The threat is clearly there - the threat of being judged an immoral person. — Tzeentch

That 'threat' is ever present. Unless you are a hermit in a remote cave, people will judge whatever actions you take or fail to take or refuse to take.

In that case 'moral obligation' would be little more than a fancy term for social custom, to make it sound more authoritative. — Tzeentch

It's not a question of authority but of interdependence. Customs arise from what works in a society.

One may believe they have all sorts of moral obligations to their nation, or even the entire world. But this is nonsensical, because such obligations one cannot fulfill. — Tzeentch

What one believes is the deciding factor in what one does. One certainly can fulfill a sense of obligation by giving what they can, doing what they can. Obligation can never extend beyond ability.

I view it as empty virtue-signaling. — Tzeentch

So you do. That odious phrase is a dead giveaway. Expressing any opinion about right and good is automatically bad and dishonest. Only callous people are truly virtuous; compassionate ones are just pretending. What a complete stinker Plato must have been!

It might be a moral good, but it is not a moral obligation. — Tzeentch

Morality is not coerced, unless specific aspects of it are enacted as law. E.g. driving a car on public roads, only if competent to do so; keeping one's house and environs free of potential hazards to passers-by; telling the truth to the best of one's knowledge when testifying in court; refraining from sexual congress with a minor. These are social obligations written into the legal code and enforceable under threat of punishment.
The difference between moral obligation and legal obligation is precisely that the former is not coerced and the latter is. Hence, mandatory payment of taxes by all citizens, so that government can aid and protect all citizens. Any giving beyond that is voluntary; how much one is able and moved to contribute is left to the individual.
Moral obligation is part of the unwritten social contract, according to which the citizen has a stake and a can reasonably expect to be rescued by his neighbours, with the corresponding obligation to rescue them. Such civic duty is usually performed voluntarily by good citizens, but can also be enforced by law, if public opinions leans heavily enough in that direction. In common law, there is a "duty to rescue" , which is not generally written into law - coerced - in the United States, except in particular circumstances, but it is in other countries.

As to whether that obligation extends to people other than one's own family, community or nation, that is a matter of individual world-view. One may feel an interdependence with all of humankind, or life, or the planet - or one may feel that he is not even his own brother's keeper. If that sense of obligation is absent from one's personal morality, it cannot be imposed or instilled by suasion or compulsion.

A very clear and thorough explanation!

I can at least dimly imagine a possible Christianity that is not power-mad and judgmental — 0 thru 9

I've seen examples of such Christianity during my life, lived and practiced by persons of different denominations in different capacities. It was their example taught me forbearance toward faith and respect for people who have a sincere belief.*
(I'm pretty sure these good people would have behaved in exactly the same way if they had been atheists, since they all worked alongside unbelievers engaged in the same laudable efforts, but they themselves were convinced Jesus was guiding them. If the benefit to others is real, I'm not too fussed about motivations.)
* and a corresponding contempt for the mob of hypocrites behind them.

I guess this stuff is a step in that direction, sort of ...? — jorndoe

For sure. Some people get it. It would really be good to believe it's enough and in time.

Sorry, I couldn't understand a word they were shouting.
How about

It's just replacing fossil fuel burning (or livestock production or electricity consumption) as a source of growth, it's not an additional source.. — Tim3003

Why are you looking to growth? Isn't that - production, distribution, marketing and consumption of goods and services, investment, borrowing, population, construction, increased demand for raw materials, energy, water and food - growth - what brought us to this point?

We need a good book about what Industrialization and war have done to our values and relationships. — Athena

OK, here's one by a fairly bright feminist Stiffed

Faludi’s vivid storytelling illuminates the historic and traumatic paradigm shift from a “utilitarian” manliness, grounded in civic and communal service, to an “ornamental” masculinity shaped by entertainment, marketing, and performance values.

There is practical math that is applied to life and math for technology that leaves most mathematically ignorant — Athena

Yes, that's why it's taught in grades of increasingly specialized complexity and application. But if you start early showing students how to use numbers, measurement, proportions and ratios in their own areas of interest, and they are confident in mastery of the concepts, they (especially the girls) will be less averse to math in higher grades. The scientifically or mathematically gifted will discover their ability early on, while the others come to understand the reliability of exact knowledge, (such as climatologists and epidemiologists demonstrate, rather than the wild 'estimates' politicians throw out at random) If they see the purpose and usefulness of numeracy they'll be far less easily duped by stratagems like $ .99 pricing and government boondoggles.

