Syria loading Sarin into bombs for deployment

[Flagg]

Flagg, what does it take to get you to admit that you have either grossly misread or misrepresented a basic English sentence? And at what point am I forced to believe that you are

And now you're trolling.

And now you are right back to substance-less one liners. Someone remind me why I bothered responding to you in the first place?

You can try to make it all about me as much as you want you lying motherfucker. It won't work. You came into this thread flinging shit all over the place. I'd suggest getting out while the getting is good.

[Formless]

What are you going to do, use your backseat mod powers to punish me, Flagg? Last I checked, you don't have any.

You came in here doing nothing but harassing me over something you clearly didn't read, and anyone with half a brain can see that. Refusing to admit it? Yeah, that's either dishonesty, or you really are that stupid. IF I leave, its not because you told me to shut the fuck up, which you did. Its not because you called me a troll for no reason, which you did. And its certainly not because you delivered meaningless threats. Its because you're boring the fuck out of me with your persistent bullshit.

[Sea Skimmer]

He still has great technical expertise and that's exactly the subject. In short that book clearly explains that it would be perfectly possible for a small group of dedicated researchers to create disease that could kill millions, possibly billions. And that was possible back in the 70's. Bio-science hasn't exactly become harder since that time. You started out this debate with the following claim.

Slade has great experience at naval warfare and air defense, and not anything else. He's spread around a lot claims from several books that proved to be nonsensical money making lies, such as a great deal of stuff from Viktor Suvorov. If you look into Ken Alibek for I don't know, about five seconds, you will find out that while he was involved in the Russian program and nobody denies that, a lot of his bigger claims are considered very highly questionable by US researcher. He you know, makes his money in private industry by playing up the threat and selling books. Doesn't really matter though, you don't need gene splicing to make a serious bioweapon.

[Flagg]

What are you going to do, use your backseat mod powers to punish me, Flagg? Last I checked, you don't have any.

God you're dumb. I have not threatened you with anything, I'm simply making strong suggestions for the sake of this thread not being locked due to your dumb ass.

You came in here doing nothing but harassing me over something you clearly didn't read, and anyone with half a brain can see that. Refusing to admit it? Yeah, that's either dishonesty, or you really are that stupid. IF I leave, its not because you told me to shut the fuck up, which you did. Its not because you called me a troll for no reason, which you did. And its certainly not because you delivered meaningless threats. Its because you're boring the fuck out of me with your persistent bullshit.

Then why keep responding, troll? And no reason? You flat out stated a falsehood and when called on it resorted to flinging more shit. You are at this point just a sad little liar afraid to admit he was wrong.

[cosmicalstorm]

He still has great technical expertise and that's exactly the subject. In short that book clearly explains that it would be perfectly possible for a small group of dedicated researchers to create disease that could kill millions, possibly billions. And that was possible back in the 70's. Bio-science hasn't exactly become harder since that time. You started out this debate with the following claim.

Slade has great experience at naval warfare and air defense, and not anything else. He's spread around a lot claims from several books that proved to be nonsensical money making lies, such as a great deal of stuff from Viktor Suvorov. If you look into Ken Alibek for I don't know, about five seconds, you will find out that while he was involved in the Russian program and nobody denies that, a lot of his bigger claims are considered very highly questionable by US researcher. He you know, makes his money in private industry by playing up the threat and selling books. Doesn't really matter though, you don't need gene splicing to make a serious bioweapon.

Ok I retract that claim. Thanks for the info.

[Irbis]

There are major social pressures at work that keep people from shooting up a mall, let alone blowing up the world. It is true that people can be broken down and convinced to do these things, but I think few people are aware just how much effort it takes to do that.

Yeah, like they had to broke down certain men to steer four airplanes, each with hundred people aboard, into four targets, each filled with hundreds of people. That didn't happen, and certainly not out of their own free will, in four times out of four.

Even the claim suicide sects keep to their own is idiotic, frankly, unless you think each of thousands of Israeli/Russian/US victims of Shahids was Muslim, that all 9/11 victims are Muslims, or that Tamil Tigers victims are all Hindu. It's trivially easy to find someone willing to press the button if you can play victims as others/worse, and unlike the botched Sarin attack, bioweapon will not only spread itself and multiply for free, it will also not be apparent at first.

