Interesting how people believe some chemicals in the atmosphere could cause storms and floods but at the same time deny the possibility that much more carbon dioxide could change the climate.
There is a climate-changing chemical released by aircraft as they fly overhead — it's called "carbon dioxide".
It's just, (a) CO2 is invisible, and (b) CO2 being this chemical is politically unacceptable to people who make money selling carbon rich fuels and also to people who are currently unable to switch to a different power supply.
This was in the news recently as Google removed this aspect from its flight GHG impact estimate as it was averaging over all flights, and intends to adjust it in future so that flights at the time of day that create contrails will have more GHG impact attributed to them.
There's nothing simple about about government agencies and weather manipulating satellites though.
It seems like the reality is the exact opposite. Science is way too boring and simple for most people, and unlike conspiracy theories science doesn't absolve you of responsibility. Therefore those people will rather invent 500 pages of crackpot lore rather than take a high school chemistry or math class.
I have a friend like that. He has M.A. in computer science, is pretty smart overall, but believes all the dumbest conspiracy theories, including the contrails one.
It's fascinating and scary at the same time. It's what happens when you do motivated thinking for decades. He believes in all the alt-right crap about "gender ideology", "fake climate change", "fake pandemic", etc. He just completely ignores any data that contradicts what he thinks.
In middle school he "just" disliked gays and was pretty normal overall. Now there's no subject on which you can talk with him without some batshit insane views.
A big part of this is splinters of American culture war that spreads over the rest of the world as a side-effect. I can understand why some people in US think cancel culture and wokeness went too far. But then you have people repeating the same "antiwoke" alt-right points imported from USA in countries where you go to jail for criticizing Catholic Church and president together with main bishop go on anti-gay hate campaigns on state TV. And somehow it's still the alt-right that fights for "free speech", when they have no problem with "go to jail for blasphemy" laws.
Once you buy into this culture war and decide you're on one side - you interpret all new data accordingly. So you cannot believe in climate change, cause that's what leftists do. So if you see climate change - it's because NWO causes it with contrails. Trump is your guy cause he hates gays. So if he does things that benefit Russia - it's his brilliant plan to deal with Putin that you simply can't understand yet.
Always add more hidden variables that make your worldview consistent.
"Insulting the religious feelings" is the phrasing here in Poland. It's almost exclusively prosecuted when the hurt feelings are on the side of the vast majority = Catholics.
There's about 50 people sentenced per year.
My point wasn't that, my point was that people supporing these consider themselves "fighting for free speech" because they want to be able to insult minorities.
You can search for blasphemy laws here [0]. I just looked for countries that are predominantly Catholic.
Only obvious one where this may be currently enforced is El Salvador? Though I can't quickly find any recent examples, so maybe that's not true. And places like Monaco still haven't repealed those laws. Edit: also Poland – from a sibling comment.
While this website claims several countries have statutes that allow incarceration under blasphemy convictions, I couldn't find a single instance of a person being jailed in the past few decades under any of them.
Yes, restricting scope to jailing for criticizing the Catholic Church, I only see suspended sentences and fines in places like Poland. Expanding to other religions, there are people currently in prison for Quran burning, and religious prisoners in NATO countries (Turkey).
I dont think conspiracy theories are for dumb people. I think its mostly for people that dont feel understood.
They see the world is telling them a narrative but despite this narrative, they have no great job, no great life partner or no great status in their community, they feel there must be something that is preventing them from getting these things.
They go in search of an explanation and find it. They get hooked on the simplicity of these narratives and find them so satisfying.
> they have no great job, no great life partner or no great status in their community, they feel there must be something that is preventing them from getting these things
My friend works in IT and earns probably in the 99th or 98th percentile in the country. It's not that. In fact I don't think economic wellbeing is related at all. Poland has been doing great economically for the last 30 years, and yet the conspiracy theories are spreading.
I mostly blame social media. Previously if you wanted to know how the climate works you looked it up in encyclopedia, watched some TV or asked a teacher. They mostly weren't spreading bullshit.
Now you search internet and there's so much bullshit confirming all your wrong ideas you can spend weeks reading just that.
PiS state media absolutely destroyed my grandpa. In the recent years, he went from being someone whom you could talk to to someone that only speaks about how Tusk is devil and so on.
I used to live in Brazil, and I saw a similar situation: a significant chunk of very intelligent and competent, high-earning, IT workers were very much into those theories.
I also know a huge amount of conspiracy theory believers in the medical area. Also otherwise competent.
If anything, the correlation with loneliness or low status was reverse: the richer and high-status, the more blatant and visible those beliefs were. People in low-prestige professions, or poor? It was very rare to see them talk about it.
The theories are often complex from the standpoint of how they work, or even the motivations. They are simple un how they assign blame. We all like having goodguys and badguys neatly separated with a single linear function. That is much more appealing than admitting we are all partly to blame for pretty much everything that affects all pf us, and that even the worst actors often have some good motivations and qualities. In addition to the appeal of simple humans, the complex conspiracies seem to appeal to people with very good pattern matching intelligence. Also, sometimes, conspiracies are real, and that doesn't help.
I know several people who are smart, happy with their jobs, and are massive conspiracy theorists. I think they have a kind of Dunning-Kruger syndrome: they are very successful in their fields, which leads them to believe that any explanation that makes sense to them must be true. It is the case some of the time, but occasionally it tricks them into believing in stupid theories that do not really make sense. Some Nobel prize winners famously went down that hole, who were very successful and admired before turning bad.
Conspiracy theories are for people who need to believe there is order and purpose in the universe. They need to believe someone is in charge pulling the strings because the alternative, that it’s all just chaotic randomness, is too hard to deal with.
I believe in order and purpose, I have a fairly strong spiritual practice. I pray, I meditate, I view my life as a journey, I believe I was put here for a reason.
I'm don't believe in conspiracy theories however, because I'm mature enough to accept that sometimes bad things happen for reasons other than "evil underground cabal of satanists".
especially this one - these people seem like they're in denial about their actions causing climate change causing their catastrophic weather, so they invent invisible bogeymen to blame.
I imagine that when they get dumped by their girlfriend, they'll blame it on George Soros manipulating her via 5G raditation instead of "well maybe she didn't like you being an abusive alcoholic who cheated on her?"
> For example, try arguing that the USA should try to find a diplomatic solution to the conflict in Ukraine. You'll be immediately accused of being a "Putin puppet" when all you care about is that the war is ended with as few casualties as possible (as some say, winning the peace is more important than winning the war).
You will fall under criticism for saying this because it is indeed ignorant and naive and will only kill more people. Peace at any cost will only give Russia a chance to focus on repressing internal dissent in occupied territories and murder people until they have no meaningful opposition left there. After that, they can renew their attack on Ukraine and widen it to the rest of Europe, forcibly conscripting people from occupied territories to fight for them. This already happened after the 2014 invasion. How many times do you want to repeat the mistake before learning from it? In this round, about half a million are dead and many Ukrainian cities look no different from Hiroshima and Nagasaki after nuclear bombing. How many people more will have to die? 10 million?
Insisting on peace at any cost is purely emotional feel-good response that ignores the realities on the ground. Much of the discussion about Palestine and other hot topics is the same; uneducated virtue signaling fueled by social media narcissism.
You call me ignorant, but you seem to have very little understanding at all. You say it will only kill more people. That's patently false. There's never been a peace settlement that ended up killing more people than war, because war kills people every single day. Ukraine losing some territory is NOT the end of the world, and I am not sure why some people are so convinced that it is.
> After that, they can renew their attack on Ukraine and widen it to the rest of Europe
There's literally no evidence that's the case, this is fear-mongering on a scale I've never seen before. To the contrary, the reaction of the world to this conflict has already made enough of an impression on any would-be invader that it's a really bad idea to enter a conflict where the West is on the opposing side, and I am very convinced that Putin won't try his hand again. Of course, I cannot prove that to you, but you can't prove anything either, you're using the same "emotional" argument you've accused me of using. Your argument goes down to "we must continue killing people in a war to prove a point". I find that argument abhorrent.
> How many people more will have to die? 10 million?
If you stop the war right now, zero. You're claiming a hypothetical future made up in your head where Russia will still continue attacking others. At least try to consider that that may not happen? Consider that Russia knows very well it will suffer for decades from mistrust by the West, by sanctions and by losing a huge market. It knows all that, why would it want to make things even worse? This argument by some of the Western media just doesn't make sense, try to think about it rationally!
> Insisting on peace at any cost is purely emotional feel-good response
This is always the same argument used most war-mongering people in history, it's the cause of the death of millions because every war in history started because of someone holding that view. We need to go back to a civilized dialog between nations. You can claim that Putin is the one who broke the peace, and I agree with that, but just trying to continue a big war to make him pay for that mistake seems pitty. In my opinion, fighting any war for any reason is not what a civilized mind would do. There are cases it's unavoidable, but this is NOT one of those. It's avoidable, Putin is open to dialog, don't believe the narrative you've been told. There is room for dialog, the war was almost ended with the peace talks in Belarus... have you forgotten that? Do you know why that didn't stop the war?? Read about it, it was NOT because of Russia.
Russia knows [war is costly], why would it want to make things even worse?
Because its leadership is deranged, and is willing to put a large chunk of its population through a wood chopper (and endure decades of blunted growth and economic estrangement) in order to indulge its geopolitical fantasies. Which is why it started the current war in 2014 in the first place.
Ukraine losing some territory is NOT the end of the world
The literal "end of the world", no. But it would lead to a very bad long-term situation in Europe and throughout the world if Russia's aggression were to be validated in this case.
Especially if it were to be awarded -- as you appear to be advocating -- permanent sovereignty over the territories it is currently claiming.
How can you be so sure? Because you saw it on the news? Like "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq?
> in order to indulge its geopolitical fantasies.
Is it a fantasy to prevent Ukraine joining NATO? Is it a fantasy to narrow down the Western border to a more "defendable" region? Maybe.
But I would say it's a fantasy to think you can push out half a million Russian soldiers from an area 20% the size of pre-2014 Ukraine back into Russia without causing an absolutely massive escalation in which nuclear weapons are not just a possibility, but almost a certainty. A 60 billion dollars package won't make a dent. Are you willing to send 10x that (I suppose that level of money would indeed make a dent, but who knows, maybe not even that)? Send enough troops to get the job done (i.e. the real possibility of your family members being sent to die in the front)? We all know the answer: that won't happen.
If Ukraine was accepted into NATO in 2008 neither this war nor the war in 2014 would have happened. Russia won't invade Finland nor Sweden despite them joining NATO. In fact Russia moved all units from Finnish border to Ukraine as Finland joined NATO :)
If you force Ukraine to give up some territories to Russia and stop the war now - you're only making sure Russia invades in a few years again after establishing new bases, refilling stocks and drafting people from new territories to army. This is what happened with Crimea and the part of Donbas they occupied in 2014.
