As some of you know, Putin gave a long televised speech to the nation a few days ago, which is a very unusual occurrence. You can read it here:

http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/67828

Or here: https://russiaun.ru/en/news/22022p

It's an interesting speech and everyone here should read the whole thing to get an idea of what Putin is thinking. At one point he says this:

You want decommunization? Very well, this suits us just fine. But why stop halfway? We are ready to show what real decommunizations would mean for Ukraine.

He says this after explaining how the state of Ukraine came into being, that it's a product of the Bolshevik policy of giving autonomy to the various ethnic groups of the former Russian Empire, a policy of Lenin's that Putin severely criticizes because it sowed the seeds of later disintegration. So "real decommunization" would be the reversal of this decision.

So am I reading it right, as a bald threat? "Real decommunization" being the end of Ukrainian statehood? It seems uncharacteristically careless and he doesn't really pick up on it later in the speech. I suppose it is meant mainly as a sabre-rattling intimidation directed at Ukraine's political elite, but doesn't it open him up to accusations of empire-building, which as far as I know he has up till now denied? I don't suppose he cares about that, but still, it struck me as odd.

Oh no, not dirty slushiness - I hate that! — Amity

Yes, dirty grey kerbside snow mountains abound.

Can you remember roughly - or exactly — Amity

First page. It doesn't shed much light on exactly what is happening now but it's worth looking at.

What's the weather like where you are? — Amity

Hello there Amity. Sadly it's been above zero in Moscow for a couple of weeks so a lot of the snow has gone and the streets are all yucky. My cross-country skiing trip in a week is in danger of being a washout.

As for the political weather, it's unsettled. Most Russians obviously don't want conflict with their Ukrainian brothers and sisters (as they would put it) and most Russians I know are angry with Putin and very worried about the Russian economy. I'm unusual among the people I know here in criticizing the West so much, but that's only natural, as their focus is domestic politics and my political background is Western leftism. As far as the Russians I know criticize the Western mainstream media depiction of events, it's to dismiss it as merely silly.

Any thoughts you can share? — Amity

About this topic? Not many. In this thread there are too many thoughtless sensationalist cheerleaders and useful idiots for the West, parroting the crap they are being fed by the Western media.* I'd like to say there's no point in engaging with it but there probably is--it's just that I don't have the stomach for it. Too many people here are not interested in understanding the situation. I discovered that in previous discussions. An attempt at calm assessment is greeted with demands for condemnation etc. It's a waste of time.

Plus I really don't have enough of an idea what is going on or what Putin's strategy is. And disillusionment now deters me from even trying to find out more.

I did share an article early in the discussion, which I think still applies, as does the video that I like sushi posted. They put the whole thing in context. Characteristically, they didn't produce much discussion, although I'll give credit to SophistiCat for engaging reasonably and critically with them (as I recall).

*On the other hand, I don't like Russian propaganda either, and I don't even go along entirely with anti-Western Western journalists like John Pilger, who swings too far the other way--although it would be nice to see more of those critical voices.

I don’t think you know what you’re talking about, but thanks for the apology. I shall make it so.

You insult my wife and now you want a favour? How about I change your username to Putin?

Me too as it happens. No problem.

I think that merits Mod intervention. — Banno

I don't know. None of Bart's posts seems to deserve moderation on its own, so if he/she is as disruptive as you say, the best thing would be for everyone to ignore him/her.

Banno likes to stick his nose in cause he thinks he's all wise and stuff, but you'll notice he rarely has anything substantive to say. This exchange is a case in point. — T Clark

Apparently you're the only person who's allowed to do that. What were you saying in the shoutbox about kettles and pots?

Right now I'm not going to take any mod action, but to @Banno and @T Clark I say: probably best to avoid this thread unless you're going to address the OP.

Yeah, where is he? He was also arguing that hinge propositions do not have a truth-value. — Luke

He was also arguing that propositions in general cannot be true unless they're known.

