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Now that we have a new thread, in order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a complete and thorough read before posting! NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets.
Your supporting statement should always come BEFORE you provide the source.If you have any questions, comments, concern, or feedback regarding the USPMT, then please use this thread: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/website-feedback/510156-us-politics-thread |
Northern Ireland25258 Posts
On August 26 2024 15:22 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On August 26 2024 14:46 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote:On August 26 2024 08:56 GreenHorizons wrote:On August 26 2024 08:24 KwarK wrote:On August 26 2024 08:16 GreenHorizons wrote:On August 26 2024 07:12 KwarK wrote:On August 26 2024 06:41 GreenHorizons wrote:On August 26 2024 06:27 KwarK wrote:On August 26 2024 05:57 GreenHorizons wrote:On August 26 2024 05:33 WombaT wrote:[quote] + Show Spoiler +Israel would much rather the Palestinians just fuck off and go elsewhere and expand wholesale into the vacated areas.
Which, obviously is hardly a noble egalitarian pursuit, and one that many absolutely oppose including myself. But genocide it ain’t, for many people anyway.
In common parlance (rather than technical designations) the term has certain connotations to most folks. The Nazis weren’t merely content to shove the Jews next door, they’d have preferred if they just didn’t exist, and pursued policies broadly in alignment with that. + Show Spoiler +Which is the kind of association genpopTM make with the term genocide.
People hear the term ‘serial killer’ and their mind goes to some kind of Hannibal Lecter kind of cat. It’s the equivalent of spending inordinate amounts of time trying to convince someone that some bloke who killed 2 people in cold blood is a serial killer. Maybe it’s an argument you win, maybe not. Alternatively, one could zone in on the ‘killing 2 people in cold blood is bad’ part without trying to invoke a particular term, and it’s much harder to dispute that statement. They tried moving them first. The Haavara agreement was part of one of the "solutions" before the "final solution". The rhetoric about no one else wanting the Palestinians mimics what Nazis said about Jewish people in the years leading up to them finding their "final solution". Israel is, in part, a Nazi creation intended to solve the "problem" of Jewish people in Germany, that was supported for a time by the West as an alternative to taking in Jewish people themselves. Hitler wrote a book in which he explained that the various races of the world were in a Darwinistic contest and that the master race would win by destroying the others. I don't understand why you're engaging in Nazi revisionism and pretending that they were at one point moderates who turned evil. They were very clear on their ideology. You're either unclear on the facts or are trying to make a parallel in really bad taste. He also drew a lot of inspiration from the US. Some Americans, including ones as prominent as Henry Ford, Helen Keller, and Alexander Graham Bell, began championing eugenics — a pseudoscientific ideology arguing that genetically "inferior" people should be sterilized to prevent offspring with undesirable traits.
The documentary quoted a writing from roughly 1914 attributed to former President Theodore Roosevelt: "I wish very much that the wrong people could be prevented entirely from breeding; and when the evil nature of these people is sufficiently flagrant, this should be done. Criminals should be sterilized and feeble-minded persons forbidden to leave offspring behind them."
Many states also passed sterilization laws. Historians said the eugenics preached in the US gave Nazis a blueprint of sorts. www.businessinsider.com This is a really weird "whatabout". You claimed that the Nazis didn't start off as extremists but were actually moderates akin to Israel today and therefore Israel today are basically Nazis. I pointed out that no, actually the Nazis were bad from day 1, that they had a big book of bad things they wanted to do and that they published it ahead of time. You're now arguing what exactly? That the US has some sins in its history? Who was arguing against that? Why is that relevant? What the fuck are you talking about GH? Is it really just "USA bad"? Who was that for? You misunderstood my pointing out that Nazis also tried rhetoric and policy to expel Jewish people before they were "forced" to genocide them as a "final solution", for arguing it wasn't just the early steps of premeditated genocide. I was pointing out the opposite. I've also pointed out that sometimes the fascist far-right in Israel just call themselves Nazis. The response was also pointing out that eugenics wasn't where the US and Nazis really disagreed. In fact, Nazis based much of their implementation of Hitler's vision on the US. While certainly heinous, Nazi Germany into the early 1930's, in an ostensibly (but not really) good-faith search for a solution to their "problem" (while actively/unabashedly trying to ethnically cleanse Jewish people from Germany), wasn't considered outside of the Overton window of polite politics in the US. Much like defending Israel's ongoing ethnic cleansing campaign as undesirable but unavoidable is today. Besides the names already mentioned, there are plenty of still heavily lauded people/institutions from the time that advocated eugenics and even specifically funded Nazi eugenics projects. The Rockefeller Foundation helped develop and fund various German eugenics programs, including the one that Josef Mengele worked in before he went to Auschwitz. + Show Spoiler +Upon returning from Germany in 1934, where more than 5,000 people per month were being forcibly sterilized, the California eugenics leader C. M. Goethe bragged to a colleague:
You will be interested to know that your work has played a powerful part in shaping the opinions of the group of intellectuals who are behind Hitler in this epoch-making program. Everywhere I sensed that their opinions have been tremendously stimulated by American thought ... I want you, my dear friend, to carry this thought with you for the rest of your life, that you have really jolted into action a great government of 60 million people.[126]
Eugenics researcher Harry H. Laughlin often bragged that his Model Eugenic Sterilization laws had been implemented in the 1935 Nuremberg racial hygiene laws.[127] In 1936, Laughlin was invited to an award ceremony at Heidelberg University in Germany (scheduled on the anniversary of the 1934 purge of Jews from the Heidelberg faculty), to receive an honorary doctorate for his work on the "science of racial cleansing". Due to financial limitations, Laughlin was unable to attend the ceremony and had to pick it up from the Rockefeller Institute. Afterward, he proudly shared the award with his colleagues, remarking that he felt that it symbolized the "common understanding of German and American scientists of the nature of eugenics."[128] And I think everyone knows at this point that fellow eugenicist, rabid anti-Semite and American icon, Henry Ford was awarded the "Grand Cross of the German Eagle" by Nazi Germany in 1938 but less are probably aware that In a letter written in 1924, Heinrich Himmler described Ford as "one of our most valuable, important, and witty fighters".[87] Ford is the only American mentioned favorably in Hitler's autobiography Mein Kampf.[88] Adolf Hitler wrote, "only a single great man, Ford, [who], to [the Jews'] fury, still maintains full independence ... [from] the controlling masters of the producers in a nation of one hundred and twenty millions." Speaking in 1931 to a Detroit News reporter, Hitler said "I regard Henry Ford as my inspiration," explaining his reason for keeping a life-size portrait of Ford behind his desk.[89][84] Steven Watts wrote that Hitler "revered" Ford, proclaiming that "I shall do my best to put his theories into practice in Germany" en.wikipedia.orgNone of that is to say Nazis weren't extremists, but to demonstrate this isn't the first time the US has danced this dance. "Bad" was the status quo then and it is now too. Again GH, what in the actual fuck are you talking about. Trying to insinuate that the US were in someway supportive of the Nazis because of Henry Ford is somehow missing out on that time that the US demanded and then achieved the absolute destruction of the Nazi state. On the one hand we have Henry Ford getting a medal. On the other we have the hundreds of thousands of Nazis that were killed by the US government as a matter of state policy. And you're zooming in on the medal. There is exactly zero ambiguity in how the US felt about Nazis, setting fire to the air in German cities is the kind of context clue that really can't be misinterpreted. You're fucking weird man. Not in a Donald Trump wanting to fuck his own daughter way but at the very least in a RFK Jr brain worms way. Ford was one of several people mentioned in a non-exhaustive list, but okay. Most people remember that it took the attack on Pearl Harbor at the end of 1941 to finally get the US into the Nazi killing business officially. You'll notice I preemptively specifically mentioned Nazi Germany in the 20's and early 30's to distinguish it from the point at which US policy shifted to going to war with Nazis that you're talking about. The connection is that US-Israel relations aren't that dissimilar to US-Nazi relations in the 20's and early 30's. Nor is Israel's ongoing ethnic cleansing campaign in service of genocide that is openly advocated for by their right-wing politicians and prominent figures that dissimilar to Nazis circa the Haavara agreement. So much so, that sometimes they even refer to themselves as Nazis. But the original point was simply that Nazis also tried the "how about they just go somewhere else" thing too (with premeditated genocide in the notso fine print), and they also used the same "Geeze, no one wants them, what does that say about Jews. What options do we have left!??!?" that we've seen posted here regarding Palestinians and no other countries wanting to take them in. If we run with your incredibly flawed premise that would also mean that once Israel "gets to the 40's" the US will crush them like an empty can. Which to be fair is probably what would happen if they started setting up concentation camps. But it will never happen because in our actual reality the people of Israel don't want to genocide the Palestinians and the country is still a democracy. The existence of concentration camps wasn't what prompted the US to join the war. It wasn't even what prompted D-Day (at which point the existence of concentration camps could no longer be argued to still be secret). Concentration camps were a total non-factor in any decision making regarding policy toward Nazi Germany. And that is where GH's point is probably at its most cogent. Nobody really gave a fuck about what Germany did with its Jews. Germany became a problem because it invaded all of its neighbors. But I disagree with GH that this is a good analogy. There's far too many differences between Israeli fascism and German Nazis, for the kernel of "look, America didn't give a fuck then and they aren't giving a fuck now" to be clarified by that analogy. Nor is Israeli policy similar enough to Nazi doctrine from the 30s to be enlightened by that analogy. Clearly the Israeli fascists are segregating and destroying Palestinian people and their culture. But the Nazis weren't the first to do that, and if you want a comparison with the US, the treatment of Native Americans while expanding westwards is a better fit than Nazi Germany, as is any other colonizing force: there's people living on the lands they want to colonize, and those pesky people won't just roll over and give their land away. Native Americans were genocided, as GH himself likes to point out repeatedly. There's no reason to bring Nazism into the equation: colonialism fits better and had all the bad things happening in Palestina. No need for Hitler comparisons when Daniel Boone will do.
