Tank Wars came out in 1990, Tanks came out in 1991.

There were artillery games before Tank Wars, of course. But none, to my knowledge, had AI players and insane weapon purchases, which is what made the game really fun, and which Scorched Earth inherited.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artillery_game#Artillery_games...

https://archive.org/details/TankWars_274

More unhinged fun IMO

https://archive.org/details/TankWars_274

They drilled cavities. They did dentistry, with dentistry tools.

Neanderthals practiced dentistry 59,000 years ago.

Everything we know about Neanderthals seems to be just the tip of the iceberg given that. Not long ago, we thought Homo Sapiens were obviously more intelligent, it's in the name! (That, and obviously there's more of them in our DNA, so...)

We might need to rethink that.

Sorry, no, you are missing the point.

The specific anti-EU complaining among the less-educated, older and rural population which benefits a lot from Poland being an EU state is not the same in Netherlands, Sweden, Belgium, Norway.

It is the same in Hungary and Slovakia though, for a reason.

Today's news brings us the following headline:

"Fugitive former Polish Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro is now in the United States courtesy of a visa from President Donald Trump after fleeing Hungary, local media report."[1]

In case it is not apparent to you, Ziobro was running on the PiS party ticket — the very same party running on the anti-EU sentiment that the people we're discussing have, in all certainty, voted for.

That's in the wake of another PiS-aligned fugitive judge, Tomasz Szmydt, fleeing investigation for espionage to find refuge in... Belarus[2].

Naturally, he condemned Poland for being too "pro-Western".

Swedish judges don't do that, while hiding in Belarus.

You don't have PiS in Sweden.

And Trump isn't welcoming fugitive Justice Ministers from Sweden into the US because they can't hide in Hungary anymore..

...because the Hungarian MAGA lost the elections there (in spite of JD Vance flying over to campaign for Orban, Orban giving speeches at CPAC, and Trump explicitly praising him).

Do you realize how off mark your objection to applying "the MAGA moniker" to PiS supporters is?

It's not even metaphorical; they're directly collaborating on a political level.

Have a good one, hope you learned something.

Skol.

[1] https://www.politico.eu/article/ex-poland-justice-minister-z...

[2] https://visegradinsight.eu/judge-hater-penitent-spy-the-stor...

Today's news brings us the following headline:

"Fugitive former Polish Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro is now in the United States courtesy of a visa from President Donald Trump after fleeing Hungary, local media report."

Case closed, ladies and gentlemen and everyone in between.

https://www.politico.eu/article/ex-poland-justice-minister-z...

Any bandwidth is better than zero.

"So debunked" by whom exactly?

Please cite which parts of this report[1] you believe are false.

Insofar as this discussion is concerned, I'll defer to the Cato institute, a conservative think tank. Quote:

"Mueller concluded that the Russians did interfere, Trump was aware of the interference, he benefited from and encouraged the interference – e.g., Don, Jr. was eager to get and use information on Hillary Clinton – and he didn’t report the interference to the FBI. "

That's the part pertinent to this discussion. Namely, that Russia did help MAGA in the US grow, and there's documented evidence of that.

Russia's influence on rural Polish conservatives in stoking the anti-Ukrainian and anti-EU sentiment, and their open meddling in the politics of EU countries supporting MAGA-like sentiments in Hungary, Slovakia, and Poland, is similarly well-documented.

I'm sorry that you appear to be triggered by seeing a reference to Muller's report.

The points I'm making still stand though, and I hope you'll find the strength to comprehend them in spite of your reflexes.

Thank you in advance.

[1] https://www.justice.gov/storage/report_volume2.pdf

[2] https://www.cato.org/blog/mueller-report-faqs

No. What made you think that? Please cite.

I assumed you aren't. People here wouldn't describe MAGA/Democrat standoff as "cat fight".

>You're not an American either

I am. What made you think that? Please cite.

To repeat: I am Ukrainian-American. I've lived in the US for most of my life, and voted in the past 4 elections.

>but for some reason you seem to have taken over an awful lot of the "democratic" viewpoints.

Pardon me, I have not stated any "democratic viewpoints". Please cite the specific things I said you believe to be "democratic viewpoints".

