02-14-2003, 04:50 AM | #81 |
Guy-who-should-come-here-more-often
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What kind of Elven Warrior would never go to war?
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Amandil Mithadan "Why would you want to tamper with anything Tolkien did?" --Ralph Bashki "Seeking self, I find nothing but myself, but in this I drink the cup of gall I really am. I want everything, and I may have everything, but I have nothing except what I have. What I have I know is not what will fulfill me, and I know this in the bitterness of satisfied desire. Everything I have is still not enough, and in getting everything I have, I have not myself, indeed what I have may have twisted what I am and might be into an image of my own possessions. I will to possess, but I end up possessed by what I possess." -- William Desmond (Ethics and the Between, p. 209-210) |
02-14-2003, 07:50 AM | #82 | |
The Negative Soul of Entmoot
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W00T for the M00T!! War doesn't determine who is right - war determines who is left. |
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02-14-2003, 08:10 AM | #83 |
The Dude
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war is for weak leaders nowadays... what happened to the days when battle was honorable and depended on a mans skill instead of being able to pull a trigger or push a button, and the leader would go into battle with his troops (ahhh sighs thinking about GoNY)
anyways id kill for revenge i have thought about this often and if someone were to kill a family member/good friend i would kill them
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02-14-2003, 09:05 AM | #84 |
Guy-who-should-come-here-more-often
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Elenka: So one of the reasons you wouldn't go to war is because you'd probably die? Humpf!
People killed people in Middle Earth wars. Morgoth had Easterlings fighting for him (at least), and Sauron had whopping amounts of Men fighting for him too. I'd kill for anything I'd be willing to die for. How's that? Millane: Pulling a trigger still takes a lot of skill. It's not easy shooting something else so that it doesn't shoot you first. It's hard enough shooting something that can only chew you up or run away. But I agree with you about leaders who sit behind the lines...
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Amandil Mithadan "Why would you want to tamper with anything Tolkien did?" --Ralph Bashki "Seeking self, I find nothing but myself, but in this I drink the cup of gall I really am. I want everything, and I may have everything, but I have nothing except what I have. What I have I know is not what will fulfill me, and I know this in the bitterness of satisfied desire. Everything I have is still not enough, and in getting everything I have, I have not myself, indeed what I have may have twisted what I am and might be into an image of my own possessions. I will to possess, but I end up possessed by what I possess." -- William Desmond (Ethics and the Between, p. 209-210) |
02-14-2003, 09:20 AM | #85 |
The Dude
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yes but the whole idea of guns in warfare is to be quick efficient safe and user friendly... the amount of study and practice a good swordsman would do compared to the amount of training a soldier would recieve would be years and years appart... hell my librarian and english teacher at school were both trained to fight as soldiers and most of it isnt just about operating a gun its about knowing your dangers and not about skill and technique...
hell anyone can shoot something...
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02-14-2003, 09:49 AM | #86 | |||
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Medieval warfare was pretty much as lame as modern warfare: a whole lot of regular people being slaughtered under the orchestration of the rich and powerful.
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Amandil Mithadan "Why would you want to tamper with anything Tolkien did?" --Ralph Bashki "Seeking self, I find nothing but myself, but in this I drink the cup of gall I really am. I want everything, and I may have everything, but I have nothing except what I have. What I have I know is not what will fulfill me, and I know this in the bitterness of satisfied desire. Everything I have is still not enough, and in getting everything I have, I have not myself, indeed what I have may have twisted what I am and might be into an image of my own possessions. I will to possess, but I end up possessed by what I possess." -- William Desmond (Ethics and the Between, p. 209-210) |
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02-14-2003, 10:45 AM | #87 | |
Elven Warrior
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Re: Cannon fodder
This is no reflection on your comments, Amandil; I've just been waiting for somebody to use the term somewhere, because I wanted to point out that:
1. Fodder is food for horses. 2. Cannons (and any of their modern equivalents) are machines and don't require food. 3. Thus, cannons will not starve to death if not "fed" on a diet of people (i.e., 'cannon fodder'). That erroneous image is what has made the silly phrase so popular among antiwar people (at least during the 60s and 70s in the West, where I've heard it the most). Rather, there will be cannons (or their modern equivalents) around for quite some time still, as the cure is a difficult one that can't be applied en masse. There...got that out of my system.
