Phi for All

Probably because easy labels are rarely neutral or objective. But I'll apply the best I can: Overwhelming Some Terrorists With Underwhelming Results. Oh, snap! Ah, backpedaling to "conflict" instead of "war"? Good packaging. Sorry, I never got the sense you were asking me to offer up a label the White House could willingly switch to. How about, "Just Deserts For Al-Qaeda"? Misspelling and double entendre intended. I have that luxury as an individual and not a superpower. We have the capacity to recognize this tag line as the advertising it is. Most of the country is simply caught up with the sound byte and doesn't think about questioning whether the methods employed by this administration are simply sound. Bin Laden was there, we needed to strike and strike HARD when we knew conventional warfare had a chance. We did not need to hand over his capture to Afghani warlords so they could "lose" him and waste our conventional efforts, imo.

What are China and Russia looking for in all of this? Make them a better offer and it sounds like we're close to realizing a true international consensus.

It's a vicious cycle but it's our economy. Abrupt change would be worse. Are you requesting a gradual change or do you need it NOW? Recognizing a need and taking the *right* steps is why using generalities is always a bad idea. The mere fact that we survived the Cold War, to me, says a lot about our capacity for learning and rational thinking. We're not out of the woods yet but mutually assured destruction seems to have a sobering effect on nuclear enthusiasm. Why are you convinced this education isn't happening? I've heard 13-year-olds in my neighborhood talking about WWII and Nagasaki / Hiroshima. They seem pretty well informed about the futility of nuclear proliferation.

I don't want this thread to stray too far away from where the OP obviously wanted it but I will address this point in terms of terminology. Fighting back with conventional means is terrorism's objective. Therefore labeling it "The War on Terror" is playing into their hands. Plain and simple. It's a trap laid for us that we're forcing our soldiers to step into with big military-issue combat boots. I didn't say we shouldn't fight back. I said we need to use unconventional means and stop throwing billions away for what amounts to a handful of zealots. Remember my ninjas (I'll give up pocketing the difference in what I spend vs the US defense budget if it makes you feel more comfortable)? I'd simply prefer it if we stopped using failed methods and start fighting smarter, in ways that don't fan the flames.

I will label the current effort "misguided". It is causing the enemy to grow faster than we can deal with them. Terrorism is a very real threat but by labeling our actions as a war against it we are merely guaranteeing that the enemy will always be able to find plenty of zealots ready to die for the cause. Economics and diplomacy wielded against countries housing terrorists are methods I would label as "effective" and "proven" when it comes to diffusing unconventional situations. "Non-invasion" is tough to get riled up enough to commit suicide for. Thanks for the strawman, but as I mentioned I prefer my truth less packaged. I didn't think this was implying I wanted to pretend it didn't exist.

I'm afraid you're on your own here. No one sees any value in your work on septenary units despite your insistence that it is crucial for us to help you with it. Best of luck to you. I would suggest another site where you can garner more enthusiasm for your... crusade. Thread closed.

The New York Times has this article on a confidential UN report that Sudan is flying arms into Darfur using military planes painted to look like United Nations aircraft. How many slaps to the face can the UN take?

Wow, do I dislike generalities! Please expand. You imply an inevitable truth. This seems to be a doomsday prophesy with yours as the only solution, yet there is no solution. It does seem to be a great medium for reaching much of the world. Only people who agree with you are invited? I call compound mentality.

I sense a thread split coming up... Skye mentioned the "War on Drugs". This is another vague and indefinite "war" with an undefined timeline that uses conventional means against an unconventional enemy. It too has been largely unsuccessful. What's next, the War on Morality? The War on Independent Thinking? The War on Peace? Are the majority so easily manipulated that as soon as the "war" label is added to something we stop questioning it and let the "experts" step in? Spin and the art of the sound byte have become a science unto themselves with advanced media shrinking the planet. How carefully prepared do you want your truth?

