No mammal or reptile is strictly a "vegetarian". None of these animals can convert cellulose into glucose, they ALL require bacteria to do this for them. It is obvious why some animals evolved to eat plants: there simply wasn't enough meat available for them to consume. Over time, their bodies evolved adaptions such as larger and multiple stomachs to regulate the gas biproducts of bacterial decomposition of cellulose. This is why humans have to cook their food, we simply cannot survive on a truly natural vegetarian diet. Our stomachs are too small.
Without exception, all animals can eat meat. Even the cow retains the ability to produce bile acids to break down fat, the primary source of energy for most predator mammals.
You know, I have a degree in philosophy, and I still firmly believe Star Trek: TNG exemplifies the Western philosophical tradition far more than any other television show made.
Some of your criticisms are valid, but I think overall millions of people were exposed to ideas they never would have known.
This cannot be discounted. All art is propaganda, and the writers at TNG went to extensive lengths to influence the lives of the audience for the better, rather than pandering to their knavery and insecurities. With so much of our popular culture dedicated to the exploitation of these weaknesses, Star Trek represents a higher level of entertainment for the masses.
You're right. The solution to overpopulation is simple: restrict who can and does give birth.
Licenses should be issued only to people of sufficient quality. For those with highly defective traits, sterilization is the best method.
Ultimately, if half of all adults are sterilized, the reproduction rate will be immediately cut in half. If we further restrict reproduction in less desirable persons, and mandate abortions when the deviate from national policies we can take care of the rest.
Its entirely possible that we can have 1/3 of the current birthrate, and insure that all who are born are of superior genetic stock. In a few generations, when the inferior die out after being unable to reproduce, we will have a beautiful, healthy species. And of course, we won't have had to rely on murder or forced emigration.
The rapid reproduction of the inferior is purely a temporary problem that has resulted from the rapid rise of technology (ie medicine, advanced farming techniques). This is a problem that can be just easily solved using advanced technology.
This is the rational way to avoid the "four horsemen" as you put it.
But I personally believe that violent, destructive behavior that results from a collapse of a society's value system is sort of a natural feedback loop.
It shouldn't be shocking that despite the fact all truly human virtues have been extinguished in our decadent society (creativity, honor, loyalty, bravey, etc), what remains is this incessant respect for life, no matter what the quantity or quality.
Perhaps this destructive instinct is nature's way of restoring balance, and in a world of 6 billion people and a rapidly declining ecosystem, this can be a good thing.
Yes, I think it shouldn't be surprising at all the gods of war have become ignored.
Creativity by definition requires human imagination and technical skill. We don't even need life to destroy. The sun could go nova tomorrow; we wouldn't say the sun created anything.
Your view is highly nihilistic, just like Christianity. You have no understanding of the human soul, as yours is empty of all great virtues.
Now, go, return to your solipsistic waking nightmare of a life.
A cursory tour of a housing project or associated public school would contradict your statement.
If anything, the more intelligent a person is the fewer children he has.
Further, intelligence has always been man's gift. He has never been the strongest, but he was the dominant predator millenia before the first cities appeared. Our intelligence, as well as our success, has always arisen from our ability to create and strategize.
Natural selection is not the only criteria, but our world, our environment, and our individual lives would all be far better if the population of the world was 1/10th what it is today. We can never have peace and prosperity as long as the unlimited right of reproduction exists.
The Allies started WW II? In what alternative universe did this happen?
I'm afraid decades of propaganda have clouded your knowledge of history. A simple reading of Wikipedia's article on the subject clearly indicates France and Great Britain declared war on September 3, 1939 "in honour of their defensive alliance with Poland".
For the full year after, Germany worked constantly to bring peace. All the while, France and Great Britain were building their military machine. Do you know of any other great power in history that waited a whole year after another declared war on them? How long must a country wait? Do declarations of war mean nothing?
If France and Britain had no interest in fighting, they should never have declared war in the first place. Whatever else their motives were, the safety and security of Poland ultimately was irrelevant as the supposed "victory" elucidates.
First, humans are infamous to murder (i.e. "kill intentionally and with predermination") their own species on a large scale, and the term usually used is "war", and it's all actions actively supported by many via e.g. elections.
I would argue there is no large scale murder, compared to other communal predatory species which routinely eliminate the weak from the groups (such as dolphins and wolves).
WWII was supposedly the worst, yet all that death had no noticable impact on world population levels.
