"Toying with life? Do you mean like what we do with vaccines that stop disease, medicines that cure, or plant breeding that feeds the world? "
To a certain extent (and lesser or greater depending on which item I'm addressing), yes. But if I'm supposed to play along and blindly accept that those you listed are universally "good" (rather than themselves having unforeseen consequences), I'd argue that there is a big difference between the aurochs story and all of those items (with the exception that in recent times we've begun creating new species of plants).
"Jurassic Park was a good movie, but a parable? My arse!"
Well if you shout it, it must be true!
"Why is it that so many movies have some mad scientists killing people with their crazed experiments"
They needn't be "mad".
"but you never see the movie about people starving to death or succumbing to preventable/curable diseases because the scientists didn't do the research?"
Because artists tend to make metaphors that are simpler than the subjects of their metaphors? I don't know. I'm not a filmmaker, not my problem. If you want to see that film, make it happen. But that doesn't change the fact that Jurassic Park—as a metaphor for extreme intervention into the life and death of species, in any way—does provide some insight into the dangers of that practice.
"Norman Borlaug"
Perhaps without his work the Mexican economy wouldn't have been so vulnerable to "free trade", disrupting fewer small-scale farmers and relegating less of the Mexican economy to export for increasingly concentrated profits? We'd perhaps see fewer Mexicans displaced as a consequence of this, and maybe even a less potent anti-immigrant sentiment in the US as a consequence of that. But it's hard to know, no one can predict alternate realities too accurately.
"Edward Jenner"
Hard to say. But you'll note that I set vaccinations aside in my earlier response, pointing out that this is a wholly different class of "toying with life" than I meant when discussing the invention and introduction of whole new species.
"It's a fucking cow, for chrissakes, and a big one. We're not talking weirdo Eurasian frogs in or some strange aquatic algae."
Any species can be invasive when placed into habitats in which it didn't evolve. The pseudo-aurochs in question never evolved anywhere, they never existed. Introducing them into any habitat can have unforeseen consequences.
"At worst it might be competition for any other Eurasian wild bovines (not that there are a lot of those left anywhere)."
Or any other large mammals, or quite a lot of smaller mammals.
"But this beasty has only been extinct about 400 or 500 years, and is close enough to megafauna that I doubt anything has really filled its shoes, except for all the domestic animals we've put there."
You're making my point here. If nothing *has* filled its place, its place may no longer exist. Introducing it to take its place will disrupt the habitat which has since adjusted to its absence.
Not in the sense meant. It was meant as a secular version of the phrase "playing god", which still carries its meaning in its secular form. That is, in no sense, a definition of "life".
It's not inconceivable that the differences between the missing 1% and that 1% taken from domestic cattle would lead a species which would otherwise integrate with its habitat to become invasive or destructive. It's also not inconceivable that it would weaken the species and lead to its eventual re-extinction. It's also not inconceivable that there's all sorts of other possibilities no one will consider before doing it.
Jurassic Park needn't be taken literally for it to be a good parable about why we should be concerned that toying with life and death can have unforeseen consequences.
Even today, all nations with the exception of the USA are lined up against the tiny nation of Israel.
Untrue, and it doesn't mean what you seem to imply. If anything, the US is in a much greater position of influence to lead the Jews in Palestine down a path of destruction; support for Zionism is not support for Jews, and opposition to Zionism is not opposition to Jews.
The problem of Jerusalem seems to be insoluble.
The problem of Jerusalem is astonishingly easy to solve. It is, has been, and will continue to be an international city valued highly bymany peoples. This can be recognized and protected by those who have a vested interest in it. If there is no solitary ownership nor conflicted division of Jerusalem, the problem vanishes. All this requires is an agreement among the interested parties to protect against attempts to dominate Jerusalem.
At some point, world leaders will say that peace has been achieved. That is the time after which war will suddenly break out. This was predicted thousands of years ago by the Apostle Paul in his letter to the Thessalonians.
