Yes, you can live in harmony with others by exploiting them, lying to them, robbing them, raping them and their children, killing their friends and loved ones and in general by having no regard for their feelings at all....just as long as they don't mind. — John

I was only pointing out a possible logical exception to the reasoning jamalrob forwarded. Obviously, the weakness in all these formulations are the premisses of which he already highlighted the first. The second is logically also problematic.

Some will question whether it's characteristic of a human being to want to live in harmony with others, so that the argument is seen to come down to her own personal desire. And this is probably just a different way of putting the objection that the derivation concerns merely instrumental oughts and not moral obligations. This is the sticking point. — jamalrob

Or question whether that's the only way to live in harmony with others.

I didn't mean this thread to be anything else than to share situations that break your heart. Whatever else that has been read into it, was projection. Sometimes I just like to whine. X-)

Reading the posts, what does it say that people are more intent on arguing their worldview and what's wrong with the media, instead of thinking about ways to help? I'm not convinced we cannot do anything. Alleviating the symptoms is at least something. If we can't cure certain types of cancer, it doesn't mean we should stop caring for those people who have it. That would be a rather rotten thing to do.

why worry about solving problems abroad when you couldn't defend your own home if you had to? — Mongrel

Why does one preclude the other in your view? I'm safe in my own country so I have the luxury to worry about other people and I think there's an ethical duty to do something (on me, I'm not saying my ethics should apply to you).

By the way, in case people care, the Red Cross is out of money to continue to provide aid in Syria (or so it says in Dutch media, so maybe it's just the Dutch entity).

I'm just amazed at how good we (people in general) are at abstracting away "little" incidents like this. "Ooh, it's his parents fault for staying in Aleppo", "It's the rebels fault for entrenching themselves in Aleppo", "It's the regime's fault for indiscriminately bombing Aleppo", "It's the Russians' fault for supporting the regime", "it's the West's fault for supporting the secular rebels".

They're all missing the fucking point - it's everybody's fault, collectively, and collectively we should be saying "Shit, we've gone too far when we're injuring (and killing) kids".

And I am for strong, decisive leaders. I just have a very different concept of this because I don't agree honesty, care and gentleness are contrary to being strong - in fact, I think they are prerequisites. Being strong to me means going that extra mile for others, even if you're tired as hell yourself. Shouldering the burdens yourself and not depending on others to solve them for you but accepting help (freely given) with grace if it's offered. And decisive, because you are living and acting on these convictions that you don't need to doubt about doing the right thing.

I couldn't have said it better myself m-theory and thank you for sharing that link.

Without actionable intelligence a government won't know who to target. Currently the goal is combating terrorism. Once it was socialists and gays. And in Germany it was Jews at some point.

And with Germany we have an interesting example: both Denmark and the Netherlands registered religion before ww2. A Danish civil servant set fire to that register. The Dutch register remained in tact. Now go Google and see how many Jews didn't escape from the Nazis in the Netherlands. That's why you don't hand over tons of information to a government that generally has the monopoly on violence.

↪Πετροκότσυφας I know that Benkei won't download the Philosophy of Religion forum. — Michael

Wrong. I WILL download it, only to have the satisfaction to then delete it! >:)

http://www.httrack.com/ — Πετροκότσυφας

That! Thank you. I wonder how big PF is though... before I run out of diskspace. But at least this way, current PF will be saved for posterity. For the time being I don't believe much in the way of quality will be added and I'd rather have an archive before they completely pull the plug.

Thanks but I was thinking about the entire website. If google can cache stuff, there should be some way to download it completely right? Or at least, that's what I was thinking.

Is there any way of downloading the website? As an archive PF already has a ton of value to me.

Low standards. Over 2 years that's an average of 3.6 GB in a lawfirm. That means mostly text documents. That's huge and should've been noticed, which probably means the guy worked in the IT department.

One of the reasons we're not seeing much US persons in the Panama Papers: Delaware.

And what a shitty IT unit at MF. How can you not notice a transfer of 2.6 TB of data?

This is, I think, a very nice, clear summary of the situation. — John

Not "very nice" though...

What Darwinian aspects? Her ethics is based on teleological biology from Aristotle. Paraphrased, the main rule in her ethics is that every function of a living organism should be its own survival.

