on the Russian foreign currency stash: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-06-01/russia-s-rupee-trap-is-adding-to-147-billion-hoard-stuck-abroad#xj4y7vzkg

If you accuse others

you think you know Putin's motivations — Jack Rogozhin

and then claim

I wouldn't presume to know his actual motivations. I don't know him and I'm not a psychologist. — Jack Rogozhin

why are you so confidently expressing the following?

This isn't an issue of imperialism at this point. It is a security and territorial dispute. You can argue its a wrong one on Russia's part, but this isn't--at least not yet--an act of imperialism. — Jack Rogozhin

I would say every leader's--including Biden's, Zelensky's, Macron's, and Xi's--are primarily selfish and self-centered. I do, however, think sometimes a leader's self-interest can alighn with his country's. I don't think Putin was primarily acting out of his country's interests, but Ukraine and NATO created a legitmate threat against his country and himself when Ukraine refused to remain neutral and NATO refused to not put missiles in Ukraine. — Jack Rogozhin

OK let's not talk about Putin's, Biden's, Zelensky's, Macron's, and Xi's motivations, or simply assume they are selfish and self-centered. Let's talk about "legitimate threat against the country and himself", what makes a threat perception (NOT based on leaders' actual motivations because we do not know that other than assuming they are selfish) but on potential and precedent (like placing NATO missiles on the border between Ukraine and Russia that could kill Russian people and trigger a regime change in Russia) "legitimate"? And what would need to happen for you to believe that is an act of imperialism yet?

OK. Have they and the claims against them be resolved? Judging by the discourse around the topic, and the changing support for US funding of the war. I imagine they haven't. — Jack Rogozhin

It depends on what you take to be a resolution of such claims. For sure there is enough disagreement.

What is the rule here? Are positions only allowed to be said once? — Jack Rogozhin

The rule here is that positions ought to be repeated many more times than God can count.

Newcomer here, so tell me if I'm repeating. — Jack Rogozhin

Yes, you are repeating claims that have been repeated already many many times in this thread.

If we cannot discuss moral claims, then what is left to us - we just fight it out? — Isaac

Precisely. Moral conflicts can as well lead to war.

If another country comes and steals it using military force, they are not entitled to use the same lethal force to retrieve it just because it's rightfully theirs. — Isaac

Yes they are. That's the whole point of "sovereignty". The state has the legitimate monopoly of force within a territory. And that's a moral point too.

Russia meddling in Africa for Macron's joy:
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/regional-global-powers-decry-nigers-coup-countrys-future-101846403

"Just give them your handbag, it's not worth your life" well it depends on what is in the handbag.
Besides, as Holy Guru Mearsheimer spoke, in the international arena anarchy reigns: “It simply means that there is no centralized authority, no night watchman or ultimate arbiter, that stands above states and protects them.” So states have to protect themselves against bullies.

I doubt that negotiations will lead to conflict resolution IF Russian annexations won't be acknowledged by Ukraine and the West. And I find this acknowledgment politically suicidal for Ukraine and the world order promoted by the West.

What do you think you've provided evidence for? That Russia might not overthrow tyranny in eight years? Sure. But that's not the claim, the claim was that it will not. Or your later claim that it is more likely to not. Nothing you've provided has any probability assigned to it. It all simply might be the case. — Isaac


If past facts are irrelevant for probabilities, then anything really might come up. Why should we avoid war then? Past wars cannot inform us if there will be victims, simply that it might be the case. That is your reasoning, right?

Facts underdetermine theories. If you're having trouble with the notion, I'm sure I can dig out a Wikipedia article for your edification. — Isaac


But you do not have facts. If all the evidence I have provided is just 'some other people think otherwise', as you say, then your evidence is also just 'some other people think otherwise', which, as you say, cannot support or counter any claim. So neither theory has sufficient support, we have no reason to believe any of them is true. — Jabberwock

You must have realized by now how full of sophistry, incoherence and self-defeating conclusions his arguments are. Many of the points you have raised are similar to the ones me and others have raised against his arguments. The problem is however deeper because it is rooted into the meaning of words and in concepts (like argument, bias, likelihood), he thinks he scores points by messing with words and concepts until he simply becomes unintelligible. That's why I have no pity for him.

