As for social services, welfare, universal medical insurance - fuck 'em. In Texas we pay our own bills and we don't like those hippie queer faggots like Kerry telling us what to do with our hard-earned money.
I'll bet more conservatives are AGAINST space exploration than liberals. Most conservatives want private organizations (read: corporations) running things. According to most conservatives, public science is nothing more than welfare for the intellectuals.
Maybe he could be sent on a one-way trip;) The problem with manned mission has always been getting off the surface of Mars. This might solve it... j/k;)
Needless to say, the article is severly biased against Microsoft. The biggest difference between linux and Windows is that Windows is easy to use whereas linux isn't. As of now, Windows is also more innovative than linux (I'm talking about the desktop side; linux servers are better). People always bash MS for innovation but Windows has a lot of things linux doesn't. Desktops like KDE and Gnome are light years behind Windows right now.
Lastly, and most importantly, Windows has massive number of applications. Linux is seriously lacking in this respect. This difference isn't really due to Windows architecture or anything, but nevertheless it is what seperates the two.
This means (effectively) that all the Majority MPs are barred from ever voting their concience or on behalf of their constituents in Pariliament, which i think is wrong, considering thats why we elected them in the first place.
You don't understand the political system. Under British-style systems (Canada is one; others include Isreal, India, etc), YOU, as a voter, votes for the PARTY--not the politician!!! Some people are under the mistaken notion that they vote for the representative politician. That is not the case. If you like some politician in your riding but don't like his party, they you should vote for the party's nominee instead of the guy you like. That's how the system works.
If you look at the system with that understanding it makes more sense. You complain about the vote of confidence but that makes sense since the population votes for the party. If the MPs don't like their own party, it's time to elect a new party (and hence a new election). This is actually more democratic IMO, although it depends on what views you subscribe to. For instance, it is easier to kick out our Prime Minister (say he becomes a dictator) than in USA (where the President is super powerful and is largely left to his own).
Speaking as a Canadian, as far as I'm concerned, the main flaws in the Canadian system that I would like to change are:
Senate: The senate is completely useless. It should either be abolished or elected. Right now, it is appointed and only elites (usually wealthy, powerful, famous, popular people) get appointed. It is also nothing more than a rubber-stamping body that is a complete waste of money. I would like to see the Senate being elected (like USA). Unfortunately this isn't going to happen without a revolution or some major policy change (changing the Canadian constitution is very difficult, and the smaller provinces which get more power through the senate will not agree)
Monarchy: Canada should abolish the monarchy. The monarch and her/his associates (such as the governor-general) are a joke. I am an egalitarian and treating the monarch as a superior individual is totally against my philosophies. Needless to say, cutting off ties with the monarchy will be difficult since conservatives will oppose it.
Proportional Representation: I would like to see proportional representation being implemented. Right now the system is less democratic with its winner-takes-all vote tally. The biggest resistance to this comes from the big established parties (Liberals and Conservatives), who would lose under such proposal. Just to give an example, the Ontario (provincial) Liberals have something like 70% of the seats even though they only received around 50% of the votes.
Can you imagine what the American's whould do to a president that violated the constitution to ram a fucking 7% sales tax bill.... ???
That is not really abuse of the Constitution. Canadian Constitution does not say that the tax is illegal. What was done is legal. No one broke any law... In any case, US Constitution is abused far more by the executive branch (President) than the Canadian Constitution.
You can argue over whether one should be voting for a party or for a representative politician but that comes down to your preference for the underlying philosophies. I personally prefer British-style systems because one knows EXACTLY what an MP represents. For instance, you can be pretty sure a Liberal is somewhere on the center-left, while a Conservative is somewhere on the center-right, and an NDP is on the left. In US-style systems, USA for example, you have no idea what a politician represents. In fact, US politicians keep changing their views to conform to those with power (usually elites and corporations). In this sense, US politicians are far more corrupt than Canadian ones. If you don't believe me, ask some American who knows about econopolitics. There are far more disgruntled voters in USA than in Canada. This is precisely bec
Yes, scientists are as close minded as anyone. However, they follow the path of science. Therefore, they mean SOMETHING.
