canuckistani
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Goodbye Hong Kong. Nice knowing you....
canuckistani replied to Lancaster's topic in Off-Topic General
You are obfuscating. Prosecution of war crimes may be the domain of the victor, but the UN clearly states- to which all parties are signatories- that deliberate targeting of civillians is a war crime -
Goodbye Hong Kong. Nice knowing you....
canuckistani replied to Lancaster's topic in Off-Topic General
It is hate of a certain institutional apparatus. Don't pretend it means anything else. Or do you really think that Americans hated Germans, including the tens of thousands with German last names who fought for them in WWI and WWII because they hated Germany ? -
Goodbye Hong Kong. Nice knowing you....
canuckistani replied to Lancaster's topic in Off-Topic General
No, it didn't. The US is chock-full of German immigrants and people with German last names served in both the wars against Germany. He would be saying that his issue is with the state of Germany, not its people. Germany is a state, a socio-political construct, not people. Same goes for any other nation. We have the full moral authority to hate or love a nation-state for its policies, for its actions and for its institutions. We do not when it comes to the people of the said nations carte blanche. -
Goodbye Hong Kong. Nice knowing you....
canuckistani replied to Lancaster's topic in Off-Topic General
It makes you anti-<insert nation>. Being anti-Nazis didn't make one anti-German, did it ? -
Goodbye Hong Kong. Nice knowing you....
canuckistani replied to Lancaster's topic in Off-Topic General
Anti-Israel does not make one anti-semite, neither does being against the PRC makes one anti-Sinitic. -
Goodbye Hong Kong. Nice knowing you....
canuckistani replied to Lancaster's topic in Off-Topic General
That is mostly speculative that it'd have cost more civillian casualties. In reality, the civilian casualties wouldn't be civilian casualties under the premise of 'Japan was training them to be kamikazi fighters'. The moment you pick up a gun and get a rank in the military, you are no longer a civilian but a valid military target- even if it just happened 2 hours ago. What i simply mean, is we cannot condone the idea that nuking civilians is a legitimate strategy, because it saves more human lives, when the human lives saved were of those who are a fair target in war. -
Goodbye Hong Kong. Nice knowing you....
canuckistani replied to Lancaster's topic in Off-Topic General
If you read the UN charter, this is made clear - any infrastructure related to the military capabilities of a nation do fall under military targets. As such, power stations, railway lines, highways, amunitions factories etc. are all 'secondary/ancillary' military targets. What are not military targets, are residential areas, schools, hospitals, government buildings ( outside of the defense secretariat, etc). There is a difference between unavoidable collateral damage - where you send a missile to blow up an ammunition factory and it also ends up burning down 2 apartments besides it, and deliberately targeting homes and schools of civillians. If Japan was training its civillians to go Kamikazi, they'd be military targets at that point in time. Again, saving more lives is an irrelevant argument when its targetting civillians deliberately. As I said, in war scenarios, military lives are less valuable, aka less protected under UN charter, than civillian lives. This is because military personnel have signed up for the job, a civillian has not. Condolences. -
Goodbye Hong Kong. Nice knowing you....
canuckistani replied to Lancaster's topic in Off-Topic General
No, i am saying that by 1945 standards, the war crimes argument is a null and void one, since those didn't exist back then. However, by today's standards, in today's views, the idea that nuking civillians deliberately so that less soldiers would die in battle , along with inescapable collateral damage, cannot be a morally valid position. -
Goodbye Hong Kong. Nice knowing you....
canuckistani replied to Lancaster's topic in Off-Topic General
Yes, i know. This doesn't change the argument though. Its still morally invalid argument that killing those civillians saved more soldiers' lives. In war, civillians lives are more valuable and protected than those of soldiers, who signed up to fight and die. Shooting a soldier in warfare is not a war-crime, shooting a civillian is. -
Goodbye Hong Kong. Nice knowing you....
