Stop dividing the world into "good" and "evil"
POSTED BY: SIGNYM
UPDATED: Sunday, November 4, 2018 13:22
VIEWED: 9151
PAGE 1 of 2
It is the biggest conceit of AIL-liberals that they represent "good" and those who don't follow their beliefs are "evil".
This belief is more far dangerous than nationalism. As a "nationalist", you accept that other nations exist. And if you're a consistent "nationalist", you'll accord the same rights other nations as the ones that you claim for your own.
The problem with dividing the world into "good" and "evil", however, is that there's only one response to "evil", and that is to destroy it. There really are no other options, and no room for co-existance.
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You want to see this in action?
Go into the comments section for the motherjones link that Second posted on the other thread https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2018/10/obama-is-doing-the-poli
tical-rally-thing-all-wrong/
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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But because I know I am on the Good side, I know the Anti-Good side is Evil.
If you don't stand FOR something, then you'll fall for anything.
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Quote:That's a problem.
But because I know I am on the Good side, I know the Anti-Good side is Evil.
Quote:It IS possible to be "for" something without believing that you're the end-all and be-all of goodness. Let's say, for example, that you believe in surviving. Or that you believe in defending the USA. Neither one of those beliefs requires that you think of yourself as "good" or- conversely- that the other side is "evil".
If you don't stand FOR something, then you'll fall for anything.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND
America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Let's say, for example, that you believe in surviving. Or that you believe in defending the USA. Neither one of those beliefs requires that you think of yourself as "good" or- conversely- that the other side is "evil".
She works haaaard for de rubles, so hard for it honey, so you better think she's right.
Pretty sure ALL rulers who desire to overthrow other countrys are fairly "evil" Cough, cough...RUSSIA...cough.
What I don't get... is why you even give a shit what happens to this planet...
Not like you gonna have a line of DNA to worry about and it's pretty certain you'll die in the next 20-50 years anyway...
I mean, sitting around saying to yourself "I HAVE to convince these 10 relatively unimportant people on this one ancient website that they MUST submit to Mother Russia to save the planet from what would be an eventual inevitability of global war and annihilation ANYWAY because all countries are stupid and every country has a shit ton of stupid people who WILL eventually do the ultimate stupid...."
HOW do you go on convincing yourself every day that you aren't TOTALLY AND COMPLETELY wasting your time here?? There are videos on the internet where you can literally watch paint dry, or siblings argue, or old people walking funny....and THEY are LESS of a waste of time than what you try to accomplish here every day.
Seriously, you could have written letters to EVERY politician in the last 15 years and begged them to avoid nuclear war and that might have had SOME effect, where as HERE...NOTHING.
Oh, wait...you did manage to make me hate communists and socialists. That's something I guess.
I've told a dozen people about you and your agenda here and they literally think you are I.N.S.A.N.E. and I'm inclined to agree.
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Quote:Oh, the bitch-troll speaks!
She works haaaard for de rubles, so hard for it honey, so you better think she's right.
You're a great example of what I was posting about.
Tell me, sweetie, what would you tell your family if I took you to court and took whatever cash you had? That you were SO SURE that you were right and good and that I was evil... and then it turned out that you were totally 100% wrong? What would that make YOU? Evil? And what would you do then?
You might want to climb down from your pedestal and re-think your righteousness before it gets you in trouble.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND
America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876
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I see you didn't answer ANYTHING I ASKED. As usual. *sigh.
Made you mad though...Can't make a convert to your insanity if yer ticked, hon. 
I've definitely divided the people on this board into "good" and "plenty loony" though.
Even Jo... with his wacky language agenda is waaaay more entertaining and likely than you to make a convert here... (no offence Jo, I admire your creativity 
)
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Oh, were there questions in that defamatory post full of erroneous insults? Yanno, you HAVE been told many times that I'm not Russian. You have no excuse for persisting in defaming me; you can't possibly claim that you didn't know or weren't told.
Next time, you might want to put a few QUESTION MARKS in there to indicate an interrogative.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND
America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876
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Your agenda is to get people to defer to Russia in order to avoid some made up, pretty nonexistent nuclear war, yes?
I think you've been pretty clear about that.
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Quote:WTF are you talking about???
Your agenda is to get people to defer to Russia in order to avoid some made up nuclear war, yes?
My god, you seem to have a problem with delusions!
Right now, YOUR only defense would be "insanity".
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND
America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876
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Oh THG, I could really use yer laughing coffee emoticon, dude...
Fine, I'll entertain this absurdity for a minute.
What IS your agenda here, pray tell?? I'd love to hear THIS one...
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We ... citizens of the United States ... are being driven farther and farther apart for no reason. The only reason why we can't come together and talk like reasonable people is because both sides believe that the other side is "evil".
It's because of righteousness, WISHY. Unlike the movies, righteousness seldom seems to end well in real life.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND
America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876
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Being driven further away from socialism, you mean.
Good. YOU CAN'T HAVE MY SHIT 
Now, stay on your side of the country, thanks 
Wait, lemme make this a tad clearer.
YOU COME FOR MY SHIT....I COME FOR YOUR LIFE.
'Zat clear enough for you??
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Quote:
Being driven further away from socialism, you mean.
Hon, YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT THE WORD "SOCIALISM" MEANS. Just like you don't know what the word "Nazi" means.
I have NEVER argued for socialism. You're really piling on the defamation, aren't you?
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND
America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876
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BAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHAAAAAHAAAAHAHAHAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
Oh, that's the funniest damn thing I've seen all year!
Thanks. I needed that chuckle!
If your lips are movin' then deny-ny-ny baby.
Ironically, that tactic is also the first string defense of actual FSB agents.
What an amazing co-ink-i-dink!
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And yet ... you still don't know what you're talking about.
Just for shits and giggles: Define the word "socialism".
And then show me where I argued for it.
I KNOW you can't.
****
Yanno I can't decide whether you're lying to the board or to yourself.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND
America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Just for shits and giggles: Define the word "socialism".
Yanno I can't decide whether you're lying to the board or to yourself.
Socialism: Pathologically naive people thinking that other people wuvvv sharing.
You probably need to know... that I don't EVER doubt myself, especially when it comes to pegging people.
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Quote:OK, because you started this thread, I will ask about a definition.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:That's a problem.
But because I know I am on the Good side, I know the Anti-Good side is Evil.Quote:It IS possible to be "for" something without believing that you're the end-all and be-all of goodness. Let's say, for example, that you believe in surviving. Or that you believe in defending the USA. Neither one of those beliefs requires that you think of yourself as "good" or- conversely- that the other side is "evil".
If you don't stand FOR something, then you'll fall for anything.
Sidebar - I may have been playing Devil's Advocate.
Let's say we can identify some person (or group) that is a ruthless, cold-blooded, corrupt despot. Can we call that Evil?
Is MS-13 Evil?
Hitler?
Ted Bundy?
Henry Lee Lucas?
JFK's Assassin?
Emperor Hirohito?
Stalin?
Lenin?
Kaiser Wilhelm?
Edward I (Longshanks)
Pol Pot?
Kim Il Jung?
Hells Angels?
The Drug Cartel Lords murdering all those Mexican people along the border?
Do you believe Evil exists?
Are those who fight for Evil also Evil?
Or those who fight against Good?
Are the people who murdered Vince Foster, Ron Brown, Jerry Parks, Kathy Ferguson Evil?
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Quote:Hmm, that's your first problem.
Socialism: Pathologically naive people thinking that other people wuvvv sharing.
Quote:Well, that's your SECOND problem.
You probably need to know... that I don't EVER doubt myself
Quote:WOW, AND YOU COULDN'T BE MORE WRONG!!
especially when it comes to pegging people
WISHY, you have a SERIOUS problem. I mean, you're so far off in left field, you're not even in the game! You might want to check out "In the Garden and RAIN!!!" if you want to know something about me.
*****
All I want to do here is to talk and think, with people who also want to talk and think. The idea of attacking people and being attacked ... wearies me. It should weary you too.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND
America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
WISHY, you have a SERIOUS problem.
I know, I know...coming here to argue with gaslighting eejits like yourself when I should be sleeping...
I'll work on that.
AND NO, JSF,
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS "EVIL"
Just messed up people with bad brain DNA or bad parents.
No evil spirits, no demons, no gods...JUST PEOPLE.
And it's off ta bed, now.
Night, nutjobs!
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So WISHY, you have no basis for for constantly insinuating that I'm Russian. You can't define the terms that you use, and now you want to run away.
I think that's a good idea!
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND
America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876
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Quote:That's a good question. Let me think about it in the context of my post.
Let's say we can identify some person (or group) that is a ruthless, cold-blooded, corrupt despot. Can we call that Evil?
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND
America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876
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Okay, I thought about it.
"Evil" isn't a useful term. There are people who're dangerous, and some who're dangerous who have a great deal of power. Worse, some of these dangerous, powerful people are crazy. They do horrible, unavoidable things for inscrutable reasons. Killing them might save others; that's a legitimate use of violence.
But "good" and "evil" don't compute.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND
America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876
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Quote:In March 2013, a member of the State Department’s Policy Planning staff invited me to speak at the department and requested that I “be provocative.” Happy to comply, I titled my talk “Why U.S. Foreign Policy Keeps Failing.” A lively but friendly discussion followed, and it occurred to me afterward that my remarks might form the basis for a short book. I estimated it would take about a year to write.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
The problem with dividing the world into "good" and "evil", however, is that there's only one response to "evil", and that is to destroy it. There really are no other options, and no room for co-existance.
Like the men and women responsible for U.S. foreign policy in recent years, I badly misjudged the difficulty of the task I had undertaken. Nonetheless, a full draft of the manuscript was complete in October 2016 and I anticipated the book would appear near the end of Hillary Clinton’s first year as president. The timing would be ideal, I thought, as I expected Clinton to repeat many of her predecessors’ mistakes, making a hard-hitting critique of U.S. grand strategy both timely and valuable.
Donald Trump’s unexpected victory in November 2016 was an awkward surprise in more ways than one, but it was also an ideal opportunity to test my core argument about America’s foreign policy elite. Candidate Trump had challenged many enduring orthodoxies about U.S. foreign policy, and he was openly dismissive of (and dismissed by) Democratic and Republican foreign policy experts alike. Once in power, however, Trump discovered that overcoming the foreign policy establishment was much harder than he had expected. Trump’s presidential style is obviously different from his predecessors’ and he has altered U.S. policy in some significant ways, but the foreign policy revolution that he promised back in 2016 remains unrealized. This book will help you understand why.
In particular, this book seeks to explain why the United States spent the past quarter century pursuing an ambitious, unrealistic, and mostly unsuccessful foreign policy.
Why did both Democrats and Republicans embark on an ill-considered campaign to spread democracy, markets, and other liberal values around the world?
How did the foreign policy establishment convince the American people to support policies that were neither necessary nor successful?
