This shows that you know nothing about evolution. You are just a cheerleader for the theory because "it sounds cool".
Simple fact is that even the proponents of the theory, that do the actual work to further develop the theory, readily admit the existence of numerous holes and "leaps of faith" in its current state.
Seriously, go read up a little bit before you parade your ignorance around here."
The same for gravity, so STFU. if you have no problem with gravity then by induction you should have no problem with evolution. Gravity has numerous gaps and things we can't quit explain even with the quantum theories. So stop the spreading of disinformation.
"But that would seperate the kid from his peers and possibly lead to him beind ostracised by the rest of the class, and we can't let that happen. That sort of thing should be reserved for the godless commies who refuse to say the "under God" part in the Pledge of Allegiance."
If your a fundementalist christian, that would seperate you from the rest humanity well enough that you needn't fear being ostrizied because you missed a field trip. I am a evangelical christian but fundementalism bothers me.
"If you look at the public struggles between creationists and evolutionists, the creationists who represent the mainstream Evangelical thought are not trying to remove evolution, they would just "
This is insufficient for most of the creationists I know. Also it's complete bull. Evolution is not a fact in the same way gravity isn't. In exactly the same way. They both heavily supported ideas with several thousand research projects and are the best explanation we have now. They are also being refined all the time, and are not 100% correct but the basic idea seems very correct. So you minus as well do it for all of science and also force bible study to put the same desclaimer on as well.
I am also a evangelical christian. ID is fine, but evolution was the way.
Seems like the spin doctors have spun "Ted and rob are going to make a game for xbox2" to "Ted and Rob have signedon to make an amazing new project for the xbox2".
The opposite is also true. Nanotech will be a great investment until molecular manufacturing is democratized, at which point it will do for bits of matter what the computer did for bits of data.
The "Napsterization" of food, clothing, diamond, INSERT_ANY_OBJECT_HERE, etc, turns scarcity-based economics on its head. Nobody'll get "rich" starting a company (like, say, Wal-Mart) that sells copies of objects anymore. At this point everything is open source and everybody can live self-sufficiently; just add energy (who 'owns' the sun?) and recycled molecules.
You woudl then have a energy and rare materials driven economy. You cannot fake or reproduce energy and rare materials and while the sun is great it will not supply everyone with enoguh energy density.
I thought Voyager lost serious credibility when the captain thought the prime directive applied to what was clearly a post warp culture.... Worst episode ever.
Sure, the original was 90% cheese but they had characters that gave you some impression that humanity was at least partially worth saving.
This is what Star Trek, SG-1 & BSG78 all had that BSG04 does not.
Being a inhumanly idealistic does make them sympathetic. Being a real person dealing imperfectly with problems makes someone sympathetic. A sympathetic character isn't some paragon of virtue.
I never got how a progressive society in any form could censor content.
The US is much less free then you think. They censor nudity. Whats wrong with breasts? Pubic hair? Penis? Labia ect...? I find them less offensive then "who wants to marry a millionaire".
This adolecent view of the human body affects the US.
Whao, dude, you obviously haven't seen a Girls Gone Wild. I saw parts of the first one and I didn't know there were college co-eds who would do that with a water bottle.
Their all strippers ect.. at least the ones doing more then flashing. The flashers are problbly legit co-eds the rest are strippers hired to put on a show for the camera.
degenerated so much that in fact there are now at least two english languages: American english and British english
French has at least two as well. Quebequoi and true french. They have fairly distinct gramar and structure. They are as different as American english is to british english and both versions of french are enshrined and protective by language facists. France deserves respect for it's history and it's contribution to humanity. It deserves derision and ridicule for it's language policies. As soemone else mentioned, purity = death in language. Languages naturally grow. With it's current policies, true french will be liek latin while the more hetro genous natural french will partially merge with what ever toungue is popular. Like Madrin or English.
Like chess, Starcraft is all about who could get the upper hand fastest. Once you have the upper hand, you can use strategies to sure up your lead and theres little the enemy can do about it. I've played games that escalated the whole way up to Carriers and BattleCruisers before someone started to get an advantage, but those are 1/1000 games. Warcraft3 is a newb game, where you can lose half your army and come back to win if you click faster than your opponent. There was some solace in the rest you can do by changing up to a conservative strategy in Starcraft.