There no practical reason that the study of math can't be applied in science, home economics and civics courses - wherein the first includes the biology of reproduction, the second includes consumer awareness and the third includes the assessment of campaign promises.

IMHO, the common denominator is a structural lack of economic democracy (i.e. they are "democracies"-in-name-only). — 180 Proof

Is that a nice way of saying corruption?

I agree, and I think the problem is the two-party system, with effectively little to choose between the two. — Janus

That's only the US. Other countries are having problems with the democratic system, as well. Each country's problems can be identified with some factional, ethnic or regional circumstance, or procedural flaws or economic setbacks. What's the common denominator of all struggling democracies?

It's a generalized label for Euro-American, capitalist, industrial and nominally democratic nations, which often, though by no means always, co-operate in international affairs.

A very sanctimonious response! — Ciceronianus

A very predictable one.

What if everyone collectively decided they did not want their money to be in the bank or in the financial and stock markets, and collectively decided to keep their energy consumption to an absolute minimum, grow their own food, only travel when absolutely necessary and so on? — Janus

That would be unprecedented, but interesting.

think most people won't vote for anything that more than marginally affects their accustomed lifestyle. — Janus

Voting has very little effect on the social and economic structure. It fractures due to design flaws, not user input.

And for others, it's an opportunity to be sanctimonious. — Ciceronianus

Providing the callous a reason to ignore their message.

The past decade has shown that those elites are quite happy to rush headlong into the dire effects of climate change as long as they preserve their wealth and power. — Tim3003

As in 1929, they seem to neglect a few salient facts. Like: The effects of climate change and its concomitant population displacements, pandemics, political instability and conflict will topple the financial apparatus and wipe out their wealth. Whereupon they lose control of their household armies* and become completely helpless inside their tin boxes. Like: even if wealth in some form retains its value, there will be no market in which to realize it. In social chaos, the elite lose any power they previously held - but not the long-cherished resentment of their prey.
Like:

The elites only supply a demand — Janus

and when social structure is in tatters, demand shifts to bread, shoes, antibiotics, and clean water. Mountains of fancy electronics and luxury cars rust away in containers on stranded ships in the Suez Canal.

Yes, that happens, too; more easily (with no punishment) if the enemy soldier is your prisoner.

Who takes care of the children? Maybe in another 100 years, men will be instinctively nurturing but right now the idea of leaving a very young child in the care of a man for more than a couple of hours, unnerves me. — Athena

That's because of your mind-set, instilled by a culture in which men were alienated from their families, very much to the detriment of men, families and the culture. Largely due to the economic system: they had to earn money with long, working days, and hardly saw their young children awake. Moreover, the situation of working men was - and is - such that they suffer daily anxiety and belittlement at the hands of the bosses, have no control over the process in which they are a mere moving part and no share in the fruit of their labour.
Young women, still eager to socialize, to dance and laugh with their friends, are confined in some dull dwelling-place with one or more needy, pre-verbal creatures, all day, every day, doing drudge-work, with no outlet for creativity or intelligence, no prospects and no status. The man brings a battered ego home every night to a wife who feels trapped and resentful.
Happy nuclear families!

In less 'advanced' cultures, fathers, uncles, grandfathers and older brothers are involved in the life of the children and of the clan. Sometimes they have designated roles in the guidance and instruction of the young ones, more often it's informal: babies are indulged, cuddled and entertained; when the child is old enough, he or she is taught necessary skills.
In any kind of society, there might be healthier arrangements than the atomized western family. Child-care can be pooled in a community or or kinship circle, so that mothers get time off for normal behaviour and children are allowed to form a variety of relationships and exposed to a variety of knowledge, opinion and temperament, thus developing social skills.
Parents with no extended family can spell each other off on child-care duty, and so can neighbours - as many do now.
In a functional community, who takes care of the children is not an issue: everyone does.

