Guess who the front-men are. Bohr, for example. — Caldwell

Well, I don't know so much about Nils Bohr and his philosophy, but basically what to me his theories look like to be grounded on is logical empirism or logical positivism. That could explain the idea of taking an experiment and then describing your whole philosophy around the outcomes of that experiment. A rather positivist way to do science I would say. Of course there's a huge difference between the physics and then the philosophical implications we give to it.

I'm not so familiar what was the link between Bohr and the decay of science, even if I tried to look at your comments several pages back.

Can they predict anything even a month in advance? If not, why should we trust their prediction decades ahead? — stoicHoneyBadger

Those simply aren't the same things.

I can make the prediction that in 200 years everybody participating in this Forum now will be dead. I think you can agree that my prediction is extremely likely to be true. But I cannot predict who is the person now participating in this Forum who will die next. The most likeliest are those who are old or who have a very bad health condition. Yet the sample size is so low that statistics don't help us much.

You're both just trying to excuse naivety with deadly consequences at this point. — Tzeentch

No. Just to show how non-functioning the democracy of the Weimar Republic was then and how many campaigns were about smashing the rulers or the other parties. The Brownshirts weren't the only street gang around then.

Actually one only has to read "Mein Kampf" and then come to the conclusion that this person will truly go through with what he has written about the Jews and about Germany getting Lebensraum from the East. That is a far more precise warning than a election poster. Yet do notice that "Mein Kampf" wasn't a hit beforeHitler came to power. I'm not so sure how many had read it then.

And there you find the real problem: because, just as now, a lot of politicians say one thing and do another. Many aren't ideologues. They will use some rhetoric only to get into power, while not going through with their most bizarre objectives. Many people will think that there's the "campaign rhetoric" and the the "actual political decisions made" and that these can be quite different. Historical hindsight gives us the certitude of what some politician or political movement could and would do. It's a different thing when the issue hasn't happened.

What many fossile plants in the US? I thought it was nuclear energy that banged the main drum! — Thunderballs

Nuclear lobby is quite miniscule and not so strong. Besides, Coal mining has earlier been important employer for example in the Appalachian range, so it's no wonder that a populist politician declared himself of supporter of Coal. Got the votes from from the rust belt!

Actually, campaigning in elections then in Germany was quite similar with other parties too. Many anticipated, few would have really known.

Do notice the violent theme of the parties campaigning:

What brings about depressions in general and in economy in particular? — Thunderballs

The nasty recessions usually happen after a speculative boom that has been created by lax funding by the financial sector. Housing market booms and busts create the most serious ones as houses cannot be manufactured by robots in China, but actually employ a lot of people. And once a banking crisis happens, the banks won't lend and even otherwise healthy companies are in trouble. Then when unemployment grows, things look bad, people save.

Economists have brazenly announced for years that THEY can do away with the boom and bust cycle, but I'm not so sure. They usually create just a far bigger problem later.

What's done differently in the US? — Thunderballs

Let's start with the sources where countries get their electricity. Here's the pie chart for the US in 2019:



Then let's compare this to France:



Do you spot any difference? Hint: using Nuclear energy doesn't produce emissions creating climate change. Here you can see the effects of energy policy. That coal power plants produce nearly a third of the electricity in the US and only 2% of the electricity in France matters.

And this is just electricity production...

If you would have decreasing negative population growth in the World, I guess it would be totally OK for economy to be shrinking.

Yet the population is still growing. And it's good for the society that these new people will have jobs, can sustain themselves and live happy lives as we have done. Too many unemployed and an economy not working will likely lead to violence and war. History has shown this many times.

Although I'll give him credit for pulling out of Afghanistan. — StreetlightX

Logically you should give credit for Trump too, a peace deal that Biden just implemented. :snicker:

Just thinking, would it be better to say that there is a decay in the understanding of science?

