>Look at how the US is being seen by the international community. The reputation we had as a strong ally and worthwhile partner has been badly damaged. Why would other nations want to help us now? How are we stronger alone, instead of having their eager support?
As a Canadian, you just made the argument for strategic value for us. The economic damage caused at the whims of a single person in control of our supposed closest ally is exactly why. The argument for economic "MAD" assumes one country wont be self destructive enough to cut its leg off to spite everyone else and "win" in a way that leaves it worse off.
Right, I think a single point of failure is the problem. Both domestic, or abroad. If you want strength and resilience, you need to have more than a single source for whatever you might need. It's a mistake for both of us to trust a single country to act rationally indefinitely. The problem for me is currently we're both using the same country this time.
>How much do you trust your government with your money?
Well I'm in Canada, I would trust the govt and the banks with my money before I trust anyone else (yes yes, trucker protest bullshit still didn't shake my confidence)
Which is ultimately the problem. The govt and well regulated banks are the only ones you should be able to trust, but in many case you can't trust governments or their ability to regulate things.
Down 6% in premarket, will have to wait and see but likely wont help them much as tariffs will impact a significant amount of their products regardless.
I certainly wont disagree with the US not representing any moral heights especially now, however do you have sources for the US being particularly egregious in relation to its peers in its actions?
Anyone who has been paying attention to the body count since the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003 can tell you that the rest of the world has a long, long way to go to catch up with the atrocities committed by the American people across the globe, from Iraq to Afghanistan to Syria and Libya, Pakistan and Somalia and Yemen (which the USA and its partners were mass-murdering for 15 years already before the current conflict), and now .. Gaza .. for which the American people are very definitely responsible as major funders and supporters of that particularly vile act of mass murder.
But if you want to inform yourself, follow https://airwars.org/ and look for reports on the matter by trusted sources, such as the Physicians for Social Responsibility, which has produced casualty reports for all of America's illegal, heinously irresponsible wars.
This report for example, from 2015, demonstrated the magnitude and extent of the crimes committed by the American people in Iraq alone - and things have gotten a lot, lot worse since then:
Anyone paying attention may have been mislead as you have been, but your own sources highest estimates aggregated (which is likely 1.5-2x higher than reality) put the US around 1/5 of all deaths combatant and civilian in this cherry picked time period. The reality is that there is a LOT of war happening and death happening and the US is only one of the players.
Acknowledging the mass harm war causes and the role the US has to play in that is absolutely true and valid. Pretending the US is acting egregious in comparison to others and only hyperfocusing on proving "US bad" when someone asks for context of how bad the US is overall doesn't serve anything than show your opinion and lack of willingness to discuss it on open and reasonable terms.
Have you actually looked at the numbers or are you just bound and determined to stick to your opinion regardless of facts or reality?
As shown, the US isn't the top or the majority of deaths in war over your chosen time period. Your have provided no actual basis for your claims the US is the worst, let alone the worst "by far".
Either put up facts to attempt to prove your argument or be dismissed as an ignorant troll I'm ok with either outcome.
I have looked at the numbers, almost every day since March 2003.
Have you?
You seem to want to finish this argument without actually looking at any statistics.
"Ignorant troll"? The veracity of your vitriol belies cowardice. You have to be very ignorant to not understand the USA's heinous track record on war crimes, crimes against humanity, and immense violations of human rights around the world. By far, according to much open data on the subject, which I've already provdied - the USA is the worlds worst offender by a huge margin, that isn't even questioned in any sphere other than the utterly ignorant.
How many sovereign nations has the USA demolished since March 2003? Which other nation has demolished as many other sovereign nations since then?
>You seem to want to finish this argument without actually looking at any statistics.
I provided statistics on deaths and put the US in scope, and asked for you to provide proof of your claim the US is singularly the worst offender (its not).
I've not once claimed the US is not bad as you continuously suggest and attack (straw men as usual for trolls). I have simply stated that your claim the US is egregious is naive and myopic. You only prove that by failing to provide any numbers that put the US in context to back your own point.
>Since March 2003
Curious starting point. I tend to take a much longer view, but even within your own cherry picked 10 year window from earlier you are wrong.
The USA has demolished more sovereign states and continues to participate in mass murder, as it has done, since it illegally invaded Iraq on the basis of outright lies and murdered 5% of its population.
