a doomed race???

is the human race destined for extinction? we pride ourselves on being "the most intelligent race" but, no matter the consequences we still seem to cock things up. how many times have we been told..." don't drink & drive ", " don't speed ", " don't smoke ", " swim betwwen the flags "....etc..etc...etc. but we choose to ignore common sense & seem to prefer to die by the thousands each year. it's just a matter of time before someone pushes the button & wipes us out for good. are we too intelligent for our own good ?...or too stupid?

Some thought provoking stuff there King.

WOW wow wow

yeah thats pretty deep!

Everything ok there King?

Sunshine - give him a huggle - think he needs one!

what u said does make sense tho and it gets your mind thinking - I would say EVERYONE is guilty of ignoring guidelines for their own & others lives and safety,

Thanks Jilly

Sometimes The King goes deep hehe!!!!






Opps naughty Sun

Have a read of the darwinawards (www.darwinawards.com) and see how stupid people can be

its easy to forget that even a century ago a flu that today would be easily treated, could kill 100's of people. Lifes getting safer people are living longer hopefully we dont run out of resources or pollute our environment so that we poison ourselves.

I reckon dolphins are superior to us.
Hell, I think tapirs are superior to us.

But we do like to kill ourselves, don't we.... I acutally have a theory on the dumbing-down of the western world, but it's pretty harsh. I'll only post it if people wanna hear it.

In my opinion as it is known the world, well universe to us, goes through cycles.

The world, our world goes through cycles it will build itself up to a certain level... then destroy itself. With the dinosaurs before us it will happen...

Then newer smarter life will be born....

It is human nature to be competitive, so much so that i feel that is going to be the demise of us. We must always be the best, the strongest and the most powerful. this in itself will cause our demise.

Greed will overpower everything and there will be a military standown, where all will be lost due to human ignorance...

Ps: I havent been to sleep in three days, so that prob didnt make any sense... bollocks.

We have to be this smart to do all these ridiculous fucking things. If we were dumber, we wouldn't do them.

But man kinds ignorance far surpases their intelligence i feel that this will be their demise..

Humans are naturally greedy, this will unlitamtely destroy our race.

Bingo jono... greed and elitism...*sp*

It's not stupidity, so much, as boredom. We're the only things that are smart enough to get bored, and smart enough to decide that life is more than just staying alive until old age gets you, producing offspring on the way. And bingo. We've filled the gap, alright. We want more; and more and more and more, so we get greedy. The fact that staying alive shouldn't be that hard for people in the western world - I mean, all things being equal, everyone should be able to stay sheltered and fed enough not to die for lack of those things - means we have to fill that particular competitive, struggling urge in other ways. And I mean, hell, take your pick - we got war, smoking, speeding, drug-taking, extreme sports - a whole myriad of options are open to us to risk killing ourselves. Because we're smart enough to know that there could be more; because we're stupid enough to think we can have everything.

Very interesting, very interesting indeed

All races are doomed for extinction at some point, right? Whether or not we cause our own downfall is another matter.

PLollie: Always interested. Probably quite similar to my own view by the sound of it, but on the other hand I can justify the necessity of this 'dumbing down' anyway. It does get pretty harsh in my thinking too.

There's been some interesting exercises on dumbing down done in classrooms....
A new teacher at a school gets given this class and is told that it is made up of the brightest pupils in the school. Accordingly, the teacher treats them in this manner, pushes them, challenges them, gives them extra work etc etc.
At the end of the year, the students get great grades. The reality was that the class was actually average students.....had the teacher known this his/her teaching would have been at a far lower level...
my point...if you treat people like they are stupid, they will behave that way.....unfortunately this happens in schools all too often and a lot of kids who have alot of ability just don't get the opportunity to be extended and use it.

Humans arent that stupied. We arent stupied at all infact. I doubt we will cause out own demise. It gets a little aggrivating hearing people always say we will too. It bollocks.

Smiley: "Stupid"

Almost every game a human finds enjoyable, involves death or injury. Or hurt. Emotionally, mentally or physically. Or all at once. Thing is, we replace more people than we kill. We're not doomed for extinction, because we're too good at staying alive. Paradoxical.


