It's easy enough to understand. — frank

Is it? You see it's also easy to 'understand' why people would fall for communism or fascism or whatever. It's a different matter to agree with the ideas.

So are you saying all US national emblems / symbols prior to the abolution of slavery are symbols of slavery?

How about the era before women's emancipation and universal suffrage? Shouldn't then the symbols before 1920 in the US be offensive towards women as women hadn't equal rights to men?

I would there's a lot of philosophy, especially the philosophy of computer/video games themselves, in the The Stanley Parable. A nice intelligent game quite off the typical genre. Computer games are in the end simple programs that have quite defined limited things you can do, and one can easily understand the algorithms, especially if there is a computer opponent.

And those who have already played it or won't play it, here's a more philosophical view about it.

This whole story was obviously planned by Nike for name recognition. — Harry Hindu

Quite unlikely. The obvious answer is Nike just trying to manage a somewhat surprising situation in the best possible way. The idea that they 'planned' this all along is quite silly. You don't make a shoe that is then planned to be pulled off out of negative feedback from an athlete that is promoting your stuff. That isn't cunning marketing plan.

I won't say whether or not Colin Kaepernick is correct his view of the Betty Ross flag, or if Nike is correct in yielding to him, and pulling the product out of market, mostly because I don't care, but also because it is irrelevant to Nike's overarching brand strategy. — Maw

And this actually just shows the absurdity of the whole issue.

Has anybody here actually agreed or defended Colin Kaepernick's view that the Betsy Ross flag is a symbol of hate and an offensive slave-era emblem?

The Guardian reader responses are not tightly moderated, and the result is more amusing moments, as well as more pointless (but not rude, crude) response. The New York Times reader responses are very tightly moderated and the result is a high level of comment, very little humor, and no pointless posts. I think the Guardian gets it a little closer to just right than the NYT, but degustibus non disputandem est. — Bitter Crank

I was thinking about the local papers here, but this of course is quite universal.

It depends just what kind of discourse the paper / media wants, which depends on the focus that the media wants. For me, the 'boring' academic / professional discourse is what is meaningful, even if you have to have some knowledge about the subject in order to follow the debate, not the 'human interest' easy reading type of discourse.

Something being useful is a good start.

I think that pragmatism would a good philosophical school. I wonder why Americans aren't so much into it, even if it is genuinely of American origin (Pierce and Dewey).

From the Finnish Constitution:

Section 127 - National defence obligation

Every Finnish citizen is obligated to participate or assist in national defence, as provided by an Act.

Basically all males between 18 and 60 years are in the reserve, meaning that they are liable to military service. Hence during wartime the government theoretically could force into the army even those that haven't done conscription, but opted for the non-military service. Officers and non-comissioned officers are up to 60 years in the reserve and the enlisted up to 40 years. Actual combat troops are below 30 years and only a minority, quarter of a million or so, have a position in the wartime army (from the basically 700 000 strong reserve). Career soldiers make about 2% of the wartime force. All this makes the wartime army quite old in age.

I remember just two weeks ago sitting in the canteen (soldiers home) during an excersize. There were British troops (Desert Rats) there eating pizza and waiting for helicopters to come to pick them up, which is a very rare sight in non-aligned Finland. One career officer commented: "Those British soldiers look so young." I had to comment "No, we are so damn old." It perhaps hadn't dawned that British professional soldiers are basically as young as our conscripts are. Youngsters indeed.

(Well, universal conscription works if you have a need for the deterrence. Otherwise, let's say if we would have a +1000 km border with Canada, we would have a tiny professional army that nobody cared about.)

How can public discourse, involving billions, be anything other than "dumbed down"? — Bitter Crank

Because, well, even now public discourse doesn't involve billions, just millions. And that is the way to dumb it down. I still see in some newspapers that in the net version response-sections people genuinely try to give informative and poignant yet cordial responses…as if it was like in the old days when people wrote to the newspapers knowing that not all would be published. It's not the trash like in Youtube-responses (who would even read them). And the obvious answer is not only moderation, but the people do value or respect the forum they are participating.

(Just think what this place would be in a matter of weeks if the local admins and mods, would stop and anything would be admitted here as if that would promote "free speech". It would be a gutter and no sane person would write here. We would get the real cranks here and not just one Bitter one.)

I think I know Bitter Crank well enough to say that he is not, never has been, and never will be either silent or in the majority. — T Clark

And this actually tells just how ludicrous the whole issue is when you think of it.

I say it's about the dumbing down of the public discourse.

Or everyone: no guns? Some guns? Everyone carrying a gun at all times? In my opinion Lott is selling something and I wonder what. — tim wood

I genuinely feel safer that the vast majority of adult males in my country do know how to use an assault rifle, aim the rifle by using the sights and know how to clean it… or will remember after a 10 minute recap on the weapon.

That you would have to have a personal firearm to defend yourself or your family from apparently other citizens of your country means that something has gone wrong in your society, like social cohesion and rule of law for starters.

My wife is Indian (and a Hindu) and gets annoyed at all of the fuss over swastika (from all angles--that it was co-opted, that people are largely ignorant of the Hindu usage, etc.) — Terrapin Station

And if something is co-opted, the worst thing is to then to decline the use of the symbol because "someone ignorant might misunderstand the use". This just enforces that their misconception was actually totally correct.

It should be obvious to anybody that the extreme right wants to own all national symbols, whatever they are, and are extremely delighted when the left starts promoting the argument that this or that symbol is a symbol of the extreme-right, a symbol of hatred and ethno-nationalism. And those idiots on the left that say this are eagerly quoted (which they themselves appear to be happy about), make things worse.

