At 12/11/08 06:16 PM, Yamor wrote: Why does America waste so much money on other countries, we send money to Africa to help them. Maybe if they would stop killing each other all the damn time they could have some good things for themselves. What good does it do us to help them?

1) Improved public and foreign relations. For merely a few billion dollars in government aid that country is less likely to be hostile to us and more likely to be friendly. Take Israel as an example, we send them 30 billion dollars a year, and they are one of our greasest allies. Egypt is the same situation

Why do we always spend money to fix a country we have been at war with? Who cares if they feel angry at us, they are no threat... to us. Its clear that we can take them if they try and get all violent again, and us giving them some money wouldn't make them our friends. Even if they were, they wouldn't really be much if a help to us.

Once again, the reason is public relations. If someone just invaded your country and killed a bunch of people, you would be angry at the invaders, and your children would be angry. Yet if you rebuild everything for them, the citizens are less likely to shoot people from the invading country.

As for them not being a help to us, you never know when a new world power will emerge. Pakistan has nuclear weapons. Last time I checked, rebuilding form a nuclear war is more expensive than making an ally. America can't be everywhere.

Finnaly, there are people who are honestly helped by us, they ussually become pro-America.

I would only bow to her or anyone of a royal lineage if she/he (and not Britain or any state you may speak of) has done something that would gain an immense amount of respect from me.

Boycotting Alabama would only bring bad things upon the economy of Alabama while getting nothing done in the first place. There are innocent people there whom this group wishes to create even further economic hardship for. The senator will either be voted out of office or stay there, and regardless nothing can be done until the seat is up for grabs come the next election. I doubt it would work anyway, not enough people pay attention to where their goods are made, much less which state.

Wars bewtween are fought for several reasons. These are pride, ignorance, and resources.

Pride is rarely the reason, more commonly what lights the fuse. One leader insults the other and two different peoples grow angry at each other, demonizing the other. So to protect their "honor" or some principle, they go to war.

Ignorance will ussually manifest itself as racism or nationalism or religious intolorance. One group of people (ussually the most powerful) have somehing else to gain and they give reasons, using this ignorance and intolorance to gain the support of the people to go to war, and so they do.

Wars over the need for resources are the most self explanatory. Two peoples both need a vital resource and there isn't enough to go around, so people fight over it.

To stop the need for the military, the people would have to be educated first and foremost. Also, globalization is slowing eating away at religious intolerance and racism (though not fast enough). Finnaly, resources would have to be made readily available for all nations, to the point where there is enough for everyone, and in the case of land there may never be enough.

There is also another use for the military, civil wars. This would be a huge obstacle as governments by nature want to stay in power. They would see a lack of a military as a weakness.

I also see the need for at least a small military to protect us from any unkown threats we may see in the future, but nothing like any country has now.

I'll start with giving my thoughts on each of the different forms of government.

Monarchy, Dictatorship, anything with a supreme ruler that can override anything- It is efficient for a little while if the people like the leader, but the leader will become corrupt for sure and when he dies who knows what is going to happen.

Anarchy- it would be the ideal government if we have gotten to a point socially that everyone is unselfish and tolerant of everyone and a near perfect human being. However, that is not going to happen anytime in the near future.

Republic, Democracy and its slight variations- It depends on the people. Democracy in the sense that the people vote on everything is a bad idea since their opinions can be swayed but a republic with elected representatives is good in theory. Political parties mess everything up however since they bicker with each other. Not to mention this is a slow form of government due to its large size.

Communism, Socialism- Socially it is ideal if the principles of it are followed but economically it fails. Why should anyone work hard if something is providing for you no matter what. In order for it to work, you would have to find a means for every person in the country to get whatever they want or a society where no work is necessary. It is a government for a utopia.

I think an ideal government is one where there are a few officials with high power, like the public electing a secretary of defense or secretary of education and those people deciding with high authority what is done but they have short terms (2 years). That way things are a bit faster, the public's opinion gets heard but the decisions are not made up to them. This may only work with small countries, however.

Short of causing death, there should be no limit on free speech at all. Even the most widely held views are just opinions if you look at them. The law should not interfere with the opinions of American citizens. Since in the end, it could be the person you thought was crazy that is right in the end.

I treat each individual officer differently and in most circumstances I give them the fullest respect. However, if they are crooked or not helping things, I doubt I would give them much respect. The problem that occurs sometimes is that there is too much sheer paperwork with everything and regulation after regulation.

I would put it in a saving account that (hopefully) gives an 8% interest rate so I could then get $80,000
a year and live off that doing as I please.

