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[Owlbread]

You've got to love the Russian government and their wacky approach to the Caucasus.

[Another]

My dad was working for the Georgian government at the time, so I followed it pretty closely. Fact is the Russian "peacekeepers" had been breaching the terms of the ceasefire for a long time, going as far as letting Ossetian militias shell Georgian positions from within the peacekeeper's base, and also moving in more and more troops and stuff.

And the evidence is?

The aftermath is one thoroughly bombed Ossetian city and that happened before the Russian army arrived.

[Guardian G.I.]

Well, not in the case of a Russian annexation of part of Estonia to "protect their citizens" (citizens that can be conveniently manufactured by distributing Russian passports to russophone Estonians).

The days of large scale, total war between big blocks are over. Doesn't mean we don't need protections against smaller conflicts.

Putin don't have the balls to do that. Attacking Estonia automatically starts the war with the rest of the NATO member states.
Russia barely defends itself, and starting WW3 is the last thing that Russia needs to do at the moment.

[Digital Hellhound]

I had a dream last night where Russia and the US had fought a nuclear war while I was asleep... but the strange thing was that the only thing I could think about was; 'Hah! This'll show the fools in Sheb's European Politics Megathread who thought Putin would never attack the West! The fools!'

I was terribly disappointed when I realized there hadn't been a nuclear war above Europe and that I had nothing to gloat about.

[Loud Whispers]

I had a dream last night where Russia and the US had fought a nuclear war while I was asleep... but the strange thing was that the only thing I could think about was; 'Hah! This'll show the fools in Sheb's European Politics Megathread who thought Putin would never attack the West! The fools!'

I was terribly disappointed when I realized there hadn't been a nuclear war above Europe and that I had nothing to gloat about.

Don't worry, maybe the world'll end tomorrow and everything will be just fine.

[Guardian G.I.]

Russians can't attack the West. They are too busy preparing for the upcoming invasion by Western powers that can begin any day.
Those goddamn Western backstabbing imperialist savages have been preparing for it for decades!

[PTTG??]

Spoiler: Re: End of the world (click to show/hide)

There's like four ways the world could end in the next five decades:

Low Probability: Nuclear avalanche starting in a hot spot like pakistan-india. It'd be bad but localized ...ish.

Moderate Probability: Total economic collapse triggered by a major currency collapse. Possibly the dollar, possibly the Euro. The Euro's more likely, the dollar would be worse.

High probability: Techtonic event such as a VERY big pacific rim earthquake or a volcanic eruption. Luckily it'd only hurt coastal areas. Still, it's likely to happen within the next thirty years on San Andreas. It'd probably make things worse for Japan. I'll lump a second Fukishima-region wave or earthquake, which would upgrade it from "Serious" to "As bad as people thought it would be initially".

Downright Certain: Methane hydrate release from the Arctic Ocean seabed. It's pretty much definite. We're going to lose the ice cap, then the subsea permafrost is going to melt in large regions, then the methane is going to escape, then the climate will warm a lot and rapidly, then... well, we don't know what'll happen when we're rapidly warming due to uncontrolled methane release, but it definitely won't cause it to start raining chocolate. Probably a massive oceanic extinction, thought we'll probably keep ocean photosynthesizers (they've been through a lot, they can handle that), we will probably have no hope of feeding people from the oceans. I'm not even going to go into continental biospheres, but given that we're already going to lose polar/panda bears, tigers, rhinos, elephants, and bees, I don't know how a major climate change event's going to make things much worse. Anyway, the upside is that Antarctica will lose a lot of land ice and might get more precipitation, so it might be semi-habitable. So there's that.

Feel free to ignore that. I just wanted to mention that in response to Loud Whispers. What I really wanted to say is, if this is the right thread, why do Europeans seem to hate Gypsies/Roma so much? I've gotten a LOT of people upset at me by insisting that it's very, very reminiscent of various Central European historical figures of the 1930s and 40s to violently despise Roma people and insist that they are responsible for all of Europe's ills. I'm told I'm an ignorant American who doesn't know anything about Gypsies, and I tell them that it doesn't matter who hates who, if you're hating an entire people for the (alleged) actions of a few, then you are literally doing the exact same things that made Hitler a bad person and Germany prone to his influence.

First you hate the Gypsies, then the Jews. Then the scholars (who protested the hatred) and the pacifists (and especially the scholarly Jewish pacifists), then the Poles, the Catholics (or the Atheists), then...

