Iraq Casualties

And I’d say that’s a pretty hypocritical remark in yourself.

Come on man, wake up! You’re accusing this kid of not having any insight to the matter because his only opinions are based on what he learned in school. Yet you’re doing the same: you’re basing every point you have on an external source. His opinions may or may not be based on what he learned in school; they might be based on what he personally has reasoned out through established knowledge into new conclusions (the definition of intellect). Your opinions are based on reading books written by men who, while famous, might not necessarily have any more correct insight than his sources. As long as you base your opinions on outside sources, even if they are published works, you have no valid complaint about whether his are based on outside sources. Face it: your opinions, if they are based on those of a book, are no more original than his are. And Thoreau? The only thing that makes him more “correct” in anyone’s eyes is that he was lucky enough to get published after writing his stuff. If he were stuck in a school and Janus’ teachers were published, would you then consider a person learned in the subject only if you’d read his teacher’s work instead of Thoreau’s? Consider it. A man is no more than a man, no matter how established he is. To claim reading someone’s work qualifies you any more than learning from someone else’s is less than insightful.

Agent, thats horseshit. Thoreau is a man. nothing more. you agree with his philosophies? fine. that doesnt make them right. you are an elitist SOB with this attitude Agent, that I dont have the authority to speak on something since i havent read thoreau. thats crap, and you are despicable for suggesting it.

heres a clue buddy: a philosopher develops philosophies. that doesnt mean they are right or wrong, they are one way of seeing or doing things. since you adopt his, you cannot disclaim mine because i havent read his. this thinking gets you nowhere. i cant even believe you would be so narrow minded and pigheaded.

Agent,

I’m a bit confused, are you saying that the President of the United States, all of our upper brass and all cabinet level officers should be on the frontline with M-16s?

I’d think that very irresponsible considering they need to be making command decisions, not dodging bullets!

(BTW, that’s how I read your unjust war because they will sacrifice others but not themselves.)

BTW, Bob Dole was a World War II hero, lost the use of his arm for this country, about the biggest sacrifice I can imagine short of death, and I don’t think I’d want him running this war.

I guess what I’m saying is just because you’ve sacrificed in a war or not should not be the over-all deciding factor on your leadership or whether or not a war is just.

In my mind, a war is just if the world as a whole benefits from the war, and especially if my side (country, state, organization, whatever) benefits from the war. Though, that does mean you have to put a price on human life and that is something we are all loathe to do - regardless of standing on issues of war and peace.

Agent, thats horseshit. Thoreau is a man. nothing more. you agree with his philosophies? fine. that doesnt make them right. you are an elitist SOB with this attitude Agent, that I dont have the authority to speak on something since i havent read thoreau. thats crap, and you are despicable for suggesting it.

Well its really simple Janus you often speak of how great your school is, how great the college is you are going to, but then you say stupid things like this. Either you are enlightened or not, either you are in favor of enlightenment values or not. But if you choose ignorance you can’t then claim to have knowledge to support your claims only emotion which is the direction you have chosen here. To say that I am full of crap for espousing Thoreaus ideas is as nonsensical as you saying you can reasonably defend your position having not read them. Again are you really standing for knowledge or for emotion. Am I elitist, yes b/c I have learned and read a lot, but I use that to enlighten others, so at least I share. Since I have obviously read more things than you despite not having gone to such a great school says very little about your education and your school. What’s more I don’t expect people to take what I say based solely on my word. That is I want people to counter it so I can prove the error of their ways and enlighten them. You want to lecture, and never have your ideas/wisdom challenged b/c you think you are blessed of divine providence. Who is being the elitist. I want people to think for themselves b/c all are equally capable of it, you want them to only listen to your and yours.

heres a clue buddy: a philosopher develops philosophies. that doesnt mean they are right or wrong, they are one way of seeing or doing things. since you adopt his, you cannot disclaim mine because i havent read his. this thinking gets you nowhere. i cant even believe you would be so narrow minded and pigheaded.

Your are the narrowminded and pigheaded one, and note it was you who resorted first to the unenlightened namecalling. If these ways are so wrong then dispute them with words and wisdom. If not then shut up. I’m sorry your education hasn’t been as good as you’d like to think, but too bad. The fact is that I believe in enlightenment, and if you can counter me with words and ideas then do so, but no more of your sentimentality.

