Even two thousand years ago, and before that, they had the notion of "prosperity". They just didn't define it in terms of indoor plumbing, fancy kitchen appliances, or availability of top trauma surgeons who could sew back a detached limb. — baker

Larger homes, more servants. Same issue.

Irrelevant. Is the relative difference between the rich and the poor that makes the relevant difference. — baker

So if everybody would have the living standards of what billionaires have, that would be irrelevant, if there would be those who have far better living standards than our present billionaires?

Well, I beg to differ. Eradicating absolute poverty is doable, quite possible and should what the World should strive for. And where the real work has to be done is in Africa. In fact things have improved in this view.



So @baker, you are simply talking about wealth inequality. That simply is different issue from wealth and prosperity itself.

Here's the problem:

If this year Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos decided to move into my neighborhood were I'm living, wealth inequality would skyrocket here. Yet what would be worse for me? They are not taking my money, I'm not worse in absolute terms, but I sure am worse in relative terms. Likely they would pay some meager tax to this society and they wouldn't present any problem.

You simply have to take both issues into focus, both absolute and relative. Because the fact is that societies have and can get more prosperous.

The real alarm bells should be rung when wealth inequality is rising and absolute poverty is either rising or keeping at the same level.

For all our supposed superiority, we should do better than worms. — baker

Maybe some time (soon!) we can learn to eat plastic. Yay! — baker

Ok, you are not serious.

What international law says about this? — Tzeentch

Let me pick just for example this. @Baden is totally right, pretty much any political discussion is as messy as this.

How about starting to answer your question with the UN charter, article 4:

All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.

see Charter of the United Nations

So you can try to talk about what the international law says about this, and I think I know what the response will be: counterarguments on other events / issues / countries and accusations that you're hypocritical by ignoring these, because you are focusing on a thread about the Ukraine war on the war in Ukraine.

That's what makes this thread "messy".

The issue wasn't "how many died" but the legitimacy of the invasion! — Apollodorus

Nobody else but you are giving legitimacies over invasions and annexations. Neither the invasion of Poland or the invasion of Iran is legitimate. It's very rare that we can argue that some invasion was legitimate.

And, of course, you just "happen" to forget — Apollodorus

...to refer everything that has happened in history. Right.

In my mind history isn't at all ethical. And those seeking justifications for starting wars or defending them can go to hell.

What exactly makes you think it’s OK for Britain and Russia to invade and divide Iran in 1941, but not for Germany and Russia to invade and divide Poland in 1939??? — Apollodorus

Hmmm...

I don't think anybody here thinks it was OK to invade Iran.

Yet neither country annexed Iran. Iran actually later took out the Soviet puppet state.

And oh, not every fifth Iranian died because of the invasion, like what happened to the Polish.

:up:

And because basically started this war in 2014, there wasn't any strategic surprise, which would had to be had to pull this special military operation in the first place.

You're looking at prosperity in absolute terms. I think this is problematic, because prosperity then gets to be defined by some arbitrary standard that depends solely on "how far people dare to dream". — baker

But prosperity is all about absolute terms. Do you have enough and good food? Good service and medical treatment. All those machines and opportunities to make things easy. That is the start point.

You are looking at a different problem, income and wealth inequality, not prosperity itself. We seem to forget that prosperity or povetry are indeed absolute. You can have absolute povetry: you own the dirty clothes you wear and nothing else. Is there that kind of povetry? Yes. But a lot less than before.

Yet the _relative_ difference between the rich and the poor is the same, regardless of which time period you observe. — baker

Then look at the poor people. And you can see that they are better in every country in the World than they were two or three hundred years ago. You simply cannot deny that.

The scarcity of natural resources puts a limit to human expansion. — baker

And that has been always the problem since the birth of our species. There hasn't been any time in history when natural resources were bountiful. They look only "untapped" for us as the technology wasn't there to for us to use them. Our technology that we have had made the limits of what are obtainable resources.

