The Ukraine war thread
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@Horace said in The Ukraine war thread:
@Doctor-Phibes said in The Ukraine war thread:
@Copper said in The Ukraine war thread:
It must be gut wrenching for some of you guys to go from such a weak president to such a strong president.
Hang in there, you'll grow with his success.
OK, we've found the guy who think Trump looked great. There had to be at least one, I guess.
I predict that thinking Zelensky acted stupidly will be the mainstream viewpoint, outside Trump hating circles.
What I didn't really understand was why they felt the need to have the discussion in front of everybody.
My self-appointed mainstream viewpoint speaking on behalf of the silent majority as I do, is that the person who won that argument was Vladimir Putin.
I was only joking
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@xenon said in The Ukraine war thread:
Everyone is gonna post-hoc rationalize the way they wanna.
I agree with you that this will play well with Trump supporters, because they couldnât care less about Ukraine.
You don't hold the cards right now - DJT.
And then they cut the meeting short and showed Zelensky the door.
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@Horace said in The Ukraine war thread:
@xenon said in The Ukraine war thread:
Everyone is gonna post-hoc rationalize the way they wanna.
I agree with you that this will play well with Trump supporters, because they couldnât care less about Ukraine.
To be clear, you think there is a categorical difference between you and Trump supporters, in that you have compassion for beset upon other countries, while they don't? And your compassion leads you unerringly to the truth that America should deploy its military to correct such unfair situations in the world?
No - we came up with a system after WW2 where we really took the helm on guiding global geo-politics.
I grew up in that framework.
I have no particular compassion for Ukrainians as humans, as bad as that is to say. Because that would be hypocritical. I donât really take much time out of my day to think about wars in Africa.
But - I thought I knew the rules of the game. We live in a society. We all live by social rules.
The US payed a lot to be in the position that itâs been in, but itâs also gotten a lot of benefits (this is the best country in the world and many people here donât appreciate that at all)
This is already getting really wordy. But I liked that social order and Americaâs place in it. Others donât and I can respect that. Trump hasnât outlined any new doctrine clearly about Americaâs place in the world. I wish he would - because I suspect his ideals arenât the same as mine.
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@Jolly said in The Ukraine war thread:
@xenon said in The Ukraine war thread:
Everyone is gonna post-hoc rationalize the way they wanna.
I agree with you that this will play well with Trump supporters, because they couldnât care less about Ukraine.
You don't hold the cards right now - DJT.
And then they cut the meeting short and showed Zelensky the door.
Thatâs news to no one. Who didnât know that Ukraine canât take on Russia by itself? Did we need Trump to clarify that arcane knowledge for us? Everyone was gobsmacked they lasted more than 3 days.
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@Doctor-Phibes said in The Ukraine war thread
My self-appointed mainstream viewpoint speaking on behalf of the silent majority as I do, is that the person who won that argument was Vladimir Putin.
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@Horace said in The Ukraine war thread:
@xenon said in The Ukraine war thread:
Everyone is gonna post-hoc rationalize the way they wanna.
I agree with you that this will play well with Trump supporters, because they couldnât care less about Ukraine.
To be clear, you think there is a categorical difference between you and Trump supporters, in that you have compassion for beset upon other countries, while they don't?
If we take Vice President BetaFace at his word, then yes.
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@xenon said in The Ukraine war thread:
@Horace said in The Ukraine war thread:
@xenon said in The Ukraine war thread:
Everyone is gonna post-hoc rationalize the way they wanna.
I agree with you that this will play well with Trump supporters, because they couldnât care less about Ukraine.
To be clear, you think there is a categorical difference between you and Trump supporters, in that you have compassion for beset upon other countries, while they don't? And your compassion leads you unerringly to the truth that America should deploy its military to correct such unfair situations in the world?
No - we came up with a system after WW2 where we really took the helm on guiding global geo-politics.
I grew up in that framework.
I have no particular compassion for Ukrainians as humans, as bad as that is to say. Because that would be hypocritical. I donât really take much time out of my day to think about wars in Africa.
But - I thought I knew the rules of the game. We live in a society. We all live by social rules.
The US payed a lot to be in the position that itâs been in, but itâs also gotten a lot of benefits (this is the best country in the world and many people here donât appreciate that at all)
This is already getting really wordy. But I liked that social order and Americaâs place in it. Others donât and I can respect that. Trump hasnât outlined any new doctrine clearly about Americaâs place in the world. I wish he would - because I suspect his ideals arenât the same as mine.
If nothing else is obvious, I hope that it's at least obvious that there were no clear rules and playbook that America and NATO should have followed here, with nuclear conflict looming as a possible result of any pat virtue answers about thwarting imperialistic aggression.
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@Horace said in The Ukraine war thread:
@xenon said in The Ukraine war thread:
@Horace said in The Ukraine war thread:
@xenon said in The Ukraine war thread:
Everyone is gonna post-hoc rationalize the way they wanna.
I agree with you that this will play well with Trump supporters, because they couldnât care less about Ukraine.
