romwell

Thanks for doing that.

Wasting these people's time is a small gain; having others in the community see the lies debunked is valuable.

Especially when they are openly, blatantly, clearly lying.

We've had evidence since 2016, and we keep getting more of it.

We just don't act on it.

[0] https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/12/10/505072304...

[1] https://www.justice.gov/archives/sco/file/1373816/dl

[2] https://www.rferl.org/a/election-russia-influence-internet-r...

[3] https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-disrupts-c...

[4] https://newrepublic.com/post/188284/vladimir-putin-donald-tr...

[5] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/may/30/trump-russia...

[5a] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39931012

[6] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/16/trump-cabine...

You are correct, my interpretation of "they could just retreat" is overly generous.

Being: "they have a choice to stop the bulk of ongoing costs of the war to Russian Federation at any moment, a choice that Ukraine does not have" - with the implicit assumption that the costs of the war to Russia are understood by everyone, and that the cost of withdrawal is significantly smaller.

Of course this ignores the cost of withdrawal to Putin, whose citizens (80% of whom want the war to continue) will have a lot of questions in that case.

Like, what did all the people die for. And why did you withdraw when we were winning, when 4 out 5 of us wanted the fight to go on.

Putin, like any dictator, is beholden to the overall vibe of his populace, because that's the only mandate to power that he actually has.

Democratically elected leaders have the power to decree "do as I say, that's the will of the people; elect someone else next time if you disagree".

Putin can't say that, because there are no elections in the social contract.

Russian leaders only leave the throne by abdication, coup, or death.

The only exception in their 850-year history was Nikita Khruschev, who was officially removed from power after he, himself, dismantled Stalin's cult of personality and brought on reforms that made such removal possible.

He was a Ukrainian.

What are your assumptions, those that would enable a scenario in which the invader decided to retreat? It seems like a scenario that cannot just spawn from the current chessboard.

You mean, the chessboard on which we gave up our nuclear weapons under the promise from the US, the UK, and Russia that our territorial integrity will be respected?[1]

The "chess move" that directly led to this invasion, according to the US president that pushed for it?[2]

Dare I suggest, the scenario in which Russia retreats is the US holding up to its own promises, for once. For nuclear-non-proliferation's sake, if anything.

Even setting that aside, the war is not sustainable for Russia.

Russia is begging Iran and North Korea for help, getting both ammo, weapons, and people to fight the war with from them. Russia relied on NK artillery for a year, Iranian drones for two years. 10K North Korean soldiers are already on the battlefield, 100K more to come.

Ask yourself what price Russia is paying for that.

Realize that Russia ran out of resources to get that ammo and cannon fodder (and cannons) in Russia.

So, one assumption that enables the scenario is actual, real, enforced SANCTIONS on Russia.

- Cut off Gazprom from SWIFT. The share of Russian gas in the EU dropped to as low as 8% last year, the EU doesn't need Russian gas specifically. That share has since doubled. Put a stop to it.

- Make anyone who's helping Russia pay more than what they can get from Russia in exchange for it.

Iran is sending rockets and drones? Iran gets its nuclear weapon research facilities destroyed. Israel is gladly doing that task already. Would be neat if the West got its head out of its collective ass and stopped dunking on Israel in the UN for its own survival's sake.

NK is sending soldiers? Oops they're all dead (getting within Tomahawk range was unwise). Also NK gets a blockade, and any entity that helps them break it gets sanctioned to hell and back. China can feed them at that price.

Speaking of China, any entity that deals with Russia or NK there should be eliminated from participating in global markets. Simple as.

The West has one leverage over that Dictators Anonymous club: ECONOMIC OUTPUT. They have more people, and they don't care about lives. They have more nukes, together, and they make more artillery shells, together.

But on their own, they don't have the resources to fight that war. All the resources went into sustaining autocracies.

