Why is Trump giving a blowjob to a microphone stand? Pretty weird.

Nope. The Ukrainians put their signature under the draft, so unfortunately this narrative doesn't work. — Tzeentch

They agreed to an initial deal but then Russia unilaterally changed the deal to include ridiculous terms that Ukraine was right to object.

That “diplomatic solution” was giving in to absurd Russian demands.

All you really seem to be saying is that surrender is possible. And yes, it is, but Ukraine shouldn’t surrender. They’ve been unjustly invaded by a foreign nation. The best “diplomatic solution” is Russia fucking off and paying reparations.

Not exactly. You were saying that A → ¬A is necessarily false, which is saying that ¬A ∨ ¬A is necessarily false. But ¬A ∨ ¬A is true if ¬A is true, and so A → ¬A is true if ¬A is true.

A → B means ¬A ∨ B. So A → ¬A means ¬A ∨ ¬A.

The argument in the OP is:

¬A ∨ ¬A
A
∴ ¬A

It's valid, but of course the premises cannot both be true. Necessarily one is false and so the argument is necessarily unsound.

However, Ukrainian diplomat Alexander Chaly who was part of the Ukrainian delegation in Istanbul gave a first-hand account that confirmed Bennett's initial statements. — Tzeentch

All I can find about him is this:

ALEXANDER CHALY: We negotiate with Russian delegation practically two months, in March and April the possible peaceful settlement agreement ... between Ukraine and Russia. And we, as you remember, concluded so called Istanbul communique. And we were very close in the middle of April, in the end of April to finalize our war with some peaceful settlement. For some reasons it was postponed.

He doesn't seem to know what happened. But the above is consistent with what I posted earlier:

To the Ukrainians’ dismay, there was a crucial departure from what Ukrainian negotiators said was discussed in Istanbul. Russia inserted a clause saying that all guarantor states, including Russia, had to approve the response if Ukraine were attacked. In effect, Moscow could invade Ukraine again and then veto any military intervention on Ukraine’s behalf — a seemingly absurd condition that Kyiv quickly identified as a dealbreaker.

With that change, a member of the Ukrainian negotiating team said, “we had no interest in continuing the talks.”

Bennett's comments were obviously highly controversial, which is probably why he was pressured to backtrack on them. — Tzeentch

Or, as explained above, the original remarks were badly translated and misrepresented, and he wasn't being pressured to backtrack at all.

I think you're falling for Russian propaganda. The very notion that "the West" wants the war to continue is simply ridiculous.

It's a valid argument with two premises that cannot both be true and so is necessarily unsound.

This was already reported on earlier by Israeli mediator Naftali Bennett, but the Ukrainian diplomat confirmed it. — Tzeentch

You mean this?

Former Israeli prime minister rebuts claim, boosted by Russia, that the US blocked a Ukraine peace agreement: 'It's unsure there was any deal to be made'

Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett discussed his efforts to broker peace between Ukraine and Russia.

Pro-Russia commentators have focused on his saying that a peace deal was "blocked" by the West.

But Bennett has clarified that no such deal existed — and said talks broke down because of apparent Russian war crimes.

...

The next exchange is what went viral. The interview, conducted in Hebrew, includes English subtitles on YouTube. According to that translation, the interviewer asked Bennett: "So they blocked it?"

"Basically, yes, they blocked [it] and I thought they were wrong," Bennett responded.

The English subtitles are flawed, however. In the exchange, Bennett and the interviewer do not use the word "blocked" but rather "stopped," referring to ongoing peace talks, not an agreement.

"I can't say if they were wrong," Bennett added.

...

In the interview, Bennett himself notes that it was not the US, France, or Germany that put an end to any peace talks. Rather, it was Russia slaughtering hundreds of civilians in a town outside the Ukrainian capital, a war crime discovered just about a month after the full-scale invasion began.

In March/April 2022 there was a basis for peace, agreed upon and signed by the Ukrainian delegation. The West blocked it. — Tzeentch

Where are you getting this? I've read this and it says:

At the time, little about these peace negotiations was known, and what has leaked out in the two years since has been shoehorned into wartime talking points by each side. Mr. Putin contends the West pressured Ukraine to reject a peace deal; Ukraine's Foreign Ministry says that “if Russia wanted peace in 2022, why had it attacked Ukraine in the first place?”

...

