Honest talk about the cost of being ugly

[Loren Pechtel]

"Only last September, Estonia published its first research paper on nitazenes, detailing the epidemic of addiction."

Has Estonia published any papers on the root causes of people turning to high powered drugs?
I ask because I believe that it's a major failure of the US war on drugs. Treat (or judge/condemn) the symptoms, while refusing to grapple with the root causes.
Tom

Want to see the root cause? Look in the mirror.

The high power drugs are entirely an artifact of the drug war.

 

[bilby]

Take a look at Loren describing Hamas - He declares them to be evil. Thereby abdicating any responsibility to consider them as being human, much less as humans who have legitimate grievences.

Of course, it's batshit insane to say "Hamas are evil". Hamas members don't get up in the morning and massacre their own families, which is what they would do if they were actually evil, ie they actively sought to do morally wrong things, and to avoid doing anything morally right.

An evil person would not attack his enemies; Or rather, he would have only enemies, and would attack his own daughters, rather than some distant person's sons, if only because they were more convenient.

You can be evil without doing only evil acts.

No, you really can't. If you do good acts, you are not evil by definition.

Someone who does both good and evil is not an "evil" person, they are an "ordinary" person.

There are many situations where by far the likeliest explanation is Hamas killed Palestinians for the cameras. And we know Hamas send civilians into the border zone to get them killed so the negative popular opinion would get Israel to quit enforcing the border zone.

So, not evil. They have a reasoned motive for their actions, and view the deaths of people they consider enemies to be of less importance than their objectives; And the deaths of people they consider heroes and martyrs to be an acceptable price.

Just like literally everyone else in history.

Just like Israelis.

They want to win, and if some of their own people die to achive that, they can pop up some nice memorials and hand out posthumous medals; Maybe even pay widows and orphans some generous pensions.

Their actions are only "evil" if you take sides. From a neutral perspective, on both sides the leaders are doing the exact same thing - killing enemies, both combatant and non-combatant, and sacrificing the lives of some of their own people, with the aim of moving towards their strategic desires.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Take a look at Loren describing Hamas - He declares them to be evil. Thereby abdicating any responsibility to consider them as being human, much less as humans who have legitimate grievences.

Of course, it's batshit insane to say "Hamas are evil". Hamas members don't get up in the morning and massacre their own families, which is what they would do if they were actually evil, ie they actively sought to do morally wrong things, and to avoid doing anything morally right.

An evil person would not attack his enemies; Or rather, he would have only enemies, and would attack his own daughters, rather than some distant person's sons, if only because they were more convenient.

You can be evil without doing only evil acts.

No, you really can't. If you do good acts, you are not evil by definition.

Someone who does both good and evil is not an "evil" person, they are an "ordinary" person.

That is not common usage of English.

When someone commits a substantial amount of evil we generally call them evil. Even though not everything they do is evil.

There are many situations where by far the likeliest explanation is Hamas killed Palestinians for the cameras. And we know Hamas send civilians into the border zone to get them killed so the negative popular opinion would get Israel to quit enforcing the border zone.

So, not evil. They have a reasoned motive for their actions, and view the deaths of people they consider enemies to be of less importance than their objectives; And the deaths of people they consider heroes and martyrs to be an acceptable price.

Just like literally everyone else in history.

Just like Israelis.

They want to win, and if some of their own people die to achive that, they can pop up some nice memorials and hand out posthumous medals; Maybe even pay widows and orphans some generous pensions.

Their actions are only "evil" if you take sides. From a neutral perspective, on both sides the leaders are doing the exact same thing - killing enemies, both combatant and non-combatant, and sacrificing the lives of some of their own people, with the aim of moving towards their strategic desires.

View attachment 54725

What Israeli actions are remotely as evil as Hamas forcing families into Israeli guns for PR purposes?

 

[bilby]

Take a look at Loren describing Hamas - He declares them to be evil. Thereby abdicating any responsibility to consider them as being human, much less as humans who have legitimate grievences.

Of course, it's batshit insane to say "Hamas are evil". Hamas members don't get up in the morning and massacre their own families, which is what they would do if they were actually evil, ie they actively sought to do morally wrong things, and to avoid doing anything morally right.

An evil person would not attack his enemies; Or rather, he would have only enemies, and would attack his own daughters, rather than some distant person's sons, if only because they were more convenient.

You can be evil without doing only evil acts.

No, you really can't. If you do good acts, you are not evil by definition.

Someone who does both good and evil is not an "evil" person, they are an "ordinary" person.

That is not common usage of English.

Yeah, it really is.

When someone commits a substantial amount of evil we generally call them evil. Even though not everything they do is evil.

There are many situations where by far the likeliest explanation is Hamas killed Palestinians for the cameras. And we know Hamas send civilians into the border zone to get them killed so the negative popular opinion would get Israel to quit enforcing the border zone.

So, not evil. They have a reasoned motive for their actions, and view the deaths of people they consider enemies to be of less importance than their objectives; And the deaths of people they consider heroes and martyrs to be an acceptable price.

Just like literally everyone else in history.

Just like Israelis.

They want to win, and if some of their own people die to achive that, they can pop up some nice memorials and hand out posthumous medals; Maybe even pay widows and orphans some generous pensions.

Their actions are only "evil" if you take sides. From a neutral perspective, on both sides the leaders are doing the exact same thing - killing enemies, both combatant and non-combatant, and sacrificing the lives of some of their own people, with the aim of moving towards their strategic desires.

