So, yeah. You've definitely "proved" your point! :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: — Apollodorus

As if you got my point! :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
But do carry on with your shitty rebuttals, by all means :grin:

Peace versus Justice: The coming European split over the war in Ukraine – ECFR — Apollodorus

Well, as long as you keep referencing your sources, we can better assess how shitty your posts are. :rofl: Thanks for helping us! :grin:

Even the Jews flee from the Russian anti-Nazi:
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/moscows-chief-rabbi-leaves-russia-amid-pressure-back-war-ukraine-2022-06-08/

It was my last post on the side issue. I don't mind to answer you in pvt or in a new thread.

Since we have gone off topic (I agree with @Olivier5), that is going to be my last post on this side issue (désolé).

And if we disagree about those judgements? — Isaac

Disagreement is not the problem, since we could still rationally explore the extent of our disagreements. And for that you still would need rationally compelling arguments which are possible only thanks to a shared set of epistemic rules and shared ways to apply them. Rebutting to your opponent’s objections by expressing a disagreement without providing rationally compelling arguments amounts to withdrawing from a rational confrontation. That’s all.
Another point I would make is that while politics, moral, philosophy are domains where disagreement is frequent and persistent, reaching consensus may be a major issue for the former two, namely politics and moral, not for philosophy. Indeed philosophy is the kind of activity where people can try to rationally examine their own political and moral beliefs without being pressed by consensus concerns and as long as they are willing to put some effort into it. And, again, that effort should go into rationally elaborating arguments, not into acknowledging or listing contentious points or their popularity distribution among people, intelligent people or competent people.

Right. And I disagree that those rules have been broken (by my claims). I think they have been broken by yours. So now what? How can I now argue (using those same rules) that you broke those rules. We're just going to end up in the same position (you think you didn't break them, I think you did). — Isaac

Where is the pertinent argument proving that I broke the rules? And what shared rationale rules are you talking about? If you honestly disagree with my argument proving that you failed to logically process a modus tollens (under the implicit assumption that you fully understand what a modus tollens is and must be correctly applied by anybody, me and you included), you have to provide pertinent rationally challenging arguments yourself.
We play games with actual moves in the play field, not by news reporting about them from the stands.

To convince me (or others) to believe the same. — Isaac

Then - as I already anticipated - I would exactly do all I did, so what is the point of claiming that my judgements are completely subjective as yours or anybody else’s? We would still be in condition to possibly convince others based on rational compelling arguments! Claiming that all my claims or judgements are completely subjective is devoid of any cognitive meaning. So, at best it expresses your intention to withdrawal from rational confrontation.

I'm not claiming that nothing is objectively irrational (it's a word in a shared language, so it has a shared meaning, not a private one). What I'm saying is that you cannot get further then the range of shared meaning. Several contradictory things can be equally rational (they all fit the definition of the word). Take 'game' for example. A Cow is not a 'game', it's a type of farm animal. Anyone claiming a cow is a game is wrong. But the question of whether, say, juggling is a 'game' is moot - some say it is and others say it isn't. There's nothing more you can do from there to determine whether it's a game or not, there's no outside agency to appeal to. Whether an argument is 'rational' is like that. — Isaac

Here my comment:
First, I’m not not sure what the sentence “I'm not claiming that nothing is objectively irrational” is supposed to mean, maybe you should rephrase it. And if what you wanted to claim is that you admit objective and rational judgement then how could you at the same time claim “There’s literally nothing more that can be appealed to other than our judgements” or that my claims are completely subjective?!
Second, can you tell me then what is the shared meaning of a claim like “all of the above are completely subjective” through words whose meaning you assume we share and how could we possible share meanings if all my and your judgements are completely subjective?
Third, “contradictory things can be equally rational” looks a poor phrasing for the claim that people may have classificatory disagreements because the concepts used suffer from some indeterminacy. Agreed, so what? The indeterminacy can be still disambiguated in a way that is still intelligible by relying on the use cases where indeterminacy doesn’t arise and other shared concepts not suffering from such indeterminacy. In other words indeterminacies must be commensurable to still be intelligible as indeterminacies of certain classificatory concepts. Besides some epistemic rules at the core of our rational methods are so basic and cross domain that putative indeterminacies would quickly escalate into nonsense if they resist rational examination: e.g. you can not possibly understand and apply the modus tollens in a different way from what I did , unless you did it by mistake. And if I’m wrong about it because I missed something in the given circumstances that would justify that apparent transgression, then go ahead and show me what that is with an actual counter-argument.

Not without providing some evidence. It would be a ridiculous claim. — Isaac

Here “some evidence”: you said “the West and Ukraine bear the blame of this war so now Putin is morally justified to send his army to bomb kill rape loot Ukrainians”.
“Evidence”, “providing some evidence”, “ridiculous claim” would still be matter of my completely subjective judgment and differ from yours. And I could play it all the ways I want since there is nothing you can appeal to except my own judgement and completely subjective interpretation.
And again why would I need to provide evidence? Why would I care if you claim that I’m ridiculous? If I needed your consensus it would be easier for me to feed your informational bubble, not to question it.

Here's a dictionary explaining what the Idiom "you're saying" means in English. As you can see, it doesn't literally mean that you actually spoke (or wrote) those exact words. It's an understanding of your meaning. Hence, again, what you think is objectively false only seems that way to you. Other interpretations see it differently. — Isaac

Here my objections:
First, I don’t care if there are whatever other possible use cases of the word “say”. I care about the ones that make sense to apply to your claim against mine in the specific context you used it. So pointing me to some unrelated idiomatic usage of the word “say” is pointless.
Second, your actual usage was contrasting my actual claim with some other claim you misattributed to me (“Now you're saying you don’t”) to suggest an inexistent inconsistency. And that’s exactly another example of objective intellectual failure, because when rationally challenging peoples’ claims and arguments, accuracy and clarity are key. Certainly loose or ambiguous talk may be tolerated to some extent yet not at the expense of your opponents’ actual claims as they have been formulated, especially if you have objections to raise against them.
Third, there are different interpretations as there are mistakes, and it’s a very bad self-serving line of reasoning to admit the former to question the possibility of admitting the latter and dispense people from acknowledging their own blatant mistakes, as you keep doing.

I do. Absolutely none of which is happening here. There have been no scientific papers produced on Russia's invasion of Ukraine, no statistical analysis, no accepted methods and no peer review. But it's not these standards that make for a filtered set of theories in the scientific journals - it's the agreement on how they're measured. If I published a paper in which the conclusion was "I reckon..." without any reference to an experiment or meta-analysis, we'd all agree that's a failure to meet the standards. We're talking here about situations where we disagree about such a failure. You keep referring to epistemic standards (as if I'm disputing they exist), but the question is not their existence it's the resolution of disagreements about whether they've been met. — “Isaac

Once one has learnt an arithmetic rule like summing natural numbers, the application of the rule doesn’t change if one is no longer supervised by the professor of math or in a math class. The same goes with the rule of the modus tollens or the rule of accurately reporting people’s claims.
And as you don’t deliver your scientific results through insulting people, repeating ad nauseam claims, alluding to risks of ostracism, sarcastic comments, accusing people of serving some political agenda, and expect others to question your scientific research in the same spirit (not with rebuttals like “I disagree with you and you didn’t literally give me anything more than your completely subjective judgement as a measure”), then you can as well deliver your rationally compelling arguments in the same spirit here and expect others do the same with your arguments.

The problem here is that you keep insisting I'm not meeting those standards, but you’ve got nothing more than your opinion that I'm not. No evidence can be brought to bear, no external authority appealed to. It's just you reading my argument and concluding it is not 'rational' and me reading it and concluding it is. There’s literally nothing more that can be appealed to other than our judgements. — Isaac

My opinion that you are not meeting those standards results from arguments applying precisely those standards I’m appealing to (and distinct from my judgement!). So yes, there is literally more than just my opinion that you are not meeting those standards: there is an argument from which that conclusive opinion results as a corollary. And you are challenged to address that argument with a counter-argument possibly more effective than mine in applying shared rational standards. Claiming that you disagree with that opinion of mine is totally missing the point I’m making.
Worse than this, I find your claim “There’s literally nothing more that can be appealed to other than our judgements” empty because it applies equally to all our judgements (including those “appealing to” evidences and authorities) at any moment in any circumstance no matter if they are correct or wrong. And even the concept of “appealing to” which we all have learnt as referring to normative principles distinct from our own judgement is misused and voided of its normative force when every “appealing to” is eventually reduced to our own personal judgement.

So what I'm asking is what is your method for demonstrating that I'm wrong in that disagreement and you're right? — Isaac

There is no method of demonstrating the rule that has been infringed other than showing how the rule must have been correctly applied. When you fail to calculate an arithmetic sum, I can show you how to calculate it correctly by actually calculating that sum as everybody learnt to effectively calculate it. When you fail to process a modus tollens, I can show you how to process it correctly by actually processing the modus tollens as everybody learnt to effectively apply it.
And it would pointless to still observe “you just ‘keep saying’ you applied the rule correctly” because even claiming to have applied some rule correctly is an activity which should be again correctly executed to grant claim accuracy wrt actually shared epistemic rules. In other words, by providing actual pertinent arguments I’m thereby illustrating to you exactly all those epistemic rules I must assume sharable with you, intelligible to you and applicable by you in the same way in that context, also when correcting you.

So what method (if not numerical) is used to perform this 'aggregation' and reach the assessment? — Isaac

The aggregation can be numerical or not, all depends on how it is implemented of course. My point was that instead of directly calculating the numeric probability of a Russian nuclear attack against some NATO country, it could be easier to ask some security expert or team of security experts how likely a Russian nuclear attack against some NATO country is, where the “likelihood” parameter ranges over a non-numerical ordered set of values like very unlikely, unlikely, possible, very likely, practically certain ).

Again, not sufficient for what, to whom, why? — neomac
I'm not going to hand-hold you through the argument. If you can't remember where we are, that's your loss. I asked about methods for determining ideas which were wrong, your appealed to 'aggregate methods', I asked what they might be and you said… — Isaac

As long as you keep referring to our exchanges in a rather vague and decontestualised way, you are neither proving to understand my claims nor helping me understand your point. And that’s probably a reason why you end up straw manning me (as other interlocutors) so often.

