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Messages - More Than Mortal

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9151
Serious / Re: What exactly are the main economic schools?
« on: January 05, 2015, 05:19:08 PM »
Fuck me it reads like an Ayn Rand novel.

9152
Serious / Re: What exactly are the main economic schools?
« on: January 05, 2015, 04:59:13 PM »
Main schools of economic thought in the U.S. and the U.K. are Keynesianism, Monetarism and Austrianism (and, increasingly, neo-Monetarism). Keynesianism is the most "liberal" of the schools, and you'll usually find it's adherence in the Democrat/Labour Party arguing against austerity and for more government spending, especially during a Recession, and adhering to a view of monetary policy focusing on interest rates. Keynesianism essentially gave us the idea that wages are sticky (this in downturns, you get unemployment instead of lower wages).

Monetarism is a more conservative/libertarian school of thought, and it was founded by Milton Friedman--who influenced both Reagan and Thatcher, although it's difficult to say how much they followed his advice. Monetarism agrees with Keynesianism that recessions are caused by inadequate demand (spending), but disagree as to the role of government. Unlike Keynesianism, Monetarists think inflation is more important to control than unemployment and believe that the money base (total amount of money in the economy) is the best indicator of monetary policy. It's no surprise that Monetarism influenced politics in the 80s, as the 70s had seen high unemployment and high inflation that Keynesianism didn't predict. However, Monetarism has also seen a decline since the 1990s when inflation and the growth of the money supply didn't happen on a one-for-one basis.

Austrian Economics is where you'll find the strong libertarians and hard money nuts--think Ron Paul. It was founded by Ludwig von Mises and F.A. Hayek--although there's definitely more Mises in the school today. Austrians have made some significant contributions to mainstream economics, but their disdain for empiricism and macroeconomic models has led to significant criticism. Austrians often argue for an unregulated market, a gold standard and think recessions are caused by malinvestment when interest rates are kept too low.

This is probably a bit ramshackle, so I'll answer any questions you have.

9153
The Flood / Re: Fuck ugliest, who's the most immoral user?
« on: January 05, 2015, 04:58:20 PM »
Which is based on your morals. I think you're immoral for supporting Israel but it's morally okay with you because you support them
I think you're an idiot for not supporting Israel, but I don't think you're immoral. The fact that something is "morally okay" with somebody doesn't make them morally correct.

Morality isn't subjective.

9155
The Flood / Re: Fuck ugliest, who's the most immoral user?
« on: January 05, 2015, 04:55:47 PM »
Care to explain how?
No, I was trying to think of somebody other than myself.

You were the first one to come to mind.

9156
The Flood / Re: Fuck ugliest, who's the most immoral user?
« on: January 05, 2015, 04:55:17 PM »
A moral is a person's standards of behavior or beliefs concerning what is and is not acceptable for them to do.
>implying a person can't be morally incorrect

9157
The Flood / Re: Any SUfags remember
« on: January 05, 2015, 04:52:37 PM »
Shut the fuck up you GODDAMNED JEWISH LIZARD

9158
The Flood / Fuck ugliest, who's the most immoral user?
« on: January 05, 2015, 04:51:40 PM »
I'd have to say Kiyo.

Spoiler

9159
Serious / Re: A history of the Palestine region
« on: January 05, 2015, 04:48:00 PM »
Question: Is this Israel/Palestine debate the new Economics 101?
Yeah.

I'm using it as filler while I prepare Economics 102.

9160
The Flood / Re: Who are the ugliest users here?
« on: January 05, 2015, 04:47:31 PM »

Ah, I see what you mean. I was going down a "you enter at your own risk" route with a thread like this, but I get where you're coming from now.

9161
The Flood / Re: Who are the ugliest users here?
« on: January 05, 2015, 04:38:12 PM »
The difference here is
-Making fun of someone's appearance
-Flaming someone for disagreeing with you

If anyone actually gets butthurt over being called ugly online, they really reaaaaaally need to get over themselves.
It's official. You're the stupidest mod. Congrats.

If anyone actually gets butthurt over being flamed for having a different opinion online, they really reaaaaaally need to get over themselves.

