Politics.. I know.... but blah.. its important.

[Zoombie]

Wow, what world are you living on, I'd love to visit!

The west.

Lol.

And to answer Helmets question: The world I live on is called The Earth, you should really visit it some time.

Addendum: WWI Might have had a "low" civvy death rate. What about WWII? Without counting the self inflicted civvy death rate, Hitler and then the Allies bombed the crap out of Europe, while Japan bombed the crap out of China, then America bombed the crap out of Japan (More then just the two atomic ones, too).

And for about 1600 years, the term 'civilian casualty' didn't really mean all that much. Half the job of an invading army was the sack as much of the enemy's terrain as possible (Lighting it on fire, rape the women, steal the food, and starve everyone as fast as possible). Armies were less 'armies' then hordes of untrained, undisciplined louts who's standard operating procedure was to stab peasants (on BOTH sides) and take their food.

And one last thing... Looking at the past through a history text book dulls the impact. Its easy to READ about the despots and the madmen, the wars and the cruelty and have it all happen a comfortably long time ago. Its also hard to comprehend the sheer death tolls of the last 2 world wars. I mean, to quote a rather famous madman, "The death of one man is a tragedy...the death of a million is a statistic". One person dies, you can feel shocked and horrified...a million is just that much harder to wrap your head around.

And MANY of the problems now a days have always been problems.
Ethnic cleanings?
Conquistadors, the take over of America from the American Indians.

Plague: AIDS has NOTHING on the Black Death or small pox in sheer death counts. Its going to be around longer and its harder to cure, but it still has yet to kill that many people

Drug Abuse: They used to sell cocaine as a fucking tooth ache cure

Traffic Problems: When you get run over by a horse and buggy, you get run over twice. Once by the horse and once by the buggy. And in crowded cities, like New York, there weren't even much in the ways of traffic laws, or...well any thing, actually. Pretty much a 'battle royal' of men, beasts and women.

Abuse of Women: All of human history

Racism: The reason why its a problem today is because they didn't even think of it as a problem in the past. They didn't even have a NAME for it, for crying out loud.

I could go on, but its six in the morning, so I will end with one last statement:

Pessimism is the most puerile, the most POINTLESS view on reality there is. Seeing that things can only get worse, means they will only get worse. How can you improve if you can't see the good in the world and nurture that? A Pessimist is like someone staring at their feet. An optimist is someone who looks to the horizon. Yes, if you don't look at your feet you're liable to trip once and a while. But at least you know where to go, in the long run.

The world is a nice place, for some, an okay place for many and a horrible place for some. If thats unfair or wrong...go make it better and stop complaining on a GAMING FORUM!

[pintle]

Deci, unless you are a millionaire (in £ not $) you are not part of that 5%. We dont generate the wealth anyway. I will discuss this further in chat or pm if you like, but i think Zoombie's post is a pretty good way to end this thread.

[Decimator]

Pintle, my country produces that wealth, and I'm just fine. I do not care if someone has more money than me. All I want is to have a decent job that I enjoy, a wonderful wife, and enough money to get by. I have two of the three, and I am engaged. My company produces pulleys and idlers using steel sheets and bearings, which in turn are made from iron ore. The iron ore is mined from the ground, which has to be done by somebody, producing jobs. The iron ore is then placed into a blast furnace and smelted, which also must be done by people. After that, the molten iron is poured out and kept molten to reduce impurities until it has the right amount of carbon, which requires, oddly enough, still more people, producing still more jobs. Bearings and steel sheets are made in factories. The bearings come from China, paying the factory workers who live there and I do not know where the steel sheets are produced. Now, yes there is a person at the top who makes a lot of money off of this, but that is because he controls a company that pays people money.

[SwiftSpear]

5% of the worlds population control 95% of the worlds wealth.
We are an incredibly priveledged minority. Helmet missed climate change off his list, that is gonna seriously screw up the 100% aid dependant nations, and a lot of the LEDCs in central africa.

As for was getting better- bs, roughly: wwII 90% military casualties, 10% civillian, Operation Iraqi Freedom 10%military 90%civillian

WWII had quite high civilian casualties, and that war wasn't even the guerrilla style conflict Iraq is.

[Dr.InfernO]

EVERY president of the USA has at least 1 war in his period... that's an evidence of incapacity.

[Caydr]

We *produce* that wealth, pintle. We buy things from other nations, giving them money.

Oh, oh, I couldn't let this one pass. Your national debt is 13 trillion dollars last I checked, but that was before you went around "liberating" oil. I mean, people. Iraq alone is estimated to have a final cost to state of over a trillion dollars. Way to be generous.

The bearings come from China, paying the factory workers who live there

...1 cent an hour.

that is because he controls a company that pays people money.

No, it's because he hires underlings to do that and probably just inherited the company from his father, the one who actually did the work. He, like your president, probably spends the majority of his time on vacation.