Note that the PSR report I quoted earlier was 10 years after the war - the situation has gotten a lot worse since, due to the use of DU in civilian areas.
The USA is by far the worlds biggest war crime-committing nation. No other state comes close. To be ignorant of this, is to be complicit in its continued criminal behaviour.
Opposite advice. Take the best equipment and enjoy the game the most, focus on strategy with the increased options and capabilities.
So much time and frustration wasted with inferior equipment that sucks the life out, or requires a path of practice and mastery most people don't want for hobbies or things they enjoy doing.
If YOU want to use the least helpful tools and make up the difference with knowledge, skill and practice that's OK. To each their own and if you enjoy that then 100%. Just remember some people enjoy things in a lot of different ways.
Man I really needed that last month playing with some friends. Would have been hilarious and more fun!. Bit of a reducto-ad-absurdum though isn't it.
But in all seriousness there is a difference between something that is forgiving and something that requires a high degree of practice to master. If its a hobby, get what is forgiving.
If you can't see the wisdom in that advice, well you can lead a horse to water eh.
I know some really bad drivers that have almost no 'accidents', but have caused/nearly caused many. The cut off others, get confused in traffic and make wrong decisions etc...
Waymos, by media attention at least, have a habit of confusion and other behaviour that is highly undesired (one example going around a roundabout constantly) but that doesn't qualify as a 'crash'.
I expect that the media don't find stories of Waymos successfully moving from point A to B without incident nearly so compelling as those cases where that doesn't happen.
I experience Waymo cars pretty much every time I drive somewhere in San Francisco (somewhat frequent since I live there). Out of hundreds of encounters with cars I can only think of a single instance where I thought, "what is that things doing?!"... And in that case it was a very busy 5 way intersection where most of the human driven cars were themselves violating some rule trying to get around turning vehicles and such. When I need a ride, I can also say I'm only using Waymo unless I going somewhere like the airport where they don't go; my experience in this regard is I feel much more secure in the Waymo than with Lyft or Uber.
Just because this car doesn't crash, that doesn't mean it doesn't cause crashes (with fatalities, injuries, or just property damage), and that's inherently much harder to measure.
You can only develop an effective heuristic function if you are actually taking into account all the meaningful inputs.
Of course you are the best kind of correct but to instead advance the whole discussion I think we can agree that there is no trail of carnage in the wake of waymos leaving only them unscathed.
I live in sf. Waymos are far more predictable and less reckless than the meatwagons. They do not cause accidents with their occasionally odd behavior.
And to add another perspective - as a cyclist and pedestrian I put waymos even further ahead. I have had crashes due to misbehavior of cars - specifically poor lane keeping around curves - but waymos just don’t cause those sorts of problems
This is exactly the question I was asking, thanks for your input. I know the highlighted examples of 'bad behaviour' in waymo's are somewhat sensationalized, but its hard to quantify how that translates to impacting other users of the environment. I agree humans are very prone to this sort of bad driving, which was what made me ask the question about waymo to begin with. Specifically things like lane keeping, impacts on cyclists pedestrians etc... things you mention.
Although my brain can't help but see waymo's more as "Meatwagons" than human driven cars, I get your point :)
It would be curious to see relative levels of driver assist and its impacts on things like that outside of crash and injury statistics from crashes, but it would be very hard to measure and quantify.
> I suppose the argument is that while the robot itself might not have run over anyone, it might have caused someone else on the road to do it.
And I repeat, that's a contrived enough scenario that I think you need to come to the table with numbers and evidence if you want to make it. Counting crashes has been The Way Transportation Safety Has Been Done for the better part of a century now and you don't just change methodology midstream because you're afraid of the Robot Overlord in the driver's seat.
Science always has a place at the table. Ludditism does not.
I wouldn't say its contrived, but I agree its important to take such questions and back them up with data.
My question is open in that we don't really HAVE data to measure that statement in any meaningful way. The proper response is "that could be valid, we need to find a way to measure it".
Resorting to calling me a luddite because I question whether a metric is really an accurate measure of success (one that I apply to HUMAN drivers as an example first...) really doesn't reflect any sort of scientific approach or method I'm aware of, but feel free to point me to references.
> The proper response is "that could be valid, we need to find a way to measure it".
