacity for great thoughts and feelings, they become cynical and subside into barbarism.
I'm pretty sure the argument is that we are better off with war than without it.
I will agree that war has and can and probably will drive technological innovation, sure, and that this is a positive side of war, sure. It's this next step that's causing me trouble.
Unfortunately this pretty much requires us to have forcefields we can erect anywhere, around anything, and I'm pretty sure we'd eventually figure out how to get through them anyway.
So uh
Just curious, is there actually any candidate technology in the entire world which could eventually lead with development to forcefields or anything that acts like them
Hershcovitch likens the plasma window to the “force field window†in the shuttle bay area of the Starship Enterprise in Star Trek. The “force field†separates atmospheric pressure in the Enterprise from the vacuum in outer space. In the plasma window, hot ionized gas particles are trapped by electric and magnetic fields. The particles, like any gas, exert pressure, which prevents air from rushing into the vacuum chamber housing the electron gun.
The plasma window is about 40 times as hot as the air at room temperature. This intense heat makes the ionized atoms and molecules move around faster and collide more often with air molecules, thus stopping most of them when they try to cross the plasma window. The electron beams can still pass through it unharmed, making it a viable non-vacuum electron-beam welding device.
That's... extremely interesting. Of course since that's like... what, twenty thousand degrees? I guess no humans are going to be touching that, but in a military setting I guess that's the point.
Isn't that what peltiers are for?. Seriously, I am not sure how the heat transfer on it works. It would take a great deal more energy and heat to stop or flash vaporize solid matter than to create a gas barrier, so maybe they could layer a gas barrier with the other barrier to slow down heat transfer, but that would only mitigate, not solce the problem.
Is the size of the window, like, inches, or could they set one up the size of a conventional wall? And considering how hot the plasma is, does it leak heat?
Electricity could probably understand and explain it better than I, but from what I read, the size is only limited by the magnetic field used to contain te window, which I think is limited by the amount of power invovled.
Knuckle Dragger on
Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion.
Do you also enjoy the poetry of Rupert Brooks? You're endorsing war as not only inevitable but actually a good thing.Are you/have you been a soldier in military conflict? I haven't, so if you have, then I'll have to take your word for the awesomeness of war's 'stimulation.' If you aren't or haven't been, go enlist, now please.
It's like it's okay to purchase technological advancement with human blood. BOGGLE
Oh please, spare me your bullshit strawmen and appeals to emotion. I never said war is a good thing. I said war is inevitable, and it has certain benefits, like driving humankind forward, that people tend to ignore because it's oh so barbaric.
I won't even get into the whole "go enlist now" nonsense.
I'd like to point out that during thousands of years of human history, the greatest technological and scientific breakthroughs have been made during wars.
Without war, human beings stagnate in comfort and affluence and lose the capacity for great thoughts and feelings, they become cynical and subside into barbarism.
I'm pretty sure the argument is that we are better off with war than without it.
I will agree that war has and can and probably will drive technological innovation, sure, and that this is a positive side of war, sure. It's this next step that's causing me trouble.
My argument is that war is inevitable because conflict is a fundamental part of human nature, and therefore we need to find a way to wage war in a way so that casualties and damage are minimized, rather than act on impossible ideals to prevent it entirely. This is a purely realist approach, versus you guys' idealist approach.
If you aren't arguing that we're better off with war than without, I'm much less shocked and appalled. Your Dostoyevsky quote is definitely arguing that, hence my confusion.
That aside, how do you get from "conflict is a fundamental part of human nature" to "war is inevitable"? Conflict can be resolved without violence, and certainly without killing. I agree that in the situation specified in the Pacifist Fallacy, war is inevitable--but I see no reason to insist that a future where people can negotiate peacefully is impossible, only far distant. It might just be that I'm not a 'realist,' but it feels like this is just an outgrowth of the notion that some ideas aren't open to discussion.
Anyhow, minimizing causualties and damage is a good idea, and I support things like the Geneva Convention. You really run into the same problem as when you outlaw war, though. Witness Mr. Bush and torture, or continued nuclear proliferation.
Unfortunately this pretty much requires us to have forcefields we can erect anywhere, around anything, and I'm pretty sure we'd eventually figure out how to get through them anyway.
So uh
Just curious, is there actually any candidate technology in the entire world which could eventually lead with development to forcefields or anything that acts like them
Hershcovitch likens the plasma window to the “force field window†in the shuttle bay area of the Starship Enterprise in Star Trek. The “force field†separates atmospheric pressure in the Enterprise from the vacuum in outer space. In the plasma window, hot ionized gas particles are trapped by electric and magnetic fields. The particles, like any gas, exert pressure, which prevents air from rushing into the vacuum chamber housing the electron gun.