How aptly you said it: "Planned re-elections".

Well, let's remember that Bashar had lots of time as he came to power in 2000. In a decade nothing yet happened. Now he might have indeed wanted reforms, but simply the whole setup of power wasn't going to be so. The simple fact is that he would have had to give up the family enterprise called Syria. Sunni's and others than people loyal to Assad would have had to come into power. When your father dealt with the Muslim Brotherhood as he done, there was no real way to hand off power and think that everything will go very civilized. In a way, the Assad regime was ready for this civil war. — ssu

Maybe an exchange of family members would be the way forward then. Like how they used to do it in the middle ages. Take his children as "proteges" and if he doesn't deliver on his promises execute them. Oh wait... that isn't quite ethical by modern standards any more. Dammit! :P

You implied it by discussing open marriage, which is a private agreement between spouses, as opposed to polygamy. Usually, people's choice of words is rather indicative of their actual motivations.

So they are allowed now. Good to have that clear.

In that case, after 3 pages it isn't clear to me what the problem is with people breaking a promise? What's so horrible about breaking a marriage vow as opposed to, say, hiding your mounting debts from gambling from your spouse?

People lie and cheat all the time, most types of lying and cheating isn't criminalised because it's perfectly human. Going by the number of divorces and cheating even before the existence of Ashley Madison, perfectly human.

Finally, if we're going to criminalise this, we should jail every hooker and mistress for tempting married men from having sex outside of marriage as well. But we all know that in the end the decision to cheat is a personal one that we cannot blame on alcohol, the existence of Ashley Madison, hookers or mistresses.

Assad was the epitome of reasonableness in this interview with Dutch news recently:



The fact that he's claiming to pursue a unity government with elections within 1,5 years seems to me to indicate he doesn't expect to hold out in the given circumstances and is looking to cut his losses. The absolutism of IS disqualifies them as a possible partner in that process but a unified front against IS would be good for Syrians as most probably the fastest way to security. Indirectly that will benefit the West as it would contain IS at a Western front.

A unified government representing Syrians broadly would also be an authority it would make sense for us to support through military action without military presence. I'd advise against support through military material as the proliferation of weapons anywhere just raises the probability of them being used. Once IS is kicked out of Syria, we should support the planned re-elections and help Syrians stabilise their country in a manner as they see fit.

There's a large difference between open marriages and allowing polygamy. Why shouldn't the latter be legally recognised? Both polygyny and polyandry and any mix thereof, of course.

Your assumption is still very much there but you don't seem to be aware of it.

Governments that promote monogamy should be sued to repeal those laws because it directly impacts my right to family life (however I should wish to form that), my sexual freedoms and privacy.

The OP seems to assume monogamy is the only moral relationship between partners but there's no proof for this.

It does not appear to have the Brutalism style anymore, I'am sure it is lurking here and there in the building, but the overall effect is too light, airy, clean, transparent and inviting to be Brutalism (IMHO). It was emasculated. — Cavacava

If you look closely, you'll see that that's mostly cosmetic. It appears "airy" because they covered the inner courtyard that used to be open with a glass roof.

There's some progress being made in the field of converting carbondioxide directly to fuels via catalytic processes. Feasible under lab conditions already but finding an abundant catalyst that's non-toxic and cheap... that's the difficult part because you need that to upscale the process to an industrial production.

The Dutch Ministry of Finance is housed in a brutalism building. At one point it became very old and the decision was to restore (and change drastically) because it was one of the few surviving buildings in the Netherlands of this style. So we have a lot of elements retained from it.

What they've basically done is enclose the exterior with glass, giving it a much lighter feel than it used to have. There's a collection of photos here.

http://www.reflexxion-architecture.eu/?page_id=2124

This is the old building:

Page 4, via Dutch Google when searching for "philosophy forum" (without quotes).

Page 1, via Duckduckgo.

There is much we can learn from enlightenment ideas, just as there is much we can learn from traditional settlement societies. But painting one or the other as 'western', not just in a historical sense, but as a way of maintaining culture boundaries, as if it were a moral duty to prevent good ideas from spreading - a sort of 'we don't take kindly to your types in here' response - is the very definition of illiberalism. It is quite shocking to hear it advocated by someone on the left. — Coolazice

Obviously posts (and my limited time) aren't a good medium to set out my exact ideas. The idea these rights are "universal", I think is a Western narrative. I think the current hierarchy of rights (what to do when they conflict) is a Western narrative.

