Bonam

I'm a bit surprised that something like that got published in a mainstream paper. Not that it doesn't have a point. But it means distrust of Muslims is rising very quickly, quicker than I thought it would actually.

Come on Rue, you should understand the concern, being a Jew. Jews have existed as a distinct ethnocultural group for over 3000 years. Some would even consider Jews to be a race (or a collection of races). Where Jews have existed as minorities in the nations of other races or cultures, they have suffered discrimination to some extent throughout almost this entire historical period. Is it not a valid concern for Jews to want to remain as Jews, propagate their ethnicity and culture (or at least some aspects thereof) through the generations, and protect themselves from discrimination by maintaining a primarily Jewish homeland? If anything, the continued existence of Jews has shown that resistance definitely is NOT futile. If it is a valid concern for Jews, why would a similar concern not be valid for other ethnic, racial, or cultural groups that may feel that they also could be threatened, in the future?

You can always make one. In Antarctica or on Mars or one of Jupiter's Moon's or something. Thinking about this issue some more though, I've come to think that our western civilizations tend to be very laid back and tolerant and appeasing, for as long as they can be. But when they get really threatened, when a real, existential threat is presented, they are also the most determined and ruthless in eliminating that threat (world war II being the obvious example). If the Caucasian race dwindles and genocide against Caucasians begins to emerge, then those that remain at that point will fight back with immense determination and courage, just like the Jews did in Israel, and establish a nation (or many nations) of their own. It only takes a few million survivors to start up a nation, if the will is there. You sound happy at the prospect, as if it is a punishment that Caucasians have long deserved and yet so far escaped or something. Assuming you are Caucasian, and assuming that you might have some offspring one day, would you not be concerned for them, if the above scenario were to occur?

People do things for a reason. Prayer is something that people do, so they have a reason for doing it. Not being religious myself, I am curious as to what that reason is. Is there genuine hope that the prayer will be answered? That is, is there belief that through the act of praying, the probability of the desired outcome will be increased? Is it done for emotional comfort, knowing that there isn't any actual effect? Is it done simply because it is a reaction and ritual that is ingrained in people that are religious by institutions, with no particular thought on the part of the individual as to its effect?

Fairly good looking imo. Dunno about Platonic though.

Not really talking about cash or material goods here. If a family member has a serious illness, for example, would a religious Christian not usually pray for that person to get better? Would there not be some hope or expectation or desire for this prayer to be answered? Would there not be disappointment and sadness if the prayer is not answered? Would the prayer still be said if it was somehow known in advance that it was for sure not going to be answered? Would the prayer still be said if it was known for certain that the person would get better anyway?

With our current technology, it's not sustainable for 7 billion people to live on Earth, period. The answer to the lack of sustainability is not reversion to the past, nor the extermination of about 6 out of those 7 billion. Rather, as population grows, the only way to keep up is through progress. Advanced energy sources, higher density food production methods, relocation of heavy industry off-world, exploitation of other planetary bodies for minerals, colonization of other planets, etc. Civilized and uncivilized cultures used to exist side by side in the same world, and used to compete with one another. The ones that worked better won. Care to elaborate on what "totalitarian agriculture" means?

ScottSA.. so when people pray and ask for certain things, they are not actually expecting or hoping for any of their prayers to be answered? Could you explain to an ignorant atheist like myself the purpose of prayer if there is no expectation or desire of the prayer to be answered and some aspect of the real world altered as a result? Is it just to feel better, knowing that praying or not will not affect any worldly events? Is it simply part of the ritual and procedure of an institutionalized religion, with no particular thought or importance placed on its effectiveness? Is it restricted to hoping for intervention only on issues related to the supernatural, like one's immortal soul? What is the purpose of prayer?

You didn't really make it up, the Caucas region, or explicitly Caucasia in some languages, is an actual location. That location is the Caucus mountains in southeastern Europe, including parts of Russia, Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, etc. The term Caucasian originates from a reference to this area, which was believed to be the origin of what we today consider white people. Just thought I'd clear that up. While the overall genetic difference between "races" is often smaller than the genetic difference between two members of the same race, is it not true that certain genes, such as those that control skin pigmentation, are strongly correlated with race? 3000 years ago (which is closer to 150 generations), most of the ancestors of most of the people reading this forum wouldn't have been in Europe yet. Can you provide a reference for that assertion? While I agree that change has most likely been relatively small, it is doubtful that there was no change at all. Evolutionary change can occur very rapidly when there are strong selection pressures, such as intense persecution of groups with certain features, rapidly changing environmental conditions, highly deadly and contagious diseases, etc. I mostly agree with the rest of your post but just wanted to contest those points as I'm not convinced of their accuracy.

We need a fleet of: - 200 nuclear powered icebreaker aircraft carriers with capacity for 200 fighters each - 400 nuclear submarines equipped with icecap piercing ICBMs - 1600 icebreaker destroyers, frigates, cruisers, to escort our polar aircraft carriers in battlegroups - thousands of new amphibious fusion powered hovercraft that can navigate through our oceans (whether frozen or thawed) as well as our arctic islands without pause, at speeds of no less than 500km/h - all icebreaker vessels will be able to automatically transform into more standard configuration during summer months, for increased speed Also, to support this, we need: - 16 new major cities built along the coast of the arctic ocean and on islands in the arctic area, all with modern fortification systems including anti-missile laser arrays, to make sure these new ports are safe against retaliation - development of covert facilities buried below the floor of the arctic ocean, which can be used as secret bases for our submarine fleet - advanced underground maglev vaccuum tube transportation systems which will allow rapid translocation of forces to areas of necessity - recruitment of approximately 5 million more armed services personnel In addition, for intelligence purposes to be able to apply these new forces correctly we will need: - a new system of Canadian Earth monitoring satellites which can provide us with simultaneous 1 cm resolution video of the entirety of the Earth's surface, including multispectral and gravitational imaging to enable detection of submarine and subterranean activites - systems for the eradication of possible competitor nation orbital surveillance networks, including autonomous armed missile, laser, and reactionless cannon satellites, satellites armed with nuclear EMPs, and manned orbital battlestations - systems to prevent the destruction of our surveillance satellites by hostile nations, including decoy satellites, autonomous countermeasures, stealth technology, and rapid maneuvering capability This can all be achieved for a paltry cost of: - 300 trillion dollars

That's what an interview is for? There are exceptional people, both native-born and immigrant, in both Canada and the US. Microsoft, and any other corporation, can pick from among them. If they decide to hire people with severe English defficiency, it will be their own choice.

I'm sure there are already hundreds or perhaps thousands of al-Qaeda and other terrorist cells in the US and most other countries. Seriously, it's not hard to recruit a few people over the internet, and some of them may be willing to do a few things.

Obviously.

I'm sure they probably are. Personally, I don't need any further evidence not to believe in religion at this point, as I already am not a believer. The remark of "assuming for a moment" was more aimed at other people, who are religious, to see how they would reply. I'm guessing that the most reflexive response would be to question the validity of those studies, and wanted to see what the next response would be.

That's very likely, almost a given in fact, in the long term and assuming that civilization remains global. The question is which racial groups will cease to exist first, which last, and what effect this may have. Will some races, as they dwindle, become objects of discrimination for past wrongs, real or perceived? How will humanity look in 1000 years? Will we all be Black, or will we all be Chinese? Or maybe humans will have spread out onto a bunch of other planets by then, and some of them will, in their isolation, have maintained characteristics of some of today's races. There's nothing wrong with thinking about and discussing these issues.

Assuming for a moment that the scientific studies cited in the end part of the video are true, namely that groups who pray have no higher incidence of the desired outcome than groups who do not pray, what is the point of praying?

Physical evolutionary factors are not really at play any more. A black person living in the north isn't going to die from vitamin D defficiency from insufficient sunlight, because he can just take some vitamins. A white person living on the equator isn't gonna die from sunburn, he can just put on some sunscreen. Those are simplifications of course, but the point is that modern technology removes a lot of evolutionary factors that originally made peoples in certain geographic areas differ in the way they do.

Culture is also a big part of it actually... while I haven't read a study showing this, I'd be willing to bet that the average number of kids in immigrant households (especially immigrants from Asia, Africa, Middle-East) is a lot higher than the average number of kids in "Canadian" households, even in the case of immigrants that are well to do and "affluent". Perhaps we just need a big add campaign glorifying having kids.

