Both GCC and glibc are in the current state despite the RMS and FSF efforts.
This is sort of amusing really. So you are saying that a few individuals (no matter how well intentioned and how effective) are more responsible for the gcc and glibc then the people who created and maintaned the projects over the years? In that case why arent we all using egcs and the gcc isn't rotting on a long-forgotten website? Same with libc etc? I have feeling that this little rant seeks only to bellitle the input of hundreds of people who contributed to the GNU projects called gcc, libc etc mainly because of their FSF GPL license and phillosophical stance of one RMS and at the same tame to unduly emphasize "lone ranger" type coders who single-handedly (ala Bill Gates) lifted themselves by their own hair from the "swamp" that GNU is. And while I am sure that a number of Slahsdotters subscribe to such nonsense because it fits into their subconscious desire of being recognized one day, it does not have much correspondence to reality.
The best thing developed countries can do for under-developed countries is trade with them. Protectionism only prolongs the poverty.
There is trade and then there is trade. In one case you have a bunch of totally psychopatic and anti-social artificial personalities called corporations seeking to abuse differences in income between countries to make less then 1% if US population even richer and on the other hand you have attempts to control the flow of goods and services in order to ensure that the local populations' standard of living actually goes up as trade increases and the standard of living of the country to which the goods are exported does not decrease as a result.
Yes I do buy into the Naomi Klein "BS" as well as many other people who thought these sort of things do. It is the prophets of Ayn Randish unrestricted capitalism that is creating such economic wonderlands as Iraq who are in the wrong on this one.
Pretend that this is Wikipedia and give us citations, please.
Since you asked, here is a little reference regarding Seymour Hersh, the dude who saw all the unreleased videos the US government has at present regarding Abu Ghraib (the quote below stolen via google from dailykos et al):
---
This is a summary of Hersh speaking at the ACLU 2004 America At A Crossroads conference according to EdCone.com (via Oliver Willis). I verified by watching the video myself (it starts at 1:07, the "worse stuff" part starts at 1:30).
There's more bad stuff in here, read Ed Cone's summary.
I'll try transcribing some of the more important bits.
[my transcription from 1:31 - 1:32]
Some of the worse that happened that you don't know about, ok. Videos, there are women there. Some of you may have read they were passing letters, communications out to their men. This is at Abu Ghraib which is 30 miles from Baghdad [...]
The women were passing messages saying "Please come and kill me, because of what's happened". Basically what happened is that those women who were arrested with young boys/children in cases that have been recorded. The boys were sodomized with the cameras rolling. The worst about all of them is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking that your government has. They are in total terror it's going to come out.
Unless, due to some time-warp, you are posting from the Tzarist Russia circa 1916 or are a virtual slave of some ass-backwards kingdom in mountains of Asia, you probably have no idea what I am talking about.
The Tao tells its followers how to go about treating one another, and how to seek wisdom, not what clear-cut right and wrong is.
The emphasis mine. So in effect Tao dictates rules of conduct which by necessity affect the non-believers.
The Qur'an quotes God as saying "You shall not accept any information, unless you verify it for yourself. I have given you the hearing, the eyesight, and the brain, and you are responsible for using them.
Unfortunately, the very idea of a God is contradictory with that statement. Unless you are in a possession of a reliable, repeatable experiment which I can perform to validate existence of a God such as Qur'an claims to exist, this very statement contradicts the entire religion to begin with.
I am afraid that all religions are intriniscally suffering from the same problem because at their very core is a set of wild, unproveable assumptions, frequently backed with chickanery and outright insanity, and from these assumptions flow rules and regulations applicable to our real life pursuits, almost inevietably resulting in adverse effects on non-believers and always resulting in some effects on them.
This probably does not warrant a reply but here it goes: it is what one does and not what one says about himself that counts. If you are calling yourself an anti-neo-con and then promote the very ideas you claim to disagree with, that action and not the label you claim for yourself is what counts. Similarly, you can call yourself an enviromentalist and then drive a V8 Suburban from your luxurious villa for which you landscaped 50 hectares of a forest, the latter speaking far louder then the former.
My complaint was about the misuse of the word (Eastern) Europe. We lie to ourselves saying that Europe is only the successfull part of it and conveniently forget about the rest.
I fail to see how I misused that example. I was pointing out that a transition from dictatorship to some form of democracy was possible (even if it wasnt guaranteed) because it did happen in those countries. That was the only thing that was relevant in my example. I am not sure where your objection comes from.
Curious, I must have missed that, could you enlighten me what was the last date when US pacified Warsaw or cluster bombed Moscow? The best I can come up with is 3 million dead in Vietnam and some few more in Laos and Cambodia. My history book must be missing a few chapters.
Al-Qaeda is nothing but a call to arms. These guerillas aren't the Taliban. They're a violent underclass that every country suppresses (or builds an army out of).
I countered your point that in the "old regime" people were killed for their oppinion with a clear cut example of even worse oppressive activity occuring at the present time. To which it seems you replied with a line about how Al-Qeida is a manifesto rather then an organisation (I think a few people in a few intelligence agencies would disagree) and something about them not being Taliban, relevance of which is non-existant to the Iraq situation. This is not even a misdirection. Just incoherent rambling.
I am sorry that your government has tainted the concept of freedom for you. For me, being free to make my own decisions and influence those who have power over me is fundamental to my existence.
No, you simply have no idea what freedom means, never heard of negative freedom and are just a spoiled brat who figures that if he gets to go shopping, dream of becoming a CEO and post on Slashdot he is free. Your chances of being able to "influence those with power over you" is slim to none unless you are a long-time inner-circle operative of the ruling classes or come to the table with significant cash.
