A study in how language misdescribes violence, war, and the use of force.
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With apologies to Daft Punk.
What amazes me in the conversations in America about wars is how we can’t seem to figure out the basic math. Kill 1 insurgent, 50 take his place. That’s the math. The war-mongering response to this is to do it harder, better, faster, stronger, and somehow it’ll all work out.
If you hover the mouse over the original cartoon, you get the following tidbit of text: “We live in a world where there are actual fleets of robot assassins patrolling the skies. At some point there, we left the present and entered the future.”
This is one way to sum up what War Handwavium is about in a nice little cartoon.
See the original here: http://www.xkcd.com/652/
“Two step solution”
Problem: Recession, unemployment up, public education
down, increased divorce rate, increased violent crime,
polar caps melting, cancer.
Solution: (step 1) Identify and locate a sufficient number
of the appropriate people. (step 2) Kill them.
This should be the theme poster for this site. I’ve come up with at least a dozen captions in my head, but I figure I’ll leave that for the ShareAlike license.
The text there says:
3 months: Buildup
100 days: Bombard
4 days: Invade
6 weeks: Occupy
5-15 years: Quagmire 1 day: Operation: “War Handwavium”
3 months: Withdrawal