Because there is already a contextual definition of “lose” with association to war that is so well established that it’s assumed by default.
Ahh, I see. Because your availability heuristic tells you it’s obvious. I’m afraid you might want to consider recalibration of your Level I cognition. It’s off.
What I here mean to say is that your rejection of other contexts within this topic demonstrates an inability to take the outside view; what’s obvious to you just, well, isn’t.
Please note: I never said that anyone had “lost the war”. I said that the war itself was futile. And it was—because they could do nothing in it but hope to mitigate losses. They had no avenue to gain. They won the war, sure; but it was a pointless war fought against an enemy who fought only because he could.
So yes. Please update your modal thinking. Yours is not the only legitimate usage of “to lose” here. After all; they did not lose the war but they sure as hell all lost something/someone. And for no good reason.
If that’s not a pointless and futile loss, I’m afraid that I simply no longer know how to speak the English language.
So yes. Please update your modal thinking. Yours is not the only legitimate usage of “to lose” here. After all; they did not lose the war but they sure as hell all lost something/someone. And for no good reason.
If they lost things “for no good reason,” every war of defense ever engaged in is pointless and futile. You might be able to define your terms such that this is the case, but it’s tremendously misleading. Sometimes we have to expend efforts to stop bad things from happening, not just to cause good things that wouldn’t otherwise have happened.
If they lost things “for no good reason,” every war of defense ever engaged in is pointless and futile. You might be able to define your terms such that this is the case, but it’s tremendously misleading.
Reductio ad absurdum much? Wars of defense fought against an enemy with at least the facsimile of a legitimate cause—historical hatred, societal need to expand (or else face their own extinguishment), and so on—represent something more than “for the hell of it”. Fighting a defensive war against an enemy who is doing it for the hell of it is what I labelled “pointless and futile”.
There is nothing “misleading” about this claim; there is nothing “deceptive” about this claim.
Are you even trying to read-and-comprehend anything I write here? I’m not getting that impression.
So instead of a war, let’s look at a potential asteroid strike. It takes an enormously expensive project to deflect an asteroid which has absolutely no motive to hit the earth, and nothing to gain from it. It’s just there, and unless we funnel countless billions of dollars into stopping it, civilization is screwed. Would the project to stop it be pointless and futile? If not, what distinguishes it from the Voldemort scenario?
In any case, Voldemort almost certainly had motives for going to war (MoR Quirrelmort at least is very much not a “for the hell of it” sort of guy,) his motives are simply opaque.
I am trying to understand what you write, but the idea that it’s somehow more pointless to resist utility hits from people who’re acting for bad reasons than sensible ones doesn’t make sense to me, and I don’t see how anything you’ve said so far clarifies why that should be the case.
So instead of a war, let’s look at a potential asteroid strike.
I didn’t say that there weren’t good reasons for resisting the pointlessly-occurring phenomenon. I said only that it was pointless. Or are you now going to impose fundamental purposefulness and agency onto the very fabric of the cosmos? This gets exceedingly ridiculous. I have never once argued that your usage is invalid. Why do you insist on refusing to recognize mine, despite the legitimacy of the terms and the framing with which I have presented them demonstrating clearly that I was using a definition you were not?
This is what passes for reasoned discourse?
Revise your position.
but the idea that it’s somehow more pointless to resist utility hits
Oh bloody hell. I never said anything of the sort. Update your position, and stop tilting at windmills. This conversation has ceased, in the meantime, to be worthy of any investment by me.
Ahh, I see. Because your availability heuristic tells you it’s obvious. I’m afraid you might want to consider recalibration of your Level I cognition. It’s off.
What I here mean to say is that your rejection of other contexts within this topic demonstrates an inability to take the outside view; what’s obvious to you just, well, isn’t.
Please note: I never said that anyone had “lost the war”. I said that the war itself was futile. And it was—because they could do nothing in it but hope to mitigate losses. They had no avenue to gain. They won the war, sure; but it was a pointless war fought against an enemy who fought only because he could.
So yes. Please update your modal thinking. Yours is not the only legitimate usage of “to lose” here. After all; they did not lose the war but they sure as hell all lost something/someone. And for no good reason.
If that’s not a pointless and futile loss, I’m afraid that I simply no longer know how to speak the English language.
If they lost things “for no good reason,” every war of defense ever engaged in is pointless and futile. You might be able to define your terms such that this is the case, but it’s tremendously misleading. Sometimes we have to expend efforts to stop bad things from happening, not just to cause good things that wouldn’t otherwise have happened.
Reductio ad absurdum much? Wars of defense fought against an enemy with at least the facsimile of a legitimate cause—historical hatred, societal need to expand (or else face their own extinguishment), and so on—represent something more than “for the hell of it”. Fighting a defensive war against an enemy who is doing it for the hell of it is what I labelled “pointless and futile”.
There is nothing “misleading” about this claim; there is nothing “deceptive” about this claim.
Are you even trying to read-and-comprehend anything I write here? I’m not getting that impression.
So instead of a war, let’s look at a potential asteroid strike. It takes an enormously expensive project to deflect an asteroid which has absolutely no motive to hit the earth, and nothing to gain from it. It’s just there, and unless we funnel countless billions of dollars into stopping it, civilization is screwed. Would the project to stop it be pointless and futile? If not, what distinguishes it from the Voldemort scenario?
In any case, Voldemort almost certainly had motives for going to war (MoR Quirrelmort at least is very much not a “for the hell of it” sort of guy,) his motives are simply opaque.
I am trying to understand what you write, but the idea that it’s somehow more pointless to resist utility hits from people who’re acting for bad reasons than sensible ones doesn’t make sense to me, and I don’t see how anything you’ve said so far clarifies why that should be the case.
I didn’t say that there weren’t good reasons for resisting the pointlessly-occurring phenomenon. I said only that it was pointless. Or are you now going to impose fundamental purposefulness and agency onto the very fabric of the cosmos? This gets exceedingly ridiculous. I have never once argued that your usage is invalid. Why do you insist on refusing to recognize mine, despite the legitimacy of the terms and the framing with which I have presented them demonstrating clearly that I was using a definition you were not?
This is what passes for reasoned discourse?
Revise your position.
Oh bloody hell. I never said anything of the sort. Update your position, and stop tilting at windmills. This conversation has ceased, in the meantime, to be worthy of any investment by me.
It looks like the pair of you are having trouble communicating. Would you like to:
Taboo “pointless”, “futile” and “lose”,
Hug the query?