Some have a larger impact than others. The US, Canada, and Australia have the highest emissions per person. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Sure. But even if per capita stats show who use energy the most, for things like climate change the real issue are the aggregate emissions:



It's telling that altogether France, Germany, UK and Japan in the aggregate emit just half of what the US does, even if the combined population of these countries is bigger than the population of the US. There's the real effect of selected energy policy. And naturally China is the biggest emitter (28%), but India just 7% even if the populations start to be on par (there are only 59 million fewer Indians than Chinese).

So the real issue is for India not to pick the way of Coal plants, but for example renewable energy and nuclear.

China can mass produce as much as it wants but only Europe is truly preparing for a new economy and will likely have significant returns in their investments in the future. — Shawn

Oooh, that would be the day.

As an European, I would like to be this optimistic.

The critique against science, insofar as the decline theorists are concerned, has always been metaphysical. That is, they are arguing about the very essence of science. How else can something be destroyed, but through the demolition of its very essence. Science has qualities essential to it. — Caldwell

I think that nearly anything can be literally destroyed without even a thought about it's very essence. Kill all those who know and burn the books. Wars aren't usually fought to destroy cultures and natural disasters don't have any objective or agenda, but they can put things back a lot.


Or then you can have ideas like Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge had of truly starting over...by killing all of the present "intellectuals".


At least historically one can see that a lot of knowledge has been lost in the past only to be reinvented or rediscovered later. Just imagine a world where the library of Alexandria and every book and manuscript there would have made it intact without any fire or any religious fanatic burning the books to the present. At least the History of Antiquity would be quite different.

The connexion between science and philosophy stretches back to the very beginning of philosophy or should I say science. Is there a difference? — TheMadFool

Only that perhaps philosophy does have some fields that clearly aren't science or scientific. Or you have to have quite a philosophical view to think that Aesthetics, Ethics, Religious Philosophy or Metaphilosophy are part of science.

And since there are no Philosophical Facts,
Both SSU and The Mad Fool must agree that there can be no Scientific Facts.
THIS IS CALLED LOGIC — Rxspence

No.

Actually that is only your Philosophy.

The philosophy of that "there are no Philosophical Facts, hence there can be no Scientific Facts".

Sorry, but you cannot do without Philosophy here. Logic needs a logical system. And picking that system to model reality is a philosophical choice.

So-called "virus" is 100% political scam. - All alternative medications proven to be effective are minimized and reduced to "fake science" or whatever they can come up. — protonoia

Yeah. Being logical is so overrated.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/covid-19-could-become-like-the-flu-if-more-people-get-vaccinated-11631439002?mod=mhp

From the WSJ. — Xtrix

One doctor that I know said this earlier this summer: we'll get shot just as we can get the annual flu shot. And history how pandemics have transformed sure would say that this could become the future.

Personally, I like it when predictions are made— like in the QAnon conspiracy theory — because when they fail to come true (as they always do), the failure is palpable. But most nonsense doesn’t make predictions, and in fact can’t be falsified in any way. — Xtrix

One simply has to have general knowledge and insight to the issue. What matters even more is to understand the political biases that people have. Usually these are given far too much importance, but the easy simple way is to watch or read the different coverage of an issue. This is very useful as you can easily understand what are the facts and what part is story told in the certain way. Once you understand the bias what Fox News, RT Today, MSNBC, CNN has, it's easy to spot an agenda. The conspiracist will not do this: he or she will cling on to one true narrative and not even look at what other (false) narratives there are of the issue. Because the other is "the evil propaganda" of the "evil actors".

I think all that’s left is to understand how and why people come to these immovable positions in the first place. — Xtrix

Well, let's just remember that even in this site you start to argue about mathematics something that is clearly wrong, I think those who do reply to you will have "immovable positions". The basic thing again comes down to the level of general knowledge the person has.

Without basic school level knowledge of things people will be the most insane things.

Is it even worth it to engage with these people?

They're immune to facts and they will not change their minds no matter what happens, which is interesting psychologically. But should we engage for the sake of others who are rational but "on the fence"? — Xtrix

Some are, but are they all like that?

And what issues do you put into this category "not worth to engage"?

How about those who say that the Lab-leak hypothesis of the Corona-pandemic should be investigated? Or those who claim Pakistan to be the culprit of terrorism? Or what about the attack on USS Liberty in 1967?

