I had an interesting conversation with a friend today, which as normal with them, spiralled into all kinds of areas and hypothetical. So much so that me, who is pretty much a pacifist, was "lobbying" to send a stack of European troops into Ukraine to obliterate what is left of the Russian forces there.

Nuclear war?

Let's Play Chicken.

As I see it, governments are meant to support making our lives better, but pretty much uniformly across the globe, they are failing this function. Instead, they are playing a game of enrichment of the few at the expense of the many. And now that Putin has opened up on Ukraine with the only resistance being "expressed concern" by the rest of the world, Trump is opening up the US into a malevolent force.

Europe is caught in the middle of it all expressing their concern, because no one wants to a) start a nuclear war and b) lose what they currently have. But on the current trajectory the world is taking, it is going to be lost anyway in a slow meatgrinder crush, so let's speed it up.

Fast track Ukraine into the EU, then send troops.

The EU has about 2 million troops, not including reserves. For reference, that is slightly less than the US has in active service people including the national guard. And while the EU might not have the most advanced military equipment in the world, it is also not throwing lumps of wood at an enemy.

But the nukes!

Let them fall.

If that is the Putin response, then that is going to happen regardless at some point, because there is no end to the greed and thirst for more power. This means that eventually that reach is going to extend too far into a place that forces a response, and the nukes will fire. Then other nukes will fire, then more and then - we don't have to worry about it anymore.

And once Russia has been gutted of its pathetic excuse for a government, the sites should be set on other superpowers. The "super power" label shouldn't be denoted by military force anyway - it should be designated by the quality of life the people of that country have, and the value they bring to the global table to improve the quality of life for everyone else.

This shift in fundamental structure has to happen.

The problem is that the governments are still acting like kingdoms, where it is about resources and land and tax. But while that model is relevant because we make it so, what should have value is what people are able to offer the market. Look at the most valuable companies on earth and recognise that the value is in the people, not the land they own. The "per head" value of an employee at a tech company is far higher than the land value they work on. A government should be maximising the amount of high-value, low-land income, and the way to do that is to build a society that allows people to work at their best.

If Russia beats Ukraine, does life for the average Russian improve?

The short answer is; no.

So, let's say Russia win the war in Ukraine, the cost of the war to Russia has been extreme, and that has been on the back of the people. So without the war, what happens? Will the Russian people be happy? Or will it soon start to look more like Iran is at the moment? And like nearly all countries, Russia is also seeing a declining birth rate and the younger people haven't quite got the same fervour for war as the authority.

The China threat?

Fuck the Chinese government too, which also has a massive military. And also a population predicted to be *hundreds of millions less in the space of the next twenty five years. Not only that, the Chinese people, like all countries that have developed enough to have access to junk food, are also getting fatter, with estimates at about 22% and 33% for men and women respectively. And now, while there is a massive military and they have nukes also, do you think the average Chinese person has an appetite for global nuclear war?

The US?

Does the average American have the appetite for a global nuclear war? Look at the response to the Twin Tower attacks and then consider what happens if that is just common place in the streets of all the major cities. Where urban warfare becomes the norm, in a country that seems to be already currently struggling to stop a civil war from breaking out.

It all sounds very bloody.

And it may very well be the bloodiest war the world will ever see, because it would annihilate us all in a fiery, radioactive death. Yet, maybe this is the risk required to change directory from what is heading towards a painful, drawn-out, cruel and soul-sucking death that ends with a fizzle. Like a lit wick being extinguished between wet fingers.

Maybe this is what the world needs to wakeup.

Economic sanctions don't work, because they just keep the same system in play. If we want a better future as a global society, we are going to have to do what it takes to get one. There are risks involved. And because we haven't course corrected earlier and instead maintained the status quo out of fear of losing the little we have, the risk has grown to the point where it might just be all or nothing. Risk the entirety of life on earth by playing a game of chicken with a few egotistical tyrants, and see who turns.

And we don't turn.

Or, we could just stop supporting these cunts of the world and do what needs to be done to make the world better, without a drop of blood needing to be be shed in violence.

Either way. All in.

Taraz
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