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| The Politics of Academia | |
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| Topic Started: Apr 28 2012, 05:21 PM (1,781 Views) | |
| colddigger | Apr 29 2012, 12:15 AM Post #16 |
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Joke's over! Love, Parasky
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Does anybody really check those garbage bags on the side of the road? |
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Oh Fine. Oh hi you! Why don't you go check out the finery that is SGP?? v Don't click v Spoiler: click to toggle | |
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| macgobhain | Apr 29 2012, 01:33 AM Post #17 |
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Thank you Fakey, I can handle getting rid of body on my own though ![]() |
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| Kamidio | Apr 29 2012, 01:37 AM Post #18 |
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The Game Master of the SSU:NC
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Alright, tell me what you plan on doing with the corpse, so I can tell you why that's dumb. |
SSU:NC - Finding a new home. Quotes WAA
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| colddigger | Apr 29 2012, 02:00 AM Post #19 |
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Joke's over! Love, Parasky
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Make a cup outta the skull! C'MON!!! |
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Oh Fine. Oh hi you! Why don't you go check out the finery that is SGP?? v Don't click v Spoiler: click to toggle | |
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| lamna | Apr 29 2012, 03:06 AM Post #20 |
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So what the hell were the 1948 and 1967 wars, if not the Arab world ganging up on Israel? |
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| Holben | Apr 29 2012, 03:28 AM Post #21 |
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Rumbo a la Victoria
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Human beings have opinions and biases, there's nothing much we can do to change that. |
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Time flows like a river. Which is to say, downhill. We can tell this because everything is going downhill rapidly. It would seem prudent to be somewhere else when we reach the sea. "It is the old wound my king. It has never healed." | |
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| macgobhain | Apr 29 2012, 05:26 AM Post #22 |
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Well Iamna, both of those wars are far more complicated than the "Arabs ganging up on Jews" sentiment. You have to remember that, in the lifetime of most of the people making the political decisions Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and West Arabia had all been part of the same country. I forget where you're from, but liken it to your country being broken up peacefully and then try and imagine how the people in these new "countries" are going to feel about each other. The borders of these new countries had been drawn by foreign powers, so there was no conflict between them as of yet that had polarized them from each other. They still in many ways had a mutual understanding of one another. So when the Jewish paramilitary troopers of Lehi and Irgun began systematically massacring Palestinian villages in 1948 after years of increasing violence against the British and the Palestinians, the Arabs in the other nations were more than willing to help out. But it's also important to understand how the whole settlement of Israel began in the Tanzimat Era in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and the increased Jewish violence against both Palestinians and the British during the Mandate Era because of restrictions on Jewish immigration into the region. Palestinian violence began as nothing more than a reaction to being legally displaced, and then the problems faced during the Tanzimat when they had to compete with the more economically savvy Jewish community. The 1967 War was, well... pent up energy from the 1948 war and the 1950s, during which Israel had continually proven that it was no friend of the surrounding states, and the war was initiated by a "preemptive" attack by the Israelis on Egypt. Also, if Israel didn't have an agenda in that war and was only fighting defensively, they would not have launched that preemptive strike nor would they have expanded their territory the way they did once they had won. More importantly though, the technological differences as well as the financial resources of Israel because of foreign from Western countries (mostly the U.S.) are rarely emphasized. Israel had and continues to have technology and money at its disposal that nobody else has, which has allowed them to act both politically and militarily as bullies since the establishment of the state. It takes the combine efforts of several countries to stand up to them, and even then, as history has shown, it's not enough. This is one of the principal reasons that Iran (even though the government of Iran is completely fundamentalist) is trying to develop nuclear technology, so that the power can be more balanced, and Israel can stop being the show host. Contrary to opinions in the West, that consider the Jewish Community and Israel synonymous, Iran doesn't have a stated objective to destroy the Jews, just the State of Israel. If Ahmadinejad and the Ayatollah wanted Jews gone, he would have to start with Ciamak Moresadegh, who sits on Iran's Majlis, and then go from there to the rest of Iran's 75,000 Jews. The problems in the Middle East are extremely complicated, but Western interpretations of the situation are often equally as unfair. Edited by macgobhain, Apr 29 2012, 05:28 AM.
