just ask the Londoners about cameras. Currently the city with the most heavy surveillance in the world. Not bad for a democracy, Big Brother would have been proud. As for Falun Dafa, they have considerable talent in protesting abroad and their allegations have led to congressional inquiry in the USA and its equivalent in Canada. They lost steam quickly due to the grossly ridiculous allegations they went on to make about how the Communist Party ran a directed systematic campaign to single out
use a proxy to screen your ip address. Why would you want to sign up anyway? There are far better gaming sites which get news earlier and far more coverage.
mad_axeman, that was a bit confrontational and did nothing to answer the original questions. Woe upon us the day we must look to the USA to be the moral standard of the world. There is no need to compare everything to the USA nor any other country, but to objectively discuss the merits and flaws of the country in question.
ProfCS101, you sound as if you're fresh of the field from Yorktown, to have the nerve to lecture a nation on their cowardice for fighting for something you simply don't like. Truth is, you didn't fight for the freedom you live in today, nor did most Americans alive today. You were simply lucky to be born there, and those you hold in contempt are unlucky to be born in places you don't understand. What did the Americans do after winning their independence? They had a civil war and killed 1,030,000
[quote]There are a few major issues with China that bug me.1. Tiananmen Square.2. Raping Tibetan land for raw materials and resources almost solely for Chinese profit.3. How awful they're polluting the Earth and the forced displacement of agrarian sectors (not just for the Three Gorges Dam project).4. Handling of Taiwan.Chinese domination of Tibet and Taiwan is not unlike Soviet occupation and control of Poland, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, or Ukraine. China runs quite the double-standard as
[quote]Back on topic, many people have pointed out the vast foreign debt of the USA as a weakness. However there is a school of thought amongst the asian financial community, (particularly China and HKSAR) that borrowing money works out better for the USA and worse for China. As the theory goes, China, which holds a trillion in bonds from the USA, is at severe risk of devaluation of the currency and thus of the bonds they hold. The currency devalues when the USA prints more money or when peo
Or we get the i-robot conclusion, that to safeguard humanity means that we have to be ruled by robots. I don't know why some stupid protagonist with stupid ideas of freedom and human rights manages to thwart them. As for the Cylons, they came to the perfectly logical conclusion that humanity must be annihilated before the humans annihilated them. Even in the show, it was shown that that the humans were prepared to annihilate the Cylons if they got a chance but the stupid producers wrote it a
Spacepony, you're too old to be playing with the kids. Get a new thread to discuss the nature of shadowy Nazi powers but this is far off topic Back on topic, many people have pointed out the vast foreign debt of the USA as a weakness. However there is a school of thought amongst the asian financial community, (particularly China and HKSAR) that borrowing money works out better for the USA and worse for China. As the theory goes, China, which holds a trillion in bonds from the USA, i
[quote]Also the thing about the Japense trying to surrneder before the bomb is full of it. It took TWO bombs to make them surrender, kind of tells you something.So many arguments over those facts. One argument that I've heard (but not here) was that yes, SOME Japanese officials had talked about surrendering before the bombs were dropped (the other part wanted to fight), but it was only after the bombs that the ENTIRE Japanese goverment choosed to surrender.[/quote] The point people miss
[quote]Rules of War have to be the dumbest things I've ever heard, ever. Maybe we would obey more International laws, and more rules to war if they haven't been repeatedly broken against us? Vietnam? WW2 (well, to Britain)? Germany was blowing up Britain civilian and military buildings for pretty much the majority of the battle of Britain. Check your history.[/quote] You should do just that. During the battle of Britain, German aircraft sent to attack the Thames Haven Refineries strayed over
Chinese Water Torture is about as Chinese as Chinese Whispers (childrens game for those who don't know) or Chinese Finger Traps. Besides, it is an ineffective torture and pales in comparison to waterboarding.
