Ukraine Conflict - Beware lest in your anxiety to avoid war you obtain a master

[Gorth]

17 minutes ago, xzar_monty said:

I don't know if you've read much Robert Sapolsky, the well-known researcher on stress, but one of his more salient points is how economic inequality really is bad for everyone, in terms of quality of life as measured by stress levels and such. In the US, the struggle of the poor is obvious. But the rich almost have to isolate themselves from both the poor and the average person, which is very bad for both your stress levels and a general sense of trust in society, which affects everyone.

The rich tend to live longer, though.

As for money and quality of life, it goes something like this: starting from zero, the more money you get, the more your quality of life improves until you reach a point where you have a home with no debt and you can manage your ordinary bills and living expenses without any trouble (and pay for your children's education, if you live in a country where that is necessary). After that, extra money has almost no effect at all on your quality of life.

(I think it was Sapolsky who also pointed out how average income is funny in countries like Mexico and Russia because although it obviously and mathematically exists and has to exist, no one actually earns that kind of money in these countries. Most people are much, much poorer, and a select few are ridiculously rich.)

I don't recognize the name, but I am familiar with the idea of money being good up to a point. It sounds like a variation of Maslow's Hierarchy, which I was taught in school, 45 years ago. Money goes some way to alleviate a lot of basic needs (and problems), allowing you to focus on more "spiritual" needs

 

[Sarex]

https://ussanews.com/2023/02/05/mossad-believes-157000-ukrainian-soldiers-are-kia-so-far-turkish-newspaper-claims/

 

[BruceVC]

42 minutes ago, Sarex said:

https://ussanews.com/2023/02/05/mossad-believes-157000-ukrainian-soldiers-are-kia-so-far-turkish-newspaper-claims/

 

Sure, like anyone is going to believe this. And only 18k Russian soldiers have died 

[Malcador]

3 hours ago, Sarex said:

https://ussanews.com/2023/02/05/mossad-believes-157000-ukrainian-soldiers-are-kia-so-far-turkish-newspaper-claims/

 

Maybe 157k casualties, but not killed. 

[kanisatha]

3 hours ago, Sarex said:

https://ussanews.com/2023/02/05/mossad-believes-157000-ukrainian-soldiers-are-kia-so-far-turkish-newspaper-claims/

If this were true Ukraine would've fallen by now.

[Sarex]

1 hour ago, kanisatha said:

If this were true Ukraine would've fallen by now.

Why?

[Zoraptor]

Well yeah, with 6-800k troops Ukraine could at least theoretically lose 20-25% of them and still have a functioning army. Per Milley and von der Leyen they've lost 100k+ and still have a functioning army, and they have clearly had significant losses way above the 18k (?) officially admitted to.

But, that report doesn't do well on the smell test in any respect.

[xzar_monty]

10 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

But, that report doesn't do well on the smell test in any respect.

The stated losses in terms of Ukraine vs. Russia alone make it dismissible: 160K Ukrainian, 18K Russian. That's ridiculous. The Ukrainian numbers may be near enough, but the Russian...

The site itself looks awful and hopelessly undependable; I checked the front page. Not as bad as ZH but nothing like professional, either.

[xzar_monty]

Interesting stuff on Austria:

 

[Malcador]

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/06/world/europe/ukraine-russia-offensive.html

More doomerism from the Times.

[kanisatha]

21 hours ago, Sarex said:

Why?

Given the overall availability of trained military manpower for Ukraine, losses of that extent would have collapsed their frontlines and have made it impossible for them to defend territory across such a large landmass with such a long border with the enemy.

[BruceVC]

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/western-sanctions-push-russias-energy-revenues-lowest-level-since-2020-2023-02-03/

Some grim economic data for Russia from the Western  oil price cap and sanctions

[majestic]

5 hours ago, xzar_monty said:

Interesting stuff on Austria:

 

Well, this is from our former foreign minister's wedding party.

I am kind of uncertain how people are surprised by these 'revelations', but some parts of the Twatter thread are (not going to speculate about whether that is intentional or not) misleading. Christian Kern, for instance, resigned his position at the board of the Russian Railways when war broke out, and the reduction in intelligence sharing goes back to an earlier point in time and was related to a hostile takeover attempt where the Nazi Freedom Party (illegally) had the police raid the intelligence service headquarter over some North Korean passports in order to install a leadership more inclined to, say, look the other way when it comes to their connections with far right neo-nazi elements.

