Has Biden Made the Right Choice in Afghanistan?

[Syt]

Chancellor candidate Laschet has said he will evacuate as many Afghans who worked with Germans as possible ... if he gets elected on September 26th.

[Zanza]

OvB, your point 2 explains your point 4. There is no democratic mandate for more involvement in other Western countries.

[Neil]

Man, tribalism in all its flavors is such a shitty inheritance of our genes.

Obviously had some great utility, but uggh, fucking worse then useless now.

Is it?  Having a group that is 'us' is still of enormous value.  We are not live peacefully on the Earth, with only the pure interactions of free market economics between us, with the liberal common law regulating our interactions.  People have differing interests, economic, political, cultural, and I don't understand the idea that they shouldn't band together to promote and defend those interests from people who don't share them. 

The argument against tribalism is 'You shouldn't care about what you care about, you should only care about what I care about', and it's unconvincing. 

[Neil]

OvB has been really interesting in this thread.  I think what he's saying about how Afghanistan suffers from (and Columbia suffered from) a lack of governmental legitimacy can be seen in our own reactions to government as well. 

[Berkut]

Man, tribalism in all its flavors is such a shitty inheritance of our genes.

Obviously had some great utility, but uggh, fucking worse then useless now.

Is it?  Having a group that is 'us' is still of enormous value.  We are not live peacefully on the Earth, with only the pure interactions of free market economics between us, with the liberal common law regulating our interactions.  People have differing interests, economic, political, cultural, and I don't understand the idea that they shouldn't band together to promote and defend those interests from people who don't share them. 

The argument against tribalism is 'You shouldn't care about what you care about, you should only care about what I care about', and it's unconvincing. 

That is not at all the argument about tribalism.

This is, however, a really really excellent example of a strawman.

The problem with tribalism is not around having shared values in a group that you then cooperate with, it is around cooperating and defending a group because it is the group itself, rather then some objective and rational set of shared values.

That, of course, is the evolutionary utility of tribes to begin with - they are a shortcut in a world where social group inclusion and cooperation is absolutely necessary for survival. The tribe has real environmental meaning (your family and extended family, mostly).

When we look at tribalism in Afghanistan, these are not tribes that are banding together to defend themselves against other people with different ideas or interests, they are defending themselves against people from another tribe. They actually go to a lot of work to INVENT different distinctions to justify screwing each other over, differences that aren't actually objectively real or material. Like "they look different" or "they dress different" or "they don't worship exactly the same god that we do". None of these things are actually material in most cases, they certainly are not material enough to demand the need for group defense against the "other". We know this to be true because we can see plenty of examples where people share those same differences and yet do NOT organize into tribes to ensure that they don't cooperate with others.

Tribes can be useful I am sure, even today. Hell, they can even be fun. "Fuck you Pats fan! You suck!" can be fun, and it is leveraging our own biology to create tribes so we can all get emotionally invested in something we care about. But it isn't real - there isn't ACTUALLY any difference between a Chiefs fan and a Bucs fan that requires that to go beyond some good fun, and we would not be ok with someone refusing someone a job, or insisting that their daughter to associate with a rival NFL fan.

Tribalism sucks, overall. The human emotional response to group membership is not useful enough to justify the damage it does. And it is not necessary for the cases you are citing where there is objective and rational reasons to create and cooperate in groups. The objective, rational reasons are adequate in those cases, indeed, I would argue that the power of the group in question almost by definition should NOT extend beyond the rational and objective reasons.

[Legbiter]

I'm seeing a few reports today that don't bode too well. Apparently the Taliban have no money to pay any of the civil service and keep the organs of government functional, all of the country's assets are held in U.S. banks, which Biden has frozen. Ashraf Ghani is saying he is going to return to the country to lead active resistance to the Taliban rule. One of Ghanis' deputies is tweeting out for people to "join the resistance" and supposedly a decent amount of regular army and special forces groups are moving to strongholds in the north (with military equipment) to prepare an active resistance. The Ghani deputy is the son of a former Afghan warlord of sorts.