If we are in a forum debating things we can link sources, provide arguments , offer definitions. — neomac
Now you're saying that is not, in fact sufficient to determine wrong arguments at all, but further — Isaac

Provide arguments, link sources and offer definitions are what we can do when debating. But those activities are governed by epistemic rules that we can fail to follow: arguments can be flawed formally or informally; definitions can be contradictory, circular, semantic nonsense or ambiguous; evidences can be from unreliable source or misreported or misunderstood or non-pertinent etc.

whenever I found your arguments fallacious as straw man, misquotations, contradictions, question begging claims, lack of evidence, blatant lies, etc.) or questionable on factual or explanatory bases, I argued for it. — neomac

Except that all of the above are completely subjective, so you've still given nothing other than your judgement as a measure. Arguments are wrong because you think they are. — Isaac

What do you mean by “completely subjective”? I’m not giving you my judgement as a measure! I gave you arguments for you to assess based on rules you actually do, can and must share and apply to play the game of assessing rationally peoples’ claims and arguments, mine and yours included. BTW, if I were to believe things completely subjectively, what would even be the point to provide arguments to discriminate what is more or less rational? I could simply claim you are a Russian troll/bot, that you claimed that Russians are morally justified in bombing, killing, raping, looting Ukrainians, or that Mearsheimer is paid by Russians. Or I could argue that all my objections to you were perfectly rational for exactly all the same reasons I already pointed out, in spite of being called “completely subjectively”, and not because you made your point but for the simple reason that the expression “completely subjectively” doesn’t discriminate anything, it’s an empty word. Indeed you can’t point at anything that is not completely-subjective, including your own claim that my claims are “completely-subjective”. So, far from having any epistemological value, your claim that “all of the above are completely subjective” serves the only purpose to dispense yourself from rationally validating your claims and continue to nurture your informational bubble. And that amounts to corner yourself into a position that is not rationally compelling.

I try to identify the logic structure of the argument, — neomac
Now you're saying you don't. Which is it? — Isaac

That objectively is a false claim. I never said “I don’t try to identify the logic structure of the argument” in my previous post. You can prove me wrong by quoting exactly where I wrote “I don’t try to identify the logic structure of the argument”, can you? No, you can’t. And that your claim is objectively false is independent from our political orientations.
Maybe you have a more rationally compelling objection to make, but all you have offered here is yet another straw man argument.

I’m mainly interested in reasoning over pertinent arguments on their own merits, more than in resulting opinion polls and intelligence contests — neomac
It's entirely an 'intelligence contest'. — Isaac

To me it's not an 'intelligence contest' precisely in the sense that I’m not here to test and rank how people are intelligent nor I see the pertinence of talking about people’s intelligence if it’s not the topic under investigation. I’m participating to this forum, primarily because interested in discussing and assessing arguments as rationally as possible. If you are here to do something else, I don’t care.

Great. So let's have those methods then. You keep vaguely pointing to the existence of these supposedly 'rational' methods (which I've somehow missed in my academic career thus far - which ought to be of concern to the British education system), yet you're clandestine about the details. Are they secret? — Isaac

I have no idea what academic career you have/had and in what field, but it would be shocking to discover you didn’t apply some standard academic methodology to prepare and assess your students’ tests for example, or some standard scientific methodology when making and publishing your research: e.g. in collecting, processing, assessing data wrt a set of hypotheses, and communicating your results on a scientific paper to be reviewed and published. And it would be shocking to discover if your work wasn’t peer reviewed wrt strict epistemic requirements likely including clarity and coherence of the analytic notions used, consistency and consequentiality of your conclusions wrt a set of assumptions, explanatory power of your hypotheses, accuracy and significance of the evidence used to support your claims, etc. Accuracy, consistency, clarity, pertinence, explanatory power, evidential support are epistemic goals that we can pursue or defend to some extent also in informal contexts like debating topics on a philosophy forum. Anyway this is how I would navigate our differences rationally. And I would expect you to do the same with me, if you want to be rationally compelling to me.
Concerning your generic request of details about my rational methods, aren’t all the detailed objections I made to you during our exchanges enough to illustrate what they consist in? Lately you made an objection to me where you evidently failed to logically process a modus tollens. Is this an objective epistemic failure? Yes it is. Does this epistemic failure have anything to do with political orientations? Absolutely none. Is this a detailed enough illustration of my all-too arcane exoteric top-secret clandestine hush hush unheard so-called “rational methods” that is totally missing in the entire British education system?

you started talking about possibilities (“possible interpretations”, “could perfectly rationally”), yet you concluded your argument with a fact (“And indeed, many have” concluded that perfectly rationally look at those facts and conclude etc.) giving the impression that the possibilities you were talking about were actually the case — neomac
It is a fact that many have reached different conclusions. I can't see what your problem is with that. Are you saying that all parties agree on this? — Isaac

No, I’m questioning that you proved as a fact that reached different conclusions are the result of perfectly rational considerations of exactly the same facts, which was the point of your possible scenario.

Not sure about that either. First, I have no idea how one would or could calculate such a probability — neomac
There's no need to calculate it. It's sufficient that it exists. In order for a country to be called 'a security threat' is is simply definitional that their probability of causing harm has to be above some threshold — Isaac

You can define all you want, but I don’t see the point of talking about probabilities in numeric terms when you nor anybody else - as far as I can tell - even knows how to calculate it. It would be easier to talk about risks in qualitative terms (e.g. very unlikely, unlikely, possible, very likely, practically certain ) for example after consulting and aggregating the feedback from experts in different strategic domains. But still the purpose of fixing democratically a threat index by nation based on some risk assessment looks to me quite obscure. Why wouldn’t current simple opinion polls be enough to you?

Most of the intelligent posters here have linked sources, provided arguments and offered definitions. It doesn't seem to have been sufficient. — Isaac

Again, not sufficient for what, to whom, why? As far as I’m concerned, in this thread, I mainly argued with you, Apollodorus and Streetlight as opponents. And whenever I found your arguments fallacious (straw man, misquotations, contradictions, question begging claims, lack of evidence, blatant lies, etc.) or questionable on factual or explanatory bases, I argued for it. And since I’m mainly interested in reasoning over pertinent arguments on their own merits, more than in resulting opinion polls and intelligence contests, I don’t take arguments ad personam, ad populum, ab auctoritate, as well as sarcasm and insults, as ways to rationally assess arguments on their own merits.

OK, so take me through the process with "Russia is a security threat to Western countries". We should have a list of premises which logically entail that conclusion. So what is that list? — Isaac

Well, I didn't offer an argument in the form of a logic deduction (even though one could put it in that form too I guess), I limited myself to list some evidences that support my claim about Russian foreign politics [1] and assessed its reliability [2].

You don't need to know what those opinions are for my claim "you find all alternative opinions, from scores of military and foreign policy experts...all of them...indefensible and irrational" to apply, you only need know they exist. If a single expert disagrees with you then (according to your principle) it must be because he is irrational, because you are better than him as rational analysis. This follows from...
1. If there are two claims that I find both defensible after rational examination, I would find more rational to suspend my judgement. — neomac
and
2. You have not suspended judgement hereon the proposition in question (nor have you done so on many other related propositions in this thread) — Isaac

No it doesn’t follow.
First, my principle concerns claims and not intellectual skill assessments.
Second, from a strictly logical point of view, if I didn’t suspend my judgement, then I didn’t find two claims equally defensible after rational examination, but the implication doesn’t establish that, in case of divergence between my claims and others’, my claims are the more rational or rationally defensible. Indeed if my opponent’s claims fall within his sphere of competence more than mine, his claims will likely prove to be more rational than mine.
Third, the principle applies to claims that I could actually examine on their own merits, so the mere existence of some expert’s claims divergent from mine is not enough to apply that principle.
Moreover, if your argument is referring to my comments about Mearsheimer’s or Kissinger’s claims on the NATO’s expansion, then it’s also equivocal: sure, I can charitably assume that Mearsheimer and Kissinger are more reliable than I am in their domain of expertise (yet not necessarily more than other experts in the same or related area of expertise who oppose their views https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhgWLmd7mCo). However, when it’s matter of evaluating and questioning the moral assumptions or implications of their claims, as I did, I don’t have any reason to take them to be more moral expert than I am.

Of course it's about people. You assess argument A to be irrational, I assess it to be rational. No further assessment of A is going to resolve that difference, we've (for the sake of argument) extracted all the propositions and evidences within argument A one-by-one and I still find it rational, you still find it irrational. There's simply nowhere left to go other than decide if your judgement or mine is the better. — Isaac

All I’m saying is that I’m here because interested in arguments more than in opinion polls or intelligence contests. Of course this doesn’t prevent me from getting an idea of how popular some opinions are or how rational other participants to this forum or thread are, nor it prevents me from understanding certain reactions from a more politically engaged point of view, but that’s not what I’m after. That’s all.
Yet, I guess you are after something else, namely the same philosophical point you made in your comment to ssu. Since I find the latter more articulated, here below is my feedback about it.

All of these are interpretations. Necessary ones to support a theory. Russia might well have made 'a small number' of hybrid attacks. The threats may have been 'badly reported'. They may not have 'assumed' anything about their role, but rather justifiability concluded it. They may not have used refugees as a show of force, but rather for some other purpose. They may have violated air space quite 'infrequently'.

All of these are possible interpretations, they're not ruled out by the empirical facts (there's no empirical fact, for example, about how often is 'very often'). As such the facts underdetermine the theory. One could perfectly rationally look at those facts and conclude they are insufficient to warrant an assumption that Russia represents a security threat to Europe. And indeed, many have. — Isaac

This part sounds as a sophism for a couple of reasons. First, things can be perceived, represented, or valued differently, yet that doesn’t prevent us from explicating and navigating these differences in more or less rational ways, and define accordingly margins of convergence where cooperation is possible and beneficial. Second, you started talking about possibilities (“possible interpretations”, “could perfectly rationally”), yet you concluded your argument with a fact (“And indeed, many have” concluded that perfectly rationally look at those facts and conclude etc.) giving the impression that the possibilities you were talking about were actually the case, but - as far as I’ve read and can recall - that the same facts (e.g. the ones mentioned by ssu) have been looked at and assessed with perfect rationality to conclude something incompatible with ssu's conclusions hasn’t been shown yet.

