I just got done reading Philip Dick's Vulcan's Hammer, where a rogue AI starts manufacturing little flying spy robots. That perch.
Can I not read ONE sci-fi novel without someone trying to make it a hideous reality?
Maybe that's why Hollywood is pumping out the PKD films like there's no tomorrow... to prepare us for the pink mind-control lasers. And the flapples. I still don't know what an effing flapple is, and I have gobs of PKD novels and short stories sitting around my conapt.
Somewhat relieved to hear that others had the same problem with the Elder Scrolls. A friend of mine was watching me play and said "Why do you pick up every single alchemical ingredient like some kind of demented vacuum cleaner?"
The houses in Morrowind were never large enough, I ended up using the toolset to build myself a lair for my ill-gotten loot.
My killer combo in that game was Boots of Blinding Speed + Hide of the Apostle + Daedric Crescent. It was like Worf meets the Flash.
I'd still be playing Oblivion if it didn't crash on my system every ten to thirty minutes.
I believe we were created by god, to evolve.
Obviously, thousands of years ago, we were different, but evolved to what we are today.
What's interesting, is when I say that, depending on which side of the creationism/evolution debate you are on, sparks controversy from both sides;)
Actually, I've been saying this for years.
I know the uber-militant-atheists will storm you with their cold, steely, just-as-unprovable-assumptions, but just ignore them. Hardcore militant atheists are just as annoying to average folk as the hardcore militant fundamentalists. One is fundamentalist re: the Bible, the other fundamentalist re: radical materialism.
A quick analogy: If an astronaut lands on an unexplored planet and finds intricate, complex crystals in strange formations that seem impossible to occur strictly naturally... these on an airless lifeless planet with no fossil record of life within the last few billion years, the investigation would not center on "omg did an alien put those here, and if they did, did they put it here with a machine or by hand?" Instead, given that the 'crime scene is several billion years old, it's a little hard to forensically put together who did what. In fact, it could be IMPOSSIBLE to determine whether ANY intelligence put them, or whether strange confluxes of mineralology or probability had brought them together.
From the other perspective. If you are out taking a stroll in a new area, and come across an old ruined house in the woods... Are you ready to "prove" it was built with Craftsman tools on the spot... or using prefabricated pieces? Oh, yes... it's UNPROVABLE.
My underlying point is this: Either with an airless rock in space, or an old ruined house... our energy is better spent dealing with 'hazards of an airless moon' or 'house restoration' than arguing over unprovables.
Don't assume I'm talking about evolution's unprovability -- actually I know quite a lot about paleontology for the average bear and have no delusions over the validity of the theory -- unless wild new evidence surfaces. But as to whether a God exists, especially a God concerned with free will... to whom provability DESTROYS the validity of free will / belief / faith.... that will HAVE to remain unprovable. Either proof would ensure nihilism's ultimate victory.
That's why you print it, THEN photocopy it, maybe with a slightly smudged plastic sheet over it. Using an old non-digital copier that you picked up out of someone's rubbish or bought with cash at a 2nd hand store. Then drop it in a public postbox in a crowded place. Use gloves. Don't let any part of you that contains DNA get into the envelope.
Did I miss any identifying factors?
Yes, you forgot to say if we're in a Tom Clancy novel or a William Gibson novel.
The movie "Impostor" really never even gets mentioned, and it was pretty damned faithful to the original story.
Dunno why certain movies, that are no less bad than the rest of Hollywood's... um... output... get passed over in the Public Attention Lottery.
(i.e. the film version of Vonnegut's "Breakfast of Champions"... all-star cast, fun performances, pretty close to original novel, and no press / attention whatsoever)
... but anyone that thinks we're living in ancient Greece and that our world is being projected onto our consciousness by benevolent aliens/gods has got to be at least a little bit crazy.
Has anyone really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like?
"Spin monkey banana for what utility said bacon robot add pixel word what?"
Because what i just said, makes nearly as much sense as what you just said. Sorry if that offends.
