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Author Topic: Ukraine is under attack. It's a full on war.  (Read 100773 times)

Mistwell

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Re: Ukraine is under attack. It's a full on war.
« Reply #300 on: March 06, 2022, 11:39:47 AM »
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You can F yourself on my being "unfair" to people with "different beliefs."

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[Insert Emotional Appeal Here]

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Isolationism is unethical. Inherently so. It says no matter how bad something gets, no matter how easily you can stop it from happening, you're not to intervene based on that principal and that principal alone. That's unethical no matter how you spin it or no matter how you feel about it.

That's the position you called morally inflexible.
Yes. I just have learned over time that if somebody is utterly inflexible on certain points, and tells others to 'F yourself', its generally not worth my time engaging the point. Nothing will be accomplished.

I don't see as anybody elses efforts owed to me. I think its right to do good things, but I don't see those things as owed to me. I see isolationism and non-interventionism a valid if morally neutral aproach, not one I would do myself, but I wouldn't tell those people off for not seeing themselves as obligated to help me.

Wow you actually went into the re-quote and cut more out but left it as if that was the quote without mentioning you had done that. What a lying fuck you are. I totally misread you. Huh

Mistwell

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Re: Ukraine is under attack. It's a full on war.
« Reply #301 on: March 06, 2022, 11:41:33 AM »
Oh for F's sake, a second accusation I am far left?
No, you're not.

I'm not a big fan of your posts lately, but GB is using one of the same tactics they deride. "Everyone I don't like is alt-right/a communist". Everything is seen from an Us vs. a Monolithic Them lens, which makes it very hard to talk about positions, people, and beliefs that don't slot neatly into one of popular political narratives.

I hate it when you're reasonable Pat. You make me have to consider if I've been unreasonable towards you, and that's uncomfortable.

Mistwell

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Re: Ukraine is under attack. It's a full on war.
« Reply #302 on: March 06, 2022, 11:44:42 AM »
Regarding Interventionism… I don’t think failing to intervene is inherently evil because things are rarely that clear-cut. Just running into a hostage situation with guns blazing and no idea who is who and where they are is intervention… but it’s stupid and will likely get at least some of the very people you’re supposed to be trying to save killed; possibly even by you as one of them pops up from cover to run for the exit and had the misfortune of wearing a black coat while the hostage takers were wearing black hoodies.

Rather, the moral standard for intervention should be a bit like that of a doctor’s oath… “Don’t cause more problems than you’re trying to solve.”

You say we should intervene in Ukraine? Okay, tell us how. Tell us what is hoped to be gained. Tell us the expected costs. Tell us the realistic case and worst case consequences. If the outlined plan doesn’t make things worse, it’s something I’m amenable to. If it’s just “send over a bunch of our soldiers over to drag us all into WW3” then I suggest booking yourself a flight over there and volunteering for the front line first.

I agree with you. To put it coldly, it's a cost benefit analysis first. Will intervention result in more harm than benefit to the world is the first question. The second question is whether intervention is morally justified in itself. But if you're going to end up with WW3 out of it, then the first question says you don't militarily intervene even if it would be morally just to do so, and you find other ways to help short of military intervention.

Mistwell

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Re: Ukraine is under attack. It's a full on war.
« Reply #303 on: March 06, 2022, 11:48:31 AM »
This is an interesting translation of an article on what Russian officials seem to think of this war.  It's a translation of a March 1 report by Farida Rustamova, a well-connected Russian journalist with  deep sourcing in top levels of the Russian government.

The short of it is it seems like most Russian officials did not think they were going to war, and only thought they were supporting the break-away territories with a vote or voice of support. That Russian forces were suddenly outside of Kyiv was as much a shock as it was to everyone else. And many are pissed about it, and also afraid to speak out.

Ratman_tf

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Re: Ukraine is under attack. It's a full on war.
« Reply #304 on: March 07, 2022, 12:04:16 AM »
Of course, our own moral convictions are good and critically important in many areas of life--including politics--but the fact is, insisting that political policy and foreign involvement--including embracing adventures and choices involving full-scale war--governed by a sense of absolute morality, is simply opening one's self up to absolute disaster and failure. Furthermore, since such policies are ostensibly guided and directed by such leadership embracing such--can also be hugely unethical, as such political choices are condemning millions of other people to suffer, sacrifice, and die, so that a nation state or a particular leader can enjoy a sense of moral righteousness and certitude. That's an arrogant and self-righteous position, and at the end of the day, it is difficult to avoid seeing such insistence as also a form of wickedness and evil.
It's the problem with socialism. Or any large centralized government. It's arrogant to assume you can choose for so many people, and to force them to your will, and it becomes murderously arrogant in practice.

It's the distance that makes it so monstrous. It's hard to turn on your friends, or neighbors, without outside pressure. But it's easy if everyone else is doing it, and you feel like you have no choice, or they'll turn on you as well. Genocide and totalitarian control walk hand in grisly hand.

