Same here, I too seek out the motive behind actions; otherwise, history is the most boring and unintelligible sequence of events known to man.
I recommend you look into these authors/commentators/analysts:
* John Mearsheimer
* Noam Chomsky
* Vladimir Pozner
* Jeffrey Sachs
* Zbigniew Brezinski
* George Friedman
* Peter Zeihan
* Peter Hitchens
* Gonzalo Lira
* Tim Marshall
* Robert D Kaplan
* Jack F. Matlock Jr
* George Kennan
* Stephen Cohen
* Henry Kissinger
Indeed. NATO/EU expansion is essentially a slow-moving replay of Brest-Litovsk and Barbarossa from the Russian point-of-view. I'm an American but I totally understand why Russia just did what it did. Never forget that Lenin was sent to Russia BY GERMANY for the express purpose of destabilizing Russia during WW1. This is the type of destabilizing regime-change that Russia fears. Their fears are not unfounded if you pay close attention to what the US has done in Ukraine, which is something our media doesn't even cover.
What is NATO's objective except to defend the member countries from aggressors? As has been mentioned elsewhere in this thread, perhaps what is happening is about the control of natural resources. The entire situation is then politically motivated. Aren't NATO and Ukraine then simply actors that have been strung along? (Obviously at great cost to Ukraine now.) This would also explain why EU has been so quick to respond with sanctions. This is about cause and effect. Russia attacking Ukraine is obviously very wrong. It seems philosophical to discuss if the cause should be blamed. However, Mearsheimer has warned about this aggression for a very long time. The history seems to indicate that this outcome has been forced.
I think Russia fears an Embrace, Extend, Extinguish approach to geopolitics where their historic power is diminished or extinguished by an encroaching NATO as it absorbs nations at the periphery of the previous local hegemon.
I think that is part of it, but I think they also fear direct attack, or the threat of direct attack being used to undermine their geopolitical goals and autonomy.
People who view this as paranoid are simply not being rational. MAD is a defense against complete invasion, but not a defense against strangulation via power projection. They are encircled by the US which has invaded and toppled more regimes than any other country in the world, and destroyed or destabilized several Russian allied countries in the last 2 decades alone.
This is spot on! What has shocked me is how easily the narrative has been pushed in the EU. There has not been much backing for less confrontation. On the contrary, EU more than anything, is escalating by imposing economic sanctions on the Russian people. (Does sanctions ever do anything else than push people into poverty?) Everything appears to be designed to push Putin into a corner so he has no choice but to use those nukes. Are there any efforts at all to de-escalate the situation?
Not to mention the fact that these sanctions are going to make poor people starve. Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine make up a huge chunk of world grain, fertilizer, oil, and gas exports.
In the Grand Chessboard, former NSA Zbigniew Brzezinski openly talks about oil and gas pipelines and diverting them away from Russia. That's what this war is really about.
> Not to mention the fact that these sanctions are going to make poor people starve.
This seems a very likely outcome. The EU obviously has no other "weapon" than sanctions. In my view, it has become a social media popularity contest. Let's punish everyone in Russia financially so maybe there will be an uprising. And, let's top it up with a free for all hunt on the assets of oligarchs. Is it anything else than the popularity contest playing out? Maybe it's ultimately like you say: about control of the oil and gas coming from Russia.
A lot of current news feels very biased, even from sources I previously found unbiased. Fortunately I was recently shared a link to John Mearsheimers 2015 YT video where he very clearly explains what has led to the current situation. In that light I now feel it's a lot easier to filter the news.
> A lot of current news feels very biased, even from sources I previously found unbiased.
I wholeheartedly agree. I feel like I could write an entire book of what it reveals about the state of Western culture. But when something is so obnoxious I try to remind myself to be especially careful about how I react. Because one of the other obnoxious things about contemporary Western culture is how partisan political sentiments are driven by spiteful contrarianism.
> he very clearly explains what has led to the current situation.
He very clearly explains his opinion, at least. Much of what he says is pretty much consensus opinion. The U.S. and Europe did push NATO expansion too aggressively. (Though that's different from saying that it was wrong to include, e.g., Latvia and Estonia, which IIRC is a claim Mearsheimer wasn't willing to state outright.) In fact, this was a moderately important point of domestic U.S. political debate which even featured in the 2008 presidential campaigns; particularly regarding ABMs in Poland.
