Without verifiable details it's impossible to be sure if his claim is factually correct, or even grounded in consensus reality. He may have been pointing at a genuine potential conflict where he feels like he de-escalated something, or he may have been storytelling to flex his power (real or imagined) as a peacemaker. The countries could be real or imagined, the de-escalation could be real or imagined.
From the context, my guess is that regardless of the reality of these "two smaller nations", he was merely employing a plot device to tell Zelenskyy, "War is always bad (and you might be implicitly bad for allowing Ukraine to be involved in one). You should just give Russia what it wants so Russia stops hurting Ukraine with war." He doesn't need real nations for that persuasion tactic, and speculating on the identity of these possibly-fictional nations might be a distraction.
Interesting that he would suggest Russia's invasion of Ukraine should be resolved the same way as when a mugger demands your wallet. But that seems (to me) to be what he's suggesting here.
This FULLY explains my experience with panic attacks. I occasionally get all the physical symptoms, think something like "Huh, my heart is racing and it feels like air doesn't work. I wonder why?". I monitor my breathing and pulse for a while to make sure I haven't forgotten how to automatically-alive or something, and (since it's never been a heart attack before) go on with my day.
Would have been nice to know in elementary school when attempting to describe my experience with emotions (I thought I didn't have any) got me treated for depression for a year.
How about this: trauma is a set of one or more habits that
- was adaptive at one time but isn't anymore and
- is hurting you or likely to hurt you in some way.
I'm afraid you've just asked a group of terminally curious individuals if they want to know something that might possibly hurt them.
1ah, the famous Pavlovian response
they suggest eliminating coercive enforcement, which would also satisfy what they think are the root complaints of many (e.g. some radical feminists) who would prefer to get rid of gender entirely
It would be very interesting to see how the institution of social gender adapted to the elimination of coercive enforcement. Without the forces set in place to rigidly hold up the gender binary, does the entire idea simply dissolve? Does it relax into a shape that we can't see from this end of the experiment?
How will people group their social behaviors when nobody is telling them how they "have to" do it?
I fully endorse this social activity! Especially since I note that there is no end condition on the game, but also nothing stopping anybody from just going home.
It's helpful to expand the "thank you" into a "thank you for..." statement. This completes the conversion from mechanical submission to thoughtful and specific gratitude. From the examples above, the expansion would be "thanks for the correction" and "thanks for the support".
If someone chooses to help you, you don't need to apologize for needing that help.
tone:neutral, noncritical
As I understand it, there are many strategies that can cause significant and safe weight loss over a number of months. But, and this is critical, none of those strategies appears to consistently produce effects on the scale of years. Human physiology seems to be designed to hoard weight for times of famine, not to permanently lose it. Only a few people in a hundred seem to be able to keep weight off after losing it.
And this makes sense: for nearly all of our evolutionary history we've had a hard time finding enough calories to sustain a large population. Currently, most of us live surrounded by more calories than we can reasonably consume pretty much all the time. We just aren't built for the environment we've created! And all that before we discuss manufactured and superstimulus foods complicating the matter.
I'm more interested to see your data going forward over a 5 year span.
I'm saying that since we know that "facts" offered by Trump to support his goals aren't always true, that part of his conversation with Zelenskyy is probably best viewed as part of a persuasion tactic that may or may not be factually connected with reality.