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by gnramires 1524 days ago
I think in this case it's more than that... Russia (or at least Putin) is trying to impose a certain worldview that's very regressive: pro-oil, heavy censorship, against several human rights (including LGBT), autocratic regime. I think there's a lot of merit to resisting this regime, resisting being taken by force and turned into the opposite of what they want (which was to join more progressive European countries, from what I gather).

It's all connected... if you let oil-hungry autocrats rule the world, climate change is completely out of the window. Also human rights and ideals we should all stand for.

I do want peace as soon as possible. I believe a compromise might be necessary. I think Putin's worldview has been shown critically dated, so hopefully Russians can rise against this sort of government eventually. It's very difficult to rise up when your life is threatened by the regime though, but reason and truth tend to find their way through the cracks.

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I am specially moved because of the parallels to Nazi invasions. Doing nothing proved a grave mistake, not standing up for human rights, giving fascists the benefit of the doubt cost so many lives. I've said "never again" too. It's easy to fact-check the fascist lies in this case.

I suggest any new generations read Anne Frank's diary if you can.

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Also: don't believe narratives of doom. There's no doom incoming immediately, not from nuclear war (it's been shown it would doom civilization at least), not from climate change (we're in a pathway for significant damage, but it will be decades until it reaches its consequences, and it`s certainly no doom[1]). Doom narratives and hopelessness can create inaction, which is not what we want. Hope is the most powerful weapon for change.

[1] See Kurzgesagt on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxgMdjyw8uw

1 comments

> I suggest any new generations read Anne Frank's diary if you can.

Seconded, in fact I would suggest every read it and re-read it every decade or two or so.

Yes, I wrote much but that was my main message :)

Also, I don't want to come off as a cultural absolutist, I think other countries can have different cultures than standard western; but conquering and imposing culture with violence does not respect basic humanity. Also, we should be able to defend and evolve every culture with peaceful discussion, communication and schooling instead of bombs; and even incorporate other cultures as we see fit (this is a big theme here in Brazil related to our modern art week :) ).

Ideally, yes. But democratic countries have a fatal flaw that we don't really have a good solution for, democracy can vote itself out of existence to be replaced with fascism and the only way to reset it that we know about is through war. This is a real problem.