You mean achieving aims, which it would have settled for before the war is a complete disaster for it and a victory for the Ukraine who now can't even stop the war by conceding what would have prevented the war in the first place? — Baden

I don't think anything would have prevented this war. Putin thought it would be a cakewalk, and the West was too dependent on his energy to do anything but mount token resistance.

"The big loser in terms of strategic outcome here is Ukraine. They'll probably never get the breakaway regions back and never get to join NATO and as a bonus have their country completely fucked up."

If David drives off Goliath and suffers some broken bones in the process, who's the big loser of that fight?

Given we do propaganda too, obviously. What is it? If it's invisible to us, that's a problem. — Baden

If the enemy is getting mauled, the truth is its own propaganda. We don't need to make anything up. Russia has committed a catastrophic blunder, and it's obvious to the whole world. Why should we risk our credibility inventing stories when the truth is all anyone needs to hear?

The overarching aims of the invasion are as follows.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-56720589
"Russia is ... aiming for a neutral Ukraine. Russia may also seek to hold on to its territorial conquests - both Crimea in the south and in Ukraine's east.

They control the breakaway regions now and they've got Zelensky to say his country will never join NATO for a start. — Baden

Russia can seek and aim all it wants, but after a month of fighting all they have to show is control of some breakaway areas and Zelensky backpedalling on NATO, that's a military disaster. This is not where Russia wanted to be a month in.

I've yet to see any evidence that he'll lose at all. — Baden

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/23/up-to-40000-russian-soldiers-killed-wounded-captured-or-mia-nato-says.html

That's in one month of fighting. Those are unsustainable losses. Maybe you think NATO is talking out their ass, but based on all the other reporting, Russia has lost gobs of men and material. Do you think they can sustain these kinds of losses indefinitely???

Western propaganda>It's a complete disaster — Baden

OK, what military objectives has Russia achieved so far?

Consciousness happens in the whole organism. — EugeneW

The whole organism is not a necessary condition for consciousness. You can remove quite a bit of an organism before it loses consciousness.

They haven't even achieved air superiority. I don't think it's "Western Propaganda" to claim the military campaign has been anything but a disaster, for the reasons Wayfarer cited.

How long do you think Putin can continue losing thousands of soldiers a week and still stay in power? Russia quit Afghanistan, I can see them quitting here too.

I've been teaching elementary for 22 years. I noticed that when phones became commonplace, I lost my captive audience. The stuff I need to teach them can't compete for their attention with the content that's on their devices. Taking their devices away/making them put them away makes them resentful and counting down the time until they get their devices back. A schoolwide ban on devices might help. I've never taught at a school that had that, though.

What about a mechanical functional equivalent to a working brain?

What would have to be added to digital computation for a computer to be conscious?

People like this also overestimate the significance of the Turing Test. Passing the test doesn't confer personhood. — Daemon

Agreed, but a program that can pass the Turing Test and is begging not to be deactivated because it's conscious should certainly give people food for thought.

Do you think machines can ever be conscious?

I wasn't evaluating Olivier's comment as a response to you. I was merely highlighting the fact that, in the Cold War, there were good guys and bad guys. The bad guys built walls to keep their own people from leaving. Russians are the bad guys in this war too. We shouldn't lose sight of that fact.

You remember the iron curtain ? It was not symmetrical. Not many Westerners tried to flee East. That could mean something. — Olivier5

:100:

I'm not cheerleading the Russians ... — boethius

:roll:

:up:

I'm not supporting Russia. — boethius

You must be joking.

Would you still support Russia if they use chemical/biological weapons?

I think the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were justified. I would not support NATO's use of nukes, except in retaliation for Russia's use of nukes.

NATO will not be the first one to use nuclear weapons in this conflict. It's clear the Russian army cannot go toe-to toe-against NATO. Russia would be the ones to escalate, if it becomes a nuclear conflict.

Would you still support Russia if they use nukes?

Blame is not something people deserve. — Isaac

Sure it is. Our whole justice system depends on accurately blaming parties and meting out punishment. What kind of punishment do you think Putin deserves for his decision to invade Ukraine? If he was on trial, and you were the jury, what sentence would you give Putin for the crime of invading Ukraine?

What percent of the blame do you think Putin deserves for invading Ukraine?

Would you still support Russia if they escalate and detonate a tactical nuke in Ukraine?

:up:

For everyone of these guerrilla tactics to pick off a tank, the Russians will just shell to the ground several neighborhoods to express their frustration with that. — boethius

That's one of the reasons why they're the bad guys.

So is it not a problem that there's Neo-Nazis in Ukraine, or is there no problem because there's no Neo-Nazis? — Isaac

We had to destroy the village in order to save it.

:100:

Thanks for the response.

What, specifically, is Russia afraid of wrt neo-nazi's?

Russia in Grozny and Syria has shown what they are capable of. — Paine

Indeed. If this thing goes nuclear, Russia will be to blame.

Indeed, depending on how strong you believe these neo-Nazi elements are, it can be argued the Russian invasion is entirely justifiable if fighting the Nazi's the first time ever was. — boethius

Is there a popular nazi-esque leader that could plausibly become dictator? And do the neo-nazi's in Ukraine have significant political power? For example, how many parliament seats do Ukranian neo-nazi's have?

:up:

I don't know what would happen to my consciousness during gradual brain replacement!

The thing about the Matrix (and computer consciousness) is that, essentially, who I am (and my subjective experiences) would be reducible to CPU(s). Which is to say that who I am (and my subjective experiences) is essentially a series of switching operations- switching operations abc is the pain of stubbing my toe, switching operations xyz is the experience of seeing a beautiful sunrise, cde is the taste of a peach, etc. That, to me, is an absurdity.

Address this, please:

"Gradual uploading:
Here the most widely-discussed method is that of
nanotransfer. One or more nanotechnology devices (perhaps tiny robots) are
inserted into the brain and each attaches itself to a single neuron, learning to
simulate the behavior of the associated neuron and also learning about its
connectivity. Once it simulates the neuron’s behavior well enough, it takes the
place of the original neuron, perhaps leaving receptors and effectors in place and
uploading the relevant processing to a computer via radio transmitters. It then
moves to other neurons and repeats the procedure, until eventually every neuron
has been replaced by an emulation, and perhaps all processing has been uploaded
to a computer."
http://consc.net/papers/uploading.pdf

What do you think would happen to your consciousness if your brain was gradually replaced while you were awake?

I was getting ready to post "nonsense!" to your reply, which I was sure was going to say that introspection is useless.

Clever!

Let's try and make sure it doesn't happen ever again. — Isaac

To do that, we need to know who screwed up, so we don't repeat their mistakes. What percent of this mess do you think is Putin's fault?

There is no understanding consciousness without the understanding what it is that is producing it, and how it operates — Garrett Travers

There is no understanding consciousness without introspection either.

Just to be clear, you think Putin is to blame for invading Ukraine, right? And that Putin did an immoral thing by attacking Ukraine?

no worries!

The Chuchlands are smarter than me too, but that doesn't stop them from being eliminative materialists, which is a bonkers position. Smart people get it wrong a lot, you know.

John Searle says mind is to brain what digestion is to stomach. He's smarter than I am so he must be right... :wink: — Tom Storm

The stomach digests, the brain...minds??? That isn't right.

We obviously don't agree, but you have made a spirited defense of Randian philosophy! I salute you!