BF2S Forums Why War is Good

don't tell me to calm down, I'm perfectly calm. its not really a rational debate at all. damn those walking sharks. there would be no human race without war... quite possibly the stupidest thing ever said in one of these forums.

Krappyappy wrote:

dshak wrote:

unfortunately, when captain evolution calls our number chances are it won't be because something is going to eat us, and chances are no weapons, vehicles, or special forces units will be able to prevent it either.

how can you possible know what 'captain evolution' has in store for us? statements like this are completely unsupported by evidence. unlike the rest of you, i don't presume to know what the biggest threat to humanity is. you're predicting the future. on what basis can you make these claims?

i advocate war because it lets us prepare for one more possible scenario. we can't prepare for everything, but we definitely can maximise the number of things we do prapare for.

I am having some trouble following your argument.  One of the greatest asset in Mankind's aresenal, is it's ability to adapt and overcome changes, the ability to learn new skills on the go for its own survival.  So man could techincally forget how to fight, and re-learn this skill when the time comes.

If we do not have to fear aliens attacking, or sharks knocking on our doors, offering candy grams, who are we preparing to fight?  The war we practice now, only a select few actually practice it.  The rest of mankind either becomes a civilian in the way, or politicians who start it.  So your argument for mankind needing the practice for war, shouldnt all mankind practice?

Sound a little like "The Time Machine" where in the future man forgets how to fight, and is subject to control by the Morlocks?

dshak wrote:

also, I'd like to add that I doubt anyone who has been within a hundred miles of a real war would ever refer to it as "practice" for anything.

pfcilng, I just noticed your from NIU... I'm great friends with one of the soccer coaches there. nice university. plus, you guys have one hell of a little tailback on your football team. I went to Ohio U as an undergrad, so I respect the MAC

I'm terribly afraid of sharks... but I can't resist a candygram

If I only wouldnt of given up on soccer in highschool, I wish I was good enough for the team, but eh, I was meant for other things.



about the sharks, quite a predicament.  Life with no candygram, or candygram and no life.  Decisions decisions.

Sgt. Sergio Bennet 3rd wrote:

Stop With The Weed !!!!!!!!!!!
I Would Like To See All You Noob Tub Bunnies Facing A Real Life Threat, You Are Full Of Hot Air.

Hm, at least i don't play more than 2 hours a day...

dshak wrote:

there would be no human race without war... quite possibly the stupidest thing ever said in one of these forums.

you obviously don't understand the mechanism behind natural selection. i'm certainly not going to explain it to you here.

Krappyappy wrote:

i'm not afraid to die. even though i think i'd be more useful as a scientist than a soldier, if i had to, i would do it.

I can imagine. You would probably be some Dr. Josef Mengele. At least you sound like him.

ah, the truth comes out... the PROBLEM is that you don't understand what WAR is! a lion and a hyena fighting over a carcass is not war, war is a political function.

directly from the dictionary, seriously, right out of it:

"A state of open or declared armed hostile conflict between states or nations"

I don't think a lion and hyena qualify as states or nations, though if you want to debate that I think the sarcasm may just make my head explode. There is a difference, a rather large one, between struggle or conflict, and warfare.

and by the way, I'm not double posting, I have no idea why it is posting what I write twice, I guess this web site has just decided what I have to say is so important it needs to be read by everyone more than once.

EDIT OF MY OWN: please please don't stop!!!! I was sure that "Websters New College Dictionary" was the best source for defining what war is, but you speech about the essence of life... a single tear rolled down my cheek... I swear to god...

okay, at this point I am being an ass, must be that sarcasm poisening I was talking about earlier

Last edited by dshak (2005-12-13 01:40:50)

surprisingly, you actually made a real point.
it's true. warfare, as you define it, is limited to humans. but conflict is not. conflict is universal. war is just the human form of conflict - its underlying causes and its end result are the same.

no matter what you want to call it, war or conflict, the same truth remains. would you be happy if i called it fighting? well, when we humans fight, we go to war. when lions fight, they bite each other. the difference is so trivial that i don't know why you would bother pointing it out.

and as for war being something only humans do, that's blatantly untrue. social insects wage organised warfare all the time. wasps killing bees, rival ant colonies killing each other, etc. herds of african buffalo also wage war. adult males actively seek out lion cubs as a group and kill them. this sort of thing is repeated endlessly in nature. if a group of buffalo intentionally stomping a lion cub to death is not an act of war, then you and i are speaking different languages.

Last edited by Krappyappy (2005-12-13 01:50:05)

Krappyappy wrote:

Saegeblitz wrote:

But! Krappyappy, maybe this is something you want the world to be prepared for:
The Holocaust from 1939-1945 lead to approx. 5,5 bn dead. Obtained documents read that Heinrich Himmler planned the death of 11 bn, a goal he probably would have achieved in less than 12 years.

does 'bn' stand for 'billion?' because there aren't that many jews to kill. ww2 didn't even kill off 100 million, and that's really overestimating it. not to mention the current population is only 6-odd billion. where was himmler going to find all those extra people to stick in his gas chambers?

in any case i don't understand what it is you're saying. AIDS? hunger? holocaust? nukes? none of it makes any sense.

LOL. One of the same points I was going to make. THe holocaust lead to the killing of roughly 6 million jews and I think a couple of million of gypys, and homosexuals if I remember the numbers right from the good ole' history channel.

