China Again Blocks Move to List JeM Chief Masood Azhar as Global Terrorist by UN Security Council

[surajmal]

15 minutes ago, R!TTER said:

It doesn't prove anything, in fact your doubling down on a non sequitur proves that you don't understand the economics & politics of international trade.

Anyone who flashes educational credentials on chootiya topics like economics and politics is a Grade A chootiya. 

 

 

Quote

The most profitable phone maker in the world Apple, sells them in the range above $500 while the most profitable car makers are also making premium cars.

Whats that got to do with the price of potatoes?

 

Quote

China itself is moving up the value chain, the really low cost manufacturing is moving to India, Vietnam, Indonesia etc.

Vietnam, Indonesia, India are getting pocket change. China will move up the value chain while keep supplying low cost goods as well. Its got a billion mouths to feed. 

 

Quote

That's not just a notion, that's reality - China makes stuff in each & every value/quality range however their quality stiff is neither cheap nor too affordable. The only time it's possible is when the PRC subsidizes their companies, which they obviously do through various sops. What China is great at is dumping avg or below avg quality stuff at or just above break even prices.

Getting over the grammar salad... Yes, China is great at flouting rules. World still hasn't done anything. Get back to me when it does. 

Edited March 15, 2019 by surajmal

[R!TTER]

So you're this grade A chutiya - good to know, since you can obviously see educational credentials when none were flashed. And your last line takes the cake - no logic - get back to me when we get back at them 

Edited March 15, 2019 by R!TTER

[Muloghonto]

14 minutes ago, Tibarn said:

Which book? 

If it doesn't actually address theory, then I expect it has actual quantitative data? If not, then what is the point of reading it if I am expected to accept more unsubstantiated observations by another random person?

That is called observer bias. 

Because if you have the same observer bias from a different position, you have no basis of dismissing another equally valid opinion ?!

 

14 minutes ago, Tibarn said:

 

My point stands, observations by biased individuals don't constitute a basis of acceptance or discarding a political system. 

Then it applies to everything you are saying as well. 

14 minutes ago, Tibarn said:

I doubt there is no compelling data which quantifies this.  This is again observer bias. 

I suggest you read the whole post before commenting, it has been addressed below. 

14 minutes ago, Tibarn said:

Shifting goalposts: my statement wasn't particular to this forum. I don't actually talk about "Europeans" on this forum, since those topics don't exist on this forum and it isn't interesting, so I doubt anyone would've seen me either praise or discredit them reflexively.

 

On cursory glance through my post history, for the Big 3 European countries (England, France, Germany). I have mentioned France a grand total of once time my entire time posting here, and Germany twice.  Out of 56 times England/UK has been mentioned 55 was in the context of Cricket. That is 4 times total for the 3 important ones.  

 

That ad hominem of supposed "reflexive bias" against Europeans is baseless and unsubstantiated.    

Your premise of specifically naming European nations is irrelevant, as you've addressed Europeans with that word and under plenty of other euphemisms ( westerners, soul harvesters etc) in this forum plenty of times.

Also, no goal-post has been shifted - i simply pointed out that while in my case ( who you allege a pro-Europe bias), i can easily pull up posts where i have been critical as well as endorsing of them depending on the context, while i cannot find any/recall any from you, giving you the opportunity to demonstrate you have done so. 

If not, then by empirical standards, your case of bias is more severe than the one you allege for me. 
 

14 minutes ago, Tibarn said:

If the statement of fact that a country is developed counts, then this one praises a couple of them including Greece and Poland. 

 

 

Either way, I have no reason to discredit "Europe" or "European" countries on actual objective measures.  The key-word being objective. I am not going to praise "Europe"/"Europeans" on subjective measures.  

Yet, you do criticize them on subjective measures of religious ethics. Ergo, your position is also biassed. 

 

14 minutes ago, Tibarn said:

Personal observer bias relates to an experimental group where people see what they want to see when studying a subject.  I am neither studying you, nor your posts. Anything you post that I read is said directly to me. I neither gain anything from your being shown to be biased or nor do I lose anything if you are not shown to be biased. I also didn't preemptively level any accusations of bias against you for whatever motive.  

 

Frankly speaking, everyone has biases, accusing others of being biased while feigning neutrality is dishonest.  Pot meet kettle. I am only doing what you did when you made the baseless allegation of a supposed reflexive bias against Europe that I have. The difference is, I am openly offering to show why I consider you biased pro-"Europeans"/other over-generalized term, however, I rather cut out the useless drama from the thread.  

Indeed, way too much have been spent already from your over-reaction to a small dig from my part. I forget, despite the fact that your posts are well written, you are still a young adult with the baggage that entails. So lets move forth from that. 

I will point out - i am not the one bringing in observer bias as a rejection to the argument - you have. I am simply responding by the same consistent measure you employed. 

14 minutes ago, Tibarn said:

Maybe, maybe not but I will use a derivative of your earlier statement:

I am yet to see actually any instances of your claim of you criticizing any subset of Europeans/Europeans in any non-trivial way, but I have seen you make grandiose statements regarding either Europe, regions of Europe, or countries in Europe which were sometimes bordering on apologia/propaganda for them. 

Since you are not very active for long periods of time, i can only assume that your inactivity is not just lurking in the background. I've recently stated in a post that i find the European ethics system of absolute black and white to be tiresome and flawed in face of relativistic ethics that are a distinct Asiatic flavor ( i use that term, not to denote the East Asians but also us). To any reasonable observer, critiquing/disagreeing with the fundamental ethic system of a civilization is pretty over-arching in its rejection/critique. 

