Still quite relevant, especially in some areas. Think about packaging and labeling, there's just not really a way around print in these areas.
Besides that, digital print is the future. Print also needs to become clever and data-driven, more personalized and tailored to the recipient, but that's hard work.
Example: Just last week I received a catalogue with the fall/winter collection of a larger clothing brand. I threw it away immediately. Lots of things in it that are not my size, or my style or whatnot. A personalized product would have helped. Pick articles similar to those I own (you got this data from my previous orders), only show articles that are available in XXL or larger (look at the sizes I kept and did not return) and that's it. "Hey Martin, these are _your_ pieces for the winter season, enjoy!" Maybe it's only 16 pages then instead of 50+ but it would have been a much better experience for me. Also cheaper to print and ship for the store but with a much higher value. But yeah, programmatic printing is hard(er) to do then order 100k catalogues from the cheapest shop you'll find.
The reason they didn't use GIMP is because they couldn't use GIMP. It simply didn't have necessary capability. When I was working in prepress, I would have done anything to use GIMP. That desperation to escape Photoshop is why Affinity took off.
If Inkscape could get a UI for precision positioning, something you could e.g. design an entry form in; and Scribus could polish up, I think a lot of people would move to a FOSS workflow.
I guess - of course it's a chicken-egg sort of a problem. No one's going to use it for print, before it has print-related capabilities - the same can be said for much of the UX, in general.
Brother, many people just choose to forget the history of WWI and WWII and all that ensued.
To many in the world, a few more raped Ukrainians are just the cost of doing business in their status quo.
Every single person on Earth with means is choosing sides between good and evil. To those who have any spiritual development, it is obvious who is on which side. The others weave their illogic to continue justifying how they lie to themselves, no matter what it costs to others.
This argument is nonsensical whataboutism. My country is Germany and it is part of NATO, just like Poland which Russia will need to cross. We have Article 5, but Ukraine does not enjoy similar protection. NATO can probably defend itself.
There’s no reason to think that Ukraine can do it for a long time at the moment. They are already overpowered and slowly losing positions. Every month of war results in tens of thousands of casualties on both sides. Hoping for the miracle will just defer the inevitable.
How many casualties per month will the peace you are advocating bring? The parts of Ukraine that have fallen under Russian control have seen almost their entire male population wiped out by forcible conscription for fighting against Ukraine. Should Ukraine fall in its entirety, I have little doubt Russia will decimate the population of currently free parts of Ukraine by using them as cannon fodder in further attacks westwards against Poland.
The idea about further attacks to the West has no basis in history or reality. There’s zero indication that this may happen: it’s far beyond current Russian capabilities, just like NATO does not have capabilities to start and win an offensive war against Russia. Both threats are no more than convenient lies for either party. Ukraine is not going to fall in its entirety if there will be peace talks recognizing situation on the ground, but I bet you haven’t seen the map of Europe if you think Ukraine is standing between Russia and NATO. If Russia wanted to attack, there’s much more convenient and more strategically important route via Belarus (Russian ally) and Baltics. So no, Ukraine is not fighting for us. They fight for a certain vision of ethnic state that was not even shared by majority of its population before 2014. It’s not bad, they have the right and they deserve it, but it’s a very different narrative.
Yes, a few people on annexed regions are going to suffer, that will be mostly active political opposition. How many of them will die? You can check statistics on Russian political prisoners. If the peace treaty is signed, there will be no more cannon fodder on either side. Prisoners? Yes. Not a lot.
We already live in a reality where Russia keeps creeping westwards with aggressions that grow larger on every turn. Why should Russia stop if you validate their strategy? Makes no sense whatsoever.
Attack through Belarus against Poland and the Baltics is indeed the most likely scenario after Ukraine should fall. Most military leaders in Eastern Europe forecast that the recovery period will be between 5 to 8 years, pessimistic estimations go as low as 2 years. After that, hundreds of thousands of forcibly conscripted Ukrainians will die between NATO forces in Europe and Russian barrier troops forcing them westwards, just like God knows how many thousands of people from Eastern Ukraine have already fallen in a forced fight against their compatriots.
Russians do not offer Ukrainians peace, but a chance to be in the next pool of cannon fodder. Depriving Russians of this pool of conscripts is a vital European security interest, which aligns well with Ukrainians' desire to be free and not live under Russian boot again.
> We already live in a reality where Russia keeps creeping westwards with aggressions that grow larger on every turn
Russia is not creeping westwards. This is a false generalization of their strategy in Ukraine, which is not to expand westwards, but merely to retain control over periphery. They did a huge miscalculation in Ukraine due to corruption in intelligence services, but they are not idiots to start WW3.
> Why should Russia stop if you validate their strategy? Makes no sense whatsoever.
Shall I repeat the same argument about capabilities or you will just re-read my comment?
The current invasion of Ukraine, plus open threats to the Baltics/Poland and random assassinations / acts of sabotage == "creeping westwards", is my take.
But they are not idiots to start WW3.
Right, but evidently its regime is stupid/irrational/petty/jealous enough to grab whatever leverage it think it can get away with, as long as it thinks it will fall just short of starting WW3.
