https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/679346

That explains why I don't consider what has been put forward as proof of greater imperialist ambitions. You can reason a contrario to get an idea what I would consider proof.

Some books I'm getting hard covers of:

Start your farm

And

Self sufficiency

when things could go even worse. — Xtrix

will...

I've given up on politicians fixing anything. I'm now investing my energies in finding a plot of land in France big enough to sustain a family and considering getting a hunting license and learn to shoot at the shooting range.

Speaking of shooting, a couple of judges need murdering for aiding and abetting the killing of future generations.

constitute evidence of territorial ambition?

If the Russians were to advance all the way to Paris, you would still wonder if it was not provoked. — Olivier5

Nice strawman. I have in fact discussed this with ssu in this very thread.

because litigation has resulted often enough from references the next employer thought were too positive or the former employee thought was too negative. — Bitter Crank

What? That's ridiculous.

Not a problem, because many to most Americans are hired, quit, or are fired "at will". "At will" requires no justification, You can hire me (bearded, balding, in a mini dress and heels) if you so wish. I can quit because I would just rather not work for you, and you can fire me because... heels and mini skirt didn't match. If one is hired with a contract this doesn't apply, and voluntarily quitting generally disqualifies one for unemployment. — Bitter Crank

Strangely enough, plenty of owners and managers manage to contravene the rules for at will employment by giving discriminatory reasons. At least, if the the anti-work reddit is an indication.

I fully accept, for example, that gays have had a tough path historically in the US, but I don't think part of that struggle was in exclusion from universities, real estate markets, or employment. So why am I being asked to be on the lookout for them to be sure they get hired? — Hanover

You can't, since you're not allowed to inform about a person's sexual orientation. Once hired you're not allowed to fire them because of it. Sex and skin colour are a bit hard to hide although I guess from a social experiment perspective it would be totally cool if a black man could pretend to be white and then show up normally on his first day. Preferably somewhere in Mississipi.

It matters (and, sure, there is a measure of blame to be tossed around), just not as much as Putin's ambitions and his imperialist compadres. Hasn't this been re-repeated often enough in the thread? — jorndoe

I think the discussion played out awhile ago (at least for me). There's a difference of weight given to reasons for the war. I just don't see actual proof of the imperialist ambitions and put more weight on the consistent complaint of NATO expansion as opposed to sporadic and divergent expressions of tsaristic greatness or the artificial nature of Ukraine (and some of it is quoted too readily out of context).

The reason this weighing of reasons is so contentious because it's the difference between unprovoked and provoked aggression. But since we cannot read minds I don't see a resolution to the difference of opinion.

This response seems too simplistic. You say the problem is old school.racists, but where is the evidence of that? Not that I've sat in important board rooms to know much, but all I hear from my seat is how everyone needs to promote diversity. The US is a diverse nation and diverse employment is good for business. — Hanover

Yes, old school racists. If you're not actively anti-racist, you're still a racist. Biden, Trump, Gingrich, the whole lot of white dinosaurs are racist to the bone. They pander in symbolism to then turn around and either do nothing or generally make life worse for minorities. As Street would like to say: it's not a shortcoming, it's a feature. "But Biden was VP to Obama who was black", is just another "I'm not a racist because I've got a black friend", or innocence by association, which amounts to saying "I'm not a sexist because I know my mum".

I don't buy it to describe it as a systemic issue. That is also an issue but these people are actually in a position to change the systemic rules many are operating under. Unless, of course, you think it's a systemic issue that white old men in power select/groom/nurture/support other more white old men to get into power - which can be argued but I think is a bit semantic or about interpretation at least. I think there's a lot of agency involved there, where actual people could make different decisions.

And what you just agreed on as a fact between us with respect to diversity being good for business, is not believed by a large majority of people, who think "personal qualifications" are the only thing that matter. That is another expression of individualism taken too far.

Diversity is much sought after (in some circles) because it is thought to improve performance for everyone through some mysterious influence. I haven't witnessed such an effect in the work place, but I can imagine that diversity could make a contribution to collegiate life. — Bitter Crank

Diversity without inclusivity doesn't work, for sure. If it did, the US would be a much better place to live in.

Here's an example of a diversity dividend: https://hbr.org/2018/07/the-other-diversity-dividend

That will obviously be overturned yes. What's morally wrong is the assumption people have the right to benefit from past wrongs, that people should not carry responsibility for others and that society is atomistic, all problematic but persistent assumptions in US society.