As far as cold fusion is concerned, I'm neither a scientist nor have I read much in this area (layperson knowledge), but you are right: there is something happening. BUT the opinion of the scientific community is that it isn't cold fusion. It is some other phenomenon. I think we'll discover that it is something new (something we don't understand well right now); however, it isn't cold fusion.
Evolution scientists tend to suffer from what's called circular reasoning. A piece of evidence appears. Because we believe in evolution, this evidence must mean X. X supports evolution. Therefore evolution must be true. Logicians shake heads sadly.
What you are saying is the whole BASIS of science--not just theory of evolution. The way we explain gravity (or curvature of spacetime) is the same: see objects being attracted to each other->develop theory. This is also how we view genetics and human traits to be stemming from DNA: observe DNA molecule->develop DNA theory. And so on.
In any case, what you are saying isn't really circular reasoning because science involves testing and experimentation. THis experimentation (i.e. empirical observations) means that science isn't really circular logic. You are totally missing this step.
If you believe developing a theory based on observation is "circular logic", you clearly do not follow the path of science.
However, if you assume God/does/ exist, and your (observable, repeatable) experience of God is that everything he says is completely reliable, then accepting Genesis 1 in literal form is not difficult. (bolded by me)
How exactly are you observing God? How are these things repeatable?
I would rather have EVERYONE check each other than only large corporations (or wealthy elites) have the capability.
Right now, large corporations and welathy elites (usually by hiring private "specialists") can check someone's SIN (Social Insurance Number) number and things like that. Basically any corporation can do this. In contrast, the typical citizen cannot do these things. This is very unfair for the average person. If I start a bogus business, I can check someone's SIN number but if I don't have a business I can't. What sort of lunacy is this? Obviously no one has said anything about this issue because the clueless masses have no idea what is going on.
By lowering the cost for doing these things, the average person can start spying on each other. This sounds bad on the surface but it is good (no, this isn't some Orweillian double-think at work). The best world is when you have absolute privacy or no privacy!!! Anything in between can be manipulated (usually by so-called "authorities" who are just a bunch of elites).
If someone can spy on me, or access my "personal information*" then I want to spy on them in return. This is only fair!!!!!!!!
I realize that what I said sounds dumb... but think about it.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
(* Note that so-called personal information is not very personal since anyone (businesses, wealthy people, etc) can access them. Your SIN number, for example, is NOT private. You might think it is safe but it's not. If I was rich, or had contacts, or ran the country;), I can get this information).
NOTE: Everything I say is only about things that can be accessed by any wealthy individual or a corporation. I am TOTALLY AGAINST some entity, say the government, collecting new information. Everything I speak of is with regards to existing "personal information". I am not in favour of letting people spy on each other with totally private information (eg. your medical records).
Author was way off*. Open source software is closer to socialism than anything, while proprietary software is pretty much capitalism. If you don't think so, look at the philsophies underpinning both of these:
--Socialism--
Egalitarian
Communal
Sharing/common good
--Capitalism--
Elitist
Driven by profits
No such thing as a common good
If you look at these traits, you would find that open-source software is closer to socialism and proprietary software is closer to capitalism. That's economics.
If you look at the political dimension, you would find that both open-source software and proprietary software are libertarian (to a large degree).
So to sum up, open-source software would be libertarian+socialism** while proprietary software (as exemplified by Microsoft) would be libertarian+capitalism. This basically means that, under the political compass two dimensional system, open-source software would be near the bottom left, while the proprietary one would be the bottom right.
(* The confusion over proprietary software and capitalism arises because Microsoft is thought to be a monopoly by some. Because of that, some people (namely capitalists) don't consider MS to be capitalist. These capitalists would argue that capitalism needs free markets and perfect competition. My theory is that free markets lead to monopolies or oligopolies and if this is true then these capitalists' reasoning is baseless. This is exactly what happened in the case of MS. MS was a small company competing under perfect competition at one time. It simply monopolized the market like all businesses attempt to. Therefore, one CAN consider MS to be capitalist, even though it has monopolize many of its markets)).
