USA elections

Obama wins primaries clean sweep..

do you think Hilary has a chance? or is she gonna lose in texas too..

who do you want to win in the overall election... obama? hilary? mccaine?

Don't give a sh*t tbh.

Whoever wins the democrat nominations, Americans will have two good choices I think. Personnally I like Obama a lot.

OBAMA!!! Why? Bope lol

yeah.. i just want these wars to stop.. and i doubt mccain will do that..

i dont know about hilary.. i feel like she can help bring the country back to its feet. but she doesnt seem to have the ability to give ppl hope the way obama does.

think they'd unite towards the end?

PRetty sure they will. They've been very civil with each other from the start,they're not that far apart politically, and any of the two will see that it is in her/his best interests to have the other as vice-president

Ahmed,

War is an inherent part of what is the perpetual cycle of human nature. Democrat or Republican, they'll bomb somewhere.

so you're saying human beings cannot exist without war.

do you believe in evolution then? dont you think people evolve, and their thinking evolves..

To me it is not evolution in the Darwinian sense or evolution of thinking, it is social and economic evolution that will make wars less and less probable.

As life standards increase all over the world, probability of war decreases, because the wealthier people are, the more they have to lose from a war, and the less they are inclined to go to (or support) war. War and anarchy are more probable where people have very poor life standards (Palestine), are quite oppressed (Kosovo, Tchetchenia) or are hungry ( Rwanda) .

The more people will be well fed and have high standards of living, the more they will have to lose, and the less wars we will have

what are you basing your point on? who said ppl dont make money from war? dont you think the gap between the rich and poor is increasing the world over? hence more chances of war, civil war.

My comment was in relation with Alique's point of war being in human nature, and your comment about evolution

Granted, there are still poor people all around, and the gap between the very rich and the very poor might very well be getting wider, but I think that, generally speaking, in developed countries at least, poorer people have a much better living than poor people 20 or 50 years ago. In Canada, as in most developed countries, starving people are an extremely rare occurence, whereas it was much more common before world war II for example . People are still frustrated because of the gap between rich and poor, but ar not as desperate as some of our great grandfathers were.

That is why, in my opinion, wars, civil wars or others, are now more common in the poorer areas of the world, like Rwanda and Palestine, whereas decades ago wars were waged between the great powers of the world. People in US and European coutries are much too comfortable to support a war (old yugoslavia being an exception here)

A war will come from Either greed or despair. I think despair will become less and less common with living standards rising everywhere. That was my point.

ahmad193 wrote:

so you're saying human beings cannot exist without war.

do you believe in evolution then? dont you think people evolve, and their thinking evolves..

Thought patterns don't seem to have changed since humans have roamed the earth. We still beat the crap out of each other. The only thing that's evolved is the more efficient weaponry with which we do that.

patlmn wrote:

To me it is not evolution in the Darwinian sense or evolution of thinking, it is social and economic evolution that will make wars less and less probable.

As life standards increase all over the world, probability of war decreases, because the wealthier people are, the more they have to lose from a war, and the less they are inclined to go to (or support) war. War and anarchy are more probable where people have very poor life standards (Palestine), are quite oppressed (Kosovo, Tchetchenia) or are hungry ( Rwanda) .

The more people will be well fed and have high standards of living, the more they will have to lose, and the less wars we will have

Sorry mate, that's rubbish. Standards of living are linked to the amount of resources you use. To maintain that standard of living for an ever increasing population you're going to need more resources. Hence, a global struggle between nations to acquire and secure as much resources as possible. If anything, the future looks even more bleak.

Alique wrote:

ahmad193 wrote:

so you're saying human beings cannot exist without war.

do you believe in evolution then? dont you think people evolve, and their thinking evolves..

Thought patterns don't seem to have changed since humans have roamed the earth. We still beat the crap out of each other. The only thing that's evolved is the more efficient weaponry with which we do that.

what about the frequency of wars... did we wage war on each other MORE in the good old days than we do now? i.e have we mentally evolved in that area. thats my point

It's probably about the same, if not more tbh.

The thing that has increased however is death toll, due to our inane increase in efficiency at killing each other.

Alique wrote:

patlmn wrote:

To me it is not evolution in the Darwinian sense or evolution of thinking, it is social and economic evolution that will make wars less and less probable.

