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15th November 2012, 11:53 AM | #361 |
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15th November 2012, 12:25 PM | #362 |
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15th November 2012, 02:12 PM | #363 |
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15th November 2012, 02:52 PM | #364 |
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Increases in population are related to available resources. When resources are scarce, population is controlled. One way it is controlled is by one group denying the resources necessary for survival to another group. This might not involve violence at all - just the potential threat of it.
The denial of access to resources by one group to another is almost the definition of how the modern world works. |
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15th November 2012, 03:59 PM | #365 |
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Thanks for taking the time to share your experiences and opinions AH, its very interesting and well, sad also.
I also did a lot of skimming of various articles available on the web last night -- I've no idea how accurate they are but they did give me a few more random thoughts and ideas. I read that Afghanistan is not only a desirable place for the natural gasline project favored by the US (TAPI - to pipe natural gas from Turkmenistan south through Afghanistan, Pakistan and India) but also has deposits of natural gas within its own borders. I also was reminded that Afghanistan has many minerals and gems, and learned that some of its minerals include the "rare earth elements", especially important in modern technology including cell phones, computers, aerospace technology and more.
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I am curious as to how well the Afghanistan govt will handle the negotiations for their natural resources. Would they be able to get enough royalties to maintain their current middle class and perhaps even grow it? To get enough royalties to build their own generators and sewage plants though out their country? Are the people currently in power in the Afghanistan govt motivated to do that? In addition to the recommendations made by TimCallahan earlier, probably building a larger, stronger and educated middle class with access to electricity (including the internet and fax machines) would go a long ways towards eliminating the excesses of the Taliban. We may not have the right to do so, but if America and NATO are going to continue to have a military presence in Afghanistan for a long time ... it would probably end up being a less expensive proposition to do so if we did in fact end up changing the culture. My guess is that putting in a wide distribution of electrical wiring along with free internet, computers and fax machines would probably end up being the easiest and most effective way to do so.
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I'd also like to see sanctuary zones built for women. (Similar to what TimCallahan talked about upthread, but located within the country. I don't know how politically likely it would be to offer exit visas to a sizable percentage of Afghan women. Plus in a more perfect world, I like the idea of enabling people to be free within their own countries. ) Some protected cities or zones in cities where women would be free to relocate and support themselves away from tyrannical families if they happen to belong to the type of families that have no problems killing or maiming them if they just happen to look in the wrong direction, breathe without permission, or something similar. I would imagine that would be very difficult to get done ... but I'd still would like to see it. Perhaps implementing it could be similar to how Saudi Arabia has separate sections of their cities set aside for foreign residents imported for long-term work contracts?
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15th November 2012, 04:05 PM | #366 |
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15th November 2012, 04:48 PM | #367 |
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When I was there it was chiefly the Americans who had their own enclosed little areas, which looked very like where I live in Arizona. The British and Germans just found property wherever. It was the Africans who tended to have their own districts. Dress code for women in Somali-town was very different.
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15th November 2012, 04:51 PM | #368 |
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I have direct knowledge of the negotiations & discussions specifically around the Aynak & Hajigak projects (copper & iron). While these are highly lucrative (potentially) the costs of doing business in Afghanistan, combined with the overall security & stability questions are significant barriers to major investments. Suffice to say there are major issues with regards to transparency & the success of these and other mining initiatives. I would say broadly that the mineral wealth of Afghanistan is indeed its only hope for economic development, but it is a chicken & egg situation. You can't really do much with the minerals until the place settles down. The place won't settle down until you have economic development. And plus ca change.
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'Free internet/computers/fax machines' - utopian pipe dreams, those. The private sector is driving the push, and they aren't doing anything for free.
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15th November 2012, 06:24 PM | #369 |
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15th November 2012, 06:29 PM | #370 |
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No one should have to document with citations the basic knowledge that the human brain experiences empathy. That's like saying because some people laugh, sadness must not be a human trait.
