I absolutely agree with Zelenskyy that Ukraine is justified in hitting Russian oil infrastructure and military infrastructure, until the Russian military withdraws entirely from Ukraine.

Unfortunately though there are tankies on Lemmy who believe that every single Ukrainian is an evil Nazi who deserves to be murdered by the benevolent Russian regime. That’s why I asked “do you agree”.

I definitely prefer my card wherever possible. Just tap it on the card reader and you’re done. No change jangling around in your pocket. And you can see all your transactions in your banking app later on to see exactly where you’ve spent money. I want cash to stick around though because some people don’t like using cards.

Russia and China are not going to give up nukes any time soon. If the US under a future president decided to try and negotiate disarmament to eliminate all nukes then that might work. I think that’s the only way Russia or China would give up nukes. Until then I think Europe should keep nukes as a deterrent.

So yes, multilateral disarmament could work, and could prevent lots more countries from building nukes. I don’t think unilateral disarmament is a good idea though.

If you want all countries to give up their nukes then I would agree with that. Perhaps the US could theoretically achieve a world without nukes if they threatened sanctions against countries who keep nukes.

But in reality, if the UK gives up its nukes, no other country will do so. I think Europe should possess nukes for the foreseeable future. Like I said before, if Europe dismantles its nukes, all it would mean is that the US, China, and Russia would suddenly have a lot of leverage over Europe.

You think Russia wants peace? Russia has been invading Ukraine since 2014. They launched a war against their neighbour so they could grab its land and subjugate its people. It’s imperialism, and who knows when Russia will decide to stop.

Actually yes there are some people in Russia who want peace, and who protested against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Such protests in Russia get you arrested though.

I think the sad reality is that countries without nuclear weapons are at the mercy of nations with nuclear weapons. What would be gained if the UK and France, for example, were to get rid of their nukes? There’s absolutely no chance that the US/Russia/China will get rid of theirs. So then those countries would have a massive amount of leverage over Europe.

kill millions at the push of a button

I definitely hope nukes are not used. But the threat of vast destruction might be the only threat that the world’s authoritarian leaders are afraid of. If those leaders are afraid of nothing then they could launch their own terrible weapons at civilians across the world.

I think we can fire them without US approval. Sure it’s a problem that the UK is reliant on US missiles to deliver British nukes. France is in a better situation because they have French missiles for their nukes - they’re not dependent on foreign missiles.

Maybe the solution then is to develop British or European missiles and bombs for British nukes, rather than scrap Britain’s nukes altogether.

I think I prefer the Lib Dems and Labour (when they can get their act together) to the Greens. One thing I dislike about the Greens is this policy:

Elected Greens will… immediately begin the process of dismantling our nuclear weapons, cancelling the Trident programme

I think the UK should keep its nukes for now, given that we are threatened by Russia. In the future we could be threatened by China and even the US.

Yeah I guess they see it as the plucky underdog of Russia taking on the decadent oppressive behemoth of the West. Invading Ukraine isn’t taking on the West though. It’s just Putin’s attempt to subjugate Ukrainians to the will of Moscow.

Surely you would agree that some countries are more authoritarian than others?

This reminds me of talking to tankies on Lemmy, which is probably a futile endeavour.

For example, they seem to think that Russia’s imperialist invasion of Ukraine is justified. They think that Russia murdering Ukrainians with missiles and drones is justified. I can tell them that these actions are wrong, but they won’t listen.

I see okay, thanks for your view. Yes Sweden and Poland don’t use the euro but that’s due to a loophole, whereas Denmark has a legal exception to joining the euro. Maybe the UK could use the Sweden/Poland loophole but the EU might try to close it, I don’t know.

Anyway, I expect the UK will just slowly get closer to the EU over the coming years. Rejoining probably won’t be a possibility for at least a few years. At that point, maybe the euro will be less controversial among Brits.

I like the idea of Mecha Attenborough. I hope the technology for this will be discovered soon.

In any case, in Ireland it seems that the public elect their president, but in Germany it’s parliamentarians who elect the president. So the Irish model would be more obviously democratic. And they use ranked voting for this, so that should make controversial candidates less likely to win.

Good point, my mistake. Russia does have a larger population than any European country though of course, I guess I was thinking of that.

Actually I have a question if you don’t mind, since you’re from a Danish Lemmy instance. How do you view the euro? Because Denmark is the only EU country with a legal opt-out from the euro, right? I guess if I were Danish I would think it’s pretty nice to enjoy the benefits of the EU without being obliged to join the euro.

If the UK were to rejoin the EU (possible in the coming decades) then I bet the euro would be a sticky issue, because I think it has traditionally been unpopular in the UK, while the EU would probably require at least a nominal promise to adopt the euro.

My impression of the Tories and Reform is that they want the UK to forever be a lapdog of the US. Perhaps it would be better for the UK to reduce our dependence on the US and instead increase our ties with our European allies. A friendship between the UK and any European country - even Germany, the largest European economy - is more of a partnership of equals, which can obviously not be said about UK-US relations (I wouldn’t count Russia as the largest European economy because Russia is Eurasian).

Fuck off

If you’re incapable of having a rational discussion then what’s the point in saying anything? All you’re signalling is that you’re a moron.

I think Ireland and Germany have good systems. Both of them have a president who is mostly ceremonial, like our monarch. The real power lies with the heads of government (taoiseach in Ireland, chancellor in Germany), who are equivalent to the UK prime minister.

I think you’re right. Surely the solution is to oppose all discrimination on the basis of ethnicity or religion, whether it’s discrimination against Jews, or Muslims, or Christians, or Hindus, or black people, or white people, etc.

As I said previously, I definitely prefer secular states with full freedom of religion and freedom of belief. On the question of ethnicity, I hope all countries will treat people as individuals (regardless of ethnicity), rather than discriminate on the basis of ethnicity.

But I just think that if you assume that all supporters of “a country for Jewish people” are scum then surely you’d also have to say that all supporters of “a country for Muslim people” are scum too. I think quite a lot of people in the world support the existence of explicitly Muslim states, but I don’t think all those people are “scum”.

It might be fair to call Netanyahu scum though, as well as Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich.

Judaism can be converted to, right? So it’s not just an ethnicity.

Therefore if you think “a country for Jewish people” is very bad then what about “a country for Muslim people”? Is everyone who supports the existence of Saudi Arabia or Iran “scum”, for example?

My position is that supporting the existence of a religious country doesn’t necessarily make a person “scum”. I wouldn’t fully agree with the views of such people (since I prefer secular countries with full freedom of religion and belief) but I’m not going to regard them all as “scum”.