World War III anyone?

[e-freak]

theyr ids/passports are russian because mother russia ruled all over eastern europe not 20 years back...

[Ginger Lord]

Nothing more than a bit of Soviet policing of ex-territory. The British did this for many years and still do on occasion.

[Thrik]

The death toll just keeps on growing, with reports of 1600–2000 now — mostly civilians. I guess that old (Russian!) quote about many deaths being a statistic stands true, as most people won't hear about anything specific about the individuals whose futures, dreams, and families have been extinguished by this silly conflict. Kind of like Iraq to an extent.

What a time to do it, too. Just like the rest of us, many of the people killed thus far would have been wanting to sit down and enjoy the Olympics this week.

[2d-chris]

You still can, don't let the media play with your mind. Bad shit happens every day, I finally realised how much more enjoyable my life would be if I don't read the news, it's a shame most people have a craving for evil stories and feel that by attempting to understand them somehow it's helping (if not, whats the point at all?)

I'd rather spend my time learning about all the good things people do everyday such as the Olympics.

[Erratic]

it's a shame most people have a craving for evil stories.

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.

[Sentura]

it's a shame most people have a craving for evil stories.

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

[Erratic]

it's a shame most people have a craving for evil stories.

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.

[Thrik]

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.

[Sentura]

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.

[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.

[Minos]

No. The whole situation was f*cked up for as long as there was no UDSSR anymore. The Georgiens are the rightous owner of the country to a certain extent (simmilar to the Tibet-China-Conflict -> select a random date in history and it does or it aint belong to the country historically) but the former UdSSR Gov nearly 20 years back was the last half-way stable goverment in that region. Now these parts of georgia want to be independent due to some aethnical or what ever reasons which might be ok or not but the problem is that Georgia's goverment didn't knew how to calm the situation down, the russians on the other hand feared a georgian NATO-Membership (due to it's geographical neighbourhood to russia and it's natural resources) and therefore did anything to push the rebelion within georgia. The Georgian Gov when tried to invade the capitol of the province which was about to declare it's independence, clear the whole situation (not in a very diplomatic but well, it's theyr country and one rule in international politics is "it's not our buisness what a country does within it's own borders" (again see tibet-china)). The UdSSR relicts now being that 90% of the inhabitants of above mentioned province have russian IDs encourages Putin's newest puppet Medvedev to see this as a threat to the russian people and therefore allows him to strike back on the aggressor. Now the region of crysis is limited due to the borders of the not-yet-independent-province of georgia but infact the russians are currently attacking all over georgia and allthough they state it's only military targets they aim at it seems they are destroying all of georgias possibilities to trade and work with theyr natural resources, which will lead to poverty in the region and (in russian terms) hopefully to chaos or at least instability within Georgia. It seems that the russian point of view is still very simmilar to the UdSSR point of view and that they are looking for an opportunity to take over theyr former sattelite-states or keep them at low niveau to grant theyr own influence into the region.

If Georgia would have been within the NATO already the defense-contracts would have lead to a war between russia and maybe some of it's depending states against all of the Nato-Members (to name a few: USA, Germany, UK, (France is actually not a full member of the NATO but Sarkozy is currently heading back there) etc.).

A simmilar crysis could have happened in Kosovo but the KFOR's presence and the historical events of the last 15 years with Serbian/Yugoslavia went postal against Kosovo it seemed more justified to our western hemisphere that Kosovo became independent.

We will face very simmilar conflicts in not to far away future on the border of turkey, iran and iraq if the Kurdish Peoples Party will renew the wish for an own state. With turkey there's a NATO affilitate (or member!?) directly bordered, the iraq as an already instable and war-marked country and iran as the uncontrolable player within the region.

The very same conflict is btw ongoing in northern spain with the basks who are fighting for an own state. The ETA is fighting (terror-attacking) spain since years.

Same goes for the FARC in Columbia although it seems Columbia is winning this war now.

The problem in all these conflicts is that there are legal arguments for both sides and it's always very regional conflicts which don't seem to be important for the international politics but as they sum up it could lead to a more and more instable world policy and can damage trusts between states.

Further historical points could be the korea and the vietnam war in which the UdSSR or China supported common groups in a crysis of a souverain state and the americans supported the counter-party so a regional conflict within a closed system lead to the conflict of the two most dangerous parties in the world which both tried to held up theyr interests within that region...

(it's a bit late and I'm coming from a wedding so if not everything makes perfect sense or is not written entirely clear I'm sorry and am willing to state/explain a certain point of the above again)

Thanks for clearing this up, the whole thing makes more sense now.

[dux]

[Sentura]

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.

[e-freak]

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...

[Erratic]

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.

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: