raja_indy14

As far as i can tell, all it does is reduce carbon emissions from vehicles by around 10%-15% depending on the concentrations used in the gasoline. i think currently it may be less then that, but as more ethanol is produced and cars are made to handle a higher ethanol mix its expected to reduce emissions by something like 20%. Seems like a very minimal emission reduction benefit in exchange for dramatically rising food prices... Some poor weather (winter storms in south china for instance), rising costs of corn thanks to ethanol production, the growing middle class in countries like china and india (demanding more and better food) and you start getting higher food prices. This triggers speculative buying and hoarding (I read that in the Phillipines non-licensed warehouses filled to the brim with hoarded rice have been raided by authorities) triggering further price rises, increasing sensationalism, and panic buying - leading to still higher prices... I also have read that large amounts of food produced in the west are simply destroyed because it would be uneconomical to ship it across the world to other countries.

The correct term would be they. They would also be correct as we're talking about history. The Chinese should understand, as they cherish their current state as the successor to the Republic, which was the successor to the Empire. Indeed, why should one look upon France and Britain with our 1880's glasses, but take them off when looking at China?quote> It's called poetic licence, the "correct" terminology does not have to be used, it does not have to be impartial or from a removed perspective. one might think you had never read a poem before. and the poem does not only describe events in the 19th century, it's scope reaches to the present day - the use of "you" targets all of those that have behaved in the manner described in the poem. To some extent the poem is an expression of China's traditional xenophobia, the "we" and "you", "us" and "them" (meaning the rest of the world) sentiment is quite pronounced; the anti-Chinese protests will serve merely to strengthen their xenophobic tendencies, contributing to further misunderstandings and distrust on both sides which could have serious consequences in the not to distant future. You know others are having it worse, so it's not that bad.quote> Suddenly human suffering is relative? A country carried out what would be described by the UN as genocide and it's "not that bad"?? Why shouldn't the Olympics be politicized to target our human rights abuses as they've been politicized to target China's, is it only their Olympics that should be marred in such a fashion??? Anyways, who has the moral to be speaking about Canada? quote> That doesn't seem to matter. If the country that supplied Saddam with chemical weapons to gas the Kurds and Iranians can turn around and criticize a country for supporting Darfur, "moral credentials" need not apply. Hasn't the whole opposing argument been that it doesn't matter what a state or people may have done in the past it can morally challenge any state that violates human rights? I certainly hope in two years time you are supporting anti-Canada protesters. (don't get me wrong, I love my country, that doesn't mean I'm proud of everything it does/has done)

I suppose it might be irrelevant in some societes, but for instance in Japan they have people called "Living National Treasures" who are "bearers of important intangible cultural assets" and it might be a priority to save such people. really it was just a passing thought about what types of people might be desirable to save in the event of a catastrophic, civilization-destroying calamity. and why on earth would i classify britney spears as culturally important?

ummm, that's not really true. 19% of the US federal budget is spent on defense, 13.6% on medicare, 9% on medicaid etc, and 20.2% on social security. so the federal budget does spend more money on healthcare than on defense. as for the military getting 40% of it's budget from the federal government (though closer to 100% from the government, certainly?), i'm sure that's normal - we surely wouldn't want private companies/citizens funding our militaries? and i don't think anyone's advocating that we go out of our way to kill certain people in the event of a pandemic, just to prioritize treatment so that certain people might be denied medical care in the event of one.

Certainly never take anything that Michael Moore says at face-value. I think, living in a country with universal healthcare, in the event of a pandemic thousands of people would flee south into the USA to recieve timely - if not "free" - healthcare. And, unless you don't pay taxes, you do pay for "free" universal healthcare. In the event of a pandemic, the denial of care should really be based around the severity of the "plague" and the fatality rate amongst the general population. If fairly low with likely minimal disruption of the post-pandemic society, i don't think it would be moral to deny sevice to anyone (for instance during an event like SARS epidemic in Toronto). In the event of a catastrophic pandemic with long-term effects and resulting in the deaths of >10% of the population i think anyone who is a net parasite on the society - the elderly, the mentally ill, and in extreme cases small children - should be placed at the end of treatment lists and perhaps denied service completely depending on the level of saturation of medical treatment facilities. Net producers in society, or those that have already recieved significant training towards being net producers - adolescents, adults under ~50 - should be prioritized. it would be very difficult, in the event of saturation, to switch from a "first come first serve" policy to a prioritized policy that turned away or ignored certain people, but in the event of a very serious pandemic it would have to done. There's also the fact that the elderly or immuno-compromised people would be less likely to survive the pandemic regardless of treatment, and so resources could be wasted if invested in their less likely survival. As the severity of the pandemic increases, more restrictions would be applied. If really vast numbers of people were dying - >25%-30% - then treatment would have to be further restricted to people with skills training, cultural importance, and important academic knowledge. Also, short of a really catastrophic death toll - >75% - the focus should be on productivity and survivability, not post-pandemic reproduction. There is no need to replace the lost population quickly, it can increase at a natural rate and does not require policies aimed at population replacement. indeed, oftentimes disease is symptomatic of overpopulation. So homosexuals and the infertile should not be denied treatment unless they're also immuno-compromised, elderly, or there are other mitigating circumstances.

