The author seems more intent on Dawkins-bashing than anything else. What else can explain his deliberate mis-reading of Dawkins missive. "As is typical of hatemongers, Dawkins is careful not to name his target directly: instead, he works with insinuation -- though that said, calling the victim "Muslima" is particularly crass." Dawkins does not call Skepchick "muslima"; he addresses the missive to some "muslima" to ironically point out that there are women who suffer far worse sexism than being asked if they'd like a cup of coffee.
Two specific laws were passed in Britain in the last 25 years outlawing FGM. Yet there has not been one conviction. A report recently pointed out that there may be as many as 100,000 victims. http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2012/05/14/female-genital-mut...
Feminists have remained virtually silent on this matter for the past decade or two. The only person to mount a campaign on it is the novelist Ruth Rendell.
When the female "Equalities Minister" recently appeared on the BBC's premiere news programme defending the status quo (along with a muslim man), it was an array of young muslim women accusing the authorities of racism and sexism in not bringing prosecutions.
It really is an appalling state of affairs. And in the last 20 years, FGM has barely been mentioned by British media. I would guess that the total number of stories in the last decade is no more than 20.
When I've brought the issue up with socialist feminists they claim that it is racist to get involved.
So, I think Dawkins has a point. And from my observations of Dawkins he seems to be far more concerned to offend christians than muslims.
"Feminists have remained virtually silent on this matter for the past decade or two."
No they didn't. It's a common subject in blogs, forums and such less-visible mediums. But if you think it's easy to get into the media with that, you're wrong -- you will be called out on racism, possibly with good reasons -- even I, if faced with a mainstream article that focuses on FGM, would grow suspicious, since when the media cares about women this much?
Imagine an ad. A woman buys a car, comes back home, shows it to her husband, which takes them for a ride. The woman says: "Hey, isn't that nice for the price tag?". The guy thinks a bit, then at the first turn, violently drops the woman out of the car, and says, grinning ear to ear while he thoroughly enjoys the moment: "Now, that's perfect".
This ad would not stand a single second before a horde of people would yell at how sexist this is and the media would bathe in the scandal.
Yet it's been a few years the exact opposite ad[0] airs in France, daily. That's not the only one, there are a shitload of ads that market men as inherently stupid and worthless fools (at best), yet the CSA[1] regularly bans content that would be subject to doubtful interpretations of women status. It turns out in some cases that animals just seem to deserve better protection than men.
I'm not quite sure the solution to sexism is glorifying women while vilifying men (which just reads like more sexism — i.e differentiating statuses between genders — either way). We are different in a few ways for sure, just not better or worse, but can't we just all finally see each other as, you know, human beings, and respect each other as such?
> you will be called out on racism, possibly with good reasons
Unless you assume all races/cultures are at the epitome of human development, there has to be changes, which will be unpleasant - that's how humans develop. What would be the "possibly good reasons" for being called out on racism? Just because it is part of some culture/race doesn't grant it legibility.
Only it has absolutely nothing to do with race. Culture, sure, to some extent, but it's not like the western cultures treat women well -- and if a TV show just focuses on FGM it does start sound like a conspicuously neat excuse to bash certain races, most of whom would never want to have anything to do with that crap, at the same time providing men with a neat way of dismissing their own sexism as "not proper sexism".
So yeah, unless it's either a victim or an established feminist who was doing both this and intersectionality of gender and race oppression advocacy, I will suspect bringing up FGM is just a racist way to silence feminist.
> but it's not like the western cultures treat women well
It doesn't make any difference - at all. If I am a wife beater, that doesn't validate your wife beating.
> and if a TV show just focuses on FGM
I missed the part where anyone mentioned media exclusively focused on FGM.
> neat excuse to bash certain races,
Say I start a TV show whose sole purpose is to bash a certain race which does FGM. I have no altruistic motives. I am driven by hate.
So fucking what? How does any of it make FGM sacred, so much as anyone saying something against it is a racist?
> at the same time providing men with a neat way of dismissing their own sexism as "not proper sexism".
Good thing that there are more than 1 bullet points for defining sexism. Besides, I have never seen anyone come up with an excuse that a certain tribe in a different part of the world treats their wives as a commodity, hence I can ask you to make a sandwich and that won't be sexism. If there are people who make this argument, they would already be doing it. Things worse than FGM exist in different parts of world. Those things didn't give anyone excuse for their sexism - FGM won't either. Your concerns are imaginary.
> unless it's either a victim or an established feminist who was doing both this and intersectionality of gender and race oppression advocacy, I will suspect bringing up FGM is just a racist way to silence feminist.
That is ridiculous. Unless you were among the civilians bombed by the drone, I will suspect this is your excuse for bashing US. See how absurd that is? And for the third time, my dishonesty doesn't automatically make you genuine.
>Dawkins does not call Skepchick "muslima"; he addresses the missive to some "muslima" to ironically point out that there are women who suffer far worse sexism than being asked if they'd like a cup of coffee.
Reading comprehension problem. He is not saying that Dawkins called Skepchick muslima.
He is saying that Dawkins conjured the made up _victim of Islam_ "muslima", to hypocritically (with "crocodile tears") pretend to defend her plight against the minor plight of Skepchick.
That said, the accusations against Islam (and "pro" muslima) are BS stereotypes that only someone fed and informed on Islam by western media can come up with (including blatant misinformation, like attributing the practice of FGM to Islam).
Full disclosure: I work in a muslim country, and have visited several others.
That was certainly an interesting if not completely ridiculous read... The author seems to spend most of his time generalizing and erroneously misinterpreting the view points of those he perceives as skeptics (the most heinous of which include his characterization of skeptics as people who "hate and fear" philosophy, which is just about the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard).
He seems to have misguided views on everything from modern medicines use of the placebo, to the development of fields such as computation linguistics and medical science. Here's the deal, if the author can demonstrably prove that people who use homeopathy know that it is just a placebo, then they can go for it. But they don't. If the author can show that there exist better methods for researching language, then go for it, but he doesn't. In fact, as someone who is interested in the field and friends with many computational linguists, let me tell you they are trying to look for better models to deal with the uncertainty inherent in NLP, and I'm not even sure where his statement that computational linguists fear pragmatics comes from. That is complete crap.
Wrapping bullshit around some kernels of truth does not make it true. I.E. yes, the atheist community on reddit can have misguided views, and yes people like Hitchens and Dawkins and the like are subject to their own personal biases, but both those people and indeed most of these communities are acutely aware of this fact and spend a lot of time trying to come to terms with it (look at the recent furor about whether the glorification of people posting snarky remarks made to "fundies" on reddit constituted a positive step). His rant against the skeptic conspiracy against feminism is also something which I found incomprehensible, and as far as I can tell completely untrue.
I would encourage people to read this in its entirety, if only to convince yourself that the title is an attention grab, and that the contents, while pointing out some valid truths, are largely filled with conspiracy theories and facts which are not backed up, and based on vast generalizations and oversimplifications.
P.S. I did enjoy the bit about the skeptics movement being a neoliberal conspiracy.
- He's assuming people go to alternative medicine after real medicine, that assumption might be wrong, but it's not even a main point in his argument.
- He talks about Linguistics, not NLP, so I don't know what your friends have to do with that part.
- The only thing about conspiracies there is where he says he understands why conspiracy theorists create the theories: to avoid reality becuase reality sucks for them.
- There is no mention of a conspiracy against feminism, only that there is a sexist background in the whole group.
- Also, no conspiracy about neoliberalism, only an argument: If you believe science should be in charge of revealing all reality to us, you should support an environment in which science can thrive with nothing that would take it back, and that is liberal democracy nowadays.
It seems we read a different article. There are lots of worthy discussion points, but lets discuss them, not just vaguely oversimplify or dismiss them.
> - He talks about Linguistics, not NLP, so I don't know what your friends have to do with that part.
He specifically talks about computational linguistics, which is practically synonymous with NLP (there is a minor difference in connotation--the former is scientific rather than engineering, but it's really very minor).
That's right. After paying more attention to the paragraph in question I'd love the grandparent asking his friends about the new models that are being tried and how are they based on Wittgensteinian pragmatics. I haven't seen any, but I've only been exposed to the applied mainstream of NLP, not to the bleeding edge of the research.
I have the impression that Wittgenstein's musings were of an informal, philosophical nature, and that they are difficult to translate to a practical real world application. That doesn't have to mean that he's necessarily wrong, just that for practical work such as in NLP you are forced to make some rather strong assumptions which are actually just wrong, but which allow us to approximate language to an extent where current technology can do something useful with it.
> Wrapping bullshit around some kernels of truth does not make it true.
> I would encourage people to read this in its entirety, if only to convince yourself that the title is an attention grab, and that the contents, while pointing out some valid truths, are largely filled with conspiracy theories and facts which are not backed up, and based on vast generalizations and oversimplifications.
Personally I found it extremely painful to read. This article is like a small piece of chocolate hidden inside shit ton of dog shit. That small piece of chocolate is totally negated by heaps of dog shit. You just keep reading in the hope that the hidden chocolate would be worth it, but you find out what you believed to be chocolate was few crystals of household sugar, and you ploughed through dog shit for nothing. Also, this experience left a bad taste in your mouth.
