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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   15281 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 6, 2025

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Summary of the Lex Fridman-President Zelensky interview

https://youtube.com/watch?v=u321m25rKXc&t=1142s

This interview has attracted a lot of controversy in the weeks leading up to it, as Fridman has said that he wanted to conduct the interview in Russian, which they both speak fluently. Zelensky did not want to conduct the interview in Russian for symbolic reasons that are probably quite easy to understand. In the lead up of the interview, Fridman has a 10 minute introduction in which he tries to justify why wanted to speak Russian, and then the first ten minutes of the real interview is him trying to convince Zelensky. His main argument is that if Zelensky speaks Russian, an interpreter would not be needed, and more of Zelensky's wit and dynamism would come through, and that there wouldn't be a 2-3 second delay in their communication. Fridman even made a warning popup saying "2-3 second delay!" when Zelensky began speaking Ukrainian and it was being interpreted. I've only seen one other Lex Fridman interview, with Milei, but there were no such warnings and disclaimers despite how it was live interpreted between Spanish and English. Zelensky does say he can explain some concepts in Russian if Fridman wants clarification but refuses to do the interview in general in Russian. Zelensky says he's also fine if Fridman speaks in Russian the whole time or switches between Russian and English. Also Fridman does understand a bit of Ukrainian himself but is not fluent.

Everyone I've seen, including Zelensky and myself, has seemed rather confused/upset by Fridman's very strong desire to do the interview in Russian, since the symbolic concerns seem to obviously outweigh those. Especially since using an interpreter is not really a big deal. Especially for a Lex Fridman interview, his interviews are known for him getting really excellent guests, but he just asks them a few vague guests and do 95% of the communicating themselves. There's little benefit to Fridman understanding Zelensky slightly better when all the listener's are going to get it dubbed anyway. Adding more fire to people thinking Fridman is a Russian sympathizer, in his introduction he goes out of his way to emphasize the nuance of the conflict and that he just wants peace for both sides. Many people would call the Russia-Ukraine war a fairly one sided war of aggression by Russia where peace could be achieved whenever Russia decided to withdraw from Ukrainian borders.

Points:

  1. Zelensky talks about Odessa, how it's a beautiful city, and fairly transparently tries to build sympathy by talking about how great and Ukrainian it is. Not that I can blame him.
  2. Zelensky talks a bit about how his father fought in WW2, and about how WW2 began. He compares Hitler to Putin in how they both are aggressive expansionists. Also Fridman continues small digs throughout the interview- "It took me a second to catch the joke", or Zelensky says "bullshit" while talking and Fridman says "I understand, I caught that one word". Fridman continues that passive-aggressive behaviour a few more times throughout the interview, I won't mention every time. And again, he did nothing like that for the Milei interview, the translation and dub was very seemless for that interview. You could miss that it even was translated if you started halfway through and didn't notice that lips were desynced from words.
  3. Zelensky talks about how in the beginning of the way, he had to make fast decisions and do a lot. They started distributing weapons to regular civilians in the capital. He also spent a lot of time communicating to the citizens of Ukraine, appearing in videos he could share through the internet, and that it was very important digital networks weren't disrupted. It was important because from day 1 there really was Russian disinformation, claiming Zelensky ran away, but he could show videos of himself just walking outside his office.
  4. In the beginning of the war, Zelensky, with the help of media contacts, would speak Russian in videos directed to Belarusians and Russians and other Russian speakers, asking them to speak out against the war and protest. He is upset about how Russian speakers seemed to have ignored him and weren't not interested in resisting Putin at all. That's part of why he doesn't want to speak Russian now, because in his experience speaking Russian doesn't actually convince any Russian speakers of his cause.
  5. Lex Fridman is confident this video will reach Russian speakers and will help, that it will spread over the internet even though youtube is blocked, that even Putin will see it. Zelensky calls Putin deaf, "even if he speaks to you".
  6. Zelensky talks about a meeting he had with Putin, I believe this one in 2019. Zelensky says he had a conversation with Putin where Putin offered a ceasefire deal, Zelensky did that math on the numbers Putin offered there and told Putin it would take 20 years for all soldiers to withdraw given those terms. Zelensky says that made him realized that Putin was not actually deeply involved in the details of what it'd take to make a withdrawal happen, that if Putin was serious he'd already have been constantly briefed on these numbers and know how to make things happen. But instead Putin was not serious or interested in a withdrawal.
  7. Zelensky says three things were agreed upon at that meeting. A deal for Germany to continue buying gas from Russia, a hostage exchange deal, and a ceasefire agreement. Russia violated the ceasefire after a month, and Zelensky called Putin in response to ask what happened. Putin didn't explain anything, there were more calls with Putin over the next few months, Putin eventually stopped responding. Zelensky wanted to make a ceasefire happen, Putin was not interested. Russia was talking bullshit, and meanwhile sending snipers into the contested areas.
  8. Zelensky says any ceasefire needs security guarantees, because lives are at stake, and Russia can't be trusted to keep their word on purely diplomatic deals with no military backing. Zelensky wants a security guarantee like partial NATO membership, and/or an arms aid package that would only be used if Russia violates the ceasefire. Zelensky is certain that if any ceasefire happens without security guarantees, Putin will just come again after three months.
  9. Zelensky wants more sanctions on Russia too, particularly on Russian energy. Zelensky wants to see the world buying more American oil instead of Russian oil.
  10. Lex Fridman's first idea for peace is "What if Ukraine and Russia are both accepted into NATO".
  11. Zelensky thinks security guarantees without the US's involvement would not be enough to stop Russia from breaking a ceasefire. Europe being involved in peace talks and Ukraine's future is important too, but the US by itself outweighs the rest of NATO/Europe combined in Zelensky's eyes.
  12. Zelensky seems to lose patience with Fridman as the interview goes along. Fridman keeps talking about Zelensky, Trump, and Putin sitting down together to strike a peace deal. Zelensky keeps trying to explaint that Putin is not a good faith actor and that strong security guarantees from the US are necessary for any peace.
  13. Another of Zelensky's security guarantee suggestions was for the US to give Ukraine Russia's 300 billion frozen assets, and then Ukraine buys American arms with that Russian money. Another suggestion is non-NATO alliance like what Israel has, where countries like the USA, France, Britain assist to shoot down missiles.
  14. Zelensky praises Trump a lot. Probably just politics because he knows he needs to brownnose Trump.
  15. Ukrainian elections will probably only be held after the war ends, because of all the difficulties with occupied territories voting, all the millions of Ukrainians who are abroad, the risk of cyber attacks. Zelensky hopes the war will end in 2025 and elections will then be held immediately. He is unsure if he'd run again himself.
  16. Ukraine has been fighting hard against corruption, it has set up sophiscated and independent anti-corruption agencies, but Ukraine is not corruption free yet
  17. The US has lots of weird, arguably corrupt, strings about how weapons purchases can happen itself. For example, Ukraine wanted to transport weapons from the US to Ukraine on its own fleet of cargo jets. The US said no, that if Ukraine wanted the America to send it weapons, they'd have to pay for American jets to move those weapons.
  18. One time in 2019 Zelensky was visiting the white house and he wanted to go for a morning jog, but US security policy would have a bunch of bodyguards in suits jogging alongside him, and he felt too awkward to make them do that when he was just in athletic wear.

In general, I got the impression Zelensky was trying hard to flatter the people he needed too and put Ukraine in the best possible light. Not that I can blame him, given his position. Lex Fridman seemed really weird in how he seemed very sympathetic to Russia but not outright saying that, despite how obvious it was.

Not everybody noticed that Lex's Russian is actually poor. He is a native Russian speaker but his vocabulary is stuck at the level of 11-year-old and is not sufficient for discussing complex and abstract ideas. When speaking Russian, he takes long pauses and uses simple sentences. Somewhere he even mentioned that he is not fluent in Russian.

Zelensky's Russian is much better but clearly he decided against it, apparently he thought that it will not improve his chances to be better accepted by Russian speaking community. He explained that he tried speaking in Russian shortly after invasion in 2022 and no one listened to him. He is probably right. While translation is less effective than direct address, Ukrainian is actually similar sounding to Russian and if a Russian speaking person has a positive attitude towards Zelensky, he will enjoy listening to his Ukrainian (it has some nice sounding vibes) while reading subtitles.

Zelensky is also right – if someone doesn't want to hear, he will not hear what you are saying, regardless which language.

