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Americans have been so indoctrinated to the idea that every issue must have two sides who should be equally considered, that when we have issues where one side

by joecot 4y ago

Americans have been so indoctrinated to the idea that every issue must have two sides who should be equally considered, that when we have issues where one side is the obvious aggressor completely in the wrong, they don't know how to comprehend it. Our media has made everything a debate game because it gets viewers, and it's rotting people's ability to actually figure out what the right side of an issue is. There is no equally valid argument against man-made climate change, evolution, gay rights, the right for people of color to exist without harassment, or Ukraine defending itself.

wyager 4y ago
> one side is the obvious aggressor completely in the wrong If your model of any political situation resembles a moralizing children's cartoon, 99% chance you are a mark, incapable of identifying propaganda. > it's rotting people's ability to actually figure out what the right side of an issue is 99.9% of issues in the population of issues we ever think about do not have a clear right answer, because if they did we would just discharge the issue immediately, and it would not stick around. Everything that remains exists in a tradeoff space, and if you think there's a clear right answer, it's probably because your understanding of the tradeoff space is naïve and low-dimensional.
- igorkraw 4y ago
  Okay, so what is your take on the issues GP identified? Or is the only conclusion you can arrive at "it's complicated"? GP made the very salient point that some things are clearly bad. Blind clinging to the idea that everything has two sides is just as simplistic as thinking everything can be viewed from a perspective which is just as moral as every other. Except maybe even more so, because at least the moral simplicity of black and white forces us to show flag instead of hiding in "neutrality". Nihilism, strong moral relativism and contrarianism without a constructive goal are lazy pseudo intellectual positions that do not serve any constructive purpose (be it insight or improvement of the material world) and serve only as deflections and comfort arguments. And for those that disagree with me: I'd love to hear where and why I'm wrong about thinking "Putin and other authoritarian strong men are worse than democratically elected politician" and "there are degrees of corruption, and the west is less corrupt than Russia". Because I've got evidence for these beliefs (the industrial output of Russia and Putin's palace being only two data points). What's yours?
  - throw_nbvc1234 4y ago
    "The west probably could have avoided (or maybe just delayed) this war if they had taken steps X" is some the nuance you could add to your statements. Simple example of X would be stating Ukraine was never going to be part of NATO. More complicated example would be if Europe prioritized energy independence from Russia putting in a weaker position. An example that loops in nuclear power debate, one which likely could have been manipulated (see other threads around Reddit bots in addition to twitter bots) by the Russians themselves to achieve that end. -- Russian being the bad guy doesn't make conflict inevitable. And if it does, then we're probably just buying time until full scale nuclear war within the next century and none of this actually matters.
    - SergeAx 4y ago
      What is the point of talking about previous actions or non-actions today? What will change if we spend our time and energy talking about past?
    - joecot 4y ago
      I agree with all of this. The US and EU kept discussing inviting Ukraine to NATO or even the EU, and the US was pushing towards a military alliance with Ukraine. This would've caused tension even if Russia was a democratic country not run by Putin. With Putin it led to near certainty of a conflict with Ukraine. But while it's worth looking backward at that to try to get our leaders to not pull political moves like that in the future, it in no way changes the Ukrainians being on the right side of this war, and Russia being on the wrong side. Yes, the US's actions were likely to cause a war, no, Russia is not justified in starting that war. In the same way that European appeasement of Hitler and USSR's neutrality deal clearly led to the Nazis invading Europe, but do not in any way justify the Nazis invading Europe, or the Nazis being the right side.
      - marshray 4y ago
        > USSR's neutrality deal clearly led to the Nazis invading Europe Hitler (Nazis) and Stalin (USSR) were allies and jointly invaded Poland.
- drewcoo 4y ago
  > model of any political situation resembles a moralizing children's cartoon I'd actually be interested in those cartoons, if you have links. Propaganda pointed at kids is fascinating!
  - viridian 4y ago
    Quite a few one dimensional villains come to mind from my childhood: Dora the Explorer's swiper the fox, G.I. Joe's cobra commander, He Man's skeletor, robbie rotten from lazy town Still, I'd say it's a stretch to call, say, the oversimplification of the idea that stealing is wrong, propaganda.
  - p1peridine 4y ago
    Alice in Wonderland.
20amxn20 4y ago
I'd argue that, yes, there can be a valid counterargument against everything you mention. The only dangerous trend here is pretending that there are undeniable consensus. Especially if they were forged in the last 0.5-0.05% of the lifespan of humanity. Also nobody is critizing Ukraine from defending itself. We're critizing Reddit and redditors in general for being hypocrites. Never in history were "people of color denied from existing without harassment", etc. What does people of color even mean? Doesn't that group comprise the vast majority of human beings? You've swallowed an entire package of propaganda and, more importantly, implying that that's The Truth (tm) and that it cannot be argued with. That's why I think people like you are our biggest pressing problem.
