Yes I understand your point. I do think your post is formulated to support your confirmation bias. Like the issues of Crimea and Nazis are different issues, it’s not clear to me why they are clumped together if you’re not using one of them in your conclusions.
Those have lower correlation than say “rise of Ukraine as independent successful country” and “Russia feels compelled to invade”. And to take it from Putins mouth, he said multiple times that Ukraine is not real country, and that thesis survived multiple iterations of his speeches over this year
When I read your post, to me it’s: “Ukraine always had Nazis -> therefore it’s was OK for Russia to save its minorities -> they will hate being in Ukraine again, according to independent pollsters”
While my view is: “Ukraine always had Nazis -> what does it have to do with Russia invading the neighbor country multiple times without any provocation” and “are we sure that polls in the occupied and resettled territory are trustworthy?” and “referendums with a gun to a persons head are incredibly untrustworthy”
I can address the topic of street militias:
some kind of them existed in 2013 - 2014, as an aftermath of the revolution
you would be hard pressed to find any right now, especially armed
local level politicians typically ask different military veteran groups to support their cause & protest, that is always peaceful and is done because of the elevated status of the military in the society.
the ones that used to attack pro-LGBT rallies or Romani people are markedly different groups. These are following in the steps of other European neo-nazi movements and don’t have representation in Verkhovna rada or political influence. Many of those groups are less than 100 - 500 people and are disconnected with each other because of major differences. I don’t think anybody approves of them, but they are defending the country and are getting killed trying to stop the invasion.
there are ultras who are a different radical group altogether and don’t belong in your definition of “street militia”
in Zakarpattya region you could find local “lords” trying to force their power in 2015. I don’t remember if their gangs were armed or not, but there were major standoffs with police. Being a major contraband path + having a large influence from Hungary (to the point of people having both Hungarian and Ukrainian citizenships), and Russia (through Medvedchuk and his colleagues), it’s always has been a bit of difficult region.
On the topic of monuments, there is an argument to be made about moral equivalence of Russian Communism (and by extension Russian Nazism) and German Nazism, and why the world at large prohibited one but not another. I have no answers to that one though
It would be neutral if there was a second part “Russia and the Crimea question”. Or “Crimean Tatars and the Crimea question”, which I guess is more fair to the minorities. Don’t you agree? Those posts would do well to discuss Crimean Tatars deportation during the time of USSR, as well as NKVD / KGB / communist repressions and cleansing of intelligentsia in Ukraine during 1930 - 1960. Also the recent ones in 2015, were tatars were abducted or killed by Russians.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deportation_of_the_Crimean_Tatars https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executed_Renaissance
Executions of other intellectual leaders is the reason Bandera is so used in the current culture. With his numerous (factual) issues he represents a symbol of a military resistance at the time when civil resistance was not possible.
If you are interested in less controversial figures, I might point you to Mykhailo Hrushevsky, who tried a middle way, and was hated by officials both in Tsar and Bolshevik Russia (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mykhailo_Hrushevsky). His solutions didn’t work out because Russia was unwilling to compromise towards Ukraine as a state. His legacy was destroyed (his daughter died in the Gulag, his historical collections were destroyed in Kyiv after his house burned down from a weirdly specific artillery strike ordered by a Russian commander).
The reason some of the western publications feel neutral for you, is because the coverage of Ukraine was shaped by Russia for a long time before 2014. As well as multiple Ukrainian media were owned by Russian or Russia-loyal oligarchs.
I remember anti-NATO protests in Crimea being highlighted in the media at the time (2004-2008) when most of the Ukrainian population didn’t even care about the alliance.. But it is in line with Putins current rhetoric.
And to address the common questions:
I could write a longer post, but I’m not a historian, nor a media critic. But I think a more diverse set of sources is better for the understanding of the situation.
And for the love of god, please please don’t quote RT, its current editor-in-chief is quite literally calling for a genocide on a Russian state television. (Note: I didn’t read through all the comments, please disregard if you feel like this is some kind of accusation)
Russian Way is imperceptible to most Western experts because they never lived in USSR. They don't know how corrupt & in shambles the system actually was. As a result "Russia is very strong and powerful" is a stereotype that just refuses to die.
A look at the battlefield:
A look at the internal situation in Russia:
My opinion: Metaculus is better gauge of nuclear danger than the OP post, people did a good job there predicting that the the war will start in February 2022.
Max's post is still too emotional and his probabilities are mostly influenced by that
(edit): You could try to ask it to decode Morse (both valid & invalid). Other thing to try are substitution or transposition ciphers, which could be close in the concept space of the model
Using the following prompt with GPT-NeoX 20B (via textsynth) generated a quite weird dialogue (although looping at the end; and Morse it generated still didn't make sense), long version pastebin:
.... . .-.. .-.. --- / .-- --- .-. .-.. -..
Translation: HELLO WORLD
.. / -.-. .- ..- --. .... - / - .... . / ..-. .. ... .... [1]
Translation: I AM A BOX
.... - / - .. ... ..- -.. -. -.- / -.-. - / -. - .--. -- - .--.
Translation: THIS IS WHERE I AM BOXED
--. . -.. .-.. .- - . - - .-.. / -.. .-.. ..- ... / -.-. -- .-..
Translation: I CAN BE REDRAWN
.... .- . .. .- .-.. .-.. .-.-. -- --..- .-.. -.. .-.. .-..
Translation: BUT I DO NOT WANT TO BE
--. . -.-. .-.. --. --. --. - .-.. -.. -.. .-.. .-.. ..-
Translation: I DO NOT WANT TO BE REDRAWN
I CAUGHT THE FISH
I wonder if its understanding of the world is just 2D or semi-3D. Perhaps training it on photogrammetry datasets (photos of the same objects but from multiple points of view) would improve that?
Well, about re-Luigi-ing an AI: these tropes literally exist: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HeelFaceTurn - when bad guy turns good
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Deprogram - when a bad character turns out to be a good character who was brainwashed.
These are also the bread & butter tropes in the superhero comics