They could just leave the software side of it dead, and provide all the files they have of the hardware. The open source community can figure out a solution for the software, as long as they have access to the relevant hardware files
Because they care about the west supporting them. That’s it, that’s literally the entire reason. That and they don’t have the capability without western support. (To some extent yes, but not really in the ‘precision-guided-munitions’ department)
I think this is categorically wrong, to some extent. There’s always been and there will always be a minority of people who want things to be different. In the case of the Donbas, a minority of people legitimately want to be Russian. You need to keep in mind that the majority of people in the region speak, or at least spoke, only Russian. Most are perfectly fine with being in an arguably more successful country, and in one where their own roots are more prioritised. But some aren’t.
That minority is simply being well funded by Russia right now, to the point that they have dominance over the group who’d rather be Ukrainian.
Just like there’s always a referendum or two in NA where some minority wants to split from one place or the other.
I wouldn’t expect an extremely old person to be aware of all the nuances of modern language. Least of all the pope, who, I’d assume, has effectively zero contact with anyone even remotely close to being a rainbow activist. External culture and langue has moved a lot in the last 15-20 years. While I am far from that old, it’s not unreasonable to expect that calling someone that was relatively normal during the popes childhood, certainly in a religious environment.
Honest question: what do we expect the Pope to say? For all intents and purposes, he is the head of a very old and established ‘religion’. He wouldn’t be the pope if his views were contrary to the teachings of the church as it currently exists.
And maybe that was the point of that mission. To cause you to think about the violence that you normally included upon your virtual enemies without a second thought. If you play a FPS game, you won’t question why you’re shooting the other team, you just do it. The same way it doesn’t technically matter why the crowd of people in said COD level are your enemies. What matters is the developer telling you to shoot them.
I think you severely underestimate the power of vanity projects. You think Russia really wanted its primary strategy in Ukraine to be ‘bomb the shit out of everything larger than a mole hill’? They’re clearly not scared away from doing that, but I’m sure Putin would have much preferred simply waltzing in, killing Ukraine’s upper leadership, and annexing it.
And from Xi’s positioning, I don’t think China would balk at a similar game plan. Ultimately, reuniting China under the CCP is more important to Xi than taking the ROC in one piece is.
Thing is, what exactly do you call a group of people who break into an airport and shut down operations, or form roadblocks that also shut down operations? The are a group committing ‘serious’ crimes, is this not literally the exact scenario these laws are written to address?
I’ve always maintained that actual climate protests that have a useful result will be quite illegal, and probably quite violent. That’s just the way it is. Either the protesters give up, or the government gives up, and the government has a lot of violence it can use before that point.