Oldest Nuclear Family Found Murdered In Germany 186
Pickens writes "The oldest genetically identifiable nuclear family met a violent death, according to analysis of remains from 4,600-year-old burials in Germany where the broken bones of these stone age people show they were killed in a struggle. Comparisons of DNA from one grave confirm it contained a mother, father, and their two children. 'We're really sure, based on hard biological facts not just supposing or assuming,' says Dr. Wolfgang Haak, from The Australian Centre for Ancient DNA. The stone-age people are thought to belong to a group known as the Corded Ware Culture, signified by their pots decorated with impressions from twisted cords. The children and adult males had the same type of strontium in their teeth — which was also found locally, but the nearest match to the women's teeth was at least 50km away, suggesting they had moved to the area. 'They were definitely murdered, there are big holes in their heads, fingers and wrists are broken,' says Dr. Alistair Pike from Bristol University. He noted that one victim even had the tip of a stone weapon embedded in a vertebra. 'You feel some kind of sympathy for them, it's a human thing, somebody must have really cared for them. ... We don't know how hard daily life was back there and if there was any space for love,' added Dr. Haak."
How the heck.. (Score:5, Funny)
How the heck did they survive 4600 years? Was it from all the radiation?? Were they zombies? That is so awesome
Re:How the heck.. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:How the heck.. (Score:5, Informative)
Ouch (Score:5, Funny)
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That would be one hell of a sucker-punch!
World record donkey punch [wikipedia.org] perhaps?
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D to the P, bro.
I'm thinking she just left the teeth in a glass on her night stand.
Seriously, I don't think it's surprising that some catastrophic or violent event caused the oldest "nuclear" family's remains to be found together in the same place.
In face, under what other circumstances would you find the remains of a whole family in one place, except a cemetary, and then most of them would be fully grown?
Re:Ouch (Score:5, Insightful)
Did anyone else read this as "the woman's teeth were found 50 km away from the rest of her body"? That would be one hell of a sucker-punch!
As if "Nuclear family" wasn't confusing enough.
I thought a family that was famous for something nuclear-related in the '50s had recently been killed.
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I read the subject line and at first thought it was a promo for Fallout 3.
Does the local police have any leads? (Score:5, Funny)
The perpetrator of this monstrosity must be caught and brought to justice!
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Does the local police have any leads? (Score:5, Insightful)
The perpetrator of this monstrosity must be caught and brought to justice!
It's ok. We're going to set up internet filters to block any web pages that discuss stone tools, so this sort of crime can never happen again.
Re:Does the local police have any leads? (Score:4, Funny)
(sunglasses)
(exit)
Yeaaaaaaah!
Re:Does the local police have any leads? (Score:5, Funny)
I am sure they are working in shifts on this case.
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Alternately:
It looks like somebody...
(sunglasses)
...rocked their world.
(exit)
Yeaaaaaaah!
British tabloids blame the social workers (Score:2)
Space for love? Sure. (Score:5, Interesting)
Love seems to be embedded in the very genetic fabric of mammals on some level. I'm sure there was space for love, in a way that made sense back then anyway.
Re:Space for love? Sure. (Score:4, Interesting)
Your off-topic mod sucks, and I hope someone fixes it. It's definitely an interest subject, but I doubt we'll ever really know for sure -- there's only so much you can deduce from fossils. That said, I imagine it would be very different to how we behave today.
Consider that even in our very recent past, most marriages were arranged by the parents or even other members of the society -- anyone who tried to "follow their heart" would've been punished, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if such punishments were pretty extreme like being stoned to death. [bbc.co.uk] (Fair warning: that article is pretty unpleasant.)
I also wonder how long we humans have had the kind of intelligence we have today. 4,000 years isn't a very long time by evolutionary standards, but perhaps intelligence evolves faster? Are the incredible achievements we now take for granted the result of some kind of improvement in our ability to harness the power of the brain, or just a result of slow incremental improvements to our societal organisation? Perhaps it's all down to improved teaching methods and a realisation of its importance?
Re:Space for love? Sure. (Score:5, Insightful)
At the time, 2500 B.C., we had already built advanced cultures in Egypt, Greece, and China. This is the era from which we get the great pyramids, the earliest oral legends about a great flood and god mythologies, and the first alphabet (not pictograms, but an actual letter-based form of writing).
