Ukraine Crisis

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Immanuel Can
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Re: Ukraine Crisis

Post by Immanuel Can »

Gary Childress wrote: Fri Sep 30, 2022 6:59 pm They dare call it the "intelligence" community.
Yeah, it's a mess. There's not a lot of things man won't corrupt. The bigger and more centralized the power, the bigger the corruption, it seems. As messed up as these nation-sized organizations are, just imagine a global one.
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iambiguous
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Re: Ukraine Crisis

Post by iambiguous »

henry quirk wrote: Fri Sep 30, 2022 5:20 pm
You picked that up from Satyr, right?
Sez the guy doin' the (bad) Satyr imitation.
Note to others:

Go here: https://knowthyself.forumotion.net/t2971-russian-bear
Mr. Chickshit wrote:Like how I dealt with the moron on ILP, iamretarded, suing his own methods against her.
Logic will not work, Reasoning will have no effect.
These are self-circumcised, self-lobotomized minds living in their private universe.
I call him Mr. Chickenshit. Why? Because when I go there I am confronted with this:

You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum


Yet just above..."Users browsing this forum": camus666

That's my moniker there.

But ask yourself this if you choose to read his posts...

Who does he sound most like, me or henry? Henry, of course. He doesn't offer us opinions, he thumps us over the head with his "one of us, the smart guys" assertions. When others refuse to agree with his own "my way or the highway" declamation,. they become "morons" and "retards". Whereas I flat-out admit that my own thoughts and feelings about Ukraine are rooted existentially, subjectively in dasein.

Note to Mr. Chickenshit:

This is your cue to bombard the Russian Bear thread with tons of new posts. :lol:
Come on, henry, either the Deist God exists or He doesn't.
henry quirk wrote: Fri Sep 30, 2022 5:20 pmI believe He does.
Oh, so that's how it should work. What you believe is true rather than what you are actually able to demonstrate that all rational men and women are, in turn, obligated to believe is true.
Either you can demonstrate that He does in fact exist or it all revolves solely around what you believe about Him "in your head"...In a more or less blind leap of faith.
henry quirk wrote: Fri Sep 30, 2022 5:20 pmI can't, to your satisfaction, demonstrate He exists.
Okay, note for us how you demonstrate this to yourself then.
Either your Deist God is omniscient and omnipotent or He isn't.
henry quirk wrote: Fri Sep 30, 2022 5:20 pm I don't believe He is omniscient or omnipotent.
Nope, you can't go wrong if it always comes down merely to what you believe is true. Like you believing that others are "morons" if they don't believe the same. That way you don't have to delve into the arguments I make in the OPs here...

https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 1&t=176529
https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 1&t=194382

...at all
Either it matters to Him which behaviors you choose on this side of the grave or it doesn't.
henry quirk wrote: Fri Sep 30, 2022 5:20 pm It doesn't seem to me He's interested.
Now it's not even what you believe but what it seems to you.

Note to Immanuel Can:

Explain to him how a True Believer should approach this.
Either you will be judged by Him when you shuffle off your mortal coil down here or you won't.
henry quirk wrote: Fri Sep 30, 2022 5:20 pm It doesn't seem to me there's an afterlife or any Judgement levied by Him placin' me in some specific afterlife.
Seem, seem, seem...

And yet with all of eternity on the horizon, one would think you'd want to be a bit more advised. Reach out to other Deists, see what they think.

