[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

So back to morality: do you want to thrash your opponents, or minimise the harm to your own troops?

You can learn from an ancient general who was also a philosopher.

The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.

The greatest victory is that which requires no battle.

https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/1771.Sun_Tzu

As I described previously, in making an effective decision, you need to define your terminal goal.
Then ask if it's aligned with the universal terminal goal.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

So morality is what you do in the service of a concept that you think is more important than anyone and everyone.

Haven't you heard that no one is above the law? Everyone is under the law.
The next question is which laws are compatible with the universal terminal goal. Those are the laws we have to follow.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

And just to make life really interesting, what do you do about civil wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Syria, Iran? Can you justify or condemn invading Iraq? The Russian angle (particularly in Syria) has been to support the government in power on the basis of "better the devil you know", and hope eventually to control or trade with it as a secure and credible winner.  The US approach has been to try to impose democracy, however corrupt, from the outset.

Making good decisions needs adequate amount of accurate and precise information which is relevant to the situation at hand. Unfortunately I have too limited access to it to let me make good decisions. There are too many important information hidden from me. I have limited information sources, mostly from news media, which is prone to selection bias.

But whatever the information would be revealed, there's one certain thing. Any leader who wants to make an effective decision must know their terminal goal. So, let them declare their own terminal goals, and let them compare with the universal terminal goal. Let's see if they can say it out loud without being embarrassed.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

If someone somehow get their goal without actively doing anything to achieve it, we can call it luck. But for important things, we can't always count on luck.

[alancalverd]

You can learn from an ancient general who was also a philosopher.
Quote
The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.
Quote
The greatest victory is that which requires no battle.

But clearly not a chess player. You can move your knights out and back without moving any other piece or attacking your opponent, and lose very quickly.

You can sit at home and watch Nazis and Talibans take over the world, but if that isn't consistent with your goal, it isn't a victory.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

You can learn from an ancient general who was also a philosopher.
Quote
The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.
Quote
The greatest victory is that which requires no battle.

But clearly not a chess player. You can move your knights out and back without moving any other piece or attacking your opponent, and lose very quickly.

You can sit at home and watch Nazis and Talibans take over the world, but if that isn't consistent with your goal, it isn't a victory.

Maybe he wasn't. It's more likely that he played Chinese version of chess.
Can you subdue your opponent by moving your knight only?  Or sitting at home? Or flight to other country?
If not, it can't be the supreme art of war.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

I want to underline that we don't let our opponents get what they want because it presumably prevents us from achieving our goals.
So, our efforts to stop what they're doing are our instrumental goals. There are some options we can do. Killing them is just one of many possible efforts to incapacitate them.  Yet another option is to stop them from having the desire that would obstruct our efforts to achieve our goals in the first place. It can be achieved through persuasions or threats.

[alancalverd]

I want to underline that we don't let our opponents get what they want because it presumably prevents us from achieving our goals.

Which rather suggests that neither side subscribes to a universal goal. So why assume that one exists, or could exist?

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

It can be achieved through persuasions or threats.

persuade : induce (someone) to do something through reasoning or argument.

Persuasion, the process by which a person's attitudes or behaviour are, without duress, influenced by communications from other people.

Persuasion means convincing our opponents that either:
- their current terminal goal is wrong, so we need to show them what we think is the correct one, which is compatible with our own goal.
- their current terminal goal is correct, but they chose wrong instrumental goals. We should then show them better instrumental goals, which are more effective and efficient in achieving their terminal goal, and also compatible with our goals.
 
On the other hand, threat is

a statement of an intention to inflict pain, injury, damage, or other hostile action on someone in retribution for something done or not done.

which means that we don't have to change their goals. But we need to identify what's important for them. It's presumed that avoiding pain or damage is important for everyone, since it's a common adaptation to evolutionary process. The threat can also be extended to involve someone else which are important to our opponents.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

I want to underline that we don't let our opponents get what they want because it presumably prevents us from achieving our goals.

