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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 19th, 2023

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  • I’m not a master diplomat but this is negotiation 101: don’t look too keen to negotiate, start from a position of strength.

    Trump’s opening offer was to allow Putin to keep whatever he’s managed to invade and, by most accounts, Russia is now gaining territory again. Plus, Trump is clearly not so keen to continue supporting Ukraine militarily and economically (not to speak of his stance on NATO) and in Europe we are weak, divided and also increasingly voting for our own small versions of Trump (Trumpets?). Put these things together and why would Putin get all chummy and sit down to negotiate now? He’s signaling strength and taking a position of “YOU want to end this war, not me, so if you want me to stop, you better come begging and bringing gifts”.



  • I keep seeing news that the Russian economy is perfectly fine… no, wait it’s in shambles… no it’s actually even better than before… no, people can’t even find bread… no, sanctions are killing it… and so on. And this is not even from different sources; different articles on the same (I hope reputable) sources.

    I know that it’s hard to get a read of these things even when not in the middle of a war with lots of disinformation happening on both sides. And I also know that indicators of the economy are tricky to read and often in contradiction. But these swings are so extreme that I don’t know what to make of these articles any longer.



  • Russia and Ukraine are two countries that have thrown everything they had at each other: from good soldiers, to inmates, to good people who’d probably never held a weapon before.

    At this point I imagine that having troops who are alive and actual trained soldiers, not emotionally and physically drained (if not outright mutilated) by years of fighting is a big advantage

    If I was taken from my home and suddenly sent to fight for my country, no matter how full of patriotic love I might be, one North Korean child with a knife would be enough to take me out.












  • About 20 new cases of gender violence arrive every day, each requiring investigation. Providing police protection for every victim would be impossible given staff sizes and budgets.

    I think machine-learning is not the key part, the quote above is. All these 20 people a day come to the police for protection, a very small minority of them might be just paranoid, but I’m sure that most of them had some bad shit done to them by their partner already and (in an ideal world) would all deserve some protection. The algorithm’s “success” in defined in the article as reducing probability of repeat attacks, especially the ones eventually leading to death.

    The police are trying to focus on the ones who are deemed to be the most at risk. A well-trained algorithm can help reduce the risk vs the judgement of the possibly overworked or inexperienced human handling the complaint? I’ll take that. But people are going to die anyway. Just, hopefully, a bit less of them and I don’t think it’s fair to say that it’s the machine’s fault when they do.