If anything, compared to most species, it could be argued that the unnatural human desire to insure that all humans survive no matter what is destroying not only the earth but humanity as a whole. Humans are in many ways devolving.
Most mammals don't randomly kill others of their own species, they kill the weak ones. That isn't random, that is eugenics.
Wars are very easy to start, but very hard to stop. We stopped a war in its tracks by killing 120,000 people with two planes and two big bombs. It was the right decision, and no apology should ever be expected.
But what is the legacy of these wars which the United States and her allies indirectly started? Yes, yes... Japanese imperialism, but does anyone think North Korea today is better than it was under Japanese rule? Is it just that Japan is forced to have the highest population density in the world? Japan had more of a right to conquer foreign lands than the US had to its doctrine of "Manifest Destiny". Further, Western Imperialism was far more exploitive than anything the Japanese were trying to implement. The cowardly Roosevelt administration acted as if a state of war existed with Japan for years, and then was supposedly surprised when she finally responded with force. Yeah, right.
As for Europe, that war was started by the allies. Of that, there can be no question. Not only did they start it, but they lied about their motives. Can anyone argue that Eastern Europe in 1970 was a better place than the one in 1939? Was the reclammation of German lands held by Poland worth the complete communist enslavement of that country?
WWII... the war where victory became defeat.
The problem with allied atrocities during WWII is the hypocricy. The war was painted as some sort of holy war against the axis of evil. Yet the outcome was arguably far worse than prewar state of affairs.
English certainly contributed a few things, but how many major chemical companies are in England today? Or chemical research journals? In the US and Germany there are many. Not so in your native land.
Interestingly, the most famous drug associated with a German pharmaceutical company is Heroin. While it was marketed and manufactured by Bayer, it was invented by some brit.
You are applying your own nihilistic vision of existence upon art. It is attitudes such as your own that are destroying human civilization as we know it.
Art is not MERELY whatever you want it to be. Art is propaganda. It is the conveyance of an idea, in the hopes that it will instill others with a change in their own value system.
Your floppy disk is irrelevant in the grand scheme of human existence. It is a tool, not art. No creature alive will be moved by its existence or lack thereof.
What you call arrogance is the desire of higher forms of humanity to ultimately change the world.
Does population really matter? Do you know what is going on in China, or Japan, or India, all of which are far, far larger than little, irrelevant England?
The UK is 244,820 square kilometers
California is 404,298 km Texas is 678,907 km Washington State is 184,824 km, not far behind the UK.
The reality is the UK has little to offer the world except population culture and being the secondary headquarters of the international usury racket, after New York. My touring of many British cities shows a broken people, whose lives are eternally spent trying to escape the reality their society and culture is rapidly crumbling before their eyes. Whether people listen to yet another crappy pop band, or get drunk, or do drugs, or watch a football game, the overall reason for being is the same.
I think your vision of the UK is a product of the very media monopolisation you abhor, as it certainly isn't based in reality.
Few things can be said with certainty in this world, and one of them is that the UK is dead. When the international financial system is finally wrested away from the weasals in London and New York, there will be nothing left for you. The future belongs to the East.
it absolutely does take a village, unfortunately, popular american culture has eliminated the village square, and opted for cookie-cutter houses where they are protected from the big bad world, instead of interacting with each other, we learn to fear one another.
That is a naive opinion.
You obviously weren't alive in the 1960's and 1970's, when crime, caused almost exclusively by blacks went through the roof. People moved to their safe communities because at the time, they considered the danger of black aggression unacceptable in a society that could not contain them.
Even after decades of propaganda to attempt to gloss over the black predisposition to violence, most consider their presence an unacceptable risk.
Now, like I said.. this issue is pretty much settled in the US with the centralization of media power and a fairly unified propaganda message. In Europe however, this is not the case at all. Cities that were once virtually crime free have murders on a regular basis.
You WILL hear about this more, as Europeans don't have any free land to which they can escape. Welcome to the 21st century and the battle for civilization.
And let me guess, concrete barracks style apartments, the nightmarish cities of the present ARE universal in their wretched inhumanity?
Your inability to understand baroque art speaks to the depravity of your own soul.
You live for no higher purpose, there is no great vision to which your heart yearns. You are one of the base masses, who sole purpose in life is to escape boredom by whatever sick method you can devise. Most especially, you debase any artform which requires brilliance, precision, and complexity.
Your post reads like an 8th grader's interpretation of some modernist's banter.
