For instance: it's mentioned that EU gas storage is at 67% and Germany's at 56%.
What is not mentioned though is that Poland's storage is at 97% because the previous administration, for better or worse, was paranoid enough to invest in a sizeable marine gas terminal and the current one stocked up early.
Regarding real estate: adjusted for inflation prices peaked 2.5 years ago, interest rates are also much lower than back then. Nobody is buying because all the Ukrainian refugees who were moving to Poland are here already and that's the last bump in population this country will see for the foreseeable future.
Also there's the threat of war on Polish soil, which affects investor sentiment.
Your comment implies Germany can just somehow command Poland to please hand over their gas, which obviously makes no sense, so I think you either forgot to include some key detail or you’re just talking out of your ass.
Unless you mean nazi invasions ofc in which case you’re just a troll.
Just because the numbers might be small if germany doesn't has enough gas and some old fragile human being might die of this or because they cant afford the gas, its still no way to die in a country like germany.
Real estate in Poland is the only investment option without capital gains tax. You only have to keep it 5 years, extremely simple. A condo is tax free, risk free brokerage account. Even if drones start hitting these mostly empty buildings, the prices will keep rising.
> Every generation believes it is living through the end of something.
Many generations are. Last century saw the collapse of the British and Soviet empires - titans by any measure - through mismanagement. Europe as an international power was also broken (compared to how they used to be). I can easily imagine 1900s me fleeing to America in fear of the end times and feeling quite justified in his choices with hindsight. Less obvious where to run to these days as the US not-an-empire looks like it may crumble.
Most of the people who died didn't get an opportunity to complain, so we live with some serious survivorship bias on how bad things got.
While there's no magic land of opportunity to flee to, there are still many safe and stable places where one can raise a family and lead a simple life. Especially if you remove the abstraction of countries and look at cities and towns instead. It does depends on what you want and what you're willing to give however, as moving may mean learning a new language and assimilating a new culture. And then there's differences in wealth and earning potential as well, so I guess leaving the USA is more 'bugging out' than 'economic migration'.
OTOH, mobility is a privilege, and it's usually the least privileged who are the most affected by war. So I'm not exactly sure how I feel about my own advice, since it's most useful to those that need it least.
We made it a priviledge, but for a biological being, it's the most natural thing to do when you find yourself in a place that is shitty. There is a reason so many risk truly awful things to get a chance (chance!) at a better life: going to where food and safety is, is just what living beings do.
> Less obvious where to run to these days as the US not-an-empire looks like it may crumble.
Depending on what you're running for China is in some senses kinda what the US was back in the day, except there's no land so no easy way for them to accept migrants. These day and age migrants also aren't very accepted anywhere.
China's population is dropping, so to the extent they had housing for their peak population, they will have increasing capacity to accept migrants. Their fertility rate has dropped to 1, one of the lowest in the world, despite having now lifted all restrictions on number of children and actively encouraging larger families, so it will become a precarious problem for them soon.
China's migration policies have been extremely strict, so to what extent they will be able to loosen that up without political upheaval is still an open question. So far they've only loosened up the restrictions on internal migration.
I agree in a sense, and the writing for this has been on the wall for some time. In my circles, many learned some Mandarin at one point or another.
The difference from the past is that the US has always been a melting pot, while China is pretty much a closed society. If you’d emigrated to the US, you always had a good chance of blending into that diverse society no matter where you came from. Assimilating into the homogeneous Chinese society will take generations.
For me it’ll be either the westernmost end of Europe or one of the better parts of South America, in the hope that they will prosper modestly in the shadows of the upcoming conflicts.
I'm very curious how China will adapt over the next couple of decades. Their population has started contracting, and it's clear the government has seen the fertility rate as a problem for some time. There's no obvious way for them to keep economic growth going without either finding a solution to something nobody else has managed to solve (getting the fertility rate back up), or opening up for more immigration. Either will take significant changes.
Those problems could be solved with a careful migratory policy (ie what America did back in the day because it was economically impossible for the entire third world to fly there; today, this could be enforced with laws)
The issue with demographic decline is not just quantity of people, but also quality of people. China (and any country) will want individuals that speak the language, are culturally compatible, with useful skills, and so on. The limited number of people any country can draw on once you consider this starts to make it clear that migration doesn't solve anything.
And even with migration, if those migrants don't themselves end up with high fertility rates then you've done nothing but kick the can, and not especially far. Because of all of these issues, I think there's approximately a 100% chance that China will do the equal but opposite of the one-child-policy should their demographic issues fail to start reversing more naturally.
