Haha! Yeah, those Christians man, they're wild too. We've just become numb to the BS they spew. — Manuel

True.

Or it could simply be indecision. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Biden's coming. Maybe they're waiting for that? Why couldn't they get a whole new crew to run Gaza? Have an election?

I see @ssu was thinking the same thing about waiting for Biden).

The Ayatollah said in the end of times Israel should disappear, right? Bad comment, evil judgment. Israel is making Palestine disappear, massive difference. — Manuel

He's some kind of Shiite. They have the most bizarre beliefs ever. But there are Christian groups who also think the end of the world has something to do with Israel. I don't know the details.

Well, absolute nothingness is not just a mental negation of something, it is actually the negation of something. That's what it is defined as, and any would-be referent would correspond to that definition. — Ø implies everything

Negation is a logical operation. The void is no-thing, so we understand the void as the negative or opposite of things. When we say "things" here, we specifically mean existing things, such as objects that take up space and exist for a certain amount of time.

So when Einstein places moving objects in a void, we now have space and time in the void by virtue of having moving objects in it. The ancient Greeks would have been gravely troubled by this talk of voids and placing things in them. But we have the number zero, so we're accustomed to talking about absence or vacancy. We think of it as a cubby hole of some sort, where there's nothing in the cubby.

I think if you're interested in this topic, you'd probably love a history of the number zero. It's fascinating stuff if you haven't already read about it.

Do you believe Palestinians should be allowed to "retaliate and make sure such attacks can't happen again"? — Tzeentch

People who attack so as to annihilate their enemies don't wait for permission. They just do it.

If you would change it up so you're saying we wouldn't be able to conceive of the void without contrasting it to something, then I'd agree. Everything appears to the mind against a backdrop of its negation. But here we aren't doing ontology exactly. We're just talking about what we observe about how the mind works.

With that said, there will be resistance to these developments. Entire swaths of the population, including individuals in high leaderships roles, will stop at nothing to prevent this from happening. As they are motivated by rather techno-pessimistic religions and/or worldviews. — Bret Bernhoft

There's a lot of techno-pessimism, as in The Lord of the Rings, which is along the lines of a contemporary epic. Contrast that with Bladerunner, the protagonist of which is probably a robot, but doesn't know that he is. I'd guess that if a new global religion appeared, it would contain both elements: pro and con. Religions that provide a forum for conflicting values have ideological dynamism. In other words, they provide something valuable in the form of a clear common ground.

In any case, I don't see the situation in Gaza not leading Hezbollah to act, unless Egypt and Israel agree to open the Rafah crossing, just by allowing basic necessities, would make the situation in Gaza a smidgen better. They should do it, looks unlikely. — Manuel

I think they'll have to do that soon.

I wonder what they have in mind. Haven't seen any preemptive action yet.

I don't think so. They're going to squash the hell out of Gaza. Hamas will be gone. They have nuclear weapons. They don't care about Iran's bullshit.

:up:

Frank, I'm just not sure how much can be accomplished by a discussion of the morality of war in general, particular battles, specific weapons, and various policies. You've heard of "the fog of war" -- how facts and rumors mingle, how chaos prevents a clear view of what is happening, how propaganda becomes indistinguishable from reliable reports, and so on. — BC

I agree. I think this question is more about the journey to your answer than the answer itself.

No doubt it is an easier task to decide who and what were moral almost 80 years ago. I don't believe 'moral' and 'immoral' were so clear in the middle of the war. — BC

That's exactly what I concluded. Judgment works better when it's backward facing. Kierkegaard pointed out that what we know comes from looking backward, but we have to live facing forward. Basically, you do your best with what you've got and make assessments after the fact.

But... sooner or later, people do those things and think themselves quite moral. — BC

Again, that was my conclusion. People always think what they're doing is right. I may know everyone condemns x, but if I'm doing it, it's because I've worked out somehow that it's right this time.

But that's not what the treaties say.

I see what you're saying.

Sometimes folk do stuff they ought not? Yes. Many - most? - issues are inscrutable. That our choices are rational is more pretence than reality. — Banno

Are you conflating irrational with inscrutable? It's fairly easy to understand people once you know what they fear and desire, for me, anyway.

Should we therefore not at least attempt to be rational? To be consistent and coherent? There's a new discussion for you. — Banno

Well you've claimed morality can be "subject" to logic. So why is it moral to kill chickens? Why should we attempt to be rational? Consistent? Coherent?

What famous American author was a POW held in Dresden when it was bombed?

Why is it immoral to bomb workers in armaments factories? — RogueAI

Because they're just trying to make a living?

That is exactly how this whole discussion with you: the only thing that you can bring to this dicussion are your strong beliefs, which do not seem to be supported by much evidence. — Jabberwock

:up:

I think you could make that pretty absolute. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I think it's absolute in the sense that there's never a time when bombing civilians is the righteous thing to do. Even if it's part of an ethical dilemma, it doesn't represent the ideal. But sometimes people act in a way that manifests ideals. Sometimes they don't. What's happening when they don't?

An easy answer would just be that sometimes humans are vile. That strikes me as a useless condemnation, though. I don't think they're actually any more vile than a flock of birds or a school of fish. The only way to begin understanding human behavior is to start by looking at it through an amoral lens.

So looking at Hamas in mechanistic terms, how do they end up using their own relatives as human shields? What psychological factors lead to that kind of behavior? What do you think?

