OK, where did you get this information?

Note that the Amnesty report in question is being reviewed by the organization. It was rejected by many long-time Amnesty members as flawed in its methodology (written only by foreigners) and conclusions that fuel Russian propaganda narratives.

There was no accusation of war crime by Ukrainian forces in that report, anyway, so Isaac is lying, as he often does. — Olivier5

I don't know what you mean by "reviewed by the organization". The article clearly states:
Ukrainian forces have put civilians in harm’s way by establishing bases and operating weapons systems in populated residential areas, including in schools and hospitals, as they repelled the Russian invasion that began in February, Amnesty International said today.
Such tactics violate international humanitarian law and endanger civilians, as they turn civilian objects into military targets.
I don't know if the accusations of "fighting tactics endengering civilians" and alleged evidences provided by Amnesty suffice in legal terms though. Anyways I knew also about the reactions that the Amnesty's claims sparked from the wikipedia page : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_crimes_in_the_2022_Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine#Placement_of_military_objectives_near_civilian_objects

You look at the West through pink-coloured glasses, apparently unable to acknowledge political malpractice when it is carried out by the West. — Tzeentch

Then you did not read me carefully enough. And I agree with @Olivier5

Tell me, would you have asked poor Americans that were drafted to commit a de facto genocide in Vietnam why they didn't just flee the country if they didn't like it? — Tzeentch

As an avg Westerner, no of course. But that's not your situation, right? Nor the situation of any avg Westerner as far as I can tell.

Your argument requires a comparison, it cannot be supported by the provision of only one side. You argued that the effect was greater than... that requires two sources showing that one is greater than the other. Providing one source and saying "wow, that looks really big" is not sufficient. — Isaac

Sure, but here you are failing to understand at much deeper level. I’ll try to summarise the main points in the simplest way I can:

• It doesn’t make sense to me to set rational standards arbitrary high because we are cognitively limited creatures, that’s true for the front-line expert go figure for the avg person. So the best the avg person can do is to invest part of their cognitive skills in understanding global events that impact his life by relying on some experts within his reach, and process the information in accordance to some affordable rational standards (not whatever arbitrary high standard, not even a scientific/expert standard).
• Now let’s assume, for example, that from the experts’ feedback within my reach I can find a study which estimates the global economic impact of the war in Ukraine in these terms: “Billions of people face the greatest cost-of-living crisis in a generation” so what one can logically infer is that no other cost-of-living crisis in a generation were as great as the one resulted by this war (this is a comparison) and that no "greatest cost-of-living crisis in a generation” was provoked by other events distinct by the war in Ukraine (this is another comparison). So some relevant comparisons are done for me by the expert. How about infrastructural damage and human damage? They must be taken into account (check the stats, make comparisons with other war around the world etc.), but I’ll come to that later.
• There is a war in Ukraine because Putin decided to pursue a war on the Ukrainian territory. So the comparison is now not only in terms of nature or volume of the damage but also in terms of political agency. “Billions of people face the greatest cost-of-living crisis in a generation” is the result of the Ukrainian war that a single person decided to pursue.
• Now the crucial point (but I can’t elaborate it in greater detail, nor I can reference any specific geopolitical experts that I read, anyway Mearsheimer could be a starting point): what really counts at state level in a international system, it’s not just the absolute or relative volume of damage (in material and human terms) wrt the subjacent political agency that this war is causing, but also its geopolitical relevance in the context of power struggles or equilibria. That is the factor that can magnify or shrink the weight of any cost/benefit metrics one can provide: 1M deaths in Yemen do not damage the American hegemony (on the contrary - one could argue - it increases it b/c it’s a proxy war against the Iranian regime) as 5K deaths in Ukraine so they do not have the same geopolitical value. So why is the 5K deaths in Ukraine so valuable? Because Putin is now the only head of state with the resources and the determination to military challenge the West and so destabilise the American-led world order with a war in Ukraine. By doing this he’s going to be an example for anti-Western authoritarian regimes and at the same time an incentive to build an allegiance among countries antagonising the West. That’s why the US (and the West) can’t just let go of Ukraine and ignore all the geopolitical implications.
• Concerning me, why do I side with the West? For the simple reason that in the West avg people could enjoy a level of rights and material well-being that I find evidently preferable than what I and like-minded people could get in authoritarian regimes. The price for this, is to deal with all the shit geopolitical power struggles & equilibria implies, as anybody else who has a sense of realpolitik should do, no matter of what their preference is.

Now let’s get back to your original objection (N.B. the same considerations will apply to this other objection [1]): “Lots of global events cause that level of damage - from local warlords, oppressive police, environmental pollution, poverty... Do we mount a multi-billion dollar campaign against each? No”. No, lots of global events do not cause “that level of damage” because the level of damage in geopolitical terms is not measurable in one single dimension (e.g. number of deaths or infrastructural damage, BTW what infrastructural damage is doing oppressive police?) irrespective of the nature of the subjacent political agency (one can not stop global environmental pollution and poverty as Putin can stop his war with a single decision) and irrespective of their impact on the power equilibria on a global scale (why on earth would one think that 1M deaths in Myanmar or Yemen or O(100K) deaths in England due to lack of public health interventions impact power equilibria on a global scale as the war in Ukraine? What’s the geopolitical theory that would support such claims? None).

it is precisely the geopolitical significance of this war to the global order that magnifies the importance of any material and human damage caused by this war, especially from the Western prospective. — neomac
So I was right with "...you reckon" then, since none of that can be quantified and rests entirely on your subjective opinion. — Isaac

I don’t understand what you mean by “subjective” here. Surely I’m expressing my opinion as opposed to expressing the opinion of someone else. And I’m expressing my opinion about what I find intelligible as a legitimate goal of the West within the geopolitical game as opposed to expressing my opinion about what I find intelligible as a legitimate goal of Russia within the geopolitical game. But this is not subjective to me: if one knows the game of chess and understands that player A has to move in certain ways to win a chess game against B, his belief is not subjective. What could be subjective is his personal support for player A. Given certain geopolitical assumptions, I find enough intelligible some moves of the West in this war and their relevance (that part is not subjective). In addition to that, I side with the West (that part is subjective).

