And then he got into politics?Originally Posted by Zefelius
And then he got into politics?
I believe that everyone believes what they want to believe (DAO as I often quote). You can't convince anyone of anything who is not willing to be convinced. Conspiracy theorists are, by & large, idiots and/or simply trouble-makers having a little fun fleecing the sheep of the world in some way. The only valid point they indicate in general is that you can't trust other people, especially the government. In my experience, it is impossible to convince a conspiracy theorist of anything. I remember a guy who presented to us in high school about JFK assassination. He's still doing it today. He's a complete nut.
In this specific case, I agree it would patently stupid to assert OBL is dead when he could easily demonstrate otherwise if it wasn't the case. In all honesty, I somewhat expect a false video to be posted in the near future. At that point, I suspect the administration will reconsider the publishing of photos/video evidence. Of course, the Pakistani account of confirmation from OBL family members is also reasonably compelling. If they do publish at that time, they will have to post pretty compelling evidence or else they'll just have to leave it as-is.
People question things like this because we have an inordinate desire for control. It's called "micro-management" essentially & lack of knowledge means FUD for all humanity. The only salient point that matters is this: Was it OBL & was he killed? Given the USA & Pakistan governments both agree on this point & it was arrived at different ways (USA: direct execution, Pakistan: family accounts after the raid) AND neither government is exactly loving the other right now, that's fairly conclusive behavioral indication that it is true as people who are in a middle of a fight rarely agree unless they actually agree [unless the fight is a mere stage show which I don't think it is in this instance].
In short, I agree. All I care about is whether it was OBL & whether he was eliminated. I'm not much concerned about the "how" frankly & that's micro-management that I hate at my job so I'm not sure why I would condone such an approach for soldiers in the heat of taking down the most notorious modern-day terrorist. Let them do their work & be done with it.
best regards,
Pedal2Metal
He ran for president.
best regards,
Pedal2Metal
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/06/wo...a/06react.html
Let the face-saving begin!
best regards,
Pedal2Metal
http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapc....legal/?hpt=T1
As this discussion clearly demonstrates, criminals, terrorists, & the like always have an advantage over a lawful person/organization in combat. I guess there's no avoiding it since civilization is nothing if not arbitrary rules of governance beyond natural rules. Still find it irritating that our SEALs, the administration, etc... have to worry about lawyers while terrorists just kill people any way they like willy-nilly.
ShowTek: If we don't view our civilization & following rules like this as "superior" (in accordance with the Italian PM's comments years ago), how should we look at it? From where I sit, if we don't think of our way of life as superior, then I'd have to say it's clearly inferior in terms of battlefield strategy, tactics, & flexibility. Given we are in a war, our current approach of "carefulness" would seem to be a stupid approach, especially if our way of life isn't superior. Your argument all along is we're not superior. If that's the case, then why not just respond with overwhelming force & end the war as quickly & efficiently as possible vs. following artificial "rules"?
If we had done that, I can assure you this could have been over a few hours/days/weeks after 9/11. My question boils down to this:
If our way of life & carefulness about the taking of human life (we're debating whether killing OBL is "legal" for crying out loud!) is NOT superior in qualitative attributes, then why bother in the first place? Why try to restrain our full capability if both sides in this conflict are simply different, neither superior nor inferior? Why not just resort to completely Machivellian principles & utterly annihilate the enemy & be done with it? We could have easily avoided this entire 10 year conflict by doing so.
Yes, I'm obviously putting aside our & my own values for a moment to raise the real philosophical question of:
If we are simply different, then why not use whatever force is necessary to end the war as quickly as possible & minimize the loss of life, resources, & time on our side of the fence? Is that not the most expeditious, logical, & efficient approach to conducting a war given no side has moral superiority?
On a more mundane basis: Why are the people in these forums who play CivRev by the "rules" better than those who do not play by those same "rules"? By your own logic as applied to this mundane example, they aren't. In which case, we can't fault those who don't play by the "rules". In fact, in terms of the laws of nature, they are in fact "superior" because they don't follow any artificial rules, only those rules enforced by the "nature" of the CivRev game world. So in that sense, the only one that can be "blamed" are the developers. See, how that works? I've just absolved Brent, etc... for all eternity. It's not their fault, it's Firaxis fault. Maybe that's your point all along...
best regards,
Pedal2Metal
I pretty much agreed with your whole comment, and especially the quote above. You're right that there's a group who will never, never be convinced. You can't reason someone out of a belief if they hadn't been reasoned into it in the first place, right!?
