According to Russia’s State Duma speaker:

“US President Joe Biden himself is involved in the creation of biolaboratories in Ukraine. An investment fund run by his sun Hunter Biden funded research and the implementation of the United States’ military biological program. It is obvious that Joe Biden, as his father and the head of state, was aware of that activity.”

https://tass.com/politics/1427005?utm_source=google.com&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=google.com&utm_referrer=google.com

Emails from Hunter Biden’s laptop confirm the truth of this.

Rosemont Seneca Technology Partners invested $500,000 in the San Francisco pathogen research company Metabiota and raised millions more through firms that included Goldman Sachs, according to the e-mails found on the computer, which was abandoned at a Delaware repair shop in April 2019 as Joe Biden ran for president.

Hunter introduced Metabiota to officials at Burisma, the Ukrainian gas company where he was a board member, for a “science project” involving biolabs in Ukraine, the e-mails show.

https://nypost.com/2022/03/26/hunter-biden-played-role-in-funding-us-bio-labs-contractor-in-ukraine-e-mails/amp/

The Biden family and the “Delaware Way” is at the epicenter of the Ukraine crisis, from start to finish. It’s no wonder it’s all kicking off during his presidency.

Seven in 10 Americans expressed low confidence in the president's ability to deal with Russia's invasion of Ukraine as Biden's approval fell to 40 percent in new NBC News poll.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna21679

No shit. Gas prices, inflation, Afghanistan, Covid…one wonders how anyone can retain any confidence in this regime.

Hunter Biden’s “laptop from hell” is back in the news again, this time as real and authentic, and not the Russian disinfo Biden propagandists made it out to be. Anyone who had observed the contents could have told you this years ago.

The original story, broke by the New York Post, was maligned as Russian disinfo by former intelligence officials, and subsequently banned in the media before the 2020 election. Had it been any other candidate’s son, the story would have been front page for months. But the mass suppression of the story benefitted no one but a single candidate, now president, the same one sinking the country into the abyss.

I would disagree. The contact of a needle and a pain receptor causes pain.

I would agree. The other person causes his own actions. The act of hearing my words, processing what I said, and recoiling in horror are the effects of which he is the cause.

It’s hard to believe because humans are largely incapable of running such a scheme. The current state of affairs is largely due to their incompetence rather than design.

I don’t believe that, though. What I do believe is that they often don’t like to hear it.

I don’t know what you mean.

Yes. The implications are dire for many people, especially the censors.

It’s magical thinking, I’m afraid. No causal link can bridge the thought and the event. But magical thinking is quite common. Tell anyone that their words do not have the effect they believe they have and they often recoil in horror. So much of society hinges on the belief that thoughts and words have such effects.

Zelensky is banning opposition parties. Weird.

“ For Life, Shariy Party, Nashi, Opposition Bloc, Left Opposition, Union of Left Forces, State, Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine, Socialist Party of Ukraine, Socialists Party and Volodymyr Saldo Bloc”.

https://www.axios.com/ukraine-ban-political-parties-russian-ties-af264ecd-9ad4-4e98-9f87-76f32300fd5f.html

The war has been going on since at least 2014. Ukraine has been fighting its own people, (those Ukrainians the west likes to call “Russian-backed separatists”) ever since the American-backed coup, after which the country was flooded with American tax-payer dollars. The Russians have been exploiting it on their end. Both have been accused of torture, bombing civilians, and other crimes against humanity. NATO and Russia have been playing “war-games” at each other’s borders the whole time.

There are no innocent victims here. Putin’s invasion is the self-fulfilling progress of this sort of conflict.

Conscription is morally wrong for the same reason forcing anyone to do anything is morally wrong. But it is morally right to defend one’s family, community and property. One ought to fight, but he ought not be conscripted to fight.

That’s silly. But it’s also silly to “consolidate and secure pathogens and toxins of security concern”, to stockpile bio weapons, in labs in Ukraine. No amount of sarcasm will alleviate that one.

The bio-weapons labs…er…bio-defence labs in Ukraine should be investigated. Any facilities designed to “consolidate and secure pathogens and toxins of security concern” should involve a modicum of transparency, if not for safety, then at least to waylay the fears of potential enemies. Given the corruption and strife in Ukraine, perhaps even more is needed.

But it’s far too late for the US to do anything about these facilities, now. Like American assets and man-power in Afghanistan, it was all sacrificed on the incompetence of the current administration.

It’s an age-old battle. The idea that things can be measured and detected is anathema to those who posit things that cannot be measured or detected, so it’s good to defend the principle at any chance we get. More than this, learning to value what is there rather than what isn’t is an important task of philosophy.

I do disagree. By virtue of physics, a woman cannot make a man want to do anything, let alone possess her.

Is this projection, or does some poll or study suggest any of this is true?

I also heard it described as an anti-child grooming law. I guess it all depends on how you look at it.

And?

Material processes can never explain consciousness. They lack the vital element, namely consciousness itself.

