For Destro

[kawe]

Uh

Are you suggesting everyone is equal in worth?


Really?

[Nachmanun]

Uh

Are you suggesting everyone is equal in worth?


Really?

Ofcourse not, but in the end we're all wormfood - so might aswell just be nice since we'll end up the same shithole. We're all in this boat called Life together and might aswell enjoy the trip instead of bitching about who's rowing the best. (SO FUCKING DEEP)

[kawe]

Yeah that's real warm and fuzzy but it doesn't really work with the staunchly religious and zealous types in general

[delling]

I'm suggesting that without knowing someone -- without sitting down and talking to them -- you can't really say if you're a better person than them. You can't just make overarching claims that A > B.

You can argue that some people are more 'valuable' than others, but that's a really sticky subject. Are some people inherently more valuable? Or are some people just born into better families and thus end up with better educations and more 'worth'?

The moment you try to draw comparisons between two people (or two groups of people), you have to have a method of actually quantifying/qualifying those differences. People have tried -- the Nazis, for example -- but ultimately no real/accurate way of measuring that difference has been found.

Ultimately we just end up with 'we're awesome -- they're not us, therefore they're not awesome'. Unfortunately the guys on the other end think the same thing... kaboom.

[Yathezai]

That goes beyond nationalism though...after much deleting I'll try to keep it simple. 

Nationalism has caused almost every conflict in history. It's the belief that you are more important (and valuable) than them. It created racism. Even religious stuff is similar to nationalism -- there's no real rationale behind Christian/Muslim conflict, just that they are _different_. They're not us.

I can't agree with this. Most conflicts in history started with, indeed, people believing what they have or stand for is more important than others'. Measured by all sorts of things, race, wealth, religion. But rarely because of what country people are from. Wikipedia has multiple definitions for nationalism and we both use different ones. I'd define it with "collective identity" while your definition is "superiority". I don't believe it's necessarily bad to "judge" people. If you don't compare yourself with how others behave, think and act, you can't define what good and bad is and you will passively let everything happen - because you wouldn't have the power to decide who is right, if any.

This kinda creates two problems. First, your argument that "judging" was the cause of many conflicts in history. Secondly, which is my point, is that not judging means you allow "wrong" things to happen, without intervening to stop it. If you do not judge that, for example, a country where sex before marriage is punished with stoning is a bad thing, you are consiously allowing it if you do not try to get it undone.

It's quite a paradox really. You say that nationalism is bad for creating many conflicts in history, but that also means you say it's bad for starting conflicts to fight "unfair" or "immoral" behavior by others. And if you'd say: "no, of course stoning people isn't right", you're already judging and indirectly saying that not stoning is superior, which would lead to a conflict.

It's kinda late and my head boils. It's probably not as clear as I wanted it to be...I'll make myself more clear tomorrow, if it's necessary. 

[kagemoth]

Secondly, which is my point, is that not judging means you allow "wrong" things to happen, without intervening to stop it. If you do not judge that, for example, a country where sex before marriage is punished with stoning is a bad thing, you are consiously allowing it if you do not try to get it undone.

FINALLY, THIS IS EXACTLY MY POINT , TURKS ARE WRONG SO I KICK TURK ASS!!! DOES THIS
MAKE ME A BAD PERSON OR A HERO?!!


I personally don't enjoy "national" pride. I can see the benifit in defending ones
country for economic reasons but simply to defend it for any reason other than that
(like having an E-debate on www.Iron-edge.co.uk) is not only meaningless but retarded.
Do u really think that you can change a persons views on a specific group of people
just by hurling sum facts/falacies/insults at them and expect them to say "Oh, you
are right". Imo it takes personal experience to change ones views ,were poeple are
concerned.

[Fatalbone]

 I don't understand where the nationalism argument came from. Original post didn't have anything about nationalism, destro never said anything about nationalism to me. I just read destro's post in delling's thread and noticed the lack of knowledge behind it (and yes I noticed you were not very serious destro). There is nothing about rightness or superiority of the my nation in my posts. I am actually against nationalism, I think nations are imagined communities created to rally the masses for the interest of ruling elites. A nationalistic argument would be more like, Turkey is actually a great paradise like country but agents of EU/America/Israel are holding us back by creating fake human rights violations and controlling the economy by buying our glorious land. EU is trying to control the Turkey therefore we must not join it and not sale our lands to them. Britain is still planning to divide our lands like 100 years ago so they are teaching english in our schools etc. Also as you might notice they are against foreign investments. Ironically they believe kurds are making to much children don't work and prone to violence in the places they migrated.


