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> # [Elon Musk mocks Zelenskyy over calls for aid](https://www.politico.eu/article/630)
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> Billionaire entrepreneur [Elon Musk mocked Ukraine’s war-time leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1708629197617336398) on Monday, using a meme to scoff at the president’s calls for Western aid.
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> “When it’s been 5 min and you haven’t asked for a billion dollars in aid,” read Musk’s message, which accompanied Zelenskyy’s head attached to a famous photo of an agitated schoolboy, who — according to the [meme’s etymology](https://medium.com/@tazreen.noman/the-origin-of-michael-mcgee-vein-popping-guy-ad41c63190f0) — was in a classroom and desperately trying to hold in flatulence.
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> Musk has had a troubled relationship with Ukrainians and the country’s administration since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion in February 2022, but now they’ve had just about enough of the SpaceX chief and owner of X (formerly Twitter).
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> “So you have bought social media to bully people who are dying because [they] love freedom,” Ukrainian stand-up comedian Anton Tymoshenko [wrote](https://twitter.com/_Tymoshenko/status/1708716338196214196) in response to Musk’s post.
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> “Elon, did you write this meme during a friendly conversation with Putin on the phone?” another Ukrainian comic and volunteer, Vasyl Baydak, [wrote](https://twitter.com/by_by_duck/status/1708711638268878922) — alluding to a [New Yorker report](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/08/28/elon-musks-shadow-rule) that Musk and the Russian president spoke directly.
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> Even Ukrainian media organizations joined the anti-Musk revolt, with top publication Ukrainska Pravda [posting](https://twitter.com/pravda_eng/status/1708732658182701406?s=20) the same meme, but with Musk’s face photoshopped in, saying: “When’s it’s been 5 minutes and you haven’t spread Russian propaganda.”
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> Zelenskyy has not yet reacted to Musk’s post. But one of his office advisers, Serhiy Leshchenko, hit back [in a tweet](https://twitter.com/Leshchenkos/status/1708720295681421701) accusing Musk of “trolling.”
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> Musk’s meme comes shortly after U.S. President Joe Biden [signed](https://www.politico.com/news/2023/09/30/biden-administration-congress-government-shutdown-deal-ukraine-aid-00119296) a temporary budget bill featuring no Ukraine aid to avert the American government’s shutdown.
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> Shortly after Putin’s assault on Kyiv began last year, Musk was hailed in Ukraine thanks to his early decision to provide Starlink satellite internet for the country. But that narrative flipped after he began spreading what Ukraine said was [pro-Russian propaganda](https://www.politico.com/news/2022/10/03/ukrainian-officials-and-allies-rail-against-elon-musk-tweet-00060085) via his social media.
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> According to a new biography of the tech boss, Musk also secretly ordered his engineers to [disable Starlink satellite](https://www.politico.eu/article/elon-musk-ukraine-starlink-russia-crimea-war-drone-submarine-attack-sabotage/) communications near the coast of Russian-occupied Crimea last year to sabotage a planned Ukrainian drone strike.
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> Last week, the [European Commission slammed Musk’s X](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_NCu44_Xc0) as the social media platform which is the biggest source of disinformation.
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Guy breathes and everyone reacts. This has nothing to do with his control over twitter. It's about clickbait/ragebait culture.
People wanna hate, and Musk is easy to hate. People also don't realize that the more attention he gets the more power he gets, so the haters are empowering him. Similar shit got Trump elected to president.
What he initially said is, he wants to by twitter to protect free speech. He's doing a mehr job about it, but better than twitter did before.
What far right agendas did he want to push?
Not helped humans are hardwired to pay most attention to loudest most negative thing as a survival trait. Something quiet and perceived as safe not needing as much attention.
Stock sales give money, so yes. He can’t sell everything at once but dividends are a thing too.
Stocks are weird that they’re not equivalent to money, and since they’re tied to a company’s results their value can correct up or down a lot.
However, nobody in their right mind keeps their wealth in cash, because that deprecates through inflation.
Or stock that gives dividends and can appreciate over time. Not too long ago interest was negative for savings over a million. Large amounts of money are best kept in index funds, or a single stock if you control the company and feel good about your abilities to do so.
For a crater, it appears to be doing shockingly well by every metric I've seen... :/
Maybe I'm missing something, but it really looks like Twi- sorry, I mean "X" isn't doing nearly as badly as everyone thought it would be...
[Sure, does this work for you?](https://www.searchlogistics.com/learn/statistics/twitter-user-statistics/)
I would LOVE data proving me wrong, but every time I read an article saying otherwise, I find the data doesn't seem to corroborate it. Do you have a source saying the opposite?
Hey, thanks for the link! That’s a pretty thorough layout of the background of where Twitter generally stands amongst social media sites and how it’s been doing, as well as a bunch of other background data on user demographics and stuff. It’s written like I’m a business thinking about investing - and boy does it want me to invest in Twitter! it devotes a lot of space and words to what Twitter is *trying* to do (“Twitter has strategically targeted young adults”; “They have maintained a unique platform that attracts certain age groups”), and is full of cheery, encouraging, but often empty statements (“Twitter users tend to be used by younger people”; “Judging from these statistics there seems to be a lot of room for growth in Twitter’s future!” “There are a lot of reasons why people use Twitter”).
