No, in the sense that I don't think "burden of proof" is a useful standard to apply generally.

Assuming you're actually interested in this:

Presumption of innocence is explicitly a protection of the individual against the state and meant to hold those that wield the ultimate violence of the state to the most exacting standard.

Notably it's not an epistemological principle. It's not an effective way to judge in general. Applying it as a practical principle in your everyday life is liable to produce very skewed results.

Exactly how we should deal with accusations, notably including of criminal behaviour, is a question that "presumption of innocence" cannot answer.

I have to admit, that mugshot is exactly on brand.

I wonder how long he practiced for that?

I wonder if they truly believe it or that they just hate their own lives and Democrats so much. As we say in Dutch "a cornered cat makes weird jumps". — Benkei

I think many have been convinced - or convinced themselves - that the current political and economic system is moribund and that Trump is their best hope to wreck it.

They're not entirely wrong.

Astonishing numbers of people are turning a blind eye to Trump’s transgressions. — Wayfarer

Under the above analysis, transgressions actually increase Trump's appeal.

I think there's a bit more thought behind this than you credit.

Trump knows his audience. He knows they love it when he denigrates and belittles his opposition. This is a classic macho move that he knows he can pull off, because his opposition is both weak politically and spineless personally.

It has also been suggested it's a deliberate snub of Fox News, retaliation for them not towing sufficiently close to the line.

Absolutely. Yet we navigate this don't we? We don't throw our hands in the air and say "anything goes then". I think you've given a perfect account of why moral decisions are fraught, but that's not the same thing as giving an account of what any moral claim is wrong. — Isaac

Sure, but my argument is that we navigate it by using a set of rules that's distinct from utilitarianism - we're using the essentially deontic concept of rights and freedoms.

I think war, in this instance, is not even one of the difficult edge cases. It's absolutely devastating in terms of harms - thousands dead, many more thousands injured, livelihoods destroyed, millions put at risk of starvation, the entire world at risk from nuclear escalation... I can't see anyone reading that list and thinking "well... some people like racing motorbikes though.... so who know what people's idea of harm is...?"

And are you willing to extend this relativism to, say holocaust denial, rape, murder? I get what you're saying, but without qualification it sounds like special pleading for territorial war. — Isaac

No, that would not be the argument. My argument is that we need to accept a deontic philosophy which sets out the boundaries of freedoms and responsibilities, and only within that framework do utilitarian calculations take precedence.

One of the essential boundaries, to me, is that whoever is on the defensive - and of course discussing what that means is an entirely different topic - does not need to concern themselves with utilitarian calculations. In principle you may defend yourself à outrance, because it's the attacker who is putting themselves outside the framework.

This is true, but compared to the costs of keeping the system unchanged the harms are minimal and can be fought against by other means. War is clearly not the only way of changing political systems for the better and it is by far the most devastating. — Isaac

Well I disagree. What I know about human psychology tells me that humans react very badly to situations where rule-breaking is no adressed effectively, and the result is usually a far less draconian system of punishment.

If we stay in the war scenario, the alternative to an organised military defense by a state might be a protracted insurgency, which decreases the intensity of the fighting but spreads it wider.

I don't think these questions are easily answered, but my point is that they are asked and answered nonetheless. We do not merely throw up our hands because we can't decide when lethal force is appropriate against a threat of violence. We work out an approach based on an acceptance that (a) there is a line, and (b) it's not easy to see where it is. The attitude typically taken to military responses to invasion shows none of this, and I think the reason for that is nationalism, not moral nuance. — Isaac

We take that same line when it comes to individual self defense though. And I also think this kind of "rally around the flag" effect predates nationalism in the modern sense. Humans have an ingrained sense of in-group and out-group, and whenever we perceive an out-group threat the response is extreme - both in terms of violence on the outside, but also in terms of cooperation and compassion on the inside.

Nationalism causes tons of stupid behaviour, but I don't think this one in particular can be ascribed to nationalism, apart from nationalism defining the in- an out-groups.

Yes, but we do not only have military responses at our disposal. We have sanctions, we have non-violent resistance, we have violent (but non-military) resistance, we have control of the media and IT space, we have financial instruments, we have political instruments... — Isaac

We have, but there's also long experience that shows that nothing replaces a guy with a rifle on the ground. All the other means more or less require that whoever you're trying to get to change their behaviour cares to still play by your rules. Against someone who simply does not care, that will not work.

This is also a core lesson when using pacifism as a political strategy. Pacifism can be very effective if you opponent cares about appearances. If they don't though, you're just making it easier for them.

And as punishments go, what kind of punishment for aggression is military response? It doesn't harm Putin in any way other than indirectly (by making him less popular if he loses). We can punish Putin far more directly then that by freezing his international assets, enabling legal proceedings against him, barring him from travel, refusing to deal with his companies... Him loosing this war is at best an indirect punishment.

And this is the problem with seeing something like this from this 'zoomed out' perspective. Who is actually, literally being punished by military resistance? The conscript. The Russian soldier who was pretty much forced to serve (or lied to) is the one having his legs blown off by a Ukrainian shell, not Putin — Isaac

This is of course quite true. But the problem is not limited to individual punishment. If you look at legal philosophy, the means to defend a given legal order are usually split into two broad categories: Deterrence, either by physical force of by implied threat, and identification, in terms of individual security and the feeling that the system is overall fair. Research indicates that actual punishment of offenders after the fact is only a minor factor in "keeping the peace". Far more relevant is the probability to get caught in the first place and the sense of having a stake in the system.

I bring this up to illustrate that even from a purely utilitarian point of view, there is good reason to oppose aggression and make it fail. The best way to avoid war is to demonstrate that wars don't work.

I don't see any such circumstances arising. I can see how deadly force is often the only 'defence', but not really seeing how it's ever the only 'punishment'. — Isaac

Well in a society with very little coercive power, and no structures for things like prison sentences, it has sometimes been the case that there was either no official punishment at all or exile/ death.

