Well considering that you already reconsidered to exclude the duplicitous statements about colonial powers and MC in your latest reformulation, I'd say there is not much to argue here.
Because here you just changed the form a bit from that "causal chain" to a list and replaced "colonial powers" with a more generic "external predators trying to exploit the situation"... there is not much to say here.
What, am I duplicitous now? What insidious narrative am I spinning? You took a back-handed example and ran with it as if it was a critical component of my main point. My willingness to settle for any equivalent substitute should have clued you in. Here, I'll go a step further - one needs not be external to exploit divisions.
In Machiavelli's "The Prince" chapter 20 he talks about maintaining your own holdings through factions (a general term). He is very skeptical of it since it backfires in times of military conflict (and conflict was always around the corner in those days) but the cost-benefit analysis may have shifted in the recent decades, who knows:
Quote:
Our forefathers, and those who were reckoned wise, were accustomed to say that it was necessary to hold Pistoia by factions and Pisa by fortresses; and with this idea they fostered quarrels in some of their tributary towns so as to keep possession of them the more easily.<...> I do not believe that factions can ever be of use; rather it is certain that when the enemy comes upon you in divided cities you are quickly lost, because the weakest party will always assist the outside forces and the other will not be able to resist.
And gives the same account from the opposite side of the aggressor in "Discourses":
Quote:
Render some aid to the weaker side, so as to plunge them deeper in hostilities, wherein both may exhaust their forces without being led by your putting forth an excess of strength to suspect you of a desire to ruin them and remain their master… The city of Pistoia… was won over to the Florentine republic… For the town being split by factions, the Florentines, by now favouring one side and now the other, without incurring the suspicions of either, brought both to such extremities that, wearied out with their harassed life, they threw themselves at last of their own accord into the arms of Florence.
There, wherever it can be found various divisions or basic lack of affinity - cultural, ethnic, factional or what have you can be exploited to the detriment of some or all. I don't understand why you got so hung up on the example of colonial powers exploiting ethnic divisions, what is the problem of giving an example of an external aggressor in general? I still think those examples are as workable as any other. What thought crime did I commit?
Obviously your results may vary based on the extent of differences - that is also mundane. Trying to explain so basic I would feel like I was talking down to people and wasting their time with things everybody knows (Like the absolutely cliche "Not all xyz"). So you need'int have laid out that elaborate example RE Germans and Spanish as I think we agree. While up to this point I used the terms interchangeably Cultural, Ethnic, National, Racial and Religious are all layers of identities. The less they coincide (and again each can be more or less similar) among a populace the more trouble I would expect.
Now if you still don't after this you are going to think me completely retarded, but I really like this analogy:
It comes from physics and is a simple problem from undergraduate statistical mechanics called "Liquid-Liquid Unmixing". It predicts how two liquids (liquid A and liquid B) are mixable at all ratios when the temperature is high and spontaneously unmix as the temperature is lowered. As it is a statistical calculation it makes no assumptions about how the molecules will interact just gives energy values of mutual interaction between A and A, B and B, A and B. I'm not going to go through the whole thing ofcourse (I could send you the pages if you want), but the graph the letter Xi denotes the difference between homogeneous interactions (AA and BB) and heterogeneous interaction (AB) - meaning the more easy it is for like to interact with like relative to the unlike, the bigger Xi is. Phi denotes the volume fraction of A, from only B to being only A.
As you can see, a small degree of difference in interaction affinity (Xi below 2) can be accommodated at all ratios. Small amount of even very high difference can be also accommodated in the mixture, but too big a fraction of too heterogeneous liquids spontaneously unmix, with some metastable state in between.
So yes, the way I see it - always magnitudes and degrees.
paxsali wrote:
Because if your points 1) and 2) bare any truth, there must be measurable effects on reality / society / economics and you'd just have to find and point them out.
And if there wasn't any meassurable, tangible, scientific data to present, well then the arguement about 1) and 2) and that "causal chain" you described earlier are unsubstanciated.
Pro point 1 - Oh there is *some* research, but it is a heavily politicized topic and there is reluctance to associate your name as a researcher with "hate-facts" like that. See this paper for instance, widely known and cited. All of the negatives are clearly stated and well referenced, but there is a cringe inducing attempt to give some kind of benefits as well to balance the negative connotations, with oftentimes laughable references (check them if you are going to read it).
On point 2 I am not aware of any direct research or even how one would go about researching it, and can only point to historical records.. sorry.
Regarding globalization, that is an interesting question, with an almost philosophical dimension. According to leftist historians such as Howard Zinn or current nationalist antiglobalists, the multinational companies that benefit most form globalization have jettisoned their allegiance to the states of their origin sometime in the 1970s. That is one of the few things the hard left and the hard right seem to agree on so I'll go with that. While such corporations have holdings and offices in states they are not really tied to any of them. They are incorporated in one state, extract resources in some other, manufacture goods in a third and sell them to the markets of a fourth and are not beholden to any individual state, at least not totally. So I would put them close to the external end of the spectrum. Though exploitation needn't be external and does not need a multinational corporation to perpetrate it.
