I think you explain yourself very well, it's just that nihlism becomes uninteresting because the answer to everything is "It doesn't matter." That also doesn't make it not true either
Somewhere partway through this conversation I got tired of waiting for Damir to answer Shadi’s questions about e.g. why you would even want to be “effective” or “useful” if you refuse to have goals in the first place, and started to instead consider the phenomenon of (professional, not personal) Damir as an instrument deliberately constructed so as to sacrifice wanting in exchange for maximum insight. Basically, Damir is a Taoist sage. “The wise are impartial; they see the people as straw dogs.” If you try to impose order on the world, you won’t be able to see or use what’s actually there. “Give up sainthood, renounce wisdom, and it will be a hundred times better for everyone.”
This is not exactly crazy; if you have the insight that comes from not wanting and from taking the moves that are most natural and available, you can indeed be more effective than if you’re distracted by what you think “should” be possible. Of course, in order to use that you kind of have to want something again; that’s the paradox.
Well, it's in a pretty bad way, no doubt about it. But there's a difference between a growl of protest and a shrug of despair. If "irredeemable" means anything, it means that there are no solutions to the world's major problems, a conclusion that would seem to call for detailed, extensive historical arguments, demonstrating that we have rarely or never solved humanity's major problems. Can Damir -- or anyone -- believe this?
Two hundred years ago 90 percent of the world's population lived in extreme poverty; today it's 10 percent. Three hundred years ago, average life expectancy was 35-40; today it has doubled. Three hundred years ago, democracy and representative government existed almost nowhere; now a majority of states are at least formally democratic. Three hundred years ago chattel slavery was commonplace; today it is extremely rare. Three hundred years ago, women everywhere had no economic or civil rights.
And so on and on, no doubt with equal statistics of failure and misery on the other side of the ledger. What that proves is not that the human condition is irredeemable, but that redeeming it is hard work, requiring courage, perseverance, and imagination. Compared with those virtues, sighing that "the world is fallen and irredeemable" seems like -- forgive me, Damir -- a pose.
"If "irredeemable" means anything, it means that there are no solutions to the world's major problems"
I can't speak for Damir, but personally what I interpreted him to mean is that there are no *permanent* solutions, and that even temporary solutions carry unanticipated and disruptive second- and third-order effects. There is no earthly paradise, because humans would find some way to be miserable and combative there too.
I'll take a shot at this. I can see and understand Damir's point of view.
Suppose you were a time traveler or an immortal, for the sake of "argument." How many atrocities per decade or even per year have pockmarked man's existence?
▶︎ We, as individuals, see the relative microcosm of events, but not the big picture.
▶︎ Most individuals comprehend in limited dimensions. They rebel against new thinking, such as nomograms, neural nets, and, more recently, machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI), because they can't conceive of it. "If it's not logical to me, it isn't logical."
I am a physician/scientist and a damn good one with an unquenchable curiosity gene. But my colleagues, most, perhaps 90%, are not. They were frightened when I selected artificial neural nets (ANNs) as a presentation for an international meeting on how to best evaluate men for the treatment of prostate cancer. In their exposure to these men, they failed to use concepts like SAIN (Systems Analysis & Integrity Networking) to understand that in all living entities there is interconnectivity between one cell, tissue, organ, and another.
Given these limitations, we also do not see the totality of man's existence on Planet Earth in a conceptual way as we should: risk/benefit versus time.
Yes, we have made tremendous gains in how long we live, how much poverty there is, but we have created havoc along the way due to a failure in acknowledging the destructive nature of what some "advances" have brought. In other words, our creativity has not been enough to justify the damage we have done. But done to what, you ask?
We have lost many species of life on this planet. We have altered the nature of the atmosphere and the oceans and have created significant issues relating to the environment. We have split the atom, and we will fuse atoms and create more destructive forces that murder people and nature. We have altered food sources and done things to the soil that have created pandemics or will likely result in more pandemics. I live in Oregon. We never had West Nile Virus before. We do now. As we continue to injure "other stuff," we perturb nature and create chaos.