The usual intellectually miserable tactic of framing opponents’ views. Apparently, on matter of facts we can’t prove anything, if we happen to believe anything is because of Western propaganda, what they believe is clearly not propaganda though (even if, on the other side, all narratives are claimed to be all plausible interpretations), on matter of moral we are either coward or cynical (is that yet another interpretation? or The Facts™?). — neomac


What does your comment have to do with my comment?

Are you disputing the fact that other Western countries, and also all the other countries, have not sent their soldiers into Ukraine?

Or are you arguing sending arms to Ukraine is brave? That's what a "brave" country would do, send arms instead of their own soldiers.

Feel free to have at it: You / the Western legacy media / NATO says Ukrainian sovereignty is a moral imperative to uphold ... just not without sending themselves or their own soldiers. If Ukrainian sovereignty is so important, why is it not worth risking our own soldiers lives to see it preserved? — boethius

The usual intellectually miserable tactic of framing opponents’ views. — neomac

Ok, well, un-frame it for me.

In what moral theory is there a cause not worth risking much of anything yourself but is like "totally so important"? Worth sending arms ... but not too many arms!!! — boethius

As far as I’m concerned, you (and others) keep arguing based on background assumptions (on morality, propaganda, geopolitics, etc.) that I do not share at all, and keep challenging me based on your background assumptions, even after I explicitly questioned them. One of MY assumptions is that in an anarchic environment constituted by many nation states, there are 2 constitutive shared rules: pursue national interest, do not aggress acknowledged sovereign states first. The first is a domestic politics engagement between governments and its citizens. The second is a foreign politics engagement between states. There is absolutely nothing intrinsically immoral, coward or cynical in the Western decision to send weapons and not soldiers in Ukraine IF this serves Western national interests, and even if this is NOT in Ukraine’s best national interest, because Ukrainian sovereignty is a moral imperative AT BEST of the Ukrainian government. So no, I do not believe at all that Ukraine is "totally so important” or “Ukrainian sovereignty is a moral imperative to uphold” as if this is Western top priority, Ukraine is instrumental to the Western national interest (the European security, as Zelensky puts it) as much as the West is instrumental to the Ukrainian national interest (Zelensky’s moral imperative is Ukraine’s national interest, not European national interests). But the Western support doesn’t need to end up being some sort of cynical exploitation (as the “Ukrainians as cannon fodder” accusation suggests), even in case of significant power or costs imbalance, because again harnessing foreign consensus, allies and partners can also be part of power struggle strategies.

Now, seen as everyone agrees Ukraine is not worth spilling their own countries blood to defend (at least anyone who actually affects policy), the key question is whether the policy of sending arms instead is a morally justifiable in lieux of our cowardice or then a smart geopolitical move to cynically use Ukrainians to harm Russia, and if the whole of Ukraine needs to be sacrificed to do so that's just "gainz" on the geopolitical chess board. — boethius

The usual intellectually miserable tactic of framing opponents’ views. Apparently, on matter of facts we can’t prove anything, if we happen to believe anything is because of Western propaganda, what they believe is clearly not propaganda though (even if, on the other side, all narratives are claimed to be all plausible interpretations), on matter of moral we are either coward or cynical (is that yet another interpretation? or The Facts™?).

you have argued for an alternative between 'peaceful protests and military invasion', but that alternative is false and ahistorical — Jabberwock

That alternative sounds foolish after so candidly claiming:

Of course it is. Sachs's question isn't 'what caused the revolution in Ukraine', it's 'what caused Russia to invade Ukraine'. His answer to that is the threat of foreign interference in Ukraine, his evidence is the foreign interference in the revolution. To demonstrate that point he need only show that there was indeed foreign interference in the revolution. He does not have to show what proportion of the revolution's cause it was because his argument isn't that "Russia were provoked by over 56.98% foreign interference". It is that Russia were provoked by foreign interference. Any value above zero demonstrates that possibility. — Isaac

ANY government (ESPECIALLY AS AUTHORITARIAN AS RUSSIA !) can VERY EASILY claim foreign interference for any fucking peaceful protest (see the protests in Iran for more than 20 years).

