W.H.O. (are you), WHO WHO

[Hanarchy Montanarchy]

What are some of my other false dilemnas?

As far as investigative work, I will give you an example. North Korea let in UN inspectors during its famine in the 90's. It did not take them to any of the villages where people were eating grass and bark and dropping like flies. It took them to a Potemkin village. Then it kept taking them back to that village over and over again and insisting that it had shown them multiple ones. It would not let anyone from the UN who spoke Korean into the country. The famine continued and the same regime is in power today.

Israel was building nukes in the Demona plant back in the 60's and the UN wanted to visit. It would not show them certain areas. When they'd come back later the Israelis would use every excuse in the book saying, "Its a jewish holiday," or "We are fumingating that place" or whatever. Eventually Israel got nukes.

Since the UN is fundamentally toothless, they really can't compell these countries (even rogue states like NK have China as a tenuous partner which would veto action) because they always have a Security council protector. So to me, it seems like the investigative aspect of this law enforcement agency is also very questionable.

I guess you could point to Somalia as a sort of rare outlier where the UN came in. But that was a disaster. It accomplished nothing besides giving some local warlords grain to use as a means of control for the starving population. They have no real successes from what I can tell.

As far as diplomacy goes, what is stopping America from unilaterally sending diplomats to China, or Zimbabwe, or Belgium? Diplomacy has been conducted for as long as humans have had groups and for all but 70 of those years the UN didn't exist. Diplomacy wouldn't stop just because the UN ceased to exist.

I'm sorry, that was the royal "your." It was just folksy - not "your" as in you personally do it frequently.

As for the rest, global diplomacy is a constant and complicated struggle, and will be marred with failures. If you don't think a somewhat independent venue for diplomacy is a good idea, that is fine.

Well, I think in certain instances, the UN actually does more harm than good. I used the Somalia example earlier, if 2 guys are fighting, and you are giving them food between rounds, won't that make the fight last longer? Is it more moral to just let them slug it out as quickly as possible and get it over with or to prolong it? I honestly don't have the answer, but a case could be made that a quick conflict is more humane than a drawn out one.

Sanctions also rarely stop the offending regime from continuing its course of action, they just starve and deprive the population. In Iran for instance, some of the sanctions on stuff actually strengthens the regime, because a black market for getting goods in forms, and Sepah a group in the Iranian army controls this blackmarket, thus generating a revenue stream for the people we are trying to punish.

So in a lot of cases the cure has worse or equally bad side effects as the disease imo

I don't know the answer to the first question either, but you will get prolonged conflict from independent nations supporting their allies with or without the UN.

As for sanctions, I agree, they probably don't stop offending regimes. However, the threat of sanctions may stop a country from becoming a bad actor. Sort of like how threat of jail time doesn't stop someone dedicated to pursuing a life of crime.

[heydaralon]

Screenshot_2020-04-15-15-26-55-1.png

This is fire.

[Montegriffo]

I've got Monte arguing Trump didn't do enough early and Hanarchy arguing the Experts couldn't have known the veracity of COVID19.

If Trump knew how serious it was on the 31st January and somehow knew it could be passed from person to person then why did he wait until the middle of March before he would do anything to recommend social distancing or shutting down businesses? He was still holding mass rallies at the point people were starting to die in large numbers in Italy and Iran.
He was either a genius when he shut down travel from China and then did nothing that might damage his precious markets for 6 weeks or more or he was bumbling along ignoring everyone's advice after his standard kneejerk reaction of shutting down the borders of countries he doesn't like.

[Hanarchy Montanarchy]

Monte and I probably disagree on Trumps culpability in the current crises.

[Montegriffo]

I’m speaking as a doctor. You speak as a TDS sufferer.

There you go again. If you want to pick apart my arguments like DB does I can get into a discussion with you. If you are just going to call me deranged there is nowhere for me to go.
At this point you are no better than Capps.

You have NO arguments. You repeat bullshit.