They did a huge miscalculation in Ukraine due to corruption in intelligence services,
"Due to its the current president's authoritarian management style and relentlessly ideological worldview" would be a better description of the root cause of the current situation, in my view.
The intelligence services were also corrupt, but this is the inevitable outcome of the circumstances just described. Not a key driving factor, in itself.
Well, if that’s the take, it is very far from “Russia will attack NATO”.
> Due to its the current president's authoritarian management style and relentlessly ideological worldview
This is correct but irrelevant. He would not attack if he could anticipate the consequences. He will not attack NATO, exactly because he understands what’s going to happen next.
Well, if that’s the take, it is very far from “Russia will attack NATO”.
It probably won't, but the whole point is that the current regime is definitely gaslighting the West in regard to its intent (and so therefore it must be treated as a credible threat). And if NATO/EU starts to crumble a few years down (not likely, but if it does) that would raise the probability of some form attack quite substantially.
The very fact that you and I are having a cold, sober discussion about what was once (at least from 1989-2014) more or less unthinkable -- in itself amounts to a form of westward "creep".
This is correct but irrelevant. He would not attack if he could anticipate the consequences.
Again I disagree, because I think his main blinders were primarily ideological / egotistical (and the simple fact that anyone with a differing opinion or assessment was probably too terrified to tell him so), and not the result of simply being fed bad information.
Recall that many of Putin's spiritual compatriots in the West -- both those who concocted all the supposed "reasons" for the 2003 Iraq invasion; and the vastly greater number who passively went along with the obvious, plain-as-day insanity because it seemed "the thing to do", I guess -- also tried to claim afterwards that they were "misled" by faulty intelligence.
My own take is that, if one is taken under the spell of such sophistry and nonsense -- ultimately, it happens through one's own volition.
> And if NATO/EU starts to crumble a few years down (not likely, but if it does) that would raise the probability of some form attack quite substantially.
This is a speculation that leads to even more speculative possibilities. Quite a big distance from alarmist comments „if Ukraine falls they will come to us“. Definitely a topic for NATO analysts, but for us mostly science fiction.
Why aren’t we talking about more probable scenarios?
> My own take is that, if one is taken under the spell of such sophistry and nonsense -- ultimately, it happens through one's own volition.
Fully agree on that, yet this is not explaining why would Putin attack NATO.
> Russia is not creeping westwards. This is a false generalization of their strategy in Ukraine, which is not to expand westwards, but merely to retain control over periphery.
This is not a generalization, but a fact. Four regions of Ukraine have been officially annexed into Russian Federation. These oblasts include major cities like Zaporizhzhia, population 700k, which Russia never even held during the war nor does control now. Russia is literally, in both physical and legal terms, pushing their border westwards using the kind of violence not seen in Europe since the WWII.
> Shall I repeat the same argument about capabilities or you will just re-read my comment?
Shall I repeat the publicly shared assessments of many European militaries that Russia would be ready to attack in 5 to 8 years after Ukrainian defeat?
Generalization is to assume that they have any interest in going further based on this fact.
> Shall I repeat the publicly shared assessments of many European militaries that Russia would be ready to attack in 5 to 8 years after Ukrainian defeat?
Yes, sure. But please don’t confuse the potential with intent. Russia can occupy Baltics or cut through Poland to Kaliningrad, but they are well aware of NATO capabilities and won’t risk nuclear war for nothing. Those assessments in no way are saying that such attack is imminent, only that NATO needs good deterrence and being able to defend borders long enough until reinforcements arrive. That’s the main purpose — to ensure that the alliance still have a purpose and can deliver on it.
> Generalization is to assume that they have any interest in going further based on this fact.
Russia is expanding itself westward by force and that's a fact. That it will stop at Ukraine is your speculation and not an observable fact, and it's not even a reasonable assumption given the history and current Russian rhetoric. By your own admission, Russia is prone to "huge miscalculations", which is exactly what its neighbors fear.
> But please don’t confuse the potential with intent.
Such semantic games are not very interesting. The only reason why anyone speaks about deterrence is because Russia needs to be deterred from invading its western neighbors. Russia is the sole purpose why the entire Northern Europe has militaries at all, why we spend billions each year trying to teach every young man survival and combat skills, still demand new apartment buildings to provide air raid shelters, fortify military facilities against nuclear blasts, and do many other things at a great cost.
It’s far beyond current Russian capabilities, just like NATO does not have capabilities to start and win an offensive war against Russia.
The 2022 invasion was also far beyond Russia's capabilities, yet its regime took that action anyway.
Based on its recent behavior -- there's no reason to believe that the current regime in Moscow will in general act rationally. And every reason to believe it will not.
They fight for a certain vision of ethnic state that was not even shared by majority of its population before 2014.
You are greatly mistaken in this assessment. Talk to any Ukrainian. They may have different opinions about the 2019 Language Law for example. But none of that stuff has anything to do with the current war, or why they are fighting. The just want their perpetual occupier to leave, and to leave them alone, once and for all.
> The 2022 invasion was also far beyond Russia's capabilities, yet its regime took that action anyway.
