I'm sorry? You've been on this site how long? If you think any of the proofs of God actually works, you haven't been paying attention.

Ah, you've just described religious persons as bigots. That's not very nice.

I'm not anti-religious, I'm against stupid threads. And since all the god arguments have been disproved, all of them are stupid.

Finally, no more religious crap!

you'll do better than what we have now.

I'd go for option two. It will last about 4 to 5 decades and then I'll be dead and after that things will go to normal. It solves the population problem for awhile and since everybody lives for me and to make me happy I have some time to make some demands on how to treat nature and each other.

@Christoffer Holy moly, I gave it some programming instructions to build a market place for buyers and sellers in python and as far as I could tell that looked nifty. 2 minutes work, 1 minute phrasing my question correctly and another minute for it to write the code.

As someone who actually works with stories and writing, I can tell you, it's not easy. Story and storytelling is extremely hard since it taps into a poetic language that needs a certain individuality to be consistent and a poetic language that structures every sentence in ways not present in more academic or other texts. — Christoffer

Ooh, please comment on the short fiction contest then. Your experience can be invaluable criticism there.

I was playing around with it too. Some things I worry about is that it's not capable of telling truths from falsehoods and to understand what is appropriate. So if this replaces a search engine, I'm worried the level of misinformation in certain areas will get even worse. Your other option that it starts writing software seems much safer and useful to be honest.

As I said: snark.

It's been explained regularly on this thread and I have no appetite rehashing the same discussion. Point is that it's ridiculous to expect a nuclear escalation if they'd join and maintain it's not a reason for this war. It's the regular arguments for convenience where every fact is interpreted to suit preconceived conclusions. The lack of analysis here is simply embarrassing and when it's pointed out the thread rapidly deteriorates into snark.

You have a strange way of expressing yourself if you didn't just say "[Ukrainian] moves towards NATO membership could possibly trigger a nuclear response."

Why would it when according to you those moves weren't a reason for the war to begin with? Why would it all of a sudden illicit a reaction even worse than conventional war if it wasn't the reason for war in the first place?

For this reason, I predict Ukraine will join the EU but not NATO. Russia cannot possibly use nukes just to stop a nation from freely joining a trade group like the EU, but moves towards NATO membership could possibly trigger a nuclear response. — Olivier5

I don't agree with that assessment. Russian doctrine is clear, attacks on the motherland will illicit a nuclear response. This wouldn't qualify. The risk of Ukraine joining NATO was what caused the current war but funny how for 400 pages you and others argued against that being the reason for the war and now all of a sudden it would be grounds for a nuclear attack?

So BlockFi also crashed which is a competitor of Nexo offering a similar service as I'm using. Turns out Nexo moved all its crypto out of FTX beginning of November before it crashed. I wonder what tipped then off.

There's a lot of incestuous lending going around in the background which creates all sorts of counterparty risk without any level of transparancy or oversight. It does seem so far, on average, European crypto institutions are not as leveraged or risk taking as their US counterparts.

Market movements in crypto are irrelevant to me because I'm only holding stable coins with a guaranteed 1 on 1 conversion. Downward fluctuations in market value in crypto need to be covered by additional collateral by borrowers or part of their collateral gets sold to pay off part of the loan until the LTV is within range again. I'm not running any market risk, whereas index funds do.

This is in principle less risk because it's irrelevant what the markets do, whereas index funds will crater during recessions.

The main threat NATO poses to Putin's Russia is to them getting away with free military actions, not the dire existential threat proselytized by their propagandists. — jorndoe

Why exactly should a country accept that another country or group of countries limits its possible actions? If we accept countries are peers, this is principally problematic and militarily an issue because it means you're constrained in defence. If it's about aggression, we should be encircling most European countries and the USA.

A lot of what's written about this, does not take into account how Russians see NATO. Which is why people keep reiterating NATO is defensive and countries join because they feel threatened. That doesn't preclude the Russians feeling threatened, which in turn causes them to threaten their neighbours. So we have a nice vicious cycle and the West demands it to be broken by Russia acquising to the expansions, while it could also just stop expanding. A cynical interpretation is that NATO must expand or become irrelevant as tensions would subside and a geo-political equilibrium would arise with buffer states between the West and a regional player that doesn't want to be "Western".