[quote]Here's my idea, I say that we privatize the military and shift from a consumer based economy to a war based economy. What we'd do is instead of having the government pay for the war in Iraq, it would instead be funded by rich people who actually want the war to continue, that way the world won't hate us (directly) and the money we get from loaning out our forces stimulates the economy. But what if the nation is under attack? In that case the military is recalled from wherever it is and is
[quote]The Ottaman empire wasn't just composed of turks, the arabs were also a part of it, hell most of ancient Persia was apart of it. And streakingsnake I don't know if they think those people wont lift a finger to do anything, if they thought that then why would they restrict their access to many, many foriegn sites.[/quote] The restrictions are in place to make it difficult to get controversial news. It is easily bypassed by simple proxy servers (I used to do it all the time )but th
[quote]The Germans and Japanese killed millions of civilians before we firebombed and nuked them, broke their will, and ended a war that could have dragged on for another 100 years the way the English wanted to fight it. They literally would have needed to run Germany out of people in order to win. You scorch farm lands, destroy levee systems, raze every bridge you can find, and starve the fuckers into submission. War is just like any other problem. When the shit hits the fan, the instinct f
[quote]Mathias, the problem is that the US is currently developing and hopeing to field by 2012 fully automated combat robots which wont require any human input so that the USA can fight wars without suffering ANY human casualties. Thats fully automated.. not human controled.[/quote] The catchword here is "hopes to field" not "will field". Seeing how the military procurement for robotics is a rather convoluted hand wringing process, and full of unrealistic specifications (the specs for the m
[quote]The rail gun does cause recoil, in fact even worse then standard guns, the magnetic force forces the two rails in the gun (that conduct electricity) in opposite directions, in space that could cause the ship to begin spinning at the same speed the progectile is fired from the ship. [/quote] I'm pretty sure the forces are just perpendicular to the rails along the horizontal axis(pulling apart) so it shouldn't cause spinning. The problem today with railguns is engineering the rails to w
[quote]No country would dare oppose those 2 superpowers for fear of their annihilation. [/quote] Dude, politic haven't been about the fear of annihilation for some time. Did the USA force china to devalue their currency by waving their nuclear arsenal? Did they threaten to push the button when Venuzuela started al that anti-american rant? Is nuclear war an option on the table for negotiating with Iran and North Korea? what you say about invasion is true, but you should include ever
[quote]If the US falls in WAR, than the rest of the world MAY go with it, but there is no way in hell that we take everybody out if we just fall apart[/quote] That highlights the most disturbing school of thought of the 21st Century which has been floating around on the internet. The idea that if you were to fall off your pedestal you would ruin it for everyone else just for spite. That "take them down with me" thinking may be awesome for action films but not so awesome for the 6 odd b
to act23456, I hope your comment on "Americans are the only ones with the freedom to waste their time coasting up and down the internet replying to such posts" was meant for laughs. For those who do agree with that statement, it will do you well to remember that America is not the only "free" english speaking country, secondly most participants who post here are from english speaking countries so hence the lack of people from "unfree" countries like france :p . Thirdly, if you have taken the
For conspiracies sake why don't we include the Report From Iron Mountain for a future scenario [link="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Report_From_Iron_Mountain"]WWW Link[/link]. The reason the "White Coats" imagine amazing scenarios of space-travel and colonization is because the reality down here is pretty grim and hopeless. Who doesn't want to imagine being able to leave it all behind?
railguns and normal chemically propelled guns are essentially the same, except that the momentum transfer is near 100% efficient in the railgun whilst some of the energy is imparted into the combustion gases in normal guns. The limiting factor of all such weaponry is limited to mass and thrust of the spacecraft so to limit the affect firing the weapon has on the attitude and trajectory of the spacecraft. Conventional aircraft's autocannon is feasible space weapon as the thrust generated by firi
to Zman, Have we ever been able to [U]not[/U] leave someone alone? Crusades, Jihads, Pogroms, Inquisitions, Missionaries, ethnic cleansing, xenophobia, racism and "Liberators" throughout human history shows a somewhat straightforward trend. I believe the second scenario, (pre-emptive annihilation) is more likely.
Rome conquered by shield and sword, peoples were subjugated and lands taken. Spain grew great with musket and pike, foreign resources filled their coffers. Britain dominated by cannon and sail, their ships sailed the seas uncontested. and all that is dust and memory. Today the United States stands above all. Power like never seen before was not won but given? Elected? Delegated? Is the united states powerful simply because they, the anointed of nations was deemed most worth
Eventually some poor alien race will have the misfortune of encountering us and we, with our infinite moral wisdom will find them too deviant and barbaric for our liking and will be forced to liberate them from the tyranny of their hive-caste overlords and spread the blessings of democracy and "human" rights. Rinse and repeat until overextended and sapped by planetary rebellions. Unlock achievement by spreading our culture to over 75% of the galaxy. [B][U]A Tale of Two Planets[/U][/B] O
