https://x.com/TreyYingst/status/1933493841392177570 On the strikes against IRGC Air Force leadership: Israel tricked the top command of Iran’s air force into a meeting and then kept them there, I’m told by an Israeli security official.
“We did specific activities to help us understand things about them and then used that information to make them act in a specific way,” the official said. “We knew this would make them meet, but more importantly we knew how to keep them there.
All these stories we hear about the Israelis don't make them sound very nice do they? I wonder how the Western world would react if the Iranians had out of the blue sent war planes over and killed several Israeli scientists and their families? The US and UK would go bananas and rightly so
There has been something of a longstanding taboo against taking out national leaders.
For better, or for worse, it looks as though that is being extinguished.
That will have global implications.
What taboo?
The IRA targeted Thatcher.
Many leaders have over time been killed, and many executed following wars or revolutions too. Its been difficult to get at leaders typically.
It's one thing if a terrorist group does it, another if a state does it.
If a state is doing it as a part of war, then its a just target.
Don't go to war if you don't want to fight. Leadership are legitimate, just targets.
A thousand years of western ethics says otherwise.
But you’ve already said that you don’t accept the logical basis for their analysis.
https://x.com/TreyYingst/status/1933493841392177570 On the strikes against IRGC Air Force leadership: Israel tricked the top command of Iran’s air force into a meeting and then kept them there, I’m told by an Israeli security official.
“We did specific activities to help us understand things about them and then used that information to make them act in a specific way,” the official said. “We knew this would make them meet, but more importantly we knew how to keep them there.
All these stories we hear about the Israelis don't make them sound very nice do they? I wonder how the Western world would react if the Iranians had out of the blue sent war planes over and killed several Israeli scientists and their families? The US and UK would go bananas and rightly so
There has been something of a longstanding taboo against taking out national leaders.
For better, or for worse, it looks as though that is being extinguished.
That will have global implications.
What taboo?
The IRA targeted Thatcher.
Many leaders have over time been killed, and many executed following wars or revolutions too. Its been difficult to get at leaders typically.
It's one thing if a terrorist group does it, another if a state does it.
We should encourage states to do it more and in fact make enemy leaders the prime target
a) Leaders are sancrosanct and no launching a war they wont be targetted b) Leaders are prime targets in any war
which of a) or b) do you consider will make a national leader less likely to start a war?
I agree completely.
Why is it considered reasonable to kill hundreds of thousands of Russian conscripts, but not put a bullet in the head of Putin and his closest allies? It makes no moral sense.
Sure, it puts our leaders in danger if they go to war. But that should make them think long and hard before going to war in the first place given how many other lives they put at risk.
https://x.com/TreyYingst/status/1933493841392177570 On the strikes against IRGC Air Force leadership: Israel tricked the top command of Iran’s air force into a meeting and then kept them there, I’m told by an Israeli security official.
“We did specific activities to help us understand things about them and then used that information to make them act in a specific way,” the official said. “We knew this would make them meet, but more importantly we knew how to keep them there.
All these stories we hear about the Israelis don't make them sound very nice do they? I wonder how the Western world would react if the Iranians had out of the blue sent war planes over and killed several Israeli scientists and their families? The US and UK would go bananas and rightly so
There has been something of a longstanding taboo against taking out national leaders.
For better, or for worse, it looks as though that is being extinguished.
That will have global implications.
What taboo?
The IRA targeted Thatcher.
Many leaders have over time been killed, and many executed following wars or revolutions too. Its been difficult to get at leaders typically.
The IRA was not a state actor. I assumed that would be implicit in my post, but clearly you need it spelled out.
Nonsense. The IRA is the representative of the legitimate Irish Republic declared in 1916 and ratified by the Irish People in 1918. It is to that Republic that everyone born in Ireland owes their allegiance, not to the 26 County or 6 County quisling entities imposed by the British Crown.
That was a different IRA.
Bullshit. The Provisional IRA is the representative of the all-island that Irish Republic continues to exist, is that state's army, the sole legitimate successor to the original IRA from the Irish War of Independence.
I have not been following this argument properly so can't work out if you are being serious or not.
If you are serious the you are also completely wrong. If you were not serious then apologies.
I agree with Morris Dancer's earlier comment: would we be so keen to mock a politician or a subset of the electorate who believe in a god (or local equivalent)? Because I don't see any functional difference between believing in ghosts or believing in a god.
https://x.com/TreyYingst/status/1933493841392177570 On the strikes against IRGC Air Force leadership: Israel tricked the top command of Iran’s air force into a meeting and then kept them there, I’m told by an Israeli security official.
“We did specific activities to help us understand things about them and then used that information to make them act in a specific way,” the official said. “We knew this would make them meet, but more importantly we knew how to keep them there.
All these stories we hear about the Israelis don't make them sound very nice do they? I wonder how the Western world would react if the Iranians had out of the blue sent war planes over and killed several Israeli scientists and their families? The US and UK would go bananas and rightly so
There has been something of a longstanding taboo against taking out national leaders.
For better, or for worse, it looks as though that is being extinguished.
That will have global implications.
What taboo?
The IRA targeted Thatcher.
Many leaders have over time been killed, and many executed following wars or revolutions too. Its been difficult to get at leaders typically.
It's one thing if a terrorist group does it, another if a state does it.
If a state is doing it as a part of war, then its a just target.
Don't go to war if you don't want to fight. Leadership are legitimate, just targets.
A thousand years of western ethics says otherwise.
But you’ve already said that you don’t accept the logical basis for their analysis.
Western ethics have always been dodgy, they were fine with imperialisim, slavery, feudalism....oh look who defined western ethics....it was people in the lead and you hold this up as an example of we should listen to them on this because those most interested in not having a target on them put it in western ethics
https://x.com/TreyYingst/status/1933493841392177570 On the strikes against IRGC Air Force leadership: Israel tricked the top command of Iran’s air force into a meeting and then kept them there, I’m told by an Israeli security official.
“We did specific activities to help us understand things about them and then used that information to make them act in a specific way,” the official said. “We knew this would make them meet, but more importantly we knew how to keep them there.
All these stories we hear about the Israelis don't make them sound very nice do they? I wonder how the Western world would react if the Iranians had out of the blue sent war planes over and killed several Israeli scientists and their families? The US and UK would go bananas and rightly so
There has been something of a longstanding taboo against taking out national leaders.
For better, or for worse, it looks as though that is being extinguished.
That will have global implications.
What taboo?
The IRA targeted Thatcher.
Many leaders have over time been killed, and many executed following wars or revolutions too. Its been difficult to get at leaders typically.
The IRA was not a state actor. I assumed that would be implicit in my post, but clearly you need it spelled out.
Nonsense. The IRA is the representative of the legitimate Irish Republic declared in 1916 and ratified by the Irish People in 1918. It is to that Republic that everyone born in Ireland owes their allegiance, not to the 26 County or 6 County quisling entities imposed by the British Crown.
That was a different IRA.
Bullshit. The Provisional IRA is the representative of the all-island that Irish Republic continues to exist, is that state's army, the sole legitimate successor to the original IRA from the Irish War of Independence.
Then why is it only provisional? Couldn’t pass the KYC checks?
Quite happy to mock anyone who believes in ghosts.
Or angels, voodoo, god(s), evil spirits, virgin births, healing crystals or any other supernatural nonsense.
The people who find it OK to mock some of the list but take others seriously are wryly amusing.
"Fifteen hundred years ago everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat, and fifteen minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you'll know tomorrow."
Are you expecting a visit from Mrs T, too ?
No, I just find the ultra rationalist approach somewhat arrogant and condescending. We should be less confident about what we know. Kay was right.
The trouble with ultra rationalism is
Person A sees something that current science cant explain.....Now mostly that will be imagination, misinterpretation etc.....there will be however a tiny percentage that probably needs to be looked at. I am sure this is the attitude galilleo experienced....hey my observations don't support everything revolving around us, looks more like we revolve around the sun.
I have no doubt most of the ephemera observed are bollocks and products of minds, if so no problem dismissing it. My concern is more that things are often categorized as such with no investigation because they sound similar to other things. I am pretty sure for example native people had been catching coelecanths for centuries but there statements dismissed as it was extinct for 50 million years....till a western scientist actually saw one. The alternative would be no one had seen one for 50 million years then we suddenly started catching them....I know which my money is on.
They invented time travel to avoid the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs but miscalibrated the dial because they were using imperial not metric by mistake? Hence they arrived in the present day rather than a 20 million years ago
That’s it, isn’t it!
Well that would work if coelecanths showed any evidence of scientific ability. So for your thesis to work it would amount to......we would rather be eaten than prove we have time travel and are highly intelligent fish
Why do you think they waggle their lobe fins so hard when caught? They are desperately trying to communicate with us lesser beings
As usual I am posting away on a dead thread 2 hours after in finished. Thought I should let you know as they were obviously cracking posts that I know you wouldn't want to miss (if only!)
I agree with Morris Dancer's earlier comment: would we be so keen to mock a politician or a subset of the electorate who believe in a god (or local equivalent)? Because I don't see any functional difference between believing in ghosts or believing in a god.
Even in the recent past, being a man / woman of god was held up as them having incredible morals e.g Brown and May coming from deeply religious households.
https://x.com/TreyYingst/status/1933493841392177570 On the strikes against IRGC Air Force leadership: Israel tricked the top command of Iran’s air force into a meeting and then kept them there, I’m told by an Israeli security official.
“We did specific activities to help us understand things about them and then used that information to make them act in a specific way,” the official said. “We knew this would make them meet, but more importantly we knew how to keep them there.
All these stories we hear about the Israelis don't make them sound very nice do they? I wonder how the Western world would react if the Iranians had out of the blue sent war planes over and killed several Israeli scientists and their families? The US and UK would go bananas and rightly so
There has been something of a longstanding taboo against taking out national leaders.
For better, or for worse, it looks as though that is being extinguished.
That will have global implications.
What taboo?
The IRA targeted Thatcher.
Many leaders have over time been killed, and many executed following wars or revolutions too. Its been difficult to get at leaders typically.
The IRA was not a state actor. I assumed that would be implicit in my post, but clearly you need it spelled out.
Nonsense. The IRA is the representative of the legitimate Irish Republic declared in 1916 and ratified by the Irish People in 1918. It is to that Republic that everyone born in Ireland owes their allegiance, not to the 26 County or 6 County quisling entities imposed by the British Crown.
That was a different IRA.
Bullshit. The Provisional IRA is the representative of the all-island that Irish Republic continues to exist, is that state's army, the sole legitimate successor to the original IRA from the Irish War of Independence.
I have not been following this argument properly so can't work out if you are being serious or not.
If you are serious the you are also completely wrong. If you were not serious then apologies.
I remember years ago, someone posting here that they were on a train in Ireland, with a bunch of ultra-hardline Republicans, and it gradually dawned on him they believed that they were the government of Ireland.
Quite happy to mock anyone who believes in ghosts.
Or angels, voodoo, god(s), evil spirits, virgin births, healing crystals or any other supernatural nonsense.
The people who find it OK to mock some of the list but take others seriously are wryly amusing.
"Fifteen hundred years ago everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat, and fifteen minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you'll know tomorrow."