You're not saving any lives, you're just making the next war easier for Putin.
As for nuclear weapons - ask yourself why hasn't USA nuked Vietnam, Iraq or Afghanistan.
> This is what happened with Crimea and the part of Donbas they occupied in 2014.
That's a distorted view of reality. In 2008, Ukraine was very far from being in a position to join NATO, or even to want to. When the 2014 revolution happened, remember that there was a pro-Russia elected president in Ukraine. The Donbas war and the Crimea annexation happened exactly in response to the ousting of that president by the Maidan Revolution. Most of the Donbas was/is strongly pro-Russian (they had been voting for Pro-Russian governments since the independence of Ukraine from the USSR, just check some maps of pre-2014 elections results by Ukrainian region). So, no, that's not what happened in 2014 at all, and I don't understand why some people are repeating this narrative uncritically.
> As for nuclear weapons - ask yourself why hasn't USA nuked Vietnam, Iraq or Afghanistan.
The USA had no business in those countries. That has nothing to do with the situation in Russia, where they see Ukraine alignment as absolutely essential for their defense strategy. Vietnam is exactly in the opposite side of the world from the USA. Ukraine is basically the gate to the Russian heartlands. If you hold Ukraine, Russia cannot effectively defend against you. It's such a completely different situation that I must ask if you're trolling?
> In 2008, Ukraine was very far from being in a position to join NATO, or even to want to.
Jake Sullivan (American diplomat) said in an interview with Mikhail Zygar recently that he was in the room when it was talked about. Ukraine was in favour. Eastern Europe was in favour. USA was in favour. Germany and France blocked it, indirectly making the war in 2014 and this one possible.
> The Donbas war and the Crimea annexation happened exactly in response to the ousting of that president by the Maidan Revolution
This is Russian POV. It's not the truth. Russia poisoned Ukrainian presidential candidate in 2003. It blackmailed Yanukovych in 2013. It doesn't care about formalities, it cares about owning Ukraine.
> If you hold Ukraine, Russia cannot effectively defend against you.
Nobody wants to invade Russia and you know it perfectly well. Russia knows it too (that's why they moved the army from Finnish border and from Kaliningrad Oblast). You can shell Sankt Petersburg from Finland using regular artillery. If anything - Finland entering NATO is a much worse military problem for Russia than Ukraine. Yet somehow Russia was fine with it, but Ukraine is just impossible :)
It's just an excuse, the real reason Russia invaded Ukraine twice is just imperialism. And they can be cured from it. They just need to lose their imperial war, like all the other empires.
> The USA had no business in those countries.
And neither does Russia in Ukraine.
Decide for yourself - is Russia bloodthirsty enough to start nuclear war over Ukraine, or is it "just another country like us". You can't have it both ways.
Germany and France blocked it, indirectly making the war in 2014 and this one possible.
Well, that's speculative. If the move had been green-lighted it could have triggered a spontaneous kinetic/punitive action of some sort (as Putin would have to look like he's "doing something"). Which would have led to who knows what.
100 percent on the money, everything else you said.
We just don't know how the Yushchenko government (let alone whoever his successor may have been after 2010) would have handled the situation. And without sufficient time to integrate properly -- the accession would have been essentially a bluff, and interpreted by Putin (though his sockpuppet Medvedev, if the latter was still in place) accordingly.
Had he full-on invaded shortly thereafter -- Ukraine definitely would not have fared as well as it did in 2022 (due to the partial state of integration, and the fact that didn't have the 8 years of invaluable training in the field that it had by 2022). Even if it was a clusterfuck operation like the initial SMO. Recall how quickly the Crimea defense fell apart in 2014 (for the simple reason it was entirely unprepared). Tactical nuke risk would have been significantly higher if NATO units were involved, especially if they were blitzkrieging.
One can see many scenarios unfolding - many of them quite bad.
It was 2008. Back then Russia had problems conquering Georgia (and backed off when 3 EU politicians flew to Tbilisi during the war).
Even in 2014 with all the corruption in Ukrainian army and all the preparations (remember that Yanukovych was blackmailed by Putin in 2013 to stop the EU agreement according to a parliament member from his party) - so Putin had prepared for at least 1 year - once Ukraine started the ATO (anti-terrorist operation) - they quickly regained several territories till Russia sent another wave of "volunteers" in "nothern wind" operation.
It's very unlikely Russia would be able to do anything quickly in 2008 that would be anywhere close to what it did with year of advance planning in 2014. And it's very, very unlikely that it would have ended up worse for Ukraine somehow.
IMHO Russia would just do nothing, cause the risk/effect calculation would be much worse for them had Ukraine already be in NATO.
It's time to accept that the west fucked up in 2008.
I thank what matters now is what the West does now, and in the upcoming years.
Other than that we seem to be broadly on the same page. I appreciate your robust counterpoints to the misinformation that gets continually posted here.
> This is Russian POV. It's not the truth. Russia poisoned Ukrainian presidential candidate in 2003. It blackmailed Yanukovych in 2013. It doesn't care about formalities, it cares about owning Ukraine.
How can you be so sure? It's true that Russia was trying to influence Ukrainian politics for a long time - and Ukrainian politics have always been hugely determined by what they can do without pissing off Russia too much - as they always feared an invasion could happen if they did. They lost that fear, slowly, over the 20 years or so after independence... It was literally a bet by the pro-EU politicians to try to join NATO before Russia felt like it was necessary to intervene... We know that because you can easily read about the debates pre-2014 in Ukrainian politics. It was obvious to most observers that the Maidan Revolution was extremely dangerous for Ukraine, as it was clearly going to piss off Russia (an elected leader replaced by revolution, with the open support of the West - and no, this is not Russian propaganda, just read about the USA's pronouncements at the time, here for example: https://jacobin.com/2022/02/maidan-protests-neo-nazis-russia...).
You may say Russia has zero right to be pissed off, to be trying to influence a neighbouring, independent country, and I would agree in principle. But the fact that most people in the West (not all, a lot of geopolitics analysts keep repeating this) are unable to even comprehend why the Russians think it's absolutely fundamental for them that Ukraine does not align completely with NATO and the EU is very arrogant. Just think how the US might react if Mexico decided to align with Russia, and join some sort of Russian military alliance. OR maybe more realistically, with China. Have you heard of the Monroe Doctrine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monroe_Doctrine
That's basically the USA saying that they absolutely have the right to interfere on the whole Western Hemisphere, which they have done to great effect the whole 20th and 21st centuries, many times favouring the dictators, not the democratic leaders (if you don't know about this, I don't blame you, it's not well known by American people, though this is accepted fact by most scholars, check this article for an extensive list of American interventionism on Chile: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_intervention_in_...). I don't bring this up to make a "what about" argument against the West, but to show that it's at least hypocritical of the Western countries to claim that Russia must not interfere in any way on its closest neighbour.
> it cares about owning Ukraine
Hm, let's not go down to such kind of simplistic argument. Let me respond the way you did to me: that's not the truth.
> is Russia bloodthirsty enough to start nuclear war over Ukraine, or is it "just another country like us".
It's absolutely just a country like us, the fact that you need to ask a question like this shows that you're not even arguing in good faith. Just like they would defend whatever they consider their borders (and they do consider, now, the Donbas to be part of Russia itself, as you should know) with any means necessary, so would any of our countries in the West, wouldn't we?
Have you been there? I have, and I think anyone who has wouldn't say they're very different than us (unless you haven't been to many other countries to have a "reference" for what "different" means). I have been to Belarus as well, multiple times.
I can absolutely guarantee to you that the people are the same as in the USA or EU. They're different in only the most superficial things. They also love their families, they also love to buy things, to have fun on the beach, to cook a nice meal. Where they differ is on their religion and culture, though they're about as close to America in that regard as most other EU nations (because like them, they're also mostly Christians and having a "general" European culture and values, they're very much close to the USA, whose culture is so influenced by that European culture due to its population being majority European descendants).
You may argue "but politics are so different" but that's not an argument for "they're not a country like us". Politics can change easily because you don't need everyone to change, like with culture... is Spain not the same country since it became a democracy in as recently as 1976?? So I would say it's a huge mistake to try to classify a country by its politics. The Russians may eventually come around to a more democratic system, but like with the Chinese, they may prefer not to. Admitting that there are other possible systems that may be beneficial to the people is important for us in the West, after all, according to our own values, diversity is a good thing, isn't it? It's difficult and the West has a history of not accepting that other cultures may not want to be like themselves (in that respect, it's hard to differentiate us today from the jesuits in the past, we're basically doing the same thing, just instead of Catholicism we're now exporting "democratic values" or whatever), and even though we've learned that trying to force-civilize others is not the greatest idea, we still don't seem to accept we may not be the pinnacle of civilization.
I happened to live in the USSR for quite a few decades against my will, and I've seen many westerners with such naive impressions. You don't even understand how detached from reality you are. It's exactly the opposite of what you believe: people look the same only in the most superficial things that you experience during short trips as a tourist. You will learn that after you try to live a life there for a few years and start to stumble upon situations that would be solved one way in the western world and are solved completely the other way in that world.
A major difference from the western world is that Russia never developed a civil society independent from the government. In Europe, America and many other places, people have self-organized into everything from church groups to baseball leagues and gun clubs, run these organizations on their own dime, democratially choose people to lead the organizations and represent their interests, and keep them accountable. It fosters a culture of self-sufficiency and participation that enables democracy on the societal level. It creates the expectation that everyone deserves have their say and be heard, and that leaders are accountable to members and stakeholders and should pursue things that people tell them to pursue. And from these small local groups, large nationwide movements arise that can and do openly steer and challenge the government and its policies.
Russia has never had that. Its people have never had a say in how the country should be run, not directly through elections, nor indirectly through social activism. The only tolerated power vertical is the government. Environmental groups, human rights activists, ethnic minority groups, etc all get shut down when they start to have any meaningful impact. You can't even publish your thoughts and distribute them as a newsletter, and most people are completely indifferent to that because they are accustomed to a society that is run from top-down by unelected leaders. The eternal sunshine in the Kremlin tells how the things are, and their role is to take pride in suffering.
You can see that attitude spectacularly on display on that Youtube channel that has thousands of hours of interviews with Russian POWs in Ukrainian captivity. One of the most amazing things that keeps repeating from one interview to another is how it never occurred to them that they could just refuse to go when conscripted, refuse to sign papers declaring them volunteers, run away and go into hiding, or oppose in some other way. It never occured to them that they could question what authorities tell them to do. These are people who have been breed over centuries into total, unquestionable submission.
