EC

I agree with you under your relatively common definition. I should have, and almost did put the word empire in scare quotes because I just mean a one-world truly Capitalist government, you can call it whatever you want. There's zero point in having competing "nations" on the planet, especially as we begin to become an interplanetary species.

That's an overstatement. What if the US united the world under a single Capitalist empire. That wouldn't be bad in any sense if we were talking about true Capitalism.

The first but I understand your point. I just try to separate the actual threats from the propaganda. It's the nonstop nuclear threats that I take the most serious even though I understand it's also partially just posturing to keep us from interfering in the madness.

https://www.newsweek.com/russian-tv-says-nuclear-war-only-alternative-russia-victory-ukraine-1709539 Why don't you take them at their word? I don't understand why you guys ignore what they actually say daily.

They don't realize that they are actually the victims of bias and propaganda except when they (properly) reject the "MSM's" narrative of these events they then immediately jump to another crazy narrative that somewhat fits there own internal thinking because "it's in opposition to the conventional narrative" without objectively thinking through *why* this "alternative" exists and vetting the sources properly. For those guys: you must realize that whatever the source of information you need to just treat it as a puzzle piece of the truth and then put the actual reality based picture together properly in your own mind in an unbiased first principles first manner in your own mind. Only then will you be free of the biases that you are claiming I and others here hold yourself.

You've missed a LOT of really good shows over the last decade and a half then. TV turned awesome after the 90's especially after about '05 or so.

Okay it's time to stop feeding all the moral relativism trolls who don't even believe pride and possessing principles are fundamental moral virtues

So, Putin having a non MSM "point of view" makes it okay to start a war of aggression on a mostly peaceful neighbor and destroy it's cities, murder and rape it's people and leave them dead in the streets or stuff them in mass graves? Now he must also be given things via "negotiations" for doing all these things that you won't declare as evil because he had "reasons"!? Also, the world has no right to defend itself because of these propaganda excuses because you are too much of a pussy to die potentially die for freedom in a nuclear war? All evil regimes including the Nazi's in WW2 have these propaganda based excuses to justify their aggression and mass murder, knowing they exist doesn't magically transform morality from black-and-white to whatever form of relativistic grey like you and others here are attempting. Now, I'm interested in the actual reason all of you are doing this... I want to believe it's just fear that would cause people to defend evil but I'm truly not sure atm

Uh, I made more rational connections by the time I was 18 months old then you will ever make in your entire life.

It's not a "need" it's just a fact that I'm intellectually superior. Also, I'm not a db, just a dick, and you just suck but other than that me and you have nothing in common.

Oh, I understood completely. You were attempting to question my "qualifications". But, why is an actual general (who's almost certainly far less intelligent than I am, as you also are) more "qualified" to speak accurately about these issues than myself? Because said intellectually inferior general attended West Point and was indoctrinated into collectivist military type thinking? That's actually a disqualification for proper thinking no matter how otherwise competent the man happens to be. Specialization, and people like you that are overly obsessed and irrationally only respect the ideas of "experts" is a cancer on man's advancement as a species. A proper man should be able do and understand everything (within reason).

There's no contradiction and it's not hubris, nor a need to "punish" Putin for his international terrorism and/or war crimes that were carried out on his own orders (implicit or explicit), even though he certainly deserves to die for all of that. It's about the right of the (relatively) free nations of the world to protect the rights and lives of their citizens from the death and destruction from an evil tyrant. An aggressive defense is not just for the current threat but also a warning to near (and far) future threats from other tyrannies such as N. Korea and China that the lives of the relatively free loving people of the world aren't open to being sacrificed at the whims of their evil ambitions. Would I love to see non-war solution to this problem that doesn't reward evil rights violating aggression? Sure, who wouldn't? But it's NOT possible. Therein lies the actual contradiction: you and others believing that such a solution exists and/or is possible. Sometimes, as was the case during the Second World War, evil has to be defeated to be stopped, it can't be negotiated with in the exact same way and for the exact same reasons one doesn't negotiate with terrorists or a criminal with a gun to one's head. Who wins and who loses long term in such a "negotiation", and does the "negotiated" result end the threat or encourage more terror-for-loot in the future?