1) Look back through my posts. I've cited dozens of experts, yet still this cheap rhetorical trick is trotted out every few pages "where's your evidence", as if it hadn't already been supplied in droves.
2) You cannot expect to keep shifting the burden of proof and act as if that was a counter argument. If you think there are literally no experts advising multi-billion dollar campaigns against poverty, famine, pollution, and disease, then you're the one who needs to supply evidence to back up such a wild claim. — Isaac

You may have supplied in droves what you think it was relevant to you, not what I asked in my previous comment. I find plausible that there are “experts advising multi-billion dollar campaigns against poverty, famine, pollution, and disease” but my questions were more specific: e.g. who are the “experts in their field” arguing that “Western countries should ‘mount a multi-billion dollar campaign’ to counter the risk of famine, pollution and diseases around the world without meddling in regional conflicts”?
Now the last experts you cited during our recent exchanges weren’t dozens but only two, as far as I can remember, namely Janne Mende and Ahmed Shaheed [2] and their quotations were about the contributions or struggles of some non-Western countries in institutionally codifying “human rights”. In those quotations, nowhere is written “Western countries should ‘mount a multi-billion dollar campaign’ to counter the risk of famine, pollution and diseases around the world without meddling in regional conflicts” nor anything that resembles it enough to me. Those quotes do not fall within the scope of what I asked. That’s one a rational failure of yours. Besides you quoted them to counter another claim of mine but also in that case those quotations were beyond the scope of my claim. That’s another rational failure of yours.
Besides global governance institutions far from being an infallible or impartial normative constraining factor for geopolitical agents, they are often instruments of geopolitical power, so it’s naive to form rational expectations from global governance institutions and their history without considering the subjacent geopolitical power struggles or equilibria. Always for the same reason, prescriptions (moral, legal, epistemic) to be rational must be grounded on possibilities, means, powers. So we shouldn’t confuse the expert in the domain of what is allowed by the norm, with the expert in the domain of what can be done with proper means. Or infer from what the expert of the normative domain assesses as legitimate or illegitimate the conclusion that is what is likely the case (this would a confusion between should and can) without further assumptions. Failing to acknowledge this would amount to another rational failure of yours.

Well, we might still disagree on how to asses experts. And even on how one cites experts. — neomac
I don't see how. The qualification of experts is pretty standard, as is the method of citation. — Isaac

Yet you can fail it, as you can fail an addition or a modus tollens. For example by conveniently citing what supports your point but omitting what questions it, or by confusing the pertinence of the expertise (the feedback of the expert in the institutional domain of international relations may be not as relevant as the feedback of the expert in geopolitical analysts in the domain of security). So it’s not matter of standards, but on how you apply it.

One can still discriminate between rational and irrational — neomac
To paraphrase Van Inwagen, if you and your epistemic peer disagree, you must accept the possibility of your epistemic peer group being wrong, and that includes you. You cannot resolve a disagreement about what is rational by appeal to what is rational. — Isaac

I’m not here to resolve disagreements. I’m here to exercise my rational skills as a form of intellectual entertainment. And my impression so far is that, to paraphrase Heraclitus, you are playing dumb, dude.

As I said, you need to meet a minimum threshold of comprehension to take in part in discussions at this level. If you seriously don't understand how evidence underdetermines theories then I can't help you (not on this thread anyway - feel free to open a thread raising the question and we can discuss it there). — Isaac

I seriously don’t understand if you understand how evidence underdetermines theories, and how it helps your counter my arguments. So until you clarify this in better terms, I’ll assume you have no clue of what you are talking about.

I want to do neither. The argument was about whether Ukraine had committed war crimes, I posted an article proving they had. That's it. It does not need to further caveats to remind everyone that Russia has too, and the suggestion that Wikipedia is a better source than an actual published paper is too absurd for further comment. — Isaac

Olivier wrote: “That's all you could come up with in terms of Ukrainian war crimes??? No torture, no rapping, no murder of civilians, but the purely symbolic act of greasing a bullet”
So the sarcastic remark wasn’t about war crime per se, but the nature of war crimes committed by Ukrainians. You article didn’t list any of such war crimes (“endanger civilians” is not equal to “murder civilians”). And I wasn’t suggesting that wikipedia is better source than amnesty for the simple reason that wikipedia cites many amnesty papers as a source (including your article), actually is pretty much a summary of all what Amnesty has reported! How absurd is this comment of yours now? Pray tell.




[1]

A few million are currently at severe risk of starvation (according to UNICEF) in Afghanistan.

Off the top of my head, something like 10-20,000 are killed in the Myanmar conflict in a year, a few thousand a year every single year for decades in the Mexican war on drugs. The US supported war in Yemen has killed over a million with a similar annual death toll to Myanmar.

A failure to tackle air pollution kills 100,000 or more people every year in India. Even here in England there are something like 100-150,000 deaths a year from all causes that could be avoided through public health interventions.

There's wars in Ethiopia and Somalia which, coupled with famines, cause thousands of deaths every year. Half a million children are at risk of death from the latest drought and that's barely even made the inside pages of most newspapers, nearly twice that in Sudan… — Isaac

[2]

As Janne Mende argues...

the Western human rights tradition cannot be equated with the contemporary human rights regime, which differs from its pre-1945 predecessors (Moyn, 2012). It was not the gradual increase of declarations or a smooth combination of natural law and citizenship rights that led to the foundation of the international human rights regime, but rather the international reaction to the genocide and atrocities committed by National Socialist Germany

Interpreting the pre-1945 declarations in their historical contexts reveals that they were not fully embraced by Western societies at the time but were the subject of highly controversial struggles (Bielefeldt, 2007: 182f.).3 What is more, pre-1945 non-Western movements and struggles encompassed similar or even further-reaching ideas that provided a foundation for human rights.

Critical accounts identify a tendency to overemphasize human rights violations in the Global South. This tends to construct a non-Western “other” that needs to be saved by Western states (Chakrabarty, 2008; Kapur, 2006). Thereby, the human rights regime creates a dichotomy between the Western embracement and the non-Western violation of human rights (Mutua, 2008). This dichotomy neglects human rights violations in Western states and disregards the complicity of the latter with the former (Chowdhry, 2005).

Deliberations within UN human rights for a highlight fault lines characterized by regional, substantial, and strategic alliances, not simply Western versus non-Western states. Human rights activists and diplomats from the Global South use the human rights framework to strengthen their demands. In a recent example, a group of non-Western states initiated a working group dedicated to drafting a binding treaty for corporate responsibility for human rights. The group was led by Ecuador and South Africa, and supported by Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Kyrgyzstan, Cuba, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Venezuela, Kenya, Namibia, and Peru, among others, as well as by NGOs from all parts of the world. Although their proposal was opposed by the USA, the United Kingdom, France, Austria, Germany, and the European Union, they were successful in that the UN Human Rights Council founded an intergovernmental working group (Mende, 2017) that published its Zero Draft in 2018. — Janne Mende, Department of International Relations, Institute of Political Science, Justus Liebig University


Ahmed Shaheed gives some historical context...

