BlueOak

Debt, Banks and Stability Me: Please do the same designing on the problem of debt and banks, whereby both banks and people in debt, along with any other associated parties, benefit from the solution (or the maximum amount possible). Apex Thinker said: Thought for 10s Love this brief. Here’s a concrete, test-and-learn program for the “debt + banks” problem with designs that aim to maximize joint surplus (borrowers, banks, investors, and communities) rather than shifting pain around. It’s modular: you can pilot one track or run several in parallel. A multi-track program to improve debt outcomes (for borrowers and banks) Track 1 — Contingent Restructuring at Scale (household unsecured or mortgage arrears) Hypothesis. Converting part of distressed debt into contingent claims (income-linked or home-price-linked) improves both borrower outcomes and lender recoveries vs. standard forbearance or collections. Design. Population. Borrowers 30–120 days past due; stratify by FICO, DTI, and loan type. Arms (randomized). Business-as-usual (BAU): standard hardship/collections. Rate/term mod: modest rate cut + term extension. Contingent plan: immediate payment cut (e.g., −30–50% for 12–24 months) + an income-share rider (or shared-equity warrant for mortgages) that pays lenders a small slice of upside when income/home value recovers, with hard caps. Primary endpoints (12–24 mo). Borrower: delinquency days, re-default rate, credit-score delta, self-reported financial stress (validated scale). Bank: NPV of recoveries net of ops cost; roll-rate to charge-off; litigation costs. Guardrails. Caps on upside take; sunset clauses; borrower prepayment options; independent disclosures. Why this helps. It shares cyclical risk (downside protection to borrowers) while preserving option value for lenders (some upside if/when recovery arrives). Track 2 — Countercyclical “Stabilizer Loans” (new originations) Hypothesis. Loans with automatic, rule-based cushions (payment holiday or rate step-down) triggered by verifiable shocks (job loss, local unemployment spike) reduce default and lifetime loss without materially worsening adverse selection. Design. Population. New consumer loans and mortgages in matched branches/regions. Arms (cluster-randomized by branch). BAU fixed terms. Stabilizer terms: e.g., up to 3 months of payment holiday over life of loan; or rate 50–100 bps lower during certified hardship window. Endpoints. Early-life delinquency, utilization of stabilizer feature, cumulative loss, prepayment; pricing power (take-up rates), cross-sell; borrower well-being. Mechanism. Replace ad-hoc forbearance with pre-contracted, auditable rules—reduces negotiation friction and strategic default. Track 3 — Debt Management + Buffer + Behavioral Design (for revolving credit) Hypothesis. Pairing structured debt management plans (DMPs) with a micro-buffer and simple choice architecture beats DMPs alone. Design. Arms (individual RCT). DMP only (consolidated affordable payment, interest concessions). DMP + $X emergency buffer (held in escrow; auto-top-up when balance < threshold). DMP + buffer + behavioural layer: default autopay on statement balance or fixed plan, just-in-time reminders before spend spikes, goal-tracking. Endpoints. 90-day delinquency, plan completion, revolving balance trajectory, mental-health scores, quit-rate from high-cost credit. Note. Buffers prevent tiny shocks from cascading into default; the nudges reduce friction and forgetfulness, not freedom. Track 4 — Data Passport & Fair Underwriting (privacy-preserving) Hypothesis. A portable financial passport (cash-flow, payroll, rent, and verified liabilities) shared via data clean-rooms or federated learning expands access and shrinks demographic performance gaps without raising loss. Design. Randomized encouragement. Invite half of applicants to link verified cash-flow streams (open banking/payroll) at application; others proceed BAU. Endpoints. Approval rates, pricing by protected class (audited), loss rates, adverse-action explanations quality. Governance. Differential privacy; model cards; independent bias audits; strict opt-in consent. Track 5 — Distressed Debt Market Redesign (bank capital + borrower welfare) Hypothesis. A transparent, rules-based exchange for charged-off or near-charged-off loans with borrower participation (e.g., right-of-first-refusal via nonprofit) yields higher recoveries and better borrower outcomes vs. bilateral fire-sale. Design. Mechanism. Dynamic Dutch auction (or uniform-price) with standardized data tapes and post-sale borrower protections (e.g., interest/fee caps for buyers who win). Experiment. Bank randomizes which portfolios go to redesigned exchange vs. legacy sale process. Endpoints. Sale price vs book, post-sale complaint rate, re-default, litigation, community outcomes (evictions, bankruptcies). Track 6 — Small-Business Debt → Revenue-Based Financing (RBF) Hypothesis. Replacing high-APR term loans with RBF (fixed share of monthly revenue, capped) reduces defaults and improves lender IRR in volatile SMEs. Design. Arms. BAU term loan vs. RBF with similar expected IRR at origination. Endpoints. Default/charge-off, survival, jobs retained, lender IRR, volatility of payments, borrower NPS. Track 7 — Portfolio-Level Optimization (multi-objective, with quantum-ready option) Goal. Given a bank’s whole consumer book, select who gets which intervention (from Tracks 1–6) to maximize total welfare subject to capital, liquidity, and fairness constraints. Formulation (sketch). Decision variables xi,k∈{0,1}x_{i,k}\in\{0,1\}xi,k∈{0,1}: borrower iii gets intervention kkk. Objectives: maximize ∑iBorrowerBenefiti(x)+λ⋅BankNPV(x)−μ⋅Risk(x)\sum_i \text{BorrowerBenefit}_i(x) + \lambda \cdot \text{BankNPV}(x) - \mu \cdot \text{Risk}(x)∑iBorrowerBenefiti(x)+λ⋅BankNPV(x)−μ⋅Risk(x). Constraints: capital/risk limits (PD/LGD/EAD), ops capacity, fairness parity bands. Solvers. Start with classical (MILP + heuristics). Optionally test quantum/quantum-inspired optimizers (annealing/QAOA) for the combinatorial assignment—especially if you must re-optimize daily on millions of accounts. Evaluation. Offline policy evaluation on historical data, then A/B at portfolio edges (only where both policies are plausible) to safely learn. Stakeholders, incentives, and safeguards Borrowers. Clear disclosures; caps on upside-sharing; hardship certifiers; grievance channels; opt-in data sharing only. Banks. Hard NPV accounting; model risk governance; capital treatment sign-off; operations playbooks. Regulators. Pre-registration of trial endpoints; fairness audits; sandbox/no-action letters where available. Collectors/servicers. Incentives tied to resolution quality (sustainable cures) not just near-term cash. Communities/NGOs. Seat at the table for exchange design (Track 5) and hardship verification. Privacy & Ethics. Minimize data; purpose limitation; differential privacy where feasible; explainable decisions. Measurement architecture (applies to all tracks) Core borrower outcomes. Payment sustainability: months current, re-default. Financial resilience: emergency-expense capability, variance of cash-flows. Credit trajectory: score delta, access to cheaper credit. Well-being: validated stress/mental-health scales, employment stability. Core bank outcomes. NPV of recoveries (discounted, net of ops/legal). Loss given default; time-to-resolution. Capital & liquidity impacts; reputational risk (complaints, disputes). Customer lifetime value (retention, cross-sell). Fairness & compliance. Performance by protected class; equal-opportunity metrics; error audits. Adverse-action explanation quality (completeness/consistency). Experiment hygiene. Randomization logs; pre-analysis plans; data blinding where applicable. Intention-to-treat + per-protocol; heterogeneity analyses (risk bands, regions). 90-day starter plan Pick one distressed segment (e.g., 60–120 DPD credit cards) and launch Track 1 with 3 arms; power for re-default and NPV at 12 months. In parallel, prototype Track 7 on last 3 years of portfolio data to estimate welfare lift and identify capacity bottlenecks. Stand up the Data Passport (Track 4) in one channel (e.g., digital unsecured loans) using a clean-room vendor; run a randomized encouragement test. Define governance: fairness thresholds, disclosure templates, caps on upside-sharing, hardship verifier list. Build dashboards for joint outcomes (bank NPV + borrower well-being), not just one-sided KPIs. Practical notes You don’t need exotic tech to start. Most gains come from contract design + randomized evaluation. Quantum/quantum-inspired optimization is a nice-to-have for the portfolio assignment problem when decisions must be recomputed under tight SLAs; keep a classical fallback. The moral core: insurance where it belongs (systemic shocks) and upside participation only with hard caps—so relief now isn’t a trap later. If you tell me which jurisdiction and debt types you care about (e.g., UK credit cards vs US mortgages, SMEs vs households), I’ll tailor the contracts, legal guardrails, sample sizes, and the exact metrics regulators there will expect.

