How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Carolus]

42 minutes ago, dan/california said:

 

For all of his vast array of flaws, McConnell has gone all in on the right side this time.

I am not a religious man, but I will pray for the old man's health.

I pray for certain people to fall down the stairs, too, or choke on their cholesterol. The big guy above won't judge me too harshly for that, I hope.

[kimbosbread]

52 minutes ago, danfrodo said:

So western society is not being destroyed by gays or transgenders or atheists.  It's being destroyed by ignorant, nationalist, rage-filled fools who listen to rightwing propaganda to the point where they can't even stitch two thoughts together about reality yet think they are saving america while actively trying to destroy it, through their utter stupidity.

There others who are more subtle about destroying our society! Lucy Calkins for example has done more harm than just about anyone by destroying American literacy: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/22/us/reading-teaching-curriculum-phonics.html

On the left, I’m going to say the doors-wide-open immigration policies and the reformist-minded-approach to crime, which are both weird because in the end, they hurt the big liberal cities the most while the conservatives are just puzzled that if you wanted to live in a big city, and that’s where your voters are, why would you trash it.

[quakerparrot67]

15 minutes ago, kimbosbread said:

We’ve got to find out what people want from UGS, how they relate to them, what sort of image they have for them. For example, do people want UGS that can be fitted nasally?

 what is that a quote from? 

[TheVulture]

2 minutes ago, quakerparrot67 said:

 what is that a quote from? 

It's modified from from "Life, the Universe and Everything" by Douglas Adams - third part of the Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy (where a bunch of advertising executives are trying to invent fire in a suddenly stone-age society)

Edited October 30, 2023 by TheVulture

[dan/california]

 

Quote

 

https://www.politico.eu/article/future-warfare-400-army-strike-drone-unit-2m-tank/

Facing an enemy with superior numbers of troops and armor, the Ukrainian defenders are holding on with the help of tiny drones flown by operators like Firsov that, for a few hundred dollars, can deliver an explosive charge capable of destroying a Russian tank worth more than $2 million.

 

The new reality is breaking thru, at least a little bit.

[quakerparrot67]

46 minutes ago, TheVulture said:

It's modified from from "Life, the Universe and Everything" by Douglas Adams - third part of the Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy (where a bunch of advertising executives are trying to invent fire in a suddenly stone-age society)

 thanks! i knew i recognized it as something that i laughed my arse off at, but couldn't quite remember. 

 

cheers,

rob

[acrashb]

5 hours ago, The_Capt said:

The West is not going to fall over the obsolescence of religion or LGBTQ issues, or whatever you are worried about.  Why?  Because it didn’t last time with “women voting”, “civil rights” and “rock and/or roll”.

And yet, civilizations do fall.  Just because they didn't with the last moral panic doesn't mean that the structure isn't under attack and/or failing.  Just like with financial statements, past performance does not guarantee future results.  Complacency is fatal.

Values like patriotism, religion falling out of favor among Americans: poll (nypost.com)

The best weapon systems / war fighting structures in the world don't matter if there aren't enough 'patriots' willing to man them.  Or if there simply isn't anyone to man them, as the interest in starting a family drops precipitously.  Also, culture is largely transmitted through family structures.  No children, no cohesive belief in 'good' culture (broadly defined as the values of the Enlightenment), no West.

So get out there and make some babies   Find yourself a thirty-year-old with wide, child-bearing hips and start over (if you haven't already created a significant brood)   

 

Edited October 30, 2023 by acrashb

[The_Capt]

4 minutes ago, acrashb said:

And yet, civilizations do fall.  Just because they didn't with the last moral panic doesn't mean that the structure isn't under attack and/or failing.  Just like with financial statements, past performance does not guarantee future results.  Complacency is fatal.

Values like patriotism, religion falling out of favor among Americans: poll (nypost.com)

The best weapon systems / war fighting structures in the world don't matter if there aren't enough 'patriots' willing to man them.  Or if there simply isn't anyone to man them, as the interest in starting a family drops precipitously.  Also, culture is largely transmitted through family structures.  No children, no cohesive belief in 'good' culture (broadly defined as the values of the Enlightenment), no West.

So get out there and make some babies   Find yourself a thirty-year-old with wide, child-bearing hips and start over (if you haven't already created a significant brood)   

 

They do, but rarely for social causes.  Social stress and failure is normally a symptom of failure, not a root cause.

