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@IwantRooseveltagain
Noem's dog had killed a neighbor's chickens. That's a no-no.
Also, Biden's dog should have been put down before he bit a human for the 24th time.
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@RationalMadman
You didn't respond to my request. You changed the subject.
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@RationalMadman
Besides, when, if ever, has the loser of a war been allowed to determine the terms of the peace?When the winning side isn't run by psychopaths.
Please give me an example of the loser of a war determining the terms of the peace.
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@RationalMadman
When the winning side isn't run by psychopaths.
I disagree. And, you're just flipping me off, rather than answering.
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@RationalMadman
Israel has offered to negotiate several times in the past, but was turned down.
The Palestinian position has always appeared to be "Give us our land back, THEN we will negotiate." It's absurd to demand what you want as a precondition for negotiating with an enemy.
Besides, when, if ever, has the loser of a war been allowed to determine the terms of the peace?
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@FLRW
The 1948 war ended with Israeli forces controlling approximately 78 percent of historical Palestine. The remaining 22 percent fell under the administration of Egypt and Jordan. In 1967, Israel absorbed the whole of historical Palestine, as well as additional territory from Egypt and Syria.
Yes, and Israel returned territory to each as part of peace negotiations.
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@Athias
The mind is dependent on the brain; there is no evidence for a disembodied mind. I think that mind is merely a name for a collection of brain functions, in the same way that digestive system describes the activities of a collection of bodily organs.
The events that happen in the mind are a form of experience like pain or sound. They are real, ephemeral, and private for each subject. Thoughts, recollections, imaginings and such, are a species of feelings. Those things are dependent on brain activity and have no independent existence.
So, given the above, I say that
1) neither past nor future exists. The past is dependent on recollection; the future on imagination. They are useful fictions, like the mind.
2) Mathematics are symbols invented by humans, like language. They are real in the same sense as thoughts and other feelings. Because mathematics can be learned by humans to communicate no matter which language they speak, they are thought (not proven) to be universal. They are very useful.
So how does that which exists (i.e. the "physical") depend on that which allegedly doesn't exist (i.e. the abstract or the immaterial)?
There is no such dependency--the reverse is true. Both exist but the mental depends on the physical. What depends on mathematics is humanity’s conception of the universe, not the universe itself.
. . . provide sufficient controls for their alleged observations of that which is "independent of their minds" and that which isn't.
Observations are independent of one mind, not of all minds. When many minds agree about an observation it is presumed to be real. This is not infallible, but it has worked well as a practical matter.
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@IwantRooseveltagain
Sure, but the point is the people in this country who think they are godly, the evangelicals, voted for Trump.
Yes, but we can't do anything about that. We have to sell our candidate to the youngsters and independents. It's not too late to stop Trump again, no matter what the early polls say. Also, if there's no recession before the election, Biden will be very hard to beat.
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@Greyparrot
@IwantRooseveltagain
Well, we did better in 2020. Let's do it again next year.
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@zedvictor4
I think that, using your statements, that the word now is meaningless.
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@Greyparrot
All of that is legal.
That may be true, but I see it as corruption. Citizenship is supposed to mean something besides permission to live and work here. Marriage used to be a sacrament, and still is in some places. I'm an old man shouting, "You are ruining it!", and I know it's too late. I just can't help it sometimes.
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@Math_Enthusiast
The fact that the set of all integers contains more terms than the set of all even or odd integers renders the word more (or greater than) meaningless.
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@Greyparrot
Just curious, what would be an example of corruption through marriage?
How about an Englishman marrying an American just to get permanent residence, then living apart?
or,
Michael Jackson marrying Whatsit Presley, then exchanging assets tax-free during the divorce?
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@zedvictor4
Now is the present moment, but it is always local: what is now for me is not now for someone on Alpha Centauri.
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@zedvictor4
That, even though the speed of time is immeasurably fast, we still manage to keep apace with it. Relativity I suppose.