1Thessalonians 5:3 For when they shall say, Peace and safety! Then sudden destruction comes on them, as travail upon a woman with child. And they shall not escape.
By looking at history, it is very evident that humans are incapable of lasting peace.
The passage doesn't address humans, it addresses leaders, as you correctly noted before quoting it. How then does it allow us to draw conclusions of the capabilities of humans? If, indeed, we are being sold snake oil, we can reject it.
How would you propose I provide valid citation that demonstrates that I have researched the subject matter being discussed? I didn't make any factual claims besides that.
It would seem to disagree if you begin by begging the question—that is, if your assumption, entering into examining the US-Israel relationship, is that the US disagrees with Israel but finds itself helpless to resist engaging in behavior it disagrees with against its will...
The US often vetos security council resolutions on Israel's behalf.
Right. Because the US supports Israel's position on those matters, and Israel has no veto of its own in the UNSC. Otherwise they would cease to protect Israel diplomatically; this is a voluntary act.
Israel is receiving more money from the US than any country receives from any other for any reason whatsoever.
Right. Because the US supports Israel's use of that assistance. (It's worth noting that, contrary to the popular perception that US aid to Israel is entirely out of step with any other foreign aid regime, Egypt receives more than 70% the amount of aid from the US that Israel does: $1.795B versus $2.52B. Likewise, the US supports Egypt's use of that assistance.) Otherwise they would withdraw their aid; this is a voluntary act.
Israel has frequently criticized US policy when it's not supportive enough, but the reverse is almost never true.
Right. While Israel's only recourse in a disagreement is to complain verbally, the US can show its approval or disapproval of Israeli actions by advancing or withdrawing material and moral support, upon which Israel depends.
Also, anecdotally, there's Ariel Sharon's comment
So far as I can find, there is no evidence that this really took place. Nonetheless, what the gasbag Sharon may or may not have said has no bearing on what reality is. The US controls the purse, the pen and the sword in its relationship with Israel. Israel has political sway, but nothing to back it up. Many other states favored by the US have fallen out of grace from the US perspective in the past, based on their inability or refusal to toe the US line (think, Iraq and Panama for starters) or when they have become to expensive a liability (think Indonesia or South Africa).
All one needs to do to know the real motivations behind US support for Israel is to look at the actual history and what sets Israel apart. US support took off in 1967 when Israel proved an effective counter-weight to the combined might of the Arab states. Israel's might combined with its cultural makeup and solidarity (as distinguished from that of the Middle East generally), like Turkey's and India's (and not long ago, Iran's), makes Israel a natural ally in serving to keep the region in check. When Egypt got on board with US goals, they joined the party. Saudi Arabia as well. Jordan as well. Israel just happens to be a "perfect storm", so to speak, as far as naturally fitting into US goals.
But make no mistake... if Israel not only convinces itself that the tail wags the dog, but begins to act on that, the US will (and does) withdraw.
Sounds like someone assumes I didn't do research just because I didn't publish my full comprehension of, and reflection on, that research in a one-off Slashdot comment. Or it sounds like someone assumes that I'd come to the same conclusions as them from said research, presumably based upon "motivations, cultural and political differences between the nations[sic]".
That's the problem with metaphors. They tend to be pretty inconsistent. Anyway, I agree that, as far as the metaphor goes, it should not be moved back. Even if they're basing it entirely on temperament rather than substantive conditions—for fucks sake, the US is out-of-hand rejecting North Korean offers to negotiate for a full peace treaty—I find it highly questionable to claim that the temperament in the world today is any better than it was in recent years. In fact, it seems to be growing worse.
Unfortunately, the phrase "perception is reality" goes much further. Its connotation is not only that your perception shapes the reality you experience, but that your perception shapes the reality experienced collectively.
In other words, moving back into context...