Why does U.S. Foreign Policy keep failing?
What is the answers to the questions? Read them at
The Hell of Good Intentions by Stephen M. Walt
www.amazon.com/Hell-Good-Intentions-Americas-Foreign/dp/0374280037/
Bit torrent hash df4aab819243e1daab1752bf4e77769574ad80bf
https://extratorrent.top/torrent/3303698/the-hell-of-good-intentions-b
y-stephen-m-walt-epub.html
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Pegging? I thought you were the pegged.
Wishy's love life just keeps getting more interesting.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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Quote:With her penchant for raving on about her Anal Sex Adventures, maybe that is the pegging that BungBetty was mentioning.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:Hmm, that's your first problem.
Socialism: Pathologically naive people thinking that other people wuvvv sharing.Quote:Well, that's your SECOND problem.
You probably need to know... that I don't EVER doubt myselfQuote:WOW, AND YOU COULDN'T BE MORE WRONG!!
especially when it comes to pegging people
WISHY, you have a SERIOUS problem. I mean, you're so far off in left field, you're not even in the game! You might want to check out "In the Garden and RAIN!!!" if you want to know something about me.
*****
All I want to do here is to talk and think, with people who also want to talk and think. The idea of attacking people and being attacked ... wearies me. It should weary you too.
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Quote:Spreading Democracy and open Markets around the world is a bad thing? Democracy and Freedom is a God-given Birthright of human beings only to Americans, not to the unwashed masses outside the USA borders?
Originally posted by second:Quote:In March 2013, a member of the State Department’s Policy Planning staff invited me to speak at the department and requested that I “be provocative.” Happy to comply, I titled my talk “Why U.S. Foreign Policy Keeps Failing.” A lively but friendly discussion followed, and it occurred to me afterward that my remarks might form the basis for a short book. I estimated it would take about a year to write.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
The problem with dividing the world into "good" and "evil", however, is that there's only one response to "evil", and that is to destroy it. There really are no other options, and no room for co-existance.
Like the men and women responsible for U.S. foreign policy in recent years, I badly misjudged the difficulty of the task I had undertaken. Nonetheless, a full draft of the manuscript was complete in October 2016 and I anticipated the book would appear near the end of Hillary Clinton’s first year as president. The timing would be ideal, I thought, as I expected Clinton to repeat many of her predecessors’ mistakes, making a hard-hitting critique of U.S. grand strategy both timely and valuable.
Donald Trump’s unexpected victory in November 2016 was an awkward surprise in more ways than one, but it was also an ideal opportunity to test my core argument about America’s foreign policy elite. Candidate Trump had challenged many enduring orthodoxies about U.S. foreign policy, and he was openly dismissive of (and dismissed by) Democratic and Republican foreign policy experts alike. Once in power, however, Trump discovered that overcoming the foreign policy establishment was much harder than he had expected. Trump’s presidential style is obviously different from his predecessors’ and he has altered U.S. policy in some significant ways, but the foreign policy revolution that he promised back in 2016 remains unrealized. This book will help you understand why.
In particular, this book seeks to explain why the United States spent the past quarter century pursuing an ambitious, unrealistic, and mostly unsuccessful foreign policy.
Why did both Democrats and Republicans embark on an ill-considered campaign to spread democracy, markets, and other liberal values around the world?
How did the foreign policy establishment convince the American people to support policies that were neither necessary nor successful?
Why does U.S. Foreign Policy keep failing?
What is the answers to the questions? Read them at
The Hell of Good Intentions by Stephen M. Walt
www.amazon.com/Hell-Good-Intentions-Americas-Foreign/dp/0374280037/
Bit torrent hash df4aab819243e1daab1752bf4e77769574ad80bf
https://extratorrent.top/torrent/3303698/the-hell-of-good-intentions-b
y-stephen-m-walt-epub.html
Golly, that is somebody we should all listen to.
Not.
Which words are yours? Are you Stephen Walt?
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Quote:So then what did your OP mean? You seem to have left it without meaning.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Okay, I thought about it.
"Evil" isn't a useful term. There are people who're dangerous, and some who're dangerous who have a great deal of power. Worse, some of these dangerous, powerful people are crazy. They do horrible, unavoidable things for inscrutable reasons. Killing them might save others; that's a legitimate use of violence.
But "good" and "evil" don't compute.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND
America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876
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Quote:These words are definitely mine: Do you remember Vietnam? Every time I stand on my leg reminds me. Do you remember Iraq? Do you remember North Korea? Last I checked, America gave up on the Korean War long before it was actually over. There really were not enough willing, and I don't mean drafted, Americans to go around and do the job to completion.
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:
Spreading Democracy and open Markets around the world is a bad thing? Democracy and Freedom is a God-given Birthright of human beings only to Americans, not to the unwashed masses outside the USA borders?
Golly, that is somebody we should all listen to.
Not.
Which words are yours? Are you Stephen Walt?
Those are three places that America was bringing Freedom and Democracy, but America wasn't willing to also bring the necessary millions of Americans who spoke the local language and the trillions of dollars. Last time I checked, none of those wars would I consider successful, mainly because the Pentagon and the State Department were insanely optimistic about what it would take to actually win. And they never went to a psychiatrist to regain the sanity they once had. They are still as crazy as ever.
On second thought, maybe the dishonest Pentagon and State Dept cheat on the arithmetic about how much manpower, how much money, and how many years these things cost.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Quote:
Spreading Democracy and open Markets around the world is a bad thing?- JSF
a) It's not up to us to enforce our way of life on other people, and
b) EVEN IF we assume that "spreading Democracy and open Markets around the world" is a good thing, can you seriously argue that that's what we've been doing? Heck, we can't even seem to ensure democracy and open markets HERE.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND
America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876
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Arrest made in connection to explosive devices mailed to Democrats
Federal law enforcement officials made an arrest in connection to the mass mail bombings plot targeting high-profile Democrats and critics of President Donald Trump, according to CNN.
http://www.mysuncoast.com/news/report-arrest-made-in-connection-to-exp
losive-devices-mailed-to/article_a988ffe8-d930-11e8-a466-7f3dbd177010.html
T 
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Umm... you DID know that there's a thread devoted to the topic. Right? It's over here.
http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=62749
I'm going to do us all a favor and repost your post into the appropriate thread.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND
America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876
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Quote:More of your weakling talk, Signym. American can do whatever it damn well please, but America can not do it at whatever price its President pleases to claim it will cost. The true cost is determined by reality, not the President, and our Presidents are terribly dishonest at budgeting for the true cost. They erroneously, and more likely deliberately, price things at 10% or even 1% of the actual cost for success. When they run ludicrously over budget, the Presidents start lying then begging and pleading for more time and money to finish the job that was not worth the true price to be paid in the first place.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
Spreading Democracy and open Markets around the world is a bad thing?- JSF
a) It's not up to us to enforce our way of life on other people, and
b) EVEN IF we assume that "spreading Democracy and open Markets around the world" is a good thing, can you seriously argue that that's what we've been doing? Heck, we can't even seem to ensure democracy and open markets HERE.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Quote:I thought JSF was looking for a moral statement, not a realpolitik one. The difference between what we CAN do and what we CHOOSE TO do.
More of your weakling talk, Signym. American can do whatever it damn well please, but America can not do it at whatever price its President pleases to claim it will cost. The true cost is determined by reality, not the President, and our Presidents are terribly dishonest at budgeting for the true cost. They erroneously, and more likely deliberately, price things at 10% or even 1% of the actual cost for success. When they run ludicrously over budget, the Presidents start lying then begging and pleading for more time and money to finish the job that was not worth the true price to be paid in the first place. - SECOND
"Democracy" is a moral concept, as is "open markets". They represent moral choices; what he defines as "good".
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND
America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876
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Quote:Now that's just Crazy Talk. Posting on topic within a thread? You are just trying to confuse Trolls like him. Nobody visits or responds to the threads they traffic.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Umm... you DID know that there's a thread devoted to the topic. Right? It's over here.
http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=62749
I'm going to do us all a favor and repost your post into the appropriate thread.
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Quote:All this moral talk has the buried assumptions that a life has infinite value and the consequences of moral decisions go on forever. Too bad the assumptions are false. If these were true, then going to faraway lands to change somebody’s religion, economy and government can always be justified as worth doing. It may take some serious sophistry and many lies and deceptions by a President and your Congressman, but it can be justified.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:I thought JSF was looking for a moral statement, not a realpolitik one. The difference between what we CAN do and what we CHOOSE TO do.
More of your weakling talk, Signym. American can do whatever it damn well please, but America can not do it at whatever price its President pleases to claim it will cost. The true cost is determined by reality, not the President, and our Presidents are terribly dishonest at budgeting for the true cost. They erroneously, and more likely deliberately, price things at 10% or even 1% of the actual cost for success. When they run ludicrously over budget, the Presidents start lying then begging and pleading for more time and money to finish the job that was not worth the true price to be paid in the first place. - SECOND
"Democracy" is a moral concept, as is "open markets". They represent moral choices; what he defines as "good".
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND
Another way of making decisions, where the President and Congress make a public calculate of the number of dead on both sides, and also count the dollars and years, the Federal Government will arrive at completely different answers about when and where to spread Democracy and Freedom. This calculation is also subject to lies and deceptions, but it is harder to commit the typical political fraud that goes on at the White House, which keeps its real thinking and motives in secret, only telling the bullshit justifications the press office created, not the real reasons.
I was going to work the following into the argument, to show you how to calculate, but I don’t have the inclination. Thinking this way is serious work, too much of the kind that politicians are not comfortable doing, which is why they fall back on their easy lies, confusion, and plain old nonsense. That way is less work. (I’m thinking of Nixon’s tapes. You will hear all the lazy, half-ass, simplistic nonsense from him and Kissinger) On with the calculation:
According to a Social Discount Rate, the present moral importance of future events, especially benefits and losses, declines at a rate of “N” per cent per year. Two commonly employed rates are 5 per cent and 10 per cent. With one kind of SDR I have no quarrel. This is an SDR applied to benefits and losses measured in monetary terms, on the assumption that there will be inflation. But many economists apply an SDR to benefits and losses, measured at the size that they will have when they occur. My example in the text is not imagined. It has been seriously suggested that, in assessing the risks of the disposal of nuclear wastes, we should apply an SDR to future deaths. More generally, Social Discount Rates have been applied, not to monetary gains and losses, but to what economists call the actual utility that will be enjoyed by future people. This is the kind of SDR that I discuss. Why has this kind of SDR been thought to be justified? I am aware of six arguments:
The Argument from Democracy: Many people care less about the further future. Some writers claim that, if this is true of most of the adult citizens of some democratic country, this country’s government ought to employ a Social Discount Rate. If its electorate does care less about the further future, a democratic government ought to do so. Failure to do so would be paternalistic
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Quote:I should have been more clear. I was confusing Democracy, Free Market, Free Enterprise with Liberty, Freedom and stuff. Silly me.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
Spreading Democracy and open Markets around the world is a bad thing?- JSF
a) It's not up to us to enforce our way of life on other people, and
b) EVEN IF we assume that "spreading Democracy and open Markets around the world" is a good thing, can you seriously argue that that's what we've been doing? Heck, we can't even seem to ensure democracy and open markets HERE.
