Luke Skywalker wrote:
But you know that peace can never be solved without war. That's the biggest crock war-mongering rhetoric I've ever heard. Peace is the absense of war. If there is no war, there is, by definition, peace. Peace is the default state of affairs on any given planet, up until the moment war is waged. Peace is what happens when you stop warring. | |
Jotdaniel wrote:
and women will vote for her, becuase women vote for who they like, not for who they think would be the best president. As do black people (no offense intended). Something offensive followed by "no offense intended" is still offensive. | |
No, peace is a dream of those who fight. We want peace, but there are those who simply don't, so it is up to the people who fight to create peace. But I suppose youre right, can peace really be achieved by war?
| |
Yeah. I think alot of people vote simply for who they like, and not who they think will be a good president. Oh well, at least we don't have the robot as our president, but is Bush really better? <<cough>>no...
| |
Skysaw wrote:
Luke Skywalker wrote: I've never held this binary view of war and peace. I think conflict of any kind is inherent in everyday life. Peace is just when the level of conflict is very (or mostly) low; war is when the level of conflict is very high. Certainly our way of making war in the last few decades reflects this: More and more, wars are not declared, but smaller or longer engagements are fought as needed. Peace has also proven time and again throughout human history to be a temporary phenomenon. Sometimes it ends due to mutual hostility building up, sometimes by a one-sided war of aggression, and there are other causes of war as well. But this makes sense: People change and grow, new people are born and old ones die, leaders change, societies shift, conditions of day-to-day living change. Peace might be best compared to an economic boom, because both are positive situations and both are ultimately the result of complex interactions. They're also difficult to maintain, and outside factors can screw them up. Generally speaking, conflict demands resolution or compromise. The daily types of conflict we experience (think "he left the toilet seat up" kinds of things) are minor; they only escalate if they go ignored, except when they're things we "make peace" with by deciding purposely to just accept certain things as they are. Other types of conflict have to be dealt with too, such as in the extreme cases of war. Wars basically happen, I think, as a result of the need for resolution far outweighing any realistic chance (in the opinion of one or the other, not necessarily both) of negotiation. Sometimes the cost of war--in lives, material, and time--is enough to one side or both for them to reconsider the benefits of negotiation, and then they'll try to work out a way to end the war by other means. Lest I overcomplicate the thread by applying that view of things to our current war or its next theater, I'll leave the analogies at that. But basically, history shows that peace is a temporary--albeit laudable--condition, and usually the strongest peace comes out of the most decisive wars. Japan, for example, isn't bent on conquering the Pacific. Yet in the war before that, Germany negotiated a surrender that basically sowed the seeds of wounded pride, which were then ignored; not enough went into securing that peace, or maintaining it, and we know the result. The peace in Germany following the next war, however--a total defeat and temporary occupation--has lasted to the present day. Military historians have cited examples going a lot farther back than that of course; I'm just dipping into the familiar. I also wouldn't say that it's war-mongering to say that peace is achieved, not a default, or that it's often achieved by violence (and the cessation thereafter). A lot of serious people believe that and can back it up with historical facts. You can see this as "just the way it is" without being a war-monger. I actually see it as a sophisticated position to accept that wars are sometimes necessary--because the alternatives are far, far worse (think Hitler)--but to still deplore the loss of life and other things that come about in a war. Lummox JR | |
Luke Skywalker wrote:
No, peace is a dream of those who fight. We want peace, but there are those who simply don't, so it is up to the people who fight to create peace. But I suppose youre right, can peace really be achieved by war? Japan was once an aggressive and militaristic nation. After it was defeated, it no longer sought to conquer other countries, and there's been peace with Japan for nearly 60 years. A polished historian might ask the inverse question: Can peace really be achieved without war? Actually I think the answer to both is "yes". I just think achieving peace without war is a lot harder. Probably one reason for that is that one of the conditions has to be that there's no overwhelming reason to fight, i.e. a case where two groups simply hate one another and have old grievances. (India vs. Pakistan in Kashmir reminds me an awful lot of that, but I'm not as versed on the subject as I could be. Still, with Pakistan's ISS running terrorist operations there, my sympathies lie with India. I do think absent the terrorism there might be a chance for a negotiated peace.) Another condition is that I think the war itself has to be seen as the worst of the possible alternatives, and that by a significant margin; if there's a chance of eliminating a very bad problem once and for all, or at least again for a long time, people will likely continue to fight. I think the clearest path to peace via negotiation is when two sides want so badly not to fight that they're willing to make reasonable concessions to each other, and withdraw unreasonable demands, until gradually they hammer out something they both can live with a lot better than before. Yet if something gets intense enough, the horrors of war may not be a deterrent until they've been fully experienced. And sometimes this kind of negotiation isn't possible, because as one of Tolkien's characters observed, it takes but one foe to start a war; it may be the case that one side is simply belligerent, and that's certainly nothing new. Lummox JR | |
But look on the good side of war, the technology advances 10x as fast as it would normally. And war stimulates the economy (which is why i know the us goverment allowed the two towers to be crashed into; to stimulate the economy). I'ts just those that whish for control that need to be put down. I for one am glad the us is finally gonna kick sadaams ass all over iraq.
