Life, Death, Time, Religion, Global Warming, War and other controversial subjects

[Dragon Writer]

we can't just never have wars again, or anything...it would be nice, don't get me wrong, but in the long run it would be bad. As bad as wars can be, the fact of the matter is that sometimes they're also neccessary. Think american revolution. War, yes. Deaths resulting, bad. neccesary? Probably. Also, while in the short run the wars always have horrid results, you have to wonder exactly how it would have effectedd the world if certain wars had never happened. can we be sure that it would be all good?

and people are always insane when it comes to fear. it's just now, they have more things to feed said fears.

[Garrett Fitzgerald]

we can't just never have wars again, or anything...it would be nice, don't get me wrong, but in the long run it would be bad. As bad as wars can be, the fact of the matter is that sometimes they're also neccessary.

I agree, as little as I like it. The war in Afghanistan was necessary to take out Al Qaeda and protect Americans and other citizens of the world.

Iraq was a war of aggression that had nothing to do with <STRIKE>the Global War on Terror</STRIKE>whatever they're calling it this week.

And isn't it funny how exactly the same arguments are being used about Iran as were about Iraq? How stupid do they think we are, anyway? On second thought, don't answer that. We frequently _are_ as stupid as they think we are. :-(

[Emi]

Offense not taking... I actually had to look up that word (neocon?).. I don't want to be one of those people.. it just doesn't seem like me. Most of my opinions or so-called "knowledge" is based on what my mom/sister tell me. I rarely watch the media because they tend to corrupt the truth. Anyway, I guess I was wrong about what I said before, after reading what Garrett said I get it. His reasoning sounds so much better that what I was thinking, haha. Although, I do wish that we had some legit reason why we're over in Iraq!!

Um. I think we need a new topic? We've kinda been stuck on this for awhile... I don't know that's how I feel anyone else?

[DairineRules!]

[Gryphon]

Emi: Most of my opinions or so-called "knowledge" is based on what my mom/sister tell me. I rarely watch the media because they tend to corrupt the truth.

Heh, and I guess your mom/sister would know better? I like to read the newspaper and get whatever I can because it's the best you *can* get. They tend to be biased, but what other source do you have? And word of mouth is, if anything, more detached from the truth and charged with personal opinions.

I believe that wars are very rarely necessary, and they are more often destructive and backwards than not. They do not change minds; at best, they can only unify the country/countries/world by imposing the will of the _strongest_. You could say that, with each moral conflict, justice is redefined by the more powerful. The south could have just as easily won the civil war.

[Garrett Fitzgerald]

I rarely watch the media because they tend to corrupt the truth.

You could try reading http://dailykos.com, a liberal site, and http://redstate.org, a conservative site -- all you have to do is figure that the truth of the matter is somewhere in the middle. Understanding is a three-edged sword, and all that.... :-)

Not trying to change the subject but while we are on the subject of presidents (Bush in particular)what does everyone think about their stances on global warming?

Bush is so anti-science it would frighten me, if there weren't much better reasons to be scared. I particularly like his putting Political Officers in all the science departments to keep them from publishing anything that doesn't agree with his view of the world.

I can't decide if I want Gore to run for (re-)election, or if he's much more likely to be able to act on global warming as a free agent, able to do whatever's necessary without having to worry about the diplomatic effect thereof.

I'd actually most like Kucinich to be the Democratic nominee: he was homeless growing up, which gives him and me something in common, as my family lived in a shelter for several months last year. The first one was alright, but the second one was soul-killing. The front door locked from both sides, and Donna and I only had one key between us. Technically, every time she let me out to go to work (yes, I was working full-time in a programming/DP job) without waking the girls up, we were violating the rule that said the girls could not be left unattended, even for that long.

The day we moved from the first shelter to that one, my last trip ended up being five minutes past curfew, so the door was locked -- and when I tried to call Donna to let me in, the cell phone rang in my pocket. She was so tired she had gone to sleep while I was out, and I didn't remember which of the many second-floor outside windows was ours to throw pebbles. I had to go sleep at the house of the friend who was helping us move.

Thank God, shortly after that one of Ael's classmate's dads sent emails to everyone in his address book asking for help -- and as he was a city planner, he had lots of property owners in there. One of them let us live rent-free for almost half a year in a house that he was going to tear down so he could short-plat the property. At the end of that time, Donna convinced me that it would be best if we moved back to Maine, where we would have a family support network, while we still had the money to do the move. It still took a while to get our feet back under us after the move, but things are manageable now. Mostly. :-)

To tie this thread back into the YW-verse, is Bush an avatar of the Lone Power, or just overshadowed by it? :-)

[DairineRules!]

