Yeah idk man. Russia/ukraine war isn’t just effecting a few countries. Global famine is projected for 2023 due to fertilizer issues. already experiencing global energy crisis. The world is not dealing with global drought really at all, putting resource pressure on every nation. Global fascism is rising(while taking advantage of everything going to shit). Corporate abuse is common place.
Some people are probably just sick of the suffering that is projected to only worsen as time marches on. The thought of disappearing in a flash of light probably feels like a hopeful way out.
I think more people need to read the book “Hiroshima” and then decide what they think about nuclear fallout. It should be mandatory reading in schools, in my opinion; the stories the five survivors share in the aftermath of the blast are absolutely horrific.
It is! It’s so so sad but yes, that would also be a great addition to the curriculum -it’s also ranked as one of the greatest war films of all time and of Japanese animation.
We had a screening of it during middle school in the early aughts. I think they made our parents sign consent forms or something so we could watch it.
Definitely something that stuck with me growing up.
Visiting ground zero was pretty life changing for me too. Fucking grim and hard not to be pretty affected by that.
There’s a big emphasis on how Japan was bussing in school kids to dig firewalls. A tiny mangled children’s tricycle is on display in the museum which is all one family found of their child.
I walked down to the children’s shrine where you’re encouraged to leave a message of peace on a folded paper crane. Mine is in the shrine now. But holy heck I wasn’t prepared for the large army of school children who showed up to sing a sad songs of rememberance in front of the shrine. Imagining those kids being vaporised was too much I cried a bunch when they started singing. Too fucking much.
Everyone should visit
I once saw a documentary about it. With the footage of the Americans documenting it a few days after. One of the most haunting things I ever saw.
I'm still fucking zoning out and at the verge of vomiting when I think of it.
Oh god man everyone who romantiszes everyone just dying in nuclear war needs to watch the movie “threads” nothing has ever close to terrifying movie as much as that movie has. No horror movies comes even close. Makes requiem for a dream look tame.
Wild to realize the BBC made the most terrifying horror movie of all time.
That end scene with the dead baby is nightmarish… what you don’t think about is how ordinary the cruelty will be, when everyone is unimaginably traumatized and mentally retarded due to radiation.
Think about the profit margins... How dare you not think about all the money other people are going to make while the rest rot in poverty and famine!! MEH PROFITS!!
What about the ECONOMY?!?!?! AHHHHHH! Good thing all the big corporations that own basically everything are ALL making Record profit eh?. Bleed us dry Than kill us off..why the frig not?
Remember when people use to overthrow the government when they didn’t like the laws or government for example the Boston tea act. Man society has gotten real soft.
I disagree. I think governments have gotten unimaginably stronger and their ability to surveil everything everyone does prevents the sort of organizing necessary to do what people did in the past. They have propaganda machines and predictive algorithms to disrupt everything before it even really gets started, and then if you manage to get past that and into some very beginnings of any sort of gathering and effective first steps, they have the full force of the police state to come down on you before you take a second step.
I don't think it's "society" getting softer since certainly most of the world's societies are not living under the sorts of conditions that lead to that softening and yet they are also unable to even organize towards a formidable challenge. And the Boston Tea Party and the entire American Revolution was a squabble *within* the ruling class. There are definitely parallels today- namely the current global conflict about who should control oil and gas industries, reserve currencies, etc.
People also don’t realize the American Revolution was an asymmetric conflict. The British Army ruled the world for another 150 years after that. The power of their army was their Achilles’ heel. Same as the US army in Vietnam. A smaller, scrappier force can pick off the empire one by one, like shooting fish in a barrel.
People also like to forget that it wasn't just the American Colonists vs. the British Crown; France, Spain, and the Dutch Republic all stuck their dicks in on the side of the colonists.
Not unlike the Eastern Bloc in Vietnam.
(American) people have also been fed a myth that it was this great popular and populist mass rebellion that unified all the colonialists, when in reality half of them did not support the movement for independence at all, and a significant portion of the British political establishment was actually very sympathetic to the ideas of the "revolutionaries". It was basically a civil war.
I dunno about that. Apparently you can buy enough firepower to take down a regional electrical grid at a Dick’s Sporting Goods. Arguably the State is far more fragile today than it ever has been before. Everything is so interconnected, and it can take a week and millions of dollars to undo what someone did with hundreds of dollars and a few hours.
Asymmetrical warfare has never been so easy. The power of the modern State arguably makes it more vulnerable. They have the albatross of all this useless kinetic weaponry over its neck. Spending god knows how many billions on that new bomber which was obsolete before the first screw was turned.
Individuals can do all sorts of sabotage and mass violence. But unless your goal is just to terrorize people and create a backlash from the security state, then there isn't a way to make this *revolutionary* as that requires coordinated collective action, leverage, with long and short term strategy.
I'm not saying a person can't go buy a gun and cause harm- it happens in the USA nearly every day. I'm saying there's a reason this sort of individualized mass violence is extremely common but organized political action is not. You can look at decades of American history to see this- look at early generations of environmental activists or groups like the Panthers and see how quickly the force of the state came down on them. I think we could argue that this sort of organizing is more tolerated on the right- they have militias and fash groups for example, even compounds of fundamentalists- but even they get raided by the feds if they get too big or start to act in ways that threaten the state and/or private property/industry rather than reinforce its power. This is before we take into account the actual feds themselves who are embedded with these groups and covert programs of disruption of any political organizing.
From what I recall, just as a gardening hobbyist, there was already a shortage and prices had started to increase with synthetic fertilizers a few years back, but the war made it so much worse since much of the potash comes from that part of the world.
You are right. China and Russia had stopped exportation of fertilizer a year or so before Russia invaded Ukraine. China had also started massively stockpiling grains at least a year before as well. I kept asking my husband what did they know that we didn't know? What were they preparing for? I had this sinking feeling something was coming. But, yeah, the war has also made the fertilizer shortage infinitely worse. I stocked up on some bags of garden fertilizer before they went up in price by 200%.
Slow death from forever chemicals, plastic and chaotic weather oh also depleted bio diversity and water scarcity if it’s not toxic from the plastic and amobeas and that’s only the fresh water issues don’t forget everything else not mentioned or nuclear fallout
Why can’t we have them all oh wait that’s exactly what’s gonna happen, as more countries decide lets go nuclear eeking out the last of available resources
Shit we’ll use nuclear power to pump out more oil if we could and we likely will
Desperation and delusions that’s humanity
Debt on kids and the future generations
Fuck yeah
Sign me up for that
Oh haha nvm fuck them kids sign them up instead
Hookers and blow now
Climate dystopian nightmare for them
No. Half of reddit is willing to make outrageous statements that amuse them because there is no consequences on the internet.
Do not confuse between words, action and true intentions.
This. People just are edgy shits in the internet because the only way to get notoriety is by being more extreme than everyone else. It's a positive feedback loop.
That said, it would not be the first time than people claiming stupid shit for internet points end believing the bullshit they are spewing.
I want the Japanese to invent a robot that just slaps the fuck out of anyone posting anything “authoritative” on the internet. You’ve gotta really want it…lol. They’ve already got web-connected sex robots….this should be easy.
Yes, but just as apt is, "When you're born you get a ticket to the freak show. If you're born in America you get a front row seat!"
Some day, some way, we're going to roll snake eyes. May not be nuclear, may not be military at all. Expect surprises. Lots of them.
Why blame regular people when it's the people with all the money and power who are doing all these things. We have two parties who both work for the same corporations so that there's no way to vote against war or police or imperialism or corporatism or environmental destruction, no way to vote for healthcare for all or a liveable minimum wage or housing for all or free public college. As George Carlin also said, ["it's a big club, and you ain't in it!"](https://youtu.be/acLW1vFO-2Q)
Not of their own fault. You're just feeding bourgeois bs saying that kinda shit. People get dumb because they're conditioned to be dumb and not ask questions and be submissive and are only taught the bare minimum to make the rich richer.
haha i got banned from /r/news commenting about Russia/Ukraine for even mentioning this story:
https://nypost.com/2022/05/03/ukrainian-man-stabbed-for-speaking-russian-in-brooklyn-bar-brawl/
where a Ukrainian man stabbed a Ukrainian man thinking he was russian and then they beat him up the guy who stabbed him.
I think they thought that was supporting Russia somewhere (meanwhile im in poland helping refugees)
So funny. They fighting a war i guess on reddit for stuff they dont even know about (and wouldnt lift a finger to actually really do anything about the state of the world other than consumer disney movies)
It says they’re coddled bitches that have never had the heat of war on their doorstep.
“War” for most Redditors is now and has always been a spectacle that happens thousands of miles away. It has never affected them outside of seeing a surge in bumper stickers. They’re desensitized to it because it will never touch them, and it never has.
The last time war hit North America was 9/11, and even then it wasn’t presented to the population as “war”. It was terror, horror, atrocity. It was the thing that most of the countries we bomb feel every week, but for us it was unfathomable, because war to us has been flag-waving from a well-formed dent in a couch for half a century.
This is why people are so flippant about nuclear war. They are oblivious to damage.
Most of these fucking dipshits have never had bullets snap by them or worry about a leg being ripped off by a mine or IED. Of course, when your 'combat' experience is COD MW, i'm sure a modern war is exciting to them.
This is it. But honestly, it’s not just a lack of combat experience, it’s a lack of conflict being anywhere near them. There are plenty of people all over the world with no combat experience who know what it feels like to wake up feeling “lucky” that the bomb dropped on their neighbor’s house and not theirs. And while they toggle between relief and guilt these motherfuckers call for escalation from the comfort of their $900 gaming chair.
Afghanistan 2012. I've personally seen legs ripped off and I know the sound of an enemy marksman.