Any country with an army has a non-zero chance of raising a security issue with a European country. No country is 100% going to invade. So whatever the evidence, we need to make a decision about what level of probability is going to constitute, for us, a 'security threat'. That decision cannot be made on the basis of any empirical data. It's a purely political decision driven entirely by one's ideological commitments. — Isaac

Not sure about that either. First, I have no idea how one would or could calculate such a probability (an aggregated security threat index per nation), so far I couldn’t even find one single geopolitical expert providing such estimates, not even the ones who were against NATO expansion. So however interesting it might be to investigate this subject further, at first glance it doesn’t strike me as a very promising ground for your argument. Second, since you are talking about “we” and “political decisions” I guess you are referring to democratic political decisions, yet I find quite problematic in terms of effectiveness and efficiency to assess truths via democratic political decisions (unless we are trivially talking about institutional truths like who the national president is). Indeed that’s also why we have experts about security and national defense who do not only collect pertinent empirical data but also assess national security concerns based on those empirical data and independently from any democratic political decision.


[1]

the ratio of increasing the military, economic, and human costs of the Russian aggression for the Russians is in deterring them (an other powers challenging the current World Order) from pursing aggressively their imperialistic ambitions, and this makes perfect sense in strategic terms given certain plausible assumptions (including the available evidence like Putin's political declarations against the West + all his nuclear, energy, alimentary threats, his wars on the Russian border, his attempts to build an international front competing against Western hegemony, Russian military and pro-active presence in the Middle East and in Africa, Russian cyber-war against Western institutions, Putin's ruthless determination in pursuing this war at all costs after the annexation of Crimea which great strategic value from a military point of view, his huge concentration of political power, all hyper-nationalist and extremist people in his national TV and entourage with their revanchist rhetoric, etc.), of course. — neomac

[2]

The points I made for example are sufficient to rationally justify my perception of the Russian threat against the West, in other words mine is not paranoia or Russophobia: is this perception of mine fallaciously grounded on somebody’s repeating to me that Russia is a threat or the result of peers psychological pressure (through ostracism or insults)? No it’s based on those evidences I listed and more. Are those evidences false? no. Is there any inconsistency between those evidences? No, they support each other. Is there any inconsistency between those evidences and historical patterns of aggressive behavior by authoritarian regimes or in particular by Russia? No, the aggression of Ukraine by Russia has disturbing echoes of Hitler’s 1939 invasion of Czechoslovakia and Poland (https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/russias-attack-ukraine-through-lens-history), and the annexation/Russification of Crimea is a leitmotif of Russian politics since the end of 18th century being key to Russian commercial and military projection in the Mediterranean area (including Middle East and North Africa, and surrounding Europe). Add to that the historical deep scars Ukraine, Finland, Poland and all other ex-Soviet Union countries in east Europe had with Russian empire and/or Soviet Union.
So, since thinking strategically requires one to spot potential threats, possibly way before they become too big because then it will be too late, what other evidence would one ordinary risk-averse Western citizen valuing their country’s democracy and economy more than Russian’s exactly need to perceive Russian aggressive expansionism and geopolitical interference as a threat to the West ? — neomac

Nato caca, America caca, Russia caca, China caca, Islamism caca, EU caca, Israel caca, capitalism caca, communism caca, fascism caca, populism caca, democracy caca, religion caca, science caca, art caca, sport caca, French cuisine caca (kidding... not really though :P), the universe caca, this forum caca. Anything else?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_imperialism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_imperialism#Contemporary_Russian_imperialism
https://cisac.fsi.stanford.edu/mappingmilitants/profiles/russian-imperial-movement
https://jamestown.org/program/putins-crimea-speech-a-manifesto-of-greater-russia-irredentism/

So you aggregate the methods how? Randomly? — Isaac

We do not aggregate methods with some super-method. We simply apply some epistemic procedures as a function of our epistemic needs, means and circumstances. If we do some laboratory research to publish a scientific paper, we take some measurements, apply some formula to obtain some stats or generate some plots, or program a computer to do that for us. If we are in a forum debating things we can link sources, provide arguments , offer definitions. If we play chess, we will try to figure out our next moves vs our adversary's moves and build a decision tree for our strategy, etc.

Whenever peers and experts disagree with me, I should examine how rational their arguments are — neomac
Fascinating. So how do you do that? — Isaac

I try to identify the logic structure of the argument, so e.g. in case of a deduction premise and conclusion , to check if it's logically valid. I try to identify the concepts used, to be sure I understand what is claimed and if there are informal fallacies or ambiguities that compromise the argument. Then I try to see what evidences there are to support the premises, if they are empirical claims or theoretical claims. I can consider different possible formulation of the same argument or compare this argument on a given field to other similar arguments in other different fields, to make sure there aren't hidden assumptions that I missed. And I can check how other people have scrutinized the argument, etc.

So with your opinion here you find all alternative opinions, from scores of military and foreign policy experts...all of them...indefensible and irrational. — Isaac

I don't even know what opinions you are talking about how can I possibly believe they all are indefensible and irrational?! Besides in condition of uncertainty opposing views may appear more likely rationally defensible. But again, to me, the point is not to assess people or opinions, but to assess actual arguments, so e.g. what are the actual arguments supporting the claim that Russia is not a security threat to Western countries, or undermining the claim that Russia is a security threat to Western countries? If I have to be rationally persuaded, I have to rationally examine the available arguments on their own merits. If I'm not up to this task for whatever reason then I could try other strategies.

Yet you've ignored the argument about underdetermination. Why is that? — Isaac

Because I'm not sure how you understand it or intend to apply it. In what sense do the facts that I listed underdetermine the theory (?) that Russia is a security concern for the West?

So the answer is yes then — Streetlight

I don't know, you didn't answer my question. Are you smart enough to remember what it is? I'm still waiting for your answer, holy messiah.

OK. I'll try to take you seriously. How do any of the 'methods' you list apply to the debate here? How do they lead to a decision on one theory over another? — Isaac

Mine was a general consideration to clarify how I would distinguish rational and irrational persuasion. There is no method that aggregates all the methods.

Yes, but other - perfectly intelligent - people disagree. Your epistemic peers disagree. So either you are the sole possessor of some magic ability to discern what is rational and what is not, or there is a legitimate difference of opinion about the two conflicting theories which cannot be resolved by appealing to rational support (since that forms part of the disagreement to be resolved). Hence the question why choose side A over side B? — Isaac

Whenever peers and experts disagree with me, I should examine how rational their arguments are to rationally persuade myself that they have equal or more plausible reasons to claim e.g. that Russia is not a threat to the West. Without knowing where exactly we disagree and for what reasons, giving up on my beliefs as I rationally processed them would be a fallacious submission to peer and expert pressure, unless I have reasons to trust other people’s opinions more than mine in the given circumstances for specific claims because “they know better”. And this trust can be again more or less rational.

You can list a dozen reasons why your choice of side A is reasonable, rational, and I'd probably agree with the vast majority of them, but we're not talking about why side A is one of the available options, we're talking about why you chose it over side B, which is also one of the available options (reasonable rational people have also reached that conclusion). — Isaac

If there are two claims that I find both defensible after rational examination, I would find more rational to suspend my judgement.

Either you're arguing that you're just much smarter than all of them, or you have to concede that their position too is reasonable and rational - ie, in Quinean terms, the facts underdetermine the theory. — Isaac

That would be a false dichotomy: I’m neither arguing nor conceding. All options are open: either they are smarter than I am, or I’m smarter than they are, or we are equally smart but we fail to understand each other for non-pertinent reasons or we are all stupid but everyone in their own way .
Besides if I were to consider how popular is the option I disagree with, I would consider also how popular is the option I agree with.

No, they just enabled and continue to prolong a devastating war which is killing masses of Ukrainians day by day. — Streetlight

I'm still waiting for your recipe to fix the World, holy messiah.

OK, bombing, killing, raping, looting, land-grabbing, oppressing minorities (like the Crimean Tatars) for nationalistic reasons is not Nazi to you. What else is required to be Nazi then? — neomac
Are you a stupid person? Because this is a stupid person question. — Streetlight

Show me how phenomenally smart you are by giving me your definition of "Nazi": bombing, killing, raping, looting, land-grabbing, oppressing minorities (like the Crimean Tatars) for nationalistic reasons is not Nazi. What else then?

American power is in any way 'softer' than the 'authoritarian regimes' it is otherwise indistinguishable from. No other country on Earth has as much blood on its hands as the US; no other country on Earth even belongs to the same order of death-dealing magnitude. — Streetlight

American power didn't bomb, kill, rape, loot, land-grab Europeans to have them support Ukraine.
Tell me your solution to fix the World, messiah.

Are the Russians Nazi too for bombing, killing, raping their Ukrainian "brothers" and "sisters", and their land-grabbing in the name of the ethnic Russians and the glory of Holy Russia? Is the Russification of the Donbas and Crimea Nazi enough to you? — neomac
Russians are clearly not Nazis, they are simply capitalists doing what capitalist nations always do - rape, plunder, and kill. — Streetlight

OK, bombing, killing, raping, looting, land-grabbing, oppressing minorities (like the Crimean Tatars) for nationalistic reasons is not Nazi to you. What else is required to be Nazi then?

Mmmkey, and what if Europeans tell themselves to do what the US tells them to do? — neomac
Stupid question. — Streetlight

The reason why the US is hegemonic and can persuade or impose their will on others is exactly because the US has the economic/military means, positive or negative incentives, to get what they want. And Russians and Chinese regional powers aspiring to challenge the dominant American power want simply to replace it in part or totally to exercise their hegemonic power. The problem is that they are authoritarian regimes and don't like soft-power as much as hard-power. If you prefer to live under their hegemony, I don't.
And as long as Europe is not strong enough to assert itself as a geopolitical power at the level of the other contenders, they have to pick their side according to their interests. And listen carefully what American likes or dislikes to not run in greater troubles for their own interest.
But I'm sure you have a solution to fix the World right?

No Nazis are literally Nazis, I don't need to redefine terms so as get away with defending Nazis. — Streetlight

Are the Russians Nazi too for bombing, killing, raping their Ukrainian "brothers" and "sisters", and their land-grabbing in the name of the ethnic Russians and the glory of Holy Russia? Is the Russification of the Donbas and Crimea Nazi enough to you?

It's very cute that your imagination is so brutally stunted that your question is - which non-European entity should tell Europe what to do? — Streetlight

Mmmkey, and what if Europeans tell themselves to do what the US tells them to do?

See, this is why you are an idiot not worth paying attention to. The Nazis who pushed Zelensky to war did so because they were Ukrainian nationalists who did not want any compromise with Russia - including ratifying Minsk, or say, not bombing the ever-living daylights out of Russian-speaking Ukraine. — Streetlight

Oh I see, in your personal idiom, "Nazi" are all Ukrainians who support Zelensky's choice to resist Russian interference/invasion b/c they want to defend Ukrainian sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity. Out of curiosity, are the Russians Nazi too for bombing, killing, raping their Ukrainian "brothers" and "sisters", and their land-grabbing in the name of the ethnic Russians and the glory of Holy Russia? Do you also support the racial/racist theory of the rightful owners by any chance?

Europeans do what Americans tell them. — Streetlight

Should Europeans do what Russians tell them? Or you tell them?

Oh well that makes it OK then. — Streetlight

Only if it makes it OK for you that Russians are bombing, killing, raping their Ukrainian "brothers" and "sisters".

Besides it's not uncommon to have fascist/ultra-nationalists in the national armies: https://www.vice.com/it/article/5989xx/fascismo-para-folgore-esercito-italiano , https://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2021/03/17/une-enquete-de-mediapart-devoile-la-presence-de-militaires-neonazis-dans-l-armee-francaise_6073486_3224.html
Not to mention the Russian ultra-nationalists very friendly to Putin.
What do you want to do about that, boss?

Logic, mathematics, scientific empirical methods — neomac


Weird. What scientific studies have you read about Russia's invasion of Ukraine? Or weirder still mathematical ones? Did someone derive a new solution to quadratic equations which proves there are no Nazis in Ukraine? Does the theory that the US provoked Russia defy the law of the excluded middle?

...journalistic methods... — neomac


Do you mean phone hacking...?

administrative/institutional methods — neomac


...put the Kafka down.

common sense — neomac


Ah! Just when I'd finished playing cliche bingo and all, damn. I could have got "I arrived at my conclusions by Common Sense… — Isaac

As if chopping your way out to some dumb remark you can smirk about, wasn’t even more weird.

Or not.

The point (the one you interjected about) is that your speculation here might work out, or it might not. You can't possibly say for sure. The empirical evidence is insufficient to choose between theories, there's been no scientific paper on it, no mathematician has compressed it into an irrefutable formula, it hasn't been rendered into truth tables... You just have to choose which to believe.

So why do you believe that one? — Isaac

Insufficient for what? to whom? Uncertainty doesn’t prevent us from making rational choices. The points I made for example are sufficient to rationally justify my perception of the Russian threat against the West, in other words mine is not paranoia or Russophobia: is this perception of mine fallaciously grounded on somebody’s repeating to me that Russia is a threat or the result of peers psychological pressure (through ostracism or insults)? No it’s based on those evidences I listed and more. Are those evidences false? no. Is there any inconsistency between those evidences? No, they support each other. Is there any inconsistency between those evidences and historical patterns of aggressive behavior by authoritarian regimes or in particular by Russia? No, the aggression of Ukraine by Russia has disturbing echoes of Hitler’s 1939 invasion of Czechoslovakia and Poland (https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/russias-attack-ukraine-through-lens-history), and the annexation/Russification of Crimea is a leitmotif of Russian politics since the end of 18th century being key to Russian commercial and military projection in the mediterranean area (including Middle East and North Africa, and surrounding Europe). Add to that the historical deep scars Ukraine, Finland, Poland and all other ex-Soviet Union countries in east Europe had with Russian empire and/or Soviet Union.
So, since thinking strategically requires one to spot potential threats, possibly way before they become too big because then it will be too late, what other evidence would one ordinary risk-averse Western citizen valuing their country’s democracy and economy more than Russian’s exactly need to perceive Russian aggressive expansionism and geopolitical interference as a threat to the West ?

You misspelled "so that they can siphon tax money to arms dealers and turn Ukraine into a debt prison producing Nikes for the Western middle class while eliminating a competitor model of capitalism that does not play by the West's rules while letting Ukrainians drop dead for those goals, thanks to a war they precipitated and did everything to encourage and continue to prolong". — Streetlight

Lots of Western business doesn’t welcome this war, its continuation and related sanctions precisely because it interrupted their business with Russia and Ukraine. On the other side the competitor capitalist model opposing the West is supported by authoritarian regimes. Nobody can easily get rid of Western arms dealers as long as they are instrumental in addressing Western security concerns competing with non-Western security concerns and related non-Western arms dealers. The problem is not arms dealers business per se but the security threat perception between State powers, and to authoritarian regimes the fear of losing power is arguably greater than any national security threats b/c dictators literally risk their skin, if their power is compromised. Ukrainians could surrender to the Russians if they wanted, but they didn’t and they don’t seem to need encouragement from abroad, they just need weapons. Westerners legitimately helped them due their security concerns and international commitments more than economic concerns.

Anyone who thinks the US in particular has 'security concerns' half-way across the fucking planet is a clown. — Streetlight

That’s exactly why I talked about the Europeans. For the US, the “security concerns” must be understood wrt their hegemonic power, of course.

To the degree that the Ukraine is crawling with Nazis who decisively tipped the course of events into war, then sure, I agree that the "Ukrainians are more pro-Western than anti-Western". Nazis being a uniquely Western apogee of civilization. — Streetlight

Apparently Ukrainians prefer to be Nazi than Russian, go figure how shitty it feels like to experience Russian hegemony (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-20th-century-history-behind-russias-invasion-of-ukraine-180979672/), go figure!

it's OK that Ukrainians should drop dead on the West's behalf. — Streetlight

Ukrainians have chosen to fight the Russians who are destroying their life and their country. That concerns the Ukrainian national interest, Westerners legitimately decided to support them for Western plausible security concerns too, of course. And the fact that Ukrainians are more pro-Western than anti-Western is one more reason to intervene. There is no need to talk in terms of "benevolence" especially when the "benevolence" of the alleged pacifists are so instrumental in reaching the arguably worst outcome for the Ukrainians according to the Ukrainians, and supporting Russian imperialistic ambitions.

'Epistemically fallacious'? What could that possibly mean in the context of persuasion. — Isaac

I can be persuaded by rational or irrational reasons what to hold to be true. Being persuaded by irrational reasons is fallacious, and as long as it has to do with truth then it's epistemically fallacious.

Interested now in what an epistemically non-fallacious method of persuasion might be — Isaac

Logic, mathematics, scientific empirical methods, journalistic methods, administrative/institutional methods are such methods. They vary in scope, rigor and pre-conditions for their application. Even common sense is epistemically pretty reliable in our ordinary daily life.

So epistemically non-fallacious? Or not? — Isaac

Well that depends on the reasons why one would opt for violence in the given circumstances.

No. That is why they may. You've yet to demonstrate that they do. — Isaac

It's impossible to "demonstrate" in the sense of providing evidences for future events or counter-factuals. But the "rhetoric" force concerns people's expectations in condition of uncertainty: the ratio of increasing the military, economic, and human costs of the Russian aggression for the Russians is in deterring them (an other powers challenging the current World Order) from pursing aggressively their imperialistic ambitions, and this makes perfect sense in strategic terms given certain plausible assumptions (including the available evidence like Putin's political declarations against the West + all his nuclear, energy, alimentary threats, his wars on the Russian border, his attempts to build an international front competing against Western hegemony, Russian military and pro-active presence in the Middle East and in Africa, Russian cyber-war against Western institutions, Putin's ruthless determination in pursuing this war at all costs after the annexation of Crimea which great strategic value from a military point of view, his huge concentration of political power, all hyper-nationalist and extremist people in his national TV and entourage with their revanchist rhetoric, etc.), of course.

arguably — neomac
Go on then... — Isaac

It's boring to repeat myself.

Yawn, then the first accusation of yours didn't even make sense when directed at me lol. Being Streetlight is a substitute for being dumb.

Sometimes, yeah. — Isaac

Then violence may be a good way to persuade the Russians to curb their imperialistic ambitions.

... but here I am explaining how persuasion works when that's not really what your post is about, is it? It's step one in a line of argument designed to persuade me (or others reading) of your theory. So it turns out you do know how persuasion works after all. — Isaac

Yet, persuading people through the threat of ostracism or insults or by repeating "putative" truths ad nausaum or pointing at somebody's "putative" inconsistency using maybe strawman arguments are all epistemically fallacious ways of persuading to me. Still when there is no ground for rational/moral agreement violence is an option as viable as one can afford, and as valid as its effectiveness. That is why Russian aggression and Western violent response to that have their "rhetoric" force in persuading or dissuading the two competing powers and other powers. Accordingly, the answer to your question ("Make war just so we don't seem weak?") can arguably be yes, while that rhetorical "just" in your question is arguably misleading or prejudicial.

This is just neoconservative parochial trash. Your paranoia does not mean you get to excuse and encourage Western bloodshed. The one lesson to be learnt from the mass murder of Ukranians taking place right now is that efforts to 'weaken' perceived enemies are above all the prime causes of mass death on a global scale. It will of course not be learnt. Anyone with a pulse will have learnt this paying attention to even an iota of US foreign policy since the end of the second world war, but warmongering stains like you continue to champion this utter death-generating rubbish over and over again. — Streetlight

Yawn. This is just far-leftist parochial trash. Your paranoia does not mean you get to excuse and encourage non-Western bloodshed. The one lesson to be learnt from the mass murder of Ukranians taking place right now is that efforts to 'weaken' perceived enemies are above all the prime causes of mass death on a global scale. It will of course not be learnt. Anyone with a pulse will have learnt this paying attention to even an iota of the US hegemony challengers' foreign policy since the end of the second world war, but warmongering stains like you continue to champion this utter death-generating rubbish over and over again.
Anyway you are right, my bad, I shouldn't have talked to you. Mutual ignoring is best.

how about violence? Is it a way to persuade people? "Ostracism" and "insulting" seem a form of psychological violence.

↪neomac
Yes, and? That the West feels left out in the bloodshed — Streetlight

For now (and if we exclude Westerners are participating also with volunteers fighting and dying there). The stronger Russia remains the more likely they will be able to come back after us one way or the other in the West and outside, and encouraging the anti-Western front in the rest of the World. And Europeans are exposed to these existential threats much more than the US.

