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As to me thinking that the U.S. government is the good guys, no such thing. I just don't think they are competent enough to orchestrate this.

They can orchestrate a golf game on the moon... on. the. moon.

Personally, I'm not sure why Julian Assange is still walking around.

Because they're sophisticated enough to understand that creating a martyr is not the way to neutralize a popular ideological opponent; there are better ways.

You can attack their reputation, you can lock them up on trumped up charges, you can subject them to stresses that would break any man's will, all of it to turn them into something people will look down on with disgust.
If you nail them to a cross in their prime, they could still be talked about two thousand years later. If you gun them down in south america, their face could still be on t-shirts decades later.
You learn from your mistakes, you evolve.

The U.S. is not a blundering buffoon, it's a slick con man. Reexamine your assumptions, you may see events that you thought were stupid were actually Machiavellian, if you just realize that the stated goal is not the real goal.

In this instance, the goal isn't to protect Swedish women from the evils of unwanted semen, the goal is to neutralize a disruptive agent. The actions don't fit the stated goal, so you must infer the real goals from what would fit these circumstances. Check the facts, see which is most likely.

Suggested reading: The Art of War.

General Joseph *Hooker* (Union Army) was evidently one of many to recognize the morale boost? makes sense.

BTW:
Sun-Tzu's The Art Of War doesn't seem to directly refer to this.

http://www.chinapage.com/sunzi-e.html (This page, which posts the 1910 Giles translation, uses the word 'spirit' where 'morale' might fit)
'Alcohol', 'drink', 'women', 'prostitute', and other such terms are not-found.

"A clever general, therefore, avoids an army when its spirit is keen, but attacks it when it is sluggish and inclined to return. This is the art of studying moods." might indirectly refer to this as a potential distraction, but the context more directly refers to general energy level

This is turning into something right out of the Art of War

You do realise that not so long ago that it was considered normal for soldiers to rape and pillage in conquered lands? Indeed, some have suggested that the coalition's failure to carry out reprisals (e.g. decimation) on civilian populations in Iraq and Afghanistan suspected of sheltering guerillas is one of the reasons why the insurgents continue to receive popular support there.

Not always and for European powers (lets include the US in this as well) this was not the norm for the last 300 years. War has been "Civilised".

External military powers have never been successful as suppressing a population no matter how many troops they throw at them. The most successful conquers seduced the people by other means, Alexander the Great married his generals off to Turkish and Persian women when they conquered Anatolia and Persia, Julius Caesar went about educating the local tribes in Latin and bringing the culture of Rome to outing provinces, the British set up trade routes bringing wealth and luxuries with them. Lets compare this Strong military conquers, the Mongols got further into Europe then any European got into Asia but their power faded as soon as Genghis Khan died, the Huns managed to sack Rome and made all of Europe fear them but suffered the same fate as the Mongols when Attila died.

There is a point to my rambling, this can easily be summed up in Sun Tzu's fifth and most important key to victory.

4. The Moral Law causes the people to be in complete accord with their ruler, so that they will follow him regardless of their lives, undismayed by any danger.

Now in order to exert your will over a foreign people you need to gain their support over their local leaders, to be the "sovereign that is imbued with the moral law". You do not do this by oppressing the people as the Mongols or Huns but make your self appear that you are working in the best interest of the people (or actual acting in this fashion would be better). The US killed this advantage in Afghanistan when it went gallivanting around in Iraq where it was impossible for the US to gain this advantage.

Carrying out reprisals on the Afghan population will only give the moral law to the other side thus driving more people to rally against your cause as this is the way that the Taliban paints the US, as warmongers and degenerates. In order to gain the support of the Afghan people we must prove them wrong, more must be done to increase their quality of life in accordance to their wishes, not to force US law upon the Afghans.

We could try marrying off General Petreus to an Afghan woman, but what have the Afghans done to deserve that.

We'll never win another war because of superior technology.

Minor nitpick but the US never won a war due to superior technology. The deciding factor was always something else.

WWI - because the allies weathered the 3 year stalemate better then the Germans and Austrians. Both sides developed new tactics by the end of the war but it was simply too late for the Germans to make them effective, they didn't have the resources.
WWII - because allied production outstripped the axis production 20 to 1. German weapons were so far advanced it wasn't funny, the only saving grace is that for each panther the Germans put out the Allies could field 5 Sherman's and a Cromwell to boot and its the same story with fighters, rifles and belt buckles.
Korea - Soviet technology was equal to US tech, the MIG's at the time were superior but were limited by their own commanders (only permitted to fly over North Korean airspace)
Vietnam - despite superiority on paper the US lost this one. Due entirely to poor tactics and intelligence.

Superior technology rarely decides who wins a war. To best decide who will win a war look up Sun Tzu's 5 keys to victory the rules are laid out in stanza 4 and are ordered by importance in stanza 13. The most important key is why the Iraq war was lost before it began.