Roughly half a million are dead in completely senseless war, and there hasn't been not even a single large anti-war protest. Russia experiences one Vietnam war's worth of American losses every 6 weeks without any pushback from the society. This is totally unimaginable in the western world. Just look at the Gaza protests all over the western world. Nothing comparable exists in the Russian world over their involvement in Ukraine, despite their role as instigator, larger scale and much more horrific results.
I've done my time. You seem to think the average Russian's sense of identification with the Donbas is exactly the same as, say, that of a typical French person with Le Havre. It's not and is quite different in fact.
It's self-evident from their statements and their actions. Combined with even a basic understanding of regional history.
It's a fantasy to think you can push out half a million Russian soldiers [without nukes]
The Vietnamese managed do exactly that its colonial occupier (the United States) some 50 years ago. France got kicked out of Algeria. The U.S. got its ass handed back to it again, Afghanistan just a few years ago. In order to reverse an occupation, one doesn't need total, crushing victory (though that would of course be more than welcome on the ground in Ukraine). You just have to convince the occupier that project will be ultimately unsustainable.
And that the time has come to pick up their toys and go home.
Ukraine loses some land. People there are tortured, brainwashed, scared into submission and drafted to Russian army. Russia rebuilds its stocks. In 3-5 years Russia invades again and the situation repeats.
This already happened in 2014. If we let Russia sell this war as a victory to its population - they will repeat it again.
The problem isn't what happens immediately after "diplomatic solution". The problem is that the end result is war anyway, just easier for Russia. That's why Ukrainians don't want it.
After the 2014 annexation of Krimea, Ukraine could have chosen to "appease" Russia, but it didn't. So I think your argument is backwards: if you wanted to prevent the invasion of 2022, you should've solved the 2014 crisis diplomatically, the invasion was a result of a failure in doing so. I'm afraid that failing to solve the current situation diplomatically will actually end up with a much larger portion of pre-2014 Ukraine territory never being returned to Ukraine (though IMHO there's very little chance Ukraine will disappear completely, or even lose Kyiv, as Russians have not shown much interest in extending the occupied regions so much in the last few months beyond Donbas and Luhansk - which they seem on a path to completely take over soon).
Here's an example that's applicable to the current situation, I believe, where a Peace Deal was achieved and brought permanent peace:
Very similar situation to today. The peace deal involved ceding quite a lot of land to the USSR, more than USSR initially bargained for (though Finland is still seen as having exited that conflict very positively today).
The peace after that has basically lasted to this day and Finland is not at a hugely disadvantaged position because of the losses it suffered by signing that peace deal.
There are many example of such deals in history, most wars actually ended up with similar deals. Only very few wars ended up with "complete victory" by one side, like WWII (though people seem to want every war now to end like that, forgetting just how extremely heavy the price was in that occasion, for both sides - or actually all the various sides involved).
If you wanted to prevent the invasion of 2022, you should've solved the 2014 crisis diplomatically, the invasion was a result of a failure in doing so.
The invasion started in 2014, not 2022.
There was no "diplomatic crisis" at the time. It was an outright, unprovoked invasion from the very start. The same invasion that has continued to the present day.
Your reading of the Winter War is just as backwards. But if you can't get 2014 even remotely correct there's no reason to dissect the footnotes of 1940.
You ignorance on the matter could be cured by reading about what caused the 2014 Revolution, if you're actually interested in learning instead of throwing insults.
The whole affair was a diplomatic crisis. Ukraine had a EU deal on one side, a Russian deal on the other. The president at the time went with the Russian deal. The population revolted. Another deal was made with the mediation of the EU, so that there would be elections at the end of the year. That made people even more pissed off, there was some violence and finally the elected president was removed.
Russia saw Ukraine tearing up the deal which had the support of the EU as a dangerous provocation. The USA openly supported tearing up the EU-supported deal! It was a mess.
If you don't understand that this is a diplomatic crisis, you really don't have enough knowledge to intelligently discuss anything after that.
I know all about 2014, from people who were there.
There was no "crisis" that provided any rational reason for Russia to intervene with force (either at the time, or after Ukraine's failure to "solve" it in subsequent years) is what I obviously meant.
> After the 2014 annexation of Krimea, Ukraine could have chosen to "appease" Russia, but it didn't.
It literally did. Zelenski was considered the appeasement president and he tried to appease russia at the start of his term by starting the talks on some long-term settlement about which territory belongs to whom.
Putin responded by another invasion as soon as pandemic ended.
Russia does not want Ukraine to lose some territory and enter EU and NATO. It wants Ukraine to be kept in eternal war that thaws and is frozen as needed, so Ukraine cannot enter EU nor NATO forever.
The problem from Russian POV is that Ukraine is considered "Russia but more provincial", and if Ukraine has wealthy, democratic state - Russians will ask "why can't we?". Hence for Putin and the rest of russian elites - Ukraine can't enter EU.
The solution isn't to let Russia dictate what other countries can and cannot do. The solution is to stop Russia once and for all. Each next war will be more expansive in lives and money.
If you let Russia conquer Ukraine - you will have Russia with 30 million more people, all the soldiers that Ukraine trained, all the weapons that survive - going to Baltic states next. Congratulations. Very "pragmatic" and "realpolitik".
I would love to discuss this topic with you, but unfortunately you seem to misunderstand every single point you've brought up in your response :( . Perhaps I can help clarify a few things so that an actual discussion can be started:
> Zelenski was considered the appeasement president...
Zelenski was voted president several years after 2014, in 2019. If anyone "appeased" Russia, it was the guy appointed interim prime minister (with USA support) after the revolution, Arseniy Yatsenyuk. Even though Zelensky was never very vocal in opposition to Russia during his early mandate, he did sign, in March 2021, a "strategy for de-occupation and reintegration of the temporarily occupied territory of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol.". You can read more about that from Ukrainin media: https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-polytics/3214479-zelensky-e...
Zelenskyy's also was in Brussels in June 2019 to talk with NATO officials. That was not conductive to peaceful negotiations with Russia.
He did try to find a peaceful resolution for the conflict in Donbas, and almost reached a deal with Putin after they met face to face (all they had to do was accept local elections results and the Russians were going to withdraw) but was stopped by his own government supporters who even accused him of "playing in the hands of Putin" (a familiar accusation these days). They wanted a hardline on Russia, and we all know what that has led to.
Now, I absolutely agree that right before the invasion, Zelensky made an effort to ease the tensions as the invasion was imminent. But by then, it was too little, too late.
> It wants Ukraine to be kept in eternal war that thaws and is frozen as needed, so Ukraine cannot enter EU nor NATO forever.
There's no basis on reality with that sort of rhetoric. Putin has been open to peace deal negotiations on multiple occasions, a deal was almost reached in Belarus just a couple of months into the conflict (it was the West who backed off those discussions). Putin has declared very recently he's open to dialogue, but as you may know, Zelensky has declared that no discussion will be had while Putin is in office. How can you defend such an argument given those facts?!? It really boggles my mind people say things like this with a straight face.
> The solution is to stop Russia once and for all.
There's only one way to do that: nuclear war. Because if you try to invade Russia to "stop them once and for all", you know all too well that's what you'll get. I hope you're not seriously advocating for that... if you are, I sincerely hope that you'll remember that you were on the wrong side of history when your family and friends, perhaps you yourself, suffer the consequences of such callous actions... but I do believe most people are not that murder-inclined, so this will not come to ever become a reality.
> Putin has declared very recently he's open to dialogue
Then he can pick up a phone, call Shoigu, and have a dialogue with him about issuing an order down the chain of command to withdraw troops from Ukraine if he is so keen on peace. But he doesn't do that because the goal is not peace, but concessions from Ukraine.
Looking at the Ukrainian territories currently occupied by Russia, it doesn't seem like zero is the correct answer. When the territory is captured, that's when "zachistka" starts...
> You're claiming a hypothetical future made up in your head where Russia will still continue attacking others.
Because that's what always happened in the past after Russia conquered some territory?
Arguably a good point, but remember that the reason for that was that the settlement went too far in punishing the Germans. If it was a less "aggressive" settlement, arguably there would've been no WWII (but we can't know that, of course).
> There's literally no evidence that's the case, this is fear-mongering on a scale I've never seen before. To the contrary, the reaction of the world to this conflict has already made enough of an impression on any would-be invader that it's a really bad idea to enter a conflict where the West is on the opposing side, and I am very convinced that Putin won't try his hand again.
Russia is currently forming two new armies that have a larger size than the ground forces of most European countries combined, and preparing an extensive sabotage campaign across Europe, and chiefs of European military and intelligence agencies are issuing public warnings that this is a preparation for war against the rest of Europe.
Your mistake is projecting western sensibilities upon Russians and expecting them to act within the confines of western culture. They don't care about "losing a huge market", because they are driven by ideology. The timid western response to the war has proven two very important things for them: (1) western sanctions are not enough to suffocate the ability to wage war, (2) western sanctions will not lead to unrest and instability in Russia, (3) war is a tenable (albeit slow) method of achieving their goals.
Russian conclusions from the war so far are thus completely opposite of yours. The negative consequences have been much smaller than anyone expected: the economy has not collapsed, they have not run out of weapons and manpower, they have not seen mass protests, and they continue to make progress. They have learned that they can fire missiles into Europe and kill people every day and get away with it. They even have cheerleaders in the west who demand giving Russians whatever they want to make it stop.
> If you stop the war right now, zero.
You can rest assured that it will be nowhere near zero. Should fighting on the frontlines end, Russia will redeploy resources into weeding out any opposition to Russian occupation, which in practice means an extensive campaign of terror against civilian population, going as far as forced population transfers, mass executions and other crimes against humanity, as they have done everywhere else. This is their normal modus operandi.
Russia already operates concentration camps and death squads in occupied territories, and peace on the frontline will allow them to allocate more manpower to internal security and make the campaign more intense. This is a key point that naive peace activists get wrong: peace on the frontline will not mean peace for civilians in occupied territories, instead, things will get worse. Many will perish in "filtration" camps and "cleaning" operations where squads go from house to house and kill all inhabitants.
People arguing for peace without liberation of occupied territories don't understand what they are doing; it is a position held out sheer ignorance.
The difference is that you’re comparing a few vocal leftist people on the internet to the actual elected representatives of the right.
When you look at who is actually elected by the left wing of America, they are very moderate. That’s because that’s who “the left” actually is outside of Twitter. Meanwhile “the right” elects people like Trump, because that’s who they are.
