Let’s start with technology and science. Do you think we can reasonably say there has been progress in either of these fields? — Joshs

There's been change. How would you measure 'progress'?

Why are you being difficult? You're well aware of the significant medical, legal, scientific, and economic improvements over the last few centuries. — Judaka

Net improvements? It's easy to prove an improvement if you're selective about which negative consequences you're going to include, and over what timescale you're going to measure that improvement. If I rob a bank, killing all the staff and then spend the money on a new yacht my life will have improved .. if I ignore the consequences of my actions and put the future possibility of being caught as merely hypothetical.

Why should I play this game with you? — Judaka

I thought we were on a discussion forum. Have I pasted the comment into the wrong website?

why is it so quiet in this thread? — Tzeentch

Embarrassment.

Pinker provides mountains of evidence for overarching general progress in history, what kind of counterargument is there? What you cynically call magic and assumption is simply a belief in charts that plot points and show progress. — Judaka

I’m not going to address the evidence here, at least not yet. — Jamal

I'll bite, if that's not treading on anyone's toes too much.

Give us a good single example from this 'mountain of evidence' you think best proves 'general progress in history'

If there's something to be critical about, I will be. I've said enough times that there's a lot to be critical about the West, including my own country. — ssu

The question wasn't about your record. It was a specific question about the corroboration of evidence. You (and the others I've mentioned), seem to weigh evidence which is provided (or confirmed) by official sources as being of a higher grade than evidence which is not. I couldn't fathom why. Official sources are directly involved in the war and have a proven track record of lying. It's not even controversial that they do.

Yet you consistently present evidence from sources like the Ukrainian intelligence, or US officials as if it had some weight to it when, if anything, a sensible analysis would have it placed lower than third party evidence in terms of reliability in this conflict.

Sy Hersh was just a good recent example. He's a journalist and took his evidence from an anonymous source. He was pretty roundly either openly ridiculed or at least treated with suspicion relative to these latest reports which come directly (again without anything more than anonymous sources) from the US government. These are not ridiculed. Nor are they treated with suspicion. In fact, quite the opposite as serious discussion takes place about the possibilities raised.

So I was asking, not about your record of anti-government criticism, but about your specific judgement about the relative reliability of the intelligence those governments have chosen to leak in this particular context. Why do you place so high a confidence in the veracity of government leaks here?

it's you who seem not to understand that as countries have agendas, they can easily also go with the truth when it fits their purpose. — ssu

... says the person who cannot get their head around the fact that some of what Putin is saying about this war might just so happen to be true.

The platitude you've just used above is performatively contradicted every time you use "that's what Putin says..." as if that was a counter argument. If anything anti-US just happens to be true, Putin's going to use it, isn't he?

You can't argue that the US might just happen to be right sometimes (despite a track record of lying) without at the same time conceding that Putin might just happen to be right despite a similar track record of lying. That being the case, you can't use "that's what Putin says..." as a counter argument.

The original question that Benkei raised was if it's possible for a non-state entity to do the operation, meaning it's impossible to plant explosives at that depth by anybody else than nations. — ssu

Come on! How uncharitable do you have to be to think @Benkei was seriously asking if it was actually impossible? That would be a ridiculous question and you know it. The question was obviously about the relative credibility of the hypothesis, but since answering that would cast shade on the US you have to deflect to some pedantic drivel about whether it's physically impossible for someone to place explosive on a pipe underwater if they're not a government.

I agree we tend to interface with religion badly. I think the fault lies (not wanting to come across as too fence-sitting here) on both sides. Excessive defensiveness, essentially. That's why I was trying to emphasise difference rather than scoring either. Athiests (rationalists, empiricists...) are, quite fairly, bristled when told they 'just the same' as religious people in their belief systems, having made such strenuous efforts to try something different. The religious are again quite fairly, upset when told their approach is old-hat or the 'cause of all wars', or some such trope. The former is a process judgement, the latter a value judgement. I think if the religious would concede a process difference and the non-religious would refrain from value judgements there might be some bridges which could be built.