(** When I say libertarian+socialism, I'm not talking about libertarian socialism (which is anarchism), although it is close. Open-source software is not anarchist because there are rules (the existence of copyrights means that the person who wrote the software has more power than someone who did not. Under anarchism, you wouldn't have this situation because copyrights do not generally exist under many anarchist systems. If open-source software had no copyrights (i.e. author who wrote it has no more rights than someone who did not write it), then open-source software can be considered anarchist. From my view, public domain software is basically anarchist)).
That and Marx basing his entire model on the assumption that economics is a zero-sum game - in other words, no one can get rich without "stealing" from someone - usually the "workers".
I don't expect a capitalist like you to understand this but the economy IS a zero sum game from a socialist perspective. The profits that you generate is at the expense of SOMETHING. Usually this 'something' is workers, the environment, or power. Obviously capitalists don't consider these things in their theory. For instance, capitalism attaches a cost of ZERO to pollution*.
Furthermore, capitalists have a habit of sacrificing the future for the present via debt. Capitalist countries have massive debts and are leveraged beyond belief.
It's also funny how you refer to Martha Stewart. She is probably more capitalist than anyone here. She is almost the poster girl of capitalism (until her recent troubles of course). Don't believe me? Grab any business or capitalist magazine/article/whatever from the past and see.
* I'm not talking about cases where there is government intervention (such as fines for polluting above some limit). I'm talking about general markets.
Actually SOME wars do have to do with democracy. Examples include French Revolution, American Revolution, as well as nearly all independence movements. The people starting the wars (usually some sort of rebels) clearly is fighting to establish democracy of some sort...
How about the California energy crisis? In that case, both of these things (corporations charging high prices, and corporations refusing to provide power) happened. But, since California is rich (in the sense that they can borrow huge quantities of debt) they had no problem. In poorer countries the citizens end up without the power (or whatever resource you look at). Just look up issues related to resources held by corporations in poor countries (epsecially things like water, which is more valuable than energy in those countries).
I can understand how you wouldn't understand any of this. You are probably an armchair capitalist who thinks it is not in the interest of corporations to monopolize their markets and charge high prices.
See... that's the difference between you and me. You subscribe to a Darwinist view; I don't. I believe we can build a peaceful world. You obviously gave up on peace a long time ago.
Why can't we prevent someone--anyone--from taking over the world?
I believe people like you are on your last breath. Imperialism is dying. Your life and your whole meaning behind existence is under threat. Enjoy it while it lasts. It will become more and more difficult for one entity to take over the world--and I'm glad for that. You obviously are still living in the past.
The closest thing to silence I experienced (in Canada) was due to the recent blackout in Ontario (and Northeast USA). Everything was so quiet. I remember lying outside at night and there wasn't any noise for a while (there WAS some noise once in a while due to sirens and some cars). But it was still nice.
Having said that, this clearly does not compare to Chernobyl. I imagine Chernobyl will be TOTALLY quiet for practically the whole day--or for decades!
This was a good photo essay (although not artistic enough to be considered the best or anything). Perhaps the most interesting thing coming out of Chernobyl wil be the mutated animals. I have no idea what is going on with the animals in that area. It would be interesting to see if some new future organisms evolve under radiation.
Canada (Ontario) has had cost problems with their nuclear reactors as well. Our reactors went down for maintenance or something and they still havent' come back online. They are several years late and several billions over budget. Right now, Ontario faces a dilemma about these nuclear reactors: do you pump several billions more to bring them back up (we still don't know how much we need to spend) or somehow manage to phase out their usage (resulting in increased coal power usage)?
When I was younger (teens:) ) I was more optimistic about nuclear power. These days, I think they are totally useless. I would rather spend billions on some other alternative energy (say developing batteries to store huge quantities of solar energy, or something).
