Though often peace costs.

Peace Sells... but who's buying!?

Couldn't resist...

That's quite nice in a grunge sort of way :o)

...
If there's a new way,
I'll be the first in line.
But, it better work this time.
...

I'm kind of hoping too.

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. — Attributed to Voltaire?

That's a tricky one isn't it? Because Noam Chomsky got attacked on that one when he defended the right of a holocaust denier to express his views. It was a clear case of "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"...and he has made it clear that that was his stance..but ever since Chmosky detractors have used it against him by twisting his defence of Faurisson's right to free speech into a defence of Faurisson's ideas.

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Reality Internet Personality

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. — Attributed to Voltaire?

Sometimes this principle made my posting etc on other boards quite difficult. And I suppose I have this problem on each board where I am posting.

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Account frozen...

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. — Attributed to Voltaire?

That's a tricky one isn't it? Because Noam Chomsky got attacked on that one when he defended the right of a holocaust denier to express his views. It was a clear case of "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"...and he has made it clear that that was his stance..but ever since Chmosky detractors have used it against him by twisting his defence of Faurisson's right to free speech into a defence of Faurisson's ideas.

Best as I can tell Chomsky was/is a Linguist--About as much credibility as Barbra Streisand, Dr Spock or Jane Fonda on World Politics. These are outstanding people in their fields but may be removed from mainstream, day to day reality in the world of Politics.

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....
It's only now that we have the technology and ecconomic power to make a difference world wide.

Ok, going with that... so since we started on this technological age, how has the state of the world been the last 100 years? Acceleratingly toward more and more war. One can read the newspaper or watch the evening news as to how peaceful we are becoming.

We also live longer, feed far more people than have ever existed on this planet before, have the ability for far more people to communicate and have saved more lives with medicine in the past 50 years than were ever saved in the whole of human history prior to our technological age.

No doubt bigger weapons mean more deaths but having a big weapon does not make someone more aggressive. It just makes their single action more devastating.

Of course if you want to believe your basic human essence is aggressive or violent who can stop you.

Ok let's review what I stated earlier: "I believe the "fight" is an inherent human trait. Take away religion, remove government, disallow any other controls and yet another human (not all necessarily but some) will gladly take a stick and bash another's head in (or use the larger cc brain power to effect a more subtle means) for personal gain."

Survival of the fittest. I would sum it up as "drive". I'm not going to quibble about what I plainly stated. Did you notice the "subtle means" bit? Why are you zeroing on the violent aspect? I was using it as an example.

You are free to interpret it how you wish. People inevitable read into things what they care to see.

People do have drives. People do want what suits them best.

If peace suited them best then the drive arguement suggests we would have peace tomorrow.


If I zeroed in on the 'violent' aspect it is because the thread is about achieving 'peace' and violence is the antipathy of peace.


I guess I am argueing a different underlying concept of human drives.

I know I will be on my own arguing this given we have had millenia being told and believing that we can never achieve peace because of our supposed essential competitive or fighting nature.


I don't believe we will ever achieve total peace but I do believe we could achieve something close to it.


Though often peace costs and we need to be willing to pay the price.

Who was it who said " Justice is what is pleasing to the Strong" Plato ? Aristotle ?

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There is an interesting observation time to time a few has given chance to be superior than most others and supposed to restore peace. But pretty much all of these great powerful nations screwed up their chance and collapsed: 1. Roman empire, 2. Mongolian empire, 3. British empire, 4. Are we observing now American empire?

The fact was clear they were all given superior wisdom, wealth, influence and enforcement tool of military might but somehow all of the great empires manage to collapse within few centuries each. (maybe not exact superior wisdom but intensified political institution that was almost perfect at the given time which acted with very well perspective that each super powers manage to last more than a century as history tells us.)

Maybe from efficient studying from history we might figure out the relative balance of peace that supposed to work for everyone. [well then they might consider contacting us as peace achieved intelligent beings. ;) ]

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Mandtugai!

Visualize Whirled Peas.

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Hopefully the cosmos is not trying to reverse the charges.
Moderation in all things.

We also live longer

In Biblical times, people lived to be 1000 years of age... We have been digressing ever since... ;)

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It may not be 1984 but George Orwell sure did see the future . . .

We also live longer

In Biblical times, people lived to be 1000 years of age... We have been digressing ever since... ;)

And they were bored to tears for the last 900. I mean really, if I had to stare at the same people and places for 1000 years, I'd blow my brains out.

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Hopefully the cosmos is not trying to reverse the charges.
Moderation in all things.