My suspicion is that the loudest voices (which are often the minority) on either camp are distrustful of such a solution because each know their flaws and are afraid to have them exposed, but then I have a habit of psychologising everything so...

It seems to me that atheists submit to authority in their thinking as much as religious people. — Jamal

I agree in real life, but the reason for discussing the 'ideal' atheist here was to highlight to process difference. Essentially, one cannot check on any way the qualification of the authority in a religious approach, it's about trust and faith. No one asks for Moses's qualification, no-one checks his methodology statement. He is accepted by faith to have heard the will of God. I might trust a scientist to tell me how things are, say with physics, of which I know virtually nothing, but It's not faith. I check their qualifications. I go through a different (not better or worse, but different) mental process to arrive at my decision to believe them.

I do, however, agree that in practice, there are so many quasi-religious belief systems out there "extreme nationalism, fascism, Stalinism, etc. " as you later list, that very few atheists obtain anything but a small portion of their beliefs through the scientific process and with the modernisation of most religions (dropping out of biblical literalism etc), the difference is minimal. It's more a philosophical difference than a practical one.

Are you talking about being militant in some political movement or party that are against
one's Western country's involvement in this war? — neomac

No.

Take Seymour Hersh's article for example. It blames the US government for the pipeline sabotage. So the US government will want to suppress that story (note we haven't even got to whether it's true or not yet).

They will use their enormous power to rapidly put it down. If, therefore, you think you might not want that story put down, you have to amplify it quickly and with force. You have to resist that suppression.

"Let's wait for the evidence" is too slow and "Maybe, possibly, it's unlikely though" is too weak. So if you adopt either of those policies, the story will be suppressed. That's what a powerful agency is doing and so if it's not met with equally powerful resistance it will have its way.

Therefore, if you adopt either of those slow, weak policies, you are consenting to the suppression of the story since that's directly what your lack of resistance will result in.

If, on the other hand, you think the story dangerous and deserving of suppression, you need do absolutely nothing. Your preferences are already aligned with those of with power, so unresisted they're going to happen anyway. You could help, of course, but you almost certainly don't need to.

The less powerful cannot force the more powerful to act against their will. Its the basic definition of power - see Lukes, or Nye, or any of the others. So all you have is to cause some future hesitation, some future fear that they cannot be so brazen.

And how would you "fight back hard enough and quickly enough to stop it" in more detail? — neomac

I'm not sure that this line of inquiry is relevant to the thread, but there are a range of options depending on one's position. My job gives me an outlet with some very small degree of influence, but when speaking as a layman, which is most of the time, it's mainly about raising, or maintaining, a movement of voters opposed to the abuses of power (and yes, even just potential abuses of power) so that people in power face an increased risk from carrying out these abuses.

I don't understand how much confidence you can put in the idea that you ... would be able to provide a powerful fast response... against the abuses of the evil people that govern us ..., and yet without being as abusive or worse than them. — neomac

That's the point. We don't have a choice. It's either let them do what they're going to do, or respond fast and hard enough to stop it.

You can wring your hands as much as you like about the risks. I'll join you enthusiastically in the hand-wringing. But there's no option for just hand-wringing. Its either let those in power do what they want or fight back hard enough and quickly enough to stop it. There's no pause button, no time out, no postponement.

outside of philosophical debate this type of approach to worldly affairs is, in one word, weak. We're dealing with actors that will take every opportunity to bullshit you, and here we are waiting for that distant moment when we arrive at crystalline certainty (a pipe dream) to call out said bullshit.

That's crippling insecurity masquerading as intellectual rigor. — Tzeentch

Exactly. I was having this exact conversation with a student only yesterday (whilst bolshily inserting myself into a seminar I was only supposed to be sitting in on!). Powerful actors will act powerfully, that's in the definition. So if they are not resisted powerfully, then the effect is consent to whatever it is they are doing. They will not wait for us to make up our minds whether we consent. They will not temper their force in line with our uncertainty. Least of all in war.