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| lamna | Apr 29 2012, 05:57 AM Post #23 |
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Bullies, meaning people surrounded on all sides by hostile states opposed to the existence of their state. I trust you mentioned that one of the major reasons for the 1948 wars was that Arab leaders wanted to distract their populace from themselves to hold onto power? Power can be balanced by Iran getting a nuclear weapon? That's frankly absurd, Iran getting nuclear weapons would destabilise the whole region. |
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| dialforthedevil | Apr 29 2012, 06:14 AM Post #24 |
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Frumentarii Administrator
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I've never encountered much bias among my teachers, my philosophy teacher always will play Devil's Advocate whatever I say even if that means arguing that rape can be okay in some cirumstances. Its quite funny to watch. My history teacher as well seems to be pretty fair, the Crusades can be quite a hot topic but its managed alright because you generally get the impression that most of it was motivated by power hungry blokes and a religious mass, the whole point of the exam is to come to your own conclusion. I think thats the difference between English and American schooling, the exams all work to your own opinion of the topic in subjects such as history and english etc. Theres no right answer as long as you can back it up. Biology is just straight facts and learning. |
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| macgobhain | Apr 29 2012, 06:15 AM Post #25 |
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Iamna, I didn't say it could be, I said that that's one of Iran's objectives, to balance the playing field so that Israel doesn't hold all the cards. "Bullies, meaning people surrounded on all sides by hostile states opposed to the existence of their state." The state has no right to exist and never did. By bullies I mean by the practice of Apartheid and the continued massacre, collective punishment, and displacement of the Palestinians and their continued aggression towards anyone who does not support their blatantly racist agendas. This has been going on since the start and hasn't stopped. The surrounding states were originally opposed to the existence of a "Jewish State" because the area was already inhabited. There was a mixed Jewish/Arab state proposal presented by the Iranian, Indian, and Yugoslavian members of the UNSCOP based on the American Constitutional Model in 1948, yet somehow that was unacceptable to the UN, because the objectives for the creation of Jewish state were clear in the West during the Mandate Era and continued to be afterwards. Israel has also picked more than one fight with the countries surrounding it, and Western interventionalist policies have been largely influenced by Israeli interests over the years. So again, the issue is not as simple as saying "everyone around Israel opposes the existence of their state". You must first ask how that state came into being, and then why anyone would be opposed to it, and what part Israel has played in the political scene of the region to come to a good answer. |
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| lamna | Apr 29 2012, 06:29 AM Post #26 |
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Israel exists. It's got a Jewish population, most of them were born there. How they came to be isn't inconsequential, but they are there now and they want Israel to exist, so it has a right to. The establishment of pretty much every state is pretty grim, but that doesn't mean it has no right to exist. The birth of England was a story of bloody conquest, viciously suppressed uprisings, the execution of the previous government and forced cultural domination. But it happened, and now England exists. The same is true of Israel, it just happened more recently. I only know one half of this story, but it's clear you've got a pro-Palestinian bias. Which is fine, but if that's not what you were supposed write about than you can't blame the teacher for that. Edited by lamna, Apr 29 2012, 06:30 AM.