The Schengen veto has absolutely nothing to do with any Russian agenda and everything with our ridiculous chancellor trying to score brownie points with the right-wing fringes before a couple of very important elections (one of which recently happened and saw his party lose a 50% +1 majority that they have held since the end of World War Two, just to drive home in what sort of dire straits the party really is). If tihs was at all related to any Russian agenda, then Orban's vote would have been different.

The spying part is, to borrow from a local idiom, an old hat that is barely worth talking about. Everyone in Vienna is a spy, and has been for two centuries now, and as the thread said, it pretty much was codified post World War Two with certain changes to our laws. It's part of the reason how and why we managed to get the Russians off our territory, and it certainly wasn't and still isn't just for the benefit of Russia.  

It is also missing a few details, but what can one expect from Twatter. Our politicians were also constantly lobbying to soften or even remove the EU Post-Crimean annexation sanctions. Again, this does not come as much of a surprise, as RBI (Raiffeisen Bank International) is heavily invested in Russia, and it is also heavily invested in the ÖVP*, a party that has been a part of our governmen for 40 years now and is in really, really dire need of a timeout from power. Alas, for that to happen, the centrist and left-wing elements of our political landscape would have to work with the far-right fringes, and there's a better chance of hell freezing over.

Anyway, it is hard to overstate the amount of power that the RBI wields. If one is proficient enough in German they could read the Raiffeisen Black Book for a glimpse. They have an enormous amount of money invested in Russia, and act accordingly. Fun fact, the Ukraine recently put RBI board members on the sanction list, with the exception of the one board member who is actually Ukrainian (Andrii Stepanenko). Because... yeah, never mind, I think that's obvious and rather revealing.

In closing, because I have no idea what caused me to write this post now that I've reached a natural ending point, there's also the issue of the conspiracy theorists and Putin apologists. Those exist, in scary numbers, and there's a massive overlap with the anti-vaxxers. The FPÖ is openly garnering their votes, and they're rapidly approaching 25% or more according to polls. Politically, this is going to be fun going foward, because our current government it too busy with keeping itself from falling apart to actually address the issues the common people are facing. In the odd case they're actually realizing that there's an issue. To quote our president with his 300k yearly pay: Just grit your teeth. That's going to help for sure. 

*There's an old joke. To explain, first one needs to know that the BAWAG bank was initially created by prominent members of the Socialist Party as a way for workers to have access to banking services without having to go to the bourgeoise and capitalist other banks. It was held, until a financial scandal and dire straits, by the unions and the Austrian consumer's co-operative had shares too. It is fair to say that the Socialist Party (nowadays Social-Democratic Party) once indirectly 'owned' a bank.

So, what is the difference between the SPÖ and the Raiffeisen bank? Well, one's a party with a bank, and the other's a bank with a party... 

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

22 minutes ago, majestic said:

Well, this is from our former foreign minister's wedding party.

I am kind of uncertain how people are surprised by these 'revelations', but some parts of the Twatter thread are (not going to speculate about whether that is intentional or not) misleading. Christian Kern, for instance, resigned his position at the board of the Russian Railways when war broke out, and the reduction in intelligence sharing goes back to an earlier point in time and was related to a hostile takeover attempt where the Nazi Freedom Party (illegally) had the police raid the intelligence service headquarter over some North Korean passports in order to install a leadership more inclined to, say, look the other way when it comes to their connections with far right neo-nazi elements.

The Schengen veto has absolutely nothing to do with any Russian agenda and everything with our ridiculous chancellor trying to score brownie points with the right-wing fringes before a couple of very important elections (one of which recently happened and saw his party lose a 50% +1 majority that they have held since the end of World War Two, just to drive home in what sort of dire straits the party really is). If tihs was at all related to any Russian agenda, then Orban's vote would have been different.

The spying part is, to borrow from a local idiom, an old hat that is barely worth talking about. Everyone in Vienna is a spy, and has been for two centuries now, and as the thread said, it pretty much was codified post World War Two with certain changes to our laws. It's part of the reason how and why we managed to get the Russians off our territory, and it certainly wasn't and still isn't just for the benefit of Russia.  

It is also missing a few details, but what can one expect from Twatter. Our politicians were also constantly lobbying to soften or even remove the EU Post-Crimean annexation sanctions. Again, this does not come as much of a surprise, as RBI (Raiffeisen Bank International) is heavily invested in Russia, and it is also heavily invested in the ÖVP*, a party that has been a part of our governmen for 40 years now and is in really, really dire need of a timeout from power. Alas, for that to happen, the centrist and left-wing elements of our political landscape would have to work with the far-right fringes, and there's a better chance of hell freezing over.

