Spurred by Putin, Russians Turn on One Another Over the War

[noonereal]

Two examples where you provide nothing to support a counter opinion, merely insults. That's not debate. Ironically, saying someone's views are "stupid," with nothing else, is exactly what is 3rd grade behavior.

Counter argument to stupidity only validates the ridiculous.

Debate 101.

Lean.

 

[MTAtech]

Counter argument to stupidity only validates the ridiculous.

Debate 101.

Lean.

Lean?
While you imagine that you know something about debate, you don't.
In a formal debate, the side that merely calls the other side "stupid," without presenting any logical persuasive arguments, loses the debate.

Since you opened the door to Debate 101, this is from Debate 101:
First, you must be able to develop good, sound, well-organized and complete arguments. Second, you must be able to present your arguments to a judge in such a way that the judge understands what you are talking about, and believes in the validity of your arguments.

"You're wrong," is not argument. Nor is calling the other side stupid.

 

[noonereal]

Lean?
While you imagine that you know something about debate, you don't.
In a formal debate, the side that merely calls the other side "stupid," without presenting any logical persuasive arguments, loses the debate.

Since you opened the door to Debate 101, this is from Debate 101:
First, you must be able to develop good, sound, well-organized and complete arguments. Second, you must be able to present your arguments to a judge in such a way that the judge understands what you are talking about, and believes in the validity of your arguments.

"You're wrong," is not argument. Nor is calling the other side stupid.

No, it is refusing to engage while expressing disdane.

 

[MTAtech]

No, it is refusing to engage while expressing disdane (sic).

It's spelled "disdain."
Coming to a debate site and refuse to engage. Got it.

 

[noonereal]

It's spelled "disdain."
Coming to a debate site and refuse to engage. Got it.

Post something worthy of debate .

 

[jpevans]

It does not matter.

Rule one, self preservation. It comes before evil or morals.

Hey, I get it. People don't think in logical emotionless terms.

So IYO, a crazy man won't do something really crazy, if we allow him free reign to take his aggressions out on Ukraine?

 

[noonereal]

So IYO, a crazy man won't do something really crazy, if we allow him free reign to take his aggressions out on Ukraine?

So now Putin is a crazy man?

Allow him free reign? We set the conditions in Ukraine for Putin? WTF?

Honest, WTF is this mindless blurb even about?

 

[Cardinal]

Polling and popularity are not the same.

Popularity is critical to longevity .

You can’t accurately gauge popularity without polling, and polling is a pointless gesture without free speech.

 

[noonereal]

You can’t accurately gauge popularity without polling, and polling is a pointless gesture without free speech.

Oh, OK. Polling is the only avenue to gage popularity.

Thanks for the FYI.

God Bless.

 

[multivita-man]

Two examples where you provide nothing to support a counter opinion, merely insults. That's not debate. Ironically, saying someone's views are "stupid," with nothing else, is exactly what is 3rd grade behavior.

"I know you are but what am I?! Ha-haaa!"

 

[Cardinal]

Oh, OK. Polling is the only avenue to gage popularity.

Thanks for the FYI.

God Bless.

Well, there’s always the “man in the street” interview. I’m sure tons of people would be super thrilled to risk hundreds of dollars in fines at best or a permanent vacation in Siberia at worst just for the opportunity to protest the war on camera.

 

[coyote505]

Switchblade 300 drones, the ones that cost $6000, are not an antitank weapon. They also only have a 10 minute flight time so can do a whole lot of searching.

Switchblade 600s which have a much greater flight time and are effective against armor cost about $70000.

Are the 300s effective against APCs and supply trucks? How about ammunition stored next to artillery pieces? Obviously, from your info, 600s are also needed. Ability to search over long distances for artillery is badly needed. More info please.

 

[braindrain]

Are the 300s effective against APCs and supply trucks? How about ammunition stored next to artillery pieces? Obviously, from your info, 600s are also needed. Ability to search over long distances for artillery is badly needed. More info please.

Depends on the APC but not generally. They really are more of a anti personal and non armored vehicle weapon system.
Nor are they designed for recon work. A ten minute flight time doesn’t fit that bill.

The 600s have somewhat longer flight time but like I said are also much much more expensive. And even then it’s not really a reconnaissance drone. For that you want something with a flight time measured in hours.

Which is why they also make a unarmed version of the switchblade designed for reconnaissance. Though I don’t really know too much about that one.

