I have a strong intuition that you are unlikely to get very far trying to use reason to talk people out of a position they didn't arrive at through reason. — Tom Storm

Of course, I'm not saying that these mental tools are effective towards changing someone else's perspective and concepts, even though they are probably more effective than other forms of influences seen as they deconstruct and evaluate their perspectives and concepts without emotionally attacking them. But, these mental tools are effective when the entire group uses them. This is why I'm advocating for it being part of a cultural practice, something that is common practice, or at least common practice in situations that benefit from it. If society viewed it as common as a practice as a normal handshake between people, then deviances from it would be considered rude, especially in a sphere of debate.

So while being less observably effective against people that lack in this toolset, it is when all in a group uses it that it reaches its full potential.

You advocate your particular approach of reasoning because this is a fundamental value through which you already view life. Good for you and good luck trying to get others to agree. But are you essentially saying here: 'If everyone thought they way I do, the world would be better?' Don't most people think that, even the prodigiously irrational ones? — Tom Storm

It may sound like that since I used my own subjective perspective as an example, but that was merely to describe the experience of using it as well as the importance of calmness that it produces. The lowered stress levels in situations where people often get riled up and emotionally pressed (which usually also leads to further enforcing biases).

But this way of tackling reality in an internally distanced form is not just my own personal experience, it can be observed in many people. A sort of confirmation of this mental tool was when reading about Bertrand Russel's perspective on the matter. He advocates for a similar detachement and ability to spot biases, using a scientific approach to more areas and topics than just science:

None of our beliefs are quite true; all have at least a penumbra of vagueness and error. The methods of increasing the degree of truth 18in our beliefs are well known; they consist in hearing all sides, trying to ascertain all the relevant facts, controlling our own bias by discussion with people who have the opposite bias, and cultivating a readiness to discard any hypothesis which has proved inadequate. These methods are practised in science, and have built up the body of scientific knowledge. Every man of science whose outlook is truly scientific is ready to admit that what passes for scientific knowledge at the moment is sure to require correction with the progress of discovery; nevertheless, it is near enough to the truth to serve for most practical purposes, though not for all. In science, where alone something approximating to genuine knowledge is to be found, men’s attitude is tentative and full of doubt. — Bertrand Russel

Trying to reeducate society along appropriate philosophical principles sounds totalitarian (I know that's not how you intended it) and is not going to happen, it's entering a speculative realm where I have little to contribute. :wink: — Tom Storm

But that is of course a valid point. How can society restructure itself without totalitarian powers pushing for such a change? Mostly a non-totalitarian change happens through collectively acknowledging a positive trait and way of life that then influence society and culture naturally and through the people's own will.

I think this is more a form cultural praxis that doesn't in itself hold any opinions or values. It's more of a toolset, a strategy of thinking, something that can be notably positive as a system in everyday use. People in a free society wouldn't just change into following this praxis on someone's demand or recommendation alone. People usually change into a new praxis because they recognize the value of it and then collectively raise children with this praxis as part of their culture. But they would only do so if it had a core positive value that is measurable.

I think that this system would benefit society and I hope that by showing the positive implications on the individual and society, people would want to use this mental toolset or mental strategy as part of everyday life. Not by forcefully reshaping culture, but by simply asking: do you see the benefit of this? Is this something you think would help you navigating the complexity of reality and society better? Is this something you think would benefit a group solving a problem or conceptualizing new ideas? Is this something you think would help mitigating and deescalating conflicts? If you think it might be so, it might be worth a try to use this way of thinking when conceptualizing, evaluating ideas, solving problems, debating topics, deescalating conflicts and forming strategies.

You use the metaphor of someone perusing a gallery at leisure, making calm, considered decisions. Trouble is, this is rarely what happens. Nor is is even ideally what happens. Organisations and individuals are embedded in a world in flux, were circumstances change spasmodically as often as smoothly, but also where the decision made changes the way things are. — Banno

I think the metaphor primarily is about being careful not to become an idea or concept. I.e we attach ourselves too heavily on what we believe, to a point where we are unable to defend the idea without defending our own identity, as well as when we defend our identity we start to defend the idea. Being a frozen rigid sculpture is the final form of our bias, unable to move, only to be easily examined by others. In a toxic debate, everyone is their own statue, some in groups against other groups, but no one is shifting, moving around, looking at each others ideas in different perspectives, we only see things two-dimensionally. Things can change, but nothing fundamentally changes if everyone is rock solid. Society can go through decades without change if no one starts to move around in that space examining all statues.

Take any pivotal life decision, be it moving to a distant city or committing to a partner or accepting a job offer. Everything changes, unpredictably, as a result of the decision. Because of this, while there may be a pretence of rationality, ultimately the decision is irrational. Not in the sense of going against reason, but in the sense of not being rationally justified. It is perhaps an act of hope, or desperation, or sometimes just whim.

And this not only applies to big choices, but to myriad small choices. Whether you have the cheese or the ham sandwich had best not be the subject of prolonged ratiocination.

Most of our choices are not rationally determined; and this is usually a good thing, lest we all become Hamlet. — Banno

It is primarily an approach to thinking when it is possible to be applied as well as something to fall back on when entering chaos. Careful people somewhat already takes a step back, they try to see the big picture and make informed decisions. But they do so without fully understanding how or why they do it, there's no framework for their internal process and it can lead to bias traps. Having a clearer strategy of the mind makes spotting biases easier. Imagine yourself in the gallery when making a pivotal life decision, you might be able to see an unintentional or unnoticed bias when making the choice to move to a new city. You are able to examine the reasons without falling into emotional reasoning since the reasons are there infront of you, not part of your identity. This detachement becomes a sort of inner interlocutor, you examine a statue, ask it questions and compare it to the others. In the pursuit of forming a grander overview and perspective of what the entire gallery is saying.

And of course, small choices doesn't have to be part of this. Mainly because this method focus on larger conceptualizations, ideas and knowledge. Smaller decisions mostly comes out of instinct and intuition that have roots in already established higher concepts.

Many of these instincts and intuitions are trained on the larger internalized concepts, which forms a framework around our identity. If we are constantly distancing ourselves from the concepts and ideas that are always in flux, we become better at changing our instincts and intuitions if they end up needing to be changed. Like, if your health requires you to stop eating too much cheese, people will still have problems changing these habit behaviors. By distancing yourself from how you value health versus eating cheese you might be able to restructure the instincts better and faster than trying by force, which often leads to people falling back on old habits (which in itself is a result of a certain bias).

In general, when and where you need to enter the gallery is a form of intuition in itself. The ability to know when the mental tool is needed is harder than using the tool itself. But a rule of thumb would be that whenever some concept or idea have conflicting parts and risks of destructive bias, training yourself not to initially fall into either of those conflicting parts and instead enter the gallery to review them as the first step in a thought process.

But essentially, this mental toolset is for the higher concepts, the complex ideas, values, ideologies, solutions to complex problems and most critically when approaching others who has conflicting ideas to yours. If you and the one you debate against are together moving around the gallery and examining each other's ideas and concepts, you are both acting as researchers evaluating each others concepts instead of getting stuck in defensive arguments based on each others biases. If you both are equally good at using this method, there won't be any real conflicts, fist fights or inabilities to reach a higher place of understanding. While both might not reach agreement, you both learn and increase a better understanding of not only the opposite idea, but also your own. It is beneficial for both in either way, as well as promoting a calmer way of dealing with conflicting ideas in society. Even being able to acknowledge each others emotional investment in each idea as being their own statues, leads to understanding the emotional aspect of an idea and how it affects each other's reasoning.

The full effect is in play if all participants follow the same mental strategy when existing in conflicting positions.

Then there are heuristics. ↪Jamal is somewhat dismissive of cutlery, but it does make eating easier, not to mention smoothing the social aspects of the table. It's usually not possible to see the bigger picture, to understand the furthest consequences of one's choices, and even when one does, as perhaps was the case with the beginning of the arms race, the problem can be intractable, or at the least appear so. Sometimes the best one can hope for is to be able to sort stuff out in the long run. So we rely on heuristics. — Banno

Cutlery doesn't remove the risk of messy eating, only that eating generally becomes less messy.

Any toolset cannot be the final best toolset. We don't know the final form of the best hammer, only that we have a pretty good concept of what a good hammer is after all iterations so far. The way I think of these mental tools is an extension of Bertrand Russel's ideas, without me even knowing so when I started thinking about them. It may be because his ideas influenced modern science, modern culture, and modern philosophy to the point that as being part of this culture I naturally use his ideas and built upon them.

I can only hope I add something valuable in doing so, something that further iterate on the mental tools he promoted.

↪Tom Storm pointed to the tension between wanting ethics to be taught while being suspicious of the impact of self reflection. Part of the trouble is, despite the pretence, we can not, do not, and ought not make all our decisions only after due ratiocination. — Banno

I think forming an instinct out of knowing when to use the method is key. In general, whenever something is at risk of negative bias, whenever an idea or concept is at risk of being destroyed by bias, it warrants entering the gallery. Like being able to almost feel that bias follows where I'm going, so I can tread lightly so as to not be turned to stone.

I've mentally constructed a space in which the conflicted ideas are carefully evaluated and meditated on in a distance to me as a person. Because I'm fully aware of my biases I almost get a negative feeling when I'm straying too far from balanced reasoning. It helps me go through all the possible perspectives of a topic in order to examine it closer and it helps me listen better to other people and spot when they add a new perspective that I didn't have before, adding it to the internal process of reasoning. — Christoffer

As a follow-up to this, imagine your internal reasoning being a room, a gallery, where you stand in distance from your ideas and concepts that you try to examine and evaluate.

Most people are their ideas. Their identity and their ideas and concepts are one and the same.
In essence, they are the artwork themselves, the sculpture of their ideas:


Instead, detach and construct a mental gallery with all the ideas and concept within, but be your own entity examining at a distance, without ever becoming any of the ideas and concepts yourself.



This leads to the ability to walk through the gallery of ideas and concepts in order to evaluate many different versions of the same concept or idea. Whenever someone becomes and is their idea and concept, they become a rigid stuck sculpture and can no longer walk through the gallery and consequently only be able to be examined by others.

Interesting comments. I'm not going to argue that you are wrong, but my take is that fear and our tendency towards dualistic thinking may lie behind most problems like this. People are frightened and are easily galvanized by scapegoating, quick fixes, sloganeering and appeals to tribal identity (white nationalism, etc). The notion that you are either for us or against us becomes a kind of touch stone for social discourse.

I should think that in times of uncertainty, where fear is brewing and readily activated as a motivating energy (largely thanks to Murdoch in the West) we see people embracing glib answers which promise deliverance and perverse forms of solidarity.

I'm not sure that philosophy as such plays a key role here, but certainly ideas do. — Tom Storm

Would you agree that these glib answers and simplified polarization out of fear can arise out of the lack of philosophical approaches? Aren't they the emerging traits of ignoring such a mental tool? And wouldn't such tools be a way out of these?

What would happen if society were to structure some core tenets of philosophical scrutiny as virtues in rules of conduct between people. Just like we have things like handshakes, "hello" phrases etc. we include tenets of problem solving and approaches to difficult topics where emotions can play a negative role and put us in mental feedback loops.

For example, "when faced with contradictory information, never opt in to a specific perspective until more information and facts have been presented to achieve a logically high probability and consensus for a certain perspective". And further, "does the established highly probable perspective feature any known biases for me or the group following said perspective?". And further "Are these biases leaning towards other established and probable topics and what are those implications?"

In a way always putting our thinking into a feedback process where we question ourselves based on tenets of spotting biases, what types of biases, and in a form of Kantian universalization of the answers we arrive at.

If someone, in a social and economic class that collectively start to blame immigrants for the lack of jobs they believe is their right to have priority access to, were to be pushed to participate in these ideas, they can go through these tenets in order to question the validity of those ideas before surrendering to them. What biases has formed in this collective? What biases do I have within this group, within the larger group of the city, the nation, the world? Where can I get access to information about all perspectives of this?

Never settle based on too few perspectives, never accept without knowing the biases at play, always be aware that your perspectives and opinions are formed by influences, distance yourself from your opinions and examine them.