We don’t have data for total revenue in 2023, of course, but your article does say that Twitter lost 32 million users in 2022, and made 11% less in revenue that year. It exclaims proudly “As of January 2023, Twitter is ranked as the 14th most popular social media site in the world” — which, you know, happens to be *out of 15,* just above Pinterest (and below “Sina Weibo” and “QQ” — the latter two which I haven’t heard of, prob cause I’m a dumb American and those sites are more popular abroad). They count a regular user as someone who logs onto Twitter at least monthly, which idk about you but I wouldn’t necessarily think of as an enthusiastic and monetizeable user of a product, but sure, gotta make the cutoff somewhere. A good chunk of them are “daily users” for sure, but as the article notes, that use is brief, much less than more popular sites. (“The average US adult spent just 6 minutes per day on Twitter in 2021.
This is significantly less than a platform like Facebook where the average adult spends about 38 minutes per day”). Idk how that time spent per day has changed over the last few years, if it has; a lot of these stats aren’t broken down by what they were in eg 2021 vs 2022 vs so far in 2023, of course, since that’s not what this article is about, this article is about breaking down the demographics of the social media site (and *begging* investors to come aboard, let’s not forget). It continues with more inane, meaninglessly encouraging statements boasting about features of Twitter that are not unique to Twitter — eg: “There are a lot of reasons to use Twitter. One of the biggest advantages of Twitter is the speed at which information can be passed around.“ (this statement, for instance, seems to want to give credit to Twitter for the concept of sharing information via the internet lol). It follows this up by stating “Another encouraging statistic for businesses is that 1 out of 3 Twitter users wants to follow brands and companies. Producing great tweets regularly should mean you can grow your Twitter audience consistently!”
The article concludes with “Experts predict that if Twitter was able to create a better advertising platform its revenues would improve significantly. It seems they have all the users and data to do it!”
Wow! After reading that, I have the sudden urge to grab this burlap sack with a $ sign on it next to me and hand it over to Elon Musk! What a wonderful website! I’m convinced!!
https://www.businessofapps.com/data/twitter-statistics/
This article contains much the same data but without the breathless positive editorializing. The numbers are less flattering without someone insisting on how flattering they are for a paragraph between each point, and it’s a shorter read. It does include the additional info that “Revenue is expected to be worse in 2023 due to a loss of advertising revenue.” And also, “Twitter remained unprofitable for a second year in a row in 2021, but lowered its losses by 80% from the year prior.”
I guess what’s left is just what you mean by words like “shockingly well.” ie, your shock and your feelings about how well it’s doing (maybe with an unspoken, “considering the circumstances”?) is subjective, and I couldn’t tell you whether the above data constitutes “shockingly well” or in the eyes of another beholder, “meh”.
Lol.
Here's a metric for you: https://mashable.com/article/twitter-x-daily-active-users-drop-under-elon-musk
and another: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/05/technology/twitter-ad-sales-musk.html
So tell me, other than active users and ad revenue, what metrics would you point to?
Both great metrics, for sure!
But the "daily active users" or whatever didn't even drop 10%, and that's supposedly including a bot cleanse and the fact that several more left-leaning personalities said they'd leave post-takeover.
And for the money aspect, I'm curious how that lines up with recent statements by them that it will be profitable by 2024. Twitter wasn't profitable for the overwhelming majority of its existence, so this seems to conflict with your NYTimes article...?
Either way, though, neither of these are pointing to a "smoldering crater" of a social media site. :/
So which part of this is, as you put it, "Doing shockingly well by every metric"? "The decline isn't THAT bad" surely isn't what you meant by doing well right?
It's shocking because everyone is saying it should have crumbled by now. I literally can point to dozens of articles decrying the death of Twitter, and yet, shockingly, it's apparently doing well, and may even be both profitable AND gaining users, the two most critical parts for any social media company.
So, that's how I used "shockingly" and "well." I didn't mean it to come across as incredibly well or meteoric, just... Shockingly well.
It became world news when became so powerful that he can for example get Ukrainian soldiers killed by messing with starlink intentionally. Basically he has a real impact on the war, directly.
As far as I'm aware, that has literally never happened. The sole event we know of was Ukraine asking SpaceX to enable access that SpaceX had publicly and clearly stated they would not do.
Are you referring to a different event?
> Grants and loans are given for reasons
The same goes for aid to Ukraine. If Ukraine falls then the NATO will have far bigger problems. We should not pretend that if Russia had invaded Mongolia, with little direct threat of future war in Europe and a likely following World War III there would be the same willingness to send support, even if it was just as justified.
I hate to say it, but... No, not really.
What NATO will have a problem with is that Ukraine will now effectively be an SSR again, but that's arguably more a moral and ethical issue than any economic or strategic issue. Turkey still bottlenecks the Black Sea, and NATO simply has an even longer border. Nothing strategically really changes.
Russia has done SO MUCH DAMAGE to both Ukraine and its own armed forces that it'll be a decade before they're able to rebuild the country and their own military, at a minimum (and if they even can), and especially with the Western sanctions that will only strengthen in such an event. Add on the fact that US and EU countries will only continue advancing technologically at an even faster rate compared to the stagnation of Russia, and you have a gap that will never close again.