The plasma window is about 40 times as hot as the air at room temperature. This intense heat makes the ionized atoms and molecules move around faster and collide more often with air molecules, thus stopping most of them when they try to cross the plasma window. The electron beams can still pass through it unharmed, making it a viable non-vacuum electron-beam welding device.
That's... extremely interesting. Of course since that's like... what, twenty thousand degrees? I guess no humans are going to be touching that, but in a military setting I guess that's the point.
Isn't that what peltiers are for?. Seriously, I am not sure how the heat transfer on it works. It would take a great deal more energy and heat to stop or flash vaporize solid matter than to create a gas barrier, so maybe they could layer a gas barrier with the other barrier to slow down heat transfer, but that would only mitigate, not solce the problem.
Is the size of the window, like, inches, or could they set one up the size of a conventional wall? And considering how hot the plasma is, does it leak heat?
Electricity could probably understand and explain it better than I, but from what I read, the size is only limited by the magnetic field used to contain te window, which I think is limited by the amount of power invovled.
I've never actually heard of that being done before but that's pretty damn neat. It sounds like what happens is they setup a pretty powerful reasonably homogenous magnetic field, and then squirt their plasma into that (shoot argon through an electric arc for example). Since the plasma is all charged and such, it'll follow the field lines rather then spreading.
I do imagine that they actually go through a fair amount of plasma however, but it's not inconceivable that the heat transfer isn't too bad since the heat is really just the kinetic energy of the plasma molecules and their only interacting along 1 surface rather then flowing out into the room.
As so many have said, war is already illegal, unless it's either:
A. In self defense, or
B. With the approval of the U.N. Security Council, made up of the world's most powerful nations, with a rotating spot for the rest.
Did that stop us from spinning the Iraq war as a war of "Self-Defense".
You know, when you go back and think about it for a second, does'nt 9/11 came at an awfully opportune time for the U.S Government to declare war? I'm not big on the conspiration theories, but when you look at it this way, that sounds like the perfect way of getting over those anti-war treaties.
Hitler was only a manifistation of a problem, namely the problem of A the poverty of germany, B the ideal of Nazism and hate of Jews.
That's like saying killing osama bin laden will end the war on terror, you can kill a terrorist but you can't fucking Bomb away the hatred for america in the middle east (and all the other underlying factors of terrorism)
War can be necessary to solve these manifistations, but you can't have a war on poverty, or on segregation (unless you want to bomb all hte poor people, or the ghettos)
Yeah, WWII didn't do anything to solve the poverty of germany, the ideal of Naziism, and the hate of the Jews.
I mean look at all the poverty, Naziism, and anti-semitism in germany right now.
Edit: Or to make it a bit more relevant, look at all the poverty, Naziism, and anti-semitism in germany in 1949 as opposed to 1939.
Hitler was only a manifistation of a problem, namely the problem of A the poverty of germany, B the ideal of Nazism and hate of Jews.
That's like saying killing osama bin laden will end the war on terror, you can kill a terrorist but you can't fucking Bomb away the hatred for america in the middle east (and all the other underlying factors of terrorism)
War can be necessary to solve these manifistations, but you can't have a war on poverty, or on segregation (unless you want to bomb all hte poor people, or the ghettos)
Yeah, WWII didn't do anything to solve the poverty of germany, the ideal of Naziism, and the hate of the Jews.
I mean look at all the poverty, Naziism, and anti-semitism in germany right now.
To be fair all of those problems that had to be "solved" by WWII can be directly traced back to WWI. Before losing WWI, Germany was one of the strongest economies in the world, and was actually the most Semitic friendly nation in Europe, often seen as a place Jews could go to escape from discrimination elsewhere (which is both tragically ironic, and disturbing as hell). I'm not sure what the "ideal of Nazi-ism" is supposed to be, so I can't speak to that specifically.
As so many have said, war is already illegal, unless it's either:
A. In self defense, or
B. With the approval of the U.N. Security Council, made up of the world's most powerful nations, with a rotating spot for the rest.
Did that stop us from spinning the Iraq war as a war of "Self-Defense".
You know, when you go back and think about it for a second, does'nt 9/11 came at an awfully opportune time for the U.S Government to declare war? I'm not big on the conspiration theories, but when you look at it this way, that sounds like the perfect way of getting over those anti-war treaties.
