Definition from sciencedaily.com : “The amygdala (Latin, corpus amygdaloideum) is an almond-shape set of neurons located deep in the brain’s medial temporal lobe.”
Actually war is not technologically progressive, it is technologically adoptive. Most of the research is done before the war, but the war accellerates the rate at which it is adopted/fielded. A lot of this is due to disruption from the people who conduct the research and development being moved military positions. And yes, that includes the Manhatten Project. All the design details, including production of the nucles material was fleshed out before the US entered the war.
The exception is during the extremely long one, like the Cold War, when societies have the time to adapt.
And it’s still wasteful. Resources that could have been used to build cars and trucks go to build tanks and bombs…which are then used to blow the other side’s tanks and bombs up. To say nothing of the human cost, which is horrific.
Actually, if you’ve noticed, the most costly wars in terms of human life have occurred after the industrial revolution, which is also when the human population began to skyrocket to the current, unsustainable level. Without those wars and the associated casualties giving technology time to catch up, we might have already destroyed the environment and rendered the Earth unlivable to our own species.
Or – perhaps we’d have figured out better ways to feed and power people. What if someone who would have been a renewable-energy genius, was actually killed because she/he was born in a warzone?
Depends on whether you mean proportionally or in sum. Proportionally, I think you need to read up some on what Genghis Khan did, especially in the Middle East. Modern industrial warfare, even the carpet bombings of WW2, has not reached the thoroughness of the Mongols in destroying enemy populations, though with far higher populations to start against, it has given us higher totals.
Note that the Mongols had superior technology as well, with compound bows. I would also technically count the better-trained horses, as I define technology as “a way sentient beings use the environment around them to help them survive and do things that would normally be beyond their ability.” They could ride longer and faster than anyone else at the time, giving them unmatched mobility.
Humans pretty much devalued themselves years ago.
In fact, given that humans still consume at the same rate or higher, while each contributing less in return… they really have become a liability.
Every war effectively improves the world by ridding it of humans.
@ My2Cents;
By technologically adoptive do you mean turning theory into working machinery? Before WW-2, most physicists “knew” a fission bomb was possible. But “.. several lines of research and development had to be carried on simultaneously before it was certain whether any might succeed. The explosive materials then had to be produced and be made suitable for use in an actual weapon.” encyclopedia brittanica
War is a mechanism built into our species by natural selection. It is about resource redistribution, population control and culling weak/corrupt tribes/societies. It only seems wrong because of the human ability to empathize.
All social creatures make war. Many solo species do as well. What do you think territorial behavior is? Heck, chimps even practice psychological warfare. They ritualistically desecrate the corpses of rival troopers they capture. Not just eat, desecrate. Man just practices territorialism (is that a word?) on a grand scale.
Yes, war is wasteful. It’s also as natural as crapping and dying. You don’t have to like either one of those either, but eventually, you’re gonna have to do both. War is just another necessity. It’s ugly and wasteful and I’d rather it not be so, but you must be prepared for it, because it is coming.
…actually, I was only thinking about how much warfare takes away funding from research I’m interested in, like jetpacks, replicators, and pocket fusion reactors.
I’m gonna start with terminology because it does matter here. “War” is no “mechanism” nor is anything “built into our species by natural selection”. You are mixing up teleological and systemical ways of looking at the world.
The byproduct of your (deeply flawed) argument here ist an implicit legitimation of war. Oh, not only implicit: “It only seems wrong because of the human ability to empathize.”
That is BS. There are good reasons for saying that war is wrong from an ethical vantage point. Any argument about how war is (allegedly) natural and done by “All social creatures” hasn’t got anything to do with the question whether war is wrong.
And as we are of one opinion that “we’d rather it not to be” that “War is just another necessity” I would argue that we should consider the possibility of this idea instead of giving in to naturalistic fallacies.
I don’t have anything to add, but I feel that Benedikt should be supported in his shutting down the notion that war is inevitable. Frankly, from your post kenneth, you almost make it sound like war is desirable. THAT is wrong, and if we’re ever to rid the world of war, we need to stop thinking like this.
Trying to put “reason” and “ethical” together was your major mistake there.
Reason is founded in the physical. The way things are.
Ethics are just a twisted mess of ideas taken on independent existence.
Ethics aren’t based on reason, and reason isn’t dependent on ethics.
Not to say I agree with Kenny back there precisely… but conflict becomes more people one presses to live within the same domain. Mutually exclusive ideals, competition for resources, the works. The more of this you try to shove into one area, the more likely it is for shit to hit the fan, for one group to try to take by force what they need from another group… and vice versa.
Same way if you shove molecules and stuff together enough, it gets hot… The Earth’s core being the classic example.