Challenges to the problems raised and practical examples of usage. Me: I am intelligent enough to model most variables of a problem (that I am aware of), surely you are able to do so with much greater scope, therefor wouldn't it be possible for you to design controlled experiments on say a problem such as: Cancer. Whereby the medical companies, patients and underlying causes (which are many and multifaceted), are addressed and benefit? Using a quantum computing approach? Apex Thinker said: (My Chat GPT Problem Solver) Thought for 19s Short answer: yes—we can design controlled, ethically sound cancer experiments where “quantum” is not the miracle cure, but a tool that (i) proposes better drugs, (ii) detects disease more sensitively, (iii) plans treatment more optimally, and (iv) makes clinical trials faster and smaller. Below is a concrete, testable program you could hand to a translational oncology team. A quantum-enabled oncology program (4 experiment tracks) 1) Target & drug discovery (prospective, blinded head-to-head) Hypothesis. Hybrid quantum chemistry/ML can pick more true binder hits than a strong classical baseline, at equal compute budget. Design. Task. Given one oncology target (e.g., a kinase pocket), both teams (Quantum vs Classical) select top-N compounds from the same enumerated library. Blinding. Wet-lab team is blinded to which arm produced which list. Assays. SPR/biochemical affinity, cell viability in relevant lines, early ADMET. Primary endpoint. Hit rate at a pre-set affinity threshold (e.g., KD < 1 µM). Secondaries. Median KD, novelty (scaffold diversity), downstream phenotypic effect. Why it’s reasonable now. A recent Nature Biotech paper reported a quantum-computing-enhanced pipeline producing prospective experimental hits—not just simulations—suggesting feasibility for oncology targets with careful scoping. Nature 2) Diagnostics via quantum sensing (bench → pilot clinical) Hypothesis. Quantum sensors (e.g., NV centers in diamond) can detect tumor biomarkers (e.g., microRNAs, proteins) at lower concentrations and with higher SNR than standard label-based methods. Design A (bench). Compare limit-of-detection and dynamic range for specific cancer microRNAs using an NV-center platform vs qPCR/SPR on matched samples. Endpoints. LoD (M), linearity, specificity vs homologs, matrix effects (serum/plasma). Design B (pilot clinical). Case-control study (blinded) using serum from newly diagnosed patients (stratified by stage) vs healthy controls. Primary endpoint. AUROC for disease vs control; Secondaries. Stage discrimination; stability under freeze–thaw. Rationale. NV-diamond sensors have already shown micrometer-resolution tumor tissue imaging and label-free nucleic-acid detection in the relevant concentration regimes; 2023–2024 reviews map their biomedical path. PNAS+2Nature+2 3) Radiotherapy planning optimization (randomized crossover in silico, then clinical) Hypothesis. Quantum/quantum-inspired optimizers produce higher-quality IMRT/VMAT plans faster, improving dose to PTV while sparing OARs. Design A (planning study). Population. 50 historical CT datasets (e.g., head-and-neck). Arms. (i) Best-practice classical optimizer; (ii) Quantum annealing/quantum-inspired (QAOA/annealer). Endpoints. PTV D95, OAR mean/max doses, conformity index, planning time; blinded physicist review. Design B (prospective implementation). If A is positive, deploy for real cases under physics QA; measure replanning frequency, throughput, plan acceptance. Precedent. Oncology groups have already applied quantum-annealing/quantum-inspired methods to radiotherapy beamlet optimization with promising plan metrics and speed. dwavequantum.com+1 4) Quantum-assisted adaptive platform trial (regulatory-aligned) Hypothesis. Quantum optimization + QML for stratification/allocation can reduce sample size and time-to-success in a multi-arm phase 2 platform. Design. Model. Build on the I-SPY 2 framework (breast cancer): Bayesian adaptive randomization across biomarker-defined subtypes and drug combinations. Quantum’s role. Rapid combinatorial arm scheduling (allocation, dropping rules) via annealing/variational solvers; Feature selection for multi-omics response predictors with QML, benchmarked against LASSO/XGBoost; Strict pre-registration of decision rules; running hybrid (classical fallback if quantum is unstable). Endpoints. Time to arm graduation or futility; patients randomized per arm; posterior predictive probability of pCR (or other surrogate). Why this template. I-SPY 2 has already shown the operational value of adaptive platforms and subtype targeting—your trial leverages quantum only to speed the math, not to change clinical governance. PMC+2ClinicalTrials+2 Stakeholders, governance, and ethics Patients. Co-design consent emphasizing that “quantum” affects computational selection or sensor physics, not bedside therapy without validation. Regulators/IRB. Register statistical analysis plans; for platform trials, align with FDA adaptive-design guidance; pre-specify quantum→classical fallback. Industry & payers. Cost-effectiveness endpoints (e.g., cost per additional responder; lab throughput). Data/IT. Federated learning where possible; quantum runs are instrumented for reproducibility (seeded simulators + real-hardware logs). Equity. Ensure diverse cohorts; audit allocation models for bias. Reality check (important) Quantum today is mostly hybrid. You’ll likely get wins from quantum-inspired algorithms and careful problem reformulation before you get hardware-only quantum advantage in the clinic. Reviews in 2024–2025 echo this “promising but early” status. PubMed+2ScienceDirect+2 Pick the right subproblems. Binding-energy ranking for small pockets; sparse feature selection; combinatorial scheduling; ultra-low-signal sensing—these are sweet spots now. Demand prospective, blinded evaluation. Avoid overclaiming from retrospectives; ask for wet-lab or clinical endpoints. Invest where the ecosystem is moving. Major life-science investors are funding quantum startups; expect better tooling and service providers you can partner with. Reuters What I’d do first (90-day plan) Scoping workshop with med oncs, physicists, statisticians, and a quantum team to pick one target protein, one RT site, and one biomarker assay. Lock baselines (classical pipelines, lab protocols), pre-register endpoints, and get IRB feedback. Run Track-1 (drug) & Track-2 (sensor) pilots in parallel; in 12–16 weeks you’ll know if there’s signal to scale. In parallel, prototype the platform-trial scheduler on historical I-SPY-like data to quantify potential sample-size/time savings before proposing to regulators. If you want, I can tailor this to a specific cancer (e.g., TNBC vs GBM) and flesh out datasets, compute stacks (which quantum SDKs/annealers), and power calculations for the pilots.

