Skiluros

It's a chicken and egg problem.

There are alternatives:

https://commerce.jolla.com/products/jolla-phone-preorder

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairphone (supports Ubuntu Touch in addition to non-google Android distros).

I am going to keep my Samsung for banking and government apps (it has the latest Android ver, so it will work at least for a few more years), but I am planning to switch to Jolla once it is released. I also think Euro government will eventually realize that they need to move off Android/iOS.

Hahaha, I always chuckle when I see people online parrot PR copytext about how Apple cares [about digital privacy]. Just read their privacy policy...

It's supposed to get to -25 in a few days.

Not looking forward to it.

If the EU had any balls, they would help us develop a MAD type strategy against such strikes.

While this is true, European political systems are generally more competitive and flexible (i.e. not a two party state).

US is a two party state where both parties are very corrupt, but worst thing is that the base of the centre-right opposition is largely tolerant of corruption.

I've been constantly looking at long term weather daily forecasts for the past few weeks.

About two weeks ago, it was showing an increase in temperatures starting from earlier this week and extending into Feb.

The latest forecasts show temperatures going down to -25 (at night in the coming days). The russians will definitely strike around that time.

And fuck american "communist" online roleplayers. Let's hope one day they end up in russia (with their citizenship cancelled).

I live on a high floor and it's a fucking pain to deal with the cold and lack of water. Than being said, I can manage. I do feel for ladies like Janchuk. My grandma is 80+, but we can support her.

Individuals like Merkel with their arrogance and de facto support for russian genocidal imperialism are massive enablers of the russians (Schröder is a piece of shit too, but unlike Merkel I don't think he actually believes in anything, if the bribe is large enough he will pitch anything). I hope both of them get a severe case of Alzheimer's.

In a sense, we were really lucky that Yanukovich was a fool and a coward. Trump too is committed to ignorance and he is definitely a huge coward, but he knows how to "own" his corruption and criminality in a manner that appeals to a significant portion of the US public (perhaps not a majority or even a plurality, but whatever it is, it is large enough to matter). That wasn't true about Yanukovich.

The killing of protesters in Feb 2014 was the inflection point, a point of no return. That's when a significant portion of society came to the conclusion that the Yanukovich regime has to go. And the fact that the public pushed back, even with the use of violence by regime goons, is what doomed Yanukovich. The Yanukovich regime was not able to take back Maidan Nezalezhnosti; the "main square of the country", if a government can't control it, it de facto does not have legitimacy.

His senior allies started to get worried that they would have to go down with the ship and that they wouldn't be able to "lawyer their way out of it" and might have to face true justice from the public. I would argue the same was true of the security forces, when the public fought back, they started asking themselves uncomfortable questions about whether it was worth risking their lives for some thugs (who would be focused on saving their own butts).

There really was a sense of "history is being made in front of our eyes" or the apocryphal quote "there are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen." There was a whole parallel self-organized administration. Tens of thousands of people were flowing in from the regions to Kyiv to back anti-regime protests (not to mention every region had its own protest HQ, even Crimea had protesters opposing the regime). During the day the crowds would swell to hundreds of thousands. People were constantly bringing in supplies (food, medicine, protective gear, I personally delivered donations from foreigners who supported the protesters, but didn't want to enter Maidan/Khreshatik). In the night the security forces would try and siege the liberated part of the city, you could even see how the barricade line would move through the square over the days (security services gaining a bit, protesters pushing them back in other days).

Of course, America is not Ukraine, but perhaps this is a case in which America can learn something from Ukraine.
This is a pattern of authoritarian drift that Ukrainians are closely familiar with: rapid consolidation of executive power, aggressive use of state capacity against perceived enemies (including former allies who dared defy the president), and a growing insistence that legality is whatever the leader says it is.
In pushing against all that, Americans can take a page from Ukraine's civil society playbook.

I tend to agree. Life is a strange thing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nNFrvGOb9o

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwf9EjesvtM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eTuFAR169s

Sure US has its own specific challenges: much more competent and violent security forces, much less "motivated" society (a national liberation movement is a powerful thing), but US also doesn't have to deal with many challenges that are present in Ukraine. Specifically, an enemy neighbouring country x4-x5 times larger where the overwhelming majority of the population is committed to genocidal imperialism.

US is really turning into russia but with a stronger cultural preference for "freedom" polemics.

I've lived for multiple years in both US and russia (I speak English and russian), so I think I have something like a frame of reference.

Totally!

The individual who responded to me doesn't believe that Ukraine should not have self-determination and it should under russian domination.

I just made that up, right?

Ah, you're a tankie who supports russian genocidal imperialism.

No, wonder you're being so holier than thou.

Bye!

How do you think I got the $2800 B figure?

The whole framing is dumb.

I have no clue around the exact sum provided to the USSR (although I have read about the nature of the support and what it focused on). I am just pointing you can't compare dollars in a nominal manner.

Your whole framing is suspect, not to mention you're talking finances and you can't even figure out that $150 B (EDIT: as written in the post, when I posted this I didn't check that the nominal figure really was) in 1944 dollars is closer to $2,800 B in 2025 dollars.

$11.3 B in 1944 dollars is equal to $207 B in 2025 dollars.

There are obvious practical considerations for such an approach (security, trade), but I doubt it will possible. The US is not reliable and is ruled by criminal plutocrats.

I was also surprised about it when reading the headline about 5 years.

That's just one charge, there are others that are being prosecuted (with lengthier sentences).

Of course, not a disorderly one, a multi-staged, organization expulsion of US services.

Forget taxing them, the ones who committed crimes against humanity (Zuckerberg with enabling the Rohingya genocide, Musk for the disastrous disorderly shut down of USAID).

And get rid of all American oligarch gang activity; Apple, Google, Meta, all of them.

You are correct, it's a choice. But no one (IMO even the thread OP) is arguing there is a physiologic reason for the lack of empathy. It's shorthand for saying they choose not to show empathy and this won't change any time soon (i.e. definitely not in the next 20-30 years).

Look, I am probably more on your side than our conversation would suggest, but I cannot imagine any realistic scenario of positive developments in American society. Can you? If yes, what is this scenario?

I misunderstood. Apologies.

While I agree that a black and white approach isn't exactly accurate, you can get to a point where the situation becomes close enough to black/white as a matter of practical considerations (i.e. outcomes). Again, not something specific to the US, it can and does happen everywhere.

I am still clinging to the hope that the Americans will turn things around (i.e. no Obama "hope and change" while avoiding addressing crime and corruption), but it's becoming increasingly difficult.

And claiming that the overwhelming majority of the US far right is incapable of empathy (or that they are fundamentally supportive of crime and corruption) isn't factually incorrect to my knowledge.

I disagree with this framing.

I've travelled and lived for several years in many countries across NA (including the US), Europe and Asia.

One thing that I've learned is that it's important to keep an open mind, to look at the good things in a given society/culture and to not be overly judgmental. It's important to not frame thing in terms of expectations from another environment.

That being said there are limits to everything. Looking at the trajectory of American society, it is not unreasonable to speculate that their march towards a chauvinistic, corrupt plutocracy is not going to stop.

I would love to be wrong (it's a disaster that the US has essentially turned into a mafia state), but to deny reality is the definition of cope.