You want to know why Japan never tried an attack on the US mainland? They knew the citizens outgunned their army 40 to 1.
So why didn't they land in Canada? Seems like it would have been an easier conquest, eh? The Japanese never invaded any North American country because they never got that far in the war. They had a hard enough time keeping Asia under control.
I agree, the islamic community made sure that their version of history remains only. One full of victimization and excuses, where always other civilizations/countries are responsible for their lack of development.
This is what happens when you think that God ordains your people to expand by the sword, but for others to do so is a travesty against God's people. It's what happens when your religion is right, full stop, and others are wrong, so you have the moral authority to do whatever to advance it.
Now all we can do is hope that there will somehow be an Islamic Enlightenment
This is my greatest hope -- the Enlightenment is possibly the best thing that has ever happened to Europe, and is what, above everything else, responsible for the success of Europe and former European colonies. In this day and age, it's hard to imagine another Enlightenment taking hold.
If we don't do anything, then we're undercutting our allies by refusing to support them, and helping the terrorists by cowardly refusing to take them on. If we go in guns blazing, then we haven't learned from history, think our military might can solve all problems, indiscriminant killings will breed more jihadis, and clearly are just trying to prop up Israel against everyone else. If we take a moderate approach, then obviously we don't have the resolve to do either of the above, are weak and ineffectual, probably kick puppies, and are just trying to keep the situation going so we can profit on their oil. Or something.
The US can't win no matter what it chooses, too many people have too much investment in blaming the US so they don't have to blame themselves. I think that gives the US the option to do whatever it feels is best.
nuke 80% of the middle east, full on carpet bomb every square mile with overlapping bursts and you will not have 2 more spring up. you will actually wipe them all out for good and not have any problems with middle eastern terrorisim.
Are you trying to wipe out the Middle East or Muslims? If the latter, you'd have to take out vast areas of SE Asia and smaller parts of Europe. Neighborhood bombs for parts of France. Because they wouldn't take kindly to enormous groups of their religion being massacred, or all of their religion's holy sites being destroyed. Like.. the holy sites that their religion claim are absolutely mandatory to visit.
Does ethnic cleansing count? It's the true evil of the settlements. The settlements are for Jews, and Palastinians are, one family at a time, forced out of their homes as the Jewish areas grow. It's a calculated strategy of replacing the current residents of the land with occupiers, whole-cloth. Just slowly, and without the mass shootings.
The only thing stopping Israel from finishing the issue is their association with America and Europe. Otherwise, Arabia would simply be a collection of grease spots.
No? You don't think Israel would completely collapse without the US and Europe propping it up as they have been for 50 years? IF Israel's great allies dropped support (military and financial) and Arab countries invaded, Israel's citizens would flee the country to become a wandering people yet again. At least the smart ones would.
For every one you kill two will take their place. Your philosophy breeds terrorism instead of extinguishing it.
Yeah, I'll take having two stupid, uneducated 15-year-old kids taking up arms instead of the senior tactician designing the best IEDs to plant along roads and send to market squares. I'll take that trade any day of the week. It's worked pretty damned well for us so far.
Really? Seriously? Have you paid any attention to the rhetoric coming from any of the Middle Eastern countries more conservative than Jordan or UAE? The fault for all problems is always the United States's and Israel's. Granted, for some of those countries the fault for many of those troubles can be laid at the feet of the US, but this has always been a popular and successful rhetorical tactic worldwide -- deflect blame from yourself by turning it into an US vs THEM argument. Amazing how isolationist Israel is somehow responsible for the crappy economies and every other problem under the sun for so many Middle Eastern countries... or amazing how Californians can't find good jobs because of all the "illegal immigrants." It goes on and on. As long as humans feel tribal (and state/country borders are just another mechanism for separating people into tribes), this tactic will work.
Adding to that line of thought, when Spock's father says in disgust, "he's so....human," the emotion of disgust is strongly apparent there.
I believe that Lt. Saavik, speaking to Spock. And I'm not sure that was really disgust in her voice, more like someone describing something very bizarre.
I have to laugh at the pathetic modern assertion that there IS some basis for morals/standards/ethics/values etc in some biological-mandate or evolutionary imperatives built-into biological systems to help further advance evolution... This is a desperate claim that an undirected system CAN establish such irrational mechanisms
Seems to me that among social animals, the society that can work together will be stronger and have more of a chance to survive than the one with no altruism at all.