At 6/21/08 12:24 AM, Memorize wrote:

At 6/21/08 12:21 AM, fli wrote:

Pu-lease...
My grandparents said, before they died, all the things that's out right now... existed back then. Only difference back then and now?

Things are out now, instead of being hidden.

That certainly explains the doubling of the abortion rate, increase of the divorce rate, and less women getting married after becoming pregnant.

Although I agree for the most part!

The abortion rate is based on reported abortions I'm guessing. So we don't really know how many abortions and induced miscarriages there are or were back them. I'll grant you that divorce rate is the result in a change in society, and some are necessary and some are not.

My mother got pregnant with her boyfriend of two years and now I have a crying and gross... baby living in my house. My family is still fine and it wouldn't a difference if they were married.

To me this does not matter. Any politician with half a brain would make the same move. My position on him remains the same. He is decent if you do not hold him to the standards of a saint. McCain is no different.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24202466/pag e/2/

This talks more in detail about the bump and campaigns.
It seems that it helps Democrats more than Republicans. Except Mike Huckabee of course. It really helped Mike Huckabee. I wonder what the two nominees will do. It would probably be safer to go on The Daily Show since Jon is Jon and Stephen can hide behind the character mask so what he asks/says will not be attributed to him to the extent Jon would be held accountable. In simple terms, Colbert can get away with more so candidates don't want to take that risk.

They shouldn't allow teenage girls to be mothers. Why the heck would they WANT to be mothers, if it is the media I have not seen this big a case of MIS (Media Induced Stupidity) in my memory. These girls probably don't have good parents either. The school needs to do more.

Construct a device which allows the resource to be held by a string with you can keep held down by your window. You then can attempt to swing the resource into someplace else in case parental units check in.

We should have private armies only as a small compliment to our current forces. They are needed for some missions but under no circumstances should the U.S. rely on them. We shouldn't even have our weapons made outside the country.

Ok, now for a few follow up questions. The rest of you that are looking at this for the first time can anwser the first few as well as these.

What new technology would benefit you the most?
If you could create any technology that fits into the realm of science in one year, which would you pick and why?
Which problems do you think we can and can not solve with technology?

You really have to put together The Daily Show and The Colbert Report into one packace since most people watch them both one right after the other. To get most of the jokes, you have to understand what he is making fun of, the 18-30 year olds have to get that info from somewhere. Colbert also has a bump which actullaly does exist since fundraising goes up a bit for people that go on his show. He certainly has influence, but I'm not sure if its in the fashion of changing their minds. Jon, however, with some of his interviews, actullaly has changed my mind and done some real journalism in my opinion.

What do all of you think will be the next peice of technology or technological/scientific breakthrough that will hit the world. Also, what does the world (I repeat, world, not just America) need in terms of technology? When do you expect to see both of these?

As long as the father has legal custody, he can punish her how and as long as he sees fit under the condition that it isn't abuseive. I hope the father wins the appeal since if he dosen't than everyone might as well turn over their kids to the government since we won't be able to raise our kids anymore.

Congress is a good idea but it is just back and forth between the two parties which means nothing gets done. Not to mention the painfully slow process. It would be good if we had an independant leader or a third party with some weight in there.

If they were to stop giving funds to the terrorist organization, they should be allowed their status back, but for now their decision seems logical.

Does it matter what they are called by the government? As long as the gays and lesbians are given the exact equal rights, it shouldn't matter, since the people are going to call it what they will no matter what. The Christian right is still going to call it immoral (albeit in... nicer terms) and the gays are going to call it what they deserve.

Personnaly, I like the idea in the first post.

Oh yes, on that poll from earlier, can you find the different age groups and how they voted? That would be very interesting to see.

I don't think we could upkeep the cameras and people would just find better spots to commit crimes. We don't want to make our criminals any smarter since jail is already doing that. That and there would be an uproar among the people. We don't even have the manpower to enforce all of our current laws and we would need to hire monitors and more police officers in order to arrest all of those law breakers.

It would be good only if they did not tax (or at least not as much), the essentials the poor need to survive on.

Lockdown should only be used if the doors are sturdy and lockable, there are multiple doors in each room (In my school there are), and someone has a firearm in the school and has training to use it (as in not a rent-a-cop with a baton). The very schematics of the building changes the situation entirely since there could be multiple floors, different hallway arrangements, etc. The plan for this rare situation should be different with each school.

At 6/18/08 10:38 PM, Cuppa-LettuceNog wrote:

At 6/18/08 10:28 PM, Lindione wrote: I agree for the most part with the above things except the sending workers overseas and letting CEO's get higher paychecks along with the other regulations. The workers need to stay here or else they will be unemployed which means we have to give out more welware checks.