I don't think there was any difference in intelligence between them and us... not in such a short span of time.
Re:Space for love? Sure. (Score:5, Funny)
Haven't had time to do extensive research on it (just a few quick 'googles'), but it seems as though many people do put the event of the Noachian Flood at 2360BC or thereabouts.
If that is the case then the violence shown toward this family was actually characteristic of the time they lived in. The Nephilim (known as Fellers of Men) were said to be extremely large and violent (and wouldn't you be, if you were the abomination-son of a demon?). It's also said that the Earth was filled with violence, so much so that God became saddened over his having created Humans who now acted so badly. This, in fact, motivated Him to wipe out the wicked people of that ancient world - doing so by a global deluge.
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The flood of Noah is probably a borrowed mythology from the subcontinent of India. In their version it's about a man who was swept into the Persian Gulf by a natural event (not god).
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Clueless, clueless. India was in close association with the Persian Empire (right next door to one another). The Israelites were captured by the Persians for several generations as slaves.
Therefore the Israelites living in Persia heard the same stories that had been imported from nearby India that the Persians were hearing, and eventually included that story in their book. That's how cultures interact with one another.
India story---->migrates to Persia--->overheard by Israelite slaves who take the
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An interesting theory I saw on the History Channel was that the Garden of Eden and the Flood were tied to the same historical event: the flooding of the Persian Gulf at the end of the last ice age. The theory is that the Persian Gulf was a giant valley, until the on rushing water swept in over what is now the Straights of Hormuz and covered everything. The survivors started the tale about a lost "paradise" and a home that was destroyed by a giant flood. Everything else got filled in later.
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Seriously?
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Yeah, I was being serious.
I don't know if I should be perturbed that this got modded funny (some mods have their sarcasm detectors set surprisingly liberally!), or if I should feel bad for the people who were apparently unaware of what the Bible says about it, that these exact circumstances were written about.
Guess I'll go with the latter. =\
Not very long ago (Score:2)
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I wouldnt imagine that people would be "much" different back then than they are today. There are still plenty of people who live in conditions that are not much different then they were 5,000 years ago. Its only in Western and developing nations where life is so "alien" compared to what it was before large groups of people started living together.
You can find alot of good articles about people living in near stone age conditions in places like South America in the Amazon, Sub Sahara Africa, and Australia.
As
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Love is built in to get parents stay together long enough to have children and to look after them and to ensure they survive
Re:Space for love? Sure. (Score:4, Interesting)
Thank you.
People that look back historically always seem to look at people back then as if they are children. Even when they are full grown adults. Its not like we are more capable then they were. Its not like they are somehow stupid. Like on TV cave men always simply grunt, when their vocal capabilities are vast. No other animal with vocal capabilities simply ignores them. Its un-scientifit. They couldn't develop without use.
So this crack about if there is "space for love?" Come on! He says that as if Love is useless. Again, unscientific.
Re:Space for love? Sure. (Score:5, Informative)
The authors statement about time for love is pedantic. There are numerous literary references from contemporary cultures of the same era on love (sumerians, egyptians, etc...). There are surviving cuneiform tablets of poetry, filled with references to love and adoration that are discovered with quite regularity in Iraq.
The human species of 10,000 years ago and of today are virtually identical in our physical and emotional development.
The differences that brought about "modern" civilization were on agricultural practices where we gradually converted from nomadic hunter-gatherer societies to stationary agricultural practices, animal husbandry and permanent communities. Then, as technologies developed (the wheel, the plow, irrigation, pottery, masonry, etc..) we had leisure time to devote to art and literature.
To think that we did not have time for "love" in a harsh environment is to ignore the more contemporary examples such as the Inuit or rain forest peoples where life was very difficult but cohesive families based on love and a sense of belonging have existed for thousands of years.
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The differences that brought about "modern" civilization were on agricultural practices where we gradually converted from nomadic hunter-gatherer societies to stationary agricultural practices, animal husbandry and permanent communities. Then, as technologies developed (the wheel, the plow, irrigation, pottery, masonry, etc..) we had leisure time to devote to art and literature.
