I would like to know what the alternatives are. None that I can think of are palatable:
1. Support Ukraine enough so that Russia doesn't take too much more territory, but not enough for Russia to feel threatened and escalate the war. This was the Biden plan and it sounds like what Europe wants. I just don't see how this ends the war. Is this just buying time for someone to depose Putin?
2. Support Ukraine enough so it can take all its territory (maybe minus Crimea). This may not be possible with weapons alone. This might require a NATO no-fly zone over Ukraine, which effectively makes us a combatant. I actually would support this path, but the downsides are all too obvious.
3. Freeze the conflict at the current lines and guarantee the agreement with US/NATO forces. What does that mean in practice? If Russia violates the agreement we go to option #2? That sounds like a hollow threat because we're clearly not ready to do #2 right now, when it could actually help. All this will do is let Russia rearm.
4. Abandon Ukraine and make a deal with Russia against China. [This is Trump's plan and it's as stupid as it sounds.]
Did I miss anything?
The root of the problem is that this is a hard-power conflict and the only solution is going to be hard-power. But neither the US nor the EU are willing to put in hard-power against Russia. In that situation, I honestly don't know how to stop Putin from getting what he wants.
My frustration is that, as awful as Trump's plan is, it acknowledges that the only way to beat Russia is to send US troops to fight Russians, and there is no universe in which the US public will support that.
But please, correct me if I'm wrong. I would like to be wrong.
Double-entry bookkeeping is very easy to understand once you ditch the ridiculous "credit" and "debit" terminology.
Essentially, the goal is to keep the accounting equation true at all times. The equation is: Equity = Assets - Liabilities. Eventually, earnings (Income - Expenses) will become part of equity, so splitting that out, you have: Equity + Income - Expenses = Assets - Liabilities. Rearranging to get rid of the minus signs you get: Equity + Income + Liabilities = Assets + Expenses. This equation must be true or something has gone wrong - like money appearing or disappearing out of nowhere. To keep it true at all times, it should be clear that any time you add money to an account on the left side of the equation (say, to an Income account), you must either add the same amount to an account on the other side or subtract the same amount from the same side.
For example, you sell a lemonade for $5. You add $5 to Sales (Income) and add $5 to Current Account (Assets).
The "credit" and "debit" terminology is ridiculous because their definitions swap around depending on which account you're talking about, which is an utterly absurd (mis)use of language and the main reason people find this confusing.
"an adversarial position" is the only position you should assume when interpreting legal texts. After all, if push comes to shove, your the actual adversary. And in any other case the legal text is not needed.
2 - I love being around first time entrepreneurs- they don’t know about the bumps ahead in the journey so they just plough through. This is a great thing. Once you’ve ploughed through, you learn about all of this and it either causes you to be too afraid to do another, or to try to warn everyone else off by describing how impossible it is (doesn’t work and doesn’t help), or you get the bug and keep building more and more.
3) You’ve identified what seems like an awesome opportunity. Go chase it. Don’t spend too much time talking. Endless talk is the death of entrepreneurial endeavors. Do more talk less. Sounds like a super fun opportunity during which you’ll learn so much along the way.
4) Two entrepreneur credos:
A) when you see an opportunity the door is already closing. Get moving. Did I mention more talk less do?
B) the universe is interesting. The moment you start on an endeavor, the people you need to be successful just come out of the woodwork. It’s like you become attuned to the universe. Just gotta pay attention. Sorry - sounds preachy, but I’ve found it to be true over and over again. It’s like they find you through the cosmos.
Don’t listen to the naysayers. Those who say it can’t be done should stand aside for those who are doing it.
Welcome to the entrepreneurial journey. Pretty much the most fun you can have in business.
this is the aspect of science that is not talked about in the media and among "science, fuck yeah" "big bang theory" bros. science is full of dogma, politics and downright dirtiness. people who do research are often showmen more than scientists, because the system selects for people who can sleazily promote their own research to win grants, or people who just hop onto whatever bandwagon is popular. and the worst part is that people who are blowing on the kindling of the next big breakthrough are not only discarded by the scientific establishment, they are ridiculed viciously. anyone who says we should "listen to science" needs to open a history book. dogma, dogma, dogma. its the most insidious parasite in the modern western world and has happily escaped completely the confines of its old religious home.