View attachment 54725

What Israeli actions are remotely as evil as Hamas forcing families into Israeli guns for PR purposes?

It doesn't matter. Because as a wise man once said, "When someone commits a substantial amount of evil we generally call them evil. Even though not everything they do is evil."

 

[DrZoidberg]

Take a look at Loren describing Hamas - He declares them to be evil. Thereby abdicating any responsibility to consider them as being human, much less as humans who have legitimate grievences.

Of course, it's batshit insane to say "Hamas are evil". Hamas members don't get up in the morning and massacre their own families, which is what they would do if they were actually evil, ie they actively sought to do morally wrong things, and to avoid doing anything morally right.

An evil person would not attack his enemies; Or rather, he would have only enemies, and would attack his own daughters, rather than some distant person's sons, if only because they were more convenient.

You can be evil without doing only evil acts.

There are many situations where by far the likeliest explanation is Hamas killed Palestinians for the cameras. And we know Hamas send civilians into the border zone to get them killed so the negative popular opinion would get Israel to quit enforcing the border zone.

I think there's better ways of rephrasing this.

I think its the acts that make us good or evil.

People aren't just good or evil. We're complex.

When Hamas does good things they're good. When they do evil things they're evil.

I think its a more helpful way of seeing the world.

Cartoon villains only exist in cartoons

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Take a look at Loren describing Hamas - He declares them to be evil. Thereby abdicating any responsibility to consider them as being human, much less as humans who have legitimate grievences.

Of course, it's batshit insane to say "Hamas are evil". Hamas members don't get up in the morning and massacre their own families, which is what they would do if they were actually evil, ie they actively sought to do morally wrong things, and to avoid doing anything morally right.

An evil person would not attack his enemies; Or rather, he would have only enemies, and would attack his own daughters, rather than some distant person's sons, if only because they were more convenient.

You can be evil without doing only evil acts.

There are many situations where by far the likeliest explanation is Hamas killed Palestinians for the cameras. And we know Hamas send civilians into the border zone to get them killed so the negative popular opinion would get Israel to quit enforcing the border zone.

I think there's better ways of rephrasing this.

I think its the acts that make us good or evil.

People aren't just good or evil. We're complex.

When Hamas does good things they're good. When they do evil things they're evil.

I think its a more helpful way of seeing the world.

Cartoon villains only exist in cartoons

Pure things do not exist in the real world. Nobody's pure good, nobody's pure evil. We use "evil" to describe someone/something that does a lot more evil acts than typical.

 

[Elixir]

“Hamas killed Palestinians for the cameras” is a bullshit excuse. Plenty inflammatory as an accusation, and even more so if provable. BUT
Hamas is not a person. A person killed Palestinians for the cameras (allegedly), and that person may be “evil” but it is just as inhumane an act to apply backward transitive “logic” and condemn all persons who identify as Hamas, as “evil”, and use that as excuse for retaliatory murder.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

“Hamas killed Palestinians for the cameras” is a bullshit excuse. Plenty inflammatory as an accusation, and even more so if provable. BUT
Hamas is not a person. A person killed Palestinians for the cameras (allegedly), and that person may be “evil” but it is just as inhumane an act to apply backward transitive “logic” and condemn all persons who identify as Hamas, as “evil”, and use that as excuse for retaliatory murder.

We don't know identities. But there have been many incidents, clearly it meets with high command's approval.

 

[steve_bank]

You can go back to the Fatah Hamas civil war for power, had nothing to do with Israel. Hamas had Gaza and Fatah the west bank.

There were plans for elections, but neither side would give up power to the other.

Hamas has killed Palestinian opposition.

 

[Elixir]

“Hamas killed Palestinians for the cameras” is a bullshit excuse. Plenty inflammatory as an accusation, and even more so if provable. BUT
Hamas is not a person. A person killed Palestinians for the cameras (allegedly), and that person may be “evil” but it is just as inhumane an act to apply backward transitive “logic” and condemn all persons who identify as Hamas, as “evil”, and use that as excuse for retaliatory murder.

We don't know identities. But there have been many incidents, clearly it meets with high command's approval.

Which proves is strong evidence that some evil people can be identified as belonging to Hamas. That doesn’t make all Hamas evil. Some IDF are evil too, BTW.

 

[DrZoidberg]

You can go back to the Fatah Hamas civil war for power, had nothing to do with Israel. Hamas had Gaza and Fatah the west bank.

There were plans for elections, but neither side would give up power to the other.

Hamas has killed Palestinian opposition.

The main problem with every election in Gaza so far, (and a general trend in Muslim majority countries) is that every candidate is a kleptocrat. If you know you'll get royally reamed in your rear not matter who wins, that's not a real election.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Here's a good video from Michael Girdley on drugs. He's a business analyst. His videos are about how companies succeed or fail. He's done a couple of videos on the business of the illegal drug trade.

Here's a fascinating video on the war on drugs that we did win. The war on drugs wasn't a complete failure. We did actually manage to stop one hugely destructive and addictive drug.... nicotine.

The method by which we stopped people smoking, we can totally do for any other drug. Nicotine is about as physically and mentally addictive as heroin. So, logically, if we can get people off nicotine, we should be able to employ the same methods to stop nicotine. So whatever it is we did for nicotine, we should now do for all the other drugs. Because it obviously works.