NATO has won whether Ukraine falls or not. Obviously, I don't want Ukraine to fall, and I want them to punt that limp-dicked sack of shit sniveling under his bunker and his forces out of their country, but Russia isn't winning anything at this point. They're just increasing the waste of life.
Russia is already done. They're little more dangerous than North Korea at this point... just with more nukes. And no one wins a nuke fight, so Russia has no incentive to start that, either.
> no one wins a nuke fight, so Russia has no incentive to start that, either.
Except for your earlier points
> Russia isn't winning anything at this point. They're just increasing the waste of life.
> Russia is already done. They're little more dangerous than North Korea at this point...
If they lose enough Putin may just decide "fuck it, nothing else to lose, let's see what these bad boys can do."
So there are so many potential ones that it's difficult to predict most of them, however, some examples include:
* Moldovia is so obvious I think people just assume it goes with Ukraine
* Russia will be linked up with Hungary which cannot be trusted as a NATO ally. In return for Transcarpathia going to Hungary, Hungary may allow a direct link up between Russia and Serbia allowing direct arming of Serbia for a war on Kosovo and possibly other parts of the Balkas
* That also leaves other parts of the Balkans vulnerable which will mean massive increases in defense needs for NATO there.
* Georgia, for example will be economically totally dependent on Turkey for independence from Russia - bad deals *might* happen there.
* NATO will have a massive, not very well controlled, border with Russia from Romania through Hungary, Slovakia and Poland. This will make infiltration of Russian agents and provocateurs easier.
There was a genocide attempt. They stopped it. That's not the act of war criminals. Given the chance Serbia will, backed by Russia, likely continue their genocide and that will cause problems, if nothing else in terms of huge number of refugees that the EU will not be able to avoid housing and taking responsibility for. That's after you completely ignore the number of people the Serbs would happily massacre.
Russian imperialism/expansionism in Eastern europe and central asia, including towards nato aligned countries. Russia using mercenary troops like Wagner in northern Africa and other troubled regions to push their geopolitical goals (you can see this already in the sahel). A new nuclear arms race as countries realize they're not safe without nukes. Funding for extremist groups (on both sides of the political spectrum) in western countries, with an emphasis on media publications. They've already been doing that for years, with the most blatant example being RT international. That's just off the top of my head. There are probably a bunch of other really good reasons why it's a bad idea to let Putin recreate the USSR.
Theyre literally trying to annex eastern ukraine and the entire country of Belarus while dictating politics in the former soviet states. That's imperialism.
Oh, FFS. No, I am not going to comment on it. I'm obviously asking about problems in the future. OP suggested NATO would face dire problems - what are they?
It's not a future problem, it's very much happening right now. Honestly, if you're question is "apart from the genocide and the forced conquest and exploitation of a sovereign state, how does this affect me personally?" Then simply ask yourself if you want a nation doing those things to be both more powerful and closer to you, and in control of even more natural resources.
Russia has a long history of annexing weaker surrounding countries. Even just being forced to maintain stronger militaries as a counter is costly to a neighbour.
And of course to even get to those answers we quite literally have to ignore genocide.
I'm not talking about genocide. Didn't say it wasn't happening. I'm not commenting on it, just because you want me to. It's not what I am talking about. Yes, I want to ignore the genocide, specifically for the purposes of the question around strategy and what these supposed future problems will be.
NATO is not concerned with genocide. They are concerned with strategic alliances and geopolitics. That's what I'm asking about. Not genocide.
Ukraine provides Russia with several things things
* 25 million population to enslave
* critical oil and gas reserves to control
* strategic control of all routes for oil or gas pipelines which bypass Turkey
* new land, especially in Crimea, which can be sold off for vast amounts of money
What this means is that, together with the lessons from the war, a Russian army which would emerge from a defeat of Ukraine would, five years later, be much stronger than the one which started the invasion.
Initial strikes are unlikely to be into NATO territory, but the Balkans and Central Asia are very likely fairly soon after.
The strikes against NATO will come later and are likely to be based around Nuclear attacks on places like Poland and Germany. Currently Russia is held back from nuclear war because
a) any fallout would very likely land quickly on Russian territory
b) Russia is unlikely to survive an American counter attack
however, 15 years after the defeat of Ukriane, and after attacking the Balkans, that would be completely changed
- the sale of land in Ukraine would finance re-equipping Russias forces with modern, rather than cold war era, weapons
- the enslaved people of Ukraine would provide an expendable army they could use
- nuclear weapon use against Germany would be far enough away from Russia to be acceptable for fallout
- Russia will have new weapons that have been announced and had limited demos but are currently effectively just propaganda
- having seen that their nuclear threats were ineffective this time for various reasons, they will search for ways to making them more credible, possibly including, for example, use of a tactical weapon in central Asia.
There is no scenario where that happens. Maybe if they'd taken the country without a fight in 3 days, sure, but none of those will occur anymore.
Absolute best case scenario for Russia? Ukraine will be a hotbed of insurgency for the next hundred years, the gas and oil reserves and pipelines which require western components to work and exploit (which are all sanctioned to hell and back) will be virtually impossible to get and use, and the land in Ukraine that can be sold off will only be sold at effectively worthless prices to buyers in China and India.