The sad fact Janus is that you are somebody who believes in credentials ie I went to Harvard therefore I must be smart, but the reality is that a great many of the great intellectuals of American society haven’t gone to these schools, and there is a reason for this. These schools foster the idea in their students that they are better than everyone else so when people graduate from them they feel like they have nothing to prove. So when they enter the academic community they are shocked to find Mich grads and profs that can easily counter them, and even one up them. They are so elitist and narrowminded that they are unwilling to prove why they are right, and expect people to take their words as fact like they would the word of god. Everyone is smart enough to read Mill, Thoreau and DeTocqueville you don’t need to be an eastern aristocrat to get it, but this is exactly the unenlightend belief they like to propigate. In otherwords we the masses need them to interpret it for us. Who is really the elitist Janus?

I’m a bit confused, are you saying that the President of the United States, all of our upper brass and all cabinet level officers should be on the frontline with M-16s?

I’d think that very irresponsible considering they need to be making command decisions, not dodging bullets!

Jen I commend you on your class eventhough I don’t usually agree with you on politics. However, you make a good point once again proving wisdom is not the exclusive domain of the eastern aristocracy of Janus.

Yes you are right leaders shouldn’t be at the front lines b/c that would be foolish, but I was speaking to an ideal of how one can justify an action. The quakers actually apply a methadology similar to the one I expressed. Quakers are naturally pacifists, but instead of arguing that it is okay merely for them to not fight they go farther and argue all of war is wrong b/c it is unreasonable for them to ask someone like DFish to fight for them by proxy. It is to be said that they cannot ask someone to do something they cannot do themselves out of good conscience.

(BTW, that’s how I read your unjust war because they will sacrifice others but not themselves.)

This is roughly what I was getting at, but war isn’t just about sacrificing lives, but also other things as well. I don’t want to pay for it therefore it is unreasonable for me to expect others to do this. However, I would’ve been quite willing to pay for WWII via taxes as it served not only the greater good but also my own as Hitler was a really bad guy.

In my mind, a war is just if the world as a whole benefits from the war, and especially if my side (country, state, organization, whatever) benefits from the war. Though, that does mean you have to put a price on human life and that is something we are all loathe to do - regardless of standing on issues of war and peace.

But this is far too easy of a fix. By this reasoning it was just for the Germans to start WWII b/c it lead to the end of colonialism which has benefited the larger world as most of the world is in either the third or 2nd worlds. What’s more this discounts any sort of judgement of a war where little was gained or lost on either side. Case in point Korea. Was the greater good served by fighting a war in Korea in which the borders at the end were roughly the same. Wouldn’t by your definition make this and Vietnam unjust. What about the Soviet war in Afghanistan.
Also were you to counter with that the point of Vietnam and Korea was to fight communism then again the greater good wasn’t served as it didn’t hurt/weaken them. And in the case of Vietnam our participation may have helped the NVietnamese win control of all of vietnam.

BTW, Bob Dole was a World War II hero, lost the use of his arm for this country, about the biggest sacrifice I can imagine short of death, and I don’t think I’d want him running this war.

But again war isn’t just about life, its about dollars. Did Bob Dole support Vietnam? I’ll bet he did since he is one of those Nixon types, but a lingering problem of Vietnam has been paying for it. Did Nixon raise capital gains to pay for the Vietnam war, especially after he escalated it in 1968-9.

Methinks you’re the unenlightened one, sir. Basing every philosophy you have on a book you’ve read by an external source, and in particular claiming everyone else is unenlightened for not following this MAN’s work (and yes, that is all he is), how can you dare to call ANYONE unintellectual? An intellectual is one who takes established knowledge and uses it to form his own conclusions, thereby forming a personal opinion, not one who’s read a lot of opinions by other men and is able to regurgitate them at will. That’s the sign of a person who’s done lots of reading but very little thinking.

Brilliance takes both reading AND thinking. And to claim that somebody who hasn’t read a certain work of a certain mortal man, just as full of flaws as anyone else, shouldn’t voice an opinion, be it shallow or genius, is more than just a shallow philosophy; it’s an actively dangerous one that discourages intellectual improvement. It’s like my saying that you shouldn’t have a right to vote because you haven’t read Locke, or your claiming I shouldn’t because I haven’t seen “Fahrenheit 9/11.” Is this also what you believe?

