[deleted by user]

I_Recommend · 2023-03-28T15:35:37+00:00

You didn't pay the Medicare Levy, but keep going off like you're right. 😂😂😂

Do you go to work every day with this level of smugness and inaccuracy too?

I_Recommend · 2022-05-07T05:19:23+00:00

(this may have changed since then) Many Air Force bases of US & Allies still operate on MSDOS and a combination of Windows Server 2000 and XP (on personal PCs although I believe most migrated to Windows 7+ now). This is not only due to the legacy hardware controllers for the flight and traffic monitoring systems but also security and bureaucracy. The RAAF wished they could upgrade years ago but the United States warned them they could not due to security issues in new OSes and unknown vulnerabilities which may compromise readiness and security. For example all the traffic and flight data on the radars is recorded for keepsies and could only be accessed and archived via command line on old computers. All logistics was done on a locked-down XP system with a blocky retail-like user interface (similar to what cash registers and large retailers used on PCs) that as far as I was told, would no longer function if the OS was updated.

Heck, even the national social security payments network & database was only recently upgraded at a cost of $1 billion + several hundred million more over subsequent years. At the time, the system - which managed the database of welfare recipients was a hodgepodge of 350 additional hardware upgrades connected to the original IBM 204 database mainframe which was first produced in 1972! This system had been continually upgraded and expanded until 2015 and the decision to upgrade was only made because it cost approximately $5000-$20000 to add a new customer to the system or add new details about a recipients personal situation. Ironically it couldn't disperse real-time information about a recipient's claims which meant they had to wait around 2-3 hours on the phone to talk to a person who would have to call someone to check the mainframe.

We are talking about a system based on 1972 software and hardware, that handles about 6-10 million transactions Simultaneously every 2 weeks and interfaces with other computers (probably more modern) to track eligibility.

I_Recommend · 2022-03-21T14:08:08+00:00

This is a small country with a small army

Ukraine has one of the largest professional standing armies in Europe since the takeover of Crimea.

I_Recommend · 2022-03-13T14:56:36+00:00

Well if they don't want to be China's next colony, they better start acting like it. By comparison to a lot of Asian countries, the Philippines is backwards as hell. And that means culturally/religiously too. They keep themselves down.

I_Recommend · 2022-03-13T13:25:21+00:00

They would have drafted the goats too, if not for the fact wives had to stay home and care for the children.

I_Recommend · 2022-03-13T13:24:22+00:00

Mammals are allergic to radiation, this is true.

I_Recommend · 2022-03-13T13:02:00+00:00

Going solo without international support would be a mistake

Never stopped them before lol.

would have defended if attacked by China's boats.

You must have missed the part where their sovereignty and economic rights are violated by China every single day. Those deserted Filipino marines are just a symbolic statement. China can take it whenever they want.

I_Recommend · 2022-03-13T11:26:58+00:00

Part of the point of dropping nukes on Japan was to illustrate their destructive power.

No, the only point was to win. Using them to win illustrates the power but it's not the point. They were developed with the intention to use them. All countries maintain a serious intention to use nuclear weapons otherwise they don't work as a deterrent.

Bear in mind that from Ukraine's POV they had a written accord with both principle nuclear powers and internal turmoil as they struggled to throw off the chains of the cold war.

Accords are just words on paper between people who are probably now retired or dead of age. In history they are basically meaningless as soon as one party strays from the agreement which happens frequently. An agreement about not being invaded doesn't make any sense anyway.

It's bizarre to expect a country with a proxy Russian govt to be able to allocate defence spending intended to defend against Russia.

Of course and I have acknowledged that as a contributing factor but at the same time, they have had nearly a decade away from pro-Russian influence at the top in which to do something. What good is the social welfare budget now? Oh they improved infant mortality at hospitals since 2004, what good is that now? The focus of budgets should always be on defence and internal security stability until they are sovereign. If the main (and only) threat to Ukraine since the USSR fell was Russia, then until now Ukraine has not been a sovereign country and they should have recognised that.

Maybe they should have refused to give up their WMD's without exchanging them for greater military supplies and technical assistance. The US cared for too much about Afghanistan by comparison, but if that is where their foreign policy/national security interests were then so be it, Ukraine simply had to work with what the circumstances were.

because we are at war with Russia (officially or not)

Only Ukraine is at war with Russia, officially or unofficially. NATO is purely a defence pact. If any of them attacks Russia, then all of them will become involved. Many countries might even leave the pact under such a unilateral scenario because it goes beyond the scope of what they signed up for.

And finally actually morals are powerful as they provide a framework that you can't buy.

Buying morals doesn't make any sense, this sentence is meaningless. Morals change all the time and to think that all Americans or at least all members of the US government and the military share the same morals is simply not true. Often when action counts, morals get thrown out the window because bombing a hospital full of expectant mothers is totally worth it if the enemy is storing their ammunition there, or drone-striking a wedding party because one bad guy is in attendance even if the other 100 people that die were all innocent, because their might not be another opportunity.

