From: matus (matus@matus1976.com)
Date: Mon Jul 21 2003 - 23:31:55 MDT
> matus, Thu Jul 17, 2003 10:51 am:
>
> >There are no doubt a lot of people on this list who know a lot of
> >things, and suggesting they are wrong in the face of overwhelming
> >evidence is absurd. I would never, for example, suggest Amara's
> >descriptions on the formation of dust clouds is incorrect,
> however her
> >historical account and perception of US involvement in the Afghan
> >Invasion certainly was, and I presented a clear, calm,
> precise argument
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> >suggesting as much.
>
> Matus: I wish you would have found somebody else with whom to make
> your point. I am not subscribed here and I only read a small
> percentage of the messages. Even when I was able to pay more attention
> to this list in the past, I'm relatively sure that it was obvious that
> I have a fundamental disconnect to your worldview,
I note you said specifically
"The Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979. The Afghans fought them with
little help, surprisingly successively for a large part of that war.
Please look to Soviet sources or talk to Russians for how difficult of a
time the Soviets were having. The U.S weapons to the Afghan fighters
were not until some 7 or 8 years later. We all know how that turned out,
don't we?"
I base my worldview as much as possible on empricial evidence, and
accurate representations of historical events. You suggested that the
US waited a '7 or 8' years before supplying 'weapons' in Afghanastan.
While my 'worldview' may be one you have a fundamental disconnect from,
your 'worldview' is one that seems to deviate from reality, to suggest
the US sat idly by and did nothing for 7 or 8 years, is completely
false. Perhaps you were referring specifically to weapons, and not
supplies, but unless you were referring to Stinger missiles, your
statement is incorrect. You may have spoken to some Afghan refugees who
personally did not receive any rifles or Stingers until 7 or 8 years
into the fighting, but you can not extrapolate from their individual
statistical sample to the entire Afghan population. The tremendous
amoung ot supplies and mules sent in also helped, and to assert the
Mujahadeen would have won the War without it seems unreasonable.
I have proposed many times on this list a group effort to form a
empirical and scientific account of historical events, as unbiased as
possible. As I have stated many times, there are so many people of
different political interpretations that we are sure to get to an
accurate and reasonable account of what transpired. No one has ever
taken me up on the offer, but no problem, its in the works.
and I know that I was unable to
> communicate my own worldview to you (and the other aggressive and
> prolific posters).
I would only ask that you state facts. Telling me an afghan refugee
said that no US weapons showed up for 8 years vs. citing official US
govt documents, supply routes, chinese documents etc... Which evidence
has more weight? MaxPlumm chimed in with quotes from 'people who were
their', although they did not happen to coincide with your worldview.
There is no doubt the Mujahadeen were brave, hard working, courageous
fighters. They were also sadistic in some instances, (as many people in
a war can be) yet they were fighting the expansion of a murderous
tryanical regime, and the US helped them. The vast numbers of stinger
missiles the US sent made the Soviet helicoptor force completely
irrelevant, and a significant impact on the invasion in general.
> Usually now I lack the resources and
> motivation necessary to try to write here.
That is understandable, I personally work some 80 - 100 hours per week,
and simply because you don't have time to further argue a point does not
mean you acquiesce said point. However, don't expect your points, if
others feel it reasonable to assume are incorrect, to not be challenged.
I would also emplore you not to take it as a personal attack, I may
disagree with your 'worldview' (i.e. interpretation of historical events
based on available evidence) but it does not reflect any issue I have
with you personally. You seem a bright, intelligent, sincere,
passionate individual.
> I write this
> message now much more for the newer people on the list than for you,
> since I don't often enter onto the extropians list any more.
Well I write this response for them as well.
>
> My reason for writing this message is to say that I wish you wouldn't
> be so confidently sure of your facts regarding the topic of
> Afghanistan and other political topics. On that particular message of
> Afghanistan, to which I think you are referring (I didn't read through
> to the end, it was very long),
I would contend that I am not so confidently sure of my facts. When
numerous cites document specific values of aide provided, it seems
reasonable to assume said aide figure was somewhat accurate. This begs
the question of 'what is evidence?' A web site? Lots of web sites?
