That would be a stronger argument if it were not the sceptics that framed it that way. — unenlightened

I don't think that's an accurate way of describing the skepticism expressed in this thread at all.

This isn't a question about caring for others at all.

Attempts to frame it as such is simply a transparent attempt at claiming a moral high ground by smearing the other side as being selfish and immoral. It's intellectual poverty.

That much is evident, the dumb cattle would rather not have kids and buy electric cars (which make no difference) while millionaires stay and will stay on their private jets burning diesel. But when we comes to things that are killing us in real time, such as microplastics and hormones in food, they stay really quiet because it is not a topic covered by the BBC or New York Times. — Lionino

My thoughts exactly. :pray:

“The huge human cost of the climate crisis is being ignored. We hear of disaster relief, but the long-term costs are not being addressed. We must provide lasting support for people impacted by climate change,” said Ian Fry, UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights in the context of climate change.

In his report to the Council, the Special Rapporteur outlined a six-point plan to address the human rights aspects of the problem.

Communities in vulnerable situations, including indigenous peoples, peasants, migrants, children, women, persons with disabilities and people living in small island developing States and least developed countries, are disproportionately at risk from adverse impacts of climate change, the UN expert said.

He also highlighted the many non-economic losses stemming from climate change and its consequences. “For instance, in countries where I have worked and visited in the Pacific for the last 20 years, people are witnessing the graves of their loved ones being washed out into the sea,” the expert said.

Fry noted that the key element of his plan would be to investigate the plight of people displaced by the impacts of climate change. The expert said that of 59.1 million people internally displaced in 2021 across the world, most were displaced by climate-related disasters. He noted that the number was far higher than displacement due to armed conflict.

How does this not sound extremely grifty?

People have had to deal with the effects of all kinds of change for as long as humanity has existed, but now there are people in need for "long-lasting support" and this bozo needs your money.

Subsidizing people for living in unsustainable conditions is a terrible idea, and I have no doubt a large part of that money would disappear into the pockets of, you guessed it, grifters.

If two centimeters of sea-level rise means you and your family are washed away, maybe think about moving. In fact, maybe you should have thought about moving yesterday. But even so, those two centimeters will take a couple decades - there's still time!

Treating people like children and helpless victims; it's a funny tendency within modern societies and apparently also in supranational organisations. Maybe a form of subconscious savior complex?

Personally, I'm a bit more cynical, as you might have guessed. This is grifty language, used to manipulate and guilt-trip people, which sadly is all too common in these forms of charity.

The only one screaming endlessly here is you, ...

"They" the media? choose a child because that makes it more believable? — unenlightened

Yes. Why would a climate apocalypse unfolding before our very eyes need to be "made more believable"?

Besides, children don't make things believable. Only a fool would listen to a child on a topic like this. The choice of a child was deliberate, because people don't like to criticize children. And grifters don't like criticism.

Further, fearmongering and targeting children is a deliberate and grifty tactic.

Not the end of the world, just the end of your world. — unenlightened

I think you know little of my world, but don't you think this is a bit ironic considering the tone you've chosen?

It's psychobabble Jim, not pseudo-religious hooey, [...] — unenlightened

Gotcha.

[...] and definitely not grift. — unenlightened

No, I wasn't calling you a grifter. But if you're genuinely under the impression the world is about to end, you've fallen victim to a grift.

Well, another element of the climate grift was how they chose a child, Greta, as their spokesperson. That's a pretty classic example of grift.

Cramped reactions like these only suggest the aforementioned intellectual foetal position to me, to be honest.

I wasn't referring to any quotes from NASA. I was referring to the very thing you linked me.

There is a an important psychological aspect to climate change, that it demands a huge transformation in ones fundamental understanding of oneself, of humanity, of society and economics, and a change of direction away from endless growth that threatens ones' identity like no other issue. Denial is commonplace, and particularly denial that anything is happening that will radically change the way of life of the human world. — unenlightened

If this isn't pseudo-religious hooey, I don't know what is.

Like with all things (and good grifts) there's a core of truth somewhere to be found. That our care for the environment is lacking is pretty much self-evident, though personally I would put the emphasis elsewhere (microplastics, pesticides, etc. - pollution, in short).

Putting people in the intellectual foetal position by convincing them the world is ending smells of grift to me, though. And I have no doubt certain uncouth agendas have inserted themselves into the climate debate.

Doomsday prophecies and claims to esotheric knowledge are signals to me that certain folks have been sent off the deep end.

The climate grift is just a lightning rod designed to keep your attention fixed on a problem that, supposedly, we are all responsible for, while keeping your attention away from problems that have clearly discernable causes, usually involving powerful lobbies and a lot of money.

