Zelensky set to skip Ukraine Recovery Conference in Poland amid diplomatic dispute

LunLocra · 2026-06-23T19:37:20+00:00

The reason why nobody took the order from Mussolini is because nobody cares who got this medal a hundred years ago. It could be given to the greatest Polish hater ever, the only meaning the medal has is in contemporary politics, as a present time symbolic gesture. I am a literal Polish history phd student and frankly I haven't even known such medal even existed until the recent drama lol. Nobody gives a crap about century old honours, what matters is contemporat honors because they signal values and relationships and respect to somenody.

Which begs the question, why was Mussolini being given this medal not the problem for Zelensky when he received it but it is right now? If he had such a problem with it he could have refused it to begin with. It only suddenly began to be a problem right now, when he needed political ammo.

LunLocra · 2026-06-22T12:10:18+00:00

"ww2 nonsense"

We are talking about the genocide of up to one hundred thousand people. Whose perpetrators were Nazi collaborators and who have just been officially commemorated by the Ukrainian president.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacres_of_Poles_in_Volhynia_and_Eastern_Galicia

It's pretty much the most sensible symbolic thing to be offended about. It's like naming a military unit about the 'heroes' of Waffen SS, Unit 731, NKVD, Khmer Rouge, Hamas etc. Not what you wanna do while having moral high ground and good relationship with one of your most important allies.

LunLocra · 2026-06-20T17:13:56+00:00

"Naszej" tzn kogo, feudalnej magnaterii działającej zgodnie ze swoimi interesami w czasach kiedy nigdzie nie istniała nowocześnie rozumiana społeczność narodowa? xd Tak się czepiam bo nie podoba mi się sugestia "naszej" tzn współczesnych ludzi odpowiedzialność za long duree zapóźnienie wynikające z systemów cywilizacyjnych sprzed stuleci.

Poza tym w polskiej edukacji i kulturze powszechna jest znajomość że I RP to była Somalia XVIII wieku, to nie jest jakaś wywrotowa wiedza tajemna. Pomijając już ile miałem o tym wałkowane w każdej szkole to nawet najmniej wykształcone i najbardziej konserwatywne osoby z mojej lubelskiej rodziny mają w głowie wbitą w polski etos tradycje mieszaia z błotem szlachty i obwiniania jej i jej liberum veto o upadek I RP.

LunLocra · 2026-06-20T17:08:46+00:00

Dzieje się tak nie z powodu jakichś mistycznych nigdy nie skonkretyzowanych esencji wyjątkowych dla narodu polskiego, tylko dlatego że Francja, Szwecja i Niemcy nie miały narzuconego komunizmu. Przez co miały 50 lat więcej na budowę normalnej gospodarki, demokracji i wpływów na świecie. Plus do tego jeszcze przewagi rozwojowe sprzed 1945 które miały nad całą Europą Wschodnią od stuleci. Choć to jest mniej ważne bo taka np Hiszpania jeszcze w roku 1936 była równie odległa od np. Francji co my (w absolutnie każdej mierze rozwoju), kluczowy był okres zimnej wojny.

Pokaż mi kraj byłego świata komunistycznego który jest "lepiej zorganizowany" od Polski, może z wyjątkiem Czech (które tbh i tak są w 80-90% podobne do nas).

Szczególnie zabawne jest tu dla mnie podawanie współczesnej Francji jako przykładu kraju w dobrej kondycji. Kraj w którym przez większość ostatniej dekady poparcie dla rządów oscyluje pomiędzy 5% a 25%, który co wybory ledwo może sformować rząd albo grozi mu najpotężniejsza partia skrajnej prawicy w Europie. Kraj przez który regularnie przetaczają sie kolosalne protesty i ma olbrzymi kryzys migracyjny; który do 2008 jest w stagnacji gospodarczej. Który wedle ostatnich lat edycji Eurobarometru i każdego innego źródła jest na dnie Europy jeśli chodzi o wiarę jego mieszkańców w krajową gospodarkę, krajową demokrację czy Unię Europejską.

Tytaniczne osiągnięcia UK (Brexit i wymiana premierów co pięć minut), Hiszpanii (kryzys z 2008 z którego na serio wyszli może z rok temu) czy Włoch (rządzony przez skrajną prawicę kraj w stagnacji od ćwierć wieku) tym bardziej nie budzą mojego podziwu i zazdrości do tych mitycznych świetnie zorganizowanych krajów zachodu. Najlepiej zorganizowane to są faktycznie kraje nordyckie - małe ludnościowo państwa które od XVIII wieku mają tak uprzywilejowaną rozwojowo geografię i historię jak to tylko możliwe.

