Don't judge people's reasons for donating money. I'm happy to accept people's donations, regardless of their reason for giving it, because who am I to judge what they do with their money?
Telling people who are trying to donate money that their money is no good because their intentions are wrong seems like the most effective way to stop everyone donating money in their tracks immediately.
>at the expense of others.
Maybe we're talking about different things here, but how is it that a net $70MM donation is coming at the expense of taxpayers?
Yeah well those billionaires don't just donate money to you. They'll create some organization that will compete with yours, then donating money to that. Or they come in and say 'ok we want to support your cause to give free internet for the world's poor, but it should only work with Facebook' or some such strings.
The post you're responding to never said this essay deserved criticism. It said it's good people aren't taking it at face value and are being critical of it. They are not the same thing.
Being critical of the claim to donate 45 billion dollars is pretty natural. First, they didn't say 45 billion, they said a percentage of their worth which right now is 45 billion dollars. You would have a very strong point if they had just delivered the check for 45 billion dollars and people were criticizing it.
But they didn't do that. They wrote a post on the internet saying they're going to give away their money sometime in their lifetime.
What point are you making? Are you saying that's a lot or a little? We all read the 99% number. Adding periods between the words puts emphasis on it sure (great job putting in the extra effort to enhance the discussion by the way) but given the nature of this discussion I can't for the life of me figure out what you're actually trying to say.
Three years is all? It takes at least eighteen to raise a child. Shame on you for being proud of your country that doesn't care about children enough to see them raised properly. I have to laugh at you and your country for not valuing your kids. I'm ashamed for you.
This entire (arrogant) line of reasoning is ridiculous because it's completely based on an arbitrary cutoff point that you decide is good. What a crazy coincidence that the cutoff point happens to be the same amount of time the geographic region you happen to live in sets as their paternity leave.
Just move! Great and completely realistic solution to the problem of what to do about paternity leave within my company when a kid is on the way. Brilliant! I wish I'd thought of that.
I've moved cross country almost every time I've moved and I've moved on average about every 18 months since 2005. Add in the sheer amount of stuff that tends to accumulate when you're married to someone obsessed with physical comforts like furniture, heirlooms, and kitsch and it's pretty much constant mental torture. It becomes extremely bothersome to move over time and constantly job-hopping looks pretty poor on one's resume over time as well. My life is a state where as I'm unpacking, I'm deciding what to unpack because I would have to move it again. Even if you're willing to move constantly though, what will your excuse be to your future employers over the next 30 years with such a peppered employment record? "I don't like the labor laws of any state I move to"? That'll be a pretty short interview.
I've had similar experiences. I've thought, "Oh, I know where to find such-and-such item", and gone to look for it in the garage, only to realize, "That's where I kept that item two houses ago" and have no idea where it is.
"Just move" isn't usually bad advice for a single person, but when you have a family, that's a whole different thing.
Oh God I don't want to move again. If I did it would be 5 times since 2011. I like my job otherwise.
Hyphenated company manages to avoid our state laws on covering infertility treatment by funding its own health plan, thereby taking advantage of a loophole in the state law. I can only believe that such a large company, in the state where it is incorporated, would find ways to put loopholes in any new laws.
>You are trying to rationalize with people who are irrational.
In my opinion, this is the most dangerous statement in this thread. Saying the actions of these people is irrational loses any ability to understand why they're doing what they're doing and how we can stop them. It turns them into a faceless enemy who are doing things because of hate, which is easy and makes my ego feel better, but doesn't really explain their actions or the actions of anyone. Nobody thinks they're the bad guy of their own story.
There is nothing more rational than terrorizing civilians to achieve a goal. It is the logical conclusion of rationality.
Oh lordy, no wonder this thread got partially shut down. Calling a pack of murdering religious extremists irrational now classifies as the most dangerous thing that can be said about the situation - yikes. Did I invade your safe space?
They did not terrorize citizens, they murdered them in the name of their non-existent god. Life will go on in Paris just as it did in New York. There is no goal other than blood lust and grim spectacle. All because of their nonsense and yes, irrational religion.
Even if the religion's interpretation of Daesh is irrational to a scientific mind, does not negates the fact that there is a rational analysis to explain the plans and strategy of the liders of the movement(terrorist group).
I agree that with asymmetrical warfare resorting to terrorism is rational. What seems irrational is our inability to recognize the struggle of our enemy for what it's worth and our refusal to negotiate. I can't think of an example where negotiations (as in granting that your partner in negotiations is your peer) haven't led to a net positive outcome. To take but one example close to home: The Soviet Union was founded by a terrorist group. The ultimate recognition of the state by western powers and their foreign policy of engagement -- aside from the Cold War era -- was instrumental in bringing the enemy to its knees (whatever the wider repercussions of this outcome).