Official US Govt web sites? Official Afghan web sites? Books/web sites
written by people intimately involed? Books / web sites written by
people who spent a lot of time studying said topic? US Govt official
documents? Short of traveling through time, there can always be an
interpretation of a vast conspiracy to explain away any 'evidence'. But
at some point it must be reasonable to draw an interpretation from
analyzing as many accounts as possible.
If I were to say the gravitational constant is 6.67x10^-11 and you said
'prove it' Do I have to tie some heavy weights up, suspend one by an
ultra fine thread and measure the torque imparted to said thread, and
resolve the observations for the G value? Or can I do a couple web
searches and present that as evidence?
I think the old skeptic mantra applies well here, seek evidence in
proportion to the outrageousness of the claim. Is it outrageous to
think the US did actually send $50 million in Aide to afghanastan in
1982? Not particularly, and is it outrageous to assume that some
'weapons' were part of those supplies? Again, I would say not
particularly. What are your requirements for evidence? How would you
go about 'proving' no weapons were sent (or received)
> my memory of that message was that you presented
> information from a number of documents which you found on the
> Web, and I presented words from a documentary book, and from
> Afghans with whom I have spoken and/or were friends.
And Maxplumm responded with passages from books as well. Are books
automatically more valid than web sites? Or are other issues, such as
source important to consider as well? I think it best to analyze as
many accounts as possible and attempt to discern the real historical
events as closely as possible from those accounts.
I know
> that I lacked patience at the time to write more, and because of my
> usual ongoing limitations (lack of time to write, frequent travel,
> lack of access to Internet, RSI typing hands), I probably did not do
> a very good job to present my view.
>
> If one considers that our information sources were vastly different, I
> don't think one can ever say absolutely you were right, and I was
> wrong or vice versa.
But do you concede that there 'IS' a right and a wrong in this question?
For instance, did the US send weapons only after 7 years after the
Soviet invasion? This seems a simple yes or no question. If you had
asked the same question of Stinger Missiles, given the investigation I
did, I would say the answer was no, the US did not. However, more
investigation can be emplored if the figures seem reasonably in doubt.
If more investigation still results in doubt, in more digging can be
done, this is why I say we should weigh the evidence requirements
against the extent that the claim is unreasonable.
Perhaps my friends or
> the documentaries I read were wrong about the sequence of events, but
> then that would mean that a chain of related events and other people
> were wrong too.
Or perhaps there were a lot of people, in different places, who all saw
/ witnessed different things. And the only way to gather an accurate
account of the events was to examine as many as possible? I don't think
you should be so confident in your political viewpoints either.
Well, that's
> possible. Or perhaps the duration of time covered in the documentary I
> read (to 1986) or the places where the writer interviewed people were
> different than what was covered for your data.
Quite possible, no doubt there is a lot of data out there on the
subject.
Or perhaps what was written in official government
> documents were never manifested in the real lives of the people living
> there. Well, that's possible, too.
That's possible, a lot of things are 'possible' though. Its also
possible that the fella writing that book was one of the unfortunate
groups that had supply routes (for instance) cut off or constantly
attacked causing difficulty in getter US donated aide to him. But it is
also possible that the US never sent $1 worth of aide and it's all a
vast orwellian re-write of history conspiracy. Both are possible, but
which is more *probable*
In the end,
> on that topic, I trusted my people sources because, to me,
> direct sources of that kind (words from people through which
> I've already filtered by different means) seemed to be the
> most reliable.)
Given the inherient and recognized difficulties and innacuricies in
first person anecdotes and accounts, I am surprised you give so much
weight to these accounts. Before I came to the extropy list, I was
heavily involved in skepticism, (in fact that's how I first heard of
EXI) meeting James Randi and Michael Shermer, a member of the NESS,
loyal subscriber to SKEPTIC and Skeptical Inquirer. The fallibility of
the human mind becomes very apparent upon studying this science niche.
Does your filter tend to create answers that re-enforece your previously
held worldview?
> I urge you to choose your information sources wisely, and gather your
> information from a variety of sources. 'Facts' regarding political and
> cultural issues can be fuzzier than you think.