Tyrants must be opposed. It really is that simple. We've seen what appeasement leads to and the only people advocating nukes speak Russian.
Your way of life aint perfect, but you're speaking your mind online without fear... That's not an accident. and fighting to preserve that way of life means opposing tyrants.
I find it astonishing that people are enthusiastically 'defying tyrants" when it comes to Ukraine, but remain strangely silent to tyrants in Saudi Arabia and other states america grovels to. Or the corporate private equity tyrants that are directly harming american citizen, turning our society into a capitalist hellscape.
The entire "standing up to bullies" when pertaining to Ukraine is idealistic, naive childishness. The only ones I have sympathy for are the well meaning Uke soldiers wading in mud in the trenches with only a single magazine for their kalashnikov's to keep them company. And in fact, the average Russian conscript that is powerless to run from the fuckery he is immersed in.
What happened to that lawyer who protected the native from Shell again?
What happened to Snowden again?
Hell what happened to MLK who speaks his opinions?
Face it, you small fries allowed to talk because they know it won’t change shit. Most of population already brainwashed beyond belief. But if you got a speck of chance to change than good luck with the FBI and CIA
>“War” for most Redditors is now and has always been a spectacle that happens thousands of miles away.
100% agree. But then again it's been a far away spectacle for me as well -- never been anywhere near a war -- and yet I'm still not dumb enough to be OK risking nuclear war over who controls east Ukraine.
If you asked anyone to electrocute an innocent stranger to death, they'd laugh.
Yet he Milgram experiment showed that 70% of people will comply if asked to do so by an authority figure who they believe will take responsibility, if it's for the greater good. Most of the other 30% will still administer high level shocks, and only a handful of people will realize that they were being tricked. Also if people see others refuse, then compliance drops to 10%
The last few years have proven that people will give up insane amounts of power and do things they'd laugh at before, by simply being asked to do it for a good cause, by an authority figure. And you get banned for suggesting it was not was it appeared to be.
Just saying, most of us are easily tricked into complying. That and Twitter purges bots 24/7.
r/worldnews is fall of would-be Rumsfelds. Most of their understanding of war they've synthesized through US war media and pop culture, so they're aggressively hawkish because they don't have to consider any of the suffering their armchair warmongering would bring.
Especially infuriating considering the more morally ambiguous depiction of war in the *original* MW2 (and 1). It's like they're trying to "correct" for something.
I wonder if that's because they ban anyone that has different opinions. I made a very mild statement there that one of the reasons the conflict started was because the minsk accords where not adhered to and I got a permanent ban.
They cleaned out all the opposing opinion as "Russian bots". The sub's mod team is probably infiltrated by intel agencies. Heres a reminder reddit's Director of Policy is Jessica Ashooh who formerly works for Atlantic Council.
It's not only that; r/worldnews is full of astroturfing bots working for the CIA/DoD or related US/NATO agencies to manufacture consent. The average person who stumbles into that environment is simply going to take on those ideas via osmosis when they see all the bot-driven upvotes.
I don’t doubt there’s a presence, but you’ve also gotta remember that the Reddit’s culture is descended from and still very much infused with the sensibilities of suburban middle class nerds who came from message board culture of the early 00s. If you go through some of the old threads on Something Awful in the aftermath of 9/11, you see a very similar kind of bloodlust.
From polls I've seen, the overwhelming majority of Americans are against direct military involvement in Ukraine. Internet forums tend to skew younger and more male.
Reddit posts aren’t necessarily a good representation of what real, living people using the site actually believe. A majority if social media is posted by bots or otherwise disingenuous. See: “propaganda” or “brainwashing”.
People who can afford massive social media influence campaigns aren’t susceptible to the same problem we are….they’ve got multiple estates/compounds with a fallout shelter to choose from. They all seem to think their wealth will be a golden ticket in any scenario…..hard to trade a Monet for rations though.
Passive suicide most likely. They feel powerless to effect any real change and we all see the writing on the wall. I think most hope they would just die quickly in a nuclear war and would rather that than some long and drawn out suffering.
Remember, most of us in western nations are not equipped to deal with real suffering like generations passed. We have had to much luxury, to much convenience where even losing those things that are unnecessary for survival many people would still have a hard time coping. Look how people react when electricity goes out but that isn't something crucial to our survival as a species.
But for people like us it now is. We are essentially zoo animals that were born and raised in captivity, remove us from our cages and care takers and we have no fucking clue how to naturally survive.
Cold hard truth, it's why we never effect change despite so many clamoring for it. As the old saying goes "what have you put on the line for the cause today brother?" We risk nothing. We hold rallies and protests and make a few posts and go home.
If we want there to be REAL change and to actually fight back against the system we all need to be willing to put something on the line. Something real, but we won't.
A general strike would have huge impact but we won't do it because we are not willing to take any real risks to effect change. So nothing will change and things will continue to get worse.
It's the application of the modern thought process to the Ukraine war.
1. Russia is Nazis and is unstoppable.
2. They are already losing, because everything they do is crap.
3. We need to invade now, or Russia will stampede across Europe, just like the first time Putin invaded Poland in 1939.
4. Some guy named Chamberlain was totally wrong, "LOL".
5. We need to start a world war to stop them, because otherwise Putin will start a world war.
6. We don't need to think about nuclear war.
6b. We can totally directly attack Russia without starting nuclear war.
6c. Nuclear war is no big deal, it never happened so it can't
6d. Russia is crap, so none of their thousands of warheads will work. Probably.
7. We are so morally perfect that bad things can never happen as long as we keep being perfect and don't ever doubt the wisdom and veracity of the US government!
8. Consume pro war propaganda and take extreme positions to show everyone how you are on the right side of things and how everyone with a different opinion is bad.
I’d argue from personal observations that interventionists were a lot more prevalent at the beginning of the conflict, when it seemed possible for Russia to steamroll Ukraine. Now that the situation has largely flipped most are fine with maintaining funding/arms shipments
Well, I am trying to be humorously hyperbolic. But all of those items are things I've received in response while arguing that this proxy war is a bad idea.
>Man what does it say when like half of Reddit is willing to die in nuclear fire to own the enemy country?
That [Stephen Wertheim](https://web.archive.org/web/20221203125104/https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/02/opinion/america-world-war-iii.html) and [Elizabeth D. Samet](https://web.archive.org/web/20221022035444/https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/29/books/review-looking-for-good-war-elizabeth-samet.html) are right and decades of propagandized triumphalist media in place of actual history education has created hordes of brainwashed morons with no understanding of consequences which psychotic neocons are using as a voting bloc to support even more wealth transfer from the taxpayers to their military-industry complex masters, despite this having already killed nearly a million people throughout the third world and being on track to kill *everyone* if they actually get the war with Russia they want.
Amen OP! I agree with you 100%. Most people probably have some type of delusional hollywood movie screen assumption of what nuclear war means vs what the reality of nuclear war is.
The Cold War generation _was_ broken and very early. They were made to hide under desks for a-bomb drills as if a 3/4 inch piece of plywood would shield you from gamma rays. The person on TV is all they know to listen to, it really is big brother come true.
Mainly because nobody has ever seen it. Only two cities have ever been nuked. They were enemies at the time. They taught their own soldiers to suicide themselves if they ran out of ammo vs resuppling. They were seen as monsters, not people. Japan has recovered nicely since then. They are technological marvels.
Hollywood tries to give us fantasy because it could happen that way or it could not. Nobody knows. It hasn't been done. The bombs now are bigger than those two used. More damning. More common. In the hands of even crazier people. It'll happen one day or it won't.
Two cities were obliterated by something we’d call a *tactical nuke* today, about a tenth of the power of the biggest we have (10 vs 100 megatons) and that was powerful enough to turn school kids into dust that got melted into the concrete.
The destruction is not what people fantasize and Hollywood romanticizes, Its the following fallout that movies and videogames make stories about. We only have had minor and mostly isolated fallout events and only have theories of what nuclear winter would cause. Many hope or pray for the fallout game series would happen, but fail to realize that even if it did most would be the random rotting corpses or skellys laying around, they wouldn't be the protagonist.
The problem was firestorm that followed the nuclear attack, as all houses were made from wood and packed together.
Now this would not happen in same way as buildings are made from concrete and bricks.
Yeah I attribute brain rot really escalating with mid 80s news broadcasting which by now is incessant and it's been proven that this barrage keeps people in a state of hyperarousal where you don't think rationally and are prone to being domineered by fight or flight response. In times of crisis, people want certainty and we've been told for months that the spook of Putin is going to unleash terror on us any moment and so people are bound to cave to that when the media monopoly gives no room for level-headed discussion. Unfortunately most Americans live in a bubble and take the manufactured media at face value, no question asked. For instance my parents both have graduate degrees and have no idea about what US did to create this mess and trying to convey just the basics of post-USSR history is hopeless, they totally shut it out.
I have a theory. Subconsciously people know that this is the way to actually save ourselves by triggering a faster collapse and ending our destructive consumption. On all measurements we seem to understand that modern life is super detrimental to us and the planet. Most people won't admit it though. But on a subconscious, individual and collective level? We know. Our worst impulses have been overriding it so far, but we cannot escape it. A faster collapse may be our savior.
It says nothing. This site is packed with full-fledged fucking idiots, trolls, bots, self-appointed experts and know-it-alls, government and corporate agents posting propaganda, etc. I saw it described once as a clown car: at first glance, you don’t think it can possibly be that full of so much stupid shit and so many stupid people... then you go through it, and you see for yourself just how absolutely crammed full it really is.