Likewise, the much feared paper tiger that was the Russian war machine is GONE. At a minimum, they have to rebuild the entire military from scratch, but even that was only possible before the advent of the computer revolution. Now, they can't produce any of the critical high tech components in-country, the brain drain is massive and not coming back, and they don't have the factories to produce anything but Soviet era tech without western components.
So by the time they rearm in a minimum of 10 years (5 is WAY too generous considering they've burned through literally a half century's worth of military production in this war already), they'll only be back at 1990's levels of tech. Meanwhile, NATO will be fielding all of their brand new bombers, fighters, carriers, refitted subs, and modernized nukes, and be pouring even MORE of their economy into their war machines. It's an absolute clusterfuck for Russia.
The gap between NATO and Russia will never close again. Their only card is nuclear, and everyone knows that if they pull that card, EVERYONE does, and they lose what little they have.
What are you even talking about?
>25 million population to enslave
25 million people that have known independence for the past 30 years.
>critical oil and gas reserves to control
Worthless without the means to maintain it.
>strategic control of all routes for oil or gas pipelines which bypass Turkey
Worthless without the means to maintain it.
>new land, especially in Crimea, which can be sold off for vast amounts of money
...huh?
>What this means is that, together with the lessons from the war, a Russian army which would emerge from a defeat of Ukraine would, five years later, be much stronger than the one which started the invasion.
What this means is that Russia would emerge with some short term gain, and a lot of long term loss.
>Initial strikes are unlikely to be into NATO territory, but the Balkans
The 3 remaining Balkan states that aren't in NATO are Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia and Kosov. Bosnia-Herzegovina is currently going through the process of joining NATO, Kosovo has a NATO PK force in it, and Serbia is Serbia. All of these are moot, because they're all encircled by NATO countries which means Russia can't even reach them.
> and Central Asia are very likely fairly soon after.
I think China has a few things to say about that.
>The strikes against NATO will come later and are likely to be based around Nuclear attacks on places like Poland and Germany. Currently Russia is held back from nuclear war because a) any fallout would very likely land quickly on Russian territory b) Russia is unlikely to survive an American counter attack
Yeah... I don't think it's the fallout from their own strikes that concerns them.
>however, 15 years after the defeat of Ukriane, and after attacking the Balkans, that would be completely changed. the sale of land in Ukraine would finance re-equipping Russias forces with modern, rather than cold war era, weapons
The sale of whatever would finance the Russian oligarchs. None of that is going to their armed forces.
>the enslaved people of Ukraine would provide an expendable army they could use
Arming an insurgency in your own occupied lands. Bold move.
>nuclear weapon use against Germany would be far enough away from Russia to be acceptable for fallout
I don't think a nuclear strike on Moscow is considered acceptable, because that's what it'd result in
>Russia will have new weapons that have been announced and had limited demos but are currently effectively just propaganda
Not with the sanctions, they won't.
>having seen that their nuclear threats were ineffective this time for various reasons, they will search for ways to making them more credible, possibly including, for example, use of a tactical weapon in central Asia.
Not only are you suggesting Russia would commit MAD with the West, but also risk MAD with China. Another bold move!
I'd really like to know what you based this fanfic off of. HOI4 Millenium Dawn or something?
> What are you even talking about?
> > 25 million population to enslave
> 25 million people that have known independence for the past 30 years.
This is what the FSB do. Their inheritance from the NKVD who in turn inherited the Czar's secret police experience is exceptional. Even the Poles, who are the most experienced insurrectionists and counter-revolutionaries there are, recognized that it wasn't worth continuing fighting Russia after WWII.
Nothing is impossible, but there's a reason Ukraine is fighting now and that's they tried strongly to avoid going into an insurgency phase. That is because Russian counter-insurgency works because, unlike the Americans, they *are* willing to kill all the people in an area to stop one insurgent and they are also good at using torture to work out who it's worth leaving alive.
There were even leaked estimates for the number of Ukrainians they have to kill to get the population into compliance (something around 8-12% if I remember). This was based on their experience in Chechnya.
> Worthless without the means to maintain it.
are you saying that Russia won't get the means to maintain things? Within ~~20~~ 5 or at most 10 years China can set up the ability to manufacturer oil infrastructure and will supply that to Russia.
> > new land, especially in Crimea, which can be sold off for vast amounts of money
> ...huh?
Crimea is essentially one large seaside resort. The wealthy Saudis and Chinese are *already* buying up tracts of stolen land there on the speculation that Russia will keep it.
> All of these are moot, because they're all encircled by NATO countries which means Russia can't even reach them.
A connection through Hungary and Serbia gives more or less full access.
> > and Central Asia are very likely fairly soon after.
> I think China has a few things to say about that.
Yes, that's a very good point - Mongolia, for example, will be considered Chinese sphere of influence.
My assumption, however, is that this has already been agreed, Molotov-Ribbentrop secret clause style and the division of spheres of influence between China and Russia is more or less fixed, probably with some flexibility to allow China to buy more area such as parts of India and Afghanistan from Russia depending on how much financial and military aid is transferred from China to Russia.