- joecot 4y ago
  > Never in history were "people of color denied from existing without harassment", etc. I would suggest reading about Jim Crow, Red Lining, the fight against school integration, New York's Stop and Frisk, and a "Black Lives Matter" movement fighting against cops regularly shooting unarmed black men to death. I would suggest those things, if I had any indication your statements were being made in good faith.
  - 21amxn21 4y ago
- notahacker 4y ago
  Insistence we should respect the possibility that arguments against say, evolution are equally valid to arguments to arguments against it whilst altogether dismissing the idea that anyone in history has ever been subject to harassment because of their colour is an... interesting juxtaposition.
mc32 4y ago
This is wrong. You are saying, this is so established that entertaining any alternative is wrongheaded. No. That's not how it works. We need dissent even in the middle of battle. We need to re-asses and continuously examine what we hold true to ensure it is still true. People are not gods. We can be in the wrong. This echoes GWBushe's you're either with us, or you're against us. It's a made up dichotomy.
- less_less 4y ago
  Speaking of made-up dichotomies, surely there's some option in between "news shows should constantly debate X vs Y" and "X is so established that entertaining any alternative is wrongheaded".
  - mc32 4y ago
    Yeah, I think there is. Usually you could find them by looking at third parties that did not have much stake in either alternative. For example, the southern border. You have OpenBorders vs Close the border camps. But there has always been the guest worker visa program on the hoper but no one wants it. It would drive business costs up, it would drain the Ds and Rs of energy around that topic. If you look at many LatAM countries, they themselves implement controls so that locals have preferences for jobs even with respect to immigrants legally able to work. But CNN never mentions those aspects. CNN doesn't mention Bernie used to vote against having foreigners compete against the local workforce for jobs. Or abortion vs Abortion bans. Let's look at the rest of the world, and if not the whole world, then Europe, and we see there a mixture with some consensus around some figures. But we don't get that coverage, it's all outrage one way or the other.
- jstarfish 4y ago
  > We need dissent even in the middle of battle. We need to re-asses and continuously examine what we hold true to ensure it is still true. Tacticians act on Intelligence. Dissent is not Intelligence. Dissent is so toxic it is literally weaponized to cripple an adversary with indecision and domestic unrest. It is the militarization of gaslighting. It's not something you want arising mid-campaign, especially when (as in this case) its proponents are entirely fictional.
yucky 4y ago
>we have issues where one side is the obvious aggressor completely in the wrong, they don't know how to comprehend it. The fact that so many believe this to be 100% the case, actually makes the point of the OP. We should be able to condemn Russia and still point out that we're lying when we pretend the US didn't get this ball rolling when we funded and fomented a coup in Ukraine in 2014 and installed our puppets.[1][2] We should also be able to discuss war crimes regardless of the perpetrators.[3] The fact that anybody who points these things out gets called a Russian bot, really just proves the point. Especially considering which side 90% of the bots are on... [1]https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26079957 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26079957 [2]https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2018/06/04/how-and-why-the-u-s-government-perpetrated-the-2014-coup-in-ukraine/ https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2018/06/04/how-and-why-the-u-s-go... [3]https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2014/09/ukraine-must-stop-ongoing-abuses-and-war-crimes-pro-ukrainian-volunteer-forces/ https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2014/09/ukraine-must-...
- disgruntledphd2 4y ago
  Ah now, if the US had formented a coup in 2014 then why didn't the pro Russian people of Ukraine reelect the original people in later elections? It seems to me at least that the Maida revolution was driven more by anger against corruption and a desire to join the EU than the US involvement (which there definitely was, along with Russian involvement).
  - ljfp 4y ago
    Because the candidate was banned and the party dissolved.
    - morpheos137 4y ago
      And nazi paramilitary gangs were burning people alive and shelling cities. But no Ukraine is pure as fresh fallen snow. The extent to which westerners have internalised a fact free vitrolic hatred of russia is downright terrifying.
  - marshray 4y ago
dvfjsdhgfv 4y ago
> There is no equally valid argument against man-made climate change, evolution, gay rights, the right for people of color to exist without harassment, or Ukraine defending itself. While I somewhat agree with you, a discussion is good and necessary. Without such a discussion the subject becomes a dogma, not something reasonable. When someone is against evolution or, say, GMO they most often don't understand it. When they learned how these things work, and maybe making some experiments themselves, they can either accept the facts of decide that their beliefs are more important than facts, which is their fair choice. If you take away a discussion, you eliminate that possibility.

