It's about 3 or 4 of them, mostly. But, I mean, what's the point? Like, you want to depress everybody? Read the news.

You suffer so much in life? Then there is a way out, nobody is stopping you.

Jeez, it's hard to think of a topic on the internet in which the serious reply "kill yourself" wouldn't be taken as a threat.

Agreed.

Latest step in our descent into absolute fucking lunacy. Well done everyone. — Isaac

We're not content with merely heading towards annihilation, we are racing to it, with enthusiasm!

https://news.antiwar.com/2022/10/26/us-accelerates-plan-to-deploy-upgraded-nukes-to-europe/

Are you remaining within the chapter? I've been reading the section, but the exact quote you gave I found in another section of the book, concerning the self, with is several sections after this one. I may be reading too fast, which is why giving the page number is clearer.

But attributing, like relating or associating -- these don't sound like perceptions but ways of handling or working with or acting upon perceptions. We can, in addition, have ideas about what we're doing when do this sort of thing, and Hume bundles some of these mental behaviors together and calls them our notion of external existence. — Srap Tasmaner

Yes, that's likely true. I think that some of this may be alleviated once you get to the part in which he discusses the imagination.

So far as I can see, he's still talking about our perceptions of the object, and then the problem is how do these perceptions tell us something about the existence and continuity of these objects ("body"), which "we must take for granted."

There's no optimal way to read, imo. We all have our biases, sympathies, ways of thinking. We may attempt to be as faithful as possible to what he's saying, but these are hard issues with no straight answers.

I can't get Strawson or Chomsky's comments out of my reading of Hume, that may be my fault, but that's what I see when I read him, and I've found that useful, maybe it's a distorting view, it's possible.

In any case, if you could point out to the specific page number, instead of the section, it would be easier for me to find what is giving you trouble.

Ah. In that case, "what we get out of it" seems to me to be misplaced, yes. But certainly, that concern, is a very natural and immediate issue that arises when reading this chapter.

On the whole, I find your reading of him to be quite accurate, more accurate than me, given that I've read part I of the Treatise twice in a period of about 6 to 8 months.

Once you get to the imagination, you may see something you find convincing, though he spends a good deal of time on it. Browsing it now, not in great detail, his appeal to the imagination is elegant, and perhaps right to an extent, but it certainly leaves a lot to be desired.

why we would hold questionable beliefs and continue to hold them once shown to be groundless — that requires some explanation. — Srap Tasmaner

Maybe you're familiar with Donald Hoffman's recent work. Very, very briefly: we evolved for survival, not for discovering truths about the world. His analogy is that the objects we see are like desktop items, they're useful, but they're literally not what they seem, at bottom it's a bunch of code.

I don't find this too persuasive, but it has some merit.

It's not that they're groundless, our reasons, it's that they're not as good as we would like.

So perhaps my wondering 'what we get out of it', why nature would so order things, is misplaced. That nature does so order our minds is all Hume is trying to show.

Plausible? — Srap Tasmaner

In a way, taking Hume's phrase. But, if we admit his empiricism is false, not accepted today, then we need only a slight modification: that our minds so structure nature such that we postulate persisting objects. Of course, our minds are part of nature, but also separated from it by billions of years of evolution. But Hume's gist is quite plausible.

Not so for the external existence of objects. There has been nothing yet to explain why nature implanted this habit in us, why the belief in external objects is so necessary. What do we get out of this belief of such great importance that nature implanted it in us? — Srap Tasmaner

One option may be one of the things I cited, which is simply, we do not know - it may be one of those "secret springs", which we cannot understand. Of course, this could well be accused of being a cop-out, which - may be.

But he offers an explanation, it is due to the powers of our imagination - arguments you will eventually get to in due time, I don't want to monopolize with the length of my posts.

It is curious that he treats reasoning (with the principle example being mathematics) and the belief in distinct, persistent, external objects as separate questions, albeit giving them related answers. In the post-Frege world, we might naturally think these go together. We carve up the world into classifiable objects to make it safe for logic; conversely we analyze the world using the logic of predicates and classes because we have carved it up into distinct objects with properties in common. Logic and objects go together. Without distinct objects, there is nothing for the functions of logic (not the predicates, not the truth functions, quantifiers, or other operators) to be applied to. — Srap Tasmaner

And I think this is an example in which empiricism simply fails, the account it gives of mathematics make little sense. It does not explain why every person on Earth can do basic arithmetic, if it be brought to the fore.

