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Strudel Man posted:Why do you mention having an awful hangover, a largely physiological phenomenon, rather than the far more apt emotional commonality that we can find in ancient peoples? The evidence of similar drives, reactions and desires? That still doesn't amount to a good definition of what human nature is. There's a broad spectrum of what you can feel that is human. some people are jealous, some people aren't. Both are human. There doesn't have to be any overlap, though there likely is, between any two humans, beyond the most basic needs and drives. I know people with no interest in romance, people who utterly lack intellectual curiosity, people who are physically fearless, people who don't care about the opinions of others, etc. The insistence on a fundamental 'human nature' is most often a definition of what characteristics the society you're from holds as important. computer parts posted:Flying isn't a unique part of a cardinal but I would call it part of their fundamental nature. A cardinal with a broken wing who can't fly is still a cardinal. And anyway the physical is not a good comparison to the emotional/mental. Obdicut fucked around with this message at 22:33 on Jul 20, 2015 |
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Jul 20, 2015 22:30
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Strudel Man posted:
Okay, if you just argue from a position where you're sure you're right you're always going to be right. I know people who aren't jealous--who don't even compare themselves or what they have to other people--and I know people who are physically fearless--in fact, who are the opposite, who actively court life-threatening situations over and over, and I know people who do not want to know the reason 'why' behind anything. they're not in a psych ward, they're fully functional people. At the very least, you don't believe that someone can be physically fearless? That there are some people who respond to physical danger with excitement, rather than fear? There are people who respond to change with negativity, and people who love change. There are people who are energized by group situations, and others who are drained by them. Some people hate travel, others love it. One of the things that makes me valuable in my professional role is that if something I'm working on fails, it doesn't upset me in the least, it kind of excites me to try it again. If something completely succeeds, I don't feel triumph, I just check it off the list and go on to something else. What excites me is figuring out the failure, not the actual success. A lot of other people get drained by failure, especially repeated failure. There's a beautiful breadth and depth the human experience, and anything you declare as 'fundamental' is either going to be so broad as to be basically useless, or exclude people who are definitely human.
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Jul 20, 2015 22:53
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asdf32 posted:I define human nature as the set of genetic behavioral predispositions that most humans have. We don't have any genetic behavioral predispositions. That's not how genetics works. And even in your definition, by saying 'most humans', you admit there are humans who don't have whatever behaviors you're talking about, but are still human. quote:Exceptions don't mater. The statement "humans have two arms" isn't invalidated by the minority who have 1. Yes, it is. What you mean is that people generally understand when you say "Humans have two arms" you implicitly mean "in general". To put it in genetic terms, when people say "Humans have two sexes" we don't mean that intersex people don't exist and aren't just as much a normal, if rare, outcome of genetics.
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Jul 20, 2015 23:10
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fspades posted:The US has been the most belligerent nation on Earth in the last 70 years or so. No other country comes close when it comes to inflicting death and suffering on foreign civilians since WWII. This is not a tinfoil conspiracy theory. It is an undeniable historical fact and it's always hilarious when Americans just can't seem to grasp this. You need to specify 'foreign civilians' for this to be true, right? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpcxfsjIIbM
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Jul 23, 2015 17:59
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fspades posted:And why do we need this hegemon again? Why do you concentrate on the attacks on foreigners? Is it in any way more moral to kill your own citizens?
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Jul 23, 2015 18:45
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fspades posted:
I don't think you really understood my question. Anyway, I understand: you care about things that might harm you and your countrymen, and don't care as much about the lives of foreigners. That makes sense. And it doesn't seem like you think it's any more moral to kill your own citizens, it's just pragmatism.
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Jul 23, 2015 19:12
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Rent-A-Cop posted:Guys some SS soldiers also died during the Holocaust. My great-uncle fell out of a guard tower for example. People who are proponents of the Holodomor theory also don't deny deaths outside the Ukraine, they just do comparative analysis of deaths in the Ukraine and outside it. The statistics are simply undeniable: whether you view it as intentional or unintentional, the Ukraine and some other areas suffered hugely, compared to Russia, during the famine. The best-case scenario is that this was unintentional incompetence and a failure of the USSR to take care of its citizens, but there isn't really a sufficient mechanism to explain why it would have affected the Ukraine so heavily comparatively to Russia.
