Scholar

As far as I understand, if you want to experience actual Chinese culture you will be better to live in Taiwan, as it has it's traditions still preserved. In China alot of the authentic culture was eradicated through communism. You will also have an easier time to connect to the taiwanese as they are more compatible with western values. What you currently observe in China is very heavily Stage Red and Blue on the spiral, so you have a unique opportunity to understand these stages of development.

I think they in particular defined it as soldiers who are in Ukraine, and this is only allowed in Poland, Ukraine and Russia. They also allowed calling death to Putin but only if there is no credible reason to believe that these calls for violence have an intention to be actualized. Basically Facebook doesn't want to get involved in censoring people who currently speak up against the invasion, which considering how emotional of a topic that is will have language that falls outside of the norm. From what I understand imperialism in the past usually was a result of a genuine desire to unify and create a world of harmony and peace. This kind of desire was present in many of the great Conquerors, including Adolf Hitler. The desire for Utopia is an essential part of Imperialism. And it works, Imperialism actually served to unify the world. We would not live in the world we live in if there was no imperalism, if people hadn't been forcefully unified into a bigger identity. Imperialism was one of the main drivers of human progress. At this moment, Western and American imperialism is one of the main drivers of the unification of the world. Culture is being distributed, and thanks to that the ability to understand and communicate with each other. Remember, if cultures cannot relate to each other, they will tend to communicate and negotiate through conflict. There has to be one overarching world-culture, for the world to be at peace. Western culture will attempt to smother any other culture, and seek to integrate it into itself. This is a process of evolution. Western culture is the most likely to dominate the future because it is the most advanced and because we have reached a point of stability that makes it unlikely that a fundamental change will occur at this point. It is also unlikely that a completely new culture will emerge and define progress, simply because of the tendency of collectives to take the path of least resistance.

Why do you think NATO would have built missile silos in Ukraine? What makes you think that American leadership wanted to make Ukraine a battleground? What nations that joined NATO after the fall of the soviet union have missile silos, with what you presumably refer to having nuclear strike capabilities? Also, if American leadership wanted Ukraine to be a future battleground, I would assume they would be against them joining NATO, as it would not allow for the same kind of warfare. If Ukraine had joined NATO, any attack on Ukraine would be considered a declaration of war on all of NATO and require a full offensive response, which I do not think is in the interest of any NATO country, let alone the US. The fact that Ukraine is not in NATO currently plays in the hands of the US. A Ukraine that is not part of NATO is the perfect buffer zone. An invasion of the Ukraine will not lead to a full war, but cripple Russia and put an end to dying empire. Basically, what we have seen here was the perfect scenario. No direct involvement in the war, while defeating and humiliating your enemy.

Yes it's actually a good video to showcase the bias of some people, Mr Girl did a good job revealing that.

Ukraine wasn't going to join NATO and couldn't have joined NATO as long as it had border disputes, so nothing was actually gained. We even have official statements now that Ukraine had no plans to join NATO either, all it really wanted to do is join the EU.

He shits on western culture all the time and actually had held the anit-nato position before he did his research.

Minor differences.

I think it was revealed that it is a delusion, Putin wasn't tracking reality as it was, and his people are paying for it. Also notice how this is precisely the motivation that fueled Hitler and his ambitions for the Third Reich.

Hitler had the same aspirations, there is no difference. Hitler wanted good for his people, and he was willing to sacrifice others for that goal. Remember, Hitler came to power as a result of a previous lost conflict, similar to the fall of the Soviet Union. People have treated germany harshly, which gave Hitler the motivation to do what he did, aswell as allow for his people to support him. I think people genuinely didn't think Putin was capable of making such a sacrifice for the sake of his own delusions about the world and what it should be.

Once this kind of norm breaking occurs the future is unpredictable. Russia would not stand a chance against NATO in a conventional confronation. At that point Russia might use tactical nuclear warheads, and NATO might not respond with full nuclear escalation because they would know once they did, it would be the end. This is the thing about these kinds of norms, they work well until they are actually tested. They are kind of designed so that there is a big inhibition so that they are never tested, and so that it is never revealed that they are just an illusion. It's like we have two people with dead man's switches, and they both say "If you punch me we both die". Well, sure that's a threat, but if you do punch them, will they actually do it? And once you realize that they will not, what is going to happen then?

