Scholar

You listen to BadEmpanada?

Ironically it is a purely defensive move in response to the misinformation floating around and the false claims made by the Kremlin-Gremlin. If you don't trust them, verify the claims yourself.

In the end I think Putin would have done anything in his power to grab as much land as possible. To say a country joins NATO once it is attacked pretty much just makes it part of NATO, because that is the entire idea of NATO, it is a defensive alliance. The reason why Putin didn't want Ukraine to join NATO is because he wanted to grab it, and he knew he wouldn't ever be able to grab it once it was part of NATO. I don't think this could have been prevented, Putin created the conflict, in the end that is outside of the influence of NATO.

Destiny having a pretty solid take on this:

Excellent analysis, just found it and am surprised at how much this correlated with what I came to conclude from my research. The entire narrative of "Russia is acting this way because NATO was starting to threaten it!", is very naive and even contradictory to me. I am not sure why people fall for this kind of propaganda, as we have even Putin himself speak about his intentions when he makes claims about how he wants to reintegrate the Ukraine into Russia. This conflict is not primarily geopolitical, I think that is a really important thing to keep in mind here, which is why attempts to explain this through a geopolitical lense leads to clear contradictions.

The idea that Russia is being threatened by NATO expansion, which happened in response to Russia's invasion of Georgia and annexation of Crimea, is laughable. Not only did he provoke the expansion by giving any rational european country a reason to join it and increase it's defensive capabilities, but he then proceeded to call it aggression even though it was a defensive action. It is the case that Ukraine never even was likely to join NATO, for many reasons including that countries with ongoing border-disputes cannot join NATO. But outside of that, any sovereign nation has the right to join a defensive pact, especially after seeing how Russia has been acting in the past two decades. Putin is trying to gaslight the West and hope his misinformation campaign sticks, and sadly it is working very well. It's like he is an abusive partner who then beats his wife for buying pepper spray. Putin's action have proven that Ukraine should have never given up it's nuclear arsenal, and that NATO is more relevant than it ever was before. The only reason he is invading Ukraine is because he wants to reestablish the old empire, and he knew that if he would not do soon, that opportunity might slip away forever. Sure, the West is biased here, but the West comes not even close to the level of corruption and deceit that Russia is currently displaying.

Decisions made aren't "geopolitical", decisions made are happening within a geopolitical context. You could also say that Hitlers vision of a Third Reich was "geopolitical", in the same manner Putin's desire bring Russia back to it's Soviet glory is geopolitical. But in reality, it has more to do with the personal ideology of the world leader than anything else. It's not that Russia is acting this way because it is in it's best interest within the geopolitical framework, rather Putin has certain desires and goals existing within a geopolitical context that he wants to achieve, motivated by dogma and ego.

Cancel-culture is the last thing he needs to worry about. He deep-dived his country towards economic catastrophy, but in his eyes it's all worth it as long as he can claim Ukraine.

Ironically the big Nazi Batallion that they always refer to, the Azov Battalion, constitutes of 2.500 members in a militay with 250.000 personell. People are falling for blatant propaganda. We have been seeing this with chinese propaganda for a long time and it seems like the russians are even better at it.

The point of the post is for people to watch this video and then potentially start a discussion, Rebel Media is well known on here and it's pretty solid, information from a stage yellow perspective.

I won't spoon feed information to you, how entitled can you be?

I don't have time for that, let the ignorant stay ignorant, not my problem.

I disagree, I think another leader with different dispositions would have not acted in the way Putin did. You have a very one-sided view of the world. The unique personalities and mind-sets of individuals, especially world leaders, have a tremendous impact on the trajectory of the world. Of course Putin was only elected because his people were on a certain level of consciousness, and this incident will serve well to show them their own limitations. But that doesn't mean that Putin has no responsibility nor that he is a prime cause for this conflict. A pure geopolitical analysis is not sufficient to explain state-action. And I agree, the people of russia will have to suffer for this significantly, as they have allowed for Putin to exist for such a long time. They need to see the limitation of their level of consciousness, and sadly the situation demands for it to have happened that way. I would not bring moralism into whether or not people will condemn Putin. Putin will be condemned and that will serve an essential function for the evolution of human-kind. It serves little good to just protect Putin for the sake of being "unbiased", as that itself constitutes a bias aswell. A bias that if we just follow unconsciously will lead to delusion aswell. This is one of the limitations of higher levels of consciousness.