That decision was based on bad intelligence. Not comparable to situation with NATO which is well-studied by Russian analysts.
> The just want their perpetual occupier to leave
If that was that simple they could implement Russian vision of Minsk agreements or accept non-alignment and the war would stop. But they are fighting for freedom of choosing a specific vision for their country. And that’s a different narrative.
If that was that simple they could implement Russian vision of Minsk agreements or accept non-alignment and the war would stop.
Alas, that seems very doubtful. By all indications, Putin is going to demand not just non-alignment, but permanent cessation of sovereignty on the territories he's currently sitting on.
Please disregard “ethnic”, that was not correct to say, Ukrainian nationalism is not ethnicity-based.
What I meant is that prior to the events of 2014 which changed the balance, there was major political division between east and west of Ukraine, and pro-Russian parties controlled the government in 2010-2014. The pro-Western faction won, pro-Russian factions continued to have some support until 2022. Current vision is pro-NATO, pro-EU and rejects neutrality, non-alignment or pro-Russian alignment, but that’s basically it. I’m not sure if typical Ukrainian voter does fully understand the implications of such choices (especially given that prospects of joining either bloc are rather distant).
> Every month of war results in tens of thousands of casualties on both sides.
Nobody has to die anymore if Russia just stops attacking Ukraine. I know it's hard to believe but it's that easy in the end. They started it, they can end it right here and right now.
According to current Potus shooting at russian hardware would be an escalation. US forbade NATO from shooting down russian drones/missiles crossing NATO territory.
>“were identified by the German crews, including by visual contact, without an order from NATO to shoot them down,”
Monitor, monitor, dont shoot.
How about a cover up for russian KH-22 nuclear capable cruise missile crashing 300km deep inside NATO. It flew half way to Berlin before malfunctioning.
Officially it wasnt even spotted by NATO radars, unofficially Airforce was told to stand down and not even look for it. Was found by accident by a civil 6 months later. Purely coincidentally few weeks after this incident Germany got very eager to sent Poland a Patriot system.
Well, Russia begging North Korea for meat to push into its meatgrinder tells me a thing or two about the situation, however dire.
Remember: Ukraine is fighting for nothing less than survival. Sun Tzu said to not put your enemy on death ground, but it takes a measure of sanity to follow such sound advice. And sanity is not a part of Putin's modus operandi, in case you haven't noticed.
And being German, you are no doubt familiar with letting other people die so long as it's not your people, right? Or are you Jewish, per chance?
Have you forgotten how important it is for others to rally for the defence of the innocent, or do you just not care? Who needs a miracle when there are compassionate, selfless human beings who have a heart that cares? Is there even a word in German for that concept?
Nothing NATO has ever done has jeopardized anything for Russia. Russia did their evil sh_t because they're evil.
Sending a couple of guys to poison an ex-KGB guy and his daughter in Britain is just one example.
That article said Russia wanted "security concessions". In the words of Benoit Blanc, "That's a bunch of hooey!" Russia's crippled Soviet fail-state is just a butt-hurt former dictatorial regime that lost their ability to strong-arm a huge chunk of the world with their sh_tty domestic policies.
Look, people can concoct any sort of batsh_t crazy reasons to do anything, especially if they have no empathy or compassion in their heart.
No, I just unwittingly played the correct one. Who should stop some soldiers from having a little fun, eh? Oh well, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
The soul that forgoes compassion has sown a bitter seed, my friend, whose reaping is just a matter of time.
Putin, like Stalin, had all the wealth he could want, but never had a shred of happiness. You shouldn't mistake worldly success for happiness.
How could that be unclear, and how could that be considered a fully processed idea?
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.
Putin could simply accept that he's made a mistake and order to stop fighting. I know it's unlikely because he's stupid or whatnot, but sane people reconsider what they do or have done and change based on that.
We come from very many years of analysis spent on the case, especially in the past three years. They do not draw the picture with that brush or detail.
I suggest you elect a few important commentators and check their writings.
You should make an idea of the motivations that brought to action, and read the future possibilities in view of the motivations (still playing actively in the game) and the current results on all sides, including the military, the political and the geopolitical.
Care to explain? You do not seem to have got the point of my post, which suggests you may have also have greatly misunderstood the content.
> called sunken cost fallacy
So you seem to believe that the "existential concerns" that were identified as the motives behind the action are now retracted. But your guess clashes with that of specialists, so (also since that) your assertions cannot suffice.
Edit: Incidentally, <curses>, in view of your «does not want to look extremely stupid», how do you read my «political [results and factors]»?
No, I call it sunken cost exactly because the "existential concerns", if they even made any sense before, now make none. Because the current situation is 10x if not 100x worse existential risk to Russia as a state vs whatever was before 2022. Because the war will eventually be lost, and with the loss of the occupied territories some internal territories might be lost as well, or the whole thing might fall apart even.
Might not happen right away, but with 100k+ killed and many more wounded + the brain drain of probably even larger number of highly educated people + all the secondary effects of these two will definitely do that. And the longer this stupidity lasts, and the more losses are accumulated, the higher grow the chances of the total collapse of the state. At this point, it already looks worse than USSR in late 198x.
