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Nobody seems to talk about the RU-UA war here anymore. I guess it's because we're saturated with it everywhere else.
Yet given that Ukraine has launched what is unquestionably the largest offensive since the Kharkov surge in late September when it took back wide swathes of territory, I believe a status update is warranted.
First, it is immediately clear that the Russians are much more prepared this time. The area that Ukraine took back in autumn was barely defended by a rag-tag group of volunteer militias. That was a big lapse by the Russian general command, which also led to the big mobilisation drive. This time is different.
Even pro-UA accounts like Julian Röpcke are conceding that Ukraine is losing lots of armored vehicles with very marginal gains. Western officials like the CIA chief or the US foreign secretary have all pointed out that the aftermath of the offensive will shape upcoming negotiations. Given that Ukraine has little to show for their offensive thus far, this inevitably casts a dark shadow on any prospects for large territorial compromises. Why would the Russians give the Ukrainians something at the negotiating table which they cannot gain on the battlefield?
To my mind, the best that Ukraine can hope for now is a stalemate. This war has shown that in the era of ubiquitous ISR capabilities, trying to surprise your enemy is much harder if he's on his toes (which the Russians weren't in the autumn, but they are now). Consequently, offensives are simply far costlier and harder. The Russians had the same problems, which is why capturing Bakhmut took such an absurdly long time.
For those of us who would want to see a negotiated settlement, the reality is that neither side is running out of money or arms. Russia is spending a moderate amount of money and the West can keep supplying Ukraine enough to keep going for years if the decision is made that defensive action is the way to go. The only way this war ends is if the West tells Ukraine to give in and accept large territorial losses in return for a settlement and possibly security guarantees. Such an outcome would be nearly impossible to sell to Ukraine's domestic public and would almost certainly end the career of whoever was leading the country, including Zelensky. Whatever comes out of this war, I'm not optimistic about Ukraine's long-term prospects.
I don't know what else there is to talk about. The outcome of the war, whatever that may be, has been decided by now by people with significantly larger dicks than ours and novelty of combat between two near-peer nations has worn off. I assume that, when the news is reporting the war, the Ukranians are making progress, and when the news goes dead silent on the war then the Russians are making progress.
I care primarily about the personal impact: that I get to suffer inflation and energy scares due to my government's (or indeed, every western government's) complete and total aversion to energy security. As for morals, the ultimate moral of life, learnt most bitterly in the years before, is that the strong do whatever the fuck they want to the weak, and the weak suffer and invent slave moralities in order to pretend that they are not suffering.
I think your assessment is more or less accurate, except for the bit about slave morality. The point of slave morality is that it does, in fact, subvert the oppressors. It's not just a cope. Hence the centuries of Christian dominance.
That was always strange to me. Who are the real Masters if Slave Morality is strong enough to subdue Master Morality? It reminds me of the JQ paradox, that Jews are simultaneously weak, cowardly, dissolute, and pathetic, and also somehow powerful, full of chutzpah, fanatical, and fearsome. Does Nietzsche ever address why Master Morality is not naturally dominant since it's apparently so awesome and life-affirming?
I think it's part of Orwells alliance of the High and Low against the Middle. The High, the true masters, believe master morality but enforce slave morality on the Middle, to keep them from being a threat.
If you are thinking about the political theory bits in 1984, Orwell doesn't write about an alliance of High and Low against the Middle. He writes about a PvP battle for power between High and Middle and a PvE battle for survival of Low vs grinding poverty.
I'm sure Moldbug was inspired by Orwell when he wrote about the High-Low alliance against the Middle, but Orwell was both using the words differently (in Moldbug's version, "Low" refers to the underclass, and "Middle" to the general mass of productive workers, whereas Orwell uses "Middle" to refer to an alternative elite and "Low" to refer to the proletariat as a whole) and making a different point (Orwell was pointing out that politics is by default a battle between factions within the elite using the masses as pawns, and that most movements claiming to be uprisings of the Low are actually kayfabe).
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Yet that does not explain why Christianity overtook the Roman Empire, given that its first adherents were low-status losers literally thrown to the lions for the sport of the roaring crowds.
They were able, in time, to convert virtually the entire Roman elite through sheer force of conviction. Tom Holland has written a great book on the rise of Christianity, it certainly helped shed some of my cynicism. Come to think of it, idealism is in fact a very powerful force. Sometimes for very destructive ends (e.g. many of the most brutal communists truly believed in their utopia).
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