Fifty-eight countries assembled in 1948 to affirm their “faith in the dignity and worth of all persons” in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, wherein a framework for preserving that dignity and fostering respect for its worth was offered. Among these states were, African, Asian, and Latin American countries. Thirty-seven states were associated with Judeo-Christian traditions; 11 Islamic; six Marxist; and four identified as being associated with Buddhist-Confucian traditions.

...It was Egyptian delegate, Omar Lutfi, who proposed that the UDHR reference the “universality” of human rights

...social and economic rights were placed on the agenda as a result of pushes from the Arab States and the Soviet bloc, respectively.

...the Soviet bloc, which demanded more emphasis on socio‐economic rights than referenced in the document

...the UDHR was formed with major influence from non-Western states, thereby giving it legitimacy as a truly universally-applicable charter to guide humanity’s pursuit of peace and security.

...states like Chile, Jamaica, Argentina, Ghana, the Philippines and others were vanguards for the advancement of concepts such as “protecting,” in addition to “promoting” human rights.

In 1963, for example, fourteen non-Western UN member states requested that the General Assembly include a discussion on the Violation of Human Rights in South Viet-Nam on its agenda, alleging that the Diem regime had been perpetuating violations of rights of Vietnamese Buddhists in the country

in 1967, a cross-regional group of states from Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and the Caribbean secured the adoption of two commission resolutions, establishing the first two Special Procedure mandates: the Ad-Hoc Working Group of Experts on southern Africa and the Special Rapporteur on Apartheid. The special procedures mechanism was thus established. Both resolutions were adopted by a vote, with most Western countries abstaining. — Dr. Ahmed Shaheed - UN Special Rapporteur — Isaac

↪neomac
Don't try to change the subject.

You tried to imply that being "free" to become a political refugee means one is not being forced - a truly vile statement. — Tzeentch

The subject is you not the refugees. "I asked you for clarifications: the idea of being "forced" suggests me the idea that you can not free yourself from something which you find undesirable. So if you live in the West and you do not like it, what is preventing you from leaving it?"
So when you wrote: "Being free to flee from political malpractice somehow means one was never forced to undergo it?", I thought you as an avg Westerner were comparing your fate in the West with the fate of the refugees from non-Western country, which I find laughable.
If you were talking about something else, I couldn't get it from your answers.

Can you clarify how you're measuring "economic, infrastructural, human, political damage”? — Isaac

Well, I’m not measuring anything myself. I rely on public stats one can easily find online from official or credible sources. Surely it’s difficult to assess the overall global impact of a war that is still ongoing, with short and long terms effects, considering also that war can inflict direct damages on any material and social dimension. But also in this case the internet can help: https://news.un.org/pages/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/GCRG_2nd-Brief_Jun8_2022_FINAL.pdf
However the crucial point is not the numbers per se, but the fact that all these damages resulted from the decision of a single individual to start a war in defiance of the American led Western hegemony. And it is precisely the geopolitical significance of this war to the global order that magnifies the importance of any material and human damage caused by this war, especially from the Western prospective. And rightly so.

I'm not talking about astrology, I'm talking about experts in their field. — Isaac

I simply mean that neither position is contradicted by overwhelming evidence to the contrary and each position is supported in the field of qualified experts. Basic minimum standards. I didn't think this would be complicated. — Isaac

I see. And who are the “experts in their field” arguing that “Western countries should ‘mount a multi-billion dollar campaign’ to counter the risk of famine, pollution and diseases around the world without meddling in regional conflicts”?
Who are the “experts in their field” arguing that Ukraine would NOT have a better chance to grow in terms of civil rights within the western sphere of influence (e.g. by joining NATO and EU) than within the Russian sphere of influence?
And by “arguing” I mean employing actual cold-blooded “experts in their field” arguments, not expressing wishes or voicing propaganda slogans.

In technical fields it ought also have support from at least some experts in that field. There's nothing controversial to argue with here. — Isaac

Well, we might still disagree on how to asses experts. And even on how one cites experts.

A fixed pool of evidence can support multiple theories since any given pool of evidence supporting a theory is not exhaustive of all the evidence there is. — Isaac

I don’t really see how this hypothetical scenario helps you here. First of all, you didn’t offer any argument showing that the same fixed pool of evidences can support both the claim that Russia is military performing well and failing to perform well on the battlefield, or both that surrendering to Russia is better for Ukraine than to keep fighting and vice versa, or both that Ukraine wants to keep fighting and it doesn’t. On the contrary, the divergence typically starts with a reference to different set of evidences: e.g. if I talk about the deaths in Ukraine, you talk about the deaths in Yemen; if I talk about the Ukrainian popular support to Zelensky you talk about the philo-Russian views in Crimea and Donbas, if I talk about the improvements of ex-Soviet joining NATO and EU republics in terms of human rights, you talk about some plans to boost human rights in Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Kyrgyzstan, Cuba, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Venezuela, Kenya, Namibia, and Peru. The alternative is often to discredit the evidences with claims like “it’s nothing more than propaganda”, or my capacity of reading the evidence (I’m cherrypicking or my own evidence contradicts my own claims).
Secondly, if our positions were really in the situation you described, there are still rational requirements that could constrain the number of possible theories: 1. Cognitive costs: a cognitively more economic theory is preferable to a more cognitively expensive if the same have equal explanatory power 2. Explanatory/predictive power when widening the range of evidences (in physics a certain set of evidences is good to support both newtonian physics and relativity, but a wider range of evidences supports one and not the other) 3. Congruence with a wider range of other supported theories in related domains.
But we didn’t really go into any such assessments: for example how is your position fitting into a sensible geopolitical theory? Mearsheimer’s views or Isolationist views could be useful to blame the US for this war, smart choice. But are they useful to support your claim that “Western countries should ‘mount a multi-billion dollar campaign’ to counter the risk of famine, pollution and diseases around the world without meddling in regional conflicts”? I deeply doubt that.

