What countries you play with?  I had all my files lost to a computer crash, but I had a few... a really nice Cherokee empire that's conquering Europe, a Deccan-> Hindustan (well... a Muslim Hindustan) game, Malaya, Scotland -> Great Britain, and a Muscowy->Russia.    May have had some other files lying around, but I really can't recall them... but there was probably a Papal States game somewhere in the mix. 

Just joined.  Yeah, I'm pretty sure I won. 

Would this keep track of who initiated said war?  Cause I could see people trolling a top 5 fam by warring them and watching the top 5 fam get its infra blown away.

> V.Kemp wrote:

> Defectors? That's the mechanism by which your short-sighted plans would counteract the motivation of billions of dollars in additional profits? Sounds sound.

Pardon my sarcasm. Really? That's the solution we can rely on? That's the check against fraud? That's it? And for this, you're willing to sacrifice trillions of dollars worth of cost of living for, potentially, billions of people? Are you trolling? Because that sounds absurd.

It's what first attracted people to worrying about Iranian nuclear weapons, the Holocaust, Chinese treatment of prisoners, Soviet nuclear capabilities...

The World Trade Organization conducts its own independent investigations.  Remember, my defector argument only functioned as a way to raise a concern.  It's not enough evidence to warrant a sanction, but it could be probable cause to justify investigations of the issue in question (remember... not cooperating with the WTO means other countries get to place sanctions on you... that's a strong incentive against anyone).

Remember the profit motives are on both sides of the equation on investigations.  If Walmart, for example, decided to buy products in violation of an environmental regulation, it would be in Target's interest to screw Walmart over by highlighting the legal violation.

> "Nobody would pass this idea" means that it's 100% ineffective and accomplishes absolutely nothing. Coupled with the fact that it does/would hurt people, this makes it 0% good, 100% bad, and obviously a really stupid decision.

Nope.  If nobody passes the idea, it doesn't hurt anyone because it didn't pass. 

Besides, "nobody would pass the idea" is only a status quo analysis.  If, for example, it was proven to 100% accuracy that global warming was real, the formula for determining what people would be willing to pass is extremely different.  If people weren't willing to accept short term harm to achieve long term gain, most nations would never engage in military conflict.  It's just a question of letting the circumstances under which the society exists change.

Actually, though, "passing" this would not need to really occur.  The #1 flaw in my argument in this debate (in that if someone pointed it out from the start, I'd really have little grounds to argue with them) is that, in reality, no treaty would need to be passed.  If the US wanted to establish an international standard on carbon emissions, it would only need to establish a domestic standard, then apply environmental regulations on any imports with equivalent standards.  So foreign businesses would either adopt the environmental standard or reduce their business with the US.  Considering the vast portion of global trade is with a few centers of economic power (the US, EU, Japan, and China), policies adopted in those nations would mean, in effect, that other nations would be forced to adopt the policies or they would lose significant market share.  That's not to say the little nations wouldn't have some possible markets for products.  India could have factories meant to provide goods to foreign countries, adhering to environmental standards in said countries, while at the same time having polluting industries for domestic products.

Not to mention that this whole argument leaves politics into a form of academic redundancy.  If that was an accepted argument, any sort of change which bettered society would be thrown out as "well, that wouldn't happen, people who don't like the policy, corrupt people, etc., wouldn't do it."  In fact, the evidence would indicate that, for any policy change, the empirical evidence (the fact that said policy has not been taken) would favor the policy's rejection.  Thus, this argument is empirically invalid because real change does actually occur in politics, for better or worse.

Nope.  Check the timestamp.  Iluvatar beat you by 15 seconds. 

Don't forget about the option of "join the army, but surrender at the first available opportunity."  Among people who oppose fighting, this is generally the more likely form of resistance (a good example of this would be the Iraqis during both Gulf Wars, where the military found that well over half of the Iraqi military would surrender either before the war began or almost immediately upon running into the enemy).  This could also be shown in the first World War, where, after 4 years of war, Germany suddenly surrendered without any foreign nation ever occupying any of its territory, largely because their military began surrendering en masse.

> xeno syndicated wrote:

> "You're asking for people to make a stance on a question which, empirically, must be answered on a case by case basis."

I am asking people to answer this question as per their case; according to their ideals, according to their individual moral precepts: I am asking them to tell me whether or not they would kill for their country and, if so, how they justify doing so.

But, by your own explanation, the issue requires the inividual to make a cost-benefit analysis of fighting vs. not fighting against a threat.  How can the calculation be made without asking who the threat is?  Or, rather, are you asking people to apply this to a specific case (i.e., asking if we would be willing to fight against Iran, for example).

> "Soldiers cannot possibly be expected to use this as an analysis before signing up when the country is not at war, primarily because since the possible opponent is unknown, a proper calculation cannot be made."

Would-be soldiers can ask themselves if the ideals and values for which their country would send them to fight in the event those ideals and values were threatened are ideals and values actually practiced in their country for real, or just a soundbite used in military recruiting commercials.

Agreed.  That being said, this only answers part 1 of your 3 parts of analyzing a just war (determining whether your nation has values worthy of defending).  So although some determination is made, it cannot possibly be a complete analysis (the exception to this is if the soldier's nation is either at war or preparing for war with another nation, because the threat can be identified).

Oh, I just mean that there's a big difference between different foreigners.  There's obviously a big difference between saying "Fighting the Iranians will help preserve my freedom" and "Fighting the Canadians will help preserve my freedom."  Xeno is asking people to justify that fighting an enemy will preserve one's freedom, yet there is no specification as to who that enemy is.  Without that, this is really just random posturing.  There are clearly examples on both sides where enemies existed which, if not fought, would result in lost freedoms (the Nazis), and enemies who, if not fought, would probably not matter.  But once you generalize this to all foreigners, it's a useless argument.

I actually wasn't referring to "freedoms" as generalized in this context at all... though I guess I could see where you're coming from (this is a very quick post, so I'm not actually reading in depth right now).

> xeno syndicated wrote:

> BiefstukFriet, might I ask: 1. is your country free?  Prove it.  2. how would killing foreigners keep your "free" country "free"? 3. how do you justify killing foreigners who would otherwise render your country not "free"?

Doesn't this only prove the flaw in the question, in that the question is so general, especially with the generalization of "killing foreigners?"

Just added you.  I'm Speed_of_darkness. 

EDIT: Okay, maybe I didn't... I could just be incompetent when it comes to this. 

> ~Wornstrum~ wrote:

> > Zarf BeebleBrix wrote:

> > ~Wornstrum~ wrote:

> What is it that you can keep after giving it to someone else?

Control over a copyright (the inventor of a copywritten product in the US can sometimes actually force a renegotiation of the property rights 25 years after the copyright was first filed). 

NOOOOOOO! X(

You are not giving the copyright to someone else, but maybe the product or the right to produce it...the actual copyright is still owned by the one person...

Um... no.  You can sell an entire copyright to someone else.  Besides, the rights to determining who produces a product... would be the very definition of owning a copyright... where's the difference?

Closed: Double post