ParanoiA

Interesting take. And this is exactly the kind of strategizing that most of us american citizens do not understand. This is kind of what I was eluding to earlier, in that international military politics and the seriousness of the consequences requires a tactical, pragmatic approach rather than an idealist forum junky's approach. I guess that takes the fun out of it, but it's really annoying to see posts by folks who judge military strategy as if they were a general themselves.

Ok, that makes sense. I remember seeing "asdfsd" or something like that and I assumed it was some kind of chat lingo slang. Sorry to stray from the topic.

Pangloss - What happend to the post where someone said "It is you that does not understand"? You've been kinda cranky here lately. I was also a little surprised to see you close the Peak Oil thread. Of course, he did seem a little fanatical.

Everybody else – I just thought I’d go through some of these quotes so as not to appear disingenuous to the debate. Notice how he actually typed out the difference while not noticing it. Whether or not it is moral DEPENDS on the circumstance. So, therefore, you cannot conclude that: Of course they contradict. He’s removed the partition. What is acceptable out-group is NOT acceptable in-group. This is very fundamental psychology here. Notice his continued obsession with morality. Every statement equals or does not equal moral behavior. Weird. Notice how he concluded that I believe natural = moral, even though I never said it. I said what is natural = good. I’ve been consistent that morality is man made concept to cooperate in groups – I never said it was consistent or didn’t contradict itself. Of course it does, we are contradictory creatures. Nature contradicts itself too. Next he’s going to lecture mother nature on how illogical the ecosystem is. Another problem is he’s fallen into is the Scholastic Fallacy trap. For those of you unfamiliar with this fallacy, it’s when you infer ignorant deductions from statements and build asinine logical conclusions from it – usually a result of too much scholastic worship. Here’s an example: 1) Rabbits having sex with dogs is not wrong, therefore 2) interspecies sexuality is good 3) Technocrat is not wrong So, basically Technocrat wants to have sex with rabbits and dogs. Notice how he never said that, but I was able to build a little logical ladder to make it so. Actually it’s a bad example, but I didn’t have much to work with because Technocrat doesn’t offer many opinions of his own. Probably because he knows how easy it is to create a logical absurdity out of just about any statement made by just about anybody. And yet he writes a short novel of a counter-post in honor of them. Gee…I haven’t threatened his intellect have I? Here’s the Scholastic Fallacy again. Only this time he proudly displays his ignorance by suggesting perhaps we ought not do what we’ve done for 5 million or so years. He thinks his professor would be proud of his inferred “Ought” from an “Is”, when in this case, an Ought inference would be correct. Yes, I believe we “Ought” to do what we’ve been doing for millions of years. Dominating and spreading their DNA “Ought” to be done. This is part of natural selection. He almost makes a point worth noting here, except the Is/Ought’s I put forth, actually Ought to be done. Logic is also over-rated. Cherry picking is useful. I don’t want to have sex with every female on the planet. I just want to have sex with nice looking ones. That’s not logical. Sex with an ugly one might be better – and both results in reproduction. I’d rather not find out. I’ll let Technocrat have them since he’s so obsessed with being logically consistent. Facts? What facts did I present? I suppose I presented a couple throughout my opinion presentation. But he doesn’t list any, so I guess he just wanted to throw in another bullet. Again he’s a dog chasing his tail because he made an assumption based on the Scholastic Fallacy. It’s almost as fun watching him do it here as watching my dog in the back yard. I never mentioned anything about right or wrong. Yet another mindless conclusion brought on by the Scholastic Fallacy. In case anyone is wondering, I like the cooperative in-group rules we have developed. I prefer my wife and children not be raped and killed. I also like my stuff and would prefer it not be stolen. I think those kinds of things are wrong. They are also natural. And natural = good. Not good for me, mind you, but good for the system. A system that arguably is responsible for our very existence. How stupid I would be to doubt it, or assume I'm more enlightened. I would love to go on, but I have to get to work eventually.

