If the EU was to become one nation.

[Blackstar the Chakat]

Shran, thanks for the info.

Mikey, wouldn't wearing a "Obama for president" shirt get similar results from the epicentre of the Bible Belt?

Something like that. Although, I have to point out to Blackstar that as a suburban New York dweller who knows, the animosity of BoSox fans towards Yankees fans doesn't even scratch the surface of the vitriol involved in soccer rivalries in the UK and on the continent.

And back to Rochey's and Seafort's points about our candidates - Hillary is often considered a carpetbagger in the South, but she is married to the former governor (and native) of Arkansas. There are parts of the Bible Belt - especially the areas high in AME, Pentecostal, etc., churches - that regard Obama as an inspired preacher. But taken as a whole, these points only further illustrate the youth and causality of the ethnic divisions in the US compared with Europe. If Hill-dog is considered a carpetbagger, that bias can be linked to an event 140 years ago - the American Civil War and Reconstruction, or - as the Southerners say - "the recent unpleasantness." Similarly, upper-middle-white resentment of Obama can be traced to emancipation, or even to 19th century immigration biases. If nobody's figured it out yet, this country cannot have any causal event more than 230 years old! In contrast, in Europe we're talking about tribal or clan survival struggles dating back 1300 to 1600 years.

Wow...that's really sad.

[Mikey]

What's really sad? The idea that people acted like people 1 -2 millenia ago? I don't know that it's sad or not, any more than I would consider it sad that a wolf ate a rabbit. The wolf isn't a murderer - it's just doing what wolves do naturally.

[Blackstar the Chakat]

What's really sad? The idea that people acted like people 1 -2 millenia ago? I don't know that it's sad or not, any more than I would consider it sad that a wolf ate a rabbit. The wolf isn't a murderer - it's just doing what wolves do naturally.

I thought it was sad that humans haven't changed in the past few millenia.

[Mikey]

How much could we be expected to change in the last 15% of our existence?

[Sionnach Glic]

Humans are just another animal. We're smart animals, and animals that have managed to realise that killing your own kind en masse is a bad idea, but there's still the same urges that all creatures have instinctively. That's never going to change.

[Blackstar the Chakat]

Humans are just another animal. We're smart animals, and animals that have managed to realise that killing your own kind en masse is a bad idea,

Hence, the rediculus amount of WMDs

but there's still the same urges that all creatures have instinctively. That's never going to change.

True, but you'd think we'd be getting better at fighting those urges.

[Sionnach Glic]

Hence, the rediculus amount of WMDs

Point.
Okay, most of us have realised that killing off large members of your species, along with nuclear war, is a bad idea.

True, but you'd think we'd be getting better at fighting those urges.

Oh, we are. That still doesn't stop us from developing a pack-style "them and us" mentality. It's just on a larger scale, now.

[Captain Seafort]

Hence, the rediculus amount of WMDs

Which kept the peace for fifty years precisely because humans are intelligent enough to realise that mass killing of your own species is a bad idea.

True, but you'd think we'd be getting better at fighting those urges.

Human civilisation has only existed for a few thousand years - a minute fraction of the age of out species, let alone our evolutionary forebears. How exactly do you expect an entire species to change it's basic nature in such a short period of time?

[Blackstar the Chakat]

Hence, the rediculus amount of WMDs

Point.
Okay, most of us have realised that killing off large members of your species, along with nuclear war, is a bad idea.

That just reminded me of a song called "Ode to Overlong Cutscene Creator".

One of the lines was: "Without you[overlong cutscene creator] how would we know nuclear war was bad?"

Sorry, I know that was somewhat random.

[shran]

i do not think humanity's attitude will change very ,uch, at least not for the coming 300000 years. Just to give an example, we all say we will never let us be fooled again in the way the nazis 'fooled' Germany, with the fascism, etc.

A classmate of mine fooled the entire school and made 3000 euros with it as well. She could just get 3000 euros from every single person in the school. It does not sound as much, but we only have like 600 students at school. An example that humanity needs more than one generation to change, because we still can't even detect it, let alone counter it.

[Blackstar the Chakat]

i do not think humanity's attitude will change very ,uch, at least not for the coming 300000 years. Just to give an example, we all say we will never let us be fooled again in the way the nazis 'fooled' Germany, with the fascism, etc.

A classmate of mine fooled the entire school and made 3000 euros with it as well. She could just get 3000 euros from every single person in the school. It does not sound as much, but we only have like 600 students at school. An example that humanity needs more than one generation to change, because we still can't even detect it, let alone counter it.

How did she make 3000 euros? And What does that translate into American Dollors?

[Captain Seafort]

And What does that translate into American Dollors?

About $4300.

[shran]

It was a school project, best way to describe it with my charcoal english, about the behaviour of groups. It first sowed up as the idea to raise money for a poor village in india, to buy bicycles for the local populacy. The information around it was very contradictive. Nobody noticed and they gave the money anyway. people said they would have discovered it, but nobody did. Nobody. I was scared after that. With reason.

The experiment was to see how critical people would look at such an action. As of now, it is already known my school won't start any charity actions in the next 25 years because of this experiment, The entire region distrusts the school, for letting this happen.

[Mikey]

Robert A. Heinlein, in Starship Troopers, made reference to a planet whose populace, flora, and fauna were due to be completely supplanted by Earth immigrants because of the planet's naturally low radiation - and therefore mutation (which of course is a driving factor in evolution.) His description of the planet was, "Like Earth. Just retarded." Even if we accept that Earth has an adequate mutation rate, humanity has only been around for, IDK, 15,000 years or so? Civilization - city- and state-building - has only been around for about 5,000 years. How much can we be expected to change in that time, especially since those behaviors that we're discussing have proved to be so amazingly useful for the majority of that time?

[Sionnach Glic]

especially since those behaviors that we're discussing have proved to be so amazingly useful for the majority of that time?

I just thought I'd point out that that's an important factor that a lot of people don't consider. Humans quite simply need these instincts to survive. Can you imagine what would happen if every time you stepped out in front of a bus, you thought "Oh, hey, there's a bus coming straight at me. I guess I'd better get out of the way. Hey, legs, start moving!" rather than just instinctively jumping to safety before you'd even registered what was happening?

That's something that I've always hated about the Vulcans. They go on and on about how primitive emotions and instincts are. Well, they may be primitive, but they're also far superior to simple logic.