whats wrong with this country ?? i'll tell you

[Mojouw]

But, that is not censorship. Censorship is the government limiting your speech. What you describe is a business, which are a bunch of individuals working together, who are exerting their first amendment right of freedom of association. It is their platform. They get to associate with whomever they want. Forcing them not to delete an account is violating their first amendment right a freedom of association.

Moreover, the calls for a person to be fired is also somebody else's first amendment right, it's freedom of speech. Shutting that down according to your argument would also be censorship.

Personally, I think deleting accounts and calling for people to be fired is wrong. But that and censorship are two different things

Why is this so hard to understand?

[steelreserve]

But, that is not censorship. Censorship is the government limiting your speech. What you describe is a business, which are a bunch of individuals working together, who are exerting their first amendment right of freedom of association. It is their platform. They get to associate with whomever they want. Forcing them not to delete an account is violating their first amendment right a freedom of association.

Moreover, the calls for a person to be fired is also somebody else's first amendment right, it's freedom of speech. Shutting that down according to your argument would also be censorship.

Personally, I think deleting accounts and calling for people to be fired is wrong. But that and censorship are two different things

No, that is not correct. Censorship does not require that the government be the one doing it. Censorship is censorship. It is only ILLEGAL when the government is the one doing it. A private company may be within its legal rights to do it, but it is still censorship and still despicable. Great, the left is within their legal rights to be despicable, congrats. Although if the reports of big tech and media acting to suppress information at the request of government officials have any truth to them, maybe not even that.

And of course, the question of whether the other general threats and coercion are legal is completely separate from whether they are intelligent, civilized, or respectable, and of course the answer is that they are not.

[Craic]

This may be a great example of all of this - but if someone tells me that there is evidence that cavemen rode Dinosaurs, then I am going to laugh at them. Then call them delusional and suggest they take a few remedial science classes. What I am not going to do is set-up a public debate to make sure I hear both sides.

In general, people can and should argue/debate out the issues. But there are some instances that take it all too far and then it undermines the concept of a real and knowable universe.

But, a public debate also accomplishes the goal of publicly deconstructing and proving the other side wrong. It's also a way of doing so in a way that stops the other side from claiming things like censorship, to bring the concurrent topic into this discussion.

There's something else here, however, that I noticed. "And then it undermines the concept of a real and knowable universe." That statement is based of a western, secular worldview (secular in the sense of scientific investigation, not your personal beliefs or nonbeliefs). However, that is not universally accepted. In fact, worldwide, it's a minority view. The problem with modernity is the claim that the hard sciences have pride of place at any table of discussion and Truth is presented without bias. Of course, French postmodern constructs tend to throw absolutes out altogether. Italian postmodern constructs (such as those posed by the historian F. A. Ankersmit) find a good balance, placing the sciences at the table but not giving them pride of place because like all other disciplines and approaches, they bring biases that can distort the arguments built from factoids. In truth Ankersmit gives the hard sciences pride of place again. To put this in a different context, the hard sciences shouldn't be the judge of the debate, they should be treated as one of the debaters, perhaps even the champion debater. But since there is no such thing as observation without interpretation (or, said another way for others who might not follow my shorthand, interpretation is the act of attributing any type of meaning to something observed, which includes identifying any possible inherent meaning).

A good example of this is evolution. Now, I am not one who believes that evolution is wrong because the Bible says so. In fact, I believe the Bible focuses on the why and science, the how. In short, evolution might be the very way in which God brought about humanity. My point with evolution is that biologists (and other scientists) are basing it on a 150 year old philosophical construct (dialectical theory) that has been discarded in virtually every other discipline in the academy (although you can find a few that hang on to it). It seems to me that biology is long overdue in reassessing the philosophical underpinnings that have been discarded by so many other disciplines. And, along with that, how a positivistic model can dump the positivistic concepts yet still remain a viable model. Beyond those questions, I also want to know why, in any other discipline, starting from an assumed position and then looking at evidence and claiming it proves that assumed position is circular reasoning. Yet, that is a common fallacy (as well as the fallacy that correlation equals causation, which again, comes out of dialectal theory). As a caveat, statements were made such as, "this looks to fit the larger model," I'd be fine with it. But instead, you get scientist who cross over into philosophy and argue that it proves evolution.

