That's property rights (the employer's).

I'm basing my comment on the fact that there have been many reports of an imminent Russian attack, which has not materialized each time it was stated. It got to the point that the Ukrainian president told the West to tone it down, or it would increase tensions. — Manuel

You're right. We both look at the available facts and draw the conclusions that are most reasonable to us respectively. We're just coming to very different conclusions on this.

Biden is now saying he thinks Putin is committed to invasion. Who is he targeting with that? What is he trying to accomplish with that statement?

To rob Putin of justification?

Who?

They are KGB. All that matters is that the Russian people accept it and go publicly with the lie, even if they would have doubts about it in private.

You show strength by believing in your own lies, I guess. — ssu

Some commentators say it's a kind of abuse: to undermine any kind of rational discussion. Obviously it works.

You actually believe the Russian propaganda. I don't understand that. Can't you see that it doesn't even make sense?

The Ukrainians are begging for help. Why do you think they're doing that?

They're such brazen liars.

I meant that Russia appears to be suppressing economic activity in the areas they influence. Ukraine will have nothing to trade with anyone when Russia is done with it (possibly).

Not publishing a piece (of shit) in the Op-Ed section of the Times doesn’t eliminate it from public conversation, particularly if the author is high profile, like a US senator. — praxis

True. But in order to have the conversation, the shit is going have to be published somewhere. Where do you prefer?

What do you mean by hidden? — praxis

Eliminated from the public conversation? I'm asking for your perspective.

Giving a platform to the idea of using the military against civilians is not good, to say the least, particularly at a time when the fucking president is trying to sell the idea. — praxis

Wouldn't you rather have it out in the open instead of hidden?

"Democracy dies in darkness"

It's good

Yes, these are hardly examples which are buried out of the public eye, but I suspect the overwhelming temptation to dismiss the concerns creates something of cognitive block — Isaac

Could be. I think the desire to censor comes from fear. People who don’t even see censorship might be fearful about where things are headed.

It takes some confidence in your fellow humans to say, "Stop being a big baby and grow the ability to listen to opposing views without fear that we'll slide into a holocaust if you let other people have their say."

That said, I can't abide racist talk. So it can be tricky I guess.

I was thinking: how does `Tom Cotton-NYT` not pop in your mind when someone mentions an editor being squashed for publishing a controversial opinion?

Don't know.

ok

Social media issues aside, the question of whether a brain-in-vat, living in a dreamworld, is able to control the dream is interesting.

I think too much control is deadly to a good dream, primarily because of the potential for violating the inner integrity of the dream.

A prime example of this is in the movie Adaptation. Have you seen it?

Still not an argument. And that letter was shit — Benkei

In the immortal words of BitterCrank, "oh dear..."

Yeah, I'm not playing this game where you allude to that letter (again) without actually forming an argument. You tried that skit with Baden before. Make an argument, you know premisses and conclusions and all that. — Benkei

You asserted that cancel culture is rightist fiction. I handed you a well-known protest against cancel culture from a very well respected group of social critics, none of which leans toward the right.

I gave you a heads up. Do with it what you will.

Perhaps you care to reproduce those "warnings". If you're just going to allude to it, it's not interesting as a reply. — Benkei

Here

It's you against J.K. Rowling, Margaret Atwood, Salman Rushdie, Noam Chomsky, and others.

Good luck with that.

...

Cancel culture is a right wing lie that doesn't deserve the amount of air time it gets - it should be ignored especially now that it has been politicized — Benkei

I think Margaret Atwood's warnings about the dangers of cancel culture are legit. It's not a lie.

WW3 has been called off. Again. :worry:

Absolutely. What I object to is the insinuation that it's paranoid conspiracy simply to argue that people haven't had good intentions in any given case. They might have, they might not have. It's perfectly legitimate to argue either case in any given set of circumstances. — Isaac

Sure.

Personally, here, I see a lot of effort being put into silencing opposing narratives and that immediately makes me suspicious that intentions are not good, but it's only a suspicion, I'm only arguing for the right to hold such a suspicion and not be branded a lunatic or anti-social for doing so. — Isaac

Ok. We're lifting mask mandates in a couple of weeks where I live. Yay!

didn't say it did. It's a constant theme here (in reflection of wider society)... Glance back over my contributions on this thread. Who's making the claims? It's not (largely) the anti- side, it's the pro- side. I'm happy for you to think the government are being super helpful this time. The problem here is that you (generic you) are not so happy for me not to think that. It's my legitimacy in reaching different conclusions that's being constantly called into question, not your legitimacy in reaching the mainstream ones. — Isaac

Wait. We were talking about intentions and you jumped to effectiveness. It's two different things.

I'm not surprised that mistakes were made starting from China's original fuck ups regarding recognition and containment.

Humans do fuck up on the way to getting it right. But even if they fuck up completely, they can still have good intentions.

Is this something you accept?

Religious traditions are a mix of history, science, folklore, politics, law, ethics, metaphysics, and philosophy.

This means that whatever a particular community draws out of this heritage reflects that community rather than some sort of monolithic Religion.

My point was only to show that the EU is far more important to Ukraine than Russia even before the current crisis. — ssu

I don't think this will be true going forward.

Not at all. The point I'm making is that it's ridiculous to argue that the government's draconian interventions in this pandemic are all for our own good and not for any other motive when the history of successive governments has been an unbroken run of unwillingness to even so much as lift a finger to prevent the deaths of millions every year. — Isaac

It does not follow that since government has failed in some ways to protect public health that it can't be doing that with pandemic measures.

I can point out ways that the US government has been very diligent and effective on some public health issues, but I want to highlight the logical issue above.

Are you agreeing or disagreeing about Russia weakening Ukraine economically?

But if we point to the failure of governments to do anything about the sugar and tobacco industries, we're saying the government should have far reaching power to protect the health of citizens. Measures taken to control the pandemic were exactly that.

Yep. The US is starting to drop mask mandates. It's becoming thoroughly endemic here.

I meant that Russia has weakened the Ukrainian economy where it has control and has left the area dependent on Russian subsidies. Its picnic surrounding Ukraine is further weakening its economy.

If you control through economic dependence (a strategy used by the US for decades), you don't really need to invade.

Sure. I've just been getting some continuing education about tobacco abuse. It's stands out starkly that governments do nothing about it when it's clearly killing people: about half a million Americans each year.

Putin proved that no one but Russia cares about Ukraine. Russian domination hasn't been a positive experience for Ukrainians so far. Could that change in the future?

Is transsexualism a delusion? Yes — Bitter Crank

Eh. Some say homosexuality is a just a state of confusion that can be remedied by good medical care.

I don't have x-ray vision into people's souls so that I can sort out who's deluded and who's living their truth by the their lifestyle choices. Why do you think you do?

It's called "holy" before its impact (explosion) you see. I can't remember if it killed that rabbit, though — Ciceronianus

True. Shakespeare is called profound whether it affects you or not.

If Shakespeare or some poet has an impact on you, are you a passive, blank slate which is blown to tiny bits by the words?

I don't know if I'd hang too much on the way people talk about holiness.

"To see a world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour."

See the shoutbox for further updates on Canada.

Yep.

I think there's more to it than that. It's about a fulfillment of prophecy, the idea that where we're headed is better than where we are.

Think about the character of a culture that fully believes that; that therefore lives it.