>Defending one's sovereign territory is not being pro-war.
Uh, they can't protect their own territory.
>Only a bully would say that defending oneself from the bully is being aggressive
This is a child-like representation of the conflict. Good and bad, bullies and those standing up to them. This didn't start in 2022, believe it or not.
Russia should not have invaded. But they did, it happened. Unless you or your children are ready to go over there and fight in the conflict, what do you think the outcome here should be? Russia is a nuclear power; do you think Putin is going to risk losing?
I truly don't understand. This idea of "oh my gosh, one country invaded another" as if this hasn't been the entirety of the history of civilization is strange.
> Russia is a nuclear power; do you think Putin is going to risk losing?
Given the track record of the US and Russia since getting nuclear weapons, yes?
Nukes might be pretty good at stopping someone invading your country but they're probably not a great help if you're the invader and you want to occupy the place you're invading. Especially if it's right next door
It's only clear they're good at stopping invasions by history. You could (and possibly are) seeing the precedent set that border disputes can escalate to kinetic conflicts without nukes getting involved - the problem is no one knows where the line is and historically that kept things calm.
Who even knows if that's still the case though? If India goes after Kashmir so they genuinely think Pakistan would risk annihilation defending it if it was lost?
Russia could easily dispose of NATO as an ongoing problem by losing a war with the Baltics if the US then disregards Article 5 because "well it's just not worth risking nuclear war".
Appeasement doesn't work, but apparently we all forgot even the simplified history of WW2.
Russia wouldn't have invaded Ukraine if Ukraine had nukes - just like the EU/US only refuses to invade Russia for fear of nukes.
If you show the world that having been a good citizen in the rules based order isn't enough to avoid being invaded, but nukes are, the consequences are quite predictable: everyone who can afford to do so will start a nuclear program.
I've been arguing that nations already concluded that nukes were the only defense against regime change. The major impetus was the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
It’s remarkable that instead of curiosity about your argument or the past history of Russia and Ukraine and NATO,
the responses you’re getting immediately jump to “Putin koolaid”. It’s not surprising given that almost no one in America has even basic knowledge on this issue, like being aware of the 2014 coup.
But also if you go against HN political orthodoxy, prepare for downvotes. Unfortunately it doesn’t matter if you’re correct or spend the time to write out a really thoughtful comment. The downvotes and low value responses will still come. It’s probably not the right platform for debate outside its Overton window.
Nothing you posted debunks it. You are acknowledging that the duly elected leader was removed from his position without following the constitutional process. The rest is just noise, including that unanimous vote - yea of course people are going to vote that way when there are violent armed insurrectionists around.
No, there was nothing unconstitutional about the process. The Ukrainian parliament correctly followed the procedure for holding snap elections.
Snap elections might be a novel idea for Americans who are used to presidents always serving the full term, but they are fairly common in rest of the world. Germany held snap elections just last Sunday, after the government lost its majority in parliament.
So you are saying that a unanimous vote is more likely a coup than a reaction to the horror of the president ordering an attack on innocent protesters? An attack that killed some hundred people, in fact.
I guess you could call that a "coup." I guess I could argue that war is peace, too. Both could be called propaganda.
I'm trying to be charitable but I really don't understand your line of reasoning. To me it seems like their hand is being forced by the UK Government. They don't want to introduce a backdoor for global users by complying so they are simply disabling the feature for users in the UK. If the feature does not exist then there is no need to comply. That seems... reasonable?
The blame squarely lies with the government in the UK and that is correctly where it seems like most of the anger is being directed.
The UK government is not a dictatorship. Bad policies like this should be pushed back against by both corporations and individuals or things will get worse. Easier said than done, I know, but Apple instantly rolling over is not a good sign for a company supposedly big on privacy.
It is the nature of the UK Parliamentary system, that when the party in power has a large majority, it is essentially an elective dictatorship. Then 5 years later we may get a different dictator.
This is a well known issue with the system. There are few checks and balances, it rather depends upon honourable behaviour by the participants.
That honourable behaviour ceased to be practiced from around 2000 onwards, and so things have been deteriorating.
If most of Apple's regular/repeat/fan users cared about such things and gave importance to other things like user hostile "everything" Apple does (access to support, repair, warranty, escalation.. the list is too fucking long!), Apple might have been nowhere near the behemoth it is today. The typical Apple user is the Apple fan and they will buy Apple, upgrade every year or every other year, stand in line, defend Apple no matter what and that is what Apple cares about.
Apple's target audience is not the crowd that is still pining for the return of the 4.x inch phone. Apple's target audience (few but this gives an idea) lives on those Reddit subs and discussions.apple.com where if someone asks a way to affix the upper cover of an AirPod case (which needs 1-2 mins and a glue; NOTHING else), multiple most upvoted comments are "but why don't you go to Apple support and replace/buy a new case". Oh and by the way Apple also officially says "fuck you, buy another one - we don't fucking fix such things" out of warranty and in warranty as well that comes as physical and cosmetic damage. That's just an example.
So no, this is not doing jackshit to Apple's reputation i.e sales.
Add PS1 too. The US government banned sale of PlayStation to China because the PLA would apparently have access to cutting edge chips for their missiles
Early last year, I lost my phone and I intentionally delayed replacing in some kind of smart phone detox.
I have never had better sleep than in those two weeks.
"which is about the age of the universe"
The more I think about the big bang the more it doesn't make sense because it would mean that the universe came out of nothing.
Wikipedia says the Spanish beat the British to it.
>The term concentration camp originates from the Spanish–Cuban Ten Years' War when Spanish forces detained Cuban civilians in camps in order to more easily combat guerrilla forces. Over the following decades the British during the Second Boer War and the Americans during the Philippine–American War also used concentration camps.