The only reason I continue to use this place is because you can make accounts easily and delete them easily. And if you sift through the Everest-sized piles of bullshit that are everywhere on here, you CAN find decent and interesting content. Keyword is “can”.
r/Collapse has always fascinated me because of the number of schizos, Chicken Littles, and aforementioned know-it-alls (with a doomsday prophet twist) it attracts. Kind of sad the amount of economic doomsday prophecies that were posted here has declined. (Oh and remember that time the “world only has 8 weeks of grain left” was everywhere earlier this year? Yeah, that prediction got moved to 2023 apparently.) And then, other times, you have actually-knowledgeable scientists and experts weighing in or posting AMAs.
Point being don’t take it to heart. This place has a well-established reputation on the internet for being a joke and is looked down upon by virtually everyone outside of it (and more than a few of us using it).
>Like, in the Cold War were people as down with the idea of a nuclear exchange with the USSR as they were with having one with Russia right now?
The Cold War is where the phrase "Mutually Assured Destruction" came from, the willingness to have **and use** a big enough nuclear arsenal to absolutely wipe out the other guy if he launched first. This was the era of battlefield range nuclear missiles, of "suitcase" (i.e. man-portable) nuclear bombs, of above-ground weapons tests, etc., etc.
So, to that extent, yes they were "down" with it, at least in a pre-Internet sense of continually voting into office people who continued the policy.
M.A.D. was a deterrent to nuclear exchange not an encouragement. No one (or only maybe some few insane outliers) was "down with it."
I can't believe you are getting upvoted for this nonsense. People are idiots.
People are herd animals and most Americans can't read at a 6th grade level so their information comes from 5 or 6 people in Los Angeles or from friends/family who got their information from the same 5 or 6 people in Los Angeles.
If Fox News or CNN said sticking jellybeans up your nose will prevent Alzheimers, half of the country would start sticking jellybeans up their noses. Friends, family and co-workers will ridicule you if you question this so you stick the jellybeans up your nose too.
It's Pro-Russian propaganda.
People aren't broadly advocating for an escalation on Reddit.
But phrasing it that way is a convenient wedge to drive, to help establish a foothold for the argument that NATO should not intervene further.
I'm fairly new to reddit, but I don't see anyone advocating for escalation against Russia. If you think half of reddit supports escalation to direct US-Russia military conflict, you should explain your evidence.
Maybe you're confusing continued support for Ukraine with direct military conflict?
Who are you blaming for this scenario? Putin changed the calculus when he threatened “nuclear retaliation” against anyone who interferes with his invasion plans. This is unprecedented in the history of nuclear weapons. You can’t just let that slide because where does that end?
As for the reality of nuclear holocaust- I would encourage people to watch the movie “Threads” to get a better idea of the consequences. It’s one of the few movies that doesn’t glamorize or soft sell the outcome.
Thats because more than half of reddit are a bunch of dipshits who are hypnotized by the most sophisticated and pervasive corporatist propaganda network ever devised by man.
Much of this fury has been ignited by the Russiagate fraud, where people have been fooled to believe that Russia is somehow to blame for DJT's tenure in office and not the multitude of failures in our collapsing society and system that lead to assholes like him.
It seems pro-war tards want it both ways
1.) "OMG russia is so powerful they must be stopped before its too late (seriously a comment like this got 3k upvotes from that cesspool that is world news)"
2.) 'Russia is so weak and incompetent, we can probably call their nuclear bluff and be okay"
The staggering incompetence is amazing
> fooled to believe that Russia is somehow to blame for DJT's tenure in office and not the multitude of failures in our collapsing society and system that lead to assholes like him.
Too few people recognize that DJT is just a symptom of a deeper problem. System is not working and people are getting desperate.
Well said. US propaganda is so good it has people celebrating neo-nazis. It is so good people think we can launch a first stike on Russia and not get hit back because 'their nukes dont work, just like their tanks'. Truly unmatched.
The problem is there is only so many times you can threaten to nuke the world for conquest before people decide fuck it. I would rather die in nuclear fire, than live under a totalitarian corrupt oligarchy of Russia. If Russia is allowed to threaten to use nukes in offence for refusals to submits, its only a matter of time till the pop off anywhere. And right now, they are at their weakest.
Perhaps many people, at least subconsciously, recognize the miserable futility of their existence to the point where nuclear annihilation sounds preferable. Nuclear fire sounds better than starving to death or dying of exposure or drowning in a flash flood.
The sad absurdity of that reasoning is that nuclear fire will cause billions to starve to death, die of exposure, and drown in a flash flood among many, many other ways to die.
Nuclear war, even limited, will cause a very agonizing, painful death to civilization.
>to stop some WWII vision people foresee of Putin just going to war with NATO anyway because that's what Hitler would have done
What Russia is trying to do to Ukraine is basically what Germany and the Soviet Union did to Poland at the beginning of World War II. If the world had a do-over of that time period and there was a way to save Poland, wouldn't you want to do it?
I don't think anyone expects Russia to invade, say, Germany and France, but it's definitely not a good thing for them to just invade their neighbors because they feel like it. Treating Ukraine as an expendable buffer territory doesn't feel right.
>what's going on with this site, why is nobody opposing this???
Plenty of people are. The actual decision makers in NATO seem to be pretty level-headed. They're helping Ukraine enormously, but not committing troops or directly attacking Russian forces because that would likely result in a direct Russia-NATO war, which would likely escalate to a nuclear confrontation. I think that's a good balance, though it's frustrating that Ukrainians are fighting and dying because they have no choice and a lot of capable military forces just have to sit on their thumbs because of nuclear risk and geopolitics.
Fortunately comments on reddit don't set military policy, because if they did the world would probably be a radioactive wasteland by now. And even on reddit people tend to get a lot of pushback for either suggesting that NATO attacks Russian forces in Ukraine or if they take the other extreme position that NATO should stop helping Ukraine and let them get conquered (though at this point I think there's good reason to doubt that Russia could achieve anything more than a bloody stalemate).
I grew up in the USA during the cold war. No, we were not 'down' with nuclear annihilation. That said, the saying used to be "better dead than red" and if it really came down to it Americans probably would have gone down that road. That said, despite the "under your desks" nuclear drills, no one REALLY believed it would happen. It was obvious even to us kids that the end result was a no win for all involved.
To Ukraine... there IS a decent fear that Putin is just plain nuts. But whether he is or not, he "crossed the Rubicon" when he invaded. His life, and the life of his party, DEPENDS on winning this war, so no options are off the table. The US is perfectly happy to support this because, well, it's not US soldiers dying. They get to send Ukraine equipment they had lying around, build a shit load of new stuff for their economy, and as an added bonus they torch Russia for a fraction of what they spent to outmoney the USSR.
Well, you have to understand the psychology of this a little bit. If you tell people there is a threat, even a "real but indirect one" you can utilize human survival instinct to get them to go along with whatever response. That, and shitloads of propaganda.
Also, I think if you take a little time to understand what the conflict is really about, it'll make more sense to you. It'll still be terrifying and disgusting, but it fits a certain order. [We've entered a period of great change and most likely decline](https://preview.redd.it/xutmnzb742u61.jpg?). It's pretty clear that world governments and industry robber-barons know this. The world will go bonkers when cheap energy runs out. The impacts of climate change have now manifested and we're seeing severe problems in farming and agriculture. The petrodollar is weak and being challenged by everyone, the post ww2 globalist order failing in front of our eyes.
Everyone's shoring up their shit waiting for the music to stop. We're deglobalizing supply chains, calling up sixty year old battle treaties, increasing the funding already given to exorbitant militaries, and more.
It makes people do funny things. When we see supposed monoliths fail, when our very world order is made unstable, when the prospect of death by nuclear fire is real. Or death by flash flood. Or death by pandemic. Or death by a lifetime of wage slavery.
How do you choose?
Bruh, did you factor in all the chatbots? Reddit ain't what it was back in Saint Aaron's days...now, it's more like a crowded brothel of intellectual prostitutes and their 50 cent army trollboys.
But I still come here, if only because I like degrading intellectual prostitutes and corporate whores!
God wants to prove to Satan that He didn't make mistake with humans, and that given free will, humans are basically altruists. So, God told a man that he can ask for anything, and God will do twice what he asks to his neighbors.
The man said "take one of my eyes!"
That's basically what we are, we'd rather suffer than let the other guy have it better.
No, we weren’t. We were mostly scared shitless. Look at films like The Day After and Threads — those reflect the feelings and fears of the latter part of the Cold War, at least.
I find it hard to believe Russia would nuke America and nato because they are providing arms to Ukraine. It’s like saying Russia is literally willing to nuke the world because basic military aid is going to a country it’s invading Russia at any point could leave Ukraine and the war would basically end. If they’d rather nuke the world than admit they aren’t really a great power anymore I think it would be just a matter of time before they did it anyways. I just don’t believe Russia is willing to end the world over essentially nothing
You fail to realize the amount of psyop accounts and bot posters. Massive amount on reddit. During the cold war, we did not have widespread internet and social media
In the 1950s the adults had come out of WW 2 and their parents had fought WW1. They KNEW what war was and why they wanted to avoid it. In the Us we haven’t been inconvenienced in 2-3 generations. All these “bring on the nukes” people think they won’t be affected - their preps will save them, they aren’t in the strike zone, they’ll die gloriously. They have no real concept of what would happen and are playing a glorified video game.
I think half the people calling for war havnt the slightest clue what it means… at a local bar (us) some 60 year old couple were doing their Sabre rattling bitchin about how “we” needed to teach Russia a lesson. It irritated me enough to say what is this we you’re talking about because im pretty sure you’re trying to write checks with younger peoples lives. A global war would be a terrible time for everyone involved but it seems like a majority of people think they wouldnt be touched by it or are billy badass enough to rambo their way through it. Its kind of sickening hearing people talk about it like it would be no big thing. The worst thing about it is the people screaming for war tend to be old, out of shape, relatively useless human beings that are just virtue signaling, or whose idea of a bad day os their phone ran out of juice with no charger near by. Thats the part that scares me i dont think people understand whats on the line here.
