Guns or butter or responsibility
Am struggling over decision to sign petition www.cutnukes.org
An unusually strong feeling inside is to not sign; but all rationality says do sign. I wonder, what is that all about.
A thought is that keep up the arms race thing, but also establish way to prevent the causes of need for such weaponry, and when that is established and used to block the need for such war preparations, then there would be voluntary automatic total elimination of all such weaponry, all over the world.
Still, rationality suggests the petition's recommended gradual cutback on nuclear weaponry expenses is the traditional way to do such things. Like the schoolground, be able to inflict a little damage to the bully if he assaults, rather than him getting away with doing injury and receiving none in return. Bullies tend to be cowards, I think. But they will plot and strike, if they are sure to not get hurt at all in return.
So this blog post is to help me figure out a bit about what my conflict is.
Reading the above, first thought is that to solve the problem, eradicate bullies. Simple as that. Except, of course, bullies are genetically adept at not getting eradicated. And, tend to be wearing business suit and ruling the show. So it is a can't be done thing, that is maybe the only way to solve the problem. Can't get there from here.
So, it is back to the original decision option considerations, since the actual problem cannot be solved, re the eradication of all bullies. Exploring the considerations, maybe I can better resolve my inner conflict re this subject. Lots of things in the pile. And no matter what, is going to require I start it in the middle of the movie, somewhere. Some things are pro and others con, and some a bit of both, so I won't try to catagorize them at this point.
When I graduated from high school, a bit of a boy genius type, I entered college as a physics major, with thoughts of becoming a nuclear physicist and/or thin film phycisist; and I would work my way though colege by working at White Sands Missile Rnge. Rockets were a favorite subject for me, and technology being tested for military rockets conceivably be later used to build spacecraft carrying people; this was 1955, long before the space-race.
The military is a way to get around the technology-blocking machinations of the corporate business territory games. The military can say, the nation as a whole is involved, so cut the crap and lets get the job done, build the new whizbang thing despite it eventually being used to break through the technology stasis made by business-as-usual mega-giant corporation businesses. The jet airliner design was first made in the similar form of jet bombers like the B-47, for example. We might still be stuck with prop driven airliners right now, otherwise, to protect the easy business profits of prop-driven aircraft engine makers.
Much of my early employed years in teh private sector, was involved with creating things for military use, and involved having varios levels of security clearances. Military equipment development was a major focus of my getting a paycheck, back then.
I again think back to my college years. Eventually I became a dropout, note. Causes are complex, discussed elsewhere already. The one field of study that I did complete, was the full fours required semesters of ROTC; it was a State College attendance requirement. I recall recently seeing my momentos of that period, my Army brass insignia and my Sargent's stripes. And what I learned of the ways of conducting war in that training. Back then in the late 1950's, war and the threat of nuclear war was ever in the air, part of life. The "arms race" was largely a technological race, to make more and bigger weapons, to brandish at the enemy, in hopes it would scare him into not attacking; they were doing the same thing towards us at the same time.
It is said that when a policeman has to use his gun, it has lost its purpose for existing, that of cautioning against doing something to require the use of the gun by the policeman.
The nuclear arsenal is a lot like that policeman's gun in that context. If the Soviet Union and the United States pulled the trigger, threw all those nukes at one another in cascade retaliation, it was said it would destroy not only all mankind, but also most other life forms on the planet. So was their actual use ever a real option? Only for the irresponsible, the insane, I think. Yet it was a big race to make bigger and better nuclear weaponry, like baring one's teeth at a rival. A bigger snarl supposedly scares the most.
And we still have those nukes, and it is expensive upkeeping them including building better ones to replace the disintegrating ones. Their upkeep costs will cut into the education and well being of the youth who might otherwise figure out better ways of solving such problems. And thus the petition which is being pondered here in this blog post. "Guns or Butter" was often the theme during WWII, early years of my growing up. Still is, apparently. Can't have them both.
The Soviet Union feared rival, supposed cause of our nuclear arsenal big enough to destroy the world, has stood down,no longer sabre-rattling so much, and getting on with more wholesome things in life. Other countries have sprung up and created smaller nuclear arsenals, supposedly to threaten smaller rivals, such as Pakistan vs India. Numerous other nations have a small supply of nukes or are apparently struggling to make some, to get to be equals in the threat game. Dare any of them shoot a nuke at America, without knowing are arsenal wold immediately erase all life in their country in retaliation - or at least think so? So is America's huge arsenal a deterrent for small nuke use against us? Apparently not, the countries still strugggle putting scarce resources into making nukes and delivery systems, while their people starve to death.
Did I say that people acted rational, responsibly? I don't think I did.
