Happy Atheist Forum

Hi all.

This was a thought provoker for me:

Quote from: "ElvisPriestly"If there are no atheists in foxholes, it's probably because they were smart enough not to go there in the first place.

Because I have a notion that he is right.

All things being equal, the argument against atheists (or "atheism" as they prefer to put it) that tire me the most, is the morality argument. Especially that concerning 'atheist' wars. It find it so assumptive and basically a load of crap!

Let's find out whether it is true.
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Note that the first vote cast on "I think the military is a necessity, and should also be used to protect foreign interests" was cast by a theist, Messenger. I would prefer if only atheists or agnostics contributed, please.

I'm torn.  I wish there were no need for military action of any kind, but it is necessary in some cases.  The problem with 'necessity' is that the public is usually spun or distracted in some way and we rarely know the real reason(s) for conflict.  Although propaganda is not what it used to be, it still is effective.

I have great respect for the military in the US, but not the stimulus to put them in action.  Through hidden agendas, the military gets associated with wrongful conflicts.  Whether or not the military's image gets tarnished, if they put their lives on the line for our country and later realize it was motivated by hidden agendas, it can't be very gratifying.

Politically I consider myself to be a centre left hawk and in essence there are three things I believe in the rule of law, education and health.

Briefly on education I believe that from it (a good education) all good things come and on health yes I believe in state health service and personally believe that the private health should be taxed out of existence (or just nuked, don't care).

It's a twist on the usual use of the word but I consider myself a pacifist in that I believe that the armed forces are for defence and the reasonable enforcement of national interests (and what is reasonable is, of course, debatable). But here's the thing pacifism, in its non-violent or non-forced form, is a really, really stupid idea quite simply because we are a violent race and no one can say with any surety that it will work ... if we, as a nation (and I'm talking about the UK here), downed our arms and refused to fight how long would it be before someone looks at our land and says, "I think I'll have me some of that!" Who would stop them? If the pacifists take up arms then they are not pacifists, if they rely on someone else to protect them they are hypocrites.

Yet I firmly believe in the right to peacefully protest, I believe in the right to burn flags, the right to petition government and so on. I believe that pacifists have the right to claim they are pacifists but it's important they understand that their right to do so is guaranteed by law, a legal system enforced by the courts, the police, the government mandated by the people and ultimately backed by a nation's armed forces.

I am a pacifist (of sorts); I believe that peace needs to be enforced and although armies are sometimes charged with atrocities I have little but respect for the soldiers themselves and any ire I have with my country's action overseas is reserved for the politicians and not the fighting man or woman.

Kyu

I defer to Mr. Carlin.

QuoteI like to talk a little bit about the war in Persian Gulf, big doings in the Persian Gulf. You know my favorite part of that war? It was the first war we had that was on every channel, even cable. And the war got good ratings too. Well, we like war! We are war like people. We like war because we're good at it.

You know why we're good at it, because we get a lot of practice. This country is only 200 years old and we've already have had ten major wars. We average a major war every 20 years in this country, so we're good at it. And it's a good thing we are; we're not good at anything else any more, ha? Can't build a descent car, can't make a TV center or a VCR worth a fuck. Don't have steel industry left, can't educate our young people, can't get good health care for our old people, but we can bomb the shit out of your country. HAH? WE CAN BOMB THE SHIT OUT OF YOUR COUNTRY ALL RIGHT!!

ESPECIALLY IF YOUR COUNTRY IS FULL OF BROWN PEOPLE.

Oh we like that, that's our hobby. That's our new job in the world, bombing brown people. Iraq, Panama, Granada, Libya, Afghanistan, you got some brown people in your country, tell them to watch the fuck out or we'll god damn bomb them.

Well when is the last white people you remember we bombed? You remember the last white, do you remember ANY white people we've ever bombed?

The Germans were the last ones and that's because they were trying to cut in our action. They wanted to dominate the world, bull shit, that's our job, that's our fucking job.

Now we only bomb brown people. Not because they're cutting on our action, just because they're brown. You may have noticed, I don't feel about that war the way we were told, the way we were supposed to feel about that war, the way we were ordered, instructed by the United States government. You see, I tell ya, my mind doesn't work that way, I got this real moron thing I do, it's called thinking. And I'm not a very good American, because I like to form my own opinions. I don't just roll over when I'm told to. The sad thing is most Americans just roll over on command, not me. I have certain rules I live by. First rule is I don't believe anything government tells me, nothing, zero. Nope! And I don't take very seriously media the press in this country, who in the case of Persian Gulf War were nothing more than unpaid employees of the Department of Defense, and who most of the time, MOST OF THE TIME, functions as an unofficial public relations agency for United States Government.

So, I don't listen to them, I don't really believe in my country, and I got to tell you folks I don't get all chocked up about yellow ribbons and American flags. I consider them symbols and I leave symbols to the symbol-minded.

Me, I look at war a little bit differently. To me war is a lot of prick waving, ok?

Simple thing that's all it is war is a whole lot of men standing out in a field waving their pricks at one another. Men are insecure about the size of their dicks so they have to kill one another over the idea. That's what all that ass whole, jock bull shit is all about.

That's what all that adolescent, macho, male posturing and strutting in bars and locker rooms is all about. It's called dick fear. Men are terrified that their dicks are inadequate and so they have to compete with one another to feel better about themselves. So, since war is the ultimate competition, basically men are killing each other in order to improve their self esteem.

You don't have to be a historian or a political scientists to see bigger-dick foreign policy at work.

It sounds like this, ìwhat they have bigger dicks? Bomb themî. And of course, the bombs, rockets, and the bullets are all shaped like dicks. It's a subconscious need to project the penis into other people's affairs.

IT'S CALLED, "FUCKING WITH PEOPLE"!!

So, as far as I'm concerned that whole thing in Persian Golf was nothing more than a big prick waving dick fight. In this particular case, Saddam Hussein had questioned the size of George Bush's dick. And George has been called a wimp for so long, wimp rhymes with limpÖ George has been called a wimp for so long that he has to act down his manhood fantasies, by sending other people's children to die.

Even the name Bush is related to genitals without being genitals without being the genitals. A Bush is a sort of passive, secondary sex characteristics.

Now, if his name was George Boner... well, he might have felt better about himself and he wouldn't have had any problems over there anyway.

This whole country has a manhood problem, a big manhood problem in USA. You can tell by the language we use. Language always gives you away. What did we do wrong in Vietnam? We pulled out!

Ahh, not a very manly thing to do, is it? When you're fucking people, you got to stay in there and fuck them good, fuck them all the way, fuck them to death.

Stay in there and keep fucking them until they're all dead.

We left a few women and children in Vietnam and we haven't felt good about ourselves since. That's why in Persian Gulf, George Bush said, "this will not be another Vietnam". He actually used these words he said, "This time we're going all the way". Imagine an American president using the sexual slang of a thirteen year old to explain his foreign policy!

If you want to know what happened in Persian Gulf just remember the names of two men who were running that war, Dick Chaney and Colin Powel. Somebody got fucked in the...

A military will be necessary for as long as we are emotional beings. Any militaristic offensive can be traced back to either greed or fear.

Quote from: "curiosityandthecat"IA military will be necessary for as long as we are emotional beings. Any militaristic offensive can be traced back to either greed or fear.

Emotions are apparently regarded as essential for decision making so remove our emotions and you take away our ability to make decisions, to be intelligent creatures so my guess is that' we'll need the military for awhile yet.

Kyu

I'm a pacifist and in a perfect world, there would be no war, no tension, and no conflict, so military wouldn't be necessary.

But after I chose that option, I wanted to change it.  Because this ISN'T a perfect world and the Star Trek universe could never come true, no matter how much we might want it.  And, quite frankly, life would be pretty boring.

I would like it to be used defensively only... but let's be honest.  Sometimes, we are needed elsewhere to protect someone else's freedoms when they are being stomped on by a global bully.  Is it our responsibility?  No, not necessarily.  But sometimes, it's a necessary evil.

So where do I stand?  Heck if I know.  (and those of you who know me probably aren't surprised at all that I'm on the fence... LOL!)

Looks like we're all centrists here.  

