World War III anyone?

Quote from Erratic

If the media didn't report on it, people would be up in arms about its neglect. When they do, they accuse them of being fear mongers. It seems people often have two minds about this subject I can never quite figure out.

Personally, I want to know about all the horrible things that occur, if only for the sake of just knowing about it. May sound morbid, but it's certainly better than the alternative.

I can only hope such events take precedence over pointless shit like the Olympics.

living vicariously, eh

Quote from Sentura

If the media didn't report on it, people would be up in arms about its neglect. When they do, they accuse them of being fear mongers. It seems people often have two minds about this subject I can never quite figure out.

Personally, I want to know about all the horrible things that occur, if only for the sake of just knowing about it. May sound morbid, but it's certainly better than the alternative.

I can only hope such events take precedence over pointless shit like the Olympics.

living vicariously, eh

Stick your head in the sand, eh?

Never said I enjoy hearing about it, but I'm certainly not going to go out of my way to avoid it.

The very least anyone can do a million miles away from something is give it the courtesy of attention.

Oh shit, nevermind, track and field is on.

I think it's critically important the media give (ideally unbiased) views of things like this. I wouldn't feel more comfortable in a society where you're not even aware of ethnic cleansing, brutal war practice, and natural disasters that's occurring elsewhere in the world. If nothing else, the international pressure can go some way towards discouraging such things (except the latter).

I don't like to dwell on or think excessively about horrible things in the world, but they do deserve attention and consideration. If something like 9/11 can get such huge amounts of international attention, things like this which have comparable/vastly higher civilian death tolls should certainly get similar attention. Just because it's not in the UK, US, or doesn't mean it should be ignored.

i dont think anyone declined the worth of such statements in media anywhere in this thread so far. i don't have a problem with people watching whatever; i have a problem watching it myself, solely based on that my blood pressure gets to an alarming high level whenever i watch what's going on in the world. i also do not like the unhealthy bias that some news agencies take onto themselves. also, tabloid papers piss me off since they tell people what they want to hear. it makes me sick and every time i read the headlines a small part of me dies inside.

the problem with not watching the news or ignoring everything is that it will cause you to be not informed enough to build an own opinion which MAY lead to indifference towards what's happening or simply uncapability to react to what's happening. Not to offend anyone but the opportunity to inform your self is one of our highest values in what we call the western hemisphere. The reason we can call our self civilized and independent individuals within people controlled democracies is based on the fact that we are well tought and be able to teach and inform our selves further. If we don't use this abbility we will quickly fall back into the dependence of leaders and mis-leaders and demagogues and soon lose the abbility and possibility to inform and teach ourselves. That's what you call the beginning of a dictatorship or despotism.

That's why you should watch the news, read as many sources as possible and try to be informed on historical and current events and theyr connections. To understand and react to what's happening and stay a self-determinated individual. Even if your blood-pressure rises, keeping an eye on and naming what's wrong in the world is one of the easiest but most important forms of civial courage.

Quote from e-freak

the problem with not watching the news or ignoring everything is that it will cause you to be not informed enough to build an own opinion which MAY lead to indifference towards what's happening or simply uncapability to react to what's happening. Not to offend anyone but the opportunity to inform your self is one of our highest values in what we call the western hemisphere. The reason we can call our self civilized and independent individuals within people controlled democracies is based on the fact that we are well tought and be able to teach and inform our selves further. If we don't use this abbility we will quickly fall back into the dependence of leaders and mis-leaders and demagogues and soon lose the abbility and possibility to inform and teach ourselves. That's what you call the beginning of a dictatorship or despotism.That's why you should watch the news, read as many sources as possible and try to be informed on historical and current events and theyr connections. To understand and react to what's happening and stay a self-determinated individual. Even if your blood-pressure rises, keeping an eye on and naming what's wrong in the world is one of the easiest but most important forms of civial courage.

no. this statement is wrong, and you're being incredibly patronizing here. while it's true that we are in the information age present day, it does not mean that everyone should watch neither the news nor keep one self updated. the lack of information per se will never cause a state to fall into despair, until the day where information is a currency (hint: it isn't today).