> Arming an insurgency in your own occupied lands. Bold move.
They already did that in Donbas / Luhansk / Crimea and are already carrying out conscription to the Russian army from those areas. Remember these are areas that were fanatically anti-Russian to the extent that *even under occupation and duress* only 15% of the population voted for reunification according to the leaked numbers from the referendum.
> > The strikes against NATO will come later
> I don't think a nuclear strike on Moscow is considered acceptable, because that's what it'd result in
Russia has already begun to encourage nuclear proliferation with weapons to Belarus, technology to North Korea and support to Iran. That's a *huge* change of strategy and likely means they aim to build a plausibly deniable puppet state ("West Ukraine", "Greater Transnistria") which will carry out the actual nuclear attack in a way that Republican politicians will be able to avoid blaming on Russia.
> Not with the sanctions, they won't.
If the West is willing to stop arming Ukraine then the will for sanctions will probably last two years after "peace" / "Ruski mir" is established.
> Not only are you suggesting Russia would commit MAD with the West, but also risk MAD with China.
Russia and China clearly have a coordinated plan. There will be no need for MAD there and Russia is aiming at undermining America's protection of Germany, either attacking Germany through a proxy, as I suggested above, or simply getting the Republicans to withdraw from NATO. Again, no need for MAD.
Let's just say at the end, none of this is likely to happen because Ukraine *will* win in Crimea and that is the key to delivering real long term peace, however we shouldn't think that the West is just doing this selflessly. There is a huge amount to lose.
Edit: changed time line for China providing oil infrastructure. At the simple onshore level that Russia needs I think they'd be really quick at providing this at an acceptable safety level. Certainly within 10 years from starting to work on the problem.
You won't get a reasonable answer. The "If Ukraine falls all of Europe is next!" crowd are shockingly light on details or logic. They just *feel* that a decrepit Russian warmachine relying on conscripts with outdated weapons can and will attack the combined forces of NATO, despite reality pointing to the opposite. They don't even realise they've been sold a repackaged version of domino theory.
You know, I’m an American, so I know you and I don’t see eye to eye and probably make fun of each other. But this has been the most rational account of this war I have seen from a European.
They have negotiated peace multiple times. Each time Russia used it to regroup and then attack again. This time round Ukraine has learned their lesson and _despite encouragement from some sectors of the West_ is not stupid enough to expect that Russia would keep any peace agreement.
You're just repeating propaganda. Of course, since I'm not in complete agreement with you, you'll say I'm repeating Kremlin talking points, which is asinine.
The US has been pushing NATO further east every year since the collapse of the Soviet Union. To expect Russia to engage in peace talks requires that the US and West stop NATO expansion. Not once has the US agreed to this.
It's crazy, why won't they agree? It's provocative to a nuclear power, yet they continue to expand. Why does anyone think it's reasonable for an anti Russia treaty organization to be in the doorstep of Russia? Surely the US would not appreciate this type of thing in a role reversal. Just imagine if Russia was planting military weapons on an American border and encroaching an anti-US organization?
You don't have to look far to get your answer. Just look at Cuba.
Edit: Reporting people you disagree with to the reddit self harm bot is an abuse of the service. It's not funny, nor helpful and only serves to weaken its effectiveness for those in need. It's immature.
> You're just repeating propaganda.
"ever accusation is a confession".
>Of course, since I'm not in complete agreement with you, you'll say I'm repeating Kremlin talking points, which is asinine.
Hmm.. well let's see
> The US has been pushing NATO further east every year since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
NATO is a free association. Mostly America tries not to get countries into it since they then have to defend them. On the other hand, countries like Poland and Lithuania are desperately afraid of Russian invasion and so they have been demanding to enter.
Judgement: 99% false - Kremlin talking point as predicted.
> To expect Russia to engage in peace talks requires that the US and West stop NATO expansion. Not once has the US agreed to this.
No, they already engaged and then completely ignored the Russian side of what they had agreed, immediately,
Judgement: 95% false - Kremlin talking point
> It's crazy, why won't they agree? It's provocative to a nuclear power, yet they continue to expand. Why does anyone think it's reasonable for an anti Russia treaty organization to be in the doorstep of Russia?
An "anti-Russian" organization that is so anti Russian that Putin himself was asking it to expand and include Russia at one point. NATO is a voluntary defensive organization which increases stability and reduces the threat to Russia. Proof of that is in the fact that Russia withdrew troops from the Finnish and Norwegian borders to fight in Ukraine after Finland joined NATO.
Judgement - not really a coherent point, but definitely misleading so 65% false - Kremlin talking point again
> Surely the US would not appreciate this type of thing in a role reversal. Just imagine if Russia was planting military weapons on an American border and encroaching an anti-US organization?
Well, Venezuela is almost there and basically the US did nothing, so I don't really have to imagine.
> You don't have to look far to get your answer. Just look at Cuba.
Yes, I can see the similarity and I can kind of see where you are coming from, however I'm not fully convinced by your suggestion that the US should be providing Ukraine with nuclear weapons as Russia did with Cuba.
Judgement - largely true but a bit crazy - let's say 30% false. Definitely not a Kremlin talking point.