Not everybody noticed that Lex's Russian is actually poor. He is a native Russian speaker but his vocabulary is stuck at the level of 11-year-old and is not sufficient for discussing complex and abstract ideas. When speaking Russian, he takes long pauses and uses simple sentences.

I think this is a Lex problem, not a Lex-speaking-Russian problem.

Do you speak Russian?

This interview has attracted a lot of controversy in the weeks leading up to it, as Fridman has said that he wanted to conduct the interview in Russian, which they both speak fluently. Zelensky did not want to conduct the interview in Russian for symbolic reasons that are probably quite easy to understand. In the lead up of the interview, Fridman has a 10 minute introduction in which he tries to justify why wanted to speak Russian, and then the first ten minutes of the real interview is him trying to convince Zelensky. His main argument is that if Zelensky speaks Russian, an interpreter would not be needed, and more of Zelensky's wit and dynamism would come through, and that there wouldn't be a 2-3 second delay in their communication.

While I'm sure the symbolic reasons are a consideration, isn't it possible that Zelensky just wanted the interview to be in English to maximize the odds that an English-speaking audience would see it? I'm sure there's a lot of casual followers of Fridman who might give an episode a skip if it was entirely in Russian with subtitles.

Lex Fridman always dubs foreign language podcasts in english, and the process is quite smooth. I don't think there'd be any fewer listeners. Especially because Zelensky did spend a lot of the interview speaking Ukrainian. And in his own justification to Fridman, he said it was about the symbolic and nationalist value.

Two anecdotes about language barriers:

Baseball's Carlos Beltran, the Mets slugger and Astros cheater, complained when he was part of the MLBPA union reps that Japanese players like Ichiro Suzuki got translators paid for by the team, who staid with Ichiro at all times and translated all questions in interviews. This despite the fact that Ichiro, by the end of his career, he spoke decent English, although many players weren't aware of it. Meanwhile Latin players like Beltran, many of whom had educations that effectively ended in the eighth grade when they were signed to a minor league contract, were expected to just learn English, and forced to give interviews in English on the field after games without any help in a language they barely spoke. As a result, Japanese players typically came across sounding the way Ichiro did: "He crafts his public portrayal similar to the image he projects on the field: a technician, a warrior, a Ph.D. in stoicism;" because he was able to carefully consider his answers as they passed through a translator, which were then relayed back to the interviewer in perfect English. While Latin players often came across stupid, dimwitted, smiling and athletic but not particularly bright. Beltran hated that he had all these thoughts about baseball, and couldn't express them to anyone, and when he was a prominent star he pressured the league to start providing Spanish language staff on each team to help Spanish speaking players get more comfortable giving interviews.

When Elie Wiesel's Night came out, it was written in both French and Hebrew. In theory, they're direct translations, made by the author himself. But, the devil, as ever, is in the details. For example, when the camp is liberated, the English (which was translated from the French) contains an incongruous line about the young boys going to the village to "sleep with girls." Meanwhile, in the Hebrew, the boys go to the village to "rape German shiksas." Wiesel preferred one meaning for his Jewish readers, and another for the Gentiles. Who knows which, if either, is the truth, it's hard to picture recently liberated concentration camp victims getting up to much either way. But it sure changed my opinion on Wiesel's veracity.

Either could be the case here. Going through a translator gives Zelensky an extra couple seconds to think, and collect his answer before giving it. It helps him sound the way he wants to sound. Further, if they were using Zelensky's translator, he would use Zelensky's preferred language choices. If they did the interview in Russian, then presumably the English translation would be produced by Friedman himself, who would choose how to present Zelensky's words. Or, it might be that Zelensky prefers to present different information in English than to Russian speaking audiences. Not that it won't be translated into Russian/Ukrainian, but fewer Ukies will consume it, and if they get offended at what he says, it can be put down to translation.

I listened to a good amount of the interview while plowing snow today, before I got too tired of it. I like Lex, but he beclowned himself in this one. If you want to tell the guy he lost the war, fine, but I couldn't stand his stupid "But all I want is PEACE" bit, or his ridiculous "I just have a FEELING that Putin wants to talk." Why do Americans all seem to have this weird thought that they know what Putin wants to do? The translation also seemed terrible, the whole thing was disjointed. Zelensky was...fine I guess? Pretty boring.

I still have yet to have heard a peace plan better than my plan:

RETVRN TO TRADITION: Why NATO should seek to install Prince Harry and Meghan Markle on the throne of Ukraine

War is simply the continuation of political intercourse with the addition of other means. We deliberately use the phrase 'with the addition of other means' because we also want to make it clear that war in itself does not suspend political intercourse or change it into something entirely different. In essentials that intercourse continues, irrespective of the means it employs. The main lines along which military events progress, and to which they are restricted, are political lines that continue throughout the war into the subsequent peace -- Do I really have to attribute this one?

The government of Ukraine cannot end the war with Russia in a position where Russia could renew the war in the future. As the permanent neutering of Russia is impossible or inadvisable, most commentators want to provide Ukraine with some kind of security guarantee from the USA/NATO/PRC that will prevent future Russian aggression, but negotiated in some unspecified way that it isn't just adding Ukraine to NATO, which it is basically assumed Russia wouldn't accept unless, as above, Russia was permanently neutered, which, as above, is impossible or inadvisable. Another problem being that Ukraine tried that shit once already, with all nuclear powers guaranteeing the integrity of Ukraine's borders, and we've seen how much that was worth when the bullets started flying. Given that Ukraine had non-alliance security guarantees in 2014 and in 2021, it does not seem like they would successfully repel Russian aggression. So how do we tie Ukraine to the NATO powers in a way that is genuinely credible and will be viewed by Ukrainians as a binding guarantee, but isn't article 5?

Let's look at how the Concert of Europe in the 19th century handled this: Constitutional or absolute monarchy was held to be the best form of government, and when a new country was formed, they would simply install a monarch from another royal family. The monarch's had no necessary special relation to their new domain, the first king of Belgium was originally considered for the job of king of Greece, which went to another German monarch instead. King Charles and his sons are descended from the Greek royal family [through a switch in royal houses en route] on his father's side, so it's family tradition to say: Prince Harry should form a mercenary corps, join the UKR forces and take Crimea, then Harry and Meagan should be installed as Grand Prince and Grand Princess of Kiev while naming Archie as Ilkhan of Crimea and heir while engaging him to the daughter of Ukrainian General or politician.

Harry does have some military experience in combat, and he's still young enough at 38 and popular enough, that he could credibly recruit a military force of thousands of veterans from the USA, UK, Canada, and Australia to join him in this venture. I think there's still enough weird tradition to get guys from the Commonwealth countries to want to ride out with a rogue devil-may-care prince into combat. He could get the money to fund their equipment and training from his friends Oprah and Tyler Perry and by selling the TikTok rights, or the CIA could fund it covertly, whichever, just get all the money for the full shebang of western toys. Take his fully equipped brigade of western veterans, go to Ukraine, and put up a good show. I don't think Harry is actually that bright, but he could find a bored retired general to handle the actual conquering for him.

At the end of the war, like our ancestors before us, the international community gets together to name Harry and Megan Grand Prince and Princess of Kiev. Now if Russia invades again ten years from now, do you really think that the UK is going to sit idly by and watch their King's son, their heir's brother, Diana's son, get thrown out? Maybe the UK public doesn't much like Harry and Meggan, but watching a close relative get deposed is just getting cucked as a kingdom, no way [Keir, or whoever] lets that happen. And is the US public going to let a celebrity BIPoC diverse prince and his valid mentally suffering actress mum get tossed in the tower? No way. We often mock the 19th century Royalists obsession with installing monarchs, but this was the purpose. It tied the new country to the international community by blood. In the same way, by creating a British ginger king and a halfrican American queen, Ukraine can guarantee that the two most important countries in NATO will have their back. And we'll be free of their podcasting project.

You're welcome, Lex. Propose it at the start of your next talk with Zelensky. It'll make for a better episode.

If I had a nickel for every time someone had proposed expanding the British Commonwealth as a way to address a geopolitical question, I'd... have a bit more than two nickels, but it is odd how many there would be in the 21st century alone.

I don't actually know enough about the Commonwealth to know if that's what I'm proposing or not.

But outside trolling, the solution is going to lie in some answer that is greater than Budapest and less than NATO. Where is it? I don't know. But I would have liked to see Lex try and give one, if he's going to bang on about praying for peace. At the least it would have been more interesting.