If we don't encourage the wonton murder of Ukranians, the West will be seen as weak — Streetlight

On the contrary, you will be seen as strong, since the wanton murder of Ukrainians is what their big Russian "brothers" are doing.

You don't seem to have finished your argument. — Isaac

I did it on purpose, to have Manuel's feedback on this.

We persuade. — Isaac

And on what grounds do we persuade?

If we disagree, we've absolutely no ground on which to resolve that disagreement, and if we agree we're just building castles in the air.

What we can discuss is our reasons for believing some expert or other. In other words, our political opinions, our narratives. — Isaac

And what ground do we absolutely have to resolve narrative or political opinion disagreements?

By pressuring our governments, voting our politicians in or out, engaging in demonstrations that could push or stop legislation, sending letters to our representatives all of which are an essential part of democracy.

As we are not citizens of Russia, we do not have this option - and also they get arrested if they do protest. — Manuel

The right that you want to exercise and you don't see granted in Russia is likely perceived by the ruthless Russian president and his Chinese counterpart - both leaders of authoritarian regimes and challengers of the current World Order - as a sign of Western weakness, one that could bolster their economic and military aggressiveness by exploiting the Western internal divisions and lack of resolve. Therefore, wanting to exercise this right to promote appeasement and concessions to them even when they are violating international rules to oppress, murder and destroy an independent state striving to be part of the West, will likely prove to them and the rest of the world they were on the right track.

yet I don't know how long it will hold up for the US, Italy (how stable are Italian governments?!) or the rest of the EU (Eastern and Western European countries have a different perception of the Russian threat, Turkey and Hungary are capable of backstabbing). Even for Biden&co it's already hard to tell if they are moving just with great prudence or lack of resolve. And if Russia will manage to get away with their territorial plunder (BTW considering the late Russian military success against the Ukrainian resistance, can we really exclude the risk of a Ukrainian resistance's collapse?), Russian may still claim a victory that could erode Western confidence or resolve.

trying to adapt to your mental capacity. No need to thank me.

agreed, but they could be a minority and those who protested or could protest, especially from the city, were imprisoned or left the country. What is also remarkable is this perceived feeling of betrayed "brotherhood" between Ukrainians and Russians , and lots of Russians have relatives in Ukraine (and got their feedback too). So even hypocrisy or prudence has its toll and yet most Russians are ready to pay for it apparently.

small brain.

right, but I wouldn't underestimate their impact on a larger scale: indeed they are very vocal also because they have gained support also from mainstream media and politicians too (both in the US and in the EU see Italy & Salvini).

The real problem isn't with the Russian people, but with Russian institutions, namely the military culture. — Moses

We can't say that the Russian people aren't the problem either. The support for Putin (celebrated as a great leader like Stalin) and his war is pretty high in Russia and I doubt this is only due to the regime propaganda (propaganda seems so effective because Russians may be predisposed to it due to historical anti-Western feelings ingrained in their culture). Western people are a problem too: in the West there is great polarization toward this war, there are many pro-Russian or anti-NATO/WEST/EU/(NEO)CAPITALIST/GLOBALISATION whatever you want to call them.

we are responsible for what our governments do and can act on that to some extent. — Manuel

How?

just more lies about my claims, strawman arguments, reiterated conceptually confused claims, and more shitty pro-Russian propaganda, as if you didn't humiliate yourself enough. I'll let you enjoy your intellectual misery. Yuck!

It doesn't say anywhere that people aren't allowed to make anti-NATO arguments! — Apollodorus

So what?! It still is an excellent example of dialectic diversion, exactly because that piece of anti-NATO propaganda routine has nothing to do with what I was questioning. Indeed even if there was no NATO and no war between Russia and Ukraine involving NATO, all my arguments challenging your theory of the rightful owners as applied to the case of the Crimean Tatars would have been exactly the same.

As for your "disputing wrt Crimean Tatar issue" you could have saved yourself that long and incoherent rant because it looks like you don't have a clue what you're disputing! :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
You claimed that "Crimean Tatars became the majority" and then backpedaled by saying "I never said that the Tatars were the majority"!
So, were they the majority or not???
And, obviously, in order to even discuss Crimean Tatars and your spurious claim that "Crimea is owned by Tatars therefore it belongs to Ukraine (or America?)”, we need to establish what a Crimean Tatar is. — Apollodorus

Dude, congrats, you just offered the epitome of your intellectual misery!
Now tell me, where on earth did I claim “Crimea is owned by Tatars therefore it belongs to Ukraine (or America?)” ?! How on earth can you be so intellectually dishonest to double quote something I never written nor implied nor suggested nor believe, yet suggesting I made that claim which is a blatant lie?!
BTW if we need to establish first what “Crimean Tatar” means before discussing “Crimean Tatars” and I also repeatedly clarified what “Crimean Tatar” means to me in my past posts, why on earth do you feel so confident in mixing your claims about “Tatars” with my claims about “Crimean Tatars” to artificially suggest an inconsistency or backpedaling that doesn’t exist ?!

I stand by what I wrote and am responsible for what I write not for that you are incapable of understanding. To repeat once more the point, briefly: “Crimean Tatars” are ethnically indigenous people of Crimea who speak natively Crimean Tatar language (along with whatever cultural&genetic heritage this native language enables people to share, of course) and whose ethnogenesis show a genetic admixture of different ethnic subgroups happening within Crimea in more than 2 millennia.

But if you do not like my definition we can relay on a mainstream source like Wikipedia:
Crimean Tatars (Crimean Tatar: qırımtatarlar, къырымтатарлар) or Crimeans (Crimean Tatar: qırımlar, къырымлар or qırımlılar, къырымлылар), are a Turkic ethnic group and nation who are an indigenous people of Crimea. The formation and ethnogenesis of Crimean Tatars occurred during the 13th–17th centuries, uniting Cumans, who appeared in Crimea in the 10th century, with other peoples who had inhabited Crimea since ancient times and gradually underwent Tatarization, including Greeks, Italians and Goths.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_Tatars

The Crimean Tatar language (qırımtatar tili, къырымтатар тили, tatar tĭlĭ, tatarşa, kırım tatarşa), also called Crimean language (qırım tili, къырым тили),[1] is a Kipchak Turkic language spoken in Crimea and the Crimean Tatar diasporas of Uzbekistan, Turkey, Romania and Bulgaria, as well as small communities in the United States and Canada. It should not be confused with Tatar proper, spoken in Tatarstan and adjacent regions in Russia; the languages are related, but belong to two different subgroups of the Kipchak languages and thus are not mutually intelligible.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_Tatar_language

Turkic people are defined as "descended from agricultural communities in Northeastern China and wider Northeast Asia, who moved westwards into Mongolia in the late 3rd millennium BC" (Wikipedia). This is scholarly opinion corroborated by genetic, historical, and archaeological evidence, not a "myth".
This is why they are referred to as "Mongoloid", because they are related to Mongols and some even look like Mongols. "Mongoloid" is the term used by scholars:
Anthropologically, about 80% of the Volga Tatars belong today to Caucasoids and 20% to Mongoloids (Khalikov 1978).
Erdogan calls them "Crimean Turks". How is that better than "Crimean Mongols"???
Obviously, there must be some Crimean Mongols as Crimea was invaded and occupied by the Mongols. But I didn't say ALL Crimean Tatars are Mongols. — Apollodorus

You just summed up the roots of your misconceptions about the Crimean Tatars. Crimean Tatars are not the Mongols of Crimea as you called them. Period! Now you are ridiculously backpedaling: proof is that you stopped to call them Mongols of Crimea and you even dare to say ”I didn't say ALL Crimean Tatars are Mongols” (which is not only shameless but goofy because calling the Crimean Tatars “The Mongols of Crimea” doesn’t necessarily suggest that ALL Crimean Tatars are Mongols, they could just be the majority which is again arguably wrong!). If there was nothing wrong with this label promoting Russian propaganda, you would keep calling them the Mongols of Crimea, instead of moving to “The Tatars of Crimea”.
What is mythical in your flawed reconstruction is the assimilation of Crimean Tatars to Mongols because of their putative historical origins and by conflating cultural aspects (the turkic language which doesn’t even guarantee intercommunicability between Crimean Tatars and Mongols or other Turkic people) with biological aspects (based on the obsolete distinction between Mongoloid and Caucasoid, and notice that phenotypical traits relevant for racial classifications do not necessarily prove anything conclusive about a single genotype, go figure for a mixed genotype, https://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/phenotype-variability-penetrance-and-expressivity-573/).
I remind you also of the fact that you claimed “Tatars and other Turkic peoples originally came from the same area as the Mongols and are genetically closely related to them.” which is contradicted by what you just cited “about 80% of the Volga Tatars belong today to Caucasoids and 20% to Mongoloids (Khalikov 1978)” exactly for the reason that if 80% of the Volga Tatar genetic pool is Caucausoids then more closely related to Caucasoids then to Mongols and THEREFORE they should be called Caucasoid, and not Mongoloid!!!
That is also why I refuse to use the generic term “Tatars” to refer to Crimean Tatars, because that terminology will more easily trigger all your misconceptions.
By calling Crimean Tatars “Crimean Turks” Erdogan may be promoting his own propaganda as much as the Russians are promoting theirs by calling the Crimean Tatars “The Mongols of Crimea”, that’s hardly surprising: Putin is even denying the Ukrainian national identity and despite Russians consider them their “brothers” (https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/02/16/we-are-one-people-why-would-we-fight-our-brothers-russians-react-to-ukraine-war-threat-a76414), they are now bombing them, looting them, and raping them to pursue their imperialist ambitions which are arguably more immoral than ancient Mongol-Tatar (non-Slavic) tribes killing, looting and raping ancient Slavic tribes!

On the contrary, my point was that the genetic evidence suggests that many of them are NOT Mongols, NOT Turkic, and therefore NOT Tatars, depending on their genetic makeup. — Apollodorus

You are disastrously reiterating your conceptual confusion: you are conflating biological factors (genetic evidences) with cultural classifications/identities (e.g. what language is natively spoken)! One can be 80% Caucasoid and still speak a Turkic/Tatar language natively!

