Lord Ratner

Right, you know, except for the whole invasion of Ukraine thing. I wonder if there are any other "historically Russian" parts of Europe... Definitely doesn't compare to Hitler targeting historically German parts of Europe for "reunification."

If you establish that you are going to feed someone, then stop feeding them without sufficient time or opportunity to feed themselves, then yes, you are starving them. You can argue whether you should have fed them in the first place, but once you establish a relationship, what you do in that relationship matters. We could have let them fend for themselves from the beginning, but we didn't. Maybe we should have, though I disagree. Doesn't matter, we did. And you now have to operate from that reality. For everyone calling for a negotiated settlement, that's not going to happen unless Russia has something to lose by refusing. And that's not going to happen without a re-armed Ukraine. I agree with all of the complaints about a feckless administration with no strategy and no goals. That's the hand we've been dealt. The North Vietnamese couldn't defeat us with unlimited weaponry. They didn't need to. This is unidimensional thinking.

Sure they have. Artillery is how this war is being fought, and they are out of shells. We are the resupply. Obviously there's a debate over whether we should, but we made Ukraine our proxy in this war, and now we are withholding. I've said it many, many times before, I don't care what their odds are if they want to fight. And for now, they still do. So arm them up. I'm a big fan of the negotiated settlement, but neither Russia nor Ukraine seems interested at the moment. And Russia will not be interested until we resupply Ukraine, at which point they may find a newfound interest in peace. Actually that's another paradox in your reasoning. We should be negotiating a settlement, but not give any motivation to Russia to settle.

This is an ironic thing to say considering they have been starved of the weaponry required to fight. If I were a bit more cynical I would say you are being intentionally disingenuous. We shouldn't be sending them money or weapons! *We stop sending them money and weapons.* See!? They are losing, so there's no point in sending the money or weaponry!

There are dozens of obvious reasons why they want Biden in the chair. You have to be mentally handicapped to think otherwise, especially considering many of the leaders of these organizations are quite vocal about the topic. Arguing that they are secretly pulling the strings of the entire government is another issue entirely.

"ICBM69, Miami center, leaving my airspace, change squawk now 3422 and contact Jacksonville center on 132.2."

I will buy Ken a drink wherever I meet him for the rest of my life 😂🤣

Don't worry, they learn how to read once they hit elementary school.

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Another inevitability. The move to "re-shore" some critical manufacturing capabilities is the only good news these days. The sooner the better. Trading with China was the biggest mistake of the post-WWII era. We could have pulled the entirety of Latin America into the modern world, instead we funded the buildup of our biggest geopolitical adversary, and got an immigration crisis as a bonus.

No worries, internetting is fraught with communication errors. Let's try anyways. "War with Russia" is a bit vague. We can have an entire war with Russia within the borders of Ukraine. That's very different than marching on Moscow, with very different responses from Russia. We try to occupy Russia, yeah, nukes go from "probably not" to "possibly." Definitely not circling the drain, or declining to ruin. We've been through 3 turnings already. We emerge stronger each time. I think you misunderstand the theory. I agree with this, however I believe that complete economic isolation will absolutely provoke a Russian response we can't ignore, and thus, escalate. The oil embargo on Japan is a good corollary. We agree on a lot, so I probably had you confused with some other argument on this board. I don't think it's time for American troops to kill Russians. But I absolutely do support Americans killing Russians in Ukraine if it looks like Russia is moving to occupy the entire country. A march on Kiev would be the red line.

