There are many report stating that these promises were made.

Whether Russia made a tactical mistake in codifying these promises… is it relevant? There is clear evidence that NATO promised not to expand. And again, it seems obvious that a NATO expansion would set up a conflict with Russia. So why would you do it?

Here is another good german language article about the situation

Please check the Spiegel article. Also, again, isn’t it common sense that if you put troops against a country’s border, that country feels threatened?

edited “border”

Sure I can.

We can cite John Maersheimer from 2014

Here is the outline link to the same article.

More recently the german Spiegel published documents demonstrating the promises. Here is an english language Russia Today link, referencing the original german article (you can find the paywalled link there).

But let’s be frank, the idea that a NATO expansion to the east will set off a conflict with Russia is just obvious. There were high ranking officials confirming that over the last thirty years (I believe even Genscher).

The argument that states should be able to choose their allies is a little bit absurd since we are not talking about a club that you can vote yourself in if you wish to do so. The NATO has to extend an offer for your country to be able to join it.

Russia and before that the Soviet Union expressed their issue with that and asked NATO not to put troops against their borders. Yet, NATO did.

The sources I link to above are from the most realist IR academic and from a totally mainstream german news outlet.

So what about the eastern expansion of NATO? Do you sigh over this too?

Yes, but there are precedents to this. The situation didn’t come out of the blue. Russia surely carries the responsibility for acknowledging the separatist states and escalating the situation with “piece troops”.

But NATO surely is responsible for creating the situation at large. The promise was no eastern expansion, yet eastern expansion took place.

The references made to the previous US interventions by Op are highlighting the aggressive nature of the US which created the pretext to the current situation. You cannot wipe those away by saying you are referring to the last 48 hours only.

I know of some of the shady people that were supported by the West and the Ukraine.

Could you shed some more light on the war crimes that Putin refers to? Also could you share the evidence that exists?

OK, I’ll try and help.

Certain products in the West remain cheap, since they can draw on “price efficient” labour in the “developing world”.

Now, does this labour cost differential pose a problem for global equality? I.e. you might have enough money to get around your local developing capitol, but you won’t be able to move to New York.

Does your rich country now have an incentive to keep low wages in the developing world?

Would workers in the rich country expect any benefits of this situation?

Would workers in the poor country have realistic chances to move up the ladder?

Is there a tension between global and national equality?

Very cool video, thanks for sharing

Fully agree with you here and particularly your longer response above.

VR / AR has some fantastic use cases in industrial work, where experienced workers can overshadow a field person and be enriched by some sort of global database that covers whatever that field person is working on. There are probably other niche tech use cases as well.

As for an entertainment gadget that is widely used, I just don’t think it is as immersive as portrayed or will be in the foreseeable future.

https://outline.com/XhtWcF For the whole article

I mean, can you imagine the desire, of being able to leave behind your real world, your dirty, exhausting, imperfect real world, where you are weak and ugly and unsuccessful and going to a virtual world where you can experience whatever you want?

All just through a head set? I honestly don’t quite buy this (admitting fully that I might be wrong) and really can’t relate to the desire you are describing either.

It’s not real and won’t look / feel real. So maybe there is a one or two hour entertainment to be had, but I can’t see this overhyped potential and VR being used “everywhere”.

Consider all the video chats we are having since the pandemic at work. What did 80% people do pretty quickly? Turn off their cameras, turn off their mics, while they are browsing the web in the background or doing the dishes, letting the meeting/call pass by. Would any of those go into VR to experience a virtual version of their colleague without being forced? I don’t think so.

The problem with private schools is that they, at least in the country I live in, seem to run havoc and actually collect more public funding than public schools do (which I find perverse, really).

I’m really torn about this. I could imagine a case for private schools, but just the example I see in this anglo country I’m in makes me really cautious about them.

Yes, monetising it also creates stupid incentives. In the educational scenario you’ll have to face the fact that if someone pays you for a service they are your client. How do you educated someone on whose feedback and money you depend? Certainly not in an objective manner.

Maybe the fact that you pose the question is a hint to its answer.

We are so quick to abstract this question, as in tech allows us to call our family from wherever we work and anytime, but this means we don’t have the same resources to question why we are away from our family.