Like the 9/11 proved that saying 'airplane terrorism didn't happened yet' saying no one used bioweapons yet will only hold water for as long as someone won't do it, and people willing to do that will certainly overlook any Muslim casualties new disease would cause in USA and Western Europe, or Muslim ones in Middle/Far East. Big Satan, kill them all, God Will Recognize Faithful, and all that. There are enough Muslim Sheiks or Christian fundie millionaires to fund the lab, and even if someone did fund such program and was intercepted by intelligence services already, we will certainly never heard anything about that to not inspire copycats.

[Formless]

Oh finally. Glad to see someone who isn't here just to tell me to shut up because they can't stand disagreement. Its surprisingly refreshing.

Yeah, like they had to broke down certain men to steer four airplanes, each with hundred people aboard, into four targets, each filled with hundreds of people. That didn't happen, and certainly not out of their own free will, in four times out of four.

There is a qualitative difference between a terrorist attack against an enemy of your ideology, and setting off weapons for the sole purpose of ending the world. One is attempting to further a political cause through violence. The other is just plain nuts. Like I told Simon, pandemic weapons make bad terror weapons because they only create more enemies to your cause, including people who would have supported you otherwise. Making them violently ill tends to do that.

But besides which, the people who perpetrated 9/11 were part of an organization which is known to use the very methods of social control and conditioning needed to create a suicide bomber. Guys like Jerry Falwell who blow smoke about wanting to start nuclear war just to start the apocalypse are not part of such organizations. They're just assholes blowing smoke.

Even the claim suicide sects keep to their own is idiotic, frankly, unless you think each of thousands of Israeli/Russian/US victims of Shahids was Muslim, that all 9/11 victims are Muslims, or that Tamil Tigers victims are all Hindu. It's trivially easy to find someone willing to press the button if you can play victims as others/worse, and unlike the botched Sarin attack, bioweapon will not only spread itself and multiply for free, it will also not be apparent at first.

Since when is Islam a suicide cult? Seriously, that has to be the most frankly weird and possibly bigoted claim I've ever heard about Islam.

Also, I already addressed the myth that bioweapons spread themselves. Its actually very hard to find diseases that are infectious enough to get very far or (just as importantly) escape quarantine. Most are made to be spread as aerosols, such as anthrax or tularemia. Just like chemical weapons, only I guess they can spread farther in the wind. And again, if it is that infectious it is also uncontrollable and therefore a horrible terror weapon; and too dangerous to store or handle for a nation state. I keep saying this, but it constantly bears repeating. Not all diseases have the qualities a weaponeer wants in a bioweapon.

Like the 9/11 proved that saying 'airplane terrorism didn't happened yet' saying no one used bioweapons yet will only hold water for as long as someone won't do it, and people willing to do that will certainly overlook any Muslim casualties new disease would cause in USA and Western Europe, or Muslim ones in Middle/Far East.

But will they continue to ignore it when the same flu bug or whatever weapon they created wafts its way back to the middle east? Having the knowledge to create such a weapon implies also having the knowledge of how diseases spread. That appears to be part of the point for you, but it means this is a predictable problem for our hypothetical terrorist organization.

Your analogy just doesn't work, because you haven't thought through the goals of terrorism and the consequences of using such a weapon.

As for the appeal to ignorance/fear, yes this logic only works until someone actually does it. But that's like saying that the LHC is dangerous because it hasn't produced stranglets yet. The implication is that its possible, therefor its inevitable. Do you see the fallacy? One does not imply the other; and it s improbable that any terrorist would be stupid enough to do this given that it goes against their goals and interests.

Big Satan, kill them all, God Will Recognize Faithful, and all that. There are enough Muslim Sheiks or Christian fundie millionaires to fund the lab, and even if someone did fund such program and was intercepted by intelligence services already, we will certainly never heard anything about that to not inspire copycats.

But will the copycats have the money and resources? Thing is, bioweapons may be cheaper than nuclear weapons to develop. However, that doesn't mean that they are cheap, especially if you want to reverse-engineer something as dangerous as the spanish flu from scratch. You need more than a lab, you need a factory to grow the bugs, make the delivery systems, and a training camp to indoctrinate the people who will ultimately set it off. And if you are a nation state, you need all that plus everything needed to make a vaccine (lab, factory, and public health organization ready to distribute it to your populace). If you don't have all of these, then the amount of damage you can do will be limited to things like attacking subway systems and poisoning food supplies. Dangerous? Yes. Earth shaking? Not really.

[Flagg]

Oh finally. Glad to see someone who isn't here just to tell me to shut up because they can't stand disagreement. Its surprisingly refreshing.

You were told to shut up, by me, because you were lying and wrong. Disagreement hasn't even come into it.

