Truman? Please. Perhaps a little history is precisely the problem YOU have when making these rather terrible arguments. I'd recommend taking a look at the Monroe Doctrine, the Roosevelt Corollary, and Wilson's presidency as redefining Manifest Destiny as promoting freedom around the world - as an obvious demonstration that your Truman thesis is false.
Not that beginning means much. If you are talking about debt, all you have to do is look at the historic tables of how debt has grown under different Presidents, and you'll find that all have been terrible - but Reagan and both Bushes especially so.
I also find it interesting that you want to talk about beginnings and want to pretend Nixon's escalation in Vietnam, Reagan "Star Wars" and proxy wars, and Bush I & II in Iraq didn't add significantly to the debt. I suppose if you just ignore it, then it will go away right? Perhaps taking a look at the facts without filtering through your personal political ideology might be a good first step to improve your flabby argumentation.
And if you think the Democratic party represents "the left", it is you that needs to put down the Kool-Aid. Try taking a trip to West Bengal, a state with the longest democratically elected Communist government, and you'll come away with an idea of what "the left" looks like - and it isn't much prettier than looking at the neocon rule and the rightist politics of both Republican and Democratic parties in our country.
What the neoconservative right ISN'T asking is who bears the burden for paying the taxes and paying off the debt for wars like Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc., maintaining the military in hundreds of bases around the world (the DoD is the world's largest single consumer of oil), and paying the higher costs associated with producing everything elsewhere and shipping it to the United States - otherwise known as the trade deficit.
Unfortunately, if you don't have sound fiscal policies and a sane foreign policy, there is nothing you can do attract people to stay because it leaves people with smaller and smaller pieces of pie and more people to share it with. It's the Law of the Jungle in action, and most conservatives don't understand the connection - despite all their talk of "free markets".
Saying your a "real" republican is like saying you are a real "hacker" and the other guys should be called "cracker". If you are a Republican, then you are part of the fuckin' problem. If you want to be something else, classical liberal, Old Right, or what have you - then use the appropriate term. Republican is already being used.
Right wing in the US has, for most of its existence, been isolationist and thus favored less military rather than more. I don't believe there's any connection.
The problem with your thesis is that your conclusion that the right wing in the United States has favored less military rather than more is false. It was true of the Old Right and it is true of its remnants such as Ron Paul - but the Old Right has practically disappeared from the American scene for more than 50 years.
Your other point about it being about concentration is also dubious. Most people that I know that have intense concentration, simply miss any kind of experience that might startle them.
From my personal experience, I'd also say that, if you listen to people that describe themselves as conservative, there is a lot more emotion in their dialogue. They ask questions like: Why do they hate Bush? Why do they hate America? Or make statements like: Saddam is a madman! Islamofascists! USA! USA! etc.
Anyone that has done work in advertising can also tell you that you can sell anything, if you make an "emotional connection" with "consumers". There's a reason why people tend to buy the same toothpaste they used as a kid, they aren't just buying toothpaste, they're buying a piece of their childhood. The conservative movement has mastered this kind of narrative, and it has more appeal with certain "types" of people, particularly appeals based on fear.
That said, I agree this research is crap. A study with
Right on, droog! That'd be a real horrorshow when criminals can get a wee taste of the ultraviolence of the state. Maybe someone should write a book about how we are all just A Clockwork Orange!
I notice you failed to address cases that support the parent's argument, perhaps the most obvious was Clarence Thomas agreement with the Bush administration regarding executive authority in Hamdi v. Rumsfield. Please feel free to outline an argument that indicates Clarence Thomas was not acting as - what does the right wing call it - an "activist judge" promoting an ideology over law. Also, for extra credit, add in a comment or two about Clarence Thomas and stare decisis and what that means in a legal system that is normally thought of as common law. Since you paint yourself as so knowledgable on these topics, I eagerly await your response so that I might be better informed.
