If Kiev was a smoking heap, how is that different from the other stuff? — Paine

They called the Chechnyan "terrorists", so a large portion of Russia probably didn't care about that. Syria was a disaster from everybody, Russia included, as well as Assad. But again, I think the average Russian cares as much about Syria as does the average American or European, which is to say, sadly, not much.

They view Ukranians as belonging to the same people, same heritage, bla bla. I would suppose something similar would be the case if the US invaded Canada. It's harder to justify killing your immediate neighbors, who are similar to you, than some "foreigner" with a strange culture and a different language. All that nasty stuff comes into play in these other wars.

Like the US did in Baghdad, or NATO in Libya, bomb it to pieces. Basically, tear the country apart, as those states are today.

As for the gap between what they thought the Russians could achieve against facts on the ground, how does one separate the rhetoric justifying the operation from the level of resistance encountered? — Paine

I think this is easy. Russia presents a grossly distorted picture to the domestic population, and call the whole thing a "military operation" instead of a war. As I understand it, until very recently, most Russians did not know too well how the war was going because of the propaganda.

Outside Russia the situation is very different. As you say, they expected this to be a cake walk. They probably thought this would be a Crimea 2.0 for them, which was, all things considered, not bad for Russia.

The Russians clearly underestimated the response. That mistake is not clearly connected to an expectation of a more favorable reception. — Paine

I agree they severely underestimated the response. But if they did destroy Kiev, I assume they would have no good propaganda to justify it internally. Or maybe they suspect that if they did that, things would go even worse for them.

But the internal conditions for the Russian population and the reality on the ground can be explained.

That's changed now, ever since the so called "partial draft". Now people are waking up inside.

From the way you talk you are already aware that NATO has nothing to do with Russia's aim. If it was, and they got what they wanted by military force, it would have been a brutal show of raw strength. Only if their actual aim was Ukraine itself would their leaving be a "retreat" and a show of weakness. — hypericin

To incorporate parts of Ukraine, or even the whole of it to Russia would surely prevent Ukraine from being part of NATO, that much is a truism.

I don't understand your last sentence. If you launch a major military war, of course you are going to do propaganda, that's always been the case. If China were in same situation as Russia is, or India or
any other nuclear power, if they left almost as soon as they invaded, would be an embarrassment.

I'd be interested to see cases in which this actually happens. In must be very rare.

They miscalculated badly and thought that parts of Ukraine would want to willingly go to Russia. They never did destroy Kiev, which they could have - it would go against their propaganda.

But if you're saying NATO is not a major part of the calculation, then we really are living in different worlds. Ukraine would have been in a far, far worse state if it weren't from NATO's aid, another truism.

Nice way to cherry pick arguments.

Making NATO larger was a massive mistake, as was recognized by the last ambassador to the USSR, he predicted this would happen. Pardon for looking at the conflict from all sides, and not calling Putin the worse thing since Hitler in every post made here.

I think it's very easy and convenient to do this - after all, if the leader of your enemy is a lunatic with imperial ambitions, we need not bother with the actual history.

But I harbor no illusions of changing minds - and it's too late now to do anything about the past.

Yes. And the end of the day, these are - at bottom - the two choices available to us. The answer for any rational agent, should be obvious.

Obviously. They would have been negotiating from a position of power, and gotten what they wanted. But what they wanted is nothing less than Ukraine. — hypericin

If they retreated as soon as they invaded, that would convey weakness, not power. By now, as you said, the situation is very different.



More of a liar than Trump, Obama, Bush? I highly doubt that. Not because he's less bad, but because he doesn't have the same amount of power.

Whatever you think of Putin, it's with him you must negotiate, cause he's the one in power. That's a much lower standard than risking a nuclear Armageddon.

Ahhh. Yeah. What a nutjob, that would have been insane.

But - now we have the Taiwan issue, so, history repeating.

Fantastic.

I hope so. I mean, it looks to me as if these people watch too many action films. They've reaped plenty of profits and have set back Russia for some considerable time. What more do they want by now?

The billionaires are fine, you're correct, the rest of the country less so, and who knows what longer term impacts will happen with these sanctions.

