Can we crucify him? — frank

Assuming you will chant then that "His blood be upon us and on our children". Or something on that line.

Where can we buy those new NFTs? — Pierre-Normand

Google it!

Dogma warning: Donald is not Jesus. — unenlightened

A God-Emperor isn't Jesus.

I want hard quotes — neomac

Me too.

This is a Philosophy Forum, so we do treat quoting somebody seriously.

I just cannot say "Well, Kant said the same thing too as I" if I really haven't got that exact quote from Kant. People won't take it as not important or as semantics.

AI comes to mind first. It's a new and potentially dire threat, depending on who deploys it for what purposes and whether or not it has big OFF switches. — BC

I think you are on to something. Especially with AI you could have a really fanatic movement against it that would try to break in to corporation buildings to destroy the computers behind the AI. Hence a lot of destroying of normal computers just stacked in large warehouses that form our cloud computing platforms.

The idea that they are defending humanity from the real 'Skynet'. Yeah, some people could fall for it.



Yet it seems that this kind of movement would more of a media hype issue than a real important movement with long term support. The actual Luddite activity lasted less than a decade and the real important movement was the workers movement, trade unions etc.

Not sure how funny this is in the scheme of things, but gave me a chuckle anyway. — jorndoe

I guess what has been confirmed is that the modern equipment is in use now.

Yet not sure just how large this counteroffensive will be. The fact is that even if the assistance from the West is significant and is enough for Ukraine to defend from Russian assaults, but to take on Russia's entrenched defenses is another issue. Then you have to have that numerical advantage and superiority at least in the local level, which still is difficult for Ukraine.

It is a war of attrition now.

It's not semantics. If you argue that the attack toward Kyiv was a feint and argue that other people are saying this or have said so when they have not, that isn't semantics.

And I got you.

Nothing about the two major axis being feints as you declared to Mearsheimer to say.

If you quote somebody saying something, then this person has to say that thing. Nothing something that you can intrepret of being somewhat close or whatever to what you intend.

In fact the limited objectives Mearsheimer said, to take Kyiv or threaten it aren't feints. A feint is a is a maneuver designed to distract or mislead. That is different. You don't engage your best troops, do the most the largest airborne operation of the war, engage in a month long battle, suffer substantial losses, all to make a feint. There's absolutely no logic to it.

The only one calling it a feint is you. Not Mearsheimer and likely not anybody else.

And furthermore, you showed even better how confused you are:

(Mearsheimer): I think he’s interested in taking at least the Donbass, and maybe some more territory and eastern Ukraine, and, number two, he wants to install in Kyiv a pro-Russian government, a government that is attuned to Moscow’s interests. — Jabberwock

And that's what many have said. Yet installing that pro-Russian government, you have to do something about Kyiv. Try to take it, encircle it, perhaps hope that they follow the US proposal of flying to safety to the West. All that needs a military operation that isn't a feint.

So your confusion here is that you totally mix up what are the territorial objectives of Putin (and that's the territories of Novorossiya) and then military operation for installing that pro-Russian government (or the destruction of the rump state of Ukraine).

That's not the video I meant. By now I have dug up and shared these links so many times I can't be bothered to do so again, since none of you seem to take any of the contents to heart anyway. — Tzeentch

Lame excuse. You simply use the quote key and it's easy...

Besides, in the other videos you have referred to like this video Mearsheimer says himself that the limited objectives that Russia had was to take or threaten Kyiv. Mearsheimers only point has been that the force cannot occupy all Ukraine.

So your wrong.

No, you have not. The communications by the Ukrainian General Staff DOES NOT give the number of troops, only the number of BTGs. So you DO NOT have a source for your number. You conclude that it was 21000 troops based on your faulty assumptions. — Jabberwock

* * *

[...] and anybody with the slightest understanding of how militaries work can see that this wasn't a feint. — ssu

Simply untrue.

Mearsheimer considers the possibility in one of his lectures which I have already linked here. — Tzeentch

Wrong again.

