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RE: SS - 11/29/2007 5:30:16 AM   
desert


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quote:

Okay, I thought of the Indus River Valley. Nothing happened.

The Indus River Valley civilization had no weapons and never fought a war. Coupled with the massive starvation around 1500 B.C, and it explains why the Aryans could have just walked in and taken over.

quote:

Au contraire. The Mongol invasions halved the population of Iran. As to letting off steam, what the hell do you think we started the Spanish-American War for? The sugar?


We did it for the Cuba. It's called imperialism. Would you say that the "splendid little war" was just for the civilian population to salivate over?

quote:

Again, nonsense. Most stayed firmly in favor of World War One -- and indeed, grew only more determined -- as the butcher's bill grew. Had casualties been enough to stop anyone, the war would indeed have ended before the leaves fell. By your logic, World War Two should have ended about mid-1942.


Popular opinion of war decreases as casualties increase. They would have finished the fight back then, but it doesn't mean they like it.

quote:

 American Paleolithic tribes that engaged in warfare more or less continually. The Sioux, The Arapaho, The Crow, The Cheyenne, The Apache, The Paiute... The rest that come to mind were either neolithic or I know so little about them that I can't positively affirm that they fought all the time, but I've no knowledge of any tribe that actually avoided waging war.


Those tribes didn't exist in the Paleolithic. unless you are talking about the guys who crossed the land bridge.

_____________________________

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- Rommel, when Hitler made him a Field Marshall

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Post #: 121
RE: SS - 11/29/2007 5:50:46 AM   
ColinWright

 

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Status: offline 		Lost trying get the quotes to work. My responses italicized.

quote:

ORIGINAL: desert
quote:


Okay, I thought of the Indus River Valley. Nothing happened.

The Indus River Valley civilization had no weapons and never fought a war. Coupled with the massive starvation around 1500 B.C, and it explains why the Aryans could have just walked in and taken over.
quote:



Bumph. Almost nothing is known about them beyond the fact that they seem to have worshipped giant penises. For all we know, they might have conducted total war nightly.

quote:

Au contraire. The Mongol invasions halved the population of Iran. As to letting off steam, what the hell do you think we started the Spanish-American War for? The sugar?


We did it for the Cuba. It's called imperialism. Would you say that the "splendid little war" was just for the civilian population to salivate over?


We most certainly did not do it 'for Cuba.' That's like saying I went to the ball game for the hot dogs. We wanted to have a war, and we found it. If it hadn't been Spain and Cuba, something else would have turned up. While I don't necessarily agree with your choice of terms, we indeed did fight the war 'for the civilian population to salivate over.' If the Ameircan people had not been in the mood for just such an undertaking, I doubt very much if the war would have happened.
quote:



quote:

Again, nonsense. Most stayed firmly in favor of World War One -- and indeed, grew only more determined -- as the butcher's bill grew. Had casualties been enough to stop anyone, the war would indeed have ended before the leaves fell. By your logic, World War Two should have ended about mid-1942.


Popular opinion of war decreases as casualties increase. They would have finished the fight back then, but it doesn't mean they like it.


Be that as it may. You claim enthusiasm for war ends when the casualty lists get long. Obviously, that doesn't happen. The combatants often simply become more determined. Proposing peace could literally get you put into an insane asylum in 1917 England.
quote:



quote:

American Paleolithic tribes that engaged in warfare more or less continually. The Sioux, The Arapaho, The Crow, The Cheyenne, The Apache, The Paiute... The rest that come to mind were either neolithic or I know so little about them that I can't positively affirm that they fought all the time, but I've no knowledge of any tribe that actually avoided waging war.


Those tribes didn't exist in the Paleolithic. unless you are talking about the guys who crossed the land bridge.


Yawn. Look up 'paleolithic.'
That stage of human cultural and technological development preceding agricultural and pastoralism. All hunting/gathering cultures are paleolithic -- whenever they may have existed. More to the point, the examples we have of such cultures typically waged war almost continuously. Why, when most paleolithic cultures that have been examined turn out to have waged war, do you claim that they didn't?