However, long term peace in the Middle East will make even that carnage worthwhile. My statement is clear (it's the one in bold). Deal with it, not some pathetic argument that you made up. Have some respect for yourself and your audience.
Since it escaped you, let me spell it out for you: Wrong, it does not "make it worthwile" and on top of it, even if it did, which it does not, it is not for you to decide who gets to die so that your delusion can be fulfilled.
Where did you get that 600,000 figure from?
The NGOs running in Iraq during the 10 year sanctions estimated 500,000 dead from shortages of food and medicine due to the sanctions. The Lancet medical journal in Britain run a study which gave a number of 100,000 deaths attributed to the war and subsequent occupation. The number of wounded and maimed is of course much higher.
Unfortunately, hundreds of thousands were probably going to die anyway
Only if neocons persisted.
I despise the Neocons as much as you, but I can also distinguish between them and people who disagree with me.
Unfortunately since your position on this is indistinguishable from that of the Necoons, the distinction between them and you is nil.
false, although at the end of 10 year sanction cycle little remained.
Saddam was siphoning all the money away
False, he was siphoning some of the money away. Evil tyrant as he was, he considered himself an avenging Arab hero and was a patriot (notice that he didnt run away to a safe country like virtually any other 2-bit dictator in history?). His deluded ideas on how to go about making Iraq better are another discussion.
As far as foreign ownership of oil, that's total BS, Iraq's own president has said as much.
What? What? The who said that? Oh you mean the US-installed ex-CIA henchman whose speeches are written by White House staffers? Right.
Notice the policy says ALLOW, not WILL. Iraqi's can buy Iraqi companies, and many ex-pat Iraqis are working on doing just that.
This is a downward spiral of complete nuttiness. Yes in theory Iraqis can own Iraqi companies but when it comes to a bidding proces between Ahmed the Fallafel-Stand-Man and an ex-patriot Texaco front-man I do truly wonder which one will win. No other country had these sort of rules implemented ever. All require significant portion of local ownership and all require that a major share of profits is reinvested locally. Bremer's rules are the apex of neo-con insanity and make Iraq an exception in the history of the planet as well as the very reason we are there in the first place: to perform an experiment in unrestricted capitalism. All that other hogwash about "freedom" is just that. Too bad children had to lose their limbs over it.
You've never heard of the war in Jugoslavia? Nothing about Bosnia, Kosovo and the others?
Of course I did. And you suggest that the current Iraqi situation is an improvement on those how precisely? Not only does it preclude the "peaceful transition" scenario but it also guarantees ethnic violence and massive carnage, far in excess of Kosovo.
This is like saying you're going to improve hell by installing an air conditioning device
Possibly. Keep in mind though that Communism (or more precisely Socialism as Communism never existed anywhere in practice) is merely a socio-economic system and does not preclude to be coupled with democratic form of government any more then Capitalism does. The fact that all attempts to install an alternative to Capitalism ended up with tyrants is an artefact of the violent process by which they were conducted, not the least part of which was the violence perpetrated by the ruling classes on the "filthy revolting peasants".
Easter Europe had 5 to "deal" with their tyrants. Your point?
Even if their land is a warzone, Iraqis are now free.
If you define "freedom" as "free to get blown into bits" I agree. I am sick and tired of right-wingnuts blabber about "freedom". Naked and hungry on a 2-foot square rock in the middle of Atlantic you are also "free" from political opression. Would you expect a Chinese political dissident to take that option to become "free"? Freedom by itself is worthless, it is the entrie framework of free scociety that makes it worthwile and thats what the USA idologue-nuts destroyed while installing their brand of "freedom".
Before you & your family might be publicly executed if you said the wrong thing.
You must be kidding. Seriously. I mean the Al-Qeida nuts will not slit your throat if you do not grow a beard or are a woman on the street not in a burka, right? How about Baathist guerillas when you say the "wrong thing": "I work for Halliburton"?
if the guerillas don't chill after the elections and/or the withdrawal of Israel from the West Bank, it's going to be years before it's safe.
Again, reality dysfunction here: the "elections" will not chill anything even if "successful" (provide your definition of succes here because they are all equally laughable). In the most rosy, pie-in-the-sky scenario, the elections result in Shia-controlled constitutional comission (you do realise that the elections are to elect the commission not the real government which is to be elected in the next elections sonewhere in 2006? 7? 8?..., no?). Following which Sunni rebellion (who at that point will really have nothing to lose) will get massively worse and will require wholesale pacification of places like Baghdad via the Falluja method of cluster bombing. In the ruins of what remains of Iraq, a theocratic Shia government will craft its Sharia-law based constitution. And there are many worse scenarios possible, invovling combined Sunni/Shia revolts.
However, long term peace in the Middle East will make even that carnage worthwhile.
This is how brainless empires a born. You statement here says it all: "I the stupendous, infallable, all-wise UpnAtom will bring to the barbarians the light of my religion and bring them into its fold by the might of His word or the steel of my sword if they refuse!". The religion being: market libertarianism, Christianity, USA-rendition of "democracy", take your pick. You just declared yourself fit to decide that 600,000 people dead and many more crippled and maimed are "advancing" your cause and not only that, a direct and personally perpetrated carnage on their lands is "justified" because it will "make peace in the long term".
I believe it was said about the Romans : "They create desolation and call it peace". Yea, Pax Romana... ugh wait Pax Americana... Who would have thought, they are baaaaack! Under a new managment! New and improved! More hubris! More carnage!
