Do you think it's possible for a side in a war to be fighting "the good fight"?

Have you read any stoicism? I've always liked two quotes from Epictetus that Tom Wolfe used in a novel:

"Difficulty shows what men are. Therefore when a difficulty falls upon you, remember that God, like a trainer of wrestlers, has matched you with a rough young man. Why? So that you may become an Olympic conqueror; but it is not accomplished without sweat."

And

"What would have become of Hercules do you think if there had been no lion, hydra, stag or boar - and no savage criminals to rid the world of? What would he have done in the absence of such challenges?

Obviously he would have just rolled over in bed and gone back to sleep. So by snoring his life away in luxury and comfort he never would have developed into the mighty Hercules.

And even if he had, what good would it have done him? What would have been the use of those arms, that physique, and that noble soul, without crises or conditions to stir into him action?"

That helps me sometimes when I'm struggling. Also, ChatGPT is sometimes good to talk to.

Life has value, but predation is against that value. Predation involves prioritising the life of the predator over the life of the prey. This is selfish. This is evil. — Truth Seeker

A dragonfly eating a mosquito is evil and selfish? Fuck those guys.

Was the Big Bang a low probability event?

If that machine can experience qualia, why not a future machine of equal or greater complexity? — Jacques

What about a machine of lesser complexity? Could a smartphone be conscious?

We are talking about millions if not billions of people in some cases. What happens if they are forced to move because of the basic necessity of avoiding to die in the heatwaves or general heat in their home nation? — Christoffer

Or they'll demand cheap fossil-fuel based energy to run AC and heaters.

That's true. But, what else can and side we do? — Patterner

Nothing. It's just interesting.

I can't think of a different way that we should act. If it does not continue to behave tomorrow the way it is today, how could we guess in which ways it will be different? which type of disaster should we plan for? Some of which, such as the sudden disappearance of the strong nuclear force, could not possibly be prepared for anyway. So we may as well all act like it's a low probability event. — Patterner

Not only do we act like it's a low probability event, we believe it too. No one is scared the universe will kill us all in the next minute. We believe that's very unlikely, but how do we know?

If it was a high probability event then you wouldn't be here! — Apustimelogist

Not necessarily. It could be the case that the universe becomes chaotic at exactly a point in time that coincides with tomorrow for reasons we're not aware of. That could be a high probability event. The fact that it hasn't happened wouldn't change the probability.

If it makes it easier I can rephrase the question… why does the universe behave in an orderly way ? For example, the motion of the planets around the sun? This of course is due to the law of gravity governing such motions but without calling it a law why should this be the case … why don’t the planets for example just stand still in fixed location in space ? — kindred

That's a good question. Also, why do we believe the universe will continue to behave in an orderly way? How do we know there isn't some principle at work whereby the universe becomes chaotic tomorrow. How do we even go about calculating the odds of such a thing? But we all act like it's a low probability event. Is it really?

That's all right. I was just trying to be funny. Thanks for fixing it, though!

U.S. is the richest country in the world, with a GDP of $27 trillion. Who do you think is going to pass them up and when?

"The American strike on the three nuclear facilities – at Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan – was undoubtedly effective. “Most serious analysts think that the damage of the US strikes was very, very serious, and it’s hard to imagine that Iran still has a credible nuclear weapons programme in place that has somehow eluded intelligence,” said Patrick Wintour.

...

Tehran has seen the regime parade the coffins of the “martyred” military chiefs and nuclear scientists who died in the strikes to state funerals."
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/01/tuesday-briefing-how-weakened-is-iran-after-operation-midnight-hammer-and-where-might-it-go-from-here

Who wouldn't want to work on Iran's nuclear program? You get to be a martyr and a free state funeral.

RougeAI — Kizzy

Who da fuck is that? :lol:

Ok might be hyperbolic but it’s making it much harder to raise lawsuits against executive orders. A dissenting opinion said:

Today’s ruling allows the Executive to deny people rights that the Founders plainly wrote into our Constitution, so long as those individuals have not found a lawyer or asked a court in a particular manner to have their rights protected,” Jackson’s dissent states. “This perverse burden shifting cannot coexist with the rule of law. In essence, the Court has now shoved lower court judges out of the way in cases where executive action is challenged, and has gifted the Executive with the prerogative of sometimes disregarding the law.”

Jackson added ominously, the ruling was an “existential threat to the rule of law”.