I would find all that less harmful if Industry used the democratic model instead of the autocratic model. We could include childcare in the place of employment or subsidized housing. We are having a hard time wrapping our heads around communal living and shared responsibility. — Athena

That's *gasp!* socialism! Or worse... it was standard in Iron Curtain countries for work-places to have free day-care on the premises, where children's health and nutrition was taken care of and mothers or fathers could visit in their breaks. Capitalism depends on the lower classes having to struggle and scramble and fight over crumbs; the middle class to look down with trepidation and up with reverence. Otherwise, they might get uppity and start demanding rights.

I am not sure we fully appreciate how much things have changed and I am out of time for today. — Athena

Does that mean the liberation movement didn't devalue women?
Still, capitalism devalues humanity. "Everyone has their price."

That was published 100 years ago. So I guess we have had this "Winter of a Faustian civilization", fall of the West for a century now. — ssu

So did Rome.

Optimism just looks so naive and silly — ssu

It does, rather.

And pessimism so deep and full of wisdom. — ssu

It's usually boo'd and jeered.

The end is nigh. — ssu

Maybe less nigh, maybe more. Sometime. Whenever it happens, there will be a rearguard of staunch deniers.

What I meant was whether the financial elites would allow control to be handed over to benign "strong AGI". — Janus

Of course they won't allow it. If God's in his heaven and all the stars are aligned correctly, it will just take over without their consent. Probably not.

I believe they will do everything in their power to stop the collapse of their "house of cards". — Janus

They're building luxury bunkers in preparation for "the event". I don't think they have a whole lot of faith in their power to stave it off.

How much longer can this collapse be staved off?

Ten years? Unless the nukes get here first.

The question I have is whether the financial elites would allow it and/ or whether the populace can ever manage to unify itself sufficiently to defy them and their cronies (the politicians). — Janus

Allow what, the collapse of their house of cards? They're not in control: like all psychopaths, money has its own logic. So does technology. The populace cannot unify itself: it's not in control either. Nobody is. And no ethicist is available to throw a convenient fat man in front of this runaway trolley.

So, after thousands of years where there indeed has been improvement, you think we are so special that right now is that time, that this NOW is the peak. — ssu

Why not. It has to be some time. No defunct empire, no lost civilization thought their NOW had come. But it did.

I collected them for a few years... That's part of our culture, isn't it? But I got too old to walk around wearing slogans. I still have a few souvenirs form the States. And Garfield. The rest have long ago become dustcloths and cat-nests.

So long have we relied on it for these purposes that we no longer need to be responsible for each other. There's your safety net; fall into it. — NOS4A2

While not quite so dire as that, the situation is deteriorating.

The total amount of charitable giving fell by 3.4% last year to $499.3 billion — a 10.5% decrease when adjusted for inflation, Giving USA found.
Between the lines: Americans gave 1.7% of their personal disposable income to charity in 2022, the lowest level they had given since 1995.

However, volunteerism is alive and well:

Nearly 51% of the U.S. population age 16 and over, or 124.7 million people, informally helped their neighbors between September 2020 and 2021 at the height of the pandemic, according to the latest Volunteering and Civic Life in America research released today.
In response to a separate question, more than 23% of people in that age group, or 60.7 million, said they formally volunteered through an organization during the same period.

People haven't become entirely callous.

I will now go to a pizza shop, and ask them to ‘make me one with everything’. — 0 thru 9

I have that teeshirt!

A moral obligation means one ought to fulfill it always. — Tzeentch

If you feel that obligation, it does mean that. If you don't, you'd probably resent anyone trying to impose it on you. This is true of all moral strictures: unless you subscribe to the canon or ideology in which it is set out as law, you are not bound by them.

Societies don't have problems; people, individuals, have problems. Some problems are within one's power to solve, others not. — Tzeentch

I see. The 7-billion-islands school of social philosophy. In that case, moral standards do not apply to you, even though the legal ones still do.

That's why much do-gooding ends up not helping anyone. — Tzeentch

I have not seen this theory demonstrated.

But sometimes (often?) it seems to turn into a crusade to solve 'the world's' problems while neglecting problems at home. — Tzeentch

We can't all be everywhere, fighting every fight: we each choose our arena.