The kind of views Bitter Crank holds, which I would argue represent the 'silent' majority, are simply sidelined by both vocal fringes.

ike's job is to make money any way they can. K is apparently helping them do that. All sounds very American to me. — Baden

Yes, corporations obviously make money by asking retailers to pull off their new item that have just arrived to stores.

So if someone puts on a Betty Ross flag sticker on their shoe, does that make them racist? — Harry Hindu

Doesn't the Betsy Ross flag symbolize hate?

Some on the right surely hope so: that the flag will become the next thing that will be portrayed to be the (hidden?) sign of white supremacist ethno-nationalists.

The whole thing has already been made to be an issue in the culture wars as this idiotic topic has already been dragged into the idiotic debate.

Just wait for Trump to show the "Betsy Ross Flag" and you have the perfect storm in the tea cup. (For a couple of days before the social media discourse finds a new issue to fight the outrage / counter-outrage farce, that is.)

Just because some Americans out on the far right used it is no reason to be embarrassed about it. - Anything about the American Revolution, the US Government before 1865, and the flag of the United States could be associated with slavery. Slavery is a fact of our history. Racism (and sexism, heteronormativity, class oppression, ruthless exploitation, and numerous other features) have been part of our history from the get go. - Colin Kaepernick was not performing a public service. He was performing a familiar sleight of hand — Bitter Crank

Political correctness is a rabbit hole from which especially large corporations cannot get out of once they have engaged in the PC discourse and taken a 'political' stance (like Nike) and especially when they have given 'woke people', who typically are somewhat ignorant about history, the authority to decide on these issues. It's a very stupid strategy as basically 'woke' people in general don't like large corporations and consumerism. Trying to appease the PC crowd will simply backfire. It's like the state Church trying to appease socialists and assume they are in 'the same boat' if both are concerned about issues like povetry. A true socialist is an atheist, and atheists simply aren't going to start liking religious organizations, especially those with some formal power.

If this thread would have been started by someone else not known to be a leftist as you Bitter, I would espect the condemnation of the whole thread would have been more straight forward by some. Wouldn't this be something that Fox News reports?

Anyway, with these kind of humbug issues in the New World, I always remember the flags of the Finnish Air Force and smile. This kind of imbecile and utterly counterproductive 'wokeness' hasn't yet taken over my country and doesn't create any fuss as there...at least not yet. :wink:

A happy Finnish government employee posing with the Air Force flag last year.

The law of identity, by the way, is not a law of mathematics. It's more primitive than that, it's a law of logic. Mathematics inherits the law of identity from logic; math doesn't posit or explicitly assume it.

The law of identity operates at a much "lower level" than that of modeling changing systems like weather or biology. — fishfry

Yep. Or basically what we talk is about a bijection. Or set theory.

The law of identity is therefore a subset of reality — Ilya B Shambat

No.

Something being basically logic, on a "lower level" as Fishfry said to modeling reality isn't a subset in this way. It would be like saying that arithmetic is a subset differential calculus or probability theory. Or that math is a part of physics… because everything, like our minds, are made of particles.

Can't help you, I'm afraid. I was educated in a religious cult (Roman Catholicism), and all other colours of religion - including atheism - were collected together and identified by the term "non-Catholic". I was offered no education at all on any other religion, including other flavours of Christianity. — Pattern-chaser

Two of my three best teachers ever were teachers of Religion, as we do have state religion in our country. Both were Lutheran priests also (and men, since we didn't back then have yet female priests as we do now). The other one also taught philosophy in the gymnasium (and was totally at the level with the professors teaching Philosophy in the University, even if naturally didn't go so deep into the subject). Both had a great objective: to make us to think about the issues. So they teach religion the following way: 1) Here's a moral problem or a moral question. 2) Here's the answer that Christianity gives to this question. 3) But hey, it's up to you. Just think yourself about it. If you don't, your not an adult, but a child.

Hence we didn't actually ever open the study book of Religion in school. Both teachers weren't interested on making read texts, they knew you don't teach a person to have faith, but really made the best effort to make us open our mouths about the issues at class and discuss the issues. How else would you really teach Religion or Philosophy, actually?

Thanks to them, I'm not an atheist, but an agnostic. Nope, they didn't convert me to a true Christian believer, but they did show how shallow and empty atheism is.

Social workers taking care of elder people. That's the new reality.

We are still ages away from AI cyborgs doing all that stuff. Especially when older people living alone will genuinely want that at least they see some human beings that you can interact with them.

Differently, Zizek assumes that “Fake news” has been the indispensable result of our
post-modern conditions; implicitly, he involves the emergence of new regimes of truth (“post-facts” and “post-truth” — Number2018

And this is why I don't believe in Post-Modernism. It's criticized from both left and right. It simply is bullshit.

Besides, false propaganda has existed for a long time, no matter what Trump says. Social media has just given it some credibility, because people want to hear what they want to hear.

Having been through the Finnish system (to a Masters degree in the University) and having my own children in the system (my daughter starts next fall in the first grade, her older Brother is going to the sixth), I feel the urge to comment to the many referrals to Finnish (and Nordic) system:

The MAJOR difference between highly rated systems like say, Finland, and the USA, is consistency. Our best schools (at all levels of education) are just as good as any country's (often better). However, our worst schools seem to be from another planet, whereas Finland's worst schools are almost as good as their best. — ZhouBoTong

I would agree to this. However, the sad truth, as you noted, is THAT THERE IS INDEED A DIFFERENCE EVEN IN FINLAND between the highest ranking schools and the lowest ranking schools (even if there actually is no official/semi-official ranking system). It's not huge as in the US, but it still is. What can one say it but: Meritocracy divides still people into classes. The fact is that highly educated parents with good salaries typically will emphasize more on the upbringing of their children and will tend to live in certain areas. The fact is that a poor community from where people move to bigger cities simply will have more broken families and more social problems, which do have an effect in school performance of the children. Even if it is extremely difficult to measure, there still are these mentalities towards education and school between classes of people. I'm not a racist, hence I don't think Asians (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) are genetically better to others, but I believe they simply regard school and education far important than others.