The CRINK (China, Russia, Iran, NK) are waging a war because they got fat on beneficial relationships with the West, that they've been rewarded with on the expectation that they would appreciate access to the global economy and the benefits that come with it, and don't do anything to risk losing it -

- like invading a European nation, say.

The expectation didn't pay off. The solution is simple: take that access back.

Stop rewarding bad actors. The West paid them upfront, they didn't hold up their end of the deal.

Russia can go back to its Iron Curtain planned economy. The West was fine without Russia then, it will be fine now.

China can go back to its Cultural Revolution planned economy. The West was fine without China then, the West can manage now. Doesn't need to happen in a day either. Start with cutting off any individual entities in China that touch Russia or NK.

North Korea can go back to figuring out how to feed its own population, rather than making ammo and meat waves for Russia.

Iran can go back to pre-Trump-presidency days. They're the only ones in the club that were pre-emptively punished, which gave the Ayatollahs all the excuses. Bring Obama's deal back, on the condition that all ties with Russia and Arab proxies are cut. Should they reject it, more FO will be delivered as a consequence of the many instances of FA they committed in the past years (including their role in Oct 7th attack).

So, that's some thoughts, for a start.

That's before we get to getting Ukraine some real military assistance. Not even talking "boots on the ground".

Look at what Poland got since 2022. Now imagine what Ukraine could do if it was able to put orders for thousands of HIMARS launchers instead of a dozen it got in 2022. What Ukraine could do with hundreds of F-35 jets instead of a dozen of F-16. What Ukraine could do with hundreds of ATACMS rockets.

What Ukraine could do with the thousands of Abrams tanks, designed to fight the Russian tanks, that the US has rusting in storage and will, in all likelihood, never use, nor have a need for - instead of the dozen it eventually got.

Ukraine could have had all of that in 2022. And if it did, the war would've stopped then.

Ukraine was given none of that gear over the fears that it would push Russia to use nukes. The reality shows that bullies are emboldened by appeasement, and reconsider when met with strength. Military assistance to Ukraine, even in modest amounts, kept the Russian nuclear threat at bay.

So, plenty of scenarios.

The collective will to make them happen isn't plentiful though.

And this is why Russia is getting ahead.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum

[2] https://www.newsweek.com/bill-clinton-ukraine-war-russia-nuc...

We don't need Russia to "accept defeat".

We need, first and foremost, a guarantee that if the war stops today, that Russia will not launch an invasion for the third time in a few years.

This war didn't start in 2022. They invaded in 2014, and "peace" was negotiated in Minsk. Worked out swimmingly.

There are several ways we can get this guarantee:

-A complete withdrawal and de-nuclearization of Russia, plus referendums held in Chechnya, Tatarstan, Syberia, Yakutia and other Moscow-controlled Republics in the Federation on whether the people there want to continue being a part on Moscow's imperial ambitions, or choose independence.

Side note: Tatarstan had such a referendum in 1992. It would be great if its results were, at last, honored.

Return of occupied territories is a means to an end. The end is peace. If Russia gets rewarded in any way for its invasion with acceptance of its territorial gains, they WILL do it again; the calculus is that simple.

-Alternatively, NATO and EU membership and/or any sort of multilateral security agreement (not a promise) that would guarantee us boots-on-the-ground assistance in case of another invasion, backed by something more than a piece of paper.

Say, NATO stations ammo depots, rockets, warplanes in Ukraine in sealed warehouses, and we promise not to take and use any of that stuff as long as NATO holds up to its own promises.

-Ukraine develops nuclear weapons

That's about all I can think of. Everything else has been tried before. The war started in 2014, and the invasion in 2022 took place after all the nuke-fearing pearl-clutchers suggested was already done.

Funny thing, the only thing that makes Russia use nuclear weapons more likely is impunity, which is exactly what that sort of people is asking for. They are bringing their own doom, and are pulling us along with it.

Trying to, in any case. We won't go. With or without them.