Really good series here:

https://www.youtube.com/@FallofCivilizations

And of course Jared Diamonds "Collapse" and others like him do the subject justice.  Demographics are also normally a symptom, not a cause.

[Battlefront.com]

I've been distracted with other matters so haven't had a chance to check in and remind people that we're not here to argue about the culture wars which are going on across the whole world, happily fueled by Mr. Putin and his agenda.

What we are seeing is frustrated and scared people being very easily manipulated by those who gain something (almost always money for starters) from doing so.  This is the biggest and most long standing shortcoming of Human societies since the days of old.  Scared people tend to not listen to sensible solutions, but instead make themselves ever more scared and therefore even less able to listen to sensible solutions.  There is a good evolutionary reason for this on an individual level, but it is highly destructive when it is grouped.  The bigger the group, the greater the potential for destruction.

As it relates to Ukraine, the right wing has the upper hand in the struggle to make policies based on reality instead of fear.  The left is, oddly enough, largely in favor of empirically correct actions.  During the Cold War it was more-or-less the opposite, with the right correctly recognizing that the Soviets didn't want to play nice and the left insisted that they would.

The problem with the collapse of the Soviet Union is that both sides decided for themselves that they were correct, the Cold War was won, and it was time to move onto other things.  Unfortunately, Russia didn't want to move on.  Successive governments in the West put their heads in the sand about this because the bulk of their populations, left and right, didn't want to acknowledge reality and deal with it.  Both the left and right were very happy with Obama's "reset" policy at the time.  Only supposed "hawks" like me were not (in my view a hawk in this context is someone who is being objective about reality).

And so here we sit, with a major chunk of the West's political movements opposed to listening to reason and figuring out how not to be afraid and angry.  Instead, it seems to be most happy when it is afraid and angry.  Nothing good will come from it, that is for sure.

Steve

[kimbosbread]

59 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

And so here we sit, with a major chunk of the West's political movements opposed to listening to reason and figuring out how not to be afraid and angry.  Instead, it seems to be most happy when it is afraid and angry.  Nothing good will come from it, that is for sure.

Well yes, this is one of the things that happens when the average reading level in your country is around sixth grade (because some ivory tower academic careers benefit from it), and that’s the average. Median might be scarier. Obviously it’s not entirely literacy, but numeracy is way worse.

[danfrodo]

1 hour ago, acrashb said:

And yet, civilizations do fall.  Just because they didn't with the last moral panic doesn't mean that the structure isn't under attack and/or failing.  Just like with financial statements, past performance does not guarantee future results.  Complacency is fatal.

Values like patriotism, religion falling out of favor among Americans: poll (nypost.com)

The best weapon systems / war fighting structures in the world don't matter if there aren't enough 'patriots' willing to man them.  Or if there simply isn't anyone to man them, as the interest in starting a family drops precipitously.  Also, culture is largely transmitted through family structures.  No children, no cohesive belief in 'good' culture (broadly defined as the values of the Enlightenment), no West.

So get out there and make some babies   Find yourself a thirty-year-old with wide, child-bearing hips and start over (if you haven't already created a significant brood)   

 

I suspect that patriotism, like christianity, has falling poll numbers for the same reason:  these concepts are being polluted by scoundrels.  Young people are less likely to be religious because the religious have given religion a bad name.  Same w patriotism, where extremist, ignorant, monsters claim the mantle of patiotism.  But I bet that if the US were attacked, these same young people would sign up in droves to fight.  Just like in Ukraine, where all these allegedly sissy-fied young people are now cold-*** killers.

[kimbosbread]

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

And of course Jared Diamonds "Collapse" and others like him do the subject justice.  Demographics are also normally a symptom, not a cause.

Oooooo, I get to be disagreeable. Let’s talk about women’s sufferage, and entrance into the workforce en masse.

Several interesting symptoms, across many countries, from Central American Kleptocracies to Western Democracies to everybody else, pretty much:

• As women get educated, less children
• Twice as many workers, and thus many things cost twice as much that have an inelastic supply such as housing
• Fewer meals prepared at home cause no home-maker (otherwise known as the Elizabeth Warren Diet), with the second order effect of less healthy eating habits
• Women are not locked into marriages, and thus a higher divorce rate
• Women prefer not to date down, thus with more women going to school, there are fewer desireable eligible men, hence lower marriage rate

All of these together reduce the number of children being born, which over time will cause major social upheaval. Obviously the ramifications of aging societies haven’t been fully explored yet, but it’s going to be exciting.