There’s also something of a heritage issue too, hey America’s changed rather a lot since those days.
While some distinct identities still persist strongly to this day, probably most notably Italian and Irish Americans, others have rather gone by the wayside and don’t really consider themselves anything but Americans of whatever loose extradition.
German-Americans definitely being more in the latter camp. While it was more of a factor in WW1 than WW2, because of well, the whole Nazi thing there was also that element to add yet further to US reluctance. Not some gigantic element by all means, but it is one that’s somewhat overlooked by many. Albeit probably not yourself based on your posting history :p
Aside from the very, very obvious negative, it’s a curious thing that in the long run it was probably better for the world that Germany and Japan weren’t just regular old nationalists, or even moderately insane nationalists, but the absolute Fascist zealots they were.
If they were a bit more pragmatic and not so influenced by their racial worldviews, or mutual hatred of all things Communism, they don’t end up poking the dual bears of the Soviet Union and the United States that ultimately kick their arse. Or factor things like perceived racial superiority into military planning.
Which circles back a little into some of the key differences between the state of Israel and Nazi Germany, or indeed Imperial Japan.
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Northern Ireland25258 Posts
On August 26 2024 15:49 areoryn wrote:Show nested quote +On August 26 2024 12:56 BlackJack wrote:On August 26 2024 09:12 KwarK wrote:On August 26 2024 09:04 Magic Powers wrote:
In fact I've previously made clear that in my book the murder of a single person is equivalent to the murder of a million people. Are you just really bad at maths? A million people is approximately a million times worse. I can show you the working on how I came up with that if you need. Edit: I'm actually curious about this particular virtue signaling comment you made. So, assuming I understand correctly, the badness is based on the innate quality of the crime committed, not the scale. That would imply that if person A killed a million people and person B killed one person and also did some littering then person B would get the maximum number of bad points for each of the two crimes and therefore be worse than person A. Is that how it works? The late great Hannibal Lecter would never illegally dump a corpse. He consumes every part of the meat. This is a complete misunderstanding of his Greatness. The Great Hannibal Lecter would only consume a symbolic part of his victim in an overly intricate recipe cooked to perfection, then display the rest of the corpse in a gory yet artistic fashion. I do not know if the display of the corpse should be considered littering, or if a cannibal that properly consumes the whole corpse and dumps the remains in the correct bin would get a reduced sentence. Would probably depend on the lawyers involved. Unsure about the impact on the current US politics though.
Aside from many other things, I do find the choice of Hannibal Lecter quite amusing in how inapplicable it is.
Until Thomas Harris decided, for some reason to give him a hackneyed origin story, Hannibal was a guy of indeterminate origin. Probably Europe somewhere but who knows?
Also you know, quite good at not getting caught for his activities. Also, for all his faults a rather intelligent fellow and a highly skilled medical practitioner.
So Trump’s go-to guy to re-make the ‘they’re sending us their worst’ point is a bloke whose government would do such a thing, if we knew where he was from. But who never got caught in order to be extradited from mysterious country X anyway. And also has a sufficient skillset to get a visa to basically any country in the world including the US.
Is there a worse example he coulda gone with? He could have just gone with Tony Montana considering well, that is literally the starting plot of that film.
The mind boggles it really does. Well it doesn’t as he exhibits his particular brand of idiocy all the time, but if we evolved more capacity for one’s brain to be boggled it would definitely expand to fill that extra capacity.
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On August 26 2024 15:40 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On August 26 2024 09:16 GreenHorizons wrote:On August 26 2024 09:06 WombaT wrote:
It’s a parallel with just as many differences as similarities.
Well my point regarding your position was simply On August 26 2024 05:57 GreenHorizons wrote:On August 26 2024 05:33 WombaT wrote:On August 26 2024 05:07 Magic Powers wrote:On August 26 2024 03:19 BlackJack wrote:
Yeah, literally any war could be called genocide if thousands of innocent civilians dying is your standard Civilians dying is certainly not the sole factor. Israel is engaging in activities such as ethnic cleansing and starvation that push the envelope much further towards genocide. You can argue the degree of genocide, you can argue we're only (in quotation marks) 70% there, but no more than that. If you look at all the factors as a whole instead of singling out one or two factors (war, civilian deaths) while ignoring others (ethnic cleansing, starvation), the picture changes very dramatically from a regular war. I personally don't care about the difference between 70% genocide and 100% genocide. It is effectively the same to me because both accomplishes the same thing, the only difference is the scale and the admission of intent. As Simberto correctly points out, intent is hard to prove and Israel doesn't openly admit to the intent of genocide (why would they?) That doesn't mean they're not engaging in it, as Nebuchad and others have proven time and time again there is a widespread extremist element in the Israeli government that is asking for the eradication of Palestinians. We also have the open declaration by Netanyahu himself that he foresees no future in which there exists a Palestinian state. We have Israel's consistent refusal to be independently investigated. We have Israel's intent to destroy the UNRWA, which is an essential humanitarian organization in the region. We have many examples of Israel engaging in war crimes in Gaza, in the West bank, and in Israeli prisons. I put two and two together. I look at the facts and I ask myself a simple question: if I was eager to prove that I am not engaging in genocide, would I act the way the Israeli government does or would I make a greater effort to prove my innocence? If you don't come to the same conclusion I come to, at least you have to admit the evidence is damning. + Show Spoiler +Israel would much rather the Palestinians just fuck off and go elsewhere and expand wholesale into the vacated areas.
Which, obviously is hardly a noble egalitarian pursuit, and one that many absolutely oppose including myself. But genocide it ain’t, for many people anyway.
In common parlance (rather than technical designations) the term has certain connotations to most folks. The Nazis weren’t merely content to shove the Jews next door, they’d have preferred if they just didn’t exist, and pursued policies broadly in alignment with that. + Show Spoiler +Which is the kind of association genpopTM make with the term genocide.
People hear the term ‘serial killer’ and their mind goes to some kind of Hannibal Lecter kind of cat. It’s the equivalent of spending inordinate amounts of time trying to convince someone that some bloke who killed 2 people in cold blood is a serial killer. Maybe it’s an argument you win, maybe not. Alternatively, one could zone in on the ‘killing 2 people in cold blood is bad’ part without trying to invoke a particular term, and it’s much harder to dispute that statement. They tried moving them first. The Haavara agreement was part of one of the "solutions" before the "final solution". The rhetoric about no one else wanting the Palestinians mimics what Nazis said about Jewish people in the years leading up to them finding their "final solution". Israel is, in part, a Nazi creation intended to solve the "problem" of Jewish people in Germany, that was supported for a time by the West as an alternative to taking in Jewish people themselves. So the idea that either Israel or Germany would be content to just shove them next door is wrong. After Palestinians, Israel has plenty of Arabs it wants to subjugate/eliminate beyond their borders and a West that is keen to support them in that endeavor. In some ways yes, in many ways no. Disregarding for a second the inherent ethnoreligious justification for the state, Israel is just pursuing absolute bog standard, run-of-the-mill nationalism, with all the inherent problems that brings. We value our people more and hey, maybe we’ll seize some lands while we’re at it. As somebody I can’t recall phrased it quite starkly, the Nazis didn’t start by killing Jews, they started by killing Germans. Many a proud, patriotic German. Many indeed fought for, and perhaps sustained crippling injuries in service of their country. They just happened to be Jewish too. Which doesn’t suddenly make ye olde colonialism particularly palatable, but it is quite a markedly different thing to do that, versus dealing with peoples who do view themselves as having a distinctly other identity, and indeed have many who are actively hostile towards your identity.
Really the only point there was that you can't take the rhetoric about ethnic cleansing peoples being satisfactory at face value, as you couldn't from the Nazis and stuff like the Haavara agreement. To Acro's point, the US also did this during its genocides of the various nations and tribes across what we know as the US. "Just go over there and it'll be fine" only to be told the same thing a few more times before they just slaughter/starve/etc them in some twisted interpretation of "self-defense".
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On August 26 2024 15:57 RowdierBob wrote:The fark is going in here? Came to read some opinions about the upcoming election and it’s a debate about Israel and Nazis?! 