The problem is, this type of investigation and questioning will not happen. It is not because science has proven otherwise but because of a bias that such a discussion might undercut worldview positions, especially those concerning agnostic or atheistic beliefs. Almost every journal I've seen for biology now demands as part of publication that the scientist asserts a belief in evolution. Hence, the questions I pose above, which I do not believe are based in irrationality, will not be addressed in those disciplines.

[Craic]

No, that is not correct. Censorship does not require that the government be the one doing it. Censorship is censorship. It is only ILLEGAL when the government is the one doing it. A private company may be within its legal rights to do it, but it is still censorship and still despicable. Great, the left is within their legal rights to be despicable, congrats. Although if the reports of big tech and media acting to suppress information at the request of government officials have any truth to them, maybe not even that.

And of course, the question of whether the other general threats and coercion are legal is completely separate from whether they are intelligent, civilized, or respectable, and of course the answer is that they are not.

Except, the public debate on censorship is almost always based on the "I have the right to freedom of speech" or "This is a free nation and I have a right to voice my opinion." Both of those are based on the idea that constitutional rights extend beyond government censorship to any type of censorship. If you've made the distinction and keep that separate, then good for you (and, that's not snarky. I mean that truthfully. Not many do separate them). But in a public discussion, using "censorship" without defining nongovernment censorship is akin to evangelical Old Testament experts saying, "The Bible is historical" but not explaining what they mean by historical has a different definition than what the average person in the pew at a church understands by that term.

That aside, you move into a different discussion in your second sentence. Yes. I completely agree it is despicable (and why can I never type that word without hearing Daffy Duck's voice in my head?). As for the other things, I'm not sure calling for someone's firing or organizing boycotts equals coercion. For me, this parallels pro-life activists. They are allowed to stand on the sidewalk and tell people not to get an abortion. They're allowed to have little boys and girls offer cookies as a reminder of what is about to be aborted. They're allowed signs and chants and slogans. Heck, they're allowed to put the abortion clinic out of business by offering every other type of service in a new clinic across the street. What they are not allowed is to deny access. As long as those calling for someone to be fired does not deny that person physical access to their job or their employer physical access to do their work, it's not coercion or a violation. I'd argue it's something even worse. It's group think and mob rule. But that's still not coercion.

(And, as a side note, if you have any evidence that the government has mandated—not requested, that's still within their right unless bribes or threats accompany it—but mandated any such suppression, please post it here or send it to me via PM. It is something I would sincerely be interested in reading).

——Can anyone tell I'm trying to avoid grading?

[Mojouw]

But, a public debate also accomplishes the goal of publicly deconstructing and proving the other side wrong. It's also a way of doing so in a way that stops the other side from claiming things like censorship, to bring the concurrent topic into this discussion.

There's something else here, however, that I noticed. "And then it undermines the concept of a real and knowable universe." That statement is based of a western, secular worldview (secular in the sense of scientific investigation, not your personal beliefs or nonbeliefs). However, that is not universally accepted. In fact, worldwide, it's a minority view. The problem with modernity is the claim that the hard sciences have pride of place at any table of discussion and Truth is presented without bias. Of course, French postmodern constructs tend to throw absolutes out altogether. Italian postmodern constructs (such as those posed by the historian F. A. Ankersmit) find a good balance, placing the sciences at the table but not giving them pride of place because like all other disciplines and approaches, they bring biases that can distort the arguments built from factoids. In truth Ankersmit gives the hard sciences pride of place again. To put this in a different context, the hard sciences shouldn't be the judge of the debate, they should be treated as one of the debaters, perhaps even the champion debater. But since there is no such thing as observation without interpretation (or, said another way for others who might not follow my shorthand, interpretation is the act of attributing any type of meaning to something observed, which includes identifying any possible inherent meaning).

