Of course it doesn't really matter because the two parties are the same party with differing heraldry.
— Streetlight — Jackson

Nonsense.

Abolishing capitalism would be good, but in lieu of that, get money of out politics, abolish the Electoral Collage, pack or abolish the Supreme Court, rewrite that stupid piece of shit document they call a constitution, bring back the corporate income tax rate of the 1940-1950s, massively limit speculation on housing, massively raise the capital gains tax, establish a decent fucking healthcare system, fund the ever living daylights out of public housing, gut to the point of death funding for the military and for cops, so and and so on. — Streetlight

Ironically, Trump supporters would fight you tooth and nail on all of that.

It seems instead to me that materialism is an idea which can never be verified, as for it to be verified, it would require proving that there is something existing independently of conscious beings. But do do so, one must step outside of subjective experience. But obviously, that is not possible. — Hello Human

:100:

Materialism, as you say, is impossible to verify. And it also leads to a very big unanswered question: how can minds arise from mindless matter?

https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/national-international/woman-fatally-shot-man-who-fired-rifle-into-party-crowd-police/3063451/

"“Instead of running from the threat, she engaged with the threat and saved several lives last night,” Chief of Detectives Tony Hazelett told news outlets Thursday."

Talk of ethnicity, democracy, denazification, de-islamification, or removal of oppression, always seem to become important near oilfields. — unenlightened

:100:

I told you why I don't engage with you: you're dishonest.

"On 24 April the head of the world’s largest ship manager, René Kofod-Olsen, urged Nato to provide naval escorts for commercial vessels passing through the Black Sea: “We should demand that our seafaring and marine traffic is being protected in international waters. I’m sure Nato and others have a role to play in the protection of the commercial fleet.”"

This is a good article about where things stand in Ukraine militarily, and the growing pressure for some kind of action to protect commercial food shipping. You can view the whole thing in incognito mode.
https://www.newstatesman.com/world/europe/ukraine/2022/05/black-sea-blockade-crimea

Aside from murdering Ukrainians, Russia is going to be responsible for the starvation of a whole lot of people.

"[Putin] also understands that if a democratic Ukraine is allowed to gain strength and prosper, it will likely inspire Russians to seek similar changes in their own country. In other words, he regards the existence of a free and democratic Ukraine as an existential threat to the future of his own autocratic regime."
https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2022/05/26/the_putin_puzzle_why_is_the_russian_dictator_so_obsessed_with_ukraine_834318.html

Lame.

Applebaum is an insane person who has been preaching for - in her words - "total war" with Russia for nearly 10 years. A neocon warmongerer only slightly less dangerous than Putin because she happens not to be a head of state. — Streetlight

What part of her argument do you disagree with?

One data point is not determinate. It's a hasty generalization to call an isolated event – an anomaly – a pattern. — 180 Proof

It's possible a computer producing random words could pass the Turing Test a million times in a row. It's incredibly unlikely, but there's a possible ETA [world] where that happens.

Well, it's astronomically unlikely such an "incredibly unlikely" machine would pass the Turing Test twice, thus it would be found out that's it's a dumb paper weight. — 180 Proof

The unlikelihood isn't the issue. The issue is that we're getting an intelligent response from a "dumb" system (a system that produces things randomly). The response (passing the Turing Test) is seemingly intelligent, but fundamentally, the system just produces gibberish. It just happens that the gibberish it produces matches the gibberish we expect. That's not intelligence.

What if an artificial system can be productive, isn't that real intelligence? — Jackson

There is some possible world where a computer randomly puts words together and produces great works of literature. Is that artificial system intelligent? I don't think so.

Can you further explain this? What is "mimicking" intelligence mean. — Jackson

Sure. Suppose you have a computer with no programming at all. All the switching operations inside it happen randomly. It is possible, though incredibly unlikely, that that computer can pass a turing test, just by random chance. It would seemingly be intelligent, but it wouldn't really be intelligent.

The modifer "true" doesn't function, or add anything meaningful, in your sentence. By definition if an entity passes the Turing Test, then that entity functions indistinguishably from other intelligent humans to intelligent human observers. That the entity "is not conscious" implies merely that the entity is not interacting with its environment by generating a phenomenal self-model as the 'experiential focus' (or axis) of phenomenal continuously-updating environment / world-model within which it is an embodied agent (with a "theory of mind"). Like, for instance, an active, high functioning sleepwalker, no? — 180 Proof

By "true" intelligence, I mean actually intelligent, as opposed to mimicking intelligence.

Then consciousness is not the same as intelligence. A system can be intelligent without be conscious. — Jackson

Yes, I can imagine a computer that isn't conscious easily passing a Turing Test and giving intelligent answers to questions. Would that be true intelligence, though, or an example of Searles Chinese Room?

What else besides brains can be conscious? Can a computer be conscious?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZVXYaQz1lw
(Russian Invasion of Ukraine - 80 day update - Cold War Special)

Fundamentally, it's a question of how mindless matter, when arranged a certain way (e.g., functioning brain), can produce a mind. We're no closer to the answer now than we were during Descartes' time, which makes me think there will never be an explanation for how minds emerge from matter, which makes me think minds don't emerge from matter. And since I can't be wrong that at least one mind exists, It's probably the case that matter doesn't exist.

:up:

We can see if and how we've contributed to this situation and make moves in the direction of peace. — Xtrix

I don't think anything was going to deter Putin from invading Ukraine except its membership in NATO. He thought he could just waltz in and take over the country. The takeaway here is that if Ukraine was in NATO, there would be peace right now. Finland and Sweden have certainly drawn that conclusion. I don't blame them.

:up:

Good recap of what's going on in Donbas.
https://meduza.io/en/feature/2022/05/10/russia-s-long-shot-in-the-donbas

Good one! That captures the essence of the physical in my opinion. However, it puts us in a bind to my reckoning for how are we to determine if anything is physical without the mind getting involved? — Agent Smith

Thank you. I would start with what we know to be true (at least one mind exists), and then see if any further assumptions about reality are warranted. Does positing the existence of mind-independent stuff solve anything? Is physicalism possible to prove? Does it lead to absurdities or contradictions?

2. Physical: That which is matter and/or energy. Both are perceived (accurately) with instruments. — Agent Smith

That which exists when mind is removed.

Hard to tell how much Old Joe Knows. His age is reportedly starting to show. — jorndoe

Biden is way past his pull date. The Biden Administration, however, has to know what a dangerous game they're playing wrt Ukraine and Russia. If Russia was giving intel to one of our enemies that resulted in deaths of many senior officers (and they were still doing it!), we would want some payback.

I have a "negative" (in quotes because I don't think it's necessarily negative) opinion on women because the most common behavior I have seen on women is manipulation. More specifically, emotional manipulation. — ithinkthereforeidontgiveaf

Don't feed the incel.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/06/opinion/biden-ukraine-leaks.html
"The War Is Getting More Dangerous for America, and Biden Knows It"
(you can get around paywall by opening in incognito mode)

"Ukrainian forces have retaken another village in the northern Kharkiv region as a counteroffensive continues against Russian forces.

In a video circulating Telegram, troops were seen placing a flag on a building in the village of Molodova, just 13 miles southeast of the Ukraine-Russia border. CNN has geolocated and verified the authenticity of the video."
https://www.cnn.com/europe/live-news/russia-ukraine-war-news-05-04-22/h_51987ee955a58f8caa0c940faaca0a3b

:up: