Stop dividing the world into "good" and "evil" by SIGNYM

Good call on the 10,000. I should have listened more carefully, and checked before posting.
It may have been constrained to the time period of those 32,000 slaughtered.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Saturday, October 27, 2018 3:42 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
That wasn't my argument, but you have a point. Why attack China? Why not just go into Tibet to boot out the Chinese?

OTOH ... let's assume the Tibetans actually invited the US to help them with their 'China' problem.

That would be not at all equivalent to the US attacking Afghanistan, or Iraq, or Libya, or Syria, without any general consultation of the will of 'the people' who live in those countries.

I tried to avoid inference that it was your argument. I quoted the most cogent post relating, which often is posts from you - hoping for any resulting posts being cogent and non-tangential.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Saturday, October 27, 2018 4:26 AM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

I misunderstood what you were referencing to who ... my bad! Sorry about that.

NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Saturday, October 27, 2018 4:48 AM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

Quote:
Originally posted by SHINYGOODGUY:
But to say that there's no good or evil in this world...well, that's another story now, isn't it?

SGG

What if person were to kill a baby? We would call that evil. But if that baby was going to grow up to be 10x worse than Hitler, killing might be a little bit good. But if the lack of that mega-Hitler was to prevent a mass move to save the planet, it might be evil.
And so on.
To call someone good or evil, I think we would need perfect knowledge of how their actions ultimately turned out. And we don't have that.

But what if you decided the result of their actions didn't matter, just their intentions?
Well, we'd be stuck there, too. We have no way of zeroing in on someone's intentions. But even if we did, if - for example - some person truly believed that torture-killing 100,000 people was the right thing to do, we'd have to reconcile our human revulsion to that decision with our understanding of their pure and beneficent motives.

I don't believe we have the capacity to judge good and evil, as we lack sufficient ability to see the future, and we lack sufficient telepathy to see into others' psyches.

Aside from what I posted above, we seem unusually flexible in our ability to shift our moral judgments depending on what 'side' we're on (or for other self-serving reasons). As far as I can tell, that looks like there's very little indication we're any good at deciding what's good or evil, IRL

NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Saturday, October 27, 2018 5:03 AM

Instead of chasing down all these offshoots, I think I'm waiting for Siggy to clarify the meaning of the OP.

For relativism, I can judge well.
I can gauge how highly intelligent a person is by measuring how often they agree with me.
I can gauge how Evil a person is by measuring how often they disagree with me.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Saturday, October 27, 2018 6:45 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

It places blame on BOTH the Democratic and Republican "foreign policy establishment" ... which some would call the deep state. Your constant harping about the GOP is misleading you - the problem is much deeper than one political party.

*****

While its easy to calculate our costs in terms of lives and money, it's impossible to calculate the benefits of democracy, markets, and other liberal values . And yet, you spend a great deal of words calculating the Social Discount Rate of benefits which can't even be measured. You seem to be agonizing over the lost opportunity to reform other societies, or at least to save tyrannized people. SECOND, can you please tell me what it is that you hope we would accomplish, in the ideal circumstance that we decide to spend money and blood on your worthwhile goals?

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

Nixon asked me to go to Vietnam. Me, being neither cynical nor experienced in the deceptions by Presidents, went. It was a very educational process. I could see how Nixon's lofty goals could have been accomplished but not at the extremely unrealistic low-low price ceiling that Americans were willing to pay.

Americans continue to believe in those lofty goals ever since, but they have not raised the price they are willing to pay in order to achieve them. Hence, foreign policies have failed, some more completely than others.

I am thinking American voters (especially Congress and Presidents) should change their goals. That is much easier than throwing away an ever increasing amount of lives and money on foreign policy failures. As a small note: lives should include not just American citizens lives but also foreigners. Maybe a foreigner is not worth 100% of an American, but reducing the worth to less than 100% places the policy into some dangerous, even immoral, territory. In the most recent foreign policy fiascos the foreigners' lives appear to be valued at very close to zero compared to American lives. Maybe that is an important reason why the policies turned into fiascos in the first place. Maybe Congress should pass a law valuing foreign lives at no less than 50% of American lives. I'm pretty sure that whatever number Congress decides, if it is not 100%, many people will get a new and more accurate understanding of American foreign policy.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Saturday, October 27, 2018 8:00 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:
Instead of chasing down all these offshoots, I think I'm waiting for Siggy to clarify the meaning of the OP.

For relativism, I can judge well.
I can gauge how highly intelligent a person is by measuring how often they agree with me.
I can gauge how Evil a person is by measuring how often they disagree with me.

I do hope you're joking here.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Saturday, October 27, 2018 10:59 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
It places blame on BOTH the Democratic and Republican "foreign policy establishment" ... which some would call the deep state. Your constant harping about the GOP is misleading you - the problem is much deeper than one political party.

*****

While its easy to calculate our costs in terms of lives and money, it's impossible to calculate the benefits of democracy, markets, and other liberal values . And yet, you spend a great deal of words calculating the Social Discount Rate of benefits which can't even be measured. You seem to be agonizing over the lost opportunity to reform other societies, or at least to save tyrannized people. SECOND, can you please tell me what it is that you hope we would accomplish, in the ideal circumstance that we decide to spend money and blood on your worthwhile goals? - SIGNY

Nixon asked me to go to Vietnam. Me, being neither cynical nor experienced in the deceptions by Presidents, went. It was a very educational process. I could see how Nixon's lofty goals could have been accomplished but not at the extremely unrealistic low-low price ceiling that Americans were willing to pay.

Americans continue to believe in those lofty goals ever since, but they have not raised the price they are willing to pay in order to achieve them. Hence, foreign policies have failed, some more completely than others.

I am thinking American voters (especially Congress and Presidents) should change their goals. That is much easier than throwing away an ever increasing amount of lives and money on foreign policy failures. As a small note: lives should include not just American citizens lives but also foreigners. Maybe a foreigner is not worth 100% of an American, but reducing the worth to less than 100% places the policy into some dangerous, even immoral, territory. In the most recent foreign policy fiascos the foreigners' lives appear to be valued at very close to zero compared to American lives. Maybe that is an important reason why the policies turned into fiascos in the first place. Maybe Congress should pass a law valuing foreign lives at no less than 50% of American lives. I'm pretty sure that whatever number Congress decides, if it is not 100%, many people will get a new and more accurate understanding of American foreign policy.- SECOND

Second, since you were able to volunteer under Nixon, you must be a few years older than me. For the life of me, I don't remember Nixon saying ANYTHING inspiring about Vietnam. Just OOC, what did he say?

*****

In any case ... OK, I think I see what you mean.

I have a hard time characterizing America's depth of belief in its foreign interventions. Some people believe passionately in our presumed missions overseas, but - as you say- haven't fully thought through the costs to achieve their stated goals.

