EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
I know what you're here for. What's his bias? Politically I at least like to think of myself as a true moderate, maybe (in US context) slightly naturally right-leaning but currently politically left-leaning if I had to be more specific.
User ID: 1043
Either you've completely missed the point or, much more likely, I made the point way too clumsily and misled you. I wasn't presenting a worldview or anything like that, nor trying to provide a comprehensive accounting of all the factors at play.
I'm simply making an observation/claim: when conflicts are primarily feelings-based (deliberately a broad category - set up in contrast to more practical considerations like security concerns, economic considerations, and other more direct impacts - maybe "material" would be a better word?) there's a temptation and tendency for observers, even intelligent ones, to sometimes go "that can't possibly be the main reason(s), there must be some practical aspect I'm missing". They conjure up reasonable-sounding material reasons that either do not exist or are immaterial to the roots of the conflict, and assign them excessive weight. That's not to say emotional considerations are, ipso fact, irrational, nor to say that emotional considerations can't be strategic either; I merely observe the tendency for people to keep searching for non-emotional reasons even when they already have the most important pieces right there in front of them.
As the two most recent examples go:
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Russia says they want to invade Ukraine to restore a pan-Russian empire. Western observers go "that seems like a weak reason to actually invade a country, so really they must be worried about NATO military aggression" when the reality is that Westerners just severely underrated Russia's own stated reasons.
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China says they want to reunify Taiwan with force to restore a pan-Chinese empire. Western observers go "that seems like a weak reason to actually invade a country, so really they must be worried about US military aggression/encirclement" when the reality is that Westerners just severely underrate China's own stated reasons.
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To extend it even a little farther, at risk of diluting my point, Dick Cheney and co say they want to forcibly export democracy to the Middle East. Western observers go "that seems like a weak reason to actually invade a country, so really they must be wanting more oil" when the reality is that Western observers just severely underrated the idiocy of neocons. This is a little post-hoc but I think it works.
The Taiwan issue isn’t just an emotional matter—it’s deeply tied to historical legitimacy, national identity, and decades of unresolved civil war politics. You may disagree with the PRC’s claims, but characterizing them as purely irrational makes real understanding impossible.
To be clear, "historical legitimacy" is a matter of feelings. "National identity" is a matter of feelings. Politics, abstractly, are feelings. At least in the sense that they only weakly and indirectly correspond to the fundamental physical prosperity of a country.
I absolutely agree with you that it's actually of critical importance to understand that "hurt feelings" are powerful and need to be understood as valid - or at least, if not valid, then necessary to understand - and indeed are common motivations for conflict throughout history. I'm very aware of the seriousness of some of those feelings in the China-Taiwan issue. Ignoring and downplaying them is often the result of hubris and/or ignorance. But if we zoom out a little bit, that's still all they are, feelings! Whether strategically deployed or entirely organic, that doesn't change their nature.
From a moral perspective, I would further advance the argument that however understandable the above reasons might be, these are still bad/insufficient moral reasons to invade an effectively sovereign and separate country. That wasn't my main point however. Hope that clears things up.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
2mo ago
I agree that it’s one the more philosophically tricky questions around. However, time and circumstance are hugely important factors here. The Civil War is worlds apart because it happened, in historical terms, more or less immediately. A better analogy would be, would either North or South Korea be justified (or heck, forget justified, would it even be rational) in finishing off the unification, today? Obviously not. Time and ability to self govern strongly determine ‘legitimacy’ as an independent state, and Taiwan and South Korea have demonstrated both. It’s not even close. Most of the original combatants are dead! it’s truly intergenerational now. Wars of reunification within a few years of the split wouldn’t bat an eye - and didn’t, really. If the PRC had actually gone through and invaded in the decade or so after WW2 the US would maybe have been annoyed or supplied arms or whatever but on some level that’s still an “understandable” war. The only thing that weakens these protections is when a state effectively goes into collapse. For example, I am on record as being decidedly “meh” about Israel grabbing Syrian land in the civil war period (not to get into a big discussion there but just as an illustration).