OTOH, are ideals like spreading Liberty, Freedom, to those outside America bad? Or should those not in America remain in their prisons?
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Very interesting discussion, but I'll be really busy so I won't be able to respond until tomorrow, probably.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND
America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876
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Quote:I'm sure Signym has a better answer, but for one example, Tibet has been completely engulfed by China. Tibetans are outnumbered by Chinese in Tibet. If the 14th Dalai Lama was the kind of guy who could get the ear of Trump, would Trump invade China to free Tibet? If Trump listened then tried war, it would not go well for him because Americans, other than the occasional Buddhist, aren't willing to learn the language or die for that far away land. Trump could offer to Tibetans sanctuary in America, but Americans, other than the occasional Buddhist, aren't willing to take on a million Tibetans. Too stressful for the Americans to have all these colorful people around. There is only 3.18 million in Tibet, most of who are actually Chinese.
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:Quote:I should have been more clear. I was confusing Democracy, Free Market, Free Enterprise with Liberty, Freedom and stuff. Silly me.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
Spreading Democracy and open Markets around the world is a bad thing?- JSF
a) It's not up to us to enforce our way of life on other people, and
b) EVEN IF we assume that "spreading Democracy and open Markets around the world" is a good thing, can you seriously argue that that's what we've been doing? Heck, we can't even seem to ensure democracy and open markets HERE.
OTOH, are ideals like spreading Liberty, Freedom, to those outside America bad? Or should those not in America remain in their prisons?
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Quote:
Spreading Democracy and open Markets around the world is a bad thing? Democracy and Freedom is a God-given Birthright of human beings only to Americans, not to the unwashed masses outside the USA borders? - JSF
JSF, what is so great about democracy? What is so great about open markets? If societies were to follow your prescript, what result are you looking for in society? Prosperity? Happiness? Vigor? Peace?
When you advocate freedom, democracy, and open markets you have some ideal result/society in mind. What does it look like?
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND
America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876
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"Spreading Democracy and open Markets around the world is a bad thing?"
I would say that spreading democracy at the point of a gun, and spreading open markets by fiat, seem inherently self-contradictory, and so, self-defeating.
I would need to know how you reconcile those to continue considering your ideas.
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"There is only 3.18 million in Tibet, most of who are actually Chinese."
In a few tens of thousands of years, the interloper Chinese may have evolution select for adaptations to the high altitude that are similar to, or maybe even different from, the native Tibetans. Until then, the Chinese can never be more than part-time inhabitants, who will pay a price in comfort, health, and lifespan, for their territorial ambitions.
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Quote:Continuing from my last post, I understand 32,000 have been slaughtered on the Mexican side of the US border. Compared to about 10,000 civilians killed in Iraq. Are these Drug Lords in Mexico Evil? Or is there a non-Evil motive?
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:Quote:I should have been more clear. I was confusing Democracy, Free Market, Free Enterprise with Liberty, Freedom and stuff. Silly me.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
Spreading Democracy and open Markets around the world is a bad thing?- JSF
a) It's not up to us to enforce our way of life on other people, and
b) EVEN IF we assume that "spreading Democracy and open Markets around the world" is a good thing, can you seriously argue that that's what we've been doing? Heck, we can't even seem to ensure democracy and open markets HERE.
OTOH, are ideals like spreading Liberty, Freedom, to those outside America bad? Or should those not in America remain in their prisons?
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Quote:Continuing from my last post, I understand 32,000 have been slaughtered on the Mexican side of the US border. Compared to about 10,000 civilians killed in Iraq. Are these Drug Lords in Mexico Evil? Or is there a non-Evil motive?
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:Quote:I should have been more clear. I was confusing Democracy, Free Market, Free Enterprise with Liberty, Freedom and stuff. Silly me.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
Spreading Democracy and open Markets around the world is a bad thing?- JSF
a) It's not up to us to enforce our way of life on other people, and
b) EVEN IF we assume that "spreading Democracy and open Markets around the world" is a good thing, can you seriously argue that that's what we've been doing? Heck, we can't even seem to ensure democracy and open markets HERE.
OTOH, are ideals like spreading Liberty, Freedom, to those outside America bad? Or should those not in America remain in their prisons?
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Quote:I don't get invading China to Free Tibet. That sounds like invading Mexico to Free California. Why not invade Tibet to expel invaders, freeing Tibet?
Originally posted by 1kiki:
"There is only 3.18 million in Tibet, most of who are actually Chinese."
In a few tens of thousands of years, the interloper Chinese may develop adaptations to the high altitude that are similar to, or maybe even different from, the native Tibetans. Until then, the Chinese can never be more than part-time inhabitants, who will pay a price in comfort, health, and lifespan, for their territorial ambitions.
tic tac
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That wasn't my argument, but you have a point. Why attack China? Why not just go into Tibet to boot out the Chinese?
OTOH ... let's assume the Tibetans actually invited the US to help them with their 'China' problem.
That would be not at all equivalent to the US attacking Afghanistan, or Iraq, or Libya, or Syria, without any general consultation of the will of 'the people' who live in those countries.
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SECOND, you posted this
Quote:
Candidate Trump had challenged many enduring orthodoxies about U.S. foreign policy, and he was openly dismissive of (and dismissed by) Democratic and Republican foreign policy experts alike. Once in power, however, Trump discovered that overcoming the foreign policy establishment was much harder than he had expected. Trump’s presidential style is obviously different from his predecessors’ and he has altered U.S. policy in some significant ways, but the foreign policy revolution that he promised back in 2016 remains unrealized. This book will help you understand why.
In particular, this book seeks to explain why the United States spent the past quarter century pursuing an ambitious, unrealistic, and mostly unsuccessful foreign policy.
Why did both Democrats and Republicans embark on an ill-considered campaign to spread democracy, markets, and other liberal values around the world?
There are several parts to this quote
*****
It places blame on BOTH the Democratic and Republican "foreign policy establishment" ... which some would call the deep state. Your constant harping about the GOP is misleading you - the problem is much deeper than one political party.
*****
While its easy to calculate our costs in terms of lives and money, it's impossible to calculate the benefits of democracy, markets, and other liberal values . And yet, you spend a great deal of words calculating the Social Discount Rate of benefits which can't even be measured. You seem to be agonizing over the lost opportunity to reform other societies, or at least to save tyrannized people. SECOND, can you please tell me what it is that you hope we would accomplish, in the ideal circumstance that we decide to spend money and blood on your worthwhile goals?
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND
America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876
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Quote:
Spreading Democracy and open Markets around the world is a bad thing?- JSF
a) It's not up to us to enforce our way of life on other people, and
b) EVEN IF we assume that "spreading Democracy and open Markets around the world" is a good thing, can you seriously argue that that's what we've been doing? Heck, we can't even seem to ensure democracy and open markets HERE.- SIGNY
I should have been more clear. I was confusing Democracy, Free Market, Free Enterprise with Liberty, Freedom and stuff. Silly me. OTOH, are ideals like spreading Liberty, Freedom, to those outside America bad? Or should those not in America remain in their prisons? ... Continuing from my last post, I understand 32,000 have been slaughtered on the Mexican side of the US border. Compared to about 10,000 civilians killed in Iraq. Are these Drug Lords in Mexico Evil? Or is there a non-Evil motive?- JSF
First of all, I have no idea where you got that egregiously wrong figure of "10,000" people killed in Iraq.
Quote:
Half-Million Iraqis Died in the War, New Study Says
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/10/131015-iraq-war-death
s-survey-2013/
And does it matter that we killed people because we "meant well", as opposed to drug lords who kill people over money? If they're evil because they killed 32,000 people, what does that make us if we killed 500,000?
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND
America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876
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A very weird topic....no "good" - no "evil" in the world. Don't say that to a
born-again Christian. But, religion aside, that is a rather "interesting" thing to say in this day and age.
So, that means that Kim Jong-Un is a boy scout. And the bold statement you make that belief in good and evil in this world is more dangerous than nationalism. I know, you said that the "conceit of liberals" thinking they
are good (and therefor "right") is dangerous, so much so that it pales in comparison to nationalism.
So, as Jewels has stated in a reply: What about mass murderers? Bundy, etc.
I found it curious that you did not respond to his post.
Well, good and evil...they exist and you have people of all stripes that
follow either path. Some don't know that they are evil, or actually believe
that what they are is "good" and that they are entitled for many different
reasons.
If you want to say that you despise "liberals" because they feel entitled and
declare themselves good, then go ahead and say that. No one could take that
thought away from you, because that is what you believe. But to say that there's no good or evil in this world...well, that's another story now, isn't it?
SGG
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
It is the biggest conceit of AIL-liberals that they represent "good" and those who don't follow their beliefs are "evil".
This belief is more far dangerous than nationalism. As a "nationalist", you accept that other nations exist. And if you're a consistent "nationalist", you'll accord the same rights other nations as the ones that you claim for your own.
The problem with dividing the world into "good" and "evil", however, is that there's only one response to "evil", and that is to destroy it. There really are no other options, and no room for co-existance.
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Quote:??
Originally posted by 1kiki:
"Spreading Democracy and open Markets around the world is a bad thing?"
I would say that spreading democracy at the point of a gun, and spreading open markets by fiat, seem inherently self-contradictory, and so, self-defeating.
I would need to know how you reconcile those to continue considering your ideas.
I had not considered forcing a horse to drink water.
If imprisoned persons do not wish to achieve Freedom, we should not force Freedom upon them.
I don't recall hearing about many French objecting to liberation from Nazi occupation. Some of the French seemed to desire a return to Self Governing, I didn't think we forced Freedom upon them, or democracy.
I don't recall Republic of Korea Citizens ranting in opposition to being allowed self governance.
The Vietnamese that I've talked to seemed to cherish Freedom and Democracy, and wish their former country had both. About the same with Hmong, and Cambodians. They were forced into Communism, not forced into Freedom.
Rumor has it that no persons were ever recorded as breaching the Berlin Wall to escape Freedom and Democracy in favor of Communism, unlike the Official Communist Policy.
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Quote:It seems to me that you're misunderstanding on purpose.
Originally posted by SHINYGOODGUY:
A very weird topic....no "good" - no "evil" in the world. Don't say that to a born-again Christian. But, religion aside, that is a rather "interesting" thing to say in this day and age.
So, that means that Kim Jong-Un is a boy scout.- SHINY
Quote:I'll get to this in a bit ...
