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Yeah man, they're poor because they have the incorrect ideology. If only they followed our values of freedom and democracy they'd be rich like us.
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Dec 3, 2015 08:44
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Hogge Wild posted:I've always thought the Mongol invasion and the Crusades to be really weak arguments when explaining current day Middle East's problems. Europeans have invaded other Europeans and burnt their cities as long as there has been Europeans. And Russia and China were also annexed by Mongols but they became Great Powers later. Now Russia and China are poorer than Western countries, but that has more to do with other reasons like socialism rather than wars that ended hundreds of years ago. China basically fought a long-rear end war from 1911 to 1950, the most devastating being the Japanese occupation, but it's not like low intensity civil war is a cakewalk either. Then they fight a bunch of other wars like Korea and Vietnam, while getting double-hosed by Maoist economic/social policy and that boondoggle. A modernising, non-hosed China is, like, a 40 year old state. Couldn't tell you otherwise about the Russians, although their current state is more due to Putin letting all his oligarch buddies do whatever the hell they want while trying to transform Russia into a petrostate.
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Dec 3, 2015 08:54
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Slim Jim Pickens posted:China basically fought a long-rear end war from 1911 to 1950, the most devastating being the Japanese occupation, but it's not like low intensity civil war is a cakewalk either. Then they fight a bunch of other wars like Korea and Vietnam, while getting double-hosed by Maoist economic/social policy and that boondoggle. A modernising, non-hosed China is, like, a 40 year old state. There's no need to transform Russia into a petrostate.
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Dec 3, 2015 09:13
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Splode posted:Yeah man, they're poor because they have the incorrect ideology. If only they followed our values of freedom and democracy they'd be rich like us. Agreed.
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Dec 3, 2015 09:14
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my dad posted:e: Spain is fun in that regard. One day, you're top dog of the world, owning big chunks of 3 continents, and bringing the light of glorious civilization to them backward savages in Mexico, Andes, and Germany (usually in the form of musket fire) edit: also they couldn't give up on all their expensive wars that they were losing because otherwise they'd lose their reputation and everyone else in europe would think they were weak. a lot of what they say about the netherlands is amusingly suited to us in the middle east, and then they got into a hot war with france at the same time after '28 (before that they fought various little wars in northern italy, which were also with france but smaller). that war didn't end until '59, which means it was fighting two big expensive wars while getting involved in the 30yw as well. fun. HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 10:16 on Dec 3, 2015 |
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Dec 3, 2015 10:08
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Deteriorata posted:Most empires stagnate and eventually collapse due to the pursuit of policies that seemed like a good idea at the time. We know it's "terrible thinking" because we know how it turned out. Incoherency is not "terrible thinking". Ali-G was a religious scholar who engaged with the philosophers of his time and produced a work, condemning philosophy in a form consistent with the philosophies it was condemning, thereby bridging the gap between islamic scholarship and western philosophy traditions at that time. Many facets of philosophy are theoretical- that is to say that much as theoretical physicists spend their time contemplating imaginary constructs which work within the rules of their models, so do many philosophers (metaphysics, ethics, rhetoric, epistemology) engage purely with imaginary constructs which, while they are consistent within themselves do not necessarily apply to reality (as observed). To take any given philosophical text as a manual for real life is absurdity. You can certainly argue that these works influence the thinking of people which influences their actions etc. etc. but then you are saying that Sunni society in the 1100s was influenced by Sunni theology, which is not something I believe to be in dispute. Cyrano4747 posted:I'm going to assume that there is something in that book that speaks to the Hins achieving their cultural supremacy because they work harder than the Behins, but it must be a minor point because that isn't something that most of the literary critics seem to concentrate at all. gently caress, I find more people talking about whether it is a paean to utopian communism than I do about any sort of ingrained work ethic. Also: the very page you linked, retrieved at the time of this posting posted:The Behins deliberately arrange their lives in such a way as to turn reality and logic on their heads, while among the Hins everything is arranged according to reality. While living among them, the protagonist suffers hunger, extreme misery, and even danger of death. This part of the novel is in fact satire, with each insanity of the Behins translating to