Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.

And the sanctions make the numbers bigger. Russia needs to spend more to get the same, which means they’re getting less for the same amount of money, sweat, genius and hopes.

And that’s a win.

It’s normal for a war economy to “grow”. When a government is buying all the tanks, guns and bullets it can, that’s absolutely amazing for the economy as a whole. Government spending increases generally drive growth (never mind that this just drives debt up and can send your country into a spiral)

Inflation, usually as a result from the former, also makes numbers go up. And if you intentionally undercount accidentally underestimate inflation, it goes up even more! You can always increase interest to keep up (if you dont have massive debt from the former).

You reduce exports of cheap raw materials and start using them yourself to make expensive war materials that look great on your books (but which don’t actually make your country any money, unlike the raw materials).

Getting more soldiers is great for employment numbers, and industry will also need more people. Governments competing with industry drives wages up (and government reserves down).

War generally requires new infrastructure, which is great for countries that have neglected it for decades (unfortunately getting bombed tends to make said improvements rather short term, and only to places nobody wants to go).

So as long as you’re not collapsing under debt (and if you can steal from private citizens, you can keep going for a bit) and your civilian industry hasn’t quite collapsed yet (Russians excel at suffering) and you haven’t undergone population collapse (15 and 70 make for great soldiers, right?) your economy looks great to anyone not looking too closely.

I mean, these arguments really only work if you disregard that NAFO isn’t NATO.

Same nose, same eye-shape, similar chin, and rapidly rushing towards similar hairlines. If these two aren’t related, that’s a huge coincidence.

Also, childhood malnutrition is a bitch and will absolutely cause something like this.

“Centrism” has always been “conservative but I don’t like people calling me on that”.

That’s just basic cruelty. “Hurting other people is great”

Oh? Can you give an example? Because I’ve mostly seen official channels take Russia very seriously

If Russia never ends up invading Lithuania then this will only harm Lithuanians, either people who step on it by accident or while trying to remove them

Wait, I think there’s a big disconnect here. Nobody is suggesting they scatter a million landmines around Vilnius, or even emplacing them along the border right now. You can have landmines ready, but not place them until you notice troop buildups. You can even pre-place basic fences to keep civilians out of the zones you plan to use, it still works.

The time to place landmines is when you’re (about to be) at war. Not just for humanitarian reasons, landmines don’t actually work reliably forever.

It has been proven far and wide these things kill long after a conflict has been resolved.

And, very harshly, you can weigh those deaths against immediate deaths when you’re at war. Against an enemy that has repeatedly demonstrated that losing a war will mean you stop existing as a people, the equation becomes a lot less complex.

But, those factories can obviously operate just fine inside Europe, as they are currently doing so. They just make more profit under the lax Chinese regulations, which are set that way by the Chinese government.

Europe can’t legislate China.

Its not a total dichotomy, but one absolutely contributes to not having the other.

The big “problem” for the farmers is that consumers don’t actually give a shit about the DOP system.

How is it Europe fault’s that China is still happily building new coal plants and not regulating industry?

They’re sitting on top of millions of liters of explosives. Of course it’s not safe.

I’m a big fan of Amesty, but their point is stupid. Look how much Ukrainians have suffered at the hands of Russia. Russia is literally comitting genocide right fucking now, kidnapping children and forcefully displacing adults and moving Russians into the occupied territory.

Now, landmines are bad, true. But genocide is a whole lot fucking worse. You can remove landmines, and the ones you miss will not kill tens of thousands of people every year.

The great weakness of a true democracy is that it allows skilled, well-intentioned politicians and corrupt assholes to run just as easily. And the corrupt assholes tend to be better funded.

I know a lot WW1 and 2 reenactors who went from “I do WW1 and/or WW2 reenactment” to “Im in a group that recreates a British regiment during the early 20th century”.

1997 is not I IX IX VII, for 1 9 9 7

It’s MCMXCVII for 1000+(1000-100)+(100-10)+7

There’s a saying: “it’s not your fault, but you are the only person who can solve it”.

Only you can reduce your calories, only you can stop smoking and only you can quit alcohol. That’s shitty that you have to, and in an ideal world it wouldn’t be like this, but it is.

On the other hand, this factor might be the salvation: the current AI market is full of 2000-era-dot-com business models based on selling at a loss and making it up on the promise of global domination later.

Except of course, that’s all a lie and they can never remotely turn a profit. AI can’t perform anything that’s being promised, it’s not getting cheaper and it doesn’t noticeably improve where it matters.

You can see the cracks starting to form: The classical big tech players are already bailing out of AI-growth, microsoft, oracle, amazon are opting out of their growth and not investing anymore. And of course they are, Amazon pumped over 200 billion into AI, and are turning 5b revenue. Not profit, revenue. They’re not making any profit, despite 200b of investment.

Soon enough, Open-AI too is going to fail under the strain of their immense and constant losses when the people who keep pumping venture capital stop doing that. I’ll eat my hat if they last into 2028.

massive choices on where the story goes based on your responses,

Really? What massive choices do you make? Hunter or emissary? That just changes the last 20 minutes of the game. Before then, you have no major impact on the plot.

the capabilities to befriend or antagonize any enemy whether a human, alien, or these strange pirates

But you don’t. You can’t befriend the pirates, there arent really any strange aliens, and you can’t antagonize most friends.

You deal with politics, survival,

Do you? There’s some minor “deal with this for me” stuff from the factions, but that’s hardly politics.

And survival isn’t an issue in the game at all, even though you can see the scrapped leftovers from it.

attempting to save the galaxy while trying to discover the hidden story.

The “hidden story” is spelled out and telegraphed in the main questline. It’s not a souls like where you piece it together, they literally tell you to your face