Slashdot Mirror
The War Of The Virtual Worlds
man_ls writes "The University of Southern California Information Sciences Institute is working with the U.S. Joint Forces Command to harness supercomputer power, to simulate a virtual continent for use in urban battlefield situations. The simulation, set in the year 2015, involves 100,000 entities to simulate, although the system can support more than a million."
Yeah yeah! but does it include the BFG?
I for one, welcome our new hot grits... PROFIT!
may I play age of empires on it?
for the SX-8
Wow, like a Total War game but on a bit larger scale. It just mde it to the top of my wishlist :)
William George
I switched it into G.W.Bush Mode, and ended up with a big charcoal sphere :-P
Table-ized A.I.
Keep your Sims happy!
I have heard about this before.. I think it's called UT2015. I had found the leak on the net. :-P
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insert sig here,here, and here
This reminds me of Wargames. In case you haven't seen it, it involved a 'supercomputer' that could play out various scenarios leading up to a nuclear war. In the end the computer figured out that, like the game tic-tac-toe, if both sides were even remotely intelligent, there was no way for either side to win.
Take off every sig. For great justice.
When Duke Nukem Forever comes out, everyone's computer will be able to handle millions of bodies!
Monstar L
Now the hard part is convincing everyone that real-life wars are outdated and we should start using the virtual battlefield.
to simulate a virtual continent for use in urban battlefield situations
That's one big fucking city.
this article on Wired News
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
Word to the wise: don't make this virutal world too perfect. Entire crops could be lost.
Don't blame me, I voted for Durga.
the search for WMD is as simple as:
SELECT w.GPSCoordinates
FROM Weapons w
WHERE w.DestructionType = 'Mass'
AND w.Owner 'United States'
Reminds me of this
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0182587/
It seems that countries are now too small or uninteresting to take over. Witness all of the current successes. What continent now will be suspected of having WMD's?
...as in the ST:TOS episode.
:p
Now where are the casaulty units?
Notice the minimized browser in the bottom screenshot?
Instead of good guys and bad guys, they need a simulator where you are this military force propping up a hugely unpopular puppet government. You can go on missions with the puppet government's national guard, but you can't send in their national guard by themselves or they'll ally with the "bad guys".
And maybe a scoring system where if you have to keep troops there to support the government against its people indefinitely, you get no points, if the puppet government turns into a repressive dictatorship, you get one point, if the people overthrow the government and replace it with a fundamentalist theocracy, you get 2 points, and if you're right in the middle of a big urban street battle with the bad guys and you get a message that says "your capital was just nuked by a country you've been paying no attention to at all", you lose.
No, actually, that'd suck. Nevermind.
When you get to hell -- tell 'em Itchy sent ya!
sounds like one big GTA game ... without a storyline
I suppose we should be happy that they're actually going to prepare for the next war.
"prepare"? They're not preparing for anything, they're warmonging. That's a case of war creation more than anything else...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Western Values (e.g., the "Old Boys" network, allowing near monopolies, keeping minorities in their economic place, and a "free media") certainly are the finest human values in the world, and Bush and Co are certainly striving to ensure their dominance.
This system is just another way to train our soldiers to be ready to go into important areas of the world and protect our oil, I mean, interests. While it does show our technical superiority, our moral superiority may be a bit lacking... I'm all for cool electronic toys, but maybe spending money on social projects might be a bit better.
On another note, I really recommend reading "Forever Peace" - it's a brillaint look at how technological superiority isn't necesarily useful.
--LWM
How peculiar... This is exactly the year that John Titor predicted as the explosion of the US Civil War into a full-blown WW3. ::dons tin-foil hat::
Maybe we deserve this world ?
Are you talking about China or the USA?
hook it up to America's Army. A 100,000 player MMOFPS/RTS, with a command structure, a continent to fight over and no modular missions. A big-picture, constantly changing war. Wanna make it even cooler? have new technology appear every few years, have the ammount of new weapons you can build related to how much of the land/natural resources you control - have things built on percentages, not just numerical limits.
Of course, the thing is that this just becomes a big computer game rather than a military training system, but like America's Army which is really designed to get people to sign up for the US Army, (as long as everything is realistic) this would actually allow the powers that be to know just who the best leaders/tacticians/strategists are in a time of crisis, without having to actually get a few 1000 soldiers brains blown out to seperate the wheat from the chaff.
Oh, and have the 'leaders' in a virtual command HQ, which could potentially be overrun / blown up.
Wait... that was the entire plan for my world-dominating computer game... d'oh. No-one do anything with it for a while, will you? I'm just popping out to the patent office.
