you tried to back him up with more handwaving. One can't fairly accuse others of "vacuous handwaving" while indulging on his own vacuous handwaving. That was the whole point of the two previous posts and I clearly stated so. — neomac
Yes. And I'm clearly stating that your claim of 'handwaiving' is not a "sharply formed, evidence-accompanied type of claim" and so fails your own requirements. You simply declared it to be so. You require of others what you fail to supply yourself. — Isaac
You dishonestly chopped out “from somebody accusing me of handwaving” again. I wasn’t the one who started accusing others of “vacuously handwaving”. Baden accused me of “vacuously handwaving” in the first place. And you backed him up. So I retorted: it’s on you both to give the example first, then you may challenge opponents to reciprocate. But you didn’t, so there is nothing on me to reciprocate.
Suggesting a vague relation between what I’m asking now and what you reported in the past, doesn’t prove that you already offered evidences to answer my question. — neomac
No. You actually taking the bare minimum of effort to look back (or even remember) what has been offered already is what would prove that. The evidence has been given. I'm not going to re-supply it every time it's asked for because the asking is itself just a rhetorical trick to make your opponent's positions sound un-evidenced. If you genuinely have just forgotten or didn't noticed you would be making a polite request for a repeat. You're not. — Isaac
Sir, would you kindly provide pertinent evidence which I was asking here:
“Do you mean that since the end of WW2 until today at least more than 50% of the non-Western World misery (=poverty and sickness?) and death was the direct and exclusive consequence of ‘the western world under US leadership’’s policies? All right. Quote your preferred expert’s report concluding as much. Or prove it yourself”?
I claimed “I abundantly argued” and that’s a fact. I didn’t claim you agreed or you found my arguments persuasive or that the magical expected effect was changing your mind. — neomac
Then why "apart from the fact…”? If 'the fact' consists of nothing but your having written what you consider to be an argument, then my response doesn't stand "apart from" that fact, it stands alongside it. I've not disputed the mere fact that you've written copious words. I've, in fact commented several times on the inordinate length of your posts. — Isaac
Because I was accused of “vacuous handwaving” by Baden but I offered arguments that he or whoever else is interested can address. There is nothing in the accusations of “copious words” or “inordinate length of your posts” that contradicts the fact that I provided arguments. And if my arguments are vacuous handwaving I want to see who isn’t handwaving here when talking about geopolitics and morality.
A part from the fact that you were talking about calculations not me and that your defence of Baden’s accusations of “handwaving” against me is handwaving in all sorts of directions, but the point is that there is no way to get rid of the speculative and approximative dimension of geopolitical and moral considerations. That’s why a pretentious accusation of “vacuous handwaving” (or “give me the metrics“ or “no shred of evidence”) which you tried so clumsily to defend, is doomed to be self-defeating. — neomac
Bollocks. It's an absurd argument to say that if one cannot provide the actual mathematical calculations we are therefore in some hyper-relativistic world of speculation and hand-waiving. A bomb is more destructive than a stick. I don't need to do the maths, but nor is it mere speculation. — Isaac
You lost track of what I was talking about. When I asked
“What is “taking into account” “those victims’ lives” supposed to mean?”. You answered:
Including them in the calculation about what course of action we ought morally support. I abundantly and repeatedly argued against an “accounting model“ (not only against you), and I didn’t receive any compelling counter-argument, mostly just cheap dismissals like “inordinate length”, “copious words“. As I summarised previously:
“there is no way to get rid of the speculative and approximative dimension of geopolitical and moral considerations”, that’s why cheap accusations of “vacuous handwaving” can be as cheaply retorted. In other words, “taking into account” “those victims’ lives” can be done, and it’s done, even without giving an exact and reliable estimate of the moral/geopolitical costs of certain policies (e.g. in the military context, how can one exactly estimate “morale” and “morale difference” in opposing armies when the war is ongoing? But morale is relevant in the conflict as much as affected by losses, among other factors). And if that’s true for experts, it is even more so for avg dudes.
