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It's on their border, and there is a high probability some of that Ukrainian shelling may have crossed over, all bets are off in your phony little "morality" play here. You really are quite the desktop warrior, eh?
There's this insistence on the "high probability" of a possible act that could tenuously be considered provocation for some sort of Russian military action, followed by absolutely no real world evidence of Ukrainian shelling over Russia's border (during the pre-2022 era) in the huge number of posts that followed. This was a common tactic in the thread, introduce arguments and then never mention them again - after they fall flat, though there were a few loyally carrying the Ukrainian nazi argument to ludicrous levels. The real argument was a repeated baseless accusation that I was somehow repeated mass media claims, or western propaganda and lies. And of course, the usual idiotic conceit that if they had ever presented a rational, well-informed argument, it would go unappreciated on me, the sole reader of SoylentNews.
My take is that when all the terrible reasoning and arguments are on one side, maybe it's because the side is deeply flawed in some way. I think for this war it's because the pro-Russian side can only hold its viewpoint via a complete abandonment of reason and morality.
Second, for an example of what we can learn from biased media sources, the Kherson counterattack appears to be happening - both Ukraine and Russia have claimed it is ongoing with very different spins on how well it's going down. But there's a few things I can figure out from this even in the presence of such a fog of war. First, it's a hugely telegraphed and slowly implemented attack by the Ukrainians. That's usually a very strong indicator for failure. If the Russians can't take advantage of that, then they are really terrible even by their past performance in this war. Also, the Russians must really be in a weak position, if it's even possible to get to this point where a snail-paced counterattack can go this far. They might really be terrible enough for the attack to succeed.
We're also starting to see signs of terribleness elsewhere. For example, the US is thought to be running low on supplies of ammunition that they're providing to Ukraine like the HIMARS rockets. I think this illustrates the terrible nature of US military procurement. I think other countries face similar trouble. The military industrial complex is great for sponging up public funds, but not so great for supplying a significant war. Maybe this war will clean out some of the glaring weaknesses in various western militaries, including Russia's, but I'm not hopeful.
Added: Ukraine is tight-lipped now (September 2). My bet is that if they were rolling up Russian lines easily, they'd be non-stop talking about it. So this is an indicator that things probably aren't going well. Absence of propaganda is another way one can use a propaganda source to glean genuine information.
Finally, there's the lunacy of Russia's actions have disrupted the world and status quo in ways that harm billions of innocent people: threatening the food supply and bringing humanity to the brink of nuclear war. My premise is as follows:
- There were peaceful, beneficial ways for Russia to pursue its interests. But that would run into the inherent contradictions of the Putin regime, such as trying to build a powerful Russia while simultaneously robbing it blind.
- Just because someone has an existential concern, doesn't make it a serious one. It should pass a rational person test - would a rational person believe the same in the circumstances. For example, it has been claimed that Russia needed to invade Ukraine before it was invaded by NATO - to avoid the "Stalin mistake" of not invading Nazi Germany before Nazi Germany invaded them. Well, that fails the rational person test. Even now, with Ukraine fighting with NATO weapons, there's no move to invade Russia.
- Threatening with nuclear weapons over penny ante shit. Sure, if Russia had a reasonable existential concern, then they could at least have a reasonable pretext for such a threat. But just mooching some Ukrainian land? That's garbage.
On that last bit, do we really want to live in a world where nuclear threats are an automatic i-win button for stealing shit? There should be consequences else we're just paying the Dane (no offense to modern Denmark, but some of your ancestors were a bit scruffy). - Is it too many to expect that rivals play smart and employ peaceful means to overturn the status quo/unipolar/hegemony rather than kill large numbers of people in venal and often counterproductive conflict?
You can whine about how unfair the mass media, western propaganda lies are, but well, there's this serious problem that we need to do something about before it tears apart our world. My take is that with a focused effort on development, most which doesn't even need to involve government action at all, we can make everyone in the world vastly better off. But the Russian invasion and its tremendous fallout helps hold that back. It makes the world a more terrible place.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday September 01 2022, @10:57AM (20 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 01 2022, @02:56PM (1 child)
"is just such a brazen denial of reality. All just to spin some feeble NATO threat narrative."
Haha, totally offtopic but that is how we feel about your climate change denialism.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday September 01 2022, @09:40PM
Feel not think!