If we did get in to the Civil War philosophy, I think the important point is that American political philosophy (with the Declaration of Independence as an example) generally held not quite that it was only a consent of the governed thing, but also that subjects needed to have been oppressed or have some notable grievances on order for rebellion to be justified - to the best of my knowledge the consensus was not as simple as “anyone can revolt at any time for any reason if the people support it”. Under that logic, the South would only be allowed to secede for “good reason” or something like that - simply seceding because a president they thought they wouldn’t like won, and on fears of what he might do, hardly rise to that level.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
2mo ago
My honest first reaction was simply what I said: “is this guy supposed to be famous or is there some in-group reference I’m missing?” Even linking his faculty page like you did would have been a more effective point and IMO a valid comment. In fact, pointing him out as someone with an obvious career stake and bias towards finding bias IS a good point. I just strongly believe (and the rules are aimed at) putting a little extra effort into being explicit about things is healthier for discussion. It’s not good to habitually rely on people guessing at meaning, and deliberately underbaked comments allow the worst kind of motte and bailey because it necessarily involves some degree of projection.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
2mo ago
While I appreciate the direction of thought (control over Taiwan certainly does enable more “offensive” options), it’s incorrect to say that anyone, even a coalition, would be able to effectively blockade China. They simply have too much coastline and too large a navy. Maybe 20 years ago yes, but currently? No. That’s not projected to change in the next 20 years either no matter how big a peacetime buildup of their neighbors.
Also, I personally believe the South China Sea moves to be primarily about resources (fishing, oil, etc) than a power projection, but reasonable people can absolutely disagree there.
It’s still hard to believe, even despite intellectually knowing why, how many Americans and even Mottizens display an astonishing capacity to rationalize bad foreign actors. China wants Taiwan primarily out of essentially hurt feelings; the fact that this is a batshit insane reason to start a war over a territory that has self governed with no major problems for over 30 years is so outrageous many are tempted to look for deeper meaning when there is none. Even if the US literally sent 10x the arms to Taiwan, do you know the impact that would have on Chinese national security? Almost literally zero. Zero. Nothing. Nil. Zilch. Nada.
Hell, Taiwan doesn’t even present a regional influence threat. They don’t and couldn’t project power into the South China Sea for example. The only vague threat is as a refuge for Hong Kongers and other dissidents, and even that is far overblown.
Well, maybe some of it has to do with America’s short memory when it comes to the potency of war fever. A lot of Americans try to pretend they didn’t support the Iraq war, but the opinion polls at the time don’t lie. I’ll grant there was some government deception of course but that doesn’t fully explain it.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
2mo ago
It’s not concise, it’s not valuable. Is everyone supposed to know who this is? If so, the comment is straightforwardly disallowed; if not, I think as part of the compact of making non-sneering comments you are obligated to at least gesture at saying something informative and you know, make an actual point.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
3mo ago
What an insane fan-fic reality that would be. At least you acknowledge that your position is at odds with the courts and thus ipso facto illegal. The lack of a typical social contract with an illegal immigrant does not immediately imply that all rights are forfeit, in fact the Framers explicitly rejected that notion. The idea is that the court should make at least a passing effort to assess whether deporting him to El Salvador specifically would seriously endanger him; rather, the courts already determined in 2019 this to be the case, so if he is to be deported, such an assessment much be overturned. This is at least superficially reasonable. There is a universal duty that the government not be party to reckless endangerment, even of foreigners. Until the process finishes, tough shit, the government can't do what it wants. It doesn't have to be a mega-detailed process, but it does have to happen. I'll say that personally, I don't find him super sympathetic. I also have mixed feelings about asylum laws in general - the country has a long history of welcoming people from countries in trouble, and prospering because of it, but just because a person's home country is a shitshow isn't a valid reason to illegally immigrate nor on its face create a substantial danger to return, and I do strongly resent the rhetoric of some on the left to this effect. Furthermore, I don't have that much sympathy for Republicans either because of how many torpedoed the last immigration compromise bill, which among other things would have hired a lot more judges so that cases exactly like this wouldn't drag on forever and consume government resources so much. The solution to policies you dislike is legislation, not intra-governmental disobedience. I'm pretty sure the legislature could curtail asylum laws, for example, if you so dislike them. Because remember, Garcia was both granted a stay on deportation AND the law also currently requires a certain process to be followed for such people to actually be deported. If you dislike this, the remedy is clear: change the law! The government is not, in fact, entitled to pick and choose which laws to follow, nor does your 'higher law' reasoning about social contracts supercede the actual laws.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
3mo ago
Curious if anyone's read and could recommend a good book on the Reconstruction era, and the transition into the Gilded Age - ideally, a political one that starts with Lincoln's assassination, think Team of Rivals. I know there is a good amount of stuff on the racial politics of Reconstruction, and while that's interesting, I was hoping for something a little more holistic. Or, maybe a pair of books.
