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Julian Assange Arrested

@Kinetic So trying to extract something out of that, take some famous case of a gay man caught in a honey trap and blackmailed, e.g. John Vassall. This was an an environment where gay men not only lost their careers, but were routinely forcibly sterilised, and so forth. Hypothetically, if they instead lived in a society where homosexuality was unremarkable rather than something that could be get one blackmailed over, gay men would have been no more susceptible to various honey traps than anyone else.

If that's roughly what you're saying, well, you're not wrong that there is a practical positive result of acceptance of homosexuality for matters of national security, though if you mean to imply that that's the driving reason behind LGBT movements, I'd suspect you've probably smoked a few too many declassified reports and have trouble viewing the world in anything but that one lens. (If you don't mean to go that far, okay.)

However, would it kill you to be a bit more concise and to the point, especially when you say that you 'have no time for a suitably detailed answer' and 'TL;DR', rather than start with loosely connected tract of little direct relevance and then coyly dance around whatever dots you want people to connect? (If it would endanger your life, then I am sorry to hear about your unfortunate situation and retract the request.)
 
@Vorpal, if Kinetic is who I think s/he is (a certain russianphile/russian on SB, not naming him/her right now because I'm not completely sure), then don't bother. That specific poster has a long record of pulling the sort of shit that you've been calling Kinetic out on at the very least...
 
Is a merica The World police? No
on our best day we might be a world marshal(haha)
as it stands were a tax cut away from a mercenary army
 
Is a merica The World police? No
on our best day we might be a world marshal(haha)
as it stands were a tax cut away from a mercenary army
No, the US has a rather intimate understanding of what happens when you don't pay your troops in it's early days... no Republican would do that without getting pushback.
 
No, the US has a rather intimate understanding of what happens when you don't pay your troops in it's early days... no Republican would do that without getting pushback.
You misunderstand The next big thing is cutting out the profit wasting window dressing and publicly trading the services of our armed force for cash in any conflict
 
You misunderstand The next big thing is cutting out the profit wasting window dressing and publicly trading the services of our armed force for cash in any conflict
... even the military would balk at that sort of thing... because it allows for shit that the military doesn't need.
 
... even the military would balk at that sort of thing... because it allows for shit that the military doesn't need.
I'm sure a few would but they are just going to be training folks, the rest will quit and get shuffled into state backed PMCs(avoiding congress approval) run by Mr. Prince with new recruits being funneled into boot from his sister Betsy's streamlined private public education system, conveniently bleeding off the poor from the service economy until it's just a upper middle class waiting on the 1% and a killbot armed force led by medically indentured slave commanders(the surviors of the merc army generation)
 
I'm sure a few would but they are just going to be training folks, the rest will quit and get shuffled into state backed PMCs(avoiding congress approval) run by Mr. Prince with new recruits being funneled into boot from his sister Betsy's stream line private public education system, conveniently bleeding off the poor from the service economy until it's just a upper middle class waiting on the 1% and a killbot armed force led by medically indentured slave commanders(the surviors of the merc army generation)
No, because the military would be rather upset on not having the primacy of force which is very vital to their operations...
 
No, because the military would be rather upset on not having the primacy of force which is very vital to their operations...
Maybe a decade ago but the rot is set and deep and really it's not like the Emperor can't just issue order 66(run that by PR) and those PMCs are regualr service for the length of conflict
 
You misunderstand The next big thing is cutting out the profit wasting window dressing and publicly trading the services of our armed force for cash in any conflict
Uhm... that's already happening. Except it's the corporations who use the services, and you taxpayers who provide the cash.
Do you really think that your leaders sent your armed forces to Iraq because of WMDs that they knew weren't there?
 
Maybe a decade ago but the rot is set and deep and really it's not like the Emperor can't just issue order 66(run that by PR) and those PMCs are regualr service for the length of conflict
... are you serious?
 
Uhm... that's already happening. Except it's the corporations who use the services, and you taxpayers who provide the cash.
Do you really think that your leaders sent your armed forces to Iraq because of WMDs that they knew weren't there?
Yes, the Class knows how woke you are, thank you.