And that’s from one of the dissenting judges, not a columnist. — Wayfarer

Re: the bolded, hasn't that always been the case, though? Someone has to sue if they think their rights are being violated.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2025/jun/22/one-million-and-counting-russian-casualties-hit-milestone-in-ukraine-war

Deaths are estimated to be over 200,000, which is like ten Afghanistans (or three Vietnams). Russia is going to be dealing with hundreds of thousands of badly wounded men for decades, and that's excluding all the mental issues. I wonder when the Russian people are going to get tired of all this.

Think about it, just for a while.

Assume your country would be striken with missiles for 12 days. Over two hundred civilians would have been killed. Then the attackers would want to bribe you with third party investment.

How eager would you to start negotiations with your attackers? How much would you trust them? — ssu

I was responding to your point that Trump doesn't have a plan. He does. It might be unrealistic, but the plan is to offer Iran goodies to drop their nuclear ambitions.

Would Iran trust us? Doubtful, but there is precedent for the U.S. bribing Iran to drop it's enrichment. Obama did it. What is Iran's alternative, though? They just got punished severely. They got no support from the (civilized) world and even their neighbors turned on them. Top Iranian officials now know Israel can and will take them out. Why not take the bribe the Trump Admin is offering? Isn't enrichment just not worth it at this point?

Obama at least had a plan. Trump doesn't have any plan just to wobble into the next crisis that is going to erupt and try to take center stage. — ssu

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/trump-administration-exploring-30-billion-civilian-nuclear-deal-iran-rcna215679

I think the Trump admin would be thrilled if Iran could be bribed into giving up their nuclear ambitions.

We live in a world of mentation and the physical is simply how consciousness appears when viewed from a certain perspective. (Kastrup) — Tom Storm

Kastrup wants to have it both ways. He says the physical world is just how consciousness looks 'from the outside'—but if everything is mind, then this supposed 'outside view' is just another mental experience. If idealism is true, then what we call the physical world isn’t really 'physical' at all—it's just how the cosmic mind dreams things up. That’s not a perspective shift—it’s a full-blown collapse of physical reality into narrative illusion.

Regarding the OP, simulation theory only makes sense if you think your conscious experiences can be reduced to a bunch of electric switches turning off and on in a certain way. To me, that sounds implausible.

Welcome to the forum. Philosophy is not really equipped to solve the problems you’ve identified. — T Clark

But things have gotten much better for a lot of people in the last thousand years. Hasn't philosophy played a large part in that?

Yet notice the crucial difference to the Middle East. Germans don't give a fuck that Alsace-Lorraine belongs to France now. And both French and Germans of today would be surprised just how some place like Alsace-Lorraine stirred up fervent jingoism in both countries in the past. — ssu

Yes, that is the crucial difference. So why does that difference exist? Is it religious fundamentalism and the rise of European secularism?

In truth, it isn't. If we mean by nations rising that they become prosperous. — ssu

I was talking more along the lines of the physical land that makes up the new nation. That had to come from someone else.

Yes, at the heart of it all is plain old fashioned antisemitism.

Yes, I get it. What I can't handle is someone (@BitconnectCarlos) suggesting that Israel has been nothing but a victim in all this. That's not true. — frank

Yeah, that's certainly not true. The rise of nations is a zero-sum bloody game. Israel can't come into existence without taking the land from someone else. There's nothing more commonplace in history than borders being redrawn after great wars. How many times has Alsace-Lorraine changed hands in the last 1,000 years? Ah, but when the Jews do it...well, we can't have that.

Hmm. So you're saying that a "self-replicating molecule" is much less mysterious than a "conscious entity"? — J

Within the framework of materialism, I think it is. I think the materialist story of life is just a story of chemistry, so there's no fundamental incoherencies. The materialist story of consciousness, otoh, goes down some pretty weird rabbit holes: eliminative materialism and mind-brain identity theory.

If we're invoking a "vanishingly remote chain of events" here, why can't we do so for consciousness as well? — J

You can, and you get Boltzmann Brains. But the issue I have with Boltzmann Brains isn't that they're fantastically unlikely. It's the story materialism tries to tell about how consciousness emerges from any kind of brain, and we're back to the issues I raised earlier: a seeming category error, no agreed upon explanation for how consciousness emerges from matter, and it seems to lead to absurdities.

"I have a feeling that the abiogenesis problem only looks different and more scientific because we've made better progress on it. There certainly used to be a Hard Problem associated with it, and it's still no picnic. I expect the same will prove true for consciousness. Chalmers didn't mean the Hard Problem of consciousness was intractable, or a sign that we necessarily weren't thinking about it correctly. He just meant that, at the moment, we don't have a good research program for answering it."

