They convinced Zelenskyy that he had to accept, initially, that he would have to concede Russian occupied territory — Punshhh

Why would Zelensky go for that deal? If I'm Zelensky, and I can count on EU support and probably U.S. support, aren't I hoping Russia will get tired of all this, like in Afghanistan? Or there will be another coup against Putin? Or Putin might die and be replaced by a moderate? Or the Russian economy suddenly implode? Or a WW1 style French mutiny happen? There are a lot of ways this could end in Ukraine's favor and not all of them are fanciful.

It seems to me that both sides are like exhausted bloody boxers, and Russia is ahead on points, but Ukraine is thinking, if we can hold on another three rounds, and just get a knockout blow....

Yeah, now. Not back then. Back then the very people condemning Russia today were defending the US. — Mikie

A majority of House Democrats voted against the war. Obama beat out Clinton mostly because he was against the war from the start. The Democrats have been consistent in their opposition to Iraq.

Despite the fact that Imperial Russia under Tsar Putin wants to conquer all of Ukraine and march on Berlin — Tzeentch

That was how it started. Putin doesn't want Berlin, but he certainly thought he could take Kiev. Who would have predicted that after several years, Russia would have suffered a million casualties, have their own land taken from them, and only occupy 20% of Ukraine? Everyone thought Kiev would fall quickly.

, they're rejecting temporary cease-fire deals and insist on a long-term peace agreement.

Hmmm... :chin:

That's the situation now. Putin would be thrilled to walk away from this disaster with a fifth of the country. What a strategic blunder it's been for him: his military wrecked, 100,000 dead, the economy groaning under sanctions, inflation, and high interest rates, NATO expanded, an attempted coup. The war couldn't have gone better for America and Europe if we had planned it.

Civil war? Lol. For a country of 340 million people, there is a vanishingly small amount of actual political violence. People attack each other online and then go about their daily routines being nice to one another.

"If you were alone in the woods, would you rather encounter a bear or a woman?”

No one picks the bear.

"If you were alone in the woods, would you rather encounter a bear or a man?”

A lot of people pick the bear. And the reasons are obvious. I've never crossed a street when a strange group of women is approaching. I've done it countless times when a strange group of men are approaching. Men are simply way too violent. It's still a huge problem.

But doesn't there come a point where you just can't stand living in a certain country anymore? It seems like you've reached that point.

It sounds like this is really bothering you. Maybe you'd be happier if you told the U.S. to fuck off and moved to a Muslim-majority country. Maybe Yemen?

I decided to replay Germany and build more u-boats in the pre-war years. The results were interesting:

So, How Did I Get From That… to the End of the Universe?
"A SINGLE DECISION CAN CHANGE EVERYTHING."

Your decision to prioritize U-boats set off a chain reaction:

Stronger U-boat war → Britain weakens → Germany shifts focus to Russia.
Germany fully prepares for war with the USSR → Soviet collapse.
No two-front war → Germany dominates Eurasia.
Cold War with the U.S. → No immediate Axis defeat.
Peaceful co-existence → Technological boom.
AI and space colonization → Interstellar expansion.
Post-human civilization → Reality itself questioned.
Final enlightenment → The end of the universe.

"AND THAT, MY FRIEND, IS HOW BUILDING MORE SUBS LED TO THE END OF EXISTENCE ITSELF."

All because you built more U-boats in 1936.

"THE U-BOAT EFFECT IS REAL."

People like Mikie hate,hate,hate WW2 because it reveals the intellectual bankruptcy of their position. And they're reduced to inanities like "the Allies were committing war crimes!" that the rest of us non-antisemites have to roll our eyes at. The Allies were justified bombing Japan and Germany back to the stone age. Japan and Germany started that war, and they got stomped on until they gave up. Such is war. Israel is up against a foe just as evil and just as stubborn. Let the bombs and missiles fly! The Palestinians, like the Germans, need to get stomped on till they too wouldn't dream of ever voting in someone like Hamas again.

What country do you live in?