Likewise, it allows us to reach beyond the social norms of our physical circle, but it doesn’t provide a neutral framework of how to be beyond those norms.

I think the problems with tech are related to the ownership of tech. Currently, I do think it makes us more lonely but maybe we have to move beyond tech to be able to use it well :)

I watched the video and find it upsetting. I believe that this guy and his way of thinking about climate change is why we run into it the way we do.

Rather than acknowledging that climate change is caused by emissions which are largely done through energy production, transport in supply chains and industrial activities, i.e. systemic elements, he goes on to complain about how individuals, who have nothing to do with energy production or transport, are hypocrites.

This is disgusting and will do nothing to solve global warming but in fact make it worse.

To name a few examples:

In response to how people say they care about the problem vs other actors:

“… it is pretty fair to say that we consumers have a pretty good view of ourselves and a pretty dim view of others …”

Alternatively, we might say that they just make a statement about the efforts / care they feel versus the efforts and care they see in other actors, notably in industry apparently, which, correctly, is perceived as rather absent.

In response to the stat showing that people support stronger environmental rules but don’t think that they would need to change their own habits:

" … gap between what people say and are prepared to do …"

The presenter’s statement simply does not follow from what was presented. A simple alternative explanation: People might think it won’t affect their lives because they aren’t energy generation experts or have deep knowledge about how transport in supply chain works.

Then the guy goes on about how people apparently prioritise reducing waste and recycling. The problem he sees with this is that waste minimisation and recycling is already happening in the west and therefore interprets it as the “lazy” option for people to choose because it means they already adapted and don’t need to change their lifestyle.

First of all, I’m nearly 100% certain that this is a false statement, given the discrepancy between recycling and waste management efforts in the western world. Secondly, the whole point has very limited applicability to global warming.

Later on he shows other proposed actions and mentions that none of these are actionable by an individual. He uses this to show how everyone is a sinner. Instead he could make the logical conclusion that climate change has something to do with the systems our economy runs on, which most of us have no insight or power over.

Then he asserts that many people could replace fossil fuels with renewables “in their own homes”. Most people do not live in their own homes. Even those who happen to live in their own homes would generally not be in an financial position to swap fossil fuels with renewables. Further, the idea that this swap should be done on a household by household idea is so stupid that I don’t even know where to start.

After a turn to some marketing ideas that made me throw up, he seriously argues that governments were not able to regulate the tobacco industry, because the industry sowed “tiny seeds of doubt” into peoples mind about the health impacts of tobacco. Really? How about the money spent on lobbying with politicians?

He finishes his talk with: “if everyone would do the right thing…”. I just want to reiterate that this is an absurd argument to make. There are serious economic and financial goals at stake for actors that prevent us from changing our economy to mitigate global warming. These goals are directly related to some of the largest industries in the world (e.g. energy) and we haven’t even articulated the issue, let alone started a conversation of how to solve it.

The solution to global warming is to wind down the fossil fuel industry to zero, which should be easy enough to understand. This is an act that will have a significant impact everywhere and we should focus on managing that change. Asking people to turn off the lights, enhance energy efficiency and advocate for “Meat free Mondays” will largely fail but even where it doesn’t, won’t impact the amount of produced emissions.

Whatever you do then, do not move to Sydney… cockroaches the size of puppies and yes some fly but none of them is happy to chip in for rent

The point of the screenshot comment is that we are not focusing on the right things when discussing climate change.

There are lots of issues with SUVs but to say that some end product is the real cause of the problem (talking about climate change, not cancer here) is just inaccurate. It is the tremendous industry that was built, the associated physical assets, and the associated economic and financial incentives.

Sure, for most of my life I didn’t have a car either. But that’s not really the point. Some life circumstances are outside your own control. The point I poorly tried to make was more that people are driven by their current circumstances. Climate change is a systemic problem. You can’t rely on people reactively fixing climate change 8 billion times in their own little yard. It just won’t happen.

Not everyone can just move somewhere else. People have families, social responsibilities and also not always the resources to move to a different part. Further, legal freedom of movement is not a given for everyone.

That’s exactly right. The problem is largely systemic and clearly linked to the way we run our economy.