COH: Europe In Ruins

War is what often creates a lot of our tech, and the entire "hug the tree" attitude is slowing us down (not the piddly scraps going on today).

Plus we have grown quite comfortable with how we are, we need a better power source to use that FTL device we invented to go between earth and mars in seconds? Well fuck it then, oil makes us too much money, buy out the company and list it as a failure or 'one day'

Oil not making us enough money? Tell the entire world we are running low even though no one has actually measured the earths oil fields. (they are all 'educated guesses')

No doubt War is a mover and shaker, upsetting understands, economies and the mindset of the nation's inhabitants. But that's also a sign of a primitive society to not be able to replicate technological golden ages as well without a war. It's a simplification no doubt, but it's true on a base level.

technology in wars was created to help us survive if we do face hardships ahead technology will be created that will help us through just a question of if its to late or not by then

No its not a sign of primative society, its a sign of a society thats not made of herd like herbavores but of teritorial and social omnivores, level of civilization cannot and will not change what we are.

/end of derail

Development is driven by need; what greater need can there be for a people than survival.

War is the closest thing we have to a societal kick in the pants.

That's pure bs

In an ideological argument, would the first dude to throw a punch because his temper overcame him not be judged mentally weaker or somehow less intelligent? Perhaps... a Neanderthal?

Yes. Yes he would. War is this on a grand scale. A primitive society would be more inclined to call for war.
Self defense when the first punch has been thrown is the only excuse for armed conflict imho.  

lol that's because you're responsible for tons of de-rails in forums xD
Don't think I haven't forgotten about you bringing up communism for teh lulz in my Terror thread lmfao.

Displeasure towards armed conflict doesn't even need to be tied to deeply rooted peace activism. Among others there is a pure economical, resource-amassing and distributing perspective. Whatever society that is able to solve this problem is also able to avoid war. After all what is there to hate in your fellow man? The vast majority starts out similar to each other, genes provide a slate and culture and society fills in the rest. War is deeply tied to material concerns. Even preemptive conflict has it's foundation in the perceived safety of one's assets. The Cuban conflict comes to mind.

War is not a unique human thing. Animals go to war as well, both gorillas and ants go to war. War against other species of our own standard is the only war that can be attributed any meaning, because it's  inserted into human nature to protect one's own and one's assets. Only against a species bent on our destruction does war make sense, and then surely out of differences that cannot be solved.

Adaptive and thriving species nurture and develop their environment. A jellyfish has purpose, man splashes about in his own cradle without enough concern for it.

No actually, often the one accused of being a Neanderthal is much smarter then the one who lords his brains over everyone else. He is the one who wants to end the conflict with one bullet, but the 'smart' and 'civilized' one creates cyanide gas.

Let us not forget that everyone who has called themselves the more 'civilized' group has always been some of the worst out there. And the 'Barbarians' often alot more cultured then the rest.

War is and always has been a good thing, it helps us in so many ways. It is a source of population control, the closeness of people in war while also creating some new diseases at times also boosts our immune system collectivly. Our technology spikes while during wars and we break boundaries that are often prevented as Political and Religious bureaucracy are sidelined. By glorifying warriors we get children who aspire to become fit, instead of the obesity riddled state that our 'civilized' nations have fallen into.

Without war of any type we will become a weak people, easily overtaken by any enemy that is out there

Its easy to attribute "peace time" population lackings as much to the development level of our culture as it is attribute it to a lack of a unifying cause like a war. You can turn the entire argument on it's head: we allow ourself to go weak without war. Its a conscious decision on our part, because we are well-informed about the dangers of stagnation and bliss.


War is a type of competition. When we stop competing, we go lax. However we do not have to kill each other to compete. There are easier ways to do it. The lack of motivation is not explainable with a few words, but there are plenty of self-centered, superficial avenues of needless luxury to point out as negative trends in our cultural development. Cultural developments in the area of how to balance beer cans on our guts while we watch the latest episode of "Lost" downloaded on our Iphone, can sparingly be described as something different to a type of dead end culturally.

