Oddbean

I also know both Russians and Ukrainians. The sane Russians with at least some wealth have mostly left Russia, for good. The ones I know who have stayed (or returned!) are nutjobs; I'm not concerned about the wealthier Russians who haven't left. And as for the poor ones, if they want to live the onus is on them to do something useful like sabotage to make their country lose faster. It's not that hard. We should not sacrifice the lives of Ukrainians – and quite possibly ourselves in the future – for the sake of Russians. The fact is, you do in fact win wars by killing the other side more efficiently. WW2 was won because far more Germans and Japanese died than westerners. We were damn good at killing them, to the point where they simply surrendered essentially unconditionally.

ChatGPT does not agree: During World War II, the Allies suffered significantly more casualties than the Axis powers. The Axis (Germany, Japan, Italy, and others) lost about 8 to 10 million people, including both military and civilian deaths. Germany alone accounted for roughly 5 to 6 million of these. On the other hand, the Allies (including the Soviet Union, China, the United States, the United Kingdom, and others) saw around 50 to 55 million deaths. The Soviet Union had the highest number of casualties, with 24 to 27 million, mostly civilians. China also suffered heavily, with 15 to 20 million deaths. The higher Allied losses were largely due to massive civilian casualties and widespread destruction in the Soviet Union and China.

I specifically said "westerners" for a reason. We killed Germans efficiently. The Soviets were brutal and inefficient, including to their own people, and would have been utterly crushed without massive amounts of Western military aid. Allying with the Soviets was an example of joining forces with evil to fight evil. Also mentioning China here is ridiculous. The massacre of Chinese civilians by the Japanese is one reason why we went to war with Japan in the first place. It's like arguing that the 6 million Jews that were murdered show that we couldn't kill Germans efficiently and the war wasn't lopsided.

I see a number of misconceptions in you writings about the wars… or better say conceptions that take only similar points of view as true - well there are many others supported by numbers, logic and common sense. Please, study at least WWII and other military conflicts statistics and of course other people’s argumentations… it surely will make you more mentally and psychologically complete and stable (to my opinion any person talking about killing one people to save the others is ‘unstable’ and reminds me of many dictators from the past) and you will not think that killing more Russians or Ukrainians effectively is the only key to peace in todays Russia-Ukraine war)))) Peace.