Anyone that thinks the primary motive for going to the moon is military dominance should put away their UFO cover up books and read a history book instead.
I think it's YOU who needs to read history books. Anyone with any understanding of politics and history would know that past imperialism (by Britain for example) was driven by similar strategy. Namely, expand and capture land/resources. Britain, France, and others ventured far away from their homeland to what is called Middle East now, Asia, and AFrica to contain their opponents (their opponents being each other).
The new imperialism, taken on by USA after the collapse of British colonialism, is no different. USA would gain strategic advantage with the moon.
Modern US imperialist policy and British imperialist policy are quite similar. The policy documents are almost as if written by the same people (this shouldn't be surprising given that the imperialists who control USA look up to British imperialists as their role models). The euphamism preached by the imperialists just uses different language. The point is the same. Instead of Britain invading others to "educate the savages", USA is invading others to "bring democracy". Similar to how the British attempted to conquer whole of Asia and failed, USA is attempting to conquer space--and will fail.
It is funny how you ask others to go and check history when in fact, it is you who needs to check the history books... You imply the present policies are without precedent; I claim otherwise. The only difference is that we are talking about space. Two hundread years ago, invading Africa and Asia would have been thought unlikely, just like how conquering space is dissmissed by many as too hard, too unrealistic, and so forth.
These people know that if we choose to escalate this war into total warfare against the larger target (the Arab world, for example) that they cannot win and in fact, face the a high risk of losing their entire civilization.
Actually it's the opposite. Groups like Al-Qaeda would LIKE to have a clash. Usama bin Laden has been trying to set traps for USA to fall into (in particuarl, force USA to invade Saudi Arabia and hence start a holy war).
It serves the interest of small groups, like Al-Qaeda, to escalate the war.
There can be questions that are insightful. A question may reveal the true nature of something than the answer or some description. A lot of philosophical questions are insightful. I don't know if these are good examples but here are some:
Why is the point of living?
What is beyond the universe?
Slashdot Mirror
As for social services, welfare, universal medical insurance - fuck 'em. In Texas we pay our own bills and we don't like those hippie queer faggots like Kerry telling us what to do with our hard-earned money.
I'll bet more conservatives are AGAINST space exploration than liberals. Most conservatives want private organizations (read: corporations) running things. According to most conservatives, public science is nothing more than welfare for the intellectuals.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Maybe he could be sent on a one-way trip ;) The problem with manned mission has always been getting off the surface of Mars. This might solve it... j/k ;)
Sivaram Velauthapillai
There was a terrorist bombing in Spain which killed hundreads of people :( I think the Adolf-Hitler-wannabe troll is referring to that :(
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Needless to say, the article is severly biased against Microsoft. The biggest difference between linux and Windows is that Windows is easy to use whereas linux isn't. As of now, Windows is also more innovative than linux (I'm talking about the desktop side; linux servers are better). People always bash MS for innovation but Windows has a lot of things linux doesn't. Desktops like KDE and Gnome are light years behind Windows right now.
Lastly, and most importantly, Windows has massive number of applications. Linux is seriously lacking in this respect. This difference isn't really due to Windows architecture or anything, but nevertheless it is what seperates the two.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
You don't understand the political system. Under British-style systems (Canada is one; others include Isreal, India, etc), YOU, as a voter, votes for the PARTY--not the politician!!! Some people are under the mistaken notion that they vote for the representative politician. That is not the case. If you like some politician in your riding but don't like his party, they you should vote for the party's nominee instead of the guy you like. That's how the system works.
If you look at the system with that understanding it makes more sense. You complain about the vote of confidence but that makes sense since the population votes for the party. If the MPs don't like their own party, it's time to elect a new party (and hence a new election). This is actually more democratic IMO, although it depends on what views you subscribe to. For instance, it is easier to kick out our Prime Minister (say he becomes a dictator) than in USA (where the President is super powerful and is largely left to his own).
Speaking as a Canadian, as far as I'm concerned, the main flaws in the Canadian system that I would like to change are:
Can you imagine what the American's whould do to a president that violated the constitution to ram a fucking 7% sales tax bill.... ???
