As an eastern European who knows what it’s like to have an angry belligerent neighbour next door, I feel for you. I don’t have much to offer other than hoping you and yours continue to be ok, and hoping that nearby countries in similar situations can organize somewhat to help eachother.

I’d be very interested in more recent stuff. As I mentioned, the last time I seriously looked at this was 3 years ago, in the opening stages of the war. It’s very possible that new methods have been developed, people’s opinions have changed over time, or both. If you could possibly throw me some links to more recent papers, I’d greatly appreciate it!

It’s really hard to find on Google considering this was an academic paper from 3 years ago, but generally the big problem with polling in Russia is that for obvious reasons Russians are scared to give their honest opinions. If asked over the phone what they think of Putin, every politically neutral Russian and even some anti-Putin activists will say they approve.

From memory, the methodology they used was to give 3 propositions unrelated to Putin (less contentious policy decisions) and the respondents were only asked how many of the statements they agreed with, not which ones. Then they did the same thing again with 4 propositions (4th one being if they approve of Putin), then a 3rd time (this time with the 4th one being if they disapprove). With those 3 datasets, you can then essentially subtract the 3 unrelated propositions from the 4th one they actually cared about, all without requiring the respondent to actually state their opinion on the phone.

Is this situation the same for support for Trump in the US?

I haven’t gone too in-depth into this, but a quick search show a 50/50 split in favorable vs unfavorable opinions of Trump. Last time I took a look, serious pollsters who found interesting ways of measuring support for Putin in Russia without endangering those participating found generally a 33/33/33 split between those in favor of Putin, those against, and those with no opinion (part of the intentional depoliticizing of the Russian population).

So, I guess it’s vaguely accurate to say there’s more people that dislike Trump in the US compared to Putin in Russia, but also more people that like him.

It’s gonna be interesting watching to see if all the “All Russian people are complicit because they don’t rise up and kick Putin out” crowd actually put their money where their mouths are and show them how it’s done, or if it was all bluster.

To be clear, I hope it’s the former but I think it’s the latter.

The thing is, they can’t. It’s a unified market. Any tarrif against Denmark is by definition a tarrif against the EU.

What about those on the periphery, with minimal protection from the state both before and after the fall? For them, the only real difference was the tax collector stopped showing up.

Please don’t take this as analogous to the modern day in any way. A modern village/town will break down rapidly without access to modern logistics, which was not the case then.

We already started during this year. No sane leader trusted in a coin flip to guarantee our security. A possible Trump presidency was planned for.

The optimistic alternative is EU countries scale up their military production and cover the gap. We were already seeing a ramp up, but it’ll have to accelerate.

Downside for the US is later down the line, exports will go down as the EU will have more domestic manufacturing.

This is more about ramping up domestic arms production to fill the gap that is going to come from US production no longer going to Ukraine.

The funniest part is that in one of his dialogue trees, he reveals that he’s never actually been to the Semenine islands and his whole understanding of Semenese culture is based on stuff he’s read and heard on the radio. He legitimately has no real understanding of the culture he presents as superior, and no place in it.

I think Brexit has also been a significant factor in making UK way more xenophobic.

Personally, I don’t think it’s made the UK more xenophobic. A decent percentage of people supported Brexit due to xenophobia, and the success of the referendum made them more outspoken. Basically, Brexit is a symptom of xenophobia rather than the other way around.

"I’m another day older and deeper in debt.’

https://youtu.be/E5VMZqgVzRo

I knew exactly what song that’d go to, clicked on it anyway, was not disappointed. Love that song.

It’s a confirmed fact they ordered troops in fallback lines to shoot any fleeing Russian troops trying to pull back on some of the fronts.

Technically yes, but I don’t mean technology as phones/laptops/tablets/etc. Imho, the biggest factor in social isolation is atomization due to bad urban planning. When everything and anything is only accessible by car, you lose any connection with your local neighbourhood and local stores/cafes/etc.

In environments where people walk around the neighbourhood, doing small daily shops, going to local businesses and taking mass transit to work/school/restaurants/bars, then you’re much more likely to interact with people rather than driving around in your social isolation-mobile.

Urban planning can be considered a form of technology, which is why I said technically yes.

EDIT: Oh, another big factor here is the loss of the third place. It still exists in some places (local pubs in British towns, local coffee shop in Portugal, etc), but in places without a socially normal “hangout spot” that is separated from both home and work/school, it’s much harder to meet acquaintances which may in time become friends.

Those look like 3 random people to me. I’m not seeing the caricature. For them to not be caricatures, what would you expect them to look like?

They tried protesting at oil infrastructure, they stopped multiple oil terminals in the UK being used for weeks and caused shortages in various parts of the UK. Hundreds went to prison and everyone forgot about it after a week.

They throw soup at glass, 2 people go to a police station for a few days and people are still talking about it months later.

Unfortunately, they have to exist within the constraints of modern news media, outrage cycles and social media, and that influences their decisions.

Except when they did protests targeted at oil infrastructure, that was still apparently wrong and got far less coverage than much safer stunts like these.

Works for floors!

Blink-blink-blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink-blink-blink.

No, I don’t have something in my eyes, I swear I’m fine looks nervously at boss.