 

14 minutes ago, Tibarn said:

Strawman, I never claimed that democracies ever waged war on any of those grounds. My statement was regarding the assumption on what is rash behavior.  

 

In this example, You are assuming that "wanting to shag someone" is rash, but Zoologically, this is a valid reason for war/combat, (especially since the rest of the ROPer barbarians would also get their chance to shag and wage Jihad).  As is succession and resources.  You will find them primitive barbarians, but they, if they successfully invade and conquer you, will call you all sorts of derogatory phrases(and that is the mild end of the spectrum of what they will do as you already know).  

Don't obfuscate. You wanna fight to go shag someone, go do it yourself. Explain to me how its a valid reason or betterment of society to commit society to war in order to shag someone. 

By objective measures of gains/losses for society, you will have a very tough time convincing that committing a society to war so YOU, the king can shag someone, is not a rash or negative decision for society. 

 

14 minutes ago, Tibarn said:

 

In the current global political climate, a country would be condemned for going to war over, say control of a river, but that doesn't change that it was legitimate enough of a reason. That climate isn't necessarily a permanent fixture. I would say with the decline of the US and the rise of China, more such behavior would be legitimized. 

It is a very simple bechmark being employed here - war not for conquest or for booty, but simply to redeem personal honor of the ruling elite ( s) is to the detriment of the said society by most objective benchmarks. 

14 minutes ago, Tibarn said:

This I would only agree with on the Personal Wars part. I doubt there have been many personal wars by democracies in the current democratic era.  I don't see anything compelling showing that democracies are any less destructive than dictatorships, the list of genocides, invasions, slaughtering, imperialism by democracies are abundant. 

Sure, but that is why i picked that criterion - as you noted/implied, the complexities of unique geo-political, cultural and financial motives/challenges facing a society are so hard to accurately normalize that we cannot compare each and every war on a simple 'totalitarian undertaking versus democratic undertaking' to pass judgement on such. 

Yet, personal war is one such criterion where we can, because it takes such geo-politics out of the equation and focuses primarily on the ability of the elites to commit their society to war for their own 'honor/egos' sake. 

14 minutes ago, Tibarn said:

 

I am not so sure. China has taken a number of steps which are impressive to me, which I don't think a single democratic country will take in the foreseeable future. 

Sure. And they have also undertaken several steps in conjunction with those impressive steps that are dire/ghastly for the populace that I also don't think any democracy will ever undertake. 

 

The premise is not a binary comparison of 'this = all good, that = all bad' but the idea that totalitarianism is a high risk, high reward move, with greater heights in conjunction with much lower lows than democracy, which is 'rule of mediocrity'.

 

14 minutes ago, Tibarn said:

False choice, there is no reason to assume that a non-democratic government would be sadistic, and there is no compelling, quantifiable evidence that most dictatorships/monarchies were sadistic. That is just an assumption which likely relies on confirmation bias.   

Again, personal wars. That alone makes the dictatorships a bigger risk for society, even when normalized for their times ( eg: Athenians vs the Spartans). 

14 minutes ago, Tibarn said:

 

Even, if we accept that democracies do less harm, which isn't so, a paralyzed government isn't objectively good.  A paralyzed government could only be considered good, when they need to avoid screwing things up when they are already good. This doesn't support the idea that a poor or lower income country should accept this form of government as they need the correct policies.  Ergo it is illogical. 

It is illogical, if and only if, it comes with FAITH, that the government empowered to do great harm ( aka dictatorships) will not do so but will actually better the lot of their people. 

14 minutes ago, Tibarn said:

 

Paralysis also hurts those who are disadvantaged by the status quo. It pretty clear that to me, that Europe and India are (expletive) by the current status quo in both regions/countries. 

The country who's economy and the HDI of its people are growing at the 2nd fastest rate for a large nation, by most objective parameters, do not meet the definition of 'being screwed'. Being second to China may not be optimal for us, but it does not make us 'screwed' either. 

 

14 minutes ago, Tibarn said:

To clarify this part since it seems to be veering in another direction (your posts in black). The point of this statement was that different people have different views about what is good for society. You were claiming that these "elites" were taking actions to screw the weak and the helpless.  This isn't an objective truth, it is a Marxist reading of History/Sociology as one of class struggle ( It follows from Conflict theory of Sociology). That 90% number is, again, a made up statistic. There isn't anything compelling which suggests one should accept this reading of History/Sociology over Symbiotic-Interactionist or Functionalist theories.  

You are mixing up your quotings, as that is from a different post. Regardless, I didn't just say elites. i said people in power - any kind of power. To deny that people use their power (whatever they have) for self-improvement, regardless of its cost to other randomized humans, is equally incredible as the innanity of some of Marxist ramblings - this is where the libertarian 'hocus pocus nonsense' stands just as a diametric opposite to Marxist diatribe. 
 

14 minutes ago, Tibarn said:

 

One could argue that literally any major decision will affect the poorest members of society. That isn't particular to a dictatorship. The big reform in the US in the 90s was NAFTA under Pres. Clinton, and the people most negatively affected by it was arguably the blue-collar working class. Similarly the "illegal immigration" issue affects the unskilled labor force, and AI will affect those target groups as well. Are we to assume maleficence for all these actions

Again, obfuscation. 
Casus Belli for war. I can present to you a comparative of totalitarian Sparta versus democratic Athens in their stated casus belli for war and its abundantly clear that totalitarian casus belli has a much greater 'to satisfy honor of the ruling elite (s )' as stated casus belli.

