New Testingstan

Your not helping, Baks.

Somehow, I don't think he's trying to help.

RyanThunder wrote: I don't have enough information to say with any sort of precision what would be effective yet.

But at least I have the balls to admit that its worth doing something about, unlike these goddamned cowards who pretend everything will just be fine if left to its own devices somehow.

Who cares if what we do actually makes matters worse as long as we do something to show we're trying amirite?

Aaron wrote:Your not helping, Baks.

I don't have it in me to write a lengthy effortpost about why Ryan is wrong when I know for damn sure that he's going to stick his fingers in his eyes and pretend he can't see.

Or do I?

Okay, Ryan, your biggest problem here seems to be that you're farting on about moral relativism and moral absolutism without any demonstrable understanding of what those terms mean and without any humanly perceptible attempt to understand what other people are saying to you. So you keep blathering and blathering about how all the other people are cowards and they view atrocities as just another sort of thing- so perhaps you understand moral absolutism very well, since it is entirely about being a massive prick. Basically, just because people don't have this burning desire to act without thought doesn't mean that they are mentally, morally, or practically inferior to you. Go to hell.

Yeah I know, just don't have any patience today for SDN style smarmy horseshit.

ryan, do you believe that people have a right to self-determination

if so how do you feel that forcing them to do what you want is consistent with that belief

Non-democratic nations are already limiting their peoples' right to self-determination. However, change towards democracy and social liberalism have to come from within - and the recent association made between western Imperialism and 'bringing democracy' has probably set those just causes back. People react against their enemies, even if those enemies have some good points.

Losonti Tokash wrote:ryan, do you believe that people have a right to self-determination

Yes, but you can't just take everything to extremes.

Self determination doesn't mean that what you determine is immune to criticism or correction.

You can't seriously tell me that a system that excludes women from university should be left alone.

Baks-kun wrote:Okay, Ryan, your biggest problem here seems to be that you're farting on about moral relativism and moral absolutism without any demonstrable understanding of what those terms mean and without any humanly perceptible attempt to understand what other people are saying to you. So you keep blathering and blathering about how all the other people are cowards and they view atrocities as just another sort of thing- so perhaps you understand moral absolutism very well, since it is entirely about being a massive prick. Basically, just because people don't have this burning desire to act without thought doesn't mean that they are mentally, morally, or practically inferior to you. Go to hell.

If its not the sort of thing I'm talking about, then why do people keep talking like it is?

What /are/ you talking about, if it's not that kind of silliness?

the main problem though is that external factors have contributed to the iranian regime's current miserable disposition by promoting an environment that is exploitable by the hardliners

liek for example the previous iranian prez. was a moderate and was pushing for reforms and it was p. cool

then you have people freedomizing irang's neighbors while making rhetoric about how irang is part of the axes of evil and how irang will be the next evil axe to get chopped down

so whoops moderate reformist gets ditched for militant extremist hardliner capitalizing on fears to promote conservative authoritarianism

uh oh

I don't know for the others, but as afar as I'm concerned, I never advocated doing NOTHING about Iran. Never did I say that I liked the fact they are under a Theocracy, or the fact that human rights are constantly trumped in the name of something or other.

If you had read what I said earlier in the thread, instead of going head first into your moral absolutist tangent, you would have understood that my position is as follow :

IF you want a positive change to occur (according to your own mesure of "positive"), you have to make it so that it will come from, and through, the Iranian people itself. Everything else you could try, every other alternative, will only succeed in alienating the Iranian People against you, and will end up reinforcing the hardliners who fight what you want to promote.

It is as simple as that.


I am not a moral absolutist. I am neither a moral relativist. I am, simply, an Humanist and a Realist.

You have to think things through before acting, or you will only end up make things worse. THIS is my criticism about your version of moral aboslutism.

Acting for the sake of acting, just to make yourself feel good about yourself, is not only selfish, but it is ultimately destructive.

Ryan, you seem like you try to base your ethical judgements on some form of utilitarianism, correct? The thing you need to remember is that if you judge actions based on consequences, you need to have a good idea of what those consequences will be.

If the consequence of every foreign invasion for the sake of improving the life of the populace is to, at best, not improve the situation, why do you think the consequence of invading Iran to bring equal rights to women will be the triumph of feminism and nothing else?

IB, Ryan does not advocate invading Iran. As far as I can tell.

Well, the point stands for sanctions or any other action. If history shows that taking those actions is very unlikely to help the situation, why should we do it? This isn't moral relativism at all.

Yes. That's what I mean by "thinking things through".

RyanThunder wrote:You can't seriously tell me that a system that excludes women from university should be left alone.

iran has excellent stats for women in university. there's more women than men coming out of their STEM programs and so on

now recently someone said they can't take a number of majors anymore, claiming the lack of available jobs (which is pretty plausible especially given the soaring unemployment brought on, in part, by western sanctions, but pretty fucking short sighted even if their intentions are good)

but this has gotten backlash from inside the government so may be changed back; people have come to expect it the way it was and aren't happy about the new bullshit. idk what came of it though. i haven't heard anything else in the newsosphere for a while

hmm interesting
http://www.parstimes.com/women/women_universities.html

note the date on that: 2003. and the bullshit proposed was the same thing (and the same justification) given for the recent thing. so the conservative elements have been trying their plan for a while, and failed until recently.

this is good and bad. bad cuz it shows we have an ongoing struggle and there's not going to be an instant fix

but good because it shows we have an ongoing struggle and the lack of an easy fix doesn't matter because the women haven't given up in the last decade and aren't about to give up now

You have to think things through before acting, or you will only end up make things worse. THIS is my criticism about your version of moral aboslutism.

Sure, but I haven't actually proposed a particular solution nor advocated anything that's presently being done, nor the probable motivations behind what has been done to affect regime change thus far.

In fact I even outright said I don't have enough information to form a satisfying solution. Like fuck, I'm pretty sure all I said was that something needs to be done.

So I think we kind of agree generally but not specifically.

Was it something I said?

Well, I think the issue is that you're calling anyone who advocates inaction a cowardly moral relativist, which heavily implies you believe action must be done. Now, you think something must be done, it's just that no one knows what to do yet so you're not advocating anything in particular, but remember that in a situation where you don't know how to fix something and doing something wrong is easy, inaction can be the best choice even if the status quo is bad.

So why wouldn't anybody just say "something needs to be done, we're just not sure what yet" when I said as much, instead of stuff like "leave them the fuck alone", which sounds very permanent? :/

I advocate leaving them alone right now. If it turns out that they are developing nukes, then we can do something, if there is proof. But any political change has to come from inside Iran, not from us.

so now that i've actually read a lil marx i decided to take another look at the stardestroyer dot net "rebuttal" to it

and holy shit is so wrong on every level! like i knew it was wrong... but i didn't realize before how wrong it was

unbelievable

What are you talking about?

Aaron wrote:What are you talking about?

I think he's having an aneurism. It started 2 years ago.