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Overeating potatoes

Well, there are couple of comments I'd like to reply. First, there is comment by Mr. Polecat, and then Tommi's comment. As I see a lot of connections between those fine comments, I try to reply them both in one go.

Instead of yet another fictional example, I start with a recent real life story. I was renovating my house, and accidentally managed to send a door collapsing, and as there was a ladder near the door, the collapsing ladder hit my car, shattering the windshield. So, how to react to this kind of situation? Now we can imagine several possible reactions:

Self-hatred
"Oh - it was all my fault, I made a stupid mistake and that's why the windshield is now shattered. It will cost a lot of money to get it fixed, oh I'm such a stupid idiot! And what will the working men say at the repair shop when I take my car there? Yes they will look at me with a funny face, thinking that there comes an idiot who made a stupid mistake and shattered his own windshield. Yes yes, I always make these stupid mistakes, all the time - I should know better, but I just fail all the time. If I post this story in facebook, all of my friends will laugh at me, and that is right, I deserve that! Oh I can't take this anymore, I'll bury my head under a pillow and weep all night long, shaming myself for my idiocy!"

Victimization
"Oh what did I do to deserve this bad thing happening to me? Look, a shattered windshield! That renders the car useless, and now I'm doomed! Game over, man! If that unfortunate random accident didn't happen at all, my life would be all good. But now because of this I can't drive to my work, my income will go down, and my life will be ruined. Oh I'm so pissed off and angry - all the time I just wish that this bad accident didn't happen! We should have an undo-button in real life, so that this kind of accidents could be just erased! Oh I'll walk to the village pub and drink alcohol all the night long, telling everybody how my life would be good if this accident didn't happen - but now it is all ruined, I'm a poor victim of unfortunate events, and therefore I can just wallow in my misery!"

Passive submission
"Oh, a shattered windshield renders the car useless. It was an unlucky event, but what can I do? There is no way to change the past - what has happened, has happened and that's it. All I can do is to accept the situation and go with it. So, now the situation is that I have an useless car. I cant' drive to my work, I have to cancel my customers and watch my income collapsing. It would be useless to wish that things were differently, as I have no choice over this. I'll cancel the customers and sit staring at the wall for the rest of the day."

Submission with compensation
"Oh, a shattered windshield renders the car useless. It was an unlucky event, but what can I do? There is no way to change the past - what has happened, has happened and that's it. All I can do is to accept the situation and go with it. So, now the situation is that I have an useless car. I cant' drive to my work, I have to cancel my customers and watch my income collapsing. It would be useless to wish that things were differently, as I have no choice over this. I'll cancel the customers and go do some heavy physical work as that should make me feel connected and rooted, helping me to overcome the situation."

Denial
"I'm a good person, after all! I didn't do any mistake - it was the strong wind which made the ladder fall down. And maybe if I just put some duct tape here and there, the windshield will be all right and I can keep on using the car. And if anybody will say that I have a shattered windshield, I will turn mad and furiosly defend my honour saying that it is all right! It is unfair to blame me and to mock my car! I have a good car, I'm a goor person and I make no mistakes!"

The Standard model
"FUUUUUUCK I'M MAD! Of course it is perfectly natural to get upset when this kind of bad things happen! I'm so angry that I want to toss things around and shatter some more of that windshield! There you go - whack - smack - blam! Grrr! Well, boy - it was good to let some steam out! Now when I'm bit more calmed I can think what to do about the shattered windshield. Hmmm, let's see - there is a repair shop at the nearby village, and I seem to have enough money to get this fixed, so okay, I can handle this."

Staying calm
"Oops - what a mistake! If this was a movie, the scene would be somewhat funny - and actually it is, such a real-life Benny Hill -moment =) Well well well - such things happen, so what now? I'll take the car to the repair shop to get it fixed.

I assume that in his comment Tommi is also talking about something along the lines of staying calm. I just wanted to explicate these different models, as there seems to be common misinterpretations. I mean, when I've been talking about my childhood, I've often been compeletely puzzled by how some people react. Some people seem to assume that I'm talking in a mood of self-hatred, and they reply: "Oh, don't hate yourself for your symptoms - after all you are a nice guy and we all like you!" (Which, to me, sounds like saying "A shattered windshield? Oh that's nothing - let it be, as otherwise the car is still shiny and all good!") More often people assume that I'm talking in the mode of victimization, replying like: "Just let go of the bad memories! Why are you holding on to them, you can't change the past! Just stop talking about the bad things and they will go away!" (Which, to me, sounds like saying: "A ladder collapsing and shattering the windshield? Oh don't think about it - the moment you forget about it, the windshield will be okay again!") Also, it is rather common that people assume that I'm blaming my parents (which sounds bit like denial to me.) It took me a long time to understand why people make that kind of interpretations - I say "A" and they hear me saying "B". So, let's take a closer look at it.

