CDarwin

I can't think of any time that's really happened. I think it might be a fundamental misconception of how authoritarian regimes work. These sorts of governments (when they are otherwise unpopular- they aren't always) stay in power primarily by making their citizens dependent upon them for survival. The repression is just a means to an end. There doesn't seem to be a point at which a regime runs out of a finite ability to exploit a population reliant upon it. That's why blanket sanctions tend not to work. By crippling a country's economy, they make the population yet more reliant on the regime in power. The only people who can end a regime are people not dependent on it. Often, unfortunately, that means the powerful within the system. That's why we have so many coups de-tat. External powers are also independent of a regime, and thus we've had an awful lot of invasions in history. But it can also be a population empowered through economic development so that they can pull themselves out of poverty and desperation. If they're further given the chance to engage with the world and a (Western, admittedly) sense of human dignity, all the easier. That's where the UN has a role. At least that's my meagre little theory on the functioning of autocracies. The problem with it is the number of authoritative regimes in economically prosperous countries like Saudi Arabia or, as I mentioned earlier, Singapore. My only explanation for that is that they are still popular enough so that no one is that motivated to overthrow them.

As a heartless disciple of realpolitik, I'd say in the short to medium term, the real focus has to be on reducing the number of paranoid authoritative regimes, really. More Singapores and fewer Myanmars. Neither is ideal but the former can be dealt with internationally to improve people's condition.

The Myanmarians seem to be letting up: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7394410.stm

The "morphology" always seemed kind of weird to me. Is this the forum where we're supposed to discuss the shapes of things?

Of course there's Kryptonite, too. I'll make that joke now before anyone else does.

Mathematics. I think that about sums it up. All the numbers and squiggles and AH, chaos. No one can remember all that.

Is it a new precedent? It sounds a bit like Somalia. In that case it wasn't any regime that was being undercut, but it was still militarily imposed aid. I think it could easily backfire. If the government can paint this as a "foreign invasion" (which it would be, a bit) and call on the people's nationalism it could be a propaganda boon and help further isolate the country.

Any military nerds here? http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/3e/OP_KILO.JPG This is a Russian built (Iranian service) Kilo Class diesel-electric attack submarine. I'm about to build a model of one which is why I'm researching it. What I'm wondering about is what those little white painted rings on the deck are. Do they serve some functional purpose? The Kilo Class has two, some Soviet submarines seem only to have one and American submarines don't have any at all. Quite the quandry.

You can link back from it to a (conventional) Holocaust studies site that's critical of deniers, so its pretty obviously a parody, albiet not of pseudo-science as much as pseudo-history.

You can turn right on red in East Tennessee, and we're in a mountain chain, so... I would be interested to see how many wrecks actually occur as a result of people turning right on a red light.

I'm not saying it will necessarily even be falsified. I'm just wondering if it can be anything more than an aesthetic, internally consistent, "just-so" story. It just strikes me as one of those explanations that tries to do too much on too little evidence when smaller, trait-by-trait explanations based on the differing ecological environments in which we evolved can do the job just as well and in a manner more in line with how we tend to to view the evolution of every other animal. I don't see many grand, over-arching theories of field mouse evolution attempting to explain everything that makes field mice "special" with a single mechanism. The whole thing just seems disconnected from real human behavior too, like I said. In modern nation-states, we don't go around using our advanced range weaponry to punish most cheaters as Bingham seems to suggest in the paper you gave us. In fact, no society can exist if the primary means of social control is top-down coercion. The primary impetus for the nation-state was nationalism, not firearms. Instead of the beginning of large, complex political entities as Bingham seems to be implying, nation-states were very much a reduction in complexity as self-declared ethnic groups broke away from old multi-cultural empires and formed smaller states in the name of self-determination. It seems like the more we know about something that Bingham is trying to explain (like the origins of the nation-state) the more simplistic his theory seems. That's not a good sign. So those are my general problems. I don't suppose I can judge specifically until I know more. I would like to question this Leicester's Law for a moment, though, if I could. An AK-47 or even a musket is a long way off from a stone tool. You could poke someone with a pike at the distance you could throw a rock and with a lot more speed, repeatability, and accuracy. I don't know that just because a gun and a rock are "range weapons" they should multiply force in the same manner.

Eh, I think too much as been made out those fears. The army controls the nuclear weapons pretty solidly and its not going anywhere any time soon.. The bigger danger from those nukes is that they would get launched at India at some point, the chances of which actually seem to be lessening now.

I think Osama bin Laden could record an endorsement of Obama and post it on YouTube and Hillary still wouldn't be a shoe-in. She was damaged goods when she entered this election and she definitely is now. The DNC wouldn't risk alienating the traditionally apathetic voting blocks that Obama calls on consistently for a candidate with limited appeal and potential. Of course, that may be the East Tennessean talking there. It's kind of in the drinking water here to hate Hillary Clinton. That and develop kidney stones. EDIT: Ha ha, post 666. What irony that I should be speaking of Hillary Clinton in my 'sign of the beast' post.

Social pressure certainly can work to stomp out certain behavior patterns, there's no quibbling over that. The problem with demonizing polluters is, I suppose, that the pressure isn't applied as consistently or as generally as would be necessary to affect mass change. It has in some circles, though, such as with the green chique movement amongst the liberal upper crust. I suppose in a heterogeneous culture like ours, it's only economics that can effect behavior in the whole society. Which I why I support a carbon tax, by the way.

That would be a suicide pact. The world needs US markets as much as we need the world's goods.

And traffic congestion, and accidents, and noise and air pollution, and inefficiency, and unsustainable uses of raw materials, and health problems. That's what I can think of right now.

It seems to be more than just a crippling affliction. If a horse can't stand it can't digest and it will starve to death. It's more of quick death due to euthanasia vs long, slow death due to starvation.

Ooh, I don't know about that. Like you said, the Arab states are afraid of an Iranian Empire, and an Iran-friendly Iraq should surely make them even more paranoid. This is the kind of paranoia that can upset balances of power and lead to regional wars.

My mistake. It's what I get for going off non-Australian news, I suppose.

I didn't say it was a good thing. Bjørn Lomborg has said something similiar to that. When people are spurred to action by hysteria rather than reason they quickly lose interest. Does anyone remember SARS? Or even bird flu? They never stopped being dangerous; people just stopped caring.

Politically it's not bad analysis, though. One of the main reasons the Australians just tossed out John Howard was the drought that's hit the country. The drought's not due to global warming, but it makes people feel what they imagine its consequences would be, and Howard's denialism rubbed them the wrong way.

My name is after the great and famous scientist Chipper Darwin.

I sort of wrote a paper on this once. A bit different topic. It all comes down to enculturation and familiarity, though. The simpler, narrative, cultural stories are the ones that get passed onto children. Scientific explanations are either too complicated, too poorly known, or change to rapidly. Can you imagine how different the story of the scientific origins of the universe would sound told now versus in 1950? Genesis (and the like) never change. As I understand irreducible complexity, it's not simply something really complex. It's something complex in a certain way such that it unfeasible that it could be approached naturally. I think there's some smart-sounding phrase to that effect. I suppose something like helicopter rotor blades (or the wheel and axle they are derived from) might suffice to that definition. It's hard to imagine a sequence of adaptive steps leading to an animal helicopter or even an animal car.