So the regime change is a fail, the nuclear “destruction” is bullshit media propaganda, and really nothing has been accomplished beyond taking out some military leaders — who will be replaced. This was an Israeli war crime — and they sucked the US in as well. Much like the Gaza genocide (“We’re eradicating Hamas”), this is a total failure and will only make Israel less safe and their enemies more determined and numerous. — Mikie

This goes back to the question of whether Iran is rational or not. I believe they're rational. They haven't disrupted shipping, they made a pathetic face-saving attack on the U.S., and their terrorist proxies have been silent (but that could be because they've been decimated). Rational regimes respond to rewards and punishments and Iran has just been punished severely. I doubt the 85 year old Ayatollah wants to spend the rest of his life in hiding. Other top officials and generals certainly don't want to be killed in future air strikes. Israel has shown that no one is safe. They can get you with a beeper or they can get you with a plane. If you're Iran, at this point, don't you just say, "fuck it, the nuke's not worth it"?

Well, is there something it's like to be an electron? Is that an extraordinary claim? Is there something it's like to be a 3 pound meat blob in a skull? Is that an extraordinary claim? Don't get me wrong. I'm an idealist. I think the whole idea of consciousness emerging from matter (or matter being conscious) is absurd, but presumably, you don't, so...which consciousness claims do you think are NOT extraordinary? Beyond the obviously Cartesian ones. What about Dennett and the Churchlands? Are they making extraordinary claims?

So already a massive win for Iran, even if more Iranians have died. — boethius

:lol:

It appears that there is a very large difference in Solar Energy Potential between summer and winter for latitudes that are not close to the equator.

How will countries that depend on solar energy cope with this situation? — Agree-to-Disagree

They should have a reliable backstop of nuclear energy always available to shore up production shortages from renewables.

You don't think Iran looks incredibly weak and pathetic right now?

Trump extends an olive branch:
"Most importantly, they’ve gotten it all out of their ‘system,’ and there will, hopefully, be no further HATE. I want to thank Iran for giving us early notice, which made it possible for no lives to be lost, and nobody to be injured,"

Yes, it is a little different (and I'll avoid the lawyer jokes!). Do you think the difference consists in mastering the kinds of behaviors you name?

And yes, even a glimmer of a theory of consciousness would help us more than hours of debate. I think "implausible," minus such a theory, is still OK (the extraordinary-claim argument, above), but "impossible" or "absurd" -- no, too strong. We just don't know. — J

But I'm not so sure that LLM consciousness IS an extraordinary claim. And if it is, does panpsychism make extraordinary claims? Idealism? Materialism? Dualism? If everything about consciousness becomes an extraordinary claim (other than the fact of our own consciousness), then the term becomes meaningless. Is the existence of conscious minds other than my own an extraordinary claim?

Imagine a possible world where superintelligent conscious machine intelligences come across a human for the first time. Wouldn't they be incredulous that some three pound meatblob of neurons could produce consciousness?

Sure, that's one way to look at it. But would you say the same thing about a CD that, when you put it in a player, declared that it was "feeling good"? I guess, at a certain point, we have the right to deny things that are very implausible -- not for all time, and always with the possibility of being wrong. Yes, it's conceivable that this alleged entity feels something and is telling you the truth, but it's far more likely that it isn't, wouldn't you agree? Especially given that its whole purpose for existing is to convince humans that it is "just like them"? Sounds kinda suspicious to me . . . :smile: — J

It's a little different when the Ai can talk to you like a person, and pass the bar exam, help you with retirement planning, do your homework, be your therapist, etc. Also, how do we know it's implausible? Don't we need a working model/theory of consciousness in order to conclude that?

NBC News’ Richard Engel says the nature of the strike and the well-defended target indicate Iran’s retaliatory strike was a “symbolic attack.” Qatar was also reportedly informed ahead of the attack.
https://www.nbcnews.com/world/middle-east/live-blog/live-updates-iran-top-diplomat-meets-putin-us-braces-retaliation-rcna214428#rcrd83379

"Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan condemned Iran's attack on the Al Udeid military base in Qatar, according to statements from the countries' ministry of foreign affairs."

Ah, I see. Iran wins if they get beaten to a bloody pulp but manage to avoid complete annihilation. Right. Your claims about air supremacy are fantastical. Neither U.S. or Israel have lost a plane yet and I will be very surprised if Iran ever manages to take one down. They have no effective air defenses. And the U.S. is not doing regime change. The attacks so far have been limited and against nuclear sites. We're not trying to decapitate Iran.