The problem is that flaming of the sort Psy describes isn't at all conducive to whatever discussion is going on at that time, and potentially harmful--especially if the topic is serious. It's not really about whether people get mad.

9162
The Flood / Re: Petition to ban Icy Wind
« on: January 05, 2015, 04:35:38 PM »
guy's a fucking neuroatypical muslim cis jew-fucking faggot

lets kill him

9163
The Flood / Re: Characters you relate with
« on: January 05, 2015, 04:12:29 PM »
God.

9164
Serious / A history of the Palestine region
« on: January 05, 2015, 04:01:07 PM »
I often think history is irrelevant to the debate, but Icy reminded me in the other thread that people may still consider it relevant. So, instead of talking about the origins of Hamas, I'm going to talk about the origins of Israel and Palestine as nations themselves--going as far back as the Ottoman Empire in the early 1800s. I will put a TL;DR at bottom.

To start there, then, the Ottoman Empire was infamous for being somewhat "ramshackle" in its national make-up, and the oppressive policies it took towards its various demographics. This eventually culminated in the Arab Revolt of 1916, wherein the fighters envisioned a single Arab State from Syria to Yemen. Transjordan (the Kingdom of Jordan, since 1948) saw most of the fighting, and the Arabs were aided by the British military.

Following the end of World War One, and the break-up of the Ottoman Empire, the British established their own government in the regions of Palestine and Transjordan which was effective from 1920 to 1948 and was known as Mandatory Palestine. The significance of a Jewish presence within the region was marked a few years prior with the 1917 Balfour Declaration which was written by the then Foreign Secretary. It stated:
Quote
His Majesty's government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.

Palestinians, oppressed under the rule of the Turks, had never been properly recognised as a nation until this point, and they were also afforded a delegation at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference. This delegation, however, made clear their worries about increasing Jewish immigration, as they thought it'd threaten any Palestinian efforts to control the land. They phrased it as a zero-sum game, and quite starkly said: "We will push the Zionists into the sea, or they will push us into the desert." This concern regarding the incompatibility of the Jewish and Arabian populations was also reflected by Ben-Gurion, the de facto Jewish leader at the time. However, this wasn't just a secular, nationalistic concern; Aref al-Dajani, a prominent Arab statesman at the time and former Mayor of Jerusalem stated that it was "impossible to live with the jews" because wherever they are they "suck the blood of everybody" and Dajani would go on to warn that the country would become "a river of blood" if the League of Nations didn't heed the Arabs' warnings.

He was right. Early in April 1920, Jerusalem played host to the Nebi Musa riots. Slogans inciting and during the riots referenced Jewish immigration and previous conflict with Jewish villages around Northern Palestine. The British decision to remove soldiers from the city and effectively allow the riots to get out of hand caused relations between the Arabs, Jews and the Government to break-down.

The problem got worse in 1922, when British rule was formally recognised by the League of Nations. This would've been fine, were it not for the Transjordan Memorandum added in September, which excluded the entire Transjordan region from Jewish settlement and gave it a separate government. The Jews and the Palestinians now had much less space with which to conduct their activities. From 1921 onwards, also, Haj Amin al-Husseini was in the position of Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and while in his position he promoted Islam as well as Arab Nationalism against the Jews and the British--feelings of animosity and hostility on the side of the Arabs eventually led to the 1929 Palestine Riots, in which 133 Jews were killed by Arabs, with a similar number of Arabs dying at the hands of the British police.

The violence finally spilled over into a relatively large-scale revolt beginning in 1936 against both British colonial rule and Jewish immigration. The first stage of the revolt was largely conducted via strikes organised by the elitist Arab Higher Committee (led by al-Husseini), and it wasn't until a more populist insurgency broke out in late 1937 that people started dying. In 1936, prior to the outburst of violence, the Peel Commission was established by the British government and reached the conclusion that the Mandate was unworkable--this was the first call for partition. The Commission proposed a plan which would give the Jews around 20pc of the country--constituted by a small enclave in Northern Palestine. 