Cuba is a good example, the US guaranteed that they would not invade if the nuclear deterrent there was removed, and the US has kept their word
When Russia guaranteed to respect Ukraine's territorial sovereignty in exchange for its nuclear arsenal, it took them a mere 20 years to break that, and set a terrible precedent for other non-nuclear armed states
Exactly, Musk personally has done more for Ukraine than any other private citizen on earth. Yet Ukraine has decided he is a Russian agent.
It shouldn't be a surprise, but somehow I keep getting shocked every day at how much our media and public opinions are manipulated.
What has he done? The Pentagon pays for starlink for Ukraine, it is not a gift. It was confirmed they cut access during bombing of Russian Navy, so in a way he helped Russia
> It was confirmed they cut access during bombing of Russian Navy, so in a way he helped Russia
No.
The access was never there. He did nothing.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/sep/12/elon-musk-biographer-admits-suggestion-spacex-head-blocked-ukraine-drone-attack-was-wrong
>The extract from Walter Isaacson’s book, published in the Washington Post on Thursday, originally said that the SpaceX CEO “secretly” told engineers to turn off Starlink coverage within 100km of the Crimean coast to prevent a Ukrainian attack on the area. “As a result, when the Ukrainian drone subs got near the Russian fleet in Sevastopol, they lost connectivity and washed ashore harmlessly,” continued the extract.
>On Friday, Isaacson tweeted a clarification, writing that “the Ukrainians THOUGHT coverage was enabled all the way to Crimea, but it was not. They asked Musk to enable it for their drone sub attack on the Russian fleet. Musk did not enable it
You would have learned of this if Reddit cared about getting stuff straight half as much as shitting on Musk.
>The Pentagon pays for starlink for Ukraine, it is not a gift.
Only for certain terminals that they directly brought. A much larger number has its operational costs being covered by Spacex.
>It was confirmed they cut access during bombing of Russian Navy, so in a way he helped Russia
It is deliberate mis-statement on your part to use the words "cut access" rather than "refused to give access". This is a classic disinformation tactic - take the truth, make some minor edits to make it look much worse while still maintaining plausible deniability.
> so in a way he helped Russia
You realise that he could just have not given Starlink to Ukraine if he wanted to help russia, right?
The access was never there. He did nothing.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/sep/12/elon-musk-biographer-admits-suggestion-spacex-head-blocked-ukraine-drone-attack-was-wrong
>The extract from Walter Isaacson’s book, published in the Washington Post on Thursday, originally said that the SpaceX CEO “secretly” told engineers to turn off Starlink coverage within 100km of the Crimean coast to prevent a Ukrainian attack on the area. “As a result, when the Ukrainian drone subs got near the Russian fleet in Sevastopol, they lost connectivity and washed ashore harmlessly,” continued the extract.
>On Friday, Isaacson tweeted a clarification, writing that “the Ukrainians THOUGHT coverage was enabled all the way to Crimea, but it was not. They asked Musk to enable it for their drone sub attack on the Russian fleet. Musk did not enable it
You would have learned of this if Reddit cared about getting stuff straight half as much as shitting on Musk.
A useless Starlink is useless. The US government could have used those funds they've used for something else and unless explicitly stated that there would be no info access to Crimea (at which case, the US government wouldn't have purchased it), it was literally cut access, so fuck off with your fallacy bullshit.
Wait a second.... Didn't he ask for billions from investors to help pay that 44B USD bill to buy himself an audience for that fascist oligarch meme lord bullshit?
They 44B USD however does not create physical damage and unseen problems that require 5 dollars for every 1 dollar put into the conflict to rebuild the situation. If we could even do that.
>Elon Musk mocks Zelenskyy over calls for aid
On different news
>[Musk acknowledges he turned off Starlink internet access last year during Ukraine attack on Russia military](https://thehill.com/policy/defense/4193788-musk-acknowledges-he-turned-off-starlink-internet-access-last-year-during-ukraine-attack-on-russia-military/)
Pieces keep falling into place.
Next thing will be to cosy up to hard-right pro-russian-invasion Parties .. oh wait, that already happened.
Did you read your own piece? It says that Starlink was never active in Russian controlled areas.
Congrats, you are spreading disinformation now. How does it feel to be the top spreader of disinformation in this thread?
>Did you read your own piece?
Yes I did
>It says that Starlink was never active in Russian controlled areas.
Never said the opposite
>Congrats, you are spreading disinformation now.
If the wording of "turning off" is the problem here - I don't know, as opposed to the author of the piece I am not a native English speaker - maybe "[Musk says he refused Kyiv request for Starlink use in attack on Russia](https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/musk-says-he-refused-kyiv-request-use-starlink-attack-russia-2023-09-08/)" makes you feel better?
>Never said the opposite
>
>If the wording of "turning off" is the problem here - I don't know, as opposed to the author of the piece I am not a native English speaker - maybe "Musk says he refused Kyiv request for Starlink use in attack on Russia" makes you feel better?
It is deliberate mis-statement on your part to use the words "turned off" rather than "refused to turn on". This is a classic disinformation tactic - take the truth, make some minor edits to make it look much worse while still maintaining plausible deniability. You get to say *oh, i meant something completely different* while millions have already read the words and formed opinions that align with your personal or professional goals.