Erik Demaine always has some fun stuff for us.

Here's a clear message for you then. I have zero interest in engaging with you further than this message you are reading now. Hopefully the feeling is extremely mutual

With sadness, I have to inform you that we're on a public forum, where I have just as much right to opine on issues as you do — and I, for one, am enjoying our conversation.

That said, instead of making a grand announcement of your lack of interest in engaging in the discussion further than this message, may I suggest not engaging in a discussion you don't want to be engaged in?

It would also do the trick, and spare you the effort.

Looking forward to your further insightful contributions on Hacker News.

Seconding this, and wanted to emphasize that I see no issue with your responses or questions (and don't really understand why you've been downvoted either — advice on style appreciated).

As I wrote in the other comment, my point of asking those questions was to get answers from the Russian person who asked what's wrong with them specifically, not from other people (as the subject I wanted to discuss was, ultimately, why people could see well meaning Russians as a threat based on responses to those questions).

But I didn't make it clear (and again, corrections on style were very welcome!), and the points mdp2021 brought up were valid.

As far as I can tell, we didn't disagree on anything.

mdp2021 lacked some of the context, but so would most people, including me prior to the 2022 invasion.

So, dang's reaction seems unwarranted.

References:

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krymnash

[2] https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/03/07/navalnys-policy-sh...

[2] https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2021/04/26/most-russians-supp...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_green_men_(Russo-Ukrain...

[4] https://www.fpri.org/books/less-know-better-sleep-russias-ro...

[5] https://theintercept.com/2020/06/28/welcome-to-chechnya-gay-...

[6]https://imgur.com/gallery/enby-kyiv-ukraine-jul-sep-2023-fcj...

[7] https://www.osw.waw.pl/en/publikacje/analyses/2014-09-03/rus...

[8] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/26/russia-admits-...

[9]https://jamestown.org/program/levadas-last-poll-on-chechnya-...

[10] https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2022/09/my-country-ri...

[11] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992_Tatarstani_sovereignty_re...

[12] https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/09/30/fictitious-annexation-fo...

[13] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/16/ukraine-russia...

[14] https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1992/03/23/t...

[15] https://www.kyivpost.com/post/4906

[16] https://verfassungsblog.de/the-legal-status-and-modern-histo...

[17] https://fortune.com/2023/04/05/bill-clinton-ukraine-nuclear-...

[18] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum

[19] https://www.instagram.com/alexey.arestovich/p/Cl4h7WoNP5G/

Multipart comment (Part 2/2) =============================

The third question is the simplest one.

When the USSR was breaking apart, various parts of it held a referendum on whether to become independent, stay with what's left of the Union, or something else.

Tatarstan held such a referendum in 1992, and 3 out of 5 people have clearly and unambiguously chosen independence. Tatarstan was to become a sovereign state (as Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan did).

This didn't happen. The results of the referendum were ignored. Russia has considered Tatarstan its territory ever since.

That highlights another form of bigotry: Russia's infamous referenda, held at gunpoint [12], that are used to give its annexations an air of legitimacy.

That includes Crimea[13]. "Anti-war" Russians are still prone to deferring to that sweet 95% "secede" vote. Even if that referendum were legitimate, curiously, Russians don't have the same overwhelming support of the results of the beyond shadow-of-a-doubt legitimate[14] referendum in Tatarstan.

As Putin's regime slowly eroded Tatarstan's sovereignty to zero, Russians did not object [15].

The question "Whose is Tatarstan" is not controversial by any measure either. It surely belongs to the Tatars, the people who live in Tatarstan.

One can argue that Tatarstan being a part of Russia, in reality, reflects what people of Tatarstan wanted: autonomy, not necessarily independence, secession, sovereignty. And if they did want this, then the current state of things is an acceptable, workable compromise.

It's a valid argument. And it's also valid for Crimea being a part of Ukraine, where it enjoyed an autonomy far stronger than that of Tatarstan today.