Do we not think there is going to be social collapse in at least a few countries?

 

[danfrodo]

1 minute ago, kimbosbread said:

Oooooo, I get to be disagreeable. Let’s talk about women’s sufferage, and entrance into the workforce en masse.

Several interesting symptoms, across many countries, from Central American Kleptocracies to Western Democracies to everybody else, pretty much:

• As women get educated, less children
• Twice as many workers, and thus many things cost twice as much that have an inelastic supply such as housing
• Fewer meals prepared at home cause no home-maker (otherwise known as the Elizabeth Warren Diet), with the second order effect of less healthy eating habits
• Women are not locked into marriages, and thus a higher divorce rate
• Women prefer not to date down, thus with more women going to school, there are fewer desireable eligible men, hence lower marriage rate

All of these together reduce the number of children being born, which over time will cause major social upheaval. Obviously the ramifications of aging societies haven’t been fully explored yet, but it’s going to be exciting.

Do we not think there is going to be social collapse in at least a few countries?

 

as far as more babies, I'll assume you mean white babies.  And women should definitely not have choices, especially not voting and working outside the home.  Society was great before women became actual people,  like legally actually people, ya know?  It's like when we ended slavery, everything downhill ever since.  

Ya know maybe the divorce rate is because men are generally such f--kheads?  And when women aren't physically and economically trapped they will sometimes choose to leave the aforementioned f--kheads?

Maybe the real problem is letting men vote?

[danfrodo]

I will take a little vacation rest of day.  Hopefully UKR will break thru somewhere and thread will get re-directed.  I've contributed way too much today to making this mess today, sorry all.

Edited October 30, 2023 by danfrodo

[Tux]

3 minutes ago, kimbosbread said:

Oooooo, I get to be disagreeable. Let’s talk about women’s sufferage, and entrance into the workforce en masse.

Several interesting symptoms, across many countries, from Central American Kleptocracies to Western Democracies to everybody else, pretty much:

• As women get educated, less children
• Twice as many workers, and thus many things cost twice as much that have an inelastic supply such as housing
• Fewer meals prepared at home cause no home-maker (otherwise known as the Elizabeth Warren Diet), with the second order effect of less healthy eating habits
• Women are not locked into marriages, and thus a higher divorce rate
• Women prefer not to date down, thus with more women going to school, there are fewer desireable eligible men, hence lower marriage rate

All of these together reduce the number of children being born, which over time will cause major social upheaval. Obviously the ramifications of aging societies haven’t been fully explored yet, but it’s going to be exciting.

Do we not think there is going to be social collapse in at least a few countries?

 

I can feel Steve glaring even as I write this but I cannot let it stand unchallenged and thereby assume what I would consider an undeserved aura of credibility.  So I will just say that, at a glance, I think I count at least one flawed assumption, one bald assertion and three non sequiturs.

In other words I disagree with the above “disagreeable” post. 

[The_Capt]

6 minutes ago, kimbosbread said:

Oooooo, I get to be disagreeable. Let’s talk about women’s sufferage, and entrance into the workforce en masse.

Several interesting symptoms, across many countries, from Central American Kleptocracies to Western Democracies to everybody else, pretty much:

• As women get educated, less children
• Twice as many workers, and thus many things cost twice as much that have an inelastic supply such as housing
• Fewer meals prepared at home cause no home-maker (otherwise known as the Elizabeth Warren Diet), with the second order effect of less healthy eating habits
• Women are not locked into marriages, and thus a higher divorce rate
• Women prefer not to date down, thus with more women going to school, there are fewer desireable eligible men, hence lower marriage rate

All of these together reduce the number of children being born, which over time will cause major social upheaval. Obviously the ramifications of aging societies haven’t been fully explored yet, but it’s going to be exciting.

Do we not think there is going to be social collapse in at least a few countries?

 

Dude, good lord.  As Steve has signalled we are getting way off track here but if you are going to take a position…how about some proof before we turn all the way into an INCEL echo chamber?

Here are counter points that took about 10 seconds to find:

https://www.cfr.org/womens-participation-in-global-economy/#

https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2022/09/27/sp092722-ggopinath-kgef-gender-korea

https://eige.europa.eu/newsroom/economic-benefits-gender-equality?language_content_entity=en

As to demographic trend…yeesh been hearing this old song for forty years.  People don’t have fewer children because women get jobs.  They have fewer children because they can’t afford them.  So we are at distribution of wealth.  A living wage.  Social program and a bunch of issues that basically hold a society together.  Immigration (oh let’s light that fuse).  And a bunch of other stuff that really drags this thread sideways.

