In olden times, the closer-knit nature of society brought home an appreaciation for the real value of war, and hence they organized games like the Olympics. Early diplomatic relations. Today we hide such things under the guise of UN and other diplomatic channels. My proposal; Have a contract like the Geneva somethingorother in which it states that there must be a 6 week period before any real hostilities take place. During this time, perfectly replicated 1/6th scale radio controlled military forces battle each other, right down to a real navy launching real planes and landing real tanks on shore. In the ensuing war, in which these 1/6th scale forces destroy each other, people will watch this highly televised event and see the burning tanks, the sinking ships, the falling airplanes and think about what peace really means. That peace is more than a period between wars, more than simply not killing people. That war is the easy path; and that the hard path must sometimes be walked.
-- Paine, Apr 09 2002

heya Paine, As recent veteran, I applaud your view and wish it could be so! However, having witnessed firsthand "man's inhumanity to man" I am forced to takle the opinion that this cannot and should not be for various reasons. chiefly among them are:

A) I honestly believe that if a nation is to go to war we should show the general population the DIRECT effects of catastrophic violence. Show what the remains of a person look like after the release of an FAE (fuel aerosol explosive) or show the killings that took place in Bosnia, Colombia or Pakistan when some hopped-up villager cuts out the uterus of the wife of one of the soldiers of the opposition. I could go on, but I think that the meaning is clear: until Joe and Sally Johnson of Flagstaff, Arizona wake up screaming at night, every night, for a month, we will never know peace in our time.

B) Where will you find good enough model-builders? when I was a kid I could barely manage snap-tites.

C) Along the lines of "A)" due to the Jingoist disney-fication of modern warfare, it has once again become a right of passage for the typical lower-middle class male to "join up and become a man". Therefore we can see the objectification of the concept of war and combat. George Carlin said it best "Bomb the brown people" hahahaha right? well firstly 4/5ths of the planet are brown people thusly creating an ingroup-outgroup dichotomy that separates our culture from a large populace, engendering further objectification.

By the way, I love the closing statement of your postulate! Is that not akin to something that Ghandi said about violence being the last resort of the ignorant?
-- gekken, Apr 09 2002


Congrats on getting out alive, gekken.

Unfortunately, Paine, this is a bit like writing rules for muggers: the really mean ones just ignore the rules because they figure they can win on firepower anyway. Joe Dictator can let the sissy-boys play with their 1/6 scale models, he's gonna send in the 1/1 scale troops to do some killing. Sad but, I suspect, true. O if we were all cooperative little termites...
-- Dog Ed, Apr 09 2002


Paine, if you could delete everything above the last two sentences, I'd vote for it.
-- beauxeault, Apr 09 2002


A 1/6 scale model of a megaton class nuclear bomb would still do a wee bit of damage.
-- dag, Apr 09 2002


What would be a 1/6 scale foot solider? A robot or 5 year old child.
-- bing, Apr 09 2002


I'd prefer it to be 6:1 scale with gigantic killer robots stomping around the place.
-- DrBob, Apr 09 2002


Surely a 1/6 scale foot soldier would be a 2-inch soldier?
-- beauxeault, Apr 09 2002


This "highly televised event" of scale models fighting, falling, burning and sinking would surely be at the top of the T.V. ratings in America. They won't be "thinking about what peace really means", they will be cheering on the carnage and tuning in next week to see who gets trashed.

Also, if you can make accurate, working, 1/6 scale models of modern combat aircraft, I've got a job waiting for you.
-- dag, Apr 09 2002


Aw, look at the ickle baby smallpox virus! Innit cute?
-- pottedstu, Apr 09 2002


Ooh! Flame-bait!
-- angel, Apr 10 2002


Plato, that wondrous glob. Like spamhog, he wasn't around for The Crusades either.
-- thumbwax, Apr 10 2002


[spamhog] May I suggest some reading? This idea and its annotations.
-- dag, Apr 10 2002


Aw look at the ickle baby troll! Innit cute?

And look how it stops all us big people from trolling. Hey, I guess this idea DOES work.
-- pottedstu, Apr 11 2002


Trolling, maybe? I saw it as stupid, pointless babbling myself.

Direct scaling isn't as easy as it sounds, particularily in aerovehicles. Take the simple task of reducing a fuel tank to 1/6 its size. Does it have 1/6th the volume it used to? No. Just one of many examples that lead to many, many other problems.
-- dag, Apr 11 2002


I'm not at all sure that a 10 megaton warhead is that much funner than a 60 megaton warhead.
-- bristolz, Oct 17 2002


After reading some of the posts, I only have this to say to those who think war is the easy path....Sir Winston Churchill replied to the statement, "Nothing is worse than war" with "Slavery is worse than war...dishonor is worse than war!" As a war veteran, wounded in action after 9 month of almost constant contact with the enemy...I can say war is hell, indeed. But, I have seen the beast we were fighting and I thnk God we have a strong military. I have seen the bodies of children after they had been bound with barbed wire and deliberately burned to death as punishment to their parents for believing in freedom. In Hue, I saw hundreds of hands just above the surface of the ground...men, women and children...all buried alive by their communist conquerors...murdered horribly for believing in freedom. I have seen the face of the beast that stands in the darker corners of this world and I thus...believe in war!
-- Blisterbob, Sep 14 2005



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