Ian Welsh

The horizon is not so far as we can see, but as far as we can imagine

Month: July 2024 Page 1 of 4

The Most Evil Religious Belief

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On July 31, 2024

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Religion is a subset of ideology, and ideology is a set of beliefs about how how the world is and how the world should be. Capitalism is an ideology. Communism is an ideology. Scientism is an ideology. Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism and so on are religious ideologies.

The boundary between the two is weak. Communism and Scientism make metaphysical statements. Communism and Scientism generally state that there is no soul, there is no afterlife and there are no supernatural beings.

Capitalism believes that people, out of self interest (greed and selfishness), act in ways that create welfare for the majority. This is a radical belief, held by almost no one and no other belief system in history. It also believes in unlimited growth. The combination of these beliefs is going to wind up killing a few billion people.

But the worst religious belief is almost certainly “there is an afterlife, and only thru this religion can you achieve it. If you don’t worship this religion you will be tormented for eternity after death.”

This belief creates monsters. If there is only one way to avoid eternal torment, then ANYTHING is justified. This is one reason why Christianity and Islam have a history of atrocities. Charlemagne, a hero to most in the West, spent much of his life force-converting “pagans.” In one case he forced ten thousand Saxons to accept baptism, then immediately killed them all. Had they lived, after all, they could have gone to their priestly class and un-converted.

The mass burnings in the New World, primarily by Spain, were justified by the belief that burning pagans would let them get into Heaven. Sure, burning alive is one of the most horrible deaths possible, but what’s that compared to an eternity of torment? Burning someone alive to avoid Hell and get them into Heaven isn’t just not evil, it’s a truly good and moral act: to not burn them would be evil. If there’s something you can do to ensure you or someone else avoids eternal torment, it’s always justified.

This is the most extreme of “only my way is the good way” beliefs common in ideology. We’ll discuss this in more general terms later. It isn’t always wrong to say “some actions and beliefs and ideologies are good and others are evil”, it is always wrong to say “only this set of beliefs is right and all other sets of beliefs are wrong.”

The distinction is fine, but important. It’s also one that many moderns reject.

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Will Kamala Harris Be A Worse President Because She Doesn’t Have Children?

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On July 30, 2024

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Here’s the case, put relatively well:

Moral superiority aside, a somewhat general rule of thumb is that if you have children AND they live in the same country, then you have a HIGHER vested interest in the wellbeing of your country.

I’ll take “wellbeing of your country” to mean wellbeing of the residents of your country, though it doesn’t have to mean that.

Now, this argument is one that’s true sometimes. But only sometimes. It also assumes that parents care about the wellbeing of their children, which isn’t always true, but we’ll assume it is for now.

Let’s run thru why it doesn’t work for powerful people, which includes most politicians, certainly anyone with a decent chance of winding up President of the United States.

It is possible to take actions which increase the wellbeing of your children, which also harm the wellbeing of your country. American politicians and oligarchs, for example, sold America’s manufacturing base to China. They become filthy rich as a result and their children will be very well taken care of even if America is in serious decline. It did, however, harm the majority of Americans. (There are thousands of other examples, feel free to add some in comments.)

Your children may live in a worse-off America, but they are better off than if you did not do that harm. (Or, at least, that is your belief.)

If you prioritize the wellbeing of a small group over a larger group it usually possible to hurt the larger group to benefit the smaller group.

In fact, there is a strong argument that people without children are far more likely to prioritize the wellbeing of the residents of their country than those with children: they don’t have to make a choice: “should I make my kids better off OR the everyone else better off?”

Even at the simplest level, of “should I spend more time with my kids OR spend more time doing my job” there is this conflict. Great men and women are often bad parents, because if working an extra hour means helping a thousand of someone else’s children, they do that even if it hurts their own kids.

There is no free lunch. You always have to prioritize.

Harris will be a terrible President, I’m confident of that. But it has nothing to do with whether or not she has kids and, in fact, if she intended to do the right things for ordinary Americans, the fact that she didn’t have children would be a significant plus.

Most cultures have a family worship disease: the idea that you should always put your family first.

NO.

If you are willing to put your family first when doing so means that large numbers of people will suffer, you’re a monster. In fact, one of the necessities of having power over large numbers of people has to be that you don’t put your family first IF doing so will result in harm to others.

If you reach a point where it’s your family or a large number of others, and you can’t choose the “others” then you should step down and give the job to someone who can take care of the others.

Only those without power can, ethically, prioritize their own family without being monsters.

That this has to be explained to people is another sign of our inability to reason clearly about moral and ethical issues.

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Culture War Outrage BS At The Olympics

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On July 29, 2024

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Outrage, like all emotions, has its time and place. One should, for example, be outraged at a genocide.

Outrage is a powerful emotion and engaging people’s emotions can provide wealth, fame, clicks and even power. Which brings us to the “last supper” Olympics outrage bullshit.

This is not the Last Supper, and only a cultural illiterate and dribbling moron would think so:

The second I saw this I thought “Dionysius.” If you don’t know, that was the Greek God of wine, revelry, dance and, in effect, partying hard. Dionysius was also the particular patron on Athenian theater.

