War and peace

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[Spartan_Marine88]

Our technological breakthroughs seem to be farther and farther between.

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')

[Smokaz]

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.

[RoyalHants]

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

[Spartan_Marine88]

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.

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

[AmPM]

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.

[Smokaz]

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

That's pure bs

[Malgoroth]

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.  

[3rdCondor]

I will allow this de-rail *thumbs up*

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.

[Smokaz]

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.

[Spartan_Marine88]

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.   

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

[Smokaz]

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.

Without war of any type

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

[Demon767]

id rather not die tbh

[Masacree]

Me, I relate consumerism more and more to the widespread femine culture. It seems to be closely related with a retarded spending creating the need for uncessary amounts of luxury products.

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.)?

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).

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.

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'

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.)

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.

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

When you have a virtue, a real, whole virtue (and not merely a mini-instinct for some virtue), you are its victim. But your neighbor praises your virtue precisely on that account. One praises the industrious even though they harm their eyesight or the spontaneity and freshness of their spirit. One honors and feels sorry for the youth who has worked [them]self into the ground because one thinks: “For society as a whole the loss of even the best individual is merely a small sacrifice. Too bad that such sacrifices are needed!”
   
The praise of virtue is the praise of something it is privately harmful – the praise of instincts that deprive a human being of [their] noblest selfishness and the strength for the highest autonomy.

That is how education always proceeds: one tries to condition an individual by various attractions and advantages to adopt a way of thinking and behaving that, once it has become a habit, instinct, and passion, will dominate [them] to [their] own ultimate disadvantage but “for the general good”

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

Why not, similarly, hold that some persons have to bear some costs that benefit other persons more, for the sake of the overall social good? But there is no social entity with a good that undergoes some sacrifice for its own good. There are only individual people, different individual people, with their own individual lives. Using one of these people for the benefit of others, uses [them] and benefits the others. Nothing more. What happens is that something is done to [them] for the sake of others. Talk of an overall good covers this up. To use a person in this way does not sufficiently respect and take account of the fact that [they are] a separate person, that [this is] the only life [they have]. He does not get some overbalancing good from his sacrifice and no one is entitled to force this upon [them]– least of all a state or government that claims his allegiance, (as other individuals do not) and that therefore scrupulously must be neutral between it citizens.

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

[Smokaz]

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.

[Spartan_Marine88]

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.

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'

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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)

[Masacree]

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'

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.

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.

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

Is that logic simple enough for you?

letting a thousand die for the sake of 3 billion? i would do it if it needed to be done.

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

The value of the subject became the standard unit of currency for the political arithmetic of States and the political economies of capitalism. They trade in it still to devastating global effect. The technologisation of the political has become manifest and global. Economies of evaluation necessarily require calculability. Thus no valuation without mensuration and no mensuration without indexation. Once rendered calculable, however, units of account are necessarily submissible not only to valuation but also, of course, to devaluation. Devaluation, logically, can extend to the point of counting as nothing. Hence, no mensuration without demensuration either. There is nothing abstract about this: the declension of economies of value leads to the zero point of holocaust.

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).

[Spartan_Marine88]

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.

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

[Masacree]

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

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?

Granted that we want the truth: WHY NOT RATHER untruth? And uncertainty? Even ignorance? The falseness of an opinion is not for us any objection to it!

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.)

[Malgoroth]

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.

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...

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.

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.

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

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.

[Spartan_Marine88]

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...

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

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.

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.