When I was burnt out from cancer medicine and had also seen my marriage fall apart, and lost my home with the divorce, I lived on a sailboat. I purchased the ship in St. Lucia and sailed it back to Los Angeles. My crew was a motley one, and their mindset in regards to the very entity they were dependent on to get them home was "it ain't my fuckin boat."
That's what we humans have done. We want all the bennies (benefits) but are unwilling to do what is needed to maintain the ship's integrity. This analogy is accurate when it comes to our planet and man's advances versus what he has not done to honor the Earth.
And, "If one looks back over the past quarter of a century, one finds that there was hardly a single year when atrocity stories were not being reported from some part of the world..." - George Orwell, 1950, Notes on Nationalism.
We must look at the advances humankind has made in the full context of CIVILization. And we have been miserable failures. I use the expression "And the band plays on" to characterize how the so-called democracies or free nations and their leaders can watch a genocide or other atrocity go on and not be civilized enough to bring enough power to stop the mass murders and the razing of cities and countries as we have seen in Ukraine and Gaza. I am a Jew, and I am proud of the Jewish people's contributions to civilization. But I am repulsed, to a point of feeling nauseated, at what Netanyahu has done to the Palestinian people. Netanyahu should get his due process, but be tried as a war criminal.
That said, I wish there were a way for the hordes of oppressed people to unite, even with the threat of death to some, and rid themselves of murderous zealots such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis. Mark Twain had the right idea:
"Everybody talks about the weather, but no one does anything about it." —Mark Twain
Well, everybody talks about peace, but no one does anything about it. H. sapiens is a disappointing genus and species. I would bet on Damir.
"'tis true 'tis pity, and pity 'tis, 'tis true —Hamlet: Act 2, Scene 2, Page 4
"Suppose you were a time traveler or an immortal, for the sake of "argument." How many atrocities per decade or even per year have pockmarked man's existence?"
If people like Steven Pinker are to be believed, there is substantial evidence of far few atrocities in the modern era than before.
"We have split the atom, and we will fuse atoms and create more destructive forces that murder people and nature."
Fair, but I think a decent argument can be made that the benefits of nuclear energy outweigh the evils.
"We have altered food sources and done things to the soil that have created pandemics or will likely result in more pandemics."
I'm not sure what you're referring to here - are you talking about GMOs?
"I live in Oregon. We never had West Nile Virus before. We do now."
Annoying and frustrating as that is (and I know I'm understating), that's not a failure of "progress." Even with our level of medicine, biotech, and public health, viruses/bacteria/pests mutate and travel - this is how nature and evolution work, and it has always been thus. What has improved (with a very, VERY big exception for COVID-19, of course) is our collective ability to address these changes. I truly don't believe this is getting worse - it (again, with the exception of COVID-19) is just getting better recognized.
"how the so-called democracies or free nations and their leaders can watch a genocide or other atrocity go on and not be civilized enough to bring enough power to stop the mass murders and the razing of cities and countries as we have seen in Ukraine and Gaza."
One thing I've come to realize recently is that international affairs and interpersonal affairs operate under vastly different moral and practical/strategic frameworks, and do so out of necessity - what may make sense to you or me in our day-to-day lives re: what is "right" and "wrong" may have disastrous second- and third-order consequences when carried out in geopolitics. RE: Ukraine - well, there's zero appetite in the U.S. for "boots on the ground" over there, and after the quagmires of Afghanistan and Iraq, can you really blame us? We and other nations have done the next-best thing and sent as much money and materiel as feasible, but over the years it's become increasingly apparent that Ukraine's ideal endgame - as much as I agree with it - is a lost cause. And I think most Americans - even the hardcore NAFO types, if they're still around - are coming around to understand this. To imply that this is another case of "We've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas" is overly judgmental at best and downright naïve at worst.
To be fair, I think this is your strongest argument - certainly I would like to know the justification for non-intervention in, say, Darfur. It's just that I strongly believe that there actually is more going on here than you or I may assume from our limited perspectives - which I find interesting given you allude to this just a few paragraphs above. And I suspect that this inability - not unwillingness, *inability* - to achieve "peace" (whatever that means) is more compatible to the ideas of Damir's worldview.
I will reply to the opening two comments you make and point out that you are grossly missing the boat, the forest from the trees.