>Those viewpoints are quite polarising whether you see this or not and they're largely based around the "democratic" attempt to gain the upper hand in American elections by creating an "us versus them" narrative

If you think it's the Democratic Party in the US that capitalizes on the "us versus them" narrative, you have a lot to learn.

> You also infer that those who do not agree with your position on these subjects must be "influenced by Russian disinformation campaigns".

No. What made you think that? Please cite.s

>and I do not want the extremely polarised political discourse from the U.S.A. to be exported

I'm writing from the US, on a US-based website, which you're welcome to not participate in discussions opinions from which you wish to not be "exported" to wherever you are.

Other than that, you really no say in what kind of ideas get "exported" on an open forum.

Please read the rules.

>nor do I see the "democratic" party as the "good"

Irrelevant.

> I disagree with the application of the 'MAGA' moniker to the current discourse on the Polish economy...

You are welcome to continue in your ignorance.

I gave quite a few solid reasons as to why that moniker is applicable; speaking from my experience of living in both Poland and the US, interacting with the conservatives in both countries, being directly affected by the politics in both of them, and being able to speak languages in both countries.

Your entire reasoning as to why you don't think "MAGA" is applicable to the anti-EU rural folks in Poland amounts to "I don't like Dems", which has nothing to do with the discussion at hand.

At this point, I need to ask whether it'd be easier for you if I translated my words to Swedish, because you're not responding to anything I'm actually saying here.

If you feel the need to vocally disagree after reading my comments again, please cite the parts you find contentious, so that we could make sure that what you're hearing is what I'm saying (and avoid oopsies like "you're not American").

Thank you.

>Also, let's speak English here so everyone understands what we're talking about. Ja nje omje moviez po Polsku (I probably butchered the spelling but you get my drift). Ja nje gawarje pa roesskie either but English I can do pretty well.

The funny thing here is that if one skips the non-English part of your comment, they don't miss anything of substance that applies to this discussion.

I'm not "playing games", and I've stated the facts in my longer comment. Please respond there if you have opinions, and please quote the parts you're not agreeing with, because here you seem to be arguing with points nobody in this conversation made.

In any case, I'm happy for you in Sweden (I presume), where, unlike the people you're attempting to correct, you are not directly affected by either MAGA in the US or the Polish equivalent.

I'm guessing that nobody ever called you a kurwa when they heard you speak, or threatened to beat you up in public for looking too queer, so you can still have enlightened opinions about American and Polish "conservatives" without ever having to interact with them.

I'm sorry you were triggered by seeing the word "MAGA" to the extent that you felt the need to tell me to stop talking. Sadly, in a discussion about Poland and the anti-EU sentiment there, MAGA is very much relevant.

I accept your non-apology in all the languages you don't speak, and I'm glad that you have a sufficient command of the English language to participate in this discussion.

Nice Swedish too though. Have you been studying it for a while?

Since we are discussing Poland, knowing a bit of Polish to understand the context would have been useful. Unfortunately, the Swedish language plays very little role in the geopolitical situation we're discussing, and won't help you understand either MAGA or PiS supporters.

Speaking of understanding, I'm curious about your basis for understanding American, Polish, and Russian politics, given that you don't appear to have any lived experience, direct exposure, or command of the languages (aside from English, presumably). I surely hope your knowledge of the US politics is sourced from more than Hacker News and media personalities like John Oliver.

In any case, thank you again for trying to say something that another person might find valuable, and I wish you luck in your next attempt.

Skol.

For anyone new to Polish politics, here's an easy mnemonic: PiS = piss.

>Fortunately somehow they didn't manage to do significant macroeconomic harm.

Yay for parliamentary systems with proportional representation.

That's how.

11 years in human terms isn't "not long ago".

Nether is "never", which is the time when Chrome was under 30mb installed.

>To get so upset over this is crazy, no need to be so pedantic

Of course. It's just that those small, insignificant details that you are wrong about is your entire point.

>Needs change

What needs to change? Says who? Why?

Software not taking extra gigabytes out of the blue for features I never asked for without notifying or having an option to not do that —

— sorry, this absolutely does not need to change.

>Please explain what you're using all this storage for??

Absolutely none of your business.

I'll tell you what it's not for:

4GB LLM's that one of the browsers on my machine decides to download.

You're welcome.