You're not discriminating between rational and irrational, for Christ's sake. You're not God. You're discriminating between reasons you prefer and reasons preferred by others. You not agreeing with a set of reasons doesn't render them "irrational", epistemic peers disagree, it's quite normal and doesn't require one party to have lost the power of rational thought. — Isaac

One can still discriminate between rational and irrational without being God (you too try hard to do it [1]). Besides this is necessary if one cares to choose rationally. Disagreements are normal of course but often they are due to the fact that we fail to discriminate rational and irrational convictions: so it’s not always about preferences as you put it, it’s also about intelligibility and compliance to shareable rational standards. Unfortunately we may fail on that more often than what we could hope, because we are cognitively/morally limited creatures and dramatic political events can easily push all of us out of our cognitive/moral comfort zone. Once again: I’m not interested in assessing people here, just in their arguments, and I don’t care if you think otherwise. So feel free to play dumb all you want.

Or...we could read posts like grown ups and assume that not everything has to contain moral condemnation of Russia. — Isaac

If you want to talk about war crimes for the war in Ukraine, there is an entry in wikipedia that summarises the situation better than that single Amnesty article could, that’s all. And if your objective was to provide a source without “a moral condemnation of Russia”, I’m afraid that article isn’t a big help once you read it carefully.

[1]

Yes. There's no need to start over. Your reasoning is flawed for the reasons boethius has already given - You have failed to take any account of the costs. It's insane to propose a course of action based only on the potential benefits without even holding a view on whether they outweigh the potential costs. — Isaac

if our Western purported facts and moral opinions are absolutely "true" (this was the premise of my argument, that we Westerners have the truth) it's still important, even under these conditions of being ultimate arbiters of truth, to understand how other people elsewhere see things, even if it's not true, for the purposes of decision making. — boethius

For example, the West genuinely seemed to believe that the massive sanctions (that US policy-wonks kept calling "the nuclear option" for years) would destroy the Russian economy as the whole world would follow them. It seemed of genuine surprise to the US and European administrations that nearly the entire rest of the world noped out on those sanctions and the Russian economy was not destroyed.
Western politicians and western media then just basically ignored the issue. — boethius

I find your observation pertinent but not enough to support the claim “the central geo-political question of this war is the challenge to Western moral leadership” for 3 reasons:
First of all, notice that this propaganda battle is an asymmetric battle which is essentially fought within the West, because in anti-Western authoritarian regimes, the power of the anti-western propaganda is overwhelming wrt the pro-western propaganda (and add to the level of censorship, also the language barrier), hence the importance of the foreign minorities living in the West to spread pro-Western propaganda in anti-Western authoritarian regimes. Now as long as those minorities are already enough supportive of the Western propaganda, the West doesn’t need to push on the pro-West propaganda harder.
Secondly, one might think that since in the West we live in democracy the West is too vulnerable to anti-Western propaganda by authoritarian regimes. Yet during a war anti-Western propaganda machine is easier to constrain through censorship of foreign infowar channels, disinfestation of foreign agents in politics and media, and/or less resources from the authoritarian regimes to invest in the propaganda machine in the West. Besides the more bluffs of the official anti-Western scaremongering propaganda are called out by the West, the less effective the anti-Western propaganda becomes. Consequently, the battle propaganda becomes a less critical front for Western governments.
Thirdly, and most importantly, talking of moral-leadership and related morally-loaded vocabulary is a way for politicians and media to appeal to the masses, not really to directly address other decision makers, allies or competitors. And since power (not propaganda) is at the core of geopolitical struggles, what really matters is to impact the view of the decision makers, not necessarily the masses’ views. Then the decision makers can tell people whatever they find instrumental in bridging the gap between propaganda and reality, or simply ignore it and rely on people’s forgetfulness.
That’s why even if your observation is pertinent, I wouldn’t overemphasise the role and impact of such propaganda battle. The fact that you do shows more about your personal investment in that battle, then the centrality of the question itself.

↪neomac
The fact that I have lived here all my life and people should not be forced to flee their home as a result of political malpractice? Hello? — Tzeentch

Hello, indeed I never heard people being forced to flee their homes just “as a result of political malpractice”: usually people are forced to flee their homes for reasons like somebody bombed my house, or the government is killing people if they don’t wear headscarf as the morality police requires, or life here is so shitty that I’m ready to cross a sea on an overcrowded and unsafe boat in the middle of the night to god knows where instead of remaining here. So… interesting, I’ll add that one too to my list.
Now that you are forced to flee your home where would you like to go live: Russia, China or Iran? Did you start browsing some brochures?

That's not really clarified matters - something 'causing' Putin doesn't make sense. so I thought you meant that nothing else in that list is causing as much damage as Putin... but then you denied that too. So I'm at a loss. — Isaac

I’ll give it another try then: "no 'local warlords, oppressive police, environmental pollution, poverty' are causing the level of economic, infrastructural, human, political damage that one single subject (namely, Putin) is causing”. Better now?
I denied the substantial equivalence of what I wrote with the ways you rephrased it: "the war in Ukraine is the single highest toll of avoidable deaths and misery in the world right now" or "Putin is the biggest threat to civilisation because I reckon he is”. I challenge you to argue against my actual claims, not against the caricature of my claims.

But such assessments vary - different people reach different conclusions. — Isaac

Sure, there are people believing in astrology or magic, after all. So what? Here, I’m not interested in discussing doxastic surveys, I’m interested in discussing reasons wrt rational standards intelligible to me.

I'm not claiming your position is irrational. You are claiming mine is. You disputed my position, not the other way round. If the best you've got is that your position is plausible, then we have no disagreement. — Isaac

Additionally, I don’t even understand your claim that my position and your position are both plausible. What do you mean by “plausible”? Wrt what? You didn’t provide any sharable method to assess the plausibility of different position in absolute or relative terms. And it’s even hard to guess it from the way you question my claims, because they practically amount to random accusations (like cherry picking, lack of imagination, lack of support from certain sources, confusion, lacking basic concepts, etc.) or strawman arguments or labelling (like adolescent positivism). Besides, why on earth would you still claim that my position is plausible after questioning all the reasons I have to hold my position and without providing better ones?

Well then we probably have very little to talk about. I assume my interlocutors share such concerns. If not, then our differences are probably more to do with irreconcilable differences in values. — Isaac

A part from the fact that one assesses rational expectations even in this case, my question is: would our positions be still both plausible in case of irreconcilable differences in values?

