Russia - Ukraine “peace negotiations”

[superrific]

BTW, Russians and Russian supporting Americans comparing this Ukrainian attack to Pearl Harbor are outrageous.

They seem, for the most part, fairly accurate if you focus on the message conveyed by the analogy, which I take to be this:

A. At Pearl Harbor, the Americans had a whole lot of military equipment that wasn't very well guarded. The surprise attack completely crippled the US fleet. Had the US not had a lucky victory at Midway, it is possible the war in the Pacific couldn't really have been fought.

B. In Russia, the Russians had a whole lot of equipment that wasn't very well guarded. A surprise attack crippled the Russian air force. It is possible that without the air force, Russia cannot win the war, at least not in the short term.

In other words, in one day, the military capability of the US in 1941 and Russia in 2025 have been decimated.

I don't take the comparison to be a judgment about the morality of the attack. Remember: the betrayal Americans feel is quite specific to America. To the rest of the world, Pearl Harbor was just a surprise attack. They probably feel the same way about Pearl Harbor as we do about the Germans punching through the forest and storming through France in a week or two (or however long it took).

 

[dukeman92]

Equating what happened yesterday to Pearl Harbor is quite possibly the biggest airball of all time. Yikes.

 

[superrific]

Equating what happened yesterday to Pearl Harbor is quite possibly the biggest airball of all time. Yikes.

1. How did I "equate" them?
2. Could you explain what makes it an airball?

 

[nycfan]

They seem, for the most part, fairly accurate if you focus on the message conveyed by the analogy, which I take to be this:

A. At Pearl Harbor, the Americans had a whole lot of military equipment that wasn't very well guarded. The surprise attack completely crippled the US fleet. Had the US not had a lucky victory at Midway, it is possible the war in the Pacific couldn't really have been fought.

B. In Russia, the Russians had a whole lot of equipment that wasn't very well guarded. A surprise attack crippled the Russian air force. It is possible that without the air force, Russia cannot win the war, at least not in the short term.

In other words, in one day, the military capability of the US in 1941 and Russia in 2025 have been decimated.

I don't take the comparison to be a judgment about the morality of the attack. Remember: the betrayal Americans feel is quite specific to America. To the rest of the world, Pearl Harbor was just a surprise attack. They probably feel the same way about Pearl Harbor as we do about the Germans punching through the forest and storming through France in a week or two (or however long it took).

Based on the propaganda and posting histories of many of the folks embracing the Pearl Harbor analogy, I have to disagree with your assessment of the intended judgment about the morality of the attack. It is very much intended for pro-Putin American audiences to deepen the myth of Ukraine as the representative of decadent wokeism (and somehow also Naziism) bad guy against which Russia is defending Western Society.

 

[superrific]

Based on the propaganda and posting histories of many of the folks embracing the Pearl Harbor analogy, I have to disagree with your assessment of the intended judgment about the morality of the attack.

All right. I can't speak to that. I used the passive voice to focus less on the specific motivations of speakers (which I don't know) and more on the inherent logic. I'll take you at your word that it has been used nefariously -- but at the same time, my mind went to Pearl Harbor and I'm not pro-Putin at all. I don't think it's an inapt analogy; it's just that even apt analogies can be misused. In every analogy, there are some things the same and some things different. If, on the basis of the sameness, you conclude that everything about the comparison is the same -- that's just bad reasoning. It doesn't make the analogy terrible all around.

 

[dukeman92]

1. How did I "equate" them?
2. Could you explain what makes it an airball?

Equate, compare. Semantics.
The two situations aren't remotely close to the same. It's like comparing apples to bowling balls. Yeah, they're both round.

 

[superrific]

Equate, compare. Semantics.

Talk about a mega-airball.

1. Equating is a strict subset of comparing. All equating is comparing, but not all comparing is equating. This is such a basic logical principle that I genuinely cannot understand how educated people fuck it up.

2. Our entire legal system is based on non-equating comparisons. Literally. That's what the common law is. A dispute arises, and it's brought to a judge (or jury). There are often multiple competing precedents. The judge has to pick the one that's most like the situation at hand, taking into account the relevant factors and leaving aside the irrelevant ones. For instance, nuisance law evolved from fence laws in England in the 17th century. If animals roam free and destroy public property, the animal's owner is liable. What about smoke pollution? Judges made it follow the same rule, even though smoke and animals don't have much in common.

3. There are solid arguments that almost all practical human knowledge (i.e. leaving aside scientific theories derived from math and experiment) takes the form of non-equating comparisons.

The way we know that equate and compare are not synonyms is the sheer amount of non-equating comparisons we use every single day. Virtually every meme is a non-equating comparison. Every movie quote. Every physical model.

 

[BlueSteel]

Just a reminder that "one phone call" was all it was gonna take for Trump to end this war. He scored a LOT of votes with that soundbyte.

I seem to recall something about the price of groceries, too.

 

[theel4life]

Just a reminder that "one phone call" was all it was gonna take for Trump to end this war. He scored a LOT of votes with that soundbyte.

I seem to recall something about the price of groceries, too.

Bro that’s not why they voted for Trump. They won’t admit it but we know they voted for him because he is a racist, bigot piece of shit.

 

[dukeman92]

Talk about a mega-airball.

1. Equating is a strict subset of comparing. All equating is comparing, but not all comparing is equating. This is such a basic logical principle that I genuinely cannot understand how educated people fuck it up.

To quote @nycfan "Zero comparison to Pearl Harbor"

I genuinely cannot understand how educated people could fuck this up.

 

[superrific]

To quote @nycfan "Zero comparison to Pearl Harbor"

I genuinely cannot understand how educated people could fuck this up.

except for the comparison I made, which you haven't attempted to rebut. All you've done is attach conclusory labels. And made basic errors of logic that nobody with an age in double digits should ever make.

