Nick_i_am

Oh yeah, totally, the problem is that on one hand you're saying that humans are still, essentally, pray to their base insticts, which I agree with. But on the other you're saying that those base instincts are worse than those of other creatures, which is somthing I don't agree with. We're cursed with a degree of intelligence which gives us more insight into how to enact those instincts, but the basic survival mechanisms are essentally the same. Killing for a trivial reason is still killing for a reason and can still be traced back to those same mechanisms in the same way that great apes have been recorded developing cronic anti-social behavior disorders. Going back to the chimps, a group of them murdered this 'socal outcast' then proceded to beat his body and hang him from a tree. Sure, they're our closest relatives, but people underestimate just how close that is.

haha, nobody is going to argue that.

No, I understood perfectly and while on one level you're right, on another, you're talking crap as per my examples, and that's even ignoring the fact that it's impossible to test how animals would react when placed under modern social pressures. Dolphin and Duck males will both form into rape gangs and hunt down any nearby females while a Gorrilla that has just become head of his set will actively murder the offspring of the previous leader. There are very few examples of humans doing naughty things that arn't mirrored somewhere in the animal kingdom, it's just that we do all of them, which accounts for much of our success as a species.

Well, James Earl Jones alone destroys the entire contents of this poll, so the point is sort of moot.

Walsy, it's quite probable that I love you.

Who the crap gives away free Nukes? And carful with the word 'belonged'. America 'belonged' to the Sioux et al.

So saying 'as if' to america suppling insergants with weapons is kinda funny when they've already done it. Same goes with the CIA training of Bin Ladin, it's all very well saying that the US shouldn't have meddled in old conflicts but this situation extends far further than the american invasion of Iraq or the jewish occupation of Israil.

You know that the stinger missles used by insergents in Iraq mostly have 'made in the USA' written on them since you guys shipped a bunch over when Russia invaded Afganistan, right?

The point he's making is that Halo2 didn't know what the hell it was trying to do with its story arc and featured sub-par level design (not that that's anything unique for a Halo game).

Wait, blame Bush for what?

Yeah, there have been a spate of studies looking at the corrolation between violence and media and there havn't really been any conclusive results. Far more significant seems to be the societies own trend towards pro-social behavior where 'clan' based cultures such those that are traditional in Japanese and Hindu cultures produce 'lower levels' of violent behavior and higher cooperative tendancies than those in more individualistic based cultues, such as we get in modern western society. In both the above 'clan' cultures the role of the family is very important in its members lives, acting as a hub and extended social support network to a far greater degree than the average 'westerner' would probably be used to. Anyone who's seen 'My Big Fat Greek Wedding' has had a glance at how this form of family unit works, and on one hand this seems to, as stated above, produce lower levels of violent behavior due (possibly) to the focus on acting as part of an extended 'unit' from an early age, but on the other hand it also seems to stunt competitiveness and willingness to act independantly. Both of these are seen as positive traits by western societies which makes it somthing of a lose-lose situation for people living in these backgrounds but not living in a society of like-minded individuals.

Indeed, though the idea was that it's hard for a society to embrace a boon on the level of such a low crime rate without there also being a large sacrifice. Much of this could probably be helped by advances in technology, but those same advances are what keeps the population going up, leading to overcrowding and a reduction in said satisfaction, as well as an increase in 'wildcards'. I think trying to give a formula to human behavior (even on the society level) may be possible when every factor is considered, but it still feels like trying to play a game of pool in a storm at sea.

Having said that, take a look at the Japanese. Very very low crime rate as the result of a highly orginised and motivated society that still places a lot of focus on both individual and family integrity. In Osaka (one of the largest Japanese cities) last year, incidents of car related theft (including smash and run for items in the car) was no where near triple digits, somewhere between 20 and 30 case. And yet, on the flip side you're also looking at a highly repressed society whos populous has real problems expressing themselves at large. There's a reason why 80% of the worlds weird **** comes from Japan, and a reason why, when checking local Japanese news, almost all of the murders reported are 'fetish' killings (that is to say, killings with a perverse motivation rather than one of greed or passion ect). A quick glance at their stats for education should be enough to make most first-world countaries blush, and yet their suicide rate also sets them apart, while when you compare to other countaries with very high quality education (like Finland for example) you find that while there's a problem, it's nothing on the scale found in Japan, for memory.

