This may be technically true, but I don't think it is right to make life miserable for those unlucky enough to have been born into dictatorships. If I was in that position, I wouldn't want my life to be made miserable for years, I'd want an immediate liberation. So long as the US is able to fight totally lopsided wars, with allies no less, it seems the best course of action is to do so immediately. — Paul Edwards

The problem with this approach is what we see in this thread, the undermining of support for such projects. No US administration can just willy nilly do whatever it wants. It requires a good measure of public support to dethrone dictators by force. Consider Vietnam, a bungled mess which crushed the consensus developed by the WWII generation. That fiasco set up a couple of generations of Americans to resist any intervention anywhere.

I think the course we are on right now with Iran is the wiser strategy over the long run.

1) Build the alliance against Iran

2) Bankrupt the regime

3) Patient deterrence

Yes, sanctions have a negative effect on the Iranian people, that's true. But let us not forget they overthrew the Shah in 1979 with no help from anyone. So when they are ready they can do that again.

If an invasion of Iran went FUBAR that's the end of deposing dictators by force for another century. Once we start the necessary shock and awe we become the focus of everyone's concern, and the mullah's get a free pass, and increased support from the Iranian people.

The best weapon we may have is public education. This thread would seem to illustrate we aren't currently doing such a great job of that.

Readers please note, this is a tactical argument, not a moral one.

Bringing freedom to millions of people is the best foreign aid you can give. — Paul Edwards

Ok, you make good points.

To counter, the dictators will be easier to knock off once they're bankrupt. Russia, the Mid East, Iran, Venezuela, all heavily dependent on oil income.

And it's got to be done anyway.

No, I reached that age where something isn't automatically true because a bunch of right-wing politicians told me. — Kenosha Kid

But you haven't reached the age where you can make anything close to a credible argument against the Iraq war. So I had to do it for you. See above.

For all you know I was 10 years old during GWII

You mean you're not 10 years old now??? Dang, I got that one wrong.

Communist China is the biggest dictatorship in human history. A competition between them and democratic countries may be the defining political issue of the 21st century. Point being, Iraq might be seen as small potatoes, Afghanistan even smaller. Should we perhaps stand back from a past we can do nothing about and focus on the future big picture?

Obama wished to shift the focus from the Mid East to the Far East, so doing that is not a conspiracy by right wing baby killing corporate slave masters etc etc.

Well, this seems one of those definitional battles, as people wish to use the word "exists" in different ways. Perhaps we can find different words for distinguishing space from a can of soda?

In any case, imho the truth is that if we're going to be discussing phenomena as large as reality, that's overwhelmingly space at every scale. Space is the main event, everything else is a tiny detail.

So if one wishes to have a philosophy aligned with the nature of reality, less is more.

Because this is a philosophy forum, I want to take a moment for an argument against the war in Iraq.

The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq cost trillions of dollars. What if we had taken every penny of that expense and invested it in say, solar energy? The goal would be to make MidEast oil irrelevant, thus pulling the rug out from under the power of all MidEast dictators.

Something like this is happening now with Trump's sanctions on Iran. He's steadily yanking the cash cow out from under the mullahs, limiting their ability to make trouble around the region. He very surgically knocked off their head of trouble making, and then immediately sought to defuse the situation. As much as I hate the guy, that wasn't a bad move.

OMG! I said something nice about Trump a few days before an election!! I definitely need to be tortured! :-)

I rarely quote entire posts, but this one deserves it. Right on the money. Well done Paul!

But this is exactly the heart of the problem. We're dealing with a world that has traditionally been rife with dictators. The dictators are never going to agree that democratic nations are the ones who should be judge, jury and executioner of other dictators, but that's exactly the sort of thing needed for justice. It is the democratic countries that have just governance.

So we need a "plan" to deal with the world as it is. YOU should come up with that plan yourself. Then you can compare the plan with what the US government is doing, and maybe email them any suggestions for improvements. If we were all planning on liberating the rest of the world, to end the screams coming from next door, then when the US (et al) executed their plan to liberate Iraq, it would likely have dove-tailed into your own plan.