Maybe perfect sense for you, but the use of "you" as pointing to two different "you's", and especially doing it at the same time without distinguishing is not good, as the video, but not the poem, makes perfectly clear.quote> "you" means the rest of the world in general, it doesn't have to, for the purposes of the poem, distinguish between a japanese "you" and a european "you" - any state that is percieved as attacking china is "you". why can't the japanese and the europeans be counted as "you"? there could in fact be a few "yous": british, french, germans, russians, japanese, americans. The Romans elected their tyrants in times of war for periods of six months. While it is true that the Germans voted the Nazis in, war did not erupt before Poland was invaded and it did not become hot before they rolled in over France. The nazis would probably have stayed in Germany if it hadn't been for the desire for the rest of Europe and Russia. Saddam Hussein, on the other hand, assumed leadership, the people didn't give it to him.quote> hmmm, well i got rid of the nazi reference, so that's a bit irrelevant now - and your comment is too ambiguous to be fully understood. the rest of it was taking a view of self-determination that you had expressed and applying it logically to other situations to, perhaps, show how absurd it was. a tyrannic theocracy in tibet is actively supported by some westerners - though they likely don't realize it - which seems to be the antithesis of democracy, freedom, and self-determination. @ patriot - effective imagery, unfortunately it's a little lost on me. one could pull up thousands of images of atrocities carried out by all the peoples of the world, sadly human life often takes second place to political and economic considerations. darfur is not a special case in that regard - it's important because it involves the growing economic reach of China and oil supplies. if Sudan had no oil, i wonder whether it would garner much more attention and intervention than another African genocide. i could just as easily post a picture of what happened in Rwanda, which was allowed to happen with virtually no intervention - even when the commander on the spot warned of the impending disaster. would you even talk to the people of the countries who had allowed such a thing to happen virtually without a word? i could post images of the carnage in iraq, abu ghraib, the vietnam war, my lae, would you talk to people that had allowed such things to happen? words aren't as effective, in this case, as images, but you get the idea. as for the situation of the native americans in Canada, i wasn't referring to the 19th century, i was referring to the situation on reserves at the present time and the horrors of the Residential school system which was only finally shut down in the 1990's. the rest of the country is largely indifferent, but in most western countries such conditions would not be tolerated for ethnic minority groups. perhaps some of it is self-inflicted, but there is a history of gross mismanagement by Indian Affairs, which continues to throw vast amounts of money at the problem but is, sadly, pretty much ineffective - and no one cares because native americans are stil percieved as second-class citizens. the native population is largely isolated - economically and culturally - from the rest of society. the residential school system violated the UN conventions on genocide, but very few people know anything about it. conditions on reserves are appalling, medical services are virtually non-existent, the education system rudimentary at best, power supplies are erratic, water supplies are contaminated, drug and alcohol abuse

Self determination means the ability to determine for yourself wether you'd like some Chinese to rule your country in a totaliarian manner, or to let your own people rule it as a feudal monarchy.quote> i personally don't believe a nation can be 'self-determinist' when ruled by dictatorship or monarchy - people do not choose or determine these things. the 'liberation' of iraq from saddam is a violation of self-determination. actually, forcing democracy down the throats of the worlds peoples is violating their right of self-determination to be ruled by tyrants. Is analyzing the poem "missing the point"? If it is, how do you know that your perception of it is right?quote> you've explicitely state you're analyzing the video not the poem. i personally think that the poem taken by itself is more relevant than the video, since it's much more likely that it came first and the video was a later addition (perhaps not even by the author of the poem). analyzing a poem is not so much about being "right" as being capable of understanding the underlying meanings and themes, it's not meant to be judged as accurate or unalloyed truth in the manner of an essay, and requires a different form of analysis besides just fact-checking. when i read the poem - without the video - it seems that the poem is targeting those that judge on the world stage, and those that have, historically, been imperialistic aggressors. these happen to be primarily western, although the japanese are also heavily involved as well. would it make sense for them to target africa, say, which has neither engaged in imperialistic aggression in china, nor sits upon a moral high horse dictating from on high how the world should be run? it would be, quite simply, rediculous. the poem targets precisely the peoples who behaved, and continue to behave, in the described manner towards china - as these have mostly been westerners that is, of course, who the poem is primarily focused on. the use of "we" and "you" makes perfect sense, imo. china and the chinese are percieving attacks on them - "we" - from outside - "you" - (primarily, but not just, westerners). certainly an aura of misunderstanding - both cultural and political - seems to surround many of china's relations with the rest of the world, and primarily the west, dating back to the mid-19th century. EDIT - an impasse could be reached, wherein neither side will deign to respond to comments "not worthy of consideration"...