Agent: i have never touted my school as excellent, i have made reference to it being “considered” excellent, often in a derrogatory manner. those are two very different things. if you cant see the difference, then sorry.

Either you are enlightened or not, either you are in favor of enlightenment values or not.

define enlightened? the way you think? the way thoreau thinks? why?

You want to lecture, and never have your ideas/wisdom challenged b/c you think you are blessed of divine providence.

no, i counter your arguments with statements of my own belief. i do this for impact, i dont pretend to believe i am absolute (well, sometimes i do, but if you think im being serious, you are misguided).

Who is being the elitist. I want people to think for themselves b/c all are equally capable of it, you want them to only listen to your and yours.

how has this thread shown either of these in any way? you are saying one pov, i am saying another. we disagree. that doesnt mean one of us is using a fundamentally wrong argument, just different

and if you can counter me with words and ideas then do so, but no more of your sentimentality.

that is what a philosopher is! he has no facts, he contemplates and bases his theories on his sentiments and ideas

If these ways are so wrong then dispute them with words and wisdom

i never said they were wrong. reread my post. i said that they are idea, neither right nor wrong, not fact

The sad fact Janus is that you are somebody who believes in credentials ie I went to Harvard therefore I must be smart,

really? is that so? no agent, im sorry, but thats wrong. the only thing i can see you pinning this on is my defense of bush when he is called an idiot. if this is the case, then i can see where this idea of yours comes from. let me clarify. i dont believe he is smart because he went to yale. i believe he is not a complete idiot because he went to yale. he has at least average intelligence. perhaps not common sense, since the two do not correlate, but even a rich alumni daddy will not get a complete idiot into yale. he must have SOMETHING to justify it.

Who is really the elitist Janus?

what have i said that is elitist? what have i SAID, not what you think you have interpreted.

what makes thoreau smart? i dont disagree that he is, but why? why is he the ultimate source?

you think i buy into those interpretations from the so-called elite? i dont. i make my own interpretations, right or wrong. i accept the generally agreed-upon interpretation, but i form my own as well.

again, remind how any of this has to do with parents wanting their children to die in a war, and its justifiability. this all started from you quoting thoreau, and me pointing out that his opinion on the matter did not make it so. i fail to see how i have done anything other than disagree with you, something you apparently cant accept, since you are “enlightened” and i am not.

piss off

i am not denigrating thoreau’s intelligence, merely his divinity. he is not absolutely right on anything, he merely has his beliefs. if you agree, than fine. i dont. congratulations, lets move on.

What in the world does support for Vietnam have to do with the war on terrorism and who I’d feel comfortable running it?

If you are referring to just funding, then you are saying that if Bill Gates was to hire an army, for the United States, to invade Canada you’d support it, especially if Mr. Gates himself fought on the front lines?

@Jennifer:

What in the world does support for Vietnam have to do with the war on terrorism and who I’d feel comfortable running it?

If you are referring to just funding, then you are saying that if Bill Gates was to hire an army, for the United States, to invade Canada you’d support it, especially if Mr. Gates himself fought on the front lines?

hahaha
that would be AWESOME!!

@marine36:

And stuka, what can you think of that is greater than laying your life down for your country?

Winning the lottery.

I served my country already. I owe nothing. Now I can feel more comfortable about letting my voice be heard. Dying for your country is the most honorable thing you say? I say serving your country is the most honorable thing. If you died for your country, you got ripped off. Just don’t blame your country for it when you are in heaven, hell or where ever you believe you will be.

what if you could choose how you would die? would it be peaceful, and serene, or would it be going down in a blaze of glory, doing something for your country? (i dont mean to push either side, different strokes for different folks)

@Janus1:

what if you could choose how you would die? would it be peaceful, and serene, or would it be going down in a blaze of glory, doing something for your country? (i dont mean to push either side, different strokes for different folks)

I don’t care how I die. I just want it to be suddenly. :wink:

agent, you owe a lot, your simply ungrateful.

agent, you owe a lot, your simply ungrateful.