If we cannot agree that throwing your subjects to war so you can shag a girl or mollify your p!$$ed off daughter is an objectively bad choice, then congrats, you just validated Khilji's attacks  on Chittor as valid as any other reason to attack another polity. 

14 minutes ago, Tibarn said:

 

 

The definition of good for society must be subjective, unless one include parameters which are shown to be objectively good. Say you and your old nemesis @Green Monster (green mogambo) are arguing for what is better for society, and the topic of Feminism comes up. How exactly are you guys going to come to an agreement on what is "doing good for society" when you guys are so far apart on the two ends on this issue, that there isn't really a middle?  In this scenario, there isn't really any hard experimental science which supports the stands on a philosophical/political issue like Feminism, one way or the other, therefore all that will be left would be seeing who has more people agreeing with their opinion or weaker forms of evidence.  

 

If we are going solely by my parameters, which again are subjective, a government must be judged by its ability to turn its country into a superpower(Economic + Military). Whichever form of government achieves that, is what is best.

 However, you would likely add ABC to that or subtract XYZ, while another person will add DEF and subtract VUW, etc etc... That is what makes it subjective. 

Sure. But it does nothing to address my point that in questions of ethics - where no empiric standard of objective science actually exists,  if we cannot agree to the simple paradigm that comitting your people to war to satisfy your dick equates to being a sub-optimal choice for your people, then i am sorry to say, you are just arguing for argument's sake and going to use 'lack of empirical data' as a cop-out. 

And if you are going to be a hard-liner on subjective vs objectivism, then i will simply have to adopt the equally hardline point that since we, species homo sapiens have not met any other advanced form of life that is self aware and able to communicate with us in mathematical detail, our notion of objectivity is simply a subjective quality of our sensory inputs, ergo, we are in no position to quantify any argument whatsoever, as objective rationalism, as the premise of 'species homo sapiens is a rational species' is then unsupported. 

This type of debating tactic you are using, leads to this zero sum game. 

14 minutes ago, Tibarn said:

Bolded part: patriotism is only the: 

Thinking that a ruler has a dumb cause for a war doesn't really make the ruler unpatriotic, so long as he also has followers who think it is a patriotic duty to fight because his daughter is insulted. Patriotism doesn't necessarily depend on what some peasants think either. A country could effectively be a ruling class and a bunch of redundant interchangeable peasants who other times function as mercenaries. 

So you are basically saying, its okay to wage war and get a certain section of your populace killed off to satisfy your honor, because those people are 'small folk' and irrelevant/do not matter. 

That is a round-about way of saying the elites can never be wrong and if they feel they are sacrificing millions of their people to satisfy their honor, then those people are not what defines the country, but only the elites do. 

If that is the point you wish to make, say so and lets see how that jibes with your professing the Hindu faith. 

Not to mention, there is no rational basis to conclude that only the elites of a country matter and its entire civillian populace does not. 

14 minutes ago, Tibarn said:

 

One could argue that most societies are anyway plutarchies,  which should especially be true for democracies. The same general people always rise to the top of societies, there is in fact a book on this subject,( which I will plug the next time I come on this forum to respond to this post because I don't have the name off the top of my head right now).    

Sure, the fact that same XYZ type of people rise to the top is irrelevant to the fact that the top is not the only segment of society that matters for the development of a nation, neither is it relevant to the fact that non-plutocrats do not matter. Those are value judgement from your part that has no objective basis. 

14 minutes ago, Tibarn said:

 

Most people agreeing on something doesn't make something objective, it just makes it popular.  Also, this is again a Marxist reading of history.

Your allegations are false, since the reading of history in this case, is not me trying to put my personal opinion on casus belli for war but actually using the stated reason by the antagonist FOR the war. 

In non empiric fields, populism is the closest thing to objectivity you are going to get. 

14 minutes ago, Tibarn said:

I don't view things in a different times different rules sense. 

 

The Athenian example was to note that small societies don't necessarily scale to large ones. There have been all kinds of smaller societies with different rules and practices which were ultimately subsumed by more dominant methods of organization. 

Sure, but those parameters are technology dependent. The comparison of causus belli for war between Athens and Sparta ( or i can use other examples like Epirus) is a like-for-like comparison, relatively similar sized, populated polities with comparable economies. This is not comparing a large multi-ethnic multi-regional empire like the Achaemenid Persia with a tiny kingdom like Macedon. 

14 minutes ago, Tibarn said:

I think you said you are a techie nowadays, so maybe you will get this reference, but think of it like Big(O) analysis of algorithms. Bubble-sort is efficient for small data-sets, but as the scale or size goes up a more efficient sorting-algorithm will be needed for those larger sets.     

True. However, the biggest determining factor, is amount of data and the computing power at hand. Technology currently makes democracies scale up to a size that simply was not possible before the days of railways and wireless transmissions, unless you lucked out with an empty continent like the Americans. 

14 minutes ago, Tibarn said:

 

I don't deny that democracies are less prone to "honor warfare", I deny that it is objectively bad. 

Explain to us, why getting x% of your people killed and trade supply disrupted to satisfy a nebulous concept of honor is objectively neutral or good. 

14 minutes ago, Tibarn said:

Sure, but the whole discussion is based on assumptions on democracies which aren't really substantiated as being objectively good.  

The safeguards are if another higher up would stage a coup d-etat should someone actually crazy get power. It's not like there aren't endless examples of overthrown kings/queens or government collapses. There are even peasant revolts/revolutions. 

Then we can say ( and i can mathematically demonstrate) that the safeguard of individual X having less power at their dispensation is objectively a superior performance safeguard than X having more power and relying on Y interceding to neutralize X in every scenario of X being out of line, from pure probabilistic outcome scenarios. 