I believe it is an absolute shame humans are so savage sometimes that we have to resort to killing people. But, alas, it is sometimes necessary to the protection of other innocent lives.

Warfare is a sad, but constant, part of the human condition. Never has there been a point of total world peace. If you went back 3 million years to the African savanna you would find proto-human tribes fighting for land, water, food, mates, whatever. As long as people exist we will require millitaries. I will admit being a veteran probably gives me a different prospective of militaries, I'm sure other veterans would agree, but I don't think that changes the truth of my statements in the least.

Tanker, thank you for your service and to all other who have served and protected the USA.

Military is a necessary evil. Unfortunately, most wars are intertwined with religion which saddens me greatly. This topic brings to mind one of my favorite songs by the late, great John Lennon, "Imagine".

War and military are self-sustaining systems of violence, greed, and hatred. There is absolutely no use for violence against other human beings.

Just a stupid question. When was the last time that the USA fought a war to protect its own people?  As far as I can remember that was when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, but even then the US citizens were pretty safe on the mainland. Anyway the reasons to start a war yourself are never justified. When you are under attack you are allowed to protect yourself, but that doesn't give you any rights to mass murder innocent civilians (like the bombing of Dresden in 1945).  Funny that with all the modern high precision weapon technologies in place we seem to kill more civilians than ever before. Nowadays 90% of all casualties in modern warfare are innocent bystanders, who have nothing to do with the "evil" acts of their leaders.I find it therefore disgusting that especially the USA didn't sign the treaties to ban landmines and cluster bombs. BTW when is a leader of a country evil enough to justify a war against him?  As far as I can see only when he is weak enough and his country possesses a lot of oil for us to grab. More evil dictators than Saddam Hussein are still in power today (like Mugabe in Zimbabwe) and we even support dictators like Alyaksandr Lukashenka in Belarus as well as the Israelian Apartheid regime. What is so moral about that?  Whenever there are some real atrocities going on in the world, we just keep our eyes shut and do nothing.

Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent - Isaac Asimov

Quote from: "Tanker"Warfare is a sad, but constant, part of the human condition.  As long as people exist we will require millitaries.

I don't agree with the second statement at all!
I think this is like saying "religion is a sad, but constant, part of the human condition.  As long as people exist we will require religion."
It is assumptive. Just because we behave that way, and it is a huge part of tradition, does not mean it is something we require. Personally I am with Plato on this one: As long as we keep "solving" our conflicts that way, and most importantly entertain our children with violent stories, we will continue doing so. (Yes he actually said that with children and violence 2500 years ago!) We simply have such a hard time thinking out of the box.
That wars does not solve any problems, is historically evident. Just look at the area surrounding Jerusalem.

QuoteI will admit being a veteran probably gives me a different prospective of militaries, I'm sure other veterans would agree, but I don't think that changes the truth of my statements in the least.

I think it does. I have 2 friends in the army (not veterans yet, but currently officers in the danish army). I have discussed these issues with them numerous times: Any army spends a lot of effort on teaching their soldiers to think in a certain manner. (That violence is a necessity, and that you can be morally justified in killing people, to name a few.) Naturally these teachings make it harder to imagine a world without that, just as very religious people can't imagine a world without "god".

Anyway did any of you notice, that so far Titans "fact of common knowledge" haven't received one vote?   (yes, I am thinking of the last option.)

Quote from: "Willravel"War and military are self-sustaining systems of violence, greed, and hatred. There is absolutely no use for violence against other human beings.

Yet curiously sheer naked violence has resolved more issues in our history than any other thing.

Kyu

Quote from: "Tanker"Warfare is a sad, but constant, part of the human condition. Never has there been a point of total world peace. If you went back 3 million years to the African savanna you would find proto-human tribes fighting for land, water, food, mates, whatever. As long as people exist we will require millitaries. I will admit being a veteran probably gives me a different prospective of militaries, I'm sure other veterans would agree, but I don't think that changes the truth of my statements in the least.

I'm not a vet (I actually quit the army) but I agree with you 100%, I know you're American but I will always be in awe of those who can put their life in between their family, friends & country and harm.

Kyu

Quote from: "Kyuuketsuki"

Quote from: "Willravel"War and military are self-sustaining systems of violence, greed, and hatred. There is absolutely no use for violence against other human beings.

Yet curiously sheer naked violence has resolved more issues in our history than any other thing.

Kyu

I'm not following.  Can you elaborate?

Quote from: "DennisK"

Quote from: "Kyuuketsuki"

Quote from: "Willravel"War and military are self-sustaining systems of violence, greed, and hatred. There is absolutely no use for violence against other human beings.

Yet curiously sheer naked violence has resolved more issues in our history than any other thing.

Kyu

I'm not following.  Can you elaborate?

A simple example .. the second world war. What solved it? It wasn't talking. It wasn't pacifism. It was the willingness of the Allies to put up against the Axis powers an equivalent or superior force to beat them back to where they should be. The solution to the problem of the Nazi's and other Axis powers aggression was violence, sheer naked violence ... it may not have been the solution that some wanted (although I think a lot of this is about looking back and imagining we could have done it different or better), it may even have been a very poor solution (it's entirely debatable) but it was a solution and it changed the world in ways we can only imagine (because we have no real idea what the world would have been had we not gone head to head with the Axis powers).

Detestable though wars are they solve problems for one side or the other.

Kyu

QuoteJust a stupid question. When was the last time that the USA fought a war to protect its own people? As far as I can remember that was when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, but even then the US citizens were pretty safe on the mainland. Anyway the reasons to start a war yourself are never justified. When you are under attack you are allowed to protect yourself, but that doesn't give you any rights to mass murder innocent civilians (like the bombing of Dresden in 1945). Funny that with all the modern high precision weapon technologies in place we seem to kill more civilians than ever before. Nowadays 90% of all casualties in modern warfare are innocent bystanders, who have nothing to do with the "evil" acts of their leaders.I find it therefore disgusting that especially the USA didn't sign the treaties to ban landmines and cluster bombs. BTW when is a leader of a country evil enough to justify a war against him? As far as I can see only when he is weak enough and his country possesses a lot of oil for us to grab. More evil dictators than Saddam Hussein are still in power today (like Mugabe in Zimbabwe) and we even support dictators like Alyaksandr Lukashenka in Belarus as well as the Israelian Apartheid regime. What is so moral about that? Whenever there are some real atrocities going on in the world, we just keep our eyes shut and do nothing.

Firstly America was attacked by the government of Afganistan FIRST, When a forigin nation attacks your homeland then you attack them back it IS to protect your own people. second the Japanes had thier sites set on everything in the pacific rim (That includes the entire west coast of North America) so if we had let them do thier thing I would be speaking Japanes right now. The number of civilain casualties in Iraq and Afganistan compred to a war with similar weight of paylaods and time spent fighting is ridiculus low compared to most or possibly any war before it, And your number of 90% is arbitrary and way way off I would estimate between 5 and 20% depending on the war and timeframe within it. The US army does not use ANY land mines it does use claymore but those are almost always command detonated ie: a person hits the clacker on a visually identified target.I can' speak on cluster bombs because I wasen't in the Air Force.
 Atrocities do happen in war a sad fact of them but no one in the US military is working to make them happen a huge portion of military training is specificly to prevent them. Have I seen innocents die? Yes I have, almost all of them were caused by insugents I have even seen a sad precious few killed by Americans, and I can assure you It was not on purpose, and it was during a fire fight they shoud not have been trying to cross.

Becarefull not to judge an entire country by one government. There are times in everyone country they feel shame over but it woulden't be fair to hold it's entire population to that low standard forever. (there were some serious crimes against humanity, oh about 60 years ago, I sure certian people woulden't want to be the only governmet they were remembered for.)

(Let me get this clear I do not now or have ever agreed with the war in Iraq. I did fight there, but soldiers don't choose their fights, they simply go when and where they are told.)

Quote from: "Tanker"Firstly America was attacked by the government of Afganistan FIRST,

Where? When?

