Linkey

I've come to the conclusion that about 20% of Russians get sadistic pleasure from inflicting suffering on Ukrainians. It can be said, that there are three peoples in Russia: an apolitical majority, a pro-war minority, and an anti-war minority. And the pro-war minority ("vatniks") impose Putin's current policies and persecute the democrats in power. Putin wouldn't have started the war if the “vatniks” didn’t persecute people like old liberal Medvedev, A.Chubays, I. Nabiullina; and his war is turning them into sadists. I can explain why Putin needs to torment Ukrainians, causing them as much suffering as possible. For the past 20 years, there has been a clash of two ideologies: the Russian imperial ideology (Ivan the Terrible, Stalin, etc.) and the Ukrainian pro-democratic Maidan. The Maidan gave Ukrainians a lot (in particular, a fight against corruption), and if Putin hadn't bombed them, they would now be happier than Russians. And in this case, the Russians would also want to inspire a revolution (Maidan) in Moscow. This is precisely why Putin is artificially making Ukrainians unhappy. The "vatniks" like their meme "The ukrs had jumped on the Maidan", meaning that as long as Ukrainians live worse than Russians, the “vatniks” believe that a revolution against a government is a bad idea. I constantly read news about how the Russian army bombed a Ukrainian hospital, a medicine warehouse, and so on—at least unconsciously, all of this is aimed precisely at causing suffering to Ukrainians. It can be said that Putin has no choice: if he will loose the power, he will lose his life.

I suppose, Switzerland is an exception to the EU countries. I really like the direct democracy there (referendums each 3 months).

These indices are made by people who serve global elites. Are you sure that in US people drink more than in Sweden? Speaking of the Muslim countries, they just have a prohibition on alcohol because of their religion. They are not free.

As far as I can see, if we compare USA with Europe, the latter looks like USSR: it has more equality, but less freedom. The laws control everything in Europe; for example, cucumbers for sale must be of a strictly defined shape. And this makes too difficult for a smart person to start its own business. I have heard from many people, that in Europe, people drink more alcohol, than in the USA. This can be explained as the result of political situation. A psychologist have told me, that craving for alcohol is a consequence of the absence of aim in life; and it seems that the lack of freedom in Europe makes the Europeans more prone to alcohol. The Americans were at least able to elect a freak, who is not fully controlled by the global elites, while people in Europe don’t have such a possibility.

As I have already explained, a referendum will be performed each week, but these referendums will not be "referendums in strict sense" (they will not have legal force). If the government considers a referendum as "profane", it can reject it; but it will have to explain its position to the people, otherwise the ruling politicians possibly will be imprisoned after leaving the power - through a new referendum. And this leads to the following conclusion. If a ruler (President) rejects a referendum selfishly (e.g. because he does not want to loose money, etc), he will realize, that after leaving the power, he will be soon imprisoned. And this will easily make him a dictator - he will use the force (administrative resource) to keep his power. This means, that the proposed model of referendum democracy can work properly only in conjunction with the Ukrainian political model, "ideology of Maidan", the readiness of population to overthrow any power if it becomes corrupted. That's why the survival of Ukraine is critically important for the human civilization...

Sorry, I don't understand your question.

I live in Russia, and I know the mentality of Russians. The Putin’s propaganda manipulatively states that Russia needs a “tsar”, not the Western model. The Russians use the word “Gayrope” (Gay Europe), and many of them connect LGBT with the democracy in Europe (at least unconsciously). Some Russians use the word “dermocracy”, the word “dermo” in Russian means “sh…t”. As far as I know, only in German 80 years ago there was a similar word – “systemzeit”. This is caused by the fact that both Germans and Russians had been living under democracy with very big economic problems – the Weimar republic in Germany and the Yeltsin’s time in Russia. But I am sure that if Russians see that under democracy people can vote against transgenders, they (the Russians) will experience a cognitive dissonance.

As far as I can see, scienceforums.net is not an US forum. So which country is it from? Maybe Canada or Australia?

This does not contradict to what I wrote. If I say that a politician A, which is supported by you, does something bad, and you reply that a politician B does some other bad things - even if is this true, this does not mean that I was wrong relating the politician A. If we compare USA with Europe, I suppose, Europe looks like USSR: it has more equality, but less freedom. In Europe, it is too difficult for a smart person to start his own business. The state controls almost everything, and the numerous laws make small business too difficult.

This forum is owned by a person from Europe?

These reactions are expected, since I know that all people who could support me have been already banned long ago ("we had some pro-Trumpists here before, but we banned them because they lied" ©). Can I ask the members one more question - who is sponsoring this forum and determining its moderation?

I believe that there is a very easy way for Trump to stop the war in Ukraine: he must initiate an all-US referendum with suggestions to prohibit big sports for transgenders, and establish that there are only two genders, men and women. If such a referendum is performed, Russians will experience a cognitive dissonance – they will realize that democracy leads to prohibiting gender diversity – and their worldviews will evolute, so they would stop supporting Putin and his war. This is so simple… Now I have a questions – what does Trump do now, to prohibit big sports for transgender people?

Bitcoins are analogous to gold; both gold and bitcoins are limited in total amount, making them an effective way to store money without paying the "inflation tax". However, there are currently many problems with cryptocurrencies, such as the division into "pure" and "dirty" crypto, and I am not sure that cryptocurrencies are more convenient to use than gold. And this leads to a new question: why the gold is not growing as fast as bitcoins? Maybe buying gold is illegal in the US/Europe?

People often claim that the referendum democracy is a bad idea, because common people are profanes and can't vote competently. I have an argument against this: as far as I know, during last 170 years, only one time people in Switzerland voted on a referendum for increasing the social benefits.