As life standards increase all over the world, probability of war decreases, because the wealthier people are, the more they have to lose from a war, and the less they are inclined to go to (or support) war. War and anarchy are more probable where people have very poor life standards (Palestine), are quite oppressed (Kosovo, Tchetchenia) or are hungry ( Rwanda) .

The more people will be well fed and have high standards of living, the more they will have to lose, and the less wars we will have

Sorry mate, that's rubbish. Standards of living are linked to the amount of resources you use. To maintain that standard of living for an ever increasing population you're going to need more resources. Hence, a global struggle between nations to acquire and secure as much resources as possible. If anything, the future looks even more bleak.

Agreed, resource allocation and availability is a challenge, maybe the greatest challenge of all, especially with energy, but I feel that there is enough resources to bring every human being on earth to an adequate life standard, providing that we continue to develop alternatives to fossil fuels

World population growth is slowing down significantly, and world population should stabilize at some point. If not, your point is valid

Alique wrote:

It's probably about the same, if not more tbh.

The thing that has increased however is death toll, due to our inane increase in efficiency at killing each other.

Death toll has increased?

Where?

In world war II, Russia alone has lost tens of millions of people.

How many people have died in Irak?

If you look at deaths from war in the twentieth century and compare that to previous centuries you'll see that more died at our 'height' of civilization than in the previous centuries combined. In Iraq alone estimates from 500,000 to 1million have died as a direct or indirect result of the war. Then there was the Iran-Iraq conflict, Chechnya, Pol Pot in Cambodia, Vietnam where a few million died, Korean War etc etc not to mention what went on in Africa e.g. Sudan, Rwanda, the Congo etc etc.

patlmn wrote:

Alique wrote:

patlmn wrote:

To me it is not evolution in the Darwinian sense or evolution of thinking, it is social and economic evolution that will make wars less and less probable.

As life standards increase all over the world, probability of war decreases, because the wealthier people are, the more they have to lose from a war, and the less they are inclined to go to (or support) war. War and anarchy are more probable where people have very poor life standards (Palestine), are quite oppressed (Kosovo, Tchetchenia) or are hungry ( Rwanda) .

The more people will be well fed and have high standards of living, the more they will have to lose, and the less wars we will have

Sorry mate, that's rubbish. Standards of living are linked to the amount of resources you use. To maintain that standard of living for an ever increasing population you're going to need more resources. Hence, a global struggle between nations to acquire and secure as much resources as possible. If anything, the future looks even more bleak.

Agreed, resource allocation and availability is a challenge, maybe the greatest challenge of all, especially with energy, but I feel that there is enough resources to bring every human being on earth to an adequate life standard, providing that we continue to develop alternatives to fossil fuels

World population growth is slowing down significantly, and world population should stabilize at some point. If not, your point is valid

Maltheusian ideas of 'population' caps have been disproved. Whereas there has been a decline in the West elsewhere in the globe there have had to be government enforced quotas on the amount of children you can have. The situation is dire and with oil reserves estimated at around 50 years worth left and our inability to get hydrogen/fusion etc properly working we are starting to run out of time.

so you dont think all the big oil companies ala bush have something to do with stopping the advancement of alternative fuel sources?
or is that just another conspiracy

Could be. Point being however, there's a scarcity of it and thus competition will ensue, especially to ensure standards of living. However, it would have to be a fucking big conspiracy, going above the likes of 'just bush'...it would be a world-wide international thing. Maybe the illuminati?

who knows.. im just a guy waiting for his papa johns pizza to arrive ;p this stuff is outta my league

Alique, if you're into reading, I suggest "Collapse" by Jared Diamond. You'll find it very interesting, I think, whether you agree with him or not.

ahmad193 wrote:

who knows.. im just a guy waiting for his papa johns pizza to arrive ;p this stuff is outta my league

Soon they'll have to ride bicycles to get to you and you'll have to wait for 2 hours!

patlmn wrote:

Alique, if you're into reading, I suggest "Collapse" by Jared Diamond. You'll find it very interesting, I think, whether you agree with him or not.

Just did a quick wiki search for him. Looks interesting. From reading the 'blurb' i think i agree that everything is the fault of us