Ryan_047

The only way they can win at this point are tactical nuclear weapons, and maybe not even then. Or maybe if they pull some sort of Stalingrad like campaign for when Ukraine will try to liberate Crimea, but I still doubt it.

No offense, but this over simplification denotes arrogance. I don't have to be condescending and tell you that anyone who ain't into meditating 3 hours per day and doing psychedelics is automatically an incel. Also I can assure you that the vast majority of dudes who are trying to get better at dating won't watch Leo's videos, but some traditional dating guru's. I disagree. I haven't seen Leo giving dumb "higher consciousness" advice in order to inflate his own ego as the people who @KoryKat refers to, are doing. In fact what I've seen is that he quickly determines at what level a person is, and gives advice suitable for his/her level, which is respectable and should be considered normal. You don't go off to a psychiatric hospital and tell the patients to do DMT and not to worry because they are all God and that they are dreaming up their problems. You can technically be right, but if you have such an attitude that can only mean that 1. You miss basic logic skills, in which case you should fix that first (imo highly unlikely) or 2. You have an immature spiritual ego and like to show off without even knowing.

"Back in the day" when the forum was still new, there were lots of people on the emotional problems sub section who were irritating for this exact reason. Things got way better. I actually left the forum for some years because once I posted while being in a suicidal state, and I got some very dumb replies along the lines of "experience infinite love", "go to India and see how bad others have it". I also remember a thread a few years back, where someone said that he/she'll kill himself, and people were making memes about how that dude will experience infinite love and become one with the universe. That was the last straw for me and destroyed any respect I had for so called "enlightened" people around here who in fact have an immature spiritual ego. I hope it got deleted since then.

I suggest you don't do this by yourself only. Sometimes misinformation and propaganda can be hard to spot, and more eyes (maybe this sub-forum's moderators? ) can definitely help. At the end of the day, political opinions are based upon journalism and history, and just because some sources go against the current, that doesn't necessarily mean they are misinformation. A nuanced and sensitive approach should be taken, and it's going to be challenging.

It feels like a big part of me died a long time ago, and I haven't felt happiness since. Yes, emotions and thoughts are transient, but I've lived the last 7 years of my life in emotional pain/dissociation. Seldom have I felt genuine positive emotions. I got some shit done and I had helped people and animals, but it doesn't feel like what I've done outweighs my suicidal state. I also don't see any end in sight to my suffering. And I don't mean that type of suffering of having an ego and all that that makes you an average human... I mean my high level suffering which is breaking me more and more to the point where it feels like my destiny is to kill myself or just die of stress. However, there is solid advice in this thread. Thank God there aren't people here who just say "get rid of your ego" and "experience love", like there used to be on this forum when such issues were discussed.

There is nothing in the video that shows how he started the war. She just says that he failed to deliver on his promise of ending the war in Donbass. This shows how your mind is doing mental gymnastics. The only thing I found new in your video was his wealth and his dismissal of certain politicians. But saying that this video "debunks" him is a stretch.

@SeaMonster I see, I understand your perspective now. I agree with you to a certain extent. Your initial comment on this subject was a bit too void of details and I got confused as to why you think demographics is so important. Yes, it's inevitable that citizens in developed countries will stop having so many kids (2 is the average I think). This is because of financial reasons, but also because people genuinely don't want more children. Less is more kind of mentality. You know where I'm going with this. Also fear of the future plays a part. But, after the inevitable decline there is an inevitable plateau in which the population growth will stabilize and broadly speaking, it won't increase/decrease anymore. So, this demographic issue is rather medium term and I personally don't see it as a decisive factor in invading another country. I think their primary reasons are of resources/finances, security, local/global hegemony and as you've said, maintaining the image of a powerful, important country. Yeah, they are desperate, but somehow their disadvantage is also West's disadvantage as both Europe and USA/Canada suffer from demographic decline. To be fair Russia suffers this to a larger extent, but their goal was not to annex Ukraine and add a declining population of 40 million to their own, but to install a puppet regime loyal to the Kremlin, as there was before the Euro-Maydan protests. I'm still a bit confused, do you think demographics is the primary issue that led to the aggression? I know it's kind of nerdy, but what percentage would you assign to this issue as a decisive factor for invading Ukraine? In my mind is rather small, but to be honest, I never thought deeply about this.