< Message edited by ColinWright -- 11/29/2007 7:22:56 AM >

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Post #: 122
RE: SS - 11/29/2007 6:16:46 AM   
ColinWright

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

Lost trying get the quotes to work. My responses italicized.

quote:

ORIGINAL: desert
quote:


Okay, I thought of the Indus River Valley. Nothing happened.

The Indus River Valley civilization had no weapons and never fought a war. Coupled with the massive starvation around 1500 B.C, and it explains why the Aryans could have just walked in and taken over.
quote:



Bumph. What's your source for this claim? Last I heard, almost nothing was definitely known about the Indus Valley civilizations beyond the fact that they seem to have worshipped giant penises. For all we know, they might have conducted total war nightly.

quote:

Au contraire. The Mongol invasions halved the population of Iran. As to letting off steam, what the hell do you think we started the Spanish-American War for? The sugar?


We did it for the Cuba. It's called imperialism. Would you say that the "splendid little war" was just for the civilian population to salivate over?


We most certainly did not do it 'for Cuba.' That's like saying I went to the ball game for the hot dogs. We wanted to have a war, and we found it. If it hadn't been Spain and Cuba, something else would have turned up.
quote:



quote:

Again, nonsense. Most stayed firmly in favor of World War One -- and indeed, grew only more determined -- as the butcher's bill grew. Had casualties been enough to stop anyone, the war would indeed have ended before the leaves fell. By your logic, World War Two should have ended about mid-1942.


Popular opinion of war decreases as casualties increase. They would have finished the fight back then, but it doesn't mean they like it.


Be that as it may. You claim enthusiasm for war ends when the casualty lists get long. Obviously, that doesn't happen. The combatants often simply become more determined. Proposing peace could literally get you put into an insane asylum in 1917 England.
quote:



quote:

American Paleolithic tribes that engaged in warfare more or less continually. The Sioux, The Arapaho, The Crow, The Cheyenne, The Apache, The Paiute... The rest that come to mind were either neolithic or I know so little about them that I can't positively affirm that they fought all the time, but I've no knowledge of any tribe that actually avoided waging war.


Those tribes didn't exist in the Paleolithic. unless you are talking about the guys who crossed the land bridge.


Yawn. Look up 'paleolithic.'
That stage of human cultural and technological development preceding agricultural and pastoralism. All hunting/gathering cultures are paleolithic -- whenever they may have existed. More to the point, the examples we have of such cultures typically waged war almost continuously. Why, when most paleolithic cultures that have been examined turn out to have waged war, do you claim that they didn't?



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Post #: 123
RE: SS - 11/29/2007 6:24:08 AM   
desert


Posts: 827
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Status: offline 		 Pa·le·o·lith·ic       (pâ'lç-ə-lĭth'ĭk)  Pronunciation Key  adj.   Of or relating to the cultural period of the Stone Age beginning with the earliest chipped stone tools, about 750,000 years ago, until the beginning of the Mesolithic Period, about 15,000 years ago.

In the paleolithic era, no evidence for warfare or organized conflict has been found. If a tribe attacked another tribe 50,000 years ago, it would be for food or territory, so stop equivocating the meaning of paleolithic. It refers to the specific time period, not whether a group is hunter-gatherer. Also, don't try saying they would have attacked for the heck of it.

And that thing about the Indus River Valley civilization is false. Why have NO weapons or signs of the cult of the warrior-king been unearthed in their ruins? And they worshipped unicorns and enjoyed bathing, never heard of them drawing penises. Can you get a link for that?

Good night then.

_____________________________

"I would rather he had given me one more division"
- Rommel, when Hitler made him a Field Marshall

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Post #: 124
RE: SS - 11/29/2007 6:37:15 AM   
ColinWright

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: desert

Pa·le·o·lith·ic (pâ'lç-ə-lĭth'ĭk) Pronunciation Key adj. Of or relating to the cultural period of the Stone Age beginning with the earliest chipped stone tools, about 750,000 years ago, until the beginning of the Mesolithic Period, about 15,000 years ago.

In the paleolithic era, no evidence for warfare or organized conflict has been found. If a tribe attacked another tribe 50,000 years ago, it would be for food or territory, so stop equivocating the meaning of paleolithic. It refers to the specific time period, not whether a group is hunter-gatherer. Also, don't try saying they would have attacked for the heck of it.