Wouldn't the energy produced by fusion power be much much much greater than the energy produced from natural gas?

Sort of like comparing a sword to a guided missile. — Agree to Disagree

That kinda depends on a lot of practical engineering questions that we don't yet know the answers to. Technically fusion could produced a ton of power on a small footprint, but it's also possible it ends up similar to fission power in that you need large investments and as a result the returns aren't that high comparatively.

So why should the Russians care if you are too hot. Once you are economically or climate damaged the Russians will be able to take over your country. You should learn to speak Russian. — Agree to Disagree

Well they should care because it's not a zero sum game. It's a negative sum game where all the bad consequences (desertification, collapse of ecosystems, unliveable cities) are going to hit us first and only after that will new opportunities slowly open up.

And because having lots of resources helps in weathering the storm, the nations who are on top when shit starts going down will probably be the ones who suffer least.

We have no obligation to other species, except whatever obligation we impose on ourselves, and we are capable of knowing that our lives depend on them. — Vera Mont

Well it seems to me we're ultimately in agreement then. Animals have no moral standing in a human moral philosophy. The most that can be said about them in a moral context is that they're objects of human survival and thus should be preserved as far as necessary for that.

I don't find that conclusion very agreeable, but I've found no good way past it.

- that CO2 is a greenhouse gas
- that humans are responsible for most of the increase in CO2 level above about 280 ppm
- that a lot of the increase in CO2 levels is due to the use of fossil fuels
- that the average temperature of the Earth has warmed by around 1.0 to 1.5 degrees Celsius since pre-industrial times — Agree to Disagree

You do curiously leave out the link between the CO2 increase and the temperature increase.

How do you mean they're not involved? And what process has two sides? — Vera Mont

They can't talk. So they cannot contribute to any negotiation about the accepted code of behaviour.

human law presides over human behaviour. — Vera Mont

Yes, but that means that animals could only ever be the objects of that law, not the subjects.

They must come under human law: so long as they are enslaved, their masters must answer for their actions - and their masters are responsible for their welfare. — Vera Mont

But that is true for all animals. So long as they come under human law, they can only ever be treated as "slaves" - that is objects. You can have an obligation to treat animals well, but that obligation is fundamentally owed to other humans, not to the animal. The reason is that the animal has no conception of such an obligation, and in any event has no way to communicate to us what rights and obligations it desires.

You are misunderstanding the concepts. The handicapped person is the one who holds the rights and the carer the one who exercises them. This is the main cause of naming a carer in court, to help others out. This civil rights are taught when you study law. — javi2541997

I should know, I did study law, but thank you for the lesson.

I'm not disagreeing with what is the case de lege lata. I'm just questioning whether that serves as an argument in moral philosophy. There might be lots of reasons why the rules are as they are that are unrelated to a philosophical argument.

I am lost here. I do not understand what you refer to. — javi2541997

I use "animal" in the colloquial sense, which excludes homo sapiens. We can debate the boundaries, of course.

I disagree. For example: a handicapped person is not capable of exercising a lot of rights by himself. Yet, the state concedes benefits to help them out to exercise them through a legal carer. — javi2541997

I don't find that convincing. I can easily argue that we're really only doing that for reasons of emotional attachment and because we feel uncomfortable with treating anyone who looks human as something else.

We also at least have direct experience of what human interests are, so we can infer them at least generally.

It doesn't follow that it actually makes sense to ascribe rights to someone who isn't even theoretically capable of exercising them. It's the carer who really has the rights and obligations.

What do you consider as "actual" animals then? — javi2541997

Non-human animals, as I said. Not sure where you're going with this.

Each species has its own characteristics. I am aware that it is a complex matter, but this does not prevent the fact that we should be more respectful towards the animal kingdom. Yes, you are right that it is not the same to be "ethical" with a dog that with a crocodile. — javi2541997

Rights is not quite the same as respect though. You can unilaterally respect someone or something, but to have a right you need to at least theoretically be able to exercise it.

Are animal rights really animal rights if no actual (non-human) animals are involved on either side of the process?

I agree with the act of considering animals as part of our society and owning the same rights and respect. I wish most people would be tolerant of the environment and species. — javi2541997

All the animals or just the one we can readily anthropomorphize? Do I have to install a trial for mosquitoes at my house?

Are you writing a dissertation on Eunice Foote and her experiments? You seem very interested in this specific case.

Anyways that should be discussed in its own topic, don't you think?

Does anyone still believe a “method” of science really exists, and that it essentially defines and differentiates science as a sui generis human endeavor? — Mikie

Who argues that science is a "Sui generis human endeavour"? What does that even mean?

Shouldn’t we abandon this idea? Is it not both old and obsolete? — Mikie

Why? You're providing no argument or even some basic angle on discussing the topic.

You're putting the cart before the horse. — Michael

Yeah but it's a good cart. A very fine cart. Some people even say best cart.

We can all just hope that the conditions of @NOS4A2 is not indicative of all Trump supporters, because if it is I'm not sure any of them can ever return to a shared reality.

The first part I get, the second not so much. If what some people choose to consider well-being harms others, then I don't see why we wouldn't have quite reasonable justification to prevent that. After all, if harming others isn't sufficient justification to prevent an act, then we're stuck for much moral intervention at all, aren't we? — Isaac

The problem I see is that every choice can harm others, even seemingly benign ones, if only in distant and minor ways. This being the case, it would seem to me that a strategy to minimise total harm or likewise maximise total wellbeing would have to result in a total dictatorship where everything is strictly regulated.

This might seem like a technical and arcane possibility but I think there are real world examples. Take sports, for example. Many sports can cause significant injury. That's fine, you may say, since people willingly participate. But even if we assume that noone gets hurt against their will (which I find unrealistic) it still imposes costs in society. All for the benefit of a minority. Perhaps then we should only allow activities with a certain level of risk.

Speaking of risk, what about dietary choices? Or when you move where? All possible to optimize for the greater good.

