We have a duty not to lie — Olivier5

Coming from someone actively denying US involvement. Rich.

https://twitter.com/CanadianUkrain1/status/1517040544710594560
Putin looks terrible.

I get a 404 error on this. What's it supposed to link to?

Should work now.

Coming from someone actively denying US involvement. — Xtrix

That's just not true.

US involvement in this war is beyond question. — Xtrix

Yes, and it is beyond question that the US is not fighting this war directly. They are not among the belligerants. And therefore they don't have the power to stop this war. That's up to the belligerants.

it is beyond question that the US is not fighting this war directly. They are not among the belligerants. — Olivier5

Also beyond question that Russia is the only party involved with a double consonant in its name.

There's been speculation he has Parkinson's. That won't stop him though.

So, US officials are saying they've no idea where the weapons they're sending to Ukraine are ending up.

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2022/04/united-states-military-aid-ukraine-war-weapons

Thank goodness there's absolutely no Neo-Nazi militia in Ukraine, and it's not, for example, one of the largest arms trafficking markets in Europe

Let's face it. The end is near. And only a few months aga I was assured that peace is the result of atomìc weapons. Someday these babies will get used. Happy times!

Followed by this one:

https://youtube.com/shorts/SByqxvjKfo8?feature=share

Do people feel the same as during the Cuban missile crisis?

> Neither do I. You can have at my moral judgements using any data you like. Simply saying 'because X you must think Y' is not an argument. I've claimed that morally, the deal on the table is a better choice than continued fighting. I've argued it from a consequentialist framework (as I believe governments are not people and so don't themselves have virtues). A counter argument doesn't consist in vague hand-waiving toward some other de facto circumstances. A counter argument consists in some reason why I shouldn't have used a consequentialist framework, or some reason why my assessment of the consequences are wrong.

Yet another strawman argument. Dude, you don’t get to give me homework. I know what I’m doing. One could question somebody else’s claims and arguments based on their explanatory power and/or on their internal consistency. And I did both with you. The point I made and you are addressing now was about logic consistency: it’s legitimate to frame your moral position toward the negotiation deal in a way that is logically consistent with your own assumptions in framing Zelensky’s position toward the negotiation deal. Period.
You were trying to evade my claim as follows:
“if Zelensky’s moral stand and choices are to be assessed over a de facto situation or actual terms on the table (as you claim), then I don’t see why your moral stand and choices about this war can’t be assessed based on the actual clash between 2 de facto dominant powers, as you frame this war. — neomac
Because our choices aren't limited to a de facto 2 clash between dominant powers”
When I asked you to clarify this, after some more dodging in all directions, the best you came up with is this: “There are some de facto circumstances in the specific case of the war in Ukraine which have a moral relevance when considering a deal” which - as I argued - holds for Zelensky with his moral dilemma between continuing or ending the war, as much as for you with your moral dilemma between American (or NATO) vs Russian expansionism, in a way that is logically consistent with how you framed the war in Ukraine.
Besides I wasn’t even done yet: we could have discussed about other cases too the Palestinians wrt the Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territories, the poor who give birth to children, the French/Russian/Iranian revolutions, the thought experiment I proposed to you.
My strong suspect is that your abstract line of reasoning applies only if e.g. it’s against the American capitalist imperialism, because if it logically goes against your preferred world views then it shouldn’t be applied. But that’s irrational and one-sided. Yet it explains why “you seem to be just appealing to whatever notions happen to support your already chosen course of action” (namely, fighting “against capitalist imperialism, which is a good thing.”)

> But since your argument was that my position is actually ‘preposterous’ rather than just something you happen to disagree with, you'd need to go further. You'd need to show that either it is completely absurd to use a consequentialist framework, or that it's not even plausible that my assessment of the consequences is right.

I already addressed this pointless objection. I called several claims of yours “preposterous” (starting from your declared idea that fighting over a flag is always no doubt immoral) for the reasons I clarified. You can counter them if you wish so, instead of inventing strawman arguments. I took mainly issue with the way you argued to support your position. Indeed I never called preposterous the line of reasoning you offered when talking about the moral dilemma “option1 vs option2”, because it doesn’t strike me as evidently implausible, just disputable.


> Arbitrary as in having no further reasoning. I don't have a reason for not wanting thousands more deaths, I just don't want thousands more deaths.