Ergo, a Prime Minister in a democracy, who objectively has less power than an absolute monarch, has a bigger fail-safe to their abuse of power than the said monarch. 

Evidence of such, can also be presented in a like-for-like comparison, either from the Greek city-state age or the last 100 odd years. 

14 minutes ago, Tibarn said:

Not really, humans aren't a monolith. There are people who will never show an iota of altruism while there will be people who display suicidal levels of altruism. This will extend to the culture-wide level. There isn't a monolithic human nature which can be generalized to make such a blanket statement.  

The blanket statement applies to the median distribution, not statistical anomalies. Law of large numbers are assumed in such discussions. 

14 minutes ago, Tibarn said:

 

The modern arguments for democracy, particularly Universal-Liberal democracy, are derived from the Enlightenment, which has roots in Christianity (although not exclusively, there is cultural fusion with Roman and Greek philosophy).

This is just opinion, not fact.

14 minutes ago, Tibarn said:

Whatever our own literature says/doesn't say doesn't really affect the roots of many of the assumptions put-forth by the Enlightenment. It also doesn't have much effect overall as India's constitution and government is a copy-paste job of the American+ British governments. 

I don't find it convincing. Even if I accept all your arguments as true, war is still only single variable in a multi-factorial analysis of governments. Some of the same arguments you make regarding the positive aspects of policy paralysis don't bode so well in the economic sphere. Then there is  

The rest of the variables are less easy to normalize, so its less of a comparative. 

14 minutes ago, Tibarn said:

Except I am not saying one is better than the other. I am I would accept whichever one helps reach the targeted end-goal. I have been almost exclusively arguing that most of the arguments for are just subjective statements. 

The targeted end goal is not a worthwhile persuit if only a tiny % of society can enjoy it and the rest are enslaved ala China to get there by populist demand. Since we agree that there is no empiric basis to conclude any ethical standards, populism then therefore, becomes default next-best thing. 

14 minutes ago, Tibarn said:

 

People who fall on the sword of democracy are actually suffering from anchoring bias: clinging to what is safe and known.  

People who want to get rid of democracy are suffering from either elitism bias ( where they think they are better than the rest, ergo they will profit more in the dictatorship) or eden complex ( stuff was better in the past mentality). 

14 minutes ago, Tibarn said:

The recency bias statement was more in terms of the sample size question. Pretty much every significant government in history has been some type of autocracy: Monarchy in particular in the past. Now we have the current metamorphosis of Single Party-rule and Dictatorships. The only significant "democracy" in pre-Enlightenment history is basically the Roman Republic. Otherwise all the democracies in the sample are too small to be relevant ie Athens, or are in their infant/toddler stages: like all the "3rd world" countries. The oldest active one was formed in 1776, and the first one to even remotely resemble a Universal Liberal Democracy came around ~1900. The story-book isn't even over, so one can't write a summary, especially when the character in question(democracy), has only just made their entrance. 

The validity of Roman republic over Athens is a tenuous argument, especially since the vast majority of Roman republic did not have representation rights and the Roman satellite cities that did, did not encompass a population/area significantly larger than the Athenian city state. 

And whether they are too small or not, can be normalized in a like-for-like comparison between the democratic vs the autocratic city states of Greece. This is a normalized process that is a valid comparison for the set models of rulership.

14 minutes ago, Tibarn said:

Not really. This is patently false. A Singaporean has been more free than an Indian for pretty much the entire post-Independence era. This is despite Singapore having a Single-Party system.

Your comment to the bolded section is logically invalid. The bolded section says that my contention is, democracies have less power to affect the constituents than the autocrats. How that power is utilized ( whether they are free or not, which also, is a subjective definition), is irrelevant to the fact who has more power exerted on their constituents. 

14 minutes ago, Tibarn said:

Economic freedom is arguably the most important, impact aspect of freedom.  Many businesses in India aren't even allowed  to run 24 hours a day. Add to that the aspects of taxation, red-tape, etc. There have been so many instances of democracies directly interfering in people's day to day lives.

Again, this is subjective value judgement on whether Singapore has used their autocratic power to better use/worse use than Indian democracy. Its not a judgement on who has more actual power to affect its constituents. 

14 minutes ago, Tibarn said:

There isn't really a leg to stand on here. Legislation is legislation, regardless of form of government.

There is plenty of leg to stand on and i can prove that outside of special emergency clause invoked by Indira Gandhi ( thereby effectively suspending democracy), the Primier of Singapore has been able to objectively & singlehandedly pass more legislation than the Prime Minister of India alone. 

14 minutes ago, Tibarn said:

At least the argument that dictators have more potential to damage is sufficiently vague,( ie rooted in unsupported assumptions, subjective opinions,  and lacking any significant sample set of pre-modern democracies to draw conclusions from), but there is nothing that suggests a democracy can't interfere with/affect a constituent as much as a dictatorship.  That is the very basis of law itself, affecting and interfering with constituents.   

1. There is. The simple fact that no single entity in the democracy enjoys the absolute power of the single entity known as the dictator in the dictatorial process.

 

2. While sample space of pure democracies are not immediately avaliable outside of America (which you have carefully omitted and i can use to show that each and every President of USA from 1700s to 1900s had had massively inferior power than their corresponding head of state in absolute monarchies ala Germany or Russia), we can still see that monarchies with limits to their power set upon them by the democratic process ( eg: England) weilded less power than absolute Monarchies of Russia, Prussia, Greece, Belgium, etc. in the same socio-political culture zone. 