Note that Prince Harry is the great-great-great-great-grandson of a Russian Tsar (Nikolai I - Konstantin Nikolayevich - Ol'ga Konstantinovna - Andreas tis Elladas - Philip of Edinburgh - Charles III - Harry of Sussex).

I’m not sure we should be involved in a “security guarantee, simply because it’s going to be an endless stream of aid given out to Ukraine and it’s not in our interests. We need tge money at home.

It's in the US' best interests to punish rogue states that engage in expansionist wars. Providing weapons to Ukraine is a relatively cheap way of doing so. Better to hold the line here instead of next time Russia expands into an US ally. Better to make an example of Russia than to let Iran or China think they could get away expansionism too.

This.

While the Ukraine war has not be a resounding success for Ukraine, it has been a tremendous success for NATO security interests. The value of military strength is always as that value relative to your opponent, diminishing your opponents forces by a factor of two is about as good as increasing your own forces by factor two.

As long as the Ukrainians are still willing to do the dying, we should cynically continue to support them with materiel.

Exactly. I could not ask an Ukrainian to die fighting for NATO. But if they wanted to do so anyway, I'm more than happy to provide them the weapons to do so.

They “wanted to” in the sense that they are hauled off in unmarked vans by draft officers and kept on the line of contact by blocking detachments that will shoot them if they try to leave.

This is worth remembering. National security concerns or whatever are important, but perhaps the horrors of war and the suffering of those forced to endure it is at least as important.

Then we'd have to mostly punish ourselves though.

Iraq was a bad war, but not expansionist. I think there should be a norm against invading to remove dictators, but it's okay that that's weaker than the norm against conquest.

I'm not sure which other wars you'd be referring to.

Ah so if you don't overtly annex the territory but control it in everything but name imperialism is okay? So also China invading Taiwan would be entirely ok since most countries recognize the one China policy and Taiwan as part of China?

The US does not control Iraq in everything but name, and did not control Afghanistan in everything but name. There were legitimate elections.

So also China invading Taiwan would be entirely ok since most countries recognize the one China policy and Taiwan as part of China?

Everyone knows they're separate even if there's a legal fiction otherwise

Yes everyone knows, they all know parts of Palestine, Lebanon and Syria were always part of Israel as well, but everyone knows Crimea was never part of Russia, just as Taiwan was never part of China. We've always been at war with Eurasia.

I think that legal fictions are important! If "everybody knows they're separate even if there's a legal fiction otherwise" in your personal life, you're still legally bound to your spouse until divorce proceedings are finalized.

The United States arguably should not have recognized the Chinese Communist government specifically for this reason.

Either "lol international law and treaties aren't real," in which case maybe things like Iraq and Afghanistan (or Ukraine or an invasion of Taiwan) were bad but they arguably weren't illegal, or any aggressive military force that a nation, including the United States, takes that is not in self-defense or approved by the UN Security Council are a violation of its obligations under both the UN Charter and, if the country happens to be a NATO member, Article 1 of the NATO charter, where all parties agree "to refrain in [its] international relations from the threat or use of force in any manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations."

Now, someone is going to arrive and explain to me that there is some argument made somewhere that international law allows one to contravene what seems to be the absolutely kinda clear language of the UN and NATO charters. To which I say: it sounds like legal fictions are important. (But to which I also say: if you can launch an offensive military operation without UN approval and the UN General Assembly condemns it as a violation of international law but the UN Security Council never does anything about it because the member launching the operation sits on the Council, then maybe "lol international law and treaties aren't real.")

I happen to think that international law and custom is good and that it was arguably an absolutely massive mistake to tie any of that to a body as dysfunctional as the United Nations. But nobody forced us to sign the UN Charter or the NATO Charter.

Just like Putin has his ass out now, the west had their ass out in 2002

For what?

Last American clay gained on the battlefield was the Pacific Trust Territory taken from Japan, and we didn't start that one.

Perhaps the Indian Wars?

I really hate Zelensky's attitude that the world owes him or Ukraine and makes demands. Dude is a fucking beggar. He should behave like one.

  • -11

Is he not behaving like a beggar? He's spent the last few years asking for, campaigning for, and I would say begging, for aid. He knows that Ukraine's chances in the war depend on Western aid, and he has acted accordingly, investing a huge amount of time and effort in visiting Western countries and making the case for more aid as strongly as he can.

How should he behave? Do you think he should be more self-abasing? Why? Would that help? I suspect most Western countries would rather deliver aid to an ally that seems, though in need of assistance, nonetheless committed to the fight and strong of will.

Is he not behaving like a beggar?

He is behaving like a member of /r/ChoosingBeggars . He speaks like he is entitled to EU and US weapons for free, to EU and US boots on the ground, like he is entitled to use them how he sees fit, he is entitled to security guarantees and membership in EU and NATO.

He dares to makes demands, to criticize us ...

Zelensky is just prettier Greta Turnberg while in drag (check his old videos), but with the same abrasive attitude towards the world

I think Zelensky is trying to obtain as many effective weapons for Ukraine as possible, and he is behaving to try to maximise that. Would a more grovelling approach achieve more of his aims, or would it just be better for your ego?

The way I see it, he's using all the influence he has to try to get as many weapons as he can, and I struggle to see why he should choose a less effective strategy. If you think Western leaders ought to drag him across the coals a bit more, blame them, not Zelensky himself. Blame the people setting the price, not the one grabbing the bargains while he can.

He dares to makes demands, to criticize us ...

Your cultural chauvenism / fragility is showing.

If whichever collective 'us' you are trying to appeal to has such a fragile ego as to take offense at a lack of groveling obeisence, it frankly deserves critique and contempt for being offended at a lack of groveling obeisance. Not only is it a sign of a fragile ego that will be perpetually offended, and thus safe to dismiss as 'Pope insists Catholicism is one true faith,' it's also indicative of an inept understanding of international relations (where performing ritual humiliation of yourself for benefactors is poor strategy) and strategic self-interest (where requiring ritual humiliation of your benefactees is poor practice).

Given that groveling is both a bad strategy for the state doing it, and a bad strategy to demand it for the state that might receive it, any 'us' who wishes to insist upon it deserve a good deal of criticism and demands to stop such ineffectual, shallow posturing that primarily benefits ego.

No, come on. He came to the UK a year or so ago and had a shopping list, he was going around pointing at our stuff that he wanted. His attitude is completely inappropriate for someone who is, ultimately, asking for us to willingly give him things that he is in no way entitled to by default. Respect, courtesy and self-restraint are not weird, oversensitive expectations at any time but especially not when you're demanding tens of millions of pounds worth of other people's military equipment. ESPECIALLY not when we've essentially destroyed our economic base in retaliation for Putin's attack.

As a side note @Dean, you're welcome to disagree with anyone you like on any basis you like but you've really started to slather on the contempt in your comments to people. Not only are you taking the least charitable possible view of what people write, but you're also clearly stating that the only reason that anyone could hold their perceived opinions is stupidity or ignorance. None of us are going to win or lose the Ukraine war from our keyboards, and I think that you would have more interesting and more worthwhile conversations if you took other people's views more seriously.

No, come on. He came to the UK a year or so okay and had a shopping list, he was going around pointing at our stuff that he wanted. His attitude is completely inappropriate for someone who is, ultimately, asking for us to willingly give him things that he is in no way entitled to by default. Respect, courtesy and self-restraint are not weird, oversensitive expectations at any time but especially not when you're demanding tens of millions of pounds worth of other people's military equipment. ESPECIALLY not when we've essentially destroyed our economic base in retaliation for Putin's attack.

A european political culture where a response by the largest member of the community to an invasion is helmets is, by darwinian necessity, a political culture that cultivates its interactors to be willing to press beyond initial public offerings if they want to maximize their gains, particularly when their stakes are survival. Particularly when members of the political culture are prone to hyperbole as a way of deflecting requests- such as claiming they have destroyed their economic base in retaliation for Putin's attack.

(No, you have not. Particularly if you are speaking the language of pounds instead of euros.)

In international and thus cross-cultural affairs, being clear about your wants and needs, and especially when something is insufficient is a form of being respectful and courteous. People who want to help you can't effectively help unless they understand your position, playing coy 'you should know what I mean' is itself a form of passive-aggression against those not part of the same culture-set/communication-style. This is why one of the fundamentals of cross-cultural communication is to favor clarity over culturally-specific forms of communication (including slang, puns, humor, and so on). What is polite within a culture is not the same as what is polite between culltures, and in absence of shared understandings do not expect them.

