Yes, at best it can only be sold as a failed war aim. Earlier in the war Russia had opportunities to secure Ukraine's neutrality, which it ignored. My...
"Retreat" is only weakness if the aggressor did not obtain what they want. If they achieved everything, "retreat" is not even the right word. If forci...
From the way you talk you are already aware that NATO has nothing to do with Russia's aim. If it was, and they got what they wanted by military force,...
Obviously. They would have been negotiating from a position of power, and gotten what they wanted. But what they wanted is nothing less than Ukraine. ...
I'm positive I remember Zelensky offering to abandon his NATO bid immediately before the invasion. But I cannot find this anywhere. Did I hallucinate ...
"Too late"? What a blase dismissal of what is purportedly the war aim of Russia. Russia could certainly have saved itself a lot of grief. So I guess n...
How do facts bear this out? Ukraine offered neutrality multiple times before and during the conflict, Putin was unmoved. NATO offers no conceivable th...
There are few who view themselves as explicitly immoral. There is always a way to rationalize. But this fact does not impact the legitimacy of our own...
It's worse. Interject is an amplifier of evil. I define evil as seeking ones own benefit at the expense of others. Evil is a constant, but Intellect a...
Democracy is the only such means. Democracy is the natural state of social organization. Leaders emerge, but they lead by the consent of the led. If t...
] Except their point is not "the purpose of suffering is to avoid suffering", rather "the purpose of suffering is to avoid the things which causes suf...
If you look at the earliest examples of statehood, these forms "occur naturally" as seen by their repeated emergence and are at the same time imposed,...
I see only one sense of exist. The lump of granite exists, or it does not. The deity exists, or it does not. The past exists, or it does not. And the ...
Yes this is obvious. I don't really know what you are going on about. And it is frankly not interesting to me. I don't want to quibble about grammar. ...
If "the rock exists" says nothing about the rock, if the rock might be illusory, how can "the rock exists" point out that the rock is not an illusion?...
Rather than "mind independent", how about "independent of thoughts about them"? When you say "my thoughts are real", you are thinking about your thoug...
"define real" produces two definitions: "actually existing as a thing or occurring in fact; not imagined or supposed." "(of a substance or thing) not ...
I see, sentences are real and rocks are true. This must be an extension of your private, idiosyncratic language where "to exist" means being the subje...
Absolutely not. . This is just another way of saying, mind independent. Real/unreal is a conceptual divide which separates that which exists independe...
What's wrong with reality being mind independent? Why do you think I am unhappy? Mind independence is simply what "real" means. What is your problem w...
1. I do not rejected classical logic. But it is not a complete tool, much as Newtonian physics is an accurate but incomplete description. The world se...
To be "real" means to be mind independent. Do you really believe historical events are not mind independent? As long as you are alive or your life had...
When you touch a Greek stature you are touching the present day successor to a far past event and object. When you wrote the above your past writing r...
So then the passage of time is an illusion, we experience every moment "simultaneously". But we are "flatland" creatures living in a 4d universe confi...
The past and future are right here, embodied in the present. You could not understand yourself without understanding that you were born. Your current ...
Moreover, even if the implication of relativity is true, that past and future are coequally real with the present, doesn't mean that they are real for...
I have a somewhat similar view. I believe the past and future is real, but only by virtue of the present. The past is not like a museum hall frozen in...
To clarify: By "Can this same something" , I was referring to the property of existence, however you define it. I am not asking if precisely the same ...
"This rock" merely points attention to the rock. This senselessly attaches a metaphysical claim to a mundane one. I make no claim to philosophical dep...
Perhaps teaching the language, or a philosophical discussion: "This rock exists. Dragons do not." Perhaps there is a situation where some rocks are il...
There is one now in the sense that there is one north. But just like north points in different directions at different points, different moments of ti...
So you understand that you did not answer my question. I am asking if the same thing, the property of existence, can be applied to the rock of the pas...
Einstein seems to answer that the past and future exist as much as the present. If we grant this, then there is nothing mysterious about a specialness...
How about the term "exist"? You collapse the distinction that the term "exists" picks out. In your sense, fairies on mars exist as much as my nose. Wh...
My answer: the past exists, to the extent that the past is embodied in the present. A baby in the past is embodied in an adult in the present, since t...
Even if we accept that the accounts and quotations of Jesus are accurate in the new testament, I see no contradiction in treating him as a wise man wh...
How no? Large parental power differentials over their children leave an impression of an almighty parent after that differential is outgrown. The abse...
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