FGD 135
Well, while that's possible, it's unimportant. I'm glad our military is doing this after all. We wouldn't want to get caught without skilled commanders, or even modern strategy. Before World War 2, France had the largest army in Europe, yet it managed to lose because German generals(specifically Guderian) pioneered new strategies. Most people don't think about this, at least Americans, but there are other armies out there that are advanced too. Maybe not as powerful, but still there. We need to stay focused on keeping the lead, instead of relaxing on our supposed invincibility.
Hurricane Ivan: A 17th century prison collapsed. All of the inmates escaped.
The whole article reminded me of the good old amiga days...
- "look! 100 bobs on the screen at the same time! "
- "Nah.. thats nothing, here's one million"
except all the people are white...
Let him who desires peace prepare for war.
-- Vegetius
Judging by the screenshots (http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,65403 ,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_1#) this is running the ancient ModSaf program (http://www.sisostds.org/webletter/siso/iss_75/art _367.htm). The WIRED article quotes a guy who "ported it to Linux"- which isn't very impressive, because the original platform was Solaris
ModSaf has been populating tank simulaters with NPC targets since 1982.
Insterestingly, the "supercomputers" this runs on were first purchased for Beowulf use- but the clustering software was removed for this project.
Just when the roleplayers said that PVP was dead, the Army goes and makes a whole continent dedicated to PVP play in 2015.
The real question is where are the soldiers going to bind and who is going to rezz them. And will the Army ban soldiers that corpse-camp?
-=*(CC)*=-
why the US govt does not use sometihng like the american army game to test tactics and run simulations and train on..
some of the tactics I hear about in IRAQ I know I have used in counterstrike years ago.
the FPS gamer is one of the greatest resources of tactical study.. add in a prize for a team that can push out the blue team from the fortress and you just trained your soldiers in the blue team in real combat technique.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Islam means "peace". It is a "peaceful religion"(tm).
Just look at how well Islamic countries get along with their neighbors.
The unfortunate problem is that even if some are ready to give up the study of and preparation for war, others are not. I might be able to convince another American that it's a good idea, and I might even be able to convince a German or a Finn. But as an American how could I convince a Chetchen, or an Iranian, or a North Korean? Would their own leaders even want to convince them of the rightness of disarming? Leaders of "good will" have always been few and far between.
How can we all stop preparing for war? That is the challenge, but so far I've not encountered any plan that seems even remotely practical, given the cultural, ethnic, and religious schisms that divide people across the globe.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
The name of the computer with the simulation is WOPR and the name of the AI in it is Joshua and the head designer is a reclusive scientist named Professor Falken.
-=*(CC)*=-
Get bent. I live in China right now, and personal connections (guanxi), monopolies, oppression of minorities, and a totally unfree media are exactly what exist here. Get outside your home country once in a lifetime, and see what's outside. Parochial twit.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
I think you're confusing the governments with the people. Remember the tank guy during the massacre? How is that not a value we should admire? It's easier to justify collateral damage if you can just call them a bunch of wacky commies. You classify Islam as an "external hostility". My advice to you is READ a freaking booK(other than the King James version of the bible). An encyclopedia would be a good start.
Your post is well written but wrong. Broad generalizations are a sure sign of ignorance.
What if Digg added local news and a Slashdot inspired comment karma system? ---
http://houndwire.com
Hmmm. On this picture there are several cars that have seriously run into each other, and at least one that swerved off the side of the road...
The generals wouldnt believe that the iraqis would attack them with road side bombs and suicide bombs. And when the US general in charge of the iraqi side did use tactics such as this, killing a lot of US troops, the generals for the US side declared it null and void and ordered the troops back to life.
And you think a computer simulation is going to help the US win wars? BWUAHAHHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA YOU DUMB CUNTS!
I like the one where if your side had 10,000 casualties in the cyber war then 10,000 people had to report to the extermination camps. 100,000 or even million entities on a whole continent is a very sparse array. Doesn't sound very realistic.
Thou shalt not kill. No exceptions given, not even for self-defense.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
Um, correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the parent used the word "supposed".
What's the ugliest part of your body? Some say your nose, some say your toes, but I think it's your mind. -Zappa
...that this is gonna be one of the launch titles for the PlayStation 3. Mmm, clusterfragging...
Posted with Mozilla
Seriously though, this is good for gamers, because this technology will inevitably end up in our games. Planetside tried to make a FPS with that many players, and while their cone of fire killed it (among other things), I definitely see FPSs going in that direction in the future, especially with the increasing availability of broadband.