I wrote: "Suppose you were a time traveler or an immortal, for the sake of "argument." How many atrocities per decade or even per year have pockmarked man's existence?"
You wrote in reply: If people like Steven Pinker are to be believed, there is substantial evidence of far few atrocities in the modern era than before.
Think how inane such a comment is. We are in 2025. We are supposed to be an advanced society. Yet today, forgetting for the sake of argument the prior 10 years, we have mass murder in Gaza and in Ukraine by two blatantly obvious invasive forces: Putin's Russia and Netanyahu's Israel. I make the distinction because many often confuse what a leader does with what the people want or wish. Along the same lines of thinking or misthinking, we have significant medical advances, yet translation of those advances from the bench to the "trench" or bedside is lacking. Medicine in America has become 3rd world. Lay people do not get a physical examination or have a complete history taken. We are in 2025, and yet McMedicine prevails. Fifteen minutes are allocated to a patient visit that often relates to life-threatening issues. That's the right amount of time for a McMuffin or Chick-fil-A order and delivery.
I wrote:"We have split the atom, and we will fuse atoms and create more destructive forces that murder people and nature."
You replied: Fair, but I think a decent argument can be made that the benefits of nuclear energy outweigh the evils.
Absolutely, but where are the community-sized nuclear reactors? What happened to the cleaner and safer molten lava reactors using Thorium? What happened is that special interests would not detour from Uranium to Thorium, like the fossil fuel industry not shifting to renewable energy. We have not touched on tidal energy or used wind energy as much as we might. Yep, Trump was right again. Windmills are killing the American eagles. Thank you, Don Trump Quixote.
James, your argument is specious. We are abusing antibiotics, and you conclude that what I am saying is that antibiotics are not important or necessary. Don't confuse the message (or mission) with the messenger(s).
Abstract • Steven Pinker's Better Angels of Our Nature defends Norbert Elias's "civilization thesis": the idea that violence has declined gradually in human societies over the millennia. As history, however, Pinker's defense is flawed. First, the data gathered by historians do not show long-term declines in individual or collective violence. Second, the historical forces that Pinker believes have suppressed violence can also increase violence, depending on historical conditions. And third, neurology, endocrinology, and primatology may contribute more in the long run than evolutionary psychology to the understanding of the history of human aggression.
I'm interested in this quote from DM at around the 19:00 mark:
"...I'm not sure that anyone in Hamas regrets the sacrifices that the Palestinian people are making for this because their worldview at this point is one of like...this is how we build the state, and insofar as they're relying on the international community to bail them out, that's a really bad bet."
I don't know what is or isn't a bad bet in the long run (and I suspect DM doesn't either), but I think he makes an important point about Hamas not regretting sacrifices.
Something that makes me uncomfortable about the Palestinian cause is that I feel I am being asked *by Hamas* to care about the lives of Palestinian non-combatants *more than Hamas does*.
Hamas wants to win, that much I can understand and respect, who doesn't want to win? But the appeal to the international community feels manipulative.
This was an interesting back-and-forth. I felt that you and Shadi were debating the is-ought gap without fully fleshing it out. At times, Damir, you were on the precipice of acquiring a value or explaining one. But, I would like to park that because I don't think you were talking about policy preferences. Even if you genuinely want to see an expansion of American power because you live in America, that doesn't preclude you from supporting policy proposals. It would necessitate supporting a specific vision that secures the maximum safety for American territory and expands American power. So, it's fine for you to have preferences. Indeed, to sustain nihilism coherently, preferences in policy are required, even if only on the basis of maximising power.
I got the impression that the importance of self-preservation sits underneath your belief in power. That is why you wouldn't give a fig about American power if you were located somewhere else, but you do because you are in America. But if we take the Hobbesian route, self-preservation is loaded with value-laden assumptions about our needs and desires, which also entail policy proposals to strengthen our likelihood of preservation. Therefore, self-preservation is rarely solely about the self and requires an engagement with why self-preservation is a good thing. Why not go the route of some extreme climate activists and want the human race to die out?
