well i’m not gonna go through your history to prove my point but you and i both know that was your sentiment in essence.

because you’re a troll who thinks trump is out to genocide your gay daughter. - that was your response to my being critical of democrats for genocide… frankly, i don’t trust you to be fair enough to engage with and you’ve been targeting me quite a bit.

yep, takes all kinds.

he’ll change his mind if a girl he likes tells him he stinks… is it the ‘because’ he offers that upsets you or the smell he gives off?

the more than you believe is lifted off of a meme-tier pep guardiola’s post match talk… but close enough

yes it was hubris and arrogance that created the conditions for the war, and hubris and arrogance that prevent it from ending sooner. and denial – more than you can believe!

sorry i don’t wear a flag on my sleeve and i must rely upon assumptions now and then with regard my anonymous counterparts.

but are you prepared to laugh at russia’s incompetence as OP does? that’s where this begins… the hubris and arrogance to ridicule a nation under what were intended to be CRUSHING sanctions-- for merely persisting and succeeding in their efforts… what do you suppose that territory gained by russia amounts to in the way of resource wealth? 60 percent of the rare earths in ukraine are in the east and or controlled by russia- if early peace talks were successful, ukraine would be more whole than it is- and as long as it continues, it will likely lose more ground… that is my prediction anyway.

right but you’re leaving out the united states’ full backing and complicity within the eu which justifies harmful russophobia and threatens to extend this conflict indefinitely- it has been laid out time and again that russia must also have security guarantees, but the west in their infinite arrogance will not entertain such thoughts. (except to buy time to re-arm and prepare ukraine for war)

how many billions of people are under US sanctions in the world? its a non zero integer

exactly: what conversation??? you only speak to hurl insults, go back to the woodwork and practice your downvotes if that’s all you’re good for.

by some metrics no, others yes. as i mentioned before and you’re free to take issue with: gdp as measured by purchasing power parity places it at 4th largest… we like to lambast russia for being a weak economy but what of the rest of our european allies? who is doing better than russia?

its doing a lot better than the us gives it credit, you can admit that surely. ‘still not winning’ is certainly debatable because you need to be winning before you’ve won… that victory looms very clearly on the horizon when compared to ukraine and the west’s ambitions falling short. so if russia is not winning, ukraine must not be losing, either.

It has the eleventh-largest economy in the world by nominal GDP and the fourth-largest economy by GDP (PPP) (purchasing power parity)

• its a fair point you make, there are various and contested metrics for comparing economies.

even acknowledging and conceding my argument is contestable and just one of many ways to perceive the claim, i have not done enough and must now eat my downvotes, fair play, i’ll keep trying to bring better reasoned arguments that don’t rely on simply dismissing my opponents as radical or irrational and continue to eat the downvotes, i just want others to see what it looks like when you actually try to have a conversation in some of these corners.

what i say is not the message so much as your reaction

ah yes, two sides of an argument surely cannot exist at once.

russia leapfrogging large economies to become the 4th largest in the world while under ??? how many us sanctions? how do you explain it if not affording them their competence at meeting those challenges imposed?

i think these statistics are being interpreted in a particular way that hand-waves away the 96.5 percent’s reaction to that 3.5 percent. and it ‘may only’ take… 3.5 percent. what if tyranny is in the hands of another 3.5 percent? these hard data might just empower the ruling class for all we know, but in their case they have all the resources and broad control of our interactions through the various channels they own.

the problem with rhetoric like this- it forgets that they (tyrants/dictators) continue to find power… you set yourself up for even greater despondancy when you start to believe: IT SHOULD BE SO EASY, but it just isn’t.

mind you, 3.5 percent of a population is no small feat-- but another message you can falsely intuit in the vapors of this claim: oh well, no big deal then, we can afford to wait until things start to REALLY get bad…

real political change is a long hard road and this sentiment gives people an out- its not a stretch to imagin someone reading this and coming to the conclusion that they can afford to sit on the sideline and let the magic 3.5 percent come and save them…

the images didn’t load before-- in any case, tugging heartstrings and showing vulnerability are endearing for a certain audience.

that means i’ve reached my biannual quota of hilarious comments-- and so soon into 2025, see you in 2027 lemmy! 👋 (me realizing biannual is twice a year… its too late)

popular german automobile? what year is it?