When I attack these aspects it's in an attempt to deconstruct the Western narrative in order to allow us to move away from it - creating room to pursue social justice in wholly different ways, with possibly (slightly) different rights and most likely a different hierarchy and most definitely a different social organisation than the US or the Netherlands, which by the way already are very different.

I hope that clarifies a bit. It's why I don't like statements like "they need an enlightenment", because it projects a French/European coming about on a culture and time that are most likely not sufficiently similar and unnecessary.

Women rights activists in Egypt manage to argue their case within the concepts, history and writings of Islam. That should at least raise the question whether secularisation is really necessary.

Same with female equality; well before the West there was a time Muslim women were entitled to half the assets after a divorce, for instance. This right obviously doesn't exist any more but it was granted based on Islamic writing (hadith I think).

And I hope we can agree that enforcement has been attempted in plenty of places, most recently in Iraq and that it has been widespread.

Evidence casts doubt on some of these purported factors. — Jamalrob

I'm sorry but that's simply not true and it's not what Malik is saying either. Some factors are more important than others and the difficulty is that every terrorist radicalises in his own way - you have to comprehensively deal with all factors (and the above is not complete because I'm not writing a thesis here) - and that makes this a really complicated problem. There's a lot of research on this and there are outliers but on average that doesn't disprove the general theory (and it depends who you read as to what those factors are exactly) as 10+ research has established by now.

Malik's piece you linked you see he emphasises, by quoting Horgan and Atlantic, what I highlighted as "personal/motivational". There's a reason why ideology is dead last - just to point out that it needs to be there to be followed.

What's also interesting is that you claim it's a battle of ideas yet link Malik who basically says these people are not motivated by ideology. Why then, should they be inspired by the values you mentioned?

Also, to get back to a different point. I don't believe in the existence of universal values in the very real sense as non-existent. I wish they were because then these discussions would be unnecessary to some extent and because I do believe they're good values. "rights" are legal constructs that are expressions of these values and can be granted and taken away. This is precisely what they aren't universal.

So they're always contingent on time and cultures why I think they're basically a luxury. Privacy was a luxury too.

This is different from saying we shouldn't pursue them or that others cannot independently develop them or embrace them. Or that we shouldn't be selling them - obviously people in our own societies don't believe in them or we would have much higher adherence to them by our politicians.

So yes, they should be made as near as universal as possible (until we change to the point that we embrace other rights or a different hierarchy of rights) but that's different from saying that they are universal.

Like to add : in Rawls' On Justice, it's not a given every society at every time reaches the same conclusion. I think his theory is a reasonable approximation of getting to a description of justice in a given society.

Justice is a fluid and reflexive concept and it's not a given we can transpose values cross culturally (or across time for that matter).

if you look carefully you'll notice that the use of light bulbs is more widespread than the believe in these western values. Which is part of the point when I said we shouldn't be enforcing our narrative on other cultures. For instance, African pre-colonial dispute settlement has nothing to do with judges and courts and the introduction of courts to replace traditional settlement is one of the reasons that contribute to a high level of corruption in, for instance, Nigeria (or Niger, I forget).

Of course, we can reply "but that's not really what we meant and you're doing it wrong". Unfortunately already a lot of people around the world are thinking "what the fuck did democracy bring me but poverty and injustice?" and this is not just a few African countries but Asia and South America as well.

In addition, I don't believe in universal values any more. It's quite clearly a luxury only rich countries can afford - and that only in a limited and incomplete fashion.

Having said that, I'm interested in if you could unpack a bit more the counter argument because I get what you're saying that others can adopt these values, I just think we're over estimating such adoption levels.

I've offered a couple of ideas in this thread.

Some people (not you) think I'm part of the problem. For instance when I point out their "universal" values, Western values, because, you know, that's what they are.

Except for a few of course, the economic, social and cultural human rights were mostly a Russian and communist affair. But don't let history stop anyone here from being righteous.

