ChristerMLB

don’t mention ze war!

what tractor is worth ten times as much as what tank?!

pretty sure this is just the correct way to sing national anthems

yeah, the graph of his approval ratings kind of confirms that: up when there’s elections, and then down when he’s in power

America is worse? The entire world is worse

if you liked The Wire, you should check out the other shows from David Simon and the rest of them. Especially Generation Kill and The Deuce.

will this do? https://www.npr.org/2024/07/12/nx-s1-4865955/tianeptine-gas-station-heroin-drug

I don’t think it’s anonymity, I’d say it is the fact that we are not face-to-face, so we don’t get that intuitive feeling of responsibility.

I don’t see how the missile itself should be considered a war crime, but using it in a civilian area certainly should be.

America doesn’t lose wars, it loses interest

Yeah, problem is that you lot have been going on about how the war will inevitably and swiftly end in a Russian victory every day since the war started - often in the same hyperbolic way that you’re writing now (see attached image). The sources I’ve preferred to follow have been clear from the beginning that this is going to take a while, and that the outcome is not certain (aside from the fact that it will be horrible for both Russians and Ukrainians)

Was it against international law when the Banderites engaged with their war against Russian speaking civilians in the Donbass for 8 years

Civil war is not against international law, but of course that’s not quite what the war in Donbas was. Either way, you’re using a whataboutism to sidestep the point.

the British navy is in that bad a state?

yeah, the US is burning so much good will, it’s insane

The sad thing is that they just might. The Brits (and the rest of Europe) need lower energy prices

Those three are all real factors, but I think you are exaggerating their size and importance.

The increase in oil price and softening of US sanctions will benefit the Russians, but it won’t make the war economy sustainable.

Western armories are running bare, but the same is true for the Russian ones. Both Ukraine and Russia are mostly using equipment as it’s being produced, and both Ukraine and the rest of Europe has been ramping up production capacity. I imagine you’re right that it’s worse for Ukraine to lose access to American air defense systems than it is for Russia to lose access to Iranian Shaheds.

The high energy prices are a problem in Europe, but compared to the situation in Russia (or Ukraine, for that matter) there’s nothing EXTREME about it.

The reason peace negotiations have been hopeless, is because the Ukrainians and the Russians can’t agree on where the war is headed. The Russians believe that if they just keep going, the Europeans will get bored and give up, while Ukrainians believe that they can keep going longer than the Russians because they are supported by a European economy that is not in an unsustainable “war mode”.

Who is right is up to us, and given that every single demand that the Russians have is against some pretty fundamental international law, it is in the interest of future European peace to ensure that the Ukrainians are right - and to make that as obvious as possible to the Russians so that peace negotiations become possible.

Alright, I’ll bite. How does the war with Iran “seal Ukraine’s fate”?

Trump has taken the US as far out of the war in Ukraine as the American people will let him, it’s not great for peace, we should all have ramped up the aid a lot earlier, but to say that the US is participating in the war… that’s really stretching it.

If the approach is just “look for evil people and then destroy them”, or “if politicians piss the people off, and they’ll come for their head”, it’s likely to produce more evil through the fear that it creates. A good political system is predictable – politicians should know that if they do evil (clearly defined in law), it will become public, and it will have consequences (again, clearly defined in law). This should also apply to all powerful people, not just politicians.

At the end of the day, the goal is to control and counteract certain ambitions, not to create fear.

Fear leads people to do stupid evil shit

It is possible to harass and shame people by misgendering them, e.g. by conspicuously and repeatedly referring to them in the third person. I think some people do try to chase trans people off the public square using tactics like that. Beyond that, my gut feeling is that if it’s a belief that’s presented honestly and curiously, those philosophers would want it expressed.

The whole trans debate is a bit of a mess in this regard, I think. For trans people, it is very personal, and it’s been jazzed up so much by the whole culture war bs. Everyone who has an opinion on it, seem to finish presenting it with “END OF DISCUSSION”, not really in line with those enlightenment ideals.