It's not about giving up fun, it's about realizing that the worship of fun and luxury has reached a point where it is excessive.

*I hope Wind never sees this thread

id rather not die tbh

Feminine culture? Try again.

How about our patriarchal culture which values women solely based on their body (and not for their intelligence, work ethic, ect.)?


What the FUCK?! Why is progress valuable? Hint: its not - its only valuable in the context of humyn life. It disturbs the shit out of me that people condone war for the sake of technological or economic advance. Such people's myopic vision wrongly places the value on what is simply a means (progress ect.) to the greater end, which is humyn life.


Hate to break it to you, bro, but according to our current understanding of physics, FTL travel is impossible. Not "difficult" to engineer but impossible. But yes, capitalism sometimes stalls innovations when such innovation is financially inefficient, and encourages shoddy, but profitable design (planned obsolescence ect.)



WHY IS IMMUNE SYSTEM STRENGTH VALUED? BECAUSE IT HELPS PEOPLE STAY ALIVE! HAVING PEOPLE DIE FOR THE SAKE OF IMMUNE STRENGTH IS VERY WRONG.

You need to get the fuck away from this archaic virtue ethic style of normative theory. As everyone's bro Nietzsche so eloquently put it:¹


Now stop with this perverted nationalistic-social welfare based logic and instead embrace individuality. As another bro, Robert Nozick, put it:²


(http://www.iep.utm.edu/wp-content/media/Nietzsche-274x300.jpg)

1. Human, All Too Human.  Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche. Translated by R. J Hollingdale.
2. Anarchy, State, Utopia. Robert Nozick

While the patriarchal society definitely strains some obscure measure of what would be a reasonable amount of pressure to conform to standards of attractiveness, it needs to be given some credit for what it does as well. At least it is natural. Plus its only about sex anyhow, we have to see that in a perspective that sex isn't exactly the most logical and reasonable thing. Attraction is is not logical or easy to govern. You can't tell people to find something attractive. On some levels it also suggests fitness as a ideal for both sexes cause you can be damn sure that patriarchal society doesn't get by on being ugly mugs themselves with womens fitting their perceived image of female beauty. And again this can be tied to low cultural development, because its widely accepted that women can do almost anything a man can, so expectations of attraction should stream out of the same baseline.

Theories, nothing proven. But FTL is way to general, only going literally faster then light has been theoretically proven wrong. But there are alot of theories around that such as folding space in a sort of 'jump'


Some of that is hard wired, and alot of it is leftover from catholicism to take down the power that Greek and Roman Priestesses had.


Progress is valuable, because a percentage of the world cares about it. If it can get you something you never had before, then fuck ya its as good as gold.


letting a thousand die for the sake of 3 billion? i would do it if it needed to be done. (although i will never be smart enough or worthy enough to make that decision nor is anyone else on this planet)

Our current theories are as empirically proven as any knowledge we know to be true. Sure, they're not entirely epistemologically sound (problem with inductive logic ect.) but you get the idea.


K, so progress is only valuable because people value it. So, valuing progress over people is illogical.

Is that logic simple enough for you?


That argument also implicitly assumes life has value over progress. Regardless, there's a number of ethical problems with aggregate consequentalism. A couple of them :

1. The inherent problem with knowing the consequences of actions. If those consequences can't be known (because no one can perfectly predict the future) than there's no way to take a moral action.

2. Unity of action:

A moral theory has to provide moral reasons for actions. Actions are made up of phases. For instance using a lever is a single action that requires reaching to the lever, gripping the lever, and pulling. At the beginning of the action we must be able to expect the action can be completed, otherwise we would not have attempted to begin the action.

However, the reason to take an action in a utilitarian framework is to maximize good end states. This is problematic because at any moment of time a utilitarian calculation can change. There is no reason to suppose a relationship between the possible end states of an action at a particular moment in time and at another moment of time. Therefore, no utilitarian action can be committed with a true moral reason. Thus utilitarianism does not respect unity of action, and ought to be rejected as a moral framework.