The "people at the top" are nothing but freeloaders, contributing nothing at all to society. I believe the statistic is actually >99% of the world's money is controlled by <1% of the population.

Not just speaking of USA, I don't know what this world has degraded into, but it sure isn't anywhere close to what the people who originated ideas like capitalism, freedom of speech, and such things. Capitalism is the ideal that you are paid according to how you work. This isn't what happens. In Canada at least (for I am admittedly largely ignorant of the state of the world outside north america), the situation is beginning to reverse. Tradespeople are becoming extremely sought-after, meaning that they can basically name their wage and THEY, the employees who do the work, are the ones who hold the company together. But what will happen when they die and their children are in control of the wealth and power they have accumulated? Take a wild guess.

Therefore, I end rant this on a humorous note: children are the reason for everything that goes wrong and has ever gone wrong ^^

[Candleman]

And this is why we shouldn't talk about politics.

[Neddie]

Essentially I've found no reason to defend my points thus far, if you want an explanation for why I let them sit - nobody has effectively challenged them. Thus I only intend to contribute further when something I can delineate appears.

Hence...

SwiftSpear raised the issue of civilian casualties during World War II. His analysis is correct, though it bears some explanation. World War II had a large number of civilian casualties due to a few significant factors.

1. Extensive Bombing. This took the form of fire bombs over Japan, German bombing patrols over England, the Dresden bombing undertaken near the end of the war, etcetera.
2. Genocidal Activities. Yes, the Holocaust. Rape of Nanking. One could even make an argument for the Internment Camps within the United States.
3. Japan and the Atom Bomb. Here the definition of civilian and combatant blurred slightly, something which the few proponents of the use of the Bomb in retrospect often bring up. A fanatical ruling group of Militarists exploited the traditional values of their culture to perpetuate a conflict, and as there was no way to remove the Militarists, it seemed prudent to remove the people they manipulated - as per bulk.

[Nemo]

You know what? THe US should simply pull everyone back, do nothing but stay in our rather expansive country, not help anyone out, and if another tsunami hits oh damn well.

People in other countries like to make the US out to be some big bad bully when in fact the US spends tons of money helping other nations and peoples. So, I say we turtle. See how well the world deals with each other without having us to contend with.

Impossible. Isolationsim is absolutely impossible in an age where we depend so heavily on trade for our economy to run, and when a sizable portion (most?) of our economy is tied up overseas, in nations such as China or Japan. We're much more vulnerable economically than you might think.


And we DO spend less as a percentage of GDP than most other first world nations. A good portion of the aid that went to the tsunami was actually private/celebrity endorsed/not through the government. So if another event happened like that, the US as a nation would likely continue to give, even if the US as a government did not.

[pintle]

RE: Neddies post.

I stand corrected, i had consciously excluded the holocaust from my point as i dont view it as a part of the actual war, more as an event that occured during that period.

On going to the book i sourced that from, i found that it was "the vast majority of 20th century conflicts" as opposed to WWII that it referred to.

Sorry for the misinformation

[Decimator]

Nemo, while I don't know about Japan, cutting off trade with China would hurt them far more than us. It would take us a bit to rebuild our manufacturing capability, but we could do it.

[Min3mat]

But they'd have a LOT of cheap toys to play with in the meantime, whilst they wait to rebuild ^.^

[BigSteve]

lol

[Cabbage]

Nemo, while I don't know about Japan, cutting off trade with China would hurt them far more than us.

Wrong.

[Caydr]

Probably 90% of the things in your house are manufactured in China. If it wasn't for this fact, people would probably pay a little more attention to the human rights disaster that is ongoing in that country (though it's getting better, I know). However, we do rely on them, so little defenseless 3rd world countries are picked instead when north america gets nuke-horny.

[KDR_11k]

That and China is as powerful as the USSR in terms of MAD capabilities.

The US economy would collapse if trade with China was stopped. Many companies rely heavily on the profit margins they get from making in China (or buying from third world countries) and selling in the west, by being forced to produce in the west the production costs would rise a lot (to like 10 times their current value). Never mind the gigantic costs of setting up plants for local production again. Most companies would face bankrupcy, the rest would have to raise prices to accomodate. You wouldn't be able to afford living the way you do. Many jobs would evaporate. Sure, new jobs would be created as minimum wage plant workers but those aren't going to help the economy a lot either since they won't be able to afford more than basic goods (as all luxuries a minimum wage worker can currently afford would increase in price).

Trade embargos with Japan wouldn't really matter, most of the japanese stuff is made in China anyway.

[Caydr]

Trade embargo with Japan would leave us with only xbox, clearly an unacceptable outcome.

[KDR_11k]

My Gamecube, PS2 and DS are made in China.

[Neddie]

But not designed, and neither is most of the software of note.

[Forboding Angel]

EVERY president of the USA has at least 1 war in his period... that's an evidence of incapacity.

Not true. Note that you used the word war