When we call software "free," we mean that it respects the users' essential freedoms: the freedom to run it, to study and change it, and to redistribute copies with or without changes. This is a matter of freedom, not price, so think of "free speech," not "free beer."...These freedoms are vitally important. They are essential, not just for the individual users' sake, but because they promote social solidarity--that is, sharing and cooperation. They become even more important as more and more of our culture and life activities are digitized. In a world of digital sounds, images and words, free software comes increasingly to equate with freedom in general.
Now, it may be more important to you that your wireless just works. But, for some people, it's more important to promote social solidarity and freedom, and they want a distribution that makes that easy - without then having to figure out all the dependencies and what is "free" and what isn't. This distribution serves that purpose.
Of course, you could go with Debian, but again, Debian suggests non-free software that people like yourself might simply use because they don't understand the differences between open source and free software or that they have free alternatives - like compiling the software themselves as the other reply to your post suggests. Distributions like Debian enable the creep of carelessness, which is why people like RMS (Richard Stallman) want to encourage totally free distributions.
If it's not your thing or if you are in a situation that requires using something non-free, then do what you have to do. But, I would encourage you to at least be aware of the choices you are making and at least try to be free where you can or to present the alternatives to others as I am doing here.
For disclosure, I used Linux (or GNU/Linux, if you'd rather) as my sole system a decade ago, and even then used Applix for office applications. Now, I use Windows exclusively. I need to run software that requires Windows and don't have as much time to spend troubleshooting computer problems. So, you are running more "free" than me. Still, I thought it worth trying my hand at explaining why these efforts are important, and perhaps it is better than someone that isn't a "true believer" present the case.
Actually, he started with no lawyer, then Public Citizen gave him some help. I found this information in a copyright blog by one of Google's lawyers mentioned further down in the responses to this article.
Yeah, I've heard that story too. The problem is that bears have an instinct to chase something running from them - such as weaker bears. So, if the other hiker stands still and gets out of the way, he doesn't become part of the race where at least one human is going to lose.
I just wanted to say I liked Kudos. It's a nice little diversion - although it's not for everyone. I meant to check out Democracy when I first heard of your games, but never got to it. I'll have to make a note to check it out when I have some down time. Anyway, just wanted to say I liked your stuff, and I hope you are making a living from your games.
The fact that there exist organizations that can do good, doesn't negate my original argument - which was directed at government. The fact that you are sloppy with your opponents arguments as you are with your own, isn't a reflection on those arguments. It's a reflection on you. Further, your crutch-like use of phrases like "teenage", "kid" or "emo" at every turn - adjectives that have either never described me or haven't been appropriate for decades - shows not only a need to work on your vocabulary but your underlying mentality that can't be bothered to deal with actual people or actual arguments.
This is quite a different argument from your original. On one hand, you want the government arbitrarily shaping individual morality like a cloakwork orange. On the other, you want to pretend that individual people, working together, can move the clusterfuck that is any large organization into some approximation of ethical behavior.
Let me also toss you a bone, can you tell me the difference between Doctors Without Borders and the U.S. government - or say an organization like GE? One has a budget slightly higher than 100 million, chump change at the organizational level. The others are orders of magnitude bigger - which provides a hint at the law here about the larger the size the more influence and less likely we get toward your hypothetical 70-90% of ethical behavior or anything even remotely like ethical behavior.
So, let's see. I presented an argument that basically stated that organizations are inherently amoral and if they are amoral, they cannot be a force to enculcate morality - as you suggest. Your rebuttal is that organizations exist - which really doesn't do much to shore up your argument for the government forming people like a clockwork orange. Not making much of an effort are you? But then again, insults are easier than actually defending your position from legitimate criticism.
The incidence of murder in the United States was 16,528 in 2005 of 5.5 per 100,000 inhabitants. As you can see from the charts, less that 1,000 of those have known connections to gangs. If we assume this is an average, we are talking about ~100,000 in a population of more than 300 million.
