There's no reliable evidence that Neanderthals were less intelligent than modern humans. They're extinct now (except for a tiny genetic legacy in some human populations) but that could have happened for a variety of reasons unrelated to intelligence or lack thereof.
Sure you can. It would mostly VBA and not using much of the spreadsheet part, but it's totally possible to do with native VBA code. No plug-ins needed, although you might have to cheat a bit with Win32 API calls depending on exact functionality.
Within 5 years (maybe less) a frontier LLM will be capable of completely cloning Excel based on Microsoft's product documentation. And I mean starting from scratch, not using the messy Libreoffice code base.
An if/then statement or random number generator in Java can make decisions autonomously. Heck, the US military has deployed fully autonomous weapons since at least 1979 (long before LLMs existed).
Right, so the hope is that eventually Putin will either die of natural causes or be deposed in an internal coup / revolution. And then maybe his successor will be more reasonable. Until then there's no way to end the war.
Check how many power plants, how many dams, how many book producing facilities, how many theatres are being destroyed by each side. It's clear who has started a new round and continue genocidal war. Russians had tried to erase Ukrainian etnic identity for centuries.
Yes, Russia is bad. The point is that they don't have much capability remaining to escalate beyond what they're already doing. So the war will grind on indefinitely.
Russian certainly seems to be escalating by way of presumed attacks against NATO states to test the alliances resolve in attempting to show the response is weak, goal is to undermine NATO's own trust in itself (each other)
Depending on how you consider escalation, their preference pivot from one-way drones to ballistic missiles can be considered one
The blog you linked to links to NY Post[0] and it links to "New Voice of Ukraine", whatever it is, but the link leads to the article about Ukrainian journalist and some other women who were not allowed to stay in a bomb shelter in Kiev.
Maybe you can come up with an actual source? If it exists, of course.
There are rumors about mobilization, but Russia will almost certainly have to if Putin wishes to continue taking land.
They are growing their drone divisions - and Russia cares less about equipping storm troopers. They still have elite units with good kit, but not necessary for most. Russia fights wars differently from the West, they give up land and blood for time. Works better when they are the one being attacked (eg. napoleon, hitler), but likely applies here in a stalemate like situation.
Another point of growth for Russia is the ballistic missiles, for which Ukraine has no good answer at the moment :/ We should really be enabling Ukraine's domestic production of a PAC like interceptor, but Trump will forever dislike Zelenskyy, re: the phone call
There are always rumors about mobilization, but the issue remains that doing so would bring the war home to the Russian middle class in a way that would lead to at best, another massive flight from the country. You can say "They'd shut the borders", but even if Russia were tiny it's also too corrupt to make that stick. It would also be a blow to what's left of their economy and productivity, including war-critical industry.
All of that would get them... what? Manpower is needed, but nothing would happen with a massed infantry charge except a mass slaughter, no one is doing that on the front anymore. It's all trenches, artillery, drones, infiltration units with high mobility and a low signature. Russia also hasn't magically grown a ton of fuel, vehicles, weapons and logistics so this really would be throwing warm bodies directly into a grave.
The ballistic missile issue is there you're right, but their current production rate is about ~60 per month and while that's awful, it's not going to change any outcomes. If murdering people in Kyiv and taking out grain silos was going to deter Ukraine it would have happened a long time ago. Ukraine seems to be aware that this is an existential issue for them, which makes sense given what the Russians have done and said to express an intention to ethnically cleanse Ukraine.
All of that together, and Ukraine's increasing ability to strike deep within Russia, taking out their refinery capacity, denying their shipping, etc... why would they stop? Russia would only adapt their AD network, EW, re-arm, and then keep going. This *already happened in 2014* so it's hardly hypothetical.
IMO a lot of people here talk a lot about what they know very little about beyond surface-level readings of news articles, all because they're smart enough to code. That's insane.
Russian troops in some forward areas are already literally starving because the logistics system is so broken. There's no point in sending a lot more troops beyond the quantity necessary to replace attribution losses if they can't keep them supplied. Even Russians can't fight indefinitely on an empty stomach.
> IMO a lot of people here talk a lot about what they know very little about beyond surface-level readings of news articles, all because they're smart enough to code. That's insane.
You might reflect on this with some of the claims you have made here w.r.t. perspectives on Russian capabilities. Western experts like WotR, CSIS, and ISW hold different opinions and warn about common under-estimations
It’s a grinding war that’s taking g countless lives and displacing millions of others, it’s an economic and environmental disaster. I’m not underestimating the ability of Russia to do harm to Ukraine, but one of the more instructive facts is just how slow any movement on the front line has been. Ukraine has substantial external support, Russia does not. None of that changes the ability of Russia to harm Ukraine, but when you consider Ukraine’s emerging capabilities it isn’t hard to see that it’s a two-way street now.
I don't think that the US would attack Russia as retaliation for a nuclear strike against Ukraine. But the US would probably step up aid to Ukraine. And more importantly, nuclear escalation would likely trigger economic sanctions by key neutral trading partners such as India.
While I support aiding Ukraine, your comment doesn't make much sense. There has been only a small amount of bilateral weapons trade between Russia and Iran. The drones and missiles that Iran is using lately are mostly domestically manufactured with some key components imported from China.
Maybe. But another possibility is a repeat of what happened in 1918 with the Russian central government falling to a violent revolution followed what was essentially a surrender in WWI. That's not necessarily the most likely outcome — but one can hope.
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