When events are moving powerfully and with speed, responses have to match both or else fail.

As usual “unwavering faith” or “unreserved faith” are ways to caricature my views — neomac

Yes. We'd want to avoid such loaded terms as "unwavering faith", being, as you say, mere caricatures...

Now, unrelated, to your substantive and dispassionate assessment of my position...

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

Good job we're avoiding loaded terms and caricatures, otherwise that might have come across badly....

I've already explained. The US and it's allies are our governments. It is they who we must hold to account and they to whose electorate we are speaking. As such it is their faults and strategies which are our primary concern. It's not rocket science.

Ironically, your attempts to discredit the US is what makes people like me feel like sympathising with the US leadership more than our brains would recommend. — neomac

An odd response, but I appreciate the honesty.

I just can't for the life of me figure out how this fits into the picture that Russia probably did it, and that the US certainly didn't do it. — Tzeentch

Indeed, that will have to remain a mystery. Fortunately for us amateur sleuths, we do have one piece of crystal clear evidence. Despite knowing nothing about their origins, methods, motives, or training... We do know for absolute certain that they were not acting on the authority of the US, the UK or Ukraine.

How do we know this...? Why, the authorities of those countries told us so... So that should completely satisfy our curiosity in that regard.

On a separate note. It's good to keep track of our respective governments' recent improvements in imagination. Only in September....

But one senior US official and a US military official both said Russia is still the leading suspect – assuming that the European assessment of deliberate sabotage is borne out – because there are no other plausible suspects with the ability and will to carry out the operation.

“It’s hard to imagine any other actor in the region with the capabilities and interest to carry out such an operation,” the Danish military official said. — https://edition.cnn.com/2022/09/28/politics/nord-stream-pipeline-leak-russian-navy-ships/index.html

Now, they seem to be finding that leap of imagination so much easier. Seeming to have no trouble imagining six blokes in a boat did it, just because of how much they liked Ukraine. Funny how impossible it previously was to imagine anyone but Russia in September, but now some jingoistic yachtsmen are considered likely. What might have happened between now and then...?

If you give people who desperately do not want to face the obvious something to latch onto, they will. No matter how improbable it is. — Tzeentch

Yep, the interest then, really, is in why anyone would so desperately want to preserve the status quo. Can anyone really think it's that great.

Within any given religion, there are classic forms of thinking (philosophies?) that allow for a heuristic approach. Within the context of any given religion, there are pluralities that mirror the pluralism of Enlightenment thought... In Islam, for instance, the variance of jurisprudence should at least cause us to stop and consider it. — Noble Dust

Again, I think the mere existence of pluralities isn't quite sufficient to justify an extension of "rational thought". One can arrive at pluralities simply by having a range of prophets who all claim slightly different things. They themselves might make those claims on the basis of divine revelation and believers might follow one, rather than the other, on the basis of tradition. There'd be no rational thought going on there at all. Again, I'm not making a judgment here about the strategy, 'tradition' has a lot going for it as a decision-making heuristic, but it's not the same as rationality, that's the point I'm making.

I don't think (but I don't know for sure) that a muslim would agree. Rationality exists in Islam. It's just not the same rationality that we know. To a muslim, rationality is arguably based on jurisprudence. — Noble Dust

I'm not sure I can make sense of this, but it kind of speaks to the concern I have about these kinds of inclusive arguments. It smacks a little of wanting to have one's cake and eat it. Rationality may be rather loosely defined, but defined it is, and deference to jurisprudence isn't it. If Muslims think that deference to jurisprudence is a good way to live life, then I've no argument with that. It might be. But others take a different approach, and I dislike attempts to subsume our approach always with that if the theist.