3.Calculability inevitably leads to worst harms than what it tries to prevent.

Bro #3
Michael Dillon


4. Any action can be justified in the name of preventing some sort of indeterminate worst harm. This manifests itself in the current climate of increasing securitization: In order to "protect" us from the indeterminate terrorist threat, we lose liberties (habeas corpus, privacy) and lives (thousands dead in the foreign wars).

(http://www.i-house.or.jp/en/ProgramActivities/images/Negri%20for%20web.jpg)

Actually most of those theories are from before Quantum Physics which mixes things up quite a bit

Also our current knowledge is quite limited tbh

The biggest hint is how 90% of the theories pertaining to Space and Time are still called theories

Also while i don't believe in invading someone, it is stupid to believe that Humanity can ever have true unity without an external threat.

Fact: we would not be who we are without war and conflict

Bro, we don't "know" anything. Certainty is the key to knowledge, because you only 'know' something if you are 'aware of a fact' (a fact being a 'truth'). But being certain is definitely impossible, all the more so because knowing whether something is true is impossible... But what does that matter? What does our bro Nietzsche have to say?


But regardless, every scientific "fact" is called a "theory". A theory is just an accepted explanation for a variety of empirical phenomena, even things regarded as true (the theory of gravity, theory of evolution, germ theory ect.)

Not all conflict is violent. I don't know where you made that leap.
Judging from what you've said here... I'm going to go out on a limb and assume you admire people like the Tucson lunatic who tried to end the argument with a bullet. This is essentially what your logic is boiling down too. If you have a disagreement with someone, shoot them! Interesting...

Nice strawman with the cyanide btw. Not transparent at all...


Calling oneself 'civilized' and actually behaving as such are two completely different things.
Your confusing definitions here.... must I define what 'civilized' and 'primitive' and all their respective synonyms mean in this context? Because I thought it was clear.

civilized - The party which sees violent conflict as unnecessary and something which should be avoided unless thrust upon them. Their response is measured and thoughtful. They are mindful of boundaries and seek only to resolve the current turmoil as bloodlessly as possible.  

primitive - The party which sees violence as an expedient means to an end. They care not for the other sides opinion or claims and seek only to win by any means necessary.


The mass murder of people is never. ever. a good thing. By no stretch of the imagination was the 'population control' of 6 million Jews a good thing. Nor was the 'population control' of 3000 people during 9/11. You may cry "unfair" that I bring these incidents up, but they are exactly where your line of thought will take you. War is, at its essence, organized mass murder to achieve a goal. It is not, as you seem to claim, required for a society to advance - advance in this context is something you seem to define as purely technological, which seems a little shortsighted. Philosophical advancement doesn't count? Scientific? Humanity is curious. Humanity thrives on advancing its knowledge. How much knowledge - technological, philosophical, scientific, and historical - was lost when the Roman empire fell, in wars, to barbarian invaders? Or the sacking of Baghdad by the Mongols and the destruction of its libraries? I propose that war has much more capacity to destroy knowledge, and advancement, than it does to create. Imagine a more civilized Rome. One who didn't treat their barbarian neighbors as unworthy shit and invited them to participate in its workings. If all of those wars and invasions were avoided and Rome remained strong. How much MORE knowledge would we have today if we didn't spend all that time fighting stupid wars for stupid reasons during the dark ages before the renaissance?
Where would we be, if more civilized schools of thought were silenced by the warmongers during the Cuban missile crisis? Where's your technology then?

The rest is all very paranoid of you...
Why would we need warriors to inspire children to be fit? Can the same not be done by professional athletes and sports players? Why can't the desire to be healthy be the inspiration itself?

Damn, man.

No, i don't believe that, and hate people like that. An argument is an argument, but if someone comes at me with a gun, i will defend myself



Im not talking murder or using "population control" as someone like Hitler would have, so fuck you. I am talking about natural population control that happens in a normal sustained environment. Nothing to do with race, religion or anger. But what happens to every species of creature on this planet.