Contrast with conservative Iraqi war casualty estimates. We have 151,000 people dead and an estimated 9 out of 10 as a result of U.S. military combat operations or ~135,000 in a population of slightly more than 28 million.
it is malformed individuals who most frequently subvert moral and ethical behavior, not governmental organizations. really, fruitcake, that's the truth
Most instances of genocide, torture and a whole variety of other immoral behaviors happen directly because of government, and on a scale unthinkable to the individual.
in fact, within the context of a human organization, there is the further observation that any subversive activity is not actually being done in the name of that organization. on other wordsa, individual within that organization are just gaming the system for selfish goals, not working in the name of the system
It's all just a few "bad apples", right? Abu Gharib, School of the Americas, the many instances of genocide is just a few bad individuals and doesn't reveal something about how government encourages people to immoral behavior that would be unthinkable to most alone, right? I don't buy it.
People are ethical. Organizations are not ethical, and most organizations these days are designed to absolve people of personal responsibility. I was just following orders. I just did what the experts told me to do. I was just following the will of the people. No personal responsibility. No morality to it.
In any event, I find your post interesting. It's a rather knee-jerk reaction, peppered with lots of name calling - that frankly, I don't understand. I look at the fruit of government, and other large organizations such as big business, and while I can understand that they have benefits, I also understand that they have drawbacks - and one of those drawbacks is that organizations are not moral and that, by trying to short-circuit around personal responsibility - make it much more likely that people involved in it will do something immoral.
You can disagree, but it is observationally wrong - as you put it. Still, it is possible that you have made a mistake or even that I have (though you certainly haven't made a good case for it). I wouldn't rush to call you a moron because for one, I don't think you are - I regularly find your posts interesting. I just couldn't let this particular one go without comment.
I'm sorry, but government has no place converting people to "useful" work or "supervising" them. Further, government isn't ethical or moral. No organization is ethical or moral, because these are qualities of human beings - qualities that more frequently get subverted by government than they are by "petty vandalism" or "self-indulgence".
Example: How many teenagers would know the experience of killing someone if they weren't engaged in doing so for the military?
Thanks, but no thanks. I can do without that kind of "supervision" for myself and the society I live in.
Support those candidates, regardless of party, that promise to end the Dept of Homeland Security, promise to repeal the USA PATRIOT ACT, and join me in a call for a Constitutional Amendment that bars the Federal Government from intercepting any electronic communications within its borders, unless it can prove before a court that those communications are with another nation with which the USA might be in a state of war.
Which candidates would that be? Ron Paul? Dennis Kucinich? Maybe two or three of the candidates running for Congressional seats? The problem is that none of the major party candidates are running on that platform. As you correctly suggest, the two major parties have become opposite sides of the same coin, two wings of the same party.
No, the problem is in thinking that electoral politics is going to solve our problems. It isn't. It is fine to use it as a tool, but we also need to understand that the ballot is our weakest weapon.
Heaven: where the police are British, the cooks French, the mechanics German, the lovers Italian, and it is all organized and run by the Swiss. Hell: where the police are German, the cooks British, the mechanics French, the lovers Swiss, and it is all organized and run by the Italians.
Reality: where the police are Italian, the cooks German, the mechanics Swiss, the lovers British and it is all organized and run by the French.
This is the United States, where the corporations control the government, entertainment controls the people, and the people control nothing....Hell, ask the average Joe Sixpack if they'd like to have their American Idol episodes download faster at the expense of a bunch of pasty faced nerds not being able to access Slashdot at the same speed, I'm sure they'll be quite happy about it.
Don't be such a wanker. If you just replace United States with United Kingdom and American Idol with Britain's Got Talent, you've an insightful post.
