No, the scenarios you keep changing and creating to further your point are the nonsense. First we're talking about Hitler, Nazism and Pure Rationalism, and now we're talking about Eskimos leaving their elderly behind to leave more resources for everyone else.

You made a claim, I provided ample examples that shows your claim is nonsense. Sometimes sacrificing one group of people so a larger group of people might live is required or the only acceptable outcome. It does not fly in the face of rationality.

Your examples have all been fictitious with some basis in history, controlled by you, and as such have merely proven that you can create fictitious examples to support your correctness. Fictitious examples with some basis in history do not prove another's claims are nonsense.

Yes, I think it is irrational to go into any situation thinking you must choose between one group of lives over another instead of finding a win-win outcome.

Again, sometimes you simply do not have the time, space or resources to achieve a win win situation. That is life.

Unless you're omnipotent, I don't think you could know that.

Riiiight. As dictator of the scenario, you're entitled to suggest that a fictitious scenario results in millions of deaths because you says so. Well, I'm going to return the dictation of the scenario and state that I just put 45 million people to work, increased our GDP, saved the middle class and returned America to a more prosperous nation.

Sorry, you don't get to dictate the scenarios and the outcomes to me. These are all hypothetical situations and as such, you can't state what the outcome would be any more than I can.

Be realistic. 'Fixing the economy' is a long term project, it takes at least several years under the most optimal circumstances and people on food stamps do not have years without food stamps. Working towards idealistic outcomes is great and we should totally go for that, but one has to remain realistic in what can be achieved in the short, medium and long term and how that affects people. Therefor, when it comes to these kind of policy decisions that affect peoples lives in a very direct way (cut them off from food stamps and they will starve) the answer 'I will fix the economy' is a non answer.

I wasn't aware that your simplistic question was incredibly realistic, so I provided a simplistic answer that I felt was correct. My answer was realistic, albeit simplistic. You provided nothing but a simple description, then when I answered in kind, you suggested that my decision caused the death of 45 million people. Sorry - it's far more complicated than that. And in essence, my answer could have involved just as much of a complicated and planned out idea to put those 45 million people to work - yet somehow you took a simplistic answer to a simplistic question and turned it into something to support your biased view. Again, you don't get to dictate the views here.

99%? Another made-up statistic to further your point and at the same time show your bias for your line of thinking?

You really do not understand how politics works do you?

Non sequitur. My understanding of politics has nothing to do with your made up statistic that in 99% of cases it is not possible to reach an ideal solution, particularly given your long winded explanation in your post about how an 'ideal solution' is completely dependent on whose 'ideal' it is, and certainly not a percentage you could possibly backup with factual evidence. Face it: you made up a figure to support your own correctness, as you've done throughout the discussion with fictitious examples, even if some had a basis in actual history.

Do you honestly believe that people can make decisions that will automatically lead to your win win outcomes?

No, not in all cases. But you keep changing the goal posts. First we're talking about Nazi rationale. Then we're talking about train crashing into buses. Then we're talking about food stamps. Each one would have a different level of win win, and would have different types and levels of responses.

o you think that for example 'fixing the economy' is something that you can just decide and then it will happen? The economy is hugely dependent on a whole range of factors that are beyond your control, even if you were crowned supreme ruler of Earth.

Straw man. I never claimed that it is something I can just 'decide' will happen. All of your fictitious scenarios have involved very little detail, and as such have received very flippant responses from me. You then take these responses and suggest specific outcomes which only confirm your biases. I've played right into your game of allowing and responding to your fictitious examples in hopes that it might lead somewhere, but all it has lead to is you changing the goal posts and moving around your examples in such a way that you try to assert your own correctness without ever actually, factually, proving it.

I might be biased, but I am very much aware of how difficult it is for the people in charge to reach your idealistic win win outcomes. And most of the time, we have to settle for a less than optimal outcome.

I'm sure that's very true. However, your fictitious examples don't really do this idea justice.

Riiight. This is war damnit! Can't make an omlet without breaking some eggs, right? People gotta die and it is the only rational choice.