That's possible. We used to think there was some mysterious elan vital associated with life. It seems to me, that at this point in our scientific development, there should be some explanation for consciousness, some agreed upon definition for what it is, some kind of test to see if x is conscious. The consciousness theories should not be all over the place, like they are. You have panpsychists in one camp and eliminative materialists in the other and they're both taken seriously. One of those camps should have been completely disproven by now. It suggests to me that traditional scientific enquiry won't ever solve the Hard Problem. The lack of progress makes me think science won't figure out consciousness.

"But in any case, I do have a better sense of why the whole "consciousness as emergent property" claim could seem extraordinary to you, thanks."

Awesome! Good discussion.

OK, that's helpful. But don't you have to run the same argument against the idea of life emerging? — J

Do you mean the mystery of abiogenesis? That's a scientific mystery, not a philosophical one. Life reduces to chemistry, so the idea that chemicals sloshing around could give rise to a self-replicating molecule in some vanishingly remote chain of events isn't hard to swallow. There's no Hard Problem associated with it. I don't see any reductio absurdum issues.

Can you say why you think it's extraordinary? Not that it could happen -- that is certainly extraordinary -- but why you think the claim is extraordinary. — J

OK, when you unpack "consciousness emerges from matter" you get:

1. There is this non-conscious stuff, and it was created ex nihilo around 14 billion years ago in an event we still don't quite understand. And we don't know exactly what this stuff is. The model used to be that it was simply little building blocks that assembled themselves together to make up everything else, but 100 years ago, that all changed and now matter is excitations of a quantum field and we still don't know what's going on with QM. The only thing everyone can agree on is that it's very counter-intuitive.

So already we have a poorly understood theory with a something-from-nothing origin. And on top of that, we're supposed to assume that this mindless nonconscious stuff, when you assemble it a certain way and run a current through it, conscious experiences emerge from it somehow. Doesn't that sound like a category error? And how exactly does that work? How much stuff do you need? What kind of stuff? Why is electricity necessary? Is it necessary? Could you replace a working brain with a functionally equivalent system of water, pumps and valves and would the system be conscious? If you adjusted the flow of water in this system in a certain way, could you produce the pain of stubbing a toe? As Bernardo Kastrup says, if that system of water, pumps, and valves IS conscious, what about the plumbing in my house? Could that be conscious too? And if materialism has us asking, "is my toilet conscious?" aren't we in absurdity land?

The one where you don’t criticise what Trump is doing and treat him as a credible leader rather than a clown. — Punshhh

I see. So, the NYTimes is drinking the Trump Koolaid. Is that what you're claiming?

Ostensibly for power generation. — Benkei

Lol

Possibly to gain a nuclear bomb. — Benkei

Yes.

But even the latter doesn't give Israel and the US the right to bomb nuclear facilities and risk nuclear fall out. — Benkei

There hasn't been nuclear fallout, there won't be nuclear fallout. Now, do Israel and America have the right to bomb Iran? Depends. What are Iran's intentions? What are they saying? What are their plans? Death to Israel and America! Well, then. What did Iran think would happen?

It's also a totally irrelevant reply to my point that the purported existential threat Israel claims exists isn't there. — Benkei

If someone keeps threatening to annihilate you, and has a clock on display counting down the days to your annihilation, maybe your enemies will take you seriously on that?

The NYTimes has been on the cool aid since everyone kissed the ring last November. — Punshhh

Kool aid, with a k. What Kool aid are you talking about?

Yes, but now there's a UN agency, and the UN is no friend to Israel, backing up Israel's claim.

"Iran has further increased its stockpile of uranium enriched to near weapons-grade levels, a confidential report by the U.N. nuclear watchdog said Saturday. In a separate report, the agency called on Tehran to urgently change course and comply with its years-long probe."

https://apnews.com/article/iran-nuclear-iaea-uranium-7f6c9962c1e4199e951559096bcf5cc0

Why is Iran doing that?

I read the NY Times, but I avoid news otherwise. I just don't want to hear about Trump. — frank

Well, he's the president. And we're attacking another country! How do you avoid it??? The NYTimes is solid, though.

Which isn't much different from what they're doing now, particularly in Israel's case. — Mr Bee

You think you're seeing regime change? We've seen America do regime change. This is not regime change. I don't think Israel is doing it either. I think they could decapitate Iran if they really wanted to, but they don't want that. Yet. Israel could be much more ruthless than they currently are.