I suppose what I should have said more precisely is that for those who can be convinced, the silence of bin Laden will work just as effectivley as a photo. The complete skeptic will cast doubt in either case, and thus they don't factor into the decision-making equation of whether to release the photo, but for the normal person it's hard to imagine that a terrorist who has been so prolific in releasing tapes and recordings over the last 10 years (35 times?) would suddenly take a vow of silence! That's actually more convincing, I would think, than a photo which many people might suspect of being doctored.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011...iracy-theories
What did I tell you Zef? These guys are like idiots filling the "idiot" void... it can't be helped... it's the 2nd law of IdioDynamics... the universe naturally & always tends toward a greater level of idiocy...
best regards,
Pedal2Metal
Agreed. Although the purely logical among us will undoubtedly remind us that "nothing proves nothing" (i.e.:you can't prove anything logically from the absence of information.). I don't see either of us as logical purists so probably not an issue for us but for the purists, they will likely end up in the conspiracy theory camp or they will have to join us logical pragmatists & admit they aren't as "pure" as they once thought. Quite a conundrum!
best regards,
Pedal2Metal
http://powerwall.msnbc.msn.com/polit...-1687527.story
best regards,
Pedal2Metal
IdioDynamics should be the word of 2011.http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011...iracy-theories
What did I tell you Zef? These guys are like idiots filling the "idiot" void... it can't be helped... it's the 2nd law of IdioDynamics... the universe naturally & always tends toward a greater level of idiocy...
best regards,
Pedal2Metal
Right. I thought about the Appeal to Ignorance fallacy when I wrote my comment, and didn't feel the need to go into much detail about it. I would say that most informal fallacies are helpful in exposing deductive holes. Because I don't find WMDs in Iraq, it doesn't deductively or strictly follow that there aren't any (maybe that's what you had in mind with purism). Inductively, however, the case that there aren't any in Iraq becomes stronger and stronger as more time passes. Similarly, if you've lost your keys and have looked everywhere in your kitchen for them, they're probably not there. So not finding them there after looking for them for many days is actually pretty good proof that they're not there.Agreed. Although the purely logical among us will undoubtedly remind us that "nothing proves nothing" (i.e.:you can't prove anything logically from the absence of information.). I don't see either of us as logical purists so probably not an issue for us but for the purists, they will likely end up in the conspiracy theory camp or they will have to join us logical pragmatists & admit they aren't as "pure" as they once thought. Quite a conundrum!
best regards,
Pedal2Metal
But maybe this is too subtle for most people. I'd like to think moderates across the world would understand this simple reasoning, but perhaps in the end what it takes is something visible to put to rest mainstream doubts.
Haha!! Well, the moderate in me thought he wasn't so bad about 10 years ago. Compared to Bush in the primaries in 1999, he seemed pretty stellar. In the last few years either his true self has come out, or he's changed significantly. Perhaps for people a bit more liberal than I am, he was never seen as viable.
My comment wasn't really about McCain. You could probably say that about 99.9% of anyone who gets into politics.
As for McCain, I too liked him better in 1999, but I guess he really wanted to be president and found that the approach that appealed to you and I wasn't the right one. After all, I didn't vote for him in the general (though I would have if somehow the election had been him vs. Bush). Did you?
Wow that's unclear. I obviously meant I never felt moved to vote McCain and only would if I were voting in a Republican primary for some reason.
Last edited by elthrasher; 05-05-2011 at 02:19 PM.
Your voting tendencies compared to mine reflect our conversations in the forum pretty well. I'm liberal enough that I never voted for a Republican (for President) in this century (I did though when I voted for Bush Senior in '88). In the 90s I didn't vote at all. But I would have voted for McCain against Gore if that had been an option. You definitely would not have. That fits pretty well I think with what we would expect for the two of us...
My point was clumsily enough made that it still didn't shine through. Here it is: neither of us (I'll bet) voted in the Republican primary in 2000. Therefore the fact that McCain appealed more to us than Bush did helped him not in the slightest. Okay, maybe you would have cast your vote for him in the general, but that doesn't help him if he can't get to the general.
