FYI, a couple of Visual Capitalist overviews:

• Visualizing Ukraine’s Top Trading Partners and Products (Mar 3, 2022)

• Map Explainer: Key Facts About Ukraine (Feb 23, 2022)

Meanwhile...

• BBC Suspends Journalism In Russia After Passing Of Draconian Censorship Law Attacking Independent Media As “Foreign Agents” (Mar 4, 2022)

• Russia Takes Censorship to New Extremes, Stifling War Coverage (Mar 4, 2022)

UN vote "to reprimand Russia for invading Ukraine and demanded that Moscow stop fighting and withdraw its military forces" ("non-binding")

181/193 participants

141: yes _{(Turkey, ...)}
5: no _{(Russia, Belarus, Eritrea, North Korea, Syria)}
35: abstain _{(China, India, South Africa, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Cuba, ...)}

"Putin, go home. Have some Vodka. No, Russia ain't about to be invaded by foreign nations."

What does Belarus have against Ukraine anyway?
At least I'm not aware of any threats or some such (except maybe Putin has threatened Lukashenko).



Reuters: U.N. General Assembly in historic vote denounces Russia over Ukraine invasion
Al Jazeera: UN resolution against Ukraine invasion: Full text

Personally, I blame the Australians. — Olivier5

The Dutch!

Weird.

Why white evangelical Christians are Putin's biggest American fan base (Mar 2, 2022)

, such destruction. :( For centuries at that.
Please keep the informative comments up. :up:
Sure hope Ukraine won't become another Chechnya.
At least Grozny seems reasonably stable (at the moment), as far as I know anyway.
I guess the Russian empire took over now-Chechnya in the 1800s after having kicked other invaders out, like the then-Persians.

The deportations are the defining moment of the modern Chechen experience. Street names were changed and gravestones uprooted to pave the roads. A statue of General Yermelov, the favourite butcher of the tsars, was erected in Grozny, bearing the inscription, 'There is no people under the sun more vile and deceitful than this one.' Every Chechen over 60 can remember the deportations. A generation of Chechens were born in exile. — Chechnya: the empire strikes back (2000)

The TOS-1 is a heavy-duty sucker

:o

But...beer?

Putin seems to kick others around sort of effortlessly.

Old playbook, like in 1938, when Hitler kicked the UK and France around, and thus forced then-Czechoslovakia to surrender the Sudetenland.
Something like 3 million Germans lived there, that apparently were happy about being assimilated by Germany.
Well, until 1945 when they were kicked out, then they got rather unhappy the story goes.
Before the Germans moved in, the Nazi regime had spread horror stories about the ever so horrible treatment of the Sudeten Germans by the government in Prague.
Propaganda circulated, attitudes installed, population "prepared" and roused, or perhaps "kicked" about if you will, though kicked differently than the "weaklings" in London and Paris.

Not identical situations of course, but similar enough playbook-wise.
Sure hope the fallouts won't be.

Those who do not read history are doomed to repeat it. — Santayana

(once again)

I just wanted to hear a clear condemnation of the coming bloodshed. That's all. — frank

:up:

, invites to discuss:

Goldman Sachs asks in biotech research report: ‘Is curing patients a sustainable business model?’ (Apr 11, 2018)

One of those things where unchecked capitalism can go awry (say, the tragedy of the commons being another example)?
@Isaac, for one, has aired industry scandals.
How to respond?

In the interest of including/weighing different takes, here's Tony Kevin:
Ukraine shrinks again (Feb 23, 2022)

Yet,
• did Ukraine threaten with invading Russia?
• were there regular/significant (perhaps state-sanctioned) human rights violations in Ukraine (e.g. against Russians or others)?
• did Ukraine close borders (e.g. for Russians or Russian reporters or everyone), stomp free press to (presumably) hide something?
* did the Ukrainian people at large want Russia to invade (or rescue them)?
• did the Russian people at large push (Putin) to invade Ukraine?

After all, we're talking invasion here, war stuff, plain aggression.

I haven't heard much from Russian politicians opposing Putin here, but haven't looked much either.
Should any there may be live in fear?
(I'm fairly confident Tony Kevin doesn't.)

