Life Advice - Don't Easily Dismiss or Lose Respect for People

[Cerebus]

Talking about technical superiority of weaponry is at least silly, as Afganistan has demonstrated. The secret sauce is perhaps elswhere but not in that.

While we were there, the Taliban were effectively suppressed.  Effective enough, anyway, to set up some familiar manner of government.  (I don't know the numbers offhand, as far as estimated Taliban count/recruitment rate vs. troops on the ground, and casualty rates for both.  If those sorts of things were even made public yet...)  The people didn't see any value in it, though, and it collapsed as soon as we left.

It would've been an interesting project (in terms of statebuilding, social engineering, say -- completely setting aside whatever human cost would've been incurred, let alone the economic burden of being there so long) to set up schools and culturally-relevant modes of propaganda, to try and educate them into such a system -- this would seem the only way to bring literally stone-age peoples into modern administrative structures relatively quickly, and even then it must take over a decade to attempt such a feat.  (See also: China bringing their rural/subsistence population up to speed -- through notoriously brutal means.  Effective?  Time will tell, I guess.  That's not something the US public would stomach -- as many brutal things as the USA does get away with, they couldn't possibly keep a project that vast under wraps for long enough to accomplish anything.)   And then what, I don't know, maybe they could be a minor manufacturing center or something, cheap labor, some mineral resources?

But that seems like sad little economic value to justify such an immense investment.  So it was abandoned, as was inevitable, and the Taliban rolled right back in, as if -- well, basically nothing did change.

Tim

I've heard some dumb things in my time, but calling the Afghanis "literally stone-age peoples" has got to be up there. I don't think the stone age was big on cities, schools, universities, hospitals, electricity, things like that.

C'mon surely you can do better than that, or are Americans really so parochial that they believe that everyone in the country is an ignorant savage, potentially useful only as pool of cheap labour once they've been minimally "educated", or to be conned out of their mineral wealth for some beads or blankets? Which might prove a little difficult with a country famed for the rugs it has exported since at least Victorian times. You are literally talking about the invasion of Afghanistan in terms of an economic colonisation that would have been completely familiar to the directors of the East India Company. Appalling!

[Mechatrommer]

But facts matter even if they don't effect you directly. Especially stuff like this because once you go down that rabbit hole, it's very difficult to get out. Down there, you will encounter even more falsehoods that will effect your life.

A while back in this thread "science" and more or less "facts" passed the scene. Science very well explained by Nominal Animal here: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/blog/life-advice-dont-dismiss-or-lose-respect-for-people/msg4294723/#msg4294723
For "facts" one can opt the same principle. It is all man made, so what is true and what is false? When there is a majority in consensus about something, that becomes truth. But as with everything common sense is important to apply to all of this.

On this I disagree. There are certain facts that are not worth questioning. Take Newton's law of gravitation for example. While the science behind it is not entirely correct, for Joe Average on Earth, it is 100% reliable to accept it as "fact". Stepping off the roof of a 30 story building will result in 100% of the people falling to their deaths (with no parachute, etc). None will "float" in mid air like Wile Coyote does. (before her realizes where he is and the physics kick in)
While a physicist, astronomer, Rocket scientist, etc, shouldn't be relying on Newton's law as a "fact" it's perfectly fine for Joe Average.

agree on your point, but some science are pure imagination into a theory, based on limited sample study (i call this "statistical science"). since there is no equally popular competing theory, most people treat it like a hard fact similar to like Newton's Law, even if its probably not. this i see usually happened in field of medical, biology and evolution... look at my signature and see how Richard Dawkin's theory can be challenged. its just not got into popular view, its a matter of how you advertise the theory and how much people are willing to accept and spread by mouth and hand about it... ps: if you google "Evolution and the Illusion of Randomness Stephen L. Talbott" you should be able to find https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/evolution-and-the-illusion-of-randomness otherwise i'm wrong about the "algorithm". its quite a long read, but if you are not kind of "pick and choose" person, there are some rational/good facts inside.

[T3sl4co1l]

Babylon was built by ignorant savages?!  The stone age invented civilization as we know it...?

As far as I know, modern facilities are very sparse there?  And obviously they have access to steel, motor vehicles, oil, whatever electricity is had from generators and such; but also as far as I know, few if any of these by local production, it's just hard to avoid those sorts of things by import (being so useful, easy to use and relatively available).