Some of us are just digusted by living solely for the sake of living. All this eating, consuming, day in day out, getting nowehre, spinning around in a circle of consumption. This principle of consumption is the same, whether we're living a caveman lifestyle, or a post-industrial one. — baker

Well, people who genuinely say that they are disgusted by living solely for the sake of living may have other problems. Just ask yourself, what do other animals do? Criticizing our materialism and consumerism is one thing. Criticizing living for the sake of living is another. Everything does spin around consumption: put a plant out of sunlight and look at the consequences. Perhaps people who are disgusted about consumption should simply for one day not eat anything and go to sleep hungry. The human body is perfectly adapted to be without food for a day (without water you will get a terrible headache). I think the vast majority don't have had that experience. Yet the experience of not having enough to eat and going to sleep hungry is a widely experienced feeling even today.

It is something that actually both you and me can possibly experience (not having enough food), if there's a war or similar breakdown in society.

Have to wonder if or to what degree the Russian parliament is on-board with this stuff. — jorndoe

Absolutely. With a super majority in the Duma, Putin has total control. United Russia is Putin's party, even if he doesn't have a prominent official role in the party.

I think all participants here know about the statement of the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics. Shouldn't we, rather, speak of it's reasonable effectiveness? I can't see nothing unreasonable about it and can't even imagine how else it could be. — Landoma1

If you start with a logical system, it shouldn't be a surprise that you end up with something logical.

Not only do we use logical. I would make the bold declaration that animals use logic, even if they don't understand they are using logic.

I think the greatest flaw in Intelligent Design is simply that it goes against religion if the conclusion made (by ID proponents) is that by scientific methods you could argue creationism. It's the basic flaw in all ontological arguments for god: it goes against the actual teachings of religion. Religion is about faith, and religions understand that themselves.

I think it's extremely well and clearly stated in the Christianity, in the Bible, and in other religions too. Way to God is through faith, not reasoning. The metaphor is of opening your heart to Jesus, it is not about opening your brain to Jesus. Yet the interviews that I've seen of ID proponents is that they are really anticipating some kind of scientific proof of the existence of God with ID. That proof, if even hypothetically possible, basically would be in every way an Idol, the thing that all Abrahamic religions are really against.

You disbelieved Putin's statement (and Lavrov's earlier) deciding that only an analysis of their actions would suffice. — Isaac

Yeah. How dare I disbelieve what Putin or Russian officials sometime say:

(Nov 23rd, 2021) Russia will not attack Ukraine and is not harboring “aggressive” plans, a Kremlin spokesman said Tuesday while also not ruling out military action following what Moscow considers fearsome threats from Kyiv.

“Russia is not going to attack anyone,” Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin, told reporters Tuesday morning, according to a translation of his remarks. “It’s not like that.”

(Jan 10th, 2022) Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov emerged from the nearly eight hours of talks and declared, "There are no plans or intentions to attack Ukraine." He went on to say, "There is no reason to fear some kind of escalatory scenario."

(Jan 28th, 2022) Russia's top diplomat insisted on Friday that Moscow isn't going to start a war with Ukraine. But with more than 100,000 Russian troops massed along the country's borders, he also said Moscow would not "be ignored."

"If it depends on the Russian Federation, there will be no war," Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said.

(Jan 30th, 2022) “At this time, they’re saying that Russia threatens Ukraine — that’s completely ridiculous,” ​Nikolai Patrushev, the head of Russia’s Security Council, said Sunday, according to the Russian news agency Tass. ​

“We don’t want war and we don’t need it at all​,” he said.​

(Feb 9th, 2022) Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on Wednesday said Russia doesn’t plan to invade Ukraine and blamed the US for "aggressive plans."

The hype around Russia’s hypothetical invasion of Ukraine is similar to what was happening in the US media in the early 2000s, before the US and its allies started the military operation in Iraq, she said. Then, lots of reports were stoking tensions, including on television, the diplomat said.

"That looks very much like this false narrative regarding Ukraine now and some ‘aggressive plans,’" she said. "We don’t have these aggressive plans, but I have a feeling that the US has."

"We learn from US newspapers that we will attack Ukraine," Zakharova said. "That’s even as we believe we and that country are a people that has a common history."

She said it was "absurd" to say Russia nurtured any aggressive plans about Ukraine.

And should I remind that some people on this thread seemed to be openly and triumphiantly believed Russia and enjoyed smirking at US alarms:

Question:

Would we have three (and counting) pages of discussion of this if we would be discussing Flat Earth Theory?

