[sigtau]

... "Internet" ...

... well organized.

Excuse me, but

[BloodEagle]

So we all agree that we are living in the most blissful of times men has ever lived in his limited existence.

No. We don't.

[Scotty]

So we all agree that we are living in the most blissful of times men has ever lived in his limited existence.

No. We don't.

I'd like you to cite a point which invalidates his claim, if you would.

[StarSlayer]

So we all agree that we are living in the most blissful of times men has ever lived in his limited existence.

No. We don't.

I'd like you to cite a point which invalidates his claim, if you would.

Conan, What is Best in Life?

[BloodEagle]

So we all agree that we are living in the most blissful of times men has ever lived in his limited existence.

No. We don't.

I'd like you to cite a point which invalidates his claim, if you would.

Alright. I don't agree.

There.

[Unknown Target]

That doesn't invalidate his claim, BloodEagle.

Please discuss accountably.

[NGTM-1R]

That doesn't invalidate his claim, BloodEagle.

His claim was that we all agree, not the other part of the sentence.

[Mars]

Then I have a question: at what time were the vast majority of people better off?

[NGTM-1R]

I'd like to know too, personally.

[redsniper]

[SNAKE]

What was that you were saying... "peace is not the natural state of men"? You said you learned it in school.

[PAZ]

That's right. They're the words of the German philosopher Immanuel Kant. In 1795 he wrote a book titled "Perpetual Peace." Kant argued that it's precisely because peace is unnatural that we have to make it ourselves.

[SNAKE]
How?

[PAZ]
That's what his book is about. Is the concept starting to sound interesting now?

[SNAKE]
Not really... I belong in a more natural world.

[PAZ]
Is that so... ...My grandparents died in the civil war. If only we'd been at peace, they wouldn't have lost their lives. You actually wish for war?

[SNAKE]
It's not like I want to hurt innocent civilians. But if someone attacks you, what are you supposed to do? A country needs the strength to defend itself. Otherwise it faces invasion, oppression, political subjugation.

[PAZ]
If they'd simply stop using force to tangle with each other, countries wouldn't need force to defend themselves.

[SNAKE]
And how would you guarantee that?

[PAZ]
I...

[SNAKE]
...Sorry. But you have to understand how the world works in order to protect the ones you love. That's not to say ideals aren't important, too. They are...

[Unknown Target]

That doesn't invalidate his claim, BloodEagle.

His claim was that we all agree, not the other part of the sentence.

Ah, ok.

I think the biggest mistake I made in starting this thread was the way I framed it; I didn't really think it all the way through - the way I worded things implied that things were better at "some point". If it would help the discussion along, would it be better to apply my words to pre September 11, 2001? Let's say 1999, for instance. That was a pretty good year. Freespace 2 came out, for instance.

But I guess what I could also say is that how can we improve upon our track record? If we accept that the human race's history has been colored by violence for as long as any of us can remember, what can we do to change that going into this new millennium?

For instance, I want to examine this sentence here;

If they'd simply stop using force to tangle with each other, countries wouldn't need force to defend themselves.

What if we had a country that was totally pacifist? Especially one as large as the United States? What if that country in particular refused to create more war?

There's talk these days by very intelligent people that the idea of a global war is obsolete; not only do we no longer have the simple material resources to wage even WW2, but what would someone gain by invading the US? Most all of the "valuable" resources (mostly the high technology manufacturing capabilities) would be destroyed in the process. After the invasion, you would be left with essentially 50 different US-occupied Iraqs; a lot of pissed off, untrained, unskilled people who would most likely end up dragging down your war effort.

I think the idea of global peace is a truly attainable one. Yes there will most likely be fighting between now and then - for instance, dictators in many countries, leftovers from the Cold War that refuse to give up their hold on power. But beyond that I think that peace within our lifetimes is an attainable goal.

I don't have the answers and I know I have a tendency to create controversial threads with controversial thread titles, but I'd really like this to be a discussion amongst people who recognize that we are all indeed people. I doubt anyone in this thread would wish war upon another person in it, despite our disparate views and opinions, so how can we apply that to the world at large? I truly believe it's possible, and I truly believe that it might just be as simple as saying something like "We don't want to fight anymore".

That book that was referred to by "Paz" (never played the game) was written almost 250 years ago. Can we not improve ourselves in that long a time?

I'm going to change the thread title to something less confrontational/misdirecting, if anyone would like me to change it back just let me know, ok? I hope that it's not a problem with you guys.

EDIT: One other thing that I'd like to add is this; we simply don't have the resources or necessity for war any longer. In another time, it may have made sense to go to war for valuable resources, but now? What would you do; use oil to fight for oil? It doesn't make sense. If we view each other as human beings, instead of "Americans" or "Iranis" or "Russians" or "Germans", I think we'll realize that we really are all in this together, and we stand a lot better chance of having more of us come out together if we try cooperating. The old idea of pure competition and survival of the fittest just really doesn't seem to work anymore - at least not if you want to continue on more than 150 years. Yes, there will be misunderstandings between people, but as long as we operate on some same basic understandings (freedom, equality, no murder/rape/stealing/etc - the idea that the other person who you might be angry at doesn't actually want to see you dead because you like something different than them), and we change our mindset to be that of a global community, we will be able to get past them.

