Jiggle_Physics

Quake live is the way to go if you want Q3 arena today.

No, my point is that nothing in this situation was justified. None of it. If, however, you feel the long term meddling in Ukraine, and invasion, by Russia is justifiable, not to mention the corruption it openly participates in that are classical empire bullshit, like having a prominent leader of your empire collateralize a billion dollar loan by a political figure, who used a lot of that money to finance their campaign, when every bank on earth had blocked his credit, and many other things, like almost completely funding mainstream popular right wing new media networks, who are all now failing when one Russian finance source got cut, you need to be seeing the nuance of the bigger empire too.

You are also skipping a number of things I brought up that signal security issues towards the EU, and just focused on what they leader of the country says. This makes me suspect of your good faith. After the fall of the USSR both Georgia, and Moldova, had infighting as new nations were being formed from the collapse. Russia then sent their military in to forcefully establish permanent military bases as a “peace keeping” operations, and violently crushed all descent to this with their military, and began propping up unrecognized “state governments” they owned as thin excuses to legitimize their actions. Now tell me, who does this sound like? Had we had not been having this conversation, and I were to tell you and unnamed country was doing this to two other unnamed countries, who would you have immediately thought I was walking about?

When faced with having to pull out, per request of the states they were occupying, in order to continue with the CFE, Russia backed completely out, and immediately began preparing their military for invading from the caucuses, and went into discussions of passing their forces through Belarusian borders. These are not just words, nor are they insignificant. This is what sparked the CIA to ramp-up efforts in those countries. They allowed the first annexations because it would hand Russia strategic resources they had long wanted. They hoped that would be the end of it. However, countries from central Asia, to Europe, warned Georgia, that Russia was preparing to move forward again. That is what ended up happening, but this time NATO had been preparing Ukraine, and began supplying them, so it wasn’t successful. This time NATO saw an opportunity to not only bleed Russia, but to also field all sort of new weapons systems, and ideas they had been practicing in theory.

This is not the story of a country who never operated its military outside of its borders, nor one who’s only evidence of threats of expansion are words. Bringing up that Russia has lost trade deals without killing everyone is dumb, the US has done the same. Russia has to be far more selective in how it exercises its hard power, because it is poorer, and less advanced in regards of military production, than the established empire.

there is a guy who lives about 2 miles away from me that owns one. I used to see his truck around, and see it while I was out walking parked in his driveway. I stopped seeing it for a few months. Then I was walking by when I saw him outside doping something in his yard and asked what happened to his truck. He said it was too much trouble, I said yeah, i heard they have some serious issues on the news. he replies “On top having to take it to the shop almost once a month motherfuckers just kept vandalizing the thing. It just was not worth owning.”

It’s a thought that makes me smile.

You have provided me no new information about what the CIA has done.

You also assume that any diplomatic solution with Putin is not just a temporary measure as, from his own mouth, he is really intent on empire building, and tells organizations like the future entrepreneurs of Russia that they should be building their lives towards these goals. Russia attacked Ukraine for their own interests. He has been preaching that since 2000, and one of his most pushed messages for why the law should be changed to make him president for life is that the restoration of the empire is not a plan that can survive through numerous elections.

So, NATO seeing this, over and over, while some leaders had reservations, they also had legitimate security concerns about Russia adding the Black Sea, and a huge amount of new borderland that connected to the Shenzhen Economic Zone. To add more to the picture: Life long leader from the secret police of the previous empire, and the contemporary Russia, with known power over their most prominent oligarchs, can’t shut-up about expanding their empire, for over a decade. Then, when the re-ratification of the CFE was hinged on Russia pulling it’s illegal military bases from Georgia, and Moldova, something both countries had been making clear they want gone since they were established, Russia completely withdrew. They then started a military build up, and began running advanced forces training in the caucuses, while giving more strength to boarders with Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine. Then they had those bases break away from their respective countries, and began defending them from being re-absorbed. Do you not see how the EU/NATO, could have legitimate security issues with Russia, keeping this in mind? Do you just paint the western hegemony the way many in the US just go around saying “dur hur Russia evil”? Because that is what a lot of people on lemmy do. Then demand nuance because the picture is more complicated than that, but only for non-western aligned countries.

This is all capitalist empire building bullshit. There is not one major economic power on Earth not participating in this shit in one form or another. While the west is the empire of establishment, the newer ones growing are committing a lot of the same horrors. The only difference I see, is that that they are restrained from just going on bombing campaigns, like the US, because the old empire is still there, and the consequences of dealing with that, as they are still extremely powerful, regardless of what is being said about the collapse of the west, will be extreme, and dire for everyone. Not just active warring empires, the entire world. As western influence over sphere in places like SEA, eastern Europe, central asia, etc, wain, you will see hostilities from other major economic powers grow in their regions. They are all hyper-nationalistic, and spending time on their social media reveals annexing countries, especially their neighbors, is very popular.