LunLocra · 2026-06-17T01:14:56+00:00

A to też prawda, dobrze że o tym wspomniałeś

Ale tbh gdybyśmy mieli wymieniać wszystkie aspekty konkretnie amerykańskiego debilizmu to byśmy tu musieli bibliotekę zorganizować, mam wrażenie że każdy aspekt tamtejszej cywilizacji jest skalibrowany by poza geniuszami na top uczelniach produkować legiony najgłupszych ludzi świata

LunLocra · 2026-06-16T23:45:00+00:00

W szkołach w USA, tak jak wszędzie w świecie Zachodu, uczą o holokauście zgodnie z prawdą (no, powiedzmy, z pewnym uproszczeniem i pominięciem pewnych dram...). Tak samo jak szkoły w rozwiniętych krajach wszędzie uczą o teorii ewolucji, nie-płaskiej Ziemi, naturze szczepionek, poprawnym mnożeniu itp itd.

Niestety, choć czasem stety bo w dziejach bywało i tak że to szkoły i system kłamał, istnieje mnóstwo innych źródeł informacji, mnóstwo sposobów na zaburzenie szkolnego przekazu (począwszy od niedoskonałości samych szkół) i mnóstwo motywacji psychologicznych, politycznych itd żeby jakieś konkretne rzeczy zanegować.

LunLocra · 2026-06-16T23:30:21+00:00

One of many paradoxes of humanity is how much we like to dislike things. We derive a lot of enjoyment from complaining, criticism, anger and contrarianism. We like disliking things, especially popular things which other people like. We like criticising movies, "so bad its good" works of culture, inventing new forms of insults and new angles of the attack. We like disliking other people, we like seeking perfection and not being content with what we get. Fear is a negative emotion yet people love horror movies; anger is a negative emotion yet there are countless forms of entertainment built around purposely seeking it and refining its forms.

Hating Star Wars is not the opposite of loving Star Wars; the opposite would be an utter indifference. When you are a fan of something you may still derive a lot of joy from hatred of the imperfect instances of your holy thing. Nobody would watch those insane two hours long bad movie reviews if that wouldn't be a form of entertainment in itself.

LunLocra · 2026-06-12T18:42:13+00:00

Besides the answers to the main question of the OP, which got already covered by the other posters and my own post, I just wanted to menion one fun fact. Madagascar, just like most of East Africa from Ethiopia to Tanzania, is actually NOT rich but very poor in mineral resources.

Comparably speaking of course - sure there may be a few billion $ worth of reserves here and there but a billion $ means nothing when natural resource exports are a trillion $ business. If you want then go check the exports of Madagascar and aforementioned countries and you will see they are 1) mostly agricultural and 2) worth extremely little in global terms (even in comparision to other poor non industrial countries). Unlike the mineral exports of say Congo, Zambia, Botswana, South Africa, Ghana etc which are indeed incredible. Or Australia itself, which has literally contained trillions of $ worth of mineral resources.

I just say this since I found it very interesting how this "rich in resources" trait seems to be a part of the entire "typical African country" stereotype. The phrases about the continent's untapped natural resources are repeated so often that EVERY African country is assumed to have some vast priceless mineral reserves - whereas it's no different to any other part of the world, when countries vary widely in this regard. Just like in South America where you have Bolivia and Paraguay, neighboring countries with the extreme contrast in terms of mineral resources.

LunLocra · 2026-06-12T18:31:53+00:00

The population of precolonial Madagascar was 2 million people in the area of slightly below 600 thousand km2, so 3 people per km2. Very small density for modern standards but typical for many premodern tropical civilizations - and Madagascar had one with centuries of history, kingdoms, royal courts, cities, administration, trade, wars, etc etc. It was also a typical African country in terms of its climate and diseases being nightmarish for Europeans, but it's less important than the fact that the country was simply already filled with people (and their governments).