The Arab Higher Committee, however, rejected the plan outright, on the basis that granting any land to the Jews would be unacceptable to the Arabs. The Jews, on the other hand, were persuaded to accept the proposal by Chaim Weizmann and Ben-Gurion as a jumping-off point for further negotiations. The Mufti pressed on with the armed rebellion, and eventually evaded an arrest warrant and found himself being sheltered in Nazi Germany, where he helped the Waffen SS recruit Bosnian Muslims.

In 1947, following World War Two, Britain signaled it's desire to forego to give up the Mandate and the U.N. drew up a resolution which would've divided Palestine roughly in half, giving 56pc to the Jews. The AHC rejected it and then declared a general strike which resulted in an Arab mob attacking Jewish passers-by in Jerusalem with clubs and knives.

With the failure of the Partition, a civil war broke out between the Jewish communities and the AHC's Army of the Holy War, as well as the Arab League's volunteer army: the Arab Liberation Army. As the civil war continued, on the 14 May 1948 the British Mandate expired, and on the following day the armies of Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia attacked Israel. After a year of fighting, however, the Israelis won and had taken 60pc of the territory which would've been Palestinian under the rejected partition. Jordan annexed the West Bank; Egypt annexed the Gaza Strip.

Now, the Palestinians had nothing. The Egyptians suppressed the Palestinians in Gaza. After the Six-day War in 1967 which Israel won against Egypt, they pursued the secular PLO (designated as a terrorist organisation at the time), Israel lifted the restrictions against Islamic activism and, with the backing of the Israeli Civil Administration, the Muslim Brotherhood in Gaza doubled the amount of mosques, established nurseries and took orphans under their protection.

I spoke about Hamas over the course of the 80s and 90s in the other thread, and about how their suicide bombing campaigns violated the Oslo Accords--yet Yasser Arafat was reluctant to stop them--so I'm going to fast-forward to 2005. The Prime Minister of Israel, Ariel Sharon, decided it was best for Israel to pull out of Gaza (this was also the year when Hamas won a plurality, and would begin fighting Fatah for control of the security apparatus). Sharon pulled Israeli forces back across the border, forcibly evicted 9,000 Israelis from where they were currently living and generously left around 3,000 greenhouses formerly owned by Jews to help assist with economic growth. . . The Palestinians promptly destroyed the greenhouses.


TL;DR:
>Arabs were oppressed by Ottomans; caused a revolt in 1916
>Britain established a government in Palestine and Transjordan in 1920 with the idea of developing both a Jewish and Arab nation.
>Palestinians were afforded a delegation at Paris Peace Talks in 1919, raised concerns about Jewish immigration and claimed they had to "Push the Zionists into the sea".
>Aref al-Dajani, Arab statesman, claimed it was "impossible to live with the Jews" because wherever they went they "sucked the blood of everybody".
>April 1920 saw an Arab mob riot in Jerusalem, which led to an immediate breakdown in relations between Jews, Arabs and the British.
>In 1922 the Transjordan memorandum was passed, which gave (now) Jordan a separate government and cut it off from Jewish immigration. At this time, Haj Amin al-Husseini--an Islamist and Arab Nationalist, as well as potentially an anti-Semite--was the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, a leader of the Palestinian community.
>Animosity and hatred eventually culminated in the 1929 riot, which led to 133 Jews being killed by an Arab mob.
>In response to a six-month strike in 1936, the Peel Commission proposed a partition of Palestine with the Jews getting around 20pc of the total territory. The Arabs, led by al-Husseini, rejected the plan and instigated a militant uprising.
>al-Husseini evaded arrest and fled to Nazi Germany, helping Hitler recruit Bosnian Muslims for the SS.
>The U.N. drew up a new partition plan in 1947 which gave 56pc of the land to the Jews, which the Arabs rejected.
>The 1948 War led to Israel controlling 60pc of what would've been Palestinian territory; Jordan annexed the West Bank, Egypt annexed Gaza.
>Twenty years later, Israel defeated Egypt in the Six-day War and occupied Gaza, where they tolerated Islamic activism and encouraged the Muslim Brotherhood to build infrastructure.
>Yasser Arafat--leader of the Palestinian Authority in 1994--was reluctant to stop Hamas's suicide bombing campaigns, probably because he feared being seen as an enemy of Islam.
>Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005, gifting the Palestinians with a rich infrastructure in greenhouses--which the Palestinians then destroyed.
>Hamas wins a plurality in the 2005 election, and the following year wrestles control totally from the Fatah party.