'Different Deists had different beliefs about the immortality of the soul, about the existence of Hell and damnation to punish the wicked, and the existence of Heaven to reward the virtuous. Anthony Collins, Bolingbroke, Thomas Chubb, and Peter Annet were materialists and either denied or doubted the immortality of the soul. Benjamin Franklin believed in reincarnation or resurrection. Lord Herbert of Cherbury and William Wollaston held that souls exist, survive death, and in the afterlife are rewarded or punished by God for their behavior in life. Thomas Paine believed in the "probability" of the immortality of the soul.' wiki

Why would any rational human being take chances with their immortal soul? With so much at stake on both sides of the grave, isn't it reasonable to accept the possibility of immortality and salvation?
In other words, in the end, what matters more, what you say about Him or what is actually -- demonstrably -- true?
henry quirk wrote: Fri Sep 30, 2022 5:20 pm I believe what I say about Him is true; I can't demonstrate, to your satisfaction, that what I say about Him is true.
Okay, fair enough. But what I believe is that what you believe is predicated more on the manner in which I construe identity in the is/ought world as the existential embodiment of dasein rather than in what can actually be pinned down objectively.
That's just great, henry. Your God creates us. He creates a planet on which we can interact. Savagely if we wish. A planet that is often little more than a ghastly horror show. But why should any mere mortals actually care about that? Shit happens. Let's think of the Deist God as we would that.
henry quirk wrote: Fri Sep 30, 2022 5:20 pm It is great. We're free wills, points of creative & causal power. We're free men with natural rights. This is a good deal.

You see ghastly horror show; I see challenge.
Again, fair enough. But it's great only until circumstantially it isn't. And if Putin nukes the Ukrainians prompting Biden to nuke him in turn, how great will it then be for millions upon millions of men women and children on both sides of the pond? And, again, even among Deists themselves, given a free will world, I suspect that "following the dictates of reason and nature" they will be all up and down the moral and political spectrum. Just like the rest of us. Which would seem to indicate that there is no one size fits all rationality and virtue in regard to Ukraine or abortion or guns.

Deism, however, is said to be based on reason.
henry quirk wrote: Fri Sep 30, 2022 5:20 pm Not by me.
What then? How is your own philosophy of life not construed by you to be reasonable?
Yet Deists, just like the rest of us, "follow the dictates of reason and nature" all up and down the moral and political spectrum.
henry quirk wrote: Fri Sep 30, 2022 5:20 pm Sez you, not me.
What are you suggesting then...that if you were able to gather up all the Deists around you, they would all subscribe to the same moral narratives and political agendas?

Either your own rendition of being rational and virtuous regarding Ukraine, abortion and guns prevails in any Deist community or the renditions of others do? So, how would this be decided when what seems reasonable to you about these issues doesn't seem reasonable to others?
Or, perhaps, there is one and only one truly rational path to take in regard to the war in Ukraine and abortion and guns?
henry quirk wrote: Fri Sep 30, 2022 5:20 pm Morally...

Ukraine: free man, slaver, or slave. Pick which is best for you and live with the consequences.

Abortion: recognize & respect persons or murder them. Pick which is best for you and live with the consequences.

Guns: recognize & respect a man's natural, unalienable right to his property or rob him. Pick which is best for you and live with the consequences.
Again, you seem to acknowledge that others are permitted to pick a political policy that is best for them but not for you. Only if they do they become "morons". Freedom and rights only as you define the moral and political parameters regarding Ukraine, abortion and guns.

Yes, I get that. Do you?

To wit:
Yours?
henry quirk wrote: Fri Sep 30, 2022 5:20 pm Yep.
Note to others:

Don't want to be moron, yourself? Then worship and adore henry and his meat mind dogmas. That's the irony of course. He worships himself as the rugged individualist. But if others don't share his own arrogant, authoritarian, autocratic dictums here about, well, everything pertaining to value judgments, then their own rugged individualism does not qualify as following the dictates of reason and nature on the One True Path.

His? Yep.

Go ahead, like me, just ask him.