Surely we could, it is a fascinating even if lunatic objection to modern science and a spectacular conspiracy theory, but I don't think a theory that can be disproven by anyone simply by going to the seashore to note how large ships start to "dip under" at sea when sailing farther away would then have an opening paragraph like this:

Obviously this a very contentious issue, and my extent of biology knowledge is limited to honors biology from high school. However, it seems the whole ID issue brings up an interesting point of what should be considered “science” and also what should be taught to students in classrooms. — Paulm12

You take Biden's word as evidence of America's intent (despite a similar history of aggression), yet with Putin, you look to his actions, not his words. Why the different treatment? — Isaac

There's no different treatment.

The US is arming substantially Ukraine. It's sharing intelligence about the Russian invader. But it's not declaring a no-fly zone or sending it's troops to Ukraine. Ground forces surely haven't been sent and how many other US actors are in country is an open question. Several articles about how the weapon transfers go into a black hole (see What happens to weapons sent to Ukraine? The US doesn't really know]) hints to that there really aren't many US actors on the ground in Ukraine.

Furthermore,

A war of aggression similar to this on US behalf would be the Spanish-American war, which also resulted in annexations of land from the country attacked. Other war of aggression would be the invasion of Iraq in 2003, were it's quite clear and evident the agenda and the push for the war by certain group in Washington. Cheney started promoting the war against Iraq right on 11th of September 2001 immediately. Likely the idea had been brewing for a long time in neocon circles. The case of Valerie Plame shows the extent where those rooting for the war would go.

In the US, the political apparatus is quite open and leaks make it quite transparent, unlike Russia. If one follows US politics. Hence it's quite easy for example to Noam Chomsky to follow what is happening.

Macron had said Putin "wanted to seize control of the whole of Ukraine. He will, in his own words, carry out his operation to 'de-Nazify' Ukraine to the end," a senior aide to the French leader told the AFP news agency. — Olivier5

In fact Putin had already in 2014-2015 bullied to Western leaders that he can "roll the tanks to Kharkiv and Kyiv easily".

'De-nazify' doesn't "literally" mean 'force regime change' any more than it "literally" means 'take over'.

It "literally" means 'remove Nazis'. As an objective it could have been satisfied by anything from destroying the Azov battalion, to changing legislation, to killing every last person Putin even vaguely suspected of being slightly right-wing. — Isaac

This is very bizarre semantics. It's difficult to understand Putin's words at the start of the war as anything else than regime change as stated. Now the objectives might have been lowered.

Yet the fact is that Russia made an all out conventional attack against Ukraine starting from February 24th of this year. Before it had fought an 8 year proxy war in the Donbas. And before that it had annexed Crimea and tried to start similar uprisings in other places than Donetsk and Luhansk, where the instigation was successful.

I think that this history of aggression, the actions taken by Russia, speak more clearly than words.

So you first imply that Russia are late to the negotiating table, then that no position they might come with is reasonable anyway. — Isaac

No.

What I'm saying is that they are continuing their assault in Ukraine and have not yet made realistic proposals to end the war. What I'm saying is that they have a chance of easing the situation by letting through the blockade "humanitarian shipments" of grain and fertilizer from Ukraine. Now using the UN in this case as the negotiator would be quite beneficial to them: they have veto-power there and their friend China has too. After the bloody assault on Ukraine they have a lot to do to polish their image as a reasonable actor.

And this btw, might be happening:

LONDON, June 3 (Reuters) - Senegal's President Macky Sall said Russia's Vladimir Putin had told him on Friday he was ready to enable the export of Ukrainian grain to ease a global food crisis that is hitting Africa especially hard.

"President #Putin has expressed to us his willingness to facilitate the export of Ukrainian cereals," Sall wrote on Twitter after meeting Putin in his role as chairman of the African Union.

Russia was also ready to ensure the export of its own wheat and fertiliser, Sall said after the talks in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi on day 100 of Putin's invasion of Ukraine.

Naturally Putin wants his own wheat and fertilizer to be exported, but allowing Ukrainian wheat to be exported would be a positive signal.

