That's the positive side of individualism, but the negatives like social fragmentation, inequality, egoism and selfishness, lack of social responsibility, loss of meaning and connection. — Christoffer

What I'm trying to get across is that those negatives aren't necessarily the result of individualism.

Individualism first and foremost states that the individual has inherent value, and from a moral perspective cannot simply be bulldozed by states or collectives. In my opinion, that idea is the very cornerstone of humanism. Wherever the value of the individual is not acknowledged we find, pretty much categorically, inhumanity. Human rights and constitutions are based on the idea that individuals have rights. I could go on.

This is why I find it deeply disturbing that people on this forum have taken such an adversarial stance towards individualism, apparently attributing to it all the negative traits of our society.

Individuals left to their own devices will generally seek voluntary, mutual beneficial relations with others. They will pursue happiness, but that happiness often includes the happiness of others. They will prefer coexistence over conflict, etc.

Note also that individualism understands every individual to have inherent value, so self-aggrandizement at the expense of others - egotism - has nothing to do with individualism.

It's not individualism that is a sham. It's our western society pretending it works for the benefit of the individual that is the sham.

In fact, there's nothing individualist about our society. In the west it is not uncommon for half one's income to be taken directly in the form of tax. Meanwhile governments infringe pretty much at will upon individuals' constitutional and human rights whenever it suits them.

These are signs of a deeply collectivist society. We simply do a good job at hiding that fact, because governments have no interest in furthering ideas that would seek to limit the powers of government. Likewise, people who seek power over others have no interest in futhering ideas that seeks to take that power away.

Better pretend that philosophies of individual worth and freedom are the problem.

ChatGTP seems very good at pencil pushing, and considering that's what 99% of the scientific field seems to consist of these days, I see a match made in heaven.

Also, whenever I hear of programs like ChatGTP, I like to imagine the future relation between humans and AI will look something like this:

As I stated, occupying and holding Kiev against a defending force would be an extremely costly operation in terms of both manpower and time. To me it seems completely infeasible and I think it is unlikely that was their goal.

My view is that by threatening Kiev they hoped to bring the West / Ukraine to negotiate about Ukraine's position. Given the geopolitical situation between the US and China, it's not surprising they thought the West would be open to this as opposed to prolonged war.

Negotations did take place in the early stages of the war, and purportedly a peace plan was close to being signed when the US blocked the negotiations.

If negotations failed, the operations in the north would double as a diversion for operations in the south, which is where the Russians' primary territorial goals would lie in case a diplomatic solution was impossible.

It has zero track record on a large scale. A label is not a system. — Vera Mont

This sounds like the "not real communism" argument.

Communism, as stated earlier, is a clearly defined way of governing states.

As such, there are clear examples of it. The Soviet Union, Maoist China, Vietnam, Cambodia, etc.


I'm assuming you have an idealized version of communism in mind, that (hopefully) doesn't include all the atrocity.

What you need is to put a new term on that idealized, non-horrific version of communism and call it something else, because there's no point in trying to defend something that has been so utterly and completely poisoned by its real, real-life implementations.

Put an incorruptible AI administrator in charge instead of self-proclaimed leaders who seek power, glory and wealth.
It isn't the system that corrupts the organizers; it's the organizers who corrupt the system - every system. — Vera Mont

I agree with the last part wholeheartedly - we (humanity) are for the most part trying to limit the damage done by the corrupt organizers.

Whether AI is the solution is a question I'll leave for another thread.

The Kyiv Axis utilized 70,000 soldiers and 7,000 vehicles. — Count Timothy von Icarus

That figure is nowhere to be found in, for example, the ISW day-by-day campaign assessments.

Those instead speak of 31 BTGs (which would roughly amount to between 19,000 and 25,000 troops) being committed along the operational direction of Kiev.

Do note that I'm less interested in their assessments, and more interested in the information they are sharing.

If one axis out of six has one third of your entire invasion force, it's unlikely to be a diversion. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Given the relatively small size of the Russian invasion force (outnumbered from the start), it's unlikely occupying and holding Kiev was ever their goal.

If Hersh's figure of ~60,000 Ukrainian defenders was accurate it would have taken the entire Russian invading force and likely a months-long battle to take the city.

And was Kharkiv just a longer diversion? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Kharkiv showed much the same pattern as Kiev, with few casualties over a two-month period, not indicative of intense fighting. The order of battle here too implies no sufficient numerical advantage for the Russian side, thus unlikely a committed assault to occupy and hold.

