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chessmaster13 posted:I learned that there are two kinds of people. And I guess that they don't live on the same planet.
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Sep 11, 2015 11:57
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It's also very unrealistic to ignore that humans are very often swayed or driven by emotion.
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Sep 11, 2015 13:02
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I was thinking about it as I was walking to the shop and yeah I just realised that his distinction between 'ideology' and 'pragmatism' is a case of pointing at two places on a spectrum and saying 'these are the extremes' - in reality while pure ideology can be an extreme, 'pragmatism' is a woolly concept anywhere between 'okay, help some of them' through 'do not help them' all the way to 'in order to be pragmatic about our resources it would be best to carpet bomb the refugee camp to solve the problem' and worse depending on where one's 'pragmatism' might start to link with their ideology. e: speeling & granmer Tesseraction fucked around with this message at 13:14 on Sep 11, 2015 |
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Sep 11, 2015 13:05
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Leofish posted:It's also very unrealistic to ignore that humans are very often swayed or driven by emotion. On this note, I tried finding the article I read but the Graun's lovely search system has failed me, but it spoke about a study of people who had either abnormally developed or damaged amygalas (a part of the brain responsible for both decision-making and emotional-response) and while indeed they processed information rationally, it led to instances of them basically entering an infinite loop when confronted with which sandwich to buy for lunch. One could reasonably infer that it was damage to amygala that affected their decision-making, but as I recall the study could not find a single person who suffered loss of impulse decision-making but retained their emotional ability. That said, without it to hand it could have been a study of two people who both really hated BLT sandwiches.
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Sep 11, 2015 13:12
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More generally, the ideology behind 'pragmatism' is a deep desire to further one's own self interest, at the expense of others, and an extremely cynical view of other human beings and their motivations (necessary in order to minimize the guilt felt when pushing self interest). Other kinds of realisms can themselves have other assumptions behind them (race realism assumes racism is true, without justification), but that's the general trend. The trick is that a lot of people confuse rationality with lack of empathy, when that's simply not the case. Rationality is just a tool, to be used for whatever end, it can be used for selfish or selfless purposes. Confirmation bias can sometimes undermine rationality, but that's no more true of empathy than any other emotion. It's totally a normal thing for people to be blinded by greed, and trick themselves. Or, and this is relevant to migrants, so motivated by fear that they don't see what they fear for what it really is, just this 'thing' that needs to go away (and not a person who is afraid and desperate).
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Sep 11, 2015 13:39
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Remember that kid who drowned and washed up on a Turkish beach, and was used as an example of the urgency of the refugee crisis? Yeah, turns out his father was at the helm of the boat when it capsized and he was a people smuggler being paid to smuggle people to Greece. https://twitter.com/TenNewsSydney/status/642234404710936577 ----------------
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Sep 11, 2015 13:45
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Narciss posted:Remember that kid who drowned and washed up on a Turkish beach, and was used as an example of the urgency of the refugee crisis? Yeah, turns out his father was at the helm of the boat when it capsized and he was a people smuggler being paid to smuggle people to Greece. .....so?  Look at this and tell me you'd stay.
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Sep 11, 2015 13:48
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CommieGIR posted:.....so? It's emblematic of the fact that this is hardly a "refugee crisis" in the sense of it being a humanitarian crisis; these are economic immigrants. That's why they continue onwards to Germany & Scandinavia instead of just stopping in the first country that isn't at war, and why a huge proportion of them are young males instead of the mix of men/women/children you'd expect. ----------------
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Sep 11, 2015 13:50
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Narciss posted:It's emblematic of the fact that this is hardly a "refugee crisis" in the sense of it being a humanitarian crisis; these are economic immigrants. That's why they continue onwards to Germany & Scandinavia instead of just stopping in the first country that isn't at war, and why a huge proportion of them are young males instead of the mix of men/women/children you'd expect. Narciss posted:I'm not sure about a quota, but Tunisia does have a higher proportion of woman in parliament than the US does in Congress. As for your citizenship idea, my God that would be a nightmare. We'd have hordes of mainstream Sunni muslims coming in, going "yup I'm *oppressed religious minority*" and then ghettoing it up in Dearborn, Michigan. Shut the gently caress up and get out of here, you vulture.