jesus, there's no pleasing some people... edit - btw, just noticed this: I also find it interesting that they don't have something Chinese to be proud of, instead of the Olympic games, which are a modern, European invention with its history dating back to the ancient Geek civilisation.quote> wow. clearly the Chinese are proud of hosting the olympics because they have nothing else to be proud of. or let me guess, even though the Olympics are an international event - meant to symbolize global unity - only Europeans have any right to be proud of it because it's one of their inventions? what absolute rubbish; and the antithesis of what the olympics should be about. any nation that hosts the olympics should be rightly proud to do so, or they shouldn't be hosting them. on a similar vein, i wonder if ,when 2010 comes around, the Olympic torch relay will be marred by protests over the human rights record of Canada? almost certainly not, i imagine, the native population isn't nearly so PR savvy as the dalai lama and the tibetan government-in-exile. it's a bit of a national embarrassment, but luckily - for us - i doubt anyone will even notice.

Who wants to reinstate what theocratic regime, feudal monarchy, or serfdom? quote> not explicitly perhaps, but is there any reason to think that reinstating the dalai lama would lead to a democratic system of government? admittedly, it would likely be difficult to return wholly to the original system at this point, but that's the regime that the PRC largely abolished, and having the dalai lama return to an independent Tibet would likely result in a theocratic regime. i wasn't actualy accusing anyone here of supporting it, but i know many people who do support the return of the dalai lama to an independent tibet, it was more a general complaint. @belfastuniguy - yes, i can see what you mean that disclaimer was not well placed - the very end of the post would have been better. i merely hoped to avoid what happened a few pages back where my post involving "undeniable western intervention" was taken as an attack on the british empire and spawned a barrage of nationalistic comments - i decided that from now on i should tread lightely whenever any minor negative inferences could be made linking my posts to the british empire No of course not, just singling out British people...quote> further evidence that my caution/concerns are justified, any apparent singling out or criticism based on nationality is wholly unintentional, i assure you. as i mentioned earlier, i'm half british meself, and tea is indeed a superior beverage

Who are "you"? Is the poem still supposed to be aimed at the west? If it is, why use images from a Japanese bombing to tell us what we did? Why is there a need to be dishonest about it?quote> you do realize krbe that there is intense animosity between china and japan, there is no reason to think that the poem/video is specifically targeting westerners and ignoring what the japanese did - to think so is merely further evidence of your intensely eurocentric views. indeed the japanese are almost certainly much more hated within china than the west is. anyways, the poem/video certainly has inconsistencies (in fact, i think the poem by itself is more effective) but it gets across a message (more a national idea or sense than unalloyed truth) that is both valid and pertinent. it is a poem, not an essay, so to take it apart systematically and scientifically is quite frankly missing the point. i too have some problems with some of the imagery and some of the content of the poem, but overall i think it accomplished its aim very well - i think it would be better to discuss the validity of the major themes of the poem, rather than nitpick the use and nature of the images that accompanied the poem. In addition to water we need to have a nice discussion about how imperialism ended in the late sixties and is therefore NOT a current event or something whose outcome or moral justification we should debate.quote> i think that imperialism is tied to the discussion to some limited extent, it's very easy as the colonizing power to say 'yes, all that was in the past let's just move on shall we?' but likely less so for the nation that was colonized. in regards to China, imperialism is tied to the present situation in two ways: (a) europe abandoned - or was forced from - colonialism a mere 45 years ago, would it perhaps be hypocritical of them to criticize a state that was carrying out imperialistic policies today, or is 45 years enough turnaround time? (b) imperialism played a huge role in the modern history of china - it isn't called the "century of national humiliation" for nothing, and this effects everything from china's modern perception of foreigners - particularly westerners and the japanese - to their manner of participating in the global community, and their lack of desire to listen to anything we have to say. from a chinese perspective, to listen to and alter your policies in the face of foreign pressure would be a huge loss of face, especially when these are the same people who not that long ago humiliated your country - it would be akin to kissing the hand that slapped you. personally, i agree that discussing it's moral justification is fruitless, but discussing it's outcome is not - current events do not exist within a vacuum, and examining the history is important in cases such as these. while i think many things that went on under colonialism are morally apprehensible, i don't judge it - it is what states do after all - and it is because of this that i have few major problems with what China does in Darfur or Tibet. disclaimer: i should note that i'm in no way attacking or singling out the British Empire. In regards to flaming I belive we all need to stop being hotheaded nationalists which can only lead to further flaming.quote> oddly, the only people i see being hotheaded nationalists are Brits In politics, perception is more important than reality. and it's helpful to understand what other people's perceptions are. quote> i agree whole-heartedly, and that sentiment is pertinent to much more than just politics... one

Confused: i dont think that species A made species B. i think species A1 (yea, its that important ) evolved into species A2. and plus, if i try and explain what i believe, people start saying, "wait...what?" and then i just get confused. it happens. quote> but if you accept that a species can change from v1.0 to v2.0, wouldn't it make sense that over millions of years it could change into something completely different? why would the change necessarily limit itself to the "initial boundaries"? and would you mean that all the different cats (feral and domestic) are the same "species" and we can see that there is variation and thus change, or do you mean that say a tiger is a seperate species and small changes may occur over time but it still remains a tiger?