The given link here Mearsheimer SAYS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING LIKE THAT. Nothing. Nowhere in the 1h 33min lecture did he even touch the subject.

@Tzeentch, you have to understand that when you give as reference or say that someone has the same thing in mind, you simply have to have the ability to produce a direct quote or a copy-paste quote that people can see that they really think so. Here, just in case of @Jabberwock's and other counters, the references you point out don't say what you state them saying.

That Mearsheimer says that Russia doesn't want all the territory of Ukraine (which I do agree and have emphasized the Novorossiya part of Ukraine) is simply not the same as saying the two axis of Russian advance into Kyiv were a faint.

Learn how to use references or sources.

I'm hypothesizing. — Tzeentch

So now its hypotheticals. At least that is promising. :smirk:

Anyway, the 190,000 figure is provided by Mearsheimer as the upper limit of troops the Russians deployed at the start of the invasion. I don't think that number is actually being seriously disputed — Tzeentch

How about the fact that troops committed to a war aren't just made up, even in Russia, from battalion tactical groups, the maneuver units? Maneuver units are the spearhead of the fighting force, but behind there is all other supporting elements and supply.

Hence you have Armies attacking into Ukraine, which are created from several divisions which in turn form the needed BTCs. Hence it's rather naive talk of how much manpower and then look at size of the BTC. And anyway, as usual, this is totally besides the point.

The fact is that Russian Army and other parts of the armed forces concentrated nearly everything they could to the "special military operation" is totally obvious. The most obvious and irrefutable fact is that they had to perform a mobilization of reserves afterwards, when things didn't go as planned. And so is that two of main axis went after Kyiv and anybody with the slightest understanding of how militaries work can see that this wasn't a feint.

Understanding that Ukraine put up a fight, understanding the pre-attack intel was horrifically wrong, and above all the attack being got stuck with lots of losses, Russia withdrew it's forces from the Kyiv operations area to reinforce other fronts as a) Ukraine won't follow them to Belarus. This was no feint, what happened was a withdrawal.

Suppose, for the sake of argument, that the Kyiv attack had not been part of the Feb 24 invasion.

In terms of strategy, what might reasonably have been expected for north-Ukrainian/Kyiv forces? — jorndoe

This is quite hard to say (too many moving parts to make even an educated guess, in my view), but in a general sense if there had been no significant threat to Kiev, the Ukrainian defense would have been a lot denser, because there would have been less frontline to cover. This is generally seen as being in favor of the defender. — Tzeentch

One hypothetical (as we are talking about hypotheticals now) would have been that Russia would only have attacked in Donbas and the war wouldn't have been about the de-nazification of Ukraine (regime change).

This clearly would have had an affect of the attack being on a lower escalatory ladder and likely would have produced a far weaker response from the West. If the Russian attack would have confided to the Donbas with the objective to gain all of the area and that landbridge to Ukraine, many could argue that this wouldn't be a major escalation. No attack towards Kyiv and Kharkiv. Above all, no regime change either. Ukraine, as it had done in 2014, would still have had to have reserves to defend it's Capitol from a possible attack. But now as it was an all-out attack on Ukraine with the objective of regime change, this obviously didn't happen.

Putin did have this possibility, but he went Kyiv.

'Captured plans' - sure. Show them to me. — Tzeentch

Ok, now you're just trolling.

First of all, you haven't given ANY reasoning for your idea (here ) a that two of the main groups attacking Kyiv were doing some kind of faint. Then even the link that you gave yourself states done in February 26th states:

Kyiv axis: Russia’s likely main effort to rapidly isolate Kyiv and force the Ukrainian
government to capitulate has failed as of February 26.

Had this been the Russians' intention, we would have seen a lot more casualties and intense fighting. — Tzeentch

Operation Danube didn't see more casualties and intense fighting, but did see large columns of tanks suddenly on the streets of the target Capital after a rapid drive from the border. Great military operation.



Hence Russians advancing in long columns close together is an obvious irrefutable proof that they weren't suspecting a fierce fight from the Ukrainians.