A good example of this is evolution. Now, I am not one who believes that evolution is wrong because the Bible says so. In fact, I believe the Bible focuses on the why and science, the how. In short, evolution might be the very way in which God brought about humanity. My point with evolution is that biologists (and other scientists) are basing it on a 150 year old philosophical construct (dialectical theory) that has been discarded in virtually every other discipline in the academy (although you can find a few that hang on to it). It seems to me that biology is long overdue in reassessing the philosophical underpinnings that have been discarded by so many other disciplines. And, along with that, how a positivistic model can dump the positivistic concepts yet still remain a viable model. Beyond those questions, I also want to know why, in any other discipline, starting from an assumed position and then looking at evidence and claiming it proves that assumed position is circular reasoning. Yet, that is a common fallacy (as well as the fallacy that correlation equals causation, which again, comes out of dialectal theory). As a caveat, statements were made such as, "this looks to fit the larger model," I'd be fine with it. But instead, you get scientist who cross over into philosophy and argue that it proves evolution.

The problem is, this type of investigation and questioning will not happen. It is not because science has proven otherwise but because of a bias that such a discussion might undercut worldview positions, especially those concerning agnostic or atheistic beliefs. Almost every journal I've seen for biology now demands as part of publication that the scientist asserts a belief in evolution. Hence, the questions I pose above, which I do not believe are based in irrationality, will not be addressed in those disciplines.

Evolution is change over time. That has been conclusively proven in repeated empirical experiments and observations. There is no disputing evolution as demonstrated scientific fact.

Since at least the modern synthesis of Darwin's descent with modification being fused with Mendel and spiced with some population genetics - no other proposed explanation has been able to withstand evidence based falsification.

One can reasonably argue that evolution is an observable fact. Natural selection is then the theory that provides the current best explanation to the evidence.

Now if you are taking "evolution" to mean something more complex than change over time. And you want to discuss the specific pathway from unicellular life to complex organisms to primates to people - then I guess we are moving into more "debatable" territory.

But the idea that people and dinosaurs occupied any part of our planet at the same time is laughable and does not deserve any serious contention.

I am also looking for things to do aside from grading.

[Craic]

Evolution is change over time. That has been conclusively proven in repeated empirical experiments and observations. There is no disputing evolution as demonstrated scientific fact.

Since at least the modern synthesis of Darwin's descent with modification being fused with Mendel and spiced with some population genetics - no other proposed explanation has been able to withstand evidence based falsification.

One can reasonably argue that evolution is an observable fact. Natural selection is then the theory that provides the current best explanation to the evidence.

Now if you are taking "evolution" to mean something more complex than change over time. And you want to discuss the specific pathway from unicellular life to complex organisms to primates to people - then I guess we are moving into more "debatable" territory.

But the idea that people and dinosaurs occupied any part of our planet at the same time is laughable and does not deserve any serious contention.

I am also looking for things to do aside from grading.

One thing about being full-time online at my school, there's a ton of assignments every week to grade.

As for our discussion, the issue I have is that "change" has been observed. But "change" and "evolution" are vastly different. Evolution holds to the positivist idea that each change is progressively better than the next. Yet, most biologists reject that idea today. In fact, if you took one hundred random journals on biology in the last twenty years, my guess is probably only a handful wouldn't have something regarding negative mutations. Yet, the silent move from positivism to the current understanding means a key element to the understanding of evolution as classically held has been removed. Yet, there has been no discussion along those lines that I can see. I can go on with others but I'd be repeating myself.

I guess, what I'm getting at here is that there is a big blindspot where observation meets interpretation and argumentation aligning what has been observed. That alignment comes not from science but from philosophical (i.e. logical) argumentation. And, it is there that bias can and is introduced. No science is unassailable. In fact, I know of people who have had pure mathematical and application mathematical articles rejected out of spite or envy. Yet, those journals are still treated as refereed, unbiased journals and it's just not the case (the latter, that is).

Putting this in terms you and I are more familiar with, I find fault with the scientist when, switching to the picture of a historian, a person finishes making observations of all evidence—archeological, literary, anthropological, so on and so forth, and then proceeds to align those facts into an argument that states, "This is that," but then claims his logical argument is not his argument but archeological/historical fact. If you or I did that, we'd be laughed out of whatever conference we're in. By comparison, that is the modus operandi of biologists when it comes to evolution.

Again, I'm not denying evolution. I am simply stating that I have strong concerns about what I see as blind areas and circular arguments that are being smoothed over by a cry of "These are the hard sciences, their fact!" when the issues are the presumptions brought to the observations and also the argumentation that develops from the observed facts. But at this point, I feel like I'm repeating myself and that's not conducive to discussion. So, I'll leave my offering here.

