Going Crazy

[cybergirl]

Hi guys,
It's been a while since i last posted because I just transfer to CSULB and i'm a full time student. I'm having finals in a couple of weeks. So far, I hate my classes they're so freaking hard. Specially two of them my digital logic class and my discrete math class. Actually my discrete math class is not so hard, but My teacher sucks. He doesn't know how to teach. I had even been thinking about changing my major (CS). I have a presentation in a couple of weeks and my topic is Rebellion and creativity. And i was wondering if you guys can help. I have to talk about how having too much creativity can be bad. and how sometimes rebellion can be good. In other words how rebellion and creativity can good and bad. I was thinking on talking about someone famous whose creativity helped him succeed, and someone who rebeled against something like the govertment for the good of his people. but i have no idea on who to pick. I don't know a lot about history. I'm brain death. Do you guys know anyone who i can talk about?
I would really appreciate your help.
thank you.

[server_crash]

You could pick about any of the constitution framers.

[Rashakil Fol]

Gandhi?

[cybergirl]

Those two are really good ones, but i can't use any of those two because those are the one my teacher use as examples, sorry I forgot to mention that earlier. I'm also not allow to use Martin Luther King.
Thanks guys

[server_crash]

Hitler would be a good one. You could definately get some good/bad scenarios out of him.

[cybergirl]

Hitler would be a good one. You could definately get some good/bad scenarios out of him.

Hitler is a good one, but i can only think about bad scenrios about him. What would be a good scenario?

thanks

[jwenting]

Seen in the context of his time his ideas (at least his initial ideas, later he went a bit overboard to put it mildly) made a lot of sense.

Germany had been disgraced, he wanted to make Germans proud of their country and its heritage again.
Unemployment was skyhigh, he provided jobs in large numbers.
German infrastructure was seriously ignored after WW1, he constituted large programs to improve that.
Germans were given vacations, decent work conditions, etc. for the first time under Hitler.
German industry was neglected under Weimar, it was made strong again and innovative.
Increased focus on self-reliance as a nation meant the country became less dependent on food imports among other things.

Germany was the first nation to start nonstop transatlantic air travel under Hitler (using the Zeppelins), a little recognised feat.
Hitler's rule lifted Germany out of the economic depression of the early 1930s, when the rest of the world was still suffering from mass unemployment and famine.

Of course all of that has been painted black by historians as only a means to an end (recognition that a strong modern economy and infrastructure was needed to support a large scale foreign war of conquest), and not an end in itself.
But I'm not so sure that was the initial goal of Hitler when he took power.
Even his annexation of the Sudetenland, Rheinland, and Austria, can be seen in historical context as taking back (and all through peaceful means mind) lands taken from Germany after WW1.
Austria voted to become part of Germany in democratic elections in fact, they weren't forced in any way.
The French occupation of the Rhine after WW1 had been an affront to Germans and would be quite unacceptable to the world today (it was no different from Israel's occupation of the Sinai after the Arab-Israeli wars in which Israel beat the living crap out of Egypt). It was taken without a shot being fired, in fact the German troops moving in were unarmed.

Kristalnacht (now seen by most as the beginning of the oppression of Jews) was mostly a symptom of anti-semitic sentiment running rampant across Europe (and the Americas) at the time, anti-semitic sentiments which are still there today.
Even without the police turning a blind eye and people openly displaying NSDAP party regalia it would have happened, just like the riots of the last few weeks in France.

The German concentration camps (not talking about the destruction camps, those came later) were no different from similar installations built by many other nations at the time. Initially at least they were no more than makeshift prisons to hold prisoners for whom there as no place in regular prisons.
Forced labour was then (and still is today in many countries including the USA) a common sentence for non-violent crimes.

Of course the invasion of Poland was a war of agression and the start of the real trouble.
In historical context even that could be explained, as there was a longstanding (centuries old) rivalry between Poland and Germany and Germans living in Poland were oppressed. Poland also blocked German access over land to the German enclaves inside Poland (parts of Prusia too had been taken from Germany after WW1 and made part of Poland, initially all Germany wanted was to get those back, which the Poles refused).

So take German history of the 1930s into the real historical context, not just the reports from the mainstream history books, and you're getting a somewhat different perspective.
The NSDAP suddenly doesn't seem so radical anymore (compared to other political entities of the time), it also gets shown as what it really is: a far left political party with ideas not so different from the communist party (except the communists wanted Germany to become part of the USSR, the NSDAP were fiercely nationalistic).

[cybergirl]

I didn't know that

[jwenting]

not many people do.
Remember history is written by the winning party in any war and they will generally portray the loosing party as the greatest villains of all time, completely obscuring anything positive about them.

Even now, were I to write that in most European magazines or books I'd be accused of being a Nazi and might even get arrested for it. Any non-negative commentary about Hitler is actively suppressed here.

[server_crash]

He did bad things, he did good things. I really like some of his philosophies, though. Some people believe they were far too radical and idiotic, but I find a lot of them fit for use.

