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tuco

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Posts posted by tuco

  1. According to most analysts and commentators I've read, populists and nationalist fell short of expectations. That the EU is going to dissolve I've been hearing for a few decades now and to me its more like other, ever popular, apocalyptic scenarios so this is about as much I am willing to say on it.

    Everyone will manage without the EU that is not the question. Question is, as its always been, if benefits outweigh downsides. While ago I've read let's say unconventional commentary about the EU and Brexit:

    Europe’s dangerous creation myth
    In Western Europe, nationalism isn’t conservative — it’s radical.

     
     
     
     
     
    4
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    Perhaps most fundamentally, the EU has created a framework in which European states can exist. The modern European state was conceived as the core of an empire. It has survived as an element of an integration project. In most Western European cases, as in the United Kingdom, there has never been a moment where a nation-state has had to make it on its own.

    Until now, perhaps. The case for Brexit rests on the premise that there is a British nation-state lying in wait, if you peel back the layers of European integration and revert back to a previous state of “independence.” Yet there has never been such a thing. The historical process of the loss of empire coincided in time with the historical process of European integration, creating the Britain that exists today.

    The notion that a British nation-state can be created in the 21st century is thus not conservative, but radical. British society stands before a leap into an unexamined future.

    Europe has prevented the dissolution of the British Empire from reaching the British Isles. Should Brexit take place, there will likely be no Britain, since Scotland and Northern Ireland will depart, but rather an England. This England will not have "exited" anything. English people will continue to negotiate with the EU, from weakness rather than strength.

    Brexiteers imagine that England will somehow revive a British Empire. The options are indeed integration on the one hand and empire on the other, but the empires in question are no longer British. The EU insulates its citizens from the empires of today: China, America, Russia; Amazon, Google, Facebook. Should Brexit take place, today's Brexiteers will be tomorrow's agents of foreign empire. Some of them already are.

    The historical function of the EU is to gather together the fragments of failed European empires. To forget this basic historical truth, as Europeans — and Britons in particular — have managed to do, is to risk the very form of life that they take for granted.

     

    https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-creation-project-myth-history-nation-state/

     

     

     

    For some reason, I can't edit the above so its gonna stay that I guess. 

  2. I am lead to believe, based on what I've read, that let's say the roots of "suicide prevention" are evolutionary and cultural. While the biological element is probably not going to go away in foreseeable future, the cultural one - especially the mentioned stigma -, is subject to change granted there is will to change it.  

    Personally, I hope that the support given to those who are set on committing suicide would be similar to the support given to those who signaling the possibility of committing one. I would also hope examination of socio-economic realities of those displaying signs of being suicidal is not preceded by psychiatric evaluation with appropriate steps taken accordingly. 

    Since I am not sure what direction the OP was heading and since this topic is quite complex, let me finish with a definition of selfish I prefer: for own benefit, without regards for others.

  3. Personally, I am a huge fan of Back to the Matrix. Morpheus was right when he said: If real is what you can feel, smell, taste and see, then 'real' is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain. I guess, the movie was not made yet as the idea is not popular and conditions under which it could become popular are hard to imagine. Let me just say that assuming it's even possible to have the kind of processing power needed to run Matrix and let's also assume energy is abundant taking the red pill, so to say, would be quite eco-friendly ;) 

  4. Syria: Will the world be even more dangerous, cruel, unjust?

    Quote

    Washington has thus signalled a new, more overtly military phase of intervention in Syria. The American war against Syria did not begin with Donald Trump. Barack Obama launched his war in the summer of 2011, claiming that it was necessary to produce “democratic transition”. This fiction masked Washington’s paramount geopolitical goal – to deny adversaries, particularly Iran and Russia, space in Syria, or, if space could not be denied, to make these powers bleed.

    Quote

    Most of the blood has not been drawn from Iran, Russia, nor from Syria’s privileged political elite, but from the Syrian people. The country has been transformed into one of the world’s worst humanitarian disaster zones. Over half of the population has been displaced; more than half a million have perished; non-Sunni religious minorities have been “cleansed” from all areas that were conquered by western-backed “moderate” jihadists, as well as those controlled by the Islamic State and al-Qaeda.

    Quote

     As Trump, Macron and May ramp up military action in Syria, they need to be asked: Does their war in Syria conform to western civilisation’s traditional “just war” doctrine as set forth by Saints Augustine and Thomas Aquinas? The 1992 Catechism of the Catholic Church – the institutional repository of this doctrine - defines it in these terms: A just war is defined as “a legitimate defence by military force in which: The damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave or certain; All other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective; and There must be a serious prospect of success; The use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated.”

    2
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    Something very similar happened in 2003 when a publicly declared “born again” US President rejected Pope John Paul II’s appeal for adherence to the “just war” doctrine, and instead ordered the invasion of Iraq on the false pretext of weapons of mass destruction and the imperative of transition to democracy – a war that proved to be the catalyst for the destruction of Iraq’s ancient Christian community, not to mention many other calamities.

    http://www.thetablet.co.uk/blogs/1/1158/syria-will-the-world-be-even-more-dangerous-cruel-unjust

    ----

    But there is a red line, folks, and we are good guys!