Similarly, requesting ('demanding,' if you prefer) more than you will receive is also a form of accepted diplomatic request. A patron may always wish to be asked for less, but the request it provides political advantage to the government to still send 'insufficient' material while maintaining the political advantage/perception that their reasons are reasons of stewardship (husbanding resources with consideration), military responsibility (not giving out more than can be afforded), and sovereignty (not giving exactly what was requested), without exposing less polite realities (national inability to do much more due to decades of systemic underinvestment/mismanagement, internal political divisions that might have electoral consequences). It communicates that you recognize that you will not get everything you want, while approaching negotians with someone signalled to have both value (what they can offer) and agency (the right / position to say no and publicly assert their own interests).

Note that these merits can invert and be presented as flaws if pre-coordinations are done so that the beneficiary only asks for what the benefactor has already agreed to give- an appearance of 'giving them whatever they asked for,' 'not using our own best judgement,' 'not showing restraint when our economy is so bad,' and so on. It would be downright rude to put your benefactors in such an unflattering light... if we care about other people's frames of manners.

Now, these sort of considerations may not be your idea of diplomatic respect and courtesy, but this is where we get back into various forms of cultural chauvinism, such as projecting one's own social expectations to outside cultures and expecting them to align with yours. Particularly when someone is part of a subset of larger audiences who do not share the views, and for whom deference to one could be an offense to the others.

This also where we can get into the distinction between claimed standards and actual standards on various sides of the beseeching / beseeched relationship. Such as, for example, the interests of a patron state who wants to maximize the political value / public credit they receive for the minimal amount of actual investment- i.e. those who want to give token donations when they have considerable ability to give more. Or the reasonable expectations of donor and recipient states abroad- of which 'humility' is often as unassociated with patron states as 'respect,' 'courtesy,' and 'self-restraint' when dealing with their beneficiaries, even though respect, courtesy, and self-restraint are typically reciprocal virtues.

But none of this is the case for Lizzardspawn, whose position over the years has not reasonably simplified to simply wanting Ukraine to act with respect, courtesy, and self-restraint as understood in the general global international relations domain.

As a side note @Dean, you're welcome to disagree with anyone you like on any basis you like but you've really started to slather on the contempt in your comments to people.

And when they provide more serious views with based less from positions of their own contempt of others, I do indeed find that interesting and engage accordingly. Hence why my interactions with even the people I disagree with vehemently on some issues is neutral to amicable on others.

When after years the latest round of yet another condemnation of [insert perjorative adjective][insert pejorative noun] is neither interesting or charitable, as with most posters the response is either ignored or countered based on interest in the topic and letting the bailey stand unchallenged in the public forum.

Not only are you taking the least charitable possible view of what people write, but you're also clearly stating that the only reason that anyone could hold their perceived opinions is stupidity or ignorance.

Objection! This is a least charitable possible representation of what I have written.

In no framing did I say that the only reason anyone could hold their perceived opinion is stupidity or ignorance- I attributed to Lizzardspawn specifically (by form of pronoun address) reasons of cultural chauvenism and/or fragility (which are not synonyms for stupidity or ignorance).

That Lizzardspawn is assessed to have a position for [reasons] does not claim or imply that other people can only reach the same position for the same [reasons].

None of us are going to win or lose the Ukraine war from here, and I think that you would have more interesting and more worthwhile conversations if you took other people's views more seriously.

This belies an assumption that taking certain people's views more seriously would lead to fewer, rather than more, unflattering critiques of their position or person.

This is The Motte. It is a war metaphor for a reason, and while it is a place that aims for light over heat, light is often unflattering, and can make the subject of it appear worse with more of it.

The UK (well Boris) is in large part personally responsible for the war dragging out as long as it has so that he could get his little Churchill moment. There were contemporary rumblings that even the US was surprised at how gung-ho he was being and how vigorously he was dissuading Ukraine from any kind of non-maximalist deal in mid/late 22.

True. Another fine mess he left us. Boris had moved on by the time of Zelenskyy’s visit, I think, although I know that’s always complicated in international affairs.

I guess being British myself, I don’t consider Boris == UK as I am personal proof he’s not. Plus Zelenskyy is a big boy and responsible for his own decisions, I’m sure he knew the situation in the UK. We don’t have the military or economic strength to provide long-term large-scale assistance if we wanted to, and his behaviour frankly dissuaded me from wanting to. I’ve said it before but we don’t need allies who treat us worse than our enemies.

In a sense the US does. The US/Britain forced Ukraine to consistently talk the most hawkish stance and reject negotiation with the promise that the US/UK would have their backs. The Ukrainians are slowly waking up to that they are effectively taking the role the taliban had in the 80s. Their job is to be thrown under the bus for America's interests.

The Ukrainians are slowly waking up to that they are effectively taking the role the taliban had in the 80s.

While it is certainly a talking point of the US-out-of-North-America crowd that the US funded the Taleban against the Soviets, the organization in fact did not exist until the mid-90s.

While it is certainly a talking point of the US-out-of-North-America crowd that the US funded the Taleban against the Soviets, the organization in fact did not exist until the mid-90s.

The Taliban as a banner did not exist until the mid-90s. I'm pretty sure the large majority of the notables who founded the organization in the 90s came up fighting the Soviets as mujahedeen.

Which is true, but not the same thing, especially as their enemies also fought the Soviets as mujahedeen.

I knew someone from the area. He was not anti-American that I knew of but noted that the Taleban were direct descendants of those groups trained by the American and gained their military success thereby.

So were many in the anti-Taliban northern alliance.

The US/Britain forced Ukraine to consistently talk the most hawkish stance and reject negotiation with the promise that the US/UK would have their backs.

Negotiations went nowhere because Russia's terms would leave Ukraine as good as defenceless. I wouldn't characterise this as hawkish any more than I would characterise someone that strikes back in self-defence a violent person.

Funny how Palestinians are supposed to accept being truly defenceless while Ukrainians are defenceless if they have 50k troops.

The violent people overthrew the government, shelled the Donbass for 10 years straight and have been pushing for wwIII for the last two years.

Funny how Palestinians are supposed to accept being truly defenceless while Ukrainians are defenceless if they have 50k troops.

Reality is funny at times. The punchline is that Russia and Israel are not analogous in what it takes to mitigate invasions.

The violent people overthrew the government, shelled the Donbass for 10 years straight and have been pushing for wwIII for the last two years.

Yes, the Russians are bad for having done all this with their NovaRussia intervention, and these are indeed a good three reasons why the cease fire without mitigating the longer-term Russian threats to Ukraine is liable to be both unstable and a longer-term cost to the Americans and Europeans.

We could even add the Russian attempts at pushing a self-coup during the Maidan Revolution, where their attempt to lead the Ukrainian government to purge members and supporters of the Ukrainian government including the unilateral authorization of lethal force after the sniper campaign led to the president fleeing to a hostile country before he could be justly impeached or tried as would be expected in other states.

Judging by your past commentary, you probably could have stopped before the apostrophe.

I don’t think you’re necessarily wrong about his position as a beggar, but I also doubt it would be an effective tactic. It’s not going to win him more support from his base, more materiel from his backers, or better terms from his enemies. He gains more by playing the confident, defiant underdog.

And his attitude towards his benefactors (and since my country is one of those, means I unwillingly support him) is the reason I hate him. And his way of talking do rub a nice chunk of Europeans the wrong way. I am also annoyed that no one has bitchslapped him already to show him his proper station.

Are you surprised that no one routinely bitchslaps you to show you your proper station within your country? You're acting like a slave who has attitude about his master, someone far above him, not treating another noble, also someone far above the slave, in the manner the slave believes the master should. He's the last one to be asked.

You can accept the polite fiction that most people do that you aren't a commoner nobody (considering you don't have a word in how much taxes you pay), and give up all talk of "stations" and "attitude" and "bitchslapping", or else consider praising your masters for being much more merciful than they could be, before you scold them for being merciful to people you dislike.

What a nasty opinion born only out of overconsumption of russian propaganda. What do you mean " Zelensky's attitude" ? Are you calling his expectation that the west will finally act decisively about russian aggression "attitude"? Both the Europeans and the Americans have been way too slow and way too timid in their support and that is a fact. Their fear and cowardice will cost us in the future and the success of russian propaganda in individuals such as yourself is a part of why they are so slow to act. Would you have called Churchill a beggar when he used to call Roosevelt to increase aid? What a horrible mindset.