And the existence of being the only super-power (at least military superpower) forms a very tempting prize for any who wold crave to rule the whole world. Bu hook or crook, trickery and deception galore, such clever power-crazies are likely to manipulate the electoral system, maybe stage some war excuse stuff, and get in the top positions to be able to push the red nuke button.
Why do some folks crave to rule the world? I don't recall the why of it being taught, but school history classes often focused on that having happened in the past, over and over again. I seemed a force of nature kind of thing, like the force of gravity causes an apple to fall out of the tree. Oftentimes it appears to be a religious-inspired thing, like the various groups over in Iraq etc are. Figuring out what forces are behind that could b make this blog post go on too long. Suffice it to say that more than some economic belief causing America to be used to kae over the world, some fundamentalist-type religious group might strive to do such a thing.
The presence of all those nukes and the big red button, conceivably lure the "legal" takeover of America, for the purpose of "ruling the world."
(Did I say that people acted rational, responsibly? I don't think I did.)
The Olympic Games were created as a means for letting folks show who was bigger and better, without those ego needs causing bloodshed. The town's high school football team would go over to the stadium in the neighbor town, to bash it out by the rules, to decide which town was better; and the onlooking spectators yelled and screamed while one line of oversize males would crash into another line of oversize males, as they fought for possession of a pigskin. Was it because the pigskin was worth fighting over? No, it was not, it was the ego thing, and the players knew that if they won the game, likely some of those women squeels of delight up in the spectator stands would turn into some pregnancies otherwise not happening, as they later sought to get in good favor with the winning team's players. An ego thing among the girls too, in its own way, able to brag amongst the girls about which great hero player got her pregnant.
How different is this from the historical army from one city-state going over to attack the neighbor city-state, to kill the men and take the women to breed?
Is this the root cause for most if not all such wars, for a few males to breed with more women, by preventing other men from breeding with the women? I'm talking root causes here. Mammalian bulls of many species do such things all over the world and in the seas too. And male people are male mammalians, too. Males fathered by a powerful patriarch often considered themselves the sole valuable breeding stock for humanity, and do their best to make it happen. When all the individuals are used up in a closed system, like Iraq, then it evermore is a contest between the surviving families; and it is no coincidence that each group is united by its own religion. (Exploring this is likely to arrive at even more basic roots to the subject at hand, but I already have stepped on too many toes here.)
The well armed groups in America, fondling their high powerred rifles and nervously glancing around, declaring they are patriots or at lest defenders of their religion, are not that different from teh groups in Iraq, it seems to me. Or Afghanistan. Or Pakistan. Lots of places. In India they still do "honor killings" which are horrid murders of those who step out of bounds of their "groups" to mate with some other religious group or caste. It probably was developed so as to keep one religious group from luring all the women of their neighbors to join up with them instead, leaving the men of the other group mateless and thus tending to vanish from the species.
Wanna-be rulers of the world - or of the neighborhood street gang - are said to believe that if they don't control others, then the others will control them.
It is a who-does-what-to-whom thing. Why does it matter? Because bottom line it is who reproduces and who is left out. Women seek to mate up with the guys who are in control, because that is the way for the women to share in the extra goodies the controlling guy grabs from others.
Bigger gangs usually can conquer smaller gangs. This grows until it is the conquering gang of the whole nation, prowling its borders. Well aware that the guys on the other side of that national border might make a raid over the border; each side has the same urges, or assume the others do too like themselves. Instinct says it is control or be controlled, and being controlled often means being kept from the women. Fortresses are built. Catapults go against the fortresses. Bows become crossbows become firearms and rockets, and nuke-tipped rockets.
Big stockpiles of nukes match up against the other's big pile of nukes. Whose biggest is bestest. Usually, that is; when the use of the bigger and better will kill all of both sides, will sanity start to take hold?
A way to end the=is blog post is to repeat:
Reading the above, first thought is that to solve the problem, eradicate bullies. Simple as that. Except, of course, bullies are genetically adept at not getting eradicated. And, tend to be wearing business suits and ruling the show. So it is a can't be done thing, that is maybe the only way to solve the problem. Can't get there from here.
Testosterone does not make bullies, note. Testosterone provides the git-er-done urge and energy, also needed to take on severe struggles in life. Bullies happen, just because of a warp in their neurological wiring that otherwise enables people to cooperatively work together for mutual benefit.
Will reducing the size of the nuclear arsenal a bit, reduce the urge of bullies to act out their control issues? I suspect not enough. The better approach is to deal with the control issues, then gradually weed out the bullies ... or more likely, continue to put up with the bullies' periodic fracas destructive antics and try to not get hurt as a bystander. Meanwhile do one's best to help civilization along best possible.
