Ideal Social Engineering Settings

[WotanAnubis]

Originally posted by ArcLight
Having just read all six pages, i felt i must make a contribution......
Hopefully some of you will take it heart.

Just to stay in the spirit of off-topic derailments: have you any idea how completely inaccurate that pic is?

[livid imp]

Way to introduce yourself ArcLight. Your first post to Apolyton.....calling the regulars retarded.

Yes you will have to excuse our long rambling posts. Most of us prefer to concisely, meaningfully, state our positions, even though it would be easier to simply call each other retards.

Am I really pissed with you? No. I actually find the original joke that pic is based on funny:

"What is the worst part of winning the Special Olympics?.....
.
.
.
.
Being retarded." **rim shot**


So although I don't really care about your cheapshot, you might want to at least say "hello" before you start calling people names

For instance, in response to this post, you could say to me: "Hello.....dickhead"
That is how you make friends and influence people.

PS: Be nice or I'll sic my lady, Girl Fight Club on you. She put you in a muscular headlock and give you that not-so-fresh feeling.

[ArcLight]

Hehe

Apologies if anyone actually took offence to that, but inaccurate or not it appeals to my childish sense of humour & bearing in mind the rate at which the thread degenerated it seemed rather fitting.
(And i couln't resist.... )

Actually tho, i've not read something so unintentionally funny in ages.
Strange how just about any topic can turn into America vs. the world....

And just for on-topic flavour:

Police - Green - Knowledge - Cyb.

Police:
People need to be told what to do, otherwise they start behaving like spoilt children, demanding one silly thing or another.
And most of us probably live under this system wether we realise it or not anyway. So not much change then.

Green:
Simple. Look after planet, & planet will look after you.
Makes sense to not foul ones own nest eh?

Knowledge:
Nothing at all wrong with knowing everything - or at least trying to.....
Plus, both power & wealth eventually come from knowledge (given time).

Cybernetic:
Resistance is futile......
You will lower your defences and prepare to plant this shrubbery....
*Ahem*
I kind of like the idea of having computers run things while i find something more interesting to do.

P.S. Don't take anything in life too seriously, it is seldom worth it & often a terrible dissapointment.

P.P.S. Hello...... Dickhead







j/k :P

[knott]

http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/index.asp?PID=112

[livid imp]

Originally posted by ArcLight
Apologies if anyone actually took offence to that, but inaccurate or not it appeals to my childish sense of humour & bearing in mind the rate at which the thread degenerated it seemed rather fitting.

Hijacked threads aren't rare, might as well get used to them. It is the nature of human conversation. I doubt anyone took any offense, but entering into a long established forum in that manner isn't likely to make you any friends (of course you could be like myself and not give a sh!t if people like you or not, what do I really know)

Originally posted by ArcLight
Actually tho, i've not read something so unintentionally funny in ages.
Strange how just about any topic can turn into America vs. the world....

Used to be I would blow off most criticisms of the USA as jealousy. But in the last four years the US has offered increasingly little to the rest of the world and in exchange we've been ten fold more belligerent. I can now understand why people are so angry with us.

For years the US has made it a big fuss pointing out belligerent rogue states such as Libya, N Korea, Iran, and more recently Iraq for their 'F^ck the world! We'll do as we please' attitude. Now that the world didn't want to take part in Bush's oil war, Bush is the once yelling 'F^ck the world! We'll do as we please!' I'm so irritated with the state of this country right now I wont fly the US Flag over my avatar. If Kerry wins this November I'll fly it again, but right now it is hard to be a proud American when we keep repeating the mistakes of the past **cough** vietnam **cough**.

[livid imp]

To knott....I'm not sure what your reasoning for posting that Harris poll was all about, but it said to me is that most humans are only slightly more intelligent than sh!t slinging apes. Anyone that argues the jump in intelligence from ape to man is too vast to be logical needs to read this poll.

A fifth of Christians don't believe in hell or the devil??? WTF??? I was raised a Lutheran, I distinctly remember them covering this in Sunday School.

A fifth of Christians believe in reincarnation?? You all are reading the same book i did right? I dont remember a damn thing about my next life as a rectal bacterium.

Nearly half (48%) of adults believe in Astrology. That makes it official. The following headline will be on all the newspapers tomorrow morning:

"EXTRA....EXTRA.....HALF OF HUMANITY DETERMINED TO BE BRAIN DEAD.....AOL'S STOCK SOARS TO NEW RECORD"

[binTravkin]

I can now understand why people are so angry with us.

