h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Great entry - really clear and succinct.

Isn't it a shame that all the wars of independence end up with civil war as the next phase? All the ones I can think of, anyway. It's almost like it's some kind of horrible law of history.

Yeah, I suppose it's almost inevitable for civil war to happen after wars of independence.

Maybe because people come together for a cause, but had different visions of the outcome. That's just speculation.

All I do is keep smiling, and hope the nice man with the gun will back away.

Sounds like a plan.

Got me true school.

That should have been

Got me through school.

I wondered - sounded like some sort of Irish hip-hop slang.

Where did you go to school, may I ask? (So I can avoid that neighbourhood.)

A tiny all boys school in north County Cork, dont worry about avoiding it, blink and you'll miss it.

That's exactly what my late granny used to say about towns in her native north Mississippi.

My town was originally called Killmecruggan

But then in 19th century everyone got together and changed it to Newmarket which sounds a hell of a lot better.

Mississpi, I knew a fella who went there once, said it was hot.

We have a lot of names here in Pennsylvania which are unfortunate like that. There's a place near Philadelphia, where all the big office parks are now, called King of Prussia. It's named after an 18th-Century inn that was there. And they had to rename Beaver College recently - the name was losing students.

There's a Newmarket in Virginia. If you're ever there, you can stay in a motel that's smack dab in the middle of the old Civil War battlefield.

Mississippi in August is hot as heck. The hottest I've ever been was in the cemetery where some of my folks are buried - well over 90 degrees F in the shade, with humidity near 100% - you can wring your clothes out.

Wars of independence inevitably followed by civil wars -- it shows that coalitions to achieve a single aim cannot survive the achievement. The killing only stops when everyone is sufficiently sick of it.

An interesting idea - and I think it's true, unfortunately.

Is there any way out of that trap, I wonder?

Talking.

Good thought. You think the Conflict Resolution people are onto something, then? It does seem to work for Jimmy Carter, at least sometimes.

I do. Dammit, even Churchill said "jaw-jaw is better than war-war" . . .

Did he? Good point. The trick would be to get negotiators who were good enough to *keep* people talking past the point where they usually give up and start shooting again. Or am I wrong?

My image of the birth of philosophy is: finding common ground between people of different political/ethnic/faith groups. In philosophy you can agree to disagree, and still co-operate and live together.

Absolutely. That's funny - that's a point we were just reaching with our rpg - talking about the diversity of expectations, and even little things such as dialects, and whether you had dinner or supper, or sat on a sofa or a couch.

The goal isn't to make everyone the same - that's what McDonald's wants to do, so it can have reliable consumers. The goal, I think, is to make enough room so everybody can grow.

The problem is when people are surprised by what that means, and say to someone else, oh, you can't do that. It disturbs me.

Example - people in the US who claim they are being 'persecuted' because they can no longer force people of other faiths to participate in public displays of evangelical Christianity. That's not faith - that's just bullying.