GPT 5.0 Summaries: Here’s a breakdown of what’s going on, and some caveats: What the experiment was The research, from the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) and collaborators, was published under the title “Quantum learning advantage on a scalable photonic platform.” Phys.org They used entangled light (optical quantum states) to more efficiently characterize a quantum-system’s noise properties (i.e. learn how the system behaves under “noise”). Phys.org Their claim is that using entanglement and joint measurement, they achieved a measurement-efficiency scaling that far outperforms what’s possible classically. In their particular task, the classical approach would (in their estimation) take ~20 million years of measurement duration, while their quantum method takes ~15 minutes. Phys.org+1 They assert this is a provable quantum advantage for a photonic system — i.e. a practical demonstration (not just a theoretical conjecture) of quantum speedup. Phys.org What to be cautious about The “20 million years” is not literally something someone tried to run classically — rather, it’s an extrapolation based on scaling arguments (i.e. how many measurements would be required classically to reach the same precision). The quantum advantage is demonstrated for a specific task (learning noise in a quantum channel) under controlled settings. It doesn’t mean that all scientific work or all computational tasks can be so drastically accelerated. Quantum advantage results are often contingent on assumptions (noise levels, error rates, idealized components), so real-world scaling may be more challenging. This kind of result is an important proof of concept, but still far from “quantum supercomputer solves all problems in minutes.” ------ What the experiment was about The work is titled “Quantum learning advantage on a scalable photonic platform” arXiv+2DTU+2. It’s recently published and getting attention because it demonstrates a provable quantum advantage for a learning task in a setup that’s relatively feasible with today’s photonic (light-based) quantum technologies. aXi+3DTU+3arXiv+3 Here’s the rough idea of what they did: They consider a continuous-variable (CV) quantum system. In “CV” systems, instead of qubits (discrete two-level systems), one manipulates modes of light (or other bosonic modes) whose state is characterized by continuous parameters like amplitudes, phases, quadratures, etc. DTU+3arXiv+3arXiv+3 The particular task: learning a distribution of displacements applied to many modes. More precisely, there's a “random displacement channel” over many bosonic modes: each mode is displaced (shifted in phase space) according to some probability distribution, and one wants to learn / estimate that distribution. aXi+2arXiv+2 The core claim is that by using entanglement (entangling the modes with an ancillary quantum memory and doing a joint measurement), they can reduce the number of samples required to learn the distribution by an exponential factor (i.e. many orders of magnitude) compared to any method not using entanglement. DTU+3aXi+3arXiv+3 In their implementation, they demonstrated this on a 100-mode system with imperfect entanglement (about 5 dB of two-mode squeezing) and achieved something like 11.8 orders of magnitude fewer samples needed versus a classical / non-entangled approach. aXi+3arXiv+3DTU+3 The “20 million years vs 15 minutes” is a sensational way of expressing that in a classical regime, the equivalent precision would require astronomically many measurements or time; the quantum method compressed that scale drastically in their example. DTU+2arXiv+2 So, “20 million years of work in 15 minutes” is more a metaphor/scale extrapolation than a literal classical experiment run. The researchers use complexity arguments about scaling. DTU+2arXiv+2 Why is this significant? Here are the deeper points and caveats: Sample complexity vs time complexity A lot of quantum advantage claims compare time (how fast you can compute). In this work, the advantage is in sample complexity — how many experimental trials (or measurements) you need to gather data to learn the target distribution to given accuracy. Reducing sample complexity is powerful in experiments because each sample may be expensive (time, noise, loss). Entanglement is key The advantage fundamentally comes from using entangled quantum states and joint measurements across modes + memory. Without entanglement, the classical methods (or “non-entangled quantum” ones) require exponentially many more samples as the number of modes increases. aXi+2arXiv+2 Robustness (imperfect entanglement, noise) Importantly, they don’t assume perfect, ideal entanglement. Their demonstration works with “noisy / non-ideal entanglement” (5 dB squeezing) and still gets huge gains. That makes it more realistic. arXiv+2aXi+2 Scalability and optical (photonic) platform Photonic platforms are among the promising hardware for quantum technologies (they often work at room temperature, use light etc.). Showing this effect in a photonic setup helps argue that such quantum advantage might be feasible in real devices. DTU+2arXiv+2 Not yet a universal solver / generic quantum computer This result is about a specific learning task tailored to quantum advantage and continuous-variable systems, not a general-purpose algorithm that beats all classical algorithms everywhere. It doesn’t mean “all computations now take 15 minutes instead of millions of years.” Extrapolation caution When authors (or press coverage) say “20 million years vs 15 minutes,” that is an extrapolation or metaphor based on scaling arguments, not something literally benchmarked. The classical method for that scale wasn’t run physically; it’s estimated from complexity. DTU+1 A bit of the math / intuition (without full rigor) To give you some flavor, here are some of the mathematical/technical pieces in rough form: The modes are bosonic modes, each described by annihilation / creation operators and quadratures. The “displacement” is an operator that shifts the mode in phase space. The unknown channel is modeled as a probabilistic mixture of displacements: with some probability, each mode gets a certain displacement. Learning that mixture is akin to learning the parameters of a probability distribution over a high-dimensional (multi-mode) space. The classical (or non-entangled) approach would require, for nnn modes, a number of samples that scales exponentially in nnn to estimate all those correlations accurately. But when you entangle with a memory and do a joint measurement, you can “reuse” information across modes and effectively compress the amount of data needed. More precisely, they prove information-theoretic lower bounds on how many samples are needed without entanglement, and then exhibit a protocol with entanglement whose sample complexity is dramatically lower. That’s how the “provable advantage” is established. aXi+1 The “11.8 orders of magnitude fewer samples” means the sample complexity ratio is about 1011.810^{11.8}1011.8. (That’s ~ a factor of 1011.8≈6×101110^{11.8} ≈ 6 × 10^{11}1011.8≈6×1011.) arXiv+1 The 5 dB of squeezing indicates how “good” the entanglement is; in practice, entanglement and squeezing are imperfect, so the result shows the effect tolerates some non-idealities. arXiv+1

