Boredom is just one of the many feelings a human being can be aware of at any time. Most probably Schopenhauer was "bored to death" and boredom dominated all his other feelings! :smile:
If he had lived today, he would maybe have chosen "stress" as the basic element at the heart of human condition in our times ...

But then, we can say of a lot of other things besides feelings to be at the heart of the human condition, i.e. which are more characteristic of the human condition (than boredom): Suffering, love, compassion, communication and understanding, acknowledgment and recognition, ... All these are very important needs --at the heart of the human condition-- that characterize humans, making them different from other species. — Alkis Piskas

Nah on all that. Go back to some posts discussed on here for reference. At the end of the day, besides survival motivations, you are trying to get your attention caught up by something.

Again, you are misrepresenting my position. What I’m saying is that perceiving a ‘problem’ with existence - this pessimistic nature of the human condition - is indicative of a value structure that conceives the ‘individual’ as more important, greater qualitative value, than existence — Possibility

Huh? This is more gaslighting. The world I understand is through my mediating self. It was the individual brought into existence and that suffers. You can twist that logic all you want and you ain’t gonna change that point. I might interact from it and learn information that I can process to survive in my environment and entertain, but it’s still the individual who is processing and using this information and outputting it. You can’t just skip over that.

Formal logic insists that only one of these value structures can be our ‘true’ value structure - so it seems as if we’re ‘forced’ to choose between the qualitative primacy of the individual (in which case the problem is existence), or the quantitative primacy of existence (in which case the problem is individual, personal). — Possibility

This sounds incoherent. It sounds like you are saying what I already gathered, that it’s the individuals fault for experiencing the sufferings and harms. It also sounds like you think you can take the view from nowhere regarding your own existence. But you can’t. All choices are mediated by a person with a will, values, reasons, goals, etc that de facto are forced upon them as they are born and interacting.

No - the process leads to... collaboration, connection and awareness - it’s neither pessimistic nor optimistic. If I choose to be optimistic about it - well, that’s my choice, as I’ve said. Repeatedly. — Possibility

Fine collaborating about pessimism then. Awareness of the forced agenda we are all a part of. Why force people into life? Any answer implicates you mam. It implicates that you too have an agenda for people..

You’re playing the victim. And you clearly have no idea what my values are, as you can’t get beyond your own. It’s not about either complacency or defiance, nor about finding a way out, but a way through. This is easier to do when you can imagine the situation from a position already beyond it. — Possibility

Then tell me your philosophy! Can you actually summarize your argument in a succinct intelligible way? Do you even grasp what I’m arguing? All I’m getting from you is that it’s the pessimists fault for not seeing some truth that I’m sure you think you have access to cause you are seeing it from some quantitative way.

Gaslighting: “psychological manipulation of a person usually over an extended period of time that causes the victim to question the validity of their own thoughts, perception of reality, or memories and typically leads to confusion, loss of confidence and self-esteem, uncertainty of one's emotional or mental stability, and a dependency on the perpetrator.” — Possibility

Ok, so gaslighting is doing or seeing something crazy and then making the other people think they are crazy for thinking what they witnessed was crazy. So, Trump was a master at gaslighting. He constantly pushed the boundaries of decent presidential behavior and then made everyone else look like they are crazy or overblowing what he just did..

So, for example, the human condition comes with a LOT of inherent and contingent forms of suffering and harm. Yet, what you (albeit subtly) try to do is then say, "No, no, it's not existence that is the problem, it is YOUR problem". Thus I call it "existential gaslighting". It is making what actually is crazy (the pessimistic nature of the human condition) into a personal thing (YOUR problem). Thus things like the ethics of procreation, subjects like the objective understanding of having a willful striving nature, even the complaining about such injustices/tragedies cannot be discussed rationally, you see, because it is all in MY head.. and thus relegated to things like therapy and not philosophy. It is a subtle dismissing of what I am saying by RELATIVIZING it..

Now we can look past all the attempts at emotional manipulation, and address your argument. — Possibility

That is NOT emotional manipulation. That is direct and perhaps "aggressive" in tone. That is right in your face, mam. I did not subtly try to hint at insinuations that you have something else more than "collaboration, connection, awareness" in mind..as that is a process and you dismiss it when used for things you don't find to your taste (like pessimism or antinatalism), and thus you are actually (subtly again) hinting at a NORMATIVE value more than the three-word process you keep listing off. Your process seems to HAVE to lead to a non-pessimist conclusion.. Interesting how that works. It ends up being something like.. "Your distaste for life is something you should reflect upon.. join the connection club that I espouse, and you will join forces with the GREATER awareness of the whole.. etc. etc." How is this not Hegelian in style? All you have to do is add in the Absolute and you're pretty much there. A big behemoth existential process that humans are a part of leading to ultimate growth... Hegel (though his oddly stopped around the Prussian state in the 1800s rather than infinite growth I guess). Anyways, unintentional or not, I'm characterizing it as such as I see the parallels of group-process optimism.

Yes, every time we act, we must consolidate a ‘self’. — Possibility

You don't have to go any further..This is all that matters for a self to be a de facto necessity. Anything beyond this is hocus pocus.

