It takes years for big military equipment to be delivered. Getting military barracks up to date also takes years (especially in our current slow system). So do structure of commands etc. There are plenty warnings of secret services that attacks on European NATO countries are a possibility already in the coming years (2029 the most commonly mentioned date). We are already seeing plenty attacks that are arguably are already beyond hybrid warfare and just recently have been warned of potential drone attacks on southern European states. Considering it takes at least a few years to get our military into a state where it can operate comfortably against such threats I would argue that there is not ample time, because such attacks are already on the horizon. I do agree that the most efficient way to stop russia with the least possibility of escalation is to support Ukraine at all cost and give them everything they need. That is the way to stop Russia without direct confrontation.

That is the difference between an wartime economy of generally cheaper labor (east Europe) oriented primarily to provide resources for war, greatly (although not sufficiently in my opinion) supported and backed by the European Union and a slow bureaucratic economy known to be inefficient, time wise and monetary wise, economy. We hope that the European Union keeps together. And we certainly dont want to be forced to fight a war the way like Ukraine has to. No question Europe (if it stays united and doesn’t slowly bleed states to Russia’s control) would win a conventional conflict but the questions are at what cost? I rather win such a war in weeks than months, rather in months than years, and preferably with less missiles landing in my neighborhood.

Honestly, nowadays I think that conscription should be seen more like an education on how to defend yourself within the organized structures of the state, and maybe should also be implemented more in those lines. And such is necessary nowadays. I didn’t have to go and since I had my plans made I also didn’t but I have been considering to maybe look whether I can still at least learn a lite version of it. How many conscripted were forced to fight in the last decades? The first to go, and the only ones since probably the second world war (in germany), is the professional army, no conscripted is forced. Of course once we are in a true conflict to the point that the professional army isn’t sufficient anymore this starts to change, but then it would change for you regardless of whether you have trained the basics or not, and then I would prefer knowing what I do and how to do it, whether I have to or want to defend the society, friends, family etc. in an organized structure or not.

Then there must be plenty of things your are willing to do and consequences you are ready to face in order to fight the current state. After all you would even die only to not ‘technically’ support a Nazi.

That’s true. It would have been more accurate to say ‘they have no justification to feel morally superior for not voting’. Though technically the above isn’t asking that they justify. But yes voting itself is a free choice including not to vote, at least in most democratic systems.

Oh, what a noble and utterly meaningless gesture. How many lifes did it save to not “sign your name”? What did it do for the world? Nothing but empty idealism to feel better of oneself. I understand the need for that in current times but lets not pretend it is more than it is.

Instead I do nothing except cry online about it to make me feel like do something, waiting for the echo that reaffirms me.

If you don’t do nothing, you have no justification not vote for the ‘lesser evil’.

Not necessarily. There are discussions in which I dont engage with certain ‘challenging ideas’ or rather walls of statements that need to be evaluated and put into context. If i know already that this discussion is not important enough for me and the points provided are not promising and novel (for me) enough, aka stupid on first glance, to later invest the time to revisit those ideas, research, evaluate and putting them into context, which no one can do for me, than i may not bother with those points to begin with. Afterall one cant be bothered with all stupid ideas about something that exists. Written forms of auch discussions are there more productive since one can do the research etc. in the moment. Allthough that to takes time.

In short no one has the time to truly interlectually and honestly engage all ‘challenging ideas’ there are. One must always make a certain preselections, with very shallow engagement.

One might have to smuggle in an ‘…all [challengin ideas …]’ to make this statement more accurate.

As far as I know the german e-passport function does provide good way already. You basically use your passport to make a corresponding app only send the information “over ‘certain age’ or under”, technically no information needs to go to the government of when and where you try to vefify your age since it can all be done locally with your passport. The app is also open source if i recall correctly. It would definitely be a better option than any third party age verification but its not really used at all.

But i am not too familar with the actual working procedure of this function so it may not be entirely accurate.

I think morels can be cultivated by now to some extent, but seemingly not yet in any significant quantities. Porcinis cannot not be cultivated and are one of the easiest mushrooms to learn to safely forage. Hunting for psychadelics is risky and in some regions very disappointing. In europe for example there arent many true psychadelic mushrooms that grow in the wild (psilocybe). I have only seen two kinds here but i dont pay to much attention to them either. Problematic when foraging them wild, if one wants to consume them, is also that the content of the psychadelic substance may vary quite significantly making it hard to judge the dosage. And yes they are not as easy to safely identifiy as many common ‘choice edible’ mushrooms. But these are not the main source of poison cases. The main souce are still the destroying angel and such that are mistaken for some agaricus like the ones one can buy in every supermarket. Of course if one approaches this seriously learning the basics for ‘choice edibles’ isn’t to hard, the problem is that some do forage without learning the basics.

Weapons of war are already being used. And not only against soldiers but also civilians. They are used against the people of europe by russia. We shall not let us be slaughtered.

If we let those, that use weapons of war and terror to conquer the world by force, win then it will be those that exist and rule in the future, just like in natural selection we wont have less tyrants with weapons of war, terror and supressiom but more, consequentelly they will be used more.

Additionally, if you want to talk about nuclear weapons then those already exist and again russia who seems to have no problem using any weapon of war, unless they face consequences, has them too. In fact europe should do everything to keep a lunaric like putin as far away from the figurative line, whose overstepping does mean nuclear war, because if we let him step arbitrarily close to that line than it is indeed only a matter of time until that line is overstepped.