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02-14-2003, 10:54 AM | #88 | |||
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when the civil war kicked in it was just so much easier to give a man a gun and lead him off to war rather than give them swords which they would have had to learnt really well because unlike what most people think it isnt just a one hit kill with a sword people can block...
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Ill heal your wounds, ill set you free, Last edited by Millane : 02-14-2003 at 10:56 AM. |
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02-14-2003, 11:24 AM | #89 | |
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"People's political beliefs don't stem from the factual information they've acquired. Far more the facts people choose to believe are the product of their political beliefs." "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." Last edited by Insidious Rex : 02-14-2003 at 05:12 PM. |
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02-14-2003, 05:02 PM | #90 | |
The Negative Soul of Entmoot
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W00T for the M00T!! War doesn't determine who is right - war determines who is left. |
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02-14-2003, 05:38 PM | #91 | ||
Guy-who-should-come-here-more-often
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Elenka: What's more important? That which you would kill for, or your own fear of being killed in the process? I'd hope you'd judge based on the first, not the second. I'd hope you wouldn't decide not to fight for "something worth dying for" (gag, Robin Hood Prince of Thieves!!) simply because it was likely that you would, in fact, die.
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In point of fact, the United States Army's decision to retire the M-14 battle rifle and the 7.62 NATO cartridge and instead adopt the M-16 assault rifle and the 5.56mm cartridge was due to the fact that it was too expensive to train soldiers to shoot straight. A battle rifle (like the M-14, or the FN FAL) can barely go to full auto without jumping around like a coney. Therefore, it shoots big bullets relatively slowly (7.62 NATO, which debilitate a human being with one hit). But the trick is to hit the guy with it. This is so difficult to do that it requires a hell of a lot of marksmanship training. But that costs a lot of money, and doesn't work when you take a regular guy and give him a rifle. It's a lot cheaper to give Joe Schmuck a gun that shoots little bullets (5.56mm) really fast, like an assuault rifle (M-16, AK-47, etc.). So this is what they did. (And, what they're trying to do even more to the extreme with this "Metal Storm" technology Insidious Rex is telling us about.) Am I playing into your hands? No, not quite. The reason why governments are developing guns with higher rates of fire and smaller, less effective cartidges is because it requires too much money for soldiers to gain the requisite skill to use rifles with sufficient proficiency. So it's not guns that contribute to a decline in warrior excellence. Guns can require a very difficult and lengthy process to develop something called marksmanship, a finely honed skill pertaining to a warrior who wields a projectile weapon of a certain muzzle velocity. The older the gun, the truer this is. Government accountants don't like the amount of time and money it takes to train warriors to develop this skill. It's way cheaper and quicker to give a conscript a hose that sprays bullets. So in the end, I suppose current warfare (if conceived in the typical conventional large conscript army vs. large conscript army sort of way) is becoming less skilled...but not because they don't use bladed weapons, but because they choose rate of fire (with the attendant less effective cartridge) over marksmanship (with the attendant more effective cartridge). Guns can be the weapon of choice for highly skilled professional warriors. They needn't be the brain-dead "spray and hope" type weapons that governments with money seem to prefer. (Which is ironic -- most impoverished countries are still using the old battle rifles -- I just saw some Nepalese maoist rebels toting FAL's and Lee Enfields -- which means they're probably better shots than the Marines!) Something to chew on, anyway.
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Amandil Mithadan "Why would you want to tamper with anything Tolkien did?" --Ralph Bashki "Seeking self, I find nothing but myself, but in this I drink the cup of gall I really am. I want everything, and I may have everything, but I have nothing except what I have. What I have I know is not what will fulfill me, and I know this in the bitterness of satisfied desire. Everything I have is still not enough, and in getting everything I have, I have not myself, indeed what I have may have twisted what I am and might be into an image of my own possessions. I will to possess, but I end up possessed by what I possess." -- William Desmond (Ethics and the Between, p. 209-210) |
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02-14-2003, 10:30 PM | #92 |
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I'd kill if someone I loved was in danger. I'd go to war never. Except for if the cause was something i severely believed in.
