This is a real problem with changing your mind.

I can't believe how many times I've been told I've changed when I no longer found something funny or said something that I wouldn't have in my teen years.

One of the longest-running opinions of mine that hasn't been disproved yet is that many people just don't really mature or age mentally, it seems; they just grow older, without accumulating much if any wisdom.

TLDR it's like Don't look up from 2020, but about the Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2024

The original picture (in Russian) critisizes the people's unwavering trust in authority, the childish belief that those in power are more capable in general and have some secret knowledge that makes their decisions properly weighed and correct, despite what the commonperson thinks (this, of course, does not apply to the out-group, like leaders of other nations).

The original was created shortly after the (bigger and overt) invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2024 by Russia. It's supposed to hyoerbole and show the desperate attempts to act like everything is actually okay or preserve the less-distressing routine, primarily taken as a severe coping mechanism. Change is scary, especially when it's so big and coming from an even bigger actor, and in many people, this results in this kind of defense where they try to suppress the irritant - in the case of the latest invasion of Ukraine, the people that oppose it and its perpetrators.

Feels weird seeing this as template in a completely different context, though. No offense.

This looks like a very classical and well-known case of executives copying each other.

That other company is doing layoffs and seems fine? Reports the line going up? Let's do it, too!

The guys across the street are already implementing AI? Investors love it? Let do it, too! We may have taken a risk with blockchain, but this one is just sure to work better for us!

The big name is going for the money, predator-style, and they're still afloat? Finally, we can cash out, too!

It's usually a place where you're not bombarding your brain with stimulation all the time, so your brain tries to use the downtime to work with all the information you've been putting into it.

This is actually a big part of learning anything, called diffused learning. Think of how you suddenly get something after a period of rest or not doing anything, some time after you've initially focused on a thing for some time - your brain has actually been using the downtime to structure the data and make better sense of it.

This is also why a lot of people that know how a human brain works suggest mediation and walks, especially without listening to music or podcasts, as well as spending little to no time reading, watching or stimulating your brain in any other way before bed. It needs that time, it's crucial for development. Journaling helps here, too, because it's both reflection and somewhat of a downtime.

Doing chores and not listening to anything counts, too.

But it's all easier said than done in this age of constant hunt for one's attention so they spend more time on your app, giving you more data to sell and more metrics to make the line go up (gotta keep the investors and stakeholders happy, can't afford to not show constant growth).

The suits did. You know, so the line goes up. Because we're all gonna die otherwise or something.

I think it's just true for the vast majority of countries, unfortunately. A country has to have a lot of things figured out and done right before it can regulate and train its police force so well that its population doesn't nearly universally agree with the ACAB sentiment. Or at least doesn't belive they're all incompetent.

i3 isn't a proper DE, though, but I definitely would go with that with that little RAM.

For strictly DEs, I'd pick XFCE - it's just lovely for what it demands.

Recommend anything to read on the matter? Sounds very interesting, but I'm afraid I may find some dubious material before striking anything good.

There are a lot of things illegal in Ukraine that are weird. One is dual citizenship;

Ukraine is, unfortunately, hardly a special case in that regard.

Looking at the most "powerful" passports around the world, you'll see that most of them tend to follow the same restriction, although some more exceptions, whether perfectly legal or just people being more laid-back.

I have no idea since when the same restriction is in place for the Ukrainian passport, but it would make sense to me if they imposed it after deciding to join the EU. Maybe without it, there would be a greater number of people potentially reaping the benefits of holding a member passport without having to contribute much?

I'm just grasping straws here, really.

It's probably a very late response, but I'll still leave it if you want it.

I honestly don't know what typical quality of live is or was ever has been. From my very own experience of someone who's making damn good money - not crazy good money, but damn good - I can tell you that life has gotten much more expensive. My lifestyle is something I think many people would consider enviable, because my expenses mostly come down to food and rent, with a lot of disposable income that, to my shame, is getting disposed all right.

Being a bit of a dreamer, I often imagine purchasing some stuff like real estate or a car because I've switched my lifestyle, or just pretend to be preparing to replace some things in my life. During these times, I look at the prices, and since that had already happened before time and time again, I can tell that the prices for everything have increased dramatically.

The prices, though, are one thing: what's more is the fact that the salaries haven't increased for most people, of course, and the ruble itself has plummeted down, devaluing everyone's salaries basically. The people who get paid in dollars or euros directly or simply receive equivalent sums in rubles are much better off on paper, of course, but that doesn't change the fact that the economy isn't doing well for the people; I don't really think it's doing well for the military either, to be honest.

Now, there's no empty shelves or any kind of shortages that you would notice in your regular life, but I'm saying this because I'm not in the market for anything that's now gone for decades, I believe. For example, various medications are either unaffordable now or are completely absent, with some substitutes taking their place; unfortunately, I don't know nearly enough as to tell you more here.

Another thing that's definitely taken a hit is choice: there's simply much less stuff to choose from now all across the market. That being said, there are some alternatives that have attempted to take the places of the goods that had left the market, but that cannot be said about every niche - and even more importantly, often you can't say the substitutes have the same quality as their predecessors, on multiple levels ranging from sheer product quality to support and service.

The weird conclusion is that it's kinda difficult to say that the country is on the brink of collapse, but you definitely can't say that the sanctions haven't done any damage to the economy and the quality of life here. The consequences, in my opinion, have been far from intended nonetheless, mostly because there are some aspects of dealing with Putin in particular and Russia as a whole that the people establishing and trying to enforce these sanctions simply couldn't have anticipated; to be fair, many people within Russia or deeply associating themselves with Russia couldn't have anticipated those aspects to play, for the lack of a better word, well in this situation.

