In chess, we say that the player with the initiative is obliged to attack, otherwise the initiative will be lost and the counterattack will likely be… - Garry Kasparov

The United States is a very different thing. It's a continent-spanning nation built from scratch by millions of immigrants from every part of the world on top of its native population.

I regularly say in my lectures on artificial intelligence that humans will always have a monopoly on evil. It's not a threat, just a reminder that people choose. We are not algorithms. We are not bound by code or commandments or laws or treaties. We have them. But we choose. So let us talk now about the choices we make. About things in black and white. About Russia's war on Ukraine. And about good and evil.

This is not to say that a dictator or his policies cannot have popular support. The problem is defining what support means after 18 years of a personality cult and 24/7 propaganda that portrays Putin as a demigod protecting Russia from deadly enemies without and within. A year of fake news trolling and half-baked social media memes had half of America and its vaunted media running in circles in 2016. Imagine what it does to a population when that’s all there is, every hour, every day, for nearly two decades.