No, that wasn’t my argument. The US and Russia have been having a cold war over trade, and defense, with ex-soviets countries since the soviet union fell. Both have been exercising various amounts of power over Ukiraine against each other. For instancem, Poroshenko was involved in very Trump like corrupt business deals with Russia. He was also playing cards of possibly siding with the EU to get more favorable outcomes from Russia, and vice versa. People in Ukraine had valid reasons to sour on him. I am not saying the CIA didn’t act on this momentum, but you paint the CIA as a total control mechanism of Ukraine, and Ukrainians without, or very greatly reduced, agency over their own actions. This is something the “non-western” imperial apologists have a tendency to do. The CIA is credited with so much they are like some sort of near politically omnipotent entity, and the people in the countries they operate in are little more than easily controlled, witless, puppets. This is not true. Outside of situations where the military was totally willing to be pocketed by the US, the CIA has only the ability to give fuel towards already existing political momentum. Put their hand on the scale, so-to-speak. They also ignore the same proxy war crap Russia does, because it makes their narrative cleaner when they are only pointing to one provocateur. Yanukovich was corrupt, and his position within Ukraine was deeply soured by his own actions. Did the CIA play a hand in euromaiden? Of course they did. However they did not create the backlash to his presidency, nor was euroomaiden something the CIA fabricated whole cloth. In the end Yanukovich was deeply corrupt, had lost most of his favor with the people, and Oligarchs that would better profit from the deal with the EU, that he killed, likely false flagged some protestors, as an icing on the cake measure towards someone already in free-fall. Poroshenko was not assassinated, the military, and other security organs did not oust him, there was no massive public backlash, ala euromaiden. He lost an election to Zelenskyy, who won by a large margin for a national election. Zelenskyy was popular for a number of reasons, he was relatively popular as a comedian, he was charasmatic, and found it easy to defend himself with words, probably aided by his occupation. Also he garnered a LOT of popularity being that he was just some comedian, and Poroshenko was just another corrupt politician in Ukraine. So this was not some situation where Russia was just trying to be Ukraine’s BFF, and giving them the best possible diplomatic outcomes. They had FSB on the ground, they were buying people, they were reaching deeper into Ukrainian trade interests, etc. They lost. Guess what? Neither group is the good guy here. You seem to take my stance that Russia is complete shit, and held back by NATO being a barrier of a, currently, greater imperial power, as me supporting the US/NATO. I see them both the same, just that NATO has a lot more wealth, so they are currently the ones exercising that power most broadly. If Russia could, they would, and Putin, when addressing his own people, even in private events, makes speeches about how that is exactly his intent. Nationalistic fervor is hugely popular in Russia. The point being, Russia is not JUST innocently defending themselves, they are vying for power projection as they can.

This same two way interference went on with Georgia as well. Difference is I don’t turn a blind eye to Russia’s empire expansion, or the “west’s”. They are both knowing players in a political campaign that predates the USSR.

"So your argument boils down to that the CIA operation to regime change the democratically elected government of Ukraine is a preemptive strike to…

NATO and the EU, also acting in their self interest, wanted Ukraine to favor trade, and defense pacts with them instead.

uh, gain control of Ukraine. And Russia should just concede that they lost."

Correct, I have modeled it after your argument of just surrendering Ukraine to Russia. If it’s an acceptable outcome for Russia, it should be acceptable the other way around too. Both are just empires maneuvering for control of spheres of influence, and strategic resources.

“So: if you know that action A leads to consequence B, and you do action A anyway, you are accepting the consequence as the price for your actions.” - in relationship to seeing expansion of western sphere of influence into Ukraine as something that will trigger war.

This cuts both ways, there has always been two players, at least, vying for Ukraine. Whoever lost the cold war either has to choose to cut their losses, or turn their military power on Ukraine, and invade. There is no morally upright outcome to this. Neither side was going to just give up. Well, at least I believe the US probably would have invaded, in case of loss, but that’s not how it played out, so I may be wrong, but I am pretty certain I am not. I have no doubts it would have been an incredible tragedy for the Ukrainian people either way, and that is what I am concerned with. People who defend non-western empires so often call for nuance, but what they want is for only information painting their opposing camp in the worst light, and apologia when the corruptions, FSB manipulation, etc. of Russia is brought up. Always playing Russia as merely defending its self, and never just suffering the consequences of participating empire building proxy wars. This is the outcome when you are capitalists, you compete for trade, and influence, and you do whatever to achieve your goals. This inevitably leads to wars.

“But yeah I think objectively Russia is the lesser of two evils by far”

As do I, but only because they are the poorer empire, by far. They walk like a duck, and quack like a duck, so they are a duck, and loss of western control of these spheres of influence will only open a vacuum Russia will do everything in it’s power to fill, as long as they are physically able to do so.