To witless...
And, if others don't share it, does that make them "morons", or "simply wrong"?
henry quirk wrote: Fri Sep 30, 2022 5:20 pm Both.
How is this not being a meat mind in regard to the opinions of others? He'll insist that you have as much free will as he does [in a free will world] but if you will a policy at odds with his own you are a slave to the "simply wrong" propaganda of others.
Indeed, no assessment of The State from any of these perspectives...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_p ... ideologies

...qualify as even being worthy of discussion.
henry quirk wrote: Fri Sep 30, 2022 5:20 pm That's correct.
And, of course, those who are the equivalent of you in regard to all of these hyndreds of objectivists fonts, will make the same point about you. Only some might not go so far as to call you a "moron". Or are they "simply wrong" about that too?
...you are a finite being who was born at a particular time historically, in a particular place culturally and then accumulated a particular set of personal experiences, relationships and access to information and knowledge.
henry quirk wrote: Fri Sep 30, 2022 5:20 pm No matter where or when I am, I am always...

A free will. A free man with a natural, inalienable right to my, and no one else's, life, liberty, and property.
Of course: your favorite "general description intellectual contraption" which revolves solely around everyone agreeing with how you define the meaning of those words...even though men and women living in historical and cultural and experiential contexts considerably different from yours will naturally come to very, very different conclusions regarding what those words mean.

But that's what the objectivist meat minds do, in my opinion. They completely disregard all of that commonsense stuff and anchor their own Precious Self to a moral, political and spiritual foundation that allows them to be comforted and consoled all the way to the grave. They dupe themselves into believing that even though there are in fact hundreds of other One True Paths out there that are as well preached as the gospel truth, their Path really is the One True Path.

The more you think about it, in fact, the more laughable it is. The can't all be the One True Path but to a dogma, they will all insist that they and only they are on it.

Their paths are "squat". Just as Henry's path is to them.
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iambiguous
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Re: Ukraine Crisis

Post by iambiguous »

From the Washington Post

'Russia’s annexation puts world ‘two or three steps away’ from nuclear war

LONDON — President Vladimir Putin’s declaration of the annexation of four regions in eastern and southern Ukraine signals the onset of a new and highly dangerous phase in the seven-month old war, one that Western officials and analysts fear could escalate to the use of nuclear weapons for the first time in 77 years.

Putin has previously threatened to resort to nuclear weapons if Russia’s goals in Ukraine continue to be thwarted. The annexation brings the use of a nuclear weapon a step closer by giving Putin a potential justification on the grounds that “the territorial integrity of our country is threatened,” as he put it in his speech last week.

He renewed the threat on Friday with an ominous comment that the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki created a “precedent” for the use of nuclear weapons, echoing references he has made in the past to the U.S. invasion of Iraq as setting a precedent for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

U.S. and Western officials say they still think it unlikely that Putin will carry out his threats. Most probably, they say, he is hoping to deter the West from providing ever more sophisticated military assistance to Ukraine while the mobilization of an additional 300,000 troops allows Russia to reverse or at least halt its military setbacks on the battlefield.

But the threats appear only to have strengthened Western resolve to continue sending weapons to Ukraine and the Ukrainian military is continuing to advance into Russian-occupied territory.


Now, my own particular existential bias in regard to the Ukraine war is still the same. I don't believe in an afterlife. And, in the event of a nuclear war, living about 30 miles from Washington D.C., I stand a good chance of being vaporized. So, from my frame of mind, let Putin seize Ukraine. In fact let him seize all of those new nations that came into being only as a result of the breakup of the Soviet Union. in other words, this assumes that he is not another Hitler, hell bent on gobbling up the entire globe and sending me to a death camp if I don't think exactly like he does.
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henry quirk
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Re: Ukraine Crisis

Post by henry quirk »

This is a heavily snipped response: I see no need to comment on your lil wars elsewhere or your self-promotions or on your notes to others or to rehash what's been hashed, rehashed, and re-rehashed in other threads.
What you believe is true rather than what you are actually able to demonstrate that all rational men and women are, in turn, obligated to believe is true.
Nope. As I say: I can't, to your satisfaction, demonstrate He exists. I've tried. You'll have none of it.

*
Okay, note for us how you demonstrate this to yourself then.
You mean demonstrate to you. Nope. Been there, done that.

