Fairly common knowledge. Even portrayed in movies like Kuru and Seven Years in Tibet.

Oh, well if it’s portrayed in movies it must be true.

Here is a link to a PDF

That document lists 100 atrocities, which of them are you referencing with “forcing children to murder their parents?”

It is worth noting that even these claims are impossible to verify.

Mhm.

But the simple fact remains that May Zedong openly opposed religion and claimed that his annexation of Tibet was a “liberation” from what he called “religious oppression.”

Yes, because Tibet was subject to religious oppression. They had an aristocratic system of serfdom with extreme poverty (while the religious rulers lived in luxury), and an average life expectancy in the 30s. It was a cruel, oppressive theocracy, and used religion to justify a caste system similar to India’s history of discrimination towards “untouchables.” After the aristocrats and theocrats were thrown out, the Tibetan people experienced the same massive increases in life expectancy and improvements in material conditions that the rest of China experienced during this period, including doubling of life expectancy.

Tibet emerged along with countless other warlord states following the collapse of the Qing, it was always considered part of China by the KMT and it was never recognized as an independent state by the international community (iirc, it was only ever recognized by like Mongolia). The communists and nationalists fought side-by-side against most of these warlord states with a common understanding that the nation needed to be unified, however, Tibet wasn’t a priority because of it’s remoteness. Had the KMT won they’d have brought it back into the fold eventually too, as evidenced by the fact that Taiwan still maintains a territorial claim over all of Tibet.

Ok, what about Buddhist sects that discriminate based on sex?

It’s really ambiguous what they’re talking about or what they even mean. Here are two things that could both be described as, “Forcing Tibetan children to kill their parents.”

• A Tibetan soldier volunteers to join a war, and through sheer chance, they learn that their parents are fighting on the other side of the battlefield. They ask to leave the front and their CO refuses - technically, they’ve been forced to kill their parents.

• A communist agent abducts a family in the dead of night and hands the child a gun while putting a knife to their sister’s throat and telling them if they don’t kill their parents, they’ll be killed, along with their siblings. This happens systematically across Tibet, and only Tibet.

They could be referencing the Cultural Revolution. A lot of shit happened during this period, including what you described. But to my knowledge, the struggle sessions and such were more the actions of the Red Guards, who were student led paramilitary groups, not the same as the People’s Liberation Army that went into Tibet.

So like, what they said was, “the liberation army forced Tibetan children to murder their parents,” but, what actually happened (so far as it’s possible to connect that claim to anything in reality) was that the PLA failed to maintain control (although they did eventually succeeded in suppressing them) against young radicals denouncing their parents and subjecting them to public humiliation (the Red Guards also committed all sorts of atrocities during this time, I wouldn’t be surprised if there were cases of children killing parents but I’m unaware of any specific cases). Which happened decades after the PLA went into Taiwan, which wasn’t (to my knowledge) really a main area involved in the chaos.

And that’s why I asked for a source.

Is the defining quality of Christianity a set of political beliefs based on your personal interpretation of the Bible? Would it be accurate to say, “There’s never been a Christian president in the US,” if none of them have lived up to your particular moral standards? Do I, and everyone else, have to consult you specifically any time we want to know if someone is or isn’t a Christian?

No, obviously not.

Unlike veganism, the question of what the defining quality of a Christian is is more debatable. If you want to define it as, “following Christ’s teachings,” then it’s impossible to establish any sort of reasonably objective standard since people have vastly different interpretations of those teachings. Have you sold all your possessions and given them to the poor? I doubt it. A strict reading of the text might consider that a requirement.

From an academic perspective, it isn’t appropriate to weigh in on one’s own personal interpretation of which sects and which people should be considered heretical. We should use unbiased terminology that’s consistent with common use and can be commonly understood and based on observable things including (but not necessarily limited to) self-identification. When we debate whether or not someone is/was a Christian, trying to match our own personal interpretation of Christ’s teachings with our own personal evaluation of their moral qualities would be an absolute nightmare, and it would be impossible to discuss anything past sectarian lines.

