On Friday 18 Sep 2009, Heiko Schulz wrote: > First: we are an OpenSource project- open and free to all! We > can't preventing militaries using FGFS to develope military > stuff to kill people. > > So I don't see a chance to prevent those kids making this event. > > But we are allowed to say our opinion about and trying them to > convince with facts and words. And indeed to make an > pseudo-historical (it isn't historical right! )event which > clearly annoys a lot of people people is just annoying itself!
It is a sad fact that many people have problems coping with some events in history, and perhaps the only way that they can personally deal with them is by putting them away somewhere so that they don't have to confront them. On a personal level, this is fine, because it only effects the person doing it, but trying to force everyone else to fit in with their neurosis, for that is what an inability to cope with reality really is, is plainly wrong. It does nothing to help the person come to terms with reality and is more likely to re-enforce the neurosis, rather than cure it. > > the fact that many people seem to think that the best way > > to deal > > with unpleasant events in history is to mythologise and > > make them > > sacred and untouchable, and then to try to force other > > people to > > comply with their personal views. > > ... > > The people who re-enactment mythologise this unpleasant events! I find it really difficult that you seriously believe this to be true. Re-enactment glorifies nothing because it's not real. Re-enactment is an excellent method of understanding and learning, and doesn't just cover tactics and equipment but also gives an insight into the mindsets of the people and the sort of things that they would have been thinking at the time. For example, you may be able to read about how it felt to be a medieval foot soldier facing a massed cavalry charge but it won't convey nearly as much as actually participating in a re-enactment where you'll be standing on a battlefield confronting real horses. Both historians and archeologists find re-enactments incredibly valuable because of the insight it gives and which puts the tactics and equipment in context. While this planned raid could validly be regarded as frivolous, and not serious research, the people who participate seriously in it will learn valid things from it, from the degree of concentration required in maintaining formation over the period of the exercise, to the inevitable paranoia felt by anyone who is hunted. History, whether it be recent or distant, is about people, and in military affairs, not just the the tactics or equipment but the people who devised and used them. > > To understand how such > > terrible events > > came to occur requires that the events be inspected down to > > their > > finest details and it's only when you completely understand > > what > > happened that you stand a chance of ensuring that it > > doesn't happen > > again. > > But that is exactly what they don't do. I doubt that they ever > understood how this all happened. Even for studied historian it > is difficult to understand today. And those kids in the forum > don't re-enact the real history in its details and for studying > so I can't agree here. It is precisely through re-enactment that missing or incorrect details are found. When everything is done as it was supposed to have been done, but then turns out not to work when re-enacted, the historians know that there is something else that they need to find out. In many cases, it has been through re-enactment that solutions to problems that were known about have been found. Sure, it's likely that we will never know _everything_ about the past, but the past isn't magic and intrinsically beyond understanding. > > > Saying that people should treat these events > > as something > > sacred and that re-enacting them or studying them is > > somehow > > offensive just ensures ignorance, which is no way to tackle > > the > > future. > > As I said- they don't re-enact the real history happened and they > don't do that for learning and studying history. They just do > that because having fun to shoot. Not yet nothing to say against- > but as you can read this event annoys a lot of people here- so > you should better think again why are so much people annoyed by > it! Can you tell me again why? And as I've said above, things relevant to taking part in such a mission, whether it be absolutely historically accurate or not, will still be learned by the people who participate and will not be invalidated because everything wasn't perfectly true. Just because learning may incorporate competition and entertainment it doesn't make the learning frivolous,or somehow wrong. > > > This issue really has nothing to do with FlightGear. > > FlightGear is > > all about flight, and to a large degree about the > > development of > > flight, both in the past and for the future, and the fact > > is that > > much of the development in flight has its origins in the > > military. > > Just as we can't truly understand the past that has brought > > us to > > the present without correctly understanding _all_ of the > > past, > > FlightGear cannot properly deal with the subject of flight > > if it > > tries to ignore the military factor. > > It has nothing to do with military factor. As this would be we > have to shut down the whole project as a lot of civillian > developed aircrafts can and was used in a military way, and a lot > of people were killed by them. But we use them to simulate > flying- not simulating how to kill people! That's the point! There are no simulated people in FG to be killed. Neither is anyone going to use a flight simulator to simulate killing people - if they really want to do that they'll choose one of the first-person-shooter type games. > > ... > > > For example, as pointed out in the forum > > thread, the > > Swastika has been made illegal in several countries and > > this has > > lead to the widely held belief that the Swastika symbol > > relates > > purely to the Nazi regime. It does, in fact, date > > from the > > Neolithic period and was originally thought of as a symbol > > of good > > luck. > > It seems that only you and some of those kids believe that we > fight the swastika- read exactly and you will see that we mean > the nazi-swastika! That's a difference! We all really already ( > if not before! ;-))know the history of this symbol - no need to > teach us again. Who is talking about fighting the Swastika? How can you fight a an abstract symbol? The fact is that unless it is for scholarly purposes, the Swastika cannot be displayed in public in Germany and many other countries, even to the point that model aircraft kits cannot include Swastika decals, even though they are historically accurate. > > Making the Swastika illegal has certainly not > > achieved the > > aim of stopping its use by the right-wing movements that > > were > > targeted by the law but instead has just resulted in the > > widespread > > ignorance of its real place in history, along with making > > it > > impossible to make historically accurate representations of > > > > anything that carried the symbol (unless it is for > > scholarly use). > > What has been advanced by achieving this? > > Sorry, but noone from us who made this law! This was made in > resepct for the victims of this sign ( again: nazi-swastika!)- a > while before we were actually born. It's not our fault and > unfortunately noone from us here in this certain countries are > strong enough to fight against. I certainly don't hold you, or Germans in general, not even those old enough to have fought in WW2, to be responsible for what the Nazis did. By and large, the combatants on both sides have made their peace with each other, however, making this symbol illegal out of respect for victims of the Nazis doesn't change the past and if anything, has been counter productive. Instead of the symbol becoming a powerless reminder of wrongs overcome and never to be repeated, by outlawing it, it has been infused with more power to become a rallying point for hate. Like I say though, I don't hold you responsible for this. No, the responsibility lies with those who failed to cope with it and tried to deny it instead. > > > Yes, I am very annoyed at all this. It is precisely > > this type of > > neurotic denial of reality that has lead to many of the > > world's > > problems today. Pandering to this neurosis is not > > going to make > > things any better and it will only be by _really_ > > understanding > > things and coming to terms with them that we will stand any > > chance > > of preventing them from occurring again. > > No, to the many world problems has lead the non-respect. The > non-respect over certain history facts! If we had learned of it, > we woulden't have similar things today! > > Do you know that even today more than 60 years after the war and > holocaust my country germany still have to pay compensations? > That there are still war crinimals of the WWII and the holocaust > around and they still beeing chased? That there still people have > been imprisoned and survived the concentration camps are alive? > That there are still people dying or getting ill in Hiroshima and > Nagasaki due to the long-term consequence of the radioactivity? > > So it is still very present- so how about a little bit respect? Yes, I do know all this stuff. Why should you think that I don't? I don't think that I've shown any disrespect, other than to those who would rather deny the truth instead of facing up to it. LeeE ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Come build with us! The BlackBerry® Developer Conference in SF, CA is the only developer event you need to attend this year. Jumpstart your developing skills, take BlackBerry mobile applications to market and stay ahead of the curve. Join us from November 9-12, 2009. Register now! http://p.sf.net/sfu/devconf _______________________________________________ Flightgear-devel mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