If Iran "wins" this war with Israel it is a massive boost for Russia's and China's lead counter-order, further eroding US credibility. However, it's only a proxy failing, like Ukraine, and the US empire could "put it behind us". So would be a big victory for Iran, but further improve Russia and China's position as being able to credibly back opposition to the US.

However, if the US went all in on Iran and then Iran won a conflict directly with the US, that would be a fatal embarrassment to US power and technology, as well as massive damage to US stockpiles, military and domestic moral etc. — boethius

Iran is not going to militarily win against Israel and/or America. They are being bombed at will at this point. Their retaliation against Israel has some bite to it, but it's like the V2 rocket attacks against Britain at the end of WW2: strategically meaningless terror attacks. Iran's retaliation against America so far has been like the weak pawing of a cornered rabbit. Their strongest gambit would be to disrupt shipping, but then they would have the whole world against them.

The stock market is up despite all this. Oil is down. It's priced in that Iran will take it like a whipped dog.

This is Russia-China's opportunity to essentially unseat the US as the world's leading power. — boethius

How would that happen? Nothing going on in the Middle East will change the fact the U.S. military is the strongest in the world, the U.S. economy the richest in the world.

A face-saving attack not designed to do much damage or something worse? They would have to be crazy to hit back hard with Trump in the WH.

They also attacked one of our bases and put a bunch of soldiers in the hospital with TBI's, but it was still very weak retaliation for taking out one of their top guys.

USA, UK and EU need a new approach in that region. — Eros1982

That's for sure. Iran needs to stop being a theocratic terrorist exporting shithole hell bent on acquiring weapons grade uranium. Why are they enriching far beyond what they need for commercial applications? What is the benign explanation for that? Are they not interested in nukes, but trying to run a bluff to get diplomatic goodies from the international community? I think that principles of MAD apply to Iran and they're not suicidal, so a nuclear armed Iran could be lived with, but I also understand Israel not necessarily agreeing with that assessment and concluding Iran really would try and take out Tel Aviv.

I brought this up earlier, but you ignored it: there is a literal clock in Tehran counting down to the predicted destruction of Israel, said prediction made by the current Ayatollah.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/iranian-outlet-publishes-footage-of-israel-doomsday-clock-that-idf-said-it-destroyed/

Why on Earth would Israel let the Iranian regime get close to a nuke if they have a decent chance of stopping or delaying them? A ruler of Israel ignoring such a threat would be guilty of dereliction of duty.

We don't hate the Iranians, we hate the Iranian regime which unfortunately has suppressed that beautiful Persian civilization. — BitconnectCarlos

This!

Iran pursues something like the regional foreign policy equivalent of the Soviet Union or US at the peak of the Cold War, while having the actual economic and military strength of... well, Iran. From a realpolitik view it's almost incomprehensible. — Count Timothy von Icarus

But they've seemed like rational actors. In the past, they seemed to know where the red line is and walk right up to it without going over. They played us very well during the Iraq occupation. They were responsible for a lot of American soldier deaths and seemed to know how much damage they could inflict without pushing the Bush and Obama Administrations into retaliation.

But this latest move of theirs makes no sense. After 10/7, I don't see Israel allowing Iran to get close to a nuke, and with the election of Trump, Israel now has an ally in their corner capable of just about anything. Why on Earth were they hell bent on uranium enrichment with Bibi and Trump in power?

"Iran has enriched uranium particles up to just short of weapons grade, placing further pressure on western powers to issue a third censure of Iran at a meeting of the nuclear watchdog board next week."
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/28/pressure-on-west-to-act-grows-after-report-on-iranian-uranium-enrichment

You don't think Iran shoulders any blame in this? There's a literal clock in Tehran counting down the days to Israel's predicted destruction. Maybe trying to enrich uranium to weapon's grade while constantly threatening Israel and The Great Satan -ahem- America with death isn't the smartest thing in the world to do?

Nothing diplomatic offered to them by Bibi and Trump. — Eros1982

Really? You think the bombings would continue if Iran agreed to abandon it's enrichment program and allow UN inspectors access to any sites at any time? I think Trump would take that deal in a second.