But I think for most people, that "belief" is more of a rationalization... something that they don't think about much either way - neither thinking about our presumed goals, nor thinking about the cost to achieve them. And in MANY cases, "the people" are actually temporarily stampeded into supporting specific interventions through a combination of fear ("WMD!") or R2P do-gooding ("Assad gassed his own people").

But IMHO by the time most people have ascended to Congress, they no longer believe in what "the people" are told. And CERTAINLY this applies at the White House level, since the White House has been the active locus of all pro-war propaganda since N Korea.

Every single intervention since the Korean war that I can think of has been either conducted on the QT (like Kissinger giving Suharto weapons so he can kill a half-million people) or on the back of some ridiculous lie (like the Gulf of Tonkin incident) with which the WH was fully complicit.

So, what would it take for "the people" to have a more sober and realistic view of overseas "interventions"?

Most Americans are mesmerized by propaganda, and it takes a great deal of "real world" countervailing experience to break through, if ever. Sober reflection and rational thought are NOT the ticket to the American psyche! So as long as Americans don't have to come face-to-face with THEIR cost of war... as long as American men don't have to face the draft, as long as the bodies are brought home at night, and the money is quietly siphoned off the budget and nobody is making the case that "it's either Social Security or the Pentagon" ... as long as the America foreign policy establishment (i.e. deep state) can continue its policies on the QT ...

Many Americans will NEVER come face-to-face with the contradiction between what they SAY they want and what actually happens. It's a source of deep frustration for me, and I daresay for you too - that Americans can get stampeded over and over - and over and over- and not ever seem to learn. I learned a lesson from Vietnam too; it sounds like much the same as yours, but very few others have learned hard lessons from our past dozen interventions.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Saturday, October 27, 2018 1:41 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Second, since you were able to volunteer under Nixon, you must be a few years older than me. For the life of me, I don't remember Nixon saying ANYTHING inspiring about Vietnam. Just OOC, what did he say?

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

Did you ever listen to Nixon’s state of the union speeches? I did. Can you image 18 year old me working side by side with my father at Burger King in 1970? I could see where I will be in 33 years, so I would rather be off to Vietnam, thanks to Nixon, then back from Vietnam, thanks to a helicopter crash, then back working next to my father, but this time I really need a job that doesn’t require me to stand on my feet all day because of that helicopter. It is a little late, but now I listen to my sisters about going to college.
Search youtube for nixon state of the union 1971

Because of Nixon I did not end up similar to my father. Helpfully, Nixon also beat some wisdom into my skull about being gullible and believing empty promises from a guy who would soon take early retirement, as did LBJ, both of them avoiding cleaning up the mess they created. Nearly everyone who went to that war (and an even higher percent of those who did not) did not learn the lesson Nixon and LBJ were teaching about the ineffectiveness of American armed forces. Neither of those presidents were as wise as FDR or Lincoln about using force and what an army can achieve.

Yes, I know the hippies believed the war was immoral, but I did not care about evil vs goddamn good. What I do care about, and neither the hippies nor the hardhats seem capable of understanding, even until today, is the true lesson from Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq War II. It is not about good vs evil.

The lesson that can be applied to today’s violent American foreign policy was that a nation should not start foreign policy projects it can’t afford to finish. (Civil War and WWII lasted 4 years. Afghanistan is 17 years. See the difference?) If you don’t treat foreign policy like a huge engineering project, with a solid estimate of schedule and cost, your foreign policy will fail, exactly the same as engineering projects routinely fail when they run out of time and money. But your average American General, Secretary of State, Congresswoman, or President cannot see it that way and continues to hope she can finesse her way around hard facts about cost and schedule. Thus America has weapons projects, wars, and foreign policy that are partial or complete failures.

Here is one foreign policy project that is guaranteed to succeed with enough money and manpower. It would receive near universal praise, at least outside of America, even if the project turns out to be far more difficult than Congress expected. It could start small, in one country, and build to more. Other countries could follow America’s example. I see zero chance of America accepting this project as its own. It would much rather continue with a series of incoherent foreign policy promises followed by expensive failures. Maybe it is the way Americans think: better to fail big than succeed small.

Quote:
It's been around for centuries and has been curable for decades, but the bacteria behind tuberculosis are still the biggest infectious killers across the planet -- killing more people annually than HIV. Last year, an estimated 10 million people developed tuberculosis, with 1.6 million dying from it, according to the World Health Organization, despite an effective treatment.

www.cnn.com/2018/10/25/health/tuberculosis-tb-vaccine-drugs-hope-intl/
index.html

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Saturday, October 27, 2018 5:22 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

So, if I understand you correctly, you're not really concerned about the reasons (goals) for any particular intervention, and you aren't concerned about the moral calculation either.

What REALLY bugs the shit out of you is the fact that the COSTS are never fully taken into account/ revealed. Correct?

Well, if that's the case, I can fully appreciate your POV. IMHO once you fully envision all of your COSTS, I think you really start being a lot more realistic about your goals and actions as well.

Your POV echoes Colin Powell's rules of war ... lessons that he learned from Vietnam, and then forgot to apply to Iraq:

Quote:
Is a vital national security interest threatened?
Do we have a clear attainable objective?
Have the risks and costs been fully and frankly analyzed?
Have all other non-violent policy means been fully exhausted?
Is there a plausible exit strategy to avoid endless entanglement?
Have the consequences of our action been fully considered?
Is the action supported by the American people?
Do we have genuine broad international support?

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Saturday, October 27, 2018 8:13 PM

The wars we are in have a purpose.... but it is not making life better for anybody else, and it is not even about oil.

It's about power and military supremacy over everyone. That also means American citizens since the elite have no borders or national allegiances. It just happens to be based largely out of America because we are a willing and gullible participant and we have the most financial power behind us.

Most people wouldn't ever dream of sacrificing everything they have for a revolt anyhow, but it's a lot easier to justify our ridiculous military budgets when we have a nameless and faceless enemy (Emanuelle Goldstein, Bogey Man, etc).

Our machines of war have become so horrific that they don't even have to be manned. Taking out people with drones is only one step away from playing Call of Duty on the Playstation. There is no human interaction with it, so there is very little guilt.

I think it's pretty foolish to believe that there is no such thing as evil in the world.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Saturday, October 27, 2018 9:36 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

"The lesson that can be applied to today’s violent American foreign policy was that a nation should not start foreign policy projects it can’t afford to finish."

It's only a problem if we make it one. We could always declare victory, pack up, and leave.

NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, October 28, 2018 12:52 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
The wars we are in have a purpose.... but it is not making life better for anybody else, and it is not even about oil.

It's about power and military supremacy over everyone. That also means American citizens since the elite have no borders or national allegiances. It just happens to be based largely out of America because we are a willing and gullible participant and we have the most financial power behind us.

Most people wouldn't ever dream of sacrificing everything they have for a revolt anyhow, but it's a lot easier to justify our ridiculous military budgets when we have a nameless and faceless enemy (Emanuelle Goldstein, Bogey Man, etc).

