2:04 What Seth learned from being in Ukraine that you won’t learn from western media 12:32 Was the ouster of Ukraine’s president in 2014 a revolution or a coup? 19:45 Could the White House have averted the invasion – and could it end the war now? 37:46 The degree of on-the-ground American involvement in Ukraine and Syria
I watched the interview and was a little taken aback by Seth's... passion. He acknowledged it, which was reassuring, but his initial comments about neocons seemed like it was creeping close to an anti-Semitic trope about control and a secret cabal controlling things (I think he realized how it was coming off, which was why he quickly tried to contextualize it). Whenever the conversation started to turn back towards that, I thought Bob did a nice job offering plausible alternatives to what motivates people. Anytime Seth would get ramped up on this turned out to be a great case study in cognitive empathy in action; Seth would accuse people of nefarious actions and Bob would respond with something basic like "But maybe they just like seeing themselves as important." In fact, it's making me think how the exercising of cognitive empathy could be boiled down at a fundamental level to identifying someone's relative status within a set. That will tell you a lot about their motivations and how they think.
I was disappointed that there was so little new information of substance re the situation on the ground in UKR. Most commentary seems to assume that UKR progress is a linear function (just as they assumed the same for RU progress two months ago). I tend to believe that the function of military progress by both sides in the war is more complex and relies on variables only partially known even to each of the combatants (a fact stressed by Michael Koffman). I was hoping for some insight into the nature the current state of play that might illuminate a little more what was likely to happen in the future. To Seth's credit he disclaimed that knowledge. Fair enough, but I wish I would have known that at the start.
BTW, for those that are interested in decent daily tactical analysis, I have found this Youtube channel to be without peer. It's not wholly objective, the analysis is still better than anything I have seen elsewhere: https://www.youtube.com/c/ReportingfromUkraine
I watched the interview and was a little taken aback by Seth's... passion. He acknowledged it, which was reassuring, but his initial comments about neocons seemed like it was creeping close to an anti-Semitic trope about control and a secret cabal controlling things (I think he realized how it was coming off, which was why he quickly tried to contextualize it). Whenever the conversation started to turn back towards that, I thought Bob did a nice job offering plausible alternatives to what motivates people. Anytime Seth would get ramped up on this turned out to be a great case study in cognitive empathy in action; Seth would accuse people of nefarious actions and Bob would respond with something basic like "But maybe they just like seeing themselves as important." In fact, it's making me think how the exercising of cognitive empathy could be boiled down at a fundamental level to identifying someone's relative status within a set. That will tell you a lot about their motivations and how they think.
I was disappointed that there was so little new information of substance re the situation on the ground in UKR. Most commentary seems to assume that UKR progress is a linear function (just as they assumed the same for RU progress two months ago). I tend to believe that the function of military progress by both sides in the war is more complex and relies on variables only partially known even to each of the combatants (a fact stressed by Michael Koffman). I was hoping for some insight into the nature the current state of play that might illuminate a little more what was likely to happen in the future. To Seth's credit he disclaimed that knowledge. Fair enough, but I wish I would have known that at the start.
BTW, for those that are interested in decent daily tactical analysis, I have found this Youtube channel to be without peer. It's not wholly objective, the analysis is still better than anything I have seen elsewhere: https://www.youtube.com/c/ReportingfromUkraine