Something is different. I think there's a strong argument that 'rationality' is the right word for that, but if it's not, then some other word is, because bthe non-religious undeniably use different decision-making heuristics to the religious. We could call it whatever, but that difference exists, and it's to do with the treatment of authority.

It comes down, I think to the scientific method vs revelation as means of gaining knowledge.

The scientific method is such that it ought be replicable by anyone and so its results open to critique by anyone. Revelation is not replicable by anyone, no-one is claiming we can all access Allah's will in the way Mohammad did, he was special in some way that isn't open to critical analysis.

That means that 'rational thought' heuristics can be applied throughout the evidence selection procedure. Something that cannot be replicated in religious approaches. I could not, as a Muslim, raise a jurisprudent disagreement on the ground that I'd received contrary revelation to that received by Mohammad. I could, however, do exactly that with experimental results.

Again, I don't mean to imply any judgment here as to which is best, only to point out that they are different, and that the difference is about the scale at which particular methods of thinking (which I'm calling 'rationality') are employed, relative to methods such as faith in the abilities of others (in, for example, divine revelation).

I guarantee you any member of an ulema would roll their eyes at best at this characature. — Noble Dust

Well they might, likewise many a caricature of the atheist. The point, which I think is undeniable, is that knowledge, in religious traditions, is arrived at by methods which cannot be tested by its initiates. They must simply defer to that authority. It is not 'worked out' by egalitarian and open discussion. That is a fundamental difference in the degree of 'faith' one is required to demonstrate for each approach.

What they have faith in is the entire narrative of their belief system, with all it's wrinkles and curiosities, in the same way you have faith in whatever belief system you hold. — Noble Dust

I think this unfairly equivocates on what "thinking for oneself" could possibly mean. An act of rational decision-making is a series of heuristic steps we recognise as delivering more accurate results than, say, guessing, or deciding beforehand what the answer should be.

It's not particularity controversial, as it can be quite easily shown that these steps produce more accurate answers in simple cases (though less so in complex ones).

So when you say that the rational atheist is no less beholden to his belief system than the Muslim, you're ignoring what it means to make a rational decision. An atheist may well have a belief system which constrains the type of evidence they're willing to accept, or which limits the types of answer they're willing to consider, but that doesn't take away from the fact that some heuristic process is taking place in a rational decision. Evidence is being weighed (albeit a limited set) and some proven mental habits are being applied.

With submission to authority, no such steps are being taken. It's not that the evidence is similarly constrained (just be a different set of belief), it's not about evidence, it's about the process of thought being applied to that set. With submission to authority, no critical thought is taking place. One is therefore not "thinking for oneself". One has given over that task to the relevant authority.

I agree we are all beholden to the beliefs which inform our decisions and that those beliefs are just that. I wouldn't argue that a religious person's beliefs are somehow more belief-like than an atheist's, but I don't believe it can be argued that the same processes of thought are taking place. The mental process of going through arguments pro and con for, say, homosexual marriage, are not similar to the mental process of checking in a book or asking an authority figure, even if both processes are reliant on faith in a system of beliefs.

actually — SophistiCat

Do you even know the meaning of the word "actually"?

It isn't 'stuff I reckon'.

Some absolute classics from those two articles though.

The first...

Saakashvili [Georgian President] said Russian officials have tendered veiled threats in the past, and given the natural gas crisis created in Ukraine earlier this month when Russia temporarily shut off the flow, the president said it "just looks fishy."

Now I remember hearing about some "veiled threats" from one of the countries in this latest case... I can't quite remember...@Tzeentch, do you have any recollection of 'veiled threats' coming from anyone? Because it seems to be a very important piece of evidence in establishing likely culprits.

I particularly like...

The connection to Russia is solely circumstantial. "U.S. intelligence agencies believe the Russian government was behind the Refahiye explosion, according to two of the people briefed on the investigation. The evidence is circumstantial, they said, based on the possible motive and the level of sophistication

Oh yes, Russia's story about a local terrorist group is utterly ridiculous - it takes a state to carry out something that sophisticated... or, of course, a "group", which as we all know are far more well-equipped and well-trained than any state.