There are defective people who kill, there are circumstances where killing happens, any society of humans needs such laws. Your logic is a fail. |
15th November 2012, 06:36 PM | #371 |
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For the readers general consideration, is morality biologically based? Yes.
Serotonin Transporter Genotype (5-HTTLPR) Predicts Utilitarian Moral Judgments Time to shift paradigms, this kind of research is just beginning to be explored. Just because morality exists within a broad range, as opposed to finite positions, does not mean objective morality does not exist. Here's another discussion of the above research: A Moral Gene?
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16th November 2012, 03:31 AM | #372 |
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16th November 2012, 04:11 AM | #373 |
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16th November 2012, 04:14 AM | #374 |
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What does that have to do with my post ?
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Who's talking about logic, here ? |
16th November 2012, 04:44 AM | #375 |
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Belz raises a very important question. Who is 'defective' in the following scenario:
A devout Muslim who sees no other option than to kill his only female child in order to maintain family honour because the weight of 3000+ years of his culture leaves him no choice, is just about to shoot her while she sleeps; his wife sees him about to do this and stabs him to death. Which is the 'defective' human being - the man or his wife? Or both? |
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16th November 2012, 07:04 AM | #376 |
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16th November 2012, 07:30 AM | #377 |
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Soldiers are not trained to kill in the sense that you mean. They are taught how to use equipment and techniques that if used correctly can result in the death of a person. They are also taught controlled aggression.
How would you train a person to kill another person? Which reminds me... I'm owed another link showing that soldiers are taught, or learn to see people as 'less than human' in order to overcome the inhibition to kill. |
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16th November 2012, 07:32 AM | #378 |
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16th November 2012, 07:35 AM | #379 |
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Applying the label "defective" to people who kill is a value judgement with has nothing to do with biology. In general, biology views people who kill as more successful as people who don't, because it's the survivors that pass down their genes. That's at least as obvious as the existence of empathy.
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16th November 2012, 07:46 AM | #380 |
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16th November 2012, 07:51 AM | #381 |
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I fail to see the difference you are making out. We agree a soldiers training to use their equipment in a manner that may result in death, like pointing a rifle at someone and firing it. They are also trained not to run a round in a panic like headless chickens.
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16th November 2012, 07:55 AM | #382 |
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Here's a question for the "Born With Morals" crowd, in the form of a real-world scenario (I like those!):
Imagine a 19 year-old boy, been in the army 6 months. He's carrying a rifle capable of fully-automatic fire; he's on his first tour of Afghanistan and is patrolling with his team through a busy marketplace full of civilians. He's scared stiff, despite all his training. Suddenly, bullets start coming in from at least three directions he can tell, and one of his friends is hit. People are screaming and running everywhere. Who thinks - knowing this is not an unusual situation for this teenager to be in - the army would have spent more time training him to overcome his baked-in inhibition against killing, or restraining a natural urge to put bullets into anything that moved? Or something else? |
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16th November 2012, 08:05 AM | #383 |
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I think you guys are talking past one another. You're talking about the fight half of a fight or flight situation which is well documented. They're talking about a natural disinclination to harm someone when you have ample time to consider it, which seems clearly indicated by various experiments on empathy etc.
I also think the "defective" they mentioned was meant to refer to straight-up psychopaths who have no particular disinclination to harm besides repercussions imposed by other people. I don't think they meant to say anyone who is capable of killing is defective. Because that would be silly. |
16th November 2012, 08:31 AM | #384 |
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16th November 2012, 08:40 AM | #385 |
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And wasn't somebody also talking about evidence for chimps being born with morals as well?
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Femal...sm-54687.shtml http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/564321/ |
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16th November 2012, 09:21 AM | #386 |
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OK so not trained on some sort of psychological level to kill, with specific here is how to turn yourself into a psychopath lessons. Just an expectation that their job is very likely to result in them killing and that they will have to deal with that and not back out of doing it.