The world is swelling, there's waaaay too many of us.

uh, okay. Here's my theory. Sunshine, Rincess,
biggie mums & dads - this doesn't mean you,
'kay?

Basically it's this : STUPID PEOPLE BREED.
There's nothing wrong with breeding per se...
just that the lower one's IQ, the more children
they seem to have... and raise to be dumb.
Dumb people seem to breed far more often
than smart people.

Big, big generalisation I know... *ducks for
flames*

The other contributing factor, IMO, is the
rewarding of mediocrity. Everyone wins, that sort
of thing... now, how are we supposed to tell the
bright ones if everyone can win?
I encountered this at primary school quite
often...

LOL... nice.

This might be the case... but i dont see this the cause of our race being doomed... we just might turn increasingly into australians...

Australians hmmmm !!!

i dont know if anyone else has said it, but ...
two words,

natural ... selection

and evolution....

devolution

revolution

I reckon the most intelligent lifeforms are those that do the least to survive - being a lazy person it makes sense to me.

Humans seem to be so busy doing 'stuff' that we not only threaten ourselves but those other species that we share this planet with - thats not intelligent thats plain dumb.

where are my thumbs...

Natural selection has become obsolete. That's
part of my point...

but that is natural selection.
people who dont swim between the flags get swept out to sea (hence no longer able to contribute to the gene pool)

PurpleLollie: BINGO! That is exactly my thoughts - just as I expected. *grin* Except mine are harsher than yours, and I'm not going to articulate them as I will surely get flamed for being inflammatory.

I've been bringing out the 'natural selection' comment a fair bit lately on Biggie I think. For example, over that dick who went to climb Mt Ngaurahoe with only an umbrella.... and.... those other threads.

faaarrrk, you guys are obviously doing too much class A. ( voice, there's something baaad in your water ).

OH fark don't start hehe

Yeah, Natural Selection is somewhat obsolete, however, I'm sick hearing doomsday predictions of the human race, - usually from angst-ridden know-nothings. The biggest threats I see are the fact that our population is increasing at expediential rates, and earth cannot support us all. That, and the fact that there are many new strains of bacteria that are resistant to all antibiotics that once weren’t. This is due to the fact that antibiotics have been handed out too willy-nilly by doctors, and patients have not been educated as to WHY they should complete their course, even after they feel better.
However, nature has its way of sorting such problems out. When the population reaches critical mass, a disease or famine will spread easily and wipe a lot of people out. Back where we started.
Humans are not lemmings, and above some of our stupidities we DO have a will to survive.

DrJ: Dont call me stupied... Stupied.

Oh, hang on, I re-read what you said... appologies... : )

smiley: Yes! Yes! I am sick of it too, although I have very little faith in much of humanity in a number of areas, I do think that when it comes down to our impending extinction, we'll fix things up and find some kind of ability to get along for what is the common good.

Although you make good points about antibiotics etc, a good deal of the world's population does not have access to antibiotics and such, yet populations there are still increasing, despite disease and high death rates etc. Hmm, I'm not sure where the hell I'm going with this sentence, errr, fuck it, I'll post it anyway.

I still think our most likely cause of 'extinction' is some kind of natural disaster, of the type the dinosaurs got fucked-up by. And that's quite low probability. Think about what extinction really means - a lot has to happen to kill every single human being on this earth.

"- a lot has to happen to kill every single human being on this earth."

actually you'd be surprised how little needs to happen to destroy planet earth and those that inhabit it - one big enough rock from outta space, one big enough dick in the whitehouse, one strong enough bacteria (or type of) etc. etc.

Its a delicate balance...

we're fucked, believe me.

global warming is here. weather-wise, this summer has been the most fucked one on record. the years before that were pretty weird too.

on the news, this year they said that crop yields were 1/3 of what they are normally. cos of the weather (which is global warming).

and the cause of global warming is the cars (burning oil). and the cause of cars is BP, Shell, Mobil, who keep the water-powered cars out of production. they're gonna be the first against the wall when the people realise how their greed has doomed us.

but that's ok, greed is natural and all part of being alive. party hard, people; there's not much time left.

rimu: are you demonstrating what I said or something?
Everything you mention is highly arguable.

