Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Jreengus]

Firstly terrible terrible question to ask me of all people, my dad died of cancer about 3 years ago now and I honestly didn't give a shit. Yes I'm seriously screwed up.

Secondly you're falling right into the fallacy once again. Now try to understand this: Those people are dead. All those people with dead parents who want their deaths to mean anything are advocating the death of further fathers.

I'm really having trouble trying to phrase this. I'm not the most eloquent poster on the forums, but please go back look at your post and tell me how it isn't falling right into the fallacy. most notably:

Leaving now and having no one else die would be wasting the lives of all the people that have died. Staying, and having hundereds more die would be spending those lives to save the lives of thousands of people yet to come.

Those people are dead, you can't waste their lives. You can waste the lives of those still living by telling them they have to die because someone else died.

First, instead of your dad let's say it's your mom, brother, sister, uncle, cousin, aunt, cat I don't care. But it should be something you care about.

Second, I'm going to play along with your "Fallacy". Let's say you have this really nice car/house/deck/pool, let's call it "the middle east". Let's say some guy comes and seriously screwes up "the middle east". Now your pissed off, you really liked "the middle east", so you spend one million dollars which we will refer to as "lives" trying to fix the "the middle east". Unfortunetly for you, that isn't enough "lives" to fix "the middle east", but fortunetly you have enough "lives" to get "the middle east" fixed. So what do you do? Leave "the middle east" in a very fucked up state, or spend some more "lives" and fix "the middle east". Of course you're going to spend more "lives", you want "the middle east" fixed don't you? It's not like you don't have the "lives."

If you have no problem thinking of lives in the same way as money, you should understand and agree with what I'm saying.

On a side note, the one million dollar figure is the approximate number of soilders that have died fighing in this war.

Also, andrea, the father example works for everyone not concived via test tube. Can you imagine your father dieing and what that would do to you? Then the example works.

Ok so some guy fucks up my item. I don't know how much it will cost to fix it but I try anyway, I spend X amount fixing it and suddenly realise hey it's not working. I don't then think: "Oh I already spent X trying to fix it, I should keep on spending until I've spent 10X trying to fix it before finally giving up." Because by stopping now I don't waste the X I already spent, I save the 9X I would otherwise spend.

I'd like to think if a soldier has died, it was their intent, and not specifically the result, that would give them merit. Throwing other people into the grinder, including the enemy, shouldn't add merit to someone who has already died. Remember the enemy is fighting for their perceived just cause too, they aren't just some faceless, chaotic evil mooks, they are the same as our soldiers.

Also this.

[C4lv1n]

Firstly terrible terrible question to ask me of all people, my dad died of cancer about 3 years ago now and I honestly didn't give a shit. Yes I'm seriously screwed up.

Secondly you're falling right into the fallacy once again. Now try to understand this: Those people are dead. All those people with dead parents who want their deaths to mean anything are advocating the death of further fathers.

I'm really having trouble trying to phrase this. I'm not the most eloquent poster on the forums, but please go back look at your post and tell me how it isn't falling right into the fallacy. most notably:

Leaving now and having no one else die would be wasting the lives of all the people that have died. Staying, and having hundereds more die would be spending those lives to save the lives of thousands of people yet to come.

Those people are dead, you can't waste their lives. You can waste the lives of those still living by telling them they have to die because someone else died.

First, instead of your dad let's say it's your mom, brother, sister, uncle, cousin, aunt, cat I don't care. But it should be something you care about.

Second, I'm going to play along with your "Fallacy". Let's say you have this really nice car/house/deck/pool, let's call it "the middle east". Let's say some guy comes and seriously screwes up "the middle east". Now your pissed off, you really liked "the middle east", so you spend one million dollars which we will refer to as "lives" trying to fix the "the middle east". Unfortunetly for you, that isn't enough "lives" to fix "the middle east", but fortunetly you have enough "lives" to get "the middle east" fixed. So what do you do? Leave "the middle east" in a very fucked up state, or spend some more "lives" and fix "the middle east". Of course you're going to spend more "lives", you want "the middle east" fixed don't you? It's not like you don't have the "lives."

If you have no problem thinking of lives in the same way as money, you should understand and agree with what I'm saying.

On a side note, the one million dollar figure is the approximate number of soilders that have died fighing in this war.

Also, andrea, the father example works for everyone not concived via test tube. Can you imagine your father dieing and what that would do to you? Then the example works.

Ok so some guy fucks up my item. I don't know how much it will cost to fix it but I try anyway, I spend X amount fixing it and suddenly realise hey it's not working. I don't then think: "Oh I already spent X trying to fix it, I should keep on spending until I've spent 10X trying to fix it before finally giving up." Because by stopping now I don't waste the X I already spent, I save the 9X I would otherwise spend.