Welcome to the Imperial Club, the slaves will take you coat on the left, would you like a Bloody Mary while you wait? Its made with real blood you know! *wink*
Probably written by someone who had some deal going under the table with Saddam.
Yes! Me and old Uncle Saddam. We had this deal going where I supplied chicken entrails and he sent me diamonds. Oh why did it have to end? Oh the humanity!
tell me ANY dictatorship that has been overthrown without any blood being shed
Sure: Poland, Chechoslovakia, Hungary, East Germany, etc etc.
"theft of Iraq resources"..Bullshit. Iraq owns it's oil and sells it to whomever pulls up to the terminal at Basra.
All Iraqi industries (with exception of oil) were privatized by the order of Vice Roy Bremmer just before his departure. Furthermore, he set rules in place that: allow 100% foreign ownership of all Iraqi companies, allow 100% of profits to be taken out of the country and even though oil fields were exluded, the oil terminals and processing wasnt, a consortium of CHEVRON and Betchel and several other foreign companies operates these. All of Bremer's rules are set in stone and the new "sovereign" government will not be allowed to change them (including the 15% flat income tax)
90% of the problems are being caused by EXTERNAL NON-IRAQI Muslim fundamentalists who want a theocracy.
I was treating you semi-seriously up to this point but this is clearly a waste of time. Lay off FOX "news" and Rush Limbaugh. Of all the "insurgents" captured in Iraq less then 2% are foreigners and thats according to US Army's own data.
You'll never understand. Go back under your bridge.
But of course I will never understand your particular flavour of delusion. These types of things are always personal affairs. But there are some general patterns that apply here since this particular path was traveled by countless victims before you. Like for example:
How did you come to know "God"?
What gave you the idea that it/he/she is called "God"? Why not "Bob"?
Is it really "God" as in omnipotent, omnipresent creator of Everything? Or perheaps an out-of-work, lesser deity pretending to be Him (Her? It?) while the real boss is out golfing?
How does your deity communicate with you? Since it appears it is your personal religion and thus you must have a direct pipeline. I certainly hope the answer isn't "voices" or similiar otherwise I would suggest immediate medical attention.
What is the moral code your deity dictates? How do you propose to carry it out without affecting others, like me for example? (A point of note here: your religion has already and directly affected me: I am wasting my time trying to talk sense into you after you made your assertion to the contrary)
The list goes on. Allthough thats unlikely, I hope this little sample illustrates to you the extent of your folly.
I believe what I believe and I don't need others to tell me. You are an ass who can't accept the fact that my beliefs do not effect you in the least. Maybe Bush's do, but mine don't.
Right. You are a member of a one-man, non-violent, non-expansionist religion which does not require of its disciples to convert hethens nor to preach its tennents to anyone. I am dying of curiosity as to its name. Is the holy book written yet or are you working on it?
It was as violent and as bloody as it goes. New cemeteries we made to bury the dead. The sound of machine gun fire was in the streets for days.
I am not sure which country you are referring to, I was thinking along the lines of Poland, Chechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary etc. But of course things could have been more violent than that. The main point was that they would have never gotten so violent as whats going on now and furthermore the entire affair would have been an internal Iraqi issue as opposed to being Crusaders vs Jihadists.
And now fifteen years later the old comunists are still ruling as the new rich.
You certainly didnt expect anything else, did you? A sharp division between the "ruling elites" (The Upper Class, The Ivy League Club, Old Boys Network etc) and common people is what the Western capitalism (particularly the US version) is all about. If you wanted justice and equality, you should have tried to mend and repair that old Communist bus which Stalin and crew left crashed in the ditch, maybe after some refurbishing and updating it might have gotten somewhere, providing the communists ceased to fall for the age old trap of trading real money for glass beeds with their arch enemy.
That I am afraid depends on the depth of the conviction. If the religion has only superfluous influence (people tend to self-delude themselves into fancying themselves pious to soothe their minds) it is probably possible to break its hold. I am willing to conceed you this point: human minds are exceedingly complicated and the full effects of religion on them are, I am sure, very complex. Having said this however, I am afraid that significant majority of the infected is capable of doing what I described, i.e. coming to depend on the religion to do all their "thinking" for them.
Not all religions say faith conflicts with reason, you know
If a religion is not attempting to "explain" things dear to people's hearts in a way that must conflict with, or evade empirical evidence and then does not proceed to dictate "laws" for converts to obey, it probably does not fit the bill for being a religion. I am however willing to be enlightened. Please elaborate.
My belief in God doesn't effect you in the least, so how about you back off and stop trying to call me mentally damaged?
You sir are a prime example of what I am talking about. What religion are you? Christian? Muslim? If so, in case you didnt notice a Christian White House is waging a religious crusade on a muslim Arab nation. Who in turn wage Jihad on the USA. Jewish? I am certainly impacted by actions of religious fanatics in Israel as well as Zionists in my own country. Would you care to be more specific because it is without fail a hallmark of nearly every religion to stick its nose into other people's affairs and try to dictate laws for them.
Thanks, I still hope to find a cure one day, even if that cure is preventing anyone else from getting infected.
I wish you good luck but this is indeed a tall order to fill. As you certainly know, religions are very successful and virulent deseases. I think the major enabling problem is that our evolution is a random process focused on making our species more "succesful" in spreading (the same brain-dead objective the evolutionary process of the virus has) and is not influenced adversly by propagation of religion. Thus no "natural" defenses exist. As long as the religion is not interfering too badly with reproductive cycle, the evolutionary process does not get involved.
