I think the Galaxy Store occasionally has some offers, like 50% discount on purchases and stuff. If you play gacha games, you can “save” a lot of money.

If your phone has stopped getting security updates, then that is a big issue. Even if the phone is working fine. People are using their phones for banking, paying stuff, email, saving personal photos, etc. You dont want people hacking into your phone and an unpatched phone is an insecure phone.

Which is why samsung/google(and apple before them), have started offering 7 years of OS support. Modern phone hardware, especially flagship tier one, can last for a long time. Other than the battery degrading, the rest of the phone is still powerful enough for everything.

Did capitalism destroy this?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aral_Sea

The Aral Sea is considered an example of ecosystem collapse.[42] The ecosystems of the Aral Sea and the river deltas feeding into it have been nearly destroyed, largely because of the salinity being dramatically higher than ocean water.[5] The receding sea has left huge plains covered with salt and toxic chemicals from weapons testing, industrial projects, and runoff of pesticides and fertilizer. Because of the shrinking water source and worsening water and soil quality, pesticides were increasingly used from the 1960s to raise cotton yield, which further polluted the water with toxins (e.g. HCH, TCCD, DDT).[43] Industrial pollution also resulted in PCB and heavy-metal contamination

This was the result of this

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Plan_for_the_Transformation_of_Nature

Exploiting nature and fucking things up is not limited to capitalism.

Cyrillic is literally greek+glagolitic and it was partly a diplomatic creation of the Eastern Roman Empire(aka Byzantine Empire), in order to bring the slavs culturally closer to them.

Russians have nothing to do with it, other than them claiming they are the continuation of Eastern Roman Empire, something which is kinda laughable but whatever dont let your dreams be dreams.

Because they dont have first hand statements, they are just using different israeli sources that independently verified it. Hence the quotes and the “allegedly”.

Contacted by the Guardian, a spokesperson for Israel’s prime minister’s office said: “The questions forwarded to us are replete with many false and unfounded allegations meant to hurt the state of Israel.” Cohen did not respond to a request for comment. Bensouda declined to comment.

They wanted to use the geographical definition of Europe, so they cut off everything beyond the Ural mountains and Caspian sea.

Abu-Sittah has been accused by some groups in the UK of promoting terrorism and spreading antisemitism.

Abu-Sittah spoke at a ceremony for the one-year anniversary of the death of Maher Al-Yamani, the co-founder of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in 2020.[22][23] A video showing Abu-Sittah appear to cry while delivering a eulogy at the event that includes the language “This is our only comfort: that even when Maher leaves, the Israelis will be afraid of Maher” is published on The Jewish Chronicle’s website.[18]

In March 2024, the British NGO, UK Lawyers for Israel (A UK-based, pro-Israel legal lobbying group) sent an open letter to Glasgow University which included a review of Abu-Sittah’s public social media comments. The letter accused Abu-Sittah of reposting “an image commemorating a leader of the al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, Nasser Abu Hamid, the day after he died, holding a machine gun, dripping with blood.”[24] He also wrote an article grieving for Abu Hamid, who had been convicted of multiple murders.[22]

The Times reported that Abu Sittah had compared Israeli leadership to “the psychosis of the Germans in the 30s and the 40s." The UK Lawyers for Israel letter also accused Abu-Sittah of re-posting “an antisemitic image featuring Hitler on one side and Israeli prime minister Netanyahu on the other side, both images smeared with blood, comparing Israel to the Nazis. The image was headed “Free Palestine (Palestinian Flag), Israel is a Nazi State”. The image compared the average pace of child killing of Hitler, at 127 children per day, to that of Netanyahu, which it put at 178 per day.”[24] Both of these instances have been interpreted by UK Lawyers for Israel as Antisemitism according to Example 10 of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of Antisemitism which proscribes "Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.

Since receiving UK Lawyers for Israel’s letter, Glasgow University has launched an investigation into Abu-Sittah.

