I guess they could. It's a big city, though. It's bigger than New York. That's a lot of bombs. And to just inherit a pile of blood and rubble?

Didn't mean to come across as hostile. Sorry.

The NY Times says it would be very difficult for any army to conquer Kiev, but an inexperienced group like the present Russian army would require a long drawn out seige.

My belief in the value of the convention of approaching belief in terms of tendencies toward various public actions will itself plausibly be 'cashed out' publicly not only in further speech acts but also in which books, friendships, and careers I pursue or fail to pursue. — jas0n

So you're saying you don't really know what actions are determined by your belief, but you're sure some will be. Why are you so sure?

Just exploring the issue, that's all.

Immaterial? If you think about P, is that not a concrete event in the world? If not, what is it?
— frank

How many angels fit inside an intention? What is the square root of coveting your neighbor's ass? — jas0n

So thinking is immaterial? Or there's no such thing as thinking?

At least you have some vague idea what the word means. That's an improvement over some around here.

I'd say it could/does inspire/constrain psychological research (eventually in actions which are not 'just talk', like this or that researcher getting a direct deposit or a chair being set up in a room.) — jas0n

But what about in your case? You believe it (we assume, since you asserted it). Does this mean anything other than that you'll utter a particular sentence at a certain time?

It should be stressed though that talk/writing is a kind of measurable action (as opposed to immaterial thought), — jas0n

Immaterial? If you think about P, is that not a concrete event in the world? If not, what is it?

. It is a prescription for specialists, not a definition of the word used in the wild. — jas0n

So it's a stipulation, not any sort of analysis?

Belief is only interesting if it determines action in the world. — jas0n

I assume that since you assert this, you believe it.

How would you say this particular belief determines action in the world?

I think you're wondering if some ontology is being smuggled in with the concept of a proposition. There isn't.

I will say, I've been surprised since I've been here how many posters have the same misconception about what analytical philosophers mean by "proposition."

Look it up if you're interested. It's not really an issue for debate.

beliefs are not necessarily bearers of truth. — Harry Hindu

That's the prevailing philosophical view, yes.

What form does a proposition take as the content of a belief? — Harry Hindu

What do you mean by "what form"?

The SEP has a lot of good information. One good article about belief and propositions is the one on truth bearers.

That's the shortsighted view of a slave. — Olivier5

Maybe the human species evolved to have some of that? Fear of thwarting authority?

I think the attitude that you have to stand up for yourself has a slightly suicidal side to it:

"My only regret is that I have but one life to give for my country."

"Give me liberty, or give me death."

the US is constantly threatening Russia and attacking and undermining it's defensive capacity since decades, — boethius

The cold war is over. The US hasn't been particularly interested in Russia for decades.

It's China, guys. Climb into the present with the rest of us.

Note I got you to backtrack your implication that Russia has an implicit right to invade Ukraine, to: nobody really respects sovereignty.
— frank

Another person who can't read. I never said the first par — Benkei

Actually you did:

In any case, Russia cannot logically be expected to accept the Black Sea being turned into a NATO lake (controlled by NATO states Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine, and possibly Georgia).
— Apollodorus

And a multitude of other cases
-ssu

Why do you disagree with this? I thought we already established the proxy war fought over the Ukraine since well before that? The strategic importance of Crimea and therefore the Black Sea seems obvious as well. Moscow being pincered by the baltic states and Ukraine in a sort of "C" around Belarus would be strategically worrying too. — Benkei

The day all countries respect sovereignty, it will be a great day. As long as they don't, complaining about it is just hypocrisy. Especially coming from an American citizen. — Benkei

Note I got you to backtrack your implication that Russia has an implicit right to invade Ukraine, to: nobody really respects sovereignty.

My work here is done.

it's better to think in terms of "p" as the content of the belief. — Banno

That’s what a proposition is.

I hope you're right. :up:

If they take Kiev and imprison Zelensky, I'm guessing they would make Ukraine a mini-Russia with maybe a few Ukrainian oligarchs beholden to Putin, and the rest Russian oligarchs who'll just gut Ukraine as they gutted Russia. Yes, Ukraine will hate Russia from now on and there will be terrorism, but nothing extraordinary. Probably.

