guybrush

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• Commented on Dude, you broke the future!
  I do not know about steered beams, but I do know that on a cell tower there are usually several antennas, each of which are aimed to cover only a part of the tower's surroundings. I think this is due...
• Commented on Dude, you broke the future!
  By the way, thanks a lot for the talk. I really enjoyed it as it neatly summed together and verbalized a lot of the things I have been thinking about during the last few years....
• Commented on Dude, you broke the future!
  On the topic of mobile phones, geographical positioning and mass surveillance, I think there is two points that I would like to add to this discussion. First, today's mobile networks actively depend on knowing their user's approximate spatial position -...
• Commented on Crying fire in a crowded theatre for pleasure and profit
  Yes, this makes a lot of sense, as during the first years of re-independence the young Baltic armies' structure was largely ex-Soviet army. The Soviet-Afghan war was widely considered our equivalent of Vietnam - lots of kids were sent to...
• Commented on Crying fire in a crowded theatre for pleasure and profit
  Which is more or less what the Baltics have tried to do. They have joined the EU to boost their economies, which does not (and demonstrably has not) ruled out any business dealings with Russia. Of course, being a part...
• Commented on Crying fire in a crowded theatre for pleasure and profit
  But this implies a paradox: either you recognize the Baltic states as independent countries who can be treated as partners (full NATO/EU membership) or vassals/dependents of Russia (partial NATO/EU membership). I don't understand two things in this reasoning: 1) How...
• Commented on Crying fire in a crowded theatre for pleasure and profit
  Now I feel it's you who have skimmed my post - I said international relations don't apply when the original nations have converged so much that they have essentially the same government. The U.S and Canada might have matching interests...
• Commented on Crying fire in a crowded theatre for pleasure and profit
  Sorry, I read "get off their mailing list" and thought you were quitting their movement due to what you consider unrealistic strategy. Glad to have been mistaken....
• Commented on Crying fire in a crowded theatre for pleasure and profit
  I don't deny there are people who would want the EU to have an army, but currently that side of business is handled by NATO. Even the article you linked speaks of improving co-operation of European NATO members, but this...
• Commented on Crying fire in a crowded theatre for pleasure and profit
  Oh, and my belief is that there's no excuse for Lenin, or calling each-other comrade either. That's just shallow pop-culture appropriation/whitewashing of the cultures and societies where these things originate from. Reminder that the first GULAGs were built in 1918,...
• Commented on Crying fire in a crowded theatre for pleasure and profit
  I think you're being a bit unfair at the DSA here, quick search showed me that they did recently get two of their people elected to city councils (is that roughly the same as county council?) and they're involved in...
• Commented on Crying fire in a crowded theatre for pleasure and profit
  International relations are inherently immoral and anarchic, because if relations between any two (or more) nations are very benevolent to each other and their cooperation efficient enough, they can practically be considered the same nation anyways. For examples, see the...
• Commented on Crying fire in a crowded theatre for pleasure and profit
  Yes, that's indeed a silly thought. You are essentially saying that the Baltic states ought to have deliberately hamstrung their economic development in order to not "scare" Russia, a neighbor with massive amounts of natural resources and a powerful army....
• Commented on Crying fire in a crowded theatre for pleasure and profit
  Yeah, I don't understand what's going on with Brexit either. I've read one theory that Corbyn is simply expecting it to run into the ground as it seems its going to be, and then publicly declare that "sorry, we did...
• Commented on Crying fire in a crowded theatre for pleasure and profit
  I have to read a proper critique of what's actually wrong with Corbyn's policies or why he's stuck in the past. I am not unfortunately familiar with Lansbury or UK politics to the extent that looking him up would make...
• Commented on Crying fire in a crowded theatre for pleasure and profit
  I want to thank you and Martin for providing this information and viewpoints. I broadly agree with you both, especially with the part that the US is simply a lesser evil. I also agree that the world isn't fair, but...
• Commented on Crying fire in a crowded theatre for pleasure and profit
  My point was that there is no ideology so pure and good that it can not be twisted or misused by people in power if they're motivated enough. I like what I am hearing about Corbyn's Labour and the Democratic...
• Commented on Crying fire in a crowded theatre for pleasure and profit
  But the US, and, to a lesser degree, the EU are expansionist powers... and the folks being expanded into are not having a good time. This is nonsense. The EU expanded by way of bilateral talks and in a peaceful...
• Commented on Crying fire in a crowded theatre for pleasure and profit
  I think EC is hinting at economic warfare here, which I don't really know enough about to comment on, aside from the fact that the recent sanctions against Russia came into being because of the latter's actions in Crimea and...
• Commented on Crying fire in a crowded theatre for pleasure and profit
  In my opinion neither association with capitalism or socialism automatically guarantee that there won't be any unnecessary deaths. If capitalism properly takes into account the loss of life and productivity from stressful and dangerous working conditions (i.e. how the 5-day...
• Commented on Crying fire in a crowded theatre for pleasure and profit
  Martin has detailed in military terms the balance of forces in the Baltic states versus the Russian forces stationed relatively close to the border. I believe current analysis states that if Russia decided to invade, the Baltics would last for...
• Commented on Crying fire in a crowded theatre for pleasure and profit
  Whoa! First of all, why I did not properly respond to your imaginary scenario is that not only am I not very familiar with US geography, but trying to replace the geopolitics of US and USSR (the latter with literally...
• Commented on Crying fire in a crowded theatre for pleasure and profit
  My point was to give a native's view of things, I am not competent nor do I have time to spit out in depth analysis about how organized crime ties into all this*. Since EC did not talk about this...
• Commented on Crying fire in a crowded theatre for pleasure and profit
  That is a fun thought experiment, but the geography of the US is not very familiar to me so it's difficult to make sense. Also, the US-USSR role reversal you present is way too simple to consider plausible. In my...
• Commented on Crying fire in a crowded theatre for pleasure and profit
  When the Baltic States started their process of joining NATO and EU, US the world was kind of different. Everybody remembered quite clearly the atrocities of the USSR, it's last vivid horrorshow being the Afganistan war, where many conscripts from...
• Commented on Crying fire in a crowded theatre for pleasure and profit
  I have provided you ample citations as to what the official position of the Baltic States on the subject of Russia, the EU and NATO is and why I believe history has shaped these relations as it has. You have...
• Commented on Crying fire in a crowded theatre for pleasure and profit
  And what I am saying is that all of the facts that I can check independently support that being the policy. Russia has its back to the wall, as it did in 1941 and 1962, and can fight or be...
• Commented on Crying fire in a crowded theatre for pleasure and profit
  I did not catch this being mentioned here. Reading the blog of an estonian MEP (maybe Google will help translate), it turns out that in Oliver Stone's interview with Putin, the latter tried to awe Stone with a video of...
• Commented on Crying fire in a crowded theatre for pleasure and profit
  I know and agree that the US cares only about itself, is morally reprehensible and can not be trusted in the long term. What irks me in your reasoning is that in your view, it seems that Russia is largely...
• Commented on Crying fire in a crowded theatre for pleasure and profit
  Because I don't want to see WWIII start! The point is that Russia has nowhere to retreat to, either geographically or politically, and the USA/NATO are STILL pushing. It has been almost begging for diplomatic solutions, and the USA/NATO has...