You & I are not actually disagreeing with each other, since we have both stated very clearly that we are not in favor of government efforts to police or coerce thought, but we also believe that tolerance is desirable and should be encouraged.  We are, however, striving for some subtle difference of emphasis.  I would say that government non-interference is more crucial for you, whereas tolerance is more crucial for me.

I don't really like the idea of a government that tries to run everybody's lives in detail.  Indeed, I recently commented at length about my reasons for wanting marijuana to be legalized.  The whole war on drugs is a prime example of how the government foolishly and unsuccessfully tries to enforce what they consider to be virtuous behavior upon everybody.  It's not even the fear of the medical dangers of recreational drug use (which are not worse, for example, than the medical dangers of driving a car, which can lead to terrible accidents) which motivates the government so much as a desire for people to refrain from hedonism, the pursuit of pleasure for its own sake, as opposed to the pleasure that we take in our actual accomplishments in life.  Personally I agree that excessive hedonism is a mistake which often has unfortunate consequences, but I also think that we should all have the right as individuals to decide how hedonistic we may wish to be, even if that includes recreational drug use.

You ask, if (as I claim) we cannot afford intolerance, what else can we not afford?  The slippery slope beckons.  However, there are lots of things that we can't afford.  We can't afford the war in Iraq.  The US is going bankrupt.  We can't afford to continue to use internal combustion engines that burn fossil fuels.  The global environment is being horribly damaged.  We cannot afford a great many things.  But we are going to do these things anyway.  We are free.  Freedom includes being free to make horrible or even suicidal mistakes.  Personally I think that the world is in very serious trouble, in the 21st century (that has been something that I have mentioned in earlier discussions on this site, sometimes eliciting complaints that I am overly pessimistic).  I would say that in all probability, the human race is doomed, by all the things we are doing that we really cannot afford to do.  But such is life.  I cannot make people do the right things, and even the government, or the UN, or any other existing authorities in the world, cannot really do more than make a small dent in all the things we are doing that we cannot afford to do.  So, we will pay the price.  And it is going to be very high.  

I just modded you a +5 in spite of the fact that your comment is depressing. Actually, it's not depressing, it's distressing, but I think it's the kind of distress some of us may need in order to act more consc(ient)iously toward our world. I'm not sure about your conclusions -- "doomed" is pretty strong, after all -- and also, what kind of lifespan can the average species on earth expect? Wait, I decided to be unlazy and Google it and it turns out it's one million years for mammals. So, if we agree that the genus Homo is roughly 2.5 million years, we're already at two and a half times the average. I take it back, already -- doomed is not really too strong after all -- the question really is: will our demise happen sooner or later?

Since extinction generally is the result of the loss of an ecological niche, and since humans are essentially the most adaptable beings on the planet, I doubt that we will become extinct for some time yet.  Most likely we will eventually evolve into something that is no longer H. sapiens sapiens. However, I doubt that we will have the salad days we have enjoyed for the last century or so for much longer unless we do some extremely fast adapting.

Yeah, that position has as much validity than the gloomiest of predictions. Short of some impending cataclysm, I guess you and I will never know for sure. But, yeah, I can't help feeling that we've lived in a tiny blip of an open window in which we've enjoyed a veritable Eden relative to our ancestors and our descendents. It's like we (most of us living in the Western world) won the intergalactic lottery.

Eh, I think we tend to over estimate just how "freakin awesome" having a playstation 3, wide screen tv, unlimited internet, life extending world-class medical care, knowledge of tens of thousands of years of human history and the ability to travel anywhere in the world within a couple days is. We still have a very rudimentary understanding of ourselves spiritually and I don't doubt for a second humanity's ability to find new sources of energy to fuel our insatiable physical explorations.

It is easy to buy small plaster models of what you think life is like.

Thanks for your favorable moderation - I do like to feel that my efforts in composing these comments receive at least some appreciation.  The question you ask, as to whether our demise will happen sooner or later, is certainly a significant one.  And the situation is so complex that it really is not predictable in  detail.  I could certainly make a prediction, but I could also easily be wrong.  

