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Originally written by Nija_Halycron:

This in an immpresive level of user abuse....

http://egosoftoters.19.forumer.com/index.php

Sometimes I wonder why I bother....

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Originally written by Dr. Johann Georg Faust:

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Originally written by help I'm trapped in a PDN factory:


—Alorael, who

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This is just a comment about your moniker. Did you perchance get the idea from xkcd, or do both derive from something else?

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Originally written by Dr. Johann Georg Faust:

Well, it is said you should never blame malicious intent for what could be explained by incompetence - but really, I think whatever designed him did so intelligently and malevolently.

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Originally written by Airborne Raver:

Most people with the power and authority to fix the worst of the education system have no vested interest in doing so. I'm sure relatively few people revel in keeping the poor ignorant, but most people just have better things to do at the end of the day because it's not their kids who are in decaying inner-city schools with incompetent staff afflicted with irrational curricula.

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—Alorael, who himself does not understand economics well enough to understand how credit card companies benefit from saddling the poor with unpayable debts. Heavy debts, fine, but it's in the interests of those companies to get repayed.

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Originally written by Dr. Strange:

All the people who would believe this book are either illiterate, retarded, or too poor to afford it.

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Originally written by Dr. Strange:

Oprah is a relatively good person, for a celebrity. That leadership school in Africa looks nice. But she's too optimistic and hopeful. Sometimes she even seems naive.

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Originally written by Dr. Johann Georg Faust:

My parents rant about China taking over the global economy and Turkey joining the EU and daycares getting more public spending, but they still believe Bush is a moron. :P

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Originally written by Zeviz:

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Originally written by Calphrexo:

...Also, you probably shouldn't put much weight on what you learn in a world history class. For one, you don't actually learn much about any one area. For another, the information you may be taught might be incorrect or possibly interpreted in a different way. Finally, for more recent history, almost no school is going to have accurate and up-to-date textbooks.

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The history teacher vs. a random anonymous guy online ... whom to trust ... such a hard decision ...

I know, let's trust the random anonymous guy, because history classes are always incomplete, biased, and generally evil.

More seriously, while it's good to have a healthy dose of scepticism, you need to apply your scepticism equally well to all sources of information. And there are very few circumstances in which words of an anonymous online poster should carry more weight than words of journalists, teachers, or other people who have to follow at least some professional standards.

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Originally written by Excalibur:

Hmmm... I've nver heard of neo-colonialism, so I thought you were saying that Zimbabwe was a colony the same way that America was a colony. Unless mercantilism and neo-colonialism are similar.

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Originally written by Excalibur:

Will back out of conversation before it gets too out of hand.

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Originally written by Now with Real Cheese:

You can read the Bible and get out nearly any message you want.

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Originally written by Rising Cycle Five:

Because among the historical oddities and rantings there are genuine moral truths in there. You can do worse than using the Bible for advice. The only problem is having to filter it through a modern understanding. Love thy neighbor isn't a bad idea, but smiting and obliteration aren't socially acceptable anymore

I guess that's my problem with the Bible. To make it useful you need to already have a developed sense of morality. If you've got that you don't need the Bible except to bolster your claims and possibly to bludgeon the immoral into mending their ways.

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Originally written by Excalibur:

I noticed that some of you had a little doubt about the credibility of the Bible. Really, if God is an all-powerful being, then he could control what humans say he said. So if you believe in God, why don't you believe in the Bible. Or do you think God is weak?

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Originally written by Ash Lael:

I'm not actually looking to get into a debate here, but the short answer is that even though I don't regard it as a direct message from God to me, I do think it's pretty much accurate and I do think it says a lot of tremendous spiritual signifigance.

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Originally written by Excalibur:

By Protocols of the Elders of Zion

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Why? Because Zimbabwe is a Chinese colony.

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Since when is Zimbabwe a Chinese colony? I'm taking world history as an elective, and the countries who colonized Africa are all from Europe.

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Originally written by Ash Lael:

[QUOTE]Originally written by Protocols of the Elders of Zion:
[qb]I do think it's a very worthwhile book to develop a thorough understanding of, though.