Then it follows that other people act morally only if they act the way you want without further reasons. And if you ever wanted thousands more deaths without further reason, then it would have still been a defensible moral claim to support the continuation of this war. Is that right? It sounds like a Devine Command Theory with the only teensy negligible difference that you would be playing the role of god.
I’m not sure you fully understand how not compelling is to others what you want without further reasons. And there could be no argument to clarify that better to you, I’m afraid.

>My point is that, given the “de facto” circumstances, the victory of Russia (even at the additional price of a regime change) will still be the lesser evil for you because both it could immediately end the war (so no more deaths) and it would be a blow “against capitalist imperialism, which is a good thing.” — neomac
...and that 'fairly' translates as...
you want to help Russia win — neomac
...without even so much as a hint of disingenuity…?

Yes it does “fairly” translate to “you want to help Russia win”, and I would expect you to agree with me again on logical grounds, even more so now that I clarified my point.
Here is another example to illustrate a similar usage of “want”: if a soldier was very badly shot in his left leg in some remote war front, and the doctor told him “under the given circumstances , unfortunately we can’t do much to save your leg and if we do not immediately amputate it, you would definitely risk to die from gangrene! So, what do you want to do?”. If the soldier said “I want my leg amputated, doctor”, would this mean that he would be happy of amputating his leg? Or that he wouldn’t have chosen any other option to avoid this, wouldn’t he be in danger of life? Or that he was brainwashed into wanting his leg amputated against his own interest? No of course, it simply means that he chose what he took to be the lesser evil option (so amputating his leg is instrumental in preserving his life) and communicated his choice accordingly with an “I want” sentence perfectly intelligible as it is.
The same would be with your case: “given the ‘de facto’ circumstances, the victory of Russia (even at the additional price of a regime change) will still be the lesser evil for you because both it could immediately end the war (so no more deaths) and it would be a blow ‘against capitalist imperialism, which is a good thing.’ That’s why you don’t mind to support Russians’ victory”. So if making “as public as possible your disgust (if you have such disgust) at the profiteering from suffering that seeps into everything corporate capitalist states do” could somehow help Russian victory then you want to do it not for Russians’ sake but because it is instrumental in fighting ‘against capitalist imperialism, which is a good thing’.
Briefly, my point has to do with logic consistency not with your rhetorical quibbles.


> My objections were entirely against the claim of implausibility, so entirely pointed.
What claim of implausibility are you raving about?! Fully quote myself. — neomac
No need, you can just clarify here, save us both the bother.

No I’m not going to save you the bother to fully quote my alleged “claim of implausibility” concerning negotiation failures, because you are prone to strawmanning your interlocutor (often by conveniently chopping their quotations). And since I have no idea what you are talking about, I can’t even double check by myself. So I would like to be sure you are not making things up just on purpose to spin your idle intellectual game for another round (which would be intellectual dishonesty at its finest).

> Are the claims you're opposing reasonable claims that you just happen to agree with, or are they implausible claims that no reasonable person would agree with?

I opposed different kinds of claims of yours for different reasons and in different degree. The claim that fighting over a flag is no doubt always immoral is preposterous to me. The claim that it would be better for Ukrainian people option2 instead of option1 is not preposterous but disputable. Your claim that the Ukrainian war is a profitable business for American weapon industries and financial companies is clearly plausible, yet the moral implications that you may implicitly attach to such a claim could be disputable to me. Your general claim that the ruling classes oppress the poor is plausible, to what extent is disputable as well as its pertinence to the fact that Russian soldiers are killing Ukrainian families (in this latter case I find it rather unintelligible). The American administration support to Saudi Arabia war in Yemen is morally questionable to you: while this is plausible to me, its pertinence to the Ukrainian war is highly disputable.


> I love the way people still think they can get away without having to defend positions by smuggling in the word 'common'. A rational which one wants to avoid having to defend become 'common sense'. Some data one wants to avoid having to source becomes 'common knowledge'. Does that still work for you?