Anyway, it is hard to overstate the amount of power that the RBI wields. If one is proficient enough in German they could read the Raiffeisen Black Book for a glimpse. They have an enormous amount of money invested in Russia, and act accordingly. Fun fact, the Ukraine recently put RBI board members on the sanction list, with the exception of the one board member who is actually Ukrainian (Andrii Stepanenko). Because... yeah, never mind, I think that's obvious and rather revealing.

In closing, because I have no idea what caused me to write this post now that I've reached a natural ending point, there's also the issue of the conspiracy theorists and Putin apologists. Those exist, in scary numbers, and there's a massive overlap with the anti-vaxxers. The FPÖ is openly garnering their votes, and they're rapidly approaching 25% or more according to polls. Politically, this is going to be fun going foward, because our current government it too busy with keeping itself from falling apart to actually address the issues the common people are facing. In the odd case they're actually realizing that there's an issue. To quote our president with his 300k yearly pay: Just grit your teeth. That's going to help for sure. 

*There's an old joke. To explain, first one needs to know that the BAWAG bank was initially created by prominent members of the Socialist Party as a way for workers to have access to banking services without having to go to the bourgeoise and capitalist other banks. It was held, until a financial scandal and dire straits, by the unions and the Austrian consumer's co-operative had shares too. It is fair to say that the Socialist Party (nowadays Social-Democratic Party) once indirectly 'owned' a bank.

So, what is the difference between the SPÖ and the Raiffeisen bank? Well, one's a party with a bank, and the other's a bank with a party... 

That's interesting and all that, but I think this may be a good reaction image.

[pmp10]

Turns out the Leopard coalition is real after all.
For Leopard 1s that is.

Still 100 machines over the course of next year is at least something.
An apt response to T-62s I suppose. 

[Lexx]

Aren't Leopard 1 tanks from, like, the 50s?

[Malcador]

Sort of a ridiculous binary in the title, but that's Youtube I guess

[Chilloutman]

it still amazes me that someone can put anti-vax into same group as pro russian by default. But I guess everyone needs class enemy

[majestic]

What is the sound of one hand clapping?

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

31 minutes ago, Chilloutman said:

it still amazes me that someone can put anti-vax into same group as pro russian by default. But I guess everyone needs class enemy

More often than not, the anti-vaxxers put themselves in that group.

[Chilloutman]

bullcrap, its you who is putting people into your nice little boxes of good and evil based on you perception of those things (vax, trump, russia or otherwise) but you want to feel better about yourself, you want to be the 'better' one, you maybe even believe you are... yet your inner me slip on the bannana peel and show your true color as person judging others by those exact boxes you put people in instead of each individual opinion of those poeple on any particular matter. Kinda judging the book by the cover style

[Malcador]

7 minutes ago, Chilloutman said:

bullcrap, its you who is putting people into your nice little boxes of good and evil based on you perception of those things (vax, trump, russia or otherwise) but you want to feel better about yourself, you want to be the 'better' one, you maybe even believe you are... yet your inner me slip on the bannana peel and show your true color as person judging others by those exact boxes you put people in instead of each individual opinion of those poeple on any particular matter. Kinda judging the book by the cover style

Eh, most of the time these people are catching what they're throwing too.  But I forget, in these instances the mountain has to come to Mohammed

But majestic did just say there was overlap, not that anti-vaxx means pro-Russian

Edited February 7, 2023 by Malcador

[Bartimaeus]

8 minutes ago, Chilloutman said:

bullcrap, its you who is putting people into your nice little boxes of good and evil based on you perception of those things (vax, trump, russia or otherwise) but you want to feel better about yourself, you want to be the 'better' one, you maybe even believe you are... yet your inner me slip on the bannana peel and show your true color as person judging others by those exact boxes you put people in instead of each individual opinion of those poeple on any particular matter. Kinda judging the book by the cover style

[Chilloutman]

13 minutes ago, Malcador said:

Eh, most of the time these people are catching what they're throwing too.  But I forget, in these instances the mountain has to come to Mohammed

But majestic did just say there was overlap, not that anti-vaxx means pro-Russian

whats the point of pointing out the overlap other than non-chalantly grouping them togather? its like me stating that most A also do B. are you saying I am not implying that B is in same group as A?

 

and what are you even mean by your first sentence? How is it relevant to what I wrote? Sorry I am too dumb to get it I guess

[Zoraptor]

Wonder how (if) they've solved the ammunition problem for the Leopard 1s. Pretty meh anyway, not only are they old but they have the exact same problem the Leo2s had in Syria- ready use ammo stored in the turret -->-->-->

and that was with no artillery to deal with, better armour, and vs mostly 70s era ATGMs instead of modern ones.