Putin has said he's not looking for regime change in Ukraine. You didn't believe that. Your bias is astounding. — Isaac

Yeah, obviously after the Kyiv operation didn't work out so well, he had to limit his objectives. Your apologetics are astounding.

but Putin mentions something about Ukrainians and Russians being 'one people' some time back and that's enough for you to impute a clear intention to take over the whole country. — Isaac

Don't forget the artificiality of Ukraine as a sovereign state too. Yeah, Putin has annexed Crimea, then has fought a proxy war in Ukraine for eight years and then assaulted with the full force of the Russian Army Ukraine. So yes, when he attacked Ukraine on the 24th February, Putin clearly had the objective to take over the country, at least Kyiv and NovoRossija, perhaps to install a puppet government in place in Kyiv. And obviously he has had to limit his objectives.

And then you here are defending him that "he didn't have the objective to take the country". You don't see how insane your apologetics are.

I like nature guy, I'm nature guy to some extent, but we can't return to some previous more innocent state of being without facing the consequences that entails. Back-to-nature should own up to the consequences, and in a world of 7, 8 billion people those aren't pretty I'd say. — ChatteringMonkey

And those consequences aren't usually then thought through. Because the idea goes that we simply are consuming too much, hence let's consume dramatically less. The problem with this is that we need that scientific and technological improvements, because otherwise we are truly prisoners of our present carbon based energy production ...or society in general. A huge economic depression will surely our planet greener (as we saw during the Covid lockdown), but it will also cease any desire to make investments and will cause political crises. The idea that we could just put then investments could be put towards R&D (by central planning) simply doesn't understand how complex the world is.

The best way forward is typically something which reeks to a political compromise and which leaves many very disappointed on the outcome. And likely something that only historians will later see as important breakthroughs.

Yes. Remember ping pong diplomacy? — Olivier5

Well, there are already channels between the US and Russia. What should be remembered that Mao's China had had an open war with the US in Korea, even if the Chinese forces were depicted to be "volunteers". I guess there weren't many relations with China before ping pong diplomacy.

And anyway, the US and Russia have done something about unintended accidents or escalations months ago:

WASHINGTON, March 3 (Reuters) - The Pentagon has established a new hotline with Russia's ministry of defense to prevent "miscalculation, military incidents and escalation" in the region as Russia's invasion of Ukraine advances, a U.S. official told Reuters on Thursday.

The United States says it has no troops in Ukraine but it and NATO allies in Europe are worried about potential spillover, including accidents, as Russia's stages the largest assault on a European state since World War Two.

Guterres has already tried to get something done with the blockade already last month. It could be a way forward. And I think it would be good that the UN would gain some role in the conflict.

(WSJ, last may)

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres is pursuing a high-stakes deal with Russia, Turkey and other nations to open up Ukrainian food exports to world markets and stave off a potential global food shortage, according to diplomats familiar with the effort.

* * *

Mr. Guterres alluded to the negotiations on Wednesday in Vienna, saying, “We need to find a way to have the food production of Ukraine and the food and fertilizer production of Russia brought back to the global markets despite the war.” Mr. Guterres visited Moscow, Kyiv and the Turkish capital of Ankara in April to discuss the war and the food-security issues, among other topics.

The U.N.-led talks to open up Black Sea grain exports complement more-immediate efforts by European countries to move smaller amounts of Ukrainian food products to market through the Continent’s roads, railways and waterways, including the Danube River.

The fact is that moving Ukrainian food products to the global market through roads and railways won't work. Or works too little.

It's laughable the way you try and present this as if we're all waiting with baited breath for Russia to come to the negotiating table when it's been present there for practically the entire invasion. — Isaac

What's been present practically the entire invasion has been the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine. But of course that doesn't matter for the Russian apologists.Why, the Russian have only made reasonable proposals to the Ukrainian Nazis. And their assault in Donbas is still on the way...

What's missing is any commitment from the US, without which negotiations will be toothless — Isaac

That Biden has said he's not looking for regime change in Russia or that the US is demanding that Ukraine wouldn't use the given weapons systems against Russian proper (meaning Russian territory) is something you think is meaningless. And of course Russia would like to talk just to the US. After all, the country of Ukraine is artificial.

