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@Earth
@Vader
@whiteflame
@WyIted
The Earth push was derailed without getting information
Earth is probably my top pick, so my vote stays on him for now. Had a chance to give information, and he posted list of reads without really explaining why he town red or scum read anyone. Earth doesn't post a lot, but it rarely feels like he's this lazy.
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@Earth
@whiteflame
I'm willing to set aside issues with That2's claim until I can get some clarification on how the role aligns with yours.
Yeah, willing to provide that later, though probably best if I wait a while.
VTL Earth for character claim. I know he's against it, but it's either get some information or go for a lynch.
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@whiteflame
Points about that2's behavior are all fair. I'll say again that their role makes a lot of sense given what I now about mine, but it's possible scum have some information or fake claim mechanic that allowed them to claim this role (although I will say it seems unlikely, and I think it's too subtle for Casey to account for). It's a significant enough thing that I'm inclined to overlook behavioral weirdness, at least for now. I'm more inclined to go after Earth, if only because I don't have any reasons to town read him.
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@Earth
@whiteflame
@That2User
@iamanabanana
I think I can say this much without revealing anything too significant...based on what Casey just confirmed about my role, I am pretty sure that2 is telling the truth. Just makes too much sense mechanically to be a coincidence.
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@whiteflame
I get that you're pretty widely townread due to the softclaim issue, but we still need to hear from you.
I'm town reading that2 right now. Claim makes sense, and that2 acted way more suspicious when we were a scum team. Maybe a scum partner recommended that role claim, but I don't see that2 coming up with that fake claim under a ton of pressure.
However, presuming that2 is town, scum will probably target them tonight, so we might lose a day phase even if we don't lynch that2. I recommend we tell town protectives to be on that2 and hope for the best, but scum might have a workaround given that role claims are said to be punished.
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@WyIted
If you're going to put a vote on Vader, say what you're trying to accomplish. Are you pushing for a lynch or a claim or what?
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@Lunatic
Well, without asking for soft claims, it's kind of hard to put pressure on people.
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@WyIted
It's to en even lesser degree than when I was hosting rape battles
So multiple people, including you, have gotten negative feedback for posting controversial stuff. Seems like a lot of people don't really see a difference. Why single out Best.Korea?
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@WyIted
You can compare it to AdreamofLiberty's post on bestiality which though almost as morally repugnant had the opposite response of the community. I urge anyone who doesn't understand why Best.korea is getting negative feedback to compare his arguments to ADOL's, found here.
ADOL got a ton of negative feedback as well though, possibly even more than Best.Korea:
- "You're a creep dude and you know it. The world will forever think you're a freak."
- "They lack the tender ministrations of a judicial apparatus willing to punch an 8mm hole in their skull."
- "I don't want to ridicule him and dig deep into whatever trauma(s) and memories caused this."
- "Well that certainly goes a long way towards explaining why your conclusions are so whack."
- "I do not know who is worse, this clown defending humping animals or Best.Korea defending pedophilia. Both are very mentally disturbed and should seek professional help."
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@WyIted
There may or may not be mechanics in play which punish claiming characters and/or roles, so claim at your own risk!Sergei Witte huh?See why hints are a bad ideal?
Well...oops.
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I'll soft claim as well. My character was involved in finance and tried (it looks like unsuccessfully) to promote peace in different areas. I hope this isn't too specific, but if it is, it probably doesn't matter. My character alone doesn't give away too much.
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@Greyparrot
struggle to achieve decisive outcomes in places like Afghanistan and Syria
That's because the bar for decisive outcomes has gotten higher. It's not like countries throughout history were good at ensuring human rights, turning dictatorships into functional democracies, or fighting in an "ethical" way. They didn't care about those things. By historical standards, America's military capability blows everything else out of the water. Put America against any other country, past or present, in an all-out fight to the death with no nukes, and the US will hold out better.
the Pentagon failing audits year after year
Inefficient and wasteful? Sure. That doesn't stop them from hitting the hardest. The gap in budget and technology is too great. Also compare to Russia and China, both of which have a lot of corruption and incompetence. The issue with audits is that democracies actually have standards they can fail. Kim Jong Un is accountable to no one, but his military is significantly weaker.
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@Greyparrot
If we had the capability to win in Afghanistan, we wouldn't be talking about why it was worth or not worth to surrender.
America did win. Then they got bored and left. Killing a bunch of Middle Easterners is something the US military has never failed at.
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@Greyparrot
Some military capability
Military capability has nothing to do with whether the war is worth fighting.
Just because the U.S. exists and is powerful and spends a lot of money doesn’t mean it’s the reason something didn’t happen, especially when we’ve deliberately avoided direct military engagement.