by joecot 4y ago

wyager 4y ago

> one side is the obvious aggressor completely in the wrong If your model of any political situation resembles a moralizing children's cartoon, 99% chance you are a mark, incapable of identifying propaganda. > it's rotting people's ability to actually figure out what the right side of an issue is 99.9% of issues in the population of issues we ever think about do not have a clear right answer, because if they did we would just discharge the issue immediately, and it would not stick around. Everything that remains exists in a tradeoff space, and if you think there's a clear right answer, it's probably because your understanding of the tradeoff space is naïve and low-dimensional.

igorkraw 4y ago
Okay, so what is your take on the issues GP identified? Or is the only conclusion you can arrive at "it's complicated"? GP made the very salient point that some things are clearly bad. Blind clinging to the idea that everything has two sides is just as simplistic as thinking everything can be viewed from a perspective which is just as moral as every other. Except maybe even more so, because at least the moral simplicity of black and white forces us to show flag instead of hiding in "neutrality". Nihilism, strong moral relativism and contrarianism without a constructive goal are lazy pseudo intellectual positions that do not serve any constructive purpose (be it insight or improvement of the material world) and serve only as deflections and comfort arguments. And for those that disagree with me: I'd love to hear where and why I'm wrong about thinking "Putin and other authoritarian strong men are worse than democratically elected politician" and "there are degrees of corruption, and the west is less corrupt than Russia". Because I've got evidence for these beliefs (the industrial output of Russia and Putin's palace being only two data points). What's yours?
- throw_nbvc1234 4y ago
  "The west probably could have avoided (or maybe just delayed) this war if they had taken steps X" is some the nuance you could add to your statements. Simple example of X would be stating Ukraine was never going to be part of NATO. More complicated example would be if Europe prioritized energy independence from Russia putting in a weaker position. An example that loops in nuclear power debate, one which likely could have been manipulated (see other threads around Reddit bots in addition to twitter bots) by the Russians themselves to achieve that end. -- Russian being the bad guy doesn't make conflict inevitable. And if it does, then we're probably just buying time until full scale nuclear war within the next century and none of this actually matters.
  - SergeAx 4y ago
    What is the point of talking about previous actions or non-actions today? What will change if we spend our time and energy talking about past?
  - joecot 4y ago
    I agree with all of this. The US and EU kept discussing inviting Ukraine to NATO or even the EU, and the US was pushing towards a military alliance with Ukraine. This would've caused tension even if Russia was a democratic country not run by Putin. With Putin it led to near certainty of a conflict with Ukraine. But while it's worth looking backward at that to try to get our leaders to not pull political moves like that in the future, it in no way changes the Ukrainians being on the right side of this war, and Russia being on the wrong side. Yes, the US's actions were likely to cause a war, no, Russia is not justified in starting that war. In the same way that European appeasement of Hitler and USSR's neutrality deal clearly led to the Nazis invading Europe, but do not in any way justify the Nazis invading Europe, or the Nazis being the right side.
    - marshray 4y ago
      > USSR's neutrality deal clearly led to the Nazis invading Europe Hitler (Nazis) and Stalin (USSR) were allies and jointly invaded Poland.
drewcoo 4y ago
> model of any political situation resembles a moralizing children's cartoon I'd actually be interested in those cartoons, if you have links. Propaganda pointed at kids is fascinating!
- viridian 4y ago
  Quite a few one dimensional villains come to mind from my childhood: Dora the Explorer's swiper the fox, G.I. Joe's cobra commander, He Man's skeletor, robbie rotten from lazy town Still, I'd say it's a stretch to call, say, the oversimplification of the idea that stealing is wrong, propaganda.
- p1peridine 4y ago
  Alice in Wonderland.

