I say things that many people disagree with all the time on HN, but pretty much the only times that I am downvoted into the gray are when I am not civil. For instance, the only comment of mine that has been grayed in this discussion is this one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9169426 That comment is little more than a personal attack, and was therefore downvoted.
Mind you, there's a downside to that. An FBI that can infiltrate and dismantle the KKK at will can do the same to any legitimate movement for change, like Occupy, etc.
Except that Japan repeatedly tried to make peace before the atomic bombings, and if the US hadn't been so determined that it be an unconditional surrender and been willing to negotiate, they could have ended the war before that, without any need to even think about invasion. So it was an evil slaughter.
> ... they could have ended the war before that, without any need to even think about invasion.
There is no way to know that without knowing the conditions of surrender that Japan had in mind. I have a feeling that the conditions would have been as well reasoned as an island nation attacking an industrial powerhouse with the natural resources of an entire continent :)
> So the US killed 500,000 civilians because they didn't weren't willing to negotiate
That is debatable, but not by you, as you seem to be missing the point. Negotiating with irrational actors is risky - burning them to death, or until they say uncle, is pretty safe.
> ... and you think that that's funny. That says a lot about you.
I have to admit, watching a frustrated care troll twist does put a smile on my face - but it gets old fast. The topic at hand is logical justification, so appeals to emotion are comically out of place here.
An appeal to emotion is not out of place here. This is not a simple matter of "logical justification", there's no logical axiomatic framework that deals well with ethics. So appeal to purely "logical" justification is out of place here, sadly, not comically though.
I'll make this simple. The only justification for the fire bombings and nuclear bombings that has any possible merit is that they were necessary to end the war. However, the US never even tried to negotiate, nor did they try to communicate to the Japanese that they would be willing to allow the Emperor to remain nominally in power. They could have used that to end the war far sooner.
So how could the bombings possibly be necessary to end the war when the war might have been ended by other means? I'm sure you'll say that that wouldn't have worked, but how would you know? The lack of any attempt shows that the US wasn't interested in ending the war: they wanted revenge, and therefore the bombings were not justified.
> The only justification for the fire bombings and nuclear bombings that has any possible merit is that they were necessary to end the war.
That doesn't work in real life. In order to know what level of force is necessary, one has to have a perfect knowledge of the opposition. That isn't possible, so you always respond with more force than you think in necessary - overengineering the carnage.
> So how could the bombings possibly be necessary to end the war when the war might have been ended by other means?
If we are going to play the what if game, why stop at the firebombs? What if Japan didn't attack? What if the US didn't apply economic pressure? What if Japan didn't stomp all over Asia? The what if game is pretty boring.
> That doesn't work in real life. In order to know what level of force is necessary, one has to have a perfect knowledge of the opposition. That isn't possible, so you always respond with more force than you think in necessary - overengineering the carnage.
That's exactly the kind of thinking that leads to global nuclear annihilation, and when that consequence became clear, intelligent people finally realized how wrong it is.
But your argument is wrong anyhow. Either you're trying to end the war, or you're not. If you are, you try all avenues, including negotiation. If you don't try negotiation, you aren't trying to end the war, you're trying to prolong it. The US leadership knew they couldn't lose at that point, so they weren't trying to end it.
> The what if game is pretty boring.
It sure is when you lose right away, due to the US never trying to negotiate. Earlier you said that it was "risky" to do so. How?
And It doesn't matter that we don't know what would have happened if the US had attempted negotiations with Japan. It only matters that they never did.
> That's exactly the kind of thinking that leads to global nuclear annihilation ...
That is the kind of thinking that ends wars. Compare the results of this method in WWII to the results of modern warfare, where force is much more restrained.
> Either you're trying to end the war, or you're not.
It isn't as simple as that, you aren't just trying to end the war - you are trying to end the war while maximizing your return on blood and treasure. If your goal is to completely dismantle the enemy's war machine, and head off another war with them in a few years, then you are most likely going to want an unconditional surrender. So if your enemy announces that isn't in the cards, then why bother with negotiation?
> Earlier you said that it was "risky" to do so. How?
Because irrational actors can't be understood, you can't negotiate without understanding.
> It only matters that they never did.
I don't try to negotiate with salesmen when they announce a hard price, the resulting lack of negotiation is on them - not me.
They're sure trying. Right now, they're struggling to turn off OpenSSL's "dynamic engine", which allows loading and unloading new crypto engines while OpenSSL is running. In case someone hot-plugs a USB crypto device, perhaps?
