I enjoyed the video but I'm not sure what direction you want a discussion to take.I'd be interested to see Dr. Sowell's take on your previous thread about slavery ultimately benefiting blacks.
Quote from: HurtfulTurkey on January 31, 2015, 01:01:47 PMI enjoyed the video but I'm not sure what direction you want a discussion to take.I'd be interested to see Dr. Sowell's take on your previous thread about slavery ultimately benefiting blacks.Speaking of slavery, and not on an entirely unrelated note, Sowell argues that slavery in America wasn't an inherently racist practice. Slavery throughout history has been an economic, not racial, phenomena and he explains the disparity in America's case by the Constitution: if all men are created equal, then you can only justify slavery by arguing some men aren't actually men. As for the general thread? It's more of a poke against people who seem to think that culture/religion can't be used to motivate people to do (un)desirable things.
My econ prof studied extensively under Friedman, however, and was staunchly of the opinion that every war has stemmed from a conflict over some combination of land, labor, and capital, and that religion or culture has never once been the prime motivator, and that was coming from an avowed atheist.
Get a load of the racism deniers ITT
>he thinks he can weasel out of this
>he's still trying to transform into a weasel
Quote from: Meta Cognition on January 31, 2015, 03:11:14 PMQuote from: challengerX on January 31, 2015, 03:03:53 PM>he's still trying to transform into a weasel>he's still misunderstanding what I said.>he's gone full weasel
Quote from: challengerX on January 31, 2015, 03:03:53 PM>he's still trying to transform into a weasel>he's still misunderstanding what I said.
Quote from: HurtfulTurkey on January 31, 2015, 02:42:45 PMMy econ prof studied extensively under Friedman, however, and was staunchly of the opinion that every war has stemmed from a conflict over some combination of land, labor, and capital, and that religion or culture has never once been the prime motivator, and that was coming from an avowed atheist.He'd be at a loss to explain the War in Afghanistan, I think; nobody particularly liked or saw any economic benefit to running around Tora Bora looking for bin Laden. Even then, however, this isn't solely limited to war. I'm not entirely sure how you can justify most of the behaviour of the likes of Boko Haram or al-Qaeda via economics. These are the people who murder school children because they don't want education for girls, and who murder tourists and diplomats because we wouldn't allow Indonesia to commit a genocide. In the sense that they're Islamic imperialists, land comes into the matter--but it certainly isn't because they really fundamentally lack sufficient supply. Belief matters; accepting the propositional content of assertions will motivate behaviour. If you want to boil it down to land, labour and capital then ISIS explicitly relies on its claims to such things with its religion as a basis.
The hunt for bin Laden wasn't a moral crusade of ours, it was an effort to destabilize a group that represented a serious threat to our nation's political and economic sovereignty.
And speaking of crusades -- arguably the most 'religious' wars in history -- were really just territory wars over middle eastern land, particularly Jerusalem, fought by sovereign nations. Religion was the excuse, but the motivation was a rivalry between two nations for control of valuable land.
Quote from: HurtfulTurkey on January 31, 2015, 06:19:34 PMThe hunt for bin Laden wasn't a moral crusade of ours, it was an effort to destabilize a group that represented a serious threat to our nation's political and economic sovereignty.And yet they represented a threat precisely because their zealotry motivated them to do so.
QuoteAnd speaking of crusades -- arguably the most 'religious' wars in history -- were really just territory wars over middle eastern land, particularly Jerusalem, fought by sovereign nations. Religion was the excuse, but the motivation was a rivalry between two nations for control of valuable land. Would the land have been valuable if not for religion?
. . .
If it exposes a bias, let me put it to rest by clarifying that I recognize and condemn the part that religion plays in war. The reason for this seemingly semantic argument is to highlight the pervasive influence of economy in humanity. Without a doubt, many people have in the past and do in the present go to war because they feel that it is right through their religion to do so. But the difference is that wars are fought by nations, not individuals, and the politicians and rulers of those nations are doing it out of a desire to gain or protect economic resources, be it territory, people, or money. And that's important because we have this mindset that terrorists just want to kill us all because our culture insults theirs and is worthy of being killed, but we don't see that in their actions or in their statements. We see a desire to rid their land of Western influence and regain (or gain) sovereignty of a land and its people.Terry the Terrorist is out there shooting an AK at coalition forces because he thinks it's what Allah wants him to do and when he dies an honorable death he'll be rewarded for his martyrdom. But this isn't the motivation of ISIS as a whole; they want people, and land, and money. Islam is just the thing that's telling them it's okay.
what would you say we're at war over right now?
Culture matters
