What rating & time control? I'm around 1900/2000 level on chess.com at 10 minute. I wouldn't typically mention this in conversation.

I also keep in mind that just because people may talk about frivolous topics doesn't mean that they are that shallow and frivolous. But some are. But not necessarily. I also find that there many different types of intelligences (social, emotional, mental, etc.)

Yet as I get older, I look around to see a lot of passivity, no thinking, no ideas, no passion, no vision, no interests in anything harder than sports or movies or mortgage rates or career advancement, a house, a car, marriage, and some kids. I had to even get on a philosophy forum just for an occasional outlet in this particular area — but it extends to government and education and parenting and health and jobs and money too. I don’t really feel like everyone around me are stupid automata, I just feel like is difficult and busy and people get distracted, are tired from work, etc. — Mikie

Those are safe topics. If people discussed philosophy and politics all the time they'd end up hating each other. Best to keep it safe.

And regarding chess, you sound like a big fish in a small pond. Chess is one of those sports where you'll be humbled quickly no matter how good you are.

This one is the area that I need to work the most on. I usually avoid women in public places (: It is time to get thrown to the wolves. — Bob Ross

My advice: Work on establish comfort, connection & rapport before diving into the "what is your worldview and is it rationally coherent" discussion. :wink:

If you're serious about it pick up the gospels and emulate the character that Jesus describes down to the T.

With the difference that they actually built the houses and worked the farms. — Vera Mont

:vomit:

Guess that makes two of us then.

https://migrant-integration.ec.europa.eu/library-document/institutional-racism-netherlands_en

Sounds like you have apartheid in your backyard.

Jesus Christ that's funny. — Benkei

Can you cite me laws then showing this institutional discrimination? E.g. Are non-Jews barred from voting? Holding positions in government?

Everyone agrees Judaism is a religion. You don't agree with the idea that it is an ethno-religion. Regarding Israel, I believe being Jewish only benefits one when it comes to immigration -- countries like Greece and Spain have similar rules where it's easier to emigrate there if you have it in your ancestry.

But under the law, once citizens, Jew and non-Jew are equal.

Now you're just making your own personal definition. I can do the same. To be a Christian, one must have known Christ personally while he was still alive.

Yes, just as Christian and Muslims determine their own definitions. We don't insist that they use our logic. Ultimately self-definition will be decided by that community.

I'm sympathetic to native american claims to get back some parts of the land to which they are indigenous to. It's been extremely destructive to those communities to try to erase that heritage.

Ancestral home means nothing because it's a religious claim. — Benkei

A civilizational claim. And also apparently you have no regard for native american claims either.

a longstanding tie to a biological, ethnic, or cultural identity, along with a historical connection to a particular region, could be used as such to define a people who have identified with it for generations? — schopenhauer1

Sure? Jewish self-definition is derived from a sort of religious reasoning formed and discussed over thousands of years. Any outsider who takes issue with it should be ignored until he engages the reasoning behind it.

And thanks for the informative post.

Not until you tell me the real definition of Jew. I'm having an identity crisis.

basically what you're saying:

Those Jews don't know what a Jew is but I do religious people are so stupid.

According to the biblical story, the ancestors wandered all over those lands from Turkey to Egypt. — Vera Mont

Yes apparently Abram was briefly in Turkey as were the Israelites in Egypt. Does Judaism form in Turkey? No. Or in Egypt? No. It forms in the latter half of the first millennium bc in modern day Israel. It's a several century process from around 500 bc to 100 bc.

The ancestors are different from Judaism.

Indigenous in what way, according to what source? — Vera Mont

Jewish identity is born in that region -- in Israel. According to any number of scholars that I could cite if need be (it's not a debate, more an established fact). I'm talking second temple period but we can go back a little earlier.

Presence is not possession and confers no rights. — Vera Mont

It is the ancestral homeland of the Jews making the Jews indigenous to it. It might not matter to you, but it matters to them.