Yet the US school system is very segregated and indeed as you say, the difference between the lowest performing and the highest performing schools is great.

I presume that European countries like Finland have a better and less discriminatory funding system. — Grre

Yep. And have to say that Finland is far less multicultural than the US state of Maine, and has less difference between the richest community and the poorest one. In fact if you don't have any idea how large Finland is, picture in your mind the state of Minnesota. They (Finland and Minnesota) have roughly the same number of people, roughly the same kind of environment and so on. And Minnesota isn't the poorest state in the US, just like Finland isn't the poorest country in Europe. With funding, this means a lot.

But the Nordic model demonstrates that parent's income need not be the main determining factor. Which is why I said "under other policy conditions" those poor communities could now be economically vibrant.

I.e. if the Nordic model was brought to these communities, the child income would start to decouple statistically from parent income.

I would argue education is the most important element of the Nordic model. And to repeat, education in Nordic countries is the same investment per child wherever they are in the country, and the investment is high — boethius

Never underestimate the importance of the economy. Just like Marx said, it is in the end the most important issue. Hence to have well educated teachers and a well funded education system is still extremely important. If communities can go bankrupt and they won't be helped, no matter what kind of educational policies you have, they won't matter as they cannot be implemented without funding.

The Finnish system is usually what people have in mind in discussing Europe vs US education.

It is very different philosophy in Finland; the architects of the "Finnish way" changed their purpose from academic achievement, however you want to measure it, to mental health of students. — boethius

I'm not so sure about that. First, the teachers and the educators responsible for the system were left alone without a politically motivated agenda and just tried to create "a very good educational system". Yes, the objective wasn't to achieve better results statistically in some test, but still academic achievement wasn't forgotten. To note that Finnish students don't have so many tests as Americans still gives a distorted view as still academic achievement matters. There's just one universal test in the end of the gymnasium.

And let's not forget that Finland has copied some things from the US too. I wouldn't say that there is a difference in "philosophy" in education between the US and Finland. Good teachers now what kind of school and teaching works. Yet as in everything else, things like bigger problems in the society do matter.

And btw Finnish system isn't so top of the notch anymore. I remember one education professional here saying that if you would just take the capital area (which has the best funding), the system would be still as good as in Singapore. With all of the country taken into account, not so. Hence funding is important.

Minnesota, where I live, is a lot like the Nordic countries in a number of ways. Our rate of gun deaths per 100,000 is about the same as Northwestern Europe. The state spends a lot on education and other pieces of public social infrastructure. At the same time that Minnesota schools rate close to the top, the gap between white students' and black (and other minority) students' performance is the largest in the country. — Bitter Crank

As I've said, Minnesota is the closest equivalent to Finland in the US. Minnesota in fact has a little town called Finland.

Hence the closest to "What the Nordic model would look like in the US?", look at Minnesota.

Hi,

I was in the some time at 1st grade and the 2nd grade in Elementary School in the US (public school, View Ridge) in Seattle in the early 1980's and otherwise I've gone through the Finnish education system. I visited some of my old schoolfriends in Seattle in High School.

Some points: In the US elementary school after school hobbies and courses where arrangened extremely well and that part I (and my parents) enjoyed very much. In the Finnish system the school hadn't anything to offer after school for even the youngest children. Only later Finland has copied the US model and has put emphasis on this issue.

Now the obvious truth: the American school was far more easy and lax. 3rd grade in Finland was way more difficult when coming from the US 2nd grade. And when visiting my best friend's high school as a 16-year old and participating with him on the education just for a day, I noticed really big differences. When coming to the High School waited to meet the principle and there was a model of the SAT tests laying in the secretaries offices. I immediately noticed that "Hey, these are easy!" and I could do the majority of them without any kind of studying beforehand. (The principle was actually a very educated man and greeted me in Finnish. When I responded in Finnish he was so delighted, that he said something in Russian. I had to tell him that even if we have been a Grand Dutchy of Russia for nearly 100 years, hardly any Finn talks Russian). During that day it became evident that Math was way more easier,the history lessons was very superficial and in the French class, the whole class seemed to be totally or at least partly clueless on what was been taught. I also noticed that at this stage the pupils were divided racially. In the 2nd grade everybody played together and it didn't matter if you were white, latin or black. With 16 year olds the divide into groups was quite evident (something that I never experienced in Finland as there simply here there were then no minorities to speak of).

What was strikingly different was physical excersize. At that time, especially gymnastiks in Finland was, I don't know but I presume, copied from East Germany and I hated it in the 3rd grade after being in the US school were physical education was intended to be fun. In Finland, not so. And while in the US at such early stage (2nd grade) boys and girls excersized in mixed groups, in Finland right from the start girls and boys were separated and never excersized together (until dance lessons in final year, if that is considered gymnastics).

Finland at that time came to be some kind of a poster child for education systems and for Finns to become such a model was totally unintensional and surpising. The teachers just wanted a "good system" and nothing else and were totally blown away that by some standards the Finnish system was top notch. Today Finland has fallen in the rankings as many countries have made it policy to improve their systems in the rankings.

I would say that as noted earlier here, US education simply doesn't ask so much from it's pupils as in other countries they do. In the US they have simply tackled the problem of poor results by lowering the standards. That I think isn't the way to do it.