Hello, and welcome to the—oh. Not your first rodeo.

Please familiarize yourself with the rules, particularly personal antagonism and consensus building. What seems like a fact to you may not be so obvious to others. You should make your best case and convince them whether or not your opponent is nasty or horrible.

The attitude that his war has anything to do with us. I don’t think it does, and in fact it’s hurting our other interests as we bleed our coffers to support a country too up its own arse to actually negotiate a ceasefire with Russia. He’s bleeding his country of men for pride, and insists that he needs our money to do it with.

Totally incorrect. The war definetly has to do with us and you really need to spend some time to rethink this deeply. A russia that has shown it's willing to attack and bordering a NATO country is a massive problem for us because it would inevitably result in them vying for more down the line, this is really simple stuff and I don't understand why I have to mention it. The 2nd point you get wrong is the fact that this bleeds out our coffers, nonsense , I suppose you are American? The shit you guys have given is peanuts for you since not only it isn't alot as an absolute number compared to your GDP but it's also not even hard cash most of the time but equipment you will replace anyway. In any case spending some money is better than a massive war with an emboldened russia down the line. Unless you want to just leave NATO and let Europe fend for itself? Which frankly considering how affected your opinion is by russian propaganda I wouldn't be surprised.

Lastly, Zelensky is the one bleeding his country of men for pride? Is this a joke? Why are you even in this forum if you can't even comprehend basic stuff ? How can you possibly say something like that when it's Putin that started this war , and it's Putin sending his men in the slaughter over , at best for your POV , a future threat for russia , at worst simple conquest and control of ukraine ( news flash , read some history , it's the second). In any case you are clearly badly informed If I were you I would read up some more before exposing myself like this next time.

Ukraine should never have been given any inking of joining NATO. Had we left them alone and not supported the color revolution, there never would have been a war in the first place. We’re bleeding ourselves white to support Ukraine, a country with no vital security or economic value to either Europe or the US. Worse, we’re repeatedly crossing Russian red lines meaning that we’re doing all of this and risking nuclear war to do so. And Zelensky has long refused to accept reality and negotiate a peace plan — mostly because the man believes if he can just convince us to give him just one more weapons shipments, he’s going to take back Donbas and be a hero to his people. In reality, he can’t take back the land, because he’s down to running a draft by kidnapping old men off the street and shipping them to the front. He’s almost out of Ukrainian people to throw into the meat grinder.

All of the above is why us giving Zelensky endless money and weapons is a bad idea. This isn’t and never was our problem, and the only reason it ever became a problem is that we supported a revolution and then decided to dangle NATO. Membership in their faces. It doesn’t change the reality on the ground and it doesn’t change the enormous cost of this war. And it doesn’t give Ukraine anything that NATO needs

Every time I hear this...line of thought I feel frustration with some black amusement mixed in.
NATO is problematic, if not irresponsibly hostile, while very literal aggressive expansionism from Russia itself, when it's not outright 'dindu nuffin', is complicated and needs to be understood in context, and it's their backyard, and nothing is ever black and white like that, you know.
All of this, and more, is possible at the modest price of dramatically lowering the standards to which Russia is being held.
One would be forgiven for thinking that Russia in this frame is something akin to a rabid dog that just can't be blamed for trying to tear every careless passerby's throat out. I almost agree, though somehow the proposed solution always amounts to sticking one's head in the sand, sending thoughts and prayers to those unable to afford the luxury, and hoping everything will work out somehow, while simultaneously trying best to create the impression that this is the tough, sober, "realist" approach to international politics.

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Fridman is one of the worst popular interviewers of all time. Even his interviews with highly interesting people are either very boring or much less interesting than hearing them talk on their own, which is terrible exactly because the purpose of a good interviewer is to get the person to say/admit something interesting.

It’s actually interesting that he challenges Zelensky a bit (I assume because he still feels some kind of kinship/sympathy for Russia) because he almost never does this on any other interview.

The real enigma is Fridman’s own popularity (which is the reason, along with him being a generous interviewer, why so many important people come on his show). Why do so many young men like him? Rogan has a whiff of charisma, interesting stories of his own, a charming everyman’s naïveté and an act that works well with a lot of interview subjects. Fridman sounds like someone who doesn’t care reading from a script, like a high school student forced to give a speech or chair a panel, which is insane for one of the world’s most prolific interviewers. He’s not masculine/dominant and “alpha”. He’s not cosmopolitan and well-read. He doesn’t have the smooth-talking flow of a seasoned hustle bro. He’s just nothing.

Fridman is one of the worst popular interviewers of all time.

It continues to blow my mind that he manages to get interesting guests. He's infuriating to listen to and seems like a very slow thinker. His lack of verbal fluency despite being ashkenazim is the most convincing argument against HBD that I've ever seen. I also don't actually think anybody likes him particularly - his major strength is that he gets interesting guests and then shuts the fuck up, but I think if he just made an interview show where the guest got to talk and he was completely silent he'd actually be more popular.

I expect this view won’t be popular on here, but I think the fact that Fridman is a Jew helps a lot. Fellow Jews like Netanyahu and Zelenskyy feel more welcome on his podcast rather than going on Joe Rogan, for instance. “Fridman is one of us.” That gives Fridman entreé to a lot of interviews with powerful Jews that non-Jewish interviewers might not get. Hence why his podcast has accumulated so much popularity.

There are a lot of charismatic Jewish interviewers out there. Fridman’s Jewishness is probably largely incidental even if you believe claims about nepotism etc since he built his following pretty organically and clearly attracts guests because of it rather than because of his connections, the following came first (which is surprising), and many of his big guests that drove his following (Musk, Peterson) aren’t Jewish (some were of course, but I don’t know that they’re out of proportion with the percentage of important people who are Jewish).

You can’t make the case, for example, the way you could with, say, Seth Meyers or indeed with Zelensky himself, who were Jewish comedians hired by Jewish producers and eventually given big shows (whatever you think of their merits). I’m not saying either case was ethnic nepotism, but the allegation holds more than it does for Fridman, who largely built his following organically and on his own.

who largely built his following organically and on his own.

Genuine question, did he? Did he not get a huge Rogan boost?

Yeah, but that’s only non-organic if you’re implying Rogan invited him on for a non-usual reason, I would say.

Seth Meyers

As far as I’m aware, Seth Meyers is only 1/8 Jewish (through his paternal grandfather) and I’m not sure that he was even raised with any connection to Jewish culture. He grew up in Michigan and then in New Hampshire. His wife is Jewish, and they’re raising their kids Jewish because of her, but as far as I’m aware everything he’s said about it is that he doesn’t think of himself as Jewish at all.

Fair enough, there actually aren’t a huge number of Jewish talkshow hosts, Maher and Stern and Jon Stewart are I guess.

Jimmy Kimmel would be the other obvious one. (EDIT: Actually, no! Another one like Meyers who just looks and acts Jewish. A crypto-gentile!) And then Larry King, Sally Jessy Raphael, and Ricki Lake before that. (Also Jerry Springer and Maury Povich, if you consider those talk shows.)

I am going to make myself sound about 30 years older than I am, but there were also David Susskind and Joe Franklin

Terry Gross from NPR's Fresh Air comes to mind as probably the best of the pure interviewers. It's a testament to her skill that most of the interviews of hers I've listened to aren't of people I'd normally seek out on my own but happened to come across when flipping through the dial. Larry King just wasn't any good. His philosophy was that he should be in the same position as the average audience member who didn't know particularly much about the subject and would go on a journey of discovery or whatever, but in reality it seemed like he used it to not only excuse his lack of preparation but to make it a point of personal pride.

Fridman's job translating his guests is pretty good. Plausibly his behind the scenes management, making getting on his show a seamless experience and other such hidden work, is where he shines compared to other podcasters. But that's just speculation

That's what he's selling.

I don't know how he got the first few but a popular platform that'll let you go off for a few hours is probably quite attractive to guests. And then it's just a snowball.

Finkelstein, for example, almost certainly went on his show cause he'd finally be allowed to confront Benny Morris with minimal interference. And I listened cause I wanted to see it, and so on.

Oh I don’t think his popularity with his subjects is surprising, anyone with a huge audience who isn’t politically toxic (and Friedman isn’t, his own politics seem vaguely lib-right but he doesn’t push them) is going to have people who want to be heard. It’s his audience that’s interesting.