As Caitlin Johnstone put it...

They literally wrote an entire article without ever addressing how bizarre it is to just keep referring to the alleged perpetrators as just a "group". Like that's a thing. "Yeah you know, one of those Groups we've all been hearing about in the news. You know Groups, they sail around the world destroying international undersea energy infrastructure." — Caitlin Johnstone

Yet not impossible for someone without the training. — ssu

Who's suggesting it's impossible? Why on earth would we be contemplating theories which are merely "not impossible"? Is that seriously your threshold for even so much as doubting your governments - "well, if it's not absolutely impossible that they're telling the truth, then I'll believe them".

I'd love to know. You, @SophistiCat, @neomac... What have your governments done recently to deserve such unreserved faith? I just can't fathom it. What, over the last decade, say, has lead you to believe that US intelligence agencies are trustworthy, that government sources tell you the truth, that the official version of events is pretty much how things are... I'd love to know what string of successes has given you all such unwavering faith in the system. Do you look around at the world and think "Yep, this is all going really well, good job guys"? (@SophistiCat - feel free to answer as if in reply to someone else and refer to me obliquely, like, "people who think..." so you can continue to pretend any dissent is beneath response)

all of a sudden there's a flood of murky intelligence leaks in media. What's up with that? — SophistiCat

Well shit, who knows? Intelligence officials leak a story to the media exculpating the countries they are officials of. What could possibly be going on...? Phew, tough one.

This fits with what I was saying recently about meritocracy. — Jamal

Yes, I read your argument there and thought it very compelling. There's something in all this of the urge to defend the status quo against a certain type of change. I can see some merit to that, having some small 'c' conservative leanings myself, but my gut feeling is it's mainly about exculpating Western democracies for their inequality at home and exploitation abroad.

it's not so hard to destroy a pipeline. — ssu

Don't be ridiculous. All the intelligence agencies are saying this is a very difficult operation with either state-level actors or those with state training.

Your desperation is showing.

Indeed. My Dutch is entirely reliant on Google translate I'm afraid, but have I got it right that they're citing the 'Western intelligence' source too? It's not clear if there's a genuine second source or if it's just all the intelligence agencies sharing the same information. The German TV stations' investigations seem to spring off the US/European intelligence release about the yacht, so if that's false then all their leads are red herrings.

The telegraph seems to confirm a single (joint agency) source. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/03/07/nord-stream-pipelines-blown-pro-ukrainian-group-us-intelligence/

Wouldn't he just say that in actuality, the Enlightenment was only realized in nation-states, and especially in the US, where he and his friends stand at the pinnacle of history? — Jamal

I think he probably would try. I just can't see how one could conduct any sort of comparative study by nation. Pretty much since the first nation state, one state has traded, invaded, enslaved and stolen from, another. The state of one nation is as much caused by the actions of those around it as it is by its own internal cultural and political make up.

I share Pinker's animus towards some of that progressivism. — Jamal

Me too. I was watching the Munk debates on both capitalism and populism and the same theme struck me, that the motivating ideology of any movement is not the same as the product. There's a disconnect created by the fact that ideologies gather popular support and as such become tools in themselves which can be wielded in the service of other, completely different ideologies.

I think enlightenment, progressiveness, whatever you call it, is like that. The notion of trusting in science, the rule of law, reason etc is one thing. The purposes that such a trust is put to is another.

Which assumptions are hiding under the surface? — Jamal

Having read Pinker's book (and found nowhere a satisfactory answer), I'd say...

1. Nowhere is it established how we (enlightened countries) justify such a discreet separation from those benighted countries of war, famine and pestilence. It's as if Pinker treats borders as having some deep cultural/psychological fence around them such that cultures within can be judged in isolation.