Only the hypostatizing tendency of human thinking, strengthened by the desire to explain one’s experiences, can explain consciousness as some other existential “element”. It can be no other way—in thinking about our experiences we have no choice but to work abstractly, arresting our experiences in mid-career, holding them static in order to describe them, incurring in us the danger of misapprehending these snapshots as stable and enduring things. We are unable to observe a vast quantity of what occurs within us, so we fill the gaps.

“Consciousness” could only ever refer to the human being taken in abstracto. But one look from a different point of view, that is, a view not tainted by a limited, first-person periphery, can better explain what occurs in the shadows of our experiences.

“Biological research labs”. Russia claims they are bio-weapons labs; America claims they are bio-defence labs. One way or another, I’m sure American tax-payers love finding out they are funding this.

Victoria Nuland, who once handed out cookies to Maidan protesters, tells us all about them.

We are more than brains. To see just how much more than a brain you are you could subtract the average weight of a human brain from your total weight.

I know enough biology. The body is the “source of consciousness”. The brain is only one of many integral parts to a conscious or unconscious organism.

Yeah, but how do you explain the difference between someone being knocked out and someone being awake? Where is the difference? You might point the person's behavior, but I can act like I'm knocked out so how do you tell the difference between someone acting like they are knocked out and someone who is actually knocked out? And how would the person that goes from being awake, to knocked out to awake again describe the difference, and would there be a discrepancy between the two descriptions (yours and theirs), and if so why? If we can act, or lie with our actions, then there must be some difference between our behaviors and what we are presently aware (conscious) of.

One can tell if someone is unconscious if they are unresponsive. The man acting unconscious is still conscious. He wouldn’t be able to act if he was unconscious, though he may deceive us.

I agree with everything except the notion that consciousness is a silly concept. How do you explain dreams, or the fact that I can act in some way that is contrary to my present knowledge?

I don’t think the fact of being conscious is silly, but the notion of “consciousness” is. By adding the suffix “ness” to the adjective “conscious” we fashion a thing out of a descriptive term, which in my mind is an error in philosophical discussions. This is true of terms such as “awareness”, “happiness”, “whiteness”. Descriptive terms serve to describe things, but they aren’t themselves things, substances, or forces, and they shouldn’t be treated as such in any careful language.

When speaking about and analyzing things that exist, the human organism exists. This human organism is what we study and analyze to better understand his activity. “Consciousness”, however, doesn’t exist, and we should abandon the term.

The fact is that raising a topic like right-wing extremism in Ukraine now can send many the wrong message when there is this Russian leader that has invaded Ukraine and talking about de-nazification of the country lead by neo-nazis. I think you understand this too.

This reminds me of the Orwell essay “Through a Glass, Rosily”.

The recent article by Tribune's Vienna correspondent provoked a spate of angry letters which, besides calling him a fool and a liar and making other charges of what one might call a routine nature, also carried the very serious implication that he ought to have kept silent even if he knew that he was speaking the truth. He himself made a brief answer in Tribune, but the question involved is so important that it is worth discussing it at greater length.

Whenever A and B are in opposition to one another, anyone who attacks or criticises A is accused of aiding and abetting B. And it is often true, objectively and on a short-term analysis, that he is making things easier for B. Therefore, say the supporters of A, shut up and don't criticise: or at least criticise "constructively", which in practice always means favourably. And from this it is only a short step to arguing that the suppression and distortion of known facts is the highest duty of a journalist.

Of course it comes from the brain. Ever seen a person get knocked out by hitting their head? How do you think that happens? Barring all the massive evidence at this point in scientific discovery, where does it come from then? I have a claim of where consciousness comes from, and have the entirety of neuroscience to back me up. What's your alternative?

I’ve seen people knocked out, but never a brain knocked out. People are far more than brains.

When speaking of qualities or states of a human being, such as consciousness, happiness, sleepiness, etc. we are discussing qualities and states of the organism in its entirety, such as it exists. Since disembodied brains can neither function nor exist on their own—without blood, oxygen, the skeleton, flesh—it’s silly to say a brain can produce a quality that only an entire organism can display.

“Consciousness” is a silly concept, anyways. Nothing called “consciousness” moves from one area to another, so saying that it “comes from” the brain is nonsensical. Neither is it “produced” by the brain, as if the brain was a qualia factory.

Neuroscience should stick to describing how the brain functions, and that’s it. Brain function is a limited aspect of “consciousness”, because it’s a limited aspect of biology. Only the field of biology in general can describe consciousness.

I do agree with your point that brains don't operate in isolation, but the brain is particularly significant where consciousness is concerned. Do you think, for the present discussion, it matters whether we talk about the brain producing consciousness (leaving out the mention of the rest of the body, the appropriate living environment, etc.)?

Philosophically speaking, I think it does. I think consciousness is a flawed concept to begin with, but to leave out the rest of the body in its manifestation is an error, a kind of materialist, brain-body dualism we ought to avoid.

Nothing called “consciousness” comes from the brain. What comes from brains are chemical and electrical signals, all of which require the rest of the body to understand and utilize them. Second, if “consciousness” is the state of being conscious, the being in that state is invariably more than a brain. Brains are not conscious, are not in a state of being conscious, and therefor do not produce consciousness.