@SeaMonster I see what you are saying, but China attacking Taiwan is merely a supposition for now. And if they do (which I personally think they will at the first sign of major weakness from the US) I highly doubt that they will attack just because of a declining demographic. It's way more complex than that. The same goes for Russia. If Putin really was concerned with babies, he could've forced the Duma to adopt policies in that sense, as China has done. But as far as I know, no major steps were taken in that direction. I mean, it's so counter intuitive (in a bad sense). Invading another country will cause those people to hate you and flee. That hatred will stay with them for decades to come, and they won't feel safe to have (too many) children, which is exactly (supposedly) why you are conquering them. Well yeah, I know. But still doesn't make up for the deficit, as I've said in my previous comment. Not to mention that those people suffer from discrimination and mild racism, and they are not actually what Germany and France are mainly looking for, which are skilled workers in the service sector (IT, economics and the like). Also France has taken steps in the direction of becoming a superpower again with Macron.

Someone debunked this lie above, so I'm not going into that. But I can tell you that this guy is also denying the genocide in Ukraine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8moZ7S4voe4 He has a very perverse way of taking things out of context. His whole argument in this video is: "Some Ukrainian military groups are committing war crimes, and so they must play 5D chess and kill their own civilians so that the West will help them." Not only that, but he doesn't provide sources and evidences for half of the things he's saying, but gives the impression of objectivity by reading short narrow paragraphs from some website that means a whole another thing if you actually read the whole article. Leo said Russian propaganda is no longer acceptable. I urge the mods to take action and stop the dumb narrative of "Ukraine is killing their own civilians and blaming it on Russia."

I don't really see how this could be a solid reason for Putin to invade Ukraine. Using that logic every European country should annex parts of Africa, because of their low fertility rate and rate of immigration doesn't make up for the people they are losing. China is in the same position and you don't see them attacking anyone. Most countries in the Northern hemisphere have a negative fertility rate.

@Ampresus Solid video, but I'm kind of skeptical of the last part in which he stated that some studies show that really high protein intake is not dangerous (3.4-4.4g/kg), but healthy instead. I genuinely don't buy into that, and some of his videos are too click baity which is a red flag for me. But this video was solid overall.

@UDT What is the necessary amount of protein that is needed on a daily basis? I've heard people say 0.8-1 grams and other say 2g. I also heard people argue whether the animal based protein or plant based protein is better. Could you please link some resources?

I have this same feeling. I was in denial for a long time, but seeing what is happening today... And it's not just Russia, Iran and China, it's also some countries that are mimicking democracy, but in the underground something else is happening. I'm not going to spread "conspiracies" around here, but this sounds like Facebook. In my country Facebook is still extremely popular, and it's infested with Russian bots and trolls (by the way, for those who don't know, troll is not a derogatory term in this context, but it refers to people who are paid by media agencies to spread propaganda or denigrate certain people). The same thing you described happens as well to people and journalists who are critical of corrupt and rich of certain political countries/entities, or Russian politics/actions (I'm not Ukrainian btw). This type of stuff happens all over social media (regarding any subject), but it's especially proficient in Facebook affiliated partners, and poorly moderated forums. If any mod reads this, I suggest you guys do an audit and check the site's infrastructure. Don't think that just because this is a spiritual forum, you are immune from propaganda and lies. You can be "multi perspectival" and not parrot Russian propaganda (or any side's propaganda) and take it as absolute truth just because you hate the West (or whatever the other side is). It's one thing to see what may be valid in the Russian media, it's a whole another thing to deny the current genocide, use whataboutism tactics and deny objective information (don't hit me with existential relativism cause it's not relevant in geopolitics lol).

They let people spread obviously untrue Russian propaganda since the war started and now some people are denying the genocide that is still taking place in Ukraine. What do you expect at this point?

To my knowledge Sweden (along with France) sent mercenaries in Ukraine before post Crimea annexation. Also Sweden feels threatened (and for a good reason) by Russia. So diminishing that threat feels good "naturally". Eastern Europe is probably the most anti Russian region in the entire world. From the Black Sea to the North Sea everyone hates Russia, with very few exceptions. Also condemning Russia for this invasion does not excuse USA from its sins, but debating with "but USA did this this this and thus Russia is justified to invade another country" type of arguments is very myopic. You're actually not understanding what Russia is doing. Nobody here is entirely anti Russian. Russia itself is not the problem, the problem is Putin and his fascist oligarchs. USA itself is not the problem, the problem is the 1% rich elites who are raping the planet and making USA's citizens slaves along with the countries they are invading. USA is a capitalist oligarchy who has actually diminished democracy, not increased it. I mean, it's so pathetic what USA has come to. I could go on and on and on about how much I actually fucking hate America, but that doesn't matter (I also don't want to give water to the people parroting Russian propaganda and think they are so smart and yellow-turquoise). The subject is Putin invading another country and what USA did in Serbia or anywhere else has nothing to do with Putin killing civilians. I know this is off topic, but what did you eat before that? And did you do to recover?