Bluff called. — Benkei

Nice picture in a satirist Dutch newspaper today of a tank and captioned: "Russian tank drives straight through a really heavy sanction". — Benkei

It's military show of force, or shut up...? :/

Heard rumors that other countries were thinking of sending military aid to countries bordering Russia.

Couldn't Russia just join NATO? :D

How on earth would you know? — Isaac

Not going to go over your seemingly epistemic relativism once again, apparently cool with carelessness, in particular not if it could put my aging parents at risk.

Had some careless anti-masker infected my aging parents, then I'd be rather unhappy. Wouldn't you be? — jorndoe

Well?

Banned/suppressed, ? No; well, I'd prefer not to. (Might start talking about free speech for that matter I guess.) Discourse is part of figuring things out.

On the other hand, dissidents crippling moving forward is irresponsible, especially in public health, especially with a situation on our hands. (Some dissidents stop listening to others, while insisting that others must hear them.)

Had some careless anti-masker infected my aging parents, then I'd be rather unhappy. Wouldn't you be? And I wouldn't care if they waved a couple of hand-picked articles, while ignoring many others (or ignoring common sense, or being respectful, for that matter). That's what it looks like here in real life.

something like: masks can help (when used right).

, don't put words in my mouth. Add don't forget to mask up appropriately, where appropriate. :mask:


On a different note, someone out there posted this:

markdown — jorndoe

Sorry, markdown is just plain text, a simple format that can represent some formatting and links and such. Can be saved and opened as any other plain text file.

Who's 'we' here? — Isaac

We is euphemistically anyone operating bona fides. Aren't you? (Like concern for each other?)

This is the [...] — Isaac

... which together with the rest (some of which were listed), taken together, tell us where things are at. Not sure why anyone would call that pathetic. :shrug: However tediously long, Russell and Patterson make good points (also mentions *cough* motivated reasoning).

I can't access this site — Isaac

Attached as markdown to retain links.

evidence and concluding that, for you, masks are the best bet — Isaac

For me? It's a social thing. I'm not aware of many masking up when on their own. You honestly think you live in a different world, however it works doesn't apply to you?

like the truth of the matter for example :gasp: — jorndoe

... doesn't depend on he-said-she-said, rather, the discourse is to figure it out bona fides, that's kind of the reason for the discussions in the first place, resulting in practicalities. :mask:

it's downright irresponsible when there's a public health emergency that needs a serious clear-headed response. — Isaac

Irresponsible indeed. And, indeed, serious clear-headed and in everyone's best interest, concern for each other. :mask:

something like: masks can help (when used right). — jorndoe

^{(Maybe go back to covering the scandals?)}

Yet the discourse has been framed unhelpfully as a meaningless oversimplification: “masks work” versus “masks don’t work.” — Russell and Patterson

Should be something like: masks can help (when used right).
The politicized rabble and ideological opinions, don't somehow change the facts/evidence. :shrug:
So what if I have to mask up while out on the town?
Dissidence for dissidence's sake is teenage politics/behavior, mala fides.
We do our best to figure things out bona fides, like the truth of the matter for example :ghasp:, and take it from there.
Hopefully we can get over the hurdle, the sooner the better, without unnecessarily risking lives, or whatever some caution might have prevented.


^{• How efficient are facial masks against COVID-19? Evaluating the mask use of various communities one year into the pandemic (Jul 21, 2021)
• Surgical masks reduce COVID-19 spread, large-scale study shows (Sep 1, 2021)
• (meta) Do face masks work? Here are 49 scientific studies that explain why they do (Sep 17, 2021)
• Why We Need to Upgrade Our Face Masks—and Where to Get Them (Sep 30, 2021)
• What’s the best MASK to protect me from the Delta variant? (Oct 6, 2021)
• An Ocean Away, I Found Some Common Sense on Mask Wearing (Oct 12, 2021)
• How well masks protect (Dec 2, 2021)
• Face mask fit modifications that improve source control performance (Dec 15, 2021)
• N95, KN95 Or Cloth Masks? What To Wear To Best Protect Against Omicron (Jan 10, 2022)
• What Do Masks Do to Kids? (Feb 7, 2022)
• Children and COVID-19: State-Level Data Report}

Well, that's just great. :/

Ukraine conflict: Rebels declare general mobilisation as fighting grows (Feb 19, 2022)

Have you ever had your bank account frozen for participating in a protest? — NOS4A2

Do you mean those GoFundMe accounts?