I personally think limiting a nuclear power's conventional choices also increases the likelihood of nuclear escalation but I'm told not to worry since proxy wars never escalated before. Except of course everybody was fucking scared about a nuclear holocaust during the Cold War, entirely aware of the distinct possibility. The hand waving about the risk I see during this war should be grounds to worry about an escalation more instead of the opposite, simply because it's not taken seriously.

Nuclear anxiety was prevalent in many parts of the world during the 1980s. [3][6] Nuclear threats were identified among northern European students as their biggest concern, as the second or third biggest concern among North American students in 1986,[4] and was a source of anxiety in Third World countries, such as among Colombian youth.[5] It was rated the most frequently mentioned concern among Ontario students in 1985[10] and Finnish children and teenagers in a national survey in the same year.[3]

Is this an objection to my post? If so, that's a strawman argument since you are suggesting that I believe "the West is a power for good for the rest of the world" which thing I never stated nor believe. On the other side, if you are simply suggesting that I believe "the West is a power for good" because I'm living in the West where is the objection? You yourself claimed: "Which it mostly only is when you actually live there".
In any case, I never stated such a slogan "the West is a power for good" nor I would express myself in such terms. — neomac

So the West should lose then?

That entire post is build on the predicate that the West is a power for good. Which it mostly only is when you actually live there. For the rest of the world it's been mostly shit.

I'm on a stable 9% return per year so far without leverage and trying to divine what the crypto markets are doing. The only thing I have to worry about is getting hacked since it's a live wallet. I'm holding a stable eurocoin which is used to effectively lend Hodlers euros and they pay me lots of interest for that service. Counterparty risk is managed by the platform with LTV-ratios of 50%, margin calls and automatic liquidation if people are late with posting collateral. I read a lot of complaints about people having their assets sold because they were late, which is a good indication it's working. If I could insure my wallet from getting hacked, I'd be pumping all my savings into this.

I agree that parties should be negotiating if not peace at least an armistice for the winter. But I'm afraid Ukrainian hardship will be used as leverage instead.

I think one of the bigger problems is Ukraine wanting security guarantees. It's not getting them from the West, no mutual defense pacts and no joining NATO. That last option was already explicitly taken off the table by several NATO members.

Possibly Ukrainian security can be created through a demilitarised zone but I'm not sure how much sense that makes with Crimea containing an important naval base. Nevertheless perhaps a DMZ for grounds forces along the Eastern Ukraine-Russia border would be enough. You can't invade with boats after all.

The second problem is how much land the Ukrainians are willing to part with. Negotiating now means giving up land and if the Ukrainians can continue to make gains, then the timing is not good for them. And that's also dependent on "ally fatigue", which I thought weird was openly communicated. Why not say "hey, Russia, we'll probably blink before you so just keep it up and you'll get the upper hand". That only makes sense if Russia has communicated a palatable (to NATO/USA) solution to the conflict.

Maybe you should look what "context" means in a dictionary? What other "action" than a further escalation was he alluding to according to you? Christoffer already mentioned a no-fly zone which is a huge increase in risk towards nuclear escalation. Which is a bad enough interpretation and precisely why I think that Zelensky's uninformed/informed accussation was made in bad faith with the potential to ruin even more lives than this war is already doing. What else? Enlighten me what kind of action Zelensky meant in the context of his little speech because all I get from you "that's not what he meant" but you're entirely unclear what he then did mean with "action".

Yo miss!

It's not a fallacy to contest another poster's interpretation nor method of argument. Benkei says he knows best what Zelensky meant, "in the context", because we're not native speakers. That's a ridiculous claim. — Olivier5

I was trying to be charitable by assuming there was a language issue, especially since you got the meaning of good faith wrong already, but we can go with "knowingly maintaining a wrong interpretation".