To the Ukrainians’ dismay, there was a crucial departure from what Ukrainian negotiators said was discussed in Istanbul. Russia inserted a clause saying that all guarantor states, including Russia, had to approve the response if Ukraine were attacked. In effect, Moscow could invade Ukraine again and then veto any military intervention on Ukraine’s behalf — a seemingly absurd condition that Kyiv quickly identified as a dealbreaker.

With that change, a member of the Ukrainian negotiating team said, “we had no interest in continuing the talks.”

...

Mr. Putin in recent months stepped up efforts to stoke Western divisions by portraying peace as having been within reach in 2022 — and saying he was prepared to restart those talks. Ukraine’s leaders have dismissed Mr. Putin’s statements on the subject as deception.

“Putin is a habitual liar, and his recent rants are no exception,” Ukraine’s foreign ministry said in a statement.

This suggests that "the West blocked it" is just Putin's propaganda.

In the news today, Josseli Barnica from Texas died of an infection because doctors couldn’t properly treat her miscarriage. — praxis

Also Nevaeh Crain from Texas.

Here is what is so difficult: how do you know they mean different things? — Fire Ologist

I'm a native speaker. I know what the words "swimmer", "solider", and "person" mean, and that they don't mean the same thing. For example, Michael Phelps is a swimmer, not a solider.

If you can't even understand this very simple fact then I don't know what else I can tell you. I'm not interested in teaching you English.

I don't get what's difficult to understand.

"Human" and "solider" mean different things.
"Human" and "swimmer" mean different things.
"Human" and "person" mean different things.

And by "mean different things" I mean that the words are not synonyms.

Something can be a solider, a swimmer, and a person without being human, e.g. if it is an alien, or if in a million years chimpanzees evolve into a new intelligent species.

My claim is that being human has no unambiguous set of necessary and sufficient conditions. The gradual evolution from non-human to human was just that; gradual. There was never some point where the first human was born (to non-human parents). Biological taxonomies just don't work that way.

We can say at one extreme that we are human and at another extreme that Homo heidelbergensis were not human (if by "human" we mean "Homo sapiens"), but in between there's a large grey area where any designation as being a member of the one species or the other (or some intermediate species) is arbitrary.

I was talking about being human, not about being a person. Do you understand that the words "human" and "person" mean different things? Do you understand that Kryptonians, if real, would be people but not be humans?

Define essentialism. — Fire Ologist

In this context that the phase "being human" refers to some unambiguous set of necessary and sufficient conditions such that if some entity does not satisfy all of these conditions then it is not human and if it does then it is.

Although some terms, like "triangle", have such an unambiguous set of necessary and sufficient conditions, other terms, like "human", do not. This can be shown from the facts that humans evolved from non-human ancestors and that there was never a specific generation where two non-human parents birthed a human child (the "first" human).

And it still hasn't been explained what the hell this has to do with abortion. Biological taxonomies are not the source of moral worth. If evolution had taken a different route then perhaps the Earth would be populated by some other intelligent species, and they would rightly ask whether or not abortion is morally acceptable despite the fact that they wouldn't be human.

You don't seem to understand what essentialism is if that it your response to that particular use of the term "essential".

There must be an essence to essentialism in order to put a box around it and file it under the "false" category of judgment, or in order to just say "essentialism is". OR, non-essentially speaking, there must be a comparable difference between essentialism and something else (anything else, everything else) in order to point away from whatever essentialism is to some thing else. Otherwise, there is no significance to saying "essentialism" at all, and nothing has been said.

We need the differences in order to make any moves, both when crossing the room, or laying out a sentence.

Don't call the significance of these differences anything "essential" if you want. Instead, take the effort to have a conversation otherwise, but you haven't refuted the fact that there are persons in the world, independent of us all, who are distinct from grapefruit and soda, and that only by recognizing black and white clear differences can you say this, or make sentences that attempt to refute it.

There is a lot more to say before the above could really be recognized as an important part of the abortion playing board, but the prosecution will adjourn for lunch. — Fire Ologist

See language games and family resemblances, e.g. Wittgensetin's question "what is a game?"

Which one do you choose to carry to term, nurse, and care for into early adulthood? — NOS4A2

None, I don't want children.

What is the purpose of these bizarre questions? They do not appear to have anything to do with whether or not membership of a particular species grants a single-celled organism greater moral worth than membership of other species.