[thejester]

He still has great technical expertise and that's exactly the subject. In short that book clearly explains that it would be perfectly possible for a small group of dedicated researchers to create disease that could kill millions, possibly billions. And that was possible back in the 70's. Bio-science hasn't exactly become harder since that time. You started out this debate with the following claim.

Slade has great experience at naval warfare and air defense, and not anything else. He's spread around a lot claims from several books that proved to be nonsensical money making lies, such as a great deal of stuff from Viktor Suvorov. If you look into Ken Alibek for I don't know, about five seconds, you will find out that while he was involved in the Russian program and nobody denies that, a lot of his bigger claims are considered very highly questionable by US researcher. He you know, makes his money in private industry by playing up the threat and selling books. Doesn't really matter though, you don't need gene splicing to make a serious bioweapon.

As in Icebreaker? For real?

[K. A. Pital]

This thread has been reported. First of all - it won't be locked.

However, surprisingly (since it was Formless who reported the incident to me) I found that he couldn't understand the concept of context in LotA's message. And carried on with the nonsense for one whole page.

I'll see if this needs to be sent to HoS or not; maybe not, if Formless stops claiming that LotA somehow implied "the average Christian" or the majority when in fact nothing of the sort has been said in the post, and if he keeps doing it I'll just flush his posts to HoS.

Flagg, that piece of advice - to get out or shut up - was poorly framed. Threads are discussions here, so that (in words of Peter the Great) "the idiocy of any man would be there for all to see". We are not a board of censors, even when it comes to idiocy, we have a special place for it. The thread is not and never was under a lock threat; in the worst case Formless' creative wordplay would just get flushed to HoS. Along with your advice for him to get out.

I guess that's it. I'll be keeping a close eye on this thread.

[Flagg]

I apologise that my method of calling Formless "out" on his representation of Lord of the Abyss' posts was inappropriate.

[Formless]

Apology accepted, Flagg.










I'm not entirely sure what context You are referring to, Stas. The original statement that I took issue with used the words "collectively desire", as in referring to the desires of the whole religion and its followers; and it talked about the history of Christianity as if modern (American) Evangelicals represent the whole. It would be absurd to think so, when they are a relatively recent phenomenon with beliefs and interpretations of scripture that are in conflict with other major sects *. I already named the Catholic Church and the fact they explicitly do not include the Rapture as an event in their eschatology. And the Catholic Church is in fact the single largest christian sect, and in the past the dominate sect. Even if no other sect could be found which lacked belief in the rapture, would that not still be a relevant fact?

However, I suppose I will amend and clarify my interpretation of Lord of the Abyss' statement to: "the average christian, globally and historically, has looked forward to the Apocalypse safe in the knowledge that the Rapture will come" with the implication (intentional or not) that this enables the minority who want to actively seek it through weapons of mass destruction. This is consistent with his statement about the world being saved by Religious people in general avoiding Dangerous Fields Of Knowledge (TM). Yes he says he wants to focus only on those few nutjobs like Fallwell, but these claims are far more broad than that. If he retracts them or provides an alternative interpretation that isn't offensive, I'll concede the point.

* Admittedly, I'll concede right now that I was unaware of the Thessalonians quote Terralthra posted. So I guess there is some evidence for the Rapture being in the bible. Not that it changes the preferred interpretation of non-evangelical sects like the Catholic Church. Make of that inconsistency what you will.

[K. A. Pital]

I'm not entirely sure what context You are referring to, Stas. The original statement that I took issue with used the words "collectively desire", as in referring to the desires of the whole religion and its followers

Not exactly - LotA was responding to the part of your post which said:

My beef is the idea religious fanatics (and lets face it, every time this line is used they're talking about muslims) are omnicidal, and the implication is that teaching them things they could be dangerous is a bad thing.

So the discussion revolved around religious fanatics; not the moderate part of either religion. Moreover, it is clear from LotA's statement in the very same post:

There are thousands, maybe millions of Christians in America whom I'm sure would cheerfully release some Apocalypse-virus if they had access to one, completely certain that they and their particular sect will all get Raptured into Heaven if they can just kick off the End Times.

That he's not talking about the entirety of Christianity, which includes the absolute majority of America's population.

I do not see an all-encompassing statement here, and trying to see one is trying to pull an owl over a globe. (The discussion of the owl, the globe and other proverbs can be continued here).