I've already given you mine. — Tzeentch

How can a report done in February tell about facts that happened in April? :chin:

Just at first answer that.

Besides, the RUSI article used captured plans to make out what the plans were. And they show just how wrong the Russians were right from the start:

For mechanised forces, the intent was often to rapidly occupy and thereafter isolate and screen key objectives. On the axis from Gomel to Kyiv, for example, the force was divided into a screening force that was to establish positions facing west to cut off Kyiv from western Ukraine, and units responsible for pushing into the city. Very little consideration appears to have been given to Ukrainian reserves or the Territorial Defence Forces (TDF). The assertion in Russian planning that Ukraine could generate only 40,000 additional troops appears to be premised on the anticipated speed of the operation rather than an appreciation of Ukraine’s capacity for mobilisation. This emphasis on speed led to units being ordered to advance in administrative column by road and to attempt to bypass any initial resistance. The assumption was that by D+10, Russian units would transition to stabilisation operations. The synchronisation matrix of the 1st Guards Tank Army (Western Military District), for example, captured near Kyiv in March 2022, stated that by D+10 the force would ‘proceed to the blocking and destruction of individual scattered units of the Armed Forces and the remnants of nationalist resistance units’.

The reason why columns of armour were destroyed is that basically Russians were trying something similar to the US invasion of Iraq or more likely, their most successful military operation post WW2 operation, Operation Danube.

What tells about the pre-attack confidence of the Russians in their abilities (and their assumption on the weakness of the Ukrainians) is that when the Western intelligence sources gave out publicly a fairly correct estimate on what Russian plans were, Putin didn't change them, but went with the same plans anyway.

Who needs strategic surprise when the target is a weak state that is artificial?

What a curious remark, coming from someone who keeps referencing the battle of Hostomel Airport (24th - 25th of February by the way, when "the goddamn battle of Kiev wasn't even going on"). — Tzeentch

Wrong. Trying to misrepresent what I said is silly. I said "To assume that the fight of Hostomel/Antonov Airport and the whole fight for Kyiv". Notice the word and.

Besides @Tzeentch, it is you who is referring to a document given two days after the attack to claim how much there were troops of a battle that went at least to April, the next month.

Also, what losses are you talking about here? — Tzeentch

Oh right, you don't believe that Russia has experienced any meaningful losses.

Sources, or no bueno. — Tzeentch

Why don't you start with your own. Like try to give some credibility to your argument that how RUSI among military observers are wrong when they state "The northern axis was the main effort, focused on the encirclement and capture of Kyiv."

:snicker:

Do you know what you gave as your reference? Just look at what the ISW issue says:

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, February 26, 2022!

It's been done the same month! The whole goddam battle for Kiyv wasn't even going on!!! Just started. Quite good intel if you have good insight on the attacking formation in a couple of days.

How about something done perhaps with little more hindsight (from November 2022): RUSI: Preliminary Lessons in Conventional Warfighting from Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine: February–July 2022

The northern axis was the main effort, focused on the encirclement and capture of Kyiv. For this purpose, the Russians formed two groups of forces commanded from the Eastern Military District Command Post. One group was formed in the Gomel region of Belarus and used the tactical sign ‘V’ with orders to attack Kyiv along the right (western) bank of the Dnipro River. The second group was formed in the Bryansk region of Russia and used the tactical sign ‘O’ with orders to surround Kyiv from the left (eastern) bank.

And this wouldn't be the only reference. I could have several Finnish Military studies saying basically the same issues and other and going deeper in just what these groups of forces consisted. The operational objectives are quite clear and obvious now in hindsight.

And those who are curious just were the "Z" came from (continued RUSI article):

The Southern Military District Command Post commanded units with the tactical symbol ‘Z in a square’, ordered to attack from occupied Crimea to establish control over the North Crimean Water Canal, Energodar and the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, surround Mariupol, take control of the bridges over the Dnipro and advance along the right bank to Voznesensk with the aim of seizing the South Ukrainian Nuclear Power Plant.

