AndrewThrowaway

This is just so wrong on so many levels.

> If you can be fired easily, you will find a job easily.

Unless it is another economical crisis and nobody is hiring?

> In Europe where firing is almost impossible

It is called "job security" - if you hired somebody, you "promised" them to pay a wage. If they are not needed anymore, you need to keep on promise and pay a wage. For at least some time. E.g. a few month of salary seems reasonable because a person has planned his future with you, now he needs to find a new job which will take some time.

So it is not impossible in Europe. It is expensive at most because it only looks reasonable.

> Companies are big and look financially stable

Unless you count all the mom and pop cafes all over the Mediterranean? All the Scandinavian startups? And etc.?

12 days has passed and Russia attacks civilian objects all over Ukraine during rush hour as a retaliation for attacking the bridge.

What else is this than a butthurt mafioso thinking "you will find out now what we are capable of". There is no military strategy, no tactics, no nothing in today's attacks. Where would you see any Russian rationality today? This is just something a school bully would do, not a military power.

No doubt here. Just watching a few videos on youtube about composition and similar stuff can improve your photos greatly.

Sometimes people just don't have "a feeling" on why professional photos look like professional photos. It is all about composition, angles and stuff. Sensor size is not so important if you are taking a photo of landscape and showing it on instagram.

There is no doubt my mother-in-law barely notices a difference when I take a photo of her grand children using phone and using camera. And this is for one simple reason - she looks at how much fun her grand children are having. Not the quality of HDR or anything else.

So your point really stands here.

However for anybody just a little bit involved the difference is huge. Simple things like depth of field can only be faked on small sensor because if physics.

HDR on phones also often look fake, imperfect and artificial. To the point that I think in 50 years people will try to fake it to get that "2020 look" as nowadays we try to get "film look of 60s".

I would disagree with this so much.

If this would be the case every wedding photographer would just use an iPhone.

Yes, phone does HDR (not always perfectly) but there is so much more to photography than trying to make shadows not black and sky as blue as possible.

I would always do various --force and --hard and similar very carefully and really knowing what they do. In the end they exist for a reason.

For me it also sounds passive aggressive in the sense "junior designer doesn't know anything, lacks things like common sense and even personality, this is why I pay them 5X less than myself". While me - a senior designer - explores beyond ideas ASAP while investing in researching clients industry to write own copies while choosing directions and overseeing execution while at the same time just doing the job required.

Some of these even contradict one another:

> The other knows the answer is "ASAP,” so they propose their own timeline.

> The other does as many drafts and explorations as possible within the time allotted, then shares their favorite options.

Sounds for me like some senior punishing juniors with "do it ASAP! you only did one draft? do more! ASAP!"

Maybe I am imagining things or maybe I met colleagues/clients like that.

You could say than in the long term it benefits Europe/Germany. So maybe it is really Danish anarchists.

In the short term it benefits Putin - he removes target from his back by not having the keys to the gold mine.

Benefits Russian narrative of rotten, irrational, self serving west, USA/CIA acting like they own the world and etc.

Really depends how you look at it.

I think these are good points but the main shortcoming of all the theories about Russia is that we still treat (or want to) Russia as a rational actor.

I remember just before the war I would bid everything that Russia would in no way start the war. It just didn't make any rational sense. Who in sound mind would think to do it knowing that all the West [might/would] unite against you.

However rationality is being lost in personal agendas and Mafioso thinking of some sorts.

Now we see that after any Russian loss, be it a warship or loss of territory Russia responds with some pity attack against civilians. For example wasting expensive missiles to blow out a few floors of some high rise residential building. It is just hard to understand by rational western thinking.

However growing up in post-soviet country this kind of thinking is prominent amongst post-soviet mafias and similar sorts of groups - "if I can't have it nobody will". It is some kind of childish, failure to launch thing. "If I lost football match I will destroy the ball and that will show everybody". People grow out of it, thugs become thugs exactly for this reason - failure to grow up, lack of empathy because of family problems and etc.

Moreover you can see this in all the Russian army from the very top to the very bottom. What self respecting army would terrorize civilians after any push back. "We are retreating but we will put grenades under every pillow in every house in this village. That will show them". If this kind of thinking is prominent among all the population, all the army and etc. it starts to make more sense.

A simple "If we can't profit out of it we will blow it up and then you will know" starts to make sense.

Then you have "we can frame this on USA/Ukraine" because everybody knows "it is not in our interest".