By “common background knowledge” I was referring to claims of mine such as “This is what I take to be an anthropological fact: ‘There is an anthropological fact that grounds my moral reasoning: social identities are part of our personal identities and they are rooted in our communal life with other individuals in a given environment’. All human societies (independently from geographic and historical latitudes) have ways of identifying human groups and individuals based on group membership. This is an anthropological fact. Some societies use ‘Nationality’ as a way to identify social groups and individuals as members of those groups: nation states, national languages, national flags, national passports, national money, national sport teams, national customs, national cuisine are examples of ways we identify groups and individuals within groups based on nationality.
Some value or pretend to value nationality in highest degree and shape their political views or actions accordingly.”
So do you allow me to consider this as a piece of background knowledge that I and you have roughly in common or am I expecting too much from your educational achievements?
In any case, either overly pointless (surprise surprise) or overly poor education (which of course is not an argument against “common background knowledge”).

even if a layman doesn’t have an expert view, still a layman can reasonably question how the expert input was collected and further processed by another layman — neomac
Can they? If I provided you with a Psychology experiment could you seriously question the methodology and statistical analysis in any meaningful way (assuming, for the sake of this argument you're not yourself a psychologist or similar, that is).

In this passage, I was talking about the way you collect and process experts’ feedback, not about the experts feedback itself! And there is no need to invent examples when I provided examples “(e.g. even the experts you trust do not fully agree with you as I pointed out)”! Here is what I was referring to: E.g. Kissinger advises “It is incompatible with the rules of the existing world order for Russia to annex Crimea. […]. To that end, Russia would recognize Ukraine’s sovereignty over Crimea” (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/henry-kissinger-to-settle-the-ukraine-crisis-start-at-the-end/2014/03/05/46dad868-a496-11e3-8466-d34c451760b9_story.html). While Mearsheimer concludes that: “The result is that the United States and its allies unknowingly provoked a major crisis over Ukraine.” (https://www.mearsheimer.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Why-the-Ukraine-Crisis-Is.pdf).”
Concerning your example, I addressed this already: I don’t even need to prove that a layman in psychology could “seriously question the methodology and statistical analysis in any meaningful way” to you (even if I think I could prove that). It’s enough to remind you what you said: “you choose your expert and talk about why you find their arguments persuasive, and I choose mine and talk about why I find their arguments persuasive. That’s how I'm used to conducting discussions involving matters of fact”. From your claim logically follows that I as your interlocutor can talk about why I find some chosen expert’s view persuasive for me, which is what I indirectly and partly did when discussing about Mearsheimer’s views, and that would be perfectly fine since this is how you are “used to conducting discussions involving matters of fact”.



> if your point now is not a question of legitimacy grounded on the nature of the philosophical inquiry and the purpose of this philosophy forum (which is all I care about), but of feeding your little intellectual echo chamber for your own comfort, then just stop interacting with me, who cares? Not to mention, how hypocritical would your whining about other people not being opened to alternative views inevitably sound, if that’s your intellectual approach in this forum. — neomac
I have no idea what this means. From where did you get the impression that my 'point' is to 'feed my little echo chamber'. I mean, it's a legitimate accusation, a common enough reason people write in places like this, but you seem to imply that I'd actually said as much, which I haven’t .

My impression that your 'point' could be (not ‘is’) to 'feed your little echo chamber’ (once we exclude the philosophical legitimacy) is based on what you claimed in the post I commented and previously:
- “I choose the experts whose opinion align with the narratives I prefer (1). I have world views I find satisfying (2) and if an expert opinion aligns with those I’ll choose to believe that expert rather than one whose opinion opposes them (3). all this assuming the expert in question has sufficient qualification and no obvious conflict of interest (4).”
- “If you said ‘why do you believe those cosmologists, they've all got a vested interest in heliocentricism…’ then we'd be discussing my reasons for believing the earth rotates around the sun.(5)”
That’s indeed the perfect recipe for feeding one’s own echo chamber, here is why: say part of your satisfying world views is that American capitalist imperialism is the worst evil (2), so you are going to select all the experts (with titles and no evident conflict of interest (4)) rather than others whose opinion opposes it (3), like Mearsheimer who blames NATO expansion for the war in Ukraine, feeding the narrative your prefer (1) b/c NATO is the evil projection of the American capitalist imperialism. Now, according to your example (5) I would be questioning your reasons to believe Mearsheimer in a way that is acceptable to you (!) only if I discussed about the vested interest of Mearsheimer in blaming NATO expansion for the war in Ukraine (e.g. if I provided evidences that Mearsheimer was financed by some Republicans to write a paper that could be timely exploited against pro-NATO policies by democratic administrations). Now if my questioning Mearsheimer’s claims based on his vested interest would be insufficient to you then you would keep Mearsheimer’s expert input as valid support to the narrative you prefer. On the other side, if my questioning Mearsheimer’s claims based on his vested interest would be sufficient to you, then you would simple give up on Mearsheimer’s expert input and look for another expert with titles and no evident vested interest (say Kennan or Kissinger or some CIA representative, or military expert etc.) that would support your world view. In other words, your satisfying world views will remain always unchallenged, you would just update your pool of experts. Additionally, you would always be in position to easily put the burden of proof on your interlocutor (conveniently so if he doesn’t share your world view) for - you could argue - how else e.g. could I prove to somebody that my chosen expert X has no evident conflict of interest other then by pointing at the obvious fact that hadn’t been the case I would have not chosen X? Rather it’s on others to prove to you if there are evidences of conflict of interests.
Besides all this is perfectly in line with this other piece of yours: “your argument relies on this not being the case, so it is incumbent on you (if you want to support your argument) to disprove it. I’ve not interest in supporting my case here (I don't even believe it's possible to support such a case in a few hundred words on an internet forum, and even if I did, I wouldn't make such a case as I've no expertise in the matter).” Practically the burden of proof is always on others, you do not need to argue for your case, nor even need to be capable of arguing for your case, you just rely on the expert that pleases you under some loose requirements.
Finally, if I got it all wrong, good for you, yet you should still clarify what the point of your comment actually was. Good luck with that!