But what we experience, desire or need - that is, what we assign value to - remains potentially a matter of choice, from which we determine a ‘self’ as a value structure, — Possibility

But we still MUST make choices.. The choice-maker is the SELF.. This is all subtle gaslighting, again, to try to say that I should seek therapy and join the "collaboration forces" for your Hegelian whatever, optimism thing.. What you are doing is COMPLETELY overlooking all my griping and just saying, "Hey, that's your problem, not existence's.. it's YOUR CHOICE".. I get what you are saying, mam.. But that doesn't resolve the moral problems of procreation, and the inherent suffering of existence.. No THAT isn't a choice as you KEEP insinuating.

It is this ‘sitting Buddha’ (an awareness in potentiality of stillness and no-self) that enables us to employ reason in the determination of ‘self’ rather than being bound by some externally ‘forced’ value structure. — Possibility

The very fact that I am thrown into this situation at all that I am discussing. Anything, including being a "sitting Buddha" is part of this throwness.. You have the values of the middle-class suppressors here.. "It's all in YOUR MIND" is the way to make people complacent with the existential situation. I think we both agree there is no way out... But I am going to be defiant and not this bullshit, where I place the blame on myself for not "seeing" the bigger picture. Fuck that, mam.

In other words, you gripe about having been born because you see yourself as a person. If you didn't see yourself that way, you'd have nothing to gripe about. — baker

Yet this self-hood is at the heart of being born at all.. The fact that we even need a way out is something to look at first. If a perspective change happens through some Buddhist technique, the fact is, we were in place A (not Enlightened), and we need to get to place B (Enlightened).

Also, I just don't buy it.. The self-hood thing is part of moving through the world. Most people just can't become Enlightened ascetics (if that's even a metaphysical "thing" to become).. I may want to be the best X, but doesn't mean I will achieve that.. Same with this. In a way it is aligned with a radical perspective in anthropology that sees humans very cognition as being radically different. Sapir-Whorf like.. You see, Eskimos understand snow better because they have more words for different snow...

So individuals choose to form an identity.. But that's just not true. Humans function (normally) via enculturation using socio-cultural cues aligning with a whole host of human-traits that we evolved to survive and live in the world. If anything, the desire to shed one's self-hood is simply a recognition of the disappointments of the self that must form as being a functioning human. First comes the identity and then comes the detaching from identity.. There is still a "deal with" situation of moving from attached to not attached.. So now there's that put upon the human born into the world...

Also, there is a sense of gaslighting going on.. This kind of "detachment will set you free" thing just isn't feasible because I would be a sitting Buddha for eternity if it were true.. But "something" needs to pee.. It's a "body" that this is happening to.. What is the thing that "feels" the need to release the bodily fluid? What is the thing that decides that it will go in a white bowl rather than on the carpet? Oh it's not "me"? Call it what you want, but now it is just word play semantics.. The "consolidation" of decisions, feelings, and behavior is traditionally assigned as "self" or an "I".. You can't get away from it the instant anything is experienced, desired, needed, etc.. (like the feeling of having to go to the bathroom, or pain, etc.). You can do some practice and say, "This feeling is not "me".. but when you wet yourself, crap yourself, and then starve to death just sitting there.. well, doubtful "you" will let that happen.. The instant "you" do something, that becomes a self needing/desiring.. I don't care what was said earlier as some mantra of "this is not me" prior. Eventually you get up....

Made some additions above.

Gross misrepresentation of everything that I’ve written. Read it again. — Possibility

I read it, and it looks like you are saying, "Hey, you haven't committed suicide, so X, Y, Z about life!". Examine that feeling!"

Sure - I haven’t said that you can’t. But you’re not really going to increase awareness, connection or collaboration beyond those who already agree. From here, all you can do is promote a certain level of ignorance, isolate amongst yourselves and attack or exclude anyone who disagrees with you... — Possibility

You are implying that with some sort of dialectic, using your New Age Hegelian approach, I would move "past" antinatalism/pessimism (meaning that this isn't the right view, but I will move to the "right" view).. I will move to the view of the agenda.. that is more people born, more people that must "collaborate". Collaborate (happiness placement holder) damn you! Follow the Possibility self-help plan! Collaborate, connect! By my interactions I will "grow" and "grow out of pessimism" because pessimism is a self-contained thing and not "truth" which is only had by this instrumental process of connecting and collaborating, that leads to awareness.. Yes, yes, this isn't subtlely just asserting that your view is just "right" by using terms like "collaborate, connect". Just hollow buzzwords if said without context. However, what is YOUR agenda with these words? Certainly you think that collaborating and connecting would never lead to Pessimist conclusions.. No, no, so it is MORE than collaborating.. but collaborating towards SOMETHING that YOU HAVE IN MIND. What is that? Oh right, I'm sure if we examine it more it's just a form of (Hegelian-style?) optimism bullshit. You can always just dodge this with more obfuscation around your use of those words or more unnecessary and non-analogous connections with how this algins with physics concepts.. but, go ahead continue.. Or am I isolating you, and thus not ":hearing" you and thus I just won't ever "get it".. again implications that YOU have SOMETHING IN MIND MORE THAN just CONNECTION and COLLABORATION!

