they were client states where a pro-Russian government was removed by a Western-backed revolution Because they were hosting strategically important Russian military bases and threatening to seize/expel them?
this is applicable, and happened in Baltics, just a bit earlier
None of these justifications are applicable.
And none of this were real reason for invasion of Ukraine (in my opinion, I may be wrong - or you may simply disagree about interpretation of situation).
The Russian coethnics story was always a pretext for public consumption that didn't actually figure much into the decision whether to go to war
Though here I agree.
Do you not see that "Putin will invade the Baltics" is the same sort of "of course the outgroup will do the maximally evil thing, they are motivated by evil after all" reasoning?
This is not maximally evil thing Putin could do, I can imagine far more evil ones.
And "Russia will invade the Ukraine, then Baltics, then maybe Poland" is prediction dating back to Georgia-Russia war. And still, I would not treat it as likeliest or obvious - but as one of worse scenarios. But as being possible if things will go horribly wrong. I would note that this opinion is relatively well shared in Poland, even postcommunist and anti-Ukraine parties were supporting military builtup and fixing our military. Left one had relatively antimilitary opinion, in they program they suggested spending 3% of GDP on military without increase to 4% as some suggested.
Expecting Russian empire to try invading neighbours when possible is so far fairly well working bet, over last centuries - and there is no indicator that they plan to change it any time soon. Note my prediction is "there is a real risk of Russia invading NATO country", this is not specific to Putin. I have no great illusion that Putin disappearing would make things much better.
do_something
1yr ago
I agree that if NATO takes proper steps then invasion will not be a clear success for Russia.
It does not mean at all that Russia will not invade.
do_something
1yr ago
But why would Putin attack the Baltics?
For the same reasons as Russia invaded Ukraine? Both actual reasons and claimed reasons would be recycled.
do_something
1yr ago
Trained physicists with extensive experience precisely with thermodynamics, made the argument.
Not sure why you assume that scientists cannot ever be hilariously wrong, make stupid mistakes, engaging in harmful conspiracies, troll or be insane cranks. Also in their own field.
It is especially confusing given that you are claiming that massive number of scientists do at least one of this things or similar.
Mix of conspiracy theory about scientists engaging in conspiracy AND appealing to authority of scientists is weird. Can you decide on doing one of these?
"two scientists published paper about X" is not as strong argument as you think it is. Have you heard about replication crisis?
Either way I think the most important development in all of this is that post-internet, nationalism cannot really be a thing.
why you think so?
It's hard to convince the youth to die for your government after years of telling them that the people who just arrived have as much of a claim to the country as they do.
Why you think it is universal situation? Or applicable to Ukraine at all? Are you aware that Ukraine is really poor and has basically no incoming economical migrants?
Who on this website would go die in a trench for their government and under what circumstances?
For my government? No realistic scenario. Willing to die in a trench? If alternative would be that I will likely die shot by invaders or my friends/family will be harmed. Or out of pure annoyance at Russia invading again.
Though I would strongly prefer to kill Russian soldiers in their trench via remotely operated drone. Rather than dying in trench myself.
And even more I would prefer this situation to be inapplicable at all.
(yes, I am aware that Russia invading Poland within next 50 years is say 1% - still uncomfortably high, and currently main military risk for my country)
do_something
1yr ago
young Americans can't afford buying houses
NIMBYism is hardly caused by giving away some military equipment
inflation is pretty high
the same
bridges are collapsing and planes barely going up in the sky,
how the fuck it is caused by aid give to Ukraine? (the same for other things you mention)
According to the theory that every single bad thing that happens in the US is due to Russian agents, this war is not exactly cheap.
this theory is blatantly idiotic
do_something
1yr ago
In this case overwhelming influence is clearly cultural, economical, political and institutional.
Even if you could argue about genetics causing major influence on outcomes in some cases, in this case it is just bizarre for me to crediting any serious influence. Russia/Belarus/Ukraine being this way as it is is not caused by genetics.
(or for that matter difference of situation in say Germany between 1900, 1940, 1950 and 1970 was not caused by genetics, the same for Poland)
(though anyway it is not changing what Ukrainians believe(d) )
do_something
1yr ago
And NATO has real (though small) chance to collapse, especially if Trump would be president.