Of course he did in 2008, but he wasn't really the same candidate then.
I hear you & agree it's indicative, but can't ever be conclusive unfortunately. This is the conundrum facing the administration. The AP filed on Monday for FOIA access to the video of the raid, the burial, & photos. Doubtful they will get it but I'm sure it will be a pretty heavily fought battle on both sides. There are legitimate reasons to want some portion of the free press to have access to this information. At the same time, I think by taking the position the President has, it makes it clear that any release of information is based on lawful requests from the press, not a morbid desire to gloat or "spike the ball" as he put it. As much as I'm certain our foes would not offer the same graciousness, I agree wholeheartedly with the President's decision on this matter.
On the other hand, I have personally found items weeks/months/years (yes years!) after I lost them & they were exactly in the room/area I suspected they would be in, just not in the specific location(s) I checked. In fact, when I lose something now, I give it a hard target search & then I put on the shelf until it "comes to me". There are lots of reasons for this, some based on science, some based on faith, but in the end it seems to work reasonably well. In any case, it's simply irreducible that the absence of evidence always boils down to a question of belief due to incomplete knowledge (which is everything if you drill deep enough according to the Heisenburg Uncertainty Principle), regardless of any rational arguments one can make about indicativeness & induction.
In hind sight, I think that's the one thing I might have done differently. I might have had selected trustworthy, "pillars" of journalistic integrity (if there is such a thing...), on the aircraft carrier with some sort of NDA contract having been signed or something. That way they could report to the world what they saw with their own eyes but there wouldn't be any danger of a ungoverned release of raw data. I don't consider it a huge deal but that's the one aspect I might have done differently. We've embedded reporters with military many times in the past so this would seem just a special case but, of course, it would have to occur on short notice & with greater secrecy but still seemed doable to me.
best regards,
Pedal2Metal
http://blogs.aljazeera.net/americas/...5/closure-whom
i couldn't have said it better myself. not that i think that the celebrations were that important events but this guy depicts my feelings towards them quite accurately.
"so when it came to pass that Osama bin Laden finally met his end, it was no suprise to see people of all ages and backgrounds jumping at the opportunity to declare closure, and indulge in an orgy of unprecedented emotional rawness and richness."
"It really just seemed to be an opportunity for the entire nation to join in a spontaneous live edition of The Jerry Springer Show."
"surely I can't be alone in my wonder at the scope and the scale of this reaction, or in my puzzlement over the alacrity with which so many people have leapt on to the celebration bandwagon?"
awesome. a little too critical of america in general maybe. there's an underlining anti-american sentiment in this article which isn't necessarily very strongly linked to the issue.
no, i totally get that. in fact, i talked about this a few posts back. i'm confused about what seems to be the essence of your last post: that proximity is THE reason for people feeling worse about terrible events as opposed to patriotic/national identification with victims. or might that even be the same to you? and i think we're agreed that we talk about cultural proximity, not geographic, because people in LA obviously don't give two sh!ts about mexicans dying at the border compared to 3000 americans dying in new york.
but you have to see the moral hypocrisy in going crazy about one terrorist attack in america, the demand for revenge, recompense, "justice", and all that crap when our actions do the very same to other people all the time, our lifestyles are responsible for the extremely miserable deaths of millions every year, and when people die of terrorist attacks virtually every day in other places in the world.
well, by still trying to coincide with international laws (which. also by applying to everyone, are just IMO) from common moral points of view i would state that we act morally superior in comparison to our enemy that hypothetically does not act in accordance with such rules. if others do not adhere to moral standards, according to our own standards this is no justification for us to break them as well.
i find it plausible to assume that this is actually the case. i.e., we are to some extent adhering to common moral rules in this fight and terrorists largely aren't. this must, however, not necessarily be the case. as a firm believer in the equality of all humans and a firm disbeliever in evil, i would logically assume that the west's enemies are 1) psychologically crippled people and/or 2) simply act in accordance to other moral standards. if 1) is the case, we must first ask the question if we are responsible. in my experience, we are at least to some extent. there is also a lot of sh!t going on in and between middle eastern nations so i wouldn't say we are the ones mostly responsible or the ones least responsible. but we're definitely to some extent responsible for the actions now carried out against us. 2) basically refers to another view on the world which might also very well be shaped by the atrocities and stuff we carry out in the middle east. i.e., as i have stated before, the view that the west is evil and tries to bring middle eastern nations down is quite common there, much like the view that muslims are evil and want to break down western societies is common in the west. i think the former, too, is a natural response to said atrocities and absurdities carries out by us in the region. 1) and 2) often occur simultaneously i assume.