Yeahhhhhh this sometimes happens as a tangent to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, what Biden/Harris/Trump are doing about it, and whether or not it should affect your vote in November.
On topic: With Harris's lead over Trump slowly increasing, I expected Trump to do what Biden did, back when Biden was gradually losing ground against Trump... push hard for a debate. However, Trump has been extremely inconsistent when it comes to accepting a debate against Harris; just last night, he made another post about wanting to dodge the September 10th ABC debate ( https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/08/26/trump-harris-debate-abc/ ).
It seems that Trump is legitimately scared to debate Harris (unless the debate is being moderated by Fox News, for obvious reasons). Trump and Vance aren't really doing anything about their current position though; they aren't even campaigning as hard or as frequently as Harris and Walz. I wonder if Trump has some other trick up his sleeve to change the current trajectory of the polls, or banking on some anti-Harris October surprises from foreign interference, or banking on stealing the election if he loses.
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Pragmatic question:
How established does a country and population need to be to "have gotten away" with taking the land form natives?
Roll back on any colonies?
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Northern Ireland25258 Posts
On August 26 2024 18:57 KT_Elwood wrote:
Pragmatic question:
How established does a country and population need to be to "have gotten away" with taking the land form natives?
Roll back on any colonies?
National self-determination, if a population believe they belong to a certain shared myth, and that’s not in conflict with another, then that myth is reality.
No amount of saying I’m actually Irish because of history will outweigh growing up mostly exposed to British culture, going to British schools on the British curriculum, all my furthest back ancestors that we’ve ever found (my Canadian great-aunt’s passion project) being from Scotland
My late da worked for the BBC for longer than I’d been alive at the time of his passing. Don’t get much more British than that institution.
I’m not remotely nationalistic, but culturally I am not Irish, although attempting to learn the language (one day!). My partner is, I enjoyed attending a double-header 30th birthday party but we got to a stage of the night where we were exchanging trivia/pub quiz questions. If it wasn’t absolutely surface level stuff that involved some tricky question about Irish history, culture or geographic like I was noping out of that round.
Ya gotta deal with the contemporary and work within those confines. There’s literally no policy you can pursue that say, compensates for the US’ history with the Native American populace, not even remotely. That’s a ship that has long, long sailed.
Or maybe not bequeath some land to an ethnoreligous group based on some millennia-long claim. That might cause some problems.
Look I’m not remotely a fan of colonialism but the British have been subjugating Ireland for far longer than the US has been a unitary state. So the idea of me not being British, and being told so (which has happened genuinely, I swear) is as ridiculous as any of you Yanks being told you’re not American.
As per my locale I just hope some kind of accommodation can be found that’s palatable. I’m personally OK with the idea of a United Ireland and being part of some British minority, but even in such a hypothetical state I don’t think I’ll ever really feel Irish.
They’re kind of like a cousin I love, and really get along with but there’s a little distance so I never feel 100% kinship. Whereas England is my older brother, I gotta put up with him but I fucking hate him.
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On August 26 2024 10:12 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On August 26 2024 09:04 Magic Powers wrote:On August 26 2024 06:54 BlackJack wrote:On August 26 2024 06:31 Magic Powers wrote:On August 26 2024 06:03 BlackJack wrote:On August 26 2024 05:51 Magic Powers wrote:On August 26 2024 05:33 WombaT wrote:On August 26 2024 05:07 Magic Powers wrote:On August 26 2024 03:19 BlackJack wrote:
Yeah, literally any war could be called genocide if thousands of innocent civilians dying is your standard Civilians dying is certainly not the sole factor. Israel is engaging in activities such as ethnic cleansing and starvation that push the envelope much further towards genocide. You can argue the degree of genocide, you can argue we're only (in quotation marks) 70% there, but no more than that. If you look at all the factors as a whole instead of singling out one or two factors (war, civilian deaths) while ignoring others (ethnic cleansing, starvation), the picture changes very dramatically from a regular war. I personally don't care about the difference between 70% genocide and 100% genocide. It is effectively the same to me because both accomplishes the same thing, the only difference is the scale and the admission of intent. As Simberto correctly points out, intent is hard to prove and Israel doesn't openly admit to the intent of genocide (why would they?) That doesn't mean they're not engaging in it, as Nebuchad and others have proven time and time again there is a widespread extremist element in the Israeli government that is asking for the eradication of Palestinians. We also have the open declaration by Netanyahu himself that he foresees no future in which there exists a Palestinian state. We have Israel's consistent refusal to be independently investigated. We have Israel's intent to destroy the UNRWA, which is an essential humanitarian organization in the region. We have many examples of Israel engaging in war crimes in Gaza, in the West bank, and in Israeli prisons. I put two and two together. I look at the facts and I ask myself a simple question: if I was eager to prove that I am not engaging in genocide, would I act the way the Israeli government does or would I make a greater effort to prove my innocence? If you don't come to the same conclusion I come to, at least you have to admit the evidence is damning. Israel would much rather the Palestinians just fuck off and go elsewhere and expand wholesale into the vacated areas. Which, obviously is hardly a noble egalitarian pursuit, and one that many absolutely oppose including myself. But genocide it ain’t, for many people anyway. In common parlance (rather than technical designations) the term has certain connotations to most folks. The Nazis weren’t merely content to shove the Jews next door, they’d have preferred if they just didn’t exist, and pursued policies broadly in alignment with that. Which is the kind of association genpopTM make with the term genocide. People hear the term ‘serial killer’ and their mind goes to some kind of Hannibal Lecter kind of cat. It’s the equivalent of spending inordinate amounts of time trying to convince someone that some bloke who killed 2 people in cold blood is a serial killer. Maybe it’s an argument you win, maybe not. Alternatively, one could zone in on the ‘killing 2 people in cold blood is bad’ part without trying to invoke a particular term, and it’s much harder to dispute that statement. The example of a serial killer is actually pretty apt. Maybe not perfectly the same, but very useful nonetheless. If you and I were to argue about this, and say I take the stance that two deaths make a serial killer and you argue that three or more deaths are required, we'd be arguing about a 33% difference. In my case the serial killer is two thirds there and your objection would be "yes, but what about the final third?" You might see why this doesn't exactly counter my argument in essence, it really only changes the question of scale. If Israel had killed two hundred thousand Palestinians, would that amount to genocide? The answer according to law is: no. Are you surprised yet? My answer is: by that point people would have to be out of their minds to keep denying it. We're at 40 000 deaths. 40k / 2 million. Ok we are at 2% genocide assuming Palestinians in West Bank/Israel and abroad don’t count And 2% is far more than sufficient - purely number wise - to declare genocide. My point is that, if the number was 200 000, people would no longer be objecting to the accusation. So why are they objecting to 40 000 being genocide? It's a completely arbitrary line. There is not a meaningful difference in terms of how atrocious Israel's actions are, the only difference is the specificity of the term that's being used. The people who are objecting to the term "genocide" are using very flimsy reasoning. Basically they're making a difference between mass murder and worse mass murder and arguing that one is "killing" and the other is "murder". It’s not completely arbitrary. There is a meaningful difference between killing 200k people and 40k people in terms of atrociousness. It’s approximately 160k dead people different. When the term you’re defining is meant to mean the annihilation of a people then there does need to be some threshold crossed to use that term. If you take your argument to its logical conclusion then you can insist that 1 person being killed is a genocide. If someone says more than 1 person needs to be killed you can still insist they are drawing “completely arbitrary lines.” Genocide doesn't strictly mean the eradication of all of a people. The definition includes the eradication of some of a people. I thought you were aware of this, that's why I didn't bother to explain it. Furthermore, I personally see literally no difference between the murder of 40 000 people and of 200 000 people. In fact I've previously made clear that in my book the murder of a single person is equivalent to the murder of a million people. Oh... well okay then. Not much I can say to that.
A simple question: what is the minimum number of people that you would have to be saving in order for you to be willing to murder one?
Only by asking yourself this question can you truly understand the trolley problem (from which I've drawn my conclusion).
The more deeply you think about it, the more sense it'll make to you why I have no limit. Murder is never right and two wrongs never make a right. There are absolutely no exceptions to that rule. If you disagree with me, you'll have to make major concessions on the value of human life, because if you think murder is ever right then I can always ask you "what's with that arbitrary number of saved people? Why are you holding back?"