Wow, you really do reduce everything to a false dichotomy, don’t you? But okay...so you’re recognising a fear of death and an avoidance of pain, and acknowledging that you’re not sufficiently strained or depressed to intentionally pull the plug. That’s a start. — Possibility

A start of what? I always acknowledged that being against procreation and following the agenda that procreation brings does not entail suicide. Nor am I necessarily "suicidal". Nor is this "evidence" that I agree with the agenda of life.. So I think we have established all this...

I agree that your decision to stay alive should not be interpreted as wanting to be in this position. — Possibility

Ok, well that's a start :).

What I’m trying to say is that your pessimism as a qualitative position will always correspond to a particular and limited quantitative value, not to some overall or ‘objective’ evaluation of BEING. An accurate five-dimensional (‘individual’) perspective of BEING would need to recognise a qualitative and quantitative relativity to any measurement and/or measurement device. Not to mention that other ‘individuals’ would need to precisely align with either your qualitative position (pessimism) or your precise measurement of BEING first, before they will agree. Not such a surprise that you don’t seem to be making much headway with your arguments, then...

I’m not trying to defend any particular opposing position as negating yours - just the simple validity of disagreeing with your qualitative position. But I don’t appreciate your continued attempts to misrepresent my position, which is not necessarily in opposition to yours at all. — Possibility

Oh right, just presenting enough "data" will magically make the argument stronger. That kind of "data" is always with the view that it is promoting a certain thing.. I am not into the whole hedonic "progress" of "humanity" or "civilization" thing.. which reifies concepts above individuals in their micro-actually living experiences. In that sense, Schop was correct in human nature versus simple economic circumstances. Also, "data" based on some survey of "Most people like life!" doesn't negate the negative aspects of life, and the forced agenda argument I am making.

If you harm someone and then say, "Hey I have data that this was in your interest", did that really "prove" anything other than you "thought" it would be in that persons interest? Just a self-justifying X, so you can do Y to someone else.

Rather I am more deontological/axiological in my approach. That is to say, there is a disrespect (I term it indignity), to the person born by forcing the agenda on them. You can't really "get" at that with data... and "data" in the use of this kind of thing. A more thorough analysis of this is given by philosopher Gerald Harrison. A lot of times our normal intuitions elsewhere do not necessarily align with procreation, even though procreation presents the same moral problems. So, even if one usually can trust moral intuitions, they are not always accurate when there is strong pulls for biases in our intuitions to be against it (e.g. evolutionary/cultural pressures for having certain dispositions).

https://mro.massey.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/10179/14444/Antinatalism%20and%20Moral%20Particularism.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

So no, I reject your rejection based on some supposed "lack of quantifiable data" or some shit like that.

Apparently, you can't blame the first people who formed your society for making those rules since you weren't born yet or weren't of age to consent. When you're born into a fully formed society, the first people are not under obligation to ask for your consent. Your consent isn't on a level of their consent. — L'éléphant

Yes, this is a common objection that I find objectionable. Since there is no person prior to existing for whom consent can be obtained, it is okay to do X which may lead to future outcomes for a person who actually will exist..

You can see the flaw in that right?

Let's say a parent plans to give birth to a child in a pit of a volcano.. They just always wanted to..No consideration matters right, because there isn't a child born yet, so there is no child to ask whether it wanted to be born into a volcano pit, right?

No, I think 99.9% of people would object to this reasoning, and the one in your scenario when looked at it from that vantage point. It is an argument of convenience, not one of soundness.

If someone will be negatively affected by a decision, but consent cannot be had, we would object to any number of scenarios. In every case where we cannot get consent, and we still do something on their behalf, it is a case of amelioration. That is to say, it is trying to prevent a greater harm to that person for a lesser one.. This is not the case in procreation, since there indeed is not a person that needs to be ameliorated.

Added even more...

Added more...

's a very 'bourgeois trust-fund bachelor' thing to grouse about "boredom". — 180 Proof

Nah, it's more bougeouis, cliche trust-fund bachelor to characterize it as that.. :yawn: , at those kind of ad homs.. If I can find many instances of poor/tribal/non-Western people to prove my point, you would have to concede?

How is Schop wrong about the idea that we have a "striving-ness" to us that when not occupied by "something" is sort of idling and cannot stand its own striving nature.. thus returning to "something" (usually de facto related to survival.. whether through "work in an industrialized economy", "hunting-gather", "subsistence farming", and all the other things we as humans must do to survive, find comfort, and entertain ourselves (lest we idle again and try to banish this emptiness feeling). That is to say, we are striving, struggling, getting "caught up" because we cannot stand existence sui existence, but only in so much as we can distract, plan, flow state, etc.

It's also not just "bored" in the sense that we mean with just "nothing to do".. It's a much more fundamental kind akin to Ecclesiastes..

I mean, it's gotta whole article here: https://iep.utm.edu/boredom/ . It has been for thousands of years, and will continue to be a central existential understanding of the human condition/experience.

Other pessimists like Freddy, Zapffe, Cioran, Camus, Rosset, Sam Beckett, Tom Ligotti ... aren't, IMO, as shallow as Schop on this point. — 180 Proof

Not at all.. If anything, they're on point the most with that.