On another topic, what do you think is the explanation for the Jews? How do you think they managed to survive for more than 4,000 years as a people with a common identity despite multiple deportations to far off foreign lands, pogroms, and even attempted genocide, only to reassemble in their native land and reform the country of Israel after being nonexistent for 2,000 years? Are there other examples of a similar nature that you can think of? How do you suppose that is?
You're kidding, right? If Jews are proof of the existence of God, then it's just proof that God hates the Jews and just loves to shit on them, century after century.
Do we really need a moral code much more elaborate than "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one"?
We probably do. Sometimes the needs of the few, or the one have to be respected. The needs of white men outweighed the needs of the black slaves in the US, did they not?
I'm trying real hard here not to give you a negative mod. You have been subjected to far too much paranoid Christian antiatheist propaganda. There is no atheist conspiracy. We're not meeting in dark rooms swapping atheist literature and planning to undermine Christianity.
You're dead wrong, they usually have their meetings in the same space but just after the gay folk who gather to discuss the next items on the Homosexual Agenda and how best to convert school kids to homosexuality.
There's no dogma, no book, no set of "therefore we believe these here other thingamajigs", nothing.
Like hell there isn't! To belong to any atheist community, you need to align with their dogma, have read and agree with their favorite authors, and "other thingamajigs" or you'll be ousted as a troll or worse.
This is pretty much true of any "society" on the Internet. I've come to suspect that it's generally true of any large group of people who come together with a common moral purpose.
But I've never known "atheist societies." I've known atheists, but none of them have ever been a part of any atheist society or atheist social circle. The people who DO tend to group up like that are fairly few, but their groupings make them far more visible than they would be otherwise.
Actually the "god" question ("no god" is not a question, it is the default) is a question very much subject to science, and science has provided a few pretty good insights into it.
Oh? Why can't "god" be the default? That's awfully convenient that you get to choose that particular reference point, isn't it?
A good person will do good; a bad person may do good if the carrot (heaven), or stick (hell), is strong enough to deter them from acting bad.... but that doesn't make them a good person, it simply makes them less likely to suffer the stick in life for acting their nature.
It may not make them a good person, but it also means they might be less likely to apply the stick to others.
The creepiest bit is that half of my social circle, roughly, are male geeks* and they generally seem like a decent bunch, individually and in groups. My students are an amiable bunch, even in those final crunch days as they're trying to wrap up an experiment or get a paper in. Is the first wave of/. comments overwhelmingly from bitter seventeen year olds? Are these some other geeks who I have managed to distance myself from over the years.** Is it possible that some of the entertaining, amiable geeks that I spar with, party with, code with and blow things up with turn feral and run in packs when I'm not around? Eesh.
Hey, even violentacrez, the king troll of reddit, seemed like a decent guy in real life. The problem is as Penny Arcade pointed out years ago: Internet + Anonymity = Total fuckwad.
Was this screen-shot taken exactly 12 seconds after the last tweet, or do we see that a number of them persist beyond that last referenced date? If the latter, then it's just a screen capture taken in the middle and the timestamps mean nothing. If the former... well that IS quite a suspicious coincidence, isn't it?
The "perfect spelling, capitalization, punctuation" charge is ridiculous. Many of us aren't so brain-fried by online communications methods that we can't quickly dash off sentences with valid spelling, capitalization, and punctuation. Hell, it's not even that impressive a skill, or have standards fallen so low that someone who can type out a well-written sentence in 15 seconds is thought to have committed some sort of supernatural feat? The "this was clearly scripted before being written down" charge does not hold water.
The vast majority of meteorologist are directly or indirectly on government payrolls
Disregarding the "meteorologist" nonsense, here we come to the real crux of the problem: the unshakable, infallible belief that all the people who work for any government organization is evil, corrupt, bought, or just lazy. It's just as bad as the far-left-wing belief in the same for corporate workers. Those attitudes are way too prevalent, and we struggle with this stupidity every day.
Slashdot Mirror
You want to know why Japan never tried an attack on the US mainland? They knew the citizens outgunned their army 40 to 1.
So why didn't they land in Canada? Seems like it would have been an easier conquest, eh?