Fin.

9165
Serious / Re: What is the distinction between ethics and emotions?
« on: January 05, 2015, 03:50:43 PM »
Happy to answer them.

For the record, I'm a moral realist. I think morality has to necessarily operate from an assumption of human well-being, and human well-being necessarily relates to facts regarding states of the brain. Our ability to perceive moral facts, which may be poor, has no bearing on the existence of moral facts.


9166
Serious / Re: What causes Near-Death Experiences
« on: January 05, 2015, 02:40:37 PM »
Just because there's a Ted video doesn't mean the speaker isn't complete retard who doesn't know what they're talking about.
The fuck are you talking about?

9167
Serious / Re: Why I choose to support Israel over Hamas
« on: January 05, 2015, 01:08:45 PM »
Leave it to the mercy of "wolves"? No - but countries like the United States need to stop funneling millions (if not billions) into Israel's military and government, while also preaching that they want to achieve a peaceful solution. Continuing to build up a military which has historically proven it's dominance will not bring peace - only more strife.
You mean the dominance it clearly has at the moment, which hasn't resulted in the wholesale destruction of Gaza that people like to drum up fears about. I don't know what you're talking about "historically proven", either. The Israeli government of Gaza established in 1967 was exceptionally tolerant of Islamic activists--one of the reason Hamas exists, which I'm sure I included in the OP, is that it was originally considered a charity and allowed to build mosques and hospitals and libraries.

Quote
Not like Palestine had much of a choice in that matter - that simply came out of World War 1 and the collapse of the Ottomans.
Okay, but it's not a reason which counts against the Israelis, and nor does it justify the anti-Semitism that we saw as early as 1920 in the Nebi Musa riots.

9168
Serious / Re: Why I choose to support Israel over Hamas
« on: January 05, 2015, 12:45:28 PM »
Look - if there was a war and the Jews/Israel conquered Palestine initially, I'd be for it. But as history goes, the UN pretty much came in, looked around, and said "Yeah, we know you have a country here Palestinians, but we're going to take a good chunk of that from you, sound good?"
What's your point? That's no justification whatsoever to allow Israel to be abolished as a country.

Israel, historically, has been very reserved, tolerant and patient with the trials and tribulations they faced in the region. Even before the establishment of the State of Israel, at least 300 Jews died in Mandatory Palestine during the Arab Revolts purely because the people there were anti-Semitic. Fuck, they were attacked by five Arab States the day after the British left. However the State of Israel was founded, and whoever's fault it was, it's no justification for just leaving a country of eight million people at the mercy of wolves.

EDIT: I just realised what you said, too. Palestine had been under British rule since 1922, it wasn't as if we just waltzed into a foreign country, went "this'll do" and plonked down a Jewish nation.

9169
Serious / Re: Why I choose to support Israel over Hamas
« on: January 05, 2015, 12:21:40 PM »
If Israel, a nominally western country, does it then it's all hands on deck for the international condemnation.

Well, yes.

Israel is held to a higher standard because it is a democratic and stable nation, affluent in wealth. That's not to say the crime in (insert hell hole of a country here) isn't just as bad, if not worse.
I wasn't talking so much about various governments condemning Israel or Hamas, I'm talking about average people--I should've made that clear.

I mean, there are people who don't even think Israel should exist and want the Palestinians to claim all of the land. Yet, these same people will just palm off any point you make about Saddam Hussein, the Taliban in Kabul or even Slobodan Milosevic.


9170
Serious / Re: Do you foresee Shariah Law in the UK?
« on: January 05, 2015, 12:01:00 PM »
No, although I can definitely see "Sharia zones" gaining a stronger social foothold, if not a legal one.

9171
Serious / Re: Why I choose to support Israel over Hamas
« on: January 05, 2015, 11:51:58 AM »
Israel can kick the snarling dog all it wants knowing daddy USA has a shotgun trained on it.