Then you have Putin's interest - pipeline can become very profitable thing for the oligarch who gets rid of Putin and makes peace with the West. So it becomes a personal danger to Putin.

So it really could be Russia being Russia and Russian elite trying to "stay relevant" by their own (what west would call) crazy thinking.

Nord Stream is 51% Russian (Gazprom). Not sure if it is NATO territory or international waters. It still becomes a little bit more "muddy" on who could have made it and who benefits from it.

Attacking Norway-Poland line at this point would be a very obvious and very direct attack on NATO.

Because it would be a direct attack on NATO.

As I imagine it can hardly be in the lab because the lab itself is not a good environment for the virus to spread.

However if only one sick transfers it somewhere it spreads in the environment where it is easy to spread - smaller (semi) enclosed space, a lot of people in that space, particular humidity and etc.

E.g. if I got a virus in laboratory and then spread it on the plane carrying 200 passengers, the first outbreak would be on the plane. However we can't say it "originated" on the plane.

Where would this push come from?

Congress fed up with how corporation treats citizens? Some unions?

The only thing I could imagine is the other corporation. Not much more.

I could argue that the State is becoming irrelevant as laws controlling corporations are written by the same corporations (through lobbying and general involvement as an "experts of the field"). These laws are written not only be serving the corporation but also making the corporation blameless.

So it is not a symbiosis per se but rather complete overtake of host (State).

State becoming irrelevant makes politics a reality show.

And then you have articles like this:

https://sweden.se/life/society/a-cashless-society

Where I am really not sure how to feel about it.

Cyberpunk dystopia realized. It is not so hard to imagine a near future where corporations have much more power than states.

Imagine you do something like this in the near future. You are banned from all communications. Alpha corp. reports it to VISA corp. and all your money is confiscated. State can't help you as you do not have a way to communicate with it, don't have a way to start any legal process as you do not have a way to pay. All your daily subscriptions to housing, mobility, entertainment are cancelled and you are homeless the same day.

The only way for you to stay alive is to hike to lawless desert city of "Kowloon 2.1". You walk by the highways observing huge OLED billboards. They show presidential elections. This time it is some adult TV reality show star competing with tanned bodybuilder.

Exactly this. People notice this when they have kids and kids start going to kindergarten.

I was almost never sick with colds until my kid started going out with other kids. I thought I had a great immunity, it happens I only had good hygiene - washing hands, avoiding contact, rarely going to mass event during flu season and etc.

As kids have poorer hygiene habits, are in very very close contact with each other they get sick easier. After a week or so the father is sick with exactly the same symptoms.

It worked the same as it worked on personal level too. At the very beginning you can just lock yourself inside and there is basically no chance to get sick. But what then?

If you could just lock everybody in the world for a month you could basically get rid of all the infectious diseases. However you can't. So lock down only helps to win time.

After you win your time you really need to know what to do with it - e.g. effective vaccine is created in this time.

Otherwise you just delay inevitable and that is it.

Exactly this. It requires a special kind of personality + special kind of liver and stamina. All the parties and events and "all nighters" to attend while juggling all the political stuff is no easy thing to do. All of this also requires a lot of sacrifices - forget family time, personal hobbies (nobody became C level executive while fishing alone on weekends) and etc.

Imagine this beautiful business software which during the years and numerous A/B tests, "best UX practices", design languages and whatnot became this all "applesque", minimalist UI with 80% of it being a white space. By the way winning numerous design awards.

However entering e.g. client's information take a lot of steps, you are constantly clicking "Next" throughout these beautiful wizards and pages. After some time everybody starts to feel that there must be a better way.

What is the solution?

Spreadsheet import! Where you can just do everything in this "complicated" UI of Microsoft Excel, with formulas, and hundred buttons at once on the screen. Fill in hundreds of rows of information and just import it to the "beautiful business system".

A troll or not a troll, terrible person either way :D

> I couldn't care less if they took over Ukraine or some of the -stans.

> As long as they leave my country alone

Maybe this says everything. Must be really naïve or shortsighted if thinking like this. You would just trade with some serial killer as long as the price is right and he doesn't kill you. At least as long as you pay for the goods.

I am not really sure if there is some hidden agenda in your logics but I think there is.

I thought it started to show when you mentioned that Russia being interested in borders of USSR. But then you backtracked from it.