Oh I misread what you said.. Zapffe characterized the existential boredom as a sort of exptation-trait that we distract from and try to ignore. Ligotti, had a dark interpretation of the boredom as being "malignantly useless".. when one reflects on the idling/survival...Cioran agreed with the existential boredom but used irony to prove it, Nietzsche was advocating for Sisyphus on steroids.. Camus was more nuanced in that Sisyphus didn't need to try as hard :) (it seems to me at least),

My own addition is that by being born at all we are forced into a socio-culturo-political agenda (lest suicide by slow or fast death). Solution: Griping and self-understanding (consolation through shared Pessimism) and not forcing others into the agenda (antinatalism).

So what is cause for military action in your book? — FreeEmotion

Military action is a last resort and can at best be seen as legitimate if a country is imminently threatening your country by military force. Other reasons that are at the least moral, might be to stop a gross act of crimes against humanity (at the level of let's say large genocide). Even then, it would take getting support by others, and not unilateral (if it's a country trying to help the one with the genocide taking place).

Adding more here:
A people in their own country also have a right to overthrow the power in place if they do not permit basic human rights... I am not sure if that meets the level of military action from other countries though, unless with those restricted rights were things like large and obvious genocides.

So what is cause for military action in your book? — FreeEmotion

Putin wanting to, by an means necessary, without regard for human life, takeover a country that democratically does not want to be ruled by Russia/ a Russian puppet government.

Oh sorry, I misread.. I thought you said what is the cause of this military action...I'll get ya in the next post.

I’m not talking about an overall judgement of someone as ‘ignorant’, but the little choices we make everyday to increase awareness/ignorance, connection/isolation AND collaboration/exclusion in every interaction. Let’s take your awareness of suicide - you keep skirting around this subject, as if it’s not a legitimate option, but the fact is that you have chosen to dismiss it for your own reasons - this is not forced. Until you explore the choice and your reasons honestly, recognising them as part of what makes you who you are, you will remain relatively ignorant of this apparent ‘force’ you insist is acting from outside of you. — Possibility

Oh the "Why don't you pessimists/antinatalists go kill yourself" trope :roll:. You mean being in a position where one has to decide to commit suicide or join the program?

Again you misrepresent me - you’re the one adding scare quotes and exclamation marks here. I’m not telling you to get with the program, I just don’t agree with your interpretation of the program as ‘forced’ from outside of the ‘individual’. It is this consolidation of the ‘individual’, and with it the isolation or exclusion of opportunities to increase awareness, to connect and collaborate, that contributes to this idea of a ‘forced agenda’. — Possibility

Actually, you can have a community of griping pessimists.. collaborating and connecting about the forced agenda! ;).

Subsisting and surviving IS a choice. And you’ve chosen NOT to die a slow death - no-one is forcing you to reject this option, but you. Therefore, you are contributing to your own ‘predicament’. I’m not the one buying into anything here... — Possibility

It's being forced with the OPTION in the first place of dying a slow fuckn death or outright quicker suicide..both painful to the leadup and scary for most people unless severely strained/depressed... Don't confuse not committing promortalism with pessimism or antinatalism. It is not an inverse relation.. "Your 'decision' to stay alive means you wanted to be in this position in the first place". I mean, how am I NOT wrong that you are existentially gaslighting the hell out of me? (It's not existence, it's you!). You haven't defended anything, but dug yourself deeper as to what I expected. Pessimism does not entail immediate suicide, mam.

"Boredom" is analogous to a over-full belly; we're born hungry and always in homeostatic thrall of the prospect of starving until we die, and s/he who is starving is much more afraid than s/he is bored. Schop was too well-fed, I suspect, which is why "boredom" seems so inescapable for him (i.e. his class). — 180 Proof

C'mon proof.. Schop talked about the pendulum swing of survival and boredom.. He never disregarded survival as that is a given. He focused on boredom because the full belly reveals at the end what was always there.. "like a bird of prey" as he says.. You can do better than simply making it about a rich guy who had nothing better to do. If anything, he gets to see the revelation more than others, that's all :).

This is too graphic — L'éléphant

Well, I was trying to say that often people procreate thinking that their style of raising someone transfers some sort of romantic ideal of fulfillment. Our society doesn't work that way.. Let's take a pretty popular human desire for some of long-term love..

I can devise a science fiction universe where everyone is provided from birth with a partner that they will care for and will care for them.. But of course then comes the drama of wanting the other partner, and trading them with others.. or too many people desiring the ones the other people have, or not being happy in the confines of this one.. Thus falling apart to the chaotic market-economy of today's dating system.. And there are people who may find love and those who don't. There are those who had love and fall out, or unrequited, or lose their affection, etc. etc..

So I am just saying the romantic ideal of the perfect union.. "X person finds Y person and establish a long-term bond of mutual affection, and work in Z job that provides enough money for them, and fulfill their time without any self-reflection chopping wood, making furniture, and making pies.. essentially pretending to live in 1740.. and whose life is a clockwork of purpose and production.." this too is a romantic vision of sorts.. It's not the romantic vision of a dictator but of the idealistic parent hoping for some sort of Platonic stability that doesn't exist.