There are no historical periods in which the West didn’t meddle in regional conflicts while at the same time mounting a multi-billion dollar campaign to counter the risk of famine, pollution and diseases around the world — neomac


So because it's never happened before, it can't happen. Well. It's a good job you weren't around in the early twentieth century pointing out that never before had all the nations of the world got together to form a single organisation for co-operation and diplomacy. They'd have shelved the whole project.
Seriously? "If it hasn't happened in the past it can't happen". — Isaac

I addressed the rest of your objection when talking about human creativity in history. — neomac
You really didn't. — Isaac

As a starter, attributing to me the claim “if it hasn't happened in the past it can't happen”, would be like me attributing to you the claim “if it hasn't happened in the past it can happen”, both are strawman arguments. As far as I’m concerned, expectations however rational may turn out to be false, and however irrational (like hopes and wishful thinking) may turn out to be true. Yet the discrimination between rational and irrational expectations remains and is relevant for my decision process.
The other point is that rational expectations based on historical events can still account for human creativity (in history) to some extent, so they do not lead to believe that humans can not be conscious agents of disruptive socio-political changes. Indeed history is rich of cases where disruptive technologies or new socio-political arrangements were consciously implemented, so one should take into account that too to formulate rational expectations. In order to give a rational account for that one should still check/show how past regularities can fit or be exploited to trigger the disruptive change: e.g. to accounting for the end of slavery in the US, one might consider the interplay of economic dynamics, religious beliefs, demographic factors, technological innovations and skilled/ambitious political elites that made this event likely. In a similar vain, we can try to account for the emergence of disruptive historical phenomena in the present or in the future to guide our poltical choices. However you didn’t present any such analysis to support your claim that “Western countries should ‘mount a multi-billion dollar campaign’ to counter the risk of famine, pollution and diseases around the world without meddling in regional conflicts”. So nothing rationally challenging in there.

Being free to flee from political malpractice somehow means one was never forced to undergo it? Interesting logic. — Tzeentch

I asked you for clarifications: the idea of being "forced" suggests me the idea that you can not free yourself from something which you find undesirable. So if you live in the West and you do not like it, what is preventing you from leaving it?

Why forced? Westerners are free to migrate to Russia, China, Iran and live there.

Is Russia bullying Ukraine ... or has NATO been trying to bully Russia these past decades?
Is Ukraine standing up to Russia ... or is Russia standing up to NATO?
Is Russia humiliated because they didn't win in 3 days against a military waging continuous war in Donbas, supplied and trained and advised by NATO with US intelligence? Or is Russia humiliating NATO by taking Crimea and then taking the land bridge to Crimea and surviving sanctions and building an alternative payment system? — boethius

The central geo-political question of this war is the challenge to Western moral leadership. — boethius

the European support for the war in Ukraine is entirely moral condemnation based and in contradiction to any realpolitik view of the situation by most European countries. — boethius

What you are talking about is at best a propaganda battle (which you are deeply engaged in, by the way, given the way you are caricaturing it), not the central geo-political question. Propaganda is just one tool of the geopolitical game, with costs, limits and unintended consequences.
Besides the propaganda battle is essentially played in the West because in authoritarian regimes there is less tolerance for views conflicting with the government propaganda (so it's another form of asymmetric war since foreign and hostile powers can more easily infiltrate the Western "market" of ideas).
If you are a Westerner, it's a bit puzzling to see you spit on the dish where you are eating from. But, a part from that, do as you like of course.

Better...? — Isaac

Better but not fair. That's better and more fair:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_crimes_in_the_2022_Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine

[There are] no 'local warlords, oppressive police, environmental pollution, poverty' causing the level of economic, infrastructural, human, political damage that is causing one single subject, Putin" — neomac
...doesn't make grammatical sense. I've had to do some charitable reading. Why don't you try again to formulate what you're saying. — Isaac

Unfortunately there was a typo: "no 'local warlords, oppressive police, environmental pollution, poverty' are causing the level of economic, infrastructural, human, political damage that is causing one single subject, Putin”.

The latter doesn't follow from the former. First you talk about the rational constraint on formulating what one ought to do (that it must fall within the bounds of what one can do), then you proceed to talk about likelihoods. Neither Kant, nor any rational argument prescribes that what one ought to do is connected to what is likely to succeed. — Isaac

Fair observations, hence my warning (“Aside from how one wants to analyse it”). First of all, the reference to Kant was just introductory, not a commitment to Kant’s views. Secondly, and most importantly, my claim is that rational “oughts” (as in “X ought to do Y”) should be constrained by what one “can”, to the best of our knowledge of course. To say the least: “can” must be identified/assessed in broadly logical terms. One can not smell a number, or read and not read a book. How about physics? Is it rational to prescribe someone to go faster than the speed of light? No, because he can’t according to laws of physics. How about chemistry or biology? Again I find prescriptions grounded on expectations that violate laws of chemistry or biology irrational. Should we stop here? I don't see why. Indeed there are salient empirical regularities also in human & social sciences: psychology, sociology, economy, anthropology, history and geopolitics, according to which we can assess what individuals, collectives, States can do. So by “likelihood” I was referring to such assessments. Examples of these are Mearsheimer’s geopolitical claims: “the structure of the international system forces countries concerned about their security to compete with each other for power.” or “the most powerful states seek to establish hegemony in their region of the world, while making sure that no rival great power dominates another region” . Now I don’t know if they are true (maybe even the laws of physics we believe to have identified will be proved wrong one day, how the hell would I know?) but I take such geopolitical claims seriously, and not because Mearshaimer said it, but because history as far as I know supports it enough and Mearshaimer’s theory turned out to have some predictive power too. Now how about the claim “Western countries can ‘mount a multi-billion dollar campaign’ to counter the risk of famine, pollution and diseases around the world without meddling in regional conflicts”, what are the historical evidences or geopolitical actual dynamics that would support it? I really see none, and for sure none that would seriously challenge Mearshaimer’s (or American isolationists’, for that matter!) claims.

So if I consider supplying arms to Ukraine is very unlikely to yield any humanitarian improvement, then we ought not do it? — Isaac

For a starter, in your prescription you are talking about what “we ought”, so if you are including me in that “we ought” then no, of course, because I’m not concerned with “humanitarian improvement” in such generic terms.

my answers would be “unlikely” for all — neomac
Except that...
that may depend on the issue — neomac — Isaac

Fair observation, hence my warning (“But here some additional clarifications” in between the 2 previous claims of mine). The second claim was not meant to disclaim but to restrain the scope of the first claim: there are interested immigrant minorities living in Western countries that welcome Western meddling in their original country’s affairs e.g. to support Ukrainians and Iranian protesters and I offered some pertinent evidence for this.
What is also interesting to me in those cases is that they do it in the direction that I would welcome of course, which unfortunately is not always the case: e.g. Trita Parsi and Farnaz Fassihi are widely suspected by Iranian protesters to be covert pro-Iranian regime lobbyists in the US.