UPD. looking into history, Russia basically fell flat on its face in what would be USSR's "Prague Spring" moment when Kiev kicked out their puppet, now you could say events rush toward the new 90s, except instead of being a superpower Russia looks pathetic, especially considering involvement of low-lifes, e.g. North Korea.
I have been to Russia recently. It is nowhere close to the collapse of the state. The brain drain was high, but its still 140-something millions of people there. Quality of food is so-so, but entrepreneurial energy and resilience is very high. There will be a post-war economic crisis due to a massive drop in government spending (which may be deferred due to the need of reconstruction of annexed territories), but businesses are preparing for it and gambling on the timing. Russia will certainly survive and this war is not the end of it, its fate will be sealed by the internal politics.
I left in 2012 and already back then it was a slowly collapsing state. Since 2012 its IT giants collapsed, and space industry was overtaken by SpaceX. The former you could already predict in 2012 as a techie seeing the initial grip on the Internet, the later was still unthinkable.
Now a decade of progress in non-carbohydrates development might destroy its only income source. In 10-15 years the education will falter because of the today's brain drain, and with the next generation it will turn into complete irrelevancy not unlike the North Korea.
Entrepreneurial energy and resilience are useless without brains. Stupid people can be very excited and determined to make an app where you can type in the parking lot number to remember where to find your car later.
You are talking about different Russia then. Yandex, VK, Sber, Wilderries have firm grip over Russian digital economy and apparently heavily investing in new technology, including AI. Thanks to sanctions they have to worry even less about competition (AliExpress and Chinese electronics are notable exceptions). Banks and telecoms are doing well too.
> In 10-15 years the education will falter because of the today's brain drain
I don’t see it. The education system on average is degrading quickly, but it’s the inequality rising, not loss of capabilities. Top tier schools remain very competitive globally — better than e.g. in most of Europe including Germany. Top tier universities remain very competitive in STEM. This is not path to irrelevance, but rather to a specialization.
It is essentially forced use, on the large scale they are getting farther and farther behind.
> investing in new technology, including AI
If it was still 2010 I could see Yandex having a model somewhere near the top of https://lmarena.ai/?leaderboard but today I'd be surprised if they can compete at all.
> Top tier universities remain very competitive in STEM. This is not path to irrelevance, but rather to a specialization.
I was talking about 10-15 years from now. When the old profs have to retire, who will teach if the majority of students are gone abroad? Of my MSU CS class basically everyone left, definitely the ones who could teach. And that was waaay before 2022 happened.
"Essentially" is carrying a lot of weight in that sentence. NATO _personnel_ (not necessarily soldiers, but officers and staff) have been active in Ukraine since 2014-15.
Well why don't you estimate the number and compare it to the total size of _personnel_ so people could judge if that number is indeed essentially zero? (spoiler alert, it is)
Trouble is, if he does that, his life expectancy is probably measured in hours. Dictatorship produces unfortunate incentives; declaring defeat becomes extremely personally dangerous for the dictator.
>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.
Sure, Romwell. But of course, the various proposals made in order to have some part retreat are not (what was in context) answer to the original (possible interpretation) "Oh well, they could just retreat". In the current chessboard, proposing the idea that some part "just retreated", defining «a scenario in which the invader [spontaneously] decided to retreat», requires quite some justification. It is not the framework in which you are, but it seems to be that of the original poster. (For clarity.)
Look at the root post I replied to...
Edit: again for clarity: consider if somebody came and said "Well, Beijing could just forget about Taiwan". It does not stand up alone, right? The poster should be requested what assumptions made such expression seem plausible.
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.
Given that Ukraine has parts of Kursk, negotiations would be required, but I bet those would be pretty short if Russia offered a full return of the occupied territories. Which is very different from an unconditional surrender!
I think Ukraine would be open to talking about returning former Russian territory in case Russia accepts its defeat and returns all Ukrainian territory...
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.
He doesn't have Ukraine's things. He's renting them out, and the price is the lives of Russian soldiers. Once he stops paying, things go back to the owner.
The price may also be paid in the form of a handful of nukes. The deep state is desperately trying to provoke something before a deal can be negotiated. Stop cheering on the use of Ukrainians as pawns in some chess match between psychos.
I think some of the commentators in this thread need to reread the melian dialogue and remember which side here is the melians. This is the sort of magical thinking that lost Ukraine four territories already.
the AFU holds a comparatively small part of Kursk.
if it's a choice between all of Crimea or an hours drive worth of greater Kursk it's no contest; the Russians aren't going to give up the jewel of the Black Sea for a small chunk of Kursk.
Russia will not be returning all the occupied territories, nor Crimea. If Ukraine keeps pushing, they are likely to be nuked. There are some who argue that the whole war could have been avoided if Ukraine had been neutral and promised to stay out of NATO, and I agree with that analysis. Now they will still have to do that, and lose most or all of the occupied territory. Not that they cared about those territories anyway. Ukraine was shelling the people who live there in recent years. It's no wonder that they voted to join Russia.
Sounds like this is the main victory plan of the West.
But wait: what if Russia doesn't do that? Are there plans for that (highly unlikely) course of events?