Oh, and Chess.com. It's a good time-killer away from grading.

[Mojouw]

One thing about being full-time online at my school, there's a ton of assignments every week to grade.

As for our discussion, the issue I have is that "change" has been observed. But "change" and "evolution" are vastly different. Evolution holds to the positivist idea that each change is progressively better than the next. Yet, most biologists reject that idea today. In fact, if you took one hundred random journals on biology in the last twenty years, my guess is probably only a handful wouldn't have something regarding negative mutations. Yet, the silent move from positivism to the current understanding means a key element to the understanding of evolution as classically held has been removed. Yet, there has been no discussion along those lines that I can see. I can go on with others but I'd be repeating myself.

I guess, what I'm getting at here is that there is a big blindspot where observation meets interpretation and argumentation aligning what has been observed. That alignment comes not from science but from philosophical (i.e. logical) argumentation. And, it is there that bias can and is introduced. No science is unassailable. In fact, I know of people who have had pure mathematical and application mathematical articles rejected out of spite or envy. Yet, those journals are still treated as refereed, unbiased journals and it's just not the case (the latter, that is).

Putting this in terms you and I are more familiar with, I find fault with the scientist when, switching to the picture of a historian, a person finishes making observations of all evidence—archeological, literary, anthropological, so on and so forth, and then proceeds to align those facts into an argument that states, "This is that," but then claims his logical argument is not his argument but archeological/historical fact. If you or I did that, we'd be laughed out of whatever conference we're in. By comparison, that is the modus operandi of biologists when it comes to evolution.

Again, I'm not denying evolution. I am simply stating that I have strong concerns about what I see as blind areas and circular arguments that are being smoothed over by a cry of "These are the hard sciences, their fact!" when the issues are the presumptions brought to the observations and also the argumentation that develops from the observed facts. But at this point, I feel like I'm repeating myself and that's not conducive to discussion. So, I'll leave my offering here.

Oh, and Chess.com. It's a good time-killer away from grading.

There’s a lot to unpack there. And some important points about knowledge production and gate keeping. I’ll have to try and put more coherent thoughts together tomorrow.

[Mojouw]

One thing about being full-time online at my school, there's a ton of assignments every week to grade.

As for our discussion, the issue I have is that "change" has been observed. But "change" and "evolution" are vastly different. Evolution holds to the positivist idea that each change is progressively better than the next. Yet, most biologists reject that idea today. In fact, if you took one hundred random journals on biology in the last twenty years, my guess is probably only a handful wouldn't have something regarding negative mutations. Yet, the silent move from positivism to the current understanding means a key element to the understanding of evolution as classically held has been removed. Yet, there has been no discussion along those lines that I can see. I can go on with others but I'd be repeating myself.

I guess, what I'm getting at here is that there is a big blindspot where observation meets interpretation and argumentation aligning what has been observed. That alignment comes not from science but from philosophical (i.e. logical) argumentation. And, it is there that bias can and is introduced. No science is unassailable. In fact, I know of people who have had pure mathematical and application mathematical articles rejected out of spite or envy. Yet, those journals are still treated as refereed, unbiased journals and it's just not the case (the latter, that is).

Putting this in terms you and I are more familiar with, I find fault with the scientist when, switching to the picture of a historian, a person finishes making observations of all evidence—archeological, literary, anthropological, so on and so forth, and then proceeds to align those facts into an argument that states, "This is that," but then claims his logical argument is not his argument but archeological/historical fact. If you or I did that, we'd be laughed out of whatever conference we're in. By comparison, that is the modus operandi of biologists when it comes to evolution.

Again, I'm not denying evolution. I am simply stating that I have strong concerns about what I see as blind areas and circular arguments that are being smoothed over by a cry of "These are the hard sciences, their fact!" when the issues are the presumptions brought to the observations and also the argumentation that develops from the observed facts. But at this point, I feel like I'm repeating myself and that's not conducive to discussion. So, I'll leave my offering here.

Oh, and Chess.com. It's a good time-killer away from grading.