To tie this thread back into the YW-verse, is Bush an avatar of the Lone Power, or just overshadowed by it? :-)

[Tuttle]

Originally posted by Garrett Fitzgerald:

I can't decide if I want Gore to run for (re-)election, or if he's much more likely to be able to act on global warming as a free agent, able to do whatever's necessary without having to worry about the diplomatic effect thereof.

This is actually something which I got into a really interesting discussion about earlier this year. It seems like the best person to be in power is someone who does not want to be in power. I know of monestaries where the Abott every time they go to see if he should be Abbot still hands in his resignation and says, 'you're not here to see if I'm not right for this job, you're here to prove that I am.'

Similarly, it seems for president or any political position the best person would be someone who doesn't want to be president because there is more effective ways to work than politics. I know that Gore actually has said he's not going to run because of that. This actually has made multiple people I know want to write in vote for him just because he seems better because he realizes the weaknesses and yet would do the job, and has an idea of what to do.

To tie this thread back into the YW-verse, is Bush an avatar of the Lone Power, or just overshadowed by it? :-)

Overshadowed by power and corruption like many humans...no human around now at least is the LP, not to mention this would be really localized for him.

By the way is entropy possible because there is always the same amount of energy in this universe right??

Okay to put it simiply, entropy has to do with the moving of the energy into a form where we cannot use it anymore. Whenever there is a transfer of energy, some is 'lost' because of this, though there is the same amount of energy because of this. To put the laws of thermodynamics into simple terms You can't win. You can't break even. You can't leave the game. (btw I just lost the game ) It's not only that there can be entropy, but there is entropy and it is affected by everything we do. Literally every time there is an unnecessary fight on this forum there is an increase in entropy (entropy being the measure of unavailability of energy to do work (which lets us do stuff)).

Something that's wrong with this world... Thermodynamics is depressing... It is depressing for 40% efficiency to be amazing. It is depressing for the steam cycle to be the best that we could get for a cycle like that and not be able to get more than around 60% (or less maybe) efficiency because it is just plain impossible...

Which leads into the problem of fear of change. It'd just plain be cool if Bussard's Fusor ends up working and being made...

Anyways, I think that was a reasonable description of entropy at a very basic level. Wikipedia has a pretty good page on it though not the most understandable to someone who doesn't know anything about it.

[Mona0622]

Originally posted by Gryphon.

I believe that wars are very rarely necessary, and they are more often destructive and backwards than not.

most of the problems that start wars could be discussed and taken care of if people on the both sides had cool heads and talked things out. some people now just fight over everything and that's how they solve problems. Very few problems need to be solved with wars/fights.

Originally posted by Cress:

I don't support Saddam Hussein by any means, but the Iraqi people never ASKED to be "freed" from him. If they wanted a revolution or a civil war, they needed to come to that decision on their own, not be forced into "civilization" and "democracy" by a country that can NEVER fully understand the ancient hatreds between groups there.

After a revolution or civil war, then we could have helped them rebuild their country if they wanted the help. I've noticed that people don't generally like it when others give them help whe they don't want it or ask for it.

Combined double post - GF

[Dragon Writer]

and, to add one fact to what tuttle said: it (entropy) also exists. Which is kind of an automatic yes in and of itself. :P
and maybe most things can be discussed, and some things are just to stupid to go to war over, but a lot of the time those who are in charge aren't actually WILLING to listen. it doesn't matter how anti-war and willing to talk one side is, if all the other side is willing to do is try to kill the other one.
Note: i'm not actually applying that to any current wars, i'm just saying that talking isn't always going to work, because of that.

[EricG1793]

I had two threads like this: "Philosophical Topics/Speeches" and "The world is changing... bad changes or good?"

Nobody's posted in them in a long time! Well, the world changing hasn't been because it's been closed but I keep procrastinating to post it in the thread unlock thread. You stole my threads. I guess that's my fault, but... threads like this already existed. Sorry to break what would be a wonderful idea, but the threads already existed, and that's technically not allowed....

[alla]

Not trying to change the subject but while we are on the subject of presidents (Bush in particular)what does everyone think about their stances on global warming?

Ah, global warming... that wonderful scare tactic, favourite of the media these days, it seems. Not being from the US myself, I'm not entirely sure about Bush's stance on global warming, but as we're going into an election campaign here, its (an annoying) big deal here.

To put it simply, I don't believe that Global warming is a non-natural phenomena. Looking back at the Cenozoic/Cainozoic , and probably even further still (eg Snowball Earth Theory, the most recent of which is believed to have occured just before the major outbreak of life 550 million years ago), Earth 'suffers' from a flux of weather, we come in and out of ice ages, as our axis precedes and as the continents shift. We are currently coming out of an ice age, and this is a known fact. We are meant to be warming up.