@ JDRCrash - i didn't say that everything was necessarily comprehensible to humans, much of it isn't. much of it has to be broken down into numbers and equations before humans can really comprehend it - and even then only a few of us. just because things are incomprehensible doesn't mean that we need a divine agency to create, run, and explain the universe. and how are emotions proof of the existence of God? not all people are necessarily saddened by death, and what is the source of this sadness? could it be the result of hormones and brain chemistry? why is it proof of a soul? is it the selfish sadness of being removed from one you love? is it true empathy? why would a christian be sad anyways, shouldn't one rejoice at the death of a loved one since they're going to heaven to be beside God? Having faith in a greater source of power is in of itself a miracle quote> why is having faith in a 'greater source of power' a miracle? humans are highly irrational creatures, it makes perfect sense that in a world where so much was unknown and unexplainable, where people lived with the ever-present nearness of death and fear, that peope would believe in and pray to a divine being. an afterlife to assuage our fears of death, a divine spirit to give order and explanation to the universe and the mysterious inner workings of humans themselves, and to comfort us in in times of distress. no, belief in the divine makes perfect sense in such an environment; the mystery is how modern humans reconcile such superstitions with what modern science has revealed about the universe and human nature. but people must also understand that not every religious organization is truthful. quote> ah, and which religious organization is truthful then? who decides? which interpretation of God is correct? how can humans even have a correct interpretation of God? what about non-organized religions? is it truthful simply because it is the one you happen to believe is truthful? anyways, doesn't the story of God creating the world in seven days seem a little far-fetched? why would one believe it if they hadn't learned it as a child? it's as fanciful as all the other creation myths (like the ones about the world being a gigantic turtle floating on the sea, or that the whole world was made on the back of a trout). ID too, seems doubtful, why is an intelligent agent necessary? teaching ID in school is something that i think cannot be allowed to happen, it's worse enough if they got it from their parents, but for children to be indoctrinated by the state into believing such a thing is heinous, imo. EDIT - I was never in church because I feared for my soul; I go to church because it provides a community of caring people around whom I feel comfortable. I believe in the Christian way of life - whether God is there to watch what I do or not, I think that the guidelines of love, pacifism, acceptance, charity, and caring that Jesus embodies are the pinnacle of a good lifesyle. quote> precisely why i am not against religion per se. i think there are a lot of healthy things that religion as a social institution provides, from community-feeling/unity, to moral guides - aside from belief in God. nor, as you say, can you discount its effect (both negative and positive) on people who truly do believe. (btw, sorry if this all sounds a little antagonistic, it's not meant to be, again i'm merely expressing my inability to comprehend these issues "from the other side", as it were)

i guess it doesn't really count as child "labour", but my dad worked as a sweeper/cleaner in a factory when he was 9. his family was well-off, so his dad made him work to instil some worker values. that would've been in the 50's. (in canada, btw) in third world countries, almost everyone works to bring in some income for the family, and so income from children can be essential to their survival.

In my limited experience, people who say that and say "there is no god" are often just too afraid to beleive the idea that one day they will be judged, and that what they do now will determine how they spend the rest of eternity. And that can often turn into attacking religion, from that fear.quote> yes, your experience must be pretty limited since most atheists i know, and myself, don't think like that at all. how can you fear judgement on your soul, if you fundamentally deny the existence of God and all the wierd human rituals/superstitions that surround the worship of said entity. mostly i don't believe in God because i wasn't brought up to, i was brought up to believe whatever i wanted, and since the idea of believing in some divine entity was never ingrained into me during my early formative years, when i grew older the idea of it seemed absurd. to an 'outsider' or the unitiated it often seems irrational and eccentric to believe in God. even if i were to believe in a "God" it wouldn't be anything like the deity that is worshipped in the major or organized religions. the human rituals and stories which are attached often seem more eccentric than the belief in a divinity itself. additionally, i certainly don't attack religion. i firmly believe everyone has a right to worship as they please. of course the case could be made that teaching religion to small children is indoctrination, but on the other hand the vast majority of theists seem to go about their lives perfectly normally, and are certainly not as a rule stupid, so perhaps it doesn't do too much harm. especially since fundamentalism seems to exist for only a small minority of theists, and dangerous fundamentalism is certainly not exclusive to religion. as for the creation myth, i really cannot understand how people - even quite rational people - can believe in something so comprehensively irrational. if you didn't learn it as a child, and were only made aware of it as a fairly educated adult, you would likely decry it as the rediculous legend of some primitive jungle tribe - certainly not a belief extolled by people living in the most advanced human societies that have ever existed. there's also the fact that their are countless creation myths and countless 'Gods', who is to say which one is "correct"? (btw, don't see the above as an 'attack' on religion, just an expression of my complete and utter inability to comprehend it)

i use tollbooths to try to redirect some traffic onto alternate routes, it seems to work.