A comment, source: the British Library:
It’s a major peeve of many medieval historians: the popular belief that people who lived before Christopher Columbus thought that the world was flat. It is actually rare to find groups in the classical, Late Antique and medieval eras who believed in the flat Earth. On the contrary, numerous ancient thinkers, navigators and artists observed that the Earth was round.
Since Carl Sagan's fantastic Cosmos series is clipped in that link, this bad premonition from Sagan the Sage in 1995 feels horribly relevant to both this thread and the wider scene;
when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness. The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30-second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), the lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance.
The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.
We already remarkably survive thus far despite knowing the size and scale of the universe in comparison with our own scale and size, which opens up on its own a terrifying vista of reality.
https://x.com/TreyYingst/status/1933493841392177570 On the strikes against IRGC Air Force leadership: Israel tricked the top command of Iran’s air force into a meeting and then kept them there, I’m told by an Israeli security official.
“We did specific activities to help us understand things about them and then used that information to make them act in a specific way,” the official said. “We knew this would make them meet, but more importantly we knew how to keep them there.
All these stories we hear about the Israelis don't make them sound very nice do they? I wonder how the Western world would react if the Iranians had out of the blue sent war planes over and killed several Israeli scientists and their families? The US and UK would go bananas and rightly so
There has been something of a longstanding taboo against taking out national leaders.
For better, or for worse, it looks as though that is being extinguished.
That will have global implications.
What taboo?
The IRA targeted Thatcher.
Many leaders have over time been killed, and many executed following wars or revolutions too. Its been difficult to get at leaders typically.
The IRA was not a state actor. I assumed that would be implicit in my post, but clearly you need it spelled out.
Nonsense. The IRA is the representative of the legitimate Irish Republic declared in 1916 and ratified by the Irish People in 1918. It is to that Republic that everyone born in Ireland owes their allegiance, not to the 26 County or 6 County quisling entities imposed by the British Crown.
That was a different IRA.
Bullshit. The Provisional IRA is the representative of the all-island that Irish Republic continues to exist, is that state's army, the sole legitimate successor to the original IRA from the Irish War of Independence.
Then why is it only provisional? Couldn’t pass the KYC checks?
They got their Automatic licence but still haven’t sorted out the Manual test yet
I agree with Morris Dancer's earlier comment: would we be so keen to mock a politician or a subset of the electorate who believe in a god (or local equivalent)? Because I don't see any functional difference between believing in ghosts or believing in a god.
https://x.com/TreyYingst/status/1933493841392177570 On the strikes against IRGC Air Force leadership: Israel tricked the top command of Iran’s air force into a meeting and then kept them there, I’m told by an Israeli security official.
“We did specific activities to help us understand things about them and then used that information to make them act in a specific way,” the official said. “We knew this would make them meet, but more importantly we knew how to keep them there.
All these stories we hear about the Israelis don't make them sound very nice do they? I wonder how the Western world would react if the Iranians had out of the blue sent war planes over and killed several Israeli scientists and their families? The US and UK would go bananas and rightly so
There has been something of a longstanding taboo against taking out national leaders.
For better, or for worse, it looks as though that is being extinguished.
That will have global implications.
What taboo?
The IRA targeted Thatcher.
Many leaders have over time been killed, and many executed following wars orrevolutions too. Its been difficult to get at leaders typically.
States have not engaged in targeted assassinations. That began to breakdown with the US use of drones.
That is not an argument to say they shouldn't though.....we have never done it that way is not a reason not to
It’s primarily a risk thing. If we were to legitimise the use of drones to target mid level leaders then there would be a massive increase in the threat level.
https://x.com/TreyYingst/status/1933493841392177570 On the strikes against IRGC Air Force leadership: Israel tricked the top command of Iran’s air force into a meeting and then kept them there, I’m told by an Israeli security official.
“We did specific activities to help us understand things about them and then used that information to make them act in a specific way,” the official said. “We knew this would make them meet, but more importantly we knew how to keep them there.
All these stories we hear about the Israelis don't make them sound very nice do they? I wonder how the Western world would react if the Iranians had out of the blue sent war planes over and killed several Israeli scientists and their families? The US and UK would go bananas and rightly so
There has been something of a longstanding taboo against taking out national leaders.
For better, or for worse, it looks as though that is being extinguished.
That will have global implications.
What taboo?
The IRA targeted Thatcher.
Many leaders have over time been killed, and many executed following wars or revolutions too. Its been difficult to get at leaders typically.
It's one thing if a terrorist group does it, another if a state does it.
If a state is doing it as a part of war, then its a just target.
Don't go to war if you don't want to fight. Leadership are legitimate, just targets.
A thousand years of western ethics says otherwise.
But you’ve already said that you don’t accept the logical basis for their analysis.
Western ethics have always been dodgy, they were fine with imperialisim, slavery, feudalism....oh look who defined western ethics....it was people in the lead and you hold this up as an example of we should listen to them on this because those most interested in not having a target on them put it in western ethics
I agree with Morris Dancer's earlier comment: would we be so keen to mock a politician or a subset of the electorate who believe in a god (or local equivalent)? Because I don't see any functional difference between believing in ghosts or believing in a god.
Even in the recent past, being a man / woman of god was held up as them having incredible morals e.g Brown and May coming from deeply religious households.
Morality =/= religosity often the reverse in my experience and I say that as someone of faith and mostly the abrahmic religions that are guilty of it though I suspect that is because they are so heavily into the "Thou shalt not..." prescriptions
I agree with Morris Dancer's earlier comment: would we be so keen to mock a politician or a subset of the electorate who believe in a god (or local equivalent)? Because I don't see any functional difference between believing in ghosts or believing in a god.
Even in the recent past, being a man / woman of god was held up as them having incredible morals e.g Brown and May coming from deeply religious households.
Morality =/= religosity often the reverse in my experience and I say that as someone of faith and mostly the abrahmic religions that are guilty of it though I suspect that is because they are so heavily into the "Thou shalt not..." prescriptions
Those who experienced Gordo mobile throwing tantrums probably weren't sold.
https://x.com/TreyYingst/status/1933493841392177570 On the strikes against IRGC Air Force leadership: Israel tricked the top command of Iran’s air force into a meeting and then kept them there, I’m told by an Israeli security official.
“We did specific activities to help us understand things about them and then used that information to make them act in a specific way,” the official said. “We knew this would make them meet, but more importantly we knew how to keep them there.
All these stories we hear about the Israelis don't make them sound very nice do they? I wonder how the Western world would react if the Iranians had out of the blue sent war planes over and killed several Israeli scientists and their families? The US and UK would go bananas and rightly so
There has been something of a longstanding taboo against taking out national leaders.
For better, or for worse, it looks as though that is being extinguished.
That will have global implications.
What taboo?
The IRA targeted Thatcher.
Many leaders have over time been killed, and many executed following wars or revolutions too. Its been difficult to get at leaders typically.
The IRA was not a state actor. I assumed that would be implicit in my post, but clearly you need it spelled out.
Nonsense. The IRA is the representative of the legitimate Irish Republic declared in 1916 and ratified by the Irish People in 1918. It is to that Republic that everyone born in Ireland owes their allegiance, not to the 26 County or 6 County quisling entities imposed by the British Crown.
That was a different IRA.
Bullshit. The Provisional IRA is the representative of the all-island that Irish Republic continues to exist, is that state's army, the sole legitimate successor to the original IRA from the Irish War of Independence.
Then why is it only provisional? Couldn’t pass the KYC checks?
They got their Automatic licence but still haven’t sorted out the Manual test yet
Couldn’t get the gear to work.
Hard after someone has buried it in concrete I suppose
On topic, I find it interesting that the closer people get to potentially becoming ghosts, the less they believe in them. For some reason I would have thought it would be the other way round.
I agree with Morris Dancer's earlier comment: would we be so keen to mock a politician or a subset of the electorate who believe in a god (or local equivalent)? Because I don't see any functional difference between believing in ghosts or believing in a god.
I believe in not mocking people.
I believe in mocking beliefs not people.... or perhaps I don't believe it. Who knows.
Quite happy to mock anyone who believes in ghosts.
Or angels, voodoo, god(s), evil spirits, virgin births, healing crystals or any other supernatural nonsense.
The people who find it OK to mock some of the list but take others seriously are wryly amusing.
"Fifteen hundred years ago everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat, and fifteen minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you'll know tomorrow."
A comment, source: the British Library:
It’s a major peeve of many medieval historians: the popular belief that people who lived before Christopher Columbus thought that the world was flat. It is actually rare to find groups in the classical, Late Antique and medieval eras who believed in the flat Earth. On the contrary, numerous ancient thinkers, navigators and artists observed that the Earth was round.
Since Carl Sagan's fantastic Cosmos series is clipped in that link, this bad premonition from Sagan the Sage in 1995 feels horribly relevant to both this thread and the wider scene;
when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness. The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30-second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), the lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance.
The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.
We already remarkably survive thus far despite knowing the size and scale of the universe in comparison with our own scale and size, which opens up on its own a terrifying vista of reality.
We don't however know the size or scale, we merely know where we think it is which does not mean we are right. We still don't know where 90% of the mass of what we consider the known universe is either and attribute it to dark matter....which is what exactly? Oh yes we don't know
https://x.com/TreyYingst/status/1933493841392177570 On the strikes against IRGC Air Force leadership: Israel tricked the top command of Iran’s air force into a meeting and then kept them there, I’m told by an Israeli security official.
“We did specific activities to help us understand things about them and then used that information to make them act in a specific way,” the official said. “We knew this would make them meet, but more importantly we knew how to keep them there.
All these stories we hear about the Israelis don't make them sound very nice do they? I wonder how the Western world would react if the Iranians had out of the blue sent war planes over and killed several Israeli scientists and their families? The US and UK would go bananas and rightly so
There has been something of a longstanding taboo against taking out national leaders.
For better, or for worse, it looks as though that is being extinguished.
That will have global implications.
What taboo?
The IRA targeted Thatcher.
Many leaders have over time been killed, and many executed following wars or revolutions too. Its been difficult to get at leaders typically.
It's one thing if a terrorist group does it, another if a state does it.
If a state is doing it as a part of war, then its a just target.
Don't go to war if you don't want to fight. Leadership are legitimate, just targets.
A thousand years of western ethics says otherwise.
But you’ve already said that you don’t accept the logical basis for their analysis.
Western ethics have always been dodgy, they were fine with imperialisim, slavery, feudalism....oh look who defined western ethics....it was people in the lead and you hold this up as an example of we should listen to them on this because those most interested in not having a target on them put it in western ethics
I always thought it had less to do with ethics and more to do with self interest. What political leader would want to claim that assassination was a legtimate tool of statecraft? Given that they would be one of the targets.
I am starting to suspect that the shooter in the tragedy in Minnesota might actually have been a police officer.
I hope I am wrong.
Not sure why it should make a difference plenty of police officers both in the uk , the us and probably every country commit horrible crimes constantly
I agree with Morris Dancer's earlier comment: would we be so keen to mock a politician or a subset of the electorate who believe in a god (or local equivalent)? Because I don't see any functional difference between believing in ghosts or believing in a god.
I believe in not mocking people.
This is my take.
