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Your hypothesis definitely fails the sniff test. China, Iran, Russia, SA, Pakistan, India… the list goes on. All have many bilateral agreements and yet were or

Your hypothesis definitely fails the sniff test. China, Iran, Russia, SA, Pakistan, India… the list goes on. All have many bilateral agreements and yet were or are building up their arms. Iran choose to insert itself where it didn’t belong and had no reason to be. If Iran (like 1930s Germany) had just focused on torturing its own people instead, none of this would’ve happened and Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Israel and yes even palestine (without Iran’s interference would already be a state) would all be much nicer places right now. Instead it introduced regional instability with its ambitions of annihilating and subjugating Jews, to which you are lending your full throated support.

runarberg 1y ago
Funny you should omit USA from this list, which is the worst offender (and also a very obvious example against my case). But my hypothesis is time relative, as countries participate in more treaties and agreements, the less they arm them selves. Note that USA has been a significantly worse participate in agreements and treaties as your average western nation, and is also the country which is increasing their arms spending at the greatest rate. Note Europe is also increasing their arms spending, which is why I provided the second hypotheses, that an increased war correlates with increased arms buildup. Europe has been seeing more wars lately, and they are in turn increasing their arms buildup. Finally, why is South Africa on that list? South Africa has consistently been reducing their arms spending by around 5-10% every year, for the last 5 years at least. And historically (during apartheid) it was one of the most militarized countries on earth. It was also famously not part of hardly any agreements or treaties (as it was sanctioned for their apartheid polices). After apartheid ended South Africa started participating in almost all the treaties and agreements which a modern democracy is expected to (going even further than most western countries). And even famously dismantled their nuclear weapons program. South Africa should be a most prominent example in favor of my hypothesis.
- amendegree 1y ago
  Sure add US to the list, makes your case even worse. The US is party to many more trade and arms treaties than any other country on earth and has the largest stockpile of weapons. SA is Saudi Arabia. Regardless I've soundly disproven your theory that treaties lower weapon stockpiles, No one disagrees that war will cause people to increase the arms spending, that’s a given. But it’s also pretty clear that treaties do not necessarily lead to less arms spending. Especially when one of the parties to the treaty is a theocratic dictatorship who has called for the total annihilation and destruction of all western society. Even while Iran was technically agreeing to follow the treaty it was still funding hezb, hamas and propping up Syria, none of those things speak to a country that is interested in peaceful coexistence with it’s regional neighbors. Additionally, SA (Saudi Arabia) expressed strong interest in developing a nuclear program simply because of Iran’s. So allowing Iran to have any sort of nuclear program directly contributes to more nuclear proliferation.
  - runarberg 1y ago
    Saudi Arabia is hardly a member of many international agreements relative to most countries. But you haven’t disproven anything, my hypothesis is about trends over time and probabilities, not absolute. What you have done is pointed to a few possible outliers. The existence of outliers does not disprove a trend. The plural of anecdote is not data. To disprove my hypotheses you’d need to gather the data and show me there is no such correlation. I know the burden of proof is on me, and you have no obligation believe me without the data to show it, which is why I only claimed that the hypotheses passes the sniff test. And from what I have been reading is that experts on the matter tend to agree with me, that Iran is actually more likely to pursue the bomb now that it has been attacked, and it was less likely when the Iran nuclear deal was in effect.
    - amendegree 1y ago
      We’re not talking about relative to other countries. We’re talking in absolute terms of the country in question, Iran also isn’t party to many treaties, so really SA is a perfect example. Seeing as you refuse to back up any of your claims with data, we’re not talking real science here but baseless accusations supported by biased bigotry vs anecdotal evidence, I don’t feel the need to disprove anything to a scientific degree, rather, the opposite is true, to prove the hypothesis you need to gather the data and show that it supports you. Until then your opinion is nothing more than that. It’s truly the height of narcissism to make a completely unsupported claim with only your own feelings as the basis for your evidence and hold the fate of one of worlds old people/religions to it.
      - runarberg 1y ago
        The claim I‘m trying to refute is this: mupuff1234 2 days ago > And then you just end up with an Iran with more powerful conventional weapons, so not exactly a major win either. This is a testable hypothesis. I have shown the specific claim that Iran does in fact not end up with more powerful weapons as a result of a nuclear deal. But what is more interesting is if that pattern is more general, and my prediction is that it is. And furthermore, my additional prediction is that Iran will now have more weapons as a result of it being dragged into a war with Israel. Countries at war tend to own more weapons. I was also very clear from the beginning that I was not going to look for that data my self, and my only goal was to show that my hypotheses would pass the sniff test. I‘m not an expert in international relations. Surely any data that I would gather would be flawed, and any analysis I did would be biased. Feel free to prove me wrong with actual data, or cite an expert which already has.

