I'm just more optimistic than you it seems. — boethius

:victory:

Everything isn't a nefarious plot all the time. — boethius

That's pretty naive.

It legitimately seems threatening words and actions. — boethius

Seems? It actually was threatening. The US wanted to destroy Russia, like wipe it off the map. Putin had no choice.

NATO in Ukraine presents 2 entirely real security problems to Russia. — boethius

According to Putin, NATO was planning to destroy Russia. He saw NATO as an existential threat.

Let's go with that.

The Russians have spoken about this red line for decades - — Tzeentch

It's only been two decades since their economy was devastated, so that red line is fairly young. :razz:

So Russian attempts at invading Ukraine will likely push Ukraine into Western sphere of influence. — neomac

It already inspired Finland and Sweden to join NATO.

I think Putin has created a deep abiding hatred of Russia among Ukrainians, so I doubt relations between the two will be normalized as long as Putin is in power.

I’m not so sure about that. If the monopoly on healthcare were to fall, I’m sure men could devise some other scheme that doesn’t involve them becoming state agents. — NOS4A2

Sounds like the state by some other name. This isn't the only issue where centralized control is important. Telecommunications, highways, community owned forests, defense, etc. Anytime an issue comes up that effects everyone, you're going to need something like a state. States allowed us to become what we are now.

It's either go backwards or forge ahead into the unknown. I have a feeling climate change is going to make that decision for us.

The shortage here is entirely state manufactured. — NOS4A2

It's partly state manufactured here in that the way the US addressed the pandemic turned the healthcare system upside down. Staff doesn't have to hang around and take abuse for low wages now. The pandemic sort of emancipated healthcare workers. Vaccination wasn't the issue here because people could get religious exemptions.

At any rate, so-called universal healthcare loses its wring when very few can access it. — NOS4A2

A man in the UK recently died because he couldn't get an appointment with an ENT for an ear infection. He developed a brain abscess. It was partly related to their tele-health system, but it can also take a year or two to get a non-emergent appt. with an ENT in the UK. I'm actually a little horrified at how badly state-run healthcare can be, like the doctors in the UK who decided that women don't need pain meds for birth. Some women got suicidal after delivering. :grimace:

You can't legislate compassion.

Meanwhile public emergency rooms are shutting their doors, unable to hire nurses and doctors, pushing back surgeries, and so on, putting entire communities at risk. — NOS4A2

The same this happening here. It's a labor shortage.

I’m only aware of private clinics — NOS4A2

If a person has a stroke, heart attack, is severely injured in some way, etc., they'll need advanced care that probably wouldn't be available to the community if private insurance is the only source of funds.

It's a problem we've never had to deal with before. If we took the role of funder and administrator away from the government, we'd have to give it to some other entity who would be pretty much identical to the government.

We have private healthcare where I live. — NOS4A2

There's a private hospital? A private ICU? Privately paid heart surgery? If so, all your neighbors are deeply in debt, which is different kind of slavery.

Or it's not as privately funded as you think.

It’s a point of fact that government was not required for healthcare, only that it has developed a monopoly on it. — NOS4A2

The human species hasn't ever had the kind of healthcare we have now. It's fairly expensive stuff. Do you know of a case where contemporary, state of the art healthcare is paid for entirely privately?

And I just disagreed with you for the reasons I stated. — NOS4A2

I don't think you're particularly well informed on the issue, then.

Are we to conclude from this that whatever your hope for the future may be, you recognize the need for the state today? — Fooloso4

Sure.

I didn’t say I want to go back to any sort of funding, only pointing out government funding isn’t required for healthcare. — NOS4A2

I just told you it is. Without Medicare, most US hospitals would have to close their doors.

If all or even most people were self-governing then there would be no need for governments. Do you share his faith? — Fooloso4

I won't live to see it, but I heartily commend those whose optimism creates such bold visions of what we could be.

I was speaking of funding, not practices. I assume that had you worked in one of those places you wouldn’t require a public authority to govern your day-to-day. — NOS4A2

American healthcare, as we know it today, wouldn't be possible without Medicare funding.

You want to go back to 1960s funding, but keep the same level of care? I don't think that's going to work.

Historically, hospitals have been funded from many sources, much of which were not from the government. — NOS4A2

Which lives would you like to stop saving so we can go back to historic practices?

If one thinks through an issue it should be apparent that despite the restrictions imposed by the state we enjoy many benefits that most would not be willing to give up. — Fooloso4

His question is whether people need state governance in order to enjoy those things. Marx said ultimately, no. What do you say?

You position reminds me of that of a privledged child who wishes mommy and daddy would just go away so he could do whatever he wants. — Fooloso4

Your position sounds like that of a person who can't think through an issue.

You follow their rules for funding, not because you require an authority to govern your life. Presumably you would follow the rules according to any source of funding, not just state funding? — NOS4A2

I require the funding, so I follow the rules, plus following the rules saves lives.

There isn't any source of funding other than the government, not that could do what Medicare does.

Yes. You can operate in your day-to-day without some authority telling you what to do. — NOS4A2

No. One of the main ways the US government controls healthcare is by Medicare funding. Few hospitals in America could run without it. In order to secure those funds, every hospital is careful to follow CMS rules, and JCAHO requirements. I acknowledge their authority to intimately guide my actions, and as a result, I am licensed.