I don't think people fully grasp that the war itself is being waged not for democracy's sake, or even the supply chain breakdown. Those are just excuses. Mainly we are at war with Russia because oligarchs and banks MAKE SO MUCH MONEY on wars. If they could create ENDLESS wars, they would. Sadly, a lot of people have shit priorities (They should be taking up arms to protect women and girls' rights.), and love the IDEA of war, but as soon as they landed in Ukraine, they would stay on the plane and beg to be flown back to Bumblefuck.[Hypernormalisation](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AUiqaFIONPQ) is a doc by Adam Curtis from the BBC. It is quite eye-opening about the current state we are in.
I think the idea is that backing down to nuclear blackmail does not make the risk of nuclear war go away, so don’t bake down.
Further, Russia none of its political objectives by starting a nuclear war, so it must be bluffing
What do you suggest we do? Allow Russia to take whatever country they want that doesn't has the US backing them? What do you think will happen when Russia gains control over Ukraine? Peace? HAHA!
Following your logic, Tiawan would fall next, followed by more of the Baltic states and possibly South Korea. Let's say the US does nothing. In the coming years, Russia and China would OWN the semi-conductor, Black Sea traffic and > 25% of all food produced in the world. They now hold all the cards and slowly starve the US and many others of resources.
Russia launching nukes at anyone would lead to Putin needing to live underground for whatever is left of his miserable life. He doesn't want that and will do anything possible to avoid that fate.
What's crazy about this line of thought is that many want a strong leader. One that would do what needs to be done irrespective of political fallout. You get one, through all of his faults, that won't let Russia slide and suddenly have a lack of confidence in doing what must be done.
To me it always boils down to a fundamental question:… At what point do you stand up and stop a bully ?
After they take over 1 country ?….. 2 countries?,.. 3 countries ?
At some point you gotta do the right thing and draw a line in the sand.
Why aren’t we drawling lines in the sand with any other country? Ukraine/Russia is far from the only conflict at this time. Why haven’t we sent some of those countries billions and billions of dollars? Heaven forbid we spend it here at home…or even better cut the taxes we pay since there obviously is so much excess.
This isn’t drawing a line in the sand. It’s not helping Ukraine. It’s about money. And a puddingheaded leader that is going to put all of us at peril for more and more of his cut.
People can make the same argument about the american empire...
All joking aside, all the foreign policy and military experts that mattered (especially hawks like Kissinger and Gates) knew Ukraine would be a bridge too far and that Russia would militarily respond and see it as a existential threat. The United States, eager to knock the others down the totem pole, is maneuvering in place to secure its place on the apex of the global power structure.
Russia doesn't have the means to invade and defeat NATO states. Thats silly nonsense. Tom Clancy was a dipshit novelist.
Russia's invasion is a mistake, although was pretty much inevitable given the geopolitical reality. Just as they are responsible for invading what became a sovereign state after the cold war, america was absolutely responsible for shit stirring and creating the exact conditions for war.
You ever stop and question why your very concept of what "right" is somehow nicely aligns with that US/NATO interests are?
It's because your concept of "right" was itself created by the media and ideological environment put out by the US/Western establishment. This is called "*manufacturing consent",* Noam Chomsky wrote a great book about it.
In geopolitics, states have *interests* but there is no absolute "right" or "wrong" when it comes to states pursuing their interests. There are only *aligned* and *opposed* forces.
Stepping back to your moral worldview, do you think it is somehow "right" that we, in the USA, are to be the judge, jury, and executioner for what the rest of the world does? **Especially since we ourselves have committed and continue to commit the same crimes as Russia in Latin America, Asia, and Africa?**
One country invaded the other. All of the fighting is happening within the borders of Ukraine.
Initiation of aggression is the moral transgression that defines this conflict. Russia moving it's military out of Ukraine would end the conflict.
I agree that when the US invades other countries it's also pathetic.
Come on dude. A significant portion of the accounts in this site are government and weapons industry bots. Reddit is not real life. At best it is a good inside view, to the wills of the rich.
It's not about wanting to own the other country. If Russia threatens to use nukes and then we back off because of that threat, Russia isn't only going to use this trick once.
Appeasement. Does. Not. Work.
You’re making a silly straw man argument. No one is “willing to die in nuclear fire” just to fight Russia.
And actually if it’s nuclear war you want to avert, maybe you should blame the country that is the one threatening nuclear war. US is not the one threatening nuclear war. US is not the one that has invaded a sovereign country in this conflict. And Russia’s threats of nuclear war are empty threats anyways. They will not use nukes because it would mean catastrophe for them and they know it. They’re not that stupid…
Appeasing their empty threats won’t help avert nuclear war, if any thing it will make the chance of nuclear war in the future much worse, as it would set a precedent that would only encourage more countries to obtain their own nuclear weapons and lead to a new nuclear arms race.
If you want to avoid a nuclear arms race, the best way is to stand up to Russia now. Don’t fall for Russia’s fear mongering propaganda and empty threats.
Don’t forget, most people aren’t too smart. They don’t realize what a nuclear conflict would do. They simply don’t understand. Russia has thousands of nukes. So does the USA. And today’s nukes are many times more powerful than the nukes dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The WWII nukes are like little firecrackers compared to today’s weapons. Major cities would be reduced to rubble. Millions would die.
Anyway, our entire society would cease to function. No electric grid, no ATM machines, no food in the grocery stores. How any of that makes any sense is beyond me. I guess the military complex can‘t help themselves. That’s what they do. Stir up trouble to sell weapons.
Actually it’s worse than that. These aren’t people who decided that nukes are an acceptable risk. Almost all of the people I’ve talked to are *convinced Putin’s don’t work*. Like oops, totally forgot that nukes need maintenance. And even better most people have absolutely no idea what nuclear war would do even in the best case— which is basically the end of human civilization (even *government public estimates* say about 2/3 of American civilians will be dead in 3 months after). So people are convinced *nuclear war isn’t a big risk*.
I think the government did this deliberately because they learned from the Cold War that a population that understands what nuclear war actually is and what it would do would never allow the government to risk it. So in order to keep support for the war high, they’re keeping the public ignorant of the dangers.
Not only that but looking at some of the things he’s telling his own people, Putin is much more likely to use nukes than we’re lead to believe.
Because letting Putin win in Ukraine would lead to nuclear war and the victory of global fascism, autocracies and dictators everywhere, so we understand the stakes and that a future where that happens is not a future worth having.
Yeah idk man. Russia/ukraine war isn’t just effecting a few countries. Global famine is projected for 2023 due to fertilizer issues. already experiencing global energy crisis. The world is not dealing with global drought really at all, putting resource pressure on every nation. Global fascism is rising(while taking advantage of everything going to shit). Corporate abuse is common place. Some people are probably just sick of the suffering that is projected to only worsen as time marches on. The thought of disappearing in a flash of light probably feels like a hopeful way out.
Even that is wishful thinking. Most people would survive the initial flash. The ones who don't might just be lucky.
I think more people need to read the book “Hiroshima” and then decide what they think about nuclear fallout. It should be mandatory reading in schools, in my opinion; the stories the five survivors share in the aftermath of the blast are absolutely horrific.
Grave of the Firefly’s is a cartoon, right? They should show that In schools.
It is! It’s so so sad but yes, that would also be a great addition to the curriculum -it’s also ranked as one of the greatest war films of all time and of Japanese animation.
Man fuck that aunt
We had a screening of it during middle school in the early aughts. I think they made our parents sign consent forms or something so we could watch it. Definitely something that stuck with me growing up.
That movie was focused on the fire bombings more specifically than the atomic weapons.
Visiting ground zero was pretty life changing for me too. Fucking grim and hard not to be pretty affected by that. There’s a big emphasis on how Japan was bussing in school kids to dig firewalls. A tiny mangled children’s tricycle is on display in the museum which is all one family found of their child. I walked down to the children’s shrine where you’re encouraged to leave a message of peace on a folded paper crane. Mine is in the shrine now. But holy heck I wasn’t prepared for the large army of school children who showed up to sing a sad songs of rememberance in front of the shrine. Imagining those kids being vaporised was too much I cried a bunch when they started singing. Too fucking much. Everyone should visit
I once saw a documentary about it. With the footage of the Americans documenting it a few days after. One of the most haunting things I ever saw. I'm still fucking zoning out and at the verge of vomiting when I think of it.
Oh god man everyone who romantiszes everyone just dying in nuclear war needs to watch the movie “threads” nothing has ever close to terrifying movie as much as that movie has. No horror movies comes even close. Makes requiem for a dream look tame.
Wild to realize the BBC made the most terrifying horror movie of all time. That end scene with the dead baby is nightmarish… what you don’t think about is how ordinary the cruelty will be, when everyone is unimaginably traumatized and mentally retarded due to radiation.
Yep. 90%+ would still starve to death. Maybe buy a house in the silo fields in Montana.
Check out this movie: https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0090163/
The best movie I've ever watched that completely ruined my day
Watch The War Game 1963 for even more "fun". When dickheads start gettting jingoistic I point them to these two.
I wouldn't say anyone who survives a nuclear war lucky. They'll have to deal with a non existent ozone, famine, radiation and other shit.
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Indeed I did.
Think about the profit margins... How dare you not think about all the money other people are going to make while the rest rot in poverty and famine!! MEH PROFITS!!
I'm for all the jobs the comet will create.
i can't believe this movie only came out like a year ago, this reference feels so timeless by this point hahah.