I am personally a pacifist and would only use violence for self defense.  However, I realize that with the way the world is organized right now that the government needs to have a military and that sometimes that military needs to be used for non-self defensive actions.  For instance, it's not self defense to go help some other country that is getting attacked but can't fully defend...but it is necessary if we want to keep our allies in case we are attacked (and it's arguably morally necessary to help to defend the defenseless).

That said, I think a lot of the USA's military involvement is not justified and if everyone could just mind their own business and try to work together we wouldn't need military people.  Yet, we all know that is never going to happen.

Quote from: "Zarathustra"

Quote from: "Tanker"Firstly America was attacked by the government of Afganistan FIRST,

Where? When?

That's news to me too.  Why are we going after those Al-Qaeda people?  

QuoteTanker wrote:

Firstly America was attacked by the government of Afganistan FIRST,

Where? When?

I don't know, how about New York City Sept, 11 2001.

(note i did NOT say Iraq)

Quote from: "Tanker"

QuoteTanker wrote:

Firstly America was attacked by the government of Afganistan FIRST,

Where? When?

I don't know, how about New York City Sept, 11 2001.

(note i did NOT say Iraq)

Are you seriously claiming, that 9/11 was carried out by the government of Afghanistan????

As far as I know the US was never attacked by the Afghan government, but by a terrorist group that had strong ties with Saudi Arabia. After  9/11 the Taliban  provided the US with important information of the whereabouts of Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan, because they were afraid that the US would retaliate the 9/11 attack on them instead of on Al Qaeda (which of course they did).  Any way there was no attack on the US by the Afghan government, because there was no Afghan government.. There were just a couple of warlords fighting among themselves, with no means at all to to any harm to the US people.

Regarding civilian casualties caused by warfare, some facts speak for themselves. In WW-I there were approx 10 million military and 9 million civilian deaths. In  Vietnam there were already twice as much civilians (2 million)  killed than Vietnamese soldiers (1.1 million). Regarding the Iraqi war there was some major progress made in killing civilians instead of soldiers. Since the US invasion approx. 30 to 100 thousand Iraqi soldiers died, while the civilian casualties are estimated to be between 650 thousand and one million. There have been many studies about the body count, but none of them are conclusive because there are no official death records available. What is sure however is that the Iraqi civilians suffered (and are still suffering) massively since the US invasion. BTW, here is an interesting article about how to keep the US population ignorant about the Iraqi death tolls (http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2008/11/05-2 (http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2008/11/05-2)).

I don't blame the common soldier who is sent to some shitty country and put his/her own life in grave danger. And like you said, everyone's country has done some bad things that they'd like to forget. So I don't hold any grunge against the people of the USA either. I only hope that we learn from our mistakes and change the world into a better place.

Quote from: "Tom62"As far as I know the US was never attacked by the Afghan government, but by a terrorist group that had strong ties with Saudi Arabia. After  9/11 the Taliban  provided the US with important information of the whereabouts of Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan, because they were afraid that the US would retaliate the 9/11 attack on them instead of on Al Qaeda (which of course they did).  Any way there was no attack on the US by the Afghan government, because there was no Afghan government.. There were just a couple of warlords fighting among themselves, with no means at all to to any harm to the US people.

Regarding civilian casualties caused by warfare, some facts speak for themselves. In WW-I there were approx 10 million military and 9 million civilian deaths. In  Vietnam there were already twice as much civilians (2 million)  killed than Vietnamese soldiers (1.1 million). Regarding the Iraqi war there was some major progress made in killing civilians instead of soldiers. Since the US invasion approx. 30 to 100 thousand Iraqi soldiers died, while the civilian casualties are estimated to be between 650 thousand and one million. There have been many studies about the body count, but none of them are conclusive because there are no official death records available. What is sure however is that the Iraqi civilians suffered (and are still suffering) massively since the US invasion. BTW, here is an interesting article about how to keep the US population ignorant about the Iraqi death tolls (http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2008/11/05-2 (http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2008/11/05-2)).

I don't blame the common soldier who is sent to some shitty country and put his/her own life in grave danger. And like you said, everyone's country has done some bad things that they'd like to forget. So I don't hold any grunge against the people of the USA either. I only hope that we learn from our mistakes and change the world into a better place.

Now here was a great piece of correct info, thanks    Especially for the commondreams article.
Tanker: You really need to get your facts straight.

The article you linked to did not have the stats you posted please post the right one.

According to that logic of the stats you posted I hav killed 70 or so civilians, wow thats funny since I don't remember killing a single one, and while I saw many people die most were combatants from either side. Most of the civillain causualties are from direct murder by insurgents not as colateral damage during a fight. What do you think a Sunni setting off a bomb in Shia market with no Americans around should be counted as civillain Iraqvwar casualties or one religious group killing another. I don't put to much stock in statistic because depending on the statistic you use they can be made to say anything. My statements are from personal observations. Which is more then most people have when they post arbitrary statistics on a web site. While you can' totally discount statistic I would recomend finding a wide range of results from a varity of sources and finding an average. Rather then finding the statistic with the worst results to ry and prove your point. I have seen statistics that put civial causulties between 13,000 and 22,000, but again that is arbitrary.

http://www.un.org/sc/committees/1267/information.shtml
 The above url links to UN resolutions and sactions against the Taliban government starting in 1999 for their continue support and protection of Al-Qaida within the border of afganistan. While the Al-Qaida wasen't a recogonised part of the Afgani govenment It was a known, protected, and encouraged element within their country. When a government encourages and protects a radical element with know terrorist principles it becomes that government responsability when those same radicals attack a foriegn government.

I wasn't going to post in this thread because I don't like the title. I can see no ethics with warfare whatsoever. War is not ethical. War is the last (or sometimes quite insanely the first) resort. War represents the breakdown of the usual human ethics gradient and as far as I'm concerned, wars have been started due to the need for the acquisition of power - nothing else. Yes, nations have to sometimes defend themselves from an aggressor but that war will have been started because of someone's notion of the expansion of a sphere of influence and the power gained from this expansion.

I'm from a forces family so I have a clear view of both civilian and forces life. I must admit, I think many war machines look incredible. There aren't many things which can rival the crafted beauty of the Blackbird SR71, for instance. That aside though, the only reason for these machines' existence is the increasingly efficient and inventive ways with which to kill each other. The term M.A.D. has never been more apt.

I see it like this. Some humans have a drive within them to acquire power. Most humans do not. I think this drive for power warps perception to a point where instead of someone asking 'what is best for the people?' They come to the conclusion that they know what is best for people whilst conveniently sidestepping consultation. As soon as this happens they alienate an entire segment of the population because there is no way everyone will agree with their hypothesis. As soon as this point is reached, it is time for that person to step down from their position of power. Because power corrupts, I don't feel any system which has a 'leader' can work effectively. It certainly will not stop war.

I'm a bit of a dreamer and I believe in an eventual Utopia. A sustainable utopia would have no leader. It would also have no fully functioning money system. Bartering, maybe, but stock markets would be a thing of the past. If you take away people's ability to hold power over someone else through the assumed acquisition of wealth then you see the end of megalomania. Wisdom and intellect would be the only viable currency left. I don't know how this utopia could be achieved but I do know we'd need an arbitrator. Someone who can stay fully neutral who we'd be able to count on to make final decisions or at least see both sides of an argument and help both sides decide based upon the volume of people who benefit after its implementation. I like the idea of figureheads who have no nationality. People who have no allegiance to anyone but the entire human race as a whole.

I have an idea who these figureheads could be but I'll keep that to myself for now. It is probably more relevant for another thread.

Quote from: "Tanker"When a government encourages and protects a radical element with know terrorist principles it becomes that government responsability when those same radicals attack a foriegn government.

How so?

Quote from: "Zarathustra"

Quote from: "Tanker"When a government encourages and protects a radical element with know terrorist principles it becomes that government responsability when those same radicals attack a foriegn government.

How so?

I don't think it is inherently an unreasonable point of view after all isn't that the stance India is taking with Pakistan over the recent violence in Mumbai? One government mandate is to protect it's people form all enemies foreign or domestic but one assumes it also has some measure of responsibility for the actions of its own citizens if they are carrying out criminal acts in other countries especially if they are organised and acting from a base within the country in question.