Hilary Clinton's words toward China engender a perception that the US is taking action against China's human rights abuses. The US population—that is, the world's dominant population, perception being reality—objects to China's human rights abuses, and expects to see action taken against them. Were no action taken—that is, no words spoken to that effect by the US State Department Secretary—the expectation that action is being taken will not have been met, and the perception would be, instead, that a real problem is taking place in China regarding that state's human rights record, and that real action must be taken.
In other words, by failing to pay lip service to human rights, the US government would be obligating itself to either promote, appease, or genuinely combat Chinese human rights abuses. The reality shifts as does the perception, and the whole of US policy toward China along with it.
You should have let your first line stand on its own.
"Well, that might be carrying things a bit far, panic being in some sense antithetical to reason."
Here you've undermined the important message of your first line. Reason doesn't necessarily mean sitting down and calmly thinking dispassionately through matters. It means determining appropriate responses and applying them. Sometimes panic is the appropriate response, and how is applying it antithetical to reason? That doesn't mean throwing caution to the wind and letting panic run roughshod over all other critical thought, but recognizing that panic is an appropriate response to dire circumstances.
"I'm referring here to our economy, mind you, not the world of economic make-believe known as Wall Street"
There's little else constituting our economy besides the make-believe. The make-believe saw to that by replacing functioning economic activity with global corporate activity wherever possible in the last 75 years (particularly the last 20 years).
"I'm sympathetic, actually--extricating ourselves from Chinese policy will be difficult and perhaps impossible. Either way, we're in for some serious consequences, many which I'd like to avoid."
Given the choice of consequences, letting the make-believe run its course (and that *does* drive our relationship with China) seems to be considerably worse than stopping it in its tracks.
Don't get me wrong, that'll never happen anyway. Even with a concerted effort to the contrary, the inertia of an increasingly irrelevant US is enough to keep us bound to China for the foreseeable future.
It's important, when discussing motives and targets as justification for action, to keep in mind that... if we take these claims of motives and targeting at face value, we learn that Israel's apparently pristine record of motives (self-defense) and targets (only combatants) has a much greater toll on innocent civilians than Palestinians' apparently nefarious motives (wanton violence) and targets (civilians).
For all the gnashing of teeth about Palestinian terrorism, the list of things Israel has done (apparently with the best of intentions) that Palestinians have not done is tremendous:
- In 1948, Israel destroyed the Palestinian society, driving out more than half of its population. - From 1948 to 1967, Israel ruled those Palestinians who were not driven out of its borders as second-class citizens under a military regime. - To present, those Palestinians are subjected to many discriminatory practices. - Since 1967, Israel has ruled all Palestinians outside its recognized borders as non-citizens under a military regime. - Since 1967, Israel has continually colonized land and natural resources (particularly water, nearly all of which in the Occupied Territories is under Israeli control, dispensed far disproportionately in favor of Israeli colonists), and destroyed the livelihood of thousands of Palestinians (farmland, shops) - Israel employs a discriminatory building code regime which allows Israelis to build on Palestinian land but consistently bars Palestinians from the same; moreover, Israel destroys the homes of friends and family members of suspected terrorists. - In 1967, Israel expelled a further 250,000 people from the West Bank - Israel has maintained a brutal blockade on Gaza (and to a lesser but growing extent, the West Bank) for years
This is in no way an exhaustive list, and it only deals with Israeli offenses against Palestinian civilians *outside the heat of war* (where you have exempted Israel for responsibility for their harm to civilians in the comment I'm responding to). In the heat of war, where Israel apparently has such pristine motives and Palestinians apparently have such nefarious ones, the toll is consistent with the details above. Palestinian civilians are killed, conservatively, three to ten times as often as Israeli civilians.
Insofar as we are to decry the toll suffered by civilians, I think the conclusion is clear: counter-insurgency warfare (being, as it is, an extension of imperial/colonial policy generally) is substantially more harmful and destructive and inhumane than disorganized guerilla warfare (or terrorism). Put another way, if the claims about motives and targets are to be believed, both sides are failing miserably to achieve their goals, Israelis in particular being woefully incompetent. SInce Israel is such a competent military power, I think the claims don't stand up to scrutiny.
