User talk:DanielDemaret/Archives/Archive 2

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Contents 1 About the Democratic Peace Theory 2 Capital Punishment 3 Humor from a muslim site 4 Gulen 5 What would offend me as a Christian? 6 Chaos Theory revisited 7 Postmodernistic 8 Jesus Vote Runoff 9 Censorship 10 Translation 11 Racial Background 11.1 Heh

[edit] About the Democratic Peace Theory

The theory has criteria both on democracy and freedom, but the article needs some work. Sweden has a reasonable democracy, and reasonable freedom, and the last war was in Second War against Napoleon in 1814. DanielDemaret 10:04, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Capital Punishment

Sadly, still some blood on the map.

'The means do not justify the ends. The means define the ends' - 'The first idea' DanielDemaret 14:28, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Can hardly wait to read the book. The review I read speaks near poetry, and your recommendation is a fine one. As of now, I am drowning in analyses, trying to determine whether the damn chimps are intentionally trying to share knowledge. Its not looking bright; only the dominants seem to do so intentionally. ~ And I guess I doesn't take a political scientist to picture the road to which that might lead : ) Varga Mila 15:52, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

That sounds absolutely fascinating! I wish I could help you over there. Unfortunately, I am very naïve. Does it lead to some kind of totalitarian propaganda being spread across the population? DanielDemaret 17:31, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Presumably; along the lines of: I'm strong and I'm always going to get my way. I'm in the U.K by the way... over there?Varga Mila 18:18, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I wish I could help you with the chimp analysis where you are over there in the the Gothenburg Archipelago (that should cover it). But it is too long to swim.DanielDemaret 18:55, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Just for fun: The Gothenburg Archipelago refers locally to all islands outside of Gothenburg, stretching far, including England and Ireland. It is also whimsical to stretch the limits of linguistics to claim that the English language derives from Anglo-Saxon from the time the Angles, Saxons and Jutes took over England (Since the word English does derive from the Angles), and that that English therefore is simply a Viking Dialect, hence strengthening the archipelago claim. This strained claim will soon be buried forever in a new archive, since I just found out how to make Archives.

Could that sad propagandistic conclusion be used to support a conspirational evolutionary theory on why chimps did not evolve further in the Brain Size Department?DanielDemaret 19:00, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't know about its specific effect on brain size, but one of the most significant voices in comparative cognition, Mike Tomasello, has proposed that it is exactly the desire, need and inclination to share information that has made humans take a different evolutionary path from all others species (including chimpanzees). I doubt my findings will hold statistically (my sample size is too small), but if it would, it would be a first (controlling for multitudes of alternative explanations).Varga Mila 16:58, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps if there were chimp groups without any dominants, ( and possibly only with chimps reared by humans) there might be a different pattern of knowledge sharing?DanielDemaret 19:04, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

There are voices claiming this. An American girl who kept and studied an orangutan in her campervan for many years (yes...hmm) claims something along those lines, but suspiciously, if I remember right, refused others unconstrained access to her data. And not surprisingly the orang didn't perform quite so well when there were others around : )

The most fascinating stuff comes from a Sue Savage-rumbaugh, who has raised and interacted with several bonobos as were they children. They seem to pass one type of theory of mind test (a test of self consciousness - understanding that someone may have a different perception of reality than oneself, and thereby, by implication, understanding that one is a psychological entity, separate from others). But I am somewhat critical of her claims. Always weary when someone repeats the same claims and spend their lives proving rather than exploring ~ They usually have an agenda ~ be it control, as in terms of the take on the censorship issues discussed at the Muhammad cartoon page or mustering wind for the sails of conservationists (if one can claim that Chimps~humans in terms of psychology, funding and conservation attention will sky rocket).Varga Mila 16:58, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

So many degrees/aspects of self consciousness, aren't there? One realization that this over here feels whem touched and it moves when I want it to, one when the caretaker seems to be the same as I am somehow, perhaps that leading to the idea of imitation(?), one when when one gets surprised at the difference again, and one when one decides to connect different things to a self history. And lots more. I wish there were a good book on this subject. Perhaps you know of one? :) DanielDemaret 17:12, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I think it is a consequence of the constant moving of the 'goalpost' (as some would call it). Each time non-human animals are found to demonstrate a class of behaviours that would entail a certain degree of awareness, a new category has to be devised (or erected) to explain the difference in culture, behaviour etc. between 'them' and 'us'.