Oddly enough, when I finished posting this, the top banner ad was for something called "SpoofCard" that enables you to use fake Caller ID stuff. Irony, being served at high-speed via targeted ads.
Seriously, when I have had troubles with annoying spoofed-caller-ID telemarketers, I call the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) and file a formal complaint.
This has actually led to these people being BUSTED. Which delights me to no end.
They have an 800 number and are very polite. The more people who report this, the more chance that they will investigate and bust the offenders.
>Hells Bells, you know that the guy can't win with this crowd. Interestingly enough, GWB is
>simultaneously the stupidest president ever and is engineering a most Machiavellian evil
>plan to take over the world.
Um, no... GWB is an idiot, obviously a lush, obviously an inveterate fratboy redneck. The Machiavellian (sp?) plots are coming from his backers -- the Cheney/Rumsfeld/Rove and their corporate cronies, and some of these old men have been working on these plots since pre-Reagan times. It's like boiling a frog -- as long as you increase the temperature *slowly enough*, he won't notice until it's far too late.
>I will admit that he certainly seems to have been fairly ineffective--but I wonder how
>history will judge him. I personally just think that he's ineffectual because he speaks *as
>if* he's an idiot, which keeps him from being able to clearly communicate what he's trying
>to do. I wouldn't be surprised if he just had some sort of undiagnosed dyslexia or reading
>disorder.
Actually, I think I've read somewhere that it's almost provable that he's functionally illiterate, just based on the way he *routinely* garbles words. He is certainly ignorant of higher ethical concerns, or chooses to be.
>Either way, I will probably be relieved when Hillary's president--heaven knows that the
>Clinton cabal has never tried anything shifty.
Screw Hillary. She will never get elected, there are too many folks with a knee-jerk repulsion to her. And the Clintons WERE shifty. Just because the GOP is evil doesn't mean that the Dems are the *lesser* of the two evils. Sure, there is the occasional semi-honest president -- and they either get lambasted (i.e., Jimmy Carter) or shot (i.e., JFK).
By the way, if there ARE any committed liberal assassins out there, start by taking out the Carlyle Group, THEN get the idiot at the helm. Take out the true Axis of Evil before knocking the figurehead off the Death Ship.
(DISCLAIMER: Please note that I cannot personally endorse killing anyone, Mr. Secret Service Man, and I don't even own a gun and certainly would not even discuss plans for really assassinating anyone. Especially since you bastards took away Habeus Corpus.)
... because for some reason, I was thinking of extremophilic microorganisms in the shower today or the other day.
Someone mentioned that a chemical reaction from a bacterium couldn't catalyze a nuclear reaction -- true enough -- but I wonder if there is some way of having a quantum effect from a lifeform catalyze a nuclear reaction?
(Yes, I sort of like the Quantum Orchestrated Resonance theory of consciousness...)
This is a bit off-topic, but if you think that's a neat idea, maybe you should read a cool compilation called Shadows Over Baker Street, a collection of Sherlock Holmes / Lovecraft mashups. Elementary, my dear Randolph Carter.
Not meaning to be/sound like an ad, but hey hearing about these things can take time.
"Strike me down, and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine."
But you see, your way of thought is to strike down all foes, ideological, political, or even just those who like one show more than another.
And whether you believe in planning for our grandchildren and their grandchildren or not, and whether you believe in civility and tolerance or not, history's greatest atrocities have always come from the way of thinking that *you* espouse, not the way of thinking that I embrace.
All the snide comments and "superior" stances will in the end only prop up your hollow, materialistic, hateful soul in your own mind. Try dropping those rationalizations on the marginalized, the disenfranchised, the ripped-off, the starving, the homeless, the oppressed.
Reminds me of a scene from Illuminatus!, where the Discordian hero, Hagbard Celine, is still in law school... paraphrasing here, don't have the book handy (in middle of a move)...
The law professor asks the class, "So what is the core purpose of the legal system?"
Hagbard answers, "To protect the rich from the poor."
