No idea what you're trying to say here.

In any case, you're kinda missing my point which is not that we should do away with these laws and fight wars without them (really not sure if anything would actually change) but that we should completely change how we think about war and violent 'solutions' to problems, and perhaps value human life more highly. Rules definitively don't achieve that, quite the opposite.

Im saying its foolish to point to examples of laws being broken and take form that that they are not effective.

This thing that I've been arguing about all this time really has nothing to do with anything because I have a completely different point that I've really been discussing the entire time, and it's all about a paradigm shift.

His first idea is kind of interesting.

Star Trek of course (they got one about just about everything) had an episode related to it. A Taste of Armageddon.

Still would rather if attacked have someone abiding by the Marquess of Queensberry Rules then street fight me.

So I'm a fool because I can give examples, in virtually every war fought since WWI, of the rules being ignored to the point where it seems entirely voluntary whether or not people comply with them, and I think that suggests that actually they're not very effective? If the rules/laws are as effective as you seem to think, then why, after all this time, are people still ignoring them, why is it happening in wars that are going on right now?

Boko Haram just massacred thousands of people in Nigeria (5000+ to date), do you think the laws gave them pause for thought? And if you don't consider that a 'war' despite that they're labelled terrorists and there's a 'war on terror' then consider that the Nigerian government have been accused of war crimes in their efforts to stop Boko Haram. Did laws stop them?


These are just two of countless exampes of the rules simply being ignored so how effective can they really be? And versus this point of view, you have a specualative 'ah but we can't know how much of that behaviour the rules prevent'. True, we can't know. But, by all means, give me the name of a country that you believe has complied fully with international law in time of war?

Yes exactly, the existence of these rules, and the hope that your oponent will abide by them makes the idea of a fight much less frightning huh. But, how much more likely would you be to get into a fight if you knew that there were no rules, that they might actually try to kill you?

Rules contribute to the terrible idea that war can be 'civilised' when the facts say otherwise.

Theses contradict each other though.

In the top one rules dont work and have little effect. In the bottom one rules have the effect of making war more palatable.

To be fair there were a lot of caveats in that other post. Just saying.

As for defending the rules as having an effect. Meh..think im wrong, others who are more knowledgeable and you give more credit to haven't had luck its doubtful i would.

Fwiw to support them or not (which is the important question) i dont even need them to work much. Just a little.

If it stops one crazy leader form using chemical weapons, good enough. If it stops one prison guard form beating a prisoner since the red cross is coming the next day to see they are abiding by the Geneva Convention, good enough. For you to change my mind on this you would have to go with they have a bad effect.

What. No they don't, one is 'the rules aren't very effective' and the other is about the idea that 'maybe we need a new way to think about war', which has always been my argument, I'm getting deja vu here.


They aren't very effective at preventing atrocitites, and they might have the unintended effect of 'sanitising' war and making it seem like a more civilised thing than it actually is, two entirely different points, both of which are objections to the idea of rules for war.

Well that would be Dereds so far, not exactly a decent sample size....

How about we forget the distraction of how you make war 'civilised' (despite the vast amount of evidence that suggests that persisting in thinking that war can be civilised is almost perverse in it's level of wishful thinking and ignoring the facts) and think about how to prevent it in the first place. Or, are you part of the club that thinks that we're not capable of this?

In the episode war was more palatable. They made it easy so it never ended.

And in my mine Queensberry example im being attacked by someone following the rules. There was no choice to fight. Its better that the other person attacking you has them if they wont hug it out.



But ok so rules dont have an effect accept in that they give an appearance of palitabulity thous making more war. Cool. I dont really want to convince you otherwise.

It's more a case of there not being the will to end it.

Yes which is nice and safe and you're more likely to fight. But if the guy might try to bite, or stab, or kill you in some horrible way, now you're more inclined to do anything but fight.

I don't know who's argument you're conceding to here but it's not mine, but despite me spelling it out a number of times you don't seem inclined to figure out what I'm saying. Deja vu. Again.

No. There was no will to stop it because it was made easy and not messy. Through the rules.