And the bold statement you make that belief in good and evil in this world is more dangerous than nationalism. I know, you said that the "conceit of liberals" thinking they are good (and therefor "right") is dangerous, so much so that it pales in comparison to nationalism.- SHINY
Quote:I DID respond. I called them "dangerous".
So, as Jewels has stated in a reply: What about mass murderers? Bundy, etc. I found it curious that you did not respond to his post.
Quote:
Well, good and evil...they exist and you have people of all stripes that follow either path. Some don't know that they are evil, or actually believe that what they are is "good" and that they are entitled for many different reasons.
The WORST excesses are caused by people who believe they're pursuing a great good ... SO great, that people are nothing in comparison. Mao wanted to create a new society which did away with the old authorities. Pol Pot wanted perfect equality. People in the grip of a "great good" do great evil.
Quote:
If you want to say that you despise "liberals" because they feel entitled and
declare themselves good, then go ahead and say that. No one could take that
thought away from you, because that is what you believe. But to say that there's no good or evil in this world...well, that's another story now, isn't it?- SHINY
My mistake was in thinking that liberals are afflicted with the concept that they're good and everyone else is evil. JSF disabused me of that notion!
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND
America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876
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Good call on the 10,000. I should have listened more carefully, and checked before posting.
It may have been constrained to the time period of those 32,000 slaughtered.
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Quote:I tried to avoid inference that it was your argument. I quoted the most cogent post relating, which often is posts from you - hoping for any resulting posts being cogent and non-tangential.
Originally posted by 1kiki:
That wasn't my argument, but you have a point. Why attack China? Why not just go into Tibet to boot out the Chinese?
OTOH ... let's assume the Tibetans actually invited the US to help them with their 'China' problem.
That would be not at all equivalent to the US attacking Afghanistan, or Iraq, or Libya, or Syria, without any general consultation of the will of 'the people' who live in those countries.
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I misunderstood what you were referencing to who ... my bad! Sorry about that.
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Quote:What if person were to kill a baby? We would call that evil. But if that baby was going to grow up to be 10x worse than Hitler, killing might be a little bit good. But if the lack of that mega-Hitler was to prevent a mass move to save the planet, it might be evil.
Originally posted by SHINYGOODGUY:
But to say that there's no good or evil in this world...well, that's another story now, isn't it?
SGG
And so on.
To call someone good or evil, I think we would need perfect knowledge of how their actions ultimately turned out. And we don't have that.
But what if you decided the result of their actions didn't matter, just their intentions?
Well, we'd be stuck there, too. We have no way of zeroing in on someone's intentions. But even if we did, if - for example - some person truly believed that torture-killing 100,000 people was the right thing to do, we'd have to reconcile our human revulsion to that decision with our understanding of their pure and beneficent motives.
I don't believe we have the capacity to judge good and evil, as we lack sufficient ability to see the future, and we lack sufficient telepathy to see into others' psyches.
Aside from what I posted above, we seem unusually flexible in our ability to shift our moral judgments depending on what 'side' we're on (or for other self-serving reasons). As far as I can tell, that looks like there's very little indication we're any good at deciding what's good or evil, IRL
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Instead of chasing down all these offshoots, I think I'm waiting for Siggy to clarify the meaning of the OP.
For relativism, I can judge well.
I can gauge how highly intelligent a person is by measuring how often they agree with me.
I can gauge how Evil a person is by measuring how often they disagree with me.
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Quote:Nixon asked me to go to Vietnam. Me, being neither cynical nor experienced in the deceptions by Presidents, went. It was a very educational process. I could see how Nixon's lofty goals could have been accomplished but not at the extremely unrealistic low-low price ceiling that Americans were willing to pay.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
It places blame on BOTH the Democratic and Republican "foreign policy establishment" ... which some would call the deep state. Your constant harping about the GOP is misleading you - the problem is much deeper than one political party.
*****
While its easy to calculate our costs in terms of lives and money, it's impossible to calculate the benefits of democracy, markets, and other liberal values . And yet, you spend a great deal of words calculating the Social Discount Rate of benefits which can't even be measured. You seem to be agonizing over the lost opportunity to reform other societies, or at least to save tyrannized people. SECOND, can you please tell me what it is that you hope we would accomplish, in the ideal circumstance that we decide to spend money and blood on your worthwhile goals?
"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND
Americans continue to believe in those lofty goals ever since, but they have not raised the price they are willing to pay in order to achieve them. Hence, foreign policies have failed, some more completely than others.
I am thinking American voters (especially Congress and Presidents) should change their goals. That is much easier than throwing away an ever increasing amount of lives and money on foreign policy failures. As a small note: lives should include not just American citizens lives but also foreigners. Maybe a foreigner is not worth 100% of an American, but reducing the worth to less than 100% places the policy into some dangerous, even immoral, territory. In the most recent foreign policy fiascos the foreigners' lives appear to be valued at very close to zero compared to American lives. Maybe that is an important reason why the policies turned into fiascos in the first place. Maybe Congress should pass a law valuing foreign lives at no less than 50% of American lives. I'm pretty sure that whatever number Congress decides, if it is not 100%, many people will get a new and more accurate understanding of American foreign policy.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Quote:
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:
Instead of chasing down all these offshoots, I think I'm waiting for Siggy to clarify the meaning of the OP.
For relativism, I can judge well.
I can gauge how highly intelligent a person is by measuring how often they agree with me.
I can gauge how Evil a person is by measuring how often they disagree with me.
I do hope you're joking here.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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Quote:Second, since you were able to volunteer under Nixon, you must be a few years older than me. For the life of me, I don't remember Nixon saying ANYTHING inspiring about Vietnam. Just OOC, what did he say?
It places blame on BOTH the Democratic and Republican "foreign policy establishment" ... which some would call the deep state. Your constant harping about the GOP is misleading you - the problem is much deeper than one political party.
*****
While its easy to calculate our costs in terms of lives and money, it's impossible to calculate the benefits of democracy, markets, and other liberal values . And yet, you spend a great deal of words calculating the Social Discount Rate of benefits which can't even be measured. You seem to be agonizing over the lost opportunity to reform other societies, or at least to save tyrannized people. SECOND, can you please tell me what it is that you hope we would accomplish, in the ideal circumstance that we decide to spend money and blood on your worthwhile goals? - SIGNY
Nixon asked me to go to Vietnam. Me, being neither cynical nor experienced in the deceptions by Presidents, went. It was a very educational process. I could see how Nixon's lofty goals could have been accomplished but not at the extremely unrealistic low-low price ceiling that Americans were willing to pay.
Americans continue to believe in those lofty goals ever since, but they have not raised the price they are willing to pay in order to achieve them. Hence, foreign policies have failed, some more completely than others.
I am thinking American voters (especially Congress and Presidents) should change their goals. That is much easier than throwing away an ever increasing amount of lives and money on foreign policy failures. As a small note: lives should include not just American citizens lives but also foreigners. Maybe a foreigner is not worth 100% of an American, but reducing the worth to less than 100% places the policy into some dangerous, even immoral, territory. In the most recent foreign policy fiascos the foreigners' lives appear to be valued at very close to zero compared to American lives. Maybe that is an important reason why the policies turned into fiascos in the first place. Maybe Congress should pass a law valuing foreign lives at no less than 50% of American lives. I'm pretty sure that whatever number Congress decides, if it is not 100%, many people will get a new and more accurate understanding of American foreign policy.- SECOND
*****
In any case ... OK, I think I see what you mean.
I have a hard time characterizing America's depth of belief in its foreign interventions. Some people believe passionately in our presumed missions overseas, but - as you say- haven't fully thought through the costs to achieve their stated goals.
But I think for most people, that "belief" is more of a rationalization... something that they don't think about much either way - neither thinking about our presumed goals, nor thinking about the cost to achieve them. And in MANY cases, "the people" are actually temporarily stampeded into supporting specific interventions through a combination of fear ("WMD!") or R2P do-gooding ("Assad gassed his own people").
But IMHO by the time most people have ascended to Congress, they no longer believe in what "the people" are told. And CERTAINLY this applies at the White House level, since the White House has been the active locus of all pro-war propaganda since N Korea.
Every single intervention since the Korean war that I can think of has been either conducted on the QT (like Kissinger giving Suharto weapons so he can kill a half-million people) or on the back of some ridiculous lie (like the Gulf of Tonkin incident) with which the WH was fully complicit.
So, what would it take for "the people" to have a more sober and realistic view of overseas "interventions"?
M
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Quote:Did you ever listen to Nixon’s state of the union speeches? I did. Can you image 18 year old me working side by side with my father at Burger King in 1970? I could see where I will be in 33 years, so I would rather be off to Vietnam, thanks to Nixon, then back from Vietnam, thanks to a helicopter crash, then back working next to my father, but this time I really need a job that doesn’t require me to stand on my feet all day because of that helicopter. It is a little late, but now I listen to my sisters about going to college.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Second, since you were able to volunteer under Nixon, you must be a few years older than me. For the life of me, I don't remember Nixon saying ANYTHING inspiring about Vietnam. Just OOC, what did he say?
"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND
Search youtube for nixon state of the union 1971
Because of Nixon I did not end up similar to my father. Helpfully, Nixon also beat some wisdom into my skull about being gullible and believing empty promises from a guy who would soon take early retirement, as did LBJ, both of them avoiding cleaning up the mess they created. Nearly everyone who went to that war (and an even higher percent of those who did not) did not learn the lesson Nixon and LBJ were teaching about the ineffectiveness of American armed forces. Neither of those presidents were as wise as FDR or Lincoln about using force and what an army can achieve.
Yes, I know the hippies believed the war was immoral, but I did not care about evil vs goddamn good. What I do care about, and neither the hippies nor the hardhats seem capable of understanding, even until today, is the true lesson from Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq War II. It is not about good vs evil.
The lesson that can be applied to today’s violent American foreign policy was that a nation should not start foreign policy projects it can’t afford to finish. (Civil War and WWII lasted 4 years. Afghanistan is 17 years. See the difference?) If you don’t treat foreign policy like a huge engineering project, with a solid estimate of schedule and cost, your foreign policy will fail, exactly the same as engineering projects routinely fail when they run out of time and money. But your average American General, Secretary of State, Congresswoman, or President cannot see it that way and continues to hope she can finesse her way around hard facts about cost and schedule. Thus America has weapons projects, wars, and foreign policy that are partial or complete failures.
Here is one foreign policy project that is guaranteed to succeed with enough money and manpower. It would receive near universal praise, at least outside of America, even if the project turns out to be far more difficult than Congress expected. It could start small, in one country, and build to more. Other countries could follow America’s example. I see zero chance of America accepting this project as its own. It would much rather continue with a series of incoherent foreign policy promises followed by expensive failures. Maybe it is the way Americans think: better to fail big than succeed small.
