• Ukraine Crisis
    The human garbage that runs your country should be at least as concerning for you as the human garbage that invaded Ukraine, seeing as you may have voted for the former. — Baden

    Of course. That was never in question. Biden is a Roman Catholic of Irish descent, BTW.
  • Ukraine Crisis
    ↪Baden
    I can't find the info on the discounted arms sale. Could you point me to it?
  • Ukraine Crisis
    Can we not get the facts straight? — frank

    So that's a no. :chin:
  • Ukraine Crisis
    I'm happy to be corrected on the facts. I just wonder if you agree that ethically there's no major distinction. If you sell someone a weapon knowing they're going to use it to kill civilians, you are partly responsible for those deaths, right? — Baden

    Yes. You're partly responsible.

    We have two different narratives here. In one, the US finances a war crime. This suggests that the US had a particular interest doing damage to Yemen. This is not true.

    In the second narrative the US assisted Saudi Arabia, but did not directly finance anything. It was a deal with the devil.

    Let's say the weight of American sin is equal in both cases and Americans will spend the same amount of time in Hell either way.

    Still, one story is true and the other is a fucking lie. Can we not get the facts straight?
  • Ukraine Crisis
    Ok, can you explain to me the huge ethical difference you see between e.g. selling someone a gun knowing they're going to murder someone with it and giving them money knowing they're going to go buy a gun and murder someone with it. — Baden

    Why can't we just get the facts straight? Is that a problem?
  • Ukraine Crisis
    It's a distinction without much of a difference. — Baden

    I disagree.
  • Ukraine Crisis
    Yes. The Saudis do pay hard cash for the M1 Abrams tanks, for those F-15 strike aircraft and smart bombs. — ssu

    Of course. The Houthis are Shia, so Saudi Arabia doesn't need any prodding from the US to attack them. The shame is for supporting them while they did it.
  • Ukraine Crisis
    OK, supported through arms sales and technical assistance, primarily. — Baden

    Yea. What you said was in line with what StreetlightX said earlier. Most of his posts contain outright lies. That was one of them.
  • Ukraine Crisis
    financed by the U.S., — Baden

    Not financed by the US. Supported in other ways.
  • Matrilineal Matriarchy.
    ↪unenlightened

    Navajos aren't Plains Indians. They live around the Grand Canyon. Plains Indians are usually Siouxan.

    What sort of property did Navajos have before white people showed up?
  • Matrilineal Matriarchy.
    There's a bunch of stuff on Native American tribes as well, you can find for yu'sen — unenlightened

    That’s funny. There are quasi native people near me who say "youen" to mean "you all."

    Plains Indians weren't exactly matrilineal, but to the extent that they had property, it was owned by the people who made it. Dwellings were made by women, so they owned them. Arrowheads were made by men, so I guess they owned them.
  • Aristotle: Time Never Begins
    Do you think Aristotle's argument is sound or valid? Why or why not? — Kuro

    I think it's valid with the premise that time accords with the way we usually imagine it.

    But there are other ways to imagine it and maybe some ways we haven't considered yet (as a species). So the conclusion may be wrong.
  • Ukraine Crisis
    ↪ssu


    It works well on both sides. "We're prepared for war because they are." The arms vendors win.
  • Ukraine Crisis
    Putin is a piece of shit.
    — frank

    All the empty smart-arse rhetoric from the Putin apologists in this thread, and yet that is indeed what it comes down to.     — Janus

    Yep.
  • Ukraine Crisis
    Putin is a piece of shit.
  • Ukraine Crisis
    Putin is beyond a revanchist. He’s an old school communist, nearly a Bolshevik-an apparatchik- who still thinks history is trending towards”workers of the world unite.” — Reshuffle

    No he's not.
  • Ukraine Crisis
    inundation — boethius

    I think the only people who are being inundated are people who watch cable news all day long. Get rid of your TV.
  • Ukraine Crisis
    ↪StreetlightX
    you suck
  • Ukraine Crisis
    Maybe get a better hobby? Have you tried Elden Ring? — StreetlightX

    I haven't. But then, I'm not glued to Twitter as you seem to be. I'm making a fence out of painted shapes. It's supposed to look like a giant lichen. That's my hobby.
  • Ukraine Crisis
    Yeah, the world is really in danger of not talking about Putin's crimes. Just a hair's breadth away from that untenable situation. — StreetlightX

