Exarchia - It has begun
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caveman1917
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Funny how you say "okay, I'll bite" as if you weren't the one baiting with that question of yours. I see you failed to answer my question, we'll continue when you've done so.
caveman1917
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At this moment there is nothing in particular the destruction of which would be in my interest.
Safe-Keeper
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Because critical thinking is becoming more and more vital. Without it you'll find yourself really struggling to know what to believe, and chances are you'll be duped by anything from snake oil salesmen to edgy anarchist blogs.
The fact that you seem to write tried-and-tested critical thinking skills to be "nonsense" just reinforces my impression that you really need them, and that you may not be too familiar with what they are to begin with.
Yes, following a source for a while and seeing how it holds up to fact-checking is one aspect of critical thinking. How do you know which claims turns out correct in the first place, though, without critical thinking?
No, I pointed out that teaching the ToE isn't one-sided or biased to begin with. Giving various creation myths equal time to a proven scientific fact and presenting them as equals would be biased and dishonest. Saying that facts are facts is not.
And before you go "but but Exarchia is like that!" -- no, it isn't. No such contentious political situation is, especially not while it is still ongoing. If you think it's simple and black and white, you've already lost.
Safe-Keeper
My avatar is not a Drumpf hat
By the way, learning critical thinking also involves learning about confirmation bias and the other ways humans can and do fool ourselves, in particular when engaged in subjects we're emotionally invested in.
Heck, you don't even need to take a class, there are wonderful resources you can look up online.
Heck, you don't even need to take a class, there are wonderful resources you can look up online.
caveman1917
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I find it both funny and sad how you imagine yourself to be some sort of teacher of critical thinking while persistently failing to back up these claims about the purported bias and lack of credibility of my sources. As far as I see it you're the snake oil salesman.
By checking what third-party sources have to say about it. For example, the government claimed that the migrants were "holed up" in the squats and the children didn't get any education, the social media account of the evicted migrant group (or "edgy anarchist blog" as you so dishonestly frame it) claims that their children went to school in Exarchia. The teachers and students of the school in question then went to the media to state that the migrant children did indeed go to school there and complain that they were taken away. You know, as you were already provided a link to said media article of Al Jazeera.
No, I pointed out that teaching the ToE isn't one-sided or biased to begin with. Giving various creation myths equal time to a proven scientific fact and presenting them as equals would be biased and dishonest. Saying that facts are facts is not.
And before you go "but but Exarchia is like that!" -- no, it isn't. No such contentious political situation is, especially not while it is still ongoing. If you think it's simple and black and white, you've already lost.
Whether the migrants in question were taken to camps or not is a fact, black and white, either they were or they were not. Whether a certain squat got attacked or not is a fact, black and white, either it was evicted or it was not. Whether there were drugs found in the squats or not is a fact, black and white, either drugs were found or they were not. Whether a certain embassy got its windows smashed or not is a fact, black and white, either they were or they were not. And so on and so forth. None of your "but it's not black and white" appeals change that. Just because you don't like facts doesn't mean they stop being facts, and pulling that "one-sidedness" argument in response to facts you don't like puts you straight with the Intelligent Design crowd. Just admit that you can't back up your claims, at least there would be some honesty which could be respected.
If your next post doesn't finally include some support for your claims of my sources lacking credibility then don't expect a response anymore.
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Safe-Keeper
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Already told you why we are sceptical of your sources. You wrote it off as nonsense. Nothing more I can do.
caveman1917
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I didn't ask for your handwavey rationalizations, I asked you to support your claim (ie with evidence such as showing at least some of the claims to be false). Thank you for admitting you can't do that, I'll continue to go by the proven track record of accurate and factual reporting. Perhaps you'll have better luck duping someone else into ignoring evidence of credibility in favour of vague rationalizations while calling it "critical thinking."
Safe-Keeper
My avatar is not a Drumpf hat
...aaand none of this changes the importance of critical thinking.
I get that we hit a nerve with you for some reason when we pointed out that we're sceptical of angry, politically slanted blogs, anonymous sources, claims without sources, and so on, but the fact remains that is just basic critical thinking, which you should expect from people and exercise yourself. As a matter of fact I dare go out on a limb and guess you do exactly the same thing when you encounter sources that don't support your views. We didn't say "everything on that blog must be a lie because it's clearly written by edgy anarchists who hate the government", or "nothing on that Facebook site can be true because it supports the squats". We pointed out that basic critical thinking means not automatically buying what people with a vested interest in a topic has to say. When presenting an argument, objective, non-partisan sources are always more convincing and more believable.