So yes, for better or worse, democratic units (countries, electoral wards, etc) are how we tell what it is the people want. But these units are mere pragmatic administrative divisions. In an ideal world we'd all vote on how the entire world was run in decreasing degrees dependant on our stake, but since such an arrangement is technically impossible, we have a system of wards/counties/countries/UN. But since this is merely pragmatic, we don't need to defend any one arrangement with any kind of vigour. It's annoying at most for someone to come along and re-arrange an otherwise perfectly functioning arrangement. It's definitely not worth thousands of lives just to put it back again. — Isaac

I think you're too narrowly focused on the immediate material effect of such "rearrangement" and aren't considering the indirect effects.

How are you going to keep any system in place - pragmatic as it may be - people need the security that it's stable. Otherwise it will quickly be replaced by other arrangements, which are rarely better. One can see this effect in lots of weak states, where more informal systems - often controlled by some kind of patriarchal elite - take over.

I agree, to a point, but this isn't direct self-defence is it? Russia didn't come in and just start shooting people. It came in with the intention to steal land. So it's land-defence, not self-defence. If I attack you, you're clearly entitled to defend yourself, even violently. But if I merely threaten you, say with a gun, to steal your car, you're not entitled to just shoot me. It might be held proportionate in some specific circumstances, but most likely wouldn't. — Isaac

I mean technically they did start shooting people, but I get your point.

But I'm not really seeing the principle here. You're saying it's sometimes ok, but you're not stating what the relevant factor is. So someone can take my property. How much of it? Can they hurt me, so long as it's not deadly force?

I don't see any moral argument as to why the same should not be applied to a government's territory. If another country comes and steals it using military force, they are not entitled to use the same lethal force to retrieve it just because it's rightfully theirs.

If anything, I think they have less right because at least the car owner can claim the lack of car impedes on their autonomy (they presumably had plans in mind which entailed possession of a car). The government have no such claim, they are merely landlords (custodians perhaps) and have no autonomous plans involving the land. The people who actually use the land are still there using it, they just pay taxes to a different custodian.

So no, I don't really see any justification for force applied to retrieving territory above the proposition that it actually causes less harm than not doing so would. And as I've shown in the case of Ukraine. Russia's worse record on human rights, awful though it is, is simply nowhere near the devastation of war. — Isaac

The problem I have with this is that it hands all the cards to the aggressor. It this inherently disadvantages the weakest targets. If I'm really strong and scary, I might not need force to dissuade a would-be aggressor. But it I'm facing someone who is stronger, how am I going to defend my rights?

How is the system going to remain credible if the aggressor is allowed to control the situation? And if you're taking even proportional retaliation off the table, then you're also weakening all other forms of pressure because any aggresor knows they have a monopoly on force.

A moral philosophy needs a way to address rule breaking. If it only works if everyone always follows it, it's simply not useful for actual humans.

As for 'punishment'. Again, capital punishment is banned in most civilised countries. We do not generally consider like for like punishment to be morally acceptable. So yes, aggressors should not be allowed to get away with aggression, but like any civilised country would not seek to simply kill a murderer, a civilised society should not seek to simply 'invade back' an aggressor who has taken territory by force. we should rise above that and apply more civilised punishments. — Isaac

The reason we can avoid capital punishment is because, compared to an individual, the state has such overwhelming power that it can simply imprison someone, for life if necessary. But outside of these "civilised" circumstances, deadly force is sometimes the only plausible punishment.

If our responsibility can be destroyed, does that preclude it? — chiknsld

I don't see how that would follow.

Another important question: Is it essential that humanity have compassion and empathy towards animals on earth? — chiknsld

I do believe that the main emotional reason humans are opposed to inflicting unnecessary pain on animals is that we view it as evidence of sadism more generally, and thus a negative and possibly dangerous character trait.

This disappears if the animal is seen as a threat. It also doesn't apply to anything people are used to as a normal thing to do as part of using animals.

So on the emotional level empathy and compassion towards animals are indicators of empathy more generally, and hence I'd find it cause for concern if thez were lacking.


As to a strictly moral duty to care for animals as animals, I find that hard to construct. I'd prefer it, but I have trouble accommodating it in my moral philosophy. Even just as a duty to "preserve the planet for future generations", I find it difficult to give future generations moral standing in a convincing way.

What I would say to anybody still defending Trump right now, after everything that's happened is, consider how you would react if Biden loses the election in 2024 and he pulls all the same shit Trump did. — flannel jesus

Even that would not work, because I don't think that Biden fully qualifies as human for a Trump supporter.

The impression I get from Trump supporters is that they feel very deeply alienated from "the establishment". What they mean by that isn't well defined, but it's certainly any Washington politician they don't agree with. They don't feel "the elite" are part of the same people as themselves.

Their stance makes sense if you consider "the elite" to be a bunch of aliens (of the interstellar variety).

Trump is the wrecking ball against an evil system. He can do no wrong (so long as he is arrayed against the system) and comparisons don't apply.

Well, that explains a lot. For my part, all the arguments I've made here have been ethical. I'm simply saying we have an ethical duty to support the options which most promote human well-being. — Isaac

I think this needs to be qualified though by allowing people to choose what they consider well-being. This might involve making the whole world worse off.

Indeed. I think most are hoping for different heads rather than merely cooler versions of the same ones. Armistice whilst that change takes place is simply a more humanitarian option that simmering war whilst that change takes place. Either solution requires a change in leadership (or a force of hand if not a direct replacement). The question is how we handle the interim.

Some seem to think that the slightly increased chance of leadership change resulting from war (maybe battlefield losses, or mass morale failure) are worth the enormous casualty rate, destruction and risk of escalation. I'm saying those harms massively outweigh any slight increase in the chance of regime change. Armistice and political pressure is perhaps slower and has a lower chance of success, but is by far the more humanitarian option and should only be discarded if it absolutely fails (I'd even go as far as saying repeatedly fails), or causes more material harm. — Isaac

I think the core disagreement here is how we evaluate harm. You said in another post that you're not a nationalist and don't particularly care about who "owns" what territory. I agree with that. But, for better or worse, sovereign states are the building blocks of them current international order and the people living in the quite evidently do care. They're willing to die for it, apparently.