The first thing Americans should understand that being a teacher should be a very respected job and teachers should be very well educated and well trained. And that the educative system has to be challenging. You cannot simply rely on foreigners coming to your country to make your higher education the best in the World. Sure, the Ivy League universities can prosper, but how about the hundreds of other universities and colleges?

Mines are not a big threat in the middle of the ocean. — boethius

The Red Sea, The Persian Gulf and the Straight of Hormuz aren't wide spaces. An Aircraft carrier on the Red Sea is like in a bathtub.

That carriers are sunk in war games isn't really insightful if we can't compare to how many times they aren't sunk in such games as well as how good the submarines were. — boethius

Not much is insightful when there hasn't been a major naval exchange for a long, long time.

It's also important to keep in mind, short of nuclear torpedoes, you'd need to hit the carrier a lot of times to actually sink it. — boethius

Modern torpedoes slice a cruiser or a destroyer into two parts, hence a hit to bigger ship would Still be very damaging. And aircraft carriers are built for speed, they aren't armoured like old battleships. Again some issues have changed from WW2.

US population invariably figures out the answer is no, because the average American sees no benefit from these imperial skirmishes — boethius

And this is the reason that once you are deemed by the neocons or the Washington "Blob", the Foreign Policy Apparatus, to be a rogue state, it's indeed totally rational to procure a nuclear deterrent. With a functioning nuclear deterrent the US will likely not attack you. Hence Iran is on the firing line because it hasn't got what Pakistan and North Korea have.

Here I think the US really can be confident that China, much less Iran, if far behind Russia in the rocket technology required to penetrate the carrier group missile-defense systems. — boethius

I think the real threat is more likely the age old enemy that simply is forgotten: mines and the diesel submarine. During the Falklands war Argentine subs got to the point to attack the British carriers… and their torpedoes went haywire. The Argentinians blamed sabotage, others blamed incompetence of the Argentinians. But of course history and the perception of naval warfare would be different, because losing even one aircraft carrier would have meant that the British fleet would have had to sail back. And there are numerous times in excersizes when submarines have snuck into the perimeter of the carrier battle group and sunk the aircraft carrier.

All told, since the early 1980s, U.S. and British carriers have been sunk at least 14 times in so-called “free play” war games meant to simulate real battle, according to think tanks, foreign navies and press accounts. The exact total is unknown because the Navy classifies exercise reports.

(See Special Report : Aircraft carriers, championed by Trump, are vulnerable to attack)

Yet as the last action in pure naval combat from a submarine has been the sinking of General Belgrano, a WW2 era light cruiser over 30 years ago, the debate around the threat has been diminished.

Iran has 39 submarines (7 submarines and 32 midget submarines armed with torpedoes, missiles and mines). They aren't top of the notch, but one submarine totally silent at the right place is all you need.

Also, keep in mind that the biggest missiles in the S-400 system are for a pretty impressive range of up to 400 Km. — boethius

Does Iran have the S-400?

What I know is that a few batteries of S-300PMU2's were sold there, and it has some modern Tor mobile SAM launchers. Other systems are older or Iranian copies of older systems (SA-2, SA-5). Anyway, what's more interesting is the capability that Iran has in the offensive realm. I think they do want to think asymmetrically and have some quite surprising concepts for littoral warfare. Call it thinking out of the box. Just take the example of these Bavar-2 ship/aeroplanes!

Russians probably won't sell missiles that can hit carriers at super long ranges to anyone — boethius

Nope, That's what the Chinese sell. Or at least the Iranians brag that they do have similar technology as the Chinese.

In 2009, it became clear that China had developed a mobile medium-range ballistic missile called the DF-21D designed to sink ships over 900 miles away. This then-nascent technical achievement gave rise to a still-ongoing debate over the survivability of the U.S.’s nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, as the DF-21D outranged the strike planes serving on carrier decks. This further compelled the U.S. Navy to introduce anti-ballistic missile capability to its destroyers and cruisers in the form of the SM-3 missile.

However, just two years later Iran announced it too had already developed an anti-ship ballistic missile. Tehran is infamous for habitually exaggerating or fabricating claims about its military technology—but in 2013 footage of an apparently successful missile test was released, and by 2014 U.S. intelligence briefings confirmed the missile’s deployment.

A 2014 CSIS assessment concludes that the rocket on average will fall within a few dozen meters of the target, and that the Khalij Fars has likely entered service with operational IRGCN units.

It's at least nice that the Nordic countries can agree on a strong welfare state, strong worker's rights, and other common sense policies and programs that should be a foundation to a developed country. — Maw

But notice the other side of what it means to have political consensus: it means that the social democrats go just fine with the implementation of right wing policies too. Especially when the market mechanism does work. It can be quite easily argued that the Nordic countries like Sweden or Finland were far more socialist and centrally governed in the 1960's and 1970's than now. Hence these countries aren't on the path to more socialism, but are what is called mixed economies.

I'll give you a good example. In the 1970's there was a structural overdemand of rental housing. Hence the government's idea at that time was regulate the market... which made things worse. Once when the new regulations came into law, the supply of rental houses simply vanished. My great aunt rented flats back then and she would get one hundred responses from one ad for a flat in the newspaper. So desperate were people that some even sent the first months rent in a letter to her. Even in the 90's there was still this huge demand for flats: for one opening she would have her phone ringing all the day and tens of people would come to see the flat, any flat. Then the government decided to end the regulation and have total freedom in making the tenancy agreement. This opened for even companies to be established that rent out flats. And finally the market was balanced. If you know rent a flat, only at the time when schools are starting are there any crowds. Nobody talks about problems in rental housing anymore as it simply isn't a problem anymore. And needless to say, since the 1990's we have had social democrats in power and they haven't changed the decisions. When the free market mechanism works, why bother?