14 minutes ago, Tibarn said:

 

Will see you all ICFers in a couple of weeks to write any responses 

Cheers. 
We might have to break up our responses in smaller posts at this rate. 

[Muloghonto]

1 hour ago, Aiden said:

Thank you China. No wonder Pak/China friendship is higher than highest himalayas & deeper than deepest sea.

you are thanking a nation for refusing to condemn a terrorist who's own organization took responsibility for numerous civillian and non-civillian targetted terrorism ?

I guess Pakistani have stopped pretending to not harbor terrorists. 

[Muloghonto]

1 hour ago, R!TTER said:

There are other non tariff barriers, which the likes of EU & China employ. You don't have to outright ban them, if tariffs are impractical there are still ways to decrease our imports from China, but hey we want cheap Chinese sh!t so we deserve this.

Sure. And that will lead to endless court cases and such. Europe vs China can afford that to each other due to the FDI they have to throw around or borrowing power they have. I am simply pointing out, that if our government takes such barrier route and we end up spending millions of bucks going tu-tu-main-main in some international forum versus the Chinese, we are better off using that money to drive a grassroot campaign, even if it has spotty results, its a better deal, no ?

1 hour ago, R!TTER said:

Explain the internet market in China then - ebay/google/fb/amazon/twitter are virtually banned in the PRC, how do you suppose China gets away with that?

No idea bhai. I am not an economist. Just an engineer turned coder. 

[motomaverick]

1 hour ago, Aiden said:

Thank you China. No wonder Pak/China friendship is higher than highest himalayas & deeper than deepest sea.

This post pretty much sums up the jihadi mindset of the average pork chop. 

 

Masood Azhar claimed responsibility of Pulwama, yet these chewts say where's the proof and are happy for China blocking the move to get him declared a global terrorist.

 

All this Aman ki Aasha tamasha should stop. When these gutter scums don't want peace then so be it.

Edited March 15, 2019 by motomaverick

[Muloghonto]

1 hour ago, surajmal said:

No, I don't. 

Yes, yes you do.

1 hour ago, surajmal said:

Yeah. Its coming. 

Dreams of civil war for your view of India while sitting in Canada are all nice, but we all know, you are sitting in Canada for a reason and such infantile dreams of the Hinduvta have existed since the days of Godse but have amounted to diddly squat. 

[Muloghonto]

1 hour ago, surajmal said:

Anyone who flashes educational credentials on chootiya topics like economics and politics is a Grade A chootiya. 

Did you just equate economics, something that involves a fair bit of math, with politics,that is all opinion ?!

1 hour ago, surajmal said:

 

Whats that got to do with the price of potatoes?

 

Vietnam, Indonesia, India are getting pocket change. China will move up the value chain while keep supplying low cost goods as well. Its got a billion mouths to feed. 

 

Getting over the grammar salad... Yes, China is great at flouting rules. World still hasn't done anything. Get back to me when it does. 

And get back to us when you can show that Chinese model of dictatorship is preferrable to 1.5 billion of its people than Indian model is preferrable to 1.3 billion of its people. Until then, you have nothing more than a fantasy of power at the expense of your own countrymen just for bragging rights and personal profit. 

[motomaverick]

Muslims living in China cannot name their child Mohammed, cannot grow a beard, cannot fast during Ramzan. But the friendship is higher than Himalayas and deeper than oceans it seems 

 

Jahaalat koot koot ke bhari hai iss qaum mei 

 

No wonder most of them don't mind blowing themselves up in order to fcuk them 72 after life hoors.

Edited March 15, 2019 by motomaverick

[Straight Drive]

France has decided to freeze the assets.

 

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/france-freezes-french-assets-of-jaish-e-mohammed-chief-masood-azhar/articleshow/68422449.cms

[Muloghonto]

14 minutes ago, Straight Drive said:

France has decided to freeze the assets.

 

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/france-freezes-french-assets-of-jaish-e-mohammed-chief-masood-azhar/articleshow/68422449.cms

yay Rafale deal. Means more Rafale orders are in the works

[Moochad]

10 hours ago, Tibarn said:

Which book? 

If it doesn't actually address theory, then I expect it has actual quantitative data? If not, then what is the point of reading it if I am expected to accept more unsubstantiated observations by another random person?

That is called observer bias. 

My point stands, observations by biased individuals don't constitute a basis of acceptance or discarding a political system. 

I agree here, observations of some 19th century Euros don't really hold weight. 

Locke vs Filmer is the basis of any discussion, not anecdotal observations from nameless writers. 

I doubt there is no compelling data which quantifies this.  This is again observer bias. 

I think it is probably accurate to say that there are more psychotic dictators, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing as autocracies also seem to end with violent upheaval when that happens.   I am yet to see a democracy actually change course based on their own volition.

More vs less changes in government is a tradeoff. 

It's obviously untrue that there would be some quantified study of such a thing, it will rely on intuition. 

Shifting goalposts: my statement wasn't particular to this forum. I don't actually talk about "Europeans" on this forum, since those topics don't exist on this forum and it isn't interesting, so I doubt anyone would've seen me either praise or discredit them reflexively.

 

On cursory glance through my post history, for the Big 3 European countries (England, France, Germany). I have mentioned France a grand total of once time my entire time posting here, and Germany twice.  Out of 56 times England/UK has been mentioned 55 was in the context of Cricket. That is 4 times total for the 3 important ones.  

 

That ad hominem of supposed "reflexive bias" against Europeans is baseless and unsubstantiated.    

 

If the statement of fact that a country is developed counts, then this one praises a couple of them including Greece and Poland. 