While I think that affirmative action is defensible in principle (and the benefits of inclusive diversity are well documented and researched), it has shown to be ineffective to change overall culture and should be replaced with something that works. That it hasn't changed anything is because the "tone at the top" is the same old, racist, white people in power. There's no good example to be had (and in this respect the Netherlands is even worse).

The question is, for instance, if you consider the following discrimination: I don't have any females in my team. My next hire is going to be a woman no matter what, even if she wouldn't be the best candidate (but does qualify). I would do this because I believe in a "diversity dividend" and the larger a team becomes the more group dynamics become important.

Take that to the larger stage of society and if we take "all men are created equal" seriously then this should be reflected in every segment of society but we don't see it. Maybe just throw hiring managers and CEOs in jail if they're caught discriminating. And any company with a skewed composition of employee ethnicity is suspect.

Fantastic, now we're also pretending capitalism would reward virtue. :rofl:

That's because you're apparently living under a rock. Zuckerberg - privacy, Koch - environment, Musk - labour rules.

The first two directly affect you, the last one if you'd work at Tesla. I forgot Bezos but I'm sure you never order via Amazon to avoid the continued exploitation of its personnel.

It's not that I can't point it out, it's that I expect someone to be moderately informed about the world to realise all this for yourself which makes any conversation with you tedious, so I'm gonna leave you to it and read the short stories instead. There will be more wisdom in those stories than in your posts.

Yes, the world revolves around you. Which is why you are and remain an idiot.

Koch, Musk, Zuckerberg.

Oh, my bad, it's the "lock downs are fascism" bullshit again coming from the guy who will happily roll over to get shafted by oligarchs because he thinks the gubberment is the problem. This should be fun.

Maybe pick up a book and figure out what fascism is. Universal healthcare isn't it.

That's already established policy in the US (the pivot to Asia). The only thing I can hope for is both China and the US screw each other to the extent the EU benefits but that requires the EU to stop being a US lap dog.

Not the subject of the thread but as far as I'm concerned having a de facto dictatorship and a fascist state masquerading as a democracy join forces seems like an eminently bad idea for everybody with a pulse.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020%E2%80%932022_China%E2%80%93India_skirmishes

That's ongoing. And there was the Sino-Vietnamese war in 1979, current brutal treatment of Uighurs and the recent annexation of Tibet. Totally peaceful. But keep cherry picking the facts that best suit your pre-conceived judgments. Carry on!

Historically, China has waged war almost continuously in what are now China's borders. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_wars_and_battles

But don't let not knowing what you're talking about stop you from having an opinion. Carry on. I've decided this thread is much more fun as a spectator any way.

That's because Turkey is strategically too important to kick out of NATO, which is really what should've happened a decade ago.

If it's silent on the point, all the more reason not to use it as a basis for literal interpretation, which is the error Anglo-Saxon lawyers keep making. They believe literal interpretations are necessary where these are woefully inadequate and then even call it the "golden rule". This is why so many decisions in the UK and the USA are divorced from justice, because literal interpretations only provide legal certainty as if justice is static and not localised and time dependent. It totally ignores context. So yes, dumb cunts on the SCOTUS.

SCOTUS are a couple of navel staring constitutional cunts. There are human right treaties and natural rights theories (particularly bodily integrity) that could've formed an excellent basis to continue to protect abortion without having to overturn this - it's purely political and caters only to a relatively small group of people living in the USA. So it's shit in every way.

It's not as if we'll survive global warming either so it's kind of moot. :razz:

I sincerely hope American empire will implode in my life time if its politics and judiciary continues to be this regressive.

Putnam's BIVs are about meaning and not a suggestion about how a simulation would look like or even suggestive of that as a possibility. I think the question "are we living in a simulation?" is moot. If we live in a simulation our reality is simulated and our ideas about things refer to simulated things. Doesn't make our experiences any less real though. And since there's no "really real" to meaningfully talk about (all we have is concepts of simulated things), then the existence of the really real is irrelevant and so is the nature of our reality. It's all we know and can know.

Can't stop yourself to make it personal can you? @Isaac as a psychologist, what do you make of his vacillating between aggressor and victim in the span of on average two posts?

Edit: no need to answer, I'm just demonstrating a point.