No, it wasn’t your choice to be born. No, it isn’t the case that ‘you must’ do anything. Yes, you do have alternative choices to awareness, connection and collaboration: you can always choose ignorance, — Possibility

You are just presenting a false dichotomy here. It's not awareness/connection/collaboration or ignorance. I do have awareness, and that is of having to de facto fall in line, whether I like it or not, lest suicide. That does involve de facto connection and collaboration because of the nature of how we survive and entertain ourselves and that we tend to be social creatures. That isn't anything new.

Yes, I do consider suicide or pessimism to be legitimate choices. I wouldn’t personally make either of those choices at this stage, but I would never say never. — Possibility

Fair enough.

I don’t think BEING is supposed to be about survival, subsistence or incorporation at all. That’s the language of consolidation: of an ‘individual’ whose perceived ego appears to be forced into a life they wouldn’t choose for themselves. — Possibility

Well, yeah, it is. And that's because life can never be not forced. Sorry but it is. You seem to be saying, "You are forced, no get with the program, otherwise SUFFER!!!" (scare quotes and all). I am saying to reject the agenda and not buy into it, whether with sugar (collaborate, therapy) or shit (buck up, STFU and get to working! Stop griping, etc.)!

There’s a sense of attachment to self, here. Bhava Tanha - a craving to be something - comes from a misunderstanding of eternalism/permanence. — Possibility

Yeah yeah, until I start starving and dying of hypothermia and all.. then I have to do things like subsist and survive.. the things you seem to think are a choice. It is, if you want to die a slow death, true.. Not into that either though.. Which is indeed part of the predicament.

It's how capitalism works: Get the people to focus on their private lives, and get them to believe that every failure, every problem in their lives is their own fault. This way, they will be avid consumers, they will have little insight into their own needs, and they will have little regard for others (other people, other beings, the planet). While those higher up make a lot of money and the planet turns into hell. — baker

Very good points.

Everyone's got an agenda for you, and that is certainly to keep certain wheels churning. No one cares that it is basically a political agenda to keep things going. It can't be that existence itself just has these flaws inherent.. a pessimism at its core. No, it's YOUR fault for not getting in line with the agenda! It used to be "Buck up!" and now it's "Go see a therapist!". In this thread it's, "You aren't connecting! Follow the mission of connecting!"

I'm presenting the counter argument to the Western media narrative, understand the counter-party perspective, which is the basis of negotiation; which I think is preferable to more bloodshed. — boethius

So, that wasn't my question. Do YOU agree with Putin's use of force to takeover another country?

As I said, war seems entirely justifiable if the neo-Nazi element is above some critical threshold. It is definitely, from my point of view, uncomfortable amount of neo-Nazi elements to easily argue against his justification. So, that doesn't make me happy, nor the EU doing absolutely nothing about it.

Considering the West had 8 years to do something about neo-Nazi's in Ukraine, I think the burden of proof is on those Western actors to demonstrate how they are fringe or marginal in Ukraine's de facto governing processes.

For example, the neo-Nazi association with Trump I would agree is totally fringe thing and not a justification to assassinate Trump, and the whole "Trump is a neo-nazi or supporting neo-Nazi's" I viewed as irresponsible and propaganda (although, I certainly didn't nor do support Trump; just, Republican's aren't significantly composed of neo-Nazis). — boethius

This seems dangerous. So in this view, Canada should takeover the US because there are known neo-Nazi groups and white supremacists? Or the other way around if that was known? This is just slippery slope justification.

However, there does legitimately seem a lot more in Ukraine.

And, therefore, not invading can be argued to be the appeasement. — boethius

Just the presence of neo-Nazis.. that is your basis for invading a country? Also, if there were neo-Nazis found in Russia should Ukraine or anyone else invade Russia?

Seems to me that a justification to get rid of a hate group that is potentially violent doesn't give one the green light to kill 10,000s regular citizens or more people in getting "rid" of these groups...Especially when the average citizen certainly doesn't want them there at all, let alone destroying their homes and killing citizens.

Russia is taking over another country in a brutal military fashion and will occupy it, killing many people. How is that ever justified for anything less than an actual immanent or actual military action against your own country or there was some gross violation of human rights, if that.

I've never said it was ... nor is anyone. Putin's stated reason is "de-Nazification". — boethius

Yes, stated reason...along with a rambling manifesto about how Ukraine was once part of the Soviet Union and isn't stupid how that was lost when the USSR disbanded.

What I'm pointing out is that, in a political realist point of view, the EU removing itself as a good faith trading partner of Russia and instead just parroting US talking points that "Putin be bad boy", removes the downside to attacking Ukraine.

Resulting in only upsides and no downsides.

Any rational strategist will do a move that has minimal downsides and plenty of upsides without hesitation.

Western media is saying this is miscalculation because they don't like Putin "even more" now ... but were they doing him any favours before? — boethius

I just don't get your position here.. I guess my question to you is do you agree with Putin's use of force to takeover a country?

I'm not asking for the perspective of Putin himself. Clearly he thinks he should.