Seriously? "If it hasn't happened in the past it can't happen". — Isaac

That’s a caricature of my view. Besides I previously warned you that I’m taking into account the limits of historical evidence [1]. My point concerns a non-negligible rational constraint for cognitively fallible and historical creatures as human beings are. In general, when/if things do not go as expected we could find a better theory to guide our expectations, instead of getting rid of any theory. Concerning the power of human creativity in history (as undeniably expressed in the technological progress and in the evolution of social institutions), I limit myself to observe that rational expectations can rely on human creativity only to the extent that its activity falls within the known regularities. How so? As planned technological progress is grounded on original/smarter ways to exploit natural laws by people who have the means, see how, and want to do this, so planned socio-political progress is grounded on original/smarter ways to exploit human and social regularities (often in addition to technological progress) by people who have the means, see how, and want to do this. And I’m afraid that nobody here can be qualified as such.

This just confuses 'ought' with 'is'. You're describing the way the world is, not the way it ought to be. Following your principles no progress would ever be made — Isaac

There is no such a confusion at all. Here is why: from the single premise “X should do Y” we can not logically conclude that “X can do Y”, nor we can logically conclude that “X should NOT do Y” from the single premise “X can NOT do Y”. Failing to acknowledge this amounts to a categorial confusion between 'ought' and ‘is’.
However from the 2 premises “if X should do Y then X can do Y” (which is not an empirical claim but a rational requirement) and “X can NOT do Y”, then we can logically conclude that “X should NOT do Y”. Failing to acknowledge this amounts to poor logical skills. So it's not advisable for you to insist on this.
I addressed the rest of your objection when talking about human creativity in history.

[1]

broad geopolitical considerations and historical evidences (which, notice, change over time: before the nuclear bombing of Japan there was no previous case to compare to) would offer clearer and affordable guidance under uncertainty, in addition to experts feedback and daily news of course. — neomac

Then I return to being completely at a loss as to your argument. It seems to be little more than "Putin is the biggest threat to civilisation because I reckon he is" — Isaac

Oh, you see “Putin is the biggest threat to civilisation because I reckon he is” as equivalent to "no 'local warlords, oppressive police, environmental pollution, poverty' causing the level of economic, infrastructural, human, political damage that is causing one single subject, Putin"?! Coz I don’t: in my claim I didn't talk about "biggest threat to civilisation". So far just more strawman arguments.

they seem completely unrelated to the point at hand. I'm disputing your claim the the Western world ought to help Ukraine best Russia by military force. — Isaac

Do you know the famous Kantian claim that “ought implies can”? Aside from how one wants to analyse it, my conviction is that a rational “ought” (as in “X ought to do Y”) must fall within what a subject “can”. Therefore rational expectations about what individuals, collectives and states likely can do are key to formulate rational oughts. In other words, I take “ought”-claims grounded on very “unlikely” expectations about individuals, collectives and states to be implausible and irrational. BTW I already made similar claims.
Now concerning the questions I addressed to you: my answers would be “unlikely” for all except the last one which is also crucial because if all authoritarian regimes would more likely resort to supplying weapons than using sanctions/diplomacy or in addition to using sanctions/diplomacy, and sanctions/diplomacy don’t turn to be effective as supplying weapons, then it could be very damn handicapping to just keep using sanctions/diplomacy against authoritarian regimes. But here some additional clarifications:

How likely is that Western citizens members of ethnic minorities (say Ukrainians, Iranians, Taiwanese) will see regional conflicts (like the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Iranian revolts against the Iranian regime, the China's claims over Taiwan) as something the Western governments shouldn’t meddle in? — neomac

Moderately likely. — Isaac

Well that may depend on the issue, I can grant you that much. But knowing the example of the American Jewish community lobbying for the American support to Israel, it’s hardly surprising to find grass-root, high profile or even institutional lobbying activities from other minorities, including Ukrainians (https://www.theamericanconservative.com/congress-and-ukraines-relentless-lobbyists/) and even Russian activists (see the anti-Putinist Garry Kasparov). Among the Iranians one can find many popular anti-regime Iranian expat activists: Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Hamed Esmaeilion, Masih Alinejad, Nazanin Boniadi. Here an example of how pro-Ukrainian and pro-Iranians protests united recently in London : https://globalnews.ca/news/9201763/london-ont-ukraine-war-support-rally/

How likely is that Western military and/or geopolitical experts (like Mearsheimer or Kissinger) will see regional conflicts as something the Western governments shouldn’t meddle in, especially when allies, strategic partners and Great Powers hostile to the West are involved? — neomac

Moderately likely, there's a range of opinion from isolationists to full on hawks. — Isaac

That’s unlikely even for isolationist (“Isolationism is a political philosophy advocating a national foreign policy that opposes involvement in the political affairs, and especially the wars, of other countries. Thus, isolationism fundamentally advocates neutrality and opposes entanglement in military alliances and mutual defense pacts. In its purest form, isolationism opposes all commitments to foreign countries including treaties and trade agreements” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isolationism) if the American National interest is at stake (e.g. America was isolationist until it joined WW2). And here is the explanation Mearsheimer could offer [1].
At best you could say that Russia is not perceived as a serious threat to the American national interest by some American military and/or geopolitical experts. But evidently they aren’t very influential since American anti-Russian stance persisted under different American administrations (even despite Trump).

How likely is that historians would find historically plausible to expect that Western countries “mount a multi-billion dollar campaign” to counter the risk of famine, pollution and diseases around the world without meddling in regional conflicts? — neomac

Pretty likely. — Isaac

There are no historical periods in which the West didn’t meddle in regional conflicts while at the same time mounting a multi-billion dollar campaign to counter the risk of famine, pollution and diseases around the world (here a little reminder from the history of the US https://military-history.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_proxy_wars). Not to mention the well known failures of foreign aid campaigns from the West. Or the failures of anti-Western forces (Islamic revolution and Communist revolution) to implement a better alternative to the Western social model, especially wrt implementation of human rights.
But you are absolutely free to imagine otherwise, of course.

Of course, I could continue: how likely that the Western Europeans will support American isolationism and say farewell to American military protection? How likely is that Westerners complying to Russian demands will not bolster other authoritarian regimes’ regional ambitions? How likely is that authoritarian regimes antagonising the West will not take a useful lesson if Russian nuclear threats scared the West away? And I didn’t even need to talk about the military-industrial complex or the big finance or the big tech yet.

