This is all Ukraine’s fault for not wanting to live in a Stasi-state like Belarus and the Donbas separatist areas.
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https://twitter.com/thetimes/status/1513592964790030341
This makes me wonder about early in the war when Zelensky claimed twice to eradicate saboteur assassin squads that were sent to kill him. Both times he made a point to thank the FSB for alerting him to the squads and letting him know where to find them.
At the time we all thought it was either trolling, or he had a mole in the FSB. But why would he give up his mole like that? No way that would be worth it to lose the mole just to demoralize Putin.
Now though in light of this - I wonder if the FSB thought they had good inside contacts who were going to help the squads get close to Zelensky. So they alerted their contacts, who were actually just taking their money the whole time, and who then led the squads into a trap. And then it happened AGAIN.
I really hope that’s what happened and a book or movie comes out someday.
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The relative stability, peace and prosperity we’ve lived most of our lives in seems more likely to have been an anomalous high point in history than anything else. I have little patience for all the Francis Fukuyamas and Steven Pinkers peddling feel-good fairy tales about some inevitable future where we somehow stop being the same species we’ve been for the past couple hundred thousand years.
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We’re in trouble. I guess ~10% to avoid a disastrous collapse this century. I’m glad you’re here so I can feel relatively optimistic.
Well if we’re gonna continue the feel-good fairy tale for a while - this war sure seems like it could be a pivotal moment. I feel like we’re some of the few people outside of Eastern Europe who get that the long term outcome of the free world is in the balance right now.
Have you read Pinker’s Better Angel’s?
It has its valid criticisms, but it’s a master work and very much worth reading.
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“Cockerels” was a wise choice of words.
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https://twitter.com/AlexKokcharov/status/1514119566854705152
https://twitter.com/razdjensia/status/1514116953358712832?t=c6OMuwTSi1tHO_NrKIzA0g&s=19
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you know he aint gonna die
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YES
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i haven’t read Better Angels, and it’s true that pinker and the book have staunch fanboys who are making it more meaningful than it probably is. but i have heard about it a lot in sociological/political science context that the work is far more detailed and thorough than a lot of books popular in that genre. i obviously can’t say it has the rigor of other sciences, but it possibly was still a major step forward
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I’m never going to accept the absurdity that the way humanity will or ought to be can be deduced from the past few hundred years of how we have been. Especially not when we’re in the very early stages of a drastically changing climate that is probably going to fundamentally reshape civilization on almost every level.
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Sweden applying for nato membership in an act of aggression
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