"It's not controversial" is not a substitute for an actual argument. You make an awful lot of claims but never actually supply anything as justificati...
The burned and mangled corpses of men, women and children made Germany and Japan better countries? That's... a take... Which is to say, if you don't t...
Right, because it's absolutely impossible for a smaller country to win against a larger one. Never happens, ever. And the Finns were right, while Ukra...
Well their projected military budget, if one assumes that all the shadow military budgets rise proportionally, would put Russia at the level of milita...
That's true, but at the same time would the pagan roman empire, if given modern tools, not be even more cruel and rapacious? There is a significant ca...
I did not mean to imply that the mainstream is some inexorable force. More that we need a mass movement that offers more productive activism. Sure, bu...
The point I wanted to make is that the people concerned still have agency. Part of the solution involves creating a new mainstream where the energy th...
I don't think it's very accurate to consider them "slaves" though. Yes once in a certain information environment, it's hard to break out. But this is ...
Humans don't need any special reason to split themselves up into groups and then hate each other. But Jews and Christians had a peculiar dynamic. A je...
That entirely depends on the larger situation. You can't just sit on the defensive all the time either. There are plenty of plausible reasons why Ukra...
People have been bashing each other's heads in for scraps of territory for hundreds of years. This completely ignores how humans actually think. Noone...
I mean you're right about that, but your reasoning is odd. There's a very obvious reason why the west wouldn't want Ukraine to "beat" the russians. Th...
AFAIK, the consensus is that immigration is generally a net positive on total economic output in the long term, and that the long-term overall displac...
Easy to be straightforward if you just ignore the parts of the story that don't neatly fit the narrative. Like the fact that the two-state solution wa...
It freed a bunch of their territory and subjects from russian occupation? That's kinda what the war is about, isn't it? What military disasters had Uk...
I think this is a very difficult problem to deal with, morally. If you are in a situation where you are clearly oppressed, but do not see any actually...
Interesting. So, is this a "it's turtles all the way down" situation, where language references only language with no other reference point / correspo...
While I'm certain you don't intent to denigrate Palestinians, I find the usage of the dog analogy somewhat troubling. Because crucially a dog is not a...
Maybe I should not have used the word "actuality", as it seems to have caused more confusion than it solved. I just meant it as what is actually the c...
It's not just a revenge pressure that's notable in humans. Humans have a very acute sense of a) status and b) rules. We react strongly to any subversi...
Since humans are capable of entertaining counterfactuals and also of dealing with probabilities and necessary elements, I'd say that there needs to be...
The basic building blocks for thinking and experiencing. Like causality, basic logic operations, basic concepts that allow you to sort and make sense ...
Ok. And how is this relevant? One of the categories your mind uses to work. I don't see how that could be the case. I don't think it's useful to start...
Well, to discuss anything is to discuss language. But the buck must stop somewhere. Language must at some point reference back to a mental concept. Ot...
I'm not sure where this conversation is going. It seems to me this is turning more towards a general conversation about language and meaning rather th...
The way I understand it, the book would give you an entirely "correct" understanding of all laws of nature, just that the set of laws would have as li...
It rather sounds to me like a magic book which can resolve any empirical question, and essentially give you perfect empirical knowledge. The imperfect...
Right, I see what you mean, but I wasn't intending to go that far yet. I was merely looking at what we wish to express when we say "X is true". If X i...
What do you mean by "in practice"? Truth is a concept we apply to statements. Yes, I intentionally used "unscientific" terms because they should apply...
AFAIK Putin doesn't have the ability to unilaterally instigate a nuclear strike, he'd need the cooperation of the army high command. Which, in a scena...
It has always struck me as kind of a useless worry though. Noone has been able to identify a scenario where any use of nukes makes strategic sense for...
What is the relevant quality of a scientific result? I would say it's reliability. You need to be able to rely on the prediction of what will happen, ...
It's possible the whole reason for the annexation was to pre-empt pacifists in the higher echelons by forcing them to commit to "defending Russia". If...
In the US, Jim Jordan seems to be inching closer to the speakership. This would seem a victory for the extreme right of the Republicans, and possibly ...
I don't think Mearsheimer even argued that it's simply NATO expansionism driving the Russian actions. He considers the expansion reckless and wrong he...
You mean people predicted Russia would invade Ukraine when Russia amassed an invasion Army at the border and started making demands? Their foresight i...
I think one can readily accept Cohen's analysis (which tracks with what I've read about Russia post 1991) without then arriving at the conclusion that...
I think that's the main sticking point here: That you're willing to give Putin this huge benefit of the doubt, despite the statements he made re Ukrai...
Noo, you don't refuse, you're just requesting I read 520 pages to maybe figure out what the fuck you meant. No, thanks. Pointing to "a books worth" of...
Oh Bullshit! "Oh I'm sorry you're to ignorant for me to explain please educate yourself". What an absolute asshole move. You don't want to continue? F...
Ukraine has agreed to neutrality every time it was brought up in negotiations. The sticking point is that Russia always wanted disarmed neutrality whi...
And the paratroopers at Hostomel were there for a sightseeing tour, presumably? No that's not fair to your position. It's of course possible that Russ...
I also think that the statements Putin has published - and considering influences such as Dugin - it is likely that Putin does really believe Russia n...
We do agree, though, that NATO would never (outside of it already being in a hot war) admit a country that is already in an active armed conflict with...
What do you think this statement proves? I don't want to try to guess your point and get it wrong. More a mess than before, you mean? But then why the...
How did it do that? Russian troops were on Ukrainian soil since 2014. AFAIK no one has ever suggested Ukraine could possibly join NATO with an active ...
Ah yes, the Samurai soul of beheading prisoners, and having thousands of civilians committ suicide for no reason. So sad that it's gone. It would be a...
Well what you said was this: And this: So your position is that, if Ukrainian NATO membership had not been confirmed in 2008, there would have been no...
But territory of whom? Territory cannot devolve to statelessness. It would have to be either Egypt or Israel, since a Palestinian state doesn't exist....
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