Well, they did annex a hefty bit of Ukraine under Obama, and suitably stabilised & evaluated the situation afterwards.

The only theory of Russian “victory” is to keep at it until Ukraine breaks. There are many breaking points that could give: foreign support, domestic political will, manpower, even corruption.

Russia has only one feasible path to long term stability, and it’s to keep a war economy until something better comes along, like plundering Ukrainian natural resources or some other EU country. That could be gearing up reserves to invade the next country after Ukraine, or revanschist attitudes if beaten by NATO.

Stopping now will kill Putin, tank the economy and create a huge power vacuum that will cost Russia at least a decade before recovery can get started, and possibly be felt for another decade after that. Annexing Ukraine could yield morale victory and plunder to tide them over into the next war, it’s the only way to avoid a collapse, and thus worth every life and sanction.

Wow, these are very good.

The first has too identical eyebrows, but the second is mostly suspect by the flawlessness which could be expected from retouched influencer photos.

Sexuality and sensuality can become complicated; the body plays a small part, but most of it is typically in the mind and mind-body interplay. There’s a reason the elbow-lickers can get off on it, and it’s not typically because their elbows are wired more sensitive.

Having sensation is proof that your physical parts work, but I hear you say that the connection to pleasure and your lust/sensuality is gone.

Luckily, that connection can be trained and/or rehabilitated (depending on cause of disconnect).

A major part of it is feeling safe, safe in your body, safe to feel pleasure, safe to play/explore, safe to find and act on what you enjoy. Anything from trauma, stress, depression/illness, self image, cultural pressures can make someone enter survival mode and block off enjoyment. Some are best treated by a professional, others might be addressed by simpler inner work, like setting intentional time for recreation, or making space/time/rituals for enjoyment, etc.

Part of feeling safe is also to not have undue pressures to perform or feel a certain way. Especially while rediscovering how you sense and process pleasure, you should give yourself the grace to enjoy yourself as you want. Maybe elbow stimuli is the only way available to you currently? Maybe the only way to silence the self judgment is with kink? Respect your journey, and that we all take different paths, as well as need different things along it. The goal is both to find yourself, but also to learn how to search.

Oh, and as to not misrepresent anything: Most of sexuality happens in the mind, and finding what turns you on and how is typically a life long pursuit as tastes and wonts will change and evolve with you. What happens and yearns in the body is typically in direct response to both fantasy, self image, intent, and your daily form. You will need to explore, discover and play what is sexy to you, as well as when and how.

Besides that, it’s also about training yourself to explore pleasure both physical and mental, how to dance with it, follow it, challenge it and to recover from either intensity or getting lost. Most of it is just finding how it works and feels, but you can definitely get better at both control and constitution with practice.

You have many years left to enjoy the pleasures of your own body, and I would argue pleasure is necessary for a well lived life. Perhaps looking up a sexologist or similar resource could be a worthwhile investment for a life with pleasure?

I’d like to recommend the book The Erotic Mind by Jack Morin, it’s a very good book on the topic of how lust and pleasure happens in our minds and an interesting read. It’s not a substitute for therapy though, neither psychological or sexological.

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Ah you see, in space there is no sound, much simpler to calculate without it!

Less dangle between activities, more areas for pleasure, better plugin functionality.

Whereas penises have simpler attachment, the vagina has both muscle control, lubrication for better conductivity, easy access to non-invasive interfacing of blood and hormones, storage space and flexible mounting directions. If ever I would have a detachable cybernetic extra limb, regulator or weapon, a vagina would be a fantastic mount.

Just squeeze to activate.

As an enthusiast of stimulating clitorises, I’d like to remind you/mirroring readers that most of it isn’t the knobby part but (typically) spread throughout the lips and inner thighs, and that is often a more accessible/enjoyable way of stimuli.

In my practice I’ve found that clitoris havers enjoy different stimuli (for a myriad of reasons): deep massage, light tickling, pinching, scritches, pressure, heat, etc applied to lips, folds, thighs, around the opening, as well as the knob. I’ll argue it’s still clitoris stimuli, just better suited to that person’s anatomy and preferences.

