Real talk, forget about a down payment. There are a bunch of different ways to get a 0 down mortgage with varying qualifiers so that chances you qualify for one of them is quite decent.
Even if not, there are still a bunch of other ways to get low down payment mortgages for ~3% down or less.
Toss out the old adage of “20% down or bust” and keep any money saved towards it for savings for all the other costs of home/closing
“The people of Ukraine didn’t choose that path, the oligarchs did.”
It’s true Ukraine has a history of oligarchic influence, but the 2014 Maidan protests were a massive, popular uprising. Ukrainians were fed up with Yanukovych’s corruption and his decision to abandon the EU agreement for closer ties with Russia. This wasn’t just oligarchs pulling strings; millions of Ukrainians demonstrated for a future that aligned with Europe, seeking more autonomy from Russia.
“Russia would be imperialist, but isn’t right now.”
I would argue that Russia is acting imperialistically. The annexation of Crimea, the war in Donbas, and now the invasion of Ukraine are clear examples of Russia asserting control over its neighbors. Even if it’s not globally imperialist like the U.S., these actions align with a regional imperialism that Marxists should still oppose.
Ultimately, this isn’t about picking sides between oligarchies, but supporting the principle of self-determination for Ukraine, including resisting imperialist aggression from any direction.
Yes, Ukraine has ties with the U.S., but sovereign nations have the right to choose their alliances. Ukraine’s Western integration stems from its desire for self-determination, not just U.S. influence. Russia’s aggression isn’t justified merely because Ukraine sought NATO’s support.
Bias exists everywhere, but dismissing “Western” sources wholesale, while elevating openly ideological ones, doesn’t strengthen the argument. Marxist critique should apply equally to all capitalist states, including Russia, which operates under an oligarchic system that exploits its own people. 1 2
While far-right elements in Ukraine are real, they’re a small part of the picture. Reducing Ukraine to these groups oversimplifies the conflict. Most Ukrainians are fighting for sovereignty, not fascism.
Russia’s actions are imperialist too, and as a Marxist, you should critique imperialism wherever it emerges, not just from the West.
NATO Expansion: The argument that NATO’s eastward expansion “provoked” Russia is often linked to Gorbachev’s 1990 talks with Western leaders. However, this promise was tied to Germany’s unification, not a blanket prohibition on expansion. And importantly eastern european countries sought NATO membership because of their historical (and justified) fears of Russian imperialism (a dynamic Marxists should understand as nations seeking sovereignty free from external dominance.)
Western Involvement in Ukraine: The U.S. supporting a regime change in Ukraine in 2014 is thought to be imperialism. But ignores the agency of Ukrainians, who led the Maidan protests because of already existing deep dissatisfaction with Yanukovych’s corrupt, oligarchic regime and his pivot to Russia. Supporting popular uprisings against oligarchs should align with Marxist values even if “the West” has its own interests
The Role of Fascism in Ukraine: Yes, Ukraine has issues with far-right groups like so many countries but exaggerating their influence as a justification for invasion serves to divert attention from Russia’s own reactionary politics. Far-right elements in Ukraine do not define the country’s political landscape, nor do they justify imperial aggression from another state. Russia has its own history of fostering right-wing authoritarianism.
Minsk Agreements: While the West" and Ukraine could be criticized for their handling of the Minsk agreements, Russia also violated these accords by continuing support for the separatists. Both sides share blame for the failure of Minsk, but it doesn’t make Russia’s invasion justified. Ukrainians didn’t provoke a full-scale invasion; they were defending their sovereignty.
NATO as a “Defensive” Alliance: Criticism of NATO’s imperialistic behavior is fair its actions in places like Libya show it isn’t 100% defensive. But in this case, NATO’s expansion was driven by countries seeking security from a historically imperialist power. Ukraine wasn’t “provoking” Russia by wanting self-determination; it was trying to secure its future.
You’re trying to push this “Actuall, but Ukraine DID provoke” narrative by mixing in unverified, ideologically biased material with references that are legitimate, but isolated incidents. Like linking far-right activity to justify the war conveniently ignores Russia’s (I should probably say everyone’s) own far-right issues. Marxists should reject imperialism in all its forms, including Russia’s actions in Ukraine.
“propaganda”? Oh. You mean like Russia started a full blown unprovoked war with a peaceful nation? That “propaganda”?