As for objects, yes, we postulate them, but we should be warry of treating them as platonic things. And here I think Hume is correct to point out the frequency in which our perceptions are new.

That was a fantastic, fantastic post, much better than what I could muster myself. I think the arguments you present as your reading of Hume are correct. Which gives me very little to room to disagree so far. Let's see how to add or comment, and proceed:

we can't raise the question of external objects — because Nature — but we can look for causes of the belief we're stuck with. — Srap Tasmaner

Yes. And notice a difficulty here, nature has made this issue too important to leave it to us to decide if objects ("body") exist or no, this, we take "for granted". Yet the thing taken for granted is what paves the way for Hume to ask, essentially, well what reasons do we have to believe in the continued existence of these objects? It turns out that the reasons we have (or the ones he gives) are not nearly as good as we would like to have.

You seem to be more methodical than me, so I'll add what I think I can contribute to, by way of agreement or disagreement, and perhaps not mention a section which others might find crucial, if so, they can bring it up.

He goes on to mention (in part iv) that the perceptions we have of objects are actual perceptions. It makes no sense that we should say that the perception feels different from the object, whose impression gives us the idea of it.

Then, concerning external existence, Hume states:

"The paper, on which I write at present, is beyond my hand. The table is beyond the paper. The walls of the chamber beyond the table. And in casting my eye towards the window, I perceive a great extent of fields and buildings beyond my chamber. From all this it may be infer'd, that no other faculty is requir'd, beside the senses, to convince us of the external existence of body." (pp.190-191)

This is pretty clear and one would even say, a "naive realist" view of the world. But he is quick to point, we to take into account several important facts (three in total), of which I will mention only the first, as it looks to me the most important one:

"...properly speaking, ’tis not our body we perceive, when we regard our limbs and members but certain impressions, which enter by the senses." (p.191)

Which is true, and reminds me of Russell's comment that, strictly speaking, a neurologist is not looking at a brain when he studies it. He has a perception of something, which we call a brain, it's not as if the neurologist looking at a brain, is much different from us looking at our bodies, both are perceptions of "brains" and "bodies".

He points out that some of the things we attribute to external bodies, on minimal consideration, turn out to be internal affections, heat and sweetness and colours, etc. How far do we take this? It's not trivial, but we must at the very least allow the opportunity of contact with an object, to gain an impression, but for Hume, it's much more than this minimal consideration.

To end this post, he reiterates:

"[the senses] give us no notion of continu’d existence, because they cannot operate beyond the extent, in which they really Operate. They [the senses] as little produce the opinion of a distinct existence, because they neither can- offer it to the mind as represented, nor as original. To offer it as represented they [the senses] must present both an object and an image. To make it appear as original, they must convey a falshood ; and this falshood must lie in the relations and situation: In order to
which they must be able to compare the object with ourselves; and even in that case they do not, nor is it possible they shou’d, deceive us" (pp.191-192)

As I understand it, if the senses represented "originals", objects as they are, we should be able to then compare these objects to ourselves, which would make them "external and independent" from us, as he says in p.190, 3rd paragraph.

Yes. Do be careful with the copyright issue, unless you took this for another site saying similar things.

Edit: Yep, much better.

Russia conducts first nuclear weapons drill since Ukraine invasion

https://www.ft.com/content/e28b0aa8-0260-4249-9954-4e346ebda68a

The article is paywalled, but I'm sure folks know how to read this - or find the same info elsewhere. Not good.

He does point it out a lot and I think he is factually correct about this, though carrying out experiments on conceptual posits might prove to be quite difficult.

that neither reason nor observation justify us explaining these resemblances by positing a constant object they are perceptions of. — Srap Tasmaner

And this is a difficulty both as stated in this chapter given his assumptions, and also hard given rationalist or even Kantian assumptions.

The sense I get is that if you really think about it, it's an extremely complex problem to justify the continued existence of the object, because, as he says:

"When we have been accustom’d to observe a constancy in certain impressions, and have found, that the perception of the sun or ocean, for instance, returns upon us after an absence or annihilation with like parts and in a like order, as at its first appearance, we are not apt to regard these interrupted perceptions as different, (which they really are) but on the contrary consider them as individually the same, upon account of their resemblance.