bob daktari: The big rock from outerspace is possible, but not a great threat... Anyway, havent you seen ammargedon? ; )
As for bacteria, there are so many humans with enough diversity, that there would be some survivors.
As for Nuclear Holocaust, thats another disaster that would possibly not knock out everyone on the planet.
I dont think it would be a nut in the whitehouse, more like some nut that noones ever heard of with some equally nutty cause.
But yes, I do see your what you mean by delicate balance... I just think the balance is kept quite well. : )

For a non-doomsday person smiley, thats awfully apocalyptic. But I agree with you. Despite humans being pretty stoopid, I don't think we'll wipe ourselves out intentionally. I don't think anyone will 'push the button'. I'd like to think we learnt a few lessons from the Cuban Missile crisis... but then again, the generation that learnt those lessons will soon be gone.

There was a line in "Mission to Mars" (of all movies) that was quite pertinent. One of the scientists noted that Humans are basically party animals - as long as we're happy and there are no visible signs of degradation, we'll keep on poisoning the planet quite happily. Eventually our population and industry will be such that we could poison the ecology past its capacity to regenerate and then we're fucked.

My pick is a supervirus too smiley. So come on people! Do your bit for evolution! Keep on using that anti-bacterial disinfectant! The germs need it to adapt!

I think Porno for Pyros summed it up best:
"my friend says we're like the dinosaurs
and here we are doing ourselves in
much faster than they ever did"

I think Porno for Pyros summed it up best - I reckon the Chills were more on the money:

"Fill your head with alcohol, comic books and drugs, this is the way, the way to be....."

I think that the big rock from "outer space" is quite a feasible threat. They don't hit that often if we consider things in the terms of human lifetimes, but they do hit. A really big one hits the earth every so often (we're talking quite big time gaps here). Its happened in the past and its quite likely it will happen again.

bob daktari: Yeah, duh - I discounted natural disasters in the very same sentence. We can't affect the meteor collision, so there's no point worrying about it, regardless of its probability.

As for the bacteria thing, you'd need a pretty strong bacteria or virus to reach /every single human/ on this earth. It just wouldn't be very likely that it would kill every single one of us, which is the required result to satisfy the definition of extinction.

rimu: Global warming, despite doomsday predictions is highly unlikely to destroy the entire human race. Sure, maybe it will kill some people in some areas, maybe a lot of people - but not ALL people. And as for food shortages, well that's not going to kill ALL of us either. Sure, we may not be able to increase population, but as long as we have /some/ fertile land to plant on, we're not ALL going to die from food shortages.

Water-powered cars? Oh jesus, man. I assume you're talking about hydrogen powered cars and fuel cells? The same ones that all the major oil companies are investing in producing? And testing in states such as California? Nice one.

i'm aware of the hydrogen cars. i was talking about the water-powered cars that have been developed by many different people over the last 30 years or so, and kept quiet by the oil companies (or the us government, which is the same thing)

in any case, time will tell

i'm not even going to start on this... all i have to say is mobil is evil and so is president bush.... along with all forms of organised government made for controlling the masses (capitilisum, communision, facsium, socialism, etc) even supposed democracy is crap, basically just capitalism with a front. untill the whole world can learn that every thing on this earth is the same and we should love all of it with all our collective hearts, the planet is doomed to be full of pain and suffering, whether we all die out or not.

capitilisum? - Is that like capitalism, but the incompetent version?

communision? - a mix between communism and ammunition?

facsium? - what the fuck?

At least you got socialism right. *scowls*


rimu: Do enlighten me on how you would propose to use water alone, no hydrogen involved, to create the rotational kinetic energy needed to power a car.

There's no such goddam thing buddy. You're talking about hydrogen powered cars effectively. The waterpower thing is a misnomer, it's actually hydrogen powered. What is being talked about is being able to extract hydrogen from water 'on the fly' in an engine (usually via electrolysis), and then burning the hydrogen to produce water as in a regular hydrogen powered engine.

2H20 + electricity = 2H2 + O2

The problem revolves around this process being circular - you need to apply energy (electrical energy) to the H20 to split it into H2 and O2 in the first place.