Like, I want the nitty gritty details about how Southern senators slowly got their seats back in the legislature. I want to know about the politics of the Freedman's Bureau. How demobilization went. Who was in power in the South for the next few years locally. Drama between Johnson, Grant, Stanton, public opinion, carpetbaggers, the healing/scarring process of bitter post-war feelings, the super contested 1976 election, there's so much history happening there that I think gets shortchanged.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
3mo ago
You just can't skip the necessary process step though! Fundamentally, the executive branch can't decide things on their own like this, even if they are ultimately correct. It's typically a fairly bright line.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
3mo ago
The whole point of a legal system is to take these assumptions and inferences, and then make them explicit, in court, rather than allow opinions to be made outside of the court structure. It defeats the entire point if judgement is rendered without recourse out of court.
Like, sure, if a Border Patrol agent apprehends someone at the border clearly trying to cross, my understanding is that it's fine to turn them around and send them right back. It's allowed, as a concession to being "reasonable", which is a thing in the legal world. Other people caught less immediately/obviously have to go through the court system, because the court system has a monopoly on appeals against state sanctioned violence, force, and punishment. That's one of its core jobs. There's obviously some wiggle room in the middle where plausibly, law enforcement (broadly defined) can just kick them out, but due process does kick in at some point. This guy has lived in the US for years, have kids who are citizens, have a wife who is a citizen, etc. Clearly, he needs to go through the normal process. If the process is short and somewhat perfunctory, okay whatever, that's fine. Even if we assume everything that comes out of his mouth is a lie, that doesn't change the fact that the lies need to be heard in court before they are officially declared lies.
If the Monopoly game is rigged, it's the job of lawmakers to write better rules to prevent counterfeiting. You don't even need to prove that they cheated, everyone can vote and say "yeah that's sus, you're kicked out" and that's fine, the standards don't need to be perfect. It's still unacceptable to flip the game board.
The US justice system at least nominally and certainly historically strongly, strongly weights the rights of innocents. That is to say, if there's a tradeoff involved where some other good outcomes happen, but it has a real and practical cost in weakening what happens to a conceivably innocent person, that's still seen as a not-so-good tradeoff in many cases. A lot of legal wrangling goes into the exact balance, but structurally the overall tilt of the table on which the weights are balanced is a given. The table is not flat. The original creators, and many lawmakers and lawyers since then, all thought this was a good idea and did this on purpose. "Fairness" is a little subjective, so opinions can vary over time, but I think there's a pretty strong case for the legal system to stay this way. As you can tell from my username, perhaps, I would point out that we're on to 250 years of this working out pretty well for most people involved, in spite the absurdity of legal fees. Ultimately, it's still at least partially a values thing too, but
This case is bad because here, forget "do not pass Go", the game just ended immediately on drawing a bad card, even if your poor finance situation made this possible. It might have genuinely bankrupted you (to continue the Monopoly analogy) so the game probably was over, but that's not an excuse to flip the board, you have to actually check and count the money and the debts before you end the game!
Legal systems acknowledge that sometimes, the facts are so clear there's no need to wrangle things for too long. "Motion to dismiss", "summary judgement", these are all real things. You seem to be talking as if they didn't exist. They do.
You might just accept that someone flipped the board once, and deem it not worth the effort to try and restore the game state to what it was, but if someone is consistently flipping the board, that's no good. Even if you're just another sibling, not the parent, you gotta nip that behavior the bud, or your kid is always going to think it's an option, and they might be right if they flip a more complicated game later, which cannot be restored. Deportation to a foreign state directly to a prison with a significant chance of literal death is a board-flipping move that cannot be allowed to stand. Not even once.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
3mo ago
It just sounds crazy that anyone would endorse anything other than B... like, motives clearly matter, and outcomes clearly matter, why do we need to be all dogmatic about it and only care about one or the other? We aren't (presumably) mostly all children discovering "realpolitick" for the very first time. Plans backfire. People lie and misrepresent. Both happen often enough that neither polar view "works" by itself. I'd argue that both are actively detrimental.
To me it's like Communism - like, literally the ideal form of government. But, spoiler alert: people are too consistently flawed to make it work. Heaven? Sure. Jesus' favorite society is plainly something similar. Still, turns out badly. On the other end... Anarcho-capitalism? Actually, turns out people are too consistently order-loving to make it work. Even prisons with minimal supervision don't internally develop into that fully, gangs show up fast and make informal rules and shit.
So C's weakness is that people are too consistently emotional. No system of governance, for example, is immune. The best systems manage this, the worst ignore it, and the merely bad indulge it.
I think context you are assuming is fully baked in, is in fact not baked in at all, so I think it's perfect you bring this up. What you probably realized mentally, maybe took for granted, but didn't actually state (causing confusion), is that the current immigration system is also accompanied by a lack of effort to reform said system. As an illustration, Trump claims that he's pro-legal immigration, but the proof is in the pudding: have Republicans introduced a better legal immigration system? No. They haven't even tried. They also almost never talk about it (or at least the leaders don't). You need to explicitly state something to this effect, rather than just say "it's an obstacle course" and rest your case, because "the immigration system is an obstacle course" might be true but is not enough to actually end up with POSIWID.