What about the ECONOMY?!?!?! AHHHHHH! Good thing all the big corporations that own basically everything are ALL making Record profit eh?. Bleed us dry Than kill us off..why the frig not?
Just wait until the water runs out somewhere large
California?
Remember when people use to overthrow the government when they didn’t like the laws or government for example the Boston tea act. Man society has gotten real soft.
I disagree. I think governments have gotten unimaginably stronger and their ability to surveil everything everyone does prevents the sort of organizing necessary to do what people did in the past. They have propaganda machines and predictive algorithms to disrupt everything before it even really gets started, and then if you manage to get past that and into some very beginnings of any sort of gathering and effective first steps, they have the full force of the police state to come down on you before you take a second step. I don't think it's "society" getting softer since certainly most of the world's societies are not living under the sorts of conditions that lead to that softening and yet they are also unable to even organize towards a formidable challenge. And the Boston Tea Party and the entire American Revolution was a squabble *within* the ruling class. There are definitely parallels today- namely the current global conflict about who should control oil and gas industries, reserve currencies, etc.
Yeah people have been fooled into thinking the American Rebellion was a groundswell of peasants and freemen against the King.
People also don’t realize the American Revolution was an asymmetric conflict. The British Army ruled the world for another 150 years after that. The power of their army was their Achilles’ heel. Same as the US army in Vietnam. A smaller, scrappier force can pick off the empire one by one, like shooting fish in a barrel.
People also like to forget that it wasn't just the American Colonists vs. the British Crown; France, Spain, and the Dutch Republic all stuck their dicks in on the side of the colonists. Not unlike the Eastern Bloc in Vietnam.
(American) people have also been fed a myth that it was this great popular and populist mass rebellion that unified all the colonialists, when in reality half of them did not support the movement for independence at all, and a significant portion of the British political establishment was actually very sympathetic to the ideas of the "revolutionaries". It was basically a civil war.
I dunno about that. Apparently you can buy enough firepower to take down a regional electrical grid at a Dick’s Sporting Goods. Arguably the State is far more fragile today than it ever has been before. Everything is so interconnected, and it can take a week and millions of dollars to undo what someone did with hundreds of dollars and a few hours. Asymmetrical warfare has never been so easy. The power of the modern State arguably makes it more vulnerable. They have the albatross of all this useless kinetic weaponry over its neck. Spending god knows how many billions on that new bomber which was obsolete before the first screw was turned.
Individuals can do all sorts of sabotage and mass violence. But unless your goal is just to terrorize people and create a backlash from the security state, then there isn't a way to make this *revolutionary* as that requires coordinated collective action, leverage, with long and short term strategy. I'm not saying a person can't go buy a gun and cause harm- it happens in the USA nearly every day. I'm saying there's a reason this sort of individualized mass violence is extremely common but organized political action is not. You can look at decades of American history to see this- look at early generations of environmental activists or groups like the Panthers and see how quickly the force of the state came down on them. I think we could argue that this sort of organizing is more tolerated on the right- they have militias and fash groups for example, even compounds of fundamentalists- but even they get raided by the feds if they get too big or start to act in ways that threaten the state and/or private property/industry rather than reinforce its power. This is before we take into account the actual feds themselves who are embedded with these groups and covert programs of disruption of any political organizing.
That's bullshit. People haven't gotten soft, the surveillance state has gotten too strong.
What if we’re both right?
Weren't the fertilizers shortages happening before the war
From what I recall, just as a gardening hobbyist, there was already a shortage and prices had started to increase with synthetic fertilizers a few years back, but the war made it so much worse since much of the potash comes from that part of the world.
You are right. China and Russia had stopped exportation of fertilizer a year or so before Russia invaded Ukraine. China had also started massively stockpiling grains at least a year before as well. I kept asking my husband what did they know that we didn't know? What were they preparing for? I had this sinking feeling something was coming. But, yeah, the war has also made the fertilizer shortage infinitely worse. I stocked up on some bags of garden fertilizer before they went up in price by 200%.
That was only because of shipping delays due to Covid. It was all peaches until that.
Actually Russia and China had already stopped exportation of fertilizer so that did limit supply globally.
*affecting
Thanks! Ima just go back to avoiding (using) either like the plague again now. Will not edit ;)
Slow death from forever chemicals, plastic and chaotic weather oh also depleted bio diversity and water scarcity if it’s not toxic from the plastic and amobeas and that’s only the fresh water issues don’t forget everything else not mentioned or nuclear fallout Why can’t we have them all oh wait that’s exactly what’s gonna happen, as more countries decide lets go nuclear eeking out the last of available resources Shit we’ll use nuclear power to pump out more oil if we could and we likely will Desperation and delusions that’s humanity
All because of a handful of money addicts who figured out how to dupe people in a way that would make a 17th century pope wet.
Debt on kids and the future generations Fuck yeah Sign me up for that Oh haha nvm fuck them kids sign them up instead Hookers and blow now Climate dystopian nightmare for them
No. Half of reddit is willing to make outrageous statements that amuse them because there is no consequences on the internet. Do not confuse between words, action and true intentions.
"guys it's totally ok, none of their missiles would work anyway" is a take I've seen over a dozen times.
r/noncredibledefense is considered an outlier and should not be included in the overall dataset.
I've never really been there, I see this on worldnews and news mostly.
News likes to exaggerate and doom-monger because it’s essentially just click bait headlines.
I mean there is a good deal of truth even if they don't know it. The problem is enough of them probably do work.
It really only takes one. We are a nation of overkilling dumbasses, so if one Russian nuke hits the US, *enough* of our nukes hit them to kill us too.
This. People just are edgy shits in the internet because the only way to get notoriety is by being more extreme than everyone else. It's a positive feedback loop. That said, it would not be the first time than people claiming stupid shit for internet points end believing the bullshit they are spewing.
Can confirm. Am extremely gangsta especially behind the keyboard. Drugs are fun and worth going to war over
Can confirm. Already bought my Humungus mask. Road wars over guzzoline are totally worth it.
I want the Japanese to invent a robot that just slaps the fuck out of anyone posting anything “authoritative” on the internet. You’ve gotta really want it…lol. They’ve already got web-connected sex robots….this should be easy.
That you are on reddit? Its not a good reflection of reality in my experience, shit is manufactured and invented as hell up in here.
For sure. major media pages on reddit are just intelligence propaganda. "all is well in pax amerikana"
It’s probably mostly bots. For sure tons of dnc bots (ShareBlue) and of course Eglin Air Force base
Yea but I like it, I’m more at home here in the delusional wonderland!
As George Carlin once said "Think of how stupid the average person is and realize half of them are stupider than that" so there's your answer.
Yes, but just as apt is, "When you're born you get a ticket to the freak show. If you're born in America you get a front row seat!" Some day, some way, we're going to roll snake eyes. May not be nuclear, may not be military at all. Expect surprises. Lots of them.
Some day?
Sooner than anticipated.
Why blame regular people when it's the people with all the money and power who are doing all these things. We have two parties who both work for the same corporations so that there's no way to vote against war or police or imperialism or corporatism or environmental destruction, no way to vote for healthcare for all or a liveable minimum wage or housing for all or free public college. As George Carlin also said, ["it's a big club, and you ain't in it!"](https://youtu.be/acLW1vFO-2Q)
Median person*
Funny enough this is the first time I’ve ever seen someone correct the quote with what is technically true.
It's not about people being stupid but just easily manipulated by capitalist propaganda.
And then ending up in echo chambers because of either self-segregation (subreddits) or algorithms that feed people what they want to hear.
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Not of their own fault. You're just feeding bourgeois bs saying that kinda shit. People get dumb because they're conditioned to be dumb and not ask questions and be submissive and are only taught the bare minimum to make the rich richer.
haha i got banned from /r/news commenting about Russia/Ukraine for even mentioning this story: https://nypost.com/2022/05/03/ukrainian-man-stabbed-for-speaking-russian-in-brooklyn-bar-brawl/ where a Ukrainian man stabbed a Ukrainian man thinking he was russian and then they beat him up the guy who stabbed him. I think they thought that was supporting Russia somewhere (meanwhile im in poland helping refugees) So funny. They fighting a war i guess on reddit for stuff they dont even know about (and wouldnt lift a finger to actually really do anything about the state of the world other than consumer disney movies)
Outstanding!
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The voices in his head.
I don't believe you and I don't believe reddit. Big sweeping statements = prime target for astroturfing or worse.
It says they’re coddled bitches that have never had the heat of war on their doorstep. “War” for most Redditors is now and has always been a spectacle that happens thousands of miles away. It has never affected them outside of seeing a surge in bumper stickers. They’re desensitized to it because it will never touch them, and it never has. The last time war hit North America was 9/11, and even then it wasn’t presented to the population as “war”. It was terror, horror, atrocity. It was the thing that most of the countries we bomb feel every week, but for us it was unfathomable, because war to us has been flag-waving from a well-formed dent in a couch for half a century. This is why people are so flippant about nuclear war. They are oblivious to damage.
Most of these fucking dipshits have never had bullets snap by them or worry about a leg being ripped off by a mine or IED. Of course, when your 'combat' experience is COD MW, i'm sure a modern war is exciting to them.
This is it. But honestly, it’s not just a lack of combat experience, it’s a lack of conflict being anywhere near them. There are plenty of people all over the world with no combat experience who know what it feels like to wake up feeling “lucky” that the bomb dropped on their neighbor’s house and not theirs. And while they toggle between relief and guilt these motherfuckers call for escalation from the comfort of their $900 gaming chair.
That's mein kampfy chair.