meh, it's hardly as if western states don't support, or haven't supported recently, highly questionable regimes when it's expedient. Saddam's Iraq is a pretty major example of that. of course you can be against it, but it's hardly unique to China. and yeah, chinese workers are treated poorly in comparison to western standards, but that's just symptomatic of her economic position - it'll improve over time; present working conditions in the west weren't reached overnight.

1) According to the Tibet Wikipedia page, there's neither a stated Chinese policiy of immigration to the Tibet region, due to the harsh conditions (altitude, communication, etc.), and those who have come (the Hans) have not pushed the nativs further inland the way it happened in the US.quote> Oh ok. I didn't exactly mean that they were precisely the same, just that the idea was similar in that the dominant culture is opening up a largely empty western frontier for settlement and economic development. whether stated policy or not, that's what's happening to a greater or lesser extent, and is one of the major causes of Tibetan resentment of the central government. As for Europe, no doubt society can pull itself away from serfdom, especially when there are large external influences on a region - as there undeniably was in europe - but this is neither inevitable and much less likely under a rigid theocratic system existing in some excluded mountain fastness. And the changes that occured in europe happened over centuries, is there any reason to believe that the Tibetan leadership would have carried out drastic reforms and set their country on the path to economic development and social enlightenment within 50 years? Landowners and nobles don't voluntarily abandon serfdom and redistribute their estates, this happens as a result of serious societal, military, and technological changes. anyways, all i said was that in my humble opinion the average Tibetan was likely much better off under the PRC then they would've been under the native leadership, and i can't see what all the fuss is about. I mean, the GDP doubled in size in six years, and the country is being opened up to Chinese entreprenuers (which is likely a healthy thing). Of course, unrest is likely to result, as in SE Asia where overseas Chinese were behind a large part of the economic development of countries like Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia, but were resented for controlling a disproportionate amount of the wealth, but overall it's good for the economic well-being of the country (especially since not all nations are equal when it comes to entreprenuerial skill). As for Maoism, it is rediculous that people still believe in it, considering that it's been virtually abandoned in China itself...

The second pargraph is not right, wether in stated policy (none, due the location of the region) or reality (no "pushbacks"). However, to take over the government of an area one only enough to fill the important civil service functions.quote> i'm sorry, i don't completely understand this. Oh, guess in which part of the world that transformation happened all on its own; it took a good fifty year for the rough work to be done, but one didn't need outsiders (except for the ideas). And I vaguely remember someone talking about cultures... Anyway, as good as everybody (or any country might be more correct) is better off today than fifty years ago. Admittedly, they are far from everyone and pretty much uninteresting, but they still would have developed, wether on their own, under the ROC or the PRC.quote> again, i don't understand the first part, as for the latter part i wonder how you can so confidently state that Tibet would've developed regardless; that it's feudal masters (the nobles and monks) would've voluntarily abandoned the feudal system, implemented land reforms, and started the economic development of the country. it hadn't gone anywhere between 1912-1950, why would the leadership have necessarily done much more than that subsequently? plus, the revolt against Chinese rule in 1959 was based around resistance to land reforms, land reforms that would've been necessary for development - perhaps they resented it because it was enforced by an extrenal agency, but it hardly supports the thesis that Tibet's leadership would've gladly undergone tremendouse land/economic reforms and freed the serfs. and no, countries don't just automatically get better. perhaps small improvements occur over time - although conditions in Tibet had been virtually static for centuries - but it's hardly as if every economy inevitably doubles in size within 6 years. many parts of Africa have failed to see significant growth since the 70's, indeed certain states have seen their economies shrink. i agree, however, that they would've likely developed under the ROC as well. Some actually prefer it that way. Look no further than right across the border. quote> yes, because Nepal is such a successful country...

