xzar_monty

Russia sure ain't Catholic, but the pope is such a huge figure. Can't think of anyone that would compare.

Here's a thought experiment I came up with and talked about with a couple of friends of mine. It was more relevant during the shelling of Mariupol, but I suppose there is a place on the front lines that would still qualify. Let us assume that the pope wishes to make a strong statement and declares that in two days, he will fly to the most heavily bombed place on the front in order the stop the Russian attack. "I defy you not to desist", he says. This raises two questions: 1) Would the Russians stop, or would they just go ahead and kill the pope? 2) Is there anyone else on the planet with comparable authority? Anyone whose fate would move people as much and could reasonably pull off such a stunt with any meaning? My personal answers: 1) I have no idea, 2) Almost certainly not.

But isn't the US already in a completely hopeless situation? Even if all guns are banned, it will mean almost nothing. Even if all guns have to be "brought back", only the "good guys" will comply. There is no way to get the guns away or back from the people that shouldn't have them. I can't see any way out of this situation for the US. For every other country in the world, perhaps, but not the US. The point of no return has been passed a long long time ago.

@kanisatha: In response to what you said in the now-defunct thread: Putin does look gravely ill, I fully agree with this. However, it might be nothing more than age combined with the puffy look people get when they are treated with cortisone, and the reason for this treatment could be something fairly benign. So it's hard to say. Impossible, even. The potential psychological strain is also impossible to ascertain. If Putin lands, broadly speaking, within the definition of a "normal person", he is likely to be quite severely stressed. However, the more he leans towards psychopathy, the less these things will apply. One interesting thing about psychopaths is that they sleep well and they experience little to no fear, anxiety and depression. It has repeatedly been reported that Putin is fearless (this was even described as a fault when he was a KGB man, because fearlessness can lead to overly rash behaviour), which could be a symptom of true psychopathy, but not necessarily -- and no professional would make that diagnosis on the basis of one classic sign. So all we can say is that Putin may be quite stressed these days, or perhaps not stressed in the least. Which is not helpful at all.

This is evolutionary. We are hard-wired for dangers, both perceived and real. This is seen both in individuals and communities, and it's very hard if not impossible to bypass. It's good to be aware of it, though. So, bad news or a bad experience will provoke a stronger reaction than good news or a good experience of equal "size". Anyone will know this from their own life, although measuring that "size" requires special equipment. But everyone knows it is the bad stuff people react so strongly to and come back to, in their inner life, and brood upon.

Interesting that it's Newsweek. I think it was also Newsweek that reported how nicely Russia took care to inflict as little damage as possible in Ukraine. Do correct me if I'm wrong. That article has been quoted here, too, and described as a "truth bomb". This, btw, is not a comment on the article you just linked. Very hard to say how trustworthy that one is.

Yep. Good clarification.

This, btw, provides a reasonable measure of the value of a country: would it take you in and give you a really good life. Or, looked at from a different point of view: how many countries do people want to get into in order to have a really good life, regardless of whether the country is explicitly welcoming or not. While there are many problems with America, it remains a fact that people do want to get there in order to live a better life. They also want to get into Europe. Russia is not a place people want to get into to improve their life, and never has been. There is no history of Russia being a destiny of dreams. There is a very well-known history of people wanting to get the heck out of there, though. Even Stalin's daughter herself escaped. Apparently the prospect of Russia's dwindling population is one motivation for Putin to invade Ukraine. I don't know the literature, but apparently he has written about this. Incidentally, I just read about the quality of life in Russia during the first two decades of this new millennium. I suppose we all know that life expectancy in Russia is remarkably low. There are several possible reasons for this, such as overuse of alcohol, bad food, excessive violence and so on, but it was very intriguing to note that as these factors were studied, neither any of them in isolation nor even the combination of them all could explain the drastic difference between Russia and many other countries. Thus, after some heavy deliberation, the conclusion was that Russians apparently die of loneliness and hopelessness. This is not a scientifically proven conclusion and can be challenged, but the data was really quite interesting. And harrowing: just very, very sad. Since there is no societal or sometimes even familial trust, people get lonely. And since there is not much to look forward to and no avenues for self-expression, people lose hope. And then they die young, significantly younger than in so many other places. (And then a rhetorical question: how difficult would it be to motivate lonely and hopeless people to do terrible things?)

North Korea would be an even more dramatic example of this other kind of willingness to die for one's country(*). But then, North Korea has only just happened, Russia has been around for a very long time. (*) Although we have no proof, as of yet.

Heck, there don't seem to be any of them around anymore... Oh well. I can live without these games. It'll be just fine if it turns out that BG2, PoE and Deadfire were the pinnacle, and that was it. There ain't ever gonna be more high-quality Pink Floyd albums, either.

Not entirely, although what you say certainly holds true to a great degree. There are other forces involved, too, such as territorialism and, of course, indoctrination. Russia has a long history of treating its citizens with almost unparallelled cruelty, yet look at WW2 or today's news.

Agreed. But killing the invaders requires commitment and infrastructure that is exceedingly unlikely to be free from nationalism of at least some kind.