Soldiers are trained, or maybe conditioned is a better word to follow orders, no matter what, even if that order means a high risk of theirs or another's death. That comes with basic training, drill and a new soldiers life being dominated by senior officers whose word is law. |
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16th November 2012, 09:29 AM | #387 |
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I'm not sure where you're trying to go with those links. Of course animals in direct competition with one another will sometimes get murderous. Humans too. The strength of any innate morals possessed by any creature will, of course, have to compete with the strength of its feelings of self-interest. So it's easy to do kind things that will satisfy one's morals when one is safe and in possession of all one's needs, and gets harder and harder as satisfying moral urges bumps up against one's own health, safety, and resources.
Military snipers? Where do you get the impression that they aren't well-trained, selected and prepared to be able to deal with what they do? From what I've read, snipers are some of the soldiers most likely to confront the humanity of their targets. Their relatively high comfort with what they do comes down to their conviction that it's simply what must be done for their cause. Anyone who can't be comfortable with that generally will wash out of a sniper program.
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ETA: I guess I left out the part where the point was: a good sniper is a rare person with a very specific way of thinking and set of comfort levels that allows them to be a good sniper. If people in general thought the way good military snipers do I wouldn't be surprised if the world would be a more humane place. |
16th November 2012, 09:29 AM | #388 |
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Rubbish. You're completely grasping at straws now. Soldiers are indeed trained to follow basic words of command, but the days of a commander pointing at a target and saying "Kill!" with an unflinching soldier blindly doing as he's told are long since gone, and haven't even been remotely like that for at least the last 40 - 50 years. Certainly the last 30. British soldiers do not act on unlawful commands, and know one when they hear one.
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16th November 2012, 09:30 AM | #389 |
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16th November 2012, 09:32 AM | #390 |
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16th November 2012, 09:36 AM | #391 |
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Exactly. Not the actions of someone treating their target as "less than human"; not the actions of someone brainwashed to overcome an inhibition to kill, but rather someone who has a job to do, and will do it for the greater good. Is he defective, you think? I'd say no, and I'd reckon you'd agree b
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16th November 2012, 09:37 AM | #392 |
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16th November 2012, 09:48 AM | #393 |
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This is one reason why I have so little interest in posting citations for you. You don't understand the concepts involved. It's a waste of time to discuss this with you until you bring your neurobiology and genetic science knowledge base up to a higher level of understanding than you have.
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16th November 2012, 09:50 AM | #394 |
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16th November 2012, 09:52 AM | #395 |
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16th November 2012, 09:53 AM | #396 |
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Oh right, it's not your fault you have nothing that conclusively proves your assertion, but mine for not understanding!
Science has proven that we are all born with moral values built in - they're not something that's learned - and it's too difficult to put in laymans terms for a Thicko like me? Yeah, OK... You have failed to provide any conclusive evidence for a single claim you have made, when called on it, and that's my fault is it? |
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16th November 2012, 09:54 AM | #397 |
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You keep moving the goal posts, this time to make out I am wrong by claiming soldiers if ordered would not climb out of trench and charge towards enemy lines as they did in WWI. Do you agree if a soldier is given a lawful command to attack they have to do it?
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16th November 2012, 09:56 AM | #398 |
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But these are a minority of people, it is not the norm. For millennia mentally ill people have existed. That doesn't make it the norm. Crime is not the norm, people who commit crimes believe they will get away with it. Do you really think that's the difference? The rest of us don't think we would get away with it, otherwise we be out there on pillaging murderous rampages?
Why would anyone ever return a valuable item they find? No one is going to catch them stealing. Does that mean everyone would return it? No, but you seem to be mistaking the outliers for the norm. |
16th November 2012, 09:58 AM | #399 |
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16th November 2012, 10:00 AM | #400 |
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Why do we have laws against cruelty to animals?
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