By this logic, Russia began shelling residential blocks in the suburbs and pounding Kiev proper with missiles "just to make their diversion more realistic." — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yea, sounds like a textbook military diversion if you ask me.

A bit odd that you seem to be implying there's something off about the logic there. That's exactly how it would work.

So lets look at the basic facts around the Battle of Kiev as we know them.

The Battle of Kiev lasted a little over a month, with few known casualty figures, only that around 15 March, almost a month into the fighting, the Ukrainian side listed 162 soldiers killed.

What we know of the order of battle is that between 15,000 and 30,000 Russian troops participated in the battle.

Of the Ukrainian side we know some ~18,000 irregular forces participated, and a conspiciously "undisclosed" amount of Ukrainian regular forces.

Anyone with an iota of military understanding sees what picture this sketches.


- 162 killed after a month of combat implies low intensity fighting, entirely uncharacteristic of a classic blitz for the capital.
- 15,000 - 30,000 seems like a very low number to occupy and hold a city the size of Kiev - a city with 2.8 million inhabitants.
- With a classic blitz one would expect the attacker to aim for a 5:1 or at least 3:1 force ratio in order to ensure offensive success. The Russians weren't anywhere close to that.


In fact, they may have been outnumbered:

In one of his interviews, Seymour Hersh quotes a source saying Kiev was defended by some ~60,000 Ukrainian troops (unclear whether that included irregulars or not).

That would certainly explain why the Ukrainian order of battle remains undisclosed, wouldn't it?

Hence, the diversion theory.


So , I don't see where you get the idea that "it's pretty clear" that the Russians wanted to take Kiev, when the available data certainly doesn't point to it.

Too much beating around the bush here. Communism is a well-defined system of governance, and one with an absolutely disastrous track record at that.

I understand that some people may sympathize with its ideals. I myself do too to some extent. Who wouldn't want a fair, idyllic, self-governed society that is the envisioned endgoal of communism?

Nirvana, however, is not for this world. And that has been made painfully clear throughout history.

"Not real communism", yada yada. We've heard it all before. Somehow the total centralization of power never seems to end in the state's abolishment, but instead, predictably, with totalitarianism.

If we want to discuss certain elements of communism, and how in a different setting they may benefit human societies, that's all fine and good. But right now we seem to be stuck in a state of cognitive dissonance between the pretty ideal and the ugly reality.

Lets answer the question: "is communism a feasible method of organizing states and large communities?" once and for all with a definitive 'no' (I mean, how many more corpses would it take to convince you?), so that we may move on to new, hopefully more constructive ideas, that may or may not contain aspects of communism.

Let's definitively decouple our ideas of a better, fairer society from what is tried and tested communism, and forever close the lid on that abomination, so humanity doesn't have to repeat its blackest chapters.

I've put my arguments forward for all to criticize, and I'll happily defend them.

I gave you the opportunity to do just that, and you refused, hence my comment.

You've developed a habit of blowing hot air in this thread, and this seems to fit right into that trend.

Odd. Individualism seems to have been turned into a caricature, to be kicked by radicals who seek to justify their disagreement with people's individual choices.

I think you're confusing the collective with the state. — unenlightened

Communism as a means to organize states or similar large communities is the topic of this thread, so I'm not sure why you believe this is the result of confusion.

As per usual the individualist denies their responsibility for others and ignores their dependence on others. — unenlightened

This has nothing to do with individualism, which is a theory pertaining to the relation between states and individuals, bringing us things like individual rights, etc.

Individualism, if anything, points towards the state's responsibility for its citizens. It doesn't deny the responsibility of citizens.

Pictures and milbloggers don't sway me. That type of "evidence" is entirely compromised in today's day and age.

I stick with data that remains more or less undisputed, like troop numbers participating in certain battles, losses which were incurred, etc.

In my view, the Russians didn't seek to take large amounts of territory after the initial invasion.

They are instead seeking to pacify the occupied territories to avoid an insurgency from materializing. I believe that's the main goal of Russia's strategy in Ukraine, and I believe it is consistent with the theories I have shared in this thread thus far.

The actions on the ground after the initial invasion have largely been aimed at gaining local tactical advantages and degrading the Ukrainian military, which I think they have been successful at. (Even if the casualty ratios would favor Ukraine, Russia can simply afford to lose a lot more than Ukraine can).

A future invasion of Lithuania to connect to Kaliningrad is also not unthinkable. — Tzeentch

However, the idea that Russia is in a position to start a second war, one in which they essentially declare war on Finland, Turkey, Romania, Poland, France, the UK, and the US at once, while attacking through Belarus, thus making them protect a large area with no real military force of its own, is absolutely preposterous. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Note the use of the word future.

