Eiuol

As if that's a good thing? I mean, this is an ethnic identity, and founding or operating a country on ethnic identity is a bad thing. Of course, there are degrees of bad, and not all countries do this in the worst way possible. But to the extent they do, this is bad. Describing the way that this kind of nationalism has played a part in history is not a demonstration that it is a good thing. I love ethnic purity, too!

Both of these would be an irrational and collectivistic basis to found a country. Making property claims based on your ancestors? Very collectivistic. Precisely the problem we have referred to. And of course this doesn't justify Hamas, just so no one drops the context if they read this. But it is a problem nevertheless.

Nice deflection. I didn't say I didn't care, I only expressed the basic idea that just because somebody does something bad to you doesn't mean that everything you have ever done is therefore good. You seem to be reacting as if I said that Hamas and Israel are morally equivalent. Earlier I even said that I am more on the side of Israel morally speaking. Grames seems to portray Hamas and Israel as morally equivalent, in which case "not caring" makes sense, but I don't have a reason to think that the actions of Israel are equally as premised on religion as Hamas. You could call "Islamism" the Muslim form of Zionism. Judaism is a religion like any other. Some religions may be more totalitarian than others, but nationalism premised on a religion is still irrational and tends toward totalitarianism anyway. "Don't mind me, I'm going to forcibly place myself in the region where you live, then act like I've been here for 5000 years because it is my ancestral homeland." An important way to end the conflict is adopting principles of liberty explicitly, and addressing errors of the past that are still relevant today (70 years since the founding of Israel, it's not like I'm talking about something that happened 5000 years ago).

Whatever Hamas does doesn't mean that Israel was retroactively justified in being founded on principles of Zionism. Got anything to back that up? I genuinely want to know what the estimates are. Any link would be enough.

Do we have estimates of how many Hamas terrorists there are? Whether or not the number is absurd depends on how many terrorists are available to kill, and trusting that the Israeli military is truly only trying to target Hamas. Sure, 8000 might be a deception. But that article you linked isn't even saying that the number is real, only that it is what Hamas reported. But if the number is actually 2000 civilians killed on purpose, say, I think that would be horrific as well. The deception here would be if the civilians are actually terrorists. But let's say if a few terrorists are killed per target, that doesn't say how many civilians are killed per target as collateral. If only 300 civilians died, okay. But if every target consisted of something like five terrorists and 15 civilians, that would be quite different. Unless you have some definitive number, you just are making up a story for what you hope is the case. Most of your speculation about how many have been killed is just assuming that Israel has always made the correct moral choice, as if it's impossible that they could do anything wrong.

You mean you fabricated a number that sounded good. Of course numbers need to be verified, that in fact 8000 civilians were killed, but what are you even trying to do by picking whatever number you wanted? Meaning that if in fact it was 8000 civilians, they probably targeted civilians specifically. But again, this depends on the truth of how many actually died. I'm hoping that Israel didn't do something like that, kill 8000 civilians on purpose, but just because I am more on the side of Israel in terms of moral judgment does not mean Israel couldn't possibly do something immoral. What is the IDF's estimate? I don't see any estimate at all from what I've been looking at.

I don't see how if 1 occurs, it is therefore okay to maintain a siege over that region. I can see some amount of policing, to make sure Hamas remains destroyed, but anyone remaining would not be a threat. You could make the case for 2 and maybe 3, since I don't even imagine that needs to last longer than six months. But 4 being a requirement to withdraw the siege sounds like a bad idea. Having further stipulations that there must be no incident or conflict while simultaneously maintaining strict border control and constant observation like a police state, is pretty hypocritical. A path to freedom does not include treating a populace as already guilty or inclined towards guilt. If I personally were living in Gaza, and I wanted Hamas out, then they are removed, but I still need to live life under siege, my life would feel forcibly constrained when I did nothing wrong. That would be a justified grievance. The worst part is that many people are not clearheaded when it comes to grievances, meaning that I would expect more terrorists groups to spring up anyway.

I already mentioned for a specific time and for a specific reason would be fine. Broadly defined "until the threat ends" is vague and unclear, especially when the threat is from a specific group within a region, rather than the government of a country. What would count as the threat being over? Do you mean the destruction of Hamas? When Hamas is destroyed, is there going to be freedom of movement along the border? Or do you mean a threat bigger and larger than Hamas? I think he was talking about how you would determine the truth of somebody being a threat that wants to murder Israelis on sight. Okay, members of Hamas. But it seems like "existing in Gaza" is the standard of being a threat.