Nobody will fuck with Israel until the US steps back, and the Jewish lobby in the US is too powerful for that to ever happen.
Is that why Israel is held to higher standards internationally than pretty much any other country?

It's actually quite racist/xenophobic, in a way. If the PA were doing this to Israelis--or when Hussein does it to the Kurds--it's just people in the Middle East being Middle Eastern. If Israel, a nominally western country, does it then it's all hands on deck for the international condemnation.

9172
Serious / Re: A Muslim girl from college just posted this on her facebook
« on: January 05, 2015, 11:49:10 AM »
I wouldn't say oppressed, far from it compared to many places in the world:
-Allowed places of worship here
-Allowed to practice their religion freely in public
-Allowed to protest about their religious issues (e.g. That girl can say that stuff without threat of execution, or the more extreme rallies calling for Shia law in the UK...)
-Religious inclusive businesses (Halal meats, etc)
-Allowed to hold a position of power in the UK. (Granted there's not many, but there's certainly nothing preventing them in the same way I could hold office)
-Given certain circumstances, are allowed asylum here.
Name one country short of Israel, NK, or China where they can't do those things (and they can do most of those in China).
Point being some of those rights would be taken away from non-Muslims in Muslim countries.

9173
Serious / Re: A Muslim girl from college just posted this on her facebook
« on: January 05, 2015, 11:47:19 AM »
...or is she a cunt because people are dicks to her all the time for being Muslim?
No she's a cunt.

Pretty much nobody I know liked her prior to her making a big deal about being a Muslim.

9175
The Flood / Re: am I on durgs or is lemy the lizard not a lizard
« on: January 05, 2015, 10:37:58 AM »
Oh my God. I genuinely haven't noticed that until now.

9176
Serious / A Muslim girl from college just posted this on her facebook
« on: January 05, 2015, 10:35:34 AM »
Quote
So, me and my sister were discussing the rising hatred towards Muslims and how it's become a daily part of life to feel threatened all the time.... Going out, on social media, even putting the bins out. I just never feel safe anymore and don't know who I can trust. Recently, an old school 'friend' of my sister has taken to defaming her on social media, posting photos of her and encouraging hateful comments about "Muslims are like..." Etc etc. Just thinking about that makes me so sad. How people are so easily fooled into believing rubbish about a religion of peace and unity. I've also reported 3 hate crimes in the past few months, of instances where I have been publicly threatened, followed, yelled abuse at.... And I have heard nothing. Nothing has been done. Moreover, when someone decides to speak up, it does nothing for them. They just get hurled abuse at rather than supported.

I feel like an outsider in the town I have been born and raised in. That's not a great feeling.

Now that's a persecution complex! People hate her because she's a cunt, not because she's a Muslim. She constantly posts pictures of dead Palestinian children on Instagram (so, gore) while railing against Israel--nice link there--and she posts pictures of quotes who were made by. . . You guessed it, her.

Muslims aren't oppressed in this country.

9177
The Flood / Are we just going to keep pretending this song doesn't exist?
« on: January 05, 2015, 10:31:13 AM »
YouTube


GINGERS DO HAVE SOULS

9178
The Flood / The ultimate wanking strategy
« on: January 05, 2015, 10:27:01 AM »
YouTube


Brilliance.

9179
The Flood / Re: >going to exams
« on: January 05, 2015, 10:23:06 AM »
I've been drinking whiskey from a cut-glass since I got back.

Does that count?

9180
Serious / Let's be honest, humans are shit parents
« on: January 05, 2015, 10:11:45 AM »
YouTube


Now I know some of the examples in the videos are quite extreme, but most of them aren't that unthinkable. I readily litter, smoke and get into shouting matches with some people. While this is no doubt, probably in large part too, down to my psychology and my bad genes--especially the last one--it's also all behaviour that my mother has displayed while I've been growing up.

I wonder why people just aren't intuitively good parents. Is it because we evolved the capacity for nurturing our babies, which was enough while roaming the Serengeti, but we haven't adapted properly to ideas of social responsibility and living in close proximity with thousands of other humans beings?

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