20amxn20 4y ago

I'd argue that, yes, there can be a valid counterargument against everything you mention. The only dangerous trend here is pretending that there are undeniable consensus. Especially if they were forged in the last 0.5-0.05% of the lifespan of humanity. Also nobody is critizing Ukraine from defending itself. We're critizing Reddit and redditors in general for being hypocrites. Never in history were "people of color denied from existing without harassment", etc. What does people of color even mean? Doesn't that group comprise the vast majority of human beings? You've swallowed an entire package of propaganda and, more importantly, implying that that's The Truth (tm) and that it cannot be argued with. That's why I think people like you are our biggest pressing problem.

joecot 4y ago
> Never in history were "people of color denied from existing without harassment", etc. I would suggest reading about Jim Crow, Red Lining, the fight against school integration, New York's Stop and Frisk, and a "Black Lives Matter" movement fighting against cops regularly shooting unarmed black men to death. I would suggest those things, if I had any indication your statements were being made in good faith.
- 21amxn21 4y ago
notahacker 4y ago
Insistence we should respect the possibility that arguments against say, evolution are equally valid to arguments to arguments against it whilst altogether dismissing the idea that anyone in history has ever been subject to harassment because of their colour is an... interesting juxtaposition.

mc32 4y ago

This is wrong. You are saying, this is so established that entertaining any alternative is wrongheaded. No. That's not how it works. We need dissent even in the middle of battle. We need to re-asses and continuously examine what we hold true to ensure it is still true. People are not gods. We can be in the wrong. This echoes GWBushe's you're either with us, or you're against us. It's a made up dichotomy.

less_less 4y ago
Speaking of made-up dichotomies, surely there's some option in between "news shows should constantly debate X vs Y" and "X is so established that entertaining any alternative is wrongheaded".
- mc32 4y ago
  Yeah, I think there is. Usually you could find them by looking at third parties that did not have much stake in either alternative. For example, the southern border. You have OpenBorders vs Close the border camps. But there has always been the guest worker visa program on the hoper but no one wants it. It would drive business costs up, it would drain the Ds and Rs of energy around that topic. If you look at many LatAM countries, they themselves implement controls so that locals have preferences for jobs even with respect to immigrants legally able to work. But CNN never mentions those aspects. CNN doesn't mention Bernie used to vote against having foreigners compete against the local workforce for jobs. Or abortion vs Abortion bans. Let's look at the rest of the world, and if not the whole world, then Europe, and we see there a mixture with some consensus around some figures. But we don't get that coverage, it's all outrage one way or the other.
jstarfish 4y ago
> We need dissent even in the middle of battle. We need to re-asses and continuously examine what we hold true to ensure it is still true. Tacticians act on Intelligence. Dissent is not Intelligence. Dissent is so toxic it is literally weaponized to cripple an adversary with indecision and domestic unrest. It is the militarization of gaslighting. It's not something you want arising mid-campaign, especially when (as in this case) its proponents are entirely fictional.

yucky 4y ago

>we have issues where one side is the obvious aggressor completely in the wrong, they don't know how to comprehend it. The fact that so many believe this to be 100% the case, actually makes the point of the OP. We should be able to condemn Russia and still point out that we're lying when we pretend the US didn't get this ball rolling when we funded and fomented a coup in Ukraine in 2014 and installed our puppets.[1][2] We should also be able to discuss war crimes regardless of the perpetrators.[3] The fact that anybody who points these things out gets called a Russian bot, really just proves the point. Especially considering which side 90% of the bots are on... [1]https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26079957 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26079957 [2]https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2018/06/04/how-and-why-the-u-s-government-perpetrated-the-2014-coup-in-ukraine/ https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2018/06/04/how-and-why-the-u-s-go... [3]https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2014/09/ukraine-must-stop-ongoing-abuses-and-war-crimes-pro-ukrainian-volunteer-forces/ https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2014/09/ukraine-must-...

disgruntledphd2 4y ago
Ah now, if the US had formented a coup in 2014 then why didn't the pro Russian people of Ukraine reelect the original people in later elections? It seems to me at least that the Maida revolution was driven more by anger against corruption and a desire to join the EU than the US involvement (which there definitely was, along with Russian involvement).
- ljfp 4y ago
  Because the candidate was banned and the party dissolved.
  - morpheos137 4y ago
    And nazi paramilitary gangs were burning people alive and shelling cities. But no Ukraine is pure as fresh fallen snow. The extent to which westerners have internalised a fact free vitrolic hatred of russia is downright terrifying.
- marshray 4y ago

dvfjsdhgfv 4y ago

> There is no equally valid argument against man-made climate change, evolution, gay rights, the right for people of color to exist without harassment, or Ukraine defending itself. While I somewhat agree with you, a discussion is good and necessary. Without such a discussion the subject becomes a dogma, not something reasonable. When someone is against evolution or, say, GMO they most often don't understand it. When they learned how these things work, and maybe making some experiments themselves, they can either accept the facts of decide that their beliefs are more important than facts, which is their fair choice. If you take away a discussion, you eliminate that possibility.