mr_engineer

You got a problem with me? You want to talk shit at me, PM me. This isn't the thread for that.

Don't make it personal. You don't know what I can do for the world. And how important these happenings are for my plans for my life.

@KH2 I'm not saying that sitting back and doing nothing is the solution. You prepare better. And, internal factors were in Russia's favor in WWII. They weren't enough, there was an application of brute-force. But, systemically speaking, over-extension/diplomatic attrition is the way to take down fascist regimes. Cuz logistically, there's a limit to how much a certain administration can control. Expansionism and colonialism backfire on the regime, without a doubt. It's just that in this case, there was a history of Ukraine wanting to join NATO and NATO entering Russia through the back-door. Whether this is true or not, a large portion of Russia believes this, which is why the people support him.

The West has been harboring hopes of a regime-change in Russia. As long as NATO takes an adversarial stance towards Russia, Putin's position will get stronger, morally. So, that'll hurt the West's cause of Russian regime-change. But, if Putin keeps going nuts, his administration will implode. And then the US will have diplomatic opportunities to take him down. Even this happened with Hitler, by the way. He lost cuz of internal sabotage.

Human systems work non-linearly, not linearly. He could handle Ukraine. But, if he just keeps going, at some point, he'll over-extend! That'll be the chance for competing powers to stop him. This is what happened in WWII with the Nazis.

My bad. I agree. I can assure you that's not what I'm doing. I'm analyzing what I believe to be a very important attitude-issue with NATO that could lead to a major catastrophe. So that all of us collectively do something about it. Or at least minimize the damage to ourselves.

Well, I have control of what I tell you. And, of course I can't rescue everyone here, they're responsible for their lives. Don't be racist.

I don't really agree that Russia will kill all the Ukrainian civilians. But, even granting you that, I'd take that over sacrificing billions of lives. All of us should be scared of a post-WWIII world, in which the precedent of nuclear attacks has already been set. This is our chance to take a clear stand on the issue of nukes.

Yeah, but Hitler lost the war, right?! And notice how Russia beat the Nazis. Not by outright aggression, but by over-extending them. They're doing the same with Ukraine and the West right now. The whole world's economy hangs in the balance here.

It's not 'democratic'. But, if the rapist has a nuclear weapon, the best thing in the interest of world peace is to let it happen while it's happening and then strategize deeper as to how to catch them and punish them. And to not yell threats at the rapist when you're not prepared to execute them!

Ukraine and Russia have a shared history. The mature thing to do would be to let them do their thing and direct those billions into improving your own economies, which are, quite frankly, struggling. NATO loses all humanitarian grounds for intervening in this situation when they identify with Ukraine's problems. If you say that 'We feel sorry for Ukraine, the evil Putin did this to you', I totally understand. But, it's not your loss!! Why take it on?! Especially when, as you mention, Russia is an adversary.

This is highly irresponsible diplomacy on their part. This opens the door wide open for war-crimes on a level and scale we've never seen before. And we've seen a lot. We've seen what Hitler did, for example. Prepare yourselves.

Of course, I'm hung up on it! When NATO openly identifies themselves as being an enemy of Russia, not only does this further justify Putin's invasion - it gives him the justification to escalate even further. It basically proves his point. They're not even pretending to be on the side of peace and democracy and harmony anymore. This is a huge wake-up call for the people only believing the US government. I don't know about you, but to me, this does not look like good diplomacy. I'd like to be proven wrong on this, cuz if I am, I've been wrong about how de-escalation works for my entire life and I'd really want to learn something about it.

That's a factual statement. Anyone who has nukes can make that statement. Very different from setting your bad blood in stone like this.

My only hope for the world now is that the American elite take this loss well. It's a faint hope, cuz you'd expect them to be bad losers. But, American citizens, either pray for your leadership to take it well or leave the US. Cuz they've named the loss as their own.