> Do you want me to explain it to you?

As if I didn’t explicitly ask (“How is your piece of idle talk supposed to justify that?!”). Good luck with that too!

Please use the quote function. You can access it by highlighting text.

I know the quote function. I simply find it uncomfortable for personal reasons. But I don't want to infringe any forum rule. So is that a forum rule or can my quotation style be tolerated?

It's not specifically in the rules. It just makes things easier to read and helps to show you haven't misquoted someone. If you really don't want to use it, ok, I suppose.

Well that too. The supposed existential threat of the Azov group is consists of a bit over one BTG worth of fighters and lacks adequate equipment to even act as a BTG.


Well yeah, there is a larger group of fighters than Azov with ties to Neo-Nazism fighting in Ukraine. They boast 6,000+ versus 900 members, and have some heavier hardware too.

Just check out their leader, rocking an SS tattoo and swastika.



This would of course be the Wagner group, who, incidentally, fights for Russia, with funding from the Russian government who has also allowed them to use heavier military hardware.

The Rusich group represents an explicit Neo-Nazi militia used under Russia's amorphous "mercenary" forces, is transported by the Russian military, and utilizes their health care services.

Guess you gotta make a bigger army of Nazis to fight the smaller army of Nazis?

Do people feel the same as during the Cuban missile crisis? — Haglund

That was a bit different.

Besides, the real danger during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis was that the US has a large superiority in the numbers of nuclear weapons. The U.S. nuclear stockpile in 1962 included more than 25,500 warheads (mostly in battlefield weapons). The Soviet Union had about 3,350 and only a few off them in ICBMs (if I remember correctly, there were 8).

This was the reason why US generals were so keen to invade Cuba. Also they didn't know that the Russians had also tactical nuclear weapons, which at least Castro wanted to be used, if the US would try to invade Cuba. Had it been the 1980's and I think even general LeMay would have had different ideas.

Today, you have a country with the largest nuclear weapons stockpile attack a country that has given away it's nuclear deterrence and a West that has made it clear it won't put it's troops into Ukraine. There should be dramatic escallation to make this to be like the Cuban crisis.

Guess you gotta make a bigger army of Nazis to fight the smaller army of Nazis? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Russia will use happily any extremist group they can get their hands on. And it's quite notable how they have been giving money and assistance to extreme-right groups, yet then talk of denazification. Of course, there is absolutely no actual ideology behind Putins rule... other than for him to stay in power.

As the extreme-right did play a part in Maidan revolution and the volunteer battalions played a major part in 2014 (as the Ukrainian armed forces could in reality field only 6 000 troops back then to put down the armed rebellions), likely the Ukrainians have had this kind of balancing act with these groups and they have been trying to integrate them to the national guard as obviously going after them and trying or to abolish them likely would just create demoralization, huge feeling of treachery and make at least part to join the side of Putin. The country has enough of armed groups running around with Russian support even before this invasion.

Notice it's not only that neo-nazis are fighting on both sides, so are the Chechens too. Both sides have their groups of Chechens fighting on their side. In fact, looking at the Ukrainian volunteer brigades shows just how complex the situation could be (Chechens, Belarussians, Georgians). Comes to my mind the Russian Civil War and all the various groups involved. At least (and luckily) the situation isn't as fragmented as then.

