We all hope they win. You additionally hope they 'teach Russia a lesson'. I don't give a fuck about teaching Russia a lesson because doing so at the expense of other people's lives is a despicable objective. — Isaac

There's nothing "additional" here. It makes no practical difference if the Ukrainians win or the Russians lose. And if the Russians lose, one can only hope that they will learn a lesson from it.

A little humility might be in order recognising it's other people's lives you're hopefully anticipating the consequences of risking. — Isaac

I just hope they win. Rest assured it's a humble hope.

it's other people's lives you're gleefully anticipating the consequences of risking. — Isaac

Where do you see any glee? Where does this accusation of gleefulness come from?

Maybe what you confuse with glee here, is hope.

It would be unrealistic to expect non-partisan moderation. The moderators are human beings; they have friends here, and you and I do not feature among them.

It's easy to be resilient — Apollodorus

What is really easy, down right facile, is to be dismissive and contemptuous of people defending their country.

But there is no program guiding it. — Hillary

We are free, but guided by some programme alright. Instinctual fears and desires are an example of it.

Does your nastiness know limits, other than those imposed by your stupidity?

They're still getting flattened, though. — Apollodorus

Indeed, but Russia will have to fold at some point; they cannot keep this up forever. So the Ukrainians are teaching them a lesson: a lesson in resilience.

the Russians know how to flatten everything. — Apollodorus

Including themselves, apparently. Ukrainians will teach them a lesson.

There was no prospect of Ukraine joining NATO. It was out of the blue.

But that's only an extension of the BS idea that it's all Germany's and Russia's fault. — Apollodorus

How about: Russia is responsible for what it actually did? If they bombed an entire country out of the blue, they own it.

Or are Russians inferior beings, unable to make their own decisions?

Years ago, i found myself talking with a very nice guy from the English-speaking Caribbeans, at a party thrown by the French consulate in New York. So we're in this great décord, sipping fantastic champagne, and this guy explains to me how he used to think as a kid that not only the French were all jerks, but also all the francophone Caribbeans. And the reason why he used to think so, is simply that it was passed down him by his teachers at school, by his parents, by the culture.

And where did this idea come from?

My hypothesis is that historically, it was the colonizer, i.e. Great Britain, that inculcated in the minds of their many subjects the hatred of the other colonizers, i.e. of their "competitors" in the "colonization business". So the French were depicted as ridicule, the Spaniards as wasteful, etc. etc., to try and make sure that British colonies would remain British... And these convenient stereotypes have been carried down to this day.

All this to say that the colonized have in some case internalized the very racism of their colonizer.

poitín — Apollodorus

What is poitín?

But why does he rêve something and not something else? — Apollodorus

Now you are talking. The West has also colonized the minds of folks. So the first thing to do, for those hoping of liberation, would be to free one's mind from their BS. And one of those BS idea about the West, is precisely that it's all the West's fault.

Thinking that it's all the West's fault is the same BS as the 'white man's burden'. It's treating Europe or the West as exceptional, as oh-so-special. It's pretending that the white man rules the whole world.

I don't care much about how I look, myself. Optics moptics.

Streetlight here has been calling for France's destruction, by the way, in case you care beyond mere optics.... :-)

It's right to point out prejudice, which was on display in Christoffer's post, but all of you are looking for excuses to make each other look as bad as possible. — Baden

Contrary to you. You're quite good at making yourself look good. :-)

They're now emigrating to France because France is their former colonial "mother country" that exploited, oppressed, and ruined her children. — Apollodorus

Interesting opinion but I note that Afghanistan or Ethiopia were never colonized. Yet there's no shortage of poor people and emigrants from Ethiopia or Afghanistan. Also France got a huge influx of Polish, Italian, Armenian, Russian, Spanish and Portuguese immigrants over the years, and yet we never colonized them... So maybe colonisation is not the only factor at play

Maybe folks want to go live in Europe because there, one might have a remote chance of improving one's lot.

