Just because you can say War==bad and Terrorism==bad, this does not mean that War==Terrorism
That isn't the equation I am using. The equation I am using is: Terrorism = killing innocent civilians, War = killing innocent civilians, ergo War = Terrorism. See Iraq Body Count for details.
English is a wonderfully decriptive language Yes it is, and using a term like terrorism as an excuse to commit terror is the worst kind of abuse of the language.
If what you're telling me is "We're right and they're wrong so they're terrorists and we're heroes", that is the same argument Osama Bin Laden makes and I don't believe him either.
"I don't see what's so wrong about destroying a backwards feudal society"
That is what you said. Regardless of what you "could have meant", what you said is 1) you don't see anything wrong with destroying someone else's society (and society is different from culture) and 2) that you believe you have the right to decide whose society is backward.
At a moment in history in which the United States has just invaded two countries not too far (physically if not culturally) from Bhutan, statements such as yours about destroying other societies are disengenious at best and war-mongering at worst. I'm not proud of having sunken to the ad-hominem level, but if you think it's ok to toss around phrases about destroying other societies at a time like this, then you had better be prepared for people to react at "a base emotional level".
So it's wonderful to bash the 21st. century but then you have to be willing to forgoe the automobile, cat scanners, industrial farming and the information age.
So that's the only choice, accept commericalism of everything or live off the land? What if it were possible to reject materialism as a goal but accept those parts of technological progress that benefit society? A tricky line to walk perhaps, but why condemn people for giving it a try?
Oh, and btw, polio is still a killer in a number of countries around the world, it was only "cured" in rich countries.
they always forget that all the big corporations are using resources in other countries (E.G. oil, labour)
Thank you! That's the crux of the matter.
western culture thinks it's much better, and tries to force it's self on to other cultures, who may be just fine the way they are
Thank you twice! What I don't understand is how all of these folks who despise the homogenization, power tactics, and cluelessness of M$ can support the same tactics in world politics. Variety is the spice of life and we (western culture) are rapidly stamping it out.
Is it a shame that M$ is trying to lockup software intellecutal property? You bet. Is it a shame that the media conglomerates and pharmaceutical companies are locking up world intellectual property? No, it's much worse than that, letting 25 million people die of AIDS to protect a drug company's intellectual property rights and letting eight year old kids work twelve hour days to protect Nike isn't a shame, it's a crime.
It's not like we are marching in with tanks and forcing people to watch "The Simpsons" at gunpoint.
If you think guns are the only way to abuse power, perhaps you missed a little company called Microsloth. No one came with a gun and forced (almost) everyone to stop using Nutscrape either.
Keeping people in a bottle so that you can preseve their culture
I agree, where in my posting did you see that I said anything about what should or shouldn't be allowed in Bhutan? I am not about to forbid anyone from using windoze. That doesn't mean I have to like it when they do.
Do you think that TV and instant dinners and hot water make rich countries morally superior to "backward" countries? Is that how you judge progress, simple physical wealth? If so, then that defintily rates as backwards in my book.
I don't see what's so wrong about destroying a backwards feudal society
And you probably don't even see the irony in your own statement. To me, a society that produces scum like you who think it's ok to destroy other societies because of how *you* define "backwards" has got to be the most backward society on earth.
12 years sounds crazy now days, but up until recently life spans were only until your twenties
Good point. The only change I would make is "up until recently in industrialized countries". The odds of living past thirty are less than even in many countries of the world today.
> Why does it appear that anthropologists only > work in Africa?
Good question, why does it appear to *you* that anthropologists only work in Africa. Could it be that you simply don't pay attention to the many news items about finds in Portugal or Croatia, or Iraq, or Mexico?
> Why don't they go to the real birthplace > of human civilization?
Maybe because it's currently a war zone?
And What does civilization have to do with it? that's not what these particular anthropologists are stufying. These finds relate to remains that are 140,000 years away from "civilization".
> The bottom line is that the fertile crecent > area of Mesopotamia is where everything got > started, not Africa
Hmm, did Uzxgrip from the Planet Xenon tell you this directly? Just because agriculture, and writing may have started there (among other places) doesn't mean that everything else started there. Do you assume that the Finns invented mathematics because you know that Linux was invented in Finland?