Of course there's a level of generalization I'm doing to all of this in these "short" writings. To invent or install tenets that functions as virtues in a society, they need to be solid and hard to dispute as their function is a foundation of thought, a foundational tool that we can have built in to our culture of approaching knowledge and information. But I think it is possible to form such a framework of tenets that can be applied in practice not only for people who are intellectuals or philosophically literate, but everyone.

In essence, imagine a society in which people are constantly aware of biases. It's part of the culture, like whenever someone utters an emotional rant, people aren't drawn into an emotional counter-attack but instead lifts the biases at play, not as an arrogant response, but through it being common practice.

I think that this would lead to complicated issues in society that tends to stir up emotions and create negative feedback loops, to be mitigated and bridge understanding between opposing parts far more than the debate-heavy nature of today's society.

The ideas are somewhat continued in Banno and Jamal's discussion

What I think is creating societal problems on a large scale is that our culture isn't formed around questioning yourself and your beliefs. There's no established common method. The concept of cognitive bias is something that people generally are unaware of. Some even have a superficial understanding of it, but to understand just how powerful bias is at blocking us from understanding something on a deeper level, the awareness of bias needs to be as common of a knowledge as how to cook dinner or brushing our teeth. Not specific to philosophers, but to all people.

We somewhat already have this in Kantian universalization. People doesn't realize it, don't know about it, but the tenets are there. If someone commits a crime, kills someone or steals something, a common response to that criminal would be "what do you think would happen if everyone did what you did?" This is Kantian ethics at play, without people knowing they apply it in that sentence.

If similar knowledge of biases and approaches to knowledge were to be implemented in society, such as it becoming a frame of mind just like with with Kantian universalization, then I think it would radically change how people tackle forming new ideas, but it also helps holding every-day problem solving within a more rationally based reasoning that mitigates emotional feedback loops. The challenge is to both formulate tenets that aren't too complex to keep in mind as well as installing them into our culture in a way that isn't forced. To show the benefits to the individual, the collective and overall society in a way that people want to follow them because they feel natural.

In my personal experience, this is how I approach daily life. I do not jump onto ideas and opinions lightly, I don't decide on anything before I have a somewhat objective reasoning surrounding it. What I've realized is that there's a calm to this approach. I can exist inside a conflicted space that can lead some to become extremely biased towards a certain perspective and enforce it with all their energy, but without ever doing so or at least be able to abandon such a position as soon as a rational counter-perspective is added to the mix. It helps me hold conflicting ideas in my head at the same time because I've mentally constructed a space in which the conflicted ideas are carefully evaluated and meditated on in a distance to me as a person. Because I'm fully aware of my biases I almost get a negative feeling when I'm straying too far from balanced reasoning. It helps me go through all the possible perspectives of a topic in order to examine it closer and it helps me listen better to other people and spot when they add a new perspective that I didn't have before, adding it to the internal process of reasoning.

It's this personal dedication to such tenets of philosophy as a mental tool that have helped me understand that there's something in this approach that has a positive function both on well-being in conflicting times, but also in having a balanced morality, better problem solving skills, and better methods of formulating new ideas. Of course, this is anecdotal evidence for its effect, but I've seen similar approaches in other people's reasoning to problems and ideas and witnessed a certain calm and ability to not get stuck in loops of emotional and biased reasoning and responses.

A form of extra sharp conceptualization of our own internal reasoning that detaches us from cognitive bias. Essentially thinking about thinking; thinking about your own thinking, thinking about other's thinking, thinking about past thinking... while thinking about a problem or an idea. This is the thought, why is this thought? How did this thought came to be? What other thoughts are there? Why did they come to be? Are these thoughts similar to other people's thoughts? Why? Are there any biases to these thoughts? Are those biases subjectively mine or collectively society's? And so on.

It is a form of epistemic responsibility, extending from just the balanced morality to ways of approaching all internal reasoning.

In living memory there were genocides and famines, and despite having a really cool philosophical toolbox, humanity is as stupid as ever (QAnon, white supremacy, nationalism, and so on and on). — Jamal

I think that these are the result of either not listening to philosophers, misinterpreting them, or outright ignoring them in combination with enforcing the very problems that philosophy is a tool against. I.e these things emerges out of the chaos of non-philosophical approaches to questions that arrises in history.

If philosophy is such a great mental technology, as you imply, wouldn’t we expect society to have become more rational over time, just as it has become more technological? Why hasn’t that happened?

The view I'm sympathetic to, from Adorno & Horkheimer, is that societies have become more rational, but only instrumentally so; the very concept of reason has been impoverished. You echo this state of affairs in describing philosophy as an instrument. — Jamal

I think history flows in waves and tides, going back and forth between enlightenment and stupidity. After a time of great achievements and enlightenment, people fall into apathy, the knowledge gets boring, people seek new meaning and crave differences, without the necessary work to change things carefully. Right now we live in a time when intellectuals aren't popular, where stupidity and apathy reigns once again. And just like earlier times in history this will lead to a form of collapse. The collapse might be seen in things like the things you mentioned, Qanon, white supremacy, nationalism, but also the Ukraine war and changing global politics and of course the big one, failure to fix climate change.

Such times usually follows an intellectual enlightenment era, in which knowledge once again becomes popular and stupidity and apathy start to be considered embarrassing traits. Such times lead to rapid progress in both technology, science and philosophy. We might see a surge in new thinkers in a few decades, a minor renaissance, like the enlightenment era, post-war era etc.

So I think it's less about society just slightly becoming more rational over time, and more that we historically live in a low tide right now, which feels like we're stuck in progress. As institutional religion keeps falling in popularity, I think rationality will keep on growing. And I think philosophy is a good tool for the mind of anyone living in a society which functions on rationality and reason, but even more so for fighting back stupidity and apathy.

And the tides seem to keep going back and forth faster and faster.

So we have the instrumental reason in science and technology that leads to vaccines, dentistry, washing machines, Zyklon B and weapons of mass descruction. This is based on the use of tools from out of the philosophical toolbox that you describe. So philosophy is there to "guide thoughts and ideas through a forest of confusion" towards ... genocide? — Jamal

The forest of confusion is what leads to genocide, meaning, failure at philosophy leads to genocide. We can invent anything, but only philosophy as a tool can keep our biases and destructive emotions at bay and make us more morally capable of understanding the practical use of technology without it leading to genocide.

For example, how do we keep developing AI safely? Without it leading to destructive outcomes? Philosophy can help us break down consequences, build up scenarios, inform laws and regulations. We see the difference right now, some are confused, act out in anger at the development, and some act out dangerous concepts without any thought as to what it could lead to. But some are rational and calm. They use reason to evaluate the use and outcome of certain AI systems, they keep forming thought-experiment scenarios and possible positive uses, while informing politicians of rational laws and regulations that keep the good aspects of AI and stop the bad.

Philosophy becomes a backbone tool that helps managing problem solving for things that are new in society. It keeps people rational and levelheaded when there are no rules of conduct in place. It's a force against the chaos that occurs when we face the unknown.

To me it follows that philosophy, as eminently critical, has to step in and say wait a minute, do we really want to be doing that? Philosophy often doesn't do that, I realize. I guess I'm emphasizing and celebrating the times when it does, thereby saying it ought to do more of it. This amounts to an attempt to form a richer notion of rationality than the one we have.

All of that's not so much a rejection of your position as an addition to it. — Jamal

Yes, I agree with that. Like I said about the tides of history, it's philosophy that keeps people afloat, especially in darkness. And I think the anti-bias aspect of philosophy as a tool of the mind makes people better at solving problems without those solutions leading to wars, genocide and more darkness. It keeps us constantly making better choices, while ignoring the tool makes us clash with the world, casting it in darkness.

I think it's the job of everyone of us who recognizes the value of philosophy and who understands the positive function it can have, to show others the value of such a tool and how it can be applied in practice. It lets us understand how we think, so that we can think better, morally and in reasoning.

I might have an overly positive perspective on philosophy, but I think that all negatives throughout history mostly shows a deep failure at actual philosophy. A misunderstanding of some philosophical concept or an intentional misrepresentation of it. Many people in power who understands philosophy, but act dishonest towards its foundation, use the lack of philosophical knowledge in people to their own advantage. Like how Hitler skewed Nietzsche's philosophy into a warped mythology for a gullible population, craving for meaning.

Philosophy should detach us from ourselves, so that we can examine our own thinking in relation to the world and other people.

The idea that philosophy is an independent ever-expanding toolbox, ready to apply to whatever exists—this is surely a fantasy. Philosophy is itself historically situated, and part of what it does is to apply its tools to itself, even to its own tools, depending on the social conditions. — Jamal

Since the dawn of writing, has not the pen been developed to be a better pen? A tool is constantly being improved upon and philosophy has undergone iterations of improvements to sharpen its ability to help conceptualize. And just like a pen or any tool for writing, it has the shape of the time it is used in.

But I think the core principles has been valid since people first had critical thought and questioned each others logic. We could possibly argue that even during hunter gatherer societies, there were arguments on how to best hunt a certain prey or where to find the best source of food. And the most successful were the ones detaching themselves from cognitive bias, without ever knowing about such concepts theoretically. This is probably why philosophy and science has been confused together as well as been argued to be different. They share similarities, but form different functions. One is forming predictive truths, while the other is mentally structuring concepts that functions as principles in thought.

Essentially it helps guide thoughts and ideas through a forest of confusion. Speeding up the process of arriving at logical conclusions in situations where scientific facts aren't fully present to achieve absolute predictable truths.

I do think that it can be applied to anything if the general purpose is to detach conceptualization from the mental traps of bias. A self-examination of one's ideas in order to reach higher understanding about something without adding personal fantasy to the mix.

Because when someone propose a philosophical concept that lacks in logic or rationality, on any level, even abstract ones, it is a failure in philosophy, and when we examine such arguments for flaws, we are looking for biases and fallacies as the prime source for their failures.

Those proposed concepts can be about anything, but the framework seems to be consistent throughout time and the level of analytical sharpness is depending on which historical time we are in, just like a writing tool has been a stick with red paint, to an iron rod marking stone tablets, to a feather in ink, to a mass produced charcoal pencil, to a keyboard. It has sharpened the efficiency of writing, and so we have sharpened the efficiency of anti-biased conceptualization.

Few today can propose philosophical concepts without the internal logic being absolutely watertight. If someone today propose a wildly inconsistent concept (that could have been common hundred of years ago and still pushed concepts and ideas about the world forward), it will be broken down and discarded by its lack of internal logic. Biases and fallacies would be pointed out and the one proposing the concept is required to rework that inner logic. Even in continental philosophy, the inner logic is examined closely. Does it have high probability or not?

Time sharpens any general concept of a tool and that tool will always evolve to be better throughout history.

In my own perspective, I view philosophy as a tool for expanding on concepts or ideas with a strategy of thought. It's a toolset of conceptualization in which you can test your ideas while avoiding bias.

I think that the idea that one of its purposes or definitions to "questioning religion", isn't really a primary definition, it is a by-product of philosophy's internal logic.

If a primary function of philosophy is to remove biases and fallacies in reasoning, in order to help conceptualization past an individuals mental traps in logic, then it naturally starts to dismantle religion since religion requires a bias towards the faith.

Anyone who's religious and who starts reasoning with philosophy will either fail at that philosophy reinforcing their religion, or break down their religion through the logic found in philosophy. The only reason why religious people have created philosophical concepts is that they intentionally fail at philosophy at a certain level, concluding it with "because God" or similar.

The reason I argue that it's a form of anti-bias toolset is because before we even had a word for cognitive bias or such a concept formulated, it was part of philosophy. The constant demand to include logic. Even in Continental philosophy there is logic. People didn't read Nietzsche and agreed because of some arbitrary reason, but because there was logic in his observation and conceptualization.

It is a form of abstract observation of reality. If scientists observe actual reality, doing experiments, gathering data, calculate predictions, then philosophy is more abstractly observing reality, doing experiments, calculate predictions but not limiting where the mind goes based on the constraints of physical experiments. That doesn't mean it lacks logic more than science, but that the logical experiments uses analogies and thought experiments as its experimental ground.

So the critical role of philosophy is a framework for conceptualization and true observation that removes bias, when done correctly. And through that, the byproduct becomes anti-religion as religion requires bias to that religion in order to function.

Because of this I don't think the critical role is to question religion, it's just that religion becomes the biggest target for philosophy based on its opposing internal logic. And through history we've primarily witnessed the clash between religion and philosophy because of this.

