> It isn't extremist to have a view that differs from official bellicose state department positions
No, what's extremist is that if it were up to you, you'd throw 40 million people under the bus for your love of Putin and hatred of - who knows what - maybe the U.S. government, maybe western democracy.
Importantly, you share a key characteristic of all extremists (as opposed to radicals, which are very different): a love of Dark Side Epistemology, which enables ceaseless devotion to the lowest rungs of The Thinking Ladder.
You’re libertarian? Please. Libertarians believe in freedom. (What sort of freedom will people get under Putin’s military occupation?)
> stop watching mainstream news reports about the war
95% of my information does not come from Mainstream news reports. When this all started I chose to follow information sources used by superforecasters like Clay Graubard, one of the few people who clearly saw that Putin was about to invade. My starting point: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/ukraine-warcasting?s=r
My rule is that people who can accurately predict the future usually know what they're talking about. Here are a whole bunch of other sources for you to ignore: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/open-thread-220/comment/6101885?s=r
It doesn't matter. I know your kind. Climate science dismissives, nuclear power haters, "woke" anti-genetic science people, 9/11 truthers, anti-evolutionists, anti-vaxxers, my uncle who died of Covid, my father... you're all the same. Sure, each of you have a different personality (https://dpiepgrass.medium.com/kinds-of-agw-skeptic-c5375e990fbe) but I've been watching y'all for years and you all sing the same melody (with different words). A few years back, I wrote a 3-part series on your type. You're endlessly fascinating because studying you is, in some ways, like studying chimpanzees. Just as you cannot ask a Chimpanzee a question in English and expect an answer, I cannot ask you any questions at the meta level and expect meta-level answers. Thus you always offer an aura of mystery, the world’s most annoying aura of mystery.
Probably you lack any map-territory distinction. Your map says "there was a coup", so there was a coup. Because of course there was! "Beliefs require evidence" was never among your life lessons.
You never studied Dark Side Epistemology explicitly; like others of your kind, you picked up on the dark arts organically, and you will never stop. Or at least, across all the world I know of zero examples of your kind changing their behavior. Former Flat Earther STST on YouTube changed his mind, but when he was a flat earther he didn't behave the way you do. Former climate science skeptic Jerry Taylor (founder of the Niskanen Center) changed his mind about global warming, but when he was a skeptic, he didn't behave the way you do. My father's anti-vax bullshit will probably never go away, but there is hope, because even he doesn't behave the way you do (but in some ways he does, so the hope is very faint indeed).
The map is not the territory. Your map says Putin will get everything he wants (outward confidence: 100%), but what Putin wanted (and still wants) is to take over all of Ukraine. There is (virtually) zero chance of that.
This time next year, Putin will control less of Ukraine's land area than he does today (edit: or about the same, but that’s less likely)(confidence: ~88%)… and I'll be here to say "I told you so" - and if you respond to me at all, it will only be to keep claiming Putin will win.
Why will Putin lose? Simple: because this time, Western governments ignored your kind.