"We do not seek a war between NATO and Russia," Biden wrote. "As much as I disagree with Mr. Putin, and find his actions an outrage, the United States will not try to bring about his ouster in Moscow."

"So long as the United States or our allies are not attacked, we will not be directly engaged in this conflict, either by sending American troops to fight in Ukraine or by attacking Russian forces," Biden continued.

"We are not encouraging or enabling Ukraine to strike beyond its borders. We do not want to prolong the war just to inflict pain on Russia," he said.

(See here)

You just have toothless arguments, Isaac.

A good and informative comment. :up:

Perhaps letting at least some grain ships through would be a way for Russia to signal that it's open for some diplomatic approaches to end the war. In a way, it could be a start to ease the tensions.

This is where for example the UN could be handy tool.

That's a good point.

In a way all of these are criticisms of our present, either romantic or ideological, more things that some just say and not true alternatives.

Also Marx was all for industrialization, It was the reason the bourgeois historically could have taken over from nobility, which ultimately paved the way for the proletariat to take over. It's a question of distribution and who controls the means of production for Marxists, wealth and prosperity an sich are fine. — ChatteringMonkey

Marxism wanted to replace the market mechanism with central planning. In a way, it is a belief in the human intelligence and our technocratic ability to plan. Yet the fact is that we cannot plan what the next technological (or scientific) breakthrough will be. And we cannot assume to know what technology will be the most cost-effective, productive decades from now.

The romantic "nature guy" opposition is even more ideological or should I say religious. Perhaps the 21st Century person knows this idea from the Avenger -films bad guy Thanos, who came to the conclusion that there are too many lives for the resources the universe has. The idea of course is ridiculous and as depicted on the movie, quite evil. And so is the bizarre ideas of the neo-Luddites. The Luddite argument can be easily shown not to be true as the industrial revolution didn't bring us hoards of beggars roaming the countryside as there would be no work. Also the idea that because of technology, people won't find work is also strange. Yes, we can indeed work less, but that isn't the same that there would be an idle class perhaps at best engaging in a dialogue on a Philosophy Forum. (Even if active here, I do work also.)

At the end, perhaps it's just that optimism just seems so naive and pessimism seems for us so realistic.

The idea that sustainability requires sacrifice of human and economic welfare is very widely believed, but I think it is untrue; and is in fact an artefact of the anti-capitalist politics of the green movement since the 1960's. It's now so ingrained an idea it goes unquestioned by left and right; but there's a sound basis in physics to say that resources are a function of the energy available to create them. — karl stone

:up:

The creation of prosperity (or wealth) is really not like the law of conservation of energy. Yet the false idea persists. Basically it's the consequences of Marxism: that the capitalist just takes something from the worker, hence the capitalist just steals from the worker and thus we would be better of without the capitalist in the first place. Yet the fact is that without the innovations, without the enterprises or the ideas of arranging a service, the potential capitalist would do something else and the workers does something else. Perhaps they'd be all working in the fields trying desperately to grow enough crops as the society was before the industrial (and agricultural) revolutions.

And magma energy is a perfect example of this: a basically untapped energy resource (perhaps now only used in some way in places with highly volcanic activity). If we could harness efficiently and cost-effectively, it would create more prosperity for us. It wouldn't be something "stolen from the poor". It would need the technology, the investment, the enterprise effort and simply the competition with other energy resources to make it the optimal energy resource.

Yet this simple fact will hardly have any impact to some. Too many people are mesmerized with ideas that improvements happen only by basically stealing from others, that capitalism and the market mechanism are bad, because there are obvious problems and injustices around us. Hence throw everything out...at least at a theoretical level. Yet central planning and socialism without market mechanism hasn't worked. But who cares about history?

In order to maintain the relatively high standard of living for some people, many other people have to live a relatively low standard. So that's not really a solution. — baker

Why?

Prosperity isn't fixed. It's not a game of someone wins, others loose.

For example, take all the Americans of 2022. Compare them with all the Americans of 1822.

How will you argue that compared to two hundred years ago, only some Americans have become more prosperous, but others have it worse than in 1822.

It is a solution.

The real question is how to get there.