I've always wanted to have large historic battles, but since the numbers of soldiers were so large back then, it wasn't really feasible for a FPS, but now perhaps they could do it after all. Can you say Battle of Helms Deep with every character being a real person?
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
Also, about China and "the finest human values in the world", what are you talking about? You think those 10 million civilians would just stand there? It's almost racist to think that Westerners are the only people that have good human values, and are the only ones willing to fight for them, as if the Chinese *people* somehow have different ones that are less good(which is all subjective anyway) *.
*Two things: a)If Chinese people had different human rights, you couldn't really judge them, as you'd be judging them based on your Western ideals, which either cannot be applied or can be applied both ways, as you cannot imply a preferred "direction" for that judgement to go. b)The Chinese people have the same human rights, and somehow do not seem to have the same problem with their government as you do. Considering that you don't live there(most likely), I'd take their word over yours. I'll take as their word that there hasn't been a coup(as the military is still composed of Chinese people), nor a revolt for some years.
Hurricane Ivan: A 17th century prison collapsed. All of the inmates escaped.
But five bucks says it doesn't even get 1.3 fps
Thank you, couldn't have said it better myself.
Hurricane Ivan: A 17th century prison collapsed. All of the inmates escaped.
"One experiment in this series, "Urban Resolve," began October 12. Set in the year 2015, in JFCOM's description, "it involves a U.S.-led coalition force that must confront and overcome a skilled adversary who is equipped with modern capabilities and is operating in an urban environment." "
Don't ya think they got this running about a year too late? Might have been helpful in this other thing going on in the meat world.
But is this the average population of a United States city?
Then again I can't imagine bush holding on to power for that long.
Mod +1 for paranoid
What could possibly go wrong?
So they'll be playing a huge version of CounterStrike?
How about a nice game of chess?
If you're going to quote the Old Testament, at least be accurate. The Hebrew in Exodus 20:13 is more consistent with "Thou Shalt Not Commit Murder." It's just frequently translated as "kill", even though the rest of the Old Testament makes a mockery of that translation.
Now where are the casaulty units?
This is the sig that says NI (again)
if it's 2015.. where are the flying cars? better sell my moller stock.
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insert sig here,here, and here
and still no cure for the idiocy that afflicts American minds so they we let the military industrial complex and the religious nuts control what we do with our tax dollars.
Heaven forbid we stop riling up the Muslim world, leave them in peace, and instead concentrate on curing diseases that kill thousands.
3000 Americans died in WTC 911. But every day 5000 Americans die, many of cancer and heart disease...
Lunacy....
eat shiat and bark at the moon
We need to stay focused on keeping the lead, instead of relaxing on our supposed invincibility.
e /Spending.asp)
Here's some statistics from wikipedia....
The United States military budget is larger than the military budgets of the next twenty biggest spenders combined, and six times larger than Russia's, which places second. The United States and its close allies are responsible for approximately two-thirds of all military spending on Earth (of which, in turn, the U.S. is responsible for two-thirds), dollar for dollar. Military spending accounts for more than half of the United States' federal discretionary spending, which is all of the U.S. government's money not spoken for by pre-existing obligations. [1] (http://www.globalissues.org/Geopolitics/ArmsTrad
According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, in 2003 the United States spent approximately 47%, of the world's total military spending of $956,000,000,000 USD.
I think the US is doing everything to stay on top militarily.
----
Squirrel
The chances of anything coming from a virtual Mars is virtually a million from one... But still, they come.
OMG, you stupid troll. I AM A WESTERNER. I DON'T AGREE WITH THE CHINESE GOVERNMENT. I just don't agree with the idiotic parent that the CHINESE PEOPLE are somehow less human since they don't have the same values. YOU ARE A MORON. You are the racist that somehow managed to make a giant strawman on which you were able to pin a bunch of junk upon since you are unable to actually argue the points logically, only emotionally.
Hurricane Ivan: A 17th century prison collapsed. All of the inmates escaped.
What I want to know is do they need distributed computing clients? I mean, why would I want my extra CPU cycles to work on finding life outside of this planet or curing disease when I can help with WAR?!?!
I don't respond to AC's.
Oh wow, you can copy and paste. You probably didn't even write that originally, you probably just got it from some anti-chinese bigoted website. Bigot.
Hurricane Ivan: A 17th century prison collapsed. All of the inmates escaped.
"prepare"? They're not preparing for anything, they're warmonging. That's a case of war creation more than anything else...
Since when did training become warmongering? Since you obviously have some serious misaprehensions about the military, I should point out that "warmongering" is more accurately an activity of civilians rather than the military. Look which parts of our government wanted this current little war we're in...