Most, if not all, problems are human problems, and require human solutions. — Tzeentch

Certainly. But in a monetized world, individuals can do very little without funding. You can volunteer to babysit for you next door neighbour or wash their windows. But if you grow vegetables for malnourished people in the inner city, how do you bring it to those people without transportation? Volunteers cannot develop vaccines or manufacture drugs, and there may not be local trees and vines to cut down to lash together a schoolhouse.

Arguing about charitable giving loses sight of the fact that by definition it is voluntary, that is free of moral obligation. If it was obligatory it wouldn't be a charity, it would be a tax. — LuckyR

Part of it is. If you believe you have done enough by paying your taxes, your obligation ends there.

These are great ideas, but people are starving due to wars, and lack of giving. Is there something that can be done on to change the status quo? — FreeEmotion

I doubt it, at this juncture. The world is daily more turbulent; the obscene profits of megabusiness keep sucking resources out of working people's reach; between climate and internecine conflict, more people keep being displaced and dispossessed. The need keeps growing, while the disposable income of compassionate people keeps shrinking.

Are you sure it was not women's liberation that destroyed the value of being a woman? — Athena

Yup. The second-class, if not actually chattel, idea has been kicking around for quite a while. Read it in the Bible. There was no great value placed on women in American society, either, except when there was a scarcity out west and brides were mail-ordered, and during the wars, when cheap labour was needed in the most dangerous factories.
Motherhood was sanctified, of course : you got a bouquet and a card once a year, but no pay-raise.
It was the virgin-to-madonna idealization of women, and the corresponding tomboy-to-tramp denigration that the liberation movement most intensely wanted to abolish. We were not successful in every endeavour, but at least some progress was made. In the workplace, considerable progress. In law and politics, two steps forward to one step back. In marital relations and parenting, immeasurable - because in some segments of society, the change is producing much better relationships and healthier children, while in others, very little has changed.

Rarely have men prevented me from doing something I wanted to do, but you make me think about this and now I remember occasionally men did draw the line — Athena

They used to draw big fat black marker lines in big fat black lawbooks and ledgers.

but they have not attacked me as women have when I argue in favor of traditional values. — Athena

Why would they? Traditional values were all in men's favour. Southern legislators and incels want it all back the way it used to be. Some of the women who give you an argument over them may have suffered grievous injustice or bodily harm under traditional values. I'm not defending anyone in particular: I know some people can be overzealous in any belief, and I don't know what constitutes a vicious attack in this context.

Do you know how hard it is to make repairs with kitchen equipment? — Athena

Dind't have to learn. I bought my own as soon as I had a place of my own. (My brother didn't have to: he just picked up items our father carelessly dropped in the sand and forgot about. He was the one frequently pressed into service to that unkind man and felt he deserved some compensation.) When I got married, the merged household had at least two of every basic tool, plus specialty ones that one or other of us had acquired for specific projects, plus the modest assortment my mother brought. And then we made very enjoyable sorties to hardware stores and building centers together.

Fortunately, a male teacher told the class we were now going to be educated for a technological society with unknown values! Unknown values?! — Athena

Why would he, or you, or anyone need to change your values? As far as I recall, we had the very same values in home ec, chemistry and art class. We might have had a little less jingoism in history lessons than the older people had received, but that's about it. My school was still named after the odious Winston Churchill; we still stood up for the anthem every morning and cheating on a test was still punishable by suspension, while shoving in the halls or interrupting speakers on the stage were detention offenses.

What are we protecting if the only value we share is the value of money? — Athena

Your country got started by a protest against taxation and nearly tore itself apart over conflicting economic systems. Seems that's been a constant all along.

How much should one donate? How often? To what causes? — Tzeentch

The RCC, when it had a monopoly on charitable collecting, had that covered. Tithes were set according the parishioner's income and the current cause was named by the priest.

Not everyone feels obligated to share his good fortune with those whom fate or humankind have treated unfairly. Those who do are able to decide how much they can afford to donate and choose the causes they considers most worthwhile, as well as most likely to make good use of it. Some people, consider it a kind of moral duty - something akin to a debt of honour - to give back when society has been generous to them. Some are aware enough of the larger world to realize that their material comfort came about at the expense of many other people's - perhaps not directly, but through accidents of birth, history and nationality.

