It's just your opinion that it's my opinion and a subjective truth. And your opinion is wrong.
funny.
let me explain what
I think Zagibu meant by saying that you're starting to get it:
your opinion is as true as his, and mine for that matter, because everybody says his own opinion is true, and no one can prove it. therefore you will hopefully agree that an opinion being true is not relevant as long as it can only be backed verbally. the same will apply to all things verbal, opinions are (subjective) truths, truths do exist (in your words), and we can savely rest on the realisation that pointing out a truth is not getting us anywhere. but there you go. have your simple truths, to me it's just a word, but if you want to use it, do it. just admit that you can't have them without a lot of abstraction.
actually this small conversation about truths started for me to understand how you think about truth, so that someone could speak to you in your words. not sure if we're here yet, but I'm gonna take a step forward anyway.
All of those things fall under that umbrella word. And that's obvious.
so "Syria" is (let me rephrase that stuff from page 25) an abstraction. it is an umbrella term. true.
but you basically say an umbrella term can give all the people who hear it and use it all the information they need to grasp its meaning. false.
it can not transport all the links to the general knowledge of a whole country, all it's inhabitants, their ancestors, their history, etc. etc.
to us it's just a term to adress either the government or representatives, or its people, or the country itself.
to someone who lives there or has ever travelled there, it will be a whole lot more than these meanings. and in the other extreme, to someone who can't read a map for example, it won't even be a spacial reference.
actually this is kind of how our brain works. you have tons of tiny bits of information, and words to access them via associations. without associations and implications (like 'lily' being a name aswell as a flower f.i.) language would be void and meaningless. more abstract terms will speak to more potentially useful information, and that is good for creativity and speed of communication, but it certainly has nothing to do with being precise, as it always highly depends on the context in which a word is used. rip it out and the thing loses it's fucking meaning.
my point is, umbrella terms may cover some basic meanings, but whether or not a receiver is familiar with them is another story.
If I say Syrian people, why would anyone think of livestock? Last time I checked people is a word assigned to humans not animals. Anyone questioning that definition of people is a complete fucking tool.
I admit, it was badly phrased. the question about livestock was not meant to point to the people like that. still, when I hear "X people" I also associate their living conditions and cultural habitat. for me it was close too to think of livestock, because if you kill it while leaving people unhurt they would still suffer. anyway, thanks for pointing that out so charmingly.
http://lesswrong.com/lw/rs/created_already_in_motion/
sounds a lot like desperately fighting the shortcomings of formal logic, but I'll look into it to find out.
you should read up on general semantics all the same. it's highly relevant.
I don't think it's spineless, at all. If it is offensive to you then that is your issue.
Is my view base profiteering? Sure. Is it wrong? no I don't think so. If you think differently then that is your right as human. As it is my right to think you live without seeing what is infront of you. If someone is going to profit from something why not you? or Me? Are your morals so strong that you would turn down 500$ for 8 hours of work checking ID cards? What about 1500$ for just driving a guy in a buisness suit to the diner and back? If so good for you but I live in teh real world where money walks, talks, and tells people what to do.
man, why so cynical? you don't sound as if you like to live in a world that works this way. so why talk as if no one should want it to change for the better?
in other words:
but I don't blame you, little cog in the wheel.
[sorry for the long post]