I didn't say you were irreconcilably wrong, I said that our viewpoints were irreconcilably different. You believe that the use of substantial force in the world is an acceptable means of achieving peace, and I believe that using force in such a way is a dangerous and ultimately futile way to try to achieve peace, causing more people to rise up and try to attack you than not. You believe that using dictators to wage proxy wars, or supporting dictators in general, is acceptable because the end of destroying a greater enemy is more important than the means, I believe that supporting a tyrant when he's your freind only to destroy him when it's convenient is the most direct manifestation of hypocrisy there is, and that as the civilized good guys, we should hold our behaviour to higher standards than the bad guys we oppose.
At this point in the conversation, I don't see any way our viewpoints can be reconciled, no way to bring myself closer to seeing your viewpoint as the correct one, and no large scale flaws in your own. This being the case, continuing to argue with you simply because I disagree with you is an excersise in intellectual masturbation. It has nothing to do with right or wrong -- these are ethical and philisophical debates, and therefore there is no right or wrong viewpoint, especially if we both want the end goal of peace through our own means.
Your view of the world is unfortunately, completely at odds with mine. The differences are irreconcilable. Have a good day, it was nice talking to you.
I haven't met any North Koreans, so I can't judge the people themselves, but considering we're talking about making fun of or insulting a certain group, not killing them(what is it with you Americans and killing anyway?:P), I'd say that the North Koreans get their share of crap for their leader too.
'course, even if they don't, they didn't put him there.
A rule of thumb in this case would be, generally speaking, that you're only allowed to beat your wife with a stick as thick as your thumb. Archaic word composition aside, the middle of night could be relatively reckoned by taking a sample of at least 10000 people worldwide, and finding out when the most commonly percieved time for the beginning of "night" is (we'll call it n1), and when teh commonly percieved end of "night is"(we'll call it n2), and simply apply the formula appropriately ((((n2 + 24) - n1)/2) + n1) - 24 if the resultant number is greater than 24 to find the middle of the night. based on a conservative night of 20.00h->8.00h, we end up with about 2AM as a definitive "middle" of the night.
The person who modded this one +1 insightful, rather than +1 funny, deserves to be shot dead.
And if you're serious and think you earned that +1 insightful, here's a hint: the day starts a little later and ends a little sooner in Winter, then starts a little earlier and ends a little later in Summer, then GOES BACK to starting a little later and ending a little sooner!
Come on people! I figured this out when I was five years old!
...we don't complain, we try to do something about it.
No, you(collectively) complain. We STILL haven't heard the end of bitching about 9/11, four years after it happened! SHUT UP ALREADY!:P
I'm saying that aggression and threats (from, say, Saddam or in the Balkans, etc) already are war. We need to use our tools, people, blood, money, and expertise to meet that aggression and stop it in order to have peace.
The problem with this attitude is illustrated best by one of your own examples: Saddam Hussein was supported by the US government in his bid to take over Iraq, because he was going to attack Iran. Weapons were given, it was a whole thing. Wait a couple decades, and suddenly he's the bad guy and we're fighting again. After subduing him (and not finishing the job because the Republicans in power at the time didn't think it would be feasible), he ends up getting the crap kicked out of him a third time, (this time very much out of the blue, but I'll ignore that fact for this discussion).
So you used force, which caused the use of force which you had to use the force to disrupt that force, which (from whatever point of view lead to the final crap kicking) lead to a use of force on your own soil, which lead to the use of force once again.
If military force is truly going to be the thing which brings about world peace, it's not going to be using the strategy we're using right now. Instead of trying to break the cycle, we're intentionally feeding it -- we've put dangerous men into seats of power in dangerous lands, only to wipe them out again. Hopefully Iraqi democracy will change this with regards to this nation, but it's only the most well-known, convenient example along a track record of shady dealings.
Perhaps if force is to be used, it should be the transparant use of force -- saying what we're doing and doing what we're saying, rather than the shady dealings that have made secrecy and lies the status quo.
Have you considered the possibility that two interlaced sub-universes could be created, flickering with every time quanta?
First you exist, then you don't. then you do. I've thought long and hard about this, and either nobody has ever created a time machine(because if you created a time machine and intentionally went back in time to change something, you'd have no reason to go back in time to change that because it's already been changed, so you wouldn't, so it would, so either the universe breaks somehow, or an additional split universe begins to interlace.