Which rather suggests that neither side subscribes to a universal goal. So why assume that one exists, or could exist?

When two statements about reality differ, at least one of them must be false. But there is no guarantee that both of them are false.
So, which one is your position in the table below?

Here is the truth table for universal terminal goal.

1 in the left column means that there is something called a goal, while 0 means denial of it.
The middle column classifies the goals in time domain. 1 means there are terminal goals, while 0 means all goals are temporary/instrumental.
The right column classifies the goals in spatial domain. 1 means there are universal goals, while 0 means all goals are partial.
x in the bottom row means that their values are meaningless, since the existence of goals have already been denied.

Those who take the position of the first row think that there exist a universal terminal goal.
Those who take the position of the second row think that there exist some terminal goals, but they vary between different parts of the universe.
Those who take the position of the third row think that there exist a universal goal, but they change with time.
Those who take the position of the fourth row think that there exist some goals, but none of them are terminal nor universal.
Those who take the position of the fifth row think that goals simply don't exist.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Is Biden to Blame for the Taliban Takeover? Biden Defends his Decision

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

That's our terminal goal. In chess game, it's winning the game by checkmating the opponent's king..................But if you see from the list of best chess games of all time, you'll find that chess players who sacrificed their queen are likely end up as the winner.

As I said

it is all about beating your opponent's king into submission, regardless of the cost to your own troops,

I strongly recommend The Queen's Gambit (Netflix). It won't improve your chess, but it's a damn good story, well told.

So back to morality: do you want to thrash your opponents, or minimise the harm to your own troops? And just to make life really interesting, what do you do about civil wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Syria, Iran? Can you justify or condemn invading Iraq? The Russian angle (particularly in Syria) has been to support the government in power on the basis of "better the devil you know", and hope eventually to control or trade with it as a secure and credible winner.  The US approach has been to try to impose democracy, however corrupt, from the outset.

I've stated in another thread, that learning is a data compression process. It starts with data pre-processing, which involves data filtering, including removing invalid/false/irrelevant data. When we were kids, our parents and teachers had already done this step for us. But as adults, we must do it by ourselves, using our own experience and reasoning capacities. If we keep picking irrelevant data, the result of our learning process would be useless.

Some of us have to learn the hard way. But we can also learn in easier and fun way.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Afghanistan - Land of endless war | DW Documentary

On August 15, 2021, the Taliban seize power in Kabul, Afghanistan. 20 years after their defeat, they triumph and the West is shocked. This film was produced in 2019. Six Afghan women share their hopes and memories that connect them to their country.

Afghanistan has been in a state of emergency for four decades. Women in particular suffer as a result, becoming pawns in ideological conflicts. This film depicts their suffering – but also their courage, and determination to control their fate.

The documentary begins in the 1960s, in the peaceful Kingdom of Afghanistan. When communists take power, a war begins that will change the face of the country. Women become pawns in ideological battles. After September 11, 2001, Afghan women hope peace may return. They want to determine their own fate. But the spiral of violence continues to this day.

In a first, this film is told exclusively from the point of view of Afghan women, who talk about how their lives have changed. Six women, including the former "Miss Afghanistan 1972" and the current minister for human rights, take the audience on a journey through the splendor and misery of the country. They show the tangible effects of endless war, and how women in particular have become victims of violent politics. But they also show how much courage Afghan women have. Using mostly unseen archival footage, the film shows how girls grew up, went to school and were socially engaged in the vibrant Kabul of the 1960s. But this "golden age" ended when the monarchy was overthrown and ideological battlelines were drawn between communists and Islamists. Even the Soviet Union could not maintain control, its mighty army falling to Islamist forces, who eventually took control of Kabul. Thus began a downward spiral that darkened the lives of Afghan women. 20 years ago, the fall of the Taliban seemed to open a path to a more promising future. For two decades, women and girls in Afghanistan were able to envisage and live a life in which they could decide their fate, in a country that provided ample choices and chances for them. They wanted their country back, the country they once knew. With the Taliban’s swift coup to seize power in just a few weeks, the women’s dreams seem more unattainable than ever.