2. The assumption that recorded history is equal to 'the past' which, of course it isn't. What goes into the records is a selected subset of everything that actually happened. One of the main critiques I've read of Pinker here is that he takes a single, fairly famously biased, source for his data on Hunter-Gatherer tribes, for example. We shouldn't confuse the academic canon with the lived experiences of the people there.

I like (though hadn't thought of it before) your noting that 'the past' is simply assumed to be source of these evils rather than actual material conditions (which, obviously could re-materialise). I agree it dangerously implies we need do nothing, that just passively 'allowing' progress will result in the benefits assigned to it. It has a disturbing paternalistic feel that I don't think is accidental. Pinker's target, after all, is not the forces which keep these benighted countries down. His audience is Western. His target is that particular branch of progressivism which sees technological and capitalist growth as a concern. His message is "stand aside".

I'd advise any of our younger readers to check out...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/06/13/first-woodward-bernstein-watergate-scandal/

This is what quality reporting used to look like.

Suspicion, followed up diligently, reported as it came out.

No theatrics, no snivelling sycophancy (given the culture of the era), just basic investigative journalism.

Contrast that with the latest piece of shit from the same paper 40 years on...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/03/07/intelligence-officials-suspect-ukraine-partisans-behind-nord-stream-bombings-rattling-kyivs-allies/

Literally no investigation, and absolutely no sources other than official government lines. Not even a mention of the alternative explanations. Just blind parroting of White House press releases. They might as well just publish them verbatim and save money on reporters.

when "anonymous officials" report on "undisclosed information" about "anonymous groups" about which "much is still unclear" they're all reporting in tandem. — Tzeentch

I think this has become a really key theme in political discourse over the last few years.

If you can't trust your government (or even if you want to discuss the possibility of not being able to trust your government), then in what way can your rejection of the veracity of government sources be seen as evidence contrary to your argument? It's ridiculous. Yet that's where we find ourselves.

Authors critical of their governments are being dismissed (by liberal pundits no less), on the grounds that government sources contradict their story. And this absurdity is just swallowed by the Twitterati as if it were the most normal thing in the world.

It's reported in Germany at the same time based on German intelligence leaks — Benkei

I didn't get that from the German article (in Zeit https://www.zeit.de/politik/ausland/2023-03/nordstream-2-ukraine-anschlag). all I could find about sources was...

The ARD capital studio, Kontraste, SWR and ZEIT spoke to sources in several countries for their research.

According to information from the ARD capital studio, Kontraste, SWR and ZEIT, a Western secret service is said to have sent a tip to European partner services in the autumn, i.e. shortly after the destruction, according to which a Ukrainian commando was responsible for the destruction.

... the latter suggesting that the source might even be the same "Western secret service".

Or possibly the other way around, I suppose. It seems beyond credibility that they both just happened to come across the exact same incriminating evidence when it's not time-constrained data (boat ownership, cctv footage, passport stamps...) all of this is information available the moment the explosion took place, so the only thing stopping authorities from obtaining it and putting the pieces together is the time it takes to carry out the investigation. Are we to believe that with radically different resources to put to it, both countries just happened to reach the same point in their investigations at the same time?

We'll forever be in the dark about this. I'm more interested in the way it's being portrayed than the actual facts of the case (which we'll simply never know).

What's of interest is the way that intelligence agencies and government spokesman are being treated as acceptable verification for single anonymous sources in storylines which involve state-level actors. That state is not going to honestly admit (or miss opportunities to deny) it's own involvement. In a story about the government, you can't have the government as the only corroboratory source.

Got to love the brazenness of these people...

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/07/us/politics/nord-stream-pipeline-sabotage-ukraine.html

Just a quick scan of the multiple named sources used to support this article...

U.S. officials suggests...

U.S. officials said...

U.S. officials said...

U.S. officials declined to disclose the nature of the intelligence...