... scrolled by the other day.

The protests have been so peaceful that the Ottawa had to make honking illegal in order to impose any punishment. — NOS4A2

The lives of local residents were interrupted by the noise.
There were counter-protests and locals that wanted them to quit keeping them up at night.
They spoke, were heard, interviewed, discussions took place; now they're no longer interested in that, only that others hear them.

• 5G and QAnon: how conspiracy theorists steered Canada’s anti-vaccine trucker protest (The Guardian; Feb 8, 2022)
• There Is Nothing Normal about One Million People Dead from COVID (Scientific American; Feb 10, 2022)

I'd kind of like to conclude my personal pandemic tracker, it's getting long.
Juvenile adults doing theatrics ain't helping.

, if ineffable, then what's up with all the preaching anyway...? Weird.

π is accurate, no need to start typing the decimal (base-10) representation.

π has no last decimal digit, just like 1/3 and 1/7, for example.



π = C/d

:D

:D

There are enough people out there that assent to neverending damnation, not just in the US.
Anyone that doesn't - kudos - good for you. :up:

On occasion someone asks you

Why not accept the free gift of salvation?

only to threaten with the above if someone puts them on the spot.
Call them fringe or cult if you like, or distance yourself from them.
Has little bearing on Lewis' point.

If anyone wants to witch-hunt the assenters, then they're no better.
At some point someone ought be/come better, and yaay some have. :up:

Sucks.

The observed association between diabetes and COVID-19 might be attributed to the effects of SARS-CoV-2 infection on organ systems involved in diabetes risk. — Risk for Newly Diagnosed Diabetes ›30 Days After SARS-CoV-2 Infection Among Persons Aged ‹18 years — United States, March 1, 2020–June 28, 2021

We'd want to know if vaccination or something else makes a difference, or whether mere contact with SARS-CoV-2 can trigger diabetes regardless. Vaccination making a difference seems plausible, since a similar difference in emergence of diabetes hasn't been noticed at large, but this would have to be backed by numbers. Adding diabetes to possible effects kind of sucks; knowing with more certainty whether vaccination, COVID-19 disease or something else makes a difference would be helpful.

Who is writing your posts? [...] — baker

You need to differentiate the writer and what's written (the topic at hand).
If this was a personal heart-to-heart over an intimate dinner by the candlelight, then it might be different.
And

(don't want to veer off on a side-track though) — jorndoe

In analogy, here are some reports pertaining to a particular topic (the second coming, end-time prophecy, the rapture, "the signs", incentives, priorities):

^{• in 2006, a fifth of Christians believed that Jesus would return in their lifetime: Christians’ Views on the Return of Christ (2009)
• Millions of Evangelical Christians Want to Start World War III … to Speed Up the Second Coming (2012)
• Half of evangelicals support Israel because they believe it is important for fulfilling end-times prophecy (2018)
• For many evangelicals, Jerusalem is about prophecy, not politics (2018)
• The Rapture and the Real World: Mike Pompeo Blends Beliefs and Policy (2019)
• The Evangelicals Who Pray for War With Iran (2020)
• Evangelicals Love Donald Trump for Many Reasons, But One of Them Is Especially Terrifying (2020)
• Vast Majority of Pastors See Signs of End Times in Current Events (2020)}

Not really an irrelevant minority on the fringe. Sometimes such beliefs turn to actions turn to everyone's concern.

It's easy to dismiss such beliefs as "stupid cult", "no self-respecting adherent believes that", etc. I know (and interact with) some of them; there's more to come by than the listed examples. Fortunately, many of them respect "the law of the land", at least unless their beliefs gain some wider traction.

, doesn't have anything to do with me in particular, nada.

here, here, here, ... (has to do with moral character and such)

to find meaning, purpose, and morality — Hanover

Why morality? History (including legal cases) and living are the better teachers. I suppose you might find moral lessons in religious tales (if that's what you meant).

