I am willing to bet international outrage grows over Western governments hypocrisy. — FreeEmotion
your righteous European sneering at American hypocrisy, is able to overlook their own and their own government's and nation's hypocrisy. What! Holland has hypocrites? No!
We great powers also are pretty much alike. Whether it was the British in their Empire, the French, Belgians, Russians, Germans or Americans, we generally exercise power similarly. We have the wherewithal to off-shore our requirements for a temporary torture chamber; we can pull off an invasion of Ukraine, Iraq, or Afghanistan if it suits their current needs. Taiwan, beware. The Netherlands can not. — Bitter Crank
Urban war is bound to destroy people and property. It goes with the territory. — Bitter Crank
People who are fighting against a puppet governments of some foreign power (as Yanukovych was to the Ukrainians) in defence of their national identity and independence are not fighting against their flag, but for their flag as expression of their national identity and independence. And I find this kind of fight morally defensible. — neomac
fighting over national identity is morally defensible (even through war) because people can morally value things more than their own lives, like national identity and independence and unlike a piece of colored piece of fabric on top of a building or a puppet government. — neomac
knowing that in this war USA and Russia are fighting a proxy war in a piece of land called Ukraine for human and material resources, doesn’t tell me enough to decide whom I have to side with in this war. Knowing who is the oppressor and who is the oppressed, knowing that the oppressed is fighting for something I would value too at his place, knowing that this fight is a conventional war with its toll on civilians and their homes, etc. all this is more relevant for me to decide if one should support America or Russia or neither. — neomac
all get’s compromised when parties start from such a position of mistrust as in this case. — neomac
At this point partaking is not the problem, because there have been many negotiation sessions between Russians and Ukrainians, but they got stalled. — neomac
Putin’s dictatorial power extends over the last two decades so he could take all his time to prepare for this war and take effective decisions consistent with his goals, meanwhile in the US there have been five different administrations (including a philo-Putinist Trump) in loose coordination with an even greater number of changing and politically divided EU leaders and governments, decided also thanks to a growth of anti-globalist populism that Putin contributed to feed with his money and troll armies. So not exactly the same situation for responsibility ascriptions. — neomac
Sure, then again the West tries to help the oppressed by delivering weapons instead of trying to help the oppressor. — neomac
No idea of the number of victims on both sides. — neomac
What am I supposed to do with that? What evidence to you have?
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2022/03/04/are-ukrainian-values-closer-to-russia-or-to-europe/ — neomac
you just repeated Putin’s demands and related blackmails without considering Ukrainian demands at all. — neomac
Therefore you do not care to offer an opposing strategy against Russian terroristic expansionism — neomac
Who is us? I didn’t throw anybody under tanks. And the antecedent of that conditional is false. Nothing to explain here. — neomac
Western leaders have moral reasons to contrast Putin offensive expansionism the best they can, as long as they can. — neomac
Concerning “methods”, I simply claimed they have moral implications and therefore I take them into account: a stick and carrot strategy (a mix of incentives and deterrence) may be morally more defensible than a full blown-war as in this case. — neomac
I said nothing of that, that's your words. — Christoffer
So you mean that critical thinking, the process of being able to be unbiased and rational in reasoning is not part of a quality education? — Christoffer
you seem to miss that philosophy is pretty much built upon methods to make sure you don't get stuck in biases — Christoffer
What actual knowledge in psychology do you really have to propose that "thinking" requires nothing? — Christoffer
Thinking in of itself, even with a high intellect means nothing without the knowledge of how to structure such thoughts into reasonable and logical arguments. — Christoffer
Education enables tools of thought for examining one's own pre-existing concepts and ideas, it enables you to realize just how little you know. The way you're describing it is extremely naive and excludes every basic knowledge of how psychology in sociological terms works. — Christoffer
limiting the ability to gain access to tools of thought that make you able to think critically. — Christoffer
Chernobyl was a globally known incident — Christoffer
If "western" is just America I would agree with a shitload of what you say, but it's become a strawman for your arguments so I can't take it seriously. — Christoffer
if I say "quality education", I mean neutral education, I mean free of propaganda, even western propaganda — Christoffer
What exactly do you disagree with in that text?? That good quality, neutral education, that enables people to see unbiased facts, different perspectives, concepts of how to think with deduction and induction... is not giving someone the tools to think critically and without bias? — Christoffer
What exactly do you not agree with? Or are you saying... on a philosophy forum... that the concept of philosophy itself is bullshit? — Christoffer
Are learning facts a universal human constant of gaining knowledge? — Christoffer
Is a high level of knowledge required to reach wisdom? — Christoffer
Is wisdom not needed to be able to internally pitch different perspectives against each other to induce a probable truth? — Christoffer