By the way, whoever said that war doesn't stem population growth should consider this fact. In 1950 there were approximately 3 billion ( or bn if that is what Saegeblitz was implying) people living worldwide. Yes I said worldwide. Currently there are I believe somewhere in the neighborhood of 6.5-7.0 billion people inhabiting the earth. Populations tend to grow at an exponential rate, thus the Millions killed in WWII and previos years indeed effected the total population of today. You can see that the population doubled in the last 50 or so years. Look at it this way. When someone is killed it prevents more people from being born in the future on a grand scale that increases with each generation. If a person is killed that prevents say 2 people from being born the first generation (say 25 years), which would have prevented 2 each from being born the second generation and so on. After 100 years or four generations that is 8 people not being born due to one person being killed. Might not seem like much but just multiply it by the millions that have been killed due to war. An astounding number.

Also whoever said that life had been found on the moon and Mars was not entirely correct or wrong, so whoever argued his statment was also not totally correct or incorrect. No evidence that I am aware of has been found on either Mars nor the moon. Evidence has been found however in Antarctica which suggests that life once existed on Mars. This evidence comes in the form of a meteorite which contains fossilized remains of microorganisms that are not related to ANY OTHER KNOWN ORGANISM ON EARTH. This statment suggests that it could not be of this world due to that part that it contains alien life. Yes believe it...alien life. I find it ironic that people come down on others for stereotyping and being prejudice (prejudice mean to pre judge not be racist as many believe) when in fact most of them do it when talking about alien life. They immediatly think of a short, grayish-green, big bald headed, bug-eyed, INTELLIGENT creature* with knowledge that far surpasses anything that the human species is capable of knowing. The asterisk is what I believe most people think of when they hear the world "alien." What do I think of when I hear this word? I simply think of the exact meaning of the word which can be summed up as being not native, not of this world, or foreign to this earth.

Saegeblitz wrote:

Krappyappy wrote:apparently you can't get it through your head that war doesn't have to involve firearms or people. when a lion and a hyena fight over a carcass, that is war. when a parasitic kudzu vine infects a tree, that is war. war is the very essence of life, it is responsible for the hugely complex web of ecology on earth.

No it's not. War is something only humans can do. And by the way, even if Michael Jackson says so, Humans are no race, they are a species divided into races.Just because ants for example don't have guns, grenade lauchers or any of the weapons that people have when fighting doesn't mean that they don't war against rival colonies. They often war over food and resources to ensure the survival of their colonies.

dshak wrote:

because modern WARS aren't about natural selection, they arent about food, and surprisingly they aren't even about habitat (big difference between habitat and territory) as much anymore. modern - warfare - is a funtion of human construct. its about politics, religion, and lines on maps that were invented by us out of thin air.

So you are saying that other organisms don't fight or war over rule of a pride (politics) or territory (borders of thin air as you suggested? Sorry I couldn't find an example off of the top of my head because I don't think that organisms other than humans are capable of having religion. Afterall it is something we made up like the boogey man and the easter bunny.

dshak wrote:

There simply IS NO PARRALLEL in the natural world to how human behave, so suggesting our behavior os natural is horribly, horribly false logic.

If it is false it must be based on some supporting evidence otherwise you are just blowing hot air. I would like you to post your evidence that is scientifically supporting your statement. I don't think you have any idea of what you are talking about and now it is time for everyone to see this too. I will be waiting and I am looking forward to reading your speculative evidence. Surely a keen student of natural selection such as yourself will have no problem in posting your facts.

"give war a chance, E.T. is coming... and he is going to EAT us!"


Would Humans Really taste that good to justfy the travel time?

Krappyappy wrote:

surprisingly, you actually made a real point.
it's true. warfare, as you define it, is limited to humans. but conflict is not. conflict is universal. war is just the human form of conflict - its underlying causes and its end result are the same.

no matter what you want to call it, war or conflict, the same truth remains. would you be happy if i called it fighting? well, when we humans fight, we go to war. when lions fight, they bite each other. the difference is so trivial that i don't know why you would bother pointing it out.

Warfare is not the only form of conflict between humans. War does not have to be end result in any conflict between humans. The debate we are having right now is a form of conflict. Conflict is inherent within human nature. But due to our ability of higher thinking and the ability to make choices that do not obey primal natural instincts, we can choose to support or quell conflicts without the use of violent force and hence war is not necessarily the result of conflict.

We as a species do need to evolve and conflict, although a part of human nature, is hardly the most important reason that we evolve. I believe that technology and the uses of such has contributed more to evolution of the human species than war. However let me also point out that some of our greatest technological advances have come from wars. This however does not mean that war is needed for technological advances. It was simply a motivator to inspire a surge of invent because ultimately survival and the want to live will inspire a great many things. We have proven that we are able to push technology forward with motivation. This motivation does not have to be war. Often in today's society a cash prize or a rather public patent or publishing will gain a scientific break through.

Currently we have little to fear of anything on this planet with exception of some distant climate shift or world destroying asteroid. What we should be fearing at this very moment is infectious disease and viruses. Today we wage a "war" against an enemy smaller than the human eye can see. The war is not waged with guns and bombs, not planes nor tanks. The war is waged by scientists in white lab coats in sterile environments against bacteria, disease and viruses.

If you want to point out a war that will force humankind to better itself and evolve then the above war is the one you should be looking at.