"the West" has just lifted restrictions on (at this point American) weapon systems in reaction to continued aggression, and involvement of further countries, from Russia. I think even more could and will be done if Russia doesn't get the memo.
And seeing that a "special military operation" takes 300 times as long as expected would for sane people be a hint to reevaluate what they're doing.
There's speculation that they're still restricting them to a certain area. And even if they're not, Russia had ample time to move their assets out of reach. It's not like back when the US blocked strikes on dozens of military jets because it was escalatory.
And anyway, Germany still doesn't want to provide their long-distance missiles. The US is still blocking other countries from supplying planes (like the Swedish AWACS). The West is barely doing the minimum.
More could be done, of course, just give it another year maybe. And in the meantime insist that the weapons aren't going to make a difference anyway. It will come true if you say it for long enough.
Without direct involvement of NATO military there’s nothing more that can be done. NATO simply doesn’t have production capacity or speed to get things done.
> Without direct involvement of NATO military there’s nothing more that can be done.
People keep saying that, and more keeps being done without direct involvement of NATO military. Among the things that Ukraine has asked for that have not yet occurred that do not involve direct involvement of NATO military is transfer of Tomahawk missiles, with about 5 times the range of ATACMS. There’s a whole lot of reasons that hasn’t happened, and its probably not going to, but it is certainly illustrative that there are unused options that do not involve direct NATO involvement.
If an option cannot be used it is not an option. Neither ATACMS nor Tomahawks aren‘t going to change anything if it is not a strike with full NATO arsenal.
Hm. But what if Russia doesn't give up even now? Do you have a plan for that?
The "3 day" meme actually originates from the USA. Russia didn't say anything about the terms (ever).
How long did your war in Afghanistan take, by the way?
20 years of Iraq and Afghanistan saw about ~60000 casualties. a little less then 1/3 of those casualties returned to duty.
about ~6000 were killed, or roughly 1/10.
by comparison Russia is on track to hit a million (1000000), by Summer 2025, with estimates of about 1/4 to 1/3 being "Cargo 200" (aka KIA). It's on track to exceed Iran-Iraq as most brutal conflict of the last 50 years -- and Iran-Iraq lasted most of the 1980s; this hasn't even been 3 full years yet.
to put a finer point on it, 20 years of Iraq and Afghanistan saw about ~60000 casualties. a little less then 1/3 of those casualties returned to duty.
about ~6000 were killed, or roughly 1/10.
by comparison Russia is on track to hit a million (1000000), by Summer 2025, with estimates of about 1/4 to 1/3 being "Cargo 200" (aka KIA). It's on track to exceed Iran-Iraq as most brutal conflict of the last 50 years -- and Iran-Iraq lasted most of the 1980s; this hasn't even been 3 full years yet.
It's really interesting: what are your estimations of Ukrainian losses?
Of course, Afghanistan wasn't being armed and funded by 50 countries - and yet you failed there..
There is no "you failed there" in this, I'm not in the US. I can read statistics though. The ad hominim + terrible karma and post history suggests that sedan_baklazhan is a shill. But I'll bite.
Afghanistan was absolutely being funded and armed by Russia, China, Iran, and Pakistan -- the Russians basically pushed as many angry Chechens to head there, both to hammer the US, but also to get them out of RUS and killed or captured. There was the infamous shipment of .50 cal sniper rifles from China to the AFG that only got stopped because Dutch intelligence decided to doublecheck a few trivial details. 20 years of such incidents.
On the subject of being able to read OSINT tier speculations and statistics, credible-ish sources suggest that Ukraine has been taking 50% or less casualties -- at one point even as low as 1:6 as they were getting pushed out of Bakhmut. Still, I'd be willing to guess as high as 400k, maybe even 500k casualties. WIA to KIA ratio is probably better than the Russians, too, but nowhere near US numbers of 10%.
Say Russia wins decisively tomorrow. Ukrainians are tired of this, they all just give up. Russia annexes all of it. Then what?
From the perspective of "Europe", what actually changed, compared to 2015? Sure, Russia gained some territory, ressources, potential conscripts.
Their army gained valuable combat experience. But have they actually become more threatening to other European nations? I'd argue: Absolutely not.
Russia is not only weakened by their losses of soldiers and materiel, but their non-military options are also greatly degraded-- instead of freely shopping for South Korean battle tanks (=> Poland), they have to make do with North Korean conscripts...
They basically played their whole hand to gain control of another country, but that control comes at a price; Even when the armed conflict is completely stopped, the price for the Ukraine is not yet paid-- switching out from a war-economy will hurt Russia, keeping the Ukraine under control is gonna be another constant drain and their may be significant obligations toward the allies that probably did not help solely out of their belief in the cause (North Korea, Iran).
Meanwhile, European powers got to observe everything as it played out, even got their own weapon systems battle tested "for free". They are forewarned, and arming up accordingly.
I'm honestly fairly confident that if Russia picked an actual battle with Poland alone (no help from any other European nation) in the next decade, that they would walk away with a bloody nose...
So, cynically talking-- "the Wests" plans are affected very little, no matter how this whole disaster plays out...