Naturally, anyone with greater knowlege of glactic or non-classical physics should feel free to prove me wrong. God knows I don't know everything.:)
If that's the case, where you feel justified in the use of force, don't complain when others feel justified in the use of retaliatory force, whether it be rogue nation states, or more likely, angry people hurt somehow by the use of said force. Also, don't complain when people vocally protest said use of force. It's the natural consequences of it's use.
In other words, if you've made your bed, sleep in it.
More to the point, what you're saying is that you need more war to make more peace. That's fine, but it means that you don't really disagree with the grandparent poster, doesn't it?
Be careful. I don't care how many nice things you've done, when you start running into countries and killing people who are seemingly unrelated to the current crisis(Recall that Iraq had no direct link to 9/11, that Bush originally tried to justify war waaaay back by saying that Osama may have fled there, and that there are nations in the reigon which DO have a direct link to the 9/11 terror attacks which are now considered allies in this war on terror), you open yourself to critisism. Don't fall into the trap of dismissing such critisism too quickly. You are not your country, and your government has done things that you would certainly not approve of.
Why are you not complaining about them...
Because they're the bad guys. Moreover, they aren't "one of us" here in the civilized world.
Lots of talk about the "culture of life" as opposed to my "culture of death."
Staple him to the ground, leaving him unable to move, to speak, to do anything. Feed him through a tube and keep him from dying through an unholy conglomeration of machines. If he's not a veggie, after 15 years he'll be ready to begging for death.
I had more to say, but the "right to life as a hollow undead corpse" movement has brought out the worst in me. Their hypocrisy stings.
That's right, the canadians are powerless. Nobody has power, except for you. You're the strong one, after all. Nobody would mess with you, not in a million years. Just go back to eating your hamburger.
I've searched google, and I haven't been able to find an instance where the law of conservation of energy has been broken(other than some philosophical wranglings about the beginnings of the universe, and some theoretical thoughts about the Heisenburg uncertainty principle we haven't actually observed). Could you please point me in the right direction with regards to discovering proof that this is the case?
The offensive aspects of warfare would be secondary, imho, to the possible use of such a technology (if it wasn't impossible and impractical, according to several neuroscientists who have posted) to increase situational awareness on the battlefield, and reduce training required for operators of heavy weapons platforms. Imagine having audio receptors so powerful you can hear enemy troops approaching from two miles away while having a conversation with a civilian next to you. Imagine having full 360*360 degree vision incorporating the full spectrum. Imagine having orders or tactical communications automatically becoming part of your being and being ingrained into memory, only to dissapear when the mission was completed. Imagine climbing into a battle vehicle and controlling it as if it was your own body.
Imagine all these things, integrated directly into your brain, bypassing the analog input devices you've grown up with, giving the whole world in digital clarity.
With such advanced systems, it's quite likely that the fully integrated soldier would be several times more lethal than anything or anyone out there today.
That said, I'd be fully against any technology which lets a corporation tinker with my brain. The potential for abuse is far, far, FAR too great. I can just imagine such a device selling out everywhere as every person who tries it has their mind reprogrammed to enjoy the device more than anything and believe completely in the companies agenda.
Think I'm taking the technical capabilities of such a device too far? I'd say not. Such a device would be capable of delivering complex content to the brain by inroducing false signals -- there's no reason to believe that the same technology couldn't be used to introduce false signals to make you want to buy Sony, or Pepsi, or Coke, or McDonalds.
Engineeirng schools seem to be the place where male yahoo's[sic] predominate.
I find your characterization both sexist and offensive as a practitioner of the aforementioned trade. Your characterization of engineers as "yahoo's"[sic] is mean spirited and in my experience with over 400 Electrical Engineering students from two schools in two seperate provinces, wildly inaccurate.
While growing up, I had adults and peers alike (not all of them, of course) treat me as if I'm some sort of freak for showing an interest in computers.
To be fair, there are societal influences on both sides -- People want their children to grow up to be athletes, doctors or lawyers, not wrench jockeys, mathematicians, or engineers!
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I didn't say you were irreconcilably wrong, I said that our viewpoints were irreconcilably different. You believe that the use of substantial force in the world is an acceptable means of achieving peace, and I believe that using force in such a way is a dangerous and ultimately futile way to try to achieve peace, causing more people to rise up and try to attack you than not. You believe that using dictators to wage proxy wars, or supporting dictators in general, is acceptable because the end of destroying a greater enemy is more important than the means, I believe that supporting a tyrant when he's your freind only to destroy him when it's convenient is the most direct manifestation of hypocrisy there is, and that as the civilized good guys, we should hold our behaviour to higher standards than the bad guys we oppose.