Of course the quality of an argument counts, not whether people accept it, but that's only half the issue. Must not people have the last word when it comes to what they regard as harm and how severe they consider is?

If we accept that people have such a freedom, then this means there must be a set of rules that's not concerned with minimising harm but instead with creating some rule-based order that creates spheres of freedom. And those who put themselves out of this order must then be opposed, violently if necessary.

Thus I don't think it's actually clear that a status quo ceasefire is preferable to continued fighting from a moral perspective. There are moral costs to accepting the results of aggression.

I don't think the West are quite so constrained as that. A few European leaders have been quite blunt recently about not simply giving Ukraine whatever they want, and have in some cases rebuked Zelensky quite severely.

The West also has to consider the risks of escalation, the costs to domestic politics, the continuing harms to trade and finance... They've more accounts to balance than simply being allies. — Isaac

True, but it is a time-honored tradition that in situations like this, the big superpowers often find that the tail is wagging the dog with respect to their smaller allies. It happened quite a lot during the cold war. It's a bit of a sunk costs fallacy, but also the reasonable concern that a failure to support an ally in a critical situation might have a ripple effect and destroy trust more generally. To give an example: What might Taiwan think about an US that pressures Ukraine to accept a loss of territory at least temporarily?

What is clear though, is whatever could be said of Putin's intentions some months into the invasion, it was not thought so clearly at the start, yet the intention to arm and push Ukraine, if necessary, became policy quickly. I think even if it were true now that we know Putin's true intent is imperialist aggression, we still acted excessively hawkish when we did not know that. — Isaac

I'm not quite sure what you're referring to as "excessively hawkish". The west has been arming and training Ukraine since 2014. But certainly once a massive invasion force - which could have no plausible goal other than to conquer most of Ukraine - crossed the border, there was no longer any way to limit the conflict. From that point it was total war for Ukraine, and it's not clear to me how it could have been anything else.

'Reason' I agree. But as I said, I'm here making an ethical argument. Putin had every reason to invade Ukraine. It was just morally wrong to do so. — Isaac

I would find a moral philosophy that doesn't include the right to self defense somewhat absurd though.

I actually don't, really. I make decisions but I don't think that I truly have free choice. That I act like I'm making decisions and setting goals freely does not necessarily presuppose that I have free will.

You might argue that it is absurd to believe that I don't have free will because it looks like I do in every regard. — ToothyMaw

I would argue that sounds like a performative contradiction. You say you believe one thing, but you act like you believe another. Which I guess is not entirely fair, since you're not acting intentionally, but you still cannot escape acting like it.

I think these kind of contradictions are at the root at a number of thorny problems. It's much the same with Solipism - you can't formally disprove it, but people can only claim to believe it, they can't act like they do.

No, it is that if you want to be a rational rule consequentialist, or perhaps even deontologist, you must abdicate your ability to choose because of the very nature of some of the laws in place, along with premise (2). You don't have any meaningful choices sometimes if you fall into the same trap as the good-intentioned act-utilitarian. — ToothyMaw

The problem is that you can't abdicate that ability. And furthermore, there's the problem of setting and evaluating goals. Even if you have a perfect utilitarian algorithm, it can't set and evaluate goals.

These particular assumptions did not originate in my head. — ToothyMaw

Technically they did. Of course they may be inspired by what someone said or wrote, but taking an argument from someone else still involves understanding and interpretation, and what results is always your take.

I hate it when people say this. Perhaps a paranoid person has an impression they are being watched. Does this impression grant any weight to her assumption that there is a conspiracy against her? Certainly not, and that goes for free will too - even if this impression is almost universal. — ToothyMaw

It could be easily dismissed if it wasn't for the fact that you constantly assume that you have free will whenever you act - even when you're just thinking and deciding.

Your argument is that making a decision with a definite outcome doesn't involve free will. IMHO, you're not considering that the decision still involves first the setting of a goal and then deliberation on how to achieve that goal, which you're conducting as an actor.

This is pressed on me by the assumptions most consequentialists make — ToothyMaw

Assumptions are not external though. Fundamentally they're only in your head.

If freewill is acting rationally, and the act utilitarian has only one rational choice, would you still think that that is meaningful free will? I certainly don't. — ToothyMaw

Well, my observation is that in any debate about free will, it's easy to list things that free will is not about.

It's much harder to communicate what it actually is. In that sense, often the core question is not whether it actually exists or can be reconciled with some other concept, but whether one can actually conceive of it "in a meaningful way".

Fundamentally, the whole debate rests on an impression of being in control that we all have. That impression isn't trivial, since at the core of any action we choose. If we, in our heads, have a debate about what the morally correct and most optimal course of action is, then I'd say that's meaningful. We can only have such a debate with ourselves in the first place via the impression of free will.

I intentionally didn't define exactly what utility is, as the thing being maximized might vary according to each relevant law. But for the rule consequentialist utility would probably equate to welfare most of the time, and that is most relevant for that portion of the OP. — ToothyMaw

And so my question would be, are you "choosing" to use welfare here or is this value somehow pressed on you by externalities?

If one acts according to what is rational, even if what is rational to a given agent is not rational from other perspectives, does one truly have free will in a meaningful sense, given people are inclined to act according to supposedly rational rules and laws? — ToothyMaw

The obvious counter-question to this is what "free will in a meaningful sense" is supposed to be. There are people that argue that the essence of free will is the capacity to act rationally.

It seems to me that the act-utilitarian, for instance, always acts rationally when bringing about the best outcome - something I argued must always be attempted if one is to have good intentions - as the best outcome, which has the best consequences, is the only good outcome if all other outcomes have deficits of good consequences. So, the act-utilitarian must also relinquish their free will if they are to be a “good” consequentialist. — ToothyMaw

This seems to be implying that free will must somehow involve you doing things at random, or for emotional, short sighted reasons which doesn't seem like an obvious premise.

