What constitutes the condition of "until proven otherwise"?

For example, for one who does not see any gap between Heidegger's philosophy and his political declarations, why is it incumbent upon me to separate the two? He does not do that anywhere that I am aware of. If the burden of proof does not fall upon him, what else is left?

That was just an example. The first question about proof is what confronts all in regard to the situation in Ukraine. — Paine

Because so many Philosophers and thinkers have admired and been inspired by Heidegger's work, including Jews, who remain uncomfortable with his political involvement with NAZIS, who are fully aware of the accusations but who nevertheless can see the gap between his best ideas and his political biography.

Imagine if Hitler himself had discovered antibiotics - and his name was synonymous with not only the holocaust but also this life saving medicine. Would - in this alternative reality - the continuing use of antibiotics to save lives be an affirmation of NAZI sympathy?

It's of course a ridiculous example but I think it nevertheless helps to crystallise the dilemma your position presents. For Philosophy and Artificial Intelligence, Heidegger's contribution is undeniably profound. It would be one thing to be suspicious and cautious of Heidegger's work if his Opus Magnus was political but I am unable to envisage what nazi threat or contamination his phenomenological work could possibly possess.

Canadian Professor John Verbanke has a series online titled "awakening to the meaning crisis.." where he explores amongst other topics across 50 lectures, a lot of the latest questions concerning Human and Artificial Intelligence. He is - like many - very circumspect - far too much - about Heidegger. And I contend his series is all the poorer for it.

The reason I raise this obscure series is that the Verbanke asserts that the prevailing consensus in AI is that the keystone to human intelligence and the challenge for AI is something he calls "relevance realisation." The autonomous AI guys can't get around how we make sense out of the infinitude of information that we are always confronted by. There is just too much complexity and no amount of processing power can fully examine the combinatorial explosion and make a functional decision in a timely manner - yet we humans manage it.

Humans function by ignoring what is not relevant and focusing on only the key parameters - thus the term "relevance realisation." So if I am interested in Heidegger's personal biography his nazi affiliation is of course very relevant; when attempting to understand his philosophy the same personal biography is an unnecessary complexity which is likely to hinder not assist my attempt to comprehend his complex philosophical ideas.

I have found it helpful to think of Rational as synonymous with Relevance Realisation - as distinctly different from logic or deduction.

Thus, "ratio" forms the first part of the word. It is a balance of probabilities we need to mostly negotiate. To function at all, we are forever forced to decide and exclude what is not precisely relevant. The certainty we feel with deduction and logic is mostly not available to us. As embodied beings surrounded by infinite complexity we can only apply logic were the parameters are fully defined.

The difference however is that Ukraine is more pro-Western than Russia. — neomac

Your evidence for that?

The difference however is that Ukraine is more pro-Western than Russia.
— neomac

Your evidence for that? — Isaac

Maidan.

Maidan. — Olivier5

We were talking about human rights, not politics.

Human rights are political.

The protesters opposed what they saw as widespread government corruption, the influence of oligarchs,[85] abuse of power, and violation of human rights in Ukraine.[86]

(wiki)

Ukraine is recovering it's territory, not losing more. It's fighting a conventional war against Russia and not fighting a hit-and-run insurgency. Oryx that counts the destroyed/damaged/captured tanks can come up to numbers of 1300 tanks lost simply tells a lot. It speaks of a military failure that you cannot just deny. — ssu

This was not the issue under contention.

Yep. It should be no contest. But then Russian incompetence, as all the credible analysis says… — apokrisis

@apokrisis's hypothesis is that no analysis and no expert is credible, other than the Russian military is incompetent.

Incompetence is a pretty high threshold and you can of course be competent and still fail, especially in a negative sum game such as war.

Even higher threshold is claiming "all credible analysis" agrees with your position.

So yes, in such a debate, citing a ex-US military colonel who works for a "think tank" and wildly speculating on the state of the Russian military back in April, is, at the least, not a credible source to support the idea all credible analysis agrees with your position.

Uh huh. Similar protests take place in Russia. I'm enquiring about the evidence that their requests have been acted upon. I've provided three reports from the world's leading human rights groups detailing the situation in Eastern Ukraine and their assessment is that the abuses by both sides are not noticeably different. So I'd need some fairly compelling evidence to the contrary if we're to justify 600 deaths a day as being a worthwhile sacrifice for keeping the disputed territory in the control of this 'West-leaning' government. So far no one's provided anything but wishful thinking.