[Formless]

Oh. Okay... but at the point where he clarified that he wasn't talking about Islam is where he started making claims about the totality of the christian religion, not just the fundamentalist segment. At that point, yeah I took a different tack to the previously stated cliche. Taking a literal reading of what he wrote (and why not?), there are multiple claims at work; some of which are specific to the fundamentalists, some of which are relative to Islam, others of which are about the whole religion. It doesn't matter to me what percentage of the religious population he thinks is actually insane enough to provoke an apocalypse, its the implication that the whole religion is obsessed with its eschatology and that this is where their fundamentalist subgroup gets all its power is what concerns me.

[Ziggy Stardust]

To back up Formless, Lord of the Abyss said,

Christians are if anything more likely than Muslims, since it's the Christians who collectively have a desire for the end of the world and have been pushing for just that for a long time.

I understand that Lord of the Abyss did not MEAN to imply anything about the totality of Christians, but that does not change the fact that it IS a literal interpretation of what he said.

And to look at the context, this quote was in response to Formless saying:

My beef is the idea religious fanatics (and lets face it, every time this line is used they're talking about muslims) are omnicidal, and the implication is that teaching them things they could be dangerous is a bad thing. Of course, education is what they need to break out of their beliefs, so its a sentiment that helps no one. I don't know any religion whose followers are that insane * , but of course its something the more cynical of atheists can say and reasonably hope no one notices they are spouting hateful bullshit. So I'm calling it out as hateful bullshit.

If you look at the first sentence of this, the context seems clear to be just about religious fanatics, as Stas said. However, look at the LAST two sentences.

"I don't know of any religion whose followers are that insane"

To which was said,

"the Christians who collectively have a desire for the end of the world."

Once again, I don't think this is what he was trying to say, but it hardly seems farfetched to garner the interpretation that Formless (and I) ascribed to his post. Both literally and contextually, he appears to make an implication about Christianity as a whole, as opposed to a specific fundamentalist subset (the fact that he keeps saying "Christians" as opposed to "evangelicas," "fundies", or any other of a dozen commonly used shorthands for those extremists further supports this)

[K. A. Pital]

As for the logic: religious fanatics (and lets face it, every time this line is used they're talking about muslims) >> Christians are if anything more likely than Muslims, since it's the Christians who collectively have a desire for the end of the world and have been pushing for just that for a long time. - seems to refer to fanatics. Since normal Christians are not pushing for the end of the world. So like I said, context is pretty clear if you don't keep reading "all" where there isn't such a qualifier.

I must also say that even the non-lunatic and moderate evangelicals which I met spoke about the end of the world as if it was desireable. These weren't the "will bio-bomb the world to death" people; no, pretty normal ones. And yet they spoke about Apocalypse as something normal and something they look forward to. Because Jesus returns and so on.

Like I said, these people weren't the completely lunatic kind of fundie. They didn't press their beliefs on me. They didn't think creationism should be taught in schools. But they believed in the key tenet of their faith, the return of the Messiah and salvation of Christians (along with many others judged by their deeds and various other nonsense, but still).

However, none of it would apply to Catholics, who as I gather take a dim view of "rejoice since the world is ending" approach.

[Ziggy Stardust]

As for the logic: religious fanatics (and lets face it, every time this line is used they're talking about muslims) >> Christians are if anything more likely than Muslims, since it's the Christians who collectively have a desire for the end of the world and have been pushing for just that for a long time. - seems to refer to fanatics. Since normal Christians are not pushing for the end of the world. So like I said, context is pretty clear if you don't keep reading "all" where there isn't such a qualifier.

So, let me get this straight. Formless (and I) take issue with Lord of the Abyss's phrasing due to its implications that normal Christians all desire the apocalypse, and you take issue with our interpretation based entirely on the reasoning that "since not all Christians are pushing for the end of the world, LotA obviously must have meant something else"? Do you not see the problem with this logic?

(I am not trying to be disrespectful here vis-a-vis your duties as a mod. I understand your decision is final and everything, I mostly just found your reaction to be a little puzzling. Feel free to just tell me to fuck off.)

[K. A. Pital]

Formless (and I) take issue with Lord of the Abyss's phrasing due to its implications that normal Christians all desire the apocalypse, and you take issue with our interpretation based entirely on the reasoning that "since not all Christians are pushing for the end of the world, LotA obviously must have meant something else"? Do you not see the problem with this logic?

I see a problem of deriving the "all" qualifier when the discussion clearly revolved around fanatics, even though generic all-encompassing descriptions like "Christians" and "Muslims" were used. And yes, this logic isn't entirely flawless, but "thousands, maybe millions" which was contained the original post makes it clear that LotA did not believe every single Christian puts a big "WANT ARMAGEDDON" in his eschatology.