And that thing about the Indus River Valley civilization is false. Why have NO weapons or signs of the cult of the warrior-king been unearthed in their ruins? And they worshipped unicorns and enjoyed bathing, never heard of them drawing penises. Can you get a link for that?

Good night then.


Paleolithic means 'old stone age.' It is differentiated from the 'New stone age' by the absence of agriculture and pastoralism.

Obviously, whether a culture was paleolithic, neolithic, or an iron age culture has nothing to do with when it existed, but with its level of technological development. The Iroquois were flourishing in the 1500's -- but were not a renaissance culture by virtue of that fact. The Chumash along California's coast were still hunting and gathering in the 1700's -- guess what? They were a paleolithic people. If you are going to define these terms by simple universal time periods, they lose all meaning. Would that the Chumash existed in 1720 therefore make them an early modern culture?

Now, those people with a paleolithic culture that we do have records of generally have waged war. So it follows that those that existed in the past did so as well. After all, we know that lions of today hunt medium-sized grazing animals. It follows that the lions of fifty thousand BC did so as well -- although it may be that no fossil evidence exists to show that they did. In this connection, notice that skeleton of a prehistoric man that was found in a Swiss glacier a decade or two back. He had scars from a healed arrow wound or some such thing.

As to no evidence having been unearthed about the Indus valley cultures having waged war, that's a bit like me saying you have no sex life because I have yet to find any evidence that you do. There's a great deal I don't know about you -- in fact, I know almost nothing about you. The same applies to the people of the ancient Indus Valley. We know almost nothing. When it comes to war, about all we can say is that since almost every other culture we do know something about has waged war, presumably the people of the Indus Valley did so as well. It's theoretically possible that they didn't -- but it's also theoretically possible they were hermaphrodites with two heads apiece. Just highly unlikely.

In any case, that you are driven to make assertions about people we know nothing about to support an apparent thesis that war is not a natural human activity just shows how flimsy your case must be. I might feel it desirable that people have no sexual desire -- but if all I could present to support such a thesis was the point that no evidence exists to show that various extinct people did have sexual desires, wouldn't you say my case was pretty weak?

The fact is that it is us that are abnormal. Traumatized by WW's 1 and 2, and confronted by the obvious undesirability of massive nuclear exchanges, we have striven to convince ourselves that we don't like war and that we needn't permit it to occur.

Well, all the evidence is otherwise. It continues to happen frequently. We obviously find ourselves motivated to seek it out -- as happened after 9-11. Not that I find anything especially wrong in that fact. However, if we hadn't been so intent about lying to ourselves about our motives, we might have conducted ourselves more intelligently.

< Message edited by ColinWright -- 11/29/2007 7:16:19 AM >

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Post #: 125
RE: SS - 11/29/2007 7:06:35 AM   
ColinWright

 

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Status: offline 		Oh. And...

http://www.caroun.com/Countries/Asia/Pakistan/AncientSites/IndusValleyCivilization.html

"... Phallic worship also appears to have been important element in religious life. The many large cone-shaped objects have been identified as representations of the phallus and sizeable ring-type objects as representations of female generative organs..."

Since you seemed to find my claim doubtful.

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Post #: 126
RE: SS - 11/29/2007 7:13:22 AM   
ColinWright

 

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Status: offline 		This is good as well.

http://books.google.com/books?id=_f-sPHOOIvIC&pg=PA54&lpg=PA54&dq=indus+valley+warfare&source=web&ots=QbI3SlqoF2&sig=EZ6ji6ujU8HRorFyWoV3b_LnrZM

Sadly, it's in some format that won't let me cut and paste, but it contains a discussion of the archeological evidence of the defensive fortifications and weapons used in warfare in the Indus Valley -- that warfare you claimed they didn't practice.

That's the problem with advancing theses that aren't true. Evidence discrediting them is rather easy to come by. I was reasonably sure that the people of the Indus Valley waged war -- and sure enough, it appears that they did. Either that, or they built forts for fun.

Generally, everybody fights -- and generally, all the time. One of the oldest human settlements known is Jericho -- and the archeological record shows that they built nice, high walls. Whoever their neighbors were, they weren't friendly.