Ah, but I didn't say that. I said that it's irrelevant to the ability of the president to do his job. It's valuable knowledge, but not indicative of ability to lead the country, and should not be used to judge a candidate's worth, as it has been.

It's indicative of his willingness to stay on top of issues relevant to this nation. Take ex-Senator Ted Stevens, for instance. He was incredibly uninformed about technology and how it impacted our culture; as a result, he promoted some truly terrible legislation that no competent, informed person would consider. Would you put him at the head of the United States Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation knowing full well that he couldn't tell the difference between a cable modem and a brick?

Now we have a president that is informed on the benefits of open source software and net neutrality; I'd argue that's hugely indicative of his potential to promote sane legislation. Given the fact that he's been charged with enforcing the nation's laws, knowing the technological turf he'll be playing on is pretty important to leading. I'd say that's pretty damn well relevant.

I happen to be reading The Art of War right now and it is really an interesting and easy read. Great advice and insight on how to lead. Here is the text online: http://www.chinapage.com/sunzi-e.html

Traditionally, China is the people of "One Hundred Names:"

In many Western countries, there is a short list of popular 'first names,' but countless 'last names.' In China, it is just the reverse. The list of last name is short, and the number of first names is in the billions. This may be the reason that in Western countries, one customarily tell strangers one's first name ("My name is Bob.") Whereas in China, one generally give out his last name instead ("Just ask for Mr. Wang.") One Hundred Chinese Names

30. Violence
Powerful men are well advised not to use violence,
For violence has a habit of returning;
Thorns and weeds grow wherever an army goes,
And lean years follow a great war.

A general is well advised
To achieve nothing more than his orders:
Not to take advantage of his victory.
Nor to glory, boast or pride himself;
To do what is dictated by necessity,
But not by choice.

For even the strongest force will weaken with time,
And then its violence will return, and kill it.

31. Armies
Armies are tools of violence;
They cause men to hate and fear.
The sage will not join them.
His purpose is creation;
Their purpose is destruction.

Weapons are tools of violence,
Not of the sage;
He uses them only when there is no choice,
And then calmly, and with tact,
For he finds no beauty in them.

Whoever finds beauty in weapons
Delights in the slaughter of men;
And who delights in slaughter
Cannot content himself with peace.

So slaughters must be mourned
And conquest celebrated with a funeral.
[Chinese text]|[Go To Top]

http://www.chinapage.com/gnl.html

3. Without Action ...
In this manner the sage governs people:
Emptying their minds,
Filling their bellies,
Weakening their ambitions,
And strengthening their bones.

The country itself need not have enough bandwidth. Distributed DoS could take down a box using american zombie PCs. And let me tell you, there is no dearth of those. An attack from the inside of the network is perfectly possible - ever read Andromeda Strain ?. A compromised machine inside your network would need you to have a LOT of scissors :)

Cyber warfare is military funded ... It is military without all the blood and guts routine - with all the Art of War fire tactics.

Hell yeah!

Its good to hear a post where anybody puts active resistance to tyranny as an option. I was beginning to think we lived in a country of cowards.

There are posts in response that claim the American people don't have the means to revolt, and they are wrong. Never forget that, we always do. The big army doesn't necessarily defeat the small one, nor does the advanced one defeat the primitive one, or even the unarmed one. IF you don't understand this I recommend you study warfare and historic military exploits starting with Sun Tzu's Art of War.

An essential read is also the writings of Gandhi. This man freed India from colonial rule by a technologically advanced military superpower without weapons. He refered to himself as "general" because he knew he was doing warfare, even though it was non-violent. This works because Gandhi understood that war simply requires non-compliance with the enemy, not necessarily killing him. This is the same principle that will defeat the American occupation in Iraq, without any stunning military victories on the part of the insurgents...The people refuse to be governed by the US, therefore they cannot be. The same principles of non-compliance can be applied to attempts at tyranny in the US.

Well that's not the fault of the Chinese, I think.

In the early 1400's Cheng Ho (Zheng He) made 7 voyages towards the western world, reaching Africa. He took more than 27,000 people in 320+ ships with him on some voyages. The largest ships weighed 1500 tons, were 180 meters long, and held 1000 people. See here to see how vastly larger a treasure ship was than the Santa Maria, built 87 years later.

Linux has already been affected by companies who have shown increased sales since beginning to spew FUD about "stolen IP" in Linux.

So true. But companies won't come right out and admit to this -- makes them look foolish.

Case in point: I was all set to introduce our school district (>50,000 students, 9 high schools) to Linux as an economic alternative to Novell. Servers were purchased (ProLiant DLs with dual processors and 6-disk RAIDs), Linux was installed, testing was done, quotas set up, we were ready to roll -- and then SCO dropped their bombshell. A week went by...two weeks...I discovered that due to "security" concerns, the servers were to be converted to Novell servers.