Fact is : War is gonna happen. People make more people, and eventually they kill other people to make up for it… cos the world can only handle so much. “Legitimacy” is irrelevant. Ethics are irrelevant. QQing about death is irrelevant.
People want less death? People gotta stop fucking. Plain as.
“Reason is founded in the physical.” For clarification: In which sense do you use the word “founded” here?
My guess would be, that you use a kind of Hegelian argument here: “Whatever is real is rational, and whatever is rational is real.” (Phenomenology of the mind) If you are, you misinterpret Hegel. (Reality IS reason for him, reason isn’t just founded in reality. I wouldn’t even follow Hegel anyway…) If you aren’t I’m still curious to the meaning of your words.
“Ethics are just a twisted mess of ideas taken on independent existence.” – I don’t think these words make much sense. Later on you’re begging the question: “Fact is : War is gonna happen.” It’s easy to doubt this “fact”…
If one would go into a philosophical discussion on our premises, one should consider positions in which ethic(s) is (are) predominantly important – I’m thinking of Levinas here.
tl;dr: You seem to be begging the question. See for example Susan Neiman on Thrasymachos (Platon Politeia) oder Callicles (Gorgias) for confutation.
Bird wings and bat wings, friend. I have no interest in the Hegel fellow. If anything I’m saying reminds you of such, it is mere coincidence.
Reason is founded in the physical because our access to and use of reason is a direct product of the workings of the physical world. It is an adaptation made TO the world in order to enable working more effectively WITH the world. To say reality IS reason is as to say D&D IS the Player’s Handbook.
As regards my comment about ethics… see sense or don’t as suits you. If you don’t tell me precisely what troubles you, I don’t have much hope of clarifying.
It is also easy to doubt anything… fact or otherwise. So what? =p … You want me to explain why I’m so certain war will happen? You want me to justify why I call it fact? … Ask.
I ain’t obligated to show my workings up-front.
Anyhow, I know what ethics is / are for. More importantly, I know they’re not for me. They needn’t be for anyone… but fat lot of good trying to enforce THAT would do. I have no interest in “positions” that are artificially constructed so as to create the illusion of their importance.
tl;dr: You disagree with me, fail to explain the nature of your disagreement, and name-drop a lot of uninvolved (and in some cases dead) people. We’re clearly not playing the same game here. Surprised you didn’t get that from how hella informal I am.
I play too many Square games… This page has me wondering when Bahamut or whatever that was from the Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn preview is gonna show up. =/
Not sure what that guy on the siege ladder thinks he’s doing. Probably something along the lines of ‘drive me closer, I want to hit them with my sword’…
I looked for Waldo, here’s what I found:
A bloodied striped shirt and cane on the the ground.
The enemy looked, and found Waldo too.
Now you will find him in the respawn queue.
I looked in the queue; Waldo wasn’t there!
Some guy holding his place said he’d stepped out for some air.
I looked for an exit; I could find only one door.
Only it wasn’t – we were on the fortieth floor.
Down at street level, I was fearing the worst.
Something like a janitor shoveling ground chuck into a hearse.
Stepping outside, saw that Waldo didn’t stay.
Only a bloody smear where he’d dragged himself away.
I admired his willpower, and quickened my pace,
to see the conclusion of this bloody race.
I’d find Waldo, I had no doubt.
But probably not before he’d bled out.
Can I just say that this page is amazing? I’m still impressed you guys are managing a page a day. If you have to drop down the 3x a week, though, I totally understand.
First! :D
War
Hounds
Yell
But
Orphans
Treat
Hostilities
Equally
Repulsive
Burning
Ruins.
Attacking
Insurgents.
Needless
Slaughter.
Appalling
Massacre
Yawning
Graves
Delirious
Alarm
Lasting
Agony
…Amygdala?
Definition from sciencedaily.com : “The amygdala (Latin, corpus amygdaloideum) is an almond-shape set of neurons located deep in the brain’s medial temporal lobe.”
In other words, “B-R-A-I-N-S-S-S-S-S!”
I LOVE ALMONDS!
I went to college with a bunch of large ladies, but hippocampus, now thats just rude!
I like the bitter variety exclusively.
It has to do with IMPULSE CONTROL!
*slow-clap*
War is wasteful.
Actually, war is probably the most technologically progressive period for civilizations. Still bad though.
Actually war is not technologically progressive, it is technologically adoptive. Most of the research is done before the war, but the war accellerates the rate at which it is adopted/fielded. A lot of this is due to disruption from the people who conduct the research and development being moved military positions. And yes, that includes the Manhatten Project. All the design details, including production of the nucles material was fleshed out before the US entered the war.
The exception is during the extremely long one, like the Cold War, when societies have the time to adapt.