i'm a moral relativist not only philosophically but also in a practical meaning of the word. i often don't see meaning in filtering the world in right/wrong. meanwhile i often rather choose to see it as cause and effect relationships. they do something to us which results in us doing something to them, etc. of course, this transition is dynamic and much more complex. there are a lot of individual agents in this transition who could turn the whole thing over.
if i understand you correctly, you are basically describing and hypothetically proposing the world without morals. i'd draw some of the same conclusions as you do. it would all be a lot less complicated. but i guess we have created morals in order to live better lives. acting like you describe it would lead to disastrous reactions from other countries if done repeatedly and consequently. on the individual level, it would be the same if done consequently. nobody would delay gratification for example, beating your partner in an argument, stealing somebody's food, killing others, etc. which btw is one clinical characteristic of the psychopath.f we had done that, I can assure you this could have been over a few hours/days/weeks after 9/11. My question boils down to this:
If our way of life & carefulness about the taking of human life (we're debating whether killing OBL is "legal" for crying out loud!) is NOT superior in qualitative attributes, then why bother in the first place? Why try to restrain our full capability if both sides in this conflict are simply different, neither superior nor inferior? Why not just resort to completely Machivellian principles & utterly annihilate the enemy & be done with it? We could have easily avoided this entire 10 year conflict by doing so.
Yes, I'm obviously putting aside our & my own values for a moment to raise the real philosophical question of:
If we are simply different, then why not use whatever force is necessary to end the war as quickly as possible & minimize the loss of life, resources, & time on our side of the fence? Is that not the most expeditious, logical, & efficient approach to conducting a war given no side has moral superiority?
On a more mundane basis: Why are the people in these forums who play CivRev by the "rules" better than those who do not play by those same "rules"? By your own logic as applied to this mundane example, they aren't. In which case, we can't fault those who don't play by the "rules". In fact, in terms of the laws of nature, they are in fact "superior" because they don't follow any artificial rules, only those rules enforced by the "nature" of the CivRev game world. So in that sense, the only one that can be "blamed" are the developers. See, how that works? I've just absolved Brent, etc... for all eternity. It's not their fault, it's Firaxis fault. Maybe that's your point all along...
That's not like you Thrash! You always make your points so deftly, poignantly, and sensibly!! I suppose you're allowed some leeway from time to time....
It's also kind of ironic as the ban on flag-draped military coffins has been lifted.
The thing to keep in mind about 9/11 is that it was an attack. It was the kind of thing that's not supposed to happen. That's not to say that Mexicans should die at the border, but when it happens nobody is shocked or surprised. That doesn't make it less tragic, but it probably makes it less powerful emotionally.
To put it another way, systems of starvation and poverty have been in place for generations. Most of the time you can't really point to a person or group and hold them responsible for it. 9/11 was planned and executed by a group of people who conspired to commit murder.
Perhaps it would make you feel better about the whole thing if I told you I think our reaction to bin Laden's death is appropriate but the muted calm or disinterest that so many show to the plight of so many others around the globe is not. But of course, how can you really feel so much pain? You can't. You can't die a little bit with every child who starves. You can't weep for every loved one lost. If we had 1000 hours in a day there still wouldn't be time for all that.
So we are forced into a kind of hypocrisy. We have to choose our tragedies to become involved in and ignore the rest. Some of us have the luxury - and yes, it's nothing but a luxury - to get more involved. Others barely have the ability to look after themselves or their immediate family. So you have to create a hierarchy. Self-household-family-neighborhood-friends-town-region-nation-continent-world. How else can anybody live?
Perhaps. But when somebody is killed over some product I might like to buy, how much responsibility do I bear? We know approximately how much responsibility bin Laden bears for 9/11 - quite a lot! I do think we bear some responsibility as consumers. For example, I'd never buy a diamond. I make sure my coffee is fair trade (hoping that actually means something). And now I'm starting to grow my own food. But there are so many choices, so many products, so much that people need in daily life. Look at Apple products. I guess people are literally being worked to death in China in order to meet the demands of the west. I'm typing this on a Dell right now. I don't have the faintest idea whether someone might have been worked to death to make it for me.