Oh that doesn't matter...according to some here. As I've said the legitimate reasons to use military force is when you are attacked. That you attack some other country for hypothetical, possible attacks isn't legitimate. And when the neighbor has no intention to attack, no ability to pose a threat to you, then whose cause the war is should be obvious. — ssu

Ok, we are on the same page.

The basic logic is: Well, if EU isn't offering us anything, and forcing us to reorient our entire economy both inwards (to be immune to sanctions threats) and towards China (to be immune to sanctions threats) and offload our USD and build up gold reserves ... may as well take Ukraine. — boethius

But this is just reiterating my point. Losing a trade partner should not be a legitimate reason to then takeover that country.

Same response as above..losing a potential trade partner is not a cause for military action (takeover of another country!). Misplaced blame.

To think the Russian attack was a) only to halt NATO expansion or that b) Ukraine posed a threat to Russia is simply stupidity of believing the lies of Vladimir Putin. And that is foolish and basically dangerous. — ssu

But even this assumption is dangerous because stopping NATO expansion is not a justification for a military takeover of another country.

Also, the idea that NATO is an existential threat is itself telling. What precisely is it threatening? Is losing trade partners really a cause for a military action? That itself is a flawed premise, no?

Do you forget that Russia has been twice rebuffed upon expressing a desire to join NATO? (Molotov's proposal that the USSR join NATO in 1954, and Putin's expression of interest in the early years of this millenium). The U.S. did never want another "superpower" within NATO precisely because NATO is an expression and an appendage of U.S. hegemonic policy, and was determined to have no rivals within the "alliance". Calling NATO a "defensive" military alliance verges on the facetious. It is a military alliance headed by a nation which has always called Russia its "adversary". We all know that a military, a "defense system", can be used in offensive ways with the purportion of "defense". With this in mind, can Russia allow itself to be "surrounded" or "invested" by NATO nations? — Joseph Zbigniewski

Ok, BOTH sides were not really committed to having Russia be in NATO. Russia would have to conform to a bunch of standards it has never really had to try to live up to, as far as democratically and militarily. This would hamper their ability to have a strongman-led government and to militarily control territories in their sphere of influence. So, no this isn't just a West rebuffing thing..

Also, look at what you are implying here. Your implication that a defense can be used as an offense is all based on the notion of a zero sum game. That is to say, NATO's win is Russia's loss. Why? Well, Russia wants to go back to being its own hegemon with various territories under its influence. But this flies in the face of the fact that nations are sovereign and can make their own decisions. Thus, even if Russia wants to be an influence on Ukraine, if Ukraine rather align more with other countries on various trade agreements etc. that is their right. Russia doesn't have a say in this.

Marvelous, human evolution has accelerated most favorably! We must call in the paleoanthropologists so that we can demand an explanation. — Joseph Zbigniewski

I sympathize with your points about treating the Eastern European nations as literally "second world (class)" citizens. However, I don't understand how this sentiment thus justifies Putin's actions here.

Again, please learn to read past a 2nd grade level thanks. — StreetlightX

I have, and I see the ridiculous argument you are trying to thread.. A second grader can see that.

It literally doesn't matter. Not one bit. Not one iota. Russia told NATO to fuck right off, and NATO did the exact opposite of that, in full cognizance of multiple people in the West telling them that this is a terrible, awful, war-engendering move and lo and behold, and now there's a war. This isn't an issue of morality or law or principle, it's a simple calculation - do you do the thing that the weaponized, nuclear aggressor literally just told you to not do, on pain of war, yes or no? NATO - and again, not just NATO but the EU in general - answered the question with a 'yes'. When you make a decision knowing the consequences of that decision, that's what people call responsibility. Putin is an aggressor and if he dropped dead tomorrow, the world would be a better place. But this white knighting for an institution which looked at war in the face and said 'yep, we'd like a bit of that thanks' - and now gets a war - is totally, absolutely culpable for dead Ukrainians. When you fly straight into the fucking sun and die, you don't get to excuse yourself because the sun was hot.

Putin's war is unjutified and unjustifiable. But acting in full cognizance of the deadly results of an unjustified demand does not let you off the hook. Again, world politics does not work like Harry Potter. Actors don't need their stories to line up, for the sake of your narrative ease-of-mind.

Literally every single one of your questions are irrelevant. — StreetlightX

Oh yeah poor poor NATO, total victims in this situation, maybe organize a cookie bake for them out of solidarity.

Look, literally none of your moralizing matters. Not one bit. What matters are consequences. And the consequences of NATOs actions, justified by whatever bit of feel-good post-hoc rationalizations, have led, concretely, to a war. No one cares if Russia has 'rights' to do what it does, or if Ukraine happens to fit NATOs bureaucratic criteria, of if NATO is normatively justified in doing what they did. Completely, utterly irrelevant. Russia's feelings are not NATOs fault. NATO acting in full cognizance of those feelings are. — StreetlightX

You can't get angry at Ukraine for making decisions of a sovereign nation. The culpability is purely on Russia itself for attacking another country because it didn't do what it wanted.

Why does Russia get to tell a sovereign nation what alliances to be a part of? I am sorry, I didn't understand that part... All I see is anti-West gaslighting about this issue here instead of actually answering the question at hand.