Quote:www.cnn.com/2018/10/25/health/tuberculosis-tb-vaccine-drugs-hope-intl/
It's been around for centuries and has been curable for decades, but the bacteria behind tuberculosis are still the biggest infectious killers across the planet -- killing more people annually than HIV. Last year, an estimated 10 million people developed tuberculosis, with 1.6 million dying from it, according to the World Health Organization, despite an effective treatment.
index.html
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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So, if I understand you correctly, you're not really concerned about the reasons (goals) for any particular intervention, and you aren't concerned about the moral calculation either.
What REALLY bugs the shit out of you is the fact that the COSTS are never fully taken into account/ revealed. Correct?
Well, if that's the case, I can fully appreciate your POV. IMHO once you fully envision all of your COSTS, I think you really start being a lot more realistic about your goals and actions as well.
Your POV echoes Colin Powell's rules of war ... lessons that he learned from Vietnam, and then forgot to apply to Iraq:
Quote:
Is a vital national security interest threatened?
Do we have a clear attainable objective?
Have the risks and costs been fully and frankly analyzed?
Have all other non-violent policy means been fully exhausted?
Is there a plausible exit strategy to avoid endless entanglement?
Have the consequences of our action been fully considered?
Is the action supported by the American people?
Do we have genuine broad international support?
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND
America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876
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The wars we are in have a purpose.... but it is not making life better for anybody else, and it is not even about oil.
It's about power and military supremacy over everyone. That also means American citizens since the elite have no borders or national allegiances. It just happens to be based largely out of America because we are a willing and gullible participant and we have the most financial power behind us.
Most people wouldn't ever dream of sacrificing everything they have for a revolt anyhow, but it's a lot easier to justify our ridiculous military budgets when we have a nameless and faceless enemy (Emanuelle Goldstein, Bogey Man, etc).
Our machines of war have become so horrific that they don't even have to be manned. Taking out people with drones is only one step away from playing Call of Duty on the Playstation. There is no human interaction with it, so there is very little guilt.
I think it's pretty foolish to believe that there is no such thing as evil in the world.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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"The lesson that can be applied to today’s violent American foreign policy was that a nation should not start foreign policy projects it can’t afford to finish."
It's only a problem if we make it one. We could always declare victory, pack up, and leave.
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Quote:Tell me what evil is and I'll tell you whether it exists
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
The wars we are in have a purpose.... but it is not making life better for anybody else, and it is not even about oil.
It's about power and military supremacy over everyone. That also means American citizens since the elite have no borders or national allegiances. It just happens to be based largely out of America because we are a willing and gullible participant and we have the most financial power behind us.
Most people wouldn't ever dream of sacrificing everything they have for a revolt anyhow, but it's a lot easier to justify our ridiculous military budgets when we have a nameless and faceless enemy (Emanuelle Goldstein, Bogey Man, etc).
Our machines of war have become so horrific that they don't even have to be manned. Taking out people with drones is only one step away from playing Call of Duty on the Playstation. There is no human interaction with it, so there is very little guilt.
I think it's pretty foolish to believe that there is no such thing as evil in the world.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND
America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876
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Quote:Are people who Mail Bombs Evil?
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:Tell me what evil is and I'll tell you whether it exists
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
The wars we are in have a purpose.... but it is not making life better for anybody else, and it is not even about oil.
It's about power and military supremacy over everyone. That also means American citizens since the elite have no borders or national allegiances. It just happens to be based largely out of America because we are a willing and gullible participant and we have the most financial power behind us.
Most people wouldn't ever dream of sacrificing everything they have for a revolt anyhow, but it's a lot easier to justify our ridiculous military budgets when we have a nameless and faceless enemy (Emanuelle Goldstein, Bogey Man, etc).
Our machines of war have become so horrific that they don't even have to be manned. Taking out people with drones is only one step away from playing Call of Duty on the Playstation. There is no human interaction with it, so there is very little guilt.
I think it's pretty foolish to believe that there is no such thing as evil in the world.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
Remember Ted Kazinski?
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He was definitely crazy. I think evil implies a moral choice and a freely chosen direction. I don't think Ted was capable of choice.
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Quote:You really think that applies to such a repeated action? Spanning that many bombs, over decades? Killing 3, injuring 23, during the 70s, 80s, 90s.
Originally posted by 1kiki:
He was definitely crazy. I think evil implies a moral choice and a freely chosen direction. I don't think Ted was capable of choice.
Or are you referring to more than just Ted?
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People are crazy for years, and they maintain the same delusions for years. Just look at all the homeless people: they're homeless for decades at a time. "Crazy" isn't something you do once and then get over.
But I don't know about Ted. He may have been one of those people who was attempting to do great good.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Kaczynski
Like I said: In my observation, the greatest horrors are often committed by people attempting some great good.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND
America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:Tell me what evil is and I'll tell you whether it exists
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
The wars we are in have a purpose.... but it is not making life better for anybody else, and it is not even about oil.
It's about power and military supremacy over everyone. That also means American citizens since the elite have no borders or national allegiances. It just happens to be based largely out of America because we are a willing and gullible participant and we have the most financial power behind us.
Most people wouldn't ever dream of sacrificing everything they have for a revolt anyhow, but it's a lot easier to justify our ridiculous military budgets when we have a nameless and faceless enemy (Emanuelle Goldstein, Bogey Man, etc).
Our machines of war have become so horrific that they don't even have to be manned. Taking out people with drones is only one step away from playing Call of Duty on the Playstation. There is no human interaction with it, so there is very little guilt.
I think it's pretty foolish to believe that there is no such thing as evil in the world.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND
America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876
I believe I just did in the post you quoted.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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Quote:Here is a real example of a "cost" that Trump is not accounting for in his foreign policy. Trump announced on October 20 that he intends to pull the United States out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. But in concrete terms, the treaty was a huge success. The U.S. destroyed almost 1,000 of its own missiles, and the Soviets destroyed almost 2,000 of theirs. Why would Trump want to again build those missiles? Those will be unnecessary costs for Americans.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
So, if I understand you correctly, you're not really concerned about the reasons (goals) for any particular intervention, and you aren't concerned about the moral calculation either.
What REALLY bugs the shit out of you is the fact that the COSTS are never fully taken into account/ revealed. Correct?
Well, if that's the case, I can fully appreciate your POV. IMHO once you fully envision all of your COSTS, I think you really start being a lot more realistic about your goals and actions as well.
Your POV echoes Colin Powell's rules of war ... lessons that he learned from Vietnam, and then forgot to apply to Iraq:
Quote:
Is a vital national security interest threatened?
Do we have a clear attainable objective?
Have the risks and costs been fully and frankly analyzed?
Have all other non-violent policy means been fully exhausted?
Is there a plausible exit strategy to avoid endless entanglement?
Have the consequences of our action been fully considered?
Is the action supported by the American people?
Do we have genuine broad international support?
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND
The long negotiation of the INF treaty, and the post-signing environment it helped create, was part of an extraordinary collapse of tensions between the U.S. and the Soviet Union during the 1980s. Why would Trump want to throw that away and increase tension with Russia? It might not cost anything now, but someday it could. There is an article that explains how tensions over missiles could have, in the past, ended with massive civilian deaths. Those potential deaths are costs.
https://theintercept.com/2018/10/27/trump-inf-treaty-cuban-missile-cri
sis-nuclear-war/
National security adviser John Bolton has yearned for decades to decommission the treaty. Russians may be cheating on the treaty in a modest way, and China is not bound by it at all and is developing intermediate-range missiles. But it’s hard to see how Trump yielding to Bolton on this treaty will be free of cost.
Have you noticed that I am not talking about good and evil? I'm talking about the missile treaty as if we are playing a computer game where to win the President avoids unnecessary "costs", completely bloodless "costs" because it is only a computer simulation, "costs" such as wasting his own citizens' tax "money" for building missiles he can't use without causing his citizens to "die" (remember, it is only a computer game). Some of the better engineers in the world do the same kind of cost analysis on their projects, looking at various scenarios and calculating costs and changing their designs to keep the costs down for the worst-case scenarios. I'd expect the US President to do the same before he pulls out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. But I don't believe Trump considered any cost beyond pleasing Bolton, who has only contempt for “dreamy and academic” fools who support arms control.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
He was definitely crazy. I think evil implies a moral choice and a freely chosen direction. I don't think Ted was capable of choice.
Quote:Kaczynski was deluded. He may have been right about a lot of things, but he was deluded about his role in this society.
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:
You really think that applies to such a repeated action? Spanning that many bombs, over decades? Killing 3, injuring 23, during the 70s, 80s, 90s.
Or are you referring to more than just Ted?
Delusion is an odd form of insanity. We can easily identify as insane the people who organically hallucinate. But delusion - like for example paranoia - is a disorder of thought. People aren't thinking the way they 'should'. They don't agree with the reality the rest of us agree with. But on some things, maybe everyone else is wrong and the 'crazy' person is right.
Nevertheless, Kaczynski's lawyers thought they could get an insanity plea, which means they could get professionals to call him insane.
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Quote:Kaczynski's only goal was getting his 35,000-word essay "Industrial Society and Its Future" (dubbed the Unabomber Manifesto by the FBI) printed verbatim by a major newspaper. He stated that if this demand was met, he would "desist from terrorism". He kept his word and never mailed another bomb. This is a simply minded guy with a ridiculous goal, much like America's ridiculous foreign policy goals and lists of drone targets for assassination. The State Department and Pentagon are run by people as simple minded, yet highly educated, as Kaczynski.
Originally posted by 1kiki:
Kaczynski was deluded. He may have been right about a lot of things, but he was deluded about his role in this society.
Delusion is an odd form of insanity. We can easily identify as insane the people who organically hallucinate. But delusion - like for example paranoia - is a disorder of thought. People aren't thinking the way they 'should'. They don't agree with the reality the rest of us agree with. But on some things, maybe everyone else is wrong and the 'crazy' person is right.
Nevertheless, Kaczynski's lawyers thought they could get an insanity plea, which means they could get professionals to call him insane.
There was controversy as to whether the essay should be published, but the Department of Justice, headed by Attorney General Janet Reno, along with FBI Director Louis Freeh, recommended its publication out of concern for public safety and in hope that a reader could identify the author. Bob Guccione of Penthouse volunteered to publish it, but Kaczynski replied that as Penthouse was less "respectable" than the other publications, he would "reserve the right to plant one (and only one) bomb intended to kill, after our manuscript has been published". Instead, the essay was published by both The New York Times and The Washington Post on September 19, 1995.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Kaczynski#Industrial_Society_and_Its
_Future
Kaczynski had further publishing goals:
1) Technological Slavery: The Collected Writings of Theodore J. Kaczynski, a.k.a. "The Unabomber" (2010)
www.amazon.com/Technological-Slavery-Collected-Kaczynski-k/dp/19325958
05
2) Anti-Tech Revolution: Why and How (2016)
www.amazon.com/Anti-Tech-Revolution-Why-Theodore-Kaczynski/dp/19442280
04
He can't stop sharing his opinions from his jail cell. He'd be perfect for either the State Department or a Pentagon run think tank if they could get him reoriented to something just as ill-conceived, but better aligned with America's foreign policy. Maybe he could appear on "Meet the Press" when National security adviser John Bolton is busy.
www.amazon.com/Barack-Obama-Endangering-National-Sovereignty/dp/159403
4915
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Well Kiki, you make some good points, and I agree that trying to predict "good" or "evil" is an impossible task. So what, or better put, how do we determine good or evil.