The key is to spend your gold and resource early to do research so you can jump ages. This prevents some d-bag from building a castle right near your farms forcing you to be half an age behind and just a lamb for the slaughter at any point in the game.
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Actually, I've seen that plan backfire more than once.
It's best not to try the Serbian Jew Double Bluff when posting for mod points.
[Please note: The above mention of the "Serbian Jew Double Bluff" is not a horrible ethnic slur, it is a reference to an accusation that Cartman makes against Kyle in an episode of South Park. Normally, I would rather piss blood than make this kind of explanatory footnote, but since this thread is a bit of a minefield of correctness, I thought it best to be careful. Fact is, I
Bloody murder - or bloody lie? (Score:5, Insightful)
Murder is a legal construct from relatively modern times; and even the modern definition excludes such things as killing of enemies. The ideas about who is your enemy has shiftet somewhat since that time, I imagine.
It's not THAT modern (Score:2)
Actually, we're talking only 4600 years old. Codes of laws included murder in the same age, e.g., in Messopotamia or Egypt.
And even by tribal warfare standards, it sounds as an atrocity. You don't take the time to smash someone's fingers _after_ they're already stone dead. Doing that to women and children? Oooer. (Women used to be taken as spoils of war anyway, since a disproportionately shorter life expectancy gave primitive people -- and by that I mean at least as late as 100 BC Roman Empire! -- a chronic
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The Roman Empire did not exist in 100 B.C. It was still a male-democratic Republic (like the 1800s United States).
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While that's true, it was the same country, and I'm sure you understand what I'm talking about.
The event I'm talking about is the Battle of Aquae Sextiae of 102 BC, where the Teutones were finally defeated. The Romans demanded that 300 women be handed over to them, as wives. The women asked to be at least allowed to served in the temples instead, but the Romans really wanted wives. The women commited mass suicide.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Actually, by tribal warfare standards, hell, by chimpanzee warfare standards, this is SOP. Tribal warfare usually emphasized macho posturing and ritual killing of an enemy semi-equal to boost one's status in the community (a good historical example of this is the story of Crazy Horse).
But every now and then things would get serious and a mass killing/destroying/burn-it-all-down raid against an enemy will occur. What's *fascinating* is that
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I see you've been watching Meerkat Manor. ;-)
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Oh, but it IS human nature; we are after all just glorified chimps, more or less, and they are certainly more than capable of butchering their own kind. And just like us they don't often kill members of their own group, whether it is down to instinct or "law". But the original post makes it sound as if it is assumed that we can just apply modern legislation to the scenario, which I maintain that we can't, at least not without qualification.
I suppose it is understandable that people want to see this kind of
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You'll notice I've said that the _dumb_ ones end up personally murdering anyone. The successful ones end up politicians and CEOs and convince others to do
that subject sounds like a conspiracy lead-in (Score:5, Funny)
Bloody murder... or bloody LIE? Four mysterious skeletons found with holes in their skulls: join us as we delve into this shocking tale. Archaeologists say they were murdered... but could the truth be far more horrible?
Ambiguity (Score:2)
For a moment, I thought Otto Hahn's family had fallen victim to a fanatic bent on turning back the clock of nuclear proliferation....
Care for sure (Score:5, Funny)
it's a human thing, somebody must have really cared for them
Big holes in the head, broken limbs, bits of stone axe in the back? someone must have really cared for them, but in a Charlie Manson sort of way...
Which raises the question: (Score:5, Funny)
Is that the tip of a stone weapon embedded in your vertebra or are you just happy to see me?
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> Is that the tip of a stone weapon embedded in your vertebra or are you just happy to see me?
It's in my vertebra? I can't really see the point of that.
what is a nuclear family (Score:2, Informative)
i read this story on the bbc a few days ago, and again here today. but one thing i still dont get, what is a nuclear family?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
'Nuclear Family' simply refers to the fact that the family has a nucleus ie the parents, I believe. Hope this helps.
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but whats a nuculus?
lol.
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There is no limit on children...the parents are the key factor, and the term 'Nuclear Family' is used to distinguish this type from extended family systems used elsewhere around the world. Take a look at wikipedia [wikipedia.org] or Encyclo [encyclo.co.uk] for more links.
