This very much feels like an emotional trigger → cached response scenario on your part. It’s combative in that you’re passive-aggressively implying that I’m too stupid to have thought of this already, even though it’s a trivially obvious objection and one that gets discussed to death quite often.
You misunderstood this comment. It’s not a cached response and it’s purpose is not to imply that you are too stupid to have thought about it before.
The purpose of this particular sentence is to sharpen the point and offer you a chance to accept or reject a position around the boundary where I’m not sure whether you’ll agree with it or not. You could viably have said “Yes, it does come to this” or you could viably have said “No, I reject this approach”.
Essentially, when you stake out a position, I don’t know how far are you willing to take it. So I take a guess as to how far could it go and propose a one-sided interpretation or a position that’s noticeably more extreme in a particular direction. When I do this I don’t know whether you’ll find this new position acceptable or not—the point of my proposal/question is to find out.
You didn’t bother to emulate my thinking
My ability to read minds is very very limited :-D I don’t have any particular insights into how your mind works (including things which are patently obvious to you since it’s your own mind) and I don’t think I could do a good—or even a passable—job of emulating your thinking.
yet you still seem to be after my throat
I am curious about the boundaries of the positions you asserted here. I am not particularly interested in your throat or your scalp.
Instead of sharpening the point, you could have just asked. That’s particularly relevant here, because sharpening the point -does not work- when the answer is, “it’s complicated”.
Regarding the boundaries of my position, yes, it pretty much always comes down to who has the guns, whether those guns be nuclear bombs, economics, or even a culture that your average human being prefers over another. In our current world, there’s a pretty strong trend that the cultures with the big guns are preferred over the rest; in part because the guns provide security, but much more so because those places able to protect themselves are better places to live. There are of course exceptions at every end of the spectrum, but the trend is clear.
So yes, having the guns means western civilization wins and north korea doesn’t. However, the west also happens to have the ‘moral might’ to go along with it: the reason we have the guns, is because people actually like and want to live here, as opposed to there, and that’s the ultimate arbiter.
From that standpoint, even russia and china have the ‘moral might’: north korea is arguably one of the worst places on the planet to live.
So is that what it comes down to, who has bigger guns? Most of the time yes, but it’s complicated.
Similarly, didn’t we learn from the Iraq war? Yes, we learned lots of things. It’s complicated.
By trying to force these questions down to a black and white yes/no answer, you’re both insulting the others in the thread and eliminating an entire category of answer. I don’t believe that was your intent, but nevertheless that’s what’s happening.
You misunderstood this comment. It’s not a cached response and it’s purpose is not to imply that you are too stupid to have thought about it before.
The purpose of this particular sentence is to sharpen the point and offer you a chance to accept or reject a position around the boundary where I’m not sure whether you’ll agree with it or not. You could viably have said “Yes, it does come to this” or you could viably have said “No, I reject this approach”.
Essentially, when you stake out a position, I don’t know how far are you willing to take it. So I take a guess as to how far could it go and propose a one-sided interpretation or a position that’s noticeably more extreme in a particular direction. When I do this I don’t know whether you’ll find this new position acceptable or not—the point of my proposal/question is to find out.
My ability to read minds is very very limited :-D I don’t have any particular insights into how your mind works (including things which are patently obvious to you since it’s your own mind) and I don’t think I could do a good—or even a passable—job of emulating your thinking.
I am curious about the boundaries of the positions you asserted here. I am not particularly interested in your throat or your scalp.
Instead of sharpening the point, you could have just asked. That’s particularly relevant here, because sharpening the point -does not work- when the answer is, “it’s complicated”.
Regarding the boundaries of my position, yes, it pretty much always comes down to who has the guns, whether those guns be nuclear bombs, economics, or even a culture that your average human being prefers over another. In our current world, there’s a pretty strong trend that the cultures with the big guns are preferred over the rest; in part because the guns provide security, but much more so because those places able to protect themselves are better places to live. There are of course exceptions at every end of the spectrum, but the trend is clear.
So yes, having the guns means western civilization wins and north korea doesn’t. However, the west also happens to have the ‘moral might’ to go along with it: the reason we have the guns, is because people actually like and want to live here, as opposed to there, and that’s the ultimate arbiter.
From that standpoint, even russia and china have the ‘moral might’: north korea is arguably one of the worst places on the planet to live.
So is that what it comes down to, who has bigger guns? Most of the time yes, but it’s complicated.
Similarly, didn’t we learn from the Iraq war? Yes, we learned lots of things. It’s complicated.
By trying to force these questions down to a black and white yes/no answer, you’re both insulting the others in the thread and eliminating an entire category of answer. I don’t believe that was your intent, but nevertheless that’s what’s happening.
First, I believe it does. “That depends, it’s complicated and here’s why...” is a perfectly good answer to a very sharp point.
Second, “it’s complicated” is not an acceptable answer in the cases where you actually have to make a binary decision.
I think you’re the only one who got insulted, basically because you thought it was all about you and your throat. Oh well.
I think this subthread is done.