How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Centurian52]

4 hours ago, poesel said:

That would be - interesting... I'm not sure if the Ukrainians want to do that since they are just trying to get rid of the Russians. But then, they might have no choice because they need immigration and the Russians are closest - distance wise and culturally.

Actually I could see this working well for Ukraine. They want to get rid of Russian dominance and influence, not necessarily people from Russia (so long as those people are willing to become Ukrainians). Millions of Russians flocking to Ukraine would be symbolically very powerful. It would mean that Ukraine has fully eclipsed Russia. That Russians now look to Ukraine for leadership, rather than Ukrainians looking to Russia for leadership.

[Battlefront.com]

2 hours ago, akd said:

 

Jeeze, another example of a direct assault that could have gone poorly pretty quickly.  Obviously we can't see what's going on outside of this tiny area, but the tank slowly drove right up to the trench with infantry on it, including the side exposed to the trench.

Steve

[Harmon Rabb]

4 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

Who knows when the second pic was taken, and where... There's nothing in the pics that suggest it's the same place. Can't find a single match in the trees, houses, or anything else. Yet people just uncritically believe it.

Could well be Bucha, just a different street that wasn't affected. Or the second pic could be Bucha before the war.

 

Here's a Bucha comparison I think is genuine:

 

Apparently the street in the original photo comparison  has been identified as Vokzal'na Street in Bucha.

Are These Before-and-After Pics of the Same Location in Bucha, Ukraine? (Snopes)

Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong but that building at the end of the street does look alike in both images. I think I can even make out the yellow light post.

The reason the photos caught my attention to begin with was because Illia Ponomarenko retweeted them and he lives in Bucha, I would figure he would know the geography of that town.

 

 

[Battlefront.com]

41 minutes ago, keas66 said:

I'm not sure the Russian General Population is any more stupid/less self-aware than any other mass of Humanity in any other location  on the planet . Generalizations are not very useful  or particularly clever .

We've discussed this many times and generalizing a generalization isn't very useful either

All populations have a mix of things going on which produce an outwardly apparent culture.  There are common elements to it, but there are also differences.  Biology may be largely the same as anywhere else, but biology is only a part of the equation.  Social structures and conditioning are no less important.  This is scientific fact and can be easily observed.

For centuries Russians have been ruled by political systems that have devoted enormous energy into distorting the natural balance in its favor.  The states have deliberately engaged in promoting/enforcing passivity to authority, fatalism, undermining critical thought, nationalism over individualism, distorted historical understanding, state sponsored culture wars, fear of just about everything, etc. have been going on for centuries, but were perfected into what could be called an art form during the Soviet days.  And it works.  There are entire fields of study about this, so it is not me being "clever".

I am in the United States and despite our open society and rule of law there is a pretty good chunk of our population that would fit right in with the most brainwashed segments of Soviet or modern Russian society.  In fact, you can see them on social media and on certain media outlets openly supporting Russia, both now and for many years before.  I just read an article detailing how Orban has become the new idol to replace Putin since Putin has been "cancelled".  It is pretty clear biology is strong component within this group as there's little else to explain how someone, including those with higher educations and economic security, could vehemently seek to use any means necessary (including violence) to voluntarily establish an authoritarian system in order to have more "freedoms" and to save society from evolving naturally.  Certainly logic plays no role in the motivation, except for the cynical operators who see opportunities for themselves.

What I see in the Russian population is the same things we have in the United States, but the proportions grossly distorted in favor of that which favors the authoritarian system.  The segments of Russian society that are aware of how bad it is have either left the country or are "keeping their heads down".  This has led to a further distortion of society in a way that is favorable to the oppressive regime governing it.  If Darwin were alive today he would likely argue that 100s of years of this has changed the genetic pool in favor of behaviors which comport to those that the Russian government finds desirable.

Whatever the case, the evidence that there is "something different" about Russia is on full display now.

Steve

 

[sburke]

8 hours ago, Kinophile said:

Also affects any potential UKR heavy assault back into the city...

nah, Russians will have either pulled out or been pocketed.  Considering how much Bakhmut will need to be rebuilt, the bridges are just one more item.

[Bulletpoint]

13 minutes ago, Harmon Rabb said:

Apparently the street in the original photo comparison  has been identified as Vokzal'na Street in Bucha.

Are These Before-and-After Pics of the Same Location in Bucha, Ukraine? (Snopes)

Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong but that building at the end of the street does look alike in both images. I think I can even make out the yellow light post.

The reason the photos caught my attention to begin with was because Illia Ponomarenko retweeted them and he lives in Bucha, I would figure he would know the geography of that town.

 

 

 

Thanks

[Yet]

1 hour ago, Centurian52 said:

The war will not last forever. I think it's pretty obvious that all talk of Ukraine being a potentially nice place to move to, with a little fixing up, is referring to a time after the war is over.