I made a thread about skepticism and said that we cannot coherently deny that language transmits meaning because by understanding this sentence you have proven that language transmits meaning.

I then challenged the justification for a lot of skepticism. Extreme brain in a vat skepticism has no evidence or warrant for it and does not justify building a world view around it.

I feel that somethings are undeniably true and preserving the truth is valuable and that we rely on truths to negotiate life and I see no value in a kind of "anything goes interpretive relativism" outside of genuinely ambiguous things that have proven good grounds to dispute. — Andrew4Handel

I would answer with practical probability.

I act out of probability in every situation. Truth is that which has the highest of probabilities. It's the same principle as in scientific research, no scientist is ever claiming absolute truth, they are claiming levels of probability. Now, some seem to think that probability means there are no truths, and therefore other probabilities always balance out the highest probability, but that is a false interpretation of it. For example, General relativity has such a high probability that all experiments that have been conducted on it have perfectly verified it, including the latest about gravity waves, which was said to be the last experimentally unverified part of Einstein's predictions. So, in terms of normal speak, it would be considered truth. But in science, it is still just referred to as an extremely high level of probability.

Why I'm usually always bringing up science like this in these types of discussions is that the frame of mind humbles our experience of knowledge. It makes it possible to be certain of some truths without getting stuck in bias. Because even if something has a high probability, there might just be some discovery that flips it on its head, and when such a thing happens, those who are dead certain of truths in an absolutist form will still hang on to those truths, being mentally incapable of change. But if everything is formed out of levels of probability, you will never have a problem changing the "truths" that define your knowledge, if those "truths" were proven wrong by another higher probability.

If the subjective scrutiny of the individual's knowledge is always thorough and with as objective eyes as can possibly be, they will rid themselves of bias and be able to flow through knowledge without getting lost or stuck. They will also be able to interact with others of the same frame of mind in a way that better themselves and the world.

The way for an individual to scrutinize their own personal truths should always be: does it have the highest probability? And is that probability objectively formed or invented by themselves or someone else that they surrendered to?

The star: — Banno

The model: — Banno

It's stuff like this that shows just how much can be extrapolated through scientific data and math and how "it's just a theory" by many anti-intellectuals and anti-science people holds little water when balancing hypotheticals against each other. The abstract nature of science before being verified in ways that can be witnessed through our senses, makes it so hard for some to accept scientific concepts that they don't, and then form whatever nonsense they believe is correct. So in areas that are even more abstract in nature, like quantum physics, no wonder people jump straight into nonsense fantasies when trying to wrap their heads around the actual data.

I wonder, how many would say yes/no, and at what $amount (and doing what). Then there are those on more regular payrolls. The full range of spreading propaganda is broad, not always effective. — jorndoe

A common practice is to exploit weaknesses of any kind. If not financial, then any type of threat of exposure towards something bad that the person has done, like love affairs etc. This is why many working in critical areas of a nation's security infrastructure requires background checks on not only the person working but his/her social surrounding.

As an aside, The Americans (IMDb, Wikipedia) is one of those spy shows, collecting intelligence, recruiting, exploiting the vulnerable, seduction/sex, "role-playing", blackmail, assassination, ..., cold war, USSR versus USA, ... Not quite what I'd call realistic through and through, but sort of entertaining. — jorndoe

I think the reality is much duller, a better example would be "Slow Horses", pretty funny, but also closer to the dull reality of counterintelligence.

The most notable case in Sweden that was pretty high up was in Säpo, Säkerhetspolisen, our equivalent of CIA/MI5. Just last year, after 6 years of investigation including feeding them bad intel all these years as well as having civilian players on board fooling them, they were finally charged. These were considered hired agents who had been infiltrating Säpo many years ago and worked their way up. They used gadgets like car keys that had hidden USB memory sticks and received payments from Russia over the years. It was one of the most notable cases ever in Sweden and one of the longest specific investigations and counterintelligence operations to date.

Suppose someone offered you $500 for parading whatever crap around for a few hours. More? $5000? (What?) However it was imparted (as if a prank? part of a movie? for real?) and payment arrangement was made. Perhaps some known local broker was involved (shady or not), say, last part of the payment to be given by the broker upon being shown appropriate photos/footage. I'm sure something's arrangeable. Easy money.

Would you? — jorndoe

Real recruitments of spies happens this way for much more severe actions by the one hired. In the docu series, the journalists actually get footage of a Swedish guy who was in a lot of dept, being recruited by given $3000 in cash envelopes to smuggle autonomous driving tech details out of Volvo where he worked.

I guess when we also have a world in economical turmoil and people get into money problem there’s not that much needed in terms of financial strength to get a lot of people around western nations into seemingly minor actions that doesn’t even have any real crimes attached to them. So while discovered spycraft leads to legal consequences (the Volvo guy has been sentenced, and “diplomat” from Russia is now doing whatever FSB is doing in South Korea), getting normal people into doing things like posing with signs in front of a camera and maintaining a chaotic presence on online forums and social media by spreading doubt and disinformation, is not able to be counteracted in any way but informing of such risks to the public. It’s an effective way to split the Wests support for Ukraine and according to this investigation, it is massive compared to before the invasion. And absolutely important to adress, even if an effective strategy for it is hard to figure out due to no real crimes connected to it.

Might be but it'd be virtually impossible to distinguish an effective Russian influencer from a genuine forum member as appearing genuine is what would make them effective. Same would go for the other side, incidentally. So this is probably not going anywhere and can be dropped, I think. — Baden

The key thing was to point to the investigation that continues to show an increasing presence of this online and IRL. So it's not really the same "for the other side" as it's a massive disinformation movement by Russian intelligence. And I said it just as you, no one can be singled out because there's nothing conclusive, even if Tzeentch wants to bait me into pointing fingers. It was also sort of an analogy on how evidence for probability is not the same as conclusions by deduction when there's little to nothing functioning as true premises. The point is, I've pointed to investigations that show a probability of something and how that gets twisted into other things by others in this thread and how this can be either two things, deliberate or by influence through those narratives that are being spread. Where this is going is about disinformation strategies and how important sticking to actual evidence, facts, and probability is rather than conjecture, i.e. what is the most probable, not the most wanted conclusion. This has been my point all along and is something that I think is lacking in this thread based on the recent debates.

Yet here you are, conjuring up theories about people on this forum being 'Russian agents', literally using the words 'pretty high likelihood'. — Tzeentch

As you can see, again, you are as always unable to understand the difference between a theory that concludes a deduction, and merely pointing towards facts that exist and probability. It’s this inability to understand what is being written that makes you confused. When I point to facts stated by an investigation, first the one about the Russian ship and then about this, facts presented by rigorous investigation and numerous sources (as I mentioned earlier), but you confuse this with a deductively concluded theory. I have never concluded it being Russia, I have never concluded someone in here being a Russian agent, I have only pointed out factual things that points to a likelihood, a probability. So, either you are unable to understand these differences and just imagine some other text that wasn’t written and then goes into confusion, or you are intentionally changing the concept of the text you are arguing against in order to frame it in another way, often in a strawman fashion. But the fact remains that I’m not concluding anything deductively, I’m talking about probability and facts supporting weighting that probability in a certain direction. And this is the foundational difference in how you look at a problem and how I do it. I look at probability when something is lacking something conclusive, and you form a deductive guesswork for a final conclusion based on very little. You change the argument that someone makes and thereby change the details of that argument and its form, I go by what’s actually said, which when you continue to change how you interpret what is written and use that in your premises, simply makes it dishonest.

Perhaps worst of all, you lack the spine to own up to your words. — Tzeentch

I lack the spine to conclude some probability as factual truth and not simply as a probability and thereby being careful not to point in specific ways? If that is what constitutes a spine in your world, then I guess you think you have one since conjecture is your game.

If there are Russian influencers on this forum, then that is a pretty serious thing as it is part of a disinformation strategy for planting doubt. And since that is a serious thing, I’m not gonna be as sloppy as you with pointing fingers.

Who on this forum do you believe 'might very well be' a Russian actor — Tzeentch

Did you read what I wrote? I’m observing a behavior, a rhetoric similar to these tactics. The problem is, as I pointed out, that what’s observed can be either that or someone falling for those tactics. I’m not gonna point fingers because that unknown factor makes it impossible to know without more info. I’m not gonna do like others do and conjure up theories based on nothing but belief. I just point out that these things are wide spread and the likelihood of a forum like this having either of them is pretty high. Or do you think that this event in the world today isn’t actually appearing on people’s doorstep, in both the real world and online?

If you have accusations to make, make them Sherlock. Otherwise keep this type of low-brow copium to yourself. — Tzeentch

It's just an observation based on facts. These people exist, these people either get other people to believe them by spreading doubt about what is going on, or they are these people spreading doubt. It's part of the disinformation war that Russia is conducting against the West by any means they can do without drawing attention to themselves.

Just look at Russia's latest try at organizing sham protests to keep Ergodan from approving Sweden into Nato.


The people in the images are from protests in Paris and Madrid, but they are working for Russian intelligence. The demonstrations in the background have nothing to do with them or their signs. They're made to provoke Turkey and Ergodan, nothing else. This is part of an investigation done by Dossier Center, SVT, Le Monde, Denmark Radio, Expressen, NRK, Delfi, NDR/WDR, and Süddeutsche Zeitung that has mapped out how Russian intelligence is orchestrating these things around Europe.

One of the key factors for spreaders of disinformation online is the rhetorical tactics they use. If you've seen it in use, it starts to stand out. So, no, I'm not making accusations at all, I'm merely pointing out similarities. And the tragedy that many people fall into this without understanding what they help promoting.

The most interesting thing is that a part of that documentary series dives into similar types of personalities who, when digging deep into their funding and things like their host sites, show to be actually paid by Russia to just keep spreading doubt by always arguing against even the clearest and logical reasoning. And how this undermines regular journalists to the point some have been getting death threats as a result of gullible people following these actors. It is not unreasonable to actually argue that a forum like this might very well have such actors. It is not outside the realm of possibility seen as how they operate and how many they actually are.

I'm not going to read any more of your nonsense. You ignore looking at the investigation that I have been talking about and referred to this entire time. And since you ignore all of that there's no point in having any further discussion. If you're just here to rant and ignore whatever counterpoint doesn't fit your narrative, then it's a waste of everyone's time to be a part of such discussions.

Calm down. You're crossing a line here. — Baden

Sorry about that. But since Boethius will never stop changing other people's arguments into his random nonsense and then just rant on without ever addressing the counterpoints provided I'd better just leave. I think it's frustratingly low quality to the point you get dragged down by it, and it's impossible to write anything in here without him just bombarding everyone with his nonsense. It's the reason most people have left this discussion.

Now you're walking back from "much more clear who was responsible" to "conjecture". — boethius

You are the one conducting conjecture. This is the problem, you seem unable to understand what others write and come off as deeply confused.

What you fail to do is account for the undisputed fact the US threatened to blow up the pipelines. — boethius

They didn't threaten that, they said "end it", which can also mean working with Germany to end their dependence on it. The way you interpret it is akin to how conspiracy theories form.

If you want to propose an alternate theory, you need to take into account the undisputed facts. — boethius

Your "theory" doesn't have nearly as much support other than your own conjecture over your own interpretation of something that isn't directly linked.

You need to say "I have this theory that it was the Russians that conspired to blow up the pipelines and make it look like the US did it by taking advantage of the fact the US said they would do it, all while totally not being a conspiracy theorist conjecturing about this conspiracy theory I have" (or is it only a "conspiracy theory" if it's not the Russians somehow?). — boethius

I'm not doing anything other than pointing in the direction of new evidence. It's you who's conjuring up rants through biases and fallacies in order to dismiss all of that because it doesn't fit what you believe.

You do not even have the beginnings of a proposal. — boethius

I don't claim to, I have talked about possible motives and pointed at the investigation done by these journalists. My "lack of a theory" does not mean your theory is right, it means that I go where the evidence is and conclude that the most plausible perpetrator is Russia. But you're the one who claims to have the truth on your side based on conjecture.

I get it, Western media simply ignores the US president threatening to blow up the pipeline — boethius

You still go on about this even though that never happened. If you are this confused on how to interpret reality or how to carefully interpret what is happening without adding your own beliefs, then no wonder you write as you do. Because the foundation you present is already flawed, but you formulate entire arguments on that foundation, which makes everything you say break apart.