This is distinct from other goals, perhaps more ambitious and the goals that Shadi wants to extract from you. But, even a nihilist, focused on self-preservation, could argue murder is a bad thing on its terms for purely practical reasons. If, to take an extreme example, you don't punish people like Ted Bundy, it makes the world more dangerous and more likely for our self-preservation to be harder to maintain. Does the same not go for war crimes and genocide? If we just 'let it happen' because of a lack of value, does it not practically create the conditions where it is more likely to occur again? Precisely because domestic and international politics can become intertwined morally and discursively, is it reasonable to separate both out so easily when discussing even nihilistic tendencies?
An American citizen who supports terroristic attacks on American citizens on American territory in the cause of a foreign conflict is a disgrace. It is long past time for a patriotic American of Palestinian origin to stand up and say: ‘this is wrong, this is not us’. So what’s it going to be? Are either of you going to do it? Are you Americans in your hearts, or just on your passports?
This was such a powerful episode. I’m guessing you make the case in your upcoming book, but I also think you’re building out the foundations for a new, center/left foreign policy, one that brings together support for Palestine and human rights with a patriotic commitment to the US. When the Democratic Party emerges from this moment — well, if it does, inshallah — these ideas will be vital and necessary
Because we’re not going to change the narrative on foreign policy if we don’t also have a clear, passionate commitment to our country. I’ve actually come to think the title of the new book is exactly what we need to hear right now, as a country. Because if we care about the power we have, and we’re going to preserve it and strengthen our country, we have to believe there’s a compelling reason to do that
I am an atheist, somewhat of a realist, and maybe a bit of a nihilist, but this religiously influenced "world is irredeemable" is something I have to call bullshit on. Progress is quite literally measurable in terms of wealth, violent deaths, starvation, longevity over decades and even centuries. It is quite literally getting better despite (or maybe because of) the Damocles Sword of nuclear war over our heads. No one has asked Damir to prove anything empirically and it shows.
Interestingly Damir's hyper utilitarian view really resonates with the Christian practice of being "in, but not of the world"
Shadi, I wonder how Islam squares fallen nature with an apocalyptic worldview (impending judgement? I really am not sure how it works for that faith). Is it similar to Christianity? How is Allah redeeming the 'irredeemable'??
Yes sorry about that. We pre-released by accident without a title so we had to repost it. Can you try to remember what you wrote and I’ll make sure to respond?
No problem, one of my comments was in response to Eva, who said what would you do , Hamas is a terror group who has vowed to kill all jews and I responded saying that while i agree with Eva's thoughts that Israel has to defend itself, maybe far less bombing should be part of the solution, on the ground operations will likely harm far less civilians and will likely facilitate more humanitarian aid. But I'm no military expert. My other comment was directly toward you Shadi, I said that I love how your but why questions tried to corner Damir into tacitly admitting he has virtues and purpose.
Thank you, glad the episode resonated! I guess we all have virtues and purpose, it's just a matter of what they are, and if we at WoC can get at those fundamental "convictions," then we're doing our job.
I found this discussion equally fascinating and frustrating. One thing I appreciate about Damir's...I don't think it's nihilism, as Paul below called it, but more of a disinterested amorality?...worldview is that it challenges me to think more deeply about my own beliefs and assumptions about "the good." I could have listened to another hour of Shadi's Socratic needling--we were getting to some interesting places.
I also appreciate Shadi's ongoing discourse about the Gaza war. Though we'd ultimately land on opposite sides of the ledger, I don't believe there is any denying the validity of some of his criticisms. I'm sure he will continue to write about this and I look forward to reading what he has to say.
I think the answer to “the Good” is that it’s beyond our ken to achieve it. And moral ruminating about the killing of “innocents” is intellectually flattening — and worse almost uniquely unlikely to achieve its own goal.
Damir's nihilism is getting pretty tiring
I'm doing a bad job explaining it, then.
I think you explain yourself very well, it's just that nihlism becomes uninteresting because the answer to everything is "It doesn't matter." That also doesn't make it not true either
Somewhere partway through this conversation I got tired of waiting for Damir to answer Shadi’s questions about e.g. why you would even want to be “effective” or “useful” if you refuse to have goals in the first place, and started to instead consider the phenomenon of (professional, not personal) Damir as an instrument deliberately constructed so as to sacrifice wanting in exchange for maximum insight. Basically, Damir is a Taoist sage. “The wise are impartial; they see the people as straw dogs.” If you try to impose order on the world, you won’t be able to see or use what’s actually there. “Give up sainthood, renounce wisdom, and it will be a hundred times better for everyone.”