It's a completely different thing to a) recognize war as a stepping stone in the world's development and it takes a examinating mind to do so, because it's a thinking that easily comes off as disagreeable and 2) to perceive it as a early development necessarily building up our culture without being some kind of renewable method of expanding our scientific and cultural knowledge.

We have no perception of how development without war is, just as our early predecessors had no real concept of what it would be like to live in a society governed by law, money and where you are born in the world. It's far away in our minds for advancements in humanity's "cause" as a whole to happen without cataclysmic events and conflict because thats simply the way we base the theory of our origin and continued development on up until this point. It might be stated that there is no limit to the methods and scale of how we can invent ways to destroy each other but even if we are killing each other with lasers contrary to chucking stones at each other we're still just sharpening our knowledge of how to advance our society by war and conflict. It's a culturally narrow path of evolving.

Think of it in terms of the backstory of Mass Effect , here a superior race of robots wipe out all organic life when it reaches a certain technical zenith which it is guided to through certain paths by artifacts, knowledge and technology left for the next appearing multitudes of life to find. We cannot overly appreciate one path of development by bursts through conflict and war, because undoubtly this blinds us to different paths of advancement.

In a way it is also similar to the path of consumerism and worldly delights, this takes away focus from our real challenges which are not on how to gorge ourselves and to grasp the holy grail of absolute comfort as closely as possible, but that we are but one tiny speck of sand in a vast universe and amazing discoveries might await us. Consider the enormous cost of advancing our space flight yet so much resources and time are spent furthering causes of luxury in a way that is excessive.

If competition and selection, unification by external threats or challenges is what drives humanity then it surely should be led into the path of leaving Earth. Space is definitely a hostile environment and travel through it is intensely difficult. But what is there for us here on earth? Diminishing resources and a population we cannot indefinitely support by today's methods and a culture so inwardly focused that massive amounts of resources are spent on things our forefathers would have dismissed as weaknesses and dead ends of development.

Does this mean everyone should be a rocket scientist, or a space engineer? Not at all. It means that society as a whole has to narrow its scope towards a real, species-wide movement towards NOT being narrowly caught up in wasting our precious resources. It's very unlikely that enlightenment about the nature of existence will be expanded or see a golden age by patiently staying on earth. Everyone has to pitch in to make society efficient and as meaningful and inventive as possible to find solutions.

War has been a stepping stone in our development and we should not resent the things war created, it would be akin to dismissing the sacrifice of those killed in inter-human conflict no matter how pointless it seemed at the time, if conflict indeed propels us forward as you say, Spartan. But the unifying cause and outside threat should can easily fit the bill of the stagnation we face rolling in a cradle filled with droppings from our childhood, warring over the bits left to us by ages past.

I like how you said all that Smokaz, and i agree with it.

I am not a violent man, but it is apparent that some of our greatest moments are in times of war or great strife.

If you want to think about it this way...

Progress is required for the overall health of the species, eventually this planet will die.

War is the greatest instigator of scientific progress, either because things are developed during a war, or because they are developed with the idea that they will give superiority over an enemy if there is a war. Eventually (and already, though not on the scale that will come) we will be waging a mass war over what remaining resources this world has, yes it will happen, no, we cannot replace most of them, and yes, its our own fault for breeding so fast.
 
People are not valuable other than to the people that know and care about them. If someone I don't know and has no impact on my life dies, then it does not matter to me in the least. I may feel slightly bad for about 5 minutes though. Also, if some fucker shoots at me with his damned AK you better be right I'm going to engage him to kill, him and any of his buddies nearby whether or not the weapon they have in hand has been discharged.

People = replaceable in the grand scheme. Progress towards our species not being dependent upon this world = much more important.

As for who chooses who lives and dies; it's whomever has the most power. Survival has nothing to do with morals, stop including what is moral and what is not in this discussion, it is not a factor. Your beliefs or those of your society count for nothing when another group doesn't share them.

