People need to understand the effect of proximity on power.
The average every-man in Western countries already only has a very small modicum of personal power, their actual influence stops almost entirely at the boundary of their town/city, any impressions of the power to independently influence foreign nations are purely delusions. They can do precisely jack and shit to meaningfully reverse Russia's megalomania. In the realm of international affairs the military and the government hold all the cards, and they dictate to the people what will happen, not vice versa.
But everyone wants to be the architect and no-one wants to just haul the bricks to the wall. So sometimes to sugar coat things the military/government will pretend it's not a dictate and instead start "helping" the populace believe they independently came to the decision the govt already wanted to make by feeding them a constant stream of tailored information. Just like a sizable proportion of the populace believes they "independently" came to the conclusion that 2 years of border shut downs and vaccine mandates are reasonable after hearing constantly from the government that the covid vaccines are the safest, most effective vaccines ever and how covid is killing thousands and thousands (because of semantics like "died with covid" designed to create the maximum panic).
Russia is propagandizing hard, but they're far from the only one. Every western gov. is going just as hard with hysteria and half truths to get the population to "conclude" what they want. I'm not Russian, so I can't do a damn thing to stop their propagandizing (unfortunately, neither can most Russians anymore, since the ones who try too hard tend to get dragged into cars by men with guns or have unfortunate accidents). What I can do is make just a tiny bit of a problem for my own gov and make it very clear that any amount of war propoganda will make me fight them tooth and nail. There are no such things as little white lies when it comes to sending clueless young people off to die in agony and have their humanity shredded by the necessary horrors of war.
The idea that you can save the world if you try hard enough is admirable, but childishly naive. Utopia is not achievable within a generation from where we are. There were dictators when you were born and there will be new dictators when you die. The most you can do is spend what limited resources you have on throttling any wannabes in your neighborhood and make sure the place you live isn't ruled by one for your kids. Don't bloody squander those scraps of power, that the would-be dictators directly above you haven't quite managed to take, on anything but telling them to fuck off and give you the rest back too. Worry about what else to do after that job's done.
People need to understand the effect of proximity on power.
The average every-man in Western countries already only has a very small modicum of personal power, their actual influence stops almost entirely at the boundary of their town/city, any impressions of the power to independently influence foreign nations are purely delusions. They can do precisely jack and shit to meaningfully reverse Russia's megalomania. In the realm of international affairs the military and the government hold all the cards, and they dictate to the people what will happen, not vice versa.
But everyone wants to be the architect and no-one wants to just haul the bricks to the wall. So sometimes to sugar coat things the military/government will pretend it's not a dictate and instead start "helping" the populace believe they independently came to the decision the govt already wanted to make by feeding them a constant stream of tailored information. Just like a sizable proportion of the populace believes they "independently" came to the conclusion that 2 years of border shut downs and vaccine mandates are reasonable after hearing constantly from the government that the covid vaccines are the safest, most effective vaccines ever and how covid is killing thousands and thousands (because of semantics like "died with covid" designed to create the maximum panic).
Russia is propagandizing hard, but they're far from the only one. Every western gov. is going just as hard with hysteria and half truths to get the population to "conclude" what they want. I'm not Russian, so I can't do a damn thing to stop their propagandizing (unfortunately, neither can most Russians anymore, since the ones who try too hard tend to get dragged into cars by men with guns or have unfortunate accidents). What I can do is make just a tiny bit of a problem for my own gov and make it very clear that any amount of war propoganda will make me fight them tooth and nail. There are no such things as little white lies when it comes to sending clueless young people off to die in agony and have their humanity shredded by the necessary horrors of war.
The idea that you can save the world if you try hard enough is admirable, but childishly naive. Utopia is not achievable within a generation from where we are. There were dictators when you were born and there will be new dictators when you die. The most you can do is spend what limited resources you have on throttling any wannabes in your neighborhood and make sure the place you live isn't ruled by one for your kids. Don't bloody squander the scraps of power the would-be dictators directly above you haven't quite managed to take on anything but telling them to fuck off and give you the rest back too. Worry about what else to do after that job's done.
People need to understand the effect of proximity on power.
The average every-man in Western countries already only has a very small modicum of personal power, their actual influence stops almost entirely at the boundary of their town/city, any impressions of the power to independently influence foreign nations are purely delusions. They can do precisely jack and shit to meaningfully reverse Russia's megalomania. In the realm of international affairs the military and the government hold all the cards, and they dictate to the people what will happen, not vice versa.
But everyone wants to be the architect and no-one wants to just haul the bricks to the wall. So sometimes to sugar coat things the military/government will pretend it's not a dictate and instead start "helping" the populace believe they independently came to the decision the govt already wanted to make by feeding them a constant stream of tailored information. Just like a sizable proportion of the populace believes they "independently" came to the conclusion that 2 years of border shut downs and vaccine mandates are reasonable after hearing constantly from the government that the covid vaccines are the safest, most effective vaccines ever and how covid is killing thousands and thousands (because of semantics like "died with covid" designed to create the maximum panic).
Russia is propagandizing hard, but they're far from the only one. Every western gov. is going just as hard with hysteria and half truths to get the population to "conclude" what they want. I'm not Russian, so I can't do a damn thing to stop their propagandizing (unfortunately, neither can most Russians anymore, since the ones who try too hard tend to get dragged into cars by men with guns or have unfortunate accidents). What I can do is make just a tiny bit of a problem for my own gov and make it very clear that any amount of war propoganda will make me fight them tooth and nail. There are no such things as little white lies when it comes to sending clueless young people off to die in agony and have their humanity shredded by the necessary horrors of war.
The idea that you can save the world if you try hard enough is admirable, but childishly naive. Utopia is not achievable within a generation from where we are. There were dictators when you were born and there will be dictators when you die. The most you can do is spend what limited resources you have on throttling any wannabes in your neighborhood and make sure the place you live isn't ruled by one for your kids. Don't bloody squander the scraps of power the would-be dictators directly above you haven't quite managed to take on anything but telling them to fuck off and give you the rest back too. Worry about what else to do after that job's done.