I assumed there would be plenty of land in China, is just completely remote or do I just have a completely incorrect perspective on China (generally speaking I’m sure I do, I’ve live my life on the other side of the planet)
There is .. with the last of the subsistence farmers already living on it. There is basically no good unoccupied agricultural land in the world. The American settlers never appreciated how much work disease did in creating a seemingly empty space for them.
There's plenty of land in China. There aren't plenty of empty plots that would be attractive for people to farm. I'm not so sure that has much relevance to modern immigration, though.
This is a way over dramatized pessimistic perspective. If you think this is bad, then look into world from an eye of a pole during 1772 (where Poland was even wiped off of the world map) or 1939 or any year during the Soviet rule.
Poland has become a rich country within one generation after the fall of Soviet Union and one of the safest countries in Europe at the moment. There's always gonna be crisis in the world but at the same time you have to admit that we're living in one of the most comfortable times for humanity general compared to past generations.
Blame too much connectedness. Humans are not designed to be affected by things that happen 100's of miles away. They shouldn't even know the names or those far away places or people. They shouldn't have dependency on things that are produced far away.
Tribal populations lived isolated lives. Most of human life on Earth involved only small-sized settlements with occasional visitors from the far away places.
Connectedness opens the flood gates . You get inundated with news from every corner as if it is happening in you neighborhood and as if those are your people.
What a bizarre statement. Of course you are not designed for anything. You have adapted, genetically and socially. And you keep doing that. Modern society would collapse if change to a state of the world that you describe would quickly come. If it comes slowly, no matter what change, humans will adapt. Not all of that will be pleasant, but it eventually works out.
Connectedness also stops us from waging war. Or, I should say, it does not stop us, it makes us less likely to start one. But we still do it evidently. And then we all suffer.
I feel you... the situation is more or less the same for Greece (and many other countries).
Things are not looking very good and I don't know how all this situation is going to stabilize or even better come back to normal.
And zoning and giving landlords great benefits (some countries not taxing wins from rents, others allowing changing rent easily, etc.) really solved the problem? Multiple major countries (in which rent control is not a thing) have huge housing issues, so something should be done. For some places I would much prefer reducing regulation required for new constructions, but this is very situation dependant.
Why does this might not apply to other cases? Paris is very dense already, not a lot of places to build anyhow. What other policies are required? Ensure people do not buy only for investment and leave things empty - they raised the uninhabited tax to discourage that, will see if enough to make a dent.
- To maintain fellowship, the empire spreads money to buy influence
- eventually this starts to cost too much, so the empire reduces spending
- wars ensue and independent voices emerge
- unable to establish order, the empire loses its influence and collapses
You can see this patterns as the US is overspending (high debt / trade deficit) while reducing its diplomatic influence on international programs. Not sure how they can save the USD value over time.
Once again the top submission of HN is an LLM-generated article. I know we're not supposed to speculate on people reading past the title, but I incur you to read 3 paragraphs and tell me with a straight face that you did not eyeroll at every short, empty phrase stated with enormous confidence.
> Half of its six biggest diesel plants cut or halted output this month
Claude chose a weird turn of phrase here. Does this mean "the smallest of the three was the sixth largest"? If the Ukrainians hit a tiny plant, will it now be "three of its hundred biggest diesel plants"?
The world always had problems. It's like software, the work is never done. Sometimes new times ask for new solutions, and people need to find them. Adapt or die.
I do think though it's a little dishonest to be this alarmed now just because the crisis is at your doorstep. There is continuous misery all around the globe which everyone should acknowledge. The wars in the middle east brought destruction for generation and for entire regions. I am not sure those people are worried about the interest rates in Japan as much as they are about surviving. Including the current war. Think about Iran and its government what you will, but when a school gets bombed, innocent children die. I am not sure I find this less concerning than the state of natural gas capacity in Germany. And I live in Germany.
As for the energy crisis, the solution is in front of us. If you don't want to depend on foreign fossil fuels start electrifying and switching to renewables and batteries. You can do it cheap and fast. In fact, this is already happening in parts of the world and they are much more shielded from the current issues than elsewhere.
Every thread has a cynical AI accusation from someone looking for an excuse to dismiss long articles, so I tend to gloss over them, but this one's mind-boggling.
Literally how did you come to the conclusion this was written by ChatGPT? The text is clearly written by a polish person that speaks fluent english as a second language - I know cause I am one. Telltale signs are sentences like "Meanwhile, shares are at records" which is an overly direct translation of the polish equivalent, where the word "rekord" by itself implies a record high whereas in english you'd make it explicit.