I think my point of view is somewhere between yours and Steve's (depending on what timelines Steve is thinking on). I think I agree with you that it will take more than just a few years to make Ukraine a nice place to live compared with other places in Europe. They have a lot of catching up to do after all. But almost all of the gap between the standard of living in Ukraine and in western European countries is due to Russia. Now that they have pretty completely broken things off with Moscow I think we can expect them to grow very rapidly, just like every other former Soviet bloc country in Europe that realigned away from Moscow. With all the reconstruction money that I hope will be pouring in, Marshal plan style, I think we can expect them to grow far more rapidly than even Poland. Give it a couple decades and I think Ukraine really might be one of the most attractive destinations in Europe.

cant build a country like Ukr only on tourism, and people do need a place to work. There is something which is clearly needed, and Ukr can provide after war as they have labourforces and knowledge. -defence industry, drones, etc.-. surely they will get a lot of customers as Western Nations see they need more stocks, different Warfare material and a budget increase. 

 

[kimbosbread]

Ukraine has a massive high tech sector and was one of the world’s leading software countries- certainly one of the main players in Europe. Coming out of this war they will likely become a key player in small UAV + UGV development. Demographics is a bigger worry.

[sburke]

buried in an article about the latest missile attacks.

Quote

Meanwhile, Kremlin-installed authorities in occupied Crimea reported the derailment of eight train cars Thursday because of an explosion, prompting renewed suspicions about possible Ukrainian saboteur activity behind Russian lines. Russian state media reported that the train was carrying grain.

 

[Centurian52]

45 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Jeeze, another example of a direct assault that could have gone poorly pretty quickly.  Obviously we can't see what's going on outside of this tiny area, but the tank slowly drove right up to the trench with infantry on it, including the side exposed to the trench.

Steve

Yeah, that's a little too aggressive for my blood. I have been putting more emphasis on speed, mass, and aggression lately (I've been doing a lot of pushing my vehicles right up into the enemy's faces and then dismounting for lightning assaults). But I try to keep the enemy smothered in suppressive fire while I'm doing it. Ideally I want my infantry in the enemy positions seconds after the HE stops. But driving that close to unsuppressed enemy positions and exposing the side of the tank?

Maybe they felt comfortable doing this since the drone didn't see any RPGs in the trench? Of course the infantry on the tank are still in a lot of danger. I thought for a bit they had accounted for this by piling up on the left side of the tank, where the turret would provide cover against the Russian small arms (which would explain why they turned the right side of the tank to the enemy). But then I saw some movement on the right side of the turret, so perhaps they were counting on their adamantium balls to provide cover.

[Battlefront.com]

6 minutes ago, kimbosbread said:

Ukraine has a massive high tech sector and was one of the world’s leading software countries- certainly one of the main players in Europe. Coming out of this war they will likely become a key player in small UAV + UGV development. Demographics is a bigger worry.

Demographics is a concern for everybody, so there will be some degree of equalization between nations and, to some extend, within regions of each nation.  I see it happening in the US with the adjustment to the labor shortages caused, in large part, by the Baby Boomer generation retiring.  There won't be any quick or easy fixes for these sorts of problems, so Ukraine will find itself in good company rather than an outlier/outcast.  I think parts of Ukraine might do better than parts of established Europe because of things like housing and general lower cost of living.  Some rural parts of the US are benefiting from this as well.

For a while Ukraine will be justifiably cold to the idea of Russians moving to Ukraine.  Russians have a very bad reputation for bringing their cultural baggage along with their physical baggage.  Some are now voluntarily integrating because they no longer see Russia as they once did, but some are now being forced into choosing:

https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2023-05-08/russians-take-language-test-to-avoid-expulsion-from-latvia

Steve

[Centurian52]

37 minutes ago, Yet said:

cant build a country like Ukr only on tourism

Sure, but I never said anything about tourism (maybe Steve implied something about tourism?). If figure that Ukraine becoming a nice place to visit will be a result, not a cause, of their economic growth.

[kevinkin]

Missed this last night on the War Zone:

Ukraine Situation Report: Video Of Air Defenses Prompts Arrests
Ukrainian officials are trying to keep imagery of their air defenses off social media after the massive attack on Kyiv.

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/ukraine-situation-report-video-of-air-defenses-prompts-arrests

Things were getting out of hand and you can't blame them. I wonder if warnings will extend to ground warfare video/pictures? (if they have not already). 

[sburke]

putin the master strategist!

The collapse of Russian influence is widening (yahoo.com)

[FancyCat]

That’s one way to keep supplying aid to Ukraine. 
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/pentagon-accounting-error-overvalued-ukraine-aid-by-3-billion-sources-2023-05-18/

 

[kevinkin]

Our town overvalues everything but never fesses up. 