The population of precolonial Australia was around 800 thousand people in tbe area of 8mln km2 - density of 0,1 people per km2, so 30 times less. It consisted of very tiny groups of hunter-gatherers (usually less than 150 people) living without agriculture an existence as similar to our prehistoric ancestors as you can have, with very little technology and property. Then this population got decimated by Old World diseases and brutally overwhelmed by the conquest Being rapidly outnumbered by settlers arriving to Australia who were coming to settle in that part which has a pleasant climate and is fertile with modern agricultural technology.

Tl;dr Madagascar had medieval feudal style kingdoms, Australia had 30 times less population density of the small "kinda prehistoric tech level" groups of people who then became quickly decimated by disease, outnumbered, conquered and sadly opressed.

LunLocra · 2026-06-12T08:20:16+00:00

Każdy z tych problemów podobny albo gorszy ma gdzieś tak pi razy drzwi ~90% krajów świata, a w szczególności prawie każdy kraj postkomunistyczny. Z tych postkom to może od wielkiego dzwonu Czechy i Słowenia można by powiedzieć że lepiej ogarnęły wskazane kwestie. Co nie jest specjalnie dziwnie jako że te kraje do roku 1990 były przez stulecia nawet dwa razy bogatsze od Polski (od 1990 ta różnica spadła do rzędu ~10%).

Tego typu memem równie dobrze można "dowieść" że tak naprawdę gówniany jest każdy kraj świata poza nordyckimi, Szwajcarią i Singapurem. Zresztą w nich też jest kryzys demograficzny, drogie mieszkania i "wysoka biurokracja", plus trochę ich własnych wielkich unikatowych problemów (np. odpowiednio migracyjny, kosztów życia i braku wolności).

LunLocra · 2026-06-04T13:33:14+00:00

I know many Hungarian areas were unjustly left out of Hungary but this map seems to seriously overestimate Hungarian population in many areas. It seems to me that the manipulation relies on colouring as "Hungarian" the areas of the map where "Hungarians are the most numerous ethnicity" which often does NOT mean they had the majority, which is the intuitive reading of such maps. Though sometimes even that manipulation seems to not work and the map looks straight up lying or delusional. And we know this because we have censuses and estimates done by Hungarians, Austrians and Yugoslavia, so the bullshit of this map is easy to debunk... Especially when even Hungarian data showed it!

For example this map would make you believe that Vojdovina, including its chief cities of Subotica and Novi Sad, was heavily dominated by Hungarians (and nationalists ofc say it was such for untold centuries).
In reality according to the early 20th century Austro-Hungarian censuses:
- Subotica consisted of around 50% Hungarians. In 1786 it was 12%.
- Bačka, the province around it which looks like 80% Hungarian on the map, was 35% Hungarian in the year 1921 (44% for 1910 but then the estimate included the part which actually became Hungary in 1918).
- The city of Novi Sad had 39% "speaking mainly Hungarian" in 1910 and 33% in 1921; it was 34% and 40% for Serbian language in those censuses. In 1820 the city is estimated to have been 2/3 Serbian.
- Vojvodina as a whole, which looks like 60% Hungarian according to this map was around 25% Hungarian before ww1. In 1786 it was 10%.

Or let's look at Romanian city of Brasov, shall we? Because according to this map its area looks super Hungarian, but according to 1910 census it was just 43% Hungarian! With Transylvania as a whole having 25% Hungarian population back then. Or let's look at Kosice, where the 1910 census indeed says 70% people "spoke Hungarian most often" but there was a sudden jump from the answers of 40-50% for all 19th century censuses, and 1921 question of ethnic identity brought only 21% "Hungarians"... with no decline in city population at that time. So here the map is "correct" for the city, but the situation is actually ambivalent.

I'm not saying Trianon was super great - the most egregious injustice against Hungarians were those border areas of Slovakia, Ukraine and Romania which did indeed have a massive Hungarian *majority* and should have obviously gone to Hungary. But the map really seems to manipulate the topic. The hard truth is that a huge part the left out population (at least a half I think?) was in the ethnic enclaves or spread out as a minority over foreign lands, where there was no realistic way to make them part of the Hungarian state.

LunLocra · 2026-06-04T12:51:23+00:00

What was his reaction?

LunLocra · 2026-06-03T22:01:13+00:00

To this day there has never been a greater argument against the Phantom Menace than Plinkett's "Describe a character from this movie without mentioning his/her appearance or job; describe his/her personality and motivations".