Oh yes the petty psychology of the great sage Marine. So I guess if I was pro war and said that I wanted to see 1million Americans dead at whatever cost this would make me more patriotic. Or is it that your side is really only about death. If that’s true then its not very reasonable is it.

If you are referring to just funding, then you are saying that if Bill Gates was to hire an army, for the United States, to invade Canada you’d support it, especially if Mr. Gates himself fought on the front lines?

Of course not b/c this is why we have gov’t to begin with to regulate the actions of the individual as it pertains the state. We don’t allow people to do whatever they want b/c that is against our common interest. However, to protect this common good we must defend ourselves, but its easy to make war but harder to pay for it. And individuals in society give up much of their freedom as a compromise. However, that contract is broken when individuals propose wars which are not for the common good, but for the good of a few individuals within that society. Therefore the citizens in that society have every right to not support it. Whether it be by not paying their taxes or registering for a draft or what not. What makes war just or not is how you prosecute it. If you ask the body to make sacrifices the limbs will not then of course its wrong. If Gates starts a war with his own soldiers and pays for it the people of this country still pay as he is a member of this society. I guess it comes down to the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few. A fundamental concept all society is based on.

that is what a philosopher is! he has no facts, he contemplates and bases his theories on his sentiments and ideas

Not an enlightenment philosopher. Guess what our founding fathers were. Those here who tout their ideas but do not ascribe to the enlightenment principles do not know what they are talking about.

again, remind how any of this has to do with parents wanting their children to die in a war, and its justifiability. this all started from you quoting thoreau, and me pointing out that his opinion on the matter did not make it so. i fail to see how i have done anything other than disagree with you, something you apparently cant accept, since you are “enlightened” and i am not.

Yes I supported thoreau with reason and you responded with rhetorical nonsense such as ‘that is crap’. Please tell me how that can be enlightened and how it isn’t mere sentimentality. If it is the latter then how can we take it seriously as it is not based on reason or wisdom but merely feelings.

Methinks you’re the unenlightened one, sir.

Oh yeah, have you ever been right about anything?

Basing every philosophy you have on a book you’ve read by an external source, and in particular claiming everyone else is unenlightened for not following this MAN’s work (and yes, that is all he is), how can you dare to call ANYONE unintellectual? An intellectual is one who takes established knowledge and uses it to form his own conclusions, thereby forming a personal opinion, not one who’s read a lot of opinions by other men and is able to regurgitate them at will. That’s the sign of a person who’s done lots of reading but very little thinking.

This answer shows a lot of ignorance itself. The very notion that ideas are not dependant upon each other is ludicrous. After all, Marx wrote his stuff based on Smith, but in large part as a rejection of him as well. Of course Smith was dead, and lived in a bygone era so perphaps had he lived when Marx had he too would’ve had the same conclusions. I just read something today were Isiah Berlin critiques the notion of Ulitiarianism. So obviously all knowledge comes from previous knowledge and is merely like layers on a cake. Does one need a personal opinion. Absolutely not, b/c being able to argue from either side is what makes people intelligent and not the irrelevent distinctions Polaris makes. Which I might add are merely thrown out as a way to repudiate the vast knowledge of a superior foe. I can’t argue against your sources as you’ve obviously read more, and therefore can counter anything I say time and time again. So rather than base my logic on reason I will use emotion.

Let me ask you this Polaris, does emotion make you a better or worse player in the game. Better yet is it logic or emotion which causes you to continuously ignore the truth about Tech regardless of how many times I show you to be wrong, and after you half heartedly admit it only come back later to the same dumb conclusions. You cannot make the techs equal b/c they were not made to be equal. You are trying to force an unnatural distinction in place where it does not fit. What’s more I can explain how this is not necessary, and how tech inherently benefits the best player, barring luck(6dice getting HBs on one roll) but what’s the point. You play the game by emotion not reason which causes you to believe luck with tech is a greater concern than luck in battles.

Brilliance takes both reading AND thinking.

No it takes reading and writing. Thinking is merely a euphamism you’re using for prejudice. As all knowledge is derivative it therefores is true that thinking comes from reading, but not from some internally divine force.

Agent Smith: shut up. hows that for an argument based on sentimentality? :roll:

Agent Smith: shut up. hows that for an argument based on sentimentality?