War 3 is a newb game? Losing half your troops to someone of similiar skill levels almost always means your death. Losing 1/2 to someone less skilled means you are in a hard spot and might recover. Just like in SC. I have been in games where I out number my friend 2:1 and control the map for the first 20 min annihalting him when ever I see him. When he gets his goon squad out, I'm utterly helpless. His micro is that good. By the same token my other friend (#3 us east for roc 3v3 rt "veryhappyjen") I have totally killed all her forces and her heroes and she always comes back to beat me. I have replays of me detroying all but one of her expos (funny enough the one with the gryphon averies and back up alter) and have seen her come back to control the game. I'm no slouch, #18 on both us west roc and us east roc for 2v2 ar (king manic).
Skill trumps numbers in both games. Ohh and inventign that corsair harass... I doubt it. It's a pretty obvious strat?
I was quite skilled in all evolutions of SC. From the beginning, to the ladder movement, to the unladder "fastest" setting, to the money maps. The different stages that the game took is what kept me in it for so long. In the end, the map hacks made me quit too...that and the cheap rush tatics some people used (see the SCV, marine rush posted).
IMHO you devolved. You went from skilled, to somewhat less skilled to no skill what so ever. The money maps don't deal with desparity and finite resources. Thats a large part of the game. The tactics are a subset of what the game is about and the balance goes out the window. The expense of a toss army is somewhat mitigated byt he availability of resources. Removes that and mass carriers is all you see (thats okay with me, then I'm mass scourges with defilers and hydras). Money maps are fun but it's not a evolution.
Ling rush is easy to deal with, 1 basic unit (expecially is it's a marine) + workers = dead lings. I've gone in 3v3 where all 4 opposing protoss rushed me with 4 zeals each (12). I took them all out with workers and 1 sunken, and decimated them on the counter. Supurior macro will annihalate supurior numbers until range comes in both war 3 and starcraft.
When range comes into play, it's more even but micro still makes a huge difference.
Did you ever know someone who no matter how hard you tried, you simply could not find any redeeming reasons to like them? That's France. An arrogant, self centered little tiny egomanical ankle biting country that has a part of it's government devoted to keeping english words out of the language. An arrogant, rude country that thinks they are a gift to the world. An arrogant rude country who after they were liberated from Nazi Germany at the end of World War II refused to be a part of NATO because it wasn't run by them. They happily took the Marshall Plan money from the US all the while ankle biting the US at every step. And they are still nasty little ankle biters. Instead of biting the ankles of Google because their idea of putting books online which happen to be in english offends the sensibilities of the French, why don't they build their own in French. I'm sure all of those French speaking countries out there, you know those old French colonies in Africa and Asia - would love to be able to find the collected works of DeGaulle online. Any while the French are at it, why don't they simply create their own Google instead of whining about an American created company being in English? Geez. But then the French will be the French. Also they were a brutal colonial power with many vietnamese still remember with much venom. I do beleive the US wqas encouraged by France to invade vietnam.
most modded xboxes store thier games on the hd. It's quick and easy and not eveyrone had a dvd burner. The HD makes it redicoulously easy to store pirated games.
1) whether the future is likely to be more peaceful and involve more multi-lateral international co-operation.
As Sun Tzu wrote centuries ago, war is not to be used cavalierly but it is one tool of state that cannot be abandoned. There is a role for peace and war. There are times when nothing but war will achieve the goals required, dismissing the option outright if foolish.
2) whether an aggressive warlike foreign policy should be judged on the same basis as in the past or if nations' behavior today should be held to different standards.
Does judgment matter? Would you say Rome achieved nothing because it was warlike? Was Germany not the most advanced nation in the early 20th century because they were war like? You are mistaken if you believe society is "evolving" or that history is anything but cyclic. The wiring of the human nervous system is not so different today as it was 1000 years ago.
You have in my view a very pessimistic view of both. And in the end it is just people with your views that we are fighting against and whom we must defeat if we are to achieve the peace we want.
Everybody wants peace, but on their terms. The Palestinians just want peace, after the Israeli's are dead. The Israelis want peace too. Russia wanted peace, but also wanted the subjugation of Eastern Europe. China wants peace, and Tibet, and Taiwan, and revenge on Japan. The US only wants peace and economic domination of the world.