France did try/want to stop Germany. Remember, it was the French who declared war on Germany, not the other way around. Germany also waited for over a year for the French to withdrawal their declaration of war.
As for the Blitz tactics themselves, to an extent... the invasion of France relied less on them than most people think. Going straight for the capital was a move championed by Napolean. So the Germans circumvented the fortifications... they DIDN'T however strike where the French least expected it. Speed is only one component of the Blitz, striking where the enemy least expects it is the other most important part.
France lost because it was their corrupt politicians who wanted war, not the people. We live in this fantasy world where the French are these perpetually hedonistic libertines. I think most are going to be very surprised when France is the vanguard in the redemption of Europe.
You are thinking of using torture to aid in the US style justice system, ie turn the tortured suspect into a witness, ie the infamous Salem Witch Hunts.
Yeah, torture is ineffective for that purpose, and that's why its rarely used in that line of questioning, unless the collatoral damage is of little consequence.
Torture is highly effective when the questions can be easily tested. Now, lets say you are the president of a bank branch and I want to get into the safe. All I have to do is bring you to the safe with a blow torch at hand and I guarantee you will talk. Of course, its not 100% effective because there are a few strong willed individuals out there. I'd say its 99% effective.
Now, what happens when we apply modern science to game? Maybe inject you with some nice, strong opioid antagonists to lower the pain threshold and prevent your body from reducing the pain sensation naturally? Maybe give you some valium to reduce your inhibitions and some sodium pentathol for kicks?
The intelligent use of torture, combined with a few important drugs, and the proper line of questioning is probably 99% effective.
Slashdot Mirror
No mammal or reptile is strictly a "vegetarian". None of these animals can convert cellulose into glucose, they ALL require bacteria to do this for them. It is obvious why some animals evolved to eat plants: there simply wasn't enough meat available for them to consume. Over time, their bodies evolved adaptions such as larger and multiple stomachs to regulate the gas biproducts of bacterial decomposition of cellulose. This is why humans have to cook their food, we simply cannot survive on a truly natural vegetarian diet. Our stomachs are too small.
Without exception, all animals can eat meat. Even the cow retains the ability to produce bile acids to break down fat, the primary source of energy for most predator mammals.
This is a constant problem with MS document format. Word documents look different from version to version if any complex formatting is used.
This is actually one of the main reasons Word really sucks, the file format is complete utter crap.
You know, I have a degree in philosophy, and I still firmly believe Star Trek: TNG exemplifies the Western philosophical tradition far more than any other television show made.
Some of your criticisms are valid, but I think overall millions of people were exposed to ideas they never would have known.
This cannot be discounted. All art is propaganda, and the writers at TNG went to extensive lengths to influence the lives of the audience for the better, rather than pandering to their knavery and insecurities. With so much of our popular culture dedicated to the exploitation of these weaknesses, Star Trek represents a higher level of entertainment for the masses.
Seriously.
Further, it doesn't seem that sex can be any more recreational than it is now. For many people, their sole reason for being is sex.
You're right. The solution to overpopulation is simple: restrict who can and does give birth.
Licenses should be issued only to people of sufficient quality. For those with highly defective traits, sterilization is the best method.
Ultimately, if half of all adults are sterilized, the reproduction rate will be immediately cut in half. If we further restrict reproduction in less desirable persons, and mandate abortions when the deviate from national policies we can take care of the rest.
Its entirely possible that we can have 1/3 of the current birthrate, and insure that all who are born are of superior genetic stock. In a few generations, when the inferior die out after being unable to reproduce, we will have a beautiful, healthy species. And of course, we won't have had to rely on murder or forced emigration.
The rapid reproduction of the inferior is purely a temporary problem that has resulted from the rapid rise of technology (ie medicine, advanced farming techniques). This is a problem that can be just easily solved using advanced technology.
This is the rational way to avoid the "four horsemen" as you put it.
For those who hadn't read the book, the tedium seemed strange and out of place.. but it was one of the better book adaptions I've seen
I completely agree with you.
But I personally believe that violent, destructive behavior that results from a collapse of a society's value system is sort of a natural feedback loop.
It shouldn't be shocking that despite the fact all truly human virtues have been extinguished in our decadent society (creativity, honor, loyalty, bravey, etc), what remains is this incessant respect for life, no matter what the quantity or quality.
Perhaps this destructive instinct is nature's way of restoring balance, and in a world of 6 billion people and a rapidly declining ecosystem, this can be a good thing.
Yes, I think it shouldn't be surprising at all the gods of war have become ignored.