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Sep 11, 2015 13:51
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Man tortured by Assad regime and had his teeth pulled out, trying to help refugees reach the safety of the EU tragically loses his own family during trip. Yes, I see now black people are the problem.
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Sep 11, 2015 14:05
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Tesseraction posted:Man tortured by Assad regime and had his teeth pulled out, trying to help refugees reach the safety of the EU tragically loses his own family during trip. Oh don't be silly, it's
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Sep 11, 2015 14:13
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Some of you guys are really obsessed with race  Can you even post about anything without mentioning black people, brown people, ayrabs, the Muslim race etc? You know, even if you think everything through some racial angle, most people don't.
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Sep 11, 2015 14:28
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Ligur posted:Some of you guys are really obsessed with race We're responding to a guy noted (and probated multiple times) for his racist views.....soooooo.... Plus, are you saying that he is justified in basically going "Well, their father was piloting the boat to smuggle them out so ha ha, his kids deserved it?" Think about it.
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Sep 11, 2015 14:30
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CommieGIR posted:"Well, their father was piloting the boat to smuggle them out so ha ha, his kids deserved it?" That's pretty sick. I'm saying that his father was an economically-motivated opportunist, and not the desperate "gotta get my family to safety that's all I care about" saint that we might like to assume he is. ----------------
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Sep 11, 2015 14:31
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Narciss posted:That's pretty sick. I'm saying that his father was an economically-motivated opportunist, and not the desperate "gotta get my family to safety that's all I care about" saint that we might like to assume he is. Because getting a boat and fuel is free, right? I mean, you can just pick them up along any major shoreline with ease. Seriously, get the hell out of here.
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Sep 11, 2015 14:32
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Not to mention it's clearly in his redtitle. I wasn't sure how more obvious a reference I could make without writing a "... for Dummies" guide.
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Sep 11, 2015 14:33
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Ligur posted:Some of you guys are really obsessed with race Immigrants are, like, minorities most of the time, or are they not? That's some paranoid poo poo right there if you think there's a problem saying so.
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Sep 11, 2015 14:34
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Narciss posted:That's pretty sick. I'm saying that his father was an economically-motivated opportunist, and not the desperate "gotta get my family to safety that's all I care about" saint that we might like to assume he is. No true saint. computer parts posted:Immigrants are, like, minorities most of the time, or are they not? That's some paranoid poo poo right there if you think there's a problem saying so. We live in a post racial society, bub.
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Sep 11, 2015 14:35
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Narciss posted:his father was an economically-motivated opportunist, and not the desperate "gotta get my family to safety that's all I care about" saint that we might like to assume he is. So was he routinely just keeping his wife and kids in his lucrative-business smuggleboat for ballast or something?
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Sep 11, 2015 14:38
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I love attempted character assassination. Especially when said person has literally lost everything he loves and holds dear.  Let's make sure to kick him while he's down, why don't we?
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Sep 11, 2015 14:39
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I mean it says so right there that it was a boat headed for Greece, not Germany nor Scandinavia.
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Sep 11, 2015 14:40
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CommieGIR posted:I love attempted character assassination. Especially when said person has literally lost everything he loves and holds dear. But can we be sure this MUSLIM did not actually use his dear children as a disposable flotation device to get himself ashore?
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Sep 11, 2015 14:41
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Tesseraction posted:But can we be sure this MUSLIM did not actually use his dear children as a disposable flotation device to get himself ashore? Well, obviously he was heading to Greece so he could use his blood money to establish himself in Greece's thriving economy.
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Sep 11, 2015 14:44
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Hey man, no-one said economic migrants just migrate to a better economy. Maybe he was sick of all that lucrative tent real-estate he was cramped up in and wanted to play a game of Refugee Roulette to double or nothing his tragedy.
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Sep 11, 2015 14:48
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 People smuggler.
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Sep 11, 2015 15:17
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Narciss posted:That's pretty sick. I'm saying that his father was an economically-motivated opportunist, and not the desperate "gotta get my family to safety that's all I care about" saint that we might like to assume he is.
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Sep 11, 2015 15:53
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Main Paineframe posted:there's the Roma... You're not helping!