Sure, but isn't this just the Fallon thing but for YouTube?

Some people have audiences. Others have the audience of whoever they can get on that day, provided they're bland enough to not turn them off.

Fallon is in the bottom quintile of top interviewers but I’m sure in person he still comes across as awkwardly charming, he can make some median people laugh, he’s not even in the same league as Fridman.

The real enigma is Fridman’s own popularity (which is the reason, along with him being a generous interviewer, why so many important people come on his show).

He's interesting (YMMV and obviously does, but I find him super engaging) and he tries to be open minded when he talks to people. I will never understand why people criticize him saying "oh he never pushes his guests". That's a feature, not a bug. I can't stand interviewers who just badger guests trying to get them to say/not say certain things. Lex has some questions to set up discussions, and then he just tries to listen to people and understand them. He does push back on occasion, but mostly he's trying to see things from his guest's point of view (even when you can tell he doesn't particularly agree with it). That is rare and enjoyable in this day and age.

I can't stand interviewers who just badger guests trying to get them to say/not say certain things

I more or less agree, but it's one thing to not antagonize your guest, or try to catch them off-guard, and another to add basically nothing and just have them talk their book. I think a great point of comparison is his interview with The Zuck vs the one from Dwarkesh Patel. While they're a bit apart in time, so there were some developments between them, they're both generally very friendly, but Dwarkesh just gets so much more out of Zuck by actually engaging him on the subjects he's talking about.

My review: I also spent my Sunday afternoon listening to this. I rate my experience as a 4/10. If you're interested in listening to world leaders give a speech for 3 hours, go for it. Zelensky does share some novel anecdotes. The latter half becomes tiresome.

Lex Fridman's previous interviews (that I've seen) left a better impression. I think he takes most of the blame. Lex asks very similar questions. He "has a dream" that peace can happen if Trump, Putin, and Zelensky gets in a room. Okay, great. That's answered.

It also includes the same problems as Tucker's Putin interview. Though I would rate that one as a 7/10 for peculiarity. If a president wants to blabber, dodge, and stonewall you for 3 hour's, there's not much you can do. Unless you're a great interviewer. Then you find find a way to mine an interesting vein. For that I consider much of this interview as bloated or even wasteful.

Lex has sympathies, but he also wants to be open-minded, heterodox guy. Like Zelensky I found the "can you forgive him" phrasing juvenile and poorly designed. What was he expecting there?

For Zelensky's part, I was taken by just how direct he was in making this appearance a love letter to Trump. I would expect some flattery, but so much of his answers contained an appeal to US support-- and Trump himself. That was the goal no doubt. It was new for me to hear his (official?) position now includes the option to cede occupied territories for security guarantees for what Ukraine has left. Unless I misheard that part? Negotiations may happen in 2025. That'd be good.

From what I read, it sounds like the security guarantees would be a precondition to entering negotiations, not a bargaining chip. As in, if he enters negotiations with the security guarantees already in place, it makes his negotiating position much stronger.

I'd have to go back and listen, but I didn't understand it as a "we won't talk until" precondition. He was laying out that for negotiations to be worth anything, for anything like a ceasefire to be entertained, then meaningful security guarantees must be met. Might be saying the same thing. I came away thinking he would consider (or said he would) conceding territory for something like NATO presence. He didn't say that directly, but that was my impression.

He contextualized it with the Budapest Memorandum. So he spoke at some length about the kind of "assurances" that would not be acceptable for any form of peace to occur. Maybe he's spoken like this for awhile, but that signal alone: a suggestion lines could be frozen and and concede territory was a new thing for me to hear from him.

If his aim is to get Trump involved and on board, then seen as willing to negotiate is a precondition for that to happen. We'll see.

A lot of it was also veiled threats of what might happen if Ukraine didn't get a good enough deal. Grieving Ukrainian families might turn to terrorism against Russia. Or Ukraine might have to develop nuclear weapons (could they?).

Nuclear latency (the time taken to acquire a nuclear weapon if a blank ish cheque is given and the government says go) is low for any country with nuclear reactors. Ukraine has several, as does much of East Asia. Under a year most likely, though there would be external signs that other powers would pick up on, probably.

As a general comment, a lot of commentators seem to miss that other countries than the US/NATO have agency, and this is one ways this crops up. If the US truly throws Ukraine under the bus, as some suggest would somehow both be the moral thing to do and in the USA's own interests, both Ukraine and other non nuclear powers would need to look to their full defense within a short period. Nuclear weapons might well be a part of that, and other countries are watching too. Zelensky himself may also have limited room to resist those calls either, Ukrainians I know have settled into an awakened wrath of Kipling fame, including those actively in the conflict, there's still a lot of fight there.

"I was surprised by the reverence the United States has for Russia’s nuclear threat. It may have cost us the war. They treat nuclear weapons as some kind of God. So perhaps it is also time for us to pray to this God." Oleksii Yizhak - who apparently was dropping rhetorical fire too.

Typically once the US becomes aware of non-nuclear armed country's latency period being actively shrunk, steps to... lengthen it again are harsh and immediate.

I suggest that Russia probably has more-than-adequate intelligence assets in Ukraine to become rapidly aware of such activities (don't they de facto run a lot of the nuke plants?) and has substantial heretofore untapped capabilities that they would bring to bear in such a case. (there's already a pretty big exclusion zone around Chernobyl; what's a few more!?)

Russia's untapped capabilities here are pretty much just nuclear, their conventional force isn't enough to disable any significant section of Ukraine's industry - that's rather why we're here. And any strike on a nuclear facility is not a trivial act, it is one that would lead to incredible blowback - literally - across Europe. It would be very difficult to prevent all these small countries from acquiring weapons outside of diplomatic pressure, which abandoning Ukraine and thus undermining all your other commitments would remove any leverage across all these small non nuclear states.

It's unlikely to be a key factor in the current war anyway - Russia is likely to win or lose over the coming year conventionally and nuking your way out of sanctions isn't going to change that. It's more setting the scene for the next war - security guarantees or nukes I guess to underpin Ukrainian security. Russia has them, and if America does not wish to pay for Ukraine's guarantees isn't this the better option for thrifty US isolationist nationalists without a dog in the fight?

Russia has them, and if America does not wish to pay for Ukraine's guarantees isn't this the better option for thrifty US isolationist nationalists without a dog in the fight?

Only if they don't care about the (literal) fallout -- this is absolutely a red line for Russia, and I'm not even sure how unreasonable that is.

This is negotiating- Zelenskyy doesn’t want to give up occupied territories, but he probably has to. He needs something to show for it, like security guarantees.

Everyone I've seen, including Zelensky and myself, has seemed rather confused/upset by Fridman's very strong desire to do the interview in Russian, since the symbolic concerns seem to obviously outweigh those.

It’s not clear to me at all why these “symbolic concerns” should “obviously” outweigh the fairly straightforward practical reasons why an interview conducted in a language both participants speak fluently would be more intimate, more personable, and less stilted than one conducted via interpreters. And in this situation reinforces one of the central arguments of the Russian-sympathetic side; having Zelenskyy conduct the interview in the language he grew up speaking would inspire uncomfortable questions about why he grew up speaking Russian, despite growing up in Ukraine (supposedly a nation with deep historical pride and cultural distinctiveness), and why (as I understand it) he only felt compelled to become fluent in Ukrainian as an adult.

I don’t have a strong dog in the Ukraine-Russia fight, and I have assiduously avoided wading into previous Motte discussions of the conflict, which have shocked me with their low quality, contentiousness, and total lack of intellectual charity. I’m just pointing out how Zelenskyy’s “symbolic” posture in this interview could be fairly described as a method of maintaining the polite fiction — Ukraine has always been culturally distinguishable from Russia, Ukrainian cities don’t have any deep Russian history, Russianness has always been imposed upon Ukraine, etc. — which the larger global community has been asked to respect since the invasion began. I can understand why he’s doing it, but can you understand why it doesn’t strike neutral observers as “weird” for Fridman to want to put aside that artifice for the sake of what he hoped would be an incisive interview?

These symbolic concerns are a price to pay for interviewing a serious politician who has to care about the image he presents to the world. It is entirely possible that for Zelenskyy, the interview would have become net-negative if conducted in Russian.