At this point in the conversation, I don't see any way our viewpoints can be reconciled, no way to bring myself closer to seeing your viewpoint as the correct one, and no large scale flaws in your own. This being the case, continuing to argue with you simply because I disagree with you is an excersise in intellectual masturbation. It has nothing to do with right or wrong -- these are ethical and philisophical debates, and therefore there is no right or wrong viewpoint, especially if we both want the end goal of peace through our own means.
Your view of the world is unfortunately, completely at odds with mine. The differences are irreconcilable. Have a good day, it was nice talking to you.
I haven't met any North Koreans, so I can't judge the people themselves, but considering we're talking about making fun of or insulting a certain group, not killing them(what is it with you Americans and killing anyway? :P), I'd say that the North Koreans get their share of crap for their leader too.
'course, even if they don't, they didn't put him there.
A rule of thumb in this case would be, generally speaking, that you're only allowed to beat your wife with a stick as thick as your thumb. Archaic word composition aside, the middle of night could be relatively reckoned by taking a sample of at least 10000 people worldwide, and finding out when the most commonly percieved time for the beginning of "night" is (we'll call it n1), and when teh commonly percieved end of "night is"(we'll call it n2), and simply apply the formula appropriately ((((n2 + 24) - n1)/2) + n1) - 24 if the resultant number is greater than 24 to find the middle of the night. based on a conservative night of 20.00h->8.00h, we end up with about 2AM as a definitive "middle" of the night.
The person who modded this one +1 insightful, rather than +1 funny, deserves to be shot dead.
And if you're serious and think you earned that +1 insightful, here's a hint: the day starts a little later and ends a little sooner in Winter, then starts a little earlier and ends a little later in Summer, then GOES BACK to starting a little later and ending a little sooner!
Come on people! I figured this out when I was five years old!
Your international emmisaries(tourists) can be loudmouthed, colossal assholes, as are the people who represent the US government.
don't blame anyone for putting 1 + 1 together and getting 2.
...we don't complain, we try to do something about it.
:P
No, you(collectively) complain. We STILL haven't heard the end of bitching about 9/11, four years after it happened! SHUT UP ALREADY!
I'm saying that aggression and threats (from, say, Saddam or in the Balkans, etc) already are war. We need to use our tools, people, blood, money, and expertise to meet that aggression and stop it in order to have peace.
The problem with this attitude is illustrated best by one of your own examples: Saddam Hussein was supported by the US government in his bid to take over Iraq, because he was going to attack Iran. Weapons were given, it was a whole thing. Wait a couple decades, and suddenly he's the bad guy and we're fighting again. After subduing him (and not finishing the job because the Republicans in power at the time didn't think it would be feasible), he ends up getting the crap kicked out of him a third time, (this time very much out of the blue, but I'll ignore that fact for this discussion).
So you used force, which caused the use of force which you had to use the force to disrupt that force, which (from whatever point of view lead to the final crap kicking) lead to a use of force on your own soil, which lead to the use of force once again.
If military force is truly going to be the thing which brings about world peace, it's not going to be using the strategy we're using right now. Instead of trying to break the cycle, we're intentionally feeding it -- we've put dangerous men into seats of power in dangerous lands, only to wipe them out again. Hopefully Iraqi democracy will change this with regards to this nation, but it's only the most well-known, convenient example along a track record of shady dealings.
Perhaps if force is to be used, it should be the transparant use of force -- saying what we're doing and doing what we're saying, rather than the shady dealings that have made secrecy and lies the status quo.
Of course not! That's only because the FDA refused to allow me to market my fabulous Improved Healthohol on the grounds that it's 85% moonshine.
Without that pesky beurocratic establishment, I can guarantee you'll never get hurt or sick again, or your money back!
Have you considered the possibility that two interlaced sub-universes could be created, flickering with every time quanta?
:)
First you exist, then you don't. then you do. I've thought long and hard about this, and either nobody has ever created a time machine(because if you created a time machine and intentionally went back in time to change something, you'd have no reason to go back in time to change that because it's already been changed, so you wouldn't, so it would, so either the universe breaks somehow, or an additional split universe begins to interlace.
Naturally, anyone with greater knowlege of glactic or non-classical physics should feel free to prove me wrong. God knows I don't know everything.
If that's the case, where you feel justified in the use of force, don't complain when others feel justified in the use of retaliatory force, whether it be rogue nation states, or more likely, angry people hurt somehow by the use of said force. Also, don't complain when people vocally protest said use of force. It's the natural consequences of it's use.