FWIW your Israel example is not a right-left issue. It’s one of the few hot topics that cannot be divided on red/blue lines. There are lots of Zionists and non-Zionists on both sides, for all sorts of different and often wacky reasons.
> For example, try arguing that the USA should try to find a diplomatic solution to the conflict in Ukraine.
The US did try to find a diplomatic solution. Before the war we saw Biden talking about talking with Putin extensively. Since then we've heard about attempted negotiations by US diplomats, and I would expect those went deeper and longer than we get to hear about too.
I think the push back is the idea the the US should negotiate something with Russia that ignores the position of Ukraine and her people. And also I'm sure that a lot of us really don't like the idea of invasion being rewarded with territorial negotiation because we don't want our own countries put into that position, or have the threat hanging over us.
> I'm sure that a lot of us really don't like the idea of invasion being rewarded with territorial negotiation
I don't like that either, but we have to deal with the world we're living in. Almost every conflict in history ends up with territory changing hands. If you're the weaker side, you need to do everything possible to avoid direct conflict. You say US diplomats tried to find a diplomatic solution , but that's such a one-sided view. Do you think the other side didn't try at all? Do you believe that the Russians are bloodthirsty and looking for war no matter what? We need to stop looking at other countries like Russia, China, and even India, Brazil, Iran etc. as if they're ignorant, warring nations whose only concern is to cause trouble in the world. I would call this view childish, but because a lot of serious people seem to hold this cartoonish point-of-view, I need to use another term, I suppose... perhaps victim-attitude? It's always the others who are causing trouble trying to make our lives hell, it's never our fault, it's never us who are the problem?! America is involved in almost every conflict in the world right now, not just Ukraine and Israel, there are dozens more! Maybe it's not everyone else who is wrong?
> Do you believe that the Russians are bloodthirsty and looking for war no matter what?
You don't need to ask. Putin issued a letter in 2021 demanding NATO accept that Eastern Europe moves back into Russian sphere of influence. Including Baltic countries, my country - Poland, Ukraine, Slovakia, Czechia, Romania, etc. Over 100 million people in total sold to a dictatorship just like that. Against our will, of course, but you prefer not to look too closely into that, right? All the understanding for Iranian and Russian government, no empathy for the countries sold to them :)
This is what Russia will do if you let them. Not because Russians are bloodthirsty, but because Russia is a totalitarian imperialist state that can do it without consequences for the ruling elite.
The cheapest and least bloody way to stop it is to stop it now in Ukraine. If we don't - we will have to stop it in Ukraine the 3rd time Russia invades. Or the 4th, if it takes 4 times. Or when Russia goes for Baltic states. It won't get better until we stop it.
> Do you believe that the Russians are bloodthirsty and looking for war no matter what?
The Russian people? No. The Russian leadership? Utter disregard for human life on either side to achieve their shifting goals.
> Maybe it's not everyone else who is wrong?
Or maybe these countries are trying to challenge and weaken a global system supported by US influence. I'm not American, I didn't support Americas wars in the middle east, I recognise it is not often a power for good. But if I reject that invasion then I reject this invasion by Russia.
> I don't like that either, but we have to deal with the world we're living in
You've accused me of having a childish outlook but your view seems childish to me. What would a negotiated settlement look like that's acceptable to Russia do you think? It certainly wouldn't be one that is acceptable to Ukraine, and unlikely to Poland et al, and so if the US signed off and withdrew support the fighting would continue.
At some point the war will end in a settlement of some kind. At the moment the position of everyone involved is too wide for that to happen and the US is not the only party.
Asking for diplomatic solution now is ridiculous because it's obvious to anybody in the region that Russia wins long-term if we let them attack, negotiate parts of Ukraine, rebuild, attack, negotiate parts of Ukraine, regroup, etc. And Russia winning means thousands of people tortured and murdered. And then we get the war again anyway.
The only way Ukraine wins (and our region can be safe long-term) is if we punish Russia the one time they tried to bite off more than they were able to swallow.
I'm curious: did he used to have a talent for humor too?
What was once used to create a laugh, the absurdness of tangents and conspiracies, is now serious because it's attributed to a virtualized antagonist, who is manipulating our lives and making fun of it, by exploiting collective behavior, pulling the strings.
It's us that do not see we are manipulated, and that we are propelled to invest towards what's not in our own interest, taking them for a ride to an unwanted future. They must feel their control over their own lives is being taken away.
Perhaps like the jews knowingly went to the slaughter, and they could not be convinced to revolt themselves and fight for their life?
If you mean that he used the conspiracy theories to sound funny and edgy - maybe? Hard to tell what he believed when we were in middle school and what he just said for lolz. Now he does believe in all that shit.
The latter part of your comment was hard to parse for me, I can only say that some Jews did revolt (for example in Warsaw Ghetto). But I'm not sure what was your point with this analogy.
I find describing Climate change is easier when you explain it like milk going bad. You can have milk that's old and fine, and then bang, the next night it's bad in a big way. The change in that milk was happening all along, it just took the right amount of time to get past that tipping point, then things got really bad.
A LOT of the CC talk in the media is too complex, abstract and focuses on engineering or financial concepts that many people don't really grapple with day to day.
TV shows like Clarksons Farm are better at conveying the complexity of the changes.
I explain it using clouds. Most people know that a clear sky at night means it cools off a lot more than when there are clouds.
The effect of CO2 in the atmosphere is less than that, but it's always there. The amount can be measured with CO2 meters, and it's going up. You just don't see the cloud because CO2 is transparent.
People discuss human-made antennas placed in Alaska changing their weather, but can't comprehend that cutting down forests and burning coal can have an impact too.
at least there is a bit of poetic justice here: the people suffering for this stupidity are the people responsible for it <3
of course, being stupid,they refuse to call themselves into question, which blocks them from changing their behavior, which will lead to more suffering on their part...
Although I'm completely against their political view, our whole country is bleeding and helping the south go through it. There's no poetic justice in tragedy.
Don't know much about it, except that Pliny the Younger wrote some eyewitness account and that Josephus mentions it briefly. I'd guess it wasn't very interesting to dwell on since pretty much everyone affected died.
You're not actually arguing against weather modification and cloud seeding being real, are you? Cloud seeding has been done since the 50s and it's been suspected of being able to cause floods for quite some time: https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1219-rain-making-link...
I mean, sure, maybe HAARP is bs, what do I know, but ruling out cloud seeding and weather modification techniques such as stratospheric aerosol injection is borderline ignorant and ignoring science.
If I understand correctly, the massive flood in Dubai was directly caused by their rain-seeding program, right? Hope I didn't buy into some conspiracy theory :D but I read somewhere that they have been seeding rains over Dubai for many years.
I think what fuels a lot of conspiracy thinking is an emotional preference in having a nefarious actor or government agency controlling or causing a problem than realizing no one is in control. The Devil is less frightening than entropy.
Has anyone been to the HAARP research facility in Alaska? As a part time radio nerd I'd love to visit it.
Also, did they discover something "big" there? From reading the Wikipedia page I can roughly tell what were they trying to do, but it feels like they "merely" optimized existing comms setups, especially for HF and lower frequencies, then handed it back to the local university.
I wouldn't expect a site like phys.org to try this (and I appreciate the coverage here) but I sometimes wonder if similar articles elsewhere expect to achieve a goal of changing minds of those holding the positions they express are problematic, rather than just providing some news and talking points for an audience expected to already understand and agree with a publication's positions.
Since the audience that would benefit the most from actually having their minds changed are (in my experience) already used to hearing the 'normal' positions on these things but have decided to trust a different position more, though various means including familiarity and those who connect more with their state of mind at the time. It's not that such people are necessarily even 'so far gone' to be impenetrable either.
I find many publications that do anything from casual to more robust debunking don't appear to be attempting to communicate with the audience who believe these things, so they write in a voice that is already beginning from a typically condescending place in the assumption their audience is already aligned with their position. I suppose the expectation is those people will then be the horizontal conduits.
I've debunked various things on more personal levels with people but not by linking debunking articles as I haven't found disdain helps at all but rather understanding and then bridging what led to their position and more context that may clarify certain things (also tbf this is more a comment about many other articles I see, rather than phys' quite reasonable tone).
yeah that's nice that you point out the irony in 'official' sources blaming an organized group.
To my mind... I do think there is truth to the idea that if you're trying to make money in media (media = newspapers, television, internet), getting people's attention is more important than telling the truth.
From what I understand and have experienced, popular 'news' television channels (Fox News in the USA, for example) do not give their audiences well thought-out, nuanced analysis of what's happening, but rather push a very "us vs them, it's all their fault, get angry" mentality, because that gets them more eyeballs for advertisers.
It seems possible that social media influencers in Brazil have found that pushing the narrative of "it's the US government's fault" is more lucrative than "well, maybe we shouldn't cut down all those trees?"
however, I do agree that there is no reason a priori to assume they're acting together, and that this is anything more than a side effect of incentives created by social media algorithms.
The existence of organized groups trying to influence public opinion can be safely assumed including some working for the government. The issue is that government and their allies in traditional media quickly dismissed all forms of criticism as fake news by malicious actors. Which was a dumb move because many were valid criticism and easily verifiable. So this just increased mistrust in them.
Television channels initially ignored the floodings because they were focused on covering Madonna, them they ignored the severity of the floodings, them they attacked valid criticism and ignored the contribution of volunteers and other non-state actors. No wonder why journalists from the biggest news channel, Globo, are frequently harassed on the streets. e.g. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/b2v8CAV6zBI
> To my mind... I do think there is truth to the idea that if you're trying to make money in media (media = newspapers, television, internet), getting people's attention is more important than telling the truth.
I think that is true in the short term but I believe that in the long term telling the truth is more sustainable. With all it's issues, the Internet is an improvement, it descentralizes information, people get to news quicker and with less filters.
truth is much simpler. this region is like the Netherlands, it requires protection against back flood when rains change course of rivers. simple small dams.
this region have been governed by workers party since forever. zero floods. well, small ones that overridden the dams.
last extreme right elections put an extreme right government in that region since a long time. zero maintenance on "fake climate change" things. this is the result.
it's one hundred percent like Texas power grid. hence why the right wing sock puppet accounts are pushing flat earth level disinformation.
reality is always more boring.
and as always, if you even acknowledge the nonsense, the trolls win.
> this region have been governed by workers party since forever.
Not quite. The state of Rio Grande do Sul had 2 PT (Worker's Party) Governors: Olívio Dutra (1999-2003) and Tarso Genro (2011-2015).
RS's capital city Porto Alegre had a much longer PT administration (Starting with Olívio Dutra in 1989, ending with João Verle in 2005).