But as this interruption of their existence is contrary to their perfect identity, and makes
us regard the first impression as annihilated, and the second as newly created, we find ourselves somewhat at a loss, and are involv’d in a kind of contradiction. In order to free ourselves from this difficulty, we disguise, as much as possible, the interruption, or rather remove it entirely, by
Supposing that these interrupted perceptions are connected by a real existence, of which we are insensible."

Emphasis mine.

So he says this, which I think is correct, nevertheless we can't forget that he says, at the beginning of this chapter: "...tis in vain to ask, Whether there be body or not? That is a point which we must take for granted in all our reasonings."

So - very very hard.

Very good post and you are quite right. In fact, assuming you don't already know this, Hume regarded his account to be an empirical theory, meaning scientific, motivated in no small part by Newton's achievement, he was trying to establish a "science of man", what we would today perhaps call a psychology, as you mention.

Your conclusion that Hume was a "sensual" philosopher is correct and is stated explicitly by the (apparently) first serious scholarly work on Hume by Norman Kemp Smith.

His views on the imagination are perhaps the most profound out of the classical figures, which gives him an extra unique factor worth exploring for those interested in the topic. Nevertheless, the imagination as well as his "missing shade of blue", and most of all, by far, his famous Appendix to the Treatise show that he faced insurmountable difficulties given the account of mind he assumed to be true.

Actually, the imagination could be argued about, in terms of its status in relation to innatism.

It's a modern imposition, perhaps influenced by Kant when he categorized philosophers before him as "dogmatists" and "skeptics". But Descartes and Leibniz were more scientific than Locke, Berkeley or Hume. Yet both "camps" used elements of both empiricism and rationalism. The main difference I find between them, is in how strong a power(s) they ascribe to the mind, Hume much less so than Descartes, for instance.

As for Hume, a little quote, that is very important, which shows he does not believe the mind is empty:

"But though animals learn many parts of their knowledge from observation, there are also many parts of it, which they derive from the original hand of nature; which much exceed the share of capacity they possess on ordinary occasions; and in which they improve, little or nothing, by the longest practice and experience. These we denominate Instincts, and are so apt to admire, as something very extraordinary, and inexplicable by all the disquisitions of human understanding. "

That's in his Enquiry

Similar comments are found in his Treatise. He tries to downplay it by saying it just a mechanical instinct, but he can't really suppress it much. Also, his "missing shade of blue" is extraordinary, in that by accepting it, he should have realized his system was fatally injured, imo.



It's a good question, but in my experience, a good deal of the contemporary discussion on these topics aren't very interesting to me, too technical and narrow. So, I couldn't tell you.

Having said that, I believe Hume's problems of causation remains a big problem in philosophy, due to the amount of literature on the topic. One could argue that Kant's framework improved the way we should think about these issues.

But I think the problems remain, concerning causation and the reasons we have for believing in the continuity of external objects.

Pardon for giving a sloppy reply, which doesn't even address your question (reply below) , my reading of Hume was heavily influenced by Galen Strawson's books about Hume, both which are excellent.

But he does raise a point, which though you have not argued for or against, is very important to know in the context of the discussion of causation.

My paperback copy of Hume has perhaps too many highlights, so providing more coherent quotes would take a long time, nevertheless he says:

"...I explain only the manner in which objects affect the senses, without endeavouring to account for their real nature and operations.... my intention never was to penetrate into the nature of bodies, or explain the secret causes of their operations... I'm afraid such an enterprise is beyond the reach of human understanding, and that we can never pretend to know otherwise than by those external properties, which discover themselves to the senses."

pp.111-112 in the Penguin Edition of Humes Treatise

There are other quotes, but it would be a bit long to provide them here. The point is to state, that Hume did not think that all there was to causality is constant conjunction (this is frequently claimed, it's not true), it's that it's the only thing we can discover about it. We know not the "secret springs" of nature.

This is the argument based on his account of our judgments of cause and effect being derived from the experience of constant conjunction. He argues that the claim that some object causes our perceptions cannot be accepted because we never have the opportunity to observe the object, on the one hand, accompanied by the perception, on the other, much less constantly. — Srap Tasmaner

I think this is the case with say, billiard balls hitting each other or a bullet flying off a barrel. But in the case of the examples he gives of the paper in front of him, and the chimney, he is constantly looking at the object, it's not an issue of it being seen very quickly.