A lot of blah, blah, blah. Then a careful silence on your wild misrepresentation of Kofman’s analysis.

You cleared the threshold for incompetent argument with impressive ease. :up:

Incompetence is a pretty high threshold and you can of course be competent and still fail, especially in a negative sum game such as war. — boethius

This is a crucial point that is being overlooked.

@apokrisis, @ssu - what is the background against which you're measuring 'competence'?

How many failures do you think is normal during a modern land invasion. What's the normal turnover of generals during a Russian war. What's the normal number of losses, retreats, strategy changes that you'd expect in this situation?

Because without any of this background data, I don't see how anyone can judge competence.

Even more crucial to the decisions ahead. What's the greater risk, that we underestimate Russian military power, or that we overestimate it? The former, thousands more die. The latter...?

what is the background against which you're measuring 'competence'? — Isaac

Plans that work because you’ve correctly prepared.

I entered this conversation at the point where there was a lot of excuses being made for Putin’s invasion. He only had limited aims. Kyiv was a feint. All the surprise at the early failures was unfair. A grinding three year war of attrition to seize a chunk of borderland already half under separatist control was the only ambition Putin ever had in mind.

I wondered who would claim such nonsense and why.

Thanks for posting that Kofman interview which flatly contradicts your talking points. That you could hear it as saying the opposite makes me quite worried about your comprehension skills. — apokrisis

Did you listen to the interview?

At no point does Kofman describe the Russian military as incompetent and so bound to lose on the battlefield. He brings up things they did well, things they did less well, achievements and losses.

Of course, things need to be compared to the state of the Ukrainian military, which the interviewer gets to and Kofman's response is as follows:

I focus primarily on the Russian military.

And let’s be honest, for those of us who follow this war, definitely engage in some pragmatic self censorship while looking at the Ukrainian military. I just want to put those cards on the table and be frank about it.

I think the Ukrainian military definitely enjoys a man power advantage, and likely has several hundreds thousand personnel that are mobilised and armed and at this point, ok. That allows the Ukrainian military to rotate troops on the front and introduce fresh troops.

It doesn’t translate necessarily into a huge advantage in correlation of forces as folks might assume, and as you can tell looking at the battlefield, it doesn’t feel like in most parts of the front as if Ukraine has a 3 to 1 or even more advantage over Russian forces as manpower would confer.

For a couple of reasons.

First, Russia still enjoys a fires advantage in artillery and that makes it hard to concentrate forces, on the Ukrainian side. That has been how the Russian military was able to make progress even though they did not have an advantage in troops, per se, they consistently had an advantage in fires up until June, and they could concentrate fires and they could achieve localised advantage, and that’s how they were making progress in the Donbas.

Ok, so second, Ukraine is generating additional units and brigades but it also has to recover from degradation of force quality. Why? In a major conventional war you’re going to lose your best equipment and your best people early on. Right. A lot of your best units are going to be heavy in the fighting and their going to get attrition, right, so Ukrainian military has also faced degradation of quality and that’s why you have the British effort to conduct training and other countries looking to add unit training on top of individual training and trying to fix what is kind of the long pole in the tent, which is, umm, maintaining quality of the force and allowing Ukraine to regenerate or reconstitute its military as the war goes on.

Cause the longer the war goes, the more outcomes hinge on sustainability. Who’s able to reconstitute better, which military comes back better than it was before, which military is able to replace its losses.

Beyond that, I don’t have a lot of details. I don’t know anybody that does. It’s actually very hard to look there. Let’s be frank. I think we know a lot more about what’s happening in the Russian military than the Ukraine military, and that’s been the case consistently, not just during this war, but well before the war. — Michael Kofman interview

Notice how this basic observation of Ukraine numerical superiority not translating into force advantage ... is exactly what @Tzeentch already pointed out:

Further, the fact that they managed to go on the offensive while outnumbered implies that they are not incompetent. To state as much would be a harsh insult to the Ukrainian military. After all, if the Russians are so incompetent then why weren't the Ukrainian forces able to defend against them when they had a numerical superiority on the battlefield? — Tzeentch

Kofman then goes onto to describe Russia has been able to scale it's reconnaissance strike complex (long range missiles and planes) from what it could do in smaller scale in Syria, but has been effective in reconnaissance fire missions (artillery and multiple rockets).