 

[Yakshi]

We need to SERIOUSLY up our anti-tank, anti-artillery support to Ukraine. The Javelins have apparently done very well. However, they are point and shoot weapons, needing the target in sight. The Russians have now gone to stand off tactics, using artillery to murder civilians from a distance, while dug in. Ukraine needs drones to search out and kill these targets. Switchblades are Dirt Cheap at $6K for killing a $2M tank and three murderous thugs, or an APC with maybe 10 murderous thugs. Saying we will send 100 of them is not even serious. The Switchblade factory should be running 3 shifts. We should send 20K or more, to hunt down and kill every tank, APC and artillery piece Putin has in Ukraine.

Yes. We need to give Ukraine so many arms that the Russian army feels terror.

 

[Hannu]

Hogwash.

What comes first, survival or morals?

Morals has its place but not at the top of the pole. Plus, as stated previous by another, morals are specific to culture. There is no universality to what they even are.

I think you are making a mistake in assuming that one can only focus either on survival or morality. It is fully possible for a country (or person) to have at same time both rational interest reasons and moral reasons for what they do.
A truly heroic person can place morality over survival - like in what Aleksei Navalnyi is doing in Russia - but people who would be possessed of that kind of courage are maybe one in a thousand if even that. So in practice, yes, it would not be right to demand that kind of behavior from people, but that does not mean morality has no place in people's acts. While people/countries in west are not about to give their own lives for Ukraine, they can still give something, like military equipment and money, and a little is better than nothing at all. It would be perfect in theory if all people would follow the "golden rule" of morality and love their neighbours like themselves and act like it, but in practice it is wiser to settle for less demanding morality. Like that, for a small country, when confronted with (morally wrongful) threats from Russia if they support the war victim and give weapons to it or (morally acceptable and most people know it) condemnation from other democratic countries if they refuse to do, simple morality requires to choose the former solution.
As for moral relativism, that could take a very long discussion, imo moral relativism may sound fine at first but it is to my knowledge quite a rare philosophy among actual moral philosophy experts. Different countries have different rules and norms and laws, yes, but moral good is not the same as what is socially acceptable in some culture - come to think of it, moral relativism itself is often not a generally acceptable thinking in many, if not most, cultures, and therefor in contradiction with itself.

 

[Arlette]

The idea of Russians turning on each other seems fun for a second or two, until you realize that the people they're turning on are moderates, and it ain't the moderates with institutional power. This means that as the Russian people become more militarily radicalized, we can expect ever greater horrors from that country. Russia is entering a period of darkness not seen since Stalin, and the need for NATO will be greater than ever.

"Russians who support the war against Ukraine are starting to turn on the enemy within, enabled by new laws that criminalize dissent. There are reports of students turning in teachers and people telling on neighbors and even diners at the next table.

Marina Dubrova, an English teacher on the Russian island of Sakhalin in the Pacific, showed an uplifting YouTube video to her eighth-grade class last month in which children, in Russian and Ukrainian, sing about a “world without war.”

After she played it, a group of girls stayed behind during recess and quizzed her on her views.

“Ukraine is a separate country, a separate one,” Ms. Dubrova, 57, told them.

“No longer,” one of the girls shot back.

A few days later, the police came to her school in the port town of Korsakov. In court, she heard a recording of that conversation, apparently made by one of the students. The judge handed down a $400 fine for “publicly discrediting” Russia’s Armed Forces. The school fired her, she said, for “amoral behavior.”

Spurred by Putin, Russians Turn on One Another Over the War (Published 2022)

Citizens are denouncing one another, illustrating how the war is feeding paranoia and polarization in Russian society.

www.nytimes.com

How novel. If you don't have to offer your country anything other than pain and poverty, offer 'em hate.

 

[Ahlevah]

Morals has its place but not at the top of the pole.

Obviously, you’ve never read the Bible or Kant. It does for some people, like parents. I would hope I would sacrifice myself to save the life of my wife or one of my kids. And I know I made a promise to subordinate my life to the nation when I joined the U.S. Coast Guard.

 

[noonereal]

I think you are making a mistake in assuming that one can only focus either on survival or morality.

I never said it was and either or. What I said is that when it is, morality takes second place, as it should.

 

[ataraxia]

Hogwash.

What comes first, survival or morals?

Morals has its place but not at the top of the pole. Plus, as stated previous by another, morals are specific to culture. There is no universality to what they even are.

Nah- we all have a conception of justice and fairness regardless of culture- and know when that is being violated. It's like that maxim about pornography: it may be hard to define exactly but you know it when you see it.

 

[btthegreat]

Hogwash.

What comes first, survival or morals?

Morals has its place but not at the top of the pole. Plus, as stated previous by another, morals are specific to culture. There is no universality to what they even are.

"I am not torn. The world is hell, always was, always will be.