That is not really abuse of the Constitution. Canadian Constitution does not say that the tax is illegal. What was done is legal. No one broke any law... In any case, US Constitution is abused far more by the executive branch (President) than the Canadian Constitution.
You can argue over whether one should be voting for a party or for a representative politician but that comes down to your preference for the underlying philosophies. I personally prefer British-style systems because one knows EXACTLY what an MP represents. For instance, you can be pretty sure a Liberal is somewhere on the center-left, while a Conservative is somewhere on the center-right, and an NDP is on the left. In US-style systems, USA for example, you have no idea what a politician represents. In fact, US politicians keep changing their views to conform to those with power (usually elites and corporations). In this sense, US politicians are far more corrupt than Canadian ones. If you don't believe me, ask some American who knows about econopolitics. There are far more disgruntled voters in USA than in Canada. This is precisely bec
How do you guys handle trolls? What's to stop me (though I'm not a troll) from deleting all the information and replacing them with junk?
Have you had anything like that happen on a large scale? Say a large attack by some "hackers" or something?
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Yes, scientists are as close minded as anyone. However, they follow the path of science. Therefore, they mean SOMETHING.
As far as cold fusion is concerned, I'm neither a scientist nor have I read much in this area (layperson knowledge), but you are right: there is something happening. BUT the opinion of the scientific community is that it isn't cold fusion. It is some other phenomenon. I think we'll discover that it is something new (something we don't understand well right now); however, it isn't cold fusion.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Evolution scientists tend to suffer from what's called circular reasoning. A piece of evidence appears. Because we believe in evolution, this evidence must mean X. X supports evolution. Therefore evolution must be true. Logicians shake heads sadly.
/does/ exist, and your (observable, repeatable) experience of God is that everything he says is completely reliable, then accepting Genesis 1 in literal form is not difficult. (bolded by me)
What you are saying is the whole BASIS of science--not just theory of evolution. The way we explain gravity (or curvature of spacetime) is the same: see objects being attracted to each other->develop theory. This is also how we view genetics and human traits to be stemming from DNA: observe DNA molecule->develop DNA theory. And so on.
In any case, what you are saying isn't really circular reasoning because science involves testing and experimentation. THis experimentation (i.e. empirical observations) means that science isn't really circular logic. You are totally missing this step.
If you believe developing a theory based on observation is "circular logic", you clearly do not follow the path of science.
However, if you assume God
How exactly are you observing God? How are these things repeatable?
Sivaram Velauthapillai
lol heheh... hilarious :) Maybe it's just me but that was funny as hell... ahh yes, the joys of surfing at -1 :)
Sivaram Velauthapillai
I would rather have EVERYONE check each other than only large corporations (or wealthy elites) have the capability.
;), I can get this information).
NOTE: Everything I say is only about things that can be accessed by any wealthy individual or a corporation. I am TOTALLY AGAINST some entity, say the government, collecting new information. Everything I speak of is with regards to existing "personal information". I am not in favour of letting people spy on each other with totally private information (eg. your medical records).
Right now, large corporations and welathy elites (usually by hiring private "specialists") can check someone's SIN (Social Insurance Number) number and things like that. Basically any corporation can do this. In contrast, the typical citizen cannot do these things. This is very unfair for the average person. If I start a bogus business, I can check someone's SIN number but if I don't have a business I can't. What sort of lunacy is this? Obviously no one has said anything about this issue because the clueless masses have no idea what is going on.
By lowering the cost for doing these things, the average person can start spying on each other. This sounds bad on the surface but it is good (no, this isn't some Orweillian double-think at work). The best world is when you have absolute privacy or no privacy!!! Anything in between can be manipulated (usually by so-called "authorities" who are just a bunch of elites).
If someone can spy on me, or access my "personal information*" then I want to spy on them in return. This is only fair!!!!!!!!
I realize that what I said sounds dumb... but think about it.
