Sometimes, sadly, giving up is the right thing to do.

I get it, but if you are just trying to make the point that, if a country thinks they’ll eventually lose, it’s better for everyone if they give up quickly … then this historical example doesn’t seem relevant.

Given that Ukraine already gave up quickly once (in Crimea) and that Russia simply waited until it was convenient to invade them again, I’m sure you can understand why Ukrainians think it’s necessary to fight this one out.

Now, the war of the Triple Alliance is often held up as an example of how a minority of belligerents can create massive devastation by continuing a guerilla war after losing the conventional war; if Ukraine seems in danger of losing the conventional war, I’ll admit it’s a relevant parallel, otherwise it isn’t terribly relevant.

Bro I’ve been on roundabouts less circular than your logic

Sorry I am finding it very difficult to follow your argument.

Can you explain what “international law” you believe US sanctions to have broken?

That they can issue court orders to companies that do business in their territory?

They … they know…

For some of us at some times in our lives, having a relationship with two people is less work. It requires much more communication, better scheduling, and much more attention to your partners’ feelings … but that might be a good investment of time anyhow, and often gets overlooked.

I find that having multiple partners helps me appreciate each partner much more, for themselves – it’s easy to mix up how much you love just having a partner and being loved, with how you actually feel about that person. Poly gives you the distance and contrast to see your partners clearly, and that can be really special.

Yeah, this is my dynamic as well. My partner and I have been together for a decade and poly from the beginning. It’s not at all a secret, but people are so used to monogamy as a norm that they often just think our other partners are super close friends that hang out at our house a lot.

I’ve been in poly relationships most of my adult life, around 15 years now. I’m certainly familiar with the type of relationship you describe, but the long term, stable poly relationships are the ones that have been poly from the get go.

I don’t tend to date people who are “opening things up” in a previously monogamous relationship, because being someone’s learning experience is a bummer.

I’ve been in poly relationships for years. They work really well for me and my significant others, but we are pretty discreet about it because folks tend to be huge assholes about it.

Generally, you don’t see the poly relationships that work great; mostly, people see the type of scenario one of your other commenters described because the stable relationships are less visible.

We don’t! That’s the joy of it, just like people do, our algorithm will constantly waffle back and forth and argue with itself over whether these things are salads

I know, I was being humorous but it is in fact the way most categorization works. Very seldom is it a taxonomy; the way we recognize faces, voices, shapes, etc … it’s all probabilistic.

What we need is a salad categorizing multilayer neural network

So teeeeechnically, a salad is a dish composed of mixed ingredients. You could make the argument that you mix any two set of chopped ingredients and bingo bongo, it’s a salad.

However, I like to think that dishes’ ingredients aren’t a taxonomic thing, they’re a probabilistic thing. In other words, there’s no such thing as “not salad” or “salad”, only shades of saladness.

• Serve it cold? Ok it’s saladier

• It’s made up of chopped ingredients? Saladier still

• Those ingredients are mostly vegetables? Getting pretty saladish

• They’re mixed together? Even more salad like

• They’ve got some sort of dressing mixed in? Now it’s very likely a salad!

… and so on. To me, your SO’a dish has a pretty high Salad Probability^tm

That’s how it normally works, yes… particularly if the country in question is not a signatory to the ‘international law’ in question.

I sure haven’t

I’m saddened to hear that there are still an appreciable amount of Spanish people talking about us that way, but I’m not upset at the dictionary for recording the way the language is used.

I’m guessing it’s approached in something of a similar way to how English language dictionaries handle the word gyp, which is to give its definition and note that it is offensive.

your arguing US law. I’m arguing international. They are not the same.

No shit… these companies operate in the US, which makes US law applicable to them.

I mean, if folks were making fun of their housing I’d agree but this is the equipment they’re buying to threaten their neighbors with, instead of feeding their starving population

Like every ceasefire.

Probably the reason Ukraine doesn’t want a ceasefire…

It takes all of three minutes to click through to the court order here. All three companies do significant business in the US, but the money to buy the oil was US dollars, and came from Oaktree Capital which is based in Los Angeles.

Which is (and this might be a shocker) in the USA.

Another country? What are you talking about my dude? An American company bought oil from Iran (in violation of US law), and had the oil they bought seized.