To be clear, you think there is a categorical difference between you and Trump supporters, in that you have compassion for beset upon other countries, while they don't? And your compassion leads you unerringly to the truth that America should deploy its military to correct such unfair situations in the world?
No - we came up with a system after WW2 where we really took the helm on guiding global geo-politics.
I grew up in that framework.
I have no particular compassion for Ukrainians as humans, as bad as that is to say. Because that would be hypocritical. I donât really take much time out of my day to think about wars in Africa.
But - I thought I knew the rules of the game. We live in a society. We all live by social rules.
The US payed a lot to be in the position that itâs been in, but itâs also gotten a lot of benefits (this is the best country in the world and many people here donât appreciate that at all)
This is already getting really wordy. But I liked that social order and Americaâs place in it. Others donât and I can respect that. Trump hasnât outlined any new doctrine clearly about Americaâs place in the world. I wish he would - because I suspect his ideals arenât the same as mine.
If nothing else is obvious, I hope that it's at least obvious that there were no clear rules and playbook that America and NATO should have followed here, with nuclear conflict looming as a possible result of any pat virtue answers about thwarting imperialistic aggression.
I continue to believe that the only way to actually reduce danger of annihilation in the long term is to have and live up to a set of values that we would like the rest of the world to.
Else itâs just purely power that rules at the end of the day - so many the left was right after all.
Iâm realize this is a very Pollyanna POV
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@xenon It's an unactionable point of view, unless you come right out and say, yes, escalate. Which is fine. Just say it, and stop hiding behind the "values" rhetoric.
Then you can have some skin in the game as, inevitably, the world tilts, at least just a little bit, towards nuclear conflict. See how it feels to have some skin in that game. This virtue rhetoric is too easy.
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@Horace said in The Ukraine war thread:
@xenon It's an unactionable point of view, unless you come right out and say, yes, escalate. Which is fine. Just say it, and stop hiding behind the "values" rhetoric.
Then you can have some skin in the game as, inevitably, the world tilts, at least just a little bit, towards nuclear conflict. See how it feels to have some skin in that game. This virtue rhetoric is too easy.
Whatâs the unactionable part? You arm Ukrainians until they no longer want to fight. Weâve been doing that for the last few years.
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@xenon said in The Ukraine war thread:
@Horace said in The Ukraine war thread:
@xenon It's an unactionable point of view, unless you come right out and say, yes, escalate. Which is fine. Just say it, and stop hiding behind the "values" rhetoric.
Then you can have some skin in the game as, inevitably, the world tilts, at least just a little bit, towards nuclear conflict. See how it feels to have some skin in that game. This virtue rhetoric is too easy.
Whatâs the unactionable part? You arm Ukrainians until they no longer want to fight. Weâve been doing that for the last few years.
Now we're just going in circles. That ends with Russia in Kiev.
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@Horace said in The Ukraine war thread:
@xenon said in The Ukraine war thread:
@Horace said in The Ukraine war thread:
@xenon It's an unactionable point of view, unless you come right out and say, yes, escalate. Which is fine. Just say it, and stop hiding behind the "values" rhetoric.
Then you can have some skin in the game as, inevitably, the world tilts, at least just a little bit, towards nuclear conflict. See how it feels to have some skin in that game. This virtue rhetoric is too easy.
Whatâs the unactionable part? You arm Ukrainians until they no longer want to fight. Weâve been doing that for the last few years.
Now we're just going in circles. That ends with Russia in Kiev.
As a thoroughly depleted husk of itself, militarily. Theyâre going to end up there anyways if we donât do anything.
But theyâre our top 2 adversary. Isnât it good for us if theyâre weak. Plus they understand the cost of what it took (probably not worth it for them).
Might be half a trillion in the long run, but we spent like $20T on Afghanistan for way worse outcomes than weâve already got here. Iâm willing to chip my taxes in for that.
In the long run everyone can wean themselves off of them economically. Seems better than this.
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Sam Harris weighs in:
That was a mortifying spectacle in the Oval Office today. We witnessed President Trump acting like a handmaiden to a Russian dictator, while processing everythingâUS foreign policy, world history, the fate of millionsâthrough the lens of his own grandiosity, pettiness, and personal grievances. Trump is siding with a man who has all but threatened us with nuclear annihilation over our support for an independent Ukraine. Putin's troops have routinely subjected Ukrainian POWs to torture. They have stolen tens of thousands of Ukrainian children and repatriated them to Russia. And we now have President and Vice President who blame the victims for all the misery and death that has been imposed on them (and for not saying âthank youâ when they do this). Where do we go to get our country's moral stature back?
Education is extremely important.
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Have now watched and listened to the exchange a few more times. Firstly, Zelenskyi ought not to have been using English, he should have resorted to either Ukrainian or his mother tongue, Russian. By using English he came across as lecturing Vance on Putinâs duplicity and perfidy in diplomacy. Vance was triggered. Trump in his capacity as host and chair, failed utterly to bring his VP into line, calm the waves and bring the meeting to an immediate end.
As pointed out Putin is the sole winner of the day and now probably the war.
