erw1

Anonymous leaders?... That article identifies specific Western leaders by name, and goes through their interactions with Gorbachev.

I suppose that means Ukraine and Georgia should try to join NATO. Then Russians won't invade them anymore.

The point of that wiki article (tu quoque fallacy) is that the critic's moral character is irrelevant. The whole point is that you don't need 'moral consistency' to critique bad behavior.

So then why do you feel the need to justify yourself by saying that you don't work in defense? :) You basically stepped into the same trap you warmed me against :) Maintaining moral high ground seems to be a vital need, something on the level of instinct it seems. 'Tu quoque' or no 'tu quoque' we like to feel morally justified.

That's entirely not true. The link specifically discusses promises made regarding areas outside of Germany. Directly from the link:

>The documents show that multiple national leaders were considering and rejecting Central and Eastern European membership in NATO as of early 1990 and through 1991, that discussions of NATO in the context of German unification negotiations in 1990 were not at all narrowly limited to the status of East German territory.

And that's like the second paragraph in the link. So apparently you didn't read the link (?).

edit:

You make one good point. The promises were made to Gorbachev in his capacity as leader of the USSR. And just few years later USSR blinked out of existence, so whatever promises were made to Gorbachev were non-binding in relation to Russia, technically a new state. The problem here, is that just 2 years later Yeltsin was made similar promises. Throughout the 1993-1996 period American officials went to great lengths to convince Yeltsin that direct NATO expansion was not on the table [1]:

>[In] a conversation that took place in Moscow in October 1993. U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher had traveled to Moscow to explain in advance of the January 1994 NATO summit that the United States would not support new members joining the alliance, but would rather develop a Partnership for Peace that would include all states of the former Warsaw Pact. Yeltsin’s relief was palpable. He thought he had dodged the NATO enlargement bullet at a time at which he was in a raging political battle against hardliners at home. A year later, when he discovered that enlargement was not only on the table but would in fact be proceeding, Yeltsin was apoplectic.

We can go back and forth with how non-binding and ambiguous these conversations were, but we can agree that Russians feel mislead. Furthermore, they now attribute active malice on the part of the West. Ultimately, this conflict didn't come to be in 2014 (or 2008), as some momentary caprice of Putin's. It was brewing since the late 1980s.

[1] https://warontherocks.com/2016/07/promises-made-promises-bro...

The obvious solution seems to have backfired.

What do poverty rates or liberal democracy have to do with NATO expansion?

Russians will be sensitive to what happens in their frontier regardless of who sits in the Kremlin, or which party dominates the Duma. They don't want to see an alien military alliance straddle their borderlands. That's the story. That's the WHOLE story. And it won't change even if Putin drops dead today, and Navalny is elected president tomorrow.

If you expect people to stop doing something disagreeable, you better make sure you are not deeply engaged in the same type of behavior. That seems fairly straight-forward.

We made a genuine attempt to integrate with the West. We were rebuffed. That seems, just like you say, pretty obvious to me.

Sure, it was all good and dandy for a while, especially in the context of economic cooperation and dismantling communism. But when you look at deeper issues like national security, you can't deny that Russia got completely tuned out by the West. I still don't understand what the US was thinking when they tried to expand NATO into Georgia and Ukraine, two critical security frontiers for Moscow (even as they said they wouldn't do it [1]).

And in case you missed it, we voiced our opposition to NATO expansion loudly, bitterly, and repeatedly over the last two decades. You just chose to ignore it. And now the West collectively acts like the resulting conflict is some kind of unexpected flare-up of Russian paranoia/empire syndrome/general wickedness. John Mearsheimer put it best [2], so I don't want to keep beating a dead horse.

In the end, if you are trying to build a more integrated and safer world, you have to take the interests and sensibilities of all major stakeholders into into account. That's how you build mutual trust. If you don't thread carefully you risk signaling disingenuousness and opportunism. So you get what you get.