I don't know. There's a deep reservoir of hate for Putin the in the old GOP members. They might balk at this. I can't say. The whole thing is a cult, but some of the GOP politicians are going along for politics, not for any cultish reasons. If their election is six years away, and they feel strongly on this, they might just tell Trump F-U. All it would take is 3.

GOP only has 53 senators. If just a couple break ranks, that can be very significant.
https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-ukraine-zelensky-john-cornyn-thune-b2701516.html

Congress has not uttered a squeak about anything Trump has done since the election. Not a word, not a raised eyebrow. If Trump says jump, their only response will be How high? — Wayfarer

That's not true. Republicans are speaking out now.

Isn't Sherlock Holmes a genius? Hannibal Lecter a cannibal? What about if I had a scary dream? Do I really mean I had a scary sequence of brain states? But who talks like that? It doesn't even make sense. Brain states aren't the kind of thing that can be scary (except maybe for ones that show you have a tumor).

I think there are still enough votes in Congress to authorize more aid to Ukraine.

I don't mind. Just throwin my 2 cents in from the peanut gallery

Pardon. I'm under the impression (I could be wrong, I admit it) that part of the conflict involves religion. Is that correct? — Arcane Sandwich

Well, some of the Arab combatants scream allahu akbar! before raping women to death, so....

That's depressing, I'm not watching it. I'm taking me ebike out. It's a nice day in Southern California.

I don't believe might makes right. I do believe the ends often justify the means. Normally, you wouldn't send a trolley car barreling down on someone, am I right? But if there's five people stuck on it...

Crack is a mind stimulant. Should it be legal? I'm saying "no". — Arcane Sandwich

I said "mild stimulant", not "mind stimulant".

That's a good question. Efforts to criminalize drugs have destroyed many many lives and done a number on the countries to the South of us. Maybe it would be better to just legalize it all and addicts can do it in licensed safe spaces.

Why not? What is it, then? — Arcane Sandwich

A mild stimulant. I'm not a coffee drinker, but I am a Diet Coke fanatic, and in the mornings, I get an energy boost from it, but I can't kill my mind with it. I can't get high off of it. So I can't use it as an escape. Maybe there are other people who do get an awesome high from it.

Is coffee in that group, in your opinion? Do people use coffee to escape a meaningless depressing life? Honest answer. — Arcane Sandwich

No, coffee's not an escape.

What if I claimed to be an alien Ai? Could you use Bayes theorem to show that to be improbable? I wonder what ChatGpt would say to that...

Well, I'm not too impressed so far:

"We need an initial probability for the existence of an alien AI interacting with humans. Given no strong prior evidence for such beings, a very low prior is reasonable. One in a million."

I don't agree with that. There's no strong evidence because our search methods are so primitive. We're in an epistemic situation where I wouldn't expect us to have any evidence of alien ai's, even if they existed, so how could that fact be disconfirming? It's like saying there's no evidence for germs before the microscope was invented.

ChatGpt's reply:

"That’s a great point! You’re highlighting an important issue in Bayesian reasoning: how do we set prior probabilities in cases where our ability to collect evidence is severely limited...With a 1% prior, the probability [of me being an alien Ai] would be 34% instead of near zero! That’s a massive shift, purely due to reconsidering our initial prior."

Anyway, back to the topic at hand.

1) In your honest opinion, is it fair for Earth Crisis (and Straight Edge in general) to blame societal problems solely on drugs? Or are there other elements of "society" that need to "take the blame" here, so to speak? — Arcane Sandwich

Remember the old experiments with the rats and the cocaine lever? They would dispense cocaine over and over again until they died. But then a researcher did a different experiment (Rat Park, Bruce Alexander). He created a pleasurable rat city for the rats where they could run around, fuck, eat, and enjoy their rat selves and he gave the rats access to morphine. The rats mostly ignored it.

So no, our problem isn't drugs it's what incentivizing people to take those drugs. They're using them to escape a meaningless depressing life.