"Can you name an existing species that was directly descended from another species that is still alive in the same area?"
What do you imagine happens, species A is alive then the first mutation of B occurs and immediately all members of species A dies off and only B is left? There *always* has to be an overlap period in which members of the two related groups co-occur.
"I think it was a show on Discovery Channel where they talked about this a bit. One source said that Neanderthals might have been hunted for food."
An equivalent software statement might be: "I think it was a show on WB where one source said that DOS is the best operating system ever invented." Did you ever hear of a library or google? What makes you think your partially remembered version of one person's ill informed blather on a tv show is relevant to anything? They might have been hunted off by aliens too, where's the evidence?
I don't mean to pick on you in particular but I am boggled at the readiness of people in this forum to talk about things they no nothing about.
"Whenever they discuss how the Neanderthals died out, they kind of tail off at the notion that we exterminated them in a turf war."
Where do you get your idea of prehistory, tarzan movies? Homo Sapiens and Neandertals lived near each other for over 80,000 years without exterminating each other and there's no evidence of any kind that their disappearance was caused by warfare. Even the idea that we out-competed them is only a guess. "They" tail off when discussing Neandertal extinction because a few hundred skeletons over a few hundred thousand years isn't much to go on.
At last an intelligent comment, culture is cumulative. Other than this posting and one or two others, the level of this discussion is mind-boggling. I saw a PBS special 10 years ago that said foo, I googled and found one page that said bar. Sheesh, it's like a paleoanthropologist or geneticist forum discussing linux based on a single news report of Steve Ballmer's latest gurglings. For those that actually want some information on this topic, try http://anthro.palomar.edu/homo2/ for general paleoanthropology or http://www.wam.umd.edu/~mturn/WWW/deacon.html for an interesting starting point on the prehistory of language.
Slashdot Mirror
Just because you can say War==bad and Terrorism==bad, this does not mean that War==Terrorism
That isn't the equation I am using. The equation I am using is: Terrorism = killing innocent civilians, War = killing innocent civilians, ergo War = Terrorism. See Iraq Body Count for details.
English is a wonderfully decriptive language Yes it is, and using a term like terrorism as an excuse to commit terror is the worst kind of abuse of the language.
If what you're telling me is "We're right and they're wrong so they're terrorists and we're heroes", that is the same argument Osama Bin Laden makes and I don't believe him either.
DO THEY HAVE ANY PROOF THAT TERRORISTS USE LINUX?
Yes, here's proof that terrorists use linux:
Defense Department OK's open-source software.
War *is* terrorism.
"I don't see what's so wrong about destroying a backwards feudal society"
That is what you said. Regardless of what you "could have meant", what you said is 1) you don't see anything wrong with destroying someone else's society (and society is different from culture) and 2) that you believe you have the right to decide whose society is backward.
At a moment in history in which the United States has just invaded two countries not too far (physically if not culturally) from Bhutan, statements such as yours about destroying other societies are disengenious at best and war-mongering at worst. I'm not proud of having sunken to the ad-hominem level, but if you think it's ok to toss around phrases about destroying other societies at a time like this, then you had better be prepared for people to react at "a base emotional level".
So it's wonderful to bash the 21st. century but then you have to be willing to forgoe the automobile, cat scanners, industrial farming and the information age.
So that's the only choice, accept commericalism of everything or live off the land? What if it were possible to reject materialism as a goal but accept those parts of technological progress that benefit society? A tricky line to walk perhaps, but why condemn people for giving it a try?
Oh, and btw, polio is still a killer in a number of countries around the world, it was only "cured" in rich countries.
they always forget that all the big corporations are using resources in other countries (E.G. oil, labour)
Thank you! That's the crux of the matter.
western culture thinks it's much better, and tries to force it's self on to other cultures, who may be just fine the way they are
Thank you twice! What I don't understand is how all of these folks who despise the homogenization, power tactics, and cluelessness of M$ can support the same tactics in world politics. Variety is the spice of life and we (western culture) are rapidly stamping it out.