[poesel]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

We've discussed this many times and generalizing a generalization isn't very useful either

All populations have a mix of things going on which produce an outwardly apparent culture.  There are common elements to it, but there are also differences.  Biology may be largely the same as anywhere else, but biology is only a part of the equation. 

Not may - it is the same (for any reasonably large number of people). Biology plays no part in this. We are all the same (except for some superficial differences). That is not an opinion, it is science.

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

 It is pretty clear biology is strong component within this group as there's little else to explain how someone, including those with higher educations and economic security, could vehemently seek to use any means necessary (including violence) to voluntarily establish an authoritarian system in order to have more "freedoms" and to save society from evolving naturally. 

Again, no. Why people drift into these or similar circles have social or cultural reasons. Biology plays no part in this.

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

 If Darwin were alive today he would likely argue that 100s of years of this has changed the genetic pool in favor of behaviors which comport to those that the Russian government finds desirable.

Darwin would tell you that '100s' of years are not enough to make a dent in the DNA of a group of people. Especially since this group is not isolated (genetically).

 

However, I do agree with the rest of your analysis.

 

 

 

[billbindc]

28 minutes ago, poesel said:

Not may - it is the same (for any reasonably large number of people). Biology plays no part in this. We are all the same (except for some superficial differences). That is not an opinion, it is science.

Again, no. Why people drift into these or similar circles have social or cultural reasons. Biology plays no part in this.

Darwin would tell you that '100s' of years are not enough to make a dent in the DNA of a group of people. Especially since this group is not isolated (genetically).

 

However, I do agree with the rest of your analysis.

 

 

 

The pith: culture always wins. 

The rest is window dressing or post hoc.

[DesertFox]

More good stuff:

 

 

 

[Centurian52]

2 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

If Darwin were alive today he would likely argue that 100s of years of this has changed the genetic pool in favor of behaviors which comport to those that the Russian government finds desirable.

Hundreds of years in nothing on evolutionary timescales, and evolutionary biology has come a long way since Darwin's time (Richard Dawkins is a far more recent pioneer who has dramatically transformed the field). The fact is that human populations have not been isolated enough for long enough to have any significant genetic differences between each other.

Which is not to say that there are no genetic differences at all. I think the most significant genetic difference between human populations that I've ever heard of is that European populations are more likely to have lactase persistence (a mutation which makes it possible to digest lactose past infancy), while lactose intolerance is more common in most of the rest of the world. And of course there is the obvious differences in skin tone as an adaptation to differences in the amount of UV light in different parts of the world. And apparently some people in the world are tetrachromatic, giving them four different types of cones in the eyes, though I haven't heard anything to the effect that this condition is more common in one region of the world than any other. While these are interesting examples of recent human evolution, they still happened on the scale of thousands of years, not hundreds.

There are clearly differences in how Russians consume and react to information. But I am confident that those differences are 100% cultural and 0% biological. Things like state-controlled media, poor education standards, and compulsive lying as a survival skill in corrupt systems are likely contributing factors.

[Battlefront.com]

59 minutes ago, poesel said:

Not may - it is the same (for any reasonably large number of people). Biology plays no part in this. We are all the same (except for some superficial differences). That is not an opinion, it is science.'

It is also science that biological (DNA) based variations exist from person to person.  "Traits" is another term for it.  The only aspect of this relevant to my point is psychological impacts of biology, so I'll focus on that and only that.

People are born with a predilection to be a certain way, which traditionally is mostly influenced by the genetics of the two parents.  See next point for the "but".  The most well known exhibition of this is inherent intelligence.  Some people are, biologically speaking, smarter than others, which means some are biologically speaking dumber than others.  Some are more paranoid than others.  Etc.

All else being equal, biologically speaking Russians as a group would be no different than any other large group of people.  However, there are Human imposed conditions which may make this less true than it should be.  For example, there is mountains of scientific evidence to show that alcoholism can have a huge impact on the development of an unborn fetus.  It is well documented that Russians have extreme and generational high rates of alcoholism, in part encouraged by the Soviet Union's policies for social control.

So, if we accept the science that alcoholism biologically impacts the fetus, let's take a peak at what those scientists say it can do:

"Each individual with FASD experiences a unique combination of day-to-day challenges that may include medical, behavioral, educational, and social problems. People with FASD may have difficulty in the following areas:⁷

• Learning and remembering

• Understanding and following directions

• Shifting attention

• Controlling emotions and impulsivity

• Communicating and socializing

• Performing daily life skills, including feeding, bathing, counting money, telling time, and minding personal safety"

https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/brochures-and-fact-sheets/fetal-alcohol-exposure

Do you see anything on this list that looks familiar to what I previously discussed?