With that disclaimer, it is my impression that the human race will suffer a catastrophic collapse (or even extinction) sooner rather than later.  Even now, in the year 2008, there are alarming signs, in the form of a growing global food shortage, and related problems of rising fuel costs and continued and increasing weather-related disasters, while the G-8 resolves to cut carbon dioxide emissions in half by the year 2050 - as if we have that long - while simultaneously working toward increased global oil production and refining, which will cause an INCREASE rather than a decrease in carbon dioxide emissions.  Even their inadequate target is obviously one that they are not even trying sincerely to achieve, it's just rhetoric.  So we merrily continue on our path, disastrous though it is.

The decline of human civilization is presently gradual, but even so, it has certain moments of crisis.  As we all know, the world changed on September 11, 2001.  The terrorist attack caused the entire political climate of the world to abruptly worsen, and the resulting problems have no end in sight, short of the collapse of civilization as we know it.  Even though the war in Iraq could end (particularly if Obama wins the Presidency) it doesn't seem likely either that the war on terror will end, or that terrorism itself will end.  The fight will go on, as an insupportable drain on resources which are needed to combat our real environmental problems.

And there are very likely to be new crises.  They may or may not resemble the crisis of September 11th, but they will change things when they happen.  And at some point, things will go to hell very rapidly.  But exactly when?  No one predicted September 11th (or at least, on one other than the conspirators themselves) and no one can predict exactly when the next crisis will happen, either, the world is far too chaotic.  It could come at any time, though, even as soon as today.  I always watch the daily news report nervously, waiting to learn of the next calamity, and the point of no return.

Still, if pressed to give an exact date, I would still say that the world has a good decade left before things completely fall apart.  Enjoy it while you can!

The world did not change on September 11, 2001.

It is easy to buy small plaster models of what you think life is like.

Certain events do change the world.  When Pearl Harbor was bombed in 1941, that was the event which brought the US into WW II.  How would WW II have turned out otherwise?  Would nuclear weapons even have been invented?  Would the Axis Powers have been defeated?  We don't know.  But it's safe to say that the world was changed by that event.  Similarly, the 9/11 attack mobilized the US to fight a war on terrorism.  Previously, of course, terrorism had already been a serious problem for decades, but it was being fought more as a matter of international law enforcement than a matter of actually going to war.  The war in Afghanistan is a direct result of 9/11 and the war in Iraq is an indirect result (Iraq was not implicated in 9/11, however, the Bush administration nonetheless identified the government of Saddam Hussein as a likely source of future terrorist attacks, and it therefore had to be overthrown).  And of course, the two wars, in Afghanistan and in Iraq, each have their own far-reaching consequences.  Therefore I can say with some confidence that yes, the world did change.

Strictly speaking, everything that happens changes the world at least to some small extent.  When an insect eats a leaf, the world is changed to a tiny degree, which is very hard to notice - although we also know that even tiny changes SOMETIMES lead to cascading series of consequences which are ultimately very large.  In the case of a leaf being eaten, perhaps a particular plant dies which otherwise would have lived, and perhaps that plant, had it lived, would have given rise to another generation of plants, ultimately altering the nature of some local ecological system, impacting others species significantly, and so forth.  But then, in most cases, we would never be able to observe any far-reaching effect from the death of a single leaf.  It is said that the fluttering of the wings of a butterfly can ultimately result in a hurricane on the other side of the world, which it can, but in the overwhelming majority of cases it won't.

But for a major event such as 9/11, we can be sure that the world did indeed change.  We can still argue about how profound such a change really is, and whether the world will recover or not.  Perhaps that is the real point on which you disagree.  The world has had many terrible disasters in the past, but has always overcome them and moved forward.  The destruction of the library of Alexandria was a great loss to scholarship, and many of the books that were destroyed were lost to human history forever, since no other copies survived, however, it is also true that scholars have continued to write new and better books, and that at the present time the library of Alexandria is not really missed.  And even though thousands of people died in the 9/11 attack, and many more thousands if not hundreds of thousands have died in the subsequent war on terror, still, the world has billions of people in it, thousands of whom die every single day for various reasons, and the world goes on.