Kyu

Quote from: "karadan"I'm from a forces family so I have a clear view of both civilian and forces life. I must admit, I think many war machines look incredible. There aren't many things which can rival the crafted beauty of the Blackbird SR71, for instance. That aside though, the only reason for these machines' existence is the increasingly efficient and inventive ways with which to kill each other. The term M.A.D. has never been more apt....I wasn't going to post in this thread because I don't like the title. I can see no ethics with warfare whatsoever. War is not ethical.

I think you have some great points karadan.  :lol:

QuoteI have an idea who these figureheads could be but I'll keep that to myself for now. It is probably more relevant for another thread.

Please do. That sounds very interesting.

Quote from: "Kyuuketsuki"

Quote from: "Zarathustra"

Quote from: "Tanker"When a government encourages and protects a radical element with know terrorist principles it becomes that government responsability when those same radicals attack a foriegn government.

How so?

I don't think it is inherently an unreasonable point of view after all isn't that the stance India is taking with Pakistan over the recent violence in Mumbai? One government mandate is to protect it's people form all enemies foreign or domestic but one assumes it also has some measure of responsibility for the actions of its own citizens if they are carrying out criminal acts in other countries especially if they are organised and acting from a base within the country in question.

Kyu

Well I do.
The first and foremost logistic and economical governmental back up of Al-Qaeda, was by the Saudi administration. Why not attack them?
Because they are allies, the US is dependant on their oil, and basically because the Taliban, just 5 months before the strike, had refused to let the US build their pipeline through Afghanistan. And by the way: It was the US who helped the Taliban to power. Shouldn't they attack themselves first by this logic?

I acknowledge that you both have a point, Kyu and Tanker, but you must admit that the occupation of Afghanistan is a grey-zone. Yet it is UN sanctioned, so I'm not getting into a big argument about it. And I gather we are in agreement about Iraq.

The point is that Tanker's claim, that the Afghanistan government attacked the US, is simply not true. Hiding a criminal is not the same as commiting the crime yourself.

Quote from: "Zarathustra"

Quote from: "karadan"

QuoteI have an idea who these figureheads could be but I'll keep that to myself for now. It is probably more relevant for another thread.

Please do. That sounds very interesting.

Ok, but be warned, the following is a little, umm, wacky and may be seen as thread derailment…

Firstly, I believe the main limitation for us as a species is space. It is the limitation of space which causes a lot of problems. It is no coincidence that the incidence of violence (per head of capita) rises as population density increases. Therefore, our species doesn't function efficiently when confined by space. The same rings true for most other biological systems, be it bacteria in a petri dish or fish in a fish tank. The human race is coming up to the latter stages of the demographic transition model. It is hypothesised that once the population of earth reaches between 30 - 40 billion, it will level off and have a 'plateau' phase where the mean death rate equals the birth rate. The approach to this point will see the increase in wars fought over resources through the need to survive as opposed to the acquisition of power - as I suggested before. Ironically, we are wasting time fighting each other for money when we have larger problems looming on the horizon. If the US government had transferred their defence budget to NASA in the early 70's, we'd already be colonising Mars.

So, if we were able to get over the space issue (colonising other parts of the solar system) then we wouldn't have to fight over limited resources. That still leaves the acquisition of power issue though….

As I said earlier, we'd need an arbitrator. Well, you'll probably laugh at me for this and it is pretty far-out but I do believe it is a possibility - AI…

We know a computer is able to 'compute' information far faster than a brain (I'm talking conscious information - not higher brain functions here). The vast amounts of data a super computer can chew through would give something which is artificially intelligent the resources to determine solutions to problems like global warming, the increase in sea salinity in the gulf stream, famine, religious fundamentalism, fusion power, etc…

I'm not saying we'd be asking a robot 'how do we solve this problem?' and its answer would be 'kill all christians!' That is too simplistic. We'd just feed data into it. Vast reams of data. Eventually it would have enough information to base certain assumption upon. Its solutions to problems would more than likely be hugely radical i.e., it might simply say 'stop being religious'. It would probably come up with answers many of us already know, but have the inability to change. This wouldn't be an enforcement machine, just something with the capability to answer questions which millions of humans cannot instantly agree upon. Whether we act on those solutions is up to us.

This is a hugely debatable subject and something it would take generations to get used to. But, I prefer the thought that something vastly more intelligent than us is churning out solutions to enormous problems, than the endless drudgery of existence based upon the tug-of-war for claims to power and resources by the few power mongerers in charge.

Essentially i'm suggesting that a symbiotic relationship between machines and humans might be a good way to deal with the current dangers facing the human race as a whole. Either that or an extinction level event occurs whilst simultaneously keeping all the combined human scientific knowledge intact

I did say it was probably more apt for a different thread :p

Quote from: "Zarathustra"Well I do.

Good for you ... the world would be such a dull place if we all agreed :)

Must we? I'm not inherently against the concept of government change by force but personally I think "we" underestimated the time and effort required to invade and hold a country that contained elements so vehemently opposed to western control.

Quote from: "Zarathustra"The point is that Tanker's claim, that the Afghanistan government attacked the US, is simply not true. Hiding a criminal is not the same as commiting the crime yourself.

Specifically hiding it would be construed in a court as being complicit so I'd have to disagree but I would also say that if a government knew about such terrorist bases and elected to do nothing about them then they are ignoring a key part of their responsibilities as a government (entirely different from being unable to do anything about them).

Kyu

Y'know, every guy on the planet has violent tendencies. Every man, boy, or teenager has an instinctive urge towards violence. Violence is a part of who we are. Human beings are NOT perfectly moral or good. There are two sides to every person: their persona, and their shadow. And we all have violence in our shadow.

The good news is that it is possible to have a world without war. The secret lies in being able to turn that violent destructive energy into a constructive energy. And it is possible. One of the major responsibilities and functions of being a father is teaching your son how to deal with their anger and violent tendencies. It's a matter of turning the mentality from "attack", to "protect" and "build". Good fathers do this all the time.

Often, however, when children don't have fathers or have abusuive fathers, they turn to gangs and violence and give voice to that destructive energy inside them. So. The first step towards world peace, I would say, would be to raise our sons right. Accept the loss of a father in their life, and strive to be their for their sons. I'd bet a large sum of money that war would diminish. In fact, the majority of the worlds population all ready does not want war. There are still some portions that do. And those are fed by religious out-group hostility.

There's work to be done. But it's not impossible to have a world of peace.  

Quote from: "Wechtlein Uns"There are two sides to every person: their persona, and their shadow.

Isn't that a Jungian concept?

QuoteWechtlein Uns wrote: Y'know, every guy on the planet has violent tendencies. Every man, boy, or teenager has an instinctive urge towards violence.

I think we all have tendencies.  People tend to look at things in black and white, self and other type ways and it's easy to shift the blame onto another, but the reality is that we all have a part in allowing the psychological atmosphere to exist that allows a war to happen.  We have to catch our own distorted perceptions of those who are different before they pop out.  It's pretty easy to look at another groups problems and say we don't have them ourselves.  And the language we use sometimes betrays things about us we never even knew existed about ourselves.

Communication really is a huge factor in fomenting wars between different countries, but the reality is, it does start with every one of us.  For example, I had to call tech support today to get my modem working and I got a representative from India, just a regular Joe like one of us trying to do his job.  And his accent was hard to understand, plus I was frustrated that my system was acting so weird.  He was asking me if I was tech savvy and stuff and it kind of hurt my feelings a little because I felt like it meant he thought I was a moron with computers.  But I just tried to chill, and let him know I was having trouble with his accent and we had a okay conversation and everything got up and running.

If you compound that situation by how many fold people are trying to communicate with each other on a daily scale, you start to see where the issues that create misunderstandings between people arise. Not everyone has the same sense of humour or tolerance for the gauche. It's all  just culture clash.  And a small piece of respect here and there goes a long way, but sometimes things just seem to enter a downward spiral between disparate groups and well, one thing leads to another and another and so on and so forth.  

So it's easy to see the need and the reason to be polite, but then again we all sometimes have to sit back, go quietly to some safe out of the way place and cuss until our faces turn blue.

