u/Tuuktuuk — Tuukka R

We'll see how that will go in the States.

I just read a text about why there are so few pickpockets in USA, and someone mentioned that during the Paris Olympics people had tried pickpocketing spectators from USA, and got so frequently immediately beaten up by spontaneously formed mobs of Americans that the French police had to start actively intervening on the side of the pickpockets O.o

Not everyone on this planet is like the Chinese and Russians. But, we are about to see.

Might be a cultural difference.

A Finn would be too scared _not_ to react under the contemporary Russian circumstances. They'd work with the motto "I'm basically dead anyway, so this way I at least bear a chance to maybe survive."

Can someone explain why the inner circle doesn't take this as a warning sign that Putin is dangerous and must be liquidated as soon as possible?

They will all get killed (or "persuaded to suicide") one after another if they don't end the madman. Appeasing Putin will bring you nothing good in the longer term.

If we don't win this war now that it's limited to Ukraine, Putin will spread it to first Baltics and then Finland once he his army has regained enough strength. Unless we have developed our defense capabilities sufficiently by that.

We need to be ready for the event that France and Germany decide that Ukraine should fall. And if at that point the only countries that have a serious ability to defend against the Russia are Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, then the economy of northwestern EU will be in shambles. And that will definitely affect the rest of EU, including whatever country you are from.

If the whole EU is interested in repelling the Russia when it attacks, then it probably won't even attack. But if only the countries bordering it are interested in that, it abaolutely _will_ attack the northeastern EU. And then your bread will get a lot more expensive.

Using mines is not necessary for repelling a Russian attack, but it makes it possible to repel it with less land area lost in the initial phase. The Russia is very weakened by its crazy war, but that is not a situation that will stay that way forever. In something a bit more than 5 years after this war ends, the Russia can very well have enough material to attack Finland. (It will probably attack Estonia or Latvia first. Most likely Estonia, because Narva is located in a very precarious location and taking Narva without NATO reacting would decrease NATO's political ability to react to bigger things in the future.)

NATO is good to have, and it probably will help if needed, but for example Germany and France have shown that if the Russia says the word "nuke", they reduce their help dramatically, and the country under attack is largely left to its own devices. It would be idiotic of western countries not to support Ukraine as much as possible, yet they do indeed only support it at a minimum level. Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania must be able to defend themselves adequately even without external support, because there's not much reason to assume central European countries' thinking about supporting a country in a war against the Russia would be very different in the future than it is now.

It's theoretically possible that a country uses mines and still gets conquered, yes. But the likelihood is smaller. Also, what is much more important is that it's not a black-and-white "you get conquered or you don't". There's also the middle ground of "part of your country gets conquered for a while, then you regain that territory". As is the case in Ukraine at the moment. The smaller that conquered part is, the less demining you need to do to remove the mines sown by the orcs. And if you are a small country like Finland fighting the Russia alone, fighting with other systems plus mines slows down the Russia more than fighting with those other systems only.

Also, mines are indeed generally not as useful as they were 100 years ago. But against the Russia they have been proven very useful in this war now. Not as useful as 100 years ago, true, but extremely useful all the same. Because the Russia is a country that works about the same way civilized countries worked some 100 years ago.

And, to your last point: You're saying it's unlikely that Finland would use mines in a responsible way. Why wouldn't it? Remember, it's Finland's own people that will suffer from the mines. If we are irresponsible with them, it's us that will suffer. This is a country where people take responsibility much more seriously than in any other country that I know. I do trust that the Finnish army does make maps of the minefields. What is the extreme thing that you're claiming Finland would do, actually? Lay a minefield but somehow decide not to make a map about the mines' locations? Why?

I cannot recognize it as such, because I've just described what is currently taking place in Ukraine. So, I suppose you have probably misinterpreted something I've written, but in case the problem is at my end:

Please tell what makes it a false dichotomy.

Well, what can one do, if one has the Russia as one's neighbour.

Anything the Russia conquers, it mines _extremely_ thoroughly, with zero maps. Several mines on every single square metre along the front.

If you have mines, the Russia will advance much slower, and that means you will have less mines to worry about.

The question is: do you want an area to have 5000 mines of your own with a map showing each one's location or 30 000 Russian mines with no maps of their location whatsoever?

I prefer having less mines. Therefore, I am happy that Finland left the Ottawa agreement. And any other country neighbouring the Russia should definitely do the same, because mines are horrible things and the less of them are in the ground, the better.

Not really. European NATO countries are currently strong enough to repel a Russian attack if we so wish. Taking into account how strong the Russia is at the moment. It will be stronger in the future, but we are easily able to increase our strength more than the Russia can.

And if USA withdraws from NATO, then the rest of EU, not only Finland, Baltics, Sweden, and Poland will be forced to take defence seriously. This will make NATO more like it was supposed to be, and it will no longer be used for offensive wars.

But... USA withdrawing from NATO would of course have negative sides:

• a war with the Russia would not end in two days with a decisive victory for us as it would with USA in, but would drag on for weeks at least, likely years. And thousands or tens of thousands would die.

• USA's allies in Asia would not dare to trust USA anymore and would turn towards China for coöperation, regardless of China's imperialism. This would make China stronger, which would be bad for Europe.

