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Iran and Saudi Arabia, BFF

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  • #16
    Originally posted by seanD View Post
    I believe we are in the stage of the 2nd seal of Rev, where peace is taken from the earth, I should have known that it was a false peace just based on my own eschatology. This may be what Paul talked about when he said "When they are saying peace and safety" in 1 Thess 5:3.
    By pretty much all metrics, the world's been getting much more peaceful. You can believe whatever you like about Revelation I guess.
    "I hate him passionately", he's "a demonic force" - Tucker Carlson, in private, on Donald Trump
    "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism" - George Orwell
    "[Capitalism] as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of evils. I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy" - Albert Einstein

    Comment


    • #17
      Originally posted by Starlight View Post
      By pretty much all metrics, the world's been getting much more peaceful. You can believe whatever you like about Revelation I guess.
      I'm sure you're referencing Steven Pinker because I've seen others cite him here before, as he seems to be the only go-to reference for that. But his work has been refuted by quite a few critics, and he's especially accused of cherry-picking data.

      Not that I really rely on it -- because I believe it's more about our perception of global conflict that's shaped by our communication technology than actual measurable data -- but most global indexes do show global conflict has in fact been increasing recently.

      Comment


      • #18
        Originally posted by seanD View Post
        I'm sure you're referencing Steven Pinker because I've seen others cite him here before, as he seems to be the only go-to reference for that.
        I have read his book, but I gave the topic a bit of a google after reading your earlier comment and found this 2020 study which came to the conclusion that the world's getting more peaceful before I posted my above comment.

        most global indexes do show global conflict has in fact been increasing recently.
        Please point me to a couple, I would be interested.


        Our World In Data has a series of graphs on conflicts. It shows fewer wars over time, and those that do occur are less deadly. The only data they have that could be interpreted to argue seems to be the rather ambiguous section of "A greater number of increasingly less-deadly conflicts" where they say there's a lot of civil strife with minimal violence within many countries. That doesn't seem bad.
        Last edited by Starlight; 03-18-2023, 10:09 AM.
        "I hate him passionately", he's "a demonic force" - Tucker Carlson, in private, on Donald Trump
        "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism" - George Orwell
        "[Capitalism] as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of evils. I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy" - Albert Einstein

        Comment


        • #19
          Originally posted by seanD View Post

          Unless the Saudis convince Iran from abandoning their nuclear program, it won't stop an Israel/Iran conflict. On top of that, Israel is moving aggressively against the Palestinians (and I expect them to forcefully seize west bank territory at some point, which will really pop things off in that region). A showdown between Israel and Iran seems pretty inevitable. The question is, will Saudis sit on the sideline, being that they now have ties with Iran, and being how aggressive Israel is moving against Palestinian factions.
          Iran's saber rattling has always been puzzling. I really don't know why they are so concerned with what is happening several countries away, concerning people they are not ethnically related to. The rhetoric seems geared toward keeping the Iranian people distracted from domestic issues.

          Comment


          • #20
            Originally posted by Starlight View Post
            I have read his book, but I gave the topic a bit of a google after reading your earlier comment and found this 2020 study which came to the conclusion that the world's getting more peaceful before I posted my above comment.

            Please point me to a couple, I would be interested.


            Our World In Data has a series of graphs on conflicts. It shows fewer wars over time, and those that do occur are less deadly. The only data they have that could be interpreted to argue seems to be the rather ambiguous section of "A greater number of increasingly less-deadly conflicts" where they say there's a lot of civil strife with minimal violence within many countries. That doesn't seem bad.
            Reading your source, it seems they're specifically talking about "war deaths." Though I'm not sure how they define that, it seems to reflect what the UN also says. Both sources indicated war deaths were down overall (both sources seem to have stated this before the Ukraine conflict however), but the UN states violent conflict worldwide is on the uptick. Rev 6:3-4 doesn't specifically mention war, just that conflict and death will increase worldwide.

            From the UN...

            Globally, the absolute number of war deaths has been declining since 1946. And yet, conflict and violence are currently on the rise, with many conflicts today waged between non-state actors such as political militias, criminal, and international terrorist groups. Unresolved regional tensions, a breakdown in the rule of law, absent or co-opted state institutions, illicit economic gain, and the scarcity of resources exacerbated by climate change, have become dominant drivers of conflict.In 2016, more countries experienced violent conflict than at any point in almost 30 years. At the same time, conflicts are becoming more fragmented.

            For example, the number of armed groups involved in the Syrian civil war has mushroomed from eight to several thousand since the outbreak of the conflict. Furthermore, the regionalisation of conflict, which interlinks political, socio-economic and military issues across borders, has seen many conflicts become longer, more protracted, and less responsive to traditional forms of resolution.