Remember that this is also the way to control the public discussion. In it's obvious case. Sometime the "village nut" is the only one that is talking sanity. I've experienced in my own country during the Cold War when the existence of the Soviet Union was totally given. Anybody who would have anticipated that the Soviet Union would collapse would have been marked as a lunatic. You don't engage with lunatics.

That said, unfortunately you are also correct. Most of them do already think that everybody else that "those who have seen the light" are against them. Other people are "the Sheeple", who don't use at all their own brains but slavishly repeat what is given to them. This attitude makes them already confrontational and not open for discussion. And if they get banned from sites, the feeling just intensifies.

Why does a self reference lead to paradoxes so many times? — VincePee

Because you can make negative feedback loops, which math & logic have a problem with.

Basically one gets the problem easily when thinking of algorithms and computers.

Now you cannot program a computer, that basically follows algorithms with the command:

"Do something else, not written on this program".

The self-referential part is that the computer is following this program. Then it would have to do something not in the program. It cannot, because it's following algorithms. There are no instructions how to "do something else", because if there was, it thus then would be written in the program.

Well, the Taliban aren't going to be just left with their own ideas. The neighboring countries and the Great Powers, even if not enthusiastically, will try to influence what will happen in Afghanistan. Hence they won't be left alone I think.

For example Vietnam didn't have it peaceful after the South collapsed and the country was unified. Then they had a border war with China and then intervened and overthrew the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia. Only afterwards it's been rather peaceful in that area of the World. even if South-East Asia has it's fair share of insurgents lurking in the jungles.

And Pakistan is still a member of the British Commonwealth which has exactly the same map as the British Empire: — Apollodorus

And this just shows just how awesome the English, sorry, the British are in these things. Russia tried this with the CIS, but failed to get the Baltics obviously into this commonwealth and has fought wars and annexed parts of former members Ukraine and Georgia. Other members naturally have taken notice of this. So not so friendly Commonwealth that one after all.

And they don't play cricket.



This just shows the strategic narcissism of the US and it's carefree ignorance of the objectives of other countries.

When it comes to Afghanistan in 2001, the real objective would have been to give assurances to Pakistan that it can indeed leave out in the cold it's own creation, the Taliban, yet be totally confident that it's back, Afghanistan, will be safe from Indian influence. The Afghan question is a huge one for Pakistan as there is the Durand line dividing the Pashtuns into two and Afghanistan even itself has been a threat to Pakistan. Here was the opportunity for the US to use it's closest ally, the UK, perhaps through it's Commonwealth connections to assure that indeed Pakistan would be safe and on the same time reassure India that there was no foul play here.

But that didn't happen. The US diplomacy was then "either you are with us or against us". And while from the start the US was declaring that it was only in Afghanistan because of Al Qaeda and would not be long around, it's totally natural for Pakistan to believe this "We will go out from here" message and both back the Taliban and play along with the War on Terror.

And when Pakistan did this, what could the US do? Bomb Islamabad? Hence not only get the remnants of the Taliban fight against it, but also have even Punjabis from Pakistan to volunteer to fight in Afghanistan against the US? Add one nuclear armed country to the Axis-of-evil?

No, here the strategic narcissism, term invented aptly by former national security advisor H.R. McMaster, kicked in and caused the Pakistani aid to the Taliban simply becoming a "politically-incorrect" issue and the continuation of US aid to Pakistan becoming a reason for a hope that somehow Pakistan would change it's course. US simply didn't know what to do with Pakistan. Yet with the aid from Pakistan and the sanctuary of Pakistan, the Taliban won the war.

The muteness about Pakistan and it's role in the collapse of the Afghan government and the victorious offensive of the Taliban tells how incapable the US is to face real geopolitics and will easily lull itself into repeating it's own invented discourse about the events where no thought was given to other actors than itself.

But it is wrong to assume that the British have no influence. It's just that they prefer to operate in a more behind-the-scenes way than the French. — Apollodorus

I agree with this.