Ah, sorry, I didn't know there was a window manager called Enlightenment.
I kinda thought it was about the other kind of Enlightenment, which Mr. Wilson has been particularly fond of distributing...
Perhaps that is more enlightening?
And I'm delighted that his daughter reported that he now has rent for a while. Goddess bless all of you who gave your $23.05...
Now if we can only raise money to buy a nuclear submarine and paint it bright yellow and get the Illuminati on the run! That would be the REAL tribute to Robert...
BTW, Mr. Wilson, if you or someone you love is reading this, my newborn son's middle name is Robert... (although it's a joint tribute for both you and Mr. Heinlein... hope you don't mind sharing).
Yes, games are a terrible waste of our time and money, and a contributor to drinking, institutionalized violence, and selling sex!
It sucks billions and billions out of foolish peoples' pockets...
More riots, beatings, and other assorted violence take place because of games!
During games, people are exposed to repeated messages selling them alcohol and sex as well!
Did I mention that hundreds of pro and amateurs are permanently injured or killed playing these "harmless" games?
In fact, there are numerous studies proving that these games suck money away from vital education programs and game-players often score lower on standardized tests!
Yes, they are evil.
Wait a sec, we *are* talking about sports aren't we???... ooops!
... would be so much more cool than Star Wars Online, yano. I'd sure play it.
My most favorite LEGO minifig (besides classic space spacemen) is their rendition of Darth Vader...
While I agree with much of what you say, I take issue with this statement:
Dubya claiming to be "in communication with God" and then bombing civilians.
Can you tell me where Bush, or any other US President since Nixon intentionally bombed civilians?
I didn't think so.
... WOW. OMG Mister, you got me!! I guess there are no civilians in various villages (and um... Baghdad?) which we have missiled and cluster-bombed and submunitioned and minigunned.
And wow, I sure had time to come up with a counterexample there, I guess I couldn't respond by the time you were done typing that.
You must be one of the folks in that new edition of Who's Who In Trolling The Internet 2006 (Republican Idiot Edition).
HERE is the skinny. ANY TIME WE BOMB A CITY, CIVILIANS DIE. Bomb a city, bomb a village, bomb a factory, usually *innocent people* die.
That is the only truth. Sorry.
And before you go saying "Well then what about all those innocents in the Twin Towers," I am not defending killing innocents. Any fool knows that two wrongs don't make a right (unless they're using it as justification for an economic war of conquest).
God, this is why I want to move to Canada. It's not just that the less than 30% of American people are supporting evil due to stupidity. It's that they are stubbornly stupid, unwilling to evolve and reason like civilized folk, no matter how many times they've been fooled, lied to, and they just take it, smile, and DEFEND the people who are screwing the entire world over.
I am sure I will take some flak here for "ranting" or "pushing a political opinion," but I don't have to be a Democrat or liberal to hate, revile, and decry every piece of foolishness that the neoconservatives have perpetrated -- because there IS no other word for it.
More of us need to stand up, say "Screw civility and political correctness and what the neighbors might think," and speak the truth that most of us can see with our functional hearts and minds.
There is right and wrong, and face it... The Neoconservatives are WRONG. As wrong as Nazis, and give them enough power and they have the potential to be many times worse than the aforementioned National Socialist Party.
You can stand there ALL DAY and argue the devil's advocate. But tell me, by what moral codes are the following RIGHT?
Breaking the law by disenfranchising thousands of citizens by denying them their rights to vote.
Creating fabricated stories about other candidates.
Baldfaced lying about our intelligence in order to push for a war.
Invading and bombing soveriegn nations strictly to seize oil reserves.
Hmm, lying, cheating, and killing. Great leader you're supporting there... Name one moral code (besides anti-codes such as Satanism or nihilism or amorality) in which these are "good" or "right" actions.
Well, keep on supporting these treacherous murderous robber barons if you want, you are the one who has to live with the fallout. Unfortunately, so do the rest of us. But I can sleep secure in knowing that they are the actions of my enemy, and I did nothing to aid them or their sick regime.
