moral highground

[Maugena]

Power = Cooperation * Numbers * Resources

Any thoughts?

[Symmetry]

yeah, man, you fucking don't. and you really should if someone like you wants to talk about morality without making someone like me laugh out loud.

Welcome back from your ban J9B.

do you know why i was banned?

do any of you, other than pimpdave?

Are you trying to take the moral high ground? Do go on...

answer the question.

Which question? You posted two. Only fair that you answer at least one of mine before taking the moral high ground.

So, I've got two:

1)Are you trying to take the moral high ground?
2)Which question?

And you've got two:

1)Do you know why I (that is J9B) was banned?
2)Do any of you, other than pimpdave?

[john9blue]

1)Are you trying to take the moral high ground?
2)Which question?

lol really sym?

the second question was pretty obviously directed at everyone else other than you (because i already asked you)

i do think i'm taking the moral high ground, but part of my moral code is not wanting my country to force its morals upon other countries, so i still think i'm good

[Symmetry]

1)Are you trying to take the moral high ground?
2)Which question?

lol really sym?

the second question was pretty obviously directed at everyone else other than you (because i already asked you)

i do think i'm taking the moral high ground, but part of my moral code is not wanting my country to force its morals upon other countries, so i still think i'm good

Was that what you got a ban for?

[john9blue]

1)Are you trying to take the moral high ground?
2)Which question?

lol really sym?

the second question was pretty obviously directed at everyone else other than you (because i already asked you)

i do think i'm taking the moral high ground, but part of my moral code is not wanting my country to force its morals upon other countries, so i still think i'm good

Was that what you got a ban for?

say what? you thought i got banned for having a non-interventionist foreign policy? even OUR mods aren't that bad lol

[thegreekdog]

Symm, j9b - keep it on topic. Symm - if you want to find out why j9b got banned without trolling him publicly, ask him via pm. This is Mickey Mouse crap guys, c'mon.

[AAFitz]

Yes.

In a word, yes.

are you guys serious?

Yes.




















But no, not completely.

[AAFitz]

There is a difference between criticism and taking action on the criticism. The United States could criticize the Chinese for human rights violations... and that's fine (ignoring any potential hypocrisy). But if the United States takes action, that's another matter entirely.

I'm still a believer in state sovereignty, which is probably a little short-sighted, but... whatever...

Well taking action is pretty damn open ended.

If you mean militarily, the human rights violations better be pretty damn severe. If we decide they are severe enough, to warrant trade sanctions, that's a completely seperate issue. In fact, the hypocricy would more lie in criticizing, and continuing to trade with them and taking no action at all.

[thegreekdog]

There is a difference between criticism and taking action on the criticism. The United States could criticize the Chinese for human rights violations... and that's fine (ignoring any potential hypocrisy). But if the United States takes action, that's another matter entirely.

I'm still a believer in state sovereignty, which is probably a little short-sighted, but... whatever...

Well taking action is pretty damn open ended.

If you mean militarily, the human rights violations better be pretty damn severe. If we decide they are severe enough, to warrant trade sanctions, that's a completely seperate issue. In fact, the hypocricy would more lie in criticizing, and continuing to trade with them and taking no action at all.

Trade sanctions can have similar effects to military intervention. The hypocrisy (at least from my point of view) comes from when we decide to invade Country X, but not Country Y when the Country Y violations are more severe.

[BigBallinStalin]

I'm pretty much in line with TGD on this one. You can criticize as much as you want, but intervention breaches into much unknown territory.*

* (yes, aradhus, unintended consequences matter -- case in point: the CIA aiding the mujahideen--many of whom joined the Afghan Taliban or split away to go home or form their own groups like Al-Qaeda. Whoops, Unintended Consequences, like omg lol 9-11! ... ).