Just my two cents...
Every time someone mentions a 9/11 conspiracy I die a little inside. :x
As so many have said, war is already illegal, unless it's either:
A. In self defense, or
B. With the approval of the U.N. Security Council, made up of the world's most powerful nations, with a rotating spot for the rest.
Did that stop us from spinning the Iraq war as a war of "Self-Defense".
You know, when you go back and think about it for a second, does'nt 9/11 came at an awfully opportune time for the U.S Government to declare war? I'm not big on the conspiration theories, but when you look at it this way, that sounds like the perfect way of getting over those anti-war treaties.
Just my two cents...
Every time someone mentions a 9/11 conspiracy I die a little inside. :x
As so many have said, war is already illegal, unless it's either:
A. In self defense, or
B. With the approval of the U.N. Security Council, made up of the world's most powerful nations, with a rotating spot for the rest.
Did that stop us from spinning the Iraq war as a war of "Self-Defense".
You know, when you go back and think about it for a second, does'nt 9/11 came at an awfully opportune time for the U.S Government to declare war? I'm not big on the conspiration theories, but when you look at it this way, that sounds like the perfect way of getting over those anti-war treaties.
Just my two cents...
Every time someone mentions a 9/11 conspiracy I die a little inside. :x
Hitler was only a manifistation of a problem, namely the problem of A the poverty of germany, B the ideal of Nazism and hate of Jews.
That's like saying killing osama bin laden will end the war on terror, you can kill a terrorist but you can't fucking Bomb away the hatred for america in the middle east (and all the other underlying factors of terrorism)
War can be necessary to solve these manifistations, but you can't have a war on poverty, or on segregation (unless you want to bomb all hte poor people, or the ghettos)
Yeah, WWII didn't do anything to solve the poverty of germany, the ideal of Naziism, and the hate of the Jews.
I mean look at all the poverty, Naziism, and anti-semitism in germany right now.
Edit: Or to make it a bit more relevant, look at all the poverty, Naziism, and anti-semitism in germany in 1949 as opposed to 1939.
Yeah germany sure was rich after WWII, having pretty much everything bombed is great for the economy!
The war did not remove the poverty, that would have been countries sort of learning their lesson and actually aiding germany post war, so that they wouldn't end up with the same shit they did after WWI.
As for hitler being the expected result, pretty much yeah, that he would be SUCCESSFUL, not so much. Im not saying people at that time thought so, nor am i gonna go and blame them, that really serves no purpose.
Am i crazy for saying that poor regions pretty much always are violent? Poor nations tend to get dictatorships.
And ofcourse you are being symbolic in fighting a war on poverty or AIDS, i was saying that those are two (and i could name half a dozen other) serious problem, infact alot more serious problems than terrorism and "Saddam Hussein". Ofcourse a problem you can shoot in the face is alot ea
As for benefits from the space race that was in the cold war, which surprise, was not actually a war, the conflicts related to that (afghanistan, vietnam etc) had nothing to do with those beneficial technologies.
People often say that "omg war is inevtiable" but wtf, considering the shitty state of things now, and the fact that i'd say overall things are getting slowly better, I don't think we have any idea. Generally, a democratic country that is not america does not go into an offensive war. Hitler pretty much being the exception.
A country where a vast majority of people live 'decent lives', and if the goverment value that majorties opinions higher than that of a few very wealthy of influental individuals there is no incentive to go off and kill people from another country . I find that a pretty reasonable.
fjafjan on
Yepp, THE Fjafjan (who's THE fjafjan?)
- "Proving once again the deadliest animal of all ... is the Zoo Keeper" - Philip J Fry
Posts
Look at Iraq. The war was the easy part.
For something to be illegal, there'd need to be a law. For there to be a law, there'd need to be enforcement. There's no one to enforce this. Yet. Give the Zionist Regime more time.
It's actually something I almost made a thread about yesterday afternoon; With the way that combat has traditionally fluctuated between Manoeuver and Attrition warfare, I was wondering where we are going to have to be technologically before we go back to massed formations and attrition tactics.
- John Stuart Mill
Just curious, is there actually any candidate technology in the entire world which could eventually lead with development to forcefields or anything that acts like them
Concrete?
You know there was actually a big shortage of concrete in Iraq at the beginning of this year, to the point there was not much available for construction, because our strategy for securing large parts of baghdad was to just throw up big concrete walls everywhere to absorb the blasts of car bombs and whatnot
- John Stuart Mill
That's... extremely interesting. Of course since that's like... what, twenty thousand degrees? I guess no humans are going to be touching that, but in a military setting I guess that's the point.