Every writer has a style whereby if it’s strong enough you can identify the writer by reading enough of their works. AI style is very easy to spot.
There may have been some human involvement with this website but they certainly didn’t edit it for style. Unfortunately if you don’t edit for style then people will default to the assumption that it’s entirely vibecoded.
The west wanted a confrontation with Russia (pushed Zelenski out of the Misk accords; keeps supplying weapons for the lost cause Ukraine; Merkel lied about seize-fire intentions; NorthStream was infighting in the coalition pushing Germany further from Russia).
The Israel wanted a confrontation with Iran, and used it's --as we now all know-- pit-bull lapdog USA to do most of it for them. They killed Iran's leader and some of his family: something we long ago decided is "not modern".
Both countries are not giving in. And they should not. These are existential matters for them; they crossed red lines; they are illegal escalations by all rules and conventions. But the west can do what it wants.
Now Europe is caught in the middle. US has fuel, and basically annexed Venezuela. Europe has to pay through the nose for energy.
The narrative has never been more blatantly misconstrued in the corporate media: Russia will not attack Europe, and if genocidal-Israel can have illegal A-bombs while refusing inspections why bother with Iran doing the same?
Fearmongering. All to "save our democracies and freedom". It's getting old really quick. And combined with ridiculous immigration policies they may destroy Europe as we know it in a few decades, I'm afraid. But saying so, results in the immediate "extreme right-wing Putin propagandist" label, and thus can be disregarded.
- what action specifically is the west pushing Zelenski away from Minsk?
Both Minsk and Istanbul accords would have been signed if the west did not encourage Zelenski not to sign. The BoJo visit is widely quoted.
- why is the Ukraine war a lost cause if it is tying up Russian military resources?
Ukraine itself it lost. Maybe the west-coalition still finds it useful. But the country is now conscripting women. They do not have the men anymore. No airdefence. Losing land at an ever increasing pace. Attack on russian industry are countered with 10x harder attacks on ukrainian industry. Supporting coutries less willing to give to Zelenski. Country is in shambles.
- how does Merkel wish for a stronger Ukraine defense indicate a wish for confrontation instead of a deterrence against it?
If you are a guarantor country for a de-escalation peace deal, it is dirty to merely hold up appearances in order to buy Ukraine time to strengthening them for the confrontation that you know will come. That's two-faces guarantorship.
- how does northstream, which seems to be Ukraine going against “the west”, an evidence for the west wanting a confrontation with Russia?
As long as the NS is operating, Germany and Russia have strong economic ties. Breaking those ties by an act of industrial terrorism (by Ukraine on Germany -- which should trigger a NATO-art5 in normal situations) is bringing NATO more together. Germany has to buy energy from the US now. Lol.
No the west did not want a confrontation with Russia/Putin. Merkel tried to reign in Putin with Gas.
Putin wanted the confrontation and started to attack Ukraine, killing people for no other reason than his ego.
US has expensive fuel and not the right one and also still trades its oil internationally and facing a huge price increase for millions, it also has to pay a lot more money for fertilizers.
The oil of venezuela is the wrong kind of oil and can't just be bought and processed by the USA with a snip of a finger. They have to build/change their refineries for it.
Minsconstrued in the media? Russia will not attack Europe because Putin knows he is gone the moment he starts attacking Nato.
Yeah lets have a PROPER discussion and not some right-wing telegram magic group thinking wanna be intelligence experts. After Ukraine, Moldovoa, Belarus and others would have fallen.
This proxy war is a realltive good outcome especially after what russia was doing the last 15 years: Propaganda manipulation in the west and killing of people with toxins and intervening / playing armsdealer to Africa with conflicts against France.
I think the Odessa Union house arson clearly shows that Ukraine is not protecting it's ethnic-Russian population. Also Ukrain and the baltics trying to ban Russian as al language is a big indicator to me (does not fit a free-democracy with freedom of speech).
Russia invaded Ukraine. Yes. In geopolitics these things happen. You need to know eachother's red lines. Ukraine in NATO is such a line. The west also did it: Turkey (NATO) is still in Syria, US topples Venezuela, US attacked Cuba, Israel is currently outside of its border -- all in the name of security. But Russia cannot do it. No Russia is bad and policy is Putins-ego driven.
NATO can attack Russia (though Ukraine) so it's not a direct confrontation and not on NATO soil. "To the last Ukrainian!" the shout. It's really horrific. Ukraine is ravaged by West/NATO policy. And then remember that Zelenski said he wanted to keep the peace and stay neutral during his election campaign.