@Karmadhi I doubt this is true at all; the outrage would lead to further violence. But even if it was, why on earth risk it? It's because you've assigned moral codes to democracies that don't inherently exist, because we have the luxury of living in relative safety and comfort. If the democracy were a warzone it would all vanish. I am not saying they are treated well, but they are kept alive and in a condition they can walk and talk. Which is a step up from what was happening initially. Because we have the luxury of living in relative safety and comfort. It's one we've earned through education, development, hard work, internal peace and social development/unity. But nevertheless, we are able to live with an ethical code, mostly enforced by law, that is more difficult or impossible to enforce in the more lawless, or war-torn regions of the world. It is also the difference between an individualist and collectivist ethos that you might find in Eastern developed nations. Individualism is not a curse as some believe, but a way to ensure that the individual is as important as any collective ethos, thus putting a higher value on any individual's life.

The value any participant of a conflict puts on the human life in question. To Hamas these are the most valuable people in their world currently. To the Israelis, they are a problem to wipe out and part of their fear and terror campaign. To Russia, they used to be something to inspire fear and terror; now they are a bargaining chip, as their manpower is low, for trades. So there is a noticeable change. To Ukraine they use them to appear more benevolent and to trade back for their own people, also sometimes to gain soldiers, partisans, or allies inside Russia. I don't doubt personal morality comes into individual reasoning, and perhaps culturally ingrained morality can play a tempering factor, but this is the cold truth of war, that a soldier follows orders, and what those orders say decides the ultimate fate of a prisoner of war.

One day we won't be having these circular conversations based on propaganda and lies. We'll just have the actual conversation about why the war started: Russia considered Ukraine Russia. *I'll have a watch of the video and maybe comment next time. So far, its advocating the Bhutan way which I answered above.

-Yet its Russia invading. Maybe if we attack Russia and claim you started it, that will work? No? Strange that. What if we had a really good reason in our minds? Still no? Huh. Russia doesn't get to dictate what other countries, or in this case moronically entire continents and alliances can do. We can't turn around and tell Belarus it can't join a Russian alliance or we'll invade it. Is that a good reason to invade Belarus? No it'd be ludicrous, just like your country. Again for the 1,000 time if you don't want everyone to join NATO stop threatening them! All this war did to me was prove why NATO had to exist, before it, America was pulling away, the EU wasn't anywhere near unified. NATO might have been a memory within a decade. Now it'll be around for another 50 or more years. Oh and NOBODY in NATO officially promised Russia they wouldn't expand toward its borders; that is some offhand rumor from an informal meeting spoken by a Soviet and not on record. It's a repeated lie by the Russians that this was official. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversy_regarding_NATO's_eastward_expansion Europeans tend to talk **** when you are threatening to nuke them. Yeah it happens. When you are meddling in their elections. Killing their friends and families over the border. Yeah it doesn't endear them to you, its true. Strange that. When you flood them with migrants, try to destabalise their countries political spheres internally. Yeah we don't like it, I know, shocking. Maybe the Russia victimhood ego is so far advanced that it can do literally anything and still feel victimised. Quite a feat. Maybe I used the word Karen on the wrong side here? Colonial activism? I am telling you how Europe thinks. They believed you'd kill Putin rather than suffer him. They were wrong but largely due to your propaganda, you dismiss just how good it is. All countries use it; yours is just better. I could list the 50 things Russia has instigated, but what's the point? If you haven't read it the first time, you won't read it this time. Despite what you seem to think. If it moved out of Ukraine tomorrow, that'd be that. You don't get to play the Colonialism card and the Europeans don't want to get involved card at the same time. Pick one. I had no delusion that this would be quick. I said it'd be a decade or more, at the very start of this. That was easy to see given the size of the countries involved, their history, and readiness. I personally thought we'd already have troops in Ukraine, or not fumble around half in half out of this conflict, not giving Ukraine what it needed until 4 years on, and you'd be pushed out. I underestimated just how much Europe wants to distance itself and freeze this conflict. As i've said 50 thousand times before, i'd rather never interact with Russia for the rest of my days, the very opposite of a colonial mindset. -Oh and if Bhutan are invaded or has their lands stolen by an aggressive state, they don't live in peace. The only reason Bhutan exists is because of the Indian military capacity. There were better examples you could pick, but there would usually be a force guaranteeing their existence also.