< Message edited by ColinWright -- 11/29/2007 7:27:00 AM >

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Post #: 127
RE: SS - 11/29/2007 11:08:40 AM   
golden delicious


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quote:

ORIGINAL: desert

I'm hoping for a nice, healthy interstellar colonization era.


From what I've read, nuclear detonation propulsion is the most practical option- and this is illegal because of the test ban treaty.

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"War Studies"
"War? Huh. What is it good for?"
"Absolutely nothing."

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Post #: 128
RE: SS - 11/29/2007 11:10:22 AM   
golden delicious


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Ike99





You really ought to be able to have a duel. Sort of like a marriage- if both parties agree, and there are witnesses, then whoever gets hurt at least it's all under the law.

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"What did you read at university?"
"War Studies"
"War? Huh. What is it good for?"
"Absolutely nothing."

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Post #: 129
RE: SS - 11/29/2007 11:14:59 AM   
golden delicious


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< Message edited by golden delicious -- 11/29/2007 12:11:32 PM >

_____________________________

"What did you read at university?"
"War Studies"
"War? Huh. What is it good for?"
"Absolutely nothing."

(in reply to desert)
Post #: 130
RE: SS - 11/29/2007 11:36:33 AM   
golden delicious


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quote:

ORIGINAL: desert

The Indus River Valley civilization had no weapons and never fought a war.


To be honest, we know virtually nothing about this civilisation. I put it to you that a) they had weapons and b) they fought wars but none of the evidence has survived. You just couldn't have a settled civilisation in this period for so long without getting invaded repeatedly by the Asiatic horse peoples.

_____________________________

"What did you read at university?"
"War Studies"
"War? Huh. What is it good for?"
"Absolutely nothing."

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Post #: 131
RE: SS - 11/29/2007 11:53:29 AM   
golden delicious


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quote:

ORIGINAL: desert

In the paleolithic era, no evidence for warfare or organized conflict has been found.


It's widely held that Homo Sapiens wiped out Homo Neandarthalensis in this period. How do you propose we achieved this without "warfare or organised conflict"? Certainly we can't have done it without having several people working together with a violent goal- neandarthals were a lot stronger than we are.

quote:

Why have NO weapons or signs of the cult of the warrior-king been unearthed in their ruins?


You don't have to have a warrior king to wage war- and weapons can be stored elsewhere.

_____________________________

"What did you read at university?"
"War Studies"
"War? Huh. What is it good for?"
"Absolutely nothing."

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Post #: 132
RE: SS - 11/29/2007 12:31:03 PM   
vahauser


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Status: offline 		Humans are an aggressive violent species.  It's genetic.  It could well prove to be our undoing as a species.

To believe that humans are not an agressive violent species is to ignore the reality of our evolution.  We came from an aggressive violent environment (the African savannah) surrounded by aggressive violent animals.  To survive in that environment required aggressive violent behavior from early hominids.

If you believe in creation rather than evolution, then humans as aggressive and violent is even more obvious:  Cain and Abel.  Wrath of God (with humans made in God's image).  Pharoahs and Jews.  Enough said.

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RE: SS - 11/29/2007 4:56:33 PM   
Curtis Lemay


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quote:

ORIGINAL: a white rabbit


quote:

ORIGINAL: golden delicious


All I can say is that there's a difference between the United States and George Bush.



..really

..is that the US as a whole or just the bits that didn't vote for him...twice...



And then there are those of us who voted for him four times (twice for gov and twice for pres).

Now if only Jeb would run.

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Post #: 134
RE: SS - 11/29/2007 5:01:19 PM   
Curtis Lemay


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quote:

ORIGINAL: vahauser

Humans are an aggressive violent species.  It's genetic.


Never mind humans. Try any other territorial social species: Wolves, Lions, Ants. War is just a collective twist on the struggle for existence. That's at least 3,500,000,000 years old.

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Post #: 135
RE: SS - 11/29/2007 5:13:43 PM   
golden delicious


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

And then there are those of us who voted for him four times (twice for gov and twice for pres).

Now if only Jeb would run.


First Hillary Clinton, then Jeb Bush, then Chelsey (?) Clinton. Let's really screw future American schoolchildren.

_____________________________

"What did you read at university?"
"War Studies"
"War? Huh. What is it good for?"
"Absolutely nothing."

