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What was Syria like before the war

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Re: What was Syria like before the war

#151

Post by ta_qwerty »

easilyBored wrote: post #142

For the record: I don't think that Mid-East is ready for democracy yet (the majority wouldn't support basic human rights IMO) so the biggest mistake was for the "West" to support the Arab Spring. Yeah, those dictators were bad, but they were predictably bad. Nature abhors vacuum and radical Islam is filling in. P.S. I don't care about down votes.

The time will come when Westerners stop pretending Democracy is more important than a roof over your head and food on the table. All the praise in the world for North America and Western Europe for managing do develop with democratic governments, but China, Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore and others are there to show that prosperity reaches a broader definition than liberal democracy. Developing countries need growth, not ballots.

From someone who would be really happy with a Pinochet-style dictatorship instead of their current gov

Re: What was Syria like before the war

#152

Post by acchow »

Kluny wrote: post #8

Wow, I'd love to check this out but I got this message: "It looks like you're using an older device or web browser. Please update your browser or visit on a newer device." A bit of an odd thing to see when I'm on the latest version of Chrome on a Mac and it says "In partnership with Google" right under that. What gives?

I get this too.

I don't think this is how the internet is supposed to work.

Re: What was Syria like before the war

#153

Post by Udik »

ashark wrote: post #111
peterlk wrote: post #80

Meta-commentary: This is one of the more fascinating threads I have seen on HN. It seems to parallel many of the problems with political discourse in the world today - maybe it's always been like this, but I'm not old enough to know. I would break down the comments into several types: 1) conspiracy theorists who believe in some secret cult that is unilaterally organizing everything 2) trolls - state sponsored or othe…

> state sponsored or otherwise pushing an anti-humanitarian cause. What's the anti-humanitarian cause? Throwing enough resources at the fight to keep it going for years instead of weeks/months, but not enough to actually end it, for what I hope are callous realpolitik reasons and not simple incompetence?

You hope that the international actors- among which, prominently, the USA- have willingly fuelled a bloodbath for years for "realpolitk" reasons instead of having done that unwillingly, out of incompetence?

Re: What was Syria like before the war

#154

Post by tjr225 »

awkwardtortoise wrote: post #139
Danihan wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nice of you to label everyone who preferes a more isolationist approach to global policy as a "troll" How open-minded of you.

Whenever syria comes out, the propagandists come out. These people try to label people in order to marginalize their views. You can spot them easily because they use labels like "trolls", "conspiracist", "tin foil hat", etc to label their enemies.

You mean labels such as "propagandists?"

Re: What was Syria like before the war

#155

Post by ruthvik947 »

Danihan wrote: post #92
peterlk wrote: post #80

Meta-commentary: This is one of the more fascinating threads I have seen on HN. It seems to parallel many of the problems with political discourse in the world today - maybe it's always been like this, but I'm not old enough to know. I would break down the comments into several types: 1) conspiracy theorists who believe in some secret cult that is unilaterally organizing everything 2) trolls - state sponsored or othe…

Nice of you to label everyone who preferes a more isolationist approach to global policy as a "troll" How open-minded of you.

I see nothing in the parent's comment that insinuates this. What specifically are you referring to?

Re: What was Syria like before the war

#156

Post by deeth_starr_v »

lefstathiou wrote: post #108
peterlk wrote: post #80

Meta-commentary: This is one of the more fascinating threads I have seen on HN. It seems to parallel many of the problems with political discourse in the world today - maybe it's always been like this, but I'm not old enough to know. I would break down the comments into several types: 1) conspiracy theorists who believe in some secret cult that is unilaterally organizing everything 2) trolls - state sponsored or othe…

What I find interesting about the Syrian issue is that it is becoming increasingly clear that diplomacy, the UN, media exposure etc is failing. Despite this "humanitarian crisis" (which I fully agree is reaching crisis levels), my impression is that almost all the media outlets and pundits are ignoring the obvious solution to this problem... unilateral US military intervention (and before we go there... keep in mind…

This is a civil war funded by Saudi Arabia and Iran on opposite sides. Stepping in the middle won't solve the issue.

edit: I'm not advocating doing nothing. But just that thinking getting boots on the ground will easily solve this.

Re: What was Syria like before the war

#157

Post by acchow »

madiathomas wrote: post #19
Kluny wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Version 58.0.3029.110 (64-bit), except I'm on a Mac. Is it possible they've got a bug that misidentifies Mac browsers?