It also removes the "not a sandwich" objection, as well as the nonsense about "protecting the rights of the Russian-speaking minorities" in Ukraine that was used as a pretext for the 2022 invasion.

Aside from Russian being under no threat in Ukraine (as half the country still speaks it), surely Russian has never been threatened in Crimea as much as local languages in Tatarstan were outright suppressed.

That's before you realize that Crimea was never Russian in the first place, and today's 90%-ethnic Russian population is the result of the ethnic cleansing of Crimean Tatars, the natives of the peninsula (and, like people of Tatarstan, also Tatars), who were subject to mass deportations during the USSR time, as well as persecution under Russian occupation today.

Crimean Tatars — those who have returned after the deportations and their descendants — aren't big supporters of the annexation.

Tatarstan and Crimea can't be both Russian unless you have double standards on whose votes actually count in Russia.

Or, as Stalin said — who counts the votes.

----

Question #4 is the cherry on top of a pie.

By now, I hope most people are aware that Ukraine was left with one of the largest nuclear weapons stockpiles in the world after its split from the USSR.

The weapons, the planes, and rockets that Ukraine helped build. These weren't "gifts" or "inheritance", as Russian sources like to label this asset.

More of a property you get in a divorce.

Russia wanted it all. And the US — in what Clinton admits was a huge mistake [17] — pushed Ukraine to unilaterally disarm and send its nuclear weapons to Russia [18].

The logic was: the fewer nuclear-armed states, the better; the more stable and safe the world is.

All Ukraine got for its nukes was a security assurance that its sovereignty and territorial integrity will be respected. An assurance signed by the US, the UK — and Russia.

We all know by now that Russia's assurance wasn't worth the paper it's written on. Fewer people take time to think about what it means for the US to give such a promise, and then provide lackluster support that is always on the verge of being withdrawn (and, as far as we can tell, will be). What it means for the world, and nuclear proliferation.

But the real interesting part, to me, is how most Russians see the issue. Regardless of how the war goes, Russians think that of course Russia SHOULD have nuclear weapons.

And equally strongly they feel that Ukraine had NO RIGHT to retain its nuclear weapons, and SHOULD NOT have them going forward either.

It's not a contentious question either. Russians simply don't see Russia without nuclear weapons. They're absolutely essential to its security, even though they have what (was) seen as 2nd strongest army in the world.

Reasoning beyond this point is where things get interesting.

----

Above, I have provided extensive, well sourced explanations of why these for particular questions are important, and what they have to do the the current war that Russia is waging in Ukraine.

These four particular questions were posed by Oleksiy Arestovych, a Ukrainian politician and a former advisor in Zelenskyy's cabinet (now in exile) to Yulia Latynina, a Russian opposition journalist and commentator (also in exile) during one of their semi-regular joint live streams [19].

The subject of the discussion was exactly the question raised by the Russian person we're responding to: to which extent is the average Russian responsible for the invasion their country is perpetrating?

The argument goes, the average Russian never wanted anything bad to happen, why are they seen as a problem? It's their bad government, Putin, whatever! Not them!

The four questions beautifully bring us to reality, in which Putin is actually doing what his citizens want him to do. At least 4 out of 5 on each question.

And when you ask all 4 questions, you'll be hard pressed to find a Russian whose answers would NOT indicate that Russia is still a country that's a threat to its neighbors, and WILL REMAIN ONE for the foreseeable future, because THE OVERWHELMING MAJORITY of Russians support Russia's expansion by means of force.

In my experience, the discussion hardly gets past Question #1. Their thinking doesn't proceed past "well it's ours now, so...".

And the questions aren't about any new borders that may or may not be agreed on in the negotiations to come.

The problem is that 4 out 5 Russians don't see the rest of Ukraine any differently than Crimea, and it's just a matter of time before Kyiv will be "returned" to the fold.