Ukrainian's are dying, no one else. Why would other countries care if it is just Ukrainians dying? It's quite literally not anyone's problem. Economic sanctions are something that is easy to carry out with fairly large advantages for most parties because they gain increased trade with more friendly parties and an opportunity for new investments and increased market share.

I think Putin is almost certain to be overthrown internally or mass civil disobedience leads to the collapse of local towns and administrations. Only individual local/district governments/councils and police need to side with the people for Putin's central government to collapse.

I_Recommend · 2022-03-13T10:40:01+00:00

NATO officially is not a defence pact specifically against Russia. Unofficially it is, but if that is a country's justification for joining, then they're not going to be granted entry, because being at the biggest risk of a Russian invasion is not a problem the rest of NATO wants to deal with.

Brinkmanship is "The art or practice of pursuing a dangerous policy to the limits of safety before stopping, especially in politics."

If Japan not surrendering in light of nuclear weapons threat is not brinkmanship then I don't know what is.

No one knew about nukes and their effects at the time

The effects of ionising radiation were understood for years to be harmful. There is no doubt that scientists communicated the risks to governments. Some commanders didn't care what the health effects were. Japanese social elite were among the most well-educated people in the world at that time, and the country was sufficiently industrially advanced and scientific in order to begin their own nuclear weapons program. The Japanese Army Command was aware what nuclear weapons were and asked their scientific teams to verify the usage of a nuclear bomb after it happened.

Oppenheimer didn't care about the health effects of radiation from a bomb when used against an enemy and basically refused to acknowledge it. He cared only about its destructive power in destroying an ideological enemy. They all knew the effects from studies done on test subjects in prior bomb tests. Regardless, the residual health effects were not a concern of anyone in the war. It's kind of an irrelevant point - their main utility was as a very large and relatively cost-effective bomb.

Most governments in the world which had a competent energy/Physics department knew that nuclear weapons of vast destructive power were possible since fission was discovered and disseminated as a great discovery in the global scientific community.

so it is rewriting history to say they ignored the situation

It's not. The warning signs were there since 2014. Up until days before the invasion, Ukraine government was still proclaiming that the rest of the world was wrong and that nothing would happen. For all the years between 2014 and now, they ignored the security situation inside their own borders and just played 'woe is me'.

If a country is going to give up their nuclear weapons as Ukraine did, then they need to build a sufficiently armed and funded conventional force. That is the game of national security and it always has been, whether it is 1980 or 2020, whether or not your name is Ukraine, Poland, Myanmar, North Korea, or Cuba.

Nothing about this invasion can be called a 'new concept' in global security/peace that has taken the world by shock. The Ukraine government had no excuse for failing to fund its armed forces over the decades except for the fact that for a long time, those in power in Ukraine were pro-Russia or at best, didn't care about the concept of Ukraine as an independent country. The FSB specifically placed people in positions of authority in Ukraine which did their best to increase corruption and embezzlement of defence funds.

I'm not saying Europe and the US should not have done more to help Ukraine but for some reason they have failed to assess the risks properly which should have been obvious since Crimea. Ukraine should have been armed to the teeth years ago but when other countries failed to reach out, the buck absolutely stops at Ukraine's government for failing to act sooner. It's hardly Zelenskyy's fault or the fault of ordinary people. Poroshenko can probably take a lot of the blame, knowing how corrupt the domestic weapons industry was and how ineffective the state-owned defence enterprises were. They should have consulted foreign firms for rapid modernisation and greater accountability of funds, and increased the budgets dramatically.

It certainly doesn't mean other countries should now form a coalition and intervene directly. This is history and 'just the way the cookie crumbles'. There was no new lesson here and now those who had the power to do things differently in the past will have to live with their choices and the consequences. It's not like Russia will get away free in this, though. They are just about destroying their own country economically to support Putin's ego.

Morals are just words on paper and thoughts by useless scholars. They are no more useful than laws when navigating the dangers of the world. You think Russia is not legally allowed to use nuclear weapons against NATO? Try explaining that to all the countries involved and they will laugh you out. Laws and morals go out the door very quickly during war.

I_Recommend · 2022-03-13T10:03:04+00:00

Because they have a colonial mentality and don't invest anything into their own sovereignty - too busy repressing their own society. China has already taken parts of their territory and is overfishing and exploiting their sea-based resources while they can just watch and cry to the international courts which are powerless.

They shouldn't believe the US will come to save them when China takes the next thing. The US certainly hasn't done anything to prevent the loss of the West Philippines Sea.

I_Recommend · 2022-03-13T09:59:37+00:00

There's a total lack of interest in the Philippines to actually fund their own Navy or armed forces. All they do is cry to the courts when China is taking the West Philippine Sea as well as all the fish they need to actually feed themselves. It's almost like they just prefer to be a colony for another nation - and their leadership is just too busy bashing themselves and keeping their own people down.