_______________________________________________________________


How come you never replied to:

↪frank
What are in your eyes some clear indications of China's power in the Ukraine conflict? And in a similar vein, what are in your view some clear indications of Russia's "future submission" to China?

Any specific events in which the Chinese influenced the war in Ukraine to their benefit? Or events in which Russia was made to serve Chinese interests as an indicator of China's influence over Russia? — Tzeentch

I think you're confusing individualism and atomization - the latter signifying the disintegration of social bonds, individuals thus becoming atomized, isolated, 'groupless', etc. - a situation most individuals find highly disagreeable.

Atomization is made possible because the state takes over roles which were previously fulfilled by social networks, and exacerbated by things like digitalization and mass media.

As per usual, the state (the collective) is the problem, and not the cure.

To make a long story short, we disagree on some key points.

Most importantly, I believe the situation for Ukraine is a lot more dire than western media are letting on.

Second, I believe the Russian approach of occupying parts of Ukraine in 'bite-sized chunks' is a deliberate strategy.

Feasible as what?

As a form of government to nation states?

We've ample examples where that didn't work - in fact, it created about as close to hell on Earth as we could ever be. And it wasn't a fluke either. It managed to produce that on multiple occasions.

If I had to make an educated guess as to why communism applied to nation states seems to end up that way, it's because of the amount of centralized power the state acquires upon abolishing private property. Since everything still has to be controlled, you end up with the same flawed individuals running the institutions, but this time with near-godlike power.

The problem is those flawed individuals running the show. It's the same folks everywhere. And the difference between hell and limbo seems to be how much power we give them.

What are in your eyes some clear indications of China's power in the Ukraine conflict? And in a similar vein, what are in your view some clear indications of Russia's "future submission" to China?

Any specific events in which the Chinese influenced the war in Ukraine to their benefit? Or events in which Russia was made to serve Chinese interests as an indicator of China's influence over Russia?

I think the most significant player on the scene now is neither the US nor Russia. It's China. — frank

I disagree, but I would like to hear what you believe China's contribution to this conflict is, that warrants being called the most significant player on the scene.

What I think is important for Europeans and Ukrainians to consider, is that the more adversarial our stance towards Russia becomes, the greater their territorial ambitions will become.

A lot of the political situation we see in Eastern Europe today is a result of a past mutual understanding between NATO and Russia. This included Ukraine's independence, and for example political anomalies like Kaliningrad and Transnistria.

If these mutual understandings disintegrate further, these situations will become new hotbeds for conflict.

I'm quite convinced that Russia will seek to connect to Transnistria if some form of agreement cannot be reached in Ukraine.

A future invasion of Lithuania to connect to Kaliningrad is also not unthinkable.

I doubt the Russians would voluntarily initiate such hostilities, but if relations with the West become highly adversarial they will likely feel like they have no other options, which is essentially what happened in Ukraine.

The idea that if we just push hard enough the Russians will back down is in my opinion a foolish and very dangerous misunderstanding.

However, this contradicts the apparent policy to prop up Ukraine as long as possible without ever negotiating. — boethius

Well, the people in the Pentagon aren't dummies either. My guess is by now they have fully realized Russia's plans to take it as slowly as it needs to in order to avoid an insurgency. Perhaps the Pentagon even understood this before the war fully got underway. If we can conceive of these ideas, so can they.

If they knew Russia was going for a 'bite-sized chunks' approach, then they don't have to do much in order for Ukraine to hold out for a long time, since it's already baked into the Russian strategy. I imagine the pacification of the occupied areas may take months, perhaps even years.

Additionally, for all we know the Russians may not desire any more land beyond what they have occupied now, at which point any further support for Ukraine would be pointless.


So I think the view I've shared fits very neatly into this picture of the Pentagon not seemingly overly fussed about supporting Ukraine, even in terms of bare necessities like ammunition.

The western strategy so far seems more preoccupied with public opinion and appearances than it is with the actual situation on the battlefield.

I agree that there was never a plan to occupy more territory than the Russian speaking regions they currently have, but I'd also agree with ssu that plan A was a negotiated resolution with Kiev. The purpose of encircling Kiev to bring the war to the capital and put the diplomatic pressure for a negotiation, and if not, then it occupies the large majority of Ukrainian forces (i.e. is also a giant fixing operation, as the capital is always the priority) while the Southern regions are occupied and pacified. — boethius

I don't want to toot my own horn, but the advance on Kiev having been a dual-purpose operation is a theory I've been sharing here for close to a year now. (And I still believe it is true, so we're in agreement there).