facets of the Western, Christian society of the protagonist such as war, religion, etiquette, art, and philosophy. Cyrano4747 posted:This analogy is just baffling. I can kind of get what you were going for with the original reference to an obscure work of Hungarian fiction, but I have no loving clue what you are gesturing at here. chitoryu12 posted:Then it's a good thing that you also said in your post that you thought he was on the right track by claiming that their societies had some kind of flaw that set them back. As opposed to, you know, things like geography, available resources, and climate. It's a bit hard to advance your civilization when almost every waking moment has to be spent digging for every scrap of food you can find. Essentially my point is that these sorts of constraints, while they certainly make success more difficult, do not make it impossible. Certainly there is no lack of obstacles to progress in even developed and wealthy societies, today and in the past. The current globalized amalgam of developed and developing societies has really not made it far past "digging for every scrap of food they can find", nor do I expect them to defeat scarcity anytime soon. Cyrano4747 posted:If you really want to have a conversation about some kind of Protestant Work Ethic and how that gives European societies a leg up on the rest of the world you need to examine exactly what that is and what the underlying factors are that lead to it becoming the vital cultural force you believe it is. You have completely misidentified my point, again! I am suggesting such a "Protestant Work Ethic" does not exist, except in an idealized western society imagined by Niall Ferguson. However, I am saying that if you follow his thinking it is clear to see why he imagined such a "Protestant Work Ethic" and why he drew the conclusions that he did. Perhaps it is not clear to you- in this case you should ask me more specific questions and I will try to answer them. Cyrano4747 posted:One of the giant weaknesses of any attempt to reduce all this down to "it was the culture" or "it was the tech" or even "it was the Mongols" is that monocausal explanations are almost always ignoring a whole swath of other issues. Usually the explanation for why poo poo happens the way it does is the sum of all the various factors and how they interact with each other. My point with the previous analogy is that, while the sum of these factors is the primary challenge facing the society at the time, the ultimate blame for the failure of these societies must lie with the people inhabiting it- this is not a condemnation, simply an acknowledgement. the JJ posted:Also 'progress' and 'advanced' and poo poo are bad words and 'complex' and 'sophisticated' hardly better. None of them are synonyms for good. Yes, but any rational person can see that development of society and production of material wealth is superior for continued survival. Obviously the goal of rational utiopianists is not providing The Good, but rather The Better In Light Of Material Factors although of course there is disagreement as to the ultimate use to which such a stockpile of production would be put, with various thinkers in various camps. Personally I am in the "Artificial Intelligence" camp, unsurprising considering my profession and education. Splode posted:Yeah man, they're poor because they have the incorrect ideology. If only they followed our values of freedom and democracy they'd be rich like us. Yes, except that "we" are not rich, nor do we possess the values of freedom or democracy, nor is it certain that such values would produce "Richness"  To whoever bought me my new avatar: I don't claim to have skill, or talent. My position, and the reason I keep posting here, is something like, if you ignore the infinite monkeys you will never get to read Shakespeare, and that's a real shame. Keldoclock fucked around with this message at 10:36 on Dec 3, 2015 |
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Dec 3, 2015 10:32
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Keldoclock posted:Yes, but any rational person can see that
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Dec 3, 2015 10:35
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HEY GAL posted:rational = agrees with me, a Rich White Teen  I didn't claim to be rational. Indeed rational people do not exist, to determine the truth of this claim I direct you to check your own memories of the people you have encountered and of your knowledge of yourself. I will add to your anecdotal evidence by saying that I have never met a fully rational person, nor do I expect that one will be presented to you in your search. Quite frankly I cannot comprehend why you, a formally educated person, would try to bait me into this sort of Philosophy 101 rhetorical trap.
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Dec 3, 2015 10:38
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Keldoclock posted:To whoever bought me my new avatar: THANK YOU! Also, shut the gently caress Octo... Keldoclock! | v Anecdotal evidence is unreliable, checkmate.
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Dec 3, 2015 10:39
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So someone wrote an article about Finnish military saunas in WW2. http://inktank.fi/sweating-war-finnish-wwii-soldiers-sauna/ Back when I was in the national service that certainly was a thing. Outdoor manouvers, guard duty, ceremonial drills, no matter what there was always a sauna. Ain't nothing quite like getting into sauna after a long exhausting march.