On a side-note, animals have been murdering each other for as long as they've existed. Just look at mating battles for example, deer might just clash antlers, but walruses are easily capable of killing a love rival. More so, our closest relative, chimps, have been recorded commiting murder in a social context, we're talking a mass lynching against a male who fell out with the packs leader. This is even before we get onto things like the seemingly irrational behavior of cirtain sets of Orcas that catch seals then throw them into the air for hours, seemingly for fun. Humans might be bad, but suggesting that we're the only ones who are just because we're the only ones who've invented atomics is a pile of crap. On the other hand, pockets of humanity have been civilized as far back as 4000 years and further, depending on how you deffine civilized. Frankly, many of those were more civilized than many modern cultures. The arab lands were host to the worlds seat of culture back when england and america was still full of mudhuts filled with people who thought that bodypainting was the height of fashion.

I was tempted to reply stating 'spam' but I thought that might be pushing things a bit far As far as Atlantis goes, I was a big fan of the original Stargate, but never actually got to the series where they brought in the Farscape guys properly. So yeah, how does Atlantis stack up against the Anubis ark in terms of characters and storytelling?

Yeah, people tend to confuse story with story-telling, or use the same word to mean both. The Halo universe is a pretty nice, if slightly generic, sci-fi setting with decent amounts of backstory and some interesting concepts and themes. No more than the average cult TV sci-fi, but it's still there.

http://atimes.com/atimes/China/JB12Ad01.html (the article deals with US vs. China, but it's not that particular comparison that I want to focus on) Think about it from the perspective of someone living in another country, one perhaps not on the best of terms with the US. The US has enough nuclear weapons - and conventional weapons, for that matter - to destroy any country or set of countries in the world. The only thing holding back the US is American democracy, which in recent years have produced such great presidents as George W. Bush and candidates like John McCain. Now, the Americans don't seem like a serious people (at least not from our popular culture), and they don't seem like they want to take over the world - but are you really going to risk your life, and potentially the life of your people on the notion that Americans, ignorant and content as they currently are, will never fall under the sway of someone who did have ambition? What's to prevent, in other words, an American Adolf Hitler, who might ride in on the coattails of an economic depression? It only takes one mistake of the US political system to send the entire world spiraling into chaos. It only takes one real threat to the untested, pampered, and sheltered Americans for a demagogue to rally the masses. There would be no shortage of scapegoats - the Pentagon invents them as a matter of course, to justify our inflated military spendings - and while the Americans are horrible at occupation, there is no reason why they must occupy. The Americans have been known to shoot first and ask questions later, after all. They don't seem like people you can reason with, once the fighting's started. So, what would you do, rationally, in this situation? Well, in the short term, you know that you must pamper the Americans. Ally with them. Lower their sense of distrust, their reason to fear you. But in the long term? You don't want to sacrifice yourself for the Americans forever, and no amount of pampering will appease a truly belligerent leader, anyhow. In the long term you have no choice but to try and equal the Americans - for as long as they have an overwhelming military advantage, to the point where they can destroy you without you being able to touch them, you can never sleep easy. It's like living next doors to an alcoholic gun collector in Detroit. He might bid you good morning everyday and invite you to his house, but those nights when he holds them NRA parties... You're never quite sure whether those loud noises you hear are from his boom box or ... Or something else. I believe that Americans are better than most when it comes to internalizing what we fear. Our political culture is based, in some sense, on threat politics, so we're quite familiar with it. So, I surmise, it should not be difficult to understand what fear does to a people. The fear of Islamic terrorists, however small of a threat they are to us, sent us into two wars in the Middle-East. We continuously play up the notion of a worldwide Islamic Revolution, wherein Islam would conquer all of Europe and send the world back to the twelth century. We belabor ceaselessly the point that the "liberal West" is "blind" to the threat of foreign immigrants, and that it will be too late before we have the guts to respond - another apocalyptic war, we tell ourselves, is inevitable. Such an active doomsday imagination we have, such a negative notion of other people... That it almost begs the question, How would we act, if we were in their shoes? If Islam, or China, or Russia, were in control of the world, and not us? What if they had the power to annihilate us without us being able to do a thing about it, and the only thing we could do is hope that they will not, despite the fact that their politicians and media sources are continuously playing up the "threat" that we pose? Such a scenario, I argue, is inconceivable to the modern American mind. We do not know fear as the rest of the world knows it. Thus, we do not understand why they would ever feel the need to militarize. In the eternal words of Donald Rumsfeld, "Since no nation threatens China, one must wonder: Why this growing investment [in the military]?" I can just imagine what the Chinese equivalent to the Secretary of Defense must have thought when he heard those words: "Indeed, what do we have to fear, but fear itself?"