So they are not actually present or involved in your day-to-day. — NOS4A2

Present as in Biden texting me about stuff? No?

Do you require their presence? — NOS4A2

Yes. I'm a healthcare worker. Without the massive load of regulations and financial support for healthcare, my profession wouldn't exist.

How much is the state involved in your day-to-day? — NOS4A2

Pretty pervasively.

Lenin was right about the state as an apparatus of coercion, and noted it’s evil and exploitation; he was right that a state is unnecessary in a moral man; — NOS4A2

I think the founders of the US would have agreed for the most part. Their goal was to leave government some distance from the average person's life.

Their vision didn't work in the end though, due to the massive immorality of slavery. As I said, as a species, we're not ready to live without states.

But this is a topic for a different thread... — ssu

I don't think either of us cares to discuss it further, though

"KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia’s military leadership has withdrawn its officers in the Russian-annexed city of Kherson across the Dnieper River in anticipation of an advance of Ukrainian troops, the Institute for the Study of War think tank said Sunday.

"To delay the Ukrainian counteroffensive as the Russians complete their retreat, Moscow has left newly mobilized, inexperienced forces on the other side of the wide river, it added."

wtf?

It was not a matter of doing nothing or projecting maximum force. The Bush National Security Doctrine specifically discounted international instruments that would have treated AQ as a criminal gang. Whatever one thinks about that choice, it was an expensive one. — Paine

The US participates in undermining terrorist plans around the world. I think the use of the military wrt Afghanistan was to get to terrorists who were being protected. Iraq was about locking down sources of radioactive material and democratizing the Middle East. That's the conclusions I came to, anyway.

That's the myth that those promoted War-on-Terror told us. — ssu

It's purported to have been from an analysis of the middle eastern society, and it's also a little wisdom garnered from the American Revolution. Societies vary in the lessons they learn. :grin:

Deterring terrorist attack hasn't happened by fighting the Taleban in Afghanistan. — ssu

How do you know? Do you have a crystal ball to see what would have happened if the US military would have just stayed home?

Terrorist groups have been destroyed by police through the legal system in various countries. But who cares about how terrorist group are really dealt. — ssu

You're sounding a little bitter about the whole thing. What would you say Al Qaeda wanted most of all?

So better to have the longest war in US history, tens of thousands of killed and a humiliating defeat? Of course! Having the FBI to do a police investigation would have been so "weak dick" response. — ssu

Supposedly the best way to invite more of the same was to look weak.

I see. I'm not holding my breath.

So did many great thinkers. But he proposed achieving such ends through statist means. That’s why it has never worked, and we see that communist states are some of the most totalitarian in history. — NOS4A2

Exactly. Were there non-statist means to achieve the non-state that you had in mind?

"The long-term goal of world communism is an unlimited worldwide communist society that is classless, (lacking any exploitation of man by man), moneyless, (lacking a need for currency to regulate human behavior), and stateless, (lacking any violent compulsion of man by man)"

-- Wikipedia

I would prefer a government that doesn’t operate as a criminal organization, a monopoly, and an anti-social institution. — NOS4A2

I think Marx felt the same way.

Did you believed Bush Junior when he said Iraq had WMD? — Olivier5

I think he did believe that. It's a little easier to tell what GW Bush thought versus Putin, though.

She resigned because, facing electoral annihilation, her party would have given her the boot otherwise. It's not all that difficult to get rid of a PM compared to a U.S. President. If you're in search of common decency, you are probably looking in the wrong place. — Baden

Oh, it's more complicated than I thought.

I was thinking the same thing. Common decency? Very un-American.

Plan A from Princeton (notice who actually wins this conflict)

Are you dreaming of the kind of world Marx thought we were headed toward? No governments? We're just not ready for that yet. All attempts so far to build communist nations failed disastrously.

Here's one way stipulation could enter our play: I don't play golf, but I know roughly how it works. If you know no more than I do, we'll have to make up some rules as we go and agree to them. We'll hope we're getting it roughly right. Our sense of the basic idea isn't enough to get us through an entire round of golf with the sorts of complications that inevitably arise.

Here's another: we could take elements of basketball (teams, a playing area with goals at either end) and elements of golf (small object struck with a special kind of stick) and combine them to make something like hockey or field hockey. Hockey wasn't on your list before so it's not something we can straight up play based only on intuition; we have to make up the rules based on some things we understand from other games. — Srap Tasmaner

It sounds like you're saying mathematicians might stipulate things for the sake of advancing the field?

I feel like I'm just not getting the opposition you see here. — Srap Tasmaner

I was just looking for the necessity behind stipulation in math. I think you're saying it's partly cognitive imperatives where we're exploring the contours of the mind, and then some other stuff. :up:

(They may not even all be consistent.) — Srap Tasmaner

I would agree that we do have directly opposing intuitions. Does this show up in math so that a decision has to be made about which side we'll use as our basis?

Agreement in the selection is effectively agreement about the content precisely because what we're agreeing to select among are the semantic contents of our intuitions. — Srap Tasmaner

If math is self consistent, this is like deciding whether we want to play golf or basketball. No stipulation is taking place.

If math is self contradictory, then we could have stipulation. I'd have to invite you to agree with me.

Which do you think is happening?