Gdanning
2yr ago
I think you might want to review what actually happened in Carthage. Though I suspect that if you consider denazification to be akin to mass slaughter, you are likely pushing an agenda rather than engaging seriously with the issue at hand.
Gdanning
2yr ago
He is clearly advocating for it in principle. Look at his very first sentence.
Gdanning
2yr ago
The irony is that if in 1948 those who were forced to flee Palestine had gone somewhere with birthright citizenship, or if the supposedly pro-Palestinian Arab states had granted them citizenship, there would be essentially no such thing as "Palestinians" because almost no one would think if themselves in those terms. We certainly would not have idiocies like this: "When the [UN] Agency began operations in 1950, it was responding to the needs of about 750,000 Palestine refugees. Today, some 5.9 million Palestine refugees are eligible for UNRWA services." Nor would we have the even greater idiocy of 1.5 million people living in refugee camps.
Gdanning
2yr ago
Are you thinking of this story, re the US moving artillery ammunition it had stored in Israel to Ukraine?
What they said was this:
the Sri Lankan government essentially said "fuck this", and decided to wage concentrated, merciless, full-throated war against the Tamils. They brought out the kinds of heavy weapons that you usually reserve for wars against foreign states, and they used them without hesitation, and with very little regard for civilian-combatant distinctions. They killed and killed and killed until the LTTE was begging for a ceasefire, which they ignored,
That is on top of the quote I already cited, re "killing everyone from squalling infants to doddering grandfathers,"
And they also say this: "I understand that it's difficult to convince Jews that genocide is the answer."
The bottom line is that if there is evidence that OP in fact would not have endorsed the killing of every Sri Lankan Tamil, had that been necessary, I would like to see it. OP is clearly endorsing that very idea.
Gdanning
2yr ago
Gdanning
2yr ago
I'm pretty sure OP isn't proposing the killing of literally every Palestinian in Gaza,
I'm pretty sure OP is proposing precisely that, since OP said, "But if Gaza had been erased from the world years ago, everyone from squalling infants to doddering grandfathers, you would not have this problem."
Gdanning
2yr ago
Would a sufficiently atrocious response by Israel have a possibility of leading to revolutions
Unlikely. To the extent that we know anything in political science, we know that that is not the type of thing that causes revolutions
Gdanning
2yr ago
quite another matter whether you (@Gdanning) and the government that represents you get to "withhold the free pass" (by slapping around the murderer,
You seem to be referring here to whether consequences are imposed for immoral actions. But that is not the issue. The issue is whether the action is immoral or not. By "free pass", I meant a moral free pass -- because, again that was the subject of OP's claim -- not a practical free pass. People get away with immoral acts all the time. That does not render them any more or less immoral. It used to be perfectly legal to forcibly rape one's wife. Hence, husbands were given a free pass -- they were not "slapped around" by the state, to use your terminology. But that says nothing about the morality of those actions.
Gdanning
2yr ago
This is a key question for determining the moral severity of the terrorist attacks
No, it isn't. Intentionally targeting civilians is morally wrong. You don’t get a free pass to murder Pol Pot's children just because he has done similar things in the past.
Gdanning
2yr ago
And what of all the similar conflicts which were resolved without engaging in full-throated war? Northern Ireland is an obvious example. More importantly, this claim:
you cannot expect certain groups to coexist in the same space peacefully for long
Is empirically false, because violence between such groups is the exception, not the rule
an atrocity in the present may prevent a greater atrocity in the future.
That is a great argument for assassinating Iranian nuclear scientists, but not so great for killing all 2 million residents of the Gaza Strip, "everyone from squalling infants to doddering grandfathers," in order to avoid 600 deaths of Israelis, or even 60,000. Because the latter is not a "greater atrocity" than the former.
Gdanning
2yr ago
Note that "Hamas" did not decide to do anything; rather, certain leaders of Hamas did. Those who made the decision to launch this attack are almost certainly acting in their own interests. The decision was probably driven in part by internal politics, either between Hamas and its political rivals, or among factions within Hamas. That is hardly an unusual phenomenon (see the Falklands War). Note than "driven by internal politics" does not preclude the possibility that Iran played an important role, given that Hamas relies on Iran for some of its funding, which like all governing organizations Hamas uses to purchase legitimacy (whether in the form of public services or in the form of striking Israel).
Gdanning
2yr ago
Egypt has gone back and forth on that in the past. It is neither in Egypt's interests nor in Israel's interests to have people starving to death in the Gaza Strip.
Gdanning
2yr ago
This seems like there's going to be mountains of deaths
Not unless Egypt also blocks the entry of food, which seems unlikely.
