The same sort of thing is seen in drug/alcohol "addiction". Trauma is the most frequent trigger.CaptainBeowulf wrote:"Psychopathic traits are geneticaly inherited."
Yes and no. From what I've read, it seems to fall out this way:
1. A predisposition towards being a psychopath can be genetically rooted. Usually it is related to some kind of biologically driven lack of empathy.
2. The parents of a psychopath can be perfectly nice people. It can be a recombination of recessive alleles, or a random mutation in the germline that leads to a "psychopath" phenotype being expressed. It doesn't necessarily pass as an obvious trait.
3. Usually some sort of environmental stimulus triggers it or drives further development of the trait. Repeated childhood sexual abuse is a common example, but it could be something else.
Sometimes you seem to have a genuine psychopath who just happens anyway, without any stimulus. A relatively normal person can probably also be modified into a near-psychopath through the right combination of repeated traumas.
So how much things are "improving" in the muslim w
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
Anyone else ever hear of Sir Author 'Bomber' Harris, or his activities in Iraq in the 20's, as well as the French with their ME territories. Seems Saddam learned from the west about using gas. They already know just how ruthless we already are, our modern morality is self-delusion.
The word 'unfair' and 'war' should never be used together, that's a dangerous fantasy. If we did nuke Mecca, it would be through their doing, not ours. Why waste the lives of soldiers trying to kill the extremists.
The entire Muslim world would have to immediately and totally rethink what it teaches and preaches to its young men. It would probably result in the end of polygamy to keep the young males happy, that would also help reduce homosexuality.
In order to keep Mecca from being destroyed, the translation of Islam as Peace might take on a whole new meaning.
The word 'unfair' and 'war' should never be used together, that's a dangerous fantasy. If we did nuke Mecca, it would be through their doing, not ours. Why waste the lives of soldiers trying to kill the extremists.
The entire Muslim world would have to immediately and totally rethink what it teaches and preaches to its young men. It would probably result in the end of polygamy to keep the young males happy, that would also help reduce homosexuality.
In order to keep Mecca from being destroyed, the translation of Islam as Peace might take on a whole new meaning.
CHoff
You mean like The Mouse That RoaredMSimon wrote:Actually the model used since WW2 has worked quite well. You cause trouble - USA takes you out - builds bases, helps you get on your feet economically.
In theory there is no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there is.
Absolutely. That's why I put it in parenthesies. Because the USA is one of the countries that ought to be fair when they have a chance to be. If it were up to me we would have our intelligence and strike forces so far up the derriere of "non-negotiating" extremist groups with anti-american interests that we'd be a step ahead of them everytime, till they were wiped out. Peaceful free trade and no entangling alliances is the way to go, but after first blood there's zero use in holding back. No compromises.choff wrote:
The word 'unfair' and 'war' should never be used together, that's a dangerous fantasy. If we did nuke Mecca, it would be through their doing, not ours. Why waste the lives of soldiers trying to kill the extremists.
Mecca's an inanimate, cultural object. It doesn't need to be nuked at all. It doesn't even work tacticaly or strategicaly.
No entangling alliances is good for a minor power. When you are king of the hill it is not feasible.Betruger wrote:Absolutely. That's why I put it in parenthesies. Because the USA is one of the countries that ought to be fair when they have a chance to be. If it were up to me we would have our intelligence and strike forces so far up the derriere of "non-negotiating" extremist groups with anti-american interests that we'd be a step ahead of them everytime, till they were wiped out. Peaceful free trade and no entangling alliances is the way to go, but after first blood there's zero use in holding back. No compromises.choff wrote:
The word 'unfair' and 'war' should never be used together, that's a dangerous fantasy. If we did nuke Mecca, it would be through their doing, not ours. Why waste the lives of soldiers trying to kill the extremists.
