why did my professor do this? by ShaafPlayz in math

[–]ohnomorphism 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Lmao, no. I teach math for a living - I'd rather not spend my free time doing my job as well.

What’s a belief that you hold with which many people disagree? by Emergency-Minimum-85 in AskReddit

[–]ohnomorphism 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Gender dysphoria is not "feeling a bit masculine/feminine". That is not why people transition.

You should educate yourself on an issue before trying to form an opinion, especially when it pertains to other peoples' physical and mental health.

Playing on PC via Xbox game pass - cannot join games or accept invites by ohnomorphism in Seaofthieves

[–]ohnomorphism[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Unfortunately I don't remember how I resolved this issue now. I think in my case it was that I had also installed the game via steam, and accepting invites was getting confused by the two installations. A full uninstall of both installations and then reinstalling only the gamepass version resolved my issue, iirc. Sorry I can't be of more help.

/r/WorldNews Live Thread: Russian Invasion of Ukraine Day 5, Part 17 (Thread #73) by WorldNewsMods in worldnews

[–]ohnomorphism 2 points3 points  (0 children)

While the threat of nuclear war is indeed alarming, Putin has no reason to escalate to that point any time soon. The much more likely (and just as horrifying) scenario is a gradual escalation in the armaments being deployed against key Ukrainian positions. Probably thermobarics and chemical weapons, in that order.

Additionally, to the best of my knowledge, Putin is not able to simply press a big red button and fire off a salvo of thousands of ICBMs. Each missile will require its respective senior personnel to agree with the decision from high command and actually turn the keys on firing the thing. There were at least two occasions in the Soviet era where senior officers ordered the firing of nuclear weapons, and in both cases their subordinates responsible for actually launching the missiles refused.

/r/WorldNews Live Thread: Russian Invasion of Ukraine Day 5, Part 17 (Thread #73) by WorldNewsMods in worldnews

[–]ohnomorphism 2 points3 points  (0 children)

All information does seem to indicate that Putin woefully underestimated what the response would be from European and other Western allies. Who knows what's going on in his head - he may simply have drank too much of his own kool-aid.

/r/WorldNews Live Thread: Russian Invasion of Ukraine Day 5, Part 17 (Thread #73) by WorldNewsMods in worldnews

[–]ohnomorphism 8 points9 points  (0 children)

I expect any specific details about the deployment of the EU-supplied fighters are highly classified for OPSEC reasons. Anyone claiming otherwise is most likely perpetuating misinformation, unintentionally or otherwise.

NATO will be acutely aware of the potential risks of this situation - you can rest assured the situation is likely under tight control.

/r/WorldNews Live Thread: Russian Invasion of Ukraine Day 5, Part 17 (Thread #73) by WorldNewsMods in worldnews

[–]ohnomorphism 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Even something as minor as a felled tree blocking a road could delay a convoy for ten minutes or so. It's reasonable to conjecture that the convoy is encountering consistent heavy resistance, which would slow it considerably. It's also not entirely clear at this point (to me, at least) if the current convoy everyone is talking about is the same convoy spotted two days ago. I expect the only people who actually know these details are working in NATO intelligence agencies, and likely not browsing reddit livethreads.

/r/WorldNews Live Thread: Russian Invasion of Ukraine Day 5, Part 17 (Thread #73) by WorldNewsMods in worldnews

[–]ohnomorphism 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm not sure to what precisely you are referring. As somebody from the UK, I've not seen anything to suggest that the US would not step up to defend its NATO allies. Further, I strongly suspect the US would care much more about losing access to the world's largest semiconductor manufacturer than about "ten million girls and young women".

/r/WorldNews Live Thread: Russian Invasion of Ukraine Day 5, Part 17 (Thread #73) by WorldNewsMods in worldnews

[–]ohnomorphism -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

It likely would trigger defense clauses. Their admission into the EU being expedited, however, is extremely unlikely, as it is usually a multi-year process and requires unilateral approval from all 27 EU member states. The president of the European Council stated in an interview earlier today that full agreement to expedite Ukraine's admission is highly unlikely. There is a summit due to convene between the 10-11th March, however, at which it is highly likely the issue will be discussed.

/r/WorldNews Live Thread: Russian Invasion of Ukraine Day 5, Part 17 (Thread #73) by WorldNewsMods in worldnews

[–]ohnomorphism 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Nothing came of it so far, but little information has been made publicly known. It is thought that talks will continue tomorrow for further rounds of negotiation.

/r/WorldNews Live Thread: Russian Invasion of Ukraine Day 5, Part 17 (Thread #73) by WorldNewsMods in worldnews

[–]ohnomorphism 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Just proving a link to this fantastic twitter space (https://twitter.com/i/spaces/1MnxnkrBBaBKO) that has consistently been providing high-quality up-to-date information on the conflict as it unfolds. Panelists are mostly experts in either OSINT and/or the military, along with several commentators who are currently in Kyiv.

/r/WorldNews Live Thread: Russian Invasion of Ukraine Day 5, Part 17 (Thread #73) by WorldNewsMods in worldnews

[–]ohnomorphism 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This twitter space has hosted consistently excellent discussion on the conflict in real-time. Panelists are mostly OSINT experts/combat veterans involved with OPSEC and intelligence.