There stuff in there that 0.001% of users want. It creates a risk for everyone else.
What did they change, if you don't mind my asking? I've been using it for two seasons now, and haven't noticed anything too annoying, although I have been in public leagues only so far.
You are using the tactic of trying to seem just like us and agreeing with us that it's bad: "... it comes with certain trojan horses ... such as requirements mentioned in the article for internet service providers to filter and monitor customer traffic."
Then, with us convinced that you're firmly on our side, you make the bold statement: "The TPP is important for navigating future global financial and international policy options, but bundled with it are laws that would otherwise be rejected at the ballot box."
And you say it again: "You can be sure that the TPP is in the interest of the US's strategic financial and diplomatic future. That's not a lie - nor is it fearmongering."
I'm sure it is in the interests of the ultra-wealthy and elite in the US. What's in it for everyone else, though?
This is your fearmongering: "it is dangerous to be a single issue voter."
Nowhere in your previous post or this one do you come up with ONE justification for that, or for your statement that the TPP is important and necessary. Nowhere.
There is no tactic. That's actually the entire point of the post: that there are both upsides and downsides to the TPP.
Do you deny me a nuanced impression of the TPP? Do I have to come down firmly on one side, cherishing everything about it or rejecting it in it's entirety?
The entire point of the post is to describe what I understand to be important and good about the TPP and also what I consider to be harmful or dangerous. I don't think it's misleading not to have a black or white view - in fact I think it is misleading to be so binary.
I believe that the TPP is important for the future economic viability of the United States. I included some reasons why in that post, and also in other branches of the discussion. I would also be willing to discuss further here.
> This is your fearmongering: "it is dangerous to be a single issue voter."
I honestly think that is just common wisdom - being politically engaged means trying to engage with the full complexity of the issues of the times.
> Nowhere in your previous post or this one do you come up with ONE justification for that, or for your statement that the TPP is important and necessary. Nowhere.
Certainly I do not provide evidence in the prior post that single issue voting is harmful. I wasn't aware that was widely contested and in need of justification.
Regarding the importance of the TPP - I do argue in the parent comment and in the branches of ensuing conversation (I hope successfully) that trade deals in the Asia-Pacific are important. I'm not exactly alone: here's a podcast from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (US Gov thinktank) that discusses current TPP prospects: http://csis.org/multimedia/cogitasia-podcast-tpp-prospects-p...
Actually, I've reconsidered. You admit to the realpolitik of the TPP and you admit to how it is try to sabotage China's self-governance (re. intellectual property, which they are MUCH better off without). But you aren't doing so with the point of view of admitting the bad parts of the TPP. You actually think these are good things.
In fact, your entire post is downplaying the negative impacts of the TPP and trying to end on an up note "it's good! It's necessary! "Navigating future global financial and international policy options"! "Major strategic opportunities"! You never list even one! Not even in this response. "I believe that the TPP is important for the future economic viability of the United States." Not a single justification for that. You just keep repeating it, instead. That's the Big Lie method. Keep repeating it until people start to believe it.
> I believe that the TPP is important for the future economic viability of the United States. I included some reasons why in that post, and also in other branches of the discussion. I would also be willing to discuss further here.
You included NO reasons in that post, and no reasons in this one, either. Eventually, in another post, you state that you think it will help "the dollar, US bonds and Western financial institutions". Western financial institutions! Those are the people we want to help now? The people who caused the global economic crisis and got away with it richer than ever?
All of your posts in this thread fit a pattern. You respond to some criticism about the TPP, and you say "I agree!" Then you ignore it and say that the TPP is good. Every post. Repeating it. Repetition. The Big Lie.
If you agree with all of these criticisms, how can you then state that you think it's a net positive? Wait, you say right here: "It is, however, a keystone effort to establish a primary trade treaty in the region at a time it may be otherwise denied from." It almost seems like you think that ANY treaty in Asia would be a good thing. Any US influence at all. And you agree with all the criticisms, and they just don't matter to you. Give up democracy and give up sovereignty, and give corporations their power over national governments. Who cares? We get a treaty out of it. And just getting that makes losing everything else worth it.
> Certainly I do not provide evidence in the prior post that single issue voting is harmful.
Being a single issue voter, while not without drawbacks, means that you can focus your vote on that single issue. And this issue is more important than anything else right now. So single issue voting on this one issue, if the voting is against it, is actually a very good thing.
You won't agree with any of that, though, and I don't care. This is for the rest of the readers.
> You won't agree with any of that, though, and I don't care. This is for the rest of the readers.
