if it's immediately rewarding
Hell of a caveat there.
if it's immediately rewarding
Hell of a caveat there.
One for each comma
Anywhere strangers tend to be around each other long enough to where small talk might be a welcome distraction: waiting in lines for something, sitting at a community table or bar/counter with mixed groups (especially while waiting for the rest of your respective friend groups to show up), sitting next to each other at a public event like live sports or a concert with downtime, volunteer events where you might be set up next to strangers doing the same thing, etc.
It's easier when there's a natural end to the interaction (your turn in line, the start of the sporting event), too.
Smartphones and headphones have made it harder, but there are still opportunities when people are bored and sitting around.
If you you blow the guts out and faces off Russian soldiers by more traditional means they are just as dead
I (and all the people and organizations that have worked throughout the last century to get incendiary weapons banned as anti-personnel weapons) generally feel that the method of killing matters, and that some methods are excessively cruel or represent excessive risk of long term suffering.
The existing protocol on incendiary weapons recognizes the difference, by requiring signatory nations to go out of their way to avoid using incendiary weapons in places where civilian harm might occur. Even in contexts where a barrage of artillery near civilians might not violate the law, airborne flame throwers are forbidden. Because incendiary weapons are different, and a line is drawn there, knowing that there actually is a difference between negligently killing civilians with shrapnel versus negligently killing civilians with burning.
There are degrees of morality and ethics, even in war, and incendiary weapons intentionally targeting personnel crosses a line that I would draw.
I imagine it's just a form they fill out with a few fields: city, number of shooters, number of dead, number of wounded. The rest of it stays the same each time.
The moral high ground is absolutely critical in war. War is politics by other means, and being able to build consensus, marshal resources, recruit personnel, persuade allies to help, persuade adversaries to surrender or lay down their arms, persuade the allies of your adversaries not to get involved, and keep the peace after a war is over, all depend on one's public image. There are ways to wage war without it, but most militaries that blatantly disregard morals find it difficult to actually win.
In this case? The entire military strategy of Ukraine in this war is highly dependent on preserving the moral high ground.
The United States and the UK successfully blocked attempts to outlaw all use of incendiary weapons, and all use of incendiary weapons against personnel, and all use of incendiary weapons against forests and plant cover.
This is an area where it's perfectly reasonable to disagree with how the US watered down this convention, to push for stricter rules on this, and to condemn the use of thermite as an anti-personnel weapon and the use of incendiary weapons on plants that are being used for cover and concealment of military objectives.
So pointing out that this might technically be legal isn't enough for me to personally be OK with this. I think it's morally reprehensible, and I'd prefer for Ukraine to keep the moral high ground in this war.
Avenue 5 has a pretty funny scene where a series of skeptical conspiracy theorist types are ignoring a very specific warning, claiming that the people they see dying before their very eyes are an illusion some kind of special effects and each follows to their own death.
Wait is there a way to invent awful things and then patent troll so that nobody can actually bring them to market?
Yeah, American Christmas is pretty much entirely derived from German tradition: Santa, gifts, Christmas trees, lights, carols, etc.
So much of American food derives from German food: hot dogs, pretzels, hamburgers, modern beer (hopped beer and bottom fermentation of lagers were both invented by Germans, and are now the dominant form of beer globally).
And as America exported all of these cultural traditions, those still derive from German immigration to America to begin with.
The English language itself still has strong Germanic influence.
Twitter has accounts that Brazil says violates Brazilian law.
Brazil took steps to shut down those accounts in Brazil.
Twitter refused to cooperate, going as far as to fire all of its Brazilian staff, so that it can't be reached by the Brazilian courts.
The Brazilian courts ordered all of Twitter be blocked until they comply with local law that they designate a corporate representative who can be served by court processes.
Brazilian ISPs complied with the court order to block Twitter.
Starlink did not comply, and Brazilian courts froze SpaceX's Brazilian assets, including bank accounts, and started making moves towards de-licensing Starlink, including its 23 ground stations located in Brazil.
The issue escalated to the full Brazilian Supreme Court, who ruled that the assets should remain frozen until Starlink starts complying with court orders.
Now Starlink says it will comply with the court order.
Prosecutors are generally somewhat accommodating of victim/witness preferences, because being subpoenaed to testify in open court can be intimidating in even low profile cases. And forcing a person to testify against their will generally isn't a good trial strategy for winning cases.