Ukraine is fighting with a lot of foreign weapons. You can assign a big portion of Russian deaths to American equipment.
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@Greyparrot
Doesn't matter to me. We shouldn't pay one dime to support or oppose such heroism.
The point is that we can, and for a fraction of our annual budget. Swagnarok was implying that America has a deficient military capability.
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@Greyparrot
Russia can and will never take all of Ukraine.
Maybe not. Didn't stop them from throwing away a bunch of lives and money.
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@Greyparrot
You mean the Donbas, and they had that area taken in about 5 months and held it longer against Maidan aggression than 3 years
A far cry from the whole of Ukraine, and they have boots on the ground while the US doesn't.
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@Swagnarok
Stalin's old maxim that "artillery is the god of war" hasn't lost its edge just yet.
The point isn't really that artillery is obsolete, it's that differences in quality often matter more than quantity. Even looking at quantity, the US is sending Ukraine a lot of older equipment, which means that producing shells doesn't matter as much for getting a head start. Also account for the US having a much larger yearly budget, and Russia has a big economic disadvantage. So while the US might be spending more, metrics like GDP (7th in the world) per capita or total revenue (1st in the world) paint a much more favorable picture.
High-end stuff like tanks and fighter jets have been strangely irrelevant this whole conflict
Not totally irrelevant. You've got Abrams tanks, and the main challenge to those are drones. Also Patriot Air Defense Systems, which don't use traditional shells. So a lot of newer technology pushing the tide of the war in either direction.
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@TheGreatSunGod
debt to GDP is highest ever
Debt to GDP doesn't matter as much as standard of living. One reason being that GDP is an annual metric while debt isn't. Another being that the US has trillions in infrastructure and a huge tax base, allowing it to sustain a large national debt.
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@TheGreatSunGod
Russia alone manages to drain both EU and USA together.
Not true. Russia is spending much more relative to their GDP. The US is barely feeling the effects of the war in comparison.
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@Swagnarok
My point was to illustrate how feeble the US military industrial complex is despite its bloated budgets. If this were the middle of WW2 our factories would be popping out as many shells in like a month as the US can make in 2 years.
WW2 was a century ago. In the current conflict, number of shells clearly doesn't equal military strength. I know some of Obama's takes aged badly, but his point about "horses and bayonets" seems relevant here.
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@Swagnarok
Well, at present Russia's factories are churning out 3x as many artillery shells as the US and Europe combined, and reportedly 10x as many tanks as us.
Yep, that's why they conquered Ukraine in just a few months.
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@Owen_T
I'm doing Policy Debate by the way.
Learn to talk fast.
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@Owen_T
Probably depends on what kind of debate. Policy? Lincoln-Douglas? Or something else?
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@TheGreatSunGod
Any person can make such post.
Well, why did you make that post?
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@ADreamOfLiberty
That's more general than self-defense, it's the right to liberty.
Self-defense is derived from from the right to liberty.
He wouldn't be dead if the aggressor didn't violate rights.
The aggressor directly violated your rights but didn't directly violate his. Rights violation implies harm of some kind. The guy wasn't harmed until you retaliated. Your choice to retaliate affects whether the third party lives or dies and directly harms them.
If the aggressor turned and shot the person next to them, that would be violating their rights even further. So there is still room to violate that person's right by throwing a javelin, which is what you are doing.
chain of last necessary cause
Retaliation isn't necessary, though, it's a choice.
You're not saying "X is similar to Y in this way so it must be similar in all ways" right?
Again, self-defense is part of the right to liberty, so the same rules apply.
Aggressors already violated rights and thus any 'rights' they may have are practical mechanisms to avoid injustice and rapidly end ongoing threats to the rights of anyone.
Hence, empty field is basically the same as a field with an aggressor, from perspective of right to liberty. Again, you don't have an obligation to defend yourself, it's just allowed like anything else unless it harms a third party.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
I am asserting a right to not be in a battlefield where collateral damage is a major risk.
Why does the guy lose his right to be in the battlefield because the person next to him throws a javelin? You're violating that person's liberty by killing them because he wouldn't be dead without you taking action.
Right to self-defense is basically "you have the right to do anything unless it harms anyone unless that person is an aggressor." From that perspective, an empty field is equivalent to a field with an aggressor in it. Adding an innocent person to that field has the same effect in each case of causing an NAP violation if you throw the javelin.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
As for this field non-sense, the general formulation is you have a right to do anything you want so long as it doesn't violate the liberty of others (other moral actors, the civilized). Since getting murdered is a violating of liberty, throwing a javelin at an empty field is morally distinct from throwing a javelin at a field containing an innocent person.
Okay, so you have the right to self-defense as long as it doesn't violate the liberty of third parties. I think you're applying a different standard to this javelin case than you were before.