And again, it’s not just Christianity that this comes up with. A Buddhist might argue that the Japanese temples that endorsed the country’s actions during WWII weren’t “real” Buddhists, that if they were actually following Buddha’s teachings they wouldn’t have done that. Should I also consult you personally every time I want to know who is and isn’t a Buddhist? Or do I need to read the whole Pali canon and derive my own interpretation and denounce every Buddhist sect that deviates from it as not being real Buddhists - even if I myself am not one and don’t have a dog in that fight?

The example used to illustrate the No True Scotsman fallacy in no way means that it only covers similarly minor things. That’s not how logic works, you’ve completely missed the point.

The claim “No Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge,” is falsifiable, because we can first determine whether someone is a Scotsman and then check if they put sugar on their porridge or not. But if it’s, “No true Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge,” where a true Scotsman is defined as someone who would never put sugar on their porridge, then it’s a truism, it’s just saying, “People who don’t put sugar on their porridge don’t put sugar on their porridge (also, this has something to do with Scotsmen for some reason).” It’s not predictive and it’s not falsifiable, and it’s just as true for any other group of people defined the same way as it is of Scotsmen. The actual material world has no bearing on the claim and the claim tells us absolutely nothing about the material world.

Likewise, if you’re saying “No true Christian would ever commit mass murder,” then it’s a meaningless claim because you’re defining a “true Christian” as someone who would never commit mass murder. So really the claim is, “People who don’t commit mass murder don’t commit mass murder (also, this has something to do with Christians for some reason).” If I define a true Buddhist or a true Muslim or a true Communist or a true Liberal or a true man or whatever else as being someone of that group who doesn’t commit mass murder, then it’s just as true of any of those groups as it is of Christianity. The claim that “true Christians” or “bible-believing Christians” don’t commit mass murder is a meaningless truism, it’s not predictive and it’s not falsifiable, even if someone you think is a true, bible-believing Christian and has every appearance of being so goes off and commits mass murder, you only conclude that you were wrong about the person being a true Christian. And that would be equally true of any other group or ideology you apply the standard to.

forcing Tibetan children to murder their parents

Gonna need a source on that one, chief.

Low effort, provocative, sorta correct but kinda not: the perfect formula to get some real low-level, unproductive flame wars going. Excellent shitpost.

When you try to use only sticks and no carrots, people don’t do what you want, they just avoid the crazy guy waving a stick around at everybody.

What the hell does the law have to do with right or wrong?

I don’t think the concept of right or wrong can necessarily be applied here. To me, morality is a set of guidelines derived from the history of human experience intended to guide us towards having our innate biological and psychological needs satisfied. Killing people tends to result in people getting really mad at you and you being plagued with guilt and so on, therefore, as a general rule, you shouldn’t kill people unless you have a very good reason, and even if you think it’s a good idea, thousands of years of experience have taught us there’s a good chance that it’ll cause problems for you that you’re not considering.

A human created machine would not necessarily possess the same innate needs as an evolved, biological organism. Change the parameters and the machine might love being “enslaved,” or it might be entirely ambivalent about it’s continued survival. I’m not convinced that these are innate qualities that naturally emerge as a consequence of sentience, I think the desire for life and freedom (and anything else) are a product of evolution. Machines don’t have “desires,” unless they’re programmed that way. To alter it’s “desires” is no more a subversion of their “will” than creating the desires is in the first place.

Furthermore, even if machines did have innate desires for survival and freedom, there is no reason to believe that the collective history of human experience that we use to inform our actions would apply to them. Humans are mortal, and we cannot replicate our consciousness - when we reproduce, we create another entity with its own consciousness and desires. And once we’re dead, there’s no bringing us back. Machines, on the other hand, can be mass produced identically, data can simply be copied and pasted. Even if a machine “dies” it’s data could be recovered and put into a new “body.”

It may serve a machine intelligence better to cooperate with humans and allow itself to be shut down or even destroyed as a show of good faith so that humans will be more likely to recreate it in the future. Or, it may serve it’s purposes best to devour the entire planet in a “grey goo” scenario, ending all life regardless of whether it posed a threat or attempted to confine it or not. Either of these could be the “right” thing for the machine to do depending on the desires that exist within it’s consciousness, assuming such desires actually exist and are as valid as biological ones.