This would be equivalent to saying all people living in Gaza are terrorists. I even mentioned terrorists in Gaza, as opposed to non-terrorists in Gaza. Curtailing the liberties of people who have not violated rights in order to stop the people who have violated rights is not a proper response. Restricting movements because of terrorism implies I'm talking about the people who are not terrorists. This might be more like restricting movement on the Mexico US border because of cartels in Mexico. It wouldn't be proper to limit the movement of all Mexicans across the US border as if presuming that they are all guilty until proven innocent. But the extent of Israeli control over their border with Gaza is far more expansive than that even. Take it as a given that I already agree that terrorists deserve to be annihilated - I'm disagreeing about specific methods.

It's a judgment from things you said in the past about yourself, but if I'm mistaken about your own personal history about rising up, then please correct me. But the point is that failure to rise up isn't some kind of moral failure necessarily, and if you didn't rise up, then you aren't necessarily morally at fault either. The same with many civilians in Gaza. There's nothing even insulting in what I said unless you take it as necessarily bad for not rising up under oppression. The 'it' was referring to the entirety of Gaza borders, not specifically the Egypt-Gaza border. The point is that essentially, Gaza is permanently under siege. It's not hugely different from military occupation, but the principle I'm working with is that it isn't as if one side is blocked off while the other side has freedom of movement. And even then, that doesn't change the fact about the Israel-Gaza border itself lacking any freedom of movement. The most you can say is that movement needs to be restricted because of terrorists in Gaza - which isn't a pro liberty response to terrorism (unless it were limited to a very specific amount of time for a specific reason).

There is a bit of a border with Egypt, but it is largely Israeli control But what you're saying here is even worse, because this is after the destruction of Hamas. I'm saying those kind of responses in the aftermath are bad, they produce more problems, and they are methods that stand against liberty. You should understand that my point is that Israel does not take consistent principled stands in favor of liberty, all it seems have ever done is respond to direct attacks but then completely fail to do anything to stop that from happening again. I guess he feels bad that he didn't rise up against the South African government back during apartheid.

Not actually occupation per se but as I continued on about, it's more like a siege. I concede that it's not an occupation, my point is that we can't consider Gaza to be outside of Israeli control. If a country has utter control over how people can enter another country, what sort of resources can enter another country, or control movement leaving and entering another country, it might as well be an occupation. The more troubling thing is that the siege is not over a country, just a region. This is fine, my claim is that there are justified grievances about Israel, and that in the aftermath, I see no reason to expect that Israel will help expand freedom and liberty. Just more of the same if anything.

It's a thing only in an abstract sense, with nothing concrete about it. I can't point to a leader, there is no qualification for membership, at best it is a vague name for a vaguely defined region. So, because of this, there is no particular target of military occupation, other than indiscriminate military occupation. But if Palestine is nothing clear cut, we need to consider the aspirations of what we can define clearly. We can clearly define Hamas, or Hezbollah, and other bad actors in the region like Syria or Iran. I know what you meant. But you also said basically, demoralizing civilians that support the terrorism of Hamas, which would mean also ideological defeat. Some things change the context quite a lot. Germany and Japan were nations with well-defined militaries and borders, where occupation is aimed at the government specifically. It isn't occupation of the people, to the extent that you aren't permitting the government to violate the rights of those people. I might be wrong about this but I don't believe that the US ever had a border checkpoint and asked for your papers wherever you went. I should have said that kind of occupation doesn't work. Why do you think the military occupation in West Germany ended in less than five years, but the Soviet military occupation of East Germany basically lasted until 1989? The methods of occupation after World War II here were quite different. Your post is literally addressing doubts that I have, apparently the whole reason you are talking to me is to persuade me of something. The reason I'm saying what I'm saying is that as evil as Hamas is, it looks like the only intent of Israel is to stop violence by means of suspending liberties. One way for Israel to get more support is to be clearly pro-liberty.

I mean, am I wrong to say that Israel effectively occupies Gaza, albeit more like a siege than a direct military occupation like the West Bank? Even if there is an ostensive "government", Gaza doesn't have political autonomy anyway. That's my point, the only enemy is Hamas, not Gaza, and not Palestine because as you said, Palestine is not really even a thing. That makes sense, my concern is that Israel will just continue with military occupations as part of the methods for "total defeat". Occupations like that don't work, and it makes me doubt that the Israeli government cares much about liberty, even a little bit.

It's weird when people take "Israel should be able to defend itself" to mean that "Israel is justified in doing anything it wants in retaliation, and is justified in doing everything it has ever done". Palestine is not a nation. Palestine has no singular government. Palestine has no unified message. Indeed, Hamas is evil, and it should be obliterated by any means necessary, but it doesn't follow that therefore anyone near Hamas geographically needs to be under police control without even an apparent pathway to be allowed to be left alone. In other words, those means are not necessary. It's funny that he brought up "returning people to their ancestral homeland" to suggest that would be absurd, collectivistic, or stupid to argue in favor of, when the founding of Israel was about returning people to their ancestral homeland. Part of the whole issue surrounding the conflict is that this still needs to be resolved, it's not as if Israel was founded 1000 years ago.