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@zedvictor4
Babies are always a good emotional argument.
It's a practical argument. The babies Israel bombs are not willing assistants or members of Hamas.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
"Who loses the advantage if the (supposed) innocent party could not have their rights violated in any way because an omniscient omnipotent super-intelligence which is absolutely and eternally tasked with the sole goal of enforcing this rule by whatever means are most elegant and cunning prevents said violation of rights."Double infinity + 1, I win.
The opponent still loses their advantage, because you would somehow be able to get the car without harming the person. And the car isn't their property in this scenario. Shooting the person is a needed to access the car, just like collateral damage is inevitable with bombing the enemy location. In either case it would be convenient for you if the other person didn't exist and had never rented your car or been near the terrorist base.
Even if the distinction didn't exist, it's far too slight to actually impact what the definition of self-defense is. Some strategies for self-defense inevitably involve other things. Just as I have a prima facie right to self-defense, I have a prima facie right to throw a javelin at an empty field, right? If an innocent person occupies that field, and I throw a javelin and kill them, am I just exercising my right? Or have I overstepped the bounds of that right?
if everyone else in the world lined up in front of your attacker to prevent your counterattack, they all forfeited their lives.
I don't think most collateral damage involve people intentionally putting themselves near the terrorists. With children and wounded people in hospitals, it's a given that they don't really have a say.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
Tbh, your stance sounds a bit like the doctrine of double effect, which is one route to justifying self-defense but tends to have more limitations on it than other justifications. One formulation argues that "the good effect must be sufficiently desirable to compensate for the allowing of the bad effect," so I think on most interpretations it would still be subject to a utilitarian calculus.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
Then it's your car that you own and rented to them.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
GOT YOU!If you mean to steal a rented car then the victim is the rental company
You also shot them though to get the car. They're still a victim and shooting them isn't self-defense.
your guy needed a car to catch the enemy
Yeah but you don't need them. I'm talking about them action of shooting the person to get to the car. That specific killing isn't self-defense.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
Who loses the advantage if the (supposed) innocent party and all their property
Okay, then they're renting the car. Similarly to Palestinians in hospitals using the hospital but not owning it. It's really not that different, if that person never existed, you would have access to the car/be able to bomb the hospital without killing civilians.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
"all else equal"
It's a thought experiment and not that big a stretch. Let's say you would have bought the car if the other person hadn't.
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@Swagnarok
This tangentially relates to the 2A debate; what proponents are claiming isn't so much an inalienable human right to discharge a metal slug through a rifled tube and into the air via a chemical propellant, but rather that the right to gun ownership is an extension of the right to self-defense.
That's a bit different, since I'd say everyone has a prima facie right to discharge a metal slug through a rifled tube, the argument there is that violating this right could cost someone's life if they needed to do it for self defense. Hence the barrier for the government being justified in infringing on this right becomes a bit higher (though maybe not impossible to clear).
The idea of stealing some random third person's car to offensively defend yourself sounds ridiculous, but that's mainly because we live in an environment where this scenario would never come up. For that matter, the idea of pursuing to defend one's self sounds ridiculous since one could readily take refuge in the arms of the law and let them handle it.
I'm not saying it's ridiculous, just that it isn't itself self-defense. People have the right to visit their grandparents, for example, but I don't think stealing someone else's car is covered by that right. A government that bans stealing isn't violating your right to visit people. A government that bans bank robberies isn't violating your right to buy things, etc. How is self-defense different?
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@Shila
Obviously, those were absurd examples, but you seem to have accepted them. How does serial killing, bank robbing, and raping prevent a repeat of history?
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@Shila
After the Holocaust with 6 million dead Jews. Everything the Jews do is done in self defence to prevent a repeat of history.
Everything? Are Jewish serial killers, bank robbers, and rapists all just practicing self-defense?
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@ADreamOfLiberty
Apply the diagnostic. (Who loses the advantage if the (supposed) innocent party did not exist?)
If the innocent party didn't exist, maybe I would have bought the car instead. Then I'd have one to spare and I could go after the aggressor. The innocent party is inconvenient to me, but still not an aggressor. (They bought a car before me.) I think this is analogous enough to fit the diagnostic.
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@zedvictor4
Hamas are Palestinians, Palestinians are Hamas, and there is no separation of friend and foe.
I don't think you can hold babies responsible for what Hamas does.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
No it isn't, because it wasn't a choice of the aggressor to potentially gain advantage by your restraint.
Ok, let's say the aggressor stole my car. That's restraining me (in this hypothetical) to have to pursue them some other way.
Without the (supposed) innocent in gaza, the IDF would be bolder, stronger, able to use far more effective weapons and risk far fewer of their soldiers all for a lower costs.