Could this be the start of a national subsidy to the Software and IT industries ala aerospace and agribusiness?
Politicus
Thanks for the stats. Mainly I was saying that we need to stay on top strategy wise. We need to hone our skills. We've got well trained men, well maintained equipment, and a lot of supplies to back it up, but, we haven't seen any *major* war in 50 years. We don't have any commanders who've had to deal with an enemy that is nearly as advanced as we are, only with well, n00bs country wise (I always said I'd rue the day I said n00bs, but it's almost fitting).
Hurricane Ivan: A 17th century prison collapsed. All of the inmates escaped.
Gitmo..... :-) And the Japanese internment camps.
Hurricane Ivan: A 17th century prison collapsed. All of the inmates escaped.
> On another note, I really recommend reading "Forever Peace" - it's a brillaint look at how technological superiority isn't necesarily useful.
You really got your ideals from a cheesy sci-fi novel with a message to push?
I guess some people really dig the idea of perpetual (and literal) "class warfare", and endorse the idea of forcible brain-washing for everyone. Sheesh.
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
Seeing some of the the results of current action in Iraq leads me to believe that WASPs are programming both sides of the simulations that the soldiers are traing with. Red Teams against Blue teams just seem to prepare us for civil wars fighting each other. That is the problem with fighting against guerrillas - they refuse to do what they are expected to do. We won the revolutionary war because we refused to fight the way we were expected (I don't know why we lapsed back into fighting in ranks in the civil war). Who is going to program a simulation where your sister straps on C4 and blows herself up in a crowded bus? Silly us. Until it becomes "old news" and "everyone is doing it", the WASP get really bent out of shape if you behave in a "crazy" manner. "Must'nt have you bringing your crazy ideas into our simulation..."
Good luck
This is far too complex, way to many stuff to simulate, it's not like a Nuclear simulator where everything or almost is destroyed in a certain perimiter with some factors such as wind. This thing will be a good video game for the U.S. military at the best.
Actually, Torah provided for protection of those who killed another without malice aforethought. See Deut 19:1-13 (KJV, NIV).
That's hilarious. You clearly need to re-read the Old Testament. On several ocassions the Lord commanded the Israelites to destroy every man woman and child in a city. On at least one ocassion (I'm not a Biblical scholar) Saul was even commanded to kill all of the animals in a city. Saul got in trouble because he decided that instead of destroying perfectly good animals that he would use them as sacrifices.
Perhaps you should have quoted the New Testament.
You troll. Slimeball. Ineffective moron.
Hurricane Ivan: A 17th century prison collapsed. All of the inmates escaped.
This simulation sounds like a bad idea. As with any mathamatecal model, it is only as good as the assumptions made, regardless of the resolution. This is exactly the kind of thinking that screwed us up in vietnam. Our foregn policy was being decided by mathmaticians when it should have been decided by historians. I get the impression this is planning for the next Faluja. Our problems in Iraq are not due to bad tactics, they are caused by bad strategy. I dont care how well your soldiers are trained; in urban combat the best kill ratio you can hope for is 10 to 1. We don't need more teraflops we need some good old fashoned common sense. http://www.exile.ru/archive/by_author/gary_brecher .html/
Salt the earth so that not even the crops can grow back. That old yahveh was one hell of mean and venegeful son of a bitch. He didn't think anything of wiping out the entire planet except for noah and his familiy.
evil is as evil does
Shall we play a game?
Daniel : Hey - you ever get into fights when you were a kid?
Miyagi : Huh - plenty.
Daniel : Yeah, but it wasn't like the problem I have, right?
Miyagi : Why? Fighting fighting. Same same.
Daniel : Yeah, but you knew karate.
Miyagi : Someone always know more.
Daniel : You mean there were times when you were scared to fight?
Miyagi : Always scare. Miyagi hate fighting.
Daniel : Yeah, but you like karate.
Miyagi : So?
Daniel : So, karate's fighting. You train to fight.
Miyagi : That what you think?
Daniel : [pondering] No.
Miyagi : Then why train?
Daniel : [thinks] So I won't have to fight.
Miyagi : [laughs] Miyagi have hope for you.
make world, not war
Should'nt they be working on a Peace Simulator instead of a War Simulator ?
didn't the aliens in the "War of the Worlds" die because they lost half of their flu vaccine somewhere in England?
More's the pity I can't - it'd be nice to go around with a storybook look on my face! Forever Peace is recommended reading, that's all. Yes it has lots of lofty ideals (defend democracy, don't let religious nuts destroy the world, etc), but it also has an interesting picture of what technological superiority gets you... what it doesn't.
The story reminds me of the book.