Maybe the trick is first we need to find the peace balance then we might figure out finding those outsiders. ;)

But from all those empire experiments possibly there were many crucial peace elements acquired: 1 million people learnt to live in one city under order with romans, international trading learnt with mongolians, scientific/industrial development learnt with british. So possibly it is upgrading peace evolution.

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Mandtugai!

There is an interesting observation time to time a few has given chance to be superior than most others and supposed to restore peace. But pretty much all of these great powerful nations screwed up their chance and collapsed: 1. Roman empire, 2. Mongolian empire, 3. British empire, 4. Are we observing now American empire?

The fact was clear they were all given superior wisdom, wealth, influence and enforcement tool of military might but somehow all of the great empires manage to collapse within few centuries each.

Technically the British empire hasn't fallen yet... They just gave power to their countries to decide for themselves.


Peace is just something that we cant achieve. There will always be something someone will be fighting for because we cant have everything we want and/or need.

~BoB

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Do you Good Search for Seti@Home? http://www.goodsearch.com/?charityid=888957
Or Good Shop? http://www.goodshop.com/?charityid=888957

There is an interesting observation time to time a few has given chance to be superior than most others and supposed to restore peace. But pretty much all of these great powerful nations screwed up their chance and collapsed: 1. Roman empire, 2. Mongolian empire, 3. British empire, 4. Are we observing now American empire?

The fact was clear they were all given superior wisdom, wealth, influence and enforcement tool of military might but somehow all of the great empires manage to collapse within few centuries each.

Technically the British empire hasn't fallen yet... They just gave power to their countries to decide for themselves.


Peace is just something that we cant achieve. There will always be something someone will be fighting for because we cant have everything we want and/or need.

~BoB

Technically yes, but realistically the EU is supreme empire over there. ;) (Remember? the EU constitution overrules any members' law!)

And possibly many civlizational/peace elements that now being invented by EU efforts would likely be learnt everywhere else. I mean the elements of peace creation or elmnts for ultimate peace.

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Mandtugai!

Peace is just something that we cant achieve.

Sure you can... Inner peace, it's more rewarding than all the 'pat on the butts' put together...

But when you find it, most will hate you for having it... ;)

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It may not be 1984 but George Orwell sure did see the future . . .

I consider anybody who advocates 'peace' who does not also advocate for individual rights and the prohibition of the intiation of force to be insincere at best and a liar at worst.

I don't find it fruitful to even think of discussing 'peace' with anyone that will not express advocacy of that principle.

Big Waste of Time.

I haven't got a clue what you're talking about Robert. WHO are you talking about? WHO is it that you won't discuss peace with? For the record "I" have not advocated "peace" in this thread, neither did I define, as initiator of this thread, what "peace" I was talking about. Maybe peace to sit in my own garden without the noise of traffic annoying me? But as I didn't, you can sulk away from whatever "peace" people wish to discuss here. Goodbye.

What a strange strange strange response from you. HMmmmm.

Perhaps you haven't gotten your latest orders from Gang? Or mayhaps you have?

Just deal with what I say as an idea and stop your personal vendettas.

@R/B: Actually R/B since your post followed mine and I used the word "force" in my post I did wonder if you meant me when you used the words 'insincere' and 'liar.'

I did think about responding at that time but I spent the time wondering to myself instead.

In a perfect world no one should ever use force. In this imperfect world we have to us some force at times but if we are good we won't use undue force and we will avoid it for as long as we can.


@ICE: I thought you mostly meant world peace as in no wars and no civil unrest and then a general demeanour of respect for others.


Maybe I messed up all around.


My friend once said that I had a Vendetta. I thought he said a Lambretta. No wonder it kept crashing. Poo :o)~

@ Crunchy & Ice, No I wasn't posting to you in particular at all. I think we cross posted? I was speaking to anyone anywhere that may say out of one side of their mouth that they are for 'peace' and the next moment advocate using force, violence, and jails etc etc. Sorry for the confusion.

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Founder of BOINC team Objectivists. Oh the humanity! Rational people crunching data!
I did NOT authorize this belly writing!

The positive: we have probably evolved and continue to do so compared to medieval, inquisition, conquest of the new world and so on.

The negative: i guess Nostradamus will be right. Technology has advanced. Big brother will be technologically possible in a few years (nanotech) and who knows what secret cloning/robotics/bio/chemical weapon projects are underway. Many people don't care about "real" freedom and old values anymore and charismatic dictators undermine democracy with the help of TV and newspapers they control. Religious tensions, fading ressources, social tensions, climate change and a economy that favors speculation - nice setup for the next big catastrophe. But maybe bird flu mutating further or a terrorist b-weapon attack going wild will do the job.