160 pages in and I'm finding it totally absorbing and enjoyable.

You might be a buffoon, even if you are correct on this issue. — T Clark

Good point. I just remembered that I am a buffoon, and thereby ill fit to judge of buffoonery.

I haven't rejected any correct answers. This problem has also been solved by over ten people so I know it's not impossible.

There is one correct, logical, complete answer. Anything else is incorrect. It's not about the answer I'm looking for or not. You're missing something. — DavidJohnson

Someone here is a buffoon. I'm not ruling out the possibility that it's me, but I don't think so.

It's not correct. — DavidJohnson

...where "correct" apparently just means "the answer I want".

You're missing a clue. — DavidJohnson

There is no way we can know what kind of answer you are looking for, given that you reject correct answers.

Not the intended solution. Also logical and follows Michael's train of thought as well. You're missing a clue. — DavidJohnson

If it's correct but not "the intended solution", then there's a problem with the puzzle.

111

Mason & Dixon by Thomas Pynchon.

What an odd thing to say. Kindly wait till I've read the papers, just as I waited for you to respond to my last substantive post. I'm still waiting for a good response, as it happens, aside from the links.

because jamalrob wanted to know what other philosophers thought that hinge's were neither true nor false. — Sam26

Note that this is not what I was criticizing. I even suggested a way for you to be able to treat hinges as neither true nor false, and this appears to be the route taken by Moyal-Sharrock.

But I won't be reading it in full until tomorrow at the earliest.

Yes, his stories are pleasingly unsettling.

Cold Hand in Mine by Robert Aickman

Of course.

Me too. I'll read it some time and say something about it here.

She's the best interpreter of On Certainty that I know of. :up:

Well, I think it hasn't been refuted and it makes sense. Those former intelligence people who did say that the conspiracy theory was true have been killed by Putin. And what terrorist would choose for a terrorist strike (that basically is a media event) sleepy suburbs? Wouldn't they pick a central downtown spot? And it does make sense as there was a peace agreement with the Chechens, so just ripping it off without any provocation would look bad. And if the Chechens had already de-facto won (then the first) Chechen war, why would they then plant bombs in Moscow suburbs? They had repelled the Russian attack. — ssu

That's one way of looking at it, but it seems to me you don't know much about it. Anyway I just wanted to make a quick point that it's a disputed account, and one that is denied not only by Russians in Putin's sphere, but by other observers. I'm not going to argue here though. Maybe another time.

by killing Russian citizens in order to start again a war that Russia previously had lost — ssu

Still peddling that dumb conspiracy theory? Although it's interesting that a while ago you presented it more as a mere possibility, but now present it as established fact.

The Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again by M. John Harrison

I do not question that Palestinians have a tough go at the hands of Israelis, but have they not earned it many times over? — tim wood

It's almost amusing that you can ask this bigoted question and then complain about being the target of invective.

Yes Apollo, I know all of that, but thanks for the neat summary.

As a result, text books published decades ago are not always entirely up to date and this may lead to new data being dismissed as "conspiracy theory". — Apollodorus

Yes, but even among the newer books there's a big range in the interpretation of the new information, especially with regard to the Lenin-as-German-agent idea.

In fact, the events of February and November 1917 — Apollodorus

I'm being a bit pedantic here, but ... if you're going to apply the Gregorian calendar to the October revolution, then to be consistent you should call the earlier one the March revolution.

In any case, historical evidence suggests that there was some foreign involvement in bringing about the two revolutions. This does NOT mean that Western powers “controlled” anything. Only that they supported the groups that played a key role in the overthrow of the czars. — Apollodorus

This is quite reasonable, although I don't think that foreign involvement was decisive in bringing about the events. I think it would have happened anyway, under the political and social circumstances.

Otherwise, I would probably dispute your characterization of the revolutions, but I don't want to get into it here. Basically I don't have any huge disagreement with the main thrust of your post. Originally, I thought I was seeing merely the influence of Russian state propaganda about the revolution as foreign plot, but maybe your view is more subtle.

