[flagged]
replies(3):
Edit parent meant Ukraine war, not the Israel conflict quote Pope had.
> [basically] What if in a different world Hamas had all the weapons plus the backing of the US while Israel only had shoddy weapons?
In a hypothetical world where Usain Bolt was raised on Greenland and became interested in competitive gaming: would he have become the fastest human? Probably not. Different timelines.
This Sam Harris exercise is meaningless. The goal is not to measure the level of evil in the hearts of <hamas> or <isreali government>. That’s impossible. Hypotheticals that have nothing to do with reality are also fruitless. The goal is to figure out what evil actions are being committed and stop them.
But the abuser only did those things because he was abused as a child for eight yea— What’s that got to do with the problem at hand?
The goal of thought experiment wasn't to measure evil or good. It's to determine if the lines between good and evil are that far apart.
If Ukraine was way stronger than Russia, would it try to annex Kursk and other non-Ukraine regions? Would it commit as many atrocities? No. It would be constrained by its desire to join EU. Could it do it if it had 30 more people, more nationalistic populace, and near infinite ammo supply? Probably.
But a litmus test, just tells you rough acidity, not exact pH either.