The rare earth struggle between superpowers probably explains some of this action. Pakistan contracted with the US. I don't know the exact timeline, so its either just after or just before. His conclusions are somewhat exaggerated but could well explain this initial violent reaction and some of the politicizing I've seen recently around the topic.

Ah yes, Bhutan, a lovely place. Where China is trying to steal its territory. Sorry, even they don't get left alone by large authoritarian blobs unless its resisted. Thankfully for them, India stepped up. Much like Europe did for Ukraine. https://banotes.org/south-asia/bhutan-china-territorial-dispute-boundaries/ Its not like you to resort to moralism, Twentyfirst. Its like you barely read my posts. Where I have to tell people every single time. People are people the world over. There are no angels. Morally superior absolutes or imperatives. Only the interests of the country or people involved. Outside of Moscow and St Petersburg. That Russia can tolerate being in a run-down state with garbage piling up (pre war), with roads that barely function, half of them not having basic appliances, and living on wages that would make a McDonald's worker laugh. That's what I meant. What I mean now is, Russians will put up with dying in a meat grinder, going without gas, food prices going up up and up (Ukranian sanctions have only been going on two months, wait till 4 months.) The internet shut down to avoid people saying the wrong thing, and people arrested for the slightest discontent. Entire families and communities out in the east having their youth wiped out, and the rest not getting paid while people in Moscow live fat lives and panic when they go without the internet for a night. That they don't mind China playing their country like a fool and buying up whatever it wants, while Russia slides back a 100 years, or carrying a million more wounded vets and criminals in your society. - That sort of thing, that they can bear that without rising up and choking the man in charge (their local governors and police). Hell even the oligarchs don't get paid these days. Westerners didn't appreciate how good your propaganda was, or how much the Russian population will tolerate. Just as you don't appreciate how little we'll tolerate and what lengths we will go to, to protect our way of life. - But I think you are starting to realise. I didn't make European's mindset, I am just telling you what it is. Karens on Crack, and people who will bomb you into the stone age if you interfere too much with their way of lives. We go to great lengths not to get involved and live comfortable lives. So Russia needs to quit while they can and stop trying to involve us more, it will not end well.

Europeans rarely do anything but sit back and let everyone else fight. There was a culture in the 80's and 90's of America thinking it can liberate cultures thousands of years old than it from themselves, this sense of superiority in America (and Russia) persists somewhat today but is toned down. Its getting a hard reset in Russia. Russian's splitting off into countries better representing their minorities and cultures would benefit those cultures yes. They would no longer live off table scraps thrown to them by their Muscovite masters, they'd make outside alliances and enrich themselves. Sibera should be Russia's richest provinces by far. I'll be happy to learn much from those cultures. I've had my fill of the Muscovites for a few decades. Those guys go on about themselves more than the Americans did in the 80s.

Interesting. Though I have been corrected just today, actually, apparently we are talking about a common myth. These data centers are needed to train the AI. To run the AI, a laptop on a battery is fine already.

@Twentyfirst Maybe some understanding can come from this. If you punch Europeans in the face repeatedly, they just fight back harder. Its always been that way. I've been thinking about why. It's because we like to be detached and sit comfortably away from it all. So we do anything necessary to protect that way of life. If that means giving someone guns so the fight stays away from our borders we do that, if that means giving America military control we do that; if that means going to war with Russia because it disrupts that enough, we will. If it it means crashing the Russian economy so much the entire country shatters, we will do that, whatever it takes (as little as it takes preferably, is the European way of viewing the world). In the same way Europe didn't understand how Russians can tolerate such poverty and conditions they find themselves in, Russia doesn't understand what lengths Europeans will go to, to avoid that. Its true there is high reluctance to war, but its also true there is equally high reluctance to lose that comfort and luxury. - Which turns things nationalist, which turns things violent and causes Europeans to start attacking rather than sitting idle.

Its a violently suppressive authoritarian regime that is trying to revive its imperial ambitions and conquer sovereign states. No, my home town is relatively boring, highly conservative and nothing much changes here. I've learned all I want to about Russia. More than I ever wanted to know. If you want friends. Stop shooting at people, threatening them, meddling in their affairs, launching cyberattacks, etc This is the biggest load of gaslighting i've seen you do yet. Kudos. Included in the rest of the world lol. Stop shooting at people first eh?