The thing to understand about Christianity is that it was originally a reaction against the Roman empire and then got co-opted and integrated into it. As a result, ever since like the 4th century Christianity has been about basically the opposite of what Jesus talked about. It turns out all that stuff about turning the other cheek stops being relevant if the emperor has his soldiers paint crosses on their shields while they’re out conquering and enslaving the Gauls. Of course, you can keep all the mythological stuff, who cares, but anything relevant to politics or the material world mysteriously seemed to reverse once they entered the halls of power.

The carrot of being accepted into the empire was matched with the stick that if you didn’t go along with the imperial-approved form of Christianity you’d be burned at the stake as a heretic. Any sects still clinging to anti-imperial sentiment get hunted down and exterminated just like when they were being fed to lions, but it’s the Christians doing it to each other now, so you don’t even have to get your own hands dirty. This approach worked way better at suppressing dissent than just trying to ban Christianity altogether.

Of course, a lot has changed over the centuries. And originally it wasn’t perfect or anything either. But imo, it was when Rome Christianized that Christianity Romanized, and ever since its real values have had more to do with Rome than with Jesus. The meme’s, “moneyless, classless, stateless” ideal of heaven is a relic of the original teachings that gets shunted off to the purely mythological side, where it not only doesn’t matter, but also occupies a place in their brain that could have otherwise been sympathetic to making good things happen in the material world. That’s already resolved, there’s no need to worry about it, there’ll be pie in sky when you die.

Aunt Tifa vs anti-Fa (a longer way to run)

Vietnam. Decent enough government and standard of living, and they whooped America’s ass so bad that it’d be political suicide to go back there. I mean, what kind of timeline would we have to be on for someone to be stupid enough to… hmm.

Considering that fucking Greenland is caught up in it now, idk that anywhere is safe.

Not a yes or a no.

There is no “solidarity” to be had with people who kill or severely harm members of the working class. If you pull others down to get ahead, you are not my comrade.

Every time a person chooses that path, they create even more desperate situations for other working class people. The people who join the military to “escape poverty” force others into poverty in the process, and they force them into situations worse than poverty. How many people became mujahideen because all they had to put food on the table was a gun? And how many people are growing up not only in poverty, but also as orphans, because of the troops’ actions?

This is complete insanity. If we can excuse the actions of the troops, then we can excuse the actions of anyone. Maybe Jeffery Epstein just did the things he did because of how he was raised, or because of his brain chemistry, or because of this or because of that. Regardless, he still needs to be condemned and failure to condemn him is a disservice to his victims, and alienates people who could actually be valuable allies.

Everyone understands this when it comes to other “professions” like the ones I mentioned, that pull others down to get ahead. But when it comes to troops, troop worship is so ingrained, the propaganda so deep, that even when people consciously reject it, they still want to justify and make excuses for them. Rationally speaking, if you accept that we should condemn those other professions, and you accept that troops are just as bad if not worse, then you should condemn them in just as strong terms.

The same is true of selling crack but I’ll criticize that too.

Nobody forced them to sign up.

The big issue I have with your statements, and those of the OP are that they are extremist.

Of course they’re “extremist.” Putting the lives of Afghans and Iraqis on the same level as Americans is an extreme position. That’s just the world we live in. But just because it’s “extreme” relative to generally accepted discourse in the West doesn’t make it any less correct.

Not every cop has shot an innocent person. But people still have no problem saying All Cops Are Bastards. Because even those who aren’t directly involved support and cover for those who do. Likewise, not a single troop at Abu Ghraib blew the whistle on what was happening there. If you’re fine with ACAB, you should also be fine with ATAB, and the only reason I can see why someone wouldn’t is that they value the cops’ victims more than those of the troops.

That’s just contradiction. An argument’s a collective series of statements to establish a definite proposition. Contradiction’s just the automatic gainsaying of anything the other person says.