The gray is what allows it to happen. No good choices, so you might as well make the most convenient one. This is why leaders become corrupt, because if everything's bad, why not pad your pockets, and help your allies, and pull a few strings or break a few rules to stay in power, because it might as well be you, right? It's also why the populace in general goes along, when tyrants spring up like weeds in a vast bureaucracy; because it's safer, more comfortable. Though of course it's even more insidious than that, because one excuse leads to another, and one hard choice makes the next one even easier. Over time, the moral window shifts to a gray that's nigh indistinguishable from black.

Free, small, and local is the only solution.

All well and good until the guys with the large, centralized government steamroll you while your local guys are trying to get support from the other local guys.
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Shasarak

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Re: Ukraine is under attack. It's a full on war.
« Reply #305 on: March 07, 2022, 12:10:39 AM »
All well and good until the guys with the large, centralized government steamroll you while your local guys are trying to get support from the other local guys.

There are plenty of small places surviving beside large centralised governments that are not being steamrolled.

Take a random country like Afghanistan for example.
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Pat
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Re: Ukraine is under attack. It's a full on war.
« Reply #306 on: March 07, 2022, 01:35:36 AM »
All well and good until the guys with the large, centralized government steamroll you while your local guys are trying to get support from the other local guys.

There are plenty of small places surviving beside large centralised governments that are not being steamrolled.

Take a random country like Afghanistan for example.
Widespread gun ownership works.

3catcircus

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Re: Ukraine is under attack. It's a full on war.
« Reply #307 on: March 07, 2022, 10:17:08 AM »
The *one* good thing about this debacle is it is allowing me to proceed with development of my Twilight:2025 timeline (basically, taking Twilight:2013's rules set, cleaning it up, integrating the supplements, and advancing a more realistic timeline)...  :o

HappyDaze

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Re: Ukraine is under attack. It's a full on war.
« Reply #308 on: March 07, 2022, 01:52:31 PM »
The *one* good thing about this debacle is it is allowing me to proceed with development of my Twilight:2025 timeline (basically, taking Twilight:2013's rules set, cleaning it up, integrating the supplements, and advancing a more realistic timeline)...  :o
What you call "good" is more like "opportunistic, insensitive, and in bad taste." But you do you.

Shrieking Banshee

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Re: Ukraine is under attack. It's a full on war.
« Reply #309 on: March 07, 2022, 10:21:51 PM »
This may be an emotional gut reaction after seeing images of places I actully know reduced to rubble but:
Maybe people would be less worried about Russia in regards to national security if Putin didn't demonstrate himself to be the absolutely unstable psychopath everybody accused him of.

I don't care how tiny of a dick that man has, none of this 'security concern' justifies what he is doing. 'Security Concerns' aren't going to foot the bill for the funarals the man has caused, let alone the infrastructure that will ensure Ukraine remains a ruin for a generation. You don't get the moral highground of needing a human shield so you grab a baby from a basket.
The entire effort is now 100% self-defeating. Every further act of demolition will now just further rile up NATO, and get everybody else to invest further into military spending.
And in terms of economical development, Russia is set back 30 years. Nobody is gonna want to go to 'KGB-town' for tourism in the near future.

And lets say you fully subjegate Ukraine. You gonna leave a military presence in a country the size of Texas for the next 10-20 years? Or will you be happy letting them be as a empty husk that would cheer at NATO going through its borders?

And have the fucking balls to call what your doing a fucking war you COWARD!
« Last Edit: March 07, 2022, 10:25:16 PM by Shrieking Banshee »

Pat
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Re: Ukraine is under attack. It's a full on war.
« Reply #310 on: March 07, 2022, 10:56:42 PM »
This may be an emotional gut reaction after seeing images of places I actully know reduced to rubble but:
Maybe people would be less worried about Russia in regards to national security if Putin didn't demonstrate himself to be the absolutely unstable psychopath everybody accused him of.

I don't care how tiny of a dick that man has, none of this 'security concern' justifies what he is doing. 'Security Concerns' aren't going to foot the bill for the funarals the man has caused, let alone the infrastructure that will ensure Ukraine remains a ruin for a generation. You don't get the moral highground of needing a human shield so you grab a baby from a basket.
The entire effort is now 100% self-defeating. Every further act of demolition will now just further rile up NATO, and get everybody else to invest further into military spending.
And in terms of economical development, Russia is set back 30 years. Nobody is gonna want to go to 'KGB-town' for tourism in the near future.

And lets say you fully subjegate Ukraine. You gonna leave a military presence in a country the size of Texas for the next 10-20 years? Or will you be happy letting them be as a empty husk that would cheer at NATO going through its borders?

And have the fucking balls to call what your doing a fucking war you COWARD!
I don't think anybody has said security concerns justify what Putin did. What I said, and I believe others did as well, is that Putin has some legitimate concerns about NATO's expansion. Potentially existential concerns, because he sees NATO as a military threat, and they're bigger, growing, and heading toward an even bigger footprint on his doorstep. That's bad, because it means Putin feels like a cornered dog. And cornered dogs are dangerous. That's why Putin is acting like the unstable psychopath, as you say.