Political hacks never raise this issue of adapting things from the other side of the political aisle. The only acceptable narrative is to list the problems which the other side creates and things that don't work thanks to the other sides policies. Reminding people that Bismarck really wasn't a socialist, but founded with social security one of the bedrocks of the 'leftist' welfare state, isn't something that the ideologues on both sides want to admit.

But the GOP has mostly turned away from consensus politics since the 90s and have only escalated their Machiavellianism — Maw

In the US winner takes it all. And when you have just two parties, no need for consensus.

I genuinely fear that the type of political tribalism, the demonization of the other side and the refusal of any kind of political consensus is creeping into the Nordic countries too.

It's starts with a refusal to engage with parties that are deemed 'populist'. The best thing to happen here was that then called "True Finns" party was after an election victory let in to the new administration. And then the mass migration event to Europe happened while they were in the administration. This lead the party to break up. Now they have regained the support after being in the opposition and I hope that the new central-leftist administration won't follow the example of Sweden and simply announce that they will never do anything with the party. Parliamentarism needs that the various parties do seek consensus and to have a dialogue.

Anyway, the way now Trump has managed the narrative is beneficial to him. His hardcore supporters don't like the neocons and so the story that everybody on his political team starting from überneocon Bolton was for the strike and he decided not to do it is good for Trump.

Yet there has been a campaign for the strike on Iran, which is discussed quite well in the following video which was released prior to the latest events. Worth listening if one has the time and is interested in the subject:

Absent a ground invasion, you don't really need much integration and coordination and training (you still need enough, but not nearly as much as using these systems in the context of a ground invasion). — boethius

Air Defence needs coordination and integration right from the start. It has to detect an incoming strike, it has to coordinate it's own actions with your own aircraft (not to shoot them down) and it has to know when to attack, when to put on or shut off it's radars.

You can rely on other radar for early warning and / or just wait until you're being bombed, then turn on the S-300/400, fire a whole bunch of missiles, turn it off and try to skedaddle or just let the visible parts of the system (radar transmitters and launch vehicles) get destroyed and replace them later. — boethius

Relying on other radars is what basically a functioning AD Network is all about. Yet that data has to be linked to you via some command structure. And if your S-300's are safely hidden in some warehouse or inside a mountain cave, then you have to get them out, prepare them for firing and get the radars working. Doesn't happen in an instant. If you then have everything ready, but just not the radar on, then as these weapon systems are big, they can be noticed and attacked. That's why the combat survivability isn't the same as with more mobile and smaller systems. Hence the need for a layered multi-system approach. Which then puts even more stress on the technical ability of your people.

The reason I'm stressing on this is because the US military posture just made a massive commitment to stealth technology with the F-35 and various stealth drone programs. — boethius

Let's remember that the Serbians shot down an F-117 with an old relic, a SA-6. (The likely reason was that the USAF had to resort using same air corridors in the crammed Airspace. Hence when the Serbs noticed that an F-117 had flown this route, they positioned a SA-6 exactly on the route.) In an armchair debate about the weapon systems nobody would believe that a SA-6 would shoot down stealth aircraft, but so it happened.

There never has been a golden bullet and reliance on some specific technology and nothing else is simply stupid. Countering tech with more tech isn't also the only answer. An asymmetric response is usually the most clever response: simply don't engage in a war where your enemy has the advantage.

What is telling about this fixation on costly weapons programs is the insistence of portraying the F-35 as this wonder weapon. Also what is telling is the problem that the USAF has ideologically had with the A-10 from the start, one of the most cheapest, most usable and most effective weapon platforms. Starting from the fact that the slow aircraft was basically developed to a role to assist the Army.

Let's take two infinite sets of numbers:
1. ...1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11 .....
2. .... 2,4,6,8,10,12,14 ......
So both sets follow a very obvious pattern.
Question:
Does the first set constitute a bigger infinity than the second one, as, let's take the interval (1;4) for example, the first set includes four numbers (1,2,3,4,) of this interval whereas the second one only includes two (2,4)? — Gilbert

Fdrake already answered this, but if bijections, injections and surjections aren't familiar to you, here's a one way to look at it:

Take the 1. line:

1.) 1,2,3,4,5,...

And multiply every number in that line with the number 2:

1.) 1x2, 2x2, 3x2, 4x2, 5x2,...

And you get from number line 1. number line 2:

1.) 2, 4, 6, 8, 10,...

And instead of 2, you can multiply every number with 100, which "leaves" 99 numbers between. Yet because it's an infinite set, the size is same. The trick is that if you can put the numbers in any infinite set into an order where you definately know you aren't leaving any numbers out, then that infinite set is the same size (cardinality) of the natural numbers (N=1,2,3,4,5...) because there is this mapping to them.

What Cantor did later was that he found out that not all numbers can be put into 1-to-1 with the natural numbers with his diagonal proof.

Now, maybe not effective enough or maybe the system simply doesn't work, but I wouldn't assume these things can be taken out simply due to incompetence. — boethius

Yet competence is a factor that has to be taken into consideration. We (as armchair generals) tend to look just at the performance charts of these systems. You do need a lot of technically trained people. In order for an Air Defence network to operate one needs a functioning command and communications network and an efficient Electronic Warfare capability, which isn't actually so easy to do. Just to give an example of the neighbouring state Iraq (which of course isn't Iran): During Desert Storm the Coalition Forces captured intact an Iraqi Electronic Warfare System loaded on trucks. They took it back and assembled and tried the system in an NATO excersize in Germany and the NATO communications in that excersize went haywire. Thus if the Iraqis would have used the system in the defence of Kuwait, the US and Coalition forces would have had a far more difficult time.