One of the flaws in his PoV is that none of it actually justifies Russia's behavior. It makes most sense only if you conceive of Russia as a scared child, rather than a hyper rational, deliberate, realpolitik actor, which most people (until recently) consider to be Putin's M.O. It also ignores the fact that Germany, France, and even the U.K. were more restrained than the U.S., and Russia well understood that there were some bright lines those countries wouldn't cross (and the U.S. couldn't force them to cross), especially after the dust settled from the 2004 expansion that put NATO on Russia's doorstep.
Moreover, we're 6+ years on from that speech and the status quo had only further solidified. That's why Russia in 2014 and now in 2022 knew with absolute certainty that NATO would not directly intervene in its invasions of Ukraine. At most there'd be a proxy war, but that's typical Cold War realpolitik and Russia couldn't with a straight face call foul.
No observer can seriously dispute that Europe and the US had as a practical matter committed to and contented themselves with keeping Ukraine and Belarus as buffer states, at least in terms of military posture. Now, however, everything has been upended. Russia's revealed, hard irredentist ambitions has fundamentally changed the situation. If Ukraine ends up in the EU or even NATO, it'll be a self-fulfilling prophecy, not because things were inexorably moving in that direction.
This is all a long-winded way of saying that just because Russia had very legitimate security grievances does not, by itself, explain or excuse the Ukraine invasion. To my ears (having studied International Politics in college and staying apprised of events over the past 25 years), Mearsheimer's speech borders on a dangerous apology of Russia and other authoritarian regimes. His factual recounting is on its face reasonable, but those facts only beg the question. The question is whether Russia was justified, according to even the most conservative, zero sum, realpolitik perspective, in invading Ukraine in 2022. The answer is a resounding, "No". Just as the answer to whether the U.S. was justified in invading and overthrowing Iraq is, "No". And in neither case were those decisions inevitable, nor does culpability lie anywhere other than with the invaders. The U.S. for its part recognized the inexcusable harm the Iraq invasion did to global and American security stability when Obama took a huge bite of humble pie (both personally and on behalf of the country) and refused to escalate in Syria. Unfortunately Putin, like Bush in 2003, has already committed Russia to carrying through an unforgivable injury to global and its own security stability.
The reasons for Russia's hyperagression are simple and stated by Putin himself - he sees it as reacting to an existential threat. Right now US can't do a preemptive nuclear strike without retaliation. If military bases pop up in Ukraine the russians will have no chance to react. And US knows it and has been actively involved in Ukraine's affairs for a decade and now Ukrainians are paying the price. Putin will "watch the world burn" before it sees Ukr fall into US sfere of influence. And the worst part is that Putin can't win. Ukrainians are already against Russia the same as afghani people hate the US liberators. Putin's country and army will get increasingly depleted until there will be no other options left on the table. If this war takes more than six months we're going to see some beautiful mushroom clouds. P.S. I don't think the cockroaches are going to care who's to blame for the anihilation of our species.
> I try to remind myself to be especially careful about how I react
This is good advice and possibly a fault on my part. Coming from a deep frustration about not being able to make sense of current news, then finding out about Mearsheimer, it is very easy to see it as the truth.
> One of the flaws in his PoV is that none of it actually justifies Russia's behavior
I am not looking to find justifications. What happens in Ukraine is awful. There are no excuses.
What is the problem is that I (as Danish person) feel a great injustice has been seeded by the West and that no European politician now takes that responsibility upon them. On the contrary, they only repeat the narrative that this is the fault of Russia and, obviously, Putin.
That's probably what should be expected during times of war. Answering the "why?" is very difficult without the historical background and the interpretations from people like yourself.
You're not losing your mind. You are not out of line either. The media is pushing just 1 primary narrative. Period. We are being used as geopolitical pawns.
Rather than filtering from one perspective like Mearsheimers I find it interesting to see what both sides argue. But from the Russian side you get stuff like
>Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov set out Russia’s objectives in the Eastern European nation.
>“After the 2014 coup d’état, Ukraine has become influenced by Nazi ideology. We want to free her from this ideology,” he claimed.