They stay here, they make money, and their company has to lay them all off to cut costs or, worse, shut down and fire EVERYONE. OR, we could led them outsource, their profit would GROW, they would expand their business, and hire 5,000 more employees then they outsourced.

Their increased profit would be to hire more workers overseas, which would do nothing for us.

CEO's should be able to make whatever they want but should be heavily taxed on it.

Eh. I think everyone in America is do for a nice fat tax break.

Not with a multitrillion deficit.

I would also like to add something else.
Stop the benefits for having children. Children are expensive and poor people could be spending their money on getting a better quality of life. With the current state of things, a woman could play the system having 6 children, treating them horribly by the way, and reaping the welware check.

You get few benefits for kids; the only way to make cash off them that would be worth all the time spent on them would be to treat them so poorly and give them so little that they'd be taken away by CPS.

CPS don't check every house and we need to discourage poor people from breeding anyhow.

Believe me, welfare families don't "make it big" with kids.

I'm sure they don't, but they live and those children most likely don't go to college and just degrade the community even further.

At 6/17/08 07:59 PM, poxpower wrote: What do you think of that?

After 10-20 years of future technologies and internet expansion, sure.

Would it be worth it?

If its done right, yes.

Would it be fair?

Once they develop and mass produce more security measures, yes, it would be fair.

Let's say, for instance, there was a website in each country where you could go from time to time to update yourself on current events and vote on things.

Think about this. This would make countries into actual democracies where millions of people could have their say on many many issues instantly, just like in the old days where all the village would gather around a huge table to vote on the issue of the day.

You also have to think that a lot of these people are complete idiots that can be bribed, blackmailed, or influenced. In some small countries it would work and on the state level it would work, but on the National level in a country as large as America? It would have to be for big issues, once again, 20 years in the future.

It would save tons of cash that needs to be spent on all those polling offices and hiring of people and it wouldn't be a pain in the ass to vote.

You wouldn't save right away, since you would need a testing period, the expenditures of upkeep of the site, and some people will still want to vote ye olde fashioned way.

The downside, obviously, is security and anonimity.

Obviously, and isn't it supposed to be anonymous anyway?

The general population is moronic when it comes to computers. You could steal voter information extremely easily and vote for them en-masse, often without them ever knowing. And even then, those sites would be really juicy targets for hackers.

You would need to guard it like the Pentagon.

But think about it, we have paypal now. People buy countless crap on ebay with credit cards. Do you care more that people know what you voted for or voted for you, or that they can steal all your cash in one fell swoop?

Some high profile people would rather have their money stolen.

===

What do you think about all of this? Is it in the future? Close?

As I said, 10-20 years in the future if the idea becomes popular.

I agree for the most part with the above things except the sending workers overseas and letting CEO's get higher paychecks along with the other regulations. The workers need to stay here or else they will be unemployed which means we have to give out more welware checks. CEO's should be able to make whatever they want but should be heavily taxed on it.

I would also like to add something else.

Stop the benefits for having children. Children are expensive and poor people could be spending their money on getting a better quality of life. With the current state of things, a woman could play the system having 6 children, treating them horribly by the way, and reaping the welware check.

My recommendation would be Civ 4 but there are plenty of other mmo's for you to try and you could also wait for spore.

At 5/22/08 11:16 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote:
1) Do you agree with the statement that all humans are created equal and why? [Yes or no and why]

They are born equal and hopefully have the same chances. I can not anwser yes or no to this since I don't know what equal is for human beings. Is it intelligence, strength, or creativity? Is it power? Is it wealth?

2) What is your conscious reasoning for doing acts of altruism?

Mostly because I'm bored and want to make a point. Sometimes I have an alterior motive but mostly because I have nothing better to do and it may help me later on.

3) Do you beleive Altruism is or can be a subconscious act? if it is, what makes it treated as so 'venerable' in our society? Can you make a case for why it should still be venerable in our society even if you feel that it is or can be subconscious?

True altruism is so rare today, I have not seen a single case of it. The reasoning behind what we consider altruism, however, can be subconscious.

4) Would you do something beneficial to yourself and consequently harmful to somone else if you knew that you wouldn't get caught or punished for it?

It completely depends on every single variable imaginable so there is no real difinitive anwser to this question.

5) Would you kill a murderer if you felt doing so would save more lives? [Spur of the moment descision, a now or never sort of thing]

Once again, it depends on the situation and all the variables that are possible in that desicion.

My understanding is they came to the realization that dead people don't pay taxes and that dead people are useless, hard to rule over with an iron fist, and smell bad. Either that or they ran out of decent drinking water so they want the aid to help them with that.