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Post #: 136
RE: SS - 11/29/2007 7:42:24 PM   
ColinWright

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: golden delicious


quote:

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

And then there are those of us who voted for him four times (twice for gov and twice for pres).

Now if only Jeb would run.


First Hillary Clinton, then Jeb Bush, then Chelsey (?) Clinton. Let's really screw future American schoolchildren.


The most disgusting part of it all is that Hillary Clinton starts to look like the best of the batch. I cannot believe that we cannot do better than that.


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Post #: 137
RE: SS - 11/29/2007 7:45:12 PM   
JAMiAM

 

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Status: offline 		Another friendly reminder to leave current politics at the door...at the outside of the door.

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Post #: 138
RE: SS - 11/29/2007 7:49:20 PM   
ColinWright

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: JAMiAM

Another friendly reminder to leave current politics at the door...at the outside of the door.


Next thing you'll be demanding that we keep threads on-topic. Honestly.


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Post #: 139
RE: SS - 11/29/2007 8:01:59 PM   
ColinWright

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay


quote:

ORIGINAL: a white rabbit


quote:

ORIGINAL: golden delicious


All I can say is that there's a difference between the United States and George Bush.



..really

..is that the US as a whole or just the bits that didn't vote for him...twice...



And then there are those of us who voted for him four times (twice for gov and twice for pres).

Now if only Jeb would run.


Hmm. Well, personal differences notwithstanding, when I become president I may appoint you my goodwill ambassador to the world's liberal community. I'd say you may have potential.


< Message edited by ColinWright -- 11/29/2007 8:04:11 PM >

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Post #: 140
RE: SS - 11/29/2007 10:36:35 PM   
JAMiAM

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: ColinWright


quote:

ORIGINAL: JAMiAM

Another friendly reminder to leave current politics at the door...at the outside of the door.


Next thing you'll be demanding that we keep threads on-topic. Honestly.



While that would be nice, I won't obsess over thread drift. After all, I'm as guilty as the next man when it comes to derailing threads. However, Matrix has a very strict policy on political discussions. If they deal with current political events, hypothetical, or real, then then they are prohibited.

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Post #: 141
RE: SS - 11/30/2007 12:18:19 AM   
desert


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quote:

The amazing uniformity of measurement systems across a number of sites suggests that the Indus Valley Civilization was a single state. However, it seems that the large cities were controlled by small groups of merchants, landowners and priests. Therefore, no standing armies were involved. The artifacts and texts from contemporaneous Egypt and Mesopotamia clearly depict battles. But the excavations at Harappan sites have not revealed a single artifact that depicts military, battles, prisoners or a human killing another human. Very few bronze weapons have been found. Fortified cities have been excavated which seems to indicate some defensive capability. Excavations do not indicate a well developed martial culture, which may be a reason for the eventual decline of the civilisation.


If there is little evidence for war in a civilization, it doesn't mean that they did have war. I personally believe that from 2500 - 1500 B.C, there was generally no warfare in the Indus River Valley, but there is just no evidence for warfare. Invasions would not have been common, as the Deccan Plateau was to the South and the Himalayas to the North. Defensive walls around the major cities don't mean that they actively sought war with other peoples.

I'd say that aggression and violence are part human nature, but "war", isn't partially because it's an artificial construct of our design (chimps don't plan preemptive strikes on the other guys). In the end war really is often for power or land, etc, because the point of animal violence is to protect themselves and their territory.

And that thing about Neanderthal, there is evidence that Neanderthal actually died out because of the glacial period that began 40,000 years ago, the one that ended at the beginning of the Neolithic. Neanderthal physiology was suited for hunting in forests, but the forests died out when the weather became too cold. The plains that were left behind were good hunting ground for Cro-Magnon with his spearthrowers. Thus most of the species died out in a few thousand years. If anyone competed for food, likely the Neanderthals would have attacked us for it, and they would have gotten thrashed anyway. How did the Austrilopithecines die out?

quote:

 
From what I've read, nuclear detonation propulsion is the most practical option- and this is illegal because of the test ban treaty.


Thats just the most practical version right now, although there are theories on fusion engines and "laser sails". We need something like an Alcubierre drive and interdimensional warping to get somewhere fast, but we need to straigthen out the physics first.