The Olympics are a form of theater, though the God most associated with the original Olympics was Zeus and his son Heracles (Herculues) supposedly started the Olympics.

One of the most amusing things about right wing culture warriors is their embrace of the Bronze and Classical Age. Though there was an ascetic impulse, epitomized prominently by the the Romans Cato the Elder and Cato the Younger, the Dionysian tradition of revelry: meaning feasting, drinking, wild sex and, yes, partying damn hard, was also a part of the classical heritage, and often far more popular.

Oh and that wild sex definitely included same sex partners. The greatest poet of the classical era was Sappho, who gloried in lesbian love and male homosexuality and what we would consider pederasty was common.

The Christian impulse to despise the Dionysian makes too many blind to the real nature of the Classical world: for every dour Stoic or rigid philosopher there was a reveler who loved Dionysius for creating the pleasures of human life.

Since the West, and especially the conservative West considers its wellspring; it’s first great impulse, to have been in Ancient Greece, anyone denying the Dionysian impulse, or unable to recognize it, is a Philistine.

As for outrage, there’s nothing to see here but the French being French. People who were upset with this are either stupid and uneducated or deliberately goading others into outrage over a deliberate misunderstanding.

Long may Dionysius’s influence reign: feasting, theatre, dance, and partying are part of the human experience. Simply be aware that Dionysius often goes to excess and that you aren’t a God, capable of partying hard twenty-four-seven.

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Open Thread

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On July 27, 2024

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Use to discuss topics unrelated to recent posts.

Palestinian Deaths In the Gaza Conflict Are Probably Close To Half A Million

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On July 26, 2024

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It’s time to cut thru the crap on Gaza death tolls. Here’s a graph of official deaths:

You’ll notice that over time the curve is flattening. Now you might be stupid enough to dunk your eyes in Dettol for fun, and thus think “oh, I’m sure the rate of killing has decreased significantly”, but given that Israel is systematically funneling Palestinians into “humanitarian zones” which it then bombs the hell out of once there’s a good density, that seems unlikely.

There is also the fact that the Palestinian authorities which count deaths are not as effective as they were at the beginning of the genocide.

Psychologically one suspects Hamas does not want to admit how high the death toll is either.

So let’s eyeball that chart and extend the original line before the flattening. We’ll be conservative, and say it should be around sixty thousand.

Now, the Lancet came out with a study on what the actual death toll might be. Let’s look at their methodology.

Armed conflicts have indirect health implications beyond the direct harm from violence. Even if the conflict ends immediately, there will continue to be many indirect deaths in the coming months and years from causes such as reproductive, communicable, and non-communicable diseases. The total death toll is expected to be large given the intensity of this conflict; destroyed health-care infrastructure; severe shortages of food, water, and shelter; the population’s inability to flee to safe places; and the loss of funding to UNRWA, one of the very few humanitarian organisations still active in the Gaza Strip.

In recent conflicts, such indirect deaths range from three to 15 times the number of direct deaths. Applying a conservative estimate of four indirect deaths per one direct death

to the 37 396 deaths reported, it is not implausible to estimate that up to 186 000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza. Using the 2022 Gaza Strip population estimate of 2 375 259, this would translate to 7·9% of the total population in the Gaza Strip. A report from Feb 7, 2024, at the time when the direct death toll was 28 000, estimated that without a ceasefire there would be between 58 260 deaths (without an epidemic or escalation) and 85 750 deaths (if both occurred) by Aug 6, 2024.

So, the normal number of indirect deaths is three to fifteen times and the Lancet chose four. But Israel has restricted food and medical aid and systematically destroyed hospitals. Multiple countries cut off funding to the primary aide agency, UNWRA, and most Gazans can’t flee: there’s no way out of Gaza.

That is to say that the indirect death multiplier is almost certainly higher than average in Gaza. So let’s assume just slightly higher than average: an eight times multiplier.

Now do the math 8*60,000=480,000.

A reasonable estimate of the death toll in Gaza is thus 480,000 people. Almost half a million and about seventeen percent of the pre-war population.

Whatever the death toll is it will be closer to half a million than to forty thousand.

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All We Have Is Each Other

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On July 24, 2024

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Of all that I have learned, the most important lesson was how much a human can suffer. When I was twenty five I wound up in the hospital for three months. I spent days screaming, in so much pain that morphine couldn’t handle it. For about a month I couldn’t move enough to even pull myself up in bed without crippling agony. Later my  body decided that every foreign substance was an enemy, and when I was given IV antibiotics, every four hours, I’d spend the next twenty minutes dry heaving, since I couldn’t eat or drink and had nothing to bring up.

It turned out I was one of those people who get psychotic episodes from high doses of steroids. One episode was so bad, prior to hospitalization, that I promised myself I’d commit suicide if it didn’t end in twelve hours.

Strangely, as much physical pain as I experienced, the bad psychotic episodes were worse.

