utemia

Reply to I can read in Books JoeUser Forums

I just reread Catch 22 by Joseph Heller. Great book, great story about the madness of war. It takes place during WW2 on an airfield in Italy. A must read for everybody.

Reply to Dangerous neighbours: Bishkek counts on Russians and Americans in War on Terror Stardock Forums

eh.. two third of that article are still missing. It goes more into detail about a russian airbase about 40km away from Manas and Russias potential reasseartion of its role as rulingpower in the region.. and the problems that could arise with terrorism if the current operations in Afghanistan are successful of fail, both of which could push terrorgroups from pakistan and afghanistan into its neighbouring countries Kirgisistan, Tadsh

Dangerous neighbours: Bishkek counts on Russians and Americans in War on Terror JoeUser Forums

Translation exercise (just for fun) US military transportplanes are sitting side by side on the airfield. Soldiers, maybe from Idaho or Texas, are idly talking while leaning against a hummer painted in camouflage needed in Afghanistan. The soldiers ignore the nosy civilians that have just left a russian Aeroflot plane and are now walking towards the airportb

Reply to The global warming ship continues to sink in Politics Stardock Forums

I really admire that you take so much care in building your house energy efficient. It is the right thing to do, and quite a few people could actually save alot of money if they would build more energy efficient or modernize their houses. It is always a question of money though. But I think it would be Ok to have guidelines in effect that force a certain green building standard on people when they build a new house, appartment block etc. It is smart, good for t

Reply to Living the Dream...BFD Style in Misc Stardock Forums

I am VW Van lover myself. It was the first family car we ever had.. a red VW Van, built in 1988. Before that, my parents made do without a car, despite having 6 kids and having moved 6 times. How they managed that I will never know. I remember the first one we had, we had named her Bertha. She had character.. a muscle car of the different sort lol My parents had started organizing humanitarian aid transports to Croatia in 1990/91, a

Reply to Various political observations recently in Politics JoeUser Forums

Thanks. It is difficult to debate philosophy or anything really and not start arguing hotly about it. The forefathers of environmental ethics (Schelling, Hegel, Fichte) all knew each other and started out as friends around 1800 in Jena and Weimar. They started to disagree with each other and it split them and ended their friendship and turned them into opponents. They wrote books and letters where they ridiculed and made fun of each other. Tss. I ad been thinking about this legendary

Reply to Various political observations recently in Politics JoeUser Forums

Fair enough.

Reply to Various political observations recently in Politics JoeUser Forums

You know who was also a great social and economic reformer of his time? The forefather of the athenian democracy (he lived shortly before Kyron) was Solon. You might like him as well if you don't already know about him. It is a shame, really, that children in school learn about him in 5th or 6th grade (probably the same time they learn about King Kyron as well) because they are much too young to understand the importance and significance of what those reforms were about.

Reply to Various political observations recently in Politics JoeUser Forums

But that is just ridiculous semantics and kindof petty of me because it doesn't really diminish the expertise and knowledge of your friend.

Reply to Various political observations recently in Politics JoeUser Forums

lol. If you call someone a professor it is not someone who teaches but foremost the academic reference that people think of. If you say "He was a professor at ivy league University British Columbia" automatically means something else than "he tought at the ivy league university of British Columbia". It is a big difference.

Reply to Various political observations recently in Politics JoeUser Forums

Yeah - so? Not everybody that teaches at a renowned universty is a professor. I don't want to diminish the accomplishments of King Kyros - why would I? Amazing people deserve respect, no matter when or where they lived. But nevertheless, historical context and careful analysis are prerequisites and you appeared to me as if you weren't really critical but rather reverent.

Reply to Various political observations recently in Politics JoeUser Forums

[quote]Don't lecture me on "citing sources". In contrast to you I have referred to sources. You just announced that the enlightenment did X and Y. I disagreed and referred you to a historian who backs me up. And you just lecture me about how things should be done while I was doing things that way and you did not; in fact you even announced that you simply don't accept historic evidence for comparisons.[/quote] I named names and theories to go with my claims about the enlightenment. You disagr

Reply to Various political observations recently in Politics JoeUser Forums

I reread that article 3 times. I realized that many things that I lectured you about were criticized by your friend in regard to the Spiegel article. I read that as well - Spiegel is pretty unscientific and mostly polemic. Citing sources etc - he said the same, also about being careful. Did I say anything that would differ? It is the normal and accepted scientific approach. I didn't give my credentials to impress you - it was just to highlight the necessity for a historical scientific

Reply to Various political observations recently in Politics JoeUser Forums

Your friend's style of writing isn't really any better than Spiege - but maybe he thought he'd level with them. I found it a little bit demagogic as well. He did name books and sources, and oppinions - it would be a good starting point for me if I wanted to delve deeper into the whole issue, but I don't know ancient languages so id have to rely on secondary sources. Not all of them can be dismissed out of hand as biased against persia though.