First off, I assume we are using our American culture sensibilities and beliefs. To that end, I submit the following: we can only determine good and evil after the fact; meaning after a particular act rather than through prediction.
For example: a boy scout helps a little old lady across the street (good)
or, a young punk shoots an elderly couple during a robbery and kills them
and shows no remorse (evil: of the cold-blooded killer type). Obviously we
won't know, in either case, if a baby will grow up to be good or evil.
The boy scout or the reckless teen, there is no way of telling.
If a young woman volunteers her time at the local hospital reading fairy tales to sick children, but she secretly tortures male prostitutes hidden in her basement; we won't know until we dig up the bodies. On the surface, she's
good, but she harbors rather creepy behavior because she tortures and kills
male prostitutes. Is she evil? Of course she is; she's pretending to be this benevolent being while secretly doing something sinister...evil. Now, one may argue that if she tortures and kills people in her basement that she may be sick in the head, so therefore we must take that into consideration.
I call bullshit. She gets her jollies from torturing people and then proceeds
to use the insanity plea. No, you had enough malice and forethought to purposefully hurt someone to the point of murder. No, we can't look into her head, but we can infer from her actions that this is what she meant to do..kill
If a person walks up to your house and douses it with gasoline and later your house is on fire, you can infer from his actions that this is what he meant to do. He may have been born a normal kid, but somewhere along the way he
went over the deep end and is now a stark raving lunatic. Dousing a house with gasoline is a purposeful act, but then lighting a match to it is pure evil.
You can have evil thoughts, but then not act upon those thoughts (in that regard I agree with your statement that we cannot read someone's mind, but we can observe their behavior and determine, based upon our values, if that person did an evil thing).
SGG
Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:Quote:What if person were to kill a baby? We would call that evil. But if that baby was going to grow up to be 10x worse than Hitler, killing might be a little bit good. But if the lack of that mega-Hitler was to prevent a mass move to save the planet, it might be evil.
Originally posted by SHINYGOODGUY:
But to say that there's no good or evil in this world...well, that's another story now, isn't it?
SGG
And so on.
To call someone good or evil, I think we would need perfect knowledge of how their actions ultimately turned out. And we don't have that.
But what if you decided the result of their actions didn't matter, just their intentions?
Well, we'd be stuck there, too. We have no way of zeroing in on someone's intentions. But even if we did, if - for example - some person truly believed that torture-killing 100,000 people was the right thing to do, we'd have to reconcile our human revulsion to that decision with our understanding of their pure and beneficent motives.
I don't believe we have the capacity to judge good and evil, as we lack sufficient ability to see the future, and we lack sufficient telepathy to see into others' psyches.
Aside from what I posted above, we seem unusually flexible in our ability to shift our moral judgments depending on what 'side' we're on (or for other self-serving reasons). As far as I can tell, that looks like there's very little indication we're any good at deciding what's good or evil, IRL
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Signym,
So, that means that Kim Jong-Un is a boy scout.- SHINY
Quote:
It seems to me that you're misunderstanding on purpose.
I was being somewhat smug in my answer, but not in a mocking way; but strictly to illustrate a point. I assumed that we were on the same page regarding Kim's
behavior, and so I cracked wise about your thesis: that evil doesn't exist in this world. I should have answered in a more scholarly manner. The short answer should have been: I consider him evil.
Quote:
The WORST excesses are caused by people who believe they're pursuing a great good ... SO great, that people are nothing in comparison . Mao wanted to create a new society which did away with the old authorities. Pol Pot wanted perfect equality. People in the grip of a "great good" do great evil.
I agree. Throughout history there's been much gnashing of teeth because one man felt he, and he alone, had the answer.
Quote:
My mistake was in thinking that liberals are afflicted with the concept that they're good and everyone else is evil. JSF disabused me of that notion!
Liberals, conservatives and progressives all feel that the path to a better American society is through the system they support. My take is that we can reach betterment and enlightenment through an amalgam of those systems.
I'm curious. If you don't mind me asking; how did JSF manage to "disabuse"
you of "that" notion?
SGG
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Quote:What if she truly cares for children and is trying to make their worlds better in whatever way she can? And she truly hates male prostitutes as the source of all evil? What if torturing and killing them is what she does because she's 100% convinced it will make a better world for the children she cares so deeply about?
Originally posted by SHINYGOODGUY:
If a young woman volunteers her time at the local hospital reading fairy tales to sick children, but she secretly tortures male prostitutes hidden in her basement; we won't know until we dig up the bodies. On the surface, she's
good, but she harbors rather creepy behavior because she tortures and kills
male prostitutes. Is she evil? Of course she is; she's pretending to be this benevolent being while secretly doing something sinister...evil.
I think that would make her crazy, not evil.
But we can probably never truly know what's in another person's mind. And so, I don't believe we have the necessary tools to make such absolute judgments of good and evil.
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Quote:Is the following evil or not? Don't worry about "absolute" judgment because you're not God and even God doesn't care enough one way or the other to lift a finger: Rohingya children 'beheaded and burned alive' as refugees continue to flood into Bangladesh to escape violence
Originally posted by 1kiki:
But we can probably never truly know what's in another person's mind. And so, I don't believe we have the necessary tools to make such absolute judgments of good and evil.
www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/rohingya-burma-myanmar-children-
beheaded-burned-alive-refugees-bangladesh-a7926521.html
If the US government is basing decisions about foreign policy on evil versus good then the State Department must have decided this is not evil. Alternatively, the State Department decided that since the children are Muslim it is none of America's business. But who knows why? The second line in the story mentions the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi. The beheaded children don't bother her, so it must not be evil in her highly trained opinion. She could say a few words, as could America's State Department, because of her position in Burmese government, but does not.
www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/09/myanmar-aung-san-suu
-kyi-rohingya-united-nations/571618/
As for my opinion: people are very flexible about evil, depending on who is being murdered or tortured to determine whether it is an evil act. Mostly people don't care about the internal mental states of the torturers or killers or arsonists. People, except for philosophers and sophomores, mostly care only about their own internal state of mind, their feelings, when they think about these crimes. Most times an "evil" crime does not even feel to them to be legally a crime if they don't like the victim. On the flip side, and staying consistent to letting their feelings make the difficult decisions, everything is evil if they don't like the accused defendant.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Quote:You used "but" twice in one sentence. A double but, a but within a but.
Originally posted by SHINYGOODGUY:
Signym,
So, that means that Kim Jong-Un is a boy scout.- SHINYQuote:
It seems to me that you're misunderstanding on purpose.
I was being somewhat smug in my answer, but not in a mocking way; but strictly to illustrate a point. I assumed that we were on the same page regarding Kim's
behavior, and so I cracked wise about your thesis: that evil doesn't exist in this world. I should have answered in a more scholarly manner. The short answer should have been: I consider him evil.Quote:I agree. Throughout history there's been much gnashing of teeth because one man felt he, and he alone, had the answer.
The WORST excesses are caused by people who believe they're pursuing a great good ... SO great, that people are nothing in comparison . Mao wanted to create a new society which did away with the old authorities. Pol Pot wanted perfect equality. People in the grip of a "great good" do great evil.Quote:Liberals, conservatives and progressives all feel that the path to a better American society is through the system they support. My take is that we can reach betterment and enlightenment through an amalgam of those systems.
My mistake was in thinking that liberals are afflicted with the concept that they're good and everyone else is evil. JSF disabused me of that notion!
I'm curious. If you don't mind me asking; how did JSF manage to "disabuse"
you of "that" notion?
SGG
You are issued 7 demerit points.
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Quote:I have not been pasting all the posts together, so forgive me if you already answered this:
Originally posted by 1kiki:Quote:What if she truly cares for children and is trying to make their worlds better in whatever way she can? And she truly hates male prostitutes as the source of all evil? What if torturing and killing them is what she does because she's 100% convinced it will make a better world for the children she cares so deeply about?
Originally posted by SHINYGOODGUY:
If a young woman volunteers her time at the local hospital reading fairy tales to sick children, but she secretly tortures male prostitutes hidden in her basement; we won't know until we dig up the bodies. On the surface, she's
good, but she harbors rather creepy behavior because she tortures and kills
male prostitutes. Is she evil? Of course she is; she's pretending to be this benevolent being while secretly doing something sinister...evil.
I think that would make her crazy, not evil.
But we can probably never truly know what's in another person's mind. And so, I don't believe we have the necessary tools to make such absolute judgments of good and evil.
IAW your statement, can you identify anybody who you can judge as Evil?
Separately, do you feel Evil is just a matter of opinion?
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Quote:Pretty much my opinion about how people in general use the concept of evil. It's how the neo-liberals here can slide past the tens of thousands of people who were killed in Ukraine, Libya, and Syria (as well as Iraq and Afghanistan) on under Obama's authority, and the few thousands of children separated from their parents under his deportation policies - and yet be so OUTRAGED!!! when Trump does something less.
As for my opinion: people are very flexible about evil, depending on who is being murdered or tortured to determine whether it is an evil act. Mostly people don't care about the internal mental states of the torturers or killers or arsonists. People, except for philosophers and sophomores, mostly care only about their own internal state of mind, their feelings, when they think about these crimes. Most times an "evil" crime does not even feel to them to be legally a crime if they don't like the victim. On the flip side, and staying consistent to letting their feelings make the difficult decisions, everything is evil if they don't like the accused defendant.
I think the term evil implies some kind of moral value, the implication is that morals come from a superior place of absolute judgment. I don't generally feel so secure in assuming that mantle.
As for children burned alive etc, it's so horrifying, I find I can't think about it too long.
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Quote:Don't worry about those Rohingya Muslim children being burned alive in Burma. If the 1991 Nobel peace prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi doesn't mind it and the US State Dept won't make a fuss, it can't be "evil", note the quotation marks. Burning must be pretty much okay as a foreign policy.
Originally posted by 1kiki:Quote:Pretty much my opinion about how people in general use the concept of evil. It's how the neo-liberals here can slide past the tens of thousands of people who were killed in Ukraine, Libya, and Syria (as well as Iraq and Afghanistan) on under Obama's authority, and the few thousands of children separated from their parents under his deportation policies - and yet be so OUTRAGED!!! when Trump does something less.
As for my opinion: people are very flexible about evil, depending on who is being murdered or tortured to determine whether it is an evil act. Mostly people don't care about the internal mental states of the torturers or killers or arsonists. People, except for philosophers and sophomores, mostly care only about their own internal state of mind, their feelings, when they think about these crimes. Most times an "evil" crime does not even feel to them to be legally a crime if they don't like the victim. On the flip side, and staying consistent to letting their feelings make the difficult decisions, everything is evil if they don't like the accused defendant.