The Southern MD has been seeing most of the fighting in the near history (Russo-Georgian war and earlier the Chechen wars), hence it seems to have been the best Russia MD as it gained it's primary objectives.

I prefer your sense of humor over your interpretation of the facts. — Tzeentch

Something on the same lines:

The Russians hoping to take Kiev with 20,000 troops is a laughable fantasy.

Sorry. but it can't be put in any other way.

It's pretty obvious that the Russians in terms of territory aimed for south eastern Ukraine. — Tzeentch

To assume that the fight of Hostomel/Antonov Airport and the whole fight for Kyiv was a distraction is a laughable fantasy. Sorry, but it can't be put in any other way.

- First of all, where do you get the number 20,000? Russian forces deployed to the Kyiv front were about 70 000 and they were confronted by 20,000 Ukrainian army and perhaps 18,000 irregulars. That's still an advantage. With several crack Airborne units committed to the attack and the largest air mobile operation tried to be implemented. Basically you have several armies attacking into the direction of Kyiv.

- Attacking Kyiv and the Kyiv operations area was one of the concentrations of Russian forces pushing into Ukraine. That somehow it wasn't is laughable. Do note that the taking of Kharkiv didn't either happen. Was then that a fake too?



- If this would have been a feint, then obviously it would have been totally different. The forces wouldn't have been committed to face such losses. And have them on the Ukrainian-Belarussian border would have forced to Ukraine to have forces to defend Kyiv. Yet that didn't happen. And when the where withdrawn, these units had suffered high losses.

I'd just like to point out how absolutely pivotal a piece of information like this (that has been public knowledge for a while) is to deciphering the actual goings-on vis-à-vis Ukraine.

For many months now I have defended the position (leaning quite often on Mearsheimer's arguments, I will admit) that the Russians never intended to take over all of Ukraine with their initial invasion. — Tzeentch

Yes, because it was to be ruled by Ukrainian Quislings preferable to Moscow. And because it was going to be a short war. The main objective has been to get Novorossiya into Russia. That nearly came to be, except the collapse of the Ukrainian army. And the strategic strike into Kyiv was again a great plan on paper. Assuming that Ukrainians wouldn't fight back. But why would they?

How many troops did Putin need to take Crimea? I guess 30 000. And then from the Ukrainian forces over 9000 military defected to Russia, including the head of the Ukrainian Navy, and thousands of other officials also. That obviously makes quite easy for a gambler like Putin to take another roll of the dice.

Besides, you didn't noticed that the people in the Russian Intel responsible for Ukraine prior to the war war were sacked? I wonder why that happened if what happened was all planned.

Ironically, this describes Washington equally well. — Tzeentch

Lol.

That's on another timeline. And at least in the English speaking World there's an example of how to lose your Empire with reasonable dignity and without a revolution.

First you need to have the ability to laugh at your own imperialism. Monty Python showed the way:

I assume the 19th Century Briton wouldn't be amused about this Queen Victoria Handicap skit.

For once in America's recent history, it's realpolitik goals and the morality of the situation happen to intersect: helping the Ukrainians is the right thing to do. — RogueAI

I remember this bothering Streetlight X, the US getting off now because the actions of Putin are so clear obvious.

Present Russia is a prime example of a country where it's leaders are so seduced about it's imagined greatness they will ruin everything absolutely everything.

For long what was missing was to treat unidentified flying objects as unidentified, flying, objects.

I think that can have changed a bit when the Navy came out officially with material that couldn't be identified and the Navy pilots were interviewed in the media ...and continued to have their jobs as fighter pilots afterwards. It's one thing to point out something is unidentified and unknown, another thing to come to the conclusion that it's extra-terrestials with an advance technology that (apparently only) the US government knows about, but it's kept hidden for so many decades.

The conspiracy theorists basically are the problem. In the typical American way, when there is a buying audience, then to get money you have to please that audience. And if you don't please that audience, well, they won't just ignore you, part of them will attack you. For many it's an interesting entertainment and actually the few believers are entertainment for the people too.

