Since WWII there is strong negative correlation between the development of military technology (firepower) and the rate of deaths in armed conflicts. https://www.statista.com/chart/10054/share-of-war-dead-over-time-since-world-war-two/ The following chart shows that the overall death rate from armed conflict was the same in the year 1400 as in 2000 (Log scale) : https://www3.nd.edu/~dhoward1/Rates%20of%20Death%20in%20War.pdf What we do to ourselves (diet, lifestyle, medication, drugs etc) is far more likely to kill us than an enemy in combat.

The central argument in the ICJ case against Israel is in part analogous to the strongest argument against vaccine mandates: no matter how great is the risk to the nation, it has no right to kill innocent people to mitigate that risk; the prohibition against the killing of a minority for the benefit of the majority is absolute. It is not a question of proportionality. https://michaelkowalik.substack.com/p/the-proportionality-principle-is

The theological 'problem of evil' has a simple answer: all attempts to eliminate evil are just another expression of evil (the trolley problem), purporting to be a lesser evil. The problem of evil can be reduced to the problem of irrationality, which cannot be 'fixed' by imperfectly rational beings but only evolved out of. This suggests that the problem of evil is being continuously solved, in the ongoing act of meaning-creation: the evolution of consciousness. Another way, evil is the default, natural state, the unconscious state, and consciousness is the antithesis of evil that evolves by reflecting on the problem of evil.

Notes on the ICJ case (Israel's defence). 1) The primary argument presented on behalf of Israel to justify the high death rate of civilians arising from its military operation is that the enemy uses the civilian population as human shields, and that killing human shields in any number is legally and morally permissible in order to defeat the enemy. The argument implies that the right to life of the human shields, even if they include the entire population of a nation, is secondary to the military objective of destroying the enemy combatants. It was further argued that to prevent Israel from killing human shields in any number that Israel deems necessary to accomplish its military objectives would create a disproportionate and irreparable advantage (legal loophole) for terrorists. This argument is fundamentally defective as it assumes a non-existent right to violate the right to life of non combatants. The right to life is not conditional on the test of proportionality but is absolute, and cannot be instrumentally violated. 2) The technical argument that jurisdiction is negated by insufficient communication between SA and Israel prior to initiating the proceedings also cannot stand, as it would allow any offending party to avoid prosecution for genocide by refusing to communicate and explicitly "dispute" the allegations. 3) The strongest argument in Israel's deference, which may succeed in its own right, is that the requested provisional measures are constructed in a way that implies a judgement on the merits (an implicit legal conclusion with respect to the charge of genocide). This is a clever technical defence. Nevertheless, at least some of the measures requested by SA can be interpreted by the court in a way that does not imply a judgement on the merits. 4) The strongest argument available to Israel was to show evidence that every documented incident of incitement to genocide or endorsement of genocide is being prosecuted. This could defeat the charge of genocide outright, but its agent glossed over this powerful argument, without addressing any specific cases, thus implying that the argument cannot be utilised in full, implying a permissive attitude of the state of Israel in regard to genocidal intent.

All ‘Trolley Problems’ are Wrong

A Trolley Problem is a kind of ethical dilemma where a person is asked to choose between saving several lives at the expense of fewer lives, or saving fewer lives at the expense of more lives. This kind of problems are based on several assumptions, including: 1) that the person making the decision has complete control of the situation, 2) the person making the decision can accurately predict the outcomes, 3) there are only two possible outcomes. All these assumptions are provably false, but a further assumption is the morally critical one: 4) the intention of the agent in question is artificially limited to a false dichotomy: allowing many deaths to occur vs. intentionally causing fewer deaths. This one point makes all trolley problems disigenious, a moral trap that is essentially trying to convince people to do what is morally wrong (kill an innocent human being for the sake of others, ie human sacrifice). The crucial alternative that the trolley problem ignores is that the moral agent can intend to save all humans in the trolleys. Moreover, it assumes that the moral agent must make a decision (that the decision is already a moral responsibility of the agent); it remains to be demonstrated that we have the moral responsibility to save anyone from anything that we have not caused ourselves (I call this view the ‘moral omnipotence fallacy’). If ‘moral omnipotence’ were true then surgeons should never play golf but remain at the hospital at all times, just in case they were needed to operate on some unfortunate victim of road trauma. In fact, they should work tirelessly just for food, water and a basic shelter. Ironically, the trolley problem is typically used by trauma doctors to convince others that the decisions they ‘had to make to save lives’ were right. One famous Australian doctor tried to use this kind of fallacious argument to convince me that vaccine mandates are not morally wrong, but all he did was implicitly admit that he actually killed someone in his care (by witholding essential medical care) in order to save someone younger. It was my impression that he expected me to sympathise with and be humbled by the difficulty of the moral choices that “real” doctors face, in the “real world”. I told him this ‘would be’ an intentional murder, ‘if’ the patient were already in his care, unless of course doctors have no duty of care whatsoever and can go home at any time, even in the middle of an operation... My overall experience is that medical doctors, even the most celebrated ones, are not very rational, or moral.