Some Republicans could easily say "no no, we still want to fix the legal immigration system, any inaction is just " and so we're right back to the importance of intent, where we started. They might say "the system is broken due to too many band-aids" and we dodge the intent discussion overtly, but it's still lurking around because inaction also betrays intent (albeit much more loosely, so I acknowledge this leap might be logical but is potentially weaker).
Or, maybe there was some other latent assumption and I misidentified it. Either way, while POSIWID is what I'd term an occasionally-useful psychological re-framing tool (thus, worth talking about in the loosest sense) it's not actually an argument.
To me I think the entire debate has missed the point altogether. While it might be a "deepity", that's not the source of cross-purposes!
Let me make a useful analogy, and honestly this really should have been Scott's approach. In statistics and machine learning, you have something called a "confusion matrix": you are trying to classify something, and you are either correct or incorrect. In each cell, you have the true positives, false positives, false negatives, and true negatives. You need all of them to correctly decide if your classification has acceptable tradeoffs, and the tradeoffs are problem-dependent. Also, some measures don't tell the full story - a classification can be highly "accurate", but if you didn't have many of one class to begin with, this number is deceiving, because you're essentially just juicing your numbers with the "easy" cases (simple but common example). You need to dig deeper.
In the case of police, as an illustration, "what the system does" could plausibly focus on any of these cells: action that is justified that cops should do and do successfully (true positive) vs action that is unjustified and causes bad things to happen (false positive) vs stuff the police ignore but should have done something about (false negative) vs stuff the police should ignore, and actually do ignore (this could be trivial stuff, or it could be declining to take action to protect broader civil or legal liberties). There are four cells of action/inaction and justified/unjustified, each meaningful on their own, but not only that, there are like, at least eight different ratios (see here) you can compute that all mean something different, and have distinct and important real-world implications. For example, we might say "policing is racially biased" but that statement alone needs substantial clarification. Arguably, you can't actually contain it within a single phrase, you might need a full sentence if not two. Because "bias" could mean a lot of things, and have different causalities on top! Do you mean white people get pulled over more? That white people get let off with warnings more? That identical crimes get different punishments? Do we care more about the ratio, of given being pulled over, does the cop find a crime? Or do we care more about, given someone is guilty, how often do the police catch them? What about innocent victims, wrongly convicted, how high do we weight that? What about police response times, what about geography, we can go on. Do proportions matter more, or absolute numbers? When talking about systems, a simple conversation is almost inherently impossible. So yes, POSIWID is doomed from the start there.
LOTS of politics is like this, people quite often get stuck and make judgements based on just one or two pieces of information from the matrix, or a single computed ratio. To use Scott's example, police beating a suspect is obviously a false positive in a loose sense - action the police took, which was bad, but that's just one piece of the puzzle. If we're talking about the system as a whole, you can't just look at that. You need to make an argument that the balance of all the cells is way off - and even then, abolition of the system often isn't the answer, especially if the "true positive" cell still has significant value for society.
In my opinion, everything stems from a values disagreement, over how strongly to weight "false positives", i.e. actions taken by an institution, often a hot-button one, that result in negative consequences. In theory, a POSIWID advocate is saying that "the ratio of false positives and true positives" (i.e. all affirmative actions a system takes and the associated results, good and bad) is "out of whack". That's fine to say. That's an important conversation to have. You don't even need to talk about intent there (though you probably should) to have a good conversation based on facts and weighted by personal values, even a few opinions. In practice, however, many POSIWID advocates (that Scott skewers) focus entirely on the "false positives", and obviously that is both illogical and potentially bad faith. I'm inclined, however, to say that these dynamics have more to do with people not being thoughtful and considered enough in their takes, plus internet dynamics, than they do genuine stupidity, for lack of a better term. I still think the underlying disconnect is one of values (after all, we have to subjectively weight each cell and ratio differently, and this is compounded and made messy by the news and political environment), but the vocabulary is genuinely difficult.
No wonder that Twitter especially has a problem with this? As I explained, exploring the tradeoffs in even a simple system's "confusion matrix" requires full English sentences.
Edit: I'm conflicted on the proper use of bolding. Reverting to minimal
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
3mo ago
Huh, interesting - I actually attempted something similar. After getting pretty good at Spanish following a few years of what passes as an immersion experience, and taking a university Spanish class or two on top (including a Spanish lit class), I also decided I really wanted to read it (plus, had some at least decent Latin American history knowledge, thanks IB program). It's a cool book in principle, but the execution, I agree. Tried twice, got only to about 100 pages in the second time, and came to basically the same conclusion. On a technical level, it's super cool. Was neat to read in Spanish. But as a book, ehhhh...