It's funny, how there are legal cases against almost every character connected to the administration -- maybe they are not only morally bankrupt, but... LIABLE!
No, our best defense is to reduce the number of people who passionately hate us, and are willing to act on their anger. Killing them doesn't work--not on the scale that any reasonable person is willing to contemplate--because even the people who hate us are still people, people with families and friends who will learn hate as they watch us butcher their loved ones.
Interesting point. Let me extend this into a metaphor.
Let us pretend that cultures are like parents, and specific subsets/countries are like kids.
So one kid (Mark) comes over to the other kid's house (Chris) and decides to push over the nice LEGO tower that Chris has been using as his city's centerpiece for a while.
The parent then immediately starts beating Mark senseless, and sets Mark's parents' house on fire.
"... Wait a sec... that doesn't make any sense," you say. Mark obviously needs help. And indeed, Mark's parents are mostly poor (their rich uncle Sam-Albert and aunt Ulane don't count). So the best solution would be to get Mark (and his parents) help. Maybe alleviate their poverty, get them to counseling, etc. (not that this happens either in most personal cases, but that is beside my point.)
OK. So why do we destroy the infrastructure of a nation FILLED with NON-terrorists to stop terrorist? Every person who gets put out of their house or loses loved ones to our bombs becomes another potential (and likely!) new terrorist or terrorist supporter. And frankly, if some ruler of another country pulled some BS excuse to bomb the USA, and they killed ANYONE I cared about, I would fight them. So I understand.
As the Cuban guy in "Die Another Day" said, "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter."
The Revolutionary War Army in the Colonies? To the Brits of the eighteenth century, those brave patriots were *terrorists*.
Hey, do you know why Europe didn't turn into a seething mass of baby Hitlers after WWII? Oh yah, that's right, the Marshall Plan.
History is mostly written by idiots, unfortunately. That's why it's cyclical.
Slashdot Mirror
Or a ban on violently bad singers. That could kill off their Hasselhoff hassle.
I just got done reading Philip Dick's Vulcan's Hammer, where a rogue AI starts manufacturing little flying spy robots. That perch.
Can I not read ONE sci-fi novel without someone trying to make it a hideous reality?
Maybe that's why Hollywood is pumping out the PKD films like there's no tomorrow... to prepare us for the pink mind-control lasers. And the flapples. I still don't know what an effing flapple is, and I have gobs of PKD novels and short stories sitting around my conapt.
Somewhat relieved to hear that others had the same problem with the Elder Scrolls. A friend of mine was watching me play and said "Why do you pick up every single alchemical ingredient like some kind of demented vacuum cleaner?"
The houses in Morrowind were never large enough, I ended up using the toolset to build myself a lair for my ill-gotten loot.
My killer combo in that game was Boots of Blinding Speed + Hide of the Apostle + Daedric Crescent. It was like Worf meets the Flash.
I'd still be playing Oblivion if it didn't crash on my system every ten to thirty minutes.
To quote The Tick: "You're not going crazy, Arthur. You're going SANE in a CRAZY WORLD!!!"
I believe we were created by god, to evolve. Obviously, thousands of years ago, we were different, but evolved to what we are today. What's interesting, is when I say that, depending on which side of the creationism/evolution debate you are on, sparks controversy from both sides ;)
Actually, I've been saying this for years.
I know the uber-militant-atheists will storm you with their cold, steely, just-as-unprovable-assumptions, but just ignore them. Hardcore militant atheists are just as annoying to average folk as the hardcore militant fundamentalists. One is fundamentalist re: the Bible, the other fundamentalist re: radical materialism.
A quick analogy: If an astronaut lands on an unexplored planet and finds intricate, complex crystals in strange formations that seem impossible to occur strictly naturally ... these on an airless lifeless planet with no fossil record of life within the last few billion years, the investigation would not center on "omg did an alien put those here, and if they did, did they put it here with a machine or by hand?" Instead, given that the 'crime scene is several billion years old, it's a little hard to forensically put together who did what. In fact, it could be IMPOSSIBLE to determine whether ANY intelligence put them, or whether strange confluxes of mineralology or probability had brought them together.
