Russian invasion of Ukraine

[SWP's back]

There's some estimates that AI could be responsible for as much as 50% of the content on the internet.

You can just make the neural net read hundreds of pages of posts and tweets in favour of a subject, then press play. And people won't know the difference.

I think I found one on reddit around the time of Charlottesville. I had a fairly detailed argument and rebuttal to their rebuttal. Then it went all wierd and noticably very vague, like it suddenly shifted into another persona / context. And that's a tell-tale sign of AI - it can make the right noises in one context, pick out the right words to talk about, but at some point, it can get out the bounds of it's area of expertise, the situations where it works very well. Then you become an 'edge case' and it gives you very mediocre responses, it's using words and phrases which come from a very different motivation or state of mind. The character falls apart in our eyes. But until that point, I was convinced I was talking to a human.

And that's because - at least on the internet - 99.9% of what we write is us saying the same thing as someone else, very slightly differently. And people have replied to and argued against our posts. They are the same, saying the same thing as someone else who has made that argumment.

We're all on autopilot. The trick is - very genuinely - to get to a personal level. Bring the individual humanity into it, the sort of thing that emerges in close physical situations, the ways of thinking and responding that are routinely left by the wayside when we are on t'internet.

It's actually very troubling to see how autopiloty we all are. People point at the other side and say that's what they are. But it's rubbish, we're all at it. All the time. It stems from being on a side in the first place. And it stems from our relationship to language.

I’d like to see an AI come up with twatbanana.

 

[mat]

Russia will float numerous justifications, hoping that some one of which meet with agreement.

In the USA we have a saying for this. Throw a bunch of shit at the wall and see what sticks.

The "NATO-aligned Ukraine is an existential threat" shit seems to have stuck on portions of the addle-minded Right.

Going off on a tangent here. I was watching a new report on some of the GOPs admiration of Putin and they came to conclusion they see him as the perfect leader for their ideal red state.

 

[AlgarveBlu]

I have not seen much discussed about this topic but it was widely touted last year that Brussels and especially Macron wanted to push forward with an EU army so lets call it NATO light - but in my opinion significantly large enough to take on the Russians and will have French nuclear capability deterrents and lets not forget that this EU army will probably be backed up by a huge defence budget from Germany alone (Thanks Vlad).

1) How does this significantly differ in Russia's eyes from the NATO threat that is always being touted as the cause for this war?

2) Other than Turkey's Black sea access, the borders with Russia are identical, except you can now add an additional 1,340 km border with Russia via Finland so an even worse predicament?

3) I suspect the remit of this army will be similar to NATO in terms of an attack against one etc but suspect will have additional powers to intervene in a case similar to what we are seeing here

The events of the last month will fast track this EU army I have no doubt as previous EU countries who had shown reservation I am sure will be all for it (Thanks Vlad), so where does this leave us in the future or is this war just good old fashioned Russian hatred of the U.S and the Russians will suddenly drop their objections to a militarised border on its Western flank just because it has EU stars on it?

 

[Blue Maverick]

Maybe retire in the South of France

Argentina more like

 

[SWP's back]

Everyone talking about Roman but I do believe Everton may very well be in the shit.

 

[JASR]

He only ever calls me Alan

I'm one of the lucky ones

That’s a typo

 

[Blue Maverick]

At times like this I’m always reminded of this

 

[Scottyboi]

Negotiations have just started.

 

[kaz7]

I get the impression our world leading sanctions are panning out like our world leading track and trace system, bollocks

 

[Vester]

This sort of thinking - is, IMO, completely unfounded.

Where did such ideas originate. And do such ideas play to Russia's advantage?

As for the first - who knows.

As for the second - absolutely. Here we have justification for Russia's aggression.
===
Let's step back for a moment. How likely is it that a European nation or indeed the USA will attack Russia? This borders on absolutely impossible. Why? Because Russia has nuclear weapons and ICBM capability. Any attack on Russia would bring devastating consequences to the west.

WIth this in mind - and also keeping in mind that proximate Poland for example are western leaning - the argument that a NATO Ukraine somehow poses an existential threat to Russia - so far beyond that which already exists (which is frankly nill) - is ridiculous. Patently so.

But the narrative that this is true and factual - which it obviously is not - builds a pretext for Russia's invasion of its neighbors.

I didnt say I agree with Russias security concerns, in fact I called Putin deranged for having them if you read my post. I agree Russia dont have any risk of a potential attack from USA (through Nato) in the foreseeable future, not matter if Ukraine joins Nato or not. What I did say is that I do think Russia have these concerns regardless, no matter if we believe they should have or not. Which have been quite obvious since 2008 and still is today considering what their demands are to withdraw their troops.

This is just how I see the situation from the information that is in front of me. I'm not dead certain this is 100% the case (since I'm not Putin), just like you cant be certain its not. But the way I see it, pretty much everything points to this being the case.
Like I said (several times), I dont think Russia has any right to invade Ukraine regardless if they have security concerns or not. Its just that, for me, this is about Nato, not Putin being on some kind of crusade to restore the Soviet Union. Every action Russia has made has been a direct (and/or immediate) response to Ukraines (and Georgias before that) Nato politic. At the same time there is almost nothing that suggests it would have to do with anything else than that.

Not trying to get into an argument here, none of us really know and are just speculating. What we can all agree on is that Russia have no right to invade Ukraine, and that the war is horrible. Hopefully Russia lose and we wont see them back in Europe for the foreseeable future.