What makes you think that I must prefer your NATO propaganda to mainstream sources???
And NO, your Tatar witness does NOT support your claim that Tatars are "indigenous to Crimea". — Apollodorus

First of all, this is my quote “I cited this ICCRIMEA article to support the claim that Crimean Tatars are NOT MONGOLS AS YOU CLAIM!!!”
Second, my Crimean Tatar witness supports my claim that Tatars are "indigenous to Crimea" “The above DNA test results reaffirm what we have known from history that Crimean Tatars are descendants of the various peoples who settled and lived in Crimea for centuries. The Crimean Tatars, indigenous people of Crimea, did not just come from the East, as many are inclined to think. Rather, they are the descendants of the people who moved to Crimea from different directions: Scythians, Goths, Byzantines, Genovese, and Turkic groups such as Khazars, Kipchaks, Tatars and Ottoman Turks.” Source: https://iccrimea.org/reports/genographic-results.html
Third, even assumed that the ICCRIMEA article is NATO propaganda, for sure there is no contradiction between NATO propaganda and mainstream sources, concerning the fact that Crimean Tatars are indigenous people of Crimea. Indeed I cited from other sources too: Wikipedia articles, books and anthropological papers dedicated to the Crimean Tatars, scientific papers on the genetics of the Crimean Tatars [1]. All of them support the claim that Crimean Tatars are not the Mongols of Crimea and they are indigenous to Crimea.

Approximately 75 percent of the Crimean population consisted of slaves or freedmen — Apollodorus

My question to you is still the same: if the victims of these raids and slavery market where not only the ancestors of Russians but also the ancestors of Ukrainians or from other Eastern European areas, why are ONLY the Russians repaid for the Mongol-Tatars’ past injustice through the annexation of the entire Crimea?!

Her DNA is as follows:
28% Northern Asian = Siberian (Mongol/Turk) = Tatar
20% Mediterranean = Greek/Italian
22% Northern European = Scandinavian? Baltic?
20% Middle Eastern = ? (Iranian? Turkish? Jewish? Egyptian/Arab?)

In case you forgot, Crimea is in Eastern Europe. There is no Eastern European DNA in your "evidence"! — Apollodorus

So what?! If the test doesn’t report genes that the laboratory could classify as Eastern European this is neither her fault nor laboratory’s fault. Besides the equations you are suggesting are your personal conjectures since the study maps geographic areas with DNA pools, and doesn’t offer any strong evidence to support whatever you may infer from it in racial terms.

And note that she mentions four Turkic groups among her ancestors, which amounts to an admission to being at least in part of Turkic, i.e., Mongoloid-Siberian descent. — Apollodorus

These are your personal conjectures (where again you confuse racial with ethnic concepts), besides the reference to other turkic groups is contextual to a comment about Crimean Tatars in general not to her case in particular (she didn’t say ALL Crimean Tatars! LOL).

Incidentally, note how she conveniently leaves out the Taurian people who were the original, indigenous inhabitants of Crimea!
Also note how she conveniently leaves out the Crimean Greeks who have lived in Crimea from the 7th century BC, i.e., many centuries before the Tatars. — Apollodorus

That she did so out of convenience is just your personal conjecture. Besides, I don’t know her personally, but I know your ideological bias enough to understand why you are motivated to frame her article this way.
Concerning the “indigenous” question, which is the substantial one, let’s clarify another source of misunderstanding: the claim that some people are “indigenous” may be LEGITIMATELY understood in relative historical terms, in the sense some people are “indigenous” if they occupy a land prior to the expansion of a foreign colonial power or the formation of nation state by foreign people in that land. In that sense “Crimean Tatars” are indigenous of Crimea wrt Ukrainians and Russians (as the foreign State contenders of this territory), and so they are officially acknowledged with the status of “indigenous people” by Ukrainians, EU and UN. And this is echoed in mainstream sources too.
However, the claim that some people are “indigenous” may be LEGITIMATELY understood in absolute historical terms as the earliest traceable settlers on a given territory. So the Tauri as the earliest Greek settlers in Crimea can be legitimately considered the “indigenous” people of Crimea in absolute historical terms. Does this settle the issue about the indigenous inhabitants of Crimea in absolute historical terms once for all? To me, ABSOLUTELY NO for three reasons (all supported by mainstream sources): a) in ancient times, the colonial or (semi-)nomadic nature of various ethnic groups and tribes’ settlements didn’t ensure any wide and permanent territorial occupation and control. For example, the Tauri didn’t populate the entire Crimea, but mainly the southern coastal areas of Crimea. The northern part of Crimea was exposed to different waves ethnic semi-nomadic tribes (Iranic, Germanic and Turkic). So none of those ethnic groups had stable, complete or dominant territorial occupation over the entire Crimea. In that sense even nomadic people who settled in Crimea AFTER the Tauri could be considered the earliest inhabitants of Crimea, and so indigenous in absolute historical terms, simply because they were occupying regions of Crimea never inhabited nor dominated by the Tauri! b) The assimilation of earliest ethnic groups (including the Tauri) into the Crimean Tatar ethnic group, so the blood of the ancient Tauri (and other earliest inhabitants) is still running into Crimean Tatars’ veins and being their descendants they share the “indigenous” status in Crimea in absolute historical terms. c) from an ethno-genetic perspective, since the Tatarization of the entire Crimea was possible starting from the 15th century under the Crimean Khanate and the Ottoman Empire, the earliest dominant ethnic group native to Crimea in the entire Crimea were the Crimean Tatars ("The Crimean Tatar language was the universal means of communication in the Crimea from the 15th to the 19th centuries" Source:https://www.eki.ee/books/redbook/crimean_jews.shtml). And the fact that the officially acknowledged indigenous people of Crimea are so far only Crimean Tatars, Crimean Karaites, and Krymchaks suggests that there are no Tauri descendants that could claim or could be acknowledged the status of “indigenous” for a distinctive Tauri ethnic-group. So until you can provide evidence for the existence of an ethnic-group with mainly ancient Tauri ancestors distinct from other indigenous people of Crimea, I don’t even see the relevance of talking about them.

Finally, as I already repeatedly argued in the previous posts,
IF your theory of the rightful owners establishes for whatever reason that the Tauris as the unique earliest inhabitants of Crimea or generically “the Greeks” (as Greek is the Tauris’ original ethnicity) are the rightful owners of (part of or the entire?) Crimea,
THEREFORE you should oppose the imperialist annexation or russification of Crimea by Russians
AND promote instead the annexation/concession of (part of or the entire?) Crimea to the Crimean Tauri descendants as distinct indigenous ethnic community (if they still exist) or the Greeks
AS WELL AS the annexation/concession of (part of or the entire?) the Russian Krasnodar Krai since in the same ancient times the Tauris also colonised as first known settlers some coastal areas of the actual Krasnodar Krai (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krasnodar_Krai#History)!
So, now you have 2 ways to oppose Russian imperialism and promote the magnificent Indo-European Caucaisoid Greek Tauri civilisation (“in his Histories, Herodotus describes the Tauri as living “by plundering and war” Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tauri )! Good luck with that!

There is really nothing you can do to recover all the bullshits your have shamelessly thrown at me. You are intellectually miserable. I would even respect more professional Russian trolls than you, coz at least they are paid for it.


[1]
The fact that Crimean Tatars' ethnogenesis took place in Crimea and consisted of several stages lasting over 2500 years is proved by genetic research showing that in the gene pool of the Crimean Tatars preserved both the initial component for more than 2.5 thousand years, and later in the northern steppe regions of the Crimea. (Source: https://us.edu.vn/en/Crimean_Tatar_people-0262024006)


“The Crimean Tatars were formed as a people in Crimea and are descendants of various peoples who lived in Crimea in different historical eras. The main ethnic groups that inhabited the Crimea at various times and took part in the formation of the Crimean Tatar people are Tauri, Scythians, Sarmatians, Alans, Greeks, Goths, Bulgars, Khazars, Pechenegs, Italians and Circassians. The consolidation of this diverse ethnic conglomerate into a single Crimean Tatar people took place over the course of centuries. The connecting elements in this process were the commonality of the territory, the Turkic language and Islamic religion.
An important role in the formation of the Crimean Tatar people belongs to the Western Kipchaks, known in historiography as Cumans. They became the consolidating ethnic group, which included all other peoples who inhabited the Crimea since ancient times. Kipchaks from the 11th-12th century began to settle the Volga, Azov and Black Sea steppes (which from then until the 18th century were called the Desht-i Kipchak – "Cumanian steppe"). Starting in the second half of the 11th century, they began actively moving to the Crimea. A significant number of the Cumans hid in the mountains of Crimea, fleeing after the defeat of the combined Cumanian-Russian troops by the Mongols and the subsequent defeat of the Cumanian proto-state formations in the Northern Black Sea region.
By the end of the 15th century, the main prerequisites that led to the formation of an independent Crimean Tatar ethnic group were created: the political dominance of the Crimean Khanate was established in Crimea, the Turkic languages (Cuman-Kipchak on the territory of the khanate) became dominant, and Islam acquired the status of a state religion throughout the Peninsula. By a preponderance Cumanian population of the Crimea acquired the name "Tatars", the Islamic religion and Turkic language, and the process of consolidating the multi-ethnic conglomerate of the Peninsula began, which has led to the emergence of the Crimean Tatar people.[19] Over several centuries, on the basis of Cuman language with a noticeable Oghuz influence, the Crimean Tatar language has developed.”
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_Tatars#Origin


This sort of debate has also swirled around the issue of the ethnic identity of one of Europe's most misunderstood Muslim ethnic groups, the Crimean Tatars. While the Crimean Tatars (who were exiled in toto from their homeland from 1944±1989 by Stalin) see themselves as the indigenous people (korennoi narod) of their cherished peninsular homeland, with origins traceable to the pre-Mongol period, they have long been portrayed in western and Soviet sources as thirteenth-century ``Mongol invaders’’.
Source: Williams, Brian Glyn. 2001. "The Ethnogenesis of the Crimean Tatars. An Historical Reinterpretation"


While the Crimean Tatars are traditionally described as descendents of the Golden Horde, the formation of this Turkic-speaking, Sunni Muslim people has pre-Mongol origins in the ancient, indigenous peoples of the Crimean peninsula. They believe their history begins with the tribes living
in Crimea in prehistoric and ancient times, including the Tavriis and Kimmerites, who occupied the peninsula from 2-1,000 B.C.E. (Kudusov 1995: 15). The Crimean Tatars therefore consider themselves one of the indigenous peoples, along with the Karaims and Krymchaks
Source: The Crimean Tatars’ Deportation and Return - GRETA LYNN UEHLING (2004)