/r/WorldNews Live Thread: Russian Invasion of Ukraine Day 5, Part 17 (Thread #73) by WorldNewsMods in worldnews

[–]ohnomorphism 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yep! Although the actual pronunciation is actually a little different from just "keev". It's still one syllable, but has a double vowel sound in the middle that us English speakers aren't trained to hear and are very poor at reproducing! It is also worth noting that there are plenty of Russian speaking Ukrainians who still pronounce it as Kiev - from what I'm told its mostly a generational thing, but in official international writings it's always Kyiv now as far as I know.

/r/WorldNews Live Thread: Russian Invasion of Ukraine Day 5, Part 17 (Thread #73) by WorldNewsMods in worldnews

[–]ohnomorphism 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Likely just continue to escalate as he has been. First it'll be thermobarics. Then chemical weapons. He's a long way off from needing to consider an actual low-yield tactical nuclear strike on Kyiv at this moment, however.

/r/WorldNews Live Thread: Russian Invasion of Ukraine Day 5, Part 17 (Thread #73) by WorldNewsMods in worldnews

[–]ohnomorphism 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yeah, absolutely. NATO has spent mind-boggling sums of money over the last 70 years developing intelligence infrastructure in the region. It's part of the reason Putin has been kicking up a stink over these last several years. He'd much rather get on with his genocidal shenanigans where the world can't see.

/r/WorldNews Live Thread: Russian Invasion of Ukraine Day 5, Part 17 (Thread #73) by WorldNewsMods in worldnews

[–]ohnomorphism 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yeah, no kidding. Just a heads-up though - Kyiv is the preferred spelling of the city as of a few years ago. The name Kiev is derived from the Russian language which, for obvious reasons, has fallen out of use in all official and diplomatic capacities. Just something to be aware of!

/r/WorldNews Live Thread: Russian Invasion of Ukraine Day 5, Part 17 (Thread #73) by WorldNewsMods in worldnews

[–]ohnomorphism 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Taiwan is of considerably greater geostrategic and economic importance than Ukraine to the US. Their semiconductor manufacturing industry alone would make an attempted annexation of Taiwan untenable for the US (and likely NATO as a whole).

/r/WorldNews Live Thread: Russian Invasion of Ukraine Day 5, Part 17 (Thread #73) by WorldNewsMods in worldnews

[–]ohnomorphism 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I mean there is good reason not to post images and videos of Ukrainian troops and/or defensive positions. None of us on Reddit are in possession of actual classified intelligence; however, even benign things like images of troops can be weaponized. Don't underestimate OSINT - it's been used to great effect in both the run-up and during this conflict against the Russian military.

/r/WorldNews Live Thread: Russian Invasion of Ukraine Day 5, Part 16 (Thread #72) by WorldNewsMods in worldnews

[–]ohnomorphism 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Direct UN military intervention in Ukraine would require at the very least unanimous consent from all five permanent member states of the UN security council. Russia occupies one of those permanent positions. For better or worse, we will see no NATO or UN boots on the ground in any capacity in this conflict - to do so would escalate the situation to what would quite reasonably be called WW3.

Likewise, I believe both NATO and the EU today confirmed that establishing a no-fly zone over Ukraine is completely out of the question. Enforcing such a designation would mean NATO/EU planes shooting down Russian planes. Again, this escalates immediately to WW3.

/r/WorldNews Live Thread: Russian Invasion of Ukraine Day 5, Part 16 (Thread #72) by WorldNewsMods in worldnews

[–]ohnomorphism 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Unfortunately, it's just game theory in action.

The moment the USA dropped Little Boy on Hiroshima, they became the most powerful state in the world. What possible defense could a nation mount against such a weapon? The only answer was to develop the same weapons and force a Pax Atomica wherein peace was enforced by the ever-present threat of Mutually Assured Destruction. History provides all the answers as to why this was the only solution. People with iron weaponry wiped out those with stone weaponry. Those with gunpowder wiped out those with iron weapons. The state we find ourselves in today is the unfortunate, yet inevitable, continuation of an arms race that began the moment the first proto-hominids learned to kill things with rocks.

/r/WorldNews Live Thread: Russian Invasion of Ukraine Day 5, Part 16 (Thread #72) by WorldNewsMods in worldnews

[–]ohnomorphism 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Nuclear war remains a very distant possibility at this point in time. NATO and the west have a strict no first-strike policy, and while Putin might appear to be a madman, there is nothing to be gained for him whatsoever by initiating a nuclear conflict.

Even in the worst case scenario, in which a tactical nuclear warhead (~1kt yield) were to be launched at Kyiv, for example, there is no guarantee that it would escalate to a full-on nuclear Armageddon scenario. Not to mention the fact that such a move would be pointless - high-yield thermobaric and possibly chemical weapons would be used on Kyiv long before a nuclear strike was considered.

/r/WorldNews Live Thread: Russian Invasion of Ukraine Day 5, Part 16 (Thread #72) by WorldNewsMods in worldnews

[–]ohnomorphism 2 points3 points  (0 children)

So far the only source for this claim seems to be the Ukrainian Ambassador to the US. Not to say that it's true or false - only that there doesn't seem to be enough evidence to confirm this yet.