If you find a more enjoyable Spanish book (not Marquez cuz I'm still burned out) though, that's worth it in original Spanish as opposed to a translation, I'm all ears. Could be nice to brush up again a bit.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
4mo ago
Here's a few of my personal favorite single player experiences of all time. You will notice that almost all of them are post-2010!
Nier: Automata is an all time incredible single player game with an awesome aesthetic/vvibe + soundtrack + plot. The core combat is somewhat hack and slash, with a few cool boss fights, and the story if you're not familiar is non-linear in that you "play through" the game about 3.5 times across alt-timelines and different perspectives. Top 3 game of all time I think. Excellent ending.
The Last of Us and The Last of Us 2 are both awesome story-first zombie games that get you invested in the characters and setting way more than you'd expect for such a common zombie setting. I could write a ton more about especially the second one and its amazing narrative albeit somewhat unpopular narrative choices but others have written about the appeal of these games a lot already.
Horizon Zero Dawn is just plain fun, and also has a super great story. You fight robot dinos with bows and arrows - but it doesn't feel contrived. In fact, the world is semi-tribal post-apocalyptic Earth, but without too many of the typical tropes. In fact, the storyline has you slowly discover why the world is the way it is, and the slow but emotional reveal is executed super well. Combat is very fun too. There's a sequel that's better-looking, has gameplay refinements, but is overall more of the same with much weaker story, but IMO the first is the right entry point. The sequel is more for fans who liked the first.
Rounding out the legitimately incredible PlayStation hits, Ghost of Tsushima is beautiful and has solid gameplay to match.
Baldur's Gate 3 or its cheaper but fun cousin Divinity Original Sin 2 are both fun turn-based party RPGs with tons of flexibility and player choice. If you want an older game, Dragon Age Origins (OK this one is older) is an awesome party RPG that uses a real-time-with-pause kind of party combat that's got some cool tactics, and is a classic game where there are no easy black and white choices, no pleasing everyone, and your party members might even leave if you make them mad enough. Similar vibes for BG3 in that way, though BG3 is newer and more popular (for a reason).
Other RPGs that are engaging and fun worth mentioning are Kingdom Come Deliverance (cool medieval game with some sim elements but without the full boredom some sims have) (allegedly new sequel is even better but not on sale), Cyberpunk 2077 (neat setting, tons of side content, Keanu Reeves).
Special shoutout to Dishonored, a stealth-ish game (still some action and heart-pounding moments) in a very unique setting with a few supernatural powers. As you progress through a set of revenge assassinations, the world reacts to your choices, and gives you a surprising variety of ways to approach things in a genre that sometimes puts you on rails too much. Along that line, the World of Assassination (Hitman) trilogy if you like creative stealth gameplay where getting caught and going into a shootout is also plenty fun.
If you're a turn-based tactics guy, XCOM and XCOM 2 are classics and very fun. There have been a few great Civ entries. Slay the Spire had an insane impact on gaming too!
If we turn to handheld, at the very least I loved the DS Fire Emblems and Three Houses too. There are definitely more handheld solid titles probably since 2010 but that’s not my main jam.
But even if we circle back to shooters, Apex Legends had a decent time in the sun with decent movement and pace. Games like Battlefield 1 or the Battlefront remakes have incredible sound design and aesthetics that truly offer something new and different. If you like hardcore realistic ish shooters? Insurgency and its sequel, and others too have some decent handling and require some patience and skill. Valorant and CSGO are popular for a reason though I personally dislike them.
Want some run and gun, plain insanity madness? Borderlands 2 from 2012 is just plain fun. Tons of guns and mechanics and high intensity. You could also shift genres a little bit: Armored Core 6 is from FromSoft (dark souls people) but way more accessible, and two words: mecha combat! Respects your time and fun in big and small doses alike.
All of this to say that gaming is plenty healthy and some AAA games still break through too. And the indie space has never been more full and vibrant, ever.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
4mo ago
Not OP but that was at least classically held to be the initial softening of the Iron Curtain/major arms treaties plus some economic improvement
Two thoughts. One, every time you invest you should always (always!) have at least a rough timeline in mind. If your timeline is >3 years, great! You're still, historically speaking, probably going to be fine. If it was less, this is a valuable life lesson about stock volatility many have not learned and you might gain some lifelong net-benefit, even literally. Carefully evaluate your timeline and beware of panic selling depending on said timeline.
