PeakOil is You
We are forgetting something HUGE!
by nero » Thu 28 Oct 2004, 13:17:09
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he natural purpose of moral codes is to aid a group of related people in surviving and in being more effective at what they do. A good moral code does not insist that all men are brothers whom we should love and regard as equally valuable. Rather, it insists that the individual should be prepared to sacrifice for those specific others...
"A Good moral code" ?? Are you using your own morality to evaluate moralities?
(Such a self referential activity isn't very useful)
If not then I would have to ask how you define a good moral code. My best alternative explanation would be based on evolutionary success, which I think is what you are using. (We are talking about the fitness of the meme, not any particular set of genes since moral codes are much more highly variable than can be explained by genetic differences.) In that case this dual morality code you describe has definitely not been selected for in the past couple of hundred years and therefore is not the most "fit" in the evolutionary fitness sense.
In the past couple of hundred years your dual-code morality has been suplanted almost everywhere by the nation state Law based moral code. And before that the most successful moral code has been, for the past ten thousand years, based on religions that allow groups of unrelated individuals to act collectively.
If you evaluate the best morality as the one that leads to the greatest reproductive success I would say that there is more than one successful moral code, in different situations different moral codes are the best. For example in Darfur right now strictly in reproductive success terms the moral code of the mass rapists is most likely the most successful.
In other situations, there may be no single best moral code and each moral code will have it's own niche. For example the moral code of the mafia is a successful niche because it is surrounded by other people who follow another code. If everyone in a society followed the code of the mafia then the society as a whole would be less fit than a competing society that contained only a small number of people using that moral code. That is why (IMO) the mafia may be a very good reproductive strategy in America yet Sicily has remained a backwater of Europe since the Renaissance.
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by Kingcoal » Thu 28 Oct 2004, 16:37:08
To my fellow Americans who proudly proclaim that we kick ass because we can, think about this:
Germany lost WW2 because they literally ran out of gas. They had the best, most organized, efficient, kick ass war machine on the planet. The problem with war machines is that they need to be fed gas (diesel actually) and lots of it, to keep kicking ass. The same will happen to the US if the current rightwing insanity continues.
Germany lost WW2 because they literally ran out of gas. They had the best, most organized, efficient, kick ass war machine on the planet. The problem with war machines is that they need to be fed gas (diesel actually) and lots of it, to keep kicking ass. The same will happen to the US if the current rightwing insanity continues.
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Re: We are forgetting something HUGE!
by Keith_McClary » Thu 28 Oct 2004, 23:39:10
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tyler_JC', '
')Most of the survivalists talk about wood as a plentiful source of renewable energy. They are right up to a point. If we cut the trees down faster than they are capable of being grown, trees cease to be a renewable resource. We would eventually hit peak wood and then be completely hopeless. By that point, I hope to be long dead.
')Most of the survivalists talk about wood as a plentiful source of renewable energy. They are right up to a point. If we cut the trees down faster than they are capable of being grown, trees cease to be a renewable resource. We would eventually hit peak wood and then be completely hopeless. By that point, I hope to be long dead.
Unfortunately, someone will probably want to build wooden warships:
http://library.thinkquest.org/17456/latehistall.html
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by Jenab » Fri 29 Oct 2004, 00:34:05
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('backstop', 'N')ero - it may well be prudent for Canada to arm itself if the US heads still further from its senses, but not for God's sake with nukes (which are anyway wildly overrated as weapons of war, and which can themselves be used as justification for war).
If I were to take Canada's defense requirements as my own perspective, I'd have to disagree with you. Canada can quite advantageously use nuclear weapons as a means of preventing an attack by the United States, assuming that it can develop both the warheads and a delivery system before the United States strikes preemptively.
Consider that Canada is near enough to the United States to strike directly as the US political leadership, and, if it so chooses, at the economic elites in Chicago and NYC as well. Once a Canadian nuclear system is in place, the US might still be able to defeat Canada in an all-out nuclear war, but it would pay a price that the US decision-makers would not want to pay.
Jerry Abbott
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by Keith_McClary » Fri 29 Oct 2004, 03:10:22
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('backstop', 'N')ero - it may well be prudent for Canada to arm itself if the US heads still further from its senses, but not for God's sake with nukes (which are anyway wildly overrated as weapons of war, and which can themselves be used as justification for war).
The rational strategy is surely to prepare the minimum effective force that is able to Discourage (not Deter) invasion. Marshall Tito in Yugoslavia faced down Stalin's Russia with this strategy in the 1950s, and its a very very long time since anyone invaded Switzerland, for the same reason. Hence the strategy has provenance.
In Canada's case I'd suggest territorial forces along Swisse lines with dispersed caches of materiel. The storage of ample portable SAMs would be particularly effective for deflating Pentagon assumptions of air-sufficiency.
Backstop
The rational strategy is surely to prepare the minimum effective force that is able to Discourage (not Deter) invasion. Marshall Tito in Yugoslavia faced down Stalin's Russia with this strategy in the 1950s, and its a very very long time since anyone invaded Switzerland, for the same reason. Hence the strategy has provenance.
In Canada's case I'd suggest territorial forces along Swisse lines with dispersed caches of materiel. The storage of ample portable SAMs would be particularly effective for deflating Pentagon assumptions of air-sufficiency.
Backstop
Canada doesn't have much conventional oil left.
There is still gas but gas wells are finished in a year or two so you need to keep finding and drilling new ones. American companies have come to Canada and tried to find Texas sized gasfields and failed.
Small Canadian companies have developed a lot of local expertise to profitably exploit smaller fields but this would stop in a conflict situation. And the gas pipelines are rather vulnerable as in Iraq.
As for the oilsands, if the Americans want to resort to outright armed robbery, the mideast oilfields would be more lucrative booty.
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