And if Kyiv resists, Kyiv will get the Chechnya treatment, and 4 out 5 Russians want it that way.

Whatever elections or referenda happen in Ukraine (or occupied territories), 4 out 5 Russians will consider them legitimate if the results favors Russia, and and illegitimate otherwise.

And most importantly: Russia should always have nuclear weapons, so that it never has to follow any rules. That's the unspoken part, but it doesn't take long to get to.

This is why Ukraine sees Russians (not just the Russian state) as a threat.

This is also why the Russian I asked these questions downvoted me, and left without answering. All the context I told you above — all the links — is everyone's lived memory there.

And four simple questions make them have themselves. At the very least, it's hard for an intelligent person to lie to themselves.

I want to emphasize (again!) that there's nothing apriori contentious or inflammatory about these questions, nor "nationalistic". Here's an answer that shouldn't be hard to swallow:

—The land belongs to the people who live there, and it's to to them to decide. In all cases.

—After the war, Russia will be better off without nuclear weapons — as are Germany and Japan to this day. Taking away the trump card to blackmail the world leaves the next government with no choice but developing the country and its people, not wars and schemes. And if Ukraine could stand to to us without nuclear weapons, we can do that too, if needs be — and with far less sacrifice.

Sadly, that's not the answer I expect to hear.

On that note: dang, I hope you have reached this point in my writing — and I do expect to hear something from you.

Treating the questions I asked as "perpetuating nationalistic flame wars" was unwarranted, disrespectful, and demeaning.

As you can see, there's more depth to the questions than you perceived — and that the ultimate goal of posing them is reconciliation and understanding.

Nobody but Russians can fix Russia. But it's an uphill battle when, after centuries of indoctrination, we expect them to start seeing things differently, and don't even bother explaining what's wrong with that way they are now (that Russians are the problem was a sentiment expressed by others here — which prompted this thread in the first place!).

This thread can and will be helpful to that end. I know many Russians, and the truth is, they are often unaware of their biases, as most of us are. But as long as they have them, the Russian government will exploit them to wage war.

And so many are putting in effort to discover and grow.

Your remark is not helping. At the very least, you could've asked about the subject you can't be as well informed on as those of us whose lives are directly affected by it before judging. It includes the Russian person too —

— and not the random folks who decided to treat as quiz the question not posed to them that they didn't understand.

I expect a response from you. And, if not an apology, then at least a bit of human compassion.

You haven't lost it yet, have you? Asking as a mod.

—Roman Kogan, PhD, Ukrainian.

(References below)

[flagged]

You never count on the successor of a strongman to be rational. S/he is the successor of a strongman for a reason. And that reason is probably not rationality.

Stalin's successor was Khruschev, who dismantled Stalin's cult of personality, and reformed Stalin's system to an extent that Khruschev was removed from power without an incident by his own system, and lived happily ever after in retirement as the power transitioned to the next ruler.

Being the only ruler of Russia, over the past ~1000 or so years, to achieve that, namely:

1. Being removed from power (by term ending, elections lost, etc - not by their own will)

2. The removal happening procedurally, and not by disorder/coup/murder

3. Leaving the former ruler to live a decent life in retirement

Khruschev was a Ukrainian, see.

[flagged]

Not my emphasis, it's from the article.

It's the emphasis of your comment. The article never stated that her accomplishments (or the difficulties she experienced) were undercut by having a financial backer. You said that.

Speaking of which: again, how exactly is it undercut?

You can absolutely hear someone writing in a room.

Whether it's audible on a train, depends on how insulated the train is.

I get the OP's point, but indeed this probably wasn't the best example.

Who cares.

The people who did the research, and the editors of Nature - whose opinions on what matters and what doesn't (unlike yours) are qualified. At the very least, they have actual names attached to them; names of people and the publication. That sets the expectations, and actually answers the question who cares.

Given the success of Nature as a publication, one can say with reasonable confidence that people who read Nature, most likely, care about issues that the editors select. If that weren't the case, Nature would not have the status it does.