He then describes reconnaissance strikes as something really difficult to do, and that Russia can do, just not as effectively as their capabilities would in principle allow ... not something that if you can't do that makes you incompetent.

What is described throughout the interview is strengths and weaknesses, and of course challenges the Russian's face are the same as Ukraine, so the question is who does better.

And also, to be frank, the more we’ve learned about the beginning of the war, right, the early phases, the more it becomes clear that actually there was quite a bit of capabilities used that we didn’t know about early on. Electronic warfare for example that has proved rather effective for the Russian military and continues to be so, ah, various, ah, attempts to fragment Ukrainian command and control. Employment of offensive cyber means. There’s an impression that some of these capabilities that some of these capabilities were the dog that didn’t bark early on in the more And I just want to say folks should be very careful with that assumption, because I think a lot of what’s going to come out over time increasingly will show that that’s not exactly true. That actually these capabilities used much more than assumed early on and have been used more throughout the war.

And it’s always a challenge, the early takes are often if not wrong based on very incomplete information. And, you I like to annoy people and tell them look, we’re six months into the war just remember we’re still arguing about what happened in World War One.

So be very cautious on how much you consume, and over consume, the current information available about how this war has gone and why. So there as a community we need to be more humble in coming to big conclusions. — apokrisis

Again, you can accept that the Russian military is competent, can conquer and hold onto 20% of Ukrainian territory, but still ultimately "lose", in whatever definition of loss we're going with.

Kofman does place the long term advantage "slightly" with Ukraine, but only insofar as Western support keeps pace.

If you remember my central hypothesis: NATO could support Ukraine enough to win on the battle field, but chooses not to. The weapons drip-feed hypothesis is my central position.

Plans that work because you’ve correctly prepared. — apokrisis

So an organisation is 'incompetent' if even a single plan fails? That's an astonishingly high bar.

I wondered who would claim such nonsense and why. — apokrisis

But the answer's already been given. If we underestimate the Russian military and promote further war erroneously, thousands die. If we overestimate the Russian military and cede unnecessarily, the humanitarian situation barely changes.

It's obvious that the most important humanitarian goal in this specific matter, is to ensure we're not underestimating the Russian military, it is to push against narratives such as yours, that they're useless and so not a force to reckon with.

I just can't see any moral imperative to the opposite ends. What benefit is it to anyone that we broadcast how useless the Russian military are (assuming you're right). Why err on that side?

↪boethius A lot of blah, blah, blah. Then a careful silence on your wild misrepresentation of Kofman’s analysis. — apokrisis

Silence?

... or doing the actual work of transcribing and citing Kofman to support my claim.

Feel free to rebut Kofman's central evaluation of the current war situation, which is exactly the same as mine: things depend on Ukraine's ability to sustain their offensives, which is far from clear.

What we can deduce from this basic fact is that, on the short term, if Ukraine cannot sustain it's offensives then Russian "humiliation" will stop and then reverse, so whatever social media ground was gained in wildly exaggerating the war ending nature of these recent offensives will be likewise reversed in Russia's favour.

Longer term, there's a lot of questions of sustainment on both sides, which Kofman is pretty clean he doesn't know the answer to.

Indeed, citing someone who cautions the military analysis community to be "humble in coming to big conclusions" is, if you had a bit of that comprehension you're talking about, in direct contradiction in supporting the position the pretty immense conclusion of "Russian military is incompetent".

I’m reasoning on a step-by-step basis :

• First step: human rights is an acceptable way to identify collective well-being? Yes
• Second step: are human rights better implemented within Western countries? Yes
• Third step: is Ukraine more pro-West than Russia? Yes. Asking to join NATO and EU, and be ready to suffer a war against Russia to defend their choice wrt anti-Western rhetoric and hostility from Russia are unquestionable evidences for that. And if this is no evidence I don’t know what is.
• Fourth step: how likely is that a pro-West country can implement human rights by being within the Western sphere of influence (so within NATO and EU) than by being within the sphere of influence of an anti-West Russia with a poorer implementation of human rights (see first step), if not now in the future? I say it’s more likely, based on historical evidence (see Germany, Italy and Spain after WWII) and ex-Soviet Union countries that joined EU and NATO after the Soviet Union collapse. Also the democracy index is telling (https://www.visualcapitalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/democracy-index-2022-europe.jpg, https://www.democracymatrix.com/ranking): Russian democracy index is lower than any country in the EU and Belarus which is under the sphere of influence of Russia is even lower than Russia, Kazakhstan better of Russia for few points. Is this enough evidence? If not why not?

