mr_engineer

Of course, I'm hung up on it! When NATO openly identifies themselves as being an enemy of Russia, not only does this further justify Putin's invasion - it gives him the justification to escalate even further. It basically proves his point. They're not even pretending to be on the side of peace and democracy and harmony anymore. This is a huge wake-up call for the people only believing the US government. I don't know about you, but to me, this does not look like good diplomacy. I'd like to be proven wrong on this, cuz if I am, I've been wrong about how de-escalation works for my entire life and I'd really want to learn something about it.

That's a factual statement. Anyone who has nukes can make that statement. Very different from setting your bad blood in stone like this.

My only hope for the world now is that the American elite take this loss well. It's a faint hope, cuz you'd expect them to be bad losers. But, American citizens, either pray for your leadership to take it well or leave the US. Cuz they've named the loss as their own.

Please, enlighten me. How is doubling down on your egotism, saying that 'It's not their loss, it's OUR loss. And WE will pay you back for it', diplomacy?! How is identifying with someone else's loss a good diplomatic move?! As a diplomat, aren't you supposed to stand for something greater than yourself? Aren't you supposed to consider the other side's best-interests and stand for a moral good above you?! Something like peace or harmony?! That's been your narrative as the Western foreign-policy establishment, right?! What the hell is this, then?! And understand the reason they're doing this. It's because they're fucking losing!! If they were winning, they'd be singing a totally different tune, as to how virtuous they are and how evil Putin is for promoting the war. And they won because they're on the good side. Why this hypocrisy when they're on the losing side this time?! Whether they win or they lose, they're the good side. And, for this reason, the writing is on the wall as far as Western diplomacy is concerned.

@Leo Gura You have to admit that after this, Western diplomacy is out the window. Not only are they not being diplomatic about this, (you'd assume that the West is diplomatically superior to Russia because of their soft-power) they're showing an intent of never being diplomatic about the situation. Whether this war escalates or not, now depends on Russian diplomatic efforts. They're the only ones with diplomats on the table at this point.

He's making it obvious to those for whom it wasn't obvious, who were rationalizing it otherwise. It's not just buffonery on the part of the Western leadership to 'sanction Russia', it was intentional. Not only is this them intentionally declaring an economic war on Russia and cutting Russia off - it's demonstrably unapologetic. Which means that they will have no moral qualms escalating even further if this doesn't go well for them. It's unbelievable that they'd want to show their true colors that blatantly. Because this is a blatant warning to all the useful idiots believing that this was about 'democracy' and 'sovereignty' and not pure egocentrism on NATO's part. If you don't question why NATO would take the loss in Ukraine so personally after what he said, I don't know when you'll do it.

@Heart of Space You're picking a really, really fierce battle. My only advice to you is to have a genuine, tangible cause behind doing so. Please, pick your battles wisely. And have them be worth it. Cuz this is a huge hot-button issue for people.

Enlighten me.

@Heart of Space Dude, why are you doing this?!

I could very easily make a counter-argument that a huge issue is that the emergency-services specifically are monopolized by the government. If you privatize them, maybe, they'd get more negotiating-power, because they're so needed. For example, employees of emergency-services that belong to the government are struggling with low pay, because they have to be cheap, because they're not for profit. But, the emergency-services that are private, that are for profit, like ERs, they're expensive! Their employees aren't struggling all that much, doctors do make six figures. So, you can't really have your cake and eat it too. You can't talk about low wages for emergency-workers and high costs of healthcare in the same sentence! It's a hard optimization-problem.

I'll tell you a harsh reality about pricing - the way it works, is by a perceived value-disparity. It really is just a matter of supply and demand. How hard is it to become a police-officer?! Or, a fire-fighter?! Through the training?! Not very hard. I mean, of course, it is hard. But, the percentage of people who'd be able to clear that would be significantly higher than the percentage of people who could become programmers or gain technical proficiency/technical expertise in something. For the latter, you have to get good grades. Which aren't that common. I'd highly suggest that you read a book on Austrian economics to understand how entrepreneurs set prices. For products, for labor, etc. This is why, the way to get rich is to create best from waste, to be a creative motherfucker. Someone who can do that improves the efficiency of the overall system, because wastage goes down and output goes up as a result of doing something like that. And this is why so few people get rich. Because so few people develop themselves to have this ability! The one who can do this becomes the market-leader, because they come at the forefront of their industry in terms of innovation.

I say it is justified. My attitude, my opinion is what matters. You got a problem with that?!

@BenG Then don't complain about my 'attitude', if it's something that trivial. @Ulax Sometimes people need to get a taste of their medicine. I don't have any stakes in this, I don't have an agenda to convince anyone. I'm still trying to make sense of how feminists get away with this level of self-delusion. On my end, this still is an open-minded discussion!

@Ulax Would you be willing to say this to feminists? The bro-talk of 'stop complaining about the world and actually do something'. Cuz I think they really need to hear it.

@Ulax Go say that to a feminist and watch their reactions. They are some of the most condescending, disrespectful people I've ever come across. None of you have the balls to give them a lecture about 'attitude'. Cuz they're so 'oppressed'. And that would be 'misogynistic'. All of this bullshit-talk is reserved for men in our society. Shame on the people enabling it.

Out of curiosity, if I were a woman, would you be saying the same to me?

Unfortunately, it's not 'on the internet'. Cuz if it were, it would get censored, as so many female MRAs are. It's anecdotal. Maybe you're the one who needs to stop spending time online. And don't come at me with the 'I need stats' thing. Cuz what women say matters too! Now, some women are smarter than others. So, what the smarter women say matters more than what the dumber women say.

Women wiser than you or me have openly admitted to this reality about other women, who aren't so wise. Don't tell me what I can/can't know. Don't project your limiting-beliefs onto me. In fact, the entire MeToo movement can be boiled down to 'shit you read online'. Checkmate.

@something_else @KH2 A large part of the MeToo movement was women who regretted their decisions sleeping with someone, trying to flip the tables and blame the other person for their decision. That's what I mean! Don't take women's maturity for granted on this issue. Yeah fine, they're more socially calibrated and stuff. But, when it comes to the nuts and bolts of consent-status, they can lose track! It's not facts-first, it's feelings-first. And, there's all kinds of messiness with them being able to revoke consent after the fact.

That's a problem. Because, 'truth' is much more complex than a single sentence. You could. You'd just have to integrate the context of what's being said and where they're coming from, how trustworthy the source is, etc. And, because the feminine epistemology is feelings-first and not facts-first, I'd especially be careful believing women. All lying is not malicious. It can simply be a product of being wrong or miscommunications. But, malicious forces can definitely take advantage of gullible people who just don't know they're wrong.

Blindly believing a woman when she makes an accusation, is a very recent thing. It didn't happen in the era of arranged-marriages, when men were getting laid. Sex didn't cloud men's judgement at the time. 'Believe all women' is a highly irrational response to accusations. And, the idea of it being 'reasonable-sounding', is a rationalization. You're the one looking to the internet for MeToo trolls. In reality, most men are decent people.

Too much truth for you?!

Most of the guys who are on board with the 'believe all women' trend are white-knight soy-boy cucks. Who think that doing it is going to get them pussy.

Has she used a vibrator/dildo? Maybe you could get some insight from that info.

I think it's cryptos. People bring up the issue of security/hacking. I think that the technology to protect against that is either already there, or it'll get there shortly. If regulation happens algorithmically, there is no possibility of corruption.