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United States42656 Posts
On August 26 2024 19:40 Magic Powers wrote:Show nested quote +On August 26 2024 10:12 BlackJack wrote:On August 26 2024 09:04 Magic Powers wrote:On August 26 2024 06:54 BlackJack wrote:On August 26 2024 06:31 Magic Powers wrote:On August 26 2024 06:03 BlackJack wrote:On August 26 2024 05:51 Magic Powers wrote:On August 26 2024 05:33 WombaT wrote:On August 26 2024 05:07 Magic Powers wrote:On August 26 2024 03:19 BlackJack wrote:
Yeah, literally any war could be called genocide if thousands of innocent civilians dying is your standard Civilians dying is certainly not the sole factor. Israel is engaging in activities such as ethnic cleansing and starvation that push the envelope much further towards genocide. You can argue the degree of genocide, you can argue we're only (in quotation marks) 70% there, but no more than that. If you look at all the factors as a whole instead of singling out one or two factors (war, civilian deaths) while ignoring others (ethnic cleansing, starvation), the picture changes very dramatically from a regular war. I personally don't care about the difference between 70% genocide and 100% genocide. It is effectively the same to me because both accomplishes the same thing, the only difference is the scale and the admission of intent. As Simberto correctly points out, intent is hard to prove and Israel doesn't openly admit to the intent of genocide (why would they?) That doesn't mean they're not engaging in it, as Nebuchad and others have proven time and time again there is a widespread extremist element in the Israeli government that is asking for the eradication of Palestinians. We also have the open declaration by Netanyahu himself that he foresees no future in which there exists a Palestinian state. We have Israel's consistent refusal to be independently investigated. We have Israel's intent to destroy the UNRWA, which is an essential humanitarian organization in the region. We have many examples of Israel engaging in war crimes in Gaza, in the West bank, and in Israeli prisons. I put two and two together. I look at the facts and I ask myself a simple question: if I was eager to prove that I am not engaging in genocide, would I act the way the Israeli government does or would I make a greater effort to prove my innocence? If you don't come to the same conclusion I come to, at least you have to admit the evidence is damning. Israel would much rather the Palestinians just fuck off and go elsewhere and expand wholesale into the vacated areas. Which, obviously is hardly a noble egalitarian pursuit, and one that many absolutely oppose including myself. But genocide it ain’t, for many people anyway. In common parlance (rather than technical designations) the term has certain connotations to most folks. The Nazis weren’t merely content to shove the Jews next door, they’d have preferred if they just didn’t exist, and pursued policies broadly in alignment with that. Which is the kind of association genpopTM make with the term genocide. People hear the term ‘serial killer’ and their mind goes to some kind of Hannibal Lecter kind of cat. It’s the equivalent of spending inordinate amounts of time trying to convince someone that some bloke who killed 2 people in cold blood is a serial killer. Maybe it’s an argument you win, maybe not. Alternatively, one could zone in on the ‘killing 2 people in cold blood is bad’ part without trying to invoke a particular term, and it’s much harder to dispute that statement. The example of a serial killer is actually pretty apt. Maybe not perfectly the same, but very useful nonetheless. If you and I were to argue about this, and say I take the stance that two deaths make a serial killer and you argue that three or more deaths are required, we'd be arguing about a 33% difference. In my case the serial killer is two thirds there and your objection would be "yes, but what about the final third?" You might see why this doesn't exactly counter my argument in essence, it really only changes the question of scale. If Israel had killed two hundred thousand Palestinians, would that amount to genocide? The answer according to law is: no. Are you surprised yet? My answer is: by that point people would have to be out of their minds to keep denying it. We're at 40 000 deaths. 40k / 2 million. Ok we are at 2% genocide assuming Palestinians in West Bank/Israel and abroad don’t count And 2% is far more than sufficient - purely number wise - to declare genocide. My point is that, if the number was 200 000, people would no longer be objecting to the accusation. So why are they objecting to 40 000 being genocide? It's a completely arbitrary line. There is not a meaningful difference in terms of how atrocious Israel's actions are, the only difference is the specificity of the term that's being used. The people who are objecting to the term "genocide" are using very flimsy reasoning. Basically they're making a difference between mass murder and worse mass murder and arguing that one is "killing" and the other is "murder". It’s not completely arbitrary. There is a meaningful difference between killing 200k people and 40k people in terms of atrociousness. It’s approximately 160k dead people different. When the term you’re defining is meant to mean the annihilation of a people then there does need to be some threshold crossed to use that term. If you take your argument to its logical conclusion then you can insist that 1 person being killed is a genocide. If someone says more than 1 person needs to be killed you can still insist they are drawing “completely arbitrary lines.” Genocide doesn't strictly mean the eradication of all of a people. The definition includes the eradication of some of a people. I thought you were aware of this, that's why I didn't bother to explain it. Furthermore, I personally see literally no difference between the murder of 40 000 people and of 200 000 people. In fact I've previously made clear that in my book the murder of a single person is equivalent to the murder of a million people. Oh... well okay then. Not much I can say to that. A simple question: what is the minimum number of people that you would have to be saving in order for you to be willing to murder one? Only by asking yourself this question can you truly understand the trolley problem (from which I've drawn my conclusion). The more deeply you think about it, the more sense it'll make to you why I have no limit. Murder is never right and two wrongs never make a right. There are absolutely no exceptions to that rule. If you disagree with me, you'll have to make major concessions on the value of human life, because if you think murder is ever right then I can always ask you "what's with that arbitrary number of saved people? Why are you holding back?"
2. 2 is the number of people for which you should throw the switch to hit 1.
Honestly I don't think you understood the trolley problem. The objective is to save the maximum number of people, not to virtue signal. There weren't even any observers in the hypothetical to applaud the individual for letting the trolley hit the crowd over the individual.
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On August 26 2024 19:40 Magic Powers wrote:Show nested quote +On August 26 2024 10:12 BlackJack wrote:On August 26 2024 09:04 Magic Powers wrote:On August 26 2024 06:54 BlackJack wrote:On August 26 2024 06:31 Magic Powers wrote:On August 26 2024 06:03 BlackJack wrote:On August 26 2024 05:51 Magic Powers wrote:On August 26 2024 05:33 WombaT wrote:On August 26 2024 05:07 Magic Powers wrote:On August 26 2024 03:19 BlackJack wrote:
Yeah, literally any war could be called genocide if thousands of innocent civilians dying is your standard Civilians dying is certainly not the sole factor. Israel is engaging in activities such as ethnic cleansing and starvation that push the envelope much further towards genocide. You can argue the degree of genocide, you can argue we're only (in quotation marks) 70% there, but no more than that. If you look at all the factors as a whole instead of singling out one or two factors (war, civilian deaths) while ignoring others (ethnic cleansing, starvation), the picture changes very dramatically from a regular war. I personally don't care about the difference between 70% genocide and 100% genocide. It is effectively the same to me because both accomplishes the same thing, the only difference is the scale and the admission of intent. As Simberto correctly points out, intent is hard to prove and Israel doesn't openly admit to the intent of genocide (why would they?) That doesn't mean they're not engaging in it, as Nebuchad and others have proven time and time again there is a widespread extremist element in the Israeli government that is asking for the eradication of Palestinians. We also have the open declaration by Netanyahu himself that he foresees no future in which there exists a Palestinian state. We have Israel's consistent refusal to be independently investigated. We have Israel's intent to destroy the UNRWA, which is an essential humanitarian organization in the region. We have many examples of Israel engaging in war crimes in Gaza, in the West bank, and in Israeli prisons. I put two and two together. I look at the facts and I ask myself a simple question: if I was eager to prove that I am not engaging in genocide, would I act the way the Israeli government does or would I make a greater effort to prove my innocence? If you don't come to the same conclusion I come to, at least you have to admit the evidence is damning. Israel would much rather the Palestinians just fuck off and go elsewhere and expand wholesale into the vacated areas. Which, obviously is hardly a noble egalitarian pursuit, and one that many absolutely oppose including myself. But genocide it ain’t, for many people anyway. In common parlance (rather than technical designations) the term has certain connotations to most folks. The Nazis weren’t merely content to shove the Jews next door, they’d have preferred if they just didn’t exist, and pursued policies broadly in alignment with that. Which is the kind of association genpopTM make with the term genocide. People hear the term ‘serial killer’ and their mind goes to some kind of Hannibal Lecter kind of cat. It’s the equivalent of spending inordinate amounts of time trying to convince someone that some bloke who killed 2 people in cold blood is a serial killer. Maybe it’s an argument you win, maybe not. Alternatively, one could zone in on the ‘killing 2 people in cold blood is bad’ part without trying to invoke a particular term, and it’s much harder to dispute that statement. The example of a serial killer is actually pretty apt. Maybe not perfectly the same, but very useful nonetheless. If you and I were to argue about this, and say I take the stance that two deaths make a serial killer and you argue that three or more deaths are required, we'd be arguing about a 33% difference. In my case the serial killer is two thirds there and your objection would be "yes, but what about the final third?" You might see why this doesn't exactly counter my argument in essence, it really only changes the question of scale. If Israel had killed two hundred thousand Palestinians, would that amount to genocide? The answer according to law is: no. Are you surprised yet? My answer is: by that point people would have to be out of their minds to keep denying it. We're at 40 000 deaths. 40k / 2 million. Ok we are at 2% genocide assuming Palestinians in West Bank/Israel and abroad don’t count And 2% is far more than sufficient - purely number wise - to declare genocide. My point is that, if the number was 200 000, people would no longer be objecting to the accusation. So why are they objecting to 40 000 being genocide? It's a completely arbitrary line. There is not a meaningful difference in terms of how atrocious Israel's actions are, the only difference is the specificity of the term that's being used. The people who are objecting to the term "genocide" are using very flimsy reasoning. Basically they're making a difference between mass murder and worse mass murder and arguing that one is "killing" and the other is "murder". It’s not completely arbitrary. There is a meaningful difference between killing 200k people and 40k people in terms of atrociousness. It’s approximately 160k dead people different. When the term you’re defining is meant to mean the annihilation of a people then there does need to be some threshold crossed to use that term. If you take your argument to its logical conclusion then you can insist that 1 person being killed is a genocide. If someone says more than 1 person needs to be killed you can still insist they are drawing “completely arbitrary lines.” Genocide doesn't strictly mean the eradication of all of a people. The definition includes the eradication of some of a people. I thought you were aware of this, that's why I didn't bother to explain it. Furthermore, I personally see literally no difference between the murder of 40 000 people and of 200 000 people. In fact I've previously made clear that in my book the murder of a single person is equivalent to the murder of a million people. Oh... well okay then. Not much I can say to that. A simple question: what is the minimum number of people that you would have to be saving in order for you to be willing to murder one? Only by asking yourself this question can you truly understand the trolley problem (from which I've drawn my conclusion). The more deeply you think about it, the more sense it'll make to you why I have no limit. Murder is never right and two wrongs never make a right. There are absolutely no exceptions to that rule. If you disagree with me, you'll have to make major concessions on the value of human life, because if you think murder is ever right then I can always ask you "what's with that arbitrary number of saved people? Why are you holding back?"
Really there’s no number? So if every Jew on earth were on one side and Hitler was on the other you’d stand by and do nothing if the train was bound for the Jews?
To answer your question: probably 1. If it were someone I liked on one side and someone I didn’t like on the other I might flip the switch.
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On August 26 2024 20:25 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On August 26 2024 19:40 Magic Powers wrote:On August 26 2024 10:12 BlackJack wrote:On August 26 2024 09:04 Magic Powers wrote:On August 26 2024 06:54 BlackJack wrote:On August 26 2024 06:31 Magic Powers wrote:On August 26 2024 06:03 BlackJack wrote:On August 26 2024 05:51 Magic Powers wrote:On August 26 2024 05:33 WombaT wrote:On August 26 2024 05:07 Magic Powers wrote:
[quote]
Civilians dying is certainly not the sole factor. Israel is engaging in activities such as ethnic cleansing and starvation that push the envelope much further towards genocide. You can argue the degree of genocide, you can argue we're only (in quotation marks) 70% there, but no more than that. If you look at all the factors as a whole instead of singling out one or two factors (war, civilian deaths) while ignoring others (ethnic cleansing, starvation), the picture changes very dramatically from a regular war.
I personally don't care about the difference between 70% genocide and 100% genocide. It is effectively the same to me because both accomplishes the same thing, the only difference is the scale and the admission of intent.
As Simberto correctly points out, intent is hard to prove and Israel doesn't openly admit to the intent of genocide (why would they?) That doesn't mean they're not engaging in it, as Nebuchad and others have proven time and time again there is a widespread extremist element in the Israeli government that is asking for the eradication of Palestinians. We also have the open declaration by Netanyahu himself that he foresees no future in which there exists a Palestinian state. We have Israel's consistent refusal to be independently investigated. We have Israel's intent to destroy the UNRWA, which is an essential humanitarian organization in the region. We have many examples of Israel engaging in war crimes in Gaza, in the West bank, and in Israeli prisons.
I put two and two together. I look at the facts and I ask myself a simple question: if I was eager to prove that I am not engaging in genocide, would I act the way the Israeli government does or would I make a greater effort to prove my innocence?
If you don't come to the same conclusion I come to, at least you have to admit the evidence is damning. Israel would much rather the Palestinians just fuck off and go elsewhere and expand wholesale into the vacated areas. Which, obviously is hardly a noble egalitarian pursuit, and one that many absolutely oppose including myself. But genocide it ain’t, for many people anyway. In common parlance (rather than technical designations) the term has certain connotations to most folks. The Nazis weren’t merely content to shove the Jews next door, they’d have preferred if they just didn’t exist, and pursued policies broadly in alignment with that. Which is the kind of association genpopTM make with the term genocide. People hear the term ‘serial killer’ and their mind goes to some kind of Hannibal Lecter kind of cat. It’s the equivalent of spending inordinate amounts of time trying to convince someone that some bloke who killed 2 people in cold blood is a serial killer. Maybe it’s an argument you win, maybe not. Alternatively, one could zone in on the ‘killing 2 people in cold blood is bad’ part without trying to invoke a particular term, and it’s much harder to dispute that statement. The example of a serial killer is actually pretty apt. Maybe not perfectly the same, but very useful nonetheless. If you and I were to argue about this, and say I take the stance that two deaths make a serial killer and you argue that three or more deaths are required, we'd be arguing about a 33% difference. In my case the serial killer is two thirds there and your objection would be "yes, but what about the final third?" You might see why this doesn't exactly counter my argument in essence, it really only changes the question of scale. If Israel had killed two hundred thousand Palestinians, would that amount to genocide? The answer according to law is: no. Are you surprised yet? My answer is: by that point people would have to be out of their minds to keep denying it. We're at 40 000 deaths. 40k / 2 million. Ok we are at 2% genocide assuming Palestinians in West Bank/Israel and abroad don’t count And 2% is far more than sufficient - purely number wise - to declare genocide. My point is that, if the number was 200 000, people would no longer be objecting to the accusation. So why are they objecting to 40 000 being genocide? It's a completely arbitrary line. There is not a meaningful difference in terms of how atrocious Israel's actions are, the only difference is the specificity of the term that's being used. The people who are objecting to the term "genocide" are using very flimsy reasoning. Basically they're making a difference between mass murder and worse mass murder and arguing that one is "killing" and the other is "murder". It’s not completely arbitrary. There is a meaningful difference between killing 200k people and 40k people in terms of atrociousness. It’s approximately 160k dead people different. When the term you’re defining is meant to mean the annihilation of a people then there does need to be some threshold crossed to use that term. If you take your argument to its logical conclusion then you can insist that 1 person being killed is a genocide. If someone says more than 1 person needs to be killed you can still insist they are drawing “completely arbitrary lines.” Genocide doesn't strictly mean the eradication of all of a people. The definition includes the eradication of some of a people. I thought you were aware of this, that's why I didn't bother to explain it. Furthermore, I personally see literally no difference between the murder of 40 000 people and of 200 000 people. In fact I've previously made clear that in my book the murder of a single person is equivalent to the murder of a million people. Oh... well okay then. Not much I can say to that. A simple question: what is the minimum number of people that you would have to be saving in order for you to be willing to murder one? Only by asking yourself this question can you truly understand the trolley problem (from which I've drawn my conclusion). The more deeply you think about it, the more sense it'll make to you why I have no limit. Murder is never right and two wrongs never make a right. There are absolutely no exceptions to that rule. If you disagree with me, you'll have to make major concessions on the value of human life, because if you think murder is ever right then I can always ask you "what's with that arbitrary number of saved people? Why are you holding back?" Really there’s no number? So if every Jew on earth were on one side and Hitler was on the other you’d stand by and do nothing if the train was bound for the Jews? To answer your question: probably 1. If it were someone I liked on one side and someone I didn’t like on the other I might flip the switch.
The trolley problem is about murder, not about self defense. Hitler was a real threat, not an innocent person. I didn't think I'd have to explain this, but now I'm pretty sure you've literally never thought about the trolley problem for more than a second.
Your response is very enlightening though. For you, murder is ok if you save a person you like.
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I will gladly commit genocide to save 1 of my children and I don't need to rationalize jack shit for it. Give me a button right now, I dare you.
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On August 26 2024 20:05 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On August 26 2024 19:40 Magic Powers wrote:On August 26 2024 10:12 BlackJack wrote:On August 26 2024 09:04 Magic Powers wrote:On August 26 2024 06:54 BlackJack wrote:On August 26 2024 06:31 Magic Powers wrote:On August 26 2024 06:03 BlackJack wrote:On August 26 2024 05:51 Magic Powers wrote:On August 26 2024 05:33 WombaT wrote:On August 26 2024 05:07 Magic Powers wrote:
[quote]
Civilians dying is certainly not the sole factor. Israel is engaging in activities such as ethnic cleansing and starvation that push the envelope much further towards genocide. You can argue the degree of genocide, you can argue we're only (in quotation marks) 70% there, but no more than that. If you look at all the factors as a whole instead of singling out one or two factors (war, civilian deaths) while ignoring others (ethnic cleansing, starvation), the picture changes very dramatically from a regular war.
I personally don't care about the difference between 70% genocide and 100% genocide. It is effectively the same to me because both accomplishes the same thing, the only difference is the scale and the admission of intent.
As Simberto correctly points out, intent is hard to prove and Israel doesn't openly admit to the intent of genocide (why would they?) That doesn't mean they're not engaging in it, as Nebuchad and others have proven time and time again there is a widespread extremist element in the Israeli government that is asking for the eradication of Palestinians. We also have the open declaration by Netanyahu himself that he foresees no future in which there exists a Palestinian state. We have Israel's consistent refusal to be independently investigated. We have Israel's intent to destroy the UNRWA, which is an essential humanitarian organization in the region. We have many examples of Israel engaging in war crimes in Gaza, in the West bank, and in Israeli prisons.
I put two and two together. I look at the facts and I ask myself a simple question: if I was eager to prove that I am not engaging in genocide, would I act the way the Israeli government does or would I make a greater effort to prove my innocence?
If you don't come to the same conclusion I come to, at least you have to admit the evidence is damning. Israel would much rather the Palestinians just fuck off and go elsewhere and expand wholesale into the vacated areas. Which, obviously is hardly a noble egalitarian pursuit, and one that many absolutely oppose including myself. But genocide it ain’t, for many people anyway. In common parlance (rather than technical designations) the term has certain connotations to most folks. The Nazis weren’t merely content to shove the Jews next door, they’d have preferred if they just didn’t exist, and pursued policies broadly in alignment with that. Which is the kind of association genpopTM make with the term genocide. People hear the term ‘serial killer’ and their mind goes to some kind of Hannibal Lecter kind of cat. It’s the equivalent of spending inordinate amounts of time trying to convince someone that some bloke who killed 2 people in cold blood is a serial killer. Maybe it’s an argument you win, maybe not. Alternatively, one could zone in on the ‘killing 2 people in cold blood is bad’ part without trying to invoke a particular term, and it’s much harder to dispute that statement. The example of a serial killer is actually pretty apt. Maybe not perfectly the same, but very useful nonetheless. If you and I were to argue about this, and say I take the stance that two deaths make a serial killer and you argue that three or more deaths are required, we'd be arguing about a 33% difference. In my case the serial killer is two thirds there and your objection would be "yes, but what about the final third?" You might see why this doesn't exactly counter my argument in essence, it really only changes the question of scale. If Israel had killed two hundred thousand Palestinians, would that amount to genocide? The answer according to law is: no. Are you surprised yet? My answer is: by that point people would have to be out of their minds to keep denying it. We're at 40 000 deaths. 40k / 2 million. Ok we are at 2% genocide assuming Palestinians in West Bank/Israel and abroad don’t count And 2% is far more than sufficient - purely number wise - to declare genocide. My point is that, if the number was 200 000, people would no longer be objecting to the accusation. So why are they objecting to 40 000 being genocide? It's a completely arbitrary line. There is not a meaningful difference in terms of how atrocious Israel's actions are, the only difference is the specificity of the term that's being used. The people who are objecting to the term "genocide" are using very flimsy reasoning. Basically they're making a difference between mass murder and worse mass murder and arguing that one is "killing" and the other is "murder". It’s not completely arbitrary. There is a meaningful difference between killing 200k people and 40k people in terms of atrociousness. It’s approximately 160k dead people different. When the term you’re defining is meant to mean the annihilation of a people then there does need to be some threshold crossed to use that term. If you take your argument to its logical conclusion then you can insist that 1 person being killed is a genocide. If someone says more than 1 person needs to be killed you can still insist they are drawing “completely arbitrary lines.” Genocide doesn't strictly mean the eradication of all of a people. The definition includes the eradication of some of a people. I thought you were aware of this, that's why I didn't bother to explain it. Furthermore, I personally see literally no difference between the murder of 40 000 people and of 200 000 people. In fact I've previously made clear that in my book the murder of a single person is equivalent to the murder of a million people. Oh... well okay then. Not much I can say to that. A simple question: what is the minimum number of people that you would have to be saving in order for you to be willing to murder one? Only by asking yourself this question can you truly understand the trolley problem (from which I've drawn my conclusion). The more deeply you think about it, the more sense it'll make to you why I have no limit. Murder is never right and two wrongs never make a right. There are absolutely no exceptions to that rule. If you disagree with me, you'll have to make major concessions on the value of human life, because if you think murder is ever right then I can always ask you "what's with that arbitrary number of saved people? Why are you holding back?" 2. 2 is the number of people for which you should throw the switch to hit 1. Honestly I don't think you understood the trolley problem. The objective is to save the maximum number of people, not to virtue signal. There weren't even any observers in the hypothetical to applaud the individual for letting the trolley hit the crowd over the individual.
Think he understands it better than you do. "Trolley problem" has problem in its name for a reason and it doesnt have solution (or rather solution depends on the person in charge of switch). It is somewhat bizarre that you would accuse MP of virtue signaling, while making grandiose statement about saving maximum number of people. You not saving maximum number of people, you actively killing a person. You not becoming a saviour, you becoming a killer.
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Northern Ireland25258 Posts
On August 26 2024 20:05 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On August 26 2024 19:40 Magic Powers wrote:On August 26 2024 10:12 BlackJack wrote:On August 26 2024 09:04 Magic Powers wrote:On August 26 2024 06:54 BlackJack wrote:On August 26 2024 06:31 Magic Powers wrote:On August 26 2024 06:03 BlackJack wrote:On August 26 2024 05:51 Magic Powers wrote:On August 26 2024 05:33 WombaT wrote:On August 26 2024 05:07 Magic Powers wrote:
[quote]
Civilians dying is certainly not the sole factor. Israel is engaging in activities such as ethnic cleansing and starvation that push the envelope much further towards genocide. You can argue the degree of genocide, you can argue we're only (in quotation marks) 70% there, but no more than that. If you look at all the factors as a whole instead of singling out one or two factors (war, civilian deaths) while ignoring others (ethnic cleansing, starvation), the picture changes very dramatically from a regular war.
I personally don't care about the difference between 70% genocide and 100% genocide. It is effectively the same to me because both accomplishes the same thing, the only difference is the scale and the admission of intent.
As Simberto correctly points out, intent is hard to prove and Israel doesn't openly admit to the intent of genocide (why would they?) That doesn't mean they're not engaging in it, as Nebuchad and others have proven time and time again there is a widespread extremist element in the Israeli government that is asking for the eradication of Palestinians. We also have the open declaration by Netanyahu himself that he foresees no future in which there exists a Palestinian state. We have Israel's consistent refusal to be independently investigated. We have Israel's intent to destroy the UNRWA, which is an essential humanitarian organization in the region. We have many examples of Israel engaging in war crimes in Gaza, in the West bank, and in Israeli prisons.
I put two and two together. I look at the facts and I ask myself a simple question: if I was eager to prove that I am not engaging in genocide, would I act the way the Israeli government does or would I make a greater effort to prove my innocence?
If you don't come to the same conclusion I come to, at least you have to admit the evidence is damning. Israel would much rather the Palestinians just fuck off and go elsewhere and expand wholesale into the vacated areas. Which, obviously is hardly a noble egalitarian pursuit, and one that many absolutely oppose including myself. But genocide it ain’t, for many people anyway. In common parlance (rather than technical designations) the term has certain connotations to most folks. The Nazis weren’t merely content to shove the Jews next door, they’d have preferred if they just didn’t exist, and pursued policies broadly in alignment with that. Which is the kind of association genpopTM make with the term genocide. People hear the term ‘serial killer’ and their mind goes to some kind of Hannibal Lecter kind of cat. It’s the equivalent of spending inordinate amounts of time trying to convince someone that some bloke who killed 2 people in cold blood is a serial killer. Maybe it’s an argument you win, maybe not. Alternatively, one could zone in on the ‘killing 2 people in cold blood is bad’ part without trying to invoke a particular term, and it’s much harder to dispute that statement. The example of a serial killer is actually pretty apt. Maybe not perfectly the same, but very useful nonetheless. If you and I were to argue about this, and say I take the stance that two deaths make a serial killer and you argue that three or more deaths are required, we'd be arguing about a 33% difference. In my case the serial killer is two thirds there and your objection would be "yes, but what about the final third?" You might see why this doesn't exactly counter my argument in essence, it really only changes the question of scale. If Israel had killed two hundred thousand Palestinians, would that amount to genocide? The answer according to law is: no. Are you surprised yet? My answer is: by that point people would have to be out of their minds to keep denying it. We're at 40 000 deaths. 40k / 2 million. Ok we are at 2% genocide assuming Palestinians in West Bank/Israel and abroad don’t count And 2% is far more than sufficient - purely number wise - to declare genocide. My point is that, if the number was 200 000, people would no longer be objecting to the accusation. So why are they objecting to 40 000 being genocide? It's a completely arbitrary line. There is not a meaningful difference in terms of how atrocious Israel's actions are, the only difference is the specificity of the term that's being used. The people who are objecting to the term "genocide" are using very flimsy reasoning. Basically they're making a difference between mass murder and worse mass murder and arguing that one is "killing" and the other is "murder". It’s not completely arbitrary. There is a meaningful difference between killing 200k people and 40k people in terms of atrociousness. It’s approximately 160k dead people different. When the term you’re defining is meant to mean the annihilation of a people then there does need to be some threshold crossed to use that term. If you take your argument to its logical conclusion then you can insist that 1 person being killed is a genocide. If someone says more than 1 person needs to be killed you can still insist they are drawing “completely arbitrary lines.” Genocide doesn't strictly mean the eradication of all of a people. The definition includes the eradication of some of a people. I thought you were aware of this, that's why I didn't bother to explain it. Furthermore, I personally see literally no difference between the murder of 40 000 people and of 200 000 people. In fact I've previously made clear that in my book the murder of a single person is equivalent to the murder of a million people. Oh... well okay then. Not much I can say to that. A simple question: what is the minimum number of people that you would have to be saving in order for you to be willing to murder one? Only by asking yourself this question can you truly understand the trolley problem (from which I've drawn my conclusion). The more deeply you think about it, the more sense it'll make to you why I have no limit. Murder is never right and two wrongs never make a right. There are absolutely no exceptions to that rule. If you disagree with me, you'll have to make major concessions on the value of human life, because if you think murder is ever right then I can always ask you "what's with that arbitrary number of saved people? Why are you holding back?" 2. 2 is the number of people for which you should throw the switch to hit 1. Honestly I don't think you understood the trolley problem. The objective is to save the maximum number of people, not to virtue signal. There weren't even any observers in the hypothetical to applaud the individual for letting the trolley hit the crowd over the individual.