Russian missiles hit Poland, the territory of our friendly country. People died. Please accept condolences from all Ukrainian brothers. Poland, the Baltic states. it's only a matter of time before Russian terror goes further. We must put the terrorist in place. the longe Russia feels impunity, the more threats there will be to everyone who can be reached by missiles. To strike with missiles NATO territory isa Russian strike on collective security. It's a significant escalation. Action is required. I now want to tell our Polish brothers and sisters - Ukraine will always support you. free people won't be broken by terror. Victory is possible when there is no fear. And we and you are not afraid. — Zelensky

This is what he said. He qualified it as a "strike" on NATO territory knowing full well the article 5 obligations (it has no added meaning otherwise, as he could have left it at "Poland"), qualified it as a "significant escalation", raises the spectre of the Baltic States and Poland being subject to Russian terror going further than a missile strike and then his call to action in that context isn't "have an investigation" or "keep sending arms". He's not asking them to answer another party's escalation with "keep doing the same" because he already got that, so that doesn't qualify as "action". So yes the context is quite clear. But happy to have that discussion based on a French translation source.

It's also funny how we then have this scripted propaganda when he realises he fucked up:



"We shouldn't jump to conclusions after I did exactly that."

Anyone who thinks making a living out of hiring themselves out for contracted murder is a good idea, is insane.

out of arguments and back at ad hominems I see, how novel. It's obvious for anyone who can read using the common sense meaning of words in the English language.

I meant a translation of his whole speech and we can do this in your native tongue.

It's nice how you deny what happened. Mook claimed the Russians hacked to help Trump. That was called collusion in the media, and that's what was reported on and turned out to be true. That's not criminal conspiracy, which much more common word would've been obvious to use of that's what they wanted to suggest.

And just because something isn't illegal doesn't make it morally right. The goal and purpose of those 100 meetings between Trump and his associates with Russians was hardly benign. See again, the Mueller report.

I don't trust my own politicians so that's the wrong question.

Whatever. I get you're not a native English speaker and the finer points of the translation are lost in you. Why don't you find a French translation and share it here?

He is only calling for 'action'. That's vague enough. It could be anything. An increase in weapon delivery would qualify. — Olivier5

I already mentioned to Christoffer that in the context of that small speech it's quite clear what he means.

Not really, no. I go by the usual meaning, which implies a lack of lies and dissimulation, but does not imply that only reasonable statements are in good faith. The word 'faith' is not synonym of the word 'reason'. It's more an antonym in fact. Sometimes it is rational to lie. but one cannot lie in good faith. — Olivier5

The term "good faith" has a specific meaning quite devoid from "faith". It's a legal term of art which nowadays is also used in common language. Your use of it is incorrect, the absence of lies and dissimulation (great word btw) are not enough. It is generally assumed an effective translation of the Latin bona fides, which is about reliability and trust between two parties in their dealings towards each other. If you cannot reasonably rely on your statements to be correct (because you're just guessing) and if you're not taking into consideration the interests of the other, you are not acting in good faith.

I understand from your reply you didn't read the Mueller report. Collusion isn't a legal term. He looked into conspiracy and it didn't reach that level but specifically he did find:

1) the Russian government tried to help Trump win;
2) the Trump campaign was eager to benefit from hackings targeting Democrats; and
3) Trump’s campaign advisers had a lot of troubling ties to Russia.

Plenty of stuff to raise the question whether there was in, lay man terms, collusion, which is what was reported on: "possible collusion" after Mook mentioned the Russians stole the DNC emails to release via wiki leaks with the purpose of helping Trump. Which turned out to be accurate.

Mueller also found 10 issues of possible obstruction of justice about which he said "If we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state." A logical negative inference is then Mueller believes it likely.

One could go so far as to argue the years of this kind of reporting helped usher in the present threat of nuclear war. — NOS4A2

That's total bullshit when that proxy war spans at least two decades already.

Errors aren't fake news. Fake news is the deliberate pushing of falsehoods. The majority of the stories had a) alternative versions on other news outlets that people could read or b) were corrected when facts were clarified. A nice example is comparing 157 and 1, two cases where in one case the New York Post got it right and in the other it got it wrong.

There's of course a certain laziness in news outlets parroting each other under the assumption the original story is correct and with a 24 hour news cycle a lot of reporting involves no investigation just regurgitation of opinions and statements.

Also, Trump was in public office as presidenr which I do hold to a higher standard than newspapers. I guess it's a win you aren't denying the sheer amount of lies he's uttered.