They probably assumed everyone using Mac is using Safari. I have seen lots of code shared on programming forums that simply check for Mac and assume the person is using Safari.

It's not a mac problem. I'm on a mac. The site doesn't work in Chrome, but it does work in Safari.

Re: What was Syria like before the war

#158

Post by punkrex »

knz wrote: post #126
punkrex wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly to explain the nuance of the situation would take too long and isn't super easy to reduce to right and wrong. The background required to understand how syria came to be is not something that can be sufficiently and succinctly explained in a comment thread. Attempts to simplify it run into the exact issues you've noticed above. You're bias comes into play which conflicts with various other peoples PoV, and it…

> Also the pipeline/Syke-Picot people will interject themselves into any conversation about the middle east because "this one simple event explains everything" is appealing to a ton of folks. Do the "Sykes-Picot people" attribute everything to that agreement or just view it as a logical starting point for many of the current political problems seen in the Middle East that can not be attributed to other factors (geogr…

I dislike it personally because it robs any agency on the part of the locals and ascribes everything happening because of Westerners. I think the simplistic view presented in textbooks is wrong. Sykes-Picot never really came into effect and as much as the British/French tried to control the area their attempts at control were co-opted by savvy local nationalist parties to establish local nation states after the collapse of the Ottoman empire.

The map of the modern day middle east has more in common with Ottoman Provinces then it does with the Lines of Control that Sykes-Picot proposed. Now I am not trying to absolve the west of all it's guilt, it did a number of shitty and horrific things, but I think the narrative that the West screwed up the Middle East ignores both a significant history of conflict in the area over land and resources, as well as the political situation on the ground being influenced more by locals then outsiders. I am also not saying that colonialism is not a horrific thing, I think that efforts elsewhere(Africa, Asia) started earlier and were more heavy handed.

The reason why Sykes-Picot appeals to so many people is that it provides a simplistic political narrative for why the region is so messed up, and allows blame to be shifted on a politically convenient scapegoat. Hopefully as we shift away from the "Great Man"(and I think Westerners trying to impose their will on the Middle East were bad folks) theory of history we will come to view these simple theories as useless and try to understand the nuance of how the modern Middle East came to be as not something that two Westerners in 1917 could ever hope to dictate.

Re: What was Syria like before the war

#159

Post by omurphy27 »

candiodari wrote: post #3

I wish there were more definite sources detailing what the actual conflict is about. People are giving all sorts of accounts online and it seems to be divided into a few camps: 1) western and sunni middle eastern press: it's all Assad's (government's) fault. People want democracy. Specifically this is supposed to be a response to violent repression of pro-democracy protests from March 2011. Problem: very hard to beli…

One can argue over what's driving the conflict today, but how it started back in 2011 is very well documented by every current news source at the time.

It began when Assad's security forces tortured children for spray painting anti government graffiti in Deraa. Protests, in the spirit of the Arab Spring which had spontaneously consumed the region, then followed. Assad met these protests with total violence, including shooting unarmed civilians.

Assad's security service continued to kill and torture unarmed civilians until eventually people started shooting back. Thus began the civil war. Had Assad merely stepped down, as Mubarak did in Egypt, then Syria today would likely be as peaceful as Egypt is.

Here's an excellent documentary, filled with primary sources and not made by some conspiracy nut in their basement, on how the conflict started: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njKuK3tw8PQ

Re: What was Syria like before the war

#160

Post by SomeStupidPoint »

matt_wulfeck wrote: post #147
hackuser wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can find plenty of articles in serious sources which contain serious research on Russian astroturfing operations. Based on those, any forum is a target and HN is more influential than most.

I think Occam's razor is applicable with our discussion. Are the people who are disagreeing with you a paid shill from the government trying to advance a particular agenda, or is it just a person who disagrees with you?

The simplest explanation that fits the facts is that it's a mix of both, as both are solidly established to exist.

Occam's razor doesn't really apply to determining an individual account, as there's no model difference in a particular account being either, given many accounts and each being some.

You should respond based on considering it a superposition of both (and more exotic states, like a non-shill blindly repeating shill points), based on the distribution of likelihood given their speech patterns, background prevalence, etc.

That's really the simplest model which lets you incorporate all the information you know in crafting a response -- not a false dichotomy of making assumptions you know will sometimes be erroneous. (...Which is not what Occam's Razor is about.)

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