The Japanese never invaded any North American country because they never got that far in the war. They had a hard enough time keeping Asia under control.
I agree, the islamic community made sure that their version of history remains only. One full of victimization and excuses, where always other civilizations/countries are responsible for their lack of development.
This is what happens when you think that God ordains your people to expand by the sword, but for others to do so is a travesty against God's people. It's what happens when your religion is right, full stop, and others are wrong, so you have the moral authority to do whatever to advance it.
Now all we can do is hope that there will somehow be an Islamic Enlightenment
This is my greatest hope -- the Enlightenment is possibly the best thing that has ever happened to Europe, and is what, above everything else, responsible for the success of Europe and former European colonies. In this day and age, it's hard to imagine another Enlightenment taking hold.
The only question is where will the blame fall
Clearly, America.
If we don't do anything, then we're undercutting our allies by refusing to support them, and helping the terrorists by cowardly refusing to take them on.
If we go in guns blazing, then we haven't learned from history, think our military might can solve all problems, indiscriminant killings will breed more jihadis, and clearly are just trying to prop up Israel against everyone else.
If we take a moderate approach, then obviously we don't have the resolve to do either of the above, are weak and ineffectual, probably kick puppies, and are just trying to keep the situation going so we can profit on their oil. Or something.
The US can't win no matter what it chooses, too many people have too much investment in blaming the US so they don't have to blame themselves. I think that gives the US the option to do whatever it feels is best.
nuke 80% of the middle east, full on carpet bomb every square mile with overlapping bursts and you will not have 2 more spring up. you will actually wipe them all out for good and not have any problems with middle eastern terrorisim.
Are you trying to wipe out the Middle East or Muslims? If the latter, you'd have to take out vast areas of SE Asia and smaller parts of Europe. Neighborhood bombs for parts of France. Because they wouldn't take kindly to enormous groups of their religion being massacred, or all of their religion's holy sites being destroyed. Like.. the holy sites that their religion claim are absolutely mandatory to visit.
Does ethnic cleansing count? It's the true evil of the settlements. The settlements are for Jews, and Palastinians are, one family at a time, forced out of their homes as the Jewish areas grow. It's a calculated strategy of replacing the current residents of the land with occupiers, whole-cloth. Just slowly, and without the mass shootings.
The only thing stopping Israel from finishing the issue is their association with America and Europe. Otherwise, Arabia would simply be a collection of grease spots.
No? You don't think Israel would completely collapse without the US and Europe propping it up as they have been for 50 years?
IF Israel's great allies dropped support (military and financial) and Arab countries invaded, Israel's citizens would flee the country to become a wandering people yet again. At least the smart ones would.
For every one you kill two will take their place. Your philosophy breeds terrorism instead of extinguishing it.
Yeah, I'll take having two stupid, uneducated 15-year-old kids taking up arms instead of the senior tactician designing the best IEDs to plant along roads and send to market squares. I'll take that trade any day of the week. It's worked pretty damned well for us so far.
Really? Seriously? Have you paid any attention to the rhetoric coming from any of the Middle Eastern countries more conservative than Jordan or UAE? The fault for all problems is always the United States's and Israel's. Granted, for some of those countries the fault for many of those troubles can be laid at the feet of the US, but this has always been a popular and successful rhetorical tactic worldwide -- deflect blame from yourself by turning it into an US vs THEM argument. Amazing how isolationist Israel is somehow responsible for the crappy economies and every other problem under the sun for so many Middle Eastern countries... or amazing how Californians can't find good jobs because of all the "illegal immigrants." It goes on and on. As long as humans feel tribal (and state/country borders are just another mechanism for separating people into tribes), this tactic will work.
You should go on a stand-up comedy tour.
Adding to that line of thought, when Spock's father says in disgust, "he's so....human," the emotion of disgust is strongly apparent there.
I believe that Lt. Saavik, speaking to Spock. And I'm not sure that was really disgust in her voice, more like someone describing something very bizarre.
I have to laugh at the pathetic modern assertion that there IS some basis for morals/standards/ethics/values etc in some biological-mandate or evolutionary imperatives built-into biological systems to help further advance evolution... This is a desperate claim that an undirected system CAN establish such irrational mechanisms
Seems to me that among social animals, the society that can work together will be stronger and have more of a chance to survive than the one with no altruism at all.