It's basically an American phenomenon, because only Americans can both distrust their own government and yet think their government bureaucracies can be so capable at the same time to have these huge cover ups. In other countries when you distrust your government, you don't rate their abilities to be so high up. The UFO cult would have been different if it would have been based in some other country than the US. Yet that there are interesting open questions and obviously unidentified things is a different matter than believing that the UFO cult is right.

Hyperinflation happens when people lose all trust in the currency. I don't think people are at all thinking like that.

Hence I don't think you or me ought to talk about hyperinflation when you have had what? 9% inflation at the highest was or so. That's a quite an extrapolation. Many countries have had experiences of high inflation without there being hyperinflation. Not everything leads to the worst case happening.

After all, just with 10% inflation in a decade and your money is worth less than a half. Yet paying back those older debts is far more easy.

The problem is just how the US government, and typically any Western government, spends. The political problem is that "mandatory" spending is already the majority of the costs and "discretionary" is the smaller part.



Hence the "stimulus packages" will be the new norm. Just as the raising of the debt level. And it simply doesn't add up. Sooner or later you will have the crisis because the spending simply is unsustainable. And what ought to be noticed is that the higher interest rates will mean that the share of the "interest on the debt" will rise. We have started climbing from the lowest interest rates ever recorded in history.

And the spending of "mandatory items" will be changed only through a crisis. Come that before 2030 or after.

Seems that Russia blew up the Kakhovka damn to prevent any crossing from western part (western end) of the Dnipro. But it obviously puts a lot people into danger.

the head of the Kherson region, Oleksandr Prokudin, said that as a result of the explosions, “water will reach a critical level in 5 hours” and that residents in nearby areas would be forced to leave their homes. “Around 16,000 people on Kherson’s right bank are in the critical zone," he said, adding that residents would be evacuated by bus.

And the talk of the loss of values in the West is rather hypocritical, given the 'values' of Russia's allies. It is not a coincidence that they are all authoritarian states. — Jabberwock

Democracies seem decadent, weak, corrupt and verge of collapse to the authoritarian. And, of course, they are also homosexual and are against traditional values, which the authoritarian regimes often declare to be the sole defenders of. It was so in the 1930's and it is so now.

I dont think much of what you wrote there is directly related to the present situation. — frank

What Chinese policies then you had in mind?

Besides, China has followed a quite similar path as the West when it comes to debt, yet it's public sector isn't as heavily in debt as for example the US is being under 100% of debt-to-gdp. (If the total debt to gdp is for China in the 300% level, it's for the US somewhere in the 700% level)

China isn't in the west. China doesn't follow western policies. — frank

Especially after the sanctions now imposed on Russia, China can fear that similar things would happen to itself. And thus the globalization bromance between China and the US is over and globalization is now going backwards. China is also focused on trying to increase it's domestic market and doesn't see anymore the link to the US or the West's technology and investment as crucial as earlier.

As Harvard Business Review put it:

But for more than 15 years—spanning the Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations—China has followed a strategy of reducing its dependence on foreign technology and capabilities. Moreover, it has projected that strategy forward another 15 years.

This transformation doesn't happen quickly, but is happening. Still the majority of all foreign currency holdings that nations have are in US dollars. And the fact is that even if the USD has an oversized role on the markets, the US still has the largest economy.

Below a graph showing the foreign currency reserves held in the World:


The fact that now the biggest holder and the biggest buyer of US Treasuries isn't China or Japan, but the Federal Reserve. Yet the real problem is that US public finance has totally decoupled from actual tax income and is totally dependent basically structurally on acquiring more and more debt. The problem is the rapid growth of this, which will be increasingly difficult to manage.

When the global economy crashed in March 2020 and markets went into free fall, the U.S. Treasury market — the $25 trillion bedrock of the global financial system — broke down. Sellers struggled to find buyers, and prices whipsawed higher and lower. The Fed stepped in, devoting trillions of dollars to steadying the market.

