Why CNN gave Miley Cyrus top spot over Syria

You say ‘not practical’, are you SURE of that? Sure that a refugee doesn’t have a mind and a body? One that can create, invent, and produce? As far as I’m concerned they’re the ultimate citizen employees!

It’s only a radical thought in context, because the wrong things are considered socially acceptable.

We should seek to create that option, it would take FAR less resources than blowing people and infrastructure up and having to keep rebuilding. I’m really amazed people consider military intervention ‘practical’ now that I’ve learned from some better people.

Oh, I do! I very much do!

Maybe some parents will choose to stay in a war zone, but some would prefer to leave. . . and I like to think EVERYBODY would agree that it’s immoral to trap your children there with all that risk when there is a better alternative.

It doesn’t mean we have to make it hard, in fact . . . we should make it easy, let them carve out their own lives, right? And they should be allowed to go back whenever they want. We should give them options.

I’m starting to like your questions. I do, and each one of them is no less potentially awesome than my own children, when I open up my own monkeysphere and look at them it is mind-bogglingly painful . . . no wonder the best of us constantly go mad.

It’s important to save them, and all those in the Congo, and so very much more. In months, weeks, or days if we can.

If you want to help, maybe this is crazy, but we’ve got a few angles that we can’t find people considering anywhere else . . . and maybe there is a practical way to save them all? After almost two years of obsessing over nuts and bolts, we’ve finally gotten our passion back. If you can help us use that passion and insight to kick this into gear, it’d be appreciated.

Looking more and more like the Iraq War as it goes…

http://www.thestate.com/2013/08/27/2944997/us-allies-going-around-un-to-justify.html

Actually, I find you and Cowicide to be intelligent individuals who are clever and passionate.

Watching your arguments, you’ve both made excellent points, and you’re both a little stubborn (like most of us)

I think this is a communication medium problem, you guys are closer fundamentally than you think, you’re just focused on different (very accurate) complexities.

You’re overlapping a lot in the Venn diagram, it’s just that you’re fighting about something that is SO mind-bogglingly stupid and horrible that I can’t pick a side . . . you’re both right, it’s not your fault you’re arguing over the actions of madmen.

You say ‘not practical’, are you SURE of that? Sure that a refugee
doesn’t have a mind and a body?

Yes. I’m very sure of that. No one (certainly not me) is saying that a refugee doesn’t have the right to seek refuge. That’s why I made the comment about humanitarian beliefs as I strongly believe that the visa and emigration systems of this world are tools designed to keep us divided. I’m saying that it is not practical in terms of: refugee support infrastructure, cultural and language differences, the expectation on someone that they - when presented with risks to their own safety - should run and hide instead of stand and fight.

Turkey has a population of ~75m and an unemployment rate of ~8% meaning that there are over 6m unemployed Turks. The large majority of refugees are going into Turkey. Do you expect a system that already has 6m+ unemployed to fairly accommodate 1m extra people who have a language/cultural barrier? No, what happens is those refugees accept lower pay and working conditions in exchange for any job. This hurts the job market both in remuneration and supply of work.

The influx of refugees also has repercussions beyond economic and social stress on the refuge nation. A lot of refugees from Syria are going into Lebanon. The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah is fighting on the side of and supplying the Syrian Regime. So when refugees end up in Lebanon and are of the opinion that al-Asshole and his cronies should DIAF what happens is that attacks start happening in Lebanon, which is precisely what’s been happening over the last few months. Is it fair for Lebanese civilians to be caught up in violence whose roots are in another country?

I like to think EVERYBODY would agree that it’s immoral to trap your
children there with all that risk when there is a better alternative.

Me too man, but your presumption of the ease with which that better alternative can be achieved is not objective. You realise that al-Asshole’s forces indiscriminately bomb and shoot at people attempting to cross into Turkey? Leaving your home to become a refugee holds its own risks: risks that many would and do deem to be too high to attempt.

we should make it easy, let them carve out their own lives, right? And
they should be allowed to go back whenever they want.

How are “we” making it hard anyway? All of the things you mention are already a thing. You know what military intervention such as an imposed no-fly zone might mean for the refugees trying to cross the border? The very safety and protection you assert they should have.

I think he means ‘indulge in’ or ‘divulge’ … either way I agree with your charge of paranoid leftist.

Again, those are only two alternatives. Why not create a third? This is important enough, right? It’s not ‘running and hiding’ if you’re going somewhere more peaceful, and if you’re taking all the soldiers too, then who’s left to fight?