Or take a different example, just to show that this is a problem of Western countries too. Start of the civil war in Syria Turkey asked NATO countries to give support to it and Germany deployed Patriot SAM units into Turkey. Once in Turkey, the Germans noticed that many of the missile systems were broken.

Yes, radars can be easily seen, but the radar components can be far from the actual missiles which are far from the command and control and there can be backup radars. — boethius

Yet without the radars both the S-300 and S-400 systems are quite harmless.

The question is not that the system can be defeated, but how many planes and other air-assets are lost during this process. — boethius

Or more precisely, what is the most effective asymmetric way to respond to get to the US? A mine or a barge filled with explosive in a harbour where a US Navy vessel is might be most efficient way to do it.

Trying to outmatch the US with a conventional build up is very stupid. Just look at how the Taleban is fighting the US: Americans are looking for people that are moving fertilizer in Afghanistan. The mine/IED approach to limiting US operations is one low-key yet highly combat survivable strategy. First and foremost, Iran has to have the ability to survive a US 'pre-emptive' or retaliatory attack.

And then there is the tale of the Millennium Challenge excersize 2002, where another Marine general, Lt. Gen. Paul Van Riper, played the OPFOR (basically the Iranians) and basically won... by sinking an US Carrier Battle Group on the first day of the excersize. Even if the Blue Force was respawned, knowing the actually timid culture of the military, the message was heard.

When the Blue Forces issued a surrender ultimatum, Van Riper, commanding the Red Forces, turned them down. Since the Bush Doctrine of the period included preemptive strikes against perceived enemies, Van Riper knew the Blue Forces would be coming for him. And they did.

But the three-star general didn't spend 41 years in the Marine Corps by being timid. As soon as the Navy was beyond the point of no return, he hit them and hit them hard. Missiles from land-based units, civilian boats, and low-flying planes tore through the fleet as explosive-ladened speedboats decimated the Navy using suicide tactics. His code to initiate the attack was a coded message sent from the minarets of mosques at the call to prayer.

In less than ten minutes, the whole thing was over and Lt. Gen. Paul Van Riper was victorious.

(USS Enterprise after an accident with a Zuni-rocket during the Vietnam War. These kind of images would send political shock waves even if the US Navy wouldn't suffer tactically a huge setback. Such incidents would dent the image of the US armed forces very dramatically.)


What leads Trump or any US President to think twice about these issues is the following: what is the downside if things go bad? Thus attacking Afghanistan or Sudan or Yemen or anywhere you are opposed with poor rag-tag people with antiquated weapons is a safe bet. Not attacking Iran or North Korea.

As we have seen again and again.

Did you write this before the report came out that Trump ordered strikes (before cancelling)? — Michael

Fishfry is suffering from Reverse Trump Derangement Syndrome.

However, Trump's experience as a bully maybe why he doesn't attack Iran. A bully instinctively knows you only prey on those who can't fight back; Iran can offer a fight, so it just doesn't make any sense to attack them, why risk it? — boethius

If we think the only time when Trump did fire the cruise missiles, while eating a lovely chocolate cake with the Chinese leader, the strike had all over it written "Plan of the generals". Or then, plan of Mattis. First, the Russians were notified about the attack in order to prevent an escalatory response. Second, the strike was quite theatrical yet not strategically logical: one air base was attacked by tens of cruise missiles. Yet it was confined to one airbase, not a strike against the Syrian Air Defence system's command structure. Hence basically it was a show of force, a tit-for-tat warning, similar which the Israelis typically do now and then. So I guess Trump still listens to his military.

You are correct that Trump is a genuine bully. Not some person that has long term plans or an ideology behind his actions. Those guys are even worse, because they will go through the ranks to find the general that is willing to execute their bold utopian plans. And let's not forget last Marine general Trump has started his interaction with the Trump administration with openly going against Steve Bannon's schemes to put him out of the loop and still is present when Bannon is long gone: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford.

The last Marine general still working with Trump on the right:


If he resigns from active duty, the only thing a general can do when he doesn't want to follow the Commander-in-Chiefs orders, then hit the panic button.

By S-300/400 I mean to reference the S-300 "with upgrades" the Russians have sold Iranians.

What matters is not so much "having" an S-300 or 400 or some mixture, as taking out 1 battery the US could certainly do with overwhelming force.

What matters is that the Russians can resupply Iran with replacement parts and missiles and they'd be motivated to show their equipment works and highly motivated to tweak, optimize, and resupply. — boethius

Let's discuss this in detail, if you are interested.

First the S-300/S-400 systems are technically very challenging to operate. You have to have able technicians to even keep the system operable and get the performance of the system. You might have the money, but do you have the qualified and well educated crews?After poor performance of it's own personnel, Egypt solved this problem simply with having a huge number of Russian advisors simply manning the whole AD network. Hence we would have learned by now if Russia would have sent the operators too with the missile systems. Now Iranians aren't bad in tech: they have kept flying the F-14's even after a long war with Iraq and have had the ability to add to their fleet the Iraqi aircraft that defected to Iran (during operation Desert Storm).

The second issue is that the system has low combat survivability in the modern battlefield. It cannot move easily, a missile battery is a big observable target (especially when it puts it's radars on). In fact the S-300 (and the S-400 too) have to have their own air defence as we have seen from the Russian deployment of the systems to Syria.

Two Russian S-400 launchers in Syria with a Pantsir S2 system on the right:


Just to show how complicated these weapon systems are (here the S-400 Triumf):

I don't know if just being a citizen of a state earns you respect. — Doug1943

Being a citizen of let's say Afghanistan or Somalia doesn't get much respect. But you are treated as an Afghan and that is a thing. Being an Afghan might not be the thing one actually relates to. The real thing that matters to one might be being a Pashtun, a Tajik, a Hazara or a Nuristani. After all, we did talk about Yugoslavians before, even if we knew that the country was made of many people. And we still talk about the British, even if we know that there are Scots and Welsh on the Island besides the English.