Technorat Wow, I've never met someone so thick. You are a perfect example of text book smarts with no common sense. I'm sorry you don't see the obvious partition between applying your silly "morals" to humans and applying them to the rest of the ecosystem. By all means, continue on with your circular logical patterns you worship so much. Ignore the obvious contradictions in nature and pretend you're above it all with your human wisdom. You're completely obsessed with morality. You spend a thousand words to say something so simple. You complicate the uncomplicated. Typical of humans with too much time on their hands. You also feel the need to insult to get your point across. I guess if your opinions don't have much weight that's probably all you have left. My opinions have been restated here time and again. The only troll in this room is the new guy with 9 posts but quite comfortably all settled in...hmmm. I suspect you're a banned poster that started a new account. And you're obviously picking up right where you left off, condemning yourself to exclusion once again. I have nothing left to add on the subject. I prefer to debate with adults that can handle discussion without pissing all over themselves...silly talking monkey.

Ok, I have a question. This depression you speak of...I'm assuming this would be a global thing right? I mean, all developed countries use it, so I would assume everyone would suffer equally. Or, is it theorized that perhaps some of America's enemies would use the event to strike us? Or, do we have enough in reserves that our military could defend us full scale?

Technocrat Let's try it like this... 1) Morality is cool for human packs to get along with each other. They make up this concept and call it "morality" since nobody is going to cooperate in the group if person A rapes and murders person B. This is natural in-group out-group psychology. It is part of the building blocks of pack animals. We are pack animals. Got it? Cool...now go to number two... 2) In the animal kingdom, some animals eat other animals. It is quite natural too. It might look scary and mean, but that's life and death on this crazy rock. The ecosystem depends on this behavior actually. Stuff like natural selection, mutations, best mate...those kinds of things are necessary to perpetuate and maintain the existence of a given species. Now, it would not be good to apply the logic of 1 onto 2 because nature needs things to eat each other and all kinds of other stuff in order for 2 to work. It's also not good to apply the logic of 2 onto 1 because then the groups won't cooperate and humans would be solo predators - or in that case, prey. We wouldn't last long. And there you have it. Now, you're a grown up right? You know that there are no absolutes in this world? Humans still kill and rape other humans, violating the implied cooperative agreement. And some animals defy their predatory impulses as well - like the Leopard that protected a baby Baboon after killing its mother. But neither side carries the full potential of that violation. So don't use ignorant arguments like that in the future ok? I just have no need for bullshit like morality. If a human preys upon another human, I see that as a perfectly natural act. They're doing what they're programmed to do. But that's not going to be acceptable if they are going to live among our group, and benefit - so punishment is necessary. See...we really are just talking monkeys after all.

Here's this paragraph again since you missed it the first time. Now you can see why your point number 1 was silly. I know it's tough for you to take. But nature does not give a rat's ass about what you think is bad. Death, birth, rape, murder, social structures... We're not the only one's that contradict ourselves for self interest. Wolves commit disgusting acts of violence on other wolves and non-wolves - but don't commit these same acts within the pack. This is similar to how we commit disgusting acts of violence on others, humans and animals, but not within our own packs. I love pointing out the obvious and watching people argue around it. You can mix my words around all you want, but it doesn't change the state of affairs. I don't believe in the naturalistic fallacy so you'll have to argue it yourself, rather than point to a pre-packaged argument.

Technocrat I'm not going to bother pasting all of the quotes since we disagree on morality. The answer is yes. I do believe it is better for the animal kingdom to rape, kill, beat the shit of each other, all that stuff. To me, what is natural equals good - not necessarily for me personally, but good for the system as a whole. That's how it's built. You're not going to shock me into changing that philosophy. Morality though? That's a man made concept so that we can live in cooperative groups and advance our quality of life by not acting on our natural instincts to murder and rape each other. You and IMM and others, seem to see humans as these above average intelligent creatures capable of so much benevolence yet doing so much harm. I see humans as these above average intelligent creatures capable of so much selfish malevolence yet doing so much positive. We are actually built to be the savages of nature's nightmares. Yet we are nice enough to appreciate a cute, fluffy animal and take it home and get to know it a little bit and be nice to it. Then we learn a little more about it and begin to appreciate even more of the creatures around us - even the ugly icky ones. And on and on.. I'm surprised we're as nice as we are. I try to appreciate that and understand that it's probably humans going through a positive transition - that has to be slowwww - evolution doesn't have anywhere to be ya know...

