Merv's Politically Incorrect Audio Blog

Discussion in 'SBAF Blogs' started by purr1n, Dec 26, 2018.

  1. Drakkard

    Drakkard Facebook Friend

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    From my point of view as a Russian, I expect the Russian army to clear Ukraine from all military bases, then initiate a Minsk 3 agreement to start on the recognition of independence of Donetsk and Lugansk.
    Most people here did not expect that. Nobody likes that. But after all negotiations failed, looking back, there were actually many signs from officials of that outcome since the second part of December.
    I have friends in Ukraine. Watching...
     
  2. mitochondrium

    mitochondrium Friend

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    Personally I think discussing this subject while people are dying is frivolous.
     
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  3. Tachikoma

    Tachikoma Almost "Made"

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    And yet we can't quite ignore it.

    The implications of China and Russia forming a Germany-Japan-esque alliance are pretty severe. For all I know, being in South East Asia, we might all be speaking mandarin in a few years.
     
  4. YMO

    YMO Chief Fun Officer

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    My local friends:

    Left-Leaning: They don't care since they can barely afford rent, hating on the GOP hot button social issue bills being passed, and hate capitalism.

    Right-Leaning: Who gives a shit about Ukraine? Oil about to hit $100 and let Europe figure out their own shit since we got a dead grandpa as president who is making the US worse. Waiting for 22 Midterms and 24 to elect Trump or DeSantis for President so we can make this country great and conservative again since Progressives are evil. Also...who cares if the next gen can't afford houses they should learn to work two/three jobs and shut up.
     
  5. crenca

    crenca Friend

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    If you truly want to try to understand, Google " Kievan Rus' " and begin the process of learning a bit of what makes a non Classical Liberal country/culture/people such as Russia tick. To the extant you can put aside your decadent western moral assumptions - @YMO post revealing the surface of that decadence - will be the measure of understanding ;)
     
  6. rhythmdevils

    rhythmdevils MOT: rhythmdevils audio

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    I'm not going to post anymore about this, I'm tempted to rename this thread "do not post in this thread", I'm very anti war in general of course, but if you look at the wars we have chosen to fight in and the wars we have not chosen to fight in since WWII including ignoring mass genocide, the take over of Tibet, invading Iraq, Vietnam, etc, it paints a pretty nasty picture of America as a country. Whether we should help Ukraine with military force is a complicated one and is not black and white, But America's history of warfare over the last 70 years is disgusting to say the least.
     
  7. crenca

    crenca Friend

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    If you go back to the founding, we have been at war with someone somewhere for all but a handful of years - someone added it up and it's less than 20 years of our 243 year of existence. Yet, we have not really suffered - "only" just over a million dead (more than half from our own civil war). Russia suffered 27 milliion dead from WW2 alone, and many think that number is too low.
     
  8. penguins

    penguins Friend, formerly known as fp627

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    I may get slapped by the mods for this too but after some thought:
    Most importantly, I am 100% hoping I'm wrong and things slow down pretty quick.

    1) From a strongman type leader's point of view: this is the perfect time to do what I want because a half senile, weak, spineless, and directionless Biden is at the helm in the US. AND, even better, if this 79 year old man dies of some old age thing in the next year or two, a somehow even less "strong" VP is in line. WOW YESSSSS!!!
    Obv exaggerated, but stuff like this is why I have no idea why the US leadership seems to expect all leaders around the world who derive power differently to think the way "we" do and play by the same rules. Even more baffling, why doesn't US leadership adapt?

    2) What scares me more is that every strongman leader with no nukes right now (read: the majority of the world) is probably foaming at the mouth seeing what you can get away with when you have nukes vs no nukes. The very huge problem is they aren't that hard to design or make relative to modern standards...

    2b) I also suspect same random strongman dictators are not nearly as worried about the ensuing instability this would create as their social and economic capital probably don't lie in the relative high productivity of (relatively) free and educated people in a stable society (whether or not they or even many EU nations view US hegemony + stability as right or legitimate), but rather in being strong and being able to do whatever in their likely already somewhat or fully chaotic country.

    Wrote comments about Taiwan and China too, but I stopped myself and deleted it all.

    If the US does nothing though, the floodgates open. If the US does something, I don't see it being good for many people on either side...
     
    Last edited: Feb 24, 2022
  9. rhythmdevils

    rhythmdevils MOT: rhythmdevils audio

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    Every time I post in this thread I wish I hadn't. My name is Whitney and I love music and headphones.
     
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  10. YMO

    YMO Chief Fun Officer

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    And my pics.
     
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  11. crenca

    crenca Friend

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    They don't adapt because they and our culture/civilization is decadent. Decadence is a state of ruin, decay, impotence, and inability to see (let alone properly react) to reality itself. You said it yourself, strongmen and the vast majority of people/civilization on the planet today and throughout history (who support their strongmen leaders), do not hold to late modern assumptions about what it means to be human and the purpose of civilization /government, that is "freedom, education, prosperity" as it is thought of and affirmed by our decaying CL society.

    Our decadence is only "baffling" to us, because we are defined and limited by it and can't see beyond it. Our values and the civilization that results from these values are only seen as 'universal' by us, not most people in the rest of the world.
     