If they leave with Zelensky still in power, those angry Ukrainians will have someone to rally around. The US will fund resistance in much the same way Iran funded various bullshit throughout the Middle East.

As long as Biden is the US president, Zelensky will have deep pockets to draw from. If Trump is elected, though, that would change, but I think the Ukrainians would still get bombs from somewhere.

Are you painting again? — Baden

:lol: No, I just got off work and I'm stuffing my face.

No, why would it be bad for them now not to take Kiev if they can get what they want without taking it? — Baden

Joe Biden

I wouldn't trust war commanders any more than micromanaging dictators with saving lives. But I don't have clear evidence of Putin micromanaging, anyhow. If you do, send it on. — Baden

The US military is monitoring. They can't detect a war commander. That indicates that the Russian troops are being directed from Moscow. That would explain why they keep doing stupid things like pulling a vessel into an unsecured dock only to have it blown up by Ukraine.

Unfortunately, I don't expect a country whose defence industry has been destroyed to be able to put up a decent fight for much longer in the face of a much stronger enemy, regardless of how many arms we give them. It would be like expecting Mexico to be able to hold off the US. — Baden

So Russia will take Kiev soon? Or go home without doing that? I'm sure you can imagine what will happen if it's the latter.

It's not unexpected. This army has no experience with this kind of war, and they have a dictator trying to micromanage instead of a war commander who could probably save lives on both sides.

What are you arguing against? I don't think there's anything in the quote or what I said that says the Russians wouldn't have liked to have taken Kyiv immediately if they could have done that. — Baden

Sorry. I thought you were arguing that they're meeting their original goals. If they are, they're nuts.

Sure. For logistical reasons, we would expect the Russians to try to make this a short war. That means take Kiev. If they don't, this war will rage on.

Nah. They wanted to take Kiev, but due to one part Ukrainian agile effectiveness and one part Russian sluggishness, they didnt. That's common sense. Doesn't mean Russia abides by common sense.

democracy as, for all practical intents and purposes, an act of relying on an oracle. — baker

How ridiculous.

Ukraine wanted to join NATO. It's in their constitution. Have a little decency, please.

The NY Times says they've lost seven generals now and somewhere between 7 and 15 thousand military deaths.

Apparently the Russian offensive is being managed from Moscow, so they keep making mistakes just due to the lack of a coordinating commander on the ground.

The west clearly put huge efforts into destroying them. — Isaac

Destroy? Or contain?

My mother-in-law told me I'd never really understand Chekhov because I'm not Russian. I say bollocks to that (I didn't say that at the time). — jamalrob

:grin:

The development of Linux at least implies that it's possible to develop such systems collaboratively. — Isaac

When PCs first appeared, there were a bunch of different kinds. Each had its own microprocessor. That meant that if you developed software on an Apple, it wouldn't run on an IBM PC. If you made a game on an HP, it wouldn't run on Intel's PC, and so on.

In order to go crazy doing software, there needed to be a standard, so there would be a market to support the development. IBM ended up taking that role, mainly because they didn't patent their hardware. Nobody decided that IBM would be the standard, it just happened.

Now that all that development has taken place, other OS's can enter the scene. I use Chrome, but the software I use at work runs on Microsoft, IBM's platform.

What this tells you is that capitalism doesn't require competition. In fact, the worst episodes in the history of capitalism were when monopolies ruled overtly.

Are you suggesting all the West's efforts to destroy the USSR were irrelevant? Or are you suggesting they took a 'live and let live' attitude toward communism? — Isaac

No, I'm saying the USSR became, as Gorbachev put it, "a mountain of lies."

It was especially popular when Russia was forming an empire, I think. It's quite significant. And I wouldn't be surprised if it had some currency today, with the revival of the church, but I'm not sure. — jamalrob

Oh. Cool. I didn't realize that.

Linux is Unix based. C language comes from Bell Labs.

To try and wrest this back to the topic... The argument was that Russia had better follow western societies (even at the risk of commercialisation) since there were no viable alternatives. I pointed out that the lack of viable alternatives was a deliberate result of the system itself and so couldn't be used as evidence (it didn't win in a fair competition). You said that ruthless competition was sometimes good, — Isaac

The USSR collapsed. That wasn't because of the West.