The US shouldn't need to sell this war to you. You should be selling your liberation plan to them *in advance*.

And note that your plan will necessarily call for deception. You can't let the dictators know you're coming for all of them, as we need the help of allied dictators against non-allied dictators, and we don't want a hostile "dictator alliance". We don't have the luxury of only rubbing shoulders with fellow democracies. The world hasn't yet reached that stage of development. One day it will be a requirement for entering the UN that you are a democracy, and that any country that has a military coup is immediately subjected to a UN liberation. But we're not there yet. — Paul Edwards

Appeal to faith is a pretty well-known fallacy, and there's not much you can do in response. — Pfhorrest

Atheists don't commit the appeal to faith fallacy...

Because they typically don't know that they too are using faith.

There's not much one can do in response here either.

The reason why these countries wanted a nuclear was only to have deterrence against the Israeli nuclear deterrence. — ssu

Why have none of the VERY rich gulf oil states developed nukes in response to Israel, who has had nukes for a long time now? They're not afraid of Israel, that's why. They have rationally concluded Israel is not a threat to them. They're making peace with Israel.

Israel still has a bunch of nukes. The gulf states have none. They're ok with that. Or they would have long ago done something about it, given that they are richer than God.

He couldn't rebuild his army, so he surely could not rebuild a nuclear bomb — ssu

Are you aware that North Korea has a bunch of nukes, built out of an economy about the size of a house cat?

And how would they suck all powers to a Biblical end times scenario — ssu

Are you aware that without Mid East oil supplies the global economy goes in to an immediate drastic nose dive and that such circumstances have always been ripe grounds for conflict among the major powers? Here's what happens when the economy goes down the tubes. People start yelling, "Do something, DO SOMETHING!"

Hi. I have spent an enormous amount of effort, starting in 2002, debating about the 2003 Iraq war. — Paul Edwards

Ok Paul, I carried this ball for awhile. Handing the baton back to you.

Your argument here is absurd and not worth engaging with. — FrancisRay

It probably would be wise for you to retreat before this becomes any more embarrassing.

You know how you know a LOT about Buddhism, and I know almost nothing? I learned from you, I didn't slam down the phone and run away.

You've very engaged by this subject obviously, but you just don't know that much, that's all. Not a crime.

We want nothing to do with your constant warmongering, military and political interference or approach to life. — FrancisRay

Any time you wish to withdraw from NATO, you are free to do so. Hey, maybe you could strike up a good deal with Putin, he seems like a nice guy.

This is an irrelevant question, as you must surely be aware — FrancisRay

So I take your point to be that if Saddam was torturing your family we should not intervene. Ok, duly noted.

Oh well. I must retire from the forum I think — FrancisRay

Well ok, that's one way to dodge the question. Why not just retire from the thread though? I enjoy your insights on other topics and look forward to more.

I'm surprised to find we disagree on this. I suspect it's very difficult for you guys over there to see the wood for the trees, so powerful is the 24/7 political propaganda. At least you might ask yourself why Britain was about the only country to support Bush's war. Why not more? — FrancisRay

They're all happy to accept our help when it's their head on the psychopath's chopping block. I don't recall resistance to the invasion of Normandy by our British and French friends.

1) We saved your ass in WWI

2) Then we saved it again in WWII

3) Then we risked nuclear war on the American homeland to save you from being over run by Russian tanks.

The entire 20th century spent saving Europeans from their own problems.

And in return you lecture us from a position of imaginary moral superiority when we try to save somebody other than you.

The Brits stood with us in the war against Iraq because the Brits are honorable grateful people who have brains. As for the rest, no comment.

If you note the supporters of war here you'll note they're not considering all the factors but just pushing an ideology. — FrancisRay

Saddam just moved in next door to you. Will you be calling the police, or listening to the screams?