> Sure, Russia gained some territory, resources, potential conscripts.
You just "hand wave away" gaining territory the size of the 2nd biggest country in Europe after Russia, Trillions in resources and 40 million people (a 30% increase in "Russian" population). I think you may be slightly undervaluing these things lol.
And then I just don't really understand your general point which seems to be that because you believe Russia could not successfully defeat Europe/Poland that they are not more threatening than they were 10 years ago?
- Russia will have gained a huge amount of combat experience.
- Russia will also have learned from fighting against a force using NATO equipment.
- Russia will have gained the immense wealth of Ukraine's natural resources.
- Russia will have increased their population by about 30% (+/- based on refugee point below)
- Russia will have basically doubled the size of their border with Poland (counting Belarus as part of Russia because why not)
- Russia will have added borders with 4 more European countries (Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Moldova)
- Russia has likely rooted out some of the corruption that plagued the military before/during this invasion as it would have become more apparent.
- Russia will have built up domestic production of weapons as much as they can (taking sanctions into account)
- Russia will have been emboldened by its "success" in conquering Ukraine.
- Russia will have seen how slow/scared the West was to respond to their invasion and encourage more "asymmetric" warfare in preparation for the next country (aka "the price of eggs are too high, we can't afford to save <insert country with Russian border here>)
- Russia will VERY likely have increased the amount of Ukrainian refugees to the rest of Europe by 100s of 1000s, possibly even millions. Further stretching the resources of those countries and feeding into the previous point in regards to the cost of intervening "next time".
All this, combined with a US President openly making disparaging remarks about NATO, but you think Europe should not be more worried about Russia than in 2015?
> And then I just don't really understand your general point which seems to be that because you believe Russia could not successfully defeat Europe/Poland that they are not more threatening than they were 10 years ago?
No. What I believe is that engaging the Ukraine cost them much more than they would gain even by a convincing victory tomorrow, leaving them less of a threat to Europe than 10 years ago. Could they overcome this and become a bigger threat in a decade or so, thanks to Ukrainian ressources? Certainly! But the whole thing could also just crumble on Putins death in that same timeframe, could only guess about outcomes so distant.
But even having conquered the Ukraine would not really give them military strength immediately, the opposite, really, because Russia would need to commit military just to keep order there (consider Chechnya for reference: that might have become a net-gain for Russia like 15 years after the first war, and it was like 20 times smaller i.e. easier to "digest").
Furthermore, a lot of "soft power" that Russia had was basically spent on the Ukraine (i.e. price of sanctions, gas-dependence etc.), and is getting less relevant and valuable with ever year.
> but you think Europe should not be more worried about Russia than in 2015?
This is not what I said. I said Russia is less of a threat, not that Europe should be less worried about it. It has become a bigger and bigger threat since 2000. European concern was basically zero (even after the Crimea affair) and is still arguably too low. European nations were basically treating Russia like an improving, slightly flawed democracy.
But it is an imperialistic kleptocracy instead, but that is now obvious which is also unhelpful for Russia.
But have they actually become more threatening to other European nations?
Russia's regime has already made statements threatening or questioning the borders of Poland and the Baltic states, in addition to numerous other threatening moves it has made in recent years -- including Medvedev's recent threat to turn Kyiv into a "lump of lead", which would no doubt have direct consequences for Europe.
While of course many of the utterings that came from some side are stirrers of concern,
one should also remember they have a piece of doctrine called "escalate to de-escalate" - which also involves a strange framework for the interpretation of statements. This also makes the trolling confusing to the decrypter.
In my view, talking shit and murdering a few hundred civilians is not "threathening a nation", the same way Ukraine is not threatening Russia (as a nation) right now.
Being able to install a puppet government would be a big threat. Economical control (=> like gas) would be a smaller one.
Complete military conquest would be the biggest one.
All of the above look now actually less likely than 10 years ago to me (judging with hindsight).
In my view, "talking shit" about invading additional countries, while actually engaged in a large-scale invasion of a neighboring country (on top of a centuries-long history of actually invading and occupying those countries) cannot be interpreted as anything other than directly threatening those nations.
Yes absolutely, but threatening more often does not make them a bigger threat.
I'm not saying that they are harmless (being a nuclear power, obviously!), but I strongly believe that they are less of a threat to EU-nations than they were 10 years ago-- they basically played their whole hand in the Ukraine, collected some experience, lost some equipment, threw away and ruined countless lifes, and now, pretty much regardless of what happens in the next years, they are in a weaker position and less of a threat to any european country than 10 years ago.
Disagree, based on the increased frequency/belligerence of the regime's threats, and its increasingly delusional and irrational tone and behavior generally over this time period.
Concretely, with the West maintaining its existing approach, given the current material trajectory on both sides, and not assuming radical changes in political orientation in any major Western country? No, not likely.
Concretely, given the actual recent US election results and the likely impact on US and NATO-qua-NATO policy, assuming no other changes? Yes, again.
Concretely, given that outher regional states have agency and their likely response to NATO faltering at US direction, when they were already displeased with NATO not being more supportive given their perceived individual risk from Russian expansionism… Well, that’s really the key thing and, frankly, I think that the there are lots of directions things could go that could be very surprising to people whose view off the situation has been that the only entities with agency in this situation are the US, Russia, and maybe Ukraine.