ONE child dying over a chunk of dirt is too many, true? I’m pretty sure that’s not a crazy thought, I think that’s supposed to be obvious to all of us.

Actually, I’d rather we look one layer underneath, if you don’t mind?

Sure, if you have a bunch of people flooding into an area that aren’t given anything useful to do . . . and that area already has a strained economic system, then that sounds like a really stupid place to go, doesn’t it?

I’ve dealt with the supply chain side of things on and off, and I am honestly completely baffled as to why people keep thinking that these people are incapable of supporting themselves, of making their OWN economy. They don’t have to manufacture scarcity (a requirement of capitalism) or play by the same rules, do they? Surely fake laws are less important than real people in the grand scheme of things, right? So why not exploit EVERY tool at our disposal and not be limited to two options.

Open up the WORLD to them.

This is kind of important, right?

Doing the unheard-of and going back to the original topic…

Y’know I look at that video and I read it as “Damn it, Disney, what do I have to do to get out of this Hannah Montana Banana Hosanna contract $#!+ ?”

Surprise, surprise… the guy who consumes the same media sources as Cow agrees with him. By the way, I didn’t waste my time with you in our last stouch but I loved how you railed on how shit the mainstream media is before linking me to The Guardian as an example of “REAL” news… whatever you think that means.

Actual chemical weapons inspectors you say? Looking for actual chemical weapons? I can tell you aren’t reading much on the subject because the UN inspectors are there to see if chemical weapons have been used and are not mandated to decide who used them. There are other things that could prove guilt on the part of the Syrian regime in this case, such as signals intelligence. If intercepted military communications correlate with the timings and locations of chemical attacks then it pretty much destroys any truth to al-Asshole’s claims of innocence.

The other thing that I expect you and Cow (though I’m quickly losing hope with him) to explain is why al-Asshole stalled letting the UN inspectors into the area for 5 days? He claims no hand in the attacks so why would he stall allowing access to the place that would allegedly vindicate him? It’s because he has things to hide which is precisely what he did: bombed (with conventional weapons) the bejeezus out of the area which was attacked with chemical weapons in an effort to destroy the evidence.

FWIW, I think you meant “betrays”.

But, yeah, if you want folks to take your communications seriously you should make an effort to meet them halfway by not being excessively sloppy.

You are very idealistic and I commend you for it. Unfortunately those two alternatives are actually the only two alternatives. Since al-Asshole’s army is clearly loyal to him and the FSA are clearly not going away until al-Asshole does, you have absolutely no hope of ‘taking all the soldiers too’.

One child dying over a chunk of dirt is too many, but your idea presumes that children weren’t dying to begin with. al-Asshole is killing anyone in the areas of support for the FSA: children, babies, women, men, old, young… anyone. It’s hard to imagine a situation where bombing military targets would result in deaths of more than a couple dozen children, but if such bombing had taken place 2 years ago there’s a good chance al-Asshole’s guys wouldn’t have been able to kill so many children for 2 years, with such little resistance. Sometimes the deaths of a few can protect the lives of many; It’s an unpleasant thing to think about and say but it’s true. Making choices about how to deal with bullies is hard.

that sounds like a really stupid place to go

Since Turkey is one of the few places refugees are able to walk to, and since refugees are taking only what they can carry in order to cross at night and avoid being killed by al-Asshole I don’t really know what you’re suggesting. These people could start their own economy, but the question would be: since they’re living in a freaking tent, often with little more than the clothes they’re wearing, how do you suppose they’re gonna get this economy started? Food aid is being brought to these camps… nothing but poo comes out. How exactly do you propose these refugees get out of the cycle of uncertainty that being a refugee who relies on the generosity of others to survive brings?

They don’t have to manufacture scarcity (a requirement of capitalism)
or play by the same rules, do they?

^This, man. Who is manufacturing scarcity? What’s that got to do with refugees? Why does every topic eventually have to come round to the idea that capitalism is bad? Keep topics compartmentalised or it’s impossible to get to any conclusions. No one is saying that these people shouldn’t have a ‘third way’ I’m just waiting for you to explain what that third way is in a clear and itemised way, not as a lengthy screed against capitalism.

Thanks man… very true.

Though, I don’t know if I’d characterise one incorrectly chosen word as “excessively sloppy”.

You want them to have options, right? A place to go? To live fruitful, productive lives? I mention the economics because you yourself pointed out that in Turkey they have no opportunity, right? Did I miss something?

Then stop playing to ‘al-Asshole’s’ strength.

Give them their own world, and let them choose the system they want to work in. This is just the seed of one way, and it’s made out of science, but it should be good enough for them, right?

