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> What I'm saying is the Japanese do it with fish and other sea creatures but yet that must mame it okay cause it's just fish or lobster. I don't know why you'

> What I'm saying is the Japanese do it with fish and other sea creatures but yet that must mame it okay cause it's just fish or lobster. I don't know why you're assuming that sea creatures don't suffer. There may be a miscommunication here. > who are we to demand they change their culture Would you apply the same reasoning to a culture that practices human sacrifice, for example? Or that enslaves humans? The "it's their (personal) choice" argument breaks down when you realise that the preferences/interests of the victims matter too. Their suffering matters.

MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
Western civilization is not the barometer for world ideology simply because we ourselves feel enlightened. That in of itself is bigotry to the maximum degree simply because you deem our culture superior to others simply because we've moved past these customs. At one point, we did the same. Who are we to step in the way of other cultures making the same progression? Because we're just impatient and want to speed up their growth? Either one of two scenarios exist, we either deem particular cultures invalid (thusly also deeming traditional customs, religion, and experiences as invalid), or we coexist with things we do not like. Either way someone will suffer. But god forbid a westerner be told their ways are bad...
- rewq4321 5y ago
  I don't think you actually believe the words that you're typing. Does your "let them be" policy only apply between countries? What about if a particularly insular community within a country is torturing a particular minority group within that community? Let them take their time to learn the lessons that the others have, you say? Or do you have a special escape hatch in your "let them be" rule for when no national borders are crossed? You don't seem to care at all about the victims. If we believe that there is a high probability that a particular country is causing a lot of unnecessary suffering, and we're quite sure we can decrease that amount of suffering with few negative externalities, then to not do so would be violating our own ethical systems - you're effectively arguing that your own ethical system is broken, or has a very special case where it doesn't apply (i.e. whenever an international border is involved). We can argue about how effective these international efforts would be, or have historically been, but that's it's own debate. Do you think it'd have been wrong to donate to charities which help the Rohingya during the recent genocide of their people? I guess not, because we'd be interfering with another country and that is "bigotry to the maximum degree"? What about for the Tutsis during the Rwandan genocide? As unfashionable as it is to say, some cultures absolutely are better than others along certain dimensions, and part of an existence in a global/international community is learning from one another, just like individual humans learn from one another in local communities. This is the only reason we talk about improving aspects of our culture in the first place - it's why we discuss things like rape culture, toxic masculinity, women's rights, racism, and so on. Cultures can become different and better. I think you're imagining some sort of violent military invasion to stop Japanese people eating sea creatures alive, but no one is suggesting anything of that sort. It's tempting to think in simple extremes like "Countries should never interfere with the affairs of other countries," but effective policies in our messy reality are rarely so simple. If you need help seeing that, try to imagine a really extreme case, like multiplying the suffering during the WW2 Jewish genocide by 1000x, or something like that. Would you interfere? Or just let it play out so they can learn their own lessons?
  - MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
    By your logic, Western ethics are superior to all others, Islam and Jainism should be a banned religions, we should be an entirely heterogeneous cultures mixing with one another with zero cohesion, and that the evolutionary means of mankind on an industrial scale is not prone to survival of the fittest because we're no longer the same animals we were 100k years ago. I love how you're painting me as some sort of pro genocide person simply because I imply that events in motion are something we shouldn't stop just because we believe we're morally superior. Mind your own damn business for once. We're not the fucking world police. Western ideology is not a religion we're supposed to impose on others. Islam is as fucking barbaric as religion gets on a grand scale yet evolutionary the religion has made people successful. So who the hell are we to tell people they can't participate? What cause we have a higher sense of value on the human being? Human life is not valuable just because you have consciousness. You're another blip on the unknown radar that can easily be gone in a moments notice. Everybody every day lives a dice roll of luck and opportunity. Every now and then people lose. Thinking we hold the keys to moral superiority is not going to change that. Is a life as a slave for a shitty lord somehow better than death by genocide? I don't think so. Yet here we are, in areas of the middle east where this is common.

MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago

Western civilization is not the barometer for world ideology simply because we ourselves feel enlightened. That in of itself is bigotry to the maximum degree simply because you deem our culture superior to others simply because we've moved past these customs. At one point, we did the same. Who are we to step in the way of other cultures making the same progression? Because we're just impatient and want to speed up their growth? Either one of two scenarios exist, we either deem particular cultures invalid (thusly also deeming traditional customs, religion, and experiences as invalid), or we coexist with things we do not like. Either way someone will suffer. But god forbid a westerner be told their ways are bad...

rewq4321 5y ago
I don't think you actually believe the words that you're typing. Does your "let them be" policy only apply between countries? What about if a particularly insular community within a country is torturing a particular minority group within that community? Let them take their time to learn the lessons that the others have, you say? Or do you have a special escape hatch in your "let them be" rule for when no national borders are crossed? You don't seem to care at all about the victims. If we believe that there is a high probability that a particular country is causing a lot of unnecessary suffering, and we're quite sure we can decrease that amount of suffering with few negative externalities, then to not do so would be violating our own ethical systems - you're effectively arguing that your own ethical system is broken, or has a very special case where it doesn't apply (i.e. whenever an international border is involved). We can argue about how effective these international efforts would be, or have historically been, but that's it's own debate. Do you think it'd have been wrong to donate to charities which help the Rohingya during the recent genocide of their people? I guess not, because we'd be interfering with another country and that is "bigotry to the maximum degree"? What about for the Tutsis during the Rwandan genocide? As unfashionable as it is to say, some cultures absolutely are better than others along certain dimensions, and part of an existence in a global/international community is learning from one another, just like individual humans learn from one another in local communities. This is the only reason we talk about improving aspects of our culture in the first place - it's why we discuss things like rape culture, toxic masculinity, women's rights, racism, and so on. Cultures can become different and better. I think you're imagining some sort of violent military invasion to stop Japanese people eating sea creatures alive, but no one is suggesting anything of that sort. It's tempting to think in simple extremes like "Countries should never interfere with the affairs of other countries," but effective policies in our messy reality are rarely so simple. If you need help seeing that, try to imagine a really extreme case, like multiplying the suffering during the WW2 Jewish genocide by 1000x, or something like that. Would you interfere? Or just let it play out so they can learn their own lessons?
- MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
  By your logic, Western ethics are superior to all others, Islam and Jainism should be a banned religions, we should be an entirely heterogeneous cultures mixing with one another with zero cohesion, and that the evolutionary means of mankind on an industrial scale is not prone to survival of the fittest because we're no longer the same animals we were 100k years ago. I love how you're painting me as some sort of pro genocide person simply because I imply that events in motion are something we shouldn't stop just because we believe we're morally superior. Mind your own damn business for once. We're not the fucking world police. Western ideology is not a religion we're supposed to impose on others. Islam is as fucking barbaric as religion gets on a grand scale yet evolutionary the religion has made people successful. So who the hell are we to tell people they can't participate? What cause we have a higher sense of value on the human being? Human life is not valuable just because you have consciousness. You're another blip on the unknown radar that can easily be gone in a moments notice. Everybody every day lives a dice roll of luck and opportunity. Every now and then people lose. Thinking we hold the keys to moral superiority is not going to change that. Is a life as a slave for a shitty lord somehow better than death by genocide? I don't think so. Yet here we are, in areas of the middle east where this is common.