> zero floods. well, small ones that overridden the dams
Fine, but there hasn't been this much water, and especially condensed in this small period of a few days, since ... well, I imagine always. Even the previous record flood of 1941 in Porto Alegre was due to 22 days of rain. This took about 3 or 4.
> last extreme right elections put an extreme right government in that region
I'm not sure I'd call Eduardo Leite (current and previous State Governor) extreme right. That said, he's a typical liberal, and as such he likes to defund the State. He decreased public spending in civil protection by 90% from last year. And that's after last year also saw floodings and cyclones.
If you're talking about the Porto Alegre administration, I would maybe agree with the "extreme right" label on the current mayor, Sebastião Melo. Previous right-wing mayors have been mostly regular conservatives and/or regular liberals. Still right, still bad, but not quite Bolsonaro bad (though at least some are Bolsonaro supporters).
---
I came across a document from Porto Alegre's administration in 1992 [0] (first time with the Worker's Party in office, under the always thoughtful and overly intelligent Olívio Dutra) where they do an extensive analysis of the anti-flood systems in place, options on how to improve them and how important participation of civil society is in these processes.
Back then we had the world's first Participatory Budget [1] in place. In the document, the administration acknowledges that sanitation and flood prevention were not among their main flags during the election campaign, but the people voted and the administration started working on it.
This is how democracy should work IMO. It's not perfect but it's way better than simply voting to put people in office. Unfortunately it's been all but dismantled after PT left the administration.
In the US Eduardo Leite would 100% be left. In Brazil far-left is left, left is center and center is right so Eduardo Leite is center. He is a WEF young leadership, he is a progressist. https://www.weforum.org/people/eduardo-leite-6b4792907e/
> I wouldn't call anyone in the WEF a progressist. At least not because of that, since I consider the WEF a reactionary organisation.
You're right. WEF is globalist. Recently there is a strong convergence between globalist and progressist narratives but yep they aren't the same.
As I see the WEF and globalists in general are rich people buying their way into politics, stablishing a global financial elite in the seats of power. Do you consider it to be reactionary because it's in their interest to maintain the status quo?
Truth is much simpler. The rain volume was unanticipated, no matter what government was there, the catastrophe would still happen.
As you wrote, the left governed there for decades, and no adequate containment for this event was built, nor it was built by the following center-left following governments. There was never a right or far-right government there since the 70s. Unless you are referring to Bolsonaro, but then it would be weird since he’s already superseded by the worker’s party by a year and a half now.
> As you wrote, the left governed there for decades
This is false. Quoting from my sibling comment:
Not quite. The state of Rio Grande do Sul had 2 PT (Worker's Party) Governors: Olívio Dutra (1999-2003) and Tarso Genro (2011-2015).
RS's capital city Porto Alegre had a much longer PT administration (Starting with Olívio Dutra in 1989, ending with João Verle in 2005).
> no adequate containment for this event was built
I came across a document from Porto Alegre's administration in 1992 [0] (first time with the Worker's Party in office, under the always thoughtful and overly intelligent Olívio Dutra) where they do an extensive analysis of the anti-flood systems in place, options on how to improve them and how important participation of civil society is in these processes.
[0] https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/y02s8cvxf6qts3ktgc70q/PREVENIR-O-MELHOR-REM-DIO.pdf?rlkey=eqfzhu1pmxx6x288fskhtihy0&st=2tfc9iu1&dl=0
> There was never a right or far-right government there since the 70s
This has to be a joke. Aside from those administrations I cited, everyone single one of the others has been right-wing.
you quote verifiable historical facts and sources! you will be downvoted to hell by the extreme-right-who-think-themselves-as-smart-centre. bon voyage my friend.
I only wish people would stop calling these "conspiracy theories" and would begin calling it "stupid political tribalism".
The truth of the matter is that these stupidities are politically motivated. People saying this bullshit are the ones that deliberately want to dismiss the reality of global warming.
And they will keep on overlooking evidence and speculate on the most lunatic way possible into disaster.
True but every coin has two sides. The other side of climate change denialists is ecoauthoritarianism. There are people inserting climate change in every discussion, spreading fear and using climate change as an excuse to increase governments powers and promote authoritarianism.
Climate changes make the weather more wild and unpredictable but it's not 100% the cause behind every weather phenoma. This region, Porto Alegre, experienced floodings in 1873, 1897, 1905, 1912, 1914, 1926, 1928, 1936, 1941. In 1941 anti-floodings systems where built which prevented flooding for almost a century. I don't think the magnitude of the record flooding that is happening this year could be predicted though certainly lenience towards weather phenomena mitigation is a prevalent trend in Brazil.
The agricultural sector wants to keep fighting environmental legislation.
It might seem stupid, but even though Rio Grande do Sul has lost about 50% of this year's soy harvest, you can be sure that farmers will be bailed out by the government. And so if you put the blame on anything other than the degradation of the environment, you can keep justifying chopping down more forests right up to the margins of rivers.
Anecdotal. Watching ag day for years, the amount of large scale farming in the central South American region has increased significantly. Expect increased runoff and decreased natural cooling from old growth forests. Not saying other things aren't a factor but as we see many farms in the US returning to cover crops in the off season for soil amendment, sand dams in Africa for water capture...we will need to find practices that help central and south South America find their balance.
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[ 2.4 ms ] story [ 180 ms ] threadhttps://books.google.pt/books?id=gtU3EAAAQBAJ
Also the outgroup in this case is science/scientists.
It's just, (a) CO2 is invisible, and (b) CO2 being this chemical is politically unacceptable to people who make money selling carbon rich fuels and also to people who are currently unable to switch to a different power supply.
https://iee.psu.edu/news/podcast/growing-impact-contrails-an...
This was in the news recently as Google removed this aspect from its flight GHG impact estimate as it was averaging over all flights, and intends to adjust it in future so that flights at the time of day that create contrails will have more GHG impact attributed to them.
The problem is the people who spent half their day reading and sharing fake scientific articles. Those are not really "tuning out".
There's nothing simple about about government agencies and weather manipulating satellites though.
It seems like the reality is the exact opposite. Science is way too boring and simple for most people, and unlike conspiracy theories science doesn't absolve you of responsibility. Therefore those people will rather invent 500 pages of crackpot lore rather than take a high school chemistry or math class.
It's fascinating and scary at the same time. It's what happens when you do motivated thinking for decades. He believes in all the alt-right crap about "gender ideology", "fake climate change", "fake pandemic", etc. He just completely ignores any data that contradicts what he thinks.
In middle school he "just" disliked gays and was pretty normal overall. Now there's no subject on which you can talk with him without some batshit insane views.
A big part of this is splinters of American culture war that spreads over the rest of the world as a side-effect. I can understand why some people in US think cancel culture and wokeness went too far. But then you have people repeating the same "antiwoke" alt-right points imported from USA in countries where you go to jail for criticizing Catholic Church and president together with main bishop go on anti-gay hate campaigns on state TV. And somehow it's still the alt-right that fights for "free speech", when they have no problem with "go to jail for blasphemy" laws.
Once you buy into this culture war and decide you're on one side - you interpret all new data accordingly. So you cannot believe in climate change, cause that's what leftists do. So if you see climate change - it's because NWO causes it with contrails. Trump is your guy cause he hates gays. So if he does things that benefit Russia - it's his brilliant plan to deal with Putin that you simply can't understand yet.
Always add more hidden variables that make your worldview consistent.
I'm yet to hear of such a country. Aren't you thinking of lese majesté laws that some countries like Spain and the Netherlands have?
There's about 50 people sentenced per year.
My point wasn't that, my point was that people supporing these consider themselves "fighting for free speech" because they want to be able to insult minorities.
Only obvious one where this may be currently enforced is El Salvador? Though I can't quickly find any recent examples, so maybe that's not true. And places like Monaco still haven't repealed those laws. Edit: also Poland – from a sibling comment.
[0] https://end-blasphemy-laws.org/countries/
My friend works in IT and earns probably in the 99th or 98th percentile in the country. It's not that. In fact I don't think economic wellbeing is related at all. Poland has been doing great economically for the last 30 years, and yet the conspiracy theories are spreading.
I mostly blame social media. Previously if you wanted to know how the climate works you looked it up in encyclopedia, watched some TV or asked a teacher. They mostly weren't spreading bullshit.
Now you search internet and there's so much bullshit confirming all your wrong ideas you can spend weeks reading just that.
I also know a huge amount of conspiracy theory believers in the medical area. Also otherwise competent.
If anything, the correlation with loneliness or low status was reverse: the richer and high-status, the more blatant and visible those beliefs were. People in low-prestige professions, or poor? It was very rare to see them talk about it.
I'm don't believe in conspiracy theories however, because I'm mature enough to accept that sometimes bad things happen for reasons other than "evil underground cabal of satanists".
especially this one - these people seem like they're in denial about their actions causing climate change causing their catastrophic weather, so they invent invisible bogeymen to blame.
I imagine that when they get dumped by their girlfriend, they'll blame it on George Soros manipulating her via 5G raditation instead of "well maybe she didn't like you being an abusive alcoholic who cheated on her?"
You will fall under criticism for saying this because it is indeed ignorant and naive and will only kill more people. Peace at any cost will only give Russia a chance to focus on repressing internal dissent in occupied territories and murder people until they have no meaningful opposition left there. After that, they can renew their attack on Ukraine and widen it to the rest of Europe, forcibly conscripting people from occupied territories to fight for them. This already happened after the 2014 invasion. How many times do you want to repeat the mistake before learning from it? In this round, about half a million are dead and many Ukrainian cities look no different from Hiroshima and Nagasaki after nuclear bombing. How many people more will have to die? 10 million?
Insisting on peace at any cost is purely emotional feel-good response that ignores the realities on the ground. Much of the discussion about Palestine and other hot topics is the same; uneducated virtue signaling fueled by social media narcissism.
> After that, they can renew their attack on Ukraine and widen it to the rest of Europe
There's literally no evidence that's the case, this is fear-mongering on a scale I've never seen before. To the contrary, the reaction of the world to this conflict has already made enough of an impression on any would-be invader that it's a really bad idea to enter a conflict where the West is on the opposing side, and I am very convinced that Putin won't try his hand again. Of course, I cannot prove that to you, but you can't prove anything either, you're using the same "emotional" argument you've accused me of using. Your argument goes down to "we must continue killing people in a war to prove a point". I find that argument abhorrent.
> How many people more will have to die? 10 million?
If you stop the war right now, zero. You're claiming a hypothetical future made up in your head where Russia will still continue attacking others. At least try to consider that that may not happen? Consider that Russia knows very well it will suffer for decades from mistrust by the West, by sanctions and by losing a huge market. It knows all that, why would it want to make things even worse? This argument by some of the Western media just doesn't make sense, try to think about it rationally!