What I'm talking about is what happens next, no more subtext just text, now things will escalated further, and I'm really not ready to sepcualating on what "worse" will look like
 
This leaking business goes back a ways the good old boys network scapegoating experts, because experts give facts to people and when you do that you take power from the master, but keep if the master keeps it all to themselves only they are responsible,

when 9/11 happened there was a clean line of responsibility which no one was held accountable for, instead the worst of there generation garbed power and blew up our security apparatus effectively deflating the value of what we knew. 1.5 million people can't keep a secret
 
He helped undermine our democracy, not to mention he had many people killed with his shenanigans...
Nope. First of all, as Rufis said, your government doesn't need anyone to be undermined, not when you have legalised corruption by renaming it lobbying. Then, all those people wouldn't have been killed if not for your own government's illegal actions.

I won't call it a democracy, for it isn't one
They don't either, so they can't complain.

This was an an environment where gay men not only lost their careers, but were routinely forcibly sterilised
What the point ? I mean, while they are of course physically capable of being part of a procreation process with the right partner, their usual choice of partners would totally hinder say process. Or I must review all that I learned about human anatomy.
 
What the point ? I mean, while they are of course physically capable of being part of a procreation process with the right partner, their usual choice of partners would totally hinder say process. Or I must review all that I learned about human anatomy.
I misspoke. The threat posed was chemical castration instead, as an alternative to long prison sentences; Alan Turing is probably the most famous specific case of this. There is no objective point to it, but the internal logic is a combination of (a) primarily, homosexual acts are sex crimes, and this would effectively prevent them, and (b) secondarily, homosexuality is a mental illness, and this is a medical treatment for its symptoms. At least the former is still used for sex crimes in some places.

Incidentally, this means that @Kinetic characterisation that one of the roots of persecution and/or prosecution of homosexuality is 'science' is a bit naive. Well, once upon a time, German psychologists in the 1880s classified homosexuality as a mental illness, and it became widely adopted elsewhere soon after. However, especially in the cases of mental health, what is and isn't considered such is ultimately determined by what behaviours other people are willing to accept. It's (at least very often) a function of societal attitudes, filtered by official-looking men, rather than anything like objective fact of the matter.

Finally, just to top off @Kinetic's position (made in another thread on but on the exact same topic) that it is naive idealism to believe that tolerance of homosexuality is driven by compassion, altruism, humanitarian considerations, etc. Well, I don't think one can dismiss altruism and similar things (they do motivate significantly many people), but it is at least true that for a huge chunk of the US population supporting of rights of homosexuality, it does not seem to be primarily driven by that, but rather a logical extension of liberal ideology and conceptions of freedom. I've often enough heard attitudes typified by 'what consenting adults do on their own time isn't anyone's business' and variations thereof. That fairly common kind of stance does not seem to be primarily driven by compassion or altruism, but neither it is by concern of national security (heh).

And it's just one example; there could be a bunch of other contributing factors and feedback loops, e.g. some people passively adopting attitudes from media, and mainstream media discovering that homosexuals have money too, making it gradually more profitable to tone down crapping on them.
 
I misspoke. The threat posed was chemical castration instead, as an alternative to long prison sentences; Alan Turing is probably the most famous specific case of this. There is no objective point to it, but the internal logic is a combination of (a) primarily, homosexual acts are sex crimes, and this would effectively prevent them, and (b) secondarily, homosexuality is a mental illness, and this is a medical treatment for its symptoms. At least the former is still used for sex crimes in some places.

Incidentally, this means that @Kinetic characterisation that one of the roots of persecution and/or prosecution of homosexuality is 'science' is a bit naive. Well, once upon a time, German psychologists in the 1880s classified homosexuality as a mental illness, and it became widely adopted elsewhere soon after. However, especially in the cases of mental health, what is and isn't considered such is ultimately determined by what behaviours other people are willing to accept. It's (at least very often) a function of societal attitudes, filtered by official-looking men, rather than anything like objective fact of the matter.

Finally, just to top off @Kinetic's position (made in another thread on but on the exact same topic) that it is naive idealism to believe that tolerance of homosexuality is driven by compassion, altruism, humanitarian considerations, etc. Well, I don't think one can dismiss altruism and similar things (they do motivate significantly many people), but it is at least true that for a huge chunk of the US population supporting of rights of homosexuality, it does not seem to be primarily driven by that, but rather a logical extension of liberal ideology and conceptions of freedom. I've often enough heard attitudes typified by 'what consenting adults do on their own time isn't anyone's business' and variations thereof. That fairly common kind of stance does not seem to be primarily driven by compassion or altruism, but neither it is by concern of national security (heh).