There is a short sequence of events to china being shut omit of the European market entirely. That sequence runs through troop and weapons deployments to Europe on Russia’s behest.
If the US tried to force a negotiated cease fire, there is a real risk that Poland or the Baltic states become direct parties to the conflict.
Once the war becomes a direct war between multi-party alliances, controlling the scope of the conflict would be impossible.
> If the US tried to force a negotiated cease fire, there is a real risk that Poland or the Baltic states become direct parties to the conflict.
Yeah, I think it is underappreciated how much of the present NATO approach (including US policy, but not exclusively that) has been about doing enough to reassure NATO’s eastern flank members who see this conflict as nearly as existential as it is for Ukraine, even if the threat to them is slightly more temporally distant, rather than the kind of relatively remote geopolitical influence game that some American (and probably even Western European) observers see it as. If – given the election results, we probably have to admit this has become a “when” – the US commitment falters, they will have a new calculus in trying to assure that Russia lacks either the means or the inclination to turn on them next…
They won’t, because their interest in the Russian operation in Ukraine is primarily that it keeps the West distracted in Europe away from China’s actual interests.
Even then, it's highly important to give a cost to any action. Being too mellow will (and probably already did) create a bad precedent and give them confidence to pursue their behavior.
In fact it has given up, surrendered and gone home with its tail between its legs in countless wars which, like the current one, were not in the least existential to it and were in fact completely optional.
I never said anything like that. I said there are plans for many scenarios. Not sure what you are trying to achieve here with your low quality rhetorics.
This is an absurd question. For them to not give up and walk away, it would mean that their cultural values are different, even that Putin himself does not value human life or liberty. In such a case as that, he might do anything, like constantly steal a few tens of meters of a sovereign state like Georgia/Sakartvelo every week for years on end, knowing that they are far too small to defend and take that back, especially after losing a war to Russia in 2009. What if he were to start using hundreds of active espionage agents and saboteurs against Europe who hide within the tens of thousands of Russian emigrants that everyone welcomed into their countries?
Such things are unthinkable. None of that will happen.
There was that masterpiece from Nolan, in which the main strategist and enforcer during a major assembly says "It's easy: we kill the Batman". The proposal was met with some noise, because the public expected more "how" to such "what".
Ah yes, if we don't give the oppressed, attacked country which is fighting for its right to exist any weapons, the problem will go away faster. Evil NATO imperialists not allowing for russian brotherhood to be force fed to citizens of Ukraine!
Ukraine is not part of NATO. Should they wish to do so, they are a sovereign state and should be free to apply, entirely irrespective of the feelings of anyone in Moscow.
Until the day of their full admission to NATO, they cannot be held liable, punished or even criticized for any of the actions of NATO. Specifically, starting a full illegal invasion against them has nothing to do with NATO.
> It's possible but quite hard to run your own e-mail server; if you're not on a major provider, the possibility is high that a major provider will at some point have deliverability issues to or from you due to automated anti-SPAM measures.
In the roughly 25 years that I've used shared webhosting to have my own domainname and mailboxes, deliverability was never an issue. Never tried to send thousands of mails though, so...
I have been running web services for around 22 years I believe. At the very beginning, I had zero problems with deliverability to most addresses. However, even early on, I do remember plenty of forums that mentioned that Yahoo! or Hotmail tended to drop their confirmation e-mails into SPAM. Smaller operators had an advantage in being lower volume; I think that gives you a higher likelihood of delivery. That said, their emails are also more likely to get caught up in SPAM filters without remediation.
Something has changed recently, though. I have found it increasingly hard to even get an IP that is not blocked anymore. I recently migrated a VPS that was almost 10 years old that was running its own e-mail services, and after a lot of struggling... I gave up. It now has to go through an SMTP proxy to send e-mail. This bums me out, but after multiple attempts to get an IP that worked, I gave up. The provider did tell me that I was grandfathered in to have outgoing SMTP enabled on my servers (something that new users do not have by default, by the way) but recommended I stop using it.
Is the network open? Yes. Does everyone have deliverability problems? Probably not. But maybe another question: If you did have deliverability problems to some major provider, would you even know about it? If you're not very high volume, maybe not!
But some people do not want to be part of "the masses", they want to fly around in flying taxis because they think they're better than everybody else. That's why companies like these exist (and hopefully fail).
I've felt and thought about it the same way for a long time. Especially because the solution to obesity is just so easy: Eat less (and healthier) and exercise more.
It's just so easy, just do it. Why do I struggle with that? Well, probably not disciplined enough. Time to feel bad about that and question everything or at least something...
In theory it is easy, but reality is much more nuanced with job or personal stress, psychic health, impact of your surroundings, your body chemistry being disturbed and whatnot. This medicine seems (so far) to take stress (somewhat) out of it, so I can focus on changing the underlying behaviour without having to worry about calorie counting at the same moment.
But yes, if you stop taking it, and nothing has changed, you will probably bloat up again.