I'm glad more people are starting to see it that way, since initially it was met with a lot of skepticism.

While it seems clear the goal is to prop up Ukraine and never negotiate, the commitment to that long term seems low, as ramping up production of munitions doesn't happen and sooner the better and simply maintaining the status quo on the front requires constant supply of munitions.

There's report now of batteries simply running out of shells and having no resupply for days, and very little when it comes in. One counter narrative is the shells are being saved for the big counter offensive, which I guess is possible but is still not a good position to be in.

It seems to just be taken for granted by Western powers that they can't produce all that many shells.

This whole running low of ammunition is honestly a confusing part of the situation. It doesn't seem possible as an oversight, and that it's industrially impossible for the entire West to produce more shells seems implausible, and if it's a deliberate decision then it's difficult to make sense of. If it's policy, then my best guess is that it was calculated that Ukraine simply cannot sustain their operation beyond a certain date (in terms of casualties and all sorts of other supplies such as AA missiles) and there was therefore no use in increasing production of shells. Or then maybe it's all a ruse. — boethius

My guess is that the situation is a lot more dire than western sources are letting on, and that even copious amounts of ammunition would not make any significant difference on the battlefield.

A lot of folks seem to believe the Ukrainian forces have "ground the Russians to a halt", but I think that's wrong.

I think the Russians have for the most part stopped pushing for territory, and are now consolidating what they have taken.

This was likely their plan from the start, since the threat of a Ukrainian insurgency was ever-present, and taking too much territory that they couldn't effectively control and pacify would be a guarantee for such an insurgency to materialize. A while back I shared a CSIS panel discussion in which the panelists outright stated that is what they (the Americans) could and would do. The person from the panel who claimed this apparently played a major role in the American-led insurgency against the Russians in Afghanistan.

When/if the Russians will at some point in the future seek to take more territory from Ukraine probably depends on multiple factors, the most important of which is whether the West can be made to acknowledge Russian security concerns vis-à-vis Ukraine.

If the West refuses, either because the US strongarms the EU, or because the EU remains ignorant, likely more Russian aggression will follow. Though even then it remains to be seen whether their aim is to take all of Ukraine, or only those areas which are strategically relevant - it's even possible that what they hold now is all they intend to take.

Note that the US doesn't care about instability in Eastern Europe - it in fact believes it to be instrumental to their goals among which are unity and remilitarization of Europe. Ironically, Europe seems to be the key to peace.

If you're interested in this kind of thing - human peak experiences and how they relate to reality, metaphysics, etc., I would highly suggest getting into Plato and the Neoplatonists.

They essentially sought to explore and understand the peak experience without the religious hooey.

Macron on Taiwan: 'An ally not a vassal', says France leader

Not directly linked to the Ukraine war, but since Europe's position of subservience towards the US has been discussed here many times, I thought I'd share it anyway.

Can we finally expect to see Europe steer a more independent course? What possible consequences could that have for Europe's involvement in Ukraine?

For anything substantial to happen, Germany would also need to be on board, and it still suffers under a weak leader.

My guess is that the "fake reality" dimension of AI will result in people no longer trusting anything they see or hear in media, which I would say is already increasingly the case anyway.

What I find more worrying is the mass surveillance aspect, which, if we are to believe the video, will be able to monitor every aspect of our being and process and use that information, likely for goals which aren't in the common man's best interest.

That power will then inevitably end up in the hands of the Trumps, the Putins, the Xi Jinpings, the BlackRocks, the Vanguards, (etc.) of this world, who have already shown to possess no moral compass to counterbalance their allotted power.

That's why I called it a human problem (and not a technological one, or even one unique to AI). The main danger of AI is the prospect of its potential falling in the hands of the wrong people. And given the fact that the entire world is ruled by "the wrong people", it's basically guaranteed that it will.

Interesting video.

The one thing that always comes up to me with these sorts of videos, is that we're fundamentally looking at a human problem.

As always, the driving force behind the malignant effects of this is human competition, and human competition tends to work in such a way that whoever throws overboard the most moral boundaries will come out "on top". (In Hades, at least)

That's why when "civilized" nations go to war, their behavior will rapidly deteriorate into brutish savagery, regardless of whether they intended to. It's a natural tendency.

And for AI to become extremely problematic will be just as unavoidable, as long as there are individuals interested to exploit it in order to make their way up the dung pile.

Unless mom decides she's willing to lay down her life for the 20 yo, it's going to be mom.