"This proxy war is a realltive good outcome" -- nearly made me puke. It looks at Ukrainians as cannon fodder. Is you do not want to fight the war, but just pay from the sidelines, you are IMHO an evil manipulator.
> I think the Odessa Union house arson clearly shows that Ukraine is not protecting it's ethnic-Russian population. Also Ukrain and the baltics trying to ban Russian as al language is a big indicator to me (does not fit a free-democracy with freedom of speech).
There is no ban or ban attempt on speaking Russian in those countries, you can hear spoken Russian on the streets of Riga, Tallinn or Kyiv. Also, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Odesa_clashes, nothing to do with Russian ethnicity or language.
One of the attacking groups is the "Right sector", see their OUN links. These guys are basically neo-nazis, and they were killing ethnic Russians. Wikipedia frames this information as Russian propaganda, I see it as what actually happened.
The people that died where Unionists -- you know those groups that got us 8h workdays, weekends, holidays and sick-leave.
Odessa Union house arson is not any indicaton at all. Putin wasn't the rescueer of his Russians in Ukraine and this doesn't allow an attacker to overtake a government and a country.
I'm shocked on how you don't care or mind at all that a whole country is getting attacked at all and you don't care apparently that Putin has killed 500.000 OF ITS OWN people to protect its ethnic russian population?
NATO is not ATTACKIng RUSSIA through UKRAINE. NATO is PROTECTING UKRAINE FROM Russia.
And you either are compeltly clueless or ignorant. Russians main strategy is to overtake a country and the first thing they do is to remove the local people and put russians in their place to break their culture.
Ah wait you are a russian bot or so. Go back to your propaganda telegram group.
"Ah wait you are a russian bot or so. Go back to your propaganda telegram group." -- and so the namecalling starts.
Ukraine is not at war with Russia. If that was the case this was over in 2023.
NATO/ the west is in a proxy war with Russia: that's why it takes so long.
Anyway. Now the reality get clear. Russia is winning. The break away regions/oblasts (that followed a similar path to how Kosovo was broken off of Serbia by the west) are almost under Russian control. And let's see where it goes from there. Russia is crazy to trust the west on its word at this point.
They joined an illegal war, and co-invaded an sovereign country. And no-one batted an eye back then. Because it was a invasion "the west" started: then it is okay!
Criminals and medical doctors are funnelling a fortune into domestic and foreign real estate, and into premium cars. Nearshoring and outsourcing centers are fleeing the country. Polish army expenditures are at the level of Israel and South Korea. The budget is spent on 40 years old retirees while Russian drones and missiles are freely entering and penetrating the airspace. I'd say so long Poland, a failed experiment again. Polish elites don't even have to flee this time, they're already watching from their 10th or 20th real estate in Spain, Switzerland, US, or Italy (their real estate in Dubai is a bummer).
This technical analysis is really futile and counterproductive, there exists only vicious greed which will be followed by a catastrophe.
This is classic whataboutism. Tethered caps and energy security aren't competing for the same budget or the same people. Nobody delayed a gas pipeline to write a cap regulation. You can think the caps are annoying (they are) and still see that they have nothing to do with a closed strait.
I feel like this is overdramatized a bit.
For instance: it's mentioned that EU gas storage is at 67% and Germany's at 56%.
What is not mentioned though is that Poland's storage is at 97% because the previous administration, for better or worse, was paranoid enough to invest in a sizeable marine gas terminal and the current one stocked up early.
Regarding real estate: adjusted for inflation prices peaked 2.5 years ago, interest rates are also much lower than back then. Nobody is buying because all the Ukrainian refugees who were moving to Poland are here already and that's the last bump in population this country will see for the foreseeable future.
Also there's the threat of war on Polish soil, which affects investor sentiment.
It's 97% but total gas storage capacity it quite low so it's easier to fill.
Germany hasn’t historically been nice about leaving polish oil to the polish when they decide they need it though?
Not to be that guy, but I'm pretty sure that "Polish" is capitalized. "polish oil" is what I use on my leather shoes
Your comment implies Germany can just somehow command Poland to please hand over their gas, which obviously makes no sense, so I think you either forgot to include some key detail or you’re just talking out of your ass.
Unless you mean nazi invasions ofc in which case you’re just a troll.
Humans are fragile.
Just because the numbers might be small if germany doesn't has enough gas and some old fragile human being might die of this or because they cant afford the gas, its still no way to die in a country like germany.
Life is finite.
Yes than reduce the strain on the planet by removing yourself from it?
What does your comment add to this discussion?
We should stop caring? You decide how others can live because you are well off?