We shouldn't mock people for sincerely held beliefs that do no harm. Belief in ghosts is valid and cannot be disproven. As with God and any number of other things. Mocking the beliefs is unkind and marginalises people. I don't believe in any of the above, but that's neither here not there.
However, I do think there's something to be said about people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. A Christian or Muslim or Hindu mocking someone who believes in ghosts deserves to have their own ludicrous belief system mocked in equal measure.
https://x.com/TreyYingst/status/1933493841392177570 On the strikes against IRGC Air Force leadership: Israel tricked the top command of Iran’s air force into a meeting and then kept them there, I’m told by an Israeli security official.
“We did specific activities to help us understand things about them and then used that information to make them act in a specific way,” the official said. “We knew this would make them meet, but more importantly we knew how to keep them there.
All these stories we hear about the Israelis don't make them sound very nice do they? I wonder how the Western world would react if the Iranians had out of the blue sent war planes over and killed several Israeli scientists and their families? The US and UK would go bananas and rightly so
There has been something of a longstanding taboo against taking out national leaders.
For better, or for worse, it looks as though that is being extinguished.
That will have global implications.
What taboo?
The IRA targeted Thatcher.
Many leaders have over time been killed, and many executed following wars or revolutions too. Its been difficult to get at leaders typically.
It's one thing if a terrorist group does it, another if a state does it.
If a state is doing it as a part of war, then its a just target.
Don't go to war if you don't want to fight. Leadership are legitimate, just targets.
A thousand years of western ethics says otherwise.
But you’ve already said that you don’t accept the logical basis for their analysis.
Western ethics have always been dodgy, they were fine with imperialisim, slavery, feudalism....oh look who defined western ethics....it was people in the lead and you hold this up as an example of we should listen to them on this because those most interested in not having a target on them put it in western ethics
I always thought it had less to do with ethics and more to do with self interest. What political leader would want to claim that assassination was a legtimate tool of statecraft? Given that they would be one of the targets.
Which is my point, knowing they would immediately be a legitimate target for the other side by declaring war might make them more cautious about doing so
I agree with Morris Dancer's earlier comment: would we be so keen to mock a politician or a subset of the electorate who believe in a god (or local equivalent)? Because I don't see any functional difference between believing in ghosts or believing in a god.
Not so I think. In classical monotheism - which in different guises is incredibly pervasive even in apparently polytheistic thought - the concept of the One High God, however named, is utterly distinct from any other thinkable concept, whereas ghosts and other like stuff are merely claims about what elements actually exist within the totality of the created order.
Whether there is such a being is of course another question. But in comparison with it, the existence or not of ghosts is a mere empirical side show.
On topic, I find it interesting that the closer people get to potentially becoming ghosts, the less they believe in them. For some reason I would have thought it would be the other way round.
I saw a ghost once and still don't believe in them
https://x.com/TreyYingst/status/1933493841392177570 On the strikes against IRGC Air Force leadership: Israel tricked the top command of Iran’s air force into a meeting and then kept them there, I’m told by an Israeli security official.
“We did specific activities to help us understand things about them and then used that information to make them act in a specific way,” the official said. “We knew this would make them meet, but more importantly we knew how to keep them there.
All these stories we hear about the Israelis don't make them sound very nice do they? I wonder how the Western world would react if the Iranians had out of the blue sent war planes over and killed several Israeli scientists and their families? The US and UK would go bananas and rightly so
There has been something of a longstanding taboo against taking out national leaders.
For better, or for worse, it looks as though that is being extinguished.
That will have global implications.
What taboo?
The IRA targeted Thatcher.
Many leaders have over time been killed, and many executed following wars or revolutions too. Its been difficult to get at leaders typically.
The IRA was not a state actor. I assumed that would be implicit in my post, but clearly you need it spelled out.
Nonsense. The IRA is the representative of the legitimate Irish Republic declared in 1916 and ratified by the Irish People in 1918. It is to that Republic that everyone born in Ireland owes their allegiance, not to the 26 County or 6 County quisling entities imposed by the British Crown.
That was a different IRA.
Bullshit. The Provisional IRA is the representative of the all-island that Irish Republic continues to exist, is that state's army, the sole legitimate successor to the original IRA from the Irish War of Independence.
I have not been following this argument properly so can't work out if you are being serious or not.
If you are serious the you are also completely wrong. If you were not serious then apologies.
The Provisional IRA’s first public statement on 28 December 1969 read -
“We declare our allegiance to the 32 county Irish republic, proclaimed at Easter 1916, established by the first Dáil Éireann in 1919, overthrown by force of arms in 1922 and suppressed to this day by the existing British-imposed six-county and twenty-six-county partition states ... We call on the Irish people at home and in exile for increased support towards defending our people in the North and the eventual achievement of the full political, social, economic and cultural freedom of Ireland.”
Many, indeed most, disagree with that statement but it formed the basis of a belief that maintained a war for 30 years. If that didn’t dissuade many from that position (and it’s one that SF at the very least partially maintain in their Westminster abstentionism) then no amount of argument on a U.K. message board will.
https://x.com/TreyYingst/status/1933493841392177570 On the strikes against IRGC Air Force leadership: Israel tricked the top command of Iran’s air force into a meeting and then kept them there, I’m told by an Israeli security official.
“We did specific activities to help us understand things about them and then used that information to make them act in a specific way,” the official said. “We knew this would make them meet, but more importantly we knew how to keep them there.
All these stories we hear about the Israelis don't make them sound very nice do they? I wonder how the Western world would react if the Iranians had out of the blue sent war planes over and killed several Israeli scientists and their families? The US and UK would go bananas and rightly so
There has been something of a longstanding taboo against taking out national leaders.
For better, or for worse, it looks as though that is being extinguished.
That will have global implications.
What taboo?
The IRA targeted Thatcher.
Many leaders have over time been killed, and many executed following wars or revolutions too. Its been difficult to get at leaders typically.
It's one thing if a terrorist group does it, another if a state does it.
If a state is doing it as a part of war, then its a just target.
Don't go to war if you don't want to fight. Leadership are legitimate, just targets.
A thousand years of western ethics says otherwise.
But you’ve already said that you don’t accept the logical basis for their analysis.
Western ethics have always been dodgy, they were fine with imperialisim, slavery, feudalism....oh look who defined western ethics....it was people in the lead and you hold this up as an example of we should listen to them on this because those most interested in not having a target on them put it in western ethics
I always thought it had less to do with ethics and more to do with self interest. What political leader would want to claim that assassination was a legtimate tool of statecraft? Given that they would be one of the targets.
That is far more, what it’s about.
The same way that kings and queens were extremely reluctant to kill each other.
https://x.com/TreyYingst/status/1933493841392177570 On the strikes against IRGC Air Force leadership: Israel tricked the top command of Iran’s air force into a meeting and then kept them there, I’m told by an Israeli security official.
“We did specific activities to help us understand things about them and then used that information to make them act in a specific way,” the official said. “We knew this would make them meet, but more importantly we knew how to keep them there.
All these stories we hear about the Israelis don't make them sound very nice do they? I wonder how the Western world would react if the Iranians had out of the blue sent war planes over and killed several Israeli scientists and their families? The US and UK would go bananas and rightly so
There has been something of a longstanding taboo against taking out national leaders.
For better, or for worse, it looks as though that is being extinguished.
That will have global implications.
What taboo?
The IRA targeted Thatcher.
Many leaders have over time been killed, and many executed following wars or revolutions too. Its been difficult to get at leaders typically.
The IRA was not a state actor. I assumed that would be implicit in my post, but clearly you need it spelled out.
Nonsense. The IRA is the representative of the legitimate Irish Republic declared in 1916 and ratified by the Irish People in 1918. It is to that Republic that everyone born in Ireland owes their allegiance, not to the 26 County or 6 County quisling entities imposed by the British Crown.
That was a different IRA.
Bullshit. The Provisional IRA is the representative of the all-island that Irish Republic continues to exist, is that state's army, the sole legitimate successor to the original IRA from the Irish War of Independence.
I have not been following this argument properly so can't work out if you are being serious or not.
If you are serious the you are also completely wrong. If you were not serious then apologies.
The Provisional IRA’s first public statement on 28 December 1969 read -
“We declare our allegiance to the 32 county Irish republic, proclaimed at Easter 1916, established by the first Dáil Éireann in 1919, overthrown by force of arms in 1922 and suppressed to this day by the existing British-imposed six-county and twenty-six-county partition states ... We call on the Irish people at home and in exile for increased support towards defending our people in the North and the eventual achievement of the full political, social, economic and cultural freedom of Ireland.”
Many, indeed most, disagree with that statement but it formed the basis of a belief that maintained a war for 30 years. If that didn’t dissuade many from that position (and it’s one that SF at the very least partially maintain in their Westminster abstentionism) then no amount of argument on a U.K. message board will.
Just because the Provos are deluded doesn't mean that you have to share their delusion. A delusion that was not shared either by the Official IRA from whom they split nor by successive Irish Governments.
It seems remarkably silly to me to mock a belief in ghosts. All religious and spiritual belief, and indeed a belief in extra-terrestrial beings, includes the idea that there is a world unseen but very present, that occasionally interacts with our earthbound physical world.
https://x.com/TreyYingst/status/1933493841392177570 On the strikes against IRGC Air Force leadership: Israel tricked the top command of Iran’s air force into a meeting and then kept them there, I’m told by an Israeli security official.
“We did specific activities to help us understand things about them and then used that information to make them act in a specific way,” the official said. “We knew this would make them meet, but more importantly we knew how to keep them there.
All these stories we hear about the Israelis don't make them sound very nice do they? I wonder how the Western world would react if the Iranians had out of the blue sent war planes over and killed several Israeli scientists and their families? The US and UK would go bananas and rightly so
There has been something of a longstanding taboo against taking out national leaders.
For better, or for worse, it looks as though that is being extinguished.
That will have global implications.
What taboo?
The IRA targeted Thatcher.
Many leaders have over time been killed, and many executed following wars or revolutions too. Its been difficult to get at leaders typically.
The IRA was not a state actor. I assumed that would be implicit in my post, but clearly you need it spelled out.
Nonsense. The IRA is the representative of the legitimate Irish Republic declared in 1916 and ratified by the Irish People in 1918. It is to that Republic that everyone born in Ireland owes their allegiance, not to the 26 County or 6 County quisling entities imposed by the British Crown.
That was a different IRA.
Bullshit. The Provisional IRA is the representative of the all-island that Irish Republic continues to exist, is that state's army, the sole legitimate successor to the original IRA from the Irish War of Independence.
I have not been following this argument properly so can't work out if you are being serious or not.
If you are serious the you are also completely wrong. If you were not serious then apologies.
The Provisional IRA’s first public statement on 28 December 1969 read -
“We declare our allegiance to the 32 county Irish republic, proclaimed at Easter 1916, established by the first Dáil Éireann in 1919, overthrown by force of arms in 1922 and suppressed to this day by the existing British-imposed six-county and twenty-six-county partition states ... We call on the Irish people at home and in exile for increased support towards defending our people in the North and the eventual achievement of the full political, social, economic and cultural freedom of Ireland.”
Many, indeed most, disagree with that statement but it formed the basis of a belief that maintained a war for 30 years. If that didn’t dissuade many from that position (and it’s one that SF at the very least partially maintain in their Westminster abstentionism) then no amount of argument on a U.K. message board will.