A shallow vision.
Creativity by definition requires human imagination and technical skill. We don't even need life to destroy. The sun could go nova tomorrow; we wouldn't say the sun created anything.
Your view is highly nihilistic, just like Christianity. You have no understanding of the human soul, as yours is empty of all great virtues.
Now, go, return to your solipsistic waking nightmare of a life.
Trent is a genius, its that simple. Every once in a while a particular artist is recognized as being beyond trends. Trent is one of those people.
How is that relevant to the topic at hand?
A cursory tour of a housing project or associated public school would contradict your statement.
If anything, the more intelligent a person is the fewer children he has.
Further, intelligence has always been man's gift. He has never been the strongest, but he was the dominant predator millenia before the first cities appeared. Our intelligence, as well as our success, has always arisen from our ability to create and strategize.
Natural selection is not the only criteria, but our world, our environment, and our individual lives would all be far better if the population of the world was 1/10th what it is today. We can never have peace and prosperity as long as the unlimited right of reproduction exists.
At least I know what "ad hominem" means...
The Allies started WW II? In what alternative universe did this happen?
I'm afraid decades of propaganda have clouded your knowledge of history. A simple reading of Wikipedia's article on the subject clearly indicates France and Great Britain declared war on September 3, 1939 "in honour of their defensive alliance with Poland".
For the full year after, Germany worked constantly to bring peace. All the while, France and Great Britain were building their military machine. Do you know of any other great power in history that waited a whole year after another declared war on them? How long must a country wait? Do declarations of war mean nothing?
If France and Britain had no interest in fighting, they should never have declared war in the first place. Whatever else their motives were, the safety and security of Poland ultimately was irrelevant as the supposed "victory" elucidates.
First, humans are infamous to murder (i.e. "kill intentionally and with predermination") their own species on a large scale, and the term usually used is "war", and it's all actions actively supported by many via e.g. elections.
I would argue there is no large scale murder, compared to other communal predatory species which routinely eliminate the weak from the groups (such as dolphins and wolves).
WWII was supposedly the worst, yet all that death had no noticable impact on world population levels.
If anything, compared to most species, it could be argued that the unnatural human desire to insure that all humans survive no matter what is destroying not only the earth but humanity as a whole. Humans are in many ways devolving.
Most mammals don't randomly kill others of their own species, they kill the weak ones. That isn't random, that is eugenics.
Wars are very easy to start, but very hard to stop. We stopped a war in its tracks by killing 120,000 people with two planes and two big bombs. It was the right decision, and no apology should ever be expected.
But what is the legacy of these wars which the United States and her allies indirectly started? Yes, yes... Japanese imperialism, but does anyone think North Korea today is better than it was under Japanese rule? Is it just that Japan is forced to have the highest population density in the world? Japan had more of a right to conquer foreign lands than the US had to its doctrine of "Manifest Destiny". Further, Western Imperialism was far more exploitive than anything the Japanese were trying to implement. The cowardly Roosevelt administration acted as if a state of war existed with Japan for years, and then was supposedly surprised when she finally responded with force. Yeah, right.
As for Europe, that war was started by the allies. Of that, there can be no question. Not only did they start it, but they lied about their motives. Can anyone argue that Eastern Europe in 1970 was a better place than the one in 1939? Was the reclammation of German lands held by Poland worth the complete communist enslavement of that country?
WWII... the war where victory became defeat.
The problem with allied atrocities during WWII is the hypocricy. The war was painted as some sort of holy war against the axis of evil. Yet the outcome was arguably far worse than prewar state of affairs.
English certainly contributed a few things, but how many major chemical companies are in England today? Or chemical research journals? In the US and Germany there are many. Not so in your native land.
Interestingly, the most famous drug associated with a German pharmaceutical company is Heroin. While it was marketed and manufactured by Bayer, it was invented by some brit.
Canada has a population nearing 30 million, and a land mass significantly larger than the US.
9,631,419 km isn't THAT much smaller than 9,984,670 km.
Given how much of Canada is a wasteland, i'd say the size difference is rather insignificant.
You are applying your own nihilistic vision of existence upon art. It is attitudes such as your own that are destroying human civilization as we know it.
Art is not MERELY whatever you want it to be. Art is propaganda. It is the conveyance of an idea, in the hopes that it will instill others with a change in their own value system.
Your floppy disk is irrelevant in the grand scheme of human existence. It is a tool, not art. No creature alive will be moved by its existence or lack thereof.