I disagree with that, I think he is not very open-minded to the possibility that Putin's character is a causal factor for this conflict. He dismissed that possibility because he views it as a "low consciousness and lazy" way of looking at things. That is in a certain sense fair, but someone can come to that conclusion for other reasons than laziness and low consciousness. He doesn't actually engage in that, and he is not even interested in hearing perspectives of others. He is creating his own narrative imo, and then he dismisses others based on that narrative. In a way I think you are far too charitable to Leo, my interactions with him give me a very different sense and perception of what he is doing. Whenever I engage with him he doesn't really engage with my ideas, explore my perspective or explain his perspective. Rather he just finds ways to dismiss it and leave the conversation.

Also notice how Leo will never just state his position, he will always include some invalidation of other perspectives.

I am also deeply disappointed how you engage with challenges to your view. You simply reassert what you say instead of making any effort to justify it, and you focus on making it look like you hold the truth rather than truly giving insight into your perspective and how it emerged. That to me is a very unconscious way of engaging with these topics. You seem to justify alot of your perspective by making assumptions and judgements of others. So when I ask you to justify things, you will not actually respond and give me an indepth reason for your perspective (which I now think does not even exist), but rather you will find ways to undermine someone else, without even engaging with their ideas. That to me is lazy. When I see you engage on this forum I see someone who is fighting for truth, who is fighting to be right, rather than clarifying your perspective and attempting to understand the perspectives of others. You already assume that your position is superior, and then you argue that yours is right because clearly it is superior. I think you don't like to frame things that you believe as perspective because it undermines your perceived monopoly to truth. That is why you focus on judging others rather than exploring their perspectives and clarifying yours. You dismiss others, rather than actually engaging with them and their perspectives. Another indicator for this is that you cannot walk away and agree to disagree with someone. You don't accept that someone else might have a perspective that is valid even though it is not your own. You insist that they are wrong and then tell them the reasons for why they are wrong which are assumptions you make about, even if you can't really justify your own position. For example you will say "What you are saying is wrong because you are biased", instead of actually explaining to them why you disagree with it. Notice the language you use. You never say "I disagree with this because of the following reasons, that is my perspective". You say: "This is stupid, and here is why you are too stupid and biased to see that this is the case." This is a very inflammatory way of going about this imo, and it shows me that you are more interested in establishing your own perspective as truth rather than simply giving us your perspective and exploring others. You want to brute force your perspective on others, by means of dismissal, character attacks and establishing your superiority.

Well, Putin just accelerated that process because he showed the world Russia is unreliable, and it is a mistake to be dependent on them. What you call soon is relative aswell, we are talking about centuries here. I am not sure if we will be using nearly as much oil in a hundred years. Consider that the more expensive oil gets, the more likely we will be to use other sources of energy. That will only accelerate the transition.

That's quite an emotional response. I think you pick and choose when you tend to apply a lense of Love and Harmony. Evolution doesn't work in a linear way, because it tends to create biases that seek to uphold themselves. Purely physically speaking, we could probably progress mankind more in 5 years than we did in the last 50 years if only the motivation was there to do so. The reason why we do not do so is because systems tend to seek comfort within norms. Usually it requires a dramatic event to cause dramatic changes. Like if you get cancer, you might suddeny get the motivation to change your entire life, meditate for 4 hours a day, adopt healthy habits and take joy in every moment of your life. If you had never gotten cancer, you might have lived your life in stagnation, comfort and essentially misery. This is true for evolution too. Dinosaurs existed for hundreds of millions of years and they barely changed, life was stagnating. And yes, what wiped out the dinosaurs was a terrible tragedy, for the dinosaurs. However, it shook life to it's core, enabling it to take completely new pathways that were not possible to take previously because systems had stabilized to such a degree that new changes simply would not have occured. My hope would be that a world war would eventually lead to greater harmony. From what I know current projections actually show that most humans would survive a nuclear holocaust, in a kind of worst case scenario. And it might very well be that it would actually reduce suffering in the world for that period, as it would put an end to most factory farms. It's a very human centric perspective to call a nuclear holocaust a bad thing. For others it would mean freedom and new opportunities. And for life as a whole it might mean greater expression of harmony, complexity and love. Our current societies have a legacy that very much limited our future trajectory, and shaking it up would give us the ability to create a new foundation, made from a higher level of consciousness. So, interestingly you have done to me what you have accused others of when talking about Putin. You have assumed your relative perspective to be absolute, and dismissed mine because it undermined your survival. We can see this on a smaller scale playing out in the EU. The EU was in comfort, but it was not necessarily acting in it's best interest. Sometimes to act in your best interest requires some event that forces you to do so, an event that makes remaining in the status quo more uncomfortable than actually going through the resistance and effort to change. In a similar manner, the events Putin initiated might let to great suffering in Russia, which in turn might lead to a revolution that will weed out much of the corruption currently present in the system. Corruption that under other circumstances would have continued to exist for a long time. I would accuse you of being myopic in this regard Leo.