> Insisting on peace at any cost is purely emotional feel-good response
This is always the same argument used most war-mongering people in history, it's the cause of the death of millions because every war in history started because of someone holding that view. We need to go back to a civilized dialog between nations. You can claim that Putin is the one who broke the peace, and I agree with that, but just trying to continue a big war to make him pay for that mistake seems pitty. In my opinion, fighting any war for any reason is not what a civilized mind would do. There are cases it's unavoidable, but this is NOT one of those. It's avoidable, Putin is open to dialog, don't believe the narrative you've been told. There is room for dialog, the war was almost ended with the peace talks in Belarus... have you forgotten that? Do you know why that didn't stop the war?? Read about it, it was NOT because of Russia.
Because its leadership is deranged, and is willing to put a large chunk of its population through a wood chopper (and endure decades of blunted growth and economic estrangement) in order to indulge its geopolitical fantasies. Which is why it started the current war in 2014 in the first place.
Ukraine losing some territory is NOT the end of the world
The literal "end of the world", no. But it would lead to a very bad long-term situation in Europe and throughout the world if Russia's aggression were to be validated in this case.
Especially if it were to be awarded -- as you appear to be advocating -- permanent sovereignty over the territories it is currently claiming.
How can you be so sure? Because you saw it on the news? Like "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq?
> in order to indulge its geopolitical fantasies.
Is it a fantasy to prevent Ukraine joining NATO? Is it a fantasy to narrow down the Western border to a more "defendable" region? Maybe.
But I would say it's a fantasy to think you can push out half a million Russian soldiers from an area 20% the size of pre-2014 Ukraine back into Russia without causing an absolutely massive escalation in which nuclear weapons are not just a possibility, but almost a certainty. A 60 billion dollars package won't make a dent. Are you willing to send 10x that (I suppose that level of money would indeed make a dent, but who knows, maybe not even that)? Send enough troops to get the job done (i.e. the real possibility of your family members being sent to die in the front)? We all know the answer: that won't happen.
If you force Ukraine to give up some territories to Russia and stop the war now - you're only making sure Russia invades in a few years again after establishing new bases, refilling stocks and drafting people from new territories to army. This is what happened with Crimea and the part of Donbas they occupied in 2014.
You're not saving any lives, you're just making the next war easier for Putin.
As for nuclear weapons - ask yourself why hasn't USA nuked Vietnam, Iraq or Afghanistan.
That's a distorted view of reality. In 2008, Ukraine was very far from being in a position to join NATO, or even to want to. When the 2014 revolution happened, remember that there was a pro-Russia elected president in Ukraine. The Donbas war and the Crimea annexation happened exactly in response to the ousting of that president by the Maidan Revolution. Most of the Donbas was/is strongly pro-Russian (they had been voting for Pro-Russian governments since the independence of Ukraine from the USSR, just check some maps of pre-2014 elections results by Ukrainian region). So, no, that's not what happened in 2014 at all, and I don't understand why some people are repeating this narrative uncritically.
> As for nuclear weapons - ask yourself why hasn't USA nuked Vietnam, Iraq or Afghanistan.
The USA had no business in those countries. That has nothing to do with the situation in Russia, where they see Ukraine alignment as absolutely essential for their defense strategy. Vietnam is exactly in the opposite side of the world from the USA. Ukraine is basically the gate to the Russian heartlands. If you hold Ukraine, Russia cannot effectively defend against you. It's such a completely different situation that I must ask if you're trolling?
Jake Sullivan (American diplomat) said in an interview with Mikhail Zygar recently that he was in the room when it was talked about. Ukraine was in favour. Eastern Europe was in favour. USA was in favour. Germany and France blocked it, indirectly making the war in 2014 and this one possible.
> The Donbas war and the Crimea annexation happened exactly in response to the ousting of that president by the Maidan Revolution
This is Russian POV. It's not the truth. Russia poisoned Ukrainian presidential candidate in 2003. It blackmailed Yanukovych in 2013. It doesn't care about formalities, it cares about owning Ukraine.
> If you hold Ukraine, Russia cannot effectively defend against you.
Nobody wants to invade Russia and you know it perfectly well. Russia knows it too (that's why they moved the army from Finnish border and from Kaliningrad Oblast). You can shell Sankt Petersburg from Finland using regular artillery. If anything - Finland entering NATO is a much worse military problem for Russia than Ukraine. Yet somehow Russia was fine with it, but Ukraine is just impossible :)
It's just an excuse, the real reason Russia invaded Ukraine twice is just imperialism. And they can be cured from it. They just need to lose their imperial war, like all the other empires.
> The USA had no business in those countries.
And neither does Russia in Ukraine.
Decide for yourself - is Russia bloodthirsty enough to start nuclear war over Ukraine, or is it "just another country like us". You can't have it both ways.
Well, that's speculative. If the move had been green-lighted it could have triggered a spontaneous kinetic/punitive action of some sort (as Putin would have to look like he's "doing something"). Which would have led to who knows what.
100 percent on the money, everything else you said.
We just don't know how the Yushchenko government (let alone whoever his successor may have been after 2010) would have handled the situation. And without sufficient time to integrate properly -- the accession would have been essentially a bluff, and interpreted by Putin (though his sockpuppet Medvedev, if the latter was still in place) accordingly.
Had he full-on invaded shortly thereafter -- Ukraine definitely would not have fared as well as it did in 2022 (due to the partial state of integration, and the fact that didn't have the 8 years of invaluable training in the field that it had by 2022). Even if it was a clusterfuck operation like the initial SMO. Recall how quickly the Crimea defense fell apart in 2014 (for the simple reason it was entirely unprepared). Tactical nuke risk would have been significantly higher if NATO units were involved, especially if they were blitzkrieging.
One can see many scenarios unfolding - many of them quite bad.
Even in 2014 with all the corruption in Ukrainian army and all the preparations (remember that Yanukovych was blackmailed by Putin in 2013 to stop the EU agreement according to a parliament member from his party) - so Putin had prepared for at least 1 year - once Ukraine started the ATO (anti-terrorist operation) - they quickly regained several territories till Russia sent another wave of "volunteers" in "nothern wind" operation.
It's very unlikely Russia would be able to do anything quickly in 2008 that would be anywhere close to what it did with year of advance planning in 2014. And it's very, very unlikely that it would have ended up worse for Ukraine somehow.
IMHO Russia would just do nothing, cause the risk/effect calculation would be much worse for them had Ukraine already be in NATO.
It's time to accept that the west fucked up in 2008.
Other than that we seem to be broadly on the same page. I appreciate your robust counterpoints to the misinformation that gets continually posted here.
How can you be so sure? It's true that Russia was trying to influence Ukrainian politics for a long time - and Ukrainian politics have always been hugely determined by what they can do without pissing off Russia too much - as they always feared an invasion could happen if they did. They lost that fear, slowly, over the 20 years or so after independence... It was literally a bet by the pro-EU politicians to try to join NATO before Russia felt like it was necessary to intervene... We know that because you can easily read about the debates pre-2014 in Ukrainian politics. It was obvious to most observers that the Maidan Revolution was extremely dangerous for Ukraine, as it was clearly going to piss off Russia (an elected leader replaced by revolution, with the open support of the West - and no, this is not Russian propaganda, just read about the USA's pronouncements at the time, here for example: https://jacobin.com/2022/02/maidan-protests-neo-nazis-russia...).
You may say Russia has zero right to be pissed off, to be trying to influence a neighbouring, independent country, and I would agree in principle. But the fact that most people in the West (not all, a lot of geopolitics analysts keep repeating this) are unable to even comprehend why the Russians think it's absolutely fundamental for them that Ukraine does not align completely with NATO and the EU is very arrogant. Just think how the US might react if Mexico decided to align with Russia, and join some sort of Russian military alliance. OR maybe more realistically, with China. Have you heard of the Monroe Doctrine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monroe_Doctrine
That's basically the USA saying that they absolutely have the right to interfere on the whole Western Hemisphere, which they have done to great effect the whole 20th and 21st centuries, many times favouring the dictators, not the democratic leaders (if you don't know about this, I don't blame you, it's not well known by American people, though this is accepted fact by most scholars, check this article for an extensive list of American interventionism on Chile: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_intervention_in_...). I don't bring this up to make a "what about" argument against the West, but to show that it's at least hypocritical of the Western countries to claim that Russia must not interfere in any way on its closest neighbour.
> it cares about owning Ukraine
Hm, let's not go down to such kind of simplistic argument. Let me respond the way you did to me: that's not the truth.
> is Russia bloodthirsty enough to start nuclear war over Ukraine, or is it "just another country like us".
It's absolutely just a country like us, the fact that you need to ask a question like this shows that you're not even arguing in good faith. Just like they would defend whatever they consider their borders (and they do consider, now, the Donbas to be part of Russia itself, as you should know) with any means necessary, so would any of our countries in the West, wouldn't we?
Actually it's a very different place. And this seems to be one of the missing pieces of your analysis here.
You may argue "but politics are so different" but that's not an argument for "they're not a country like us". Politics can change easily because you don't need everyone to change, like with culture... is Spain not the same country since it became a democracy in as recently as 1976?? So I would say it's a huge mistake to try to classify a country by its politics. The Russians may eventually come around to a more democratic system, but like with the Chinese, they may prefer not to. Admitting that there are other possible systems that may be beneficial to the people is important for us in the West, after all, according to our own values, diversity is a good thing, isn't it? It's difficult and the West has a history of not accepting that other cultures may not want to be like themselves (in that respect, it's hard to differentiate us today from the jesuits in the past, we're basically doing the same thing, just instead of Catholicism we're now exporting "democratic values" or whatever), and even though we've learned that trying to force-civilize others is not the greatest idea, we still don't seem to accept we may not be the pinnacle of civilization.
A major difference from the western world is that Russia never developed a civil society independent from the government. In Europe, America and many other places, people have self-organized into everything from church groups to baseball leagues and gun clubs, run these organizations on their own dime, democratially choose people to lead the organizations and represent their interests, and keep them accountable. It fosters a culture of self-sufficiency and participation that enables democracy on the societal level. It creates the expectation that everyone deserves have their say and be heard, and that leaders are accountable to members and stakeholders and should pursue things that people tell them to pursue. And from these small local groups, large nationwide movements arise that can and do openly steer and challenge the government and its policies.
Russia has never had that. Its people have never had a say in how the country should be run, not directly through elections, nor indirectly through social activism. The only tolerated power vertical is the government. Environmental groups, human rights activists, ethnic minority groups, etc all get shut down when they start to have any meaningful impact. You can't even publish your thoughts and distribute them as a newsletter, and most people are completely indifferent to that because they are accustomed to a society that is run from top-down by unelected leaders. The eternal sunshine in the Kremlin tells how the things are, and their role is to take pride in suffering.