Slashdot Mirror
"Toying with life? Do you mean like what we do with vaccines that stop disease, medicines that cure, or plant breeding that feeds the world? "
To a certain extent (and lesser or greater depending on which item I'm addressing), yes. But if I'm supposed to play along and blindly accept that those you listed are universally "good" (rather than themselves having unforeseen consequences), I'd argue that there is a big difference between the aurochs story and all of those items (with the exception that in recent times we've begun creating new species of plants).
"Jurassic Park was a good movie, but a parable? My arse!"
Well if you shout it, it must be true!
"Why is it that so many movies have some mad scientists killing people with their crazed experiments"
They needn't be "mad".
"but you never see the movie about people starving to death or succumbing to preventable/curable diseases because the scientists didn't do the research?"
Because artists tend to make metaphors that are simpler than the subjects of their metaphors? I don't know. I'm not a filmmaker, not my problem. If you want to see that film, make it happen. But that doesn't change the fact that Jurassic Park—as a metaphor for extreme intervention into the life and death of species, in any way—does provide some insight into the dangers of that practice.
"Norman Borlaug"
Perhaps without his work the Mexican economy wouldn't have been so vulnerable to "free trade", disrupting fewer small-scale farmers and relegating less of the Mexican economy to export for increasingly concentrated profits? We'd perhaps see fewer Mexicans displaced as a consequence of this, and maybe even a less potent anti-immigrant sentiment in the US as a consequence of that. But it's hard to know, no one can predict alternate realities too accurately.
"Edward Jenner"
Hard to say. But you'll note that I set vaccinations aside in my earlier response, pointing out that this is a wholly different class of "toying with life" than I meant when discussing the invention and introduction of whole new species.
"It's a fucking cow, for chrissakes, and a big one. We're not talking weirdo Eurasian frogs in or some strange aquatic algae."
Any species can be invasive when placed into habitats in which it didn't evolve. The pseudo-aurochs in question never evolved anywhere, they never existed. Introducing them into any habitat can have unforeseen consequences.
"At worst it might be competition for any other Eurasian wild bovines (not that there are a lot of those left anywhere)."
Or any other large mammals, or quite a lot of smaller mammals.
"But this beasty has only been extinct about 400 or 500 years, and is close enough to megafauna that I doubt anything has really filled its shoes, except for all the domestic animals we've put there."
You're making my point here. If nothing *has* filled its place, its place may no longer exist. Introducing it to take its place will disrupt the habitat which has since adjusted to its absence.
Not in the sense meant. It was meant as a secular version of the phrase "playing god", which still carries its meaning in its secular form. That is, in no sense, a definition of "life".
It's not inconceivable that the differences between the missing 1% and that 1% taken from domestic cattle would lead a species which would otherwise integrate with its habitat to become invasive or destructive. It's also not inconceivable that it would weaken the species and lead to its eventual re-extinction. It's also not inconceivable that there's all sorts of other possibilities no one will consider before doing it.
Jurassic Park needn't be taken literally for it to be a good parable about why we should be concerned that toying with life and death can have unforeseen consequences.
I use ProFont 9px on my 1680x1050 display and it's fantastic. I get 70 lines of code on screen, between the chrome.
Untrue, and it doesn't mean what you seem to imply. If anything, the US is in a much greater position of influence to lead the Jews in Palestine down a path of destruction; support for Zionism is not support for Jews, and opposition to Zionism is not opposition to Jews.
The problem of Jerusalem is astonishingly easy to solve. It is, has been, and will continue to be an international city valued highly bymany peoples. This can be recognized and protected by those who have a vested interest in it. If there is no solitary ownership nor conflicted division of Jerusalem, the problem vanishes. All this requires is an agreement among the interested parties to protect against attempts to dominate Jerusalem.
The passage doesn't address humans, it addresses leaders, as you correctly noted before quoting it. How then does it allow us to draw conclusions of the capabilities of humans? If, indeed, we are being sold snake oil, we can reject it.