See, if you persist in your terse, cryptic style of posting rather than making clear and expansive arguments, you'll continue to confuse me. You still haven't told me which Western values caused the Russians to go a-conquering. — jamalrob

Sorry. I'm painting while talking. :grimace:

One way to understand western European history is to say that Rome left a lasting mark. It's an image from the past that was cast into the future. So when anybody became dominant, the idea of Rome was there in the background. That's Western imperialism. It's Norman style, take no prisoners, cataclysmic conflict where no one is left in doubt who's in charge. That's the myth anyway.

Russia doesn't have the same kind of imagery in its history. It has Byzantium, but that was just a trading partner. I mean, how would you describe the prevailing Russian myth?

I have ideas about it, but what do I know?

I'm actually not sure why you brought up Marxists — jamalrob

Marxism is a form of apocalypticism. It took root in a Russia already steeped in Christian apocalypticism.

Did it? I know nothing of the history. My point was that it's open source, ie not a monopoly. — Isaac

Open source isn't in opposition to monopoly.

I think you missed my point.

It's mainly the exceptionalism, I think, and the assumption that they lead the world or should be doing so. (Obviously this is a gross generalization) — jamalrob

Notice how Marxists think of themselves as special. They have esoteric understanding of history and the world. This is the nature of apocalypticism.

That kind of mentality existed in Russia before the USSR. It's always been in the USA as well.

My PC runs on Linux. — Isaac

Why do you need Linux? But yea. That came from a government regulated monopoly.

Ruthless competition certainly lead to the development of my phone — Isaac

No. Your phone couldn't have come into existence in a competitive environment. You need a single infrastructure.

The same is true with PCs. You need one common OS to allow the fruition of the technology's potential. Later you can add more OS's, after the initial stage.

These things happened organically. The system is a tool. The vision is ultimately in charge.

This might be unfair, but I have a sneaking suspicion that your idea amounts to a kind of orientalism, sometimes found in popular histories of Russia. — jamalrob

I really hate bias. I want to gather my own ideas about how cultures work, but I'm aware that simplifying leads to inaccuracy.

I'm sort of stuck with my particular psyche that needs to grasp culture like I'm understanding a person. Then I try to force myself to look at exceptions to my rules as signs that I missed something.

One thing I kept coming back to with Russia was the way it's surprisingly similar to the US. They both have strong apocalyptic streaks and that sometimes influences events.

I thought we were all trying to be more civil... — Isaac

I really appreciated your comment. I meant that leftists would do well to spend a little time in silence reflecting on how much power they once had and how that was squandered.

I agree entirely, but it doesn't have any bearing on the fact that the absence of a viable alternative cannot be used as evidence in a system which deliberately destroys alternatives. — Isaac

True.

Unless, of course, you agree with ruthless competition, in which case, yes, Western capitalism seems currently to be the winner. Not sure that's anything to crow about, but it might just be an uncomfortable fact. For now... — Isaac

Ruthless competition is good in some cases. Monopoly works well in others. There are a number of aspects of your environment that originated in Western monopolies. Your phone is one of them. So it's not really an east/west thing.

I think some of the reasons for the failure of leftist projects might have been in the design.

. Create a system which exploits workers to put enormous economic and militarily power in the hands of a narrow elite.

2. Use this power to ruthlessly destroy any alternative systems.

3. Point to the absence/destruction of alternative systems as evidence that no other system works. — Isaac

This is true except it leaves part of the story out. If your opponent crashes your head into a brick wall, you might stop and wonder if you could have represented yourself a little better.

All leftists everywhere need to shut up and think about that.

I just didn't know what you meant when you said that "every time Russia has become imperialistic, it was because of European influence". — jamalrob

Oh, sorry. Yes, you're right. I wasnt even counting Ivan's efforts as imperialism. That didn't seem to be his focus for most of his reign.

But if you just mean that Russian imperialism has always taken place partly against and in the context of the actions of countries and empires to the West of Russia, then yes, of course- — jamalrob

I meant that their greatest imperialistic efforts look more like an injection of western values than something home grown. Is that wrong?