dactylotheca

But the thing is that Ukraine is getting worn down as well, and the longer this drags out the more emboldened Russia will become, not to mention the fact that right now Ukraine doesn't have the capacity for retaking territory – if the war ends with Russia making territorial gains, you can bet your ass this won't be the last Russian invasion in Europe in the near future.

Oh it absolutely will hurt them plenty even if they "win" this war, but the problem is that the more of their strategic aims they accomplish the more emboldened they'll be. Sure, it'll take them a while to regenerate their forces (and their demographics being what they are it won't be easy), but I don't think that they're nearly as screwed as commonly assumed.

Russians are no strangers to misery, and the masses are generally more than happy to live with a boot on their necks as long as they believe they have their boots on somebody else's neck as well. Casualties (wounded or dead) really don't factor into it, especially considering that it's the non-ethnic minorities who are dispropotionately getting the short end of the stick in the war – which is how it's always been with Russia starting from imperial times. It's a colonial empire but with contiguous borders, and they have no compunctions about throwing minorities in the meat grinder.

Oh yeah every place has its bastards, but like you said Bristol should be OK. I honestly remembered it was Birmingham or something, heh

Hasn't moved yet. I did a quick search and turns out he's moving to Bristol so it's not as bad as it could be, I had a vague memory it was more up north

People often say that seems to be the rationale, but I don't quite buy it. Artificially prolonging the war has much bigger risks involved as it lets Russia not only learn from their mistakes (which they have been doing, regardless of what people often seem to think. Not that they've suddenly unfucked themselves but still), and it also gives them time to regenerate their forces and move their country more and more towards a war economy.

If the assumption is that EU and US leaders are just cold and calculating but still want Russia to lose, it's hard to imagine they'd choose this drip feeding tactic

his posture has that Parkinson's or Alzheimer's lean to it

Frontotemporal dementia

Uh, what?

Seriously, it feels like many "western" leaders want Russia to win. The aid we've collectively given Ukraine is comparatively pitiful, compared to what the risks are if we fucking let Russia win. Unsurprisingly the countries that are doing the most to help Ukraine are the ones that have had to live under Russian occupation.

Yes, it's great that Ukraine fucking finally got some F-16s, but the total amount pledged is absolutely pitiful and a lot of them won't even be arriving until a few years from now

If you’re 100% white you probably won’t notice.

100% white, cis, and straight.

There's this transmasc / enby / bigender "influencer" (Eddie Engels) who's planning on moving to the UK (and not exactly to what anybody would call a liberal-minded area either iirc) to be close to his currently long-distance boyfriend, and I feel sorry for the guy. He's just such a quintessentially queer character that it's likely he's actually not going to be safe there, and I really don't know if he's thought this thing through too well…

the things we do for love 🤷

Edit: I had to check because somebody asked, but it was actually Bristol he's moving to, which should be completely fine. Vague memory was vague, heh

The question is do they even have the capacity for taking schooling "seriously".

Some do. A lot of them don't – there's are multiple empirical scientific studies that show conservatives are more likely to be… well, in a word, stupid. Here's a study I saw someone quote on Lemmy earlier:

• Does Lower Cognitive Ability Predict Greater Prejudice? [T]here exists a solid empirical paper trail demonstrating that lower cognitive abilities (e.g., abstract-reasoning skills and verbal, nonverbal, and general intelligence) predict greater prejudice. We discuss how the effects of lower cognitive ability on prejudice are explained (i.e., mediated) by greater endorsement of right-wing socially conservative attitude. […]

Right-wing ideologies offer well-structured and ordered views about society that preserve traditional societal conventions and norms (e.g., Jost, Glaser, Kruglanski, & Sulloway, 2003). Such ideological belief systems are particularly attractive to individuals who are strongly motivated to avoid uncertainty and ambiguity in preference for simplicity and predictability (Jost et al., 2003; Roets & Van Hiel, 2011). Theoretically, individuals with lower mental abilities should be attracted by right-wing social-cultural ideologies because they minimize complexity and increase perceived control (Heaven, Ciarrochi, & Leeson, 2011; Stankov, 2009). Conversely, individuals with greater cognitive skills are better positioned to understand changing and dynamic societal contexts, which should facilitate open-minded, relatively left-leaning attitudes (Deary et al., 2008a; Heaven et al., 2011; McCourt, Bouchard, Lykken, Tellegen, & Keyes, 1999). Lower cognitive abilities therefore draw people to strategies and ideologies that emphasize what is presently known and considered acceptable to make sense and impose order over their environment. Resistance to social change and the preservation of the status quo regarding societal traditions—key principles underpinning right-wing social-cultural ideologies—should be particularly appealing to those wishing to avoid uncertainty and threat.

Indeed, the empirical literature reveals negative relations between cognitive abilities and right-wing social-cultural attitudes, including right-wing authoritarian (e.g., Keiller, 2010; McCourt et al., 1999), socially conservative (e.g., Stankov, 2009; Van Hiel et al., 2010), and religious attitudes (e.g., Zuckerman, Silberman, & Hall, 2013).

It just irritates the fuck out of me when people write an obvious swear word but either omit letters or "censor" them with eg. *, like that somehow makes it not swearing even though EVERYBODY KNOWS WHAT THAT FUCKING WORD IS.

Either don't swear if you think it's so bad, or just write the naughty words out instead of pretending "f*ck" isn't a bad evil naughty word because you hid one letter like a fucking mentally deficient child.

FUCK.