Yet another reason to tell the UN to fuck itself

[Partha]

One problem with your discussion of leisure time, Chants. In many cases, the technological revolution has reduced leisure time, with the ability to travel rapidly across the globe, the enhanced communication grid that keeps you within the reach of your employer, and the incredible emphasis on productivity in the modern workplace.

[Chants Evensong]

Actually, the biggest problem with my analysis is that a lot of what ancient Greeks called "leisure" we call "work."

[Ddrak]

Chants,

Showing a circumstantial relationship between what ancient Greeks did in their spare time is not a causal relationship in 2005 AD. There is no causal relationship between leisure time and scientific discovery. If there was, the US would be completely screwed as Americans have significantly less leisure time than most other first world countries.

So, I reject your hypothesis of a post-industrial relationship between spare time and scientific discovery because empirical evidence simply doesn't bear it out, no matter how many Greek words you dig up.

Dd

[Eidolon Faer]

Chants,

I have only one quibble with your post: you called the UN "robust". Other than that your logic is, as usual, flawless.

[Eidolon Faer]

Oh...and Ddrak...

The problem you're having wrapping your mind around this is that you classify research, either for Product Development or for Pure Science, as "work" where Chants and the Greeks put it in the "leisure" column.

The United States does a tremendous amount of scientific research, far more than most first-world countries. If you move that over from your "work" to your "leisure" column I'm certain the numbers will make more sense.

Strictly speaking, you know, the world CAN survive quite comfortably without scientific research, as an astounding number of Product Development Engineers discovered to their chagrin in the economic aftermath of 9-11.

What I'm wondering though, and perhaps Chants can help me with this, is which category Lawyers fall under. The world COULD get along comfortably without Lawyers, but only if the Lawyers decided to let us.

[Eidolon Faer]

Oh, and Partha...

Thank you for proving, with hardly any prompting whatsoever, my point that there are Leftists in America who would buy into Miss Short's argument comparing the Al Qaeda insurgents in Iraq to the French Resistance...

[Ddrak]

Eid,

I find little evidence that Ms Short is in favor of ceding national soverignty to the UN. She says a lot about the UN being a useful tool for international cooperation but like most left wing politicians is firmly against globalization of any sort.

Attacking "mental stability" and "personal life that is screwed up" is definitively an ad homeniem attack.

I've never suggested her argument is particularly sound. I'm just saying your vicious attack was reprehensible and frankly indicitive of many of the qualities you project onto the left.

Once again, you wax lyrical on your hatred of the UN with no real substance. Let me know when you're done with name calling and fantasies of caviar.

Dd

[Partha]

Oh, and Partha...

Thank you for proving, with hardly any prompting whatsoever, my point that there are Leftists in America who would buy into Miss Short's argument comparing the Al Qaeda insurgents in Iraq to the French Resistance...

And I'm certain you'll bring me ironclad proof that, in fact, the Iraqi insurgents are wholly comprised of Al-Qaeda members. It would be a remarkable job of recruiting, seeing as how our good friend Anthony Cordesman estimates that at best 10% of all insurgents in Iraq are foreigners. Truly, if every single foreign fighter can recruit 9 people off the streets in Iraq to go kill Americans, they are masters at proselytizing. Jerry Falwell would love to have them on staff with those powers of persuasion.

Or perhaps I can offer you a Binaca. Talking out your asshole smells up the area really bad after a while.

[Eidolon Faer]

Ddrak...

She didn't say that. She didn't say "a useful" tool, she said "the only" tool.

Now, intelligent people CAN disagree as to whether the invasion of Iraq was justified or not. But, in light of the Iraq Oil for Food scandal, calling the UN the "only" viable route for humanitarian aid is simply indefensible. Especially since, in the next breath, she admits that the UN cannot succeed without the cooperation of the "great powers".

Well, the "great powers" -- at least all of them with resources deployable rapidly to the region -- are acting in concert. Let's see if they can succeed without the UN. I'd bet they could. Humanitarian relief efforts went on long before the UN was formed, you know.