>Personally I found it extremely painful to read. This article is like a small piece of chocolate hidden inside shit ton of dog shit. That small piece of chocolate is totally negated by heaps of dog shit. You just keep reading in the hope that the hidden chocolate would be worth it, but you find out what you believed to be chocolate was few crystals of household sugar, and you ploughed through dog shit for nothing. Also, this experience left a bad taste in your mouth.
Notice how you didn't manage to come up with one iota of actual criticism on specific points?
I would replace that "didn't manage to come up" with "didn't come up" - trolls, feeding etc. The whole article is full of straw-man and false generalizations. If you got anything out of it, superb. I didn't; and I simply stated that. I don't see why I am obliged to write a full rebuttal.
You aren't obliged, but it would be nice to read some explicit counterarguments and some strawmen exposed.
Given your strong opinions about the piece, at least rebutting the worst part of the article should be easy and not take much effort. It would also make the thread more interesting.
>That was certainly an interesting if not completely ridiculous read... The author seems to spend most of his time generalizing and erroneously misinterpreting the view points of those he perceives as skeptics (the most heinous of which include his characterization of skeptics as people who "hate and fear" philosophy, which is just about the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard).
Having spent quite some time in sceptic forums and circles, I can assure that the article is 100% spot on.
(Oh, and the sceptics love philosophy, but only if it's the 1% of positivist anglo-saxon philosophy that caters to their prejudices).
> Online forums, whatever their subject, can be forbidding places for the newcomer; over time, most of them tend to become dominated by small groups of snotty know-it-alls
Human interaction is woven out of several different materials. One of these is social dominance. It's even more fundamental to our psychology than sex.
Unfortunately, while it's widely recognized in much of the civilized world that letting our sexual impulses run unfiltered in the professional context is detrimental to a relaxed workplace where people feel free to interact openly, most people seem to deny the existence of our need to seek and test social dominance. This often leads to the pollution of communication and debate.
There is nothing wrong with sexuality in the workplace, so long as it's discrete and consensual. Likewise, there is nothing wrong with dominance behavior in forums, so long as it serves substantive debate. When dominance takes a back-seat to the love of knowledge, things are okay. When it's the other way around: considered harmful. (I suppose Galileo had some experience with this.)
> The truth is, I became a skeptic for aesthetic reasons, and the truth is, its aesthetics now repel me. I increasingly find the core skeptical output monotonous and repetitive: there are only so many times you can debunk the same old junk, and I've had it up to here with science fanboyism. And when skeptics talk about subjects outside their domain of expertise, I'm struck by how irrelevant their comments are, and how ugly, shrill and trivial.
I've noticed that techies often create mini "crapsack worlds" in forums and in games. (And I'm not referring to colorful backstories for a game, but in the actual social dynamics between players or commenters.) Much of it can be characterized as "immaturity." However, that label alone isn't so helpful. It's better to ask: what makes a society or a place wonderful? What best encourages a high signal to noise ratio?
Stephen Bond, who wrote the linked page, is at http://plover.net/~bonds/. I could not find any OSCON talks by him. Can you please provide a link? I think you are confusing them based on the similar domain names.
I mostly read his paragraph on sexism, which frankly struck me as very silly. What has other skeptics being sexist to do with him being a skeptic? And what has Star Trek being sexist to do with skeptics? The logic was just very bad, so he didn't convince me as a skeptic. I assumed being a skeptic would involve being rational.
His ratings in an community unknown to me don't impress me at all. I mean it is cool, but I still look at what he says with skepticism. The world is full of famous people who are wrong.
If you read it again, you'll see that he did not attempt to lay out his section on sexism as a rational argument, but merely as a series of observations. The Star Trek reference was an analogy to what he observes among skeptics.
I think that this is appropriate. If you've thought about sexism, and have observed skeptic communities, then you'll have no trouble recognizing the validity of his observations based on your own. If you have not observed skeptic communities, then you can either take his word for it, or else go out and do your own first hand observations. And finally if you've never actually thought much about sexism, well, how could he reasonably begin to explain?
In short, either you get it and further explanation is superfluous, or else you don't and his attempting to enlighten you would take him seriously off course. Either way there is no point in having him try to present an airtight logical argument.
What on earth is a skeptic community? I thought being a skeptic simply means not taking things at face value. Why do I have to be lumped in with random people from the internet just because I like to think about things?
Can we say that HN is a skeptic community, for example? Would you say HN is very sexist? Or do only "skeptic communities" that are actually sexist count?
> Would you believe that he's a well-known programmer and consultant who also happens to be the highest rated speaker at OSCON ever?
Proving what exactly? Billy Graham is (was) also a well-regarded public speaker. This claim doesn't support the depth of his ideas, and can't compare to examining the ideas themselves.
>> Would you believe that he's a well-known programmer
I don't believe I see intelligent people, like you, use someone's programming credentials as support for an ideologically motivated axe job in a non-programming subject. :-(
There is an old Swedish saw, badly translated as "where liquor go in, sense go out". Just do s/liquor/ideology/
He might have just been an outlier. It would only be worth investigating if the majority of Nazis and Nazi supporters were vegetarians.
I didn't speak about some sceptics, much less about ONE. I spoke about what qualities I saw in the majority of them. Hence, I fail to see how your sarcastic comment applies here.
What I meant is just because bad person A has opinion X, it does not invalidate opinion X. So just because Sexist A is skeptic it does not follow that every skeptic is sexist.
As I said in another comment: if he can not even avoid basic logical fallacies, he probably never was a very good skeptic to begin with.
"What I meant is just because bad person A has opinion X, it does not invalidate opinion X. So just because Sexist A is skeptic it does not follow that every skeptic is sexist."
Of course not.
But as he, I also noticed a lot of them being sexist.
At some point you have to stop the "just because X is A and B, doesn't mean that every A is B", and make an empirical observation based on the statistical information you have available.
Else you fall into the "no true scotchman" fallacy.
So you claim that there are so many sexist skeptics that it is a given that all skeptics are sexist?
And which skeptics community are you referring to? Climate skeptics? Sexism skeptics? Religion skeptics? I am not even sure what skeptics communities there are, and certainly they don't all agree with each other. I am sure there are climate change skeptic skeptics for example.
>So you claim that there are so many sexist skeptics that it is a given that all skeptics are sexist?
No, but I do claim that the "all" quantifier is useless in human affairs. Why even try to rephrase my statement with "all"? To make it more like a strawman?
What I claim is: "there are many sexist skeptics, period". I don't care if not "all" of them are. I know that I met a large percentage that were, and that it is enough for me to not like those kind of communities.
Plus, it's not that I just dislike their sexism, I dislike their general attitude, which the original article describes quite accurately. That is, they made "thinking independently" into a religious-like dogma.
>I am not even sure what skeptics communities there are, and certainly they don't all agree with each other.
I mean the general "Carl Sagan, Dawkins, James Randi, etc are gods among men, let's hang around internet forums and sites and debunk junk science, lament for the lack of scientific knowledge, waste time arguing with conspiracy theorists, religious nuts, et al" kind of sceptic communities. Maybe with some Ayn Rand thrown in for good measure.
Well its the difference between being skeptical about things, and being a skeptic. One is a gut feeling you shouldn't accept things, and the other is a mind state/religion. With one you can accept you where wrong, with the other you just change topics and begin the next assault why something is wrong.
I find most people who proclaim to be 'a skeptic' quite intolerable after a short period because they are always trying to find new ways to laud mistakes over people, always putting people down, and more often than not lifting themselves above others through humiliation. More or less just intellectual bullying, often without realizing it.
The author attacks skeptics' obsession with quantifiable knowledge at several points in the essay (e.g., the comp ling section), without providing an alternative.
We have a word for "sciences" that are unquantifiable -- "soft" sciences. They don't work very well.
> We have a word for "sciences" that are unquantifiable
But as you say, the author isn't standing up for these "sciences" (in scare-quotes). Rather, he takes issue with the claims of objectivity and rigour for certain fields, one of which you appear to feel is unfairly tarred. You don't need to mischaracterise the author's position to defend computational linguistics though.
I hope I'm not misstating the author's position. In my reading, he goes well beyond pointing out that some fields, such as linguistics or medicine, have made stronger cases than their data can support.
He actually says "I do not believe in the primacy of the scientific method as a source of knowledge", and later, that [in order to successfully advance a particular scientific field] we need to "admit the presence and value of non-scientific knowledge". The nature of this non-scientific knowledge is not entirely clear from the essay but seems to be some mixture of culture and common sense.
He throws out several such claims without addressing the problems that come along with accepting non-quantifiable or non-scientific knowledge into a traditionally scientific discipline. For example, if you make a hypothesis that is not quantifiable, how can you determine the degree to which your data supports it?
Fair enough. I was just pointing out your use of the word ["sciences"] to describe the same thing as the author's "non-scientific knowledge". Whatever form this knowledge is supposed to take, "science" as a term for it is explicitly rejected.