            Global Peace Index 2022...

            Global Peace Index 2022 results show that the average level of global peacefulness deteriorated by 0.03%. Although slight, this is the eleventh deterioration in peacefulness in the last fourteen years, with 90 countries improving, 71 deteriorating and two remaining stable in peacefulness, highlighting that countries tend to deteriorate much faster than they improve.



            Uppsala Conflict Data Program

            Shows upticks in global conflicts starting at around 2010.


            ACLED Conflict Severity Index

            Political violence was pervasive in 2022, and it will likely only continue to proliferate in 2023. Almost every country in the world experienced some level of political violence throughout the past year. Yet conflict is not equally distributed, and it can take many forms. To address the challenge of accurately accounting for and comparing levels of conflict severity, ACLED is launching a Conflict Severity Index. Drawing on the latest ACLED data, the Conflict Severity Index assesses four key indicators to identify the most severe forms of conflict, providing new insights into how and where severe conflicts occur. At the start of 2023, 46 countries and territories meet the criteria of at least one severity indicator. Of these, 19 currently meet the Index’s criteria for high or extreme levels of conflict severity, ranging from Afghanistan, Nigeria, and Ukraine to Mali, Myanmar, and Yemen.


            But, again, I put more emphasis on the world's perception of conflict increasing because of our communication technology, which causes more severe societal anxiety and collective trauma than any generation in the past.

            Comment


            • #21
              Thank you for those sources Sean.

              Originally posted by seanD View Post
              But, again, I put more emphasis on the world's perception of conflict increasing because of our communication technology, which causes more severe societal anxiety and collective trauma than any generation in the past.
              What is your evidence that people in the world have a perception of conflict increasing? I, personally, have a perception of conflict decreasing.
              "I hate him passionately", he's "a demonic force" - Tucker Carlson, in private, on Donald Trump
              "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism" - George Orwell
              "[Capitalism] as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of evils. I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy" - Albert Einstein

              Comment


              • #22
                It seems like Africa is a continual war zone.

                https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/01/12/...st%20civilians.

                In at least 15 armed conflicts, including in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Mali, Burkina Faso, and South Sudan, government forces or non-state armed groups have been implicated in abuses against civilians.


                I don't know if all 15 conflicts are still in effect (and these are just ones with reported abuses). The media rarely reports on African upheavals, unless the US or some European power gets involved.

                Comment


                • #23
                  Originally posted by Starlight View Post
                  Thank you for those sources Sean.

                  What is your evidence that people in the world have a perception of conflict increasing? I, personally, have a perception of conflict decreasing.
                  That would be a whole lot more subjective and nearly impossible to gauge globally. One way might be to consider the dramatic increase in "deaths of despair" (suicide, drug and alcohol ODs) in western countries in the last few years. Depression rates have also increased. What's notable about that happening in the west is that not only do we not suffer anywhere near the poverty levels and struggles of undeveloped countries, but the US specifically is supposedly in a "strong" economy, according to Biden. Now, personally I know that's a bunch of BS, but you might attribute at least a good portion of this despair to social media and how rapidly global conflicts here and abroad are communicated.

                  Comment


                  • #24
                    Originally posted by seanD View Post
                    That would be a whole lot more subjective and nearly impossible to gauge globally. One way might be to consider the dramatic increase in "deaths of despair" (suicide, drug and alcohol ODs) in western countries in the last few years. Depression rates have also increased. What's notable about that happening in the west is that not only do we not suffer anywhere near the poverty levels and struggles of undeveloped countries, but the US specifically is supposedly in a "strong" economy, according to Biden. Now, personally I know that's a bunch of BS, but you might attribute at least a good portion of this despair to social media and how rapidly global conflicts here and abroad are communicated.
                    Every time there's an economic recession you get a temporary increase in depression and suicide. Economic recessions are nothing new.

                    The psychological effects of social media are an interesting topic, but I don't think they're "book of revelation, end times" stuff.
                    "I hate him passionately", he's "a demonic force" - Tucker Carlson, in private, on Donald Trump
                    "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism" - George Orwell
                    "[Capitalism] as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of evils. I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy" - Albert Einstein

                    Comment


                    • #25
                      Originally posted by Starlight View Post
                      Every time there's an economic recession you get a temporary increase in depression and suicide. Economic recessions are nothing new.

                      The psychological effects of social media are an interesting topic, but I don't think they're "book of revelation, end times" stuff.
                      What? A recession? But Biden's economy has been doing great since he got into office you've been arguing the whole time. He's passed a bunch spending bills that's supposed to be a huge victory for the democrats. No one's supposed to be depressed.

                      Comment


                      • #26
                        Originally posted by seanD View Post
                        What? A recession?
                        The economy took a giant nosedive during Covid under Trump. A record number of people lost their jobs and businesses in a short space of time.

