On Disbelieving Atrocities (1944) • Hacker News Board

Re: On Disbelieving Atrocities (1944)

#31

Post by briantakita » Sat, Dec 22, 2018, 6:58 PM UTC

benwerd wrote: post #15

ufmace wrote: post #14

The trouble with this - I can sympathize with the frustration of watching atrocities happening in your homeland and not being able to get people in another country far away to care. But I can also sympathize with the ordinary people in these countries far away wanting to live their lives and not wallow in every tragedy that happens around the world. Because there's quite a lot of things happening all the time, even n…

Yes to all, and I think it’s our responsibility as democratic citizens to be aware of them. What’s the point of having the right to vote and having people represent us if we’re not aware of what they should be dealing with wrt foreign policy, say? If everyone buries their head in the sand or only considers domestic issues, we don’t really have democracy. It becomes a charade that helps us feel reassured that we have…

The Holodomor, The Armenian Genocide, The Yazidi Genocide, "The Great Leap Forward"...

Some Genocides get far more attention than others. Perhaps it's also our duty to proactively research all genocidal activity & research the political causes.

Re: On Disbelieving Atrocities (1944)

#32

Post by TomMckenny » Sat, Dec 22, 2018, 9:17 PM UTC

benwerd wrote: post #15

ufmace wrote: post #14

The trouble with this - I can sympathize with the frustration of watching atrocities happening in your homeland and not being able to get people in another country far away to care. But I can also sympathize with the ordinary people in these countries far away wanting to live their lives and not wallow in every tragedy that happens around the world. Because there's quite a lot of things happening all the time, even n…

Yes to all, and I think it’s our responsibility as democratic citizens to be aware of them. What’s the point of having the right to vote and having people represent us if we’re not aware of what they should be dealing with wrt foreign policy, say? If everyone buries their head in the sand or only considers domestic issues, we don’t really have democracy. It becomes a charade that helps us feel reassured that we have…

In addition, it's short sighted to imagine that genocide is not part of a countries' dangerous break down that will have serious impacts beyond its borders. Indeed, the mere flow of refugees alone destabilizes other nations immediately and obviously.

Not to be machiavellian, but it is a practical as well as moral issue.

Re: On Disbelieving Atrocities (1944)

#33

Post by dotancohen » Sat, Dec 22, 2018, 9:20 PM UTC

benwerd wrote: post #15

ufmace wrote: post #14

The trouble with this - I can sympathize with the frustration of watching atrocities happening in your homeland and not being able to get people in another country far away to care. But I can also sympathize with the ordinary people in these countries far away wanting to live their lives and not wallow in every tragedy that happens around the world. Because there's quite a lot of things happening all the time, even n…

Yes to all, and I think it’s our responsibility as democratic citizens to be aware of them. What’s the point of having the right to vote and having people represent us if we’re not aware of what they should be dealing with wrt foreign policy, say? If everyone buries their head in the sand or only considers domestic issues, we don’t really have democracy. It becomes a charade that helps us feel reassured that we have…

> What’s the point of having the right to vote and having people represent us if we’re not aware of what they should be dealing with wrt foreign policy, say?

The corollary would be to ask, if the common citizen must keep abreast of all events anyway, then why have representatives at all? Why not a direct democracy?

Ostensibly the purpose of a representative democracy is that the elected official would become an expert on the subjects for which he dictates policy. If he isn't doing that, then no matter if the populace is educated or not, policy will suffer.

Re: On Disbelieving Atrocities (1944)

#34

Post by mmirate » Sat, Dec 22, 2018, 9:43 PM UTC

PavlovsCat wrote: post #17

mannykannot wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is very difficult and often impossible to pop someone else's bubble, so we should all work hard on popping our own. Huh? they won't listen to reason, so I should do what, exactly?

I don't know, maybe pretend e.g. the Nazis were convinced of the errors of their ways -- rather than defeated first militarily, and then shamed socially. I'd say, "what you should do" is to organize with others and enforce boundaries on those who are in the "bubble" of not giving a (meaningful) fuck of continued organized existence of the human race. Deal with the mote in your own eye, just to shut Jesus up, and then…

> I'd say, "what you should do" is to organize with others and enforce boundaries on those who are in the "bubble" of not giving a (meaningful) fuck of continued organized existence of the human race.

Dumb question here: why should I give a fuck about literally anything that happens after I die?