It kind of pissed me off to be considered the problem to be honest. But that was just professional pride I guess, having graduated in the subject.

Some of my ideas are radical in the sense that I think we should focus solely on the root (radix) problems. I then think in sets of conditions, which conditions give rise to IS and local radicalisation.

I can't banish ideology, I can't kill it. But throughout time violent ideologies, even these particular wahhabist/salafist's ones, existed without having a meaningful following and therefore impact on others. So it's clear idea can exist without causing harm (so far, so obvious).

So factors/conditions for radicalisation we can influence are :

Abstract
1. Western foreign policy (to the extent it is unfair or immoral)
2. Racial inequality / discrimination
3. poverty

Personal/motivational
4. Personal experience (relates to 2 and 3)
5. sense of belonging (relates to 2)
6. Lack of education (not a rule of thumb but sufficiently correlated to take seriously)
7. Above may lead to wanting revenge or status

Ideological
7. violent ideology

We can offer different ideology but unlike jamalrob I don't put stock in repeating what we've been saying for 30 years because the reality is that we're not living up to those promises. And the reality is also, I want people to be angry (I know I am), I just don't want them to kill other people because of it.

So let them rage because there is poverty and they might be poor, there is inequality and they might have been treated unfairly, foreign policy is a mockery of justice. Let them radicalise in this sense, rage and protest against it. So change it. Change it all. It would be about fucking time. (which reminds me, who here went out on the streets to protest Iraq and Afghanistan? Who here has ever done a thing aside from talking about, to try and change the world for the better? I suspect too few...)

That's where, with regards to radicalisation, I think we need to focus our attentions and I cannot seem to factor bombs into it.

chickens and eggs. It's not about who started what but that it doesn't happen "accidentily" like bad weather. Terrorist actions don't happen out of the blue and ignoring the circumstances that attributed (and continue to attribute) to the conditions necessary to give rise to such extremism when they are essentially within our power to change is being stupid.

Stupid in the way that gets people killed.

Certainly, addressing all valid criticisms will not make terrorist attacks go away soon but it will mean a lower probability of them and less recruits for their cause at a very low cost really; practising what we preach.

http://m.huffpost.com/ca/entry/8582482

Pretty much sums up my feeling about the whole affair (the embedded movie)

The Turks will agree to it when hell freezes over because they don't want the PKK to have sanctuary on the other side of the border. But who knows.

Because the last time we declared a new country in the middle of fuck all it went so well... >:O

frisky...

This just doesn't ring true to how life works though. — schopenhauer1

Interesting. Most people don't have time to ask existential questions to begin with so it seems that's more "how life works" than what we're doing here. :D

Just want to add too that what unites us on this thread is far more important than what divides us. No doubt all of us would like to see the end of ISIS, and no doubt all of us appreciate the fact that we don't live in the nightmare they have created in the Middle East and the one they want to spread across the world. Sickening stuff keeps happening here and over there and I think that's thrown us all off kilter. — Baden

Well said.

Suggesting "absolutely no reaction" to a terrorist action in which 129 (+/-) were killed, about 100 were critically wounded, and 200+ more sustained serious to moderate injuries (mostly from gunfire) and x number of near-by eye-witnesses were traumatized, is just not creditable. It doesn't make any difference whether such actions are in Paris, Nairobi, Madrid, London, Beirut, Bagdad, Mumbai, or Timbuktu. "Absolutely no reaction" would never be an appropriate or sensible reaction. — Bitter Crank

Well, I did propose some reaction, e.g. police action.

Sometimes, if you want something to stop, you should just ignore it.

My reasons are as follows:

- The reaction France's political establishment shows now is that terrorist attacks work, which might inspire others;
- Although there is an (ideological) link between IS and the attackers, at most IS has guided this by saying "go forth and perform a terrorist attack", leaving decisions to these radicalised youths. The link is, in my view, to tenuous and in any case doesn't deal with the real problem (which in my view is radicalisation here and abroad);
- So far, military intervention has brought us more problems;
- Attacking IS does not solve radicalisation in France (it might even contribute);
- Attacking IS might be useless if recruits will join faster than we can kill them;
- Attacking IS will be useless if we're not committed to boots on the ground;
- Attacking IS will be useless if we don't have a plan for the power vacuum that comes into existence and that doesn't involve imposing Western style and statist institutions in a tribal environment;
- Money is better spent combatting radicalisation in France itself.