Lol, go back to writing long rambling posts nobody reads. Philosophy, especially Objectivism, is something that is needed and meant for *all* individuals/rational entities, not white-haired psudo-intellectuals sitting in their ivory tower's discussing tower-in-the-sky rationalist theories that are completely disconnected from actual reality with each other.

https://www.livescience.com/ufo-hearing-metallic-hypersonic-flying-object Or, more likely than being a national security "threat", their actual objective will be to shut down everyone's nukes when this thing actually pops off to protect ourselves from well... ourselves.

Yeah, I'm done talking to you. Think of what I've said in your last millisecond of life before being vaporized by a nuclear-tipped hypersonic missile though.

You summed up how the man actually thinks correctly beyond the superficial things he says "to gain public support" for his policies even though you meant it as a type of passive-aggressive "joke". Or, presenting the actual reality of the situation is how one attempts to save the world and all those lives instead. I don't live in the fantasy world you've created in your own mind where Russia is a legitimate country, taking legitimate actions for legitimate reasons. You're relatively safe in S. Africa from the initial effects of a nuclear exchange, but here in the US I'm not, so I have to take the threat seriously.

This year's, I didn't pay much attention to Russia or it's activities in 2014 because I thought they were to weak to worry about. But Putin has changed for many reasons over the last few years and that's changed the situation in ways that are important because of their nukes. I've been following all of this closely since about last September because of the likely WW3 threat.

No, I think they consider it a sunk cost that they ceded years ago now. I never read it but I've heard of it. "Expert" in Game theory may have been a over-characterization of my knowledge because I've only studied it in relation to poker, but I do use it daily to crush everyone online as a second job. My main job is with Amazon.

No Tad, you're completely wrong, and making the exact same mistakes in your evaluation that most of the world made before the invasion when they thought Putin was just being "clever" but was too "smart" to actually do it. I predicted with near certainty that he would for many many reasons and that it would only be his first stop. He has his sights set on at least the majority of Eastern Europe and WILL use ALL means at his disposal to achieve that goal or destroy the entire world trying to achieve it. Putin is Hitler with the largest nuclear arsenal in existence.

Game theory is extremely aggressive. It's the correct move to be very, very aggressive vs Russia in this situation even though it doesn't sound like it should be. I'm a game theory expert fwiw.

The only "out" is to seriously threaten Russian with complete and immediate destruction unless it ceases it's present course of action and gives up all of its strategic nuclear capacity, or else we are just kicking the can down the street again until maybe Cold War Part 3 in another 30 years (or less)...if we are that lucky again... The odds of us getting lucky again is likely astronomically low btw.

There is an enemy and it is Putin and his nuclear stockpile that he is threatening the entire world, myself and my family, and possibly all life on this planet with right now. We are in involved in the most serious existential threat to this entire planet and quite possibly all life on it at any moment (he could be "pushing the button" as I type this) of a evil, likely dying madman who on a whim realizing he's destined to lose then die, can, and likely will, launch Armageddon. This isn't a time to argue over various past actions of much less evil parties. It's time to end the threat before the the threat ends, well.... everything and everyone.

What's going on in with people defending the actions of the Russians on this site while saying basically things like Ukaine isn't/wasn't a morally perfect nation? No country in history up to this point has been morally perfect, that doesn't mean you get an open pass to resort to moral relativism in the face of blatant evil and atrocities. And just because a person "expects" atrocities to happen in a war doesn't make it moral or acceptable in any way... just the opposite.

You know I mean the *actions* of the Russians are objectively "pure" evil as illegitimate aggressors in an immoral war on innocents who posed no threat whatsoever to the RF, not some type of intrinsic evil. If you are seriously going to ask me if I should also put a negative moral judgement on the actions of a nation that is defending itself from the aggression of an evil dictatorship then maybe you need to seriously rethink your position. What's next, the Nazi's in WW2 weren't objectively evil aggressors that needed to be completely defeated and the Allies were also somehow evil for shooting them in the head? You're normally a reasonable and rational poster, what's going on with you?

Yeah, women and children were (and probably still are) being raped and murdered and stuffed in mass graves. One doesn't "negotiate" or give concessions to pure evil.