It is people who share your views who are responsible for all the wars and all the millions of deaths that follow. You may never pick up a weapon yourself, but in espousing war as a justifiable instrument of foreign policy it is you who are responsible for those deaths all the same, because it is you who provides the justification and the excuse. I hope you will find the time to reflect on that.
That has always been the way. Diplomacy first, failing that war. Threats that scare away the enemy are better then bullets that kill him. Nothing has changed. The world is still the same place it was 1000 years ago. The players and scope change, as have the technologies but the mindset of the players haven't. We're still tribal entities. Peace is great but when the cost is too much it is time for war. It's people like you who let world war 2 happen. Pacifists too frightened by the aftermath of world war 1 to fight again. So you cave, give everyone what they want ect.. and they'll leave you alone.. but they won't. It's basically summed up like this:
You only have as much freedom as you are willing to fight for, only so much justice as your strength of arms can secure. You have only as much liberty as you can enforce with your weapons. Only as much peace as you can secure with the edge of a sword.
Russia has a similair list of countries it was warred with/abused. England has attack many of the same countries and lead colonial wars. The french as well. This list doens't impress me. The "benign" only in the fact they don't massacre the population as the french did (vietnam) or the Japanese (their entire colonial record). I dont' mean their not aggressive. They are simply less so then empire of the past. And no the world doesn't want true peace. The different nations want different things. China wants control and prevention of the stagnation and domination it experienced in the last three centries. Russia wants peace and stability but locally it wants control of it's neighbors. the europeans are content with economic prosperity but much of the middle east is out to expand their land control. The US was economic dominations of all lands and has only a slight aversion to using force. The african nations want war, and often do war with each other. You analysis is simplistic and based of a very limited world view. The essentials of civilization haven't changed. We are no better then we were before, the condition have gotten better btu this is cyclic. At any given time some civilization have been benign peaceful nations that are content, some are warlike expansionists. The middle east was once a bastion of technological and socialogical progress (mroe then once). China was a very stable and progressive society with technology that the west only surpassed a thousands after it's creation. But china has also experienced war and invasion. China has invaded others. The middle east is now unstable and tense.
I am not American. I view America as no worse then any empire before it and somewhat better in some respects. They rarely interceed directly. They are by no measure "good people" but they are absolutly no worse then the french or british of even 75 years ago. By their own standards they fall short. But by the standards of history, their a short lived empire which leveraged their advanced logistical skills to economically dominate the half world for about half a century.
The perception that we have "grown" past the evils of the past is basically arrogance and short sighted view of history. We're not all that different. Feudal china or corprate america both have very similar fundemental philosophies. The technologiy has changed the people have not.
It would be more useful to know precisely what triggers it, and why - then saying it merely exists.
Im sure most people have at one point in their lives for an unexplainable reason (till now i guess) done something other then what they wanted to - and was better off because of it.
Thats called coincidence. it's a little paranoia, a little loss of impulse control, and a circumstance that vindicates that paranaoia. Not psychic, just statistics.
By comparison: Even though there are millions of psychics/clairvoyants and other people who claim to be able to predict the future worldwide, not one predicted the tsunami! Remarkable?
Pish posh. I'm sure out of the few thousand supposed psychics one of them predicted something that can be vaguely attributed to the tsunami. I'm sure a lot of them are getting a lot of business because of this prediction. When there are enough predictions one of them will be close. It's simply numbers.
Frankly I see no difference between how the empires of Europe's past treated their subjects and how America treats the subjects of its empire now. However you cannot rightly compare the two because expectations were different back then and nobody was doing things any differently. Nowadays though we have notions of human rights, international law etc. because the signatories felt they were ready to move beyond that. Of the civilized Western nations, only the mightiest (whose continuing crimes would be exposed and punished by such international controls), is prepared to ignore or withdraw from such treaties
In that paragraph you explicitly reinforce my point. They are different. They behave much differently. They are less brutal, less cavalier, and less exploitive (yes, less exploitive).
The amoral self-interest argument is one I've heard before many times here on Slashdot. Note that this argument is being used only by citizens of one particular hegemony: that of the most powerful nation in the world. When you have no moral justification for your action the only course remaining is to abandon morality, so that's no surprise at all. But it's still bogus.
You view their history from the point of view of a modern, western, liberal. I view as a modern, liberal, historian. All countries are selfish, if you had Iran and the US switch places, the world would be a terrible place. Almost any other nation in a position similar to the US would be a terrible power to behold. But the US is different (the west actually) because it contains so many people just like you. People who are appalled that their side can do terrible things and will work against their own self-interest to ensure things are "fair". Countries outside of the west don't' have as many of you.