This is not exactly crazy; if you have the insight that comes from not wanting and from taking the moves that are most natural and available, you can indeed be more effective than if you’re distracted by what you think “should” be possible. Of course, in order to use that you kind of have to want something again; that’s the paradox.
"The world is fallen and irredeemable"
Well, it's in a pretty bad way, no doubt about it. But there's a difference between a growl of protest and a shrug of despair. If "irredeemable" means anything, it means that there are no solutions to the world's major problems, a conclusion that would seem to call for detailed, extensive historical arguments, demonstrating that we have rarely or never solved humanity's major problems. Can Damir -- or anyone -- believe this?
Two hundred years ago 90 percent of the world's population lived in extreme poverty; today it's 10 percent. Three hundred years ago, average life expectancy was 35-40; today it has doubled. Three hundred years ago, democracy and representative government existed almost nowhere; now a majority of states are at least formally democratic. Three hundred years ago chattel slavery was commonplace; today it is extremely rare. Three hundred years ago, women everywhere had no economic or civil rights.
And so on and on, no doubt with equal statistics of failure and misery on the other side of the ledger. What that proves is not that the human condition is irredeemable, but that redeeming it is hard work, requiring courage, perseverance, and imagination. Compared with those virtues, sighing that "the world is fallen and irredeemable" seems like -- forgive me, Damir -- a pose.
"If "irredeemable" means anything, it means that there are no solutions to the world's major problems"
I can't speak for Damir, but personally what I interpreted him to mean is that there are no *permanent* solutions, and that even temporary solutions carry unanticipated and disruptive second- and third-order effects. There is no earthly paradise, because humans would find some way to be miserable and combative there too.
I'll take a shot at this. I can see and understand Damir's point of view.
Suppose you were a time traveler or an immortal, for the sake of "argument." How many atrocities per decade or even per year have pockmarked man's existence?
▶︎ We, as individuals, see the relative microcosm of events, but not the big picture.
▶︎ Most individuals comprehend in limited dimensions. They rebel against new thinking, such as nomograms, neural nets, and, more recently, machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI), because they can't conceive of it. "If it's not logical to me, it isn't logical."
I am a physician/scientist and a damn good one with an unquenchable curiosity gene. But my colleagues, most, perhaps 90%, are not. They were frightened when I selected artificial neural nets (ANNs) as a presentation for an international meeting on how to best evaluate men for the treatment of prostate cancer. In their exposure to these men, they failed to use concepts like SAIN (Systems Analysis & Integrity Networking) to understand that in all living entities there is interconnectivity between one cell, tissue, organ, and another.
Given these limitations, we also do not see the totality of man's existence on Planet Earth in a conceptual way as we should: risk/benefit versus time.
Yes, we have made tremendous gains in how long we live, how much poverty there is, but we have created havoc along the way due to a failure in acknowledging the destructive nature of what some "advances" have brought. In other words, our creativity has not been enough to justify the damage we have done. But done to what, you ask?
We have lost many species of life on this planet. We have altered the nature of the atmosphere and the oceans and have created significant issues relating to the environment. We have split the atom, and we will fuse atoms and create more destructive forces that murder people and nature. We have altered food sources and done things to the soil that have created pandemics or will likely result in more pandemics. I live in Oregon. We never had West Nile Virus before. We do now. As we continue to injure "other stuff," we perturb nature and create chaos.
When I was burnt out from cancer medicine and had also seen my marriage fall apart, and lost my home with the divorce, I lived on a sailboat. I purchased the ship in St. Lucia and sailed it back to Los Angeles. My crew was a motley one, and their mindset in regards to the very entity they were dependent on to get them home was "it ain't my fuckin boat."
That's what we humans have done. We want all the bennies (benefits) but are unwilling to do what is needed to maintain the ship's integrity. This analogy is accurate when it comes to our planet and man's advances versus what he has not done to honor the Earth.