And it's hard to become a successful state without having a high degree of education among your population. — Doug1943

Not just that. You really have to have a collective will for independence. Just think about the Scots. They have wealth, history, an own culture, yet they are fine with being British. The English asked them kindly to stay and they stayed. Perfect example how you indeed can create an identity above an original historic identity.

Yep, the English are good if not the best in countering independence-movements, insurgencies and separatist movements.

With respect to the Soviet Union: it actually did have pretty advanced ethical standards -- in some ways superior to those of free (capitalist) countries. - Even Nazi Germany in many respects had modern ethical standards — Doug1943

Hmm, I wonder what systems you find lacking ethical standards. :wink:

the KGB fellow who was the 'minder' for all foreigners in the city we were in was actually, personally, a very decent fellow. — Doug1943

Isn't that part of his job?

The most famous KGB chief in Finland, general Victor Vladimirov, was not only a very intelligent, cultured and decent fellow, but also a gentleman and very liked person here (and angered many Soviet embassadors with his personal relations with top Finnish politicians).

Here he is (in the white shirt) with President Kekkonen:

...and earlier in his career he was the chief responsible for KGB's assassinations. So yes, they can be decent guys.

I had the opportunity to visit the Soviet Union just before it collapsed. I spent a little bit over a week in Moscow with Muscovite family. Russians are very nice people. Yet the harsh totalitarian system beneath everything was real too. There was this fear (still then) beneath everything which we in the West don't have. In the West we just have to depict people in a totalitarian systems, especially those in leading roles or simply part of the system as vile, insane and utterly evil people. We simply cannot admit to ourselves that the people enforcing the totalitarian system might be totally OK guys.

What about uncountably infinite stuff? — Banno

The difference simply is that you cannot count them (duh!), no possibility of putting them in a proper order and hence get the 1-to-1 mapping to natural numbers. This means also that you cannot make a model of them with a function like y = f(x).

However, every uncountable infinite "stuff" does have a proper model of itself, namely itself. You just cannot compute it. And the model is quite useless, actually, because y = y doesn't get you anywhere.

Might sound simplistic or just semantic, but what is important to note that there genuinely is uncountable 'stuff' in mathematics. The best mathematical models for lot of things which we are interested might just be these uncountable/uncomputable 'stuff'.

People wouldn't be actually happy to find it is so.

Keep in mind also, that effectiveness of stealth against the S-300/400 system is unknown. — boethius

Actually, the US has already tested the S-300 system, not to the S-400 Triumph and many allies and friendly countries to the US have the system, like Greece, Ukraine and Egypt. The US even bought some missile systems from Belarus in 1994, not with everything but still.

Yet the truth is that Russia has actually been ahead of the US in SAM missile technology. This of course is actually totally understandable as the US relies on total air supremacy (the last time US forces were attacked by enemy aircraft was in the Korean War) while Russia has understood the importance of Air Defence. Yet typically the top-of-the-notch systems haven't been sold or simply haven't been effectively used by the armies that the US (or Israel) have attacked.

But I agree with your observations. The US military knows quite well it's own limitations. This has been more of response-with-increase of troops. It happens some time with Iran. These scares with a strike on Iran happen all the again once the average person has forgotten the past crisis. But of course if tensions rise even from this, I would start to be worried.

And let's not forget that Trump's hardcore loyalists aren't actually neocons, so he has to really walk this carefully.

Yet the worrying thing is that there are not many adults in the room with Trump. All the generals in the White House have either left or been fired, which was one of the few good moves Trump did (because obviously Mattis, Kelly and McMaster were recommended to him and weren't eyeing for any political positions, yet one earlier general was a different case, who didn't last for long).

No, the Sovereign Trust Fund is a component of the wealth that I am talking about. — Maw

The Norwegian Pension Fund system compromises of two wealth funds.

Such a shame they couldn't have known of the "terrible consequences" and the "inefficiency" and "corruption" you are speaking about. — Maw

:roll:

So just why then they decided NOT TO invest the larger funds money into the domestic market. I think they know a bit more about investing than you do. And also have avoided the so abundant pitfalls from the easy money that oil wealth brings that are so common in other countries.

My point is that these are workable solutions that step away from capitalism towards a "flavor", if you will, of socialism — Maw

Sure, but that is something called reaching a consensus in politics. You have to remember that these kind of policies, especially the so-called socialist welfare programs, were here accepted and done together with right-wing parties. As I've always said, a right-wing conservative from a Nordic country would seem to an American as a left-leaning Democrat, if not a pinko liberal. Yet again the social democrats here are also different breed from genuine socialists. Again the power of consensus politics.

To my mind, any sort of meaningful socialism necessarily (but not sufficiently) requires collective ownership of wealth. — Maw

But it should be also noted that collective ownership of wealth, just cooperatives, go perfectly at hand with capitalism: let's remember that Bismarck wasn't a socialist, but was trying to fight socialism with the government lead social security system, which is exactly that collective ownership of wealth.

Bismarck was motivated to introduce social insurance in Germany both in order to promote the well-being of workers in order to keep the German economy operating at maximum efficiency, and to stave-off calls for more radical socialist alternatives. Despite his impeccable right-wing credentials, Bismarck would be called a socialist for introducing these programs, as would President Roosevelt 70 years later. In his own speech to the Reichstag during the 1881 debates, Bismarck would reply: "Call it socialism or whatever you like. It is the same to me."