From a local perspective (at least for me, as this is what I've been studying lately and, well, it proves a point), around 210 million years ago - the beginning of the Triassic Period, Australia was attached to Antarctica, India, South America, Africa and the Arabian Shield as part of Gondwana land. Gondwana land was covered in forest - and Antartica has not moved very far since then. This massive superconintent was situated in the high latitudes and covered in trees. Now what does that say about the warmth of the Earth then? It says that it was warmer - warmer than it is now. That also implies that we should be getting hotter.

And there are inconsistencies with the temperature and carbon dioxide measurements that suggest that there is nothing that we can do about global warming. The hottest days and years in the past hundred years did not occur within the last 10. Most of them occurred around the 1930s-40s. I have also recently learnt that the CO2 measurements that basically triggered the whole global warming debate all those years ago were taken at the top of a volcano. My hat goes off to the guy who thought that would be a good idea - volcanoes spew out carbon dioxide and many other aerosols; CO2 is by no means the worst that they extrude.

And while I'm on the topic of volcanoes and global warming. One large eruption puts more carbon dioxide (along with sulphur dioxide, ash particles and other harmful aerosols) into the atmosphere in one eruption than all humans put in to the atmosphere in one year.

Not that trying to stop polluting our planet is a bad thing. I applaud that the scare-mongering media has managed to get so many people to see that we are damaging our planet, but they really do need to make sure to get their facts straight.

[EricG1793]

Wow, alla, you sure (seem to) have you facts straight there! There are a great many theories that I can definitely believe, both with general knowledge and scientific knowledge. It kinda made me laugh... the CO2 samples were taken at the top of a volcano... how stupid.... What kind of utter moron.... *Gets in to fit of laughing*

*Gets serious enough to type more*I suppose it is better in terms of forum costs that this thread successes the world changing and philosophical topics/speeches threads because it's all contained in one single thread, like TTOGR. Although many, many topics may be going at once so it'll get very confusing eventually, but time will tell that fate....

[Garrett Fitzgerald]

One large eruption puts more carbon dioxide (along with sulphur dioxide, ash particles and other harmful aerosols) into the atmosphere in one eruption than all humans put in to the atmosphere in one year.

Wow, alla, you sure (seem to) have you facts straight there!

Not even close.
http://www.bgs.ac.uk/programmes/landres/segs/downloads/...nicContributions.pdf

Present day geological emissions of CO2 include both volcanic emissions...and non-volcanic - direct emissions from the Earth's crust and lithosphere. The contribution to the present day atmospheric CO2 loading from volcanic emissions is, however, relatively insignificant, and it has been estimated that subaerial volcanism releases around 300 Mt/yr CO2, equivalent to just 1% of anthropogenic emissions...

From Eric:
the CO2 samples were taken at the top of a volcano... how stupid.... What kind of utter moron....

The kind of utter moron who doesn't care what the current measurement is, but what the trend is over decades.
1958: 316 ppm
1968: 325 ppm
1978: 335 ppm
1988: 355 ppm
1998: 365 ppm
2003: 383 ppm

From elsewhere on that site:
The Mauna Loa atmospheric CO2 measurements constitute the longest continuous record of atmospheric CO2 concentrations available in the world. The Mauna Loa site is considered one of the most favorable locations for measuring undisturbed air because possible local influences of vegetation or human activities on atmospheric CO2 concentrations are minimal and any influences from volcanic vents may be excluded from the records. The methods and equipment used to obtain these measurements have remained essentially unchanged during the 47-year monitoring program.

Because of the favorable site location, continuous monitoring, and careful selection and scrutiny of the data, the Mauna Loa record is considered to be a precise record and a reliable indicator of the regional trend in the concentrations of atmospheric CO2 in the middle layers of the troposphere. The Mauna Loa record shows a 19.4% increase in the mean annual concentration, from 315.98 parts per million by volume (ppmv) of dry air in 1959 to 377.38 ppmv in 2004. The 1997-1998 increase in the annual growth rate of 2.87 ppmv represets the largest single yearly jump since the Mauna Loa record began in 1958. This represents an average annual increase of 1.4 ppmv per year. This is smaller than the average annual increase at the other stations because of the longer record and inclusion of earlier (smaller) annual increases.

[Rhi]

Yep, I'm agreeing with Garrett here, especially since we have research that supports it. Also, while I'm at it, I'd like to say that, in regards to:

We are currently coming out of an ice age, and this is a known fact. We are meant to be warming up.

Actually, technically, we're overdue for the next ice age (which apparently could be triggered by global warming, I forget how that works and I kind of need to go to bed right now, so I'll edit this later and include actual, concrete research) Okay, I'm going to go now before I fall asleep at the computer; I might have a hard time explaining that one to my mom (Mom: "and why is the computer covered with asldfkjgheoiwuralkshjkhabnuxyddddddddddddddddddddd d?" Me: "ummmm.....the cat did it?")
fixed formatting - gsf