I agree - while that would be incredibly sad, the one real run they've had so far was legendary. That's one thing. They already gave us some great games. I don't think anyone would begrudge them of... focusing on surviving an already very bloody war. It's hard enough just being cut off. That aspect of the whole thing blows my mind - ordinary people unable to get support, just another way they bear the punishment for this insane conflict. In an ethical sense, it's pure collateral damage. The citizens of Russia and Ukraine alike are collateral.
It doesn't really blow my mind at all. We all very heavily depend on transportation of goods that we use everyday. Our societies are super complicated in terms of trade of goods. The thing is that most of us today couldn't feed, wash, warm or shelter ourselves without logistics and trade. The only thing that many Ukrainians had was vast homesteading culture, so some of them may be able to grow some of their food, that's all.
The real madness is that this was has started. You would think that mutual destruction of three nations would benefit no one and they would be smart enough to avoid that, but no. It has been month already and there's still basically no reason why would Russia invade them. The only sensible theory I heard is that Russia wanted Ukraine's resources like gas and petroleum, on top of that, to be able to have their pipelines across Ukraine without Ukrainian government charging fees. Which would make sense as Russians could just charge whatever they want Europeans for those goods and EU could just turn green if they don't want to pay. Another less sensible theory was that Russia want to have Crimea. Now they already had it, but due to water supplies coming from mainland Ukraine, they were shut off and therefore resource that is arable land was unusable until water pipeline underwater is built. But there's no reason to invade all Ukraine for that and just building pipeline is way cheaper than war. There's a theory that Putin is just completely unaware of reality is fed information from his advisors, but that's just completely bollocks and is not true at all. Their official theory of expanding nova USSR is also bollocks, because in best case scenarios they could only do so until NATO border and even before that, forcing nearly half of Russian civilization into country they don't want will quickly turn into biggest guerilla warfare of all time, so they can't do that too if they don't want their population slaughtered and have military everywhere 24/7 for decades. The biggest secret is the real reason of this invasion. Could it really be that Putin and his henchmen real are that dumb or is there some hidden agenda of this invasion?
I do also have high hopes for a move, though. I'm not sure what the particulars of them relocating would be - kinda figure that's hard enough for people actually on the continent needing to do that to decipher. I stand little chance of understanding that. But the idea that they could continue working somewhere safe and have a better chance at income is promising.
To me that is very unlikely. On the second day of invasion, all Ukrainian men were called to mandatory defense of country. If they were in Ukraine and were Ukraine nationals, then they most likely are holding kalashnikovs now. Obviously procedure isn't 100% efficient, but considering morale, social pressure and all, it's unlikely that they left. It's likely that they could be later considered criminals if they escape, but I don't know if that's how legally that happens.
It kind of surprises me, how many Ukranian artists I find myself holding out for. One of my favorite metal bands that I've gotten into in years is from there. None have impressed me as much as Jinjer. Every single one of them is a top class pro. They are legitimately among the most solid performers doing it today, with that classic sense of style and heart. They work hard, and they were still working their way up in Ukraine when they were still hesitating to even call it a 'civil war' here. Now, I look to updates on where the members are, how they are doing. Some got out. Some haven't. They all put on strong faces but after a certain amount of years I think all of the running around and instability has to take things out of a person that can be hard to reclaim.
Well, I don't know many Ukrainian artists, but I loved their Eurovision entry last year. Should have won Eurovision, instead of Italy. Oh and Verka Serduchka, was completely robbed of victory in 2007. To be fair, in modern culture, mostly American culture is pushed into Europe, meanwhile many European countries have loads of talent, put hella lot of effort and often excel, but never get as much recognition as Muricans. Wherever you look, be it movies, games, TV shows, music, you can't deny that most of it is from US or influenced by US. I'm honestly ashamed that in Lithuania, there only was one quite decent movie, I have no idea if we make any well known software, hell if we even make anything that can be found in hardware store, if we have any artists that don't sound like generic Murican stuff or have terrible voices, if we even made a single video game that isn't embarrassing, or for that matter anything strong from cultural perspective that isn't clone of Murican stuff or has any reasonable amount of recognition. I feel that this sentiment is likely shared across all Europe minus Germany, France and UK. Ukraine was likely the same too, but Zelensky made a huge effort during war to give shit ton of morale to Ukrainian people and branded them as heroes of freedom on worldwide scale. In a way, Ukraine is now living in their bittersweet golden age. I'm pretty sure that events like this can transform a whole nation and make them gain some actual recognition worldwide way more effectively than during periods of peace. Meanwhile, countries like Russia managed to descend from worldwide toilet level to worse than North Korea level. What a fail.
I honestly can't even process this. I mean, physically speaking, that would be obvious. Nobody truly 'processes' that. But those parameters are on a continuum scale that I have a hard time keeping in my head. If we had that here, broke college students would be dropping dead at a precipitous rate.
I actually looked up at Big Mac's nutrition. A single burger only has 540 calories and weights roughly 220 grams. So, to substitute it with halva, you only need less than 100 grams of it. It's really hilarious how we sometimes trash Muricans for eating trash and being fat, meanwhile we have fucking diabetic nukes in stores for pittance. And still more Muricans die from their shit diet, than Europeans. It would be really scary if Muricans discovered halva, so we keep it to ourselves.
Vanilla apocalypse comes with some concessions on my part - that's gonna really throw me off.