Nonetheless, it is my impression as a shrewd political observer, that the direction of global politics changed on 9/11, and the consequences in the long term will be very profound, much as the consequences of Pearl Harbor were very profound.  Of course, as always when predicting the future, time will tell.

To say that 9/11 changed the world is quite different from the whole "the world changed on 9/11" meme and to say otherwise is myopic. Any major news worthy event (and many that are not) "changes the world." Katrina "changed the world," the SCOTUS decision in Bush V. Gore "changed the world," the Boston Red Socks winning the 2004 World Series even changed the world. However, it has not become popular to say that "the world changed on December 12, 2000" or "the world changed on August 28, 2005."

The entire "the world changed on September 11, 2001," meme was cultivated and put forward by individuals who--much like those in the Mayor's rant about Liberian currency--have sought from the beginning to use those unfortunate events for their own personal gain. It is an idea repeated in an effort to push a war mongering, police state agenda. For those that have long understood international politics and the aims of Al Qeada--that they were formed and initially funded by a haphazard and unfocussed American foreign policy during the 80's and 90's--the attacks of that September, while maddening and saddening, where hardly a surprise. For those that have long understood the dual roles of war and oil interests in the political careers of the Bush family, neither was the response.

Your detailed breakdown on the manner in which certain events effect other events--otherwise known as history--while insightful and compelling, does not speak to a certain larger point. That point is that the world did not change on September 11, 2001. It is still a place where tragedies large and small occur on a daily basis and where people petty or magnanimous either exploit those tragedies for their own gain or use them as growing points to enrich humanity.

It is easy to buy small plaster models of what you think life is like.

But we are really talking about two different things.  You complain that there are people who have exaggerated the importance of 9/11 for their own political purposes, which I believe is true.  So as a political slogan, "the world changed on 9/11" can be misused.  But that doesn't alter the fact that the world DID change on 9/11.  And not just in the sense that the world changed when the Boston Red Socks won the 2004 World Series.  I think I can honestly observe that we all look at the world differently after 9/11.  It was truly a pivotal event in world history.  Do I therefore advocate unlimited wire-tapping, the suspension of habeus corpus, the end of constitutional government and other extreme measures?  Not really.  But yes, the world did change.

Yes, exactly, we are talking about two different things.

It is easy to buy small plaster models of what you think life is like.

Yeah, I was gonna say. This is something I disagree with strongly, although I find skeptic's other arguments strangely compelling (in a gloomy death-cultish way, ha ha). 9/11 was shocking, but so was the Challenger explosion, the assassination of JFK, Dr. King and even the deaths of John Lennon and Princess Diana. There will always be occasional global events that hit home in a horrible, gut-churning way. Terrorism wasn't born on that day, and though there may always be terrorism (as long as there are humans), it's not the giant new boogeymen some (most?) Americans took it to be on that day, however understandable their reaction. I grew up in England during the worst of the attacks on the UK mainland by the IRA. If you were Spanish, you'd know all about ETA; likewise, Germans will remember the Red Army Faction (Baader-Meinhof), etc. We assimilated them. The scale and visual nature of 9/11 was appalling and monstrous, but it was still terrorism like any other terrorist act -- a difference in degree rather than kind. A bunch of religious fanatics succeeded in a decently planned plot through a combination of zealous unwavering determination aided by some luck and by the cluelessness and unpreparedness of a still-new U.S. government administration still thinking in Cold War terms. The world didn't change -- just an unscrupulous U.S. administration, asleep at the wheel, heads full of PNAC nonsense, exploited this horrible event in order to carry out a wildly reckless foreign policy agenda that we'll all of us pay for over many, many decades.

Christopher Hitchens has observed that Islam in the 21st century is in danger of becoming a death cult.  If it is always an honor for Muslims to die for the cause of Islam, and if it is always justifiable for Muslims to kill non-Muslims for the crime of being non-believers, then in the end, it can be seen as a good thing for absolutely anyone and everyone, Muslims and non-Muslims alike, to die for the cause of Islam, so the end result would seem to be death for everybody.  That is the philosophy of the suicide bomber.  Such a person need not ask or know who it is that he (or she) is killing, since death is always a good thing when it happens in the name of Islam.  A person who actually WANTS everybody to die (for theological or any other reasons) could be described as a death cultist.  I, however, do not want people to die, I merely observe that the human race appears to be moving in the direction of mass death if not extinction.  I would prefer, however, for the human race to get its act together and to move in a more positive direction that does not lead to mass death.  So I disagree with your description of my argument as "death-cultish" although I do agree that it is gloomy.