I think the term evil implies some kind of moral value, the implication is that morals come from a superior place of absolute judgment. I don't generally feel so secure in assuming that mantle.
As for children burned alive etc, it's so horrifying, I find I can't think about it too long.
www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/30/aung-san-suu-kyi-wont-be-strippe
d-of-nobel-peace-prize-despite-rohingya-crisis
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Quote:I can't think of anybody at this stage of my life I would judge as evil. I probably have used that term in the past, but pretty much my whole life I've had an aversion to using that term. It doesn't mean I like or approve of everybody and everything they do, I just use different, more specific terms like conniving, untrustworthy, heartless, and so on.
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:
IAW your statement, can you identify anybody who you can judge as Evil?
Separately, do you feel Evil is just a matter of opinion?
As far as I can tell, since we don't know everything, all of these terms are a matter of opinion.
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Quote:I can't think of anybody at this stage of my life I would judge as evil. I probably have used that term in the past, but pretty much my whole life I've had an aversion to using that term. It doesn't mean I like or approve of everybody and everything they do, I just use different, more specific terms like conniving, untrustworthy, heartless, and so on.
Originally posted by 1kiki:Quote:
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:
IAW your statement, can you identify anybody who you can judge as Evil?
Separately, do you feel Evil is just a matter of opinion?
As far as I can tell, since we don't know everything, all of these terms are a matter of opinion.
And yet,I think it was the Nuremberg Trials which established that being given orders does not excuse the genocide committed. So 17 years olds in Uniform must possess and exercise more sense and discretion than what you describe.
Even if you could imagine yourself to be crazy, how many thousands of prisons must you gas, execute, shoot in the head, before you might consider this is not Good?
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Quote:I think it's important for them to know the difference between legal and illegal for sure.
And yet,I think it was the Nuremberg Trials which established that being given orders does not excuse the genocide committed. So 17 years olds in Uniform must possess and exercise more sense and discretion than what you describe.
Way back when somebody posted a study that said something like 90% of all soldiers in WWII never fired a shot at another person. That all of the gunslinging was done by a very small minority.
Basically, you have to take well-adjusted humans and turn them into people who will successfully aim at- and pull the trigger to kill- another human being. (I suspect the proportion of people who will return fire if being fired on is a lot greater.)
I think the branches of the military have gotten a lot better at the civilian-to-soldier makeover since WWII, through a number of choices (immortal young people with limited perspective, for example) and techniques (like removing people from consideration and replacing them with geographic targets, for example).
The point is that once you've breached that barrier, I imagine it's a little harder to control it, or to rebuild it on return to civilian life.
Anyway, one hopes that a typical 17 year old, in the face of military indoctrination, and given their own youthful inability to conceive of death, will strive to remember international laws of war. But if they fail, I wouldn't call them evil.
Quote:I can't imagine it, so I can't answer the question.
Even if you could imagine yourself to be crazy, how many thousands of prisons must you gas, execute, shoot in the head, before you might consider this is not Good?
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Quote:Incorrect, you are.
Originally posted by 1kiki:Quote:I think it's important for them to know the difference between legal and illegal for sure.
And yet,I think it was the Nuremberg Trials which established that being given orders does not excuse the genocide committed. So 17 years olds in Uniform must possess and exercise more sense and discretion than what you describe.
Committing genocide was Legal and the Legal Obligation under the Government and the Army of the Third Reich. Failing to follow orders to murder defenseless prisoners en masse was Illegal and punishable by Death. Your guidelines failed.
Quote:We understood death. It was detailed before we signed contracts. You gloss over "Indoctrination" as if it is not actually Military Law, UCMJ, and there are real consequences.
Way back when somebody posted a study that said something like 90% of all soldiers in WWII never fired a shot at another person. That all of the gunslinging was done by a very small minority.
Basically, you have to take well-adjusted humans and turn them into people who will successfully aim at- and pull the trigger to kill- another human being. (I suspect the proportion of people who will return fire if being fired on is a lot greater.)
I think the branches of the military have gotten a lot better at the civilian-to-soldier makeover since WWII, through a number of choices (immortal young people with limited perspective, for example) and techniques (like removing people from consideration and replacing them with geographic targets, for example).
The point is that once you've breached that barrier, I imagine it's a little harder to control it, or to rebuild it on return to civilian life.
Anyway, one hopes that a typical 17 year old, in the face of military indoctrination, and given their own youthful inability to conceive of death, will strive to remember international laws of war. But if they fail, I wouldn't call them evil.
Did your High School cover International Military Law, which would be the last stop for most Recruits? Mine did not.
Returning to civilian is not a consideration - Nazi soldiers were absolutely in Service during their daily Mass genocide.
Do you really imagine Nazis trained new recruits what International Law was? Or Kim Jung's troops? Or Viet Cong? Or Republican Guards?
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Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
I think it's important for them to know the difference between legal and illegal for sure.
Quote:I should have been more explicit and said international rules of war.
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:
Incorrect, you are.
Committing genocide was Legal and the Legal Obligation under the Government and the Army of the Third Reich. Failing to follow orders to murder defenseless prisoners en masse was Illegal and punishable by Death. Your guidelines failed.
Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
Anyway, one hopes that a typical 17 year old, in the face of military indoctrination, and given their own youthful inability to conceive of death, will strive to remember international laws of war. But if they fail, I wouldn't call them evil.
Quote:That would have made you very different from your average risk-taking 17 year old male.
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:
We understood death.
Quote:By 'it', do you mean death?
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:
It was detailed before we signed contracts.
Is this the contract you mean?
http://www.esd.whs.mil/Portals/54/Documents/DD/forms/dd/dd0004.pdf
I looked through it, and aside from mentioning death benefits, I didn't see any particular mention.
Perhaps you could explain what you mean.
Quote:By 'indoctrination' I meant both the literal training (as one would train a dog, except with more emphasis on punishment instead of reward) to obey commands, as well as the habituation one goes through with the mechanics of killing (load, aim, fire; stab, withdraw, stab; and so on) and treat people as targets.
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:
You gloss over "Indoctrination" as if it is not actually Military Law, UCMJ, and there are real consequences.
And that doesn't account for the herd effect in the field, the nature of the people you serve with, and the drive to blend in and be accepted.
Quote:Do you mean the US military doesn't teach its troops the rules of war?
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:
Did your High School cover International Military Law, which would be the last stop for most Recruits? Mine did not.
Quote:Well ... you just implied the US Army trusts the high schools to do that task. At this point I've lost any clue about what you're trying to say.
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:
Do you really imagine Nazis trained new recruits what International Law was? Or Kim Jung's troops? Or Viet Cong? Or Republican Guards?
But I don't expect that back then the Nazis trained their troops in international law. And I don't expect the Viet Cong did either. But then, maybe the US didn't either, what with bombing civilian targets and infrastructure. And I don't expect the Republican Guards had those classes. But US, CIA, and contractors don't appear to have had the lines made clear, if you go by the torture that some did.
And, I wouldn't call them evil. Brainwashed, misled, uneducated, fanatic, ruthless ... depending on the person.
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So, been too busy to post. But to get back to my OP, and my original meaning, maybe this will make things clearer ...
I think the FEELING that people get when contemplating evil is the same reaction that chimps get when they see s snake: They're afraid of it, and they want to destroy it.
It's an instinctive behavior; nobody teaches chimps to call an alarm and attack; they just do. It's the same thing with people: I think most cultures, in fact, have a concept of evil (evil spirits, the evil eye); which represents our instinctive reaction to things which we see as existential threats that can be attacked. (Although lightning or flood can be existential threats we would never think to attack them, so they don't fall under the category of "evil".)
The problem with letting our instincts lead us into action is that our opinion of WHAT (or who) is "evil" is pretty malleable. We can be taught that certain groups of people are evil, or that people who have certain ideas are evil, or that certain ideas themselves are evil. When you combine that malleable free-form attachment of "evil" to certain ideas or people with the instinctive urge to destroy it, you can turn a large number of people into a weapon bent on destroying another group of people: hence, massacres and genocide.
Calling someone "dangerous" evokes an entirely different reaction than calling someone "evil". For my POV, you must plan on how to protect yourself or others from a "dangerous" person. But an "evil" person must be destroyed. I found this in a discussion of Buddhism and evil
Quote:
The act of sorting humanity into "good" and "evil" carries a terrible trap. When other people are thought to be evil, it becomes possible to justify doing them harm. And in that thinking are seeds of genuine evil.
Human history is thoroughly saturated by violence and atrocity committed on behalf of "good" against people categorized as "evil." Most of the mass horrors humanity has inflicted upon itself may have come from this kind of thinking. People intoxicated by their own self-righteousness or who believe in their own intrinsic moral superiority too easily give themselves permission to do terrible things to those they hate or fear.
https://www.thoughtco.com/buddhism-and-evil-449720
"Evil" triggers a reaction that is impossible to control.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND
America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876
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Quote:
But we can probably never truly know what's in another person's mind. And so, I don't believe we have the necessary tools to make such absolute judgments of good and evil.
Not the common lay person. This is when I would call in the cavalry and have her examined by the psychologist.
So, I guess we're in agreement Kiki. You or I could not determine crazy, but we could "guess" regarding evil. Well, I would venture a guess as to evil.
For instance, North Korea's leader, definitely evil.
SGG
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Thank you for your contribution.
sgg
Quote:
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:Quote:You used "but" twice in one sentence. A double but, a but within a but.
Originally posted by SHINYGOODGUY:
Signym,
So, that means that Kim Jong-Un is a boy scout.- SHINYQuote:
It seems to me that you're misunderstanding on purpose.
I was being somewhat smug in my answer, but not in a mocking way; but strictly to illustrate a point. I assumed that we were on the same page regarding Kim's
behavior, and so I cracked wise about your thesis: that evil doesn't exist in this world. I should have answered in a more scholarly manner. The short answer should have been: I consider him evil.Quote:I agree. Throughout history there's been much gnashing of teeth because one man felt he, and he alone, had the answer.
The WORST excesses are caused by people who believe they're pursuing a great good ... SO great, that people are nothing in comparison . Mao wanted to create a new society which did away with the old authorities. Pol Pot wanted perfect equality. People in the grip of a "great good" do great evil.Quote:Liberals, conservatives and progressives all feel that the path to a better American society is through the system they support. My take is that we can reach betterment and enlightenment through an amalgam of those systems.
My mistake was in thinking that liberals are afflicted with the concept that they're good and everyone else is evil. JSF disabused me of that notion!
I'm curious. If you don't mind me asking; how did JSF manage to "disabuse"
you of "that" notion?
SGG
You are issued 7 demerit points.
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Quote:
I have not been pasting all the posts together, so forgive me if you already answered this:
IAW your statement, can you identify anybody who you can judge as Evil?