That's a tradition, a history, a memory - not an excuse for carnage. — Vera Mont

Yes they can go to Africa and be ruled by Africans. Muslims can go to ~50 countries and be ruled by Muslims. Jews are lucky to have one. Israel has already survived several wars which would have destroyed it had it lost.

Barred from Jerusalem after the third major revolt. — Vera Mont

There were two waves: One in 70 and one in 135. There were Jews who remained in the region and have had a continuous presence since antiquity. These Jews were still subject to persecution under Arab rulers. So the violence is not just due to the "occupation" but rather occurred well before it and the heightened the need for a Jewish state.

If you lose a big one, you lose the land you're living on - which is ancestral through some finite number of generations, — Vera Mont

Yes they were expelled from their ancestral homeland in 135 AD. They lost possession of their ancestral homeland.

There is no large contingent of African Americans descending on Ghana to claim it as their ancestral home — Vera Mont

Yet if they do have an ancestral homeland it is in Africa.

It's not their ancestral homeland. That's an idiotic religious claim that anybody that isn't a Jew doesn't recognise. — Benkei

Question: Let's say a group of Jews are expelled by the Romans from Judea in 135 AD. The community goes to Alexandria and continues to preserve those traditions and maintains its distinctiveness & maries among itself. In 235 AD is Israel still their ancestral homeland or have they lost it? Are they now indigenous to Alexandria? How about 335 AD?

And what do we say about African Americans? Indigenous to a Georgia plantation?

And it would be great if you'd recognise that Israel does exactly the same

It does not as Israeli soldiers do not go from house to house murdering Palestinians because they are Palestinians. It does not commit rapes. It does not take Palestinians hostage and bring them to rape dungeons. It does not aim for civilians. If it did there would be no more Palestinians.

Do you have sympathy for a criminal when the victim hurts him? — Benkei

Is this a good comparison for, say, a 7 year old Israeli child who happened to be born and raised near the Gaza border or anywhere in Israel? For this "crime" they are considered valid targets by Hamas.

I can sympathize with the persons that were attacked on 7 Oct. because on a individual level they are innocent. — Benkei

Good. That's what matters. Individuals murdered. Not killed; murdered. Slaughtered in house to house violence deliberately on their ancestral homeland.

But Israel as a political entity doesn't get my sympathy. — Benkei

Fine with me I don't feel sympathy or empathy towards states or abstract entities either. It is individuals that matter.

There wouldn't be any resistance if there wasn't injustice — Benkei

Hamas openly seeks Jerusalem as its capital according to the charter. There will be resistance as long as that is not the case.

I don't think we're going to get anywhere if you have zero sympathy for the victims on the Israeli side. Dead Israelis might just be faceless oppressors to you but they are my people. You dehumanize Israelis.

You never view them as people who suffer. Two intifadas and 10/7 mostly directed towards random civilians. Palestinian "resistance" has a habit of that. There is no excuse for those "tactics."
— BitconnectCarlos

No, oppressors don't get sympathy.
-- Benkei

No need to continue.

When you cite stats it would be nice if you had a source.

I'm quite concerned that President Biden is now attempting to imprison his main political rival and doesn't even seem to deny such a thing. A very dangerous precedent that may very well come back to bite the Democrats.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/4v7I97wKImc

Enough said.

These stats from the Gaza Health ministry? Or does violence towards zionists just not count as "violence"?

I've just accepted the double standards as a fact of life. A black police officer was murdered during those protests and not a peep from the George Floyd crowd.

Let me know when they start razing blocks and destroying stores.

Anyone notice the lack of rioting and looting after the Trump verdict? No shops smashed; just a cool $50m raised for Trump. I can't help but notice the stark difference in tactics (violence) between the two sides and it seems like America has noticed this too - betting markets favor Trump.

The fatality ratio is about 1:1 combatant:civilian so historically quite good and not at all unreasonable.

Is Israel not allowed to bomb them? Is that the main atrocity? Or is shooting them also an atrocity?

It's not tu quoque Hamas is stealing the aid and preventing its distribution.

Being oppressed does not make one good or right. Tens of thousands of Israeli civilians have also been displaced by rockets so they are also refugees.