But still: The EU is the biggest economy on this planet. We are absolutely able to win a war against a country with an economy only as big as one of our 27 member states. We just need to bother to do so. Which means we'll need to change our mindset. Heh.

So, the war in Ukraine is a proxy war between North Korea and USA?

They are the locals. They are indigenous New Zealanders and they are doing something that is customary in their culture in the kind of situation they were in during that session.

The New Zealand lawmakers were trying to pass a bill that would have severely reduced the rights of the locals, and this reaction is part of how the local culture demands people to act.

Tabasco's owners have been supporting the Russia in its war of genocide.

A company doing that is no way "good dudes".

Mathematics and languages have different rules.

In languages it is possible for one century to be a yewa shorter than all the others. Other centuries begin on a year divisible by hundred, but centuries 1–99 and -1–-99 don't. They are both missing a year, and outside mathematics that's just fine.

If almost all native speakers of a language say that a century begins in a year divisible by hundred then that's how it goes in that language.

Diplomatic immunity is in effect only for people invited to the country as diplomats. The ambassador of USA to Finland does not have immunity when he travels to Sweden.

What I wonder: what are the laws regarding a person coming to Greenland in order to work there as a worker of a foreign company/organization? Did Vance enter Greenland as a tourist? Since he was working from Greenland's soil without a work visa, was he an illegal immigrant?

Three weeks with lights constantly on, amirite?

No visas are needed between Europe and USA. EU will very soon begin an ESTA-like scheme, but that's not in effect yet. And, since Greenland is not in EU, probably it won't come into effect either.

Vance could therefore simply appear at the border and the one individual border guard is then alone responsible for deciding whether to allow or refuse entry for USA's vice president.

I spent two months in 2015 in Ukraine, then hitchhiked some weeks in the Russia. Almost all drivers kept telling me how Ukraine is a failing state, how their roads are full of bandits, how Ukrainians hate speakers of Russian language and torture them or how Ukraine "has been bombing Donetsk". And when I told them I had spent that long in Ukraine because I found love there and that my Ukrainian girlfriend's mother tongue was Russian and our sole language of communication both between each other and with the society around was Russian they kept saying the same:

" The Ukrainians only showed you what they wanted you to see". To me telling that I had been spending plenty of time alone doing shopping or whatever, and hitchhiked all around the western third of Ukraine, they tended to say "clearly they still didn't show you their true self".

It's not something they were saying against their real knowledge. It was very clearly what they "knew" to be true.

They do a seriously big effort to actively maintain an illusion in their head that their country is in the right, and they are truly supportive of its actions. It's not all of Russians, but it is 90 % of them. Or at least 70 % even according to the research most good-looking for them. It is a nation gone mad. If you read their study books for mathematics or Russian language and see how full they are of propaganda about Russian history, it's clear where that comes from.

If they went to Russian school, their brain is rotten for good. Unless they are an exceptional personality. In which case they have already emigrated.

Well, the word "automatically" is an exaggeration. For example, if it was a close call and it seems you were in the court fairly, then the losing side might not have to pay up, at least not in full. But often they do. Better settle if you think you'll lose. It's a lot cheaper that way.

When it is cleae it will otherwise come to that, the companies tend to just comply. The thing is, tge value of the seized property is considered to be hiw much it can be sold for, not how useful it is for the company or how much they paid for it.

When Tesla is threatened by seizing a machine used for car manufacturing that they bought for 250 000 €, but there is no other car factory that has a need for another one one of those devices unless its dirt cheap, then it might be the machine will be seized, its valued to have a resale value of 15 000 €, and after the altogether 4000 € of missing salaries to various workers are paid, the remaining 11 000 will be paid back to the company. Which can then buy another machine like that for 250 000 €. Or, if they are lucky maybe buy their noe dismantled machine back?

In any case, that's such a horribly bad deal for the company that they definitely choose the 90 % cheaper option of just paying their debt to the workers. So, it doesn't really ever come to actual seizing. Either they can pay the original debt or they can't because they are bankrupt. Either way, no seizing. But it is absolutely possible to carry it through, should some company really want to be that stupid.

They were people who either were in support of the genocide of Ukrainians or angry that the attempt to conquer Ukraine was done in a manner far bloodier than they had hoped for.

There are Russians who aren't in either of those two groups, but they are very few – among the ones I know, about 5%. Those who aren't in those two groups cannot stand the rest of the Russians and would definitely choose a submarine ride where they are the only Russian.

In other words: since they were many Russians in the submarine, and not people from a lot of various countries with one or two Russians among them, they were definitely actively or passively supporting a war of genocide.

I would not accept hating all Russian citizens, because I do have a couple of very good friends that are Russian citizens and are absolutely unambigously against what the Russia is doing. But, those are a very surprisingly tiny minority among the people of the Russia 😢

China doesn't need to push the transitioning. Juat like you said, the previous time that push was done by the west. The same west can do the same push again.

Why for the EU?

It's much easier to produce military hardware than to set up a large trading network.

Remember, we only need to have enough to decisively stop the Russia. We don't need to become another US military power.