Mecca's an inanimate, cultural object. It doesn't need to be nuked at all. It doesn't even work tacticaly or strategicaly.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
The purpose is moral. Make them lose faith in their cause.Betruger wrote:Absolutely. That's why I put it in parenthesies. Because the USA is one of the countries that ought to be fair when they have a chance to be. If it were up to me we would have our intelligence and strike forces so far up the derriere of "non-negotiating" extremist groups with anti-american interests that we'd be a step ahead of them everytime, till they were wiped out. Peaceful free trade and no entangling alliances is the way to go, but after first blood there's zero use in holding back. No compromises.choff wrote:
The word 'unfair' and 'war' should never be used together, that's a dangerous fantasy. If we did nuke Mecca, it would be through their doing, not ours. Why waste the lives of soldiers trying to kill the extremists.
Mecca's an inanimate, cultural object. It doesn't need to be nuked at all. It doesn't even work tacticaly or strategicaly.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
More than that it should be "fair" to its own citizens, which means it's first job is to be effective.Because the USA is one of the countries that ought to be fair when they have a chance to be.
Except if it were that easy, it would already be done.If it were up to me we would have our intelligence and strike forces so far up the derriere of "non-negotiating" extremist groups with anti-american interests that we'd be a step ahead of them everytime, till they were wiped out.
Which at some point may well include the destruction of the tutelary idols of the Islamic cult.Peaceful free trade and no entangling alliances is the way to go, but after first blood there's zero use in holding back. No compromises.
Except their culture is part of the problem, a positive change in it is a morally valid--in fact a required--objective in this war.Mecca's an inanimate, cultural object. It doesn't need to be nuked at all. It doesn't even work tacticaly[sic] or strategicaly[sic].
Just because America has only been fully engaged in it for 8 some years doesn't mean it hasn't been going on for around 1300 years or so, and we need to get it done before killing us becomes too easy for them...we have no reason to think someone among them they won't do it.
molon labe
montani semper liberi
para fides paternae patria
montani semper liberi
para fides paternae patria
MSimon - If not zero entangling alliances, then the least possible. If that's not a good rule of thumb either, then school me - why? You're twice my age so I'm all ears to a more experienced POV.
Nuking Mecca isn't going to make them lose faith. I grew up with muslims, from maghreb to india. It just adds fuel to their fire. First Iraq ops after 2001 had many of those I knew talking about flying over there to do something about americans killing their relatives in colateral. Why would they stick around idly when their friends and family are getting killed?
And yes I have trouble with single and double L's in english. It doesn't get in the way of understanding what I mean.
Nuking Mecca isn't going to make them lose faith. I grew up with muslims, from maghreb to india. It just adds fuel to their fire. First Iraq ops after 2001 had many of those I knew talking about flying over there to do something about americans killing their relatives in colateral. Why would they stick around idly when their friends and family are getting killed?
Specifically meaning?TDPerk wrote: More than that it should be "fair" to its own citizens, which means it's first job is to be effective.
Yes obviously that's not what I mean. Give me the lead and I'll break all the taboos and status quos showing just who's got their hands playing puppeteer. Then kick their ass. But there wouldn't be any use in nuking Mecca as anything else than unavoidable colateral damage. No more than the Taliban did destroying those (iirc) ancient Buddhist statues. No more than burning flags is going to change Americans' minds. Nuking Mecca isn't such a positive change. Maybe you can specify what you have in mind.Except if it were that easy, it would already be done.
Not my asserted premise and I don't see where you're going with the above.Just because America has only been fully engaged in it for 8 some years doesn't mean it hasn't been going on for around 1300 years or so, and we need to get it done before killing us becomes too easy for them...we have no reason to think someone among them they won't do it.
And yes I have trouble with single and double L's in english. It doesn't get in the way of understanding what I mean.
Policy is more important than alliances. i.e. free trade policy leads to WTO membership. Defense of Europe led to NATO etc.MSimon - If not zero entangling alliances, then the least possible. If that's not a good rule of thumb either, then school me - why? You're twice my age so I'm all ears to a more experienced POV.
As to your Muslim friends. Had they joined the insurgency most of them would have wound up killing civilians in markets. If they wanted Americans to leave the best policy would have been to do nothing. The insurgency fight extended our stay. Obviously rational policy was not their strong point.
The insurgency did one good thing. It showed the impotence of their desires. Allah did not will it.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
-
CaptainBeowulf
- Posts: 498
- Joined: Sat Nov 07, 2009 12:35 am
Entangling alliances: nature abhors a vacuum. If the dominant power doesn't make alliances with its friends, others powers will move in.
