As an pro-peace guy who came of age during America's 21st century wars; I do believe war is the normal state of affairs. We learned the history of past wars, where the citizenry had to make sacrifices; they had to grow gardens, salvage metal, buy war bonds, give up essential goods like meat, and face a draft. But today, US citizens are as insulated as possible from the effects of war. The media does its best to make sure that we don't understand how war actually does effect us, like how loose war talk is driving up gas prices.
It reminds me of an episode of the original Star Trek where the crew encounters 2 planets locked in a simulated computer war. When people were "killed" they had to report for execution. The point of the episode was that they had sanitized war to the point where they had no incentive to ever stop fighting, and that is what's happening in the US today (minus execution chambers).
Since a lot of people live comfortably in the US, they don't have to sacrifice anything for war. Most of the people who are suffering from the poor economy don't realize it's connected to our wars so they don't complain either.
I love Star Trek. The literature as national allegory theory is the most plausible explanation of the dearth of Arabic science fiction that I have ever heard.
As a huge sci-fi fan, I was always disappointed that I could never find translations of Arabic, Urdu, or Persian sci-fi. This is especially sad because, according to wikipedia, the first known science fiction novel was written in Arabic. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_epic_literature#Science_fiction.
As an pro-peace guy who came of age during America's 21st century wars; I do believe war is the normal state of affairs. We learned the history of past wars, where the citizenry had to make sacrifices; they had to grow gardens, salvage metal, buy war bonds, give up essential goods like meat, and face a draft. But today, US citizens are as insulated as possible from the effects of war. The media does its best to make sure that we don't understand how war actually does effect us, like how loose war talk is driving up gas prices.
It reminds me of an episode of the original Star Trek where the crew encounters 2 planets locked in a simulated computer war. When people were "killed" they had to report for execution. The point of the episode was that they had sanitized war to the point where they had no incentive to ever stop fighting, and that is what's happening in the US today (minus execution chambers).
Since a lot of people live comfortably in the US, they don't have to sacrifice anything for war. Most of the people who are suffering from the poor economy don't realize it's connected to our wars so they don't complain either.
I find the fact that Santorum is taken seriously and Ron Paul is dismissed very troubling.
"For light, solar-powered light-emitting diode (LED) panels are much cheaper than light bulbs powered by burning kerosene."
I'm confused by this. Unless the solar panels are charging a battery then the light bulbs can only run during the day when there is less need of them.
I did not know about Jobs's Arab heritage.
I love Star Trek. The literature as national allegory theory is the most plausible explanation of the dearth of Arabic science fiction that I have ever heard.
As a huge sci-fi fan, I was always disappointed that I could never find translations of Arabic, Urdu, or Persian sci-fi. This is especially sad because, according to wikipedia, the first known science fiction novel was written in Arabic. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_epic_literature#Science_fiction.