Rêver, c'est déjà ça...

An immature philosophy that doesn't care for human lives. Can we conclude that the basic respect for human life and rights is part of a modern philosophy that's considered up to date? — Christoffer

I won't go into that because to me, "up to date" means nothing in philosophy. There is no progress in philosophy, as there is in science or technology.

The idea that human life deserves respect is very old, and rooted in religion: it was argued that human beings deserve respect because they are in the image of God.

What I am saying re. Russia is that Putin and his archeo-tchekists do not believe in God nor in Man deserving any respect. They are hardcore materialists, therefore for them might is right, force is legitimate, and killing human beings is not anymore a problem than killing worms or flies.

Why is this type of behavior by Russians so common? Why is the brutality systemic? — Christoffer

Nothing to do with Russians being Russians IMO. It has to do with materialism.

If you think that humans are just meat machines, that human rights are a fiction, that might makes right, then you will find that brutality is the best way to rule those meat machines.

Excellent piece. I liked his proposals, like this one:

Medvedev predicts that, because of the war in Ukraine, “in some states, hunger may occur due to the food crisis” – a statement of breathtaking cynicism. As of May 2022, about 25m metric tons of grain are slowly rotting in Odesa, on ships or in silos, since the port is blocked by the Russian navy. “The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has warned that millions of people are ‘marching towards starvation’ unless ports in southern Ukraine which have been closed because of the war, are reopened,” Newsweek reports. Europe now promises to help Ukraine transport the grain by railway and truck – but this is clearly not enough. A step more is needed: a clear demand to open the port for the export of grain, inclusive of sending protective military ships there. It’s not about Ukraine, it’s about the hunger of hundreds of millions in Africa and Asia. Here should the red line be drawn.

I think only living things are entities of the appropriate kind. A single-celled organism is an entity because of the way the cell wall separates it from its environment. It isn't conscious, but this individuation is a necessary step on the way to consciousness.

Maybe achieving that individuation, creating genuine entities, is the real Hard Problem. — Daemon

I agree Life is deeper a mystery than Thought because it already includes self-consciousness as a logical possibility.

Life is based on the genetic code, itself a form of language in which the recipes for various proteins are 'coded'. I.e. written down in DNA code. The code is interpreted by ribosomes. They play the role called by Pierce "the interpretant" in his linguistic theory. But of course they are far from being the only ones, because there are other codes at play in life than just the genetic one. There are hormones and their receptors for instance, and an endless list of regulators and receptors of myriads of processes. A lot of these processes have to do with what gets in the cell and out via the membrane.

All this to say that life makes language possible. Literally it is a form of chemical language, and it creates (or is based on) many interpreters of language.

A 'proof' is hard to find. I can provide evidence though. So what position of mine do you want evidence for?

it makes a good case for burning all of France to the ground. — Streetlight

You are a colon, living on a land stolen from Aborigens. Why don't you burn your own house to the ground?

It's not funny, but YOU are funny though.

If only you were capable of proving it but you haven't. All you have is disdain for someone who disagrees with you and confuse your feelings on the matter with actually knowing what you're talking about. — Benkei

If you don't know enough to be able yo tell what is true and not, how come you know enough to tell that the same applies to me, or to any others? How do you know that my level of information, or that of any other poster here, is the same as yours, i.e. by your own account next to nil?

You are arguing from a position of ignorance. Now, it's fine for the ignorant to say: "I am ignorant". But what ground does the ignorant have to deny others any possibility of knowledge?

Thanks for the laugh.

Europe did ruin Africa, but to say that the Africans today who want to emigrate to Europe do so because of that is incorrect.

The whole point is that neither you nor I have the information necessary to tell the difference. — Benkei

Most of times, I have the information necessary to tell the difference, thank you. I agree that you don't.

Good that I never said it, then.