Re:what is a nuclear family (Score:4, Informative)
Were Dinosaurs pink and other tales (Score:5, Funny)
I often wonder, when we put characteristics on people when we name them are we making a huge mistake.
Imagine, if you will...
Here's Guntherisk, master of all he surveys, wielder of the mighty stone ax of Guildergrump, slayer of men and ravisher of women - confident that his greatness will be remembered in tales and song for thousands of years to come.
Well apparently not, he will be remembered for his brilliant idea of putting cord marks into pottery (which was actually Mrs Guntherisk's idea).
No space for love? (Score:2)
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So they had plenty of time for love, way way more so than your average family with two working parents. Hmm. . .bot
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From the same article you mentioned, but a bit further down:
What's more, the famously "affluent society" of hunter-gatherers, with plenty of time to gossip by the fire between hunts and gathers, turns out to be a bit of a myth, or at least an artefact of modern life. The measurements of time spent getting food by the !Kung omitted food-processing time and travel time, partly because the anthropologists gave their subjects lifts in their vehicles and lent them metal knives to process food.
Very interesting read (I mean your link).
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Space for love (Score:5, Funny)
"We don't know how hard daily life was back there and if there was any space for love"
"there are big holes in their heads"
Hell yeah. Mod me nasty, but you're feelin it.
Keep in mind (Score:2, Funny)
Fellow readers,
Keep in mind that the world back then was a much more dangerous place than it is now. 4600 years ago, nearly anything could have been considered a weapon of mass destruction; rocks, branches, fresh poop on a sharpened stick, et cetera, et cetera. We can proudly say that now the only weapons of mass destruction are nuclear bombs and biological/chemical weaponry...but this simply wasn't so back then.
What has not been outlined in this report, but is a subject of speculation, is that these people
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I'm thinking you don't understand the term "weapon of mass destruction". It doesn't refer to just any old weapon; it refers to a weapon capable of destroying many people (or multiple buildings, etc.) simultaneously. The types of weapons back then did their damage at the retail level; the nukes and chemical/biological agents we have today do it at the wholesale level.
It would have to be one damn big rock to kill several people at once.
-Mike
Sampling bias (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm not surprised. (Score:2, Insightful)
For the family to be identifiable as a family and not a bunch of adult graves miles and years apart, they'll have all had to die at the same time. Doesn't mean it was necessarily common back then, though.
Unsolved Mystery (Score:4, Funny)
To anybody that didn't immediately get it-- (Score:2)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_family [wikipedia.org]
nuclear family (Score:2)
Sorry for my ignorance, but what exactly about this family makes them nuclear? Did they have glowing laser eyes, or some other superpowers?
I read through the articles waiting for the crazy scifi-ish punchline (this is slashdot), but I was highly disappointed.
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Only if their laser eyes and other superpowers came from some kind of nuclear accident. If someone can run really fast because his chemical lab was struck by lightning, it does not count.
Otherwise, a nuclear family is one that consists of 2 parents and their children living in a self sufficient manner. This is to contrast with the extended family, which contains
Re:MOD PARENT DOWN -1 UNFUNNY WITH BAD TASTE (Score:5, Funny)
I like bad taste.. but then again, I'm German.
Re:MOD PARENT DOWN -1 UNFUNNY WITH BAD TASTE (Score:5, Funny)
But then, the small scale of the atrocity strikes me rather Ungerman, sorry for the taste, I'm German too.
And just for the record, a quotation, attribute, of Margret Thatcher after a German football (soccer) victory:
Re:MOD PARENT DOWN -1 UNFUNNY WITH BAD TASTE (Score:5, Interesting)
Please forgive me commenting on a moderation, but who am I flaimbaiting here?
Sorry, but we Germans have earned quite a reputation of going large-scale berzerk in the last centuries and every neighbouring country of us has suffered from it. Every sane German knows this and won't argue about this. And, I think, I hope, we changed much of our political attitude during the last sixty years. Making fun of our inglorious history may very well classify for bad taste - and bad jokes doubly so - but how can it be flamebait?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Sorry, but we Germans have earned quite a reputation of going large-scale berzerk in the last centuries and every neighbouring country of us has suffered from it.
