Hyperreality

Free to play, pay to win.

Location data, when you're home/not home, which room you're likely in/not in. Data that costs almost nothing to produce, but can be sold for millions.

Bulbs tell them when you're in the kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, etc. Relatively easy to combine it with smart tv, smart watch, security cam, and app/phone data to identify you exactly.

Combine it all and it's likely they'd be able to identify you exactly and identify what you're doing with a high degree of certainty, then micro-target you with ads or propaganda.

Honestly, there comes a point where you'd have more privacy shoving a camera up your ass. Less privacy than the DDR.

No headrest

no one willing to live a civilized life (i.e. in the city and just about any sort of settlement) has any reason to stay in Russia whatsoever.

Family, children and elderly relatives who need to be taken care of.

A lack of skills, not being able to speak anything but Russian, which would make finding a job somewhere else impossible.

A lack of money, leaving Russia isn't cheap.

Fear of being detained and sent to the front, if you present yourself at the border, try to leave, but they find out you've been served a conscription notice.

To be fair, one of the reasons Azerbaijan's able to be so agressive, is because the EU buys so much energy from them. Azerbaijan is arguably consolidating its position ahead of talks in Spain next month, so it can present the take-over as a fait accompli. They know the EU isn't able to go beyond a strongly worded condemnation. Beggars can't be choosers.

Of course, the reason the EU is forced to rely on Azerbaijan, is because Russia invaded Ukraine.

The reason Azerbaijan was able to invade Nagorno-Karabakh,and why Russian soldiers who are supposed to be preventing this kind of thing did nothing, is because Russia is too busy in Ukraine.

If Russia hadn't invaded Ukraine, Azerbaijan would likely have been more cautious.

It also makes it 'safe' to discuss controversial topics, because it's 'only scifi' (or horror/fantasy).

Allows creators and authors to fly under the radar with stuff that could potentially get you arrested, censored, cause controversy or end your career. Prime example, Tarkovski movies like Solaris or Stalker, which are full of religious metaphors, despite being released in the USSR.

Meh. I think of this (and similar sentiments in other religions) as the equivalent of an aknowledgement of the butterfly effect, unforseen circumstances and the reality that we as humans have little control over the world and can't see into the future.

TLDR: maybe the baby needed to die.

That's not fair. They can also go fight each other (again).

The world is really lucky that China's not doing that great at the moment. Not so long ago, China was winning the propaganda war internationally.

You don't want authoritarianism to win the argument by out-performing democracies.

Bin kein Deutscher(horrible German trigger warning), aber hier in Belgien/Flandern sind die meisten der Vlaams Belang Wähler kein Faschisten. In die Niederlanden, Italien und Frankreich gleich so. Die Parteimitglieder sind fast allen Faschisten, klar. Aber die Wähler nicht.

Ein 100 % Faschist zu sein ist doch etwas anders und viel schlimmer als 'nur' Racist/anti-Immigration/Protestwähler zu sein.

Z.b. Wilders(PVV) ist rechtsextrem, klar. Aber er ist wahrscheinlich(!!!) kein Judenhasser. Thierry Baudet (FVD) spricht aber oft uber Kulturmarxismus, Soros und Entarte Kunst. PVV Wähler: 25% Wilders: 50%. Thierry Baudet: 95%.

My headcanon is that Vader senses the force in Leia and deep down may unconsciously realise she's his daughter because she looks like her mother, which is partly why he doesn't kill her, even if the stated reason is that they still need to get information out of her.

There are worse monsters than Putin in this world, they just happen to have less power.