From the other perspective. If you are out taking a stroll in a new area, and come across an old ruined house in the woods ... Are you ready to "prove" it was built with Craftsman tools on the spot ... or using prefabricated pieces? Oh, yes... it's UNPROVABLE.
My underlying point is this: Either with an airless rock in space, or an old ruined house... our energy is better spent dealing with 'hazards of an airless moon' or 'house restoration' than arguing over unprovables.
Don't assume I'm talking about evolution's unprovability -- actually I know quite a lot about paleontology for the average bear and have no delusions over the validity of the theory -- unless wild new evidence surfaces. But as to whether a God exists, especially a God concerned with free will ... to whom provability DESTROYS the validity of free will / belief / faith .... that will HAVE to remain unprovable. Either proof would ensure nihilism's ultimate victory.
That's why you print it, THEN photocopy it, maybe with a slightly smudged plastic sheet over it. Using an old non-digital copier that you picked up out of someone's rubbish or bought with cash at a 2nd hand store. Then drop it in a public postbox in a crowded place. Use gloves. Don't let any part of you that contains DNA get into the envelope. Did I miss any identifying factors?
Yes, you forgot to say if we're in a Tom Clancy novel or a William Gibson novel.
The movie "Impostor" really never even gets mentioned, and it was pretty damned faithful to the original story. Dunno why certain movies, that are no less bad than the rest of Hollywood's ... um... output... get passed over in the Public Attention Lottery.
(i.e. the film version of Vonnegut's "Breakfast of Champions"... all-star cast, fun performances, pretty close to original novel, and no press / attention whatsoever)
... but anyone that thinks we're living in ancient Greece and that our world is being projected onto our consciousness by benevolent aliens/gods has got to be at least a little bit crazy.
Yeah, like that lunatic Plato. What a schizo!
Has anyone really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like?
"Spin monkey banana for what utility said bacon robot add pixel word what?" Because what i just said, makes nearly as much sense as what you just said. Sorry if that offends.
Oddly enough, when I finished posting this, the top banner ad was for something called "SpoofCard" that enables you to use fake Caller ID stuff. Irony, being served at high-speed via targeted ads.
Seriously, when I have had troubles with annoying spoofed-caller-ID telemarketers, I call the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) and file a formal complaint. This has actually led to these people being BUSTED. Which delights me to no end. They have an 800 number and are very polite. The more people who report this, the more chance that they will investigate and bust the offenders.
And here I thought it was like when Benson got spun off of Soap.
>Hells Bells, you know that the guy can't win with this crowd. Interestingly enough, GWB is
>simultaneously the stupidest president ever and is engineering a most Machiavellian evil
>plan to take over the world.
Um, no... GWB is an idiot, obviously a lush, obviously an inveterate fratboy redneck. The Machiavellian (sp?) plots are coming from his backers -- the Cheney/Rumsfeld/Rove and their corporate cronies, and some of these old men have been working on these plots since pre-Reagan times. It's like boiling a frog -- as long as you increase the temperature *slowly enough*, he won't notice until it's far too late.
>I will admit that he certainly seems to have been fairly ineffective--but I wonder how
>history will judge him. I personally just think that he's ineffectual because he speaks *as
>if* he's an idiot, which keeps him from being able to clearly communicate what he's trying
>to do. I wouldn't be surprised if he just had some sort of undiagnosed dyslexia or reading
>disorder.
Actually, I think I've read somewhere that it's almost provable that he's functionally illiterate, just based on the way he *routinely* garbles words. He is certainly ignorant of higher ethical concerns, or chooses to be.
>Either way, I will probably be relieved when Hillary's president--heaven knows that the
>Clinton cabal has never tried anything shifty.