And even if you try to interpret her blithering as generously as possible, I'm not at all convinced that the UN is a useful tool in this crisis. It is certainly not a TRUSTWORTHY one right now. What percentage of that aid would reach the starving survivors in Asia and what percentage would end up lining Kojo Annan's pockets?

Oh, and one other thing...even allowing that your numbers are correct, it appears that Enron and the United Nations are at least tied on dollar amounts.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=285035

Congressional investigators say Saddam Hussein's regime reaped over $21 billion from kickbacks and oil smuggling before and during the time the now-defunct program was in operation.

[Partha]

You're not counting the dollar cost of rolling blackouts on business, Eid. Typically shortsighted focus on your part. Perhaps trade in your microscope for spectacles and get some perspective?

[Chants Evensong]

Ddrak,

One reason I used the ancient Greek concept of leisure time is because you, however unintentially, alluded to it first. You yourself articulated the idea that anything in excess of "every dollar we don't absolutely need to stay alive" is, in a way, superfluous. What we do in addition to what we need to stay alive is, to the ancient Greeks, leisure time. Therefore, you cannot simulataneously argue that what we do in excess of what we need to stay alive is superfluous in some way, and argue that my reference to the ancient Greek concept of leisure time is misplaced. My reference is perfectly placed, neatly, and appropriately, in the paramaters you yourself established.

The correlation between leisure time and scientific progress started when (perhaps) that first homo habilis had enough time to stop to ponder whether that rock, if struck with another, would make a jolly sharp edge, and it continues to this day.

Eid,

Lawyers fall into the leisure class. Perhaps the greatest contribution lawyers make to society is the stability of outcomes. If you sign a contract, you will get paid; if you get hit by a negligent driver, you will be compensated; if you break the law, you will be punished. If we are all out there scratching a living off of rocks and hides, there is not much need for a contract. Lawyers only emerged as useful in trade after we accumulated more than what we needed, and then engaged in said trade.

Shakespeare's famous line, "First thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers," is actually a recognition by tyrants that to destabilize a society, eliminating lawyers is the best way to do it.

[Ddrak]

Chants,

Again, this is a post-industrial society and your analogies to pre-industrial "leisure" is so completely off topic that it doesn't even bear resemblance to the original argument I put forward. Individuals work for a living. Not all the money they earn is necessary for survival. Is it not "stingy" in some sense to fritter away money on *non-productive* pursuits when people in other parts of the world die of starvation?

Do you seriously not understand the differences between the first world industrialized economy and the economy of "homo habilis"? Is your only defense of my argument in 2005 based on some proof of BC Greeks with a quick arm wave saying the exquisite lie that we're not different today? Things did change you know? Your next paycheck should prove that much.

What intrigues me is through your own argument, you've inferred I meant everything you've redefined as "leisure" to be spent on stopping people from dying, but that puts you out on the street as you went on to define your entire existence as "leisure". You see - your arguements and redefinitions of terms are not even internally consistent with my original statement. Try again.


Eid,

I was referring to all her speeches, not the single retort you linked. People start talking about morals when they bankrupt all logical arguments. In this case the logical argument is simple - the OCHA is set up to administer aid over the long term while they lack the ability to move as rapidly as the fastest individual nations. It makes logical sense to allow individual nations to respond without overall coordination initially and bring the efforts together at a later date under the OCHA.

Explain to me how the Oil For Food scandal says anything about the OCHA's ability to coordinate aid? Oh yeah - you can't because you like lumping the entire UN together and pissing on it while hypocritically not doing the same to other large organizations.

Your argument wafts backward and forward through your unwarranted hate of the UN as a whole, name calling , ill informed attacks and blinded rhetoric. The OCHA is every bit as trustworthy as Halliburton, USAid, the US military and any other large bureaucracy. Of course, I welcome your research showing differently - if you have any given that every one of your anti-UN arguments to date has been over the security council and not OCHA.

I do thank you for your concern that I may not be able to "wrap my mind around" what Chants is saying, but I do understand it perfectly. His analogy is just irrelavant to my initial comment is all unless you believe lawyers, scientists and artists are no longer paid to work.