My own reservations towards solidarity is that a “common interest” isn’t a sufficient substitute for individual interests. Rather, it attempts to put one interest above all others. It doesn’t take into account pluralism or dissent and often forbids it. Perhaps worse, it assumes human beings should find affinity with those who they would never find affinity with under any other circumstance, so long as they hold the same interest in their heart. Harvey Weinstein participated in the Woman’s March, for instance, in an act of “solidarity” with the other participants.

The fact remains: one can practice amicable relations and work with others without any solidarity.

So, the toe, and not the brain, produces consciousness?

The conscious being itself produces “consciousness”. These are the things that are or are not conscious. Brains and nervous systems are only parts of these beings. Since a brain by itself (maybe in a jar) cannot produce consciousness, it cannot be said that a brain produces consciousness, because to do so would leave out a variety of other things that contribute.

What would consciousness be like without the rest of the endocrine system, or heart, or lungs, for example? There wouldn’t be any.

We often treat actions with noun phrases. Even the word “action” or “process” are nouns, but not persons, places or things. Maybe this confuses us—it confuses me. However in every scenario the thing is the one performing the action, and we can only observe the action by observing the thing. This is because the thing and the action are the same.

So it is with thought, I think. The physicalist can only measure the thing and it’s movements. Man and his thought are one and the same, at least until it is reified through some form of expression or other.

It’s definitely a form of collective punishment. Some big video game producers are even removing Russian sports teams from their games, just to show how silly it’s getting, and dangerous indeed. Virtue-signalling into tyranny. Where I live Russian students are unable to access their funds because of state sanctions, and a Russian Orthodox Church was vandalized with red paint. What’s next?

I’m all for neuroscience, but any thing that can be described as conscious are invariably more than brains and nervous systems. One can point to a conscious man’s toe and still be pointing to the source of “consciousness”, which is the conscious being itself.

With the mind, however, I haven't heard of any measurements done on thoughts: how much does a thought weigh? what is the concentration of a thought? Quantitave analysis of thinking seems impossible as the conceptual framework thereof is N/A.

How much does a jog weigh? When a man goes for his morning jog he’s not reaching for something like he would a morning cup of coffee. He’s just using a noun to describe a period of time that he’ll be jogging.

“Thoughts” are of the same nature. You’re just describing a period of time that you spent thinking.

“Mind” is simply another word for the body. It’s about as physicalist as you can get.

Can you explain what deal was reached?

I can’t, only that it came out exactly like Nuland wanted. In the end, it all hinged on Biden’s final word. So it’s not odd to me that all this reached a fever’s pitch as soon as he and Nuland are back in power.

What is true is that Victoria Nuland and the US state department helped organize the government. In regards to Tahnybok, she said this:

“ I think Yats is the guy who's got the economic experience, the governing experience. He's the... what he needs is Klitsch and Tyahnybok on the outside. He needs to be talking to them four times a week, you know. I just think Klitsch going in... he's going to be at that level working for Yatseniuk, it's just not going to work.”

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26079957

After influencing a deal “Yats” did indeed become leader, and a few Svoboda members ended up occupying positions such as deputy prime minister and prosecutor general.

It’s no surprise that Biden installed Victoria Nuland as Under Secretary for Political Affairs last year, all before the current hubbub kicked off again.

Upon a little reading, it’s not so ludicrous and insane to say far-right Ideological forces are a motivating factor in the war and in Ukrainian politics. It’s good that politics has largely kept the far-right movements out of power, but it is only through capitulation with the Ukrainian state that they haven’t seized it through brute force. These groups are given near impunity from the law.

Their unpopularity in politics means little when looking at their their activities outside of politics. One former Azov commander now serving in their political wing, the National Corps, said “Politics are in the background”. According to him, the war is more important to them than politics, for now. At any rate, it’s not like they have disappeared in the last 8 years. Their strength and sacrifice will gain them political favor in the future.

This is to say nothing of their activity in Ukraine’s military. One recent report described Azov-linked factions have high-ranking military officials in their ranks. Their aim is to build the Armed Forces on a foundation with a “reliable ideological backbone”.

Putin is wrong and his propaganda obvious, and we should reject it. But in doing so we should not legitimize these groups and dismiss their power and influence.

I remember watching Oliver Stone’s “Ukraine on Fire” a few years back. It tries to explain the start of the war, I think, from a pro-Russian perspective, or at least an anti-American one. It’s all Kremlin propaganda—Stone has been in Putin’s sphere for years—but I think it is insight into the Russian point of view, complete with interviews with Yanukovich and Putin himself.

When considering the human body, its activities, and what it expresses, nothing called a “thought” can be found there. There are no sentences or images in the body, no such object or set of objects measurable in the sensible world, and no expression not already covered by better terms.

It is a useful term, though, in matters of folk psychology. It’s not a feature of grammar but people will point to a number of clauses or sentences and call that a “thought” with little objection. Some biological activity may occur and someone could say “I had a thought”, and we understand what she means. But there is nothing called a “thought” on the plane of existence.