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What have you done already? Have you joined the protests? Have you co-organized protests? Have you helped out the opposition? Go out there, connect to like minded people, see how you can help, get your hands dirty.

A country doesn't belong to the majority, it belongs to the ones willing to fight for it.

US is not my country, it's yours. But not if you're not willing to defend your rights and values. If you stay passive, others will decide for you.

Edit: https://www.fiftyfifty.one/ April 19.


It's probably obscure, but anyone from that time would find it plausible because we know both radio and computers used cassettes.

So for me, this title was "Yeah, I get it how that would work".

For fun I just asked my 16 year old son "Do you think it was possible in the past to download a computer game from the radio?". He thought is was impossible, and had no clue how that would work when asked further :D. It totally confused him because "you can't play games on a radio".

Those were indeed different times.


As an experienced "software engineer" :D, I fully agree with you. Although I would phrase it differently.

All patterns & practices come with their benefit and drawbacks. So all decisions are very much dependent on the circumstances. This is what you called "local maxima".


It's clear that the real problem in Europe is access to risk capital. Startups are no problem, scale-ups are.

Nobody was able to replicate Silicon Valley, not even within US. My opinion is that it's a chicken and egg problem, and Silicon Valley already has crazy risk capital, which will generate more crazy risk capital.


These tariffs are highly focussed on hurting red states. So in practice that means:

- Alcohol: Are you really buying American Alcohol when you live in EU???

- Harley-Davidson: Do you plan to buy one the next few years?

- Jeans: I'm sure there will be plenty of choice in all price ranges.

EU did the same thing in the past when Trump was president. It's really a 'been there done that' type of thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Trump_tariffs#European


> These tariffs are highly focussed on hurting red states.

If I, as a consumer, were interested in "hurting red states" I could just not buy anything from them. No need for the EU (or my country's government) to impose this choice on me.


Belgian here: I'm moving away from US products and services, wherever possible. My close contacts are doing the same. And have you seen the Canadians? They are at another level!

Also, buying US military equipment will definitely need to be reconsidered, if you look at how fast your position can switch. Tesla and Starlink, good luck getting any new orders outside of US.

This is not some temporary one off, this is party moving away from US products (good luck getting us back once we found a good replacement), and party the idea that US can turn on you with a single stupid election.

This damage will take a long time to recover from. We really consider this a friends betrayal.


I don't think a lot of Americans realize that this might be the real end of the post WW economic/military dominance for the US.

The world has never been less confident in the US. Much of our world dominance was based on protection and inclusion in our economic dominance.


When people state this obvious lie, I always ask: So which NATO member states voted for not expanding to the east?

Same with the Ukraine "coup", I always ask: So which dictator did they install in 2014?


As i said, "Stuff shifted, but under no circumstances was russia going to let Ukraine 'join NATO'." - it's just too close to moscow, and there's been issues in that region since the collapse. "We're going to acquire nukes" was sort of the final straw. Let's just hope that Canada saying the same thing doesn't foment the same response from their neighbor, eh?


Can you give me a reference in what year Ukraine said they were going to acquire nukes?


I sure can, but why do you ask? I just did 25 minutes of research to give a clear reasoning why they want them, and then finding the dates of when Zelenskyy said they "need" or "should get" nuclear weapons. But i'm unwilling to share this research effort without knowing the purpose behind your asking.

To put it better, what year would be an acceptable answer? Is the year that they loudly claimed "we should have never given up our nuclear weapons" not acceptable? the year "we need Nukes or NATO"?

I also remember sabre rattling in 2014 and either 2016 or 2017. NATO already has missiles pointed at Russia, and Ukraine joining NATO would allow missiles to be launched from even closer to Russia.

I don't understand why people don't get the nuance. The US did dirty. I don't know how to solve that, but the answer isn't "war with russia" or "proxy war with russia" the answer is closer to "get the fighting to stop, and tell russia to chill out and report issues to the world, not sit and stew for 8 years over their ethnic brothers, sisters, and children being 'rained down upon' with death and destruction."


You claim Russia invaded because Ukraine said they were going to acquire nukes.

I'm asking for a reference and a date when they said that. And obviously, it must be before the Russo-Ukrainian war: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Ukrainian_War


> The far-right candidate Oleh Tiahnybok’s last name means pulling one’s side in Ukrainian.

> So his campaign officers have been conveniently running a message of “Tiahnybok is pulling for our side,” but so far managed to get only 1.6 percent of polled voters to declare support for him. A broad-shouldered and towering leader of the right-wing Svoboda Party, he positions himself as a knight on the yellow-and-blue horse – the country’s national colors – on a mission to save Ukraine. His program almost immediately mentions that a section “nationality” should be introduced into Ukrainian passports – a sign of pride to some, yet prejudice to others. Should he be president, Ukrainians will have to obtain visas to travel to Russia and pass a Ukrainian language test to work in civil service. Ukraine would pick up nuclear arms again and take a hard line approach towards Russia. Serving as a lawmaker twice before, Tiahnybok’s ideas have been better received in the more nationalist west. Once allied with President Victor Yushchenko’s Our Ukraine faction, he was expelled for anti-Semitic and xenophobic statements.

2010 hope the kyiv post is good enough source https://archive.kyivpost.com/article/content/ukraine-politic...