I think there is a disconnect here. The way you seem to be characterizing evolution is significantly different than the strict biological definition. Evolution is the change in gene frequencies in a population of living things over time (generations). That's it. That is all it is. Every attempt to isolate and measure this phenomena (that I am aware of) has been successful. We can grow bacteria on a petri dish and literally watch as this change happens.

I am not sure where you are getting the positivist take on evolution from. I realize that how we (meaning almost everyone) use "evolution" in daily conversation and it certainly carries the meaning you are ascribing to it. But in the studies of evolution - the science concept - that I work with in my little narrow corner of the science world, no one discusses evolution as having positive or negative qualities. If you filter all this through a generalized version of natural selection theory, you end up with the outcome that one or more of a variety of processes produces variant genes in a population. Those genes can have a positive, negative, or neutral impact on the biological success of individual organisms. Those differential success rates (passing on genes to the next generation) will then alter the overall ratios of variant genes in the pool. That's evolution. That's all it is. Most of the changes that take place from generation to generation are small and hardly noticeable. But, sometimes, enough of those changes pile up and new species emerge. Again...this is neither positive or negative - it just is a thing we know happens.

If we move into attempting to ascribe designations to these oftentimes random genetic fluctuations...we encounter great risk of smacking right into bringing our current biases to the table. For instance around 2.5 million years ago, a species of primate emerged in the margins of the forests This species had a specific set of adaptations that related to diet creating powerful jaws and massive teeth. This particular chewing adaptation allowed this upright walking ape to expand and flourish across eastern and southern Africa for about a million years. Then, as the climate and vegetation regimes in the region shifted, this upright walking big toothed ape was less well suited to the expanding grasslands and was consigned to the shrinking forested areas. In contrast, a different upright walking ape that made tools and did some other stuff thrived in the expanding savanna. That ape became us. The other ape eventually died out and represents a "dead end" in our overall family tree. So 2.5 million years ago -- big teeth and jaws was a really "good" or "positive" thing -- until it wasn't.

This is a long and boring story that is basically intended to communicate that evolution has no direction, no goals, no designed outcomes, no nothing. It is simply a biological process that works on a breeding population. Nothing more and nothing less.

I sense that you are talking about the term less as a biological concept and more of philosophical idea - hence the discussion of evolution as positive or negative. In my humble opinion, speaking or thinking about evolution in those kinds of terms is a losing proposition.

Your points about journals and how it gets decided what is going to be published and what is not is a good one. Peer review works in some cases and is comically broken in others. There was an entire field of psychology that had to deal with its leading proponents faking results and journals just pushing it out time after time. It is likely that open source publication outside of paywalls is the ultimate "solution". But that loops back around to forcing various institutions to totally revamp how they judge/evaluate the researchers they employ. Said institutions have no desire to do that when they can just off-load the whole thing to the outdated, flawed, and useless "publish or perish" system.

Bringing this around to the original point of debate; I reject the idea that there is not a real and knowable universe. Sure, we need to acknowledge that 27 people can experience the same event and take 27 different meanings/conclusions away from it. For instance, I can go dig up a fire pit from 10,000 years ago. There is no way I can know what that fire pit meant to the group of people that gathered around it. It likely meant family to some, ritual and bonding to others, a fearsome mystery to others, and to some it was a tool to cook food. But not philosophy of science or empirical model can change the fact that 10,000 years ago a man made fire was set in the hearth. That just isn't up for debate.

That is the same things with cavemen riding dinosaurs -- that just is not possible. There are harsh realities in geology, paleontology, archaeology, etc that demonstrate the impossibility of dinosaurs and people hanging out together. Putting that to a "debate" is farcical and undermines the very idea that there is an ability to produce knowledge. You can not have a debate, discussion, or exchange of ideas when one side is saying 2+2=4 and the other is saying 2+2=potato. 2+2 may not always equal 4 and there is room for a great deal of positive debate and discussion there, but it can never equal potato and there is no point in talking about it.

Or maybe we can just blame all this on Hempel or Hegel or some other dead German....or just chuck all them out in favor of another dead German...and throw our lot in with Popperian falsification...

