yogthos

The actual question is whether Russia is open to doing that given that they already control most mineral rich territories. And I think it's obvious what the answer to that question is.

They're claiming that DeepSeek used their API for distillation, and to be fair DeepSeek hasn't denied this. Whether they did or not really doesn't matter in my opinion. Watching OpenAI complain that a company did to them precisely what they themselves have been doing to everyone else is the hilarious part here. And amusingly, if they tried to go after DeepSeek legally in the US then they'd create precedent for everyone whose content they scraped to go after them.

yup

I think that's exactly what it is, Japan is in a bad place economically now and they're really worried about what Trump will do to them.

I imagine it won't be so much dismantling as purging all opposition and stuffing agencies with loyalists.

For sure, and I do agree with you that it is important to recognize the failings of the socialist countries.

I find it's also important to be realistic about what social systems can accomplish. They ultimately create selection pressures within society that encourage people to act in a certain way. In my opinion, the core job of a system is to ensure that there is a positive alignment between individual interest and the interest of community as a whole. However, this isn't magically going to eliminate negative behaviors such as corruption, and so on. These things are present in every human society, and socialist societies aren't immune from these problems. What I tend to focus on is the overall direction of travel, and I think that's where we can be optimistic right now.

I can't believe anybody expected that to work. Western politicians, analysts, and diplomats were exposed as being utterly incompetent throughout the war.

Sure, I'm not disagreeing with your critique. I'm just pointing out that the direction of travel is still overall positive. We don't live in a perfect world, and socialist countries don't always act in a principled way. However, the power of the empire is diminishing and the Global Majority finally has a chance for self determination. This should not be understated.

that's why Alphabet was created

          Alphabet
          /      \
     Google     Evil

I think it's too early to tell which way things go right now. Mask off fascism is certainly a possibility and a lot of the same trends that happened in Germany in the 30s, such as union busting, jailing labor organizers, and so on, could certainly be on the table.

I think they're going to pick their battles, and they're not going to go to open war with the west over Gaza. However, it's pretty clear that BRICS has been very effective at curtailing western power and influence globally. I don't see anything the west can do to change these trends.

I don't entirely agree here, I'd argue that BRICS is directly helping insulate countries from these predators. We're also seeing them increasingly turning on each other. My expectation is that we'll start seeing the west cannibalize itself going forward.