The evaluation of the merits of something doesn’t stop at its obvious direct effects.
I mean, if that was the case, me pissing on the punch bowl in a party would be a good thing because it had the immediate, direct and positive effect of me not feeling the need to piss anymore.
I know that its one of most common political swindles in our era to totally and utterly ignore secondary effects and broader impact of a political choice in order to sell us something which all things considered is a bad thing as being a good thing because at the surface it looks positive, but let’s not accept them treating most people as having the intellectual capability of 5-year-olds as a good and normal thing which everybody should do and which we should adapt to by not considering more things about a choice than we did at the age of 5.
The problem here is that the discussion was about whether X was a good thing, and then after a bunch of argument against it finally someone pops in with “because it leads to thing Y!”
That wasn’t addressed at all until now.
It remains an unsupported connection.
Even if true, thing X is still in itself a good thing.
Recognizing the existence of the state of Palestine is a good thing for everyone except the racist Zionists who want an ethnically pure unified Israel in its place. I feel like I’m taking crazy pills here.
In a magical special Universe where nothing else at all was happenning, recognizing the existence of the state of Palestine is always a good thing.
In the actual world were are in, with what’s going on right now, for some countries (were there is a large public pressure to actually stop Israel and which are still activelly arming Israel) politicians recognizing the existence of the state of Palestine is possibly a bad thing because of how it interacts with other things to de facto yield worse outcomes for Palestinians than if they had not done it.
Interpreting the merits of a choice in a context were there is nothing else whatsoever that interacts with it - call it “laboratory conditions” - is pure Philosophy and akin to claim that “we all live in a perfect simulation but are not aware of it”: a fun mental game that has no actual effect in Reality as we perceive it.
That’s an additional caveat that isn’t included either with the analogy itself or with the actual recognition of Palestine.
The evaluation of the merits of something doesn’t stop at its obvious direct effects.
I mean, if that was the case, me pissing on the punch bowl in a party would be a good thing because it had the immediate, direct and positive effect of me not feeling the need to piss anymore.
I know that its one of most common political swindles in our era to totally and utterly ignore secondary effects and broader impact of a political choice in order to sell us something which all things considered is a bad thing as being a good thing because at the surface it looks positive, but let’s not accept them treating most people as having the intellectual capability of 5-year-olds as a good and normal thing which everybody should do and which we should adapt to by not considering more things about a choice than we did at the age of 5.
The problem here is that the discussion was about whether X was a good thing, and then after a bunch of argument against it finally someone pops in with “because it leads to thing Y!”
Recognizing the existence of the state of Palestine is a good thing for everyone except the racist Zionists who want an ethnically pure unified Israel in its place. I feel like I’m taking crazy pills here.
In a magical special Universe where nothing else at all was happenning, recognizing the existence of the state of Palestine is always a good thing.
In the actual world were are in, with what’s going on right now, for some countries (were there is a large public pressure to actually stop Israel and which are still activelly arming Israel) politicians recognizing the existence of the state of Palestine is possibly a bad thing because of how it interacts with other things to de facto yield worse outcomes for Palestinians than if they had not done it.
Interpreting the merits of a choice in a context were there is nothing else whatsoever that interacts with it - call it “laboratory conditions” - is pure Philosophy and akin to claim that “we all live in a perfect simulation but are not aware of it”: a fun mental game that has no actual effect in Reality as we perceive it.