If a man is listening to another person speaking, he can't understand anything if he is not familiar with the language. But if he already knows the words and syntax of that language, then he can easily understand what is being said. And that understanding feels like it happens automatically, without any conscious effort. But it is not only that we are recognizing familiar words - our mind also stores familiar patterns, associations, values, attitudes.There are scientific studies showing that most of the time when we read text, we are actually just skimming through the text, picking certain key-words and quickly building automated interpretations based on familiar patterns. That way of reading saves a lot of mental energy, is fast and easy - and prone to errors. It works pretty well, when people share a similar set of patterns and assumptions. In such a case a lot of things can be taken for granted, and people seem to understand each other in a smooth way. The downside is that people aren't that good in understanding thoughts which are based on slightly different set of basic assumptions.

So, I'd guess this explains why I often feel that when I say "A", people hear me saying "B". For example, already as a teenager I realized that it is useless to blame my parents - they anyway have been doing the best they can, and they are the only parents I'm ever going to have. Before that there was a brief moment, when I was in a mood of victimization - I asked myself that why do I have to suffer all these bad things I didn't deserve. But reflecting on it I realized that it is useless to ask for a different life - all I can do is to take my life as it is. And then look for solutions. That attitude kept me alive and away from collapsing into alcohol abuse or such stuff... But it didn't make all the mental health issues go away, so in my adult life there has been a need to go back to my childhood memories, trying to understand what has happened, what kind of damage was caused, and how to fix them. I mean, if you accept the fact that a ladder has fallen down shattering the car windshield, then sure you also accept the fact that the windshield can be repaired? So, when I've been talking about my childhood, it has been because I seek to better understand those things, looking for information on how to fix certain damage.

Now this goes back to the way we see human mind. For example, life-threatening situations and traumatic events leave not only bad memories - they might also inflict physiological changes in our hormone system, gut flora and other systems. And our bodily functions do affect our mood and mind. For me it has been greatly helpfull to read and study about physiological effects of prolonged stress - it not only helps to better understand some of my own symptoms, but it also gives more ideas on how to recover. So, I agree with Tommi's line of thinking that physical work and "being rooted" is beneficial. In his comment Tommi mentions other people who don't get it why Tommi enjoys the hard physical work, especially manually working through the seemingly endless stretch of the road. Once again, I'd guess this is because people are interpretating the world based on their own basic assumptions. And rather many people seem to have the basic assumption that dull and tedious physical work is unpleasant, and luxury is when the work can be done quickly and with minimal effort. I kind of a understand where does that kind of assumption come from - and there is some truth in it, but it is not an universal model explaining everything.

OK, but how exactly does this realate to what Mr. Polecat said in his comment? It is the basic assumptions. Sometimes I hear people saying that words, opinions and beliefs separate people - but singing, dancing and physical work bring people together. Well, there is some truth in that. But it might be that things aren't quite that simple. Different interpretations don't arise only at level of verbal thinking - quite literally we might see, feel, and understand the world very differently, depending on what kind of sub-conscious pre-cognitive models we have. It is not always easy to see one's own pre-cognitive models working. There are studies of this, too: we easily spot a bias in the way others think, but we tend to be blind to our own biases. And more over, the basic brain physiology says that when a person feels threatened, there is no time to stop thinking. A person in "fight or flee"-state can't learn new things, as all the mental energy is channeled to secure the immediate survival. Which means, just like Mr. Polecat cleverly points, that when hatred steps in, discussion dies out.