Rhetoric about "Western values" being so great reminds me of why I have problems with our current policies.
--LWM
I guess we have a new acronym now..
MMMRPG: Massive Multiplayer Mainframe Role Playing Game.
Perhaps thats the noise the simulated people make when you frag them...
MMMRPG! (thud)
All I can say is thank you. :-) Very well said and informative. I just don't have any modpoints!
Hurricane Ivan: A 17th century prison collapsed. All of the inmates escaped.
I don't think the issue is that the U.S. Military is losing wars, or is somehow not prepared tactically/strategically speaking (though funding and morale may be an issue). I mean, the initial stages of the conflict in Iraq were a military success. Similarly, Afghanistan was a successful military action. This simulator will not address the political/economic/ethnic/religious realities that have to be addressed after the fighting stops.
So, if this helps plan for urban combat, and potentially reduce military and civilian casualties, it's a great thing. But, ultimately, the U.S. has no trouble winning wars.....if I may borrow a cliched phrase, the problem is winning the peace.
For an interesting analysis on the logistics of 'nation building', please see this recently completed report.
My point was simply that people in very different circumstances, with very different history and religion and societies have a difficult time even talking about peace.
The experience of Russia and Chechnia only confirms that.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
There is irony in this somewhere. Not that I disagree, but the irony is painfully obvious in statements like that.
All general statements are false, including this one.
SAILING MISHAP
Thou shalt not kill. No exceptions given, not even for self-defense.
A passage cited by every pacifist, or by any person against a particular war (when it suits him). That no exceptions were given in that commandment implies a false dichotomy of "kill and go to hell" or "don't kill and not go to hell." I disagree. The "murder" translation of that commandment is probably a better one, else how could God endorse a war by the Israelites in self-defense?
QUOTE: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." CITES: George Santayana, The Life of Reason or The Phases of Human Progress: Reason in Common Sense 284 (2nd ed., Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, New York 1924 (originally published 1905 Charles Scribner's Sons)(appears in chapter XII, "Flux and Constancy in Human Nature")). George Santayana, The Life of Reason or The Phases of Human Progress 82 (one-volume edition, Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, New York 1954)(appears in Book I, Reason in Common Sense, chapter 10, "Flux and Constancy in Human Nature").
*--- Sometimes a majority only means that all the fools are on the same side. ---*
If you remember, Global Thermonuclear War was only one option... I seem to remember a large range of wars, including a Biological Outbreak.
Yeah, and most middle of the road Christians today think he is the same God that's still around, its just that he's saving up his pissed off attitude for one last go around before he brings it all to an end. Some of the more conservative Christians would call it delayed gratification on His part, and there is a bit of truth in that position.
Ted Tschopp
Fantasy remains a human right; we make in our measure and in our derivative mode... -- JRR Tolkien
In order for the ratio to be so lopsided in China, millions of Chinese must have a brutal attitude towards women
Go fuck yourself.
The only reason why this happens is because of the one child policy, and it is not as widespread as you think.
Only more common in the "proles" if you may, of the Chinese population, because sons always carry on the family name, and hence are more desired offsprings to have, in view that they can only have one.
But it ain't as bad as you think, in the major cities where people do know better, they still have girls all the same.
Online backup with Mozy, sounds like Ozzie, but more!
It's a pity someone in the US can't simulate some integrity.
... with the one exception of the Christian fundamentalists that are currently in control of the US ... but I understand that we can't defend ourselves with weapons from them - we'll have to be more creative.
With the 2 mainstream presidential candidates fighting over who is tougher on terrorism and how many more soldiers to deploy, it's little wonder ther rest of the world is becoming increasingly alarmed and anti-American.
If the money the US spent on so-called 'defense' were put towards addressing some of the gross injustices ( 3rd world debt, Palestine, multinationals 'acquiring' the world's resources at the expense of practically everyone ), there would be no need for an army. There would be nothing to defend from.
And yes I reject the idea that there are religious fundamentalists that can't wait to take over the world, or destroy us because the 'hate our freedom' or some crap like that
Mutually assured destruction fixed most of the major threats didn't it? Does the US possess enough and fast enough weapons to actualy attack safely?
Chinese murder female fetuses, resulting in a ratio of 1.20 male babies to female babies
Yeah! And you American white trash kill fetuses like ants. And not just killing them with medicines and herbs, you must actually use a small pipe to mush them up into bits and suck their remains out!*
Such hatred for human life... America!
*Next time you pick up this girl at the bar and make out with her without protection, remember this! You God-less animal!
Online backup with Mozy, sounds like Ozzie, but more!
