I once assumed that small incremental environmentally conscious steps in how people lived, worked, and played were inevitable. I'm talking smaller, more energy efficient, and safer vehicles, vegetable protein substitutes in place of industrialized meat products becoming generally accepted and even the norm, and I even had naive presumptions about some imminent expansion of mass transportation because it simply made more economic sense.
But that was all before I learned the power of 
I thought for sure they were just rolling tanks into the Donetsk Oblast on a "peacekeeping and protection" style of operation, and that we were seeing a repeat of the Russo-Georgian War. No fucking way they would actually start a large-scale war, right? This is just typical western propaganda, blowing this way out of proportion. They can't be right about tank columns moving on Kiev, that must be Ukrainian tanks that some excited AP reporter accidentally reported as Russian. I lost a lot of influence among friends who usually wanted to know my takes about world events.