I agree with this. ;)
I do hope that other readers get a chance to read in depth about this topic, not just on Hacker News but also journalistic outlets and primary sources.
> You admit to the realpolitik of the TPP and you admit to how it is try to sabotage China's self-governance
international governance.
I'm going to kind to you and ignore the implication that I am part of some conspiracy and I'm going to ignore your attempt to argue for single issue voting, and that 'this issue' is somehow more important than say, current challenges to nuclear nonproliferation. After this your post posits or implies two things:
a.) The United States is being unusually or unsystematically aggressive in its pursuits of trade deal provisions.
b.) That I have not provided any reasons or evidence that the TPP is an important strategic piece for the United States.
Together the implication of (a) and (b) is that the TPP is nothing more than a sabotage plan. But this wholey dismisses the context - the context I've worked (and you've ignored) to include within the top parent and some children.
So let's tackle these points head on, yes?
a.) The ideal situation, writ large to global politics, would be for China and the US to broker an inclusive trade deal - in fact a global one - that reaches a consensus not just among the world powers, but also any nation or person that would like to participate. Such an idyllic trade deal would benefit everyone, make everyone better off, and would be garnished by the approval of everyone. Such a trade deal, while a good ideal goalpost, is not realistic - try getting two people to agree on something, much less 8 billion. The unavoidable truth is that instead of people, representatives meet, and instead of all countries, only some meet.
The United States and China, the two largest economies and leading world powers, have not been able to find a mutual trade agreement. Both, instead (and here China first), have opted to create competing trade blocs. If the American bloc does better and wins out, China will be forced to join it and adopt its rules. If the Chinese bloc wins out, it is America that will be forced to join the other and play by its rules. In either scenario, the laws of the trade bloc - by your implication - sabotage the self-governance of the other. That is, because the US and China can not agree to mutually run a trade bloc, it would be China sabotaging US self-governance. The President of the United States said as much during his state of the union address.
Basically - I agree with you that it's unfortunate to be in a position of competition rather than collaboration - where one bloc or the other will win and write the rules for the other. What I am saying is that it isn't singular and unique aggression on the part of US policy - both great powers have been forced to compete in this way because they have not been able to cooperate. The solution here, of course, would be to scratch both the TPP and TTIP and create a joint treaty. Since that's not going to happen, it's difficult to advise the US to just lay down and accept the terms in TTIP.
b.) No, included quite a bit on this front, although perhaps I haven't been clear?
Reasons for a US pivot to Asia:
- Europe is in a vice grip. Financially backed primarily through traded credit/debit, the European financial system has a credit to currency ratio of approximately 70:1. Much of the global crisis was inevitable and continues to be so. Southern Europe is facing fifty percent unemployment of youth. Austerity is a divisive policy tensioning historical cultural disagreements. The Middle East on Europe's borders had grown unhappy with the hegemonic order imposed on it first by the Ottomans and then by the European politics of the great wars and then by the neocolonial order imposed on it during the 20th century. Europe's bit to continue its credit backed financial system by expanding its sphere of influence into the Baltics has stirred the rumblings of a consistently xenophobic nuclear nation state - an effort led, of all nations, by Germany.
That is to say that America's historical partner region is flummoxed in a web of conflict and represents a short-term stalled and long-term uncertain future.
- The United States itself, having found a niche this century in providing security for global oil markets (why Japan, Saudi Arabia and Europe are all close allies), would like to move away from this business in the future as green (and nuclear) technologies and 21st century politics make oil security a less certain long term prospects. Similar agreements to fix an order in Europe with US military backed NATO are seeing both political and technological changes as US air superiority is being challenged by both the development of hypersonic missile delivery systems, new software backed radar grids, a cybermilitary space that has enabled a new form of asymmetsic warfare, and the general maturing of other country military capabilities in comparison with the US. Ballistic missile shields then being deployed by the US, it's only defense against hypersonic rockets, also neutralize country's own nuclear deterrents - namely the technology available to the United States do not represent a viable politically tenable solution.
- The financial trappings of the European system have see the US enter into a period where is has taken on the burden of collecting and issuing debt with trading partners. The collection of too much of this debt - and the issuing of too much of it - is a serious prospect that both complicates international relations and afixes leverage between the partnered nations.
- Capitalism's adoption of a purely inflationary currency in the 70s has opened the door to both international currency manipulation and to a new necessitated finance sector. With the new inflationary currency, growth has to always exceed inflation, or liquid wealth is lost. To keep this system out of recession financial instruments (and those who control them) must keep the savings rate strictly above this inflationary rate. The growth that can be used to back savings is in limited supply (why there was such a run on mortgage backed securities) and usually provided by bonds to the Western governments we've already discussed as being in straits.