On another topic, what do you think is the explanation for the Jews? How do you think they managed to survive for more than 4,000 years as a people with a common identity despite multiple deportations to far off foreign lands, pogroms, and even attempted genocide, only to reassemble in their native land and reform the country of Israel after being nonexistent for 2,000 years? Are there other examples of a similar nature that you can think of? How do you suppose that is?
You're kidding, right? If Jews are proof of the existence of God, then it's just proof that God hates the Jews and just loves to shit on them, century after century.
Do we really need a moral code much more elaborate than "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one"?
We probably do. Sometimes the needs of the few, or the one have to be respected. The needs of white men outweighed the needs of the black slaves in the US, did they not?
Sounds like Evangelion.
I'm trying real hard here not to give you a negative mod. You have been subjected to far too much paranoid Christian antiatheist propaganda. There is no atheist conspiracy. We're not meeting in dark rooms swapping atheist literature and planning to undermine Christianity.
You're dead wrong, they usually have their meetings in the same space but just after the gay folk who gather to discuss the next items on the Homosexual Agenda and how best to convert school kids to homosexuality.
There's no dogma, no book, no set of "therefore we believe these here other thingamajigs", nothing.
Like hell there isn't! To belong to any atheist community, you need to align with their dogma, have read and agree with their favorite authors, and "other thingamajigs" or you'll be ousted as a troll or worse.
This is pretty much true of any "society" on the Internet. I've come to suspect that it's generally true of any large group of people who come together with a common moral purpose.
But I've never known "atheist societies." I've known atheists, but none of them have ever been a part of any atheist society or atheist social circle. The people who DO tend to group up like that are fairly few, but their groupings make them far more visible than they would be otherwise.
When a relative dies, christians (etc.) cry
Pretty much because they're crying for themselves as much as for anyone else.
Actually the "god" question ("no god" is not a question, it is the default) is a question very much subject to science, and science has provided a few pretty good insights into it.
Oh? Why can't "god" be the default? That's awfully convenient that you get to choose that particular reference point, isn't it?
A good person will do good; a bad person may do good if the carrot (heaven), or stick (hell), is strong enough to deter them from acting bad.... but that doesn't make them a good person, it simply makes them less likely to suffer the stick in life for acting their nature.
It may not make them a good person, but it also means they might be less likely to apply the stick to others.
I remember that Ultima 6 had prostitutes. Oh, wait, it was one male and one female one. Does that still count?
Were they gargoyles?
I honestly don't remember too much about that one except it had a lot of gargoyles in it.
The creepiest bit is that half of my social circle, roughly, are male geeks* and they generally seem like a decent bunch, individually and in groups. My students are an amiable bunch, even in those final crunch days as they're trying to wrap up an experiment or get a paper in. Is the first wave of /. comments overwhelmingly from bitter seventeen year olds? Are these some other geeks who I have managed to distance myself from over the years.** Is it possible that some of the entertaining, amiable geeks that I spar with, party with, code with and blow things up with turn feral and run in packs when I'm not around? Eesh.
Hey, even violentacrez, the king troll of reddit, seemed like a decent guy in real life. The problem is as Penny Arcade pointed out years ago: Internet + Anonymity = Total fuckwad.
Was this screen-shot taken exactly 12 seconds after the last tweet, or do we see that a number of them persist beyond that last referenced date? If the latter, then it's just a screen capture taken in the middle and the timestamps mean nothing. If the former... well that IS quite a suspicious coincidence, isn't it?
The "perfect spelling, capitalization, punctuation" charge is ridiculous. Many of us aren't so brain-fried by online communications methods that we can't quickly dash off sentences with valid spelling, capitalization, and punctuation. Hell, it's not even that impressive a skill, or have standards fallen so low that someone who can type out a well-written sentence in 15 seconds is thought to have committed some sort of supernatural feat? The "this was clearly scripted before being written down" charge does not hold water.
One person's insight is another's bias.
The vast majority of meteorologist are directly or indirectly on government payrolls
Disregarding the "meteorologist" nonsense, here we come to the real crux of the problem: the unshakable, infallible belief that all the people who work for any government organization is evil, corrupt, bought, or just lazy. It's just as bad as the far-left-wing belief in the same for corporate workers. Those attitudes are way too prevalent, and we struggle with this stupidity every day.