Upon deliberation I don't think it's much of an ethical dilemma, though.

Saving someone's life is a good thing, regardless of whose life you save. You're not responsible for the death of the person who dies, so it's hard to imagine how the chooser's moral fibre is at stake in any way.

With that ↑ out of the way, what's an appropriate response to something like the Halabja massacre? — jorndoe

If the US government or the West in general truly cared about human rights violations and war crimes they wouldn't have to look very far.

What's the appropriate response to the United States' elaborate torture programs ala Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib? Or the indiscriminate killings that have been constant in every American war against third-world countries? What about chemical warfare against the Vietnamese people, where to this day deformed babies are born as a result of the attacks?


The appropriate response certainly isn't sheepish silence, or to look the other way and only address these issues when they suit one's agenda.

Trying to sweep fascist regimes, Islamist regimes, dictatorships under the carpet by labeling them as part of "hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions, of innocent dead" is beyond disgusting. — neomac

What a joke.

:vomit:

Destructive toward enemies (fascist regimes, Islamist regimes, dictatorships), beneficial to allies (among them the Europeans). — neomac

People always seem to miss this. — RogueAI

Trying to sweep hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions, of innocent dead under the carpet by labeling them as part of "regimes and dictatorships" is beyond disgusting.

Hard to believe people on a philosophy forum would take such a stance.

1) Will the governments be responsible for this negligence?
2) Will AstraZeneca pay the price for these issues? — javi2541997

I suspect that the producers of the vaccines have signed agreements that make them non-liable in case the risks they knew might be present turned out to be significant.

As for the governments themselves being held responsible - a part of me doubts it, because the people responsible are in many places still in power today. Things like these have a tendency to only be resolved years, even decades after the fact.

AstraZeneca has been banned in Australia due to causing severe, sometimes deadly, side-effects.

Considering a lot of people were misinformed about the risks of vaccination, and in some countries people were put under heavy societal pressure to take the vaccine against their will, at what point are we going to start calling this for what it is: murder.

Well, what had you expected the Russian reaction would be to a hostile military alliance marching up to their border?

We in the West might have a view of NATO and the US as benign powers, but the rest of the world doesn't share that view.

The western world under US leadership has been the most destructive force on Earth since WWII by an incredibly large margin, having positively ruined dozens of countries.

It seems to me for a lot of people this war has become about Putin. It has become about a person, therefore personal, and therefore emotional. My impression is that this "personalization" happened intentionally by Western media to whip up enthousiasm for support of the war.

The idea of "Putin winning" is something that's hard to stomach, which is why people have become invested in a Ukrainian victory to a degree that is no longer rational, and, in my opinion, cannot be morally defended by people who do not bear the cost of war.

The West needs to make up its mind. Either we are committed to a Ukrainian victory and we send our own troops to fight, or we make efforts towards a cease fire and peace negotiations as soon as possible. We shouldn't be in this questionable situation in which we cheer on the Ukrainians to sacrifice more lives for a lost cause.

“Just asked a question.” Yes, the question every NRA member, bought politician, and gun not happen to raise every time gun control is brought up. If that’s “conspicuously absent,” you’re living in complete ignorance. — Mikie

You're unhinged.

If you have been paying attention to what he has actually said I find this accusation incomprehensible. — Fooloso4

I think if you had paid attention then the thin-veiled contempt wouldn't have gone over your head.

This is essentially the problem with modern politics in a nutshell. the only reason you don't want to talk about mental health is because that what the NRA (the baddies) talk about so that means you mustn't. — Isaac

This hits the nail on the head, really.

But you have an interest in American mental health huh? — Mikie

Sure. Psychology has always been an interest of mine.

Given this, a truly impartial observer’s first question would be, “Why does America have so many mass shootings?” — Mikie

Well, I never claimed I was a "truly impartial observer" - I just asked a question about mental health and why the subject seemed always conspicuously absent from these discussions, and was treated to your tirades.

Besides, why are you concerning yourself with what kind of questions I "should" be asking?

If you're not interested in what I bring to the discussion, no one is forcing you to reply.

It's a bit ironic you aim your accusations of insincerity at me.

You’re right, it’s just a complete coincidence that someone who continuously spews libertarian ideology just happens to want to talk about the “mental health” factor on a thread about gun control. — Mikie

I don't have particularly strong opinions on gun control in America, since I don't live in America.

How exactly are concerns over mental health incompatible with libertarianism again?

Given what I know about Tzeentch, it’s no coincidence that this is the angle he wants to emphasize. — Mikie

Go on then, what do you believe that you know about me? :chin: