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Yeah, there has been a massive effort to manufacture consensus for the Ukraine War, framing it in apocalyptic terms and launching ad-hominem attacks against anyone who spoke up.
But I believe the tone has changed. People like David Sacks are openly speaking up against the war and not being canceled. Accusations of being a "Russian bot" are no longer sticking. The narrative is collapsing.
I mean, I kind of get it: if I were in Ukraine, I'd rather be in the Western sphere than the Russian sphere, Putin is an asshole who launched this whole war, and the US is getting to screw with a rival for comparative pennies. But at some point you've got to consider the humanitarian cost: I might prefer being in one sphere or another, but I'd always prefer being in either sphere peacefully than being blown apart by a shell in a war zone.
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.
But nationalism fucks with people's brains. No one wants to be ruled by a foreign race, even if that foreign race is only superficially different.
I'm reminded of how Bosnians, Serbians, and Croats all speak the exact same language but insist that they speak different languages. I've heard of courtroom trials where the defendant insists on getting a translator because, as a Bosnian, he can't understand Serbian. And then the translator just recites the exact same sentence back.
The differences between Ukraine and Russia are much smaller than the differences between Ukraine and Germany. And that's perhaps why nubile Ukrainian women vastly prefer to stay in Germany.
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.
Yeah, that's the fantasy. But it won't be the reality. Ukraine is a Slavic country that is culturally similar to Russia. Whether they are politically part of Russia that won't change.
Estonia, on the other hand, is demographically most similar to Finland. That's why they got rich and Ukraine didn't.
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) )
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I really don’t believe the ‘Ukrainian women are hoeing it up’ narrative. Liberated American and Western European women don’t like casual sex much in practice, as much as they’ll defend their freedom to engage in it, and Ukraine has arguably the most conservative social norms of any Christian majority country outside of Africa.
What I will believe is that Ukrainian refugee women seek local husbands and get taken advantage of at high rates. This is, uh, not their preferred scenario, and I doubt they’re very happy about it. I’m also perfectly prepared to not believe in this scenario, either.
Ukrainian women are doing nothing wrong. If I were one, my immediate response would be to GTFO of Ukraine as quickly as possible. As it became clear that the war will last a long time and even once resolved will leave Ukraine a ruined place, I'd then look to settle down in whatever safe country I could find, ideally a relatively well-off one, which would likely involve finding a partner from that country. Maybe I'd use Tinder, if I were foolish. Regardless, in general it's not something I'd begrudge them, and given the option, I'd expect most would rather have stayed in a peaceful Ukraine and married a Ukrainian man. Unfortunately that option's not on the table, so they make do with the options that they're actually presented with.
The central issue is that men are being prevented from doing the exact same thing.
I don’t think they would have; Ukraine was the top origin country of mail order brides before the war and leaving was a top goal for most of its inhabitants back then. Ukraine is an impoverished corrupt shithole and no one actually wanted to live there even before it was being razed to the ground by the Russian army.
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