FaibleEstimeDeSoi
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User ID: 2072
FaibleEstimeDeSoi
1yr ago
"It's not that war has made patriots out of corrupt oligarchs. There is a war because a surprising number of corrupt oligarchs were already nationalists even before 2014."
This irrelevant to my post about economical prospects, nationalist corrupt oligarchs are still corrupt oligarchs that prevent any meaningful raising of quality of life. "
"Between a confluence of crisis letting the government act, unique access and leverage by westerners pressing reforms, and domestic political support for the both, Ukraine has been undergoing major legal and structural shakeups no previous president of the last decades has matched."
This is a good point and you can say that maybe western oversight in relation to war will fix things generally. I personally don't believe because western influence while helping to win wars generally doesn`t fix corruption, but this can be special case because of the closeness of Ukraine to Europe, so there only way to test this is wait a couple of years.
"To the front, to salaries, to infrastructure and item purchases, and many other things needed in a war."
I know why would you think that I am talking about recent military help by US but I not. This text could have been written and posted before the war with almost no changes. I'm talking aid and loans that were given before and didn't help Ukraine reach at least Belarus level. Military aid mostly goes to the front because it is question of survival to the corrupt elites(and many civilians but they aren`t people who decide) and most of them are nationalists.
"Appealing to the 90s, when Ukraine's elite and public were very indifferent about European association (and the European Union did not exist), and not 2014"
Do you disagree with the factual statement talks of the euro integration started in the 90s? In my opinion this is objectively true and this is why I written it like I did. I don't say that ascendancy to EU is impossible in the next 20 years. I just showing of countries like Montenegro that widespread support isn`t enough to join quickly. If war related campaigns will succesfully pressure European countries into accepting Ukraine with all of its barrage of problems than it will be great but I don't think this is likely.
"The question is not 'why', but rather 'why are not you aware of the following?'"
You can list similar benefits for any country bordering the EU problem along this pros there are cons, some them not so obvious.
"To start, being poor is not the issue for Ukraine"
But why is it poorer than Belarus - this is the issue. And actually it very much the problem for people who live there and that's why they are trying to escape it, sometimes going through the occupied territories because borders of their own country are closed for half of population.
"The Europeans engage in their own corruption a plenty"
For some reason corruption perceptiveness and other indexes don`t show it. Corruption in Ukraine, Russia, Belarus is staggering, you can't talk about it lightly. You at least should agree that your view of EU is quite unusual.
FaibleEstimeDeSoi
22d ago
But majority of people are too stupid to make a balanced and informed choice to stop wearing seatbelts. Developed countries generally adopted humanism as the guiding philosophy and if you need to slightly restrict personal freedom to do fentanyl or drive without seatbelt to reduce deaths it is worth it.
FaibleEstimeDeSoi
1yr ago
From 2015 to 2022 Donbass situation for Ukraine was more like Afghanistan war for America than anything. But you could say this yes. Still before 2014 Ukraine already was poorer than its neighbors.
FaibleEstimeDeSoi
8mo ago
Personally I believe that solution to low birth rates will be state funded industrial production of human capital via artificial wombs(if AI won't make it irrelevant by this time). Women often don't want to struggle through pregnancy, parents don't want to spend time on necessary work related to children and automation in the sphere of humanoid robotics is very far from achieving affordable replacements for servants.
Facilities created for raising these state children could be used by individual parents, so would be similar to your idea of 24/7 daycare. This can be a great time to reform our "modern" education system that was largely created in 19th century Prussia to something more applicable to current technological environment and honest of it's role as basically daycare for teenagers.
FaibleEstimeDeSoi
1yr ago
But there many more possible reasons. For example in difference with Belarus or Russia political structure where there aren't any one ruling oligarch clan and instead several competing. Better theories can be found in economists' works.
FaibleEstimeDeSoi
1yr ago
Okay but how Poland explains Ukraine being poorer than Belarus? Is Belarus engaged in successful free market reforms? Is it free of corruption or Russian influence? Of course polish western turn is the best strategy available, but Ukraine fares quite worse than its neighbors that didn't took it. And migrants generally return into their country of origin only if they see real raise of standards of living there. Ukrainian ones didn`t do this before the 2022, why would they return now. And this general take "Yes, Ukraine maybe poorer but it changing" is popular since 2008 and Ukraine stays mostly the same in economic terms.
FaibleEstimeDeSoi
9d ago
[META] Did anybody else got notifications about comments from random people who aren't replying to or mentioning you?
Yeah, it looks more like it in the sense of shape, but it's actually quite important that Russia doesn't control large parts of the annexed regions. I think it is not likely that they will succefuly take control of them before the war end.
FaibleEstimeDeSoi
20d ago
Yeah, but it is limited to Ukraine and previous incident was in WW2 negotiations. In this sense modern Russia is similar to Turkey without NATO membership but with nukes.