[Steeler-in-west]

brain drain warning

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ORNjO-YRgQ

[silver & black]

brain drain warning

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ORNjO-YRgQ

[Steeldude]

brain drain warning

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ORNjO-YRgQ

She claims accountability for breaking laws. So I guess all illegal aliens will be sent back to their country of origin?

[Orion]

[Dwinsgames]

https://www.facebook.com/reel/149110821354902?fs=e&s=m

[silver & black]

https://www.facebook.com/reel/149110821354902?fs=e&s=m

That would be funny if it weren't so sad.

[Orion]

[Dwinsgames]

That would be funny if it weren't so sad.

yeah , its shocking at who we have running our Nation

[DuckHodges]

if politics doesn't work for donald he's got a good future in music

[silver & black]

if politics doesn't work for donald he's got a good future in music

Meh.... it's cool to dis on Trump, I get it. IMO, it's cool to dis on all politicians. Every one of them suck.

[DuckHodges]

Meh.... it's cool to dis on Trump, I get it. IMO, it's cool to dis on all politicians. Every one of them suck.

They poke at everybody, there's plenty of biden ones too lol. that donald one was just their newest

[Orion]

[Orion]

[vader29]

[silver & black]

This seems like a good place to put this. Some will disagree... some won't. Watch the whole thing before chastising me as a tin foil hat fool.... which I might be...lol.

https://youtu.be/mDLxTVmy_-o

[Mojouw]

Good to see that Tucker landed on his feet. Sacring people with nonsense somewhere else.

Here is one simple thing that demolishes great portions of the argument.

"There is no way the Ukrainian Army can win against the Russian Army. Russia is too big and the Ukraine too small." Ok. Sure. Now if I could just think of multiple examples that contradicted that....

Oh. Wait. Every war the United States has lost since WW II. Vietnam. Afghanistan. Iraq. All three are wars that the United States definitely did not win. I have had current and recently retired active duty service members characterize it that way. And in all three cases a small group of folks with low level weapons defeated the richest and most advanced military to have ever existed on the face of the Earth.

So If Tucker got that wrong....why would one believe he got anything else right?

[silver & black]

I get it, it's Tucker.... and the Left hates him...lol. I didn't find anything, really, to disagree with. You say we lost the last three wars. I say it's more like we just didn't try to win, otherwise, all of those wars would have been over with in a short amount of time. Vietnam is a bad example of 'losing' a war. Vietnam was a mistake that we should not have been involved with in the first place. It was never intended for us to 'win'... just keep the money flowing. Iraq? Give it a rest. That could have ended in days had the USA actually wanted to. Afghanistan was another vietnam type deal.... not really a war, just an occupation for no reason other than than money and power. If you think Ukraine has even a remote chance of defeating Russia, well, okay...lol.

[Hindes204]

23 years and counting, still active duty. Afghanistan was never a war meant to win. We could level the entire country in a matter of minutes. Most of it was political. The worst part of Afghanaistan was the debacle of withdraw the current administration orchestrated.

[DuckHodges]

23 years and counting, still active duty. Afghanistan was never a war meant to win. We could level the entire country in a matter of minutes. Most of it was political. The worst part of Afghanaistan was the debacle of withdraw the current administration orchestrated.

most if not all wars are political. that's why i got out. 23 years is a lot of service, thank you sir

[Mojouw]

I get it, it's Tucker.... and the Left hates him...lol. I didn't find anything, really, to disagree with. You say we lost the last three wars. I say it's more like we just didn't try to win, otherwise, all of those wars would have been over with in a short amount of time. Vietnam is a bad example of 'losing' a war. Vietnam was a mistake that we should not have been involved with in the first place. It was never intended for us to 'win'... just keep the money flowing. Iraq? Give it a rest. That could have ended in days had the USA actually wanted to. Afghanistan was another vietnam type deal.... not really a war, just an occupation for no reason other than than money and power. If you think Ukraine has even a remote chance of defeating Russia, well, okay...lol.

Everyone agrees that militarily the US could use a combination of airpower and ground forces to over-run the countries of Iraq and Afghanistan in a short period of time. And in a sense, they did do that. Kinda sorta so did the Soviets in the 1980's. But you have to then occupy, administer, and govern that territory. And that has been a failure in almost every respect from the Vietnam War forward. Not only for the US, but for basically any military that has attempted to do similar since the close of WW II.

