mr_engineer

To my eyes, what you're saying implies that if I just don't make this a big deal, my stance and attitude on this issue will change. In other words, I don't really mean what I'm saying. When I do. I found that offensive, because every single word here has been well thought out on my part. I'm not kidding around here, it's an extremely serious topic. I would ignore this thing if we were discussing something more casual, that doesn't matter so much. On this issue, though, because world peace is such an important value to me and I consider conflict-resolution to be a strength of mine, I felt the need to defend my credibility. With all due respect, this is not a light issue. I type with a lot of passion here, shall we say. Please don't make this mean that I'm not thinking clearly or that I don't know what I'm talking about. I may be wrong, but I'm not a fool. And it is very important for me to know why someone here thinks I'm wrong, so that I know what to correct in my worldview. And how to deal with conflicts in my own life. I have enough respect for this forum's intellectual wavelength to take your opinions seriously.

Again, you're making this about me. And you're assuming that I'm not chilled, that I'm heated. That I'm 'too triggered to have a normal conversation'. How dare you assume that about my sanity?! You are shit-talking me when you say that. No more shit-talk against me on this thread, or I report you. You got a problem with me, PM me. I will not tolerate you invalidating what I'm saying by making personal remarks about me. The problem isn't the personal remarks themselves, but the fact that you're using them to discredit what I'm saying.

I was over it during college. I went once at age 22 and felt too old for the crowd there. It's generally teenagers.

You got a problem with me? You want to talk shit at me, PM me. This isn't the thread for that.

Don't make it personal. You don't know what I can do for the world. And how important these happenings are for my plans for my life.

@KH2 I'm not saying that sitting back and doing nothing is the solution. You prepare better. And, internal factors were in Russia's favor in WWII. They weren't enough, there was an application of brute-force. But, systemically speaking, over-extension/diplomatic attrition is the way to take down fascist regimes. Cuz logistically, there's a limit to how much a certain administration can control. Expansionism and colonialism backfire on the regime, without a doubt. It's just that in this case, there was a history of Ukraine wanting to join NATO and NATO entering Russia through the back-door. Whether this is true or not, a large portion of Russia believes this, which is why the people support him.

The West has been harboring hopes of a regime-change in Russia. As long as NATO takes an adversarial stance towards Russia, Putin's position will get stronger, morally. So, that'll hurt the West's cause of Russian regime-change. But, if Putin keeps going nuts, his administration will implode. And then the US will have diplomatic opportunities to take him down. Even this happened with Hitler, by the way. He lost cuz of internal sabotage.

Human systems work non-linearly, not linearly. He could handle Ukraine. But, if he just keeps going, at some point, he'll over-extend! That'll be the chance for competing powers to stop him. This is what happened in WWII with the Nazis.

My bad. I agree. I can assure you that's not what I'm doing. I'm analyzing what I believe to be a very important attitude-issue with NATO that could lead to a major catastrophe. So that all of us collectively do something about it. Or at least minimize the damage to ourselves.

Well, I have control of what I tell you. And, of course I can't rescue everyone here, they're responsible for their lives. Don't be racist.

I don't really agree that Russia will kill all the Ukrainian civilians. But, even granting you that, I'd take that over sacrificing billions of lives. All of us should be scared of a post-WWIII world, in which the precedent of nuclear attacks has already been set. This is our chance to take a clear stand on the issue of nukes.

Yeah, but Hitler lost the war, right?! And notice how Russia beat the Nazis. Not by outright aggression, but by over-extending them. They're doing the same with Ukraine and the West right now. The whole world's economy hangs in the balance here.

It's not 'democratic'. But, if the rapist has a nuclear weapon, the best thing in the interest of world peace is to let it happen while it's happening and then strategize deeper as to how to catch them and punish them. And to not yell threats at the rapist when you're not prepared to execute them!

Ukraine and Russia have a shared history. The mature thing to do would be to let them do their thing and direct those billions into improving your own economies, which are, quite frankly, struggling. NATO loses all humanitarian grounds for intervening in this situation when they identify with Ukraine's problems. If you say that 'We feel sorry for Ukraine, the evil Putin did this to you', I totally understand. But, it's not your loss!! Why take it on?! Especially when, as you mention, Russia is an adversary.

This is highly irresponsible diplomacy on their part. This opens the door wide open for war-crimes on a level and scale we've never seen before. And we've seen a lot. We've seen what Hitler did, for example. Prepare yourselves.

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.