racional

I can see how [1]-[3] might appear contentious, at a very casual glance - but the wording I used in [4] was on its own terms entirely innocuous.

All I'm saying is, basically -- "OK, so that's your position then" (while correctly and relevantly noting also, as you will confirm from the comment history, that they were conspicuously evasive in providing a straightforward answer up until that point).

The follow-up question about the abducted minors (in case you were wondering about that) was entirely legitimate and relevant, as it's one of the many (rather awful and nasty) complications of the conflict that people who think there's an easy "deal" involving territory that just be cut to end this thing typically aren't thinking of (because by and large they aren't following the situation too closely anyway).

They didn't have to answer it of course, but there was nothing uncivil about the question in itself, or my phrasing of it.

Also, you'll note that I'm very carefully and diplomatically defusing their completely gratuitous and uncivil provocation ("I'm not your bitch"), which I notice you did not flag or call out the user on, even though this (in addition to "Are we 12 year olds?", and calling it a "BS question" when it was the exact opposite) was obviously way more inflammatory than any possible reading of my posting.

In this case, you should be calling out the other user for their needlessly inflammatory rhetoric here -- not me, for my far more centered and non-escalatory response.

[4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41123755

See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_abductions_in_the_Russo-...

I'm patiently correcting people's broken narratives -- as kindly and magnanimously as anyone reasonably can, given, as in this particular case, the highly provocative and unsubstantiated statements they're making. While remaining direct, human and authentic (that is, without mincing words, or swathing them in undue or superficial gentleness -- considering the sometimes quite crass nature of what they've been saying).

That's all that's happening here.

A million, trillion years ago.

The "under threat of death" part is pure BS of course.

First you made a plainly irrational (and basically pretty silly) assertion -- that the only people who don't want to own cars are anxiety cases and alcoholics. Right here, on the internet, in front of all these people. And so you got rightly cornered and called out for it.

You then followed that up by attributing a quote to person that you're responding to ("Everybody wants a car because public transit sucks") that they plainly didn't say, and then put it alongside something they did say, in order to claim they were making some kind of contradiction.

It's difficult to see what you might hope to accomplish with such tactics.

Palestine was historically Canaanite, long before Judaism was even invented in the 1200s BCE. Yes, the Israelites, along with the Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Persians, the Ptolemies and the Seleucids, the Romans, the Byzantines, the Samaritans, the Arab Caliphates, the Seljuks, the Ayyubids, the Mamluks, the Ottomans and others came to occupy the land at different times -- but before these illegal conquests, the indigenous people of the land were solidly of Canaanite origin, heritage and culture. Considering the land as belonging to a different people doesn’t make sense to me.

So I am not sure what is controversial or disgusting.

Microsoft's providing matching donations to groups seeking to maintain Israel's illegal settlements in the West Bank (including at least one military academy), under the guise of supporting "charitable" donations -- is what some people find controversial and disgusting.

Not the "foreign agents" part; that's your insinuation of what the parent commenter said. But there's an unusual degree commonality to the talking points and flat-out factually wrong narratives that people continually post about this conflict -- such that some of them (like "Ukraine wanted to negotiate, but...") we literally hear several times a day.

It doesn't matter what sources they are uncritically adopting these garbage narratives from. It's just propaganda, straight up, and quite obviously so.

They will also decide -- for themselves -- whether the losses they are taking are sustainable, or "worth" the just end to this war that they seek.

Your idea of what they "need", what is worth dying for or otherwise valuable to them, or your general view of their government -- just doesn't factor into it.

This is an attempt to distract from the parent's main point, rather than respond to it.

As is 10 percent of annual GDP.

It's an alt-right ecosystem that Musk is building, and it definitely strokes Putin's balls the right way, so far -- that's for sure.

But that doesn't make it Putin's asset, per se.

And lo and behold, within literal seconds of putting forth this perfectly straightforward observation -- which granted might sound slightly, vaguely controversial, but really isn't to anyone following the basic event chronology of this conflict (and the various false narratives that people keep mindlessly repeating about it) -- someone had to flag it.

One can think of different ways to assess the likely outcome of an election -- but a betting market (with its gigantic built-in biases) would have to be one of the dodgiest.

Meanwhile reliable polls show a steady Harris lead.

But the accused person has more than paid their dues in regard to this matter -- so there's no need to throw petty insults at them here.

As if anyone here would say that to her face.

Griner's arrest, sham trial and prolonged sentence weren't about differences in "cultural norms". They came about as a part of long-term game that Russia is playing, to both grab high-profile persons as trading material for prisoner swaps, and to fuck with everyone's heads generally.

That's why it's important to step outsides these shenanigans, and not focus on the foolishness of the actions of the people who get caught up in scams like this. In broader moral context (and the greater crime that is being committed), it's damn near irrelevant what Griner actually did.

As in every other situation when someone is unfairly persecuted.

It's not disrespectful to say that.

When the commentary is restricted to their actions, no. But when it's gratuitously formulated as a pejorative insult, directed specifically at the person -- who is after all caught up in a much larger drama that really isn't about them or what they allegedly did, at all -- that's exactly where it gets disrespectful.

Show some respect.

Yet you're fine with handwaving

I'm not; I'm saying it's a question I'll trust to the Ukrainians to evaluate and decide for themselves.

That's something entirely different from what you're suggesting that I said.

[Don't underestimate resilience of dictatorships; the Iran-Iraq war went on for 8 years]

That's actually an argument for why time is more on Ukraine's side.

If Russia gives up after 8 years, or even 10 or 15 -- then Ukraine will have squarely won.

I wouldn't know because I don't have their numbers, and unlike you, I don't trust my offhand estimates.

However I will trust the Ukrainians to know, and it seems safe to reason that the more and better arms they have -- the farther off the potential triggering of such a limit will be.

The key consideration to keep in mind here is that for Ukraine, the fight is existential -- while for Russia (as a country, apart from its leadership) it is very much optional. So the limits for what is bearable in terms of any category of loss must be weighted very differently (apart from the what the numbers might say; and assumes we even have reliable numbers, which of course we don't).

So the flip side of your question might be:

"For how many years does Russia want to keep spending 10 percent of its GDP on this little expansionist fantasy project gone horrible wrong? And how does this math change once Putin is gone, or his lights start to dim?"

So that's the camp you're in, then. You could have just said so from the very beginning.

What about the 19,000 abducted minors -- does Putin get to keep them as well, "if need be"?

I'm not your bitch.

You're free as a bird here, man. I'm not making you do anything.

If you can't provide a straight answer -- then the fate of the people living there is obviously of no particular concern to you.

Establishing a neutral zone in the southern parts would be the best option at this point.

Permanent recognized sovereignty is Putin's demand -- not a "neutral zone".

Those are Putin's stated conditions for ending this thing.

The Germans made some lovely newsreels about the places they "liberated" that you'd probably find to be equally inspiring.

Suggestive of a basic attitude of disregard for factual accuracy in regard to such things.