An unusually strong feeling inside is to not sign; but all rationality says do sign. I wonder, what is that all about.
A thought is that keep up the arms race thing, but also establish way to prevent the causes of need for such weaponry, and when that is established and used to block the need for such war preparations, then there would be voluntary automatic total elimination of all such weaponry, all over the world.
Still, rationality suggests the petition's recommended gradual cutback on nuclear weaponry expenses is the traditional way to do such things. Like the schoolground, be able to inflict a little damage to the bully if he assaults, rather than him getting away with doing injury and receiving none in return. Bullies tend to be cowards, I think. But they will plot and strike, if they are sure to not get hurt at all in return.
So this blog post is to help me figure out a bit about what my conflict is.
Reading the above, first thought is that to solve the problem, eradicate bullies. Simple as that. Except, of course, bullies are genetically adept at not getting eradicated. And, tend to be wearing business suit and ruling the show. So it is a can't be done thing, that is maybe the only way to solve the problem. Can't get there from here.
So, it is back to the original decision option considerations, since the actual problem cannot be solved, re the eradication of all bullies. Exploring the considerations, maybe I can better resolve my inner conflict re this subject. Lots of things in the pile. And no matter what, is going to require I start it in the middle of the movie, somewhere. Some things are pro and others con, and some a bit of both, so I won't try to catagorize them at this point.
When I graduated from high school, a bit of a boy genius type, I entered college as a physics major, with thoughts of becoming a nuclear physicist and/or thin film phycisist; and I would work my way though colege by working at White Sands Missile Rnge. Rockets were a favorite subject for me, and technology being tested for military rockets conceivably be later used to build spacecraft carrying people; this was 1955, long before the space-race.
The military is a way to get around the technology-blocking machinations of the corporate business territory games. The military can say, the nation as a whole is involved, so cut the crap and lets get the job done, build the new whizbang thing despite it eventually being used to break through the technology stasis made by business-as-usual mega-giant corporation businesses. The jet airliner design was first made in the similar form of jet bombers like the B-47, for example. We might still be stuck with prop driven airliners right now, otherwise, to protect the easy business profits of prop-driven aircraft engine makers.
Much of my early employed years in teh private sector, was involved with creating things for military use, and involved having varios levels of security clearances. Military equipment development was a major focus of my getting a paycheck, back then.
I again think back to my college years. Eventually I became a dropout, note. Causes are complex, discussed elsewhere already. The one field of study that I did complete, was the full fours required semesters of ROTC; it was a State College attendance requirement. I recall recently seeing my momentos of that period, my Army brass insignia and my Sargent's stripes. And what I learned of the ways of conducting war in that training. Back then in the late 1950's, war and the threat of nuclear war was ever in the air, part of life. The "arms race" was largely a technological race, to make more and bigger weapons, to brandish at the enemy, in hopes it would scare him into not attacking; they were doing the same thing towards us at the same time.
It is said that when a policeman has to use his gun, it has lost its purpose for existing, that of cautioning against doing something to require the use of the gun by the policeman.
The nuclear arsenal is a lot like that policeman's gun in that context. If the Soviet Union and the United States pulled the trigger, threw all those nukes at one another in cascade retaliation, it was said it would destroy not only all mankind, but also most other life forms on the planet. So was their actual use ever a real option? Only for the irresponsible, the insane, I think. Yet it was a big race to make bigger and better nuclear weaponry, like baring one's teeth at a rival. A bigger snarl supposedly scares the most.
And we still have those nukes, and it is expensive upkeeping them including building better ones to replace the disintegrating ones. Their upkeep costs will cut into the education and well being of the youth who might otherwise figure out better ways of solving such problems. And thus the petition which is being pondered here in this blog post. "Guns or Butter" was often the theme during WWII, early years of my growing up. Still is, apparently. Can't have them both.
The Soviet Union feared rival, supposed cause of our nuclear arsenal big enough to destroy the world, has stood down,no longer sabre-rattling so much, and getting on with more wholesome things in life. Other countries have sprung up and created smaller nuclear arsenals, supposedly to threaten smaller rivals, such as Pakistan vs India. Numerous other nations have a small supply of nukes or are apparently struggling to make some, to get to be equals in the threat game. Dare any of them shoot a nuke at America, without knowing are arsenal wold immediately erase all life in their country in retaliation - or at least think so? So is America's huge arsenal a deterrent for small nuke use against us? Apparently not, the countries still strugggle putting scarce resources into making nukes and delivery systems, while their people starve to death.
Did I say that people acted rational, responsibly? I don't think I did.