[b.k. barunt]

For the US to take any moral high ground is absurd. When Saddam Hussein played ball with us we turned a blind eye to his human rights violations. When he stopped playing ball we set him up with the Kuwait situation - i say "we" because Desert Storm was a very popular war. Our CIA helped the Junta in Chile overthrow the Democratically elected president and perpetrate a plethora of tortures, murders and rapes. Do i need to mention Viet Nam? Samoza? Moral high ground? Yougottabekiddingme.

[AAFitz]

There is a difference between criticism and taking action on the criticism. The United States could criticize the Chinese for human rights violations... and that's fine (ignoring any potential hypocrisy). But if the United States takes action, that's another matter entirely.

I'm still a believer in state sovereignty, which is probably a little short-sighted, but... whatever...

Well taking action is pretty damn open ended.

If you mean militarily, the human rights violations better be pretty damn severe. If we decide they are severe enough, to warrant trade sanctions, that's a completely seperate issue. In fact, the hypocricy would more lie in criticizing, and continuing to trade with them and taking no action at all.

Trade sanctions can have similar effects to military intervention. The hypocrisy (at least from my point of view) comes from when we decide to invade Country X, but not Country Y when the Country Y violations are more severe.

Well I agree that not treating all is hypocritical too, but that doesnt necessarily justify not acting at all in some cases, it could more likely suggest acting more.

And while sanctions can have similar effects, choosing not to shop in a particular store is quite a bit different than blowing it up because you dislike how they treat their employees.

[thegreekdog]

There is a difference between criticism and taking action on the criticism. The United States could criticize the Chinese for human rights violations... and that's fine (ignoring any potential hypocrisy). But if the United States takes action, that's another matter entirely.

I'm still a believer in state sovereignty, which is probably a little short-sighted, but... whatever...

Well taking action is pretty damn open ended.

If you mean militarily, the human rights violations better be pretty damn severe. If we decide they are severe enough, to warrant trade sanctions, that's a completely seperate issue. In fact, the hypocricy would more lie in criticizing, and continuing to trade with them and taking no action at all.

Trade sanctions can have similar effects to military intervention. The hypocrisy (at least from my point of view) comes from when we decide to invade Country X, but not Country Y when the Country Y violations are more severe.

Well I agree that not treating all is hypocritical too, but that doesnt necessarily justify not acting at all in some cases, it could more likely suggest acting more.

And while sanctions can have similar effects, choosing not to shop in a particular store is quite a bit different than blowing it up because you dislike how they treat their employees.

I guess if we start from the beginning we say:

Can we tell other countries how to live their lives?
If the answer is yes, we need to deal with the hypocrisy of that statement.
If the answer is yes, we also have to deal with what countries we tell what to do and how we encourage them to do what we ask (e.g. economic sanctions, invasion, stern talking-tos)
And then we have to deal with the hypocrisy of invading one country while giving another country a stern talking to.

My reaction, again, is that we should either go all in or do nothing at all. I'm partial to doing nothing at all because going all in would be catastrophic.

[AAFitz]

There is a difference between criticism and taking action on the criticism. The United States could criticize the Chinese for human rights violations... and that's fine (ignoring any potential hypocrisy). But if the United States takes action, that's another matter entirely.

I'm still a believer in state sovereignty, which is probably a little short-sighted, but... whatever...

Well taking action is pretty damn open ended.

If you mean militarily, the human rights violations better be pretty damn severe. If we decide they are severe enough, to warrant trade sanctions, that's a completely seperate issue. In fact, the hypocricy would more lie in criticizing, and continuing to trade with them and taking no action at all.

Trade sanctions can have similar effects to military intervention. The hypocrisy (at least from my point of view) comes from when we decide to invade Country X, but not Country Y when the Country Y violations are more severe.

Well I agree that not treating all is hypocritical too, but that doesnt necessarily justify not acting at all in some cases, it could more likely suggest acting more.

And while sanctions can have similar effects, choosing not to shop in a particular store is quite a bit different than blowing it up because you dislike how they treat their employees.

