The root of the problem is the need for escapism.
Older generations used to just sit on the front porch and just enjoy "being". Whatever that was, I think we've lost it. Now we need to escape by removing us from reality, dumbing down our senses or getting lost in fictional worlds. We are no longer capable of just being at peace with ourselves.
The problem is the people using that phrase usually don't actually understand "the world we live in", so -- ironically -- what they're doing isn't creating a realistic fictional world, but rather a bizarre fictional world designed entirely support their nonsensical worldview.
This is like those B-tier Christian movies that are so common. They're impossible to engage with because you know everything is written to support "the message". This makes it impossible to suspend belief and actually get invested in the story or the characters.
It's the same with the Left. Every piece of fiction they create is about "the message" and has little to no bearing on reality. As such, you feel like you're reading or watching a propaganda piece, not a real story.
There is a lot of depth in LOTR but it follows themes that are very different from the stories that modernity wants to see. Modernity wants to see evil characters who are sympathetic and “good” characters who do bad things for good reasons (with the moral being that nobody is truly good or truly evil). On the other hand, Tolkien’s stories are about the contradictory natures of good and evil, and the seductiveness of evil that everyone struggles against.
Personally, I think Tolkien’s version is closer to reality than modernity’s. Evil deeds are just a manifestation of people’s desires; desires that are placed on the wrong things and/or pursued without consideration or restraint. Evil is actually very simple. Any perceived “complexity” is just a result of the machinations people employ to satisfy their desires. Any “good” people who are struggling with a morally grey decision are almost always struggling because the obviously right decision requires self-sacrifice (something they don’t want to do), or they simply don’t have the moral clarity to understand right from wrong.
Because Russia didn't think it needed to.
That makes little sense. Even if I think that I "don't need to" do something, I'm still going to do it. You always have Plan B, especially if your Plan A is a highly unlikely to succeed coup de main.
"Because we are too nice to fight seriously" or "we fight using anime rules where we purposely fight using a lower power level, then, when we lose, we "get serious" and unlock our full power level" makes a lot less sense than simple arrogance.
There's being arrogant and there's being stupid. Surely, the Russian high command is smarter than a "Reddit moderator", since you assured me that I am very stupid for being one (in the past)?
I don't have a strong position on either side of this debate, but I do have to side with u/dekachin on this point. Russia almost certainly didn't want this war to drag on as long as it has, and they almost certainly thought they could wrap it up in a month or two at most.
I think people underestimate just how much corruption there is in the Russian government. There are stories of millions of dollars (technically, rubles) being allocated to projects within the government and not one cent of it actually ending up being used for it's intended purpose. Just like China and North Korea, a significant amount of Russia's military "might" is exaggerated and for show. Corruption and incompetence are hallmarks of practically every authoritarian government, and Russia is no exception.
It's just not believable to me that Russia is actually hyper-competent and has been holding back all this time.
That said, I still think Russia is a huge threat if for no other reason than the sheer number of nuclear warheads they have at their disposal. Even if only 10% of those warheads actually work, that's still enough to destroy a hemisphere. Combined with the potential mental instability of the man in charge, and this is a recipe for disaster unlike the world has ever seen.
This is persecution of ideological enemies, plain and simple.
They won't give up until they literally ruin the lives of anyone who opposes them. Refusing to bow to their demands just enrages them further, causing them to double-down on their efforts. Literally the only way to stop them is to demolish them politically and financially or throw them in prison. Justice needs to be served conclusively and in no uncertain terms. Until then, this will only continue to get worse.
I think young women see most of the qualities they value in a “bad guy” and are driven by their natural impulses without actually having the ability to judge good character, or having the wisdom to understand the hazard of giving yourself to someone of bad character.
We’re talking about natural impulses here… but for most human civilizations throughput history, women’s partners — and sometimes men’s as well — were determined by their parents or by another third party. This used the wisdom of adults to filter out the bad eggs ahead of time. The truth is, young women are absolutely terrible at picking the right partners. Men too, to some degree, but men don’t have anywhere near the number of options that women do at that age, so it’s less of an issue.
The "nice guy" phenomena is just women being terrible at understanding -- or living in denial of -- their own nature.
Women never wanted a "nice guy". Women want men that they respect and admire, who take control and take responsibility, who can protect and provide. Even so, women have trouble admitting this because it makes them look bad in the eyes of modern feminist society, and looking bad to others is the worst thing from a woman's perspective. This is why women tend to be conformists and follow the culture much more obediently than men do.
I would have closed the web page at the location prompt.
To be fair, most websites won’t do more than two or three of these things. Some of these are just trashy and/or suspicious and should be closed out ASAP. The good websites won’t do more than ask about cookies, if even that.
It’s not like websites in 2005 didn’t have their problems either. Pop ups were crazy back then and the websites themselves were all over the place.
I had a conversation with a German woman I met in Israel during my time there. I asked her how the German people feel about the EU and politics in general in her country. She said there’s a general feeling of hopelessness/powerlessness among the people in her social circle (Protestant Christians) and in general about the state of politics, like there’s nothing they can do to influence the politics of their country. They felt like the desires of the EU will always take precedence over the desires of the people.
Sounds like a sad situation for the good people that do live in Germany.
It will never happen though.