58652dd5e1d83157ae78ed96cb2fd53ee98dba25b3b5c0dbda11b83a17035ba5


The idea that Russia were forced to invade Ukraine because a guy who ran for President twice getting less than 2% of the vote who whose political party had no seats, proposed obtaining nuclear weapons over a decade earlier is too stupid for anyone to honestly believe.


if you add:

"\nI bet this isn't going to be good enough, which is why i didn't want to do this. I have more, i just want to prove this point."

to my prior post, the sha256sum will match.

I merely asked what sort of proof you were looking for, buddy. Evidently a Ukrainian politician saying the exact words you said no Ukrainian politician said prior to 2014 isn't good enough.

here, about the party in Ukraine he's led for decades:

> The party gained increasing popularity in the late 2000s and early 2010s, winning 10.45% of the vote in the 2012 parliamentary election. Between 2009 and 2014, it was an observer member of the far-right Alliance of European National Movements. It played a role in the 2014 Ukrainian revolution and Euromaidan protests but its support dropped quickly following the 2014 elections. Since then, the party has been polling below the electoral threshold, and it currently has one seat in the Verkhovna Rada.

oh look, they win parliamentary votes, and hold a seat.

also incaseyoumissedit:

> It played a role in the 2014 Ukrainian revolution and Euromaidan protests

WHOOPS.

guess i'm "too stupid" :-)


I think it's pretty obvious that the fact a single individual who's ceased even trying to run for office because he can't get the votes and actively despises the actual Ukraine leadership said something 15 years ago is not "evidence" for your claim that '"we're going to acquire nukes" was the final straw'. A guy who literally has less impact on Ukrainian nuclear policy than George Galloway on that of the UK.

But yes, congratulations on predicting that nobody would be impressed by such a stupid irrelevance. The non-stupid thing would not to have posted it in the first place...


He's currently incumbent, Leader of Svoboda, in Ukraine. A politician in 2010 in Ukraine, a politician today in Ukraine.

I wonder if we can have this same argument about Freeland in Canada saying canada needs nukes to defend itself against the USA, in 15 years ;-)

ps https://noagendaassets.com/enc/1741301040.34_chrystiafreelan...


When a group of Americans were mad that their preferred candidate didn't win and stormed the Capitol, were they heroes or traitors? When a group of Ukrainians did the same, why does your answer flip?


Euromaidan was a protests because Yanukovych didn't act on his promise to integrate Ukraine with the EU. Protesters were upset because that was not what he promised during his campaign.

The storming of the capital in US was under false claims that the elections were stolen.

There is both evidence that the elections were not stolen, and evidence what Yanukovuch said during his election campaign were not his actions. You can't tell the difference between the two?

Plenty of protests ended in the fall of a government and electing a new one. Why would that be the same as the US storming of the Capital?

If you would have said to compare it to the Georgian protests that don't accept the election results, that would be more difficult. But Euromaidan? That's easy.


Trump lost fairly, so storming the capitol is treason. Yanukovich didn't win fairly, so removing him is warranted. The answer flips because the situations are the opposite.


The people who stormed the Capitol didn't think Trump lost fairly. So the real difference is whether they succeeded. Had the Capitol protesters succeeded, they would have made the media feed people like you and I their narrative and make sure we saw them as freedom fighters.

I'm sure you'll disagree with the above, so here's a thought experiment. What would the Euromaidan protesters be called if they had lost?


To be clear, Yanukovych was fairly elected in 2010 and there are no claims that this was somehow rigged or undemocratic (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Ukrainian_presidential_el...).

The protests started when he switched his stance on getting closer to EU. The protesters got him out and had a new election. How can you compare that to not accepting an election result?

Edit: To answer your question: if the Euromaidan protest didn't succeed, it was just a protest like it was now. They would have had another election a bit later, possibly pissing off Russia again (In 2004 Russia poisoned a pro-EU candidate).


They didn't think that Trump lost fairly, but what they think doesn't matter. The law takes it's course.


My theory is that Russia invaded Ukraine for the same reason they invaded Chechnya.

Can you provide an argument why Russia invaded Chechnya?


Oil?


The Russian propaganda part is that you act as if Russia is defending, while actually they are invading.

Do the neighbors of France need an alliance against a French invasion? Do the neighbors of Germany need an alliance against a German invasion? Why not?


But the argument is only based on publicly available, historic facts. That is my problem with painting it as propaganda.


Publicly available, historic facts do not support the argument that russia's invasion was legally justified under any reasonable interpretation of a "threat". Claiming that they do is the propaganda mentioned above. russia is, in fact, the invader, and Ukraine did not invade russia first.

Also, you should respond to the second part of their post, as it contains a viewpoint that you might find interesting, and a question asked of your own viewpoint. Understanding others' viewpoints is a good foundation for coming to agreement.


> Do the neighbors of Germany need an alliance against a German invasion?

Perhaps once a century the answer to this question is “yes”.


So Russia invaded Chechnya and is now using Chechens to invade Ukraine.

You suggest that Russia takes Ukraine, then uses Ukrainians to invade Moldova?

That is what you are suggesting, right?

Also, my programmers keyboard gives me a very nice peaceful wage. A wage that I partly use to support the Ukrainian defence forces. I suggest everyone to the same: https://savelife.in.ua/en/.


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