RE: Eradicating women. (Full Version)

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Aswad -> RE: Eradicating women. (8/24/2007 8:52:38 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Alumbrado

You and I could not be farther apart on our views of the Indian women's deaths.


For your view to be far apart from mine, you would have to love the idea.

If that is not the case, please consider that you may have an incorrect reading of my post.

quote:


I find them sickening, and you quite clearly, find them a source of debate fodder.


I did not start this thread, and you participate yourself, so I fail to see what you're trying to say here.

quote:


The rest of your false statements and leading questions have already been addressed by the links and facts previously presented in this thread, by myself and others, so rather than jump through your hoops by repeating myself so that you can again redefine, dissemble, and project,  I will leave you to your denial.


You have made unsupported statements. Failing to back them up is not leaving me to anything. It's leaving your statements unsupported. So far, you have not offered to say where I have made false statements. Leading questions, perhaps, but not undue ones, I think. If you disagree with that, please make the reasons for your disagreement known, including pointing out what questions you feel are unduly leading, and why. At this point, it is unclear whether you object to the presentation, the arguments, or the conclusion, and even that would only be a starting point for debate.

I may be wrong. I have been in the past. I will be in the future.

If I am wrong now, please show me where and why, so I can improve my understanding.

I've been through the links and facts presented, and I have used various sources in the course of making my post. If you think those sources have provided me with incorrect information, you should cover which information is incorrect, and the credibility of your preferred sources. If you think I have misapplied the information, you should tell me where I have gone wrong, and why that is wrong. Otherwise, I will miss an opportunity to learn how not to make such mistakes, and there will be no improvement.

In short, I'd love to be wrong, as my intellect tells me something my heart does not want to hear.

If you can make a good case that my intellect is wrong in this case, I'll be grateful.

I am not trying to make you jump through any hoops, but this is the last hoop that I am jumping through in order to obtain any semblance of a substantiated argument from you. I have extended my olive branch twice, and I am still looking forward to yours and hope you will reciprocate. I did not spend hours on that post to gloat over dead babies; come on...

Health,
al-Aswad.



Stephann -> RE: Eradicating women. (8/24/2007 9:08:12 PM)

I don't see anyone banging a drum demanding birth control advocates be hauled off for execution for such unspeakable acts.  After all, preventing conception prevents human life from being created!  How sick is that!

Seriously, Alumbrado, this thread is dealing with a specific practice.  Condemning that practice doesn't, by extension, support any other sort of homoside, genocide, or gendercide.  Why pick this fight?

Stephan



OrionTheWolf -> RE: Eradicating women. (8/25/2007 6:43:37 AM)

Greetings Susan,

Nothing noble about my intent. I offered exactly what my words said. If you ever have a question about something I post, just ask and I usually answer it.  I believe if you look back, I never directly attacked anyone, just the ideals. I'll write off much of your words, as having a bad day, just like all of us do from time to time.

In general,

I am an insensitive prick, I have never denied it. I feel that all this charity is an enabler for other things. I feel that to have moral outrage in one area, and ignore another very similar area, is hypocricy. I believe that many in the US feel they need to fix things to releve themselves of guilt or something.

I do notice that several of the questions I asked of a certain poster were never answered, so I will chalk that up to that poster not wanting to engage in serious debate, but then again that is no big surprise.

Orion



caitlyn -> RE: Eradicating women. (8/25/2007 7:06:19 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Alumbrado
You and I could not be farther apart on our views of the Indian women's deaths. I find them sickening, and you quite clearly, find them a source of debate fodder.


I would imagine that some people can multi-task, and find it both sickening, and a debate topic ... take you for instance ... [;)]



Alumbrado -> RE: Eradicating women. (8/25/2007 8:55:27 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Stephann

I don't see anyone banging a drum demanding birth control advocates be hauled off for execution for such unspeakable acts.  After all, preventing conception prevents human life from being created!  How sick is that!

Seriously, Alumbrado, this thread is dealing with a specific practice.  Condemning that practice doesn't, by extension, support any other sort of homoside, genocide, or gendercide.  Why pick this fight?

Stephan

 
 
I cannot see where you are getting that from.
 
