Bucket Guild | FUBU BH Forums

False example, the reason wars aren't happening anymore is because the root causes of the World Wars (militarism, petty feuds amongst European nations for resources and prestige) aren't in play anymore. European borders are defined and everyone except whiners like the Basque are happy with the status quo. Democracy was imposed by the Americans, so Europe now shares a common political vision.

The US never went to war on a massive scale after WWII because Americans are by nature a mercantilist and inward looking people who have little interest in conquest for its own sake. American wars typically revolve around perceived obligations, some notion of self-defense, monetary greed, or the machinations of the American political system.

People say the US and USSR never went to war because of The Bomb and while not false it's not entirely true either. The truth is, the only reason the Cold War didn't end in nuclear annihilation was, in the final analysis, the world got lucky.

World War II wasn't even that brutal by the standards of human wars. Go read about the Crusades, or the Gallic Wars. World War I was far more brutal and its brutality had a far more pervasive impact on the culture of the succeeding era. It wiped out an entire generation and that didn't discourage the Europeans from going at it again. It was Americans who finally imposed peace on Europe precisely because they had never really developed the habits of war in the first place.

Contrary to widespread perception, as civilizations go, Americans are far less likely to see violence as the answer, or at least they weren't until...cultural decline. Historically, Americans have always preferred to solve their problems through negotiation and bargaining. Americans tried to talk their way out of WWII and used violence only when their hand was forced. They tried to talk their way out of WWI, too. They've kept the peace since the World Wars largely by assuming the role of intermediary. The United States owes its very existence to the talking of problems through in 1776 which was at the time a very unorthodox approach.

You know what the deadliest war in American history was? Hint: It wasn't World War II. It was the Civil War. It was also grossly more brutal than World War II on every level. Go read about Sherman's March or the NY draft riots. Do they teach about that in Canada school?

World War II had antibiotics and the Red Cross and aside from bombs falling from the sky, which isn't that brutal since victim and offender never meet face to face - it's well documented that by the end of the war, civilians basically saw the bombs as being like meteors, if you get hit by one you're just unlucky - it wasn't a particularly vicious war. The body count was high, yes, but you didn't have civilians getting impaled or cities (Nanjing doesn't count) getting pillaged.

So you're completely off-base arguing that loss of life from WWII is why we enjoy peace today. No, it's because of
1. war becoming obsolete because most issues were resolved
2. the bomb
3. luck



Fatalistic bs, you could take that principle and apply it anywhere. Why outlaw pedophilia or assault weapons or racial discrimination? The problem is the methods of enforcement.

I believe drug users should be put in stockades and drug dealers should be crucified. Do that and watch the problem disappear.



This is like arguing that saying "Goddammit" is violating the Ten Commandments. It's totally missing the point.

Aestu of Bleeding Hollow...

Nihilism is a copout.

I didn't say that widespread communications was THE reason why wars were avoided, I said that it was a massive factor.

Read a little more about the cold war, it had every single elements needed for war. Even though there were hostilities, the leaders did not want that. Both sides specifically did everything they could to both hold their position and power, and avoid war. Of course the possibility of mutually assured destruction was a massive factor as well.

Interesting off-topic tidbit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov



That makes me think that it would be safe to ignore anything you have to say.



Did you miss the concentration camps and blitzkrieking of cities and countries? The war went on before the USA got involved, you know.



No, you missed the point. Notice the quotes. They are morals pulled out of the bible and old tymes puritan government systems. Using drugs, paying for sex, swearing, showing titties on TV (and etc) are not immoral and do not affect a society's prosperity.

Homosexuality and negroes used to be part of those, now it's time for the others to go. They're not all outlawed, but those that are, are wrongly so. Legislation can be wrong, you know.

Alcohol prohibition.

I'm not going to assume anything, but you must have not explored very much if you've traveled outside of the USA.



On the American civil war, only the basics. Contrary to popular belief, the world doesn't orbit around the USA and we aren't required to hold American History majors. That must be why I didn't mention it.

"WWII wasn't that bad, look at the Civil War!"

All wars are horrible, apparently the news hasn't reached you yet.

I'm familiar with that incident. That's exactly my point. It boiled down to luck.

What if Goldwater won the 1964 election? What if Beria became Premier? What if Petrov got put in the brig? What if Khrushchev called Kennedy's bluff? What if Castro decided to fire at American destroyers? What if Truman caved in and gave MacArthur clearance to use nukes or invade China? What if the French accepted McNamara's alleged offer of nuclear weapons to use in Vietnam? What if the hardliners put a bullet through Yeltsin's skull?