In a conflict, you count the number of civilians of killed on account of that conflict. When you consider the fact that this war was completely optional and one the U.S. began, I think your criticism is weak. Further, I was using the most conservative figure available. I suspect that the number is more likely above 500,000 and fails to account for millions of people displaced because this war occurred, and the numbers necessary for an occupation weren't brought to bear. For historical purposes, consider the fact that the U.S. had 400,000 soldiers occupying Japan - a island country with significantly fewer problems defending its borders. As for Gitmo and the other secret prisons being used to torture people, I'm going to take a guess and say you were never a soldier and don't have a very good idea of how such policies will "trickle down" to the treatment of American POWs in the future. I just hope its not you or any of your family that has to pay the price for your nonchalant attitude.
We have put extraordinary effort into not harming civilan populations, we have done a good job in the historical sense of finging wars but lots of innocent people have still been hurt. Lots of non-militarilay valuable property has been destroyed.
It depends on how you define "good job". There was a time when an army would sack a city and kill everyone they could in it. Later, armies mostly fought each other in the field - such as most of the American Civil War. But I think an interesting ratio is to look at the total military casualties / total civilian casualties in modern conflicts. Let's take a look using the lowest estimate of civilian impact:
World War II: 25 million / 40 million = ~.62
Vietnam: 1,400,000 / ~2,500,000 = ~.56
Iraq: ~20,000 (American and Iraqi) / 100,000 = ~.20
I would suggest that when your military casualties get to be a fifth of your civilian casualties, even adjusting for the problems of scale, you have a problem that doesn't suggest that civilian casualties are a concern. It also suggests the answer to your last question, we would build a robot army to keep driving down this ratio. Drones, remotely controlled weapons, and let's be honest, contractors are already being used to drive down the number of American war dead, which is one of the goals here.
Given that, why wouldn't we built a robot army, again? It's perfectly consistent with the American strategy.
"A person who delights in having an intimate understanding of the internal workings of a system, computers and computer networks in particular."
Personally, I prefer using it in the most expansive sense: "One who enjoys the intellectual challenge of creatively overcoming or circumventing limitations." Hackers would, therefore, include engineers, surgeons, editors, lawyers, politicans and so forth. You can have interesting discussions with people when you start off making a connection between what they do and hacking.
Look, yet another example of the kinds of stories that have been coming out for a few decades about the ever shrinking news room. Investigative journalism costs a lot of money, and it takes professionals doing a lot of work. If a corporation can get by on entertainment news, they will. See the prevalence of reality TV shows or game shows, these are dirt cheap to produce. And if you think citizen journalists are going to fill in the gap, I have news for you - you have a better chance of seeing citizen novelists, which isn't actually a bad analogy given the truckload of vanity crap they will produce.
Slashdot Mirror
Truman? Please. Perhaps a little history is precisely the problem YOU have when making these rather terrible arguments. I'd recommend taking a look at the Monroe Doctrine, the Roosevelt Corollary, and Wilson's presidency as redefining Manifest Destiny as promoting freedom around the world - as an obvious demonstration that your Truman thesis is false.
Not that beginning means much. If you are talking about debt, all you have to do is look at the historic tables of how debt has grown under different Presidents, and you'll find that all have been terrible - but Reagan and both Bushes especially so.
I also find it interesting that you want to talk about beginnings and want to pretend Nixon's escalation in Vietnam, Reagan "Star Wars" and proxy wars, and Bush I & II in Iraq didn't add significantly to the debt. I suppose if you just ignore it, then it will go away right? Perhaps taking a look at the facts without filtering through your personal political ideology might be a good first step to improve your flabby argumentation.
And if you think the Democratic party represents "the left", it is you that needs to put down the Kool-Aid. Try taking a trip to West Bengal, a state with the longest democratically elected Communist government, and you'll come away with an idea of what "the left" looks like - and it isn't much prettier than looking at the neocon rule and the rightist politics of both Republican and Democratic parties in our country.
What the neoconservative right ISN'T asking is who bears the burden for paying the taxes and paying off the debt for wars like Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc., maintaining the military in hundreds of bases around the world (the DoD is the world's largest single consumer of oil), and paying the higher costs associated with producing everything elsewhere and shipping it to the United States - otherwise known as the trade deficit.