On a more substantive point:
You acknowledge the difficulties faced by "soft sciences". Does that mean you accept that there are whole categories of real-world phenomena of which it would be extremely difficult if not impossible to systematise whatever "knowledge" we do have? I don't think that position is incompatible with respect for science.
Yes, of course non- or soft-scientific phenomena exist. But until a soft science finds some way to quantify its data, it makes little or no progress.
Take psychology as an example. The history of psychology until c. 1950 consists of different gurus with different opinions, and since few theories offered testable predictions, no one could be proven* wrong. Psychology has since learned to do controlled experiments and has been more successful. Computational neuroscience and cognitive science are more successful still. Literary criticism, OTOH, is still caught in this trap.
Ultimately, my issue with the author is that he strongly channels Thomas Kuhn. Yes, the political and social contexts of science are important. But they are nowhere near as important as the actual data and arguments made within the scientific framework.
* With all due qualifications about the impossibility of true falsification
Perhaps because relatively few users have enough karma to downvote a story. I've never been clear on how much karma it takes to do that, actually -- does anyone know?
>rom his writings, I gather that Dawkins would be content to live in a world where gentle Anglican vicars presided over their bored, civilised congregations in England's vales and hills, while the British Empire did its dirty work elsewhere, in places like Kenya, India, and West Cork. He saves his real ire for the creeds of the unruly natives — all those nasty Muslims and Catholics and tribalists who don't know their place.
Islam gets called out more often because it does more damage. Most of the English CofE faithful, I suspect, don't actually believe in their religion; they attend the services and get on with their lives. They're not preaching the evils of condoms or calling for the lynching of those who criticised them or, yes it has to be said, undertaking terrorism in the name of their religion.
>This is not the place to describe the many problems and hypocrisies of neoliberalism. Suffice it to say that I do not believe that liberal democracy, which condemns the majority of the world's population to varying degrees of slavery, is a perfect system. I do not believe that the metaphors of liberal democracy allow us a perfect view of reality. And therefore I do not believe in the primacy of the scientific method as a source of knowledge. It might be the best we've got, but when it comes to human advancement — including the advance of science itself — other sources of knowledge can be just as useful, and often more important.
Simply untrue. Indeed the scientific method may be only the best we've got rather than perfect, but that still makes it the best we've got. "other sources of knowledge" - like what, mysticism? are less useful.
>What's more, skeptics never acknowledge that racial science was defeated by political ideology, and not by science itself. In fact, there was nothing that could have defeated it within the empirical framework of racial scientists. Their racist experiments confirmed their racist hypotheses based on their racist observations. But while the science supported them, politics, in the aftermath of World War 2 and the Holocaust, did not. After 1945, racial science became politically unacceptable in western liberal democracies, and remains so in spite of the various attempts to revive it. It was not disproved by the scientific method; instead, the political ideologies behind racial science were discarded, and replaced by new ones that did not accommodate it.
Which is a bad thing, because it makes it very hard to be confident we know the truth about racial matters. Racist "science" is unscientific, but so too is politically correct "science"; which is more harmful is indeed a matter of politics, because both are simply expressions of politics. Neither is founded in science or skepticism.
>Cheating people out of their money is one thing, but cheating them out of their lives is quite another. To read some skeptic takes on alternative medicine, you'd think only heart disease rivalled it as a killer. It's true that alternative medicine is not going to cure anyone of serious illness, but it's also generally true that the terminally ill only turn to it when real medicine has given up hope on them.
Generally, but not exclusively. People really do die because they looked to "alternative medicine" rather than medicine; the fact that most people who use "alternative medicine" don't does not really excuse this.
I suspect -- but can't prove -- that Islam is perceived as more dangerous because it is currently more foreign. There has been a huge and relatively recent surge in western awareness of it, but it is not a pervasively western philosophy.
So that means that our primary perceptions of Islam are going to come from the news, or from discussions of the news, and it is the worst, most backwards fundamentalist atrocities against people that will make the news.
This is not at all an apologia for those acts. There is no place left in the world for things like the stoning of a raped woman. However, we should also keep in mind that such acts are as much cultural as they are religious, and arguing that one religion is worse than another because of them is ignoring the cultural aspects of tribalism.
I'm not a fan of, say, homeopathy, but I'm also uncertain about the extent to which we should protect people from themselves. There is at this point plenty of easy-to-find criticisms of homeopathy; if someone chooses to try it anyway, either because they didn't do any research about it or because they did and ignored it, is that really our business? It's certainly not mine.
>However, we should also keep in mind that such acts are as much cultural as they are religious, and arguing that one religion is worse than another because of them is ignoring the cultural aspects of tribalism.
I'm not much concerned with which religion is worse on some scale. Religions which encourage or tolerate such evil - whether because of something intrinsic to that religion or simple demography - deserve to be criticized more than those that don't. It's not Islamophobic to pick on Islam, if the acts done in the name of Islam really are worse than those done in the name of some other faith.
>I'm not a fan of, say, homeopathy, but I'm also uncertain about the extent to which we should protect people from themselves. There is at this point plenty of easy-to-find criticisms of homeopathy; if someone chooses to try it anyway, either because they didn't do any research about it or because they did and ignored it, is that really our business? It's certainly not mine.
I wouldn't argue for it to be made illegal or anything like that. But it really is bad for people, and pointing out and publicizing its flaws, the way these skeptics and skeptic organizations do, really does save lives - not by taking away people's choices, but by keeping them fully informed. Even if you don't want to spend your own time doing that, there seems little justification to hate on those who do, the way the original article seems to.
The way I see it is that we already made "patent medicines" illegal. If you want to sell your miracle snakeoil in a jar these days you (unfortunately) still can, though to keep it legal you have to follow some basic labelling rules. It would be better if these labelling rules were more clear to the general public, but I would describe them as semi-functional at least.
Does such a thing exist for "alternative" treatment though? Are there laws about what sort claims faith healers and chiropractors are allowed to make? Maybe there are, but I am not aware of them. They definitely do not seem to be enforced at least. My concern then is that we are failing to protect those who lack the information to make an informed decision by permitting those people to go uninformed by their scammers.
If you already know that chiropractors are not "back doctors" and do not have medical degrees in chiropracy, but nevertheless decide to visit one, then that is your own problem at that point. I suspect many people do not know that though, and we are permitting these charlatans to pass themselves off as something that they are not (either through blatant lying or perhaps more commonly lying through omission).
That seems like something we can easily make illegal.
>It's not Islamophobic to pick on Islam, if the acts done in the name of Islam really are worse than those done in the name of some other faith.
It will take a while for the crimes made in the name of Christianity to match the crimes done under Islam.
And even more time for it to match the crimes made in the name of Western superiority. Last time I checked, no muslim country has dropped two A bombs in 300,000 civilians.
>It will take a while for the crimes made in the name of Christianity to match the crimes done under Islam.
Well, Christianity had a 600-year head start. But for those of us who care about preventing evils today rather than counting the historical scores, there is more work to be done regarding Islam.
>And even more time for it to match the crimes made in the name of Western superiority. Last time I checked, no muslim country has dropped two A bombs in 300,000 civilians.
No-one pretends that was about western superiority - just about killing them without losing our own soldiers. And using an inflated number (IIRC the accepted historical count is about 230,000, including military) only harms your argument.
>No-one pretends that was about western superiority - just about killing them without losing our own soldiers.
Why? Are civillians targets to be killed in a war?
"Killing them without losing our own soldiers" is the worst thing I've ever heard --really can justify just about anything. In every other name, this is a war crime (as was Dresden).
End of story.
>And using an inflated number (IIRC the accepted historical count is about 230,000, including military) only harms your argument.
Yes, I can see how 300,000 vs 230,000 changes the core of the issue. /s
>"Killing them without losing our own soldiers" is the worst thing I've ever heard --really can justify just about anything. In every other name, this is a war crime (as was Dresden).
Suppose you're right. The point is still that it had nothing to do with western superiority or promoting the skeptical worldview.
You might want to google "mughal" and read through the first few links. If you're into comparing death tolls.
If not, why don't you scientifically get yourself the factual answer to a few simple questions:
-> what is the difference between islam and sharia ?
-> does allah literally says women are half a man's worth ?
-> does islam allow slavery ?
-> does islam allow a slave owner to kill slaves on a whim ?
-> does islam allow forcible rape of slaves ?
-> starting at what age ?
>If not, why don't you scientifically get yourself the factual answer to a few simple questions:
And what makes you think that I don't know the factual answers already?
>-> what is the difference between islam and sharia ?
Sharia is the law of islam. Which doesn't mean much in practice, since a muslim does not always follow it. More importantly, sharia is not enforced as state law in most muslim countries. So, no, the two are not one of the same. Not to mention that there are several interpretations of it.
>* -> does allah literally says women are half a man's worth ?*
Does it matter? You can find equally stupid things in the Bible (not to mention in present day Bible Belt).
What do you personally know about how women are treated in a REAL marriage in a muslim country, not what their holy book says, or what you can see in some stories perpetuated in western media? How many muslim friends do you have? Have you lived in an muslim country?