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| Zoroaster | Apr 29 2012, 06:30 AM Post #27 |
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Fecund Fundiment
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I agree with MacG.... I am an anti-Zionist. I don't think people should just be able to shoulder their way into some place 'cause their ancestors lived there millenia ago. A lot of the support for Israel (last time I heard it mentioned, around 2001/2002 it was 3,000,000,000 US dollars a year) from America is because. 1, many senior US bureaucrats and power brokers are Jews. 2, many of the nut-jobs in the religious right of the USA, the bible belt (to which the Bushes belong), believe that armagedeon can only come when the Israelites are restored to Israel. 3, much of the media and hollywod is run by Jews There is a definite pile of dogma that is preached, without question, which supports Zionism. e.g. a Canadian/English journalist (his name escapes me) gives 5000 pounds per year to Oxfam. But after he published several articles criticising Israel's domestic and foreign policy, OxFam turned down his regular donation on the grounds that he was an anti-Semite!!! Get this? He's a Jew himself! Not all Jews are Zionists. Being an anti-Zionist DOES not make you an anti-semite. A New Zealand research academic was drummed out of academia in the whole nation, when he was accused of being an anti-semite and a Holocaust denyer. All he was doing was questioning the constantly re-inforced DOGMA that there were 6,000,000 Jews killed in the holocaust, he felt that number was inaccurate and it was probably much less. What is certainly known, is that 6,000,000 Poles were also systematically and deliberately exterminated by the Nazis, alongside the rest who were "collateral damage" or starved during the occupation - but Jews are MUCH louder than Poles, so their approximate death toll of 6 million (give or take a million or two) is more abhorrant than the deliberate murder of Polish people (who were murdered because they were priests, communists, intellectuals, doctors, catholics, or just plain Polish). Merely question ANY sort of Western media/academia dogma about Israel, Judaiism, Zionism or the Holocaust, is tantamount to being anti-Semitic. I don't agree with those nutjob holocaust denyers, they're insane, it was a hideous vile systematic attempt at genocide, not just of the Jews however, but also the Romani (who are an Aryan people speaking and Aryan language BTW), and nearly ALL Slavic people (who also speak an Indo-Aryan language), mostly the Poles and the Russians. Himmler had a soft spot for the Croats and the Bozniaks however, and the Latvians and Lithuanians and Ukrainians were only too happy to assist the Nazis because of the hated Soviets. Some Nazis also admired the Cossacks, so Cossacks were also "honorary" Aryans (despite the fact that many Cossacks are of Indo-European descent). |
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The Speccer Formerly Known As Magoo... My exobio project(s) : Hormizd / Zarathustra ![]() | |
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| macgobhain | Apr 29 2012, 06:35 AM Post #28 |
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Hahahahahahaha oh dear... I do not have pro-Palestinian "bias", I sympathize with the people who are spat on, screamed at, and get rocks thrown at them the minute they walk out of their houses in some areas. In the entire state the law does not grant Palestinians equal rights, and only accords those rights to the Jewish population. I agree that Israel does exist, and because it exists now there is nothing that can be done to send the people who were born there home. However, the Law of Return needs to be repealed, along with all other discriminatory laws that accord the Jewish population rights not given to Palestinians, all discriminatory policies need to stop, and the refugees must be allowed to return in government subsidized settlements like the ones built for Jews and reparations are due. If Israel could manage to do these things, I think it would do wonders for their reputation in the Middle East, Iamna. |
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| macgobhain | Apr 29 2012, 06:38 AM Post #29 |
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Thank you Magoo... It would also interest you to know I suppose that the amount we pay to Israel is well over the 3 billion? It normally reaches near 6 billion when you factor in the other budgets beside foreign aid, and actually costs U.S. tax payers double that due to the way in which it is paid in lump sums at the beginning of every fiscal year instead of being paid in the quarterly sums that everyone else receives their foreign aid in... Yes, that's a double post everyone
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| lamna | Apr 29 2012, 07:01 AM Post #30 |
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I just remembered, thanks to dial's comment that I've experienced this, sort of. As he said over here when we study an issue in History we have to consider and write about both sides are the arguments, which was frustrating and annoying when I had to evaluate whether religion had helped or hindered medical progress, and pretty much the entirety of The Troubles topic. Constantly having to voice the IRA and Sinn Fein's horseshit was really annoying. But I did it, because that's what history is all about. If I just railed against them being murderous traitors, that wouldn't be fair, nobody would learn anything and I might as well just learn the order of the Kings by rote. Want to see something like the Dayton Agreement in Israel, but I'm not hopeful. |
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