Alternatively, you might list deontology or rule-consequentialism as examples in which one can be rational by following rational, impartially defensible laws. But did you make those laws? — ToothyMaw

I don't think anyone else but me can make the laws that are in my mind.

Given this argument holds, it appears that rule-consequentialism does indeed become more and more like act-utilitarianism as the laws get more specific, as premises (1) and (2) are granted by probably every rule consequentialist and some deontologists, too. So, if you want to make consequences matter, you have to grant that it is rational to only act in one very specific way - maximizing utility - in certain circumstances, and if you don’t like this, you have to deny premise (1), (2), or (1) and (2). — ToothyMaw

The problem is that utility isn't defined here, so while this kind of reasoning is useful if you have a given value you want to maximise for, it doesn't give you that value by itself.

So you're going to have to come up with that value from somewhere else. Perhaps that's the part where free will is relevant?

Odd, that's the second time in the last few days someone has picked me up on that particular usage, perhaps an American vs English thing? Using 'we' this way is just the same as saying 'one' only slightly less formal - it's just a generic 'everybody'. I'm making an ethical claim. Read it as 'one ought...' Did your mother never say "we don't drop litter", or somesuch? — Isaac

I guess it's because your approach didn't suggest an ethical statement to me.

When making such a judgement, I wouldn't consider the chances of success the most relevant aspect, though they're not irrelevant either.

We could. The context was in the breaking of peace agreements, so support for separatists didn't seem to fit. The conclusion is the same either way. If the fact that a nation has previous attacked another were held as reasons not to negotiate with them we'd be in an almost permanent state of war. So if Russia were some kind of serial attacker, we might have something to go on, but their history of attacks in Eastern Ukraine is little more than to restate that there is a dispute over that territory. — Isaac

Fair enough, though it still suggests that the current russian leadership has decided they're in this for the long game. That means the kind of short term freezing of the conflict with intent to then negotiate a long term solution once cooler heads prevail is unlikely to work.

... that there's a binary choice. What I'm advocating, what Charap is saying is not that some switch needs to be flicked to 'turn on' negotiations and 'turn off' war, but that the emphasis is currently in the wrong place. Negotiations are under-supported, and war is over-encouraged. — Isaac

I see your point, but I'm not sure what evidence you're expecting to see pointing towards negotiations.

What I'm standing against in this thread is the utter rejection of anything remotely misaligned with the mainstream view that Ukraine should be wholly supported in any effort it chooses to do, which currently is full scale war to reclaim all of it's territories. — Isaac

This kinda suggests you're expecting Ukraine or it's allies to pre-emptively concede territory before negotiations have actually begun, or to publicly set limits to further support.

That sounds pretty naive to me. We're talking about two parties who are involved in a full scale war to assert their interests. And Ukraine's partners not only have to consider the immediate material impact of a peace deal but also it's psychological impact on geopolitics. To put it bluntly, the West cannot afford to be seen as an unreliable ally.

Negotiations are going to be conducted via secret backchannels. They're going to be publicly disavowed. This is necessary both to preserve your leverage as well as to safe face in the international arena.

The framing of brave democracy-loving freedom fighters fending off evil authoritarian imperialists is absurd (with the exception of the evil authoritarian bit - that's about right). It's a regional conflict over disputed territory because of separatism, the same kind of separatism which elsewhere has lead to independence, and a general siding with the separatists in the liberal West. Either way, the West's involvement has been almost universally, in such cases, to broker peace, not to take sides (at least the public portrayal has been such). So supplying arms to one side, which in most countries constitutes a war crime, whilst barely moving on talks, even shutting them down at time, is a change in emphasis which is unwarranted by the circumstances. — Isaac

I disagree with your assessment of the separatist movement. It would have fizzled out and been quashed within months had not the russian military directly intervened.

It's also a very different situation in that Russia has started a fully fledged invasion in order to destroy Ukraine as it currently exist and absorb most of it's territory. That's old school imperialism.

That's a direct challenge to the previous status quo of "imperialism by invitation". It's a significant breach of the post-war order and at the same time a challenge to the West. The west has every reason to defend it's "empire" by supporting Ukraine which is, after all, in this by their choice and for their own interests.

We do not go to war on a preponderance of evidence in favour. — Isaac

Who is the "we" here? Are you talking about what conditions for support the US or EU population might find acceptable?

He's attacked Ukraine once so far. Not much to go on. — Isaac

Three times. He attacked Crimea in early 2014. Then in late 2014 regular russian forces crossed the border and attacked AFU formations in the Donbas as they were about to mop up the separatists there.

Russia has repeatedly attacked across the border into Donbas whenever the situation of the separatists seemed endangered, so we could run the tally higher if we wanted to.

it is now time that the United States develop a vision for how the war ends. Fifteen months of fighting has made clear that neither side has the capacity—even with external help—to achieve a decisive military victory over the other. Regardless of how much territory Ukrainian forces can liberate, Russia will maintain the capability to pose a permanent threat to Ukraine. The Ukrainian military will also have the capacity to hold at risk any areas of the country occupied by Russian forces—and to impose costs on military and civilian targets within Russia itself.
These factors could lead to a devastating, years-long conflict that does not produce a definitive outcome. The United States and its allies thus face a choice about their future strategy. They could begin to try to steer the war toward a negotiated end in the coming months. Or they could do so years from now. If they decide to wait, the fundamentals of the conflict will likely be the same, but the costs of the war—human, financial, and otherwise—will have multiplied.

It's difficult to disagree with the broad strokes of the analysis, but it's also not at all clear to me what one is supposed to take away from that.

Anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of the strategic situation realises that neither side can achieve a decisive victory that would enable them to dictate peace terms.

Which obviously means that the parties involved need to continuously evaluate how they could end the conflict. I'm sure this is already happening all the time, though obviously behind closed doors.

