November 11th... Remembrance Day

[Xanth]

I know, a day late and a dollar short... but hear me out anyway. 
This might be a slightly touchy post... so, if I do offend anyone, please tell me and I'll delete this... likewise, if it gets out of hand, I'll be locking this just as quickly.

Remembrance Day just passed us by.  I'm not sure what it's called in your country, but I know there's a good chance you celebrate some form of it.
But I guess, this is mostly aimed at the North Americans and UK folk here.

I have to question something about this day...

More than just Canadians, Americans and English died.  :/
Why don't people give remembrance to the other people who died as well?

I biked to work yesterday morning listening to a local radio station and they mentioned that in Germany they too hold their own memorial day.

I think we should remember EVERYONE who died and gave their lives.  Not just the ones who fought on our side.
I mean, in the end... we're all on this planet together and I can't help but sit here and wonder when the time will come that the people who call this planet home will realize this.

[Capt. Picard]

I cant see too many veterans liking that idea for some reason... Countries have their own holidays but I dont think they are all on the same day. I know the USA has one that does not coincide with Nov 11 in Canada, but I think the states might have 2 days actually. Anyways, I've always wondered what eastern europeans feel about remebrance day and veterans day etc, since most of eastern europe fell under communism following WW2 it might seem blatantly pointless to some. The holiday itself is cultural so you can't expect everyone everywhere to honor all soilders, just wont happen IMO.

[personalreality]

It's Veterans Day here

[Xanth]

Capt... I do understand what you're saying, but my point was seemingly missed entirely.

It's summed up by my last line:

I mean, in the end... we're all on this planet together and I can't help but sit here and wonder when the time will come that the people who call this planet home will realize this.

My point is that for far too long we've put these self created dividing lines in our civilization.
MEANINGLESS dividing lines.  We are humans... not American, not Chinese, not European... Humans of Earth. 

My hope is that people realize this one day.

[personalreality]

we're earthicans   

[Xanth]

we're earthicans   

What's that word they call us in sci fi shows?  Terran?  LoL

[Everlasting]

Yeah Terrans divided in warring factions, there can never be peace. The hatred is to strong.

[personalreality]

yea, Terra means Earth.  Like Terraform is to manipulate the environment of another place into the form of the environment of earth.  There has been theoretical work figured out for terraforming mars.  I don't know that anyone would necessarily try to do it anytime soon, but the idea is to build machines that drive around mars, pumping out greenhouse gasses for 20 or so years.  This would warm up the planet enough to free the frozen water under the surface which would help support plant life.  Then we could transplant some trees and whatnot to start converting the carbon dioxide into oxygen and before long mars would be habitable to earth creatures.  Kind of irrelevant, but yea, Terra.

[NoY]

i dont think it has enough gravity to hold the atmosphere because mars is so small


:NoY:

[CFTraveler]

Don't forget 'terrestrial= of the earth'.
That's why ET= extraterrestrial=not of the earth.
I believe that terra is latin for earth.

[Capt. Picard]

I've read about terraforming other planets like Mars before, but that has been the one thing that didnt make sense to me, was the gravity. Not only will it cause problems for holding the atmosphere together, but how will humans and other earth life live there with different gravity? Wouldn't it cause bone and muscle loss eventually just like space travel?

[personalreality]

humans could adjust.  the gravity on mars isn't that weak.  (that was a bit of a joke too, cause gravity is the weak force).

but i don't know what all this gravity talk is about, mars has an atmosphere now, it's just not breathable to humans.   

[Capt. Picard]

How do you know humans could adjust? Is there other evidence we dont know of other than the evidence of bone and muslce mass loss in zero gravity?

[radman32]

We don't fight over ideals (religion/culture/tradition), those ideals are used to label, divide, and conquer. Through a flawed logic of decomposition, an individual and unique subset of muslims (extremestists) represent the whole muslim community, and that all muslims should be treated the same.

Anyways, like most influential moments in history, it was setup up and portrayed by precise calculations. Divide and conquer; as long as your the one gaining from the conflict, why not fuel it?! So please don't go spouting falsified claims either; although muslim extremists were involved, it was not all there doing. Now it's up for dispute who had assisted them, but we'll never really know. Neither can we really trust the mainstream's perspective, for they just eat that up and excrement it out. History is filtered, so nothing ever exists clearly.

[Naykid]

I'm with Angelic, I think it's a bit silly to think people are going to remember the actual people who caused such pain and why would you think it's proper to celebrate such people?  This is a good example of PC gone wild.   