I'd like to think if a soldier has died, it was their intent, and not specifically the result, that would give them merit. Throwing other people into the grinder, including the enemy, shouldn't add merit to someone who has already died. Remember the enemy is fighting for their perceived just cause too, they aren't just some faceless, chaotic evil mooks, they are the same as our soldiers.

Also this.

So you're just going to sit there with your stuff all fucked up, and not even bother trying to fix it? Wastefulness is not a part of it, the fuckedupness is, let's say it's your house, and now it's got a huge-as hole in the roof, are you going to spend some more money to fix it? Or leave a huge hole in your roof? It's even worse that it's a group of countries, you're advocating less death, and your idea to pull out is going to result in more death then if we stay. But then, you don't know these people, you don't care about them, none of them are even white, so why should any of us care? We should just go back to our perfect little houses in the suburbs where only nice white people live. But then, your house has a hole in the roof doesn't it?

[Jreengus]

I wouldn't leave the item lying around I would throw it away. If my house has a huge whole in the roof and I spend money trying to fix it then realise that it would be cheaper to stop wasting money fixing it and buy a new house I will do that. Also you're getting off on a tangent here, just throwing up more and more ridiculous unrelated things because you've assumed I'm advocating pulling out when I was simply trying to point out how you were using a logical fallacy to support staying in.

[C4lv1n]

I wouldn't leave the item lying around I would throw it away. If my house has a huge whole in the roof and I spend money trying to fix it then realise that it would be cheaper to stop wasting money fixing it and buy a new house I will do that. Also you're getting off on a tangent here, just throwing up more and more ridiculous unrelated things because you've assumed I'm advocating pulling out when I was simply trying to point out how you were using a logical fallacy to support staying in.

I'm not going off on a tangent, I'm arguing against your "logic" with examples that I'm trying to use to put into perspective. And as for the buying a new house, where are you going to get the money for a new house? You already have all your money sunk into the one you have, and I doubt that there's any hole in any roof that would be more expensive then buying  new house. I really doubt that you would buy a new house even if that ws the case though.

All of my examples are me trying to give you a good perspective, your house or object is something you live in or care about, a country fits both definitions.

EDIT:: So basicly what you're saying is lining up a million people then shooting them in the head and not bothering to go into the middle east would be the same as what we're doing now? Logicly speaking of course.

[fenrif]

And where are you getting your information and statistics? We don't go and kill peoples families, unless they're Taliban. The Taliban is also probably the greater cause of your 66, 64, and 60 percent statistics, and it was probably pretty much the same before.

Our involvement has made things better, way better than if we let the Taliban do whatever they want.

I'll say it again, where do you get your infromation? I get mine from the best source, the people fighting and dieing so less fortunet people can live a bit better.

See that link in the post I made? You can click on it. Welcome to the internet. I get my information from third party surveys of the citizens of Afghanistan, you get your information from severely biased sources and haven't provided any sort of evidence beyond your own inability to consider any other source of information.

You can rationalise it however you want, (we only attacked the taliban, not afghanistan) but there was a war declared against the ruling power of a nation. If someone declared war on the US congress and president, or the UK parlament and PM they'd be declaring war on the US or UK by default. You can't declare war on a few people and then invade an entire country and pass it off as totally seperate.

That does not work just as well with the lives of soilders as money. Leaving now and having no one else die would be wasting the lives of all the people that have died. Staying, and having hundereds more die would be spending those lives to save the lives of thousands of people yet to come.

Fucking hell. 

Get ready now, cause I'm going to post a link and I don't want you to miss it. You ready? Sure you're ready?

LINK THERE IT IS! Watch out, I don't want to confuse you like last time.

Watch that video and explain to me what you hope the occupation of Afghanistan will accomplish. You want to stabalize the country in the way western nations are? What if the Afghanistani people don't want that? They've lived for generations as a tribal society, why would they accept an entirely new governance structure being forced upon them?

You want to install a new prime minister or president? Well then they don't want the US to leave because of the financial and security benefits a huge US army and presence brings.

You want all the Taliban dead? Well we can both agree I think that if it hasn't happened now, it just plain isn't going too. What if they just move to Pakistan? Invade that country for it's own good too?

Do you have some set number of soldiers lives you have to "spend" in order to make the entire affair worthwhile?

I'm seriously asking, because noone seems to have a decent answer to what a realistic end to this will entail besides "we fix it all up good" or something equally vague.

[Jreengus]

I wouldn't leave the item lying around I would throw it away. If my house has a huge whole in the roof and I spend money trying to fix it then realise that it would be cheaper to stop wasting money fixing it and buy a new house I will do that. Also you're getting off on a tangent here, just throwing up more and more ridiculous unrelated things because you've assumed I'm advocating pulling out when I was simply trying to point out how you were using a logical fallacy to support staying in.

I'm not going off on a tangent, I'm arguing against your "logic" with examples that I'm trying to use to put into perspective. And as for the buying a new house, where are you going to get the money for a new house? You already have all your money sunk into the one you have, and I doubt that there's any hole in any roof that would be more expensive then buying  new house. I really doubt that you would buy a new house even if that ws the case though.

