It’s not authoritarianism if I do it!

I wonder why Poles are pretty racists despite having experienced the same colonial and imperial struggles. The Poles who sided with former black Haitian slaves would be rolling on their graves.

It’s unfortunate. Arms build up is one of those where it’s important initially for self-defense but eventually becomes corrupt. It’s making a pact with the devil and expecting the due will never come.

Russia is losing on the battlefield – and on the global stage

On the global stage, yes, but i would not overstate Ukrainian’s gains in the past three months. Ukraine have retaken lands smaller towns and villages, but in Donbas, Russia is close to capturing Konstantinyivka, a city which is the gateway to the bigger city of Kramatorsk and Slovyansk. Even if it took Russia two years and lost more soldiers than the Ukrainians in capturing Konstantinyivka, its fall of is something that should not be underestimated and could serve as a propaganda victory for Kremlin to cover their overall net territorial losses.

If I am Zelensky, my maximalist demand is not to get the Russian out completely (because that is a Sysiphean task), but to hold on to Kramatorsk and Slovyansk to prevent the full capture of the Donbas region and embarass Kremlin to deliver a political defeat when the end of war comes.

They became the number one arms manufacturer in Europe. Their expertise is being shared to many countries including the Gulf states. After the war, I would say that Ukraine’s major industry is arms manufacturing especially on drones.

Speaking of drones, what Ukraine lacks in manpower makes up for it in drones. Their innovative use of it reclaimed a huge tract of land which reverses Russian gains in two years. Russia this year is at a net loss of territory held.

I love my Polish friends, but Poland has a bad reputation about being overly nationalistic to say the least.

I wonder how many Irish were surveyed and what they think. We are unfortunately too Americanised in terms of consumerism and many still buy from Amazon.

It’s a nothingburger. The West already supports Ukraine in evey way, so it’s obvious China does similar to Russia except short of overtly selling arms and more loans to Kremlin because the Beijing is afraid of secondary sanctions. 90% of all Chinese banks did not want to loan to Russia because of this. Training Russians has less consequences for China.

Yeah people tend to create a bubble of their own and wilfully ignore controversies.

This is embarrassing for us in Ireland. And yeah, unfortunately the job angle is a dilemma. It’s the same reason that weapons manufacturers are hard to take down because they are jobs providers to peripheral regions of a country, such as the American desert states and Scotland in UK, despite their products being used to kill and maim the innocent. This is why we can’t have nice things in a capitalist system.

Who would even want to become part of Russia except for the idiots? Offering Russian citizenship isn’t even much an incentive nowadays, nor will it be in the future. The days of Russia as major global player is finished.

That’s how World War I and II started. I’m afraid the politicians set us up down a path we can never go back from.

I fucking hate AI write ups! It’s always the same sentence structure which has “not this or that, but such such.” I’m not inherently opposed to AI, but seriously, I dread what will literacy be like for decades to come because even art and writing will be outsourced to AI. This will blunt even the most basic writing skills of humanity! I’m starting to sympathise more and more with John from “Brave New World”. The “savages” have more soul than those who live in technology.

I won’t be surprised if this is true, but right now I’d take this claim with a grain of salt. In war, both sides smear each other with extremely exaggerated claims. “Truth is the first casualty of war” as the saying goes.

Poland has a certain… reputation…which is why they haven’t got much racial diversity.

You do realise that governments could either force companies to disclose data, or buy information from data brokers? And big American techs are politically involved by lobbying to dilute laws protecting people? What made you think that American big techs are as innocent as you thought

Also, if you think your data goes for “commercialisation” purpose, think again. Politicians buy data from firms to study the voting patterns and beliefs of individuals to sway voters. See the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

That’s what I am trying to say. Americans still think individualism is the ultimate goal because that is what their country was founded upon.

Propaganda but also, it is just that America was explicitly founded on liberal, individualistic values; although is now considered conservative in Europe and elsewhere.

Instead of book burning, it’s book banning that modern fascists do. It’s less ominous and less obvious.

This is what I’ve thought about for the longest time. Imagine the fishes getting killed by depth charges and torpedo blasts. The bombs landing on land and cratering it, killing the burrowing rabbits, insects and other underground creatures. I’ve always wondered if we have inadvertently killed animals that could have compounds with medicinal value, or just extincted a rare animal, by war. These animals would have no idea what’s going on. The bullets, bombs, planes and tanks are like spacecraft for them, as we would view of spacecrafts lasering us from heaven.