Unfortunately, if you don't have sound fiscal policies and a sane foreign policy, there is nothing you can do attract people to stay because it leaves people with smaller and smaller pieces of pie and more people to share it with. It's the Law of the Jungle in action, and most conservatives don't understand the connection - despite all their talk of "free markets".
You've made my point. Thank you.
Saying your a "real" republican is like saying you are a real "hacker" and the other guys should be called "cracker". If you are a Republican, then you are part of the fuckin' problem. If you want to be something else, classical liberal, Old Right, or what have you - then use the appropriate term. Republican is already being used.
The email address was gov.sarah@yahoo.com. Seems like a poor choice in name selection for a "personal" email account.
The problem with your thesis is that your conclusion that the right wing in the United States has favored less military rather than more is false. It was true of the Old Right and it is true of its remnants such as Ron Paul - but the Old Right has practically disappeared from the American scene for more than 50 years.
Your other point about it being about concentration is also dubious. Most people that I know that have intense concentration, simply miss any kind of experience that might startle them.
From my personal experience, I'd also say that, if you listen to people that describe themselves as conservative, there is a lot more emotion in their dialogue. They ask questions like: Why do they hate Bush? Why do they hate America? Or make statements like: Saddam is a madman! Islamofascists! USA! USA! etc.
Anyone that has done work in advertising can also tell you that you can sell anything, if you make an "emotional connection" with "consumers". There's a reason why people tend to buy the same toothpaste they used as a kid, they aren't just buying toothpaste, they're buying a piece of their childhood. The conservative movement has mastered this kind of narrative, and it has more appeal with certain "types" of people, particularly appeals based on fear.
That said, I agree this research is crap. A study with
Right on, droog! That'd be a real horrorshow when criminals can get a wee taste of the ultraviolence of the state. Maybe someone should write a book about how we are all just A Clockwork Orange!
I notice you failed to address cases that support the parent's argument, perhaps the most obvious was Clarence Thomas agreement with the Bush administration regarding executive authority in Hamdi v. Rumsfield. Please feel free to outline an argument that indicates Clarence Thomas was not acting as - what does the right wing call it - an "activist judge" promoting an ideology over law. Also, for extra credit, add in a comment or two about Clarence Thomas and stare decisis and what that means in a legal system that is normally thought of as common law. Since you paint yourself as so knowledgable on these topics, I eagerly await your response so that I might be better informed.
Free software is not the same as open source. Read Why "Open Source" misses the point of Free Software. The first two paragraphs:
Now, it may be more important to you that your wireless just works. But, for some people, it's more important to promote social solidarity and freedom, and they want a distribution that makes that easy - without then having to figure out all the dependencies and what is "free" and what isn't. This distribution serves that purpose.
Of course, you could go with Debian, but again, Debian suggests non-free software that people like yourself might simply use because they don't understand the differences between open source and free software or that they have free alternatives - like compiling the software themselves as the other reply to your post suggests. Distributions like Debian enable the creep of carelessness, which is why people like RMS (Richard Stallman) want to encourage totally free distributions.
If it's not your thing or if you are in a situation that requires using something non-free, then do what you have to do. But, I would encourage you to at least be aware of the choices you are making and at least try to be free where you can or to present the alternatives to others as I am doing here.
For disclosure, I used Linux (or GNU/Linux, if you'd rather) as my sole system a decade ago, and even then used Applix for office applications. Now, I use Windows exclusively. I need to run software that requires Windows and don't have as much time to spend troubleshooting computer problems. So, you are running more "free" than me. Still, I thought it worth trying my hand at explaining why these efforts are important, and perhaps it is better than someone that isn't a "true believer" present the case.
The problem with your comment is that if it is not appealled, then the initial ruling stands.
Actually, he started with no lawyer, then Public Citizen gave him some help. I found this information in a copyright blog by one of Google's lawyers mentioned further down in the responses to this article.