[cybergirl]

Hey guys,
do you know of any strike where violence was used? for example, where the strikes hurt people or break things.

thank you

[jwenting]

Lots of them, probably most of them. Strikers in general aggressive and spurred on by militant union functionaries, especially towards their colleagues who don't support them, which often leads to confrontations and people ending up getting bullied, cars getting damaged, etc. etc.

Less frequently company property gets sabotaged or vandalised.

[cybergirl]

Hi guys,
Thank you for your help. My presentation was yesterday. I got really nervous though. I mess up a couple of times 'cause i kept forgeting what i was going to say next. I hate presentations.

Thanks

[Lightninghawk]

Well written. Don't forget about the scientific advancement brought about by hitler.

Remember. If it weren't for him. There would be no jets, missles, chemical or biological warfare... ect ect...

Look at the historychannel.com and a few of these links.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/letter_from_america/368793.stm
http://www.google.com/search?q=hitler+and+the+advancement+of+science&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=pw
http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/Adolf_Hitler.htm

+++++
but if you want some rebellion... take up with robin hood ;)

[server_crash]

I love some of his philosophies and ways of dealing with things.

[webecedarian]

Excuse me?!?

Apart from finding this pro-Hitler drift very offensive (you like some of his ways with "dealing with things"?!), where does this silliness about Hitler's scientific advancements come from?

Apart from the bizarreness of mentioning things like chemical warfare as if it's an admirable invention, I'm no expert, but chemical warfare was used in WWI, long before Hitler. I can only assume the other examples may be equally groundless.

Incidentally, Cybergirl, I mulled over your original post, and as far as I can think, creativity is never inherently bad. Creativity is only good or neutral. What's bad is when your goals or perspective have something bad mixed in.

[sybil]

I didn't read the comment as "Hitler's scientific advancements" as such - just that science advanced more rapidly at the time as a result of WW2. One of the results of Hitler's invasions was that Einstein, Bohr et al were at risk of being forced to come up with a practical application of their theories (the atom bomb) for the Nazis. After reaching the States the pressure was then on for the Allies to get there first.

Back to the original subject about creativity and rebellion, Einsten regretted his and wasn't always thought of highly as a result of being outspoken. It seems he felt he had to choose the lesser of two evils:

"We helped create this new weapon in order to prevent the enemies of mankind from achieving it first; given the mentality of the Nazis, this could have brought about untold destruction as well as the enslavement of the peoples of the world. This weapon was delivered into the hands of the American and the British nations in their roles as trustees of all mankind, and as fighters for peace and liberty; but so far we have no guarantee of peace nor of any of the freedoms promised by the Atlantic Charter. The war is won, but the peace is not."

Cybergirl - what feedback did you get from your talk?

[webecedarian]

I didn't read the comment as "Hitler's scientific advancements" as such - just that science advanced more rapidly at the time as a result of WW2. One of the results of Hitler's invasions was that Einstein, Bohr et al were at risk of being forced to come up with a practical application of their theories (the atom bomb) for the Nazis. After reaching the States the pressure was then on for the Allies to get there first.

That's very nicely charitable of you, Sybil, but the words were: "the scientific advancement brought about by hitler...If it weren't for him. There would be no jets, missles, chemical or biological warfare..."

This seems to clearly be crediting Hitler, and I'm finding this whole pro-Hitler drift disturbing.

As to creativity, just because one person says he regrets his creativity doesn't mean much. Besides which, again, the problem isn't his creativity, but the applications of it.

[jayanprasad]

Einstein might have actually not regretted the whole atomic bomb because it was too big a triumph for him and the e=mc^2 which was a good theory but it also has many other derivations..not just his deribvations which used the lorentz transformations,and it was a preknown fact that e=mv^2 and many people were thinking that matter was made up of energy as well.in his derivation there is an pre assumed energy which helps derive the proof of e=mc^2 and inturn proves itself which is a rare and unconventional derivation in physics. and for the other ideas of his .originally were others he just put everything to-gether which is is a really big thing as well. but its just that einstein and his group were victorious and so physics might have taken a wrong turn with STR an GTR. einstein has many down sides as well not just because he is popular and many people in this world are jealous but, he actually has many downsides.he did not agree with heisenberg whose uncertainaty principle is the core of quantum physics and ..........its just that many think that einstein and his theories dont deserve the great hype it has..because it is highly likely that it is wrong. It could be really hard to see the other side of hitler but it is easy to see the other side of einstein.

www.anti-relativity.com
its a good thing that forums have a large number of members

[jwenting]

Whether you like it or not, Hitler funded (for whatever reason) a great many scientific programs.
Those technologies may have come about at a later date anyway (such is the nature of science) but he certainly did speed things up.
WW2 also caused the US, UK, Japanese, and Soviet (among others) governments to invest massively in science and technology, causing more great advancements.

Noone denies that Hitler caused many very bad things to happen (though I postulated many of those things too would have happened anyway, though maybe in another way and at a later date, such is history), but the positive things he also did are often (and you are an excellent example of that attitude) censored out because of those bad things (an attitude of "he did these bad things THEREFORE he can't have done anything good).