Shawn

Well, isn't language a sort of conceptual schema? We all learn the same stuff at school, so nobody is really more efficient at communication? That's l...

The conceptual schema that is language, doesn't seem to be about data (information) passing one mind from the other? I'm surprised to see this sentime...

Why do you call it a bandwidth problem?

Well, that's an observational statement about something within the world-view of any participants of the conversation. Rather scientific and exact. Bu...

None? Not seeing the point here.

OK, so, let's take that implicit example. Tact, appropriateness adhere to what standards, here?

This sort of reminds me of the "Language is not passing information from one head to another" thread, in which I never participated in. Please be more...

What do you mean? I feel like your reaching out for the outliers here; but, I don't know what's the point of that. @"Banno"'s showing and telling is s...

See my convo with @"A Seagull". Does that help?

On point. Well, it's not so much the limits at language, manifest in saying like "A picture is worth a thousand words"; but, rather, why the problem e...

Yes, and no. As soon as I think about it the problem magnifies. Should or ought-to, I ask that or how or why or when? See the point?

OK, so you're already assuming some pragmatic account of shared meaning, correct?

Whell, that's part of the topic-subject hereabouts. Is "I know..." truth-apt or not?

Education teaches us, or at the highest levels, that vagueness is bad for academic writing. So, it's also baked into the system of thought itself.

I mean, you can think of it as trying to get informal languages as close to formal ones as much as possible?

To enhance communication/language use?

Yeah, well, that sort of thing happens when we interchange the next logical progression of "I know ***" That, and how-***

Sorry, I got the whole thread wrong. I meant to say, how does one eliminate the vagueness of that phrase?

Was it coronavirus?

Here's the big one... It is what it is.

Then, don't only madmen start wars between nations? Like, if we were back in Rome some 2020+ years ago, then yeah I can see your rationale as being ap...

Ambiguous. What's a "real war"? That definition got subject to revision after 9/11/2001, right? Uhh... no. Soldiers aren't madmen and are trained to o...

We can't really forget nuclear, because it is the (deterrent) from full-blown conflict... nowadays. What prevents conflict, isn't the whim of some gen...

I think both were not prima facie good examples of anyone in a Western democracy who would want to elect them as leaders.

Yes, nowadays, because WWIII wouldn't leave much to any party interested in it, rationally speaking. Think of a conflict involving nuclear bombs. Ther...

Yes, it does not work like that, inasmuch as there are no perfect circles out there in the world. But, that's the aspirational goal?

Nowadays, yes. (Some progress has been made in Western liberalist democracies as to the abhorrence of conflict or the limits of economics...)

Well, it doesn't make sense to say that we train people to go to war. Instead of preventing it by battle-readiness.

Good, and it's the job of generals to keep the generals of your adversary occupied with not going to war. Otherwise, I don't see any stable equilibria...

I'm sorry; but, are you being intentionally difficult? Like, do we build hydrogen bombs to ensure that we are all dead because of (conspiratorially) g...

I am. It's the delicate balance of the military (and even police) to maintain peace through adherence to some policy or line of reasoning, at least in...

I mean sure, it's not like we walk dogs without a leash, and the dogs of war need to have enough stress hormones and neurotransmitters circulating in ...

I know (a little) because I've been in the military, and if anyone in it wants to go to war for any... reason, then that's a sign of the derangement o...

Sorry, I don't think this is accurate. Officers are trained to prevent and limit the liability of warfare to themselves (a nation) and there subordina...

Sorry, I don't really understand much of this. You'll have to explain a little more to me. Thanks.

Why not?

But, war shouldn't be a choice if we both agree about its very insaneness and irrationality, should it? That would be like, the US, and the USSR, both...

True, and why we have the Pentagon in the US or the Ministry of Defense in the UK. (Though, I don't think they need to worry much about being invaded....

Sorry that I'm so quizzical; but, aren't you advocating some just-war theory assuming, that the decision is personal or made due to factors out of one...

Only in a dictatorship, yes. Hence, why the world seems to like democracies? Sorry, I don't understand this...

Yeah, and isn't that because war is always the worst option, although self-satisfying to some or many?

What do you mean by that? Assuming that war is irrational and death unavoidable, I can see some merit to the idea of proposing something less than ide...

Agreed. OK, so that's interesting. How does this "decision" arise in two or more parties? When all alternatives have been exhausted? Then one has to c...

Yes, but, pretty much due to complex reasons. One was under a false premise, and the other, was due to an already prior conflict that enveloped the re...

Really? I might be overburdening you here; but, what about the start of war can be deemed rational at all?

Yes, cold-wars, spur economic activity, yet every economist knows that a bridge will provide better returns than an a-bomb.

I don't hold such a libertarian view on the matter. It seems to me, that life happens, and we get along with it?

Yes, I agree. But, the point hereabouts seems to me to be about when is war justified? Economically, it would only make sense if one were to assume so...

Now, one can doubt the economic sense of warfare nowadays, when the mind of the market, invisible hand or whatnot, can account for everyone? Yet, it i...

But, in what other terms can I express it in the rationale of war? The only "reason" that one can provide for war, would be economic. Yet, it isn't ra...