And it’s still wasteful. Resources that could have been used to build cars and trucks go to build tanks and bombs…which are then used to blow the other side’s tanks and bombs up. To say nothing of the human cost, which is horrific.
Actually, if you’ve noticed, the most costly wars in terms of human life have occurred after the industrial revolution, which is also when the human population began to skyrocket to the current, unsustainable level. Without those wars and the associated casualties giving technology time to catch up, we might have already destroyed the environment and rendered the Earth unlivable to our own species.
Or – perhaps we’d have figured out better ways to feed and power people. What if someone who would have been a renewable-energy genius, was actually killed because she/he was born in a warzone?
More likely we would have organized genocide.
No more than one child perhoushold and such.
Depends on whether you mean proportionally or in sum. Proportionally, I think you need to read up some on what Genghis Khan did, especially in the Middle East. Modern industrial warfare, even the carpet bombings of WW2, has not reached the thoroughness of the Mongols in destroying enemy populations, though with far higher populations to start against, it has given us higher totals.
The main point of war is that it never changes.
Note that the Mongols had superior technology as well, with compound bows. I would also technically count the better-trained horses, as I define technology as “a way sentient beings use the environment around them to help them survive and do things that would normally be beyond their ability.” They could ride longer and faster than anyone else at the time, giving them unmatched mobility.
Humans pretty much devalued themselves years ago.
In fact, given that humans still consume at the same rate or higher, while each contributing less in return… they really have become a liability.
Every war effectively improves the world by ridding it of humans.
@ My2Cents;
By technologically adoptive do you mean turning theory into working machinery? Before WW-2, most physicists “knew” a fission bomb was possible. But “.. several lines of research and development had to be carried on simultaneously before it was certain whether any might succeed. The explosive materials then had to be produced and be made suitable for use in an actual weapon.” encyclopedia brittanica
War is a mechanism built into our species by natural selection. It is about resource redistribution, population control and culling weak/corrupt tribes/societies. It only seems wrong because of the human ability to empathize.
All social creatures make war. Many solo species do as well. What do you think territorial behavior is? Heck, chimps even practice psychological warfare. They ritualistically desecrate the corpses of rival troopers they capture. Not just eat, desecrate. Man just practices territorialism (is that a word?) on a grand scale.
Yes, war is wasteful. It’s also as natural as crapping and dying. You don’t have to like either one of those either, but eventually, you’re gonna have to do both. War is just another necessity. It’s ugly and wasteful and I’d rather it not be so, but you must be prepared for it, because it is coming.
…actually, I was only thinking about how much warfare takes away funding from research I’m interested in, like jetpacks, replicators, and pocket fusion reactors.
You’re mixing up stuff big time.
I’m gonna start with terminology because it does matter here. “War” is no “mechanism” nor is anything “built into our species by natural selection”. You are mixing up teleological and systemical ways of looking at the world.
The byproduct of your (deeply flawed) argument here ist an implicit legitimation of war. Oh, not only implicit: “It only seems wrong because of the human ability to empathize.”
That is BS. There are good reasons for saying that war is wrong from an ethical vantage point. Any argument about how war is (allegedly) natural and done by “All social creatures” hasn’t got anything to do with the question whether war is wrong.
And as we are of one opinion that “we’d rather it not to be” that “War is just another necessity” I would argue that we should consider the possibility of this idea instead of giving in to naturalistic fallacies.
I don’t have anything to add, but I feel that Benedikt should be supported in his shutting down the notion that war is inevitable. Frankly, from your post kenneth, you almost make it sound like war is desirable. THAT is wrong, and if we’re ever to rid the world of war, we need to stop thinking like this.
Cheers,
Abcus
Trying to put “reason” and “ethical” together was your major mistake there.
Reason is founded in the physical. The way things are.
Ethics are just a twisted mess of ideas taken on independent existence.
Ethics aren’t based on reason, and reason isn’t dependent on ethics.
Not to say I agree with Kenny back there precisely… but conflict becomes more people one presses to live within the same domain. Mutually exclusive ideals, competition for resources, the works. The more of this you try to shove into one area, the more likely it is for shit to hit the fan, for one group to try to take by force what they need from another group… and vice versa.
Same way if you shove molecules and stuff together enough, it gets hot… The Earth’s core being the classic example.
Fact is : War is gonna happen. People make more people, and eventually they kill other people to make up for it… cos the world can only handle so much. “Legitimacy” is irrelevant. Ethics are irrelevant. QQing about death is irrelevant.
People want less death? People gotta stop fucking. Plain as.
(becomes more inevitable the more people)
… I wonder where my mind goes sometimes when I leave words out of sentences.
“Reason is founded in the physical.” For clarification: In which sense do you use the word “founded” here?