In this thread, we have abundantly seen how problematic is to talk about “demonstrable effect” depending on the nature of the facts (e.g. an accounting of the victims of an ongoing war), the reliability of the source of information (e.g. if it’s mainstream or not mainstream, if it comes from Russia or Western sources of information etc.), the time range in which one wants to see the effects (the chain of effects is in principle endless which can cumulate and clash in unpredictable ways), the relevance of such effects (there might be all sorts of effects not all equally relevant for all interested parties, e.g. not all Ukrainians and Russians think that nationalities are just flags), the explanatory power presupposed by “effects” and “policies” (depending on the estimated counterfactuals, and implied responsibilities), and so on. — neomac
I don't know why you keep thinking this is a remotely interesting line of argument. Yes, different ways of working things out yield different answers. The same is true of your arguments (despite your pretence to some AI-like hyper-rationalism). So what? That just means that the matter is underdetermined - which is the argument I've been making all along. we choose which argument to believe. — Isaac
Because as long as human beings do not work out their moral/political differences and can’t tolerate each other, nor can avoid each other, then they will likely fight each other, as it happens in Ukraine.
The fact that human beings fail to work out differences is not necessarily a failure in rationality: i.e. opponents can overall be both rational, or both irrational, or one rational and the other irrational. 2 chess players can rationally move in compliance with basic rules and with sensible strategies, yet have opposing endgames. In a war between Russia and the West, it’s a rational move for Russia to run anti-West propaganda the most effectively they can, and for the West to run anti-Russia propaganda the most effectively they can. If it is rational for Russia to react to Western provocations, it is rational for the West to constrain potential competitors. If it is rational for Russia to threat nuclear escalation, it is rational for the West to not show panic. And the examination can go on, toward more general assumptions (e.g. the rationality of wars) or toward more specific assumptions (e.g. the rationality of supporting Ukraine the way the US did so far).
Concerning claims such as “the matter is undertermined“ and “we choose which argument to believe”, what is the argument? How do these claims support Baden’s accusation of “vacuously handwaving” against me? And if one chooses to believe in arguments, then why is there any need for arguments at all? One can choose to believe any claim without arguments.
If we are rational we can’t choose to believe fallacious arguments or arguments grounded on premises we find implausible. As long as there are reliable and shared epistemic rules to establish what premises are plausible and what arguments are fallacious we can converge in our assessments about statements and arguments. And if one fails them then this would be an unintentional rational failure, not a choice. If two arguments reach opposite conclusions from equally plausible premises, then one suspends judgement, not choose which argument is right.
“Choosing to believe an argument” happens when we do not engage in rational examination of our certain arguments on their own merits either because we can’t as when we trust experts or because we do not want to as when we indulge in wishful thinking.
“Diplomacy” requires leverage namely exploiting or exploitable dependencies over often unfairly distributed scarce resources (related to market opportunities, commodities at a cheaper price, or economic retaliation, military deterrence/escalation, territorial concessions, etc.) — neomac
Not at all. It can appeal to humanity, to popular opinion. It can appeal to public image, future stakes, the willingness to avoid mutual destruction. there's all sorts of levers for diplomacy that are not traditional forms of power. — Isaac
First of all, the examples I offered weren’t meant to be an exhaustive list (that’s why I put “etc.”), and the examples you suggested are nothing worth the qualification of “not traditional”. Most certainly, I didn’t mean to exclude “public image” among the leverages of power struggles, I argued about reputational costs in the international arena on several occasions. But the main argument is still the same: also good reputation needs to be capitalised by elites if it serves to win power struggles (that’s particularly evident when ideologies are involved like when we talk about the Roman Empire converting to Christianity or the end of slavery in American Civil War or Putin allying with the Orthodox Church). And the fight between Western democracies and authoritarian anti-West regimes is matter of reputation as well.
Second, “appeal to humanity, to popular opinion”, “public image” fall in the domain of propaganda for public consumption with related risks of hypocrisy or exploitation (like any “panem et circenses” of the past). Power struggles can boost propaganda wars as in this war where Russia (along with China) is expressly challenging the Western world order, the Western notion of human rights, sovereignty, international laws, US leadership. So those kinds of appeals may work for diplomatic compromises as much as to nurture propaganda wars (like when the Russians accuse the West of using Ukrainians as “cannon fodder”). And precisely because propaganda wars as much as economic and military wars can be threatened that they can be the content of a diplomatic pressure, as prospected by Western analysts when talking about military defeating Russia, but offering Putin something he could claim as a “victory” for his internal propaganda.