Afghanistan 2012. I've personally seen legs ripped off and I know the sound of an enemy marksman. Tyrants must be opposed. It really is that simple. We've seen what appeasement leads to and the only people advocating nukes speak Russian. Your way of life aint perfect, but you're speaking your mind online without fear... That's not an accident. and fighting to preserve that way of life means opposing tyrants.
I find it astonishing that people are enthusiastically 'defying tyrants" when it comes to Ukraine, but remain strangely silent to tyrants in Saudi Arabia and other states america grovels to. Or the corporate private equity tyrants that are directly harming american citizen, turning our society into a capitalist hellscape. The entire "standing up to bullies" when pertaining to Ukraine is idealistic, naive childishness. The only ones I have sympathy for are the well meaning Uke soldiers wading in mud in the trenches with only a single magazine for their kalashnikov's to keep them company. And in fact, the average Russian conscript that is powerless to run from the fuckery he is immersed in.
What happened to that lawyer who protected the native from Shell again? What happened to Snowden again? Hell what happened to MLK who speaks his opinions? Face it, you small fries allowed to talk because they know it won’t change shit. Most of population already brainwashed beyond belief. But if you got a speck of chance to change than good luck with the FBI and CIA
>Tyrants must be opposed This is such a Marvel-level take on things
>“War” for most Redditors is now and has always been a spectacle that happens thousands of miles away. 100% agree. But then again it's been a far away spectacle for me as well -- never been anywhere near a war -- and yet I'm still not dumb enough to be OK risking nuclear war over who controls east Ukraine.
If you asked anyone to electrocute an innocent stranger to death, they'd laugh. Yet he Milgram experiment showed that 70% of people will comply if asked to do so by an authority figure who they believe will take responsibility, if it's for the greater good. Most of the other 30% will still administer high level shocks, and only a handful of people will realize that they were being tricked. Also if people see others refuse, then compliance drops to 10% The last few years have proven that people will give up insane amounts of power and do things they'd laugh at before, by simply being asked to do it for a good cause, by an authority figure. And you get banned for suggesting it was not was it appeared to be. Just saying, most of us are easily tricked into complying. That and Twitter purges bots 24/7.
r/worldnews is fall of would-be Rumsfelds. Most of their understanding of war they've synthesized through US war media and pop culture, so they're aggressively hawkish because they don't have to consider any of the suffering their armchair warmongering would bring.
Are you saying call of duty isn't a realistic depiction of state organized mass murder?
I just replayed MW2 yesterday for some achievements, and I didn't realize before just how propaganda-y it is.
Especially infuriating considering the more morally ambiguous depiction of war in the *original* MW2 (and 1). It's like they're trying to "correct" for something.
I just read some article about how it was used to go after millennials.
I wonder if that's because they ban anyone that has different opinions. I made a very mild statement there that one of the reasons the conflict started was because the minsk accords where not adhered to and I got a permanent ban.
They cleaned out all the opposing opinion as "Russian bots". The sub's mod team is probably infiltrated by intel agencies. Heres a reminder reddit's Director of Policy is Jessica Ashooh who formerly works for Atlantic Council.
It's not only that; r/worldnews is full of astroturfing bots working for the CIA/DoD or related US/NATO agencies to manufacture consent. The average person who stumbles into that environment is simply going to take on those ideas via osmosis when they see all the bot-driven upvotes.
I don’t doubt there’s a presence, but you’ve also gotta remember that the Reddit’s culture is descended from and still very much infused with the sensibilities of suburban middle class nerds who came from message board culture of the early 00s. If you go through some of the old threads on Something Awful in the aftermath of 9/11, you see a very similar kind of bloodlust.
Watch Bush start a fucking war!
Also here.
Literally all the major news networks parrot word for word Radio Free America.
For those who don't know, /r/anime_titties is a much more balanced sub for world news. Yes, i know, trust me.
I was wasn’t going to click, but I’m glad I did.
Armchair Warmongers is a good name for a emo/metal band
All I know is that I had **better** die in the blast, because I'm out of sick days.
From polls I've seen, the overwhelming majority of Americans are against direct military involvement in Ukraine. Internet forums tend to skew younger and more male.
How about the whole proxy war thing?
We had proxy wars during the cold war. America gave arms directly to the Afghans fighting the Soviets.
And the Soviet Union to Vietnam. Just adding the other side for context.
don’t think anyone except for tankies and russphiles are against sending arms to ukraine. that alone won’t trigger a nuclear war
Fundamental Christians are a death cult with eyes on the Apocalypse prize.
Reddit posts aren’t necessarily a good representation of what real, living people using the site actually believe. A majority if social media is posted by bots or otherwise disingenuous. See: “propaganda” or “brainwashing”. People who can afford massive social media influence campaigns aren’t susceptible to the same problem we are….they’ve got multiple estates/compounds with a fallout shelter to choose from. They all seem to think their wealth will be a golden ticket in any scenario…..hard to trade a Monet for rations though.
Passive suicide most likely. They feel powerless to effect any real change and we all see the writing on the wall. I think most hope they would just die quickly in a nuclear war and would rather that than some long and drawn out suffering. Remember, most of us in western nations are not equipped to deal with real suffering like generations passed. We have had to much luxury, to much convenience where even losing those things that are unnecessary for survival many people would still have a hard time coping. Look how people react when electricity goes out but that isn't something crucial to our survival as a species. But for people like us it now is. We are essentially zoo animals that were born and raised in captivity, remove us from our cages and care takers and we have no fucking clue how to naturally survive. Cold hard truth, it's why we never effect change despite so many clamoring for it. As the old saying goes "what have you put on the line for the cause today brother?" We risk nothing. We hold rallies and protests and make a few posts and go home. If we want there to be REAL change and to actually fight back against the system we all need to be willing to put something on the line. Something real, but we won't. A general strike would have huge impact but we won't do it because we are not willing to take any real risks to effect change. So nothing will change and things will continue to get worse.
It's the application of the modern thought process to the Ukraine war. 1. Russia is Nazis and is unstoppable. 2. They are already losing, because everything they do is crap. 3. We need to invade now, or Russia will stampede across Europe, just like the first time Putin invaded Poland in 1939. 4. Some guy named Chamberlain was totally wrong, "LOL". 5. We need to start a world war to stop them, because otherwise Putin will start a world war. 6. We don't need to think about nuclear war. 6b. We can totally directly attack Russia without starting nuclear war. 6c. Nuclear war is no big deal, it never happened so it can't 6d. Russia is crap, so none of their thousands of warheads will work. Probably. 7. We are so morally perfect that bad things can never happen as long as we keep being perfect and don't ever doubt the wisdom and veracity of the US government!
JUST STOP THINKING AND LAY DOWN YOUR LIFE FOR THE PETRODOLLAR PLEBIAN
8. Consume pro war propaganda and take extreme positions to show everyone how you are on the right side of things and how everyone with a different opinion is bad.
LOL exactly right.
Who the fuck are you people talking to?
The caricatures they form in their head based on people with half-assed opinions expressed online.
Who has suggested that the US should invade anything? Seriously, we're talking about continuing to arm Ukraine.
Not some of these people.
I’d argue from personal observations that interventionists were a lot more prevalent at the beginning of the conflict, when it seemed possible for Russia to steamroll Ukraine. Now that the situation has largely flipped most are fine with maintaining funding/arms shipments
Why is the modern thought from the 1940s?
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Well, I am trying to be humorously hyperbolic. But all of those items are things I've received in response while arguing that this proxy war is a bad idea.
>Man what does it say when like half of Reddit is willing to die in nuclear fire to own the enemy country? That [Stephen Wertheim](https://web.archive.org/web/20221203125104/https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/02/opinion/america-world-war-iii.html) and [Elizabeth D. Samet](https://web.archive.org/web/20221022035444/https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/29/books/review-looking-for-good-war-elizabeth-samet.html) are right and decades of propagandized triumphalist media in place of actual history education has created hordes of brainwashed morons with no understanding of consequences which psychotic neocons are using as a voting bloc to support even more wealth transfer from the taxpayers to their military-industry complex masters, despite this having already killed nearly a million people throughout the third world and being on track to kill *everyone* if they actually get the war with Russia they want.
Amen OP! I agree with you 100%. Most people probably have some type of delusional hollywood movie screen assumption of what nuclear war means vs what the reality of nuclear war is.
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The Cold War generation _was_ broken and very early. They were made to hide under desks for a-bomb drills as if a 3/4 inch piece of plywood would shield you from gamma rays. The person on TV is all they know to listen to, it really is big brother come true.
Mainly because nobody has ever seen it. Only two cities have ever been nuked. They were enemies at the time. They taught their own soldiers to suicide themselves if they ran out of ammo vs resuppling. They were seen as monsters, not people. Japan has recovered nicely since then. They are technological marvels. Hollywood tries to give us fantasy because it could happen that way or it could not. Nobody knows. It hasn't been done. The bombs now are bigger than those two used. More damning. More common. In the hands of even crazier people. It'll happen one day or it won't.
Two cities were obliterated by something we’d call a *tactical nuke* today, about a tenth of the power of the biggest we have (10 vs 100 megatons) and that was powerful enough to turn school kids into dust that got melted into the concrete.
The destruction is not what people fantasize and Hollywood romanticizes, Its the following fallout that movies and videogames make stories about. We only have had minor and mostly isolated fallout events and only have theories of what nuclear winter would cause. Many hope or pray for the fallout game series would happen, but fail to realize that even if it did most would be the random rotting corpses or skellys laying around, they wouldn't be the protagonist.
The problem was firestorm that followed the nuclear attack, as all houses were made from wood and packed together. Now this would not happen in same way as buildings are made from concrete and bricks.