In conclusion, as long as your “oughts” are grounded on unlikely expectations about how individuals, collectives and states behave, your “oughts” are irrational. And since a world where Western countries “mount a multi-billion dollar campaign” to counter the risk of famine, pollution and diseases around the world without meddling in regional conflicts, is grounded more on your wild imagination than on what one can see as likely from history or geopolitics, then neither your expectation nor your prescription is plausible. Period.

[1] My own realist theory of international relations says that the structure of the international system forces countries concerned about their security to compete with each other for power. The ultimate goal of every major state is to maximize its share of world power and eventually dominate the system. In practical terms, this means that the most powerful states seek to establish hegemony in their region of the world, while making sure that no rival great power dominates another region.
To be more specific, the international system has three defining characteristics. First, the main actors are states that operate in anarchy, which simply means that there is no higher authority above them. Second, all great powers have some offensive military capability, which means they have the wherewithal to hurt each other. Third, no state can know the intentions of other states with certainty, especially their future intentions. It is simply impossible, for example, to know what Germany’s or Japan’s intentions will be toward their neighbors in 2025.
In a world where other states might have malign intentions as well as significant offensive capabilities, states tend to fear each other. That fear is compounded by the fact that in an anarchic system there is no night watchman for states to call if trouble comes knocking at their door. Therefore, states recognize that the best way to survive in such a system is to be as powerful as possible relative to potential rivals. The mightier a state is, the less likely it is that another state will attack it. No Americans, for example, worry that Canada or Mexico will attack the United States, because neither of those countries is strong enough to contemplate a fight with Uncle Sam.

https://nationalinterest.org/article/say-goodbye-taiwan-9931

I’m not convinced that “the war in Ukraine is the single highest toll of avoidable deaths and misery in the world right now”. — neomac


There are no "local warlords, oppressive police, environmental pollution, poverty" causing the level of economic, infrastructural, human, political damage that is causing one single subject, Putin. — neomac — Isaac

Oh, you see “the war in Ukraine is the single highest toll of avoidable deaths and misery in the world right now” is the same as "no 'local warlords, oppressive police, environmental pollution, poverty' causing the level of economic, infrastructural, human, political damage that is causing one single subject, Putin"?! I don't: in my claim I didn't just talk about deaths and misery, and "single" wasn't qualifying the "costs".

Roughly, yes. Where by 'meddle' you mean 'supply arms to'. — Isaac

Now:
How likely is that Western citizens members of ethnic minorities (say Ukrainians, Iranians, Taiwanese) will see regional conflicts (like the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Iranian revolts against the Iranian regime, the China's claims over Taiwan) as something the Western governments shouldn’t meddle in?
How likely is that Western commodity traders and industry who partnered with some state muddled in some regional conflict, will see regional conflicts as something the Western governments shouldn’t meddle in?
How likely is that the piece of Western economy relying on Western commodity trades and industry will see regional conflicts as something the Western governments shouldn’t meddle in?
How likely is that Western political representatives and media industry who feed on ideological, religious and national differences and global threats or opportunities will see regional conflicts as something the Western governments shouldn’t meddle in?
How likely is that Western military and/or geopolitical experts (like Mearsheimer or Kissinger) will see regional conflicts as something the Western governments shouldn’t meddle in, especially when allies, strategic partners and Great Powers hostile to the West are involved?
How likely is that historians would find historically plausible to expect that Western countries “mount a multi-billion dollar campaign” to counter the risk of famine, pollution and diseases around the world without meddling in regional conflicts?
How likely is that for any of the above subjects “meddling in regional conflicts” equates to everything except 'supply arms to’?
How likely is that for authoritarian regimes (like Russia, Iran and China) their “meddling in regional conflicts” equates to everything except 'supply arms to’?

If you're seriously convinced that the war in Ukraine is the single highest toll of avoidable deaths and misery in the world right now — Isaac

I’m not convinced that “the war in Ukraine is the single highest toll of avoidable deaths and misery in the world right now”. But if your imagination tells you otherwise, what can we do about it? Right?

A few million are currently at severe risk of starvation (according to UNICEF) in Afghanistan.

Off the top of my head, something like 10-20,000 are killed in the Myanmar conflict in a year, a few thousand a year every single year for decades in the Mexican war on drugs. The US supported war in Yemen has killed over a million with a similar annual death toll to Myanmar.

A failure to tackle air pollution kills 100,000 or more people every year in India. Even here in England there are something like 100-150,000 deaths a year from all causes that could be avoided through public health interventions.

There's wars in Ethiopia and Somalia which, coupled with famines, cause thousands of deaths every year. Half a million children are at risk of death from the latest drought and that's barely even made the inside pages of most newspapers, nearly twice that in Sudan… — Isaac

is your conviction that we, the West, should “mount a multi-billion dollar campaign” to counter the risk of famine, pollution and diseases around the world while avoiding to meddle in regional conflicts around the world like in Yemen and Ukraine? Is that it?

Lots of global events cause that level of damage - from local warlords, oppressive police, environmental pollution, poverty... Do we mount a multi-billion dollar campaign against each? No. — Isaac

There are no "local warlords, oppressive police, environmental pollution, poverty" causing the level of economic, infrastructural, human, political damage that is causing one single subject, Putin.

We make judgments based on the details of the circumstances we find ourselves in rather than sweeping generalisations based on very tangentially related situations in the past. — Isaac

Who is "We" ? Who are those who make "sweeping generalisations based on very tangentially related situations in the past." ? Why "sweeping"? Why "very tangentially"?
Or you simply mean that one doesn't need history when imagination is enough?

If Russia are useless at invading places they cannot at the same time be a serious threat to any great number of such places. One cannot be both a global threat, and impotent. With what power would such a threat be realised? — Isaac

That's a crappy (N.B. not ridiculous just crappy) argument.

• Russia is failing this war but it was able to cause lots of damage at different levels to Ukraine and the West. So the possibility that Russia is in no condition to win the war, doesn’t imply that Russia can still cause lots of damage (economic, infrastructural, human, political).
• Lots of people prefer evidence over imagination (not your case of course): now we have evidence of Russians’ failures.

There is a peace agreement between Egypt and Israel, there again an example from history how these can end. — Isaac

Sure, Russia could withdraw from Crimea and Donbas as much as Isreal withdrew from the Sinai peninsula this could be a step toward peace.

:up:

'Russia is evil and must be stopped at all costs' and 'Russia is useless'. Putting aside for now the fact that these two narratives aren't even coherent (who cares about that anymore) — Isaac

Show the incoherence.