Alliances give you:
1. Basing rights (helping you to, say, maintain fleets in every ocean)
2. Military exchanges, so that your armed forces and armed forces of countries with similar interests can be on the same page if they have to fight together
3. Your friends have a sense of security because they're part of an alliance with a major power, so they won't be easily intimidated by aggressors
4. It streamlines your military deployments across allied territory, rather than having to negotiate things from scratch each time
5. Enhances your economy through trade agreements
6. Provides means for information/intelligence sharing, which makes you better able to "get up the backside" of terrorist groups
7. Friends who will provide help to your citizens when you can't get there in time
And other things I can't think of right now.
If you're a small country of not too much strategic importance, you can sometimes just sit there and not be bothered. Switzerland is a good example. The U.S. never was.
For instance, after the American War of Independence American merchant ships were no longer protected by the Royal Navy. As a result, barbary pirates attacked and seized American ships in the Mediterranean and took American citizens hostage. This led to the U.S.'s first overseas military campaign around 1800. If the U.S. had had some alliance with France or Britain, its ships would have been better protected.
Also, many historians think that the Brits at first tacitly helped enforce the Monroe doctrine (they had wanted to issue a joint declaration, but the U.S. issued one unilaterally), despite the fact that Britain and America had little spats right up to WWI, and again over Suez in the 1950s. In other words, the U.S. actually got help in keeping the Americas "disentangled."
Alliances give you:
1. Basing rights (helping you to, say, maintain fleets in every ocean)
2. Military exchanges, so that your armed forces and armed forces of countries with similar interests can be on the same page if they have to fight together
3. Your friends have a sense of security because they're part of an alliance with a major power, so they won't be easily intimidated by aggressors
4. It streamlines your military deployments across allied territory, rather than having to negotiate things from scratch each time
5. Enhances your economy through trade agreements
6. Provides means for information/intelligence sharing, which makes you better able to "get up the backside" of terrorist groups
7. Friends who will provide help to your citizens when you can't get there in time
And other things I can't think of right now.
If you're a small country of not too much strategic importance, you can sometimes just sit there and not be bothered. Switzerland is a good example. The U.S. never was.
For instance, after the American War of Independence American merchant ships were no longer protected by the Royal Navy. As a result, barbary pirates attacked and seized American ships in the Mediterranean and took American citizens hostage. This led to the U.S.'s first overseas military campaign around 1800. If the U.S. had had some alliance with France or Britain, its ships would have been better protected.
Also, many historians think that the Brits at first tacitly helped enforce the Monroe doctrine (they had wanted to issue a joint declaration, but the U.S. issued one unilaterally), despite the fact that Britain and America had little spats right up to WWI, and again over Suez in the 1950s. In other words, the U.S. actually got help in keeping the Americas "disentangled."
The parents of a psychopath can be perfectly nice people.
So can be psychopaths, or sociopaths. Or lets say, that they can be at least perfectly integrated into their environment. Some say they are even needed by society. A psychopath that enjoys cutting into human flesh e.g. could be a top surgeon, maye a plastic surgeon that enjoys making sculptures in human flesh (just trying to think of some extreme example). A pure sociopath could make a top manager. He does not care about the individual fate, when he fires hundreds of people, but he "makes sure the company survives". If he makes an extra cut while doing so, the better. US bankers that paid themselves boni after getting government money could (I say could) be sociopaths.
Only when a sociopathic and a psychopathic trait become manifested in a single person, that is when you will get a serial killer or some dictator that kills 6 million jews, or something like that.
That only worked for the 19th century US because we were hiding behind the protective skirt of the RN. These days the US military provides that global service.Betruger wrote:Peaceful free trade and no entangling alliances is the way to go, but after first blood there's zero use in holding back. No compromises.
It's symbolic. The day a nuclear bomb goes off in CONUS a guilty party will be quickly chosen and its leading city or cities nuked in retaliation. Personally I think the odds of one of those cities being Mecca goes down with each passing year. OTOH, if Israel is ever on the brink of going down and uses the Sampson Option in spite, the entire Middle East glows in the dark for a century, and the nail will definitely be driven on the Kaaba.Betruger wrote:Mecca's an inanimate, cultural object. It doesn't need to be nuked at all. It doesn't even work tactically or strategically.