The Trolley Problem has a consistency problem

There is a runaway trolley speeding down the tracks. Ahead, on the tracks, there are five people tied up and unable to move. The trolley is headed straight for them. You have the capacity to pull a lever, which will redirect the trolley to a different set of tracks. There is only one person tied up on the side track. You have two options:

1. Do nothing, in which case the trolley will kill the five people on the main track.
2. Pull the lever, diverting the trolley onto the side track where it will kill one person.

The silent premise of the trolley problem is that you have the moral obligation to save people from death, just because they are people. It follows that the obligation extends to all people, therefore you also have the obligation to save the person you would have to kill in order to save the others, therefore the choice entails a contradiction. The binary choice must be rejected as absurd.

The view that ‘vaccine mandates are morally wrong because they amount to killing some people for the benefit of others’ is logically incompatible with the view that ‘proportionate killing of civilians for the sake of national security is morally right’ (unless the person holding these views does not regard the killed civilians as human).

There is no right or left wing in logic, there is no cultural, national or tribal logic, no progressive or conservative laws of sense. There is only sense and non-sense.

The primitive Man is connected to the land and identifies with the land, above all else. The transcendent Man is connected to humanity and identifies with rational consciousness, above all else.

It is possible that what was presented to the general population as ‘nudges’ were in fact ‘sludges’: “sludging involves interventions that decrease well-being while also respecting autonomy, whether intentionally or unintentionally.” Misrepresenting a sludge as a nudge could be a part of its sludge-effect, a sludge amplifier. The sludge effect consisted in penalising the behaviour that irrationally engages with authority and thus acts to self detriment and to the detriment of others, under the guise of this behaviour being rewarded. https://philpapers.org/rec/HORBPP

And just like that, the voluntary, private data gathering stage of the programme is concluded. The programme knows your personality, wishes, doubts, strengths, weaknesses, and interests, which are all associated with your phone number. When an AI company loses money providing you with their service, it proves that it is you who is commodified, and the profit part will happen later, at your expense. https://theintercept.com/2024/01/12/open-ai-military-ban-chatgpt

BREAKING NEWS: The word of the year for 2024 is “de-escalation”.

People believe that being able to own land is their right, paid for with their ingenuity and hard work. They have contempt for those who who do not “really work” but only philosophise. These proud owners are oblivious to the fact that 400 years ago some philosopher whose name they do not care to know convinced the owner class and the kings to let the little man have a bit more power, freedom and rights, to give him a chance to demonstrate human equality through moral conduct. It appears that the little man has failed.

It is not just a conflict of philosophical beliefs; the concept of self-assessed gender identity is itself logically inconsistent. The legal requirement to recognise a male as a woman amounts to mandating that a person who regards womanhood as inextricably determined by sex must deny her own gender identity. Proponents of transgender identity misgender everyone else. https://archive.md/3sZPB

You shall not mirror the irrationality of others, lest you too would become irrational. You shall not engage with the aberrant in others as if it were an argument that needs refuting; aberration becomes emptiness when faced with silence.

If our rulers intended to radically depopulate the planet they would not bother about lab grown meat and maggots for human food. It would be pointless. At least one of these stories must be false, or both could be false, in which case the stories are intended only to elicit a defensive reaction. People expect a climax, some great catastrophic event, but it does not come. Rather, the political reality is like a permanently festering wound. The business machine grinds on, taxes must be paid, lawns have to be mowed.

In every war everyone is only defending themselves. Self-defence is clearly not a very good argument for systematic killing; a misleading argument.

It is not possible to have world peace if 80% or even 10% of the population are murderers at heart, as symbolised by Cain in the Book of Genesis. It was in Cain’s nature to use murder instrumentally, to justify murder in self defence, whereas Abel could not do so under any circumstances, it was not in his nature, and this was the difference of kind that was plain from the position of the ideal personhood. If peace is not possible then ‘standing for peace’, or being ‘on the side of peace’ is a hollow gesture; war is inevitable. Since it is inevitable then the most just management of this instinct is to allow those who are murderers at heart to fight those who are also murderers at heart, and keep everyone else out of harm’s way. The only other way would be general oppression, because anyone could be a covert murderer until circumstances or ideology would reveal their true nature.