In order for the geneva conventions to apply, both parties have to be signatories.
So you can post the link, but you aren't going to bother reading it. Here's a quick summary: 1. The 4 GCs are basically intended to protect vulnerable individuals from government power. 2. GC1 protects battlefield wounded, GC2 extended that protection to sea battles, GC3 is about the treatment of PoWs, and GC4 is about treatment of civilians. 3. They DO require you to follow certain standards if you want protection, like no pretending to surrender. 4. They DO NOT require your government to be a signatory for you to be protected.
Sort of true. The US takes a very legalistic view of these things and extended it's definition of legitimate military targets to include things like German factory workers homes. Absolutley true.
Jesus H. Christ! Have you even *read* the Geneva Convention? The vast majority of it is *reciprocal*!
Hmm. Have you? No? Ok, here's a quick introduction. There are 4 Geneva Conventions, GC1 is the oldest and sets standards for the treatment of battlefield casualties; GC2 extends those standards to sea battles; GC3 is about the treatment of PoWs; and GC4 sets standards for the treatment of civilians. They are not reciprocal, in the sense that only signatories are protected from each other, because the signatories are all governments; and the GCs are restraints of state power over *individuals*.
In other words, the US Army is still bound by GC4 when dealing with Iraqi civilians, even though Iraqi Army has used nerve gas on numerous occasions.
The Third Geneva Convention (the one about treatment of PoWs) does not require wearing uniforms or using flags, to gain PoW status. That is part of GC3's definition of a regular army. Inhabitants of an area resisting an invading power are specifically protected by section 4A(6), they aren't required to wear uniforms or organise into regular units.
All really good new theories start out as wacky ideas outside the mainstream. Richard Feynman used to give this advice to his physics students:
The chance is high that the truth lies in the fashionable direction. But, on the off-chance that it is in another direction who will find it? Only someone who has sacrificed his career studying quantum electodynamics from a peculiar and unfashonable point fo view; one that he may have had to invent for himself.
All the really good new theories are developed by new boys to the field in their twenties. The three classic examples of the paradigm shift, Copernicus, Newton, Einstein all fit this model. The immediate converts to the new theory will also be in their twenties.
Scientists have pet theories, just like Slashdotters have pet OSes. And just like everyone else they get old and stuck in their ways, and less likely to embrace new thinking. The aging and dying of old, established scientists is an important factor in new theories gaining acceptance. Einstein is a another good example: he had the balls to overturn Newtonian thinking in his youth, but refused to have anything to do with the new quantum theory when he got older. It clashed with his (pet) theory of Relativity, so he couldn't accept it.
Assertion: Corruption interferes with economic growth.
Absolutely, no argument.
Assertion: Democratic governments show better economic growth, personal income, and education than non-democratic states.
Counter-example: 42 out of 48 African countries have held multiparty elections since 1990. Mostly they swap one set corrupt asset-strippers for a different set.
I wish you were right, I really do, but the facts just don't support it.
I'm curious, though. Everyone is all over my terrorism comment, but nobody can refute my statement on economies?
Yes I can. Economic growth is not particularly linked to democratic forms of government. A stable society, with strong law and order, and fairly open international trade seem to be the biggest predictors. The Russian experiment with western-style democracy is now mostly over, but during that period their economy collapsed to roughly the same size as Belgium. Compare that with firmly non-democratic China, which has quadrupled it's economy since it opened to international trade in 1978; it is now the second largest economy in the world in local currency terms; and over the last 5 years has accounted for 1/4 of global economic growth.
Most americans also probably also don't know that the UK does not directly elect it's prime minister. It sure surprised me when I found out.
I was surprised to discover that Americans don't directly elect their President, apparently they have something called an electoral college.
Don't get too hung up on the theory, in practice the two systems are almost identical: the political parties each select a candidate and then everyone goes and votes for a party. Local issues are almost never a factor in a UK General Election, it's purely about who is going to be PM.
I may be wrong, but I don't think the US has carpet bombed any urban areas since WWII.
The US carpet bombed North Vietnam, including Hanoi, for the best part of 2 years during the Vietnam war. And don't forget, carpet bombing was *the* major component of the US campaign against the Taliban.
If the goal is to kill civilians in order to scare them, that is terrorism
The most significant criticism against the "Shock and Awe" concept is the high tendency for civilians and civilian structures to become targets in the effort to break the enemy's will. So was that terrorism?
Here is the ultimate television commercial they want to do. Here's the woman's face. Beautiful. Camera pulls back: naked breasts. Camera pulls back, she's totally naked, legs apart, two fingers between them. And it just says "Drink Coke". Now, I don't know the connection, here, but Coke is on my shopping list this week. No, I don't know the connection. Yes, I am buying a lot of these products. The teeth are rotting out of my head, and I'm glued to the television.