So in order to immunize people against religion, you would have to find a mechanism that allows for raltional, science based world view to be somehow emotionally and psychologially sufficient for everyone. Unfortunately, people who are capable of supporting that position without a failure when faced with traumatic experiences are far and few between. Again, it is my personal speculation that further evolution of human consciousness might not be driven by a darwinian process but by our decisions to augment our minds by either biological or mechanical means. This would introduce new capabilities and perheaps eliviate the failure modes that allow religion and other assorted deseases to consume our minds.
any thoughts on converting the religious back to normality, I've tried lots of things from science to asking them to explain themself's until they got stuck in an illogical loop.
Since it is important, I will follow you this far off-topic.
I personally believe that religions are like computer and real-life viruses. Their only preorogative is to use their hosts to spread. The wellbeing of the host is not important to religion, the propagation of the desease is. Real-life viruses use various propagation mechanisms but the most similar would be an e-mail bourne computer virus that promises something a victim might want in order to get him/her to activate the payload. Similarily, religions offer to fullfil basic needs of sentient beings which are hard to satisfy otheriwse (explanations of their origin, universal "truths" about universe, simple rules to follow in daily life to achieve immortality, simple and reassuring explanations of exceedingly complex things etc etc) and as soon as the victim takes the bait, his/her mind is devoured and digested by the virus and quickly turned to its true purpose: further propagation. Loss of objectivity and acquisition of feverent zeal are just some of the effects of this destruction which are beneficial to the virus in its quest to spread.
Some clever charlatans, seeing this power, made minor modifications to the virus code in order to use it for their own ends. Enter organised, institutional religion and all the fun that follows, Inqusitions, Crusades, Witch-hunts, Jihads and reclamations and ethnic-clensing of "God-given" lands being just the tip of the iceberg.
How to cure this? Well, its tough. A mind once corrupted in-depth is damaged beyond repair I am afraid. It loses ability to function on its own, the virus having replaced critical thought functions. Your guess is as good as mine here but putting the victim into a logical-loop is not going to solve the problem, logic and reason being the first victims in the desease's progression. They will just "rationalize" it away somehow and move on merilly with the parasite clinging to their brain.
P.S. I normally do not answer ACs because Slashdot does not email me when they post replies.
I forgot to mention a lot of things, these were just what I was able to come up with in 5 seconds flat off the top of my head. The complete list is so long that it would probably take a post longer then Slashcode allows.
Saddam Hussein = totalitarian dictatorship not giving anyone any rights only Saddam has power, absolute and totally corrupted power...
but a reasonable chance of food on the table. Lousy but public health care. Public education. Tyrranical but secular governemnt which allows women to go to school and become professionals. And (bonus) not being blown up on the way to school. In time, with patience and some work perheaps a peaceful, bloodless, transition to less totalitarian form of government ala Eastern Europe.
Liberated Iraq = democracy offering freedom for ANYONE to build a political party and candidates to sell for market value or give away free (whatever the the party boss desires)...
You mean "anyone with sufficient cash and corporate support" ala USA. Wholesale theft of Iraq's resources by the Western corporations. Near total destruction of public infrastructure. 60% unemployment. 15% flat tax unable to generate revenues to cover even the most basic necessites of government. Laws dictated and set in stone by the occupiers (new government is not allowed to reverse these). 5-mile long lineups for gas in one of the largest oil producing counties. 100% prospect of either Islamic theocracy or civil war. Loss of rights for most females. Higher chance of getting your ass blown-off or shot-off then getting education. Non-existant medical care. Arrogant foreign army complete with mercenaries, "shoot first, ask questions later" checkpoints, cluster-bombing of cities and even modern rendition of concentration camps, gearing itself to stay in Iraq for foreseeable future (building permanent, hardened bases).
If I were an Iraqi, the choice would be rather easy: Saddam as bad as he was, was an Iraqi problem and Iraqis would have dealt with him sooner or later, thank you very much, and truth be told the "liberation" will be spelled "conquest" in Arabic for generations of Iraqis to come.
Also note that the assault on social foundations of Iraq is totally consistent with the philosophies US-led band of Christian-capitalist fundamentalist ideologues. It is part of their agenda and was indended to demonstrate that zero-government inteference, dog-eat-dog, survival of the fittest capitalism will produce miracles in the "new" Iraq. And all they had to do it is to kill 100,000 people (after starving to death another 500,000 earlier).
Ok, this post above is the complete explanation of what is wrong with these online games.
Let me translate: My life sucks, I am a low-life mean-spirited jerk who is too chicken to go put real-life bullets into convenience store clerks' heads to "get ahead", I will instead win at any cost in an online game to relieve my frustrations.
You see this is all in the definition of "game" and "play". Most people who are not sociopathic psychopaths play games to enjoy outlandish virtual situations these games offer and to harmlessly "compete" in mock-pretend battles against like minded people. The object? To relax and have fun. Sociopathic psychopaths a.k.a. "effective competitors", like the poster I am replying to, "play" to "win" at any cost. Emotional abuse of "enemies" ("game play partner" is waaaay to weak to describe how they see their oponent) is fair play. In traditional non-computer games those are the people who put drugs into other members of their family's coffee at the Sunday evening card game at aunt Thelma's so that they can win.
Life sucks sometimes.
Chief reason of which being that there are poeple like you in it.
You sir are a prime example of a humorless, self-absorbed, egomaniacal, suffering from delusions of grandieur player to avoid at all costs.