I think people put too much weight behind the will they think others all possess. The only empathy they summon is to compare to an ideal, without truly understanding not many are beings possessing identical traits that make up the phenomenon of behavior.
No one is screaming at a schizophrenic to summon the willpower to stop hearing voices, but many certainly will do so to those fighting addictions or other ingrained behavior. This might seem like false equivalence, but they are both abnormal psychological traits, one happens to rely on the environment more than the other.
As another example, some animals will overfeed if you let them, and you can craft super obese animals genetically. No one is damning fat squirrels, screaming "If only they had the willpower to stop overfeeding!"
It's down to how much of a diet you do (the drug only manages your appetite). I went hardcore and lost 40kg in 3 months, almost "effortlessly". One meal a day, no sugar, 45min cardio daily. Now trying to figure out where the floor is and planning a progressive reduction in dose/frequency over the next few months. I am lucky I had no side effect and I increased the dosage only sparingly, but people react differently.
Wow, that is crazy and like a 3.500 kcal deficit a day. That's heavy and I'm glad it worked for you! I struggle with cardio, simply don't like it, am more into lifting heavy stuff... :-D
What weight did you start out from? 40-50 kg is what I'd like to lose after all, I think.
133kg to 93kg. But I am a big guy, 188cm, so I think my absolute min weight would be 87kg, perhaps a bit more now that I am older.
To be honest I do the cardio mostly to stay healthy, I am not convinced it contributes much to the weight loss. I had to pause the cardio twice for a week while on holidays and lost the same amount of weight those weeks. I do take vitamins supplements though.
In term of meal, I take some supermarket ready meal, typically pasta. So it's not even an unpleasant diet. But just that for the day, no dessert. I think cutting sugar is key. I do allow myself a glass of red wine in the evening.
Now I am no doctor, I don't necessary recommend it, it is just that it worked for me, and allows to make an intense but concentrated effort. Another downside of a fast weight loss like that is loose skin, will probably take a few more months and some weight lifting to remediate that.
Very successful. I used it as an opportunity to change my lifestyle and eating habits.
I stopped eating processed foods and cut nearly all my sugar intake. It was a total lifestyle change and I lost 40 pounds in the process. I’ve been off of it for nearly a month, kept off the weight so far, and never felt better.
Glad it worked for you! I found that with less appetite there's less cravings, that seems to help me to transition to better food. I hope the effect stays that way.
Nothing else I've taken so far has changed my life in such an immediate and drastic manner. It's why I'm all over these threads in a desire to help dispel misinformed social-media fueled FUD. There are legitimate concerns to be had, but what most people repeat even on HN are downright Facebook meme quality level.
That said...
For me, I went from 276lbs to 162lbs at my lowest in about 9mo on Tirzepatide (Mounjaro/Zepbound). 85% of the loss was in the first 100 days. I was putting in all the effort I possibly could aside from taking the drug, but I attribute the drug for most of my actual long-term success. It made things I had tried to do in the past (eating healthy, eating properly sized portions, regulating my snacking/late night binges, drinking) much easier. I call it a PED for dieting. Losing the weight also made exercising at first tolerable, and these days downright enjoyable and something I look forward to on training days.
Since I hit my lowest I have put on about 25lbs of lean muscle mass by hitting the gym for resistance training at a regular consistent schedule. When you see the results I did so rapidly in one direction, it's highly motivating to know you can "put in the work" and see results in the other. I'm now about 187lbs at 5'11" with a body fat percentage of just under 12% from my latest DEXA scan. I plan to try to stabilize at around 11% or so, since the studies on it show 12% is where the major long-term health benefits start to accrue. After that I will begin to focus on increasing my VO2MAX (e.g. cardio fitness) as much as possible. I'll be at 2 years from starting Tirzepatide this coming March.
The drug in combination with lifestyle changes can work wonders. I am but one example, and not much of an outlier at this point.
I used to worry about "outing" myself when I first started taking it, but after seeing the results I did and having friends ask me what the hell I was doing to see such success I realized I could no longer pretend it was "eating less and moving more" - I didn't want to be part of the problem.
I don't see the point in them anymore, too. 24" screen size is not interesting and I can't get more displays that do look like the first one. Will always look strangely mixed in environments.
edit: ok, others pointed out possible use cases. was thinking about the reception one, too.
Still quite relevant, especially in some areas. Think about packaging and labeling, there's just not really a way around print in these areas.
Besides that, digital print is the future. Print also needs to become clever and data-driven, more personalized and tailored to the recipient, but that's hard work.
Example: Just last week I received a catalogue with the fall/winter collection of a larger clothing brand. I threw it away immediately. Lots of things in it that are not my size, or my style or whatnot. A personalized product would have helped. Pick articles similar to those I own (you got this data from my previous orders), only show articles that are available in XXL or larger (look at the sizes I kept and did not return) and that's it. "Hey Martin, these are _your_ pieces for the winter season, enjoy!" Maybe it's only 16 pages then instead of 50+ but it would have been a much better experience for me. Also cheaper to print and ship for the store but with a much higher value. But yeah, programmatic printing is hard(er) to do then order 100k catalogues from the cheapest shop you'll find.
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