Two, sometimes it is emotionally easier to "structure" investments (and their sale as well). Although in theory, it is best to invest it all at once and sell it all at once, as soon and as late as possible respectively - this is due to the tendency of the market to go up - in practice as you have learned it can be difficult and full of self-doubt or recrimination. "Structuring" in this context means that you stagger any and all entries and exits into the stock market, effectively 'averaging' the price points. This means, maybe you have 30k to invest, you put in 10k one month, wait a month, 10k the next, wait a month, 10k the next, or something like that. This way, you can at least emotionally free yourself from trying to "time" the market, since the timing effects are diluted (they don't go away entirely, but it's a lot easier to stay convinced that your entry or exit was deliberate and rational). This also means your gains are averaged too, might be good or bad. Like I said, I personally consider it an emotional-management technique, but emotions are a valid and real factor in investing. You can always park the to-be-invested money in a high yield savings account temporarily while you wait.
I guess I have Israel loosely modeled as a middle player and local Palestinians as a small bit player. Israel-Iran as a conflict I view as something we should be worried about, Israel-Lebanon, not as much, Israel and mid/post-collapse Syria, also not so much. I'd model Russia-Ukraine as a big vs medium conflict so a medium vs small conflict just doesn't feel like it's in the same category. In this sense, I'm evaluating these in terms of power first, particulars second; you seem to be saying "war of conquest" is the first or maybe only filter. Medium vs small conflicts, war of conquest or not, are part of the natural course of history and of only incidental and practical concern to the big powers.
Very roughly speaking: big vs big conflicts, big vs medium, and medium vs medium conflicts all strongly benefit from a norm-based paradigm in a way that big vs small, medium vs small, and small vs small conflicts do not. A large part of this seemingly-arbitrary division is involved in "how likely is conflict to spread?" and "how devastating would a serious conflict be (to the norm-makers and bystanders)?" As a cynical but authentic example, if Russia pushes around Moldova instead of Ukraine, even militarily, although I would find that worrisome and bad, it's not a critical world threat and norms are not the be-all and end-all. Though, full disclosure: I'm still a bit on the fence about "how much should another big player care" in big vs small conflicts particularly. I guess I did invoke Georgia as an example of where Russia was maybe headed, which was certainly a big vs small kind of deal? I might be persuaded to include big-small as in the former category, but my initial feeling is to count it in the admittedly euphemistic but perhaps apt phrase "letting off steam".
Absolutely nothing would change on the ground and the war would still be taking place
I somewhat disagree. First, I think the modest but real direct Russian support tipped the scales in 2014 a bit more strongly than it otherwise would have, meaning the conflict didn't get resolved as 'authentically' and furthermore, obviously if the norm were upheld better Russia never would have directly invaded later. I called out some of their specific grey-zone tactics there as something that should fall on the 'prohibited' norm list precisely because of their effectiveness surpassing some (admittedly not bright, but nonetheless real) line. Russia's 2014 actions were not organic in any sense - rather they deliberately took advantage of norms that are usually used to allow for some plausible deniability, and cynically manipulated that grey zone in a manner completely contrary to why the grey zone even exists, stretching them to an extreme. All of these words to say that yes, if you drop the coordinated cyberattack and don't directly deploy your own troops, I think Russia's 2014 actions would have still been, well not desirable but at least vaguely within the norms up to that point. It's still possible e.g. Crimea secedes, but it's no longer guaranteed. We are in the realm of concern, not crisis. We don't have all this talk of escalation and war and direct conflict.
Similarly, China merely announcing support for a separatist Taiwanese party is not in and of itself a violation. They still have a mostly-functioning democracy, it could always backfire, and if they genuinely decide to join China it's a massive mistake but their right, I suppose. The question of economic pressure, even embargo, is a much more thorny question that current norms don't quite have a great answer to, at least not a direct one (the vibes might still matter).
More broadly... something I've been sitting on for a while and still don't quite have an answer to, is the idea of secession in general. It feels like 'we' (Western thought?) reached some kind of vague idea about when revolutions are okay-ish, but it doesn't feel like anyone (or any ideology) has a good answer to when secessionism is, and if so, what form it ought to take (or can be allowed to take). At least, not in any kind of universal way. It still feels like there should be a universal answer, though. Something for a top-level post sometime.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
4mo ago
They do have some economic leverage, and a little bit of military leverage (we get actually a LOT of mileage out of NORAD and a little out of intel collaboration), but a decent chunk of it is "nice-to-haves" and/or inertia. But yeah, acting offended is silly. It's a classic Trump power move, and the winning response is to be firm and quiet.