Reply to Various political observations recently in Politics JoeUser Forums

Leauki. I studied history. The way you go about compring things is unscientific and not comprehensible to me. You always use ridiculous examples that have nothing to do with what we were talking about to back up claims that you cannot prove. You didn't cite your source, or even said that the King Kyrus wrote an edikt, what it was called, where it was found, what historians have said about it. All you said was King Cyrus said this 2500 years ago. This is normally not necessary, but becau

Reply to Various political observations recently in Politics JoeUser Forums

Well Duh! I am eurocentric because modern western society developed in europe.The Idea of human dignity, human rights, the Individual, seperation from state and church - that is all european and has no precursor in forgotten times. Whatever happened in Persia during antiquity 2500 years prior cannot be used as comparison . That's nonsensical - and you can hardly claim that humanity "lost" the idea of human dignity and rights that this legendary King Kyros thought of. Persian society d

Reply to Various political observations recently in Politics JoeUser Forums

[quote]It brought back some things we had forgotten.[/quote] I overlooked that little statement. The enlightenment movement didn't bring things back that were lost, it thought them for the very first time. Things like viewing persons as individuals, who define themselves through merit, reason and respsonsibility instead of belonging to some duke, living in a feudal relationship, or having no choice in what you do in life because it is determined by religion or social status. It was revolution

Reply to Various political observations recently in Politics JoeUser Forums

If you use Kant, then it doesn't work in that system. Your question is very legitimate, and philosophers in environmental ethics have argued that there is no real reason why animals should be excluded. There are different ways to go about this. Pathocentric ethics argue that any beings capable of emotions have a right to lead a good life - which is a painfree life. T

Reply to Various political observations recently in Politics JoeUser Forums

[quote]Try explaining to a lion (or a human enemy) that you have a "human right" not be eaten (or killed). Prove it to them. You can't. You can reason with them, but you need to find common ground, a common belief. The lion will disagree and eat you. But another human being might share your belief in "human rights".[/quote] Duh.. Ok. Kant would say it only works with beings that have the ability to have dignity because they are both subject and object of morale. Humans make laws and t

Reply to Various political observations recently in Politics JoeUser Forums

Most "classic" european philosophers didn't have an atheist or agnostic worldview but based their theory on christian values. It isn't totally seperated. I'm sceptical of religion as a legitimizing reason because the arguments rely solely on faith and dogma and don't need logic. Philosophy needs logic and reason and I appreciate that. Organized religion is like opium for the masses - that thousand year old wisdom still holds true. There is no contemporary theocratic state I know of th

Reply to Various political observations recently in Politics JoeUser Forums

Hmmm. I know what you mean, some writers are hardly very practical and often wander around in spheres that seem to be very very far out there. But there are notable exceptions, who write philosophy that is pragmatic and can actually be used in daily life.Try reading something from Hans Jonas. Lrincipally, I would disagree with you though. There are problems of daily life and routine, and there are problems on a more systematic level. How do you legitimize human rights? That's philosop

Reply to The Infidelity Train Rolls ON in Politics JoeUser Forums

Everybody that marries vows's it will be forever and probably thinks they will never cheat. But life changes, and so do people. Sound's like a lifetime type of slogan lol but I am not actually referring to melodramatic unhappy marriages here or love triangles etc. It's a fact. Did you know that statistically 10% of the children hadn't been fathered by the husbands/partner? That number is a rule of thumb for Germany, but I am sure its probably roughly similiar in the US. Liberal indoct

Reply to Another Historical Day for Obama! in Democrat JoeUser Forums

Had there been more regulation beforehand, such a combustible bubble might have not developed in the first place and all the problems that are there now might have been avoided. Selfregulation doesn't really seem to work - didn't exactly that lead to the situation you have right now? Greed gets in the way of selfregulation with common sense, so the common sense has to come from somewhere else. I find that pretty logical. At least in the essential areas, because

Reply to Another Historical Day for Obama! in Democrat JoeUser Forums

hmpf. You describe things under Bush like they were a virtual paradise, and that the bad bad Democrats are the sole blame for the current situation. It's a little too simplistic. People were spening money that they didn't have - great thing, isn't it? Spend money you don't have which in turn works to create jobs to produce things you can by with money you don't have. Economy boomed in a soapbubble. My brother was living in Sacramento for a while and people tried to convince him to joi

Reply to Another Historical Day for Obama! in Democrat JoeUser Forums

I wasn't blaming everything on Bush, I stated that he also had a part in it. I didn't exculpate Obama completely either, I said that he wasn't alone to blame for todays crisis and deficit. It all has a long development behind it and it's absurd to pin it all on one person or expect one person to solve all problems. I find talk like "Obama produced the highest deficit in history" ridiculous, because it implies that before he took over everything was fine and that it was just his policy so far