FaibleEstimeDeSoi
20d ago
And then there's Moldova, which just is North Romania, but was divided from the motherland because of dumb Soviet border disputes.
I think it's more because of it's conquest by Russian Empire in the 19th century.
FaibleEstimeDeSoi
1mo ago
Are Japanese-Americans much fatter than their mainland brothers? From what I see not by much(23 VS 24, but it's including all Asians).
FaibleEstimeDeSoi
4mo ago
Why would high performance students need help from their parents? Especially if we talking about core math curriculum.
FaibleEstimeDeSoi
6mo ago
I think you are conflating current popular views and ideology at the foundation of the US. It is written, of course, that all men are created equal, but this obviously meant something different then, because in America from 18 century up to 20th century there was explicit legal inequality between sexes, races and even economic classes. That was not because of some mistake or for the lack of alternative, but because of conscious policies that aimed to achieve outcomes that were deemed more important than the ideal of liberty.
FaibleEstimeDeSoi
1yr ago
This is entirely relevant, because nationalist corrupt oligarchs have priorities greater than solely self-enrichment. Hence the qualifier.
It can be relevant to political discussion, it is not to discussion about Ukranian economy.
You didn't talk about any specific sort or amount of aid.
The point in the post that you replying served only to answer sentiment that bright future for Ukraine is guarantied because of American and European aid. I don't need to delve in the specifics, I just need to cite the existance of aid before and that this didn't help economical development of Ukraine. Maybe its givers didn't have this as a goal, but this is one of the many explanations of ukrainian poverty that I decided to not list to limit size of the post.
Belarus is a country of about 10 million people, whose economy is a not particularly impressive but still established manufacturing economy in value-adding industry. Ukraine is a country of about 40 million, but far more of a farming and resource-extraction based economy
You can propose this as an explanation but is wrong and obviously wrong to any person that lived or lives in those countries, if you don`t could have at least looked at the Wikipedia's page for both nations' economies and than find that in both nations majority of gpd claims service sector(Belarus 51% Ukraine 60%) and agricultural sector being minor differs slightly between countries(Belarus 8% Ukraine 12%). If we decide to compare Ukraine and Belarus we can say that Ukraine has modern service based economy while Belarus still has large industry sector. But this can't be explanation to anything as can't be alternative reality Ukraine where it farming and resource-extraction based economy, they aren't categorically poor.
If you intend to make an effort post on the pros and cons of Ukraine
No, I'm not trying to show pros and cons, only the reasons why I'm not as optimistic about Ukraine's future as an average twitter user(Ukrainian, Russian or American). Pros are already assumed in the context of discussion and I replying to them by showing economic data and trends that show that these benefits didn't help Ukraine before.
While I am always pleased to see a motte and bailey alive in the wild, this is not the issue you were basing your argument on before, and is not actually an obstacle to joining the European Union
You misunderstood me, not poverty, not gpd per capita, not giant shadow economy are issues that are in my opinion are an obstacle to join EU but the cause of these issues, cause that I don't name because nor I nor experts in the field are sure about it.
Of course it is. It's also coming from someone unusually well read, and unusually interested in understanding how states interact
Thank you for expressing your point and I will not argue with it because while I disagree with it, I'm not well read on this to try to defend my position on EU.
FaibleEstimeDeSoi
1yr ago
What oil? There is less oil reserves in Ukraine than in Belarus. And this 34% figure is for export of refined petroleum products, that while can only be possible because of the export from Russia is still option that was not locked for Ukraine.
"Id still call fighting this war as Ukraines only choice" Of course it is but main point of my post was disagreement with this "Long term they should look more like Poland" sentiment.
But if you look at economic data there no great change after 2014. Ukraine is still poorer than even Belarus, country not known for being free from corruption or russian influence.
Ukraine's tfr is at western Europe levels. People have sex enough already, they just don't want the kids. And there was already mentioned current situation with many women in Europe. Men could join them there and maybe even have higher than average birth rates but many of them wouldn't want to return to war torn poorer than Belarus homeland.
No, this wasn't the point and this senseless war makes things in both Russia and Ukraine worse. "But these issues were similar in every other CIS and over time were fixed" presicily the opposite, in all those countries corruption reigns supreme and wasn't even remotely fixed, you can check this in any independent corruption index. It doesn't mean that it categorically impossible to solve this kind of issues but it seemingly takes way more time than 8 years. And this is the time that Ukraine doesn't have based on its demographics.
FaibleEstimeDeSoi
1yr ago
Local elites can become ruling elites in their own state, thus gaining more power and possibilities to earn money.
FaibleEstimeDeSoi
20d ago
Of course, that is the neorealist view, which I agree with. I just don't like singling out Russia as uniquely expansionist or authoritarian(but that's a different story).
FaibleEstimeDeSoi
20d ago
(from what we know about anyway) wasn't bad enough to justify a couple of hundreds more dead and maimed.