Russia’s whole economy relies on green house gas production, so much for the climate. It’s really easy to say you should capitulate to a foreign military invasion when you aren’t the one being sacrificed. Russia wanted control of Ukraine, and every place they lost when the USSR collapsed. Making it clear his goals are to annex land from other nations he sees as part of their lost empire. If you don’t believe me Putin keeps saying things like how annexing lost land isn’t invasion, it’s reclamation, then uses the Peter the Great’s similar justification for expanding their empire into Sweden centuries ago, how it’s just reclaiming their god given lands, like on the 350th anniversary of the event, in a speech defending his invasion of Ukraine, which undermines the veracity of how threatened they felt in this situation, or how that was why they invaded Ukraine. He rambles on about it so much he even went on an tangent about it in a meeting with an organization of young Russia entrepreneurs who were still in university. NATO and the EU, also acting in their self interest, wanted Ukraine to favor trade, and defense pacts with them instead. So there has been a proxy war between them, in Ukraine, and guess what? Russia lost. So, unwilling to accept a cold defeat, and going with the concept that they have a god given right to Ukraine, they fired up the military again, and went in for a full invasion this time, with a bunch of BS excuses, like de-nazification, as they sent in a PMC ran by nazis, to accomplish this task.

Neither actor in this is operating for some sort of altruistic reason, Ukrainian oligarchs are pursuing who they think they can use to enrich themselves the most with, and the Ukrainian people are stuck between two forces they are much smaller than, who are fighting over their homeland. You give favor to one empire in this situation (and you acknowledge that is what they are, and what they are doing), the one who has used it’s military to slaughter 150 thousand, or more, innocent people, because you believe it will be the best option for you. You are both acting in self interest on top of the lives lost, because “just giving” Russia Ukraine is just that, sacrificing the lives of those who’s home they are invading, and falling for the falsehood that trying to appease imperialists will make them stop waging wars, taking land, and slaughtering people in the process, thus supporting endless war by giving the empirical power what they want, more empire, thus justifying use of military force, because it results in more empire. You are doing is with the thin veneer of an excuse that is b-b-but the environment, ignoring how, by your own ideas of a utilitarian perspective, that it’s actually best to allow Ukraine to align more with the west, because it was Russia that sent the military killing machine in, while NATO was sticking to routes far, far, less damaging to the environment, and human life.

And you call me insane?

Correct, but these are also built to be turned off as soon as their growing renewable grid can handle peak power in the most densely populated regions. They specifically use coal because that is abundant to China, and within it’s plan for independence as well, and grants them a lot of security again foreign influences.

They are trying really hard to bring fission power into this, but their Houlong and Linlong plants are just to cumbersome to build quickly, and they are working on a network of smaller fast neutron, and thorium reactors, which they can sustain easily without foreign supply chains.

Works for me

Meanwhile, although this is going on there, China is massively funding every renewable tech possible to be built to turn over their reliance on fossil fuels as quickly as possible. Making the Earth better, gaining robust energy independence, and moving things on from the 20th century.

They keep talking about how fake it looks as if pictures of celebrities, especially ones at special events, aren’t modified to hell before being published, and that is after they spent hours with professional make up artists, wardrobe/designers, etc. to make themselves look as photoshop perfect as physically possible before they even get the photoshop treatment

In the same way an oligarchy is preferable to an absolute monopoly, sure

Yeah, no shit.

deleted by creator

Spending time on Chinese social media has shown me platforms that read exactly like the garbage from the right wing talking heads here on Twitter. Extreme nationalist sentiment is very, very, common. I have seen soooo many memes expressing desire to just wipe out the Philippines, and just repopulate it with mainland Chinese. Memes about their eventual control over Africa, which uses surprisingly western racist stereotypes to portray Africans. So much discussion that mirrors MAGA like behavior, in many ways, but just discussing the greatness of China, instead. So many who, at least claim, to wholeheartedly believe revisionist, extremely idealized, versions of China’s past, often including things that just are not physically possible. There is a lot of open talk about what China is going to do to so many of it’s neighbors when it over takes the US, and NATO recedes from the region. I stopped going on their, because it was just becoming more, and more, X-China. Then my translator stopped using social media there, expect for work, as well, and now I just can’t.

Friends of mine who have spent the past 20+ years living in China are reporting seeing more, and more, of it offline too, when politics was not something Chinese would publicly really talk about, especially to foreigners. However, especially in the past 10 years, they said their open expression of xenophobia, hardline nationalist sentiments, desire to take, and punish other countries, has become almost common in certain social spaces there, and it is worrying them. These people moved to China after studying Chinese language, culture, and history, for many years, including attending Chinese universities. They loved it there. Now they are talking about how it is sounding more, and more, like the rhetoric you get from flag wavers in the US.

So I do not trust China to maintain it’s non-expansionism once NATO not longer controls so many of the waters around them. Nationalism is popular their, and the idea of finally taking revenge for the century of humiliation only grows.

I do!

controls about a million housing units, or around 2.5% of the market

Yes that’s the energy I am getting from you, exactly

uproar from India, Bangladesh, The Congo, Kenya, and about 100 other countries

Yeah, I have literally never gotten better at anything without effort, difficulty, and sometimes being uncomfortable. These things are ingrained to mastering any skill.

Yeah capitalism has many famines of it’s own to account for