Screw Hillary. She will never get elected, there are too many folks with a knee-jerk repulsion to her. And the Clintons WERE shifty. Just because the GOP is evil doesn't mean that the Dems are the *lesser* of the two evils. Sure, there is the occasional semi-honest president -- and they either get lambasted (i.e., Jimmy Carter) or shot (i.e., JFK).
By the way, if there ARE any committed liberal assassins out there, start by taking out the Carlyle Group, THEN get the idiot at the helm. Take out the true Axis of Evil before knocking the figurehead off the Death Ship.
(DISCLAIMER: Please note that I cannot personally endorse killing anyone, Mr. Secret Service Man, and I don't even own a gun and certainly would not even discuss plans for really assassinating anyone. Especially since you bastards took away Habeus Corpus.)
... because for some reason, I was thinking of extremophilic microorganisms in the shower today or the other day.
Someone mentioned that a chemical reaction from a bacterium couldn't catalyze a nuclear reaction -- true enough -- but I wonder if there is some way of having a quantum effect from a lifeform catalyze a nuclear reaction?
(Yes, I sort of like the Quantum Orchestrated Resonance theory of consciousness...)
This is a bit off-topic, but if you think that's a neat idea, maybe you should read a cool compilation called Shadows Over Baker Street, a collection of Sherlock Holmes / Lovecraft mashups. Elementary, my dear Randolph Carter.
Not meaning to be/sound like an ad, but hey hearing about these things can take time.
"Strike me down, and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine."
But you see, your way of thought is to strike down all foes, ideological, political, or even just those who like one show more than another.
And whether you believe in planning for our grandchildren and their grandchildren or not, and whether you believe in civility and tolerance or not, history's greatest atrocities have always come from the way of thinking that *you* espouse, not the way of thinking that I embrace.
All the snide comments and "superior" stances will in the end only prop up your hollow, materialistic, hateful soul in your own mind. Try dropping those rationalizations on the marginalized, the disenfranchised, the ripped-off, the starving, the homeless, the oppressed.
One day, you could be one of them....
Spore could make me into a tree-hugging hippy? ... this is supposed to make me excited about the game?
Ah, no. In your case, it's supposed to make the REST of us excited about the game.
If only there was a weapon of mass enlightenment... sigh.
Reminds me of a scene from Illuminatus!, where the Discordian hero, Hagbard Celine, is still in law school... paraphrasing here, don't have the book handy (in middle of a move)...
The law professor asks the class, "So what is the core purpose of the legal system?"
Hagbard answers, "To protect the rich from the poor."
He gets thrown out of class, predictably enough.
Ah, sorry, I didn't know there was a window manager called Enlightenment.
I kinda thought it was about the other kind of Enlightenment, which Mr. Wilson has been particularly fond of distributing...
Perhaps that is more enlightening?
And I'm delighted that his daughter reported that he now has rent for a while. Goddess bless all of you who gave your $23.05...
Now if we can only raise money to buy a nuclear submarine and paint it bright yellow and get the Illuminati on the run! That would be the REAL tribute to Robert...
BTW, Mr. Wilson, if you or someone you love is reading this, my newborn son's middle name is Robert... (although it's a joint tribute for both you and Mr. Heinlein... hope you don't mind sharing).
Hail Eris!
All Hail Discordia!!
In other news:
Fossilized Slashdot Headlines Presented As Fresh News
Yes, games are a terrible waste of our time and money, and a contributor to drinking, institutionalized violence, and selling sex!
... ooops!
It sucks billions and billions out of foolish peoples' pockets...
More riots, beatings, and other assorted violence take place because of games!
During games, people are exposed to repeated messages selling them alcohol and sex as well!
Did I mention that hundreds of pro and amateurs are permanently injured or killed playing these "harmless" games?
In fact, there are numerous studies proving that these games suck money away from vital education programs and game-players often score lower on standardized tests!
Yes, they are evil.
Wait a sec, we *are* talking about sports aren't we???