Between educated muslims or muslim living in modern cities, I see hard working people, going through the same shit that us in the West do, and with more or less the same kind of relationships. I also see their kids going to school (male AND female). I cannot speak about muslims living in remote rural areas, backwaters, or the desert, because I have not witnessed them. That said, I doubt they'd be very different from people in any other remote rural or backwater area. Wasn't it like 50 years ago that blacks couldn't ride in front of the bus in the South, or stay in certain hotels? Wasn't it like 50 years ago that Turing was punished for being gay?
Why do we insist that poor people living in huts and tin houses in the middle of Africa or Asia must follow the exactly state of advancement that we only recently achieved, despite us having a far greater head-start?
-> does islam allow slavery ?
Does the bible does it? Because the slavery of several million blacks in the US was done by Christians. And the same for the slavery and extermination of 40 million indian tribes living in the South and North US. And the appartheid thing? White christian guys there too.
Even more so, it was the "civilised", western nations, like England, Holland, Belgium, France and such that enslaved billions of people in the colonial era, with some continuing even now, if now with outright colonies, then with protectorates, appointed political friends and political pressure.
-> does islam allow a slave owner to kill slaves on a whim ? -> does islam allow forcible rape of slaves ? -> starting at what age ?
It doesn't matter what islam says. It matters what an islamic community does. Slave raping and killing slaves was prevalent in the US South, and they were supposedly devout Christians. Even one of the founding fathers has had children with one of his female slaves, which, taking into account that he was their owner and had the power, can only be considered as products of rape.
> Simply untrue. Indeed the scientific method may be only the best we've got rather than perfect, but that still makes it the best we've got. "other sources of knowledge" - like what, mysticism? are less useful.
I don't understand how people compare the scientific method with what, mysticism?
Scenario 1:
At a small school, there is this school topper, say Foo. He is nothing extra-ordinary, scores 70-80% on an average, sometimes relies on rote memorization...
And there is this other boy, Bar, who didn't enroll in the school, is drunk whole day, and can often be found in the drain marinating in piss, vomit and shit.
How in the fucking fuck Foo being not perfect grant credibility to Bar?
Scenario 2:
Lance Armstrong, 7 times winner of Tour De France, is involved in a doping controversy again.
Superb. Since Lance Armstrong might have used performance enhancement drugs, I demand his medals be transferred to me, because somehow that makes me equally credible.
Modern medicine is the ordinary school topper Foo or Lance Armstrong, and alternate medicine is the boy who is marinating in the gutter. Same goes for scientific methods vs spirituality, mysticism et al.
As they put it, you can add as many 0s as you like - you won't get an 1. No one claimed scientific method or modern medicine is perfect, but you have to realize finding flaws in scientific method doesn't grant credibility to your crackpot theories. Scientific method is very open to accepting flaws. See the atomic model. New information is discovered, existing theories are refuted. You can't come in and say since you keep changing your atomic model, my model which I heard from my grandma who heard from hers is equally valid.
> Islam gets called out more often because it does more damage.
This is shortsighted. I personally think all religious belief is harmful, but in the sweep of history, Islam has a record of much more tolerance than Christianity, to name just one other religion.
Over long periods of time, Islamic cities and countries were much more tolerant of other religions than Christian cities and countries. Christianity has, and deserves, a reputation for being utterly intolerant of other religions.
This is not to excuse the excesses of Islam, when and where they took place, and I personally think the world would be a better place without religion. But it's simply inaccurate to describe Islam as doing more damage from a historical perspective.
I speak as someone who tried to open a Planned Parenthood clinic in a rural area (where it was really needed), was threatened with death more often than I care to remember, and who saw clinics and doctor's offices set on fire with depressing regularity. But this can't compare to the Inquisition, a time when Christianity displayed its true colors.
Christianity has a long and strong track record of intolerance, but I don't think it can be disputed that Islam does much more damage today. One out of three (!) British Muslims aged 16 to 24 believe that Muslim apostates should be executed [1]. In many Islamic countries, "crimes" like apostasy, adultery, or homosexuality are punishable by stoning or death, and such punishment is state sanctioned. This level of intolerance was commonplace in Christianity in the past, but it is virtually unheard of in predominantly Christian countries today.
I don't think there's a philosophical framework within which we can really assess which of two world religions is "more harmful". It sounds to me like you're picking the most salient examples to you personally, and choosing to generalise from them.
The character of a religion is not merely shaped by the principles of the religion but by the society in which that religion is present. The Islam of early medieval Spain is different to the Islam of 19th century Saudi Arabia, which is in turn different to the Islam of 17th century India or 21st century Sudan. The Christianity of the Inquisition is different to the Christianity of William Wilberforce, which in turn differs from the Christianity of Constantine and so on.
In reality, we can only really judge people by their actions, rather than their professed religion. Religion of any kind is no excuse for bad behaviour, nor should a person's religion detract from the good that they do.
>> It is officially estimated that about 75% of all Hindu lands in Bangladesh have been seized by using this act
Edit: I have to ask -- why do left wing people have much less problems with the quite common Muslim antisemitism, than with Nazi antisemitism? Most of the arguments (except for the religious ones) and sources were copied from the nazis. It is even written in official(!) media in the Muslim world.
I have to ask -- why do left wing people have much less problems with the quite common Muslim antisemitism, than with Nazi antisemitism?
Israel, and more specifically the Israel-Paletine conflict. The Left tend to side with the people they perceive as weak in a conflict, and while during Nazi rule they were persecuted and killed by the millions, they're now the more powerful side. Being close allies with the US doesn't help.
This is, at least, what I see from knowing well a bunch of Southern European left-wing people, from social-democracts to communists.
Are you really claiming that left wing idealists accept racist hate propaganda -- as long as it is from a billion of people that seems "weaker" than five millions of people?
(I am not arguing, I have no better explanation for this craziness myself.)
The biggest problem with leftist thought is its tendency to degenerate into paternalism. It's easy to see the antisemitism of a largely poor, uneducated group as "not their own fault"; they're a product of their upbringing and environment. To criticize them for being antisemitic is as unfair and pointless as to criticize a savage for, well, savagery. Under this worldview, what these antisemitic poor people need is love, education and a chance to better themselves; give them this, and the antisemitism would probably wither away (except for a few truly bad individuals, who it would then be perfectly legitimate to criticize).
By contrast the Nazis had no such excuse; the Germans were quite possibly the best-educated and most advanced nation in the world. Not to mention the way they put their antisemitism into practice.
1. As far as I can tell, this antisemitism thing is mainly from dictators that need an external enemy to hate. (A universal phenomenon in those countries -- and yes, using external enemies is not unique to dictators.) Just see how Iran motivates anything with attacks against Israel. The left wingers must KNOW what they are supporting!
2. Isn't it racism to accept so low standards for [mainly ethnic] groups and assume them to be unable to be responsible for their actions?!
3. This tolerance (of e.g. antisemitism) goes for Muslims living in Western Europe too, which hardly have these excuses. So it isn't coherent.
4. Why do the left accept the arguments and world view (re Israel), when they at the same time argues it comes from a bunch of illiterates that aren't responsible for their actions/opinions?
5. Should people with low education get lower punishments for crimes? Should they get no punishment if they can't read and don't understand the law?
6. Afaik, e.g. Iran has a quite large part educated of their population. [Also, that was a high culture thousands of years before my ancestors had writing.]
Etc, etc, etc.
(Still not arguing, fascinated. I have no clue what the Hell political believers on all sides are smoking -- I just want to live in a country without any of them.)
>As far as I can tell, this antisemitism thing is mainly from dictators that need an external enemy to hate. (A universal phenomenon in those countries -- and yes, using external enemies is not unique to dictators.) Just see how Iran motivates anything with attacks against Israel.
Dictators do use it, but it works because the population supports it. The people really do hate Israel and the Jews.
>2. Isn't it racism to accept so low standards for [mainly ethnic] groups and assume them to be unable to be responsible for their actions?!
Eh. Maybe. I suspect those who were bothered by this would argue that it's not about race, it's about socioeconomic status. That those of lower socioeconomic status need/deserve help that the rest of us don't is pretty much the core thesis of the left.
>3. This tolerance (of e.g. antisemitism) goes for Muslims living in Western Europe too, which hardly have these excuses.
Even in western europe, you're largely talking about a ghettoized underclass. There's not a lot of tolerance of antisemitism from e.g. serious academics (muslim or otherwise). The nouveau riche sometimes get away with it, but again they're being looked on with pity by the left, and it's assumed they got those attitudes in their early days.
>4. Why do the left accept the arguments and world view (re Israel), when they at the same time argues it comes from a bunch of illiterates that aren't responsible for their actions/opinions?
I don't think you see leftists following the same Jewish conspiracy theories as Iranian peasants. Many on the left do believe Israel shouldn't exist in its current form, simply because we don't think it was right for the UN to arbitrarily confiscate the land of a bunch of (largely) innocent Palestinians.
>5. Should people with low education get lower punishments for crimes? Should they get no punishment if they can't read and don't understand the law?