You might not have chosen to be in the war, but someone else might have made that choice for you, such as a dictator in your neighboring country. And once you are in a war, then what choice do you have? Surrender? Or use your army to try and defend your country and your people from being conquered and possibly murdered by the aggressor. But using your army inevitably means that some of your soldiers will die. However, if you stand a good chance of at least holding the enemy at bay or possibly even defeat them, isn't it worth sacrificing a few soldiers, so your civilians might survive?

Again with the moving of the goal posts. You keep creating fictitious examples randomly to suit each point of your view. I'm sure it all makes sense to you, but your examples are all over the place, and were I to respond, you'd simply tell me that I cost 45 million lives. There's no point in responding to your examples if you're going to stack the deck in favor of your own views. Somehow you feel it proves your point, but all I read is yet another attempt to trap me into a simplistic response so that you can assert your own correctness once more. If you're going to sit there and tell me that you get to dictate the scenarios and outcomes, and tell me you get to do so because life's not fair, then I'm not playing your games anymore. You don't get to stack the deck, string me along, then assert your own correctness at my expense.

I believe you like creating unlikely scenarios, asking what people would do, then make them emotive enough to give you a reaction you seek. Then when someone actually gives you honest answers, you accuse them of allowing their moral or ethical convictions to get in the way.

Only when someone claims to be rational in all things and denies that his moral and ethical convictions sometimes clash with his rationality.

Or maybe they don't clash and that bothers you.

Who are you to tell me that I'm using the wrong weights? Who are you to dictate to me how a scenario unfolds?

I'm not saying that you do. And I dictate the scenario because I came up with the scenario. You don't think thats fair? Well, life isn't fair.

No, that's not the way it works. You don't get to create fictitious examples and ask questions, then proceed to dictate fictitious outcomes in support of your views at my expense. I don't care if it is fair or not, I'm calling you out on it. Chalking it up to "life isn't fair" is not a response - it's a cop out so that you can continue to create examples that favor your views and favor your biases.

Says you and people that think like you. Still see no reason to agree with you.

Says thousands of years of human history. Says common sense. Says reason and rationality.

Right. Because that's the way you view it and because you says so.

After all, you don't feel responsible for all the people the United States has killed do you?

Yes, I do. Not responsible enough that I should be held directly accountable for it, but responsible enough to know that I should be pro-active to prevent such things from occurring in the future, even if that means fighting a losing battle with those that disagree with me.

Again, this doesn't explain away why you state that they were rational in their decision making, but then state that Nazism abhors the rational.

Nazis also developed some of the most advanced weapons for their time, and that clearly required some measure of intellect. I suppose its just that they were pragmatic enough to accept that some rationality was useful and leave it alone as long as it produced benefits. Besides, Nazism happened in Germany, one of the most orderly and organized countries in Europe. A few years of Nazism would not be enough to erase that.

That was one of your shorter non-answers. Telling me that Nazis were able to create some advanced weapons does not explain your contradictory statement that Nazis were rational in their thinking then state that Nazism abhors the rational.

At this point, I'm wearing down fast and losing interest in the discussion. Where does this conversation end? Does it end by being the last person to respond? Does it end in any agreeable fashion?

That is up to you.

That is up to me? So you're saying that as long as I keep responding or as long as I don't see it your way, you're going to keep coming at me with more fictitious examples, more contradictory statements, more long-winded stories, more non-sequiturs until I either agree with you or simply stop posting?

If it were up to me, you wouldn't attempt to make your points using fictitious examples created and dictated by you to assert your own biases and correctness. If it were up to me, you wouldn't take overly-simplified answers and blow them into non-sense simply because you view them that way, then turn around and try to assert your own biases and correctness from that as if you are actually going to win over your opponent in doing so. If it were up to me, you wouldn't have used the time-honored internet tradition of Godwin's Law to somehow prove your own correctness.

You stated that you're in control. You dictate scenarios. You dictate outcomes. You have asserted your own correctness through fictitious examples. You stated you can't always have a favorable outcome or a win/win situation. I asked you how this ends.