Dude... AmPm... Smokaz countered all of that in the previous post.

We are not destined for god damned Ragnarok. What is it with this fatalist, 'war is the only way' attitude here? This is exactly the line of thinking that will damn you to that fate. It'll be a self fulfilling prophecy.

Believing that everyone will play by the same rules is the stupidest thing I have ever heard of.

The UN is proof of that. Hell, we can't even control some 3rd world Warlords in Africa and keep them from waging a war on other tribes.

When you have your perfect world with no real military forces and someone decides fuck this, you can end up like Europe in WW2 again.

Yeah the world is shit. It sucks. It really does. But there's no reason WE can't be better. Who says we can't defend ourselves and simultaneously develop an alternative fuel source? Nuclear Fusion? Who says WE can't expand into space?

If America is truly a world leader then why don't we lead by example?

Lets not forget, they figured out 3 things in Africa.

1. Starting a genocide while a major trial is going on will make sure the west doesn't care.

2. Cut off peoples body parts in front of news crews and the western media won't show it.

3. Kill a few American soldiers and down a Helicopter in combat using dirty tactics, and home support will drop forcing them to pull out.

....and what exactly does that have to do with anything we've been talking about?

War, conflict and catastrophic events are what we have been randomly given depending on how you see the creation of the variables that become the origins of modern society. A lot of it we created for ourselves. To dismiss that other paths of cultural and technological advancement was/is possible is entirely acceptable, but it's our experience and history not the only imaginable path. And again as this is so deeply etched into human society its viewed upon with the same certainty we once did displayed towards a round earth placed in the center of our solar system. 'War is progress' is a sentence that leaves out so much.

Not being able to overcome conflict on earth is another indication of how primitive our society is. We are well informed idiots. It's like a worldwide prisoners dilemma where people condemn each other freely. Things take time however.. and are we to adhere to this conflict-progress line of thought more war is needed and we need to come closer to the breaking point to realize that we have to change. In that way war's only purpose is to end war, either through annhiliation or through reaching close enough to the spot where things change.

And humans either single or groups are only as replaceable as we think we know they are. We are quick to dismiss people without knowing their worth, a quick glance and some words and most people have (for them) a working understanding of what another person means and is. It's a elimination game being played blindfolded. How accurately do we gauge other people's worth without being them or studying them their entire life? This leads us to the realization that life in its variation and possibility is precious and that as much possible potential must be guarded. And this is not unifiable with death and mutual destruction. Its not even unifiable with one side completely destroying the other unless they knew who they removed. And its ABSOLUTELY not unifiable with a world where the majority is not able to fulfill their potential and where petty wars and self-absorbing veer us away from paths we should know and understand is more important, and without doubt overpopulation and our current culture plays a large part in swaying populations into this kind of existence.


I dont see how believing in war being a unifying cause is possible to put on the same table as nobody being able to agree. There are certainly easier emotions to invoke in humans related to war, namely their egoism, their hatred, their fear. A large part of modern society thrives on insecurity and how the complexity of today's society make people easier to goad into convenient, seemingly good choices.

And realization of what is roughly our real situation isn't going to happen instantly to the same generation at the same time, unless it's some kind of transcending-belief cataclysmic event causing it. Some people will be ahead or "wrong" in other's eyes in time before the majority is able to follow. That's another historic lesson from the spring of humanity, that you don't become prophet among your peers and that challenging, demanding leaps in development have been attempted to be repressed by the established powers over and over again. We still have a whole world filled with religious nuts for instance.

As lonely and cold the universe must seem for the disillusioned man staring out into the void with the dawning realization that elephant gods and wine-to-water deities will not save him, at least it clears his mind of the distractions of doubt and he sees what he can do here and now to advance society.