Is this a psychology forum or a philosophy one?



Weasel words by a biased organization. :yawn:

What do you make of the fact that Hamas steals most of the aid and keeps it for themselves? Or sells it at a much higher price? The problem with the aid is the distribution. Israel can send it in but Hamas takes it.

How many have actually died of starvation? Are we able to get facts on this?

I've started from the reasonable (or at least in my opinion a reasonable) stance that Israel should show restraint against civilians and civilian targets like the US did while it was fighting against Al Qaeda and ISIS. — ssu

It absolutely has and I've seen Israel avoid conducting strikes because there were civilians around. I've seen them ship in boatloads of aid. I've seen then provide medical care for wounded Palestinians. Israel has shown restraint.

you didn't hear about civilians starving to death in Iraq or accusations of it used as a tool by the US while fighting the insurgents. — ssu

There were also rumors going around of the IDF raping. These were shown to be false. Also rumors of the IDF harvesting organs from palestinians. When much of the world hates you they'll throw any charge at you. It doesn't matter whether it's true; only that it sticks in the mind of others. If you charge someone or some place with enough crimes of such a gruesome nature, truth doesn't really matter anymore. The association is already there.

Anyone who takes hostages to place them in rape (and torture) dungeons qualifies as an enemy to me -- an enemy of humanity.

If Israel is committing war crimes so has everyone and maybe war just is war crimes; you do shoot at the enemy, after all.

You're okay with killing any number of incidental civilians who happen to live in a town or a city block — Vera Mont

No. Modern civilized armies strive to avoid civilian casualties. But they still are inevitable in any war.

And their deaths are on the hands of the enemy who breached a border and murdered ~1000 of that country's civilians. And took hostages which are repeatedly subject to sexual abuse.

This is patently false. Hamas has signalled being open for negotiations along the 1967 borders since 2017. — Benkei

I want your house, Benkei. I'll be open to negotiations once you grant me your living room. Will you negotiate with me?

BTW I have several of your countrymen/ethnic group as hostages who I do unspeakable things to. Now cede your territory and we can begin negotiations.

No, oppressors don't get sympathy. — Benkei

Do you have any sympathy for Chinese victims of Muslim terror? How about 9/11 victims? Oppressors, right? Just chickens coming home to roost?

I doubt they need much instruction beyond the regular Israeli bombardments. — Vera Mont

Israel's targets are terrorists, the targets of terror are very often civilians. Their governments reward them for this. What is Israel supposed to do? You tell me.

That's a bit of a chicken and egg story and the Palestinians can say the same.

This is an interesting point that should be followed up on. My question would then be what % of Israelis in the public and in the Israeli government seek to annex Gaza and the WB into "greater Israel?" Gaza was not historically Israel.

There's no need to go back to the 30s and 40s but if we do the Grand Mufti was an extremely ugly figure. Good Israelis try to put this behind them. Different times now.

Given that, if you say Israel is a viable negotiation partner then obviously the other side is as well. — Benkei

You can't expect a country to negotiate with a group that wants to annex it and denies its right to exist. Hamas isn't asking for reform; it's asking for an end to Jewish self-rule.

In other words, Zionists are acting like a bunch of pussies and pretending to be a victim. — Benkei

You never view them as people who suffer. Two intifadas and 10/7 mostly directed towards random civilians. Palestinian "resistance" has a habit of that. There is no excuse for those "tactics."

And in an era of WMDs large modern armies don't ensure survival.

No, not at all. Hamas horribly oppresses their own and teaches them to hate.

They're already able to import that. Palestinians receive billions in aid yearly. Much of it just goes to the Hamas leadership who are themselves billionaires. Gaza isn't destitute either; there were many luxury hotels and really nice cars there before 10/7.

Israel (and Egypt) monitors for dangerous materials but humanitarian aid is fine.

Viable = too weak to get even the minimum of their requirements? — Vera Mont

It's not a matter of weakness.

If Gaza became a state Hamas would be able to import whatever it liked.