I'm a Ukrainian-American who's lived in Ukraine, Poland, and the US; have property/bank accounts in all three countries, and speak three languages and Russian.

The "Americans suffering from this" would be people saying what you just did.

Please read my other comment up the thread where I provide more context.

And please don't presume you have any idea on how others view the world.

>The only other point of reference is Hitler and his modern reincarnation - russians

Sure, let's just ignore the Muller's report which documents Russian collusion when discussing MAGA, let's ignore Russian invasion of Ukraine when discussing Poland, and let's ignore Russia's relationship with Orban, Fico, and PiS when discussing the anti-EU sentiment in the EU (particularly among rural voters).

That will surely give us an enlightened, non-US-centric and non-myopic view. /s

No.

Because Russia has specifically invested in propaganda efforts influencing rural voters in Poland to support Polish far-right parties (and PiS), using it to foster anti-EU and anti-Ukraine sentiment.

The Polish farmers blocking the border checkpoints used for delivery of military aid to Ukraine a few years ago as "ptotest" was a mirror image tactic of the Canadian conservative truckers blocking the roads.

Russian investment and collusion with conservative and authoritarian movements worldwide — and MAGA in particular — is well-documented. I welcome you to read Mueller's report.

>Don't politicise where it is not applicable

Don't tell me what to do.

You're out of your depth here to determine what's applicable, and what isn't.

>this has nothing to do with the cat fight between 'democrats' and republicans

It has everything to do with the geopolitics and the war taking place in Ukraine, in which both Poland and the US hold a stake (and are both targeted by Russian influence campaigns on that dimension).

Not the "cat fight". The real war.

Look, I'm a Ukrainian-American who went to Ukraine during the war (spent a month in Kyiv in 2023), and lived in Poland for about a year.

I speak Ukrainian, Russian, and English at native proficiency, and I know enough Polish to be renting an apartment there, owning a car, etc.

Russian disinformation campaigns are my special interest. I can tell you a lot about Surkov's postmodern Firehose-of-Falsehood machinery, Gerasimov's hybrid war doctrine, and how it was instrumental in the 2014 invasion of Ukraine as well as 2016 US election meddling and the rise of MAGA.

I can direct you to RAND and RUSI studies, books and articles by Pomerantsev, Applebaum, Gessen, which will give you a wider look into Russia's hand in the right-wing "conservative" voices across the world and in the EU in particular (Orban in Hungary, Fico in Slovakia, AfD in Germany, and PiS supporters in Poland).

But you really won't learn anything if you insist on projecting your myopic US-centric attitude that purports that MAGA is a dem-vs-not-dem "cat fight".

I'm happy that you get to live in a world where you can avoid "politicizing" politics.

Out in the real world, complaining about the EU while living in a EU country whose economy was lifted from shambles by the EU is inherently a political issue.

And it's not coincidentally similar to MAGA supporters e.g. rallying against Obamacare only to discover that they literally depend on it for survival, and in general, voting against Democrats while benefitting from and depending on the policies that Democrats established.

And it's not coincidental that the Polish anti-EU rural voters are sharing the anti-immigration, "they took our jobs" sentiment with MAGA even as immigration provided an immense boost to both the US and Polish economy.

Ukrainians number in millions in Poland because of the war; MAGA's anti-Mexican sentiment maps 1:1 to anti-Ukrainian sentiment in Poland — specifically because Russian information warfare efforts help fuel both (it's a literal industry in Russia, with infamous St. Petersburg human-staffed "bot farms" being well exposed by now).

I'm not saying that all MAGA is like that, but there is a sufficiently big overlap (and a sufficient amount of evidence) that me saying that those rural anti-EU folks are Polish MAGA has a lot more weight than you are realizing.

As other commenters have pointed out, by the way.

So, if I may: please revert your downvote and learn.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Population dynamics in Russia are vastly different than in the West.

Geeks don't exist or survive in the countryside.

Not only it's abject poverty, it's also the culture that penalizes anyone who sticks out.

Russian countryside is kept poor and uneducated with no opportunities other than signing a military contract. That's how Russia was able to fight its 3-day invasion of Ukraine for 4 years without doing a full scale mobilization.

Anyone who even knows what a "mesh network" is would be in a city.

That's one aspect in which Ukraine and Russia are different.

Then everyone does.