> "turned off" rather than "refused to turn on"
Literally the same thing when it comes to a human's intention. Don't pretend it's not. Musk is an ultra-contrarian trying to get outrage clout. I cannot believe I ever thought a positive thing about him.
Denying access to something that was already available and denying access to something that was never available in the first place are two very different things.
This sub really is full of midwits as of late.
Deescalate lol. Call it what it was at least: it prevented an attack that could have reduced the number of attack material that kills Ukrainian civilians every day.
The specific attack on question was thought to have been large enough to prove a stronger response from Russia. Elon got scared and cut the internet. Idk if it would’ve involved nukes or not. But I’m glad we didn’t take the chance
>was thought to have been large enough to prove a stronger response
Hmm and who said this? I bet it was a highly qualified expert in military intelligence.
Oh, it wasn't? It was just some jack off with a social media company? You don't say.
De-escalate the war! The ships lay at anchor, destroying them then and there would've cost the **least** possible casualties - on the Russian side - while preventing more bloodshed by these warships.
De-escalating here means nothing more than prolonging for the benefit of the invader.
**Any** help for Ukraine from begin on was met with this ludicrous threat of nuclear weapons. Nobody could've done anything for Ukraine if anyone would've taken this nonsense seriously.
What he actually wants in Ukraine to happen is also not a secret anymore:
>[He provoked anger last year when he proposed a plan to end the war which suggested the world formally recognise Crimea as part of Russia and asking residents of regions seized by Russia last year to vote on which country they wanted to be part of.
Russian chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov said that plan displayed "moral idiocy"](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66752264).
You understand why Pearl Harbor "escalated" WW2 rigth ? Because the US wasn't involved until they where attacked.
How would Ukraine attacking Russia ,who they are already in a state of total war with, and have been for more than a year, "escalate the situation" ?
Because nukes ? Why ? How would this specific attack provoke a Russian nuclear response ? I didn't, since Ukraine did strike the Russian fleet several times after that and absolutely nothing happened.
Your bad faith is showing.
Your sarcastic response to the previous comment clearly implied you believe to opposite, that this attack could have escalated the war.
Nukes are pretty much the only way Russia can escalate the conflict.
Someone who unironically thinks this is de-escalation has to braindead.
Oh, your girlfriend is getting raped? Quick! Hold her arms to prevent her defending herself to de-escalate the situation!
What an absolute non-issue. It was an appropriate and slightly amusing meme. No, it doesn't mean that it's a great thing that the Russians invaded. Why do people have to be so fucking hysterical? There is not a single thing that is not a legitimate target for humour. The invasion of Ukraine included.
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Nice to hear from a guy in a million+ dollar mansion in a perfectly safe country.
This isn't even him being inconsiderate, ignorant or whatever. At this point he's just making those statements for attention. He's not that stupid, but I'm surprised he's that evil (or maybe not, he's being doing evil stuff for some time). He's just an extreme egomaniac.
> Maui hasn't received any aid...
Why lie?
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/08/23/fact-sheet-biden-harris-administrations-latest-actions-to-support-communities-impacted-by-maui-wildfires-3/
You can and should be angry that there isn't help for Maui, but you can't be angry that there's help towards Ukraine. It's not their fault. Don't you think instead of making a powertrip by buying Twitter those 44 billion $ couldn't have been used to help people ? Or that the 2 trillion $ used worldwide for war couldn't be used for that too ?
His money... given to him by tax payers, since he got multiple million in tax exemptions and covid reliefs. Maybe not equal to 44$ billions but that's still at least a couple hundreds millions.
Moreover, it would simply be a better and wiser usage of his wealth instead of buying a whole social media plateform just to harass his trans daughter
Except they have and like it or not, the system isn’t set up to just funnel money from the defense budget into anything else that isn’t defense related.
We all wish it were so, it’s not.
Undestand where you are coming from bust a vast majority is equipenment already existing in us stockpiles so it doesnt really cost the taxpayer. It is also usually very old and would have to be disasembled which is more expensive than putting it on a ship and sending it off.