So you agree with Kofman and I agree with Kofman. Amusing.

Note that I summarised his view as that Putin’s political war aims were incompetent because the Russian forces lacked the structural competence to execute them. Then on top of that, there was the incompetent execution due to poor preparation, systemic corruption, low morale, normalised sloppiness, etc, etc.

You can continue to claim competence on all these fronts if you like. Alternative facts.

So an organisation is 'incompetent' if even a single plan fails? — Isaac

Of course. If a single dud shell gets fired, the whole organisation can be written off as failed. I like the way you reason. :up:

Note that I summarised his view as that Putin’s political war aims were incompetent because the Russian forces lacked the structural competence to execute them. Then on top of that, there was the incompetent execution due to poor preparation, systemic corruption, low morale, normalised sloppiness, etc, etc. — apokrisis

Where does he state that?

Vexler explaining why “competence” is such a touchy word for Putin and his rule by information autocracy….

Vexler explaining why “competence” is such a touchy word for Putin and his rule by information autocracy…. — apokrisis

Again, you say you agree with Kofman ... who does not come to the conclusion the Russian army is incompetent, but indeed competent enough even make progress despite 3 to 1 or more numerical disadvantage.

Where is Kofman in the referenced interview agreeing with your "incompetence" claim.

No Blitzkreig, only the Germans knew how to pull that off. Winter is fast approaching and deep snow has always been Russia's trump card.

Asking to join NATO and EU, and be ready to suffer a war against Russia to defend their choice wrt anti-Western rhetoric and hostility from Russia are unquestionable evidences for that. — neomac

I don't see how your third step is in any way 'unquestionable'.

NATO is a military defensive organisation and the EU an economic one. Neither decision 'unquestionably' shows anything about a commitment to the sorts of human rights gains that the countries within those institutions enjoy. NATO particularly has absolutely no human rights element whatsoever.

Nor are Ukraine 'ready to suffer a war against Russia' for that move. There's no link at all. The fiercest fighting against Russia has come from the ultranationalists, the very same groups opposed to westernisation.

I think it's undoubtedly true that Ukraine's attempt to join the EU is a move which would require an accompanying move in the direction of human rights (regardless of the motivating factors), but it remains to be seen if that progress can be imposed in the East. The evidence so far is uncompromisingly that it cannot.

A reminder of the 'one people' that is Ukraine...



Notice anything about the contested regions?

Boyko is considered to be one of the primary proponents of closer relations with Russia in Ukrainian politics

Recall, this is no minor 'preponderance of evidence' issue. You're advocating the continuation of a brutal war on the back of your assessment here.

I like the way you reason. :up: — apokrisis

It's not my reasoning, it's yours. I'm asking about your threshold for 'incompetence'.

Vexler explaining... — apokrisis

I thought you were avoiding...

anonymous keyboard warriors — apokrisis

...?

This is the third time you've cited Vexler. A...

... philosopher [and] musicologist. ... living in London — Vexler's Bio

Similar protests take place in Russia. — Isaac

But they did not succeed in toppling the regime. In contrast, the euromaidan and revolution of dignity did succeed.

I've provided three reports from the world's leading human rights groups detailing the situation in Eastern Ukraine and their assessment is that the abuses by both sides are not noticeably different. — Isaac

That was before the war, before Zelensky even. But Russia is going down into absolute autocracy, all the while Ukraine's evolution is positive.

So I'd need some fairly compelling evidence to the contrary if we're to justify 600 deaths a day as being a worthwhile sacrifice for keeping the disputed territory in the control of this 'West-leaning' government. So far no one's provided anything but wishful thinking.

So Russia should never had started this war, because by the same logic, it isn't a worthwhile sacrifice for keeping the disputed territory in the control of Russia either.

That was before the war, before Zelensky even. But Russia is going down into absolute autocracy, all the while Ukraine's evolution is positive. — Olivier5

Positive according to who? Ukrainian intelligence.