If it's not provably written by a human but instead by an RNG, I'm not interested. Don't give me that crap about it being "indistinguishable" or better and that I couldn't tell the different in a blind test. That's completely irrelevant.

Interestingly, if I saw this in a blind test, I'd be inclined to think this sentence was produced by a broken AI, because it conveys zero information, while attempting to maintain the form of a well-formed sentence.

At best, the sum total of that string of words is "I'm not interested in AI-generated poetry", which is off-topic for the discussion at hand.

The study is about people more so than the technology, gauging the responses people have to AI-generated vs. non-AI-generated poetry. One could do the same study on, say, poems written by humans in English originally vs. poems translated into English, and it would still be of interest.

What's of zero interest to anyone is the information about how you feel about the concept of AI-generated poetry in general (not about any specific example, mind you).

The only thing it adds to the discussion is an example of what what a non-contribution to it is on this forum.

Thank you for that.

Thanks! I'm glad you found it useful.

aimless effected wobbly chord fever dream

You've got to give credit to the genius of McCartney's musicianship, that songs perfectly encapsulates the feeling of being stuck in a nightmare you can't escape from.

As a musician, I sometimes make music that I don't like, but just have to get out of my head, feeling compelled to finish a track just to put that pesky musical idea to rest. Recording a track is akin to closing the lid on the coffin; there's nothing more to do, and you can move on.

I wonder if Paul had that experience with that song. The nightmarish chord line is catchy. So he got it out of his head by turning it into a track...

...and ended up getting it in our heads.

I wonder if he thinks "You complain? You can just turn it off. I had to live with that song!". We should be grateful for only being exposed to it once a year, along with the seasonal flu.

The parent comment is obviously stupid and has already been down-voted, so HN is doing its job? There is no need to feed the troll.

It's visible, and from my experience, it's not obviously stupid to many people, while being actively harmful.

This is not a trolling comment either, so I don't feel like "feeding the troll" metaphor applies. The "do not feed the troll" advice is usually given to not create opportunities for the troll to come and engage with.

Bigots are not trolls. When countered and having nothing to say, they shut down. Unlike trolls (who say things to simply provoke emotions), bigots want to feel in the right, and will abandon the conversations (and spaces) where that isn't feasible.

To stop the troll, you stop feeding them. When met with no response, trolls move on to something else.

To stop the bigot, you stand up to them. When met with no response, bigots feel emboldened, and do more of the same.

There is no need to feed the trolls. There is a need to stand up to bigotry.

I didn't know this, but the intuition that a tech example will be easier to grasp than an example from biology was why I mentioned sonar before bats in the first place.

Fascinating to find out that the scientific community had this kind of bias as well.

That's not at all what echolocation is. What you describe is locating the source of sound using binaural hearing (similar to how we can gauge distances using stereoscopic vision).

Echolocation is finding out distance to objects (not sound sources!) by sending a sound wave in a direction, and listening for echos that bounce back. Hence echolocation.

The only sound source is you.

It's a form of active sensing: literally how a submarine sonar works (or radar, for that matter). Bats do it, too.

This has very little to do with "locating things in headphones", as that is entirely missing the active part in the first place.

Then, locating sound sources using binaural hearing is not the same as analyzing the scattered echoes when the sound source is you (relative to yourself, you know where you are already!).

It's interesting that this is currently the top comment. I wonder how many people read the article before engaging in this discussion.

How the hell is it undercut?

Money don't make circumnavigation easier, money makes it possible.

What's next, bitching about how F1 drivers don't buy their own cars, but are sponsored by e.g. Ferrari?

Also, your emphasis on girl shows what it's really about.

As if male sailors all craft their own boats from the trees they chopped with their bare hands, and girls have it easier by having a financial backer.

What a sad day to be on HackerNews (in other words, Saturday).