PS As a side note, I do find the cartoonization of this conflict very bizarre. Russian are the orcs, completely alien and wicked, Putin is the omnipotent Sauron, US is the noble and selfless Aragon, Trump is turncoat Saruman, and Europe and the wider world in general are apparently hobbits, plucky but completely clueless on their own. It's like an echo chamber.

[1] https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2017...

[2] https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/russia-fsu/2014-08-1...

>Unfortunately, they decided to commit murders on foreign soil, invade other countries and other nasty things that made this relationship a lot less attractive than it could have been.

That describes US policy over the last 20 years. The lack of self-awareness is astounding.

Look up "Ancient Aliens debunked" on youtube. It's essentially a three-hour long feature about ancient technology and what could be done with it. Very cool.

edit: and yeah, they go into great detail when discussing ancient masonry. Basically, the ancients used sand (as an abrasive) and wooden saws to cut hard stone like granite.

The OP has a very strong point when it comes to money.

If they offer you a $800 wage, when your unemployment is $400, your effective earning rate for the work you are doing is just $400/mo. Cost-benefit analysis isn't in favor of working. The employers either have to offer something on top of the starting wage (like clear path to advancement), or raise the wage. Otherwise it's a fairly logical choice for people to stay home and draw unemployment.

What value does an advanced degree, in your opinion, bring to a data science position then? To hear you say it, it brings no value.

I think all cultures value nature to one degree or another. Once developing countries accrete enough wealth, they will probably invest some of it into proper waste disposal. It's hard to justify diverting resources into waste disposal now, when you are still poor and hungry and in the midst of industrialization.

Western societies went through the same process. They polluted heavily through much of the XX century, while building up their own industrial economies, and didn't start cleaning up until the 1970s and 80s.

I am hopeful developing countries follow the same trajectory. China, for example, has been successful at tackling its air pollution. And googling shows that they began rolling out programs to combat river pollution as well. Eventually, we'll get there. Not soon, but eventually.

Will it blow up, even if the public is aware?

When Snowden revealed the extent of NSA activities, it caused a momentary uproar but the people moved on pretty quickly after that. As far as I know (and let me know if I am wrong!!), there was no fallout for the government, and business continues as before.

So I am not sure if people will care this time either.

You really have no problem with a George Hotz purchasing a bot, soldering guns to it, installing some form of AI that controls the trigger, and then letting it loose into the world? Seems a bit irresponsible.

But to answer you questions about the legality all this - I don't know. Tesla and Uber are putting autopilots in their cars. Is that legal? Apparently, it is. Yet, those autopilots are already killing people. So expect a regulatory backlash, once enough people die.

I hope it won't take a massacre perpetrated by a buggy AI with a gun to get us there.

Pretty sure that until recently, the preferred mode of trash disposal in NY was to tug it into the ocean and let it loose.

edit: Yep, see [1]

> Through most of its history until the mid-1900s, New York’s primary method for disposing of its waste was simply to dump it into the ocean. At one point, as much as 80% of New York’s garbage ended up out at sea.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/oct/27/new-york-rubb...

I don't think Western-exported goods contribute massively to pollution in Asia. Local consumption drives most of it. You can't really blame disposable chopsticks or plastic bags in the Yellow River on Western consumers.

That being said, I disagree with the spirit of your comment. When ABC corp relocated to underdeveloped country so they can avoid regulatory burden (be it pollution, or labor laws), the end goal is to achieve competitive product pricing back home. A portion of the $$ they save in Asia is passed down to the Western consumer.

Whether you want to feel guilty about it ("they only make 50 cents an hour making my Nikes, outrageous!"), or proud ("they make a whole 50 cents thanks to me!") is up to you I guess, but the link is there.

Imagine in XYZ years, when the technology advances, and these things come equipped with fur, articulated joints, and lifelike facial expressions. And an AI that mimics a real dog's behavior. Woofwoof. Not sure if I am excited or creeped out.

None, until you equip the dog with an AI that decides on its own when to kill people. I am pretty sure this is what the OP meant.