You can see that attitude spectacularly on display on that Youtube channel that has thousands of hours of interviews with Russian POWs in Ukrainian captivity. One of the most amazing things that keeps repeating from one interview to another is how it never occurred to them that they could just refuse to go when conscripted, refuse to sign papers declaring them volunteers, run away and go into hiding, or oppose in some other way. It never occured to them that they could question what authorities tell them to do. These are people who have been breed over centuries into total, unquestionable submission.
Roughly half a million are dead in completely senseless war, and there hasn't been not even a single large anti-war protest. Russia experiences one Vietnam war's worth of American losses every 6 weeks without any pushback from the society. This is totally unimaginable in the western world. Just look at the Gaza protests all over the western world. Nothing comparable exists in the Russian world over their involvement in Ukraine, despite their role as instigator, larger scale and much more horrific results.
I've done my time. You seem to think the average Russian's sense of identification with the Donbas is exactly the same as, say, that of a typical French person with Le Havre. It's not and is quite different in fact.
It's self-evident from their statements and their actions. Combined with even a basic understanding of regional history.
It's a fantasy to think you can push out half a million Russian soldiers [without nukes]
The Vietnamese managed do exactly that its colonial occupier (the United States) some 50 years ago. France got kicked out of Algeria. The U.S. got its ass handed back to it again, Afghanistan just a few years ago. In order to reverse an occupation, one doesn't need total, crushing victory (though that would of course be more than welcome on the ground in Ukraine). You just have to convince the occupier that project will be ultimately unsustainable.
And that the time has come to pick up their toys and go home.
This already happened in 2014. If we let Russia sell this war as a victory to its population - they will repeat it again.
The problem isn't what happens immediately after "diplomatic solution". The problem is that the end result is war anyway, just easier for Russia. That's why Ukrainians don't want it.
Appeasing dictators never works out.
Here's an example that's applicable to the current situation, I believe, where a Peace Deal was achieved and brought permanent peace:
- Finland, 13th of March 1940 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_War)
Very similar situation to today. The peace deal involved ceding quite a lot of land to the USSR, more than USSR initially bargained for (though Finland is still seen as having exited that conflict very positively today).
The peace after that has basically lasted to this day and Finland is not at a hugely disadvantaged position because of the losses it suffered by signing that peace deal.
There are many example of such deals in history, most wars actually ended up with similar deals. Only very few wars ended up with "complete victory" by one side, like WWII (though people seem to want every war now to end like that, forgetting just how extremely heavy the price was in that occasion, for both sides - or actually all the various sides involved).
The invasion started in 2014, not 2022.
There was no "diplomatic crisis" at the time. It was an outright, unprovoked invasion from the very start. The same invasion that has continued to the present day.
Your reading of the Winter War is just as backwards. But if you can't get 2014 even remotely correct there's no reason to dissect the footnotes of 1940.
You ignorance on the matter could be cured by reading about what caused the 2014 Revolution, if you're actually interested in learning instead of throwing insults.
The whole affair was a diplomatic crisis. Ukraine had a EU deal on one side, a Russian deal on the other. The president at the time went with the Russian deal. The population revolted. Another deal was made with the mediation of the EU, so that there would be elections at the end of the year. That made people even more pissed off, there was some violence and finally the elected president was removed.
Russia saw Ukraine tearing up the deal which had the support of the EU as a dangerous provocation. The USA openly supported tearing up the EU-supported deal! It was a mess.
If you don't understand that this is a diplomatic crisis, you really don't have enough knowledge to intelligently discuss anything after that.
There was no "crisis" that provided any rational reason for Russia to intervene with force (either at the time, or after Ukraine's failure to "solve" it in subsequent years) is what I obviously meant.
It literally did. Zelenski was considered the appeasement president and he tried to appease russia at the start of his term by starting the talks on some long-term settlement about which territory belongs to whom.
Putin responded by another invasion as soon as pandemic ended.
Russia does not want Ukraine to lose some territory and enter EU and NATO. It wants Ukraine to be kept in eternal war that thaws and is frozen as needed, so Ukraine cannot enter EU nor NATO forever.
The problem from Russian POV is that Ukraine is considered "Russia but more provincial", and if Ukraine has wealthy, democratic state - Russians will ask "why can't we?". Hence for Putin and the rest of russian elites - Ukraine can't enter EU.
The solution isn't to let Russia dictate what other countries can and cannot do. The solution is to stop Russia once and for all. Each next war will be more expansive in lives and money.
If you let Russia conquer Ukraine - you will have Russia with 30 million more people, all the soldiers that Ukraine trained, all the weapons that survive - going to Baltic states next. Congratulations. Very "pragmatic" and "realpolitik".
> Zelenski was considered the appeasement president...
Zelenski was voted president several years after 2014, in 2019. If anyone "appeased" Russia, it was the guy appointed interim prime minister (with USA support) after the revolution, Arseniy Yatsenyuk. Even though Zelensky was never very vocal in opposition to Russia during his early mandate, he did sign, in March 2021, a "strategy for de-occupation and reintegration of the temporarily occupied territory of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol.". You can read more about that from Ukrainin media: https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-polytics/3214479-zelensky-e...
Zelenskyy's also was in Brussels in June 2019 to talk with NATO officials. That was not conductive to peaceful negotiations with Russia.
He did try to find a peaceful resolution for the conflict in Donbas, and almost reached a deal with Putin after they met face to face (all they had to do was accept local elections results and the Russians were going to withdraw) but was stopped by his own government supporters who even accused him of "playing in the hands of Putin" (a familiar accusation these days). They wanted a hardline on Russia, and we all know what that has led to.
Now, I absolutely agree that right before the invasion, Zelensky made an effort to ease the tensions as the invasion was imminent. But by then, it was too little, too late.
> It wants Ukraine to be kept in eternal war that thaws and is frozen as needed, so Ukraine cannot enter EU nor NATO forever.
There's no basis on reality with that sort of rhetoric. Putin has been open to peace deal negotiations on multiple occasions, a deal was almost reached in Belarus just a couple of months into the conflict (it was the West who backed off those discussions). Putin has declared very recently he's open to dialogue, but as you may know, Zelensky has declared that no discussion will be had while Putin is in office. How can you defend such an argument given those facts?!? It really boggles my mind people say things like this with a straight face.
> The solution is to stop Russia once and for all.
There's only one way to do that: nuclear war. Because if you try to invade Russia to "stop them once and for all", you know all too well that's what you'll get. I hope you're not seriously advocating for that... if you are, I sincerely hope that you'll remember that you were on the wrong side of history when your family and friends, perhaps you yourself, suffer the consequences of such callous actions... but I do believe most people are not that murder-inclined, so this will not come to ever become a reality.
Then he can pick up a phone, call Shoigu, and have a dialogue with him about issuing an order down the chain of command to withdraw troops from Ukraine if he is so keen on peace. But he doesn't do that because the goal is not peace, but concessions from Ukraine.
His minimum requirement is permanent recognized sovereignty for the areas he's currently sitting on (and likely then some), as you may know.
Do you think Ukraine should agree to these terms? A simple yes or no, please.
Looking at the Ukrainian territories currently occupied by Russia, it doesn't seem like zero is the correct answer. When the territory is captured, that's when "zachistka" starts...
> You're claiming a hypothetical future made up in your head where Russia will still continue attacking others.
Because that's what always happened in the past after Russia conquered some territory?
Versailles.
Russia is currently forming two new armies that have a larger size than the ground forces of most European countries combined, and preparing an extensive sabotage campaign across Europe, and chiefs of European military and intelligence agencies are issuing public warnings that this is a preparation for war against the rest of Europe.
Your mistake is projecting western sensibilities upon Russians and expecting them to act within the confines of western culture. They don't care about "losing a huge market", because they are driven by ideology. The timid western response to the war has proven two very important things for them: (1) western sanctions are not enough to suffocate the ability to wage war, (2) western sanctions will not lead to unrest and instability in Russia, (3) war is a tenable (albeit slow) method of achieving their goals.
Russian conclusions from the war so far are thus completely opposite of yours. The negative consequences have been much smaller than anyone expected: the economy has not collapsed, they have not run out of weapons and manpower, they have not seen mass protests, and they continue to make progress. They have learned that they can fire missiles into Europe and kill people every day and get away with it. They even have cheerleaders in the west who demand giving Russians whatever they want to make it stop.
> If you stop the war right now, zero.
You can rest assured that it will be nowhere near zero. Should fighting on the frontlines end, Russia will redeploy resources into weeding out any opposition to Russian occupation, which in practice means an extensive campaign of terror against civilian population, going as far as forced population transfers, mass executions and other crimes against humanity, as they have done everywhere else. This is their normal modus operandi.
Russia already operates concentration camps and death squads in occupied territories, and peace on the frontline will allow them to allocate more manpower to internal security and make the campaign more intense. This is a key point that naive peace activists get wrong: peace on the frontline will not mean peace for civilians in occupied territories, instead, things will get worse. Many will perish in "filtration" camps and "cleaning" operations where squads go from house to house and kill all inhabitants.
People arguing for peace without liberation of occupied territories don't understand what they are doing; it is a position held out sheer ignorance.
When you look at who is actually elected by the left wing of America, they are very moderate. That’s because that’s who “the left” actually is outside of Twitter. Meanwhile “the right” elects people like Trump, because that’s who they are.
FWIW your Israel example is not a right-left issue. It’s one of the few hot topics that cannot be divided on red/blue lines. There are lots of Zionists and non-Zionists on both sides, for all sorts of different and often wacky reasons.
The US did try to find a diplomatic solution. Before the war we saw Biden talking about talking with Putin extensively. Since then we've heard about attempted negotiations by US diplomats, and I would expect those went deeper and longer than we get to hear about too.
I think the push back is the idea the the US should negotiate something with Russia that ignores the position of Ukraine and her people. And also I'm sure that a lot of us really don't like the idea of invasion being rewarded with territorial negotiation because we don't want our own countries put into that position, or have the threat hanging over us.
I don't like that either, but we have to deal with the world we're living in. Almost every conflict in history ends up with territory changing hands. If you're the weaker side, you need to do everything possible to avoid direct conflict. You say US diplomats tried to find a diplomatic solution , but that's such a one-sided view. Do you think the other side didn't try at all? Do you believe that the Russians are bloodthirsty and looking for war no matter what? We need to stop looking at other countries like Russia, China, and even India, Brazil, Iran etc. as if they're ignorant, warring nations whose only concern is to cause trouble in the world. I would call this view childish, but because a lot of serious people seem to hold this cartoonish point-of-view, I need to use another term, I suppose... perhaps victim-attitude? It's always the others who are causing trouble trying to make our lives hell, it's never our fault, it's never us who are the problem?! America is involved in almost every conflict in the world right now, not just Ukraine and Israel, there are dozens more! Maybe it's not everyone else who is wrong?