And the existence of being the only super-power (at least military superpower) forms a very tempting prize for any who wold crave to rule the whole world. Bu hook or crook, trickery and deception galore, such clever power-crazies are likely to manipulate the electoral system, maybe stage some war excuse stuff, and get in the top positions to be able to push the red nuke button.
Why do some folks crave to rule the world? I don't recall the why of it being taught, but school history classes often focused on that having happened in the past, over and over again. I seemed a force of nature kind of thing, like the force of gravity causes an apple to fall out of the tree. Oftentimes it appears to be a religious-inspired thing, like the various groups over in Iraq etc are. Figuring out what forces are behind that could b make this blog post go on too long. Suffice it to say that more than some economic belief causing America to be used to kae over the world, some fundamentalist-type religious group might strive to do such a thing.
The presence of all those nukes and the big red button, conceivably lure the "legal" takeover of America, for the purpose of "ruling the world."
(Did I say that people acted rational, responsibly? I don't think I did.)
The Olympic Games were created as a means for letting folks show who was bigger and better, without those ego needs causing bloodshed. The town's high school football team would go over to the stadium in the neighbor town, to bash it out by the rules, to decide which town was better; and the onlooking spectators yelled and screamed while one line of oversize males would crash into another line of oversize males, as they fought for possession of a pigskin. Was it because the pigskin was worth fighting over? No, it was not, it was the ego thing, and the players knew that if they won the game, likely some of those women squeels of delight up in the spectator stands would turn into some pregnancies otherwise not happening, as they later sought to get in good favor with the winning team's players. An ego thing among the girls too, in its own way, able to brag amongst the girls about which great hero player got her pregnant.
How different is this from the historical army from one city-state going over to attack the neighbor city-state, to kill the men and take the women to breed?
Is this the root cause for most if not all such wars, for a few males to breed with more women, by preventing other men from breeding with the women? I'm talking root causes here. Mammalian bulls of many species do such things all over the world and in the seas too. And male people are male mammalians, too. Males fathered by a powerful patriarch often considered themselves the sole valuable breeding stock for humanity, and do their best to make it happen. When all the individuals are used up in a closed system, like Iraq, then it evermore is a contest between the surviving families; and it is no coincidence that each group is united by its own religion. (Exploring this is likely to arrive at even more basic roots to the subject at hand, but I already have stepped on too many toes here.)
The well armed groups in America, fondling their high powerred rifles and nervously glancing around, declaring they are patriots or at lest defenders of their religion, are not that different from teh groups in Iraq, it seems to me. Or Afghanistan. Or Pakistan. Lots of places. In India they still do "honor killings" which are horrid murders of those who step out of bounds of their "groups" to mate with some other religious group or caste. It probably was developed so as to keep one religious group from luring all the women of their neighbors to join up with them instead, leaving the men of the other group mateless and thus tending to vanish from the species.
Wanna-be rulers of the world - or of the neighborhood street gang - are said to believe that if they don't control others, then the others will control them.
It is a who-does-what-to-whom thing. Why does it matter? Because bottom line it is who reproduces and who is left out. Women seek to mate up with the guys who are in control, because that is the way for the women to share in the extra goodies the controlling guy grabs from others.
Bigger gangs usually can conquer smaller gangs. This grows until it is the conquering gang of the whole nation, prowling its borders. Well aware that the guys on the other side of that national border might make a raid over the border; each side has the same urges, or assume the others do too like themselves. Instinct says it is control or be controlled, and being controlled often means being kept from the women. Fortresses are built. Catapults go against the fortresses. Bows become crossbows become firearms and rockets, and nuke-tipped rockets.
Big stockpiles of nukes match up against the other's big pile of nukes. Whose biggest is bestest. Usually, that is; when the use of the bigger and better will kill all of both sides, will sanity start to take hold?
A way to end the=is blog post is to repeat:
Reading the above, first thought is that to solve the problem, eradicate bullies. Simple as that. Except, of course, bullies are genetically adept at not getting eradicated. And, tend to be wearing business suits and ruling the show. So it is a can't be done thing, that is maybe the only way to solve the problem. Can't get there from here.
Testosterone does not make bullies, note. Testosterone provides the git-er-done urge and energy, also needed to take on severe struggles in life. Bullies happen, just because of a warp in their neurological wiring that otherwise enables people to cooperatively work together for mutual benefit.
Will reducing the size of the nuclear arsenal a bit, reduce the urge of bullies to act out their control issues? I suspect not enough. The better approach is to deal with the control issues, then gradually weed out the bullies ... or more likely, continue to put up with the bullies' periodic fracas destructive antics and try to not get hurt as a bystander. Meanwhile do one's best to help civilization along best possible.
posted by Unknown at
10:43
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