:up:

The one issue that I have with the thought experiment is that the parties to be judged should be group A vs. group B (not the pilot vs the armed men or whatever). But that's not a difficult adjustment to make.

My basic point boils down to asking how hard it is to presume for the sake of argument that neither of the two sides are "Nazis" or etc but are a priori morally/immorally equivalent. Anyone who can't do that ought simply to move on to the next thread.

The thought experiment is unanswerable — RogueAI

I don't agree that it's unanswerable. Coming up with a definitive moral judgement based on the information provided is not the point imo. The point is to abstract out the information given from any partisan context and work with it on its own terms. I find that useful. If you get nothing from it though, that's fine.

The OP asked if there is a moral equivalence between two groups. That's impossible to determine without knowing why they're fighting — RogueAI

Again, you have to understand the nature of a thought experiment and that there are no two real groups, and that positing them as such and giving them a priori moral attributes makes the thought experiment useless.

I don't know if you are one of those people. Are you? I expect it's pointless to ask because you don't seem to want to say anything here except "Nazis are bad". But we all know that...

No, it's not, because that's not how the real world works — RogueAI

Brains in vats and evil demons aren't how the real world works either. I wonder why they should be invoked by philosophers... Obviously we can agree if one side are Nazis (or the equivalent) then all things being equal we are against them and we can agree that in many conflicts one side has the moral upper hand. But if we take that approach then the thought experiment is unnecessary because the answer is decided a priori, right? So, the only way to make the thought experiment relevant is to focus on the precise moral issue it raises. I'm not going to judge the intentions of the OP writer, but I think it's a worthwhile OP insofar as we take the point seriously.

Honestly, I think there are people out there who think being killed by a bomb dropped by a nice respectable airplane pilot is somehow more humane than being shot in the face or stabbed to death. These people either lack the imagination to conceive of a slow and agonising death under a pile of rubble with your legs blown off or are utterly devoid of morality themselves. Either way not good.

No, because your question is irrelevant and is a substitute for answering my relevant question, which you ignored. That's not an appropriate way to conduct debate.

However, I will further explain that the thought experiment, if it's to be useful, relies on us presuming some equivalence so we can actually focus on the matter at hand. If we label one party "Nazis" then the thought experiment becomes useless. It's simply comes down to who we decide to label Nazis.

It's much more useful to designate party A and party B as fighting for their own interests, not one morally superior at the outset. Then we can focus solely on the morality of the methods used to kill civilians. That's the only sensible way to approach the OP.

For the thought experiment, it's not necessary to consider what they're fighting for because that's not the focus. Let's just imagine they are both fighting for their own interests without bringing the Nazi trope into it, which just makes the whole exercise pointless.

You're answering my relevant question with an irrelevant question of your own. The OP is focused on civilian victims of conflict and makes no mention of military casualties fighting against Nazis etc. And unless you think babies can be Nazis then, any way you look at it, you seem to be engaged in a distraction. Anyhow, fighter pilots don't drop moralities on their victims and assassins don't shoot immoralities. The means is not what's important. The ethical point centres around the killing of innocent civilians.

Would you rather have your baby shot to death or blown into little pieces by a bomb? Looking at it from the perspective that matters, it doesn't matter much.

But Israel has a strong military which can go into Gaza. And Hamas basically wants that. Those religious zealots think there's the next generations growing, so it's not so bad for them if they take a hit now. The following battles will just deepen the hatred for the Jewish State, which is their purpose. And for Likud it's the perfect event that just show how it's impossible to do any peace agreement, that any compromise with the Palestinians backfires. — ssu

Sad, but apparently true.

If It helps at all, the Irish people are the Irish people except when they're the British people, which most of them are most definitely not and even less so English. Most of the British people who are Irish people have no such issues though, including the English who are Irish.

I'm not jeering. I was thinking about being in one of those hospitals realizing the Israelis could supply fuel for the generators and knowing they won't do it because they want all the patients to die.

You answered me like I was just doing a liberal butt-post. — frank

I think at some point Hanover will realize we are not "jeering from the sidelines" but expressing sane moral arguments that can only be made from the sidelines. That time is not now though. I'm out.