Depends on the framing. As I said above...

Easy. The 'desired effects' are freedom for Ukrainians with fewer than a hundred thousand dead. Your proposal has zero chance of achieving that, so mine only has to have greater than zero. Are you arguing that mine also has zero, that Russia cannot shake off tyranny? — Isaac


...if you want to put it in terms of likelihood. — Isaac

Dude, focus. The point is not if I want to put it in terms of likelihood. But that you wanted to put it as well (framing or not framing). So if you talk about "more likely" events, others can do the same and challenge you accordingly. Framing interlocutors' views as a matter of possibility or impossibility constitutes a strawman argument. Repeatedly soliciting interlocutors to frame their arguments as a matter of taking position for or against possibilities is intellectually cringe.

Sure, if your sole concern is the ability of Ukrainians to vote in an unimpeded election then maybe there'd be an argument about probability, but why the hell would anyone sane have that as their only goal. — Isaac

If your sole concern is "freedom for Ukrainians with fewer than a hundred thousand dead", then maybe there'd be an argument about probability, but why the hell would anyone sane have that as their only goal?!

We're comparing two options here, It's no good just dismissing one because it's unlikely. What matters is whether it's more likely than the other. — Isaac

For both sides the burden of proof is exactly the same – to show that the expected results of the proposed course of action are more likely than not. Without that it does not matter at all whether the solution would be preferred by both sides, because if it is not likely to happen, it makes no difference. — Jabberwock

It's not about possibility and necessity. It's about "more likely".

↪Tzeentch
You can be sure of whatever you want, still Bennett did not say what Sachs attributed to him. — Jabberwock

And assuming that Bennett's account is reliable: https://theintercept.com/2022/03/23/ukraine-russia-peace-negotiations-israel/ (BTW one key issue in the negotiation was REGIME CHANGE IN KYIV)

Juicy fruits of the no-limits alliance between the peaceful China and Russia against the greedy Nazi pro-LGBT Neocapitalist imperial vampires which holy Putin is so powerfully leading (with Mearsheimer's blessing): https://www.eurasiantimes.com/fact-check-has-china-really-claimed-russian-port-city-of-vladivostok/

https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1680499284611932160

"Gerasimov and Shoigu should be held responsible for the genocide of the Russian people, the murder of tens of thousands of Russian citizens and surrender of Russian territories to the enemy. And this was intentional, just like the murder of Russian citizens and genocide."
(from the neo-nazi Utkin with exquisite ironic feinting love)

• However, being innate to our universe does not necessarily imply any innate, imperative bindingness - what we ought to do regardless of our needs and preferences. — Mark S

Saying that moral norms are innate "to our universe" (what do you mean by "our universe"? "universe" in the sense of "all existing matter and space considered as a whole; the cosmos." or "universe" in the sense of our species?) in some sense, but not innate in some other sense is not clear unless you clarify the senses in which something is innate as opposed to not innate. Is mathematics innately binding? Do we ought to abide by mathematics rules regardless of our needs and preferences?

People can use this knowledge to resolve disputes about refining their morality to meet their needs and preferences better. — Mark S

How? Show me how being aware that moral norms are just heuristics to solve cooperation problems and that those norms that are cross-cultural and cross-species are the ones which do not exploit others can help understand if the capitalist appropriation of the surplus value of wage labour is moral or immoral, or a solution to the cooperation/exploitation problem or not? Or how can this awareness help us understand if the policies of all main involved parties in the war in Ukraine is moral or immoral, a solution or not to cooperation/exploitation dilemmas?
If you can't bring anything NEW on the table and you just keep repeating things that liberal Westerners already accept (e.g. that slavery is bad and sexism is bad from cross-cultural non-exploitative moral rules), where is the help?

And you are better than Naftali Bennett because? — neomac


I'm not claiming either he or you are factually wrong though, am I?

I'm taking issue with ssu's response which frames his opinion as being what "really" happened, and what "in fact..." is the case.

