It certainly is goua(u)che

I don’t think that one lands in text

I think it is. Russian troops have been deserting the whole time (or getting zeroed). The Ukrainians still aren’t polling as wanting the war to end asap no matter what, and they’d need a huge percentage of the population in agreement before you could make a constitutional amendment.

When I do that, I try to vote on both comments, so the other person doesn’t get that association.

That’s because those foods are made with distilled food colorings that are designed to be as tasteless as possible.

The colors in fruits and vegetables often reflect their vitamin content/taste.

I would prefer not to trade certainty for justice, to be honest. Some things are worth fighting for, and the concept of small state sovereignty is one of them.

Think about how awful covid was, even for a lot of people who didn’t get seriously ill. Now imagine if we knew nothing about where it came from or how to prevent or heal it, and nobody, absolutely nobody could reliably give any insight.

Then it lasts for seven years, nearly halving the population, before coming back seven years after that. In a place where seven is a religiously significant number.

I would have gone fucking nuts too.

That’s a fucking grim plot synopsis.

The Russian people only have no say as long as they fear Putin more than they fear the war and/or distrust each other. If those meters tick over the midway point, they either refuse to follow military/conscription orders or they revolt.

If the other oligarchs begin to fear the people or the war more than Putin, they coup him, officially or otherwise (just ctrl+f for SSR, Russia, and Soviet if you want to read about some convenient “accidents”).

I think with the strikes throughout Russia, the people are beginning to fear the war more and with the proposed bank account confiscations, the oligarchs are beginning to fear the war more. I don’t know what will pop first (or if either will hit the tipping point before Ukraine does), but I don’t think Putin is in anywhere near as secure a position as he was five or even two years ago.

I think the Russian people will more willingly give up the potential of gained territory than the Ukrainian people will give up part of their land, tbh. Putin was incredibly popular for many years (decades, even), but the cost of living in Russia is insane, and with gas shortages and bombings all over the countryside have dulled his shine.

Maybe I’m wrong, but I hope not. Invaders shouldn’t get to keep territory just because anymore. I’d be fine with giving each currently contested oblast in Ukraine an independence vote afterwards, but that should be independent of the peace process and if they were to join Russia, Ukrainian oblasts would be equally subject to reparations payments as the rest of Russia.

If Ukraine had invaded Russia and annexed its territory, I’d want Ukraine to cede its acquired territory and pay reparations, too, but they didn’t. The only thing they did to provoke this was to edge closer to Europe, which is certainly their right as a sovereign state.

lol, you got me, that’s what twigged it for me- I figured Siberia would start further east of Ukraine than Texas is of California

TIL Siberia is way bigger than I expected. I knew it was big, but it looks like it’s more than half of Russian landmass. It can’t all be the climate I’m picturing, right? Like it borders Kazakhstan, so I figure at least part of it has to have hot summers

@brem@lemmy.world is looking at this like thirteenth century Swabia ( pages 3-4 of the PDF aaaaalllll the way at the bottom/pages 95-96 in the document itself).

Or here

There’s religion based homeschooling in both countries, which might have something to do with it

Zelenskyy will not give up Crimea either, because his country’s constitution does not give him the power to. They’d both give up their lives if they gave up Crimea, but Putin is a) only driven by personal vanity and a desire to return the nation to 35 year old glory, while Zelenskyy is driven by a sense of justice and national pride rooted in something recently stolen from the country; and b) in a much worse position to survive the bad PR of continuing the war: it might not be Putin who ends the war, but Russia will not continue fighting for long.

It’s also the worst possible course of study to ever require for anyone outside organic chem majors.

I loved biology and statistics, and was pretty neutral towards calculus, but for some reason, chemistry is incomprehensible to me (Physics too, but that’s because neither the teacher nor I knew how to use my Casio graphing calculator, so I tried to do all the math on paper and ended up wasting the whole class doing arithmetic instead of listening-I’ve thought about taking a basic physics course at a community college, but I don’t think even that would help with chemistry).

My sister’s a science teacher and was taking masters level organic chemistry classes while I was taking high school chemistry. At one point she showed me some of her coursework and I literally decided in that moment that I didn’t want to study biology badly enough to go through organic chemistry.

That sounds like she’s a really bad teacher, lol, but my strengths are definitely in different areas, so it’s also a fair insight.

Yeah, though tbh, I gotta assume the next person will either need no incentive not to, or won’t have heard of what happened the last time

Yes, but it’s also of no use once the nukes have been deployed. Then it’s just spite, which is understandable, but way less helpful.

Then there are no consequences for annexing Crimea in 2014, which sets a worrisome precedent for Taiwan and Cuba (and of course, former SSRs all over Eurasia).

Yeah, I’m not under any illusion that it’ll be (literally) sunshine and daisies. The WHO estimates that 250k people will die annually because of climate change between 2030-2050 though, and (I sincerely hope) a shift in global power dynamics from something like this is unlikely to kill that many.

China will also be more focused on preserving stability in general as a global power than Russia or the United States, though this would probably be very bad news for Taiwan, if successful.

I agree that the effects for Europe are less clear. The EU is likely to benefit much more than Russia or the US, but it might lose power in comparison to an energy rich India or Indonesia. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, other places deserve a fair seat at the table, especially given the relative populations.

Especially if China’s the one controlling it. They’ll recognize the incredible benefit to the world and make sure as many people as possible are able to use it (I’m not saying they’re completely altruistic, they’ll also make it profitable and potentially predatory, but it’s still a net good for the world if we can largely stop using fossil fuels by mid century)