It's astounding to me that we're capable of flying a remote vehicle on a literally other planet, but we also kill each other in large numbers over whose god is correct.
Genuinely astounding to me, and slightly disappointing.
Genuinely astounding to me, and slightly disappointing.
> in the ranks of captured and confessed terrorists, engineers and engineering students are significantly overrepresented
https://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/12/magazine/12FOB-IdeaLab-t....
For example, this is (one of) the core reasons of why peace in Israel/Palestine is so hard (each side fears accepting sovereignty of the other side means they will continue to encroach and wipe them out).
Humans are pretty clever and ingenious at all levels
Russia is the one pointing the gun is this scenario, but they sure do love to pretend otherwise.
NATO, as I pointed out, was trying to make Russia a trade partner even after they invaded Georgia and Ukraine, and to this day most countries can hardly fund their militaries (even though many individually have economies larger than Russia's and could fund larger militaries by themselves). NATO didn't conduct exercises, was very careful about putting forces near Russia's border - even on NATO territor, had no facilities in Ukraine (which has never been a member), and certainly didn't move nuclear weapons anywhere near Russia.
For the record, the US had put nukes in Turkey before the USSR put them in Cuba. The crisis was resolved by removing them from both, but only the withdrawal from Cuba was publicized.
Of course, the other stuff you said was accurate. This isn't (…or wasn't) the Cold War, nor was Russia's oppression of Eastern Europe okay during the Cold War either.
Good point.
Usually it takes quite a few years of hand-wringing from the NATO side to even agree to consider letting them in.
People noticed what changed during the pandemic and after and suddenly everyone is demanding the same type of lives and opportunities and freedoms that the free people of the West have, especially in the United States... so some places became less stable than others and needed to drum up nationalistic fervor to feign justification for a war in order to try to stymy the changing tides at home. It's like when Boris Yeltsin visited a supermarket in the USA and couldn't believe what he was experiencing here versus what he expected to experience based on what he was primed to believe, versus what he experienced in his own home...that story alone when he went back contributed a lot to the eventual downfall of the USSR when people learned the truth. I think what's happening right now except at a much larger and unavoidable scale because of smartphones and social media and more easy access to the open international web where everyone can see how the world works.
Why not? Putin has clearly expressed a desire to restore Russian empire, and is doing it.
> everyone is demanding the same type of lives and opportunities and freedoms that the free people of the West have, especially in the United States...so some places became less stable than others and needed to drum up nationalistic fervor
That's happening all over the world: Russia, US, UK, India, Hungary, Poland, Italy, Israel, China, etc etc etc. It doesn't seem tied to a desire for US lifestyle.
> the Internet and Democracy and the American Constitution have succeeded
Have the latter two been under more threat in decades? And under threat arguably from the first one?
OT: We know everything we need to survive and prosper very well - imperfectly, but with margin of error to spare, including capable political systems. The people still killing are just criminals who want to steal and murder.
Of course, killing people because they privately worship the Head-Chomper is probably too far, unless they're actively chomping (your?) heads. Also, Beelzejuice isn't real.
But principles like human rights and freedom are worth fighting for, and necessary to sometimes fight for (or else we're all screwed)— Beliefs, certainly, if not anthropomorphized as "gods".
Also, religions are a pretty strong indicator of social in-groups and out-groups. If you removed the gods from some religious wars, they'd probably still be fighting each other over skin color, language, ethnicity, culture, social ties, Adidas vs. Nike preference, external political goals, land use, water contamination, domestic political pressures, fishing rights, economic disenfranchisement, etc. Theology may help divide and rationalize it, but control over resources and power are pretty concrete motivations for creatures that have to worry about starving/dying, and gods are a proxy for that.
Scarcity begets conflict. GDP per capita is ~$900 in Gaza, ~$350 in Afghanistan, ~$5,000 in Omsk. Doubt many would willingly sign up, or accept being conscripted, to murder unbelievers if they were more sure about having warm meals and meaningful works to cherish. Doubt NASA engineers would be "capable of flying a remote vehicle on a literally other planet" if they were busy scrounging for physical necessities.
Even Bin Laden introduced his 2001 statement by referencing the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire and its effects on people. Kirill may talk of the "Antichrist", but what Putin wants is Sevastopol.
I think it's reductive to just say "we also kill each other in large numbers over whose god is correct". We kill each other for a variety of reasons, usually fear of ourselves being killed, and sometimes we bring gods into it but it's very rarely, if ever, the sole reason.
This approach would be more respectful of the engineers who believe in God and who also contribute to projects like the space vehicles and probes or other impactful projects, and certainly more respectful of the great names in human history who are remembered for their contributions and noted also in the record for their love for God...