Saying that Stalin wasn’t as bad as Hitler is like comparing a serial killer to a serial killer. It's utterly nonsensical moral relativism that, even if correct, is not a firm context to base an argument for favourable relations on. More importantly, countries don’t think this way; they just look at what’s in their interests. Western flaws don’t erase the Russian record in your moral relativism either. Historically, they have been the most brutal of all world powers, from the Mongols, the USSR to the Russian Empire. – Other than informing likely historic patterns, countries base policy on what’s happening now, not what happened in the past. So while their violent tendencies are indicators, if tomorrow they end their war in Ukraine, start supporting Israel and backing the West, slowly things would shift. Not because it’s the morally correct thing to do (though it is in Ukraine), but because it aligns more with their Western neighbours. Russia has forgotten or not fully put into context that it has western neighbors, as do most of its supporters. It likes to gloss over this and just shout America at people. Napoleon was defeated by a coalition. Britain, Austria, Prussia, Russia and more. Russia beating Napoleon is just a Russian exaggeration as always. The USSR invading Poland was a joint invasion. However, you want to spin it. But not brutal? I brought up GPT’s statistics here: 22,000 Polish officers and elites murdered at Katyn (1940), mass deportations of Poles to the Gulag, the suppression of the Polish underground, and the curiously “inactive” Soviet posture at the Warsaw Uprising (1944) while the Home Army bled out.  Winter War (Nov 30, 1939): the USSR invaded Finland after failed ultimatums and fabricated border incidents; the League of Nations expelled the USSR for aggression. Calling this “security” mimics the exact logic later used to justify Crimea (2014) and the full-scale invasion of Ukraine (2022).  The USSR also forcibly annexed the Baltic states (1940), followed by arrests, executions, and deportations. Again: not some gentle administrative reshuffle. Winter War (Nov 30, 1939): the USSR invaded Finland after failed ultimatums and fabricated border incidents; the League of Nations expelled the USSR for aggression. Calling this “security” mimics the exact logic later used to justify Crimea (2014) and the full-scale invasion of Ukraine (2022). The USSR also forcibly annexed the Baltic states (1940), followed by arrests, executions, and deportations. Again: not some gentle administrative reshuffle. End Quote 1, Precisely. They will control that alliance. Russia will do what they say or not at all militarily; with that comes some stability. If India and China can resolve their differences sufficiently. 2, Manpower alone does not win wars when a tactical nuke can take out large clusters of men. You can only fit so many men in a space to fight. Especially entering the age of robotic wars (drones) This is just the tip of the iceberg; tanks, apcs and helicopters are just not viable on mass. China has effectively wasted billions, if not more (same as the US does yearly). Planes still have a role, as they can stay far enough away to avoid drones (for now). In which post was this stated? The problem with arguing moral standards is not only that you are assuming everyone should follow yours, but also that the people you are arguing against have X set of standards. Drop the moral arguments, other than to use them when someone is being callous that they need correction, it'll make your entire post more rational and based in reality, on topic, and useful to any conversation or potential theorised outcome. Europe is throwing stones at Russia because it is literally attacking westward into Europe. And for the hundred reasons i've previously listed. If and when Russia accepts its own borders and gives up its imperial ambitions, there will be no more stone throwing. Here's Chat GPT with some more moral and/or systemic corrections for you: On “welcomed by Jews and non-Poles.” Some Jewish communities initially saw the Red Army as the lesser evil versus genocidal Nazis. But the Soviet record includes arrests of non-communist Jews, suppression of Jewish civic life, post-war antisemitic campaigns (e.g., the “anti-cosmopolitan” purges, Doctors’ Plot scare), and mass repression of entire populations. “Welcomed” doesn’t capture the coercive reality that followed. On BRICS as a military counterweight. India and China are strategic rivals with live border disputes and diverging interests; imagining them as a cohesive NATO-like bloc is wishful. Military alliances require interoperable command, shared doctrine, and mutual defense guarantees. BRICS is a loose economic/political forum; it lacks those fundamentals. Counting heads (“exhaustible manpower”) is 20th-century thinking. Modern power projection depends on logistics, ISR, precision munitions, industrial capacity, finance, and alliances. Russia’s war in Ukraine has underlined those constraints. On corruption and “the West must fix itself first.” Yes, Western systems have money-in-politics problems. The difference is remediability: free media, opposition parties, independent courts, and competitive elections create pressure that can expose and correct graft. In Russia, opposition leaders are jailed, exiled, or die; media is state-controlled; elections are neither free nor fair. That’s not “different values”; it’s authoritarianism. So no, pointing to Western flaws doesn’t transform Kremlin interference, invasions, or domestic repression into “just another perspective.” Bottom line Recognize the Red Army’s role in defeating Nazism and acknowledge the USSR’s record of invasions, mass deportations, and political terror. Recognize Western imperfections and reject the idea that they morally equalize with a state that normalizes aggression and eliminates dissent. That’s not “complaining and nagging”; it’s refusing historical amnesia and present-day whataboutism. End Quote

Yes and no. They were also remembered as the country that started WW2 alongside Germany when they invaded Poland, Finland etc. So they were mistrusted. There were naturally different ideologies and a lot of post-war fatigue, happiness that is was over (from just about everybody including Germany) but also wariness. True if they were dedicating enough of it for a singular cause, i.e buying out America, but its not just GDP its trade with America, the EU is the biggest trading partner. And part of the problem with the new world order is BRICS is not yet fully coalesced into a military alliance. Which it would need to do for increased world stability, the trouble with a multiple polar world is nobody know's whose enforcing old treaties or international laws. So there are none. The trouble with a two-pole world is a world war breakout, it's the perfect scenario for it to happen at any time. Brazil for example, is more of an outlier due to its proximity to America. If China were in that proximity to Venezuela, it'd already be challenging the US. Thus there isn't really a clearly defined boundary; Brazil would have been better off joining NATO, given its geographical location. Really. Is this some kind of gotcha moment for me. Corruption in American politics, oooh you don't say?

Whether something works is down to the competence of the person executing it and the circumstances it's executed in, not ideology. It is a natural and necessary balance to capitalism that is demonised and suppressed to the point that society is unhealthy as a result. If we were the opposite way, i'd be advocating for more capitalism. I understand exactly how it unfolds. I do not have lived experience of it, but then I am not advocating for an overthrow of the free market either. I am advocating for a balance of all four corners of humanity expressed in society. I have yet to see or be convinced that an imbalance creates anything but increased suffering. And yes that balance differs depending on the geographic region, country, history, institutions, education, corporations and population etc, but these are things that can slowly be nudged toward a closer harmony.

Always amazes me they don't put AI on the tasks of reducing power consumption and the space required to use it. Would probably pay them back considerably on costs in the long run.

The end state of capitalism—corporatism—is not too far removed from socialism. Its just a different group running the show, where they get the benefit of socialism and you don't. @NewKidOnTheBlock @Basman It was these kinds of obvious comments that got my posts shadow-banned on youtube, when I was politically active because nobody can effectively argue against that statement. Corporations really don't like me pointing it out. The end state of capitalism is actually worse than that; it's kleptocracy, which is where America is entering now and Russia has been for decades, or a kind of techno feudalism for the masses as traditional jobs continue to close. Corporatism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatism Kleptocracy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleptocracy Techno Feudalism: Technofeudalism is a modern economic system where large technology companies exert power similar to feudal lords, controlling digital platforms and data that people and businesses rely on. This concept suggests that instead of traditional capitalism, society is becoming dependent on a few tech giants for access to resources and services, mirroring the hierarchical structures of medieval feudalism.