Very good!

[livid imp]

Edit:
Nevermind, dont go there.....off topic is caulk full of crazed conservative trolls just waiting to attack ANYTHING that gets posted there.

[Ellestar]

Originally posted by Commy
I don't know much, but I do know that WW2 was because of some insane fascist. Okay, so it is fairly arguable that Europe has seen a lot of war in that. But Europe, being stupid, has to go to war because some of it doesn't like Jewish people. If it weren't for America, chances are Germany would have won. I didn't see one of Europes 'glorious' generals leading D-Day, the decisive battle of the war. No, it was an American 5 star general, Eisenhower. And you say America hasn't seen war?

Haha it's a common joke in Russia that USA won WW2. But still it's funny to see that some of you really think that way. The turning point of war on European theatre was a battle for Stalingrad. After that battle, Germany had no chances. USSR finally refitted heavy industry for a war, and starting from 1943 USSR made more tanks/airplanes/artillery etc. than Germany. Add to that a fact that Germany lost several major battles and it will be obvious that USSR should have won WW2 on european theatre anyway.
Why USA finally participated in WW2, you ask? Well, imagine if all europe was communist and under influence of USSR (like east Germany, Poland etc). Obvioulsly, UK and USA didn't wanted to make USSR a strongest superpower on Earth. So, they waited when USSR, Germany and other participating sides will destroy each other (at least, economically). After that, with a comparatively very small investments they prevented USSR from domination and saved their industry to become a superpower themselves while others suffered from a war greatly.
If you think a little, it wasn't a two-side war even on European WW2 theatre. Why do you think USSR lost one millon people in a battle for Berlin? USSR didn't fought against Hitler, in a battle for Berlin USSR fought for dominance in a world after WW2.
How about a "Western bertrayal"?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_betrayal

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich_Agreement

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:World_War_II_politics

That truly shows what Europe was a can of scorpions before WW2. France didn't helped Czechoslovakia because Czechoslovakia had an agreement with USSR that USSR helps Czechoslovakia to defend against Germany... but helps only if France helps Czechoslovakia in the first place (France had a non-conditional defence agreement with Czechoslovakia). So, France decides that it's better to hand over his ally Czechoslovakia to Germany than to make USSR more powerful (at that time they thought that USSR is a more serious threat than Germany and didn't wanted to increase USSR influence by allowing USSR to help Czechoslovakia). After that, Stalin decides that "allies" can easily break all their agreements with USSR the same way and decided to make an agreements with Germany too (Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact). Now comes the Poland with "strange war" where "allies" (France/UK) hand over another ally to Nazies. Good work! Unfortunately for these coward "allies", Germany decides to own their cowardly asses instead of attacking USSR. Too bad for them, they thought that Germany will attack USSR first and will exhaust both themselves and USSR in their war (while "allies" will hide against their defence lines, human-made like France one or natural like UK one), and as a result an "allies" will be the ones who will win from this conflict - basically, an exact copy of USA plan for WW2.

All of that happened because someone thought too much about dominance and too little about allies, agreements and human lives.

So, in concluson, you're both right and wrong. USA obviously didn't helped to win a war against Germany in a sense that USA "helped" when Germany was doomed anyway. But USA is probably the only country that "won" a WW2 in a broad sence - they lost almost nothing and became a superpower after WW2. France/UK tried to do that too, but were unsuccessful.

[girlfight_club]

Originally posted by Ellestar

Why USA finally participated in WW2, you ask?

That surprise attack on a naval base may have had something to do with it.

Works the same in SMAC, btw.


GFC

[Commy]

Okay, so I did a little research on WW2 and the US, and for some things (but not all), I stand corrected...

And sorry about my previous posts, I literally just finished up an arguement at some political forum (that I'll never go to again) that day about fascism and all that crap and it really turned me off. And remember, always do your research, so anyway...

Depending on how you interpret 'turning point', there really could be three points, Stalingrad, Moscow, and D-Day.

A book I got from the library, THE BATTLE 100, ranks the top 100 most influential battles of all time.

Stalingrad is number 3
D-Day is number 13
Moscow is number 22

Stalingrad was definitely 'the turning point' as in the place where german offense stopped, however, D-Day was the actual battle that killed germany. Even after Stalingrad, germany was still powerful, still occupied France, and hadn't really lost the war. All Stalingrad did was ensure Russia survived WW2, and because of this, Germany was denied to numerous oil wells and the ability to expand into the mid-east...but that doesn't mean Stalingrad wasn't important. Had Russia lost, the cold war might have been between germany and the US, but even that is doubtful.