Our machines of war have become so horrific that they don't even have to be manned. Taking out people with drones is only one step away from playing Call of Duty on the Playstation. There is no human interaction with it, so there is very little guilt.

I think it's pretty foolish to believe that there is no such thing as evil in the world.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

Tell me what evil is and I'll tell you whether it exists

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, October 28, 2018 1:29 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
The wars we are in have a purpose.... but it is not making life better for anybody else, and it is not even about oil.

It's about power and military supremacy over everyone. That also means American citizens since the elite have no borders or national allegiances. It just happens to be based largely out of America because we are a willing and gullible participant and we have the most financial power behind us.

Most people wouldn't ever dream of sacrificing everything they have for a revolt anyhow, but it's a lot easier to justify our ridiculous military budgets when we have a nameless and faceless enemy (Emanuelle Goldstein, Bogey Man, etc).

Our machines of war have become so horrific that they don't even have to be manned. Taking out people with drones is only one step away from playing Call of Duty on the Playstation. There is no human interaction with it, so there is very little guilt.

I think it's pretty foolish to believe that there is no such thing as evil in the world.

Do Right, Be Right. :)
Tell me what evil is and I'll tell you whether it exists

Are people who Mail Bombs Evil?
Remember Ted Kazinski?

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, October 28, 2018 2:14 AM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

He was definitely crazy. I think evil implies a moral choice and a freely chosen direction. I don't think Ted was capable of choice.

NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, October 28, 2018 3:03 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
He was definitely crazy. I think evil implies a moral choice and a freely chosen direction. I don't think Ted was capable of choice.

You really think that applies to such a repeated action? Spanning that many bombs, over decades? Killing 3, injuring 23, during the 70s, 80s, 90s.

Or are you referring to more than just Ted?

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, October 28, 2018 7:57 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

People are crazy for years, and they maintain the same delusions for years. Just look at all the homeless people: they're homeless for decades at a time. "Crazy" isn't something you do once and then get over.

But I don't know about Ted. He may have been one of those people who was attempting to do great good.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Kaczynski

Like I said: In my observation, the greatest horrors are often committed by people attempting some great good.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, October 28, 2018 8:15 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
The wars we are in have a purpose.... but it is not making life better for anybody else, and it is not even about oil.

It's about power and military supremacy over everyone. That also means American citizens since the elite have no borders or national allegiances. It just happens to be based largely out of America because we are a willing and gullible participant and we have the most financial power behind us.

Most people wouldn't ever dream of sacrificing everything they have for a revolt anyhow, but it's a lot easier to justify our ridiculous military budgets when we have a nameless and faceless enemy (Emanuelle Goldstein, Bogey Man, etc).

Our machines of war have become so horrific that they don't even have to be manned. Taking out people with drones is only one step away from playing Call of Duty on the Playstation. There is no human interaction with it, so there is very little guilt.

I think it's pretty foolish to believe that there is no such thing as evil in the world.

Do Right, Be Right. :)
Tell me what evil is and I'll tell you whether it exists

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876

I believe I just did in the post you quoted.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, October 28, 2018 9:36 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
So, if I understand you correctly, you're not really concerned about the reasons (goals) for any particular intervention, and you aren't concerned about the moral calculation either.

What REALLY bugs the shit out of you is the fact that the COSTS are never fully taken into account/ revealed. Correct?

Well, if that's the case, I can fully appreciate your POV. IMHO once you fully envision all of your COSTS, I think you really start being a lot more realistic about your goals and actions as well.

Your POV echoes Colin Powell's rules of war ... lessons that he learned from Vietnam, and then forgot to apply to Iraq:

Quote:
Is a vital national security interest threatened?
Do we have a clear attainable objective?
Have the risks and costs been fully and frankly analyzed?
Have all other non-violent policy means been fully exhausted?
Is there a plausible exit strategy to avoid endless entanglement?
Have the consequences of our action been fully considered?
Is the action supported by the American people?
Do we have genuine broad international support?

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

Here is a real example of a "cost" that Trump is not accounting for in his foreign policy. Trump announced on October 20 that he intends to pull the United States out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. But in concrete terms, the treaty was a huge success. The U.S. destroyed almost 1,000 of its own missiles, and the Soviets destroyed almost 2,000 of theirs. Why would Trump want to again build those missiles? Those will be unnecessary costs for Americans.

The long negotiation of the INF treaty, and the post-signing environment it helped create, was part of an extraordinary collapse of tensions between the U.S. and the Soviet Union during the 1980s. Why would Trump want to throw that away and increase tension with Russia? It might not cost anything now, but someday it could. There is an article that explains how tensions over missiles could have, in the past, ended with massive civilian deaths. Those potential deaths are costs.

https://theintercept.com/2018/10/27/trump-inf-treaty-cuban-missile-cri
sis-nuclear-war/

National security adviser John Bolton has yearned for decades to decommission the treaty. Russians may be cheating on the treaty in a modest way, and China is not bound by it at all and is developing intermediate-range missiles. But it’s hard to see how Trump yielding to Bolton on this treaty will be free of cost.

Have you noticed that I am not talking about good and evil? I'm talking about the missile treaty as if we are playing a computer game where to win the President avoids unnecessary "costs", completely bloodless "costs" because it is only a computer simulation, "costs" such as wasting his own citizens' tax "money" for building missiles he can't use without causing his citizens to "die" (remember, it is only a computer game). Some of the better engineers in the world do the same kind of cost analysis on their projects, looking at various scenarios and calculating costs and changing their designs to keep the costs down for the worst-case scenarios. I'd expect the US President to do the same before he pulls out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. But I don't believe Trump considered any cost beyond pleasing Bolton, who has only contempt for “dreamy and academic” fools who support arms control.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, October 28, 2018 12:00 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
He was definitely crazy. I think evil implies a moral choice and a freely chosen direction. I don't think Ted was capable of choice.

Quote:
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:
You really think that applies to such a repeated action? Spanning that many bombs, over decades? Killing 3, injuring 23, during the 70s, 80s, 90s.
Or are you referring to more than just Ted?

Kaczynski was deluded. He may have been right about a lot of things, but he was deluded about his role in this society.
Delusion is an odd form of insanity. We can easily identify as insane the people who organically hallucinate. But delusion - like for example paranoia - is a disorder of thought. People aren't thinking the way they 'should'. They don't agree with the reality the rest of us agree with. But on some things, maybe everyone else is wrong and the 'crazy' person is right.
Nevertheless, Kaczynski's lawyers thought they could get an insanity plea, which means they could get professionals to call him insane.

NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, October 28, 2018 1:35 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:

Kaczynski was deluded. He may have been right about a lot of things, but he was deluded about his role in this society.
Delusion is an odd form of insanity. We can easily identify as insane the people who organically hallucinate. But delusion - like for example paranoia - is a disorder of thought. People aren't thinking the way they 'should'. They don't agree with the reality the rest of us agree with. But on some things, maybe everyone else is wrong and the 'crazy' person is right.
Nevertheless, Kaczynski's lawyers thought they could get an insanity plea, which means they could get professionals to call him insane.

Kaczynski's only goal was getting his 35,000-word essay "Industrial Society and Its Future" (dubbed the Unabomber Manifesto by the FBI) printed verbatim by a major newspaper. He stated that if this demand was met, he would "desist from terrorism". He kept his word and never mailed another bomb. This is a simply minded guy with a ridiculous goal, much like America's ridiculous foreign policy goals and lists of drone targets for assassination. The State Department and Pentagon are run by people as simple minded, yet highly educated, as Kaczynski.

There was controversy as to whether the essay should be published, but the Department of Justice, headed by Attorney General Janet Reno, along with FBI Director Louis Freeh, recommended its publication out of concern for public safety and in hope that a reader could identify the author. Bob Guccione of Penthouse volunteered to publish it, but Kaczynski replied that as Penthouse was less "respectable" than the other publications, he would "reserve the right to plant one (and only one) bomb intended to kill, after our manuscript has been published". Instead, the essay was published by both The New York Times and The Washington Post on September 19, 1995.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Kaczynski#Industrial_Society_and_Its
_Future

Kaczynski had further publishing goals:

1) Technological Slavery: The Collected Writings of Theodore J. Kaczynski, a.k.a. "The Unabomber" (2010)
www.amazon.com/Technological-Slavery-Collected-Kaczynski-k/dp/19325958
05

2) Anti-Tech Revolution: Why and How (2016)
www.amazon.com/Anti-Tech-Revolution-Why-Theodore-Kaczynski/dp/19442280
04

He can't stop sharing his opinions from his jail cell. He'd be perfect for either the State Department or a Pentagon run think tank if they could get him reoriented to something just as ill-conceived, but better aligned with America's foreign policy. Maybe he could appear on "Meet the Press" when National security adviser John Bolton is busy.
www.amazon.com/Barack-Obama-Endangering-National-Sovereignty/dp/159403
4915

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Monday, October 29, 2018 1:27 AM

Well Kiki, you make some good points, and I agree that trying to predict "good" or "evil" is an impossible task. So what, or better put, how do we determine good or evil.

First off, I assume we are using our American culture sensibilities and beliefs. To that end, I submit the following: we can only determine good and evil after the fact; meaning after a particular act rather than through prediction.

For example: a boy scout helps a little old lady across the street (good)
or, a young punk shoots an elderly couple during a robbery and kills them
and shows no remorse (evil: of the cold-blooded killer type). Obviously we
won't know, in either case, if a baby will grow up to be good or evil.
The boy scout or the reckless teen, there is no way of telling.

If a young woman volunteers her time at the local hospital reading fairy tales to sick children, but she secretly tortures male prostitutes hidden in her basement; we won't know until we dig up the bodies. On the surface, she's
good, but she harbors rather creepy behavior because she tortures and kills
male prostitutes. Is she evil? Of course she is; she's pretending to be this benevolent being while secretly doing something sinister...evil. Now, one may argue that if she tortures and kills people in her basement that she may be sick in the head, so therefore we must take that into consideration.

I call bullshit. She gets her jollies from torturing people and then proceeds
to use the insanity plea. No, you had enough malice and forethought to purposefully hurt someone to the point of murder. No, we can't look into her head, but we can infer from her actions that this is what she meant to do..kill

If a person walks up to your house and douses it with gasoline and later your house is on fire, you can infer from his actions that this is what he meant to do. He may have been born a normal kid, but somewhere along the way he
went over the deep end and is now a stark raving lunatic. Dousing a house with gasoline is a purposeful act, but then lighting a match to it is pure evil.
You can have evil thoughts, but then not act upon those thoughts (in that regard I agree with your statement that we cannot read someone's mind, but we can observe their behavior and determine, based upon our values, if that person did an evil thing).

SGG

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
Quote:
Originally posted by SHINYGOODGUY:
But to say that there's no good or evil in this world...well, that's another story now, isn't it?

SGG
What if person were to kill a baby? We would call that evil. But if that baby was going to grow up to be 10x worse than Hitler, killing might be a little bit good. But if the lack of that mega-Hitler was to prevent a mass move to save the planet, it might be evil.
And so on.
To call someone good or evil, I think we would need perfect knowledge of how their actions ultimately turned out. And we don't have that.

But what if you decided the result of their actions didn't matter, just their intentions?
Well, we'd be stuck there, too. We have no way of zeroing in on someone's intentions. But even if we did, if - for example - some person truly believed that torture-killing 100,000 people was the right thing to do, we'd have to reconcile our human revulsion to that decision with our understanding of their pure and beneficent motives.

I don't believe we have the capacity to judge good and evil, as we lack sufficient ability to see the future, and we lack sufficient telepathy to see into others' psyches.

Aside from what I posted above, we seem unusually flexible in our ability to shift our moral judgments depending on what 'side' we're on (or for other self-serving reasons). As far as I can tell, that looks like there's very little indication we're any good at deciding what's good or evil, IRL

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Monday, October 29, 2018 2:02 AM

Signym,

So, that means that Kim Jong-Un is a boy scout.- SHINY

Quote:
It seems to me that you're misunderstanding on purpose.

I was being somewhat smug in my answer, but not in a mocking way; but strictly to illustrate a point. I assumed that we were on the same page regarding Kim's
behavior, and so I cracked wise about your thesis: that evil doesn't exist in this world. I should have answered in a more scholarly manner. The short answer should have been: I consider him evil.

Quote:
The WORST excesses are caused by people who believe they're pursuing a great good ... SO great, that people are nothing in comparison . Mao wanted to create a new society which did away with the old authorities. Pol Pot wanted perfect equality. People in the grip of a "great good" do great evil.

I agree. Throughout history there's been much gnashing of teeth because one man felt he, and he alone, had the answer.

Quote:
My mistake was in thinking that liberals are afflicted with the concept that they're good and everyone else is evil. JSF disabused me of that notion!

Liberals, conservatives and progressives all feel that the path to a better American society is through the system they support. My take is that we can reach betterment and enlightenment through an amalgam of those systems.

I'm curious. If you don't mind me asking; how did JSF manage to "disabuse"
you of "that" notion?

SGG

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Monday, October 29, 2018 3:26 AM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

Quote:
Originally posted by SHINYGOODGUY:
If a young woman volunteers her time at the local hospital reading fairy tales to sick children, but she secretly tortures male prostitutes hidden in her basement; we won't know until we dig up the bodies. On the surface, she's
good, but she harbors rather creepy behavior because she tortures and kills
male prostitutes. Is she evil? Of course she is; she's pretending to be this benevolent being while secretly doing something sinister...evil.

