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> I completely and totally agree with you, that the people who want to invade Taiwan, are extremely evil, should be condemned Yes, I would condemn it. I think

> I completely and totally agree with you, that the people who want to invade Taiwan, are extremely evil, should be condemned Yes, I would condemn it. I think any group of people who want to be independent should be able to be independent. Also I assume the system in China is more the cause of evil, as opposed to all the people, so many of whom are along for the ride. But that doesn't mean I'd be in favor of going to war with China over Taiwan. > Whoa, I have already given other options. Such as for example, continuing doing what we are currently doing The main article that we are commenting on, and the start of this thread, was about defending Taiwan if China invades. I thought that was what we were talking about. Any chance of you answering any of those questions I asked? Or maybe this is one of those emotional things that are difficult to reason about?

stale2002 5y ago
> Yes, I would condemn it. I think any group of people who want to be independent should be able to be independent. Great! Finally! Glad you agree with me completely, and are no longer dodging the questions about morality. > was about defending Taiwan if China invades. There are a whole lot of ways to defend another country, without launching a thousand nukes and ending society as we know it. Such a word, "defending", could include a multitude of options. > Any chance of you answering any of those questions I asked? "How should a country choose what evil in the world to oppose, seeing as how there is so much?" You do what you can, whereever possible, and you disregard people who say "well, you are saying that X is bad, but did you know that there is also Y that is bad?" If you want the world to do more to stop bad things that are happening in the world, you should not say "Keep doing X, because we are doing Y", instead you should say "stop doing Y which is bad, and also don't do X which is also bad!". > Does it bother you that the U.S. sometimes supports evil regimes You can be bothered as much as you want about whatever, but do not use whataboutism, to disregard someone else saying that Z is bad.
- mikem170 5y ago
  > Great! Finally! Glad you agree with me completely. I'm pretty sure that I do not agree with you, most certainly we don't reason about these things the same. Along the way during this conversation I wondered if I'd learn anything about your position. I'm not sure if I did. It seems like you'd rather bully your way through a debate, like with the above statement and many others you have made. Some of the things you said left quite an impression. Personality differences, I guess.
  - stale2002 5y ago
    > I wondered if I'd learn anything about your position. I'm not sure if I did. Its pretty simple. When people say stuff like "X is bad", there are people out there who hide their real position, and try to attack that idea by saying "well stopping it impractical!" or "You say we should stop X, but what about Y thing that is also bad!", or "X is only bad from your perspective!". They do this to misdirect around their real position, which is that they do not actually agree that X is bad. It is a bad faith way of hiding someone's beliefs, and not actually talking about the main point. Next time, if you don't want to be confused with these bad faith people, just start off by say "Hey, I totally and completely agree with you that X is very bad! That is a good moral position for you to have! But what about these other things, or issues with how we go about stopping X?" This much more accurately seems to be your position, that you completely agree with me that X is bad in this case. Because if you don't do that, and just start talking about "Well what about if from their perspective, actually they don't think X is bad", then that very clearly implies that actually you don't think that X is bad, but you just don't want to admit it, and back up your position, and are acting in bad faith.
    - mikem170 5y ago
      Leaving aside how we got here, that is something interesting to think about, the insight you just offered about our miscommunication around this issue. I knew I was not engaging in misdirection. At first I did leave unsaid that I always believe it is wrong to impose on others (China and Taiwan, for example). It's hard to completely state ones position in every comment. I jumped right into a geopolitical discussion, where I'm still convinced that might makes right is the primary driver of interactions between countries, as opposed to morality, given that countries are run by less than perfect politicians. I was thinking more along the lines of the practicality of the U.S. getting involved, factors driving that, likely outcomes, how motivated the parties involved are, etc. Wars so often create more tragedy, and it seems there's so often questionable motives involved. I guess that it's often the case that it takes a while to sort through the different context people bring to a discussion. I've seen this before, a better discussion after getting the initial yelling back and forth over assumptions out of the way.

stale2002 5y ago

> Yes, I would condemn it. I think any group of people who want to be independent should be able to be independent. Great! Finally! Glad you agree with me completely, and are no longer dodging the questions about morality. > was about defending Taiwan if China invades. There are a whole lot of ways to defend another country, without launching a thousand nukes and ending society as we know it. Such a word, "defending", could include a multitude of options. > Any chance of you answering any of those questions I asked? "How should a country choose what evil in the world to oppose, seeing as how there is so much?" You do what you can, whereever possible, and you disregard people who say "well, you are saying that X is bad, but did you know that there is also Y that is bad?" If you want the world to do more to stop bad things that are happening in the world, you should not say "Keep doing X, because we are doing Y", instead you should say "stop doing Y which is bad, and also don't do X which is also bad!". > Does it bother you that the U.S. sometimes supports evil regimes You can be bothered as much as you want about whatever, but do not use whataboutism, to disregard someone else saying that Z is bad.

mikem170 5y ago
> Great! Finally! Glad you agree with me completely. I'm pretty sure that I do not agree with you, most certainly we don't reason about these things the same. Along the way during this conversation I wondered if I'd learn anything about your position. I'm not sure if I did. It seems like you'd rather bully your way through a debate, like with the above statement and many others you have made. Some of the things you said left quite an impression. Personality differences, I guess.
- stale2002 5y ago
  > I wondered if I'd learn anything about your position. I'm not sure if I did. Its pretty simple. When people say stuff like "X is bad", there are people out there who hide their real position, and try to attack that idea by saying "well stopping it impractical!" or "You say we should stop X, but what about Y thing that is also bad!", or "X is only bad from your perspective!". They do this to misdirect around their real position, which is that they do not actually agree that X is bad. It is a bad faith way of hiding someone's beliefs, and not actually talking about the main point. Next time, if you don't want to be confused with these bad faith people, just start off by say "Hey, I totally and completely agree with you that X is very bad! That is a good moral position for you to have! But what about these other things, or issues with how we go about stopping X?" This much more accurately seems to be your position, that you completely agree with me that X is bad in this case. Because if you don't do that, and just start talking about "Well what about if from their perspective, actually they don't think X is bad", then that very clearly implies that actually you don't think that X is bad, but you just don't want to admit it, and back up your position, and are acting in bad faith.
  - mikem170 5y ago
    Leaving aside how we got here, that is something interesting to think about, the insight you just offered about our miscommunication around this issue. I knew I was not engaging in misdirection. At first I did leave unsaid that I always believe it is wrong to impose on others (China and Taiwan, for example). It's hard to completely state ones position in every comment. I jumped right into a geopolitical discussion, where I'm still convinced that might makes right is the primary driver of interactions between countries, as opposed to morality, given that countries are run by less than perfect politicians. I was thinking more along the lines of the practicality of the U.S. getting involved, factors driving that, likely outcomes, how motivated the parties involved are, etc. Wars so often create more tragedy, and it seems there's so often questionable motives involved. I guess that it's often the case that it takes a while to sort through the different context people bring to a discussion. I've seen this before, a better discussion after getting the initial yelling back and forth over assumptions out of the way.