You have to define "start a war." I'm happy to keep dumping weapons, intel, and training on the Ukrainians to keep up the fight. And if The Russians start pushing towards Kiev, then I would be fine if western forces began supporting with airstrikes and other direct support within the borders of Ukraine. A lot of this simply boils down to my belief that what is happening is morally wrong, sovereignty matters, and letting weaker nations fall because of isolationist fears never ends well. What evidence do you have that they won't? Doesn't matter. You don't get to "take" sovereign countries. Controlling Ukraine gives Russia a massive strategic advantage if they do invade other countries. So now we have two reasons to stop them. I haven't argued for preemptive war. But I agree with some conservatives that continued support of Ukraine, even without direct involvement, will eventually "provoke" Russia into more belligerent action that draws us into a fight. So be it. That still won't be us "starting it," regardless of how much standard political maneuvering existed before the invasion. Any doubt was extinguished when Russia failed to take Ukraine in 2022. Are we seriously thinking otherwise? I have no interest in occupying Russia, so if you are referring to a land invasion then sure, that would be long, painful, and ugly. But beat them in a war to defend the currently established borders? Please. We beat the shit out of Iraq, and then the politicians fucked it all up. And yeah, we shouldn't have gone in the first place. But there's not a great comparison. Now, if you are arguing that we shouldn't have kicked Iraq's ass in the early 90's and saved Kuwait... yeah I just can't get on board with "let it all burn." We tried that with Germany and it wasn't great. Limited goals are the key to military success. Defending a sovereign nation is not escalating. End. Nukes have been hanging over the world for almost a century but it keeps spinning. It's a pointless paradox: If Russia is willing to use nukes because their attempt to steal another country is failing, then have to accept that they can take whatever countries they want because we avoid nuclear war at all costs. Why does the calculus change for Latvia? Are you really telling me you're more comfortable with nuclear war because Latvia is in NATO? Who the fuck is Latvia?

Another area we disagree. The longer we wait, the weaker we will be for the actual fight. As our weak governance racks up increasingly absurd debt, the pressure to divert military spending to welfare programs will only grow. The longer we wait, the fewer war fighting experts we will have coupled with less and less modern military equipment to fight with. I still think we win based on geography and natural resources, but it'll cost more lives and treasure to wait. Whether or not there is a nuclear exchange, which is not nearly as certain as you propose, does not change the calculus. Will we be better capable of fighting Russia today, or after another 10-20 years of peaceful decline? I'll be honest. I don't care about you. Or me. I want what is best for my kids. I am not interested in adding WWIII to the list of hardships we are pushing off to the future. Appeasement does not work. History is clear on this point, and that's exactly what you are proposing.

So, I'm glad you are at least honest about this. Thank you. The reason I am against allowing Ukraine to be taken, under your logic, is because I believe that *if* they truly want to take Ukraine, they will not stop at non-NATO countries. Wouldn't make much sense strategically. We're better off just starting the damn war now if that's the case. Unless of course the plan is to let them weaken their military by taking Ukraine and Moldova, at which point we immediately go in an crush them. But I'm positive that's not the plan. And to be clear, my primary reason for supporting Ukraine hasn't changed. Sovereignty matters, and a stable world order is not possible if it is not enforced. And here we are. I agree, the right answer is money and equipment, which we are somehow screwing up. And if we are willing to fund the perpetual Ukrainian insurgency, maybe it stays that way after Kiev falls. But it seems like Republicans have forgotten why the world needs police, and why it's better to be the ones in charge.

The current "AI" iterations are not AGI, however they are closer to functioning like a human brain than we have ever gotten before. The irony here is that we didn't accomplish this by figuring out how the brain works, quite the opposite, we created an array of associations that is as mysterious to us as the individual neural pathways of a human brain is. We know that the brain has a combination of biologically-arranged pathways (e.g. for walking, breathing, visual identification of faces, eye position, etc.) and experience-formed pathways (math, music, flying a plane). Right now the AI models crunch tons of mostly-unfiltered data into a model that we do not have the ability to directly adjust because of the sheer volume of parameters, then an overlay is used to do things like prevent swearing, giving directions for bomb making, etc. But this is in it's infancy. Once you can pre-program certain behaviors into the actual model, then leave the rest of the model to continuously adapt the weights based on new data, we will take another big step to AGI. But since we have precisely 0% knowledge on what is or what causes consciousness, it is entirely possible that we reach a point where AGI is achieved simply by running the models with enough horsepower that we stumble into the solution. That is, incidentally, remarkably similar to how evolution works. Are humans the only animals that are conscious? What about dolphins, octopi, crows, or chimps? If not, does that mean there is no intelligence other than human intelligence? That seems like an arbitrary definition. Where is the line, and how smart does a computer need to be before it is considered intelligent? Smarter than all humans, or just smarter than any human? Do people born with Down Syndrome have consciousness? What if an AI surpasses the intellectual ability of someone with DS? Calling even the current models an "abacus" is like calling the human brain a glutamate sensor. Sure, it's kind of true, but it's the scale of the apparatus that makes it interesting.