Their best strategic move is to not to recklessly anger another nuclear power. North Korea also demonizes the Americans regularly and guess what, nobody is messing with them because they actually have a bomb. — Mr Bee

Nobody messed with N. Korea before they had the bomb. They just kind of fester there on the Korean Peninsula.

Do you think Israel would allow the current regime to acquire a bomb and stay in power?

Every illegal attack, like the two we've recently witnessed, is an argument for them to pursue a nuclear bomb as that is the only weapon that truly acts like a deterrent. That's rather obvious. — Benkei

I don't think it is obvious. Many of you here are having a very hard time putting yourselves in Israel's shoes and seeing the culpability of Iran here. If you constantly threaten the annihilation of the strongest kid on the block, and fund terrorist proxies to go after him, and you're now scheming to get your hands on a new big weapon...might the problem be you?

I think the US knew Saddam couldn't back down. After the war, Wolfowitz explained that the point was to democratize the Middle East starting with Iraq. That was supposed to basically give al Qaeda what they wanted, so no more 9-11 style attacks. — frank

That was undoubtedly part of it, but remember that almost all of the hijackers came from SA, and we haven't done a thing to them.

All that thinking is in the past now. I don't think Trump entertains any middle eastern strategy. — frank

The nonAmericans here don't understand this. They think Trump and Americans are just itching to take out Iran. Instead, we're looking at what Trump is doing like someone watching a horror movie with their hands over their face. It's worked out well enough for Trump so far, but there is zero appetite in the U.S. for another Middle East adventure. Trump's attempts at playing peace maker now are laughably transparent. He doesn't want to invade or keep bombing. He wants Iran to suck up to us so we can make money and build condos in Tehran.

The reason why they won't accept the Iranians getting a nuke is because of their government. — Mr Bee

Yes, because there's a literal clock in Tehran counting down to the prophesized destruction of Israel. Maybe stop doing stuff like that?

Iran getting rid of a nuclear deterrent will make them more vulnerable. — Mr Bee

They don't have a nuclear deterrent, that's their problem! You're arguing that Iran will think, 'if we just had nukes, we wouldn't be getting slapped around like this' but there are three objections to this:

1) The cost of pursuing a nuclear weapon has just been made prohibitively more expensive and dangerous. America and Israel aren't doing regime change, but that can easily change if Iran doesn't mend their ways. Upper echelon military and political leaders now know that their lives are expendable.

2) It's not enough to build a nuke. In order to have a credible deterrent, a nuke has to be successfully tested. So, what happens if it doesn't work right? A fizzile, in other words. Well, now Iran is truly screwed, because Israel and the U.S. really will decapitate the ruling regime and Iran has no credible deterrant.

3) Even if Iran successfully tests a nuke, what is Israel's best strategic move? Prevent Iran from getting more nukes. Regime change. And their buddy Trump will probably go along with it.

If you're Iran, isn't the best move to give up on enrichment and take your chances with diplomacy?

None of that matters to the actual reason the war started. — Mr Bee

Yes, it does. After Gulf War 1, if Iraq had been completely transparent about the end of it's WMD program and destruction of all it's WMD"s, do you think they still would have been invaded?

The US wanted to go to war with Iraq as much as the Israelis do now with Iran, because they perceive the Iranian regime itself as an existential threat.

America did not perceive Iraq to be an existential threat. Condi Rice talked about mushroom clouds, but nobody believed Iraq could end the country. If Iran got nukes, otoh, and took out Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and Haifa, could Israel come back from that? There's a case to be made that a nuclear Iran really could end Israel's existence.

I'm not seeing yet what you don't like about my sketch of an extraordinary claim. What might be an example of such a claim for you? - not necessarily about consciousness. I just want to understand better where you're coming from. — J

I think any claim that consciousness can emerge from matter is an extraordinary claim.

I believe that if Iraq had been fully cooperative with Hans Blix and his team, they could have avoided that war. Possibly not, but Iraq is also a special case because they'd already used WMD's and invaded a neighbor and played fast and loose with UN inspectors all through the 90's and then, when they wanted desperately to be believed about not having WMD's, they had no credibility and STILL wouldn't cooperate fully with Blix and his team.

There is a very good chance that the Iranians moved their stockpiles and they have probably decided that getting a nuclear weapon is the only reasonable way to get deterrence. — Mr Bee

Or they can look at their neighbors who aren't getting bombed and just abandon the nuke program.