EDIT: I will leave it at this, at least in this topic. It has indeed gone a bit to much off topic. If someone is interested in discussing this further I'll be happy to respond in another topic.

I don't know how you could have made a stronger case, Мишель.

Then your bar for a 'strong case' is quite low.

People aren't naturally murderers or killers.

Agreed. And no matter how small you sliced up the jobs, if people are instructed to create gas chambers with the end result that it was going to be used to kill people, most people wouldn't be involved with that unless they suspended their critical thinking and stopped thinking rationally, which is exactly what those in the Nazi party did, hence they were irrational. This is far different from putting together cars in a factory, where the end result is to create a vehicle which can transport people from one place to another. The only purpose of a gas chamber was to kill people. Thus has been the basis of my position, despite Michiel claiming that saving lives is the irrational thing to do.

Killing. 'It' 'is' The Human Thing To Do. 'It' 'is' what Humans Do. All Humans Do 'it' Directly or Indirectly. Do, Condone or Allow.

Killers Kill and Killers are Killed. No Religion Needed.

As Long as The Arm can Swing and The Finger or Stub can Push/Pull. Death by Killing Awaits.

'It' can't Be Stopped.

' '

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May we All have a METAMORPHOSIS. REASON. GOoD JUDGEMENT and LOVE and ORDER!!!!!

Killers Kill and Killers are killed

Perfect conundrum!

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Killers Kill and Killers are killed

Perfect conundrum!

Seems the killers kill more than get killed though.

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[/quote]

Old James

Killers Kill and Killers are killed

Perfect conundrum!

Seems the killers kill more than get killed though.

Well yes, because there are more non-killers than killers. If everyone where killers can you imagine what the world would be like?

Most people don't just go around killing people.

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Reality Internet Personality

and here we have it in a nutshell.

People aren't naturally murderers or killers. They don't need religion to tell them not to kill.

However, they do need religion to tell them to kill. Just like the blank bullet in the firing squad, religion helps people absolve them self from responsibility. From the Muslim extremists who believe that Allah will reward him to heaven, to the IRA bombers who used to go to confession for absolution BEFORE they killed people.

One religion isn't better than another. They are all bad.

I'm not sure if it works like that. Religion is great at dehumanizing and telling people that its okay to kill, but then again, the brainwashing the Nazis unleashed at their soldiers also accomplished the same thing. Yet, those troops still experienced a great amount of distress when they were send out to kill Jews by shooting them. It was because of this that they had to invent more industrialized methods of killing.

I think that people feel responsible pretty much the moment they can clearly connect their act of pulling a trigger, pushing a button or swinging a sword to the immediate death of another person, even if for religious or ideological reasons they consider those people to be less than them. I think the trick only works when they either are not fully responsible for the killing, or when they are so far removed from their victims that they never see their faces and never get the chance to witness them as people.

Also, to say that religion is bad because some extremists use it to justify their crimes is silly. Those extremists are a minority. Its similar to saying that having governments is bad because they are often the cause of war (and generally responsible for far more death and destruction then religion ever was). Yet clearly a government, when not operated by extremists is a good thing. They pay for public goods and services such as roads, schools, sanitation, healthcare (to some extend) and they provide protection against crime and foreign aggression. A government orders society and prevents chaos. Which is exactly why almost no one ever says we should get rid of governments. On the whole they do more good than bad. The same is true for religion. For every extremist, there are thousands, if not millions of people who use religion in a good way.

You stated that you're in control. You dictate scenarios. You dictate outcomes. You have asserted your own correctness through fictitious examples. You stated you can't always have a favorable outcome or a win/win situation. I asked you how this ends.

You know, if you are going to cut out the bits you don't like and then pretend I never said them, you only look silly. Such as this bit, cutting out the bit where I stated I would stop responding to this discussion in this thread, but if you want to continue all you have to do is make a new thread. I would have thought that was a clear enough answer for you :)

If your question is more 'how will it end (in general)' it ends until people stop responding or I get bored. And I don't easily get bored.