Does your OP assume that the simulation has to simulate everything? Can't it just simulate parts of it, making it seem as if the whole thing is simulated? In other words, the simulation only needs to simulate "appearances" not the thing-in-itself.

What if supply just isn't as easy to increase as one thinks? You see this all the time in economics, that increase in supply is just a matter of demand incentive and volition. But in case of energy and materials there are physical processes to mine or harvest them. The idea that supply would follow demand only follows up to the point there aren't any physical limits we run into to increase supply. — ChatteringMonkey

It's decreasing though.

And an option of self-imposed compliance by companies as a result of sanctions but they're doing it in such a way that makes doing business more expensive and only too happy to force the costs of those choices on consumers.

I think you cannot really tell what will happen. I suspect a recession but it could well be japanification is the economy. I don't believe, like some writers, that people are on a spending spree after covid lock downs. That reduction in spending was the result of people losing jobs. Since most companies were propped up with subsidies, the extra spending is the result of people getting jobs again, moving to pre-covid levels but most companies more or less maintained operational capacity. If this was the only driver, we should've seen deflation during covid but we didn't.

Second area, we've seen shortages in components and raw materials due to covid disruptions since 2020 causing inflationary pressures during the pandemic. You would expect, especially if people would be spending more coming out of covid, that production capacity would increase. Instead we've seen three quarters of reduced shipping in consumer electronics. Why?

Only reason I can think of is that supplier sentiment is the market is overheated and we're bound to have a recession, (see for instance onetrust laying of 10% after a record q4 in 2021, Tesla layoffs etc.).

QE is definitely a contributor, we've had years of asset inflation already (real estate, cryptos, shares, bond yields dropping) fueled by cheap credit and at the first sign of serious interest hikes, everybody is falling over each other to rebalance their portfolio. To where is a mystery to me, I've not been involved in markets closely anymore for over two years.

Wars never helped.

So, all of the above and then some?

As if sanctions have ever done anything else but punish regular people. Same can be said for war of course.

1. The point made by Apo was about legitimacy, not morality. — Olivier5

It doesn't seem that way to me. People tend to use the terms interchangeably and he seemed to want to make a moral argument. My point was about intent being relevant, even for legitimacy. Courts will rule against people who abuse their rights. So it's both a legal and moral argument, they can happily coincide.

A few posters here have rightly pointed out that morality applies to individuals, not to institutions, so to speak of the morality of NATO is making a category error. One needs to morally indict presidents, generals and the likes but not a country or an alliance of countries. These entities need to be assessed against their stated goals, which does not to my knowledge include the boy scout pledge, or any other moral creed in their case. — Olivier5

God, that must be why we have a whole approach to institutional morality? Because it doesn't exist. And even Aristotle wrote about social justice, you know, how to arrange institutions in such a way that we have socially just outcomes? But that has nothing to do with morality, my bad.

Seems to me a few posters simply don't know what they're talking about but it's opportune to agree with them because it avoids having to question how NATO functions, what it was set out to do and what it is doing now. In a very practical sense virtue ethics can be applied rather easily to institutions.

3 isn't relevant given the above.

If I raise a canvas on my land just to frustrate the view my neighbour has, I might have a legal right but I'm then abusing that right. Intent matters and legitimacy is not a substitute for morality.

But carry on, since I don't agree with either of you.

Made itself vulnerable? Despite mankind fucking up the environment for over a century it's still there in a way that it supports our existence. It's not so much that a biodiversity collapse will end nature - not even catastrophic meteor strikes end nature - but it will end us.

@boethius @Isaac @Olivier5 Deleted a moderation complaint and replies to that. Moderation complaints go into feedback.

Amazing. You need to be a particular type of cunt to be into politics and it's the same type of cunt in every country.

the distinction is false, biodiversity collapse will affect everyone and everything.

Can we stop accusing people we disagree with with being Nazi's or Nazi symphatisers? Thanks.

I'm not sure such qualifications are warranted. He's a moron or irrational but he worked his way up to being leader of a country? I highly doubt it. We should avoid attributing irrationality to people who simply make decisions that we wouldn't dream of making our that in hindsight look stupid. It doesn't fit the rest of the context and is too convenient and in a sense a lazy excuse not to look further into the actual reasons and circumstances. Irrationality suggests there's no rhyme or reason, no way of giving meaning and understanding to a situation. Both Saddam and Putin are ambitious and cruel and miscalculated or worked from the wrong assumptions. We don't really know but irrationality is unlikely.