Speaking for myself, yes that should be taken into account. If you're asking about the orthodoxy, I think the left would object to the notion that the justice system should have anything to do with punishment; its goals should be the prevention of crime, which is served a little bit by deterrence, and much more by reform. If you're thinking about it in terms of preventing re-offending, an uneducated person probably needs to take more time before they're ready to re-enter society. Not that the current prison system is good at helping with that.
>6. Afaik, e.g. Iran has a quite large part educated of their population.
Not really AIUI. There's small a university-educated middle class in the capital, from whom we hear a disproportionate amount in the media because they're the ones who speak English. And these people are quite possibly less anti-semitic than the general population. Certainly the left would expect them to be.
A few days too late, sigh. If I had time then, I would have written this...
I really think the hypothesis "We hate everything the US do and all their close friends" fits better as an explanation for the left's double standards. (Even without considering the venom against equally uneducated right wing extremist idiots.)
Disclaimer -- I only know Sweden well, but similar positions are seen also in English.
Here the media are very left leaning and tend to straight out censor pro-Israeli news and negative information about Palestinians.
Swedish media never mentioned e.g. Pallywood and the same goes for news about torture between Palestinian groups. UN's Ban's recent Iran criticism in Teheran was mangled in the translation(!) -- that is quite typical.
And so on.
It is just hard to not see my local left wingers as propagandists in this question. Often even filled with hate.
(Swedish media is why I follow this subject, I grew up believing them -- and I'm totally disgusted by now. The Mid East is a good test of Swedish media.)
>>I think the left would object to the notion that the justice system should have anything to do with punishment; its goals should be the prevention of crime, which is served a little bit by deterrence, and much more by reform.
I know all about this -- Sweden. These are the questions that are never answered:
The left seriously argue against both the existence of game theory and the existence of uncurable psychopaths?
Is the left really aware of that many crime victims gets their lives destroyed?
>I really think the hypothesis "We hate everything the US do and all their close friends" fits better as an explanation for the left's double standards.
Shrug. It's possible. Obviously as someone who takes quite a lot of the leftist view I don't like that explanation.
>The left seriously argue against both the existence of game theory
Interestingly criminals tend not to take a rational approach to evaluating the risk of punishment (or else, their utility function is rather skewed). There's a wealth of evidence that longer prison sentences don't deter crime any more than short ones, and while the threat of prison has some deterrent effect, it's less efficient overall than e.g. community service (which has far better reoffending rates)
>and the existence of uncurable psychopaths?
While such people exist, a) they make up a tiny proportion of the current prison population b) prison, and "punishment" in general, is not really an appropriate way to deal with them. Some people genuinely do need to be kept out of society, but we can deal with those cases as a medical matter rather than crime and punishment.
>Is the left really aware of that many crime victims gets their lives destroyed?
You'll find a lot less sympathy for violent criminals than property crimes. Certainly the leftist position would be that, considering their overall life, a typical burglar is more in need of help from society than their typical victim, but I don't think that's so unreasonable. Certainly going by the obvious financial measure it's true.
As I wrote: Why no indignation AT ALL over the coldly planned destruction of Palestinian lives in the camps of Libanon, Syria, etc?! All other cases in WW I/II have been laid behind them by the victims, but this.
To the other arguments might be added that more Jews had to flee in the Middle East (including the West Bank 1948) than Palestinians 1948. Ethnic cleansing -- because of their religion, not in the middle of a dirty civil war...
Those Jews got most assets stolen, including multiple times larger area than Israel itself. Why is there no indignation at all?!
I could probably add more. But the previous two which the left ignores are at least as bad as anything Israel has done, even with the left's description of Israel.
I can't use any milder description than "disgusting double standards", especially if you add the non-criticism of state supported nazi hate propaganda...
Re crime:
>>There's a wealth of evidence that longer prison sentences don't deter crime any more than short ones
I've heard that sentence length is irrelevant since I started school, but... It seems just too close to other lies they fed us in Swedish school.
1. Is that measured for first time criminals only? It is a big step to risk jail.
2. To simplify, there are two types of criminals. The first are the idiots that drink beer on a Saturday and get in a knife fight and the second type consider and weigh for/against like any other entrepeneur. How is the sentence length sensitivity if you ignore things like drunks that knife each others?
3. Sentences have influence. A proof: If there was a death sentence for e.g. jay walking, not even I would do it (sober, see 2.). But -- I wouldn't jaywalk even if it was just one year in jail. In that way, there is no influence by sentence length -- is that how the claim is measured?
4. But certainly, psychopaths are not that influenced by punishment...
>>[psychopaths are a tiny part of the prison population and can be handled as a separate case]
Do you have a reference for the claim?
The figures I've seen (easy to google, from Hare afaik) say 20% of the US prison population, 50%(!) of all violent crime. That is hardly something minimal to just ignore...?!
>> a typical burglar is more in need of help from society than their typical victim
I know of a couple of females that were very, very upset over a burglary and had e.g. nerve problems and problems sleeping home for quite a while. I slept with a couple of knives for a couple of months.
I only know about Sweden. Afaik, there are two types of burglars:
- Hard drug users. The logical solution is not to give them short sentences if they aren't likely to have stopped the drugs -- for their own sake.
- International crime syndicates -- see type two above (entrepeneur).
There's certainly some element of not expecting much from poor arab states. Yes, we do hold Israel to a higher standard than its neighbours - because it's richer, because it's seen as an extension of the US, and because it advertises and makes much of its status as the only democracy in the region. And there's probably at least some element of racism, but I think it's less a case of "it's all the jews' fault" and more "these smart white folks have a burden the brown savages do not".
>All other cases in WW I/II have been laid behind them by the victims, but this.
My instinct is to lay that at the feet of religion. Two violently opposed religions claiming the same areas as important holy sites makes peace hard.
>1. Is that measured for first time criminals only? It is a big step to risk jail.
AIUI it's been tested across criminals in general, not just first time.
>2. To simplify, there are two types of criminals. The first are the idiots that drink beer on a Saturday and get in a knife fight and the second type consider and weigh for/against like any other entrepeneur. How is the sentence length sensitivity if you ignore things like drunks that knife each others?
The thing is, "crime doesn't pay" isn't just a slogan, it's actually true. So the kind of smart people who evaluate the consequences usually end up following a different career. The only place it seems to me that it might make a difference would be the kind of grey area tax avoidance/fraud schemes, where the person is going to argue that what they did isn't a crime at all. But I don't think there would be much support for harsher sentencing of crimes that were only just on the wrong side of the law.
>3. Sentences have influence. A proof: If there was a death sentence for e.g. jay walking, not even I would do it (sober, see 2.). But -- I wouldn't jaywalk even if it was just one year in jail. In that way, there is no influence by sentence length -- is that how the claim is measured?
AIUI studies mostly look at crimes for which the sentencing guidelines were changed, or where different regions sentence differently, or statistically compare criminals who were given different sentences for the same crime. Obviously none of these methods are perfect.
I'll defer to you on psychopaths.
>- Hard drug users. The logical solution is not to give them short sentences if they aren't likely to have stopped the drugs -- for their own sake.
But prison is no good at getting them off the drugs or stopping them reoffending, unless you're going to lock them up forever to rot; what would a long prison sentence achieve that a short one wouldn't? Medical treatment and community service give them a better chance than prison - though still not a great one - at being able to reintegrate into society.
>- International crime syndicates -- see type two above (entrepeneur).
AIUI most of the inherently illegal income for crime syndicates comes from drugs, but it's hard to see how heavier sentencing would damage that income. Street-level dealers are easily replaceable and it's a pretty crappy job already, I don't think longer prison sentences would damage their recruitment. The executives usually stand to lose all their money and lifestyle if they're ever convicted (proceeds of crime and all that); they're banking on paying the right bribes and/or never getting caught.
AIUI you missed a third category of burglar: the independent "professional" who burgles because they're poor and have no skills with which to get a job. But while these guys do a bit better than drug addicts in prison (sometimes they're able to get some kind of qualification there - which is pretty much the only case where spending a longer time in prison will help), community service sentences still give them a better chance of not returning to crime.
I have a hard time to take seriously excuses like "we have harder demands on democracies" together with no criticism of state supported Nazi race hatred.
It is just ridiculously large double standards.
A couple of more examples:
Syria was one of the world's worst police states long before the present turmoil -- many times worse treatment of its citizens than Israel, even with a Palestinian description. Syria is/was a big part of the Israeli conflict, so it is discussed when the conflict is discussed. The criticism of Syria from the left has been almost nil.
The Swedish left wing politics have existed for a bit more than a century. During that time, they have never supported a democracy against a dictator.
As I wrote, there are many more examples of this insanity.
The real reason for this lefty weirdness, is that foreign politics are treated as arguments for internal politics.
The problem is: with incoherent arguments, conspiracy theories and disgusting double standards -- why would anyone sane take the left seriously?
I seriously don't believe you consider so gigantic double standards as rational -- the modern difference is that they aren't for nobles/kings now...