That doesn't mean is isn't delusional, that doesn't mean he has no ego and that doesn't mean he is acting in the actual interest of the russian people. Hitler also thought he was looking out for the security of his country and the human race, doesn't really change the facts that what he did lead to the destruction of his people. A more conscious politician would have not initiated war and would have actually had his people's interests in mind. Putin is highly nationalistic, the main motivation for why he did this was that he desires Russia to be a powerful country, and he wants to be the one who made it happen and changed the legacy of his nation forever, no matter the cost. He refuses to align his nation with the actual place it holds in the world order, and rather bathes in nostalgic visions of a russia that is in any way a significant actor on the world stage. That time is over, and the more he will resist reality, the more his people will suffer for it. Putin is not really as smart as you seem to think. He is not only incredibly deluded about the proper position of the russian state, but also incompetent in regards to leading a nation in a military conflict. Everything he did so far precisely achieved the opposite of any supposed goals he might have had. He woke the EU from it's lethargic slumber and actually lead to a unification of the western nations. Everything he did so far compromised national interests, and any amount of moralistic justification for what he did will not change that. Putin acts in the same way in the interests of his nation as Trump does, just that he is not as blantatly a charlatan as his US counterpart.

I agree, the claim Dr K made was that they seemed to have shown in clinical practice that certain dosha's would tend to have certain symptoms occur when infected with covid. The entire idea of Ayurveda is, in the way he is framing it, is that there are certain genetic expressions of human beings that correlate to certain way the metabolism works, physical features being expressed and then that also correlating with personality/brain expression. It's not really that absurd of a theory, it could very well be that there are clusters of genetic expressions that come together or cause each other in some way, and ayurveda being a kind of pre-scientific model for that. So maybe there is a reason why certain people have a certain metabolism, linked to something that tends to also effect the way the brain developed etc. Infact it could even just be a genetic clustering of certain traits, the point is that the claims being made is that these models seem to be in some form functional and descriptive of some underlying reality, giving predictive power to as he mentioned the prevelance of certain symptoms among people. He is basically saying that dosha's describe some underlying reality, and whatever that underlying reality is also influenced in what way a virus like Covid will affect the organism, after all, there must be some underlying reason for why some people tend to develope certain symptoms over others. Either way whether or not it's true is a different question, but the way it is being framed as complete pseudoscience is really unfair. It is not really scientific yet at all, because there is not yet the data on it. That doesn't mean that there is no clinical data, that might very well be the case. Maybe some doctor discover this in his clinical practice and, much like we couldn't have made scientific claims whether exercise is good for the body before we had the research on it, it might still be the case that it indeed does help people.

How do we even know this is legitimate?

I think Leo has been like this since he was on camera, I don't think it has anything to do with what happened recently. I am INTP too and I seem to not have these blindspots, and I know INTP people who don't have these blindspots either, so I think it is something in addition to that, that causes this blindness. And I don't understand what is surprising about me pointing this out. The cause for this is irrelevant, I am trying to aid Leo in seeing his blindspots.

Leo, no offense but these kinds of posts make me think you are autistic, and I am not even saying this to offend you but I genuinely think that you lack some sort of function in your mind in regards to the social/empathy. Interestingly enough is that you are moralizing alot in this post. The reality is the reality, people cannot handle things and they need help, this phenomena is only getting worse. We can't just ignore this issue, we have policies in place to avoid unnecessary harm to these individuals, and one of these are medical ethics. This especially. The guy wasn't suicidal because he couldn't play the game anymore, he was already depressed and that game was probably one of the few things that gave him joy in life, and when that was gone it was enough to push him into suicidality. You seem to have a real lack of experience in regards to mental health problems, like I said you very much remind me of Destiny, he was arguing the very same way you do, calling these things dumb and not really understanding them. You are extremely fortunate in regards to the mind you have, and you do simply not realize how much of an exception it is (which was the case with Destiny aswell). This is why alot of your advice on self-help just doesn't apply to most people, their mind won't allow for it. "You gotta handle them", is something someone would say who has a kind of mind who never really had a true difficulty handling something. You never failed at mental health, you do not see how bad it can get. You are like "lol, auto-immune disorders? Haha, just eat healthy my dude, I also have a stomache ache sometimes, you gotta be able to handle that", meanwhile the person you talk to has barely energy and focus to do anything for more than 2 hours a day. I think Destiny took a huge dose of mushrooms that put him in an existential crisis and depression for over a year where he had panick attacks and everything, and that's what it took for him to realize how silly his perspective on life was, where he just thought everyone was like him and had to get their shit together. He had no idea what kind of mind states are possible. Mind-states that you can't just handle, or reason your way out of, or tough through. Mind-states that completely disable you and the way you function, where you don't even know what it was like before you had them. I think you know all of this you just have a difficult time truly integrating it, it's like you know it intelectually but you don't truly know it, which is why you probably have to experience this for yourself, and suffer.. And of course we can help such people, we do all the time, and we seek to protect the vulnerable people from being exploited by sharks. How is that not the most conscious thing to do?