> If you join a war against somebody that never attacked you in the first place, you are an aggressor, regardless of what they did to others.

That would be crazy, wouldn't it? Any bigger country could just attack any neighbor and all other would just continue as if nothing happened? In your mind Russia can just attack e.g. Estonia and everybody should just ignore it? Basically you are not agreeing to it but it is a thing between Estonia and Russia only.

You are either Russian troll or just consumed too much Russian propaganda. Just listen to yourself.

Everybody should just continue trading with Russia because it is the best for their citizens.

Russia invading other countries is just between Russia and victim country.

If any other country is against aggressor they are "involving citizens into war". They should vote if they want to involve into war.

Geography is not important for you. You are ignoring anything I say about Russian rhetoric.

Classic whataboutism "look at Iraq". As if somehow Iraq justifies Russian aggression.

I don't think you are "let's just trade with Russia because it is the best for us". You are just pro-Russia and that's it.

> You are assuming that Russia has any interest beyond the borders of the USSR

Again refer to Medvedev's comment about "the creation of an open Eurasia from Lisbon to Vladivostok".

Then again what would be Russia's interest in USSR? Do you believe that Russia has any rights to Poland, Ukraine, Estonia?

So your arguments consist of ideas that:

It is isolated conflict that should be solved between countries involved.

If Russia is selling gas (anything) cheaper you should just buy it as it serves citizens of your country.

Throwing nuclear is a mistake but it has nothing to do with Russia.

My arguments are:

Russia has "Imperial ambitions" towards Ukraine, Georgia, Baltics and etc. Putin is stating that collapse of Soviet Union was the biggest mistake ever, all the internal communications in Russia are very aggressive, Putin was threatening nuclear weapons in the beginning of the war and etc. Medvedev is on another level threatening everybody around - see my previous comment for example.

This is where geography becomes important. While conflict is in Ukraine now, a lot of people believe that it might spread.

Why? Because Russia is influencing EU politics, using soft-power, social media to influence opinions and etc. Russia is very much involved for a long time already. It is not like German addiction to Russian gas was not influenced by Russia. Russia has further ambitions, always had. Russia is not just calmly existing inside of its territory. It always had global agendas. Like any other country.

Values. In the end Europeans have some values and most importantly EU is built on some fundamental values. Democracy, human rights and etc. Authoritarian country starting land wars in the Europe and threatening others does not sit right with it.

I can't agree that "most people in Eastern Europe have a very hard life already". Define "most" and "very hard life". It just means nothing. The thinking is that being at war is on another level "very hard".

So keeping in mind these it looks natural for EU to get involved. Because there is a belief in values and a belief that if Russia is not stopped, conflict can roll over to further countries. A lot of rhetoric from Russia actually state it.

So if you see your neighbor beating his wife you of course say nothing. You are still greeting your neighbor everyday and buying eggs from his chicken farm.

If his wife wants to leave, it is completely understandable and acceptable that he wants to kill her.

HN is not a place for arguments like this but I am sorry to say to you that you are naïve, self-serving and seem to lack any values.

> Europe is not at war.

Do you consider Ukraine not Europe? What is it then?

> I am an EU citizen myself and I did not consent to join this war.

You need to be naïve to think that anybody "consents" to a war.

> > Not predicting Russian Imperial dreams of ruling the Europe?

> Sorry, but that was never the case and will never be the case.

Please refer to any rhetoric from Russian ruling class e.g. https://tass.com/politics/1432657 "the creation of an open Eurasia from Lisbon to Vladivostok".

My guess would be that you are "sitting far from the war" and thinking that it is not yours. However countries in the beginning of WWII had exactly the same sentiments - "we are far and it is not ours". Until it knocks on your door. This is why EU reacts, EU wants to solve this while it is not so close.

It is not "right now". If nuclear was still an option, cheap electricity was an option, a lot of households would have electrical heating, heat pumps and etc. Now they all depends on gas for some time now because of these politics.

> simply taking decisions against their citizens best interests

What decision do you have in mind?

Throwing nuclear out the window and becoming so dependent on Russian gas? Not predicting Russian Imperial dreams of ruling the Europe?

OR

Trying to curb Russia during the war the best they can.

Because we need not to forget that Europe is at war. It is Ukrainians who are doing all the fighting ATM but all the western world is very much involved.

But we are still dealing with energy? Every point should still transfer energy which should take time?

Then again they run on magnitudes more computers.