You might like The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition by Michael Tomasello (1999). It is an easy read, but wonderfully theoretical with lots of creative and original thought, as well as empirical data. He thinks beyond beyond the box.Varga Mila 20:44, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Humor from a muslim site

A man was walking across a bridge one day, and he saw another man standing on the edge, about to jump off and commit suicide. He immediately ran over and said, "Stop! Don't do it!" "Why shouldn't I?" the other replied. The man said, "Well, there's so much to live for!" "Like what?" "Well ... are you religious or atheist?" "Religious." "Me too! Are you Muslim, Christian or Jewish?" "Muslim." "Me too! Sunni or Shi'ite?" "Sunni." "Me too! Hanafi, Hanbali, Shafi or Maliki?" "Hanafi." "Wow! Me too! Do you follow Sheikh Fulaan al-Fullani or Sheikh Kaza Kazah?" "Sheikh Fulaan al-Fullani." To which the first man said, "What?!! Die, heretic scum!" and pushed him off.

[edit] Gulen

Daniel,

Mr. Gulen is very influential in Turkey and in Turkic republics like former republics of Russia. Recently in Europe and even in US. But my point was a little different. By saying that 'He represent mainstream' I did not mean that mainstream is influenced by him. That means, Islam is already practised in a peaceful manner in almost every country in similar fashion -except the differences caused by local cultures-.

On the other hand he is a modern voice and has strong interpretations of Islam that fit to our ages very well. That doesn't mean he is a reformist. In contrary he is trying to reform misunderstanding and wrong practises of people about Islam.

The monsters you can see in media like Usame bin Whomever, etc.. are just small pawns in a dirty global game. They far from representing Muslims and in fact Muslims themselves hate them all. Starting from or including me... But who are listening? Someone need a monster image of Islam very badly...

Regarding Iran, unfortunately not. They have some different interpretations than the mainstream. I did not include them in my definition of 'mainstream'. It doesn't mean that they are very bad, I could just say, they are differnt from the main stream.

Regarding your answer about a possible Mary or Jesus cartoons, I would ask you reconsider your answer... I am assuming that you are a good Christian... If not, please put the most important value (personal, religious or whatever) for you in place of them as an 'emphaty practise'. I am sure any person has some limits in terms of the level and nature of critiques of their values. It is not a good way to say, 'well, I am not or would not ofended by that'. I think one should say: 'OK let us put the issue into an acceptible format, if this is a big issue for you'! Resid Gulerdem 23:06, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What would offend me as a Christian?

Resid, Many consider me a good Christian, since even if I sometimes disagree with some Dogma, I uphold the basic values of Jesus (Love), and many, but not all, of the ideas of St Augustine, one of the fathers of Catholic Church(Do not Hate, Belief in superstition (like belief that there are witches) is a sin, Free Open Source , Free thought and Free speech, No Death penalties: Sin should be absolved by open regret and making things right, not by any punishment. If you steal bread, regret it, ask forgiveness and pay the bread later, never punish just for the sake of punishment. There is no point. And the person who lost the bread must accept the money and forgive. If there is just punishment, people will not repent their sins, and they will censor their own acts, and therefore they will continue doing sins. If they confess, and all accept, they are likely to never do it again. ), and I like John Paul II (Darwin is good Dogma, All religions should be friends).

You ask me what offends me: Censorship offends me, since censorship leads to limits on freedom to horrors and war.

Censorship lead to these horrors being possible:

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Abu_Ghraib_55.jpg
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:IslamicDivorce.jpg
3. Censorship lead to the invasion of Iraq.

On Iraq: If you censor anything in the west, then many in the west will be certain that there is something to hide, and will invent horrors that must be behind the censorship. That it why Iraq was invaded. Not because Saddam had murdered hundred of thousands, but because he refused to show the arguably neutral IAEA, under Hans Blix, everything that the IAEA asked to see. Since they obviously hid something, Bush decided he could not trust Saddam, so Bush, by normal west logic, deducted that anything censored must be so terrible that it can not be shown, hence it is WMD. Censorship in Iraq was the reason Bush invaded. All other reasons may be supportive, but this is the core. Had Saddam not censored anything from IAEA, there would have been no invasion, since there were no WMD. In fact, had there been no censorship at all in Iraq, I think that the trade limits of Iraq would have been lifted.