Real estate in Poland is the only investment option without capital gains tax. You only have to keep it 5 years, extremely simple. A condo is tax free, risk free brokerage account. Even if drones start hitting these mostly empty buildings, the prices will keep rising.
> Every generation believes it is living through the end of something.
Many generations are. Last century saw the collapse of the British and Soviet empires - titans by any measure - through mismanagement. Europe as an international power was also broken (compared to how they used to be). I can easily imagine 1900s me fleeing to America in fear of the end times and feeling quite justified in his choices with hindsight. Less obvious where to run to these days as the US not-an-empire looks like it may crumble.
Most of the people who died didn't get an opportunity to complain, so we live with some serious survivorship bias on how bad things got.
While there's no magic land of opportunity to flee to, there are still many safe and stable places where one can raise a family and lead a simple life. Especially if you remove the abstraction of countries and look at cities and towns instead. It does depends on what you want and what you're willing to give however, as moving may mean learning a new language and assimilating a new culture. And then there's differences in wealth and earning potential as well, so I guess leaving the USA is more 'bugging out' than 'economic migration'.
OTOH, mobility is a privilege, and it's usually the least privileged who are the most affected by war. So I'm not exactly sure how I feel about my own advice, since it's most useful to those that need it least.
> mobility is a privilege
We made it a priviledge, but for a biological being, it's the most natural thing to do when you find yourself in a place that is shitty. There is a reason so many risk truly awful things to get a chance (chance!) at a better life: going to where food and safety is, is just what living beings do.
> Less obvious where to run to these days as the US not-an-empire looks like it may crumble.
Depending on what you're running for China is in some senses kinda what the US was back in the day, except there's no land so no easy way for them to accept migrants. These day and age migrants also aren't very accepted anywhere.
China's population is dropping, so to the extent they had housing for their peak population, they will have increasing capacity to accept migrants. Their fertility rate has dropped to 1, one of the lowest in the world, despite having now lifted all restrictions on number of children and actively encouraging larger families, so it will become a precarious problem for them soon.
China's migration policies have been extremely strict, so to what extent they will be able to loosen that up without political upheaval is still an open question. So far they've only loosened up the restrictions on internal migration.
I agree in a sense, and the writing for this has been on the wall for some time. In my circles, many learned some Mandarin at one point or another.
The difference from the past is that the US has always been a melting pot, while China is pretty much a closed society. If you’d emigrated to the US, you always had a good chance of blending into that diverse society no matter where you came from. Assimilating into the homogeneous Chinese society will take generations.
For me it’ll be either the westernmost end of Europe or one of the better parts of South America, in the hope that they will prosper modestly in the shadows of the upcoming conflicts.
I'm very curious how China will adapt over the next couple of decades. Their population has started contracting, and it's clear the government has seen the fertility rate as a problem for some time. There's no obvious way for them to keep economic growth going without either finding a solution to something nobody else has managed to solve (getting the fertility rate back up), or opening up for more immigration. Either will take significant changes.
China is facing many of the same problems that the rest of the world is, with demographic decline, slowing growth, etc.
Those problems could be solved with a careful migratory policy (ie what America did back in the day because it was economically impossible for the entire third world to fly there; today, this could be enforced with laws)
The issue with demographic decline is not just quantity of people, but also quality of people. China (and any country) will want individuals that speak the language, are culturally compatible, with useful skills, and so on. The limited number of people any country can draw on once you consider this starts to make it clear that migration doesn't solve anything.
And even with migration, if those migrants don't themselves end up with high fertility rates then you've done nothing but kick the can, and not especially far. Because of all of these issues, I think there's approximately a 100% chance that China will do the equal but opposite of the one-child-policy should their demographic issues fail to start reversing more naturally.
> The issue with demographic decline is not just quantity of people, but also quality of people
"Quality of people". Spoken like a true tech person.
I assumed there would be plenty of land in China, is just completely remote or do I just have a completely incorrect perspective on China (generally speaking I’m sure I do, I’ve live my life on the other side of the planet)
There is .. with the last of the subsistence farmers already living on it. There is basically no good unoccupied agricultural land in the world. The American settlers never appreciated how much work disease did in creating a seemingly empty space for them.
There's plenty of land in China. There aren't plenty of empty plots that would be attractive for people to farm. I'm not so sure that has much relevance to modern immigration, though.
There's no land in China?
This is one of the most cogent summarizations of the status quo that I've seen.
It leads nicely into a conclusion that, even without the preface, seems reasonable: build personal buffers of water, electricity, and cash.
This is a way over dramatized pessimistic perspective. If you think this is bad, then look into world from an eye of a pole during 1772 (where Poland was even wiped off of the world map) or 1939 or any year during the Soviet rule.