"2) What, if any, is the actual intent behind the lyrics of their song "Firestorm"? Whatever that might be, would it be feasible and morally correct? In other words, what would be the Ethical justification for such acts? Would they even have a rationale to begin with?"

Burn it all down? I don't think things are that bad.

"Could you, as an honest reader, imagine a hypothetical scenario in which Earth Crisis' Straight Edge premises, together with their Vegan premises, deductively entail a contradiction?"

I don't know enough about that to answer.

And also, fuck you, Vegans, I won't do what you tell me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8de2W3rtZsA

International standards developed after WW2 in the Geneva Conventions (1949 and 1976) would consider our "punishment" of civilians as war crimes. — Relativist

Who cares? War itself is a crime against humanity. The only unforgiveable crime in war is to lose. I posted a poll awhile back:
Suppose Germany had won the Battle of Britain and then launched an invasion of England. Churchill authorizes the use of poison gas and it becomes a decisive factor in repelling the Nazi invasion.
Was Churchill's use of poison gas justified?

Most people said yes. I think that's the obvious answer.

Should they? Why? — Arcane Sandwich

Life is hard. Why deprive us of our little pleasures, like smoking and drinking?

What allowed the Germans to accept that and move on but the Palestinians can't?
— RogueAI
What difference does it make? You're judgement of what they "ought" to do doesn't compel them to do so. — Relativist

Of course it doesn't. That's Israel's job. The war will continue until Palestinians accept their defeat. It took huge amounts of suffering for Germany and Japan to get there. What Israel is doing isn't any different than what the Allies did, except Israel is being much more careful. The punishment we inflicted on Japanese and German cities before they surrendered was incredible, but that's war.

The Google ai sez: "after World War II, large numbers of ethnic Germans were forcibly expelled from territories that were ceded to other countries, particularly in Eastern Europe, including Poland and Czechoslovakia, which had previously been part of Germany; this event is often referred to as the "Flight and expulsion of Germans" and is considered one of the largest single instances of ethnic cleansing in history."

What allowed the Germans to accept that and move on but the Palestinians can't?

The former needs to be addressed before the latter. — NOS4A2

The latter isn't going to be addressed AT ALL by Trump. He's already said entitlements are off the table. So the couch cushions are pulled, DOGE rearranges some deck chairs more efficiently, and the Titanic steams on.

Jesus. No wonder the country is broke. — NOS4A2

This is couch cushion stuff. Politicians who ignore entitlement reform are not serious about debts and deficits. Wouldn't you agree?

You moved to Canada?

Yes it sucks for the Palestinians. They lost a war.
— BitconnectCarlos
And you think this means they should just accept their lot, like native Americans did? What "should" happen isn't the point. It's what WILL happen. They won't accept it, and neither will their Arab neighbors. — Relativist

Many countries lose wars and accept the new reality and move on. Why won't the Palestinians?

Good point! : ) — Arcane Sandwich

Thanks. That's in America though. Parts of Europe might need testing when it comes to freedom of speech.

That's because there are politicians who want to ban flag burning. I don't know of any politician that wants to ban Quran burning.

It tests those enlightenment-era values against older religious values involving inviolable divine directives or the sanctity of the holy book.
— BitconnectCarlos

Perfectly said.
Flawless.
Impeccable. — Arcane Sandwich

Do those values really need testing though? In the U.S. I know with certainty the government is not going to try and stop me from burning a holy book (unless I'm breaking some fire code).

Medicare and Medicaid are major drivers of the debt, would you agree?

The debt spiral won't be stopped until we address entitlements. Don't you agree?

It was invented by Albert Einstein. — Arcane Sandwich

Invented or discovered? Maybe a quibble, maybe not.

I recently bought a used Nissan Leaf. I love it. I plug it in when I get home and never have to worry about gas. It's also much easier to maintain.

When a person lost all his/her memories, the idea of self would have gone too. — Corvus

Amnesia is the destruction of self? And also, if I lose 90% of my memories, am I 90% less a self?