With all respect, no. You don't treat every possible hypothesis as potentially valid. That's conspiracy logic. Valid ideas are testable ones. If you're not measuring it, then the "proper" response is to keep silent, or propose an actual measurement.
And likewise a proper response is emphatically not to respond to an actual measurement within a commonly accepted paradigm (c.f. the linked headline above) with a response like "well this may not be measuring the right thing so I'm going to ignore it". That is pretty much the definition of ludditism.
>You don't treat every possible hypothesis as potentially valid.
Wrong, you consider and reject hypothesis if we're being specific about the scientific method. In this case, this is a testable question that could be measured but from common metrics isn't accurately measured for humans to compare to. There is no valid rejection of the hypothesis without more data.
The utility of the hypothesis and the work required is one of many things considered and another discussion.
But actually considering and discussing them IS the scientific and rational method. Your knee-jerk reactions are the closest thing to ludditism in this whole conversation.
>And likewise a proper response is emphatically not to respond to an actual measurement within a commonly accepted paradigm (c.f. the linked headline above) with a response like "well this may not be measuring the right thing so I'm going to ignore it". That is pretty much the definition of ludditism.
Again wrong. In almost every case the correct first questions are "are we measuring the right thing", again if we are talking about engineering and science, that's always valid and should ALWAYS be considered. I also never said we should IGNORE crashes, I asked if its the BEST metric for success on its own.
And for your third incorrect point
>That is pretty much the definition of ludditism.
Obviously missed my point in every posts, including the one above. Whether "crashes" is the best metric is being applied to humans and technology, there is no anti-technology going on here.
Your emotional reaction to someone questioning something you obviously care about seems to have shut down your logical brain. Take a deep breath and just stop digging.
>In other words, it was written with no consideration for performance at all.
This is a bold assumption to make on such little data other than "your opinion".
Developing in python is not a negative, and depending on the people, the scope of the product and the intended use is completely acceptable. The balance of "it performs what its needed to do in an acceptable window of performance while providing x,y,z benefits" is almost a certain discussion the company and its developers have had.
What it never tried to solve was scaling to LLM and crawler abuse. Claiming that they have made no performance considerations because they can't scale to handle a use case they never supported is just idiotic.
>That's the actual problem, LLMs are seemingly just adding a bit of load that is exposing the extremely amateurish design of their software.
"Just adding a bit of load" != 75%+ of calls. You can't be discussing this in good faith and make simplistic reductions like this. Either you are trolling or naively blaming the victims without any rational thought or knowledge.
As a Canadian, this is increasingly becoming my best case scenario. Hopefully we can maintain our independence, and many of the freedoms and judicial process the US is currently destroying, although there are some exceptions our govt drastically needs to address *
* the biggest example I expect Americans to bring up is gun control. Canada absolutely needs to revert to a logic and data based restriction approach rather than an emotional appeal over looks or otherwise. Unfortunately while 85% of the country supports some form of gun control, only one party is actively implementing it and doing it in the stupidest way possible. That being said, I expect Americans never to agree with gun control in any form, and that's OK and another reason of the many Canadians do not want to be part of the US.
* Canada has mirrored the US in restricting protests and collective bargaining in some cases, and needs to step back and seriously strengthen the laws protecting its people. At the same time, some protestors also need to understand the difference between protesting and terrorizing neighbourhoods...
and what would data tell why guns have to be restricted?
Some questions:
- what the fraction of gun crimes are commited by law-abiding citizens, which would be actually subject of restrictions?
- is number of casualties high compared to casualties from knife fights, over-doze, obesity, and car accidents because of speeding
Is there data for this question which would back restricting populations from having tools of self defense against tyrannic government(could happen in Canada too one day) and make it high priority for society compared to other problems?
No crime is ever committed by law abiding citizen, by definition. That being said, lawfully acquired guns are routinelly used in crimes.
Plus, they make gun owning men (specifically) much more successful at killing themselves.
Plus they cause accidents.
Guns are waay more likely to be used by tyrants supporters then by anybody else. Case in point, republicans support president dismantling democracy and own more guns.
The best take of the current US situation is still "NRA fails to live up to its only reason for existing and doesn't stand up to the tyrannical government"
It was clear they were full of shit when they didn't stand up for Kenneth Walker, which was the exact fucking night time home defense scenario they're always fantasizing about.