OK, so take me through the process with "Russia is a security threat to Western countries". We should have a list of premises which logically entail that conclusion. So what is that list? — Isaac

Here's a list, that could be put far more... It doesn't include the biggest offenses (possible coups etc) as this is only at Western countries and basically at the Nordic and Baltic countries. So with Ukraine and in some other places (like the Balkans etc.) Russian operations have far been more aggressive. But you asked specifically about Western countries.

- Russia has made extensive hybrid attacks and implied pressure to Finland, quite well reported by ambassador Rene Nyberg here: Form Hybrid Operations and the Importance of Resilience: Lessons From Recent Finnish History (Carniege endowment for international Peace, author René Nyberg)

- Russia makes threats to it's neighboring countries and assume they have a say in the security policy of Western countries. (See here)

- Russia has made cyber attacks towards Western countries, starting with Estonia in 2007 (see here) Last one's have happened here a month ago or so.

- Russia has organized refugee migrations into Northern Finland and Norway as a show-of-force that they could use this. (Explained in the Nyberg article)

- Russia kidnapped Estonian security officials inside Estonia and then traded these for their own spies. (See here)

- In Russian TV possible invasion of Swedish Island of Gotland is openly discussed (among attacking the Baltic States) See here

- Russia has made very often air space violations of Baltic States and Finland and Sweden.

And needles to say, Russia has invaded it's neighbors and annexed territory from them, which obviously causes concern to other neighboring countries.

(And I guess the response I'll get to this is a list what the US has done to Third World countries. Because that I guess makes all above totally OK behavior.)

If you're against borders being moved, you should be against Crimea's borders being moved in 1954 in the first place. — Apollodorus

Why on Earth? It wasn't an international border.

Once states break away and get their independence, it's different. But what would you care.

It follows that the borders were restored. You should welcome that if, as you claim, you're for permanent borders. — Apollodorus

I'm against wars, so I guess I'm for present borders to be upheld.

Restoring borders, meaning moving borders, is contrary to the idea of permanent borders.

2. Crimea was taken from Ukraine and given back to Russia in 2014. — Apollodorus

Given back? When did the Ukrainians give back Crimea?

Now I'll use your most often rofl-meme: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

Saddam couldn't have murdered as many Iraqis as the Americans did if he tried - let alone plunged the entire country into a futureless black hole. — Streetlight

I think that those that Saddam killed are quite accurately estimated and studied. Of course at first Saddam was supported by the US when he attacked Iran.

Iran, with a population of 50 million to Iraq's 17 million, mobilised to defend the revolution. By the summer of 1982 Iraq was on the defensive and remained so until the end in August 1988. The death toll, overall, was an estimated 1 million for Iran and 250,000-500,000 for Iraq.

Which just makes my point how stupid it is to start wars first against your neighbors... and then against your other neighbor that is backed by the US.

Those that died of other reason than Saddam in Iraq is the more acute question. The real question is how much did the UN sanctions kill? US Iraqi policy in the long term is one skeleton in the closet for the US.

I'm not sure such qualifications are warranted. He's a moron or irrational but he worked his way up to being leader of a country? I highly doubt it. — Benkei

When you rule with fear, you don't have to know international politics or what will happen if you start a war. What you have to know is how to frighten people into submission. And as an assassin and member of many coups, Saddam was perfect in the role of violently acquiring and holding on to power. And yes, Saddam also understood the importance of social programs, that could be done with the new oil money. It's not about being a moron, it's about not understanding what kind of trouble you will get into with starting wars. Who's going to argue against you?

We should avoid attributing irrationality to people who simply make decisions that we wouldn't dream of making our that in hindsight look stupid. — Benkei

Those who start wars usually do make stupid decisions.

Even if the Soviet Union and Russia were totally distinct and unconnected, Crimea can still be taken back from Ukraine in the same way it was given to it. — Apollodorus

Borders are NOT eternal. They change. If Russia changed the borders by “gifting” Crimea to Ukraine in 1954, it can change them again by annexing Crimea 60 years later! :smile: — Apollodorus

You don't apparently see it yourself, Apollodorus.

