Abandoned Forum

[Nobody]

Saddam Died Beautiful. It's the truth and you know it. Fact is, the longer we stay in Iraq the better Saddam looks. He never had a tenth of our money or weaponry but he did what we can't: kept that bag of snakes in order.

I wish I could have a death like he did. Instead I'll die the same way you will, tubes coming out of my fat carcass, leaning over to watch the cardio beeper zig when it's supposed to zag, scared out of my head and ashamed to look down at this civilian belly hyperventilating its last breaths.

The 20th was a good century, bloody and unbowed, as the man said. We're going to miss it when it's gone. It's hanging on in places here and there at the edge of the office world, but we're doing our best to finish it off, and that hanging was a big step in that wrong direction.

[nil]

We live in the century of fools, from Y2k to WMD, from Vietnam to Iraqi. History keeps repeating itself. Even a lab mouse knows how to avoid the same mistake twice, but mankind never learn.

A tyrant is bad, but a mob of tyrrants is worst. That's why besides good intention, we also need to have good reasoning...

[Nobody]

We live in the century of fools, from Y2k to WMD, from Vietnam to Iraqi. History keeps repeating itself. Even a lab mouse knows how to avoid the same mistake twice, but mankind never learn.

A tyrant is bad, but a mob of tyrrants is worst. That's why besides good intention, we also need to have good reasoning...

Well at least the 20th was exciting. What else do I got? IM a slave to office world.

At least the fascists/tyrants tried to make it interesting for us non-execs, non-surfers, non-golfers. They were brutal scum, sure...but I have to ask, compared to who?

[nil]

This is a time when TV news is more exciting than movies, and much more violence and bloody (have you seen real decapitation in any movie?).

It's time to stop blaming one person for all the mistakes in the world. What's a tyrant, but a virtual conglomeration of a million zealot fools?

[Nobody]

This is a time when TV news is more exciting than movies, and much more violence and bloody (have you seen real decapitation in any movie?).

It's time to stop blaming one person for all the mistakes in the world. What's a tyrant, but a virtual conglomeration of a million zealot fools?

Thats what Im talking about!

At least the Tyrants in the 20th were open about it. Nowadays we got the Tyrants hiding behind propaganda and peace talk, while they soak up US tax dollars and instead of the open in your face violence, its been replaced by the cowardly kind, the kind that happened in Russian basement interrogation gulags and secret CIA torture prisons in Syria.

Its a bizarro world. We're gonna miss the 20th.

[hamster]

The twentieth century was absolutely horrible.

I give it a D-.

Fascism, communism, Stalin, Hitler and Pol Pot ...

Horrible, horrible, horrible.

[nil]

I would say the beginning of the 20th century deserve a D, maybe even a F, but the later part of 20th century (after 70s) deserve a at least a B-. But the beginnig of 21st century, we return to D...

[Pimienta]

maybe it's just beginnings of centuries
we have problems starting them out maybe

[Insanity test]

The twentieth century saw some of the biggest revolutions mankind has faced since someone decided to rub two sticks together.

Mankind got off the ground! We flew! Not only that but in the space of three quarters of a century we'd gone from landlubbers to rising above the atmosphere!

Rocket power was invented, at first for worse, but later for the better - the means to get to space.

We landed on the Moon! Not content to sail around in our safe little atmosphere, we went beyond, then not content to orbit our little rock, we decided to visit another!

Telecommunications were invented! We could now actually talk in real-time to someone on the other side of the globe!

The computer was invented! Built to decipher the enigma during the second World War, Collosus could be called the first computer (the origins are very hazy - distinguishing between calculating mechanical devices and actual computers (btw the term 'debugging' was because a moth flew into a relay and had to be removed! lol)

Air conditioning was invented, no more stuffy rooms!

The hovercraft! the first amphibious craft!

The microchip! - even better computers!
Tyres!
Traffic lights!
Lego!
The Slinky!
Scrabble!
Velcro!
Implantable pacemakers!
The lava Lamp!
The ring pull can!
Tupperware!
The waterbed!
The walkman!
Postit notes!
The 'Rubik' Cube!
The mobile (cell) phone!
Dolly the Sheep!
Foldable Buildings!!
Thw Wankel rotary Piston engine!!!

.......raws desperate breath..........

We owe alot to the twentieth century. But much of that came about because of the wars.

Two World wars in half a century. A cold war that almost ended in nuclear holocaust.

The sad fact is that progress dreives itself from need. The greater the need, the further the progress.

But hey! we've started this century off well! Maybe we'll colonise Mars!!

[nil]

From the way you put it, 20th century does sound pretty good, especially in a technological sense of way. Even in aspects like social justice and morality, there are a huge improvment from the Middle Age.

It's kind of like the stock market, we always whine about the downturn (I've done a great deal of whining myself), but in general and in a longer term, it tends to go up.

[hamster]

Yes, indeed, thanks for the uplift. There's always two sides to everything.

In the 20th Century, man truly bit into the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge to an unprecedented degree. He went from being one small step up from animal-dom -- living desperately, helpless against disease, moving no faster than the horse he rode -- to, as noted, having the powers of a god.

Now we stand at a terrifying crossroads, unfathomable in ages past. We have the power, at the push of a few buttons, to completely annihilate our own planet. Will we do it? We can build buildings a hundred stories or more in height -- and one or two well-placed terrorists can bring them right down.

We have the technology to follow a person wherever he goes, to insert a chip under his skin and follow him to the middle of the Gobi Desert or right through the crowds of London -- and to analyze his unique DNA, gauge his emotional state and the truth of his words by physiological analysis. Who will use that technology and for what?

Two hundred and some years ago, a ragtag bunch of American colonials, with the help of some savvy Frenchmen, dealt a stunning blow to the British Empire, the most powerful entity on Earth. Fifty-some years ago, Allied troops massed undetected off the coast of France and then poured ashore to overthrow the Nazis.

With today's technology, neither feat will ever be possible again. So how will we win the next battle against oppression?

Will we create a galactic empire of freedom or one of indestructible oppression? Will we spread life onto cold, dead worlds, or wipe it out on our own first? Will we finally conquer polio, cancer, AIDS and such, or have our population sicken and die from artificial pathogens released by evil men?

[Insanity test]

Wars of the future will most probably be fought from the safety of a bunker, using remote devices. The war in iraq was mostly fought this way - missiles being launched from ships hunderds of miles away. (of course that was the war, the aftermath was quite different, but thats another story)

If one country has a physical army which is unmatched on the globe, the enemy wont even bother engaging them. They'll simply nuc them from afar. Therefore no country could ever rely on sheer military might in the way the armies did during the second World War, they'll have to maintain an army that is infact small enough to be considered defeatable.

Failing that, they'll keep the army as a show and for the real battle, use the deterant. This is already the case. After the second world war, the only thing which prevented it from turning into a third was the threat of nuclear annhialation. Smaller wars are fought with manpower, but the wars of a global scale will be political and undercover wars.

Essentially technology born of war is rendering war useless. Only once a sure-fire method of avoiding nuclear attack is found will other options become available. Until then, the choice of global war, or not global war is infact, suicide or life.

But enough of this depressingness!!

Aparently Mr Bush has stated that he wants people to walk on the moon again. Aside from a desperate attempt to win votes, this is actually quite exciting! I also heard of a possible commercial space shuttle being created by some ridiculously wealthy business people!

Maybe I'll walk in space after all!!

[lifeis42]

Live for the now it might suck but thats ok