Don't be fooled -- he knows what he's doing. He'll figure out the right wording, the right timing, and get what he wants in a way that will minimize challenges to his power. He's an authoritarian and he will never just let go of something he wants.

Hey, if you fix the problem, and then there's no longer a problem, why do you still need the fix? /s

There's been a lot of attempts to display this information -- I like this one the best so far. It gives context and a sense of scale the others lack. Well done.

I went to church my entire youth and this was not what was discussed. And when they did talk about being nice they didn’t get the dynamics right - infinite forgiveness, for example. Or the rationale — “if you don’t fall in line you will be tormented forever”. In any case it was always presented as a vague thing without understanding how or why it worked. Which left a lot of church people not following it consistently.

If wasn’t until I read about this decades later that my natural desire to be nice with boundaries made perfect sense.

I remember playing this and there are situations where you can make a large group of bad actors come out better than a greatly outnumbered group of (or individual) tit-for-tat — and if you just look at that group, you might think their bad philosophy “won”. However it is interesting to note that in that case they still all come out behind a similar sized community with a sufficient number of tit-for-tat.

I think the takeaway is that in a consistently lousy environment a lousy person might do better than a nice person. But they won’t do better than a nice person in a nice environment. Or even a lousy person in a nice environment. Said another way — it matters a lot who is around us no matter our strategy. We are not going to maximize life in isolation.

I would argue that this is a wonderfully positive use of a negative character. That in itself is motivating.

They’re also the party that loves America — the same America they can’t stop bitching about and trying to secede from. They are truly the most confused people around.

I think we can safely say that nothing will tear the Republican Party apart. They are entirely made of stupidity and misdirected rage. The worse they get the tighter they pull together.

Good news, but I think it's worth remembering the flip side of this: the EU's (and America's) foot dragging on the green transition over the past two decades is what gave Vladimir Putin his power. If we want more uplifting news, we should do what's right before it's the last resort.

You're right and wrong. Which isn't that surprising when talking about something as broad and complex as human society. There's no question that people can and often do band together and help each other during times of suffering. There are countless examples. It's just that not all people do. Even in the most cohesive societies helping each other out there are always corrupt and selfish individuals -- opportunists preying on the rest. They will always be there.

So when hard times come, the majority of common people work together to survive. But they do so under attack from a handful of shitty people that can only think to enrich themselves.

So what do you think Putin is planning for the winter? A retreat? Sit and wait?

Seems to me a major new offensive is most likely. And that people like yourself are so twisted in knots trying to be clever you forget to think whether what you’re saying makes sense.

If you only care about your control of resources, there’s no reason to worry about killing hundreds of thousands of people. They’re like dollars spent to acquire something you want. You don’t mourn them. You are more excited about your score. From his perspective it’s perfectly rational and sane. I’d call it pure evil, but he doesn’t think that’s a thing.

He thought it would work because he made Russia hate Russia and so far it's worked out fine. I guess the proof that Ukrainians have a distinct and valuable culture is that they're not willing to become a bunch of self-hating, beaten down dogs like the sad Russian population.

While that is all true, it would be a break from reality for the UN security council. The council mirrors the real world: countries that can "veto" things in real life, because of their global influence or nuclear weapons, get to veto things in the UN. You can take away Russia's seat, but they will retain all the real world power they have now. It just won't be reflected in UN discussions.

Yeah, sanctions hurt, but they don't generally cause regime change. For a nuclear power, that is only going to come from inside.

There are plenty of rich and powerful people that care only about business and will sweep this all under the rug as soon as possible. We must not let them.

People are way overly scared of nuclear waste. Though not as concentrated, radioactive materials exists in nature already. There are natural beaches you can sit on that will get a geiger counter going. If nuclear waste is stored reasonably it is not particularly dangerous. Especially when compared to all the other waste we dump into our air, water. I'd much rather have nuclear waste stored in my state than have the equivalent amount of coal smoke dumped into the air.

It's like how people are worried about windmills killing birds, even though glass buildings, cars, and house cats kill more and nobody ever cared about that.

Yucca mountain was cancelled, but I toured a nuclear waste storage facility at the Nevada Atomic Test Site. It's this place:

https://www.nnss.gov/pages/programs/RWM/wastemanagement.html

I'm not sure what qualifies as "low level nuclear waste" that is stored there.