CSTO already did.
do_something
1yr ago
given that the Baltics are members, an abrogation by the US of their mutual defense obligation to fellow members pretty catastrophically undermines their credibility with allies and vassals the world over
With Trump as president I would not assume that it is impossible (and yes, Trump may also do sensible thing or order nuking Kaliningrad). And Trump has quite decent chances to be a president.
do_something
1yr ago
Yeah, it's weird. To me there doesn't seem to be that much difference between Ukraine and Russia. They're both poor, corrupt, Slavic-speaking countries that share a lot of culture. Sure, a European-leaning Ukraine is probably better than a Russia-leaning one, but it's not a huge difference.
From my understanding it is popular to compare not Ukraine-as-it-is-now and Russia-as-it-is-now but comparing say Ukraine and Poland.
Or comparing Belarus with Estonia.
It is less "it is much better than in Russia" but about preferring to get to European standards, not Russian standards.
do_something
1yr ago
People saying "if we don't stop him now, he'll take Poland" are fabulists. This is not a realistic scenario.
Why you think that it is not plausible at all? If Russia invades Baltics and NATO effectively does nothing - why you think that Russia invading Poland is not a viable scenario?
I think that it is not very likely (fortunately) but it seems likely enough for me to justify supporting Ukraine.
do_something
1yr ago
You were responding to "the US for not letting Ukraine negotiate a peace"
Yeah, that's clearly the most obvious read there. That I'm completely retarded and can't tell the US from the UK.
Yes, that was the most obvious read of your comment.
do_something
1yr ago
Obviously, since we learned about actual Venus temperature any models are expected to predict correct results there.
Doing anything else would be deeply silly.
Specifics how models are build/used/validated are depending on a model. But not rejecting reality and what we learned is hardly indictment of science.
do_something
1yr ago
"Why does this simple equation predict the Venus surface temperature so accurately?" https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/508573/why-does-this-simple-equation-predict-the-venus-surface-temperature-so-accuratel
See answers posted to that question?
Also, how it even relates to how supposedly "adiabatic lapse rate" can explain Venus' temperature being much higher than would be predicted from blackbody equilibrium?
adiabatic lapse rate here is effect of GHE on Venus. If GHE does not exist, why Venus is much hotter than blackbody equilibrium would predict?
do_something
1yr ago
As to the thermodynamics, the arguments are plentiful. I'll just point out two physicists believed that it does violate the 2nd Law and published a peer-reviewed paper to that effect (Gerlich & Tscheuschner)
That is not giving any info whatsoever what the claim is - and if we are going via ad authority arguments then surely you are aware that you are going to lose here? And appeal to peer-reviewed papers is not going to help you much?
Why supposedly GHE would violate second law of thermodynamics?
do_something
1yr ago
They work equally well with Argon.
Is it based on experiment or a guess?
do_something
1yr ago
Thanks!
https://twitter.com/_Escapekey_/status/1748317807006118335 is also cute, as growth is also visible before their claimed start of conspiracy (even on their own graph, no idea is any claim there even accurate)
do_something
1yr ago
HHE
What is that? Probably you are not meaning Health Hazard Evaluation.
do_something
1yr ago
as that same reasoning was used to predict it had the same temperature as Earth.
Yeah, and Lord Kelvin estimated age of Sun to be about 32 million years (IIRC). Noone claims that scientists are always right.
For an adiabatic lapse rate on Venus description see: https://youtube.com/watch?v=_4KG0-2ckac ,
Can you provide anything supporting this claim in text version? Crankery existing only in video format tends to be extraordinarily low quality and lame.
do_something
1yr ago
When corrected, there is heating but much smaller amount.
So, assuming that all claims made in this comment are true: there is still warming anyway.
do_something
1yr ago
I tried, but from part when author apparently fails at understanding second law of thermodynamics (or thinks that Earth during summer is hotter than Sun) I started skimming.
Can you point me to relevant part if I asked about part I missed?
do_something
1yr ago
Also see: https://www.themotte.org/post/960/the-vacuity-of-climate-science/203479?context=8#context . It's just not a good demonstration of GHE.
text at this link fails to explain why supposedly Venus is not
Venus can be explained by a thicker atmosphere and thus a larger adiabatic lapse rate effect
How it would increase temperature without GHE?
do_something
1yr ago
I am curious, have they bothered to explain why temperature is growing? Or at least leave it as an open question?
Or are they denying that Earth gets warmer?
In normal sensate reality, heat only flows from hot to cold, but the greenhouse effect appears to involve an inverted heat flow within this system.
Nope. It is about how efficient energy transfer from Sun (hot) to Earth (cold) is and how it happens. Second law of thermodynamics is not violated.
This is an article written by someone that used to strongly believe in anthropogenic global warming
This is not a strong credentials at all.
Even taking your assumptions as true: Russian Empire is worse than Atlanticist Empire anyway.
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