Move along now.  Nothing to see here.

 

[sburke]

heh this Ukraine thread keeps edging towards "let's solve all the world's problems"

[kimbosbread]

Sorry for the off-topic! I apologize as didn’t mean to be so contenious, or imply any of what I wrote is a value judgement and thus we should convert into a patriarchy with concubines.

It’s just that social issues often do have major social ramifications. If the workforce size doubles without any other changes, that has many second and third order effects.

How countries and people deal with this is gonna be a huge deal. Free childcare on a national level seems like a slam dunk, but how does that work if you cannot even find enough public school teachers? You also have interesting social issues like single women in their 40s choosing to become single mothers via IVF (during pandemic IIRC fertility treatment numbers were 25% lesbian couples, 25% heterosexual couples and 50% single heterosexual women, IIRC). It’s not about white people or skin color or anything else in most cases; though Russia is a counter-case where they have less “real” russians and more caucasians.

[Ales Dvorak]

10 hours ago, chuckdyke said:

We live in a world of alternative reality where 2+2 equals five because you have the right of an opinion.. 

 

[Tux]

In an attempt to drag us back at least towards the topic:  I will be absolutely fascinated to find out (probably in a decade or two’s time) what Russian servicemen think they are fighting for in this war.  I think the precise nature of the macro-social narrative which is somehow successfully holding the RA together (or whether it’s actually more of a confluence of thousands of complementary micro-social imperatives) will be important to study.

Any thoughts?  What keeps the RA going seems to be the one major gap in the collective understanding of the West and so is almost certainly not being attacked as effectively as it could be?

Edited October 30, 2023 by Tux
Addition

[Twisk]

Yes. Lets get back on track.

So it looks Avdiivka might become this winters Bahkmut. From a Western perspective Bahkmut was a huge waste of life for little success. However, it seemed to absorb Ukrainian military power for several months and allow Russia the time to fortify the rest of the line stymieing Ukrainian attacks the summer.  Avdiivka might become that for the Ukrainians this winter.
 

9 minutes ago, Tux said:

Any thoughts?  What keeps the RA going seems to be the one major gap in the collective understanding of the West and so is almost certainly not being attacked as effectively as it could be?

Russia has been studiously avoiding a major direct commitment of its entire population to the war. So my guess is that the Russian population at-large can largely ignore the war outside of whatever economic impacts it might have. While the men fighting it are engaging it as a transactional relationship. Even the prisoners were offered their freedom in return for fighting in Ukraine.

[Haiduk]

Video of 3rd assault brigade squad, holding own position under intensive mortar fire - several shells hit almost on breastwork of the trench. Soldiers fire at recon Mavic and say this was second shot down drone. Then FPV attacks them, but missed. Soldiers fire at some invisible target in the trees and one cries "Look out FPV!". At the end M113 has arrived to change them on position with other squad

 

[Haiduk]

SBU "Alfa" Special force destroyed TOS-1A on Avdiivka direction (more precisely on northern flank, near Novoselivka Druha village, in rear of Krasnohorivka)

This is second TOS-1A destroyed here. Became knowingly, 10th CBRN regimnent of 41st CAA was deployed here. First destroyed TOS-1A belonged the them. Likely this one too. CBRN regiment has three TOS-1A in heavy flamethrowers company.

 

[JonS]

23 minutes ago, Twisk said:

Even the prisoners were offered their freedom in return for fighting in Ukraine.

Service Guarantees Citizenship

[dan/california]

15 minutes ago, Haiduk said:

SBU "Alfa" Special force destroyed TOS-1A on Avdiivka direction (more precisely on northern flank, near Novoselivka Druha village, in rear of Krasnohorivka)

This is second TOS-1A destroyed here. Became knowingly, 10th CBRN regimnent of 41st CAA was deployed here. First destroyed TOS-1A belonged the them. Likely this one too. CBRN regiment has three TOS-1A in heavy flamethrowers company.

 

Whoever picked the music wasn't holding back. And again I am fascinated by the way these are driving around by themselves. I also still want to know what they threaten the crew with. It doesn't strike me as a position with a lot of volunteers.