canuckistani replied to Lancaster's topic in Off-Topic General
Um sure, but that is largely an irrelevant point because war crimes are determined, at least by modern standards, by the # of innocents/civillians killed. Soldiers who have been drafted or volunteer for the job are fair game to slaughter in warfare. civillians are not. This is where the American standard line defense of the nukes being 'more lives were saved this way' is problematic. You can't just kidnap and slowly mutilate a civillian population and go 'see, this slow mutilation and wails of 50,000 innocent civillians got the two armies of 2 million each to stop killing each other, more lives were saved'. One can argue that the UN convention was not in place during that time, so America gets a free pass, which would be true, but it still makes the 'more lives were saved this way' a null and void argument. -
Why ? In terms of food and water, the planet can easily sustain 15 billion people. All we need, is better food logistics, since approximately 30% of our food crops (worldwide) rots before it makes it to the table. So why the reduction of population is needed ? Err no, in China a female can get an abortion at any time, within her wishes and birth control is readily available. Their policies regarding female reproductive rights are more progressive historically than Canada or USA, since they've had this easy female access to birth control and abortion since the 1960s. Japan and Mexico bolster my point, because their crashing birth rates are fuelled by consumerist culture and the weakening of the family structure, especially Japan. Mate, if you ever go to India like I did, you will find that it is extremely rare to find Indians who are below the age of 60 that have more than 2 siblings. Most have 1. Meaning 2 kids per family has been the norm, with the occasional 3, for the last 60 years. Yet, their population has been growing robustly because everyone there practically wants kids. Same with China - even with 1 child policy, they registered a net population growth ( though at a slowing rate) every single year since 1979 (when 1 child policy was adopted). Whereas in the western world, we can have as many kids as we wish and we still barely grow out of population growth. The reason is, China and India have strong family unit values, the west does not. And without family unit + consumerist culture, most people don't want kids. Not having a significant population is irrelevant to what the population growth trends they demonstrate. I cited the inuits because they are a first world population who have a crap ton of kids, because they have strong family structure in them. I can cite several other groups such as this - the Masai, the Xhosa, etc. but then you'd argue 'they are third world people lacking tvs and entertainment, so all they do is make babies'. The inuit example demonstrates that it is not about 'lacking entertainment & fun option leads to more babies' but having strong family structure leads to more babies. Same with China and India vs Japan and Korea - the rich in China and India all have 1-2 kids ( 2.1 is average for Indian middle class) because unlike Korea and Japan, they have strong family values embedded in their society that western liberalism has not been able to wash away. That is a whole different ball-game and frankly, corporations that are motivated by profit are the ones who deliver the best consumer product to the consumers. The corporate culture that needs to change, is the 'planned obsolescence' model that came into being in the late 80s/early 90s. This is a paradigm followed by all major consumer manufacturers today- be it cell phones, cars or tvs or fridges. The idea is 'why make a product too good, when you can make it good enough to last ten years max ? that way, the average human has to buy that product 5-6 times in their lives instead of twice'. This is why for eg, if you take cars from the 90s, especially the Japanese cars like Toyota or Honda or Volvos from Sweden, those 90-97 models can log close to 1 million kilometers before having issues, provided you treated the car well. Any model after that, the moment you hit 350,000 km, you could be as smooth as Schumacher in driving and your car will die. Planned obsolescence. Its the scourge of the earth and the biggest money earner for corporations.
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1. Population isn't the problem, culture is the problem. The problem isn't there are too many people, problem is the western culture of consumerism affecting everything and everyone it touches. Re-initiation of the proven & age-old human model of deriving meaning out of family, community and hard work ( where time off is a luxury, not the dominant part of the life) is a much better bet than reduction of population. This is why large populations outside of western cultural sphere can have large populations and not go kaput - their culture is not driven by filling their lives with all the disposable entertainment that western people use in such staggering quantity, because they do not have a strong interpersonal community. And this is why reduction of population isn't gonna work. In today's modern world, the 'dream' is to travel the world, take a zillion pictures + buy a house + car + recreation vehicle + recreation property + send children to expensive universities. yes, it is the 'dream'. Many of us don't accomplish this dream, but trust me, almost everyone has had this 'dream' for themselves or their children, especially the gainfully employed ones. And with this model, the world cannot sustain even 1/10th the population it has. 2. Giving women control of their bodies does not reduce child-bearing rates, that is a western thing, a product of western culture, not a product of non-western cultures. It has worked in the western countries and some westernized countries, due to a combination of consumerist culture + break-up of the conglomerate family unit. This is why in countries where women have reproductive rights under their own control ( eg: China or India) ,as well in socities where the congolmerate family unit works, such as the Inuits ( who FYI, have the same reproductive rights as you or I) , the population shows no sign of abatement. Whereas in societies where the family unit is breaking down + presence of consumerism culture is huge , the birth rates are nose-diving ( western world minus immigration + Korea + Japan, etc). What we need, is a culture-shift away from being entertained by paying for stuff - either objects to buy or shows to see, by entertaining ourselves with our close friends and family. Once when i went to Ethiopia in my travels, i encountered the Ethiopian coffee ceremony. Its pretty much sunday afternoon, a family invites over all their neighbors for coffee, they lounge, drink coffee, eat snacks, few play card games while few chit-chat, etc. We need more of that in our lives, not weird solutions that run against human nature.
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This is what those who want cosmetic 'feel-good'-ism changes, say. Tackling the problem is the goal. Not to advertise how we are tackling the problem. It is a FAR tinier issue than fishing nets and far harder to control than fishing nets are. So what is the solution ? Saying we need change, is meaningless unless an actual change is proposed and we can compare whether the change is better or worse. They won't. They will just repeat the cycle of Grand Banks fishing collapse, North Sea fishing collapse, South China sea fishing collapse, etc etc.