Third, most importantly, “appeal to humanity, to popular opinion”, “public image” do not necessarily offset imbalance on other leverages of power. That’s the diplomatic lesson given by Thucydides’ Melian dialogue: the power with greatest economic/coercive resources will impose its will over the much smaller power and the diplomatic argument would simply be like “if you want to survive, surrender to our dominance” from the former to the latter. For the same reason, also the allusion of “willingness to avoid mutual destruction” presupposes power to destruct each other e.g. in the form of nuclear arsenals. BTW the US, while leading “the most destructive force on Earth since WWII”, was running the risk of a mutual destruction situation and it didn’t screw up. It even promoted denuclearisation. So maybe the US too is not doomed to screw up after all.
“Sustainable development” and “fair trade“ presuppose public infrastructures, compliance to contracts, a financing flow efficiently allocated to say the least which all require a massive concentration of economic and coercive power. — neomac
No they don't. Things can be fairly traded on trust. and there's absolutely no requirement for "massive coercive power" to simply grow sustainably. what's more, the largest and most powerful force is, as history has repeated shown us, the populace. People strive for their well-being and will strive against authorities which seek to suppress it. It's people who represent the greatest coercive force. Mobilising those people is what drives progress. — Isaac
Maybe “the populace” drives progress and holds the greatest coercive power, but I still see elites in power practically everywhere, since states have been formed. And whenever the populace revolted, even when if that contributed to regime change, they just put new elites in power, sometimes as bad if not worse than the elites they revolted against.
Can you kindly provide examples of goods “fairly traded on trust” between countries, sir?
“International law” and “human rights courts” presuppose the monopoly of a coercive power (the opposite of disarmement) to be enforced or powerful economic leverage (whose effectiveness depends on how unfairly economic resources are distributed) — neomac
again, it does no such thing. Human rights laws were instigated against the will of those in power by force of will from those subject to that power. they are a restraint on power that was opposed at every step. People in power are (or should be) afraid of those over whom they have power. Governments are afraid of revolution. Company boards are afraid of strikes. Leaders are afraid of non-compliance. The moment they're not we get no progress at all. Human Rights are the result of that fear, not the exercise of their power. — Isaac
A part from the fact that fear of social unrest is what turns many political elites to be authoritarian and suppress “human rights”. Indeed what would be the point of being authoritarian if the populace is spontaneously submissive?
Anyways I didn’t talk about the genesis of “human rights laws”, I talked about their enforcement. And to enforce laws one needs the monopoly of coercive power (if not in theory, in practice). But the tragedy in “international law” (differently from national laws) is that there is no superior coercive power, so states have to ensure the means of their own security. You must know all that because you champion Mearsheimer’s offensive realism.
“Democratic reforms” can happen only if there is democracy (and assumed we share the notion of “democracy”), so how can democratic reforms happen when one has to deal with non-democratic regimes in building institutions like “International law” and “human rights courts” that should support and protect democratic institutions? — neomac
People. It was the people who brought down the Ceaușescu regime, not armies or international law. Workers. — Isaac
So now we do not need international laws anymore nor armies (yet Ceaușescu’s communist regime precipitated when his army turned against him, so I’m not sure it’s a good example), workers are enough (should we assume that the Romanian workers very happy after the fall of Ceaușescu, democracy and wealth spreading all around, no more corrupted elites, human rights raining everywhere?). Where are the workers revolting against Putin, Xi Jin Ping, Kim Jong-un, Ebrahim Raissi? What are they waiting for?
Besides, are you suggesting Western workers or populace should make a revolution against Western governments? Start a civil war against “the most destructive force on Earth since WWII”? If not, why not? After all given the following superlatives and bold expressions of anonymous outrage, populace and workers of the globe should mass revolt against the US all at once yesterday, shouldn't they? What was slavery in the US, absolute monarchy in France, Russia, China or Iran compared to what the US is doing to the entire earth at an unimaginable scale?!
“The western world under US leadership has been the most destructive force on Earth since WWII by an incredibly large margin, having positively ruined dozens of countries.”
“the one that causes most death and misery”
“We are literally in a 6th mass extinction event heading towards civilisational collapse that is entirely due to US policy and acquiescence of their fellow Western acolytes, not to mention pollution of various other forms as well as neo-colonialism and US imperialism”
“the dominant power since WWII setting most economic policies on the planet (what and how things are produced) has been the US, and the consequence has been destruction on a hitherto unimaginable scale.”