@ krbe, i was wondering where you get the statistics on demographic swamping of Tibet, and which figures do you trust? although the PRC figures are likely distorted, those of the Free Tibet movement could be similarly manipulated - both sides are trying to make a point, and why should the pro-Tibet side be necessarily more transparent? i just wonder because in my own research there seems to be quite a broad range of possible figures, which only becomes more complex depending on which definition of 'Tibet' one is using. another reason to call into question the pro-Tibet movements numbers is the highly questionable statistics they give on Tibetan deaths under PRC rule, which even non-PRC sources claim are highly exaggerated. those seem to be the two major sources, since i don't think the PRC allows foreigners to carry out census research in Tibet. i just mention it because you state that Han Chinese are now the majority group, but i think this is only within 'Greater Tibet' if at all, since i believe those are pro-Tibet statistics. as far as demographic swamping is concerned, i'd say it's very similar to what happened between Canada/US and the native populations - it's the opening up of the western frontier for settlement, at least in this case some semblance of Tibetan culture has been preserved and they haven't simply been packed off into reserves. @ simbug, during the Cold War the US had a policy of containment directed at the USSR and the PRC, by which it gained major allies near the borders of these states and fostered economic development and friendship - as well as the usage of these countries for large deployments of US troops. S Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and W Germany were key parts of this strategy, the idea being to develop a highly successful capitalist economy which would be invulnerable to the spread of communism. also, during WWII the ROC had been a major ally of the US, after their defeat and exile to Taiwan the situation remained unchanged - it was now a crucial ally against Red China instead of the Japanese. Tibet had never really had a close relationship w/ the US, it wasn't a sovereign state after all, and i don't think any country has ever recognized it as such, was strategically unimportant and in any event would have been exceedingly difficult to support in any meaningful way. also, immediately after the war, the US policy of supporting independence and democracy rapidly changed to the containment of communism, so independence was no longer the overriding criteria - most noticeably during the Vietnam war. admittedly, i believe the US did support the rebellion of the Tibetan nobles and monks to some extent. basically, Tibet was unimportant, so there wasn't much interest. personally, i really can't see what's so bad about Chinese rule, it's certainly much better than whatever the Tibetans had before, i mean it's hardly as if the typical Tibetan was "free" before the PRC came, seeing as how it was a serf-based, feudal economy. i imagine many of the Tibetans in exile are the monks or nobles who really had a lot to lose, no wonder they want to return to a "free" Tibet where they can be overlords once more. i mean, even if the PRC numbers are exaggerated, the Tibetans are likely much better off economically then they were 50 years ago, and i do wonder how effective the theocratic-feudal regime would have been in improving the lot of the Tibetan serfs... (although i suppose a die hard self-determinist would say it's their own choice if they want to remain a backwards mountain state which western tourists can visit to gawk at the 'quaint' ethnic culture...)

btw, i wasn't bashing the UK in any way in my post. i simply stated that the west had a long history of foreign intervention, which is an undeniable fact. while i don't think colonialism was a necessarily good thing, especially the way a lot of non-British countries carried it out, there's not much you can do about it now. and sorry, but the dissemination of technology is NOT the same as state-led military or diplomatic intervention. the first often comes about naturally, for instance the technologies that spread to europe from britain during the industrial revolution, the second is the action of governments to alter the policies or government of another state. technological innovation has spread back and forth across eurasia for millennia, technologies moved from east to west (and vice versa) and did not require that the rulers of India intervene in Europe, or that the Holy Roman Emperor demand better "human rights" in Ming China. Well if you don't like us British we'll be more than happy to take away your internet and your railways and everything else we invented. quote> i found this comment particularly amusing, as if i were chinese; not only am i not chinese, i'm half-british . and the comment wasn't even relevant to what i said, just a case of opportunistic nationalism i suppose. as i said, western foreign intervention is a fact, no need to get so touchy - i merely mentioned that maybe some of said interventions were less than exemplary (another fact). and no need to get into a debate on how wondrous the west is, and certainly don't aplogize for it - i loathe the western guilt complex. i found the subsequent listing of western inventions amusing and irrelevant as well . i actually am finding myself in an odd position, since it's normally me who has to debate against people who think colonialism was one of the most evil things ever to occur... (and sorry, but i had to point out that i wasn't 'attacking' britain - in fact i hardly mentioned colonies at all ) @krbe - yes, it often seems that China is setting up dependencies in east african countries with questionable regimes with the aim of creating a neo-colonial empire in africa to get at that continent's bountiful natural resources. thanks to all the instability and poor infrastructure, it is one that isn't quite so dominated by western countries, and so gives them a perfect opportunity to develop economic dependencies. (and sorry if a lot of this is outdated, but i don't have time to check this forum everyday )

lol, you'll find westerners just LOVE to intervene all over the world, they started at the end of the Middle Ages and they've been doing it ever since, it's a hard habit to beat not that it's all been bad, but still, they have a record of international intervention that is far, far in excess of anyone else. good thing too that they finally - in the last century/half-century - became liberal champions of human rights and capitalism, well really that only happened since the end of the Cold War 20 years ago... anyways, it's really only non-UK EU countries that have any right to castigate and boycott China - surely whatever they're doing is not as bad as invading a sovereign state under questionable pretenses at best and subjecting the population to unrelenting suffering and death. clearly major examples of western interventions around the world (Vietnam, Bosnia, Iraq) or pointed non-interventions (Rwanda, East Timor) should serve as a blinding light of righteousness and selflessness that all should adopt. or perhaps it's alright if you do these things to people outside of your sovereign territory? anyways, the point about China setting goals, targets and promises and then failing to meet them is hardly unique, and thus moot. indeed it seems a typical pastime of governments everywhere. to criticize China or India for carbon emissions is also rediculous, w/ certain western countries in the process of opening up new coal power plants, and still maintaining by far the highest per capita emissions (China's 3.8 tonnes per capita is far lower than the US' 20.4 tonnes), methinks it is further evidence of western hypocracy. where i live anyways, and i suspect in most western countries, carbon emission reductions have been all talk and little action...