But what's the point of having that subtle behind-the-scenes approach when you have to just take what a US President hastily decides things without even consulting you first? Was the UK government informed about the deal with the Taliban during the Trump administration? To my knowledge, no. Was the UK government consulted when the Afghan government was collapsing? Again, to my knowledge, no.

What's the point of having a smart behind-the-scenes diplomacy when the Leader of the alliance simply makes decisions for itself without ever consulting you?

From that point, things got more and more lethal. US Deputy State Secretary Richard Armitage did tell the Pakistanis after 9/11 in 2001 that the US would bomb them back to the Stone Age if they didn't sort out the terrorists. But the Pakistanis have carried on playing their usual double game, and the West got fooled one more time. — Apollodorus

The US doesn't attack countries with known nuclear weapons. It attacks only the one's with alleged nuclear weapons.

Sounds reasonable, actually.



(Even if it should be noted that Pakistani soldiers do have been killed in US drone strikes. Oops.)

Good informative response.

It's no wonder that the ISI is praised for it's professionalism as it has obviously been set up by talented experts, the British, in the first place.

Yet the interesting thing here to note that when Great Britain indeed had influence on the institutions of these young countries, it didn't go the way France has gone with it's colonies especially in Africa. When you look at the French in Sub-Saharan Africa, they basically never left and intervene all the time still. France stayed in Africa. France never shread the idea of it being one of the Great Powers. The UK looked and found a place next to the US as it's trusted ally (which now looking things, wasn't such an outstanding move as the US doesn't care much if anything about it's allies, when they don't have a lobby group like the AIPAC). France sustained it's armed forces ability to operate independently and the French Foreign Legion has been quite active even after the wars of decolonization ended.

Neo-imperialism after decolonization? All the foreign militaries in Africa. Note the amount of bases that France has:


The UK was a different animal. It was humbled by the Suez Crisis and largely put aside that imperial touch that it had earlier. Especially faced with a catastrophic Palestine withdrawal, it didn't stay there as a major player. To sell arms to the oil rich countries was enough I guess. BP found other places (like the North Sea) to operate than Iran. Operation Ajax wouldn't have happened if it wouldn't have been for Kermit Roosevelt and the CIA. During the Cold War once the greatest Navy in the World assumed it's primary role to be anti-submarine warfare, not power projection, which likely was the reason for the Falklands/Malvinas war. (If the Royal Navy would have held to one flat top carrier with F-4 Phantoms, it would have likely deterred Argentina from trying to annex the Falklands.)

This means that when we make larger historical projections, we should note that the UK of today is quite different from the Empire it had in the past. It doesn't have the similar aspirations and not the similar will for imperialism as in the past. Hence today it's much more important what the followers of ZIa think to do now than what the UK foreign office thinks to do there.

It might well be in the future what the US thinks and what it's President says doesn't matter so much as earlier, if the withdrawal continues.

How Pakistan view the World, according to the Pakistani cartoonist Sabir Nazar:

That violence can defeat science. There is a tipping point after which, it's just all decay. — Caldwell

Violence can defeat quite much everything.

Yet I think even the most violent, ruthless tyranny will look at part of science as important: to get technological advancements in warfighting and surveillance and control capabilities. Those who want for the society to "go back" into a better time still somehow acknowledge that in the defense of their realm they have to have up-to-date weaponry. Naturally such limited interest in science won't do much, but at least it's not anything.

Yet I think the real danger is that science falls down to similar level as technological innovation, thought as just a part needed in investment to get economic growth, to improve our existing gadgets. When science falls down from it's actual philosophical quest for new knowledge, that will be "the decay" of science. Nobody will admit it has happened or will happen when it happens.

Science is then just a 9 to 5 job for people who have trained to be scientists. And their agenda is to get financial support to basically have a job that feeds themselves and their families. And this money comes from various donors that are interested in certain type of research. And hence scientific research is not made by curiosity, but by the interests of foundations and those who have money.

So what does the "decay of science" look like?

It's like the historian that dreams of writing history about things that interest him or her when he or she is retired. But before that, the historian has to write histories that he or she is successful in getting funding. That historian, even if not a scientist, isn't alone.