*
you believing that others are "morons" if they don't believe the same.
If a person doesn't recognize that he is free and has a natural, inalienable right to his, and no other's life, liberty, and property; if a person doesn't recognize the other other guy is free and has a natural, inalienable right to his, and no one else's, life, liberty, and property, then, yeah, he's a moron.

*
How is your own philosophy of life not construed by you to be reasonable?
You get that what's reasonable is not solely founded in reason, yeah?

*
What are you suggesting then...that if you were able to gather up all the Deists around you, they would all subscribe to the same moral narratives and political agendas?
Nope. I'm sayin' your lil second hand info about deism is for shit.

*
Either your own rendition of being rational and virtuous regarding Ukraine, abortion and guns prevails in any Deist community or the renditions of others do?
There is no deist community. Natural rights don't come from deism (you don't have to be a deist).

*
So, how would this be decided when what seems reasonable to you about these issues doesn't seem reasonable to others?
Er, sound suspiciously like let's vote on it! No, natural rights aren't up for democratic review. A man is free or he isn't. He has a right to his life, liberty, and property or he doesn't. I know you disagree: you've said already if your community banned firearms, you'd turn over your revolver. You're a moron.

*
Again, you seem to acknowledge that others are permitted to pick a political policy that is best for them but not for you. Only if they do they become "morons". Freedom and rights only as you define the moral and political parameters regarding Ukraine, abortion and guns.
What I've said is: free men can do with themselves as they choose. They don't, however, get to with others as they choose without the other's express consent. That is, for example, if you choose to disarm yourself -- becuz the majority sez you must -- that's your choice. You're a moron. It's a bad choice. But it's yours to make.

*
And, of course, those who are the equivalent of you in regard to all of these hyndreds of objectivists fonts, will make the same point about you. Only some might not go so far as to call you a "moron". Or are they "simply wrong" about that too?
Unlike you: I don't care. If you, for example, think I'm a moron, so what? Who are you, or any one in-forum (or any one in the world), that I should care what you think or feel about me? As long as you let me be: assess me as low as you like.

And: yes, again, If a person doesn't recognize that he is free and has a natural, inalienable right to his, and no other's life, liberty, and property; if a person doesn't recognize the other other guy is free and has a natural, inalienable right to his, and no one else's, life, liberty, and property, then, yeah, he's a moron, he's wrong, and he is my enemy.

But: you know all this. I've said it, to you, multiple times, across multiple threads.

*
general description intellectual contraption
Nope. Just a description of what is.

*
They can't all be the One True Path
No, they can't.
Last edited by henry quirk on Sat Oct 01, 2022 5:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Gary Childress
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Re: Ukraine Crisis

Post by Gary Childress »

iambiguous wrote: Sat Oct 01, 2022 4:48 pm From the Washington Post

'Russia’s annexation puts world ‘two or three steps away’ from nuclear war

LONDON — President Vladimir Putin’s declaration of the annexation of four regions in eastern and southern Ukraine signals the onset of a new and highly dangerous phase in the seven-month old war, one that Western officials and analysts fear could escalate to the use of nuclear weapons for the first time in 77 years.

Putin has previously threatened to resort to nuclear weapons if Russia’s goals in Ukraine continue to be thwarted. The annexation brings the use of a nuclear weapon a step closer by giving Putin a potential justification on the grounds that “the territorial integrity of our country is threatened,” as he put it in his speech last week.

He renewed the threat on Friday with an ominous comment that the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki created a “precedent” for the use of nuclear weapons, echoing references he has made in the past to the U.S. invasion of Iraq as setting a precedent for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

U.S. and Western officials say they still think it unlikely that Putin will carry out his threats. Most probably, they say, he is hoping to deter the West from providing ever more sophisticated military assistance to Ukraine while the mobilization of an additional 300,000 troops allows Russia to reverse or at least halt its military setbacks on the battlefield.