Or you can just assume it can’t work and there aren’t any other options, and wish them instead to be forced to choose between the options that they are given now . . . and I think they’re crap options.

A mind is a mind, a person is a person, and I’d happily work by their side to create something better. And we’ve actually got something more plausible than the mess they’re stuck in.

And if after mentioning it twice here, I think you’re better off making sure that we’re not right before seriously considering any of those other options . . . because seriously, that shit’s fucking WRONG. They should have just as many chances as any of us do, and that should be the low bar.

Again, idealism trumping pragmatism. Let’s extrapolate your suggestion into reality, shall we? No solution is a true solution if all the details haven’t been worked out. Take a look at Israel, lands taken from Palestinians and ‘given’ to the Jewish people as a homeland. Did that work terribly well?

Where do you propose this “own world” is located? Who does that land belong to presently? How are you going to repay them for their lost investment? Who will pay them? Who arbitrates disagreements? What happens if al-Asshole decides to invade that “own world” and take it for himself? These are all very real, very practical problems you would face in the commission of your plan.

The problem with the site you linked to is this: It’s not a plan. Many of the points listed are to the effect of “work out this problem”. Sweet, guys… I have solution to AGW: we’ll just work out how to stop producing excessive CO2 and methane! Where the hell’s my Nobel peace prize already? The other problem with the plan set out on that site is that the intended cultural guidelines it sets out are in direct contradiction to inherent human characteristics such as greed, selfishness and loyalty to family over others.

I don’t “wish them … to be forced to choose” between current options, I just don’t think there’s much practical reality to your suggestions. As I said: I admire your idealism but it needs to be tempered with a touch of practical reality. What is happening in Syria is a power struggle. Those who have power are fighting to hold onto it and they would never let any plans such as the ones you outline to come into effect, if they are even possible. Al-Asshole is already shooting at and bombing civilians who are trying to seek refuge, how would you plan change that?

we’ve actually got something more plausible than the mess they’re
stuck in.

I’m sorry but I don’t believe you do. The mess they’re in is most certainly plausible: they’re actually in it right now as we pontificate

You actually brought up questions that are addressed repeatedly in the tiny bit of the actual documentation we have on the site. . .

You’re not even TRYING, are you?

Dude, I’m ONLY about practical nuts and bolts. Guess how far THAT approach got me? TL;DR. There are so many problems to address that when you DO address them you’ve got a freakin’ novel. I had to be practically COERCED to not put every problem and solution out there at first because people would just follow the rabbit holes and miss the greater point.

I’ll give you another chance, start with the FIRST LINE on the first page. I’m so sorry that a bit of reading is more difficult than trying to actually solve what is obviously a fundamentally flawed situation.

Sorry to be sarcastic, but you’re just hitting a particularly exasperating set of issues I’m dealing with, and I can’t UNDERSTAND things for people, I’ve gone way further than meeting halfway here.

Yeah, I really do need to apologize for the sarcasm there, It’s more other people than you, but you kind of poked at a nerve there. Smart people can be exasperating because they’re too used to being right and too used to dealing with idiots.

Potable water for the world population and as-universal-as-possible access to pharmaceutical medicine are far more possible and would bring far more positive change to more people’s lives than deploying the system to which you refer. I did read the site to which you linked, as I said: There are serious practical obstacles to the things you talk about. If the alternative system is as functional and plausible as you claim then surely you can answer to the specific doubts I raised? Going even to half way would require answering my questions.

I’ll read absolutely anything but the minute I feel that there are critical flaws to a set of reasoning, I (and humans in general) will switch off. It is at this point that you should alleviate this by giving solutions to the questions I raised, because you can’t expect someone to understand and agree with something that seems to them to have glaring practical problems. I’m not telling you your idea won’t work, I’m asking that you explain how it will work in the specific situations I raised. If you can do that I’d have a better chance of agreeing with it.

Okay, let’s see what happens.

Completely, utterly irrelevant, as mentioned on first page. Could be Canada, South America, whatever. Seriously, it’s just dirt.

You don’t need somebody to ‘pay them’ if they control their own supply chain and means of production. They can produce just as well as we can. Just because they’re poor NOW doesn’t mean they can’t be rich. . however let’s not pretend that money is a good motivator.

(as mentioned in first page, ‘The Doctor’s Way’, ‘Valve to Awesome’, and in detail in the linked TED playlists ‘Work Smarter Not Harder’ and ‘Our Brains: Predictably Irrational’)

WHAT? They’re part of us! How are a bunch of people who can flit from corporate campus/city state as they see fit going to be a target? And is he going to attack a corporate campus?