On topic, I find it interesting that the closer people get to potentially becoming ghosts, the less they believe in them. For some reason I would have thought it would be the other way round.
I saw a ghost once and still don't believe in them
I am the same. My first published ghost story was inspired by a personal experience and I make a tidy bit of pocket money out of writing supernatural stories. But I don't actually believe in any of it.
It seems remarkably silly to me to mock a belief in ghosts. All religious and spiritual belief, and indeed a belief in extra-terrestrial beings, includes the idea that there is a world unseen but very present, that occasionally interacts with our earthbound physical world.
There must be some beliefs which don't think God intervenes, surely? That he only created.
It seems remarkably silly to me to mock a belief in ghosts. All religious and spiritual belief, and indeed a belief in extra-terrestrial beings, includes the idea that there is a world unseen but very present, that occasionally interacts with our earthbound physical world.
One of those things is not like the other. Life has been proven to exist
On topic, I find it interesting that the closer people get to potentially becoming ghosts, the less they believe in them. For some reason I would have thought it would be the other way round.
I saw a ghost once and still don't believe in them
I am the same. My first published ghost story was inspired by a personal experience and I make a tidy bit of pocket money out of writing supernatural stories. But I don't actually believe in any of it.
I wonder, just as we see stars long-destroyed, if ghosts are a relic of someone who was once there.
It seems remarkably silly to me to mock a belief in ghosts. All religious and spiritual belief, and indeed a belief in extra-terrestrial beings, includes the idea that there is a world unseen but very present, that occasionally interacts with our earthbound physical world.
There must be some beliefs which don't think God intervenes, surely? That he only created.
There are many beliefs centred around a non interventionist God. Much easier once you separate your creator from the Yahweh character in the OT
I agree with Morris Dancer's earlier comment: would we be so keen to mock a politician or a subset of the electorate who believe in a god (or local equivalent)? Because I don't see any functional difference between believing in ghosts or believing in a god.
I believe in not mocking people.
This is my take.
We shouldn't mock people for sincerely held beliefs that do no harm. Belief in ghosts is valid and cannot be disproven. As with God and any number of other things. Mocking the beliefs is unkind and marginalises people. I don't believe in any of the above, but that's neither here not there.
However, I do think there's something to be said about people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. A Christian or Muslim or Hindu mocking someone who believes in ghosts deserves to have their own ludicrous belief system mocked in equal measure.
The verbal dexterity here is interesting. You are right to oppose unjustified mockery; your difficulty is that to describe the entireity of Christian, Hindu and Muslim belief systems as 'ludicrous' is to say they are worthy of mockery - ludicrous things are just that. That isn't how it is possible to comprehend whole cultures, histories and ways of life embedded in belief systems.
https://x.com/TreyYingst/status/1933493841392177570 On the strikes against IRGC Air Force leadership: Israel tricked the top command of Iran’s air force into a meeting and then kept them there, I’m told by an Israeli security official.
“We did specific activities to help us understand things about them and then used that information to make them act in a specific way,” the official said. “We knew this would make them meet, but more importantly we knew how to keep them there.
All these stories we hear about the Israelis don't make them sound very nice do they? I wonder how the Western world would react if the Iranians had out of the blue sent war planes over and killed several Israeli scientists and their families? The US and UK would go bananas and rightly so
There has been something of a longstanding taboo against taking out national leaders.
For better, or for worse, it looks as though that is being extinguished.
That will have global implications.
What taboo?
The IRA targeted Thatcher.
Many leaders have over time been killed, and many executed following wars or revolutions too. Its been difficult to get at leaders typically.
It's one thing if a terrorist group does it, another if a state does it.
If a state is doing it as a part of war, then its a just target.
Don't go to war if you don't want to fight. Leadership are legitimate, just targets.
A thousand years of western ethics says otherwise.
But you’ve already said that you don’t accept the logical basis for their analysis.
Western ethics have always been dodgy, they were fine with imperialisim, slavery, feudalism....oh look who defined western ethics....it was people in the lead and you hold this up as an example of we should listen to them on this because those most interested in not having a target on them put it in western ethics
I always thought it had less to do with ethics and more to do with self interest. What political leader would want to claim that assassination was a legtimate tool of statecraft? Given that they would be one of the targets.
Which is my point, knowing they would immediately be a legitimate target for the other side by declaring war might make them more cautious about doing so
I think the last officially acknowledged assassination sanctioned by the US was Admiral Yamamoto in 1943.
On topic, I find it interesting that the closer people get to potentially becoming ghosts, the less they believe in them. For some reason I would have thought it would be the other way round.
I saw a ghost once and still don't believe in them
I am the same. My first published ghost story was inspired by a personal experience and I make a tidy bit of pocket money out of writing supernatural stories. But I don't actually believe in any of it.
I do believe we saw something as there were two witnesses. I merely don't think it was the spirit of one departed. More like a video replay of something. But myself and the mother of my child witnessed it but didn't think anything of the guy standing there looking down at the bed. Just assumed it was someone that had wandered into the house by mistake so went back to sleep.
Described him the next day at breakfast and freaked her family out as the guy we described was the last person to live there that had died 10 years before
It seems remarkably silly to me to mock a belief in ghosts. All religious and spiritual belief, and indeed a belief in extra-terrestrial beings, includes the idea that there is a world unseen but very present, that occasionally interacts with our earthbound physical world.
There must be some beliefs which don't think God intervenes, surely? That he only created.
But they still believe in the soul - that life doesn't finish when breath leaves the body. What's that if not ghosts?
I agree with Morris Dancer's earlier comment: would we be so keen to mock a politician or a subset of the electorate who believe in a god (or local equivalent)? Because I don't see any functional difference between believing in ghosts or believing in a god.
I believe in not mocking people.
This is my take.
We shouldn't mock people for sincerely held beliefs that do no harm. Belief in ghosts is valid and cannot be disproven. As with God and any number of other things. Mocking the beliefs is unkind and marginalises people. I don't believe in any of the above, but that's neither here not there.
However, I do think there's something to be said about people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. A Christian or Muslim or Hindu mocking someone who believes in ghosts deserves to have their own ludicrous belief system mocked in equal measure.
So we have to prove ghosts don’t exist? See Russel’s teapot.
It seems remarkably silly to me to mock a belief in ghosts. All religious and spiritual belief, and indeed a belief in extra-terrestrial beings, includes the idea that there is a world unseen but very present, that occasionally interacts with our earthbound physical world.
There must be some beliefs which don't think God intervenes, surely? That he only created.
But they still believe in the soul - that life doesn't finish when breath leaves the body. What's that if not ghosts?
Not all beliefs have souls, thats common but not universal
It seems remarkably silly to me to mock a belief in ghosts. All religious and spiritual belief, and indeed a belief in extra-terrestrial beings, includes the idea that there is a world unseen but very present, that occasionally interacts with our earthbound physical world.
There must be some beliefs which don't think God intervenes, surely? That he only created.
There are many beliefs centred around a non interventionist God. Much easier once you separate your creator from the Yahweh character in the OT
On topic, I find it interesting that the closer people get to potentially becoming ghosts, the less they believe in them. For some reason I would have thought it would be the other way round.
I saw a ghost once and still don't believe in them
I smelled one once. She was called Mary. She died in childbirth 200 years ago
https://x.com/TreyYingst/status/1933493841392177570 On the strikes against IRGC Air Force leadership: Israel tricked the top command of Iran’s air force into a meeting and then kept them there, I’m told by an Israeli security official.
“We did specific activities to help us understand things about them and then used that information to make them act in a specific way,” the official said. “We knew this would make them meet, but more importantly we knew how to keep them there.
All these stories we hear about the Israelis don't make them sound very nice do they? I wonder how the Western world would react if the Iranians had out of the blue sent war planes over and killed several Israeli scientists and their families? The US and UK would go bananas and rightly so
There has been something of a longstanding taboo against taking out national leaders.
For better, or for worse, it looks as though that is being extinguished.
That will have global implications.
What taboo?
The IRA targeted Thatcher.
Many leaders have over time been killed, and many executed following wars or revolutions too. Its been difficult to get at leaders typically.
It's one thing if a terrorist group does it, another if a state does it.
If a state is doing it as a part of war, then its a just target.
Don't go to war if you don't want to fight. Leadership are legitimate, just targets.
A thousand years of western ethics says otherwise.
But you’ve already said that you don’t accept the logical basis for their analysis.
Western ethics have always been dodgy, they were fine with imperialisim, slavery, feudalism....oh look who defined western ethics....it was people in the lead and you hold this up as an example of we should listen to them on this because those most interested in not having a target on them put it in western ethics
I always thought it had less to do with ethics and more to do with self interest. What political leader would want to claim that assassination was a legtimate tool of statecraft? Given that they would be one of the targets.
That is far more, what it’s about.
The same way that kings and queens were extremely reluctant to kill each other.
It's more because killing a leader is an act of war.
The Russians have tried quite a few times to assassinate Zelinksky, but Russia & Ukraine are already at war.
On the other hand, the Russians avoid targeting Kyiv when foreign leaders are visiting because they know that if they kill some Western leader, then that Western country & Russia would be at war, and they want to avoid creating a "second front" in the war.
On topic, I find it interesting that the closer people get to potentially becoming ghosts, the less they believe in them. For some reason I would have thought it would be the other way round.
I saw a ghost once and still don't believe in them
I smelled one once. She was called Mary. She died in childbirth 200 years ago
No reason all senses can't be involved, I still suspect they are more of the video replay type than a conscious thinking spirit kind
It seems remarkably silly to me to mock a belief in ghosts. All religious and spiritual belief, and indeed a belief in extra-terrestrial beings, includes the idea that there is a world unseen but very present, that occasionally interacts with our earthbound physical world.
There must be some beliefs which don't think God intervenes, surely? That he only created.
There are many beliefs centred around a non interventionist God. Much easier once you separate your creator from the Yahweh character in the OT
Aristotle; most Unitarians two examples. Also some strands of Anglican theology, a bit out of fashion at the moment.
However, the big intervention by God more or less universally posited by theists is creation ex nihilo itself. Interventions come no bigger.
It seems remarkably silly to me to mock a belief in ghosts. All religious and spiritual belief, and indeed a belief in extra-terrestrial beings, includes the idea that there is a world unseen but very present, that occasionally interacts with our earthbound physical world.
There must be some beliefs which don't think God intervenes, surely? That he only created.
There are many beliefs centred around a non interventionist God. Much easier once you separate your creator from the Yahweh character in the OT
I agree with Morris Dancer's earlier comment: would we be so keen to mock a politician or a subset of the electorate who believe in a god (or local equivalent)? Because I don't see any functional difference between believing in ghosts or believing in a god.
I believe in not mocking people.
This is my take.
We shouldn't mock people for sincerely held beliefs that do no harm. Belief in ghosts is valid and cannot be disproven. As with God and any number of other things. Mocking the beliefs is unkind and marginalises people. I don't believe in any of the above, but that's neither here not there.
However, I do think there's something to be said about people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. A Christian or Muslim or Hindu mocking someone who believes in ghosts deserves to have their own ludicrous belief system mocked in equal measure.