our western society has many flaws already, and you telling me that watching news will abolish all of this? bullshit. watching news won't make 1,000,000 americans wiser and not watching won't lead me to be ignorant. news isn't a reliable form of education as you express it, it is still only a source of information that varies vastly in triviality; it is still more a medium of entertainment above anything else (i don't think e.g. the georgian conflict is neither trivial nor entertaining).

i have traveled halfway across the globe in either direction, something that few people get to do in the lifetime. i've seen how these things carry on in real life rather than on a box or a piece of paper. i am currently in uni, where you learn a new way of thinking, above learning what subject you study; but most importantly, i am an abstract person (refer to this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MBTI) and i can see how things happen and how they can evolve without being told so on beforehand. if anything i have, not through my education in school but my education in life, earned the right to not watch the news.

it wasn't meant as an insult. if you can still tell why the exchange-rates between dollar, euro and yen are completely instable, why this affects your security and in how far it enpowers the chinese communist goverment than you don't need to fear anything, or if you can tell why the Nato currently splits up over german troops being used in south-afgahnistan and in how far this also pushes middle-europe into the focus of terrorist attacks than it's all fine but I doubt you can tell any details about this without watching the news...

Quote from Sentura

i am an abstract person (refer to this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MBTI) and i can see how things happen and how they can evolve without being told so on beforehand.

I wouldn't base much much off that test. Or any test.

Quote from Sentura

i am currently in uni, where you learn a new way of thinking, above learning what subject you study

Also, is this not bordering on some kind of weirdo elitism? New way of thinking? Are my chakra's misconfigured? :megaman:

Quote from Erratic

I wouldn't base much much off that test. Or any test.

Also, is this not bordering on some kind of weirdo elitism? New way of thinking? Are my chakra's misconfigured? :megaman:

no, maybe i am putting too much into that test, but fact is that there are only two different types of people on this planet. what they are branded is irrelevant, the main thing is what they do. as for the uni: no, it's just normal.. as normal as uni gets i suppose. maybe you oughta try it yourself.

Maybe I’m the odd one out here; I just try not to form opinions till I've personally been somewhere or talked to somebody (I'm not picking sides.) I'm so damned amazed that half of the western world really thinks that they understand conflicts and political motivations when they are nothing to do with it. I'm not trying to up my own Kudos points as I’ll quite happily admit to not understanding them. In fact come to think of it, nobody in ANY position can have a full grasp of a situation where people are being killed. So, forget about it rather than winding yourself up.

It's rather amazing to me, that for example if I was born in Russia I would almost certainly be on their side, even without giving due course attention to the argument on the other side. This is the problem with the human race, we care more about our "country" or birth place than almost anything else, pretty messed up if you ask me. Can people really not consider the fact that if they where born in another country they would love it more so than anywhere else? (I'm aware not everyone loves there country, but most people do)

Off topic maybe, but war is a complicated thing D:

This conflict hasn’t really been given much coverage all things considered. I’m always reminded of Stewart Lee’s darkly amusing commentary on the 9/11 attacks, where he was in Spain and didn’t know where they had taken place. I can’t find a good clip, so go from 8:20-9:14 of this one, if you care (seems a bit superfluous to use the youtube tags for this one, though).

Quote from Sentura

hah, i wish. there is no incentive for the US to interfere here. if anyone was to enter this conflict for any reason at all, it'd be NATO (exluding the us), possibly forced by the UN as peacekeeping forces.

I think you are missing the big picture here. The US has a tremendous interest in Georgia, or better, in the big metal pipe that leads through the country. It pumps oil from the east all across the country to the big western oil tankers in the black sea. The US even sent soldiers to Georgia years ago to help protect the pipeline and plenty of Americans have invested in the region. So they support Georgia's president and his western oriented politics, which is of course a big pain in the ass for Putin and his gang, because Russians don't like Americans sneaking in their backyard. Especially when you think of the conflicts Russia couldn't win or the former soviet satellite states that switched sides (NATO side) in recent years. Saakasvilli's move to send military forces to Ossetia might have been legit, but it was a stupid one in my eyes, because it was a perfect incentive for the Russians to fuck them up. And all the US can do is watch. They got enough warzones on their hand right now without Ossetia, Bush is a lame duck and you don't risk a world war for a pipeline...we are not quite there yet...I hope.

To summarize - incentive: yes; likelyness: low.