I think that rather the opposition is very similar in both places. I see the same repetitive, baseless accusations such as my argument is mere Western/mass media propaganda being very reminiscent of the accusations of Big Oil shilling and such. They'll insist it's fake/lies, they'll insist I'd never put together a rational argument, and yet they'll be the only people in the thread doing that empty, fact-free irrationality.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 01 2022, @08:18PM (17 children)
The wars in Africa are almost entirely fought by Africans, but they are proxy wars, just like Syria, Ukraine, etc. Your version of reality is strictly your opinion, based on biased and false info (lies/propaganda), not what is actually happening.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday September 01 2022, @09:13PM (16 children)
So what? It's not saying much that the principle combatants are supported by outside allies. I think you would be hard pressed to find wars that don't have such. And it remains dumb to refuse to acknowledge a combatant's role in the war because they have particular allies you don't like.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 02 2022, @05:27AM (15 children)
same in Ukraine. The suppliers are profiting nicely. War is good business. Your whole shtick is based on false information. Your bias is nothing but an appeal to authority
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday September 02 2022, @11:33AM (14 children)
And yet, rather than find that alleged false information, there's all this sniveling, such as the very beginning:
Now, it's sniveling about military suppliers - NATO suppliers only. The Russian side get a free pass, of course, because this isn't about military industrial complexes hypothetically starting wars. It's about rationalizing the Russian invasion because you're on that side. I think what's particularly annoying about these sorts of posts is how naked your intentions are and the flimsy efforts to dress it up as rational argument. When I respond with rational argument, the replies are just stupid. You and possibly another AC just aren't saying anything relevant - such as revealing that alleged false information.
Protip: use the right fallacy for the job. What's the authority that I'm appealing to? Even using false propaganda is not an appeal to authority unless I claim it's true because of the authority it supposed came from. This is an example of the stupidity that gets brought to the table.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 03 2022, @09:17PM (13 children)
:-) Your voluminous posts on this matter are very revealing. A truth teller can effortlessly say in one sentence what takes you a Tolstoy length novel to support your lies. It always takes more effort and a large word salad to lie, even when you do your mass media copy/pasta that you do so well
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday September 04 2022, @01:12AM (12 children)
And yet, you're the one telling lies here.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 04 2022, @04:01AM (11 children)
As usual, you're wrong again, a victim of misinformation... Only the war mongers and dumb people believe that. Ya can't sell your bill o' goods to me, but there's plenty of suckers out there buying
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday September 04 2022, @04:06AM (10 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 04 2022, @04:48AM (9 children)
Ah, but you're not a truth teller, you only repeat, and sometimes make up, lies. There's a name for that, rhymes with fire, as in your pants
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday September 04 2022, @04:57AM
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday September 04 2022, @05:05AM (7 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 04 2022, @05:29AM (6 children)
Congratulations! You win the internet! But yer still lyin'
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday September 04 2022, @11:19AM (5 children)
My take on all this is that insisting I'm lying without even the slightest effort at proving your claim is an admission you are wrong. It may not not feel like that to you, but feels are pretty irrelevant when it comes to truth.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 04 2022, @06:11PM (4 children)
You even said you don't read links, "proving" anything to you is purely an exercise in masturbation, and has already been done many many times, the pearl necklace and the Red Nose look good on you, really fits..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday September 04 2022, @07:09PM (3 children)
That tells me you don't bother to link evidence properly. Last time this happened, the AC whined endlessly [soylentnews.org] about how easy it was to read some links in a webpage that they had dumped without justification, but never bothered to do this alleged easy work themselves.
That tells me that they don't actually buy their own story that it would be easy to do or has the evidence they claim is there. If I could just "click through and actually look at the papers", then so could Whiny AC. So why didn't they?
I've also had ACs link to long ass videos/ads, tons of nearly irrelevant links, and so on. It's a strong tell when they refuse to discuss the content.
In other words, you're not doing it right.
In summary, it remains incredibly stupid to talk up how awesome you'd be, if you chose to engage in thoughtful discussion rather than just doing it. You waste endless amounts of time with this pretense. And nobody buys it from ACs who are so ideologically and morally compromised that
Now I find you've wasted my time before with the "read my links that I can't bother to say anything about" game. I'm not surprised that a person who can't argue their way out of a wet paper bag has had trouble with other wet paper bags.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 04 2022, @07:44PM (2 children)
:-) There you go again... pretending to be Tolstoy to sell another war with official lies.. with bullet points! How quaint.. Eh, by all means.. I am amused
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday September 04 2022, @11:25PM (1 child)
The problem here is that "pretending to be Tolstoy" is vastly superior to "Did not! Did too!". I am saying something.
And once again, this sort of exercise is a blatant acknowledgement of the worthlessness of your claims. You post and post about how much you dislike the length of my posts or just asserting that I'm "lying", and not one word defending your claims.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 05 2022, @12:40AM
Well, you know, that's just because, you are