Is the size of the window, like, inches, or could they set one up the size of a conventional wall? And considering how hot the plasma is, does it leak heat?
Well, here's the point; America can say that they attacked Grenada (say) in self defence. But in a circumstance where reason, rather than violence, were the arbiter of what is true and what is not, this argument would fail completely. In the present moment, in the world of international affairs, violence comes first and reason is a distant second. But in the long run, I think the pattern is that more and more things that were once determined by violence come to be determined by reason.
That said I want to screw around with magnets more often so I can imagine what a really big, really power hungry and impractical magnetic shield that would stop bullets would be like. For no practical reason whatsoever.
And then there is what Dostoyevsky said:
I'm of the opinion that war is inevitable and permanent world peace is a noble but impossible ideal. As long as there is more than one person on this planet, there will be conflict, and sometimes that conflict will turn into war. As Robert Green argues in his book 33 Strategies of War, it's through conflict that real problems are solved and real differences are reconciled.
It's not whether or not we resort to war to solve our problems that matters, but rather how we wage that war.
As for the most important inventions being made during war i don't know, i would say they have been made during hardships, but not necessarily war, fire, was it invented during war? Probably not, not was probably the wheel.
As for what Dostoyevsky said, i am just curius what he would say about us here in Sweden, we have not been in war for about 200 years, are we all sloths?
There has been alot of romantizising about war during the ages, before WW1 war was something noble, praised, afterwards people realised that well, war is just people trying to kill other people.
War should be avoided as much as possible, and i have no doubt that it is possible to avoid it. By accepted that it is inevtivable, it will also be so.
- "Proving once again the deadliest animal of all ... is the Zoo Keeper" - Philip J Fry
This is a retarded argument, because both these things also did not exist at the time that nation-states or the concept thereof did. Or you know, really any kind of specialization.
You stayed neutral and got fat of Nazi gold if I recall correctly however. Don't pretend you didn't barter your way out of at least one of them.
It is inevitable if someone decides they want your stuff, but you want your stuff, and you can't talk them out of it. We gain nothing from assuming war is not coming except to make it more likely that when someone with the resolve to do it comes along there is no counter-force to meet theres.
Humankind has evolved in terms of technology considerably during both world wars.
Aside from that, science and technology really kick off during wartime because there is nothing like a quest for survival and victory that stimulates us. The human mind is capable of incredible things when it is desperate and under pressure. We not only try to come up with new ideas to prevail over our adversaries, we try to make the existing ideas more effective and efficient.
Hitler was only a manifistation of a problem, namely the problem of A the poverty of germany, B the ideal of Nazism and hate of Jews.
That's like saying killing osama bin laden will end the war on terror, you can kill a terrorist but you can't fucking Bomb away the hatred for america in the middle east (and all the other underlying factors of terrorism)
War can be necessary to solve these manifistations, but you can't have a war on poverty, or on segregation (unless you want to bomb all hte poor people, or the ghettos)
I think inventions come from hardships, and war being the main one, that is when we invent most. Does that mean it is 'good'?
And yeah, it is inevitable in "omg this scenario", yet if you don't fuck up people won't just go in and take your shit. Now atm, there are still scenarios where was is inevitable, but i'd say war is a far too popular solution, rather than trying to solve the underlying problems of a war.
- "Proving once again the deadliest animal of all ... is the Zoo Keeper" - Philip J Fry
The rest of what you wrote is just absurd. It's pretty fucking obvious we're being symbolic by declaring we're having a war on poverty.
EDIT: Also:
YES. BECAUSE WE MUST SOLVE ALL OF HUMANITIES PROBLEMS ONE AT A TIME, IN ORDER OF IMPORTANCE.
good fucking grief ege
Do you also enjoy the poetry of Rupert Brooks? You're endorsing war as not only inevitable but actually a good thing. Are you/have you been a soldier in military conflict? I haven't, so if you have, then I'll have to take your word for the awesomeness of war's 'stimulation.' If you aren't or haven't been, go enlist, now please.
Electricitylikesme, you're right--very few people would have expected that. I think we tend to expect it now, though... but I'm not really advocating total disarmament in favor of humanitarian aid programs. It's fair to call work towards a situation where nobody needs to want my stuff idealism, because it's impractical, but also because it would be ideal. This "war is the force that makes us stronger" is also idealism, and I find this ideal completely abhorrent.
