Tweet
I think you discount too much the regular old things that might impact India's rise. Wars are not unknown, for instance. And the history of Western Europe shows how ideological currents can slow or reverse gains.
-
I came upon a barroom full of bad Salon pictures in which men with hats on the backs of their heads were wolfing food from a counter. It was the institution of the "free lunch" I had struck. You paid for a drink and got as much as you wanted to eat. For something less than a rupee a day a man can feed himself sumptuously in San Francisco, even though he be a bankrupt. Remember this if ever you are stranded in these parts. ~ Rudyard Kipling, 1891 -
Though I thought the idea of greatness includes more than size...India has lotsa domestic problems. Not that western countries have none, but theirs seem to be another caliber...but maybe I dunno enough about the Hindu civilization...Originally posted by Jon Miller View PostBlahComment
-
You're pretty well-versed on the origins of Hindu civilization, though. Right?
I don't know much about India, but what I've heard isn't too bad. Some religious intolerance, some wacky nationalist crap, but the government sounds reasonably honest and transparent. I'd prefer India or Brazil to become the world's next superpower, rather than Russia or China.Comment
-
Heck, even I wouldn't prefer Russia to become the next world's superpower.Originally posted by Elok View PostGraffiti in a public toilet
Do not require skill or wit
Among the **** we all are poets
Among the poets we are ****.Comment
-
It's the swastikas that attract BeBroOriginally posted by Elok View Post
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
Steven WeinbergComment
-
Ah, Onodera is Russian, that explains a lot.Comment
-
I believe the swastika, and very similar symbols, was used by any number of cultures. Those freaky tantric-sex temples are a far more likely candidate.Comment
-
I don't see India becoming a "superpower" any time soon - they still have hundreds of millions living abject poverty. Their economic growth has not lifted nearly as many of their own people out of poverty as China has.
As was said, the US is the wealthiest country and the most powerful militarily, which is generally what is used to measure "greatness." Notions about moral greatness or how we let or citizens be freer and such are highly debatable.If you don't like reality, change it! me
"Oh no! I am bested!" Drake
"it is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong" Voltaire
"Patriotism is a pernecious, psychopathic form of idiocy" George Bernard ShawComment
-
China's still pretty ****ty when it comes to poverty, and human rights as far as I can tell are simply nonexistant.Originally posted by GePap View PostIf there is no sound in space, how come you can hear the lasers?
){ :|:& };:Comment
-
Why should human rights be a measure of greatness?Originally posted by Hauldren Collider View PostModern man calls walking more quickly in the same direction down the same road “change.”
The world, in the last three hundred years, has not changed except in that sense.
The simple suggestion of a true change scandalizes and terrifies modern man. -Nicolás Gómez DávilaComment
-
I would expect no less from a nazi.Originally posted by Heraclitus View PostIf there is no sound in space, how come you can hear the lasers?
){ :|:& };:Comment
-
Why do you slander me? I am a Slavic Judeophile, I don't think Hitler would have invited me to his birthday party.Originally posted by Hauldren Collider View Post
Anyway my questioning of human rights comes from my recently found Christianity, reading the Bible and the works of the Church fathers there are many concepts of justice and even natural laws, but so far none seems truly compatible with modern human rights. I now more clearly understand why the Catholic Church abhorred and opposed this untill quite recently and I'm also firmly conceived that this change in stance has been a good PR move but theologically and morally speaking a great mistake.
Mind you Judaism and Islam are also fundamentally incompatible with Human rights if one takes them seriously.
Also considering the very concept of human rights is so arbitrary, how can you be so Eurocentric and claim that such a local concept (despite its pretences to universality) can be applied to judge greatness in among all human groups or organizations?
America has the most respect for human rights, as defined by Americans and other Westerners. Any culture can see itself the greatest when examining their own peculiar values and how others live up to them. Its only when we come to more widely valued things, things that nearly all Civilizations respect as at least proxy values that we can talk about the Greatness of countries without it devolving into masturbation.
Also purely pragmatic objection: one can easily say that the Mongol or Roman or Arab Empires achieved greatness and few would object. How where they on human rights? Greatness is a synonymy for Win and always has been.Last edited by Heraclitus; November 6, 2010, 15:38.Modern man calls walking more quickly in the same direction down the same road “change.”
The world, in the last three hundred years, has not changed except in that sense.
The simple suggestion of a true change scandalizes and terrifies modern man. -Nicolás Gómez DávilaComment
-
Modern man calls walking more quickly in the same direction down the same road “change.”
The world, in the last three hundred years, has not changed except in that sense.
The simple suggestion of a true change scandalizes and terrifies modern man. -Nicolás Gómez DávilaComment
-
America does seem to be the most influential country in the world, mainly because it has so much money it can throw around. Or maybe the influence helps it make money.Comment
-
It's not better or worse a category than military power/whatever.Originally posted by Heraclitus View PostBlahComment
Comment