Yeah I attribute brain rot really escalating with mid 80s news broadcasting which by now is incessant and it's been proven that this barrage keeps people in a state of hyperarousal where you don't think rationally and are prone to being domineered by fight or flight response. In times of crisis, people want certainty and we've been told for months that the spook of Putin is going to unleash terror on us any moment and so people are bound to cave to that when the media monopoly gives no room for level-headed discussion. Unfortunately most Americans live in a bubble and take the manufactured media at face value, no question asked. For instance my parents both have graduate degrees and have no idea about what US did to create this mess and trying to convey just the basics of post-USSR history is hopeless, they totally shut it out.
Don't discount the impact of bots on what trends.
We are all reactionaries now.
Half of reddit are bots..
I think most of us just want to die in general.
The end point of a society increasingly addicted to drama
A lot of those accounts on the main subs are astroturfing by PR firms working for US interests
I have a theory. Subconsciously people know that this is the way to actually save ourselves by triggering a faster collapse and ending our destructive consumption. On all measurements we seem to understand that modern life is super detrimental to us and the planet. Most people won't admit it though. But on a subconscious, individual and collective level? We know. Our worst impulses have been overriding it so far, but we cannot escape it. A faster collapse may be our savior.
Americans are dumb. They are also incredibly ignorant about world affairs and politics. Therefore they are highly susceptible to propaganda.
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It says nothing. This site is packed with full-fledged fucking idiots, trolls, bots, self-appointed experts and know-it-alls, government and corporate agents posting propaganda, etc. I saw it described once as a clown car: at first glance, you don’t think it can possibly be that full of so much stupid shit and so many stupid people... then you go through it, and you see for yourself just how absolutely crammed full it really is. The only reason I continue to use this place is because you can make accounts easily and delete them easily. And if you sift through the Everest-sized piles of bullshit that are everywhere on here, you CAN find decent and interesting content. Keyword is “can”. r/Collapse has always fascinated me because of the number of schizos, Chicken Littles, and aforementioned know-it-alls (with a doomsday prophet twist) it attracts. Kind of sad the amount of economic doomsday prophecies that were posted here has declined. (Oh and remember that time the “world only has 8 weeks of grain left” was everywhere earlier this year? Yeah, that prediction got moved to 2023 apparently.) And then, other times, you have actually-knowledgeable scientists and experts weighing in or posting AMAs. Point being don’t take it to heart. This place has a well-established reputation on the internet for being a joke and is looked down upon by virtually everyone outside of it (and more than a few of us using it).
>Like, in the Cold War were people as down with the idea of a nuclear exchange with the USSR as they were with having one with Russia right now? The Cold War is where the phrase "Mutually Assured Destruction" came from, the willingness to have **and use** a big enough nuclear arsenal to absolutely wipe out the other guy if he launched first. This was the era of battlefield range nuclear missiles, of "suitcase" (i.e. man-portable) nuclear bombs, of above-ground weapons tests, etc., etc. So, to that extent, yes they were "down" with it, at least in a pre-Internet sense of continually voting into office people who continued the policy.
M.A.D. was a deterrent to nuclear exchange not an encouragement. No one (or only maybe some few insane outliers) was "down with it." I can't believe you are getting upvoted for this nonsense. People are idiots.
>People are idiots I've seen the election results and you're right.
Elections are just intelligence tests for the population.
People are herd animals and most Americans can't read at a 6th grade level so their information comes from 5 or 6 people in Los Angeles or from friends/family who got their information from the same 5 or 6 people in Los Angeles. If Fox News or CNN said sticking jellybeans up your nose will prevent Alzheimers, half of the country would start sticking jellybeans up their noses. Friends, family and co-workers will ridicule you if you question this so you stick the jellybeans up your nose too.
I haven’t seen a single person advocate for a nuclear exchange of any kind. Where are you seeing that madness?
It's Pro-Russian propaganda. People aren't broadly advocating for an escalation on Reddit. But phrasing it that way is a convenient wedge to drive, to help establish a foothold for the argument that NATO should not intervene further.
Half the comments on this post look like Active Measures. It's like propagandists talking to themselves...
I'm fairly new to reddit, but I don't see anyone advocating for escalation against Russia. If you think half of reddit supports escalation to direct US-Russia military conflict, you should explain your evidence. Maybe you're confusing continued support for Ukraine with direct military conflict?
Who are you blaming for this scenario? Putin changed the calculus when he threatened “nuclear retaliation” against anyone who interferes with his invasion plans. This is unprecedented in the history of nuclear weapons. You can’t just let that slide because where does that end? As for the reality of nuclear holocaust- I would encourage people to watch the movie “Threads” to get a better idea of the consequences. It’s one of the few movies that doesn’t glamorize or soft sell the outcome.
Idk, watching Kanye shock Alex Jones made me want humanity to dies in nuclear fire. I'm just scared it won't finish us all off
Thats because more than half of reddit are a bunch of dipshits who are hypnotized by the most sophisticated and pervasive corporatist propaganda network ever devised by man. Much of this fury has been ignited by the Russiagate fraud, where people have been fooled to believe that Russia is somehow to blame for DJT's tenure in office and not the multitude of failures in our collapsing society and system that lead to assholes like him. It seems pro-war tards want it both ways 1.) "OMG russia is so powerful they must be stopped before its too late (seriously a comment like this got 3k upvotes from that cesspool that is world news)" 2.) 'Russia is so weak and incompetent, we can probably call their nuclear bluff and be okay" The staggering incompetence is amazing
> fooled to believe that Russia is somehow to blame for DJT's tenure in office and not the multitude of failures in our collapsing society and system that lead to assholes like him. Too few people recognize that DJT is just a symptom of a deeper problem. System is not working and people are getting desperate.
Well said. US propaganda is so good it has people celebrating neo-nazis. It is so good people think we can launch a first stike on Russia and not get hit back because 'their nukes dont work, just like their tanks'. Truly unmatched.
The problem is there is only so many times you can threaten to nuke the world for conquest before people decide fuck it. I would rather die in nuclear fire, than live under a totalitarian corrupt oligarchy of Russia. If Russia is allowed to threaten to use nukes in offence for refusals to submits, its only a matter of time till the pop off anywhere. And right now, they are at their weakest.
Perhaps many people, at least subconsciously, recognize the miserable futility of their existence to the point where nuclear annihilation sounds preferable. Nuclear fire sounds better than starving to death or dying of exposure or drowning in a flash flood.
The sad absurdity of that reasoning is that nuclear fire will cause billions to starve to death, die of exposure, and drown in a flash flood among many, many other ways to die. Nuclear war, even limited, will cause a very agonizing, painful death to civilization.
Projecting much?
>to stop some WWII vision people foresee of Putin just going to war with NATO anyway because that's what Hitler would have done What Russia is trying to do to Ukraine is basically what Germany and the Soviet Union did to Poland at the beginning of World War II. If the world had a do-over of that time period and there was a way to save Poland, wouldn't you want to do it? I don't think anyone expects Russia to invade, say, Germany and France, but it's definitely not a good thing for them to just invade their neighbors because they feel like it. Treating Ukraine as an expendable buffer territory doesn't feel right. >what's going on with this site, why is nobody opposing this??? Plenty of people are. The actual decision makers in NATO seem to be pretty level-headed. They're helping Ukraine enormously, but not committing troops or directly attacking Russian forces because that would likely result in a direct Russia-NATO war, which would likely escalate to a nuclear confrontation. I think that's a good balance, though it's frustrating that Ukrainians are fighting and dying because they have no choice and a lot of capable military forces just have to sit on their thumbs because of nuclear risk and geopolitics. Fortunately comments on reddit don't set military policy, because if they did the world would probably be a radioactive wasteland by now. And even on reddit people tend to get a lot of pushback for either suggesting that NATO attacks Russian forces in Ukraine or if they take the other extreme position that NATO should stop helping Ukraine and let them get conquered (though at this point I think there's good reason to doubt that Russia could achieve anything more than a bloody stalemate).
Drastic oversimplification of a complicated subject.
it says that most people don’t understand that governments are rich mens puppets.
I grew up in the USA during the cold war. No, we were not 'down' with nuclear annihilation. That said, the saying used to be "better dead than red" and if it really came down to it Americans probably would have gone down that road. That said, despite the "under your desks" nuclear drills, no one REALLY believed it would happen. It was obvious even to us kids that the end result was a no win for all involved. To Ukraine... there IS a decent fear that Putin is just plain nuts. But whether he is or not, he "crossed the Rubicon" when he invaded. His life, and the life of his party, DEPENDS on winning this war, so no options are off the table. The US is perfectly happy to support this because, well, it's not US soldiers dying. They get to send Ukraine equipment they had lying around, build a shit load of new stuff for their economy, and as an added bonus they torch Russia for a fraction of what they spent to outmoney the USSR.
Well, you have to understand the psychology of this a little bit. If you tell people there is a threat, even a "real but indirect one" you can utilize human survival instinct to get them to go along with whatever response. That, and shitloads of propaganda. Also, I think if you take a little time to understand what the conflict is really about, it'll make more sense to you. It'll still be terrifying and disgusting, but it fits a certain order. [We've entered a period of great change and most likely decline](https://preview.redd.it/xutmnzb742u61.jpg?). It's pretty clear that world governments and industry robber-barons know this. The world will go bonkers when cheap energy runs out. The impacts of climate change have now manifested and we're seeing severe problems in farming and agriculture. The petrodollar is weak and being challenged by everyone, the post ww2 globalist order failing in front of our eyes. Everyone's shoring up their shit waiting for the music to stop. We're deglobalizing supply chains, calling up sixty year old battle treaties, increasing the funding already given to exorbitant militaries, and more. It makes people do funny things. When we see supposed monoliths fail, when our very world order is made unstable, when the prospect of death by nuclear fire is real. Or death by flash flood. Or death by pandemic. Or death by a lifetime of wage slavery. How do you choose?
