Fate points sound cool, ngl

Now that’s how you invite a friend to DM for you

You go, girl! Congrats on coming out here! You are loved :)

Sex ed is an absolute must! It’s just that it’s one of many things that need to be done.

Better be both

But yes, everyone involved should be properly prosecuted.

By themselves they would lose the war in a matter of months.

The issue is dwindling support from NATO countries that leaves the country without much needed guns and ammunition.

While I’m all for phasing out modern religions over time, currently they still hold giant influence on hearts and minds of people, and, like it or not, Pope is an influential person; moreover, he’s essentially part of conservative camp, where we need change the most.

Also, let’s finally separate pedophiles and child molesters, as it’s both essential to understanding the dynamic that leads to this happening in churches (celibate warping people’s minds and children being easiest to lean to non-consential sex more often than actual pedophilia), as well as to create two distinct and effective solutions at child protection.

Actual pedophiles often need to get therapy to avoid mental traps that lead them to accept offending behavior, and those with severe lust over everything (which constitute over half of all child molestation cases) need other kind of therapy to manage their desires in a healthy way.

In case of the church, it means dismantling institute of celibacy alone can have a strong positive effect on child safety, as there would be no barriers for those “underfucked” to maintain a sexual life that would keep their minds in order. Maybe there is a point in going for that first?

Based.

When even Pope, a person normally in charge of maintaining a rather conservative society, tells you so, you know it’s time to act

Those jokes never get old

Strike at Kremlin, the rest of Moscovites will be happy to help

Genocided, essentially

Navalny is a populist, and when/if he is released, he wants to be able to say whatever is in demand. That includes playing nationalist if locals get more xenophobic.

The reason he got prominence as an opposition leader is in big part due to his programme being very agile to the current expectations, and my guess is that he doesn’t want to burn the bridges.

He will absolutely be a scumbag if that gives him power.

As a commie to commie, you’re shelling some really bad arguments in favor of a stupid position.

US imperialism is terrible and needs to stop. And so does Russian. There’s nothing about Ukraine that justifies this war, and all you do is protect forces we pledged to keep in check, and you do it for the sake of a national delusion.

If you feel this war is justified, check your sources - those would better be written by Marx, Engels, and Lenin, and not Limonov and Fyodorov.

I feel there’s something happening here, and that’s something we should all avoid.

All the original commenter highlighted is that the source is questionable. You can’t just take the Kyiv Post article and blindly believe it, it’s like getting the picture of the war from the TASS agency in Russia.

As much as Ukraine might be right, it absolutely doesn’t mean every word from there is 100% crystallized truth. Before drawing any conclusions, it’s worth investigating multiple credible sources.

Or you should completely reject objectivity and embrace the fact that you put emotions before truth. Such people are easily manipulated into everything.

Yes, light and legal drugs are not okay as well. They too may cause severe health (including mental health) issues, as well as addiction.

THC, alcohol, nicotine and even caffeine cause significant and measurable harm, and you’ll be much better off by restricting them long-term, unless you have medical indications to consume them.

If you need any of them to relax or to have a good party or to stay productive, remember it is NOT sustainable and actively harmful and something has to be done about the way you organize your life. You can’t go on like this forever, it will get you eventually

The pieces are already there, all around China.

On one thing you’re right - any war in the region will be super costly and will end an awful lot of human lives. There is a reason, thereby, for US holding strategic ambiguity in the matter.

Can they outperform China militarily? Potentially yes, though at that point we’ll get to the nuclear danger. Anyways, even the traditional warfare directly held between two countries will be a disaster - for China, for US, and for the world.

And while US has the option to back down, China - barely so. If they begin, they will put it to end or be destroyed. US has an option to not get involved or retreat - and they will likely use it in order to not have their entire military destroyed over one island.

This is not Vietnam. This is not Korea. This is not yet another proxy war. This is like if Kamchatka separated from USSR during the Cold war and tried to get US protections. It would turn out very, very bad, regardless of who emerges victorious.

If US wanted to go this far to solve Taiwan question to its benefit, they’d simply station nukes in there. But the consequences of provoking severe backlash from China are big enough so that they’ll never do that. US doesn’t need this war, and it will likely back down should severe escalation happen.

Sure, but the enemy wasn’t China but rather some militarily weak Middle Eastern countries.

It wasn’t that big of an effort to project power in there.

Taiwan has a big political significance for China; taking it over would mean putting an end to Kuomintang and concluding the war, emerging victorious. No more little neighbor undermining credibility of the Party.

Aside from that, Taiwan is home to the most advanced chipmaking factory in the world, and US has made sure mainland China is cut off from advanced computing technologies, forcing it to lag behind in some of the most important modern industries, as well as military. By capturing Taiwan, China could greatly change the balance of power - either by successfully overtaking TSMC, or by destroying it. Both will work, really.

Explained this in my answer; long story short, the very idea of such invasion was super unthinkable to an average Russian, and, while we’ve seen news from Western media, we discarded them as sensationalist and lacking understanding of the real situation.

But, as we soon figured out, Putin has no issue crossing any red line.

You mean Crimea? While it was a hostile act indeed, it was different. Might be less visible from the outside, again.

Lemme try to explain the difference. Again, no justification, I don’t have a strong stance on Crimea, just how it looks from inside Russia (and Crimea - having lots of relatives and friends from there and been there pre- and post-annexation).

The annexation of Crimea was relatively peaceful (while some Russian soldiers came to the peninsula, it wasn’t a full-scale invasion, no bullet was shot and no bullet was meant to be shot) and went in accordance to the interest of locals, who wholeheartedly overwhelmingly approved the change - and I’m not just sourcing this from Kremlin propaganda and referendum results, I’ve been on the ground and have many contacts in there. The sentiment has somewhat changed over time, but is still moderately pro-Russia. Crimea is also primarily inhabited by ethnic Russians - 67,9% Russians with only 15,7% Ukrainians by the time of annexation in 2014 - which might help to explain such a fierce support (source: Wikipedia). Putin has also taken action against growing conflict between Russians and Crimean Tatars, which, while being heavily controversial, got him even more support from the Russian population majority.

The 2022 invasion was meant from the start as a full-scale war, and was meant to meet resistance and be hostile to the civilian population. Unlike annexation of Crimea, which was more of a political recoloring than anything, this time it was an actual war, with blood, bullets, and flame, and with Russian tanks riding through Ukrainian protesters that wished those tanks to go away. And this is the kind of scenario Russians could not envision. In Russian mentality, Ukrainians, just like Belorussians, are brotherly folks, and going for the kill means betraying the almost sacred bond the nations have. This shows in Russian politics, with leaders constantly trying to tell population it is not a war against brotherly Ukrainians, but rather against Nazis and their leader Zelensky (yep, the guy with Jewish bloodline). But it is bullshit that the majority can still see through, and when the war started, it was a giant shock and, like, something that absolutely, under any circumstances, shouldn’t have happened.

This, exactly, has blinded Russians, myself included, into trusting Kremlin with their “combat exercise” rhetoric. Not that we had (and have) big trust in our government, but going to a real bloody war with Ukraine was too unthinkable to ever seriously consider.

Also, please avoid rhetorical questions in favor of direct ones. I do answer this one because it might be useful for the general context, but it is rude and also ineffective in case you actually want to hear an answer.