Meanwhile in Bamyan province it sounds like the Hazara minority which has historically fielded insurgent forces of its own, is angry at Taliban actions since they've taken over and there are agitations towards active resistance.

We'll have to see how it turns out. I don't like the Taliban, obviously. But an actual societal collapse followed by another intractable civil war is likely a much worse outcome than a stable Taliban government.

Yeah. This is not a happy corner of the world, to put it mildly.

[OttoVonBismarck]

OvB, your point 2 explains your point 4. There is no democratic mandate for more involvement in other Western countries.

Sure--and obviously I'm not the one advocating a permanent commitment to Afghanistan. I think it should give us pause if other Western countries do not have domestic political will to do things like this. If something like "stabilizing Afghanistan" is genuinely a Western goal, there should be consensus among the West. When it is quite clear that there isn't only no-consensus, but not even any major Western country where it is a majority opinion, should give us pause in how we behave.

[Neil]

Man, tribalism in all its flavors is such a shitty inheritance of our genes.

Obviously had some great utility, but uggh, fucking worse then useless now.

Is it?  Having a group that is 'us' is still of enormous value.  We are not live peacefully on the Earth, with only the pure interactions of free market economics between us, with the liberal common law regulating our interactions.  People have differing interests, economic, political, cultural, and I don't understand the idea that they shouldn't band together to promote and defend those interests from people who don't share them. 

The argument against tribalism is 'You shouldn't care about what you care about, you should only care about what I care about', and it's unconvincing. 

That is not at all the argument about tribalism.

This is, however, a really really excellent example of a strawman.

The problem with tribalism is not around having shared values in a group that you then cooperate with, it is around cooperating and defending a group because it is the group itself, rather then some objective and rational set of shared values.

That, of course, is the evolutionary utility of tribes to begin with - they are a shortcut in a world where social group inclusion and cooperation is absolutely necessary for survival. The tribe has real environmental meaning (your family and extended family, mostly).

When we look at tribalism in Afghanistan, these are not tribes that are banding together to defend themselves against other people with different ideas or interests, they are defending themselves against people from another tribe. They actually go to a lot of work to INVENT different distinctions to justify screwing each other over, differences that aren't actually objectively real or material. Like "they look different" or "they dress different" or "they don't worship exactly the same god that we do". None of these things are actually material in most cases, they certainly are not material enough to demand the need for group defense against the "other". We know this to be true because we can see plenty of examples where people share those same differences and yet do NOT organize into tribes to ensure that they don't cooperate with others.

Tribes can be useful I am sure, even today. Hell, they can even be fun. "Fuck you Pats fan! You suck!" can be fun, and it is leveraging our own biology to create tribes so we can all get emotionally invested in something we care about. But it isn't real - there isn't ACTUALLY any difference between a Chiefs fan and a Bucs fan that requires that to go beyond some good fun, and we would not be ok with someone refusing someone a job, or insisting that their daughter to associate with a rival NFL fan.

Tribalism sucks, overall. The human emotional response to group membership is not useful enough to justify the damage it does. And it is not necessary for the cases you are citing where there is objective and rational reasons to create and cooperate in groups. The objective, rational reasons are adequate in those cases, indeed, I would argue that the power of the group in question almost by definition should NOT extend beyond the rational and objective reasons.

Tribes in Afghanistan are most assuredly banding together to defend themselves against other people with different ideas or interests.  Just because you can't tell the difference between a Pashtun and a Tadjik doesn't mean that none exists, and the division and securing of scarce resources certainly results in tension between what these groups perceive as their interests.  If you're part of a group that has fought several wars against you neighbours in living memory, then tribal membership becomes a lot more rational than it seems for someone in the West, whose only wars in the last seventy years have been distant, impersonal, colonial affairs. 

Honestly, your entire line of argumentation is kind of silly.  Saying the the problem with human group membership is the emotional response that is inherent in humanity is profoundly unhelpful, especially as we watch groups that have tried to base themselves on objective and rational sets of shared values begin to crumble as the age of universal prosperity in the West begins to come to an end. 