And of course, the academic world can easily be made extremely bureaucratic and not have the least interest to do actual science, but replace it with pseudoscience.

Even if an Indian news channel might be biased against Pakistan, still it looks quite clear that Pakistan is at least assisting if not supervising the Taliban.



Pakistan's objectives are clear, if not perhaps obtainable. Yet as usual, the US wasn't interested in them (who cares to think about what other nations intend) and hence the defeat in Afghanistan.

Analysts and officials in Pakistan believe the Taliban’s victory serves dual purposes. It helps Pakistan to secure its interests in Afghanistan both by having a friendly group in charge of the government and by limiting the space for Indian engagement in Kabul. Pakistan has long accused regional rival India of working to destabilize its western border region via Afghanistan. With the Taliban in power, the sense in Islamabad is that alleged foreign support for terror groups like the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and for Pashtun and Baloch nationalist groups will diminish. In addition, Pakistan hopes that a Taliban-led government will provide it with opportunities to expand its geoeconomic footprint as it seeks to connect Central Asia with access to the Arabian Sea at Gwadar. This strategy expects that the Taliban will both be able to effectively stabilize Afghanistan and prevent anti-Pakistan groups from launching attacks, both of which are questionable assumptions.

The Arabs did not have an advanced culture. — Apollodorus

Yeah, this is your punchline argument. Hmm.

What I was referring to was that for the Mamluks, the vassals of the Ottomans, and for the Ottomans themselves the French invasion force was a surprise. Only some 115 years earlier the Ottomans had been sieging Vienna, but now an equal size force of French nearly annihilated the Mamluk / Ottoman force without losing many troops in the Battle of the Pyramids.

But of course, Napoleon later fled back to France and the French force was later destroyed. But it showed what was to come, yet the Ottoman Empire couldn't pull off a Meiji Restoration like Japan did. Is this due to religion or because of the problems of the Ottoman Empire, I don't know. It's an interesting question. Hence when WW1 came around, the Ottomans were not ready and couldn't stay out of the war.

The communists of the USSR were atheist and deterministic, firmly rejecting quantum physics and Einstein's relativity. — Athena

I knew only Lysenkoism and it's war against genetics, but naturally the "political correctness" went on to every field of science there is.

Well, likely the atomic bomb turned Stalin's opinion about it in an instant!

Islam was both liberal and scientific when it was the center of world trade. — Athena

When it was. It's an interesting history just why it then went into the backwardness and only was abruptly awakened by Napoleon invading Egypt. But then it was too late and the Ottoman Empire was "the sick man of Europe".

So, the Soviets intervened to protect the communist-led regime, not a particular individual. — Apollodorus

Yes. Just like they did in Hungary 1956 or in Czechoslovakia 1968.

It's interesting to note that to crush the "Prague Spring" the Soviet Union along with Poland, Bulgaria and Hungary, deployed half a million troops into the small country. The Soviet forces in Afghanistan were of the similar size of the Obama surge later (little over 100 000), which in both occasions wasn't enough to pacify the rather large mountainous country.

Of course Pakistan had (and still has) an interest in extending its influence over Afghanistan. No one disputes this. — Apollodorus

I think it's just an issue that we just should remember, because too many times we see everything from the prism of the West doing things in the World. Having the typical narrative that nearly all bad happens in the World because of the US (or something like that). The US is just one actor and in these regions the countries themselves have their own independent objectives and agendas. To think of them just as pawns or victims of the US or the West is just wrong.

Are there things we can’t describe with the English language?

Some philosophers think this way. Or that basically some things ought to be uttered in the actual language they were first used in the specific meaning.

They have to use terms like da sein when talking about existential philosophy of Heidegger. They just irk if someone just translates it to Heidegger's "existence", or "being their".

Nope.

Use the German word. Closer to what Heidegger meant.

Well, proving a conspiracy can be next to impossible, or entirely impossible, that's the whole point of a conspiracy. — baker

Actually not.

Start with finding people who have absolutely no connection and focusing on totally different aspects noting the conspiracy. Learn the history. Above all, real conspiracies do leave traces.