Noted in the above consideration, I think we should all attempt to
choose our sources widely. I would not, for instance, quote the North
Vietnamese figures on the numbers of political prisoners. Nor would I
accept for fact the resistance claim to the number of north vietnamese
political prisioners. I am perfectly aware that historical political
question are fuzzy, which is why I have multiple times suggested that
members of this list make a collected effort to create an accurate,
unbiased (unbiased as possible) account of historical events. I have
taken it upon myself to get this project rolling, but with my allready
>100 hrs /week work reqs. It will be slow coming. I assure you, my only
goal is a real as possible answers to historical and political
questions. I have no interest in preaching to the choir, as I feel it
is a waste of time / energy / mental CPU cycles, and there is allready
millions of people out there doing just that.
> On gathering data on political and cultural topics -
>
> My own hierarchical scheme for the best ways to gather information on
> political and cultural topics is the following, with the heaviest
> weighting, starting at number 1), and usually combining a number of
> sources to reach my own synthesis and/or perspective.
>
> 1) Live in the location of the news.
> (Note: this is very different from the experience of being a visitor)
I would consider this suspect, considering the overt bias present in
news in all countries, let alone the totalitarian countries news events
relevant to our topic typically happen in, its tough to consider this a
largely reliable source of info. I don't know if I would count it as
the most valuable, but this brings into focus the need to weigh
evidence.
>
> 2) Visit the location of the news.
>
> 3) Talk to the people, who are from that region.
>
> 4) Read media in the language of that region.
Again, given that most items of news interest in these historical /
political questions happen in totalitarian regimes, it seems difficult
to place *primary* weight on these sources.
>
> 5) Read media from that region translated into English.
>
> 6) Read several world media (English).
>
I basically would disagree with your ranking, I would probably place
number 6 as a top priority (dropping the english qualifier), behind only
pure physical evidence (bullet holes, human skulls, etc) I still would
find it most valuable to read many different news sources, generally
give more creedence to ones that tend toward freedom of press, but
remain skeptical when said news source has a direct and important stake
in the outcome of events, but wiegh all of this with the extent of the
extraordinary nature of the news report vs. the evidence presented.
> The Economist is my favorite source of high-quality, world news,
> printed in English. One reason I like them is that they have some
> reporters (I don't know how many) who are native, living in the
> regions from where they gather their news.
>
I will have to check the economist more frequently. Recently I have
been receiving 'The Week' a US publication. This is one of the best
sources of Unbiased reporting (I think) I have yet found, I try to find
overt bias in it, but have difficulty. It seems they genuinely want to
actually report only the news of the last two weeks (anyone else had any
experience with this periodical?) Its typicall formula is to report a
news event, the summarize what the columnists and editorials said about
it (this almost always covers the major converse interpretations of
implications and such, typically form liberal and conservative writers
equally) It also features editorials from many other countries,
including mid eastern ones, and european ones.
> The other newspapers and magazines in English drop steeply
> for me, in terms of reliability, so I tend to read several in
> English from different countries, if I want more information,
> in order to get different perspectives.
Why is that? You have basically presented your list of weights to be
attatched to a piece of evidence, can you back up your listing as the
most reasonable? I would be hard pressed to myself, as it seems this
would be a difficult undertaking of its own. But given that, what made
you arrive at the particular order your list is in? It would be
beneficial to figure out the most ideal evidence weight system. While I
feel it may be impossible to create a strict formula the results in a
value of certainy attatched to a piece of evidence, I think a general
guide would be a good place to start.
> ... miscellany ...
>
> Since 1996, I have not owned a T.V.
>
Good for you, I consider it significantly responsible for our dubming
down. I usually have the "nazi's are bad and WWII is the only
significant historical event ever" (er, I mean history channel) running
in the background while working, or the discovery or learning channel.
> I try to practice healthy skepticism, especially with
> regards to what emerges from the mouths of politicians.
>
As do I! Perhaps you would be interested in partaking in this effort.
I value opposing political opinion more than identical ones, as the
latter can quickly become redundant. It would require only as much time
as you are willing to put into it.
> I try not to weigh anything that I read on the Internet (it's
> called the Web of Lies for a good reason), until I have found
> other sources of information which can support the writing
> and/or the writer. Of course, I get lazy sometimes.
Same here (about the getting lazy) which is why I think it also
reasonable to weigh the required evidence against the extreme nature (or
lack their of) of the claim. I think an Afghan citizen claiming *no*
weapons were sent in from the US until more than 7 years after the
soviet invasion is far more outrageous (and thus requiring more
stringent evidence) than claiming the US was sending millions in aide in
some form almost immediately.
Michael Dickey
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