I guess if we start from the beginning we say:

Can we tell other countries how to live their lives?
If the answer is yes, we need to deal with the hypocrisy of that statement.
If the answer is yes, we also have to deal with what countries we tell what to do and how we encourage them to do what we ask (e.g. economic sanctions, invasion, stern talking-tos)
And then we have to deal with the hypocrisy of invading one country while giving another country a stern talking to.

My reaction, again, is that we should either go all in or do nothing at all. I'm partial to doing nothing at all because going all in would be catastrophic.

But doing nothing in this case, is doing something. Enabling, is very much the same as causing, in many cases.

[thegreekdog]

But doing nothing in this case, is doing something. Enabling, is very much the same as causing, in many cases.

I don't really agree. If the United States's policy is to do nothing, it is not enabling a specific country to act in a specific manner (unless perhaps it's enabling all countries to enjoy sovereignty).

[BigBallinStalin]

I've never understood sanctions as a justifiable punishment in order to coerce countries into being more "humane." All those costs are imposed on their own people, while the people in power still eat like kings. Pretty absurd.

[Aradhus]

I'm pretty much in line with TGD on this one. You can criticize as much as you want, but intervention breaches into much unknown territory.*

* (yes, aradhus, unintended consequences matter -- case in point: the CIA aiding the mujahideen--many of whom joined the Afghan Taliban or split away to go home or form their own groups like Al-Qaeda. Whoops, Unintended Consequences, like omg lol 9-11! ... ).

I'm not saying unintended consequences don't matter. I'm mocking the idea that people who are in favour of intervention, or any action really, don't factor in potential unintended consequences to the equation. People might not be able to predict with any precise accuracy exactly how profound those consequences are, but that's because some variables are unquantifiable, it doesn't mean they can't predict the consequences. Or that every potential tenuous consequence should be factored into the equation.

Regarding the CIA and the mujahideen, it was some time ago that I read anything on that, and unfortunately for me, I've got the worst memory ever, so you'll have to bear with my clumsiness. What's the argument here? If the CIA hadn't helped fund the mujahideen, then 15/20 years later the people(mostly Saudis) who hijacked planes and flew them into buildings wouldn't exist because the soviets would've killed or subjugated them and/or the people from Afghanistan who fostered the enviroment that allowed this group to exist? If that's the argument, (and I really hope it's not, because it's retarded) how do you know that the Soviets would've prevailed in Afghanistan without the Mujahideen being partly funded by the Cia? Or that the situation wouldn't have been worse with a Soviet victory, or that a 9/11 event would still have happened even with a soviet victory?

I guess what I'm asking is this: How do you measure the impact of unintended consequences from a particular action against the consequnces of taking a different action? well you can't, because you didn't take that other action. Therefore you have free reign to criticize every action taken, piling up every tenuous unintended consequence as an argument for why such and such an action shouldn't have been taken and therefore in the future no action is always best.

[BigBallinStalin]

I'm pretty much in line with TGD on this one. You can criticize as much as you want, but intervention breaches into much unknown territory.*

* (yes, aradhus, unintended consequences matter -- case in point: the CIA aiding the mujahideen--many of whom joined the Afghan Taliban or split away to go home or form their own groups like Al-Qaeda. Whoops, Unintended Consequences, like omg lol 9-11! ... ).

I'm not saying unintended consequences don't matter. I'm mocking the idea that people who are in favour of intervention, or any action really, don't factor in potential unintended consequences to the equation. People might not be able to predict with any precise accuracy exactly how profound those consequences are, but that's because some variables are unquantifiable, it doesn't mean they can't predict the consequences. Or that every potential tenuous consequence should be factored into the equation.

In other words, because something can't be quantified, it should be ignored--regardless of its importance, whatever it may be. How can you say that such line of thinking will lead to accurate predictions?

But it's more than that. It depends on the decision-makers' incentives (which I'll address further down).