So ... why would the US threaten to blow up pipeline — boethius

You keep doing it.

Even in the realm of conjecture, you're idea should cohere with the known facts. — boethius

This is the most blatant attempt at turning the tables. What I pointed to is actual evidence. What you call evidence is a highly speculatory interpretation of a president who actually didn't say specifically what you constantly write he said. It's you who are doing the conjecture, it's you who are conjuring up new ideas of what constitutes evidence. And then you say that I should stick to "known facts"... are you actually delusional? You haven't even gone through the new findings and just dismiss everything and then said something like that... you're fucking hilarious :rofl:

As I say above, if you're theory is the Russian's did it and Biden is a moron for doing the Russians the favour of making empty threats about the pipeline, I don't have a problem with that theory. Conjecture all you want Russia is the master of strategy and perception and US officials are dunces that have no idea what they are talking about or why. — boethius

Strawman again... seriously, get your medicine or whatever. The problem with your way of making arguments is that you write out what you want the other person's argument to be about, and then you counter-argue it. Instead of that, go where I pointed and look into that material because so long as you ignore that you are making a fool out of yourself.

Is only because the US president threatened to blow up the pipelines in Public. — boethius

Again... mr one-trick-pony can't do anything else than parrot this thing over and over and over thinking the amount of time you say it, it's gonna be more real than the last. He didn't say it like that, YOU are the one interpreting it this way and then you build an entire conspiracy theory around it sprinkling fallacies and biases all over the place.

So, at least start your presentation with — boethius

I'm not gonna dance to your pipe just because it makes it easier for you. :rofl:

For someone who does so much mental gymnastics, you're not doing nearly enough to avoid the obvious conclusion which is: — boethius

Stop writing out what you believe others should write just because it makes sense to you. It's lunacy.

Which, again, where is the disagreement? — boethius

I'm not playing your games, your foundation for your argument is so fucking speculative and far-fetched as the entire foundation for it and your entire dismissal of many months of investigations by the group of investigative journalists I've pointed to just shows how desperate you are to have things your way. You simply seem unable to comprehend how deep your head is in the sand. You can't will yourself into being right.

We both agree both the US and Russia had opportunity to blow up the pipeline. — boethius

Why would I agree that the US had the opportunity or reason to? I specifically gave a motivation as to why the US wouldn't, which, as with everything else just wooshes right over your head. Once again you are trying to position the one you debate against into a position you decided by writing what you believe and then try to demand the other to agree with you. Moving the goal posts.

If it wasn't the US then how do avoid the conclusion that Biden is a fucking moron for threatening to do it before hand ... — boethius

You never fucking understand what hindsight bias is, do you? And you never understand that your entire argument is based on what you believe his speech meant. It doesn't matter how many times you say it, it doesn't change the fact that your argument is too weak, it has a tremendously weak foundation and premise. And as long as you ignore the new findings you are just showing everyone how desperate you are for your conjecture to be right, so much so that you try to manipulate your way to it by writing long sections where you try to change other's arguments into what you want them to be. The question is if you do it on purpose or are completely clueless. But you are behaving like the usual stereotypical conspiracy theorist. It's the same attempted tactics, the same inability to understand bias and fallacies, and the same errors in reasoning.

You have the facts presented by the investigative journalists. Dig through it. If not, then you are dishonest in the discussion and only interested in being right. And then you need to understand hindsight bias and understand why your argument is thin as aerogel. Until then, you simply act like a delusional conspiracy theorist.

I agree that, for example, holy days can become everyday holidays. I was thinking of more elaborately symbolic ceremonies like the Catholic Eucharist becoming meaningless without their symbolic dimension. — Janus

Some things survive and others not, it matters little since the religion isn't practiced anymore. Midsommar still means something to people, but it means nothing for anyone in terms of pagan beliefs. Other pagan traditions and rituals that had more belief built into them are of course gone.

Of course, people love festivals, because they love colour, dressing up, dancing and eating and so on. You don't really need any excuse to do those things. Here where I live such activities may be scheduled simply on, for example, the third Sunday of every month. — Janus

And this is what I mean. Increase the incentive for people to do stuff like that, it is healthy for the community and individual in a society. But for that to happen we need less work hours filling up our lives with stress and lost time.

What is the problem with "newly invented spiritual ideas" and what has scientific knowledge got to do with celebrating, and how could the latter become corrupt through lack of the former? Your "vision" sounds somewhat like a scientistic prejudice. — Janus

Because this spiritualism and supernatural beliefs produce negatives in other areas. Why do we need them? It's not prejudice it's looking at the positives of religion and removing the negatives. There's no wonder that smaller spiritual movements today in the West are dominant in other factors like fact-resistance and conspiracy theories. The focus on supernatural stuff can make people invent practices that aren't positive for the self or the community.

There's no point in having those things when the positives of ritual behavior and traditions can exist without supernatural angles.

As I noted earlier, Auguste Comte, founder of sociology and of the idea of positivism, attempted to create just such a secular church movement, The Church of Man, although it never really took off. IThere's still a Church of Positivism in Brazil, I read. ) — Wayfarer

Except I'm more advocating the removal of anything that reinstates religious themes and iconography. Rituals and traditions doesn't need a church.

Like "karesansui". For example, having the time and consistency of focusing on a long process for making tea each morning is a form of ritual. The problem is that our modern world has removed much of the time required for having such rituals. We stress to the next thing all the time, never standing still. If we lower the amount of time we work each week, people will be able to give time to common day rituals that help meditate the mind and ground it.

What I'm advocating for is a society that culturally have a focus on these types of things. Just like we have a bedroom for sleep and society is built around our need for sleep, we could shape society to give people time and incentive to include such rituals into daily life.

Some will say that religion answers only psychological needs, but that itself is reductionist. According to anthropology and comparative religion, religions operate along a number of different lines to provide social cohesion, normative frameworks, and (most of all) a sense of relatedenss to the cosmos, by providing a mythical story which accords a role to human life in the grand scheme of things. — Wayfarer

Of course, but I'd argue that to be a different issue. The frame of mind a person have on existence is an existential one, but I focused on the practical benefits of rituals and traditions. I don't think we need supernatural stories that inflate people's view about themselves as profound. I even think that such stories can inflate our ego as a species so much that we forget the importance of ecology and being in sync with the environment.

For instance, many native and cultural practices in African nations have a focus on man being equal to nature. So they developed farming techniques that were in sync with the ecology of the environment, instead of dealing with it as if they were masters of the land. It's this inflated ego that many nations that formed in the west have from religious stories of man being above nature that have formed an inability to balance our society towards nature. Climate change, or rather the unwillingness to actually do what is necessary to fix the problems, is probably rooted in this mentality that has been deeply planted by these religious stories.

Today, African strategies for farming have started to become important for sustainability because it's a deeply rooted knowledge that we benefit from being transformed into large scale practices.

So I don't think religious stories are important other than being used and considered like normal stories, never confused to be real, but allegorical.

The difficulty with science replacing religion is that it provides no basis for moral judgements, it is a quantitative discipline concerned chiefly with measurement and formulating mathemtically-sound hypotheses. Strictly speaking there is no 'scientific worldview' as such, as science operates on the basis of tentative (i.e. falsifiable) theories which are only ever approximative. It is a method, and maybe an attitude, rather than a definitive statement as to what is real. (Hence the interminable arguments about 'qualia' and whether human beings actually exist.) — Wayfarer

As in my initial post, I don't think it will replace religion because they are two different things. Moral judgements doesn't need religion either since we've perfectly invented moral tenets without the need for religion. Most of our modern laws are based on philosophers ideas on ethics, not religious. We don't need religion to become morally balanced and looking at what mostly polarizes the world into conflict, religion is up there. Science can't help with morals, except the study on how we biologically functions in terms of it, but philosophy can handle questions of morality.

Point being, there are a number of cultures who's religions were less supernatural and more focused on nature, functioning well or even better than other types of religion in terms of practical applications and existential guidance.

That we can't rid ourselves of religious beliefs and fantasies because they are somehow essential to the human condition is something I think is false. Structuring society based on taking the good parts of religious practice, things proven positive for mental health and well being, and reforming them into non-religious applications, like my tea example above, would give us the benefits and remove the negatives. I am not convinced believing fantasies to be real is helpful for the individual and community, it is basically the same as believing in conspiracy theories and no one that is morally balanced would argue that conspiracy theories is a good condition. Some could say that conspiracy theories are good because they focus us with a needed skepticism of our surroundings in order for us to ask the right questions, but it's this difference that I'm talking about. We don't need the conspiracy theory, we just need to become better at skepticism without it. We don't need religion for morality, we need to focus on morality itself. We don't need religion for rituals and traditions, we just need to form society in a way that includes similar practices in order to increase mental health and well being.

We don't need a church or any such structures, we need a culture that gives room for contemplation in itself. Nothing of that has to do with science replacing religion, it has to do with us not needing religion to cover the positives religion provides. It is a society that we don't really have right now.

... Obviously I was referring to Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh — Tzeentch

By linking to a channel of a known conspiracy theorist and disinformation spreader. I failed to see the obviousness and the fact that you did kind of shows just how bad you are at understanding sources.

nearly day-by-day account of the Nord Stream bombing, directly incriminating the United States. Hersh who, by the way, has a proven track record of bringing US misdeeds to light. — Tzeentch

Where's the evidence? You are still doing what conspiracy theorists do and connect dots by wishful thinking. Where't the actual evidence?

It's rather cute you are trying to dismiss the poster of a YouTube video - as though the poster is in any way relevant - when the video features former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice outright admitting their preoccupation with European energy dependency. — Tzeentch

You are still unable to understand that this does not equal guilt of the bombing. It's conjecture. You also fail to explain why there's any motive to bomb it. The EU is an ally to the US and after the invasion there's already began a switch away from Russian dependency for energy. Bombing the pipeline while Germany is already dismantling their need for it has no function. Russia however, just as with their propaganda strategies, aims to split the west into conflicts with each other so as to not have a united front against Russia. That's their aim and it's well established. So, what does a bombing of Nordstream at this time? Russia directly pointed blame against Ukraine, then the west, then the US, just as they already do with other propaganda strategies. The intention is to seed doubt so that the west starts to blame each other. And you are among the ones who they play like a fiddle in order to spread this doubt. So, you are the one who's making a fool out of himself. You don't even understand the conspiracy rabbit hole you're stuck in.

It is not worth my time for something as low stakes as the question of whether Russian ships (civilian, military, covert) are in the Baltic doing what they would normally be doing in peace, and much more-so in war time. — boethius

Oh, the good old debate strategy of dismissing everything saying it's not worth your time... and then just continues to write a long follow up anyway :rofl:

And of course you just ignore everything said and just go back to normal strawmans. It's pathetic actually.

However, since no one is debating at the moment anything remotely important (such as if the cost of the war to Ukraine is worth the benefits so far or then expected benefits in the future and if whether the Western policy to supply is in Ukraine's interest, the West's interest or then just the arms suppliers interest) I will pick apart your delusions for the benefit of the casual follower to this discussion. — boethius

Why are you shifting focus? Shifting goal posts is another strategy of dishonest interlocutors. I have no interest in dancing along with these biases and fallacies. I can feel my intelligence taking damage just being around your dishonest writing.

I have zero problem defending that I am defining the US as the lead suspect. — boethius

Of course, just pick and choose and when the blame comes into question, move goal posts and try to prove it that way.

In any crime, someone who credibly states they intend to do that crime beforehand makes themselves the lead suspect. — boethius

Hindsight bias. You have no evidential link other than conjecture.

You accuse me of ignoring this "important evidence" of some messages or whatever — boethius

Strawman. And of course, you ignore to look into it. Your way of ignoring things like this makes you unable to actually do any kind of investigation. That you don't understand that you suffer from Selective Perception Bias like this also moves you into Dunning Kruger territory.

To make a credible case it was someone else, you need to first explain why this threat by the US was not actually credible and we should dismiss it. For example, perhaps it was a bluff ... or perhaps it wasn't a bluff but the US and Russia were in a race to blow up the pipelines first and Russia just so happened to win that race because they are so competent and crafty. — boethius

Perhaps, perhaps perhaps. Any more dots to connect through conjecture in your water tight accusation towards the US? You would have been laughed out the court room if you had the same level of burden of proof required in there.