Jeffrey Sachs is neither an idiot, nor a liar, so clearly there is room for more than one legitimate interpretation of the facts. — Isaac

No no, I'm claiming that I am RIGHT and you are WRONG AND DISHONEST. I don't need to believe that Jeffrey Sucks is an idiot or a liar, I'm claiming that what Naftali Bennett ACTUALLY said in the interview IS NOT TALKING ABOUT "Then, one day, the Ukrainians [stopped the negotiations]." as SSU was objecting to but about his mediation being stopped.

I'm quite happy to accept more than one legitimate interpretation — Isaac

And I'm happy to call your interpretation WRONG AND DISHONEST whenever I believe it's the case.

Interviewer: "So they blocked it?"

Naftali Bennett: "Basically, yes. They blocked it and I thought they're wrong. In retrospect it's too soon to know.

[Naftali Bennett lists a number of disadvantages of continuing the war, and then continues...]

On the other hand, and I'm not being cynical, there's a statement here, after very many years. President Biden created an alliance vis-à-vis an aggressor in the general perception and this reflects on other arenas, such as China and Taiwan and there are consequences."

Are you playing dumb? You reported the claim "Then, one day, the Ukrainians [stopped the negotiations]." which then cited Naftali Bennett in support of it which is what SSU was questioning with his comment. I gave you the link to the youtube video (here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qK9tLDeWBzs&t=10774s). Listen to the interview, Naftali Bennett IS NOT TALKING ABOUT "Then, one day, the Ukrainians [stopped the negotiations]." but about his mediation being stopped (quite interesting what he also says later). Focus on what I'm actually objecting to you not on what you wish I objected to you.

And you know better than Jeffrey Sachs because...? — Isaac

And you know better than Naftali Bennett because...?

And you know better than Jeffrey Sachs because...? — Isaac

To say the least, because anybody can listen to what Naftali Bennett ACTUALLY said: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qK9tLDeWBzs&t=10774s

Nafatali Bennett's claim is not about why "Then, one day, the Ukrainians [stopped the negotiations]."
but about why his mediation at the beginning of the war was stopped.

You know what a caricature is, right? It doesn't just mean 'got wrong'. — Isaac

I have no idea why you call it a caricature then. In what way what I wrote distorts your claims? When I'm accusing you and others to make a caricature of my views I'm referring to what you got wrong about my views and yet you need to make a point against my views. I don't need to distort your views to question them. You do.

Besides I'm still waiting for your math:

Then how many exactly? Tell me exactly how you made the calculation. — neomac


I just did. — Isaac


Quote where you did it. — neomac

You are campaigning against your own intellectual decency. — neomac


Coming from you, that's rich. :rofl: — Tzeentch

It's laughing the guy who is so desperately in need to score a point that he wishes his opponents to answer a ridiculously framed challenge like "If there are people here who are predicting imminent major successes in line with this paper reality, speak up please." and even insisting on it.

your helpless craving for pinning roughly everything bad is happening primarily on the US. — neomac


... would be an example of caricaturing your opponent's views, yes. I — Isaac

No dude, that's not a caricature at all. Quote a claim of yours that contradicts it.
It should be pretty easy for you to do it, since mine is a very general claim.
Who is primarily to blame for starting the war ?
Who is primarily to blame for continuing the war ?
Who is primarily to blame for food crisis related to the war?
Who is primarily to blame for NATO policies toward the war?
Who is primarily to blame for the misinformation we get on the war?
You didn't lose a single occasion to blame American media, American political elites, American military-industrial-finacial complex. Where is the caricature? Maybe you are a caricature.

You even had your sidekick claiming
We are literally in a 6th mass extinction event heading towards civilisational collapse that is entirely due to US policy and acquiescence of their fellow Western acolytes, not to mention pollution of various other forms as well as neo-colonialism and US imperialism (however "soft" you want to call it -- being smothered by a pillow can have the exact same end result as being stabbed in the chest).

Now, if you want to argue that the Soviet Union, China and India weren't and aren't any better and would have done equally bad or worse things (and did and do their best to help destroy the planet as second and third fiddles) had they been the dominant super power and setting the terms of world trade, I'd have no problem agreeing to that.

But the reality is that the dominant power since WWII setting most economic policies on the planet (what and how things are produced) has been the US, and the consequence has been destruction on a hitherto unimaginable scale.

Unsustainability literally equates to destruction, that's what it means: destroying the ecosystems we require for survival, not to mention a host of other species.