I mean its been obvious to many they're full of shit for decades, but that was the 'If anyone still thinks they aren't full of shit after this" line...
> lawfully acquired guns are routinelly used in crimes.
They are literally almost never used in crime. So “routinely” is false. In fact, I would guess that 99.9% of lawfully acquired guns in America are only ever used in lawful ways.
> Case in point, republicans support president dismantling democracy
Democracy is not being dismantled. If you’re an American citizen, you still have the right to vote however you want. You can still say what you want and publish what you want. You can protest if you are doing so in legal ways.
If anything, the end of massive censorship in social media, like was seen in the last 10-15 years, is helping democracy. Now you can actually share ideas freely and not get your content or account banned. And the elimination of wasteful spending of taxpayer money on political nonprofits is also helping democracy by not having the government bias politics through this loophole.
Plus the worry now is executive actively harming companies and opposition. Retaliating against companies, against law enforcement, breaking laws while doing both, attacking press and stomping on people's rights. Not some kind of flimsy complaint your account was banned after you harassed several people.
It absolutely depends on the type of crime. Domestic murders most often happen with 'legal' guns north and south of the border.
Other crimes, specifically 'aggravated' crimes that involve a weapon however lean the other way where guns are mostly 'illegal' in some way (stolen, smuggled, person doesn't have the right to have due to criminal record or otherwise depending on state/country).
Both domestic and aggravated crimes happen enough that you can justify the use of 'routinely' in both cases. Its ALSO completely true that most legally acquired guns are only ever used legally.
>Democracy is not being dismantled.
- Legal visa holders being deported for criticizing the government
- Foreign nationals invited to conferences in the US denied at the border for criticizing the government
- Government officials stating they will go against legal/judicial orders
- Executive over-reach specifically to remove checks and balances and ensure what remains of government agencies and its staff are loyal to the person, not the president or the country.
- Violating multiple laws, overstepping the bounds of the executive office specifically designed to protect democracy and assuming powers of the legislative and judicial branches
- Attacking Judges for implementing the law/doing their jobs as part of the above
- Professionally and personally threatening members of the legislative branch, state governors and others if they oppose the acts of the President.
Democracy and what democratic protections you have is absolutely being dismantled right in front of you.
>If anything, the end of massive censorship in social media, like was seen in the last 10-15 years, is helping democracy.
I just logged back into facebook after a few years haitus. The majority of what was on there was provably false / fake. Its worse than it ever has been. This is SUCH a benefit to democracy (hint, its not).
While I will agree there has been overreach on censorship, the pendulum swing the other way on top of the enshittification of the internet and the introduction of AI means the average citizen is now less informed and more propagandized than ever. Add in the failings of the US education system and the abysmal literacy rate...
An educated and informed population is bedrock of democracy, checks and balances are its framework. The US foundation has crumbled and its buildings are on fire.
Yes, a tyrant could take over, but the only credible threat Canada has had of that since the second world war has been our most powerful ally 'joking' about annexing us. A well-armed militia wouldn't really help to stop that given the difference in equipment and headcount between the Canadian military, and the US military.
If Canadians decide that Canada needs one, we should implement a method to drive enrollment in the the Canadian Army Reserves, or implement a home defense militia that folks could enroll and participate in with a guarantee that they couldn't be deployed outside of Canada (I was in our armed forces, and would not join a volunteer unit that could be deployed overseas, but would immediately sign up for one that was only legally allowed to be deployed domestically for defense).
As a Canadian, I'd love to see a resurgence of Cadets, Reserves and other methods of training civilians in proper gun use, self defence and methods to integrate with militias/military command in the event we need to domestically defend ourselves.
We are smack in the middle of 2 former enemies, which in their current trajectory will become allies while making us one of their new enemies... We need to have a serious national conversation about that.
I think your link doesn't have actual mass shootings number, my bet is that majority of fire arm homicides are commited by some small caliber hangguns (unlikely to be restricted) in domestic violence setting. Wikipedia says that massshooting casualties are only 0.2% of gun deaths in USA.
My point was really that American style gun rights are not popular in Canada, and the theoretical tyrannical government isn't an adequate justification.
You can argue the merits for or against, but more than 60% of Canadians support outright bans on firearms, and more than 80% support bans on 'assault' weapons.