Ukraine is not in Nato, Ukraine is not in our sphere of influence. This is black and white. Morals have no place for consideration here." Your words right here.

You are the guy who created the false dilemma in the post that I quote, you are now walking away from with the existence of a pole and a first and second place on it.

We want both, and we insist on working for both a more moral outcome than Putin's, that is consistent with our survival. It appears NATO intends to extend a 'sphere of influence' over democracies that have expressed an interest in joining NATO. Being as Ukraine is just as close to Slovakia, Hungary and Romania, all NATO countries as it is Russia, its logical to dispute that Russia owns some prior claim to a sphere of influence, that they don't!

 

[noonereal]

Nah- we all have a conception of justice and fairness regardless of culture- and know when that is being violated. It's like that maxim about pornography: it may be hard to define exactly but you know it when you see it.

OMG

yeah, whatever


where does you concept of justice and fairness regardless of culture come from? any idea?

NO, you think it's metaphysical crap.

It's based on own best chance of survival. That is why we come together as tribes and have standards. For us, the individual. To maximize our individual shot at survival.


people know so little about themselves it's frightening

 

[Hannu]

I never said it was and either or. What I said is that when it is, morality takes second place, as it should.

Hm, you have a bit contradictive comments on that matter. Anyway - not fully disagreeing with you on many matters here. I mean, for example, that I surely do not blame US for putting in reality more value on people of their own country than that of people of Ukraine. Finland surely would not war with Russia for the sake of Ukrainians either. Even though in theory the golden rule morality would require considering other people's lives as one's own. What people morally ought to do and what people actually do is often not the same. It is therefor for example imo better to strive for kind of "giving something at least" instead of demanding people "to give all they have". It is encouraging to see western democracies siding with Ukraine. Probably we should still do more though. People who fully believe "might generates right" are themselves imo suspective to brute force because their they own twisted moral concept tells that, which is why it worked with Milosevic and Hitler while polite diplomacy never achieved anything with those people. So my advice would be like to give still more equipment to Ukraine, keep the Nato principle of defending every member state strong, and kind of not totally taking the war option (against Russian invasion in Ukrainian area, not to Russian area) off the table - otherwise Putin might well imo think like that he can use for example tactical nukes against Ukraine because Nato would not take military action against it in any case. Of course my thinking is partly influenced by rational concerns too - after Ukraine Finland might also be the next step of Putin's aggression if not enough is done to stop him.
As for moral theoretical questions about morality itself... these are questions I am quite interested in myself. I would say that there IS universal morality; but getting knowledge about it is anything but simple and easy, and actually often may rely on intuition (or conscience) too. Maybe a bit like in economics, even if it may to some sound exact science, when asked , "so, how should Biden then stop the inflation?" it is quickly found things are anything but simple and easy? My impression is also people are often quickly bored by that kind of metaphysical discussions.

 

[noonereal]

Hm, you have a bit contradictive comments on that matter. Anyway - not fully disagreeing with you on many matters here. I mean, for example, that I surely do not blame US for putting in reality more value on people of their own country than that of people of Ukraine. Finland surely would not war with Russia for the sake of Ukrainians either. Even though in theory the golden rule morality would require considering other people's lives as one's own. What people morally ought to do and what people actually do is often not the same. It is therefor for example imo better to strive for kind of "giving something at least" instead of demanding people "to give all they have". It is encouraging to see western democracies siding with Ukraine. Probably we should still do more though. People who fully believe "might generates right" are themselves imo suspective to brute force because their they own twisted moral concept tells that, which is why it worked with Milosevic and Hitler while polite diplomacy never achieved anything with those people. So my advice would be like to give still more equipment to Ukraine, keep the Nato principle of defending every member state strong, and kind of not totally taking the war option (against Russian invasion in Ukrainian area, not to Russian area) off the table - otherwise Putin might well imo think like that he can use for example tactical nukes against Ukraine because Nato would not take military action against it in any case. Of course my thinking is partly influenced by rational concerns too - after Ukraine Finland might also be the next step of Putin's aggression if not enough is done to stop him.
As for moral theoretical questions about morality itself... these are questions I am quite interested in myself. I would say that there IS universal morality; but getting knowledge about it is anything but simple and easy, and actually often may rely on intuition (or conscience) too. Maybe a bit like in economics, even if it may to some sound exact science, when asked , "so, how should Biden then stop the inflation?" it is quickly found things are anything but simple and easy? My impression is also people are often quickly bored by that kind of metaphysical discussions.

No, I do not contridict myself. It is your posts shortcoming in comprehension.

This post is a waste of bandwidth.