This is something the West could have prevented, with pragmatic geopolitics and some concessions. The absolute worst thing they could do is escalate things, by publicly humiliating Putin, imposing sanctions that could cause an economic collapse, and turning his people against him, because that doesn't just threaten Russia's borders, it threatens Putin himself and makes it hard for him to trust anyone, thus making him even more erratic and unstable.

Oh wait, that's exactly what the West did.

I don't think we're at the nuclear precipice, but I think this could easily go down in history as a series of calamitous mistakes. Of course we could get lucky, and Putin might vanish in a coup. But it's a really bad idea to rely on that kind of dumb luck.

Shrieking Banshee

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Re: Ukraine is under attack. It's a full on war.
« Reply #311 on: March 07, 2022, 11:42:25 PM »
That's why Putin is acting like the unstable psychopath, as you say.
At this point I have run out of any shred of respect I had for this dictator even from a pragmatic 'best of a bad lot' sort of way. What he is doing right now, in killing people, and demanding they thank him for it. Oh boo hoo, the dictator with a secret police feels like a cornered dog. Il be sure to send him a get well card.
The problem with dictators is that due to their rule being always based on a perpetual power balancing act, they cannot step down without fear of murder. So they have to retain power even as their faculties diminish and they feel unhealthy and weak. And as that happens the circle of trust shinks and they start to buy their own hype and enter delusions. Delusions like offering amnesty to refugees IN RUSSIA.

And I truly believed he wouldn't do something like this because its INSANE. I thought he was better then this. Better then what he was doing. That if even he did a war, it would at least be surgical and fast. But it has become brutality pretty quickly.

What concessions could be given to him to prevent this.
« Last Edit: March 07, 2022, 11:44:44 PM by Shrieking Banshee »

Pat
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Re: Ukraine is under attack. It's a full on war.
« Reply #312 on: March 07, 2022, 11:51:02 PM »
What concessions could be given to him to prevent this.
Putin's biggest concern was the Ukraine joining NATO.

Shrieking Banshee

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Re: Ukraine is under attack. It's a full on war.
« Reply #313 on: March 08, 2022, 12:07:58 AM »
Putin's biggest concern was the Ukraine joining NATO.

I know this is in many ways the Wests fault. Putin was getting buddy buddy with Ukraine, so the West tipped the table over so Putin thinks he can't play fair.
Then assasinate the President. Cause a civil war, maybe even bomb the parliment. The Ukraine president is a fuckwit authoritarian, so I hope he gets killed. But what is happening right now is delusion. And because his unfair play isn't getting the results he wanted, the bombings will continue until moral improves. This sort of action to me displays a fundemental instability. I find this means it would be a matter of 'When' not 'If' for these sorts of stuff to occur.
Ukraine paradoxically depended on Russia allot for an export market. Maybe threaten that with sanctions if you decide to join NATO.

But Putin is also a ex-KGB member with very unreasonable dreams about a return to empire. The State of russia as a whole is just...Too big for no reason. Maybe become a place that doesn't have a negative birth-rate first.

Edit/ TLDR: If the man was delusional enough to think that he could make a personal appeal to the military, and they would overthrow the current regieme and run into his arms and the citizens would throw a parade - what would discourage him from doing this NATO or no NATO?
« Last Edit: March 08, 2022, 12:25:26 AM by Shrieking Banshee »

Pat
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Re: Ukraine is under attack. It's a full on war.
« Reply #314 on: March 08, 2022, 12:31:11 AM »
Putin's biggest concern was the Ukraine joining NATO.

I know this is in many ways the Wests fault. Putin was getting buddy buddy with Ukraine, so the West tipped the table over so Putin thinks he can't play fair.
Then assasinate the President. Cause a civil war, maybe even bomb the parliment. The Ukraine president is a fuckwit authoritarian, so I hope he gets killed. But what is happening right now is delusion. And because his unfair play isn't getting the results he wanted, the bombings will continue until moral improves. This sort of action to me displays a fundemental instability. I find this means it would be a matter of 'When' not 'If' for these sorts of stuff to occur.
Ukraine paradoxically depended on Russia allot for an export market. Maybe threaten that with sanctions if you decide to join NATO.

But Putin is also a ex-KGB member with very unreasonable dreams about a return to empire. The State of russia as a whole is just...Too big for no reason. Maybe become a place that doesn't have a negative birth-rate first.
Russia's a weird place. I don't think many people in the world, except maybe people who have traveled widely across the US and Canada, can really appreciate how big it is.

Upheaval in Russia could throw the entire Eurasian supercontinent into turmoil. Imagine Russia losing Primorsky Krai to China, for instance. And that's 6,000 miles away as the Transiberian Railroad chugs.