My guess would be, that you use a kind of Hegelian argument here: “Whatever is real is rational, and whatever is rational is real.” (Phenomenology of the mind) If you are, you misinterpret Hegel. (Reality IS reason for him, reason isn’t just founded in reality. I wouldn’t even follow Hegel anyway…) If you aren’t I’m still curious to the meaning of your words.
“Ethics are just a twisted mess of ideas taken on independent existence.” – I don’t think these words make much sense. Later on you’re begging the question: “Fact is : War is gonna happen.” It’s easy to doubt this “fact”…
If one would go into a philosophical discussion on our premises, one should consider positions in which ethic(s) is (are) predominantly important – I’m thinking of Levinas here.
tl;dr: You seem to be begging the question. See for example Susan Neiman on Thrasymachos (Platon Politeia) oder Callicles (Gorgias) for confutation.
Bird wings and bat wings, friend. I have no interest in the Hegel fellow. If anything I’m saying reminds you of such, it is mere coincidence.
Reason is founded in the physical because our access to and use of reason is a direct product of the workings of the physical world. It is an adaptation made TO the world in order to enable working more effectively WITH the world. To say reality IS reason is as to say D&D IS the Player’s Handbook.
As regards my comment about ethics… see sense or don’t as suits you. If you don’t tell me precisely what troubles you, I don’t have much hope of clarifying.
It is also easy to doubt anything… fact or otherwise. So what? =p … You want me to explain why I’m so certain war will happen? You want me to justify why I call it fact? … Ask.
I ain’t obligated to show my workings up-front.
Anyhow, I know what ethics is / are for. More importantly, I know they’re not for me. They needn’t be for anyone… but fat lot of good trying to enforce THAT would do. I have no interest in “positions” that are artificially constructed so as to create the illusion of their importance.
tl;dr: You disagree with me, fail to explain the nature of your disagreement, and name-drop a lot of uninvolved (and in some cases dead) people. We’re clearly not playing the same game here. Surprised you didn’t get that from how hella informal I am.
…looks like quite the smashing party out there, guys.
In regards to the alt-text, That’s cause relaxing is Dino-mite.
More like Dino-snore
So who’s attacking, and who’s defending?
Good question, I see one dino smashing a siege machine but it could have simply been in the way.
Just going by the action near the fortress, with what looks like Avians dropping humanoids, I’d say it’s the Gastonian forces attacking.
Yep, the dinos are smashing Gastonian siege engines along the wall.
PvP instances suck.
S’always someone hanging around, just waiting to steal your kill.
This looks like it is going badly. Also, why is that catapult too close to the wall? I doubt it would hit anything else that close.
New chapter, new avies? O_o
WHY ARE YOU SHOUTING?
So appropriate, chris.
“Unless of course… war were declared.”
“What was that noise?”
“War were declared.”
Seriously, we’re going to see the Leisure Squad versus the Relaxation Dinosaurs at some point, right?
imagine the lag
Makes me wonder how a lag DC would affect our tube players.
Aren’t they in the same building (several floors down) as the servers? They should be getting ping times in the single digits.
I play too many Square games… This page has me wondering when Bahamut or whatever that was from the Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn preview is gonna show up. =/
Not sure what that guy on the siege ladder thinks he’s doing. Probably something along the lines of ‘drive me closer, I want to hit them with my sword’…
Meme reference image, for those playing at home.
Is Waldo in here somewhere? I don’t want to waste my time looking for him if he is not present.
I looked for Waldo, here’s what I found:
A bloodied striped shirt and cane on the the ground.
The enemy looked, and found Waldo too.
Now you will find him in the respawn queue.
I looked in the queue; Waldo wasn’t there!
Some guy holding his place said he’d stepped out for some air.
I looked for an exit; I could find only one door.
Only it wasn’t – we were on the fortieth floor.
Down at street level, I was fearing the worst.
Something like a janitor shoveling ground chuck into a hearse.
Stepping outside, saw that Waldo didn’t stay.
Only a bloody smear where he’d dragged himself away.
I admired his willpower, and quickened my pace,
to see the conclusion of this bloody race.
I’d find Waldo, I had no doubt.
But probably not before he’d bled out.
Oh gods I’m going to up all night torturing Waldo.
a worthy endeavour if it leads to results like this.
True, but I think Mujaki’s first verse is best. I love it.
Can I just say that this page is amazing? I’m still impressed you guys are managing a page a day. If you have to drop down the 3x a week, though, I totally understand.
The guy on the ladder? That’s Michael Bay in his usual directing style, and hes mad because his wand isn’t putting out the lens-flares.
Someone opened the door. Now everyone is on the floor doing the dinosaur.
How problematic.