It’s to be expected as this is all you’re about. Okay then since I’ve presented my argument for what defines just war what is your defintion. Is it whomever wins. That seems to be an arbitrary definition as sometimes the victors in one war are the vanquished in the next.

A just war:

War which ensures the greatest good for the greatest number. A war fought for ethics and the common good.

A realistic war:

War in which the victor achieves a number of resources needed to perpetuate the victor’s culture, or society, needs or desires.

a just war is a war you can justify under your morality system. that does not mean you want to die for it, but you can bring yourself to go to war because you feel it serves some greater good in your morality, whatever that may be.

obviously, that will mean there can be different ideas of a just war. so then personally, this works. politically, it should be one that you can gain support for, whether or not the people want to die for it, if they support going to war, then it is just.

again, this can create conflicts between opposing populations (if the entire population of country A wants to kill the entire population of country B, it is a just war for country A, but not for country B)

this is the idealistic version

realistically, i would go with your “arbitrary” version. the victor writes the history, so the victor will decide what is just. it is arbitrary, but personally i do not believe there are universal morals, so whoever is in power decides what is right and wrong, and thus, it becomes just under them.

Agent,
I value knowledge and the pursuit of truth above all else. I don’t know if that qualifies me as enlightened or not in your view, but I am comfortable with who and what I am.
The way you are conducting your current war will not result in a victory worth winning. Even if you crush your opponent that will have no value. You will have won nothing. Certainly not the victory a truely enlightened man would seek. Part of enlightenment is the desire to spread knowledge. Are you spreading knowledge? By offending you opponet you close him to the ideas you are a proponet of. That’s a loss Brother. Unless you just wanna show off. That’s cool too, but quit using words like enlightenment then. A truely enlightened man would be trying to get your opponet to read Thoreau, not use his writings as a hammer to beat his opponets with.

Now I am gonna get another drink cause this arguement has killed my buzz.

Remind me, o immortal Smith… when was I the one to try to make the techs equal and get into a lengthy conversation with you about it? Keep in mind during your quoting, I would like the posting’s topic, the placement of every reply I made within the topic, and quotations of every remark I made during said conversation. I am not and never have been for the equalization of techs… I simply made a small number of postings (I can’t even recall posting more than one) on theories about how they could be made that way IF people wanted them to be, for use in THEIR games (not mine). I wasn’t the one to kickstart that idea, nor to even perpetuate it, nor to argue with you concerning it, mainly because in the games of A&A I do play, I never use tech anyway, and often call no tech before the game! So if you’re going to talk about what any one of us here has argued, do your research on who said what beforehand.

“Have I ever been right about anything?” Obviously, I must have been right about many things if I’m the person that even my professors turn to when they have questions about things, and whether they’re making errors within some lesson. To be honest, I question whether you have ever been right about anything. Frankly, you’re the only person here who thinks your ideas have any value whatsoever. Is that surprising? It shouldn’t be.

As you haven’t played me in A&A, you have no right or capacity for judging my ability or how I allow emotion to interact with it. In fact, I haven’t played a game on this site or ANY site on the net, or with any other people in any form other than on a board, in person. So you can’t even claim to have witnessed my playing the game, and therefore have no information on which you can draw any form of conclusion about skill level, knowledge, playing style, emotional interaction, etc… Furthermore, your comparing A&A playing ability to opinions of intellect is startlingly incoherent, frivolous, and downright silly for somebody of your “intellect.”

Calling yourself “enlightened” because you’ve read things, and referring to people who haven’t as “unenlightened,” reminds me of somebody. That “somebody” is myself when I was 14 years old, except that I had some modicum of logical, individual thought to back up my comments (rather than incoherent and simple quotations of others’ opinions that often do not apply to the lesson at hand). You haven’t even got that, and I presume that is why you resort to comparing “skill” at a board game that is based largely on dice-rolling as a method of argumentation (and yes, I do believe luck in battles is more important than luck in tech; I never said anything to the contrary, as, if you paid any attention to my statements, you would know).

You, sir, are a hypocrite as well: you claim that we are “ignorant” for being unable to consider opinions other than our own, and that you are “enlightened” for having read others’ opinions. Would you then tell me sir, how, using this belief system, can you claim that only those who follow your opinion of “enlightenment” are truly enlightened, and those who do not are automatically “ignorant”? Doesn’t this contradict your assumption that intelligence depends on consideration of others’ contributions to knowledge?