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Sep 11, 2015 16:20
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Narciss posted:That's pretty sick. I'm saying that his father was an economically-motivated opportunist, and not the desperate "gotta get my family to safety that's all I care about" saint that we might like to assume he is. Edgy. Get hosed.
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Sep 11, 2015 16:21
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Arglebargle III posted:This is a nice explanation of Iran, but how would you explain the failure of the secular Pan-Arab autocracies/limited democracies to deliver prosperity or real democracy? I'm just asking because you stated the case so well here. Exactly the same as Iran, except even worse? I'm not going to write summaries of every single Middle Eastern country's last hundred-fifty years of history, but they pretty much all fall into the same basket: spent the first half of the 20th century exploited and ruled by Western States which divided and suppressed them as they pleased, then suddenly turned loose with weak civilian governments and little tradition of self-rule, messy sectarian clusterfucks created by Western countries arbitrarily redrawing the borders and intentionally pitting ethnic groups against each other (the British were particularly good at this), poor economic prospects resulting in part from having spent the last few decades or even centuries as cash cows for foreign empires, a recent tradition of revolution and resistance and protests, and a massive inflow of cash and arms and secret agents to support any opposition group willing to promise to pick a side in the growing Cold War (where the Middle East was strategically important, both for its location and its resources). On top of that, major economic shifts overturned the local power structure as these countries were forced to modernize their economy at a much faster pace than Western countries did. Against that geopolitical backdrop, stability was an uphill battle for many small countries, and the newly-formed Middle Eastern republics in particular were poorly positioned to suppress the military's power. Even if they did manage to keep the military in line, it only lasted so long; once economic problems, ethnic tensions, or intervention by a superpower caused large-scale protests, some military strongman would inevitably seize the opportunity. Once the situation began to deteriorate and the civilian government's grip loosened, that only created an opening for even more revolutionary struggle. Once a dictatorship was in place, any unrest among the population was likely to be co-opted by yet another would-be dictator, who would overthrow the previous one. This inability to provide strong democracy isn't unique to the Middle East, either. South Korea was an excellent example of this pattern; despite not being affected by many of these issues (for example, being essentially a US puppet state helped avoid economic problems and foreign political meddling, and it had no ethnic conflicts to speak of), it spent most of the second half of the 20th century under a succession of military dictators. It did not become a democracy until the late 80s, and even today, it's a weak democracy which is constantly wracked by corruption, scandals, and abuse of state security organizations to suppress political opposition. Zodium posted:Of course. For example, if there are more people in an area than that area can feed, for whatever reason, then there is a surplus population, and we should move that surplus population (or facilitate/allow them to move autonomously) to somewhere with more resources, especially children. In the age of globalization, that definition is obsolete. It's trivial to get food shipped to a place from halfway around the world, to the point where it's typically cheaper than eating locally-produced food. If people are starving, that is because of a failure in the distribution system, rather than a problem of excess population. Typically these failures are not logistical, but rather ideological - for whatever reason, the people in charge of bringing in the food don't want to feed those starving people.
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Sep 11, 2015 16:30
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Inferior Third Season posted:So, it was just "take your child to work" day? Can we even be sure it really was his/a child? Perhaps it was several adult economic migrants in a trenchcoat? This man has questions to answer.
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Sep 11, 2015 16:31
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How do we know that the three year old and his brother were pure souls anyway? They might have stolen cookies, or spoken with food in their mouths. These are questions the western liberal media refuses to ask, thank God we have Narciss here to educate us.