All of my examples are me trying to give you a good perspective, your house or object is something you live in or care about, a country fits both definitions.

EDIT:: So basicly what you're saying is lining up a million people then shooting them in the head and not bothering to go into the middle east would be the same as what we're doing now? Logicly speaking of course.

If the hole in my roof doesn't cost more to continue fixing then buying a new house then your example has nothing to do with anything I said. You're examples are almost all situations completely unrelated to the logical fallacy I was trying to point out, they all involve me doing something for it's own sake. The logical fallacy is about doing things because you already invested in it. Repairing a hole in my roof isn't me thinking "Well I really don't want to repair this hole but I already spent a few thousand on it so I should continue to do so." It's me thinking "There's a hole in my roof getting me wet and destroying my things and lowering the value of my house, I should fix it as soon as possible."

Anyhow, my last post on the matter because it's impossible to argue with someone who seems to be discussing something completely different from me.

[C4lv1n]

"There's a hole in my roof getting me wet and destroying my things and lowering the value of my house, I should fix it as soon as possible."

Replace the hole in your roof with Taliban in your country and wetness with deathness, and your things with people. So yeah, you should fix it as soon as possible.

As for the video, that's one guy, the guy in it for the money, one guy thinking it can't be won. As for a price, I'll give you an equation: p = l -1, where p is the price, and l is the lives that will be saved or otherwise made better.

Also, I'm not saying we need to make it like the western world, hell, if they want it to be tribal, great, but I doubt that they want the Taliban killing them, and WE don't want the taliban killing us, so that's two reasons to make them go away.

A realistic ending is the removal of the taliban, or other terrorists, so they can live without the fear that they will be killed, or their people will be forced into the taliban (that happens, and is probably that apperant "spike" in enrolment) and then killed.


EDIT:: Ok, I'm less trying to poke holes in your logic (which makes sense), and more trying to point out that is doesn't apply.

[Jreengus]

EDIT:: Ok, I'm less trying to poke holes in your logic (which makes sense), and more trying to point out that is doesn't apply.

This seems to be getting somewhere, now to point out how you invoked the fallacy:

Leaving now would be spitting in the face of every person that has died in this war. The families of dead soilders have said that they want the military to stay, so their sons and fathers haven't died in vain. And if we stay, and fix this, they won't have.

You are saying here we should stay in because people died.

Leaving now and having no one else die would be wasting the lives of all the people that have died. Staying, and having hundereds more die would be spending those lives

And here again, this is nice because you specifically differentiate between leaving as wasting and staying as spending those lives that have already gone.

So if you accept that it's a fallacy you really can't argue that you didn't invoke it.

[C4lv1n]

EDIT:: Ok, I'm less trying to poke holes in your logic (which makes sense), and more trying to point out that is doesn't apply.

This seems to be getting somewhere, now to point out how you invoked the fallacy:

Leaving now would be spitting in the face of every person that has died in this war. The families of dead soilders have said that they want the military to stay, so their sons and fathers haven't died in vain. And if we stay, and fix this, they won't have.

You are saying here we should stay in because people died.

Leaving now and having no one else die would be wasting the lives of all the people that have died. Staying, and having hundereds more die would be spending those lives

And here again, this is nice because you specifically differentiate between leaving as wasting and staying as spending those lives that have already gone.

So if you accept that it's a fallacy you really can't argue that you didn't invoke it.

Fuck it, yeah, logicly, it's a fallacy, but really, think about it, unless you're a robot you're going to want to make something of it. That's what makes us human.

[Nikov]

Well I think we've all built up our ramparts on this one.

[ChairmanPoo]

As usual. Most discussions here involving some sort of controversy (be it international politics, religion, or soccer) end up like that.

Those that don't end up locked by mods, that is.

[AtomicPaperclip]

If I were him I would plead guilty to treason and go for the death penalty

Go out as a martyr and make it a huge drama, keep it in everyone's minds.

[nenjin]

Well I think we've all built up our ramparts on this one.

I loved that game.

[Zangi]

Learn when to hit em, when to hold em and when to fold em.
All sorts of practical, logical, rational, morale, ethical, emotional and what have you reasons to go either way.  Also possible future repercussions for doing either.

I'm betting the morale, ethical and emotional reasons are low weight on the government's scale. 
Especially when the gov't can play the part of 2 out of 3 of those reasons...  and fiddle the 3rd.

And so we have the stay in Afghanistan decision winning out.

[smigenboger]

It could also be because the logical voters hold as much power as the 'I voted for Obama just because he's black' ones.

I don't know enough about the current situation to say anything about it, but I'd say we wouldn't be in the situation we're in now if the general public had some unbiased education on the matter.

Actually, that goes for a lot of things. Out of curiosity, do European countries have the same issue the US has with rampant political under-education?