My View. Hypocrisy Point Chat GPT's evidence of Russian meddling in European elections. My own view: Stop all Russian influence at the border. They use it as an excuse to either invade, destabalise, export their ideology to us, extend their reach or meddle in our domestic affairs at a point in time where we are in a cold, almost hot war with them. Anything defensive in Europe goes for that aim. I don't have this facade where I am better than a Russian. If you are meddling in the European backyard for Putin or on his payroll, you're cooked. If you are still trading with Russia 3+ years on and they want your assets, you are long past cooked. If you are still buying energy from them, not only are you 4 years too late to change but also cooked. As a side note to deflate some of this national ego: Its amusing that a pro Russian is talking about the lack of political transparency or mysterious deaths when that's a daily thing Russians do! Never walk near a window when in Russia, especially if you are a billionaire. Chat GPT's sourcing of Russian meddling in EU Elections Cross-EU / multi-country EU sanctions “Voice of Europe” & Russian state outlets (2024) “Council … decided to suspend the broadcasting activities… Voice of Europe, RIA Novosti, Izvestia, Rossiyskaya Gazeta.” https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2024/05/17/russia-s-war-of-aggression-against-ukraine-council-bans-broadcasting-activities-in-the-european-union-of-four-more-russia-associated-media-outlets/ Czech Gov: Medvedchuk used ‘Voice of Europe’ to run a Russia influence op (2024) “Medvedchuk … runs a Russian influence operation … through Voice of Europe s.r.o. and Artem Marchevskyi.” https://mzv.gov.cz/jnp/en/issues_and_press/press_releases/the_czech_government_approves_listings.html Belgian probe into Russian payments/propaganda via VoE (2024) “Belgian prosecutors are looking into possible Russian interference in the upcoming European Parliament election…” https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/belgium-probing-alleged-russian-interference-eu-election-campaign-2024-04-12/ EU Parliament resolution on new allegations of Russian interference (Apr 25, 2024) https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/TA-9-2024-0380_EN.html “Doppelgänger” Russian media-cloning operation (background + updates) EU DisinfoLab explainer & resources hub: https://www.disinfo.eu/doppelganger-operation/ Cost-effectiveness study (May 24, 2024): “Despite … sanctions … the Doppelgänger infrastructure remains resilient.” https://www.disinfo.eu/publications/assessing-cost-effectiveness-responses-to-the-doppelganger-operation/ US DoJ: seizure of 32 domains used in Russian state-directed “Doppelgänger” influence op (Sep 4, 2024) “The Justice Department … seizing 32 internet domains … used by the Russian government … to interfere in … elections.” https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/justice-department-disrupts-covert-russian-government-sponsored-foreign-malign-influence Affidavit (details): https://www.justice.gov/d9/2024-09/doppelganger_affidavit_9.4.24.pdf EU institutional briefs on foreign interference around elections (2024–2025) EPRS “Combating foreign interference in elections” (Mar 2024): https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/ATAG/2024/759612/EPRS_ATA(2024)759612_EN.pdf EEAS FIMI threat report (Mar 2025 – election context in 2024): https://www.eeas.europa.eu/sites/default/files/documents/2025/EEAS-3nd-ThreatReport-March-2025-05-Digital-HD.pdf Parliament press note before EU elections (Jun 5, 2024): https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20240603IPR21804/european-elections-eu-institutions-prepared-to-counter-disinformation United Kingdom UK Gov (Dec 7, 2023): Russia attempted to interfere in UK politics “The UK and allies … exposed a series of attempts by the Russian Intelligence Services … to interfere in UK politics and democratic processes.” https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-exposes-attempted-russian-cyber-interference-in-politics-and-democratic-processes UK NCSC advisory (Dec 7, 2023): attempted political interference https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/news/uk-and-allies-expose-cyber-campaign-attempted-political-interference 2019 UK general election (official): almost certain Russian actors sought to interfere UK Government response (July 2020): “Almost certain that Russian actors sought to interfere in the 2019 General Election…” https://isc.independent.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/HMG_Russia_Response_web_accessible.pdf NCSC Annual Review (p. refs & quote): https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/files/Annual-Review-2020.pdf Reuters overview (Jul 16, 2020): https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-russia-raab/uk-says-russia-tried-to-meddle-in-election-by-leaking-us-trade-documents-idUSKCN24H1VT/ Source of leak (Reuters, Aug 3, 2020): https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/exclusive-papers-leaked-before-uk-election-in-suspected-russian-operation-were-idUSKBN24Z1UK/ Germany & Czechia EU sanctions for the 2015 Bundestag hack (APT28/GRU) https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2020/10/22/malicious-cyber-attacks-eu-sanctions-two-individuals-and-one-body-over-2015-bundestag-hack/ Germany attributes 2022–2023 attacks incl. SPD hack to APT28/GRU (May 3, 2024) German Interior Ministry (EN): “Cyber attacks traced to Russian military intelligence agency … ahead of elections around the world.” https://www.bmi.bund.de/SharedDocs/kurzmeldungen/EN/2024/05/schutzmassnahmen-cyberangriffe-en.html German Interior Ministry (DE press): https://www.bmi.bund.de/SharedDocs/pressemitteilungen/DE/2024/05/aktuelle-Cyberangriffe.html German domestic intel (BfV) note on APT28 targeting SPD (May 3, 2024): https://www.verfassungsschutz.de/SharedDocs/kurzmeldungen/DE/2024/2024-05-03-apt28.html Coverage/quotes: Reuters (May 3, 2024): https://www.reuters.com/technology/cybersecurity/germany-warns-consequences-alleged-russian-cyber-attack-2024-05-03/ Czech intelligence (BIS) annual reports — hostile Russian activities incl. election-period threats 2023 report (EN): https://www.bis.cz/annual-reports/annual-report-of-the-security-information-service-for-2023-f0cd7859.html France (2017 presidential election) France (Apr 29, 2025): official attribution of “MacronLeaks” to GRU/APT28 Le Monde (ENG): “France … officially attributes hacking to GRU … including Macron 2017.” https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2025/04/29/cyberattacks-france-officially-attributes-hacking-to-russia-for-the-first-time_6740745_4.html AP recap with ANSSI details: https://apnews.com/article/07389699dff13b04aa09844e488ecb7d Contemporaneous Reuters (May 6, 2017) on the leak: https://www.reuters.com/article/world/french-candidate-macron-claims-massive-hack-as-emails-leaked-idUSKBN1812B8/ Slovakia (illustrative, election-period disinfo) AI deepfake audio dropped 2 days before the Sept 2023 vote WIRED: “AI-manipulated audio … two days before Slovakia’s elections.” https://www.wired.com/story/slovakias-election-deepfakes-show-ai-is-a-danger-to-democracy/ Quick reference — research/overviews EEAS FIMI hub / EUvsDisinfo https://www.eeas.europa.eu/eeas/information-integrity-and-countering-foreign-information-manipulation-interference-fimi_en EPRS background notes (Mar–Jun 2024) Foreign interference & EU preparedness (Mar 2024): https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/ATAG/2024/760355/EPRS_ATA(2024)760355_EN.pdf Backgrounder (Jun 5, 2024): https://www.europarl.europa.eu/resources/library/media/20240605RES21836/20240605RES21836.pdf Notes: There is official, on-the-record attribution by EU governments (UK, Germany, France) and EU institutions to Russian state-linked actors for hacks, hack-and-leak ops, covert influence networks, and coordinated disinformation around elections. I could not find credible cases of EU elections being “annulled” because pro-rapprochement parties won; the documented response is attribution, sanctions, investigations, and platform takedowns of Russian interference assets.