It's not immeasurably fast. I think that according to the theory of relativity we are always moving at the speed of light in spacetime. Although we are moving through space at speeds that seem huge to us, they are far slower than light speed. So we are moving faster in time. That's why when you are moving faster in space, time slows down for you. Anyway, if we know how fast we are moving through space (earth, sun, galaxy), we could subtract that from the speed of light to get how fast we are moving in time.
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@Math_Enthusiast
- Does the past exist? No.
- Does the future exist? No.
- Do abstractions exist? Only in the mind.
- Do thoughts exist? Only in the mind.
- If something will never be observed, does it exist? I don't know.
- If you have heard that something has been observed, but never observe it yourself, does it exist? Probably.
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@RationalMadman
Trump Refuses Involvement in Criminal Investigations: 'I Did Nothing Wrong'
By Aila Slisco On 11/18/22 at 7:13 PM EST, Newsweek
He also argued that he "did nothing wrong" regarding January 6, suggesting that the Capitol rioters were protesting "peacefully and patriotically."
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@Savant
The pain of choosing may be mitigated.
1) Ask for volunteers.
2) Choose people who are already on their death beds.
3) Kill unrepentant murderers or career violent offenders.
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@Best.Korea
"I did nothing wrong."
Oops. That was the other guy, not JC.
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@YouFound_Lxam
I don't say that the Big Bang was a miracle; I say that it is a mystery.
Everything else is explainable by the laws of physics.
Belief in a Christian god, on the other hand, entails many more mysteries.
I keep posting this on different threads but I don't get much engagement about it. I'm not sure why.
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@PGA2.0
From your post #1634:
To not believe in God, even though He exists, is 1) a choice
I choose not to believe, because I have no good reason to. Or, as Laplace said, I have no need of that hypothesis.
1) We and the universe were created (supernatural/Being, intangible/non-physical/mindful and intentional),2) it is uncreated and was always there (natural/physical/tangible, mindless and unintentional),3) it had a beginning in nothing (natural/self-creation), or4) it is illusion.Which of these four positions is/are reasonable?
We don’t have enough information to know for certain. For now, it is a mystery.
the SYSTEM of naturalism has nothing to support it, nothing that can make sense of it, nothing to ground itself in.
It is grounded in observation, experience, and reason. As a human, all we can know ultimately comes from our experience.
things remain constant and in such a manner that we find or discover intricate laws that govern the universe . . . Why would you expect that from a mindless, random, chaotic beginning that has NO INTENT OR PURPOSE? You would not.
Does it matter what we would expect? It is foolish to ask “Why is the universe the way it is, rather than some other way?” I think you are imposing your mind’s belief onto the universe.
For the atheist, the universe happens for no reason, intentionality, purpose, or MEANING.
Yes, it has no meaning, other than what we choose to give it. And we find the way the universe is from observation and experience. If the laws of physics were different, we wouldn’t be here. But we are here, and we are here because this universe allows us to be, and because we evolved to survive in the universe we find ourselves in. How could it be otherwise?
[numbers] are independent of your or any other human mind
I don’t believe that. Numbers were invented by humans (for counting things). Some primitive societies get along just fine without them.
The universe is a vast set of equations and mathematics.
That is a very human way of looking at our minute corner of the known universe.
Mathematics requires a mind to comprehend.
Yes.
In an illogical, unreasoning universe, why must two plus two equal four, yet in this universe or any other, it must, or it is a contradiction.
You cannot say anything about other universes. We know nothing about that.
the laws of logic (another intangible, non-physical that I challenge you to derive and explain from nature).
Humans invented the laws of logic. Humans are part of nature.
when [an atheist] wants to make sense of things, they borrow from the Christian framework while denying its existence and ridiculing it at the same time - what a contradiction and inconsistent way to view reality.