the problem with a uniform grid covering an entire map is that it looks exceedingly boring and its lazy (anyone can do it). the uniform 6x4 grids are especially bad - from what i've seen - since a lot of grids aren't even like this in real life. however, suburbs certainly can be grid-based and still realistic, even in European cities. my own city - a Canadian city, and hardly exemplary - has vast tracts of gridded suburbs, some of them over 100 years old, while only the most recent ones have the wending streets of a stereotypical 'suburbia'. also, the grid pattern has been in use for millennia, the Greeks and Romans used a grid-based system in town planning - the legendary Alexandria was based on such a system - and in some instances the grid pattern survives into the modern city. Chinese cities were also laid out on a grid, and you can see this in Beijing today on Google Earth. it's often been considered the easiest and most efficient method of city-planning, even if it is monotonous, and has been widely used in city-planning long before the advent of the automobile. in North American cities, much of the grid is the result of the land being parcelled out on a regular squares which cities absorbed as they expanded into the countryside, especially in the west. because of the limitations of SimCity, curved and diagonal roads are not only difficult to work with, they also end up looking wierd unless your willing to put a lot of time and effort into it (if you're doing it on a large scale). the most important thing is to add variations to the grid: have different areas of variably sized grids, place diagonal roads and fit the transport system in with the local terrain instead of simply applying a grid over all and sundry. make multiple roads leading out of the city on irregular paths so that as your city grows it absorbs these patterns. for instance my city is based almost entirely on various grids, except for major thoroughfares - Portage, Main, Pembina - which cut through it irregularly, and which were originally 'trails' which led to other nearby settlements.

China needs to learn its historyquote> I think China is acutely aware of it's history... Anyways, while the 'learning from history' theory has some merit, I think it also has some serious flaws. Firstly, it makes the assumption that simply because people have the knowledge of something that has happened before, know the consequences, and even have the means - in China's case this is debatable - to prevent or alleviate it they will necessarily 'learn from their mistakes' and prevent another round - history has told us this is patently untrue. Secondly, it ignores the idea of developmental stages, and posits that really any state at any level of human rights, environmental, economic, or political development can make rapid - near instantaneous based on what some people here have been saying - changes to the levels of the most advanced and enlightened states in the world. So some would say that heavy pollution (along with a long list of other 'ills') is a natural and likely unavoidable feature of the early stages of development when a nation is poor and in the throes of rapid urbanization and industrialization. There simply isn't enough time or resources to invest heavily in environment saving technologies. Most on these forums would say that really all that is immaterial, the technology exists in the world - western developed and available for a fee - and regardless of all the other pressures on the government really the environment should be a top priority - because the west has gone through all this China should simply know better. And don't tell me how bad the environment is, I did a project entitled "Environmental Degradation in China as a Result of Rapid Industrialization" and the numbers are truly astounding. The toxicity of the watercourses and the air costs the Chinese economy about 7-10% of their GDP per annum and is expected to increase to 15% by 2020 if nothing is done. And it is the responsiblity of the Government to enforce environmental regulations - even within the west corporations have been loathe to comply with environmental regulations; it is not something that a free market economy will do by itself - however it is a delicate balancing act between enforcing environmental regulations and producing jobs and expanding the economy (one that, given the track record of governments, it is likely to get wrong). The maxim is "bad air and water may kill you in 100 days, no food or heat will kill you in 3", and for a country which still has a sizeable population living on the brink of survival the ideals of environmentalism become more than just a western fad, but a question of life and death. As I said, it's a delicate balance, and who am I to know what the right course of action is? Lastly, people have pointed out 'Europe learned from it's mistakes'. Quite simply no, at the time they - generally - didn't think they were doing wrong, and it's only very recently that they have been largely recognized as 'mistakes'. Europe gradually, as a result of increasing wealth, education, and democracy (and a dash of humanism and christian charity) increasingly became more liberal and open - at least within Europe itself. Cultures very rarely realize societal 'mistakes' and move to remedy them, certainly not in one fell swoop - though a small cumulative action over time will have an overall positive result. Really, it depends on your ideas of how cultural/societal changes come about... @ krbe - You distaste of relativists is noted. To be honest, I'm really not a relativist, but when I'm engaging in an academic discussion where my own personal opinion is largely irrelevant and are discussing facts, realities, and root causes I tend to be relativistic because (a) it gives you a broader