There aren't many ways in which bombing civilians can be justified because it isn't effective. But it's also wrong to conflate "any attack once an enemy has entrenched themselves in a populated area and not evacuated it," with "bombing civilians intentionally." — Count Timothy von Icarus

I'm not sure how to separate the two.

One can keep one's footing. I surmise Truman realised it was immoral, but did it anyway. Would I have done differently? Such contemplations are fraught with equivocation. The morality of the act was probably not high on the agenda at those meetings. — Banno

I like my quip: "Morality 101: bombing civilians is bad."

I have sure footing there, but notice how that statement is like something God might have zapped into a stone tablet on Mt Sinai. That's the problem with the shallow end. It sounds nice, but it ends up being irrelevant to real people in real circumstances.

Another tough one. For me, I think you have to look at the consequences. — Down The Rabbit Hole

All we can do is speculate about consequences. We have to act with the information we have. We don't act from a transcendent position with omniscience. On the other hand, we can know precisely what has taken place in the past. This is why morality is mostly backward looking, assessing the value of actions that have already taken place.

I won't pretend to have special access to Truman's beliefs. — Banno

Yes. Playing with statements is the shallow end of the pool. Trying to understand your fellow humans is the deep end. I already knew your preference. I respect that. It's just not where my interests lie.

So jeer from the sidelines. Israel has a population it must protect. — Hanover

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. :confused:

What you do on behalf of your own survival can't be judged as long as you thought you had no alternative.
— frank
This does not follow from your premise. It doesn't follow because it is about how you treat others, and so has moral content.

Whence that moral content? There's a missing premise, something along the lines of "I may do whatever I want to other people in order to preserve my life". And that is not so. — Banno

If you become really hungry, you're likely to go kill a chicken and eat it. Was that moral? If so, what's the logic that dictates that it is? I don't think there is any. By and large morality is something we observe in ourselves and in the world. It's not knowledge we obtain by logical means, although a dose a logic is usually not a bad thing.

What came to me while pondering how morality dances around in my psyche was about how the struggle to survive is raw and blind. We can try to channel it toward the best and most moral paths, but ultimately, it has us. We'll minister to that force with whatever cards we're dealt.

But further, it is clear that there were alternatives, that the Allies were winning and that neither Truman nor the allies were in imminent danger of extinction.

So I don't see how your argument works. — Banno

Sure. So I'll ask you the same question I put to Nos:

Did Truman

a) believe it was wrong
b) believe it was right
c) believe it was amoral
d) rationalize that it was right even though he knew it was wrong

If you don't feel like following me on that, that's fine. I totally understand. I'm bedbound anyway. :grin:

Good to hear at least one person had a look. "Choosing to kill the innocent as a means to an end is always murder". Truman was a murderer. — Banno

I didn't know about that essay. Cool stuff. Yes, I agree, mass murderer.

Interesting read as always, thanks!

@Banno
:up:

I think the will to destroy other human beings was paramount, not only because they knew such a thing would happen (they ran the tests), but because they knew it would give them an edge in their campaign. They knew it would destroy innocent people, most of whom I assume had never killed any American soldiers. The choice to drop the bomb was no doubt an immoral one. — NOS4A2

I can definitely respect your viewpoint. Do you think those who made the choice:

a) believed it was wrong
b) believed it was right
c) believed it was amoral
d) rationalized that it was right even though their instincts were that it was wrong

Is there justification for nuking? — Down The Rabbit Hole

The idea of bombing civilians with any kind of bomb would strike most sensitive people as immoral. We could stop to consider what we mean by that (or how we use that kind of statement.)

We bombed civilians in WW2. Did that make us the bad guys? — RogueAI

This was a giant question for me back in the day. I had a philosophical epiphany over it. Probably off topic though?

And so Hamas uses its citizens as human shields so the law of not harming citizens protects Hamas from attack? Is it that easy? — Hanover

There needs to be a protected humanitarian corridor. I'm sure Israel will put effort into creating that. Unless they just want to do a massive fuckup.

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

Morality 101, don't bomb civilians. If you're fighting for survival, you're beyond good and evil. That's why people want to picture themselves as facing an existential threat: to allow them to proceed with immoral acts.

You really think Hamas was an existential threat that requires allowing the power to go off in Gazan hospitals? I'm not seeing that.

I get those from the sidelines think they have a gentler way to secure Israel's security, but others disagree. — Hanover

Any conqueror can say this, including Nazis. Germans had seen Jewish cultural independence as an existential threat for generations before the Holocaust. Was it really a threat? Who cares? That's what Germans believed. Same thing here.

You don't set your morals by what you think you need to accomplish your goals. You set them by what you know is right and accomplish your goals within those constraints. Otherwise you're going to fuck up.

:up:

@javi2541997
"Ha! Ha! You made me laugh, my dear pal."

:grin:

I knew it would be funny to read the arguments of the Americans backing up the massacre in Gaza, but at the same time, in the 'Ukraine Crisis' thread criticising Putin for being bloody and not letting Ukraine be free and independent...

Something that Palestine wants too... — javi2541997

You didn't grow up to be the fine upstanding American we were hoping for. :cry:

American response: now when have people's desire for revenge, go after anybody, everywhere and make every conflict with muslims part of the fight. That' war on Terror in a nutshell.

Remember just how Cheney was going around right after 9-11 happened that the US ought to attack Iraq, even everyone informed knew it was Al Qaeda. — ssu

According to my reading it was more complex than that, but my point was that this is less like WW2 and more like 9-11.

Maybe a comparison would be the US after 9-11. Got punched in the nose, things will have to change to keep this from happening again.