It doesn't prevent me from understanding it, it prevents me from accepting its relevance. Besides, I answered the OP. There is no way to occupy Iraq successfully to the juvenile expectations of our civilians.

And what appauls me is the total lack of historical perspective and awareness of history and the region by everybody else. Who in their right mind thought that people wouldn't die daily by insurgents during an occupation? Assassination? You're joking right? You don't think that whole country wouldn't come unglued after beheading its leader with no apparent force behind it? You think it's bad now... I think there were mistakes in that regard - but I think most of them are misunderstood by us - us as in this forum. It's one thing to talk politics in here - but military strategy? Come on. None of us know a damn thing about what we're talking about. These strategies aren't thought up by Bush and Cheyney over tea. These strategies are carefully laid out by intelligent military personnel, some young, some old, all impressive tacticions and leaders - not the idiots we elect for office. They just take the credit or the blame. I don't believe there is a person in this forum, as well as myself, who knows anything about handling this kind of conflict anywhere in the world - let alone Iraq.

Well, sure we completely suck at enforcing order there. But I think that's because we approach it from a western mentallity - trying to be fair and only kill combatants and so forth. If we did it like most of the regimes in that region, we'd just slaughter everything that moves and install fear large scale. I guess I just don't see the point in the OP. It doesn't really matter if we're failing the occupation or not - Saddam still had to go. Since we're being blunt, to the US, it's better the people of Iraq suffer terrorism day after day than the US. Especially considering the WMD's that he had 6 months to hide and/or smuggle out of the country. As far as honesty is concerned, let's not kid ourselves into believing none of it had to do with oil either. Do people deserve to die so we can have oil? Do people deserve to die so we can type on these really neato computers and debate about it? I would have rather seen us withdraw completely from that region after sept 11 - except for the hunt for Bin Laden. I would have prefered to give them the proverbial middle finger and withdraw all support, citizens and infrastructure - everything. I would have rather spent billions on the anti-ballistic missle program and ramp up military spending and physically secure all borders to the country. I would have rather done all that, and then use the UN to pursue Saddam. And I wouldn't have mentioned a thing about WMD's.

The war was already won. We're in "occupation" mode right now, trying to establish order and authority - which is what governments do. There's no smooth way to do that. It will always be nasty business trying to install order - unless you have the people's support. The US doesn't have that. They have alot of people support, but not enough that the insurgents are baseless. They have a constituency, and of course a ton of funding and support from Iran. This is the middle east. All regimes and governments in that region of the world have gone through this. Now you see why Saddam ruled with such a cruel hand. The people on this part of the globe are a fiesty bunch that would happily cut off their nose despite their face - and they're divided into groups that hate each other. There's no reason to think this would be anything less than what it is right now. We're doing quite well, considering...

Well, see this paradox is brought up in the context prior to Einstein's contributions, he was only 16. We were still on Newtonian laws at this point. I don't see what is so paradoxical about traveling the same speed as a moving object, thereby making the object appear stationary. There must be more to what Maxwell stated for any "paradox" to emerge.

Yeah, but they'll never stop heckling us. Whoever the superpower is, gets all the blame for the world's problems.