    To paraphrase a classic, to deceive oneself is the most common deception.  

  5. 1 hour ago, Pembroke said:

    I recently watched a debate with Richard Dawkins where he said that asking Why things exist is not a meaningful question if what we mean is their purpose.

    [/snip]

     

    Why <insert anything>? is problematic.

     

     

  6. First of all, the thread is incorrectly in "Genetics" because its an ethical issue. 

    Secondly, I was on topic correctly and tactfully noting the above fact.

    Thirdly, I do not understand what "getting undies in a twist" means but somehow I do not think it means "pointing out the obvious". 

  7. 30 minutes ago, zapatos said:

    Yes it is. You can certainly do it in the US. And again, it has nothing to do with genetically altering humans.

    OK, it has nothing to do with genetically altering humans. Good catch. 

    Now, how is picking the gender of a baby different from I dunno picking the height of a baby? Because one is genetic altering and the other one is not. Well, I do not think the issue here is whether an action is either gene altering action or not, I do not think people care about the mechanics in general, but about making choices. How does it matter whether we are able to identify and pick male or female embryo or identify and pick embryo short or tall growth potential? How it's done is pretty much irrelevant in my opinion. What is relevant is the ability to make such choice or not. This is the ethical choice, the rest is technological matter.

    btw over here parents cannot choose the gender unless for the reasons you stated because it's against the law.

  8. I know it exists, that is why I mentioned it, unlike much much larger scale. Indeed, its sometimes done for the stated reason. But it's not done because the parents want it and I can imagine some parents wanting it. In similar fashion, like some parents would like to have a girl/boy, some could wish to have their baby to be pre-disposed for arts or sports. So in my eyes, it's not about should or should not, but where is the line?

  9. The problem in Gattaca was not that one was modified and the other was not, but discrimination based on such modification.

    Our societies have a long way to go, new ethics, laws and approaches will need to be realized, implemented and developed, but unless the technology will be relatively easy to control/hard to obtain  - like nuclear technology for example - which from what I know about it it is not, I just do not see how could we prevent other people from using it. Of course, there will be some limits on what will be acceptable and whatnot but OP did not specify them. The devil is in details. 

    edit: and indeed, eliminating certain traits, aggressivity for example in order to reduce violent crimes, can have unforeseen and even undesirable consequences, however, by allowing genetic engineering we are not necessarily eliminating certain trait from the gene pool. 

  10. 5 hours ago, dimreepr said:

    In the west, it's ethics committees, elsewhere no doubt 'super soldier' will hop off the pages of comics at some point.

    In the west .. the law, the communists had committees like committees deciding who can have an abortion and who cannot. 

    Since the OP did not specify, outside of much much larger scale, what kind of modification we talk about, we can talk about any. I will talk about the ability of parents to chose the gender of their baby.  Let's say it will not be allowed in the west but will be allowed elsewhere. I can also imagine parents traveling to where it's allowed. Then I can image pressure to change the law and law being changed simply because if there will be demand, there will be supply and it's the people, not committees who have the power to change the laws.

  11. I think its inevitable so it's not a matter of ought to. Once the tech will be here, for much much larger scale, who is going to stop people from using it? Perhaps we should ban it like nuclear weapons .. oh wait! 

  12. 6 hours ago, Silvestru said:

    I am aware that what I will write is on another level from what your article describes but we can kind of predict the changes that the environment will go through and based on that I guess we can predict how some species will adapt.

    For example there are higher and higher levels of plastic waste in the oceans. There are now microorganisms who started feeding on this.(which is not good for us but that's a different story) I guess it was to be expected.

    Temperatures are increasing and ocean levels are getting higher, this will affect currents so it will affect species that depend on plankton, also polar bears don't have a bright future, I am guessing that anything affected by this will have to tweak their diet and adapt or become extinct.

    This is just my speculation based on limited prior knowledge but I believe the general idea is true.

    I do not think what you wrote is on another level, but rather the opposite. 

    From the article:

    Quote

    Predicting evolution in this manner is somewhat similar to how meteorologists predict the weather. They state the probability of rain, for example. "The point is that a prediction does not have to be exact, like when you shoot a cannonball and can predict quite precisely where it will land," says Tans. "We do not predict where and when mutations arise. Rather, it is about predicting certain limitations of the evolutionary process, and ultimately providing probabilities for different scenarios.

    Limitations come from the environment. To say, for example, that we have 5 fingers on each hand by a chance is stretching the meaning of "by a chance". 

    Two notes:

    Since we can influence our environment in a significant way, can we say that we can influence our evolution?

    Does this "predictability", as talked about in the article, implies that alien species evolving in a similar environment to ours, would evolve in a similar way?

  13. What is, old argument?

    Regarding "democratization"". I think its one of those concepts that make sense on theoretical and not too sophisticated level but fail to be supported by data and have unintended consequences due to complexity of the issues it's trying to solve. Kind of like communism. 