Exactly. You worked hard for that reputation, so you earned it. I'd hate it if you had to start all over again. (Particularly since I'm one of those neighbours.)
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Don't you understand that political correctness requires us to criticize those who mention any shared ethnic trait in any context not involving a Muslim or Barack Obama?
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And just for the record, a quotation, attribute, of Margret Thatcher after a German football (soccer) victory:
And both times they've needed to import American 'players' to get the job done.
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Huh?
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it's hard to influence governments at a local level, harder at a regional level, almost impossible at a national level (bailouts in th US or Iraq war in the UK for example?). Checks and balances *aren't* working. Try doing it at the multinational level (EU? bwahaha, good luck with that).
At the global level you might as well just spread your legs, grab your ankles and loosen up.
do you live in a democracy? (Score:2)
then your vote is but one in millions. your vote should not be worth more than that, nor less than that. what is this influence you speak of? you think you deserve more influence than the next person? i don't understnad your point
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*grins*
I'd be willing to bet that the removal of scarcity brought on by Replicator technology is a major part of this.
Imagine how *hard* today's businessmen would fight against such a thing. Might they try to wipe it from the face of the Earth in order to sustain their profit margins?
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Because if you don't like the "One True World" government, where do you go? I myself have been fortunate enough to find a place where I was not born, where things are dealt with differently. This would be impossible under a worldwide system.
Once there is no competition, no "outside" to peer in, no "inside" to peer out of, all those checks and balances go out the window.
One world government means that the entire world will have to bow down to the lowest common denominator. Look at our "integrated" western so
you sound like a drama queen (Score:2)
i don't know where you came from or where you went. but assume you left new york and went to vancouver. you could have left new york and gone to chicago and you'd still be escaping whatever melodrama you were running from, and you'd be in the same country
Re:what's wrong with one world government? (Score:5, Insightful)
The argument against one world government is a simple one based on biodiversity. Basically, if that single government is fucked up, we are all screwed. You see that theme in a lot of dystopian scifi. It's the individuals on the fringe--the "savages"--that fight to topple the one world order (e.g., Gattaca, Brave New World).
The advantage of tribalism was that many different groups developed their own cultures, both sustainable and unsustainable, and evolutionary processes weeded out the unsustainable ones (including the violent ones, if you examine tribal history in the Americas).
The advent of larger social groupings like cities and nations, based on the development of totalitarian agriculture, allows the formation of caste systems including "warrior" castes (like the military or the police). Once a social group has enough resources to support a warrior caste it can exert its control upon its neighbors and wipe out more peaceful groups. I would argue that at this point a social group can no longer be called a tribe (which invalidates your original argument about the dangers of tribalism).
We are trending towards one world culture, and the danger is that if this culture is fundamentally flawed (and it's not hard to arrive at that conclusion), the damage caused by its downfall will affect the entire planet rather than an isolated group.
your criticism is invalid (Score:3, Interesting)
because we all live on one tiny piece of rock. we are already in the same boat. what happens in beijing matters in new york matters in moscow matters in london. regardless of national divisions. there is no law, no border guard that protects you if they screw up rorally in beijing. there is no escaping the consequences of the poor choices someone somewhere else makes. already. regardless of world government or not
and as for culture, we are part of the same culture. human culture. the differences betwen cult
Re:your criticism is invalid (Score:4, Insightful)
and as for culture, we are part of the same culture. human culture. the differences betwen cultures are minimal and arbitrary and ultimately inconsequential
Come visit Japan for a while (or pretty much anywhere that isn't Europe/US etc), and I suspect that your "differences are minimal and arbitrary" idea will fall away pretty quick. We're all human, and we all share that, but there's a LOT different as well.
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hilarious (Score:2)
rape: low-level, unimportant issue
that the japanese frown on leaving your chopsticks standing up in their rice, oooh! of massive import!
anyone who is truly wordly and cosmopolitan will tell you how striking our similarities are. anyone provincial, or, more likely in your case, suffering from a massive case of ethnic fetishism, will think that the people living over in the next valley are trolls and orcs
if you wish to dispel the utter contempt in which i hold you, prove your case: show me one aspect of japan
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if you wish to dispel the utter contempt in which i hold you
Wow, just wow. Not only have you refused to actually read my argument properly, you've taken it the wrong way and apparently think I'm someone worthy of hating (on the internet no less). Absolutely incredible. I expected better.