As far as I understand it, this is a complicated process and would involve adding a lot of weight to cars, decreasing efficieny in other areas and making it hard to get the efficiency in relation to weight that is necessary. Hence the research is currently going into fuel cells (an electrochemical fuel source) and hydrogen powered vehicles using hydrogen tanks. Typically the problem with hydrogen has just been how goddam explosive it is. Kinda like carrying around a really bigass bomb.

Think about how much money the car makers could make if they invented a waterpower car. Maybe the oil companies won't want it, but there's always going to be an incentive for /someone/ to invent something that will make them a lot of money. You seem to be ignoring the simple fact that oil companies do not own the entire world.

I meant to add that the above is my understanding of the issue from what I've read over the last coupla years. I'm not a chemistry student, or an expert. I'm open to being corrected on any points, but I'm pretty sure my understanding of the fundamentals is correct.

Holy Moly Voice, you certainly sound like an expert.

I did chemistry and physics in high school, so I understand the real basics, and I read some stuff - but I'm sure anyone who's done chem or phys to a higher level will point out problems in what I've written.

Which is fine.

Couple of things... Why do you guys think starmart exists? Why do you think all the service stations are turning into mini supermarkets and a dairys? Thisis one of the ways they are diversifying so that they stay open, as the realise that petrol and oil alone will not keep them open in the future.

Voice: Have you heard about the air powered car? I saw it in the news a year or so ago, works by coliding hot air and cold air or something. The Prototype was capable of 70mph, and it sounded like a lawnmower... Just wondering what happened to it, thought you might know?

Also, all this evil empire crap...
None of the systems of government are controlled by some evil cackling little bastard in his armchair. There is no sinister plan behind behind organised government. And, we could hardly run without it.

Love to into more detail, but I got the $%#@!! boss making a pain of himself behind me.

how do you know that there is no sinister plan? eh? have a study into politics of the past and you'll see it was a conspiracy to start with.

way back (and no i don't blame all jews, but) when the moneylenders started out being money lenders (note most of these were jews) and made their fortunes of creating money out of interest. believe what you like, the american goverenment is actually controlled by the MIC (millitary intelligence corporation). explains why no matter who gets into president, they never actually change anything, especially not what they "promised" to do.... basically all the other contries in the world bow down to the states coz they've got the bombs! in the words of system of a down "they're trying to build a prison, for you and me"

I saw some stuff about a dual electricity/petrol engine a while back. It seemed like quite a good idea. The car used petrol when accelerating, then cut over to using electricity when a cruising speed was reached ...or was it the other way around? (my mind is fucked today).

Smiley: I like you. Good points, and quite correct imho.

About the air powered car, I think it runs on compressed air tanks attached to the underside of the car, which release air into the 'cylinder' to push the pistons down in short bursts of air. The valves and injectors involved are insane, I'll bet! The idea is that you plug it in at a fuel station and electricity is used to recompress air in the tank. I think they were getting something like ten hours or driving time at average speed of 80km/h. But it took four hours to 'fill it up '(i.e. compress the air via electricity). And chugs the electricity I'll bet.

The other problem here is that it shifts the pollution from the car to the power plant, which at the moment we have to fuel using fossil fuel as there is no other power source that can generate the amount of power that we need now, let alone if every car in the world was running on electricity! (or nuclear fission.... but let's not diverge too far)

Kinda interesting idea, and I seem to remember that a 'hybrid' version of the engine was being produced too. The other air powered car variety uses liquid nitrogen (instead of compressed air) in a similar manner. Dubbed the 'cyogenic car' I think!

As is the problem with many of these things, they all seem to just shift the problem elsewhere, back to electricity. What we really need to get to work is cold nuclear fusion. *maniacal grin*

Now that'd sort some shit out.

(Either that or turn an entire continent into a massive wind farm. Heh.)

cactus: That's some quite awesome bollocks there, dude.

The "money lenders"? I think you have some misunderstandings about the concept of 'money' and its 'invention'. Money is a medium of exhcange, a store of value, etc etc, it's no sinister device. Lending is a simple mechanism allwing peope, to transfer their consumption from the future to the present, and that is valuable. As a student, I value highly the ability to get a student loan now in order to consume education now, and pay it back later with future earnings.

As for your MIC stuff. Cripes, buddy - get into the goddam real world.