But again this is merely the basic understanding of the situation. It does not include any actionable suggestions. It doesn't even really offer any useful framework to develop such a plan.

The crux of the issue is not that people don't want to negotiate. The crux is that both sides have vital interests in play which they are unable to align, and thus the outcome is continued fighting. As a rule, humans are willing to accept a lot of suffering to defend their interests. Pointing out the suffering won't help.

There seems to be no conceivable motivation to attack Poland. So this must be posturing.

The question is who the addressee of this posturing is. Probably not Poland or the West, this would be a very clumsy attempt at ramping up the war scare.

The domestic russian/ belarus audience? Not sure what that would be intended to communicate, I don't think there's any appetite in either country for widening the conflict.

So the remaining possibility seems to be that this related to the internal politics between Russia and Belarus. Is Lukashenko demonstrating that he is capable of independent foreign policy moves?

I do have to wonder how you think a criminal trial works. According to you, the only way to convict someone would be to get a confession.

Judges "read minds" every day.

I've always considered the problem with Pascal's wager to be that it considers "belief" to be free, or at least not a major cost to the individual.

But given the multitude of different rules that various religions impose that's not true. Clearly actually following even one possible god's prescriptions is quite difficult, as evidenced by the fact that even most genuine believers don't do so.

I can't really comment on the merits of theories on the early universe from a physics perspective. I don't have the requisite background.

But in terms of general principle, I don't think there's any method to determine the "real" initial conditions empirically. Nor do I see any other source of this information. In general, it's not possible to assess whether your information about speculative questions is complete.

To avoid a misunderstanding: I'm not saying nothing can be known about initial conditions. There's a difference though between asking what the conditions might have been, and why they are.

In physics, we have two ways of dealing with questions like these. Because all of these questions are about initial conditions ⁠— i.e., why did our system (the Universe) begin with these specific conditions and not any others ⁠— we can take our pick of the following:

We can attempt to concoct a theoretical mechanism that transforms arbitrary initial conditions into the ones we observe, including that reproduces all the successes of the hot Big Bang, and then tease out new predictions that will allow us to test the new theory against the old theory of the plain old Big Bang without any alterations.
Or, we can simply assert that the initial conditions are what they are and not only is there no explanation for those values/parameters, but we don't need one.

Although it's not clear to everyone, the first option is the only one that's scientific (emphasis mine); the second option, often touted by those who philosophize about the landscape or the multiverse, is tantamount to giving up on science entirely. — Ethan R. Siegel

Siegel's conclusion here strikes me as rather ridiculous. Science, in the strict sense, is a specific method for specific kind of question. There is no reason to assume every question must have an answer.

It is also somewhat ironic, because in practice, option one is really just a way to sidestep dealing with option two. If there is an event horizon that causality can pass through in one direction, but cannot be followed through backwards, then that neatly rescues determinism from the paradox of the first cause. The problem is that while inflation may scramble information about the initial conditions so as to make the unreadable, under a deterministic framework it cannot destroy that information. So all we do is draw a veil over the initial conditions and declare them inaccessible, but that does not make them disappear.

The point about the aliens is just this: if everything observable evolves deterministically from initial conditions, and initial conditions are unanalyzable, then the likelihood of any observation has no objective value. You could still ground probability in subjective terms, which is perhaps justified anyhow for other reasons, but it seems like a bad way to arrive at such a conclusion. The thing that has always kept me from embracing a fully subjective approach to probability is: (1) the existence of abstract propensities that seem isomorphic to physical systems and; (2) that fully subjective probability makes information theory arguably incoherent, which is not great since it is a single theory that is able to unify physics, biology, economics, etc. and provides a reasonable quantitative explanation for how we comes to know about the external world via sensory organs (leaving aside the Hard Problem there). — Count Timothy von Icarus

I don't think the conclusion is necessary. I think you're getting trapped here in insisting on the deterministic connection, as this will inevitably reduce all events to an inscrutable ballet of energies and forces. When we make sense of the world, we construct models, and within these models probabilities are still objective in the sense you're using it.
And

Seeing text written in English using galaxies wouldn't undercut the Copernican Principal? I mean, the universe would be writing in human language on the largest scales we can observe... at that point, if you keep the principal it has become dogma, something religious that can't be overturned by new observations. — Count Timothy von Icarus

To me, the Copernican Principle is just that - a principle. It's not a physical law that's based on observation. It's more a method of inquiry.

The purpose of the principle is to prevent a kind of empirical special pleading, by insisting that we should avoid invoking some unexplained special local condition when explaining phenomena.

Likewise, if we uncovered some sort of ancient Egyptian code in our DNA that said something like "we came from other stars to give you intelligence, send some light beams at these points when you read this," I would certainly start to take the History Channel loons more seriously, rather than shrug.

The likelihood of such a code is such that it would be solid evidence for ET conspiracies IMO. But if both potential causes of the message, random fluke and alien intervention, are both entirely dependant on initial conditions and their deterministic evolution, then why would we assign more likelihood to one versus the other? — Count Timothy von Icarus

I'm not following your example here. What you describe is a standard case of evidence for a particular theory - in this case that human life was seeded by aliens. There's nothing here that poses any problem for the scientific method.

The problems only start when we contemplate evidence for the source of all possible observations (the "initial conditions").

The scientific method is based on the premise that observation is the arbiter of truth. But that requires that you can differentiate between inputs based on the output. In other words it must be possible to construct a theory that predicts only some observations but not others.

That does not seem to be possible when we contemplate the "initial conditions". Whatever they are, they must always explain all possible observations. It is therefore in principle impossible to assess these using the scientific method.

Also, I don't see why observing seemingly unlikely phenomena requires positing any sort of creator or designer. Why can't we just assume some sort of hitherto unforseen mechanism that makes the seemingly unlikely, likely? E.g., people used to think the complexity of life required a creator, but then the mechanisms underpinning evolution were discovered. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Talking about "intial conditions" seems to rule out any mechanism since, by definition, the conditions must be present before any mechanism has operated.