So I know bin Laden deserved punishment for what he's done. What do I deserve?
I was dealing with a difficult co-worker all day. I guess he sapped some of my might.
Sure enough. My only basic point was that arguments can be inductively strong and persuasive even if, when translated into deductive form, they are 100% invalid. Not everyone understands, of course, that an argument doesn't always have to be measured by deducitve standards of purity.
And if what you suggested is right, that the purists won't be satisfied with bin Laden's ongoing silence, then I think we agree they won't be convinced by a photo either. Hence my earlier argument that the issue of proof by photo is moot if the criterion for proof is 100% certainty for these extremists. For normal people, bin Laden's silence over the next couple years should be proof enough. And for people who are in these terrorists organizations, they'll be convinced by the simple fact that they will experience new shifts in power in the years ahead. They won't need photos to know something has gone awry... although it would remain possible that he was captured and not killed.
Although I don't agree, I'm glad you're here to remind us of a different perspective.
For every link, of course, there's a counter-link.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/06/health/06revenge.html
Here, I've got a good quote from that article: "As I watched President Obama lead the dancing in the streets around the site of New York's twin towers...." I guess the author was having a peyote trip or something to see that since it didn't actually happen. The state of journalism these days!
I think there's a point to be made there, but tossing in an outright lie rather deadens it, don't you think?
But a better criticism of this line of thinking is that the argument boils down to accusing us of oversimplifying everything by oversimplifying our response to the events. I'm not sure if you or the author ever actually saw the Jerry Springer show to make that comparison. I saw it a few times. It was basically about people fighting over petty things, blowing things out of proportion and creating drama where there should be none.
Or perhaps they'll read the statement from their own organization confirming bin Laden's death:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/...y.html?hpid=z3
The Post is also reporting that some of the data seized details other plots:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/...y.html?hpid=z3
Hmm...attacking commuter rails. Do they think we're Europe or something?
Where do I send the check?
best regards,
Pedal2Metal
Send it to me. I'll make sure he gets it.Where do I send the check?
In otherwords, self-interest. So by definition, you've just established that morality is superior to immorality on at least one axis: self-interest. I rest my case.
On a separate note, one's power also factors in how much one has to practice self-restraint in order to achieve a certain amount of self-reward. In this instance, there is little doubt we could annihilate the countries involved with little repercussions from those countries directly. I think the main factor holding us back is the ire of the other uninvolved nations (Russia, China, Europe, etc...). Of course, after 9/11, my guess is we could have carpet bombed Afghanistan & it wouldn't have cost us much except some whining from Europe as Russia would probably enjoy watching their old stomping ground get bashed. Especially if we had stopped at that point (no ongoing wars in Afghanistan or Iraq). Sometimes I think our "carefulness" causes great inefficiencies & wastes of effort that could have been avoided by simply having a quick & overwhelming response but I admit I could be oversimplifying.
best regards,
Pedal2Metal
LOL!
best regards,
Pedal2Metal
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...googlenews_wsj
best regards,
Pedal2Metal
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/03/health/03torture.html
As you said ShowTek, a lot of horrible stuff happens within the region itself, in addtion to some attributed to us. This article is not for the squeamish.
best regards,
Pedal2Metal
No one says much about Chechnya anymore... or whatever is left of it...
Last edited by Pedal2Metal; 05-06-2011 at 12:32 PM.
I was going to mention that too, but assumed I was blind and somehow didn't see what everyone else clearly could!
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...137806694.html
Let's hear the spin Thrasher. I personally think it's just Gestapo tactics to identify "sympathizers" like with any similar government program throughout history whether it be Jews, anti-dictator, etc... that's being ferreted out.
best regards,
Pedal2Metal
http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2011/0...eath/?iref=NS1
I'm not sure how to respond to this. It's supposedly >50% cheaper but will any of these guys ever be productive again?
best regards,
Pedal2Metal
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv...src=xs_sl_0001
Great picture, not bad analysis either.
best regards,
Pedal2Metal
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