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Jul 24, 2015 23:14
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HorseLord posted:Kazakhstan had it worse than Ukraine, the Kazakhs became less than half of the population of their own republic. Um, people do also think that the Kazakhs were a target. The main reason it doesn't get talked about much now is because the USSR suppressed any discussion of it, and Nazarbayev likewise suppresses it now. the Ukrainians--Euromaiden--do talk about it, though. The targets were the non-ethnic-Russian states, or to put it another way, when famine hit, the USSR directed food away from the non-russian-ethnic places and towards the ethnic russian places.
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Jul 24, 2015 23:27
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HorseLord posted:Funny how you only go "but we do talk about it" after I point out the suspicious absence of talking about it. That's not really funny, no. There isn't a suspicious absence of talking about it. quote:Regardless an intentional famine of the USSR is horseshit because it contradicts all of the USSR's goals, and also the reasoning behind, and ultimate result of the collectivization. If collectivization was just a front to starve people because [unexplained reasons], then it wouldn't have actually worked as claimed afterward. This doesn't really make any sense on any level. Behavior that contradicts the stated goals of a nation happens all the time, as when the US promotes repressive right wing governments while claiming to want to spread democracy. In addition, the USSR isn't a sentient entity; the intentions and desires of individual people matter. Stalin, in particular, was both Russian-supremacist in his policies in the USSR, favoring ethnic russians above other ethnicities, and moved to crush and weaken dissenting power structures. I don't know what you mean by 'it wouldn't have actually worked as claimed afterwards'. Nobody is claiming collectivization was a front to starve people to death, either. You are really horrible at making sense and arguing, to the extent that I think that you must be someone trying to make your point of view look terrible. HorseLord posted:I choose option C. The 1930s soviet famine occurred due to significant active resistance against collectivization (rural class war), and was compounded by the fact the USSR had no food security whatsoever. Even if this were entirely true, you still have to account for the effects of the famine being greater in the non-ethnic Russian areas like Ukraine and Kazakhstan.
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Jul 24, 2015 23:45
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HorseLord posted:
Nope. Stalin's policies favored ethnic russians. quote:It is very simple. If collectivization was a lie, and just something to cause a famine of people Stalin didn't like, then it wouldn't have actually achieved the goals they claimed they had for it. But it did. Nobody is claiming it was a lie that was just to cause a famine. quote:It is, again, simple. Collectivization was the agricultural policy of the USSR. The famine is a matter of agriculture that is blamed on the USSR. The roots of the famine are difficult to disentangle but it'd be very odd if farming techniques and policy weren't part of the problem. quote:I think you're just reading past me and operating on a very different set of fundamental assumptions. Your idea of Stalin's basic background is way off, for example. I didn't say anything about his background. Again: Even if it were entirely true that the famine was the result of 'class struggle', you still have to account for the effects of the famine being greater in the non-ethnic Russian areas like Ukraine and Kazakhstan. Can you do that?
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Jul 25, 2015 00:03
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HorseLord posted:Because you say so? In spite of all evidence? No, all of the evidence is that he did favor ethnic Russians. This became more pronounced later, culminating in the V-day toasts: quote:I would like to raise a toast to the health of our Soviet people and, before all, the Russian people. But it was present from the beginning, in his mass deportations of ethnic minorities. quote:I would start by looking at the political inclinations of the most badly effected areas relative to the least effected areas as obviously there's going to be more trouble in areas that most resist the collectivization. (Crop burning, cattle killing, etc) .Then things like their preexisting level of food security, then what effected how good they were at food production like climate, tools in use etc. That's all the stuff to look at before we even begin to analyze the famine relief itself. You don't seem to understand that this analysis has already been done. The 'trouble' was that food was removed from the Ukraine and the other areas and shipped out to the ethnic Russian areas. You don't seem to even understand that these were the food-producing areas. I am going to put you back on ignore now. I never should have responded to you. Nothing ever changes.
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Jul 25, 2015 00:28
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