I think I already see your problem. That’s addressed in the snarkier ‘Questions in Context’. We’re already hitting very obscure scenarios here, we’d almost have to engineer deliberately badly to make that happen.

There are sub-plans presented, I don’t know how you get from 'making sure we approach things with all options on the table? Just combine Valve and Mondragon and you don’t need my help anymore. Once you add self sufficiency a construct like Mondragon has no hiring limits. If Valve follows a vaguely similar path they can, step by step, solve the problems you mentioned.

And we’re not going to have any influence on our mad government. Why not turn a corporate campus into a home and exploit the most powerful construct we have?

By getting them the fuck out of there.

Both are parts of the approach, especially Pharma . . . also incorporated are methods to deal with patents, exploit prototyping, and use an internal economy (admittedly, with experiments, we have no knowledge of which of the various options work the best. hence the scientific method on top) to address some market concerns.

I missed one. . arbitrating disputes. . Nailed hard in ‘The Doctor’s Way’, that’s probably the best place to go.

You really need to unlearn a lot, we all do.

Hmmm. .what else. .

I think this problem is important enough that it’s worth a bit more effort, and I haven’t broken a mental sweat, the only thing in my way is Carpal Tunnel.

Your personal focus on ‘Al-Asshole’ also makes me think you might want to hit the linked Monkeysphere article hard, because it seems like a small issue at first. . but we’re designed around it, who else is?

Trick question! Lots of people have! Without all our science! We’ve just got a method to get economy of scale at the same time.

See, this is my problem, everybody makes a whole new set of assumptions, unless I can watch your eyes I can’t see where you drift off or turn off.

And you wonder why you and Cowicide had so much conflict. . . how do we solve problems if it’s such a freakin’ bear to communicate?

Let me know if I missed one that you’re hung up on. . . like I said, tip of the iceberg of solutions.

And what if I’m NOT wrong?

Surprise, surprise… the guy who consumes the same media sources as Cow agrees with him.

Yes, @Ygret is a member of the Cowicidal Reading Club I set up last year. That explains everything. I mean, it couldn’t be that someone disagrees with you for any other reason. That would be preposterous.

shit the mainstream media is before linking me to The Guardian as an example of “REAL” news

Enlighten us on examples of “real” news sources. Name them. I’m always trying to gather new, more reliable sources in my arsenal and it would seem you have some stellar examples to share.

the UN inspectors are there to see if chemical weapons have been used and are not mandated to decide who used them.

That’s very true and for damn good reasons. Even if you find the remnants of a Syrian missile with traces of a nerve agent, you still don’t know whether Assad’s troops fired it, or whether rebels seized it during an attack on an army base somewhere in the north, and later employed it.

That’s why many of the psychotic rebels only hurt themselves by preparing chemical weapons themselves and even admitting to their willingness to use them. If they’d taken the high road (you know, beyond using child soldiers, beheadings, eating the hearts cut from the chests of their enemy and general extremist, religious zealotry, etc.) – It might be much more clear cut who the true source for chemical weapons are from.

Because of this complexity, it’s going to take time to figure out the source for chemical weapons. We’ll have to rely on whistleblower defectors, documents/orders made public, etc.

Just as the Syrian government has itself to blame for stockpiling chemical weapons, the zealot rebels only have themselves to blame for muddying the waters by their own shitty actions as well.

If intercepted military communications correlate with the timings and locations of chemical attacks then it pretty much destroys any truth to al-Asshole’s claims of innocence.

Not necessarily. You’re attempting to simplify a complex situation. What if they shell an area, then they send in troops and the rebels retaliate into the same area with nerve agents?

The other thing that I expect you and Cow (though I’m quickly losing hope with him) to explain is why al-Asshole stalled letting the UN inspectors into the area for 5 days? It’s because he has things to hide …

Unlike you, I can think of various explanations because it’s, indeed, a complex situation. You state absolutes with black and white thinking and that’s exactly what got us into the Iraq War as well.

There’s a couple of possibilities, but if you only consume Western mainstream media and take it as gospel, you may not be able to critically think about different possibilities.

One possibility is the Syrian government had something to hide and wanted to destroy evidence before inspections because they used chemical weapons. This seems to be the only possibility you can manage to subscribe to via your black and white thinking.

Another possibility is it was still an active war zone and the last thing the Syrian government wanted to do is shell the area against rebels and end up killing or injuring U.N. inspectors. If that happened, that’d be a pretext for Western powers for war against Syria.