You're being way too generous assuming people who voice opinions here would have the slightest clue of what to do with a sailboat.

(This applies to me first and foremost)

Why did you pick this particular quote to highlight?

Sounds like you want to make a point, but I'm not sure what it is.

Hopefully, everyone here understands that this sort of achievement — like any expedition — requires financial backing, and not something one can do on a whim.

This comment is fluff.

Other HN users have also linked to Wikipedia articles.

I do not care how you got BDSM in google's front page

Google, helpfully, explained to me:

"People also ask"

"What is a GIMP?" Meaning of gimp in English

"an unpleasant or stupid person: I can't stand that gimp. US informal offensive. a person with a physical disability, especially one that affects someone's legs. GIMP | English meaning - Cambridge Dictionary

What does the slang word "gimp" mean?

In any of its meanings, deeply insulting, unpleasant, or otherwise, (a stupid person, a person with a physical disability, a sadomasochistic sexual partner, a trimming, a fishing-line), spelt ...

See: https://imgur.com/a/aOXz7D2

Terrible indeed.

Terrible reading comprehension, I presume?

Try putting "gimp" into image search (in a fresh browser / private window, to avoid seeing personalized search results).

Also, try looking it up in a dictionary.

One needs to be an incredible gimp to not get the point by now. Have your development been gimped in childhood?

(I hope you won't find this offensive just because I called you a gimp, since you see nothing negative about the word otherwise)

Between blenders and BDSM gear, guess which one is usually OK to discuss at a workplace, and which one creates a potential for a hostile work environment or sexual harassment.

Compare and contrast:

-"Hey Lauren, check out this new blender I got yesterday!"

-"Hey Lauren, check out this new gimp suit I got yesterday!"

Or:

-"Hey Mary, the facilities put a new blender in the kitchen area, I just tried it, and really enjoyed it! Give it a go, I know you're into that kind of stuff."

-"Hey Mary, the facilities put a new gimp suit in the kitchen area, I just tried it, and really enjoyed it! Give it a go, I know you're into that kind of stuff."

There's a bit of a difference, see.

Thanks for doing the good work! I don't see such fearmongering in my bubble (another big issue is how the society is split into layers, and I have no idea what information most people are exposed to).

On that note, if you have your own estimate of the current numbers for military civilian fatalities, that would be of interest also.

Ukraine doesn't publish these numbers for opsec reasons, so it's a wild guess.

About a million people have been mobilized. There's an immense amount of casualties, but Ukraine has been fighting hard to bring the wounded back, so many wounded return to service after recovery.

2022 has seen a huge number of civilian fatalities, particularly in cities like Mariupol, where the estimates range up to 100,000. Evidence of massacres and mass graves have been found in areas reclaimed from Russia, e.g. Bucha and Izyum.

But the war has enetered a different phase as of fall 2022. The civilian casualties are remarkably low. This is both because Ukraine is pretty good in evacuating civilians from places where the fighting is going on, and because both sides have zero interest in wiping out the civilians. Cynically, people are still a resource for either side.

On the level of people actually involved in combat, it's not an ethnic conflict, so they have no incentive to inflict civilian casualties. Mariupol's high casualty figures are more due to Russia's disregard for human life rather than deliberate goal of inflicting such damage. They weren't treating their own much better (they have since started caring about that more, but given that they're using NK soldiers, it looks like it was a bit too late).

Russia still resorts to occasional terrorism, like the strike on Okhmatdyt children's hospital. But the entire point of terrorism is inflicting minimal damage with minimal resources and causing maximum amount of fear and outrage. Russia's terrorism fails in the latter aspects; so far, it only strengthened the resolve, while costing Russia expensive rockets that are in limited supply.

Other than that, Russia doesn't have the reach to do much damage to Ukrainian civilians. Air defenses keep the bombers away, and drones on either side don't allow artillery to get anywhere close to the cities.