And, "If one looks back over the past quarter of a century, one finds that there was hardly a single year when atrocity stories were not being reported from some part of the world..." - George Orwell, 1950, Notes on Nationalism.
We must look at the advances humankind has made in the full context of CIVILization. And we have been miserable failures. I use the expression "And the band plays on" to characterize how the so-called democracies or free nations and their leaders can watch a genocide or other atrocity go on and not be civilized enough to bring enough power to stop the mass murders and the razing of cities and countries as we have seen in Ukraine and Gaza. I am a Jew, and I am proud of the Jewish people's contributions to civilization. But I am repulsed, to a point of feeling nauseated, at what Netanyahu has done to the Palestinian people. Netanyahu should get his due process, but be tried as a war criminal.
That said, I wish there were a way for the hordes of oppressed people to unite, even with the threat of death to some, and rid themselves of murderous zealots such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis. Mark Twain had the right idea:
"Everybody talks about the weather, but no one does anything about it." —Mark Twain
Well, everybody talks about peace, but no one does anything about it. H. sapiens is a disappointing genus and species. I would bet on Damir.
"'tis true 'tis pity, and pity 'tis, 'tis true —Hamlet: Act 2, Scene 2, Page 4
"Suppose you were a time traveler or an immortal, for the sake of "argument." How many atrocities per decade or even per year have pockmarked man's existence?"
If people like Steven Pinker are to be believed, there is substantial evidence of far few atrocities in the modern era than before.
"We have split the atom, and we will fuse atoms and create more destructive forces that murder people and nature."
Fair, but I think a decent argument can be made that the benefits of nuclear energy outweigh the evils.
"We have altered food sources and done things to the soil that have created pandemics or will likely result in more pandemics."
I'm not sure what you're referring to here - are you talking about GMOs?
"I live in Oregon. We never had West Nile Virus before. We do now."
Annoying and frustrating as that is (and I know I'm understating), that's not a failure of "progress." Even with our level of medicine, biotech, and public health, viruses/bacteria/pests mutate and travel - this is how nature and evolution work, and it has always been thus. What has improved (with a very, VERY big exception for COVID-19, of course) is our collective ability to address these changes. I truly don't believe this is getting worse - it (again, with the exception of COVID-19) is just getting better recognized.
"how the so-called democracies or free nations and their leaders can watch a genocide or other atrocity go on and not be civilized enough to bring enough power to stop the mass murders and the razing of cities and countries as we have seen in Ukraine and Gaza."
One thing I've come to realize recently is that international affairs and interpersonal affairs operate under vastly different moral and practical/strategic frameworks, and do so out of necessity - what may make sense to you or me in our day-to-day lives re: what is "right" and "wrong" may have disastrous second- and third-order consequences when carried out in geopolitics. RE: Ukraine - well, there's zero appetite in the U.S. for "boots on the ground" over there, and after the quagmires of Afghanistan and Iraq, can you really blame us? We and other nations have done the next-best thing and sent as much money and materiel as feasible, but over the years it's become increasingly apparent that Ukraine's ideal endgame - as much as I agree with it - is a lost cause. And I think most Americans - even the hardcore NAFO types, if they're still around - are coming around to understand this. To imply that this is another case of "We've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas" is overly judgmental at best and downright naïve at worst.
To be fair, I think this is your strongest argument - certainly I would like to know the justification for non-intervention in, say, Darfur. It's just that I strongly believe that there actually is more going on here than you or I may assume from our limited perspectives - which I find interesting given you allude to this just a few paragraphs above. And I suspect that this inability - not unwillingness, *inability* - to achieve "peace" (whatever that means) is more compatible to the ideas of Damir's worldview.
I will reply to the opening two comments you make and point out that you are grossly missing the boat, the forest from the trees.
I wrote: "Suppose you were a time traveler or an immortal, for the sake of "argument." How many atrocities per decade or even per year have pockmarked man's existence?"
You wrote in reply: If people like Steven Pinker are to be believed, there is substantial evidence of far few atrocities in the modern era than before.