 I am sure older people in the guild will remember that I like making threads about controversial and political topics. So this is not just about you Destro; I like serious trolling 


Nationalism is actually a recent construct Delling. So it is not the cause of all the conflicts. What you are actually talking is about socialization and group dynamics which is even older than humanity (monkeys and many animals can do it too). But you are right in a sense that most violence and death in the human history is created by using nationalism. But it not a end it is actually a mean. Real nationalism is propagated with the conscription armies although its philosophical roots were from the french revolution. French army used conscription and beat many of the other nations with this huge number of soldiers with a very low costs. But to motivate them into killing other people (unlike professional soldiers of the previous era) they have to find a reason. This whole we are superior/we are always under attack from evil others/they took our land rhetoric is created for that purpose. After French victory, other nations slowly adapted this approach. Which gave way to national history, rival/enemy nation and so on. Well when you think about it, it is actually very logical and cost effective way for someone in power to reach their interest. And when you attack others, others have a reason to fight against you (defending themselves ) so it escalates all the time.

Before nationalism there were lots of wars thats right but most of them were between professional armies and civilians were not harmed (except some historical massacres stemming from religion). It is hard for us to grasp but civilians were not actually effected by who was ruling them except the rare times they see officals of kingdom when tax payers came or when they went to court (most of the judges were choosen from local judge families).

[kagemoth]

I don't understand where the nationalism argument came from. Original post didn't have anything about nationalism, destro never said anything about nationalism to me. I just read destro's post in delling's thread and noticed the lack of knowledge behind it (and yes I noticed you were not very serious destro). There is nothing about rightness or superiority of the my nation in my posts. I am actually against nationalism, I think nations are imagined communities created to rally the masses for the interest of ruling elites. A nationalistic argument would be more like, Turkey is actually a great paradise like country but agents of EU/America/Israel are holding us back by creating fake human rights violations and controlling the economy by buying our glorious land. EU is trying to control the Turkey therefore we must not join it and not sale our lands to them. Britain is still planning to divide our lands like 100 years ago so they are teaching english in our schools etc. Also as you might notice they are against foreign investments. Ironically they believe kurds are making to much children don't work and prone to violence in the places they migrated.


 I am sure older people in the guild will remember that I like making threads about controversial and political topics. So this is not just about you Destro; I like serious trolling 


Nationalism is actually a recent construct Delling. So it is not the cause of all the conflicts. What you are actually talking is about socialization and group dynamics which is even older than humanity (monkeys and many animals can do it too). But you are right in a sense that most violence and death in the human history is created by using nationalism. But it not a end it is actually a mean. Real nationalism is propagated with the conscription armies although its philosophical roots were from the french revolution. French army used conscription and beat many of the other nations with this huge number of soldiers with a very low costs. But to motivate them into killing other people (unlike professional soldiers of the previous era) they have to find a reason. This whole we are superior/we are always under attack from evil others/they took our land rhetoric is created for that purpose. After French victory, other nations slowly adapted this approach. Which gave way to national history, rival/enemy nation and so on. Well when you think about it, it is actually very logical and cost effective way for someone in power to reach their interest. And when you attack others, others have a reason to fight against you (defending themselves ) so it escalates all the time.

Before nationalism there were lots of wars thats right but most of them were between professional armies and civilians were not harmed (except some historical massacres stemming from religion). It is hard for us to grasp but civilians were not actually effected by who was ruling them except the rare times they see officals of kingdom when tax payers came or when they went to court (most of the judges were choosen from local judge families).

... thhis entire thread wouldn't have even been created if it wasn't for turk pride.
Sorry to mass dispell your bubble but that is nationalism.

That isn't to say that i dislike the turks in guild or on server. I do dislike nationalism however , and if i could i would squash it.

[delling]

Hehe, Kage has a point Every time someone even mentions any kind of Middle East-related topic, a bunch of Turkish posts spring up.

re: Nationalism. I'm not necessarily talking about the political philosophy that has been around for a few hundred years. That kind of nationalism needs propaganda, mass media -- the printing press!

Yathezaï -- you really think we have a right to go into a country and stop people being stoned?

Do those countries have a right to come to America to stop them executing people?

