This is a rather poor argument against the U.S. takeover of Greenland. If neither Denmark nor the U.S. is better, then it makes no difference if the U.S. takes over.
Edit: not sure why I’m being downvoted. I would appreciate someone explaining the headline to me because I honestly don’t get it.
It’s not about the headline, it’s about your statement:
If neither Denmark nor the U.S. is better, then it makes no difference if the U.S. takes over.
It makes all the difference to the people who live there, who don’t consent to becoming American. The question isn’t, “who can better administer the landmass and its populace”, the question is, who has the right to? The population is not consenting to America imperialism, so it makes all the difference to them. Consent matters.
Yes obviously it would be terrible if the U.S. took over Greenland. Though I don’t think Denmark having “the right” to colonise is what the people who said that were intending to convey.
Suppose, for something to “better” or “worse”, it would have to surpass some absolute threshold of “goodness”. This would mean “betterness” is no longer transitive with “worseness”.
If this were the case, then it’s possible for American colonization to still be worse than Danish colonization without Danish colonization being better than American colonization. Neither would meet the requirement for being “better” and as such are incomparable, but both would be meet the requirement of being “worse” and can be compared in that respect.
OK but that’s not how people generally use “better” or “worse.” I think transitivity – and reflexivity – are generally respected by people’s usage of the terms.
This is a rather poor argument against the U.S. takeover of Greenland. If neither Denmark nor the U.S. is better, then it makes no difference if the U.S. takes over.
Edit: not sure why I’m being downvoted. I would appreciate someone explaining the headline to me because I honestly don’t get it.
It makes all the difference if you’re the slightest bit interested in consent.
can you please explain how that relates to the argument? For sure I think consent is important, but I don’t see how it relates to the headline.
It’s not about the headline, it’s about your statement:
It makes all the difference to the people who live there, who don’t consent to becoming American. The question isn’t, “who can better administer the landmass and its populace”, the question is, who has the right to? The population is not consenting to America imperialism, so it makes all the difference to them. Consent matters.
Yes obviously it would be terrible if the U.S. took over Greenland. Though I don’t think Denmark having “the right” to colonise is what the people who said that were intending to convey.
A thought experiment:
Suppose, for something to “better” or “worse”, it would have to surpass some absolute threshold of “goodness”. This would mean “betterness” is no longer transitive with “worseness”.
If this were the case, then it’s possible for American colonization to still be worse than Danish colonization without Danish colonization being better than American colonization. Neither would meet the requirement for being “better” and as such are incomparable, but both would be meet the requirement of being “worse” and can be compared in that respect.
OK but that’s not how people generally use “better” or “worse.” I think transitivity – and reflexivity – are generally respected by people’s usage of the terms.
That’s just silly. Would it be better to have someone break one of your arms or two?
Eh… One.
Or… two, if you have an Oedipus complex.
Nice