dimreepr

The problem with propaganda is, if it’s your side you’ll tend to believe it, if it’s the other side you’ll tend to disbelieve it; some may say an insurmountable hurdle. “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter” a truism so frequently overlooked, regularly at the expense of the terrorised.

Education is very important and is a solution to many of the world’s problems. In this case however I feel the time to educate, as a solution, is past; given ISIS’s opposition to education, moreover it can be argued they are using education, in a dark twisted way, to recruit soldiers.

'Sink' has no meaning in zero gravity.

Because happiness has nothing to do with what money/stuff you can accumulate. To be honest I’d rather use the term contented as happy is easily confused with pleasure and all too often people try to chase eternal pleasure; an impossible dream. All you need to be content is the following: 1. Don’t fear the future, worrying can’t affect will happen; if you have a problem then solve it, if it has no solution then you can’t, either way fear/worry is pointless. 2. Don’t pin your hopes of happiness in the future (i.e. a holiday or gift), it’s fine to look forward to it but don’t expect it to; just accept what happens if it’s bad, if you don’t you’ll just get angry another pointless emotion for these reasons. 3. Don’t confuse want with need, if you have food, water and shelter then you have everything you need; everything else is a bonus, treat it as such. 4. Don’t regret the past, whatever you’ve done, the only positive thing to do is learn from it. 5. Don’t rely on others for your contentment; whatever you do you can’t control them or their actions just accept they have their own life to live. There just human after all, just like you (I think of it as “you’re me in a different skin”). 6. Live life now it’s the only time you can live, if your bored do something even if it’s just to meditate, if you’re happy enjoy it while you can, if it’s unpleasant accept and endure; everything changes. 7. Treat everyone as you would like to be treated; so smile, after all wouldn’t you rather a stranger smile than scowl?

The difference between knowledge and understanding is a difficult concept. I simply tried to clarify your question within this concept. I’m sorry if you consider my post’s as an attack on you or your post that wasn’t my intention.

The onus of understanding is the communicator’s responsibility.

That’s exactly my initial point. Knowledge doesn’t equal understanding.

Inference doesn’t equal evidence; that’s basic science.

How? So why suppose they lived in packs? And yet hyenas are far more numerous.

We have no real idea about the habits/abilities of any dinosaur in terms of their hunting prowess; and given the proliferation of the hyena why the African wild dog?

I assumed the post was an extension of your post #15 and the OP, in that you want to ‘defeat/smash’ “political Islam” sounds like force to me. The solution IMO is a learned peaceful (wise) man ; history suggests he will emerge, hopefully before too much more blood is shed.

This reminds me of Jon Stewart’s “bullshit mountain” where they try to solve complex problems with simple incorrect answers. Solving this problem with force, however shocking and awe inspiring will simply exacerbate the problem in the long run; a conquered people are never at peace. India rose up with force against the British the following retribution was bloody and savage (arguably more so than IS). It was only the emergence of a learned man who advocated peaceful protest that the problem was solved; leaving behind a stable democracy. The same pattern was mirrored in South Africa, with the same result. Can the allies honestly say they left a stable democracy in either Afghanistan or Iraq? “Violence begat violence” only through understanding does this problem have the same result as India and South Africa.

And we come full circle; so what's your point?

What? Why?

Only by killing them but that won’t kill the idea or force compliance. Really? That doesn’t seem to be going so well.

“You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink” is an illustration of the concept that control is illusory; you can’t force anyone to agree with your views, you can request, you can persuade but you can’t defeat faith with force. The danger in trying to defeat faith is that you simply reinforce it and in doing so you strengthen the opposition “one often meets ones destiny on the path one chooses to avoid it”.

When I consider this issue through the lens of history (given that all empires/superpowers ultimately fade/decline and contract) perhaps we are seeing the beginning of the end of western civilisation or perhaps the ultimate contraction of the empire spawned by the industrial revolution?

No, anything undiscovered is magic, the discovered is knowledge. P.S. knowledge doesn’t equal understanding.

I’m sorry, my bad, how could I know you were privy to the magic bomb physicists have recently developed that kill only bad guys?

So your answer is to kill everyone? That would stop the war and, of course, further atrocities; but I’d be very nervous if I was your neighbour and you had a rat infestation.

No one is suggesting Islam should be destroyed, or could be. ISIS doesn’t represent Islam any more than the KK represents Christianity.

History and logic has taught us they will never be sufficient. Why not?

I think it was appropriate in Iraq and Afghanistan; but here and now a foot war is more so. ?

How often do we hear “common sense” as a way to validate an opinion rather than evidence? Air strikes have almost zero chance of winning this or any war. Infiltration may provide an answer but not in the short term; understanding/intelligence is the best way forward but that provides little hope to those facing a current barrage.

Whilst I realise 30 meters falls a long way short of the required length in this thread; a water born animal, such as the Blue whale at 190 tonnes, is far more likely than a land born creature.