The so called "strategy" games are in fact nothing but a eye-wrist coordination click fests. The person who can click and manipulate the map faster always wins. While there is an inanely shallow tactical element present, an overall imbecillic dumbness of the "combat units" coupled with utter and complete micro-management gives away anyone who thinks proficiency at these games is somehow commendable as someone with little or no thinking power who wishes to pretend that their jerko-click skills are somehow equivalent to planning and analysis.
Starcraft/Warcraft etc are nothing but glorified board games and people who play between friends at 0 to next to 0 skill level just to have fun are the only ones who are using those games in the right way, since the object is to derive mild amusement for all parties involved.
You sir are an equivalent to somone who can stuff two decks of playing cards up his nostrils in 2 seconds flat, while balancing on a third one inserted in his rectum, and are thus from a position of "superiority" lecturing people about "basic skills" in having fun at card play.
Just to satisfy my curiosity, the object of these "games" is to pay good money in order to "work for things" so that other "players" like you are sufficiently satisified with these penants and leave one be unmolested? Am I missing something here?
Slashdot Mirror
This is sort of amusing really. So you are saying that a few individuals (no matter how well intentioned and how effective) are more responsible for the gcc and glibc then the people who created and maintaned the projects over the years? In that case why arent we all using egcs and the gcc isn't rotting on a long-forgotten website? Same with libc etc? I have feeling that this little rant seeks only to bellitle the input of hundreds of people who contributed to the GNU projects called gcc, libc etc mainly because of their FSF GPL license and phillosophical stance of one RMS and at the same tame to unduly emphasize "lone ranger" type coders who single-handedly (ala Bill Gates) lifted themselves by their own hair from the "swamp" that GNU is. And while I am sure that a number of Slahsdotters subscribe to such nonsense because it fits into their subconscious desire of being recognized one day, it does not have much correspondence to reality.
There is trade and then there is trade. In one case you have a bunch of totally psychopatic and anti-social artificial personalities called corporations seeking to abuse differences in income between countries to make less then 1% if US population even richer and on the other hand you have attempts to control the flow of goods and services in order to ensure that the local populations' standard of living actually goes up as trade increases and the standard of living of the country to which the goods are exported does not decrease as a result.
Yes I do buy into the Naomi Klein "BS" as well as many other people who thought these sort of things do. It is the prophets of Ayn Randish unrestricted capitalism that is creating such economic wonderlands as Iraq who are in the wrong on this one.
Since you asked, here is a little reference regarding Seymour Hersh, the dude who saw all the unreleased videos the US government has at present regarding Abu Ghraib (the quote below stolen via google from dailykos et al):
---
This is a summary of Hersh speaking at the ACLU 2004 America At A Crossroads conference according to EdCone.com (via Oliver Willis). I verified by watching the video myself (it starts at 1:07, the "worse stuff" part starts at 1:30).
There's more bad stuff in here, read Ed Cone's summary.
I'll try transcribing some of the more important bits.
[my transcription from 1:31 - 1:32]
The actual speech here
Unless, due to some time-warp, you are posting from the Tzarist Russia circa 1916 or are a virtual slave of some ass-backwards kingdom in mountains of Asia, you probably have no idea what I am talking about.
The emphasis mine. So in effect Tao dictates rules of conduct which by necessity affect the non-believers.
The Qur'an quotes God as saying "You shall not accept any information, unless you verify it for yourself. I have given you the hearing, the eyesight, and the brain, and you are responsible for using them.
Unfortunately, the very idea of a God is contradictory with that statement. Unless you are in a possession of a reliable, repeatable experiment which I can perform to validate existence of a God such as Qur'an claims to exist, this very statement contradicts the entire religion to begin with.
I am afraid that all religions are intriniscally suffering from the same problem because at their very core is a set of wild, unproveable assumptions, frequently backed with chickanery and outright insanity, and from these assumptions flow rules and regulations applicable to our real life pursuits, almost inevietably resulting in adverse effects on non-believers and always resulting in some effects on them.
This probably does not warrant a reply but here it goes: it is what one does and not what one says about himself that counts. If you are calling yourself an anti-neo-con and then promote the very ideas you claim to disagree with, that action and not the label you claim for yourself is what counts. Similarly, you can call yourself an enviromentalist and then drive a V8 Suburban from your luxurious villa for which you landscaped 50 hectares of a forest, the latter speaking far louder then the former.
I fail to see how I misused that example. I was pointing out that a transition from dictatorship to some form of democracy was possible (even if it wasnt guaranteed) because it did happen in those countries. That was the only thing that was relevant in my example. I am not sure where your objection comes from.
Curious, I must have missed that, could you enlighten me what was the last date when US pacified Warsaw or cluster bombed Moscow? The best I can come up with is 3 million dead in Vietnam and some few more in Laos and Cambodia. My history book must be missing a few chapters.
Al-Qaeda is nothing but a call to arms. These guerillas aren't the Taliban. They're a violent underclass that every country suppresses (or builds an army out of).
I countered your point that in the "old regime" people were killed for their oppinion with a clear cut example of even worse oppressive activity occuring at the present time. To which it seems you replied with a line about how Al-Qeida is a manifesto rather then an organisation (I think a few people in a few intelligence agencies would disagree) and something about them not being Taliban, relevance of which is non-existant to the Iraq situation. This is not even a misdirection. Just incoherent rambling.
I am sorry that your government has tainted the concept of freedom for you. For me, being free to make my own decisions and influence those who have power over me is fundamental to my existence.
No, you simply have no idea what freedom means, never heard of negative freedom and are just a spoiled brat who figures that if he gets to go shopping, dream of becoming a CEO and post on Slashdot he is free. Your chances of being able to "influence those with power over you" is slim to none unless you are a long-time inner-circle operative of the ruling classes or come to the table with significant cash.