All those were close calls that could just as easily have gone the other way.

Yes, ultimately people made the right choices. But considering how many times the dice were rolled and how close the rolls were...it all ultimately boiled down to the world getting really lucky.



Because my views don't agree with your own value system / ideology?



No one cared about the concentration camps and "blitzkrieking of cities and countries" shows you don't understand the realities of war.

Blitzkriegs took place in the field (not in cities) and was defined by the ABSENCE of prolonged combat. They made war more glorious and less bloody and disgusting. The entire premise of the blitz was that small, organized forces could get the jump on larger, clumsier ones and through shock and surprise make them NOT fight. Instead of slugging it out in the mud and blood for four years, the war between France and Germany ended in a few weeks.

This is a common refrain, people who think World War II was all big and bad and that was Day One of the world. No frame of reference; go read about what World War I was like.



Yep, you missed the point.

The Ten Commandments says, "Thou shalt not take the name of thy lord in vain". That doesn't mean, don't say, "god fucking dammit". It means, don't blow something up then say God told you to.

So really you're being controlled by superficial and conventional notions of morality, and like many who are, you think you're on the inside track when really you're subscribing to the same distortions of truth as everyone else.

The point I'm making is that morality and cultural sophistication aren't defined by superficial things like swearing. They're defined by a clear value system, shared notions of right and wrong and how society should be organized, having ideals and goals. This is why, for example, things like myths and heroes and knowledge of history and high art forms are so significant to culture and ultimately make or break civilizations - and empires.




I can go to any country and speak my language and get people to understand me, just as a Frenchman could 500 years ago or a Greek could two thousand years ago. That is proof America is great and the world does, in fact, revolve around us. Maybe in a hundred years that will be different, but the influence of American thought is undeniable. Even long after American power declines, future generations will revere American accomplishments.



Not equally so. My point stands. Arguing that WWII's kill count turned people off to war rings hollow when you consider how much worse WWI, the Civil War, and many preceding wars were despite lower numbers (and populations).

Aestu of Bleeding Hollow...

Nihilism is a copout.

Why does Nanking not count and why are bombs less brutal than swords?

Nothing good happened to anyone in Jerusalem at the end of the First Crusade, nor did anything good happen to anyone in Constantinople during the Fourth, but that doesn't mitigate what happened to Dresden in 1945, or what happened in and around Stalingrad in 1942-43, or the mass rape in Berlin when the Russians strolled in.

If destruction exists, we must destroy everything.
Shuruppak Yuratuhl
Slaad Shrpk Breizh

There was invasion, occupation, civilian massacres, death marches, etc. Too long to list.

Spectacular displays of force were used long before the Germans and are in use today still. Shock and awe.



My point is not the body count. It's that everyone during the war could turn on their radios and TV and hear about it. During and long after.



Re-read your quote:



I can't blame you for having a more puritan view on morals because you were born into it and was misinformed throughout your life. The problem comes when they become law and are enforced, the "wrongdoers" are considered criminals and sub-human.

Your hate of drug users is a result of just that.



Oh yeah, don't get me wrong I agree there and here I am speaking English as a Frenchman. The influence of America on the world is undeniable and the accomplishments are beyond great.

What I'm saying is that I'm seeing a turn that can be seen throughout history. From the sheer intellectual greatness of a Golden Age to the dominance of superstition, it's a slow decline.

Check out the Arabic accomplishments during that age, then compare it to what it is today. It doesn't happen overnight. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Golden_Age

Face-to-face blood and guts is a lot more brutal than pulling the lever on the bomb bay.



Because no one cared about those things and in fact they weren't even well-known until recently.

Aestu of Bleeding Hollow...

Nihilism is a copout.

Shock and awe for most of history meant "be so brutal the other side is afraid to fight". That wasn't what the blitzkrieg was about. The "shock" in a blitz was tactical coordination, not burning down any city that didn't surrender immediately.

You're looking at things as universal because you don't understand them individually. It's a shill for ignorance.



Uh, no. No one in America or anywhere outside the countries in question saw Japan in flames or Dresdeners turned into puddles of fluid or had any idea at all (much less cared) what what going on in Stalingrad. War correspondents didn't send home graphic footage - quite the contrary, they usually painted a glorious and sanitized picture of war. This was true for both the world wars.

Wartime reporting didn't begin until the Vietnam War, for reasons of both technology and physical access.