Ok, that seems good. I am sure that a person must be obliged only to read some amount information in the voting application and choose any decision including "I don't know". This choice will be equal to not voting for the decision, but it increases the voting turnout. I suppose, it is not necessary to force people to study something that helps to vote competently, because there is one more mechanism: people need to have a common aim for friendship, and it will be an easy way to get friends - participate in some political club where each referendum is discussed. In these clubs the people will voluntary study sciences like economy or history.

I created a thread "Referendum democracy - how it can work", but Swansoft moved my post here.

Firstly, you should read about the Easterlin paradox: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easterlin_paradox The economic growth itself does not do anybody happier. During last 500 years, the productivity of labour of the planet has increased maybe 1000 times, but the people haven't become happier because of this. So, an inefficiency of governing the country will be only a small problem with the referendum democracy. Only psychological factors can make the society happier, and they include the aim in life, which helps people gather friends (for friendship people need to have common aims).

Current idea of modern (representative) democracy is simple and looks fine: the population choses between several professional politicians in power via voting. However, in fact this does not work: these professional politicians establish a “cartel agreement” (often even unconscious) and a monopoly of elites on information, and this prevents people who do not belong to elites from starting a political career (only Zelensky as exception). Here I suggest “democracy 2.0”, and the main aspect of it is a big number of referendums, which are performed maybe each week. This system will motivate common people to study sciences like economics for more competent voting. The referendums can be performed online; currently some IT decisions like DeFi can be used for guaranteeing that the votes will be calculated both closed (anonymous) and confidently/honestly (I can explain this later). Here is most important idea: these multiple referendums will not be referendums in strict meaning, because they will not have a legal force; instead, they will reveal what people want, and the power will have to fulfill the will of nation. If a referendum was “profane”, theoretically the power can reject is in the interest of people, but it will have to explain this later, after leaving the power – otherwise the politicians who ignored the will of nation will be imprisoned via a decision of people via a new referendum. I mean that the people will be able to either imprison somebody, or vice versa give somebody a juridical immunity, via a referendum.

Israel is currently afraid of starting a full-scale war with Iran, because Iran is bigger and has more resources. However, I believe that Israel could easily win this war if it turned it into a nonzero sum game and set its goal to interest the Iranian people and turn them into an ally. To do this, Israel needs to announce in social media that it is starting an offensive with only one goal - performing a referendum in Iran with the following questions: 1) Unblocking Youtube; 2) Freeing political prisoners; 3) Abolishing censorship and repressive laws; 4) Transferring power from the Ayatollah to the President; 5) Amnesty for all Iranian military personnel who went over to Israel's side. Israel must emphasize that it will play by the rules, and aims to make the Iranian people an ally; It is necessary to promise that the Iranian people will be able to vote against all these points in a referendum, and Israel will accept this choice. Why the Israeli authorities didn’t choose this path?

Nobody has denied this connection. You claimed that Ozempic and Mounjaro affected these, and you have given no evidence of that. I watched this information somewhere in a vlog. Currently I tried to find this information, and found e.g. the following: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-ozempic-and-wegovy-might-change-your-favorite-food GLP-1 drugs—initially designed to help treat type 2 diabetes by triggering insulin release—can cause weight loss by making people feel full faster. But some people report that in addition to an increase in satiety, they experience changes in their preferences for specific foods—they find meats suddenly repulsive, fried foods too heavy and savory snacks unappealing. On online forums and in scientific surveys, some people have expressed a general loss of interest in food overall—a few have even said that the drugs have redefined food as a necessity rather than a joy for them.

I tried to find studies relating the connection between the pleasure from food and phychological factors; GPT agreed with this statements, and provided me a lot of refs like these: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3498255/#:~:text=In%20the%20present%20studies%2C,about%20orange%20juice%20%28suggesting https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/166275/arcp1069.pdf?sequence=2#:~:text=We%20also%20identify%20key,marketing%20context%2C%20including%20social https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2158244021989318 It is not clearly stated in these studies what I wrote, but the number of refs also matters, and in general, the refs lead to this conclusion.

The idea of psycho-activity is mine: previously I watched a science blogger who said that our pleasure from food is psychological to a significant extent. So I thought that suppressing this pleasure is a psycho-activity.

In last years, Elon Musk have been using Ozempic against obesity: https://www.axios.com/2024/12/26/elon-musk-ozempic-mounjaro-weight-loss As far as I can see, the Ozempic can be considered as a psycho-active drug (usually, the pleasure from eating is maybe rather psychological then physiological). And here is some more information: it seems that last time Musk have lost his mind: Maybe these two facts are related?

In last years, Elon Musk have been using Ozempic against obesity: As far as I can see, the Ozempic can be considered as a psycho-active drug (usually, the pleasure from eating is maybe rather psychological then physiological). And here is some more information: it seems that last time Musk have lost his mind: Maybe these two facts are related?

The West has adopted the ideology of protecting LGBT and other minorities. I am not a homophobe and I rather support the original idea, but now this policy has led to some abuses (Putin's propaganda loves to talk about them in order to instill in Russians hostility towards the West and democracy). As examples of these abuses I can name transgender people in big sport, or gender-neutral toilets. I hope you respect Sabine Hossenfelder, and even she has become concerned about this topic: https://youtu.be/cZ9YAFYIBOU One of the reasons why Americans elected Trump was his promise to end such things. However, Trump is an unpleasant person in other aspects, so it is very likely that after 4 years the Americans will elect a president from Democrats who will return all this to the way it was. If Trump was smart, he would hold an all-US referendum proposing to enshrine only two genders in the constitution and so on, but unfortunately he is not smart (if he was smart, the ruling class would not have allowed him to participate in the elections).