Using the 3+1 formalism of general relativity, the spacetime is described by a foliation of space-like hypersurfaces of constant coordinate time t. The general form of the Alcubierre metric is:


where á is the lapse function that gives the interval of proper time between nearby hypersurfaces, âi is the shift vector that relates the spatial coordinate systems on different hypersurfaces and ăij is a positive definite metric on each of the hypersurfaces. The particular form that Alcubierre studied (1994) is defined by:




ây = âz = 0
ăij = äij
where



and


with R > 0 and ó > 0 arbitrary parameters. With this particular form of the metric, it can be shown that the energy density measured by observers whose 4-velocity is normal to the hypersurfaces is given by





What does this mean?



_____________________________

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Post #: 142
RE: SS - 11/30/2007 3:50:16 AM   
ColinWright

 

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quote:

I personally believe that from 2500 - 1500 B.C, there was generally no warfare in the Indus River Valley, but there is just no evidence for warfare. Invasions would not have been common, as the Deccan Plateau was to the South and the Himalayas to the North. Defensive walls around the major cities don't mean that they actively sought war with other peoples.


How then, do you explain the fortifications? Defensive walls do mean just that -- that warfare is occurring.

Actually, from what I've read, military technology in most of those 'first wave' civilizations -- Sumer, Old Kingdom Egypt, and the Indus Valley -- was pretty primitive, and you wouldn't necessarily have much in the way of artifacts. Flint-studded clubs 'n stuff. But that doesn't mean it didn't happen -- as our more extensive knowledge of Egypt and Sumer makes clear.

Given the remnants of fortifications, the evidence is that war did occur in the Indus Valley. To believe otherwise is just wishful thinking.
quote:



I'd say that aggression and violence are part human nature, but "war", isn't partially because it's an artificial construct of our design (chimps don't plan preemptive strikes on the other guys). In the end war really is often for power or land, etc, because the point of animal violence is to protect themselves and their territory.



Well, now we'll get into what defines 'war.' I'm inclined to label any inter-communal conflict that involves homicidal intent as 'war.' Attempts at more precise definitions will probably run afoul of counterexamples. For instance, the Aztecs attacked neighboring tribes primarily to gain prisoners for massive cannibalistic human sacrifices -- not for land or power per se. We supposedly invaded Iraq to bring them the blessings of 'secular democracy' -- and there certainly was never any real prospect of gaining either land or power from the enterprise.

As to animal violence being to 'protect themselves and their territory,' a remarkably high percentage of human wars involve two participants who both sincerely think they are defending themselves. In fact, coming up with a construct where one is merely 'defending oneself' is practically a sin qua non for waging war in the modern era. Hence the obsession with proving that Saddam Hussein had WMD's. Ultimately, he had to be demonstrated to be a threat for us to feel justified in attacking him -- we had to be 'defending' ourselves somehow. I can't think of any war that has been launched in the last hundred years where both parties hadn't convinced themselves they were 'defending themselves' in some sense or other.




< Message edited by ColinWright -- 11/30/2007 3:54:50 AM >

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RE: SS - 11/30/2007 5:18:43 AM   
desert


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Status: offline 		I think a better definition would be organized homicide commited against another nation, state, or party. We shall see.


PS: Technically, one side would be defending itself, at least some of the time.

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Post #: 144
RE: SS - 11/30/2007 5:57:41 AM   
Ike99


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quote:

Well, now we'll get into what defines 'war.'


What is war?

War is collective killing for a collective purpose.

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RE: SS - 11/30/2007 7:37:01 AM   
ColinWright

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: desert



PS: Technically, one side would be defending itself, at least some of the time.


Yeah. But my point is that both sides generally manage to convince themselves they are 'defending themselves' in some sense of the word. It's an essential to waging war in the modern era -- there has to be a construct where we are 'defending ourselves.'

Look at the wars America has involved itself in the last one hundred years.

Spanish-American War. We were 'attacked' when the 'Spanish sank the Maine.'

World War One. Germany had to send the Zimmerman Telegram and sink a series of American merchantmen in 1917 before we actually declared war.

World War Two. Pearl Harbor. We were doing what we could to get involved -- but we needed the Japanese to help us go that final yard...

