It’s WAR.... God I hope not.

[Like Ra]

Which is why I think we're arguing with a bot.

We are talking to a quite peaceful representative of the average Russian population. Even if he's a bot (what I doubt), the arguments we see are very typical. From what I see, the Russian population (regardless the point of view) can be split into two groups, those who are:

- scared
- very scared

Even if they behave aggressively, deny everything, playback RU propaganda, they are still scared. Scared of repressions, scared of the future, scared of unknown, scared of absence of rules, scared of total helplessness...

[Like Ra]

What I like about Dutch TV is that they always show (and let speak) "both sides".

You mean for every astronomer there has to be a flat-Earther? And for every archaeologist a young-Earth creationist?
That sounds worse than the BBC!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum ? 😬

[Culmor]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum ?

Witness Brexit. Not one logical argument for it but they always found someone to argue the opposite 'for balance'. And that's screwed my country for a generation, at least.

[Zooy]

What I like about Dutch TV is that they always show (and let speak) "both sides".

You mean for every astronomer there has to be a flat-Earther? And for every archaeologist a young-Earth creationist?
That sounds worse than the BBC!

I discussed this once with a, unfortunately late, well known Dutch climate scientist. He told me that whenever they were discussing climate change on radio or TV, they had to get somebody who denied it. Until a point where it were always the same one or two people whom they could get for that. At that point they gave up on that principle.
I don't remember how the smoking discussions ended the two-sidedness. But you definitely will not get people to argue in a televised discussion that smoking is healthy.
With the flat earth I think they never even started this two-sided stuff. The creationist stuff is considered religion and is to stay out of many discussions.

[Like Ra]

Witness Brexit. Not one logical argument for it

I know one - quick decisions. Not necessarily a positive one, though... 😁

[Culmor]

Climate change. The BBC always used to wheel out their pet botanist David Bellamy as an opposing voice until George Montbiot proved that the original data Bellamy based his view on had never existed. You didn't see very much of him after that.

[Like Ra]

He told me that whenever they were discussing climate change, they had to get somebody who denied it.

I think this subject is a bit more complex and with a lot of intended or not generalizations. For example, those, who deny, that the climate change is caused by humans, or those, who say, that the increasing CO2 level is actually good for the nature are also put in the same "climate denial" camp, what is not correct.

[Like Ra]

the original data Bellamy based his view on had never existed.

Ah, found it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factoid (I'm in the propaganda terms & definitions mode these days 😆)

You didn't see very much of him after that.

We take it for granted, but you should be proud that you live in such a country.

[Zooy]

Back to the original discussion:
I know people from many countries, and my experience is that one on one I can get along with almost all of them. Of course my selection does carry a bias, but even so on the whole on the personal level most people are very hospitable.
It is when people organise themselves into groups and nations things are different. Aeady long before the invention of money the 'money' of a group was the territory they controlled. You even see this with chimpansees. And with many different types of animals. Somehow many of us think of people from another group or nation not as real people. Witness how football hooligans can fight each other and sometimes even people get killed.
It gets even worse when the entities get bigger, the armies get bigger and the weapons get more powerful. Probably every place on earth has been occupied by many different nations at various points in history.
In the west, and in particular the EU, this concept of proto-money has been more or less abandoned. After WWII the Dutch got 'compensated' with a small piece of Germany. After a number of years they organised a vote there and when the people voted that they preferred to be part of Germany the territory was given back to Germany. In Eastern Europe it looks like many are not so far as to give up this concept of proto-money.

So Ukraine and Russia go their own ways. What is wrong with that. Kiev was once the capital of a proto-Russia? The east coast of the USA was once ruled from London. Does that give the USA the right to invade England?

Please Russia, be happy that you have the whole of Siberia with all its incredible richness. Don't lament the loss of a number of peripheral states, while you can be a wealthy nation if you concentrate on how you should conduct your internal affairs.

[vanessa_fetish]

they couldn't find chemical weapons in Iraq, they tried very hard, they really needed it, but they couldn't. The test tube at the UN was a lie. They don't want to talk about it. Right?

They found the facilities that made them. You don't have a battallion protecting an "agricultural pesticide" depot. 

I know they had them until at least the time Saddam kept screwing the UN inspection teams over. How do I know? I was exposed to the remnants of the shit they used in the Iran-Iraq War when peacekeeping. I also SAW what chemical weapons do to the human body, particularly blister agent.