The Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the psychology of the Putin - continues to boggle my mind... and also it doesn't. The man said he'd do something and well... because of who he is and how Russian macho culture works... he's gotta carry it out. But all they're doing is capturing shitty villages that are usually bombed to pieces and scorched earth, expending enormous amounts of men and material in the process. Why not develop some of the insane landmass they already have? - They need an external enemy to distract from their problems. Otherwise their own people would revolt. - The losses don't cost Putin much personally (opportunity cost though? Could be tax slaves). - He's already committed. Can't lose face. Russia kidnaps Ukrainian children, leaves nothing but destruction behind. Such a ridiculous regime. Mention a Russian original invention or export product apart from shit they pull from the ground? One? Lada Niva? That's literally all I'm aware of. They have no originality. They cannot create. Would-be inventors in Russia emigrate. In Russia they'd be faced with the so-called "bandit problem" — any profitable invention would be robbed by whoever wields coercive power. Very similar ordeal in China. Mention an original Chinese invention? There's likely to be some, but none comes to my mind. What they can do is take Western IP and mass produce it. It's what happens in these fascist/totalitarian mass conformity/compliance systems. No incentive to create — the state will take it from you. And no minds to create — their people are raised as ants. Raised to be obedient mass minds, not divergent individuals. Mention a significant Chinese or Russian invention... one? - Cars? Nope - Nuclear stuff? Nope - Communism? Nein (but they were stupid enough to implement) - Jets? Nope - First spaceship to moon? Debated (but probably nope) - Computers? Nope - Operating systems? Nope - The internet? Nope - Phones? Nope - Search engines? Nope - GPUs/cloud computing? Nope - Reusable spacecraft? Also nope - LLM/AI? You guessed it... nope - First Market ready EV? Drum roll... Nope - First Quantum computer? We'll see And don't even get me started on their weird ally... North Korea. Literally run their economy on nuclear extortion and digital theft. Oh and broken artillery shells sold to russia. I'm not saying there aren't absolutely brilliant individuals from these countries, much smarter than myself. But they likely don't stay in these countries, do they? We westernes have our VERY fair share of issues (hello surveillance capitalism). But compared to what else is out there...? Damn, I'd rather be born here than anywhere else. We need to get our shit together in the West. We have been decaying. We have had a lot of bad neoliberal ideas (comparative cost advantage aka outsourcing slavery to china). But we still have a lot worth fighting for. We've led the world because of innovation. We partly have innovation due to rule of law and civil rights preventing the bandit problem. Why become dependent on a system that lacks all that? We are the last stand against the world turning into a nightmare. Our primary strategic advantage - creativity.