"Planetside tried to make a FPS with that many players, and while their cone of fire killed it (among other things)"
well planetside has recently made a comeback for me. I dont know what you mean by cone of fire killed it as most of the weapons have "a cone of fire" and yet i still manage to use them.
also they have recently added some new Mechwarrior type battle robots and really its the only MMOFPS (well i dont know any others).
planetside rocks. you can fight on huge continents, fly ships, teamplay and moreover you are encouraged to. they even made it so 512 mb of ram is actually playable! continent load times also have been DRAMATICALLY improved.
the only thing i dont like is the repetition of base design. i mean do all the tech plants have to look the same? the diverse environments make up for it tho.
I'll just use my special getting high powers one more time...
You lied to the American public and the world about Iraq's WMD capability to justify an invasion you had been planning since before you took office. Furthermore you seem to have no problem with our country leading the world in inventory of WMDs. I'd like to personally call you an asshole. That is all.
.
Otherworld, by Tad Williams, comes to mind when reading this one...
The Penguin Producer
Many comments see this as a positive sign of _preparedness_. Others talk about the coolness of this as a wargame _technology_.
For myself, all I could think when I say this article was: geez, can't the US focus on anything but war these days.
I am sure the association between WARmongerer and US, in the minds of people of all other countries, is increasing rapidly these days.
Hey that's a good point. I sound sort of hypocritical. :) Though it would make for a good Yogi Berra esque quote.
What if Digg added local news and a Slashdot inspired comment karma system? ---
http://houndwire.com
well...i wouldn't call them my ideals, but the author of Forever Peace and more importantly The Forever War was a Vietnam vet. I think he might have some insight into war that I should pay attention to or at least think about from time to time.
le sigh
I kept thinking, wow, portland has got a lot more traffic than I last remembered...I wonder if I can car-jack that Abrahms....
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
smallpox infected blankets
Little Boy
Agent Orange
"Depleted" Uranium
pot, meet kettle
kettle, meet pot
Careful what you wish for, maybe some day some other large faction will decide that the US needs "intervention".
I know it's more comforting to think that your leaders and by automagical transference your nation down to anyone "you" are always the good guys, but history has shown there are no "good" guys, just various regimes throughout history take turns back and forth being the more-wrong bad guys du juor.
There are far too many people in the world who continue to practice the following:
"War is regarded as nothing but the continuation of state policy with other means."
-- Clausewitz
With far less at stake I cut the cards, scan for viruses, lock my doors, etc. Likewise, any nation would be foolish to trust the rest of the world to do them no harm. This is especially true in an era when people like bin Laden, the butchers who could perpetrate an atrocity like occurred in Beslan, the Madrid train bombers, etc. are lose in the world.
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
The Bible is like a box of chocolates...
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
I agree. We do need to keep our military on the cutting edge. I'm just worried that this is prep for aggressive wars, as opposed to defense from an invading force. It seems to me that, while your example compares us to pre-WWII France, we are closer to the Germans*, preparing a new strategy so our next act of aggression goes over a little better than our last.
Defense is only for survival, it takes offense to achieve victory. Even France, an ally, had to be attacked in order to defeat Facism in WW2.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
You finally got it! I'm so happy for you! It's *different* from the Western value system. Hooray! Maybe you'll soon realize that it's all relative and we can get on with our lives. Stop being a bigot, moron.
Hurricane Ivan: A 17th century prison collapsed. All of the inmates escaped.
Perhaps brother Malcolm said it best:
"Be peaceful, be courteous, obey the law, respect everyone; but if someone lays a hand on you, send him to the cemetery."
This is left as an exercise for the reader.
Simply put, the guys are running one giant UT2004 botmatch on a cluster? Great, but I want live feed!
is that sometimes, you are so prepared that you feel the need to create your own war, out of various reason (religious, self righteousness, hidden WMD). A lot of people around here feel that the US long ago went beyond the "preparing for war" step and are way into the "being a master at crushing opponent mercilessly" and thus those other country feel the need to take "inssurance" that the US will not do war against them, for example by seeking out WMD themselves or targeting local population to make sure any battle would be extremly bloody. In other word, when the #1 army in the world is preparing for war, and you do not have any chance with conventional way, then use the dirtiest nasty trick you can to make sure that #1 army will hesitate a bit.
I have to wonder anyway why US has to prepare to war against country half the world away which could not care less about the US if left at their own devices. Especially with Checheny which is right now mostly a russian problem. How about a new US doctrine "Let other be". US might try that and becomming the #1 preparing for diplomacy, would be nice isn't it ? And by diplomacy I do not mean putting a lot of pressure on the population by cutting economic aids or closing markets. Or what about #1 helping countries without STRING attached ? Or how about being #1 at helping themselves by transfering a big part of their military project to education, or social ?