Since you keep misunderstanding/misinterpreting what we write to you, I can only concede that we're on different planets with regards to this, and I don't think I can explain to you what I mean.
Again, please take that class on critical thinking.
caveman1917
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In the meantime, property rights were asserted over:
- Building 109 in Piraeus, Athens where an explosion went off on 2/10.
- The Greek embassy in Berlin, Germany with hammers and paint bombs on 5/10.
And Safe-Keeper you can whine as much as you want that the sources are anonymous and that your so-called "critical thinking" makes you skeptical of it. Everyone else understands that of course such claims aren't signed with the names & addresses of the people making it, people aren't stupid enough to get themselves arrested that way. However none of that stops these claims from being verifiable facts, everyone can just go look at the buildings in question and check for themselves. Indeed, pictures are included with the claims.
- Building 109 in Piraeus, Athens where an explosion went off on 2/10.
- The Greek embassy in Berlin, Germany with hammers and paint bombs on 5/10.
And Safe-Keeper you can whine as much as you want that the sources are anonymous and that your so-called "critical thinking" makes you skeptical of it. Everyone else understands that of course such claims aren't signed with the names & addresses of the people making it, people aren't stupid enough to get themselves arrested that way. However none of that stops these claims from being verifiable facts, everyone can just go look at the buildings in question and check for themselves. Indeed, pictures are included with the claims.
I don't understand the 'property rights were asserted' part of this. Who asserted them and how? It reads as if the rights were asserted by the violent act/actors, but I'm sure this isn't what was meant.
Sideroxylon
Featherless biped
Terrorist is a pretty elastic word these days.
caveman1917
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It's a bit of a running gag in the thread since Thermal wanted to know who was asserting the most property rights. The point being that, given a philosophy which rejects the concept of abstract property rights, it is the acts of (temporarily) taking control of a thing which constitutes the assertion of property rights. In other words, the act of smashing windows of an embassy constitutes the assertion of property rights over said embassy, etc.
caveman1917
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No kidding. The new Greek government has proposed a new law to that effect, that any statement which constitutes a direct threat to social peace would fall under terrorism. The explicit goal of this law being so that Rouvikonas (an anarchist group) could be prosecuted under anti-terrorism legislation whereas under current law they could just be prosecuted under minor vandalism laws (all they really do is, at worst, smash a window somewhere or spray-painting revolutionary slogans or things like that). But this law can be twisted even much further: "My co-workers, let's go on strike!" -> direct threat to social peace -> terrorism.
Of course the obvious result of this is going to be a return to the 17N or Revolutionary Struggle days. After all, if you're going to be prosecuted to the same extent for writing revolutionary slogans or perhaps smashing a window as you are for bombing a building then you might as well just bomb the building. As we're seeing now with the new Revolutionary Armed Anarchist Struggle group (the new group behind the recent shooting at the cops and the bombing of the building in Piraeus).
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caveman1917
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caveman1917
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Two squats were evicted inside Exarchia proper this morning. One refugee squat and one "ghost squat" (which was temporarily squatted in April but was quickly abandoned again).
caveman1917
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Yesterday the government raided its first university, the Athens University of Economics and Business next to Exarchia, taking the fire extinguishers and a couple of motorcycle helmets. It ordered the university closed until 17 November (the anniversary of the student uprising in 1973 ending the dictatorship) claiming that the presence of fire extinguishers and a couple of motorcycle helmets demonstrated the use of the university for violent protests as these items, it claims, are sometimes used in such protests.
Today about 200 students protested the closure of the closure of the university, after which they were attacked by the MAT and have been locked up inside, including badly injured people who are apparently refused medical attention by the MAT.
caveman1917
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The government presented an ultimatum giving anyone squatting in Greece 15 days to leave. An unprecedented move, and also apparently the first time the new executive branch writes law (the current law requires that, in order for the government to evict squatters, the owner of the premises has to make a request for that, and at least for the K*Vox, and probably many others over Greece, the owner has refused to file such request).