I suppose if you were to interview a US politician, even one in favor of cannabis legalization, they would refuse a joint during the interview, even if that would make the interview "more intimate, more personable, and less stilted". They would correctly conclude that a podcast of them being high would not play well with their voters. Likewise, Zelenskyy can not afford to look Russian.

If Friedmann is more interested in having cozy intimate interviews than having interviews with relevant statesmen, I am sure there would be no shortage of Ukrainians willing to talk with him in Russian, just like he would have no problem finding some random pothead willing to smoke a joint during the interview.

avoided wading into previous ... discussions of the conflict, which have shocked me with their low quality, contentiousness, and total lack of intellectual charity.

Pretty much every time, not just here. I haven't seen any place anywhere that isn't completely on-sides, as it were. Same for Israel/Palestine. You will never see my opinion printed on the Interwebz. All cost, no profit.

Be the change, I guess.

In my experience, the clever both-sides arguments are usually appeals to the status quo.

Putin used that cultural and language similarity as an excuse to invade and kill Ukrainians. I think artificially exaggerating the cultural and language differences so Putin has less of a cassus belli and ends the war, and doesn't pursue future ones, is very valid.

Again, you’re asking everyone to just play along with these retarded polite fictions, in the belief that if everyone just converged on the right metapolitical narrative, there would no longer be any compelling material/geopolitical reason for conflict. Any person with a modicum of historical knowledge of the region would be well-aware of the extremely complicated cultural, linguistic, and political realignments within the patch of territory currently known as “Ukraine”. Putin’s casus belli isn’t made any more or less valid by Zelenskyy refusing to conduct an interview in a language which everybody already knows that he speaks. Nor is Ukraine’s desire to resist forceful reabsorption into the Russian Federation made any more or less justified by crafting an easily-falsifiable narrative about the proud and independent history of the Ukrainian/Ruthenian-speaking nation. None of these things are actually materially important.

If propaganda isn't materially important why are both sides doing it?

The language of a single podcast of course isn't the sole hinge on which Putin's justifications turn. But it is a small piece. I think Putin's casus belli is made very slightly more valid if Zelensky speaks Russian. And very slightly less valid if he doesn't. Putin talked about the medieval history of Ukraine and Russia being one country to Tucker for so long because that type of thing does matter to Putin, and to many other Russians.

I think Putin's casus belli is made very slightly more valid if Zelensky speaks Russian.

Hard disagree. Annexations to culturally unite a people are /so/ 1930s. We don't do that any more. If Olaf Scholz was to invade Austria, which shares a lot of cultural history with Germany, that fact would not make it better or worse than an invasion of the culturally more distinct Poland.

Want to unite your people in the 2020s? Let them vote to join you, don't invade.

Tell that to Putin then, cause that's exactly what he did

For what it's worth, I recall literally zero episodes of anyone in my life going on about "actually Ukraine is just Russia" before the war. On my screen, people were perfectly fine having it as just a quaint almost-Russia, similar but separate, until the TV turned on the propaganda tap.

Any person with a modicum of historical knowledge of the region would be well-aware of the extremely complicated cultural, linguistic, and political realignments within the patch of territory currently known as “Ukraine”.

Sure, but the masses buy the first narrative someone with a modicum of credibility sells them. Find a friendly historian, find a friendly journalist, have the latter cite the former and voila: Russian was never spoken by more than 5% of the population of Ukraine, citable on wikipedia. Find a friendly linguist and friendly journalist, and you can create the West-East Slavic Languages or add Ukranian to the Western Slavic ones. Again, a single article in an Reliable Source is all that is needed for wikipedia to consider it a fact on par with the Earth being round. And since most people will not delve to discover and possible dissent, a consensus among the masses can be manufactured by a wikipedia editor, skilled in the art of wiki bureaucracy and lacking in appreciation for the truth.

Putin’s casus belli isn’t made any more or less valid by Zelenskyy refusing to conduct an interview in a language which everybody already knows that he speaks.

Records can be destroyed, and lied about. Have a reliable source claim Zelenskyy speaks Russian at such a low-level he is unable to discuss politics live, and it will believed by the masses whos willingness to research the truth ends at wikipedia, if that.

crafting an easily-falsifiable narrative about the proud and independent history of the Ukrainian/Ruthenian-speaking nation.

See above.

But lets ignore the deceivers, and focus on the language nationalism. In many Slavic countries the idea of a Nation (not as a synonym for a country) includes at its heart a language which is a distinct property of the members of a nation and which is meaningfully distinct from other languages. From the Spring of Nations a crucial demand was to be allowed to speak ones native tongue, usually associated with the peasentry, in official everyday business with the state and in parliaments also. This is probably the history, particularly within the context of Austria-Hungary, Zelenskyy is much more familiar with than Americans who never had to think about their native tongue and the wider society and any possible conflicts between them. And it is not like such conflicts do not exist today: A lawmaker just a few months ago protested to make Greenlandic an official language in the Danish parliament by making a speech only in Greenlandic, and ommiting the legally demanded Danish.

Any person with a modicum of historical knowledge of the region would be well-aware of the extremely complicated cultural, linguistic, and political realignments within the patch of territory currently known as “Ukraine”.

We aren't discussing any person with a modicum of historical knowledge of the region. We're talking a podcaster and a podcast audience, who are in turn being used to shape the perceptions of an even less informed broader audience whose opinions have collective weight and impact on American policy makers decisions.

None of these things are actually materially important.

These framings are actually materially important, because the go on to shape the material inputs for the capacity to wage war.

Part of the insight 'war is politics by other means' is that the extension of policy into war also entails the inverse- politics is war by other means, because politics is what establishes policy that governs the conduct of war.

Policy may be boring, it may involve a lot of non-material elements, but it absolutely is materially important, hence why every serious power-building or power-seeking institution in the world invests non-trivial amounts of effort and thinking on information advantages. Part of information conflict is the language you choose to pursue it in- and that is a choice, because the choice itself has impacts.

I think you nailed it with why does Zelensky speak Russian first?

And to steel man the point: the people Zelensky really needs to convince are the citizens of the LNR and DNR; those people consider themselves Russian, they speak Russian, and they want to be a part of Russia, not Ukraine. Speaking in Russian does have some symbolism, and the symbolism is “I’m not your enemy”. Refusing to even speak the language of the people you are supposedly fighting a war over certainly signals something.

Imagine Mexico invaded the US because El Paso, TX votes to secede from the US and rejoin Mexico.

What would be the symbolism if the Governor of Texas, in this thought experiment, spoke Spanish first, but refused to talk to the people in El Paso in that language, but instead insisted that he and by extension they, all spoke English.

The symbolism in this case is "I am, indeed, your wayward little brother as your propaganda has been claiming all along, and only persisted in having my own language out of spite and stubbornness".

the people Zelensky really needs to convince are the citizens of the LNR and DNR; those people consider themselves Russian, they speak Russian, and they want to be a part of Russia, not Ukraine.

Does he? Even if he magically manages to reconquer the 2014-2022 LDNR, Ukraine has no real need to cater to them. Other Russian-speaking cities have accepted Ukrainian as the primary language even if Russian remains common. Those who can't accept that are free to pack up and leave.

Insofar as I've understood, while Ukrainian has always been widely spoken in the countryside, Russian has been a prestige language, which is one of the reasons why it has had a strong stature in the cities (other reasons include internal immigration inside Russian empire etc., of course). The Ukrainian national project is not just about making Ukrainian acceptable but making it the prestige language inside Ukrainian; Zelensky speaking Russian in an interview like this would obviously go against that project.

And to steel man the point: the people Zelensky really needs to convince are the citizens of the LNR and DNR; those people consider themselves Russian, they speak Russian, and they want to be a part of Russia, not Ukraine.

If the starting assumption is that Zelensky and the Ukrainian govt has already tacitly accepted that (the occupied areas) of Donbass are not going to be within Ukrainian suzerainty for the time being, it also means that the people currently residing in those areas are not really the ones to convince about anything any more.

Insofar as I've understood, while Ukrainian has always been widely spoken in the countryside,

This certainly has been true in the western Ukraine, but I don’t think it has been true in the East. Pre-war, less than 20% of population of Donetsk Oblast spoke Ukrainian at all. Given that pretty much all Ukrainian speakers spoke Russian too, probably less than 10% of all conversations happened in Ukrainian.

If your definition of "East" is mostly just the specific areas that were taken by separatists/Russia in 2014 then sure - if you go by a map like this, the areas where Russian was given as the main language in the census outside of the cities pretty much cover those areas, with an additional zone in the Zaporozhye oblast.