Be it gay rights, immigration, climate change, East - West relations, liberalism - conservatism, Mac - Windows - Linux, Pirateware - Copyrights, or which ever question, it easily happens that like-minded people group together. Discussing with others groups, each side tries to win the argument by pointing out each and every fault in the evidence and reasoning of the other group - which, pretty often, leads to the other group feeling themselves threatened. They feel that the other group wants to destroy their central beliefs, to burn their flag, to take down their symbols - to repel that external threat they tighten their ranks, forming a verbal phalanx, steadily advancing towards the enemy. Which, in turn, makes the other group believe that those others are violent idiots who can't think in a rational way, and to repel their attack they throw in insults, mockery, irony, parody, and unleash the horrible weapons of internet memes =) Oh well, I'd guess we all know these phenomenons. But my point here was that there seems to be plain physiological explanation for this: human brain and mind is mostly composed to be a good team-player, a loyal member of ones own tribe. If we want to different tribes to discuss in a honest way, the first requirement is to abandon all the hatred - building mutual trust, genuinely trying to understand the way others see the world. So, speaking of the political side of it, I'd go as far as to have a minimun of state-wide legislation securing some simple basic moral rules, and then allowing smaller moral communities to define their own sub-set of moral code. That way there wouldn't be such a need to question the very existence of a certain group; each sub-group would feel that they are allowed to have their own symbols and traditional belief systems. But, as said in my previous post, I honestly don't know what would be the best way to organize big units like a society. Even in a small group of ten adults I've seen enough confusion and failures of communication...

One more thing to clarify all of this. Returning back to my examples of different ways of reactin to a winshield being shattered. Intellectually thinking, one could reason that staying calm actually is the best way to react. But would that mean that next time something bad happens, that person would automatically and effortlessly react in the mood of staying calm? I doubt that - a spontaneous gut reaction is not based on our cognitive verbal beliefs. If a person has a habit of reacting with denial, no amount of theoretical thinking is going to change his reaction. But there might be other ways, like meditation, introspection, therapy, sudden life-experiences, slow processes, manually raking gravel with a metal rake, and things like that, which then alter those sub-conscious models. These models are not going to change with pressure - a threat of punishment isn't very likely to induce development of pre-cognitive models: exactly because a threat of punishment is a threat, and easily just induces the fight-or-flight reaction, which is counterproductive for any learning.

So, here I'm indirectly elaborating on Tommi's thinking of (analytic) philosophy. I mean, if a person is haunted with the question "What is the meaning of life? What is the purpose of my personal existence?" - then I'd guess that question arises from the pre-cognitive sub-conscious layer. There might be even plainly physiological processes which contribute towards the experience of one's life being devoid of meaning. Yes, it might even be that it is simply because of constantly overeating potatoes - as carbohydrates affect our gut flora, and our gut flora affects our mood regulation. Sure, theoretical and abstract thinking is not going to solve such a problem. Still, there is something I pretty much like in analytic philosophy. It is like a hammer which comes with a label: "I'm a hammer, I'm good for hammering nails. I'm not suitable for driving screws nor for cutting down trees or anything like that." Methods of analytical philosophy are very good for clarifying concepts, helping us to think and talk clearly. But it would be foolish to pretend that hammer is the only tool needed - we sure do need different tools for different tasks.

Right. These were just some quick comments on top of my head - of course there would be a lot more details to look into. But somehow I feel that my own mind is already turning towards the practical daily life. Based on some earlier comments, I did start a process of tanning a sheep hide. It still needs some more days of soaking before it can be processed further. Be it succes or not, I'll write about it when I get to see the results =)

tags: 
depression
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Comments

That explains why I fly into a murderous rage and start stabbing people after eating potatoes. =:O

Seriously though, I totally agree about it just being a matter of people simply staying calm and not getting offended or threatened so easily.

But I think that is sometimes difficult, and I think that overpopulation has something to do with it. It is interesting to me that there is more violent crime per-capita in cities than there is in the countryside. And that if you put too many animals in too small a space, we observe that they begin to fight with each other more often than when they have more space (at least non-herd animals, anyway). I think people may be the same way. Pack us into too small a space, and it is unavoidable that we lose much of our personal freedom, just because there are more people that are more easily affected by what we do. This is the major factor that leads me to believe that agrarian societies are superior to more urban ones.

I worry that with world population exploding, it will lead to bad things and societal decline. Gradually I mean, not some kind of sudden apocalyptic whatever or something. :P I mean, I believe that individual freedom is the most important thing for all of us, and so I don't believe that we have the right to dictate to anyone how many children they are allowed to have, or any other kind of population control either, so there is no easy solution (within my philosophy, anyway).