"Too late"? What a blase dismissal of what is purportedly the war aim of Russia. Russia could certainly have saved itself a lot of grief. — hypericin

You really expect that, prior to the invasion, the negotiations were rejected, and then as soon as it was launched, they would've stopped and retreated? Really? Would any other great power do that?

Now is a different story (and even months before, not a week or two after invasion), much life has been lost and is only getting more dangerous every day for everybody.

So I guess negotiation with such a proven serial liar is impossible? — hypericin

Oh, you prefer the virtually non-existent honest politicians? Politicians, by definition, are liars, so of course proven liars must negotiate.

America has been humiliated on the battlefield without resorting to nukes. — RogueAI

Where? Vietnam? Killing 1,000,000 civilians and destroying the ruling government is humiliation? Iraq? They got rid of Saddam.

Afghanistan, maybe. But everyone who has tried if Afghanistan has failed. But then nuking Afghanistan would not have changed much by way of war aims, I don't think.

Ukraine offered neutrality multiple times before and during the conflict, Putin was unmoved.

NATO offers no conceivable threat to Russia. Russian military doctrine permits a nuclear first strike in the case of an incursion into Russia's borders. This constitutes an ironclad security guarantee for Russia. AFAICT even Russian apologists don't take seriously the idea that NATO could ever launch a conventional war into Russia's borders. — hypericin

Once the conflict started it was too late. Zelensky says different things depending on which camera is on him: Western, Russian, etc.

As far back as late 2021 there were gestures at NATO membership. If the Russians weren't serious about this being the main factor of the war, they wouldn't have been mentioning it for 20 years, it was a red line.

As for NATO launching a conventional war, this came out yesterday: https://www.yahoo.com/news/petraeus-predicts-us-lead-nato-190325472.html

Yeah, Ukraine in NATO is a great idea for having a nuclear war any random day, if a mistake is committed by either side.

As an aside, Putin asked Clinton if Russia could join NATO back in 2000, I believe. It was considered by Clinton and rejected by his advisors. Why? That's a question worth exploring.

In any case, nothing of what I've said justifies the war, it should be clear. But the provocations did happen.

Thank you.

It's easy to blame a complex geo-political situation on "little mens insecurities". But fine, we can leave it at that, or, if you want a final response, go for it. Not point in arguing this further if we have settled opinions on the matter.

Yeah, his actions were stupid beyond belief, it made everything he wanted to avoid happen: NATO got bigger, large swaths of the world sanctioned Russia, etc.

But it's not speculation, NATO is the cause of the war, and should be recognized.

I mean, so far the US and EU are being oh-so-confident that he won't do anything with nukes. I wonder how they can be so confident given what's happened.

I think your guess is as good as any. My intuition is that national pride trumps everything else. I'm unclear on something: You mean bad economics inside the US or in Russia?

Russia seems to be surviving somehow.

What he said to Macron was that he needed assurances that Ukraine would not be militarized. He did not get this, hence the invasion.

I do not think Europe has been wise here at all. This whole situation is because of NATO expansion - despite what some here are saying - which was promised to not be moved "an inch to the East" back in 1992.

This could have been prevented had they taken these negotiations seriously. They were not. And here we are. I see no wisdom in this. Nor is there wisdom in the invasion either.

I see ample lack of it.

Out of the European leaders, I think Macron has done the best, he did have relatively frequent meetings with Putin. But the other ones are an utter shame, and this includes the US.

This whole affair is akin to a d**k measuring contest, and to what end? I hope you are right too, there has to be at least one or two people IN NATO and the Pentagon who actually understands that more escalation can only lead to total disaster...

The problem is nuclear weapons existing at all, not a suicidal madman. North Korea has one, even crazier and he hasn't used them.

But I ask you, what country with nukes, would willingly accept humiliation in the battlefield? I think none. I pray he doesn't go for the last option, but he's not been given situations in which he could save face, which is what he needs to get out of this disaster.

I see only Hawkishness on all sides here, escalation after escalation. There needs to be dialogue. But how can dialogue be had when conditions are this dire?

It's a big problem.

No. We cannot put forth foundationalism with certainty. This leaves open a very big problem in philosophy, we have a certain mechanism or capacity to acquire knowledge, yet we do not know what these mechanisms are. Furthermore, introspection will not reveal it to us, no matter how hard we try.