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Sep 11, 2015 17:00
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chessmaster13 posted:I learned that there are two kinds of people. And I guess that they don't live on the same planet. Hahaha, this is some of the smuggest poo poo I think i've read on these forums, and I've seen a lot of smug posts. The problem is that people like you are confusing pragmatism with cynicism. The people talking about the unsustainable economic costs of allowing refugees to enter their countries have yet to provide any proof that the costs are, in fact, unsustainable. They've provided some evidence of things like increased costs, but none that these costs are unsustainable (or worse than the costs of barring refugees entry, which can be measured in many lives). It would seem that the burden of proof would by heavier with the people who are supporting policy that will directly lead to a bunch of humans dying/suffering. Your logic basically works like this: "Someone seems to idealistically believe something? Then they must be wrong." There is nothing wrong with pragmatism, and I would agree that pragmatism is superior to idealism. The problem is that most of the people saying this are not actually as pragmatic as they would like to believe. edit: Just to address another argument I've seen people (not you) frequently make, it is also not a good argument to say "This is unlikely to happen due to the political situation" about any sort of proposal. "Your ideas are unlikely to be adopted" is one of the dumbest loving arguments I've ever seen (it can apply to almost any minority opinion), yet I see it constantly espoused by "pragmatists." If people throughout history had abided by this principle, little social progress would have ever been made because the ideas behind every positive social change would have been nipped in the bud when only a small portion of the population believe them. Supporting positive change over the years/decades is the only way it ever has a chance of being adopted in the future, even if it may be incredibly unlikely in the short term. "Is this idea likely to be achievable soon" is only relevant if you're actually a policy-maker yourself, but the only way for such ideas to ever become relevant in the future is if a greater portion of the population comes to support them.
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Sep 11, 2015 17:22
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I read an article (not in english) which claimed the situation in Lebanon is getting worse because UNHCR and the World Food Program are both underfunded. So the people who can afford it are leaving for Europe and those who can't have to consider going back to Syria. Why is this? Is it due to the unprecedented scale of the crisis or has funding actually been slashed because of financial crisis and following troubles? It's pretty amazing how many factors are working towards making this the clusterfuck it is. Also, maybe a better idea to ask this in the ME thread, but does anyone have any insight on whether there is an end in sight for the war? Seems Russia is getting more involved lately and I read something about them using Syria as leveraging in the conflict in the Ukraine.
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Sep 11, 2015 18:15
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Main Paineframe posted:In the age of globalization, that definition is obsolete. It's trivial to get food shipped to a place from halfway around the world, to the point where it's typically cheaper than eating locally-produced food. If people are starving, that is because of a failure in the distribution system, rather than a problem of excess population. Typically these failures are not logistical, but rather ideological - for whatever reason, the people in charge of bringing in the food don't want to feed those starving people. beep bop
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Sep 11, 2015 18:25
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Captain Scandinaiva posted:I read an article (not in english) which claimed the situation in Lebanon is getting worse because UNHCR and the World Food Program are both underfunded. So the people who can afford it are leaving for Europe and those who can't have to consider going back to Syria. Why is this? Is it due to the unprecedented scale of the crisis or has funding actually been slashed because of financial crisis and following troubles? It's pretty amazing how many factors are working towards making this the clusterfuck it is. The UNHCR has been consistently underfunded every year since the war kicked off, so it's not so much of a "slashing" thing. The scale has definitely played a role, and tensions between refugees and Lebanese are the worst of probably any neighboring country that has accepted Syrian refugees. 1/4 of their population are refugees. The result has been ugly. There has been fighting in Arsal, including refugee camps being burnt  And a few instances that show the extent of the dehumanization of refugees in Lebanon, such as this one, where a man encourages his young child to beat a Syrian. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPcmAO_0MVo There's another video around of a refugee boy selling things on the street getting paint dumped on him by Lebanese men, but I can't find it. As for your second question, absolutely not. Russia is on the UN security council, and has and will continue to oppose any deal that doesn't allow Assad to remain in power. That will never be an acceptable term for any opposition group, so a diplomatic solution is essentially impossible. Militarily, the regime is in about the worst condition it's been yet, but if Russia intervenes on a larger scale, as the last few weeks have pointed towards, then their role could increase Assad's staying power. Even if not, the regime maintains control of Latakia and Damascus, which would probably take a good two years of fighting to be overrun in the best of scenarios. And until Assad goes, the fighting will continue. The regime is an occupying force, and as such, the insurgency against them will never end until the occupation ends. That's not to mention the future prospect of continuing inter-rebel civil war among factions currently fighting against Assad, as well as tensions between the political entities of the Syrian Kurds vs the Iraqi Kurds, and growing resentment between the Iranian backed Shia militias in Iraq and the Iraqi government. Realistically, this could take ten+ years to de-escalate, and it's likely we haven't hit the bottom yet.
