No Appeal to the Hypothetical (APPLIED EPISTEMOLOGY)

[Mick Harper]

I'll break up the argy-bargy so it can be followed more easily

It sounds ludicrous to suggest that life was better in Tsarist Russia than in the late Soviet Union. I think even the fiercest critics of communism would struggle to make that case.
I didn't say life was better in Tsarist Russia, I said it should be compared to it. i.e after eighty years of 'progress'.
And Russia has never, ever been comparable to England in terms of development, even in the feudal days.
I did not compare Russia with Britain at all, much less in feudal times.
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And no, Tsarist Russia couldn't feed itself - it had famines as late as 1908.
I didn't say Tsarist Russia couldn't have famines, I said it could feed itself (unlike the Soviet Union in the 1980's).
Food security was much better in 1980s Russia than in Tsarist Russia. Peasants 100 years ago were simply used to less.
I did not mention food security.
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Britain did not have 100% literacy rates before compulsory education. Elementary school became compulsory in 1880, and literacy was still only 97% by the end of the century.
Britain had functional compulsory attendance only by 1900 when, as you say, literacy was 97%.
97% sounds very close to 100%, but is really not because many of those 97% have extremely poor literacy skills. Many of our family friends (Northern Ireland) are functionally illiterate even now, especially middle-aged men in the trades. The average 60-year-old catholic male in NI can write their name but can't read a children's book.
Stop wriggling. There is no such thing as 100% literacy anywhere.
And it is incredibly hard to solve illiteracy, as made obvious by the fact that most of the world's countries still haven't managed it.
World literacy is approaching 90% so I guess that would be 'most' countries.
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At the risk of sounding like a communist stooge, you obviously can't separate Cuba's supplies issue from the blockade. And still, bandages or not, they're outcomes are comparable to the US in many areas, which suggests that yes, they are still doing a lot of things really well.
Only a Cuban stooge would blame the decline of Cuba from being as rich as Ireland in 1959 to being only slightly richer than Haiti in 2023 on a neighbour refusing to trade with her. Boo-hoo.
Ireland was extremely poor in 1959, much poorer than the USSR or East Germany. Becoming a tax haven has changed that, but that's not a sustainable developmental model for larger countries.
I did not say Ireland, the USSR or East Germany was anything in 1959, only comparing Irish and Cuban development since Castro came to power. If you think the difference is down to multinationals brass-plating in Dublin, you’re nuts.
I'm not sure where you're getting your data that Cuba is only slightly ahead of Haiti. 2021 UN data suggests that Cuban GDP per capita was $11,250 compared to $1,660 in Haiti ... so almost 7x higher. Those figures also put Cuba slightly ahead of Turkey, Argentina, Malaysia. Well above global average.
I will pass on your good news about their GNP per head to Havanans who have now added electricity to water, food and bandages as things they are chronically short of. Or they can read all about it. Well, no, I suppose they can’t.
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Actually I was mildly shaken by the GDP figures so I looked them up. Officially the dude's quite right but I can't imagine how they come by them.

[Wile E. Coyote]

If you compare Spain, Cuba, UK, Jamaica......

You are going to find that Jamaica and Cuba are very alike in the performance basic economic indicators because of geography. It is very little to do with history or language or which empire, or political freedoms.

Of course pedants will point out the differences.

[Mick Harper]

So I will proceed to do so. The differences are

1. Cuba has a white government and administrative class, Jamaica does not.
2. Cuba was rich in 1959, Jamaica was not.
3. Cuba had a developed infrastructure in 1959, Jamaica did not.
4. Cuba has been the recipient of enormous tranches of foreign aid (from Russia), Jamaica has been in receipt of... [Can you check it out, Louisa-May?]

Good point all the same.

[Mick Harper]

There is an 'appeal to the hypothetical' that often goes unnoticed. Because it is is couched as an 'appeal to morality'. The reason that morality is hypothetical is because while everybody adopts the 'if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck...' position i.e. they are sure they can recognise it when they see it, this is not really so. Nobody can define morality, only accuse others of lacking it.

This is much in vogue at the moment with both the Ukraine and the Gaza wars. For example, Hamas is doing nothing now that the Irgun and other Zionist terror groups did not do when setting up the State of Israel. It is a curious morality that denounces people defending their land from the mouths of people who took it. In Ukraine it is a 'new morality'. Invading armies have always done what the Russians are doing in Ukraine but, all of a sudden, the Russians are committing 'war crimes'. Apparently war crimes occupy some special place in the list of immoralities. It has become impossible to point out even what are crimes, let alone immoral ones.

