@Obi - my comments were tongue-in-cheek echoing SYnapse's call to get me silenced for my plane-crash bingo thread.

Synapse, that "mathematical" approach to the situation is hardly accurate or useful.

To the Israeli's the civilian casualties would come under the category of "acceptable losses" through whatever justification they choose to use. The simple fact of the matter is that in any sort of military action like this, there IS going to be collateral damage. You clearly view the amount of damage as too great, the Israeli's and those who still support them clearly do not. The issue is really that, neither side can really claim that their side is right because with human beings involved you can't just calculate a balance and be done with it. It's more complicated than that.


As for the philosophical idea of the tolerant or the "right people" banding together to get rid of those who fail to contribute to a positive future of the human race, I don't think there's a person who hasn't ever wondered or wished that such a thing were either possible or moral, but in practice it would be impossible to implement in any way other than immoral genocide.

"How can we tolerate the intolerant?"

You can't. Pure, unabridged tolerance -- whether explicit through total free speech codes in a community, or implicit through the inability of a governing force to restrain what it might find intolerable -- inevitably leads to an influx of the lowest common denominator of human behavior. See: 4chan, Somalia.

Just as a basic example, intolerance of murder is an obvious starting point for any society; and yet that already requires intolerance of all brand of murderers: contract killers murdering for pay, serial killers murdering for thrill, one-off killer murdering because they feel they've been wronged. This isn't a controversial brand of intolerance, but it is intolerance.

The question, like I said before, really comes down to what you decide you won't tolerate, rather than deciding you will tolerate anything. From there you have two options:
- Voluntary dissociation from intolerable elements through non-forceful means, like boycotts, moving, and self-segregation
- Involuntary dissociation from intolerable elements through forceful means, like imposed segregation, imposed migration, shutdown of business or even violent repression
I think you're asking whether voluntary or involuntary dissociation is the correct way to go. In some cases I can see advocacy for involuntary dissociation being correct, but it almost always is reactive to force from them. If one group of people are violently repressing your group, then you can't simply voluntarily dissociate, because the other group is forcing you to "associate" with them (by way of inflicting violence upon your group). You're forced to respond with force. In most cases I think voluntary dissociation is the only credible solution in a peaceful society.

Hey PE instead of screwing around with this thread next time ban Peyton.

BURN!

Seriously though, why is this thread OK when the joke Putin thread isn't?

Chaqa, I explained why I didn't lock this thread already. What thread are you referencing?

Let's start a PE has his period thread!!

This thread has been enlightening, goodnight guys!

Oh sorry Eden I missed your post. But this thread isn't much worse than the Putin thread with the dancing Kim Jong Un video that got locked.

My mistake, that thread wasn't locked. Carry on.

No it wasn't and you participated very happily in it.

@ 2WL: Peyton?

Never mind. I saw the other thread.

SYnapse, when you come to this feeling, it's something of a personal turning point, and it presents both a real opportunity and a real danger to your later development.

The opportunity is to say, "Woah! I just realized that there are a bunch of people I would actually sort of like to kill for what they believe. I guess that, in a strange way, that makes me kind of like them." You can then move on to wondering whether -- given how bloodthirsty you and your adversaries both are -- there is really any hope for a peaceful future to even a single country, much less mankind; you might ponder the fact that, as long as you (and/or they) allow such a response, there will always be new disagreements that seem important enough to kill people over, and so you won't really be fighting for peace, but only for the supremacy of your own in-crowd.

A little more reflection might lead you to realize that this is exactly the problem that western society faced in the 17th and 18th centuries, and that they DID design a tolerant, pluralistic society, and that, moreover, it has actually worked so far (except for a civil war or two). Perhaps, faced with new admiration for what was achieved in doing this, you'll become worried about some of the pressures that are threatening that wonderful equilibrium, some from yourself and your own side, some from others, and determine to work to preserve it.

Alternatively, you may give in to rage, decide that there is truly a class of people so different from you in opinions (and that's what it is -- obi isn't "intolerant" at all, he's never harmed another person in his life most likely) that you can no longer face living in a society with them, and that you will do all in your power to stamp them out, including moving past dialog and discussion.

That's been tried a lot more often than option one, and we understand pretty well where it leads. I hope you choose well.

This thread is ridiculous.
We are not going to have threads where you call out people to be killed. I don't particularly care for the "philosophical" bend to justify this kind of "discussion."

This is a gaming site, and the forum should not take up all the moderators' time. We should not have to draw specific exact rules of what is allowed and what isn't, so a few of you can say whatever you want because you think it is your right to say whatever you want on a private site and ruin the game for a lot of people.

It is not reasonable. I am locking this thread. Be reasonable in what you post.