However, long term peace in the Middle East will make even that carnage worthwhile. My statement is clear (it's the one in bold). Deal with it, not some pathetic argument that you made up. Have some respect for yourself and your audience.
Since it escaped you, let me spell it out for you: Wrong, it does not "make it worthwile" and on top of it, even if it did, which it does not, it is not for you to decide who gets to die so that your delusion can be fulfilled.
Where did you get that 600,000 figure from?
The NGOs running in Iraq during the 10 year sanctions estimated 500,000 dead from shortages of food and medicine due to the sanctions. The Lancet medical journal in Britain run a study which gave a number of 100,000 deaths attributed to the war and subsequent occupation. The number of wounded and maimed is of course much higher.
Unfortunately, hundreds of thousands were probably going to die anyway
Only if neocons persisted.
I despise the Neocons as much as you, but I can also distinguish between them and people who disagree with me.
Unfortunately since your position on this is indistinguishable from that of the Necoons, the distinction between them and you is nil.
How about the people actually living in Iraq?
the WAS no health care
false, although at the end of 10 year sanction cycle little remained.
Saddam was siphoning all the money away
False, he was siphoning some of the money away. Evil tyrant as he was, he considered himself an avenging Arab hero and was a patriot (notice that he didnt run away to a safe country like virtually any other 2-bit dictator in history?). His deluded ideas on how to go about making Iraq better are another discussion.
As far as foreign ownership of oil, that's total BS, Iraq's own president has said as much.
What? What? The who said that? Oh you mean the US-installed ex-CIA henchman whose speeches are written by White House staffers? Right.
Notice the policy says ALLOW, not WILL. Iraqi's can buy Iraqi companies, and many ex-pat Iraqis are working on doing just that.
This is a downward spiral of complete nuttiness. Yes in theory Iraqis can own Iraqi companies but when it comes to a bidding proces between Ahmed the Fallafel-Stand-Man and an ex-patriot Texaco front-man I do truly wonder which one will win. No other country had these sort of rules implemented ever. All require significant portion of local ownership and all require that a major share of profits is reinvested locally. Bremer's rules are the apex of neo-con insanity and make Iraq an exception in the history of the planet as well as the very reason we are there in the first place: to perform an experiment in unrestricted capitalism. All that other hogwash about "freedom" is just that. Too bad children had to lose their limbs over it.
Of course I did. And you suggest that the current Iraqi situation is an improvement on those how precisely? Not only does it preclude the "peaceful transition" scenario but it also guarantees ethnic violence and massive carnage, far in excess of Kosovo.
This is like saying you're going to improve hell by installing an air conditioning device
Possibly. Keep in mind though that Communism (or more precisely Socialism as Communism never existed anywhere in practice) is merely a socio-economic system and does not preclude to be coupled with democratic form of government any more then Capitalism does. The fact that all attempts to install an alternative to Capitalism ended up with tyrants is an artefact of the violent process by which they were conducted, not the least part of which was the violence perpetrated by the ruling classes on the "filthy revolting peasants".
The Iraqis had 4 decades to deal with Saddam.
Easter Europe had 5 to "deal" with their tyrants. Your point?
Even if their land is a warzone, Iraqis are now free.
If you define "freedom" as "free to get blown into bits" I agree. I am sick and tired of right-wingnuts blabber about "freedom". Naked and hungry on a 2-foot square rock in the middle of Atlantic you are also "free" from political opression. Would you expect a Chinese political dissident to take that option to become "free"? Freedom by itself is worthless, it is the entrie framework of free scociety that makes it worthwile and thats what the USA idologue-nuts destroyed while installing their brand of "freedom".
Before you & your family might be publicly executed if you said the wrong thing.
You must be kidding. Seriously. I mean the Al-Qeida nuts will not slit your throat if you do not grow a beard or are a woman on the street not in a burka, right? How about Baathist guerillas when you say the "wrong thing": "I work for Halliburton"?
if the guerillas don't chill after the elections and/or the withdrawal of Israel from the West Bank, it's going to be years before it's safe.
Again, reality dysfunction here: the "elections" will not chill anything even if "successful" (provide your definition of succes here because they are all equally laughable). In the most rosy, pie-in-the-sky scenario, the elections result in Shia-controlled constitutional comission (you do realise that the elections are to elect the commission not the real government which is to be elected in the next elections sonewhere in 2006? 7? 8?..., no?). Following which Sunni rebellion (who at that point will really have nothing to lose) will get massively worse and will require wholesale pacification of places like Baghdad via the Falluja method of cluster bombing. In the ruins of what remains of Iraq, a theocratic Shia government will craft its Sharia-law based constitution. And there are many worse scenarios possible, invovling combined Sunni/Shia revolts.
However, long term peace in the Middle East will make even that carnage worthwhile.
This is how brainless empires a born. You statement here says it all: "I the stupendous, infallable, all-wise UpnAtom will bring to the barbarians the light of my religion and bring them into its fold by the might of His word or the steel of my sword if they refuse!". The religion being: market libertarianism, Christianity, USA-rendition of "democracy", take your pick. You just declared yourself fit to decide that 600,000 people dead and many more crippled and maimed are "advancing" your cause and not only that, a direct and personally perpetrated carnage on their lands is "justified" because it will "make peace in the long term".
I believe it was said about the Romans : "They create desolation and call it peace". Yea, Pax Romana... ugh wait Pax Americana... Who would have thought, they are baaaaack! Under a new managment! New and improved! More hubris! More carnage!