Presumably many of those answering that they're Ukrainian-speaking would have indeed used mostly Russian in their daily lives, but that's precisely the difference between a prestige language and a non-prestige language. If Ukrainian-speakers have to become fluent in Russian to get by in life but the Russian-speakers feel it's not their duty to tarnish their mouths with what they see as a peasant dialect, it's Russian that gets spoken, and increasingly so as the years pass by, unless there's a concrete intervention to this matter.

This reminded me of a question I had: how well did Mannerheim speak Finnish?

Apparently he started seriously studying it quite late in life (i.e. at 50, when he returned to Finland from Russian active service), but most sources I've seen say that by WW2 he knew if quite well. He retained a notable Swedish accent (it's obvious to me from a clip like this), but it's generally these days just seen as a part of his mythos as the last true aristocrat in Finland.

If Zelensky will give up the disputed territories the war ends today, and young Ukrainian men stop dying.

If these Ukrainian people are so intent on fighting to keep control of the Donbas and Crimea, then why the need for conscription?

If Zelensky will give up the disputed territories the war ends today, and young Ukrainian men stop dying.

Since 2022, Putin has been pushing for a regime change in Kiev. What he is trying to do should be familiar to any player of Paradox games, it is building an empire. If you simply appease such people, you might get a few years of peace. But sooner or later, they will come for the next slice of territory, and then people will again argue "just give them what they want to stop the fighting".

I don't give much of a damn about Donbas and certainly none about Crimea. A peace deal where Putin gets them and in return Ukraine joins NATO (so that he can't come for the next Oblast in a year) would seem preferable -- but will not happen because Putin is not willing to let Ukraine move outside his sphere of influence.

And if Putin gave them up the war would end as well. Why is the onus only on Zelensky here? You talk about Ukraine using conscripts but Putin doesn't even have the political capital for that. His first draft was limited to outlying areas and provoked a mass exodus, and he won't even consider drafting out of Moscow or other major cities. He's resorted to using North Korean mercenaries to retake occupied areas inside Russia. Doesn't Putin have an obligation to prevent the deaths of young Russian men?

And if Putin gave them up the war would end as well. Why is the onus only on Zelensky here?

Because he demands the west to spend money on him.

And why shouldn't he? His country is at stake. That's more a question to be leveled at the people who he's asking for money and not at Zelensky.

If Zelensky will give up the disputed territories the war ends today, and young Ukrainian men stop dying.

In such a scenario, what makes you think Putin would either respect the ceasefire (see point 7 in the OP) or not just use the time to prepare and re-arm for another invasion?

Where does this logic lead you other than genocide of the Russian people and complete destruction of Russia as a nation?

This is the exact logic that the US has used for every ridiculous war we've gotten into for the last 70 years.

A whole range of possibilities. There are choices between "give them what they want" and "we have to exterminate them all".

It's worth pointing out that the breaking of the Nazi and Imperial Japanese war machines did not require the genocide of thier respective peoples.

Ummm... Maybe not the complete genocide of their peoples. But certainly the destruction of millions upon millions of civilians, the castration of their independence and self respect as nations, and a permanent pall of suspicion cast over any effort to emerge.

I think it's true that the Axis war machine was broken without genocide, but after the war both nations had their borders redrawn at bayonet-point, with Germany being split in two and millions of Germans forcibly relocated. Hundreds of thousands of them died and others (including civilians) were sent to forced labor camps. This policy was (in part, at least) approved by the "big three" (UK, US, USSR) during the Potsdam Conference and wasn't just something the Russians "got away with" after the Iron Curtain came down, and Western countries, including the US, UK, and France used POWs as forced labor until the late 1940s. Similarly in Japan, the Kurils were occupied by Russia with American assent and the Japanese inhabitants removed. It seems fair to say that no genocide was committed, but it might be worth remembering that what we would today call ethnic cleansing was a part of the Allied postwar strategy.

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You can stop a nation from invading its neighbors without committing genocide and destroying the nation. The US has also done this, for more than 70 years.

Do you sincerely believe Putin would just stop at Donbas and the Crimea, with no further designs on Ukraine or any other neighbors?

How many other countries has he invaded since the Ukraine war began? If he had any interest in other territories, why hasn’t he tried to take them?

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let's see

If Zelensky will give up the disputed territories the war ends today, and young Ukrainian men stop dying.

Why believe that, when the disputed territories are disputed on the basis of Russian fiat beyond any sort of linguistic borderline and an ethnic dispute that resolved to 'we deny the existence of a Ukrainian nation, you are misled russians'?

And previous claims that Russia had no territorial disputes were later reversed?

And that war-start propaganda- including the pre-emptive victory lap way- identified Kiev itself in the realm of disputed/contested (vis-a-vis the weath) and mocked anyone for thinking Kiev wasn't part of the Russian claim?

The war did not start over a dispute over border territories. The war started as an attempt to take over the country in it's entirely. All of Ukraine is 'disputed territory,' it's just that much of the disputed territory is beyond Russia's military-industrial capacity to take.

Why believe that, when the disputed territories are disputed on the basis of Russian fiat beyond any sort of linguistic borderline and an ethnic dispute that resolved to 'we deny the existence of a Ukrainian nation, you are misled russians'?

This raises a more interesting question: is it better to die as a Ukrainian or to live as a Russian? Suppose Zelensky decided to capitulate unconditionally on the 25th of February. How many people would Russian occupying forces have killed? Right now the documented deaths stand at 68+ thousand.

Any regime installed by Putin would work pretty much like the current Russian system: a few oligarchs (picked for personal loyalty, not competence) own monopolies on most resource extraction.

Generally, those states favor rather simple production processes for most of their revenue where some goon can be put in charge, not complicated ones where they depend on some nerds with questionable loyalty. Competitive private enterprise is only tolerated while it is too small to form a power base.

Now, I will grant you that Ukraine certainly had its share of oligarchs as well, but they were at least in the process of transitioning out of a kleptocratic regime. If they become a puppet state of Putin in the way Belarus is, they will be stuck in that state for the foreseeable future, which will leave most of the population poor. This has some QALY costs.

All of them, since they'd die as russian also because everyone dies regardless. Same as how every Ukrainian would have still died if Russia didn't invade at all. Since net death over time is the same, you can either quibble on the timeliness or you can quibble on the nature, but trying to do both is often smuggling a conclusion. 'Is it better to die a Russian or die a Ukrainian' would be a more like-to-like framing, let alone 'Is it better to die killing for Russia or die killing a Russian.'

As far as nature goes, the Tyrant's Peace dilemma has always been a false dilemma, because submission doesn't escape the fate supposedly avoided (death), and the submission to the tyrant entails the consequence and the usual depravities of being used by the tyrant to fight the next war, which repeats the same dilemma except the conscript is on the other side fighting for rather than against the warmonger.

LNR and DNR were being bled white even before the war, and Putin's revanchist ambitions went well beyond Ukraine. It's not like Ukrainian human dignity mattered any more than the Russians Putin has pushed into his sunk cost fallacy meat grinder. Putin's stupidity was always going to end up getting a lot of people killed, and would only grow in scale of risk if Ukraine had validated his myopia. If he had the ability to invoke the Ukrainians as his canon fodder before the Russians of Saint Petersburg and Moscow regions, he would, and we know because he did just that when he had the means.

Your stance also explains why Palestinians keep losing to Israel, but keep rejecting its (steadily worsening) peace terms.

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If he gives them up for nothing, the likelihood is he’ll be overthrown and killed.

So what's the plan? Just keep the war going until there's nobody left to kill him?

Give them up for something. EU membership and sufficient security guarantees, and put the contested territories in legal limbo so the god Terminus doesn't set down his lines.

The positive path forward for Ukraine goes through the EU, a Poland type trajectory economically, and perhaps using their vast store of veterans in those Cossack fantasies they have sometimes for cash and political capital.

If in 20 years Ukraine looks like Poland and Russia looks like Russia, contested provinces and people will be trying to join Ukraine.

(1) Fight until the army collapses

(2) Cultivate stab-in-the-back myth that the war was eminently winnable if Ukraine had gotten just gotten more aid and gotten it faster

(3) Flee to a friendly country

I mean I don’t blame the guy, if he didn’t do it the hardliners would shoot him in the head and get someone who would.

If I am in his position, the plan will be to keep the war going, stay in power as long as posible using the war til I die

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