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To the powerful in the west, the Middle East is important because of it's oil. It is also important because of Israel (as an expression of cultural superiority
by javajosh 11y ago
To the powerful in the west, the Middle East is important because of it's oil. It is also important because of Israel (as an expression of cultural superiority and collective remorse for the past). It is not important because of the people, who the west bundled up into hastily crafted nations under powerful, oil-producing dictators.
If I was a big energy CEO, I would have to invent terrorism if it didn't already exist, because I need something to stimulate public emotion to justify US military action, which to me is like Christmas: free security for my oil extraction operation. (Of course it's not free, but the externalities surely don't bother me or my friends personally!) Luckily the Wahhabists save me the trouble and risk of inventing terrorism! The Saudis really are a great ally not despite their support of terrorism, but because of it.
The root problems are these: oil is too valuable. If it was less valuable, the people of the region could be freed of these interventions. The west (Americans in particular) are too easy to manipulate with money. Our culture needs the mental equivalent of an ad-blocker, installed as early and upgraded as often as possible. Last but not least, our justice system (and social system in general) is woefully inadequate to deal with corporate malefactors. There are no meaningful punishments to business leadership. Even worst-case scenarios consist of fines that are <1% of one year's profit, and perhaps the loss of a job. The only corporate crime that comes with real repercussions is straight-up embezzlement, a despicable crime against the profits of other powerful people.
So all we need are a) alternative energy sources, b) improved education at home and at school stressing critical thinking and skeptical thinking, and c) give the people surveillance power over corporate behavior and eliminate the corporate veil. This three things will morph our oil powered remorseless profit making cyborgs into solar powered socially responsible profit making cyborgs.
EDIT: I posted this, immediately refreshed to see a downvote. There is no way someone read 4 paragraphs of (rather dense) text in those ~5 seconds well enough to justify the downvote. @dang please consider adding a brief pause to the up/down vote anti-abuse algorithms.
- morgante 11y agoKeep in mind that the Middle East is increasingly less important to global oil supplies, particularly the US.
- nitrogen 11y agoI wonder, are there bots trawling HN that up or downvote based on keywords or sentiment analysis? Or maybe people acting as such? The other explanation for a five second response time could be that your comment just happened to have its downvote button right where a reader on a phone likes to swipe to scroll. --- As to the comment itself, I would like to see more discussion of the "really real" motives for ongoing non-war armed invasions, because all the stated motivations are clearly inane.
- javajosh 11y agoIt's possible that someone (or thing) misread this to mean that I don't think the people of the middle-east are important. Not being a sociopath, I think the people there are the most important part of the situation, by far. I am ashamed that I cannot figure out really how to stop the incursions - that list of 3 things is the best I can do. As for "really real" motivations, I don't think "free security" is inane at all. It makes simple, easy-to-understand financial sense. You just have to eliminate any empathy or compassion to see it. There is also a thick strain of (I think well-meaning) cultural imperialism expressed by neo-cons, roughly the desire to 'uplift the barbarians'. This one is both moral and financial - moral for obvious reasons, and financial because cultural hegemony gives peace which is free security. The more sinister view is that turmoil breeds profits, so if you want profits you breed turmoil. There is some of that, but it's rare, I think.
- nitrogen 11y agoBy stated reasons I meant the politicians' reasons, like WMDs or hating our freedom. Sorry if that wasn't clear.
- javajosh 11y agoNo worries nitro. There are other secondary motives, such as military-industrial greed and the residue of the kind of violent, anti-intellectual, emotional nationalism best exhibited by Hitler and Trump. But honestly I'd rather talk about really real motives than the fake ones :)