                        But Biden's economy has been doing great since he got into office you've been arguing the whole time. He's passed a bunch spending bills that's supposed to be a huge victory for the democrats. No one's supposed to be depressed.
                        Yes the economy's been doing okay under Biden. Obviously some people will still be mentally scarred from the recent economic nosedive under Trump.

                        The Fed does seem absolutely determined to cause a recession though. The morons at the central bank in my country are doing exactly the same as the US Fed, and got their wish this quarter with the GDP growth finally going negative. If the Fed does manage to engineer a recession during Biden's term in office, that will be unusual, as in the US, recessions don't tend to happen under Dem presidents, just Republican ones.
                        Last edited by Starlight; 03-18-2023, 09:39 PM.
                        "I hate him passionately", he's "a demonic force" - Tucker Carlson, in private, on Donald Trump
                        "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism" - George Orwell
                        "[Capitalism] as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of evils. I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy" - Albert Einstein

                        Comment


                        • #27
                          Originally posted by Starlight View Post
                          The economy took a giant nosedive during Covid under Trump. A record number of people lost their jobs and businesses in a short space of time.

                          Yes the economy's been doing okay under Biden. Obviously some people will still be mentally scarred from the recent economic nosedive under Trump.

                          The Fed does seem absolutely determined to cause a recession though. The morons at the central bank in my country are doing exactly the same as the US Fed, and got their wish this quarter with the GDP growth finally going negative. If the Fed does manage to engineer a recession during Biden's term in office, that will be unusual, as in the US, recessions don't tend to happen under Dem presidents, just Republican ones.
                          Why you love to troll like this, I'll never understand. You seem to just get a kick out of saying things you know are nonsense hoping to get a rise out of folks. Both you and I know there was a pandemic, and most democrats including you were all in favor of lockdowns and spending a bunch of money (in fact, I can easily find your past posts endorsing this), which just added unnecessarily to the inevitable economic carnage in the aftermath. And because the western world locked down their economies due to hysteria and the central banks lowered rates and printed a bunch money to compensate, the central banks now have to raise interest rates to control inflation. The other choice is to keep interest rates low and let inflation either remain stagnant or worse, run rampant. Recessions happen as part of the boom and bust cycles created by central banks manipulating the financial system -- i.e. lowering and increasing rates and printing money. Politics is but a byproduct of that.

                          Comment


                          • #28
                            The causes of the current inflation have been well-quantified by economists at this point, and it's not caused by the printed money. The central banks are well aware that raising their rates is not actually addressing the main causes of inflation. So they shouldn't be raising them, certainly not as rapidly as they have been. They're going to create a totally unnecessary recession as a result.

                            The conspiracy theorist in me thinks they're doing it because the elites are terrified of the low unemployment that's been happening recently and the resultant worker wage rises and unionization drives that have been occurring and they want to put a stop to it and are prepared to blow up the economy to do it if they have to.
                            "I hate him passionately", he's "a demonic force" - Tucker Carlson, in private, on Donald Trump
                            "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism" - George Orwell
                            "[Capitalism] as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of evils. I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy" - Albert Einstein

                            Comment


                            • #29
                              Originally posted by Starlight View Post
                              The causes of the current inflation have been well-quantified by economists at this point, and it's not caused by the printed money. The central banks are well aware that raising their rates is not actually addressing the main causes of inflation. So they shouldn't be raising them, certainly not as rapidly as they have been. They're going to create a totally unnecessary recession as a result.

                              The conspiracy theorist in me thinks they're doing it because the elites are terrified of the low unemployment that's been happening recently and the resultant worker wage rises and unionization drives that have been occurring and they want to put a stop to it and are prepared to blow up the economy to do it if they have to.
                              Printing money is inflation. It's the very definition. You're not inflating prices, you're inflating the money supply. The economists you're listening to are probably the same economists that got inflation totally wrong (i.e. Krugman, Yellen, et al). They're wrong because their interpretations of inflation is Keynesian nonsense. Yellen is especially delusional.

                              Comment


                              • #30
                                Originally posted by seanD View Post

                                Printing money is inflation. It's the very definition. You're not inflating prices, you're inflating the money supply. The economists you're listening to are probably the same economists that got inflation totally wrong (i.e. Krugman, Yellen, et al). They're wrong because their interpretations of inflation is Keynesian nonsense. Yellen is especially delusional.
                                Perhaps Starlight still thinks "lockdowns = inflation" means it does so temporarily and still views inflation in a fairly positive light and that low interest rates oppress the poor and make the rich richer.
                                Last edited by Diogenes; 03-18-2023, 10:48 PM.
                                P1) If , then I win.

                                P2)

                                C) I win.

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