The importance of the Treasury market is hard to overstate. It is the main source of funding for the U.S. government and underpins borrowing costs around the globe, for a huge variety of assets. If you have a mortgage, the interest rate you received was probably priced in relation to Treasuries. The same goes for credit cards, business loans and just about anything with an interest rate attached to it. The proper functioning of this market is paramount.

That’s why even small wobbles in this market can generate huge worries. At its worst, a Treasury trading breakdown could cause the value of the dollar, stocks and other bonds to tumble.

You can pay that debt away with inflation. And that's why even if we can have temporary lulls in inflation, it won't go away.

I think you're forgetting that the US is part of a global system. The US can overspend without developing hyper-inflation as long as China doesn't have high inflation. The problem right now is that everybody's inflation is on the high side. Even Japan's inflation rate is going up (which usually never happens). — frank

All nations are following the same example. And that's why a dollar crisis wouldn't be a crisis of the US, it would be a crisis for the West. We are in the same boat. And that's why the saying has gone that in the end the US is the best of the bad. I'd say the end result is monetary crisis of the whole system. Just like Nixon had in the 1970's.

Right now we're in a self-propelling cycle. Wages are up because spending is up, and vice versa. Even though there are signs that we may already be in a recession, inflation continues along it's own trail. — frank

It would be good actually to see what economists and commentators said earlier. Reasons like why there wouldn't be any inflation because of the COVID stimulus packages and the huge increase in spending. There was even the Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) that was eagerly listened to. Even if the MMT did understand that somewhere inflation would be a problem, it wouldn't be now. Especially not for the US.

And comments were like this when the trillions level stimulus bills happened:

(Washington Post, March 4th, 2021) This time, the proximate cause is the Biden administration’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus rescue package, coupled with the Fed’s new approach, which aims to let inflation hover near 2 percent (and go slightly above it when necessary), instead of strictly targeting 2 percent. What happens, the inflation hawks ask, if we emerge from the pandemic with an economic boom? If everyone gets back to work and uses that government money, will wages and prices suddenly shoot up? It’s not an outrageous question: Theory holds that goods will cost more and our money will buy less. But that’s not happening yet. And it hasn’t happened in a very long time. Our understanding of inflation has changed, our ability to control it has improved and the danger is more remote than we once believed. *** From a human standpoint, it seems like a no-brainer. Stop overly worrying about unlikely inflation and support a roaring economy, one that’s inclusive enough to pull people off the sidelines. It’s essential medicine. If only the hawks can be convinced to let us take it.

It's the age old thing of people believing that "this times it's different". As if what held earlier in history wouldn't hold know. And when something is brewing on for decades yet isn't upon us and the crisis hasn't happened yet, nobody cares.

. Giving those profits to the rich is morally wrong and terrible practice. — Mikie

Obviously you don't like capitalism, but the fact is profit is given to those that are the owners. Workers get salaries, owners profits.

The issue is just to look at what has the biggest effect on the issues. Yes, some large corporations indeed have pricing power and can protect their profits. However, it's still a response to the situation: raw materials and others cost rose, hence they could raise prices. And it's basically the same talking point, that it's the greedy corporations, that Gerald Ford had when inflation rose to 12% during his administration. And that's how the political discourse will be set: talk about greedy corporations, the war in ukraine, supply shortages and total silence about monetary policy.

And thus I keep repeating on the absolutely massive Trump era COVID stimulus packages in addition to the out of control spending that the US has. A jump from a debt-to-gdp ratio of 100% level to 120% level in a year or so simply has consequences. That public spending went from 4 trillion to the 7 trillion range has consequences. It's unpopular in the US as both Democrat and GOP administrations are the culprits here and thus the other side cannot simply blame the other.

Similarly, that just now the balance sheet of the Federal Reserve has double again in a very short time is telling.



And now that money didn't go to re-inflate a burst speculative bubble and keep the financial system afloat, but to prevent the COVID lockdowns causing an economic downturn.