When was the last time you heard anyone talk about pesticides causing Parkinson's disease in increasingly younger people?

I've noticed that people have been taking issue with the word 'genocide' being used to describe Israel's actions in Gaza.

I would like to remind everyone that the Srebrenica massacre that took place during the Bosnian war which involved the murder of 8,372 Bosniak Muslims was labeled a genocide by both the ICC and the ICTY (International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia), and the people responsible were convicted for genocide.

I hope this illustrates how Israel's actions are well within the scope of what could be considered a genocide, especially coupled with the rhetoric of Israeli officials and Israel's previous conduct.

Where are you getting your news? Tik tok? Lies. — BitconnectCarlos

From IDF documents and Israeli spokespeople themselves, actually. :brow:

But we also need to be honest that neither of us are in the IDF operations room and have a clear idea of Israel's proportionality policy. — BitconnectCarlos

That idea is quite clear, actually.

Israel in a few weeks killed more civilians than the Russians did in a year, while the Russians are conducting a massive operation and Israel is operating in an area the size of a post stamp.

Israel is massacring civilians on purpose, because it cannot effectively hurt Hamas.

It's established Israeli military "strategy", which they call the Dahiya doctrine. The murder of disproportionate amounts of civilians in order to pressure Hamas is an explicit part of that doctrine.

Let's not mince words here.

Henry Fonda is not responsible for the pregnancy, while the mother is, which is why the analogy doesn't hold water.

Which part is simple minded? — Paine

:lol: Come on, man.

And for the record: that the type of simple-mindedness that inhabits American politics has such a presence on a philosophy forum is a traversty in and of itself.

You charge me with complicity in a destructive force and then gloat about your view from a commanding height. — Paine

Indeed.

For the most part, I am just observing. Like I've said many times before, all of this would simply be amusing if it wasn't for the widespread suffering it creates.

Bla, bla. Whinge a little harder about the mess you yourselves create.

If you have convinced yourself that feeling disdain for roughly 80 million people is normal, I doubt I'll be able to change your mind. Personally, I think it suggests disconnection from reality.

For now, said political opponent poses a larger threat to their power than the lack of trust and impoverishment of the people. However, those two will eventually converge at which point it's curtains for the system.

Such change seems to always happen through oddballs like Trump (and for us, Wilders), but ultimately they're a symptom of the real problem that is the system.

In a sense it's a good thing that change now seems to be on the horizon, because the longer it is forestalled, the more extreme the eventual swing will be.

I wonder if people realize that this thread in a nutshell explains why Trump might win a second term.

The disdain for ordinary people, the "all means necessary" approach confirming one's own moral bankrutpcy while pretending to have a moral high ground, etc.

We saw the same thing in the Netherlands, though a little less extreme.

The irony of it all is amusing, but honestly it makes me want to wash.

American politics is comedy gold.

You've got a choice between a giant douche and a turd sandwich.

Don't let the fact that this time around they pick the turd sandwich collapse your world view.

-

Yet philosphy should be welcomed and encouraged on a philosophy forum. — ssu

If you want to have a philosophical discussion, at least be so forthright as to clearly indicate what question or topic you want to discuss [...] — Tzeentch

This isn't primarily a philosophical discussion.

If you want to have a philosophical discussion, at least be so forthright as to clearly indicate what question or topic you want to discuss, rather than throwing up semantic smokescreens. What you're doing now smells of deflection and sophistry.

Which of the two? I think they're both pretty strong, but in the case of the AIDS video, it's almost like the reporters managed to find the smoking gun.

You think playing coy is a way to be taken seriously on this forum?

Ask me three honest and straightforward questions, and I'll answer them for you. I have no patience for whatever game you're trying to play.

Here's another blast from the past: a 2015 documentary about the pharmaceutical industry and its rotten business practices. Rather uncanny parallels can be drawn.





The bottomline is, politics, pharmaceutical companies, the science, even the doctors themselves - it's all compromised by lobbyists who are bought and paid for, and has been for years. Not a word from these people can be trusted.

There was a time when institutions had integrity and could be trusted to act in favor of public health. We are no longer living in such times. I wonder when people will wake up to that fact.

Perhaps interesting for you as well. It's from Zembla.

AIPAC hard at work, I see. :lol:

I'm reminded of a documentary I watched a little while ago. It's worth a watch - if I am not mistaken SV40 played a key role in the search for polio vaccines in the '50s and '60s and the link of those vaccines to the emergence of HIV.