So, all fine then? Of course not. If you chose to vote in secret, you could be sure that you'd miss promotions, benefits and so on. Also, only 50% of the seats were up for grabs; the rest were reserved the Socialists, so that they'd never lose, no matter how many would ever choose to vote secret. That the Chinese aren't using the secret ballot box is probably more a sign of its socialist election system which only favours those in power, and not about some Asian collective "values". You might also have missed the fact that there is an election going on in the United States right now, and that they many places have something called caucuses, and they don't seem that "Asian".quote> lol, I didn't say it was the final word in chinese democracy, simply that there might be some signs of opening up. Of course nothing might ever come of it as well . Anyways, this discussion is fairly pointless, you keep pointing out that what the chinese government does is wrong, and I'm not disagreeing with that at all. I'm not saying it's right to torture your own citizens over their beliefs, or that it's right to oppress minorities, or that it's right to restrict peoples political rights. I'm simply saying that it likely isn't anywhere near as bad as many people seem to believe, that most people tend to be more interested in economic survival as opposed to political freedom - what difference does it make if you're allowed to criticize the government but you starve to death? - and that, in my humble opinion, the effects of capitalism and increasing prosperity will eventually lead to a freer China. If you go back to my very first post, I'm not giving unabashed support for the communist party or the oppression of tibet, I'm not saying 'hurrah oppression, it's great!', I'm merely looking at some of these problems within a greater historical context - and trying, at least, to be dispassionate. I personally think the rise of china is a great, I think the lifting of millions out of poverty is a good thing, I think that the return of the world to a non-western dominated multipolarity is healthy, I think that while China is certainly worthy of criticisms the constant anti-chinese spiel gets a little tiring and often fails to take into consideration the many and sizeable difficulties the country and the regime face. Again, if you go back to my first post I'm not saying, 'let the chinese oppress tibet, because the west did it in it's evil days' (although you could likely interpet it that way), i'm saying that under extreme population pressures these things seem to happen - and i gave the example of the europeans in north america as a relevant example, not as a justification. I do think it's ironic that western powers often behaved very badly during their period of global dominance, and that certain acts were closely linked to their industrialization - for instance the British dismantling the Indian textiles industry so that they'd have to buy textiles from Manchester, or carrying out the largest trade in illicit drugs in history - and now when a country is in very much the same situation as they were back then they cry foul and demand reforms. (a) After the 'century of national humiliation' the chinese are likely not going to be very receptive to outsiders - especially westerners - telling them how things should be done, and (b) I think it is a bit of an arrogant view to expect the world to so rapidly bring itself in line with the west (especially since the west certainly hasn't always supported freedom and democracy worldwide - a trend which has only become questionably apparent rather recently) in the spheres of economic development, politics, and human rights. Also, please stop referring to Suharto as 'my friend' and 'my protector', I am not a supporter of Suharto, I am not a supporter of what Indonesia has done in<

It's hard to really see any kind of democratic values in this kind of societyquote>>> This reminds me of a documentary I watched about China which showcased a village-level election. It was completely different from what you would have in the west (of course these types of elections aren't actually considered 'valid' by observers). the secret booth was totally unused, while all the villagers sat around and discussed together who they would vote for. This illustrates, I think, yet another difference: the consensual/collective nature of east asian societies as compared to the independent nature of western industrial societies. It would be interesting if China were able to create a kind of democracy different from that of the west.>> Why do the defenders of China believe that a Big Brother system now, will magically turn out to be a benevolent Politbüro system later, and in the end largely a "free" state? You might think that's what being "objective" is all about, but for those in power no one benefits their system more than the relativists out there. Newton's third law tells us that "for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction"quote>>> Er, the reason I believe this is that - historically - almost every country entered the early stages of industrialization as non-free, non-democratic states (or at least not entirely). Increasing prosperity, the development of a middle class, and better education has tended to lead to increased freedoms and democracy. This is just a correlation that exists, and which I believe can be applied generally, and is why, in my humble opinion, I think that China will eventually grow freer and more democratic.>> Also, the politburo isn't entirely idiotic, it realizes that social pressures in China are increasing - it can either increase the pressue and risk an explosion or ease off slowly and release some of the pressure. If the government were to crack down too hard the government might face rebellion, while suddenly lifting all the restrictions might similarly cause the state to descend into chaos. It's a fine line, imo, and hopefully the government can manage it without having the country collapse Additionally, the Communist party is paranoid, they take the 'better safe than sorry' approach, and really that isn't going to change anytime soon. The Communist party is going to be undone, and the state made freer by one of two ways: gradual change or sudden revolt/rebellion. The second of these is a terribly messy and uncertain affair (you have no idea if what you're getting is going to necessarily be better), not to mention highly disruptive. I certainly wouldn't advocate a rebellion in China. You can criticize the Chinese government as much as you want, but I don't think i'll do that much good, and again I dis