He waves with the spectre of Russia attacking Poland and the Baltic States in a similar fashion as Ukraine and you're thinking about a no fly zone and not pre-emptive defence? And he references NATO, knowing full well the article 5 obligations in that treaty, because shits and giggles, "no fly zones" because where exactly are those mentioned in the treaty?

As I said, I don't think that's a reasonable interpretation at all.

So your interpretation of "Action is needed" is Zelensky wanting a no-fly zone? Have you seen the entire address where here comes to that conclusion? I don't feel that's a reasonable interpretation of what he said.

Russian missiles hit Poland, the territory of our friendly country. People died. Please accept condolences from all Ukrainian brothers. Poland, the Baltic states. it's only a matter of time before Russian terror goes further. We must put the terrorist in place. the longe Russia feels impunity, the more threats there will be to everyone who can be reached by missiles. To strike with missiles NATO territory isa Russian strike on collective security. It's a significant escalation. Action is required. I now want to tell our Polish brothers and sisters - Ukraine will always support you. free people won't be broken by terror. Victory is possible when there is no fear. And we and you are not afraid. — Zelensky

I don't know why you go through this process as a reaction to my post as it's not very relevant to the point I'm making. Zelensky called for action as a clear reaction to what he called a "Russian escalation". You mind-reading Zelensky that he would think it won't lead to an article 5 consequence, which requires him to mindread NATO decision makers, is quaint but I'll take what Zelensky actually said over that particular invention.

Btw, irrespective of who fired the missile, you get an article 4 event if invoked.

The fact is that the US and Poland have both said conflicting things within their own nations so there's nothing conclusive at all about this. — Christoffer

I've read "Russian missiles, we don't know who did it" and read several people clamoring the Russians did it, including the Ukrainian president and several US news outlets, on Wednesday and that changed to "Russian missiles, fired by Ukraine" according to NATO and the USA when I opened my browser this morning. Seems pretty conclusive to me and I can't for the life of me think of a good reason for NATO/USA to claimy it wasn't a Russian fired missile when it actually was and to do so before the investigation has been finished unless they have very high confidence levels to make such statements.

So, at this point in time, I'm going with "Ukraine accidentaly hit Poland while defending against a Russian barrage" as the most rational position.

If Zelensky believes in good faith that the missile was sent by Russia, then he is not following a political line in saying so. He is just saying what he believes is the case. — Olivier5

You have an interesting idea of "good faith" which is actually to the total opposite. What Zelensky believes is irrelevant; he needs to have reason to believe it.

One of the tests of "good faith" is that the action has to be reasonable. You cannot maintain that acting, or urging others to act, on beliefs that are not grounded in facts is reasonable. Facts which you maintained were not available. I can honestly believe we'll be struck by a meteor tomorrow and urge everyone to go out and get drunk but I wouldn't be acting in good faith, since claiming such a thing without any evidence is unreasonable.

Zelensky's willingness to make these claims without knowledge, or more likey with knowledge to the contrary, is a reminder that our interests do not align 100% with that of Ukraine. The most charitable interpretation is that he wants to secure arms deliveries for the foreseeable future in light of Biden's mention of "ally fatigue" beginning of this month but that requires him to be stupid enough not to realise the possible consequences. But he did realise because he expressly referred to an escalation when he said: :

Hitting NATO territory with missiles. … This is a Russian missile attack on collective security! This is a really significant escalation. Action is needed. — Zelensky

So he doesn't know (according to you) but he's totally fine with calling for an escalation of a war with a nuclear super power right here in Europe without knowing whose missile it was. That's not reasonable and considering the very serious potential consequences, is a textbook example of "bad faith" as it in no way, shape or form takes into consideration the safety of people currently not involved in this war.

Not everything Ukrainian is necessarily sinister, you know?

How strangely your mind works.

Thanks for the... cash? I guess.

So across a multitude of news outlets (New York Times, New York Post, CNN, MNBC, NPR and probably more) she found 157 falsehoods about Trump since 2016, whereas Trump has lied about 30,000 times in his four years as president. So close!

Let's assume that's true. On the basis of belief but not evidence, because that's difficult to get by according to you, he thinks it's perfectly fine to follow a political line aimed at escalation? I still think that's cynical, possibly more so because then facts aren't relevant to his position and we should worry that Zelensky will go to significant lengths to ecalate the conflict.