This is, in theory, a valid criticism. But the problem is that it only takes one nation to turn nationalism into an insurmountable problem. And not everybody is going to leave nationalism behind, it just won't happen. In a similar way, it only takes one party to ruin all attempts at diplomacy. (The war in Ukraine isn't a diplomatic failing. Russia didn't give a damn about any of the things it had agreed to. It just broke everything.) I, for one, used to be a pacifist, and I have a history of being a conscientious objector, for precisely the reasons you describe. But this kind of thinking, which I also subscribed to, contains a fatal flaw. If it is not you but your neighbor that takes up arms and comes to kill you, what are you going to do then? Your pacifism and your lofty philosophy is only going to get you killed. I see that you are in Australia. It was already some time ago that I thought Australia and New Zealand are the most ideal places to leave nationalism behind. Such great places for all-consuming philosophy of peace! Trying it in Poland, for example, is somewhat different, I would say.

If you're asking me, then you'll know from my previous comment that my answer is, "I don't know". That's the only honest answer I can give. Look at Finland and Sweden. They've just ended their neutrality. It wasn't something they were going to do, in fact it was something they almost certainly wanted to avoid. But then push came to shove and they recognized that with such a monster right next to them, pacifism is a pipe dream and neutrality is not a realistic option if you want to, for example, remain alive. So let's effing change our policy right now. That's a good example of two collectives suddenly realizing something new about their priorities.

It is true that not everyone wants to die for their country. However, I'd very strongly suggest that you don't feel certain about your stance until push really comes to shove. It is a well-established psychological fact that until something of this caliber really happens and you really have to make a choice, you cannot really know what your choice will be. Perhaps, when really pressed, you will find that you care more about your loved ones than you care about other things, so perhaps Germany won't even be an issue, maybe the issue is your family. Or your sense of personal dignity and the will not to be a coward after all. It cannot be known. (Although training may help! And this is why military training contains so much repetition; in times of extreme stress, people often revert to what they've learned by rote, because they cannot really think.) Jerry Lewis addressed this problem really well in an interview with **** Cavett. The link starts from the right place, and the answer only takes like 45 seconds or so.

Sexism, as a question, ranks way way way down in order of importance in a situation like this. It's irrelevant. I suppose you were being facetious.

A key tenet in Russian (military) thinking is that life has no value. Neither the life of your enemies nor the lives of your own. It is a nihilistic culture. A historial case in point: when the Germans and the Soviets exchanged POWs after the war, the liberated Soviet POWs were immediately transported to prison camps in Siberia because they had, in the eyes of Stalin, committed treason by ending up as prisoners. So, you WILL be killed as soon as you have worn out your utility. You are always expendable. You are amazed because you approach this question from a completely different paradigm, i.e. one where life has value.

An example of the consequences of persistent outright lying: Lavrov has strongly denied that Putin has health problems (https://www.politico.eu/article/russia-vladimir-putin-health-rumor-sergey-lavrov-deny-ill/). So the immediate conclusion is that since Lavrov puts it like that, Putin must be very seriously ill. (Obviously we have no idea. But that's how you've come to read Lavrov, given his recent past.)

Yes.

After surfacing from the Abyss, I find that I cannot find much enthusiasm to continue the story. It's not very interesting and it's all over the place. I wonder if this is a common experience. I found Chapter III quite interesting, and some of the Abyss was good, too, although there far too many silly battles against oversized monsters, but now, at Chapter V, it's just getting very tiring. I have also reached the level cap (but I'm still one short of the maximum mythical level), and this always feels like the kiss of death for me: nothing to aim at, anymore.

Some information on the extent of corruption and/or inefficiency in Russia: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/28/world/europe/russian-soldiers-military-supplies.html Unfortunately, the capacity to wreak havoc and kill people is still great indeed.

Experts come to the conclusion that has been apparent for quite some time: Russia's war in Ukraine is genocidal. https://edition.cnn.com/2022/05/27/europe/russia-ukraine-genocide-warning-intl/index.html?fbclid=IwAR2nRt3lqhoZH9LW-lJj_BYCdOnImrmrE8nIlOvIfMqbAu3gFLK9IxF99pM

This is a real problem. There are such differences in standards of living that it is hard for some to imagine what is (viewed as) valuable to others. We know that the Russian soldiers sent to Ukraine do not come from reasonably well-off families in St. Petersburg and Moscow. They are poor rural kids, for the most part.

As languages, Finnish and Estonian are very close to each other. Fun historical fact: Estonians tend to speak Finnish, because quite a lot of Finnish TV has been available in Estonia even in the Soviet times, and the languages are close enough so that you can pick the other up from TV if you know one of them. The converse is not true: Finns don't tend to speak Estonian, because Estonian TV has not been regarded as interesting in Finland. Estonia "drifted further away" from Finland during the Soviet era, and there was some strain in the relationships after Estonia's independence, because Finland wasn't always very helpful politically / diplomatically and because Finnish tourists tended to regard Tallinn as a place where they could go and buy extremely cheap booze (and you'll know the consequences...). The war in Ukraine has certainly brought the nations closer to each other. Arvo Pärt is interesting: his "trick" is very simple and he tends to repeat it over and over again, but his best works are still good indeed. Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten, link above, is a good example: it's a hauntingly beautiful piece.

You'll find an awful lot of people who are prepared to argue that Kissinger is essentially something like a close second to Putin among people who you should never even listen to, let alone trust. I wonder what @kanisatha thinks about this/him.