The initial conditions cannot be contingent, else whatever they're contingent on is actually the initial conditions.

The problem with putting initial conditions off limits is that virtually everything we observe in the universe is dependant on initial conditions. — Count Timothy von Icarus

And if we expand our limits past the "initial conditions", we're forced to once again address the age old problem of the infinite regress vs the uncaused cause.

Thus, if we come to see "Christ is King," "Zeus wuz here," "Led Zeppelin rules!," scrawled out in quasars and galaxies at the far end of the cosmos, this shouldn't raise an eyebrow? Because, provided the universe is deterministic, such an ordering would be fully determined by those inscrutable initial conditions. — Count Timothy von Icarus

As your examples imply, if we were to treat such patterns as evidence - rather than just shrug - the only answer that suggests itself is to posit a deliberate creation. But then we open ourselves to the immediate counterargument that this just shifts back the "initial conditions" back to the conditions of the creator.

It seems to me we're caught between a rock and a hard place here.

Personally, I doubt we in the western world can actually give up our exceptionalism and actually share power in a multipolar world of equals. The habit of patronising people from China, Africa, Middle East and Russia is at least 500 years old. It is entirely alien for us to allow other states to determine their own destiny without interference — yebiga

This seems to imply that if only "the West" would stop meddling, wed have a stable world of equals. If history is any guide, international relations don't naturally tend towards equality. Rather, there's always imperial programs. I would not assume the one replacing the "rules based international order" is any less patronising.

You are right in that a free-will does not make sense in a strictly physical framework (classical determinist), but it also doesn't make sense in a strictly non-physical framework either (quantum indeterminate). Combining the two also does not allow it. — punos

Ok, I don't follow you here at all - how is quantum physics not part of the physical universe?

All i need to be convinced of free-will at a minimum is just one actual or hypothetical mechanism (doesn't have to be real or actual, just logical) by which any law of nature can be overridden in favor of another arbitrary pattern. — punos

But what if nature already includes free will, it's just that our laws are about finding the patterns in nature, and so that information is not transfered to the model?

We don't have to agree, the only reason i get into these discussions about free-will is not to convince anybody that there is no such thing, it's so that someone can tell me what everybody that believes in free-will seems to already know but keeps secret.. an actual example of free-will. I need a logical description or an actual example; I can't do anything without that, or i might as well believe in anything i like regardless of reasons... and i don't do that, i can't do that. — punos

So, here is what could be happening: The actual underlying reality is atemporal. Time is merely a function of your mind ordering events by a certain principle - e.g. the principle that you always travel from lower entropy to higher entropy.

So in that scenario, events are a web that expands in all directions, rather than a sequence of causes and effects. At some places, your mind slightly affected these connections - nudged them this way or that. The effects of these changes travel in all directions, but the web remains self-consistent. So as you look at the world from a temporal perspective, it seems to be a perfect sequence of causes and effects.

I have never in my life even heard of anyone that has ever given a logical, and reasonable account of how free-will actually works. All i ever hear is basically that free-will is real because i know "because i decided i know". If reasons are given as to how they know, the reasons are always subjective in nature. My questions are never answered in any appropriate way, although it will always be claimed to be appropriate just because. — punos

I think this is because of a deep seated conceptual difference. What I say will not make sense to you if you approach it from a position of materialism. This is not an argument that materialism is false. But if you treat physical reality as the reality, and consider only explanations that describe physical phenomena as a "logical, reasonable account", then it is no surprise that you have never been satisfied.

Indeed, given the premise that (only) physical reality is ultimately and definitely real, I'd agree with you. Free will makes no sense in a strictly physical framework.

However, we do not actually life in a strictly physical framework. We have an internal perspective, where we experience ourselves as a specific individual, rather than a collection of physical phenomena.

The step required to understand my perspective, if that is what you want, is to take seriously this internal perspective. To not start with the assumption that this perspective must necessarily be the result of an underlying physical reality.

Consider that the physical reality is a mental model in your mind. Now consider that you have a complementary model of yourself as an actor that manipulates said physical reality. What if both of these models are equally true, just two different ways of looking at the same underlying reality? That is, your mind is not a result of physical processes. Rather, physical processes are a mental representation of some underlying reality that causes both your causal "outside view" and your free "inside view".

Can you see what I mean?

All of these things and more signal to me that this thing is objective. — punos

But all of these are just observations. How can you conclude, based on observations, that the brain exists regardless of observations?

How do you tell the difference between outside stimulus, and what is labeled as part of yourself? — punos

I know which thoughts are part of my "self" and which are not. This is a basic distinction my mind makes, there is no "telling the difference", it's a very basic experience.

What are these epistemological principles that you are referring to? — punos

These would be that
a) there is an outside reality that's affecting me,
b) I can experience these effects via sensory data,
c) I do not have any non-sensory source of information on the outside world.

From these it follows logically that to speculate about the outside world, I need to consult my sensory data, and only that which accounts for this data can be true.

Yes everyone is born with the machinery to process logic, but we are not born knowing how to use it. If we did then the world wouldn't be the way it is. — punos

Well, you need to be taught to use formal logic. But it seems quite evident that some basic logical operations are hard wired. Indeed it's hard to see how a mind could ever "get going" if it didn't start with some basic way to process information.

For example, there is evidence small children can do very basic mathematical operations long before they learn to speak.

And the laws we build from our observations tell us that there are no exceptions to the rules, like gravity, or the conservation of energy, etc.. — punos

That there be no exception to the rules is a norm we impose on our rules.

Don't you perceive and observe your own thoughts? When you have a thought how do you know you had it if you didn't observe yourself having the thought. I observe my thoughts, my emotions, my dreams, my opinions, etc.. anything i know has been observed at some point or i would not know it. — punos

This definition of "observe" is too broad for my purposes. I differentiate between observation and experience more generally. I reserve the term "observation" for experience related to sensory data.

Your "stream of consciousness" is an experience, but not an observation under my terms. I hope that clears it up.