Welcome to the Imperial Club, the slaves will take you coat on the left, would you like a Bloody Mary while you wait? Its made with real blood you know! *wink*
Yes! Me and old Uncle Saddam. We had this deal going where I supplied chicken entrails and he sent me diamonds. Oh why did it have to end? Oh the humanity!
"health care"? Yea, if you were a party member
Really? Nooo!
"education"- indoctination since Saddam was the only person ever allowed to be discussed
Right
tell me ANY dictatorship that has been overthrown without any blood being shed
Sure: Poland, Chechoslovakia, Hungary, East Germany, etc etc.
"theft of Iraq resources"..Bullshit. Iraq owns it's oil and sells it to whomever pulls up to the terminal at Basra.
All Iraqi industries (with exception of oil) were privatized by the order of Vice Roy Bremmer just before his departure. Furthermore, he set rules in place that: allow 100% foreign ownership of all Iraqi companies, allow 100% of profits to be taken out of the country and even though oil fields were exluded, the oil terminals and processing wasnt, a consortium of CHEVRON and Betchel and several other foreign companies operates these. All of Bremer's rules are set in stone and the new "sovereign" government will not be allowed to change them (including the 15% flat income tax)
90% of the problems are being caused by EXTERNAL NON-IRAQI Muslim fundamentalists who want a theocracy.
I was treating you semi-seriously up to this point but this is clearly a waste of time. Lay off FOX "news" and Rush Limbaugh. Of all the "insurgents" captured in Iraq less then 2% are foreigners and thats according to US Army's own data.
As to the Crusade...
But of course I will never understand your particular flavour of delusion. These types of things are always personal affairs. But there are some general patterns that apply here since this particular path was traveled by countless victims before you. Like for example:
- How did you come to know "God"?
- What gave you the idea that it/he/she is called "God"? Why not "Bob"?
- Is it really "God" as in omnipotent, omnipresent creator of Everything? Or perheaps an out-of-work, lesser deity pretending to be Him (Her? It?) while the real boss is out golfing?
- How does your deity communicate with you? Since it appears it is your personal religion and thus you must have a direct pipeline. I certainly hope the answer isn't "voices" or similiar otherwise I would suggest immediate medical attention.
- What is the moral code your deity dictates? How do you propose to carry it out without affecting others, like me for example? (A point of note here: your religion has already and directly affected me: I am wasting my time trying to talk sense into you after you made your assertion to the contrary)
The list goes on. Allthough thats unlikely, I hope this little sample illustrates to you the extent of your folly.Right. You are a member of a one-man, non-violent, non-expansionist religion which does not require of its disciples to convert hethens nor to preach its tennents to anyone. I am dying of curiosity as to its name. Is the holy book written yet or are you working on it?
I am not sure which country you are referring to, I was thinking along the lines of Poland, Chechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary etc. But of course things could have been more violent than that. The main point was that they would have never gotten so violent as whats going on now and furthermore the entire affair would have been an internal Iraqi issue as opposed to being Crusaders vs Jihadists.
And now fifteen years later the old comunists are still ruling as the new rich.
You certainly didnt expect anything else, did you? A sharp division between the "ruling elites" (The Upper Class, The Ivy League Club, Old Boys Network etc) and common people is what the Western capitalism (particularly the US version) is all about. If you wanted justice and equality, you should have tried to mend and repair that old Communist bus which Stalin and crew left crashed in the ditch, maybe after some refurbishing and updating it might have gotten somewhere, providing the communists ceased to fall for the age old trap of trading real money for glass beeds with their arch enemy.
That I am afraid depends on the depth of the conviction. If the religion has only superfluous influence (people tend to self-delude themselves into fancying themselves pious to soothe their minds) it is probably possible to break its hold. I am willing to conceed you this point: human minds are exceedingly complicated and the full effects of religion on them are, I am sure, very complex. Having said this however, I am afraid that significant majority of the infected is capable of doing what I described, i.e. coming to depend on the religion to do all their "thinking" for them.
If a religion is not attempting to "explain" things dear to people's hearts in a way that must conflict with, or evade empirical evidence and then does not proceed to dictate "laws" for converts to obey, it probably does not fit the bill for being a religion. I am however willing to be enlightened. Please elaborate.
You sir are a prime example of what I am talking about. What religion are you? Christian? Muslim? If so, in case you didnt notice a Christian White House is waging a religious crusade on a muslim Arab nation. Who in turn wage Jihad on the USA. Jewish? I am certainly impacted by actions of religious fanatics in Israel as well as Zionists in my own country. Would you care to be more specific because it is without fail a hallmark of nearly every religion to stick its nose into other people's affairs and try to dictate laws for them.
I wish you good luck but this is indeed a tall order to fill. As you certainly know, religions are very successful and virulent deseases. I think the major enabling problem is that our evolution is a random process focused on making our species more "succesful" in spreading (the same brain-dead objective the evolutionary process of the virus has) and is not influenced adversly by propagation of religion. Thus no "natural" defenses exist. As long as the religion is not interfering too badly with reproductive cycle, the evolutionary process does not get involved.
So in order to immunize people against religion, you would have to find a mechanism that allows for raltional, science based world view to be somehow emotionally and psychologially sufficient for everyone. Unfortunately, people who are capable of supporting that position without a failure when faced with traumatic experiences are far and few between. Again, it is my personal speculation that further evolution of human consciousness might not be driven by a darwinian process but by our decisions to augment our minds by either biological or mechanical means. This would introduce new capabilities and perheaps eliviate the failure modes that allow religion and other assorted deseases to consume our minds.