But, at the risk of sounding like a gloom-and-doom person, I also think that nature keeps herself in balance, and we humans are just a tiny little blip on the geologic timescale of our planet. We're far far overdue for a major pandemic, and I wouldn't be suprised if nature self-corrects herself through something like that once our population rises to a level where it is truly unsustainable. It would be nice if we could voluntarily limit our population growth as individuals, but I don't think that can happen (unrealistic utopian ideal, that), so..... Yanno.

Hmmmmm, that does sound awfully gloomy. Heh. I don't think it will happen any time soon. Far far future stuff I mean. I think there is still plenty of space, at least for now! I'm not an apocalypse crazy! Hehe.

* Ideally I think evolution would help us adapt to living in more crowded conditions, but evolution takes time, and I believe that exponential population growth doesn't allow for evolution to do its thing, both from the short timescale but mostly because there is no attrition (and hence no actual evolution happening), so that further complicates things! D: So we are essentially stuck as we are, the deep-rooted parts of our psyche that cause these problems I mean. The human creature evolved as a hunter-gatherer, now trying to live in urban conditions that we are not compatible with, and cannot evolve to be compatible with.

Yup yup!

At the moment we don't know what is going to happen, so future decades will show what will come =)

Also, in my experience the same happens with domestic herd animals, too. Pack too many cows in a too small area, and they start hurting each other. Generally speaking horses are peaceful creatures and seek to stay away from fights - they find their comfort in the proximity of the herd. But enclose too many horses in too small an area, and soon they start to develop aggressive behavior.

I think that the amount of physical space is one element in it, but there is more variables, too. Each animal (humans included) have some basic needs, which they need to satisfy - and failing that, they develop ill behavior. Personal space is one of those needs, and maybe we could name things like dignity, self-esteem, enough of meaningful physical exercise, a healthy amount of challenges, and enough time and space for rest, play and creativity. And, especially for herd animals; meaningful interactions with the other herd members. Things like that =)

There are studies of domestic horse feeding - and those studies show that domestic horses who are constantly overfed have more health issues and behavioral problems. But horses who sometimes have to seek for their food are healthier and happier.

By being rooted I meant working without alienation. I think your examples show you seeing your everyday life as a mean to an end. Why just not care? Why express anything or even feel anything? The universe is indifferent anyway. Actually while working on the gravel road I remember making mistakes that cost me hours of extra work (yes, I'm that clumsy!) but while they kept inside the closed context of road fixing (i.e. it didn't affect my other schedules nor caused any permanent damage) I just went on with robot like apathy. Why jump and cry when I knew exactly what happened anyway. There was no mystery and consequently no room for emotions. It was like a mathematical proof.

Actually I teach people around that if nobody else cares why bother caring yourself. The reception seems to vary. However I'm not saying you should be stoic because it is good for you but because it is nobody else's business. Rootedness is being at home in one's own life doing private stuff the way an addict plays a video game, not caring about the outcomes. Emotions are just a way to signal others you need something. Feeling stuff while being alone is a way to be dependent when you don't have to. I don't mean this 'being at home' is totally cold but the feelings involved are different.

I can actually share a story. This morning I woke up thinking that I have commitments I'm late with. The usual reaction I think most would think of is to use this stress for getting work done. I however thought that nothing in my life should be governed by feelings. I have work to do but if I can't get it done by pure reason it is not worth doing anyway. Regardless of the consequences.

Most people believe in being motivated and would say that you need to keep the drive and keep trying and believing. You should ride your emotions and use them for your own good. I believe they are like those who take new debt to pay the interests of their old debts and end up going in circles and attaining nothing but stress and heart problems and driving their friends nuts by constant complaining.

What I think Nietzsche was after with his potatoes was that seeing a real problem as a deep philosophical one is just an excuse to leave it untouched and going on living in denial. You start with a real question then abstract stuff away until it stops making any sense and then decide there's a philosophical problem that prevents the original question from being solved. This is the main weakness of ethics in analytic tradition, while its main strength is, as you stated, clarity. My favourite author Celine expressed the very same thought as Nietzsche in more poetic words: “Philosophizing is simply one way of being afraid, a cowardly pretense that doesn't get you anywhere.”

In the old days people studying philosophy usually learned to see their personal problems either the practical ones or as pseudo-problems arising from misuse of everyday language. Nowadays even philosophers try to be useful and they withhold their skepticism: they don't want to kill the sappy personal and political wallowing because they think they might get a chance or two to say something that makes them appear needed. You might guess my attitude on this progress.