Yes, Hamas are extremists and I'd put nothing past them. Thankfully, they are not and will never be in that position.

Shooting innocent concert goers and destroying cities of millions of people are not moral actions in this context, I think we agree. Maybe we'd think they were if we were directly involved, but that's irrelevant to making that judgement. I don't know what the ideal solution is. Your suggestion sounds more reasonable than what's taking place right now. But so would almost any suggestion.

:100:

I don't know if they would kill literally every Jew in that situation (I wouldn't be very surprised if they would though, sadly) or if Netanyahu would kill literally every Palestinian if he got the chance. Right now, the practical existential threat is towards the people of Gaza. I'm guessing Israel will kill very many of them, including civilians and children, before they're satisfied.

:up: Honestly, all anyone has to do to touch base with sanity in this conversation is reread this Reuters quote.

'There is no justification for violence that indiscriminately targets innocent civilians, whether by Hamas or Israeli forces. This is absolutely prohibited under international law and amounts to a war crime.' — Baden

Maybe I should just periodically post it instead of bothering to debate what should need no debate.

If some magic genie gave Hamas full control over Israel right now (an impossibility for them to achieve militarily) they would seek to do to the Israelis what the Israelis are seeking now to do to the Gazans.

I'm at least not ''fatally biased'', which affords the moderate achievement of not sounding like a crazy person. Anyhow, if that happened right now, yes. Both sides are consumed with bloodlust. What I object to are attempts to dress this up in an ''ethical'' disguise.

Some folks who are not fatally biased:

''On 12 October, independent United Nations experts ... condemned the "horrific crimes committed by Hamas" and said that Israel had resorted to "indiscriminate military attacks against the already exhausted Palestinian people of Gaza". They said that "This amounts to collective punishment. There is no justification for violence that indiscriminately targets innocent civilians, whether by Hamas or Israeli forces. This is absolutely prohibited under international law and amounts to a war crime.'

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Israel–Hamas_war

The inability to compromise will be the utter sticking point. As long as death and revenge is more important than simply living, it doesn't matter. It doesn't help that people on the sidelines encourage it, rather than call for moderation — schopenhauer1

:up:

The fatally biased test.

Are you fatally biased? Take the test!

They refuse to recognize even our basic right to exist.
(Fatally biased: 'That's fine'.)(Neutral: 'That's wrong').
We subjugate them and illegally settle their land.
(Fatally biased: 'Cool'.)(Neutral: 'That's wrong').
They respond by killing our civilians.
(Fatally biased: 'Sounds OK to me'.)(Neutral: 'That's wrong').
We respond to that by destroying an entire city.
(Fatally biased: 'Why not?')(Neutral: 'That's wrong').

it's a different matter. Israel does face an existential threat that is only reduced by doing the things it is currently doing. I get those from the sidelines think they have a gentler way to secure Israel's security, but others disagree. — Hanover

To make an ethical argument requires that we eliminate bias and argue "from the sidelines". You can never do that which is why you never come up with anything remotely convincing to an objective observer (if the situations were reversed you would be arguing that the atrocities of the subjugated Israelis in Gaza were justified.). Leaving that aside, Israel is not under an existential threat by the party they are trying to wipe out, the people of Gaza city. So, yes, that would be genocide.

This is to say, if the destruction of Gaza is necessary for the protection of Israel, then it would be unethical for Israel not to destroy Gaza. — Hanover

Genocide:

"the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group.
"a campaign of genocide"

https://www.google.com/search?q=genocide&oq=genocid&aqs=chrome.0.69i59j69i57.11650j0j7&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8

I understand your need to vent but wiping out cities of millions of people, the vast majority of whom are civilians, could never be justified unless they posed a similar level of immediate existential threat, as might be the case in a nuclear war etc.

The irony that the two sides of armageddon are in total agreement and desirous of the same conflict. — unenlightened

Ethnic cleansing and genocide seem to be the stated or implicit goal of both. Only Israel has the means to really follow through on that though.