It should be no surprise either that the rest of the world sees things differently. Lacking the means to have everything our own way, the rest of us are still "hampered" by a moral sense of fairness, community and social responsibility (hence the Kyoto treaty, proposals to end global poverty etc). I don't know if such attitudes can survive the temptations of being the mightiest, but I'd like to think that we of the world's fallen empires have moved beyond that for good. Societies can mature and evolve but America is still stuck in the past, in this respect, still pursuing a 19th century weltanschauung (i.e. "Manifest Destiny" as opposed to international co-operation).
Manifest destiny is just an idea. No different from the Divine mandate that the emperors of old used. You can't change history; you either are the monster, or are the victim eventually (see the history of china). There are no saints when it comes to countries, just varying degrees of sinners.
I'm not sure what your point is. Propaganda is used by every warlike government to stir up the public, yes. And the latent xenophobia that is programmed into our genes makes the public receptive. But there does have to be a grievance there to start with, and the more deep-rooted the grievance, the more effective will be the propaganda. It's fundamental to the whole process. You can't write off the grievance aspect just because it happens to implicate US foreign policy. You're only fooling yourselves.
I'm saying compared to even events 75 years ago, the US is fairly benign. Their exploitive, and they interfere, but you can't tell me all other countries are benign. Europe interferes as well in the politics and policies of others. The US is just less competent at it and has more international incidents. Through the lens of history, the US is the most benign empire that ever existed. That said it's probably the shortest lived. It's already showing signs of decline (notably a sense of nostalgia, a technological conservatism, an exaggerated sense of their own place in the world, and the presence of corruption in the high levels of government).
try this: the resentment which accrues towards a foreign nation that habitually interferes, with frequently horrible results, in the affairs of their country or their neighbors' countries.
Nations are selfish; they will attempt to act in their own self-interests. It always has been that way, always will be. Whether it's Syria occupying and influencing Lebanon or the US occupying Saudi Arabia.
If you are going to act like the world's self-appointed policeman you had better be squeaky clean, immune to corruption and free from self-interest - or else all the mistakes, all the bad judgments you make and most definitely all the hostile and destructive acts you commit will be held against you in the most venomous way possible.
The US isn't the global police force; they act in their own interests. It's a convenient cover story to say "Global Police". They rarely send out their "police" force unless they have some interests, either ideologically or economically in the area. They actually tread lighter then similar powerful countries have in the past. They aren't nearly as bad as colonial France, England, or Spain. They keep their atrocities small. There isn't the wholesale slaughter committed by both the French and Spanish when they colonize; there isn't the subjugation that the British and all colonial powers attempt. That's not to say their nice people, their not. But generally people aren't. Their working to enrich themselves not Iraq, just as the French was out to rape Vietnam not enriches it.
The widespread hatred of the US was inevitable, given its foreign policy. It doesn't require the Islamic world to be jealous, or freedom-hating, or innately anti Western. It only requires them to be human, to have a shred of dignity or pride; to own a scrap of ambition to be their own masters free from the oppression of an interfering foreign state. Even in an evil dictatorship, people will still go to war to fight for their country even if they do so half-heartedly.
Propaganda. The media in the region uses Israel and America heavily as "Scape goats". Subsequently no matter how benevolent Israel gets (it isn't) or how benign US foreign policy is, they will hate the west. Part miss-information, part xeno-phobia, part jealousy. Mostly xeno phobia and miss-information. A similar parallel can be drawn about how the US feels about the Middle East. I have heard "Kill them all and let god sort them out" type comments come from a lot of Americans. I have even said similar things about Muslim Indonesians (personal matters to do with mob violence and the Muslim culture there in regards to my EX-GF). But I'm intelligent enough to know that's bullshit. The people of the Middle East would be genially nice people just as most Indonesians just want to eek out a living. But our propaganda portrays them as ignorant blood thirsty savages, because that is how they are portrayed.
Slashdot Mirror
"lmao
This shows that you know nothing about evolution. You are just a cheerleader for the theory because "it sounds cool".
Simple fact is that even the proponents of the theory, that do the actual work to further develop the theory, readily admit the existence of numerous holes and "leaps of faith" in its current state.