Streetlight: Characterize the boogie-man "West' as bad/evil...thus...Putin is at least just as bad as the West, and there are no good actors..

But that is not the real question. The real question is about sovereignty.. Ukraine being able to make its own decisions without foreign interference.. Sovereignty is only illegitimate if it comes with things like taking away people's rights to speech and voting, or ethnic cleansing, and things such as this.. All things that Putin himself actually does. So your odd defense of Putin here doesn't make any sense.

Look man, I don't care what you believe.. You can believe the Spaghetti Monster sprinkles parmesan on the evil Meateballio to defeat him..

My point is similar to @Paine. Your one and only source is the very thing that is being questioned. How is that informed scholarship? If you don't care, then why even go on a philosophy forum, where these things are hotly debated? You can meditate in your monastery if you want to merrily believing whatever it is you want to believe.

A number of your statements lead me to think that you think there is something wrong with the historical approach altogether. That suggests you have no interest in such studies. — Paine

Exactly... That is ironically debating in bad faith :lol:.

When your premise is that the self-referential claim that the Gospel as taught by X church is correct because it is taught by X church, then we get your particular brand of intellectual gaslighting. I wish you would Google more so you can escape the cave of your own circular dogma. If Jesus is just another Jew similar to others of his time, he loses the luster of metaphysical Other, and this threatens your worldview. Jesus the Savior becomes Joshua ben Joseph vMiri, along with his brothers Jacob, Simeon, Jose, and Judah. And so his group just another example of the multiple groups of the time defining themselves in relation to the Law and the Roman overlords and the popular idea of an End Times and a heralding Son of Man angel. A group probably influenced by John the Baptist.

Many criticisms of Pharisees were also found in the Talmud regarding OTHER Pharisees. Jesus had views on Mosaic law like OTHER Pharisees.

OR see him as am Haaretz, opposed to the ritual purity laws being expanded by more strict Pharisee groups. That interpretation doesn’t negate his fitting in that period. A Galilean peasant opposed to the stricter purity laws insisted by some groups.

Of course, believe what you want to believe. I don't care what you put faith in or don't put faith in as a personal matter. However, you are debating on a philosophy forum and you are trying to call out various posters such as myself about the historical methodologies we are using, so fair game to criticize your views.

That's what the ruling powers tell you. — EugeneW

As I've quoted before from Dylan, "Masters make the rules for the wise men and the fools". You are no exception.

So I'd like to propose some food for thought that might seem "out of left field".
1. We are always thrown into a "baked-in" social reality. In some circles, this is referred to as "situatedness". That is to say, I cannot escape the historical forces that preceded my existence. For example, despite my desire for a different world set-up, I am generally bound to trying to change the (for all practical purposes) immovable one I have now.. There are the several choices society has set for us, or we can choose to die of starvation, homelessness, isolation, and suicide if we don't like them.

2. What I was asking previously was about how life does not always fulfill people's (supposed) needs equally. There is someone like yourself, let's say, who was able to find an economic way to raise your children, to find a partner that loves and supports you, to live a pseudo-homesteading lifestyle. But you see, not every individual will have any of those pieces work out in that way. Someone might not have a very fulfilling job, or find a romantic partner, or have the skills or wherewithal, or contingent circumstances to have this pseudo-homesteading lifestyle. There is no defined path to get any of this either, or at least, no defined path that always leads to optimal or desired outcomes.

In other words, in all known worlds, it is only the case that some people will have basic needs in Maslow's hierarchy met, while others simply will not. Those contingent circumstances make life itself an unequal, and thus possibly morally problematic thing to create for someone else. Thus, even though you are talking about utopian visions of dictators, your own vision is very "romanticized" it seems. It may not lead to "horrors" of genocide and war, but simply the everyday disappointments of the everyday human. It might not be as dramatic, but it is still tragic.

The Gospels were “finished” after some of Paul’s letters, for it took the Gospel writers decades to compile all the witness accounts they used. A journey in the ancient holy land took a long time, and people stayed at each other’s house for weeks or months. — Joe Mello

Ok, let's not pretend ancient writers followed modern standards for sourcing information.. The term "compiling..witness accounts", is a bit anachronistic as to how ancient "historical" writing was conducted. Besides which, the Gospels aren't a true "history" like say, Josephus Jewish War or Antiquities was. Rather, it is very much trying to prove a spiritual point using stories and sayings of Jesus. It wasn't with an eye for complete accuracy as to the actual events on the ground.

And there is no proof whatsoever that the words and deeds of Jesus were influenced by Paul. — Joe Mello

I can point to a bunch of themes in the Gospels that seem Pauline influenced, but that won't convince you. There are plenty of historians who recognize that Paul's influence was already present before the Gospels were written, and certainly prior to subsequent edits.

And the greatest thing that influenced Paul’s writing was that he had a special direct revelation of Jesus. From that moment on he wrote with the same authority Jesus spoke with. — Joe Mello

So, I'll just leave you with this post link, as the post will take care of my view on your whole perspective versus how modern scholarship approaches Jesus, Early Christianity, and Second Temple Judaism:

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/658553

Im not really saying what he did one way or the other. Just that he seemed to jump to various sects and chose to create something himself based on the one he was opposed at the time.