Since it is important, I will follow you this far off-topic.
I personally believe that religions are like computer and real-life viruses. Their only preorogative is to use their hosts to spread. The wellbeing of the host is not important to religion, the propagation of the desease is. Real-life viruses use various propagation mechanisms but the most similar would be an e-mail bourne computer virus that promises something a victim might want in order to get him/her to activate the payload. Similarily, religions offer to fullfil basic needs of sentient beings which are hard to satisfy otheriwse (explanations of their origin, universal "truths" about universe, simple rules to follow in daily life to achieve immortality, simple and reassuring explanations of exceedingly complex things etc etc) and as soon as the victim takes the bait, his/her mind is devoured and digested by the virus and quickly turned to its true purpose: further propagation. Loss of objectivity and acquisition of feverent zeal are just some of the effects of this destruction which are beneficial to the virus in its quest to spread.
Some clever charlatans, seeing this power, made minor modifications to the virus code in order to use it for their own ends. Enter organised, institutional religion and all the fun that follows, Inqusitions, Crusades, Witch-hunts, Jihads and reclamations and ethnic-clensing of "God-given" lands being just the tip of the iceberg.
How to cure this? Well, its tough. A mind once corrupted in-depth is damaged beyond repair I am afraid. It loses ability to function on its own, the virus having replaced critical thought functions. Your guess is as good as mine here but putting the victim into a logical-loop is not going to solve the problem, logic and reason being the first victims in the desease's progression. They will just "rationalize" it away somehow and move on merilly with the parasite clinging to their brain.
P.S. I normally do not answer ACs because Slashdot does not email me when they post replies.
I forgot to mention a lot of things, these were just what I was able to come up with in 5 seconds flat off the top of my head. The complete list is so long that it would probably take a post longer then Slashcode allows.
but a reasonable chance of food on the table. Lousy but public health care. Public education. Tyrranical but secular governemnt which allows women to go to school and become professionals. And (bonus) not being blown up on the way to school. In time, with patience and some work perheaps a peaceful, bloodless, transition to less totalitarian form of government ala Eastern Europe.
Liberated Iraq = democracy offering freedom for ANYONE to build a political party and candidates to sell for market value or give away free (whatever the the party boss desires)...
You mean "anyone with sufficient cash and corporate support" ala USA. Wholesale theft of Iraq's resources by the Western corporations. Near total destruction of public infrastructure. 60% unemployment. 15% flat tax unable to generate revenues to cover even the most basic necessites of government. Laws dictated and set in stone by the occupiers (new government is not allowed to reverse these). 5-mile long lineups for gas in one of the largest oil producing counties. 100% prospect of either Islamic theocracy or civil war. Loss of rights for most females. Higher chance of getting your ass blown-off or shot-off then getting education. Non-existant medical care. Arrogant foreign army complete with mercenaries, "shoot first, ask questions later" checkpoints, cluster-bombing of cities and even modern rendition of concentration camps, gearing itself to stay in Iraq for foreseeable future (building permanent, hardened bases).
If I were an Iraqi, the choice would be rather easy: Saddam as bad as he was, was an Iraqi problem and Iraqis would have dealt with him sooner or later, thank you very much, and truth be told the "liberation" will be spelled "conquest" in Arabic for generations of Iraqis to come.
Also note that the assault on social foundations of Iraq is totally consistent with the philosophies US-led band of Christian-capitalist fundamentalist ideologues. It is part of their agenda and was indended to demonstrate that zero-government inteference, dog-eat-dog, survival of the fittest capitalism will produce miracles in the "new" Iraq. And all they had to do it is to kill 100,000 people (after starving to death another 500,000 earlier).
Let me translate: My life sucks, I am a low-life mean-spirited jerk who is too chicken to go put real-life bullets into convenience store clerks' heads to "get ahead", I will instead win at any cost in an online game to relieve my frustrations.
You see this is all in the definition of "game" and "play". Most people who are not sociopathic psychopaths play games to enjoy outlandish virtual situations these games offer and to harmlessly "compete" in mock-pretend battles against like minded people. The object? To relax and have fun. Sociopathic psychopaths a.k.a. "effective competitors", like the poster I am replying to, "play" to "win" at any cost. Emotional abuse of "enemies" ("game play partner" is waaaay to weak to describe how they see their oponent) is fair play. In traditional non-computer games those are the people who put drugs into other members of their family's coffee at the Sunday evening card game at aunt Thelma's so that they can win.
Life sucks sometimes.
Chief reason of which being that there are poeple like you in it.
The so called "strategy" games are in fact nothing but a eye-wrist coordination click fests. The person who can click and manipulate the map faster always wins. While there is an inanely shallow tactical element present, an overall imbecillic dumbness of the "combat units" coupled with utter and complete micro-management gives away anyone who thinks proficiency at these games is somehow commendable as someone with little or no thinking power who wishes to pretend that their jerko-click skills are somehow equivalent to planning and analysis.
Starcraft/Warcraft etc are nothing but glorified board games and people who play between friends at 0 to next to 0 skill level just to have fun are the only ones who are using those games in the right way, since the object is to derive mild amusement for all parties involved.
You sir are an equivalent to somone who can stuff two decks of playing cards up his nostrils in 2 seconds flat, while balancing on a third one inserted in his rectum, and are thus from a position of "superiority" lecturing people about "basic skills" in having fun at card play.
Just to satisfy my curiosity, the object of these "games" is to pay good money in order to "work for things" so that other "players" like you are sufficiently satisified with these penants and leave one be unmolested? Am I missing something here?