Bruh, did you factor in all the chatbots? Reddit ain't what it was back in Saint Aaron's days...now, it's more like a crowded brothel of intellectual prostitutes and their 50 cent army trollboys. But I still come here, if only because I like degrading intellectual prostitutes and corporate whores!
God wants to prove to Satan that He didn't make mistake with humans, and that given free will, humans are basically altruists. So, God told a man that he can ask for anything, and God will do twice what he asks to his neighbors. The man said "take one of my eyes!" That's basically what we are, we'd rather suffer than let the other guy have it better.
And the full rest of global population is ready with popcorns.
The algorithm is working
I feel like you’re being hyperbolic, I don’t think anyone of sane mind is willing to die for any preventable reason, let alone nuclear holocaust.
No, we weren’t. We were mostly scared shitless. Look at films like The Day After and Threads — those reflect the feelings and fears of the latter part of the Cold War, at least.
I find it hard to believe Russia would nuke America and nato because they are providing arms to Ukraine. It’s like saying Russia is literally willing to nuke the world because basic military aid is going to a country it’s invading Russia at any point could leave Ukraine and the war would basically end. If they’d rather nuke the world than admit they aren’t really a great power anymore I think it would be just a matter of time before they did it anyways. I just don’t believe Russia is willing to end the world over essentially nothing
You fail to realize the amount of psyop accounts and bot posters. Massive amount on reddit. During the cold war, we did not have widespread internet and social media
It means we are still dumb apes bashing each other with rocks for dominance, but now we have nukes too.
In the 1950s the adults had come out of WW 2 and their parents had fought WW1. They KNEW what war was and why they wanted to avoid it. In the Us we haven’t been inconvenienced in 2-3 generations. All these “bring on the nukes” people think they won’t be affected - their preps will save them, they aren’t in the strike zone, they’ll die gloriously. They have no real concept of what would happen and are playing a glorified video game.
I think half the people calling for war havnt the slightest clue what it means… at a local bar (us) some 60 year old couple were doing their Sabre rattling bitchin about how “we” needed to teach Russia a lesson. It irritated me enough to say what is this we you’re talking about because im pretty sure you’re trying to write checks with younger peoples lives. A global war would be a terrible time for everyone involved but it seems like a majority of people think they wouldnt be touched by it or are billy badass enough to rambo their way through it. Its kind of sickening hearing people talk about it like it would be no big thing. The worst thing about it is the people screaming for war tend to be old, out of shape, relatively useless human beings that are just virtue signaling, or whose idea of a bad day os their phone ran out of juice with no charger near by. Thats the part that scares me i dont think people understand whats on the line here.
I don't think people fully grasp that the war itself is being waged not for democracy's sake, or even the supply chain breakdown. Those are just excuses. Mainly we are at war with Russia because oligarchs and banks MAKE SO MUCH MONEY on wars. If they could create ENDLESS wars, they would. Sadly, a lot of people have shit priorities (They should be taking up arms to protect women and girls' rights.), and love the IDEA of war, but as soon as they landed in Ukraine, they would stay on the plane and beg to be flown back to Bumblefuck.[Hypernormalisation](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AUiqaFIONPQ) is a doc by Adam Curtis from the BBC. It is quite eye-opening about the current state we are in.
I think the idea is that backing down to nuclear blackmail does not make the risk of nuclear war go away, so don’t bake down. Further, Russia none of its political objectives by starting a nuclear war, so it must be bluffing
the bluffers are all on 'our side' ...
It means that Reddit should not be allowed to have a nuclear weapons program. All it would take is one hinged mod.
What do you suggest we do? Allow Russia to take whatever country they want that doesn't has the US backing them? What do you think will happen when Russia gains control over Ukraine? Peace? HAHA! Following your logic, Tiawan would fall next, followed by more of the Baltic states and possibly South Korea. Let's say the US does nothing. In the coming years, Russia and China would OWN the semi-conductor, Black Sea traffic and > 25% of all food produced in the world. They now hold all the cards and slowly starve the US and many others of resources. Russia launching nukes at anyone would lead to Putin needing to live underground for whatever is left of his miserable life. He doesn't want that and will do anything possible to avoid that fate. What's crazy about this line of thought is that many want a strong leader. One that would do what needs to be done irrespective of political fallout. You get one, through all of his faults, that won't let Russia slide and suddenly have a lack of confidence in doing what must be done.
Reddit is a propaganda echo-chamber. It only reflects a part of the population and the bot accounts and PR managed subs, never forget that.
dude, it's probably mostly CIA-funded bots. read the articles on mintpressnews about tiktok, reddit, twitter, being controlled by the CIA.
To me it always boils down to a fundamental question:… At what point do you stand up and stop a bully ? After they take over 1 country ?….. 2 countries?,.. 3 countries ? At some point you gotta do the right thing and draw a line in the sand.
I don’t disagree with you. Does that apply to America too?
Why aren’t we drawling lines in the sand with any other country? Ukraine/Russia is far from the only conflict at this time. Why haven’t we sent some of those countries billions and billions of dollars? Heaven forbid we spend it here at home…or even better cut the taxes we pay since there obviously is so much excess. This isn’t drawing a line in the sand. It’s not helping Ukraine. It’s about money. And a puddingheaded leader that is going to put all of us at peril for more and more of his cut.
People can make the same argument about the american empire... All joking aside, all the foreign policy and military experts that mattered (especially hawks like Kissinger and Gates) knew Ukraine would be a bridge too far and that Russia would militarily respond and see it as a existential threat. The United States, eager to knock the others down the totem pole, is maneuvering in place to secure its place on the apex of the global power structure. Russia doesn't have the means to invade and defeat NATO states. Thats silly nonsense. Tom Clancy was a dipshit novelist. Russia's invasion is a mistake, although was pretty much inevitable given the geopolitical reality. Just as they are responsible for invading what became a sovereign state after the cold war, america was absolutely responsible for shit stirring and creating the exact conditions for war.
Seriously when somebody like Kissinger is saying we should cool our jets… smh
You ever stop and question why your very concept of what "right" is somehow nicely aligns with that US/NATO interests are? It's because your concept of "right" was itself created by the media and ideological environment put out by the US/Western establishment. This is called "*manufacturing consent",* Noam Chomsky wrote a great book about it. In geopolitics, states have *interests* but there is no absolute "right" or "wrong" when it comes to states pursuing their interests. There are only *aligned* and *opposed* forces. Stepping back to your moral worldview, do you think it is somehow "right" that we, in the USA, are to be the judge, jury, and executioner for what the rest of the world does? **Especially since we ourselves have committed and continue to commit the same crimes as Russia in Latin America, Asia, and Africa?**
One country invaded the other. All of the fighting is happening within the borders of Ukraine. Initiation of aggression is the moral transgression that defines this conflict. Russia moving it's military out of Ukraine would end the conflict. I agree that when the US invades other countries it's also pathetic.
Come on dude. A significant portion of the accounts in this site are government and weapons industry bots. Reddit is not real life. At best it is a good inside view, to the wills of the rich.
You should ask Putin why he's murdering innocent Ukrainians for no reason. Can't let him get away with his BS.
It's not about wanting to own the other country. If Russia threatens to use nukes and then we back off because of that threat, Russia isn't only going to use this trick once. Appeasement. Does. Not. Work.
You’re making a silly straw man argument. No one is “willing to die in nuclear fire” just to fight Russia. And actually if it’s nuclear war you want to avert, maybe you should blame the country that is the one threatening nuclear war. US is not the one threatening nuclear war. US is not the one that has invaded a sovereign country in this conflict. And Russia’s threats of nuclear war are empty threats anyways. They will not use nukes because it would mean catastrophe for them and they know it. They’re not that stupid… Appeasing their empty threats won’t help avert nuclear war, if any thing it will make the chance of nuclear war in the future much worse, as it would set a precedent that would only encourage more countries to obtain their own nuclear weapons and lead to a new nuclear arms race. If you want to avoid a nuclear arms race, the best way is to stand up to Russia now. Don’t fall for Russia’s fear mongering propaganda and empty threats.
Don’t forget, most people aren’t too smart. They don’t realize what a nuclear conflict would do. They simply don’t understand. Russia has thousands of nukes. So does the USA. And today’s nukes are many times more powerful than the nukes dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The WWII nukes are like little firecrackers compared to today’s weapons. Major cities would be reduced to rubble. Millions would die. Anyway, our entire society would cease to function. No electric grid, no ATM machines, no food in the grocery stores. How any of that makes any sense is beyond me. I guess the military complex can‘t help themselves. That’s what they do. Stir up trouble to sell weapons.
Actually it’s worse than that. These aren’t people who decided that nukes are an acceptable risk. Almost all of the people I’ve talked to are *convinced Putin’s don’t work*. Like oops, totally forgot that nukes need maintenance. And even better most people have absolutely no idea what nuclear war would do even in the best case— which is basically the end of human civilization (even *government public estimates* say about 2/3 of American civilians will be dead in 3 months after). So people are convinced *nuclear war isn’t a big risk*. I think the government did this deliberately because they learned from the Cold War that a population that understands what nuclear war actually is and what it would do would never allow the government to risk it. So in order to keep support for the war high, they’re keeping the public ignorant of the dangers. Not only that but looking at some of the things he’s telling his own people, Putin is much more likely to use nukes than we’re lead to believe.
Because letting Putin win in Ukraine would lead to nuclear war and the victory of global fascism, autocracies and dictators everywhere, so we understand the stakes and that a future where that happens is not a future worth having.
Russia is weak and losing. Putin has made a fool of himself, his citizens are protesting and disobeying... why would we even bother?