Things are very complicated and difficult to forecast when it comes to such a scale, I believe.

Great questions, thank you. I'll try my best to stick to the point and provide answers that don't span paragraphs. I've already been accused of my very typical Russian tendency to write out lengthy sentences here.

What is your experience when talking to other people about your opinion? Do you think twice talking about that topic?

I think much more than twice before I indicate my position towards Putin, his government, or the war whenever I'm not talking to people I know I can trust. As important as it feels to "spread the word", it's just not safe to be display disloyalty towards the regime: some may tell the police about you (sometimes deliberately exaggerating to cause you more trouble), some may try and fight you, which sometimes ends really bad, and at the same time, sometimes it's just a very regular, easy conversation where you just share your opinions and go about your business, no harm done.

Sometimes, judging by what the people you're conversing with say and how they say it, you can tell whether they're capable of even thinking of doing anything nasty if you disagree and to what degree. It's still best to not risk it and steer away from that kind of talk with strangers or people you're not sure about yet.

How many people you know have a opinion like yours?

Like MINE? Probably just me alone, but I'm saying this because the topic itself already encompasses a lot of issues, like the international law, Crimea, decolonization, imperialistic complexes and ideas, patriotism, guilt, various traumas, and many other things. There's no way two people agree on everything - I've met people who are just as anti-war and anti-Putin and pro-west like me, very liberal or left-leaning and all, but can't even begin to imagine Russia having to pay reparations after the war; there's more: I personally know a person that wants all of it to end, like no Putin, no war type of attitude, but they seem to have something personal against Ukrainians, as if they actually hate them. It's very nuanced and complicated.

That being said, if we boil down my opinion to something as practical as "Out with Putin" and "No more war", then every single person I know would fall into that category: including the people from older generations, the ones that were most affected by the propaganda. Some of them are bitter about it, like they don't want the war to end with anything less than a total Russian military victory, a complete defeat and conquer of the entire Ukraine; some are much closer to me, thinking that the Russian army should just pack up and leave to the borders that were internationally established in 1991, so Crimea goes back to Ukraine as well..

So, in general, the people who want the war to go on are an actual minority. Everybody is tired of it, but each in their own way. I don't think anyone has been affected in a positive way, not after 2 full years of this: even pragmatically, we've all lost too much in both short- and long-term as a country, and even some of the "luckier" people who maybe got higher wages on their industrial facility because the demand has increased go to the same supermarkets and drug stores as I do, they go to the same hospitals, use the same infrastructure and all that, and they've surely suffered the consequences as much as anyone else, and even their (most likely temporary) material gains could never make up for, say, ruined international relationships, maybe ruined personal relationships, maybe dead relatives, and many other things.

Having said all that, I will also tell you this as a bonus: it's getting harder to disagree. Even the pro-war bloggers (the so called z-bloggers) are now getting the stick treatment for getting out of line; they used to think that they're the in-crowd and they have the free pass on reporting the real state of affairs, i.e. openly talking about problems, losses, incompetence, etc., but one thing a dictator can't have you do is steer away from the official line, as that hurts the narratives the propaganda is going for. The irony knows no bounds.

P.S. Still got lengthy and all, my apologies.

I still live in Russia and want to offer a bit of an optimistic perspective.

First of all, Putin and the officials siding with him one war or another have been fearmongering a war with Europe, the USA, or even the entire NATO for years already. Granted, they did the same with Ukraine prior to the invasion, but I doubt there's any decision-makers left in Russia that genuinely belive they can swing at NATO and expect anything else but a swift and painful defeat: the amount of resources dedicated to the current attempts to do anything in Ukraine would make it even harder to launch a new offensive, let alone defend anything.

Arguably, fighting Ukraine, Russia is still fighting mostly Ukraine, albeit with significant aid from its allies or at least Russia's opponents; as reluctant as the EU, the USA, or NATO (or some of their counterparts) may seem to ditch the political ratings for either coughing up more resources or even restructuring to produce them, one tendency of our species remains strong: we do act when it's about us, when it's seemingly too late. Ukraine, for now at least, probably doesn't feel like an integral part of Europe or NATO, maybe some even still believe the country to be that similar to Russia, which, combined, explains the rather cautious approach in terms of providing more lethal aid.

If Russia attacks, say, Moldova or Lithuania or Estonia or Latvia or Poland or Finland or anything else (other than Belarus, perhaps), nobody is ever going to think of it as of some kind of conflict between neighbors that somehow seems more complicated than it actually is (partly because both neighbors are slavs and tend to have somewhat nuanced, rather than obvious differences, I guess), and on top of that, any doubts like whether it's possible to wear the Russian army down by dripfeeding supplies to the ones that fight it, or whether Putin can be appeased, or whether Putin will calm down after "reclaiming actually historically Russian land", or anything like that - all of that is going out the window and people start acting, fast, with the combined might much greater than Russia is managing to muster now through elusive contraband military imports and making use of decades-old equipment and economical manipulations.

And in a conflict like that, who's going to side with Russia, against the much bigger dog of NATO? Anyone who joins on the Russia's side gets at the very least sanctioned to smithereens in the event of an actual war, and neither China nor India can have that; some of the dictatorships from the middle east may try, but I doubt they'd want to give NATO a proper excuse.

Putin is a gopnik and understands only the language of clubs and stones - the powers that Putin chose to call his enemies not only have bigger and meaner clubs and stones, but have more of them, and have the means to get even more. He might have attempted something had he actually conquered and held Ukraine, but not after this kind of reality check; he's back to being the strong wife-beating alcoholic that sits tight when a real threat looks his way.