The verbal dexterity here is interesting. You are right to oppose unjustified mockery; your difficulty is that to describe the entireity of Christian, Hindu and Muslim belief systems as 'ludicrous' is to say they are worthy of mockery - ludicrous things are just that. That isn't how it is possible to comprehend whole cultures, histories and ways of life embedded in belief systems.
Lots of things are worthy of mockery, but best not to do it unless the person has been unkind to someone else first. Then they deserve to get as good as they give.
I agree with Morris Dancer's earlier comment: would we be so keen to mock a politician or a subset of the electorate who believe in a god (or local equivalent)? Because I don't see any functional difference between believing in ghosts or believing in a god.
I believe in not mocking people.
This is my take.
We shouldn't mock people for sincerely held beliefs that do no harm. Belief in ghosts is valid and cannot be disproven. As with God and any number of other things. Mocking the beliefs is unkind and marginalises people. I don't believe in any of the above, but that's neither here not there.
However, I do think there's something to be said about people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. A Christian or Muslim or Hindu mocking someone who believes in ghosts deserves to have their own ludicrous belief system mocked in equal measure.
So we have to prove ghosts don’t exist? See Russel’s teapot.
Good news for those of us who believe in the four potato men of the apocalypse.
It seems remarkably silly to me to mock a belief in ghosts. All religious and spiritual belief, and indeed a belief in extra-terrestrial beings, includes the idea that there is a world unseen but very present, that occasionally interacts with our earthbound physical world.
There must be some beliefs which don't think God intervenes, surely? That he only created.
There are many beliefs centred around a non interventionist God. Much easier once you separate your creator from the Yahweh character in the OT
It seems remarkably silly to me to mock a belief in ghosts. All religious and spiritual belief, and indeed a belief in extra-terrestrial beings, includes the idea that there is a world unseen but very present, that occasionally interacts with our earthbound physical world.
There must be some beliefs which don't think God intervenes, surely? That he only created.
There are many beliefs centred around a non interventionist God. Much easier once you separate your creator from the Yahweh character in the OT
Aristotle; most Unitarians two examples. Also some strands of Anglican theology, a bit out of fashion at the moment.
However, the big intervention by God more or less universally posited by theists is creation ex nihilo itself. Interventions come no bigger.
Question for you?
Physicists largely seem to agree that before the big bang was the monobloc
No time , no space etc everything in one big bloc
Then it exploded and the universe came into being
Think that is a fair summation
So if you have a thing where there is no time or space how do you make it explode into a universe without an outside force impinging on it. By definition its a stable thing
https://x.com/TreyYingst/status/1933493841392177570 On the strikes against IRGC Air Force leadership: Israel tricked the top command of Iran’s air force into a meeting and then kept them there, I’m told by an Israeli security official.
“We did specific activities to help us understand things about them and then used that information to make them act in a specific way,” the official said. “We knew this would make them meet, but more importantly we knew how to keep them there.
All these stories we hear about the Israelis don't make them sound very nice do they? I wonder how the Western world would react if the Iranians had out of the blue sent war planes over and killed several Israeli scientists and their families? The US and UK would go bananas and rightly so
There has been something of a longstanding taboo against taking out national leaders.
For better, or for worse, it looks as though that is being extinguished.
That will have global implications.
What taboo?
The IRA targeted Thatcher.
Many leaders have over time been killed, and many executed following wars or revolutions too. Its been difficult to get at leaders typically.
It's one thing if a terrorist group does it, another if a state does it.
If a state is doing it as a part of war, then its a just target.
Don't go to war if you don't want to fight. Leadership are legitimate, just targets.
A thousand years of western ethics says otherwise.
But you’ve already said that you don’t accept the logical basis for their analysis.
Western ethics have always been dodgy, they were fine with imperialisim, slavery, feudalism....oh look who defined western ethics....it was people in the lead and you hold this up as an example of we should listen to them on this because those most interested in not having a target on them put it in western ethics
I always thought it had less to do with ethics and more to do with self interest. What political leader would want to claim that assassination was a legtimate tool of statecraft? Given that they would be one of the targets.
It seems remarkably silly to me to mock a belief in ghosts. All religious and spiritual belief, and indeed a belief in extra-terrestrial beings, includes the idea that there is a world unseen but very present, that occasionally interacts with our earthbound physical world.
There must be some beliefs which don't think God intervenes, surely? That he only created.
There are many beliefs centred around a non interventionist God. Much easier once you separate your creator from the Yahweh character in the OT
Also god is a she
Some will believe that.
Why should they not?
a) There are 3 genders if you include non gendered, God will be one of them b) She looks female and doesn't wear a scarf so no sign of an adams apple so....
I agree with Morris Dancer's earlier comment: would we be so keen to mock a politician or a subset of the electorate who believe in a god (or local equivalent)? Because I don't see any functional difference between believing in ghosts or believing in a god.
I believe in not mocking people.
This is my take.
We shouldn't mock people for sincerely held beliefs that do no harm. Belief in ghosts is valid and cannot be disproven. As with God and any number of other things. Mocking the beliefs is unkind and marginalises people. I don't believe in any of the above, but that's neither here not there.
However, I do think there's something to be said about people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. A Christian or Muslim or Hindu mocking someone who believes in ghosts deserves to have their own ludicrous belief system mocked in equal measure.
So we have to prove ghosts don’t exist? See Russel’s teapot.
Russel's teapot sounds far more plausible to me than large parts of the Bible.
It seems remarkably silly to me to mock a belief in ghosts. All religious and spiritual belief, and indeed a belief in extra-terrestrial beings, includes the idea that there is a world unseen but very present, that occasionally interacts with our earthbound physical world.
There must be some beliefs which don't think God intervenes, surely? That he only created.
There are many beliefs centred around a non interventionist God. Much easier once you separate your creator from the Yahweh character in the OT
Aristotle; most Unitarians two examples. Also some strands of Anglican theology, a bit out of fashion at the moment.
However, the big intervention by God more or less universally posited by theists is creation ex nihilo itself. Interventions come no bigger.
Question for you?
Physicists largely seem to agree that before the big bang was the monobloc
No time , no space etc everything in one big bloc
Then it exploded and the universe came into being
Think that is a fair summation
So if you have a thing where there is no time or space how do you make it explode into a universe without an outside force impinging on it. By definition its a stable thing
I think that may be more a question for God, or some excellent theist cosmologists and physics people - there arer quite a lot of them - than for me.
https://x.com/TreyYingst/status/1933493841392177570 On the strikes against IRGC Air Force leadership: Israel tricked the top command of Iran’s air force into a meeting and then kept them there, I’m told by an Israeli security official.
“We did specific activities to help us understand things about them and then used that information to make them act in a specific way,” the official said. “We knew this would make them meet, but more importantly we knew how to keep them there.
All these stories we hear about the Israelis don't make them sound very nice do they? I wonder how the Western world would react if the Iranians had out of the blue sent war planes over and killed several Israeli scientists and their families? The US and UK would go bananas
Iranians risking their own lives, instead of using poorer proxies such as Palestinians, Houthis, Syrians or Lebanese? Don't be stupid.
The Iranians used to do stuff like the AMIA bombing in Argentina.
This slowed down when the Israeli retaliated against senior members the Iranian government.
It seems remarkably silly to me to mock a belief in ghosts. All religious and spiritual belief, and indeed a belief in extra-terrestrial beings, includes the idea that there is a world unseen but very present, that occasionally interacts with our earthbound physical world.
There must be some beliefs which don't think God intervenes, surely? That he only created.
There are many beliefs centred around a non interventionist God. Much easier once you separate your creator from the Yahweh character in the OT
Aristotle; most Unitarians two examples. Also some strands of Anglican theology, a bit out of fashion at the moment.
However, the big intervention by God more or less universally posited by theists is creation ex nihilo itself. Interventions come no bigger.
Question for you?
Physicists largely seem to agree that before the big bang was the monobloc
No time , no space etc everything in one big bloc
Then it exploded and the universe came into being
Think that is a fair summation
So if you have a thing where there is no time or space how do you make it explode into a universe without an outside force impinging on it. By definition its a stable thing
More to the point how can you have cause and effect when there is no time. Its cause and effect, instantaneously. If time is the measure of change in things, how can a thing change when there is no time. There can be no big bang. But then physicists tend to rely on faith rather than physics
It seems remarkably silly to me to mock a belief in ghosts. All religious and spiritual belief, and indeed a belief in extra-terrestrial beings, includes the idea that there is a world unseen but very present, that occasionally interacts with our earthbound physical world.
There must be some beliefs which don't think God intervenes, surely? That he only created.
There are many beliefs centred around a non interventionist God. Much easier once you separate your creator from the Yahweh character in the OT
Also god is a she
Some will believe that.
Why should they not?
a) There are 3 genders if you include non gendered, God will be one of them b) She looks female and doesn't wear a scarf so no sign of an adams apple so....
It seems remarkably silly to me to mock a belief in ghosts. All religious and spiritual belief, and indeed a belief in extra-terrestrial beings, includes the idea that there is a world unseen but very present, that occasionally interacts with our earthbound physical world.
There must be some beliefs which don't think God intervenes, surely? That he only created.
There are many beliefs centred around a non interventionist God. Much easier once you separate your creator from the Yahweh character in the OT
Aristotle; most Unitarians two examples. Also some strands of Anglican theology, a bit out of fashion at the moment.
However, the big intervention by God more or less universally posited by theists is creation ex nihilo itself. Interventions come no bigger.
Question for you?
Physicists largely seem to agree that before the big bang was the monobloc
No time , no space etc everything in one big bloc
Then it exploded and the universe came into being
Think that is a fair summation
So if you have a thing where there is no time or space how do you make it explode into a universe without an outside force impinging on it. By definition its a stable thing
I think that may be more a question for God, or some excellent theist cosmologists and physics people - there arer quite a lot of them - than for me.
Which was my point I think, we had a stable monobloc....by definition as nothing can happen without time to happen it....something kicked it off which had to be an outside force, does that mean its god....not at all but something did
It seems remarkably silly to me to mock a belief in ghosts. All religious and spiritual belief, and indeed a belief in extra-terrestrial beings, includes the idea that there is a world unseen but very present, that occasionally interacts with our earthbound physical world.
There must be some beliefs which don't think God intervenes, surely? That he only created.
There are many beliefs centred around a non interventionist God. Much easier once you separate your creator from the Yahweh character in the OT
Aristotle; most Unitarians two examples. Also some strands of Anglican theology, a bit out of fashion at the moment.
However, the big intervention by God more or less universally posited by theists is creation ex nihilo itself. Interventions come no bigger.
Question for you?
Physicists largely seem to agree that before the big bang was the monobloc
No time , no space etc everything in one big bloc
Then it exploded and the universe came into being
Think that is a fair summation
So if you have a thing where there is no time or space how do you make it explode into a universe without an outside force impinging on it. By definition its a stable thing
I think that may be more a question for God, or some excellent theist cosmologists and physics people - there arer quite a lot of them - than for me.
Which was my point I think, we had a stable monobloc....by definition as nothing can happen without time to happen it....something kicked it off which had to be an outside force, does that mean its god....not at all but something did
Something only did if that interpretation of creation is correct.
https://x.com/TreyYingst/status/1933493841392177570 On the strikes against IRGC Air Force leadership: Israel tricked the top command of Iran’s air force into a meeting and then kept them there, I’m told by an Israeli security official.