The world changes and we're living the consequences of a failure to realise that. — Isaac

At any point of history one can claim that bot that the world is changing and that we are living the consequences of a failure to realise that for anybody by anybody. You included. Now what?

Justin Bronk (Senior Research Fellow for Combat Airpower and Technology at RUSI) on Russian nuclear threats:

Exactly!

The question is how much truly does the Russian accept the inconveniences of the war for the imperial gain of Novorossiya? How much do they support the war? The Crimean annexation did genuinely excite Russians. It was bloodless and there was support for it in the Crimean population (if not a majority, but anyway). The annexation of these new territories was a Stalinist theatre, especially when Putin is losing ground in them. — ssu

Indeed, a wide Russian support to Putin’s expansionism is likely to be conditional on mass mobilisation (especially of ethnic Russians), otherwise why would Putin be so late and cautious to call for a wider military mobilisation?
Yet I guess that the insurgence of the military to be more decisive for Putin’s destitution and the push for more liberal political reforms than the Russian population insurgence per se. That is why military humiliation on the battlefield (including the killing of generals) combined with Putin’s disposition to put all the blame on and replace military leaders for military failures, is the right recipe for military defection or conspiracy from the military subordinates and high ranks.

I am still curious if you're willing to follow through, or prefer to hang onto a double standard — Tzeentch

This looks to me as a false alternative, let me explain.

I cumulated the reasons why the West must intervene in this war against Russia. However the appeal of those reasons is grounded on two implicit assumptions: 1. The standard of life the avg person can experience in the West in terms wealth and rights is perceived as evidently preferable than the standard of life the avg person can experience in societies in the opposite ideological spectrum (e.g. authoritarian regimes like Russia, China and Iran) 2. Struggles between political powers for hegemony is practically a historical constant for whatever reason, and states must deal with it: so either be a hegemonic power (with all the privileges and burdens, merits and abuses [1] that can go with it), or within its sphere of influence (e.g through alliance), or challenge one, or remain neutral if affordable. Individuals who have no fucking clue about how to fix the world (who has?), will pick their side according to their preferences/convictions, bitch about it and good luck with that.

The first assumption explains why there is a double standard, I’m picking a side wrt a standard of life that I wish to be preserved as much as possible (if not improvable) for me and likeminded peers within my reach, at minimum. Double standards is inevitable when standards are clashing: so e.g. I won’t treat a democratic regime nuclear bombing a fascist regime in the same way I would treat a fascist regime nuclear bombing a democratic regime. That’s the predicament we have to deal with. The second assumption explains why I expect states to struggle against perceived hostile/alien/exploitative competitors (including the hegemonic power I happen to be siding with), and I expect people (me included) to at best exercise empathy, political restraint and self-criticism whenever affordable (which by the way is an option likely best supported by Western democratic institutions like the ones where I live than in authoritarian regimes) in line with the side they have picked. That far I’m willing to follow through.
Do you see any striking and unrecoverable incompatibilities between these two intellectual dispositions? I don’t.

[1] you can replace “abuses” with “shocking injustice”, “horrible crimes”, “callous hubris”, “inhuman barbaries”, “satanistic atrocities” and the like.

Putin is a problem for the West beyond this war and the criminal annexations of Ukrainian territories. The authoritarian turn of his regime to grant concentration of power in his hands, the Russian growing military presence in the Mediterranean area (also through the Black Sea), in the Middle East, in North Africa, in the Baltic sea (encircling Europe), Russian attempts to corrupt the democratic life in Western countries (from state cyberwar to financing western politicians), Russian attempts to economically blackmail the West by compromising the trade of critical commodities (e.g. gas and wheat), Putin's nuclear threats, Putin's declared goal to challenge Western hegemony and his attempts to build an alliance with other countries to antagonise the West perceived as weak, all these facts justify the Western intervention in Ukraine.

I don't see any justification for the cartoonish super villain role the Russians been assigned in western narratives. — Tzeentch

Agreed. "Super" is too much.

I've chosen to believe because it seems plausible — Isaac

Or it seems plausible because you have chosen to believe it?

In your case your assumption was wrong because it was contradicted by those with expertise on the matter (not to mention your own data). That is was Western propaganda was proffered as an explanation for your fault, not evidence of it. — Isaac

In the sense that you have evidences of such contradiction, or it's just your functional imagination at work as usual?

Isaac:

Yet the argument is frequently given here that "that's straight from Russian propaganda" as if that fact had some bearing on the likely veracity of the point being made. You'll agree, then, it has none whatsoever. — Isaac

Also Isaac:

Your notion that human rights are associated with the Western Sphere of influence is nothing but Western propaganda. — Isaac

I'm not in favor of capitulating to bullies. I'm not in favor of appeasement. I am in favor of diplomacy and compromise. — Xtrix

Ukrainian neutrality and recognition of the Donbas/Crimea annexations by Ukraine in exchange for peace is a good compromise to you?

As such, the fact that Putin repeats it has no bearing whatsoever on it likely veracity. — Isaac

And what would have bearing whatsoever on its likely veracity?

If you can't understand the concept of underdetermination — Isaac

evidence of that?

Liars lie because they want a particular narrative to be taken as true. Any bits of that narrative that happen to actually be true are going to be reported truthfully. I mean, this is obvious stuff. — Isaac

Not in your world though, coz there is no evidence to support such a claim "Any bits of that narrative that happen to actually be true are going to be reported truthfully" in case of conflicting narratives.

So if one can't rely on evidence to discriminate between conflicting theories, then how to discriminate when imagination is too much or too little? wrt what?
You still didn't get anywhere with your senile anti-positivsm though.

For those who are interested, there are these lectures given by Timothy Snyder (a historian specializing in the modern history of Central and Eastern Europe) under the title "The Making of Modern Ukraine" and published in Sep 2022, which I find extremely interesting and well presented:

Worse then this. Since Isaac claims: "Let's say there are two conflicting narratives on a subject theory A and theory B, but they are underdetermined by the evidence such that it cannot be said which is the case. My position is A and yours if B. You have claimed that my A is mistaken, you propose the alternative B. I'm not claiming your B is mistaken. I'm only countering your claim that my A is mistaken. That's not the same. I'm upholding the position that A and B are underdetermined, against the position that B is correct and A mistaken."
So if one can't rely on evidence to discriminate between conflicting theories, then how to discriminate when imagination is too much or too little? wrt what?

Putin is doing his best to fail this war. I'm worried more about the resilience of the West, and in particular about the political instability of the Americans.