You've got quite hung up on constitutional ties to other countries, so let's review out terms: stability means no revolutions, civil wars, major unrest, or invasions since the end of the US civil war in 1865.
No one said anything about gaining independence being evidence of instability. Quite the reverse, orderly transfers of power are evidence of stability.
Except the English didn't have a true democracy until shortly after the American civil war (it was 1867, iirc). The first really representative General Election was held right after the Great Reform Act of 1832.
They had a monarch with almost absolute power, and a Parliment. It was in 1215 when Magna Carta established the King had to obey the law just like everybody else (i.e. it introduced constitutional government)
But it wasn't until 1867 that they got a rid of the monarch. You aren't very good at this are you? Actually the office of King has been abolished, by Oliver Cromwell in 1645, but was reinstated right after he died. Britain remains a constitutional monarchy to this day.
I disagree. I would be interested in hearing of a country that has been more stable over the period since the civil war.
OK. Let's define our terms here: more stable means no revolutions, civil wars, major unrest, or invasions since the end of the US civil war in 1865. How many can you name in 5 minutes? Go! Great Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland, Iceland, Mauritius, Seychelles, Malta, bzzt. Out of time.
You are describing a basic economic process called commoditisation, where expensive, and exclusive, new technology gradually becomes cheaper and more widely-used. The term is commonly applied to the PC industry, even though desktops are not a truly interchangeable commodity like crude oil. However, the logo on the machine has not mattered for years. The sector's most successful company, Dell, is not known for its technological innovations, but for the efficiency of it's supply chain. Commoditisation is a process that new technology goes through, it starts life at the top of the heap and the peak of its cost. As the technology becomes more widespread, better understood and standardised, the price falls. Air conditioning and central locking, once selling points for luxury cars, are now commodity features.
The point is, open source represents the commoditisation of software, and huge cost savings for businesses and consumers. Amazon reports cutting quarterly technology spend by almost $20m when it switched in 2002.
Commodisation is always resisted by the incumbents in that particular sector (in this case, Microsoft). It won't change anything in the long run, the economic forces at work are just too powerful. The best Microsoft can hope for is too delay the inevitable, and they know it. Which is why they are so desperately trying to break into so many new markets.
What the [Catholic] Church needs to do is step back and say one way or the other "The Bible contains passages which may be metaphorical" or "The Bible should be taken literally at all times." If you're willing to admit the former, you need to be willing to allow the individual to judge what is Metaphorical and what is not for themselves. Obviously the Church has it within her power to take exception to this from time to time through the Pope's power of speaking Ex Cathedra.
The Catholic church has never held the view that the Bible must be taken literally at all times, but that "Scripture and Tradition take equal weight". In fact, the Catholic/Protestant split arose because the (soon to be) Protestants insisted the Bible was the literal Word of God, and it contradicted certain Church teachings and practises. The Catholics countered that the Word of God comes directly from the Pope, and not the Bible which is, after all, a Church-assembled anthology.
Anyway, if the Pope came up with something radical like you're suggesting, all he would do is cause another schism in the Catholic Church; some would follow the new teaching, some wouldn't, and nothing would be clarified. Least of all for the Protestants, who have no equivalent office to the Pope, and are hardly likely to take to the Pope's view into account.
In a parable by Jesus in the Gospel of John, chapter 10, the devil was compared to a thief, who "...only come to steal, kill, and destroy..." (John 10:10).
The Gospel of John may *claim* the devil is a destroyer, but that's just commentary. All the actual big acts of destruction in the Bible (the kind of stuff Shiva does for the Hindus), Yahweh is the One carrying it out.
if you live in America you live in a REPUBLIC, if we lived in a democracy we would directly elect the president.
It's only an either-or proposition when you're playing Civilization. Here in the real world we aren't restricted to a single adjective when describing governmental systems. The US is a democratic republic; the UK is democratic, but not a republic; China is not democratic, but it is a republic.
In the ancient world, the citizens of a democracy voted on laws directly. No one practises this anymore, pretty much every one of these early democracies ended by voting all their powers to a charismatic tyrant. The Ancients Greeks even had a word for it: the Kyklos.
What the Western world uses today was called a mixed constitution in the ancient world. They have an element of tyranny (the head of state), an element of aristocracy (the parliament, or senate) and an element of ordinary people (regular elections, not to often).
Not quite on-topic, but I seem to recall that Pa. is the place to which people who'd been bothered for not accepting their local religion went to avoid persecution...?
Not exactly: the pilgrims fled when the Puritans came to power in England, but wanted nothing more than to set up an equally intolerant society of their own. Freedom of religion was never one of their proposed solutions, that was the exact opposite of what they were aiming for.