So we have to begin with consciousness as that with which we have the most confidence of existing and must merely do the best we can with what we are given.

New World by Natsuo Kirino.

Also ploughing extremely slowly through Locke's Essay this time around.

It's a bit like asking why questions as to why you want to do X, Y or Z, you end up saying I want to do X because I want to be happy or content, to ask why one wants to be happy is to ask a question whose answer cannot be provided - unless you substitute happiness for another, similar word.

As for the purpose of suffering? It's like the opposite of happiness, and we likely could not appreciate feeling good, if we did not know what it was like to feel bad, which includes suffering.

Ukraine accelerates bid to join NATO after Russia’s annexation

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/9/30/ukraine-accelerates-bid-to-join-nato-after-russias-annexation

In how it handles trying to get the territories back. If they go full force, it would be akin to Ukraine "invading" Russia. This might allow Russia to expand its quite horrible hands and create an extremely dangerous situation. In my view, these territories should be part of the negotiations, if we ever get to that point. I think there has to be some kind of minor land swap or a token victory of sorts that allows Putin to delcare this a "victory" - (as happened in the Cuban Missile Crisis).

I don't think total humiliation will be accepted by the Russian regime, meaning, they might go crazy. One needs to give the opponent an off ramp, however distasteful it is.

I didn't say they weren't. Russia doesn't consider it though, so it will take any attacks on these territories as an attack on Russia.

Not saying Ukraine shouldn't get them back, but I'd be careful in handling the situation.

Apropos no specific comment here, but, for the purposes of the war, it does not matter than the US, Europe and even the UN, don't consider these new territories as part of Russia, what matters is that Russia does.

We should expect Ukraine to fight for these territories back, now Russia will consider it a direct attack on them. Quite a problem.

I skimmed the paper, so I may have missed important details, but, there is a factual claim here which is mistaken. "Irrealism" has been explored, in significant detail, by Nelson Goodman in his Starmaking, but it is not clear to me he would accept a "virtual world" metaphor.

It's also not clear to me what is gained by saying that the world we experience is "virtual" - what does that even mean? As I see it, a virtual world is almost a world, but not quite, several aspects are missing, think of videogames or VR headsets: that is virtual.

Such views tend to leave the interpretation open, that this virtual world is mistaken or skewed. But if we had no "virtual" world, we wouldn't have any world. In order to be able to see or experience anything, it needs come from a perceiver, unless you would bet that the objects in the world are themselves conscious and can experience each other. Something of which we have no evidence.

"Virtual" thinking is OK, I guess, as a heuristic, but not much more than that. I think the more traditional, Schopenhauerian (and Hume, Locke, Descartes, Kant, etc.) view of the world being a representation is more accurate, it's the way we react to the stimulus of the world, without claiming that it is a simulation. It's simply the way things appear to us.

We may postulate - sensibly in my opinion - something "behind" objects that anchors them, but this "behindness" is no more "real" than what we already experience, it's another aspect of the world, which helps us make sense of experience, as I see it.

I mean, that would be my guess too. Then he would hopefully, be forced into a negotiation, which has not happened yet, before considering the use of nukes. Given the inner turmoil in Russia, people fleeing and protesting and so on, the timer is on for Putin, much more than at any stage during this war.

We can hope this doesn't cause him to break and go for broke, or he could be thrown out by the military. Too many variables in the equation.

Medvedev Says US and NATO Won’t Intervene If Russia Uses Nuke in Ukraine

https://news.antiwar.com/2022/09/27/medvedev-says-us-and-nato-wont-intervene-if-russia-uses-nuke-in-ukraine/

I don't think anyone can afford to have much confidence in even further escalation. It is not wise. People always say that no-one would dare use them because of the consequences, if philosophy has any application here, its that we can't be certain of anything. This applies to international affairs doubly so.

Ha! One good line in that horrible book! Ironic that Hitchens hated her.

Not that Hitchens was exemplary, far from it, towards the last part of his life. But it's a good quote, and its applicable to a decent range of world leaders, imo.

Britain has been having disaster after disaster since Brexit. Truss is just next in line...