If man has many poor traits that seem to occur more often than his good one's, at least individual happiness and progress has been proven to be attainable. I dont think anyone sincerely doubts that its technically possible to be happy and productive, given the opportunity. It's about narrowing the path to this, reduce distractions. It's not about becoming a extremist in any way. The vector reaches its point not on the power of it's movement alone, it also needs direction. It's the lack of species-wide direction when many are well informed about existence that intrigues me the most, if the existence of deities and gods is not completely abolished it's at least very convincing at this point, and can't be said to be much weaker in strength than our insight into the fact that resources on earth arent limitless, that it's largely explored and that if we cannot invent some kind of Eden here on earth where everything is doable we need to move on in the form of a scavenger and consumer, at the very least to find new targets for our destructive culture to absorb.

Phew. That was one hell of surge. Edit complete.

- SmokazChannelingTheSpiritOfWind

No, progress is what got us into the ecological catastrophe in the first place. And, the drive to progress is what is going to prevent us from saving ourselves.


What the fuck. Survival isn't inherently valuable. What gives humyn life value is abstract notions like morality, justice, and knowledge. Sacrificing those for humyn life is silly and contradictory. (This is a really good quote)

As bro #4 Daniel Callahan writes,¹


1. THE TYRANNY OF SURVIVAL. Daniel Callahan

There is no ecological catastrophe, the world always cycles through the same states. It starts off cold, builds to a certain temperature then freezes and repeats


I value my survival, and those i care about, you try to take it away and i will have no issues about killing you. And by human law, it will be moral, and justified.

Bro, do you read anything I write?

How does one even begin to measure the value of humanity, it's like a child who thinks it's an adult claim sureness of it's coming value as a adult, yet it is also like a  dying man imaging how his many coming years of adult life will turn out and what it will produce.. this is escapes the scope of our possible understanding of both ourselves as a species and a individual because the choices we made willingly or automatically (depending on how one sees free will) have repercussions and results in a magnitude we don't even appreciate or know a tiny bit of.

Eugenics is the only true answer.

lol

So basically, it comes down to a guess.

Do we continue on our current trend which has seen humanity prosper in ways unimaginable to our ancestors but which could lead to our utter destruction, or choose a new path that could also lead to our utter destruction.

Along that line of reasoning, neither is better than the other. Since we can't begin to guess which might be the better long term solution neither side is valid.

People talking about morals have never been in a situation where their survival or someones they care for is at stake.

This didn't really start out as a pure war and conflict vs progress. A large part of the point I tried to get across was how modern society is excessive in its nurture of dysfunctional culture, or rather culture that steals attention and resources away from more important things. If this was improved the warmongers would be happier too, more resources and people dedicated to duking it out. But I dont see the point in choosing this over space expansion, nor do I believe its impossible for the world to unite towards this goal, but I dont think our civilization or our overall culture has reached the point where it can be done. Anyways not sure if it was directed at my posts heading off now, gnight

Nuke the whales... that's the first step in the answer of "Eugenics" selfish whales eat all our fish and goddamn popcorn shrimp! Those bastards! Furthermore directing all our animosity towards a common foe will unite the countries and create world peace. The Japanese and French know what they're doing we should follow their lead!

That's modern society for you. The world should implode in on itself it would probably increase the IQ of space

Topic split from the one about Australia's flood.

More weapons now! cause thats what people like right.

Might is Right.

Wars and conflicts are merely a cover up for selfish ends. Conspiracy theorists will have a field day here. I still don't believe that during 9/11 the twin towers collapse at free fall speed a long time after getting hit by a plane.

It reeks of sabotage. Anyone who is an engineer will know how much of a fallacy that is.

just watch Zeitgeist,one of them nicely explains how it's not possiable for those things to happen,and one plane that hit Pentagon, whole metal construction of plane melted away...yeah right  ::)

Just two things.

1. Without war people would never be able to comprehend peace. Its already being said of western society, that we don't really understand the rest of the world.

2. And to be quite honest, H.G. Wells has a great point if you get rid of war and engage in a Society free of war and strife, the Morlocks will come.