It’s only the objective if one assumes some kind of utilitarian mode of ethics to start with. There isn’t an ‘objective’ in the problem.
The whole genesis of the thought experiment in the first place is putting deontoglogical and utilitarian ethics in direct competition and to see how people choose. Really to simultaneously expose the problems in rigidly adhering to either school of thought
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The trolley problem is made up by people with too much time at their hands, and the pragmatic thing in medicine is "triage".
You save as many as possible, considering risk&reward strategy and with a bias towards lifes saved.
If it's not about life anymore, it's not a trolley problem.
E.g. Boeing.
If you make dubious claims about your systems and how pilots do not need additional training to master them.. and then you fail to provide a big red button that overrides a system that with a single point of failure can cause your plane to crash.. than that's no trolley problem but a business decision.
Save multiple billion dollars on developing and testing a new plane.. or use the 1960ties design with a non redundant AoA-Sensor for cheap to counter the longer plane and new engines... doesn't matter if some planes fall out of the sky..as long as the sales +savings on R&D outperform the legal costs by a huge margin
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On August 26 2024 21:54 KT_Elwood wrote:
The trolley problem is made up by people with too much time at their hands, and the pragmatic thing in medicine is "triage".
You save as many as possible, considering risk&reward strategy and with a bias towards lifes saved.
If it's not about life anymore, it's not a trolley problem.
E.g. Boeing.
If you make dubious claims about your systems and how pilots do not need additional training to master them.. and then you fail to provide a big red button that overrides a system that with a single point of failure can cause your plane to crash.. than that's no trolley problem but a business decision.
Save multiple billion dollars on developing and testing a new plane.. or use the 1960ties design with a non redundant AoA-Sensor for cheap to counter the longer plane and new engines... doesn't matter if some planes fall out of the sky..as long as the sales +savings on R&D outperform the legal costs by a huge margin
Triage has nothing to do with the trolley problem. All of the patients have a train headed at them, they're all going to die. Doctors make a decision on who has priority for saving, not who they have to murder in order to save others. They don't murder anyone.
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United States42656 Posts
On August 26 2024 21:26 Razyda wrote:Show nested quote +On August 26 2024 20:05 KwarK wrote:On August 26 2024 19:40 Magic Powers wrote:On August 26 2024 10:12 BlackJack wrote:On August 26 2024 09:04 Magic Powers wrote:On August 26 2024 06:54 BlackJack wrote:On August 26 2024 06:31 Magic Powers wrote:On August 26 2024 06:03 BlackJack wrote:On August 26 2024 05:51 Magic Powers wrote:On August 26 2024 05:33 WombaT wrote:
[quote]
Israel would much rather the Palestinians just fuck off and go elsewhere and expand wholesale into the vacated areas.
Which, obviously is hardly a noble egalitarian pursuit, and one that many absolutely oppose including myself. But genocide it ain’t, for many people anyway.
In common parlance (rather than technical designations) the term has certain connotations to most folks. The Nazis weren’t merely content to shove the Jews next door, they’d have preferred if they just didn’t exist, and pursued policies broadly in alignment with that.
Which is the kind of association genpopTM make with the term genocide.
People hear the term ‘serial killer’ and their mind goes to some kind of Hannibal Lecter kind of cat. It’s the equivalent of spending inordinate amounts of time trying to convince someone that some bloke who killed 2 people in cold blood is a serial killer. Maybe it’s an argument you win, maybe not. Alternatively, one could zone in on the ‘killing 2 people in cold blood is bad’ part without trying to invoke a particular term, and it’s much harder to dispute that statement. The example of a serial killer is actually pretty apt. Maybe not perfectly the same, but very useful nonetheless. If you and I were to argue about this, and say I take the stance that two deaths make a serial killer and you argue that three or more deaths are required, we'd be arguing about a 33% difference. In my case the serial killer is two thirds there and your objection would be "yes, but what about the final third?" You might see why this doesn't exactly counter my argument in essence, it really only changes the question of scale. If Israel had killed two hundred thousand Palestinians, would that amount to genocide? The answer according to law is: no. Are you surprised yet? My answer is: by that point people would have to be out of their minds to keep denying it. We're at 40 000 deaths. 40k / 2 million. Ok we are at 2% genocide assuming Palestinians in West Bank/Israel and abroad don’t count And 2% is far more than sufficient - purely number wise - to declare genocide. My point is that, if the number was 200 000, people would no longer be objecting to the accusation. So why are they objecting to 40 000 being genocide? It's a completely arbitrary line. There is not a meaningful difference in terms of how atrocious Israel's actions are, the only difference is the specificity of the term that's being used. The people who are objecting to the term "genocide" are using very flimsy reasoning. Basically they're making a difference between mass murder and worse mass murder and arguing that one is "killing" and the other is "murder". It’s not completely arbitrary. There is a meaningful difference between killing 200k people and 40k people in terms of atrociousness. It’s approximately 160k dead people different. When the term you’re defining is meant to mean the annihilation of a people then there does need to be some threshold crossed to use that term. If you take your argument to its logical conclusion then you can insist that 1 person being killed is a genocide. If someone says more than 1 person needs to be killed you can still insist they are drawing “completely arbitrary lines.” Genocide doesn't strictly mean the eradication of all of a people. The definition includes the eradication of some of a people. I thought you were aware of this, that's why I didn't bother to explain it. Furthermore, I personally see literally no difference between the murder of 40 000 people and of 200 000 people. In fact I've previously made clear that in my book the murder of a single person is equivalent to the murder of a million people. Oh... well okay then. Not much I can say to that. A simple question: what is the minimum number of people that you would have to be saving in order for you to be willing to murder one? Only by asking yourself this question can you truly understand the trolley problem (from which I've drawn my conclusion). The more deeply you think about it, the more sense it'll make to you why I have no limit. Murder is never right and two wrongs never make a right. There are absolutely no exceptions to that rule. If you disagree with me, you'll have to make major concessions on the value of human life, because if you think murder is ever right then I can always ask you "what's with that arbitrary number of saved people? Why are you holding back?" 2. 2 is the number of people for which you should throw the switch to hit 1. Honestly I don't think you understood the trolley problem. The objective is to save the maximum number of people, not to virtue signal. There weren't even any observers in the hypothetical to applaud the individual for letting the trolley hit the crowd over the individual. Think he understands it better than you do. "Trolley problem" has problem in its name for a reason and it doesnt have solution (or rather solution depends on the person in charge of switch). It is somewhat bizarre that you would accuse MP of virtue signaling, while making grandiose statement about saving maximum number of people. You not saving maximum number of people, you actively killing a person. You not becoming a saviour, you becoming a killer.
The person who tied a bunch of people down on the tracks is the killer.
Again, really not sure you’re understanding it. The individual is airdropped into a situation they did not create. Within that situation they have two outcomes and are forced to decide between them. In outcome A one person dies. It outcome B a crowd of people die. The philosophical challenge is to decide which is the better outcome.
In philosophical circles this is considered a difficult puzzle. Philosophy clearly still has a lot of work to go before it becomes a real subject.
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United States42656 Posts
On August 26 2024 21:34 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On August 26 2024 20:05 KwarK wrote:On August 26 2024 19:40 Magic Powers wrote:On August 26 2024 10:12 BlackJack wrote:On August 26 2024 09:04 Magic Powers wrote:On August 26 2024 06:54 BlackJack wrote:On August 26 2024 06:31 Magic Powers wrote:On August 26 2024 06:03 BlackJack wrote:On August 26 2024 05:51 Magic Powers wrote:On August 26 2024 05:33 WombaT wrote:
[quote]
Israel would much rather the Palestinians just fuck off and go elsewhere and expand wholesale into the vacated areas.
Which, obviously is hardly a noble egalitarian pursuit, and one that many absolutely oppose including myself. But genocide it ain’t, for many people anyway.