It is tempting to assume calculated malice on behalf of Teh Globalists, but then I remember what Saul Alinsky wrote in "Rules for Radicals" and have to say I don't know.
Quote:
I have on occasion remarked that I felt confident that I could persuade a millionaire on a Friday to subsidize a revolution for Saturday out of which he would make a huge profit on Sunday even though he was certain to be executed on Monday.
A very good video. Extremely spooky islamophobia, just the way I like it. Typically I find the accounts of people who have first-hand knowledge of the religion the most fascinating.
I don't know if this has been posted somewhere, but the youtube user by the handle Masked Arab makes great videos one of which is here:
I also liked an interview with him, it gave a condensed overview of his content.
Very good video. Thank you for it.
I struggle a lot to explain myself in any language other than french, and this gives me the parallels in english, and the structure for it.
Glad to see how much internet connects not only people but thoughts, and spread them almost faster than light.
We live in a glorious, one-of-a-kind time period. When people complain that "things are not like they use to be", they are bloody right, and, thanks Geebus, they never will again.
"Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life." ~Berthold Auerbach
(you may replace muslims with christiany/jewy or any other religion with shitty scripts)
I don't want to try to extrapolate too much from what you say here and correct me if I do.
I think I understand your general sentiment of not wanting to single out Islam from the other religions, as I used to share it. However, I think that Islam has significant differences from the other two abrahamic faiths in both scripture and practice.
This video from an arab muslim apostate pretty much expresses my reasoning (5:25 is where the main thrust of his statement is). He has a few other good videos where he talks about waking up and starting a normal life, really touching stuff.
I still remember "the creationism debates" on the internet a while back, when Dawkins and Hitchens where still active. Christianity was critisized really harshly, and at least in my experience they benefited from it, got more mellow and accepting. In my view Islam needs tough love more than anyone right now, as even its oft physically violent response to criticism or mockery begs for a reaction that does not reward such tactics.
(you may replace muslims with christiany/jewy or any other religion with shitty scripts)
I don't want to try to extrapolate too much from what you say here and correct me if I do.
I think I understand your general sentiment of not wanting to single out Islam from the other religions, as I used to share it. However, I think that Islam has significant differences from the other two abrahamic faiths in both scripture and practice.
This video from an arab muslim apostate pretty much expresses my reasoning (5:25 is where the main thrust of his statement is). He has a few other good videos where he talks about waking up and starting a normal life, really touching stuff.
I still remember "the creationism debates" on the internet a while back, when Dawkins and Hitchens where still active. Christianity was critisized really harshly, and at least in my experience they benefited from it, got more mellow and accepting. In my view Islam needs tough love more than anyone right now, as even its oft physically violent response to criticism or mockery begs for a reaction that does not reward such tactics.
Muslims are not a homogeneous mass which is something that many people do not understand when they comment about islam or practiced islam by muslims. Just yesterday I heard that in a study in germany 31 percent of the turkish muslims living in germany state that the doctrines of islam are more important to them than the actual law. Yet if you take a look at the crime statistics, you won't see a lot of chopped off hands for thievery in germany Of course someone might want to note that because they are living in a country where muslims have the minority, that they have to act according to local law as stated in islam. Oh wait, Turkey is at least 85% muslims. Strange, no chopped of hands there either... Are the stupid Turks in germany even more devout than the muslim turks in turkey? Or are they just lying through their teeth because they are oh so devout The stupid thing is that germans will hear this nonsense and think that one out of three muslims would want to chop off their hands should someone commit thievery and the only thing that is stopping them is that the muslims are in the minority ...
People are just sheeplets. They say that they follow the religion, that they are devout but at the same time only a small fraction of them is ready to give up 0.1% of the comfort that modern western civilization has given them. So whenever I see Sargon of Akkad or any other critic of Islam talking, all muslims are thrown in the same pot .. yeah it's the same religion but it's vastly differently practiced all over the world. I myself come from a turkish muslim background, my family would describe themselves as devout muslims yet they'd find it laughable if even women and men couldn't sit in the same room.
In my first reply to this thread I posted this:
PumpAction wrote:
Paxsali, you have to take the mistranslations, misinterpretations and misunderstandings into account. Thanks to these millions of muslims are able to live their relgion peacefully
I have not only watched muslims from outside, I was a "devout" muslim and I have experienced everything. And if I listen to these statistics about how radical muslims are, how willing they are to hold sharia law above state law and all that bullshit, I can only say: People are fucking liars Of course you also have to take into account that most people want to understand what they want to understand.