Dd

[Relbeek Einre]

Sorry for the downtime, folks...

Lot has happened during the downtime. The US woke up and is doing the right thing - good! Better late than never, say I. Maybe Bush will pull some international kudos out of this after all, and maybe our money and support will save some lives.

The arguments of the righties have been picked apart pretty thoroughly, I have nothing to add.

[Chants Evensong]

Ddrak,

You are doing it again. You are arguing outside of the parameters you youself set.

You are the one who argued that if we do not give "every dollar we don't absolutely need to stay alive" to help out the millions of starving, we are ungenerous and stingy. That is your argument. You own it. I simply argued that what we do in excess of minimal survival enables a greater good.

It is a constant truth, Ddrak. What we do in excess of what we need to survive, from homo habilis, to the ancient Greeks, to now, results in a greater good that can be harnessed to alleviate hunger, pain, and all the other ills man encounters. Noting the differences between a first wold industrial society and the ancient Greeks or homo habilis does not change this constant truth.

Your argument has failed. It is time for you to concede.

[davidking]

hehe.. Relbeek makes me laugh...

[Eidolon Faer]

Ddrak,

You seem to be lumping Enron and the California Power Crisis together in an unwarranted fashion. Enron was NOT the sole participant in the California Power Crisis. But if you want to argue vague and unprovable second-order effects in a desperate effort to cling to your belief that the UN Oil for Food scandal was a nonevent, I can point out that the long-term developmental effects of malnutrition on children, say those raised eating low-grade animal feed instead of the high-grade grain they supposedly paid for, will be felt in the Iraqi economy for the next 60+ years.

You're still missing the point.

Ken Lay presided over an organization rocked by scandal and went to jail. Kofi Annan presided over an organization rocked with a scandal of similar magnitude, and he went to a ski resort. Why do you inherently regard the United Nations as more trustworthy and less deserving of scrutiny than Enron was?

For that matter, why do you regard one agency of the UN as above suspicion when another was caught with their hands in the cookie jar? Were you willing to blithely assume Enron's legal department was innocent as the driven snow while damning their accounting department to a well-deserved hell? I regard the OCHA as part of a larger institution whose higher officials are ALL suspect, much as we both regard ALL Enron executives as deserving of scrutiny.

My point is that the United Nations grossly mismanaged one humanitarian aid program. I think some time and scrutiny are warranted before we trust them to handle another such aid program without looking over their shoulders and checking their books.

Thus my disagreement with Clare Short.

Frankly, Ddrak, you accuse me of being filled with hate and loathing for the United Nations, and it would wound me if I valued your opinion. I feel that my concerns about their integrity are well-justified. However, let me ask you to step into my shoes for a moment and wonder if you might be percieved as suffering a hatred of American business when you make intemperate comments like "NOBODY does crime like a white collar American."

[Partha]

Boy, Eid, you just went right off the rails with that one.

[Relbeek Einre]

So did Chants.

You are the one who argued that if we do not give "every dollar we don't absolutely need to stay alive" to help out the millions of starving, we are ungenerous and stingy. That is your argument. You own it.

No, that was not Ddrak's argument, and your initial response to the phrase indicates you know that, Chants. Why are you now shifting your interpretation of Ddrak's comments to the absurd, thereby undermining your own credibility in this thread?

[Chants Evensong]

You either have not read the thread or are being deliberately obtuse, Relbeek.

Here is Ddraks argument, in his own words:

We're all fucking stingy. Those of us that aren't would have sold our computers, our pretty California homes, our roleplaying books, our EQ accounts and every fucking thing we own to help out the millions of starving with every dollar we don't absolutely need to stay alive.

If you do not think he is arguing that we are stingy unless we part with everything we don't need to stay alive, you are just plain wrong.

[Riggen]

No, that was not Ddrak's argument

Sorry, Beek. It really was. Chants' interpretation agrees perfectly with what I got out of Ddrak's post. Look at his comment about my beer offer, for pity's sake.