“Our system is no better than the Russian system and arguably far worse (if only due to scale). Russian imperialism is a pretty banal reflection of our own imperialism, far from being in some different and worse category, and is far less destructive for the reasons Isaac has outlined in some detail (mainly as it's regional and not global)”
“Dis-coupling of politics from industrial influence (share holdings and lobbying)” like in China, Russia, North Korea, Iran you mean? Like in the Roman, Mongol, Islamic, Carolingian Empire you mean? Like in some Taliban village or in some aboriginal tribe in the Amazon forest? — neomac
The latter. If something's not having been done in recent history is your only argument against it being possible then I can see why our politics are at such odds. Had homosexuals ever been allowed to marry in law before this millennia? Good job you weren't involved in that campaign. Had slavery ever been outlawed before the eighteenth century? Did women previously have the vote and merely had it returned to them in 1928?
The idea that if a thing doesn't have precedent it can't happen is utterly absurd. — Isaac
Where on earth did I write that “a thing doesn't have precedent it can't happen”? You persistently lose track of what I’m arguing, or don’t understand it and make random objections. What I argued is that concentration of power leverages (economic, coercive, ideological, etc.) is a common trait of political entities we live in, namely states, and such concentration of power is required to enforce rules over wide enough territories and population. This is true from the earliest historical formation of states, it’s constitutive of them, that’s why there is no precedent. Acknowledging that there are no precedents, it’s relevant to investigate the reasons behind such phenomenon. The examples you are bringing up do not question my assumption, they confirm it in the most evident way: there was no homosexual, women, slavery revolutions led by the oppressed ones for their emancipation (“revolution” as in “French revolution”, “Russian revolution”, “Chinese revolution“, “Iranian revolution”) in any major state constituting the Western world. But there were homosexuals, women, blacks which allied with some pre-existing elite political power in a battle against other political competitors. It is claimed by some that none of such social changes ended exploitation and discrimination for blacks, women, workers. Exploitation and discrimination just evolved in new forms, to some, more tolerable, to others, still intolerable, or widened into something catastrophic if not apocalyptic (e.g. “the western world under US leadership has been the most destructive force on Earth since WWII”, “the dominant power since WWII setting
most economic policies on the planet (what and how things are produced) has been the US, and the consequence has been destruction on a hitherto unimaginable scale”, “Our system is no better than the Russian system and arguably far worse (if only due to scale)”). The point is that if one day there will be a decoupling of “industries” and “politics” the concentration of leverages of power will come in some other form (which doesn’t mean you or the populace or the workers will like it better). An example is the emergence of powerful elites leading the technological revolution of information which are competing with elites dominating more traditional technologies. As I already argued, competing moral or ideological movements require power to win over competitors (practical rationality demands it), so typically either they harvest economic/coercive power within them (which often leads to the emergence of a new powerful elites) or they rely and ally with on pre-existing power to succeed.
The end of the American hegemony in favour of authoritarian regimes won’t change that, I don’t even see how this could be a first step in that direction. The void of American hegemony will more likely boost the economic/military/ideological competition between European countries (the premises are already there, see the divergence between the UK and the EU, Eastern European countries and Western European Countries wrt the war in Ukraine, the rivalries between north Europe and South Europe about the immigrants) which can’t rely on the Western-lead international order, and between global powers (including the US) which will bring their competition in the heart of Europe more than ever. And will more likely encourage authoritarianism even in Europe, to control following social unrest (the right-wing turn in many European countries may favour this trend).
to ensure policies over time one advocates one needs to rely on massive, stable and unequal concentration of power in the hands of few with all related risks in terms of lack of transparency, lack of accountability, exploitation or abuses — neomac
No one doesn't. Progress has been a matter of resisting that power with an equal and opposite power afforded to the masses. — Isaac
It’s a very romantic and populist view of progress. It overlooks the role of the masses in social regress (how many revolutions - including the communist ones, which didn’t happen in capitalist societies contrary to Marxist predictions - ended up in bloody dictatorships, because populace and workers can turn out to be shitty human beings as those who exploit them), the role of pre-existing elites which promoted social progress to win over political competition, the role of technological inventions (which didn’t come from the populace or the workers) in altering power relations favouring social progress.