From what I heard China has a far more important relationship with the West economically speading, and historically speaking China prioritizes it's economic interests over other things. I also think the shift to renewable energy will also cause significant issues for Russia. Well imo, it could have survived for a long time, but now it won't, because it was not able to compromise and adapt. There is a reason why ex-soviet countries were desperate to escape Russia's influence and why they wanted to be integrated into the western economy. Russia is so bad at mutual, respectful relationships that the only way they can maintain influence is through coercion. If you look at the countries that voted with Russia in the UN resolutions, you wil find an interesting pattern. It's not an accident that it's the most corrupt countries that align with Russia. In terms of evolution, Russia is lagging behind, and the rest of the world is responding accordingly.

This is also how it would look from the perspective of a high consciousness Russian leader, he would realize this and act accordingly. But Putin's consciousness is limited, so much so that he is undermining he interests of his own nation and people, in the same way Hitler did. At this moment, a catastrophic failure of Russia in the interest of all people, Russia must have a revolution and transcend it's current limitations. I don't think WW3 is likely to occur, but of course an autocrat would frame it in this way so he could forever continue with his corruption. In the end, progress always involves certain risks, and sometimes catastrophy. WW2 has a tremendous effect on the progress of mankind, so did the extinction of the dinosaurs. And if WW3 happens, maybe in a few hundred years we will look back at it and be glad, because it changed the trajectory of mankind and this planet forever. Starting war with Hiter was catastrophic, but what would have been more catastrophic is to allow for the old ways to conitnue.

I agree Russia wants a significant role in the world order, but that's a pipedream, it will not happen. Russia basically wants to go back to the 20th century, however, the world has moved on. Right now what we are seeing is an Empire struggling to let go of power, and the world is reacting accordingly. I don't think this conflict could have been avoided, or even that attempting to avoid it would have resulted in better outcomes. Russia will be meaningless in the future, and Putin cannot accept that. Russia will fall like every other empire until they understand that they are so insignificant, nobody will even care about them as a threat anymore. It will be just another France or Germany, or UK. A similar thing might happen to the US, atlhough I think the US is better positioned in terms of geopolitics to atleast somewhat cling to power. Either way, what we are seeing is not some response to bad actions of NATO, imo it's simply an empire not wanting to let go of control, because it will cost it. And by doing so, as history loves to repeat itself, the empire is giving itself the finishing blow, instead of walking off the world stage with dignity. How this could have realistically have been avoided is if Putin had died of COVID. Though, the lessons we will learn will probably serve to stabilize the future and allow for harmony to prosper even more, as we have a good reminder of what happens when a Nation decides to delude itself that it can simply brute force it's interests into reality.

The defense raising of NATO is a response to Russia's acts of aggresion, like the Invasion of other countries and the annexation of entire landmasses that do not belong to it, and the undermining of the sovereignty of nations aswell as the blackmailing of nations. Russia is gaslighting the West. Of course the West will increase it's defenses, that's the only rational thing to do in response to the actions the Kremlin has been taking in the last 3 decades. Nobody will because autocratic systems are so corrupt they are unable to sustain themselves, one of the reasons why the Soviets failed, why China will fail and why Russia is failing. How you do you just completely forget about Spiral Dynamics when talking about this issue?

You are missing the point. Nobody will start a war with a nation with nuclear weapons, because it will at best assure mutual destruction. Therefore, there is no military security risk to a nation that has a sufficent capability in that regard, which Russia does have.

Wait, what do you think is Destiny's critique of Mearsheimer then? Nobody is an actual security risk to Russia because Russia has nuclear weapons. Once you do, your national security in terms of war is secured. Russia has issues maintaining it's economic security, and that's in my view the best lense you can understand this conflict from, in the context of certain biases that Putin holds. We don't live in the 20th century anymore.

What do you think are their critiques and how would you counter them? Are you able to verify and substantiate the claims Mearsheimer is making?

Have you read some of the Papers disagreeing with Mearsheimer? Mearsheimer seems to be unable to substantiate many of his claims, I find his analysis to be severely flawed.