“We did specific activities to help us understand things about them and then used that information to make them act in a specific way,” the official said. “We knew this would make them meet, but more importantly we knew how to keep them there.
All these stories we hear about the Israelis don't make them sound very nice do they? I wonder how the Western world would react if the Iranians had out of the blue sent war planes over and killed several Israeli scientists and their families? The US and UK would go bananas
Israel's actions are not out of the blue.
You'll never accept Israel's right to self-defence will you?
I do.
This is not self defence. This is an attack on a hostile nearby country but represents a significant escalation.
It is absolutely 100% self-defence.
Iran is seeking to destroy Israel as an explicit objective. Iran is seeking nuclear weapons. A nuclear Iran is an existential threat to Israel.
You don't need to wait until you've been killed to act in self-defence.
It seems remarkably silly to me to mock a belief in ghosts. All religious and spiritual belief, and indeed a belief in extra-terrestrial beings, includes the idea that there is a world unseen but very present, that occasionally interacts with our earthbound physical world.
There must be some beliefs which don't think God intervenes, surely? That he only created.
There are many beliefs centred around a non interventionist God. Much easier once you separate your creator from the Yahweh character in the OT
Also god is a she
Some will believe that.
Why should they not?
a) There are 3 genders if you include non gendered, God will be one of them b) She looks female and doesn't wear a scarf so no sign of an adams apple so....
yes I call her her
I didn't say they should not
You implied it was a strange viewpoint however
Most here are males, strip off look at your flaccid penises (yes I am male) in a mirror. Tell me a male god would have designed that
I agree with Morris Dancer's earlier comment: would we be so keen to mock a politician or a subset of the electorate who believe in a god (or local equivalent)? Because I don't see any functional difference between believing in ghosts or believing in a god.
I believe in not mocking people.
This is my take.
We shouldn't mock people for sincerely held beliefs that do no harm. Belief in ghosts is valid and cannot be disproven. As with God and any number of other things. Mocking the beliefs is unkind and marginalises people. I don't believe in any of the above, but that's neither here not there.
However, I do think there's something to be said about people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. A Christian or Muslim or Hindu mocking someone who believes in ghosts deserves to have their own ludicrous belief system mocked in equal measure.
So we have to prove ghosts don’t exist? See Russel’s teapot.
TBF Ratters was far from suggesting that Russell's teapot analogy does not apply. He was merely and rightly pointing out that in general you can't prove a negative, so it is true that the existence of ghosts (in which I don't believe, along with Ratters) can't be disproved. This impossibility of course does not confirm in any sense the existence of ghosts or Russell's teapot.
https://x.com/TreyYingst/status/1933493841392177570 On the strikes against IRGC Air Force leadership: Israel tricked the top command of Iran’s air force into a meeting and then kept them there, I’m told by an Israeli security official.
“We did specific activities to help us understand things about them and then used that information to make them act in a specific way,” the official said. “We knew this would make them meet, but more importantly we knew how to keep them there.
All these stories we hear about the Israelis don't make them sound very nice do they? I wonder how the Western world would react if the Iranians had out of the blue sent war planes over and killed several Israeli scientists and their families? The US and UK would go bananas
They have, only recently, taken away the ultra heavy security around Chiswick Business Park.
Which was because of an attempted bomb attack on a TV channel based there. A TV channel run by opponents of the Iranian regime.
The attack was orchestrated by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.
One might think that the Iranian government weren’t nice people.
It seems remarkably silly to me to mock a belief in ghosts. All religious and spiritual belief, and indeed a belief in extra-terrestrial beings, includes the idea that there is a world unseen but very present, that occasionally interacts with our earthbound physical world.
There must be some beliefs which don't think God intervenes, surely? That he only created.
There are many beliefs centred around a non interventionist God. Much easier once you separate your creator from the Yahweh character in the OT
Aristotle; most Unitarians two examples. Also some strands of Anglican theology, a bit out of fashion at the moment.
However, the big intervention by God more or less universally posited by theists is creation ex nihilo itself. Interventions come no bigger.
Question for you?
Physicists largely seem to agree that before the big bang was the monobloc
No time , no space etc everything in one big bloc
Then it exploded and the universe came into being
Think that is a fair summation
So if you have a thing where there is no time or space how do you make it explode into a universe without an outside force impinging on it. By definition its a stable thing
I think that may be more a question for God, or some excellent theist cosmologists and physics people - there arer quite a lot of them - than for me.
Which was my point I think, we had a stable monobloc....by definition as nothing can happen without time to happen it....something kicked it off which had to be an outside force, does that mean its god....not at all but something did
Something only did if that interpretation of creation is correct.
I am going by what people like hawking say....I am not antiscience and I think it largely correct
It seems remarkably silly to me to mock a belief in ghosts. All religious and spiritual belief, and indeed a belief in extra-terrestrial beings, includes the idea that there is a world unseen but very present, that occasionally interacts with our earthbound physical world.
There must be some beliefs which don't think God intervenes, surely? That he only created.
There are many beliefs centred around a non interventionist God. Much easier once you separate your creator from the Yahweh character in the OT
Also god is a she
Some will believe that.
Why should they not?
a) There are 3 genders if you include non gendered, God will be one of them b) She looks female and doesn't wear a scarf so no sign of an adams apple so....
yes I call her her
I didn't say they should not
You implied it was a strange viewpoint however
Most here are males, strip off look at your flaccid penises (yes I am male) in a mirror. Tell me a male god would have designed that
And so inconsistent in shape and size. If it were bake off (s)he'd have failed the technical challenge.
It seems remarkably silly to me to mock a belief in ghosts. All religious and spiritual belief, and indeed a belief in extra-terrestrial beings, includes the idea that there is a world unseen but very present, that occasionally interacts with our earthbound physical world.
There must be some beliefs which don't think God intervenes, surely? That he only created.
There are many beliefs centred around a non interventionist God. Much easier once you separate your creator from the Yahweh character in the OT
Also god is a she
Some will believe that.
Why should they not?
a) There are 3 genders if you include non gendered, God will be one of them b) She looks female and doesn't wear a scarf so no sign of an adams apple so....
yes I call her her
I didn't say they should not
You implied it was a strange viewpoint however
Most here are males, strip off look at your flaccid penises (yes I am male) in a mirror. Tell me a male god would have designed that
I did not imply any such thing, you inferred it I said 'some will believe that'. Also 'some will not believe that' Its up to everyone who is looking at belief to decide what they believe in and how they believe
It seems remarkably silly to me to mock a belief in ghosts. All religious and spiritual belief, and indeed a belief in extra-terrestrial beings, includes the idea that there is a world unseen but very present, that occasionally interacts with our earthbound physical world.
There must be some beliefs which don't think God intervenes, surely? That he only created.
There are many beliefs centred around a non interventionist God. Much easier once you separate your creator from the Yahweh character in the OT
Also god is a she
Some will believe that.
Why should they not?
a) There are 3 genders if you include non gendered, God will be one of them b) She looks female and doesn't wear a scarf so no sign of an adams apple so....
yes I call her her
I didn't say they should not
You implied it was a strange viewpoint however
Most here are males, strip off look at your flaccid penises (yes I am male) in a mirror. Tell me a male god would have designed that
And so inconsistent in shape and size. If it were bake off he'd have failed the technical challenge.
I suspect my goddess doesn't do much baking she isn't that type
https://x.com/TreyYingst/status/1933493841392177570 On the strikes against IRGC Air Force leadership: Israel tricked the top command of Iran’s air force into a meeting and then kept them there, I’m told by an Israeli security official.
“We did specific activities to help us understand things about them and then used that information to make them act in a specific way,” the official said. “We knew this would make them meet, but more importantly we knew how to keep them there.
All these stories we hear about the Israelis don't make them sound very nice do they? I wonder how the Western world would react if the Iranians had out of the blue sent war planes over and killed several Israeli scientists and their families? The US and UK would go bananas
Israel's actions are not out of the blue.
You'll never accept Israel's right to self-defence will you?
I do.
This is not self defence. This is an attack on a hostile nearby country but represents a significant escalation.
It is absolutely 100% self-defence.
Iran is seeking to destroy Israel as an explicit objective. Iran is seeking nuclear weapons. A nuclear Iran is an existential threat to Israel.
You don't need to wait until you've been killed to act in self-defence.
It seems remarkably silly to me to mock a belief in ghosts. All religious and spiritual belief, and indeed a belief in extra-terrestrial beings, includes the idea that there is a world unseen but very present, that occasionally interacts with our earthbound physical world.
There must be some beliefs which don't think God intervenes, surely? That he only created.
There are many beliefs centred around a non interventionist God. Much easier once you separate your creator from the Yahweh character in the OT
Also god is a she
Some will believe that.
Why should they not?
a) There are 3 genders if you include non gendered, God will be one of them b) She looks female and doesn't wear a scarf so no sign of an adams apple so....
yes I call her her
I didn't say they should not
You implied it was a strange viewpoint however
Most here are males, strip off look at your flaccid penises (yes I am male) in a mirror. Tell me a male god would have designed that
It seems remarkably silly to me to mock a belief in ghosts. All religious and spiritual belief, and indeed a belief in extra-terrestrial beings, includes the idea that there is a world unseen but very present, that occasionally interacts with our earthbound physical world.
There must be some beliefs which don't think God intervenes, surely? That he only created.
There are many beliefs centred around a non interventionist God. Much easier once you separate your creator from the Yahweh character in the OT
Also god is a she
Some will believe that.
Why should they not?
a) There are 3 genders if you include non gendered, God will be one of them b) She looks female and doesn't wear a scarf so no sign of an adams apple so....
yes I call her her
I didn't say they should not
You implied it was a strange viewpoint however
Most here are males, strip off look at your flaccid penises (yes I am male) in a mirror. Tell me a male god would have designed that
He would if He has a sense of humour.
I go with god is a girl as the occams razor choice rather than he might be male but with an odd sense of humour
https://x.com/TreyYingst/status/1933493841392177570 On the strikes against IRGC Air Force leadership: Israel tricked the top command of Iran’s air force into a meeting and then kept them there, I’m told by an Israeli security official.
“We did specific activities to help us understand things about them and then used that information to make them act in a specific way,” the official said. “We knew this would make them meet, but more importantly we knew how to keep them there.
All these stories we hear about the Israelis don't make them sound very nice do they? I wonder how the Western world would react if the Iranians had out of the blue sent war planes over and killed several Israeli scientists and their families? The US and UK would go bananas and rightly so
There has been something of a longstanding taboo against taking out national leaders.
For better, or for worse, it looks as though that is being extinguished.
That will have global implications.
What taboo?
The IRA targeted Thatcher.
Many leaders have over time been killed, and many executed following wars or revolutions too. Its been difficult to get at leaders typically.
It's one thing if a terrorist group does it, another if a state does it.
If a state is doing it as a part of war, then its a just target.
Don't go to war if you don't want to fight. Leadership are legitimate, just targets.
A thousand years of western ethics says otherwise.
But you’ve already said that you don’t accept the logical basis for their analysis.