Peace - I don't know. If we would survive a catastrophe we would probably evolve even more. Maybe we could find a way how to limit power and how to make the world a better place. But this is probably an issue of the next millennium - if we survive that long and continue to evolve.

The positive: we have probably evolved and continue to do so compared to medieval, inquisition, conquest of the new world and so on.

The negative: i guess Nostradamus will be right. Technology has advanced. Big brother will be technologically possible in a few years (nanotech) and who knows what secret cloning/robotics/bio/chemical weapon projects are underway. Many people don't care about "real" freedom and old values anymore and charismatic dictators undermine democracy with the help of TV and newspapers they control. Religious tensions, fading ressources, social tensions, climate change and a economy that favors speculation - nice setup for the next big catastrophe. But maybe bird flu mutating further or a terrorist b-weapon attack going wild will do the job.

Peace - I don't know. If we would survive a catastrophe we would probably evolve even more. Maybe we could find a way how to limit power and how to make the world a better place. But this is probably an issue of the next millennium - if we survive that long and continue to evolve.

Odd that most of the people in this thread refer to the collective "we."

Folks, there will NEVER be "peace" as it is referred to in this thread for that very reason. Mostly because A) people disagree with each other and as long as they are free to think for themselves, they will. B) Because as long as people hold the view that it is OK to initiate force against others, those others will often do whatever they can to defend themselves.

You see, a collective is not capable of thought, it is not capable of learning. It is simply an idea that covers an aggregate of something. "We" aren't capable of "find[ing] a way how to limit power," because "we" are just a group of individuals, that constantly changes in infinite ways, defined only by the whims of the person using the term at any given time. Since people disagree about the correct course of action in any given circumstance, the collective cannot ever hope to "learn" anything.

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Cordially,
Rush

elrushbo2@theobviousgmail.com
Remove the obvious...

You see, a collective is not capable of thought, it is not capable of learning.

And it is not capable of recruiting the likes of me... ;)

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It may not be 1984 but George Orwell sure did see the future . . .

At some point The Sophisticated One achieve far more than Collective We. But collective "we" has more chance of survivability.

Let's again carefully observe the history, all those mighty empires who at their given time become really sophisticated and conquired others. But at best lasted 2-3 centuries.

Because of historic lessons and thanks to civlizational technology advance humans possibly figured out to create organized We and organizing those UN and EU structures.

For example when EU become really powerful then everywhere tries to join them or try to adopt their structure. The mission is peace.

Possibly even corporate mentality is evolving into right direction 100 years ago in europe many countries were really hostile to one another but today thanks to EU idea pretty much everybody communicating and co-working together under common sense basis. Isn't this wonderful peace experiment?!

And through much accused UN operation, the powerful countries becoming a bit more aware of being aggressive to weaker ones which is another step toward peace. (but we cannot ignore the recent facts of russia attacked chechnia, america attacked iraq which is hurting corporate mentality (well it is our traditional animal lesson again which if a wolf challenge lion that causes own death) ) (maybe the intelligence has some another length of path to develop to figure out a friendly connection between lion-wolf-rabbit)

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Mandtugai!

That, unfortunately, is the nature of homo sapiens. Supposedly intelligent, but, in practice, inherently stupid.

If all practiced altruism, then progress may be made.

Altruism is the ethical doctrine that asserts that man's primary moral obligation is to others, either to the state, god(s), the community, his family etc etc and his moral duty to his own interests is subservient to this 'higher good'. Naturally, this ethical system when coupled with the power and force of the state leads to every form of tyranny and barbarism ever practiced on the face of the planet in history.

Contrast this with the ethical doctrine of rational egoism that upholds the principles of non initiation of force against others. Pick one! Because you cannot have both!

And you just claim glibly that all we need is more of that VILE, sinister, evil, and deadly morality that is responsible for so much horror in the name of 'peace'.

One thing's for certain regarding our topic at hand. It's of a distinctly complex moral nature and it is only debatable in terms of morality and ethics. Either man has a right to exist for his own sake or he doesn't. Either man, or a nation, can exist in a state of peace with neighbors or not. You'll not have your peace otherwise unless you first renounce the initiation of force most people are so addicted to.

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Founder of BOINC team Objectivists. Oh the humanity! Rational people crunching data!
I did NOT authorize this belly writing!