But the threats appear only to have strengthened Western resolve to continue sending weapons to Ukraine and the Ukrainian military is continuing to advance into Russian-occupied territory.


Now, my own particular existential bias in regard to the Ukraine war is still the same. I don't believe in an afterlife. And, in the event of a nuclear war, living about 30 miles from Washington D.C., I stand a good chance of being vaporized. So, from my frame of mind, let Putin seize Ukraine. In fact let him seize all of those new nations that came into being only as a result of the breakup of the Soviet Union. in other words, this assumes that he is not another Hitler, hell bent on gobbling up the entire globe and sending me to a death camp if I don't think exactly like he does.
That is pretty much my thought at this point. Maybe Putin will content himself with Ukraine. I live about 30 miles from Orlando, Florida. I doubt it's a primary target but I wouldn't want to live in the world of shit that would follow a nuclear exchange even if I were to survive. We all lose if that happens.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Ukraine Crisis

Post by Immanuel Can »

Gary Childress wrote: Sat Oct 01, 2022 5:35 pm Maybe Putin will content himself with Ukraine.
He may be...Biden won't be. He's already declared he's for regime change in Russia. That means his handlers are not going to let Putin off the hook. That means Putin killed by his rivals, if not by his enemies.

Well, if you tell a mad dog that you'll kill him if you catch him, what do you think he's going to do? Make sure you don't catch him, of course. And he'll go mad...as mad as he has to...to make sure that doesn't happen.

So Putin's being pushed into throwing everything at the enemy...since they've left him no way out. He has to win, or he dies.

That's bad news for us all.

Best solution? An independent Ukraine, but not in NATO. Russia retreats. But I don't think Biden's handlers want that.
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Re: Ukraine Crisis

Post by promethean75 »

"So Putin's being pushed into throwing everything at the enemy...since they've left him no way out. He has to win, or he dies."

if he dies, he dies
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Ukraine Crisis

Post by Immanuel Can »

promethean75 wrote: Sat Oct 01, 2022 9:42 pm "So Putin's being pushed into throwing everything at the enemy...since they've left him no way out. He has to win, or he dies."
if he dies, he dies
Yeah, but he has nukes. So before he dies... :shock:
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iambiguous
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Re: Ukraine Crisis

Post by iambiguous »

Gary Childress wrote: Sat Oct 01, 2022 5:35 pm
iambiguous wrote: Sat Oct 01, 2022 4:48 pm From the Washington Post

'Russia’s annexation puts world ‘two or three steps away’ from nuclear war

LONDON — President Vladimir Putin’s declaration of the annexation of four regions in eastern and southern Ukraine signals the onset of a new and highly dangerous phase in the seven-month old war, one that Western officials and analysts fear could escalate to the use of nuclear weapons for the first time in 77 years.

Putin has previously threatened to resort to nuclear weapons if Russia’s goals in Ukraine continue to be thwarted. The annexation brings the use of a nuclear weapon a step closer by giving Putin a potential justification on the grounds that “the territorial integrity of our country is threatened,” as he put it in his speech last week.

He renewed the threat on Friday with an ominous comment that the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki created a “precedent” for the use of nuclear weapons, echoing references he has made in the past to the U.S. invasion of Iraq as setting a precedent for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

U.S. and Western officials say they still think it unlikely that Putin will carry out his threats. Most probably, they say, he is hoping to deter the West from providing ever more sophisticated military assistance to Ukraine while the mobilization of an additional 300,000 troops allows Russia to reverse or at least halt its military setbacks on the battlefield.

But the threats appear only to have strengthened Western resolve to continue sending weapons to Ukraine and the Ukrainian military is continuing to advance into Russian-occupied territory.