Sucks others got caught in the crosshairs, but that’s just what happens when your authoritarian government launches unprovoked wars and gets sanctioned.
2 biased blogs and a YT link? That’s it? That’s not proving anything…
105 gigs is nothing, you can get a 1TB external drive for ~60$
I’m getting to the point of becoming a data hoarder
What’s wrong with that‽ Join us on the dark side (according to giant corporations anyways), we have milk and cookies!
Just a simple lowly troll, nothing of importance to see here
Yea if nothing else hopefully it’ll at least point you in the right direction
Was it Crapcast? I bet it was Crapcast, it sounds like a Crapcast thing to do lol
Looks at the entire networking stack
Yup (unfortunately)
THREE WHOLE MEGABYTES
Me in 2024 holding a 4TB NVMe stick: Still not enough (it’s never enough)
Thanks! I’ll save this, tell myself I’m going to strictly follow it this time and forget about it (again) lol
Is there a historical reason?
If you’re asking that in anything Linux related, it’s probably a Yes 99% of the time LMAO
Straw Man Fallacy: A straw man fallacy occurs when someone misrepresents an opponent’s argument to make it easier to attack or refute. Instead of addressing the actual issue, the person creates a distorted version of the argument that is easier to discredit.
This is what you have done in every single reply you made when I have made it quite clear that this is about the migration being an urgent security issue that the cyber security community at large has been calling attention to.
You avoid all the core points I make and distort them into trivial things that you can easily argue, like the fact that you “Don’t code C much and use Rust occasionally”. It’s irrelevant to the actual arguments and you use it to dismiss the real core issues AKA a Straw Man fallacy
You have failed to argue in good faith and are actually a part of the problem. Good job!
Ah I see your default is to sprinkle in a bit of argumentum ad logicam and add a dash of straw man at the end
Your statement comes across as the migration from C/C++ is more of an upgrade for new features and increased “ease of use” rather than an urgent security issue when it definitely is. It’s more than just a case of a couple of experts and some articles, you’ve got multiple governmental and NGOs like The NSA, The Whitehouse, CISA, DARPA all calling for the migration away from C/C++ to memory safe languages
https://devops.com/darpa-turns-to-ai-to-help-turn-c-and-c-code-into-rust/
“DARPA, the Defense Department’s (DOD) R&D agency, will lean on emerging AI capabilities in a new program to deal with the costly and time-consuming challenge of rewriting C and C++ code to Rust in a move designed to meet the push for federal agencies and private organizations to adopt memory-safe programming languages.”
https://www.theregister.com/2023/12/07/memory_correction_five_eyes/
"CISA, in conjunction with the National Security Agency (NSA), FBI, and the cyber security authorities of Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and New Zealand, said its call for better memory safety follows from its Secure By Design recommendations – endorsed by all of these cyber authorities.
“With this guidance, the authoring agencies urge senior executives at every software manufacturer to reduce customer risk by prioritizing design and development practices that implement MSLs [memory safe languages],” the report argues."
~
"CISA suggests that developers look to C#, Go, Java, Python, Rust, and Swift for memory safe code.
“The most promising path towards eliminating memory safety vulnerabilities is for software manufacturers to find ways to standardize on memory safe programming languages, and to migrate security critical software components to a memory safe programming language for existing codebases,” the CISA paper concludes."
Not quite, had I done something more broad than sure. But I reference a specific group of people whose job it is to provide security guidance on such matters. The ones who are out there fighting the good fight, RE’ing malware and busting down botnets among many security things
But I’m sure you are similarly credentialed as the SMEs in the cybersecurity field right?
Tl;Dr: Old farts holding us back, as always
Vast majority of the cybersecurity community: “an absolute ton of exploits come from memory safety issues with C/C++, we should move to memory safe languages like Rust to greatly reduce security risk and make everyone safer”
You: “Ehh Rust has a couple features, but it’s totally not worth switching from my precious precious C”
That’s great, in theory. In reality, you’ll get stuck in a perpetual savings cycle like OP and in many cases never reach the mythical threshold.
200k savings sounds nice, but if you have to spend 5 years saving and housing prices jump 80, 90, 200% in that time that savings lead gets entirely erased.
You can always play around with your interest rate later on, but you can never change what you paid for the house