Korea. Well, we were attacked.

Viet Nam. Tonkin Gulf Incident. Vietanmese torpedo boats had to 'attack' American destroyers to justify large-scale American intervention.

Iraq. WMD's. That got blown up into the the casus belli. Why? Because it constituted the only one of Saddam Hussein's various outrages that actually posed a threat to us. He could have kept slaughtering Kurds and training police dogs to rip off testicles in perpetuity -- and we never could have moved. We had to construct some kind of threat to ourselves before we went to war.

In the above six cases, in only three were we inarguably attacked, and in only one was the attack substantial. This leaves aside the merits of waging the various wars -- the point is that we invariably had to construct a more or less specious vision of the situation as of ourselves being under 'attack.' Almost invariably, all nations constructed similar or worse rationales to explain how they were 'attacked' before going to war. It's practically a requirement: see the 'attack' the Germans staged on their own radio station at Gleiwitz and the similar farce the Italians staged before invading Greece.


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Post #: 146
RE: SS - 11/30/2007 7:38:55 AM   
ColinWright

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Ike99

quote:

Well, now we'll get into what defines 'war.'


What is war?

War is collective killing for a collective purpose.


No -- the Holocaust was not war. Tamerlane's massacre of 250,000 prisoners at Delhi was not war.


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Post #: 147
RE: SS - 11/30/2007 7:42:15 AM   
ColinWright

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: desert

I think a better definition would be organized homicide commited against another nation, state, or party. We shall see.


Maybe -- but see Iraq. Personally, I tend to see that as not constituting 'war' -- but it certainly gets called a 'war' a lot.

In any case, I think both sides have to be committing violence for it to be 'war.' This would be why Auschwitz wouldn't be considered a battlefield.

Iraq fills this definition -- but who in particular are we fighting? Can't be the Iraqi people -- supposedly we're there on their behalf.


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Post #: 148
RE: SS - 11/30/2007 7:48:43 AM   
ColinWright

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: golden delicious


quote:

ORIGINAL: desert

In the paleolithic era, no evidence for warfare or organized conflict has been found.


It's widely held that Homo Sapiens wiped out Homo Neandarthalensis in this period. How do you propose we achieved this without "warfare or organised conflict"? Certainly we can't have done it without having several people working together with a violent goal- neandarthals were a lot stronger than we are.



But were Neanderthals human -- or more to the point, did Homo Sapiens perceive them as human? If I organize a gorilla hunt, am I waging war?

Of course, this gets into interesting territory, as one of the requirements to wage war is to dehumanize one's opponents. I see this all the time on Israeli discussion boards. There's an overwhelming need to deny humanity to the Palestinians at all times, and in all ways. It seems to be essential.

Primitive tribes may genuinely regard their neighbors as not human -- and certainly the Mongols had their moral principles. They just thought of slaughtering non-Mongols as good, clean fun. Similar to hunting.

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Post #: 149
RE: SS - 11/30/2007 11:18:46 AM   
golden delicious


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quote:

ORIGINAL: desert

And that thing about Neanderthal, there is evidence that Neanderthal actually died out because of the glacial period that began 40,000 years ago, the one that ended at the beginning of the Neolithic.


This doesn't make much sense. Neandarthals were actually bigger than us, which makes them better suited to cold climates. Contraversially, it's believed they were also more intelligent- which would make them more adaptable. We, however, worked in groups.

quote:

Neanderthal physiology was suited for hunting in forests, but the forests died out when the weather became too cold.


Well, no. Europe wasn't just covered in one gigantic ice sheet. There were glaciers in southern England, but not in southern Spain. So why did Neandarthals die out in heavily forested southern and central Europe? Because Homo Sapiens exterminated them. There's certainly a good few Neandarthal bodies which have obviously been killed by stone weapons.

Moreover, cold as opposed to freezing climates are actually rather favourable for forests rather than plains.

quote:

How did the Austrilopithecines die out?


Our knowledge of the subspecies is so limited that we can't really tell.

quote:

 Thats just the most practical version right now,


Well you and I are going to be dead in 70 years. So right now is what concerns me. Your methods might be all very well, but they're as theoretical now as the atom bomb was 100 years ago. I don't see them being applied in my lifetime.

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