Now, my own particular existential bias in regard to the Ukraine war is still the same. I don't believe in an afterlife. And, in the event of a nuclear war, living about 30 miles from Washington D.C., I stand a good chance of being vaporized. So, from my frame of mind, let Putin seize Ukraine. In fact let him seize all of those new nations that came into being only as a result of the breakup of the Soviet Union. in other words, this assumes that he is not another Hitler, hell bent on gobbling up the entire globe and sending me to a death camp if I don't think exactly like he does.
That is pretty much my thought at this point. Maybe Putin will content himself with Ukraine. I live about 30 miles from Orlando, Florida. I doubt it's a primary target but I wouldn't want to live in the world of shit that would follow a nuclear exchange even if I were to survive. We all lose if that happens.
Of course, some will immediately pounce on perspectives such as this as despicably selfish.

Selfish, sure, no doubt about it. But despicable? Why on earth would I support a policy that will result in a nuclear exchange resulting in my own oblivion? I don't have immortality and salvation awaiting me in worshipping and adoring the right God. I'm not a political idealist or an ideologue.

I can only react to things based on my own set of circumstances and based on how I have come to understand the world around me. After all, it's not like a part of me isn't outraged in turn by autocratic thugs like Putin around the globe. But, from Putin's point of view, the breakup of the Soviet Union is the intolerable part. He has his very own "existential narrative" regarding the world around him. Why mine or yours or others and not his?

It all revolves around dasein from my fractured and fragmented point of view. There is no moral obligation [philosophical or otherwise] around which I can anchor my Self to.

Unless, of course, someone here can persuade me that their own is.
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Re: Ukraine Crisis

Post by iambiguous »

Here is an opinion piece by Maureen Dowd at the New York Times.

It resonates with me because she attempts to bring all of this inside the head of Putin. How he rationalizes his own rendition of the world we live in. The "existential parameters of dasein" as I would put it.


https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/01/opin ... clear.html

'“The United States is the only country in the world that has used nuclear weapons twice, destroying the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan. And they created a precedent,” he said.

Sounding demented, Putin charged that “the dictatorship of the Western elites” was an “overthrow of faith and traditional values.” It has, he said, come “to resemble a religion in reverse — pure Satanism.”

Wrapping up his own destiny with Mother Russia’s, noting that his country must occupy its rightful place in the world as “a great thousand-year-old power, a whole civilization,” he announced that he was formally swallowing four provinces in eastern Ukraine following fake referendums there.

We are awash in fear and anger at his unholy brutality, but Putin doesn’t care. Like Medea, he is unconcerned about the cries of the Greek chorus.

To justify his unprovoked attempt to subsume Ukraine, Putin made the absurd claim that the West is a “neocolonial system” that has always “dreamed about” dividing, weakening and breaking up Russia and turning it into a colony.

While President Biden and officials in Europe blamed Russia for sabotaging the Nord Stream pipelines, designed to carry Russian natural gas to Europe, Putin implied it was the work of the Anglo-Saxons. “Sanctions are no longer enough, and now they have turned to subversion,” he said.

Biden responded during a news conference at the White House on Friday, announcing that the administration was imposing new sanctions against Russia, and stating that the world would not recognize the fraudulent referendums.

“He’s not going to scare us or intimidate us,” Biden said. “He can’t seize his neighbor’s territory and get away with it.”

The Ukrainians are making successful military offensives in the northeast of the country, and Russian men are fleeing Putin’s Russia in droves; by some estimates more men have left Russia to avoid service in Ukraine than have served there.

Donald Trump posted on his social media site, “The Russia/Ukraine catastrophe should NEVER have happened, and would definitely not have happened if I were President.”

He may be right. If Trump were president, he would be in Putin’s pocket and America would not be helping Ukraine.