Blowing up the pipeline had no purpose for the US when the invasion had already had the effect of moving Germany and Europe away from dependency on Russia. The changeover was already happening so there's no point in bombing a pipeline and hurting allies. Russia, however, have everything to win by the chaos it produces. You are just blaming the US because it rhymes with your personal opinions.

For, if it's actually in Russia's interest to blowup the pipeline because they are "masters of perception" a la Soviet: — boethius

Then obviously, if making a bluff to blow up the pipeline plays right into the hands of the "Vlexler" you are a complete fucking moron for making that bluff, as it's literally blown up in your face. — boethius

What are you talking about? It had the intended effect, you're here playing into exactly what Russia wants to have; the west fractured by gullible people and muddying the waters to the point that when there's even tangible evidence of the act you continue to push for your personal opinions, using every bias and fallacy possible. Russia has everything to win on fracturing the west, it can have the effect of governments stopping shipments of weapons to Ukraine because the people have started to doubt everything. Russia even stated how Europe will "freeze" this last winter, which is an odd thing to say after the explosion. Why isn't the fact they said that equally guilty like the half-demented president quote? Maybe because there's more tangible evidence pointing towards Russia. Things you ignore out of inconvenience for your personal opinion and conspiracy ridden narrative.

If you're argument is "Biden's a fucking moron, delusional senile ol' goat that is liable to say whatever comes into his mind on live television and his words should be ignored — boethius

No, it is that his chaotic mumbling makes it deeply unreliable for interpretation, especially when you do it through hindsight bias and conjecture.

We are not, in fact, in disagreement. You just don't want to call a spade a space or then offer some other theory as to what Biden's words meant, why they don't matter, or why did matter but the Russians got to same plan first ... in which case why is it in Russia's favour if the US was planning to do the exact same thing? — boethius

I have already described three times now what the possible motives are, but you don't care. Your mind seems to wander through conspiracy-land being both confused and paranoid.

Excuse me? — Tzeentch

Vanessa Beeley, it's who you linked to if you had any idea.

That's quite simply untrue. I support everything I say here with tangible arguments, and most of what is discussed is directly related to my own academic field. — Tzeentch

Your arguments aren't tangible just because you say so and especially since the premises you provide have such a weak footing that they're simply just your subjective opinion based on nothing else than what you believe to be true and then seem to call Vanessa Beeley a world-renowned journalist as if she were in any shape or form more valid than the top investigative journalists that conducted the investigation I referred to.

The fact is still that your conjectures are fundamentally weak against the findings of these journalists. And these findings are in support of Russia being the most likely suspect. In the real world, outside of your fantasies and biases, these findings are so far the strongest there is, and any person able to understand what is and what isn't strong evidence have no problem understanding the significance of this.

I think this thread has fried some people's brains. People are so deeply lacking in the area of understanding biases that it's sometimes impossible to converse with them and this thread is clearly such a place.

The US blatantly stated it was going to end Nord Stream. It has been trying to change European energy dependency since the Bush administration. — Tzeentch

Yes, that doesn't mean they blew it up, that only means they want to end the use of Russian gas in their allied nations because of how the dependence on it create problems, as we've see when sanctions were drafted. It's also a pretty stupid way to "end it" since it would just be rebuilt. "Ending it" means making sure EU is choosing something else than Russian gas and oil. But you are interpreting that as attacking it. It is nowhere close to any admission of guilt, it is Selective Perception Bias.

We have almost a day-by-day account of what happened provided by an independent, world-renowned journalist. — Tzeentch

Day to day of what evidence? What's the tangible and real evidence here, all I see is you having Selective Perception Bias.

Are you saying that Vanessa Beeley is a world-renowned journalist? Is this the kind of person you are using as a source calling her a world-renowned journalist? Are you for real? :rofl:

Vanessa Beeley (born 1963/1964[1]) is a British activist and blogger[2][3][4] known for sharing conspiracy theories[5] and disinformation[2][6

You mean that the actual top investigative journalists in Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland are less trustworthy than a proven liar and disinformation blogger?

It's this kind of bullshit that is enough to show how low the level is in terms of rational deduction on your part. It's this kind of things that show why the conclusion that you are just another useful idiot for Russian propaganda is accurate.

The fact that you believe one has to be brainwashed by Russian propaganda to believe the US is a likely suspect is just rich, and probably points towards an effort of projection on your part. — Tzeentch

You are brainwashed because of how you deduce anything in your arguments, using known conspiracy theory bloggers and wild conjecture through Selective Perception Bias. You have nothing tangible to support anything you say, only your biased opinions. It's so intellectually empty.

I don't entirely disagree, but where I live this fills people's time already. There's a veritable cornucopia of lifestyle shit in the west available to fill people's time - writer's festivals, philosophy groups, food festivals, recreation opportunities, etc. Most of it very middle class and aspirational. — Tom Storm

I'm not talking about materialism or pseudo-intellectual activities, but a changeover in dedicated time to work versus activities of meaning on a wider scale that does not revolve around the same materialistic capitalism that is already filling people's lives.

I tend to think this is more apropos -

All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.
- Blaise Pascal.

As true now as it was generations ago. :wink: — Tom Storm

And this is partly what I'm advocating for as well. It's why I mention mediation as a crucial part of psychological wellbeing. The problem is that these practices are somewhat hijacked in people's minds to be automatically religious or spiritual. What I'm arguing for is to dislocate religion from them and form a new cultural routine with such practices and rituals built into everyday life. It's a fundamental change to how people live. Like brushing your teeth, it is a vital normal part of everyone's daily life.

The answers I get in here when I mention "ritual" just shows how hard it is for people to separate it from religion and spiritualism. "Ritual" does not equal any of that, "ritual" is a repeated act that forms a psychological baseline in which the mind returns to known position. It is probably the reason why nostalgia is so powerful. It is the return to something familiar and important to balance against processing new information.

So in a world with an overload of information, rituals can ground people while meditation can focus thoughts.

I'm not convinced the rituals and traditions can survive without the "supernatural and spiritual elements" that motivated them in the first place and without which they lose their meaning. — Janus

Yes they can. As I described above here, "rituals" does not equal anything supernatural or spiritual. "Ritual" simply focuses on a repeating practice or act that ground the mind. It can be used as a purely health-based practice for better mental health in its basic function.

And we already have traditions without any religious foundation having any meaning. Thanksgiving has no religious background and even if Midsommar has pagan roots, there's literary no Swede who celebrate Midsommar in any religious manner. These are traditions that have formed a social and collective event in which non-religious rituals ground the collective and individual to a familiar place. There's no dance around a maypole to celebrate any religious or spiritual thing, the dance is just done because it is part of the celebration and it grounds people into a community as well as letting our minds rest towards new information.

I live in a small hippie village, and such things are celebrated in entirely new, creative ways. The quality's not always great, but the vitality and enthusiasm is there, and no reliance on long-standing traditions. — Janus

And this is what I mean, although, in too small communities, such inventions can have a tendency to incorporate newly invented spiritual ideas or become corrupt by a lack of scientific knowledge that is found on larger scale societies.

It's the larger scale of western culture I'm speaking of. A changeover of how western culture is without dismantling its foundation. A balance and synthesis of a more sustainable living (in terms of psychology) with the fast moving progression of western culture.

You seem to claim this is some sort of backup for NATO's claims. — boethius

No, what I refer is that navy and military investigators, as well as independent ones who went over what the journalists found agreed that what they found is significant. That is a confirmation of it being important, it doesn't mean this investigation is in any form of alliance with these military officals and investigators. It's like you don't even attempt to understand any of this but just boil everything that is said down to some unintelligent interpretation. It's like speaking to a child.

To make it clear for your mind. These investigators are not working for or with the official investigations that have been conducted both by military, navy and civilian actors. This investigation that I am referring to is its own investigation, looking at sources that the other investigators seemingly didn't use.

But if you want to pretend there's some "independent journalism" that is stronger evidence than the lead suspect saying they will do exactly this thing, believe what you want to believe. — boethius

"lead suspect" is something you have made up. In no way is the US any lead suspect other than through Russian propaganda and people gullible enough to eat that propaganda without a second thought. It's this presumption that makes you acting out bias towards what you already believe, and me only referring to the evidence at hand.

And of course, you ignore to even study the findings that have been presented. You just dismiss it and continue with your narrative of "lead suspect". It is a fundamentally biased and faulty deduction on your part. A normal useful idiot for Russia basically.

Which is the central problem behind the idea the Russian's blew up their own pipelines, as there was far less destructive means to shut them down, restrict gas supplies while also keeping the leverage on the table in the future. — boethius

Only in your faulty deduction. Russian propaganda and methods include creating conflicts between western nations in order to weaken them. It's the foundation for why they interfered in the 2016 election. It wasn't because Trump was an ally or anything like it, it was because he stood for the most chaos inflicted by US on itself and other Western nations. This has already been clearly described by many including people like Vlad Vexler, focusing on the shift from Soviet propaganda before the wall fell to Russian propaganda today.

But you don't seem to be able to understand these motivations, or rather I think you just ignore it because it is problematic for your argument. You are part of the problem that is what Russia want by this type of actions. You are the one who ignore actual evidence and continue to focus on a narrative that you have already decided, downplaying and strawmanning everything that is a threat to your own conclusions and arguments. You have no evidence that is tangible in any form that would be of significance. You have a wildly speculative interpretation of a speech and calling the US "leading suspect" without anything to back that up other than conjecture. The difference here is that I go where the evidence is the strongest, the actual evidence, and I don't conclude Russia to be guilty yet since the evidence so far can only point in that direction. But it is a far stronger direction than these wildly speculative interpretations you are doing and has been doing throughout this thread while ignoring everything that is remotely a threat to your own opinions.

This type of ignoring anything that is a problem for your argument is called Selective Perception Bias and it is the very foundation of everything you write in here. This is why it's hard to take your arguments seriously. They're so obviously flawed with ignorance and bias.

Some seem to think that the development of the state, capitalism, etc., lead to this nihilism. Not the other way around. — praxis

I think that you must first abandon a power structure like the church-state in order to replace it with a capitalist state. We replaced high authority with market authority and individualism in which you are your own god.

I see free market capitalism and our extreme individualism as emergent aspects of leaving a religious church-state system. If you place the individual at the center and remove Gods and pantheons, you are left with a being that self-governs itself as the highest authority, which is what free market capitalism, neoliberalism, and individualism focus on.

Attempts at having other authorities than Gods and priests have been made and it's just created hell on earth in another form. So we have removed actual human authorities and surrendered to a system of capitalism that's so integrated into our lives that it functions more like a Lovecraftian eldritch horror that has absolute authority over us. We are unable to see the beginning and end, unable to know where this being exists. It hides in the stock market, in materialism, in individualistic dreams of more more more.

Maybe it is irrelevant how nihilism, individualistic egoism, and capitalism came to be what it is today, only that when "God died" we were so desperate to get on with this new life of ours that we abandoned aspects that didn't require religion, but were essential to psychological well-being.

Social dance at a neighborhood nightclub, with a group of people dancing to the same beat in coordinated patterns, can be as zen as sitting still with a group at a temple. — praxis

Absolutely agree, but not all do that on a regular basis. Most lose this part of them when they get older, which means they need something else. And we don't need temples, we don't need archetypes of religion, we need a new framework.

It’s all there, we’re saturated in meaning, purpose, community… anything a church could offer. To think that we need to be spoon fed like children is ridiculous, and actually impairs growth by design, because religion is designed to make followers dependent. — praxis

I'm absolutely against any kind of spoon-feeding of anything. I'm arguing for just what you talk about. We need more community events, more places for people to meet. We especially need a better rework of our work habits, we need less time working and more time contemplating and meditating, which doesn't mean the same as sitting in front of a sunset getting all spiritual, it means creating a foundation of calm in our daily lives that balance against the hellish nature of neoliberal capitalism that we've been caught in.

What I mean is that society, on a larger scale, may need to advocate for a more healthy balance and a better perspective on materialism than what marketing is feeding to everyone. We're stuck in the desert of the real, believing that everything is fine.