, what's with the discontinuity? Not going to remind by going back and quoting comments.
Scrolled by, might speak to your sentiments, don't know ...

• A new coronavirus vaccine heading to India was developed by a small team in Texas. It expects nothing in return. (Dec 30, 2021)
• Corbevax (vaccine)

No patents, reminding of Salk's polio vaccine. I guess we'll see what comes of it.
So ...

would you actually like to join Strang and his many colleagues around the world?

Recently I've been listening to Vinay Prasad, Stefan Baral, Martin Kulldorff, Jay Bhattacharya, Norman Fenton, Pete Doshi, Paul Hunter... Or are they the 'wrong' experts? — Isaac

Just those?

, do I have to repeat again?

• the scandals, failures, conspiracies, malaria, poverty, General Motors, ...
• the task at hand (like what Strang and colleagues around the world does)

_{Feb 27, 2021 Children with long covid
Apr 28, 2021 7 Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Kids
Dec 27, 2021 New York City sees four-fold increase in COVID-19 hospitalizations among kids
Dec 28, 2021 Child Covid hospitalizations are up, especially in 5 states
↑ take care of your 5-year-olds out there}


So ...

would you actually like to join Strang and his many colleagues around the world?

Isn't the main topic (assent to) neverending damnation?
It has been, and is, upheld by some.
And the topic has moral implications (whether upheld by one or billions).

@Wayfarer :up:

It's a great project. Can't wait to learn from it.

^{(I'd ignore the weird comments)}

The Nazis didn't think so, obviously. — baker

That's too bad, especially for the victims.

, yet the Holocaust was wrong, really bad.

(don't want to veer off on a side-track though)

Again, , the two mentioned things aren't the same.

On February 6, 2014, General Motors (GM) recalled about 800,000 of its small cars due to faulty ignition switches, which could shut off the engine while the vehicle was in motion and thereby prevent the airbags from inflating. The company continued to recall more of its cars over the next several months, resulting in nearly 30 million cars recalled worldwide and paid compensation for 124 deaths. The fault had been known to GM for at least a decade prior to the recall being declared. As part of a Deferred Prosecution Agreement, GM agreed to forfeit $900 million to the United States. — General Motors ignition switch recalls

As an aside, would you actually like to join Strang and his many colleagues around the world? (They differentiate.)

Am I really alone here in this? — frank

Well, no. (In my case anyway.) In practical terms ...

People don't often say they assent to neverending damnation, that I know of; seems almost comically embarrassing.
(Though some indoctrinate children so.)

If they admit assenting to neverending damnation, then we may express repugnance, and maybe vote them off "the ethics board".
Outside of that, they (or most anyone) remain "innocent until proven guilty" if you will.

As an aside, I know a few people whose moral judgment often derive from the Bible or the Quran.
They often evaluate moral matters so-and-so because their religious text says this-and-that.
To me, that's forfeiture of autonomous moral agency, to have their text define morals for them.
In principle at least, autonomous moral agency is a prerequisite for (would-be) autonomous actors.



Whatever rules they pick up from their text doesn't somehow absolve them.
In any given situation they still have to figure out if going by their text is the right thing to do.
Fortunately, when probing a bit, most still have (some) autonomous moral agency, and that's kind of reassuring.

Lewis' case is strong enough that it can't just be dismissed with a hand wave.

, church affiliation has been decreasing in the US

^{Oct 17, 2019 · In U.S., Decline of Christianity Continues at Rapid Pace
Dec 14, 2021 · About Three-in-Ten U.S. Adults Are Now Religiously Unaffiliated}

and in some other places

^{Apr 05, 2017 · Christians remain world’s largest religious group, but they are declining in Europe
Jun 13, 2018 · 2. Young adults around the world are less religious by several measures
Jun 13, 2018 · 3. How religious commitment varies by country among people of all ages}

The US has been and is an outlier if you will

^{Jun 13, 2018 · 1. Why do levels of religious observance vary by age and country?}

I doubt it's because they've been reading "Divine Evil" and such, though. :)
But, anyway, what Pew calls "the religious landscape" has been changing some.

