taoistimmortal Posted January 2, 2004 Share Posted January 2, 2004 i mentioned this somewhere else here but am curious to know what some of you think about a federally mandated "War on Natural Disasters" i mean if you think about it they have killed more people and destroyed more lives than any terrorist organization or any form of drug use over the years i heard a figure that the yangtze river in china killed more than 300,000 people in the 20th century alone! if i get enough replies here i promise to personally start a lobby in washington for this specific purpose Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
griff38 Posted January 2, 2004 Share Posted January 2, 2004 No doubt a noble cause, but how would you begin? How could you have stopped the Iranian earthquake? We certainly could do alot more to help if we were not spread so thin stopping this false terror crap though. But Humans as a group really don't care about others. I mean on sept 11 2000 less than 3000 Americans died and we make the world stop and revolve around us. But nobody seems to remember just prior to that over 100,000 of our fellow humans died in a hurricane in Honduras. Americans could not give a crap if they tried. Remember for every person like you that cares, there are 100s that would drive the bull dozer to push the bodies into mass graves so they can get back to their football games. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wassup Posted January 3, 2004 Share Posted January 3, 2004 Its a lot harder to battle Mother Nature than to battle terrotists, and no doubt more costly too. Also, terroism is something we can do something to hinder/stop it right now (though I'm in no way approving of the method Bush is employing currently). Mother Nature's wrath is something that has to be accepted as mostly unstoppable right now. Sure, we are doing things like planting trees to stop landslides, developing better mapping systems for storms, etc., but overall we really have no power to do this except spending an extremely large amount of money, time, and energy to develop new breakthroughs in technology, science, or understanding of the way nature works. This "war on natural disasters", unfortunately, is a war we cannot win right now. btw taoistimmortal, could you use some periods, please? Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lathain Valtiel Posted January 3, 2004 Share Posted January 3, 2004 Basically, what wassup said. You want to wage a war on the planet itself, an unwinnable war, be my guest. Terrorism on the other hand, is technically stoppable and not motivated by random motions of the planetary body we live on. Natural disasters are simply something you have to accept, mass murder for no decent reason on the other hand, I think not. And for the record, we offered help to Iran in the form of quote unquote major aid, and they refused. So essentially the War on Terror has nothing to do with that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SkinWalker Posted January 4, 2004 Share Posted January 4, 2004 Originally posted by taoistimmortal i mentioned this somewhere else here but am curious to know what some of you think about a federally mandated "War on Natural Disasters" A few words come to mind: ludicrous, ridiculous, you're-not-serious-but-being-silly, etc. i mean if you think about it they have killed more people and destroyed more lives than any terrorist organization or any form of drug use over the years Natural Disasters don't kill people. They just occur. In fact, a Natural Disaster really isn't a disaster at all. It's just the planet doing it's thing. What kills people is people. We build tall buildings knowing that the asthenosphere allows plastic movement of the Earth's crust in the form of plate tectonics. We already know that plates are colliding, sliding, sliping, scouring and scraping.... but we build there anyway. We know already that water is a limited resource in the desert, but we build anyway. We already know that rivers flood, but we build there anyway. We already know that tornados and hurricanes are common to certain geographic areas.... but guess what? We build there anyway. We just have to be smart about how we live. Technology is providing some protection against earthquakes and hurricanes, advanced warning of tornados and hurricanes... It's not a war.. it's just being smart. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
taoistimmortal Posted January 4, 2004 Author Share Posted January 4, 2004 yes skin walker is right i was being silly and i feel i must apologize i just registered to these forums and i missed the portion of the disclaimer that said serious threads only but i believe it is still an interesting idea death and destruction in itself, irrespective of its cause, is turmoil and injustice it takes life unfairly and destroys the labors of man without reason in former times before science advanced the state of mankinds understanding these catastrophes where improperly labeled "acts of god" and still in less advanced portions of the globe where belief has presidence over scientifically provable evidence this form of superstition is still the norm this i find absolutely fascinating for in the contemplation of cause and effect is it not easier to attribute a divine intervention at work when a natural process is not fully understood but let me tell you of the