We're back to WW1-esque situation where the fighting is happening 100km away in the trenches, and you're sitting there sipping tea like nothing is going on, while the number of crosses at the cemeteries and people without limbs is growing, and the number of men of fighting age you can spot in the streets is shrinking.

From talking to soldiers, it's also impossible to gauge the losses. Assault units that storm the trenches have high casualty and loss rates. Bad commanders can send units into an area without recon, condemning them all. Hell is hell, and war is worse. But there's simply no data.

It's safe to say that combat casualties and deaths are much higher than reported. It's also safe to say that it's not nearly as high as the fearmongering you cited suggests: Ukraine is struggling with mobilization, and needs those 1M mobilized to hold the line (Zaluzhny's article in the Economist talks about the need to mobilize 500K a year ago - a task which is still ongoing).

So fatalities in the "hundreds of thousands" range would simply mean a frontline collapse. Meanwhile, we see the opposite happening: Ukraine's incursion into Kursk demonstrates that Ukraine has enough manpower for offensive operations, while holding up against Russian advances in the East (more or less).

On the other hand, Russia is advancing in the East; slowly, but advancing. That means that so far, their manpower losses have been sustainable. Whether they're sustainable because Russia has North Korea as a resource or another reason is beside the point - they can find people to do combat tasks somewhere, and that's all that matters.

As far as Ukraine's ability to have capable armed forces, manpower shortage due to fatalities would be very low on the list of issues.

The #1 issue would be losing experienced veterans, and not being able to train mobilized people effectively. The situation is improving, but is still dire. The numbers alone won't tell the story.

Losses alone don't demoralize the civilians (or would-be recruits) either. The fear of being thrown into combat with an AK and three clips, with training amounting to "point in the direction of enemy" does it. The fear of having a commander without any regard for human life or common sense does it.

I'd say that the fate of Ukraine hinges on whether Ukraine will be able to solve these problems and alleviate fears (the fears will be there in any case). Ukraine has enough resources, both manpower and economic/military, to fight this war (including foreign help - but both Russia and Ukraine rely on it, the world has gone global a while ago).

It's the ability to utilize the resources that is lackluster. Not an F level, but B- to C-. Enough to get by (so far). Occasional glimpses of brilliance (like the Kursk incursion, most recently). All riddled with careless mistakes that are systemic enough that resolving them is a very hard task.

But you know, the real question is : how the hell would you know such slang

You people thinking that kink shaming is a great way to popularize a graphics editor named after the said kink will never cease to amaze me.

The answer is: I googled "gimp", and things other than the graphics editor came up. Curious, huh?

I do not care

Oh, but you do. If you didn't, you wouldn't be here, typing nonsense.

"I do not care" is wonderful phrase that adds nothing to the discussion 100% of the time, because the set of people interested in what you, personally, do not care about is as empty as the informational content of your comment.

I mean honestly, it's pretty bad either way — even the 15% estimate you cited would be enough for me to make the point.

I just wanted to emphasize that the situation is worse than most people — and specifically, most Ukrainians — think, because the country really needs to start figuring out how to incentivize people to move to Ukraine (including, but not limited to, getting people to return to Ukraine), and both the government and the people need to be on the same page (as long as people don't care, the gov't won't lift a finger).

Take it as less me arguing with you, and more of ringing the alarm bell everywhere I go until enough people have heard it.

Indeed, your post has no meaning either way.

You can be coy all you want, software named BIGFATCOCK isn't going to be used in K12 setting or government/corporate environments in English-speaking countries, and neither is GIMP.

To get things out of the way: BIGFATCOCK does not mean anything offensive in languages other than English, and there's nothing wrong with big, fat cocks.

It's just a bad name for e.g. spreadsheet software, as the established meaning of the name has nothing to do with the functionality of the software.

Same with GIMP. You can stick fingers in your ears and scream "la la la" all day long, and wonder why GIMP isn't picking up steam like Blender did for the next 20 years — your call.