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Dec 3, 2015 10:40
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Jobbo_Fett posted:THANK YOU! And thank you, for ignoring my claims in your exuberant rush to mock me. Sincerely I hope that in your mind this is a more profitable activity than engaging in dialectic, so that at least one of us can be happy.  I'm asking you to examine YOUR anecdotal evidence, not mine. If you accept that the world exists and is real or at least consistent to some degree (a necessary premise in order to discuss it, and one that only someone who was deliberately trying to avoid dialectic would try to invalidate) than anecdotal evidence is only unreliable because the person providing it to you is unreliable. Do you understand? By telling HEY GAL that I have not encountered such a person, while MY account is unreliable to her, the fact that she received such an account IS a reliable fact to her. The very same claim works equally well for you, Jobbo_Fett, do you refute that I have told you that I have never met a rational person? To answer in the negative is either deliberate misdirection or absurdity. The very suggestion of your claim is insulting to (or at least, reflects poorly on) everyone in this discussion; This is elementary rhetoric!
Keldoclock fucked around with this message at 10:46 on Dec 3, 2015 |
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Dec 3, 2015 10:40
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Hogge Wild posted:I've always thought the Mongol invasion and the Crusades to be really weak arguments when explaining current day Middle East's problems. Europeans have invaded other Europeans and burnt their cities as long as there has been Europeans. And Russia and China were also annexed by Mongols but they became Great Powers later. Now Russia and China are poorer than Western countries, but that has more to do with other reasons like socialism rather than wars that ended hundreds of years ago. Sometimes stuff bounce back immediately from stuff like that, sometimes it takes literally a thousand years to happen, sometimes they never do. It's not like Carthage is a major power today, eh? Also the Mongols were far more thorough than your standard middle ages European army. Fangz fucked around with this message at 10:46 on Dec 3, 2015 |
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Dec 3, 2015 10:42
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SHUT THE gently caress UP KELDOCLOCK
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Dec 3, 2015 10:42
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Guys, if you weren't replying to him, he'd go away. Use the loving ignore function, that's what it's there for.
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Dec 3, 2015 10:45
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Dec 3, 2015 10:47
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Tias posted:Guys, if you weren't replying to him, he'd go away. Use the loving ignore function, that's what it's there for. Keldoclock posted:My position, and the reason I keep posting here, is something like, if you ignore the infinite monkeys you will never get to read Shakespeare, and that's a real shame. Similarly, HEY GAL I don't see how any information about the human currently writing these posts is relevant to the discussion; my statements are either true or not, standing alone entirely from the person who wrote them (that is to say, these statements contain information taken from that person, which may be false, however all of the information regarding these statements is included within them, or at least enough information for another formally educated human to understand them). Similarly the truth value of these statements is questionable: How do you determine definitively if someone is, rich, white or a teen? (admittedly that last one is easier since people usually don't disagree on chronology, although of course you could if you were trying to be Socratic.) I do apologize for continuing to press this issue, but it wounds me deeply that a person I look up to as more learned and a more successful academic than myself would use such primitive rhetoric in service of a questionable goal (I cannot identify a goal except to discredit me or my arguments, and since my arguments haven't been disproven I must assume it is the first, but I cannot see how it could be this because it would seem that the goal of discrediting me in this discussion has already been completed rather thoroughly). Keldoclock fucked around with this message at 10:54 on Dec 3, 2015 |
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Dec 3, 2015 10:48
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Tias posted:Guys, if you weren't replying to him, he'd go away. Use the loving ignore function, that's what it's there for. I have, but he's so annoying that putting him on ignore doesn't work.
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Dec 3, 2015 10:49
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Tias posted:Guys, if you weren't replying to him, he'd go away. Use the loving ignore function, that's what it's there for. It doesn't work if people keep quoting them, otherwise you have to ignore the problem and everyone who keeps talking to the problem.