 The specific practice, in the thread title, and throughout the thread (including the links I've provided which remain inscrutable to Aswad), is the multiple means used in eradication of females for convenience and tradition.
I'm one of those here condemning the practice, while many are quite busily engaged in defending, or at least excusing it
 
My 'fight' is with the notion of 'No harm, no foul', dressed up in cherrypicking only the abortions, and then claiming moral relativism with Western abortions, or by pretending that the killings of adult Indian women are insignificant.


 



Aswad -> RE: Eradicating women. (8/25/2007 4:00:45 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Alumbrado

The specific practice, in the thread title, and throughout the thread (including the links I've provided which remain inscrutable to Aswad), is the multiple means used in eradication of females for convenience and tradition.


Well, technically, I was defining what the thread had dealt with so far, and addressed it. The OP is generally considered to "lay down the tracks" for the rest of the thread, and in this case, it dealt specifically with sex-selective abortions. It seemed appropriate to deal with that first.

Basically, I concluded that some topics that have been given much time in the thread were ancillary to the real issue, which- to my mind- is not the means used, but the reasons for their use. If you wish, I can have a go at analyzing infanticide and so forth, as well, though I briefly touched on it.

quote:


I'm one of those here condemning the practice, while many are quite busily engaged in defending, or at least excusing it


Actually, that is not entirely correct. You are distracting from discussion about the reasons for the practice. With infanticide, at least, without bothering with another few hours to make a post on that unless anyone is particularly interested, the reasons appear to be the same ones.

I'm not defending anything. I'm analyzing it. Pinpointing the problem and why it's theirs.

Whether having an abortion, poisoning a baby, or burning a woman, it is all down to the same basic thing: there are reasons why this is happening in the world, and it will keep happening until those reasons are dealt with. The means are just icing on the cake, and it's the conditions that cause it one must deal with. Your replies to my post have essentially broken down to saying "the individual parts are wrong because of the whole they make up, while the same individual parts are right in another context because the whole they make up is different there", while at the same time denying the importance of the conditions that cause these parts to be wrong in one context and right in another.
 
quote:


My 'fight' is with the notion of 'No harm, no foul', dressed up in cherrypicking only the abortions, and then claiming moral relativism with Western abortions, or by pretending that the killings of adult Indian women are insignificant.


I have brought up Western (specifically the US) Domestic Violence, paralleling killing adult women. And I have not "claimed moral relativism", merely asserted that since the pieces are the same, the context is what must be the root cause, hence the element that is at fault. Then I raised the point about when we get to change the context, who gets to decide what cultures (or cultural elements) must be excised from a foreign country, or transplanted from one's own. If anyone is cherrypicking, that would be you, and I liken it more to nightmarish woolgathering with every passing post on your part.

Never did I say or imply "no harm, no foul", quite on the contrary.

Get the facts straight before you complain about mine.

Health,
al-Aswad.




Stephann -> RE: Eradicating women. (8/25/2007 4:07:03 PM)

Alumbrado,

When I read the opening post, it seemed pretty clear the issue put on the table was the selective infanticide currently being practiced.

Sadly, this is one of many countless heartbreaking and mind dulling cruelties that humanity inflcts upon itself. I can only imagine the results of a thread that was titled "People everywhere are killling and dying."

An engineer is a person who's job it is to regularly solve problems. Ask an engineer how to solve a big problem, and what does he do? Break it up into many small problems.

That seems to be the approach we like to take with politics as well.

Regards,

Stepan



Aswad -> RE: Eradicating women. (8/25/2007 4:33:12 PM)

Dead on, Stephan.

Health,
al-Aswad.



Alumbrado -> RE: Eradicating women. (8/26/2007 5:41:47 AM)

The universally ridiculed tendency of engineers toward obsessing over minutae and ignoring reality, doesn't really serve you well in arguing that your perception should hold sway over the thread title,  the linked articles that Aswad still refuses to admit to, and the many posts (including those from the OP) pointing out that abortion in this case, is a cherrypicked derailment.

But, hey, as long as you're having fun with it. [8|]



Stephann -> RE: Eradicating women. (8/27/2007 6:55:51 AM)

Hey, I didn't say they were necessarily good at solving problems, only that this is what their jobs are.  The underlying concept still stands though; standing up against one form of abuse, does not necessarily equate with condoning any other form.