Poland has become a rich country within one generation after the fall of Soviet Union and one of the safest countries in Europe at the moment. There's always gonna be crisis in the world but at the same time you have to admit that we're living in one of the most comfortable times for humanity general compared to past generations.
Blame too much connectedness. Humans are not designed to be affected by things that happen 100's of miles away. They shouldn't even know the names or those far away places or people. They shouldn't have dependency on things that are produced far away.
Tribal populations lived isolated lives. Most of human life on Earth involved only small-sized settlements with occasional visitors from the far away places.
Connectedness opens the flood gates . You get inundated with news from every corner as if it is happening in you neighborhood and as if those are your people.
You are not designed for this.
> You are not designed for this.
What a bizarre statement. Of course you are not designed for anything. You have adapted, genetically and socially. And you keep doing that. Modern society would collapse if change to a state of the world that you describe would quickly come. If it comes slowly, no matter what change, humans will adapt. Not all of that will be pleasant, but it eventually works out.
Connectedness also stops us from waging war. Or, I should say, it does not stop us, it makes us less likely to start one. But we still do it evidently. And then we all suffer.
POLSKA GUROM!
I feel you... the situation is more or less the same for Greece (and many other countries). Things are not looking very good and I don't know how all this situation is going to stabilize or even better come back to normal.
> A price cap meant as a cushion, in a system with no slack, turned a price shock into empty pumps
It's almost s if economic theories actually describe reality! Given that it's economy 101 predicting that this would happen.
Still, people do it again and again. Rent control proponents for housing should take notice.
And zoning and giving landlords great benefits (some countries not taxing wins from rents, others allowing changing rent easily, etc.) really solved the problem? Multiple major countries (in which rent control is not a thing) have huge housing issues, so something should be done. For some places I would much prefer reducing regulation required for new constructions, but this is very situation dependant.
Rent control working depends on multiple other policies and on the characteristics of the place. For Paris for example it did seem to have a positive effect: https://hal.inrae.fr/hal-05315123v1/file/Morin%20et%20al.%20...
Why does this might not apply to other cases? Paris is very dense already, not a lot of places to build anyhow. What other policies are required? Ensure people do not buy only for investment and leave things empty - they raised the uninhabited tax to discourage that, will see if enough to make a dent.
This is cool, but like every website that tries to manipulate scrolling I eventually got too tired of that shit.
This how empires collapse:
- To maintain fellowship, the empire spreads money to buy influence
- eventually this starts to cost too much, so the empire reduces spending
- wars ensue and independent voices emerge
- unable to establish order, the empire loses its influence and collapses
You can see this patterns as the US is overspending (high debt / trade deficit) while reducing its diplomatic influence on international programs. Not sure how they can save the USD value over time.
very cool website
Once again the top submission of HN is an LLM-generated article. I know we're not supposed to speculate on people reading past the title, but I incur you to read 3 paragraphs and tell me with a straight face that you did not eyeroll at every short, empty phrase stated with enormous confidence.
> Half of its six biggest diesel plants cut or halted output this month
Claude chose a weird turn of phrase here. Does this mean "the smallest of the three was the sixth largest"? If the Ukrainians hit a tiny plant, will it now be "three of its hundred biggest diesel plants"?
The world always had problems. It's like software, the work is never done. Sometimes new times ask for new solutions, and people need to find them. Adapt or die.
I do think though it's a little dishonest to be this alarmed now just because the crisis is at your doorstep. There is continuous misery all around the globe which everyone should acknowledge. The wars in the middle east brought destruction for generation and for entire regions. I am not sure those people are worried about the interest rates in Japan as much as they are about surviving. Including the current war. Think about Iran and its government what you will, but when a school gets bombed, innocent children die. I am not sure I find this less concerning than the state of natural gas capacity in Germany. And I live in Germany.
As for the energy crisis, the solution is in front of us. If you don't want to depend on foreign fossil fuels start electrifying and switching to renewables and batteries. You can do it cheap and fast. In fact, this is already happening in parts of the world and they are much more shielded from the current issues than elsewhere.
...as seen by one ChatGPT.
Every thread has a cynical AI accusation from someone looking for an excuse to dismiss long articles, so I tend to gloss over them, but this one's mind-boggling.
Literally how did you come to the conclusion this was written by ChatGPT? The text is clearly written by a polish person that speaks fluent english as a second language - I know cause I am one. Telltale signs are sentences like "Meanwhile, shares are at records" which is an overly direct translation of the polish equivalent, where the word "rekord" by itself implies a record high whereas in english you'd make it explicit.