There were security guarantees from European countries included. And if you think that they would not be followed through in reality, why do you think that the army would be actually dismantled and not hidden in bureaucratic loopholes. Also, I hate when people use word to mean "thing that I don't like" instead of the definition of the word. No, any peace treaty that favors some side isn't unconditional surrender and terms weren't even close to one.
FaibleEstimeDeSoi
1mo ago
US didn't want to win in Afghanistan. Or at least it was very limited by domestic opinion and internal politics. And there is a difference between war overseas and revolts. Vast majority of rebellions fail, 99% of populated landmass is controlled by tax collecting entities.
FaibleEstimeDeSoi
5mo ago
Commonly, in discussions of abortion, a divide appears concerning what sex is about, how important it is, whether it's sacred or whatever, etc. I feel like a common perspective that is expressed by pro-choice folks is that it is wayyy less important/sacred than they think their opponents think it is. This opinion piece talks of competitive swimming, but I recall people saying that sex is like a tennis game. It's just a fun recreational activity that a couple of people show up to do together; they both consent to playing tennis; they just have some amount of fun; then nothing particularly interesting happens. In the era of ubiquitous birth control, they think that sex is totally just like this.
I don't know how many people agree with me on this but I do believe that Sexual Revolution didn't go far enough, sex is just a physical activity similar to tennis and the only reason it is not treated the same way is because prudes still have their way. More over puritan factions won in both the right and the left in spite of proclaimed commitment to the principle of sexual freedom in the latter one. Technology did solve issues that come with unrestricted love-making, we just need to wait for the culture to catch up(just in time for some other tech to disrupt it again). Some niche cultures are already there and make polyamory work quite well.
FaibleEstimeDeSoi
5mo ago
I was good at maths till 10th grade, but in the 11th, I began to struggle both because my ADHD made my eyes glaze over during calculus and trig, and in the case of the latter, I missed several introductory classes.
Basically had the same experience, thankfully did go to the best school available(in Russia there is an alternative way to get into, bypassing the SAT analogue), but picked up personal tutor gig as a side hustle and had to learn all of it anyway.
Offtopic question but how saturated is the personal tutor market in India? Here it is not all, almost any 95th percentile and higher can earn decent money from it, while working remotely, people most often just don't consider this an option.
FaibleEstimeDeSoi
7mo ago
don't feel like bothering with game piracy anymore either. My need to consoom just isn't that great.
Piracy nowadays in most cases easier and takes less time than buying something officially. For single player games there only disadvantages are non-availability of some modern games that aren't cracked yet and the absence of automatic updates(in some cases it can be a positive). Both of these do not relate to Fallout 4.
Russia intended to launch a war of national destruction. It didn't expect to have to fight to hard to do it, but the target lists for anyone thought to be pro-Western/anti-Russian were always part of the plan.
Ok, then where is there any evidence of some genocide that happened in Kherson that was controlled by Russian forces for almost a year and was generally pro-ukranian city with absolute majority of Ukranians? If you expect Russia to want kill any pro-Western person in Ukraine and see average as pro-western(so strike on soviet bloc is strike against the enemy) we should see tens of thousands of deaths in Kherson as it happened in history where one side of the war had national eradication as the goal.
Instead we see hundreds of cases and not of killings but detainment and torture - general brutality of the Russian state that it dishes out to it's citizens. In somewhat larger proportion because of vastly larger amount of potential violent dissidents but in the same category nonetheless. This piece for example tries to frame 320 victims in 9 months of occupation of a large as an evidence of genocide but it's quite poor if you can count. “The pattern that we are observing is consistent with a cynical and calculated plan to humiliate and terrorise millions of Ukrainian citizens in order to subjugate them to the diktat of the Kremlin.” says Wayne Jordash, managing partner and co-founder of Global Rights Compliance. On average Russia humiliated/terrorized 1.185 Kherson denizen a day, deciding to adopt this as baseline(as does the article) and correcting for the population, if on 24 February somehow Russians occupied all of Ukraine we would see 160.8 Ukrainians brutalized every day on average. If we accept that millions means at least two millions, to reach this number with rate Russia would need approximately 34 years. Not even mentioning the difference between war and peace time or that you expect to see the rate lowering with time because number of dangerous dissidents is quite limited, this is not looking like a genocide to me, more old and boring authoritarian state thing.
In this I agree with Macron - words do have meaning.
Dissident right loooves hbd but not when believing in it would stop you from feeling good about yourself. No, chain of cause and effect doesn't stop at the neck, 45% of your fellow citizens becoming obese in a century can't be explained by their bad moral character. You are mostly fit because of your genetics, like any other fit person.
And discussion about healthcare costs is, of course, meaningless. People already written below about this, if you want to save taxpayer's money tax healthy people, not smokers or obese ones.
P.S. Please, before writing any counter argument, especially in the form of personal anecdote ask yourself: "Why?". "But my friend was fat all his life and then lost weight on this diet" - Why your friend lost weight when others in his situation didn't? What was different about him?
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