Under the Imperial Russians, the Crimean Tatars, whose ethnic origins went back to the eleventh century Kipchaks and beyond to earlier south Crimean peoples, such as the Medieval Goths, Greeks and Italians, would begin to disintegrate as hundreds of thousands of the Tsarina’s new Muslim subjects fled Russian repression to the sheltering lands of the Ottoman sultans/caliphs. The majority of the Crimea’s Muslim Tatar peasants would ultimately leave the peninsula to par- take in hijra (migration to preserve Islam from oppression by the non- believer) to the Ottoman Empire.
Source: BRIAN GLYN WILLIAMS “The Crimean Tatars” (2016)

2. “The Westasian and Mediterranean genetic components (population of Asia Minor and Balkans) predominate in the gene pool of Crimea Tatars, the Eurasian steppe component is much fewer.” Source: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/311805917_The_Tatars_of_Eurasia_peculiarity_of_Crimean_Volga_and_Siberian_Tatar_gene_pools
3. The Eurasian genetic influence concerns particularly a subgroup of Crimean Tatars:
“It is the most likely that discovered features of Steppe Crimean Tatars gene pool reflect the genetic contribution of medieval Eurasian Steppe nomads. The component predominant in Mountain and Coastal Crimean Tatars gene pools and in Crimean Greeks suggests that genetic contribution of East Mediterranean populations continued in Crimea for many centuries.”
Source: https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/the-gene-pool-of-indigenous-crimean-populations-mediterranean-meets-eurasian-steppe/pdf

Nope, you weren't "questioning my theory of rightful owners" but your deliberate misinterpretation of it!
It's precisely that kind of statement that demonstrates beyond reasonable doubt that you ARE ignorant and confused. Are you sure you aren't related to ssu and @Christoffer? :rofl:
As a matter of fact, you haven't really addressed any of the many legitimate points I've made. All you're doing is resort to evasion and diversion to cover up your ignorance and duplicity. — Apollodorus

Dude, I don’t mind your insults, it’s really that you arguments really suck. Even sarcasm is wasted on you.

If the Crimean Tatars are "indigenous Crimeans", why don't they call themselves Indigenous Crimeans? Why do they call themselves “Tatars”, a name given to Mongols and Turks from Central Asia? — Apollodorus

Again?! I’m going to repeat the same answer I gave you in the previous post (https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/699578).
“Crimean Tatars" speak a “Crimean Tatar language” as their native language:
The Crimean Tatar language (qırımtatar tili, къырымтатар тили, tatar tĭlĭ, tatarşa, kırım tatarşa), also called Crimean language (qırım tili, къырым тили), is a Kipchak Turkic language spoken in Crimea and the Crimean Tatar diasporas of Uzbekistan, Turkey, Romania and Bulgaria, as well as small communities in the United States and Canada. It should not be confused with Tatar proper, spoken in Tatarstan and adjacent regions in Russia; the languages are related, but belong to two different subgroups of the Kipchak languages and thus are not mutually intelligible. It has been extensively influenced by nearby Oghuz dialects.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_Tatar_language

But for sure that’s not enough to call them “the Mongols of Crimea” as you did!

Wikipedia - and all other sources - state very clearly (a) that Tatars are a Turkic people and (b) that Turkic people are a Mongoloid group that originated in Siberia. What exactly have I "misunderstood"??? — Apollodorus

You do not only confuse cultural factors with biological factors but you do it on a historical scale (given your obsession for the mythic “origins”).

“Mongoloid race” has to do with biology:
Mongoloid (/ˈmɒŋ.ɡə.lɔɪd/[1]) is an obsolete racial grouping of various people indigenous to large parts of Asia, the Americas, and some regions in Europe and Oceania. The term is derived from a now-disproven theory of biological race.[2] In the past, other terms such as "Mongolian race", "yellow", "Asiatic" and "Oriental" have been used as synonyms.
BTW
The concept of dividing humankind into three races called Caucasoid, Mongoloid, and Negroid was introduced in the 1780s by members of the Göttingen School of History and further developed by Western scholars in the context of racist ideologies during the age of colonialism.[3] With the rise of modern genetics, the concept of distinct human races in a biological sense has become obsolete.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongoloid


“Tatar” has to do with language:
The Tatars (/ˈtɑːtərz/; Tatar: татарлар, tatarlar, تاتارلر, Crimean Tatar: tatarlar; Old Turkic: , romanized: Tatar) is an umbrella term for different Turkic ethnic groups bearing the name “Tatar".
[…] More recently, however, the term has come to refer more narrowly to related ethnic groups who refer to themselves as Tatars or who speak languages that are commonly referred to as Tatar, namely Tatar by Volga Tatars (Tatars proper), Crimean Tatar by Crimean Tatars and Siberian Tatar by Siberian Tatars.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tatars

The Turkic peoples are a collection of diverse ethnic groups of Central, East, North and West Asia as well as parts of Europe, who speak Turkic languages.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkic_peoples


Authors Joo-Yup Lee and Shuntu Kuang analyzed ten years of genetic research on Turkic people and compiled scholarly information about Turkic origins, and said that the early and medieval Turks were a heterogeneous group and that the Turkification of Eurasia was a result of language diffusion, not a migration of a homogeneous population.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkic_migration#Origin_theories


Tatars are divided into 3 main ethno-territorial groups: Tatars of the Middle Volga and Ural regions, Siberian Tatars, Astrakhan Tatars. In addition, a separate group of Polish-Lithuanian Tatars is distinguished. Crimean Tatars, due to their ethno-historical development, are considered a separate people. Volga Tatars are divided into 3 groups: Kazan Tatars, Mishars and Teptyars, Kasimov Tatars form an intermediate group. Siberian Tatars are divided into 3 groups: Baraba, Tobolsk, Tomsk. Astrakhan Tatars are also divided into 3 groups: Yurt, Kundra Tatars and Karagash, close to the Nogais. The traditional occupation of the Tatars is arable farming, among the Astrakhan Tatars - cattle breeding and melon growing. Tatars are Sunni Muslims, with the exception of minor groups of Kryashens and Nagaybaks, who converted to Orthodoxy as early as the 16th-18th centuries. According to the anthropological type, the Kazan Tatars are Caucasoids, part of the Astrakhan and Siberian Tatars belong to the South Siberian type of the Mongoloid race.
Source: https://www.vokrugsveta.ru/encyclopedia/index.php?title=%D0%A2%D0%B0%D1%82%D0%B0%D1%80%D1%8B

So the generic label “Tatars” may refer to different races, different turkic languages, and different ethnic groups in different historical periods and geographical regions! And I pointed that out on many occasions! Your misconceptions stem from your ignorance and confusion about the ethnohistory of the people called “Tatars”, and the result of this is your misconception that the Crimean Tatars are the Mongols of Crimea, which is false on historical, genetic and linguistic grounds!

According to sources (e.g. Encyclopedia Britannica), 75% of Crimea’s population under the Tatar Khanate were non-Tatar slaves and freedmen, i.e., mostly Slavs from Russia, Ukraine, and Poland, and Caucasians from places like Georgia and Circassia. — Apollodorus

So what?! Can you provide the link to the source you are referring to?

When Russia took Crimea from Turkey in 1783, the majority of Crimeans are supposed to have been Tatars. However, this is obviously misleading as it depends entirely on how “Tatar” is defined.
Many Russians and Ukrainians, and I suspect even Putin himself, have some Tatar (Mongol-Turkic) ancestry and may even have some Tatar features. But modern genetic analysis shows that even those who self-identify as “Tatar” often have more European DNA than Tatar. This renders the claim that Tatars made up “the majority” prior to the Russian takeover of Crimea highly questionable. — Apollodorus

So what?! And who on earth said that “the Tatars” made up the majority?! In my previous post (https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/699578) I said: “after the Tatar-Mongol reign, the Crimean Tatars as indigenous people of Crimea became the majority by assimilating other ethnic groups (see this historical demographic map https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6a/Ethnic_Population_of_Crimea_18th%E2%80%9321st_century.png)”

I never understood the label of “Crimean Tatars” as referring to Mongols or historical Tatar-Mongol (like the Golden Horde invaders and rulers), you did and I questioned it!

As you can see for yourself, the Tatar lady who posted her DNA data on ICCRIMEA is only 28% Northern Asian, i.e., Siberian-Mongol-Turkic or Tatar proper. Are you now denying your own evidence? :grin:
In some Crimean Tatars the percentage may indeed be higher or lower as she suggests, but if her DNA is anywhere near average, this indicates that genuine Tatars with more than 50% Northern Asian DNA could not have been the majority! Your own evidence contradicts your claim that Tatars were "the majority"!!! — Apollodorus

What on earth did you just write?!!! I cited this ICCRIMEA article to support the claim that Crimean Tatars are NOT MONGOLS AS YOU CLAIM!!! And again, I never said that the Tatars as you understand them were the majority, but I explicitly said that the Crimean Tatars as the indigenous people of Crimea by assimilation of different ethnic groups became the majority prior to the Russification of Crimea, see the fucking historical demographic map I provided to you!!!

The true ratio of Northern/East Asian and European DNA in Tatar populations is corroborated by data from individuals outside Crimea, such as the Volga-Ural region, showing that the mitochondrial gene pool of the Volga Tatars has a Eurasian (Caucasoid) component that prevails considerably over the Eastern Asian (Mongoloid) one:

The Volga Tatars live in the central and eastern parts of European Russia and in western Siberia. They are the descendants of the Bulgar and Kipchak Turkic tribes who inhabited the western wing of the Mongol Empire, the area of the middle Volga River (Khalikov 1978; Kuzeev 1992). The Volga Bulgars settled on the Volga in the eighth century, where they mingled with Scythian- and Finno-Ugric-speaking peoples. After the Mongol invasion, much of the population survived and mixed with the Kipchak Tatars. Anthropologically, about 80% of the Volga Tatars belong today to Caucasoids and 20% to Mongoloids (Khalikov 1978). Linguistically, they speak a language of a distinct branch of the Turkic group, within the Altaian family of languages.