U.S. officials say...

U.S. officials said...

U.S. officials described...

U.S. officials have not stated...

U.S. officials who have reviewed the new intelligence said...

Officials said...

... officials said...

Nice to see the New York Times fully asserting the independence of its journalism from it government.

Also pertinent, a FAIR report from 2016 concluded, of the New York Times...

After sorting and categorizing tens of thousands of data points and poring over hundreds of individual articles, blog posts and columns, I can only say with high confidence that the number of anonymous-source stories published by the Times in 2015 approached 6,000, out of roughly 88,000 individual articles, blog posts and columns from both the paper and wire services. (To view the full set of Times-authored anonymous-source stories for 2015, plus news desk and front-page analysis as well as a breakdown of bylines, go to this public Google Doc.) But I’m convinced the exact number is unknown by any mere mortal (or editor on Eighth Avenue). — https://fair.org/home/journalisms-dark-matter/

I think you've opened up a whole new exegesis of Chalmers' work. It all starts to make sense now...

A serious and good philosophical work could be written consisting entirely of jokes.

...

Yep. You win. My search for "World Goes to Hell in a Handcart" yielded nothing. I am, however, thinking of embedding this as my new email signature

how does it show that the elements of experience have any ultimate material constituent? — Wayfarer

I don't think it does (though doubtless some materialists do). It's a conjecture. A hypothesis to explain how things seem to be. It has against it the complexities of quantum physics, but it has in it's favour the compelling parsimony that that's exactly how things do seem to be.

I don't think the old-fashioned notion of actual atomism is defensible any more in the light of modern physics (though maybe string theory? I get very lost in physics), but 'materialism' sensu lato, is more about externality than 'matter'.

It will then point out that whatever you claim is an ultimate constituent or object, can be nothing other than a consistent form of experience, something that appears invariant through time in your experience of the world. And that's not to deny the reality of such experiences - they're repeatable, governed by laws, observable by third parties, and so on. But they're all ultimately experiential in nature, that than ultimately material in nature. — Wayfarer

I think the mistake here is to confuse that which is being posited with the justification for doing so. Had I only ever seen teacups, I might reasonably conclude the world was composed entirely of teacups. What I'm positing is an external world made of teacups. My reasons for doing so are that my experiences (my personal world) consists entirely of teacups, and so it seems reasonable.

Materialists are not denying their experiences form the source of their conjecture. They're simply taking the fairly parsimonious position that "if our experiences are all pretty consistently like this, then maybe that's because the world is constituted that way"

The latter is the hypothesis, the experiences are the evidence/justification.

Thanks. Anger is understandable, many of my posts here could fall under a similar criticism and are motivated by the same anger you feel (I just disagree with you about how to stop this hell) and were it one of mine you were responding to I would have let it be.

As @Tzeentch said...

the price of ignorance is paid every day by the young men dying on the frontline, and civilians suffering under the war. — Tzeentch

Being charitable, I think all of us here feel that and just disagree over who is ignorant of what.

This is just really rude. No sense flagging a mod but @Tzeentch (unlike myself) has been pretty much as calm and polite a poster here as any and us merely presenting a view which is widely supported by qualified academics.

Let's not forget, Putin is an authoritarian dictator at best, a genocidal war criminal at worst. Accusing someone of "supporting" him or his war is a horrible thing to say.

If this thread is a "cesspool" it's because of posts like this which turn everything into brutish tribalism.

Why not just say what you mean? — praxis

I'm only replying out of courtesy. I see the mods have moved this thread to the Lounge. It's clearly not the place for laying out anything operose. I thought I'd been clear, but if not, we'll let it be now the discussion is a non-serious one.

I also noticed, while doing my SEP trawl, that many of the articles on Eastern philosophy use it like this. — Jamal

That's interesting, introducing the possibility, perhaps, of translation issues muddying the water?

