Siberys: that's so my new sig right there.
[QUOTE=JonIrenicus]1: To keep my memories and thought process and go back to childhood so I could do everything I ever wanted to.
2: To remove everyone stupid (you know what stupid I mean?) from the U.S. Then we would actually be able to move on with progress instead of being slowed down.[/QUOTE]
If I could do the first one, I'd probably be a whole lot nastier as a child than I was; I was a perfect angel back then. Of course, if I was nastier, then the adults wouldn't believe me over the other kids, like they did when I got in trouble as a kid.
As for the second one... everyone stupid in the U.S. would be like 98% of the population. I'm game if you are. :laugh:
@Magrus: oh, I got vodka and rum both. Happy time for me.
[QUOTE=C Elegans]First, it a misunderstanding of human behaviour to believe that war and conflict are synonymous. War is one violent strategy to solve conflicts - there are many other strategies to solve conflicts. Furthermore, it would be interesting if you @Chimaera could develop you reasoning that
"Conflict is what drives the world, both in nature and humanity. Drive how? Do you mean evolutionary or do you mean technical development or something else? For instance, evolution is "driven" by selection pressure, which can consist of many things but the major factor is probably climate. [/QUOTE]
War generates conflict and is itself a result of conflict; it isn't conflict itself. I know this. And yes, I do mean both evolution and technologically. Selective pressure, such as climate, is a conflict in itself. How an animal adapts to a climate change and solves the question of surviving such a change is a conflict.
[QUOTE=C Elegans]Second, if you @Chimaera mean that
"we wouldn't be where we are today" without war, I certainly question two basic assumptions behind this statement.
1. What is so good with where we are today that would not have been achived without war?
2. What exactly do you think mankind has achieved to date, and which of these achievements would have been impossible or severely hampered by war, or conflict for that matter.[/QUOTE]
What is so good about where we used to be? It's a myth to believe that the "good ol' days" were somehow more pure or better than the way things are now, so really, why would things be better of then than they are now? And did you mean in question two, "which of these achievements would have been impossible or severely hampered by
lack of war?"
[QUOTE=C Elegans]Sure the WWII and the Cold War competition between the US and the Sovient Union led to technological advancement that gave us nuclear weapons and put man on the moon. I don't however think this is an advantage to mankind, or has any value as an achievement. Do you?[/QUOTE]
WWI also brought the first use of tanks, air power, gas. The U.S. Civil War saw the first--last time I checked, anyway, please prove me wrong otherwise--use of iron rather than wooden ships. And the technology which helped put the man on the moon came originally from Germany's development of rockets, like the V1 and V2. As to whether these things are any achievement, though, I agree with you; they're the superficial achievements to make a species feel it has somehow earned its greatness.
But it's not just nuclear power or rockets to the moon, either. We got the Jeep, the SUV--which is really the opposite of achievement there--as well as refrigeration (not just talking about WWII, in case my examples get bizarre); during WWII, when Germany's atrocities--and those of Japan--were made known to the world, we learned what we considered true evil and we fought it. We achieved a sense of triumphing over evil, and saving lives--although the way the liberation of concentration camps was handled is still debated today--and most would consider such things to be achievements. We came face to face with what mankind was truly capable of, and we overcame it. Such would not have been possible without conflict.
[QUOTE=C Elegans]
In my opinion, great achivements are those which have made the world a better place in terms of decreasing suffering. However, to take some examples, the discoveries that led to vaccination and antibiotics were not at all related to war or conflict. I don't know of any discovery that has decreased suffering significantly that was developed dependent on war or violent conflict solving.[/QUOTE]
I recall learning that penicillin was one such achievement. I'm going to look it up to be sure, though, but feel free to correct me all the same. And what about Morphine? Amphetamines? The Nazis used amphetamines to get their troops going faster, so they wouldn't have to fight even longer and increase suffering; the rapidity of the troops decreased the amount of suffering and damage which could have occured, which I think does fall into your quote above. And the fight against disease is a conflict itself. You're starting to make war synonomous with conflict now.