Re: On Disbelieving Atrocities (1944)

#35

Post by hjek » Sat, Dec 22, 2018, 10:00 PM UTC

cfmcdonald wrote: post #12

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #7

>> On Disbelieving Atrocities >> Arthur Koestler (Jan. 1944) I wondered if the author is the Arthur Koestler, but Wikipedia tells me he was born in 1905, so if I read the following sentence correctly (i.e. meaning that the writer is 62 at the time of writing, in 1944), then the piece was written by another author of the same name, because the best-known Arthur Koestler was 39 in 1944: >> "I know" that, the average st…

I believe the . is a typo, and it's 27 years. That also lines up with the date he gives for his death, in 1970.

Probably an OCR glitch even, as the text has some OCR cliches in it:

> and regard these as black-and-white altematives.

Re: On Disbelieving Atrocities (1944)

#36

Post by ufmace » Sat, Dec 22, 2018, 10:46 PM UTC

benwerd wrote: post #15

ufmace wrote: post #14

The trouble with this - I can sympathize with the frustration of watching atrocities happening in your homeland and not being able to get people in another country far away to care. But I can also sympathize with the ordinary people in these countries far away wanting to live their lives and not wallow in every tragedy that happens around the world. Because there's quite a lot of things happening all the time, even n…

Yes to all, and I think it’s our responsibility as democratic citizens to be aware of them. What’s the point of having the right to vote and having people represent us if we’re not aware of what they should be dealing with wrt foreign policy, say? If everyone buries their head in the sand or only considers domestic issues, we don’t really have democracy. It becomes a charade that helps us feel reassured that we have…

> If everyone buries their head in the sand or only considers domestic issues, we don’t really have democracy.

Much of your post I at least kind of agree with, but that's the real sticking point. Democracy means that the people have the policies that they want, whether or not it agrees with what you or I think would be a good thing. If you don't agree with them, you can try to convince them otherwise, but you don't get to say that it isn't a "real Democracy" if they don't go your way.

It's all well and good to say that any genocide of anybody anywhere is bad, and we always oppose it, but what's to be done? Grandstanding about it in international bodies may feel good, but is often ineffective. Economic sanctions sometimes work, but are often costly and can push nations into the arms of our rivals. Military action works, in a sense, but is massively expensive in money and lives and often makes the situation worse in a different way.

It's a dark thought, but I sometimes think the Nazi's real mistake was to do a genocide and a massive war of aggression at the same time. The world has collectively said "meh" at quite a few genocides, as long as the country involved wasn't actively trying to conquer everything they could touch at the same time. It also led to the seemingly absurd situation in the main post here - when a country you're actively at war with is doing these things, there's not much you can do to stop them besides win the conventional war as quickly as possible, which you're already trying to do. It makes you wonder if publicizing it at the time is worth the effort. Maybe it would get a few neutral countries to swing further your way, but who's still neutral at that point?

Re: On Disbelieving Atrocities (1944)

#37

Post by m0zg » Sat, Dec 22, 2018, 10:53 PM UTC

Sometimes "atrocities" should be disbelieved, though.

Consider the most recent Syrian "nerve gas attacks". Politicians said they were "sure", launched airstrikes, pulled the remaining diplomats from the region. Then the only actually trustworthy body, OPCW, released the report in which it said, I quote: "no organophosphorus nerve agents or their degradation products were detected" (don't believe me? Google the exact quote). If sarin were actually used, those degradation products would be at detectable levels for many years.

Chlorine residue _was_ found, but the position of the bodies on the scene is inconsistent with chlorine poisoning, suggesting that the bodies might have been moved to suggest they died of a nerve agent (i.e. fell to the ground where they stood, rather than ran to the windows gasping for air). The delivery mechanism is also unclear, there are undamaged chlorine cylinders found at the scene, suggesting that it wasn't launched from a distance.

So we've been blatantly lied to by politicians and the press yet again in order to manufacture consent. This was mostly ignored by the public. This is not the first time this has been done, either. See e.g. Iraq "WMDs", and the current darling of the liberal establishment, Robert Mueller, deliberately lying to Congress: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTDO-kuOGTQ. I say "deliberately" because no "evidence" could have been presented to him, because none existed.