I don't know why you're stuck on Japanese vs American culture (it seems you're assuming I haven't seen any other part of the world), but I'm not going to bite your troll attempt. I've said that, yes, we're all very similar. But trying to ignore that or consider it unimportant is fa
we're all human beings (Score:2)
as such, our cultural differences are simply cruft. in every culture of every society that has ever existed are mean people, thoughtful people, madmen, philosophers, ascetic monks, etc. the range of human existence is writ small in every town in every nation now and forever
you say otherwise
and i asked you to give me an example where some aspect of culture is somehow of fundamental import, and you can't find one single example
you lose. not that it expect you to admit that. but you shouldn't fancy yourself a
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as such, our cultural differences are simply cruft. in every culture of every society that has ever existed are mean people, thoughtful people, madmen, philosophers, ascetic monks, etc. the range of human existence is writ small in every town in every nation now and forever
Sure. You get broad and generic enough, and yes, there are plenty of human similarities that appear.
you say otherwise
No. I never said that. I have only said that the similarities are not as wide reaching as you have claimed. People are dying every day because of cultural differences. But I suppose you'd just argue that differences are merely a part of human existence. (a bit of broken logic there, hmm).
and i asked you to give me an example where some aspect of culture is somehow of fundamental import, and you can't find one single example
You used Japan specifically, and claim that I somehow can't think of anything globally. See how that works? In addition, yo
simple question: (Score:2)
which is greater?
our differences?
or our similiarities?
lets cut through the bullshit
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Rape ain't exactly so wrong in Kabul.
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"We are trending towards one world culture, and the danger is that if this culture is fundamentally flawed (and it's not hard to arrive at that conclusion), the damage caused by its downfall will affect the entire planet rather than an isolated group."
You are kidding, right? The culture between an inner city and its suburbs is significant. Not to mention that between two states much less two regions (US). The chance of us having a single world culture in my lifetime is about nil.
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"what horrendous crime can one world government be capable of that is not already being committed right now, and worse?"
Soylent Green would be a good one. I'm thinking that grinding up the not so good people and feeding them to the populace kind of kicks the crap out of everything that has been done on this planet so far.
On another note, have you seen Bush's new plan for prison overcrowding? it's Delicious!
try reading paine more closely (Score:2)
he understands government is a necessary evil
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Blah, that's better than me. I was expecting to read about the recent grizzly murder of a family of an elderly couple in their 90's and their seventy-something year old children who were still living with them (but no spouses for the children or third generation). In other words, the family that met the con
Re:That's a terrible headline? (Score:5, Funny)
That would be startling. There aren't any Grizzly Bears in Europe.
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That would be startling. There aren't any Grizzly Bears in Europe.
Perhaps they migrated?
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No, but I have it on good authority they have gray elephants in Denmark.
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"... So I clicked through out of curiosity, wondering what it might have to do with technology."
They used mitochondrial DNA to check their relation to one another and the strontium content determined that the males grew up there, while the females came from somewhere else.
Re:That's a terrible headline? (Score:4, Informative)
I cherish your slashdot bashing but here the BBC [bbc.co.uk] is the sensationalist:
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I think the BBC's headline is a lot more accurate -- certainly it's easier to arrive at "cause of death of ancient remains found to be murder" from reading the Beeb's headline than it is by reading slashdot's interpretation, which pretty clearly says they found a family murdered in Germany.
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The BBC at least puts quotes around "murdered". Also, "found murdered" sounds to me like it was a recent crime.
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what exactly is sensationalized by the BBC? they are the oldest nuclear family to be positively identified. that is a fact, and a significant part of this archaeological find. they were in fact murdered (presumably bears and other native predators did not know how to use stone weapons).
that some people don't know what a "nuclear family [wikipedia.org]" is, or jump to incorrect conclusions about the article before reading it does not mean BBC sensationalized the story.