runarberg 1y ago

Funny you should omit USA from this list, which is the worst offender (and also a very obvious example against my case). But my hypothesis is time relative, as countries participate in more treaties and agreements, the less they arm them selves. Note that USA has been a significantly worse participate in agreements and treaties as your average western nation, and is also the country which is increasing their arms spending at the greatest rate. Note Europe is also increasing their arms spending, which is why I provided the second hypotheses, that an increased war correlates with increased arms buildup. Europe has been seeing more wars lately, and they are in turn increasing their arms buildup. Finally, why is South Africa on that list? South Africa has consistently been reducing their arms spending by around 5-10% every year, for the last 5 years at least. And historically (during apartheid) it was one of the most militarized countries on earth. It was also famously not part of hardly any agreements or treaties (as it was sanctioned for their apartheid polices). After apartheid ended South Africa started participating in almost all the treaties and agreements which a modern democracy is expected to (going even further than most western countries). And even famously dismantled their nuclear weapons program. South Africa should be a most prominent example in favor of my hypothesis.

amendegree 1y ago
Sure add US to the list, makes your case even worse. The US is party to many more trade and arms treaties than any other country on earth and has the largest stockpile of weapons. SA is Saudi Arabia. Regardless I've soundly disproven your theory that treaties lower weapon stockpiles, No one disagrees that war will cause people to increase the arms spending, that’s a given. But it’s also pretty clear that treaties do not necessarily lead to less arms spending. Especially when one of the parties to the treaty is a theocratic dictatorship who has called for the total annihilation and destruction of all western society. Even while Iran was technically agreeing to follow the treaty it was still funding hezb, hamas and propping up Syria, none of those things speak to a country that is interested in peaceful coexistence with it’s regional neighbors. Additionally, SA (Saudi Arabia) expressed strong interest in developing a nuclear program simply because of Iran’s. So allowing Iran to have any sort of nuclear program directly contributes to more nuclear proliferation.
- runarberg 1y ago
  Saudi Arabia is hardly a member of many international agreements relative to most countries. But you haven’t disproven anything, my hypothesis is about trends over time and probabilities, not absolute. What you have done is pointed to a few possible outliers. The existence of outliers does not disprove a trend. The plural of anecdote is not data. To disprove my hypotheses you’d need to gather the data and show me there is no such correlation. I know the burden of proof is on me, and you have no obligation believe me without the data to show it, which is why I only claimed that the hypotheses passes the sniff test. And from what I have been reading is that experts on the matter tend to agree with me, that Iran is actually more likely to pursue the bomb now that it has been attacked, and it was less likely when the Iran nuclear deal was in effect.
  - amendegree 1y ago
    We’re not talking about relative to other countries. We’re talking in absolute terms of the country in question, Iran also isn’t party to many treaties, so really SA is a perfect example. Seeing as you refuse to back up any of your claims with data, we’re not talking real science here but baseless accusations supported by biased bigotry vs anecdotal evidence, I don’t feel the need to disprove anything to a scientific degree, rather, the opposite is true, to prove the hypothesis you need to gather the data and show that it supports you. Until then your opinion is nothing more than that. It’s truly the height of narcissism to make a completely unsupported claim with only your own feelings as the basis for your evidence and hold the fate of one of worlds old people/religions to it.
    - runarberg 1y ago
      The claim I‘m trying to refute is this: mupuff1234 2 days ago > And then you just end up with an Iran with more powerful conventional weapons, so not exactly a major win either. This is a testable hypothesis. I have shown the specific claim that Iran does in fact not end up with more powerful weapons as a result of a nuclear deal. But what is more interesting is if that pattern is more general, and my prediction is that it is. And furthermore, my additional prediction is that Iran will now have more weapons as a result of it being dragged into a war with Israel. Countries at war tend to own more weapons. I was also very clear from the beginning that I was not going to look for that data my self, and my only goal was to show that my hypotheses would pass the sniff test. I‘m not an expert in international relations. Surely any data that I would gather would be flawed, and any analysis I did would be biased. Feel free to prove me wrong with actual data, or cite an expert which already has.