Heh, That military stuff reminds me of the organisation in the US that is convinced that the little refective stickers that are stuck to the back of some of their road signs over there are secret directions to places that will be taken over by a sinister shadow government if the country goes into crisis.

...some people just have really overactive imaginations.

Mobil is no more evil than the rest. Ther other gassers just made Mobil out to be the scapegoat. If you rwally wanna talk about evil then Shell win hands down. They have basically made the Niger Delta almost unlivable and refused any sort of reparations to the indigeonous people that still actually live there. Not to mention they had about twelve peaceful anti-Shell protesters put to death for nothing more than speaking out against Shell.

Capitalism is easily the single biggest evil on the face of the earth, it encourages greed and while there are exceptions 99% of the time the ric get richer and the poor get even poorer. How many South East Asian workers benefit from a record profit sat Nike, or any other Multinational... None cause they don't work for them, they're contractors, contractors don't get holidays or any benefits at all for that matter. Best of all if they kick up a stink you can easily just let them go. Not to mention in countries like Burma you can apply to the unlawful govt for a minimum wage exemption. That's right, if $1 a week seems a bit too high, pay em less.

It is pretty simple. Everything lives and dies. Nothing is around forever. Ofcourse we are doomed for extinction. It is inevitable.

jono: Find the 'nike' thread, buddy. It's been discussed before,a nd you're saying nothing new that is not merely a tired cliché.

Like many of the anti-capitalism front, you hassle something without having any sensible, rational alternative. Shut your mouth unless you can come up with a better system.

And if you say 'communism' you deserve a solid smack in the head.

*smile*

exodus: Agreed. I guess the question is here - will it be of our own causes? or something natural?

I would have to agree with Jono... shell are the problem gas giant...

Go GUll Go...

Voiceinsideyou, there must be a really smart voice inside YOU, as you are on the ball today.

Voice is always on the ball. He thinks before he speaks and doesnt subscribe to the most popular views around at the time : )

Not saying the rest of you dont, but y'know what I mean.

look voicey, capitalism isn't the answer... a sensible rational alternative doesn't exist.... i'm not downing the type of system, more the people that run the system driven by greed and ignorance.

as for the global government stuff, if you really believe we and america andthe rest of the developed world actually live in democracy, you should get your head examined. why is it that nothing ever changes? look at the last 6 months.... that whole sept 11 thing.... it's crap. read up on www.whatreallyhappened.com and you'll see it was all fabricated by the oil giants to build a pipeline to the caspian see. you just don't care that someone else has this sort of control over you and the rest of the world. (and no i don't just believe everything i find on the net, but this is fairly believable). look at the bush election. oh yea, a whole country of votes and it came to merely 100 or so. bollocks. oh yea, we'll recount these votes, but not those ones over there. plus mobil's parent company funded his campaign, and the first thing he does is let them drill for oil in alaska. look at the facts voice.... you may not want to belive it, but it's all there.

Heeehee, "voicey" - as soon as I read that, I cracked up laughing at how in a serious post you referred to me using a cutesy name. Are you coming onto me? *laughs*

Capitalism isn't run by anyone in particular. It's just a way that humans have found works in terms of organising themselves to produce food, goods and other services that we all want to consume. It's a dog-eat-dog system to some extent, yes, but such is the nature of humanity and life in general. We're all competing for resources in one way or another, co-operating when we get value out of it, for example in relationships and trading of goods.

We have laws and legal systems to limit the excesses of capitalism, and yes, there are flaws in the system. However, there is no board of maniacs at the top, there is no-one making these conspiracy decisions. People seem to forget than down at the roots of these big companies, are ordinary people, who own shares, bot the bigwig oil fatcat with his pot belly and cuban cigar.

I think the saddest thing revealed in your post is that you'll believe silly conspiracy theories (which I could easily debunk for you on a number of counts) on a badly designed website that uses caps lock on its menu bars and draws arguable and dubious links between disparate events in order to justify a radical, and entirely ridiculous point of view.



Incidentally, as I posted in another thread, Mobil has no parent company. In 1998, Exxon and Mobil merged to form ExxonMobil, which, according to its share register, has no parent, or majority shareholder.

Oh no, that's right, doesn't the US government own the oil companies? Or did the oil companies own the US government? Oh no, that's right, it's the MIC, who are proabbly funded by the oil companies, right?