    I prefer to hear it. It honors the victims (for me, anyway). The ones who are silent spit on their graves (basically).
  • Ukraine Crisis
    ↪StreetlightX

    So they're hypocrites. I'd rather that than have them be silent about Putin's crimes (like some people I know).
  • Ukraine Crisis
    As Cuthbert implied -- very philosophically -- about nuclear annihilation: it's not that bad; there is always the possibility that we will fail better next time. — Olivier5
    :blush:
  • Ukraine Crisis
    frank

    Ok, well then re-imagine my little bully story but you're not motivated to do anything at all about the situation except for some purely academic analysis on the internet.     — boethius

    I don't know what you're talking about. I'm sure that on the basics, we agree. Maybe we differ on strategies for dealing with bullies, but we're still on a dead rock hurtling through nowhere on the way to nowhere for no reason.

    As we pass into oblivion we whisper into the darkness: "we did the best we could..."
  • Ukraine Crisis
    ↪boethius

    I don't have any righteous rage. This is nothing new. Same shit different day.
  • Ukraine Crisis
    ↪Olivier5

    He wandered home wondering if he had any frozen peas in the freezer to nurse his black eye, and since he'd crapped his pants, should he wash them? Or just throw them away?

    “Damn NATO", he mumbled.
  • Ukraine Crisis
    Satan himself is in charge of Russia — Isaac

    Republicans love him. You're the only one thinking in supernatural terms. Weird.
  • Ukraine Crisis
    Zelensky is amazing. Holy shit.
  • Ukraine Crisis
    That was back in the good old days when I didn’t think Russia would invade, — jamalrob

    Ah. So you actually thought Joe Biden was lying about that. That kind of blows my mind. Why on earth would you think that?
  • Ukraine Crisis
    But if the West doesn't oppose military annexations (which neither should the UN accept), then naturally there's an opening for anybody to be retro-imperialist. — ssu

    The conventional wisdom is that China is supposed to start playing the role of global peace keeper. They want to be a super power, so that goes with the job.
  • Ukraine Crisis
    Not me, as far as I recall. — jamalrob

    The dangers of appeasement? You were offended, weren't you?
  • Ukraine Crisis
    At least the sliding has been noticed. — ssu

    People like jamalrob became offended when we brought this up earlier in the thread. What were they thinking?
  • Ukraine Crisis
    "This would take us a hundred years back, to the year 1917, and the consequences of such a step would be the global distrust of Russia from investors, it would be felt for many decades," Russian billionaire Vladimir Potanin said in a statement Friday on the Telegram messaging app."

    from The Hill about sanctions on Russia
  • Ukraine Crisis
    Nuclear war, at some point, is actually preferable to continued environmental destruction. — boethius

    As long as it kills all the humans, that's correct.
  • Ukraine Crisis
    It's the people that buy it that burn it, — boethius

    Well they could hardly do that if Russia wasn't making it available. They're definitely a significant contributer to climate change, so per Isaac's theory, we'll have to sacrifice them for the greater good.
  • Ukraine Crisis
    The reality is that the Ukraine you're talking about fighting for is more corrupt by independent indices of corruption than Russia. — Isaac

    Russia is worse for the climate, tho: all those hydrocarbons they export for burning. Russia is destroying the environment, so the should be nuked immediately.
  • Ukraine Crisis
    ↪Isaac

    You just keep going, long after you stopped making sense. That's interesting.
  • Ukraine Crisis
    All of which is, of course, irrelevant to the point, which was about the gross display moral pearl-cluthing over the exact indiscriminate disregard for humanity that's gone on virtually uncommented on for decades. — Isaac

    That’s wrong, but if it was right, it would be irrelevant.
  • Ukraine Crisis
    Seriously? You want to put some figures to that? — Isaac

    Sure. Median wealth:

    USA: $121,700
    Russia : $871

    This is kleptocracy at work: no investment in future production, just raping resources til there's nothing left.
  • Ukraine Crisis
    It was a piece of social commentary — Isaac

    It was just your failure to understand that Putin has outdone his western counterparts in fucking over his countrymen financially.
  • Is Infinity necessary?
    motion requires a cause. — Metaphysician Undercover

    I don't think so. Aristotle didn't know about inertia.
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