  12. Beefy

    Beefy Friend

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    I really think it has nothing to do with the relative strength or weakness of the US, Europe, or their leaders. I mean, surely the US is in a stronger position now than if it were Trump in charge with his huge Putin-man-crush. And everyone knows all too well that NATO would absolutely spank Russia in conventional warfare, but putting boots on the ground in the Ukraine would surely start WWIII.

    So the question is, what sort of pain and consequences can the world make Russia suffer in the absence of military force? And how much pain are we willing to accept in doing so? Cutting off SWIFT and halting use of all Russian petroleum would absolutely decimate the Russian economy, but with obvious negative consequences for Europe.

    And while Russia can surely take Ukraine by force, I wonder if they have thought of the resources and resolve required to keep it. How hard would it be for Ukranians to start building IEDs? Start orchestrating terrorist attacks in Moscow? Russia has seen the quagmire the US found itself in with Afghanistan and Iraq, and learned nothing.

    I wonder how different generations see this. I'm sure people of Putin's age still feel this way, even with the fall of Russia they are probably better off now. But I bet younger Russians see the poverty and feel differently.

    Bah, whatever the case, this is all so fucked up.
     
  13. crenca

    crenca Friend

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    "And while Russia can surely take Ukraine by force, I wonder if they have thought of the resources and resolve required to keep it...."

    They have been thinking about if for a 1000 years, and know the answer quite well .

    US vs Afghanistan: prosperous yet decadent civilization vs. poor non-decadent civilization. Outcome: decadent society can not transform non-decadent society into its own image, soon runs out of will and $ - non-decadent civilization pays the price for its own survival and wins.

    Russia vs. Ukraine: two non-decadent brothers continuing a family dispute that dates back generations, literally a 1000 years. Does not really matter who wins because there is no "winning" in family. As usual, western decadent civilization is too narcistic to understand '"the other", insisting on its own "universal" reduction of everything to "Freedom vs. Dictatorship" and other non-real simplifications, but being exhausted luckily can't do anything other than protest impotently.
     
  14. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    It's complex. I think 90% of the world wants to help. However, this is difficult to do when Russian has become Europe's gas station. We're talking both natural gas and gasoline.

    Proximity matters. Ukraine and Tibet could be argued to be in Russia's and China's sphere of influence respectively. The USA does the same thing. We've fucked with Central and South America, and do not like it when anyone else tries to f**k with any country in the Western Hemisphere.

    Finally, old fears die hard in that part of the world. How many continental wars have there been in Europe in the past few hundred years? Russia wants a buffer, hates NATO expansion eastward, but ex-Soviet states don't want to play any part of this and would rather be a part of the greater EU.

    The sad and ironic thing is that Putin's actions will only further alienate Ukrainians, that is forge a stronger Ukrainian identity separate from Russia. It's not much different from China and Taiwan where China's obsession with unification has only made a once nebulous Taiwanese identity into a very strong one (I've noticed and witnessed this shift for decades now).

    Anyway, I would not say that we are not doing anything. We've sent thousands of anti-tank missiles and Germany has sent 500 helmets.


    The bigger question is how Putin was allowed to have such leverage with energy supplies in the first place. People and nations are short-sighted. Wars are won way before they happen.
     
    Last edited: Feb 24, 2022
  15. Pancakes

    Pancakes Friend

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    I disagree with this for one single reason: any response from a US leader (be they perceptually or literally weak or macho) that isn't merely economic in nature has the potential for nukes flying. I'm confident 99.999999999% of Earth's population would not like that. That's exactly why a strongman will do whatever they want - because they know there won't be an armed response.
     
  16. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    ^ Yeah. Don't poke the bear, especially when the bear has nukes.
     
  17. Pancakes

    Pancakes Friend

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    A quick follow up to my previous comment.

    The above is also the reason Russia didn't directly confront us in Libya and a few other Middle Eastern hotspots they have interests in. They fought a proxy war against "insurgents" or whatever and other than a few flybys stayed out of our way. This will be the same - we're going to do economic sanctions and fight a proxy war by quietly funding Ukrainian military "things" and that'll be it.

    You simply can not have direct armed conflict between nations with nukes.
     
  18. Drakkard

    Drakkard Facebook Friend

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    As far as I know, Nato consistently said it will not intervene. Same for the USA. At the same time put all negotiation offers down. For the last several months it looked like they wanted Russia to invade.
     
  19. penguins

    penguins Friend, formerly known as fp627

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    Well yes, this is exactly the point 2 I make above and am more worried about.

    I still would have more incentive to "misbehave" by US standards though with a leader I perceive as not having the ability to play chess at the helm though.
     
  20. Merrick

    Merrick A lidless ear

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    Leverage from oil companies to lobby against and undermine alternative fuel sources. These companies are transnational and have no allegiance to the US or any other specific country. Their motives are pure profit and they don't care if their oil supplies come from sheiks or Putin or the devil himself as long as it flows reliably and lets them post record profits every quarter.

    Combine this with a constant fear of nuclear energy (pretty ridiculous given that the US alone has enough nuclear warheads to make the entire globe uninhabitable to anything other than radroaches for the next 1,000 years), and 20+ years of US meddling in the Middle East which disrupts the flow from that region, and here we are.
     

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