Cowardly Violent Extremism Playing Into the Hands of Business? Spending Billions on Worldwide Aggression For Less Than 10,000 Fanatics? Opposing Religious Zealotry By Blowing Up Mosques? Fighting Fire With Gasoline? Diplomacy Makes Us Look Weak? Reciprocity on Steroids? Gimme Allah the Oil? This is the problem with labels. Short ones makes great sound bytes that bypasses reason and good judgment and strike at emotions. Labels long enough to actually describe the problem with an eye towards rational thinking tend to bore people so fewer people read them. So if you're selling the public on a costly war with an objective made impossible by the methodology involved, you bypass good judgment and go for short and emotional.

This is all good stuff folks, keep it coming. Is there anything you'd be really mad about if we changed it? What kind of post testing do you do? If I write a post, preview it and decide it's rubbish I just hit the "back" button. And if you post it and hate it you can always ask a Staff member to delete it. Just a suggestion until Cap'n comes up with a testing area.

Ever the optimist, Dak! Unfortunately the sheer volume of misquotes, misunderstandings and misinformation that creation slanderists spread offsets any contribution we can imagine they might make.

This seems like a lecture. Was there anything you wished to discuss on our discussion board?

You're banned forever. Fixed.

Great point. When ideas are written as though they are textbook fact it shuts down logical responses. It seems as though you will brook no criticism of your ideas when you pose it this way.

I'm moving this to Modern and Theoretical Physics for a more comprehensive viewing.

I'm sorry, did you say something?

Raise public awareness to the point where it becomes an election issue. Then force sanctions of every imaginable kind. I'm tired of US invasions but this would be an instance where we could be the good guys we imagine ourselves to be.

The Ignore List works though. At least it used to. Before I became a Mod I had the luxury of using it on certain cretins. Then blike asked me to moderate but he told me I couldn't ban everyone on my Ignore List. *sigh*

I think I dated aswokei's desktop once.

I've always hated the phrase. It serves to keep the enemy vague, the war indefinite and the people at home fearful. What a carefully spun phrase and a coup for businesses who serve the industry! And I've always said fighting unconventional terrorists with conventional means is like a Warner Bros cartoon where the country bumpkin tries to rid his house of flies with a shotgun. Other than diplomacy and economic coersion with the nations who give terrorists a home I don't have a substitute. Actually I do, but it involves giving me the US defense budget for 6 months. I will spend it on ninjas (we'll see who's terrified now). I get to pocket what I don't spend.

I have to admit that the idea of using hindsight to craft something better was appealing when I first read the article, but this got me thinking differently: The fact that so much information is available for the price of an internet connection is pretty amazing and the sheer power it represents is staggering. And it shrinks the world in a way that unrestricted travel can't hope to compete with. What would happen if worldwide web access fostered a global community that threatened to bring the world to the brink of peace? Would arms manufacturers protest that the internet was restricting their business?

It's perfectly acceptable to ask questions from your homework. We just ask that those are posted in the Homework Help section so it gets the proper attention. You mentioned that no one had responded to your other thread and sometimes when it looks like homework in the Biology section people think you're trying to cheat the system by getting "answers" rather than "help". We understand now that is not your intention.

I spotted this article about scrapping the existing Internet and rebuilding it to address concerns that weren't in existence when it first began. Much of it's architecture has been a cobbling-together process and many feel that we could do better with a complete restructuring. In a way, the original intent was not unlike building a beautiful house in a small community where there is little need for security. Everyone knows each other and trusts each other. But then the community grew very quickly and soon the beautiful home has a completely different look and purpose and now, rather than continue to fix the leaks and locks it might be better to build something more suited to current needs and then bulldoze the old house once you've finished the new one. What do you think? Can this be done effectively? With all the new players in the market can everyone have what they want from Internet 2?

I hate compound mentality. Without diversity there you get stagnation. A science-only city might be prolific for a while but after a few generations all those like-minded people would probably end up with zero creativity. It seems intellectually incestuous somehow.