How would you propose I provide valid citation that demonstrates that I have researched the subject matter being discussed? I didn't make any factual claims besides that.
It would seem to disagree if you begin by begging the question—that is, if your assumption, entering into examining the US-Israel relationship, is that the US disagrees with Israel but finds itself helpless to resist engaging in behavior it disagrees with against its will...
Right. Because the US supports Israel's position on those matters, and Israel has no veto of its own in the UNSC. Otherwise they would cease to protect Israel diplomatically; this is a voluntary act.
Right. Because the US supports Israel's use of that assistance. (It's worth noting that, contrary to the popular perception that US aid to Israel is entirely out of step with any other foreign aid regime, Egypt receives more than 70% the amount of aid from the US that Israel does: $1.795B versus $2.52B. Likewise, the US supports Egypt's use of that assistance.) Otherwise they would withdraw their aid; this is a voluntary act.
Right. While Israel's only recourse in a disagreement is to complain verbally, the US can show its approval or disapproval of Israeli actions by advancing or withdrawing material and moral support, upon which Israel depends.
So far as I can find, there is no evidence that this really took place. Nonetheless, what the gasbag Sharon may or may not have said has no bearing on what reality is. The US controls the purse, the pen and the sword in its relationship with Israel. Israel has political sway, but nothing to back it up. Many other states favored by the US have fallen out of grace from the US perspective in the past, based on their inability or refusal to toe the US line (think, Iraq and Panama for starters) or when they have become to expensive a liability (think Indonesia or South Africa).
All one needs to do to know the real motivations behind US support for Israel is to look at the actual history and what sets Israel apart. US support took off in 1967 when Israel proved an effective counter-weight to the combined might of the Arab states. Israel's might combined with its cultural makeup and solidarity (as distinguished from that of the Middle East generally), like Turkey's and India's (and not long ago, Iran's), makes Israel a natural ally in serving to keep the region in check. When Egypt got on board with US goals, they joined the party. Saudi Arabia as well. Jordan as well. Israel just happens to be a "perfect storm", so to speak, as far as naturally fitting into US goals.
But make no mistake... if Israel not only convinces itself that the tail wags the dog, but begins to act on that, the US will (and does) withdraw.
I don't think you know what citation means.
Sounds like someone assumes I didn't do research just because I didn't publish my full comprehension of, and reflection on, that research in a one-off Slashdot comment. Or it sounds like someone assumes that I'd come to the same conclusions as them from said research, presumably based upon "motivations, cultural and political differences between the nations[sic]".
That's the problem with metaphors. They tend to be pretty inconsistent. Anyway, I agree that, as far as the metaphor goes, it should not be moved back. Even if they're basing it entirely on temperament rather than substantive conditions—for fucks sake, the US is out-of-hand rejecting North Korean offers to negotiate for a full peace treaty—I find it highly questionable to claim that the temperament in the world today is any better than it was in recent years. In fact, it seems to be growing worse.
Who cares what state we leave the world in for future generations. Amirite?
I'll skip the rest of it, but... we don't dance to Israel's song. Other way around.
Oh, it's a game with rules. It's just that the rules are unspoken and become more complex whenever discovered.
Unfortunately, the phrase "perception is reality" goes much further. Its connotation is not only that your perception shapes the reality you experience, but that your perception shapes the reality experienced collectively.
In other words, moving back into context...
Hilary Clinton's words toward China engender a perception that the US is taking action against China's human rights abuses. The US population—that is, the world's dominant population, perception being reality—objects to China's human rights abuses, and expects to see action taken against them. Were no action taken—that is, no words spoken to that effect by the US State Department Secretary—the expectation that action is being taken will not have been met, and the perception would be, instead, that a real problem is taking place in China regarding that state's human rights record, and that real action must be taken.
In other words, by failing to pay lip service to human rights, the US government would be obligating itself to either promote, appease, or genuinely combat Chinese human rights abuses. The reality shifts as does the perception, and the whole of US policy toward China along with it.