Then think it through yourself. Does Slovenian politics resort to such antics? Who would artificially create this pseudo-group? Slovenia is a very small country. What goes around comes around.

Only vaguely. It seems very complex. Are you referring to the roles of Les éradicateurs and Les dialoguistes? — baker

Basically about the role of the GIA in that conflict.

There are many accusations that the Algerian government helped the GIA and even posed as GIA members when committing atrocities. Then there is the history that basically the group was more interested in attacking the islamists and the AIS, the major insurgent alliance. When the islamists wanted to get France to act as an mediator in the conflict, the GIA suddenly made a terrorist attacks in France (and France started to back the Algerian government). And then when the peace deal was made...poof! The GIA simply evaporated. Later Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb denounced the actions of GIA in indiscriminately killing of civilians.

I remember reading from a memoir of an ex-islamist radical that had turned informer how deep disagreements erupted at these activist cells about the actions GIA was taking in the fight (for example massacring whole villages).

And there's simply many references on just how GIA worked for the government:

The GIA was widely reported to have been infiltrated by state agents who tried to cause divisions within the Islamist camp. Analysts argue that the army’s manipulation of the GIA was a key factor preventing the development of a unified rebel front. Unlike the other armed groups, the GIA carried out indiscriminate attacks against civilians, abducted and killed foreigners, planted bombs in public spaces and committed massacres across the countryside. In 1995, the GIA declared all Algerians to be takfir, or apostates.

The last sentence sounds absolutely bizarre, but it's true. Algerians weren't worthy of them!

Of course this is sidestepping the actual topic, but I'm trying to make the point that if there is really a conspiracy, then there will be real traces of it. Nonexistent events don't leave them.

A good response , just some observations about it:

In 1979, the Soviets invaded Afghanistan to protect the communist-led government there. — Apollodorus

Right. By first killing the Afghan president. I wouldn't use the term "protect" there.

In addition, they were trained, funded, and armed by Pak (ISI), US (CIA), and UK (MI6, SAS), becoming the Mujahedin guerrillas fighting the Soviets. — Apollodorus

I think it's more true to say that the CIA simply organized the money and arms procurement while the Pakistani ISI was basically in control of day to day operations and which rebel groups got the arms. No CIA agents entered Afghanistan, while some British agents did enter the country to train the rebels.

Pakistani ISI wasn't here a rogue actor or an agent of the CIA, the Pakistani involvement was lead directly from the top, from general Zia ul-Haq, the dictator of Pakistan who was a devote muslim. I think he is the main reason just why Pakistan got so entangled with islamist terrorists in the first place.

After the Soviets withdrew in 1989, the same Jamaat-Deobandi infrastructure that was used to radicalize the Mujahedin, was used to radicalize the Taliban. Taliban founder Mullah Omar graduated from a Deobandi school in Pakistan, joined the Mujahedin and founded the Taliban in 1994. — Apollodorus

I would hold the ISI having here a bigger role than just islamic schools on the creation and backing of the Taliban movement.

From 1996 to 2001, the Taliban held about two thirds of Afghanistan until they were beaten by a coalition of Mujahedin and Western forces, after which the Taliban withdrew over the border to Pakistan from where they have been launching attacks into Afghanistan until they seized power again in 2021. — Apollodorus

Northern Alliance would be proper as both Pashtun fighters of the Taliban and members were mujaheddin opposing the Soviet invasion. That Pakistan could be both "being an ally in the War on Terror" and supporting the Taliban and harboring Al Qaeda leaders and then get away with it is at least to me quite incredible.

President Imran Khan meeting Trump...


...and then meeting the Taliban, those that have now "broken the shackles of slavery" according to him:


And Pakistanis are quite open about the role of the ISI in this. The former ISI director Hamid Gul went on to say in Pakistani TV the following:



And where did they find OBL?

If the misinformation on the internetz can be traced back to a relatively small number of sources, this is suspicious and smells of sabotage. — baker

Yes. If it is so.