Every writer has a style whereby if it’s strong enough you can identify the writer by reading enough of their works. AI style is very easy to spot.
There may have been some human involvement with this website but they certainly didn’t edit it for style. Unfortunately if you don’t edit for style then people will default to the assumption that it’s entirely vibecoded.
[delayed]
"Europe’s potato belt tells the story in a single season." -- sure, no LLM at all. And why a single season, isn't it a story over two seasons?
The west wanted a confrontation with Russia (pushed Zelenski out of the Misk accords; keeps supplying weapons for the lost cause Ukraine; Merkel lied about seize-fire intentions; NorthStream was infighting in the coalition pushing Germany further from Russia).
The Israel wanted a confrontation with Iran, and used it's --as we now all know-- pit-bull lapdog USA to do most of it for them. They killed Iran's leader and some of his family: something we long ago decided is "not modern".
Both countries are not giving in. And they should not. These are existential matters for them; they crossed red lines; they are illegal escalations by all rules and conventions. But the west can do what it wants.
Now Europe is caught in the middle. US has fuel, and basically annexed Venezuela. Europe has to pay through the nose for energy.
The narrative has never been more blatantly misconstrued in the corporate media: Russia will not attack Europe, and if genocidal-Israel can have illegal A-bombs while refusing inspections why bother with Iran doing the same?
Fearmongering. All to "save our democracies and freedom". It's getting old really quick. And combined with ridiculous immigration policies they may destroy Europe as we know it in a few decades, I'm afraid. But saying so, results in the immediate "extreme right-wing Putin propagandist" label, and thus can be disregarded.
About your first paragraph:
- what action specifically is the west pushing Zelenski away from Minsk?
- why is the Ukraine war a lost cause if it is tying up Russian military resources?
- how does Merkel wish for a stronger Ukraine defense indicate a wish for confrontation instead of a deterrence against it?
- how does northstream, which seems to be Ukraine going against “the west”, an evidence for the west wanting a confrontation with Russia?
Thanks for interacting in good faith...
- what action specifically is the west pushing Zelenski away from Minsk?
Both Minsk and Istanbul accords would have been signed if the west did not encourage Zelenski not to sign. The BoJo visit is widely quoted.
- why is the Ukraine war a lost cause if it is tying up Russian military resources?
Ukraine itself it lost. Maybe the west-coalition still finds it useful. But the country is now conscripting women. They do not have the men anymore. No airdefence. Losing land at an ever increasing pace. Attack on russian industry are countered with 10x harder attacks on ukrainian industry. Supporting coutries less willing to give to Zelenski. Country is in shambles.
- how does Merkel wish for a stronger Ukraine defense indicate a wish for confrontation instead of a deterrence against it?
If you are a guarantor country for a de-escalation peace deal, it is dirty to merely hold up appearances in order to buy Ukraine time to strengthening them for the confrontation that you know will come. That's two-faces guarantorship.
- how does northstream, which seems to be Ukraine going against “the west”, an evidence for the west wanting a confrontation with Russia?
As long as the NS is operating, Germany and Russia have strong economic ties. Breaking those ties by an act of industrial terrorism (by Ukraine on Germany -- which should trigger a NATO-art5 in normal situations) is bringing NATO more together. Germany has to buy energy from the US now. Lol.
No the west did not want a confrontation with Russia/Putin. Merkel tried to reign in Putin with Gas.
Putin wanted the confrontation and started to attack Ukraine, killing people for no other reason than his ego.
US has expensive fuel and not the right one and also still trades its oil internationally and facing a huge price increase for millions, it also has to pay a lot more money for fertilizers.
The oil of venezuela is the wrong kind of oil and can't just be bought and processed by the USA with a snip of a finger. They have to build/change their refineries for it.
Minsconstrued in the media? Russia will not attack Europe because Putin knows he is gone the moment he starts attacking Nato.
Yeah lets have a PROPER discussion and not some right-wing telegram magic group thinking wanna be intelligence experts. After Ukraine, Moldovoa, Belarus and others would have fallen.
This proxy war is a realltive good outcome especially after what russia was doing the last 15 years: Propaganda manipulation in the west and killing of people with toxins and intervening / playing armsdealer to Africa with conflicts against France.
I think the Odessa Union house arson clearly shows that Ukraine is not protecting it's ethnic-Russian population. Also Ukrain and the baltics trying to ban Russian as al language is a big indicator to me (does not fit a free-democracy with freedom of speech).