"Security" concerns? Bullshit. I had already worked several weeks with the network gurus to put their security concerns to rest.

This is but one government entity. The damage SCO has caused is quite extensive, and those who deny it are hiding their heads in the sand.

Who would have thought that Linux (and open-source software in general) would be brought to its knees by an indirect blow? Here we were, thinking the battle was to be fought in Redmond, when in fact we were flanked by SCO and didn't even realize it until it was too late.

Such is the price of hubris and arrogance. "If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle." (Sun Tzu, Art of War)

File this one under covert ops. Find all the newspaper articles and legal cases about salaried employees working overtime without compensation and the lawsuits that the employers *lost*. Check your friendly search engines & findlaw.com to start out with. Print a lot of them (on company paper to really spite them) and put them under the management's office door after they have left to go home. That or send them through inter office mail envelopes. Do this all without attaching anything at all, especailly anything threatening, if you do it may work against you in a lawsuit. You just want to seed their minds with rather nasty thoughts of lawsuits and bad publicity. If you don't here any rumours in a week's time do it again but also leave copies in public places for other coworkers to find. Eventally someone else will bring it up and you won't be the target of any managment backlash.

Sun Szu, "The art of War", Chapter 13, On the Use of Spies.

Or Revenge, however you want to put it.

What is needed is an organized "army" of individuals willing to "return fire" when something like this happens. Kind of like NATO is supposed to do - whenever a member nation is attacked, all of NATO is supposed to respond to protect their member. When one of us is attacked there needs to be response - organized, continuous response until the attacker either relents or is made irrelevent (ie shows up here).

I have an idea, Slashcourt. We can set up our own trial system (fair, of course), give the accusers the right to make their case, give the accused the right to defend themselves, all online of course.

Sitting back and writing a letter of protest is just going to get them laughing at your expense. It's time to kick it up a notch and return with something that has teeth.

Everyone needs to read The Art of War. Then, find a way to fight back. There are plenty of ways to fight back which can destroy an individual and really damage a corporation, without breaking any laws. Use them on the enemy. Take a look here for some methods that cults use to silence people.

I'm not making any judgment as to whether or not what the guy did was illegal or immoral. My only judgment is for the harshness of his penalty in relation to what he did

Find the person or persons involved with making the penalty so harsh. Take out retribution on them. Be sure they know what it's for.

last I checked.. 2003 is going to be the Year of the Goat

since when was linux an animal?

The official Chinese history, taught in schools, show that the Ming Dynasty's fleets did reach Southeast and South Asia, Arabia and East Africa, but that was as far as they went. There is no doubt that the Ming had the technology to go to West Africa or even "discovered" Western Europe for China, but going across an ocean like the Pacific or the Atlantic may be questionable. (Note the Ming routes were mainly along coasts known to the Chinese people)

See http://www.chinapage.com/zhenghe.html (near the middle of the page) for a map of the Ming voyage based on China's historical records.

It would be great that China discovered America, but the Chinese people do not claim something that cannot be supported. And remember, it is a Englishman, not a Chinese, who makes this claim.

Strategy is hard to implement.

1) You have to tune the ruleset to achieve a balanced gameplay. The more complex, the more you have to test.

2) You have to develop an "AI" that has to cope with your ruleset.

Both reasons urges you keep the ruleset simple, which is (at least for me) contraproductive for interesting games. Online-gaming seems to get rid of reason 2.

Strategy doesn't sell and game companies have become very conservative. (Name a current game that isn't a sequel)

1) Having limited manpower, you have to choose between GFX and game complexity. Now try to sell a non 3D game.

2) Complexity scare most customer. (I don't have the time to read a complete handbook, just to play a game)

>In fact, you'd be very hardpressed to find someone who uses actualy tactics in a strategy game

You seem to have a different understanding of the words tactis and strategy than me.
For me strategy is much more long-term orientated whereas tactics is only "a method of employing forces in combat".

Following this understanding, most RTS aren't strategy games to my eyes. They are tactical games.
They have to cope with too many different things in short time so that game-logic is reduced to build and crush.
One word says it all, pathfinding (Where is my harvester?)
GFX have to rendered quickly every frame.

>If you were to create a strategy game with real strategy, what would you implement?

I'm more a fan of build and expand, than intercept and crush, but considering war-faring, I think there are some books I'd try to reflect in the rule-set: Sun Tzu's Art of War and Miyamoto Musashi's Ni Ten Ichi Ryu
That means several things beside manpower have to be considered, troop moral, moral of the supporting nation(s), supply, training, terrain.

Currently, I'm waiting for Master of Orion III to crush my hopes :).
At least from their statements they are reflecting some of my (reduced) expectations from a good (space) strategy game.

By the way, I found a page containing a translated version of Sun Tzu's The Art of War. Enjoy.

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