I wish I was controlled by an oil company. Might make the decisions in my life a lot easier to make ah?

hehe Voicey I kind of like that for ya Voice - suits ya bud

Nice post, dammit, voicey.

Oh dear look what cactus started

smiley: Don't you dare perpetuate that nicknames rampant growth. It's nearly as bad as "chaddy".

You just like it because it looks like your nickname. *grin*

Anyway, back to staunch-defender-of-capitalism-mode.



MUAHAHAH!! I WANT MORE OIL! GREED GREED GREED!

I'm the bastard who coined the phrase "The Elusive Phunkydave..." Heheheh.... : )

I'm an unapologetic lefty and those are just a few of my views on things... The only thing that really really pisses me off is the laws voiceinsideyou mentioned to control capitalism. As under a front of globalisation many of these are being ruled contrary to free trade and repelled under the authority of forums such at the WTO and G8. A couple of American states introduced laws to boycott certain companies involved in Burma and prohibite the councils dealing with these on humanitarian grounds. The WTO rallied the supreme court to rule these unconstitutional... It wasn't as though the products were banned in the states just they couldn't be used by the council, such as council vehicles could not be filled with Shell Oil, vending machines in the offices could not sell Pepsi... Personallt I think boycotts are idiotic as by focussing on the biggest tree it's easy to miss the whole forest... meaning that while one company may seem bad the alternatives are no better. Surely a local authority has the right to choose what products and will and won't use tho, not according to the WTO though.

basically, what you're all saying is WE ARE ALL DOOOOOOOOOMED....DOOOOOMED....DOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMEEEEDDDDDD. hehehehehe

watch the movie--- "Epsilon" It relates to humans fucking up earth, from an 'outsiders' perspective.

A freind of mine had a theory that every 5000 years an asteroid will travel close enough to rip out earths atmosphere, killing everything on it. A test you could say, for the inhabitants. They pass if they manage to stop the asteroid in time.

cyclics cycles

That site isn't crap voicey. On the contrary, its highly entertaining. Had me in tears of laughter!

See, I'm a lefty too and I think that there are probably companies and governments and agencies colluding with each other but putting forth silly unsubstantiated arguments about their supposed activities hurts ANY truth that there might be to those arguments in the first place.

But then, that clumsiness covers up our REAL actvities, right comrade? Power to the people and the beats!

Now i must first say that i havent read this thred verbatum but have skim read it. My point that id like to add tho is this. To do with conspiricies(sp) etc and oil companies taking out hydrogen cars( which incidentally are pretty much on the market ) and money lends etc. All the stuff that i know that points to these things being absolute bollocks is stuff i have read and seems very plausable. All the stuff i know that supports these things is and seems highly implausable is stuff i have read. The only diffierence in my book is the plausabilty. I havent seen any of it first hand in either instance. So it all comes down to what you believe not what is proven. Now having said that i still lean to the disbelieving of conspiricies but that is purely becasue they seem so far fetched, not matter how rational i am about it. I dont disbelive them but i dont belive them either.
Personally i wish someone would show me then i could say " haha but they are bollocks"

well my friend voicey... i would love to believe that conspiracy theorys are so far fetched... i guess all we can do is speculate. i reckon there is at least something dogdy shit going down behind the scenes... but i guess if I could prove it, then everyone would already know.

don't give into society and keep it as real as poss... and keep deifing their crappy drug laws and dancing till ya drop!!!

cactus out

just had a thought (oh my GOD!!!!)

why do you suppose the US will jump in and protect a small country like kuwait when a big bad country trys to take them over, but when china goes to take over tibet, the US don't even bat an eyelid??

vested interests maybe? i suppose tibet can't really offer the americans very much can they....

and what proof ever came out that the afghans even crashed those planes eh?? was it not just the oil in the caspian see that the taleban wouldn't let them get eh?? maybe?

coincedence?

Well undoubtedly the oil in the region means the US focusses its interests there to some extent or another. That's just rational behaviour. The people of the world (on the whole) value oil very highly, and it is an important resource to all of us. Hence it is sensible to promote stability in the region.