I am pretty certain that Saddam had nothing to hide that would have mattered to Blix, and he was a fool not to show IAEA everything they asked for. DanielDemaret 09:17, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Chaos Theory revisited

Dr Edward Lorenz of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology asked in 1972: Does the flap of a butterfly's wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas?

I am well aquainted with the mathematics of Chaos theory. Perhaps one should do a Chaos Theory Analysis complete with bifurcation categories with cartoons in them :) ? DanielDemaret 10:39, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Postmodernistic

If one loooks at the different views from all sides, one finds more interpretations of the causes of the events than people. If the same is true for the world outside media and wikipedia, then there might be billions of different coherent points of view. Derrida would have been fascinated.DanielDemaret 10:55, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Jesus Vote Runoff

Our hopefully last vote on this paragraph. --CTSWyneken 11:36, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Censorship

I agree we should take our time to get it right, but I havent seen any major objections to it yet. I would like to get a feel for what people think so far. As for the lolicon images, I don't want to get into this while people are still trying to link to the images, but I have editorial changes I wish to make. And your suggestion seems fair enough. Gerard Foley 23:13, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Translation

I don't quite understand. Is the first sentence the original Danish ? : ) If so, we should swap most of the t's for d's (presumably you have a wise linguistic explanation for the 'hard' Swedish' vs. the soft' Danish?). I've written the Danish equivalent in hard [!] brackets after the Swaensk word. 'Ifølge den svenske rikskringkastingen SVT har FNs sikkerhetsansvarlige [sikkerhedsansvarlige] på Vestbredden informert [indformeret] de skandinaviske utsendingene [udsendinge - this sounds a bit strange, one would normally use 'udsendte'] om truslene, som skal gå ut [ud] på at "en dansk diplomat eller lignende" skal kidnappes og drepes [dræbes].' roughly translates to 'According to SVT, (Swedish Television), those responsible for UN security on the west bank have informed scandinavians about the threats concerning a danish diplomat or some such that is to be kidnapped and killed.'Varga Mila 13:17, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

The text was copied directly from the danish web page of the paper. Please have a look at it here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Jyllands-Posten_Muhammad_cartoons_controversy#.5B.5BMarch_1.5D.5D

I guess you will have to scroll down to March 1st.

Could I ask you a favour, and correct anything you want directly on that page?DanielDemaret 13:23, 2 March 2006 (UTC) DanielDemaret 13:23, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Regarding the danish spelling, this is the original paper. http://www.aftenposten.no/nyheter/uriks/spesial/article1238303.ece DanielDemaret 13:25, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

ooooooooooops, its a norwegian paper. hehe.DanielDemaret 13:27, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I noticed ! (Swensk isn't too far off then, I presume!). It looks fine, bar the "or some such", but I can't think of a better translation.Varga Mila 13:31, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't like the "or some such" either. *think, think, think*.

Perhaps "or equivalent" is better? It is definitely much better English. It sounds funny however, when what one is describing are humans ('humans, or equivalent'). But, yes, I think you should put 'equivalent in. I am sure an English native (or should it be 'someone native in English' will correct it if its too far off.Varga Mila 13:46, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

The power of translators... Yes, the Berlitz Imperium.

Vacillation... that must be new word of the day.Varga Mila 14:11, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

How did you know my parents where the directors of Berlitz in Sweden? Of course, in those days it was a school franchise. DanielDemaret 14:35, 2 March 2006 (UTC) Was it the hint in my archive where I wrote that I was literally born in a school of languages?DanielDemaret 14:37, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes. Varga Mila 15:03, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I just changed my customized userbox a bit because of your remarks.

I copied your box on procrastination, you copied mine on the universe, so, as Sathras says, there is balance.DanielDemaret 15:07, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Is balance always good? Varga Mila 21:47, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I liked your intriguing sentence about being born into a school of languages.Varga Mila 21:47, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Racial Background

Hello Daniel, I use the word 'racial' because that is the term that seems to be prevalently in use surrounding these issues. I suppose it's a bit of a minor point really... but I can't imagine Islamists considering this letter's signatories in terms of their 'ethnic backgrounds' rather than their 'racial backgrounds'. Netscott 17:10, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Heh

Don't you hate when 'edit error' happens? LOL! Netscott 17:38, 2 March 2006 (UTC)