But the truth is that many Russians think just like you. And you just add even smilies to it. If there's an example of modern jingoism that supports Putins actions and looks down upon other nations, it's the above kind of messaging. Annexations are Ok, at least for Russia in this case.

One should remember that not all Russians think like this. Many do oppose the war and many have left the totalitarian state, but those are few. They shouldn't be forgotten, but neither your kind. And in Russia there are many who believe that Russia has this destiny, and of course the imperialism is veiled in the defense of "Fortress Russia".

And to refer that the Turks, Chinese and many others have done similarly with the US turning a blind eye to it doesn't refute the fact at all. Russia is our neighbor, not China or Turkey.

1. The transfer of Crimea to Ukraine was approved by the Soviet government and signed by the legal head of state, Klim Voroshilov. — Apollodorus

You said it yourself. And the Soviet government isn't the Russian government.

2. The Soviet Union was majority Russian — Apollodorus

Interestingly just barely. In 1989 Russians indeed were the majority in the Soviet Union, but just with 50,8% being ethnically Russian. Likely afterwards ethnic Russians would have become the minority, if the Soviet Union had continued. Where you have population growth are in places like Uzbekistan, not in Russia.

But, as I said, its fun to see NATO Nazis trying to "think" .... :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: — Apollodorus

General Guidelines:

A respectful and moderate tone is desirable as it's the most likely to foster serious and productive discussion.

When you make these sweeping generalizations: "If one is a threat, then all similar are a threat", this generalization should be judged on what is your action or response to thinking like this.

So if your first experience in Myanmar was to get robbed, what is your response is the issue that is important here. Not you using a sweeping generalization itself.

If you then stay out of Myanmar and let things be as they are otherwise, I don't think there's any problem for you or for the Myanmarese. For starters, just going outside of your home can be risky. But if you then devote your time to portray to others that Myanmar people are all robbers, that would be questionable. Some could call it racist.

And if you turn into a vigilante and try to prevent the Myanmarese robbing others by attacking and jailing them where you live, I guess you are quite a threat to public security. And likely should seek some mental help.

How exactly do I "mix up Russia and Soviet Union"??? — Apollodorus

Was Nikita Khrushchev the leader of Russia or the leader of the Soviet Union (or more correctly the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union)?

But that's not the end of it...

Things like your crazy idea that because the Budapest Memorandum isn't a security guarantee (as NATO or the CSTO membership is), that somehow the wording isn't then what it is:

That the countries by the principles of CSCE Final Act, to respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine.

Your claims that Crimea belongs to Ukraine, that borders can’t be changed, that Russia recognized Ukraine’s independence in 1991, and Ukraine’s borders in 1994, etc., have been exposed as baseless. — Apollodorus

When the sovereignty and independence of a state is recognized, you recognize it's borders. But that's of course baseless for you.

Russia’s annexation of Crimea is arguably legitimate — Apollodorus

Borders are NOT eternal. They change. If Russia changed the borders by “gifting” Crimea to Ukraine in 1954, it can change them again by annexing Crimea 60 years later! :smile: — Apollodorus

Again you clearly show that you are truly a delusional Putin troll. Or a crank. You even mix up Russia and Soviet Union, obviously.

3. The last clear example of aggression (that got condemned) was Iraq invading Kuwait with a much wider range of coalition partners than we see now. That could be political expediency, energy dependency, cynicism in light of the Western double standard or a more nuanced view than propagated in Western media about the underlying reasons why Russia attacked Ukraine. — Benkei

Don't forget that Saddam Hussein had even less rational thinking when he attacked Kuwait, his former ally, after a disastrous war against Iran. That the Soviet Union left Iraq on it's own and did OK the war against Iraq tells just how bad this idea was.

Getting Syria into an US lead alliance is a true show of total incompetence from that dictator. If I remember correctly, Hussein had to kill his military commander because he was so opposed to the idea of attacking Kuwait.

I'm ready to give him the benefit of doubt here. — Olivier5

I think the US has been quite decent in it's response. And what is notable that it has been a quite unified response from the West.

I wonder if in Biden's mind there is not the potential yet haunting image of a missile made in USA crashing into a Russian apartment complex. Something like that making the morning news could send us all into a spiral of death. — Olivier5

Biden seems to have already gotten assurances that US systems aren't going to be used to attack Russia proper from the Ukrainians.