I have for some time considered adopting Conan, but I'm comparing to Conda (conda-forge, actually). One of the many benefits of using Conda is that I can rely on users easily being able to install a well-defined environment without requiring root access. How does Conan compare? Is it also a good choice for distributing packages to end-users, or is better tailored to developers and build systems?
Nothing deep, but the PCB layout is quite impressive. This project appears to care about the details. Also intersting to learn about the history of Elbrus.
Has any other philanthropists in history appeared to care about the world (or part of the world) in a more profound way than Bill and Melinda Gates?
The question I have, though, is how about continuation? I can't find anything on their website about a (hopefully distant) future without Bill and Melinda. Are the covenants such that the organisation can continue and still have the same impact?
And the reason I care is that I always have doubts about the long-term effectiveness of charity contributions. It appears to me that their foundation has a more fundamental long-term impact than other charities. If I had some guarantees about the continuation, I'd be very interested in leaving my worldly possessions to this foundation, when my own time is up.
For reference: I'm in my 50s, have no children, and the thought about donating through my will is getting back to me more and more often.
I'm not convinced if Gates actually cares about the world. I find his transformation from one of the disliked CEOs of most despised companies into some sort of high tech messiah hard to believe. The phrase "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish" was coined in Microsoft when he was the CEO. Google bombing was invented to redirect to Microsoft homepage when searching "more evil than satan himself". Those are facts that confirm the sentiment I remember.
In my opinion, his philanthropy work is just another playground. Power is addictive and now he has way to exercise power over world outside the tech industry. Quick Google search shows he spent 45B$ on his foundation... and another search shows his net worth is still 119B$. This is still more money that I can imagine, even if he spent 99.9% of it he would still be richer than I can ever hope for. And honestly, his personal brand is so strong that even after zeroing on his account balance he could become multimillionaire in no time.
Maybe I'm overly cynical. Maybe my memory fails me and I'm mistaken about how bad reputation he and his company had back in the day. But it's hard for me to buy this 180 degree turn from ruthless CEO into great philanthropist. Now, I'm not saying his antichrist and he planned the pandemic 20 years ahead; I just would appreciate some healthy skepticism.
Just because you enjoy crushing business rivals doesn't mean you also want kids to die young. I think Gates simply enjoys the challenge and the technical side of things.
I'm not saying he wants kids to die young, please don't strawman me. I think Gates career as CEO points into direction he enjoys acquiring and wielding power. He stepped down from being CEO in 2008, this was long after Windows won. It's also possible that he enjoys both technical side of challenges and being powerful at the same time.
I assume you mean by dollar amount of personal fortune they’ve contributed because I can certainly think of quite a few philanthropists who have sacrificed more by percentage of wealth, time, or given their lives to support worthy causes.
This is by no means a dig at the Gates whom I admire greatly.
It’s hard to say if a foundation such as theirs can survive their loss. As much as they might clearly define the mission future leaders could still deviate from the founding principles like we’ve seen with many charitable organizations. There are no guarantees.
It's nearly impossible for a foundation like Gates to survive a loss of visionary leadership.
If it were handed to me with no checks-and-balances, and I were given absolute control, I'm pretty sure I could run Gates Foundation as well as Gates. That's not a statement about me; I know a few people who could run it BETTER than myself or Gates. The problem is finding them and the no checks-and-balances bit.
Beyond a founder/donor, no checks-and-balances is a really bad way to run an organization because although MANY people would do a great job, MOST people wouldn't. A good dictatorship beats a good democracy, but a typical democracy beats a typical dictatorship.
The sorts of arbitrary decisions "Let's dump a billion dollars into making a vaccine for COVID19 economical" become impossible once the founder of a foundation goes away, unless you are willing to accept that whomever comes into control might just as well say "Let's dump a billion dollars into buying paintings of myself at 10x markup." You move into competitive processes.
Competitive processes mean people apply for grants under standard criteria.
If grants have a strongly positive ROI, you have more people applying to the program, and if a negative ROI, fewer people. This means grant-funded organizations will spend a significant portion of their time applying for grants; grants become thin-margin beasts.
And the people who do run late foundations? They're connected people good at climbing corporate ladders.
IIRC the Foundation is supposed to close up shop 20 years after both of them die. I guess Bill is aware of the potential for abuse. They do not accept donations anyway. Between Gates and Buffet, they have all the resources they need.