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Originally written by Excalibur:

I've even heard that a study showed that a little bit of radiation is good for you.

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Originally written by Marcelo:

So, you're familiar with latin american history, that's nice.
Not as familiar as I'd like to be, but I'm taking classes.

Originally written by Protocols of the Elders of Zion:
re. Chilean history: I'm not saying that the investment was a bad thing, just that it's kind of unfair to credit Pinochet with it.

Why? it wasn't under Frei, Allende or Aylwin, so...?
Like I said: Pinochet's stated devotion to market reforms caused starry-eyed American investors to flock in for no particularly rational reason and buff up the American economy. What Pinochet actually did was more or less irrelevant; all that mattered is he declared himself a willing puppet of classicist economists and let the investment money pour in.

This happens an awful lot. It also happened in Argentina during the period of military rule there (which is worse but not as well-publicized, because Argentina's military government didn't have as much Cold War baggage).




And if anything, the US keeping a tight rein on weapons was a good thing for Chile's economy -

I can't agree with you here: the embargo was a problem that forced the government to look for alternatives in the black market that were way more expensive. This is not good for any economy, unless you are a rich country and can afford paying 3 times as much, which was not our case :)
What I meant was that having to pay that much effectively deterred Pinochet from building up a tremendous military as a lot of tinpot dictators do, and restrained his ability to embark on grand, ruinous military adventures. The Falkland War both trashed the Argentine caudillos' reputation and damaged the Argentine economy; thanks to the arms embargo Chile didn't even have the opportunity to embark on that kind of nonsense. Instead, all of the available capital went into manufacture and the service industry.

(Defense supplies in a dictatorship is usually a depressingly good investment.)



The junta in Argentina killed a lot more people, true, but Argentina has a lot more people.
wow, then if 400,000 Americans are killed in a terrorist attack is not as bad as if 3,000 French died because the population of France is smaller??.
Well, no. But it's necessary to take numbers into account: Pol Pot 'only' killed two million people, but Cambodia only had about eight million to kill. 2,000 deaths would mean more to France than 3,000 deaths to America.
Argentina has about twice the population of Chile; the disappeared in Argentina were 30,000 and in Chile 3,000 -do the maths, it's not twice as much, it's 10 times the number! The real problem is that Pinochet sent a lot of dissidents and terrorists into exile. These people spread bad news about Chile, they lied to cause a bad impression and most of the other countries then turned against the government of Chile. Here we have a word for those who did that dirty job: "vende patria" which means something like "someone who sells his country".
The problem is mostly the fact that he did that at all. Exiling dissidents is a seriously nasty thing, and while it's better than outright disappearing them, only very slightly.

And the line between 'exiling' dissidents and 'disappearing' them is unfortunately very thin. In Argentina, the official line was that every leftist who went missing had left the country. And technically, quite a few had - after being gutted and dumped in the Rio de la Plata, that is.



Part of the problem is that Argentina's caudillismo doesn't have a single visible face like Pinochet.
There's no one monster to blame for all that went wrong there.
Even though there isn't ever just one monster in any situation, there wasn't even a single face to put on the disappearings under the Argentine junta.

It's correct and incorrect: in fact, the leaders didn't last long in Argentina, but if you read about recen history in Argentina you'll find the names you're missing: "Videla" and "Galtieri", who orchestrated the invasion of the British Falkland Islands. Also, there were trials for most of the responsible there, Argentina made the transition from dictatorship to democracy sooner than Chile.
Right. I know there are names, it's just that they're difficult to remember, and no one of them was as culpable as Pinochet. It's like the USSR's nastiness: in one period it could be blamed pretty conclusively on Stalin or Beria, but after the two of them died there isn't really any one face to pin on the (admittedly FAR fewer) atrocities afterwards. There are names - Andropov, Khrushchev, and the like - just like there are names for the Argentine colonels. But for the most part, it was oppression by committee.


Do you study world history as a hobby or is it a part of your career/job? You know a lot about it.
Mostly as a hobby. I don't have a job yet (student), but I'm studying political science. My specialization is mostly the politics of oppression.

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