And if that isn’t your experience, there are many other ways to stimulate a person and body. I wish you all the sensuality and orgasms you can handle, in whatever way works for you.

You’re asking the wrong question.

If you did want to do anything, you’d ask how to make a difference/what can’t they ignore, and start gathering resources.

It’s hard, it’s unappetizing, it’s probably not for you.

For the civilians that can’t accept the current affairs, theres plenty of ways to support protest, peaceful or not.

Well you could also be impolite about it and become a nuisance for the enablers and supporters.

Or organise so that you aren’t as helpless the next time the same or another tries to abuse power.

I always kind of understood that the majority of people would stay out of revolution to cope with just surviving. I just didn’t expect them to be so vocal about the apathy.

The answer is surprisingly easy, the valuation comes from the price people are willing to pay for the stock.

People seem to believe the AI hype will increase value, or at least are willing to bet that it will, and thus are willing to pay more for it.

Underrated comment ^^

If you re-read my comment you’ll see that I’m nowhere defending Iran’s conduct, so let’s address that.

When unilaterally attacked by a terrorist state neighbour supported by the largest military in the world, I do feel Iran has the moral right to use assymetric warfare to survive. Even more so when that doesn’t cause mass civilian casualty.

Do I condone the oppression the Iranian government did before the war? No.

Do I still believe Iran has the right to sovereignty? Definitely and absolutely.

It is no business of the US to meddle in the political internalities of a country not a credible threat. And even less so at the behest of a rampaging genocidal state using terror to keep neighbours from intervening.

To put it into a simplified analogy: are you arguing dishonestly putting words in my mouth? Yes. Does that give me the right to burn your house down? No.

In the real world it’s both the US treating dishonestly and doing the burning though.

There’s this whole argument about World Policing being Bad ™. But even besides that:

The US is also currently murdering, kidnapping and disappearing thousands of it’s citizens, so it’s not for the moral high ground they’re bombing civilian infrastructure.

Besides, the war will almost certainly lead to more suffering, and probably also lives lost, as a consequence of the destruction, fear, oppression and power struggle following it. So it’s not for humanitarian reasons they’re disrupting international trade and relations.

The US has also made it very clear it only intends to follow international law and treaties when it benefits them, as evidenced with Greenland, Venezuela, Cuba, trade wars, trade and protection treaty violations. So it’s not for any rules based order they’re planlessly and goallessly staging a billion dollar/day terror campaign.

It seems the US is just exercising it’s might and terrorising the world because it wants to. I wonder how long before someone gets fed up with it…

Well put.

I guess this is also why sympathies from wronged friends and allies are running dry.

Unfortunately, I’m of the sort who doesn’t believe that flipping the table will be to the gain to anyone but those with the preparation and resources to grab what they may (which is what they’re doing)

The divide is too deep, and those people too greedy to do anything but provide for their own. The downtrodden won’t come out better from this, either we stop them, or we wait for the next revolution where people will be even more desperate.

The latter leads to more suffering, more death and more blood, if history is any guide.

So what you’re saying is that the country collectively decided Trump was more promising than Harris?

And you’ve found it’s someone else’s fault, so now you don’t have to do anything but sit in the mess?

Good for you.

Now, pardon us as we try to do something about it.

My whole point is that those two are indistinguishable from the outside.

(Although conservatism in general rather than the radicalised form that is fascism)

You don’t get to use that excuse when you re-elected him.

Perhaps the opposition could have done more, results argue that they couldn’t.

Besides, Trump is only the latest of a long trend of GOP candidates and policies all in line with the exact current policy. The opposition may have fought valiantly, and lost ground. From the outside, that looks exactly like a national shift towards the GOP/conservative/christo-fascist.

But do you love them?

The conventional answer is that there would be much less incentive to fund new ones.

Some things need a large investment to start: power plants, cities, factories, space stations, etc. Sometimes more money than the people involved can afford, and you need to ask someone to front the money, they typically get paid with a share of the profits.