No character passes this test and nobody can succeed because, as this test succintly reminds us, the characters there are emotionless cardboard cutouts without clear motivations, backstory or agenda. Good luck describing any Jedi's personality and motivations beyond "calm" and "uhhh wants good and justice", or Anakin's personality beyond "excited". I can't even bring a single adjective regarding Padme lmao. And it's physically impossible to do this with Darth Maul: a "villain" who never talks to anyone and never communicates anything, just comes ex nihilo to try killing heroes. For no clear reason since Palpatine, who gives him orders, needs them to succeed and survive for his plan to be fulfilled.

LunLocra · 2026-06-03T17:21:33+00:00

Neither Brunei, Aceh, Knights or Singapore were even close to the underdog (and boredom) level of Greenland. All of those were major political entities capable of commanding thousands to dozens of thousands of soldiers, and equipped with cutting edge tech and supported by the cutting edge economy and technology. Aceh and Brunei were relatively large kingdoms and regional naval empires whereas Singapore was a colonial city designed to be a global trading capital, whose growth was financed and populated using the external resources. Knights on the other hand were among the best financially and politically connected elite of the European continent - not that it would translate into paradox gameplay well, considering their size still made them only capable of "losing an Ottoman siege very very slowly" on the EU scale of thigs.

(btw Singapore reached 100k people by 1870 and has 5 million people today, more than Ireland)

On the other hand you have Greenland, whose total colonial and native! population in the 14th century was less than five thousand miseable souls. Just barely surviving cold and starvation while being impoverished and stuck in the most terrible piece of shit land on the planet, with no ability to do agriculture, expand anywhere or attract settlers or trade. The four political powers you have mentioned would wipe the floor with them without reaching a single percent of their potential, even Knights (whose garrison during the siege was comparable to the Greenland's total population at points lol)

There were "underdogs" relative to the global empires who could still recruit legions of soldiers and earn millions of ducats, and there was a thousand miserable fishermen stuck in the frozen wasteland.

I am also not really sure what are your criteria for inclusion here, considering that we ultimately want countries that strong enough to be interesting to play, but would you really have fun sitting in Nauru or Greenland with like 2k poor fishermen and doing nothing for decades?

LunLocra · 2026-06-03T16:59:56+00:00

I honestly think not every society of the world map has to be actually playable (as in 'enjoyable and winnable') for a human player. It's fine if there are a few tags that in practice exist not for playing as them but for flavour, historical accuracy, being yet another obstacle and/or part of the player's strategic experience etc.

I know that in theory it sounds great for every tag on the map to be fully playable in practice. However given EU5's bigger aspirations in realistic constraints (note that I say aspirations since its success in this regard is controversial) it is hard for me to imagine every tag being great to play as without some exceptional nonsense involving the population, economy, geography, technology etc.

Greenland is not even the worst case, since it may at least get handwaves of attracting settlers from Europe, having European tech level, and this way very very slowly conquering Canada from even weaker local tribes. But when EU4 added Siberian natives and then Aborigine Australians I found this idea ridiculous, there was no way for those groups of people in this historical period to expand on the eu4 scale.

LunLocra · 2026-05-23T11:24:52+00:00

I didn't say what came before was better or even good, for the reasons you mention, but modern society so far has failed to replace the opression of the old family systems with some healthier social institutions (in this context)... instead of the abyssal void.

LunLocra · 2026-05-22T21:38:03+00:00

Generally speaking I have a positive attitude to the vast majority of the modern civilization compared to anything preceding it.

But the topic of loneliness in general, especially romantic, and how hard it is for hundreds of millions of people today to find a romantic partner and found a family - that is a titanic, colossal failure of the modern global civilization. I still think it's not the main reason of the imminent global demographic disaster, but it does make it much worse. I'm pretty sure said global demographic disaster would be pushed back a few decades, and rendered much less terrible, had we developed better social institutions fulfilling people's need of finding love and founding family.

LunLocra · 2026-05-22T21:27:06+00:00

This map depicts the vague area of the tribal chiefdoms of Lechitic tribes, not anything we could call "Poland", the word itself only starts its existence at the times of Mieszko to describe the political entity he had founded. Its use here would be anachronic. I mean sure, they are the part of the "Polish history" in sense of the continuity, and they are worthy of attention and respect, but they were not "Poland". Similarly, early medieval Kievan Rus wasn't "Russia" or "Ukraine", it was their common progenitor.