In other words, if you've made your bed, sleep in it.
More to the point, what you're saying is that you need more war to make more peace. That's fine, but it means that you don't really disagree with the grandparent poster, doesn't it?
No, they'll just smoke pot and rant about "the corporations, man, the CORPORATIONS!"
...mythical US imperialism...
Be careful. I don't care how many nice things you've done, when you start running into countries and killing people who are seemingly unrelated to the current crisis(Recall that Iraq had no direct link to 9/11, that Bush originally tried to justify war waaaay back by saying that Osama may have fled there, and that there are nations in the reigon which DO have a direct link to the 9/11 terror attacks which are now considered allies in this war on terror), you open yourself to critisism. Don't fall into the trap of dismissing such critisism too quickly. You are not your country, and your government has done things that you would certainly not approve of.
Why are you not complaining about them...
Because they're the bad guys. Moreover, they aren't "one of us" here in the civilized world.
Don't make the mistake of assuming your nations government will do what you would do on your behalf -- Especially not this one.
This is going to seem silly, but if nobody is spending much money on the military, what justification is there to spend lots of money on the military?
:P
And if you say "terrorists", I'll point and laugh at you for being so afraid of a paper tiger(in military terms).
Lots of talk about the "culture of life" as opposed to my "culture of death."
Staple him to the ground, leaving him unable to move, to speak, to do anything. Feed him through a tube and keep him from dying through an unholy conglomeration of machines. If he's not a veggie, after 15 years he'll be ready to begging for death.
I had more to say, but the "right to life as a hollow undead corpse" movement has brought out the worst in me. Their hypocrisy stings.
That's right, the canadians are powerless. Nobody has power, except for you. You're the strong one, after all. Nobody would mess with you, not in a million years. Just go back to eating your hamburger.
^ ^
I've searched google, and I haven't been able to find an instance where the law of conservation of energy has been broken(other than some philosophical wranglings about the beginnings of the universe, and some theoretical thoughts about the Heisenburg uncertainty principle we haven't actually observed). Could you please point me in the right direction with regards to discovering proof that this is the case?
The offensive aspects of warfare would be secondary, imho, to the possible use of such a technology (if it wasn't impossible and impractical, according to several neuroscientists who have posted) to increase situational awareness on the battlefield, and reduce training required for operators of heavy weapons platforms. Imagine having audio receptors so powerful you can hear enemy troops approaching from two miles away while having a conversation with a civilian next to you. Imagine having full 360*360 degree vision incorporating the full spectrum. Imagine having orders or tactical communications automatically becoming part of your being and being ingrained into memory, only to dissapear when the mission was completed. Imagine climbing into a battle vehicle and controlling it as if it was your own body.
Imagine all these things, integrated directly into your brain, bypassing the analog input devices you've grown up with, giving the whole world in digital clarity.
With such advanced systems, it's quite likely that the fully integrated soldier would be several times more lethal than anything or anyone out there today.
That said, I'd be fully against any technology which lets a corporation tinker with my brain. The potential for abuse is far, far, FAR too great. I can just imagine such a device selling out everywhere as every person who tries it has their mind reprogrammed to enjoy the device more than anything and believe completely in the companies agenda.
Think I'm taking the technical capabilities of such a device too far? I'd say not. Such a device would be capable of delivering complex content to the brain by inroducing false signals -- there's no reason to believe that the same technology couldn't be used to introduce false signals to make you want to buy Sony, or Pepsi, or Coke, or McDonalds.
They're trying to get people to apply to be expendable human weapons. Do you REALLY think they care?
It's not Open source at all.
Open source revolutionists would find a difficult ally in BeOS, which has been closed source as long as I've known about it.
On the other hand, the BeOS community, such as it is, could provide a nice niche market for zeta.
What??
*SJ Zero looks at his boxed set of BeOS Pro
I think you've got a crappy personal edition confused with a real OS.
Engineeirng schools seem to be the place where male yahoo's[sic] predominate.
I find your characterization both sexist and offensive as a practitioner of the aforementioned trade. Your characterization of engineers as "yahoo's"[sic] is mean spirited and in my experience with over 400 Electrical Engineering students from two schools in two seperate provinces, wildly inaccurate.
While growing up, I had adults and peers alike (not all of them, of course) treat me as if I'm some sort of freak for showing an interest in computers.
:P
Welcome to life.
To be fair, there are societal influences on both sides -- People want their children to grow up to be athletes, doctors or lawyers, not wrench jockeys, mathematicians, or engineers!