I remember Shock and Awe all too well in 2003, but what is Iran going to do about this? Does the ruling regime take the diplomatic offramp or escalate by attacking US bases that aren't protected by Iron Dome? Do they interrupt shipping in the Strait of Hormuz? Iran's neighbors and allies are not coming to their defense. Iran doesn't seem to have any good options.

NB: AFAIK, the real is ineluctable and therefore inevitably hazardous to everyone who neglects or ignores it. — 180 Proof

Idealists don't play in traffic?

ChatGPT, it seems if an omnibenevolent God pulls the lever in trolley car, it leads to a problem of arbitrariness in edge cases (e.g., running over 3 kittens to save 5 puppies, but not 4 raccoons to save 7 french bull dogs, etc.). Construct the argument for me:

Argument: The Problem of Divine Moral Arbitrary Action in Trolley-Like Dilemmas
Definitions:
Let D = God is omniscient and morally perfect.

Let S₁, S₂, ... Sₙ = A series of trolley-style scenarios with incremental variations (e.g., 5 vs 1, 4 vs 1, 3 vs 1, etc.).

Let A(S) = The action God takes in scenario S (e.g., pull or not pull the lever).

Let M(S) = The moral justification for A(S).

Let C = A consistent, overriding moral principle that governs all A(S).

Premises:
P1: If God is omniscient and morally perfect (D), then for every scenario S, God performs the morally correct action A(S), grounded in a consistent moral principle C.
(Assumes God's decisions are not arbitrary.)

P2: In a series of incrementally varied trolley problems (S₁, S₂, ..., Sₙ), God's actions A(S) change in response to small, seemingly morally irrelevant differences (e.g., 5 lives vs 4.9 lives).
(These differences do not clearly track any obvious moral principle.)

P3: If God's actions change across S₁...Sₙ without a discernible or stable C, then the actions appear morally arbitrary.

P4: A morally perfect being cannot make morally arbitrary decisions.
(By definition of moral perfection.)

Conclusion:
C1: Therefore, if God's actions across trolley-like scenarios appear morally arbitrary, then either:
    a. God is not morally perfect or omniscient (¬D),
    or
    b. No consistent moral principle C exists that can determine a uniquely correct action in all such cases,
    or
    c. Morality itself is vague or indeterminate in edge cases, even for God.

I can sympathize with using gas on Nazi invaders on the shores, but do you honestly believe everything from the Allies is justified? This view turns soldiers into murderers and rapists if nothing else. Sometimes warfare did involve going into a town and massacring everyone, but I would like to think that we could do away with that. — BitconnectCarlos

War. War never changes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSq5aCZO5n8

The only possible solution is to let women run the world. This I endorse wholeheartedly.

The Democrats and Republicans are both complicit in the surge of migrants that illegally crossed the border. Both parties understand that a declining population means that it is going to be more difficult to fund social security in the future and the population needs an infusion of new tax-payers to continue to prop up these government subsidies. In a racist communist country, like China, they would rather use government power to influence baby-making rather than importing non-Asians. — Harry Hindu

That's not why Biden essentially allowed an open border to fester. The Biden admin wasn't that strategic. Many Democrats had come to believe the Trump admin's border policies were racist, and this led the online far left to reflexively oppose ANY immigration enforcement on Biden's part. The Biden admin thought they couldn't risk losing this segment of the party, so they let it define immigration policy, which turned out to be a mistake.

Well, it is a war crime to target civilian areas. If Israel were firing rockets from these apartment complexes, that's one thing, but it's a war crime to engage in that type of indiscriminate bombing as Iran has been doing.

Standards of warfare change. — BitconnectCarlos

I've always believed anything's fair if your cause is just. For example, Churchill would have been justified using chemical weapons and torture against Nazi invaders. The only real war crime is losing. That being said, I have grave concerns about Israel's motives in this.

Aren't you pretty libertarian, though? You really like seeing tanks roll through the capital?

Man, the organizers and all their acolytes in the press tried really hard to get people to notice the No Kings protest, and everyone has already forgotten about it. It’s performative and cathartic stunts like these that have rendered protesting largely ineffectual. What a shame. — NOS4A2

Same with the military parade. Events, dear boy, events.