This is not a hugely controversial topic in Canada; personally I support hunting, and recognize the utility of firearms as someone with a rural upbringing. I also support very strict gun controls and regulation, and I don't agree that there should be a right to bear arms - it's a privilege that should be earned, and well defended through testing and responsible ownership.
Its usually not hugely controversial, but there is that small minority here too...
Some points I feel compelled to make:
About 52% of URBAN voters support outright firearm bans but that number goes down when rural is added. I've always believed regulations for urban and rural environments should be different when it comes to firearms.
The vaguely defined "assault" weapons clarification always draws criticism so i'm going to avoid it. Personally I support banning fully automatic weapons, concealed/shortened shotguns, high capacity drum magazines, bump stocks and other items that exist to increase lethality in ways that cannot be justified for sport or hunting purposes. I also support restricting handguns, restricting magazine sizes, and other regulations. Most people that are against assault weapons I personally talk to agree the looks aren't the problem its the capabilities. Tacticool is fine, any gun being used for a crime will be scary. My point is that there is a lot that can and can't be included in 'assault' weapons, and everyone has their own list of what they do and don't think applies, so that 80% number isn't homogonized on what they are supporting.
We both 100% agree its a privilege that should be earned not a right. Testing and responsible ownership are requirements of keeping that privilege. Steps need to be taken to ensure that volatile domestic or mental health situations that are known to police and communities aren't left to fester with easy access to weapons. We also need to focus on illegal guns crossing our border from the south.
> Is there data for this question which would back restricting populations from having tools of self defense against tyrannic government(could happen in Canada too one day) and make it high priority for society compared to other problems?
The US has these tools and a dictator upending the country and yet these tools are not being utilized.
It’s a third, but also that’s not a criteria for “dictator” – the term refers to unchecked power, and while over time that tends to build resentment it’s not a given. This is especially true when they favor certain religious or ethnic groups where the beneficiaries like the dictator and everyone else does not.
Poll is an actual check, that his actions are aligned with what population wants from him. Laws and institutions are always not perfect, and all governments violated some rules.
>and what would data tell why guns have to be restricted?
We have banned, restricted, and unrestricted classifications. There are good arguments for fully automatic weapons, concealable shotguns and handguns being at least restricted, and for fully automatic and concealable weapons to be completely banned. I'm not going to rehash the arguments, because frankly we're likely going to disagree on most of them and neither of us are going to benefit from rehashing the debate. There are many arguments and viewpoints, but the salient fact is 85% of Canadians view the arguments and decide gun control under some logical framework is needed and support it, while Americans largely take the opposite side which can be traced to cultural and other differences between the countries.
That being said, the fact that the majority of non-domestic gun crimes are done with restricted/banned weapons that are being illegally imported from the states demonstrates a few things.
1. restricting access to those weapons is in fact the correct approach
2. internal restrictions need to be accompanied by stricter border enforcement due to the prevalence of guns and gun culture south of the border. Making it difficult to get legally needs to be superseded by making it incredibly difficult to get illegally first/foremost.
If anything good is coming from the current political nonsense, Canada's stepping up border protection has actually made Canada safer from US drugs and guns illegally crossing the border north, while having almost no impact on the traffic south as Canada Border agents don't stop or search traffic moving south without specific requests from US officials (something most Americans seem to misunderstand about border crossings)
>Is there data for this question which would back restricting populations from having tools of self defense against tyrannic government
Is there data comparing the known and predictable harms to a population having open and unrestricted access to weapons (see the impact of US social problems exacerbated by gun culture vs other countries) vs the concept that it would in fact help in 'self defense against a tyrannical govt'?
Frankly the 'standup against a tyrannical govt` argument has held little weight for decades as modern militaries and equipment vastly outclasses what any civilian can and will have even in the US. A proper democracy with checks and balances will serve far better than any number of civilians with military purpose weaponry, in fact the argument more so applies to a strengthened education and judicial system to ensure tyrants can't bloviate their way into power and remove all checks and balances.
>unless military decides to level all cities in the country.
See Gaza, most of eastern Ukraine. The existence of armoured equipment, air support, satellite monitoring and encrypted/EW resistant communications means civilian resistance is all but irrelevant.
Civilians co-operating with an organized, funded and supplied military is one thing, but on their own its a laughable concept at best.