And you will not reach muslims by going harsh on them. Quite contrary, the muslims you will reach are probably moderate guys, guys like Hasan who works at your local kebap house, who doesn't really care that much about religion at all... Until the day where you alienate him by acting as if he was part of some muslims on the other side ofthe globe killing "infidels".
There is a reason why more and more muslims are more "devout" now than 50 years ago. Look at pictures from iranian women 50 years ago, look at a picture of syrian, turkish etc culture 50 years ago. Muslims feel that they are the target and their leaders tell them to stick together and demonize the west at every chance they get. My 60+ years old mother didn't wear a scarf when she came to germany... Only in the last 10-15 years or so she started wear it again. My parents didn't care so much about religion, my father drank beer etc... Yet constant muslim bashing, especially after the first invasion of iraq changed them.
No doubt islam is stupid (as are all the other abrahamic religions) and most people following those religions are stupid too, but with being "harsh" you will reach absolutely nothing.
Educate their kids and the problem will solve itself. I talked to my nieces the other day. They don't have any faith anymore either. Education is the key, not saying "Oh look you peasant muslim, your religion is stupid, come and learn from our superior culture"
My blind following of the religion was already damaged due to my education and I was doing mental gymnastics myself to justify this and that, trying to get some reason in the unreasonable and it were just some simple episodes of cosmos and listening to some episodes of the atheist experience to see for myself how deluded and backwards my system of reasoning was.
Sorry for the lengthy and scattered post. I just saw that fragment of the sargon of akkad video where they had this religious conference with all the young people which state that they are not radicals, yet agree with the most outrageous and radical things... I guess if you'd ask isis fighters if they are radicals, they would answer the same way. "Nah bra, I'm just a lad following my religion"
Obama was enjoying a nice golf session the same day that ISIS released their beheading video of Foley. Zero fucks given. Two years later, ISIS still hold swathes of land and were getting stronger and stronger as USA was pouring money and weapons into Syria to form the FSA "rebel coalition" which turned out to be a joke. Since a huge part of them joined Al Nusra (Al Qaeda), ISIS and other Islamist groups. "Train and equip" ...
He is a huge failure when it comes to geopolitical matters. And he hasn't reduced military spending or restricted guns. What has he done really in 8 years? Enlighten me, I don't live in the USA thankfully.
Also, it's annoying to see all this BLM rioting and anti-trump supporter thuggery go unpunished, where is the police? Is it politically incorrect to arrest mexican thugs rioting?
He also supported Hillary for the nomination Truly a paragon of competency and sincerity, this guy.
Like I have said many times, USA deserves Hillary and it will get Hillary.
I mean he gave his usual feel-good peptalk speech and then went on to play golf
I would be punching walls and yelling on phones. Soon Assad would be my puppet and I would keep him in power while suppressing radicals. And when I say suppressing I mean putting them in Assad jails from where they would never walk out from.
Come to think of it, I wouldn't allow anyone to arm or fund the syrian rebels back in 2011, so the revolution would have been violently squashed earlier. No ISIS.
Generally, no Arab spring under my watch. No Gaddafi being bombed and dethroned. No immigration BS.
Obama is a member of the Musliminatti! They got one of their own as prez of the US to allow the creation of a caliphate after destroying the national/baathist governments in the ME!
Sorry for the lengthy and scattered post. I just saw that fragment of the sargon of akkad video where they had this religious conference with all the young people which state that they are not radicals, yet agree with the most outrageous and radical things... I guess if you'd ask isis fighters if they are radicals, they would answer the same way. "Nah bra, I'm just a lad following my religion"
All good, I get your perspective. I myself had the chance to drink with several less than devout muslims and personally had the chance to see the distinctions.
Lets say to my exprienece Iranians ar very negative towards islam, see it as a cancer upon their Persian heritage. The Arab narrative is pushed really hard and Persian accomplishments disparaged in their education system so they develop a natural aversion.
Turkish as I saw are a bit more defensive, they identify with the culture a bit more it seems, so when talking about religion they acknowledged problems but still said it is similar to the other abrahamic faiths. So I challenged a bit regarding there not being even a seed for separation of church and state in islam so they had to concede. Those sort of discussions and a bit of banter, no histrionic fedora tipping on my part.
Wahabists...those I could not deal with. Immediately I got a lot of typical apologia, and once I tried to show a bit of knowledge and give a bit of push-back - total shutdown of communication (no drinking there).
So overall at least we can agree that there is no point to fit every square peg into the same round hole.
Well now guess which of the 3 provide the sheiks for ISIS
Oh boy oh boy I'm drawing a blank here...could it be the one most prevalent in USA's second most treasured ally? Are there oil rigs in the background? I need a hint...Oh what a pickle..
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