Yeah, I've heard that story too. The problem is that bears have an instinct to chase something running from them - such as weaker bears. So, if the other hiker stands still and gets out of the way, he doesn't become part of the race where at least one human is going to lose.
I just wanted to say I liked Kudos. It's a nice little diversion - although it's not for everyone. I meant to check out Democracy when I first heard of your games, but never got to it. I'll have to make a note to check it out when I have some down time. Anyway, just wanted to say I liked your stuff, and I hope you are making a living from your games.
The fact that there exist organizations that can do good, doesn't negate my original argument - which was directed at government. The fact that you are sloppy with your opponents arguments as you are with your own, isn't a reflection on those arguments. It's a reflection on you. Further, your crutch-like use of phrases like "teenage", "kid" or "emo" at every turn - adjectives that have either never described me or haven't been appropriate for decades - shows not only a need to work on your vocabulary but your underlying mentality that can't be bothered to deal with actual people or actual arguments.
This is quite a different argument from your original. On one hand, you want the government arbitrarily shaping individual morality like a cloakwork orange. On the other, you want to pretend that individual people, working together, can move the clusterfuck that is any large organization into some approximation of ethical behavior.
Let me also toss you a bone, can you tell me the difference between Doctors Without Borders and the U.S. government - or say an organization like GE? One has a budget slightly higher than 100 million, chump change at the organizational level. The others are orders of magnitude bigger - which provides a hint at the law here about the larger the size the more influence and less likely we get toward your hypothetical 70-90% of ethical behavior or anything even remotely like ethical behavior.
So, let's see. I presented an argument that basically stated that organizations are inherently amoral and if they are amoral, they cannot be a force to enculcate morality - as you suggest. Your rebuttal is that organizations exist - which really doesn't do much to shore up your argument for the government forming people like a clockwork orange. Not making much of an effort are you? But then again, insults are easier than actually defending your position from legitimate criticism.
The incidence of murder in the United States was 16,528 in 2005 of 5.5 per 100,000 inhabitants. As you can see from the charts, less that 1,000 of those have known connections to gangs. If we assume this is an average, we are talking about ~100,000 in a population of more than 300 million.
Contrast with conservative Iraqi war casualty estimates. We have 151,000 people dead and an estimated 9 out of 10 as a result of U.S. military combat operations or ~135,000 in a population of slightly more than 28 million.
it is malformed individuals who most frequently subvert moral and ethical behavior, not governmental organizations. really, fruitcake, that's the truth
Most instances of genocide, torture and a whole variety of other immoral behaviors happen directly because of government, and on a scale unthinkable to the individual.
in fact, within the context of a human organization, there is the further observation that any subversive activity is not actually being done in the name of that organization. on other wordsa, individual within that organization are just gaming the system for selfish goals, not working in the name of the system
It's all just a few "bad apples", right? Abu Gharib, School of the Americas, the many instances of genocide is just a few bad individuals and doesn't reveal something about how government encourages people to immoral behavior that would be unthinkable to most alone, right? I don't buy it.
People are ethical. Organizations are not ethical, and most organizations these days are designed to absolve people of personal responsibility. I was just following orders. I just did what the experts told me to do. I was just following the will of the people. No personal responsibility. No morality to it.
In any event, I find your post interesting. It's a rather knee-jerk reaction, peppered with lots of name calling - that frankly, I don't understand. I look at the fruit of government, and other large organizations such as big business, and while I can understand that they have benefits, I also understand that they have drawbacks - and one of those drawbacks is that organizations are not moral and that, by trying to short-circuit around personal responsibility - make it much more likely that people involved in it will do something immoral.
You can disagree, but it is observationally wrong - as you put it. Still, it is possible that you have made a mistake or even that I have (though you certainly haven't made a good case for it). I wouldn't rush to call you a moron because for one, I don't think you are - I regularly find your posts interesting. I just couldn't let this particular one go without comment.