[grumbler]

The argument that tribes are good because they serve the interests of individuals hasn't been true for a couple of thousand years, because modern humans, and their interests, are far more complex than tribes are.  A tribe may serve an individual interest, but it will oppose others.  Staying loyal to a tribe that harms as many individual interests as it helps is positively Republican.

[Iormlund]

OvB, your point 2 explains your point 4. There is no democratic mandate for more involvement in other Western countries.

Sure--and obviously I'm not the one advocating a permanent commitment to Afghanistan. I think it should give us pause if other Western countries do not have domestic political will to do things like this. If something like "stabilizing Afghanistan" is genuinely a Western goal, there should be consensus among the West. When it is quite clear that there isn't only no-consensus, but not even any major Western country where it is a majority opinion, should give us pause in how we behave.

The people here that complain about the looming humanitarian disaster are the same that oppose any kind of military action. And that's not going to change short of a massive cultural shock.

[Sheilbh]

From BBC liveblog earlier today

Taliban intensifying hunt for people who collaborated with US and Nato troops'

EPACopyright: EPA

A UN document says the Taliban are intensifying their hunt for people who worked for and collaborated with Nato and US forces.

The confidential paper was produced by the Norwegian Centre for Global Analyses, which provides the UN with intelligence information.

"The Taliban are arresting and/or threatening to kill or arrest family members of target individuals unless they surrender themselves to the Taliban," the document, seen by the BBC said.

It said that those at particular risk were people with positions in the military, police and investigative units.

"The Taliban have been conducting advance mapping of individuals prior to take take-over of all major cities," it said.

It added that the militants were screening for individuals while permitting some evacuation of foreign personnel from Kabul airport but the situation there remained "chaotic".

According to the report, the Taliban are recruiting new informer networks to collaborate with the new regime.

Although even seeing an Ashura march in Taliban occupied areas is still unusual.

There was also an incredibly sad report with British troops and diplomats in the airport:
https://news.sky.com/story/afghanistan-desperate-women-throw-babies-over-razor-wire-at-compound-asking-british-soldiers-to-take-them-12384646

[Berkut]

Man, tribalism in all its flavors is such a shitty inheritance of our genes.

Obviously had some great utility, but uggh, fucking worse then useless now.

Is it?  Having a group that is 'us' is still of enormous value.  We are not live peacefully on the Earth, with only the pure interactions of free market economics between us, with the liberal common law regulating our interactions.  People have differing interests, economic, political, cultural, and I don't understand the idea that they shouldn't band together to promote and defend those interests from people who don't share them. 

The argument against tribalism is 'You shouldn't care about what you care about, you should only care about what I care about', and it's unconvincing. 

That is not at all the argument about tribalism.

This is, however, a really really excellent example of a strawman.

The problem with tribalism is not around having shared values in a group that you then cooperate with, it is around cooperating and defending a group because it is the group itself, rather then some objective and rational set of shared values.

That, of course, is the evolutionary utility of tribes to begin with - they are a shortcut in a world where social group inclusion and cooperation is absolutely necessary for survival. The tribe has real environmental meaning (your family and extended family, mostly).

When we look at tribalism in Afghanistan, these are not tribes that are banding together to defend themselves against other people with different ideas or interests, they are defending themselves against people from another tribe. They actually go to a lot of work to INVENT different distinctions to justify screwing each other over, differences that aren't actually objectively real or material. Like "they look different" or "they dress different" or "they don't worship exactly the same god that we do". None of these things are actually material in most cases, they certainly are not material enough to demand the need for group defense against the "other". We know this to be true because we can see plenty of examples where people share those same differences and yet do NOT organize into tribes to ensure that they don't cooperate with others.

Tribes can be useful I am sure, even today. Hell, they can even be fun. "Fuck you Pats fan! You suck!" can be fun, and it is leveraging our own biology to create tribes so we can all get emotionally invested in something we care about. But it isn't real - there isn't ACTUALLY any difference between a Chiefs fan and a Bucs fan that requires that to go beyond some good fun, and we would not be ok with someone refusing someone a job, or insisting that their daughter to associate with a rival NFL fan.