In common parlance (rather than technical designations) the term has certain connotations to most folks. The Nazis weren’t merely content to shove the Jews next door, they’d have preferred if they just didn’t exist, and pursued policies broadly in alignment with that.
Which is the kind of association genpopTM make with the term genocide.
People hear the term ‘serial killer’ and their mind goes to some kind of Hannibal Lecter kind of cat. It’s the equivalent of spending inordinate amounts of time trying to convince someone that some bloke who killed 2 people in cold blood is a serial killer. Maybe it’s an argument you win, maybe not. Alternatively, one could zone in on the ‘killing 2 people in cold blood is bad’ part without trying to invoke a particular term, and it’s much harder to dispute that statement. The example of a serial killer is actually pretty apt. Maybe not perfectly the same, but very useful nonetheless. If you and I were to argue about this, and say I take the stance that two deaths make a serial killer and you argue that three or more deaths are required, we'd be arguing about a 33% difference. In my case the serial killer is two thirds there and your objection would be "yes, but what about the final third?" You might see why this doesn't exactly counter my argument in essence, it really only changes the question of scale. If Israel had killed two hundred thousand Palestinians, would that amount to genocide? The answer according to law is: no. Are you surprised yet? My answer is: by that point people would have to be out of their minds to keep denying it. We're at 40 000 deaths. 40k / 2 million. Ok we are at 2% genocide assuming Palestinians in West Bank/Israel and abroad don’t count And 2% is far more than sufficient - purely number wise - to declare genocide. My point is that, if the number was 200 000, people would no longer be objecting to the accusation. So why are they objecting to 40 000 being genocide? It's a completely arbitrary line. There is not a meaningful difference in terms of how atrocious Israel's actions are, the only difference is the specificity of the term that's being used. The people who are objecting to the term "genocide" are using very flimsy reasoning. Basically they're making a difference between mass murder and worse mass murder and arguing that one is "killing" and the other is "murder". It’s not completely arbitrary. There is a meaningful difference between killing 200k people and 40k people in terms of atrociousness. It’s approximately 160k dead people different. When the term you’re defining is meant to mean the annihilation of a people then there does need to be some threshold crossed to use that term. If you take your argument to its logical conclusion then you can insist that 1 person being killed is a genocide. If someone says more than 1 person needs to be killed you can still insist they are drawing “completely arbitrary lines.” Genocide doesn't strictly mean the eradication of all of a people. The definition includes the eradication of some of a people. I thought you were aware of this, that's why I didn't bother to explain it. Furthermore, I personally see literally no difference between the murder of 40 000 people and of 200 000 people. In fact I've previously made clear that in my book the murder of a single person is equivalent to the murder of a million people. Oh... well okay then. Not much I can say to that. A simple question: what is the minimum number of people that you would have to be saving in order for you to be willing to murder one? Only by asking yourself this question can you truly understand the trolley problem (from which I've drawn my conclusion). The more deeply you think about it, the more sense it'll make to you why I have no limit. Murder is never right and two wrongs never make a right. There are absolutely no exceptions to that rule. If you disagree with me, you'll have to make major concessions on the value of human life, because if you think murder is ever right then I can always ask you "what's with that arbitrary number of saved people? Why are you holding back?" 2. 2 is the number of people for which you should throw the switch to hit 1. Honestly I don't think you understood the trolley problem. The objective is to save the maximum number of people, not to virtue signal. There weren't even any observers in the hypothetical to applaud the individual for letting the trolley hit the crowd over the individual. It’s only the objective if one assumes some kind of utilitarian mode of ethics to start with. There isn’t an ‘objective’ in the problem. The whole genesis of the thought experiment in the first place is putting deontoglogical and utilitarian ethics in direct competition and to see how people choose. Really to simultaneously expose the problems in rigidly adhering to either school of thought
Externalities are generally eliminated in the hypothetical to reduce it to a simple choice between two outcomes. The challenge is to decide whether it is better for one person to die or for many to die. Therefore the only real question is whether you want to maximize survivors or maximize casualties. I guess I could see an argument for choosing for it to hit the crowd if the person is a misanthrope but you’d have to make that argument.
I default to the assumption that minimizing casualties is the objective but I’m open to hearing a maximalist argument.
Edit: You could potentially make a much more interesting trolley problem if you made the people non fungible. You could have a crowd of old sick people vs one healthy child. Or serial killers vs a lifesaving genius surgeon. Strangers vs a family member. But in the classic trolley problem the people are fungible by design, it really is just whether you should pick the good outcome or the bad outcome.
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On August 26 2024 22:11 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On August 26 2024 21:26 Razyda wrote:On August 26 2024 20:05 KwarK wrote:On August 26 2024 19:40 Magic Powers wrote:On August 26 2024 10:12 BlackJack wrote:On August 26 2024 09:04 Magic Powers wrote:On August 26 2024 06:54 BlackJack wrote:On August 26 2024 06:31 Magic Powers wrote:On August 26 2024 06:03 BlackJack wrote:On August 26 2024 05:51 Magic Powers wrote:
[quote]
The example of a serial killer is actually pretty apt. Maybe not perfectly the same, but very useful nonetheless.
If you and I were to argue about this, and say I take the stance that two deaths make a serial killer and you argue that three or more deaths are required, we'd be arguing about a 33% difference. In my case the serial killer is two thirds there and your objection would be "yes, but what about the final third?" You might see why this doesn't exactly counter my argument in essence, it really only changes the question of scale.
If Israel had killed two hundred thousand Palestinians, would that amount to genocide? The answer according to law is: no. Are you surprised yet?
My answer is: by that point people would have to be out of their minds to keep denying it.
We're at 40 000 deaths. 40k / 2 million. Ok we are at 2% genocide assuming Palestinians in West Bank/Israel and abroad don’t count And 2% is far more than sufficient - purely number wise - to declare genocide. My point is that, if the number was 200 000, people would no longer be objecting to the accusation. So why are they objecting to 40 000 being genocide? It's a completely arbitrary line. There is not a meaningful difference in terms of how atrocious Israel's actions are, the only difference is the specificity of the term that's being used. The people who are objecting to the term "genocide" are using very flimsy reasoning. Basically they're making a difference between mass murder and worse mass murder and arguing that one is "killing" and the other is "murder". It’s not completely arbitrary. There is a meaningful difference between killing 200k people and 40k people in terms of atrociousness. It’s approximately 160k dead people different. When the term you’re defining is meant to mean the annihilation of a people then there does need to be some threshold crossed to use that term. If you take your argument to its logical conclusion then you can insist that 1 person being killed is a genocide. If someone says more than 1 person needs to be killed you can still insist they are drawing “completely arbitrary lines.” Genocide doesn't strictly mean the eradication of all of a people. The definition includes the eradication of some of a people. I thought you were aware of this, that's why I didn't bother to explain it. Furthermore, I personally see literally no difference between the murder of 40 000 people and of 200 000 people. In fact I've previously made clear that in my book the murder of a single person is equivalent to the murder of a million people. Oh... well okay then. Not much I can say to that. A simple question: what is the minimum number of people that you would have to be saving in order for you to be willing to murder one? Only by asking yourself this question can you truly understand the trolley problem (from which I've drawn my conclusion). The more deeply you think about it, the more sense it'll make to you why I have no limit. Murder is never right and two wrongs never make a right. There are absolutely no exceptions to that rule. If you disagree with me, you'll have to make major concessions on the value of human life, because if you think murder is ever right then I can always ask you "what's with that arbitrary number of saved people? Why are you holding back?" 2. 2 is the number of people for which you should throw the switch to hit 1. Honestly I don't think you understood the trolley problem. The objective is to save the maximum number of people, not to virtue signal. There weren't even any observers in the hypothetical to applaud the individual for letting the trolley hit the crowd over the individual. Think he understands it better than you do. "Trolley problem" has problem in its name for a reason and it doesnt have solution (or rather solution depends on the person in charge of switch). It is somewhat bizarre that you would accuse MP of virtue signaling, while making grandiose statement about saving maximum number of people. You not saving maximum number of people, you actively killing a person. You not becoming a saviour, you becoming a killer. The person who tied a bunch of people down on the tracks is the killer. Again, really not sure you’re understanding it. The individual is airdropped into a situation they did not create. Within that situation they have two outcomes and are forced to decide between them. In outcome A one person dies. It outcome B a crowd of people die. The philosophical challenge is to decide which is the better outcome. In philosophical circles this is considered a difficult puzzle. Philosophy clearly still has a lot of work to go before it becomes a real subject.
lol
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United States42656 Posts
Came up with a fun one.
You’re out in your boat on the lake when you come across a sinking ferry. There are ten people drowning but you only have room for nine in your boat. You can start pulling people aboard but by doing so you’re implicitly choosing an order in which to rescue them which means you’re choosing who is going to be the tenth who drowns. Or you can refuse to choose who to pull aboard and watch as they all drown.
To me this is an extremely challenging puzzle because it’s really not clear what you should do. On the one hand you can save nine people with action but on the other you can save nobody through inaction.
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EPT