That's the narrative. — Tzeentch

That's the facts. He's a former signals intelligence officer, meaning, he's an expert in the surveillance of radio communications and he was listening in on communication. There's even a section with him analyzing the communication behavior to determine the experience of the person using the radio.

He tracked the vessel to the point of its stated science mission position and then it deviated from its mission to go to the pipeline right at the location of the explosion.

You can speculate all you want, but the capability of the ship and the tracked route confirmed by two sources as well as intercepted communication back all of this up. You don't seem to get that it wasn't a military vessel, it was a civilian science vessel with the military on board, based on the analysis of the communication it had with the mainland. The introduction of him in the documentary shows him directly listening in and you're interpreting him only checking emissions? This is why I doubt you actually have looked into any of this, you are missing points all over the place.

I think you simply lack the practical knowledge to understand my objections. — Tzeentch

I think you lack the unbiased ability to look at these findings correctly. And what practical knowledge? Your ability to interpret a half-demented president?

Except that the story goes that they didn't mask themselves. — Tzeentch

They didn't mask against someone intentionally looking for it in the way they did in this investigation. Because it wasn't normal military practice, as stated by the military and navy if you paid attention.

Apparently they left port with their name plate on display and kept their active sensors on, without apparent reason other than it being very convenient for the story. — Tzeentch

As a science vessel, you know, trying to hide in plain sight. You seem to be very confused as to what actually happened.

What it shows is that I understand how these systems work and what constitutes an actual ship identification, rather than a dramatized collection of circumstantial evidence. — Tzeentch

How these systems work doesn't help if you utilize them for masking yourself. They traveled with a stated mission to a place in the Baltic Ocean to "do research", then went dark and went to the location of the explosion, before returning again.

Tracking a vessel with underwater operation capability, two times deviating to the same location where the explosions happened is not circumstantial evidence, and it's far more proof than any conjectures you draw up about who's responsible. Where's your actual evidence for anyone else?

What exactly was unconventional about the methods? The method is never really explained, but from what I gather they used AIS data, passive intercepts and satellite imagery; that's about as conventional as it gets. — Tzeentch

The satellite stations in Tromsö are not used for gathering this kind of information. And yes, they are explained, if you actually watched all of it.

It sounds like you are confusing territorial waters with Economic Exclusive Zones. To reach Bornholm island there is no need to enter Swedish territorial waters, and Bornholm Island itself is located in the Danish waters. The sabotage was conducted on the border of Danish territorial waters and the Danish/Swedish EEZ border. — Tzeentch

It sounds like you don't know how the Nordic nations' navies collaborate in the Baltic Ocean. It doesn't matter if it's right outside the borders. Do you think we have surveillance only within our nation's borders? How do you think we intercept subs before they enter our waters? The case point is that we have technology specific for spotting Russian subs and you suggest it would be better for Russia to use said subs. Not a very intelligent strategy really.

If you want to live in a fantasy where Sweden sees all that happens in a noisy, shallow sea like the Baltic, be my guest, I suppose - shows what you know. — Tzeentch

Not at all, but you know even less about our Swedish navy and its capabilities. The point is still that operating with a science vessel doing a covert op is far less likely to attract attention than going in with a Russian military submarine. That you think that would be a better strategy just shows how little you know about the conflict events that happen all the time between the Swedish and Russian navies. They're constantly pushing away Russian subs who get too brave thinking they're invisible. It would be the most stupid strategy ever to use a Russian sub for actual operation so close to Sweden, but hey, maybe you live in a fantasy where that is a sound strategy.

Because NATO and Russia have been practically at war since February 2022. I'd expect western intelligence agencies to keep tabs on literally every Russian vessel they can, especially in the Baltic and Black Seas. — Tzeentch

Explain how you do that practically with hundreds of thousands of Russian ships. First, you keep most intel gathering on military movements in the Baltic sea, then, as a priority, you need to keep track of movements in Ukraine, around the borders of Ukraine, Russia, China, and its borders, since that's a potential conflict as well, not to mention other places in the world like, as a recent example, Sudan. You also need constant surveillance of the Black Sea. After you've positioned all analysts to every priority target you then have hundreds of thousands of ships to keep track of around the Nordic region and need to constantly monitor everyone and their movement in order to spot deviant behavior.

So, I'm asking you to explain how in practice you would allocate these resources to effectively be able to spot the rapid deviant behavior of the specific ship that was pointed out in this investigation.

Because it's rather ironic that after you call it fantasy that Sweden would be able to monitor the entire Baltic Ocean (which is a strawman because that's not what I said), you argue that NATO would be able to cover all of this around the world including all the thousands of ships that this specific ship was a part of. Seriously, you're not very consistent in the capacity anyone has of surveilling ships. According to you, the Swedish navy doesn't see much, and the signal intelligence officer shouldn't be able to gather much, but NATO should see everything all the time, because that is in line with your conspiracy theory about them.

What findings? — boethius

The findings by the investigative journalists that were just released. Are you illiterate or just ignorant?

I can't say I personally want to be involved in community type rituals, contemplation, traditions or meditation. — Tom Storm

Compared to many religious practices, it would of course be voluntary. You don't have to, but it's there as part of a culture that balances against the current Western culture that is slowly killing us with stress.
And you're already somewhat part of this, wherever you live I'd guess there are traditions that happen that aren't linked to religion, but function as celebrations of some sort, a social event. People opt out of those all the time and compared to religion, no one is really judgemental of those people.

Do we have evidence that people were less stressed or happier, or more connected to what matters a hundred, two hundred years ago, when religion still had power in the west? I knew three of my grandparents pretty well. They were born in the late 1800s. They did not seem to think so. — Tom Storm

No, we weren't happier before, but we have another type of stress today. And we have a society that has removed many of the dangers of living that existed back then. This has led to another type of stress. The modern world does not distinguish stress that can be correlated to a certain danger, like the need for food or shelter/home. Today, stress is vague, exists all the time, and never rests. This is because of things like social media, smartphones, internet in general, and a change to what "work" means in people's lives. The constant connection, availability, the constant work creates a system where we never really rest, think and contemplate. People even make it a business with self-help books and other bullshit that stress out people more because they need to "book rest" into their calender.

What I'm talking about is a society where we structure these things into everyday life. A culture that incorporates rest, meditation, and contemplation as part of everyday practices. Creating rituals that can be followed without having the burden of spirituality and religion attached to it.

Is there any compelling demonstration that people's lives are better with ritual and contemplation? How would we demonstrate this? — Tom Storm

There's been many studies on the positive effects of meditation and boredom (specifically contemplative). Studies conducted used one group living with these day-to-day practices and the control group without. Sleep became better, mental stability and health improved, and stress levels lowered.

Would lives not be generally enhanced if people just slowed down the pace and stopped social media and eating shit? (Such dreams are possibly only a middle class option.) Is it perhaps the case that meditation's benefits are down to the person not being at McDonald's, swiping away on their phone, or similar? — Tom Storm

Of course, but isn't it better to find a balance between technology and life rather than trying to say "stop it". Why not have practices normalized like brushing our teeth for our dental health? Instead of forcing people to abandon something, we can add practices that mitigate the negatives. When people feel the health benefits, they will do it just as they do exercise. It's just that mental health and stress issues haven't been worked into the culture as much as how we, for example, exercise more as a way of life nowadays than before.

I'd be interested to learn who is actually experiencing Nietzsche's nihilistic hell. — Tom Storm

We all are to one degree or not. The materialistic consumer neoliberalist hell that we have is a result of this nihilism. People live in it more or less. Gods are replaced by corporations and things, we look up to authorities that provide us with tech and stuff. Church is a stuffed mall. We're already in it and it has even become a Baudrillardian hell in which we are blind to what is real and what is a constructed simulacra of life. This happens when people never stop and contemplate anything.

They are swooped away by a tide of commercialism, brainwashed by commercials forming the ideal lifestyle that they can never reach. Life is not real anymore, it is a never-ending journey to reach the lifestyle that commercials show. The American dream has been replaced by a fictional pseudo-heaven shown in commercials for products. The coastline drive in the luxury car, the influencer billionaire life having a mega party, the morning brew on the porch of a house no one can afford. And the more people live in these dreams, the less they realize they are losing their lives in a stressful fight to reach these heavens.

On the whole, connection to people seems a better guarantee of enhanced mental health and happiness from what I've seen. — Tom Storm

Hence why I suggest society focus more on non-religious social traditions. Let's have more things that bring people together physically around things that people love, good food, contemplative discussions (note debates), experiences, games parties, live events etc.

While rituals are things done as an individual, social traditions act as collective acts. Both with the intent of focusing life towards something other than nihilism and the Baudriallardian desert of the real.

The evidence you are talking about is literally ships near the scene of the crime. — boethius

No, it's about their behavior and their function. Once again, dig into the actual findings instead of continuing this biased charade.

Literally right through Danish straights. — boethius

Yes, and the deviations are the things that they investigated. As well as the fact that these ships entered Danish waters (not international) with masked armed personnel, deviate from their planned routes and enter restricted areas where they should not be. Sweden has been driving off Russian ships and subs on occations for years, but at the moment it's almost done on a regular basis.

So you don't know what you're talking about.

There are civilian satellite photography taken every day of the entire earth that you can purchase.

And you think CIA spy satellites would need a "specific target" to track something as large as a ship in critical waters in the heart of NATO ... during a war in the region? — boethius

If you had been looking into this, you would have understood that there are thousands if not hundreds of thousands of civilian-marked ships that are used by the Russian military and navy as covert ships around the Nordic region. And if you knew anything about the Baltic region you would know that it is not "the heart of NATO" and has never been up until maybe when Sweden joins NATO, which hasn't happened yet. But the key factor here is that your idea of it being easy to track all ships as you imply is just not correct. This is the foundation for why they probably used such a ship in the first place because there's simply no way for the CIA or NATO to track all ships and if they mask their intent right up until they deviate with a commercial tracker off, they won't be noticed other than by something that tracks an entire region or someone who's dedicated all their time to just looking at deviations. And then there's the fact that there's no war in the Baltic region and ocean. Where do you think the intelligence people are looking the most? Ukraine and the Black Sea of course.

Painting CIA and NATO as an all-seeing eye that has superhuman capabilities of spotting everything everywhere is not a counter-argument to the findings presented. Because these findings were used with unconventional methods. Which may be key to why they spotted it and not any intelligence agency. If Russia knows the tactics and methods of surveillance, they would plan a covert op to hide from it, but not unconventional methods like the ones used in these findings.

So, if the investigation hasn't shared all it's evidence, and that's just normal, why would we come to any conclusions? — boethius

Because... once again, if you cared to look into these findings that are a result of investigations since the explosions occurred, you would understand that the conclusion is not undisputed guilt towards Russia, but that there's enough evidence here to point at Russia far more than any other perp.

But you don't care, you just conjure up your own conspiracy theory based on official investigations not releasing evidence in an ongoing investigation and some far-fetched interpretation of a half-demented president.

If this was a murder case and you would say: "If the prosecutor isn't releasing the evidence for the public to see, then there has to be some corruption against the accused", no one would judge you as being anything other than another conspiracy nutjob. If the normal practice in criminal investigations is to keep the evidence confidential, then in investigations that revolve around national security and war it would obviously be even more so. To say that this confidentiality is "evidence of guilt" on the investigator's part is just conspiracy theory nonsense.

The problem here is these countries (who have material evidence) coming out with partial evidence without presenting the rest, so we can see if it even coheres with the material evidence. — boethius

Nations, NATO, or the CIA isn't part of the investigation that has released these findings I'm talking about. If you are this confused about who's doing what and what evidence is where then it's no wonder you're acting like a conspiracy nut.

Bad faith at best, fraud at worst (if we're pretending to be in court and 'normy' laws apply to the parties involved). — boethius

I'm using "court" or normal legal practices as thought examples in order to show just how weak your "evidence" is. The thing is that these new findings that have been released paint the clearest picture yet, it's the most conclusive evidence yet. And you are doing everything you can to dismiss their relevance without even having much of an insight or care for the details. This is the behavior of Russian trolls or of people brainwashed by their propaganda strategy. They show a hilarious example of this with a "people's journalist" who questions everything in the same manner you do, and then they track his history back to being paid by Russia to keep feeding misinformation and disinformation to the public in order to plant doubt. So that even when there are clear hints, through evidence, that Russia is in fact behind the attack, the seed of doubt produces useful idiots who keep spreading this doubt.