, you don't think realizing that neverending damnation is immoral could cause a belief revision of some sort (contra voluntarism)?
Maybe, maybe not, getting into psychology...

, Christianity was not any one particular single movement in the first centuries after Jesus' demise (≈ 30-40).
There were all kinds of zealous factions and cults and whatnot fighting each other and, well, anyone really, often refusing to discuss things for that matter.
And this continued after Constantine's (272-337) organized efforts to get them all together under Roman Catholicism and do away with the rest.
Celsus found them a nuisance, and Origen later complained about Celsus.
Theodosius I (347-395) officially decreed them "dementes vesanosque" (demented lunatics) in 380 — everyone but the Roman Catholics of course, since they were now rubber-stamped by the empire, or more accurately, Roman Catholicism was now part thereof.
Backing by the empire and its resources was a "seismic" turning point in history (to use one historian's word).
And, naturally, another few centuries later yet another religion hit the market with Muhammad, swiftly splitting up into two factions due to some succession disagreement.
It's a bloody story laced with fanatics, strife, and antisemitism, not a mere neat story about the righteous innocents being persecuted.
The Romans tried to deal with the cesspool of zealous cults, countryside preachers, resentment/dissidents, etc, of Middle Eastern antiquity, in their brutish ways, yet Christianity (Catholicism) outlived the empire, and so here we are, with some folk raising Jesus to divinity and perfection, and apparently assenting to neverending damnation.

Early Christian church fathers didn't take the Bible literally. Fundamentalism came later. — frank

Why do you say that?

• What did early Christians (before 400) believe about hell and eternal punishment?

In that day true and full happiness shall be the lot of none but the good, while deserved and supreme misery shall be the portion of the wicked, and of them only. — The City of God by Augustine (354-430)

Wherefore in order that the happiness of the saints may be more delightful to them and that they may render more copious thanks to God for it, they are allowed to see perfectly the sufferings of the damned. — Summa Theologica by Aquinas (1225-1274)

Wherefore as the saints will rejoice in all goods, so will the damned grieve for all goods. — Summa Theologica by Aquinas (1225-1274)

Anyway, it's fairly clear that people have believed (and some do believe) neverending damnation.

To know a person's moral character, we look at that person's ACTIONS. — frank

:up: Yep (and what they say). Of course, blanket-dehumanizing is bad.

doxastic involuntarist — Srap Tasmaner

Right, for the most part anyway. Morals are performative, prescriptive, though. Decision-making is involved. If someone expresses assent to neverending damnation, then we may express repugnance.

Well, either way, I'm not seeing Christians being taken to the guillotine (even if they express assent to neverending damnation), and certainly wouldn't want to. Hmm...then again, there was that case...

Finnish Lawmaker Faces Trial for Hate Speech After Quoting the Bible About Homosexuality (Apr 30, 2021)

taboo — Banno

Noticed that as well. Has it become politically incorrect to criticize assent to neverending damnation? :brow: Lewis' note is fairly specific (sometimes excruciatingly); wouldn't you expect responses to be on-target?

I concede that the neglected argument doesn’t apply against deism. — Divine Evil

Most Christians follow a version of the religion that is committed to divine evil, evil perpetrated by God. Most, therefore, fall afoul of the neglected argument. Perhaps some do not. Perhaps some are inclined to accept the universalist fantasy I have just outlined. Can that count as a genuine style of Christianity? I shall leave that for the theologians to decide. — Divine Evil

But none of this means that Christians should be burned at the stake of course. :wink:

I don't think Christians, by and large, actually believe the things they say they believe. I think the simplest explanation for why the things they say make no sense to a secular audience is that they things they say make no sense. — Isaac

:up:

There could be dissonance involved. (After all, the Bible also tells tales of supernaturally feeding 5000 and 4000 people with a handful of food, which continues to be preached to children.)

Allah the merciful — Agent Smith

There is some ambiguity, though it seems eternal torment is the most common belief among Muslims. The Quran displays the usual contrast between (their versions of) heaven and hell.

Quran 4:13-14, 4:56-57 :fire: (graphic violence), 4:93, 4:122, 4:137, 4:168-169, 5:37, 5:72-73, 7:179, 18:105-106, 67:7 :fire:, ...