One of the problems in trying to determine whether the world did, or did not change as a result of 9/11 is that we can't perform the relevant scientific experiment, which would be to have two identical planet Earths, and to inflict the 9/11 atrocity on one of them (ours, presumably) while the other one is spared that trauma, and then we would observe how history progresses in both cases.  And in a hundred years or so, we would have very good data with which to answer the question of just how influential 9/11 really was.  Since we can't perform that experiment, we will never have hard data pertaining to this issue.

Nonetheless, I do see huge consequences resulting from 9/11, and I do not hesitate to say that this event has changed the world.  That fact that there has also been lots of other terrorism in human history, and that you personally had the opportunity to observe the effect of IRA terrorism upon England, doesn't mean that 9/11 is therefore just business as usual.  My honest opinion is that IRA terrorists DID change the world, and in ways that may not be obvious to you.  Are you aware that the PLO was trained in terrorism by the IRA?  And all other Muslim terrorists learned from the PLO.  In a very real sense, all Muslim terrorists can trace back their terrorist expertise and philosophy to the Catholic terrorists of the IRA, who apparently thought that all terrorism, whether committed by themselves or by anybody else, would help to terrorize the world and thus, eventually, bring about the capitulation of their enemies (which was a really, really stupid idea).  Therefore the terrorist attack of 9/11 is the lineal descendant of the IRA.  The IRA did change the world.  And their evil, remote offspring, the attack of 9/11, did change the world.  

There is a very real and easily noticeable difference in global politics and in the attitudes and concerns of the general public before 9/11 and after 9/11.  Whether this will in the end just be a blip in the course of world history, or whether it will lead to permanent consequences such as the extinction of the human race, remains to be seen.  I expect the latter.

If it is always an honor for Muslims to die for the cause of Islam, and if it is always justifiable for Muslims to kill non-Muslims for the crime of being non-believers,

I am describing for you the state of mind of the fanatical Muslim terrorist who wears a vest of explosives and sets it off in a crowd, killing him (or her) self and causing death or injury to anyone else in range of the explosion.  I personally do not believe that it is EVER justifiable to kill someone on religious grounds.  As I recently mentioned in a different discussion, all religions are delusional systems anyway.  For people to kill each other because they disagree over which delusional system they should believe in, is the height of idiocy.

"For people to kill each other because they disagree over which delusional system they should believe in, is the height of idiocy."

I couldn't agree with you more.  My mom was a Catholic, my dad an atheist, and I've had some strong Jewish influences in my life.  A little bit of Hindu as well, not to mention Amish.  

Killing anyone over religious beliefs is the dumbest-fucking thing I can think of, but it's been happening as far back as history goes.  It's unlikely that it will ever change.  Muslims?  The latest bad guys.  Spanish Inquisition, anyone?  

there's only one way to find out...

I am describing for you the state of mind of the fanatical Muslim terrorist who wears a vest of explosives and sets it off in a crowd, killing him (or her) self and causing death or injury to anyone else in range of the explosion.

I specifically said that I was quoting Christopher Hitchens, so complain to him.

I would add that while (as you say) only an incredibly small minority of Muslims have become suicide bombers (or have any wish to do so) there are still far too many who have.  It is a problem.  While it would be an overstatement to describe Islam in general as a death cult, certainly there seems to be at least an element within Islam that could legitimately be described as a death cult.  The Salafists qualify.

The Peoples Temple cult down in Guyana didn't have any particular problem with killing nosy congressmen and then killing themselves. The Jewish zealots at Masada didn't have a problem with killing Romans and then committing mass suicide when it looked like things were not going to work out. Would you refer to Christians and Jews as death cults then?