Sigh...if you cant not change up what i say in even one sentence and argue against it instead of what you want to there is no hope. ...likely was not an option. You are fighting in my example. Who do you want to fight the person following the rules or not? This is rhetorical and im not interest in another of your arguments against your own version of what i say.

Ok then i cant really tell what your view is anymore. Lucky im not that inserted. But i will concede all of them you make so i can get out of this conversation with you. You can have the last word im done either way.

I kind of think we're not capable of this. Unless...

Unless the winners take all. That is, the utter destruction of your enemy, and the taking of his land so that there is no chance for future revenge.

This should of course be a defense mechanism, and not an offensive initiation. And perhaps you could spare the women and children and graft them into the winning nation.

You think war is 'not messy'?


And what you're still not getting is that this is the mindset that I think we can and should change. Yes of course I would want to fight someone who 'might' follow some rules, but what I'd much rather is to not fight at all and not have him want to fight.

lol? what are we five years old that someone has to have the last word? If you don't want to reply, just.. don't reply...

That wouldn't stop it, we'd still think the same way. Eventually there'd be a civil war.

You did not watch the episode or read the wiki you are commenting on.

"KIRK: Against the wall!
(There is a very satisfying series of explosions.)
ANAN: You realise what you have done?
KIRK: Yes, I do. I've given you back the horrors of war. The Vendikans now assume that you've broken your agreement and that you're preparing to wage real war with real weapons. They'll want do the same. Only the next attack they launch will do a lot more than count up numbers in a computer. They'll destroy cities, devastate your planet. You of course will want to retaliate. If I were you, I'd start making bombs. Yes, Councilman, you have a real war on your hands. You can either wage it with real weapons, or you might consider an alternative. Put an end to it. Make peace. "



The whole point is they took some of the messy out because if they did not they said it would of meant their annihilation. They no longer used weapons but instead had a computer program that chose the dead who went into disaggregation booths.

No i got that a long time ago.

A kind of straight answer to my actual post. You only changed my example a little with the might. There was no might, one fought by them one didn't.

Yup.
Yeah i dont anymore. Just couldn't let the trek thing go.

Starting now!!

I didn't catch the reference. Now I'm reading it though, it seems to support my argument. Kirk reintroduces 'real' war, no rules, no restrictions, and hopes that it will act as a deterrent to war, and be an incentive to make peace. So I guess you do agree with me then?

I didn't mean you, personally, alone. Try to imagine a time and place where fighting a war isn't just the less desirable option but isn't even one of the options.

Didn't realise that you have to fight and your opponent has to follow the rules, I thought we were talking about real life.

How is your example at all useful?

Ok, just.... don't reply then... You don't have to keep telling me that you're going to stop, just stop.

Still got the trek wrong.....Didn't even watch it ffs...

It's not just you. He's linked and quoted his own articles and gotten them completely wrong, too.

Yeah. Makes it hard to want to put in effort.

Though i shouldn't really criticize someone arguing form ignorance since i do it more then i should...its also not a bad way to learn if you are opened to being corrected so...

I'm guessing this is in response to some kind of nastiness from Aaron but I'm not arguing from ignorance per se, I have an opinon informed by all that I've experienced, read, watched, listened to, talked about etc over 30 years of being an adult, war isn't exactly an unusual topic I have plenty of reference material and a general interest, I just don't know the philosophical arguments and had been hoping to be exposed to them.

That shouldn't prevent me though from challenging what appears to be standard thinking about war, that it's necessary and therefore we should try to do it 'nicely'. I don't think it's necessary, is that ignorant? Perhaps you can explain why war is so necessary that discussing alternative ways of thinking is stupid?

Watch what... there's no clip on that page, just a script that you expect me to read in full? Are you serious or is this whole approach of yours a level of some kind?

I figured that the transcript was the relevant part, otherwise why quote it, is it not?

Well I'll keep making the effort not to respond negatively to comments like this.... but you know, like you said, stop responding anytime you want.

Im pretty sure that no one on this forum has this view of war

Just to be clear your argument form ignorance was on the episode.

Many questions are answered and many issues are resolved by dealing in facts and reality. That you don't do this says much more than any real or imagined nastiness I can conceive.