 

Either way, I have no reason to discredit "Europe" or "European" countries on actual objective measures.  The key-word being objective. I am not going to praise "Europe"/"Europeans" on subjective measures. 

 

Personal observer bias relates to an experimental group where people see what they want to see when studying a subject.  I am neither studying you, nor your posts. Anything you post that I read is said directly to me. I neither gain anything from your being shown to be biased or nor do I lose anything if you are not shown to be biased. I also didn't preemptively level any accusations of bias against you for whatever motive.  

Frankly speaking, everyone has biases, accusing others of being biased while feigning neutrality is dishonest.  Pot meet kettle. I am only doing what you did when you made the baseless allegation of a supposed reflexive bias against Europe that I have. The difference is, I am openly offering to show why I consider you biased pro-"Europeans"/other over-generalized term, however, I rather cut out the useless drama from the thread.   

Maybe, maybe not but I will use a derivative of your earlier statement:

I am yet to see actually any instances of your claim of you criticizing any subset of Europeans/Europeans in any non-trivial way, but I have seen you make grandiose statements regarding either Europe, regions of Europe, or countries in Europe which were sometimes bordering on apologia/propaganda for them. 

Agreed, everyone is biased, this is a fact. Ad hominems trying to establish a false credibility based on occupying neutral space actually reveals far stronger bias by said accuser.  

Strawman, I never claimed that democracies ever waged war on any of those grounds. My statement was regarding the assumption on what is rash behavior.  

 

In this example, You are assuming that "wanting to shag someone" is rash, but Zoologically, this is a valid reason for war/combat, (especially since the rest of the ROPer barbarians would also get their chance to shag and wage Jihad).  As is succession and resources.  You will find them primitive barbarians, but they, if they successfully invade and conquer you, will call you all sorts of derogatory phrases(and that is the mild end of the spectrum of what they will do as you already know).  

In the current global political climate, a country would be condemned for going to war over, say control of a river, but that doesn't change that it was legitimate enough of a reason. That climate isn't necessarily a permanent fixture. I would say with the decline of the US and the rise of China, more such behavior would be legitimized. 

It is pretty reductionist to reduce rash decisions to war only. That is a small sliver of what all a government can make a rash decision on. 

This I would only agree with on the Personal Wars part. I doubt there have been many personal wars by democracies in the current democratic era.  I don't see anything compelling showing that democracies are any less destructive than dictatorships, the list of genocides, invasions, slaughtering, imperialism by democracies are abundant. 

Personal wars of the individual vs war based on majority sentiments are both wars.  Majority deciding something is a just war is no more valid than an individual deciding. There has to be some objective measure of what is or is not a just reason for war.  

I am not so sure. China has taken a number of steps which are impressive to me, which I don't think a single democratic country will take in the foreseeable future. 

Which are you talking about?

False choice, there is no reason to assume that a non-democratic government would be sadistic, and there is no compelling, quantifiable evidence that most dictatorships/monarchies were sadistic. That is just an assumption which likely relies on confirmation bias.   

Agreed, more of trying to speak it into existence.

Even, if we accept that democracies do less harm, which isn't so, a paralyzed government isn't objectively good.  A paralyzed government could only be considered good, when they need to avoid screwing things up when they are already good. This doesn't support the idea that a poor or lower income country should accept this form of government as they need the correct policies.  Ergo it is illogical. 

If we agree that rash and just-war are not objective categories and are coloured by biases of the people who are judging, as you are saying,  then by that logic, harm to society has to also follow from it no?

Paralysis also hurts those who are disadvantaged by the status quo. It pretty clear that to me, that Europe and India are (expletive) by the current status quo in both regions/countries. 

I disagree here, I think India has more of a chance to change the status quo, even in a democratic setup

To clarify this part since it seems to be veering in another direction (your posts in black). The point of this statement was that different people have different views about what is good for society. You were claiming that these "elites" were taking actions to screw the weak and the helpless.  This isn't an objective truth, it is a Marxist reading of History/Sociology as one of class struggle ( It follows from Conflict theory of Sociology). That 90% number is, again, a made up statistic. There isn't anything compelling which suggests one should accept this reading of History/Sociology over Symbiotic-Interactionist or Functionalist theories.  

https://books.google.com/books?id=mR7p0Ag8SmYC&pg=PA37&lpg=PA37&dq=Class+struggle,+which+for+a+historian+schooled+in+Marx+is+always+in+evidence,+is+a+fight+for+the+crude+and+material+things+without+which+no+refined+and+spiritual+things+could+exist&source=bl&ots=hfEhc7XtuR&sig=ACfU3U1aJONfkzDdrf2BQRkEbfTVOALvfQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj15c2M94PhAhUEmVkKHQ1yCcIQ6AEwCXoECAoQAQ#v=onepage&q=Class struggle%2C which for a historian schooled in Marx is always in evidence%2C is a fight for the crude and material things without which no refined and spiritual things could exist&f=false

 

One could argue that literally any major decision will affect the poorest members of society. That isn't particular to a dictatorship. The big reform in the US in the 90s was NAFTA under Pres. Clinton, and the people most negatively affected by it was arguably the blue-collar working class. Similarly the "illegal immigration" issue affects the unskilled labor force, and AI will affect those target groups as well. Are we to assume maleficence for all these actions

 

That is pretty apparent and goes without saying, so it is selective to question governments on that aspect. However, an autocracy is less beholden to the common people, so an educated guess would be that a safeguard of a caring about a citizen's opinion is stronger in democracy. 