[alancalverd]

Also worth checking "Charlie Wilson's War" which documents how the CIA funded islamic fundmentalists in order to oppose the Russians who were trying to prop up a democratic-ish government. Also recommended: "Beast of War" about the fate of a Russian tank crew - actually filmed in Israel but very credible. The whole sorry story of outsiders interfering in Afghan affairs goes back at least to 1839.     

Not entirely relevant to this discussion but it does all demonstrate the lack of an obvious universal desideratum, and what happens when you let politics and religion interfere with the things that matter.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

They demonstrated that if a decision is based on one or more false assumptions, we would get unexpected result. Biden assumed that there were 300 thousand Afghan military personnels which are well trained and well equipped to suppress the Taliban. It turns out to be false.

Something that's obvious for someone may not be obvious for someone else. Someone still believes that the earth is flat. It doesn't mean that there is no universally accepted objective reality.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Some of us have to learn the hard way.

And some of us learn a little too late.

Conservative radio host Phil Valentine died of COVD over the weekend, after spending several months attacking masks and questioning the safety of vaccines. These stories are hitting with far more frequency as the Delta variant continues to spread across the country. Valentine's family announced, prior to his passing, that he would be far more pro-vaccine once he got out of the hospital, that day will never come now. Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins discusses this.

[alancalverd]

Biden assumed ...... It turns out to be false.

The pledge and timetable for withdrawal were set by Trump, therefore almost certainly based on falsity. The absurdity of setting a date (the 20th anniversary of 9/11) fixed by the earth's orbit of the sun rather than a clear military dominance and establishment of a stable competent government, just shows how stupid and gullible a president can be - as if we didn't know. Beware of a man who prays - or waves a bible even if he's never read it.

Quite different from Norman Schwarzkopf's  press briefing on Desert Storm: "When it's over, we'll tell them who won."

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

The Washington Post releases a staggering report about the war in Afghanistan that shows an alarming lack of strategy, gross mismanagement of funds and a continued pattern of painting the war as successful from Presidents Bush, Obama and Trump.

No organization can survive in long term based on lies. That's why it's almost universally thought as immoral act. Only in extremely rare case that it becomes acceptable and necessary.

New Rule: The Big Liars | Real Time with Bill Maher (HBO)

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Would you opt for a life with no pain? - Hayley Levitt and Bethany Rickwald

It's basically what's being offered by most religions in afterlife for those who follow them.
Science and technology offer similar things, except that they can be done while we're alive.

In current situation, perhaps Covid patients and covid virus are more representative. They're contagious and affect more of us.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

It can be achieved through persuasions or threats.

persuade : induce (someone) to do something through reasoning or argument.

Persuasion, the process by which a person's attitudes or behaviour are, without duress, influenced by communications from other people.

Persuasion means convincing our opponents that either:
- their current terminal goal is wrong, so we need to show them what we think is the correct one, which is compatible with our own goal.
- their current terminal goal is correct, but they chose wrong instrumental goals. We should then show them better instrumental goals, which are more effective and efficient in achieving their terminal goal, and also compatible with our goals.
 
On the other hand, threat is

a statement of an intention to inflict pain, injury, damage, or other hostile action on someone in retribution for something done or not done.

which means that we don't have to change their goals. But we need to identify what's important for them. It's presumed that avoiding pain or damage is important for everyone, since it's a common adaptation to evolutionary process. The threat can also be extended to involve someone else which are important to our opponents.

Another possibility, although not yet practical, is by editing neuron connections in someone's brain.
This would be an absolute power to control someone else. And absolute power corrupts absolutely. The only way to prevent them from self destruction is by making them understand the concept of universal terminal goal, which is the only logically defensible position.