If that is how you feel then kindly just ignore me rather than launching personal attacks and labeling me deranged.

[Martin Hash]

There you go again. If you want to pick apart my arguments like DB does I can get into a discussion with you. If you are just going to call me deranged there is nowhere for me to go.
At this point you are no better than Capps.

You have NO arguments. You repeat bullshit.

If that is how you feel then kindly just ignore me rather than launching personal attacks labeling me deranged.

I do ignore you except to use you as an example of TDS.

p.s. Non-TDS stuff I read.

[Montegriffo]

You have NO arguments. You repeat bullshit.

If that is how you feel then kindly just ignore me rather than launching personal attacks labeling me deranged.

I do ignore you except to use you as an example of TDS.

p.s. Non-TDS stuff I read.

That's as helpful as some ANTIFA goon calling all Trump supporters racists.

[heydaralon]

I'm sorry, that was the royal "your." It was just folksy - not "your" as in you personally do it frequently.

As for the rest, global diplomacy is a constant and complicated struggle, and will be marred with failures. If you don't think a somewhat independent venue for diplomacy is a good idea, that is fine.

Well, I think in certain instances, the UN actually does more harm than good. I used the Somalia example earlier, if 2 guys are fighting, and you are giving them food between rounds, won't that make the fight last longer? Is it more moral to just let them slug it out as quickly as possible and get it over with or to prolong it? I honestly don't have the answer, but a case could be made that a quick conflict is more humane than a drawn out one.

Sanctions also rarely stop the offending regime from continuing its course of action, they just starve and deprive the population. In Iran for instance, some of the sanctions on stuff actually strengthens the regime, because a black market for getting goods in forms, and Sepah a group in the Iranian army controls this blackmarket, thus generating a revenue stream for the people we are trying to punish.

So in a lot of cases the cure has worse or equally bad side effects as the disease imo

I don't know the answer to the first question either, but you will get prolonged conflict from independent nations supporting their allies with or without the UN.

As for sanctions, I agree, they probably don't stop offending regimes. However, the threat of sanctions may stop a country from becoming a bad actor. Sort of like how threat of jail time doesn't stop someone dedicated to pursuing a life of crime.

Its kind of weird to me that they even decided to make a UN tbh. I'm not super well versed on the league of nations, but it seems like it didn't really prevent wars either. When the USSR invaded Finland, they kicked it out. I'm not even sure they kicked out Mussolini for invading Abyssinia. It didn't prevent WW2 from happening. Its crazy that they even went back to that model...

I think nuclear weapons have done more for world peace than the UN has. Which is really just another way of saying that for the most part, the Great powers fight proxy wars instead of direct ones. They ingeniously figured out how to export their conflicts to the third world (with a few notable exceptions like Vietnam, Korea, Afghanistan '79 but even those were proxy wars).

Slightly off topic but didn't Metternich try to set up some kind of League of Nations proto type in Europe after the Napoleonic Wars?

[Martin Hash]

If that is how you feel then kindly just ignore me rather than launching personal attacks labeling me deranged.

I do ignore you except to use you as an example of TDS.

p.s. Non-TDS stuff I read.

That's as helpful as some ANTIFA goon calling all Trump supporters racists.

I’m serious, dude. You are beyond rationality on Trump; it’s TDS.

In my campaign, I debate a lot of Trump-haters; some have TDS, some don’t; it’s easy to tell the difference.

[C-Mag]

That's pretty much in line with how most governments at that time also communicated. What would you expect them to have recommended instead, with the data they had available at the time?

I expect my experts in communicative diseases to be able to tell us early on the veracity of pathogens.

They clearly are not up to the task and have failed the world.

So, you think there would have been experts that could have given you a more accurate prediction, sooner? Who?

Yes
I watched all kinds of video and reports from China in January that made it clear China had lost control of the disease. I was able to make an assessment that it would go global and I inventoried my supplies and bought items I needed.