Obesity kills much more people than stoning -- do other nations have a right to come to the UK or US to 'stop obesity'?

You understand that every 'Crusade' is justified in the same way, yes? "We are going to stop what we think is wrong."

[Nachmanun]

What a great discussion and display of lolpinions this is.

Jk, it's pretty crap.
LOLTURKS
OMG RACIST
NATIONALISTIC BASTARDERY
OMG THAT'S NOTNATIONALISTIC
WARS
OMGNOT WARS.

I love myself a great flamewar but this is 4 pages of bullshit in a sea of piss, coming to no conclusion that Destro seems like a very angry person.

[Grilldyret]

Break borders, why hate, let's fornicate.

[kawe]

I don't think you can really class obesity; making oneself dangerously fat, and stoning, brutalising someone else to death via angry crowd, in the same way. Self-inflicted obesity which some even try and rectify versus gang-murdering someone (as an aside, I wonder what that does to a community's collective psyche, when a group of otherwise regular citizens are occaisionally taking part in murdering someone like that, in such a rough manner too? And to think some people worry about being decensitised to violence by just watching it on tv shows!).

With execution in america, I think there's already plenty of folk working to try and put an end to that inside america, and it's always up for debate. But even then, death penalty is usually (in theory, let's just stick to talking about the basis for the action taken here to avoid getting into an entire other debate about death penalties and innocents) for people who have killed another, rather than for, say, adultery or simply being gay. While you could make an argument - I would strongly disagree with it personally, but you could make it - that painful death is fair for adultery, I don't think you can really justify murdering someone just for who they are.

I also agree with the gist of Yath's post, if I've interpreted that correctly. There's definitely a limit to simply sitting passively and saying "oh it's not our culture we couldn't possibly understand" or otherwise copping out to try and avoid ruffling feathers. What I will agree on somewhat though, is the notion of solving the problems on your own doorstep first.

[Yathezai]

I am sure older people in the guild will remember that I like making threads about controversial and political topics. So this is not just about you Destro; I like serious trolling 

Serious topics are the best. 

Delling, in a perfect world I'd much prefer your way of thinking. I'd be the last person to promote violence or any form of aggresion. A conflict doesn't instantly mean a war, although it might end up in one.

Think of it this way. Slavery was a normal thing for centuries, but at last most people were convinced it wasn't right. Especially in southern America it was almost a part of their culture and we came there telling them they had to stop it. If we didn't, there wouldn't have been a conflict. But we did and we stopped something that has been around for thousands of years. If I had to choose between allowing slavery or fighting it (after no other solution was found, like talking about it), I'd go with fighting it.

It's a question of morality really...of course everyone thinks their believes are the right ones. But in a perfect world there's no room for slavery if it's up to me. In a way everyone is trying to create their perfect world, the hardest part about that is seperating the crazy ones from the good ones.

In your examples the people have a right, yes. There's a difference though between harming innocent people and trying to stop these things. I could definitely understand someone sabotaging a shipment of McDonalds food for that reason (lols). Execution is slowly more frowned upon as well and more states are banning it. No crusade was necessary to convince them either.

I kinda wonder how you think about it Delling. You're a master of saying things without actually saying what you think about it...do you believe there can be good reasons behind starting a war? You said you see everyone as a human being, do you allow certain groups to ritually sacrifice other human beings, or execute them, or stone them? Pretty serious examples, but I can't really believe a good willing person lets that sort of stuff happen if they could stop it.

Fatalbone, I'm sorry for derailing the topic, Delling's oneliner about nationalism just caught my eye and I was too curious to let it go by.

Oh and Nach, Destro sure has some hard feelings but you don't know what his experiences are like. It's kinda hard to convince someone of something when all they've seen is the exact opposite. And so far there's nothing wrong about discussing this, gotta say it's a pretty polite discussion and not a flamewar at all, luckily. People actually use real facts here, on the internet!

Edit:

Sorry to mass dispell your bubble

 

[Daekesh]

Sure, there are plenty of good reasons for war.  There are also plenty of reasons that aren't, which usually get pushed out of the limelight when wars get started.  The America/Iraq invasion being a good example.  I seriously doubt there have been many altruistic wars in history.

[Daekesh]

Also this is bothering me.  Kawe, that little circle next to the capital E's in your sig are really fucking annoying. Keep reading them as full stops.