Why do you try to defend double standards of a factor of (at least!) thousands? Do you have no intellectual integrity? Do you identify with the position, like football fans?
Re prison:
We have too different societal systems and prison implementations.
To a Swede, the US 19th century prison system looks both counterproductive and like a crime against humanity.
Sure -- you can make a good argument that a country with 30 times the Swedish population is impossible to control and manage; the problem size increases with the square of the population, or something.
Also, Sweden didn't have "real" criminal subcultures and organised crime syndicates until quite recently. And still don't have desperate people, except for drug users. An influencing factor might be that the police isn't functioning well (compared to most of the rest of Europe) and punishments are short, so crime-as-profession might be a better deal in Sweden.
But in general, if you make extraordinary claims, you need extraordinary proofs. To argue against mathematics (in this case, game theory and evolutionary biology) is an extraordinary claim.
Sure, humans have culture -- which is updated when the environment is updated. There is an obvious lag of at least decades, before the cultures change.
And it is easy to make proof of concept examples of punishments influencing crime (e.g. see previous re prison/death for jaywalking).
>But in general, if you make extraordinary claims, you need extraordinary proofs. To argue against mathematics (in this case, game theory and evolutionary biology) is an extraordinary claim.
To argue that humans (and criminals in particular) behave rationally is a far more extraordinary claim. I believe in using evidence over theory (much like in medicine - see the use of blood-thinning drugs after heart attacks) - and the (admittedly imperfect) evidence we have is that prison sentences are ineffective in preventing future crime.
I see you gave up defending thousands of times less criticism of brutal dictators and nazi racist hatred propaganda. (See previous examples if you want to touch that.)
There are afaik papers that discuss different evolutionary strategies for animals of different social status in groups. In some level, behaviour with so big influences on fitness generally makes sense in game theory.
It would be interesting to see support for the claims about sentence length not influencing behaviour? I've only heard claims, bever seen a good overview of the research. (As I wrote above, not or drunk idiots getting into fights.)
>> Yes, we do hold Israel to a higher standard than its neighbours
When I compare the volume of criticism from the left, I have to ask: How many thousands times more criticism is reasonable? For much, much less?
Compare with e.g. Sudan, which literally can be argued to be at least thousands of time worse -- and not only is it criticised less, the muslim world's shameful support isn't criticised.
What shocks me is that the left support (as in -- not calling out) state nazi propaganda. Public news media, children(!) tv. And so on.
Is it a new Ribentropp-Molotov nazi/left alliance!?
There are many more possible examples (some more in previous comments). I just can't see how you reasonably can argue your position here.
>>My instinct is to lay that at the feet of religion. Two violently opposed religions claiming the same areas as important holy sites makes peace hard.
You really don't think the permanency of the refugees' situation (and dictators' need for external enemies) have the large influence?
(Also, up to now, the Jewish side haven't been that religious.)
I'll take the rest later or tomorrow. (I am in Europe, the prisons and criminal subcultures are (still) very different here. At least in Sweden, no one needs to be a criminal to not starve. There are, simplified, two motivations for criminals: Drugs or a big car to impress stupid women with breast implants.)
>>Dictators do use [hate propaganda against external enemies], but it works because the population supports it. The people really do hate Israel and the Jews.
True afaik, but it could never be the same scale without the official sanctions and official media. Otherwise it would just be like racism against e.g. blacks http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_the_Arab_world
I'm sorry, but I just can't see this as anything but gigantic double standards.
An example before I run:
>>Many on the left do believe Israel shouldn't exist in its current form, simply because we don't think it was right for the UN to arbitrarily confiscate the land of a bunch of (largely) innocent Palestinians.
I don't know enough about the arguments re Palestine. I'll just note that there were lots of area changes after the world wars.
Palestine was hardly the worst (at a minimum, Karelia should be worse) -- but it is the only area where the subject is still problematic (well, there are some Japanese islands).
The reason that little area is still a big question is mainly because the Arab states refused to integrate the refugees of the civil war and destroy their lives. So the Palestinian refugees still remembers and hates.
Why have I never seen any criticism from the left of the Arab states for that?!
Agh, idealists... I seriously think they just hate everything that is supported by USA. (I don't know about other countries, but my local left wingers have never supported a democracy against a junta controlled place...)
Weakness and power does not count populations, and especially not population dispersed.
E.g A colonial power, like England that had a population of 30 million people, ruled colonies of 1 billion (and more) people 7-8 decades ago.
And it's not Israel vs every muslim country, it's mostly Israel vs the palestinians. Check any map of Palestinian territories, 1930 to present, to see which entity has more power. Or check a tally of casualties on both sides.
That said, it's not "racist hate propaganda" that left wing idealists accept. That's how Israel describes it (understandably). What they do accept is that other people can be right to protest against Israel, and that that does not automatically means "antisemitism" in the historical sense.
Believe it or not, the incredible harm (genocide) done by the Nazi's to jews, does not automatically translate to modern day Israel being on the right against it's neighbours, or generally in any possible conflict.
Continue reading about the expulsion of the Jews for religious reasons -- they had the same religion as the state religion of Israel, if you want more. That were a larger number than the Palestinians, which happened connected to a civil war.
>You seem to deny that antisemitism hate propaganda is prevalent in the Muslim world? This is well documented.
No, I deny:
1) that this is the kind of "antisemitism hate propaganda" that "left wing idealists" (in the western world) embrace.
2) That this "antisemitism hate propaganda" is even prevalent or has any consequence in the Muslim world. I _lived and worked_ in some muslim countries. They could not care less for this stuff. Some do believe it, but it's not like they act on it. Do you know how many people in the Bible Belt believe similar things?
>Continue reading about the expulsion of the Jews for religious reasons -- they had the same religion as the state religion of Israel, if you want more.
Well, I know about that. I'm from Europe, we like History there. Doesn't have to do with present day muslim-israel relation though.
Actually, did you know that in the 19th century (and before), when Jews were persecuted in Europe, Russia and such, they lived mighty fine alongside muslim populations in muslim countries?
FWIW, the majority of jews persecution has happened by Europeans, by far. Including the Nazi's of course. Muslim states don't even come close, and even then they don't do it for religious reasons, but for political ones (ie they are not against jewism but against the politics of the state of Israel).
(Oh, and another tibbit: pro WW-II, the US was also full of anti-Semitism propaganda).
Seriously, you repeatedly contradict already given Wikipedia links. Go discuss a subject you have less emotional connections to.
>> I _lived and worked_ in some muslim countries. They could not care less for this stuff.
From the pages I linked:
In 2008 A Pew Research Center survey found that negative views concerning Jews were most common in the three predominantly Arab nations polled, with 97% of Lebanese having unfavorable opinion of Jews, 95% in Egypt and 96% in Jordan.[60]
>>Some do believe it, but it's not like they act on it.
It is hard to act on hatred against people you threw out from your country long ago... :-)
>>Actually, did you know that in the 19th century (and before), when Jews were persecuted in Europe, Russia and such, they lived mighty fine alongside muslim populations in muslim countries?
Obviously I know more than you... or at least I'm honest and can read. Also in the page I LINKED re the 19th century:
>Seriously, you repeatedly contradict already given Wikipedia links.
Seriously, I doubt I contradict them, without actual examples. I speak from experience AND from readings on the matter.
That said, "Wikipedia links" are not exactly scholarly sources of history, especially without interpretation and understanding of what they mention. Better open some books.
E.g about:
"In 2008 A Pew Research Center survey found that negative views concerning Jews were most common in the three predominantly Arab nations polled, with 97% of Lebanese having unfavorable opinion of Jews, 95% in Egypt and 96% in Jordan.[60]"
So what? Methodology of the research? Funding of the research? Political views of the researches themselves (e.g some institute trying to validate western intervention in the area)? This doesn't sound very impartial: "The Pew Global Attitudes Project is a series of worldwide public-opinion surveys and reports aimed at understanding worldwide attitudes on various issues. The Project is chaired by former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright".
Plus, are the "negative views concerning jews" the same as the antisemitism propaganda (e.g "Jews, the people, are evil"), or like a political statement ("we hate what jews in Israel are doing").
In the cold war, a majority of Americans could say in a poll that they "hate Russians", but I wouldn't take that to mean that they hate russian people as such.
Make those questions, and don't assume everything written on the web or presented by some "impartial source" is the whole of the truth.
>Obviously I know more than you... or at least I'm honest and can read. Also in the page I LINKED re the 19th century:
You must have missed the part in the article that said:
"Arab antisemitism is believed to have expanded since the 19th century. (...) despite its restrictive nature, dhimmi status also afforded the "People of the Book" relative security against persecution and welfare most of the time—a protection that was missing for non-Christians in most of Europe until the institutionalization of equality under a secular idea of citizenship after the French Revolution—and allowed them to enjoy their respective religious laws and ways of life.".
Or: "For most of the past fourteen hundred years, according to Bernard Lewis, Arabs have not been antisemitic as the word is used in the West. In his view this is because, for the most part, Arabs are not Christians brought up on stories of Jewish deicide."