Another possibility is the Syrian government wanted to inspect the area to see if rebels left any faux “evidence” to set them up. Something the rebels have been guilty of doing in the past, by the way.

There’s many other possibilities as well. The people who are eager to go to war want to simplify a complex situation. I’m not eager for the United States to go to war with Syria, are you?


Evidence Indicates that Syrian Government Did Not Launch a Chemical Weapon Attack Against Its People

Michael Rivero asks:

  1. Why would Syria’s Assad invite United Nations chemical weapons inspectors to Syria, then launch a chemical weapons attack against women and children on the very day they arrive, just miles from where they are staying?

  2. If Assad were going to use chemical weapons, wouldn’t he use them against the hired mercenary army trying to oust him? What does he gain attacking women and children? Nothing! The gain is all on the side of the US Government desperate to get the war agenda going again.


Who really benefits from a chemical attack?

The USA made the “red line” statement that they would take action if there was a chemical attack. This threat wasn’t made in secret to the Syrian government, it was a public statement that was heard by the world including the rebels.

You think it’s beyond the realm of possibility that the rebels wouldn’t take advantage of this situation to get Western forces to attack the Syrian government? The same rebels that have recruited child soldiers, practice beheadings and other atrocities wouldn’t stoop to exposing their own sarin gas to victims of conventional Syrian bombings?

The problem with religious zealots (or any other zealots for that matter) is they all too often will try to rationalize doing horrific things in the short-term for what they perceive is for the greater good in the long-term.

In your haste to turn a complex situation into a simplistic situation, I think you’re forgetting that.

Unlike you, I’m able to consider multiple scenarios. I certainly don’t think it’s beyond the realm of possibility that the Syrian government has used chemical weapons, but I also think there’s plenty of reason to suspect rebels as well.

And now, let’s get to the CRUX of the entire issue in regards to the United States and what we should or shouldn’t do.

ONCE AGAIN

You (nor the U.S. government) has shown any evidence whatsoever that air strikes on Syria will help the situation. No doubt, I think we can both agree it’s a horrible situation. But, I’m going to have to agree (in part) with “paranoid leftists” like Republican Representative Mike Rogers that there’s not even a solid plan for transition to a post-Assad Syria submitted by the Obama Administration.

Once we’re done bombing Assad (and, inevitably, civilians) do we then attack the rebels (and, inevitably, civilians) who have recruited child soldiers, eaten the hearts out of soldiers, carried out beheadings and are strongly suspected of already carrying out chemical attacks as well?

What’s the plan?

… or is this all just about gas pipeline territory and money?

A “Military Industrial Complex” without a war is…unnecessary. Something needs to support that humongous budget.
The US has looked the other way so many times in the past, supported puppet dictators who abused their people plus the whole WMD fiasco makes it hard to take Obama’s outrage seriously. Also, is it better to be starved to death or bombed to death or thrown in a dungeon than be hit with a chemical weapon attack? Forgive my cynicism.

You don’t need to tell me that you guys blow an idiotic amount of cashola on the military: one of my favourite quips is how you have a laughable healthcare system but always enough to up the military budget each year. The thing is that you’ve already got a shitload of military hardware… launching a few cruise missiles isn’t what costs you $, it’s new weapons R&D, maintaining a large, technologically advanced army and base/supply logistics.

Also if you hadn’t noticed there is a war: the Syrian civil war. It’s not our war but I sure as hell would hope that if the leader of my country was dropping nerve agents on me and my family while we slept in a residential area then someone would come and remove the ability of my leader to do that again to me or anyone else.

I agree that the US has a terribly spotty history of doing dodgy shit. During the Iran/Iraq war the US didn’t know who to back, so you guys just supplied enemy movements intel to both sides. Classy. Also as an example of supporting dictators, what is presently happening in Bahrain is inexcusable. That being said, I don’t exactly know why other examples of terrible foreign policy would be good enough excuse to shirk our humanitarian responsibilities to our fellow man.

is it better to be starved to death or bombed to death or thrown in a dungeon than be hit with a chemical weapon attack?
Well, based on the near-universal ban on manufacture, sale and use of chemical weapons, I’d say the international community is pretty much in agreement that dying from a chemical weapons attack is the worst. Chemical weapons are for more indiscriminate than conventional weapons, and the deaths caused by them far more agonising. It’s not great entertainment, but if you’ve watched the videos showing the effects of the large scale chemical attack that happened last week I think you might agree. You know how twitchy and painful it looks for a spider or a cockroach when you spray it? Weaponised nerve agents are basically bug spray for humans.

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