Likely in the end the international dollar system will simply collapse. Likely then the bad guy for all this in addition to the "greedy corporations" will be said to be China. Never fiscal spending by central bank printing money as the culprit.

It's never a good sign when one supplants valid objection with attacking a strawman. — creativesoul

What is the strawman where you do have inflation every year except one?

. And it’s a terrible practice. Terrible for businesses, in fact. To say nothing of the moral bankruptcy of the shareholder primacy view, which you seem to assume as a law of nature. — Mikie

Terrible practice to make a profit? Terrible for business?

Just what in your mind is a business profit?

Evil banality of greedy people that abuse people or what?

I find it odd that you keep blaming inflation on the government printing more money, while offering a graph that clearly disputes that...

Look at 2009... — creativesoul

So your refutation is that once there was peak of deflation during the financial crisis? Weak.

No, the primary reason is that the US government is spending far more than it earns. And the US government will continue this until a crisis erupts. Then they will blame something else and people will obediently believe them.

Because raising prices, which customers pay for, just to maintain profits, and then giving away 90% of those profits to shareholders is a terrible investment. It’s terrible for workers, customers, society, and, as has been studied, for businesses themselves. — Mikie

Stock companies try to make a profit for their owners. It's not a terrible investment, if they achieve doing that.

To even call it an investment is misleading. It’s not investing anything, really. It’s trying to keep the profits and stock prices high. — Mikie

Stock buybacks etc. are another thing. Basically if the company makes a profit, then it's a healthy company.

Whomever wants to increase profit margin and can get away with raising prices. — creativesoul

So trade unions too when they achieve a pay raise?

Again, just who gets to use the money before the prices start to go up is the real winner in this game.

The Fed printing money does inflate certain assets, yes. That’s only one part of overall inflation. — Mikie

Most important asset being the US dollar. Yet I'd add that it's not just the Fed, it's all the central banks and financial institutions that have to be considered too.

No they aren’t. They protect the profits, yes, which goes to shareholders. The consumers and workers get screwed, as always. It’s a terrible investment. — Mikie

Again, If they protect their profits, which go to the shareholders, wouldn't they be actually quite good investments in this environment? Why would they be a terrible investment?

It’s a major contributor and, often, the main culprit, yes. In the case of food, it’s the main culprit. In the case of cars…It’s partly that but partly supply disruptions. Etc. — Mikie

Let me get this straight:

If they government simply prints more money to bay it's bills, and this creates a situation where there's far more money sloshing around, you seem to then accuse those who see this happening. In fact it's quite similar to those that accuse inflation of happening because of the trade unions wanting have higher wages. Not that trade unions react to the higher prices.

It's really about just who can put this inflation into motion....

Companies that have the ability to put the highers costs into prices and protect their margins are actually quite good investments in this environment. But are they really the sources, the main culprit, for inflation?

For example real estate doesn't have this ability... it can tackle inflation only in the long run: a flat in the perfect location has historically usually been very expensive no matter of the market. Yet when real estate is "historically looking very low priced", especial when real prices are looked at, there simply are few if none of these in the market on sale.

Of course they cant know all truths at all times. — Benj96

If we cant know all truths at all times, isn't that then a limitation to absolute knowledge?

One does not require to know every movement of every particle to know the laws and rules that govern such processes. — Benj96

And what does the second law of thermodynamics tell us? Or quantum physics of the idea of Newtonian clockwork universe?

Yet for certain questions and their truthful answers, there are limitations. Even if we understand these limitations, they show simply not all truths are then knowable. We don't know.

And this is far more simple and fundamental limitation. When any entity interacts with the world around it, there are then issues that it cannot know. It cannot make an objective description.

Or then, try to write an answer that you will never write. If the correct truthful answer is "an answer you will never write", how will you give that truthful answer? It's as simple as that.