It's like it's okay to purchase technological advancement with human blood. BOGGLE
What really irritates me though is any time someone derides a form of technological development with "but people are starving". It's short sighted, ignores the myriad of factors contributing to that, of which, most are in fact related to armed conflicts in Africa. It also ignores the fact that science doesn't start by saying "let's do X" since that doesn't help you in anyway actually work out how you might do X, which in this case is solving some complicated nuanced problem.
I'm pretty sure the argument is that we are better off with war than without it.
I will agree that war has and can and probably will drive technological innovation, sure, and that this is a positive side of war, sure. It's this next step that's causing me trouble.
- John Stuart Mill
Oh please, spare me your bullshit strawmen and appeals to emotion. I never said war is a good thing. I said war is inevitable, and it has certain benefits, like driving humankind forward, that people tend to ignore because it's oh so barbaric.
I won't even get into the whole "go enlist now" nonsense.
My argument is that war is inevitable because conflict is a fundamental part of human nature, and therefore we need to find a way to wage war in a way so that casualties and damage are minimized, rather than act on impossible ideals to prevent it entirely. This is a purely realist approach, versus you guys' idealist approach.
That aside, how do you get from "conflict is a fundamental part of human nature" to "war is inevitable"? Conflict can be resolved without violence, and certainly without killing. I agree that in the situation specified in the Pacifist Fallacy, war is inevitable--but I see no reason to insist that a future where people can negotiate peacefully is impossible, only far distant. It might just be that I'm not a 'realist,' but it feels like this is just an outgrowth of the notion that some ideas aren't open to discussion.
Anyhow, minimizing causualties and damage is a good idea, and I support things like the Geneva Convention. You really run into the same problem as when you outlaw war, though. Witness Mr. Bush and torture, or continued nuclear proliferation.
I do imagine that they actually go through a fair amount of plasma however, but it's not inconceivable that the heat transfer isn't too bad since the heat is really just the kinetic energy of the plasma molecules and their only interacting along 1 surface rather then flowing out into the room.
Just my two cents...
Yeah, WWII didn't do anything to solve the poverty of germany, the ideal of Naziism, and the hate of the Jews.
I mean look at all the poverty, Naziism, and anti-semitism in germany right now.
Edit: Or to make it a bit more relevant, look at all the poverty, Naziism, and anti-semitism in germany in 1949 as opposed to 1939.
To be fair all of those problems that had to be "solved" by WWII can be directly traced back to WWI. Before losing WWI, Germany was one of the strongest economies in the world, and was actually the most Semitic friendly nation in Europe, often seen as a place Jews could go to escape from discrimination elsewhere (which is both tragically ironic, and disturbing as hell). I'm not sure what the "ideal of Nazi-ism" is supposed to be, so I can't speak to that specifically.
Every time someone mentions a 9/11 conspiracy I die a little inside. :x
9/11 is the new Hitler/NAZIs
Godwin's "NEVAR FORGET" correlary
Yeah germany sure was rich after WWII, having pretty much everything bombed is great for the economy!
The war did not remove the poverty, that would have been countries sort of learning their lesson and actually aiding germany post war, so that they wouldn't end up with the same shit they did after WWI.
As for hitler being the expected result, pretty much yeah, that he would be SUCCESSFUL, not so much. Im not saying people at that time thought so, nor am i gonna go and blame them, that really serves no purpose.
Am i crazy for saying that poor regions pretty much always are violent? Poor nations tend to get dictatorships.
And ofcourse you are being symbolic in fighting a war on poverty or AIDS, i was saying that those are two (and i could name half a dozen other) serious problem, infact alot more serious problems than terrorism and "Saddam Hussein". Ofcourse a problem you can shoot in the face is alot ea
As for benefits from the space race that was in the cold war, which surprise, was not actually a war, the conflicts related to that (afghanistan, vietnam etc) had nothing to do with those beneficial technologies.
People often say that "omg war is inevtiable" but wtf, considering the shitty state of things now, and the fact that i'd say overall things are getting slowly better, I don't think we have any idea. Generally, a democratic country that is not america does not go into an offensive war. Hitler pretty much being the exception.
A country where a vast majority of people live 'decent lives', and if the goverment value that majorties opinions higher than that of a few very wealthy of influental individuals there is no incentive to go off and kill people from another country . I find that a pretty reasonable.
- "Proving once again the deadliest animal of all ... is the Zoo Keeper" - Philip J Fry
Because there is no source of law above the level of nation states to make it illegal.