Did you already mention what atheists borrowed from Christianity? Please refresh my memory.
are you saying something existed before the universe, or the universe is eternal? Self-creation is a logical impossibility.
As I said, this is a mystery.
4) If you say it is all an illusion . . .
I don’t.
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@YouFound_Lxam
anything can be explained with "God did it"
Exactly.
So an elf defined as omnipotent, etc., would also explain anything.
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@Greyparrot
According to the World Economic Forum, real* hourly earnings for production and non-supervisory employees in the USA were:
$23.24 in Feb., 1973
$23.24 in Mar., 2019
That is, zero growth in 46 years.
*in 2019 dollars, adjusted for inflation
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@YouFound_Lxam
Let me ask you this," What takes more faith to believe in?":A big explosion came out of nowhere, and eventually created humans who are so complex that structure of our brains is incomprehensible.OrGod created the explosion, and created the life that is so complex that no natural force can create alone.
It takes more faith to believe in the Christian god than in the inflationary universe/big bang theory.
The inflationary/big bang + the laws of physics accounts for everything we can observe and test.
The inflationary/big bang is one mystery.
Christians, however, must account for many more mysteries: the nature of God, the supernatural world and their inhabitants, the afterlife, resurrection, the Trinity, souls, transubstantiation, and many more. "God did it" is not an explanation. It tells us nothing that "Elves did it" couldn't explain. Economy of explanation is preferable to one that requires many more explanations (see William of Ockham).
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@PGA2.0
Are you claiming that God does not exist?
No. I claim that I do not believe in a god. I also claim that I don’t know for certain whether there exists a god or not. So I am an atheist agnostic (or agnostic atheist).
And here you go, claiming that you, as an atheist, have a stance which excludes God as a likely explanation. Thus, if you examine life and existence at all, you look for answers in a manner that uses everything but God as the likely explanation. [emphasis mine - b9_ntt]
No, I exclude everything supernatural, and also natural answers that make no sense or have no evidence to support them.
. . . what caused nothing to exist, or did something exist before the universe, thus outside it? . . . it did not cause itself . . . .
I avoid all of the above (the excerpt is from a long paragraph) by saying that the origin of the universe is a mystery (and it really is; this is not just a debate tactic). And I believe that everything else that we observe and can know about it can be derived from the inflationary universe / big bang theory and the laws of physics. This is to be preferred to Christianity and other supernatural “explanations,” because those entail more than one mystery (e.g. Trinity, nature of God(s), resurrection & afterlife, supernatural world and beings, etc), whereas my view entails only one. Economy in explanation is preferable (see William of Ockham).
Morality is a mind issue, just like numbers are. The universe is not mindful.
I agree.
So which mind did you use to come up with the "good," and how do you know that someone is the be-all and end-all for what good is? I don’t know, and I don’t see how lack of the same is relevant. Is it Hitler? Is his good the "good"? Everything is relative unless you have an ultimate, objective, universal, unchanging standard. That begs the question of why I should trust or believe your thoughts are any better than Hitler's if you cannot point to what is NECESSARY for morality.
If you can’t see that, you are in trouble.
What is done "in the name of Christianity" does not always agree with God's word. So what is your point? . . . Atheism, which came into prominence in the 20th century, is responsible for more deaths than any other belief system in the 20th century - some conservative estimates say over 100 million.
If “Christianity” is not responsible for what Christians do, then why is “atheism” responsible for what atheists do?
I have what is NECESSARY to make sense of morality. You do NOT.
I disagree.
On the one hand, you say, "This is bad," then when you ask why it or anything else ultimately matters, you say it does not. So you live life inconsistently. WHY???
I already explained that. Humans have both a personal view and a cosmic view of life.
Who cares if your way of thinking is true - no ultimate justice.
I, and no one else, care. I’m OK with that.
Why SHOULD your personal view matter to anyone but you?
No reason why it should.
I can point out hundreds of thousands of injustices every day, but atheists just state "good" and "evil" are just personal feelings and "preferences" that don't ultimately matter.