So, on this reading, this would not be huge problem to the "two world account" he is critiquing. But, I could be wrong in my interpretation, for sure.

Yeah, I think this is going to be fun, many of the issues you raise based on what he says is quite important, and obviously open to interpretation, as evidenced by all the literature there is on him.

Yes, impressions are a bit like breathing or digestion, we don't have a choice in having them. He does say elsewhere that we can't have a simple idea without a corresponding simple impression. It gets much murkier when we get to complex impressions.

Sticking to the topic you raised:

Hume seems to think he doesn't need it, that you can coherently say 'impression' and dodge the question, "Impression of what?" — Srap Tasmaner

As impressions, perhaps that's right (I'm no expert at all either), but we can have ideas of something, these being based originally on impressions.

The argument goes round, that the hypothesis of 'double existence' is insupportable, which would be true if impressions are the same as ideas. But is that claim based only on introspection? Or does it arise from a methodological choice not to consider the 'what' that impressions are of? (Here I really have to reread.) — Srap Tasmaner

This is extremely difficult, and fascinating for that reason, in my opinion. Let's see, if ideas are merely weaker impressions, then the problem is completely insurmountable.

But let's say they're not. Let's say ideas and impressions are significantly different than what Hume says, is the problem solved?

Let's assume Hume's wrong, and let's look at a statue. We can say we got the idea of this specific statue by looking at it. We close our eyes, and some crumbs of marble, imperceptible to us, fall from the object. (We can't call strictly speaking consider this a statue at this specific point, it could have disappeared, but there is nothing there to "verify" that there is a statue, we are the ones who do that.) We open our eyes and see the same statue, we don't notice a difference, but that statue has changed.

If there was no statue there, we wouldn't have the idea of this specific statue (we may have ideas of other statues). Every instance, it seems to me we have a different perception, and strictly speaking (again) the statue is also changing.

It looks to me as if this situation is one of double existence, which is very strange.

Something like that, on first approximation.

It is sooo tempting to troll here and say, real is just another word for metaphysics.

Because saying it twice is not funny. But still, I giggle because I share that same frustration with T Clark.

On a more serious note and putting aside what I said earlier about "real" here, if a word is causing more obscurity than clarity, perhaps its best either to drop the word, or using it sparingly. We can get awfully tangled up in arguing about the meaning of words as opposed to arguing ideas.

In so far as Hume is attempting to give a theoretical account of what's empirically available to us (according to his system), your conclusion does seem to follow from what he writes here. It would extend this discussion to add much, but he does say that "the essence of mind" is "unknown", so there may be other factors in play, which we cannot account for.

It becomes complicated, because he readily allows that "bodies" exist, which aren't internal to the mind, this is something we take for granted. The real problem is how to neatly distinguish between "inner" and "outter", when it comes to the mind.

If the bee has experience, then the situation for the bee would be that it relates to thing out there, which we call a flower. But it would likely have no account of the continued existence of the flower, it would merely go to it.

For us, the continued existence of objects, according to Hume, is due to the imagination.

Edit: Misread your last sentence. From relation to state... perhaps, though I suspect that something about our mental architecture plays a role, even if he likes to downplay this aspect.

This must mean that you like Putin.

Very interesting. I've read similar studies; it does however create an issue. If an infant can recognize an object, then it looks to me as if causality is already in play, that is the object is a stimulus for the infant, "absorbed" by the infant's intentionality. This can be debated.

What's outlined in this chapter, is perhaps too difficult to create an experiment on. Or maybe not, that's a good question for discussion.

It is a problem for Christians given that they present God with the usual attributes of wisdom, goodness and so on.

But I've also asked myself the question - which may or may not be applicable to religion - why is evil a problem specifically?

Perhaps God doesn't consider evil what we call evil, regardless of how horrific it may look to us. Either this option "dissolves" the problem or, just what you mentioned, we postulate the devil.

But then what do we postulate for those acts that are neutral, not good, not evil? We'd need a third God for that...

101st Airborne Deployed to Ukraine’s Border ‘Ready To Fight Tonight’

https://news.antiwar.com/2022/10/23/101st-airborn-deployed-to-ukraines-border-ready-to-fight-tonight/

I applaud the effort that went into this post.