What if she truly cares for children and is trying to make their worlds better in whatever way she can? And she truly hates male prostitutes as the source of all evil? What if torturing and killing them is what she does because she's 100% convinced it will make a better world for the children she cares so deeply about?

I think that would make her crazy, not evil.

But we can probably never truly know what's in another person's mind. And so, I don't believe we have the necessary tools to make such absolute judgments of good and evil.

NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Monday, October 29, 2018 7:34 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:

But we can probably never truly know what's in another person's mind. And so, I don't believe we have the necessary tools to make such absolute judgments of good and evil.

Is the following evil or not? Don't worry about "absolute" judgment because you're not God and even God doesn't care enough one way or the other to lift a finger: Rohingya children 'beheaded and burned alive' as refugees continue to flood into Bangladesh to escape violence

www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/rohingya-burma-myanmar-children-
beheaded-burned-alive-refugees-bangladesh-a7926521.html

If the US government is basing decisions about foreign policy on evil versus good then the State Department must have decided this is not evil. Alternatively, the State Department decided that since the children are Muslim it is none of America's business. But who knows why? The second line in the story mentions the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi. The beheaded children don't bother her, so it must not be evil in her highly trained opinion. She could say a few words, as could America's State Department, because of her position in Burmese government, but does not.
www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/09/myanmar-aung-san-suu
-kyi-rohingya-united-nations/571618/

As for my opinion: people are very flexible about evil, depending on who is being murdered or tortured to determine whether it is an evil act. Mostly people don't care about the internal mental states of the torturers or killers or arsonists. People, except for philosophers and sophomores, mostly care only about their own internal state of mind, their feelings, when they think about these crimes. Most times an "evil" crime does not even feel to them to be legally a crime if they don't like the victim. On the flip side, and staying consistent to letting their feelings make the difficult decisions, everything is evil if they don't like the accused defendant.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Monday, October 29, 2018 1:16 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SHINYGOODGUY:
Signym,

So, that means that Kim Jong-Un is a boy scout.- SHINY
Quote:
It seems to me that you're misunderstanding on purpose.

I was being somewhat smug in my answer, but not in a mocking way; but strictly to illustrate a point. I assumed that we were on the same page regarding Kim's
behavior, and so I cracked wise about your thesis: that evil doesn't exist in this world. I should have answered in a more scholarly manner. The short answer should have been: I consider him evil.
Quote:
The WORST excesses are caused by people who believe they're pursuing a great good ... SO great, that people are nothing in comparison . Mao wanted to create a new society which did away with the old authorities. Pol Pot wanted perfect equality. People in the grip of a "great good" do great evil.
I agree. Throughout history there's been much gnashing of teeth because one man felt he, and he alone, had the answer.
Quote:
My mistake was in thinking that liberals are afflicted with the concept that they're good and everyone else is evil. JSF disabused me of that notion!
Liberals, conservatives and progressives all feel that the path to a better American society is through the system they support. My take is that we can reach betterment and enlightenment through an amalgam of those systems.

I'm curious. If you don't mind me asking; how did JSF manage to "disabuse"
you of "that" notion?

SGG

You used "but" twice in one sentence. A double but, a but within a but.
You are issued 7 demerit points.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Monday, October 29, 2018 1:23 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
Quote:
Originally posted by SHINYGOODGUY:
If a young woman volunteers her time at the local hospital reading fairy tales to sick children, but she secretly tortures male prostitutes hidden in her basement; we won't know until we dig up the bodies. On the surface, she's
good, but she harbors rather creepy behavior because she tortures and kills
male prostitutes. Is she evil? Of course she is; she's pretending to be this benevolent being while secretly doing something sinister...evil.
What if she truly cares for children and is trying to make their worlds better in whatever way she can? And she truly hates male prostitutes as the source of all evil? What if torturing and killing them is what she does because she's 100% convinced it will make a better world for the children she cares so deeply about?

I think that would make her crazy, not evil.

But we can probably never truly know what's in another person's mind. And so, I don't believe we have the necessary tools to make such absolute judgments of good and evil.

I have not been pasting all the posts together, so forgive me if you already answered this:
IAW your statement, can you identify anybody who you can judge as Evil?

Separately, do you feel Evil is just a matter of opinion?

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Monday, October 29, 2018 4:27 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

Quote:
As for my opinion: people are very flexible about evil, depending on who is being murdered or tortured to determine whether it is an evil act. Mostly people don't care about the internal mental states of the torturers or killers or arsonists. People, except for philosophers and sophomores, mostly care only about their own internal state of mind, their feelings, when they think about these crimes. Most times an "evil" crime does not even feel to them to be legally a crime if they don't like the victim. On the flip side, and staying consistent to letting their feelings make the difficult decisions, everything is evil if they don't like the accused defendant.

Pretty much my opinion about how people in general use the concept of evil. It's how the neo-liberals here can slide past the tens of thousands of people who were killed in Ukraine, Libya, and Syria (as well as Iraq and Afghanistan) on under Obama's authority, and the few thousands of children separated from their parents under his deportation policies - and yet be so OUTRAGED!!! when Trump does something less.

I think the term evil implies some kind of moral value, the implication is that morals come from a superior place of absolute judgment. I don't generally feel so secure in assuming that mantle.

As for children burned alive etc, it's so horrifying, I find I can't think about it too long.

NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Monday, October 29, 2018 4:42 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
Quote:
As for my opinion: people are very flexible about evil, depending on who is being murdered or tortured to determine whether it is an evil act. Mostly people don't care about the internal mental states of the torturers or killers or arsonists. People, except for philosophers and sophomores, mostly care only about their own internal state of mind, their feelings, when they think about these crimes. Most times an "evil" crime does not even feel to them to be legally a crime if they don't like the victim. On the flip side, and staying consistent to letting their feelings make the difficult decisions, everything is evil if they don't like the accused defendant.
Pretty much my opinion about how people in general use the concept of evil. It's how the neo-liberals here can slide past the tens of thousands of people who were killed in Ukraine, Libya, and Syria (as well as Iraq and Afghanistan) on under Obama's authority, and the few thousands of children separated from their parents under his deportation policies - and yet be so OUTRAGED!!! when Trump does something less.

I think the term evil implies some kind of moral value, the implication is that morals come from a superior place of absolute judgment. I don't generally feel so secure in assuming that mantle.

As for children burned alive etc, it's so horrifying, I find I can't think about it too long.

Don't worry about those Rohingya Muslim children being burned alive in Burma. If the 1991 Nobel peace prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi doesn't mind it and the US State Dept won't make a fuss, it can't be "evil", note the quotation marks. Burning must be pretty much okay as a foreign policy.
www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/30/aung-san-suu-kyi-wont-be-strippe
d-of-nobel-peace-prize-despite-rohingya-crisis

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Monday, October 29, 2018 4:55 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

Quote:
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:
IAW your statement, can you identify anybody who you can judge as Evil?
Separately, do you feel Evil is just a matter of opinion?

