European Leaders: The Covid-19 pandemic is the biggest challenge to the global community since 1940 - Page 2 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#15165910
Scamp wrote:Is Europe going to once again wait for Russia to save them, like they did in the 1940's?


Fixed that for you both, @Potemkin @Scamp

With Russia one can also add the 1680's, 1770's, 1810's, 1830's & more.

Potemkin wrote:You may not have read that far in your copy of the The Idiot's Guide to the Second World War, but Germany wasn't on our side, @Scamp. :)


Pwned
#15166136
In 1914 Serbia was recognised by all decent people to be a nation of Angels. A nation of Angels backed by righteous Russia. This is why millions of French, British, Canadian, Aussies etc and later Americas joyfully laid down their lives to defend Serbian independence and sovereignty in World War I (or as I prefer to call it, the War of South Slav Unification). It was only right that at the end of World War 1, the most innocent and peaceful nation of Serbia should have been rewarded with the creation of Yugoslavia.

By the 1990's though, both Serbia and Russia had become evil oppressor, tyrant nations. They were no longer the innocent, human rights respecting, freedom respecting countries of 1914. It was necessary therefore for NATO to help complete the break up of Yugoslavia by bombing. So evil had Serbs become that even the people of North Kosovo could not be allowed to have self determination. And Russian influence in Kosovo had to be removed because the Russians, failed or more likely pretended not to recognise that Serbia was the new Nazi Germany.
#15166164
Beren wrote:Covid-19 is clear proof that this shitty world around us, this hell on earth or whatever, is intentional.

I would not say that it is "intentional." But I would say that it is "man-made."

But I don't believe that oligarchic-humans know what horrible side-effects their power-accumulation schemes will cause. They know about some of the horrible side effects (but they "think it is worth it"), but certainly not all of them. Otherwise, they wouldn't be able to continue.

There is a kind of ignorance that is"intentional" - the money-making kind.

The biggest challenge to humanity since 10,000 years ago, has been "to survive the inventions of the psychopathic leadership class." And with increasing technology sophistication, the chance of survival keeps shrinking.

Imagenew and improved
#15166533
Beren wrote:Hungarian PM Orban wasn't a part of it for sure. :lol:

You are correct to single out Hungary. That country and a couple of others which were communist until their admission to the European Union are serious concerns for the rest of us, especially in western Europe. They are not familiar with democracy in eastern Europe.
#15166539
Suchard wrote:You are correct to single out Hungary. That country and a couple of others which were communist until their admission to the European Union are serious concerns for the rest of us, especially in western Europe. They are not familiar with democracy in eastern Europe.

They hadn't been communist until their admission to the EU, they joined the EU as capitalist liberal democracies. As a matter of fact you seem concerned seriously enough only recently, Orban's party had to leave the EPP just a month ago, for example. Hungarians are not familiar with democracy indeed, but we get suspicious when something stinks to high heaven so much as Covid does. And our dear leader actually has to care about what the people think, which might be the only thing he really cares about regarding Covid. :lol:
#15166569
Beren wrote:They hadn't been communist until their admission to the EU, they joined the EU as capitalist liberal democracies. As a matter of fact you seem concerned seriously enough only recently, Orban's party had to leave the EPP just a month ago, for example. Hungarians are not familiar with democracy indeed, but we get suspicious when something stinks to high heaven so much as Covid does. And our dear leader actually has to care about what the people think, which might be the only thing he really cares about regarding Covid. :lol:

Your conspiracy theory about the European Union creating Covid-19 to lockdown its citizens and shut down corporations and enterprises is risible. I could not believe that anyone did not know how the communist Soviet Union controlled all of eastern Europe from 1945 to 1989 and that Hungary and Poland became communist after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Incredible!

Image
Soviet tanks in Budapest in 1956
#15166578
Suchard wrote:Your conspiracy theory about the European Union creating Covid-19

I don't think and haven't said the EU created it, you only wish the EU were so important, they're just assisting to or taking part in it, they're just involved. It rather seems like a US-China co-production in the first place, that's why the whole world (including the EU) buys into it and follows suit. They may differ on Taiwan, but they seem to agree on the world, basically, while the EU's politely taking a seat on the sofa. :lol:
#15166585
I don't see anything wrong with vaccine nationalism. Why would the US or UK give away tons of vaccines while the vulnerable in their countries are still waiting for theirs? The ability to defend your population against a virus is little different than defending your population against a military threat. These are matters of national security with lives at risk. A government's primary responsibility to defend the security of its citizens and secure a country's national interests. And any decent country will do those things without violating the sovereignty of other countries, which is the prime objective of the UN.

All of a sudden nationalism is a dirty word, as if defending your citizens is a bad thing. Extreme nationalism, like extreme anything, is the only problem.

What they could do is create a health org of ie: western allies, kinda like NATO but more jointly and equally funded, that pools money into vaccine research and production for any future pandemic and just agree to distribute any vaccines evenly. Any country could also build its own facilities for its own population if it wanted.
#15166589
QatzelOk wrote:The biggest challenge to humanity since 10,000 years ago, has been "to survive the inventions of the psychopathic leadership class." And with increasing technology sophistication, the chance of survival keeps shrinking.

