Quote from: BADecker on Today at 05:28:33 AM

Quote from: DaRude on Today at 02:52:22 AM

Quote from: WillyAp on July 15, 2025, 06:53:00 PM

Quote from: DaRude on July 15, 2025, 03:28:46 PM

Now veterans play video games to cope, I cannot imagine these new "bonus points" warriors ever be able to hold controller to play a regular video game with their son without flashbacks, once back to civilian life. But guessing long term effects and reintegration into civilian life is the last priority for Ukrainians now, and just a nice controlled psych experiment for the west.

Ucraine is the forerunner, next wars will go with robots, and might even have a LLM "Brain, or remote and here we go again.
Age is just a number, as you see it works for them. War is not about fine and nice.
War is also the driver of tech.

Quote from: DaRude on July 15, 2025, 03:28:46 PM

nice controlled psych experiment for the west.

I bet the "other side" has a similar set up, or worse.
The article said as much, in the past, say Vietnam, how soldiers given were given some metal orden for: How many life he took.

It appears to be so with the robots. The only things that gives me any kind of hope is that robots will get so advanced that us meatbags will become obsolete on the frontlines, like horses. Superpowers will be protected by nukes and MAD, but these proxy wars can be fought exclusively with robots, until we enter the Terminator scenario, that is.

I don't hold any illusions on this, Russia is trying to defend it's sphere of influence, if this new technique proves to be effective Russia will most definitely adopt it. Thus the evolution of sword and shield, neither side gets to enjoy any tech advantage for a long periods of time. If anything, I expected Russia to implement something like this first and EU/US to push back and take higher ground on this, unfortunately it appears that the west just plays double standards rather than actually adhere to any higher morals these days.

Sure, armies always incentivized killings, after all that's what they are used for. It's just this feel like a new low in this evolution to dehumanize warfare. We had that video where after losing close combat fight on knifes, Ukrainian soldier congratulated Russian soldier, said he was a great warrior and requested to die in peace, Russian soldier obliged, granted him his final wish and left. Now with these drone operators for points system it'll be few years of service and then the psych ward for life once realizations kicks in

Isn't that happening right now with all the various AI's? ENOCH, the AI created by Mike Adams, Health Ranger, seems to be able to disprove a lot of stuff that other AI's don't seem to have a provable clue about.

I say, let's give it all to AI's to fight about. And let them provide for us so that we can live peacefully and do what we want... with AI's doing all the labor for free. Then we can travel for free to Russia and Ukraine and anywhere else, to see for ourselves what those lands are like, really. I for one would love to visit the Ural Mountains, or Lake Baikal in the winter... which I can't do now, because I am poor.

Or Russian bee pollen which can extend life.

Threatening The Russians With An Ultimatum Will Backfire Severely And Will Set The Stage For Nuclear War

https://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/threatening-the-russians-with-an-ultimatum-will-backfire-severely-and-will-set-the-stage-for-nuclear-war/
So is this how it all ends? I don't even know how to describe the emotions that I am feeling right now. There was so much hope a few months ago that there would be peace, but both sides appear completely uninterested in making substantial compromises at this point. Instead, both sides are poised to dramatically escalate the war. If we continue going down this path, it isn't going to end well. For decades, our leaders have been conducting war game scenarios in which a conflict in Ukraine leads to a nuclear war. Now a conflict in Ukraine could lead to a nuclear war for real. I feel like I am watching a slow-motion train wreck happen without any way to stop it. It really is quite a sickening feeling.

We have a very limited window of opportunity to make peace with the Russians, and we are totally blowing it.

In February, I specifically warned that President Trump must not resort to threatening the Russians over the war in Ukraine because it would backfire severely.

When I woke up today, I learned that is exactly what Trump has decided to do.

Trump has issued a very ominous ultimatum. If Russia does not end the war in Ukraine within 50 days, the U.S. will impose "very severe tariffs" on all nations that do business with Russia. In addition, Trump has approved a massive new weapons package for Ukraine…

Trump announced July 14 that the United States is sending weapons to NATO, which plans to transfer the equipment to Ukraine, and also threatened steep tariffs aimed at impacting Russia's ability to finance the war.

Trump said that the United States would put secondary tariffs on countries that do business with Russia if a peace deal is not reached within 50 days.

"We're going to be doing very severe tariffs if we don't have a deal in 50 days," Trump said.

The deadline that Trump has set falls in September, which I found to be very interesting.

If Russia does not end the war in Ukraine by the deadline, and that is very unlikely to happen, Trump says that all countries that do business with Russia will be hit with 100 percent tariffs…
...

People need to understand the fundamentals, that there is no more free lunch. We're in a 3yr of this conflict, all one sided decisions (the ones that hurt the other side overwhelmingly more than you) have already been applied. We're at the point of even scales, there is nothing that one side can do now that wouldn't lead to equal, if not bigger, negative consequences in return. That's why the situation on the front lines is what it is.

China pledges deeper support for Russia amid Trump tariff threats

Quote from: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/07/16/france-and-italy-refuse-to-join-trumps-ukraine-weapons-fund/

France and Italy have refused to participate in Donald Trump’s plan to send US-made weapons to Ukraine.
...
France has told allies it will not join the initiative, according to officials briefed on the discussions.

Paris is currently wrangling over its domestic budget and demands to boost its defence spending while navigating concerns over the country’s growing debt pile.

The Italian government has said it will not purchase weapons but could help with the logistics of transporting them to Ukraine, Italian media reported.

“Here there has never been talk of buying American weapons,” the source quoted by the La Stampa newspaper said.

Trump offers EU to help Ukraine by buying American weapons, further sucking money out of already resource poor EU. Trump is now a good guy, and EU is bad by not wanting to send money to US.

Russia launches massive attacks; Trump backtracks from suggestion Ukraine should target Moscow

President Trump told reporters Tuesday that Ukraine should not target Moscow with military attacks and that the U.S. was not looking to give long-range missiles to Kyiv in its ongoing war against Russia.

The only effect these Trump swings have is on morale in Ukraine.