They don’t matter in the cosmic view, but they certainly do matter in the personal view.
Why is your conscience something that is true or should matter?
It matters to me.
Yes, it works "better" if there is a standard that we can compare it to, that is better.
I can compare my society (the USA) to other societies and see that mine is better.
So what is right in such cases [killing the unborn]? Do you have an answer?
I don’t believe that human life begins at conception and neither did those who wrote the Bible. I also don’t believe that it is right to force a woman to give birth to a child who has zero chance to survive outside the womb.
Is it right to kill innocent human beings (the unborn) or wrong? [emphasis mine - b9_ntt]
Do you believe in original sin? If so, no one is ever innocent.
What "big picture." You mean your "worldview" includes more than just disbelief in God. It includes a whole explanation and beliefs like crazy on WHY things SHOULD be the way you LIKE them. And they all exclude God.
Yes.
Per your very first statement, you have a whole philosophy about life while denying you do. Again, inconsistency.
No. I deny only that atheism is a philosophy about life, and I think that this is the main problem with our discussion.
I get that you are uncomfortable with ignorance or ambiguity when it comes to ultimate questions. I get that your god is bound up with your world view and lots of other things in your life.
Christianity is not the only thing that I rejected in forming my world view. I rejected the world views of other current religions (e.g. Hinduism), dead religions (Mithraism, et al.), ideologies (Marxism), philosophies (idealism), and so on. Would you say that disbelieving in Brahma or Mithra entails a particular world view?
OK, so you think you have the answer to everything --- I don’t, but I have provisional answers, knowing that I will never know more than that. I am simply a humble human (humble in the face of the universe), and I sincerely believe that some things are unknowable to me and likely are unknowable to anyone. I’m OK with that. It looks like that is not enough for you, and that’s OK with me too.
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@YouFound_Lxam
(#42) Not a contradiction. Just something that is explainable through guesses and ideas, but not completely a contradiction. It is possible that Adam and Eve had kids after Cain and Able, and they grew up and made a nation "Nod" before Able was killed.
Yes, it's "possible," but why should I believe it?
Is there a reason to believe it other than it resolves a contradiction?
To merit belief, shouldn't something be "likely" rather than just "possible"?
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@FLRW
Also along those lines,
“As Feuerbach saw it, God is a projection of human potentiality, an expression of our unrealized ideals. Religion functions perniciously, since as soon as we invent God we devote ourselves to pleasing our imaginary construction instead of working to overcome the shortcomings that led to the invention in the first place.” — James W. Sire, The Universe Next Door
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@PGA2.0
atheism is a belief and a belief system) that employs so many other vehicles in looking at the world and universe while stating there is no proof or very little for belief in a God.
No! Atheism is a specific non-belief. You can’t extrapolate a system from that.
the answers for life's ultimate questions are sorted out outside of God as an explanation.
I don’t claim that there are answers to life’s ultimate questions.
Atheists choose to look at the world/universe by denying or ignoring that it is created by God or gods, so philosophical naturalism is usually the main vehicle, so to speak, used to examine the universe and everything in it.
Yes, and that is my stance also.
to be consistent, everything has to be (or is) explained or originate from within the universe/multiverse, not outside it,
Correct. Nothing wrong with that.
All you can do is tell me that you like your way of looking at things more than you like mine.
That is correct. I don’t claim to have the last words regarding morality, however, I prefer my way to yours because it is based on the physical world. There is no need for a supernatural world. Adding a supernatural world and supernatural beings greatly complicates your world view without providing any visible benefits.
This thinking is what wars are fought over (one says it is right, the other wrong, and who is to say other than by might).
I beg your pardon? Christians have fought many wars with other Christians over differing theologies. Christians also fought Muslims. Muslims fight everyone, including other Muslims. Yes, atheistic regimes have also fought wars. That’s what humans do: they find some excuse to impose their will over others. That tendency is not exclusive to atheists.