You fall into a class of people I refer to commonly as “Pseudo-Intellectuals.” This class contains people who have very little intellect and few ideas of their own, so to make themselves seem more intellectual and impressive (most often as an ego thing, but sometimes to impress a woman they couldn’t get any other way), they demean others and refer to them as “ignorant” to make themselves seem more “enlightened”. They have a tendency to analyze other people’s statements with an ability on par with the average 8 year old and then create a wordy response to their own poor analysis, to misquote people or only partially quote them in a manner that cuts out something giving further or opposing meaning to the statement, and will often quote the wrong person as having said something somebody else said. I believe there is a term in psychology for people like this, but I haven’t studied psychology deeply enough to know the name for whatever this condition is. All I know is that others who belong to this class include a guy from a previous school I attended who believes the USA itself is run by “free masons” who plotted the assassination of JFK and who dominates the globe, and that “Novus Ordo Seclorum,” which according to him translates from Latin into “New World Order” (by the way, I KNOW Latin, and it doesn’t), is a symbol of the USA’s dominance. He said - big surprise - that people who didn’t know this already were “unenlightened” and should learn more about conspiracy theory by - you guessed it - reading some book. There was also a “genius” named Bill in my high school who was much like you: life being nothing beyond strategy games and Star Trek, intellect nothing beyond having read some other people’s works and being able to quote them as if they were his only ideas, and ego inflated constantly by his demeaning of others. He arrogantly thought of himself as the only “enlightened” person among a zombie crowd… just like yourself! And one more, just because space limits me: myself 6 years ago, back when I used to be like you. I would quote authors whose works I didn’t even truly analyze, but that I thought sounded pretty, apply them to lessons I didn’t know anything about, and then refer to everyone else’s opinions as “ignorant” to make mine seem brighter (while I was in this sad and unfortunate state, I once stated that Plato probably had Down’s Syndrome because his statements disagreed with those of Locke). An ad hominem, am I using with this posting here? Perhaps, but I relish in it; for it is no more than you deserve, having spewed the granddaddy of ad hominems just now.

“All knowledge comes from previous knowledge?” All I have to say to that is “Guhhh… Burrr… Duh-hurr!” Would you please tell me then, Mr. Smith… where did the first piece of knowledge of the first man come from? Being the first, it could not have been based on existing ideas. Where did the first mathematical idea come from? Obviously not previous knowledge. How about the first alphabet man created? Not based on previous knowledge. Where did the first notion of God come from? How about the first idea to keep track of time and events, before man began recording history? The first time man had a philosophical thought that had nothing to do with survival? The first of ANYTHING, for that matter! To state they were based on previous knowledge causes a contradiction within their very statements as being the first of their kind, proving via said contradiction that all knowledge is NOT based on previous establishments thereof - unlike your rather unusual example of “proof by example,” something even the most elementary of mathematicians, philosophers, or simply logical people would make a great mockery of before telling you to simply “shove off.” “I just read something today were Isiah Berlin critiques the notion of Ulitiarianism. So obviously all knowledge comes from previous knowledge and is merely like layers on a cake.” That’s like saying “All numbers are prime. Take 23. 23 is a number and it’s prime. So all numbers are prime.” Obviously, this is not true.

“Thinking is a euphemism for prejudice”? I have never read a statement that was so blatantly formed by somebody who knew less of what he was talking than my 3 year old cousin Kate, so decided to use large words in his sentence that any 10th grader could see through. I did not even specify what I was referring to as individual thought, and therefore, you cannot judge whether I am being prejudiced against anything as my idea was not even specified! However, I can say YOUR opinion is strongly prejudiced, as you automatically presume that people who form original ideas rather than taking those from your favorite authors are ignorant. Or remind me… were you just using that word to make everyone else seem smaller so you would seem bigger, as a symptom of your Pseudo-Intellect? If so, I guess that might be forgivable.

You’re a sad man, Smith. It’s depressing for me to see someone with such intellectual potential as yourself prove himself unable to mature beyond his teenage years, and thereby prevent his intellect from maturing as well.