Truss reminds me of a remark Christopher Hitchens made about David Cameron:

Q: What do you think about David Cameron?

A: He doesn't make me think.

Except that Truss has a genocidal streak to her. My, with leaders like these, who needs villains?

That's true. Though it should be. "Check on power" and all that media responsibility.

There tends to be very little dissent in the NYT, it tends to go with the government in relation to wars, so it's not the best site for this conflict. I think something like Democracy Now! is better, though I do occasionally go to these "traditional" sources, to see what the US establishment is thinking. It certainly has its uses, but I prefer other sites, like Al Jazeera and a few others.

RT used to be excellent for non-Russia related news. Now it's a parody. As is to be expected during wartime from a state sponsored media.

Yep. Bias is inevitable, accurate presentation of the facts given context, is not.

Thanks for those sources.

I tend to look at Al-Jazeera, FT and Antiwar.com, they seem to me to be reasonable- for the most part, though the Financial Times is inconsistent and obviously "pro-Western". Still, it's useful to know what the global elite are thinking.

Obviously I don't trust RT or CNN much in this topic. I still feel that I may be missing out on some very good websites on this topic, which, given recent developments merits getting as much accurate info as is possible at the moment. I'm skeptical of the NYT and the like. Nevertheless, and knowing that a complete bias free reporting is not possible, what sites are you all using?

There are worse things to be addicted to, by far. If someone can manage to live the much touted "balanced life", well, good for them. I haven't figured that one out.

However little we know about thoughts, we can't help having them. Maybe you can meditate and see your thoughts as things, or whatever else this entails. Nevertheless, thinking, for human beings, is much like breathing, if we stop doing it, we die. Cue in Descartes joke.

I think proof of all this comes from this very strange occurrence that has likely happened to all of us a few times at least. You are doing nothing in particular, maybe washing dishes or swimming, and BAM all of a sudden you gain an insight, seemingly out of nowhere. All the while you had the impression you were only doing an activity unrelated to thinking.

I rather someone addicted to thought harming no-one, than someone addicted to action without measuring consequences. Though there are all these options between these two extremes.

It could increase bravado from NATO. They can be accused of "cowering to Russia"-type rhetoric, which, don't get me wrong, is incredibly stupid, but exists and has be said a few times by more hawkish figures in the Republican party.

It's best to not see what would happen if such a scenario arose. But, there's not much we can do about it.

The thing is if he does drop one, even a so called "mini nuke", I don't see how NATO will not respond. They'd have to. But then that creates a self-feeding loop.

If they fired a nuke in the ocean somewhere close to Europe, that might be doable. But almost any scenario of nuke use will have consequences we can barely imagine.

They do, but one cannot deny that Russia is under severe pressure - otherwise Putin would have not made his announcement today. Of course Ukraine has lost plenty in the war, but at the moment they are looking better militarily than a few weeks ago.



Yeah, it's of no use except to scare or cause an accident that will perish us all. But from his perspective, what is he to do? Admitting defeat is never an option for a nuclear power, national pride is worse than religion here.

Looks like Russia is running out of options. And while in a more rational society this might be an impetus for negotiations, now there is a ramping up - on both sides.

They really should try to hold talks. Unless they topple Putin from the inside, it is not wise to cage a tiger with no way out. It's pretty reckless. imo.

One has to keep in mind that Kant was a Newtonian. The notions of space and time Kant had in mind, no longer apply. Which does not mean that his general framework is obsolete, far from it.

But using modern notions to classical ideas can bring about problems, if one isn't careful with the details. As for space and time being immaterial, that's terminological, not substantial. One needs to provide an adequate definition of the physical, and say what the immaterial has, that the physical does not.

It can be consciousness, as it depends on the brain. Unless you would say that the brain isn't physical, then we simply say, everything is immaterial. What we can say is that the brain is what we categorize and recognize as this thing behind our skulls which plays a crucial role in experience.

I am unsure how to read your reply. Rhetoric can be problematic in philosophy.

If it does, which I don't think is clear at all, then I'd argue that the metaphysics of science is bound to be argued for one's own personal metaphysical preferences: it can be defended as materialism, verifications, rationalistic idealism, transcendental idealism, eliminitavist, dualist, and so on.