Gdanning
2yr ago
The only thing I can think of is they just want to cause chaos and see what happens because they have nothing to lose. Maybe they can shake things up and things turn out better for them.
Who is the "they" here? Palestine? Palestinians? The Gaza Strip? Residents of the Gaza Strip? Or Hamas? Or the leaders of Hamas? Clarifying whose interests are being pursued is necessary if your question is going to be answered. Because those who made the decision to launch this attack are almost certainly acting in their own interests, not the interests of the Gaza Strip or its residents. The decision was probably driven in part by internal politics, either between Hamas and its political rivals, or among factions within Hamas. That is hardly an unusual phenomenon (see the Falklands War). Note than "driven by internal politics" does not preclude the possibility that Iran played an important role, given that Hamas relies on Iran for some of its funding, which like all governing organizations Hamas uses to purchase legitimacy (whether in the form of public services or in the form of striking Israel).
I'm 99% confident the SP500 isn't adjusted for inflation either.
Oops, when I said "$60 invested in the SP500 would be worth $1,540 today after taxes," I meant after inflation, not after taxes. And with dividends reinvested. See calculator here: https://ofdollarsanddata.com/sp500-calculator/
Edit:
Housing prices are not obviously goods like an opera or string quartet that should be this subject to the Baumol effect,
Real income has increased substantially over the years, and as real income increases, people can afford to pay more for important purchases such as housing, both in absolute terms and as a pct of income. So, it is not surprising that housing prices have risen slightly faster than inflation. And, of course, new houses have grown in size over time
Gdanning
2yr ago
You're the one who's been saying that negative emotions need grotesque and deliberately broken imagery to be fully expressed,
No, I didn’t. Not once. I literally said the exact opposite in the post you are responding to. I said that the depiction of suffering cannot be uplifting and aesthetically pleasing. You are the one making claims about what types of images must be included.
A corpse can be aesthetically pleasing, if there's good composition and care shown in how its placed. Consider Napoléon on the Battlefield of Eylau.
The theme of Napoléon on the Battlefield of Eylau is not human suffering. It is a celebration of Napoleon.
Art should be intelligible, better yet readily intelligible.
- Again, intelligibility was not your original claim.
- That being said, I don’t know why ready intelligibility (aka obviousness) is required. What is wrong with asking the viewer to think for 10 seconds.
you see a bunch of warped, distorted figures and animals bashing eachother or scrabbling around
You need to look more closely. It literally includes a depiction of a mother holding a dead child, which you said was the "correct" way to depict suffering.
Even more staggering is that the Nork actually bothered to use some artistic skills beyond throwing shapes on the page. Composition. Colour. Shadow. Vaguely realistic faces!
Are you SURE that Guernica does not employ composition? And colour? That is a requirement of good art? Have you never seen a film noir film? Has it occurred to you that Picasso used greys and blacks to reinforce the tone of the subject? See, eg, Schindler's List.
Gdanning
2yr ago
- No one says that that art requires anything. The question is whether it must include certain qualities.
- You are now making a very different claim: That it must be "clear" or that "you can interpret it in justifiable ways." Not at all the same as claiming that art must be "aesthetically pleasing" or that it be "uplifting." Though note that Guernica's interpretation is perfectly clear. And that that propaganda poster is neither aesthetically pleasing nor uplifting.
- Are you serious holding up that propaganda poster as an example of great, or even good, art? That is the stuff we have to look forward to, in the world you want to create?
Gdanning
2yr ago
But that measure does not seem to be adjusted for inflation. Per the BLS inflatiin calculator, the 26,000 average in 1970 = 211,000 today, so today's $505,000 is 2.39x the 1970 price. That is about the same (actually somewhat less) than the 2.59x increase in the real price index I linked to (60.9 to 157.9).
Gdanning
2yr ago
The point is that, however a work of art depicts human suffering, it is not going to be uplifting and aesthetically pleasing. If it is, it probably is not doing a very good job of evoking the emotions associated with such suffering.
Gdanning
2yr ago
Right, because it is meant to invoke the suffering of people in a city that had been bombed. So of course it isn’t aesthetically pleasing. So, perhaps good art does not have to be aesthetically pleasing. Nor does it have to elevate the human spirit.
Gdanning
2yr ago
Gdanning
2yr ago
The taliban defeated NATO after NATO spent 2 trillion dollars fighting them
Except that the Taliban didn't defeat them, right? The Taliban managed to kill all of 2000 US troops in 20 years, and they succeeded only after US troops left. I don't think the IDF is going to be leaving Israel any time soon.
I would think the hunter-gathers were evil if the method they chose to use to hunt elephants involved intentionally killing children. Similarly, while the people who flew airplanes into office buildings on 9/11 were evil, the people who bombed the USS Cole were not.
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