I can't think of anybody at this stage of my life I would judge as evil. I probably have used that term in the past, but pretty much my whole life I've had an aversion to using that term. It doesn't mean I like or approve of everybody and everything they do, I just use different, more specific terms like conniving, untrustworthy, heartless, and so on.

As far as I can tell, since we don't know everything, all of these terms are a matter of opinion.

NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Monday, October 29, 2018 6:01 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
Quote:
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:
IAW your statement, can you identify anybody who you can judge as Evil?
Separately, do you feel Evil is just a matter of opinion?
I can't think of anybody at this stage of my life I would judge as evil. I probably have used that term in the past, but pretty much my whole life I've had an aversion to using that term. It doesn't mean I like or approve of everybody and everything they do, I just use different, more specific terms like conniving, untrustworthy, heartless, and so on.

As far as I can tell, since we don't know everything, all of these terms are a matter of opinion.

And yet,I think it was the Nuremberg Trials which established that being given orders does not excuse the genocide committed. So 17 years olds in Uniform must possess and exercise more sense and discretion than what you describe.

Even if you could imagine yourself to be crazy, how many thousands of prisons must you gas, execute, shoot in the head, before you might consider this is not Good?

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Monday, October 29, 2018 8:29 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

Quote:
And yet,I think it was the Nuremberg Trials which established that being given orders does not excuse the genocide committed. So 17 years olds in Uniform must possess and exercise more sense and discretion than what you describe.

I think it's important for them to know the difference between legal and illegal for sure.

Way back when somebody posted a study that said something like 90% of all soldiers in WWII never fired a shot at another person. That all of the gunslinging was done by a very small minority.

Basically, you have to take well-adjusted humans and turn them into people who will successfully aim at- and pull the trigger to kill- another human being. (I suspect the proportion of people who will return fire if being fired on is a lot greater.)

I think the branches of the military have gotten a lot better at the civilian-to-soldier makeover since WWII, through a number of choices (immortal young people with limited perspective, for example) and techniques (like removing people from consideration and replacing them with geographic targets, for example).

The point is that once you've breached that barrier, I imagine it's a little harder to control it, or to rebuild it on return to civilian life.

Anyway, one hopes that a typical 17 year old, in the face of military indoctrination, and given their own youthful inability to conceive of death, will strive to remember international laws of war. But if they fail, I wouldn't call them evil.

Quote:

Even if you could imagine yourself to be crazy, how many thousands of prisons must you gas, execute, shoot in the head, before you might consider this is not Good?

I can't imagine it, so I can't answer the question.

NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Monday, October 29, 2018 11:38 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
Quote:
And yet,I think it was the Nuremberg Trials which established that being given orders does not excuse the genocide committed. So 17 years olds in Uniform must possess and exercise more sense and discretion than what you describe.
I think it's important for them to know the difference between legal and illegal for sure.

Incorrect, you are.
Committing genocide was Legal and the Legal Obligation under the Government and the Army of the Third Reich. Failing to follow orders to murder defenseless prisoners en masse was Illegal and punishable by Death. Your guidelines failed.

Quote:

Way back when somebody posted a study that said something like 90% of all soldiers in WWII never fired a shot at another person. That all of the gunslinging was done by a very small minority.

Basically, you have to take well-adjusted humans and turn them into people who will successfully aim at- and pull the trigger to kill- another human being. (I suspect the proportion of people who will return fire if being fired on is a lot greater.)

I think the branches of the military have gotten a lot better at the civilian-to-soldier makeover since WWII, through a number of choices (immortal young people with limited perspective, for example) and techniques (like removing people from consideration and replacing them with geographic targets, for example).

The point is that once you've breached that barrier, I imagine it's a little harder to control it, or to rebuild it on return to civilian life.

Anyway, one hopes that a typical 17 year old, in the face of military indoctrination, and given their own youthful inability to conceive of death, will strive to remember international laws of war. But if they fail, I wouldn't call them evil.

We understood death. It was detailed before we signed contracts. You gloss over "Indoctrination" as if it is not actually Military Law, UCMJ, and there are real consequences.
Did your High School cover International Military Law, which would be the last stop for most Recruits? Mine did not.

Returning to civilian is not a consideration - Nazi soldiers were absolutely in Service during their daily Mass genocide.

Do you really imagine Nazis trained new recruits what International Law was? Or Kim Jung's troops? Or Viet Cong? Or Republican Guards?

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, October 30, 2018 12:31 AM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
I think it's important for them to know the difference between legal and illegal for sure.

Quote:
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:
Incorrect, you are.
Committing genocide was Legal and the Legal Obligation under the Government and the Army of the Third Reich. Failing to follow orders to murder defenseless prisoners en masse was Illegal and punishable by Death. Your guidelines failed.

I should have been more explicit and said international rules of war.

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
Anyway, one hopes that a typical 17 year old, in the face of military indoctrination, and given their own youthful inability to conceive of death, will strive to remember international laws of war. But if they fail, I wouldn't call them evil.

Quote:
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:
We understood death.

That would have made you very different from your average risk-taking 17 year old male.

Quote:
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:
It was detailed before we signed contracts.

By 'it', do you mean death?
Is this the contract you mean?
http://www.esd.whs.mil/Portals/54/Documents/DD/forms/dd/dd0004.pdf
I looked through it, and aside from mentioning death benefits, I didn't see any particular mention.
Perhaps you could explain what you mean.

Quote:
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:
You gloss over "Indoctrination" as if it is not actually Military Law, UCMJ, and there are real consequences.

By 'indoctrination' I meant both the literal training (as one would train a dog, except with more emphasis on punishment instead of reward) to obey commands, as well as the habituation one goes through with the mechanics of killing (load, aim, fire; stab, withdraw, stab; and so on) and treat people as targets.
And that doesn't account for the herd effect in the field, the nature of the people you serve with, and the drive to blend in and be accepted.

Quote:
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:
Did your High School cover International Military Law, which would be the last stop for most Recruits? Mine did not.

Do you mean the US military doesn't teach its troops the rules of war?

Quote:
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:
Do you really imagine Nazis trained new recruits what International Law was? Or Kim Jung's troops? Or Viet Cong? Or Republican Guards?

Well ... you just implied the US Army trusts the high schools to do that task. At this point I've lost any clue about what you're trying to say.
But I don't expect that back then the Nazis trained their troops in international law. And I don't expect the Viet Cong did either. But then, maybe the US didn't either, what with bombing civilian targets and infrastructure. And I don't expect the Republican Guards had those classes. But US, CIA, and contractors don't appear to have had the lines made clear, if you go by the torture that some did.
And, I wouldn't call them evil. Brainwashed, misled, uneducated, fanatic, ruthless ... depending on the person.

NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, October 30, 2018 2:45 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

So, been too busy to post. But to get back to my OP, and my original meaning, maybe this will make things clearer ...

I think the FEELING that people get when contemplating evil is the same reaction that chimps get when they see s snake: They're afraid of it, and they want to destroy it.

It's an instinctive behavior; nobody teaches chimps to call an alarm and attack; they just do. It's the same thing with people: I think most cultures, in fact, have a concept of evil (evil spirits, the evil eye); which represents our instinctive reaction to things which we see as existential threats that can be attacked. (Although lightning or flood can be existential threats we would never think to attack them, so they don't fall under the category of "evil".)

The problem with letting our instincts lead us into action is that our opinion of WHAT (or who) is "evil" is pretty malleable. We can be taught that certain groups of people are evil, or that people who have certain ideas are evil, or that certain ideas themselves are evil. When you combine that malleable free-form attachment of "evil" to certain ideas or people with the instinctive urge to destroy it, you can turn a large number of people into a weapon bent on destroying another group of people: hence, massacres and genocide.

Calling someone "dangerous" evokes an entirely different reaction than calling someone "evil". For my POV, you must plan on how to protect yourself or others from a "dangerous" person. But an "evil" person must be destroyed. I found this in a discussion of Buddhism and evil

Quote:
The act of sorting humanity into "good" and "evil" carries a terrible trap. When other people are thought to be evil, it becomes possible to justify doing them harm. And in that thinking are seeds of genuine evil.

Human history is thoroughly saturated by violence and atrocity committed on behalf of "good" against people categorized as "evil." Most of the mass horrors humanity has inflicted upon itself may have come from this kind of thinking. People intoxicated by their own self-righteousness or who believe in their own intrinsic moral superiority too easily give themselves permission to do terrible things to those they hate or fear.

https://www.thoughtco.com/buddhism-and-evil-449720

"Evil" triggers a reaction that is impossible to control.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, October 30, 2018 5:18 AM

Quote:
But we can probably never truly know what's in another person's mind. And so, I don't believe we have the necessary tools to make such absolute judgments of good and evil.

Not the common lay person. This is when I would call in the cavalry and have her examined by the psychologist.

So, I guess we're in agreement Kiki. You or I could not determine crazy, but we could "guess" regarding evil. Well, I would venture a guess as to evil.
For instance, North Korea's leader, definitely evil.

SGG

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, October 30, 2018 5:21 AM

Thank you for your contribution.

sgg

Quote:
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:
Quote:
Originally posted by SHINYGOODGUY:
Signym,

So, that means that Kim Jong-Un is a boy scout.- SHINY
Quote:
It seems to me that you're misunderstanding on purpose.

I was being somewhat smug in my answer, but not in a mocking way; but strictly to illustrate a point. I assumed that we were on the same page regarding Kim's
behavior, and so I cracked wise about your thesis: that evil doesn't exist in this world. I should have answered in a more scholarly manner. The short answer should have been: I consider him evil.
Quote:
The WORST excesses are caused by people who believe they're pursuing a great good ... SO great, that people are nothing in comparison . Mao wanted to create a new society which did away with the old authorities. Pol Pot wanted perfect equality. People in the grip of a "great good" do great evil.
I agree. Throughout history there's been much gnashing of teeth because one man felt he, and he alone, had the answer.
Quote:
My mistake was in thinking that liberals are afflicted with the concept that they're good and everyone else is evil. JSF disabused me of that notion!
Liberals, conservatives and progressives all feel that the path to a better American society is through the system they support. My take is that we can reach betterment and enlightenment through an amalgam of those systems.

I'm curious. If you don't mind me asking; how did JSF manage to "disabuse"
you of "that" notion?

SGG
You used "but" twice in one sentence. A double but, a but within a but.
You are issued 7 demerit points.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, October 30, 2018 5:25 AM

Quote:
I have not been pasting all the posts together, so forgive me if you already answered this:
IAW your statement, can you identify anybody who you can judge as Evil?

Kim Jong-un
Trump

Quote:
Separately, do you feel Evil is just a matter of opinion?

No.

sgg

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, October 30, 2018 7:20 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SHINYGOODGUY:
Quote:
I have not been pasting all the posts together, so forgive me if you already answered this:
IAW your statement, can you identify anybody who you can judge as Evil?

Kim Jong-un
Trump

Quote:
Separately, do you feel Evil is just a matter of opinion?

No.

sgg

lol

Do Right, Be Right. :)

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, October 30, 2018 8:10 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

I think the FEELING that people get when contemplating evil is the same reaction that chimps get when they see a snake: They're afraid of it, and they want to destroy it.

It's an instinctive behavior; nobody teaches chimps to call an alarm and attack; they just do. It's the same thing with people

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

Moral intuitions arise automatically and almost instantaneously, long before moral reasoning has a chance to get started, and those first intuitions tend to drive our later reasoning. If you think that moral reasoning is something we do to figure out the truth, you’ll be constantly frustrated by how foolish, biased, and illogical people become when they disagree with you. But if you think about moral reasoning as a skill we humans evolved to further our social agendas — to justify our own actions and to defend the teams we belong to — then things will make a lot more sense. Keep your eye on the intuitions, and don’t take people’s moral arguments at face value. They’re mostly post hoc constructions made up on the fly, crafted to advance one or more strategic objectives.

The mind is an elephant with a rider. The rider is our conscious reasoning — the stream of words and images of which we are fully aware. The elephant is the other 99 percent of mental processes — the ones that occur outside of awareness but that actually govern most of our behavior.

From The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt
https://goo.gl/tu5Hgs

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, October 30, 2018 8:28 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

I think the FEELING that people get when contemplating evil is the same reaction that chimps get when they see a snake: They're afraid of it, and they want to destroy it.

It's an instinctive behavior; nobody teaches chimps to call an alarm and attack; they just do. It's the same thing with people

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND
Moral intuitions arise automatically and almost instantaneously, long before moral reasoning has a chance to get started, and those first intuitions tend to drive our later reasoning. If you think that moral reasoning is something we do to figure out the truth, you’ll be constantly frustrated by how foolish, biased, and illogical people become when they disagree with you. But if you think about moral reasoning as a skill we humans evolved to further our social agendas — to justify our own actions and to defend the teams we belong to — then things will make a lot more sense. Keep your eye on the intuitions, and don’t take people’s moral arguments at face value. They’re mostly post hoc constructions made up on the fly, crafted to advance one or more strategic objectives.

The mind is an elephant with a rider. The rider is our conscious reasoning — the stream of words and images of which we are fully aware. The elephant is the other 99 percent of mental processes — the ones that occur outside of awareness but that actually govern most of our behavior.

From The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt
https://goo.gl/tu5Hgs

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Yep. I don't believe anybody who is posting in here is evil, but I'm sure the same can't be said about some others about me.