It seems to me that consciousness, conceptually, is exactly something on/off. Something either has experiences or it doesn't, I don't see a middle ground. A middle ground just doesn't fit the concept. — bert1

How do you define consciousness? Is a baby infant conscious? Is a chimpanzee? A spider? An amoeba?

If you assume that it's exactly on/off, then what is the switch that has to be on?

The transition from unconscious algorithmic to conscious thinking seems to be vague and might even be variable. After all, you can consciously rationally follow back a standard working method that fails and see where the algorithmic method goes wrong. — Ypan1944

Even the definition of consciousness is vague and many have different views on just what is conscious and what isn't. Consciousness seems obviously something that gradually increases and there isn't this one thing, one detail that switches consciousness on or off like a switch.

Now can understand what an algorithm is, but ask people to give examples of something non-algorithmic and they'll have trouble. They will have even more trouble if you ask what is the importance of the non-algorithmic.

How does consciousness emerge from a algorithmic basis? — Ypan1944

Does it?

Conclusion: Any individual in possession or "revelation" of such a truth has 2 options: conceal it/keep it to oneself. In which case one cannot tell the truth. And so becomes a liar by definition. — Benj96

How? Not saying anything doesn't make you a liar. Knowing something and telling it to others is two separate things.

Besides, any person or entity that is part of the universe and interacts with the universe cannot know objectively all truths. The reason is that when this entity says has an effect on the issue at hand, it cannot be objective. The entity simply is subjective.

It's simply the similar problem in physics when the measurement of something affects what is measured.

Just think about for a moment:

Let's assume we have this all knowing entity and it tries to answer everything. Obviously it can answer a lot of things correctly and make extremely good predictions. And many people will then believe it. Yet the problem arises when people, like leaders and politicians, ask it what to do and want to base their actions on it's answer. What is then the objective truth? That namely politicians will follow what the entity will say. But that's circular reasoning, or basically the entity itself is subjective here and cannot give an objective answer. I'm sure that this also bring a moral dilemma if you add morality into the issue.

Hence the answer actually is that absolute universal truths do exist, but we cannot know all absolute universal truths because we are part of the universe. Our subjectivity limits our objectivity.

Showing my ignorance here, but what is PMed?

What Republicans don't understand that now Donald Trump has become what Hillary Clinton was for Republicans, a figure that makes them see red in anger. When the democrats chose Hillary for President, they obviously had forgotten how bad her image had already been when just the first lady.

With Trump it's worse. Nothing can mobilize the Dems better to vote than Trump being the GOP candidate. Anybody else, and the GOP has a good chance to win. Now other candidates can change and thinking of them can change, but this will stay.

If Trump becomes the GOP candidate, again the country will look like it's breaking apart.

A massive dumpster fire then that election. Something that I'm not keenly looking forward to.

A very interesting video of the effects of the Ukrainian war in the Russia near abroad. A nice summary of the troubled hot spots in the Russian sphere in Caucasus and Central Asia. Or in inside Russia, like in Tatarstan.

So, in the context of Monism, the question of information is very messy. Going point by point there is little consistency and little consensus. — Mark Nyquist

I agree.

And that brings up the real question: what do we gain from the idea? What's the use?

OK, we have a reality, be it however multiverse or whatever that we don't know.

We simply need many times to look at things from the viewpoint of pluralism. Especially when we don't know the answers. Information is a good example. The definitions and thinking of information differ, which is a bit tricky for monism.

And there are the downsides: Monism can easily lead to thinking that our present theories are all encompassing, answer everything. This is just a way that humans look at their own times. Many won't to accept that "Now in the 21st Century we don't know many things and have errors in our understanding of nature and science". Because if the respected well-known scientist admits this, you will be sure that all the pseudo-science of humbug movements and science haters will surely pick up the line and denounce present scientific knowledge altogether. But would you treat 19th Century science to be correct? Or 17th Century science? Weren't they already standing on the shoulders of giants back then?

And if there are question that cannot be answered, well, they aren't important. And it will lead many times to simple crass reductionism. Because everything is one, there's a theory of everything, right?

So really, what does monism give us?