Disputes about the Law, which Saul zealously pursued in both speech and action, were all but rendered moot by Paul. The end was at hand and those who believed in Christ would be saved. — Fooloso4

It was a man searching for something.. Became "zealous" in one way, and then "zealous" in another.. I don't even know if he really became a Pharisee despite his own appellation as such.. He certainly seemed to be a lackey for the High Priest and found his role wonting in this manner. Perhaps being a shill for the High Priest gave little meaning and his "conversion" to Christianity was a natural result of his own search for meaning. He synthesized various elements he picked up and molded the sect into his own vision. This became proto-Orthodox Christianity and then just Orthodox Christianity under Constantine.

You maybe right. But boredom is certainly less robust than sadness or something that grabs our attention. What in boredom compels us to find stimuli? If we fail to get out of boredom what do we face? — TiredThinker

Our minds have had an evolutionary trajectory whereby due to various social pressures and environmental pressures, we have a secondary consciousness whereby we can really not be "present" at any given moment, but future-focused. This was the need for things like planning, tool-making, and social calculations. I am sure there are a whole bunch of other things too that contributed to this that you can write books, journals, and courses on.. so I can't really condense it. But we have it. If he is even translatable or making sense (and not just hallow neologisms), Heidegger might even be capturing the idea in Dasein. And due to this, we have the ability to "know" what we are doing AS we are doing it. We can also "fall out of sync" with "getting caught up in a pursuit at all". This out of sync, is sort of the recognition of the default bored state that Schopenhauer sort of describes (in slightly different terms). It is the lack of something to do. But on top of this is the more sinister feeling of maybe there is just nothing one should do. It is just survival and "getting caught up in affairs".. It is the feeling of "Why do ANYTHING at all?"

Schopenhauer put it in metaphysical terms, describing an underlying Will at the bottom of each person's epistemological perspective. Our motivations come down to a "striving force" that "goes nowhere" and "for no reason", and yet we give it shape by our culture and environment with goals. We think this or that is what we "want", but WANT is simply all that is happening. WANT WANTS, and we are always WANTING. We are but striving creatures, that has no relief. Once born, we strive to survive, and strive to find something to get caught up in. We sublimate, ignore, and the like feelings of ennui with achievements and pleasures, and aesthetic experiences. Yet it is simply a process of getting caught up at all. This process repeats over and over and over. We seek to keep getting caught up in something more interesting, again and again and again and again..

Jesus was providing his interpretations of the Law, not telling people to reject it.
Paul's view was fully his own, supposedly directed by not the human Jesus but the "spiritual" version (of his own admission).

That's all there is to it. Everything else is apologetics for the Christian doctrine.. It MUST be traced back to Jesus himself. If Paul is JUST giving HIS interpretation, then things start collapsing. It is wise to also understand that the Gospels were written AFTER Paul's influence was already taking hold. It was written AFTER more urbane, Hellenistic Jews and gentiles had their broader influence on the original group.

From this neutral state of BEING, however, I could also choose, insofar as I am capable, to increase awareness, connection and collaboration, recognising that this perceived capacity is limited at any one time (and subject to suffering) by an ongoing condition of affect and value perception, but that such capacity expands as I increase awareness, connection and collaboration with the world from a genuine sense of compassion, of ‘suffering with’ - and in doing so predictably reduces further instances of suffering, for myself as well as others. It is this striving, insofar as it is a choice determined from a neutral state, that seems a reasonable use of my limited attention and effort, as a POSITIVE net gain across a fleeting and fragile state of BEING. It’s a small gain, but it’s better than asceticism, by my account. — Possibility

More existential gaslighting. YOU'RE the problem because YOU were born. It's YOUR choice. [But it wasn't].. So all the "You were created because of X, and now you must do Y because I know the truth about the world".. [Eh no].

An’ though the rules of the road have been lodged
It’s only people’s games that you got to dodge
And it’s alright, Ma, I can make it
...

Although the masters make the rules
For the wise men and the fools
I got nothing, Ma, to live up to


....
My eyes collide head-on with stuffed
Graveyards, false gods, I scuff
At pettiness which plays so rough
Walk upside-down inside handcuffs
Kick my legs to crash it off
Say okay, I have had enough
what else can you show me?



And if my thought-dreams could be seen
They’d probably put my head in a guillotine
But it’s alright, Ma, it’s life, and life only — Dylan

Getting caught up in someone else's agenda is somehow "adult" and "connection", and "meaningful". The agenda of subsisting at all. The agenda of the survival. The agenda of the corporation. The agenda of pursuits of entertainment. If you wrap it up in a nice bow of communal dependency, it makes it look not forced..

"You see, your following the agenda will fulfill you because you will be connecting, collaborating, and being more aware. I mean, what else choice do you have? Suicide? Griping? Being a Pessimist? [maniacal laugh]."

Fuck all the established agendas and trying to make life's problem a personal problem, mam.

See my other thread about boredom, I think we have similar themes.. It is existential boredom that is the default state. Depression is more of a physiological response.. One doesn't find joy in this or that.. I think the default state might be more akin to dysthymia when we have nothing to get "caught up in" and can lead to more existential ideas upon further self-reflection of these states.