Sivaram Velauthapillai (* Note that so-called personal information is not very personal since anyone (businesses, wealthy people, etc) can access them. Your SIN number, for example, is NOT private. You might think it is safe but it's not. If I was rich, or had contacts, or ran the country
Author was way off*. Open source software is closer to socialism than anything, while proprietary software is pretty much capitalism. If you don't think so, look at the philsophies underpinning both of these:
--Socialism--
Egalitarian
Communal
Sharing/common good
--Capitalism--
Elitist
Driven by profits
No such thing as a common good
If you look at these traits, you would find that open-source software is closer to socialism and proprietary software is closer to capitalism. That's economics.
If you look at the political dimension, you would find that both open-source software and proprietary software are libertarian (to a large degree).
So to sum up, open-source software would be libertarian+socialism** while proprietary software (as exemplified by Microsoft) would be libertarian+capitalism. This basically means that, under the political compass two dimensional system, open-source software would be near the bottom left, while the proprietary one would be the bottom right.
(* The confusion over proprietary software and capitalism arises because Microsoft is thought to be a monopoly by some. Because of that, some people (namely capitalists) don't consider MS to be capitalist. These capitalists would argue that capitalism needs free markets and perfect competition. My theory is that free markets lead to monopolies or oligopolies and if this is true then these capitalists' reasoning is baseless. This is exactly what happened in the case of MS. MS was a small company competing under perfect competition at one time. It simply monopolized the market like all businesses attempt to. Therefore, one CAN consider MS to be capitalist, even though it has monopolize many of its markets)).
(** When I say libertarian+socialism, I'm not talking about libertarian socialism (which is anarchism), although it is close. Open-source software is not anarchist because there are rules (the existence of copyrights means that the person who wrote the software has more power than someone who did not. Under anarchism, you wouldn't have this situation because copyrights do not generally exist under many anarchist systems. If open-source software had no copyrights (i.e. author who wrote it has no more rights than someone who did not write it), then open-source software can be considered anarchist. From my view, public domain software is basically anarchist)).
Sivaram Velauthapillai
That and Marx basing his entire model on the assumption that economics is a zero-sum game - in other words, no one can get rich without "stealing" from someone - usually the "workers".
I don't expect a capitalist like you to understand this but the economy IS a zero sum game from a socialist perspective. The profits that you generate is at the expense of SOMETHING. Usually this 'something' is workers, the environment, or power. Obviously capitalists don't consider these things in their theory. For instance, capitalism attaches a cost of ZERO to pollution*.
Furthermore, capitalists have a habit of sacrificing the future for the present via debt. Capitalist countries have massive debts and are leveraged beyond belief.
It's also funny how you refer to Martha Stewart. She is probably more capitalist than anyone here. She is almost the poster girl of capitalism (until her recent troubles of course). Don't believe me? Grab any business or capitalist magazine/article/whatever from the past and see.
* I'm not talking about cases where there is government intervention (such as fines for polluting above some limit). I'm talking about general markets.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Actually SOME wars do have to do with democracy. Examples include French Revolution, American Revolution, as well as nearly all independence movements. The people starting the wars (usually some sort of rebels) clearly is fighting to establish democracy of some sort...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
I guess Florida has another problem, other than election irregularities ;)
Sivaram Velauthapillai
How about the California energy crisis? In that case, both of these things (corporations charging high prices, and corporations refusing to provide power) happened. But, since California is rich (in the sense that they can borrow huge quantities of debt) they had no problem. In poorer countries the citizens end up without the power (or whatever resource you look at). Just look up issues related to resources held by corporations in poor countries (epsecially things like water, which is more valuable than energy in those countries).
I can understand how you wouldn't understand any of this. You are probably an armchair capitalist who thinks it is not in the interest of corporations to monopolize their markets and charge high prices.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
See... that's the difference between you and me. You subscribe to a Darwinist view; I don't. I believe we can build a peaceful world. You obviously gave up on peace a long time ago.
Why can't we prevent someone--anyone--from taking over the world?