Or maybe I'm the only one    who needs to do that.

Quote from: "Kyuuketsuki"A simple example .. the second world war. What solved it? It wasn't talking. It wasn't pacifism. It was the willingness of the Allies to put up against the Axis powers an equivalent or superior force to beat them back to where they should be. The solution to the problem of the Nazi's and other Axis powers aggression was violence, sheer naked violence ... it may not have been the solution that some wanted (although I think a lot of this is about looking back and imagining we could have done it different or better), it may even have been a very poor solution (it's entirely debatable) but it was a solution and it changed the world in ways we can only imagine (because we have no real idea what the world would have been had we not gone head to head with the Axis powers).

Detestable though wars are they solve problems for one side or the other.

Kyu

You're describing military supremacy. Why does everyone equate military supremacy with victory? A lesser of two evils is still an evil, and that's what we got. What did our military supremacy look like? Millions upon millions killed by each side, Europe and Japan in ashes, the globe being carved out by pseudo-capitalists and pseudo-communists for the next generation; I don't recognize this as any kind of victory. War shed it's skin and started all over again, one side retaliating and then the other doing the same until today. War won't stop until people realize that military supremacy doesn't mean victory. It certainly doesn't mean security or freedom. It's worse than worthless, it's self sustaining destruction and chaos.

You can win all the battles, but still loose the war. If you don't win the hearts of the people you can never have a victory. War in itself is only destructive. It doesn't bring freedom or security, bus misery and chaos. Military superiority helps you to win wars, but does nothing for establishing peace. The main reason why permanent peace was established  in Western Europe after WW-II, was not the military superiority of the allied forces but the Marshall Plan which helped the Europeans to buildup their ruined countries again. With that plan the USA won the hearts of its former enemies.

Nothing infuriates people more than having a foreign occupying force on their home soil. Whenever that is the case there is no chance for peace. The best what then can be achieved is either a permanent stalemate (like in Korea) or unstoppable violent actions against the occupying forces (like in Iraq and Israel). This doesn't mean that we cannot change things for better. For example, the long civil war in Northern Ireland was finally resolved by diplomacy and reason. Once the British government didn't treat Sinn Féin any longer as terrorists, but as a legal political party, the civil war ended quickly. That proves to me as well that if you treat people as potential terrorists they will become terrorists. Fighting a war against terrorism can therefore only have negative results. If you fight violence with violence then you can only create more violence.

Quote from: "Willravel"You're describing military supremacy. Why does everyone equate military supremacy with victory? A lesser of two evils is still an evil, and that's what we got. What did our military supremacy look like? Millions upon millions killed by each side, Europe and Japan in ashes, the globe being carved out by pseudo-capitalists and pseudo-communists for the next generation; I don't recognize this as any kind of victory. War shed it's skin and started all over again, one side retaliating and then the other doing the same until today. War won't stop until people realize that military supremacy doesn't mean victory. It certainly doesn't mean security or freedom. It's worse than worthless, it's self sustaining destruction and chaos.

No I'm not, I'm describing the reality of our world and that is that we are human, we are violent and violence resolves things whether that resolution is one that you like or not. I understand your scepticism but of one thing I am absolutely sure ... peace is something that needs to be enforced.

Quote from: "Wechtlein Uns"The good news is that it is possible to have a world without war.

Yes you can channel aggression into other activities but I'd say the evidence supporting this idea is close to non-existent ... they say that at any given moment something like 250 wars are happening though I've no idea how true that is or what they would call a "war". At best I'd describe your view as idealistic because we humans are characterised by violence, it's in our basic nature ... I think you'd have a very, very hard time getting us all to act peacefully.

Kyu

Quote from: "Zarathustra"Hi all.

This was a thought provoker for me:

Quote from: "ElvisPriestly"If there are no atheists in foxholes, it's probably because they were smart enough not to go there in the first place.

Because I have a notion that he is right.

All things being equal, the argument against atheists (or "atheism" as they prefer to put it) that tire me the most, is the morality argument. Especially that concerning 'atheist' wars. It find it so assumptive and basically a load of crap!

Hmmm, what wars are you thinking about when you say 'atheist' wars. I'll bet good money that there have been far more religious wars than atheist wars.  I liked it best when someone whose name I don't remember described religious wars as "fighting over who has the better invisible friend".

Since I don't believe in any kind of an afterlife, I see my life as the most valuable thing in the world. Without life, I have nothing. If I had children, perhaps I would see their lives as more valuable than mine. I also believe that I should place a similarly high value on the lives of everyone around me. For that reason, it seems to me that killing anyone for any reason is a terrible thing. It takes away absolutely everything that they ever had or ever could have had.

My statement about atheists avoiding foxholes came from a thought that perhaps other atheists felt the same way about human life that I do. If you value life that much, you would do just about anything to avoid killing or being killed.  Therefore, atheists would be likely to avoid foxholes. With that said, I would not hesitate to take whatever action was necessary to defend my own life, even if it involved killing someone else. I will fully admit that I value my own life more than the life of anyone who might try to attack me.  

My vote, however, was for the military being an annoying necessity and I wish we could get rid of it. I think that the need for a military is where pragmatism meets self-preservation. I realize that not everyone values life the way I do. I wish that it were different, but the reality is that if a nation can't (or won't) defend itself, it will eventually be attacked and lots of defenseless people will be killed.

Lots of good stuff here. I suppose that there are always those that want power, and power is getting people to do what you want them to do. The easiest way to achieve that is scare your subjects. I'd say crucfiying criminals or mowing down civil rights demonstrators would do the trick.

I think, with world government, internationally sanctioned war would be over. Doesn't mean violence would be over, but at least there won't be medals of honor for killing people. I might even make the problem easier to solve.

Quote from: "Kyuuketsuki"No I'm not, I'm describing the reality of our world and that is that we are human, we are violent and violence resolves things whether that resolution is one that you like or not. I understand your skepticism but of one thing I am absolutely sure ... peace is something that needs to be enforced.

Violence is not an uncontrollable urge. One always chooses to be violent or not. There's no such thing as human nature; that's a religious construct.

Enforcing peace through violence is like enforcing virginity with a great big orgy. I'm afraid that's not how it works. Violence begets violence.

Quote from: "Willravel"Violence is not an uncontrollable urge. One always chooses to be violent or not. There's no such thing as human nature; that's a religious construct.

Enforcing peace through violence is like enforcing virginity with a great big orgy. I'm afraid that's not how it works. Violence begets violence.

Not trying to be funny but have you noticed the cuckoo's flying through the pretty clouds lately?

I never said it was uncontrollable but it is natural and part of our psychological make-up! Whether you like to admit it or not humans are violent animals, to claim they are not is simply absurd and a denial of evolution. Violence is not something we can simply choose to switch on and off and yes, peace needs to be enforced (why the hell do you think we need laws and a police force to enforce it?) and non-violent pacifism is simply sticking your head in the sand and hoping everything else will go away.

Kyu

Quote from: "Kyuuketsuki"

Quote from: "Willravel"Violence is not an uncontrollable urge. One always chooses to be violent or not. There's no such thing as human nature; that's a religious construct.

Enforcing peace through violence is like enforcing virginity with a great big orgy. I'm afraid that's not how it works. Violence begets violence.

Not trying to be funny but have you noticed the cuckoo's flying through the pretty clouds lately?

I never said it was uncontrollable but it is natural and part of our psychological make-up! Whether you like to admit it or not humans are violent animals, to claim they are not is simply absurd and a denial of evolution. Violence is not something we can simply choose to switch on and off and yes, peace needs to be enforced (why the hell do you think we need laws and a police force to enforce it?) and non-violent pacifism is simply sticking your head in the sand and hoping everything else will go away.

Kyu

I have to respectfully disagree with almost every comment you just made.

I think pack or population mentality is a little different to individual humanistic tendencies. I guess that is a different argument though.

People do not like violence. The few that seem to, are obviously broken, but they will still have levels they will not want to go past. You get masochists who like pain inflicted on them for sexual gratification. I doubt any of them would go so far as to enjoy having their genitals removed or to have their tongues cut out. Criminals will do all they can to achieve their aims with minimal violence. Even the most hardened criminal will do all he can to avoid violence before having to resort to it.