You should have let your first line stand on its own.
"Well, that might be carrying things a bit far, panic being in some sense antithetical to reason."
Here you've undermined the important message of your first line. Reason doesn't necessarily mean sitting down and calmly thinking dispassionately through matters. It means determining appropriate responses and applying them. Sometimes panic is the appropriate response, and how is applying it antithetical to reason? That doesn't mean throwing caution to the wind and letting panic run roughshod over all other critical thought, but recognizing that panic is an appropriate response to dire circumstances.
"I'm referring here to our economy, mind you, not the world of economic make-believe known as Wall Street"
There's little else constituting our economy besides the make-believe. The make-believe saw to that by replacing functioning economic activity with global corporate activity wherever possible in the last 75 years (particularly the last 20 years).
"I'm sympathetic, actually--extricating ourselves from Chinese policy will be difficult and perhaps impossible. Either way, we're in for some serious consequences, many which I'd like to avoid."
Given the choice of consequences, letting the make-believe run its course (and that *does* drive our relationship with China) seems to be considerably worse than stopping it in its tracks.
Don't get me wrong, that'll never happen anyway. Even with a concerted effort to the contrary, the inertia of an increasingly irrelevant US is enough to keep us bound to China for the foreseeable future.
But do the carpets match the drapes?
I wouldn't admit to sleeping with Slick Willie though. Eughhhh.
There's plenty of reasons besides taste to admit to sleeping with Hilary Rodham Clinton.
I would.
DNA evidence?
But he should really watch out for doubles.
It's important, when discussing motives and targets as justification for action, to keep in mind that... if we take these claims of motives and targeting at face value, we learn that Israel's apparently pristine record of motives (self-defense) and targets (only combatants) has a much greater toll on innocent civilians than Palestinians' apparently nefarious motives (wanton violence) and targets (civilians).
For all the gnashing of teeth about Palestinian terrorism, the list of things Israel has done (apparently with the best of intentions) that Palestinians have not done is tremendous:
- In 1948, Israel destroyed the Palestinian society, driving out more than half of its population.
- From 1948 to 1967, Israel ruled those Palestinians who were not driven out of its borders as second-class citizens under a military regime.
- To present, those Palestinians are subjected to many discriminatory practices.
- Since 1967, Israel has ruled all Palestinians outside its recognized borders as non-citizens under a military regime.
- Since 1967, Israel has continually colonized land and natural resources (particularly water, nearly all of which in the Occupied Territories is under Israeli control, dispensed far disproportionately in favor of Israeli colonists), and destroyed the livelihood of thousands of Palestinians (farmland, shops)
- Israel employs a discriminatory building code regime which allows Israelis to build on Palestinian land but consistently bars Palestinians from the same; moreover, Israel destroys the homes of friends and family members of suspected terrorists.
- In 1967, Israel expelled a further 250,000 people from the West Bank
- Israel has maintained a brutal blockade on Gaza (and to a lesser but growing extent, the West Bank) for years
This is in no way an exhaustive list, and it only deals with Israeli offenses against Palestinian civilians *outside the heat of war* (where you have exempted Israel for responsibility for their harm to civilians in the comment I'm responding to). In the heat of war, where Israel apparently has such pristine motives and Palestinians apparently have such nefarious ones, the toll is consistent with the details above. Palestinian civilians are killed, conservatively, three to ten times as often as Israeli civilians.
Insofar as we are to decry the toll suffered by civilians, I think the conclusion is clear: counter-insurgency warfare (being, as it is, an extension of imperial/colonial policy generally) is substantially more harmful and destructive and inhumane than disorganized guerilla warfare (or terrorism). Put another way, if the claims about motives and targets are to be believed, both sides are failing miserably to achieve their goals, Israelis in particular being woefully incompetent. SInce Israel is such a competent military power, I think the claims don't stand up to scrutiny.
Voting doesn't necessarily mean majority-rule.