The definition of good for society must be subjective, unless one include parameters which are shown to be objectively good. Say you and your old nemesis @Green Monster (green mogambo) are arguing for what is better for society, and the topic of Feminism comes up. How exactly are you guys going to come to an agreement on what is "doing good for society" when you guys are so far apart on the two ends on this issue, that there isn't really a middle?  In this scenario, there isn't really any hard experimental science which supports the stands on a philosophical/political issue like Feminism, one way or the other, therefore all that will be left would be seeing who has more people agreeing with their opinion or weaker forms of evidence.  

It would be rehash of the "scientific" feminism vs "scientific" anti-feminism nautanki from months ago on this forum.

Thinking that a ruler has a dumb cause for a war doesn't really make the ruler unpatriotic, so long as he also has followers who think it is a patriotic duty to fight because his daughter is insulted. Patriotism doesn't necessarily depend on what some peasants think either. A country could effectively be a ruling class and a bunch of redundant interchangeable peasants who other times function as mercenaries. 

Nowadays everyone makes up their own definitons of patriotism, nationalism, deshbhakti, so even this is relative. 

One could argue that most societies are anyway plutarchies,  which should especially be true for democracies. The same general people always rise to the top of societies, there is in fact a book on this subject,( which I will plug the next time I come on this forum to respond to this post because I don't have the name off the top of my head right now).    

 

Most people agreeing on something doesn't make something objective, it just makes it popular.  Also, this is again a Marxist reading of history.

I don't view things in a different times different rules sense. 

Linear theory of history is incorrect, but there are different rules for different times, the different rules aren't on a continuum of progress.  

The Athenian example was to note that small societies don't necessarily scale to large ones. There have been all kinds of smaller societies with different rules and practices which were ultimately subsumed by more dominant methods of organization. 

I think you said you are a techie nowadays, so maybe you will get this reference, but think of it like Big(O) analysis of algorithms. Bubble-sort is efficient for small data-sets, but as the scale or size goes up a more efficient sorting-algorithm will be needed for those larger sets.     

By the logic of scaling, there would only be 1 or at max 2 countries which India resembles at all. It really throws almost the entire sample out of the discussion, isn't it? Who aside from China and stretching to the US can even resemble India's population size and diversity? 

I don't deny that democracies are less prone to "honor warfare", I deny that it is objectively bad. 

Sure, but the whole discussion is based on assumptions on democracies which aren't really substantiated as being objectively good.  

The safeguards are if another higher up would stage a coup d-etat should someone actually crazy get power. It's not like there aren't endless examples of overthrown kings/queens or government collapses. There are even peasant revolts/revolutions. 

Disagree here: this is more of a problem, a violent upheaval maybe makes more of a problem for the country. 

Not really, humans aren't a monolith. There are people who will never show an iota of altruism while there will be people who display suicidal levels of altruism. This will extend to the culture-wide level. There isn't a monolithic human nature which can be generalized to make such a blanket statement.  

I agree, maybe the most baseless statement ever. Projecting one's own biases onto humanity and passing it off as fact!

The modern arguments for democracy, particularly Universal-Liberal democracy, are derived from the Enlightenment, which has roots in Christianity (although not exclusively, there is cultural fusion with Roman and Greek philosophy). Whatever our own literature says/doesn't say doesn't really affect the roots of many of the assumptions put-forth by the Enlightenment. It also doesn't have much effect overall as India's constitution and government is a copy-paste job of the American+ British governments. 

You mentioned the assumptions several times, but why don't you spell them out? I think it is inherently vague to not list them out when trying to say much of the modern democratic system system is based on these 'myths'. 

 

I don't find it convincing. Even if I accept all your arguments as true, war is still only single variable in a multi-factorial analysis of governments. Some of the same arguments you make regarding the positive aspects of policy paralysis don't bode so well in the economic sphere. Then there is  

Agreed, it is reductionist to try to select one variable where there isn't even a clear edge and make generalizations from there. 

Except I am not saying one is better than the other. I am I would accept whichever one helps reach the targeted end-goal. I have been almost exclusively arguing that most of the arguments for are just subjective statements. 

Fair point.

People who fall on the sword of democracy are actually suffering from anchoring bias: clinging to what is safe and known.  

Anchoring bias is more in regards to when presented with new information, someone sticks to what is known rather than accepting it. That bias is apparent, but not in this situation. 

Your argument was more-so on the basis of there never actually being evidence for democracy in relation to other forms of government in the first place.

The recency bias statement was more in terms of the sample size question. Pretty much every significant government in history has been some type of autocracy: Monarchy in particular in the past. Now we have the current metamorphosis of Single Party-rule and Dictatorships. The only significant "democracy" in pre-Enlightenment history is basically the Roman Republic. Otherwise all the democracies in the sample are too small to be relevant ie Athens, or are in their infant/toddler stages: like all the "3rd world" countries. The oldest active one was formed in 1776, and the first one to even remotely resemble a Universal Liberal Democracy came around ~1900. The story-book isn't even over, so one can't write a summary, especially when the character in question(democracy), has only just made their entrance. 

That would make it difficult to judge any democracy fully, as, as you call it 'Era of Democracy' is what we are currently living in now. 

Not really. This is patently false. A Singaporean has been more free than an Indian for pretty much the entire post-Independence era. This is despite Singapore having a Single-Party system. Economic freedom is arguably the most important, impact aspect of freedom.  Many businesses in India aren't even allowed  to run 24 hours a day. Add to that the aspects of taxation, red-tape, etc. There have been so many instances of democracies directly interfering in people's day to day lives. There isn't really a leg to stand on here. Legislation is legislation, regardless of form of government. At least the argument that dictators have more potential to damage is sufficiently vague,( ie rooted in unsupported assumptions, subjective opinions,  and lacking any significant sample set of pre-modern democracies to draw conclusions from), but there is nothing that suggests a democracy can't interfere with/affect a constituent as much as a dictatorship.  That is the very basis of law itself, affecting and interfering with constituents.   