It might make the discussion less acrimonious if we look at the findings of the anthropologist Scott Atran, who has investigated radicalization. Aside from all the stuff I vociferously disagree with in what you've said Benkei, you did have some interesting things to say about radicalization. Scott Atran suggests three conditions necessary to prevent the radicalization of the young:

1. The first condition: Offer youth something that makes them dream of a life of significance through struggle and sacrifice in comradeship.

2. The second condition: Offer youth a positive personal dream, with a concrete chance of realization.

3. A third condition: Offer youth the chance to create their own local initiatives.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/scott-atran/violent-extremism-social-science_b_7142604.html

ISIS is winning in this area because it has a supreme confidence and idealism that is currently lacking amongst the liberal defenders of cultural diversity, freedom of speech, democracy, equality for women and gay people. That lack of confidence, if not outright scepticism and equivocation, is very apparent in this thread. — jamalrob

I think two things need to be distinguished here. It's not that I'm against cultural diversity, freedom of speech, democracy and equality, I simply have established that we (the West, US, the Netherlands, whatever) claim to be for these values but do not uphold them in practice. The reality is that these values only exists in our minds and is a story we tell ourselves but in the real world they really don't exist. Women are unequal, immigrants are overrepresented in prisons and impoverished. Your life, if you're a Syrian, Iraqi or Afghan, is not worth as much as that of an American when all is said and done.

Simply repeating the story and saying "I really believe in this" will buy you squat with regards to radicalisation. Those values haven't brought the majority of people in this world what "we" claim it should bring them and that is what I see as moral bankruptcy of the West. We don't have the moral highground. We only have that if we compare the stories but not if we look at what is happening in the world.

So this is why this narrative fails because it is incomplete. We believe in these values and want to pursue them but as a society we are hopelessly failing here and abroad.

I sincerely believe (and I'm not the only one if recent research is anything to go by) we're not being attacked because we believe in those values but because we fail to fulfil the very promises we make. Moreover, Western interventions trying to implement (at gunpoint) these values have failed over and over, which is why I advocate a total absence of military intervention.

Scott Atran raises a few points but other writers will claim (and I agree with them) that it's hardly complete because it fails, among others, to identify socio-economic circumstances that almost always accompany radicalisation. Well, he identifies it but he doesn't consider it a condition.

maybe you should read up a bit on how the process of radicalisation works. The EU has commissioned several studies in this respect and they're a worthwhile read. If I have time I'll look some links up later this week.

I can tell you already: these people have rejected your type of narrative about democracy and universal values because they see time and again it's just words and not acted on.

Sanctity of life? Only if you're western. Equality? Al animals are equal but some are more equal than others. Non-discrimination? Only if you're western. Prosperity? Only if you're western. Democracy? Begets corruption. Your narrative is simply not true for the majority of people in this world so why bother repeating it? It has already been utterly rejected by them due to our praxis.

The successful (from our point of view) competing narrative will be something similar to Islamism but without the violence where it concerns radicalisation as they have already distanced themselves from their own societies and what you refer to as Enlightenment values.

And just the narrative isn't enough, it's how they relate to the state and official institutions as well. And if I see 40+% unemployment and poverty within the banlieus and the Bruxelles' district we have one of the more important other conditions often necessary for radicalisation.

yet, Western leftist proposals aren't implemented at all so how can they contribute to radicalisation? Just by talking about it?

Meanwhile Benkei - or so it seems to me - is demanding clear and incontrovertible evidence of command and control by ISIS before we dare to bring them into a discussion of the attack in Paris. — Photographer

Really? That's what you take away?

The idea that this is somehow centrally planned by IS, can be tossed in the bin. It's an issue of radicalisation. The idea this can be resolved by doing something over there (bombing) instead of over here just baffles me, which is why for the life of me I cannot imagine why IS needs to be brought into this. They're largely separate problems.

And so far the war on terror hasn't gotten us much. I have no doubt we can flatten the area but I have zero confidence that it will stop their appeal to new recruits here and over there. So the solution isn't a solution and therefore you and jamalrob don't seem to understand the actual problem.