I'm afraid we won't proceed to any kind of agreement, so continued discussion will not be profitable for either of us. We are too far apart.

That was excellent. People don't want to hear it, but she's exactly right!

Yeah, that's pretty much how it looks like to me too. And we don't know how successful the Ukranians will be in pushing Russia out, they appear to be close to getting Kharkov. And if they do get it back, obviously it would be a tremendously brave accomplishment.

But to think this won't get an even stronger Russian reply, is what confuses me. I think it's evident that it will, just look at the missiles raining down on Ukraine now.

Is this war worth thousands of lives and a European super recession and even more escalations by Russia and NATO? I don't think so. I understand the other view, but the world doesn't play out as we would like.

Yeah, I remember reading that. And it's true, though sadly, we can now see a literal fascist in Italy gaining power, so now Anti-Italian will be a thing again, perhaps.

I understand the emotion, absolutely and more so if you are close to Russia and Ukraine. If my family members were killed by Russians, I wouldn't give a crap about anything other than carpet bombing Russia.

But most of us here are not inside Ukraine, and so we have the privilege to analyze the information as carefully as possible, looking for solutions.

A portion of the audience believes that the bad guy should lose, no matter what. Well, I think this is highly irrational given the context of this war.

Also, I don't recall anyone arguing against the War in Iraq that those who did not want a war or wanted the massacres to stop being labeled Saddam sympathizers, but I'm there must have been cases.

Those are consequences of wars, they first proclaimed Luhansk and Donetsk as part of Russia, then they launched an assault which they thought would be easy for them but turned into a nightmare.

He has been stating as have Russian leaders, that Ukraine is a "red line" for them for over twenty years, why is this not taken seriously?

It's not Russia alone, China has stated Taiwan is a red line for them, look at the reaction they had to Pelosi's visit, which looks to be getting worse.

Does that mean that China should invade Taiwan and get rid of the government there? Of course not. But China has been warning, it would be a mistake to ignore this, I think.

From Wikipedia:

At the June 2021 Brussels summit, NATO leaders reiterated the decision taken at the 2008 Bucharest summit that Ukraine would become a member of the Alliance with the MAP as an integral part of the process and Ukraine's right to determine its future and foreign policy, of course without outside interference.[11] NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg also stressed that Russia will not be able to veto Ukraine's accession to NATO "as we will not return to the era of spheres of interest, when large countries decide what smaller ones should do."[12] Before further actions on NATO membership were taken, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022.

That was in 2021. By then Russia was already preparing for the war, but waited to the last instance to launch the war, see this article:

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-says-us-nato-talks-so-far-unsuccessful-2022-01-13/

If this doesn't at least indicate that NATO was a big factor for them, because why talk at all instead of just invading?

But the question I meant to ask, wasn't about the cause of the war, it's how to go about ending it.

I'm sure he did. And it was a different Russia, no doubt.

But why expand NATO, if Russia was so different then? It was NATO's goal to be the balance against the Soviet Union, so when it fell, why keep it around? What's the threat?

But it went on expanding, despite Russia warning about red lines, not unlike what China has said about Taiwan, and when the line was crossed, what, we forget the history?

You may reply that what's happening now only proves that NATO's expansion was necessary, because of what Russia is doing to Ukraine. I'd say to you that Russia wouldn't have invaded if NATO did not expand, because there was no threat from Ukraine.

But now that's over.

What now?

He was given a gentleman agreement, which is now easy to deny.

Here is the testimony of John Matlock, the last US diplomat in the USSR:

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2022/02/15/the-origins-of-the-ukraine-crisis-and-how-conflict-can-be-avoided/

If that's not a good source, I literally can't think of a better one. Cause he called this since 1991. A Republican to boot, so a real patriot, not a wimpy Democrat, though this view has now changed a bit.

Also this:

https://natowatch.org/newsbriefs/2018/how-gorbachev-was-misled-over-assurances-against-nato-expansion

He was led to "believe" NATO would not expand an inch to the East. Why not state it outright? It would undermine the belief that Putin wants to conquer not only Ukraine, but large swaths of Europe.

That's the issue, the question now is what situation is that in which the least amount of people will be killed? Because they're already dying.

The current situation looks dire.