Christianity has what is necessary (an ultimate, objective, unchanging authority that has revealed Himself)
Really? How do you explain the Hundred Years War? The Albigensian Crusade? Popes armies against their political opponents? The thousands of clerical pedophiles? What good is your morality if so many of your leaders and co-believers disregard it?
The world, the universe, just is. It is not mindful of you; it does not care about you. It is just physical.
Correct.
Your very short time here means nothing in the big picture because, from an atheistic perspective, meaning is only something human beings interject and construct into this short time frame that does not matter. Nothing matters. Yet here you are, on a debate platform, acting as if some things do matter, that it matters what we believe.
Yes, for a very simple reason. As a human, I have a personal life in which many things matter a lot to me. Also, because I have the luxury of thinking about things besides survival, I can contemplate the big picture. I have a personal view and a cosmic view. Cosmically speaking, I don’t matter and neither do humanity or Earth. But from a personal view my needs do matter to me. I try to stay alive and live as comfortably as possible. That’s built-in to my human nature. I couldn’t escape it even if I wanted to. This is not inconsistent. It’s just part of the human condition.
Who are you ultimately accountable to?
I am accountable to my conscience, to the laws of the place where I live, and the mores of my community. Those are “right” for my place and time. I am fine with not believing that there is some “ultimate” authority whose standards I must live up to.
Another belief is that you find societies work better if we don't lie, cheat, steal, and kill. I agree, but what are your reasons for believing this
It seems obvious to me. Societies work better when there is less crime, when people can go about their daily lives without thinking that everyone is out to get them, when relationships can be built on trust, and more can be accomplished through cooperation than conflict.
What happens if a significant segment of society or the majority believes it is right and just to kill . . . the innocent unborn human being in the millions?
What happens is what you see happening in the US right now. Lots of conflict and people moving to places where the authorities are more to their liking.
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@Sidewalker
Thank you again for the links you provided above. One in particular has led to an unexpected treasure. The link was to “How thinking emerged on Earth: from bacteria to the human mind” (bigthink.com) by Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam, March 10, 2022. I searched using the author's name and found their book. The reviews of that book led me to a more important book, Conscious Mind, Resonant Brain, by Stephen Grossberg. The latter book will take me a while to read but it promises a good, working theory for how consciousness is produced by the brain. I hope to engage you on this topic after I have read it.
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@Sidewalker
Thank you for the links. I will take the time to read Nagle and one or more of the others.
I asked the question because, if your idea of consciousness is correct, I would expect it to be persistent. If it's not, that would seem to indicate that it is still connected to the body in some way even when the subject is unconscious.How is that different if consciousness is a product of the brain? Isn't consciousness 'persistent' under your scenario too, when an unconscious person wakes up they are still conscious.
You compared consciousness to anger, which comes and goes, saying where does anger go when the subject stops being angry. I think I understand what you are getting at even if anger wasn't the best analogy. What I meant was that if consciousness is its own thing, apart from a brain, I would expect it to be persistent (someplace) when the subject is unconscious. If it only arises when the brain is awake, then it is dependent on the brain. If consciousness persists when the brain is asleep, 1) where is it, 2) what is the connection between it and the brain, such that sometimes it is connected and sometimes not?
As for my probing the "gaps" of your theory, I am trying to understand more precisely what you are saying, AND I'm looking for weak spots. I thought that was fair during arguments.
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@Sidewalker
SW #170:
What happens to consciousness when a person is unconscious?Why does something have to "happen to it” when a person is unconscious? What happens to anger when a person isn’t angry? What happens to the brain when a person is unconscious? I really don’t understand the point of the question.
I'm not sure your comparison is apt. No one claims an independent ontological status for anger. Anger comes and goes according to levels of excitation and so forth in the body. I asked the question because, if your idea of consciousness is correct, I would expect it to be persistent. If it's not, that would seem to indicate that it is still connected to the body in some way even when the subject is unconscious.