Your whataboutery doesn't answer the charge of moral untenability. It sidesteps it. You talk as if the mere fact that Israel seeks to justify the killing of civilians makes their opponents' equivalent justifications (and yours) morally tenable. — Jamal

:up:

Yes, why should I justify it for one party if the other doesn't and gets all the moral support and best wishes and guns? That doesn't seem like a level playing field to me — Benkei

That's to play a rhetorical game rather than engage philosophically though, isn't it?

Even if there were indeed excesses and unlawful actions, the UK usually treated IRA members are criminals, that should be tried in the judicial process. — ssu

True. I was referring to tit for tat between Republican and Loyalist paramilitary groups actually. But I should have made that clearer.

I don't see your position as morally tenable. Surely, the indiscriminate killing of / targeting of civilians has to be condemned unequivocally regardless of whose "side" you're on. Being an Israeli citizen and going to a concert does not make you responsible for the policies of the Netanyahu government. This whole brutal mess reminds me of the tit-for-tat killings in Northern Ireland towards the end of the troubles. Both sides degraded themselves utterly. In this most recent case, it's Hamas who are the animals. Let's call a spade a spade.

I think the engineered outrage is the connection to "wokeness" as that's easier to attack. Critical race theory is simply an academic discipline that applies critical thought to the phenomenon of race in society. I'm pretty sure those attacking it have no idea what it is or much appreciation of academic thought in general as they seem incapable of formulating a coherent argument that might discredit it. I don't even think such arguments can't be good ones, it's just the loudest critics of CRT never bother trying.

Ah, ok, I guess I understand you a bit better. There are some here who are genuinely uninterested in doing anything but repeating Trump's nonsense though. I don't see this as exactly symmetrical as I don't think I've ever met a Biden supporter here so enthralled with the man that they are willing to say anything to disguise his shortcomings.

It is just curious how the mail-in ballots .... always benefit the left. — javi2541997

For this, we should surely:

1) Establish, using evidence, the premise that mail-in ballots "always benefit the left". (A contrary view: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/there-is-no-evidence-that-voting-by-mail-gives-one-party-an-advantage/ Why is this wrong?)
2) Provide some reasoning as to why this is "curious" rather than something we simply can't be bothered expending mental energy on understanding or something with many possible explanations that are not curious.
3) Demonstrate, using evidence, that this "curious" phenomenon necessitates in any way fraud or deception on the part of the party benefiting.

Anything short of this is just wasting space.

and the lack of participation always benefit the left. — javi2541997

Where did you get this from?

Here's a paper that says the opposite:

"The article employs nonparametric meta-analytic methods to synthesize a large number of empirical studies and demonstrates that low structural turnout does indeed favor the right in theoretically predictable ways."

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/21565503.2015.1124789

Are you just throwing things out there that you feel or want to be correct? Because the general form of "reasoning" employed seems to be "My team is better so if my team loses there must be some cheating going on". This is what I mean by sillliness.

Why is the fact that left-leaning voters are more likely to be able to fill in a form and vote by post so threatening and so evidential of fraud? Can someone please connect those dots for me because it's getting a little silly in here.

You locked down to try to slow the spread so the hospital system wouldn't be more overloaded than it was.

Without the lockdowns, you would have gone outside in the morning to see what the people in 1918 saw: dead people laying in their yards.

I understand why nobody gets this. You didn't see what was happening in the hospitals. How could you know? — frank

:100:

Maybe you want my opinion on this issue? Honestly, I haven't read enough to pipe in, but I do understand the frustration of good lounge threads being backgrounded.

Yes... unless that's a trick question. :scream:

Personally I’m ok with “limey”, but Baden won’t be, since it applies only to Brits. — Jamal

Correctimundo.

The only references I found for it on Google were to your post. — T Clark

Exposing the poverty of the online imagination? :chin:

It's not just the density of bellends, it's also the density of Limeys, Scots, and Irishmen. — T Clark

Well, there's just one Irish I know of--me, so I'm fully dense, I suppose. @Jamal, having @fdrake as company, is mercifully only half dense.