Sorry, but there simply is no fucking 911 to call for a police in this World when it comes to sovereign states. — ssu

I knew you'd dodge the question. They always do.

The real threat of Hussein getting a nuclear weapon was before the invasion of Kuwait and Desert Storm. — ssu

The real threat of Saddam getting a nuclear weapon was his living existence. The Iranians are inching right up to the edge of having nukes. What Saddam would do in response is utterly predictable. And then everyone in the region would want their own nukes. A nuclear war in the Middle East could erase the entire region off the map in literally just a few minutes, and could quite credibly suck all the major powers in to a Biblical scale end times scenario.

That could still happen some day, but we can thank George Bush for the fact that it's not happening now.

And in case anyone might be wondering, I'm a liberal Democrat. Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson. Liberal Democrats used to understand such things.

Are these real phenomena? — FrancisRay

The reality of space has been confirmed by science. Some will say this means it exists. Ok, that's one definition of existence which can be chosen. Personally, I'm attempting to make a distinction between two kinds of phenomena.

1) Is real, has mass and weight.

2) Is real, does not have mass and weight.

Given that most of reality is in category 2, and most of what we focus on is in category 1, such a distinction seems worth considering.

If Saddam moved in next door to you and you started to hear screams coming from the house, would you call the police or not? It's a yes or no question, because you would either pick up the phone and dial 911, or you would sit there listening to the screams. One, or the other. No amount of sophisticated fancy talk liberates us from the yes/no nature of that choice.

If anyone wishes to make a case that all parties would have been better off without the invasion, ok, make that case. But please don't compare the invasion to peace, because there was no peace in Iraq to be preserved. If someone wishes to make the case against the invasion they are required to compare one list of horrors to another list of horrors.

It could be argued, and was argued, that the real threat to the region is Iran, because of it's larger size and fundamentalist ideology. If this judgement is made, then one could construct an argument that Saddam should have been left in power as a check on Iran. You know, instead of us fighting the psychopaths, let them fight each other.

We did try this strategy, but it so bankrupted Saddam that he was forced to make a grab for Kuwait to restore his bank balance. And so the problem was just moved from one box to another.

We could have kicked Saddam out of Kuwait and left it at that. And now we'd be watching a nuclear arms race spread across the region. Anyone here wish to vote for that?

What's interesting is that while Bush gets slammed for invading Iraq, nobody seems to mind that Obama didn't invade Sryia right at the beginning of the Syrian civil war, a decisive act which might have saved 400,000 Syrians from the carnage which was about to unfold there.

Bush invades Iraq, improving the situation.

Obama does nothing in Syria, opening the door to chaos.

Truth is a predicate of statements; it is not a thing — Banno

That's a common definition of truth. But that definition does reduce truth to being a pile of little symbols in the minds of a species on a single planet in one of billions of galaxies. Thus making truth, in the grand scheme of things, very close to non-existent. Kind of a demotion for a word with such grand pretensions.

A question that I think is worth considering is, in what sense do numbers exist? — Wayfarer

And why does the question matter? Because the overwhelming vast majority of reality is a real phenomena, which doesn't meet our definition of existence. Whatever label we wish to attach to that circumstance, it's a very big deal.

But the solution to the question of what two and two equals does not exist, it simply is. — Wayfarer

I've been attempting to draw the distinction between "real" and "exists" in multiple threads. Seems a useful line of inquiry here.

If the Iraq invasion had been an honest enterprise there would have been no need to lie and cheat and invent fake reasons for it. — FrancisRay

People such as yourself were that reason. Twenty years later, Saddam gone, his psychopathic sons dead, Iraq free, torture chambers gone, no WMD arms race with Iran, no more Iraqi invasion of it's neighbors, threat to the world's oil supply removed, US troops almost home, and you STILL don't get it.

Had you had your way, Saddam and his sons would still be attaching jumper cables to the genitals of anyone who got in their way. The entire Middle East would probably now be engaged in a frantic nuclear arms race.