We have very different perceptions of what a moderator is and their role. In the end you have to ask Leo what he wants from moderators, it's his house as he likes to say.

I think you are trying too hard find holes in my proposal. People usually don't consciously abuse their power. If there is a guideline for moderators in place that I suggested, it will reduce the instances of biased decision-making occuring, aswell as give members a better perception of the moderation team in regards to how they enforce the rules. It's pretty simple, once you start debating with an individual, you don't moderator that individual. So, each time you start debating with someone, as you are doing right now with me for example, you do have wavered your moderation role so to speak. I think moderators will be able to make a conscious effort, as like I said I think most of them already do, to watch out for this dynamic. For example, right now you are compromised and should not moderate my behavior, instead another moderator should take over that role. What I am expecting is a conscious effort of moderators to follow certain guidelines to minimize decision-making based on their own bias.

I don't think Moderators would necessarily back either other's asses, I would hope they are more mature than that. Yes, and because people love to do so I think the policy I have suggested would help mitigate that perception.

I don't think it would make moderation extremely tedious, it's a bit weird that you are saying that imo. Not at all all moderation decisions would have to be checked by another moderator, it would only have to be in the rare cases where a moderator argues with a member on-topic, and then sees a guideline violation. The entire point of a moderator is to be a moderator, you are not just a member with power tools, in general a moderator ought to try to uphold his position as a moderator and not engage in debates the same way members do, if they seek to moderate. I don't think that's hard to accomplish at all, I think most moderators are by default kind of following that rule, you seem to be an exception because of how you love arguing with others, from what I have seen. I also like to argue with others, which is why I wouldn't take the role of a moderator if I had the opportunity (which I shouldn't have because of how confrontational I can be sometimes) because of that. If I would take it, I would reconsider my approach to how I talk to people and either be very strict about what I just described above, or not participate as much in arguing with others. @Michael569 comes to mind who also likes to argue, but I haven't seen him debate and then do moderation in the same context.

Why do moderators have to engage in discussion to know the context of a violation of the guidelines? I dont agree at all. Again, there is a conflict of roles. When I debate about animal rights as a moderator, I become biased. Whether or not I want to, the entire point of bias is that I am unaware of it. At that point, my decision making ability is compromised, therefore I have to set aside my sword of moderation, engage in the fist fight, and if there is a rule I think was broken I just report or message another moderator. That moderator doesn't have to have participated in the debate about animal rights to know whether or not guidelines were followed. This is why inherently debate-bro like moderators will always have a conflict of interest.

You misunderstood my post, it was in regards to first arguing about content (for example something like debating whether Dr K is wrong), and then become active in the moderator role in the context of that conversation. I clarified why I thought that was problematic, it has nothing to do with arguing about moderation choices. I am saying that when you participate in a conversation, to avoid bias and perception of bias, you ought to put aside your role as a moderator, and if you think there is a violation ask another moderator to take over. Example, I argue with Moderator Y about why it's wrong to consume animals, we argue and argue, then Moderator Y moderates our conversation. That is problematic. What should happen is that once Moderator Y starts to participate in the argument with me, they ought to set aside their role as moderator and if they think there is a breach of TOS, notify another moderator to take a look at that so that someone who has no bias can look and make the decision.