news & politics:discussion

[steviewevie]

 

[Neil]

7 minutes ago, Kurosagi said:

Yep, the fear of Mutually Assured Destruction was omnipresent in my childhood too. I guess that's why there seemed to be a lot of optimism and hope after the fall of Berlin Wall, Glasnost, then the Clinton and Blair terms, for a moment it did feel the world was evolving away from stupidity.

I guess we never quite evolved away from greed and nationalism though.

russia wanting a buffer shouldn't surprise anyone, fear of invasion from the west is ingrained in their psyche. its happened too many times with very bad consequences.

[steviewevie]

3 minutes ago, Kurosagi said:

I don't buy the 'Mad Vlad' bullshit for a second. A quick search reveals Ukraine is awash with plentiful amounts of rare earth materials. Is this Putin making a simple calculation that short term pain (sanctions, international opprobrium) will lead to long term security and wealth for him and his cronies?

that's it...we can all speculate the reasons behind all this, but it's all speculation. But, recently he's been talking and writing a lot about all this USSR, greater Russia stuff, and in recent years he's got more religious, and more paranoid.

[Kurosagi]

2 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

But, recently he's been talking and writing a lot about all this USSR, greater Russia stuff, and in recent years he's got more religious, and more paranoid.

So are you saying you do think he's irrational? Great, back to hiding under the kitchen table then.

[steviewevie]

Be interesting to see how China reacts to this? Putin doesn't seem to be worried about economic sanctions, is China part of that calculation?

[steviewevie]

1 minute ago, Kurosagi said:

So are you saying you do think he's irrational? Great, back to hiding under the kitchen table then.

No, I have no idea, just saw a news report yesterday about his recent behaviour, I'll try and find it.  And there was that weird televised cabinet meeting too. You may well be right about rare materials in Ukraine, but Russia has all that oil and gas and it's going to lose customers.

[steviewevie]

2 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

saw a news report yesterday about his recent behaviour, I'll try and find it. 

 

[Kurosagi]

3 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

Be interesting to see how China reacts to this? Putin doesn't seem to be worried about economic sanctions, is China part of that calculation?

I smiled when someone on here spoke about the Putin & Xi summit resulted in Xi telling him he had to wait until after the olympics had finished.

[Kurosagi]

4 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

You may well be right about rare materials in Ukraine, but Russia has all that oil and gas and it's going to lose customers.

That'll be peanuts if between Putin & Xi they control lithium and other related materials essential for the great techno future.

[I don't actually know anything about this, like you say I'm just speculating trying to find a rational explanation by looking away from the bangs and crashes and trying to focus on their longer term interests...I find it more comforting to think of a rational explanation behind things, no matter how evil, than mad bastards fucking the world up because their parents didn't love them enough]

[steviewevie]

3 minutes ago, Kurosagi said:

That'll be peanuts if between Putin & Xi they control lithium and other related materials essential for the great techno future.

[I don't actually know anything about this, like you say I'm just speculating trying to find a rational explanation by looking away from the bangs and crashes and trying to focus on their longer term interests...I find it more comforting to think of a rational explanation behind things, no matter how evil, than mad bastards fucking the world up because their parents didn't love them enough]

maybe it's a bit of both...resources and power with someone unhinged in charge...

[Kurosagi]

1 minute ago, steviewevie said:

maybe it's a bit of both...resources and power with someone unhinged in charge...

Just watched your linked news clip. Great, just what the world needs, another born again religious nutter zealously trying to please a higher power <sigh>. Right, I'm off to enjoy the great outdoors before it gets blown into oblivion. Happy days.

[Zoo Music Girl]

1 hour ago, steviewevie said:

yeah, nuclear war used to be the thing that kept me up as a kid, which is why my brother kindly brought me that book.

I think my mum taped it off the telly thinking it would be like The Snowman. I grew up a bit past the worst of the Cold War really (born in 1982) but yeah I was pretty convinced I was going to die a horrible death from fallout for ages afterwards.

[fred quimby]

1 hour ago, steviewevie said:

Be interesting to see how China reacts to this? Putin doesn't seem to be worried about economic sanctions, is China part of that calculation?

I have been wondering this. China will back him in Ukraine, not sure about beyond. They have agreed a gas deal so perhaps he is not so worried about the economics. 

China waiting to see what happens and then into Taiwan. Then they have all the chip technology for expansion and a rise of a new empire

[Zoo Music Girl]

1 hour ago, steviewevie said:

 

Man that is chilling as fuck.

[Neil]

2 hours ago, Kurosagi said:

I don't buy the 'Mad Vlad' bullshit for a second. A quick search reveals Ukraine is awash with plentiful amounts of rare earth materials. Is this Putin making a simple calculation that short term pain (sanctions, international opprobrium) will lead to long term security and wealth for him and his cronies?

vlad is pretty much an unreconstructed communist who harks back to the ussr. he likes control.

[steviewevie]

11 minutes ago, Neil said:

vlad is pretty much an unreconstructed communist who harks back to the ussr. he likes control.

he's a nationalist despot.

[steviewevie]

Just saw Boris do his thing...saying this invasion by Russia must end in failure. So...what does that mean ultimately...war?

[squirrelarmy]

16 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

saying this invasion by Russia must end in failure

Failure by Spaffer to do anything against his employer. 

[Neil]

18 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

Just saw Boris do his thing...saying this invasion by Russia must end in failure. So...what does that mean ultimately...war?

it means people wont be able to get at their money when russia is kicked out of the banking system, cant kick then out just yet need to give peeps a chance to  move their money

[Guest]

20 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

Just saw Boris do his thing...saying this invasion by Russia must end in failure. So...what does that mean ultimately...war?

I’m not sure, Putin has essentially threatened to drop nukes if anyone helps Ukraine.

We’ll just put more sanctions in place. 

[steviewevie]

My brother's take...

Russia was provoked by NATO expansion. It's almost as if the NATO leaders, mostly Americans, wanted Russia to do it. There didn't seem to be as much outrage when Israel annexed Palestinian lands.

[steviewevie]

Next thing will be Operation London Bridge.

[Neil]

2 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

My brother's take...

Russia was provoked by NATO expansion. It's almost as if the NATO leaders, mostly Americans, wanted Russia to do it. There didn't seem to be as much outrage when Israel annexed Palestinian lands.

could have de-escalated it by saying they wouldn't expand NATO, but that would have encouraged Vlad to do similar with the Baltic states (already in NATO), this is all a bit of a setup.

[Neil]

5 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

There didn't seem to be as much outrage when Israel annexed Palestinian lands.

theres not many of us round here old enough to remember when that happened.

i was about to type, different things, that land was always disputed , but Ukraine is like that too.

 

 

[gigpusher]

A very weird day at work today. Our main dev partner have people mostly based in Ukraine and Russia. One of the devs in Odessa said he has been up all night. Just a few days ago he was saying it was all posturing and nothing would happen. Today he's arranged to flee to a friend who live in a more rural location if it gets worse. 

Can't believe we've lived through a pandemic only for Putin to now be threatening nuclear war.