Please, enlighten me. How is doubling down on your egotism, saying that 'It's not their loss, it's OUR loss. And WE will pay you back for it', diplomacy?! How is identifying with someone else's loss a good diplomatic move?! As a diplomat, aren't you supposed to stand for something greater than yourself? Aren't you supposed to consider the other side's best-interests and stand for a moral good above you?! Something like peace or harmony?! That's been your narrative as the Western foreign-policy establishment, right?! What the hell is this, then?! And understand the reason they're doing this. It's because they're fucking losing!! If they were winning, they'd be singing a totally different tune, as to how virtuous they are and how evil Putin is for promoting the war. And they won because they're on the good side. Why this hypocrisy when they're on the losing side this time?! Whether they win or they lose, they're the good side. And, for this reason, the writing is on the wall as far as Western diplomacy is concerned.

@Leo Gura You have to admit that after this, Western diplomacy is out the window. Not only are they not being diplomatic about this, (you'd assume that the West is diplomatically superior to Russia because of their soft-power) they're showing an intent of never being diplomatic about the situation. Whether this war escalates or not, now depends on Russian diplomatic efforts. They're the only ones with diplomats on the table at this point.

He's making it obvious to those for whom it wasn't obvious, who were rationalizing it otherwise. It's not just buffonery on the part of the Western leadership to 'sanction Russia', it was intentional. Not only is this them intentionally declaring an economic war on Russia and cutting Russia off - it's demonstrably unapologetic. Which means that they will have no moral qualms escalating even further if this doesn't go well for them. It's unbelievable that they'd want to show their true colors that blatantly. Because this is a blatant warning to all the useful idiots believing that this was about 'democracy' and 'sovereignty' and not pure egocentrism on NATO's part. If you don't question why NATO would take the loss in Ukraine so personally after what he said, I don't know when you'll do it.

@Heart of Space You're picking a really, really fierce battle. My only advice to you is to have a genuine, tangible cause behind doing so. Please, pick your battles wisely. And have them be worth it. Cuz this is a huge hot-button issue for people.

Enlighten me.

@Heart of Space Dude, why are you doing this?!

I could very easily make a counter-argument that a huge issue is that the emergency-services specifically are monopolized by the government. If you privatize them, maybe, they'd get more negotiating-power, because they're so needed. For example, employees of emergency-services that belong to the government are struggling with low pay, because they have to be cheap, because they're not for profit. But, the emergency-services that are private, that are for profit, like ERs, they're expensive! Their employees aren't struggling all that much, doctors do make six figures. So, you can't really have your cake and eat it too. You can't talk about low wages for emergency-workers and high costs of healthcare in the same sentence! It's a hard optimization-problem.

I'll tell you a harsh reality about pricing - the way it works, is by a perceived value-disparity. It really is just a matter of supply and demand. How hard is it to become a police-officer?! Or, a fire-fighter?! Through the training?! Not very hard. I mean, of course, it is hard. But, the percentage of people who'd be able to clear that would be significantly higher than the percentage of people who could become programmers or gain technical proficiency/technical expertise in something. For the latter, you have to get good grades. Which aren't that common. I'd highly suggest that you read a book on Austrian economics to understand how entrepreneurs set prices. For products, for labor, etc. This is why, the way to get rich is to create best from waste, to be a creative motherfucker. Someone who can do that improves the efficiency of the overall system, because wastage goes down and output goes up as a result of doing something like that. And this is why so few people get rich. Because so few people develop themselves to have this ability! The one who can do this becomes the market-leader, because they come at the forefront of their industry in terms of innovation.

I say it is justified. My attitude, my opinion is what matters. You got a problem with that?!

@BenG Then don't complain about my 'attitude', if it's something that trivial. @Ulax Sometimes people need to get a taste of their medicine. I don't have any stakes in this, I don't have an agenda to convince anyone. I'm still trying to make sense of how feminists get away with this level of self-delusion. On my end, this still is an open-minded discussion!