I think @Mikie has covered this pretty well, with the sources he's given. But this article gives an outline, for instance:

https://www.npr.org/2022/01/29/1076193616/ukraine-russia-nato-explainer

What Russia is referring to is that the agreement given to Russia was "verbal only", so it shouldn't be taken as legally binding. The rest you can imagine how Russia would view this.

Chomsky gives a good account here too, and before people begin to call him an apologist for Russia, he also said that Russia invasion of Ukraine is on par with the US' Invasion of Iraq and Hitler's Invasion of Poland, so, I think that's pretty clear:

https://chomsky.info/20220616/

It's very hard to put an estimate on these things, it's not like physics.

Overwhelmingly I think the evidence shows that NATO encroachment was the main issue for Putin's invasion, though I do not doubt that are other, less important factors involved.

This in no case validates or gives a green light, legally or morally, for Putin to do what he did and is doing. But once we get to this level, I really believe we have to analyze things using realpoltik, not wishing that something was otherwise.

We can wish many, many things to be better or different, but this isn't how the world works. Which is sad and frustrating, no doubt, but it's what we have to deal with.

Let's set aside what caused Putin to invade, it matters less now, because the war is going on. The important question now, is what are the next steps that could be taken to end this war as quickly as possible.

We agree that the war is a crime, that civilians should not be killed, that nuclear war should be averted, that Putin is a thug, that Europe will have a very rough winter.

That's quite a lot. What we seem to disagree with is how to proceed to end this and to what extent was the West a cause of the invasion.

I think we have more in common than what we disagree, but where we disagree is admittedly very important, so it's not as if we're discussing against flat-Earthers on the other side.

Concerning your last statement, your type of arguments are hardly new either, it's not as if there are twenty different end games here. I see your point, and think you are wrong.

How do you actually talk to a criminal like Putin who over and over breaks deals, lie and does whatever he wants. There is no peace talk that works with such people so thinking the war can end by giving a criminal what he wants thinking that's the end of it is naive to the extreme.

The resistance, the sanctions and opposition towards Putin seems by all measurements to actually work, regardless of what many have said in this thread. If this leads to getting rid of Putin, then it was all worth it. — Christoffer

The same way we deal with other criminal leaders, many "our allies": Israel, Saudi Arabia, Brazil and so on down the line this illustrious list of known liars, criminals, thieves and barbarians.

You talk with them, because they are the one you are dealing with. Iraq had to talk to the US after the invasion did it not? That war was pretty ugly but nobody in the West ever said it was a bad idea for Iraq to talk with the US, as they should and did.

That's the world we live in. You don't like it, I don't like it, but we deal with what we have not what we want. That's politics.

How would you reduce the number of Ukrainians being killed when they seek to defend themselves against those killings? We should, by your argument, give Putin some land where Ukrainians grew up and lives on after they conducted genocide. And what happens when he makes a move again? Give more land? Give up the whole of Ukraine? What about the respect for the Ukrainian people and what they want? Do you think they fight in this war just for the sake of it? You think they don't know they're dying on the battlefield? — Christoffer

As I've said many times, you negotiate. What makes you think he will move again? This war was a total disaster from his perspective, NATO got larger, they've been sanctioned like no country on Earth (with the possible exception of North Korea), not to mention the many Russians who have fled the country and those who are in jail for protesting.

And will continue dying, unless this war stops short. The Ukranian people are not a monolith, nor should they be treated as such. Some want negotiations, others want to defeat Russia. Some have argued that WWIII has already started.

Not all these views are correct: WWIII has not started. If it did, there would be no Ukrainians left on Earth, not to mention the rest of the world.

I believe sensible people should understand that giving up pieces of illegally, criminally obtained land (and this is what the borders of ALL nation states are, regardless of the state) would prefer to give a bit of land, for thousands of lives.

Will this be good news for those in the annexed territories? Of course not. How can you satisfy all the people in a country that large? It's impossible. So you try to find the least worst option, and make a case for it.

The expansion of Nato has been because of nations fearing what Putin might do and seeking security in an alliance that blocks such aggressions. I know, I live in a nation who wants this security. Any notion that Nato is an existential threat to Russia is a delusional idea promoted by Russian propaganda in order to give justification for Russias actions. And at the end of the day, Putin is responsible for all of this and any delusional idea that Nato forced him to do so is just buying into his narrative. — Christoffer

You are seriously misinformed and confuse the symptom with the cause. And stop with the hypocritical holier than thou attitude.