Seriously, go read up a little bit before you parade your ignorance around here."
The same for gravity, so STFU. if you have no problem with gravity then by induction you should have no problem with evolution. Gravity has numerous gaps and things we can't quit explain even with the quantum theories. So stop the spreading of disinformation.
Given we date the birth of zorostrum at 8000 years ago and chinese history goes back a shad past 7000 I'd say it's been fairly well discredited.
"But that would seperate the kid from his peers and possibly lead to him beind ostracised by the rest of the class, and we can't let that happen. That sort of thing should be reserved for the godless commies who refuse to say the "under God" part in the Pledge of Allegiance."
If your a fundementalist christian, that would seperate you from the rest humanity well enough that you needn't fear being ostrizied because you missed a field trip. I am a evangelical christian but fundementalism bothers me.
"If you look at the public struggles between creationists and evolutionists, the creationists who represent the mainstream Evangelical thought are not trying to remove evolution, they would just "
This is insufficient for most of the creationists I know. Also it's complete bull. Evolution is not a fact in the same way gravity isn't. In exactly the same way. They both heavily supported ideas with several thousand research projects and are the best explanation we have now. They are also being refined all the time, and are not 100% correct but the basic idea seems very correct. So you minus as well do it for all of science and also force bible study to put the same desclaimer on as well.
I am also a evangelical christian. ID is fine, but evolution was the way.
Seems like the spin doctors have spun "Ted and rob are going to make a game for xbox2" to "Ted and Rob have signedon to make an amazing new project for the xbox2".
The opposite is also true.
Nanotech will be a great investment until molecular manufacturing is democratized, at which point it will do for bits of matter what the computer did for bits of data.
The "Napsterization" of food, clothing, diamond, INSERT_ANY_OBJECT_HERE, etc, turns scarcity-based economics on its head. Nobody'll get "rich" starting a company (like, say, Wal-Mart) that sells copies of objects anymore. At this point everything is open source and everybody can live self-sufficiently; just add energy (who 'owns' the sun?) and recycled molecules.
You woudl then have a energy and rare materials driven economy. You cannot fake or reproduce energy and rare materials and while the sun is great it will not supply everyone with enoguh energy density.
I thought Voyager lost serious credibility when the captain thought the prime directive applied to what was clearly a post warp culture. ... Worst episode ever.
Yasunori Mitsuda makes soem pretty memorable themes. That xeno gears one is still stuck in my head so many years later.
...howabout sympathetic characters.
Sure, the original was 90% cheese but they had characters that gave you some impression that humanity was at least partially worth saving.
This is what Star Trek, SG-1 & BSG78 all had that BSG04 does not.
Being a inhumanly idealistic does make them sympathetic. Being a real person dealing imperfectly with problems makes someone sympathetic. A sympathetic character isn't some paragon of virtue.
I never got how a progressive society in any form could censor content.
The US is much less free then you think. They censor nudity. Whats wrong with breasts? Pubic hair? Penis? Labia ect...? I find them less offensive then "who wants to marry a millionaire".
This adolecent view of the human body affects the US.
Whao, dude, you obviously haven't seen a Girls Gone Wild. I saw parts of the first one and I didn't know there were college co-eds who would do that with a water bottle.
Their all strippers ect.. at least the ones doing more then flashing. The flashers are problbly legit co-eds the rest are strippers hired to put on a show for the camera.
degenerated so much that in fact there are now at least two english languages: American english and British english
French has at least two as well. Quebequoi and true french. They have fairly distinct gramar and structure. They are as different as American english is to british english and both versions of french are enshrined and protective by language facists. France deserves respect for it's history and it's contribution to humanity. It deserves derision and ridicule for it's language policies. As soemone else mentioned, purity = death in language. Languages naturally grow. With it's current policies, true french will be liek latin while the more hetro genous natural french will partially merge with what ever toungue is popular. Like Madrin or English.
Like chess, Starcraft is all about who could get the upper hand fastest. Once you have the upper hand, you can use strategies to sure up your lead and theres little the enemy can do about it. I've played games that escalated the whole way up to Carriers and BattleCruisers before someone started to get an advantage, but those are 1/1000 games. Warcraft3 is a newb game, where you can lose half your army and come back to win if you click faster than your opponent. There was some solace in the rest you can do by changing up to a conservative strategy in Starcraft.