[Commy]

Anyway, back to the US...

For all intensive purpose, lets compare the US, the EU, China, and Russia

Sources are the www.cia.gov website

First, GDP...

1. EU--11,050 billion
2. US--10,990 billion
3. China--6,449 billion
4. Russia--1,282 billion

EU takes the lead, but not by much. For the most part, US and the EU are even. Keep in mind, the EU is a loosely formed confederation, made by individual nations, so the US is by far more powerful than any single individual European nation in the EU. The closest, Germany, has only 2,271 billion and follows after Japan, India, and China. America and Asia appear to triumph over Europe in this category, but that depends on how you look at it...

[Commy]

Now we have population...

1. China--1,289 million
2. EU--456 million
3. US--293 million
4. Russia--144 million

China takes an obvious lead, and the gap between the EU and the US is considerably large. However, US, compared to any individual European nation, triumphs, as its closest competitor is germany, at 82 million. But, that depends on if you consider the EU one nation...

Of course, as seen in China, population means nothing about quality of life...

[Commy]

Now just between US and EU, we'll compare a bunch of things.

Literacy rate...

US and most European countries both have 99%, however some Eastern European countries are lower, but still close enough...

As for unemployment...

US--6.00
EU--9.10

Note that Switzerland and Ukrain have 3.7 and the UK has 5.00

Considering its size, I'd give the US credit. After all, when you have countries as small as Switzerland and Luxembourg, it's hard to compare, since smaller generally means higher standards of living, and more manageable. But, they are still better. So it appears, since the UK does have a lot of influence, that some of Europe beats the US here, it just depends on what parts...

Life expectancy

US--77.43
EU--78.10

Europe wins here, and clearly. It looks like the excuse of being larger doesn't work here, since the EU has both more people and more land. Since the EU is an average, that means that about half the countries are better than the US. These include Spain, the UK, Luxembourg, Switzerland, and a few others...

The last part, of course, is personal experience. Facts are important, but ultimately it is your opinion of the country that matters. I think the US is better. That's it, that's final, that's my opinion. Europeans probably think Europe is better. I believe in the American ideals, the American dream. While Europe, or most of it, is similiar, I think America just goes a wee bit farther. But that's all subjective.

In the end, though, it's still always fun to make fun of the American government and president bush...

[Commy]

Okay, so now back to war...

So, for this thread, how do you define war? If you mean military generals and armies, then you only would see have the combat of America.

America, unlike Europe, fought Indians, constantly, feared Indians everyday, got raided and scalped by them, and what did Europe do? Well, the bloody French told the Indians to scalp people.

So maybe it wasn't organized warfare. Who cares. I didn't see any European battles where people smoked weed and then went around cutting people's scalp off. No, Europe never has had to worry about Indians, never, not since Rome and the celts anyway...

And then there are the odds. There are always odds. And they were usually against America. And yet, America beat the odds, which pretty muchs means America beat Europe everytime. And when I say America, I include Mexico too. You know your little prized emperor, Napolean? Yeah, well he lost to the Mexicans, THE FREAKING MEXICANS. How sad can you get?

Let's see, America beat the British, TWICE. Never mind the fact America was outnumbered. Never mind the fact it had no supplies and no training, nor a navy. And yet, it defeated the largest army in the world, and then it set up a government that modeled for the rest of the world, including Europe.

And then there's the Texas revolution. Ever heard of the Alamo? How about San Jacinto, where a bunch of rogue woodsmen defeated the larger, better trained Mexican army.

And then came both World Wars. I'm sorry, but America won WW2. America planned D-Day, America lead D-Day, and at the same time America defeated Japan. If I remember correctly, it was Indonesia that was attacked, and wasn't that under Dutch and French control? I'm sorry, at least it WAS under their control.

And then there comes Vietnam. Yep, the Americans lost alright. But they didn't lose to the mexicans. And they didn't lose to themselves, no, we'll leave that to France...

Take Iraq. If it weren't for the US, nobody would have attacked, no-body. The European military, the UN military is absolutely nothing without the US. I'm sorry, maybe the US feds have their issues, but atleast they get crap done. The EU and the UN, at best, just send money and rally America. About the only exception to this would be the UK.