Notices by mcv (mcv@friendica.opensocial.space)

@lxo @randahl @genziana

Europe is desperately trying to keep Trump on board with NATO, which leads to some disgusting displays of sycophancy. See Spain for a different sound.

Of course Trump's attack on Iran is wrong, just like his support for Putin is wrong. Trump, Putin, Khamenei and Netanyahu are all murderers. Europe is finding itself in the awkward position of being allied to two of them and not wanting to have to fight all of them.

That still doesn't justify Putin's aggression, though. One atrocity does not justify another.

@lxo @randahl @genziana

Who else is to blame? Sure, others could have done more to stop Putin, but the aggression comes entirely from Putin.

It's far more naive to not consider how Ukraine is threatened. There is no way in which Ukraine ever posed any kind of threat to Russia. The only issue is that a successful Ukraine independently from Russia would expose Putin's failure to his own people. That was the only "threat", but that wasn't Ukraine's doing, that failure is Putin's. And he's trying to shoot, not even the messenger, but the evidence.

It is completely different. Nobody was putting nukes in Ukraine. The US did not genocide Cuba. Cuba was not a democracy. The situations have almost nothing in common other than Russia's involvement.

Rumours that the US created! Just like Russia created the rumours of weapons of mass destruction in Ukraine! That's not a justification, that's a flimsy cover for naked aggression.

Please don't defend such blatant lies.

No. Expecting peace and reason is never unreasonable. Stop trying to normalise aggression and imperialism.

They're demonising themselves by acting like demons. Stop trying to paint aggressors as victims.

@lxo @randahl @genziana

That makes it a really poor analogy. Nobody hired, asked or pressured Putin to invade Ukraine. The only pressure he had was his own desire to control Ukraine and his perception that the opportunity to control Ukraine was still open but closing fast.

Obviously the West should have made sure, and made clear, that that opportunity was already closed, but the only evil here is Putin's desire to control other countries. Without that, there wouldn't have been any problems.

@lxo @randahl @genziana @benroyce

So you're arguing that someone hired Putin to invade Ukraine!? Who? And why? This is a serious accusation to throw around. If this is what your entire argument hinges on, then surely you must have evidence for this claim.

So who hired Putin? Who told Putin to invade? And why?

Nobody, that's who. Literally nobody in the world wanted this stupid war, except Putin's dreams of empire, his dreams of being a conqueror like Peter the Great, of controlling a massive empire like Stalin. Only Putin and his sycophants have ever argued for this. Nobody else told him to do it. Nobody else would benefit from this.

If you have evidence to the contrary, share it. But if you did, you'd have led with that. All you have is vague insinuations.

@lxo @randahl @benroyce @genziana

Trump provoked Russia's invasion of Ukraine? No, obviously not. The invasion of Crimea and Donbas happened before his first term, and the full invasion during Biden's term. Biden could have prevented it by giving clear guarantees to defend Ukraine, but I think he was as surprised by what happened as anyone outside of eastern Europe.

Look. Putin did it. He has full agency over his own actions and has no need for anyone else's manipulations to do something like this. To the contrary: he sees himself as the master manipulator, and his presidency has been full of manipulations of other countries and attempts to undermine them. Also by pushing for Trump's election. I have no doubt he has some leverage over Trump.

Putin is clearly the instigator here. I don't understand why you keep looking for anyone else who might be responsible for Putin's actions.

@lxo @randahl @benroyce @genziana

Are you suggesting Putin wanted to strengthen NATO? The guy who constantly claims to be at war with NATO? No, Putin completely misjudged the situation. That's a thing dictators and narcissists tend to do.

And you already got what you wanted. Europe is arming itself, sent troops to Greenland, and is investing in its own defense industry instead of the US.

@lxo @randahl @benroyce @genziana

There was never any threat of installing NATO bases in Ukraine before Russia invaded. The only reason Russia's neighbours are so eager to join NATO, is because of the threat Russia poses to them. Russia could have made NATO irrelevant by not threatening its neighbours, but instead it strengthened NATO and sent more neighbours to join NATO because of its war on Ukraine. NATO exists because of Russian aggression. That's the only reason.

You call it Russophobia, but wouldn't you be afraid of a neighbour that wants to dominate or conquer you? One that has a history of attacking and conquering its neighbours?

What Putin expected was to take Kyiv in three days. He failed. He underestimated Ukraine, and overestimated his own army. The Russian military has proven to be a paper tiger. Yet still he continues to fight.

Yes, Russia is weaker now than ever before, but that has entirely been Putin's choice. He's sacrificing the Russian economy, Russian lives, a Russian generation, for his foolish dreams of conquest. Everybody warned against it, but he did it anyway.

I don't know what's in US interest at this point. Their biggest problems have always been at home. Now more than ever.

Finally we agree. Yes, Europe should have given a lot more support to Ukraine at a much earlier stage. Europe has been too hesitant, waited too much for the US to take the lead, but the US doesn't have much to gain or lose here; Europe does. We should have done more, but we can still do more.

Also something we agree on. Putin is notoriously callous about Russian and Ukrainian lives.

@lxo @randahl @genziana @benroyce

There is a massive, massive difference between facts and lies. You're suggestion that it's all the same is post-truth propaganda. Very popular in the age of Trump, but it has no place here. You may want to believe that your feelings trump facts, but they don't.

Debunking lies is something else, though. And your narrative hangs together from easily debunked lies.

You can try to weasel your way out of that, but that's not going to work here.