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Dec 3, 2015 10:51
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Jobbo_Fett posted:I have, but he's so annoying that putting him on ignore doesn't work. spectralent posted:It doesn't work if people keep quoting them, otherwise you have to ignore the problem and everyone who keeps talking to the problem. I don't see how ignoring a truth could possibly benefit you, if you are unwilling to do the heavy lifting as it were of dialectic you could certainly still simply gain the knowledge from the discussion being held between myself and other parties, passively. Is my questioning of your beliefs so offensive to that it is unbearable? If it is, I sincerely ask you to reconsider, or at least explain your position comprehensively. Furthermore since many posters in this thread have misunderstood my points even in circumstances where they are obvious, I am beginning to suspect the abuse of the ignore function to be contributing to this confusion. To this end I would ask you to please either decide if you would like to hear me out, or to all use the ignore function, or perhaps all but one using the ignore function as a sort of filter to separate my informative posts from my inquisitive posts. A confusing discussion is worse than none at all, but perhaps my concerns are misguided and this confusion instead stems from insufficient explanation on my part. Please tell me which of these it is. the JJ posted:So, y'all know the sucker rule, right? I'm unfamiliar with it, or at least, am not sure of what principle you are referencing. Please, elaborate. Keldoclock fucked around with this message at 11:03 on Dec 3, 2015 |
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Dec 3, 2015 10:57
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So, y'all know the sucker rule, right?
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Dec 3, 2015 10:59
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You know, l'll take you up on the al-Farabi offer. Please post something about the guy, at the very least it's not going to be... this... 
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Dec 3, 2015 11:03
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my dad posted:You know, l'll take you up on the al-Farabi offer. Please post something about the guy, at the very least it's not going to be... this... Why not read this? It reads like it was written by a college sophomore, but it does contain all the relevant information if you want to be introduced to Al-Ghazali.
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Dec 3, 2015 11:07
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You are such a self-obsessed son of a bitch that you probably think this post is talking about you. As a completely unrelated aside, someone rolling around in poo poo proves neither his strength, his skill, nor his courage when he dares people to wrestle with him and nobody agrees to do more than throw rotten fruit at him.
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Dec 3, 2015 11:20
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Tomn posted:someone rolling around in poo poo
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Dec 3, 2015 11:25
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HEY GAL posted:but enough about my doctoral dissertation Small question that, actually - how closely did your guys link camp sanitation with disease? Were they aware of how you shouldn't poo poo near where you drink, for instance?
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Dec 3, 2015 11:27
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Tomn posted:Small question that, actually - how closely did your guys link camp sanitation with disease? Were they aware of how you shouldn't poo poo near where you drink, for instance? long answer: disease is caused by an imbalance of humors, but they were aware that armies were sick a lot and they knew about contagion, if not exactly how it worked. like, yesterday i was copying my billionth muster roll (statistics own) and there was a note in the margin about how so-and-so sent a horse to so-and-so "but didn't come himself, because of the sickness." civilians know that if an army comes through an area it will frequently bring some sort of disease with them. and we know that that isn't just because of hygiene, it's because they were highly mobile edit: oh, and certain areas have sickness in them for reasons these people don't know. like parts of italy have malaria in them or something. there's places with unhealthy climate. HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 11:43 on Dec 3, 2015 |
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Dec 3, 2015 11:33
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In that case, when did camp sanitation start being directly linked with disease? Sometime in the middle of the Victorian period? I think I remember hearing about Roman legions having sanitation discipline, but I'm not 100% on that.
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Dec 3, 2015 11:44
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Tomn posted:Roman legions
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Dec 3, 2015 11:48
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Tomn posted:In that case, when did camp sanitation start being directly linked with disease? Sometime in the middle of the Victorian period? I remember being taught in epidemiology that one of the contributing factors to axis defeat in north africa was that the allied forces improvised drainage in the areas they camped, while the axis forces were more "just go by the bushes and chuck some dirt over it" kinds of guys, and thus had endemic gastrointestinal diseases amongst the ranks which the allies didn't have to deal with so much. Granted, that was from epidemiology, not history.