Agreed. This no basis to that statement. People are affected by legislation. That happens regardless of form of government. 

Aside from a law itself, there isn't really anything that can stop a democratically elected leader from directly interfering in people's lives. The power that a dictator or a president has derives from their monopoly on violence (police, military, intelligence) and whatever legal abilities they are given. The moment a law is replaced by a more favorable one supporting violence, then it suddenly becomes legal to do that violence.  That's aside from the fact that plenty circumvent laws that are on the books.  

The idea is more that a democratically elected leader is beholden to the people he/she lords over, while a non-democratically elected one isn't.  

 

Will see you all ICFers in a couple of weeks to write any responses 

Reply to mine first when you come back

Provocative post, which makes one think.  My thoughts in bold 

Edited March 15, 2019 by Moochad

[Straight Drive]

France likely to convince other EU nations to take similar action as well. That would be great.

[Mariyam]

What does China get by being so obstinate about a mass murderer?

In the larger picture, Chinese interests should be to protect their markets in India. How does this even help?

[randomGuy]

25 minutes ago, Mariyam said:

What does China get by being so obstinate about a mass murderer?

In the larger picture, Chinese interests should be to protect their markets in India. How does this even help?

Maybe China wants war with India to rev up a slowing economy.

[Muloghonto]

9 minutes ago, randomGuy said:

Maybe China wants war with India to rev up a slowing economy.

if revving up the economy was the criterion for war, China would go after Taiwan. Not India. Its pretty clear from Doklam action that China does not want to fight a war with India and thats sensible - nobody wants to fight a war in the Himalayas-Tibet frontier unless they really have to.

[Muloghonto]

38 minutes ago, Mariyam said:

What does China get by being so obstinate about a mass murderer?

In the larger picture, Chinese interests should be to protect their markets in India. How does this even help?

The 'procedure' that they nebulously stick to as their reason, is smoke-screen for them basically saying they want Dalai Llama sanctioned for the same reason. 
Their position is, it matters not if you actively go tell people to commit violence for your cause ( standard terrorist beacon like Masood) or if your mere existence/values you embody makes people commit violence ( as they allege ALL random tibetan violence of political nature to be inspired by Dalai Llama), its all the same. 

So they hide behind the smoke screen of procedure and technicality, because their objective is 'if you want us to support you in sanctioning a man YOU think is evil, we want you to support us in sanctioning a man WE think is evil'. They don't say this openly like 'what about Dalai Llama' because of the optics, but thats their angle.

[randomGuy]

1 hour ago, Muloghonto said:

if revving up the economy was the criterion for war, China would go after Taiwan. Not India. Its pretty clear from Doklam action that China does not want to fight a war with India and thats sensible - nobody wants to fight a war in the Himalayas-Tibet frontier unless they really have to.

You could be right ....

 

"

On the mainland, a traditional preference for boys has encouraged selective abortions that resulted in 115 boys born for every 100 girls from 1994.

It peaked nationally in 2004 with 121.2 boys born for every 100 girls, and some provinces have seen the ratio climb as high as 130. But the figure has been falling for the last seven years and stood at 113.5 last year."

 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/2040544/chinas-demographic-time-bomb-still-ticking-worlds-most

 

So by this count, it has ~15% more men than women. Perhaps this is one of my ridiculous theories but I think that since China has very skewed gender ratio it can afford to lose a few men in war (and save their frustration of being forever unmarried) and all Chinese actions are indirectly and unknowingly governed by this fact.

 

I guess China also needs jobs (exports being more crucial to their economy than for any other) more crucially than other countries so that these unmarried men forget that they are unmarried. These are just my thoughts.

 

Edit: maybe this is why they sent Chinese men to build cpec

 

Edited March 15, 2019 by randomGuy

[Muloghonto]

^^

Chinese matchmaking companies are making big $$ by matching up these unsuitable bachelors with brides from Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Phillipines, etc. 

China doesn't seem like it wants war, because its response meters to any border friction is so overwhelming. Its the classic overbetting bluff - you don't want someone to call your hand ( in this case, start  a war), so you over-bet ( meaning, commit way too many troops to the area and talk of nukes and stuff), so that the opposition has to have an extremely strong hand ( like USA) or be extremely gung-ho ( meaning India in certain scenarios) to call ( commit to war). 

Those who want war, don't make it a 'all or nothing' move from day1 - thats the posture of someone who doesn't want war but still wants to talk tough. 

[Vilander]

1 hour ago, Mariyam said:

What does China get by being so obstinate about a mass murderer?

In the larger picture, Chinese interests should be to protect their markets in India. How does this even help?

1, Pak is happy

2, ISI is happy - so chinese infra and workers are safe. 

3, India is pegged back 

 

All the above are victories for China. 

 

So its stupid to expect anything else from them.

 

Meanwhile for India its not too bad

 

1, China looks like crap protecting a terrorist 

2, Everyone is focused on this piece of garbage beiing listed or not - weather their countries should take unilateral action without UN. 

in the meanwhile its a good time to clean out the garbage within for India -- clean out the fifth column. 

3, Now that diplomatic aveneues are closed, India can go on other options - :)

 

its a win win for China and India, anything else short of China supporting and ISI/JEM turning on China would have been worse.