Think how inane such a comment is. We are in 2025. We are supposed to be an advanced society. Yet today, forgetting for the sake of argument the prior 10 years, we have mass murder in Gaza and in Ukraine by two blatantly obvious invasive forces: Putin's Russia and Netanyahu's Israel. I make the distinction because many often confuse what a leader does with what the people want or wish. Along the same lines of thinking or misthinking, we have significant medical advances, yet translation of those advances from the bench to the "trench" or bedside is lacking. Medicine in America has become 3rd world. Lay people do not get a physical examination or have a complete history taken. We are in 2025, and yet McMedicine prevails. Fifteen minutes are allocated to a patient visit that often relates to life-threatening issues. That's the right amount of time for a McMuffin or Chick-fil-A order and delivery.
I wrote:"We have split the atom, and we will fuse atoms and create more destructive forces that murder people and nature."
You replied: Fair, but I think a decent argument can be made that the benefits of nuclear energy outweigh the evils.
Absolutely, but where are the community-sized nuclear reactors? What happened to the cleaner and safer molten lava reactors using Thorium? What happened is that special interests would not detour from Uranium to Thorium, like the fossil fuel industry not shifting to renewable energy. We have not touched on tidal energy or used wind energy as much as we might. Yep, Trump was right again. Windmills are killing the American eagles. Thank you, Don Trump Quixote.
James, your argument is specious. We are abusing antibiotics, and you conclude that what I am saying is that antibiotics are not important or necessary. Don't confuse the message (or mission) with the messenger(s).
Pinker is not to be believed. Many historians have demolished his arguments and evidence.
Which ones? I'm curious to read what they have to say.
See the criticism subsection under Reception.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Better_Angels_of_Our_Nature
Some other sources:
The Darker Angels of Our Nature: Refuting the Pinker Theory of History and Violence, ed. Philip Dwyer and Mark Micale
https://academic.oup.com/ehr/article-abstract/139/596/298/7001931?redirectedFrom=fulltext
What Pinker Leaves Out
Author: Mark S. Micale
https://www.berghahnjournals.com/view/journals/historical-reflections/44/1/hrrh440113.xml
Does Better Angels of Our Nature Hold Up as History?
Randolph Roth
https://www.jstor.org/stable/48581567
Abstract • Steven Pinker's Better Angels of Our Nature defends Norbert Elias's "civilization thesis": the idea that violence has declined gradually in human societies over the millennia. As history, however, Pinker's defense is flawed. First, the data gathered by historians do not show long-term declines in individual or collective violence. Second, the historical forces that Pinker believes have suppressed violence can also increase violence, depending on historical conditions. And third, neurology, endocrinology, and primatology may contribute more in the long run than evolutionary psychology to the understanding of the history of human aggression.
I'm interested in this quote from DM at around the 19:00 mark:
"...I'm not sure that anyone in Hamas regrets the sacrifices that the Palestinian people are making for this because their worldview at this point is one of like...this is how we build the state, and insofar as they're relying on the international community to bail them out, that's a really bad bet."
I don't know what is or isn't a bad bet in the long run (and I suspect DM doesn't either), but I think he makes an important point about Hamas not regretting sacrifices.
Something that makes me uncomfortable about the Palestinian cause is that I feel I am being asked *by Hamas* to care about the lives of Palestinian non-combatants *more than Hamas does*.
Hamas wants to win, that much I can understand and respect, who doesn't want to win? But the appeal to the international community feels manipulative.
This was an interesting back-and-forth. I felt that you and Shadi were debating the is-ought gap without fully fleshing it out. At times, Damir, you were on the precipice of acquiring a value or explaining one. But, I would like to park that because I don't think you were talking about policy preferences. Even if you genuinely want to see an expansion of American power because you live in America, that doesn't preclude you from supporting policy proposals. It would necessitate supporting a specific vision that secures the maximum safety for American territory and expands American power. So, it's fine for you to have preferences. Indeed, to sustain nihilism coherently, preferences in policy are required, even if only on the basis of maximising power.
I got the impression that the importance of self-preservation sits underneath your belief in power. That is why you wouldn't give a fig about American power if you were located somewhere else, but you do because you are in America. But if we take the Hobbesian route, self-preservation is loaded with value-laden assumptions about our needs and desires, which also entail policy proposals to strengthen our likelihood of preservation. Therefore, self-preservation is rarely solely about the self and requires an engagement with why self-preservation is a good thing. Why not go the route of some extreme climate activists and want the human race to die out?