In addition we have the growing science of the impact of various chemicals on biological development.  The science is very clear that the more polluted an environment is, the more impact there is on the Humans exposed to it.  Attention Deficit Disorder, for example, seems to have a strong link to environmental causes:

"Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a prevalent psychiatric disorder characterized by difficulties with attention, impulsivity, and/or overactivity, and associated with impaired social, academic, adaptive, and occupational functioning [1]. Although evidence indicates that ADHD is a highly familial disorder, environmental and other modifiable risk factors also have been implicated [2]. These include prenatal substance exposures, heavy metal and chemical exposures, nutritional factors, and lifestyle/psychosocial factors. "

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3277258/

Thanks in large part to Soviet disregard for the health of its people, and Russia only making minor improvements, Russia is amongst the most polluted countries in the world.  Worse for Russia, the bulk of the population is concentrated in cities which were created and planned around toxic industries.  Which means the average Russian has more exposure to the worst sorts of things than people in countries with better industrial practices.

I could go on, but I think this is enough.

 

59 minutes ago, poesel said:

Again, no. Why people drift into these or similar circles have social or cultural reasons. Biology plays no part in this.

You have heard of the English term of "birds of a feather flock together"?  People naturally seek out those who are similar.  Biological differences, such as intelligence and mental illnesses, influence those natural tendencies.  Look on the Internet and you'll find loads of gathering spots where it is apparent that the participants all suffer from some sort of mental illness.  You can also find spots where super intelligent people group together.  Engineers and artists each have biological factors in their career choices, so there is that as well.

59 minutes ago, poesel said:

Darwin would tell you that '100s' of years are not enough to make a dent in the DNA of a group of people. Especially since this group is not isolated (genetically).

Sure, but I'm not talking about DNA.  I'm talking about cultural conditioning with some degree of biological self selection.  100s of years is more than what is necessary for that.  A couple of generations was all it took.  Perhaps not by pure chance, it was Russian scientists who discovered and documented this before it became widely studied.  Here is a pretty nice presentation of this from Harvard University:

https://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2019/foxy-behavior-russian-fox-farm-uncovered-basis-canine-domestication/

 

To conclude... Russia has a long standing tradition of extreme social engineering.  It has deliberately discouraged individual thought and encouraged obedience to the State.  While they can not deliberately change the basic biology of a person living within Russia, they can over time have an impact on the gene pool within Russia's borders.  Those that are the most motivated leave, those who are the most compliant remain and the underlying biological component of such behaviors is therefore influenced by "unnatural selection" as it were.

On top of this there are Human caused environmental factors which can influence the biologically component of psychological and intellectual development on the populace.  Russia, unfortunately, has several "risk factors" which are documented to be much higher in its population than those in the West.  These factors are amplified by learned behaviors and norms of a culture formed from the artificial influences of the State.

I'm not saying Russians can never be better citizens of the world than they are if they remain in Russia, I'm just saying there are some pretty well documented reasons as to why they are currently not.  Which is why Russia's problems won't go away with Putin dying.  Generations of hard work are necessary to undo all the damage that has been done to the Russian people.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

7 minutes ago, Centurian52 said:

There are clearly differences in how Russians consume and react to information. But I am confident that those differences are 100% cultural and 0% biological. Things like state-controlled media, poor education standards, and compulsive lying as a survival skill in corrupt systems are likely contributing factors.

Don't be so sure.  Have a "discussion" with someone who is a Q-Anon believer and tell me how the prevailing American cultural, governmental, and educational systems produced that sort of mindset.  I posit to you that it came about despite the culture, not because of it.

I know it's a topic people don't like discussing, but a significant percentage of the world's population is biologically predisposed to anti-social behavior and irrational thinking.  There is no way to "cure" this sort of thing, therefore the best that can be hoped for is to keep it to a "dull roar".

Steve

[billbindc]

5 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Don't be so sure.  Have a "discussion" with someone who is a Q-Anon believer and tell me how the prevailing American cultural, governmental, and educational systems produced that sort of mindset.  I posit to you that it came about despite the culture, not because of it.

I know it's a topic people don't like discussing, but a significant percentage of the world's population is biologically predisposed to anti-social behavior and irrational thinking.  There is no way to "cure" this sort of thing, therefore the best that can be hoped for is to keep it to a "dull roar".

Steve

Let's grab a beer or six sometime and I think I can dissuade you from the idea that Q-Anon isn't culturally American. We'll start with Hofstadter, go to that whole Mikey and the pop rocks thing and end with modern evangelicalism. But way off topic so, until then...

[Ts4EVER]

Q-Anon is part of the same cultural tradition that led to the Salem witch hunts and the satanic panic, among other things.

[Gnaeus]

Another example of why this is more than just another wargame site. I think the discussion of evolutionary psychology could hold its own in a forum devoted to the subject.