Is it a shame that M$ is trying to lockup software intellecutal property? You bet. Is it a shame that the media conglomerates and pharmaceutical companies are locking up world intellectual property? No, it's much worse than that, letting 25 million people die of AIDS to protect a drug company's intellectual property rights and letting eight year old kids work twelve hour days to protect Nike isn't a shame, it's a crime.
It's not like we are marching in with tanks and forcing people to watch "The Simpsons" at gunpoint.
If you think guns are the only way to abuse power, perhaps you missed a little company called Microsloth. No one came with a gun and forced (almost) everyone to stop using Nutscrape either.
Keeping people in a bottle so that you can preseve their culture
I agree, where in my posting did you see that I said anything about what should or shouldn't be allowed in Bhutan? I am not about to forbid anyone from using windoze. That doesn't mean I have to like it when they do.
Do you think that TV and instant dinners and hot water make rich countries morally superior to "backward" countries? Is that how you judge progress, simple physical wealth? If so, then that defintily rates as backwards in my book.
I don't see what's so wrong about destroying a backwards feudal society
And you probably don't even see the irony in your own statement. To me, a society that produces scum like you who think it's ok to destroy other societies because of how *you* define "backwards" has got to be the most backward society on earth.
12 years sounds crazy now days, but up until recently life spans were only until your twenties
Good point. The only change I would make is "up until recently in industrialized countries". The odds of living past thirty are less than even in many countries of the world today.
> Why does it appear that anthropologists only
> work in Africa?
Good question, why does it appear to *you* that anthropologists only work in Africa. Could it be that you simply don't pay attention to the many news items about finds in Portugal or Croatia, or Iraq, or Mexico?
> Why don't they go to the real birthplace
> of human civilization?
Maybe because it's currently a war zone?
And What does civilization have to do with it? that's not what these particular anthropologists are stufying. These finds relate to remains that are 140,000 years away from "civilization".
> The bottom line is that the fertile crecent
> area of Mesopotamia is where everything got
> started, not Africa
Hmm, did Uzxgrip from the Planet Xenon tell you this directly? Just because agriculture, and writing may have started there (among other places) doesn't mean that everything else started there. Do you assume that the Finns invented mathematics because you know that Linux was invented in Finland?
> "things they no nothing about."
:-)
>> That's all I needed to see.
At least I sign my typos
"Can you name an existing species that was directly descended from another species that is still alive in the same area?"
What do you imagine happens, species A is alive then the first mutation of B occurs and immediately all members of species A dies off and only B is left? There *always* has to be an overlap period in which members of the two related groups co-occur.
"I think it was a show on Discovery Channel where they talked about this a bit. One source said that Neanderthals might have been hunted for food."
An equivalent software statement might be: "I think it was a show on WB where one source said that DOS is the best operating system ever invented." Did you ever hear of a library or google? What makes you think your partially remembered version of one person's ill informed blather on a tv show is relevant to anything? They might have been hunted off by aliens too, where's the evidence?
I don't mean to pick on you in particular but I am boggled at the readiness of people in this forum to talk about things they no nothing about.
"Whenever they discuss how the Neanderthals died out, they kind of tail off at the notion that we exterminated them in a turf war."
Where do you get your idea of prehistory, tarzan movies? Homo Sapiens and Neandertals lived near each other for over 80,000 years without exterminating each other and there's no evidence of any kind that their disappearance was caused by warfare. Even the idea that we out-competed them is only a guess. "They" tail off when discussing Neandertal extinction because a few hundred skeletons over a few hundred thousand years isn't much to go on.
At last an intelligent comment, culture is cumulative. Other than this posting and one or two others, the level of this discussion is mind-boggling. I saw a PBS special 10 years ago that said foo, I googled and found one page that said bar. Sheesh, it's like a paleoanthropologist or geneticist forum discussing linux based on a single news report of Steve Ballmer's latest gurglings. For those that actually want some information on this topic, try http://anthro.palomar.edu/homo2/ for general paleoanthropology or http://www.wam.umd.edu/~mturn/WWW/deacon.html for an interesting starting point on the prehistory of language.