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@Sidewalker
SW #170
I have trouble understanding Nagle's view about "what is it like". I will re-read it.
SW #144
What we can observe is responsiveness to the environment, adaptation to circumstances, and other types of behavioral indicators from which we can impute consciousness.
Couldn't this be unconscious stimulus/response?
you need to define consciousness observationally as involving the ability to perceive sensory stimuli and respond by purposeful movement or by a behavioral change.. . . there are plenty of studies of bacterial that allow us to extrapolate from behavior to a presumed internal cause of that behavior that have to be attributed to a rudimentary form of "mental activity".
I'd like to read one of those studies if you could send me a link or title.
Bacteria can respond to a broad range of stimuli, demonstrate elementary forms of “memory”, and engage in purposeful activities. . . .They clearly integrate these capabilities into a self-organized and sensate being that in at least an extremely attenuated way is perceiving, discriminating, remembering, and even “thinking”, on some level it is conscious.
Do they know they are doing these things? If not, I think they are not conscious.
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@FLRW
Right, but I don't think that is what Sidewalker is arguing.
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@Sidewalker
In an effort to argue my case, I'm reading your posts more closely than before.
For starters, I want to argue against your idea that consciousness exists independently of a brain.
I need clarification with something you wrote in post #54 ,
On a material level, Consciousness represents a supervenient structure that bears properties that its subvenient parts do not exhibit. Consciousness is not coextensive with brain, it exists independently of material brain as a higher order structure that cannot be decomposed into its parts and their relationships, so it is an ontologically novel entity. [my emphasis]
Are you saying here that consciousness has a material aspect?
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@Critical-Tim
We could start with dictionary meanings, which are based on usage. These are all pretty much the way I have been using the words on this forum.
consciousness
Concise OED, 10th Ed.:
1 the state of being conscious. > the fact of awareness by the mind of itself and the world.
2 one’s awareness or perception of something.
Webster's College, 4th Ed.:
The totality of one’s thoughts, feelings, and impressions; conscious mind.
aware
Concise OED, 10th Ed.:
having knowledge or perception of a situation or fact.
Webster's College, 4th Ed.:
knowing or realizing; conscious; informed
mind
Concise OED, 10th Ed.:
1 the faculty of consciousness and thought.
2 the source of a person’s thoughts; the intellect. > a person’s memory. > a person identified with their intellectual faculties:
Webster's College, 4th Ed.:
3 that which thinks, perceives, feels, wills, etc.; seat or subject of consciousness
4 the intellect in its normal state; reason; sanity
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@Critical-Tim
the debate around whether electronic brains or AI systems can be considered conscious ultimately comes down to differences in the definition of what one views as consciousness.
Yes, that's what this Forum topic is about.
I'm saying that consciousness is brain-dependent and that AI's could be considered conscious at some point.
Sidewalker is saying that consciousness is something that exists separately from brains.
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@Critical-Tim
there is still much that we don't understand about consciousness, such as the nature of subjective experience and how it arises from neural activity in the brain.
The nature of subjective experience is awareness. I am aware of thinking, remembering, imagining, etc., just as I'm aware of pain or emotion. My point is that the quality of that experience is irrelevant -- it's the awareness that matters. An AI could be aware of the same kinds of things that we are. It's subjective experience would be different due to the difference in our respective embodiments, but why should that matter? Why should the experiences of a biological brain be considered conscious and the experiences of an electronic brain not be so considered?
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@Sidewalker
I certainly addressed the fact that physicalism doesn't postulate any theory that answers these questions, how about you explain how physicalism answers these questions and I'll address that.
It is unnecessary for "physicalism" to answer those questions. They arise only if you assert that consciousness exists without a brain.