... WOW. OMG Mister, you got me!! I guess there are no civilians in various villages (and um... Baghdad?) which we have missiled and cluster-bombed and submunitioned and minigunned.
And wow, I sure had time to come up with a counterexample there, I guess I couldn't respond by the time you were done typing that.
You must be one of the folks in that new edition of Who's Who In Trolling The Internet 2006 (Republican Idiot Edition).
HERE is the skinny. ANY TIME WE BOMB A CITY, CIVILIANS DIE. Bomb a city, bomb a village, bomb a factory, usually *innocent people* die.
That is the only truth. Sorry.
And before you go saying "Well then what about all those innocents in the Twin Towers," I am not defending killing innocents. Any fool knows that two wrongs don't make a right (unless they're using it as justification for an economic war of conquest).
God, this is why I want to move to Canada. It's not just that the less than 30% of American people are supporting evil due to stupidity. It's that they are stubbornly stupid, unwilling to evolve and reason like civilized folk, no matter how many times they've been fooled, lied to, and they just take it, smile, and DEFEND the people who are screwing the entire world over.
I am sure I will take some flak here for "ranting" or "pushing a political opinion," but I don't have to be a Democrat or liberal to hate, revile, and decry every piece of foolishness that the neoconservatives have perpetrated -- because there IS no other word for it.
More of us need to stand up, say "Screw civility and political correctness and what the neighbors might think," and speak the truth that most of us can see with our functional hearts and minds.
There is right and wrong, and face it... The Neoconservatives are WRONG. As wrong as Nazis, and give them enough power and they have the potential to be many times worse than the aforementioned National Socialist Party.
You can stand there ALL DAY and argue the devil's advocate. But tell me, by what moral codes are the following RIGHT?
Hmm, lying, cheating, and killing. Great leader you're supporting there... Name one moral code (besides anti-codes such as Satanism or nihilism or amorality) in which these are "good" or "right" actions.
Well, keep on supporting these treacherous murderous robber barons if you want, you are the one who has to live with the fallout. Unfortunately, so do the rest of us. But I can sleep secure in knowing that they are the actions of my enemy, and I did nothing to aid them or their sick regime.
It's funny, how there are legal cases against almost every character connected to the administration -- maybe they are not only morally bankrupt, but ... LIABLE!
No, our best defense is to reduce the number of people who passionately hate us, and are willing to act on their anger. Killing them doesn't work--not on the scale that any reasonable person is willing to contemplate--because even the people who hate us are still people, people with families and friends who will learn hate as they watch us butcher their loved ones.
Interesting point. Let me extend this into a metaphor.
Let us pretend that cultures are like parents, and specific subsets/countries are like kids.
So one kid (Mark) comes over to the other kid's house (Chris) and decides to push over the nice LEGO tower that Chris has been using as his city's centerpiece for a while.
The parent then immediately starts beating Mark senseless, and sets Mark's parents' house on fire.
"... Wait a sec... that doesn't make any sense," you say. Mark obviously needs help. And indeed, Mark's parents are mostly poor (their rich uncle Sam-Albert and aunt Ulane don't count). So the best solution would be to get Mark (and his parents) help. Maybe alleviate their poverty, get them to counseling, etc. (not that this happens either in most personal cases, but that is beside my point.)
OK. So why do we destroy the infrastructure of a nation FILLED with NON-terrorists to stop terrorist? Every person who gets put out of their house or loses loved ones to our bombs becomes another potential (and likely!) new terrorist or terrorist supporter. And frankly, if some ruler of another country pulled some BS excuse to bomb the USA, and they killed ANYONE I cared about, I would fight them. So I understand.
As the Cuban guy in "Die Another Day" said, "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter."
The Revolutionary War Army in the Colonies? To the Brits of the eighteenth century, those brave patriots were *terrorists*.
Hey, do you know why Europe didn't turn into a seething mass of baby Hitlers after WWII? Oh yah, that's right, the Marshall Plan.
History is mostly written by idiots, unfortunately. That's why it's cyclical.