There's no such thing, except maybe acoustic signatures, which weren't mentioned. They mention a handful of visual characteristics which we are then to assume are present on the irrecognizable white blotches we see on the satellite imagery. — Tzeentch

False, the navy former officer specified the ship identity and the tracker before it was turned off was linked to the exact ship. If you paid attention to the material you would know it wasn't identified by the "white blotches". The "white blotches" were correlated between locations the former officer registered and with the satellite images in order to confirm travel paths. So you are clearly wrong and once again try to strawman their findings.

To reiterate, this would have been basic stuff. Literally the first things that would have been done when trying to discover whodunnit - check positioning logs, satellite imagery, and data from the numerous listening installations that line the Baltic coasts. — Tzeentch

Doesn't matter if they mask themselves among the hundreds of thousands of ships in the area. There's literary a section focused on how they didn't use the satellite system in Tromsö that they used to detect this. And it was the combined tracking between the navy officer and those satellite images that created a map of the ship's travel path. The whole point was that the initial investigators missed it because the satellite system in Tromsö isn't used for investigations. It was the idea of the journalists to use them.

For this information to just 'pop up' out of nowhere — Tzeentch

It was months of investigation in order to find something conclusive. Compared to your wild speculations, real investigators actually take time to verify to a point where it has substance. That takes time, and that's what investigative journalism is about compared to whatever bullshit clickbait the rest of the journalist world conducts.

It's kind of the opposite of what this thread is, where everyone is just spewing out wild speculations as soon as something happens. It's also that kind of behavior that lock people into biases, so deep that you are unable to do anything but try so very hard to dismiss all of this in every way possible.

We never get any real insight in the actual data that was used. — Tzeentch

This shows that you just skimmed through everything.

A secret technique which we never get any insight into, and is somehow unknown to professional militaries who have access to every type of surveillance imaginable? — Tzeentch

You don't understand why they were able to track in the way they did. The unconventional methods used are not anticipated by Russian covert ops, and not something planned against. Using civilian ships in the way they did is perfect to circumvent intelligence agencies who monitor these areas because of the sheer number of ships in use. Do you think this is the first time in history that civilians were able to spot operations and intel that intelligence agencies missed?

If you're going to accuse me of "pulling ideas out of my ass" then maybe not display your ignorance so blatantly. — Tzeentch

My ignorance? I'm pointing to the only fucking tangible evidence that has been publically available and you call me ignorant? Ger real

Their submarines can lay mines and launch divers, underwater vessels and drones. — Tzeentch

And the Swedish navy is an expert hunter for Russian subs. Do you know how many they've pushed back from our waters over the years? Do you think the presence of our navy is less after the Ukraine invasion? Do you think it's intelligent for Russians to use subs in Swedish waters when our entire sub fleet has been specifically built to counter Russian submarine designs? I guess if you had been the leader of this operation it would have failed spectacularly. Swedish submarines and operating personnel is proven the best in the world since we took out US flagships with ease. What would be the most intelligent way to do this operation then? Disguise as a civilian ship that has the capacity to do fast deep sea minisub missions of course. The Swedish navy is actively looking for Russian subs and military ships, they aren't focused on these civilian ones. The report that there are thousands of these pseudo-civilian ships is big news in the Nordic region, our governments are now initiating actions based on this investigation.

You are just throwing out ideas in an attempt to counter all of this but there's no depth to any of your ideas. Pun intended.

That's begging the question, isn't it? — Tzeentch

How is that begging the question? It's inductive reasoning based on Russia's actual practice with civilian ships right now. And you fail to realize that YOU are the one doing "begging the question". "Biden said this... so that's begging the question of why the explosion happened after it". "NATO is keeping evidence quite, so that's begging the question, what are they hiding". You don't seem to understand what begging the question means.

How many ships in the Nordic region have the letters "CC-750" on their hulls, hm? — Tzeentch

You mean this ship? Because this is the one they tracked



And of course, why would anyone track a ships location pre-explosions? You are suggesting that they should have spotted these ships before the action, but how would they know? How would they know to track this ship? The findings by these journalists were possible because they found a way to track ships in this region post-explosions. The actual intelligence agencies were surprised by their findings. There's been further interviews with counter-intelligence personnel basically being surprised by what the journalists were able to achieve and it's now part of the investigation going forward.

Are you sure conducting underwater sabotage in broad daylight with a submarine tender would classify as "covert and intelligent"? — Tzeentch

This just shows how naive you are about what covert means. It's not a Mission Impossible movie. Real operations use any means necessary to stay covert. In real life, there can be far weirder things like inflatable tanks, which fool intel personnel more than people realize. If you think that going down with a Russian sub into Swedish waters, where Sweden is world-leading at countering Russia, down to the very design of our military naval equipment and conducting the operation at night like some Hollywood movie, is more "covert" than operating within a group of thousands of other ships, only deviating a short time to a location along the pipeline that is located in a place where Russia could spin the blame towards others than if they had done so closer to their shore, and then slip out playing "innocent ship", then you have no idea what covert ops mean.

Once again you are stretching things too thin for your counter-arguments to actually work. What will you think of next I wonder?

Some even question whether Daoism or Buddhism qualify as religions. — Janus

If removing any supernatural and spiritual elements then they are closer to what I described about the essential need for rituals, traditions, and awe in a non-religious way of life. How the importance of traditions and rituals exist in the psychology of humans and that trying to rid yourself of every such form has a tremendous negative impact on our well-being.

I am as much of an atheist as they come. I think religion is pure delusion and fantasy. But I also think the pendulum from religion to atheism has been swung too heavily and with such power that we've lost some essential aspects of human psychology in relation to religious practice.

I think that one part of avoiding Nietzsche's nihilistic hell is to find a way to have rituals and traditions in a non-religious world. Like the tradition of Midsommar in Sweden, having no real religious ties anymore, and is more of a social tradition. Likewise Thanksgiving not needing any religious ties, but functions as a social tradition. And how basic meditation has been shown to clinically lower stress levels.

Many religions feature practices that on the surface are just praying and worship, but underneath it all have psychological impacts on our well-being. And there's too little study on the actual practices and how they could be utilized for better health and well-being, both psychologically and physically.

Especially in a world where there's an overload of information and sensory inputs. People are constantly becoming increasingly overworked and burnt out, and stress levels have increased so much that researchers have found it to damage the brain physically. But we have no strategy for handling it other than disconnecting and losing connection with the rest of society in doing so.

I also think that if society were to adapt into a place with more emphasis on methods of contemplation, meditation, social traditions, and other aspects of religion that don't require religion, we can more easily rid society of the negative religious parts but keep the good practical parts.

You are completely delusional.

Placing someone where they would likely be (a busy shipping lane) = weak evidence. — boethius

That's not the evidence, maybe you should just shut up and watch it in detail before guessing what it's about. Thinking this is about ships in a busy shipping lane just shows how ignorant you are.

There's no point trying to convince someone like you to do this since you've shown in this thread just how biased you are. Actually, there's a big part of the series dedicated to what you are doing, but you wouldn't know anything about it or would deny it.

All we see are blips on a map and the vaguest of satellite imagery. — Tzeentch

No, they have verified signatures for a specific ship. Nice strawman try to lower the significance of it.

Military ships aren't required to use AIS. The US navy sails around without AIS 24/7. Moreover, navies use a special version of AIS that allows them to manipulate the ship ID data. — Tzeentch

They are required to use them when exiting international waters. That's why Sweden chases out Russians all the time when discovering deviating routes and having them off.

Supposed 'retired UK intelligence officers' aren't the only one's listening in around the Baltic. — Tzeentch

There are hundreds of thousands of ships, he used his retirement time to specifically track ships around the Nordic region and mapping behaviors using a specific tracking technique. That is what he is actually doing, what you do there is to guess that Nato is doing exactly the same. So guesswork once again.

The idea that the CIA and other intelligence agencies can't produce more than a few blips on a map and the grainiest of satellite imagery is just the type of naivety that would make this theory plausible. Had the Russians been this obvious about it, there wouldn't have been a mystery in the first place. — Tzeentch

More guesses and attempts to downplay. Spy satellites that something like CIA uses require specific targets. They are super-advanced with high-resolution resolution, but you can't go back in time and just pull out images from all around the globe and you could do it less for tracking an object if you didn't know its location in the first place.

And then you say "If the Russians had been obvious about it, there wouldn't have been any mystery". That's not in any shape or form a counter-argument to these things, that's like saying "if the murderer had been obvious about it there wouldn't need to be any investigation". What the hell kind of argument is that? :rofl: It's this non-obvious and covert op that perhaps made it hard for advanced surveillance and the CIA to catch them in the first place. Because the surveillance that did spot them was a retired Navy officer who made it a 24/7 hobby to track ships' movements and deviations and then confirmed by one of the most advanced non-military satellite systems around, which, compared to your guesswork about CIAs capabilities for intel, actually do take images frequently. But as a drawback, it can only get the outline of the ship. However, the combination of two separate tracking methods that aren't traditionally used in tandem to confirm things like this, provided a confirmation of the ship's identity and behavior during the attack on the pipeline. It was this unusual combination that helped find this intel because it was a non-standard practice that Russians wouldn't have any intel on.

That you only believe that the CIA should have gotten better intel while trying to strawman the actual findings in order to paint the theory as naive is just so weak as a counterargument that it comes off as a desperate attempt to dismiss everything out of bias to what you already believed before.

Moreover, the Russians own the pipeline. They know where it is located and have the capacity to carry out the operation via submarine, completely covertly. — Tzeentch

You don't seem to know how well Sweden tracks Russian subs. A civilian-looking ship using small submarines is more covert than a large sub. And you also totally ignore the fact that there are residue and evidence left after an explosion. If they had used a Russian sub and torpedos it would have shown signs of that kind of attack. You're just pulling ideas out of your ass now without any regard for what the consequence of different strategies would be. To use a ship that is among hundreds of thousands of other ships in the Nordic region is obviously a much more covert and intelligent strategy. The fact that it required non-standard methods to spot the deviations is clearly a sign of that operation being smartly planned.

The story doesn't really provide evidence, nor does it add up. — Tzeentch

Because of what? You shrugging at the evidence and thinking the CIA "should have" spotted things because they are the all-seeing eye of the universe? You have nothing tangible whatsoever to support any other theory, while this is the best evidence so far. The most plausible culprit is Russia, you can't deny that just because you believe and interpret things about what CIA "should be able to do" and what a half-demented president vaguely said.

That much has been clear since the Cold War. — Tzeentch

Except, since the invasion, Russia has expanded this to include all civilian ships, not just a few specific ones. All ships are required to be able to aid in intelligence. You can find info about this if you cared to look up anything.

An overt threat by the US president and Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, both basically outright saying they will blow up the pipeline, is a very strong indication of guilt - yes. — Tzeentch

They didn't say they will blow it up. That's something you put together after the fact. As I said, try that in court and people will laugh at you because that's called conjecture and cannot be used in the way you try to.

I think it requires an ungodly amount of confirmation bias not to interpret that as such. — Tzeentch

Holy shitballs you are backwards with that. You don't even realize that you use confirmation bias, after the fact to spot this connection. You don't seem to realize that it's precisely confirmation bias that you do with that conjecture. And this thing is your only thing, as well as "CIA should have seen stuff".

How the hell can't you see how weak what you suggest is? You say that the evidence that has been presented is weak and yet you provide the weakest form of "evidence" possible. It's hilarious.

Yes I did. I'm just a little less naive. — Tzeentch

No, you are purely biased toward your own belief in this. You have no evidence whatsoever and you call me naive? Get real

Saying you're going to do something ... then that thing happening would definitely be used against you in court. — boethius

They didn't say that they were going to blow it up.

Mafia bosses who say they will whack a guy — boethius

They didn't say they were going to blow it up. Or whack anything.

In itself, is it enough to convict? No. But it's pretty strong evidence. — boethius

Actual tracking of Russian operatives connected to the time of the explosion is stronger evidence. What you are doing is conjecture. Get some basic justice knowledge if you want to conclude what is "strong evidence".

The evidence presented in this investigation is also not enough to convict, but it is damn stronger than all of your wild interpretations and conjecture of that speech. You need to prove that the intent wasn't to diplomatically dismantle the pipeline with Germany.