If your argument that everything has happened because NATO and if NATO hadn't enlarged, Russia wouldn't have done anything is simply false. — ssu

That's not my argument, though.

My argument, or at least a part of it, is that NATO enlargement worried the Russians, and they expressed that worry over the course of 15 years. They were completely ignored by the West.

Ignoring other nations' security concerns is a highway to war, and NATO (with Uncle Sam at the wheel) took that path knowingly and willingly. That's why they are primarily responsible for the conflict.

And it's simply illogical to assume that you would annex territories if the only issue would preventing NATO enlargement and Ukraine being a bufferzone. — ssu

I think it's completely logical for Russia to annex parts of Ukraine if peace between Russia and the West is made impossible. That's a situation the West knowingly and willingly brought about when they blocked peace negotiations in March/April 2022. Of course the Russians are going to react to that.

A show of force would already done that... — ssu

I disagree.

What the US tried to do was simply turn Ukraine into a de facto US ally on a bilateral basis until circumstances were such that Ukraine could be fully incorporated into NATO.

Of course, Russia invaded before the Ukrainian military was able to provide the kind of resistance that would have made a US intervention feasible, which is why the US hung them out to dry in the end.

A show of force would have done nothing to stop that underlying threat, which is the US. NATO is simply a vessel.

Well what is it? Can Ukraine negotiate or not? — Echarmion

'Officially' probably not, but it should revoke Zelensky's idiotic decree and negotiate if it has any sense of self-preservation.

Your strategy seems to offer little other than the hope you are right about russian intentions. — Echarmion

Starting talks costs nothing.

Don't they? — Echarmion

No, obviously they don't. Does that really require explanation?

Ukraine is being utterly wrecked in every conceivable way. Europe threw its economy down the drain, now has a hostile great power on its doorstep while having completely stripped its military, and it has been turned into the world's laughing stock to boot.

Why exactly though? — Echarmion

I'm not going into the moral argument, because I don't think it's constructive for reasons I have already outlined.

That happened after the West blocked peace talks.

When the West clearly signals that peace is not an option, obviously the Russians are going to react accordingly. How is that in any way surprising?

A terrible strategy on the West's part, because the idea that they were winning and could thus continue to snub the Russians was based on an entirely erroneous idea of how the war was progressing. They basically started to believe their own propaganda.

Well - this is the result, which many of us have been predicting since the start of the war.

The support increases Ukraine's ability to impose costs and thus their position in negotiations. — Echarmion

But you literally just wrote that imposing costs on Russia is the basis of the Ukrainian position in negotiations. So the strategic goal of imposing costs to demonstrate your ability to impose future costs seems entirely sound. — Echarmion

We are far past that point. Zelensky is not moving to negotiate. He even signed a decree to make negotiations with Russia impossible. The absolute fool.

Obviously the support is achieving the opposite of sound strategy, which is why Ukraine is slowly (rapidly?) approaching the edge of the cliff. Quite extraordinary you're unable to see that.

What exactly is the moral argument here? — Echarmion

It's a strategic argument. Neither Ukraine nor Europe benefits from playing into Washington's hand.

From a moral perspective it is of course repugnant too.

It's not unable to resist. It's unable to win militarily.

It can still continue to resist militarily, unconventionally if need be, to impose a cost on Russia. This gives them leverage in negotiations. That leverage is now far lower than in March/April 2022, but it is leverage nonetheless. Furthermore, there is plenty of indication that the Kremlin would prefer a negotiated settlement over having to fight for every inch of Ukraine that they deem important. That can once again be used as a basis for talks.

However, continuing to resist without an actual strategy of what that resistance is supposed to accomplish is remarkably foolish. Imposing a cost on Russia is a sound strategy from an American point of view, not from a Ukrainian point of view, since it would incur a much larger cost on Ukraine itself - it would destroy Ukraine.

Now, that is of course the wet dream of policymakers in Washington: Ukraine fighting itself to the death against Russia, because it would impose the largest cost on Russia. Washington doesn't care at all about what happens to Ukraine in the process.

Neither Europe nor Ukraine should make themselves complicit in such a strategy.

The Russians aren't interested in taking all of Ukraine. They prefer a negotiated settlement that leaves Ukraine filling its role as neutral bufferzone between east and west. First it was the US that blocked such negotiations, now it's Zelensky.

If Russia wants to take all of Ukraine, it can. And neither Europe nor the US would be prepared to do what it takes to stop them, so they should stop pretending towards the Ukrainians.

Ukraine and its military is a shell on life-support. Europe and the US can either wait for a total collapse, or they can pull the plug now while Ukraine still has a chance at negotiations.