100%, our leaders are playing with fire at this point. Their reasoning is also not rational. If you cannot use diplomacy with Putin because he is crazy, then why do you expect Putin to back down when you try to escalate to deescalate?
Ask HN: Aren't you afraid of a possible world conflict?
21–30 of 131 posts
Re: Ask HN: Aren't you afraid of a possible world conflict?
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
> old weapons to ukraine AFAICT this is not a serious problem. Russia is in many cases fighting with junkyard scrapings. https://x.com/Jonpy99/status/1860694569102258607
It doesn't matter what Russia is fighting with. The war is not about winning, it is about war profiteering. Both for Putin and the West. While the West gives out fat new contracts to build new weapons, Putin has stolen much of the grain produced in Ukraine and launders it through ship to ship transfers then sells to Egypt and other countries. This has made billions for Putin in the last year alone. Putin wins if the…
I don't disagree with most of this. My point is only that if the West is not sending Ukraine SOTA across the board, it's not a serious handicap AFAICT.
Re: Ask HN: Aren't you afraid of a possible world conflict?
#23100%, our leaders are playing with fire at this point. Their reasoning is also not rational. If you cannot use diplomacy with Putin because he is crazy, then why do you expect Putin to back down when you try to escalate to deescalate?
Escalation is using force, not diplomacy. Force is something that Putin understands very well.
Re: Ask HN: Aren't you afraid of a possible world conflict?
#24Military victory has been a precondition to military punishment for all of human history. You had to disable the enemy’s forces before you used the threat of further violence to enact your political will. In fact for all of recorded warfare, it was expected that the victors would be able to commit what we today call war crimes with impunity. The default consequence of defeat was all of your men being killed, all of your women being raped, and all of your children being enslaved.
The advent of nuclear weapons and ICBMs flips this precondition on its head. We no longer need to defeat enemy forces to inflict shocking and monstrous pain upon our enemies, nor upon any nation of the world, nor upon even the entire world. America and Russia both have the hair-trigger capability to launch thermonuclear weapons to any point on the globe. It takes 60 seconds to launch an ICBM, about 10 minutes for SLBMs, and a few hours for strategic bombers to reach their targets. 3,000 thermonuclear weapons can be detonated in anger in the time it takes to commute to work.
Our psychology did not evolve for this environment, and in fact it had not evolved from the previous state of affairs at all because there are still people alive who witnessed the first detonations of nuclear weapons! A single generation!
We don’t know if we can survive this state of affairs. Our time is marked by “for the first time in history” and “unprecedented.”
Re: Ask HN: Aren't you afraid of a possible world conflict?
#25No, because I voted for Trump. Europe gets to take responsibility for the wars they start and escalate now. Not my problem.
Are you counting russia as part of Eurasia here? Because to me it's looking more like becoming part of Eastasia instead.
Re: Ask HN: Aren't you afraid of a possible world conflict?
#26No, because I voted for Trump. Europe gets to take responsibility for the wars they start and escalate now. Not my problem.
So you are ok with if nobody will come to help you when your life is in danger because your life is not anyone else's problem.
Re: Ask HN: Aren't you afraid of a possible world conflict?
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
> old weapons to ukraine AFAICT this is not a serious problem. Russia is in many cases fighting with junkyard scrapings. https://x.com/Jonpy99/status/1860694569102258607
It doesn't matter what Russia is fighting with. The war is not about winning, it is about war profiteering. Both for Putin and the West. While the West gives out fat new contracts to build new weapons, Putin has stolen much of the grain produced in Ukraine and launders it through ship to ship transfers then sells to Egypt and other countries. This has made billions for Putin in the last year alone. Putin wins if the…
Short term, this war is costing Putin dearly - both inflation and rates in Russia are very high, there's a state of technological collapse (trains derailing etc.) due to sanctions and lack of access to advanced Western technology. Ultimately, he may only benefit if he's allowed to keep the territory he conquered and gets to absorb it into Russia. It may (or may not) be worth the cost he's paying for it right now.
Re: Ask HN: Aren't you afraid of a possible world conflict?
#28The thing is, I no longer trust any news source. They all exist to serve their agenda, while rarely providing the real picture. So there is no way for me, as a regular citizen, to truly know what happens in the world or a particular regional conflict. So while I do worry that there might be a bigger war, I also realize that the picture painted by the news, or the "promises" that different country leaders make, are me…
Yes there is. For example there is war in Ukraine and in Gaza and you can find more information on those digging deeper. Not trusting any news source and never combining news to "unbias" them is same thinking that leads to " maybe they are lying to us and the earth is flat". There is always a solution.
Re: Ask HN: Aren't you afraid of a possible world conflict?
#29My question: after having survived the Cold War without actually blowing each other up (and wintering everyone else out), why were people so scared of "terrorism" at the turn of the century?
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Re: Ask HN: Aren't you afraid of a possible world conflict?
#30My question: after having survived the Cold War without actually blowing each other up (and wintering everyone else out), why were people so scared of "terrorism" at the turn of the century?
So not blowing ourselves up , up to now means that we will never do ? Strange logic fallacy but I've heard it before.