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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   25687 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 10, 2025

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Not sure why Ukraine gets the ‘ both sides … grind their young men … meat paste ‘ when they are doing it so as not to be taken over via war?

What else are they supposed to do ?

By now? Surrender.

They evidently can't win this. There's no hope of a reprieve if they delay either. Hence no glory in a pointless slaughter.

The terms Putin offered to Trump were the best they are ever going to get and it got blocked because neither Euros nor Ukie radicals want any concession.

I love war far more than is generally considered reasonable. But fighting any war that isn't existential to the last man is insane, and the Russians aren't going to exterminate those they are kidnapping as their countrymen. Unless the Ukies have information we don't, like promises of NATO involvement if they collapse, this is madness.

Usually when I see a war being called existential, "your country becomes a political nonentity" is included into the definition. Certainly there have been many times the current war was described as existential for Russia.

It might be madness for citizens to fight on for the sake of the state, but the state is what's making decisions at the moment.

My contention is precisely that a State acting in service of itself rather than the security and welfare of its people is mad.

How so? Would you die to keep your finger safe?

Ukraine is a nation state, not an empire. The welfare of the Ukrainian people is the sole political formula of the Ukrainian state.

To betray it is to succumb to tyranny and become a degenerate organization of pure power that has lost any ability to justify itself. Why should Ukraine even exist if not for Ukrainians?

Such things do not last. Because though I am not made of fingers, States are made of men. And men need to believe in things.

How did the finger get put in a position of danger? It is not so much that governments should sacrifice themselves to keep each individual citizen safe, but that it should at least stop putting them in danger to advance government interests.

Well unfortunately, states are not human and at times their interests are against the collective interests of citizens. That doesn't make states mad, it makes them evil.

Por que no los dos? Governments have repeatedly acted in ways that are both contrary to their citizens and have also done so in insane ways that plainly would not accomplish the very goals they set. Not only would I say that madness and evil are not mutually exclusive, but often the same things that safeguard against one are correlated with safeguarding against the other.

They evidently can't win this.

citation needed

neither Euros nor Ukie radicals want any concession.

oh, I see, the concession required is just a small thing called loss of sovereignty.

"Ukraine loses" is the null hypothesis because if trends continue that will inevitably happen out of simple manpower losses.

If you have an alternate scenario to propose I'm all ears.

And no, concessions are not "small things". Losing wars has consequences.

They should have assassinated Zelensky before the war started. Not being turned into a US puppet. If modern day Russia flipped the leadership of Cuba and Mexico and installed ICBMs there the US would flip its shit and declare a full ground scale invasion.

I can't stand the Main Character Syndrome people have about the USA and its foreign influence. Moldbug wrote the same bullshit near the war's beginning, that the Ukrainian government is a puppet and that poor Russia was forced into a war.

Other countries and their interests actually exist, they're not extras in your show, and every single country in the region did everything they could from the very first day of regaining independence in 1989-1991 to distance and defend itself from Russia, and we can always see what happens when you don't do it: Belarus. They ally with the USA not because of nefarious CIA mind control tentacles, but because it's the way to be shielded from the Russian influence, western Europe led by Germany certainly can't be trusted with it.

No it wouldn't, because this has, uh, happened, and Cuba didn't get invaded.

Because they worked out a solution, the USA was however credibly willing to throw down in a full nuclear war to stop this

They worked out a solution where Cuba got to keep their communist Soviet-aligned regime but didn't get ICBMs? Great, let's do that for Ukraine now.

there is no credible American threat of nuclear war over Ukrainian sovereignty or territory

and there won't be because very few Americans have any interest in risking nuclear war over Ukrainian sovereignty or territory

and so Russia would just call the bluff, like they've already done multiple times with other threats from the US or NATO, and American diplomatic credibility will continue to be dragged through the mud

What else are they supposed to do ?

Cut a deal in 2022 that gives Russia veto over their international military cooperation. The one that according to the rumor mill was offered by Russia, Ukraine was close to accepting, the body count was still low enough for the thing to be swept under the rug and the UK pressured them to refuse.

Where can I read more on this?

Worth asking what the goal of a defensive war is.

