“Here is your big mac meal”

“but I ordered a McChicken sandwich”

“don’t worry, our AI suggested swapping your order because it predicted you actually prefer chicken based on your order history which it got from facial recognition when you walked in so we started preparing it before you ordered which also meant we’d get your order out 9.4 second faster! Isn’t it so clever, eh?”

“what about my drink, I didn’t order diet coke?”

“we gave you diet because our AI indicated that you probably have diabetes based on body weight analysis and McDonald’s is committed to healthy eating as well as maximising profits”

“I want to talk to the manager.”

“the manager was replaced by AI last month, corporate felt on site managers were one of the biggest expenditures for the branches and felt AI can offer more value. I’m sure the AI will be able to help you at that terminal over there. If not, we can escalate to the corporate AI which is authorised to offer 1% off coupons and has a slight antisemitism problem…”

“the terminal over there? The one with the queue 30 minutes long?”

“yep, that’s the one. Have a great day!! Oh it looks like our conversation took longer than the time we saved. Oh well, isn’t AI though”

How did I come to that conclusion… “The demise of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.” Vladimir Putin

And this And this And this etc. etc. etc. Needless to say I am far from the lone conspiracy theorist your are trying to paint me as.

No I think they will be used to defend against things like this

Edit: Oh and since you seem to be deliberately avoiding acknowledging it. The alternative is a deeper Russian invasion of Europe.

I get your point but it’s not like no guns have been fired

I’m answering on faith that you are arguing a sincerely held belief.

It is exactly because Europe remembers what happens when you have an unchecked aggressive neighbour who is better armed than you that rearing is necessary. You seem to be victim blaming. “The more armed Europe is the more Europeans get killed.” Sounds like “we wouldn’t have to kill you if you’d just stop fighting for your survival.” Against enemies like nazi Germany or nazi Russia you don’t just let them take what they want because they will just keep taking until you have nothing left.

Now the threat IS Russia. It is the fact that you ask why I am bringing them into it that makes me think you either are Russian, are pro Russian, or are trolling me. Why do I bring them in to it? They invaded a country on the edge of the European Union and have shown no honour on the battlefield, committing war crimes. They have a desire to bring back the USSR and many of those countries are now members of the European Union. They have shown willingness to take what they want, and they want to bring back the USSR.

So more guns means more dead Europeans? Really. Sounds like an argument from Russia to encourage disarming their enemies, because more funds in Europe more likely means a stand off, or fewer dead Europeans and more dead Russians.

P.S. I didn’t say what the alternative is because it is bloody obvious. Obvious to me, to Ukraine, to the USA, to the world leaders, and to Russia, but not you.

If all you have to offer is “weapons are bad,war is bad”, you need to think about the consequences of not re-arming. The world has relied on America to be the one that is heavily armed so that we can all sit here in Europe and pretend that we don’t need weapons and war is bad. We got to feel morally superior and peace loving but in reality we had the biggest kid in the playground on call whenever trouble showed it’s face.

It reminds me of a friend I used to know who told everyone he didn’t wear a watch because he didn’t need one. He spent all day asking everyone else what the time was. So he did need a watch, it just wasn’t on his wrist.

So when you have a country like Russia invading neighbours and threatening others with their weapons and you don’t have any, what is your solution?

Just to reiterate, I don’t like the fact that weapons are necessary but I will take the lesser of two evils because in one of them, I might not exist anymore.