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
This is the future :p
Agent-based modeling owns the skies.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
The WTC bombings were in reaction to the 2nd Second of Crusades back in the day.
In other words, someone somewhere will ALWAYS feel the need to attack someone else.
but smaller.
I have little to say, but even less to lose by saying it.
Yes, here we have the Bush administration and the PATRIOT act. A most invasive legal mesure that makes the US a police state. A million times worse than the USSR. Sure the PATRIOT act dosen't affect 99.9998% of the population but not just terrorists are getting caught, innocent drug dealers are getting busted with it.
Lucky for us we have Communist protesters who really do know everything. With their guidence hopefully we can turn into the next Soviet Union, and turn away from the everyday oppression of American life. Yep, I don't wanna hear anyone talking to this US citizen about lack of human rights, they're all a bunch of whiners. I have to stand in a line at the airport for god's sakes (yet I'll still bitch about lack of security).
OK, the New Testament.
Jesus said: "Thou shalt not kill. I am not joking, I am fucking serious. You people who think they can kill someone and get into heaven are going to be really surprised when you are getting anal raped in hell."
OK, maybe not those exact words, but I have a feeling that Jesus and God were fucking serious when they said don't kill each other. They weren't the ten suggestions, right?
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
If you read revelations it says in there he is going to kill about 2/3rd of the earths population. It looks like he is going to spare more then one family this time but he is going to kill off a lot of animals too. When he comes back the only people he is going to care about are christians. The jews must be pissed because they will no longer be his favorite children. He is going to kill them all.
evil is as evil does
Well, wtf is the difference exactly ? Sounds like another convenient word like terrorist where the only real distinction is whose side you're on. In fact, it fits perfectly with that.
The terrorists murdered some people.
We killed some terrorists.
English is full of irregular worsd like this, I'm firm, you're stubborn, and he's pigheaded.
http://rareformnewmedia.com/
Well, wtf is the difference exactly ? Sounds like another convenient word like terrorist where the only real distinction is whose side you're on. In fact, it fits perfectly with that.
The terrorists murdered some people.
We killed some terrorists.
English is full of irregular worsd like this, I'm firm, you're stubborn, and he's pigheaded.
http://rareformnewmedia.com/
i am originally from estonia (now from germany) and i say you write bullshit, former neighbour.
what the russian soldiers do is mostly the revenge for the chechen gruels.
kurad! there are too many stupid nationalists in former baltic countries and all they do is sitting on their arses and hating russians and worshipping their ansestors fighting for the waffen ss instead of just living and working peacefully and productively with russians.
Conservatism: The fear that somewhere, somehow, someone you think is your inferior is being treated as your equal.
There's a huge difference. If you actually read the Old Testament (more properly known as the Hebrew Bible) you would see that there is no biblical prohibition against killing in general. YHWH routinely instructed the Hebrews to kill other people.
Moralizing about human behavior from a book that doesn't even apply to most people in the first place is rather silly, but if you're going to do it at least get it right. For those who are confused by my comment about the Old Testament not applying, read the New Testament. The foundation of Christianity is a new covenant with "God", which replaces the previous covenant (the Mosaic one, including the Ten Commandments). The prevalence of christians using the Old Testament as justification for their beliefs just demonstrates their ignorance of their own religion and their lack of understanding that under their own doctrine, the Ten Commandments do not apply.
Maybe I'm being stupid, but I'm still not quite sure what the difference between murdering someone and killing them is, and I don't think rereading the old testamnt is going to help.
http://rareformnewmedia.com/
Rockstar Games has vowed to track down the "thieves" who leaked GTA san Andreas to the p2p networks
I wonder if they're going to run them over multiple times... before shooting them. and jumping on them.
Psa 137:9 Happy [shall he be], that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.
If you just look at this verse, of course it looks bad, because it's taken out of context. When you look at the context of the lines around it it's not bad at all. Read a little more, and you will see that the author is talking about dashing Iraqi (Babylonian) babies against the stones. It changes the entire meaning of the quote, does it not?
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
Thou shalt not kill. No exceptions given, not even for self-defense.
Since we seem to cutting rather wide swaths today, "No exceptions given," should include the animals and plant life that living beings use for food.
...including you!
Come to think of it, there are no exceptions here either, are there?
You may answer for your sins. ...now.
Why is it that the JFC gets all the good toys!
I think I'm going back to school, if only to get an 'evaluation copy' of this game!