Name one fucked up country of 100 years ago that is not a fucked up country today...
Off the top of my head? Ireland. Greece. Spain. Portugal. Italy. All largely peasant, subsistence economies at the start of the 20th century. These countries that have suffered dictatorship, revolution, and/or civil war during the last hundred years but are now stable, prosperous democracies.
Slashdot Mirror
You can't build a repuation on what you're going to do - Henry Ford
In order for the geneva conventions to apply, both parties have to be signatories.
So you can post the link, but you aren't going to bother reading it. Here's a quick summary:
1. The 4 GCs are basically intended to protect vulnerable individuals from government power.
2. GC1 protects battlefield wounded, GC2 extended that protection to sea battles, GC3 is about the treatment of PoWs, and GC4 is about treatment of civilians.
3. They DO require you to follow certain standards if you want protection, like no pretending to surrender.
4. They DO NOT require your government to be a signatory for you to be protected.
The third GC has a specific protection for civilians resisting an invading power, they aren't required to wear uniforms and they are still protected.
Saddam would have killed 2X the the number that have been killed this year just for the sake of repression.
Operation Iraqi Freedom - Now only half as bad as Saddam! Get yours now!
Sort of true. The US takes a very legalistic view of these things and extended it's definition of legitimate military targets to include things like German factory workers homes. Absolutley true.
Jesus H. Christ! Have you even *read* the Geneva Convention? The vast majority of it is *reciprocal*!
Hmm. Have you? No? Ok, here's a quick introduction. There are 4 Geneva Conventions, GC1 is the oldest and sets standards for the treatment of battlefield casualties; GC2 extends those standards to sea battles; GC3 is about the treatment of PoWs; and GC4 sets standards for the treatment of civilians. They are not reciprocal, in the sense that only signatories are protected from each other, because the signatories are all governments; and the GCs are restraints of state power over *individuals*.
In other words, the US Army is still bound by GC4 when dealing with Iraqi civilians, even though Iraqi Army has used nerve gas on numerous occasions.
The Third Geneva Convention (the one about treatment of PoWs) does not require wearing uniforms or using flags, to gain PoW status. That is part of GC3's definition of a regular army. Inhabitants of an area resisting an invading power are specifically protected by section 4A(6), they aren't required to wear uniforms or organise into regular units.
Yes he did, however Asimov coined "robotics", which was the OP's claim.
All the really good new theories are developed by new boys to the field in their twenties. The three classic examples of the paradigm shift, Copernicus, Newton, Einstein all fit this model. The immediate converts to the new theory will also be in their twenties.
Scientists have pet theories, just like Slashdotters have pet OSes. And just like everyone else they get old and stuck in their ways, and less likely to embrace new thinking. The aging and dying of old, established scientists is an important factor in new theories gaining acceptance. Einstein is a another good example: he had the balls to overturn Newtonian thinking in his youth, but refused to have anything to do with the new quantum theory when he got older. It clashed with his (pet) theory of Relativity, so he couldn't accept it.
Assertion: Corruption interferes with economic growth.
Absolutely, no argument.
Assertion: Democratic governments show better economic growth, personal income, and education than non-democratic states.
Counter-example: 42 out of 48 African countries have held multiparty elections since 1990. Mostly they swap one set corrupt asset-strippers for a different set.
I wish you were right, I really do, but the facts just don't support it.
I'm curious, though. Everyone is all over my terrorism comment, but nobody can refute my statement on economies?
Yes I can. Economic growth is not particularly linked to democratic forms of government. A stable society, with strong law and order, and fairly open international trade seem to be the biggest predictors. The Russian experiment with western-style democracy is now mostly over, but during that period their economy collapsed to roughly the same size as Belgium. Compare that with firmly non-democratic China, which has quadrupled it's economy since it opened to international trade in 1978; it is now the second largest economy in the world in local currency terms; and over the last 5 years has accounted for 1/4 of global economic growth.
hope this helps.
Just remember that a marine's job is to run up the beach at the machine guns. Brains: definitely not required.
Most americans also probably also don't know that the UK does not directly elect it's prime minister. It sure surprised me when I found out.
I was surprised to discover that Americans don't directly elect their President, apparently they have something called an electoral college.
Don't get too hung up on the theory, in practice the two systems are almost identical: the political parties each select a candidate and then everyone goes and votes for a party. Local issues are almost never a factor in a UK General Election, it's purely about who is going to be PM.
I may be wrong, but I don't think the US has carpet bombed any urban areas since WWII.
The US carpet bombed North Vietnam, including Hanoi, for the best part of 2 years during the Vietnam war.
And don't forget, carpet bombing was *the* major component of the US campaign against the Taliban.
