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> How people will judge this in future ? Probably quite favorably. There appears to be broad support for Ukrainians across the entire political spectrum in the

by Permit 4y ago

> How people will judge this in future ? Probably quite favorably. There appears to be broad support for Ukrainians across the entire political spectrum in the western world. I can’t think of any other recent issues that have united the western world so completely. What kind of judgement did you have in mind?

diimdeep 4y ago
I do not think memes about explosions (killing people) is acceptable in healthy society, does not matter who posts it and against whom.
- rendall 4y ago
  Hard disagree if the killed are volunteers (i.e. invading, genocidal marauders). As the saying goes, play stupid games, win stupid prizes. The solution to the problem of getting blown up by the defending army is pretty simple: surrender, or otherwise get the fuck out.
hakfoo 4y ago
It always felt like the pro-Ukraine narrative was crammed down our throats though. I'm sure everyone is desperate to avoid ending up as a modern Chamberlain, trading land for a sham promise of peace, but we do ignore a very real question: should we be treating borders as perfect and correct? There is a reasonable case to be made that when the USSR partitioned, it created some hard borders between communities that formerly were "closer", historically, culturally, or economically, to a different republic than the one they were assigned to. Any partitioning is going to end that way-- see India/Pakistan, any sort of two-state Israel/Palestine solution, the two Koreas, or even the split of Virginia during the US Civil War. But nobody can really right that sort of relationship peacefully because someone stands to lose territory. These things end up getting ironed out with bloodshed. It may be inevitable. There's also the whole problem that we didn't really "win the peace" after the end of the Cold War. Compare Germany and Japan after WWII. The winners flooded them with aid and guided their reconstruction in ways that let them prosper going forward. They ended up as advanced economies tightly woven into the Western economic system. Russia, we let rot. We stood by as every quality-of-life metric plummeted below 1991 levels, and an era of kleptocrats plundered the privatization process. Nobody was stewarding them into being anything more than a cheap source of unsophisticated raw materials. If they had enjoyed the same rehabilitation between 1991 and 2021 as Japan did between 1945 and 1975, do you think there'd be any political hay to be made from "we are standing against the Evil West and expansion of NATO and the EU?" No, they'd be queuing up to join in. It's not like they didn't have the resources to kickstart that growth-- they had an educated population, non-destroyed infrastructure, and plenty of fairly sophisticated industry. Yeah, their microchips were 20 years behind the West, but that's still a pretty robust base to start with compared with plenty of other economic development opportunities.

by Permit 4y ago

diimdeep 4y ago

I do not think memes about explosions (killing people) is acceptable in healthy society, does not matter who posts it and against whom.

rendall 4y ago
Hard disagree if the killed are volunteers (i.e. invading, genocidal marauders). As the saying goes, play stupid games, win stupid prizes. The solution to the problem of getting blown up by the defending army is pretty simple: surrender, or otherwise get the fuck out.

hakfoo 4y ago

It always felt like the pro-Ukraine narrative was crammed down our throats though. I'm sure everyone is desperate to avoid ending up as a modern Chamberlain, trading land for a sham promise of peace, but we do ignore a very real question: should we be treating borders as perfect and correct? There is a reasonable case to be made that when the USSR partitioned, it created some hard borders between communities that formerly were "closer", historically, culturally, or economically, to a different republic than the one they were assigned to. Any partitioning is going to end that way-- see India/Pakistan, any sort of two-state Israel/Palestine solution, the two Koreas, or even the split of Virginia during the US Civil War. But nobody can really right that sort of relationship peacefully because someone stands to lose territory. These things end up getting ironed out with bloodshed. It may be inevitable. There's also the whole problem that we didn't really "win the peace" after the end of the Cold War. Compare Germany and Japan after WWII. The winners flooded them with aid and guided their reconstruction in ways that let them prosper going forward. They ended up as advanced economies tightly woven into the Western economic system. Russia, we let rot. We stood by as every quality-of-life metric plummeted below 1991 levels, and an era of kleptocrats plundered the privatization process. Nobody was stewarding them into being anything more than a cheap source of unsophisticated raw materials. If they had enjoyed the same rehabilitation between 1991 and 2021 as Japan did between 1945 and 1975, do you think there'd be any political hay to be made from "we are standing against the Evil West and expansion of NATO and the EU?" No, they'd be queuing up to join in. It's not like they didn't have the resources to kickstart that growth-- they had an educated population, non-destroyed infrastructure, and plenty of fairly sophisticated industry. Yeah, their microchips were 20 years behind the West, but that's still a pretty robust base to start with compared with plenty of other economic development opportunities.