One of the common points of contention between Rationalists and Evangelicals back in the LiveJournal and LessWrong days was the claim that an Atheist could not be a moral person. I have found that as I have gotten older I have become more sympathetic towards that argument not in the sense that I think a belief in God makes someone a good person but in the sense that I have come to recognize that being a moral person is incompatible with being a reasonable person. At it it's most basic level what is a moral conviction if not a pre-commitment to be unreasonable.

A large chunk of morals can be rationally justified along the lines of 'Whilst I may make an immediate advantage from doing X, repeated iterations of this same game-state where everybody does X creates a prisoner's dilemma' which doesn't then require an 'irrational' approach to extend towards things like the Golden Rule.

On the other hand, this also means that the post-religious West as-is struggles to deal with people who are just happy to hammer the defect button as there's no real spiritual authority to push along hard consequences and you're relying somewhat on everybody deciding to contribute to the greater project of society.

If you believe in God, then being morally scrupulous is much more reasonable, I think.

At it it's most basic level what is a moral conviction if not a pre-commitment to be unreasonable.

A positive term in your value function. Rationalism is about achieving your terminal goals, not about choosing them. There is nothing "irrational" about acting optimally to, say, purge all idolatry.

Finlandization. It's a dirty word.

But it's the pragmatic equilibrium when you got a large land border with a belligerent neighbor.

Was it humiliating for the Finns to have to give up Karelia and the north? Yes.

But to hold on to those territories would have cost even more.

If the West isn't willing to intervene to return the oblasts and Crimea, then every day spent fighting now is a waste. Russia lacks the ability to threaten the entirety of its sovereignty, but has more than enough to hold on to what it has already gained. It's easy for politicians to spout rhetoric over not surrendering one inch of ground, but young men pay the price for that kind of talk. They're conscripting the 21-year olds now: how much of Ukraine's seed corn will be eaten?

If this war goes on long enough, you might as well start giving conscription papers to the elementary schools and maternity wards. The fighting has gone on for twelve years and there is still no political settlement. The land is important, yes. But the Ukrainian people are even more important. If there is to be a demographic future for the nation (for Russia, too!) peace sooner is better.

Finlandization after 1944 (remember, after 1940 Finland's eventual choice was to refight the Soviets) was possible specifically because the Soviets were willing to sign a separate peace to free up troops for the vastly bigger and more important cause of vanquishing Germany. This time Russians are only fighting Ukraine and have basically no need to accept anything beyond complete submission, for now, unless the costs become too large.

EU policy towards Russia seems to entirely hinge on the assumption though that Russia is planning the invasion of Moldova, the Baltics and Poland. Also, Finland was in the markedly different situation that only one external power was supporting them by 1944 and only in a rather limited sense.

This time Russians are only fighting Ukraine and have basically no need to accept anything beyond complete submission, for now, unless the costs become too large.

It seems to me that the demands made of Finland and the demands made of Ukraine are quite similar, although I suppose it's a bit debatable because Russia's postwar relationship with Finland was hammered out over a period of time.

  • Ceding territory: Ultimately, Moscow got half of Karelia (more than their prewar demands) and other choice parts of Finland, amounting to nearly 12% of their total territory. This is similar to Russian territorial demands of Ukraine (which it looks like amounts to something like 15% - 20%?), although it seems Putin may be climbing down from earlier demands for the totality of four full provinces.

  • "Denazification" - Finland paid war reparations, had to remove German troops from its territory, ban parties that the USSR considered fascist (and legalize the Communist party) and hold war-responsibility trials. The Reuters' story I linked to does not mention any details of "denazification" of Ukraine. It's been a public Russian demand in the past, but perhaps they've backed off of this as well.

  • Neutralization/disarmament: Finland had to accept limitations on its armed forces as per the 1947 Treaty of Paris and neutralization in the Finno-Soviet Treaty of 1948. Similarly, Russia is demanding limits on the Ukrainian army and essentially neutralization by forcing Ukraine to give up its NATO aspirations.

Similarly, Russia is demanding limits on the Ukrainian army and essentially neutralization by forcing Ukraine to give up its NATO aspirations

In Finland's case though there was nothing similar to give up because there wasn't even any external power inviting them to join any anti-Soviet alliance.

that was the peace treaty. the follow-up was a president-for-life ruling with support from USSR, and public submission of "the cathedral" (or anyone who aspired joining it) to Soviet interests.

And I'm sure Russia would like to achieve a similar outcome in this case via "denazification" although achieving it might be more difficult.

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