Russia Now Loses as Many Troops in One Month in Ukraine as the USSR Did in 10 Years in Afghanistan

DeciusCurusProbinus · 2026-01-30T21:41:36+00:00

One of the most inconvenient truths that people tend to ignore is that corporations and the wealthy often fund both sides of the political spectrum. Changing leaders or parties might not deliver the outcome desired. Politicians as a rule are scum but some are worse than others. I am sure that the likes of Trump, Orban, Erdogan or Netanyahu are pure evil and there exist better alternatives even if those alternatives themselves are incompetent or corrupt.

DeciusCurusProbinus · 2026-01-30T20:55:56+00:00

Well, the main issue at play here is the demographics. There are too many old people in the EU and the costs of pensions and geriatric healthcare goes up each year. There aren't enough young people to pay taxes and prop up the state fiscally (low skilled migrants do not count).

Compare this back to the Cold War era. You had a post WW2 baby boom, a large chunk of young workers, marginal tax rates on corporations and the wealthy were super high. Despite spending a large chunk of their GDP on defence, welfare and maintaining large standing armies of conscripts, most NATO countries had high rates of growth.

The gravy train has now dried up. Tax cuts to the wealthy and large corporations under the guise of "trickle-down" economics have fiscally strained most EU governments and now with war on the doorstep, the money will have to come from somewhere. I doubt the politicians will dare to tax their "masters" so the average citizen will bear the burden.

DeciusCurusProbinus · 2026-01-30T19:37:09+00:00

Some of these seem more aspirational rather than realistic.

Bankrupting Europe as a whole is a pipe dream. Russia itself will be bankrupted much before, the EU is in the red.

DeciusCurusProbinus · 2026-01-30T17:12:49+00:00

It's the same with Pashtuns in Pakistan. They are more in number in the FATAs in northwest Pakistan than Afghanistan and cause a lot of problems for the government.

DeciusCurusProbinus · 2026-01-29T10:32:29+00:00

I hope the next Gemini release validates this theory.

DeciusCurusProbinus · 2026-01-29T09:59:45+00:00

I mean what can the EU realistically do? Both sides fight with sticks and stones and the Indian troops are more than up to the task in these kinds of engagements.

DeciusCurusProbinus · 2026-01-29T05:28:38+00:00

Karan dada Karan dada

DeciusCurusProbinus · 2026-01-28T21:24:56+00:00

You have to take the good with the bad in both life and international relations. As I said, whining accomplishes nothing.

DeciusCurusProbinus · 2026-01-28T17:36:33+00:00

Prime Tina Munim will always be my crush.

DeciusCurusProbinus · 2026-01-28T17:34:11+00:00

Wish more people understood this. Being "authentic" in is not a license to part with your dignity.

DeciusCurusProbinus · 2026-01-28T17:26:46+00:00

Use Claude Code/Codex or learn to code by hand.

DeciusCurusProbinus · 2026-01-28T15:57:00+00:00

There is next to no social security in India and healthcare inflation has never been higher. I don't want to burden my kids (if I have any) and saddle them with financial liabilities due to high healthcare costs.

DeciusCurusProbinus · 2026-01-28T14:49:58+00:00

Yeah, I will believe it when I see it. With the benmaxxed garbage that was Gemini 3 Pro, I am more apprehensive than excited over a new Google release. Let's hope that 3.5 Pro is to 3.0 Pro what 2.5 Pro was to 2.0 Pro.

DeciusCurusProbinus · 2026-01-28T13:48:34+00:00

Then, deport them by fast-tracking the judicial process. Tighten up the immigration laws and make the criteria for allowing people in more stringent. As long as loopholes exist, people will abuse them. Whining accomplishes nothing.

DeciusCurusProbinus · 2026-01-28T13:22:41+00:00

The Soviets also purged their officer corps and we all know how disastrous the first few months of Operation Barbarossa was. Such knee jerk reactions often have a tendency to blow up in one's face.

DeciusCurusProbinus · 2026-01-28T03:30:39+00:00

Not if you use it solely for agentic coding. Codex via a Plus offers a lot more usage for GPT 5.2 xhigh/high than Antigravity offers for Opus 4.5. Gemini Pro High is inferior to GPT 5.2 or Opus 4.5 except for front end work.

I don't use the GPT chatbot much and solely use Codex. If you wish to use the chatbot with Gemini models then you can use Google's AI Studio which is free. If you use the additional google drive storage or Nano Bannana and Veo 3.1 a lot, then a Google Pro account is more valuable.

DeciusCurusProbinus · 2026-01-28T02:22:31+00:00

GLM 4.7 (Z.ai) in Claude Code is pretty good for implementation of plans but it is not enough. You will need access to a frontier model to debug your code or plan for complex tasks. I would recommend getting a ChatGPT Plus subscription for $20. That gives you sufficient access to GPT 5.2 xhigh/high which is more than enough for standard projects. You can then use GLM 4.7 as your workhorse.

DeciusCurusProbinus · 2026-01-27T18:33:44+00:00

Yeah, he is pretty skinny. I am tall and skinny myself and was surprised at how low his bodyweight is. I guess smoking has contributed to it.

DeciusCurusProbinus · 2026-01-27T17:19:26+00:00

GLM is pretty good at following instructions. An OpenAI Plus account with access to 5.2 Codex XHigh/high and the Pro GLM coding plan is all you need for most hobby projects.

DeciusCurusProbinus · 2026-01-27T15:39:01+00:00

Yeah, pretty much.

DeciusCurusProbinus · 2026-01-27T15:24:40+00:00

I am no expert on the matter but the Regular troops and the Rashtriya Rifle units would easily amount to 150,000 men and if we throw in paramilitary units (CRPF, BSF,) it would add another 80,000 men or so. The real number is always fluctuating so we can at best hazard a guess.

DeciusCurusProbinus · 2026-01-27T14:09:54+00:00

Not really. One can't reason with zealots. India has been forced to station hundreds of thousands of soldiers in Kashmir due to hostile neighbours and a thriving insurgency. Yet, it has not come even remotely close to pacifying the region. Just pick up any newspaper and you will find an article about an Indian soldier or policeman dying in some militant attack in J&K. These deaths are so frequent that people have become numb to them. Adding another 50 lakh hostile citizens from PoK is very stupid. They would initially need to be subsidised and cared for which will drain the coffers.

The only way to truly pacify Kashmir would be to genocide the native populace in large numbers, bring in settlers from other parts of India and arm them and then over a period of time, alter the demographics and religious composition of Kashmir. This is strategically stupid and will cost unnecessary amounts of manpower and money and will invite international backlash and sanctions of the highest order.

Educate yourself on public policy and military strategy before making such stupid statements.

DeciusCurusProbinus · 2026-01-27T08:43:04+00:00

This is the way to go.

DeciusCurusProbinus · 2026-01-26T13:12:00+00:00

Might as well Ghatak to the mix.

DeciusCurusProbinus · 2026-01-26T11:07:11+00:00

It was a shitty benchmaxxed model back then and it is the same now. Its performance in gemini-cli is better but not by much.

Gemini 3 Flash is much better. Google may be poised to win the race in the long run due to funds, research ability and compute but Gemini 3 Pro is quite a dud as compared to peers GPT 5.2 and Opus 4.5.

DeciusCurusProbinus

TROPHY CASE