The hyper sloppy logic of the war's critics is that they never compare the invasion to what the reality would have been without the invasion. Instead, they compare the invasion to some imaginary mythical vision of peace which had never existed in Saddam's Iraq. A million killed in the war with Iran. Peace????

Without the invasion, the containment strategy would have inevitably failed and once again Saddam would have been up to some trouble that likely would have made an invasion necessary at some point anyway.

Anyway, I'm being stupid to bother typing this because those who didn't get it then will never get it.

Can you also answer Benkei's message — Paul Edwards

Not worth the bother. Like I said, imho, words and reason are insufficient for this task.

Yeah, it must be mental blocks causing people to disagree — Benkei

If Saddam took over the house next to yours and you started hearing screaming coming from inside...

You'd call the police, knowing in advance that men with guns would come and shooting may occur.

Mental blocks. Inability to use common sense. Prioritizing fantasy moral superiority poses over the welfare of victims. Partisan politics.

An idea that takes some work to get across where metaphysics and mysticism are poorly known — FrancisRay

Well, could be. I dunno, seems kinda obvious though.

Space. No weight, no mass, no shape, no form. Not meeting the most common definition of existence. And yet it's a real phenomena.

Math. No weight, no mass, no shape, no form. Not meeting the most common definition of existence. And yet it's a real phenomena.

That's just wrong. There are patterns. — Banno

REAL. Just not existent.

Like space.

I am curious at what mental blocks exist that prevent people from understanding that criminals need to be brought to justice, and whether there is a combination of words that can persuade them of this. Or whether it really does require goons knocking on their door before they return to reality. — Paul Edwards

The threat seems too distant to many folks for them to take it seriously. If Saddam had taken over Saudi Arabia and then cut off the oil, that probably would have snapped some out of their delusions. Or, if Trump were to win again, and then become a dictator. Something like that. Maybe not goons knocking on their door, but something that makes it more personal and immediate to them.

Some combination of words? Probably not.

How do you propose to control the spread of knowledge and halt experiments in "dangerous" areas — Chris1952Engineer

Based on what I can observe, and about a thousand conversations on this subject....

1) Wait

2) Watch the civilization collapse

3) Wait a long time

4) Try again

I used to think we could reason our way around this, but no longer. It's too big of a shift to be accomplished with reason alone. But, to debate my own point, it's at least possible some calamity like a limited nuclear war might change the status quo mindset sufficiently.

To partially address your question, here's an example.

For a very long time humans lived on the edge of starvation, and so a "more is better" relationship with food was rational. In much of today's world obesity is a bigger threat than hunger, so we're in the process of editing the ancient "more is better" relationship with food. We've moved from a food scarcity to a food plenty situation, which is requiring an update to our relationship with food. Progress made the old relationship outdated and dangerous.

This examples illustrates the kind of philosophical adaptation required in our relationship with knowledge, and offers some hope of success. But I don't have the answer of exactly how that happens.

However, I am flattered by the question, which I've heard many times. The question seems to assume that if Hippyhead can't fix this, that proves that nobody can. :-) A charming fantasy!

Under Saddam's regime, it was a criminal in charge of the government. — Paul Edwards

What the Iraq war taught us is that lots of folks are simply never going to get this. Until the goons knock on their door.

only to be attacked for doing so with claims that I'm baiting or trolling. — praxis

Dear mods, could you please close the forum and erase all the backups so that praxis will have to infect some other site? Thank you!

Why do you seek to characterize your interlocutors arguments as something to be dismissed rather than addressing them directly? — Janus

You typed this sentence instead of addressing any of my arguments. You are dismissed. Good luck Wayfarer.

Sometimes when the police are responding to a rape call, they kill pedestrians. Does that mean we should disband the police, because they sometimes do harm? — Paul Edwards

Yes, that's it.

Some people will stand back and ceaselessly complain about well intended efforts to liberate enslaved people in other countries. But the very minute a bunch of drug pushing gang bangers take over part of their own neighborhood, they will call the police.

