i just saw a movie "Slaughterhouse five" based on Kurt Vonnegut's book.

the main character becomes "unstuck" in time and is thrown back and forth between different episodes of his life, and he basically cannot predict where and when he will find himself in a second.

there were two main ideas or things that made me think. 

first, at some point the main character is abducted by alien nation and is placed in their zoo. the aliens, Tralfamadorians, live in the fourth dimension - time. and for them, there is no "when or how or why". they already know everything that happened or will happen till the end of the universe. they only can concentrate on certain moments in their lives, and live in them. without the ability (or will, actually) to change the flow of events. eventually the nation ends up destroying the universe.

well, i don't know how i would feel if i lived in the 4th dimension. to me free will and ability to take actions that produce consequences is a part of being human. fatalism is not for me.

second, the event that actually inspired the book - the Dresden bombing during the Ward War II. as a Soviet child I was constantly fed the stories of WW2 (in Soviet history the part of the war relevant to the Soviet Union was called "the Great war for Fatherland"). so basically in my mind, the Germans were so evil for attaching us and for killing millions of people, that ANYTHING could be done to stop them or to harm them. fuck Geneva conventions! make them suffer!

i am not sure any more. for example, Dresden - a city that did not have any major military targets - was arguably bombed and technically wiped out of the face of Earth, just because the Allies wanted to harm Germany, and because they could. the estimates of civilian casualties range from 35,000 to 135,000. was it a war crime? maybe. some people think so. i don't know.

same thing about Hiroshima and Nagasaki. did those atomic bombs end the war sooner? of course. but it also killed tens of thousands of civilians. war crime? maybe. i don't know.

anyway, i had a shift in opinion on the question "is everything justified when we fight an immoral enemy". i used to think more or less yes. should have Soviet Union just kill all the Germans after occupying them? probably not. but bomb a city during the war? hell yes.

now i am not that sure any more. if in our defense we start doing immoral things, we will tun into our enemy,

Some illustrations of attitude towards gay people in Russia.

 1. What shall we do with homosexuals? (% of respondents)

year Answer	1989	1994	2003
Physically liquidate	35	22	21
Isolate from society	28	23	27
Provide help	5	8	6
Leave them alone	9	29	34
No answer/Don't know	23	17	12

In 2005,% (slightly different options):

Provide medical treatment- 17

Isolate from society - 12

Physically liquidate- 3

Provide psychological and other help- 27

Leave them alone- 30

No answer/Don't know- 10

2. Should homosexual relations between consenting adults be illegal according to the law? (% of respondents)

Answer	1994	2002	2005	2006	2007
yes	52	31	44	37	41
no	21	53	38	45	40
No answer / Don't know	27	16	19	17	18

Source (in Russian)