The philosophical point of that, is that the natural sciences, which are concerned with 'what exists', are not concerned with 'the meaning of being' in the philosophical sense. — Wayfarer

So, can I assume that, by exclusion, you'd contend that philosophy isn't concerned with the question of what exists? Or, if it is, then the domain for that enquiry is not ontology, but rather... what?

It's the philosophical standard. — Jamal

Not even just philosophy. Here's the (great) online etymology dictionary.

https://www.etymonline.com/word/being

being (n.)

c. 1300, "existence," in its most comprehensive sense, "condition, state, circumstances; presence, fact of existing," early 14c., existence," from be + -ing. The sense of "that which physically exists, a person or thing" (as in human being) is from late 14c.

I'm left quite baffled by this discussion. I'm pretty sure even the occasional modern use of 'being' as 'living entity/person' is derived post hoc from the adjunct of 'being' to 'human being', by contraction to just 'human' or just 'being'.

What's going on here is the battle between 'being' as entity and 'being' as person is being fought as a proxy for the battle for primacy between phenomenological existence and material matter as the proper subject of ontology.

I’m no political analyst but one of DeSantis’ tactics seems to be redefining ‘elite’ to mean anyone, anyone with a pulse, who merely upholds the tyrannical woke progressive pseudo religious ideology in some way. — praxis

Yep, that's certainly true.

Trump and DeSantis don’t appeal to facts or reason. For politicians, on both sides of the aisle, who just want power and wealth it’s not in their interests to actually tackle the problems of the people. — praxis

I didn't say anything about facts or reason. Nor anything about Trump/DeSantis tackling poverty.

I'm asking you what you think is most likely to prevent either getting into power (which would undoubtedly be devastating). Who is most likely to carry another Republican victory (or centre right Democrat victory - there's barely a hair's breadth between them)? Is it workers with jobs, decent pay, secure homes and prospects? Or is it workers with none of that, but who are in no doubt how privileged they are to be white?

Exactly. And he might well gain a fair bit of support from it. Because the white working class do have a legitimate grievance if they're referred to as 'privileged' by folk with significantly more opportunity than they could even dream of.

So what could we do to prevent the nightmare of DeSantis? Or the next Trump?

We could actually address those grievances. Actually tackle poverty and in doing so alleviate both the white working class struggle, and a huge proportion of systemic racism (which is little more than that blacks are far more likely to be poor than whites)...

Or...

We could carry on trying to out-woke each other with the latest cause de jour and hope DeSantis goes away if we roll our eyes enough and sneeringly dismiss anyone who agrees with literally anything he says because we're too stupid to get past a brutish tribalism.

Which do you think will best serves the oppressed?

Sorry. I'll try and restrain my pessimism in future. In my defense, I'm English. It's our default state.

Some bad news...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-60248830

Google, Amazon, Ikea, Apple and Nestle are among those failing to change quickly enough, the study alleges.

Says the "grown-up" who thinks — ssu

Yes. That's right. I do think those things. That'll be why I said them.

Have you got anything more than your incredulity to offer? Or are we to add to your messianic ego, not only anyone who disagrees with you must be 'mistaken', but now anyone who disagrees with you is not even a grown up.

The president of Brazil has said Zelensky shares some blame. Not a grown up?

Amnesty international drew the conclusion about Ukraine and Russia's respective human rights records in Donbas and Crimea. Not an adult organisation?

Stephen Walt Professor of International relations at Harvard University has made the arguments I've made about considering territorial concessions. A child, in your eyes?

....

Your total inability to cope with differences of opinion is pathological. People disagree. Experts disagree. They're not 'mistaken', the don't 'not understand', they're not on Putin's payroll, they're not children...

They just disagree with you.

Is there any question who the bad guys are here? — RogueAI

Grown ups are discussing how best to end a bloody and dreadful war.

If you children want to discuss who "the baddies" are perhaps you could do so on a more suitable forum. Don't Disney have a little chat room you could use.