Long story short: they had it better in the muslim countries than in Europe, until it started getting worse since the 19th century.
As for the pogroms you list, you can find some everywhere. That doesn't mean it was the prevalent practice. Note for example the Damascus affair, which you list as an example of "muslim persecution":
"""The Damascus affair was an accusation of ritual murder and a blood libel against Jews in Damascus in 1840. On February 5, 1840, Franciscan Capuchin friar Father Thomas and his Greek servant were reported missing, never to be seen again. The Turkish governor and the French consul Ratti-Menton believed accusations of ritual murder and blood libel, as the alleged murder occurred before the Jewish Passover."""
Notice how the victims were Christians? Noticed how Damascus had a large christian population? Wondered if they are those that initiated the pogrom? Noticed how the Turkish governor AND the French consul believed the accusations?
>> did you know that in the 19th century (and before), when Jews were persecuted in Europe, Russia and such, they lived mighty fine alongside muslim populations in muslim countries?
Wikipedia gave in 30 seconds (in a link I already gave!) 20+ pogroms in the 19th century. You claim a "few" pogroms aren't much to be upset about:
>> As for the pogroms you list, you can find some everywhere. That doesn't mean it was the prevalent practice.
(Then you blame the Christians in Damascus for the pogroms there!!)
20+ pogroms is NOT "mighty fine"! You are writing dishonest propaganda.
You claim to be well read on the subject -- then question Wikipedia without specific complaints or even listing any reference supporting your claims!!
Re antisemitism, there are lots of facts on the Wikipedia links -- including islamic scholars and attitudes in Europe, which should be milder than in the Mid East.
This is about Sweden in the page I referenced twice: "A government study in 2006 estimated that 39% of the Muslim population, harbor strong and consistent antisemitic views."
But maybe they learned that from the Swedes?! :-)
And so on.
Bye, I can't take you seriously when I have to quote every damn word of wikipedia pages or you deny the content (well, you deny the content even when I quote it...)
>Wikipedia gave in 30 seconds (in a link I already gave!) 20+ pogroms in the 19th century.
Making a query and getting some numbers back fast does not equal knowledge on a subject.
>20+ pogroms is NOT "mighty fine"! You are writing dishonest propaganda.
Neither is knee-jerk reaction knowledge. Also, "propaganda" really? For which side, since I acknowledge the wrong-doings of all of them?
20+ pogroms, you say. What does that say in itself? Not much.
You have to measure the importance of those numbers, and put them in historical perspective.
Else, with the same "muslims in the 19th century were as bad as christian nations in treating jews, because they had 20+ pogroms" you could as easily come to the conclusion that the US is an antisemitic haven, what with: "From 1979 to 1989 the ADL recorded more than 9,617 anti-Semitic incidents, including 6,400 cases of vandalism, bombings and attempted bombings, arsons and attempted arsons, and cemetery desecrations. The tally peaked at 2,066 in 1994".
So, let's try QUALITATIVE inquiry, instead of mere numbers. Those 20+ pogroms, how severe where they and how long have they persisted? Were only muslim communities in those multi-cultural cities involved? How do they compare to the situation in Europe and Russia, that had HUNDREDS of pogroms for several centuries, some of very large scale, including the persecution of jews in Russia and the USSR and culminating in the Nazi's genocide?
Read more about the Damascus Affair:
>The Damascus affair occurred in 1840, when a French monk and his servant disappeared in Damascus. Immediately following, a charge of ritual murder was brought against a large number of Jews in the city including children who were tortured. The consuls of England, France and Germany as well as Ottoman authorities, Christians, Muslims and Jews all played a great role in this affair.
Do you see it being especially about muslim persecution? Jewish scholars and writers themselves write that for many centuries jews had it better in muslim countries than they did in Europe. E.g up until in the first part of 20th Century hundreds of thousands of Jews lived in Salonica in peace under ottoman muslim rule (they even called the place "mother of Israel").
Yes, you can find persecution in several cases. That doesn't mean it is at the same level as persecution of jews that was done by christians and christian countries.
>But maybe they learned that from the Swedes?! :-)
Why not? Sweden was a Nazi Germany ally. That Wikipedia calls their stance "neutrality" is beyond comprehension. Here's how they put it:
"Sweden maintained a position of neutrality during the second world war; as such, it acted as a major supplier of raw materials for Hitler's military, laundered the gold confiscated from Holocaust victims, and often failed to provide adequate asylum for refugees including the near-completely exterminated Norwegian Jews. Some Swedes even volunteered with the Waffen SS."
In general, Sweden has a long and convoluted history with the matter (heck, they even had an active eugenics program up until the seventies).
>Bye, I can't take you seriously when I have to quote every damn word of wikipedia pages or you deny the content (well, you deny the content even when I quote it...)
Please don't take Wikipedia as the Bible. Some of the stuff it has is neutralised to not offend anyone, and lacks substance. Other articles contain just the bare facts and numbers, and need interpretation (to be put into perspective) to make any sense.
Especially matters of history that involve politics is not the best domain for Wikipedia. It's far better as a reference for technical and pop culture issues.
Astract: You're a total troll and/or a dishonest propagandist.
It was fun to see your conspiracy theory dismissing the example I quoted from Wikipedia:
>>Sweden was a Nazi Germany ally.
39% of the Muslim immigrants support antisemitism in a poll because the Swedes are Nazis and taught them?!
FYI troll, the Nazis never got much votes in Sweden. (I am Swedish, that is why I used that example.)
Conspiracy theories like that only work in dictatorships, with controlled information. Is what you're used to?
You certainly also have insane conspiracy theories about the rest of the European examples in the Wikipedia link -- Holland, Germany, Norway, etc. (Don't bother to post them, I have enough embarrassing materials if I see you write some other time.)
>Astract: You're a total troll and/or a dishonest propagandist.
Yes, thank you for your deep reading comprehension and insight. I'm sure everybody reading our exchange will reach the same conclusion as you did.
>It was fun to see your conspiracy theory dismissing the example I quoted from Wikipedia:
Was conspiracy theory? I provided facts, you gave me back BS wikipedia quotes you didn't even know how to read.
You found "20+ pogroms in the arab countries" in a Wikipedia search and you thought that closed the deal: jews had it just as bad as they had it in Europe in the arab countries. Despite JEW SCHOLARS saying the opposite.
You keep maintaining that jews had it AS BAD with antisemitism in the muslim world pre 20th century (based on the "20+ pogroms" nugget you found).
Well, here's some QUALITATIVE opinion on the matter, from the VERY wikipedia page you quote:
= = = =
Claude Cahen[2] and Shelomo Dov Goitein[3] argue _against historic antisemitism in Muslim lands_, writing that discrimination practiced against non-Muslims was of general nature, and not targeted specifically at Jews. For these scholars, _antisemitism in Medieval Islam was local and sporadic rather than general and endemic_. For Goitein antisemitism was _not present at all_, and for Cahen it was _rarely_ present.
Bernard Lewis[5] writes that while Muslims have held negative stereotypes regarding Jews, throughout most of Islamic history _these stereotypes were not indicative of antisemitism_ because, unlike Christians, Muslims viewed Jews as objects of ridicule, not fear. He argues that Muslims did not attribute "cosmic evil" to Jews. In Lewis' view, it was _only in the late 19th century that movements first appeared among Muslims that can legitimately be described as antisemitic_.
Frederick M. Schweitzer and Marvin Perry state that there are mostly negative references to Jews in the Quran and Hadith, and that Islamic regimes treated Jews in degrading ways. Jews (and Christians) had the status of dhimmis. They state that _throughout much of history Christians treated Jews worse_, saying that _Jews in Christian lands were subjected to worse polemics, persecutions and massacres than under Muslim rule_.
= = = =
Surely, qualitative information is beyond your comprehension. Blissfully unaware that "information is not understanding".
And to top it, you are quick with typical knee-jerk ad hominen reactions "troll", "conspiracy theory" and such.
>FYI troll, the Nazis never got much votes in Sweden. (I am Swedish, that is why I used that example.)
They didn't get votes, bravo. That's so heroic. They just got a neutral stance and lots of cooperation.
Whereas my country, for one, told them to sod off, defeated the italian fascist army, lost by the German army with lots of casualties and still had a large armed resistance movement while under occupation. Oh, and some hundred thousands of people died from famine --plus some thousands were killed in mass civilians executions from the Nazi's to avenge the local resistance.
Another comment, two days later... I will assume you're not a troll and try to educate you.
To rehash:
You deny all the documentation for widespread antisemitism in the Muslim world - like schoolbooks(!), TV programs, other official media, presidents(!), religious scholars, documented transfer of antisemitism from the 3rd Reich, etc, etc.
Your only counterargument is a claim about personal experience!
My pain limit was your conspiracy theory that 39% of Muslims in Sweden were antisemitic in 2006 because: The Swedes are Nazis and taught the immigrants antisemitism in less than a generation!.
Advice:
There are lots of facts I don't like, "batista". But I don't sell out my intellectual integrity and start lying to deny them. I have some f-ing dignity!