Calling my views "misinformed" is bigotry no different than in any other time or place. My views have nothing to do with hate; I simply believe that drug use is a moral and social evil.



ORLY

Aestu of Bleeding Hollow...

Nihilism is a copout.

Bah I'm a bad writer, "Spectacular displays of force were used long before the Germans and are in use today still. [It is part of] Shock and awe". Then again it would be obvious that I wouldn't think that the display is the only part of shock and awe.

So I'm the ignorant bigot (in your own words) promoting acceptance, unity, absolute personal freedom and an increased pursuit of science and technological advance in the hopes of betterment of our specie, as opposed to clinging to superstition and the systematic painting of perceived immorality as evil.

FUCK THAT!

We should imprison all who wish to exercise freedom in their personal lifestyle if we don't agree, crucify all sinners, believe in the authority of legislation, ridicule all who are queer, oh and past wars were way more brutals, modern ones are alright. Oh and we should ignore the message and go after little details, too.

/strawman

Shock and awe in the context of military offensives is not the same as shocking in the context of war atrocities.



In that your vision is limited to your ideas about such things, yes.

After all, wasn't that the same mantra of the colonialists, or the Christians, or of the Communists? Buy into our value system and win, and anyone who disagrees is evil?



Any society has certain ideas of right and wrong. Taking relativism/nihilism to an extreme is ultimately a copout because the entire point of moral discussions is to compare values based on merit; saying they're all equal, there's really no difference, there's no such thing as anything evil or indecent that doesn't involve someone getting blown up, etc, is a way of avoiding having to ask difficult questions.

I didn't say that wars in the past were necessarily more brutal, just that your argument that the body count of WWII was what inaugurated an era of relative peace is faulty because WWII, at least the Western theater, wasn't that bad in relative terms, compared to the horrors visited on Europeans in the past. I gave the example of World War I. An even better example: go read about the Hundred Years' War. It made WWII look like a picnic.

I'll throw it at you this way: if you had to choose between being party to World War I, World War II (Western European theater), the American Civil War, the Vietnam War, the Franco-Prussian War, or the Gulf War, as a random participant (soldier/civilian, of any nationality in combat zones), which would you choose and why?

Aestu of Bleeding Hollow...

Nihilism is a copout.

Aestu of Bleeding Hollow...

Nihilism is a copout.

Debate my figurative terms some more, it's entertaining how you can go from the use of a figurative term to saying that I'm referring to atrocities as being of the shock and awe doctrine.



I'm not describing my idea of an ideal society, I'm appealing to reason over superstition. Nothing good has ever come out of superstition.

Notice how one of those is acceptance. That means ideals too. Superstition and religion inside government are not accepted by people who reason, however.

Since I have to make everything I say untwistable: I enjoy some occasional weed. I respect those who don't. ---- I am an atheist. I accept reasonable religious people - that is, those who don't push their belief unto others and/or see other faiths as almost subhuman.



I pulled a straw man argument for laughs then typed /strawman.



A point in the future where we stop fighting over our shore of the cosmos and start exploring it's ocean. We've been putting our toes in it since the 1960's and the water seems inviting.

P.S. My original message in this thread was to express my concern about the increasing rate of religious superstition in your country since around the 1950's, contrasted with how the rest of the western world seems to be moving in the other direction. I find that odd for a country founded with freedom of religion in mind. A wave of reason is sweeping the world.

I'm concerned about your country because I like it. I even have an American flag on one of my bedroom's walls.



Watched every episodes, Gene's imagination was amazing.

I thought that greece got conquered by sparta at the height of greece's civilization. Also the gets were as or more brutal than their opponent, or just uncharacteristically brutal.

It seems relevant to quite a few civilizations, just not all (Iran, Sparta for example)

"Reason" you can't defend except on the basis of invective, and not because you can point to facts or logic.

"Reason" is an easy high ground to claim. All the parties I named also claimed to be bearing the banner of "reason".



The Stoics would disagree.



How can you call yourself a man of reason when your intent is to defend a substance whose only purpose is an escape from the experience of the real world by befuddling yourself? How is that different from religion? Answer me that.



Cool story bro, you know someone with a few trillion bucks to blow on all that jazz?

You didn't answer the question I posed.

Aestu of Bleeding Hollow...

Nihilism is a copout.

All i got out of this thread is aestu saying "your vision is limited."


If we killed everyone who disagreed with us, the world would be a lonely place.