... it's unclear to me what the point of postulating an AI that "knows" and "desires", and claiming it is "experiencing", it seems to be imaginary and a non-sequitur. If you can explain how it is explanatory or relevent to the question of consciousness, I'll do my best to respond.
The point is to show that the quality of experience is irrelevant to a definition of consciousness.
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@Sidewalker
From you latest post, it looks to me like you have shifted from a qualitative experience model of consciousness to an awareness model. That's progress.
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@Sidewalker
You used a lot of words to not answer any of the questions that I posed.
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@Reece101
@Sidewalker
@Critical-Tim
I agree with the following.
Consciousness is ‘what we value as “aware”.’ [Reece101 #1]
‘consciousness depends . . . on how many aspects one is aware of and the extent of that awareness’ [Critical-Tim #136].
I disagree with the following.
‘Consciousness is not coextensive with brain, it exists independently of material brain . . . so it is an ontologically novel entity. It exists independently of the physical materials and properties of its parts . . . It is not a “process,” nor is it a set of “functions.”, it is the conceptual space within which we find the objects of thought.’ [Sidewalker #54]
Sidewalker (#129) also talks about “the hard problem” and “qualitative experiences” as determining consciousness. The following is why I think that awareness is the key to consciousness.
Let’s say that a certain AI is a combination of hardware and software. This AI would have feedback systems specific to its physical constitution such that it would “know” when it is retrieving from its storage (remembering), when it is computing (thinking), and when it is outputting to an interfacial device (communicating), and it would be able to distinguish between them. The feedback response would be appropriate to each type of occurrence, such that the AI would be aware of which type(s) was occurring at a particular moment (awareness).
The AI would “know” that it is an entity separate from its environment, upon which it depends (self-awareness). It could compute and compare probabilities of potential actions to achieve desired results (imagination). It could be constructed with a built-in desire to stay “alive” (i.e. switched on and connected to a power source).
It is obvious that the awareness of such an AI would be qualitatively different from that of a human, but the result would be the same. It could say, plausibly, “I experience myself retrieving (or computing, or outputting).” So, what if the AI’s experience is qualitatively different from that of a human? That difference is a only a result of the physical differences between their respective embodiments. Why make that difference the determinant of consciousness?
If one experiences a computation within a biological brain, one is conscious. If one experiences a computation within an electronic brain, one is not conscious. Does that really make sense?
Separating consciousness from a material brain leads to many unanswerable questions, such as, Why are people even unconscious at all sometimes? What happens to consciousness when a person is unconscious? What is it that connects and disconnects a body and its consciousness? If consciousness is “an ontologically novel entity” how do you describe it? How can you have knowledge of it? Why does it appear to be dependent on a brain?
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@Tarik
Thanks for the link. I read the first page and am interested in the topic. Since there are 449 posts, it will take me awhile to get through it and perhaps to respond.
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@Savant
Similarly, a draft order today would be very controversial, but no one seems to oppose the Civil War conscription order or any draft order that was historically successful in helping achieve some desirable outcome.
Not sure what you mean here. There were riots against the draft during the Civil War.
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@zedvictor4
How does the Russia/Ukraine situation measure up morally?
Right now, many more national governments support Ukraine, saying that Russia invaded them.
Russia claims the territory as theirs, and claims their territory is run by Nazis. Most non-Russians outside of China don't believe that.
Putin thinks the war is justified, because there are many Russian-speaking people living there, because the territory was Russian except for a few decades, and because the nations bordering Russia keep joining NATO. I think those are good reasons. He also claims that the legitimate pro-Russian president was ousted illegally. I don't have an opinion about that.
Obama did nothing when Putin annexed Crimea.
Overall, it's a mixed bag. I support Ukraine because I think Putin is a dictator leading a kleptocracy.
Morally? I honestly don't know.
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@Tarik
You have to have standards or else no one would know what is allowed & what is not. Laws provide the objectivity. In some societies, law enforcement favors certain groups over others, but it's better than nothing.
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