I'm not sure of your motivation either, but we all have our biases; those are powerful predictions, and it's a shame you've been hit with such a downvote attack.
I would not be surprised if people downvote this sort of comment since—no matter the predictions—it seems like an attempt to piggyback off the parent post to make more people see your own post when just posting a top-level comment would have been more appropriate. Not trying to imply intent, though.
I intentionally made predictions that could be verified after a year but would also be minority views on this site, since repeating where I agree with the majority does not add to the debate. Sure, they won't all happen, but say, a 50% chance of happening or better, and made a sufficient number of them that I expect a lot of interesting predictions will take place. With the Turkey/Syria meeting, Erdogan has already been asking for it, and at some point Assad will give in. US troops there are surrounded and having trouble resupplying. For the mutual aid treaty, this is based on some under the radar meetings already taking place. That Ukraine lost 100K was inadvertently leaked by Ursula but really everyone paying attention knew -- for example they announced they needed to do a new mobilization of 100K to replace lost men. 100K is most likely a sever under-estimate. Presence of Polish, Georgian, and other troops in Ukraine is already well known, but they haven't been focused on in the West yet. The arrivals of 1000 dead bodies to Poland is forcing the issue into public debate. Other documents have also been leaked.
But this just goes to show how strong Narrative enforcement is in the west. Downvoting is nothing, you have people denied banking services, getting fired, put on no-fly lists, fined, and in Europe even imprisoned for speech -- for questioning NATO narratives. So HN downvotes is not important, it just reveals the various narrative enforcement mechanisms at work even here, but with a lot less at stake.
If this was a Chinese message board or Russian message board, I could make opposite predictions and be met with much more interesting debate and intellectual curiosity, as their information control mechanisms aren't nearly as sophisticated, and as a society they tend to be much more pragmatic and intellectually curious. The West is unique in being so ideological in the present moment - basically it is going through something similar to the cultural revolution period in China, and of course that was not a time to go against official narratives.
But in any case -- just wait a year. I'll be happy to compare my predictions in Dec 2023 against others'. It would be funny -- and quite appropriate -- if the some of the most interesting and accurate predictions of the last year were flagged on this site. But that's up to HN management, and they most likely have limited capacity to stand up to information warfare policies in the west and the hordes of professionals with hurt feelings flagging everything they disagree with. I don't take it personally at all, it's just a sign of the times.
> If this was a Chinese message board or Russian message board, I could make opposite predictions and be met with much more interesting debate and intellectual curiosity, as their information control mechanisms aren't nearly as sophisticated, and as a society they tend to be much more pragmatic and intellectually curious.
How do you mesh this with the fact that you can and will be arrested in Russia for calling the war in Ukraine a war, or for even protesting with a blank sign?.
As a simple example, there was an employee of a TV news station in Moscow that started screaming pro-Ukraine things on the air, on live TV. She was given a 100 ruble fine (for causing a disturbance) and released.
Meanwhile, people in the EU are actually imprisoned for supporting Russia. And of course Ukraine has death squads, and merely being accused of supporting Russia or being accused of speaking Russian is enough to end up in one of the filtration camps.
I’d suggest you find better new sources because I have seen the videos of the people being hauled off by the Russian police for holding a blank sign where as your example does not even exist.