[Xanth]

Ahh.. Wouldn't it be so great if our selfish power hungry world  could slow down and think past religion,power,land,money,beliefs and just realize that no matter what your reason is for killing another human, that you are infact killing one of your own.

Indeed.  

Unfortunately, that is just not the way it is. Human beings as a whole race are actually born with the instinct of being selfish and power hungry, that's kind of one of the morals of Lord of the Rings, that no man could carry the ring to destroy it because the ring meant power and any human who is given that much power, good or bad, they are not able to destroy it for the greater good, they instead keep it and use to to benefit themselves, which is basically saying that all humans have that instinct. Not that I'm saying that there aren't good people in the world or anything, because there are plenty of good human beings of all races in our world, but I'm just saying that as a human instinct we protect ourselves and our families no matter what we have to do in order to do so.

I simply can not believe that.
Think about it though... if we all worked together, you wouldn't need to "protect ourselves and our families".
Think about all we wouldn't have to do if everyone worked together.

I know... wishful thinking, but meh.
I'll continue thinking it, because I KNOW that that is what changes our reality.  

I'm with Angelic, I think it's a bit silly to think people are going to remember the actual people who caused such pain and why would you think it's proper to celebrate such people?  This is a good example of PC gone wild.   

You don't need to forget... but you do need to forgive.
And not doing so is condemning our civilization to ruins.

But Nay, that's okay... because I forgive you for destroying us. 

[Naykid]

But Nay, that's okay... because I forgive you for destroying us.   

What do you mean?  I've destroyed nothing.   

[Xanth]

What do you mean?  I've destroyed nothing.   

I was kidding. 

[Naykid]

I was kidding. 

Well now you're going to have to explain the joke to me....   

[personalreality]

How do you know humans could adjust? Is there other evidence we dont know of other than the evidence of bone and muslce mass loss in zero gravity?

because the human body is resilient and adaptive.  i'm not necessarily saying it could happen in one generation, there might be adverse effects to the new gravitational environment.  but mars' gravity isn't that low.  there are all kinds of missions being planned for long term habitation of mars.  granted we're talking about permanent residence there, but still.  i think it would be fine. 

[Xanth]

It's funny, in the world I envision... such questions need not be asked. 
The questions wouldn't even exist, the answers unheard of. 

[Taoistguy]

Do you forgive that bully at school when you were 8 years old? Or some such event that happened to you in the past?
In my opinion, there are not 2 sides to the polotics of the terrorist thing. Those people were also acting out of emotion related to their friends/family/associates that were killed by american/british bombs or bullets. The 2 'sides' are as bad as each other. Disregarding the cause of 'who started it', The important thing is where do we go from here? How can we heal this sityation.
Governments and christian or muslim extremists hold the power in this world, but the normal people like us can see a larger picture and seek to live in peace in a peaceful way.

Eventually we will achieve this.

[Naykid]

It's funny, in the world I envision... such questions need not be asked. 
The questions wouldn't even exist, the answers unheard of. 

But you are the one whom asked the question to begin with....  

[Taoistguy]

What I am saying is that we are fotgetting that governments also terrorise. They call themselves legitimate and legal, but they commit all sorts of atrocities themselves. I am not siding with treeorists, whether they be muslim or irish or christian or whtever, I am just saying that whoever causes atrocities are very screwed ip people who need help as well as punishment. The power governments wield give them the ability to appear as the 'good guys', but in rality they are just as bad.

They are both 2 sides of the same coin.

[Taoistguy]

Don't worry, I'm not taking offence.

But I think you have fallen thru conditioning to have too much trust in governments. I am aslo an Anarchist and have seen that governments terrorise people and other counties in all sorts of ways from mild threats to breaking  so called international laws and invading other countires and torturing its citizens.
OK, a society without a government does not neccessarily break down into chaos. The general mindset of people living under a government is one based on greed, violence, accumulation of money, cpmpetition and all this has fostered the belief that we need these people in power who dictates how we live our lives. They force us to live by their rules. It is impossible to try to establish a different way of living because in the end they send in the police and army to brutally crush it. You will find that Anarchists are in fact people who want to establish a co operative and peaceful way of living.

I have lived in communities where we had no faith in laws or government and we did not go round abusing each other.

Anarchism has a specific image associated with it which is actively promoted by governments and their supporters. By getting to know the history and Anarchists themselves you start to realise the truth of it.

And as for governments, they will, and have, do everything they can to keep their power and wealth. They spouse that we have freedom but we have no real freedom.

Ah, there is so much to say. I hope I have answered your questions with this. If not, feel free to raise any point/s you wish.