What if money can't solve the problem? Am I morally obligated to fly over there and start digging wells? — Tzeentch

No. Just make up a bundle of clothes for the local thrift store or a bag of groceries for the food bank or drive a disabled person to their physiotherapy session.

What if I am a poor person living in a rich country? Am I obligated to donate? — Tzeentch

No, but many poor people do anyway. If you want people to donate to you directly, ask them - some might feel obligated.

People aren't put on this Earth to make other people's problems their own, and it is generally a good thing that they don't, especially when it comes to problems they know little about. — Tzeentch

Society's problems are everyone's problems. How it goes with eating cake when the people have no bread. It sometimes ends badly for the haves.

If problems were easy to solve, people would have probably been able to solve them on their own. — Tzeentch

Nobody's on their own. Problems don't just happen out of nowhere. Since people contribute to causing them for one another, they get better results when they co-operate on the solutions or, failing that, mitigation.

Some businesses and institutions make a serious effort to collect donations from their employees, but they can't legally force you to comply, any more than the church can.

Hopefully this information is useful to you and helps adjust your expectations. — Leontiskos

And I'm suitably grateful.

The pacifist can claim that all bombing is wrong, but no one is rationally justified in claiming that the night bomber and the day bomber are moral equals. — Leontiskos

They both intend to destroy designated targets. They know their weapons kill. They know that collateral civilian damage (schools, weddings, etc) invariably occurs in bombing raids. Not only are the bomber crews moral equals, the same ones do both, as decided by commanding officers. Infantry does it across a ditch with guns, or up close, with bayonets.
It seems that everyone accepts without question the moral blamelessness of killing soldiers and munitions workers (even if they don't work night shift, they're housed nearby, with or without their families.) Soldiers are just as human as civilians and civilians can be terrorists, spies or resistance fighters without uniform. Some combatants a kick out of killing; some do it as a duty; some go mad and do it out of that irrational, uncontrollable hatred some human develop for their victims. You see it among chicken-wranglers, too.
If babies get killed - well, like the helicopter pilot said, "Well it's their fault for bringing kids in to a battle," The babies don't go into the war zone; the war comes to them. There is no very high moral ground in the profession of killing.

But why does this happen at all? It seems that you give up on the close up on the relationship between the Afrikaners and the original ethnics of Africa. It should not have to end badly. — javi2541997

I agree - it should not. Individually and in small groups, humans can work out all kinds of problems. In large numbers, we're crazy and it so often does.

Why should they be removed from Africa? They can live together with the rest of the citizens, ethnics, tribes, people, etc. — javi2541997

Isn't that how the killing usually begins? Lots of people object to living together with certain other people.
Everyone seems to be failing in Africa, except maybe itinerant medics.

I studied home economics — Athena

So should every boy along with every girl. I resented the hell out of not being allowed to take shop. Men need to budget, clothe and nourish themselves, just as women need to do minor home repairs. Whether they're married or not - besides, who says they'll marry each other? impractical to have two partners who can make pineapple upside-down cake but neither can put up a level shelf.

It was a shock to me that women's lib would destroy that value system and turn us into "just housewives" as though that is almost the lowest thing a woman can be. — Athena

Women's lib didn't do that - patriarchy did. Women who had no independent income were at the mercy of their husbands in more ways than just financially - more so if they had children.

I am asking people to look at what the 1958 National Defense Education Act did to education and our culture. — Athena

It brought its own young in line with the new world order your country had a major role in creating in the wake of WWII. Round individuals had been pretty rare before the war. Now, more scientific and industrial skills were needed, and a couple of other countries were already more advanced in those areas. The US had two choices: catch up and pull ahead or fall behind and lose its position as a world power.

For a citizen from Senegal - for example - it is more urgent to fix the management of their society — javi2541997

Who? How? With what available instrument?
Military occupation and colonial governance? Redrawing the borders and patrolling the new ones with peacekeeping forces? How are the western countries doing all this even to hold an alliance among themselves long enough to accomplish it?
Meanwhile, people suffer and die and are persecuted.