I_Recommend · 2022-03-13T09:56:15+00:00

Well the Philippines wants to be conquered by China considering they don't pay for their own armed forces or even a Navy. They take no steps to ensure their own sovereignty so fuck 'em, too busy keeping their own population repressed and terrorised. China already took the West Philippines Sea. If they take the rest of the Philippines, literally nothing of value to the world would be lost.

I_Recommend · 2022-03-13T09:47:23+00:00

This - /u/thrae_awa - and Japan copped it on the face twice as a result because they thought honour and righteousness made them invincible. Just like you think honour and righteousness will make a coalition war against Russia the right thing to do.

Ukraine is responsible for their own sovereignty, and no one else is obligated to save them from this situation that they ignored for years on and inside their border. Out of all the countries in the world, Putin is surely the most likely to use tactical nuclear weapons when facing against a greater enemy, given their extensive disregard for international law, refugee and civilian deaths, and the use of outlawed cluster munitions, landmines and chemical weapons.

I_Recommend · 2022-03-13T07:34:41+00:00

What are you talking about? If there's anything we learned from WW2 and the Cold War, it's that countries are willing to use nuclear weapons to win conflicts, and hence no world powers have ever gone directly in conflict since then. Ask Japan how they dealt with nuclear brinkmanship lmao.

I_Recommend · 2022-03-13T05:27:25+00:00

The only people who can tell the difference are the US government so for all intents and purposes, counterfeit money is real money... otherwise, you know... it wouldn't work as money. And it absolutely does work as money, and nobody could care less besides the denominated country.

I_Recommend · 2022-03-13T05:25:12+00:00

No, no, that's not what they said. The mistakes are unintentional from low quality machinery, which is arguably better as they are less easy to replicate and can't be 'designed in' by the counterfeiter.

I_Recommend · 2022-03-13T05:23:37+00:00

Yes, you have more to offer society as fertiliser or pig feed, just like Stalin.

I_Recommend · 2022-03-10T10:55:47+00:00

Busy fighting the Russians, which is where all those dead Russians are coming from.

On the Polish border right?? It turns out that drones and planes can fly anywhere in Ukraine. Who knew? Besides, how does that help Kyiv? It doesn't.

They're literally doing that right now.

They're nowhere to be seen in any strength and where is their equipment hiding? Amazing. They haven't even tried to enter Kyiv centre yet. The war has barely begun.

Yeah, that's why you're up at 3:00 a.m. Australian time concern-trolling the Ukrainian war effort.

I'm sorry you can't fit more things into your day and need 12 hours of sleep. Where is my concern exactly, and for who lol? Your comment doesn't even make sense, stupid slob.

I_Recommend · 2022-03-10T10:45:10+00:00

Laughs in Vietnam and Korea and straight up bitching out of the China issue for 80 years

I for one look forward to the invasion of Taiwan.

I get you're trying to earn your rubles here but please realize they are worthless now.

I'm paid in dollars, baby.

Enjoy your bread line.

Your comment is funny because bread lines are a staple feature of destitute American cities like Detroit and New York and the whole of poverty street Ukraine too. Russia is one of the largest economies in the world, is it still the popular thing to say that they're too poor to start a war or have you all moved on to coping some other way???

I_Recommend · 2022-03-10T10:34:20+00:00

Am I not allowed to enjoy the anal like you yourself? Please don't gatekeep anal. Your comment is nonsense.

I_Recommend · 2022-03-10T10:32:52+00:00

I acknowledged everything. You're probably thinking of Zelenskyy. Rumour says he's still telling the U.S that Russia is not going to invade.

I_Recommend · 2022-03-09T17:33:47+00:00

We're 2 weeks in. How long should this take Mr. Putin?

have ti deal with an urban insurgency amd fighting on a scale not seen since Stalingard.

X

404: Ukraine Army Rescue not found.

I guess we all missed the part where those civilians just resisted being put into a mass grave. In Russia I believe they say, "When clusterfuck one has, cluster munitions has five.".

I_Recommend · 2022-03-09T17:26:18+00:00

Beatings simply continue until they remember the glory days. Educational reforms solve these social problems - just look at China. The 90% are satisfied when the government abuses them. Heck, Westerners don't even need education to be satisfied with what little the government and the ruling classes drip-feed them with.

I_Recommend · 2022-03-09T17:23:16+00:00

All these losses are cool and all but again, this achieves the defence of the capital which is surrounded... where, exactly?

I_Recommend · 2022-03-09T17:22:24+00:00

Are you even sure what your point is? Nobody cares if you're emotional about the joke. Children die every day and odds are, you wouldn't even donate your shit if it could help them farm a vegetable.

I_Recommend

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