It has long been assumed that a nuclear weapon would never be used again because of the consequences. But what if you’re dealing with a malefactor with no concern for consequences? A modern Greek tragedy.'
Gary Childress
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Re: Ukraine Crisis

Post by Gary Childress »

Immanuel Can wrote: Sat Oct 01, 2022 10:01 pm
promethean75 wrote: Sat Oct 01, 2022 9:42 pm "So Putin's being pushed into throwing everything at the enemy...since they've left him no way out. He has to win, or he dies."
if he dies, he dies
Yeah, but he has nukes. So before he dies... :shock:
Putin's regime has done little more than try to antagonize the West in everything it does. That literally seems to be the guy's only purpose in life--flying bombers near Alaska in peacetime. Invading countries. And he kills his political opponents--so important is it for him to remain in power. His mission in life seems to be to antagonize us. Now, after all his antics, he feels "unsafe"? If we give in to his antics, do you think that'll appease the guy? I mean, I say let him annex parts of Ukraine and leave it at that if he'll be satisfied with it.
Last edited by Gary Childress on Sun Oct 02, 2022 1:13 am, edited 2 times in total.
Gary Childress
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Re: Ukraine Crisis

Post by Gary Childress »

Immanuel Can wrote: Fri Sep 30, 2022 8:47 pm
Gary Childress wrote: Fri Sep 30, 2022 6:59 pm They dare call it the "intelligence" community.
Yeah, it's a mess. There's not a lot of things man won't corrupt. The bigger and more centralized the power, the bigger the corruption, it seems. As messed up as these nation-sized organizations are, just imagine a global one.
It certainly didn't help to have the Bush family in the White House 3 times. The father was the director of the CIA once upon a time. If there's a single family that left the world a worse place when they left, it would probably be them.
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Re: Ukraine Crisis

Post by Gary Childress »

iambiguous wrote: Sat Oct 01, 2022 10:46 pm
Gary Childress wrote: Sat Oct 01, 2022 5:35 pm
iambiguous wrote: Sat Oct 01, 2022 4:48 pm From the Washington Post

'Russia’s annexation puts world ‘two or three steps away’ from nuclear war

LONDON — President Vladimir Putin’s declaration of the annexation of four regions in eastern and southern Ukraine signals the onset of a new and highly dangerous phase in the seven-month old war, one that Western officials and analysts fear could escalate to the use of nuclear weapons for the first time in 77 years.

Putin has previously threatened to resort to nuclear weapons if Russia’s goals in Ukraine continue to be thwarted. The annexation brings the use of a nuclear weapon a step closer by giving Putin a potential justification on the grounds that “the territorial integrity of our country is threatened,” as he put it in his speech last week.

He renewed the threat on Friday with an ominous comment that the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki created a “precedent” for the use of nuclear weapons, echoing references he has made in the past to the U.S. invasion of Iraq as setting a precedent for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

U.S. and Western officials say they still think it unlikely that Putin will carry out his threats. Most probably, they say, he is hoping to deter the West from providing ever more sophisticated military assistance to Ukraine while the mobilization of an additional 300,000 troops allows Russia to reverse or at least halt its military setbacks on the battlefield.

But the threats appear only to have strengthened Western resolve to continue sending weapons to Ukraine and the Ukrainian military is continuing to advance into Russian-occupied territory.


Now, my own particular existential bias in regard to the Ukraine war is still the same. I don't believe in an afterlife. And, in the event of a nuclear war, living about 30 miles from Washington D.C., I stand a good chance of being vaporized. So, from my frame of mind, let Putin seize Ukraine. In fact let him seize all of those new nations that came into being only as a result of the breakup of the Soviet Union. in other words, this assumes that he is not another Hitler, hell bent on gobbling up the entire globe and sending me to a death camp if I don't think exactly like he does.
That is pretty much my thought at this point. Maybe Putin will content himself with Ukraine. I live about 30 miles from Orlando, Florida. I doubt it's a primary target but I wouldn't want to live in the world of shit that would follow a nuclear exchange even if I were to survive. We all lose if that happens.
Of course, some will immediately pounce on perspectives such as this as despicably selfish.
I wouldn't worry about it. I don't see anyone doing that.
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iambiguous
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Re: Ukraine Crisis

Post by iambiguous »

henry quirk wrote: Sat Oct 01, 2022 5:15 pm This is a heavily snipped response: I see no need to comment on your lil wars elsewhere or your self-promotions or on your notes to others or to rehash what's been hashed, rehashed, and re-rehashed in other threads.
What you believe is true rather than what you are actually able to demonstrate that all rational men and women are, in turn, obligated to believe is true.
Nope. As I say: I can't, to your satisfaction, demonstrate He exists. I've tried. You'll have none of it.