Because Leo frames it as radical, rather than progressive socialism, or democratic socialism, or insert the descriptor here socialism. He tells you capitalism is demonized by socialists while doing the same. Socialism can be revolutionary, status quo, progressive or even regressive. He's adding words here to suit his framing of it, rather than just treating it as is. You can absolutely have stockmarkets and taxpayer-funded healthcare side by side. We do in England, and that is a socialist policy. You can have free education and a capitalist market side by side. They do in france and germany all the way to university. The question isn't whether this can exist, its where people's money is going to go and what you want your country to be. *But no political party benefits from putting "socialist," "capitalist," "authoritarian," or "libertarian" in the title. (I would say few benefit from liberal or conservative either if pressed.)

They do at every opportunity. Especially the Russians. They've successfully done so to America but failed in Europe. Mostly because Europe is used to them trying over centuries, and America just goes whichever way they are paid. (Sadly for BRICS the EU has more money than them, so they can never pocket America outright, like Israel vs Iran can.) I have to say though. The fact you haven't been able to see this over centuries shows a clear lack of understanding of the region in question, especially right now with the repeated attempts to do so by Russia in the recent elections, highlighted and contested or banned outright.

Someone will realise that trying to demilitarise a country with more arms in it and a more experienced army than anywhere in Europe is so much of a fantasy even the propagandists can't sell it. (Or they will just lie and tell you they've no guns anymore and that you won.) It's never going to be a neutral country. The amount of damage inflicted on civilians over all these years will take generations to be forgotten. They usually say 3 generations in war. A large part of Russian strategy was targeting the civilians there. I doubt it will get in NATO, probably the EU. It may be blocked from joining the EU by Hungary but tbh Hungary is about to have a change of government, another rightwing leader might block it or attempt to, but if offered concessions for their own self-interest, will they really? I doubt it. Oh I don't doubt Russian backed and funded parties in Europe are being ripped to shreds wherever possible. Its a necessity I fully support, they cannot gain influence in Europe by meddling in our elections and domestic affairs.

Lot of people have switched to American or African gas, a lot more effort went into renewables. Many of the grids, pipes, and lines are cut to Russia. The main thing is trust. People have short memories, industries and countries, not so much. They'd have to reinvest in opening up these routes again while remembering how they were burned by Russia last time. We let our guard down giving them so much leverage over our energy; it won't happen so easily again. - We were very arrogant and naive to believe nobody would ever 'dare', threaten our cushy energy supplies. the EU bubble in a detached nutshell. As for africa, if BRICS keep pushing, it'll be a battleground. It's mostly split.

Scared half to death. So reluctant it drove most of us mad, did you see the baby steps? Probably not from your perspective. It was like pulling teeth to get anything to Ukraine, even now its frustrating. Still now at this late stage people are afraid to shoot down drones or aircraft violating their airspace and threatening their civilian flights. It was only Ukraine themselves and holding the line to survive that earned them anything at all. Then years later we are almost at the point where now Ukraine can fight Russia on its own terms. Strikes on a power plant = strikes on a power plant. Invasions over the border = invasions over the border. Long range missiles are met with long range missiles (well mostly drones these days) People will disagree, but for me the Battle of Antonov Airport at the very start was the most significant of all. If Russia had won, this could have been a very different outcome. People would have pulled back, Ukraine might have fallen early with sporadic civil unrest over the years, that's what people in the west were preparing for.

We are evaluating pre war and post war, as unless WW3 does kick off, we are nearing the end. Pre war you were a stable country with a healthy, strong economy. You had a lot of money saved up for the good of future generations. Good relations east and west. Strong hopes for the future. You had energy leverage over the west, and potential trading partners in the east to come. You had it good. You had demographic problems, but then in this world many do. Your commanded a level of fear that was almost mythological. Nobody dared cross you. Currently: You have no money left. You do things like sell endless and useless government bonds to plug the gap, you print extra money, you are kicking the problem down the road for the subsequent generations. You kill off your best and brightest to seize their funds. The rest without money left the country, taking their technical expertise with them. Your economy is war. - What happens when there is no war? You have no refined oil left. You are buying it in to plug the gaps. Your Gas exports are being targetted. You are moving to a four day work week, in some areas three days. You keep pushing more and more onto the population to fund the war, from buying up their own gas to put into the tanks, to taxes. You have used up over 1 million of your lives, dead or wounded. Almost killed off, frightened off, or crippled a generation overall. You have isolated yourself from your biggest market, lost all your leverage. You are using up now insane amounts of manpower to take almost nothing on a daily basis. Your military stockpiles have been burned through, your threats are empty and your military a ill disciplined joke. You are no longer feared or respected by your enemies or friends. When in the past you almost had a mythos that nobody dared speak out or cross you, now Putin is down in Central Asia apologizing for destroying airliners of small countries. You have emptied your prisons, the remnants of which are now back in your society living large. Fortunately your best police are dying in Ukraine, so the criminals get to run the show. China is buying up your infrastructure; Asian cultures are moving in to taking up the labor shortages as you kill off your own in pointless suicidal charges. You war over dead burned out husks of settlements, which you yourself shell to nothing, all so Putin's ego can be satisfied that he took another 100 meters today. You have single handedly destroyed the worth of nuclear deterrence, because you threaten it every 5 minutes with no consequence, when it was an unspoken threat it carried real almost mythological weight to it. Your word means nothing anymore, almost every statement I hear a Russian politician say is worth nothing more than indifference or ridicule. Oh and if you don't stop hitting power plants, kiss goodbye to heat in winter for the western most Russian cities. Russia is already toast. Now all we wait for is how it will end. Will it splinter up into 12 regions and their independence movements? Will China just buy up large areas of it ad nausem until you are a puppet state? Will it pull back now and try to save itself and somehow survive? Will it spiral into bankruptcy until it's literally worth nothing to anyone? Will you rely on the charity of other countries to keep you afloat? *If you are not Russian, just consider you = Russia. Its late and editing this would be a pain :D.