And global unsustainability has been a Western choice, championed by the US and supported by their vassals. The policies for sustainability are pretty easy and known since the 60s (public transport, renewable energy, less meat eating, sustainable fishing, strict care what chemicals are allowed in the environment and how much, and farming in ways compatible with biodiversity and soil protection) and since the 60s the policies critical to sustainability could have been easily implemented to create a smooth transition. (https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/801709)

Funny how this has only just occurred to you after nearly 500 pages of having every single opposing view caricatured as Putin-loving, Putinistas, Russiophiles etc... but it's good that you're on top of it now. — Isaac

If you think I caricatured your views, quote exactly where. This time you failed.

Then how many exactly? Tell me exactly how you made the calculation. — neomac


I just did. — Isaac

Quote where you did it.

It's not to the penny accounting, but it's just dishonest to present it as if we just don't know. — Isaac

The problem is not what we know but what we can infer from it.

Not that many. This isn't some unknown quantity we might as well toss a coin over. — Isaac

Then how many exactly? Tell me exactly how you made the calculation.

Convincing people that Ukraine has a chance of 'winning' — Isaac

it takes quite the major advertising effort to keep this illusion up — Isaac

Hence the massive social media campaign, of which your posts (wittingly or not) form part — Isaac

It appears those who would post lengthy and strongly-worded posts on how the Ukrainians must continue to fight and die — Tzeentch

You dudes think to make a point just by caricaturing opponents' views.
That's intellectually abhorrent. You are campaigning against your own intellectual decency.
And you are quite good at that. Hands up.

> How many thousands of lives and billions in damages is Washington's ego worth?

How many thousands of lives and billions in damages is defeating Washington's ego worth?

Given the overwhelming quantity of posts here doing the latter and very few posts doing the former, it's hard to see how that could be without aim. — Isaac

Assuming you are good at keeping stats.

There have been reports of the Russians pushing for territory in the north. Meanwhile, the Ukrainians haven't reported any territorial gains for about a week or so. That to me is a pretty good indicator that the Ukrainian offensive has likely concluded, and the Russians might be looking to retake the initiative.

The Russians probably wouldn't go on the attack if they believed the Ukrainians may still have capacity left. — Tzeentch

You conjectures are as good as the following:
1. "the long-awaited Ukrainian offensive"will start late in summer to prevent Russia from doing the counteroffensive in rainy season, for now the Ukrainian tactic is just attrition along the line to prepare the right spot to drill.
2. The Russians probably would push in the north to weaken Ukrainians' capacity for their offensive in the south.

Indeed, Prigozhin's exquisite ironic feint is not over yet:

After long days of silence following the 'march on Moscow' on June 24, the founder of the Wagner militia Yevgeny Prigozhin reappears on social media with a vitriolic post against Russian state media, quoted by Novaya Gazeta.

"Reading the newspapers, hearing the stories on TV, makes me feel very bad, the TV bastards, who yesterday admired the Wagner boys, are now pouring all kinds of poison...

Remember TV bastards that it wasn't your children who fought in our ranks, it wasn't your children who died, but you bastards are making audiences with stories like this."

https://www.ansa.it/sito/notizie/mondo/2023/07/08/prigozhin-ricompare-sui-social-e-attacca-i-media-russi_f4295770-f72b-490d-ad8e-eadabc5ee6b8.html?utm_source=hootsuite&utm_medium=&utm_term=&utm_content=&utm_campaign=

Again on Prigozhin's exquisite ironic feint : https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/06/25/yevgeny-prigozhin-moscow-advance-putin-threat-wagner-family/

There's no evidence that the Russians intended to absorb or subjugate Ukraine. — Tzeentch

Here is how people focused on security concerns reason over "intentions":
During his annual review of Russia's foreign policy January 22-23 (ref B), Foreign Minister Lavrov stressed that Russia had to view continued eastward expansion of NATO, particularly to Ukraine and Georgia, as a potential military threat. While Russia might believe statements from the West that NATO was not directed against Russia, when one looked at recent military activities in NATO countries (establishment of U.S. forward operating locations, etc. they had to be evaluated not by stated intentions but by potential.