War 3 is a newb game? Losing half your troops to someone of similiar skill levels almost always means your death. Losing 1/2 to someone less skilled means you are in a hard spot and might recover. Just like in SC. I have been in games where I out number my friend 2:1 and control the map for the first 20 min annihalting him when ever I see him. When he gets his goon squad out, I'm utterly helpless. His micro is that good. By the same token my other friend (#3 us east for roc 3v3 rt "veryhappyjen") I have totally killed all her forces and her heroes and she always comes back to beat me. I have replays of me detroying all but one of her expos (funny enough the one with the gryphon averies and back up alter) and have seen her come back to control the game. I'm no slouch, #18 on both us west roc and us east roc for 2v2 ar (king manic).
Skill trumps numbers in both games. Ohh and inventign that corsair harass... I doubt it. It's a pretty obvious strat?
I was quite skilled in all evolutions of SC. From the beginning, to the ladder movement, to the unladder "fastest" setting, to the money maps. The different stages that the game took is what kept me in it for so long. In the end, the map hacks made me quit too...that and the cheap rush tatics some people used (see the SCV, marine rush posted).
IMHO you devolved. You went from skilled, to somewhat less skilled to no skill what so ever. The money maps don't deal with desparity and finite resources. Thats a large part of the game. The tactics are a subset of what the game is about and the balance goes out the window. The expense of a toss army is somewhat mitigated byt he availability of resources. Removes that and mass carriers is all you see (thats okay with me, then I'm mass scourges with defilers and hydras). Money maps are fun but it's not a evolution.
Ling rush is easy to deal with, 1 basic unit (expecially is it's a marine) + workers = dead lings. I've gone in 3v3 where all 4 opposing protoss rushed me with 4 zeals each (12). I took them all out with workers and 1 sunken, and decimated them on the counter. Supurior macro will annihalate supurior numbers until range comes in both war 3 and starcraft.
When range comes into play, it's more even but micro still makes a huge difference.
Did you ever know someone who no matter how hard you tried, you simply could not find any redeeming reasons to like them? That's France. An arrogant, self centered little tiny egomanical ankle biting country that has a part of it's government devoted to keeping english words out of the language. An arrogant, rude country that thinks they are a gift to the world. An arrogant rude country who after they were liberated from Nazi Germany at the end of World War II refused to be a part of NATO because it wasn't run by them. They happily took the Marshall Plan money from the US all the while ankle biting the US at every step. And they are still nasty little ankle biters. Instead of biting the ankles of Google because their idea of putting books online which happen to be in english offends the sensibilities of the French, why don't they build their own in French. I'm sure all of those French speaking countries out there, you know those old French colonies in Africa and Asia - would love to be able to find the collected works of DeGaulle online. Any while the French are at it, why don't they simply create their own Google instead of whining about an American created company being in English? Geez. But then the French will be the French.
Also they were a brutal colonial power with many vietnamese still remember with much venom. I do beleive the US wqas encouraged by France to invade vietnam.
most modded xboxes store thier games on the hd. It's quick and easy and not eveyrone had a dvd burner. The HD makes it redicoulously easy to store pirated games.
This is slashdot, not Gamefaqs.Abusive language is more or less the norm.
1) whether the future is likely to be more peaceful and involve more multi-lateral international co-operation.
As Sun Tzu wrote centuries ago, war is not to be used cavalierly but it is one tool of state that cannot be abandoned. There is a role for peace and war. There are times when nothing but war will achieve the goals required, dismissing the option outright if foolish.
2) whether an aggressive warlike foreign policy should be judged on the same basis as in the past or if nations' behavior today should be held to different standards.
Does judgment matter? Would you say Rome achieved nothing because it was warlike? Was Germany not the most advanced nation in the early 20th century because they were war like? You are mistaken if you believe society is "evolving" or that history is anything but cyclic. The wiring of the human nervous system is not so different today as it was 1000 years ago.
You have in my view a very pessimistic view of both. And in the end it is just people with your views that we are fighting against and whom we must defeat if we are to achieve the peace we want.
Everybody wants peace, but on their terms. The Palestinians just want peace, after the Israeli's are dead. The Israelis want peace too. Russia wanted peace, but also wanted the subjugation of Eastern Europe. China wants peace, and Tibet, and Taiwan, and revenge on Japan. The US only wants peace and economic domination of the world.