I found it, this is the actual quote, it comes from the Indian director Ram Gopal Varma.

The school sounds like one giant Skinner box.

Forget even the question of coddling them. From what you describe, the teaching model is completely flawed and not even based on up-to-date science about conceptual development in childhood or about learning disabilities. I have studied enough psychology at the graduate level to say that this school is only operating on the principles of behavioral conditioning. Yes, it does "work" for creating obedient children that will do what you say, but there is no measure of how well the children learn anything. Besides, conditioning doesn't align with how psychologists already understand how conceptual development works. Part of it sounds like these children aren't being taught with regard to their cognitive strengths. To be sure, children on the autistic spectrum or children with actual ADHD won't learn in the same way as other children. But the solution isn't to condition them for behavioral responses, it's about modifying the curriculum such that the child is able to focus on their abilities. The result is that these children lose motivation, but it is only because autism is treated as justification to treat them as cattle who are only able to be conditioned. Some children might be so profoundly disabled that you'll never be able to even teach them arithmetic - but it doesn't sound like you are dealing with any students like that at all (I'm talking about profound cognitive disability from things like fetal alcohol syndrome).

An anti-concept is specifically one that by its very nature obliterates another concept. That's not what the idea of God is meant to accomplish. All anti-concepts are invalid, but not all invalid concepts are anti-concepts. God is basically a proper noun, because the Christian idea of God is that God is a being. But like with any being that is supernatural, it's about what reason you have to say that it exists. The issue is that God is arbitrary, not that it's a broken concept or something like that.

This "article" is an amalgamation of posts from different conversations put into one undifferentiated mass. There is no coherent point, it is just rambling.

Certainly actions, relationships, and entities all exist. But this says nothing of the manner of their existence, in the same way that saying a tree lives and a dog lives doesn't say anything about the manner of their living. The way I understand it, "being at work" specifies the way that concretes exist, and the fact that actions, relationships, etc. are only exist because of concretes behaving and acting. I don't recall Aristotle using "being at work" in any context except referring to concretes or particulars. Especially important is how this applies to living things, where the activity of these things is what makes them alive. They aren't just active, but living out their full nature, fully enacting what makes them what they are. At least, even if you disagree that I interpreted "being at work" correctly, applying it to the domain of biology is valuable and quite illuminating.

I read the book that the thread is about, so this won't just be a tangent about Aristotle. Rather, I'm suggesting a biological basis of teleology from an Objectivist perspective is completely rooted in Aristotle, except some additions thanks to the theory of evolution. Especially the notion of "being at work". Existing is completely active, that is, what anything is in the most complete way is active. To be sure, existence includes relations which are not themselves active, but all entities act by virtue of existing. An entity that exists is always acting, and if it is not, well, it doesn't even exist. More than that, the relation that is not active is dependent on something already active; the primary thing is the entity, in the same way that under Objectivism causality is between entities. There is no divergence here between Aristotle and Rand. The phrase "being at work" adds precision because it adds clarity about entities, eliminating the ambiguity between abstractions that exist, and entities that exist. So, I don't think Aristotle is wrong here. The way the entities are at work all the time is how biology can be rooted in teleology. Living things are active in a specific way, moving in a direction, not simply as a reaction pushed forward by a stimulus. You seem to agree on that point based on what I read here, my thought is that "being at work" is a crucial idea. We just can't render the same phrase in English as a concept, which makes it tricky to work with.

Do you mean a false interpretation of Aristotle's metaphysics, or that this rendering of his metaphysics is a false account of reality?

If a gang is targeting you, treat it as such. Trying to figure out why or any reason for it would drive you mad. Such a thing can become paranoia, where the actual problem is ignored and you invent a reason that makes some sense in your head (i.e., the government is after you specifically even though you are rather unremarkable for them to even care) as opposed to a reason that seems to make no sense at all (i.e., that a gang finds it fun and victimized you arbitrarily).

Don't fool yourself though, all of a sudden posting about a mass attempt to ruin your life in every regard as if that many people would actually care about you enough to do all this sounds delusional. On the face of it, the most sensible thing for us who don't even know about you is also to say that you aren't as psychologically healthy as you think you are. Which is it, no reason, or because you are against altruism? Note that you didn't say you don't use these things. For all I know, like many people with a drug or alcohol problem, this is a rationalization.