Russia invaded Ukraine. Yes. In geopolitics these things happen. You need to know eachother's red lines. Ukraine in NATO is such a line. The west also did it: Turkey (NATO) is still in Syria, US topples Venezuela, US attacked Cuba, Israel is currently outside of its border -- all in the name of security. But Russia cannot do it. No Russia is bad and policy is Putins-ego driven.
NATO can attack Russia (though Ukraine) so it's not a direct confrontation and not on NATO soil. "To the last Ukrainian!" the shout. It's really horrific. Ukraine is ravaged by West/NATO policy. And then remember that Zelenski said he wanted to keep the peace and stay neutral during his election campaign.
"This proxy war is a realltive good outcome" -- nearly made me puke. It looks at Ukrainians as cannon fodder. Is you do not want to fight the war, but just pay from the sidelines, you are IMHO an evil manipulator.
> I think the Odessa Union house arson clearly shows that Ukraine is not protecting it's ethnic-Russian population. Also Ukrain and the baltics trying to ban Russian as al language is a big indicator to me (does not fit a free-democracy with freedom of speech).
There is no ban or ban attempt on speaking Russian in those countries, you can hear spoken Russian on the streets of Riga, Tallinn or Kyiv. Also, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Odesa_clashes, nothing to do with Russian ethnicity or language.
So why did the right sector burn down a house with people in it?
Maidan related? Is Maidan not also Russia-related?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Odesa_clashes (article on the arson)
One of the attacking groups is the "Right sector", see their OUN links. These guys are basically neo-nazis, and they were killing ethnic Russians. Wikipedia frames this information as Russian propaganda, I see it as what actually happened.
The people that died where Unionists -- you know those groups that got us 8h workdays, weekends, holidays and sick-leave.
Odessa Union house arson is not any indicaton at all. Putin wasn't the rescueer of his Russians in Ukraine and this doesn't allow an attacker to overtake a government and a country.
I'm shocked on how you don't care or mind at all that a whole country is getting attacked at all and you don't care apparently that Putin has killed 500.000 OF ITS OWN people to protect its ethnic russian population?
NATO is not ATTACKIng RUSSIA through UKRAINE. NATO is PROTECTING UKRAINE FROM Russia.
And you either are compeltly clueless or ignorant. Russians main strategy is to overtake a country and the first thing they do is to remove the local people and put russians in their place to break their culture.
Ah wait you are a russian bot or so. Go back to your propaganda telegram group.
"Ah wait you are a russian bot or so. Go back to your propaganda telegram group." -- and so the namecalling starts.
Ukraine is not at war with Russia. If that was the case this was over in 2023.
NATO/ the west is in a proxy war with Russia: that's why it takes so long.
Anyway. Now the reality get clear. Russia is winning. The break away regions/oblasts (that followed a similar path to how Kosovo was broken off of Serbia by the west) are almost under Russian control. And let's see where it goes from there. Russia is crazy to trust the west on its word at this point.
Also it is said that Ukraine is a peaceful country. I beg to differ: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_involvement_in_the_I...
They joined an illegal war, and co-invaded an sovereign country. And no-one batted an eye back then. Because it was a invasion "the west" started: then it is okay!
>Merkel tried to reign in Putin with Gas.
It's rein.
It's also nonsense, Russia had Germany on a leash, you cannot seriously believe Merkel was playing Putin.
Criminals and medical doctors are funnelling a fortune into domestic and foreign real estate, and into premium cars. Nearshoring and outsourcing centers are fleeing the country. Polish army expenditures are at the level of Israel and South Korea. The budget is spent on 40 years old retirees while Russian drones and missiles are freely entering and penetrating the airspace. I'd say so long Poland, a failed experiment again. Polish elites don't even have to flee this time, they're already watching from their 10th or 20th real estate in Spain, Switzerland, US, or Italy (their real estate in Dubai is a bummer).
This technical analysis is really futile and counterproductive, there exists only vicious greed which will be followed by a catastrophe.
Very AI written
Is that a gut feeling or do you have evidence?
I've grown skeptical of all those "witch! burn her!" voices, but I'm open to evidence.
The titles are clearly by AI, but most of the content is not.
Phew, thanks God Europe introduced unremovable plastic caps and deposit for plastic bottles. It's gonna save it, right?
This is classic whataboutism. Tethered caps and energy security aren't competing for the same budget or the same people. Nobody delayed a gas pipeline to write a cap regulation. You can think the caps are annoying (they are) and still see that they have nothing to do with a closed strait.
Don't forget we have a new map projection as well...
Just after the Covid storm and in the middle of a war at the border we made it. All caps are attached now.