Regarding the CIA and the mujahideen, it was some time ago that I read anything on that, and unfortunately for me, I've got the worst memory ever, so you'll have to bear with my clumsiness. What's the argument here? If the CIA hadn't helped fund the mujahideen, then 15/20 years later the people(mostly Saudis) who hijacked planes and flew them into buildings wouldn't exist because the soviets would've killed or subjugated them and/or the people from Afghanistan who fostered the enviroment that allowed this group to exist? If that's the argument, (and I really hope it's not, because it's retarded) how do you know that the Soviets would've prevailed in Afghanistan without the Mujahideen being partly funded by the Cia? Or that the situation wouldn't have been worse with a Soviet victory, or that a 9/11 event would still have happened even with a soviet victory?

Regarding the Afgan situation during the 1980s, the US didn't like the Soviets trying to establish their own puppet government there. In accord with their containment approach, the US would use almost any means to stop the Soviets. The mujahideen seemed like a great choice, so the CIA set up shop with the ISI in Pakistan, who funneled the guns to the mujahideen.

Were the CIA-funded mujahideen that much of an impact on Afghanistan? According to The Looming Tower, they really weren't. Those foreign fighters were not nearly as effective as the local fighters. Had the US done nothing, it's difficult to maintain that the Soviets would've been able to control Afghanistan. Look at today and tell me that the most sophisticated military in the world with the world's wealthiest economy behind it are in control of Afghanistan.

The US got involved in that war because the policymakers were geared toward thinking along the containment policy approach. Basically, they only have a hammer, so they'll use it on anything. There's also bureaucratic incentives at play (i.e. budget/importance maximization), and I'm sure some politicians could garner votes by spreading democracy, or defeating Communism, and rah rah rah.

I guess what I'm asking is this: How do you measure the impact of unintended consequences from a particular action against the consequnces of taking a different action? well you can't, because you didn't take that other action. Therefore you have free reign to criticize every action taken, piling up every tenuous unintended consequence as an argument for why such and such an action shouldn't have been taken and therefore in the future no action is always best.

Right, how does one show the counter-factual? As in, would things have been better if no intervention occurred? It's a difficult question to answer, but it depends on the topic.

I don't have free reign because it depends on the magnitude of the unintended consequences, but for me it depends mainly on how one implements a policy. When it comes to state intervention and involuntary exchange, I get annoyed for good reason. The central planners who make these decisions don't fully incur the costs of such decisions (i.e. the costs from the consequences of their decisions are dispersed) This is unlike you and me when we make decisions, like buying a car. It's different for politicians and policymakers, whose actions can produce terrible consequences, which they can skirt much more easily than you or me.

For example, the cost of intervention in Afghanistan during the 1990s is a loss in Afghan civilian and soldiers' lives; however, the politicians and policymakers really don't incur these costs as directly as those family members and actual victims. Further down the line, 9-11 occurs, and again there's dead US civilians, whose cost isn't nearly felt by politicians than the family members. Again, here's the war between Afghanistan and US. More US soldiers, more dead civilians, more frequent terrorist attacks, yet the politicians who voted for this war hardly incur these costs.

Those incentives are troubling, and we have to under the chain of events which led to today. We have to understand how limited is our capability in predicting the future, and how terrible it can be to implement public policy, which is much more impervious to costs and is much more difficult to correct itself (compared to non-governmental decisions). Hence the importance of underscoring unintended consequences.

[Aradhus]

I'm pretty much in line with TGD on this one. You can criticize as much as you want, but intervention breaches into much unknown territory.*

* (yes, aradhus, unintended consequences matter -- case in point: the CIA aiding the mujahideen--many of whom joined the Afghan Taliban or split away to go home or form their own groups like Al-Qaeda. Whoops, Unintended Consequences, like omg lol 9-11! ... ).

I'm not saying unintended consequences don't matter. I'm mocking the idea that people who are in favour of intervention, or any action really, don't factor in potential unintended consequences to the equation. People might not be able to predict with any precise accuracy exactly how profound those consequences are, but that's because some variables are unquantifiable, it doesn't mean they can't predict the consequences. Or that every potential tenuous consequence should be factored into the equation.