I understand your point is that direct confrontation at times cannot be avoided. In particular, you may be provoked to defend yourself, as in the Soviet Union entering WWII upon Germany violating the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. I'm of the opinion that only this latter case of agression justifies taking up arms. Any violence by way of preventive action lends itself too easily to abuses, as we see with the so-called war on terrorism. In the context of WWII, it's not at all clear that anything other than collective action of the allies and the Soviet Union could have stopped Germany. And for that, the events had to run their course. One can find fault with indecision on refugees, but not with appeasement efforts.
They are doing what they are doing because they have interpreted their primary religious text as explicitly instructing them to kill people that don't believe as they do. Killing another human being that poses no threat to you, regardless of what books you like to read or what instructions you believe they contain, is absolutely irrational - regardless of your "goal". Rational people have no way of understanding these actions, nor should they.
No, that's again a refusal to understand why they are doing it. Happy religious people (say, devout Hindus during Diwali) don't go around killing others. There is a lot of "otherness" and segregation in Europe, poverty and war in the countries of origin, and many other factors that radicalise people. Saying that they're doing it because of a book (that they probably didn't even read) is just your own way to turn them into a justifiable target.
> There is a lot of "otherness" and segregation in Europe
There are lots of e.g. Indian, Chinese, South-East Asian, immigrants in Europe. And all over the world. If anything, they look less caucasian than people from Middle East / North Africa, so one would assume them to face even more racism. But they have not produced terrorists.
Rational.. irrational.. I hope you can see that it's a pointless argument. The word "rational" is highly subjective so we shouldn't pretend there's some objective measure of rationality.
* Kill an innocent civilian
* Have or perform an abortion
* Eat meat
* Fight in a war
* Drop an atomic bomb on a city
* Commit suicide
That's all shit that some people call rational and others call irrational. The truth is that "rational" is a word we choose because it sounds objective and authoritative, but it really means: "something that makes sense to me"
It's important because to start to solve these problems you have to be able to see things from their point of view, you can't really do that if you think they are irrational.
Well you can wonder why did these people act irrationaly? Could these behaviour have been detected? Could they have been helped out of this narrowed point of view of thinking that killing innocent is the right thing to do ? I don't think anyone today hasn't in mind those questions.
Last I heard, they were doing this to avenge their countrymen. In fact, we don't really know all the whos and the whys, we just know the whats. And what happened was a horrible thing that needs to be investigated, pored over, and responded to in a measured, rational way that doesn't become a nationstate-enabled revenge plot.
Unless you want to do actual damage. In terror attacks, deaths are only collateral, the real damage is the overreaction of the attacked nation. It's an effective thing if you blame a country.
> It's not intentional but I doubt ISIS sympathisers see the distinction.
I don't see the distinction either. If you drop a bomb and kill some people that you didn't intend to kill, you're still 100% responsible for those kills.
It is the saddest thing that we have found no better response to terrorism than limiting civil liberties and sending 18 year old boys with guns to foreign countries.
What if all you got is an Ak47 and they have ships, tanks, air fighters and drones in the sky?
Please think what would happen if the tables were turned - your country is invaded by a much bigger nation with a technological advantage. Would you organize a peaceful protest for your enemy to ignore?
It's irrational if you do it for kicks. It's rational if you expect a strategic advantage for your group/nation-state out of it. Whether it is moral to do is an entirely different discussion.
If your goal is to terrify a nation in order to pressure it to change its foreign policy then it is quite rational. And there are quite a few examples of this approach actually working.
I think you'll find that psychological health has little to do with what people can convince themselves of, or convince themselves to do - i.e. you can't explain away Daesh (or WWII nazis, etc.) with mental illness.
Their actions could absolutely be called rational and logical if you were to accept their premise - which is what I'd argue is irrational.
You don't even need a Godwin point for that. Nobody was calling Air Marshall Harris, well-known for his strategy of carpet-bombing civilians with incendiaries during WWII, "insane" or "irrational". Instead, they gave him a bunch of medals and made him a baronet.
Oh my god, that is so interesting and different. You must be a really unique and free thinking person to not own a TV or a phone. I bet you have really interesting opinions!
I love how you combat a shit reply with a shit reply of your own. As if Reddit is a single entity and not a collection of somewhat independent communities
Don't judge people's reasons for donating money. I'm happy to accept people's donations, regardless of their reason for giving it, because who am I to judge what they do with their money?
Telling people who are trying to donate money that their money is no good because their intentions are wrong seems like the most effective way to stop everyone donating money in their tracks immediately.
>at the expense of others.
Maybe we're talking about different things here, but how is it that a net $70MM donation is coming at the expense of taxpayers?