Security concerns can be triggered by potential not just by "intentions" (BTW among Mearsheimer's offensive realism tenets there are "States can never be certain of the intentions of other states" and "States are rational actors, capable of coming up with sound strategies that maximize their prospects for survival" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offensive_realism). History, ambitions, military capability, economic leverage and aggressive attitude of Russia especially under Putin inside and outside Russia were enough to trigger security concerns.
Talking about intentions (the initial march toward Kiev's intentions, Putin's intentions, Prigozhin's mutiny intentions) is not all that matters. Also the US intentions were to spread democracy in the rest of the World.

"ordered" doesn't sound unexpected from Lavrov, the rest does. Especially if one takes the Amerikans to be warmongerers and this attempted coup as something staged by the Russians.

Right. The problem my terminology addresses is that the science of morality (like all science) cannot tell us what our goals somehow ought to be or what we imperatively (prescriptively) ought to do. — Mark S

If morality is about what goals “we imperatively (prescriptively) ought to do” (e.g. when there is a conflict between individual and collective goals), and morality cannot tell us “what our goals somehow ought to be” then there is no science of morality.
If your assumptions leave moral goals to be set and chosen by individuals and not by scientific principles, in what sense we are not ending up in a form of moral relativism?

I can’t say “Prescriptively moral” in the second claim because there is no innate source of normativity in science and, here, I am only describing scientific results with no prescriptive claims based on rational thought or anything else.

Yes, universally moral here refers to what is cross-culturally moral (and even cross-species moral) but has no innate prescriptive power. This is a simple concept in the science of morality but one that does not exist in moral philosophy. — Mark S

You keep repeating that “there is no innate source of normativity in science” and yet you also maintain that “the strategies in fast moral thinking (such as reciprocity strategies and kin altruism) are encoded in the biology underlying our moral sense and in cultural moral norms which shape our moral sense” (https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/816533).
So how can something be encoded in our biology and yet not be innate? What’s the difference between “innate” and “biologically encoded”?

Their normativity first comes from groups choosing to advocate these principles as moral references for refining their moral norms based on being most likely to enable achieving shared goals due to increased cooperation. Their normativity comes in the form of hypothetical imperatives in Philippa Foot’s terminology and conditional oughts in mine. — Mark S

OK my point is that there are costs in increasing cooperation that outweighs the supposed benefits of cooperation. So what I may argue against your core claims is that maybe morality is not only about boosting cooperation but also about shaping and constraining it.
Besides the same social interaction can be seen as a form of cooperation or exploitation: is the capitalist appropriation of the surplus value of wage labour a cooperative or exploitative exchange? If you hold capitalist standard views then you would more likely see it as cooperative, if you hold marxist standard views then you would more likely see it as exploitative.

Prigozhin's mutiny smells so much as a Russian feint and exquisite irony that the "US ordered Ukraine not to use mutiny in Russia to stage provocations, says Lavrov" https://tass.com/politics/1640025

It really doesn't matter if it wasn't a coup (which also some Russian nationalist commentators believe it was). Prigozhin came close to Moscow (after seizing Rostov) armed, ready to kill and with hostile demands against the establishment status quo in a already tense environment for Putin from external and internal pressure. Besides Prigozhin bitterly questioned the Patriotic War narrative promoted by Putin. The slow, weak, contradictory reactions of the Russian establishment against the "mutiny", with rumors of Putin fled from Moscow and ordinary people either indifferent or cheering with Prigozhin (again against Putin's narrative) is striking. This is a major reputational blow against Russia and Putin that Russia and Putin inflicted upon themselves before Russian and Putin's eyes on world stage.

Putin exquisite black belt in feinting speaking to the nation:
"The organizers of the rebellion, despite the loss of adequacy, could not fail to understand this. They understood everything, including that they committed crimes, that they divided and weakened the country, which is now facing a huge external threat, unprecedented pressure from outside". (1m21)

More pro-NATO and pro-Ukraine propaganda by Prigozhin the exquisite feinter.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1672195411598008324

Yes and you predicted all that, obviously. But kept silent to better enjoy the exquisite irony right? Now the explanation pls. Everything must be connected to land bridges, right?