To link any conspiracy theory to this interest in the region is a fallacy, if you ask me. Just because th word is economically interested in this region does not mean that the US does, and could get away with conspiracies the magnitude of which you, and other websites propose.

Incidentally, your analogy is somewhat flawed. The US has frequently taken interests in many regions that are not involved in oil. As far as I understand, Yugoslavia and the Balkans would be number one on that list. Although Korea was undoubtedly a mess, I'm pretty sure it was not oil interests that got the US involved.

A lot of proof come out that if was Al Queda forces in those planes. You just choose to discount everything that the US government says as rubbish, forsaking the information in front of you in order to take up a blinkered, anti-US stance based on such anti-US propaganda as the above posted websites. As I've said before to people arguing similar lines to you - that's your prerogative, I jsut don't agree with it, and think it's somewhat fanciful.

As for your 'oil in the caspian sea' plots. Well, sure there is oil there. But the US aren't going to go in there and just steal it. How would they get away with that in the public eye. There is enough international criticism of the US's stance anyway, without doing something so blatant. In fact, there could be much value to the people of the Afghanistan from foregn dollars being pumped into their economy to build such a pipeline, perhaps as part of their reconstruction plans.

Your assertions about the Taleban refusing to allow the pipeline to be built, are quite flatly - wrong. In fact, Unocal, the company leading the consortium that were intending to build the pipeline withdrew the project formally when no internationally recognised government was formed in Afghanistan. What they did do was talk to the Taleban about the benefits that the pipeline could bring Afghanistan, and discuss ways in which the government could become more moderate. In the end the project was disbanded (in 199 due to concerns over the treatment of women and the Taleban. Contrary to your statements, the taleban would msot probably have been quite happy to build the pipeline, and embezzle the profits away from the people of Afghanistan no doubt.

touche (missing the accent....i know..)

far enough... i'll just keep bumbling along thinking that the bush administration is the modern day equivilant of the antichrist spoken of in the book of revelations (note: i am not christian at all, but to believe in possible prophets and such) besides... we're a reasonably free country.

p.s. wasn't the whole yuogslavia thing with the UN not the US directly....

The US are the self appointed cops of the world. They do some good but are also very corrupt. I do believe the whole gulf war thing was a US setup. At the time the US authorities wanted a war to test out their weapons and to keep Bush in power. They encouraged Kuwait to take more oil out of the joint oilfield with Iraq and manipulated Iraq into starting a war. saddam was a very easy target to start a war with because he was disliked by most of the western world. The whole war also gave the US much more control over the oil in the region.

I'm not so sure the US are self-appointed. They have their intetests, but its the rest of the world that seems to push them into things.

I see what you mean Smiley, the US is often the only country willing to get involved in civil wars. When atrocities or reasons for involvment surface everyone just sorta looks at the US and goes "now what?"

bollocks!!! the UN is far more likely to get involved with civil wars than the US, unless it affects their oil profits or something.

It's like talking to a brick wall of ignorance.

I suppose the UN is evil now. Mother Theresa a front for satan? Every human in the world a drone, secretly produced by the oil companies to make them more profit by being complacent? Maybe environmentalists are a front for a band of people who want to take over the world and plant the entire world with dope, and don't want pollution harming their crops!

*gasps*

*sighs*

What point are you talking about voice. Bit hard to have a debate unless you are more specific. You would have to admit the US has double standards. China in favoured trading nation status in spite of Tibet. 500,000 civilians dead in Iraq because of Kuwait. If you find that a reasonable stand then I think I know where that brick wall is.

Cactus_Genie- Wha I meant was even if it's under the UN banner the force usually has a strong American make-up, and an American in charge.

Nah, not to you, more to cactus' post really.

I've debated this long before you were on the boards, justahalf, and all through this thread. Just sick of coming up with new ways to discuss the same point while dealing with exactly the same tired conspiracy theories based on a distrust of the US that seems to extend far further than reality would suggest.

I wasn't trying to debate more with my last post. Theres not really any point. It seems to be about arguing about religion. You can believe in conspiracy theories if you want, but wen you get down to it, most of the premises these conspiracies are based on assume that the US is bloody good at hiding all its activities. I just don't believe it could hide things of such magnitude this long, through all these successive governments, all the individuals that have come across information etc etc.