[Andrew425]

Feel free to ignore that. I just wanted to mention that in response to Loud Whispers. What I really wanted to say is, if this is the right thread, why do Europeans seem to hate Gypsies/Roma so much? I've gotten a LOT of people upset at me by insisting that it's very, very reminiscent of various Central European historical figures of the 1930s and 40s to violently despise Roma people and insist that they are responsible for all of Europe's ills. I'm told I'm an ignorant American who doesn't know anything about Gypsies, and I tell them that it doesn't matter who hates who, if you're hating an entire people for the (alleged) actions of a few, then you are literally doing the exact same things that made Hitler a bad person and Germany prone to his influence.

First you hate the Gypsies, then the Jews. Then the scholars (who protested the hatred) and the pacifists (and especially the scholarly Jewish pacifists), then the Poles, the Catholics (or the Atheists), then...

I don't quite know why but I thinknit is how they are perceived as squatters in many parts of the west and don't contribute much to the public coffers. Which would be ok as individuals but since this group can be ethically categorized and once you have that stereotype its hard to get rid of it.

Though this is coming from a Canadian who doesn't really know much about it and could be completely wrong.

[scriver]

The Roma are hated for exactly the same reason as the Jews were, that is, because. Except the Roma are/were even less accepted than Jews, and as such had to resort to crimes to survive (the three career lines Roma had to choose from in Sweden were criminal, travelling horse-breeder, or travelling tinker and knife-sharpener. Of course, their horses were always bad and they were trying to cheat you (so it was okay to cheat them back, pay underprice or even refuse to pay them at all).

So yeah, not surprising to anyone, the Roma ended up having to resort to crime a lot, which made the whole stereotype a circle and self-fulfilling prophesy ("He's a thief so I'm going to force him to steal to survive"), and over time, parts Roma culture became very intertwined with criminal behaviour. Compare to gang-culture in the US. Attempts have been made, up here in the north at least, to break this circle, but Roma are very suspicious and even hateful of government officials and organisations by now, and understandably so after having been treated like shit by every government for the last ~300 years - including the decades when racial biology dominated and Roma were forcefully neutered and had their children stolen and replaced into "proper" families in order to keep the race clean. In central and eastern European countries they're still often forced (not officially, of course, but the Roma knows what happens to those who step out of line) to live in ghettos outside the actual towns, and in poverty, with all the problems that automatically brings.

So it's a complicated situation, but their hate of Roma are definitely exactly the same as antisemitism. Remember, Hitler didn't like Roma either - they burned in the camps just as well as the Jews did.

And yeah, don't call them gypsies. It's the same as calling Jews "kikes" or "heebs".

[Digital Hellhound]

Seems to me that everybody thinks they're Romanians (as it's 'Romani' here), atleast in Finland, which annoys me to no end. This bothers me mainly because Romanians are just as racist as hateful towards them as the rest of us.

[scriver]

Roma and Romani can be used interchangeably and is their own words for their people. In Swedish we say Romani (or rather Rommani) and it's the word I usually use, but I changed it to Roma since my English spellchecker didn't like Romani.

I'm not 100% sure on the reason why they call themselves that, but a simple conclusion to draw would be is that it was because they stopped by Romania before they ventured on further into Europe, and the name stuck.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Just be glad that there aren't many people who still call themselves Romans, or else this would be even more confusing.

[scriver]

And yeah, don't call them gypsies. It's the same as calling Jews "kikes" or "heebs".

I think it also varies by locale. Here, 'Gypsie' tends to be par-for-the-course, with 'Pikey' being somewhat derogatory. We do have more insulting phrases, but I'm kinda unsure as to whether or not it would be suitable.

Doesn't matter. "Zigenare" used to be "par-for-the-course" in Sweden too, didn't change the fact that it was derogatory and insulting to Roma. "Heeb", "kike", "gook" and "nigger" used to be just fine to say as well, you know. That there's even more offensive words for Romani ("pikey") doesn't change that "gypsie" is derogatory too.

Also, doesn't "pikey" refer to the "Irish travellers"?

[GlyphGryph]

I think it also varies by locale. Here, 'Gypsie' tends to be par-for-the-course, with 'Pikey' being somewhat derogatory. We do have more insulting phrases, but I'm kinda unsure as to whether or not it would be suitable.

Just because it's par for the course doesn't mean it's not derogatory. Sometimes being derogatory is just par-for-the-course. As scriver commented, 'nigger' is par for the course in many places in the US, and it's still so despite intentionally being derogatory in those places.

[ChairmanPoo]

There's an undeniable social problem whithin the gypsy community, TBH, which is only made worse by the prevailing racism.  I think the closest analogy to explain the situation to non-European would be to make an analogy to immigrant ghettos. They're both marginalized and stigmatized social groups, in which racism from outside and "us vs them" mentality feed back each other, making the whole situation worse.