But notice the other options:

a) For Media programs it's great for ratings to get the most extreme views to be declared on the program, even that a fight starts (perhaps even a physical one). Moderate views and boring experts that argue about complex details, yet understand or respect others viewpoints hardly makes a good show for basically an audience that wants more entertainment than actual information.

b) It genuinely is possible that a cabal of crazies do something as absurd as storm the TV in Slovenia. Slovenia is a small country (very beautiful, btw) and I assume they aren't security obsessed there.

Basically you really have to find links that would approve that there's a conspiracy and not options a) or b) would be likely.

Are you familiar with the series Person of Interest? — baker

Are you familiar with the history of the Algerian civil war?

It is my understanding the stated purpose of communism and Islam in the physical, social, mental, and spiritual well-being of everyone in a civilized society and I am having a hard time understanding why the British and Americans are opposed to that? — Athena

Likely as just like with communism, it's the means how this "well-being of everyone" is achieved I guess.

I think the basic uneasiness with the Muslim Brotherhood is that it doesn't respect so much "Western" democratic values like minority rights etc.

Last night, a group of covid deniers stormed the studios of Slovenian national television. — baker

Sorry baker, but I'll have to ask this.

Were they really "covid deniers"?

To myself a "covid denier" would be someone who denies that millions of people have died of COVID-19. Not people that are against the policies implemented to fight the pandemic.

Were these really people who don't accept that there has been a pandemic?

Thesis: If you want to control the situation, create an extreme opposition to yourself that you can control, and this will help you to control the legitimate opposition. — baker

Well this sounds like a counter-insurgency tactic!

If you have an insurgency that has a) popular support, b) sound reasoning behind it, c) possibility to gain outside acceptance and justification, then this is the way to go. Create a group that is so bananas, so insanely crazy, and make them to attack the reasonable (actual) insurgents.

Worked in Algeria!

Yet the abortion rate is about the same as in the US, at least in more recent years. — praxis

There you have it. It's not all about the existing laws, but how they are implemented. And how the society works.

Besides, one should note that both in the US and in the Nordic countries contraceptives are popular in use. This basically is more of a moral or a philosophical issue (and indeed fits perfectly in a Philosophy Forum).

Is this something that can be laid out in a few sentences? And what are the consequences of the laws? — tim wood

Uh, no.

I'll refer to my original post on another thread (one year ago):

For some reason this isn't a hot topic in any Nordic country (I could be wrong, but I haven't heard about abortion clinics set on fire or the thing...)

Sweden:
Women can freely opt for abortion before 18th week. After that they have to have permission from the authorities and after 22nd week it isn't allowed.

Finland:
Abortion requires the signature of at least one physician (and in some cases, two), and in some cases additional permission from Valvira (the National Supervisory Authority for Welfare and Health). One doctor's signature is enough in the case of terminations 0-12 weeks when the applicant is under 17 years old or has passed her 40th birthday. Above 20 weeks, a threat to the physical life of the mother is the only valid reason for terminating a pregnancy.

Denmark:
Women can also freely opt for abortion before 12 weeks. An abortion can be performed after 12 weeks if the woman's life is in danger and even in cases where the woman has mental health problems. A woman may also be granted an authorization to abort after 12 weeks if certain circumstances are proved to be present (such as poor socioeconomic condition of the woman; risk of birth defects to baby; the pregnancy being the result of rape; mental health risk to mother)

Norway:
Women can have abortion on before 12 weeks, by application up to the 18th week, and thereafter only under special circumstances until the fetus is viable, which is usually presumed at 21 weeks and 6 days.
Abortion on request is legal until the end of the 22nd week of pregnancy

Iceland:
Abortion on request is legal until the end of the 22nd week of pregnancy. The request can be done for many reasons. Medically, an abortion is lawful if a pregnancy threatens a woman's physical or mental health, if the fetus has a serious congenital defect, or if the woman is deemed incapable of caring for a child because of her age or mental disability. Social grounds for allowing abortion include: if the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest; if the woman has had several children already with only brief periods between pregnancies; if the woman lives in a particularly difficult family situation; or if the woman's or her partner's ill health prevents them from being able to care for a child.