| |
Luke Skywalker wrote:
But look on the good side of war, the technology advances 10x as fast as it would normally. And war stimulates the economy (which is why i know the us goverment allowed the two towers to be crashed into; to stimulate the economy). I'ts just those that whish for control that need to be put down. I for one am glad the us is finally gonna kick sadaams ass all over iraq. War can stimulate the economy but it can also wreck it. A lot depends on how much you lose in the war. WWII was costly to the US but we lost a lot less men, ships, and planes than other nations--and it spun up a sluggish economy, and kept it going with new development after that. The economic benefits of war are overrated, though, and I think it's a somewhat popular fiction in the US just because we came out so well after WWII. Europe, whose infrastructure was all but obliterated, didn't fare so brightly. And a protracted, heavy war is the worst of all on an economy. As for technology, my vote for the biggest advancer of technology is the space program; a great deal of modern technology came out of the work put into programs like Apollo. Yet military development does indeed keep driving technology forward, and I think that's important whether we're at war or at peace. Lummox JR | |
the space program? they have sucked for a while, they aren't doing great stuff anymore. and the us would have been better off after wwii, but we had to give other nations so much crap that they owed us a crap load of money, but they never paid us back all of the money. just face it, war exists, and it's not good, but it exists. it is the era of wars against so called terrorism right now, but is is really terrorism? or is it the same story with the US (for those of you who don't know, every war until the fall of the soviet union was a war against the soviets, i.e. vietnam, korea). oh well, im off to kill something with a katana.
| |
Wow.. there sure seems to be alot of tension building between the genders here.. I know.. I'll tell a couple of jokes to break the ice!
What does a woman do when she gets out of the battered women's shelter? The dishes if she knows whats good for her... How many women does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Who cares, what the feck is she doing out of the kitchen?? What do you call a gay midget? A low blow... ^_^ just to let you all know I'm just kidding, I believe in equality in the sexes, I just want to illustrate how pig headed even the littlest joke can be | |
Luke Skywalker wrote:
the space program? they have sucked for a while, they aren't doing great stuff anymore. That's rather the reason, I think. We're not trying for the big risks. A Mars shot, for example, I don't think is at all practical but working toward it could help solve a lot of other problems. and the us would have been better off after wwii, but we had to give other nations so much crap that they owed us a crap load of money, but they never paid us back all of the money. But this is my point, you see--the war really screwed up Europe's economy. And we needed to rebuild parts of Germany to make sure it could eventually function on its own again without being aggressive. just face it, war exists, and it's not good, but it exists. it is the era of wars against so called terrorism right now, but is is really terrorism? or is it the same story with the US (for those of you who don't know, every war until the fall of the soviet union was a war against the soviets, i.e. vietnam, korea). It's really terrorism; we're fighting against people who willfully target civilians--which is a lot worse than understanding that civilians may be in harm's way and sometimes hurt or killed during a war. The definition of terrorism is a pretty clear one. This also isn't the old Cold War story because, well, it's basically over. Communism (that is, totalitarian socialism) only has a few strongholds left, and they're mostly not expanding to new satellite states like the USSR used to. However, nasty governments on the model of the Taliban, or Saudi Arabia, have been spreading, and unfortunately they tend to harbor or encourage terrorism. Lummox JR | |
That could possibly be the stupidest invention ever, machines fighting for us pssh. Sure it would cut down greatly on casualties but I'm still on the thing that someone will give them AI so they can have feelings and know when to do the right thing, then they get mad and start fighting us, considering they will probably be physically stronger, faster, and able to take a lot of damage then they will most likely cream us since we seem to be getting so lazy needing them to fight for us. Now by controller if you mean someone actually controls them like in a video game then they would become so easy to use that terrorist would use them, a robot that looks like a person, and identifies as another American(They could have stolen someones identity) steps onto a plane, train, or a boat, thats all that would be needed. I would probably end my life the day that happens because I could not stand living in a world that lazy and soon to be controlled by metallic beings.
<<>>Kusanagi<<>> | |
I don't either, but this would tick me off to my limit most likely, I could probably kill one with enough strategy, or a stolen M-16 and a kick back stand. By then though there would probably be new weaponry, and old weaponry would become obsolete though :(.
<<>>Kusanagi<<>> | |
If male politicians world-wide could get their heads out of their asses long enough to develop better world-policies that do not require fighting all the time, we wouldn't need strength to lift heavy guns in the first place...
Besides, mechanized armies are the next generation of military forces - let the machines do the work, and the controller can be man or woman...