Harold II Richard III King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden King Charles XII of Sweden Polish Prime Minister Wladyslaw Sikorski Ngo Dinh Diem Salvador Allende Gaddafi Ali Abdullah Saleh
EDIT: Note the majority of those were in the past century.
https://x.com/TreyYingst/status/1933493841392177570 On the strikes against IRGC Air Force leadership: Israel tricked the top command of Iran’s air force into a meeting and then kept them there, I’m told by an Israeli security official.
“We did specific activities to help us understand things about them and then used that information to make them act in a specific way,” the official said. “We knew this would make them meet, but more importantly we knew how to keep them there.
All these stories we hear about the Israelis don't make them sound very nice do they? I wonder how the Western world would react if the Iranians had out of the blue sent war planes over and killed several Israeli scientists and their families? The US and UK would go bananas and rightly so
There has been something of a longstanding taboo against taking out national leaders.
For better, or for worse, it looks as though that is being extinguished.
That will have global implications.
What taboo?
The IRA targeted Thatcher.
Many leaders have over time been killed, and many executed following wars or revolutions too. Its been difficult to get at leaders typically.
The IRA was not a state actor. I assumed that would be implicit in my post, but clearly you need it spelled out.
Nonsense. The IRA is the representative of the legitimate Irish Republic declared in 1916 and ratified by the Irish People in 1918. It is to that Republic that everyone born in Ireland owes their allegiance, not to the 26 County or 6 County quisling entities imposed by the British Crown.
That was a different IRA.
Bullshit. The Provisional IRA is the representative of the all-island that Irish Republic continues to exist, is that state's army, the sole legitimate successor to the original IRA from the Irish War of Independence.
I have not been following this argument properly so can't work out if you are being serious or not.
If you are serious the you are also completely wrong. If you were not serious then apologies.
Yes he is. And no he isn't. To explain.
There are or were several IRAs. The early 20th century version fought and won Irish independence in the 1920s and when achieved, it split, with one side claiming to be the real IRA and the other side actually being the new state (the "pro-Treaty" side). This resulted in the Irish Civil War which the state won and the other IRA lost.
Fast forward to the 1960s. The Official IRA in Norn Iron dithered about what to do, and a group split away. This new splinter group was the Provisional IRA, and they did not dither but used fist and Armalite and bombs and pliers to remove British rule. It was this side that Brits know as "the" IRA.
(Others left out for simplicity)
All these IRAs consider(ed) themselves the actual, real Irish state thru apostolic succession from the first declaration.
So @DougSeal is both right and wrong simultaneously.
https://x.com/TreyYingst/status/1933493841392177570 On the strikes against IRGC Air Force leadership: Israel tricked the top command of Iran’s air force into a meeting and then kept them there, I’m told by an Israeli security official.
“We did specific activities to help us understand things about them and then used that information to make them act in a specific way,” the official said. “We knew this would make them meet, but more importantly we knew how to keep them there.
All these stories we hear about the Israelis don't make them sound very nice do they? I wonder how the Western world would react if the Iranians had out of the blue sent war planes over and killed several Israeli scientists and their families? The US and UK would go bananas
Israel's actions are not out of the blue.
You'll never accept Israel's right to self-defence will you?
I do.
This is not self defence. This is an attack on a hostile nearby country but represents a significant escalation.
It is absolutely 100% self-defence.
Iran is seeking to destroy Israel as an explicit objective. Iran is seeking nuclear weapons. A nuclear Iran is an existential threat to Israel.
You don't need to wait until you've been killed to act in self-defence.
Judge Dredd after the Apocalypse War.
Next time we get our retaliation in first.
To insist you can only act in self-defence after you've been killed/nuked is to deny the right to self-defence altogether.
I haven't been following the shooting, but would note there has been widespread reporting of people masquerading as law enforcement in the US since Trump got in again. The trouble is legit ICE officers have not been wearing recognisable uniforms either, so impossible to tell if the person dragging your neighbour away is a serial killer or not.
I'm still baffled at why the 2nd Amendment folk haven't kicked off, though Rogan etc are moving - slowly- towards that.
https://x.com/TreyYingst/status/1933493841392177570 On the strikes against IRGC Air Force leadership: Israel tricked the top command of Iran’s air force into a meeting and then kept them there, I’m told by an Israeli security official.
“We did specific activities to help us understand things about them and then used that information to make them act in a specific way,” the official said. “We knew this would make them meet, but more importantly we knew how to keep them there.
All these stories we hear about the Israelis don't make them sound very nice do they? I wonder how the Western world would react if the Iranians had out of the blue sent war planes over and killed several Israeli scientists and their families? The US and UK would go bananas and rightly so
There has been something of a longstanding taboo against taking out national leaders.
For better, or for worse, it looks as though that is being extinguished.
That will have global implications.
What taboo?
The IRA targeted Thatcher.
Many leaders have over time been killed, and many executed following wars or revolutions too. Its been difficult to get at leaders typically.
It's one thing if a terrorist group does it, another if a state does it.
If a state is doing it as a part of war, then its a just target.
Don't go to war if you don't want to fight. Leadership are legitimate, just targets.
A thousand years of western ethics says otherwise.
But you’ve already said that you don’t accept the logical basis for their analysis.
Harold II Richard III King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden King Charles XII of Sweden Polish Prime Minister Wladyslaw Sikorski Ngo Dinh Diem Salvador Allende Gaddafi Ali Abdullah Saleh
EDIT: Note the majority of those were in the past century.
I'm sure it was lined up for a Truss speech at some point.
What was that Roger was saying about government improving after learning on the job.....they have managed to blow themselves up by commissioning a report that will say you need to do what you kept saying didn't need to be done.
https://x.com/TreyYingst/status/1933493841392177570 On the strikes against IRGC Air Force leadership: Israel tricked the top command of Iran’s air force into a meeting and then kept them there, I’m told by an Israeli security official.
“We did specific activities to help us understand things about them and then used that information to make them act in a specific way,” the official said. “We knew this would make them meet, but more importantly we knew how to keep them there.
All these stories we hear about the Israelis don't make them sound very nice do they? I wonder how the Western world would react if the Iranians had out of the blue sent war planes over and killed several Israeli scientists and their families? The US and UK would go bananas and rightly so
There has been something of a longstanding taboo against taking out national leaders.
For better, or for worse, it looks as though that is being extinguished.
That will have global implications.
What taboo?
The IRA targeted Thatcher.
Many leaders have over time been killed, and many executed following wars or revolutions too. Its been difficult to get at leaders typically.
It's one thing if a terrorist group does it, another if a state does it.
If a state is doing it as a part of war, then its a just target.
Don't go to war if you don't want to fight. Leadership are legitimate, just targets.
A thousand years of western ethics says otherwise.
But you’ve already said that you don’t accept the logical basis for their analysis.
Western ethics have always been dodgy, they were fine with imperialisim, slavery, feudalism....oh look who defined western ethics....it was people in the lead and you hold this up as an example of we should listen to them on this because those most interested in not having a target on them put it in western ethics
I always thought it had less to do with ethics and more to do with self interest. What political leader would want to claim that assassination was a legtimate tool of statecraft? Given that they would be one of the targets.
Which is my point, knowing they would immediately be a legitimate target for the other side by declaring war might make them more cautious about doing so
Why do you imagine that would be confined to situations where war has been declared ?
You're advocating the throwing aside of a norm which is essential to democracies - and far less so to repressive states.
It seems remarkably silly to me to mock a belief in ghosts. All religious and spiritual belief, and indeed a belief in extra-terrestrial beings, includes the idea that there is a world unseen but very present, that occasionally interacts with our earthbound physical world.
There must be some beliefs which don't think God intervenes, surely? That he only created.
There are many beliefs centred around a non interventionist God. Much easier once you separate your creator from the Yahweh character in the OT
Aristotle; most Unitarians two examples. Also some strands of Anglican theology, a bit out of fashion at the moment.
However, the big intervention by God more or less universally posited by theists is creation ex nihilo itself. Interventions come no bigger.
Question for you?
Physicists largely seem to agree that before the big bang was the monobloc
No time , no space etc everything in one big bloc
Then it exploded and the universe came into being
Think that is a fair summation
So if you have a thing where there is no time or space how do you make it explode into a universe without an outside force impinging on it. By definition its a stable thing
More to the point how can you have cause and effect when there is no time. Its cause and effect, instantaneously. If time is the measure of change in things, how can a thing change when there is no time. There can be no big bang. But then physicists tend to rely on faith rather than physics
The latest wheeze is that we're actually inside a black hole anyway. I think it was University of Portsmouth that said this - I think the theory makes some sense, but I'd not back Portsmouth academics generally.
TSE did mention that the sites bots were set to ban people who spoke about that which should not be spoken about. I suspect Big G has triggered it by quoting the PM's announcement.
Though I'm sure that wasn't the Mods intention so hopefully it will be swiftly reversed.
https://x.com/TreyYingst/status/1933493841392177570 On the strikes against IRGC Air Force leadership: Israel tricked the top command of Iran’s air force into a meeting and then kept them there, I’m told by an Israeli security official.
“We did specific activities to help us understand things about them and then used that information to make them act in a specific way,” the official said. “We knew this would make them meet, but more importantly we knew how to keep them there.
All these stories we hear about the Israelis don't make them sound very nice do they? I wonder how the Western world would react if the Iranians had out of the blue sent war planes over and killed several Israeli scientists and their families? The US and UK would go bananas and rightly so
There has been something of a longstanding taboo against taking out national leaders.
For better, or for worse, it looks as though that is being extinguished.
That will have global implications.
What taboo?
The IRA targeted Thatcher.
Many leaders have over time been killed, and many executed following wars or revolutions too. Its been difficult to get at leaders typically.
It's one thing if a terrorist group does it, another if a state does it.
If a state is doing it as a part of war, then its a just target.
Don't go to war if you don't want to fight. Leadership are legitimate, just targets.
A thousand years of western ethics says otherwise.
But you’ve already said that you don’t accept the logical basis for their analysis.
Western ethics have always been dodgy, they were fine with imperialisim, slavery, feudalism....oh look who defined western ethics....it was people in the lead and you hold this up as an example of we should listen to them on this because those most interested in not having a target on them put it in western ethics
I always thought it had less to do with ethics and more to do with self interest. What political leader would want to claim that assassination was a legtimate tool of statecraft? Given that they would be one of the targets.
Which is my point, knowing they would immediately be a legitimate target for the other side by declaring war might make them more cautious about doing so
Why do you imagine that would be confined to situations where war has been declared ?
You're advocating the throwing aside of a norm which is essential to democracies - and far less so to repressive states.
why do you imagine I care? To make yourself leader is to volunteer to be in the firing line. Frankly we would be better off is leaders felt vulnerable
TSE did mention that the sites bots were set to ban people who spoke about that which should not be spoken about. I suspect Big G has triggered it by quoting the PM's announcement.
Though I'm sure that wasn't the Mods intention so hopefully it will be swiftly reversed.
https://x.com/TreyYingst/status/1933493841392177570 On the strikes against IRGC Air Force leadership: Israel tricked the top command of Iran’s air force into a meeting and then kept them there, I’m told by an Israeli security official.
“We did specific activities to help us understand things about them and then used that information to make them act in a specific way,” the official said. “We knew this would make them meet, but more importantly we knew how to keep them there.