And it's just one example; there could be a bunch of other contributing factors and feedback loops, e.g. some people passively adopting attitudes from media, and mainstream media discovering that homosexuals have money too, making it gradually more profitable to tone down crapping on them.
But you can argue from altruistic terms?

My primary stance on it is that every human should have the right to do what human being at core wants to do and enter a relationship with a partner, as forcing people into a life in which they're celebate is psychologically extremely harmful to a lot of people. In that respect it is extremely unethical to keep people lonely and depressed, which IS an altruistic argument.

In fact, you potentially end up with an even more dire consequence of making homosexuality illegal. If you have someone like that, it's quite likely that doing as such could result in them becoming avoidant of other people in fear of developing romantic feelings, which is even more cruel, as it leads to complete isolation.

Ditto: People are stupid and don't realise arguing this way would likely be a lot more persuasive then the freedom line of reasoning.
 
But you can argue from altruistic terms?
That's very true; I'm just saying that motivations vary, and to me it appears that a chunk of them have liberal principles not argued in such terms, but with certain freedoms taken as axiomatic.

The specific kind of thing I was thinking of is fairly common 'people can do whatever as long in private [as long as as I don't get to see it]' kind that I've seen often enough. There's an argument that can be made that this version of liberalism constitutes a kind of low-key homophobia itself, if minor in comparison (to borrow a certain Russian saying, 'thanks for not shitting'), in as much as it implicitly assumes that homosexual relationships are inherently less legitimate than heterosexual ones but chooses to magnanimously grants them tolerance anyway.
 
That's very true; I'm just saying that motivations vary, and to me it appears that a chunk of them have liberal principles not argued in such terms, but with certain freedoms taken as axiomatic.

The specific kind of thing I was thinking of is fairly common 'people can do whatever as long in private [as long as as I don't get to see it]' kind that I've seen often enough. There's an argument that can be made that this version of liberalism constitutes a kind of low-key homophobia itself, if minor in comparison (to borrow a certain Russian saying, 'thanks for not shitting'), in as much as it implicitly assumes that homosexual relationships are inherently less legitimate than heterosexual ones but chooses to magnanimously grants them tolerance anyway.
One interesting aspect I think people need to put more thought into is the idea that "If it doesn't harm other people", is correct, but seems to miss on the fact that not human beings are of equal mental health or ability. Philosophy is a lot more your strong point then mine, but it seems like this line of reasoning lies on some concentrate free will style of ethics and becomes a lot more fuzzy if you take compatibilism into account.

So you might go with legalising cocaine, but can you say this is really ethical, when a fair share of the people "choosing to have it", aren't really smart enough to judge the consequences of having it and likely if they knew, would not take it? Some interesting dilemmas in regards to paternalism lie here...
 
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My primary stance on it is that every human should have the right to do what human being at core wants to do and enter a relationship with a partner, as forcing people into a life in which they're celebate is psychologically extremely harmful to a lot of people. In that respect it is extremely unethical to keep people lonely and depressed, which IS an altruistic argument.
You can generalize this to "all human beings can do whatever they want and whatever makes them happy, as long as they're not hurting other human beings." That is the liberal stance that Vorpal presented, and the one I absolutely agree with. That is not altruism per se, that is just the liberal "live and let live."

In fact, you potentially end up with an even more dire consequence of making homosexuality illegal. If you have someone like that, it's quite likely that doing as such could result in them becoming avoidant of other people in fear of developing romantic feelings, which is even more cruel, as it leads to complete isolation.
There are some very well known consequences of the state forbidding things that people really want to do:
1. People do them anyway, but illegaly, which exposes them to recruitment by either blackmail or by providing help in their illegal dealings - and here comes in Kinetic's tactical reasoning (underground network of likeminded individuals that can be recruited etc). State is creating potential enemies. Bad idea.
2. The more usual consequence - if you make people do things illegaly, you teach them that ignoring the law is OK. Therefore a smart government forbids only the things that really need to be forbidden.

One interesting aspect I think people need to put more thought into is the idea that "If it doesn't harm other people", is correct, but seems to miss on the fact that not human beings are of equal mental health or ability. Philosophy is a lot more your strong point then mine, but it seems like this line of reasoning lies on some concentrate free will style of ethics and becomes a lot more fuzzy if you take compatibilism into account.
This is the part where altruism comes in. Those that need help must be helped. Happy society = happy individuals. That is worth some effort.
 
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