Plenty of criminals in the US and Europe, many of them far worse than Putin (Bush, Blair, Sarkozy, etc.). But if you can't see that because of some strange notion that we are better because we have more freedoms, then yes, we do well to stop here.

Putin is a criminal, a horrible one. One from a long list of criminals from powerful states.

jk T Clark.

The idea of reality is ontology, metaphysics. As I understand it, metaphysics is not something that can be verified empirically. But that's a long song I've sung many times here on the forum. — T Clark

Wait. What is metaphysics?

But that's the thing, it's not once in a while, it must be stated in a three-post exchange. It's not that it takes skin off my nose to say it, it's that it's like saying "torture is bad". Wars are evil, people who begin wars aren't good people, 99.9% of the time.

I don't have a problem with this issue, you can merely skim my last few exchanges. Just imagine having to say, "torture is bad" and I condemn it, every three or four posts. As far as I can see, it creates a feeling of being virtuous for condemning something so obviously wrong, that it has little merit in trying to think about ways to solve the situation.

And yet I have to say it yet again, that Putin is a criminal. Again. Ok, fine.

We live in insane times if every single time I post I have to say Putin is a criminal. It's a bit like saying guns are lethal during wartime (and outside of it too). What value does saying this so much have?

I've said it easily over 10 times and very explicitly, so has @Isaac and @Mikie and others. It adds zero clarity in how to get out of this situation.

The only ones supporting Putin are those who argue in defense of Putin. The side-picking is obvious in people's rhetoric. Personally I side with the west, not because it is an innocent perfect utopia, but because it allows progress, personal freedom and security far better than any other form of government or society so far. Siding with the least worse does not mean supporting the bad sides of it, but it damn straight stands up against the tyranny of someone like Putin. — Christoffer

Arguing for a stop to the war is not the same as standing or supporting Putin - it does not follow at all, logically speaking.

I agree that the West is significantly freer than Russia, it's not even a contest. What does that have to do with anything?

They're so deeply entrenched in their dislike of western society that when a person like Putin essentially wage war against western ideals and any post-soviet nation who wants to rebuild into such ideals, they get confused into somehow defending Putin or validating his perspective just because it somewhat aligns with how they dislike western ideals. — Christoffer

Find someone here that is supporting Putin. I haven't seen one in a long time, at least 3 months, if not more. But out of everybody currently arguing, I don't see a single poster who supports Putin.

I would also like to know what is meant by "the West". Does South America count? Africa? Clearly not China because NATO members don't like it. If by the West you mean those countries here that sanction Russia, then I think it's a very nebulous notion:

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2022/10/20/russia-ukraine-live-news-kyiv-restricts-power-use-after-attacks

it just means that we pick the side that is the least worse — Christoffer

The less bad "side" is to avoid another World War, because apparently two of them were not enough for us to get the message.

One side of empathic people who get outraged by the brutality of Putin and one side who can't align their criticism of the west with standing against Putin so they disregard any judgement of him or try to justify his reasons because of some weird emotional inability... — Christoffer

You can be outraged at the war crimes and want them to stop, while at the same time seeking to reduce the number of Ukrainians killed. Or you can create a Disney film in which the Empire is defeated.

There are many monsters which NATO is perfectly happy to ignore, like Saudi Arabia's bin Salman, Israel's Lapid, Brazil's Bolsonaro, Turkey's Erdogan and so on. Putin belonged to this happy camp until he acted on what he said was Russia red line for decades.

You may say my last sentence is a defense of Putin, when it is a description of fact, going all the way back to the dissolution of the USSR, stated clearly by people who actually know about this conflict, like the US' last ambassador to the USSR Joh Matlock and others. But if you can't make a distinction between these two, then we are stuck.

Well, people are bombarded with the "good vs. evil" picture all the time in the media and pop culture, so naturally this view transfers to the real world and thus the outcome is that some people prefer the war to go on, than trying to look for a way to negotiate to end the war.

It is indeed strange that we must pick sides, because otherwise we support Putin, as such views appear to exclude each other.

And always remember, always always always, to say that Putin is a criminal, which he is. Because we didn't know that.