It is people who share your views who are responsible for all the wars and all the millions of deaths that follow. You may never pick up a weapon yourself, but in espousing war as a justifiable instrument of foreign policy it is you who are responsible for those deaths all the same, because it is you who provides the justification and the excuse. I hope you will find the time to reflect on that.
That has always been the way. Diplomacy first, failing that war. Threats that scare away the enemy are better then bullets that kill him. Nothing has changed. The world is still the same place it was 1000 years ago. The players and scope change, as have the technologies but the mindset of the players haven't. We're still tribal entities. Peace is great but when the cost is too much it is time for war. It's people like you who let world war 2 happen. Pacifists too frightened by the aftermath of world war 1 to fight again. So you cave, give everyone what they want ect.. and they'll leave you alone.. but they won't. It's basically summed up like this:
You only have as much freedom as you are willing to fight for, only so much justice as your strength of arms can secure. You have only as much liberty as you can enforce with your weapons. Only as much peace as you can secure with the edge of a sword.
Russia has a similair list of countries it was warred with/abused. England has attack many of the same countries and lead colonial wars. The french as well. This list doens't impress me. The "benign" only in the fact they don't massacre the population as the french did (vietnam) or the Japanese (their entire colonial record). I dont' mean their not aggressive. They are simply less so then empire of the past. And no the world doesn't want true peace. The different nations want different things. China wants control and prevention of the stagnation and domination it experienced in the last three centries. Russia wants peace and stability but locally it wants control of it's neighbors. the europeans are content with economic prosperity but much of the middle east is out to expand their land control. The US was economic dominations of all lands and has only a slight aversion to using force. The african nations want war, and often do war with each other. You analysis is simplistic and based of a very limited world view. The essentials of civilization haven't changed. We are no better then we were before, the condition have gotten better btu this is cyclic. At any given time some civilization have been benign peaceful nations that are content, some are warlike expansionists. The middle east was once a bastion of technological and socialogical progress (mroe then once). China was a very stable and progressive society with technology that the west only surpassed a thousands after it's creation. But china has also experienced war and invasion. China has invaded others. The middle east is now unstable and tense.
I am not American. I view America as no worse then any empire before it and somewhat better in some respects. They rarely interceed directly. They are by no measure "good people" but they are absolutly no worse then the french or british of even 75 years ago. By their own standards they fall short. But by the standards of history, their a short lived empire which leveraged their advanced logistical skills to economically dominate the half world for about half a century.
The perception that we have "grown" past the evils of the past is basically arrogance and short sighted view of history. We're not all that different. Feudal china or corprate america both have very similar fundemental philosophies. The technologiy has changed the people have not.
It would be more useful to know precisely what triggers it, and why - then saying it merely exists.
Im sure most people have at one point in their lives for an unexplainable reason (till now i guess) done something other then what they wanted to - and was better off because of it.
Thats called coincidence. it's a little paranoia, a little loss of impulse control, and a circumstance that vindicates that paranaoia. Not psychic, just statistics.
By comparison: Even though there are millions of psychics/clairvoyants and other people who claim to be able to predict the future worldwide, not one predicted the tsunami! Remarkable?
Pish posh. I'm sure out of the few thousand supposed psychics one of them predicted something that can be vaguely attributed to the tsunami. I'm sure a lot of them are getting a lot of business because of this prediction. When there are enough predictions one of them will be close. It's simply numbers.
Frankly I see no difference between how the empires of Europe's past treated their subjects and how America treats the subjects of its empire now. However you cannot rightly compare the two because expectations were different back then and nobody was doing things any differently. Nowadays though we have notions of human rights, international law etc. because the signatories felt they were ready to move beyond that. Of the civilized Western nations, only the mightiest (whose continuing crimes would be exposed and punished by such international controls), is prepared to ignore or withdraw from such treaties
In that paragraph you explicitly reinforce my point. They are different. They behave much differently. They are less brutal, less cavalier, and less exploitive (yes, less exploitive).
The amoral self-interest argument is one I've heard before many times here on Slashdot. Note that this argument is being used only by citizens of one particular hegemony: that of the most powerful nation in the world. When you have no moral justification for your action the only course remaining is to abandon morality, so that's no surprise at all. But it's still bogus.