Illegitimi non carborundum.

Would you refer to Christians and Jews as death cults then?

"This is my body...eat of it.  This is my blood...drink of it."

It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine

Christianity and Judaism both have extremist element in them which have caused many atrocities.  Actually, in a historical sense, the fanaticism of both Christians and Muslims was originally invented by Jews, who were the first to invent a deity who would not tolerate the worship of any other deities.  Little did the early Jews know what monstrous historical events would ultimately flow from this theological innovation.  So to some extent the label "death cult" can apply to all of these religions.  The world would be much better off without them.  And I know that Christopher Hitchens, author of "God Is Not Great:  How Religion Poisons Everything" agrees with me.  It is not just Islam which is poisoning everything, although in the 21st century Islam has taken on a certain prominence as a religion which inspires senseless violence.  But its failings are far from unique.

Okay, bad choice of phrase, but skeptic, I was really being tongue-in-cheek there.

As to your wider point: well, of course 9/11 changed the world if you're also saying that the IRA changed the world. It just begins to sound redundant when any global event (as well as some local ones) can be described as having changed the world. 9/11 deeply frightened vast numbers of Americans who had previously thought themselves safe from the kinds of overseas-initiated terrorist plots others around the globe had become inured to. From an American perspective, this could feel like something world-changing or even world-shattering. For the rest of us -- outside the horribly visceral in-your-face media rubbernecking -- it was business as usual. I don't mean that in a cold or critical way -- 9/11 deeply affected many of us emotionally, as did those other events I recalled in my earlier post -- just that the global currents, however roiled or altered in direction or intensity, were nonetheless essentially the same currents.

In other words, you can say that everything that happens alters the world in some way, but if you say 9/11 was somehow a different, more profound change than anything else, you have to be able to justify your "hierarchy of impact" -- i.e. does it fit alongside Pearl Harbor but at a lower level than the Holocaust or Hiroshima, etc.? Do you see what I'm saying? I can understand an American elevating the likes of 9/11 or Pearl Harbor to near the top of the hierarchy, but equally a Brit could argue the Battle of Britain or the Blitz or a Spaniard the Spanish Civil War, etc. After all, all of the above had massive worldwide consequences outside their respective localised arenas.

Anyway, I think we may have exhausted this admittedly off-topic tangent, and we're not massively disagreeing at all, but I do have some sympathy for your overall position w/r/t our species' future on this planet... although a tiny spark of optimism prevents me from going all the way down that particularly bleak road. Part of the way, though, for sure. My inner Pollyanna may be a little more stubborn than I gave her credit for!

You & I have both observed the effect that 9/11 has had on the way Americans view the world, which is my main point about 9/11.  As for assigning it a position in the hierarchy of world-changing events, it is really too soon to do so; we can only guess what the consequences will be in future decades or centuries.  But I do see the world moving in a very dangerous direction.  The current war on terror at present seems very likely to expand to include Iran in a big way (Iran is already involved to some extent) and this could also have very big consequences.

My speculations about the future of the human race are rather pessimistic, but like yourself, I have not utterly given up hope.  I still believe that all of our problems, though they seem to be out of control, can still be solved if the human race can muster enough sanity to do what is needed, rather than bogging down in pointless conflict and selfishness.  In theory, there are solutions.  Whether those solutions can ever be implemented, remains to be seen, and it doesn't seem likely.  But it's not impossible, either.

I've never been to Hawaii, but it's my understanding that Spam is quite popular there.  That's all good by me, as I've been using it as camping food for decades.  I think I'm down to only about a dozen cans on the pantry shelf.  LOL!!

Ah, yes.  We have a festival here every year.  My husband thinks he's funny in his neverending quest for the recipe  where she can't find the spam.

I think he'll be less amused by my quest for the poison that cannot be detected in diet coke and which does not show up in the human body during an autopsy.

It's not like he isn't already drinking poison. Anyone who knowingly ingests both Spam and artificial sweeteners can't be too concerned about his health, right?  ;)

"It was an ancient rule of Hawaiians that no one should hurt another bodily, or through theft of goods or through injury to feelings.These were the only sins."