If the goal is to kill civilians in order to scare them, that is terrorism
The most significant criticism against the "Shock and Awe" concept is the high tendency for civilians and civilian structures to become targets in the effort to break the enemy's will. So was that terrorism?
Here is the ultimate television commercial they want to do. Here's the woman's face. Beautiful. Camera pulls back: naked breasts. Camera pulls back, she's totally naked, legs apart, two fingers between them. And it just says "Drink Coke". Now, I don't know the connection, here, but Coke is on my shopping list this week. No, I don't know the connection. Yes, I am buying a lot of these products. The teeth are rotting out of my head, and I'm glued to the television.
You've got quite hung up on constitutional ties to other countries, so let's review out terms: stability means no revolutions, civil wars, major unrest, or invasions since the end of the US civil war in 1865.
No one said anything about gaining independence being evidence of instability. Quite the reverse, orderly transfers of power are evidence of stability.
Except the English didn't have a true democracy until shortly after the American civil war (it was 1867, iirc).
The first really representative General Election was held right after the Great Reform Act of 1832.
They had a monarch with almost absolute power, and a Parliment.
It was in 1215 when Magna Carta established the King had to obey the law just like everybody else (i.e. it introduced constitutional government)
But it wasn't until 1867 that they got a rid of the monarch.
You aren't very good at this are you? Actually the office of King has been abolished, by Oliver Cromwell in 1645, but was reinstated right after he died. Britain remains a constitutional monarchy to this day.
I disagree. I would be interested in hearing of a country that has been more stable over the period since the civil war.
OK. Let's define our terms here: more stable means no revolutions, civil wars, major unrest, or invasions since the end of the US civil war in 1865. How many can you name in 5 minutes? Go! Great Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland, Iceland, Mauritius, Seychelles, Malta, bzzt. Out of time.
The point is, open source represents the commoditisation of software, and huge cost savings for businesses and consumers. Amazon reports cutting quarterly technology spend by almost $20m when it switched in 2002.
Commodisation is always resisted by the incumbents in that particular sector (in this case, Microsoft). It won't change anything in the long run, the economic forces at work are just too powerful. The best Microsoft can hope for is too delay the inevitable, and they know it. Which is why they are so desperately trying to break into so many new markets.
What the [Catholic] Church needs to do is step back and say one way or the other "The Bible contains passages which may be metaphorical" or "The Bible should be taken literally at all times." If you're willing to admit the former, you need to be willing to allow the individual to judge what is Metaphorical and what is not for themselves. Obviously the Church has it within her power to take exception to this from time to time through the Pope's power of speaking Ex Cathedra.
The Catholic church has never held the view that the Bible must be taken literally at all times, but that "Scripture and Tradition take equal weight". In fact, the Catholic/Protestant split arose because the (soon to be) Protestants insisted the Bible was the literal Word of God, and it contradicted certain Church teachings and practises. The Catholics countered that the Word of God comes directly from the Pope, and not the Bible which is, after all, a Church-assembled anthology.
Anyway, if the Pope came up with something radical like you're suggesting, all he would do is cause another schism in the Catholic Church; some would follow the new teaching, some wouldn't, and nothing would be clarified. Least of all for the Protestants, who have no equivalent office to the Pope, and are hardly likely to take to the Pope's view into account.
In a parable by Jesus in the Gospel of John, chapter 10, the devil was compared to a thief, who "...only come to steal, kill, and destroy..." (John 10:10).
The Gospel of John may *claim* the devil is a destroyer, but that's just commentary. All the actual big acts of destruction in the Bible (the kind of stuff Shiva does for the Hindus), Yahweh is the One carrying it out.
It's only an either-or proposition when you're playing Civilization. Here in the real world we aren't restricted to a single adjective when describing governmental systems. The US is a democratic republic; the UK is democratic, but not a republic; China is not democratic, but it is a republic.
In the ancient world, the citizens of a democracy voted on laws directly. No one practises this anymore, pretty much every one of these early democracies ended by voting all their powers to a charismatic tyrant. The Ancients Greeks even had a word for it: the Kyklos.
What the Western world uses today was called a mixed constitution in the ancient world. They have an element of tyranny (the head of state), an element of aristocracy (the parliament, or senate) and an element of ordinary people (regular elections, not to often).
Not exactly: the pilgrims fled when the Puritans came to power in England, but wanted nothing more than to set up an equally intolerant society of their own. Freedom of religion was never one of their proposed solutions, that was the exact opposite of what they were aiming for.
Off the top of my head? Ireland. Greece. Spain. Portugal. Italy. All largely peasant, subsistence economies at the start of the 20th century. These countries that have suffered dictatorship, revolution, and/or civil war during the last hundred years but are now stable, prosperous democracies.
Next question?