Of course, there are violent people out there but this will have been drilled into them through social conditioning just like army personnel have the will to kill trained into them. This doesn't mean people are inherently violent, it just means they have acquired and learnt various patterns of behaviour.

I also don't think fighting for survival can be used as an example. Just because we have a fight or flight mechanism inbuilt into us, does not mean we have the want for violence. Just because we are capable, doesn't mean that is our core desire. After all, all women have the equipment to be prostitutes. That doesn't mean they are all prostitutes though, does it?

I think it would be more apt to say - populations are inherently violent but individual humans are not. I agree with Willtravel. One chooses to be violent, it certainly isn't something out of our control.

Quote from: "karadan"I have to respectfully disagree with almost every comment you just made.

Excellent.

Quote from: "karadan"I think pack or population mentality is a little different to individual humanistic tendencies. I guess that is a different argument though.

I think we have evolved to act as a pack. Yes we have individual decision making capability but that still doesn't stop us acting in a violent animal like fashion and as evidence for that I offer up ... well ... the whole of human history. We are territorial, resource driven and willing (as a species) to fight to gain resource and/or defend our own ... the only real difference between us and the animals is that where they fight tooth & claw we do it with guns, tanks & bombs.

Quote from: "karadan"People do not like violence. The few that seem to, are obviously broken, but they will still have levels they will not want to go past. You get masochists who like pain inflicted on them for sexual gratification. I doubt any of them would go so far as to enjoy having their genitals removed or to have their tongues cut out. Criminals will do all they can to achieve their aims with minimal violence. Even the most hardened criminal will do all he can to avoid violence before having to resort to it.

Individuals may not but many of us do and I'd wager that the vast majority of us would (given the correct stimuli) but to say that humans (criminals included) try to avoid violence may simply be due to not wanting to get hurt or not wanting to put in the effort for fighting, it's a lot easier to not fight. It may also have something to do with our apparent in built recognition of hierarchical social structure ... humans seem to always build such things into their societies and then once they know their place tend (not always) to stick there. Nowhere, BTW, did I say that we enjoyed violence, I simply said we were (and I mean inherently) violent.

Quote from: "karadan"Of course, there are violent people out there but this will have been drilled into them through social conditioning just like army personnel have the will to kill trained into them. This doesn't mean people are inherently violent, it just means they have acquired and learnt various patterns of behaviour.

I think that's what you want to believe rather than an objective view of what is ... I think you'd like to believe that humans are something better than they actually are. I think it far more realistic to accept that we evolved from other animals and are in many (perhaps most) ways just like them, that we are just another animal with the proviso that there is no need to be like that, that we can learn to be peaceful (though I would still say it is a forced state), we can learn to be educated. You see the thing is, we aren't naturally smart, likely no smarter than cavemen ... we only see as far as we do because we have stood on the shoulders of giants. Virtually everything people today define themselves by is culturally learned not natural; take any human and put him or her back in a stone age environment and he/she will learn to fight, to survive and so on ... of culture he/she will know nothing. We are nothing special except to us and then only because of those who went before us.

Quote from: "karadan"I also don't think fighting for survival can be used as an example. Just because we have a fight or flight mechanism inbuilt into us, does not mean we have the want for violence. Just because we are capable, doesn't mean that is our core desire. After all, all women have the equipment to be prostitutes. That doesn't mean they are all prostitutes though, does it?

Of course it does ...it means that when the chips are down we revert to what we truly are, animals. Women, as far as nature is concerned, are just breeding machines and men just the tools to feed and protect them ... everything else we have and/or have learned is just icing on the cake.

Quote from: "karadan"I think it would be more apt to say - populations are inherently violent but individual humans are not. I agree with Willtravel. One chooses to be violent, it certainly isn't something out of our control.

And I disagree (though I never said it was out of our control).

Kyu

Well, I guess it boils down to whether you are optimistic or pessimistic then

We are either violent individuals with peaceful tendencies or we are peaceful individuals with violent tendencies.

Either way I believe humans prefer a peaceful state and will only act violently when provoked or in a fight or flight situation. That doesn't necessarily mean we are inherently violent though.

Quote from: "karadan"Either way I believe humans prefer a peaceful state and will only act violently when provoked or in a fight or flight situation. That doesn't necessarily mean we are inherently violent though.

I think it does but more importantly my point was that peace is not the natural state of human cultures ... as such it needs to be actively defended. Pacifists have the right to be pacifists but they do so only because someone else is willing to stand the watch and protect their right to do so.

Kyu

Quote from: "Kyuuketsuki"Not trying to be funny but have you noticed the cuckoo's flying through the pretty clouds lately?

I never said it was uncontrollable but it is natural and part of our psychological make-up! Whether you like to admit it or not humans are violent animals, to claim they are not is simply absurd and a denial of evolution. Violence is not something we can simply choose to switch on and off and yes, peace needs to be enforced (why the hell do you think we need laws and a police force to enforce it?) and non-violent pacifism is simply sticking your head in the sand and hoping everything else will go away.

Kyu

Potential for violence exists in everyone, but potential is not the same as saying that violence is a part of our psychological make-up. I keep my violence switched off 24/7. I've not been violent since I took martial arts in my youth. Am I just an exception to your rule? Are all pacifists?

Peace can't be "enforced". Let's look at the most successful peace movement in human history: the movement for Indian independence. Gandhi created a playbook for non-violent resistance that shocked the whole world at the time. India drove out the British without a single gun going off. They turned popular opinion back in the UK, and the fact is that killing people that have done you no harm is inexcusable. Imagine if modern wars happened like this.

The US invades Iraq in 2003, and immediately the Iraqi people host sit-ins and non-violent demonstrations. No US or coalition soldiers die, at all. No IEDs. No "al Qaeda". Just demonstration after demonstration. We start to see a refusal to purchase US goods and services, and no Iraqis will work for foreign oil companies. There is a refusal to join the defense forces that the US is trying to establish, instead establishing their own government and defense force. The US would have left in a month. There would have been no excuse to stay. There were no WMDs after all.

Imagine if Russia didn't fire back after Georgia attacked earlier this year. Suddenly the whole planet is aware that Georgia is the aggressor and trade with Georgia (already a poor state) slows. Western powers refuse to sell them weapons and their military falls into disrepair.

While I am not a fan of religion in the least, the idea of turning the other cheek is quite brilliant and there's precedence for it's success.

Quote from: "Kyuuketsuki"

Quote from: "karadan"Either way I believe humans prefer a peaceful state and will only act violently when provoked or in a fight or flight situation. That doesn't necessarily mean we are inherently violent though.

I think it does but more importantly my point was that peace is not the natural state of human cultures ... as such it needs to be actively defended. Pacifists have the right to be pacifists but they do so only because someone else is willing to stand the watch and protect their right to do so.

Kyu

Yes, peace definitely IS the natural state of ALL cultures. If your statement is true then more than 50% of us (the world population) is and has been at war more than 50% of the time throughout history!!

Yes, there are people in Iraq and Afghanistan fighting right now. There is also a bunch of fighting in Africa. That does not represent the majority of the worlds population. Your context was the individual human, therefore, i need to take all individuals on the planet into context here. By mean average,  99.99% of the world's current population is NOT at war. It has been this way throughout most of history. Therefore, we are not inherently violent.

Violence is just the result of incompatible or maladjusted interelations between groups of humans. There will be a point in the future where we'll have evolved past this completely. It is already being phased out and has been for the last several thousand years.

Quote from: "Willravel"Potential for violence exists in everyone, but potential is not the same as saying that violence is a part of our psychological make-up. I keep my violence switched off 24/7. I've not been violent since I took martial arts in my youth. Am I just an exception to your rule? Are all pacifists?

Sure, you have grown up in a culture that is rights based and you have learned not to strike out at others and/or take whatever you see as yours.

Quote from: "Willravel"Peace can't be "enforced". Let's look at the most successful peace movement in human history: the movement for Indian independence. Gandhi created a playbook for non-violent resistance that shocked the whole world at the time. India drove out the British without a single gun going off. They turned popular opinion back in the UK, and the fact is that killing people that have done you no harm is inexcusable. Imagine if modern wars happened like this.