This is one of the reasons why I don't think you're all that bad, Second, even though we don't agree on a lot of things.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, October 30, 2018 8:45 AM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

Quote:
Although lightning or flood can be existential threats we would never think to attack them, so they don't fall under the category of "evil".

I dunno. The most powerful experience of evil I've ever felt was from a tornado passing overhead. And when I was talking with a person the next day who had happened to be in more or less the same spot as me, that was the word she used, as she was struggling to describe it.

The second strongest was when a very low, widespread, active thunderstorm passed overhead. Normally I like thunderstorms, but this one was different.

The feeling of evil was one of omnipotent maliciousness.

NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, October 30, 2018 10:03 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Although lightning or flood can be existential threats we would never think to attack them, so they don't fall under the category of "evil". - SIGNY

I dunno. The most powerful experience of evil I've ever felt was from a tornado passing overhead. And when I was talking with a person the next day who had happened to be in more or less the same spot as me, that was the word she used, as she was struggling to describe it.
The second strongest was when a very low, widespread, active thunderstorm passed overhead. Normally I like thunderstorms, but this one was different.
The feeling of evil was one of omnipotent maliciousness.

Huh. I guess a sudden drop in air pressure, or the presence of too many ions in the air, might cause that feeling. How creepy!!!!

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, October 30, 2018 10:29 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
I think the FEELING that people get when contemplating evil is the same reaction that chimps get when they see a snake: They're afraid of it, and they want to destroy it.
It's an instinctive behavior; nobody teaches chimps to call an alarm and attack; they just do. It's the same thing with people- SIGNY

Moral intuitions arise automatically and almost instantaneously, long before moral reasoning has a chance to get started, and those first intuitions tend to drive our later reasoning. If you think that moral reasoning is something we do to figure out the truth, you’ll be constantly frustrated by how foolish, biased, and illogical people become when they disagree with you. But if you think about moral reasoning as a skill we humans evolved to further our social agendas — to justify our own actions and to defend the teams we belong to — then things will make a lot more sense. Keep your eye on the intuitions, and don’t take people’s moral arguments at face value. They’re mostly post hoc constructions made up on the fly, crafted to advance one or more strategic objectives.
The mind is an elephant with a rider. The rider is our conscious reasoning — the stream of words and images of which we are fully aware. The elephant is the other 99 percent of mental processes — the ones that occur outside of awareness but that actually govern most of our behavior.- SECOND

I think that this is true.

Some animals - elephants and chimps for example - possess a "theory of mind" ... they know what another "should" and "shouldn't" know about an event by observing what THE OTHER experiences. (Long story, elegant experiment.) They have language, and a lot of social skills ... that they belong to a group, that there is a hierarchy. They experience grief and fear. They have language and tools, and most importantly (for this discussion) they cooperate and they actually have a sense of "fair" and "unfair".

We (people) have all of the same basic impulses and reactions, but we have one other thing that they don't have: The ability to overlook/overcome DIRECT experience in favor of what we've been TAUGHT. That's why people who've been living peacefully together for decades if not centuries - Hutus and Tutsis, Serbs and Croats, Christians and Muslims - can suddenly be driven (by outside forces usually) to see each other as "evil".

That rider? It's whispering into the ear of the elephant.

TPTB: They're not stupid. They know how to hijack our most basic impulses for their own ends. ("A Century of Self") So if you want to "weaponize" people, all you have to do is amp up that feeling that the "other" is evil and just let nature take its course.

What I'm saying is that people need to become MORE CONSCIOUS if they don't want to be manipulated to their own detriment. Dial down the reaction. "Evil" is one of those abstract words that triggers a powerful natural response. In order not to be "triggered", you can simply choose a better, more accurate word for the situation.

In other words manipulate your stimuli; don't let others do it for you.

Quote:
Yep. I don't believe anybody who is posting in here is evil, but I'm sure the same can't be said about some others about me.

This is one of the reasons why I don't think you're all that bad, Second, even though we don't agree on a lot of things.

VERY FEW PEOPLE KNOWINGLY DO BAD THINGS (unless they're sociopaths, in which case "bad" and "good" doesn't even compute with them.) Almost everyone tries to do what they think is "best" ... for example THUGR and SHITHITTHEFAN and WISHY are aiming at goals that they believe are "good", even as they behave like little tinpot dictators.

And that's the problem with believing that you're good and that "the other" is evil ... it excuses all kinds of malicious behavior.

The bullying that goes on here? It's just an extremely pale reflection of the massive killing that "we've" undertaken, presumably for "good" reasons.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, October 30, 2018 12:22 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Almost everyone tries to do what they think is "best" ... for example THUGR and SHITHITTHEFAN and WISHY are aiming at goals that they believe are "good", even as they behave like little tinpot dictators.

And that's the problem with believing that you're good and that "the other" is evil ... it excuses all kinds of malicious behavior.

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

Righteous arises from an outraged sense of justice, morality, or fair play. There is a linkage of righteousness and judgmentalism in the term self-righteous, which means “convinced of one’s own righteousness, especially in contrast with the actions and beliefs of others; narrowly moralistic and intolerant.” An obsession with righteousness (leading inevitably to self-righteousness) is the normal human condition. It is a feature of our evolutionary design, not a bug or error that crept into minds that would otherwise be objective and rational. Our righteous minds made it possible for human beings — but no other animals — to produce large cooperative groups, tribes, and nations without the glue of kinship. But at the same time, our righteous minds guarantee that our cooperative groups will always be cursed by moralistic strife.

From The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt
Bit torrent hash: c93e0f774af6a8b0fe16ad0b54be621f674ee21b

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, October 30, 2018 2:45 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
Quote:
Although lightning or flood can be existential threats we would never think to attack them, so they don't fall under the category of "evil".
I dunno. The most powerful experience of evil I've ever felt was from a tornado passing overhead. And when I was talking with a person the next day who had happened to be in more or less the same spot as me, that was the word she used, as she was struggling to describe it.

The second strongest was when a very low, widespread, active thunderstorm passed overhead. Normally I like thunderstorms, but this one was different.

The feeling of evil was one of omnipotent maliciousness.

Are you ghostwriting for Dean Koontz? I think he's in Laguna Niguel, didn't know you were that close.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, October 30, 2018 9:09 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

I get it, SECOND, I think we all do: Righteousness is a very rewarding feeling. Like anger, it makes you feel in-charge and in-control, and reduces those uncomfortable feelings of fear and uncertainty.

But just because they're an inbuilt part of our psyche, does that mean we're supposed to indulge them?

Those emotions are how others manipulate us. The M$M whispers (or sometimes shouts, nonstop) in our ears about some evil that is looming over us, and we whisper into the ears of that elephantine unconsciousness that we're riding, and then all mayhem breaks loose. All I'm suggesting is that people should wake up, realize where those impulses come from (and how others manipulate them) and take charge of their feelings instead of constantly being jerked around.

Why would anyone advocate for anything else?

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, October 30, 2018 10:36 PM