On top of this, you need something else than just that speech. You wouldn't win any court case with just that. The investigation has a lot more evidence to show. If you think that speech is enough against all that, then you're delusional.

NATO has access to the crime scene ... so why don't we see pictures of the crime scene, reconstruction of the explosive devices, any basic investigatory work at all? — boethius

Uhm... because ongoing investigations do not share such things? There are a number of investigations going on as well. Have you ever heard of investigations sharing evidence in real time? That's a good way for the perps to adjust their stories and prepare for when they're caught. Not a good strategy of justice, which is why such things aren't publically exposed.

And if you don't trust NATO you can check other people investigating. Like, for instance, what I've referred to.

For these claims to be something other than propaganda, the material evidence should be presented. — boethius

I've linked to the series. You can watch it. There's no NATO involved in that investigation.

Of course, people could still say it was a setup, doesn't necessarily resolve anything, but the material evidence should be consistent with this story that the explosives were laid a few days before (or then a pretty good explanation of how the Russians faked how long the explosives were there). — boethius

Then look into the investigation then, that I talked about. What's the problem?

making zero effort to make their story consistent with the material evidence of the crime scene — boethius

I think the investigative journalists made a tremendous effort to show a story consistent with their evidence. I don't know what you're referring to.

NATO has not made a case — boethius

This isn't about NATO, it's about what the collaborative investigative journalists between four nations did to provide tangible evidence of Russia's involvement. It has zero to do with NATO so I don't know what you are babbling about.

Now, if we had seen pictures of the crime scene, catalogue of the materials used, reconstruction of the devices, would it prove conclusively who did it? No. But it would at least be a plausibly good faith investigatory process where we could argue based on actual facts of the actual crime scene. — boethius

You can wait for the investigations conducted by others than NATO as well as understand the fact that ongoing investigations don't share evidence (which doesn't mean they hide anything because, you know, that kind of conclusion is called a conspiracy theory). They have no obligation to share this with you in some "good faith" and it is also strategically stupid to release evidence before anything can be concluded. You are not an investigator and you are irrelevant to show evidence to.

However, you have the evidence from these journalists, which is far more conclusive than any bullshit that's been produced by this thread. In here, there's just conjecture and conspiracy theories. There's nothing different between this thread and some deep internet hole with other conspiracy nutjobs. Wild interpretations and confirmation biases.

These journalists have found tangible and clear evidence that points to Russia. It's not strong enough to deductively conclude Russia's guilt, but it's damn well better than any bullshit that's been conjured up by internet amateurs so far.

I've already watched it, and no actual evidence is presented.

I'm talking about Nord Stream, in case that wasn't clear.

That the Russians are floating around scanning the seabed with civilian vessels is nothing new. Hell, I don't even doubt they could have conducted the Nord Stream sabotage if they had wanted to. — Tzeentch

If you've actually watched it through and especially the third episode, then you are just ignoring the fact that the ship in question, the one with underwater operation capabilities was at the location of the explosions, turning off their commercial trackers, stopped, went back to Kaliningrad, turned off normal communication, went back and turned off their trackers again and held positions for a long period of time right at the site just days around the explosions occurred. Verified by both satellite and the former Navy operator separately.

So, we have a ship, built for underwater operations at deep levels, that went to a place, twice, that has no purpose other than being the place where the pipeline is located. While turning off trackers that all commercial ships are required to have on in these waters. While turning off normal communication back to Kaliningrad. While no other ships were reported in the area and no other ships were spotted on the satellite other than this ship around that time. On top of this, it's clear that Russian civilian ships are almost all involved with surveillance everywhere around the Nordic region, spying on everything based on their deviant movement from their commercial purpose, right at times when something else is in the area that would be of interest as intel to Russia. You then have the propaganda strategy of blaming in all directions, then boiling it down to one part, in order to make the appearance that guilt has been cleared up. The same exact propaganda strategy that Russia is using all the time to steer the narrative away from them after they've done something (which according to this thread is pretty obvious they succeed with), as they did after Butcha.

All of this (which is a brief summary of three hours), is also commented on by outside sources that verify the significance of their findings.

But you don't think any of this is significant because of what a half-demented president, vaguely said and you interpreted as an admission of guilt. That is your strong evidence against all of this? :rofl:

Seriously, all of this is enough to have the guilt heavily leaning toward Russia. Of course it isn't a picture of a Russian operative shooting a rocket launcher on the pipeline, but it's way more evidence than any other theory has shown so far (and any wild conspiracy theory in this thread), and dismissing this because you interpret what the president said as "stronger evidence" is just a conspiracy charade, either on purpose or just because brainwashery. I guess this thread really fried some people's brains, good thing I'm not a regular in here anymore.

But then again, I don't think you watched it at all. I just think you try to bullshit your way through this.

Where's this evidence? — Tzeentch

That's part of the whole body of evidence, it's one image that is able for me to provide since I cannot link the actual episodes because, you know, it's national television spread between all nations. So if you want the evidence, please go check yourself, use VPN, or whatever.

But you know, you won't do that and in your head, that means there isn't any evidence. I've tried to explain this to you, but you ignore it and still go on with "Where's the evidence" like that somehow is a counter to the evidence. That's just pure ignorance and being a dishonest interlocutor. But that's just how this thread seems to work, it doesn't matter if someone points and says, look there's some evidence for you all to take into consideration, it doesn't matter if I try to explain what it was, you just keep ignoring it.

If you want the evidence, go in the direction I pointed towards, or just keep doing this lazy charade, because I cannot provide something you need to actively watch yourself. If you don't want me to install a VPN or try and tune an antenna for you. :shade:

But here you go, I doubt you will care though
https://www.svtplay.se/uppdrag-granskning-skuggkriget

Alrighty, then. — Tzeentch

What report? I've said that these investigative journalists presented this evidence and it's been a multipart series of one-hour investigative documentaries in collaboration between the top investigative journalists in each nation and then aired on their respective biggest channels. It's then been confirmed and built upon by other news outlets and journalists further building on top of it and all of it has been with utmost care to verification because of the sensitive matter all of this is about. They've even had access to intelligence tools for deep tracking internet services for digging into people spreading propaganda and who's been shown to be paid by the Russian state.

But you say there's no evidence in... some reports? What are you talking about? If you don't care to dig into this yourself then there's nothing to talk about since you will just conclude yourself right by ignoring it.

All of this shows just how stupid this whole thread discussion is. There's actual evidence presented by these journalists, painting a far clearer picture than any fantasies, conjured-up stories, and wild interpretations that get spewed out in this dumpster fire of a thread. Instead of looking into any of it, you just claim to be right because you don't have the evidence served to you, but I question that you would even look at it then.

Here's one of the Russian soldiers on a civilian ship with a turned-off official tracker within Danish waters. These ships have been reported to be conducting surveillance all around the nordic regions and the other ship that was tracked to be at a stand still at the site of the explosions is a vessel with the specific capability of mini-sub underwater operations.



But yeah, there's nothing in this because you say so... give me a fucking break.

This is a bit cute, considering there's no evidence whatsoever presented in any of these reports. — Tzeentch

What are you talking about? What reports are you referring to?

And you really think that if they had footage supposedly depicting Russian ships conducting the sabotage, that the US would be so eagerly throwing its ally under the bus?

Get real. — Tzeentch

Maybe you should actually look into the evidence before conjuring up some scenarios and calling out people to get real.

To reiterate, the US story about a Ukrainian 'group' was full-blown panic in reaction to Hersh's story. There's no way they would have made such a move if they knew the official investigation was on the Russians' tail. — Tzeentch

I don't give a fuck about the US, this is an investigation by Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland with support of intel by former UK navy. If you want to discuss what US says and if it is true or not that has nothing to do with the evidence that these investigators found.

But all of this just shows how low the level is in this thread. There's ACTUAL tangible evidence on the table and it's still just who said what and what propaganda is correct in a never-ending circle.

Return with something more tangible after you've looked into the evidence in detail, until then it's just empty words on your part.

Half a year on they suddenly find a box of photographs of the Russians caught in the act?

Color me skeptical. — Tzeentch

It was their own footage, taken while they are heard asking the photographer: "are they aiming at us? Should we go? Let's go now"

This was WITHIN danish waters, not international waters.

Do you know how long investigations take? They've been conducting this investigation since the explosions, and compared to amateurs, they actually went through A LOT of scrutiny to verify, just like investigative journalists actually do, compared to amateurs with too much time on their hands.

This is not very good evidence at all, considering Russian ships regularly go through the Baltic and you have to go through the Danish straits (basically where the explosions happened) to get to and from the Atlantic. — boethius

If you had any interest in looking at the actual evidence, it is not just about ships going about their business. Their investigation is part of a long and large investigation into commercial ships being used for military operations. There are surveillance images of these ships showing heavily armed military personnel with masks to hide their identity so that it's hard to track their origin of operation. There are experts in both military navy as well as commercial shipping that examined the movement of these ships in relation to how they should move according to their function, showing them following US subs and other ships in surveillance moves rather than being used for commercial fishing. All while they turn off their sea traffic trackers at the moment they deviate.

This is just a short sum of the body of evidence they've gone through, but why would you care about that? It's not like you're a person who would actually lift a finger to go through it.

Sure, doesn't prove who did it, but declaring you'll "end" something and then that very thing you promised you'd end does get ended, results in two possibilities:

1. You did it, just like you said you would.
2. You're a fucking moron.

Feel free to go with 2, but don't pretend that what people say they're going to do doesn't matter and is not strong evidence. — boethius

Try that in court against the other evidence :rofl:

They also had a long investigation into people in western countries who on the surface are independent journalists who keep releasing pro-Russian concepts and propaganda, only to be proven paid by Russia.

The whole idea behind it being a post-soviet propaganda system that doesn't act on trying to convince Russia to be right, they only need to plant doubt into populations of other nations in order to get them into conflict with each other instead of focusing on Russia. It's the foundation for why Russia wanted Trump to win. Vlad Vexler has gone into those things describing the difference between propaganda before the wall fell and after.

I'd say this thread shows just the same kind of behavior from some. Disregarding any evidence in order to just plant enough doubt. That people still fall for it trying to dismiss pretty convincing evidence is just a tragic reality of it all.

It seems to be the same principle as a strawman to me, only used defensively, as you state. — Pantagruel

I think the difference is that in a strawman the act is to simplify and ridicule, but in this case the act is to retreat to something solid and simple. The difference being a strawman is an attack with simplicity in order to sound more advanced in response, while the other is a retreat to a grounded simplicity in order to sound like there's a good foundation.

I get your point, but I think the application of this fallacy has its own use rather than being the same as a strawman.

However, what I found most fascinating is the idea that qualia constitute the self, rather than being something perceived by the self.

As the article notes in relation to blindsight patients who function as sighted despite lacking visual qualia, "they don’t take ownership of their capacity to see. Lacking visual qualia – the ‘somethingness’ of seeing – they believe that visual perception has nothing to do with them." Extend this lack of ownership via lack of qualia to all qualia and the self itself disappears. — Luke

Am I right to interpret the article to suggest that we essentially dream ourselves into sentience? That the sum of our sensory inputs is formed into a collage that is us?

In that case, it somewhat confirms concepts I already had, intuitively, about consciousness.

I've had the idea that we essentially dream ourself conscious through a constant feedback loop, not only within the brain as we can read about in the article, but that we constantly get a feed from our surroundings that has its properties constant. We see a table and that table will not change its objective physical properties, form, color, smell, and taste, so the stream of input constantly generates a verification of our inputs to our dream state experience.

This is why our dreams act in such abstract and surreal ways, because the stream of verification is lacking. The feedback loop is only the previous feed of sensory information being looped within our minds and never verified by a solid objective reality. So it shifts in all forms, shapes, colors, smells, tastes, and touch.

It is also why when we take psychedelics, our mind process reality like a dream. Because our sensory inputs start to have interferences in both what they signal to the brain and how the brain loops that information, we start to instead dream in an awake state.

It can also explain how and why we change our personality depending on sensory input. When someone has chronic pains they might act with anger in everyday situations and they might even justify it as being part of their persona.

All of this is a side note to the article, but it verifies some ideas about why we experience dreams and psychedelics the way we do and how they affect our sense of self.