I'm sorry, but government has no place converting people to "useful" work or "supervising" them. Further, government isn't ethical or moral. No organization is ethical or moral, because these are qualities of human beings - qualities that more frequently get subverted by government than they are by "petty vandalism" or "self-indulgence".
Example: How many teenagers would know the experience of killing someone if they weren't engaged in doing so for the military?
Thanks, but no thanks. I can do without that kind of "supervision" for myself and the society I live in.
Which candidates would that be? Ron Paul? Dennis Kucinich? Maybe two or three of the candidates running for Congressional seats? The problem is that none of the major party candidates are running on that platform. As you correctly suggest, the two major parties have become opposite sides of the same coin, two wings of the same party.
No, the problem is in thinking that electoral politics is going to solve our problems. It isn't. It is fine to use it as a tool, but we also need to understand that the ballot is our weakest weapon.
Reminds me of that t-shirt quote:
Reality: where the police are Italian, the cooks German, the mechanics Swiss, the lovers British and it is all organized and run by the French.
This is the United States, where the corporations control the government, entertainment controls the people, and the people control nothing....Hell, ask the average Joe Sixpack if they'd like to have their American Idol episodes download faster at the expense of a bunch of pasty faced nerds not being able to access Slashdot at the same speed, I'm sure they'll be quite happy about it.
Don't be such a wanker. If you just replace United States with United Kingdom and American Idol with Britain's Got Talent, you've an insightful post.
In a conflict, you count the number of civilians of killed on account of that conflict. When you consider the fact that this war was completely optional and one the U.S. began, I think your criticism is weak. Further, I was using the most conservative figure available. I suspect that the number is more likely above 500,000 and fails to account for millions of people displaced because this war occurred, and the numbers necessary for an occupation weren't brought to bear. For historical purposes, consider the fact that the U.S. had 400,000 soldiers occupying Japan - a island country with significantly fewer problems defending its borders. As for Gitmo and the other secret prisons being used to torture people, I'm going to take a guess and say you were never a soldier and don't have a very good idea of how such policies will "trickle down" to the treatment of American POWs in the future. I just hope its not you or any of your family that has to pay the price for your nonchalant attitude.
We have put extraordinary effort into not harming civilan populations, we have done a good job in the historical sense of finging wars but lots of innocent people have still been hurt. Lots of non-militarilay valuable property has been destroyed.
It depends on how you define "good job". There was a time when an army would sack a city and kill everyone they could in it. Later, armies mostly fought each other in the field - such as most of the American Civil War. But I think an interesting ratio is to look at the total military casualties / total civilian casualties in modern conflicts. Let's take a look using the lowest estimate of civilian impact:
I would suggest that when your military casualties get to be a fifth of your civilian casualties, even adjusting for the problems of scale, you have a problem that doesn't suggest that civilian casualties are a concern. It also suggests the answer to your last question, we would build a robot army to keep driving down this ratio. Drones, remotely controlled weapons, and let's be honest, contractors are already being used to drive down the number of American war dead, which is one of the goals here.
Given that, why wouldn't we built a robot army, again? It's perfectly consistent with the American strategy.
The original meaning is closer to manipulation of systems:
Personally, I prefer using it in the most expansive sense: "One who enjoys the intellectual challenge of creatively overcoming or circumventing limitations." Hackers would, therefore, include engineers, surgeons, editors, lawyers, politicans and so forth. You can have interesting discussions with people when you start off making a connection between what they do and hacking.
Look, yet another example of the kinds of stories that have been coming out for a few decades about the ever shrinking news room. Investigative journalism costs a lot of money, and it takes professionals doing a lot of work. If a corporation can get by on entertainment news, they will. See the prevalence of reality TV shows or game shows, these are dirt cheap to produce. And if you think citizen journalists are going to fill in the gap, I have news for you - you have a better chance of seeing citizen novelists, which isn't actually a bad analogy given the truckload of vanity crap they will produce.