Vae Victis
djolds1 - Who cares about symbolism? Their heads (puppets but especially puppeteers') on a stick is what matters.
The day a mainland city gets nuked? Well yes but we're talking about a different specific situation than today. A premise that begs nuke food fight. Not that I'd disagree, in those circumstances. Though unless I was misinformed, tracing nukes isn't a guarantee.
Capt B - Thanks. It's a one-sided assessment though - you only give the positives of such a rationale.
MSimon - What I'm saying is that regardless of policy, the here and now reality is that popping Mecca as some symbolic gesture does nothing but add fuel to their fire. They don't care about policy when their friends and family are being killed. Not anymore than the bulk of the USA would put a lid on comparable bloodlust if some arab prophet symbolically hit a couple of towers full of civilians doing their thing, out of the blue.
I think the cultural side of warfare is under-rated. Like you said, internet etc. Many of the same people who were jittery when the US first came back to Iraq following sep. 2001, were and are the same people who just don't like living even in Dubai today. Because it's too conservative, traditional, backwards. Even with all the money they're making there. I'm talking about people who lived in the US for years.
And I don't know about them undoubtedly ending up blowing people up in markets. I've known some that would definitely end up that way (it was usually pretty much written on their face) but they're no majority, in those I've known anyway. Even so, those would be martyrs have an even greater positive feedback relation to something like nuking Mecca. More fuel on their fire.
I'm pretty young but I've been around. I've grown up with a good number of the world's cultures and the cultural/rational disconnect between countries is the same everywhere. Even in countries that pretend to be open minded. The only people that seem to reliably, consistently understand are those that have lived in at least a few very different spots for a couple of years at least. Who've had to see things thru the opposition's eyes.
Of course at the end of the day you can just ignore everything and just assume you're right about everything (and even be mostly right), and not bother with a comprehensive assessment and solution. And just say Nuke 'Em. Victors write history.
The day a mainland city gets nuked? Well yes but we're talking about a different specific situation than today. A premise that begs nuke food fight. Not that I'd disagree, in those circumstances. Though unless I was misinformed, tracing nukes isn't a guarantee.
Capt B - Thanks. It's a one-sided assessment though - you only give the positives of such a rationale.
MSimon - What I'm saying is that regardless of policy, the here and now reality is that popping Mecca as some symbolic gesture does nothing but add fuel to their fire. They don't care about policy when their friends and family are being killed. Not anymore than the bulk of the USA would put a lid on comparable bloodlust if some arab prophet symbolically hit a couple of towers full of civilians doing their thing, out of the blue.
I think the cultural side of warfare is under-rated. Like you said, internet etc. Many of the same people who were jittery when the US first came back to Iraq following sep. 2001, were and are the same people who just don't like living even in Dubai today. Because it's too conservative, traditional, backwards. Even with all the money they're making there. I'm talking about people who lived in the US for years.
And I don't know about them undoubtedly ending up blowing people up in markets. I've known some that would definitely end up that way (it was usually pretty much written on their face) but they're no majority, in those I've known anyway. Even so, those would be martyrs have an even greater positive feedback relation to something like nuking Mecca. More fuel on their fire.
I'm pretty young but I've been around. I've grown up with a good number of the world's cultures and the cultural/rational disconnect between countries is the same everywhere. Even in countries that pretend to be open minded. The only people that seem to reliably, consistently understand are those that have lived in at least a few very different spots for a couple of years at least. Who've had to see things thru the opposition's eyes.
Of course at the end of the day you can just ignore everything and just assume you're right about everything (and even be mostly right), and not bother with a comprehensive assessment and solution. And just say Nuke 'Em. Victors write history.
I agree. It is going to really piss them off for a while. And then once the anger dies down they will see that Allah couldn't protect Allah's holy of holies.MSimon - What I'm saying is that regardless of policy, the here and now reality is that popping Mecca as some symbolic gesture does nothing but add fuel to their fire.
You know the once in a lifetime (minimum) pilgrimage is off. It will be Janet Pilgrim and not the Kaaba.
Then belief starts to fade.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.