Another problem is that critics usually don't bother to compare the war and it's outcomes to what the reality would have been if there had been no war.

A million people died when Saddam invaded Iran. Many more when he invaded Kuwait. Not to mention all the Iraqis who had been killed by Saddam for decades. If there had been no war, some form of the above would have continued.

Ah, but the critics complain, Saddam was contained! What the Bush Admin realistically grasped was that such containment could only be maintained for so long. Neither the American public, nor the Saudi or Kuwaiti publics, were prepared to support such containment forever. Sooner or later the containment would have died, and then Saddam would have been on the loose again.

Instead, thanks to Bush, Saddam is dead. No more invasions of other countries. No WMD arms race with Iran. No more psychopathic assaults upon the Iraqi people. Not perfection, just improvement.

I work at Walgreens! — TLCD1996

Aha! I have found my guru! :-)

Well, almost. You are not claiming to be an authority, a leader, a teacher etc. Should you ever do so I will visit your Walgreens and subject you to a ceaseless barrage of annoying customer complaints. Science! :-)

And you remember that there is no true refuge within that meaning, so you stop seeking it out. — TLCD1996

I like this. I call this "taking it up a level". On one level we can debate the value of "this meaning vs. that meaning" until the end of time. If "take it up a level" and stand back from the debate, we can observe that all meanings, every one of them, whatever their relative value, are all just a pile of symbols.

Every photo on Facebook is just a photo. None of the photos, not a single one, is a real person.

The value of the Facebook photos is derived from our relationship with the person the photo points to. If we don't know the person, if we have no relationship with them, then the photo can only hope to be temporarily mildly interesting and little more.

The value we seek, the "refuge" is found in the real world. The symbolic world is a primary obstacle to focusing on the real world.

If we spend all day every day on Facebook looking at photos, then we will likely have few to no real world friends, and thus all the photos will be largely meaningless.

Do you mean that nobody can have expertise in or knowledge of NDEs unless they have had one? That's a bit severe. — jamalrob

Agreed. It would seem to be the polar opposite of the severity you seem to be proposing (if I understand it) that we should focus on those examining the phenomena from the outside while largely dismissing those reporting from within the experience.

This may be an overstatement of your perspective, corrections welcomed.

For endless centuries the statement "the sun is rising" was considered to be factually accurate. The accuracy of that statement was taken to be an obvious given, as the rising of the sun was confirmed by a universally shared empirical observation. This conclusion was rarely questioned, and when it was the questioner was widely considered to be a wacko crackpot spouting obvious nonsense.

And then we obtained a wider perspective which revealed that that taken to be obviously true was instead obviously wrong.

If I understand it, Buddhists and others are reaching for that wider perspective, and forming conclusions based on what they discover.

The Hippyheadists say that it is the wider perspective itself which matters, not any conclusions which may arise from it. Looking of sufficient quality resolves all such questions, without answering them. We ask the questions and seek the conclusions for some reason, out of some need. If that need is met by the looking itself, then the questions and sought conclusions are no longer needed, and so melt away on their own.

It seems obvious you didn't read the article — Bryon Ehlmann

Not sure how familiar you are with Internet forums. Very few forum users will read academic articles linked to on other platforms, especially when those platforms are not very adept at presenting text in an easily read form, which with academia is usually the case.

You'd probably have better luck at achieving engagement on forums by breaking your thesis down in to more bite size pieces and then summarizing the key propositions one at a time here on the forum.

but if you do come on here then you should be prepared to discuss your ideas in good faith, and submit your ideas to critical scrutiny; — Janus

Please provide us with the proof that the rules of reason created by a half insane semi-suicidal species only recently living in caves on one little planet in one of billions of galaxies are automatically binding on questions about the most fundamental nature of everything everywhere, a realm we can't currently define in even the most basic manner.

Submit your ideas to critical scrutiny.

Discuss them in good faith.

Personally, I think you are using good faith, but either aren't willing or able to do the critical scrutiny part.