From wikipedia.

ISIS exists because Saddam was toppled, replaced by, a mostly shia government and the old iraqi military was disbanded. That created a power vacuum and left a lot of military trained guys unemployed, who felt betrayed. They basically said “fuck this world order, we will make our own, with blackjack jihad and hookers sharia law”.

Over time, they became more and more religious radicals, split off Al Qaeda and now they are fighting everyone everywhere. ISIS-K(the one in Afghanistan) seems to be the main one organizing terrorist attacks now. They are fighting the Taliban, Iran and Pakistan too. Most of ISIS’ victims are muslims, sometimes shia but often sunni(but not the right sunni).

They are a very attractive proposition for poor and desperate people around the world, who feel they got screwed. They are basically resentment manifest.

Now you might say “thats because of western imperialism” and you wouldnt be wrong. But do you know what was the most common ethnicity for foreign ISIS fighters? Russian. And no, it wasnt random russians fighting against american imperialism, it was muslim russians who simply could not fight in Russia’s Dagestan and Chechnya. Russia bombed the shit out of ISIS too, partially because of this reason.

While understanding what lead us to our current situation is important, ultimately we must face the present. Whether a military solution is the best way, is debatable. But it is easier to convince your parliament to spend x amounts of money on your own military, rather than use that funds on developing other countries.

One is not relevant to the other. The billions that Europe is spending is orders of magnitude less than they did for most of european history.

Do you think that Europe should not fight against ISIS? Are you referring to the Afghanistan and Iraq invasions? French interventions in Africa? Not all wars are the same. Take a stance instead of using vague expressions.

The fact that wars have mostly stopped in Europe is something worth celebrating and maintaining. And Russia is threatening the status quo in the european continent.

I mentioned the yugoslav wars in the post before that. The argument still stands, Europe has been mostly peaceful for the first time ever. Do you intend to actually answer any of the points of my post?

There havent been wars in Europe, unlike literally any other period in history, for almost 80 years. Dont you think that is an impressive achievement? An achievement that the invasion of Ukraine has endangered? How would you feel if you were a baltic state like Latvia? A country that has been very prosperous since the end of the Cold War?

What does your rhetoric offer to a latvian? What tangible measures should someone in Latvia take, in order to protect their way of living from someone like Russia? Should they just ignore it and focus on class warfare? What class warfare currently exists within Russia? Or can exist within an authoritarian state like Russia? Do you think Russia is communist? Or wants to become communist?

I am trying to understand, what is your argument. What do you suggest the people of a country do when some other country invades them. Even if you think that countries are obsolete artificial constructs that need to be demolished, you surely understand there is a difference when a leader from another country takes over your country. Do you think Putin is a communist?

Militarism is bad, thats why Europe had a shitty military ever since the end of the Cold War. Because every euro spent on tanks and planes, is a euro that isnt spent on healthcare and education. Europe could finally benefit from the peace dividend.

And then Russia decided one day to walk in and grab parts of Ukraine(Crimea and parts of Donbas). That started some alarms but Europe kept sleepwalking. Surely Putin wont go any further. But just like Hitler who conquered Czechoslovakia(and didnt stop there), Putin decided “why the hell dont i take the entirety of Ukraine, it isnt as if anyone will stop me, those european soycucks dont have the balls to do anything but write stern letters”.

And he almost succeeded. So after 3 decades of having basically 0 investment in military, Europe is now rushing to catch up. Because it doesnt matter how peaceful you are, it is basic game theory. If you are military weakened enough, at some point, someone, somewhere will come to power who will want to take advantage of that “weakness”.

Class warfare is irrelevant if people are not class conscious enough to stop war from both sides. Ok, i will use my magic wand and make everyone in Europe class conscious. But if russians arent class conscious enough to refuse the orders to invade a country, someone will need to stop them.