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Sep 11, 2015 18:37
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Captain Scandinaiva posted:I read an article (not in english) which claimed the situation in Lebanon is getting worse because UNHCR and the World Food Program are both underfunded. So the people who can afford it are leaving for Europe and those who can't have to consider going back to Syria. Why is this? Is it due to the unprecedented scale of the crisis or has funding actually been slashed because of financial crisis and following troubles? It's pretty amazing how many factors are working towards making this the clusterfuck it is. It's my understanding that the number of displaced persons from the ME surged in 2013 and has been steadily rising year-on-year. There was no recent sudden surge of refugees so much as it took us this long to realize things were this bad. They're probably taxed as hell by now.
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Sep 11, 2015 18:37
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Ytlaya posted:The problem is that people like you are confusing pragmatism with cynicism. The people talking about the unsustainable economic costs of allowing refugees to enter their countries have yet to provide any proof that the costs are, in fact, unsustainable. They've provided some evidence of things like increased costs, but none that these costs are unsustainable (or worse than the costs of barring refugees entry, which can be measured in many lives). It would seem that the burden of proof would by heavier with the people who are supporting policy that will directly lead to a bunch of humans dying/suffering. I think it's rather difficult to claim that countries have a moral responsibility to prevent the deaths of the citizens of other countries without advocating for full fledged interventionism and "Responsibility to Protect." Is Europe responsible for feeding, sheltering, and clothing every person in their former colonies and every state where a European nation has intervened militarily, or just those who have the wherewithal to get themselves to European shores? If one doesn't believe that European countries have an overriding moral responsibility to protect the lives of other countries' citizens outside their borders at any cost, then it is actually incumbent on those who advocate accepting large numbers of refugees to demonstrate that the policy won't have unsustainable costs and harms, and that it would be more cost effective than feeding and sheltering the refugees in place, or intervention to restore security in the refugees' home countries.
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Sep 11, 2015 18:53
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chessmaster13 posted:I learned that there are two kinds of people. And I guess that they don't live on the same planet. Pragmatism exists within an ideological framework. You have blinded yourself.
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Sep 11, 2015 18:55
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Main Paineframe posted:In the age of globalization, that definition is obsolete. It's trivial to get food shipped to a place from halfway around the world, to the point where it's typically cheaper than eating locally-produced food. If people are starving, that is because of a failure in the distribution system, rather than a problem of excess population. Typically these failures are not logistical, but rather ideological - for whatever reason, the people in charge of bringing in the food don't want to feed those starving people. beep bop
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Sep 11, 2015 19:21
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Dead Reckoning posted:I think it's rather difficult to claim that countries have a moral responsibility to prevent the deaths of the citizens of other countries without advocating for full fledged interventionism and "Responsibility to Protect." Is Europe responsible for feeding, sheltering, and clothing every person in their former colonies and every state where a European nation has intervened militarily, or just those who have the wherewithal to get themselves to European shores? European nations have been party to the recent conflicts in Middle East/Afghanistan/Pakistan which have destabilized multiple nations. This without past/current wars and past/current support of awful dictatorships that have contributed to this. In addition, we have signed the same treaties as any other country and our moral - and legal - responsibilities are pretty well outlined there. To act that Europe can't take a fraction of the refugees and developing nations have to shoulder it all is callous and ignores several actual realities that exist (mainly that Europe is immensely more rich and populous), to act like Europe/West has washed its hands of all of this and bears no fault in no way when all of us were alive in Iraq and Afghanistan wars is ludicrous. Not all of Europe, sure. But all the big ones at the least. All the ones in NATO have at least Afghanistan on them. The fact remains that most refugees are in developing countries or the countries of their origin and most refugees will and have throughout the history of the concept of a refugee stayed there, and will continue to do so. Europe whines over mere hundreds of thousands, while Turkey or Iran or Lebanon or Jordan have taken a million and more each in the past few years. How about people stop being such giant pussies about a duty that in comparison to what others shoulder is nothing at all? Not Germany though, Germans are great. That has to be the biggest 180° a country has done in a single lifetime since the Russian Revolution. DarkCrawler fucked around with this message at 19:54 on Sep 11, 2015 |
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Sep 11, 2015 19:47
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