The West forgot how to make things, now it’s forgetting how to code

First, thank you for taking your time to write a proper response.

Second, I must respectfully disagree.

The reformist/liberals lost it by mismanaging the transition in the 90's. And the society at large was not ready anyway.

And it was not about the turn toward authoritarianism, but a turn towards anti-west as such; those are not the same.

I totally agree that Russians are capable and have their own agenda, no noble savages there. NATO paranoia is not noble-savages, it is, at its roots, historically well-founded self-preservation instinct.

Btw, your choices of wording in several places (Putin is 'enforcer', 'Girkin's invasion force (of, initially, maybe 60 men)', Chechen 'genocide', Russian's 'full scale invasion' (maybe 1/4 manpower of what USA used in Iraq) is rather strange and reeking of just a little bias (are you, perchance, from Ukraine?).

Regarding 'what the west should have done':

In 2014: a) do you sincerely believe that Russia would have let NATO bomb Donbas like Serbia? b) that would have been a very sharp escalation from what was, at that time, not yet as bloody conflict. Such an action would have required a long logistical and planning preparation and great political will for such an costly and risky action; there was simply nobody in the west politically ready for that. The consent was not manufactured yet. It was simply political impossibility, not a realistic course of action that could have been taken. c) what about Crimea? should had the west bombed the Russians there, going to direct war with them? d) 'they would have lost and would have been the end of it': full-on wishful thinking

Before the invasion of 2022: One of the reasons why Russia attacked in february 2022 (and not some other time) was the apparent preparation of a major Ukrainian offensive to retake Donbas. Believing that a show of force by NATO would have not elicited a response is supremely naive. It is on the same level as 'we will push NATO eastward, and Russia won't be able to do anything about that' (The Grand Chessboard by Zbigniew Brzezinski). Eventually, the real red line war crossed and the war ensued. Anyway, there was no political will to preemptively escalate; furthermore it would have broken the narrative of 'unprovoked aggression by Russia'.

Fall 2022 during Kharkiv offensive: That offensive achieved great results, mainly due to major local force superiority (the Russians refrained from conscription and major recruitment, and sent home plenty of soldiers whose half-year duty expired). Expecting the Russians to totally collapse everywhere was about as realistic, as expecting the Ukrainians to totally collapse in February/March. The west was applying the salami slice strategy, incrementally increasing the support of Ukraine (they basically scoured the whole Earth of USSR equipment and sent it to Urkaine). Maybe, they could have sent some western equipment (that was subsequently sent in 2023), but it is unclear how much difference that would have made. Or you mean actively employing NATO airforce/groundpower?

Military experts (Mike Milley) have said in the fall 2022 that this is a high water mark for Ukraine, and they should negotiate now. He was piled-upon; with a hindsight, he was right.

I do not understand: The fear of striking Russian launchers that fire at major European cities every night is indefensibly absurd.

You are advocating for NATO to strike at Russian launchers firing at Ukrainian cities? Because the Ukrainian are doing that, as much as they can.

You know, the main reason I believe the Russia's attack was due to national security reasons and not due to 'imperialistic expansion of territory/capturing natural resources' is simply that there is no economic payoff in the latter. The cost of the war and the inevitable economic sanctions is simply punishingly high. On the other hand, people/countries are willing to suffer greatly in order to ensure their (perceived) security.

To sum up: What you consider 'realistic options that west should have taken', I see as 'highly escalatory and very risky actions that were politically unfeasible'. From the point of view of Ukraine very desirable, from the west's point of view too risky. Simply because Ukraine does not matter to the West sufficiently for the West to be willing to risk their own citizens.

> I don't know why you're trying to start a fight about this to be honest.

Again with the assumptions. I don’t know you, I have no interest in fighting you.

> I never said coders need to use vscode but yes they need to be comfortable with opening files in some editor obviously.

I know very few people who are so bad at computers that they would struggle with that. Heck, even Notepad is enough. That’s not a meaningful barrier.

Furthermore, even the free plan of Claude can create ready-made scripts you need only download and then they give you guided instructions to make it executable. So not even dealing with text editors is necessary many times.

> I'm sure you have a problem with that statement too but keep it to yourself because I don't want to hear it.

The way to stop replies is to stop replying yourself. You pushed the conversation. You have the right and ability to stop whenever you so desire.

> And problem #2: The cost of starting a business is too high right now. Real estate and cost of living just make it unaffordable to even try. + Healthcare if you're in the US.

Fortunate for everyone that Europe exists and counts as "the west". Real estate isn't expensive everywhere, and much of Europe has affordable healthcare. Even in the current economy, several of my former coworkers from recent employers have founded new businesses.

I love writing these short, punchy sentences. It makes the impact much better IMO. But maybe it’s just me.

It’s especially ironic since the bean counters produce no value. I like ‘Developer Hegemony’, even if the title needs changing. The author makes a great case for why information workers produce almost all the value. It’s them that make the profits, yet they’re always a cost center.