 May 40 here. I was just listening to Peter Zion on the Ukraine war. He talked about how Russia's invasion was imperialist, fascist, and genocidal. Now, I don't think any of those descriptors are accurate. I don't really think they shed important light on things. There may be tiny elements of imperialism. I don't really see any. No, there are no elements of imperialism. There are no elements of fascism. And to the extent that there is a genocide, then genocide is such a hotly contested, definitional controversy that professors who specialize in genocide have fallen out with each other and stopped speaking to each other. It's that highly contested. John Mirsch and I make the point that the war is sent to escalate. The more United States did the Ukraine prior to 2022, the more arms they shift and the more training they gave in, the more they de facto integrated them into NATO. And the more likely it was with Putin that would feel threatened and feel driven to invade. Just if any other leader of Russia would likely have the same motivation. The Russian war on Ukraine has very little to do with Putin. So, just like any leader of Germany in the 1930s would have been incentivized to try to win a quick, fast war for Europe. I think Germany had a good chance to win World War I and World War II and that they didn't win. It didn't mean that the decision was a mistake. This meant they didn't quite pull it off. If they had launched World War I ten years earlier, they would have won. Now, it's not that national leaders are completely irrelevant, right? No Hitler and no Holocaust. So, any leader of Germany would have been incentivized to go to war and try to take control of Europe. But Henry Hipper would have launched a genocidal war against the Jews. So, I'm primarily a structuralist. I look at the structure of international relations. I look at the structure of situations, well, and personalities. But sometimes the personality matters. Donald Trump is a unique personality. Adolf Hitler is a unique personality. I see a lot of use of the term grift. I've left Jerko like Ken Brown. He's made a long video on what is grifting. It's quite popular demand and he says it's when you promise something good and it's fraudulent. Grift does have a meaning and it's that. It means small time theft. So, I don't think any meaning beyond that, particularly useful. So, as a put-down, I don't think it's impressive. So, as a grifter, no, not really. Unless they're engaged in theft, petty theft is not grifting. So, fascism has a meaning. Russia's a vision of Ukraine. It's not fascism. Fascism is a political movement that arose between World War I and World War II in Europe as a reaction to the rise of communism. Imperialism has a meaning that's where you take control of other countries. Putin doesn't want to take control of all of Ukraine. That's evidenced by going to Ukraine with only 175,000 soldiers, never shared any evidence of trying to take control of all of Ukraine. It wants to peel off a few promises in the Western. Provinces in the Western wreck Ukraine, so that it will be less of a threat to Russia as a kind of launching base for a NATO invasion. I don't like it when words are used luckily when they're just thrown around as pejoratives and they don't fit. And Peter Zein does this. He gets in high-dudgeon and he did this with January 6th protestors and talked about the murdering policemen. And I know policemen who were murdered on January 6th. The only person who was killed directly on January 6th was Ashley Baber, who was shot by a member of the police. So, there were people who died on January 6th, except for Ashley Baber, but they weren't killed and they weren't murdered. But Peter Zein would talk about how the January 6th protestors would beat policemen to death. And so, it was a lot of fun to listen to, like at Richard Spencer. But part of what makes them so fun and so compelling is they didn't always circumscribe and circumcise their stories to comport with the facts. People who try really hard to be accurate and fair are just not going to tell as good a story. They're not going to be nearly as dramatic. They're not going to be likely as compelling. They're not going to seize your attention quite as much. They're not going to be as entertaining, because some people feel they can try to constrain themselves to what is true. The Zein goes out on these flights of fancy, which makes them a lot of fun. But that's how accurate.