Do you think there will be a World War Three?

His Phd was granted in 1955 in Linguistics. A darling of the radical Left he is also virulently anti American and anti Capitalist. He supported the Pol Pot Regime in Cambodia that was responsible for an estimated 2 million deaths and spoke glowingly of Mao Tse- tungs policies in China ironically speaking just a few years after the worst famine in human history occurred in China(~30 million dead) due to the disastrous collectivist policies of Mao. Of course the full truth of the famine wasn't revealed for another 20 years but I don't recall Noam making any retractions when the facts came out.

 

O.K. guys! rather than discussing about the original contributions of islam
between the egira and the turks, did it occur to you than you are fighting
last world war ....
the new one might be a surprise , every thousand years or so
archeology record the fall of advanced civilisations under pressure of
large scale migrations , there is , of course , fighting , but it is mostly
poor people moving in on the goodies ,
there is a german word for it , volkwanderung ,spelling probably wrong
the main symptom is a great urge by the poor to go to the rich lands by
any means .
The richs, riven by their selfishness and greed use it until it destroy them

 

and that new war is already started
how unfear, they didn't even give us a declaration of war

 

Any examples of such fallen civilizations?
The events of the first few centuries AD were set in motion as much by the promise of rich Roman lands as by the pressure applied by Asian nomadic peoples from the east. Besides, the peoples that actually moved westward into the Roman empire numbered only a few tens of thousands of human beings in most cases; where they settled, they made up 4-10% of the population, never more. I cannot think of any other examples of civilizations falling because of "mass migration".

Grieg: the point about contributions to science and theology by the Muslim world was made in reply to someone stating that the Muslim intellectual realm was a desert. This is not true.

 

to Roel " Any examples of such fallen civilizations? "

around -2000 the fall of akkadian cities states under the pressures of the
semites , troubles in egypte .

around the -1000 disapearance of the babylonians state under a tidal
wave of migrant tribes , egypt under attack, the hittites ,mycenians,
cretans disappear suddenly

around 200 AD waves of barbarians in the north europeen plain ,

around 1000 AD attack on christendom from saracems ,
hungarians ,northmen

It's all eurocentric , approximate and the roots reasons are many ,
it is however true than civilisations will fall from attacks by the weaks
when it's internal coesion is weakened by too much selfisness

 

Who wrote that the 'Muslim intellectual realm was a desert'?

I know I didn't. I wrote that the latter part of the Middle Ages in Europe was a lot richer in intellectual, cultural and even technological achievements than most people today tend to think. Nor have I ever made the claim that Europe had no positive influx from the Islamic world or in any manner downplayed this.

I wrote that the latter part of the Middle Ages in Europe was richer in intellectual, cultural and even technological achievements than the Islamic world in any similar span of time. I might very well be mistaken, but my claim is based on the knowledge I have accumulated this far. NOT on any form of eurocentric thinking.

 

Right here, see:

On page 3 of this topic. I have no problems with your statements as they seem fairly nuanced.

The Babylonian empire was replaced by the even larger and more powerful Assyrian empire when it fell; it wasn't overrun by poor tribes. The Hittite empire itself was also quite a rich trading centre. The latter has absolutely nothing to do with the invasions of the so-called "sea peoples" in Egypt around 1200, of which we know absolutely nothing with certainty. Nothing is known about the fall of Mycenae either, so you can't claim it was because of migrations.

As I said, the migrations into the Roman empire were propelled forth by nomadic tribes from the east as much as by the "pull-factor" of Roman riches. Besides, they were fairly small in scale.

I do not understand your point about Saracen invasions around 1000. In fact it was Europe attacking them by means of the crusades. Besides, the Muslim world in those days was undeniably vastly more rich than Western Europe. The Vikings were traders as much as plunderers and were not themselves poor or underdeveloped at all.

 

The war that ends all wars

Whenever you talk religious conflict you will inflame at least half of the forum. Let's just say that I sympathize with the Israelis but at the same time understand the Muslims' mentality. Why can't the US just invade and conquer every nation on Earth and make them tolerate each other like they do in America? That will truely be a war that ends all wars. No I don't believe there will be a clash between Russian and China or China and US in the near future. And just how does China "invade" Taiwan, considering that Taiwan has traditionally been part of the Chinese empires. Did the North "invade" the South during the Civil war, even though they were under the same union. Really, can the same country invade itself? Come to think of if, maybe they can, North Korea invaded South, North Vietnam invaded the South....yikes, I have managed to baffle myself...again.