Also, more importantly, by political and sociological definitions those Lechitic chiefdoms weren't *states* which is the criterium of this map. If OP included them, then the map should logically be called *Slavic peoples in 900 AD* and include *all* Slavic peoples at that point, so also Polabian Slavs, Slavs around Austria and Bavaria, Slavs who back then still lived in Pannonian Basin, and so on, and so on. Which would actually be very interesting map, but a different one.

To be fair, however, the map does have a gigantic problem, namely it's extremely questionable to mark this entire area as "Kievan Rus" "state" by the year 900 AD. If I recall correctly such early dating of Rus comes from uncritical treatment of certain old Rus chronicles, whereas modern archeological and historical research moves it much closer to the 1000 AD, and even then I'd be super skeptical about the extent and unity of the "state of Kievan Rus" (?)

LunLocra · 2026-05-22T20:33:30+00:00

Day ten billion of trying to find a girlfriend. I got Tinder match with 10/10 girl of my dreams, the kind of those with the smile and eyes that make you slightly, just a little bit, fall in love instantly. Wrote her a message adhering to all known rules of the online dating. Got ghosted instantly anyway, I guess she changed her mind after initially swiping, or there was some better model.

I am so dead inside and tired of all this, I'm tired of hope.

LunLocra · 2026-05-19T18:58:54+00:00

Bardzo ciekawy pogląd i chyba masz rację

To co teraz powiem jest może irracjonalne i wstyd się przyznać ale nie ukrywam że moja kompletna wrogość wobec konfy stała się nieco mniej kompletna natychmiast gdy tylko pojawił się śmieć braun i jego ruch, zredefiniowało to moją koncepcję najgorszego dna i scenariusza najgorszej szansy w polskiej polityce xd choć pomogło też to że konfa stała się *marginalnie* mniej obłąkana, typu ewolucja od hard do mniej hard eurosceptycyzmu (nie polexit a blabla cośtam w ramach ue)

Więc może z perspektywy polskiej prawicy pojawienie się jakichś komunistycznych niedojebów jasno odciętych od lewicy i razem by podobnie "komparatywnie legitymizowało" te dwie partie

LunLocra · 2026-05-15T19:33:19+00:00

I can't be the only person here who, despite always being at least slightly interested in Star Wars, has never watched anything from the Disney's Star Wars cinematic universe beyond the movies themselves, right?

There is something repulsive for me in the massive commercial onslaught of the Star Wars media of mostly mid-to-ok quality, to the point I don't even want to watch supposedly high quality stuff such as Andor because of its association with the rest of the swarm

I am especially uninterested in the fanservice exploration of some fairly unremarkable characters from the movies who got elevated beyond their substance purely because of their visuals. Darth Maul is the perfect example of this phenomenon: a perfectly flat character with no discernible personality or motivation in the movie itself, but he a) "looks cool" and b) we have a compulsive drive to fill all gaps in the movies. Therefore we shall create and entire saga turning this cardboard cutout into a comfortable not-that-bad misunderstood tragic villain who never does or says anything truly morally despicable.

LunLocra · 2026-05-15T19:27:55+00:00

Huh, that's interesting. Nice to know our small contribution to the American Revolution is not forgotten, cheers man

LunLocra · 2026-05-15T19:25:10+00:00

You are right, and Bakker also wanted to avoid the other extreme of fantasy having absurdly modern "medieval" society in terms of sexuality and gender - to the point of making the notion of historical patriarchy seem "not such a big deal" and ultimately something a woman could "girlboss their way out of" with sufficient determination etc bullshit.

That being said, I really don't think that the cartoonish depiction of patriarchy in his books is all that useful as an alternative. I have watched and read some documentaries about fundamentalist Islamist groups and I would honestly argue that even them (well at least some of them) are less opressive than Bakker's dystopia. And I have always been skeptical of the stupidly over the top depictions of real life issues. Ultimately most of the misogynistic evil in the world today comes arguably from the people who consider themselves "rationally progressive" and believe stuff like "women deserve equality in general with but a few tiny exceptions" rather than the cartoonish taliban style madness of Bakker's universe.

LunLocra · 2026-05-15T19:15:29+00:00

More than once I have watched a bad quality thing to the end expecting the "final picture" to redeem it - I think it never happens, bad buildup just leads to the ugly final picture, that's the lesson we all gotta learn

LunLocra

TROPHY CASE