The question(s) goes as follows: In which scenario are we most likely to live? Or rather, can we make a statement about this? — Mind Dough

The likelihood to live now...compared to living in history or in the future is very low. Now if we assume humans have been around for 100 000 years, it's totally possible for us to be around for another 100 000 year. No, we won't go extinct in a couple of decades or continue on an upward trend (as Peak Human Population) will come likely in 100 years or so. Yet if there are 10 billion people for the next 100 000, do the math.

(Actually demographics is something that is very precise. The simple fact is that those who will have children 20 years or so from now have already been born. I've seen some very accurate forecasts made of population growth and demographic change done in the early 1900's, which predicted correctly the next 100 years.)

We're pushing back at excesses and thoughtlessness from different directions. And the rhetoric is important on both sides I think. — Baden

I think so. I think dialogue is mutually beneficial, because it's not a game of winning or losing. Excesses and thoughtlessness basically limit the dialogue. Or the will to have a dialogue. We have those wonderful echo-chambers to go to in this new age of tribalism.

Man-on-the-moon cultures generally develop a higher ethical standard, as well as developing better engineering techniques. — Doug1943

Well, the Soviet Union did lead the space-race and was close even to getting a man to the moon first, if it wasn't for an enthusiastic German called Werner von Braun. So higher ethical standards of the Soviet Union? :roll:

The real problems of, say, Native Americans and similar groups are located in the fact that many of them have not yet found a way to join the modern world, while retaining such of their customs as are comfortable to them and not in conflict with modern values. — Doug1943

'Found a way to join the modern world' sounds condescending. The cause is simply the low numbers of these groups and the lack of a sovereign nation state. Once when you do have a sovereign state, then other people will treat you as a citizen of that state, even if you have no love for it. It truly changes how you are treated.

It's not about 'finding a way' but simply resisting cultural assimilation. The way that entire people fade away is simple: you don't care a shit about the language your family or your ancestors and simply choose to be part of another group. And typically you are allowed to do that. Languages and hence entire people have assimilated to larger groups.

Sometimes well-meaning arrangements for them actually help cement them into a backward way of life. — Doug1943

I think that social welfare programs can be used as a veiled counter-insurgency strategy. Or just make booze and drugs cheap and available.

Even if the term "duopoly" would fit the two-party system well, it has to be argued that the two ruling parties do have a stranglehold over the political arena in the US. The biggest chokehold they have is of in the thinking of the American voter: if you vote "third party", that is argued to be a vote for the worst candidate hate, because the voter isn't voting against him or her. People cannot fathom a third party to succeed.

Also Americans really believe in the idea of "primaries". That they can "influence" the less bad party by voting in the party's own "primary elections". This makes them believe that parties themselves are intrinsically democratic.

So basically I would say the fault of having a corrupt political system is solely on the shoulders of the American voter. But then again, Americans want to pay the most in the World for a mediocre health care system, so I guess they want to have the two-party system too.

Perhaps I'm missing something about uncountable sets. Can one set with aleph-1 elements be mapped to another set with aleph-1 elements?

So could an uncountable number of individuals be mapped to an uncountable number of names? — Banno

Every mathematical object has a proper model of itself.... basically itself. So basically (not rigorously) it means that R=R

The problem with this attitude is you go from criticizing the excessive victim playing of the Sami to creating victims out of those who insulted their culture — Baden

Seems you didn't get what I was actually saying at all, just gave what indeed are the typical remarks made of "the excesses". And I responded to Terrapin Station. Hopefully you'll read my reply thoroughly.

My basic point is that the whole discourse of 'cultural appropriation' has a rigid framework and specific narrative which isn't at all changed no matter where it is applied. It isn't changed at all, because I the primary reason is that people relate things to other examples. Hence you can have in Finland a blonde blue-eyed young Sami activist talking about colonization and the oppression by the 'white' majority. This is a framework that works. The reason is of course that people are against colonialism, against a white majority repressing a minority, so you when talk about 'colonialism' and you make it to a racial issue. It's like appropriation of cultural appropriation, use of a specific narrative.

The basic problem of this is that you can find here clear aspects of what I would call 'the lithurgy'. A situation similar in Church where the priest in Sermon says something and the thing to do is to listen and nod in agreement. And because it's lithurgy, you actually don't debate it. You just nod in agreement, because that is what is meant to do...and don't pay any attention to it.

And this is actually counterproductive if you genuinely try to engage the public debate. This is my main point. If your objective is to get an academic position in studying indigenous people and minorities or to get yourself heard by the government, then this 'copy paste'-approach is totally logical. But there's a backlash if you talk about colonization and the repression of an indigenous people by a white majority. The simple fact is that when your 'colonizers' have come to the land before the birth of Christ, hence been thousands of years here too, the narrative of colonization makes no sense. Or the reference to race, because you absolutely cannot make any difference between a Finn and a Sami. The average 'man on the street' will find it strange and then if this then becomes 'the lithurgy', official truism that opposing makes you a bigot, then it makes just things worse.

Just to take a reality check on these issues, let's just take as example of what Amnesty International says what is wrong in Finland and Myanmar:

Finland:

Changes to the asylum procedure continued to affect asylum-seekers negatively. Support services for women who experienced domestic violence remained inadequate. Legislation on legal gender recognition continued to violate the rights of transgender people. Draft legislative changes limiting the right to privacy were proposed.

Myanmar:

The human rights situation deteriorated dramatically. Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya fled crimes against humanity in Rakhine State to neighbouring Bangladesh; those who remained continued to live under a system amounting to apartheid. The army committed extensive violations of international humanitarian law. Authorities continued to restrict humanitarian access across the country. Restrictions on freedom of expression remained. There was increased religious intolerance and anti-Muslim sentiment. Impunity persisted for past and ongoing human rights violations.

In one case the treatment of a minority is an issue, in another case it isn't.