Note that in a context full of liars, stating historical or other facts --even straight from Wikipedia -- can be revolutionary, because it helps fend off the lies and re-establish a mentally sane, factually based environment for discussion.

Key words: "if true".

I'm wondering what we've been doing for 250+ pages. — Benkei

Discussing the war in Ukraine, for some. Braying "NATO caca", for others.

The point was that some Africans disagree that the West is bad, so much so that they risk their lives to emigrate to Europe. And it's not (factually not) because Europe ruined their country, as implied by Apo. It is because they perceived Europe as a haven of peace and prosperity, where one can hope to improve one's lot. Hope is what draws them.

This in response to the following exchange:

There is a reason why Ukrainians don't want to live under Putin's boot.
— Olivier5

Most of the world don't want to live under America's boot, either. — Apollodorus

Well, it turns out that in actual fact many folks do want to live in America (or Europe) very very badly. People vote with their feet.

Well, I think you know why they're in France? It's because "La Grande Nation" screwed up their countries! — Apollodorus

What ruined Africa was first and foremost the slave trade. It made some Portuguese, French, English and other merchants very rich, as well as a few African kings, but at a horrendous human cost, and led to economic ruin from Senegal to Congo, on the West Coast.

Prior to the Europeans, the Arabs had been raiding and buying slaves from East African black communities for centuries, from Somalia to Zanzibar.

You really think a dog is conscious about the fact she's conscious? It would impair the playful character. — Hillary

Good point. But she's conscious. And she knows you're conscious. It's just that she can't reflect about it.

Every computation has the property of not being able to wear conscious life. — Hillary

And yet, something does. A physical system, the body, the brain, underpins conscious thought.

Why does a machine have to be conscious? — Jackson

It doesn't have to be but it's conceivable.

Does this apply to the conscious life of animals,? — Hillary

I believe so, yes.

Computation therefore cannot cause consciousness. To think so is to make a category error. — Daemon

Computation as we know it or as we presently define it -- the mechanical stacking of 0's and 1's -- cannot cause consciousness. To think so is to make a category error.

I think it follows that a machine that would be conscious would need to be more than a sophisticated abacus. It would need quite a few things more perhaps. E.g.

1. A first person experience of the world. It needs to be an entity that can wander around and see by itself what elephants and rainbows look like.

2. The understanding that words relate to this world, that sentences can describe it. That text has a meaning in the world, and also a force. Words have consequences in the world. It's called communication.

3. A capacity for infinite self-reflecting loops. It need to be conscious of itself but also be conscious of the world and of being at the world, and conscious also of what it means (roughly) to be conscious, i.e. be consciously conscious. And be conscious of being consciously conscious. And conscious that others around it (them humans) are conscious, etc. etc.

More?

Oh no, what I say on one's cultural framework restricting the domain of what is "thinkable" only applies to other people. Moi? I speak for the entire universe. ;-)

Of course they can discuss anything, but it's difficult to imagine the end of one's own world. People living in the Roman empire could hardly imagine its fall. Apparently a similar phenomenon happened to some American nations during the European colonization. They felt it was a bad dream, a nightmare from which they would wake up at some point.

Problem is, they never woke up from it. They had to accept the nightmare as real.

Something similar will happen to our civilization, at a not so distant point now. We cannot really imagine it, only dimly. And when it happens, few will understand what just happened, because we see the world through our self-satisfied, self-gratulating western eyes.

I guess it's hard to be specific about a post western world when one is born and raised in Canada, as is the case for the author.

Maybe you want to give it a try. Could be a nice thread.

the West is no less a terminal virus which similarly ought to be expunged. — Streetlight

You might appreciate this diatribe in Al Jazeera:


The future is post-Western
This current chapter of Western-run human history must be flung shut.
Yannick Giovanni Marshall
Published On 20 May 2022

https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/5/20/the-future-is-post-western

Yannick Giovanni Marshall is currently Assistant Professor of Africana Studies (sic) at Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois (re-sic).