If you want to argue on this subject, instead note that racism were common in Europe until modern times -- it is a phase which hopefully the Muslim world will leave, when their dictators are gone.
Please stop both lying and being a drag on HN quality.
You ignored my single point in the short GP comment.
I wrote: "39% of the Muslim immigrants support antisemitism in a poll because the Swedes are Nazis and taught them?!"
You didn't retract that, you just wrote lots of other text (and attacked Sweden of 65+ years ago!)
that it is just bad propaganda and/or trolling. That stupidity was enough, I have nothing more to say to you, troll.
(As I wrote, it would be fun to copy/paste statistics from other countries to see more of your conspiracy theories -- since you ignore references if I don't copy/paste the content -- but it is enough.)
> why do left wing people have much less problems with the quite common Muslim antisemitism, than with Nazi antisemitism?
I think you may be a bit confused. Muslims living in the Middle East aren't antiSemitic (unless they hate themselves). They may or may not be anti-Israeli, but it's a little simplistic to describe them as antiSemitic, since the're in large part Semitic themselves.
Nazis were really antiSemitic in the classic sense (against Jews). This is a difficult label to apply to people who are racially nearly identical to the Semites in Israel.
All I am saying is the problems of the Middle East don't fit into simple categories.
> As other comments have noted, he has criticized Christianity more than Islam.
Yes -- probably more to avoid what befell Salman Rushdie than any deeper goal.
Edit: I have seen others dismiss racist hatred with an attempt at linguistics, but happily seldom on HN. Where do you guys pick up this kind of "argument"? Seriously, checking your links you're obviously smarter and more educated than most people I've ever met.
> Edit: I have seen others dismiss racist hatred with an attempt at linguistics
Why is that surprising? Racist hatred often arises from ignorance and confusion, and there's plenty of ignorance and confusion about the meaning of words. Examining word usage is an obvious starting point.
> Where do you guys pick up this kind of "argument"?
It's called fighting fire with fire. Racists tend to be ignorant of the group they hate, and they also tend to ignorant of the various meanings of words. And "antiSemite" is a classic example of a word that's tortured until it means anything.
I seriously expected you to say something like "Ah, I hadn't checked the dictionaries and repeated what I read in article X". I wanted to find out what X was. :-(
>>Examining word usage is an obvious starting point.
>>It's called fighting fire with fire
So you are consciously lyi... redefining the dictionary and do logical jumps through hoops, to get out the opinion you consider "good". :-(
>>Racists
So, all means are OK that attacks the racist enemy in your own social group? Even trying to define away racism in other groups -- presumably so there won't be a negative view of them because of their racism?
If that excusing of racism in your attacks on racism wasn't such pathetic Orwellian double-think, it would be funny.
Anyway, thanks for the honesty -- if it really was honesty and not another trick.
(My internal monologue right now is: "Grumble, must shower; I feel dirty when people sell out their intellectual integrity. Seriously, the left wing extremists are as crazy as the US right wing extremists.")
Islam gets called out more often because it does more damage.
Surely countries ruled by Christians are currently doing more damage, Islamic run countries haven't generally tried to militarily invade and impose governments on any major christian run ones in a while, unless I am not following the news enough.
I'm in some sympathy with the OP's idea that skepticism can be a shield against criticism of one's own prejudices, but when calling out the prejudices of particular skeptics, he seems to rely a great deal on extrapolation.
The OP's abandonment of skepticism does not seem to have turned him into a nice guy.
This issue is much easier to resolve than by way of the thousands of words the article's author used.
What a layman calls "skepticism", a scientist called the "null hypothesis." The null hypothesis says that an idea with no supporting evidence is assumed to be false. So in science, and to a skeptic, until there's evidence, there's no justification for taking an idea seriously.
To someone not trained in science (the "sheep"), an idea is true until there's contrary evidence. To a scientist (the "goat") by contrast, an idea is false util there's supporting evidence.
A sheep believes in Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster, and UFO visitations only because these ideas haven't been disproven, but they cannot be disproven -- that would require proof of a negative, an impossible evidentiary burden. This explains most of the really weird things people believe.
The remedy is skepticism, a healthy intellectual posture that awaits evidence. That's why I'm still a skeptic.
Fair enough, but I think (a) skeptics aren't necessarily a group, and (b) perhaps skeptics should stand up and be counted as individuals. This view might not seem important in a society in which religious True Believers keep to themselves, or evolution deniers don't form their own political movements and try to change what's taught in school, but we don't live in that society.
Pollsters regularly tally up voting blocs based on the views people are willing to express -- like the religious, and like those who reject a scientific outlook. If skeptics don't ever speak up, society might miss the fact that the outlook even exists.
The problem is that people who are uncritically accepting stuff they have no actual proof for, yet who see themselves as skeptics, are able to convince themselves that they are merely engaged in rational thought when they are not.
As an example I offer http://www.amazon.com/The-Moral-Landscape-Science-Determine/... by Sam Harris. Absolutely none of his moral claims make any sense without first accepting parts of his moral view that he fails to even question. In fact he uses an unquantified quantity called "well being" as justification for his theory. Yet the only scientifically supported definition for well being for living things is "evolutionarily successful". And by that measure, being religious and scientifically ignorant is very good for you!
Yet his reasoning is utterly compelling to himself, Richard Dawkins, and many other "skeptics".
In the "sexist bastards" section, his train of thought appears to be implying something like: Randall Monroe expressing a sexual preference for nerdy girls in his web comic is not much different than forcing a woman to wear a burka.
How do people (who basically agree with this article) evaluate the rationality movement?
My limited experiences reading mostly lesswrong.com lead me to think they avoid many of these problems. I have no idea whether they actively try to counter institutional sexism, Islamophobia, neoliberalism, etc; but at least I've seen little-to-nothing so far which actively reinforces these problems either. (But I'm not deeply acquainted with them.) Strikes me as a very healthy alternative to these skepticists in the article. Focusses a lot on introspection and effective action, rather than attacking others.
Not my experience at all. lesswrong as a community is rife with sexism, and takes a very strongly neoliberal position on ethical questions. I'm not sure about Islam specifically (if anything there seems to be a lot more hate for Christianity, largely from posters who have had unpleasant personal experiences with it), but there's quite a lot of angrily (as opposed to rationally) anti-religious sentiment there too. I mostly avoid that community these days.
>Science has a high media profile and a powerful lobby group: in the midst of a global recession and sweeping government cuts, science funding has generally held up or even increased
Perhaps science funding has held up because science was fricking responsible for the economy booming for the last 500 fricking years? E.g. The Internet that he posted his blog on.
Maybe it just might help the economy come out of recession? Science works because it delivers and the funding is there because people know that.
Then please don't comment. It's considered customary not to discuss something you haven't thoroughly read; you're practically advertising that your comment adds nothing to the discussion.
Presumably, the commenter I replied to was able to read this part, since it comes just before the line they quoted:
In the modern world, science, technology and reason are central and vital, and this is widely recognised
So I don't see how you can say that anything was buried.
Also, to disengage as a reader is one thing. To take the time to then comment on what one hasn't read, misstating the author's point-of-view and encouraging others not to read, on the basis of one's own lazy misunderstanding, is just wilfully spreading ignorance.
The author did not, by definition, bury the lede. It was an overall well-written, and mostly well-argued, 30-minute read. That may be greater than your current attention span, but you shouldn't presume that it's wasting anyone else's time.
Burying the lede is applicable to journalism, this is an essay. It is not a news report about some singular pertinent factoid that can somehow be buried. And if you want to count yourself as a reader whose time has been wasted, then spend time reading the thing, so that your complaint can then make some kind of sense.
As far as I can tell about the blog comment: Some left wing guy do personal attacks.
The post was from 2011 -- I thought most left wing people had stopped claiming evolutionary psychology was like frenology from racist right wingers? Especially after this:
The "skeptics" seem to have one objective: offend anyone who has any form of religion.
Or take the Lance Armstrong case, some "skeptics" were saying if you believe he doped you are "anti-science" because his exams never came back positive.
What a bunch of idiots. Modern tests detected evidence of blood manipulation.
So in a sense "skeptics" are just like the religious anti-scientific crowd, but saying "blah blah science" instead of
"blah blah religion". But guess what, they don't know enough about science to say that.
Two specific laws were passed in Britain in the last 25 years outlawing FGM. Yet there has not been one conviction. A report recently pointed out that there may be as many as 100,000 victims. http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2012/05/14/female-genital-mut...
Feminists have remained virtually silent on this matter for the past decade or two. The only person to mount a campaign on it is the novelist Ruth Rendell.
When the female "Equalities Minister" recently appeared on the BBC's premiere news programme defending the status quo (along with a muslim man), it was an array of young muslim women accusing the authorities of racism and sexism in not bringing prosecutions.
It really is an appalling state of affairs. And in the last 20 years, FGM has barely been mentioned by British media. I would guess that the total number of stories in the last decade is no more than 20.
When I've brought the issue up with socialist feminists they claim that it is racist to get involved.
So, I think Dawkins has a point. And from my observations of Dawkins he seems to be far more concerned to offend christians than muslims.