And if people don't know it, abortion laws in the US are actually more lax than in the Nordic countries. Alaska, Colorado, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, and Vermont don’t limit abortion by gestational age at all. I think Roe vs Wade puts the limit to 28 weeks. It can be argued that state by state, a nearly uniform consensus has emerged in America: After roughly two dozen weeks, women should not be able to get an abortion for non-medical reasons.

The Muslim League started the Caliphate Movement in 1919 to restore the Ottoman Caliphate and was of course in touch with Muslims from other countries, including Egypt.

Abul Ala Maududi was a leading Islamist ideologue who wrote al-Jihad fi al-Islam. (Jihad in Islam). — Apollodorus

Still, generally the Muslim Brotherhood is viewed to be founded in Egypt by Hassan Al-Banna.

Maududi was a member of the Caliphate Movement and inspired the creation of the Muslim Brotherhood (founded in 1928) and Jamaat-e Islami which he personally co-founded in 1941. — Apollodorus

There you said it yourself.

From what I read the primary driving forces were poverty and lack of education. Women are still intentionally educated at a fraction of the rate that men are. The gains in child mortality are primarily due to government midwife programs. — praxis

(I first thought you were responding to my next response about the Nordic countries... :joke: )

Yes, this is true. Povetry means lack of funding for everything. Lack of education means things won't change easily. Especially the illiteracy rates are extremely high in Afghanistan, although a lot have been done during the last twenty years. Naturally with women's education starting from the 90's Taleban policies anything would be an improvement. From it's neighbors only Pakistan has an low literacy rate (56%) while Iran has fairly high rate and the former Soviet Republics enjoy high literacy rates after enjoying many decades the (Russian) Soviet school system.

One of the worst things was the radical islamists like Al Qaeda actually were in favor of this "pious povetry". The backwardness was a blessing for them as Western materialism was not apparent in the country. These militant radicals would literally destroy economies. But let's see what happens.

Yet I think the Taliban would be happy to sustain the present health care system, but I'm not so sure how they can do it. The basic problem was that the now collapsed Afghan government was financed 80% by foreign aid and assistance, aid which now will go to near zero. That has to have an effect on Afghan health care.

This thread reminds me of it again.

The fact that my country, and Sweden and Norway and Iceland and Denmark are in fact are legally tougher at women getting an abortion than the US as abortion laws in the US are actually more lax than in the Nordic countries.

And for some reason there isn't a debate about in our countries as there is in the US.

It hardly comes to mind when looking at the US discourse about abortion.

Afghan women are immiserated to the degree that the child mortality rate is the highest in the world. Nothing expresses the sanctity of life and the love of children like the highest child mortality rate on the globe. — praxis

Gosh that's terrible. Imagine if the US was running the place for the last twenty years.

Oh wait. — StreetlightX

And if Afghanistan has the highest child mortality rate (exceeding countries in the Sahel region), then things have gotten better:

One Trump would have been passed as a peculiarity. But the unilateralism that Biden made it two in row and really put it out there.

I think Europe is the last place to understand this. Already Middle Eastern "allies" of the US are totally doing their own policies.

Next question: What will happen in Iraq?

Again there the situation is quite mad with parts of the Iraqi Army, the Shia militias, being hostile towards the US. Again the result of the actions of Trump (btw).

* * *

Here is in my view one of the best documentaries about the war in Afghanistan done in 2013, "This is what winning looks like". The meltdown of the Afghan Army is quite understandable after seeing documentaries like this. It really shows how badly the war was going even then. One of the excellent Vice-documentaries, when the news media was young and independent.

The topic is "Afghanistan, Islam and national success". Perhaps you have forgotten. — Apollodorus

No, yet Afghanistan is different from Pakistan. And wasn't part of British India. The influence that the British had until 1919 was limited.

Pakistan was part of British India and that was where the Muslim League, the Muslim Brotherhood, Jamaat-e Islami, and eventually, the Taliban started. No? — Apollodorus

This is incorrect. Muslim Brotherhood was started in Egypt.