At least Ukrainian voters haven't supported the extreme-right much since 2014, but what post-conflict Ukraine will be like remains to be seen. Hopefully they can rebuild more than their cities after this war.

The neo-nazism/genocide yarn such an obvious attempt by both sides to paint the other as "the baddies", to lure people into accepting their narratives and adopt a black-and-white view of what is a complicated geopolitical issue.

You are better than this ThePhilosophyForum!

The next batch US aid to Ukraine comes now in the form of 75 155mm howitzers, vehicles and 100 tactical drones. With the howitzers one can equip four artillery battalions. Which is a similar or even more than many smaller NATO countries have artillery. What is obvious from this is that now the conflict is anticipated to continue as an conventional war and Ukraine is now getting those 'offensive' weapons that previously they weren't given (in order not to "escalate" the conflict). Also finally are spare parts coming through to the Ukrainian air force.

For until now the emphasis has been on Soviet legacy systems as Ukraine operates those as a stop gap measure, but now with the Western 155mm howitzers the country is getting new weapon systems, and training and the service delivery of these happen in weeks, not days. Hence it can be sign that the war will go on for months.

Ukraine also has to think about offense rather than defense. The risk of a long period of war is greater if a smaller region has concentrated battles and the rest of the nation is spared. Russia can maintain battles if the entire military isn't diluted to just this one war and therefore can keep rotating its military. But if Ukraine gets more offensively aggressive and tries to take back regions and cities now that the Russian army is at its lowest point in terms of morale, resources as well as the sanctions keeping their war chest down, then Ukraine has a good chance to push back Russia even further, making it almost impossible for them to win the coastal region corridor to Crimea, which seems to be the point Russia aims for as the end of this war. If Ukraine does this before May 9th, then there's very little "win" that Putin can show off and it would be an extreme failure on his part. It could save Ukraine and even dismantle the Russian elite, throwing Russia into internal chaos that will require more attention from Russia than any war, effectively ending the war completely. These new weapons need to be used for offensive efforts to kill off supply lines and groups of Russian troops. If they could even fire at the Russian-controlled border regions to the very east, it would seriously damage any movement within the most densely Russian-controlled parts. But most effectively, if they could create bombardments, drone runs, and artillery into Russian-controlled areas at random, they would tank the morale even further as no Russians would be safe from the risk of getting killed. The Russian troops aren't broken by low morale, it's when the morale is low that you break them.

Ukraine also has to think about offense rather than defense. The risk of a long period of war is greater if a smaller region has concentrated battles and the rest of the nation is spared. Russia can maintain battles if the entire military isn't diluted to just this one war and therefore can keep rotating its military. — Christoffer

Starting large counterattacks will be more costly to Ukraine, and lets face it, even the official numbers of Ukrainian soldiers now killed is higher than US killed during the war in Iraq. Hence as modern field medical treatment has gone forward, the total casualty figures are many times of those that have been killed. What rather easily can happen is that both sides simply fight each other to exhaustion and we have already seen examples of fighting taking a lull in the Russo-Ukrainian conflict. We have to understand that these two countries have de facto been at war for 8 years.

Another notable thing is that they have had prisoner swaps. In many wars there aren't these or they are done only after the war ends. Hence the the formations on the field can also negotiate these.

But if Ukraine gets more offensively aggressive and tries to take back regions and cities now that the Russian army is at its lowest point in terms of morale, resources as well as the sanctions keeping their war chest down, then Ukraine has a good chance to push back Russia even further, making it almost impossible for them to win the coastal region corridor to Crimea, which seems to be the point Russia aims for as the end of this war. — Christoffer

If Mariupol falls (as Putin says it has done), the Russians do have their landbridge.

If Ukraine does this before May 9th, then there's very little "win" that Putin can show off and it would be an extreme failure on his part. It could save Ukraine and even dismantle the Russian elite, throwing Russia into internal chaos that will require more attention from Russia than any war, effectively ending the war completely. These new weapons need to be used for offensive efforts to kill off supply lines and groups of Russian troops. — Christoffer

I think the date of May 9th is overemphasized. It will come and go. Either Putin will truly want to end this war, but the likely thing is that he will have to take the breather. Now he actually ddn't take one as the forces from the Kyiv front really had no time to reorganize and train before the next attack happened. These things simply take a long time.