origin of thiis idea of a war on natural disasters it just seems ironic that these terrorists these men or women who truly desire to harm others for reasons to various to list are not as effective as "mother nature" or plain human error i live in chicago where there was a porch collapse here this summer that killed 11 people all of them too young to have died and this act which was caused by the improper construction of a weight bearing structure did not need to happen if those that had built the structure would have done it well this a case of mans laziness of his forgetfulness of the importance of being upright yes the war on natural disasters was born out of irony we can fight human foes but are still like children with out someone to protect them when it comes to uncontrollable phenomenons well i apologize once again for indulging in a bit of self amusement Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wassup Posted January 4, 2004 Share Posted January 4, 2004 Please, use some periods and sentences, and organize your thoughts. Sorry, but I can't understand a word you are trying to say... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
taoistimmortal Posted January 8, 2004 Author Share Posted January 8, 2004 It is the nature of natural disasters i am debating, when compared to the nature of terrorism. If you look at and percieve their forms from a distant perspective laden with irony you may come to understand that on many levels they are inseperable. Both result in pain and death: the unjust and needless. For what need is there in unnecessary suffering. Terrorism is seperate only through volition, which man possess and nature does not. But are natural disasters less terrifyimg in the scope of their destruction having no connection to works man made. One must look at the end results which are exactly the same. Death and destruction on either hand. One arrives in the form of a home made bomb packed carefully, so it is concealed, into a van or truck, the other the result of ever shifting earth, and chance influential as the air. As to what you may debate in this comparison i can offer no suggestions more than what i have already written. (Long pause) Irony exists between the 2 you see, and when one's soul is possesed by the unabating sorrow for a loved one lost, in what direction does the accompanying anger plunge. What desire for revenge shall they who suffer feel compelled to pursue. In either case there are more similiarities than their are differences, but that difference is key to the laying of blame. Against man you can wage war, but against nature can you do the same? Mans expanding understanding of nature, our resource to knowledge, and our technological applications are the only ways that humankind shall learn to cease the destructive power of the earth. Is this even a desirable goal though? Is it even possible? And so we finally find the ludicrous portion that skinwalker mentioned. So let me make it more workalble. Instead of a war against natural disasters it will be the consideration of mans determination, in all of his actions, to advance the power of his knowledge over the inner workings of nature so that he may once and for all gain the final advantage. Has man worked toward this goal with the rapidity that he could. No, he has not. Did the United States government conduct itself earlier in this century in a manner that would have early thwarted the rise of muslim fundementalism. No, they instead helped the growth of it. All though it is a strange dynamic, because there was an already existent seed of its rise in the muslim world. Must it always be the striving for dominance with man. The cause of all our problems. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wassup Posted January 8, 2004 Share Posted January 8, 2004 There are many, many things in this world that humans are not doing to the best of their abilities to try to change, even though it will be for the better. We have not solved the problems of illiteracy, hunger, poverty, or homelessness. We have many diseases that kill millions every year. We live in a world where weapons of mass destruction can wipe out the entire population. So, what I'm trying to point out is that we can't just go focusing on one problem and become blind and oblivious to others. Under limitations, whether they be physical, mental, economical, political, social, etc., human beings can never be able to intensely pursure all goals at the same time. There has to be a balance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ET Warrior Posted January 27, 2004 Share Posted January 27, 2004 Tao...if you're still posting on these boards, would you please become familiar with paragraphs? It's too hard to read what you're typing for me to even want to try. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
taoistimmortal Posted January 28, 2004 Author Share Posted January 28, 2004 hey E.T. i can understand that it may be hard to read without paragraphs, but in my defence i have tried to write in paragraph form here but it never works and im not sure why. so unless you want to explain to me how it is done like i am a child (when it comes to computers i am like a child) then i will not be posting in paragraph form in the future:confused: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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