Finland and Sweden have joined NATO. That is bad for Russia and its on going war with Ukraine. I didn’t realize Finland had so many past wars with Russia, but that’s having a different ideology and sharing a border for you. This painful war between Russia and Ukraine goes on and on. They predicted Ukraine would fall fast and early. It keeps not happening. The war goes on.

I read somewhere that one cannot be a pacifist and support any military intervention. I have thought about that saying a great deal since. I hate war and do consider myself a pacifist, but according to the above definition, that would mean I would not have supported other countries, particularly the US, providing military aid to Ukraine. That means I would have perhaps doomed Ukraine to Russian occupation if I had been the military high up in charge person who decided such things; if I was this person and I decided I would only follow this pacifist ideal. Which obviously I would never be! It’s like the trolley problem for war. Do you let the Ukraine fall to avoid an even worse international conflict? I feel disturbed by letting Ukraine fall, but of course fucking WWIII sounds way worse.

I know a lot of people are probably thinking it, but sometimes it feels like Ukraine will join NATO –> WWIII will commence –> nuclear war will happen –> the climate catastrophe will be “mitigated” in some ways by the loss of population. There will not be mitigation in terms of many cities being devastated by nuclear bombs and the horrific polution that would follow. Where I live would likely be a target, that’s what I have always been told, there’s a big research university here, as well as prominent science and chemical institutes that do work for the DOD. Also, lots of population. I catastrophize easy and often, OCD is the center of my mental health onion. I try to think of where we might go if such a situation were to arise and we were lucky enough to have enough warning to escape. It scares me, deeply.

I hate war. It has always felt like men playing stupid games over ideologies and little parcels of land and sea. They say one of the best ways to counter climate change is to focus on educating women. I wonder if that would help with war as well, though then I think of Margaret Thatcher and I am not so sure. Are women less violent than men or have they just not been given their chance to control the pieces yet?