What you call arrogance is the desire of higher forms of humanity to ultimately change the world.
Does population really matter? Do you know what is going on in China, or Japan, or India, all of which are far, far larger than little, irrelevant England?
The UK is 244,820 square kilometers
California is 404,298 km
Texas is 678,907 km
Washington State is 184,824 km, not far behind the UK.
The reality is the UK has little to offer the world except population culture and being the secondary headquarters of the international usury racket, after New York. My touring of many British cities shows a broken people, whose lives are eternally spent trying to escape the reality their society and culture is rapidly crumbling before their eyes. Whether people listen to yet another crappy pop band, or get drunk, or do drugs, or watch a football game, the overall reason for being is the same.
I think your vision of the UK is a product of the very media monopolisation you abhor, as it certainly isn't based in reality.
Few things can be said with certainty in this world, and one of them is that the UK is dead. When the international financial system is finally wrested away from the weasals in London and New York, there will be nothing left for you. The future belongs to the East.
Why don't you discuss your version of events.
Oh, while you're at it, try to explain to me why 25% of all black men are convicted felons as of TODAY.
We won't even venture into their native habitat.
I can also tell you with 100% certainty that you don't live anywhere near a housing project that is filled with blacks like I do.
Walk around our cities someday. The destruction from the negro is still evident. The evidence is all around you, open up your eyes.
Go to any city in America where the majority of the population is black. It is a living hell. Prove me wrong.
it absolutely does take a village, unfortunately, popular american culture has eliminated the village square, and opted for cookie-cutter houses where they are protected from the big bad world, instead of interacting with each other, we learn to fear one another.
That is a naive opinion.
You obviously weren't alive in the 1960's and 1970's, when crime, caused almost exclusively by blacks went through the roof. People moved to their safe communities because at the time, they considered the danger of black aggression unacceptable in a society that could not contain them.
Even after decades of propaganda to attempt to gloss over the black predisposition to violence, most consider their presence an unacceptable risk.
Now, like I said.. this issue is pretty much settled in the US with the centralization of media power and a fairly unified propaganda message. In Europe however, this is not the case at all. Cities that were once virtually crime free have murders on a regular basis.
You WILL hear about this more, as Europeans don't have any free land to which they can escape. Welcome to the 21st century and the battle for civilization.
And let me guess, concrete barracks style apartments, the nightmarish cities of the present ARE universal in their wretched inhumanity?
Your inability to understand baroque art speaks to the depravity of your own soul.
You live for no higher purpose, there is no great vision to which your heart yearns. You are one of the base masses, who sole purpose in life is to escape boredom by whatever sick method you can devise. Most especially, you debase any artform which requires brilliance, precision, and complexity.
Your post reads like an 8th grader's interpretation of some modernist's banter.
Go back to your MTV.
France did try/want to stop Germany. Remember, it was the French who declared war on Germany, not the other way around. Germany also waited for over a year for the French to withdrawal their declaration of war.
As for the Blitz tactics themselves, to an extent... the invasion of France relied less on them than most people think. Going straight for the capital was a move championed by Napolean. So the Germans circumvented the fortifications... they DIDN'T however strike where the French least expected it. Speed is only one component of the Blitz, striking where the enemy least expects it is the other most important part.
France lost because it was their corrupt politicians who wanted war, not the people. We live in this fantasy world where the French are these perpetually hedonistic libertines. I think most are going to be very surprised when France is the vanguard in the redemption of Europe.
You are thinking of using torture to aid in the US style justice system, ie turn the tortured suspect into a witness, ie the infamous Salem Witch Hunts.
Yeah, torture is ineffective for that purpose, and that's why its rarely used in that line of questioning, unless the collatoral damage is of little consequence.
Torture is highly effective when the questions can be easily tested. Now, lets say you are the president of a bank branch and I want to get into the safe. All I have to do is bring you to the safe with a blow torch at hand and I guarantee you will talk. Of course, its not 100% effective because there are a few strong willed individuals out there. I'd say its 99% effective.
Now, what happens when we apply modern science to game? Maybe inject you with some nice, strong opioid antagonists to lower the pain threshold and prevent your body from reducing the pain sensation naturally? Maybe give you some valium to reduce your inhibitions and some sodium pentathol for kicks?
The intelligent use of torture, combined with a few important drugs, and the proper line of questioning is probably 99% effective.
More proof that the only safe vengeance results in the death of the your mark.