The breakdown of government, as I've heard it -- granted, like 3rd hand, and no, I don't have the references handy anyway, so I could be very far off base here -- there's no cultural value for institutions, or even prohibition/shame/stigma about what we call corruption or bribery or thievery -- it's simply day to day survival, "well, someone left this laying around, they practically *meant* someone to come by and pick it up, right?" -- the picture I've heard makes a bleak state of things relative to what we would think.  But, cultural relativism -- that's simply how it works over there.  At least, again -- so I've heard.

I should add, these reports were likely from rural areas.  Most of the country is agrarian, so this doesn't seem an over-the-top assessment of things on average.  Overgeneralized, certainly; Kabul alone is bigger than all cities within a 50mi radius of me.  Though what NGOs say about e.g. political corruption seems to suggest it's not much different at least at the top levels, so these reports seem plausible.  I'm welcome to hear otherwise.

And if you could hold on for one fucking second... why not educate me on what and how I've said is wrong, instead of flying into a rage?  It's like this thread hasn't even begun to teach any lessons.

And, yes, I was literally talking in economic terms, because.. that's what that hypothetical aside was about?  Did you skip over the parenthesis I put in there for a reason?  Evolution and world economy care very little about human misery, unfortunately; yet onward they march.

Tim

[BravoV]

While we were there, the Taliban were effectively suppressed.  Effective enough, anyway, to set up some familiar manner of government. 

If its soooo effective, why the hell once the Yankeestan left, Taliban took only weeks, not monthS to take over the whole Afghanistan without any significant resistances.

While the local resistance forces, from those so called "Democracy & Freedom Fighters"  of locals death squad which were trained by so called super duper uber US military elite and holly trainer, and were well equipped with state of the art modern weaponry.  ha.. ha..

Once in while, its not considered a sin to admit the Taliban beat the sh*t out of US military in conventional war.

[T3sl4co1l]

If its soooo effective, why the hell once the Yankeestan left, Taliban took only weeks, not monthS to take over the whole Afghanistan without any significant resistances.

While the local resistance forces, from those so called "Democracy & Freedom Fighters"  of locals death squad which were trained by so called super duper uber US military elite and holly trainer, and were well equipped with state of the art modern weaponry.  ha.. ha..

Once in while, its not considered a sin to admit the Taliban beat the sh*t out of US military in conventional war.

I mean... sure?  I guess?  It's like saying, you're gonna beat me in hoops, and after dunking 20 in a row I get bored and leave.  You toss a few and get one, you've won now, congratulations?

In the sense of retreating from an active zone -- definitely, yes.  (Does that fit the usual definition? Again, I'm no military wonk.)

I, more or less explained, or hinted at, why the local forces fell so quickly.  They didn't take to training (and, either we had great difficulty training them, or we didn't even try to find an effective manner to do so?), and -- again, as I've heard it -- were basically as excited as anyone else to have all this free materiel on the ground, ready to shift around and make a buck.  "Who cares if the Taliban comes back, they're not so bad, they've been here before, it was whatever" kind of thing.

And I'd be quite more than happy if they'd have spared the fucking three trillion dollars and counting, they spent on these wars, and put it towards something useful like domestic social services, or investing in foreign aid.  But we can't have nice things in the US unless you're a military contractor.  If you want loss porn, resounding defeat -- you don't need to look for it on the battlefield, these numbers tell no lie.

Tim

[pcprogrammer]

Through history it is not just the USA that "lost" in Afghanistan. The Russians have tried and failed too.

And referring to them as from the "stone ages" might be the wrong term. "Cave man" is probably a better fit, because denying woman education and forcing them to make house and take care of the babies is to me "cave man" behavior. Granted I have never been there, but friends of ours met a couple that fled from Afghanistan just for these reasons. On a funny side note, they sell rugs (carpets) and that is how our friends came in contact with them.

And unfortunately as long as weapons industry is big business there will always be wars and money wasted on destruction instead of improvement.

[Zero999]

In order to take over a country, the people need to be beaten into believing there's no alternative to submit. If the resistance isn't crushed, it'll keep coming back. This is what's happened in Afghanistan. The west needs to keep the hell away from those sorts of countries. Nothing positive will come out of interference, in the long term.

[wraper]

Through history it is not just the USA that "lost" in Afghanistan. The Russians have tried and failed too.

Soviets were officially supporting government of Afghanistan which came to power during coup (previous government gained power the same way) and as civil war started. Soviets were asked by Afghan government many times to send military but refused to do so. Then later stepped in when because of infighting the leader of ruling party was killed in (justified) fears that US gains the influence there. And eventually failed in a large part due to USA meddling, supplying weapons and providing military training to what eventually became Taliban. So what US is very successful in is making shit hit the fan. Now US lost to what they created themselves  .