The Allies did some very questionable things in WWII. We also didn't have precision targeting capabilities back then. Israel has kept its strikes in Iran to regime figures. — BitconnectCarlos

We had the Norden bombsight, which was precision at the time (turned out to not be very good). We used that a lot, but we also did a lot of indiscriminate bombing, esp. in Japan. Iran doesn't have a superpower in their corner gifting them billions a year, so they can't really target anything specifically in Israel and are hitting back the way the Brits did in WW2, by hitting cities. I don't fault Iran for that. It's war, they're going to hit back, that's expected. Also, it appears Israel is attacking more than just military targets.

Iran has been deliberately targeting civilian areas, and I'm wondering whether international organizations will say anything. Seems like a war crime. — BitconnectCarlos

We did the same thing in WW2.

The first strike seems to have failed to accomplish this, and the Iranians are showing they do not fear retaliation by Israel or the US by striking directly at Tel Aviv. This is a very telling sign. — Tzeentch

Why aren't they attacking U.S. bases in the region? There's no Iron Dome protecting them.

A man disguised as a police officer shot and killed Minnesota Rep. Melissa Hortman & her husband this morning. Police found his manifesto and "no kings" fliers in his car. This happened after Hortman broke from her party and voted to defund healthcare for adult illegal aliens.

We need to have a conversation about far-left terrorism in this country. — BitconnectCarlos

Looking like he was a right wing Christian nut, but whatever political persuasion he turns out to be, things are getting kind of ugly.

Are you sad that Israel is ethnically cleansing Iran's nuclear capabilities from the planet? :fear: — BitconnectCarlos

Haven't we been here before? I remember another Middle Eastern adventure predicated on stopping Iraq from getting nukes. Turns out, they had no nuke program. And the adventure turned into a horrorshow. Aren't you concerned that can happen here?

The argument is some people's definition of an "oppressive regime" is one that punishes criminals for their criminality.

There is no world government computer to look up someone's name (which can be changed) or their DNA to determine the exact nature of their crimes, if any. — Outlander

But that's also true when the Nazis ask you where the Jew is hiding. You lie to the Gestapo, right? But it's possible the Jew is a serial killer or some other monstrous criminal and he really should be taken in. You still break the law and try and shield him, because the odds are he's not.

You have a point if we're talking about single males, but this doesn't apply to families with children. The children are moral innocents and should not have their lives turned upside down.

It's taking a gamble with human nature. And unless you're a stranger to it, you'd know that is one of the most foolish things one can ever do. Near suicide.

This isn't clear to me.

Obviously, duty to the law (including its spirit) is not absolute, but neither should it become negligible, with the law merely becoming an instrument in power battles. — Count Timothy von Icarus

If an immigrant's only crime is coming here illegally, I don't have a problem with people breaking the law to shield them from deportation, as long as it's done peacefully. Ours is a monstrous system that ruthlessly exploits these people to keep prices down and then turns on a dime and scapegoats them when things get "tough" (coddled Americans think a five cent increase in gas prices is "tough"). Sometimes the law is unjust and shouldn't be followed.

Because having power over others makes it easier to keep that power by controlling the media and establishing long-term relationships with lobbyists. With new people coming in, deals would need to be renegotiated. — Harry Hindu

That's certainly a concern!

I think this incident might be the watershed where we all get used to shit going down and the US is not involved at all, except to protect its interests. The US isn't going to faceplant in the Mid-East trying to fight the tide of chaos. The US isn't going to go another trillion dollars into debt. We can all just breakout the popcorn and watch like everybody else in the world. We're just like everybody else. This is nice. — frank

These kinds of things have a way of spiraling out of control. 20% of the world's oil goes through the Strait of Hormuz. Suppose Iran chooses to shut that down to inflict economic pain on Israel and her backers. Well, now the U.S. president is looking at a catastrophic rise in oil prices, which will lead to more inflation and higher interest rates, which is usually the death knell for an administration. The president is under tremendous pressure to reopen the Strait, so he attacks Iran's navy, but unlike 1988, Iran doesn't back down. So now what?

Why do you think America limited the number of Presidential terms to two? I wonder why they don't do the same for themselves. They can easily write laws to control the other branches of government but can't seem to write one's that control themselves. — Harry Hindu

I think it strikes people as kind of dictatorial and goes against the example Washington set.

But you said it's a problem to have career politicians. What was the problem with FDR? FDR's best moments happened well into his 3rd term. He was a great wartime president. As long as the person has to keep getting elected, why is it bad to keep them in office?

When you make politics a career - that is the problem. — Harry Hindu

Why is that a problem? Lincoln made it a career and I think he was awesome.