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Trytostaydead wrote:Come on guys, America's been torturing and executing their POWs for a long long time.

Yeah, just like they did to the German's in WW2

Jeez, the US has followed the Geneva Convention to a tee, and this is hardly a violation of it.

NF_Utvol wrote:

Trytostaydead wrote:Come on guys, America's been torturing and executing their POWs for a long long time.

Yeah, just like they did to the German's in WW2

Jeez, the US has followed the Geneva Convention to a tee, and this is hardly a violation of it.

Well.. I was thinking Vietnam..

The Duchess of Zeon wrote:Civilization has existed, oftentimes, basically unchanged for millenia. The industrial revolution was an anomaly, and we're still going through it (I don't buy the entire information age thing - It's just a gradation inside the industrial revolution. Heck, most of our power still comes from steam turbines. The industrial revolution was really about the concentration of people inside of cities, and that is still going on).

Just a nitpick: power generation from steam turbines hardly means that nothing has changed. Even the most advanced nuclear power plants use steam turbines and they bear no resemblance whatsoever to the technology of the original steam-powered age. This is like saying a 2003 Corvette is really no different from a Roman horse-drawn chariot because it still has wheels.

However, I would agree that the "Information Age" is a stupid distinction made by marketing gee-whiz people. The industrial revolution was ALWAYS about information, in the sense that it was driven by technological and scientific advancement, both of which are basically due to widespread dissemination of certain types of information.

Trytostaydead wrote:

NF_Utvol wrote:

Trytostaydead wrote:Come on guys, America's been torturing and executing their POWs for a long long time.

Yeah, just like they did to the German's in WW2

Jeez, the US has followed the Geneva Convention to a tee, and this is hardly a violation of it.

Well.. I was thinking Vietnam..

Yet another example of a country that didn't sign the Geneva convention. Plus, we still treated prisoners orders of mangitude better than the Viet-Cong and NVA treated US prisoners. I suggest you go read up on Vietnam POWs.

Darth Wong wrote: Just a nitpick: power generation from steam turbines hardly means that nothing has changed. Even the most advanced nuclear power plants use steam turbines and they bear no resemblance whatsoever to the technology of the original steam-powered age. This is like saying a 2003 Corvette is really no different from a Roman horse-drawn chariot because it still has wheels.

I wouldn't go that far - They still use the fundamental technology. That's what I'm trying to drive home with that comparison. Better comparison would be the first internal combustion engine car ever and a 2003 Corvette, perhaps?

However, I would agree that the "Information Age" is a stupid distinction made by marketing gee-whiz people. The industrial revolution was ALWAYS about information, in the sense that it was driven by technological and scientific advancement, both of which are basically due to widespread dissemination of certain types of information.

An interesting take on it. I look on the Industrial Revolution as being primarily about the transformation of Agricultural Society into Industrial Society - Agricultural Society being society organized with primarily human-based labour aided only by animals and simple machines able to support a minimal city infrastructure, and Industrial Society where the majority of the labour is done by fully mechanized equipment that allows the concentration of the majority of the populace into cities.

I think that a lot of what's destroying old-fashioned morality is this transition, and I don't think the transition is over yet. That's what irks me about the Information Age title - The Industrial Age hasn't even started yet. We're still in the Revolution period, technically.

The Duchess of Zeon wrote:

Darth Wong wrote: Just a nitpick: power generation from steam turbines hardly means that nothing has changed. Even the most advanced nuclear power plants use steam turbines and they bear no resemblance whatsoever to the technology of the original steam-powered age. This is like saying a 2003 Corvette is really no different from a Roman horse-drawn chariot because it still has wheels.

I wouldn't go that far - They still use the fundamental technology. That's what I'm trying to drive home with that comparison. Better comparison would be the first internal combustion engine car ever and a 2003 Corvette, perhaps?

Well, for one thing not all sources of power use steam; there's solar, wind, hydroelectric, and that weird ass one kilometer tower contraption they proposed in Australia.