This is distinct from other goals, perhaps more ambitious and the goals that Shadi wants to extract from you. But, even a nihilist, focused on self-preservation, could argue murder is a bad thing on its terms for purely practical reasons. If, to take an extreme example, you don't punish people like Ted Bundy, it makes the world more dangerous and more likely for our self-preservation to be harder to maintain. Does the same not go for war crimes and genocide? If we just 'let it happen' because of a lack of value, does it not practically create the conditions where it is more likely to occur again? Precisely because domestic and international politics can become intertwined morally and discursively, is it reasonable to separate both out so easily when discussing even nihilistic tendencies?
An American citizen who supports terroristic attacks on American citizens on American territory in the cause of a foreign conflict is a disgrace. It is long past time for a patriotic American of Palestinian origin to stand up and say: ‘this is wrong, this is not us’. So what’s it going to be? Are either of you going to do it? Are you Americans in your hearts, or just on your passports?
This was such a powerful episode. I’m guessing you make the case in your upcoming book, but I also think you’re building out the foundations for a new, center/left foreign policy, one that brings together support for Palestine and human rights with a patriotic commitment to the US. When the Democratic Party emerges from this moment — well, if it does, inshallah — these ideas will be vital and necessary
Because we’re not going to change the narrative on foreign policy if we don’t also have a clear, passionate commitment to our country. I’ve actually come to think the title of the new book is exactly what we need to hear right now, as a country. Because if we care about the power we have, and we’re going to preserve it and strengthen our country, we have to believe there’s a compelling reason to do that
I am an atheist, somewhat of a realist, and maybe a bit of a nihilist, but this religiously influenced "world is irredeemable" is something I have to call bullshit on. Progress is quite literally measurable in terms of wealth, violent deaths, starvation, longevity over decades and even centuries. It is quite literally getting better despite (or maybe because of) the Damocles Sword of nuclear war over our heads. No one has asked Damir to prove anything empirically and it shows.
Interestingly Damir's hyper utilitarian view really resonates with the Christian practice of being "in, but not of the world"
Shadi, I wonder how Islam squares fallen nature with an apocalyptic worldview (impending judgement? I really am not sure how it works for that faith). Is it similar to Christianity? How is Allah redeeming the 'irredeemable'??
This was a nice repackaging of the longstanding positions of our favorite founders.
Though, in the interest respecting the medium of comments, might I suggest a character limit?
I vote 1500-2000.
Did the comments from last night on this episode accidentally get deleted?
Yes sorry about that. We pre-released by accident without a title so we had to repost it. Can you try to remember what you wrote and I’ll make sure to respond?
No problem, one of my comments was in response to Eva, who said what would you do , Hamas is a terror group who has vowed to kill all jews and I responded saying that while i agree with Eva's thoughts that Israel has to defend itself, maybe far less bombing should be part of the solution, on the ground operations will likely harm far less civilians and will likely facilitate more humanitarian aid. But I'm no military expert. My other comment was directly toward you Shadi, I said that I love how your but why questions tried to corner Damir into tacitly admitting he has virtues and purpose.
Thank you, glad the episode resonated! I guess we all have virtues and purpose, it's just a matter of what they are, and if we at WoC can get at those fundamental "convictions," then we're doing our job.
I found this discussion equally fascinating and frustrating. One thing I appreciate about Damir's...I don't think it's nihilism, as Paul below called it, but more of a disinterested amorality?...worldview is that it challenges me to think more deeply about my own beliefs and assumptions about "the good." I could have listened to another hour of Shadi's Socratic needling--we were getting to some interesting places.
I also appreciate Shadi's ongoing discourse about the Gaza war. Though we'd ultimately land on opposite sides of the ledger, I don't believe there is any denying the validity of some of his criticisms. I'm sure he will continue to write about this and I look forward to reading what he has to say.
I think the answer to “the Good” is that it’s beyond our ken to achieve it. And moral ruminating about the killing of “innocents” is intellectually flattening — and worse almost uniquely unlikely to achieve its own goal.