You don't need to ask. Putin issued a letter in 2021 demanding NATO accept that Eastern Europe moves back into Russian sphere of influence. Including Baltic countries, my country - Poland, Ukraine, Slovakia, Czechia, Romania, etc. Over 100 million people in total sold to a dictatorship just like that. Against our will, of course, but you prefer not to look too closely into that, right? All the understanding for Iranian and Russian government, no empathy for the countries sold to them :)
This is what Russia will do if you let them. Not because Russians are bloodthirsty, but because Russia is a totalitarian imperialist state that can do it without consequences for the ruling elite.
The cheapest and least bloody way to stop it is to stop it now in Ukraine. If we don't - we will have to stop it in Ukraine the 3rd time Russia invades. Or the 4th, if it takes 4 times. Or when Russia goes for Baltic states. It won't get better until we stop it.
The Russian people? No. The Russian leadership? Utter disregard for human life on either side to achieve their shifting goals.
> Maybe it's not everyone else who is wrong?
Or maybe these countries are trying to challenge and weaken a global system supported by US influence. I'm not American, I didn't support Americas wars in the middle east, I recognise it is not often a power for good. But if I reject that invasion then I reject this invasion by Russia.
> I don't like that either, but we have to deal with the world we're living in
You've accused me of having a childish outlook but your view seems childish to me. What would a negotiated settlement look like that's acceptable to Russia do you think? It certainly wouldn't be one that is acceptable to Ukraine, and unlikely to Poland et al, and so if the US signed off and withdrew support the fighting would continue.
At some point the war will end in a settlement of some kind. At the moment the position of everyone involved is too wide for that to happen and the US is not the only party.
The only way Ukraine wins (and our region can be safe long-term) is if we punish Russia the one time they tried to bite off more than they were able to swallow.
Ask Russian opposition. Ask Ukrainians, Poles, Lithuanians, Balts, Czechs, Romanians, Georgians, etc.
Also it's not left vs right issue. It's (prorussian alt-right + alt-left) vs (pro-Ukrainian mainstream).
What was once used to create a laugh, the absurdness of tangents and conspiracies, is now serious because it's attributed to a virtualized antagonist, who is manipulating our lives and making fun of it, by exploiting collective behavior, pulling the strings.
It's us that do not see we are manipulated, and that we are propelled to invest towards what's not in our own interest, taking them for a ride to an unwanted future. They must feel their control over their own lives is being taken away.
Perhaps like the jews knowingly went to the slaughter, and they could not be convinced to revolt themselves and fight for their life?
The latter part of your comment was hard to parse for me, I can only say that some Jews did revolt (for example in Warsaw Ghetto). But I'm not sure what was your point with this analogy.
A LOT of the CC talk in the media is too complex, abstract and focuses on engineering or financial concepts that many people don't really grapple with day to day.
TV shows like Clarksons Farm are better at conveying the complexity of the changes.
The effect of CO2 in the atmosphere is less than that, but it's always there. You just don't see the cloud because CO2 is transparent.
The effect of CO2 in the atmosphere is less than that, but it's always there. The amount can be measured with CO2 meters, and it's going up. You just don't see the cloud because CO2 is transparent.
of course, being stupid,they refuse to call themselves into question, which blocks them from changing their behavior, which will lead to more suffering on their part...
It’s good for everyone if the Floridians can stay in Florida.
Though back then it was easy, you could just say god
I mean, sure, maybe HAARP is bs, what do I know, but ruling out cloud seeding and weather modification techniques such as stratospheric aerosol injection is borderline ignorant and ignoring science.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Persian_Gulf_floods#Cloud...
Also, did they discover something "big" there? From reading the Wikipedia page I can roughly tell what were they trying to do, but it feels like they "merely" optimized existing comms setups, especially for HF and lower frequencies, then handed it back to the local university.
Since the audience that would benefit the most from actually having their minds changed are (in my experience) already used to hearing the 'normal' positions on these things but have decided to trust a different position more, though various means including familiarity and those who connect more with their state of mind at the time. It's not that such people are necessarily even 'so far gone' to be impenetrable either.
I find many publications that do anything from casual to more robust debunking don't appear to be attempting to communicate with the audience who believe these things, so they write in a voice that is already beginning from a typically condescending place in the assumption their audience is already aligned with their position. I suppose the expectation is those people will then be the horizontal conduits.
I've debunked various things on more personal levels with people but not by linking debunking articles as I haven't found disdain helps at all but rather understanding and then bridging what led to their position and more context that may clarify certain things (also tbf this is more a comment about many other articles I see, rather than phys' quite reasonable tone).
Someone at the gov attempting to dispel these theories, skirts them as well:
Raquel Recuero… said the conspiracy theories were likely being spread by organized groups "in search of an audience, monetization and influence."
So, no certainty, just possibly, but why not put it out there?
To my mind... I do think there is truth to the idea that if you're trying to make money in media (media = newspapers, television, internet), getting people's attention is more important than telling the truth.
From what I understand and have experienced, popular 'news' television channels (Fox News in the USA, for example) do not give their audiences well thought-out, nuanced analysis of what's happening, but rather push a very "us vs them, it's all their fault, get angry" mentality, because that gets them more eyeballs for advertisers.
It seems possible that social media influencers in Brazil have found that pushing the narrative of "it's the US government's fault" is more lucrative than "well, maybe we shouldn't cut down all those trees?"
however, I do agree that there is no reason a priori to assume they're acting together, and that this is anything more than a side effect of incentives created by social media algorithms.
Television channels initially ignored the floodings because they were focused on covering Madonna, them they ignored the severity of the floodings, them they attacked valid criticism and ignored the contribution of volunteers and other non-state actors. No wonder why journalists from the biggest news channel, Globo, are frequently harassed on the streets. e.g. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/b2v8CAV6zBI
> To my mind... I do think there is truth to the idea that if you're trying to make money in media (media = newspapers, television, internet), getting people's attention is more important than telling the truth.
I think that is true in the short term but I believe that in the long term telling the truth is more sustainable. With all it's issues, the Internet is an improvement, it descentralizes information, people get to news quicker and with less filters.
this region have been governed by workers party since forever. zero floods. well, small ones that overridden the dams.
last extreme right elections put an extreme right government in that region since a long time. zero maintenance on "fake climate change" things. this is the result.
it's one hundred percent like Texas power grid. hence why the right wing sock puppet accounts are pushing flat earth level disinformation.
reality is always more boring.
and as always, if you even acknowledge the nonsense, the trolls win.
Not quite. The state of Rio Grande do Sul had 2 PT (Worker's Party) Governors: Olívio Dutra (1999-2003) and Tarso Genro (2011-2015).
RS's capital city Porto Alegre had a much longer PT administration (Starting with Olívio Dutra in 1989, ending with João Verle in 2005).
> zero floods. well, small ones that overridden the dams
Fine, but there hasn't been this much water, and especially condensed in this small period of a few days, since ... well, I imagine always. Even the previous record flood of 1941 in Porto Alegre was due to 22 days of rain. This took about 3 or 4.
> last extreme right elections put an extreme right government in that region
I'm not sure I'd call Eduardo Leite (current and previous State Governor) extreme right. That said, he's a typical liberal, and as such he likes to defund the State. He decreased public spending in civil protection by 90% from last year. And that's after last year also saw floodings and cyclones.
If you're talking about the Porto Alegre administration, I would maybe agree with the "extreme right" label on the current mayor, Sebastião Melo. Previous right-wing mayors have been mostly regular conservatives and/or regular liberals. Still right, still bad, but not quite Bolsonaro bad (though at least some are Bolsonaro supporters).
---
I came across a document from Porto Alegre's administration in 1992 [0] (first time with the Worker's Party in office, under the always thoughtful and overly intelligent Olívio Dutra) where they do an extensive analysis of the anti-flood systems in place, options on how to improve them and how important participation of civil society is in these processes.
Back then we had the world's first Participatory Budget [1] in place. In the document, the administration acknowledges that sanitation and flood prevention were not among their main flags during the election campaign, but the people voted and the administration started working on it.
This is how democracy should work IMO. It's not perfect but it's way better than simply voting to put people in office. Unfortunately it's been all but dismantled after PT left the administration.
[0] https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/y02s8cvxf6qts3ktgc70q/PREVENI...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Participatory_budgeting
In most of Europe, South America and probably the other continents, the US Democrats are somewhere between centre-left and centre-right.
I wouldn't call anyone in the WEF a progressist. At least not because of that, since I consider the WEF a reactionary organisation.
You're right. WEF is globalist. Recently there is a strong convergence between globalist and progressist narratives but yep they aren't the same.
As I see the WEF and globalists in general are rich people buying their way into politics, stablishing a global financial elite in the seats of power. Do you consider it to be reactionary because it's in their interest to maintain the status quo?
As you wrote, the left governed there for decades, and no adequate containment for this event was built, nor it was built by the following center-left following governments. There was never a right or far-right government there since the 70s. Unless you are referring to Bolsonaro, but then it would be weird since he’s already superseded by the worker’s party by a year and a half now.
This is false. Quoting from my sibling comment:
> no adequate containment for this event was built > There was never a right or far-right government there since the 70sThis has to be a joke. Aside from those administrations I cited, everyone single one of the others has been right-wing.
The truth of the matter is that these stupidities are politically motivated. People saying this bullshit are the ones that deliberately want to dismiss the reality of global warming.
And they will keep on overlooking evidence and speculate on the most lunatic way possible into disaster.
Climate changes make the weather more wild and unpredictable but it's not 100% the cause behind every weather phenoma. This region, Porto Alegre, experienced floodings in 1873, 1897, 1905, 1912, 1914, 1926, 1928, 1936, 1941. In 1941 anti-floodings systems where built which prevented flooding for almost a century. I don't think the magnitude of the record flooding that is happening this year could be predicted though certainly lenience towards weather phenomena mitigation is a prevalent trend in Brazil.
https://www.correiodopovo.com.br/especial/conhe%C3%A7a-a-his...
It might seem stupid, but even though Rio Grande do Sul has lost about 50% of this year's soy harvest, you can be sure that farmers will be bailed out by the government. And so if you put the blame on anything other than the degradation of the environment, you can keep justifying chopping down more forests right up to the margins of rivers.