Again, imagine using the same arguments against nazi Germany. Imagine pleading german soldiers to not invade you and that class warfare is the real war. Do you think that would work?

Some people only respect power and think words are a sign of weakness.

Thats like having your house on fire and saying “this is fine” meme. Do you think that war is never an option? That giving up and letting invaders take what they want is preferable because it “reduces” human suffering?

Would you advocate the same during WW2 and Germany/Italy’s invasions? Should the countries that got invaded not resist and should the UK/US not help those countries? Imagine if you were an american in WW2 and your government was giving hundreds of billions worth of equipment to the russians, in order for Russia to fight the nazis. Would you still say “why are we sending hundreds of billions to the corrupt nation of Russia, when that money could have been used in America instead”?

The isolationist rhetoric benefits the invaders, who can easily take out individual countries(or regions of countries), one piece at a time, while placating the rest.

So your argument is that since the public in these countries is brainwashed, they arent capable for voting for their leadership, therefore there is no democracy, only the illusion of democracy. Thus an invasion and imposing a new government through violence, maybe one that aligns better with your worldview, is an acceptable thing?

I dont know, i think this is a very slippery slope. I think brainwashed people deserved to be ruled by whoever they vote, thats what democracy is and has always been. Even in ancient Athens, you had demagogues and sophists(even if we ignore that women and slaves couldnt vote). And money could get you a better sophist, to teach you how to debate and manipulate people.

So is democracy a fake system that can never be achieved? And your alternative suggestion is what?

Do people in your country oppose those bases? Do you have democracy? If the majority of people opposed those bases, they could vote for some other government. Do you understand the difference between an invasion and hosting allied troops?

If a country elects a “fascist” government and then gets invaded, do they not deserve help? So i assume you also supported the invasion of Iraq and the toppling of Saddam? They didnt even have democracy there, unlike Ukraine.

You might think that no country has any right to exist but that belief wont protect you from someone who thinks their country should control the entire world.

Nationalism is a basic and maybe outdated mechanism that protects against foreign invasions. You need to understand its purpose and function if you want to abolish it. At some point, i think everyone would agree that some populations share certain moral values and priorities. And those values deserve to be defended.

You can call those values “Germany” or “EU” or “Europe” or “lemmy” or “lgbtq people of earth and nearby planets”, but in the end you will have an entity that encapsulates values that are worth being defended. I dont give a fuck about my country and i wish daily that somehow it gets nuked out of existence. But fuck anyone who wants to take it over by force.

Why is all this important? We are entering an age where information warfare is crucial. If an entity can shield its population from enemy informational warfare(great firewall of China) while being free to use informational warfare against its enemies(tik tok or any social media), then you(in the West) will just become a useful idiot.

The enemy is trying to persuade that a thing is bad(countries/nationalism), while at the same time is preaching how great that same thing is on his own population. When the shit hits the fan, which side do you think will win? The one who thinks that nations are bullshit and no war is justified, or the country which thinks that its nation is the greatest and war is a moral necessity in order to “liberate” the rest of the world?

This is nothing new. Japanese imperialism was disguised as anti-western/anti-imperialistic. Japan was the sign that asian people can be equal/superior to europeans and they just wanted to spread their values and liberate other asian nations from the european/american shackles. You dont need to be a historian to realize how utterly bullshit this lie was. The germans did the same with the whole “honorary aryan” thing.

TLDR : Ask yourself, if you apply your belief, will the rest of the world follow? If not, who benefits from you applying your beliefs? Sometimes it is fine to have noble beliefs and realizing that they arent realistically applicable to the current world.

Obviously.

That’s 20 billion per year. The EU’s alone defense spending for 2023 was 270bil. This is not a lot of money.

If someone invaded your country, would you still have the same opinion? If Trump invaded your country(assuming you are not an american), would you still say “why are we spending billions to fight Trump, when we could have spent them on education and housing?”.

He is literally jewish. So yeah, the nazis would have loved him.