 

my coment was " in the intelectual desert of islamict though "
not " the muslim intelectual realm was a desert "
after conquering half the world and burning libraries ,
following the establishment of the bagdad caliphate , a melting pot
effect created for a few centuries great intellectual advances ,
al chemi , al cohool , al kali , al djebra have spread to the
world ,medecine with avicenne was excellent and a good number of texts
were saved trough their translation in arabic
however the influence of muslim religious figures and indeed islam itself
as a though system , based on the blind adderence to a litteral reading of
a text resulted in the desertification of their mindscape , the
abandonment of controversial subjects and generaly the dumbing down
of teaching to rote learning of approved texts .


My personnal theory is that to prosper , a rich intellectual life need
money , patron or institution with wealth to spare , from the 13th century
in the islamic world , there was less wealth and more of it went to fighting
turks ,mongols , christians , each other.....

 

The confusion might be because they were not known as Saracens, but as Moors. And the date is slightly out.

Between ~700AD and ~1000AD 'Christian' Europe was under attack from 3 sides.
The 'Pagan' Vikings in the North
The 'Pagan' Magyars in the East
The Muslim Moors in the South

The Moors conquered all of N Africa (once owned by the Christianised Vandals, IIRC, or were they Visigoths?), most of Spain (the 'Song of Roland' dates from this era) and most of the Islands in the Western Med, including Sicily.

 

thanks ricky !!

the original point I was making is than we all imagine WW3 as a
space opera , when it could be a long drawn decent into grubiness and
suburbians wars .

 

Since there was basically nothing to be conquered in Western Europe but land, it's impossible to argue that these are examples of the rich succumbing to the poor.

The Arian-Christian Vandals were indeed the overlords of North Africa - but nothing more than that, as they numbered no more than 60,000 people. The Visigoths conquered Western France and Northern Spain.

 

rich farmland, to be precise, arable surplas being the backstop of all wealth at the time.

Thanks for clearing that up - I couldn't remember which 'V' it was.

The Vandals took over the ex-Roman territories, but were swiftly kicked out because, as you say, there were never very many of them.

 

I think there will be another WW but not on the scale of ww2. I think There is countries w/ unstable leaders trying to develop nukes and have no right to have these weapons :bang: . These countries will form alliances w/others in same boat and will not back down when brought before sanctioning committes how else will superpower(s) disarm ? Theres just to many unstable countries devolping weapons of mass (N.Korea,Iran, etc..) and they need to be disarmed for saftey of world and I don't know if they'll go willing. Hope so !! If not let's hope it's at least after the Bush administation !

 

What gives any country the right to won weapons with such destructive power?

A stable government means they will (for the time) be able to handle these weapons responsibly, but this still doesn't mean they have the right to have them. Nothing does.

 

Roel, Your right just becuase their stable doesn't mean they should have the right to produce WMD. but what about countries that are unstable to begin with. How on earth is it justified to let them produce WMD. As far as what gives a country the right to produce WMD I think is past track record.

 

I don't think any country should be allowed to have the ability to destroy human life on earth, like Russia and the US currently do. I do not trust any country's stability of government in the long run, since no single form of government has lasted for more than a few centuries in all of human history. And even if the government itself remains stable there's always a risk of local rebellion, revolt or violent regime change. The US and Russia may seem reasonably stable now, but who knows what they will look like in a hundred years, when their weaponry will be deadly as ever?

Therefore I agree that Iran and North Korea should not be allowed to have nuclear weapons either, but I am much less worried by rogue states with a few nukes than I am by large states with enough nukes to obliterate the earth's surface.

 

I agree that no one should produce WMD. But it seems like the superpowers control who can have and who can't ( thats the world we live in ) and they decide the powers can have them, but what I don't understand is whats the use. A superpower is not going to use nukes against a rogue state but if they use them against another superpower the two would just end up desroying ea. other. What happened to conventional warfare ?

 

roel,i agree that nukes are bad and scarie.on the other hand nukes prolly kept the red army out of holland.we certainly werent going to stop 40 russian divisions with the us and nato ground forces in the fuldi gap.nukes was our big stick for the last 50 years..cheap compared to trying to match warsaw pact conventioal strength,no? we cant un invent the bomb unfortunatly .roel ,are you really more afraid of the nukes in u.s. and u.k. possesion than those controlled by north korea or iran? btw,how do you guys enclose and move previous texts from other writers posts to your own page,u kno with the lil line box arround it? thks

 

But that's it. Nukes were great when it was a balance, when neither side could completely destroy the other without being completely destroyed back.

But now one country can destroy everything, without much risk in return. I am glad that it is America, but I would rather that it was not possible.

Yes, having a deterrant against N Korea et al is useful, but their delivery systems are currently so weak that they can only attack their neighbours, and a relatively small deterrant is all that is needed.

press the 'quote' button on the person's post that you want to quote.
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