The simple timetable of a longer war might come in. If Putin decides to use reservists, it will take months to train and form new units. And thanks to the embargo, Putin's military industry will only replace the equipment in limited numbers. And so it is with Ukraine. Forming new units, deploying new weapon systems into service will take months also. We have already seen absolutely horrible numbers of deaths in this war compared to other modern wars. If the Russian numbers are from 7000 to 15 000 and the Ukrainian 4 000 in two months (without including the number of civilians) these are huge losses for the deployed forces that on both sides are far less that half a million soldiers.

What we see in this war is that area defense works and modern war is always a mix of new things and old where there hasn't been a "revolution in military affairs", just some new systems that one has to take into account, yet many things are the way they were earlier.

Got no takers on the "is this the end of the main battle tank era?" question I see, but I'm starting to think the bigger lesson learned will be the reemergence of artillery as a much larger part of operations. Guided artillery shells seem to be doing much more damage as the war goes on. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Even if several days ago, this is an interesting subject.

I don't think the era of the MBT is over. It's still quite useful, although it has to be protected and be used carefully in the modern battlefield. It's like cavalry. Once you had hand held firearms, one could have anticipated the use of the cavalry to diminish. Not so. In fact, cavalry shed it's armour once firearms became so deadly that armour wasn't effective anymore. And with rapid fire rifles then all cavalry changed to being dragoons: mounted infantry that would fight on foot, but move on horseback. Cavalry died out only when it was replaced by mechanization last century. And still some horses (or donkeys) are used mountain units or by fighters in Africa.

The simple fact is that there does exist a crucial role for the armoured mobile gun. The tank gun is versatile and the tank is still the most protected vehicle in the battlefield. It's interesting to see that when the USMC decided to ditch it's tank fleet and go with other systems, there is now huge debate in the USMC if this was the right call to do.

When it comes to artillery, drones and smart munitions are just the enabler of this ancient arm of the military. In fact I assume that easiness of drones as forward observers, just few mouse clicks and you have sent the coordinates to the artillery for a fire mission, is this "revolution" that drones have given us. Far easier if the other option is for you to have the forward observer hiding somewhere and seeing the target, then who has to inspect a map, then get the coordinates correctly and send them by a voice radio to somewhere in the organization. Yet the only thing what needs to happen is for air defence systems to adapt to kill small slow vehicles the Cold War era systems weren't designed to defeat.

Could be, but we don't know what the result will be of new weapon tech coming into Ukraine. And if they get more planes in the air, that can have a tremendous counter to stationary troops. And the kamikaze drones are especially deadly for small squads to attack with, they could also be used in city warfare where artillery could be too damaging.

Putin ordered to lock down azovstal steel plant where last troops remain.
azovstal contains underground tunnels where they hide and hope russians will get in for fight.

Now their choice is to either go out and surrender or stay in and starve to death or to perform suicide.

it's very interesting and funny situation...
What do you think what will these people do? surrender to perform suicide?

it’s legitimate to frame your moral position toward the negotiation deal in a way that is logically consistent with your own assumptions in framing Zelensky’s position toward the negotiation deal. Period. — neomac

...and in English?

I never called preposterous the line of reasoning you offered when talking about the moral dilemma “option1 vs option2”, because it doesn’t strike me as evidently implausible, just disputable. — neomac

Well then we have no disagreement. The rest is just your misunderstanding. All I've been arguing is about the moral status of those two positions.

Then it follows that other people act morally only if they act the way you want without further reasons. And if you ever wanted thousands more deaths without further reason, then it would have still been a defensible moral claim to support the continuation of this war. Is that right? — neomac

No. I would have misunderstood the meaning of the word 'moral'. Wanting thousands more deaths is not the sort of thing the word 'moral' is used for.

Briefly, my point has to do with logic consistency not with your rhetorical quibbles. — neomac

Bollocks. You were trying to associate my position with the victory of a probable war criminal because it makes my position look less appealing. You can save your 'oh I was just talking about logical consistency' crap for anyone still naive enough to believe it.

you are prone to strawmanning your interlocutor (often by conveniently chopping their quotations). — neomac

From the person literally stringing bits of my writing together using a cryptic mangle of quoting techniques to reach the conclusion that I apparently want Russia to win!

That’s indeed the perfect recipe for feeding one’s own echo chamber — neomac

Yes, I agree. I'm sorry you went to all the later trouble to explain how echo chambers work, butI appreciate the effort.