It just seems beyond the realms of possibility to me. People are welcome to believe what they like, but spreading sensationalist ideas around, based on shaky assumptions doesn't really help us solve the real problems out there, and as transtemporal says above, just discredits any issues that are going on.

It's not not rational for the US to be wanting to incite wars, if you ask me.

Oh, I was with you til that last bit voicey!

Why isn't it rational?

If a country had a vested interest that would be served by starting a war - why wouldn't they? Obviously, countries don't start wars for the hell of it but if there was something important at stake they would obviously move to protect it.

Thats why theres a motive in the Caspian sea. It may not be the only reason the U.S. are there but I don't believe for a second that the thought hasn't crossed their minds! They'd have to be the lamest strategists in history not to have considered it.

And hey, a shaky foothold nearby is better than no foothold at all!

Wars are woefully expensive. Have you looked at the stats for the US governments finances after all the major wars? The US ran up major, mahor deficits in the gulf war, and indeed vietnam, korea and WWII, and foir the gulf war, has only jsut recovered bakc into surpluses. And now the US is staring down the barrel of another massive budget deficit (it's own choice) - but clearly this is not a good outcome for the government.

Sure oil is important to the US, and so increased interest in the Middle East area is to be expected (and rational, to some extent), but I believe that extending it to them inciting wars in order to secure that supply goes too far.

Sure the US would like cheaper oil, everyone wants cheaper oil when it comes down to it, but such conspiracy theories would be, very, very costly - and would outweigh any benefits. Regardles sof who is in power in the Middle East, they are going to want to supply oil to the rest of the world. All the governments in the area want money too, some to feed their corrupt beaucracies (e.g. Iraq), some just to increase the countries wealth (e..g Saudi) - but they all want foreign money flowing in to pay for whatever. With this in mind, I don't think there is as much insecurity in the oil supply as is made out by some - therefore the value to the US of starting a war to 'secure' the supply much further is unlikely to be large.

Do you get where I'm going? I'm placing different probabilities and values on various scenarios here, than perhaps the conspiracy theorists would. Anyway, it's 5am, and not a good time to be thinking like this. :-/

Yeah, I see where ya going voicey. Just rarking ya up!

As a bit of an aside, I thought deficits actually stimulate economic growth in a country? I remember reading something about how surpluses in NZ weren't actually all that desirable... or is that not correct?

The other reason for the odd war is both to test out their equipment, and more importantly secure more funding for defence. There are certainly some people with power for whom war is good. Voice, I do agree with you however that some of the consiracy theories against the US are far fetched. I can't believe they set up the whole Sept 11 attack thing for a start.

transtemporal: Well, it's a bit of a "how long is a piece of string?" kind of question. Deficits ential extra spending which can stimulate economic growth in the short term (depending on how how much the government spending 'crowds out' private spending, and on the exchange rate system in use), but in the long yerm, of course, that money must be paid back, and governments, and indeed the entire country suffer through increased interest rates, higher risk premium on the countries debt, and sometimes increased inflation. I am more alluding to the longer-term economic effects. Surpluses have bad effects too, and like most things in economics it is disagreed about. Needless to say, long-term deficits are not a sustainable system, as NZ found out in 1984, and the US found out in the early 90s.

justahlaf: In terms of testing their equipment, I would hazard that starting an entire war is a very, very expensive way of doing so, and carries enormous risks, enough that it would make it not worthwhile. But I suppose we just adisagree on putting values on the benefits and costs of such things. Going to war is immensely risky, especially when the US has (and had in the gulf war) limited knowledge and intelligence of Iraq's activites and what resources Iraq had in which to combat the US with. It could have turned out to be a lot worse for the US.

Hmmm. I can see I'm gonna need the larger of my two reels for this job...

I think testing out weapons is a brilliant reason to start a war! I mean, O.K. testing out that HK Grenade Machine Gun on the Labrador puppies in the lab is one thing but its nothing like testing it in a real battlefield scenario!

And who would have guessed they'd get so much bang for their buck with those Uranium depleted shells ay? They pierce hardened targets AND they irradiate the ground for ages! Weee! Take that you commie bastards!

yeah, but what about dem allblacks???

hmmmm they are doomed