Oh, OK! So it seems to be that I was partially misreading Tommi's comment, because I made an interpretation based on my own way of seeing things. But now as Tommi describes his view in more detail, it becomes easier to see the differences in our views, interpretations and basic assumptions. Reading Tommi's comments I say to myself: "I should have seen this coming - this is Tommi the way I know him since the university years=)"

Well, I try to keep my thinking focused:

First, let's describe two levels of thinking and talking. Level P is personal - on personal level people think and form ideas and views which help them navigate in their own life. Level S is scientific - on that level people form ideas and views which are supposed to give more general picture of life, universe and everything.

Now, if we are talking on level P - the personal, it still leaves us two basic options:

If I take it so that Tommi describes the way he sees his own life, and the ideas that help him navigate in his own personal life, then I am all fine with that. Personally I have somewhat different ideas and views, and they help me in my own life. And I simply don't see a need for Tommi and me to agree on everything, as anyway we have different backgrounds and different lives, so we might as well have a different map of ideas to help us navigate.

But if the case is that either Tommi or me is teaching some sort of general key to help everyone, by token "because this set of ideas helps me in my own life, and since I am a human being, then it can be reasoned that this same set of ideas helps every human being. If I see people having problems in their life, I suppose it is because they have false ideas, and I help them by teaching them my ideas." - in that case there might be a need of further discussion =)

Then, if we are talking on level S - the scientific world view, there certainly would be a need of further discussion. As, on scientific level it is not enough to have opinions and assumptions - every belief has to be tested against empirical studies, seeking evidence to support or to refute those beliefs. If we were talking on this level, I'd focus on the way we see human mind, especially the role and function of emotions. I think both Tommi and me agree that this is the central point where we have different views. The little I've been reading about empirical studies concerning human mind, I have a hard time trying to remember some studies which would support the way Tommi seems to think about the role of emotions. But once again -this might still be that I'm misunderstanding some details in his thinking.

But if you ask me, we are in a comment section of my non-academical blog, so I'd guess we are talking on the non-formal personal level. In which case I can just happily conclude that "yeah, Tommi and I, we see things differently. But if Tommi's set of ideas helps him lead his own life, and my set of ideas helps me lead my life, then everything is fine!"

Oh, I go check the fish traps, as pike spawn season is about here =)

I wrote a lengthy answer but the commenting didn't seem to work. Probably nothing important because after a few days I can't recall what I was trying to say.

It seems that there has been some unidentified weirdness going on.

When I posted Dirtroad Maintenance, the whole blog entry disappeared just like that. I thought that I had accidentally pressed some wrong keys, triggering unwanted operations. It was already midnight, I fetched couple of cans of beer and rewrote the blog post while it was still fresh in my memory. And forgot about the problem.

Then, when posting a first version of Overeating Potatoes, the same happened again - after hitting "Save", it gave no error message, just collapsed back to normal state without a slightest trace of the blog post anywhere. Uh oh. That time I was already too sleepy to rewrite the entry, so I tried again the next day. That time I was better prepared, every now and then both copypasting the text into a file on my own computer, and occasionally also saving a draft on the server. And eventually it worked out.

So, if there has been something similar with comments, there definitely is a problem somewhere. Only that I don't have any idea what it might be. I just checked the error log, and it has nothing related to this. It show the succesfully saved comments, and 98% of log messages are because of spam bots trying to break in, and the system stopping them. I checked couple of reports of comments blocked by CAPTCHA, and they try to pass the captcha by answers like: "outlet nike sapatos portugal" =)

Well, but without any sensible error messages it is rather tricky to trace the error, so I wish it is just a temporary problem and goes away by itself ...

When I set up this site, I had zero experience in server side programming, I only knew the basics of HTML and CSS, but I didn't even know what PHP is. Nor did I have a clear idea what all kind of functionality we might want to have on enormous elk site. So I just chose one framework, Drupal, which seemed flexible and efficient for many purposes. The good side is that with drupal it is pretty easy to set up different things like a blog or a daily picture album, and the comment functionality etc are ready-made. But the downside is that I have been too lazy to learn all the trick and details on how to exactly configure everything - and in case there is a problem in the drupal core functions, it feels tedious to dig into the code trying to figure out where to add custom code for bug hunting...

I guess there has been some temporary server-side problems with the database, in such a way that drupal code doesn't know how to handle the error situation, so instead of posting an error message it just collapses to the main function, effectively losing all the data on the input form.