AE-ists have a simple antidote to all this

[Wile E. Coyote]

[Mick Harper]

You make the case splendidly. No morality is involved. The Israelis want to keep their land and will use whatever methods they deem necessary. One of those methods is to appeal to the world for support on the basis of Hamas's flagrant violation of moral norms. The world laps it up.

I'm only saying we shouldn't.

[Wile E. Coyote]

Who has a better case for statehood, the Kurds or the Palestinians?

The answer is, they are both failed nationalist movements unable to will into being a viable nation state in an area where there were multiple conflicting claims from those also trying to create nation states. Their nationalist identity is created by failiure and historical injustice, they have reached the level of "autonomy" within other nation states, a considerable achievement, but one that does not satisfy their leadership.

In Wiley's view the reality de facto postion after 100 years' or so struggle is that "autonomy" is likely the best they will achieve.

[Mick Harper]

[Wile E. Coyote]

It is of course possible, having ended up with autonomy, that "you up the ante" by continuing to antagonise the nation state in which you are located. This might work well if you have protectors or sympathetic neighbours willing to back you, but it can backfire, you end up with nothing. Cf. Nagorno Karabakh.

Hamas is not playing this masterfully at all, they are gambling the gift of Gaza that Nasser gave to the PLO. But there again, as you say, they have little to lose.....err, as they are living in luxury in Qatar.

[Mick Harper]

[Mick Harper]

Here's a nice example of people being driven from pillar to post when they are forced -- because they believe in orthodoxy -- to appeal to the hypothetical. It's over something we're all familiar with here. I'll leave out the boxes for clarity

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Prateek Dasgupta
When Did Humans Learn to Ride Horses? Academics are split over the origin of horse-riding
https://medium.com/teatime-history/when-did-humans-learn-to-ride-horses-c92f42a20f73

Mick Harper
The idea that 'human predation and competition from other species' caused horse extinctions is preposterous. Catching a horse without a horse is so nearly impossible it would the be other species that would go first.

Prateek Dasgupta
Should've mentioned the studies were based on wild horses and bisons in North America. Bisons ended up eating more of the same foods as wild horses.

Mick Harper
That's the next problem. How did horses, native to North America, go extinct in North America? In which grassland known to you is one herbivore species grazed to extinction by another herbivore species?

Prateek Dasgupta
Don’t see why it’s so unbelievable. Human predation and competition for food also led to the extinction of the woolly mammoth. It’s never one factor

Mick Harper
Ok, just tell me how humans predated on horses and I will be satisfied.

erwan
humans predated every other animal, no matter how much faster, bigger or stronger, from lions to mammoths. How? traps, spears, arches and arrows....

Mick Harper
And they got every last horse in America. Impressive. The last few must have needed some finding.

Jerry Frost
Once populations shrink to relatively small amounts you are likely to find gender imbalances appear. Many more males than females, or vice versa. That, along with inbreeding, forces a further population decline. Additionally I suppose is that the last few horses spread out over hundreds or thousands of miles would have trouble locating each other.

Mick Harper
So let me get it straight. The native Americans frenziedly hunted an animal that isn't particularly good to eat, and is hellishly difficult to catch, and they went on doing this though it was getting harder and harder, until the poor old horse sort of gave up the ghost. It's a remarkable story.

Jerry Frost
You overestimate the difficulty in hunting horses. If you are used to eating horse meat, it tastes pretty good. Just ask the French! https://www.wsj.com/video/french-appetite-for-horse-meat-rises/029964C7-C48A-44BE-9A0E-9DFABF2FA702

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Notice that none of them evince surprise or acknowledge there is any merit in anything I am saying. At some level they might know they are arguing something unlikely -- and would certainly do so in another setting or if the shoe was on the other foot -- but this is swamped by the overall feeling that they are explaining something well-known to someone who doesn't know it. Despite the copious evidence that I know at least as much as they do.

But there is no hostility expressed towards me either, just patient explicatory forbearance despite my constant attempts at baiting them. That is to commend them all. The lesson though is not that I made no converts, I didn't register a single dent on anybody's carapace. Thy just felt a bit sorry for me.

[Mick Harper]

One further rat-a-tat a few days later:

[Mick Harper]

An even more interesting and useful rat-a-tat-tat