And how do you know that if there is no proof available? It's just a supposition. This just shows how much substance your arguments hold. That was not the argument. The argument was that Russia bitches about those possible nuclear weapons in Ukraine, whereas they said shit about the defensive missile system in those countries. Double standards. They bitch about nuclear weapons when it suits them, and thus they lack integrity. Read again what I've said. This has nothing to do with what I've said. Re-read what I have said. I haven't said Putin is a dumb troll who'll use nuclear weapons when he gets a bit angry. I didn't. I used historic facts to counter your subtle anti Western narrative. I haven't said Russia is a sociopathic state. I said that Putin's regime IS NOT Russia. That's all. Putin is not doing Russia a favor by invading Ukraine.

@itachi uchiha If every time you said Russia, I were to replace it with "Putin's murderous fascist regime filled with oligarchs who raped the Russian economy and the lives of their citizens" I'd actually agree with you. NATO never set foot in Donbass. There are defensive missiles in Poland and Romania. Why hasn't Russia invaded those countries? Theoretically those systems could be converted into offensive ones, all right. But why hasn't Russia bitched so hard about those systems already? They can easily hit the Russian heartland. If they really considered those systems to be so dangerous, why haven't Putin's oligarchs and puppets shit their pants and try to do something about it as they do now with Ukraine? Good question, right? Also everyone who's defending Putin so dearly forget that Russia has tons and tons and tons of nuclear weapons. They can easily retaliate and fuck up the entire world. NATO could put all of their nuclear weapons 1 meter away from the Russian border, and if they fire a single one, everyone loses. It doesn't matter if NATO shoots a nuclear weapon from Saturn or Ukraine, the result will be exactly the same. Also in official numbers it is Russia who has the most nuclear weapons. Mutually assured destruction is what kept Russia "safe", and that equation doesn't change if Ukraine joins NATO or not. YES, EXACTLY! I absolutely 100% without sarcasm agree on the fact that USA has more blood on its hands than Russia (post Soviet Union ). But how is this relevant may I ask? It's not, this is yet another attempt to paint USA as the devil and Russia as Virgin Mary who's defending the entire world against NATO. I wouldn't say that. Being a slave in capitalist-ever more polluting oligarchy is not heaven. Better than most of the world, but not by any means ideal.

How? Please don't refer me to a Christian style prayer, I used to do those growing up and I was just deluding myself.

That's too simplistic. You should see this invasion through the lenses of USA's objective in the Cold War, which was stopping the expansion of communism literally anywhere on the globe, no matter how organic or not those communist movements/governments where, no matter how large or small the country. Of course, this doesn't justify dropping napalm from the skies and committing atrocities , but you are over simplifying things for the sole purpose of demonizing USA and painting Russia as the ultimate victim. Yes, Vietnam posed no military threat to the US mainland, but that's not why they invaded. Ukraine poses a threat to Putin's fascist murderous regime, not to Russia as a country. There's a big difference.

Details and sources please.

Well, Ukraine is outnumbered by the vast Russian army yet they managed to hold out and form counter attacks against "the 2nd best army of the world." Economically the sanction are yet to be fully felt in Russia. Technologically Ukraine is helped immensely by the West. Thus, I can throw the argument right back at you. My analogy is correct. I agree that Russia is superior (at least on paper) militarily if we were to take into account everything they have. However, this question goes deeper. Should David always surrender to Goliath? Should any group of people stop fighting against injustice and corruption (no matter how pacifist/violent the corruption is) just because they are objectively inferior? This is the answer I'm looking for from you.

That's why they were not able to conquer Ukraine in a month and had so many generals killed? Don't get me wrong, Russia could use tactical nuclear weapons (I mean those short range nuclear weapons that won't have negative effects on surrounding areas) and put Ukraine on its knees. Yes, in that regard they are extremely powerful. But so far, they haven't lived up to their standards, because of the corruption present in the Russian military sector filled with yes-men loyal to Putin. Do you think Putin raged and started a mini purge in FSB because the invasion went as planned? Russia could still turn the tide, but it will be very, very costly and so far they've proven that they are just a paper tiger. If Russia objectively has the 2nd best military in the world, the rest of the world's militaries are filled with baboons armed with stones. You also haven't responded to my comment in the other thread you created praising the Russian army. Most of my arguments are there.

So if I broke into your house and abused your wife, you would just surrender and let the consequences play out? What difference does it make if your wife misses an arm and an eye? Let me have it! Some people here don't know what war is or how hatred works. What you are suggesting is absent of logic. If it were by me, all fighting would stop tomorrow, but don't expect that the hate the Ukrainians are feeling would just disappear if Zelensky surrendered its entire country. Very quickly afterwards militias would form and continue the fighting, but without a central command. I had the exact same argument with someone else when the invasion started... You can't expect Ukraine to surrender to Russia just because you want to monkey stage yellow/turquoise or have a hidden pro Russian nationalistic agenda.