Regards,

Stephan





Sinergy -> RE: Eradicating women. (8/27/2007 7:15:38 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Alumbrado

The universally ridiculed tendency of engineers toward obsessing over minutae and ignoring reality, doesn't really serve you well in arguing that your perception should hold sway over the thread title,  the linked articles that Aswad still refuses to admit to, and the many posts (including those from the OP) pointing out that abortion in this case, is a cherrypicked derailment.



Reminds me of an attitude that a bunch of managers of mine had back in the early 1990s when I was a system engineer on a large contract.

They were using a single source item with a hardware solution to channel switching.  The single source item was a POS and I hated them because I spent half my life installing new ones.

So one day I sat down and wrote up a White Paper on a software solution using a commercially available item with multiple vendors, along with software switching, etc.

It was shot down by the hardware engineers.  So they went with the POS approach.  4 years later they asked me to move to another state to head up the project to implement my design.  Apparently, the one they insisted on using was a POS, and I was right all along.  I declined the offer.  Said everything I had to say about it could be found in my White Paper.  I was nice enough to give them the document number.

While it is easy to sit there and trash engineers, sometimes it is attention to detail and the ability to view an issue from a variety of different perspectives that allows one to actually solve a problem.

As far as the thread is concerned, Aswad and Stephann and a host of others are spot on.  What is going on in India and China is a conscious decision to have a male child, which is rooted in a deeply held cultural bias against women.    As I pointed out earlier, the problem is not really when a few families get rid of their female children.  The problem is when an entire population does it, which skews the population levels in their country and results in a drastic downturn in female births.  Longitudinally, this will result in a drastic downturn in population levels.

The particular method used for gender selection is rather ancillary to the topic, much as those who enjoy arguing about abortion would like it to be the actual issue.  If they dont have access to abortion to get rid of female children, they will use other means to do so.

Sinergy



Alumbrado -> RE: Eradicating women. (8/27/2007 7:25:03 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Stephann

Hey, I didn't say they were necessarily good at solving problems, only that this is what their jobs are.  The underlying concept still stands though; standing up against one form of abuse, does not necessarily equate with condoning any other form.

Regards,

Stephan




 
 
Then tell that to those who are debating my standing up against the practice of burning women to death.



Alumbrado -> RE: Eradicating women. (8/27/2007 7:30:47 AM)

quote:

Reminds me of an attitude that a bunch of managers of mine had back in the early 1990s when I was a system engineer on a large contract.

They were using a single source item with a hardware solution to channel switching.  The single source item was a POS and I hated them because I spent half my life installing new ones.

So one day I sat down and wrote up a White Paper on a software solution using a commercially available item with multiple vendors, along with software switching, etc.

It was shot down by the hardware engineers.  So they went with the POS approach.  4 years later they asked me to move to another state to head up the project to implement my design.  Apparently, the one they insisted on using was a POS, and I was right all along.  I declined the offer.  Said everything I had to say about it could be found in my White Paper.  I was nice enough to give them the document number.

While it is easy to sit there and trash engineers, sometimes it is attention to detail and the ability to view an issue from a variety of different perspectives that allows one to actually solve a problem.


Maybe the engineers I worked with at NASA were the only exception to your observations.... but I doubt it. [8|]


quote:

As far as the thread is concerned, Aswad and Stephann and a host of others are spot on.  What is going on in India and China is a conscious decision to have a male child, which is rooted in a deeply held cultural bias against women.    As I pointed out earlier, the problem is not really when a few families get rid of their female children.  The problem is when an entire population does it, which skews the population levels in their country and results in a drastic downturn in female births. 


I and the OP are saying that the problem in India is the deeply rooted cultural bias against women, Aswad and Stephann are the ones arguing that its just abortions... are you wearing your engineer's glasses? 



Aswad -> RE: Eradicating women. (8/27/2007 8:00:42 AM)

No, he's bothering to read my post, Alumbrado.

Simple as that.

I did not argue that it is just abortions. I argued that the abortions are a moot point, and that we should be examining the deeply rooted cultural reasons for this kind of thing, in whatever form it takes. I also offered to cover the other angles. The engineering glasses, if there are any, would appear to be on the one who is unable to see that systematically pointing out that the problem is cultural does not equate to condoning what is going on.

