- koonsoloCan you recommend such a history book?
- What kind of "peace" would that be? Russia is not interested in peace, or do you have evidence that suggests otherwise?
The peace of Ukraine being neutral? Ukraine was officially neutral in 2014 (law from 2010, pushed by Russia), and see how that went.
So again, what kind of peace are you talking about?
Edit: Let me make the problem very clear:
- Ukraine wants a peace deal where Russia can't invaded again. After their experience with the Budapest Memorandum of 1994, the want hard security guarantees, not just Russian words on a piece of paper.
- Russia wants a peace deal where Ukraine's army is limited, and that doesn't allow foreign troops in Ukraine. Something else is unacceptable for them. In other words, a peace deal that is the perfect setup to invade again.
So again, what kind of peace deal are you talking about?
- You are correct, everybody should go for peace.
The Munich agreement of 1938 also prevented a lot of deaths, so I really can't understand why the don't want to do the same peace deal today.
- Here are some facts for you:
When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014, they were officially neutral (law from 2010, pushed by Russia). At the time of the invasion, there was neither political nor public will to join NATO.
Another fact: Maidan was not about joining NATO, but having equal economic ties to both Russia and EU.
So can you acknowledge that Russia didn't invade Ukraine because of NATO expansion?
Does it sound weird to you that after Russia's invasion in 2014, Ukraine cancelled their neutral status and wanted to join NATO?
- Smartphones featuring a fast computer with internet (internet everywhere!), camera, gyroscope, GPS receiver, video player, music player, payment system, gaming console etc in it, and yes, a video phone.
For reference, Nokia 3310 came out in 2000, and the iPod was not available yet.
- > so far been living a medieval dream of "the aggressor is far away
As a Western European, I want to give you a different perspective on this. For us, everything behind the iron curtain was Soviet. Then the curtain fell and we saw all these countries like yours, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Baltic states, etc, transition into democracies. While doing that, they lifted their welfare significantly. We had no reason to think Russia wouldn't do the same (why wouldn't they?).
Plus, our neighbor Germany was not the nicest kid on the block in the past, and we also saw them transition into a normal, peace loving nation. So in the end, we had no reason to believe why Russia would stick to something that actually hurts their own lives.
It was very naive, I agree. But only recently, we realized that Russia has no intention to follow the path that central and eastern Europe took.
And yes, I'm ashamed of how little support Europe is giving. I'm sending money out of my own pocket, because I hope every bit helps.
- We've been hearing the story for years already that the Bitcoin value will go to zero.
- So the bitcoin market cap is currently at $1.8 trillion.
You can compare that to USD M0 which is $5 trillion or EUR M0 which is around €4 trillion.
Not bad for an "extremely inconvenient database".
- Someone makes a post with a "Police" username, and all of a sudden it's a botnet.
Edit: Sorry, I didn't notice it was plural: botnets.
- Europe spends way more than US.
- So your proposal is that we do business with all these countries so they have thriving economies with more money they can invest into their government and military?
- Well, is an LLM more intelligent than an ant?
- I look at it the complete opposite way: humans are defining intelligence upwards to make sure they can perceive themselves better than a computer.
It's clear that humans consider humans as intelligent. Is a monkey intelligent? A dolphin? A crow? An ant?
So I ask you, what is the lowest form of intelligence to you?
(I'm also a huge David Lynch fan by the way :D)
- You were talking about "people in the West". Belgians are people in the west, and we don't comply to your statements.
Secondly, I don't believe a word you say about Germany. Source please.
Don't generalize what happened once in Canada to the whole "Western world" and all kinds of de-.... And as far as I remember, those truckers were protesting. So they certainly didn't comply to your description of being indoctrinated to trust their government.
- Hey, Belgian here. Our government cannot just de-bank, de-pension or de- anything else you are suggesting, and definitely not by the "crime" of protesting (what a ridiculous statement!)
We protest here too by the way, this weekend about 100k in Brussels.
That you make these claims is just plain up ridiculous.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-equality_paradox explains it all, and should be common knowledge by now.
Your reasonable comment being downvoted doesn't surprise me. I'm feeling more and more alienated from HN lately.