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If you say my name I go "What?" If you say my name twice I go and look it up in the dictionary. ****************************** I'm Not Evil! ****************************** If the critics say it's good, is it really That good? ****************************** It's a bird! It's a plane! No! It's a balloon! ****************************** Duddun, Son of Bubbun |
02-15-2003, 12:49 AM | #93 | |
The Dude
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One great example of this is Musashi. he may have been born into the samurai class but not very high in the order and he didnt stay with it... Musashi not only became the greatest man with a sword in Japan but probly the world, he did not just up himself to this by his social class but by years and years of studying and practice with a sword... not only did he become the best but he introduced a whole new fighting technique, blocking with the wakisashi and attacking one handed with the katana. and wrote the book of five rings... and you tell me that that was all done by aristocracy?
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02-15-2003, 12:01 PM | #94 | ||
Guy-who-should-come-here-more-often
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Amandil Mithadan "Why would you want to tamper with anything Tolkien did?" --Ralph Bashki "Seeking self, I find nothing but myself, but in this I drink the cup of gall I really am. I want everything, and I may have everything, but I have nothing except what I have. What I have I know is not what will fulfill me, and I know this in the bitterness of satisfied desire. Everything I have is still not enough, and in getting everything I have, I have not myself, indeed what I have may have twisted what I am and might be into an image of my own possessions. I will to possess, but I end up possessed by what I possess." -- William Desmond (Ethics and the Between, p. 209-210) |
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02-15-2003, 12:02 PM | #95 |
Lady of Letters
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I probably wouldn't choose to go to war if I didn't have to, unless it was for a cause I genuinely believed in. That includes defending my country from a serious threat, as well - I think of myself as relatively patriotic . But I would be a terrible soldier, and I'd be no good at killing anyone either, except if I knew them to be really evil or about to hurt someone else. So I would go, but I wouldn't be any use
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And all the time the waves, the waves, the waves Chase, intersect and flatten on the sand As they have done for centuries, as they will For centuries to come, when not a soul Is left to picnic on the blazing rocks, When England is not England, when mankind Has blown himself to pieces. Still the sea, Consolingly disastrous, will return While the strange starfish, hugely magnified, Waits in the jewelled basin of a pool. |
02-16-2003, 05:36 AM | #96 | |||
The Dude
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Ill heal your wounds, ill set you free, Last edited by Millane : 02-16-2003 at 05:40 AM. |
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02-18-2003, 11:27 AM | #97 | ||
Guy-who-should-come-here-more-often
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Boy, we're really on topic, aren't we?
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Amandil Mithadan "Why would you want to tamper with anything Tolkien did?" --Ralph Bashki "Seeking self, I find nothing but myself, but in this I drink the cup of gall I really am. I want everything, and I may have everything, but I have nothing except what I have. What I have I know is not what will fulfill me, and I know this in the bitterness of satisfied desire. Everything I have is still not enough, and in getting everything I have, I have not myself, indeed what I have may have twisted what I am and might be into an image of my own possessions. I will to possess, but I end up possessed by what I possess." -- William Desmond (Ethics and the Between, p. 209-210) |
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02-18-2003, 11:31 AM | #98 |
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well, i would probably go to war/kill if my family or friends were killed/taken away against their will (i'm a very loyal person) or if anyone i knew was in desperate need
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02-18-2003, 10:10 PM | #99 | |
The Negative Soul of Entmoot
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W00T for the M00T!! War doesn't determine who is right - war determines who is left. |
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02-19-2003, 07:32 AM | #100 |
Guy-who-should-come-here-more-often
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Ahhh, I see. (So Australia's not going to war, then?)
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Amandil Mithadan "Why would you want to tamper with anything Tolkien did?" --Ralph Bashki "Seeking self, I find nothing but myself, but in this I drink the cup of gall I really am. I want everything, and I may have everything, but I have nothing except what I have. What I have I know is not what will fulfill me, and I know this in the bitterness of satisfied desire. Everything I have is still not enough, and in getting everything I have, I have not myself, indeed what I have may have twisted what I am and might be into an image of my own possessions. I will to possess, but I end up possessed by what I possess." -- William Desmond (Ethics and the Between, p. 209-210) |
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