- The Asia-Pacific region, as covered by the top parent comment, is universally recognized as being the region of the world with growth in the coming decades. Going further it is surmised by the State Department that this region will decide world affairs in the coming decades. Indeed, Sino-Russian relations (as they were during the Cold War) are intimately important to world affair. As Europe and Russia enter an era of noncooperation, China and the Asian region is Russia's go to trading partner and network. In fact these past two years have seen Russia deliberately move to China, who now represents the majority of its economic trade. Many of the nations in the Asia Pacific region are quickly becoming world powers in their own right.
- Relatively stable and seeing an interest in trade from the rest of the world, the region is recognized by the United States as the stage that determines the order of the world during the first half of the 21st century. The US wants to participate in the growth, the trade and the decisive world politics of the region; and Asia furthermore represents a stable, peaceful option for its continued prosperity - a hedge against the pressure cooker represented by Europe.
This is not something I've made up, or something from a PR spreadsheet. It is 21st Century US foreign policy. The US has committed itself to a "pivot to asia". The TPP is like moving a pawn into the center of the world chess board. It is not an aggressive move - at least not an overly aggressive one - but it represents a stake. The US recognizes that the prospects of Europe are violent and unstable ones. It wants stable and peaceful options.
Are you broadly against the US wanting to participate in the Pacific, or are you just against the TPP?
> It almost seems like you think that ANY treaty in Asia would be a good thing. Any US influence at all.
I think that's a silly suggestion. Regarding the TPP versus 'any old treaty' - mostly it because of timing and the partner regions. See above context under (a) for more information.
> And you agree with all the criticisms, and they just don't matter to you.
No, they matter to me a lot. If you go through my account history (I post on xnull#guest where # is in {1,2,3,4,5,6} and also xnull) you will see that we agree on a great many things and you will see that I am very critical of certain portions of the leaked documents.
Unfortunately it is difficult this day and age of panic politics to have more informed conversation ranging broad and narrow vantagepoints. Either way, I hope I at can at least get some readers to do independent research regarding the options in front of the United States and global trends.
Downvotes? Really? Github could make a stand here and disallow licenses that evil and self-serving. With this license, anybody who even uses this software can't challenge any patents of Facebook's. If Github said no, this is wrong, they would set an example for everyone else and single this out as the terrible license it is.
Downvotes because its rather impractical, and Im sure many people don't want GitHub to start arbitrarily banning projects because of a random set of beliefs they have.
And then you have people that pay money to GitHub for code hosting...
But Github here is in the position where they are the only external party that could do something about this, because the code is hosted on their site.
> ... Im sure many people don't want GitHub to start arbitrarily banning projects because of a random set of beliefs they have
It wouldn't be unprecedented and it wouldn't be arbitrary. Google Code, for instance, only allows open source projects to be hosted with them. From what I can tell about Github, they allow any license. Doesn't mean that they can't change that policy.
Sure, it's easier to do nothing. But they alone could do something. And Facebook will get the goodwill they want from this without much kickback because nobody does anything.
The point that all your detractors seem to be getting at, that you won't let yourself understand, is that you should do it in person so that it is hard for you to do it. You will never be able to pretend that you aren't doing a great deal of harm to another human being if you have to actually face them and see it.
No, I understand that this is the point they're making, but the point I'm making is that it's not about me. Due to the circumstances of this arrangement, where we only meet in public places, there would've been no way to fire her face-to-face and allow her to retain her dignity. This is why I ultimately decided not to do it in person. Should I have fired her face-to-face just so I could be extra punished for having to fire someone, when it would create a lasting embarrassment and loss of dignity for the employee? I guess a lot of people here think so, and value the punishment of their employer over their own privacy.
As a side note, I don't believe I need to be punished for firing this employee. This didn't enter into my calculation because I don't consider it a punishment to fire someone face-to-face if that's appropriate for the situation.
It's not about punishment. It's not: oh, you did something bad, you need to be punished for it. It's that it shouldn't be easy, and doing it in person makes sure of that. That's all it is. And it sounds a lot like you're rationalizing your desire to avoid that situation by telling yourself that it would be better for the employee, as though you won't let yourself consider the idea that it's all about it being easier for you.
1. People cannot respond to you.
2. Your posts normally do not show up, unless we choose an option of "showdead".
3. Everything sent to you is as a normal user. There is no indication that anything is wrong.