  14. In my eyes, the Bush Doctrine sheds some light on "democratization" and conservative views the OP was mentioning. As the wiki puts it:

    Quote

    Another part of the intellectual underpinning of the Bush Doctrine was the 2004 book The Case for Democracy, written by Israeli politician and author Natan Sharansky and Israeli Minister of Economic Affairs in the United States Ron Dermer, which Bush has cited as influential in his thinking.[54] The book argues that replacing dictatorships with democratic governments is both morally justified, since it leads to greater freedom for the citizens of such countries, and strategically wise, since democratic countries are more peaceful, and breed less terrorism than dictatorial ones.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_Doctrine#Natan_Sharansky

  15. 2 hours ago, Sensei said:

    Involvement of NATO (not just USA) was direct result of massacres and mass murders..

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

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

    It was completely unacceptable for world community.

     

    Citation needed for "the world community". It had no mandate of the UN Security Council. 

    Other than that. Achievement, to end the conflict, of the intervention, is highly questionable, so is calling the intervention, killing civilians in the process, "humanitarian".  Regarding US foreign policy, in my view, such policy is self-serving in the first place. Not saying there is anything wrong with it being self-serving, but it's important to recognize it when evaluating it in the global context. So if the US administration will believe that for example, an action will get some points at home it's more likely to execute it than if it was unpopular. In similar fashion, if the US administration will believe that an action will serve any strategic goal of the US, it's more likely to execute it than if it would not serve any. And this is regardless of consequences of such action at the point of impact.  

    For more see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_Doctrine

  16. Let's do a quick recap

    Spring 2011

    Quote

    Arrested during a protest in Saida, 10km east of Daraa, on April 29, Hamza's body was returned to his family on Tuesday 24th May, horribly mutilated.

    The child had spent nearly a month in the custody of Syrian security, and when they finally returned his corpse it bore the scars of brutal torture: Lacerations, bruises and burns to his feet, elbows, face and knees, consistent with the use of electric shock devices and of being whipped with cable, both techniques of torture documented by Human Rights Watch as being used in Syrian prisons during the bloody three-month crackdown on protestors.

    Hamza's eyes were swollen and black and there were identical bullet wounds where he had apparently been shot through both arms, the bullets tearing a hole in his sides and lodging in his belly.

    On Hamza's chest was a deep, dark burn mark. His neck was broken and his penis cut off.

    "Where are the human rights committees? Where is the International Criminal Court?" asks the voice of the man inspecting Hamza's body on a video uploaded to YouTube.

     

     

     

    https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2011/05/201153185927813389.html

     

    Since then:

    List of massacres during the Syrian Civil War - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_during_the_Syrian_Civil_War

    List of Syrian Civil War barrel bomb attacks - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Syrian_Civil_War_barrel_bomb_attacks

    Use of chemical weapons in the Syrian Civil War - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_of_chemical_weapons_in_the_Syrian_Civil_War

    Human rights violations during the Syrian Civil War - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_violations_during_the_Syrian_Civil_War

    around:

    500 000 dead

    2 000 000 wounded

    11 000 000 displaced

    1 000 000 besieged and denied life-saving assistance

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_Civil_War#Impact

    https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2017/country-chapters/syria

    ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

    And now there is red line, now we say no more. Well, seems to me we have a pretty high threshold when it comes to the suffering of our fellow human beings. 

  17. I do not think so. I post my stuff and give others opportunity to read it and say their stuff. There is no truth to be found. I posted my reasoning and arguments already. I can only repeat them. 

    Russia ridicules Trump's Twitter diplomacy in Syria standoff 

    Quote

    "We cannot depend on the mood of someone on the other side of the ocean when he wakes up, on what a specific person takes into his head in the morning," 

    No kidding.

    Quote

    Defense Secretary James Mattis said Thursday the US wanted more evidence that the Assad regime was responsible for the attack before launching military intervention.
    Mattis told lawmakers he believed there had been a chemical attack and that it was "simply inexcusable, beyond the pale," but he called attention to the risks of further US involvement in Syria and made clear no response plan had been made.
    "We are trying to stop the murder of innocent people but on a strategic level its how do we keep this from escalating out of control, if you get my drift on that," he said.

    Word.

    https://edition.cnn.com/2018/04/13/middleeast/russia-trump-twitter-syria-chemical-attack-intl/index.html

  18. I guess there could be also regional differences, in awareness/perception of the Holocaust. Americas vs Europe for example.

    There is also room for NGOs. Over here just today one NGO was publicly reading names of the victims in 16 cities and got a lot of media coverage. Other than that as CharonY said, its a matter of time. 

  19. Since it's apparently not clear, I was summarizing an article by  Joshua Landis.

    Also, I am not interested in answering your questions nor explaining myself. We are in realms of opinions and priorities and to me its a waste of time and energy debating opinions/priorities in great length. I have stated mine clearly several times already and I am not trying to convince anyone of anything. Support the kick in the balls, I could not care less. To me its stupid but what can I do? Skilfully craft paragraphs of text only to be told .. I do not agree with you? I do not think so. Been there, got the t-shirt and moved on.

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