> See Gaza, most of eastern Ukraine. The existence of armoured equipment,... means civilian resistance is all but irrelevant.
I cannot say anything about Gaza.
But I live in Kyiv, Ukraine, and I have lot of talks with civilian resistance, from about 2012 (yes, Euro-2012 significant).
And I could say, map of occupied Ukrainian territory is very close to map of least pro-Ukrainian civilian activity.
I could state exactly - territory where pro-Ukrainian civilian activity (mostly in form of various Non-Government Organizations), was high before war, stay under control of Ukrainian government, but territory where previous power just physically destroyed civilian activity was lost.
Exceptions are Kharkiv and Odessa, where anti-Ukrainian Organizations was very powerful, but they appear very early and pro-Ukrainian forces successfully neutralized them.
What I mean saying about physically destroyed civilian activity, for example The deportation of the Crimean Tatars.
In Ukraine, militia with rifles (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_Defence_Forces_(Uk...) dug into the ground and stopped invasion of 1M army with thousands of armored vehicles, absolute superiority in artillery, airforces, tactical missiles and 100B annual budget.
In Gaza, Israel with all tech advantages struggles to efficiently police relatively small urban area for 70 years already.
Yes the Territorial Defence forces in Ukraine, an example of government backed reserves/semi-trained forces with equipment far beyond the oversimplification of "rifles".
Actual untrained civilian forces with nothing but rifles on their own made little impact to the speed of russian advances however, which after multiple defeats and setbacks led to the formation of that defence force.
Gaza is a whole can of worms in many ways, but its a shining example of a civilian group with access to arms being completely unable to stop a superior local force from driving over them multiple times when they have the desire and political backing.
Which is exactly the point. A bunch of untrained sport shooters and hunters with more guns than they can personally use at once and no supply lines for ammunition or anything else aren't going to stand for any length of time against an organized military, especially on the military's home soil.
More realistic scenarios in any case are full civil war and the military itself splitting and civilians join sides as reserve forces to back them. in which case civilians having blanket access to arms before hand doesn't have any significant bearing on.
All of this is hypothetical, and ultimately comes down to the argument for unrestricted access to guns being 'so we can stand up to a tyrannical government' falls short. You are welcome to disagree, and that's OK with me. My country is largely in line with my sentiment and sees gun ownership as a privilege not a right, one that comes with restrictions balancing the safety of our society. You do you, we will do us.
> Territorial Defence forces in Ukraine, an example of government backed reserves/semi-trained forces with equipment far beyond the oversimplification of "rifles".
I don't think this is true. They were formed at the day of invasion (or few days before) with those who voluntarily enlisted(very many people), they received some old AK with bullets, and then moved to frontline to dig tranches, and that's what stopped advancements, because it is still extremely difficult to clear infantry which dug into the ground.
> A bunch of untrained sport shooters and hunters
A bunch is not, but in US number of gun owners is not "a bunch".
> but its a shining example of a civilian group with access to arms being completely unable to stop a superior local force from driving over them multiple times when they have the desire and political backing.
Sure, superior in tech and numbers force can "run over" aka walk on the streets, while being regularly shot from the windows in urban area, and it was with 5x superiority in population. Now imagine dictator tries with say 100k loyalists establish his rule in country with 350M population?
>I don't think this is true. They were formed at the day of invasion (or few days before) with those who voluntarily enlisted(very many people), they received some old AK with bullets, and then moved to frontline to dig tranches, and that's what stopped advancements, because it is still extremely difficult to clear infantry which dug into the ground.
Read your own wiki link I guess? There was multiple losses before the formation of the reserve defence force. There was also a high element of public participation in training and military force before hand. At no point did a bunch of untrained and unorganized civilians with only rifles significantly hold back the russian advance on their own, however partially trained armed and organized reserve forces did.
>say 100k loyalists establish his rule in country with 350M population?
More like 70 million+ loyalists in the country including the majority of the military which upends the point you are trying to make completely.
> a bunch of untrained and unorganized civilians with only rifles significantly hold back the russian advance on their own
I didn't say anything like that, though many were untrained and with only rifles. I said that in urban environment it is still soldier on foot is deciding factor, and in Ukraine freshly enlisted territorial defense units dug into the ground and stopped invasion.