Ha, you're the one making up these narratives. Either you're paid to spread Kremlin propaganda, or you fell for it. You're not insensitive to it at all; you're gullible to it. You lack critical thinking.

Let me show you some examples of what you said:

You're suggesting (though cowardly not literally claiming) that the reason Russia wants to control eastern Europe is because of US propaganda. That makes no sense, but is also blatantly untrue. It's Russia itself that's openly beating the war drum, and being explicit about wanting to control other countries. And that's nothing new; it was like that even before the US existed.

This is actually exactly what Europe is doing: keeping the US from bullying Europe and opposed to Russia. And Europe allies with other victims of Russian bullying, like Ukraine.

But what you're trying to suggest here is that Europe should ally with Russia against the US. You know very well that Europe is not that stupid. Russia has a history of bullying and attacking its allies. You're not safe as Russia's ally. You're not even safe as Russia's vassal. Russia is openly hostile to Europe. The only situation in which you can ally with a country like that, is when you're in an existential war against a third power that's invading you both, as was the case in WW2. But that alliance came at the very steep cost of sacrificing eastern Europe to Russian opression. Never again.

Here you're implying that the West provoked this war. That is blatantly untrue. The West could have done more to dissuade Putin by hard guarantees to defend Ukraine. They failed to do that, but that's not the same as provoking.

Or this piece of bullshit:

You imply that Europe is weakening itself by helping Ukraine (it's not), or that it makes us vulnerable to US aggression (unimaginable before Trump, but we were already vulnerable and are actually strengthening ourselves by getting more organised without the US), that we should ally with Russia (a ludicrous suggestion; they are our primary enemy, and not interested in allies, only in vassals). And besides, NATO without the US is already the second strongest military in the world. The only thing we need is to get more organised, to integrate our military, and put up a united front. An alliance with Russia accomplishes none of those things, but rather the opposite.

Every argument you make comes down to suggesting that Europe should abandon Ukraine and support Russia, despite their aggression against European countries.

In the late 1990s, it actually did look like Russia might become our ally. The Cold War was over, Russia participated in a NATO exercise, the US and Russia, together with many other countries, were cooperating on the ISS. And then Putin came to power, and made it clear he didn't respect European countries as equals. Europe still desperately tried to treat Russia as an equal trading partner, even after their invasion of Crimea and Donbas (which should really have been a massive warning, but western Europe was naive). It only got us more hostility.

Our words against Putin are not propaganda, they're experience. You're a fool if you trust Putin.

@lxo @randahl @benroyce @genziana

I'm totally aware that the US is also a threat. Nobody here is denying that. Trump has shown several times that he's eager to side with Russia against Europe. He's tried several times to pressure Ukraine into surrender.

The US is not asking us to fight for Ukraine, Ukraine is. And the people of Europe are. Do you know how many Ukrainian flags are flying in windows and balconies in western Europe? The European people are far more pro-Ukraine than their governments.

The simple fact is that a Europe that liberates Ukraine will be far stronger than a Europe that sits idly by the sidelines while Russia gobbles up one neighbour after another. It's obvious to anyone that the best place to stop Russian aggression is in Ukraine.

(I'm really curious what the next spin from your propaganda playbook will be.)

@lxo @randahl @genziana @benroyce

That doesn't change the fact that Russia is a direct threat, is constantly talking about war with Europe, is currently invading a neighbour, and has a long and ugly history of invading and oppressing European countries. For all the shit the US has pulled, at least they've never invaded an ally like Russia has.

Although Trump got close. His threats to invade Greenland and Canada were taken incredibly seriously, and several European countries immediately sent troops to Greenland to make clear we do intend to defend it. Immense diplomatic effort has gone into dissuading Trump and keeping the US from siding with Russia. This is not something Europeans take lightly, although this betrayal did take us by surprise.

But none of that is an excuse to stop supporting Ukraine. A Europe with an independent Ukraine is significantly stronger than one without. Europe should do more to help Ukraine, exactly to ward off more aggressors. Putin and Trump only believe in force, so Europe should show strength, and liberating Ukraine would be the best way to do that.

And in case you hadn't noticed, Europe has massively ramped up its military investments, and in European, not American weapon systems, exactly to become less dependent on and more independent from the US.

I would love to ally with India and Brazil, but there's no chance in hell that Europe would ally with Putin. The fact that you even dare to suggest that, shows you have no clue about what's going on.

@icedquinn

Claude seems to be the smartest when it comes to software engineering, but it's not smart enough to tackle complex problems. It's very fast, though. Very fast to produce a solution that doesn't quite solve the problem. Although it always superficially appears to. And definitely claims to.

@bmacDonald94

That would mean a crowd of a million would have superhuman intelligence. I beg to differ.

@hankg @bmacDonald94

As a protestant, the whole American conservative aversion to evolution is bizarre. I truly honestly don't understand why they would do that to themselves.

@GossiTheDog @munin @soc @reijomancer

Stopping malicious leaks is almost impossible, but Recall sounds to me like it makes even accidental leaks trivial.

@GossiTheDog

Companies dealing with sensitive info should ban all computers capable of running Recall from their networks.

@janvlug @knmi

Als dit door belasting wordt betaald, moet het dan niet zowiezo openbaar zijn?

Het is ook niet de taak van de overheid om overbodige businessmodellen in stand te houden.

@CptSuperlative @pluralistic

Mildly related: Adam Smith said labour unions were necessary to balance the power of corporations. Also a vital part that some people love to ignore.