I live in the U.S. and love this country and have made better friends here than anywhere else. However, Americans need to realize that they are increasingly becoming disliked in more than just Islamic radical circles, and take action to be a good world community participant.
Read my sig if you like, but I'll never see yours, thanks to Discussions, Viewing, Disable sigs...
Your criticism makes the most sense of all that have been given to that commandment. I am a bit surprised at just how aggressively some people have pointed out that it's really just a prohibition against murder, as if that makes other kinds of killing acceptable.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
I think that rather than make more nuclear weapons, we should get more use out of the weapons we already have. --Jack Handy
Does it hurt to hear them lying? Was this the only world you had?
It comes down to justification.
Murder is causing an unjustified death.
However outlawing murder still allows for killing people:
- in war
- as punishment
- etc...
Defend democracy with mandatory brainwashing? Even if everyone voted for it, you'd still have to force it on those uppity third-worlders.
Western values? Ah, you must mean equal rights for women, freedom of religion, anti-slavery laws, democracy, etc.. Yeah, those are pretty terrible.
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
Your criticism makes the most sense of all that have been given to that commandment.
"Thou shalt not kill..." is less of a commandment than it is a misquote. The closest transliteration is "You shall not do murder."
I am a bit surprised at just how aggressively some people have pointed out that it's really just a prohibition against murder, as if that makes other kinds of killing acceptable.
You stood corrected because you misquoted scripture. Granted that it means more to some folks than others, but you also appear to imply that all killing is murder when there are legal, moral, and practical differences between what sort of termination of life is considered murder and what is not.
Let's try this. Is it somehow acceptable to you that termination of animal and plant life is done to provide you (and people you care about) with food?
I don't want to waste your time, so I'll lay it out. I don't believe in any gods. I don't care if I misquoted scripture. I don't care if it really talks about murder, and not killing in general. My purpose was strictly political, to point out that justification of killing using a technical and lawyerly interpretation of the holy books of any religion is fucked up.
You want to be a lawyer? Go to law school. They can teach you a hundred different ways to twist an interpretation to support whatever kind of killing you want to do.
You want to be moral? Don't kill people, and then claim that God likes it because the other guy happened to be an opposing soldier.
There, now you know exactly where I stand.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
I don't want to waste your time, so I'll lay it out. I don't believe in any gods. I don't care if I misquoted scripture.
I don't care if it really talks about murder, and not killing in general.
The Scripture doesn't always define the differences clearly. Over the centuries, that sort of thing led to all kinds of misunderstandings. ...still does, I guess.
My purpose was strictly political,...
Oh for cryin' out loud.
The histories of religion, ethics, and law have always intermingled. They influence one another. You can try in vain to separate them. You might even succeed ... for a while, but they will not remain separate.
You want to be a lawyer? Go to law school.
They can teach you a hundred different ways to twist an interpretation to support whatever kind of killing you want to do.
What is your problem, anyway? If you're trying to suggest that all killing is murder, you will fail.
You want to be moral? Don't kill people, and then claim that God likes it because the other guy happened to be an opposing soldier.
Morals have been used to justify horrendous crimes against humanity.
So have politics.
There, now you know exactly where I stand.
You stand corrected, MuthaFucka.
Oh, you are such an idiot. A cunt, actually.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
Eat a bowl of cock.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
On several ocassions the Lord commanded the Israelites to destroy every man woman and child in a city.
So? He also made these supposed "thou shalt not kill" type laws, and he's the judge at the end of the road. If you have a real missive from god, you're allowed to break his rules.
On at least one ocassion (I'm not a Biblical scholar) Saul was even commanded to kill all of the animals in a city.
The bible has nothing to say on the topic of the needless killing of animals. This isn't a sin even without a missive.
Saul got in trouble because he decided that instead of destroying perfectly good animals that he would use them as sacrifices.
You're missing the point of that story, which was that God was pissed that Saul sacrificed animals to someone other than Him. It's that whole thou shalt not worship others before me thing. He's a jealous god. No three-ways.
Perhaps you should have quoted the New Testament.
Haughty is a tone best suited to those who're right.
StoneCypher is Full of BS
Oh, you are such an idiot.
A cunt, actually.
Try unclenching your teeth and your fists. It's easier to type that way.
I don't know if you have people in your life who care about you, but if you do, I wonder how they put up with your abusiveness and venom. Is this how you deal with folks who dare to disagree with you in person?
I am bouncing my cock on your forehead, as the spasms start to subside. Now, I squeeze the head just a little bit, and some spunk oozes out and drips onto your waiting tongue. For a couple seconds, our bodies are joined together by a filamentous bridge of semen, stretching from my cock to your nose.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!