Where we disagree is the ludicrous notion that the rest of you don't do exactly the same thing. That you don't interpret every imprecise thing I say (which is virtually everything) selecting the option which most suits your narrative, that you don't choose experts whose opinions mesh best with your worldview, that you don't put more effort into critiquing opposing views than supportive ones, that you don't 'fill in the blanks' in a way that bolsters your preferred story.

Just walking into a room, your mental models of your environment make up 90% of what you perceive from the fragmented saccades of your vision. Do you seriously believe that with something as complex as a global geopolitical argument, you're going to be doing any less?

Funny how mention of US illegal invasions gets immediately accused of whataboutism, yet not one paragraph about Ukrainian Neo-Nazis can go by without these same voices immediately reaching for "well, Russia has them too".

What relevance does that have to the discussion?

Ukraine has a Neo-Nazi problem. Putin used it (and specifically, US covering up their alliance with them) as a justification for the invasion.

Us then going ahead and doing exactly what Putin wants to say we do (denying the blindingly obvious Neo-Nazi issue) is playing directly into his propaganda. Read the speech. It's not about the mere presence of Neo-Nazis, it's about Western tolerance of them. The exact tolerance useful idiots like we have here are amply demonstrating. If it suits Western purposes (in this case, opposing Russia), we'll turn a blind eye to the far right. It's precisely what Putin used as justification and it's precisely what we're showing to be absolutely true.

https://russiamatters.org/analysis/lessons-battle-kyiv

>...and in English?

Here you go: it’s legitimate to frame your moral position toward the negotiation deal in a way that is logically consistent with your own assumptions in framing Zelensky’s position toward the negotiation deal. Period.



> I never called preposterous the line of reasoning you offered when talking about the moral dilemma “option1 vs option2”, because it doesn’t strike me as evidently implausible, just disputable. — neomac
Well then we have no disagreement. The rest is just your misunderstanding. All I've been arguing is about the moral status of those two positions.

What?! Oh no, it's way more likely that you misunderstood what I was questioning despite the fact that I made it clear on several occasions:

“Indeed my focus has been always 2 moral claims of yours:
- Recklessly endangering millions of people by knowingly provoking a ruthless tyrant without any meaningful protection for those he might attack is immoral (as an accusation against the West). (“Seeing this crisis as an inevitable result of capitalist imperialism lend support to the fight against capitalist imperialism, which is a good thing.”)
- Fighting a war over a flag is no doubt always immoral”.

“Indeed, I offered reasons mainly to question your 2 moral claims:
Recklessly endangering millions of people by knowingly provoking a ruthless tyrant without any meaningful protection for those he might attack is immoral (as an accusation against the West).
Fighting a war over a flag is without doubt immoral.”

“when I questioned your 2 moral claims my objections were not entirely based on considerations relying on experts’ feedback about the war in Ukraine, but also on conceptual considerations and common background knowledge”

“2 preposterous moral claims of yours: one about fighting over flags and the other is about Western responsibilities in the genesis and perpetuation of this war. ”


> I would have misunderstood the meaning of the word 'moral'.

Which is?

> Bollocks. You were trying to associate my position with the victory of a probable war criminal because it makes my position look less appealing. You can save your 'oh I was just talking about logical consistency' crap for anyone still naive enough to believe it.

Yes I know. Logic hurts your rhetoric. But you didn’t offer a counter argument on logic grounds, just more rhetoric claims.


> From the person literally stringing bits of my writing together using a cryptic mangle of quoting techniques to reach the conclusion that I apparently want Russia to win!

Really?! Show me then how my reasoning goes wrong based on what you said, as I did when you misquoted me. Prove me that I misquoted you.


> Where we disagree is the ludicrous notion that the rest of you don't do exactly the same thing.
That you don't interpret every imprecise thing I say (which is virtually everything) selecting the option which most suits your narrative, that you don't choose experts whose opinions mesh best with your worldview, that you don't put more effort into critiquing opposing views than supportive ones, that you don't 'fill in the blanks' in a way that bolsters your preferred story.

No dude, it doesn’t work that way for me. First of all you can make all claims you want, but I don’t care about your claims, I care about your arguments because this is what I’m here for. Second, I care about arguments but I judge them for their logical value (logical consistency), success conditions (range of applications), and explanatory power (conceptual or empirical). I don’t care about their rhetoric value, association of ideas, ideological appealing. Third, I don’t do the same you do: I don’t have world views and then look for a pool of experts based on titles and not evident conflict of interests to support my pre-established world views.