Kor @ Kor @lemm.ee

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2 yr. ago

Those are a lot of words for someone who has lost the argument some comments ago. Continuing to use whataboutisms and creating straw men to advance your warped view on geopolitics simply outs you as an imbecile, not worth any more effort.

No. We have been talking about the present and future threats to the EU while you choose to mostly indulge in past actions that weren't even conducted by justification of Europe's immediate security. Geopolitical concerns have fundamentally changed since then and you are now comparing rotten apples to budding oranges, calling them one and the same, which obviously they are not.

I agree, the EU isn't perfect, but it is the best the world has to offer for the future of democracy and individual freedoms. Afterall, perfect is the enemy of good.

You keep repeating the same talking points. That doesn't make them any more true. How boring of you.

On one end there's rational fear of irrational authoritarian regimes, and on the other fearmongering on the basis of lies. If you cannot discern which regime uses which rhetoric, then all further discussion seems moot to me.

The whataboutisms must flow!

What would change without having the weapons? Nothing, other than the EU being a soft target for rivaling power blocks, inviting more war into Europe. Look at poor Ukraine. Putler thought them weak and attacked. Same power dynamics since the dawn of man.

You should also keep in mind that the EU is a supra-national federalist construct. So a sudden and all-encompassing power grab of the executive branch by the authoritarians - like the one in the US - simply isn't possible due to all participating nations still being sovereign and having their own military.

And what about US aggression towards parts of the EU like Greenland? You sure you want to decrease military spending against an increasingly facist super power right on your doorstep that has already openly stated to be very much interested in forcefully attaining your overseas territory? I don't think so. Pacifism, unfortunately, is dead in this new age of multilaterlism and worldwide resurging authoritarianism.

To add to this: The great majority of nuclear plant operators are companies with a majority stake in fossil fuels. Apparently fossil fuel is more profitable for them than nuclear. Additionally, it is much, much more cheaper (like a 1:3 cost ratio) to produce renewable energy via solar and wind than to do it via nuclear energy. Also, fissile material is non-renewable and mining sites are mostly situated in non-western regions, making us yet again dependent on energy imports. Further, nuclear energy is just not as quickly scalable as renewables, as the construction of nuclear plants usually takes around 10 years, at minimum, whilst wind and solar parks with the same output as nuclear reactors only require a couple if years. Every pro-nuclear advocate therefore effectively supports the centralized fossil fuel industry (as opposed to decentralized energy production of renewables) and fosters dependence on increasingly expensive fissle fuel imports. The cognitive dissonance by proponents towards nuclear energy simply is as deep as the money pockets of our fossil fuel overlords who are desperate to keep control of the narrative and ownership of the energy production.

Only people that are fine with substituting mayonnaise with miracle whip in a potato salad. Ya gotta experiment if the need arises, ya know.

I dont think there is an easy solution for the lacking performance, but to force yt to use a set qulity you can use the FF addon Enhancer for YouTube (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/enhancer-for-youtube/)

Carefully read your replies to my comments. My interpretation of your replies is made in good faith that you want to argue constructively against my position. Simply stating "no" to any of my questions just does not cut it without any evidence to support your opinion. I therefore must assume that you are arguing in favor of Russia, when you pull out whataboutisms and false balances about

your own [Western] imperialistic goals

without properly engaging and refuting my realist observations about Russia. You should learn debate discipline or to properly express your opinion to avoid such misinterpretarions, as your very open and underequipped replies leave just as much room to attack your position as Ukraine's open and underequppied situation before the war sparked Russian aggression.

Your argument is flawed in so many places I don't even know where to begin. So I'll start by assuming you are from India. You won your independence from the British due to many reasons, but the big one being that Britain itself lost interest in controlling your country after the Second World War and democratically voted on it in 1947. I don't see Russia ever losing interest in fully invading Ukraine anytime in the near future (or even entertain the notion to have a democratic vote on the matter), as their stated war goal is full control over Ukraine. Hence a peacful Ukrainian protest against Russian aggression would only result in Russian dominiance over Ukraine. And somehow Ukraine having less weapons in this situation would prompt Russia to scrap their invasion and go home to pre-2014 borders?

I didn't bring it up, NeoNachtwaechter did. I simply continued to use the term to point out their hipocrisy.

However, there certainly is such a thing as democratic imperialism. What else would you call Nixon giving the order to overthrow the newly elected socialist Chilean president Allende in 1970 and then condoning the fascist Pinochet's coup to power in 1973? Or the USA's "war on terror" post-9/11 by invading inter alia Iraq and Afghanistan? I could go on.

Your first paragraph ist simply paraphrasing my entire comment, so you agree with me. Regarding your second paragraph: Then why did they attack and invade Ukraine, if it is neither a threat nor a rivaling power? Kind of looks like Ukraine having not enough arms to defend itself was one of the prime motives for Russia.

I think I am understanding you very well. You say democratic imperialism is just as bad as autocratic imperialism, creating a false balance when you agree that autocracies are inherently worse for humanity than democracies. Furthermore, Ukraine was attacked by a far more capable force than their own. They, by the very definition of imperialism, cannot be imperialistic by simply fighting for its own survival against an autocratic and clearly imperialist Russia.

In a perfectly peaceful world where autocracies can live side by side with democracies you may have a point. But autocratic Russia's war of aggression on democratic Ukraine certainly paints a different picture to your wishful thinking. The lesson for democratic countries is therefore clear: If you don't want to be invaded by uncooperative and irrational autocracies, you have to build up as much military capacity as your unpredictable systemic rivals. Remind me again, who had the military advantage by sheer numbers in the war on Ukraine?

Addendum: The entirety of the Cold War arms race without any major escalation between the US and the USSR is disproving your claim regarding increasing the risk of war btw.

So you prefer autocracies over democracies? Am I understanding you correctly?

I agree with you in theory, but the current reality just does not give a fuck about wishful thinking. As long as there are despots like Putin, Xi Jinping, et al., who see our democratic values as a threat to their own autocratic views we simply have to live with the fact that we have to build weapons to deter their imperialistic goals.

Counterpoint: what about all the weapons used by Ukraine to defend itself and western democracy against Russian aggression and imperialism? Should those not have been made?

Edit: Editing my most top level comment to point out possible subsequent vote brigading. When this post was only half a day old I received way more upvotes than the people I debated. Now that this post has gotten older the ratio is closer to neutral without any new comments pointing to any flaws in my argument. Hence, I think my debate partners felt the need to involve their equally misled friends to downvote my arguments and upvote their previously negatively voted comments back into the positives. Seems very inorganic to me.

Edit 2: The above edit is mostly meant for my discussion thread with NeoNachtwaechter.

I should have replied to your comment instead of creating a new thread. You touched on so many points I also wrote about in my wall of text, it's not even funny :D