In other words, because something can't be quantified, it should be ignored--regardless of its importance, whatever it may be. How can you say that such line of thinking will lead to accurate predictions?

That's not what I'm saying. Take the Iraq situation. Lots of people predicted that it would devolve into a civil war. But you can't predict at what point, and how ferocious it is, how many deaths therer will be, etc.

As for tenuous unintended consequences, If I'm a doctor and I save the life of a car crash victim, and 10 years later that person kills a bunch of people, is that an unintended consequence of the doctors actions?

(I'll get to the bulk of your post later on)

[BigBallinStalin]

I'm pretty much in line with TGD on this one. You can criticize as much as you want, but intervention breaches into much unknown territory.*

* (yes, aradhus, unintended consequences matter -- case in point: the CIA aiding the mujahideen--many of whom joined the Afghan Taliban or split away to go home or form their own groups like Al-Qaeda. Whoops, Unintended Consequences, like omg lol 9-11! ... ).

I'm not saying unintended consequences don't matter. I'm mocking the idea that people who are in favour of intervention, or any action really, don't factor in potential unintended consequences to the equation. People might not be able to predict with any precise accuracy exactly how profound those consequences are, but that's because some variables are unquantifiable, it doesn't mean they can't predict the consequences. Or that every potential tenuous consequence should be factored into the equation.

In other words, because something can't be quantified, it should be ignored--regardless of its importance, whatever it may be. How can you say that such line of thinking will lead to accurate predictions?

That's not what I'm saying. Take the Iraq situation. Lots of people predicted that it would devolve into a civil war. But you can't predict at what point, and how ferocious it is, how many deaths therer will be, etc.

As for tenuous unintended consequences, If I'm a doctor and I save the life of a car crash victim, and 10 years later that person kills a bunch of people, is that an unintended consequence of the doctors actions?

(I'll get to the bulk of your post later on)

Sure, we're not in dispute that at the time there would be a civil war. IIRC, many US foreign policymakers thought that the Soviets would crush the Afghanis. I think the tide turned, so they gave the go ahead to the CIA.

But still, it's not something simple like a doctor helping a potential serial killer.

It's giving weapons and training to a very eager-to-kill group of people, the mujahideen. That really won't seem to end well, but it didn't matter that much to US foreign policymakers. They wanted to counter the Soviet expansion of power in that region. I think it was rash, irresponsible, inefficient in achieving global security, and bound with negative unintended consequences--which is generally why I'm against the interventionist approach.

Getting back to your main point:
"I'm mocking the idea that people who are in favour of intervention, or any action really, don't factor in potential unintended consequences to the equation."

They simply can't predict potential unintended consequences, or they have no strong incentive to do so. And even if the shit hits the fan later, then what? Oh, it's just another nail that requires hitting with the hammer. That's what's dangerous with central planning of a government--especially if the decision-makers are in charge of the world's strongest convention military.

[Aradhus]

I'm talking about the us led invasion of Iraq, people predicted civil war would erupt there.

Anyway, oK, the training and weaponry and so on that the CIA gave to the Afghans? How did any of that contribute to the people hijacking planes with stanely blades?


They had no guns, they needed no combat training. Any monkey could've done it.

[BigBallinStalin]

I'm talking about the us led invasion of Iraq, people predicted civil war would erupt there.

Anyway, oK, the training and weaponry and so on that the CIA gave to the Afghans? How did any of that contribute to the people hijacking planes with stanely blades?


They had no guns, they needed no combat training. Any monkey could've done it.

I'll be glad to explain that, but I'd really appreciate it if we arrived at a mutual understanding about why and how I criticize state intervention by citing unintended consequences.

http://www.conquerclub.com/forum/viewto ... 0#p3618769
(the response to your last quoted post)