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change happens by following scientific procedures to isolate the prime governing factors and addressing them. you want change ? Okay. Give the fishermen free government sponsored fishing nets when they bring in their old nets for safe disposal and fine then 10,000 dollars a boat if they purchase a new net without registering return of the old nets. Done. 70% of plastic pollution in the oceans = addressed. With this sort of incentive, it doesn't even have to be an international agreement, most commercial fishers would just come to us for their free nets. And its heck of a lot cheaper than replacing plastic straws and bags with BS bio-degradable stuff that will put even more pressure on the world's ecosystems for greater agricultural land usage, at the expense of habitat ( where the HECK are all the extra hemp lined whatever is gonna come from ? from being grown in soil...where is that extra soil gonna come from ? by cutting down forests...)
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damage to what ? the eco-system or to the lungs of humans breathing the air ? Most of the smog does nothing towards world climate, all it does, is mess up the lungs of the animals that breathe that air.
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This is such a cosmetic show and doesn't address the point at all. 70% of the plastic pollution in the oceans are from cast-off fishing lines. That happens in coastal or international waters. Yes, lets start with straws and pretend its gonna do anything meaningful.
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i came here not for more 'stuff' - in my profession, places like Singapore, Middle East, Australia, California etc. pays way more and i can have more 'stuff'. I came here for several reasons, most of which have to do with the easier life here, the versatility of the canadian passport and presence of universal healthcare, etc.
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having a better life in what benchmarks ? More stuff *is* greed and not what i'd call having a better life. At the end of the day, all we need to have a good life, is a house, health of family, clothes, food in our belly and a strong community. Thats it, really. 90% of the pollution, excesses of the world, etc. are caused to supply greed based products in our hands.
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Mate, if the tropics continue the Saharan trend of turning into a desert at the glacial minima, that puts roughly 3 billion+ Indo-Chinese at serious risk of starvation and dehydration. They are moving north and trying to stop that would be akin to trying to stop a Tsunami. Aint going to happen. Sure, it won't be a gentle transition. It will be a shocking one. Which is why there are people like me, who are planning the future of our children and our retirements in view of this new reality - that global warming is here and its effects will be felt everywhere. here's some facts for you: the global temperature was 2-4C higher 2000 years ago than it is today. The medieval cooling period saw a sharp drop in temperatures ( part of the reason why Viking age came to an end). This warm period started nearly 3000 years ago ( hence the start of the scandinavian iron age). Species went extinct then too due to climate.
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small quibble here. Nuclear reactor tech is already earthquake proof. A richter scale 9 earthquake won't put a crack in your nuclear core. However, what it ISNT proofed for ( and cannot be), is a tsunami. The momentum generated by such a mass of water is the equivalent of making a building that will withstand an asteroid impact. Cannot be done, not without literally inventing 'vibranium' or some other mickey-mouse special element. The Japanese reactor meltdown was not caused by the earthquake, it was due to the tsunami that followed. As such, the Vancouver coast is more or less Tsunami-proofed due to Vancouver island acting as a wave disruptor.
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I dont see any reason for such doom and gloom. Climate change or no climate change, its not like the entire earth is gonna shrivel up and die. If places like India turns into a hot desert due to climate change, then places like Russia and Canada will become warm & cultivable up to the arctic circle. Maybe Canada and Russia will become the new India and China of the world and billions will move here. I am okay with that. I am far more concered about unsustainable exploitation of oceans and chopping down forests and habitat of the nature which hold the earth's genetic diversity biospheres. They are far more concerning to the earth's health long term, along with the plastic pollution, than an area turning into a desert or glaciers giving way to a lush forest. That cycle has happened a million times before and with or without our help is irrelevant to the survivability of life forms in that cycle.
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mate, humans arnt going anywhere. If we are, we will be amongst the last megafauna to go from this planet. If our half naked stone-bashing ancestors could survive entire continents being flooded, areas the size of USA turned into a desert, so can we. Climate anxiety is a western thing, because western people have not had to struggle against mother nature very much in recent history. For rest of us, its business as usual and no big deal. i've lived through a hurricane that blew my roof off, i nearly died in the Indian ocean tsunami 15-16 years ago. Climate change is just another bump in the road for us and yes, the weak shall perish, but the adaptable and strong shall truck along.
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Look, I will outline a pathway to figure out the climate change data. 1. figure out the entire mass of the air on planet earth. This is harder than it sounds, because its not simple volumetric analysis, as air is way denser near the surface ( and thus more massive per cubic meter) than way up in the ionosphere. This can be done, by applying integration to the volumetric analysis + density. 2. figure out what is the mass of CO2 and CH4 in the atmosphere, along with water vapor. These three are responsible for 99.99% of GHG effect on planet earth, with water vapor being well over 60% of the equation. 3. Reference climatological records for what the mean temperature of the earth was during time X ( say 1900 CE). 4. Once you figure out the mass, figure out the heat retention factor ( GHG effect) of these gases and employ an integral to the mean temperature rise from time X ( say 1900 CE) to time Y ( say 2018 CE). 5. Cross check the answer with actual temperature increase on planet earth. 6. Derive conclusions to the data analysis. /End.