Is this what Gell-Mann amnesia feels like? I happen to be a bit into cryptocurrency, and day after day I see these super basic surface-level takes on blockchain get posted here and even upvoted to the top spot. Are the other popular submissions here, on programming languages, the internet, entrepeneurship and what have you of similar low quality, but I just don't have the experience in those fields to realize it? This is a serious question.
> The European Union commissioners have announced that agreement has been reached to adopt English as the preferred language for European communications, rather than German, which was the other possibility.
> As part of the negotiations, the British and American government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement. Consequently, they have adopted a five-year phased plan for what will be known as European English (Euro for short). In the first year, "s" will be used instead of the soft "c."
> Sertainly sivil servants will resieve this news with joy. Also the hard "c" will be replased with "k." Not only will this klear up konfusion, but typewriters kan have one less letter.
> There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the second year, when the troublesome "ph" will be replased by "f." This will make words like "fotograf" 20 persent shorter.
> In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expected to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will encourage the removal of double leters, which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of silent "e"s in the languag is disgrasful and they woud go.
> By the fourth year peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" by "z" and "w" by "v." During ze fifz yer, ze unesasary "o" kan be droped from vords containing "ou", and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinatins of leters.
> Und after ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German lik zey vonted in ze first plas.
I never knew it was based on a Mark Twain quote. Then again, Mark Twain's philosophy I didn't hear much of either (I'm from Europe, don't think I learned any American philosophy on high school).
The separation of design and construction into phases is a hangover from civil engineering. It has the baked in assumption that the design phase is relatively cheap, short and somewhat unpredictable the construction phase is expensive, long and predictable. The root problem is the assumption that specifications can be validated for correctness, like a blueprint for a bridge can. Nothing could be further from the truth. This is a persistent myth in software development.
Sometimes I feel that it can be a lucrative trap to become invested in a single person, and then accumulate expectations that far outweigh the responsible obligations of any friendship.
As I have gotten older, a pattern that is working much better for me is the campfire model - I just try to keep a metaphorical campfire going, for people traveling through this life to stop and warm themselves upon while I tend it. I cannot know which direction people are traveling from, or to, or how long their journey has been or will be. But all people need to warm their calloused hands and feet, and I can keep this fire with a bed of rosy coals.
Sometimes someone will stop at my fire and warm themselves without my ever having paid attention, but to them it may have meant all the difference in the world. By keeping this obligation in mind, to simply expect people to need a place to sit a spell, I can at least believe I am helping.
The campfire is a nice way for me to remember we're all suffering, that not a one of us is unique to loneliness. Because sometimes that person who sits down at your fire is the person you have been waiting for, and only by making a seat for them were you able to ever meet.
1. Support Ukraine enough so that Russia doesn't take too much more territory, but not enough for Russia to feel threatened and escalate the war. This was the Biden plan and it sounds like what Europe wants. I just don't see how this ends the war. Is this just buying time for someone to depose Putin?
2. Support Ukraine enough so it can take all its territory (maybe minus Crimea). This may not be possible with weapons alone. This might require a NATO no-fly zone over Ukraine, which effectively makes us a combatant. I actually would support this path, but the downsides are all too obvious.
3. Freeze the conflict at the current lines and guarantee the agreement with US/NATO forces. What does that mean in practice? If Russia violates the agreement we go to option #2? That sounds like a hollow threat because we're clearly not ready to do #2 right now, when it could actually help. All this will do is let Russia rearm.
4. Abandon Ukraine and make a deal with Russia against China. [This is Trump's plan and it's as stupid as it sounds.]
Did I miss anything?
The root of the problem is that this is a hard-power conflict and the only solution is going to be hard-power. But neither the US nor the EU are willing to put in hard-power against Russia. In that situation, I honestly don't know how to stop Putin from getting what he wants.
My frustration is that, as awful as Trump's plan is, it acknowledges that the only way to beat Russia is to send US troops to fight Russians, and there is no universe in which the US public will support that.
But please, correct me if I'm wrong. I would like to be wrong.