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Dec 3, 2015 11:54
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Tomn posted:As a completely unrelated aside, someone rolling around in poo poo proves neither his strength, his skill, nor his courage when he dares people to wrestle with him and nobody agrees to do more than throw rotten fruit at him. Dialectic is absent of personal values or ambitions. I have no desire to prove anything, but I do have a desire to collaboratively find the truth, or at least a truth, or some truth-like belief. In this analogy, neither the spectators nor the wrestler have any understanding of wrestling, and would learn much from the exercise, despite their reluctance. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Dec 3, 2015 11:54
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We're going to reach 800 pages before the end of this month I've just noticed.
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Dec 3, 2015 12:02
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Whoever bought Keldoclock that avatar, 
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Dec 3, 2015 12:10
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HEY GAL posted:this is not a joke, they believed they had a Brown Man's Burden to rule the world. as well as a God-appointed Manifest Destiny Brown?  Spanish is not Hispanic...
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Dec 3, 2015 12:19
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feedmegin posted:Brown? I'm pretty sure it's a joke meant to compare/contrast it with the White Man's Burden. And for some people, they were "brown" enough:  The Irish-Iberian part of my post wasn't a joke either.
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Dec 3, 2015 12:22
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What is Hispanic then? I thought Hispanic referred to anyone from Iberia, which is why Mexicans are Hispanic?the JJ posted:I would generally think critically before citing slaveowners on differences between race. It's less 'unused to work' and more 'keeps dying' or 'keeps running away.' Plenty of native american were, in fact, agriculturalist and hunting/gathering does do a fair bit to prepare one for the rigor of real work. It's not like African slaves or white workers fared much better when pressed into the same conditions In case you didn't know the vast majority of plantation slavery involved a really loving huge amount of death. Kinda one of the salient features. I took the original comment to mean they're used to different exercise. Like taking an Olympic Athlete who is really used to running long distances and then having them do weight lifting. They're definitely physically fit, but they aren't used to a different form of exercise. Assuming I've got this right. African slaves can't run home and Native Americans would probably hand escaped slaves back for the sake of keeping the Whites happy. And Keldoclock, please paragraph. If what you're writing is over four lines long, just press Enter twice so it's easier to read. SeanBeansShako posted:We're going to reach 800 pages before the end of this month I've just noticed. And we'll be home by Christmas! my dad posted:The Irish-Iberian part of my post wasn't a joke either. Where did they get these ideas from? I know some guy thought Caucasian was the word to describe white people, because he thought Georgians were the most attractive. But I have no idea why these ideas took root.
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Dec 3, 2015 12:27
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Hazzard posted:What is Hispanic then? I thought Hispanic referred to anyone from Iberia, which is why Mexicans are Hispanic? Hispanic is 'people from Spain and Portugal after centuries of mixing with people from South/Central America'. People from South America and people from Spain generally look different.
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Dec 3, 2015 12:30
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feedmegin posted:Brown? edit: like, look at these handsome fuckers. they're not mexicans, but they sure aren't anglo edit 2: *significant gestures intensify* HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 12:39 on Dec 3, 2015 |
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Dec 3, 2015 12:33
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spectralent posted:I remember being taught in epidemiology that one of the contributing factors to axis defeat in north africa was that the allied forces improvised drainage in the areas they camped, while the axis forces were more "just go by the bushes and chuck some dirt over it" kinds of guys, and thus had endemic gastrointestinal diseases amongst the ranks which the allies didn't have to deal with so much. Seriously? I'm honestly kinda curious now if there's any modern-day armies that tend to slack on basic sanitation, and simultaneously kinda afraid to learn the answer. Keldoclock posted:Dialectic is absent of personal values or ambitions. I have no desire to prove anything, but I do have a desire to collaboratively find the truth, or at least a truth, or some truth-like belief. In this analogy, neither the spectators nor the wrestler have any understanding of wrestling, and would learn much from the exercise, despite their reluctance. This assumes that there exists no instructors in the art of wrestling than the guy covered in crap. Since there are, clean yourself up if you want anyone to give you the time of day.
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Dec 3, 2015 12:35
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HEY GAL posted:do you prefer Olive-Skinned Man's Burden then I think the traditional descriptor is 'swarthy' :P
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Dec 3, 2015 12:40
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Hey Gal, what sort of training do your guys do? I know there isn't any boot camp or anything like that, but how would you have learned to be a soldier in the Thirty Years War?
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Dec 3, 2015 12:50
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