If I had plenty of time, I'd rewrite the whole site with purely my own PHP code, then I could at least know what is what and which is where =)

It might have been something time-related because I tried to send my comment several times but every time after submitting I was brought back to your 'about' page. I've never before had problems commenting here.

the log shows swarms of spambot attacks - I don't know but those might cause occasional errors due to increased strain on server.

Not swarms of me reloading my forums and blogs while I am goofing off at work? :P Surprise!

Completely off topic, but I don't know any Finn =)
Can you recommend me some good (or must watch) Finnish films? I have nothing to watch so I want to see something new. Thanks

Definitely Star Wreck - it is a sci-fi parody, made by a bunch of students with a near-zero budget. But it is totally awesome =)

Then Aki Kaurismäki movies - I'd guess you can find them with subtitles in many languages. Start with Leningrad Cowboys Go America, and if you like it try the others too.

If you can find Jadesoturi (aka. Jade Warrior) - the storytelling is bit clumsy, but it is rather beautiful, and the first ever kung-fu movie made in Finland =) Ah, and also, it features a bow made by Sami and me.

Hmm, then, for a cultural reference, and also I'd guess you would like these: a classic Finnish WWII film is "Tuntematon sotilas" (The unknown soldier), and then there is also "Talvisota" (The Winter War) - I really don't know how wide international distribution they have, but try to see if you can find them.

Finally, Rare Exports. Seriously =)

I just finished watching Rare Exports(really, right now) and it was totally awesome. Quite scary at the end =D It has a nice winter atmosphere, good actors and nice idea. No comment on the elves =P They were the scary part.
Thank you for it!
Now I am going to watch Talvisota and tommorow Star Wreck(right now I found that there is full movie on youtube so I am going to watch this because Talvisota is quite long) So tommorow I am watching Talvisota and Jade Warrior.
Thank so much for the tips =) All movies are interesting.

Yeah, Star Wreck is legally free and available. I reasoned that once you find out that, you will also find their next movie (which was commercially released, and is worth watching, too.)

The idea of Rare Exports is based on the notion that so many children initially are afraid of Santa Claus. So, there must be a hidden story, and the gut instinct of kids tell them to steer away from Santa... Also, they are playing with some aspects of Finnish tradition, it is not all just imagination of the film makers. In Finnish Santa Claus is called "Joulupukki", which means "The Christmas Buck" - which, thinking of it, sounds more like some sort of pagan demi-god =) There was a tradition of a group of young men dressing up as scary bucks, and after christmas they went from house to house, asking for booze. This tradition has been dead a long since, and I don't know the exact roots of it. But somehow this scary buck stuff is connected to christmas tradition in Finland =)

Speaking of the Winter War, I really need to read more about it. That whole "Ohai Russia, we have your Mosin rifles and have rebuilt them better than when they were when new; now we will whup you with them, even though we are massively outnumbered" thing seems pretty badass, hehehe. Not to glorify war or anything like that, but like, the fierce independent spirit of it makes me feel a profound respect, you know? I think maybe the word is "Sisu?"

I would really love to have an M39 on my little rack of cool old historically significant rifles, but they have gotten very expensive here in the states! I think it's pretty cool how they are built on antique hex receivers. It's like, double the historical significance, or something. :D

In Winter War it was not just the rifles - Finnish Army seriously lacked anti-tank weaponry, so the men just sneaked right next to a tank, inserting a block of wood into the tank tread to immobilize it. And destroying the whole tank either with tossing a molotov cocktail into the engine, or with a load of dynamite.

And, yes, while I respect the men who had to defend our land, I see no glory in the war itself. For me, the best way to honour the veterans is to aim for avoiding any further warfare. Which, naturally, applies everywhere. Recently it was the Victory Day parade in Russia, and in the news there was an interview of a russian war veteran who had been fighting against the Nazi Germany. And he said that there is something wrong with the contemporary celebrations - if the war is portrayed as some sort of parade of glory, it is also emotionally preparing the folks to do the same again. But the reality of war, he said, was a lot of blood, death and suffering for everyone. So it should be seen as what it was : a major disaster, which should never happen again.

I agree. War is evil thing. For everybody! There are no profits from wars. There won't be wars without men/women who want to fight(join army). So why do people join armies? No armies = no wars so there is something wrong. There were wars, there are wars and there will be wars. Sad truth. People want control over other people and their land and they solve it by force.

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