Yes it can and indeed has to be ... if the UK went pacifist (truly and completely) how long do you think it would be before someone looks over at us and says to themselves, that's a nice country, I 'think I'll have that.

As for India, after WW2 Britain was bankrupt (thanks mainly to US lend/lease deals a.k.a. profiteering), despite the size and resources of India and various other territories dominated around the world Britain could no longer afford to maintain sufficient forces to keep them so in actual fact it wasn't so much that Ghandi drove Britain out as Britain simply pulled out. It's also worth pointing out that India has a significant history or violent opposition to British rule prior to Ghandi's peaceful rebellion which would have soured British hearts and minds to continued rule and that there were as part of the "peaceful" Quit India Movement's campaign many acts of civil disobedience including destruction of British owned assets and so on. So to say no gun was fired may be technically correct (I doubt it was literally true) but it is a distorted version of the truth because there was violence and lives were lost.

Quote from: "Willravel"The US invades Iraq in 2003, and immediately the Iraqi people host sit-ins and non-violent demonstrations. No US or coalition soldiers die, at all. No IEDs. No "al Qaeda". Just demonstration after demonstration. We start to see a refusal to purchase US goods and services, and no Iraqis will work for foreign oil companies. There is a refusal to join the defense forces that the US is trying to establish, instead establishing their own government and defense force. The US would have left in a month. There would have been no excuse to stay. There were no WMDs after all.

You're insane ... hundreds of soldiers have died in Iraq and many, many more civilians.

Quote from: "Willravel"Imagine if Russia didn't fire back after Georgia attacked earlier this year. Suddenly the whole planet is aware that Georgia is the aggressor and trade with Georgia (already a poor state) slows. Western powers refuse to sell them weapons and their military falls into disrepair.

And naïve! It hasn't worked in Zimbabwe.

Quote from: "Willravel"While I am not a fan of religion in the least, the idea of turning the other cheek is quite brilliant and there's precedence for it's success.

I give up!

Quote from: "karadan"Yes, peace definitely IS the natural state of ALL cultures. If your statement is true then more than 50% of us (the world population) is and has been at war more than 50% of the time throughout history!!

No it isn't, it's a culturally learned response ... we don't act violently because it makes sense to cooperate (we're pack animals) and because our society teaches us that it is better and of the consequences if we don't. When I say we are a violent species don't misunderstand ... big cats are violent but it doesn't mean they a are violent all the time, possibly not much more than say 5% of the time; eat, defend, sleep with the latter being the majority I guess. When I say we are violent I refer to what we are potentially at base, at our cores ... nothing about that means we can't be better. We are goal seeking, and more to the point goal creating, animals that are capable of figuring the best way to achieve our own aims ... that's what makes us the superior species (at least in our eyes) on the planet. But we are still violent.

Quote from: "karadan"]Yes, there are people in Iraq and Afghanistan fighting right now. There is also a bunch of fighting in Africa. That does not represent the majority of the worlds population. Your context was the individual human, therefore, i need to take all individuals on the planet into context here. By mean average,  99.99% of the world's current population is NOT at war. It has been this way throughout most of history. Therefore, we are not inherently violent.

According To Will there is no violence in Iraq but no, I don't agree anyway ... as I have said we are at our cores, violent animals ... given the right situation all of us will resort to violence in order to survive, we just don't happen to live in those kind of situation but if you look at places where starvation is an issue you will find increased levels of violence because the survival pressure is greater.

Quote from: "karadan"Violence is just the result of incompatible or maladjusted interelations between groups of humans. There will be a point in the future where we'll have evolved past this completely. It is already being phased out and has been for the last several thousand years.

Rubbish! If we cease to have the capacity to fight we will seal our own doom.

Kyu

Quote from: "Kyuuketsuki"

Quote from: "karadan"Yes, peace definitely IS the natural state of ALL cultures. If your statement is true then more than 50% of us (the world population) is and has been at war more than 50% of the time throughout history!!

No it isn't, it's a culturally learned response ... we don't act violently because it makes sense to cooperate (we're pack animals) and because our society teaches us that it is better and of the consequences if we don't. When I say we are a violent species don't misunderstand ... big cats are violent but it doesn't mean they a are violent all the time, possibly not much more than say 5% of the time; eat, defend, sleep with the latter being the majority I guess. When I say we are violent I refer to what we are potentially at base, at our cores ... nothing about that means we can't be better. We are goal seeking, and more to the point goal creating, animals that are capable of figuring the best way to achieve our own aims ... that's what makes us the superior species (at least in our eyes) on the planet. But we are still violent.

According To Will there is no violence in Iraq but no, I don't agree anyway ... as I have said we are at our cores, violent animals ... given the right situation all of us will resort to violence in order to survive, we just don't happen to live in those kind of situation but if you look at places where starvation is an issue you will find increased levels of violence because the survival pressure is greater.

Rubbish! If we cease to have the capacity to fight we will seal our own doom.

 

I don't understand why you think this way. To me, it is rather obvious that the act of fighting over stuff is basically only due to limitations of resources and space. Once we do away with these limitations, there will be nothing left to fight over. I find that a rather simple concept.

You've even admitted that violence us usually the last resort. If that is so, then how can it be a core value?

I've not had to resort to violence since i had a fight at school some 20 years ago. I AM a non-violent person. it is NOT a core value of mine. To be honest, i kind of resent being told that i'm violent (which you are basicaly inferring). I don't know about you, but i know myself and billions of my fellow humans lead a peaceful existence and never resort to violence to solve anything. Because of this, we have evolved past such petty nonsense.

Is it not time you evolved past this too?

I used an example earlier and i'll use it again with a slight adjustment.

Women are all equipped to be prostitutes but they aren't all prostitutes. If there was some bizarre social cataclysm which meant the only way women could earn cash was to become a prostitute, then i think you'd see a hell of a lot of women become prostitutes. That doesn't mean all women are prostitutes at heart! It just means that a situation has forced people to become desparate. I'm sure they'd do everything they can to not be prostitutes, though.

Exactly the same applies with the human ability to do violent things.

Quote from: "karadan"I don't understand why you think this way. To me, it is rather obvious that the act of fighting over stuff is basically only due to limitations of resources and space. Once we do away with these limitations, there will be nothing left to fight over. I find that a rather simple concept.

Isn't doing away with resource limitation a rather airy fairy concept? It's not happened yet and if history teaches anything we will expand until we are stopped so we're right back in the resource competition arena again.

Quote from: "karadan"I You've even admitted that violence us usually the last resort. If that is so, then how can it be a core value?

Because it's what we always fall back to! It's what we are even though it's leashed.

Quote from: "karadan"I I've not had to resort to violence since i had a fight at school some 20 years ago. I AM a non-violent person. it is NOT a core value of mine. To be honest, i kind of resent being told that i'm violent (which you are basicaly inferring). I don't know about you, but i know myself and billions of my fellow humans lead a peaceful existence and never resort to violence to solve anything. Because of this, we have evolved past such petty nonsense.

My argument has always been that we, as a species, are violent ... in a survival situation unless you could help the pack (which you may well be able to do in a non-violent fashion, after all we are supposedly intelligent) you would be useless and eventually left to fend for yourself.

I would apologise for telling you, you are an inherently violent creature except that I'm not sorry, I will never be sorry for saying things as they are and if anyone should be resentful it should be me for the guilt trip you just tried to put me on.

I wasn't aware you knew so many people ... oh silly me, you don't!!! Have you actually watched the news lately?

Quote from: "karadan"I Is it not time you evolved past this too?

Is it not time you accepted that evolution is an inherently violent concept and that we are what we have evolved to be?

Quote from: "karadan"I Women are all equipped to be prostitutes but they aren't all prostitutes. If there was some bizarre social cataclysm which meant the only way women could earn cash was to become a prostitute, then i think you'd see a hell of a lot of women become prostitutes. That doesn't mean all women are prostitutes at heart! It just means that a situation has forced people to become desparate. I'm sure they'd do everything they can to not be prostitutes, though.