[BloodEagle]

Then I have a question: at what time were the vast majority of people better off?

I'd like to know too, personally.

The claim wasn't that society is better off (or more peaceful) than it ever has been.  The claim (unless my sarcasm detector is malfunctioning) was that we are "living in the most blissful of times," as compared with the past.

I completely disagree with that point of view.

I could reference so many different things that support this (greater complexity == greater stress, the current trend of the psychological reworking of how the mind works regarding memory and computational aids, societal stigmata/growing pains, etc.), but my reasoning is more personal than any of that, and I'm not willing to discuss that with anyone.  I merely felt the need to call "bull****," if you will.

[Bobboau]

Let's say 1999, for instance. That was a pretty good year.

For America maybe.
try again.

[Unknown Target]

So for America it was a pretty good year, and even then it probably wasn't. Yeesh, I'm not really trying to say "this year was the best! we should go back to this year!". I even said it jokingly. Do you really want to debate one relatively insignificant sentence? I notice you left off the "Freespace 2 came out, for instance". Did the levity in my post ruin your argument?

I'm not going to "try again" because that would be silly. You could say something was wrong with every year, and you would be right. I'm trying to talk about a way to make things better - is all you're concerned with is calling me out on petty issues and minor infractions? Do you have a larger point you're trying to make, or are you just trying to point out that I'm "wrong"?

[StarSlayer]

Isolationism and appeasement worked wonders in the 30s.  I'm quite certain if we melted our guns and played John Lennon songs everybody would be willing to live and let live.

[Unknown Target]

Isolationism and appeasement worked wonders in the 30s.  I'm quite certain if we melted our guns and played John Lennon songs everybody would be willing to live and let live.

Could you be more specific as to where I said to do that? After you do so, I would like to ask; who would we be appeasing, anyway?

[StarSlayer]

What if we had a country that was totally pacifist? Especially one as large as the United States? What if that country in particular refused to create more war?

ta da

[Unknown Target]

What if we had a country that was totally pacifist? Especially one as large as the United States? What if that country in particular refused to create more war?

ta da

Pacifism does not mean isolationist - you can be proactively so. The US (and many other countries) does this as well, with many of it's aid efforts.

As for appeasement, would you advocate that the Allies should have immediately and proactively gone to war with Germany? Remember, they didn't have the advantage of hindsight that we do now, and also remember that many countries were still reeling from WW1 and a worldwide depression. Not to mention how commonplace it was at the time to have war on the European continent.

What would your alternative be? Should we proactively go to war with other countries? Should we strike whenever we feel that a country may pose a threat to us at a future time?

Furthermore, it's interesting that you picked that one sentence to latch onto as well, and say that I promote isolationism.
Here I would imagine I'm making an argument for more global interaction;

If we view each other as human beings, instead of "Americans" or "Iranis" or "Russians" or "Germans", I think we'll realize that we really are all in this together, and we stand a lot better chance of having more of us come out together if we try cooperating.

And at another point in the thread I expressed interest in Flipside's idea of dissolving the old notion of countries.

As a final question, once you are done responding to my other points, I'd like to ask you again; what is your alternative to my suggestion of trying for peace and mutual cooperation between different peoples, since you seem to be so opposed to my idea of international pacifism?

[zookeeper]

Appeasement works just fine, there's just hardly ever enough of it. Hitler, for example, didn't appease.

[Luis Dias]

I wasn't being sarcastic. I also said it wasn't paradise.

Now, there's this psychological truth that whenever age we are in, we will always say that "back in the days was just great, now it's all downhill and the kids are just brats who will destroy everything we built", so we must account for that. People say its stressful to live nowadays due to the internet and the computers and such. Is it stressful, or are we just spoiled? Is it more stressful than being forced to go to the military and join a war, like my father was, for instance? How are we exactly comparing the psychological gaps between generations?

And given the amazing availability of goods today, the availability of games and fun we have now, our troubles are about being overwhelmed by the choices, by the stuff we know we won't do in our lifes. Man, that's so stressful. I mean, I can just picture my grandfather who spent his years digging the crops and what nots, thinking "man, I'm so glad I haven't the time to play stupid games and have stupid holidays with too much to choose about anything and everything, that would just be stressful". Right.

Or perhaps I'm just happy that half of the world is leaving poverty as we speak, in the most astonishing events of the whole history.

And look, I'm not exactly suffering from a limited perspective given my localized point of view. I happen to live in Portugal, one of the few countries in the world actually in recession (and in stagnation for the past decade).