After I got out, I had about a period of about a year where I’d wake up every morning with the muscles in my lower back extraordinarily tight, and the least movement would make them seize up: both painful and crippling. I once ate breakfast at a restaurant standing up because I knew if I sat down I wouldn’t be able to get back up. Another time fire fighters had to break down my door and take me to the hospital: I couldn’t get out of bed.

It took me years to recover, and the recovery was never complete. I never regained the easy athleticism of my teens and early twenties: I had been a serious runner and a gymnast, and I loved both and I never got that back.

This isn’t primarily “woe me.” It was terrible, but others have had it worse, though I certainly had my bouts of self-pity.

What I learned was that the human capacity to suffer is damn near endless. It’s way beyond anything which could be considered “useful for survival” since at a certain point it becomes crippling.

I also learned, not only from my own experiences, but from watching others, that it has nothing to do with “deserve.” The worst people in the world often have really good lives. Kissinger is a good example, but there are many, many others.

The human body and mind are capable of experiencing Hell for very long periods. The same, I am sure, is true of animal bodies and there’s evidence coming in this is probably true of many plants, including trees.

This isn’t to deny that life can be good or even great. I’ve experienced some of that end of experience as well: both physically when a young athlete and in the past ten years as a result of meditation and cultivation.

And I’ve been in love and that was marvelous.

But, bottom line, life can be Hell and most of us will experience it at some point in our lives. No one deserves the worst suffering: I wouldn’t inflict on Hitler the worst of what I’ve gone thru, and suffering appears to make people worse, not better, somewhat more often than it ennobles them. Suffering can lead good places, but it isn’t necessary, and the worst suffering is largely pointless.

In all of this all we have is each other. We can decide to be predators, to prey on those who are suffering or weak and to not give a damn. We can rape and torture and steal from the weak. We can hoard resources so that those who need them most don’t have them, and enjoy the luxuries and pleasures of wealth.

Or we can decide to be kind and to look after each other. At least when I was sick and in hospital I had free health care and doctors and nurses and orderlies who were trying to help. (Had one who was trying to hurt, too, but he was a minority of one.)

There is so much suffering in the world, and so much hoarded wealth and deliberate cruelty. So many humans, especially powerful humans, making the suffering worse or hoarding and accumulating wealth which could help others.

And beyond alleviating suffering, we could help each other be happy and joyous.

No one is going to help us but us. The route out of Hell, the route to making Earth less hellish, not just for us but for the others who are also here, is simple kindness at scale. Only we can make life worth living: not just alleviate suffering but make it fun and great for each other.

Alone we are weak, together we are immensely strong. We can decide to use that strength in service to each other, to make the world so much less a Hell and so much more a Heaven.

And really, that’s my only wish for us.

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The Absurdity of “Trump Is Worse” Arguments Aimed At American Palestinians

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On July 23, 2024

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Every time one mentions that Biden has committed genocide, someone says “But Trump will be worse!”

Well, here’s your answer:

If you don’t get this something is wrong with your ability to put yourself in other people’s shoes.

And yes. it is on Biden and Democrats:

“All of our missiles, the ammunition, the precision-guided bombs, all the airplanes and bombs, it’s all from the US. The minute they turn off the tap, you can’t keep fighting. You have no capability. … Everyone understands that we can’t fight this war without the United States. Period.”

Also, the idea of “holding them accountable after they’re elected” is almost entirely bullshit. It rarely works. Pre-election is your point of maximum leverage, not after. Especially if a politician is in power, make them do something for you before you vote for them.

But, basically, “Democrats killed your family, but Trump will be as bad or worse” isn’t going to convince people whose families Biden killed to vote Democratic.

If you think it will, something is wrong with you.

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Joe’s Out And The Election Is No Longer In The Bag For Trump

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On July 22, 2024

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So, an attempted Presidential assassination, and now Biden has stepped down as nominee.

My fellow Democrats, I have decided not to accept the nomination and to focus all my energies on my duties as President for the remainder of my term. My very first decision as the party nominee in 2020 was to pick Kamala Harris as my Vice President. And it’s been the best decision I’ve made. Today I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year. Democrats — it’s time to come together and beat Trump. Let’s do this.

Primary pressure seems to have been funneled thru Nancy Pelosi.

The most important thing is that the election is no longer in the bag for Trump. There was no way, minus a deus ex machina that Trump would lose against Biden, but it’s not so sure with another candidate.

Those who would never vote for Biden, mostly because of genocide, are now in play if the nominee can keep from bowing too deep to AIPAC and Netanyahu. After all, Trump spends all his time talking about how he’d have done more to genocide than even Biden did. And Biden not stepping down is helping with this: the nominee can pretend they’re less of a psychopathic mass murderer than Biden or Trump without having to actually walk the walk.

In general this is an opportunity for the nominee to run populist and gut Trump’s appeal.

Odds are the candidate will be Kamala Harris, especially as she can draw on the fund raising already done for Trump/Harris and no one else can, but we’ll see if a viable alternative arises. Drama in the nomination process would keep attention on Democrats and off Trump.

Kamala is a bad candidate, but so is Trump. He was a very unpopular president, and looks good only compared to Biden, who was even more unpopular.

No predictions as to who wins, but the election is back in play.

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