You’d allow her to attempt to carry a fly to term? — NOS4A2

Allow her? I don't know why you're suggesting that I'm allowed to tell women what to do.

If a woman you knew wanted implant one of those single-celled organisms into her womb so as to incubate it, which one would you choose? — NOS4A2

I wouldn't choose, it's got nothing to do with me.

ah so you are an essentialist, — Johnnie

No, I'm explicitly not an essentialist.

Humans are of the same moral worth as flies, ie. worthless. I mean, what can I say to that? — NOS4A2

Single-celled humans are of the same moral worth as single-celled flies, i.e. worthless. Don't fabricate strawmen.

Are you trying to get around to saying all single-cells organisms are of the same moral worth? — NOS4A2

I have explicitly said several times that all single-celled organisms are of the same moral worth (specifically, worthless).

Whereas you have continually avoided explaining why the single-celled organisms of one species has a greater moral worth than the single-celled organisms of another species.

It all depends on the species. — NOS4A2

So what about a species determines whether or not it is wrong to kill its innocent members?

It’s not the same species as us. — NOS4A2

So are you saying that it is only wrong kill an innocent organism if that organism is the same species as us? Are you saying that it wouldn't be wrong to kill an innocent intelligent alien? Are you saying that it wouldn't be wrong for an intelligent alien to kill an innocent human?

Why do you think humans are as morally relevant as flies? — NOS4A2

I'm not saying they are. I'm asking you what it is about humans that makes us special.

In your view matter has identity? Like electrons have dispositions proper to them by which we can recognize they are electrons? — Johnnie

I did specify that it was "almost never the case" because I was specifically considering the fundamental particles of the Standard Model.

But reductionism wrt humans is far more controversial. — Johnnie

That's precisely the issue. One cannot reduce being human to a particular configuration of matter (e.g. the presence of 46 chromosomes containing specific DNA), and so asking for some "point" at which some material object "becomes" human is a foolish question.

It’s the only single-celled organism that develops into children and adult human beings. — NOS4A2

Why does it matter what the single-celled organism develops into? Why is it acceptable to kill a single-celled organism that develops into an adult fly but not acceptable to kill a single-celled organism that develops into an adult human?

Are human beings morally irrelevant? — NOS4A2

They are when they're single-celled zygotes. They're not when they're babies or children or adults.

I assume all those reading this popped into existence sometime. — Fire Ologist

You assume wrong. The world is a mess of ever-changing matter doing ever-changing things. This matter gradually coalesces into various forms and behaviours, and we pragmatically label easily distinguishable forms and behaviours, but it is almost never the case where something has some inherent identity that unambiguously starts at one instant and ends at another.

See for example the ship of Theseus, the Sorites paradox, twins, chimeras, and two Homo heidelbergensis (not) giving birth to a Homo sapiens.

You are persistently committing to essentialism which is a mistaken philosophy.

It's like asking for the difference between a human and a language user. On Earth it happens to be the case that humans are the only language users, but being human and being a language user do not mean the same thing. Something could be a language user but not be human (e.g. alien life, artificial life, or some future species that chimpanzees could evolve into), and something could be human but not be a language user (e.g. suffer from severe aphasia).

First you were talking about being human, now you're talking about being a person. These are not the same thing (e.g. intelligent aliens would be non-human persons). It would help if you were consistent with your terminology.

My issue is with the notion of being human. Humanity evolved from non-human life, but there was never some generation where two non-human parents birthed a human child. It's a gradual process from Homo heidelbergensis to Homo sapiens, with a large grey area in between where there is no non-arbitrary justification to call it a member of the one species or the other.

My other issue is that this is utterly irrelevant to the abortion debate. Membership of a species simply doesn't matter. The claim that it's acceptable to abort one baby because it's Homo heidelbergensis but not another because it's Homo sapiens is absurd.

As I keep saying, it can be unacceptable to kill something even if it's not human, and it can be acceptable to kill something even if it's human.

Whether or not it is wrong to kill something is determined by something other than its biological taxonomy. Consciousness, to me, is a morally relevant characteristic. At the very least I can say that it's morally acceptable to kill any organism that clearly has no consciousness, e.g. plants, bacteria, and so on (and assuming that doing so does not entail consequences that impact conscious organisms, such as the destruction of all plant life causing us to starve).

The degree to which an organism must be conscious for it to then be morally unacceptable to kill it is certainly a problem worth consideration, but at the very least we have accepted that the presence of some degree of consciousness is a necessary requirement, and zygotes lack this entirely.

“There is an independent material world” is itself an essentialist — Fire Ologist

That’s not essentialism. Essentialism is “the idea that things have an ‘essence’ or ‘form’ that defines their identity.”

For some things this makes sense, e.g. being a triangle, but for other things it doesn’t, e.g. being a game.

Whether or not some entity is a member of some biological taxonomy is of the latter kind, not the former.

So I still see you asserting facts, visual differences in an objective world no longer subject to debate or choices, that working eyes will see, must see, are clear… — Fire Ologist

Well, yes. I’m not a solipsist or an idealist. There is an independent material world, and two facts about that material world are that adults have heads and that zygotes are a single cell. Given the way objects reflect light, the way light stimulates the eyes, and the way the brain responds to the eyes, looking at an adult is going to cause a significantly different visual experience than looking at a zygote.

I honestly have no idea what it is you’re trying to argue here.

I don’t know what you mean by asking if we “must” see a difference. If we have working eyes then we will see a difference. If you cannot visually determine that a human has a head and that a zygote is a single cell then you are either blind or hallucinating.

Do I have to see a difference between zygotes and adults in order to understand the significance of what you are saying? I think the answer has to be yes. — Fire Ologist

I don’t understand this either. If you can’t see a difference between these two photos then you should get your eyes checked.

Is that a choice? — Fire Ologist

Yes. Some say that one lone organ isn’t an organism, but that 5 of them (brain, heart, lungs, kidneys, and liver) working to keep each other alive are. That’s an arbitrary decision (even within science), not something that is a discoverable fact capable of verification or falsification by empirical investigation.

Is there any physical/biological fact in this context we both have to accept? — Fire Ologist

I don’t quite understand the question. We (or at least biologists) pretty much fully understand the genetics and morphology and physiology of both zygotes and adults (except for the relationship between the brain and consciousness).

are you saying a human being is an organism with enough structure to feel pain, or to just feel or perceive anything, or do you need to be able to want things and be self-aware too? — Fire Ologist

Essentialism is false. Whether we call zygotes, corpses, the brain dead. or babies born with anencephaly “human” is a choice, with no moral significance.

So can I assume there is some thing called “intelligent being” that we are talking about? — Fire Ologist

There are organisms, like me, that are self-aware, can feel pain, can want things, and so on. It is wrong to kill organisms like this.

Zygotes aren't self-aware, they can't feel pain, they can't want things. Nothing about them warrants moral consideration; they are just a tiny mixture of chemicals. It is acceptable to abort them if that is what the woman wishes.

What is the distinction between these two phrases? — Fire Ologist

"X is intelligent therefore X is human" is a non sequitur; something can be intelligent but not be human (e.g. an alien).

It is not the case that I am human because I am intelligent; it is only the case that I am human and I am intelligent.

The reason it's wrong to kill me is because I'm intelligent, not because I'm human; it would be wrong to kill intelligent non-humans too.

You are saying a human being is something that has/is a sufficient degree of consciousness/self-consciousness/intelligence. Correct? — Fire Ologist

No, I'm saying that (most) humans have a sufficient degree of consciousness/self-awareness/intelligence, and that it is wrong to kill things with a sufficient degree of consciousness/self-awareness/intelligence.

Non-humans (e.g. aliens) might also have a sufficient degree of consciousness/self-awareness/intelligence, and so it would be wrong to kill them even though they're not human.

Zygotes don't have a sufficient degree of consciousness/self-awareness/intelligence and so it is acceptable to kill them even if they're human.

Whether or not something is human is irrelevant. With respect to killing an organism, it is that organism's degree of consciousness/self-awareness/intelligence that is morally relevant, not it's taxonomy.

That's not true of every single-celled organism because do not abort other single-celled organisms. — NOS4A2

We can, and do, kill non-human organisms, including single-celled organisms. You admit to killing flies. Is any of this wrong? If not, why are single-celled humans special? Physically they only differ from non-humans in their DNA and the manner in which they are created. So why is their DNA and manner of creation morally relevant?

That's who you're killing. That's the victim. How is it morally irrelevant? — NOS4A2

That's true of every single-celled organism. I want you to explain what makes single-celled humans special.