Plenty of proud Ukrainians are ethnically Russian. Plenty of Russian nationals, ethnically Russian, do not support Putin

Defending your country from invasion is being a puppet now?

Ukraine will not win this war. But neither will Russia.

The point is to get rid of gun culture. Guns should not be a normality, whether they are banned or not. Restricting access could certainly play a role in changing the culture

Advertising is by definition sponsored. If I tell you I think a product is good, and I’m not getting paid, that’s just called advice.

Because it means there will be a fork, which will divide the development of the app in two and waste developers’ time.

If people don’t want it, it should be possible to disable. It should probably be disabled by default.

Sure, it’s up to them at the end of the day, but I can still explain why I think it’s a terrible decision

No they didn’t. Not bothering to implement it because you don’t believe it’s important? Fine. Throwing away the work someone else has done for you? Pathetic.

Why not include a perfectly useful feature into an open source app? This just creates unnecessary division. By all means turn it off by default and hide the enable in settings, but don’t just try to throw away someone’s hard work.

It’s nothing to do with capitalism. Marketing is not an area unique to capitalist economies.

Worst of all, driving people away from official releases puts them more at risk of downloading malware, and wastes the time of developers. By all means turn it off by default, but refusing to include a feature IS an anti-feature.

When we read the news, we care not just about accuracy but relevance. It’s no good presenting a bunch of true facts and reporting nothing about the most important issues of our time. In fact, doing so is misinforming people.

Advertising is the same. Just because a company has the most money doesn’t mean their products are deserving of our brain space.

Advertising is inherently biased. What you describe, “not made or paid by the seller” is NOT advertising.

Imagine I came to you and say “would you like this sandwich?”. You might take it, if you felt hungry or liked the filling. Now imagine I come up to you and say “I’ll pay you 100 (insert currency) to eat this sandwich”. Suddenly, the sandwich becomes decidedly less appealling…

The sandwich is advertising, and eating it is exposing it to your brain. If it were really beneficial to you, no one would be getting paid.

They can have their beliefs, but once it’s available I’ll be switching straight over to the sponsorblock-enabled version thank you very much

unproved and unconfirmed

Sure, but it’s not relevant. It’s unlikely that genetics plays no role whatsoever, and impossible that it is completely determined by genetics.

Raising a person does not give them genes

Yes, I know. That’s not what the article is suggesting at all. The gay uncle supports his siblings in raising children. Those children share genes with the uncle, therefore the “gay” genes get passed on.

Just because there isn’t a gay gene doesn’t mean genetic factors don’t affect sexuality. It’s believed to be a combination of genetic factors, conditions in the uterus (which are affected by the genes of the mother as well) and other factors.

Siblings share a lot of genetic similarities. A gay uncle who supports their siblings at raising children will improve the probability that those shared genes are passed on.

I don’t disagree with your conclusion, but why does that phrase indicate it’s nonsense?

can’t be arsed to watch a two hour video on the subject

Oh I’d happily dedicate more than two hours of my life towards becoming more informed on the issue, I’m just not convinced your video will do that.

It’s a gain from pretty much every perspective.

It simply isn’t. Russia is not the USSR, as much as that may sadden Putin. The country is not willing or ready to go it alone. The oligarchs losing their power abroad will hurt Putin, not help him.

have enormous impact on every aspect of European economy.

Complete nonsense. Some industries will be greatly affected, including the most important such as energy. But the reality is that Russia cannot afford to stop selling fossil fuels to the EU, and can do nothing to stop the inevitable transition away from fossil fuels over the next few decades. Once that is complete (something that should have happened years ago), Russia will have no bargaining chips left.

This is what’s been driving right wing nationalism.

You’re right. What does this have to do with Putin?

an actual expert

Expert or no, I’m not watching a two-hour video.

War is not cheap, but it’s absurd to think that Russia hasn’t considered that

It’s very apparent from the strategies employed by the Russian army (attacking on multiple fronts with too few troops to last in drawn out conflict) that they were expecting the war to last a matter of days or at most a couple of weeks, before the majority of the troops holding major cities in the centre and east of the country had surrendered. So yes, of course Russia knows how expensive it is, that’s precisely why they are withdrawing troops in the North.

financial independence from the west

How is this a gain? They could have this at any time they please?? The west has been (and will continue) to turn a blind eye to the activities of Russian oligarchs.

Calling this unprovoked shows stunning lack of understanding of geopolitics and history

If you call Ukraine arming itself “provocation”, you have no respect for the sovereignty and independence of the Ukrainian people and culture. Ukraine’s army 10 years ago would have been wiped out in days, Ukraine would no longer exist.

The only justification for war against another nation is self-defense. Wars of aggression are inherently immoral and unjustifiable, and imperialist. Yes, many NATO countries (e.g. US, UK) have blood on their hands for such actions all over the world.

What’s going to matter long term is the economy and EU has completely gutted theirs at this point.

Sure, but mainly due to the pandemic rather than anything to do with Ukraine. Energy security is a big problem, but one that needed solving ten years ago to prevent catastrophic climate change.

Orban

Le Pen

Orban’s government is a propaganda machine of epic proportions. Both politicians are right-wing populists which are very trendy at the moment in the west, for reasons unrelated to Putin. Le Pen as far as I’m aware is not pro-Putin in the slightest.