Kim Jong-un
Trump
Quote:
Separately, do you feel Evil is just a matter of opinion?
No.
sgg
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Quote:
Originally posted by SHINYGOODGUY:Quote:
I have not been pasting all the posts together, so forgive me if you already answered this:
IAW your statement, can you identify anybody who you can judge as Evil?
Kim Jong-un
TrumpQuote:
Separately, do you feel Evil is just a matter of opinion?
No.
sgg
lol
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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Quote:Moral intuitions arise automatically and almost instantaneously, long before moral reasoning has a chance to get started, and those first intuitions tend to drive our later reasoning. If you think that moral reasoning is something we do to figure out the truth, you’ll be constantly frustrated by how foolish, biased, and illogical people become when they disagree with you. But if you think about moral reasoning as a skill we humans evolved to further our social agendas — to justify our own actions and to defend the teams we belong to — then things will make a lot more sense. Keep your eye on the intuitions, and don’t take people’s moral arguments at face value. They’re mostly post hoc constructions made up on the fly, crafted to advance one or more strategic objectives.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I think the FEELING that people get when contemplating evil is the same reaction that chimps get when they see a snake: They're afraid of it, and they want to destroy it.
It's an instinctive behavior; nobody teaches chimps to call an alarm and attack; they just do. It's the same thing with people
"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND
The mind is an elephant with a rider. The rider is our conscious reasoning — the stream of words and images of which we are fully aware. The elephant is the other 99 percent of mental processes — the ones that occur outside of awareness but that actually govern most of our behavior.
From The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt
https://goo.gl/tu5Hgs
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:Moral intuitions arise automatically and almost instantaneously, long before moral reasoning has a chance to get started, and those first intuitions tend to drive our later reasoning. If you think that moral reasoning is something we do to figure out the truth, you’ll be constantly frustrated by how foolish, biased, and illogical people become when they disagree with you. But if you think about moral reasoning as a skill we humans evolved to further our social agendas — to justify our own actions and to defend the teams we belong to — then things will make a lot more sense. Keep your eye on the intuitions, and don’t take people’s moral arguments at face value. They’re mostly post hoc constructions made up on the fly, crafted to advance one or more strategic objectives.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I think the FEELING that people get when contemplating evil is the same reaction that chimps get when they see a snake: They're afraid of it, and they want to destroy it.
It's an instinctive behavior; nobody teaches chimps to call an alarm and attack; they just do. It's the same thing with people
"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND
The mind is an elephant with a rider. The rider is our conscious reasoning — the stream of words and images of which we are fully aware. The elephant is the other 99 percent of mental processes — the ones that occur outside of awareness but that actually govern most of our behavior.
From The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt
https://goo.gl/tu5Hgs
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
Yep. I don't believe anybody who is posting in here is evil, but I'm sure the same can't be said about some others about me.
This is one of the reasons why I don't think you're all that bad, Second, even though we don't agree on a lot of things.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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Quote:I dunno. The most powerful experience of evil I've ever felt was from a tornado passing overhead. And when I was talking with a person the next day who had happened to be in more or less the same spot as me, that was the word she used, as she was struggling to describe it.
Although lightning or flood can be existential threats we would never think to attack them, so they don't fall under the category of "evil".
The second strongest was when a very low, widespread, active thunderstorm passed overhead. Normally I like thunderstorms, but this one was different.
The feeling of evil was one of omnipotent maliciousness.
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Quote:Huh. I guess a sudden drop in air pressure, or the presence of too many ions in the air, might cause that feeling. How creepy!!!!
Although lightning or flood can be existential threats we would never think to attack them, so they don't fall under the category of "evil". - SIGNY
I dunno. The most powerful experience of evil I've ever felt was from a tornado passing overhead. And when I was talking with a person the next day who had happened to be in more or less the same spot as me, that was the word she used, as she was struggling to describe it.
The second strongest was when a very low, widespread, active thunderstorm passed overhead. Normally I like thunderstorms, but this one was different.
The feeling of evil was one of omnipotent maliciousness.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND
America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876
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Quote:I think that this is true.
I think the FEELING that people get when contemplating evil is the same reaction that chimps get when they see a snake: They're afraid of it, and they want to destroy it.
It's an instinctive behavior; nobody teaches chimps to call an alarm and attack; they just do. It's the same thing with people- SIGNY
Moral intuitions arise automatically and almost instantaneously, long before moral reasoning has a chance to get started, and those first intuitions tend to drive our later reasoning. If you think that moral reasoning is something we do to figure out the truth, you’ll be constantly frustrated by how foolish, biased, and illogical people become when they disagree with you. But if you think about moral reasoning as a skill we humans evolved to further our social agendas — to justify our own actions and to defend the teams we belong to — then things will make a lot more sense. Keep your eye on the intuitions, and don’t take people’s moral arguments at face value. They’re mostly post hoc constructions made up on the fly, crafted to advance one or more strategic objectives.
The mind is an elephant with a rider. The rider is our conscious reasoning — the stream of words and images of which we are fully aware. The elephant is the other 99 percent of mental processes — the ones that occur outside of awareness but that actually govern most of our behavior.- SECOND
Some animals - elephants and chimps for example - possess a "theory of mind" ... they know what another "should" and "shouldn't" know about an event by observing what THE OTHER experiences. (Long story, elegant experiment.) They have language, and a lot of social skills ... that they belong to a group, that there is a hierarchy. They experience grief and fear. They have language and tools, and most importantly (for this discussion) they cooperate and they actually have a sense of "fair" and "unfair".
We (people) have all of the same basic impulses and reactions, but we have one other thing that they don't have: The ability to overlook/overcome DIRECT experience in favor of what we've been TAUGHT. That's why people who've been living peacefully together for decades if not centuries - Hutus and Tutsis, Serbs and Croats, Christians and Muslims - can suddenly be driven (by outside forces usually) to see each other as "evil".
That rider? It's whispering into the ear of the elephant.
TPTB: They're not stupid. They know how to hijack our most basic impulses for their own ends. ("A Century of Self") So if you want to "weaponize" people, all you have to do is amp up that feeling that the "other" is evil and just let nature take its course.
What I'm saying is that people need to become MORE CONSCIOUS if they don't want to be manipulated to their own detriment. Dial down the reaction. "Evil" is one of those abstract words that triggers a powerful natural response. In order not to be "triggered", you can simply choose a better, more accurate word for the situation.
In other words manipulate your stimuli; don't let others do it for you.
Quote:VERY FEW PEOPLE KNOWINGLY DO BAD THINGS (unless they're sociopaths, in which case "bad" and "good" doesn't even compute with them.) Almost everyone tries to do what they think is "best" ... for example THUGR and SHITHITTHEFAN and WISHY are aiming at goals that they believe are "good", even as they behave like little tinpot dictators.
Yep. I don't believe anybody who is posting in here is evil, but I'm sure the same can't be said about some others about me.
This is one of the reasons why I don't think you're all that bad, Second, even though we don't agree on a lot of things.
And that's the problem with believing that you're good and that "the other" is evil ... it
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Quote:Righteous arises from an outraged sense of justice, morality, or fair play. There is a linkage of righteousness and judgmentalism in the term self-righteous, which means “convinced of one’s own righteousness, especially in contrast with the actions and beliefs of others; narrowly moralistic and intolerant.” An obsession with righteousness (leading inevitably to self-righteousness) is the normal human condition. It is a feature of our evolutionary design, not a bug or error that crept into minds that would otherwise be objective and rational. Our righteous minds made it possible for human beings — but no other animals — to produce large cooperative groups, tribes, and nations without the glue of kinship. But at the same time, our righteous minds guarantee that our cooperative groups will always be cursed by moralistic strife.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Almost everyone tries to do what they think is "best" ... for example THUGR and SHITHITTHEFAN and WISHY are aiming at goals that they believe are "good", even as they behave like little tinpot dictators.
And that's the problem with believing that you're good and that "the other" is evil ... it excuses all kinds of malicious behavior.
"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND
From The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt
Bit torrent hash: c93e0f774af6a8b0fe16ad0b54be621f674ee21b
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Quote:Are you ghostwriting for Dean Koontz? I think he's in Laguna Niguel, didn't know you were that close.
Originally posted by 1kiki:Quote:I dunno. The most powerful experience of evil I've ever felt was from a tornado passing overhead. And when I was talking with a person the next day who had happened to be in more or less the same spot as me, that was the word she used, as she was struggling to describe it.
Although lightning or flood can be existential threats we would never think to attack them, so they don't fall under the category of "evil".
The second strongest was when a very low, widespread, active thunderstorm passed overhead. Normally I like thunderstorms, but this one was different.
The feeling of evil was one of omnipotent maliciousness.
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I get it, SECOND, I think we all do: Righteousness is a very rewarding feeling. Like anger, it makes you feel in-charge and in-control, and reduces those uncomfortable feelings of fear and uncertainty.
But just because they're an inbuilt part of our psyche, does that mean we're supposed to indulge them?
Those emotions are how others manipulate us. The M$M whispers (or sometimes shouts, nonstop) in our ears about some evil that is looming over us, and we whisper into the ears of that elephantine unconsciousness that we're riding, and then all mayhem breaks loose. All I'm suggesting is that people should wake up, realize where those impulses come from (and how others manipulate them) and take charge of their feelings instead of constantly being jerked around.
Why would anyone advocate for anything else?
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND
America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876
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Quote:Some argue that it's our ability to manipulate abstract language and create stories about things that don't exist.
Our righteous minds made it possible for human beings — but no other animals — to produce large cooperative groups, tribes, and nations without the glue of kinship.
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Quote:
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:Quote:??
Originally posted by 1kiki:
"Spreading Democracy and open Markets around the world is a bad thing?"
I would say that spreading democracy at the point of a gun, and spreading open markets by fiat, seem inherently self-contradictory, and so, self-defeating.
I would need to know how you reconcile those to continue considering your ideas.
I had not considered forcing a horse to drink water.
If imprisoned persons do not wish to achieve Freedom, we should not force Freedom upon them.
I don't recall hearing about many French objecting to liberation from Nazi occupation. Some of the French seemed to desire a return to Self Governing, I didn't think we forced Freedom upon them, or democracy.
I don't recall Republic of Korea Citizens ranting in opposition to being allowed self governance.
The Vietnamese that I've talked to seemed to cherish Freedom and Democracy, and wish their former country had both. About the same with Hmong, and Cambodians. They were forced into Communism, not forced into Freedom.
Rumor has it that no persons were ever recorded as breaching the Berlin Wall to escape Freedom and Democracy in favor of Communism, unlike the Official Communist Policy.
You are ignoring the fact that there where Frenchmen and women fighting in the Resistance to free France from German occupation. Also the Dutch Resistance along with Germans inside Germany fighting to free their own people from the Nazis.
I say this as Remembrance Day is coming.
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