Very good quote. Why do people spend so much time trying to convince americans of stuff like this, rather than the Islamofacist murder clubs? Americans don't start trouble, they finish it. When our towers were struck and all of those multi-national people died, we took the gloves off and got involved. America doesn't do things like the rest of the world. We're not interested in appeasing terrorism and giving them hope with dialoge and legislative change - effectively breathing life into Islamic extremist murderers. We're not interested in playing terror games with them for a hundred freakin' years like the rest of the world apparently enjoys. I think that's why everyone gets so appauled at our actions. They just can't conceive of being tough on these gangster idiots. They're all used to working with them and supposedly "understanding" and "listening" to their enemy - which is why the enemy never goes away and has gotten stronger and stronger over the decades. Islamic extremism has a lot to learn from Martin Luther King Jr. Too bad they're not listening...

Ok, I'm a little confused by Maxwell's paradox associated with light always traveling at light speed. Supposedly, Einstein pondered the state of affairs if we chased a beam of light at light speed, thereby causing the light beam to "appear" stationary. The question I have is, how is that a paradox? Just seems like common sense to me. We don't even need light to recreate the paradox. How about a car? If a car is traveling at 5 miles per hour, and I run 5 miles per hour along side it, then it will appear stationary relative to me. In both scenarios the car and the light are still traveling at their respective speeds, but I'm just running along with them. A crucial point, yes, but I just don't see how that's a "paradox". Am I missing something?

Well, my direct democracy bid comes from more of a distrust of politicians rather than a trust in the people. But good catch nonetheless.

Actually, I re-read your post after I posted mine and realized that I had misinterpreted your "euphemism" comment. I was getting the idea that you wanted to discourage them symbolically, without any real backbone behind it - hence a poetic use of "euphemism". And I understand what you're going for in the Great Satan and Axis of Evil, but keep in mind, one is in response decades after the other, and only after an attack we could no longer ignore. I've never understood the glee in pointing out how we are similar to our enemies. As if, this somehow makes us wrong, or makes them right. It just reminds us we're all human. And it blurrs the line for the weak minded.

Good point, and hard to argue around it. Direct democracy in the current mindset of Americans would be dangerous internationally. But Athens did prosper quickly and enviously under that government, and was a noble attempt, even though it ended badly.

Do you always sympathize with your enemies? Of course it's an entirely rational belief that a nuclear deterrant could prevent us from invading. Of course they're justified in nuclear ambition. Of course they say we're a big threat, we are. We threaten any dirty rotten regime that has the lack of scruples to do business with terrorists. All facts. There is no black and white, good or evil - objectively speaking. Objectivity has no place here though, Sisyphus. Subjectivity is the order here. Objectivity is for god. There are only maybe a small handful of wars fought in the history of mankind, where one side was clearly just wrong. 99% of them are loaded with gray. Everybody has their reasons and they all think theirs is the righteous one. Such is the struggle between intelligent predators. I have no interest in any country on the entire globe having a nuclear weapon - including my own. And I could care less about how "unfair" it is for Iran and NK to not be allowed nukes. Who are you going to appeal to when they send nukes flying because they're even less disciplined and psychotic than we are? How are you going to sleep at night knowing you could have stopped a multi-million person mass murder, but you were too busy being "euphamisticly discouraging" rather than doing what needed to be done? I don't see anything pragmatic about letting a continent of grownups and little kids laid to waste in nuclear genocide because "we don't want to look like bullies".

You have been reading, but not comprehending still I see... I just don't have the energy to repost everything I already said in hopes you might understand me this time. You're still stuck on this idea that somehow if I see us and them as the predators we all are, that somehow that makes me malevolent or drunk with power, being compared to 3rd world dictatorships. Since when does knowledge equal intent? If I acknowledge that I'm more powerful than an ant, that suddenly makes me the oppressor of ants? Like I said before, when you realize the difference between knowing your role and playing your role...

Which is a perfect description...

Ok, this is getting flat out ridiculous. The point is simple. Regardless of right or left wing philosophies, a non-mandatory test to weed out liars and thieves is a good idea. Period. I don't think that makes "aguy2" a liar or thief, himself, because he supports not having liars and thieves in office. Sounds like you might be listening to a bit too much Rush...