But it does still seem so misguided albeit predictable that we're feuding with them instead of, you know, teaming up against China. IIRC they've even expressed willingness to go along with it, which is why I think this is more Trump being his typical correct-vibes but terrible-execution self.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
4mo ago
Honestly I'm unconvinced that there's some kind of clear link between male sexual frustration and rape. I don't think rape actually comes from that at all - at least not the bulk of it. Though rapist typologies are a bit problematic what I have read seems to run counter to this idea. Of course in relative terms, obviously women going out more will result in more rape, and women being "less safe" will as well, I think when viewed proportionally the connection appears to be fairly weak. It's not like women are being completely blind to danger either and take zero steps for their own protection. A much stronger case still remains that rape comes primarily from the circumstances of the rapist: "Sexual offenders exhibit heterogeneous characteristics, yet they present with similar clinical problems or criminogenic needs (e.g., emotional regulation deficits, social difficulties, offense supportive beliefs, empathy deficits and deviant arousal); the degree to which these clinical issues are evident varies among individual offenders" (and by type). I suppose you could argue that more socially stunted men leads to more rape, but that's not really what you seem to have actually said?
You have some other good points, but claiming more sexual freedom for women is overall bad for women because it will cause more rape is not a good point at all. Also, the assertion that more acceptance of casual sex leads somehow to more pressure have sex seems a bit mixed up to me, much less an increase in "tricking" women to have sex. This is just not a coherent point at all.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
4mo ago
Believe me, things like the Cuban Missile Crisis are almost perpetually part of my thinking that I like to challenge myself with. But I try to avoid too-crazy what-ifs because nothing in foreign policy is ever divorced entirely from history or circumstance. Lack of realism proportionally decreases the usefulness of thought exercises. A better thought exercise is, for example, if the US gets in a shooting war with China and loses a major fleet, does it use a tactical nuke? What if instead China air-nukes a fleet, do we air-nuke a city in response? What do we do if China preemptively shoots down a ton of our GPS or other satellites, but takes no other action, how would we respond? All of those are much more relevant and important questions to ask and plan for rather than... whatever weird fiction that is. Or, talk about for example the actual real-world case of US putting pressure on Panama to kick out the nearby Chinese ports near the canal (and whatever other crock Trump is spouting). Maybe engage in some reasoning about what if those ports were militarized or something. Would the US be justified in invading Panama to stop Chinese influence in this case? Well, treaty-wise I think we'd have some latitude, but practically speaking I think that that would be bad and the world would be wise to try and stop it from happening.
To the extent that moral reasoning matters (which is, not much, mostly when convenient and/or don't infringe too much on the more core responsibilities) I similarly think it's enough to put yourself in their shoes and better understand context rather than conjure up some kind of convoluted alter-history just to reason through a low-relevance moral point.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
4mo ago
I honestly don't understand if this is a disagreement or tough words because you think I'm hypocritical. Please distinguish. There's no agenda posting here, I'm legitimately trying to give a complete picture. I think big powers and small powers differ, and I think not all parts of the world are of equal importance to foreign politics (I should note that certain areas of Asia as you correctly note are also of high importance in a way yet another civil war in Sudan is not). That's not to assign less value exactly, it's just the reality of foreign affairs where you can't afford to be entirely dogmatic and you can't be entirely pragmatic either. I lean towards pragmatism, but that doesn't mean 'heartless pragmatism', I allow for space to do individually non-optimal things out of a moral stand every once in a while, or in order to gain a wider and broader benefit. I will argue equally with anyone that this kind of ideological-dogmatist-pragmatist balance is the ideal. "I oppose wars of aggression and conquest" is not a coherent foreign policy (to the extent that coherency even matters of course) and perhaps more importantly if implemented it wouldn't work. "Total consistency" is not the benchmark to grade a foreign policy approach even remotely. It's not just naive, it's counter-productive.
For every problem, it's also important to ask how much of the problem is zero-sum, and how much of it is variable? That's the other question in addition to "how much should I care?" which involves, yes, realism about the size and scale of the matter.
Israel is a problem, but it's not a problem on the scale of Russia, China, Germany, or the like. Does the US prop them up and implicitly allow them to get away with a ton of shit? Yes, and I often wish we wouldn't. Do they oppress people and commit borderline-genocidal atrocities? Yes, that too. But they also are a potential anchor in the region, a trade partner, and at least modestly democratic and egalitarian with potential for positive change. I can see "both sides" if we call Israelis and Palestinians "sides" and it's just a shit sandwich all over. My long-preferred solution is for everyone to stop being forever at cross-purposes and just accept that all of Israel needs to fully integrate somehow, and work on doing that and all of its mess well. Two-state solution is the stupidest pipe dream I've ever heard of, and Israel is a democracy right there, so like hey, just go do your messy democracy stuff directly! Palestinians and Israelis both have had some unfair shit go on historically and at some point grievances can't go on forever. Nothing the US does is going to magically fix anything one way or the other. Honestly, I didn't dislike the vaguely Trump-shaped plan of "well if they just have some economic boom it will lift all boats and restore regional diplomatic ties" as a step toward that end.
