no, you can't breed humanity into a race of slaves

simply because those doing the slave making are also human, and have the most offfspring

only if it were aliens doing the violent subjugation for centuries, then you can say that human behavior and genetics is being warped

i don't know where iran is on it's bomb making or lack thereof, and, outside of a select few in tehran, no one does

but i do know this: i don't trust a theocracy with nukes

saying this does not make me a warmongerer, a zionist, or a neoconservative

i could say "i don't trust a theocracy with nukes" as a citizen of russia, thailand, or even iran. i could say "i don't trust a theocracy with nukes" as a pacifist, a buddhist, or a muslim

i don't trust a theocracy with nukes

i'm sorry, i just don't

and no: neither israel, usa nor pakistan are theocracies

the government of iran is specifically structured such that ultimate power rests with clerics. that's a specific problem for me. and no, it is not about islam. i would have the same problem with a christian theocracy with nukes. it is about being a theocracy that makes it a problem to me. a bunch of grumpy old men who believe they have a monopoly on the word of an omnipotent being, with nuclear weapons? hell no!

i do not trust a theocracy with nukes, and this is a specific problem above and beyond all other declared, undeclared, or potential nuclear powers

if country A declares war on country B, and country A marches robots out for the offense, and country B deploys robots for defense, why is that not a war?

and why can't they settle for peace before people start getting killed?

of course, considering human stubbornness, one side probably won't be saying "mercy" until actual people are being killed

but it is possible to begin and end the war with only robotic combatants

i mean you could also say

"Will never happen. At that point, you may as well settle your differences with a football match. If you're not killing people with swords, and only pointing guns at each other from a distance, it isn't a war. you have to be in the other guy's face and feel his warm blood and his life force ebb in his final breath, for it to be real war"

or

"Will never happen. At that point, you may as well settle your differences with a football match. If you're not killing people on the field of battle with archers, and only lobbing plague victims over city walls, it isn't a war. you have to meet each other on a proper field of battle, and not target civilians in low cowardly ways, for it to be a real war"

you are arguing form a narrow understanding of what "war" means. if history teaches us anything, mankind's parameters for violent warfare are continuously evolving and radically far reaching

it depends upon the programming

if the robot is out to target only certain behavior, certain combatants, and only them, then we can say two things:

1. this is obviously superior to carpet bombing, and your comparison to that is obviously wrong

2. this is perhaps even superior to human behavior, whose judgments are not always sound, and commit atrocities and mass murder themselves

it might be MORE moral to use robots

if we did that, we'd be fucking evil

but that's not what we're going to do, and that's not what i said

why do you think you win arguments by grossly changing and misrepresenting the subject matter?

if some insane ideology has no problem throwing young men into the maw of war, why can we not respond with robots instead of our own young men?

it's a fair question

now are you going to answer it or are you going to change the subject to matter to a gross distortion that has absolutely nothing to do with what i said?

so, what's your point?

if someone is going to fight you, and you can afford to put out a robot to fight them instead of your own flesh and blood, are you saying we shouldn't do this?

the problem comes in when only one sides reserves the right to, and frequently uses, the ability to kill the secularists

progress cannot happen if one side doesn't just debate, but frequently murders proponents of progress

there are forces of the right in every country. but think how much worse it would be. for example, here in the usa, if all the bs you see the right was saying was also accompanied by frequent murder of those on the left, and full support within the right to do so

now you have some idea of what it is like to be a force for progress in bangladesh, or anywhere in the muslim world

and it is why islamic radicalism is so dangerous. not so much to the whole world, but specifically to the muslim world. it is a solid, effective phenomenon: just murder your progressive opponents. solid results: no progress

the muslim world will be mired in this nonsense for a long time, much carnage, and much misery, and poorer, less happier societies

say what you want about islamic fundamentalism, but it works: it keeps societies beholden to right leaning thinking, simply because all you have to do murder those who oppose you

how long can they keep this up?

robots killing robots

wars settled in a clash of machinery without any humans for miles around

fair use should apply

it all happens on corporate property, but that doesn't trump the common news value

this is a dangerous precedent if corporate PR trumps newsworthiness

this is how and why western democratic ideals and freedoms are undermined by runaway financial power

it makes a great hat

the D is silent

no, the one over russia was very rare. it was very large

the tunguska event in 1908, ironically also over siberia, is the last time we had something as large or larger, a century ago

the experts weren't even looking for the russian rock. there's no data on it except for the moment of impact

if the loose gravitational agglomeration is large enough, it's possible for the smaller rock to pass by on the other side of the earth, swinging around and appearing to come from another direction

if the loose gravitational agglomeration is large enough, it's possible for the smaller rock to pass by on the other side of the earth, swinging around and appearing to come from another direction

well then we are left with extraordinarily cosmically improbable coincidence that two large objects approach the earth in a small time frame

people love to say correlation is not causation

what they forget to say is that correlation is the first step in establishing causation