Well, if you go back far enough, back to World War 2, the US most certainly planted the seeds of the Cold War with the creation of the atomic bomb. As for Israel, it is the fault of the US and Britain why their is so much conflict in the Middle East over Israel. If Israel was cut from the lands of German and Italy, the Axis powers of Europe that caused World War 2 instead I don't thikn we would have as much conflict in the Middle East as we do now.

The fact that the US _might_ get taken over by a lunatic can be overstated. Anywhere can be taken over by a lunatic. Democracies are less likely; nothing more. But that does not automatically mean we must cripple the USA. IMO the safe option is no magic wonder theory. It's lots and lots and lots of hard work. It's a daily struggle for probity and integrity in our business, public and personal lives.

I don't mind one bit if they deem the US as a permanent threat because I consider them a permenant and hostile threat against us. There is nothing you can say that will make me change my mind on that. The only way I will no longer consider China a threat is when they have a complete and total change in their government and economic policies that is more democratic and capitalistic in nature.

To be perfectly fair, Llyranor, China considers Tibet and Taiwan its own territory. Now, we can debate whether that is actually the case, but if you're going to base your gauge of a country's likelihood to threaten the US by how it treats its separatist problems, then you have to throw almost every country in the world into your "threat list," because almost everyone's got separatists and ethnic nationalists of their own that they either actively suppress or sweep under the carpet. Look at the Maoists in India, for instance, the IRA in the UK, or even the Hawaiian sovereignty movement in the US.

Anyway, I for one support Llyranor's view ( at least I think I do). this is an interesting article. It is saying armament is reciprocal. We need to expect others to arm up as a safeguard against the future. This is immeasurably more important now than it was 100 years ago, when an army could be put together by sewing together some old sacks for uniform and giving everyone a bolt-action rifle. Training, equipping, and supporting a premier league armed force takes nigh on twenty years. It would be quite literally impossible to just sound alarms and take a disarmed nation to war in the time needed to belt them senseless. I have no problem with China being armed. Fair's fair, after all. But I completely disagree that they are a paper tiger. Not only do they have the numbers, but they have the morale, organisation, training, and increasingly the equpment to pose a significant threat.

I am not into forcing other countries to our view, but against other countries trying to force theirs on us. I am very much against us openly attacking another nation, like what we did in Iraq, but we need to be ready when other nations decide to attack us. I doubt that China will one day be nicey to everyone within and out of their borders. That is just naive. As Krezy said, to hope so surmounts to burying one's head in the sand. Appeasement never works. If a country is a threat to us, attacks us, then we need to face that threat head on and remove it.

Whatever happened to the Indians that declared their own state last years in the US in response to every treaty being breched? Oh right... Those are jokes to be laughed off hehe... I forgot we`re only looking at china russia and the likes of serbia when it comes to ignoring sovereignty and upholding "rights" hehe... And genocides are only applicable in certain cases too *wink* My point being only that one must be pritty thick if he believes to be living in the world where his side is inheritly "good" and the other side is inheritly "evil/bad" cos its not 100% like his side and is of belief he must force others to comply... One should fear such people weather they fly the hammer&sickle, the crescent moon of Islam OR stars`n`stripes...

You do realise that a large motivator for the protests were the feelings that reforms undertaken by the party (under the guidance of chicago school economists) went too far casuing big infaltion and threathened livelyhoods? An irony of chineese tanks defending elements of pure capitalsim (some seem to be of an impression every1 would embrace hehe)? You need to broaden your horizon to include all aspects of stories... Take off the tinted glasses so to speak... Sand, dont take this the wrong way, but you`re partly the prototype of what ppl all over the world fear when it comes to america... a selfcentered, selfrighteous, paranoid person thinking "his way" should be the only way (and that way he "exports" via any and *all* means) and fearing everyone else is out to get him, just cos hes out to get anyone else on account of some selfpreservation fobia; with the finger on a nuclear button... And with the affinity to prefer to "keep things simple" aka us good them bad we bomb bad... That and the fact you evoke "your maker" on the highest level of decision making only about 10% less of the time than the ppl blowing themselves up on markets... Its freaking frightening. You blame ppl for raising their eyebrows when you put up missle defence shields on their borders and/or parade aircraft carriers in front of their shores backing it up with rethorics remeniscent to the Iraq modus operandi? The sooner strategic balance gets restored the better...