I disagree that you cannot alter the fundamental economics that you mentioned. In fact, I think it's quite possible, and that it is especially easy to encourage a family that has already had 1 kid anyway to have more. As you mentioned, the main reasons people don't have kids or don't have as many kids are, of course, money and time. Time spent raising the kids and losing out on career opportunities, time lost parttaking in funner activities that a couple without kids could enjoy, and money spent on the various needs of raising a family, including more food, larger housing, education, etc. What needs to be noticed first is that the time requirement is basically a few years after birth in terms of lost career opportunities, and about 15-20 years after birth until (roughly) you are more or less free from spending the majority of your time on your kid. Having more than 1 kid in a short period of time (say 3 kids in 4 years) increases the timespan until you can return to a "kidless" life by only 3 years, compared to just having 1 child. And most families do still have at least 1 child. That means that the first kid basically takes away 20 years of freedom from your life, whereas each of the next take away only a year and a half more (given the 3 kids in 4 years example). Thus, the added time expenditure to increase fertility from 1 to 3+ is minimal, compared to just having that first one, which most couples still do. So if they already had 1, and there was an incentive to have more, chances are they'd go for it. Secondly, as lifespans increase, taking say 20-25 years out of your life to raise 3+ kids becomes less of a sacrifice. If your life expectancy is 60, and you're old and sickly by 55, then having kids at the age of 30 means you've spent your entire healthy life after that point raising them. But if your life expectancy is 80, and you remain in good health til 75, that means you still have 20 years of healthy life to enjoy after you're all done raising kids. If you live healthy to the age of 120, it becomes a much smaller sacrifice. Life expectancy has been rising, and will continue to rise, and as it does, the fraction of their lives that people have to devote to raise a certain number of kids will decrease. That leaves the issue of money, and this is where government policies can definitely help. First, as was mentioned, a national daycare system would be a huge help for parents. Not only would it save money, but it would also lower the time period that parents (the ones that are willing to use the system rather than raise their kids themselves) have to spend before they can return to work. Anyway, we already have national daycare starting from the age of 6 or 7 (school), and there's no reason this couldn't just be extended down to a younger starting age. Also, additional incentives should be given to families, and these should be progressively higher for each additional child, so that it makes sense to have more, and couples can actually see it as a profitable rather than costly thing to do. Furthermore, post-secondary education shouldn't cost money, rather, it should be payed for. Companies have an interest in recruiting trained and well educated new employees. These companies could provide funding to students to complete their education, and in exchange, students would have to agree to work for a given period after graduation for that company. Large corporations looking for rapid growth could even open up their own post-secondary education centres, focused on teaching the students the skills and knowledge they need for that specific company. Programs like this could also be supplemented by the government, to get them off the ground, but would quickly become profitable and self-sustaining. These initiatives may sound expensive, but you gotta remember that a country with a youthful population has a much stronger economy. An aging population, like we have now, means a shrinking workforce and ever-increasing healthcare costs. Having birth rates up in the 3+ children/couple range would make reproduction of the existing population a much higher component of overall population growth than immigration, and would thus ensure the continued survival of Caucasians as a distinct race, without any thought of racist policies or decrease in the openness of our societies.

Yes, it's a valid concern, and I agree that bringing the question up is not racist. Honestly, Caucasians just need to start reproducing more. The problem is the difficulties and disincentives that our societies have for doing so.

And an opinion that desperately clings to "equal blame" in the face of any facts isn't biased? The Arabs have been trying to whipe out Israel since before it even came into existence, and all Israel has ever done is try to defend itself - sometimes not aggressively enough, and sometimes too aggressively. Israel isn't perfect, and they've obviously made mistakes, but they are absolutely not guilty of trying to whipe out the Arab states around them or advocating the extermination of the Arab people, whereas various groups and states around them have constantly advocated for the eradication of Israel and the extermination of the Jews living there. In fact, if you delve deeper into the actual facts, you'll see that given the circumstances, Israel has expended significantly more effort avoiding civilian casualties among the Palestinians than just about any other nation in just about any other conflict. What other country telephones a building suspected to contain terrorists and their equipment to warn any civilians that might be there to get out, before they take action against the building? What other country provides food, water, and fuel to an area (Gaza) completely controlled by a group (Hamas) that is sworn to the country's destruction, just to make sure the civilians there don't suffer shortages of these commodities? Anyway, I'm sure you'll ignore all these points (like you did the last post) and just claim that anything posted by a person that has an opinion that holds one side to be less at fault than the other is biased and partisan. Never mind refuting any points or anything, just yell at the top of your lungs "omg biased". Works great, really.

Generally, that has been decreasing slowly, at least in the West (discounting the resurgence of fundamentalist Christianity in the US). Will never completely end though. Never, that much should be fairly obvious. Wouldn't expect it to happen until we find ourselves in an interstellar war with an alien race that wants to whipe us all out ;p

That gives us a vested interest in global warming, keep the ice away year round! ;p

I'm sure our Canadian volunteers would have higher morale, but not only would they be vastly outnumbered, they also would lack extremely important pieces of technology. For example, a fleet of nuclear submarines that can operate in the arctic, including under the ice. Try selling the idea of building a fleet of nuclear submarines to Canadians, would never happen. Anyway, no point arguing on this issue further really, as we probably won't be engaged in a military conflict with Russia in the arctic any time soon, and I do agree that Canada could use more presence there. Furthermore, here's some good news on this front: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2007/07/09/arctic-cda.html The federal government will fund the construction of six to eight new Arctic patrol ships to help reassert Canada's sovereignty over the North, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Monday. Harper also said the government will construct a deepwater port somewhere in the Far North, with the location to be announced soon. The port will be used as an operation base for the new patrol vessels. Sounds like you're gonna get that port you wanted.

Oh I fully agree we should have some presence there, after all, the arctic makes up much of our territory. Just pointing out that weaponeer's idea of us being the "world's best arctic warriors" is pretty unlikely.