All these stories we hear about the Israelis don't make them sound very nice do they? I wonder how the Western world would react if the Iranians had out of the blue sent war planes over and killed several Israeli scientists and their families? The US and UK would go bananas and rightly so
There has been something of a longstanding taboo against taking out national leaders.
For better, or for worse, it looks as though that is being extinguished.
That will have global implications.
What taboo?
The IRA targeted Thatcher.
Many leaders have over time been killed, and many executed following wars or revolutions too. Its been difficult to get at leaders typically.
It's one thing if a terrorist group does it, another if a state does it.
If a state is doing it as a part of war, then its a just target.
Don't go to war if you don't want to fight. Leadership are legitimate, just targets.
A thousand years of western ethics says otherwise.
But you’ve already said that you don’t accept the logical basis for their analysis.
Western ethics have always been dodgy, they were fine with imperialisim, slavery, feudalism....oh look who defined western ethics....it was people in the lead and you hold this up as an example of we should listen to them on this because those most interested in not having a target on them put it in western ethics
I always thought it had less to do with ethics and more to do with self interest. What political leader would want to claim that assassination was a legtimate tool of statecraft? Given that they would be one of the targets.
Which is my point, knowing they would immediately be a legitimate target for the other side by declaring war might make them more cautious about doing so
Why do you imagine that would be confined to situations where war has been declared ?
You're advocating the throwing aside of a norm which is essential to democracies - and far less so to repressive states.
Attacking another state's leader would be an act of war, just as attacking another state's troops would be.
https://x.com/TreyYingst/status/1933493841392177570 On the strikes against IRGC Air Force leadership: Israel tricked the top command of Iran’s air force into a meeting and then kept them there, I’m told by an Israeli security official.
“We did specific activities to help us understand things about them and then used that information to make them act in a specific way,” the official said. “We knew this would make them meet, but more importantly we knew how to keep them there.
All these stories we hear about the Israelis don't make them sound very nice do they? I wonder how the Western world would react if the Iranians had out of the blue sent war planes over and killed several Israeli scientists and their families? The US and UK would go bananas and rightly so
There has been something of a longstanding taboo against taking out national leaders.
For better, or for worse, it looks as though that is being extinguished.
That will have global implications.
What taboo?
The IRA targeted Thatcher.
Many leaders have over time been killed, and many executed following wars or revolutions too. Its been difficult to get at leaders typically.
It's one thing if a terrorist group does it, another if a state does it.
If a state is doing it as a part of war, then its a just target.
Don't go to war if you don't want to fight. Leadership are legitimate, just targets.
A thousand years of western ethics says otherwise.
But you’ve already said that you don’t accept the logical basis for their analysis.
Western ethics have always been dodgy, they were fine with imperialisim, slavery, feudalism....oh look who defined western ethics....it was people in the lead and you hold this up as an example of we should listen to them on this because those most interested in not having a target on them put it in western ethics
I always thought it had less to do with ethics and more to do with self interest. What political leader would want to claim that assassination was a legtimate tool of statecraft? Given that they would be one of the targets.
Which is my point, knowing they would immediately be a legitimate target for the other side by declaring war might make them more cautious about doing so
Why do you imagine that would be confined to situations where war has been declared ?
You're advocating the throwing aside of a norm which is essential to democracies - and far less so to repressive states.
why do you imagine I care? To make yourself leader is to volunteer to be in the firing line. Frankly we would be better off is leaders felt vulnerable
So you're celebrating today's shooting in the US ?
https://x.com/TreyYingst/status/1933493841392177570 On the strikes against IRGC Air Force leadership: Israel tricked the top command of Iran’s air force into a meeting and then kept them there, I’m told by an Israeli security official.
“We did specific activities to help us understand things about them and then used that information to make them act in a specific way,” the official said. “We knew this would make them meet, but more importantly we knew how to keep them there.
All these stories we hear about the Israelis don't make them sound very nice do they? I wonder how the Western world would react if the Iranians had out of the blue sent war planes over and killed several Israeli scientists and their families? The US and UK would go bananas and rightly so
There has been something of a longstanding taboo against taking out national leaders.
For better, or for worse, it looks as though that is being extinguished.
That will have global implications.
What taboo?
The IRA targeted Thatcher.
Many leaders have over time been killed, and many executed following wars or revolutions too. Its been difficult to get at leaders typically.
It's one thing if a terrorist group does it, another if a state does it.
If a state is doing it as a part of war, then its a just target.
Don't go to war if you don't want to fight. Leadership are legitimate, just targets.
A thousand years of western ethics says otherwise.
But you’ve already said that you don’t accept the logical basis for their analysis.
Western ethics have always been dodgy, they were fine with imperialisim, slavery, feudalism....oh look who defined western ethics....it was people in the lead and you hold this up as an example of we should listen to them on this because those most interested in not having a target on them put it in western ethics
I always thought it had less to do with ethics and more to do with self interest. What political leader would want to claim that assassination was a legtimate tool of statecraft? Given that they would be one of the targets.
Which is my point, knowing they would immediately be a legitimate target for the other side by declaring war might make them more cautious about doing so
Why do you imagine that would be confined to situations where war has been declared ?
You're advocating the throwing aside of a norm which is essential to democracies - and far less so to repressive states.
why do you imagine I care? To make yourself leader is to volunteer to be in the firing line. Frankly we would be better off is leaders felt vulnerable
So you're celebrating today's shooting in the US ?
Idiocy.
The two things are not comparable.
Shooting a leader in peace time is not OK, but shooting a cop or soldier is not either.
In war? Then any just target is valid. Leaders are just targets, like soldiers, civilians are not.
UK moving planes to middle east to help with the recent outbreak of peace
I rather fear the Iranians, noting our weakness, will strap a device to a Vickers Vimy that they've repaired and bomb the hell out of us. Unless the Battersea Sea Cadets are very good shots.
Comments
But you’ve already said that you don’t accept the logical basis for their analysis.
@BartholomewRoberts vs @ThomasAquinas. I know who I’m going with.
Why is it considered reasonable to kill hundreds of thousands of Russian conscripts, but not put a bullet in the head of Putin and his closest allies? It makes no moral sense.
Sure, it puts our leaders in danger if they go to war. But that should make them think long and hard before going to war in the first place given how many other lives they put at risk.
If you are serious the you are also completely wrong. If you were not serious then apologies.
I hope I am wrong.
Better to have a principle that we don’t do it.
Don't Panic Mr Mainwaring, Don't Panic.....
Hard after someone has buried it in concrete I suppose
We shouldn't mock people for sincerely held beliefs that do no harm. Belief in ghosts is valid and cannot be disproven. As with God and any number of other things. Mocking the beliefs is unkind and marginalises people. I don't believe in any of the above, but that's neither here not there.
However, I do think there's something to be said about people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. A Christian or Muslim or Hindu mocking someone who believes in ghosts deserves to have their own ludicrous belief system mocked in equal measure.
Whether there is such a being is of course another question. But in comparison with it, the existence or not of ghosts is a mere empirical side show.
“We declare our allegiance to the 32 county Irish republic, proclaimed at Easter 1916, established by the first Dáil Éireann in 1919, overthrown by force of arms in 1922 and suppressed to this day by the existing British-imposed six-county and twenty-six-county partition states ... We call on the Irish people at home and in exile for increased support towards defending our people in the North and the eventual achievement of the full political, social, economic and cultural freedom of Ireland.”
Many, indeed most, disagree with that statement but it formed the basis of a belief that maintained a war for 30 years. If that didn’t dissuade many from that position (and it’s one that SF at the very least partially maintain in their Westminster abstentionism) then no amount of argument on a U.K. message board will.
The same way that kings and queens were extremely reluctant to kill each other.
Described him the next day at breakfast and freaked her family out as the guy we described was the last person to live there that had died 10 years before
The Russians have tried quite a few times to assassinate Zelinksky, but Russia & Ukraine are already at war.
On the other hand, the Russians avoid targeting Kyiv when foreign leaders are visiting because they know that if they kill some Western leader, then that Western country & Russia would be at war, and they want to avoid creating a "second front" in the war.
However, the big intervention by God more or less universally posited by theists is creation ex nihilo itself. Interventions come no bigger.
Physicists largely seem to agree that before the big bang was the monobloc
No time , no space etc everything in one big bloc
Then it exploded and the universe came into being
Think that is a fair summation
So if you have a thing where there is no time or space how do you make it explode into a universe without an outside force impinging on it. By definition its a stable thing
a) There are 3 genders if you include non gendered, God will be one of them
b) She looks female and doesn't wear a scarf so no sign of an adams apple so....
yes I call her her
This slowed down when the Israeli retaliated against senior members the Iranian government.
If time is the measure of change in things, how can a thing change when there is no time. There can be no big bang.
But then physicists tend to rely on faith rather than physics
Iran is seeking to destroy Israel as an explicit objective.
Iran is seeking nuclear weapons.
A nuclear Iran is an existential threat to Israel.
You don't need to wait until you've been killed to act in self-defence.
Most here are males, strip off look at your flaccid penises (yes I am male) in a mirror. Tell me a male god would have designed that
Which was because of an attempted bomb attack on a TV channel based there. A TV channel run by opponents of the Iranian regime.
The attack was orchestrated by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.
One might think that the Iranian government weren’t nice people.
If it were bake off (s)he'd have failed the technical challenge.
I said 'some will believe that'. Also 'some will not believe that'
Its up to everyone who is looking at belief to decide what they believe in and how they believe
Next time we get our retaliation in first.
Harold II
Richard III
King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden
King Charles XII of Sweden
Polish Prime Minister Wladyslaw Sikorski
Ngo Dinh Diem
Salvador Allende
Gaddafi
Ali Abdullah Saleh
EDIT: Note the majority of those were in the past century.
There are or were several IRAs. The early 20th century version fought and won Irish independence in the 1920s and when achieved, it split, with one side claiming to be the real IRA and the other side actually being the new state (the "pro-Treaty" side). This resulted in the Irish Civil War which the state won and the other IRA lost.
Fast forward to the 1960s. The Official IRA in Norn Iron dithered about what to do, and a group split away. This new splinter group was the Provisional IRA, and they did not dither but used fist and Armalite and bombs and pliers to remove British rule. It was this side that Brits know as "the" IRA.
(Others left out for simplicity)
All these IRAs consider(ed) themselves the actual, real Irish state thru apostolic succession from the first declaration.
So @DougSeal is both right and wrong simultaneously.
I'm still baffled at why the 2nd Amendment folk haven't kicked off, though Rogan etc are moving - slowly- towards that.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/06/14/minnesota-lawmakers-targeted-shootings/
Now about Big Doms claims....
You're advocating the throwing aside of a norm which is essential to democracies - and far less so to repressive states.
Though I'm sure that wasn't the Mods intention so hopefully it will be swiftly reversed.
why do you imagine I care? To make yourself leader is to volunteer to be in the firing line. Frankly we would be better off is leaders felt vulnerable
But if you're at war? Then they're just targets.
Idiocy.
Shooting a leader in peace time is not OK, but shooting a cop or soldier is not either.
In war? Then any just target is valid. Leaders are just targets, like soldiers, civilians are not.