I disagree. The biggest challenge for all of human history, and is the same for all animals, is to avoid death. As a species, we have been overall very successful especially the last 150 years due to technology. The caveat is managing the side-effects and not destroying ourselves (which is a fairly new problem).

The chance of survival for any individual member of the human species has never been better by orders of magnitude. ie: Infant mortality dropping enormously. But the chance of extinction has also gone up.

Would you personally trade the risk of childhood death and a massive reduction in average life expectancy (it used to be 25 years during the Roman Empire) or you and your family for the small risk of human extinction and sometimes some garbage on the side of the road?
#15166774
Beren wrote:I don't think and haven't said the EU created it, you only wish the EU were so important, they're just assisting to or taking part in it, they're just involved. It rather seems like a US-China co-production in the first place, that's why the whole world (including the EU) buys into it and follows suit. They may differ on Taiwan, but they seem to agree on the world, basically, while the EU's politely taking a seat on the sofa. :lol:

Nothing you have written makes any sense to me. Governments of freely elected politicians with an army of public servants in their bureaucracies are disposed to act in the general good and would not be involved in a conspiracy to make their populations sick. I cannot see how making a virus that harms so many of their population and their industry helps the Chinese Communist Party. Your unsupported theory is absurd on its face value.
#15166896
Suchard wrote:Nothing you have written makes any sense to me. Governments of freely elected politicians with an army of public servants in their bureaucracies are disposed to act in the general good and would not be involved in a conspiracy to make their populations sick. I cannot see how making a virus that harms so many of their population and their industry helps the Chinese Communist Party. Your unsupported theory is absurd on its face value.

Governments acting against the interests of their own people...?

Image
#15166898
Suchard wrote:Nothing you have written makes any sense to me. Governments of freely elected politicians with an army of public servants in their bureaucracies are disposed to act in the general good and would not be involved in a conspiracy to make their populations sick. I cannot see how making a virus that harms so many of their population and their industry helps the Chinese Communist Party. Your unsupported theory is absurd on its face value.


China's economy and political system is well suited to be the major winner from the pandemic.

This is for a variety of reasons:

1) As their economy is based on manufacturing instead of services, the pain they feel from lockdowns is a lot less than the pain felt by western economies. This means that a lockdown has a lot less economic impact on China than it has on the West.
2) They can manage lockdowns a lot better than western countries because they are a totalitarian dictatorship where citizens obey the dictats of the government. This means that the lockdowns in China are more effective and thus permitting her economy to open up faster than the west's.

However, as this is a marathon instead of a 100m sprint, the west with its superior vaccine technology will very likely eventually turn to normality before China who has no effective vaccine to combat the virus as most of its technology is based on copyright theft and copy/pasting.
#15166905
Unthinking Majority wrote:I disagree. The biggest challenge for all of human history, and is the same for all animals, is to avoid death. As a species, we have been overall very successful especially the last 150 years due to technology. The caveat is managing the side-effects and not destroying ourselves (which is a fairly new problem).

The chance of survival for any individual member of the human species has never been better by orders of magnitude. ie: Infant mortality dropping enormously. But the chance of extinction has also gone up.

Would you personally trade the risk of childhood death and a massive reduction in average life expectancy (it used to be 25 years during the Roman Empire) or you and your family for the small risk of human extinction and sometimes some garbage on the side of the road?

By making arguments based on unsourced prejudices and weak methodology (species survival versus individual survival, lifespan of Romans, etc.), you actually demonstrate how little real information informs your opinions. That they're just based on your emotional response to notions that were put into your head.

I wish I could recommend an app that would cure this. But it really takes a different approach to "opinion-formation" to write anything worthwhile.

Unless your intent is to mock the kind of illogical opinions you post here. If this is the case, you're doing a pretty good job.
#15166940
QatzelOk wrote:By making arguments based on unsourced prejudices and weak methodology (species survival versus individual survival, lifespan of Romans, etc.), you actually demonstrate how little real information informs your opinions. That they're just based on your emotional response to notions that were put into your head.

I wish I could recommend an app that would cure this. But it really takes a different approach to "opinion-formation" to write anything worthwhile.

Unless your intent is to mock the kind of illogical opinions you post here. If this is the case, you're doing a pretty good job.

Nothing you just has any facts or argument at all, just emotion.

The point of technology is to increase survival and standard of living on an individual basis. I can't name any animal species that acts as a species in cooperation for survival, they only act as individuals and/or small groups in competition with other individuals and groups of the same or other species. A tree that can grow highest will get the most sunlight while the shorter trees under it will stunt or die.

The debate is whether the negatives of technology outweigh the positives, as individuals. groups, and sure as species as well. A simple cost/benefit analysis. If you see technology as a negative then don't ever go see a doctor or take any medications ever, and turn off the device you're using to read this, and you're free to not take a vaccine and risk death. For some reason the death of a billion+ people due to poor nutrition/medicine/sanitation etc is a good trade-off for you? You'd make Mao/Hitler/Stalin look like peaches!

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