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Okay, note for us how you demonstrate this to yourself then.
You mean demonstrate to you. Nope. Been there, done that.

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you believing that others are "morons" if they don't believe the same.
If a person doesn't recognize that he is free and has a natural, inalienable right to his, and no other's life, liberty, and property; if a person doesn't recognize the other other guy is free and has a natural, inalienable right to his, and no one else's, life, liberty, and property, then, yeah, he's a moron.

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How is your own philosophy of life not construed by you to be reasonable?
You get that what's reasonable is not solely founded in reason, yeah?

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What are you suggesting then...that if you were able to gather up all the Deists around you, they would all subscribe to the same moral narratives and political agendas?
Nope. I'm sayin' your lil second hand info about deism is for shit.

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Either your own rendition of being rational and virtuous regarding Ukraine, abortion and guns prevails in any Deist community or the renditions of others do?
There is no deist community. Natural rights don't come from deism (you don't have to be a deist).

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So, how would this be decided when what seems reasonable to you about these issues doesn't seem reasonable to others?
Er, sound suspiciously like let's vote on it! No, natural rights aren't up for democratic review. A man is free or he isn't. He has a right to his life, liberty, and property or he doesn't. I know you disagree: you've said already if your community banned firearms, you'd turn over your revolver. You're a moron.

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Again, you seem to acknowledge that others are permitted to pick a political policy that is best for them but not for you. Only if they do they become "morons". Freedom and rights only as you define the moral and political parameters regarding Ukraine, abortion and guns.
What I've said is: free men can do with themselves as they choose. They don't, however, get to with others as they choose without the other's express consent. That is, for example, if you choose to disarm yourself -- becuz the majority sez you must -- that's your choice. You're a moron. It's a bad choice. But it's yours to make.

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And, of course, those who are the equivalent of you in regard to all of these hyndreds of objectivists fonts, will make the same point about you. Only some might not go so far as to call you a "moron". Or are they "simply wrong" about that too?
Unlike you: I don't care. If you, for example, think I'm a moron, so what? Who are you, or any one in-forum (or any one in the world), that I should care what you think or feel about me? As long as you let me be: assess me as low as you like.

And: yes, again, If a person doesn't recognize that he is free and has a natural, inalienable right to his, and no other's life, liberty, and property; if a person doesn't recognize the other other guy is free and has a natural, inalienable right to his, and no one else's, life, liberty, and property, then, yeah, he's a moron, he's wrong, and he is my enemy.

But: you know all this. I've said it, to you, multiple times, across multiple threads.

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general description intellectual contraption
Nope. Just a description of what is.

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They can't all be the One True Path
No, they can't.

A meat-mind it is then: 8)
See what I mean? He merely asserts -- insists! -- that things like this are true. He offers us absolutely no hard evidence -- empirical, experiential, experimental -- to back up these "thought up" dictums of his. He simply becomes the "authoritative source" by dint of his own definitional logic.

And then how he connects this to...God?

Now, to me, that's a meat-mind. A fulminating and fanatical objectivist. Only I'm the first to admit that "I" am entirely incapable of demonstrating that myself. It's just my own personal opinion rooted existentially in dasein.
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henry quirk
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Re: Ukraine Crisis

Post by henry quirk »

Yes...
iambiguous wrote: Sun Oct 02, 2022 1:24 am8)
...you are blind.
if only you were mute too
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