Diffusing a real problem that affects a whole bunch of women with ad hominem attacks and diversions rooted in not bothering to read what other people are saying is hardly helping these women in any way, shape or form, and criticising others for seeing it as debate fodder is hardly consistent with such a practice.

Health,
al-Aswad.



meatcleaver -> RE: Eradicating women. (8/27/2007 8:10:19 AM)

The cultural issue is a very important point. We in the west are so smug about the rights of females but we shouldn't be, Female sufferage accelerated in the west because of wars and the shortage of fighting men and so women had to take the place of men in the work place. Once the genie was out of the bottle, it couldn't be put back.

Cultures adapt to economic, geographical necessity amongst other things and one needs to understand that and recognize an issue before one can put the issue right. The shortage of women in India and China will soon enough create a pressure to correct that imbalance.

I think I'm agreeing with ASWAD here. I don't want to put wordsin his mouth.



Aswad -> RE: Eradicating women. (8/27/2007 11:52:02 AM)

We seem to agree, yes.

Good point regarding women's suffrage, but I think you are neglecting the importance of education, as well.
The pioneers of this movement in the middle east were the women with an education, for instance.
And at the point when women's suffrage started in the west, some education was common.

From the cynical evolutionary perspective, what is going on will indeed create pressures that will force change, or cause the populace to decline to zero eventually. In either case, it results in the present culture dying, whether through extinction, or through mutating into a different culture. One supposes it is more likely that people will adapt than die out, as this is pragmatism on their part, not zealotry.

From the personal perspective, I find it to be a sad and abhorrent thing, the net result of these cultural elements.
Regardless, my isolationist policy does not preclude me from debating what can be done about it.
But I'm fresh out of ideas on that point, though I'd encourage others to submit theirs.
How do you fundamentally alter a culture quickly in a consensual manner?



Stephann -> RE: Eradicating women. (8/28/2007 6:15:15 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Alumbrado

I and the OP are saying that the problem in India is the deeply rooted cultural bias against women, Aswad and Stephann are the ones arguing that its just abortions... are you wearing your engineer's glasses? 


Hold it there bucko,

Just because I don't hop on your bandwagon, doesn't mean I'm on anyone else's.  I've got my own bandwagon thankyouverymuch.  Not once did I say this issue was 'just' about abortion.  The bulk of my comments have very clearly stated, that there are many ills in this world.  Pulling one particular ill out of context, and saying that if the world doesn't recognize it's superiority amongst ills, than the apocalypse is neigh, puts you on par with the guys at the airport ringing a bell crying "Repent!"  You latched onto your burning women concept on page five, and haven't let go.  If you're genuinely interested in a debate of the issues, start addressing the issues, and not the hype.  Unless you have a bucket in hand, you're hardly in any position to assert you're doing any more good than anyone else in this topic.

With that said, the cultural identity issues aren't going to be reversed by any armlock the west tries to apply.  This isn't to say we don't dry.  There aren't exactly billions of dollars aid flowing from Africa, Asia, or the Middle East towards North America, you know.  So long as the West has the power and wealth to assist, that assistance will always come with caveats and price tags.  It isn't a matter of us 'permitting' them to live their way of life, to have their culture.  It's a matter of our lack of desire to conquer their countries, to make them over in our own image.  We don't want to be seen as bullies (though we are) and we don't like to feel like puppetmasters (though we are.)  You are, of course, welcome to raise whatever army you feel necessary to invade, seize power, and 'teach' these poor misdirected souls at your leisure.

No, I'm not kidding.

Stephan



rukna -> RE: Eradicating women. (9/10/2007 2:31:14 AM)

india is the land of contradictions....
on one hand they worship females as godess... and on the other hand they slaughter the newly born girls.
hope things will imporve soon



Sinergy -> RE: Eradicating women. (9/10/2007 9:55:32 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: rukna

india is the land of contradictions....
on one hand they worship females as godess... and on the other hand they slaughter the newly born girls.
hope things will imporve soon


People are contradictions, not just in India.

Doctors who perform abortions are killed by people who are pro-life.

Environmental activists promoting the health and welfare of nature and animals torch entire mountains and
forests in the name of saving animals.

I hope things improve soon as well. 

Sinergy



Aswad -> RE: Eradicating women. (9/10/2007 10:50:50 AM)

Improvement universally begins with one person, and comes from within.

Health,
al-Aswad.



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