As long as "helped" people are objectively informed of any dependence and known side-effect thanks to some public debate, then accept the deal, and any individual remains free to refuse it for himself.
In an adjacent thread [1], you have presented the increasing diabetes and obesity in young people as a problem. According to your argument here, however, it would be 'caring' to assist the poor lifestyle choices that have caused this problem, so long as they are informed of the consequences. It is well-established, however, that this information has little effect, and your concept
concept of caring looks to me more like facilitation.
People are entitled to their choices when it comes to themselves, and most problems arise when someone try to impose his views.
To care is to facilitate what is wanted by the beneficiary, honestly presented to him, and not threatening for anyone else.
Some over-consume refined sugar (=> obesity...), for example, because they are unhappy and compensate (some may even be committing a slow suicide), some just prefer an immediate pleasure (even knowing that they will suffer), and some are just dumb. "Such information has little effect" on them, indeed, however imposing anything on them "in order to save them" seems the worse approach to me, and IMHO some will eventually react to it dangerously for all parties.
Solving the underlying unhappyness of those who compensate, finding some substitute or a way to enlighten the dumb ones, seems more efficient to me. It is, however, more difficult than not interacting with them while claiming to "care" by selecting an approach then throwing money at projects aiming at imposing it.
A fair part of human misery is caused by people imposing stuff to others, I fail to see how it can be a way to "care".
Forbidding products causing those ailments (or using some more indirect similar way, for example over-taxing it) is counterproductive as 'helped' people then search for other ways, and their hostility towards the "helper" grows.
This illustrates effects of one of the strongest imposed ways, but is IMHO true for any imposed action.
Trying to honestly cooperate with the 'helped', instead of adopting a 'solution' defined by specialists in order to solve patent 'bad effects' then imposing it, leads to find and tackle at least some roots of the problem.
Making an argument for such an holistic approach seems possible to me because reductionist approaches aren't really efficient in the long term when applied to human beings.
Using abstraction in order to solve locally (<=> focusing on one problem at hand and neglecting the rest, even other parts of the life of its 'victims') leads to, later, discovering that the applied local solution isn't adequate, patching it, then having to patch the imperfect patch... (rinse and repeat).
This approach is popular because it makes wonders in a 'near-model' context (for example in order to develop software or even to build a bridge), but it seems less convincing to me when applied to human beings (especially when some make a living because the problem exists => they may not really want to solve it).
This is all very abstract; I am unable to identify one specific recommendation here as to how to reduce acquired diabetes and obesity in young people.
This discussion has drifted a long way from your original claim, "IMHO caring is giving what people want, not trying to do what you declare good for them." In the case of diabetes and obesity, patterns of consumption are formed in childhood. My wife knows a mother who took the position you are advocating here literally, and now that her children are in their late teens, it is resulting in all sorts of problems for both them and her.
For you, me, and everyone else, no matter what ideological position one holds, there are a lot of problems having no easy solutions.
The present thread was about the Gates Foundation (and similar institutions primarily targeting whole populations, that is to say adults and, through them, their children), and I answered 'give them what they want', meaning in this context 'when caring for adult people, give them what they explicitly ask for (not what you prefer)' and also (as such a Foundation has to aim for the greater good): 'if and only if you objectively think this will be good for them and not bad for others'.
Youngsters aren't mature, therefore we cannot merely give them what they want. We have to educate them, which is maintaining them in an adequate context while guiding them towards finding what they want and will be good for them and not bad for others. In my opinion our contemporary society very rarely offers such an adequate context. Hoarding kids in overpopulated classrooms where they sit for hours with adults having few (if any) personal interconnection with them is apparently the most efficient way... and (IMHO) a recipe for disaster (diabetes and obesity getting out of control being part of it).
I didn't wrote that my approach is simple and explicitly stated, above, ((that)) 'It is, however, more difficult' than the usual 'select a cure for the symptom and impose it'.
This is also about the ways to do it, and their potential effects. In order to "control" malaria (see "youeseh" answer here) some dispersed tons of DDT. I, for one, sure prefer to tackle mosquitoes than to see "good samaritans" put such products everywhere near me, without my consent (even if they do so while chanting "this is for your own good".)
It's not a lot of information (say, <1GB), but it's business critical and I'm somewhat distrustful of cloud solutions.