Moreover, LotA clarified his position below that he did not mean all Christians and yet Flagg and Formless still chose to start a shitfest over that one line - ignoring the original poster.

I guess that this explanation should suffice. If you have further questions, PM me. And it's all right to ask me about my mod decision. I'm supposed to be attentive to The People, you know

[Darth Wong]

To back up Formless, Lord of the Abyss said,

Christians are if anything more likely than Muslims, since it's the Christians who collectively have a desire for the end of the world and have been pushing for just that for a long time.

I understand that Lord of the Abyss did not MEAN to imply anything about the totality of Christians, but that does not change the fact that it IS a literal interpretation of what he said.

Perhaps he should have said "southern American Christians".

[K. A. Pital]

End of the world is extremely critical to Evangelical eschatology. And evangelicals comprise round 30% of America's population. It is also clear that Evangelicals teach the Bible and future as a fact. Sixtyfive percent are premillenialists, and the rest are probably not, but it does not mean they don't believe in the End of the World as a desireable event; they just ignore the Rapture, Jesus King and so on. The world still ends and it is still good.

So while clearly this does not refer to all Christians, the discussion about fundies is bound to mention the fact that Evangelicals almost universally believe that the end of the world is a desireable thing in and of itself due to eschatological dogma.

It is even worse than one might think - 67% of Evangelicals not only believe the end of the world is merely desireable at some point; they actually believe (1) it's very close to now (2) natural disasters are evidence thereof.

[Ziggy Stardust]

Moreover, LotA clarified his position below that he did not mean all Christians and yet Flagg and Formless still chose to start a shitfest over that one line - ignoring the original poster.

Fair enough. To be honest, I am not even really sure why I am discussing this at all, because of how little it had to do with me.

I'm supposed to be attentive to The People, you know

You mean ... sheeple?

So while clearly this does not refer to all Christians, the discussion about fundies is bound to mention the fact that Evangelicals almost universally believe that the end of the world is a desireable thing in and of itself due to eschatological dogma.

Again, fair enough. I do have to wonder how much the Rapture feeds into the beliefs of individual evangelicals ... in my experience with Christians in particular, there always seems to be a dissociation of some sort between their actual individual beliefs and those of the Christian "faction" they have chosen to support. Especially in the South, where the church-going element is extremely local and social in nature, and is part of the fabric of their culture in a way that isn't entirely spiritual or religious. Not that this is a good thing, mind you, as people blindly supporting others with these sorts of beliefs ends up having the same long-term effects, but I still think that there is a gap here that is difficult to come to terms with. Christianity in the United States is just too ingrained into other aspects of life, unfortunately, and it seems to me that it is only a fairly small minority that really take scripture literally to any extent, even if they may be paying lip service to those that do. Hell, I would argue that the majority of Christians more or less pick and choose which elements of the religion they choose to adopt on a day-to-day basis, and take the apocalyptic ramblings of their priest/pastor/whatever-the-hell-evangelicals-call it as just part of their family Sunday routine that they don't particularly think about.

Though, anyway, I concede my earlier points with regards to Lord of the Abyss.

[Formless]

You're right that he did not say all, but then again neither did I. I said "average", as I thought it was more synonymous with the word "collectively". However, even if it was "Christian fundamentalists collectively desire the end of the world" it would still be false due to sectarian differences. And not just Protestant and Catholic divisions, but between Protestant sects as well. I guess our disagreement seems to be over who its offensive to, which isn't much of a disagreement for having a shitfest over.

Perhaps he should have said "southern American Christians".

That would have been perfectly agreeable, yes.

I must also say that even the non-lunatic and moderate evangelicals which I met spoke about the end of the world as if it was desireable. These weren't the "will bio-bomb the world to death" people; no, pretty normal ones. And yet they spoke about Apocalypse as something normal and something they look forward to. Because Jesus returns and so on.

Like I said, these people weren't the completely lunatic kind of fundie. They didn't press their beliefs on me. They didn't think creationism should be taught in schools. But they believed in the key tenet of their faith, the return of the Messiah and salvation of Christians (along with many others judged by their deeds and various other nonsense, but still).

Well, there is a reason I've been using "Evangelical" as a shorthand for the kind of person LotA is talking about. They take biblical literalism so very seriously, so when it says Jesus will descend on a chariot of fire, then by God there will be a flying chariot that's on frikken fire, and a brown dude at the reigns. Except he'll be Italian because RACISM. That's the Evangelical movement for you.