I believe people like you are on your last breath. Imperialism is dying. Your life and your whole meaning behind existence is under threat. Enjoy it while it lasts. It will become more and more difficult for one entity to take over the world--and I'm glad for that. You obviously are still living in the past.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
The closest thing to silence I experienced (in Canada) was due to the recent blackout in Ontario (and Northeast USA). Everything was so quiet. I remember lying outside at night and there wasn't any noise for a while (there WAS some noise once in a while due to sirens and some cars). But it was still nice.
Having said that, this clearly does not compare to Chernobyl. I imagine Chernobyl will be TOTALLY quiet for practically the whole day--or for decades!
This was a good photo essay (although not artistic enough to be considered the best or anything). Perhaps the most interesting thing coming out of Chernobyl wil be the mutated animals. I have no idea what is going on with the animals in that area. It would be interesting to see if some new future organisms evolve under radiation.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
lol heh
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Canada (Ontario) has had cost problems with their nuclear reactors as well. Our reactors went down for maintenance or something and they still havent' come back online. They are several years late and several billions over budget. Right now, Ontario faces a dilemma about these nuclear reactors: do you pump several billions more to bring them back up (we still don't know how much we need to spend) or somehow manage to phase out their usage (resulting in increased coal power usage)?
:) ) I was more optimistic about nuclear power. These days, I think they are totally useless. I would rather spend billions on some other alternative energy (say developing batteries to store huge quantities of solar energy, or something).
When I was younger (teens
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Anyone that thinks the primary motive for going to the moon is military dominance should put away their UFO cover up books and read a history book instead.
I think it's YOU who needs to read history books. Anyone with any understanding of politics and history would know that past imperialism (by Britain for example) was driven by similar strategy. Namely, expand and capture land/resources. Britain, France, and others ventured far away from their homeland to what is called Middle East now, Asia, and AFrica to contain their opponents (their opponents being each other).
The new imperialism, taken on by USA after the collapse of British colonialism, is no different. USA would gain strategic advantage with the moon.
Modern US imperialist policy and British imperialist policy are quite similar. The policy documents are almost as if written by the same people (this shouldn't be surprising given that the imperialists who control USA look up to British imperialists as their role models). The euphamism preached by the imperialists just uses different language. The point is the same. Instead of Britain invading others to "educate the savages", USA is invading others to "bring democracy". Similar to how the British attempted to conquer whole of Asia and failed, USA is attempting to conquer space--and will fail.
It is funny how you ask others to go and check history when in fact, it is you who needs to check the history books... You imply the present policies are without precedent; I claim otherwise. The only difference is that we are talking about space. Two hundread years ago, invading Africa and Asia would have been thought unlikely, just like how conquering space is dissmissed by many as too hard, too unrealistic, and so forth.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
These people know that if we choose to escalate this war into total warfare against the larger target (the Arab world, for example) that they cannot win and in fact, face the a high risk of losing their entire civilization.
Actually it's the opposite. Groups like Al-Qaeda would LIKE to have a clash. Usama bin Laden has been trying to set traps for USA to fall into (in particuarl, force USA to invade Saudi Arabia and hence start a holy war).
It serves the interest of small groups, like Al-Qaeda, to escalate the war.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Just KNOWING we could drop a rock on, say, Syria, would do a lot to keep that country in line in the smaller things.
How does that exactly work given that the terrorists are not allied with any country?
Esp. when we can create a nuclear explosion without the nasty radioactive fallout.
This is totally irrelevant to terrroists, who has no home bases of any sort.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
There can be questions that are insightful. A question may reveal the true nature of something than the answer or some description. A lot of philosophical questions are insightful. I don't know if these are good examples but here are some:
Why is the point of living?
What is beyond the universe?
Sivaram Velauthapillai
I will guarantee you that you will change your view over time. The "different" parties that you cherish will end up looking like the same...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
I kind of get what you are saying... but still not 100% sure...
What do you think humans are? Do you think animals (other than humans) have free will?
Sivaram Velauthapillai