Re: On Disbelieving Atrocities (1944)

#38

Post by PavlovsCat » Sun, Dec 23, 2018, 12:12 AM UTC

mmirate wrote: post #34

PavlovsCat wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know, maybe pretend e.g. the Nazis were convinced of the errors of their ways -- rather than defeated first militarily, and then shamed socially. I'd say, "what you should do" is to organize with others and enforce boundaries on those who are in the "bubble" of not giving a (meaningful) fuck of continued organized existence of the human race. Deal with the mote in your own eye, just to shut Jesus up, and then…

> I'd say, "what you should do" is to organize with others and enforce boundaries on those who are in the "bubble" of not giving a (meaningful) fuck of continued organized existence of the human race. Dumb question here: why should I give a fuck about literally anything that happens after I die?

Why should you... not get between a lioness and her cubs? Well, just because she doesn't yet realize that you're doing that, doesn't mean she never will. The question is really just how thick you think this ice is, and if you feel particularly lucky. The question isn't so much why should you care, but if you don't care, what leg do you have to stand on in regards to others?

Why would you care, that's the better question IMO. Maybe because you have been treated well, because you can afford it, because if you have greater capacity for care than neediness. That is, maybe after you spent all the care you possibly can on yourself, you still have plenty left and might as well use it. Because your daily income of ability to care is more than your expenses on just yourself.

I've known stinking rich egotists as well as rich people with a huge heart, and the latter seemed happier and more intelligent by far. No contest, I'd even say they're actually living in the first place, while those who care only about themselves are boring at best, constantly whining at worst. And just like there's networks of sociopaths, just like "the devil recognizes his brethren", so do people with functioning hearts and brains recognize others, and I dare say they're much better company. Better looking, too, even just insofar that being able to look any- and everyone in the eye makes a person instantly more attractive, all else being equal. And that's before age kicks in.. reaping the rewards of a selfish life is truly brutal, and the most cruel part is that after a life of selfishness you have no ability to recognize the consequences of that as consequences of that.

Re: On Disbelieving Atrocities (1944)

#39

Post by PavlovsCat » Sun, Dec 23, 2018, 2:45 AM UTC

balfirevic wrote: post #27

benwerd wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes to all, and I think it’s our responsibility as democratic citizens to be aware of them. What’s the point of having the right to vote and having people represent us if we’re not aware of what they should be dealing with wrt foreign policy, say? If everyone buries their head in the sand or only considers domestic issues, we don’t really have democracy. It becomes a charade that helps us feel reassured that we have…

That just seems to be redefining the word "democracy" so that it produces the outcomes you desire. I don't think that's helpful. It is important to realize that democratic process and following the will of people can result in bad and unjust outcomes.

Insofar those unjust outcomes undermine democracy itself, they're opposed to democracy. Notice how changed "democracy" to "democratic process", and how saying "democracy can result in bad and unjust outcomes" would have raised the question, as opposed to what, exactly?

As opposed to non-democracies, or to citizens who don't care about atrocities elsewhere? Those also "can lead to bad outcomes", and when you have something on both sides of the equation it's usually helpful to ignore it, and focus on the bits that aren't on both sides -- instead of ignoring anything but what is on both sides.

> As citizens, we must prevent wrongdoing because the world in which we all live, wrong-doer, wrong sufferer and spectator, is at stake.

-- Hannah Arendt

Re: On Disbelieving Atrocities (1944)

#40

Post by balfirevic » Sun, Dec 23, 2018, 3:27 AM UTC

PavlovsCat wrote: post #39

balfirevic wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That just seems to be redefining the word "democracy" so that it produces the outcomes you desire. I don't think that's helpful. It is important to realize that democratic process and following the will of people can result in bad and unjust outcomes.

Insofar those unjust outcomes undermine democracy itself, they're opposed to democracy. Notice how changed "democracy" to "democratic process", and how saying "democracy can result in bad and unjust outcomes" would have raised the question, as opposed to what, exactly? As opposed to non-democracies, or to citizens who don't care about atrocities elsewhere? Those also "can lead to bad outcomes", and when you have some…

> Notice how changed "democracy" to "democratic process"

Fine: It is important to realize that democracy and following the will of people can result in bad and unjust outcomes.

There, doesn't make a difference.

> and how saying "democracy can result in bad and unjust outcomes" would have raised the question, as opposed to what, exactly [...]

I haven't got a slightest idea what you're saying. You don't have to sell me on democracy, I'm already sold. You also don't have to sell me on caring about people elsewhere, I'm sold there too.

But you shouldn't define democracy to simply exclude outcomes you deem unethical as that is simply useless for discussion.