Back to the point. It's somewhat natural for states, including big ones, to want influence over their neighbors. But despite being a much-maligned word, "norms" actually do work on big states in a way that they do not on small states, since they are more stable, long-term actors. Thus, in my view, it's perfectly rational to apply different standards to them, even beyond the typical dogmatic-pragmatist balance. Russia arming Donbas separatists is worrisome and annoying, funding opposition parties also bad, cyberattacks it depends (haven't figured out the norms for that yet) but it doesn't cross a line in the way that Russia's further actions did. Examples include deliberate grey-zone warfare tactics, deploying their own "little green men" troops directly, hell, even the airliner that was shot down was done so we believe more or less directly by actual Russian military members.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
4mo ago
First of all I didn't take your comment seriously because Israel was attacked both times it took territory, in response, and also because Israel comments often feel more like bait than legitimate attempts at discussion. Sure, they took a little more land from Syria recently, but that's whatever, they didn't even fight over it. Lest you think I'm an Israel stan however, I really dislike their provocative settlement stuff. I think they're borderline apartheid, certainly guilty of the lesser sin of racially-delineated callousness at least. But their behavior falls far short of "expansionist wars" by most measures (I guess they've invaded Lebanon a time and a half? Is that what you're referring to?). If they bomb Iran or something (I want us to strongly discourage this) then we can talk and maybe re-assess. Overall though if you think the US is constantly making a habit of funding expansionist wars I guess we just disagree on the facts.
Anyways, this has nothing to do with the value of lives and everything to do with the balance of world power + avoiding mega-wars. Honestly, I consider war a semi-normal state of affairs, especially for those between smaller states. It sucks, but is also human nature. We can do things to discourage it, sometimes respond on a case to case basis, but we can't solve everything. I care more about big state actions because they tend to domino around the globe more than localized conflicts. Even if I were to say "oh Israel is bloodthirsty invader" that's still not something that has a major knock-on effect elsewhere. China invades Taiwan? That affects not only chips, but global shipping routes, and more. Not the same.
I don't think we have some kind of moral duty to police everyone, though I do think we can do some smaller things to help keep stuff stable. You're free to take another tack, and I don't think on that philosophical stance there is one objective superior truth. So do I hold big states to a different standard than small states? You bet I do. I think most people who claim they don't often end up twisting themselves into pretzels trying to have some kind of defining all-applicable global principles. I don't think such a world-view is possible, not with total consistency.
You've convinced me I overstated the case. Good comment. But still, there are some considerations that make it not entirely clear-cut. This map taken from this Naval War College report on an oil blockade demonstrates that yes, there are a number of choke points for trade flows out of China. I should note however that Taiwan being Chinese controlled or not makes a big deal to Japan/SK, but doesn't necessarily provide a better defensive blockade escape route in general - there's already quite a bit of water in that direction, as you can see, that directly isn't a choke point for non-Taiwanese conflicts, where Taiwan is surely sitting out.
Naval mining would be pretty effective yes in the straights but in a blockade-first scenario (i.e. not-war) I don't see it happening (would the surrounding nations be mad? Almost certainly. And it would hinder trade to our own allies too - Japan/SK are supplied via the same channels). There's also the matter of scale to consider. Although the PLAN doesn't have great force projection capabilities right now, the US naval readiness is also quite lackluster, which is fairly well-documented. The US would only be able to bring over a little over half of their fleet, I bet - would it be able to sustain a blockade operation against thousands of ships attempting to blockade-run for more than a couple of months? The US would probably say yes, but I actually think that's uncertain. There are a lot of ships that transit, and all of them would need to be checked or identified on some level. Again I struggle to come up with a scenario where Taiwan would ever be an active participant in a blockade (would be poking the bear) unless they were already under existential threat. And going down that reasoning just leads to circular, tautological reasoning (you can't threaten Taiwan's existence and then use actions it would take to secure its own existence as evidence for threatening Taiwan's existence). Even then, it seems to me a far more likely scenario that China is blockading Taiwan, which I think the PLAN is currently capable of doing (if just barely).
So yeah, we are basically left with the war scenarios. Blockades are already acts of war on some level. The linked report concludes that an oil embargo probably wouldn't work, but the reasons given are mostly non-military. I stand corrected on that front.
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