And I will answer as I did earlier, "Women, as far as nature is concerned, are just breeding machines and men just the tools to feed and protect them ... everything else we have and/or have learned is just icing on the cake."

Quote from: "karadan"Exactly the same applies with the human ability to do violent things.

Non Sequitur.

Kyu

Quote from: "curiosityandthecat"I defer to Mr. Carlin.

QuoteI like to talk a little bit about the war in Persian Gulf, big doings in the Persian Gulf. You know my favorite part of that war? It was the first war we had that was on every channel, even cable. And the war got good ratings too. Well, we like war! We are war like people. We like war because we're good at it.

You know why we're good at it, because we get a lot of practice. This country is only 200 years old and we've already have had ten major wars. We average a major war every 20 years in this country, so we're good at it. And it's a good thing we are; we're not good at anything else any more, ha? Can't build a descent car, can't make a TV center or a VCR worth a fuck. Don't have steel industry left, can't educate our young people, can't get good health care for our old people, but we can bomb the shit out of your country. HAH? WE CAN BOMB THE SHIT OUT OF YOUR COUNTRY ALL RIGHT!!

ESPECIALLY IF YOUR COUNTRY IS FULL OF BROWN PEOPLE.

Oh we like that, that's our hobby. That's our new job in the world, bombing brown people. Iraq, Panama, Granada, Libya, Afghanistan, you got some brown people in your country, tell them to watch the fuck out or we'll god damn bomb them.

Well when is the last white people you remember we bombed? You remember the last white, do you remember ANY white people we've ever bombed?

The Germans were the last ones and that's because they were trying to cut in our action. They wanted to dominate the world, bull shit, that's our job, that's our fucking job.

Now we only bomb brown people. Not because they're cutting on our action, just because they're brown. You may have noticed, I don't feel about that war the way we were told, the way we were supposed to feel about that war, the way we were ordered, instructed by the United States government. You see, I tell ya, my mind doesn't work that way, I got this real moron thing I do, it's called thinking. And I'm not a very good American, because I like to form my own opinions. I don't just roll over when I'm told to. The sad thing is most Americans just roll over on command, not me. I have certain rules I live by. First rule is I don't believe anything government tells me, nothing, zero. Nope! And I don't take very seriously media the press in this country, who in the case of Persian Gulf War were nothing more than unpaid employees of the Department of Defense, and who most of the time, MOST OF THE TIME, functions as an unofficial public relations agency for United States Government.

So, I don't listen to them, I don't really believe in my country, and I got to tell you folks I don't get all chocked up about yellow ribbons and American flags. I consider them symbols and I leave symbols to the symbol-minded.

Me, I look at war a little bit differently. To me war is a lot of prick waving, ok?

Simple thing that's all it is war is a whole lot of men standing out in a field waving their pricks at one another. Men are insecure about the size of their dicks so they have to kill one another over the idea. That's what all that ass whole, jock bull shit is all about.

That's what all that adolescent, macho, male posturing and strutting in bars and locker rooms is all about. It's called dick fear. Men are terrified that their dicks are inadequate and so they have to compete with one another to feel better about themselves. So, since war is the ultimate competition, basically men are killing each other in order to improve their self esteem.

You don't have to be a historian or a political scientists to see bigger-dick foreign policy at work.

It sounds like this, ìwhat they have bigger dicks? Bomb themî. And of course, the bombs, rockets, and the bullets are all shaped like dicks. It's a subconscious need to project the penis into other people's affairs.

IT'S CALLED, "FUCKING WITH PEOPLE"!!

So, as far as I'm concerned that whole thing in Persian Golf was nothing more than a big prick waving dick fight. In this particular case, Saddam Hussein had questioned the size of George Bush's dick. And George has been called a wimp for so long, wimp rhymes with limpÖ George has been called a wimp for so long that he has to act down his manhood fantasies, by sending other people's children to die.

Even the name Bush is related to genitals without being genitals without being the genitals. A Bush is a sort of passive, secondary sex characteristics.

Now, if his name was George Boner... well, he might have felt better about himself and he wouldn't have had any problems over there anyway.

This whole country has a manhood problem, a big manhood problem in USA. You can tell by the language we use. Language always gives you away. What did we do wrong in Vietnam? We pulled out!

Ahh, not a very manly thing to do, is it? When you're fucking people, you got to stay in there and fuck them good, fuck them all the way, fuck them to death.

Stay in there and keep fucking them until they're all dead.

We left a few women and children in Vietnam and we haven't felt good about ourselves since. That's why in Persian Gulf, George Bush said, "this will not be another Vietnam". He actually used these words he said, "This time we're going all the way". Imagine an American president using the sexual slang of a thirteen year old to explain his foreign policy!

If you want to know what happened in Persian Gulf just remember the names of two men who were running that war, Dick Chaney and Colin Powel. Somebody got fucked in the...

A military will be necessary for as long as we are emotional beings. Any militaristic offensive can be traced back to either greed or fear.

Dude, don't make serious opinions based on jokes. Jorge Carlin is a funny guy but I'm sure he's not completely serious when he writes jokes. Like when he said that his immune system is the shit because he used to swim in raw sewage, it won't really equip your immune system with anti tank missiles.

Anyway, enough preaching.
I voted for war being necessary but annoying. I was also inclined for the only self-defense option but I don't think destroying weapons of mass destruction wouldn't qualify as self-defense in the sense that we weren't attacked when we went after Saddam.
War sucks, but where would the world be without wars. We don't live in the Garden of Eden and people will always have conflicts.
In today's world we will always have nearly insane radicals whose soul purpose in life will be to enforce their ideas on people of conflicting interests (look at suicide bombers).

But then again, what do I know. I'm just a teenager with a GED.

Quote from: "Kyuuketsuki"

Quote from: "karadan"I don't understand why you think this way. To me, it is rather obvious that the act of fighting over stuff is basically only due to limitations of resources and space. Once we do away with these limitations, there will be nothing left to fight over. I find that a rather simple concept.

Isn't doing away with resource limitation a rather airy fairy concept? It's not happened yet and if history teaches anything we will expand until we are stopped so we're right back in the resource competition arena again.

Kyu

You obviously haven't heard of Fusion energy, or the International space station or the dozens of probes sent to Mars (including all the future scheduled ones) plus the proposed manned flights to Mars. Also, don't forget the Chinese have started their own little race to get to the moon. If those projects are not precursors to infinitely abundant energy and resources, then i do not know what is...

As for the rest of your argument. I simply disagree. It depends which way you look at it. You are abviously a natural pessimist. I am an optimist. We won't be able to agree on this so this is where i'm going to leave it.

Quote from: "karadan"You obviously haven't heard of Fusion energy

I have and my understanding is that despite scientific optimism dating back decades FE has still not been practically implemented. It's also worth noting that energy is not the only resource that humans require.

The rest of your post focusses on possibilities which is great but still largely pie in the sky at the moment especially since there is nothing to say we wont simply expand to meet the limits of other resources as we move out (the first obvious barrier being the limits of the solar system). Actually no, I'm a natural optimist but I have learned to be a realist ... I base my optimism on what the evidence indicates we are and what I'd like us to achieve, not on some fairy tale view of the human race.

Yes we disagree but I already knew that

Kyu

The modern nation-state military is, like all managerial bureaucracies, contrary to all organic individuals and groups.  I support formal and informal militias, composed of citizens armed at their own expense.

I voted total pacifist but I'm not - not really. I'm against any form of organised military, as it is nothing but a giant waste of resources. In my perfect world, the military would consist of mercs, hired at need OR of people doing something productive besides training for war.

As for violence, there are forms of violence I tend to defend and other forms that I tend to abhor. As a general rule though, I claim the path of indifference.  

Quote from: "Asmodean"I voted total pacifist but I'm not - not really. I'm against any form of organised military, as it is nothing but a giant waste of resources. In my perfect world, the military would consist of mercs, hired at need OR of people doing something productive besides training for war.

As for violence, there are forms of violence I tend to defend and other forms that I tend to abhor. As a general rule though, I claim the path of indifference.  

I am amicable to mercenaries.  They are a proven system.