Without the guy who owns the car in his car, I would have a free car and be able to pursue the enemy.
If you kill ten people trying to pitstop the enemy
Collateral damage also includes children in hospitals. Those aren't willing accomplices.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
If it is impossible to shoot an aggressor without embezzling money by the choice of the aggressor, it is.
Okay, so then what if I steal a car to pursue my enemy? What if I shoot the car owner to steal their car? What if I shoot ten people to steal the car? Is all of that self-defense?
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@Swagnarok
@ADreamOfLiberty
Suppose that knowing your enemy values the lives of babies, you take babies hostage and then demand something crazy such as half of your enemies committing suicide (morally the smallest demand is equivalent to the largest demand except in the calculation of proportionality of punishment).1.) Your enemies refuse and you kill the babies, perhaps they're your own babies. Did the enemy kill the babies?2.) Now suppose you put a baby in the back seat of every bomber, fighter, and warship? Who killed the babies in that case?
In #1, the enemy didn't kill the babies, they just refused to save them. I'd say that's a significant difference. In #2, if the enemy knew there were babies in the warships and bombed them anyway, then they killed the babies and everyone else on the ship. That's not even a moral judgment, just what killing entails. There are utilitarian routes to arguing bombing the ship is justified, but I don't think "self-defense" applies to killing the babies. Killing the enemies on the warship is self-defense, but you can do multiple things at once. I can shoot an aggressor while embezzling money, but embezzling money isn't self-defense, just another thing I was doing at the same time.
If it's necessary for self-defense of your future self to currently and actively pursue your foe, then the right to self-defense entails a right to pursue your foe wherever he flees or hides.
I think I'd dispute that every intermediate step to achieve self-defense is itself self-defense. What if I steal a car to pursue my enemy? What if I shoot the car owner to steal their car? Is all of that self-defense?
In case #5 that you described, where the third party physically can't remove themselves, I think killing them definitely isn't self-defense, even if there are other routes to argue killing them is justified. The self-defense distinction is important because utilitarian justifications usually require a higher bar to be justified than self-defense. Self-defense is basically a justification in and of itself, but utilitarianism requires that the good of an action outweighs the bad, and a lot of civilian warfare likely doesn't meet that bar. Also requires that you believe the ends justify the means, which isn't universally accepted.
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@WyIted
If the court determines there was no other way to save your life than to shoot through 3 people than you are in the clear.
That's not a defense in every jurisdiction, and if it was, it would be duress, not self-defense.
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@WyIted
The reason Ashley Babbit was considered a self defense kill is because the crowd posed a threat and the courts have ruled that if a crowd or group poses a threat you can use lethal force on individuals in the crowd who may not alone be a threat to your life.
Then she personally was posing a threat by being a part of the crowd and contributing to the dangerous behavior. They can't shoot a random person caught up in the crowd.
It wouldn't make aiming through them to kill somebody who poses an immediate threat not part of the act of self defense.
Killing the threat is self-defense, killing the noncombatant isn't.
For example if somebody is in your way and you through them to the ground and hurt them so they get out of your line of site so you can kill a terrorist.
Some courts might, but only because throwing someone to the ground is barely anything compared to death and they might overlook it. Practically, though, not every step before self-defense is itself self-defense. You can kill three people if they are all attacking you, but if you kill three bystanders to get a line of sight to someone threatening you, you can be charged for their deaths.
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@WyIted
Israel does far more to avoid killing non combatants than Hamas
Sure, but that's a pretty low bar. Hamas isn't defending themselves either by killing noncombatants.
you can kill non combatants and it be considered self defense in some situations. For example a crowd if it is dangerous can be considered a single entity
A crowd isn't a single entity though, nor is a country. Individuals aren't responsible for what other members of their country do. Ashley Babbit was shot for trespassing, not just being part of a crowd.
Or they hide out in schools and hospitals so any attacks on them kill civilians for propaganda purposes or because they know they are the bad guys and are taking advantage of Israel good nature and reluctance to kill civilians. A reluctance they don't share.
I know this has happened at least some times (not clear how often), but let's say they do hide behind civilians in every single case. Even if that's a justification for civilian casualties (and I don't buy that it always is), it doesn't make killing non-aggressors self-defense. The civilians aren't the ones making the terrorists hide behind them. The right to self-defense is just the right to kill aggressors, not every intermediate step that is done to achieve that. You can be threatened into killing a third-party, but unless the third party is also threatening you, killing them is not self-defense.
war is not usually about self defense but defending national interests from existential threats
Which in this case makes more sense as a line of reasoning than self-defense, but it's not as politically palatable to say the ends justify the means.
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