Ukraine literally banned the second largest political party.

That's a far worse direction than Russia.

NATO is a military defensive organisation and the EU an economic one. Neither decision 'unquestionably' shows anything about a commitment to the sorts of human rights gains that the countries within those institutions enjoy. NATO particularly has absolutely no human rights element whatsoever. — Isaac

Again, it’s a step-by-step reasoning, at step 3 I didn’t talk about “commitment to the sorts of human rights gains that the countries within those institutions enjoy”. I simply asked you if Ukraine is more pro-West than Russia? The answer is unequivocally yes.

Nor are Ukraine 'ready to suffer a war against Russia' for that move. There's no link at all. The fiercest fighting against Russia has come from the ultranationalists, the very same groups opposed to westernisation. — Isaac

You mean that the exclusive overwhelming reason why Ukraine is fighting against Russian oppression, is because a tiny minority of Ukrainian ultranationalists is taking hostage Zelensky’s administration and the rest of the population to keep fighting Russian oppression exclusively out of spite of Russians? And that Ukrainian ultranationalists (like the ones who joined the Euro Maidan revolts) didn’t want Ukraine to join NATO and EU?

But they did not succeed in toppling the regime. In contrast, the euromaidan and revolution of dignity did succeed. — Olivier5

So? We're talking about the humanitarian situation in Donbas. It's like citing a revolution in Scotland as evidence of England's pro-scottish tendency.

That was before the war, before Zelensky even — Olivier5

Nope. 2014-2021 are the dates.

But Russia is going down into absolute autocracy, all the while Ukraine's evolution is positive. — Olivier5

Here's the summary from Amnesty's 2021 report...

Impunity for torture remained endemic. Gender-based violence remained widespread, although a new law removed legal obstacles to prosecuting military personnel and police for domestic violence. Homophobic attacks by groups advocating discrimination and violence continued. The investigation of attacks against journalists and human rights defenders was slow and often ineffective. A draft law on the security services envisaged additional powers of surveillance without legal safeguards. The crackdown on dissent and human rights defenders in occupied Crimea continued. Violations of international humanitarian law by both sides in eastern Ukraine remained uninvestigated.

... For the sake of clarity, just point out the bits you think are worth fighting a devastating land war over.

So Russia should never had started this war, because by the same logic, it isn't a worthwhile sacrifice for keeping the disputed territory in the control of Russia either. — Olivier5

Yep. Well done, you've reached the conclusion that anyone with a reading age over five reached.

I simply asked you if Ukraine is more pro-West than Russia? The answer is unequivocally yes. — neomac

No it isn't. Pro-west is not a single measure but is made up of military, economic and cultural forces.

Plus...

a tiny minority of Ukrainian ultranationalists — neomac

... We're talking about the situation in Donbas. The region (as I demonstrated above) is split between nationalists and pro-russian separatists. As I said above...

It's like citing a revolution in Scotland as evidence of England's pro-scottish tendency. — Isaac

No it isn't. Pro-west is not a single measure but is made up of military, economic and cultural forces. — Isaac

Who said so? My requirement is minimal: for me pro-West simply means to be in favor of being part of the Western sphere of influence like by joining NATO and EU.
You can raise the standards of analysis as high as you like, but the question remains: according to your vague but certainly greater measuring standards is Ukraine more pro-Western than Russia? Besides you didn't offer any evidence to support the claim that Ukraine is exactly as anti-Western as Russia if not more. And by removing the Donbas region and Crimea from the equation Ukraine would be even more pro-West than it already is, because those regions (being more pro-Russian) are likely more anti-Western than the rest of Ukraine.

... We're talking about the situation in Donbas. — Isaac

No you are talking about the situation in Donbas. I'm talking about Ukraine as opposed to Russia.

It's like citing a revolution in Scotland as evidence of England's pro-scottish tendency. — Isaac

No, it's like saying Ukraine chose Western values over submission to a dictatorship. The Russians have yet to do this.

The crackdown on dissent and human rights defenders in occupied Crimea continued.

Even your quotes testify that Russia's occupation is detrimental to human rights ...

Yep. Well done, you've reached the conclusion that anyone with a reading age over five reached. — Isaac

I was just stating the obvious, though you deserve credit for acknowledging it.