It's not my problem that you refused to delete it. If you're not happy with it, then just close it. No need to stress out and show you care. It's really no big deal. This is just a thread. Sorry to disappoint you.
Obnoxious? Wow! — L'éléphant

Okay, I'm sorry I called you obnoxious. I just wish you had responded more amiably when people quite reasonably asked for evidence. Carry on.

There's a popular conspiracy theory in Russia, especially prevalent among Putin supporters and often promoted by the state media, that sees the 1917 revolutions, especially the October revolution, as part of a foreign plot. You seem to be saying something similar. The "Society of Friends of Russian Freedom" that you linked to seemed to be a group of liberals and social reformers, which perhaps did not represent a significant portion of the Western elites.

The primary foreign involvement on the side of the Bolsheviks was German, but it was minimal. Germany funded some of the revolutionaries because it was at war with Russia, but they had no influence or control over the movement.

And obviously, once the Civil War really got going, Western capitalist states intervened on the side of the Whites: Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War

EDIT: I just noticed that in another post you made a distinction between February and October, stating that Western capitalists supported the former but not the latter. Fair enough, my mistake.

Crabtree and Woodley are researchers. They use science to do their work. Not speculation. — L'éléphant

And yet you have presented nothing but speculation. You eventually found someone who agrees with you but still cannot come up with anything. You haven't even read the papers. The quote about Crabtree gives no evidence that intelligence has gone down, only a possible reason why it might. This thread is really bad, partly because of your obnoxious manner. I'm reluctant to delete it only because people have put some effort into writing posts.

If you had not pretended that there was evidence, and had instead been open about being entirely speculative, the thread would have been better.

Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon

Socrates in the Republic argues that true philosophers do not want to rule, which is partly why they should. In these rulers there would be no "fascination for power". Or so the argument goes.

The fact that you're saying, "From your not knowing that the capital of Vanuatu is Port Vila it doesn't follow that it isn't true that it's the capital," demonstrates that you're not following my point. Obviously not knowing the truth of a statement, doesn't mean the statement isn't true. It just means that you have no justification, or no epistemic right to claim it's true. Any claim, without some kind of justification, is a claim that can either be true or false, not just true, as some want to say about Moore's propositions.

Knowledge entails truth, by definition, so if knowledge entails truth, then Wittgenstein's attack of Moore's use of know is also an attack on the truth of those same propositions. — Sam26

This is very curious. First you show that you understand knowledge, but then completely undermine yourself.

I have followed your point perfectly well, and here you demonstrate your continued misunderstanding. My example was just to show that an attack on a claim to know a proposition is not necessarily an attack on the truth of it. You agree with this at first, regarding the ordinary empirical statement, but then fail to apply the same understanding of knowledge with regard to hinges.

So this needs some additional argument:

Knowledge entails truth, by definition, so if knowledge entails truth, then Wittgenstein's attack of Moore's use of know is also an attack on the truth of those same propositions — Sam26

I asked you to argue for this, but you didn't. Seppo has dealt with it already, and very clearly, but I'll put it in my own words too. W's attack of M's use of "know" is not an attack on the truth of those propositions; it's an attack on the applicability of justification. If M cannot be said to be justified, he cannot be said to know. Knowing requires truth, as you point out, but it also requires justification, so you can attack the claim to know by pointing out the lack of--or rather, the inapplicability of--justification, without attacking the truth of the statements. This is what W is doing.

By the way, this interpretation, which is an interpretation I primarily arrived at on my own, is confirmed by other philosophers, who have arrived at the same interpretation. This doesn't make the interpretation right or wrong, but does, I think, show that it certainly seems to follow from one's reading of the text. — Sam26

Can you point me in the direction of the relevant philosophers and their work?

:party:

Paleolithic philosophy forums may have been just as stupid as far as we know from the little evidence we have.