Tribalism sucks, overall. The human emotional response to group membership is not useful enough to justify the damage it does. And it is not necessary for the cases you are citing where there is objective and rational reasons to create and cooperate in groups. The objective, rational reasons are adequate in those cases, indeed, I would argue that the power of the group in question almost by definition should NOT extend beyond the rational and objective reasons.

Tribes in Afghanistan are most assuredly banding together to defend themselves against other people with different ideas or interests.  Just because you can't tell the difference between a Pashtun and a Tadjik doesn't mean that none exists,

The question is whether those differences are actually material though. Your argument is that the actual differences don't matter - that as long as the purple Drazi know they are purple Drazi, and the blue Drazi know that they are blue Drazi, it's reasonable for them to fight each other over resources, because, well, they are different in their own eyes, and that is enough.

My argument is that that is NOT enough, and that this is a group whose only REAL difference is the group itself, not anything material.

If there is something actually materials and ratioanlly different that means that a dispute on the basis of those differences is in fact material, then that dispute is not tribalism - it is just a conflict over resource allocation that needs to be figured out.

The difference is the latter scenario is amenable to some kind of reaonable, rational resolution that can be mediated, and can be finalized, at least in theory.

You can look at the actual facts and reality of the dispute, and come up with some kind of structure for its resolution.

With a dispute where the groupings are arbitrary (IE tribal), no such resolution is possible, other than simple force, because the dispute is simply about group membership and the implicit assumption that membership in some group rather then another is why one ought to get more or less of whatever resource. "America is a Christian country! Therefore Christians should get to pray in schools, and not Muslims!"

and the division and securing of scarce resources certainly results in tension between what these groups perceive as their interests.

Of course. And those tensions are more easily and rationally resolved when you have different groups, rather then tribes, disputing their interests.

"We should get the land because we are Americans!" versus "We should get the land because we have more people with fewer resources, hence it is more humane to consider our concerns over those who already have their own land and resources"

If you're part of a group that has fought several wars against you neighbours in living memory, then tribal membership becomes a lot more rational than it seems for someone in the West, whose only wars in the last seventy years have been distant, impersonal, colonial affairs. 

If you are part of a group that finds itself constantly being in wars against your neighbours who in any kind of rational, objective, and secular measure are actually not really different then you, then you should consider whether your tribal allegiances have served you particularly well as a means of defining how to resolve disputes

Honestly, your entire line of argumentation is kind of silly.  Saying the the problem with human group membership is the emotional response that is inherent in humanity is profoundly unhelpful, especially as we watch groups that have tried to base themselves on objective and rational sets of shared values begin to crumble as the age of universal prosperity in the West begins to come to an end. 

Those groups who define themselves based on rational, shared values are in fact the ones who have managed to avoid a bunch of wars against their neighbors. Indeed, in large part their success at stopping the constant warring was in fact at least in part driven by their rejection of tribalism in favor of rational, shared values.

To the extent that that is ending, it is because, again at least in part, due to going back to embracing tribalism and the rejection of reason and rationality in favor of emotive in/out group thinking. See Trumpism.

[The Minsky Moment]

Tribalism is ubiquitous; what differs it the nature and scope of tribal identification.  For hunter-gatherers, it is their band; from there you can have extended families, fictive kinship identifications, ethnic identification stories.  We perceive Afghanistan as tribal because in the present era, tribal identification at the level of the nation-state has become normative, to the degree to which we barely notice the use of symbols and shared mythology in separating us from them.  Afghanistan seems tribal and dysfunctional because it is out of step and retrograde in the context of a world system where nation-states are the recognized and generally accepted principal units of political interaction.

[The Brain]

Some major states on the world stage are not nation-states, so I think it's possible to overestimate the role of the nation-state as norm.

[The Brain]

FWIW I think the geographically defined sovereign state is the norm.