Your argument seems to assume that ll the Germans did not belong to religious groups. Considering that it was the birth place of the Protestant movement and that the RC members pay their tithes through the tax system, would suggest your argument is faulty.

Just because people are religious or of a different religion than the people they go to war with doesn't mean they are fighting that war for religious reasons. Correlation does not equal causality.

This thread seems to have degenerated into a discussion about Nazis with religion being used as an excuse to debate them.

If war is to be used, how about discussing all the others?

Religious wars

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Religion is great at dehumanizing and telling people that its okay to kill, but then again, the brainwashing the Nazis unleashed at their soldiers also accomplished the same thing.

If your question is more 'how will it end (in general)' it ends until people stop responding or I get bored. And I don't easily get bored.

According to "Godwin's Law" this thread ended when you said "Nazis".

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You stated that you're in control. You dictate scenarios. You dictate outcomes. You have asserted your own correctness through fictitious examples. You stated you can't always have a favorable outcome or a win/win situation. I asked you how this ends.

You know, if you are going to cut out the bits you don't like and then pretend I never said them, you only look silly.

I cut out the bits I feel it's pointless to have a response to. If that makes me look silly, then so be it. I tend to think it makes me look like I'm taking the high road.

Such as this bit, cutting out the bit where I stated I would stop responding to this discussion in this thread, but if you want to continue all you have to do is make a new thread. I would have thought that was a clear enough answer for you :)

Based upon the fact that I didn't create a new thread means I don't have an interest in continuing to play your games.

If your question is more 'how will it end (in general)' it ends until people stop responding or I get bored. And I don't easily get bored.

So you're saying you just like to have the last word.

Religion is great at dehumanizing and telling people that its okay to kill, but then again, the brainwashing the Nazis unleashed at their soldiers also accomplished the same thing.

If your question is more 'how will it end (in general)' it ends until people stop responding or I get bored. And I don't easily get bored.

According to "Godwin's Law" this thread ended when you said "Nazis".

Thank you.

Religion is great at dehumanizing and telling people that its okay to kill, but then again, the brainwashing the Nazis unleashed at their soldiers also accomplished the same thing.

If your question is more 'how will it end (in general)' it ends until people stop responding or I get bored. And I don't easily get bored.

According to "Godwin's Law" this thread ended when you said "Nazis".

Thank you.

Perhaps Мишель could go and create his own thread on how the Nazi's are rational. He clearly doesn't have much of an argument as to why religion is not responsible for wars, otherwise he'd be talking about that and not the Nazi's.

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Reality Internet Personality

As history has proven there have been many conflicts based on religious fervour. Many others were land-based or plain power grabs, the biggest in history being that of the Mongol Empire.

Mongol Empire

"Möngke was a serious man who followed the laws of his ancestors and avoided alcoholism. He was tolerant of outside religions and artistic styles, which led to the building of foreign merchants' quarters, Buddhist monasteries, mosques, and Christian churches in the Mongol capital. As construction projects continued, Karakorum was adorned with Chinese, European and Persian architecture. One famous example was a large silver tree with cleverly designed pipes which dispensed various drinks. The tree, topped by a triumphant angel, was crafted by Guillaume Boucher, a Parisian goldsmith."

Interesting ruler.

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As history has proven there have been many conflicts based on religious fervour. Many others were land-based or plain power grabs, the biggest in history being that of the Mongol Empire.

Mongol Empire

"Möngke was a serious man who followed the laws of his ancestors and avoided alcoholism. He was tolerant of outside religions and artistic styles, which led to the building of foreign merchants' quarters, Buddhist monasteries, mosques, and Christian churches in the Mongol capital. As construction projects continued, Karakorum was adorned with Chinese, European and Persian architecture. One famous example was a large silver tree with cleverly designed pipes which dispensed various drinks. The tree, topped by a triumphant angel, was crafted by Guillaume Boucher, a Parisian goldsmith."

Interesting ruler.

Thank you for bringing the thread back on topic Sirius.

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Reality Internet Personality

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Reality Internet Personality

You're welcome. Thanks for posting that quote below. It has been ages since I read the book and often thought of that quote, but forgot where I read it.

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