I think that the future of Africa can be managed by the African Union. — javi2541997

Sound good. If it has the means to stop arms coming in from greedy westerners and easterners, advisors coming in from westerners and easterners (not forgetting China's keen interest) seeking political advantage, essential resources flowing out to western and eastern buyers. I dunno! Clear out all the Europeans, Americans and Asians, then blockade the whole continent and let them figure it out like they used to? We can't *gasp* do that! It contains oily bits near the top! And where do you put all the Afrikaners?
Is Hell getting any cooler yet?

Any more positive views of the world's future? — Tim3003

After a longish post-collapse dark age, tribal communities will probably establish a new civilization, or many, in different regions, They may be different from this one, if people can remember what mistakes not to repeat.

They are failed nations, and we should start to help to establish a solid structure to build a rigorous state. — javi2541997

On what basis? No 'nation' present in Africa, the Americas or Oceania is a natural society: all the borders have been drawn around displaced and dispossessed peoples by colonial powers who had no concern for the natives' relation to the land or one another. Of course such artificial states fail, and expecting the same colonizers to rebuild them into solid national structures is unrealistic, to say the least.

Self-determination and independent governance for individual ethnic groups would be a start - at least in ending the armed conflicts. However, the allocation of territory remains problematic, as the economics of the colonial and post-colonial periods has changed the landscape itself.

"We", by which posters usually mean prosperous western countries, on the government level have no diplomatic, strategic or financial interest in redistribution of land, resources, water rights, and certainly nothing to gain by intervention in foreign administrations. So, that's not going to happen until the UN assumes one-world government or hell freezes over, whichever comes last.

Individually, we can support organizations that make sensible contributions to local improvement: water, shelter, agricultural improvement, education, hunger relief, medical aid and micro loans. We can also vote for candidates who put forward benevolent and fair policies, instead of tax cuts and more military spending.

This kind of thinking occurs to most people by the time they are teenagers. — Tom Storm

Yes, children have an innate sense of justice, until it's beaten or bribed out of them.

he desire for vengeance itself can't be the justification. — Count Timothy von Icarus

No, but it can be a powerful motivation. It can also blind people to long-term goals or derail their original, reasoned intentions. I realize that's not a moral consideration. But, in long-lasting hostilities, where bitterness and smouldering rage are the daily diet of at least one of the participants, if not both, it is a common enough factor. The moral evaluations, justifications, rationalizations usually follow a long way behind the passions of the moment.

There are likely even better ways to adjust the 2 scenarios to make them as equivalent as possible. — EricH

Only, I doubt equivalency was intended.

Positing some sort of equivalence on this score is not rationally justified. — Leontiskos

Neither is killing people on an industrial scale. But we don't seem anywhere close to discontinuing the practice.

Given that armament factories are not usually found in residential neighborhoods, I see no reason to assent to your claim that Group B's actions smash children against walls. — Leontiskos

Nearly all aerial attacks do that. Even by the squeaky-clean 'good guys'.

The promise was a war waged by all-seeing drones and precision bombs. The documents show flawed intelligence, faulty targeting, years of civilian deaths — and scant accountability.
Shortly before 3 a.m. on July 19, 2016, American Special Operations forces bombed what they believed were three ISIS “staging areas” on the outskirts of Tokhar, a riverside hamlet in northern Syria. They reported 85 fighters killed. In fact, they hit houses far from the front line, where farmers, their families and other local people sought nighttime sanctuary from bombing and gunfire. More than 120 villagers were killed.

Munitions are designed to kill people. They don't care which people die, they just go where they're pointed... more or less. Where the population density is high, safe infrastructure is scarce and weapons - defensive or offensive - are made wherever they can be, more people get killed by happenstance than in wide, roomy, wealthy places.

The OP asked if their is a moral equivalence between two groups. That's impossible to determine without knowing why they're fighting, hence my point: "WHY two sides are fighting is as important as HOW two sides are fighting". — RogueAI

I did pose that as a factor in arriving at a judgment. The OP comparison was as flawed as the argument about red historical herrings.

Allied soldiers fighting the Nazi's weren't aware they were on the right side? They (and the world) only realized this after the war was over? — RogueAI

Soldiers in all the armies involved were mostly conscripts. Nobody informed them of the precedents and nuances of the situation, just loaded them with a ton of propaganda field gear. They were not asked their opinion, just shot if they tried to stop killing one another.
As for what "the world" realized, it's difficult to piece together a coherent idea.