You view their history from the point of view of a modern, western, liberal. I view as a modern, liberal, historian. All countries are selfish, if you had Iran and the US switch places, the world would be a terrible place. Almost any other nation in a position similar to the US would be a terrible power to behold. But the US is different (the west actually) because it contains so many people just like you. People who are appalled that their side can do terrible things and will work against their own self-interest to ensure things are "fair". Countries outside of the west don't' have as many of you.
It should be no surprise either that the rest of the world sees things differently. Lacking the means to have everything our own way, the rest of us are still "hampered" by a moral sense of fairness, community and social responsibility (hence the Kyoto treaty, proposals to end global poverty etc). I don't know if such attitudes can survive the temptations of being the mightiest, but I'd like to think that we of the world's fallen empires have moved beyond that for good. Societies can mature and evolve but America is still stuck in the past, in this respect, still pursuing a 19th century weltanschauung (i.e. "Manifest Destiny" as opposed to international co-operation).
Manifest destiny is just an idea. No different from the Divine mandate that the emperors of old used. You can't change history; you either are the monster, or are the victim eventually (see the history of china). There are no saints when it comes to countries, just varying degrees of sinners.
I'm not sure what your point is. Propaganda is used by every warlike government to stir up the public, yes. And the latent xenophobia that is programmed into our genes makes the public receptive. But there does have to be a grievance there to start with, and the more deep-rooted the grievance, the more effective will be the propaganda. It's fundamental to the whole process. You can't write off the grievance aspect just because it happens to implicate US foreign policy. You're only fooling yourselves.
I'm saying compared to even events 75 years ago, the US is fairly benign. Their exploitive, and they interfere, but you can't tell me all other countries are benign. Europe interferes as well in the politics and policies of others. The US is just less competent at it and has more international incidents. Through the lens of history, the US is the most benign empire that ever existed. That said it's probably the shortest lived. It's already showing signs of decline (notably a sense of nostalgia, a technological conservatism, an exaggerated sense of their own place in the world, and the presence of corruption in the high levels of government).
try this: the resentment which accrues towards a foreign nation that habitually interferes, with frequently horrible results, in the affairs of their country or their neighbors' countries.
Nations are selfish; they will attempt to act in their own self-interests. It always has been that way, always will be. Whether it's Syria occupying and influencing Lebanon or the US occupying Saudi Arabia.
If you are going to act like the world's self-appointed policeman you had better be squeaky clean, immune to corruption and free from self-interest - or else all the mistakes, all the bad judgments you make and most definitely all the hostile and destructive acts you commit will be held against you in the most venomous way possible.
The US isn't the global police force; they act in their own interests. It's a convenient cover story to say "Global Police". They rarely send out their "police" force unless they have some interests, either ideologically or economically in the area. They actually tread lighter then similar powerful countries have in the past. They aren't nearly as bad as colonial France, England, or Spain. They keep their atrocities small. There isn't the wholesale slaughter committed by both the French and Spanish when they colonize; there isn't the subjugation that the British and all colonial powers attempt. That's not to say their nice people, their not. But generally people aren't. Their working to enrich themselves not Iraq, just as the French was out to rape Vietnam not enriches it.
The widespread hatred of the US was inevitable, given its foreign policy. It doesn't require the Islamic world to be jealous, or freedom-hating, or innately anti Western. It only requires them to be human, to have a shred of dignity or pride; to own a scrap of ambition to be their own masters free from the oppression of an interfering foreign state. Even in an evil dictatorship, people will still go to war to fight for their country even if they do so half-heartedly.
Propaganda. The media in the region uses Israel and America heavily as "Scape goats". Subsequently no matter how benevolent Israel gets (it isn't) or how benign US foreign policy is, they will hate the west. Part miss-information, part xeno-phobia, part jealousy. Mostly xeno phobia and miss-information. A similar parallel can be drawn about how the US feels about the Middle East. I have heard "Kill them all and let god sort them out" type comments come from a lot of Americans. I have even said similar things about Muslim Indonesians (personal matters to do with mob violence and the Muslim culture there in regards to my EX-GF). But I'm intelligent enough to know that's bullshit. The people of the Middle East would be genially nice people just as most Indonesians just want to eek out a living. But our propaganda portrays them as ignorant blood thirsty savages, because that is how they are portrayed.
Goes to show, never trust a major Starswars franchise RPG with anybody except Bioware. Those canucks knows thier starwars and how to make an ending.