 

[dukeman92]

except for the comparison I made, which you haven't attempted to rebut. All you've done is attach conclusory labels. And made basic errors of logic that nobody with an age in double digits should ever make.

I'm not going to attempt to rebut it. To do that would lend credence to the original comparison. And once again, all you've done is speak to someone in a way that nobody with an age in double digits would ever do in person. But you're the greatest, Sups!

 

[superrific]

I'm not going to attempt to rebut it. To do that would lend credence to the original comparison.

Such a lame copout. Didn't know randman posted under this alias.

If you could articulate an objection you would. But you can't, because none exists, because it's neither awful nor false to note that Russia in 2025 and Pearl Harbor in 1941 decimated the respective countries' aerial capacities in one day.

 

[nycfan]

 

[superrific]

I'm not going to attempt to rebut it. To do that would lend credence to the original comparison. And once again, all you've done is speak to someone in a way that nobody with an age in double digits would ever do in person. But you're the greatest, S

You wrote this: "Equating what happened yesterday to Pearl Harbor is quite possibly the biggest airball of all time. Yikes."

Is that your model of what respectful discourse looks like? You mock me, you will get mocked. You are 100% incorrect and it's not a close question -- as evidenced by your complete inability to offer a substantive point. Calling names is all you do.

It is not my fault that you posted stupidity. You did that, all by yourself. Perhaps you want your stupidity to be consequence-free, which it would be except you aimed your stupidity directly at me with quite an insult. Thus the stupidity will be identified and called out.

"Equate, compare, semantics" is one of the most idiotic things posted on this board in quite a while. I didn't do that. You did that. You did that all by yourself. Don't get angry at me for your shortcomings.

 

[mynameisbond]

except for the comparison I made, which you haven't attempted to rebut. All you've done is attach conclusory labels. And made basic errors of logic that nobody with an age in double digits should ever make.

Were we already at war with Japan for two years when they bombed Pearl Harbor? I must have missed that day of history class. The rest of the analogy fails unless that is true.

 

[Kingpin]

I was hopeful that yesterday's attack was just the tip of the iceberg. I think Ukraine has more up their sleeve.

I agree. I think they have other stealth drones already inside Russia just waiting for the opportune time.

 

[superrific]

The rest of the analogy fails unless that is true.

Sigh. Et tu? Y'all need some serious refreshing about the nature of an analogy.

1. Analogies do not have to be perfect to be apt -- indeed, if they are not perfect, they wouldn't be analogies. They would be descriptions.

2. Analogies can be apt in part and inapt in other parts. In fact, this is common. Refer to my post above about analogies in law. Judges developed environmental law in England initially by analogy to the escape of fenced animals. Last I checked, there are some ways in which smoke emitted from a brickworks are like loose cows, but there are many more ways in which they are different. Yet, that was the analogy that was used and it's still used today.

3. Here are a couple of other analogies that people use even though they are inapt in the details:

Appeasement. We say that Trump is appeasing Putin like Chamberlain did Hitler. Is that bullshit, because it is more or less the same analogy and it has the same inaptness (namely, Europe was not at war during Munich)

We say that Trump's firing of US attorneys was like the Saturday Night Massacre. Is that an exact comparison, or are there apt and inapt parts to it?

 

[dukeman92]

Such a lame copout. Didn't know randman posted under this alias.

If you could articulate an objection you would. But you can't, because none exists, because it's neither awful nor false to note that Russia in 2025 and Pearl Harbor in 1941 decimated the respective countries' aerial capacities in one day.

The two situations are so obviously incomparable... anyone drawing this conclusion obviously knows very little about what happened at Pearl and/or the events which led up to Ukraine's attack on Russia. If calling me lame for refusing to lend credence to such an obviously flawed mischaracterization of the two events allows you to thump your chest and claim internet superiority, have at it.

 

[nycfan]

Sigh. Et tu? Y'all need some serious refreshing about the nature of an analogy.

1. Analogies do not have to be perfect to be apt -- indeed, if they are not perfect, they wouldn't be analogies. They would be descriptions.

2. Analogies can be apt in part and inapt in other parts. In fact, this is common. Refer to my post above about analogies in law. Judges developed environmental law in England initially by analogy to the escape of fenced animals. Last I checked, there are some ways in which smoke emitted from a brickworks are like loose cows, but there are many more ways in which they are different. Yet, that was the analogy that was used and it's still used today.

3. Here are a couple of other analogies that people use even though they are inapt in the details:

Appeasement. We say that Trump is appeasing Putin like Chamberlain did Hitler. Is that bullshit, because it is more or less the same analogy and it has the same inaptness (namely, Europe was not at war during Munich)

We say that Trump's firing of US attorneys was like the Saturday Night Massacre. Is that an exact comparison, or are there apt and inapt parts to it?

My objection to your analogy is that your logic relies on stripping away key context differentiating a surprise attack preceding any declared war versus a surprise attack (by the victim of invasion) during a prolonged war. If we were arguing how far a baseball home run with an exit velocity of 105 mph should fly and your argument relied on assuming that the game is played in a vacuum, so there is no resistance, ok, fine, we don’t live in a vacuum but we’re just shooting the breeze anyway.

But in an actual war the context is exactly what the propagandists promoting the comparison want people to miss or ignore so they see Russia now and the U.S. then as brothers in arms, equivalent victims of a devious sneak attack, even though there is an obvious critical context intentionally elided by propagandists that undermines the analogy.

To me, your innocent but context-free analogy reinforces (or even creates a permission structure for) dishonest propaganda that is intending that the context be stricken from the conversation for nefarious purpose. Hence my objection.