Mitogenomic Diversity in Tatars from the Volga-Ural Region of Russia - Oxford Academic — Apollodorus

And how on earth does that prove that “the truth of the matter is that there is very little genetic difference between Mongols and Turkic people like the Tatars” as you claimed?! And how on earth does that prove that Crimean Tatars currently living in Crimea are Mongols or historical Mongol-Tatars as you claimed?!
Crimean Tatars are NEITHER MONGOLS (whatever the origin of the turkic language or of the Tatar migrations is !!!) NOR THE HISTORICAL TATAR-MONGOLS AS YOU CLAIMED OR SUGGESTED!!!! EXACTLY THE POINT I MADE A WHILE AGO!
Conclusion: Wikipedia historical trivia (yours included) do not question but confirm that the ethnic stratification of Crimean Tatars relate to the period prior to, during and after the Mongol empire (which per se was already a multi-ethnic empire as many ancient empires were! And that is also why genetic evidence about “generic” Tatars wrt Mongols is neither very useful nor conclusive!), that is why they are not Mongols in a historical sense either!
So any assimilation of Crimean Tatars with Mongols or middle-age Mongolian-Tatar hordes is, to be kind, an oversimplification, partly based on historical misconceptions (arguably still supported by Russian propaganda [2]).
[2] The firm belief that the Crimean Tatars were descendants of the Golden Horde, who settled on the peninsula in the first half of the 13th century, was firmly ingrained in the minds of many scholars. This myth appeared immediately after the annexation of Crimea by Russia in 1783, and has since become firmly entrenched in official Russian and then Soviet historiography and continues to be replicated in the scientific literature. The falsifiers took the events related to the Horde period as the starting point of origin of the Crimean Tatars, which, in fact, is only a stage of a centuries-old, complex historical process. Source: https://culture.voicecrimea.com.ua/en/ethnogenesis-of-the-crimean-tatars/
Source: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/697542

As for claims that “Crimean Tatars have nowhere else to go than Crimea”, they are complete nonsense given that most Crimean Tatars emigrated (note, emigrated, not “expelled”) to Turkey between 1783 and 1897, thus settling that question of their own accord. — Apollodorus

Really?! You certainly mean: not expelled, but emigrated to avoid Russian imperialistic oppression that you should oppose, right?!
The Crimean Tatar diaspora dates back to the annexation of Crimea by Russia in 1783, after which Crimean Tatars emigrated in a series of waves spanning the period from 1783 to 1917. The diaspora was largely the result of the destruction of their social and economic life as a consequence of integration into the Russian Empire .
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_Tatar_diaspora
And the phrase “Crimean Tatars have nowhere else to go than Crimea” is again a way to stress that Crimean Tatars are indigenous to Crimea and would prefer to stay in their homeland without suffering oppressive regimes like the one Russian imperialism is offering AND you should oppose!

The way I see it, the correct application of the principle that “every country and continent should belong to its rightful owners” is not for Crimean Tatars to join Turkey – as Turkey itself is territory illegally taken from Greeks, Armenians, Kurds, and others – but to return to Turkic countries in Central Asia. — Apollodorus

What on earth did you just write?! You previously offered evidence in support to the claim that Crimean Tatars are neither Mongols nor the historical Tatar-Mongols, and now you want to move them to Central Asia?! How on earth would you do so?! You mean that Russian imperialists as privileged heir of the Greek civilisation and holy custodian of the Indo-European heritage should impose a racial test among Crimean Tatars and expel the ones who show more than 50% Mongoloid race owners DESPITE THE FACT THAT the ethnogenesis of the Crimean Tatars proves that Crimean Tatars as indigenous to Crimea also by assimilating Indo-European Caucasoid people and that no western Indo-European Caucasoid ancestors can claim to have colonised the entire Crimea prior to Turkic people migrations AND THEREFORE they should be considered the rightful owners of Crimea ?! Are you crazy?!… And racist?!
(BTW I guess all the Indo-European Caucasoid that colonised America should be resettled in Europe or, even better, crammed into the Caucasian area where all the Indo-European came from, right?)

Stalin’s resettlement of Crimea’s Tatar minority (about 20% of the total population) to their original homeland in Central Asia was unfair on those Tatars who were actually European, and this was readily acknowledged by the Russian authorities who eventually gave resettled Tatars the right to return. — Apollodorus

Oh I see, they acknowledged it, and that’s why the Russians are still oppressing Crimean Tatars in Crimea, right?! It makes perfect sense! Moreover you previously argued in favour of resettling Crimean Tatars back again to Central Asia as your theory demands, so Russians are wrong in giving resettled Tatars the right to return to Crimea, they should listen to you, right?!

To the extent that it was arbitrary, that resettlement scheme was a mistake. It is one thing to relocate genuine Turkic Crimeans to Central Asia where they had come from. It is quite another to send Greeks who had lived in Crimea since the 7th century BC to Kazakhstan! — Apollodorus

This is why, personally, I’m against forced deportations and I think diplomatic solutions backed by financial incentives are to be preferred. But the process has to start with correctly identifying who should relocate. Otherwise, how are we going to know which territory rightfully belongs to whom? — Apollodorus

Then start by defining what “genuine Turkic Crimeans” and “Greeks” mean, because as suggested in the ICCRIMEA article, since Crimean Tatars are ethnically intermixed, one can not send 28% of Northern Asian genes to Central Asia, if it makes sense to you, right?!
BTW, you are against imperialism, against forced deportation and for economic incentives, but Crimean Tatars didn’t see anything like that in centuries of russification of Crimea, did they? Besides how is this putative attitude of yours square with what you were claiming previously: “In expelling some of the Mongols of Crimea and resettling them in Central Asia from where they had invaded, Russia arguably redressed a historic injustice”. Indeed, why would economic-civic oppression and deportation of Crimean Tatars be illegitimate if it’s matter of rectifying a horrible historical injustice that the Russians suffered for centuries?!

In the Crimean context, the problem seems to be not as much genetic as CULTURAL. The genetic evidence indicates that “Tatars” are mostly Indo-Europeans (Caucasoids) who were forced to speak Tatar (a Turkic language) and to convert to Islam under Mongol-Turkic rule. In other words, they assumed an alien cultural and linguistic identity under foreign occupation and this identity is now blown out of proportion for political ends.
And if the problem is cultural, one logical solution would be not to resettle Crimeans of European descent but to encourage them to shed their false Turkic or “Tatar” identity. — Apollodorus

What on earth did you just write?! To me, if your “logic” solution is to deport some and brainwash the rest, the problem is in your preposterous theory of the rightful owners grounded on all sorts of historical, genetic, linguistic and ideological misconceptions. Ironically, even within your own misconceptions, you finally rejected your own previous claims by supporting that Crimean Tatars are, mostly, not the Mongols of Crimea and do not need any resettling!
What is still missing in your racist views is an argument to support the idea that the Turkic cultural identity is a false identity while the biological identity is a true identity (considering that is also based on obsolete racial theories like the distinction of Mongoloid or Caucasoid races)!
BTW shouldn’t Christianism be abandoned since it stemmed from Semitic people while true Westerners are Indo-European Caucasoid non-Semitic (Arians?) people?

In any case, Tatar presence in Crimea does NOT show that “Crimea belongs to Ukraine”! — Apollodorus

Neither the opposite though, at least until you can provide a genetic study of the Crimean Tatars that proves there is no relevant genetic link between them and Ukrainians’ ancestors.
Still, unfortunately, this claim of yours is and has always been absolutely non pertinent to address my objections, because I talked about the Crimean Tatars to question your theory of “the rightful owners” and conclude not that Crimea belongs to Ukrainians, but that - according to your own theory of the rightful owners - the Crimean Tatars should most likely be considered the rightful owners of Crimea as indigenous people of Crimea, not the Russians! Ukrainians acknowledged this on legal grounds, while Russians are still oppressing Crimean Tatars.

Yet the Natoist argument seems to be as follows:

A. Crimea is “Tatar”.
B. Tatars are “Ukrainians”.
C. Therefore Crimea is Ukrainian.
D. And Ukraine is Western.
E. Therefore Ukraine and Crimea belong to America and its NATO Empire.
F. But Russia doesn’t think that Crimea and Ukraine belong to America.
G. Therefore Russia must be destroyed so that it never again deviates from what America says the world should think. — Apollodorus

Who on earth is making this Natoist argument?! I never made, implied nor suggested such a shitty argument! There is not even any remote resemblance to what I would be capable of arguing! So either you are bizarrely confusing me with other (imaginary?) interlocutors or you are blatantly making things up as the worst Russian trolls do, maybe with the intent to redirect people’s attention far from your preposterous racist theory of the rightful owners and resume your filo-Russian propaganda routine!

If America is prepared to do this to Russia, how can other countries be sure that it won’t do the same to them?
Moreover, the destruction of Russia is likely to result in Turkey, China, Iran, and other powers trying to fill the vacuum and potentially lead to decades of instability and war in Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and elsewhere.
Eastern Europe is already heading for a serious recession, probably to be soon followed by Western Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. Economic hardship and wars will result in millions of refugees fleeing to Western Europe and other parts of the First World. These are enormous problems that America has created but is unwilling and unable to solve.
America has a long and well-documented history of “solving” some problems whilst creating many other new ones. We need only look at Iraq where they removed Saddam Hussein but created ideal conditions for Islamic State a.k.a. ISIS to emerge - who turned out to be far worse than Saddam.
In these circumstances, European and other leaders around the world may start asking themselves whether it isn’t time to break free from America’s policy of world domination in which the only thing that matters are the interests of US oil and defense corporations.
IMO a far more balanced – and philosophically acceptable – position would be to follow the lead of less-ideologically-committed analysts, and advise Ukraine to (a) stay neutral and (b) cede some territory, e.g., Crimea, to Russia.
As Henry Kissinger has said, “the United States needs to avoid treating Russia as an aberrant to be taught rules of conduct established by Washington.” I think philosophers would do well to consider the implications of refusing to follow Kissinger’s advice. — Apollodorus

This is the best example of diversion with random anti-NATO and filo-Russian propaganda which bears no relation whatsoever to what I was disputing wrt Crimean Tatar issue. Is this really your best to prove you are not biased toward Russian propaganda?!

What an epic failure are you, dude!