> More like 70 million+ loyalists
70M is a civil war setting, but we are discussing setting of dictator + loyalists military vs population.
We're talking about the average citizen with a rifle and no training against a dictator/tyrant.
In Ukraines case, that civilian group was not initially effective at stopping the attack, but your example of the defence force is an example of a supported reserve force digging in backed by logistics and support from a military/country.
Those are 2 different things. My contention is that unrestricted access to arms doesn't in any way turn an untrained populace into a reserve force.
You're attempt to frame it as "dictator + small loyalist military" as well as focusing solely on urban settings are a fun hypotheticals, but that's all they are. The reality is that actions like that in a developed nation result in an almost certain war if external or fracturing of countries internally in any real scenario with civilians supporting militaries/militias on the various sides.
There is no reasonable assumption that unrestricted access to arms will stop a tyrant from destroying the country and tossing it into some form of civil war. The accompanying fact those people aren't trained, organized, or supported by logistics is the fundamental reason why they will fail to be effective. (I could also digress into the well organized militia and if we want to get all originalist about the interpretation but this has been unproductive enough)
What we are really discussing is whether gun regulations make sense. Extreme edge cases like your hypotheticals fail to make a convincing argument they are a negative for society, especially when contrasted against the harms lack of regulations has been shown to cause society.
my observation is that they were not reserve. They were patriotic citizens who voluntarily enlisted at the day of invasion. Gun ownership and hence training was much lower in Ukraine compared to US. And wiki says about the same: they were some semi-organized units before invasion, and during invasion 100k people volunteered and joined them, and they were absorbed by army.
> Actual untrained civilian forces with nothing but rifles
This is myth. Ukrainian war began in 2014 and all adequate Ukrainians learned books about war or have some training, and this was very respectful form of pastime.
Plus, many Ukrainians just served in military from 2014 consciously, this was great patriotic boom.
To be honest, I think, if Ukrainian science and education was reformed before war 2022, we would be much better prepared and would not lost additional territories. But unfortunately, we hear from our governments constant "don't critic us, or Putin will attack", and this is hard to broke circle.
My point is untrained, inexperienced and under-equipped civilians have little chance against a military.
Once you start giving them training, organizing and arming them with a logistics arm backing them the discussion completely changes.
Ukraine is an example of reserve/partially trained and backed forces being able to make a significant difference, but its also an example of how unorganized civilian resistance on its own has little to no impact on a modern military.
Mostly agree. Ukraine lost territories mostly before 2022, because population there was mostly anti-Ukrainian (what interest me, many refugees from Ukrainian east, become more pro-Ukrainian than people in center of country, where nearly not seen occupation).
I would be agree about non-trained people before 2014, but from 2014 we have even experience of self-defense, because in February 2014 government just not paid money to militia (soviet analogue for police), and they just avoid to maintain law.
2014 was not full-scale war in standard understanding, it was more like war against terrorists, but it was very serious, with many cases of terrorists used military weapons and military equipment.
Many people participated in self-defense after 2014 joined military, others participated in trainings, and yes, businesses and civilians supported these trainings, and government don't resisted.
So, on 2022, really many people on territory controlled by government have participated in trainings and even was experienced in real battles.
Mariupol, and other cities now occupied (after 2022), because there was anti-Ukrainian population and they believed will live better under Russia.
Also few border cities occupied (Kherson, Energodar, where Nuclear Power Plant placed), because Ukrainian military avoid to conduct serious city battles, to avoid huge civilian casualties.
And I must admit, Ukrainian military before approx Summer 2023, suffered from shortage of heavy weapons and air support, but now forces are nearly balanced. BTW what also interesting, huge part of Ukrainian weapons used on zero are now FPV drones made in Ukraine.
How has Canada compared to the US in terms of visa's and conferences? I know there have been a number of successful conferences here, but more scientific than technical from my recollection.
I'd love for us to be a new destination for these conferences and international events, but as a Canadian I'm not sure how easily non-Canadians can enter/exit the country. My understanding its its fairly easy but I've never had the opportunity to find out.
As a Canadian, you just made the argument for strategic value for us. The economic damage caused at the whims of a single person in control of our supposed closest ally is exactly why. The argument for economic "MAD" assumes one country wont be self destructive enough to cut its leg off to spite everyone else and "win" in a way that leaves it worse off.