(And seems that now the weapon system is the newer HIMARS that is going to be delivered)

The risks as we can assess them include 1) escalation into a broader conflict involving, say, Belarus for a start, Finland later, maybe even NATO ultimately — Olivier5

How actually this will happen is a real question mark. And seems that many don't even think they need to explain just how this would happen.

We've already seen that what some here argue is the main cause of war, NATO expansion, has already happened thanks my country and my neighboring country doing the most provocative thing ever. And what was the response? That it's a non-issue, both with Putin and Lavrov stating this.

Hence the escalation is partly, and I emphasize partly, something of a risk. The obvious non-starter was the demand for an no-fly-zone. That didn't happen and that surely would have been escalatory. The next escalatory issue is basically blockade running or talk of it.

In some form, perhaps under UN charter or something, this could happen, but of course then it's a negotiating tactic for the Russians. They have to get something from it. They have to agree with it, perhaps allowing some humanitarian grain shipment to countries that are in desperate need of supplies. But likely Russians would demand checking the cargo inbound to Ukraine.

Yet the fact is, which ought to be obvious, is that Ukraine's only alternative is to get a settlement, a peace deal or a cease-fire. It simply cannot win in the classic sense Russia. Russia has nuclear weapons, and it hasn't got them. And likely to have a good negotiation stance, Ukraine has to appear as bellicose and as willing to continue the fight, until it accept the peace terms.

Even for the Finnish people during the Winter War, the peace was a huge and total shock, as obviously the propaganda machine had lifted the spirits up even if the military situation was close to collapse and the end of the war. But that isn't a thing you obviously want to publicly state.

I think the biggest problem is that there are too many human beings on the earth. — Metaphysician Undercover

Raise the standard of living and the people having so many children will rapidly diminish.

And the interesting fact: Japan hasn't had an economic crash or societal collapse. So a World with a diminishing global population might not be so bad after all.

As the population gets more numb to mass shootings, then the mass shooters who want publicity will have to pick targets that get over the media barrier. That "ordinary" mass shootings just get into the local news is telling. It's like living in a quite obnoxious groundhog day as the response from the politicians is the broken record repeated again without anything happening.

There's simply something wrong in a society where people find it natural that they should need guns to protect themselves and their family / their property with guns. I don't hunt, so I don't want guns in my house.

If I really need a firearm, I think my government will give me one for free. At least until I'm under 60.

I think Biden is doing what he can. He needs to avoid escalation. — Olivier5

His wavering on the MLRS rocket launchers is telling. The weapon system is very effective, especially the M30/31 projectile with 70km range can avoid counter battery fire. No need to give then the ATACMS version with 300 km range, but to tell that you don't give weapon systems that can reach Russia when the Ukrainian forces are still in many places on the border with Russia is a bit strange. And Ukraine can reach (and has fired on) targets deep in Russia as it has tactical artillery missiles like the Tochka with 120 kilometer range and perhaps the HRIM missile with 350 kilometer range. Already the Ukrainian anti-ship missile has been used quite successfully.

Still the mainstay in the artillery duels is the old venerable BM-21 Grad with 45 km range, even if Ukraine has Smerch and Uragan systems from the Soviet era. But that now it's the M270 MLRS system that is debated does show how attitudes have changed as Ukraine has been able to fight Russia for so much time.

Ah, you mean like here — Isaac

As I said, more to your liking. And the topic isn't how bad the US is, so at least it's something different.

So well put on page 3 of this thread.

StreetlightX is deranged as usual. — frank

Now what? We all congratulate ourselves for correctly identifying that this is a 'bad' thing? — Isaac

Well,

How long are those millions of people be away from Ukraine? What will be the effect of millions of Ukrainian children now growing up in a different country? How much will it change Eastern Europe? What are the effects for Ukraine as such a huge percentage is now refugees?

Or more to your liking: is it racism that East Europeans have taken up with open arms the refugees coming from Ukraine, but the migration several years before (and still taking place now in the Mediterranean) wasn't.

That could be a discussion.

So just your typical ad hominem bullshit.

Of course.