Comments by "" (@timogul) on "TLDR News EU"
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@bicualexandru246 Everything has perceived value, even gold. Gold has no inherent value to it, I mean if you were on a desert island, which would be of more value to you, a pound of gold or a pound of canned soup? Gold only has value in what things you can buy with it, and likewise a dollar only has value in what things you can buy with it, and just as the amount you can get with a dollar will go up and down based on all sorts of complex values, the amount you can get with a pound of gold will go up and down over time.
The only difference is that the value of gold is not terribly agile, it will only rise and fall relative to production, and the relative value of other things, whereas a fiat currency they have ways to adjust the value on the fly by tweaking things like interest rates, so that they can adjust the value of the currency to the right balance between low inflation and economic productivity.
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On the one hand, I think that the bar to be able to punish people for speech should be very high, allowing a wide margin of speech, because any system of deciding "good" or "bad" speech can be open to abuse. On the other hand, speech can often lead to criminal acts, so I would also believe in a system of increased scrutiny based on ones speech. Basically, if you tend ot do a lot of hate speech, that might not land you in jail, but it should land you on watch lists and maybe send active surveillance after you, because the speech is indication that you're more likely to actually do bad things. Then of course if there is evidence of an actual criminal plot, they can take appropriate measures to shut it down.
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@cryptarisprotocol1872 We've sanctioned bigger countries in the past. You make the sanctions proportionate to the harm, you wouldn't employ the same massive sanctions on India that are currently being put on Russia since their harm is lower, but it wouldn't be unheard of for various countries to just put out a tariff, or to cut direct government assistance, or just pull one of the many levels connecting the two nations.
Like I said, I doubt anyone will sanction India over this, but they obviously could if they wanted to.
And yes, the west does need India to counterbalance China, but India also needs the west to counterbalance China. they would prefer to not strain that relationship if they can help it. Sanctions are not the end of the conversation, they are just a part of the process. If someone does something horrible, like invade a neighbor, then you bring down the hammer. If they just annoy you in a meaningful way, then you just give them a little pinch (and this goes both ways, of course, plenty of countries take economic jabs at the US when we annoy them, it's just how the game is played).
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@cryptarisprotocol1872 No, RUSSIA killed 20,000 civilians. Ukraine did not. The war in donbass prior to Russia's direct invasion was a proxy war between the Ukraine forces and separatists backed by Russia. Even adding up all civilian casualties in the region that only amounted to 3400 killed, most of those by the Russia side. I have no idea where you are getting your "20,000" figure, if you are not referencing the numbers of Ukrainian civilians killed by Russia in Mariupol.
As for "what is genocide," the definition is pretty clear. "The deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group"
Russia announced that Ukraine did not exist as a nation, that they did not deserve to exist as a nation, and went about obliterating civilian populations without any regard for their humanity. That is genocide. This could not be compared to "collateral damage," because the civilians dying was not an unavoidable consequence of pursuing valid military targets, they were deliberately targeting purely civilian areas. They clearly intend to wipe out Ukrainians as a nation and group.
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@wothin >They are not socialist.
Of course they are. And you haven't even made a case why modern Europe would be going after socialist countries in the first place.
>People will always judge. Russia also claimed that in annexed Crimea based on humanitarian concerns. The point of pretext is so that one has plausible deniability.
Pretext does not add or remove plausible deniability. If the pretext is a valid one, like an actual humanitarian crisis, and the result is that you leave the country better than you found it, then that's fine. If the prexted is some imaginary humanitarian crisis that nobody actually believes existed in the first place, and the result is that you've annexed the country for your own purposes and its conveniently placed sea port, nobody cares that you attempted a pretext. The pretext is irrelevant if it is not valid. It's like throwing a sheet over an elephant and asking people to guess "what could be under there?!"
>And yet you protect the USA in their irrational paranoia in case the Cuban missile crisis. Hypocrite is being hypocritical.
Different situation, different outcome. There was no paranoia to the US response to the Cuban missile crisis. It was just a different scenario.