Can you name just one thing that you know without having observed it at some point in your life? — punos

I know that, given the premise: "if A, then B",
I can conclude: "Not B, therefore not A"

But I cannot conclude: "not A, therefore not B".

If we count this as knowledge, then it's not based on any observation.

Our thoughts about the brain are thoughts, but the brain is an objective object in spacetime. You may be conflating two different concepts "brain" and "mind". One is objective and the other is subjective.
Do you believe in objective reality? — punos

How do you know the brain is part of objective reality? I do believe there is one, but the physical world is a model of this objective reality created by human minds.

I don't know what you mean. What is your definition of observation? — punos

Observation is processing an outside stimulus, where "outside" means not mentally labeled as part of our selves.

How do you know there is a thing called "the scientific method"? Were you born knowing that, not having to learn it? — punos

It's based on a logical assessment of epistemological principles. I was born knowing logic, or at least with the requisite mental machinery to process it.

That's right.. the laws would be different, and the difference would be that there would be no law. — punos

The anthropic principle makes this impossible though.

We always "observe" that they do the same thing every single time, no exception. — punos

It's the other way around. We build our laws to account for the observations.

Observation does not violate anything, the violation would happen in the free act of will (free-will) — punos

I don't understand this sentence.

Like you said "observations" must obey logic (law), and thus observations are valid. — punos

I said no such thing, and the term "valid" as applied here makes no sense to me.

If you reject observation then what are you left with? Rejecting observation is the most anti-scientific method thing i've ever heard. — punos

I'm not sure how you arrived at this conclusion, but let me clarify that I don't reject observation. Observation is central for acquiring knowledge about the outside world.

How do you acquire your premises for your logical arguments without observation? — punos

Some things can be established without observation. For example, there is something that thinks, and some thoughts have the attribute of being "mine".

Everything else is also a thought, and that doesn't seem to make much of a difference. Why is the thinking of "the brain" specifically a problem? — punos

Because, as I pointed out, it's only there that we circle our observations back to their point of origin. What does it mean to say that thoughts occur "in the brain" when the brain is also a thought?

Everything we know comes from human observation — punos

This is not true. We know some things that do not depend on observations. For example, we know the scientific method, but the scientific method does not come from observation.

If it is not observable then how do you know you have it? — punos

I know I have it because I use it all the time. I have direct experience of making decisions.

The other option is for this particle to use its God given free-will to move towards the negatively charged particle in violation of the law (and against every scientists expectations). — punos

But since the laws of physics are just the shortest description that accounts for all observations, if this were to happen then the laws would simply be different. That's why I pointed out earlier that the laws of physics are simply a description of observations. Nothing we observe can ever violate the laws of physics, it's a logical impossibility.

The result of this would be that things would cease to work properly such as anything dealing with electricity. — punos

But in this world, things would always already have worked that way.

This is a common framing of free will, as some sudden and dramatic change in how things work, an act of magic. But if free will is present all the time, it'd already be accounted for in all the measurements.

Nothing would be consistent, or reliable. — punos

This is another common misconception: that free will is equivalent to random noise. But that's not actually what we experience when we make decisions.

Is pondering and thinking not something that goes on in the brain? — punos

Given that "the brain" is also a thought, this would get us stuck in a circle.

Is free-will something that is inherent in the laws of physics or does it come from outside those laws?
Does free-will violate the normal functioning of these laws? — punos

The laws of physics are a collection of human observations. But since freedom is not even in principle observable, it seems weird to expect it to show up.

As a though experiment, what would a world in which free will "violates the normal functioning" of the laws of physics look like? How would we detect such a violation?

I would argue that North Korea has very different reasons for banning western media. The US is not banning specific messages, it's banning a specific platform.

I feel like in general we need a serious update of our conception of free speech. The kind of censorship classical liberalism had in mind is is still relevant, but it's only half the picture. The real battle now is the battle for algorithms and attention spans. Free speech is no longer just about getting your message out there, because it will just die in the ocean of information.

There's also a new enemy of free speech, that works in an entirely different way: the targeted lie. We're now able to handcraft lies for the people most likely to believe them. The liar is no longer obligated to keep their story straight. They can sell a dozen different stories to different people.

This is a huge problem, and one that cannot even be meaningfully addressed if we're stuck with classical liberalism's conception of "free speech".

The Twitter saga offers a nice case in point. Perhaps the most important takeaway from the "Twitter files" is that we have a very serious problem on our hands, and we have not yet developed the tools to deal with it.

Does anything change because we discussed it here? I'm discussing it because I think it's interesting and I'm in a good mood which means I'm more open to different viewpoints. — Benkei

That's not quite what I mean. I don't want to make the boring "arguing about it on the internet won't change anything" argument.

I want to ask what additional information the claim "the principle of non intervention is international law" transports above and beyond, say: "the principle of non intervention is a commonly accepted rule for state behaviour".

If the procedure isn't law, what binding force does it have? None whatsoever. — Benkei

What is "binding force" in this context? If I have a gun and dictate a procedure, that procedure is certainly backed up by force. But you seem to refer to something more metaphysical.

It's not the process that matters, it's the performative act of one or more persons, their intent on the outward effects of those performative acts and the social understanding and acceptance of a community of that intent and effect. — Benkei

I agree with this in general, but it describes essentially any form of social construction whatsoever. Since we're talking about what law is it seems there is something special about law compared to other social constructions.

Such performative acts can certainly be a process, for instance where codification is concerned, but can be as "formless" as one person making a promise to another. — Benkei

I'm not really convinced that the bilateral promise or contract makes for a good base model of law. One of the common aspects of law is that it comes into effect precisely when bilateral relations break down.

Yes, precedents create law too. But when a judge applies a customary rule, the rule existed prior to the judge declaring it law. It was law before the judgment or the judge wouldn't have included it in his judgment. — Benkei

How does a custom turn into a customary law though? I'm not familiar with that field, but isn't cutomary law usually called that because it has been applied by courts or other systems of dispute resolution in the past?