you don't even understand that my idea of quality; unbiased education is about gaining the ability to see different perspectives. It's the core point of how to be able to think critically. — Christoffer
when I see children in schools funded by charities, when I see the hope in their eyes of getting doors opened to do things in their life and not just be victims of poverty and politics, then I feel hope, because the actual people of the country gain the knowledge to do something and not just have to wait for whatever political problems that is going on or whatever political boot the west push down on them. — Christoffer
Have you not even had the thought that if there's a western boot pressing them down and not enabling them to rise up against it, a quality education, neutral education that grants them the knowledge to act against that boot might just be the solution to getting rid of that boot? — Christoffer
Giving access to ... methods of unbiased thinking, which is my core point. — Christoffer
if I teach someone how to do proper deductions, that has nothing to do with anything other than logically fine-tuning thinking itself to better reach valid conclusions. That is a universal method for human beings to bypass bias and is critical for anyone wanting to reach beyond set ideas. — Christoffer
If they are in a dire position, if they are suffering, if there's something fundamentally broken with their government that makes them suffer, then we shouldn't give a fuck. That's your argument. That's your simple conclusion to all of this. — Christoffer
If I present an actual real-world solution, right now, as a pragmatic and practical thing that can actually be done; — Christoffer
Here's my suggestion for westernized Russia. Implement social democracy, write a constitution with a strong focus on the protection of people's right to free speech, implement laws that protect independent media, and have state media be just funded by taxes, but ruled by constitutional law to be a critical entity of the government, free from any capitalist biases. Have a great form of welfare, either direct or through basic income, and have active organizations for anti-corruption work, much like Ukraine has had and successfully reduced corruption with. Outside of that, let them have a free market in order to engage internationally if they want. — Christoffer
Andrew Levi co-led a UK diplomatic crisis response to Putin’s invasion of Georgia in 2008. I’m not sure what he’s done recently, but is occasionally interviewed in the media on the motives and ideology of Putin.
He arrived at his view of Putin during that mission and tried to warn the British government about Putin at the time and was largely ignored. — Punshhh
Ukrainian children die. They didn't get a say in the matter. — Isaac
The more the Russians murder innocent bystanders, children, grandmothers and the likes, the more hospitals, maternities and supermarket they bomb , the harder it will be to make any lasting peace. Ukrainians will never forgive such a behavior from their neighbours. I think they could forgive the war, being attacked for nothing, but not the massacre of defenseless innocents. Russian heads will have to roll now. — Olivier5
There's plenty of anti-Americanism going around and hypocrisy is one of the first thing spoken about. How can they complain about human rights abuses when they had their renditions, water boarding and torture, Abu Ghraib? How can they complain about aggression when we had aggression in Iraq and Afghanistan and Pakistan? — Benkei
(TASS) Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov slammed the situation in the Ukrainian town of Bucha as fake attack. According to him, a fake attack was staged there, which Ukraine and the West disperse through all channels and social networks.
The more the Russians murder innocent bystanders, children, grandmothers and the likes, the more hospitals, maternities and supermarket they bomb , the harder it will be to make any lasting peace. Ukrainians will never forgive such a behavior from their neighbours. I think they could forgive the war, being attacked for nothing, but not the massacre of defenseless innocents. — Olivier5
What that's got to do with the comment you cited, which was about the morality of fighting for universals such as 'national identity', I'm afraid I've no idea. — Isaac
When you are killed as an Ukrainian nazi, A Chechen islamist terrorist or a Syrian jihadist... or a supporter of them, you don't choose yourself that "national" identity. The guy who shoots you has decided that on behalf of you. — ssu
The facts are quite evident now after a long investigation, but due to ignorance it's easy to voice doubts over who was responsible of the shooting.
One can see it happening here with Bucha: — ssu
And there's enough of useful idiots around then to confuse the issue and go along with the idea that everything was staged. Likely there's going to be the argument that Ukrainians staged this in order to get more sanctions put at Russia and to get more aid. — ssu
At least the US is officially against attrocities, understands that violence towards civilians is simply counterproductive in a war and even will go as far as court martial it's own soldiers. — ssu
What that's got to do with the comment you cited, which was about the morality of fighting for universals such as 'national identity', I'm afraid I've no idea. — Isaac
I'm trying to understand people who are quick to defend Russia. I mean people like Benkei, who may not qualify as apologist, but seems to jump to defend Putin in a way he wouldn't for other leaders, particularly an American president. — frank
can't speak for Benkei but he may have some bizarre legal idea that both sides of a dispute deserve to be heard — boethius
But he wouldn't have that attitude if the culprit was American. He'd happily go in the other direction of being as unfair as possible (I think). — frank
So I don't think it's a matter of valuing fairness. — frank
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