You can not just invade and level an enemy capital city, install a friendly government, and get them to sign a peace treaty and declare the war over. I mean you can, and we have, but look at the last 2 decades of endless violence and conflict. It certainly doesn't feel like the war is over.

And with governments installed that are neither friendly or stable, it doesn't feel like victory either.

And what does it take to "resist" in all of these cases? A handful of guerilla fighters with basic weapons and almost no technology beyond cell phones?

How is the Russian military going to fare any better in the Ukraine? Ukraine could run out of tanks and high tech drones tomorrow and all they would need is a cadre of dedicated fighters and some medium level logistical support....and it would be Afghanistan in the 1980's all over again for the Russians....

If there is something I am missing....and I am sure there is....what is it that will allow Russia to succeed where the US and others have failed over the last several decades?

Plus it looks like Russia has an internal armed rebellion to put down as well now.

To all those who have served or are still serving...I am sure my outside understanding is flawed and incomplete. I am attempting to base my conclusions on historical precedents and conversations with those that have served -- but your mileage will vary and I acknowledge that I'm only able to see part of the picture.

[steelreserve]

If there is something I am missing....and I am sure there is....what is it that will allow Russia to succeed where the US and others have failed over the last several decades?

What was it that allowed the USSR to succeed in controlling most of Eastern Europe, including Ukraine, for several decades in the fairly recent past? It comes down to what your goal is.

If it is to kick out an enemy government and then try to prop up your friendly locals against the still pissed-off hostile locals, then no, that doesn't usually work. If the goal is to conquer a place and rule it with an iron fist, absolutely you can do that and it happens all the time. How brutal are you willing to be? How brutal do you think Russia is willing to be?

If you are not trying to win over the population but subjugate it, you can certainly seize control of the essentials for survival, install your own government and "disappear" anyone who questions you, and you are off to a good start. If that doesn't deter the most hardcore holdouts, go after their families, that'll usually do it. Keep everyone dependent on you and miserable, and you can settle in for the long haul.

People in the West think it can't be done because we're used to a series of high-profile operations that end up with us trying to be the white knight for somebody else, and bending over backwards to avoid breaking the rules or appearing less than honorable to the rest of the world. That's what it's been for most of our lifetimes. If you don't give a shit about that and you're willing to get your hands dirty, all you've got to do is the bigger bully and you can do what you want. Guess which approach Russia and Putin will take.

It doesn't guarantee that Russia will win, but it certainly isn't this open-and-shut case where all you need are a few resistance fighters and no one ever has a hope of keeping a lid on it. Ruthless authoritarians are particularly good at it, in fact.

[Mojouw]

What was it that allowed the USSR to succeed in controlling most of Eastern Europe, including Ukraine, for several decades in the fairly recent past? It comes down to what your goal is.

If it is to kick out an enemy government and then try to prop up your friendly locals against the still pissed-off hostile locals, then no, that doesn't usually work. If the goal is to conquer a place and rule it with an iron fist, absolutely you can do that and it happens all the time. How brutal are you willing to be? How brutal do you think Russia is willing to be?

If you are not trying to win over the population but subjugate it, you can certainly seize control of the essentials for survival, install your own government and "disappear" anyone who questions you, and you are off to a good start. If that doesn't deter the most hardcore holdouts, go after their families, that'll usually do it. Keep everyone dependent on you and miserable, and you can settle in for the long haul.

People in the West think it can't be done because we're used to a series of high-profile operations that end up with us trying to be the white knight for somebody else, and bending over backwards to avoid breaking the rules or appearing less than honorable to the rest of the world. That's what it's been for most of our lifetimes. If you don't give a shit about that and you're willing to get your hands dirty, all you've got to do is the bigger bully and you can do what you want. Guess which approach Russia and Putin will take.

It doesn't guarantee that Russia will win, but it certainly isn't this open-and-shut case where all you need are a few resistance fighters and no one ever has a hope of keeping a lid on it. Ruthless authoritarians are particularly good at it, in fact.

Those are strong and highly important points.

But everything I’ve ever read indicates that the Soviets were almost comically ruthless and brutal both in Afghanistan and in confronting opposition at home in the 1980’s and they still totally lost.