>Yes Russia is destabilizing things. So what now? The goal should be that in the long term Europe is stable and peaceful.
And that's a fair goal, but it can't come at the cost of Russia gaining ground via aggression. Every act of aggression they take must be met with a higher cost, otherwise they will just keep taking two steps forward, one step back "just to stabilize things," and they're still one step ahead of where they were. They still haven't given Crimea back. They still have not pulled out of Eastern Ukraine, and now they are threatening more violence. They need to give back what they have taken if they expect the west to give them any concessions. They haven't even offered to do so.
>To give you an extreme analogy, that's like escalating up to a nuclear war and then being happy that it was the "other's" fault, while millions of people died from nuclear war and many are dying because of nuclear fallout. It's like you don't care about the damage from the escalation, you only care about your pride and the false sense of being right.
So to continue your analogy, how far is too far, to prevent Putin from unilaterally starting a nuclear apocalypse? Say he takes Ukraine. "No big deal, better to be stable?" And then maybe Lithuania? Not that big a deal, right? Latvia, Estonia? Finland maybe? Sweden, better pick up Norway just to complete the set. Poland, Romania, Hungary, let's leave the Balkans alone for now, but Turkey might be nice. Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, at what point is "stability" not worth saying "maybe don't do that?"
We all want to avoid a war, but Putin is the one starting wars. We all want to avoid a nuclear apocalypse, but you can be damned sure that the west won't fire that first nuke. Just because Russia has nuclear weapons and might be crazy enough to use them, that's no reason to give in to their demands. If anything it's a good reason NOT to, because anyone that you fear might use nukes to get their way, is someone you can't trust with any more authority than you have to.
>Yes, but can you realistically throw Vladimir in jail without suffering massive damage yourself? No, you can't. It's all cute that you act on principles, but the real world does not work like that.
Ok, you've established where you stand. I can barely see you down there.
>We talked about the Baltics. You apparently find it totally justified for them to be afraid of Russia invading them back then when they joined NATO.
I never claimed that they were justified in being afraid of Russia invading them when they joined NATO. What would that have to do with anything? NATO used to be about the USSR, but since the fall of the Soviet Union it has nothing to do with Russia, aside from Russia wanting it to be about them for some reason. The Baltics joined NATO because it's generally a good club to be in, not because they had any fear of Russia specifically.
>Yet you conveniently don't care that the West invaded Russia around the same time ago, with much bigger casualties.
Yes, because, again, that was before most of our lifetimes and completely irrelevant to modern geopolitics.
>Again, whether you personally think something is justified has no relevance.
But my position more closely aligns with that of the rest of the world on the matter, and what the world personally thinks about things matters very much. Again, a bully can get away with a lot by throwing his violence around, but he will always be viewed as a bully, and treated as a bully, and that is not how you make friends. If Russia was less of a bully, maybe all their neighbors wouldn't prefer being friends with Europe.
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Would it be possible to just trade Donbas for Ukraine in total? What I mean is, institute a formal treaty that says, on the one side, Russia gets Donbas, in full, no squirley language, Donbas is just a part of Russia now. But in return for that, the rest of Ukraine becomes fully part of Europe, if not a full EU member, then at least a part of NATO, and/or other guarantees of support and protection that should keep any pro-Russian future off the table entirely. Could Russia agree to that? Could the Ukrainian people accept it?
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@Gwyrddu Under normal conditions, it would be complicated, and they will not let them join while actively at war, but given the extreme risk they are now under, if them joining it part of a peace deal, NATO might agree. And Turkey will allow Finland and Sweden to join, they just need to get their beak wet first.
While I think Ukraine could hurt Putin badly, and drive them off for a bit, lead to a "peace deal," if the only thing holding it together is Putin's promise to not invade again, then it will never last. The minute they get the Russian forces back across the border they will start plans for "Invade Ukraine 2," and start building up their forces in preparation for that. Another invasion could come within a year, or at most maybe five. They need some stronger international framework that would keep Putin away for good.
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