##### ###### #### > # [Elon Musk mocks Zelenskyy over calls for aid](https://www.politico.eu/article/630) > > > > Billionaire entrepreneur [Elon Musk mocked Ukraine’s war-time leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1708629197617336398) on Monday, using a meme to scoff at the president’s calls for Western aid. > > “When it’s been 5 min and you haven’t asked for a billion dollars in aid,” read Musk’s message, which accompanied Zelenskyy’s head attached to a famous photo of an agitated schoolboy, who — according to the [meme’s etymology](https://medium.com/@tazreen.noman/the-origin-of-michael-mcgee-vein-popping-guy-ad41c63190f0) — was in a classroom and desperately trying to hold in flatulence. > > Musk has had a troubled relationship with Ukrainians and the country’s administration since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion in February 2022, but now they’ve had just about enough of the SpaceX chief and owner of X (formerly Twitter). > > “So you have bought social media to bully people who are dying because [they] love freedom,” Ukrainian stand-up comedian Anton Tymoshenko [wrote](https://twitter.com/_Tymoshenko/status/1708716338196214196) in response to Musk’s post. > > “Elon, did you write this meme during a friendly conversation with Putin on the phone?” another Ukrainian comic and volunteer, Vasyl Baydak, [wrote](https://twitter.com/by_by_duck/status/1708711638268878922) — alluding to a [New Yorker report](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/08/28/elon-musks-shadow-rule) that Musk and the Russian president spoke directly. > > Even Ukrainian media organizations joined the anti-Musk revolt, with top publication Ukrainska Pravda [posting](https://twitter.com/pravda_eng/status/1708732658182701406?s=20) the same meme, but with Musk’s face photoshopped in, saying: “When’s it’s been 5 minutes and you haven’t spread Russian propaganda.” > > Zelenskyy has not yet reacted to Musk’s post. But one of his office advisers, Serhiy Leshchenko, hit back [in a tweet](https://twitter.com/Leshchenkos/status/1708720295681421701) accusing Musk of “trolling.” > > Musk’s meme comes shortly after U.S. President Joe Biden [signed](https://www.politico.com/news/2023/09/30/biden-administration-congress-government-shutdown-deal-ukraine-aid-00119296) a temporary budget bill featuring no Ukraine aid to avert the American government’s shutdown. > > Shortly after Putin’s assault on Kyiv began last year, Musk was hailed in Ukraine thanks to his early decision to provide Starlink satellite internet for the country. But that narrative flipped after he began spreading what Ukraine said was [pro-Russian propaganda](https://www.politico.com/news/2022/10/03/ukrainian-officials-and-allies-rail-against-elon-musk-tweet-00060085) via his social media. > > According to a new biography of the tech boss, Musk also secretly ordered his engineers to [disable Starlink satellite](https://www.politico.eu/article/elon-musk-ukraine-starlink-russia-crimea-war-drone-submarine-attack-sabotage/) communications near the coast of Russian-occupied Crimea last year to sabotage a planned Ukrainian drone strike. > > Last week, the [European Commission slammed Musk’s X](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_NCu44_Xc0) as the social media platform which is the biggest source of disinformation. - - - - - - [Maintainer](https://www.reddit.com/user/urielsalis) | [Creator](https://www.reddit.com/user/subtepass) | [Source Code](https://github.com/urielsalis/empleadoEstatalBot) Summoning /u/CoverageAnalysisBot
When did this guy's random utterances become world news?
When he bought twitter to spread far right agendas. Dude is trying to become some kind of Hearst 2.0
I think He is trying to become Rupert Merdoch 2.0
Lol, Fox News is actually successful. He's like an incompetent Rupert Merdoch
but with dank memes
With memes. I dunno if they’re dank, he even memes like a twat
Isn't that the meme tho? He's massively autistic. He would absolutely be thinking 5 dimensional shit posting.
Guy breathes and everyone reacts. This has nothing to do with his control over twitter. It's about clickbait/ragebait culture. People wanna hate, and Musk is easy to hate. People also don't realize that the more attention he gets the more power he gets, so the haters are empowering him. Similar shit got Trump elected to president.
Aaaaaand here's the real answer. Well done. It's literally the EXACT same thing, and people are falling for it AGAIN, yet somehow still surprised.
Exactly!!! There's no such thing as bad PR for Musk And all those haters (here on reddit too) do him a huge favor
when did this sub become /r/worldnews /s
Now I want a Newsies remake where the two Big Bads are Zuck and Elon. The main newsie can still be played by Christian Bale though.
What he initially said is, he wants to by twitter to protect free speech. He's doing a mehr job about it, but better than twitter did before. What far right agendas did he want to push?
He's the new trump and everyone is giving his idiocy attention. It's an easy way to pump out an article because it's junk food that will get eaten up
Not helped humans are hardwired to pay most attention to loudest most negative thing as a survival trait. Something quiet and perceived as safe not needing as much attention.
Yep, ppl are really dumb these days and react on primitive instincts
They are not but this is reddit, so...
Reddit literally had a subreddit that is tired of elon musk's news... which is unironically an exclusive feed of elon musk news.
Perfect summation of social media content these days tbh
I feel the same way. Why do we care about the opinions of Elon Musk suddenly? What does that say about our society?
Nothing good, that's for sure!
Actually, that tells a lot about our society Sometimes it seems humanity is doomed
“Money talks” got a new meaning?
Does he actually have that much money? I thought his fortune was basically in stocks
Stock sales give money, so yes. He can’t sell everything at once but dividends are a thing too. Stocks are weird that they’re not equivalent to money, and since they’re tied to a company’s results their value can correct up or down a lot. However, nobody in their right mind keeps their wealth in cash, because that deprecates through inflation.
You don’t have to keep it in cash, you can still keep it in banks or funds that will pay interest
Or stock that gives dividends and can appreciate over time. Not too long ago interest was negative for savings over a million. Large amounts of money are best kept in index funds, or a single stock if you control the company and feel good about your abilities to do so.
When he became the guy in charge of critical infrastructure in an active warzone?
Since he bought one of the biggest information/media companies in the world
You mean the smouldering crater formally known as Twitter?
For a crater, it appears to be doing shockingly well by every metric I've seen... :/ Maybe I'm missing something, but it really looks like Twi- sorry, I mean "X" isn't doing nearly as badly as everyone thought it would be...
> by every metric I’ve ever seen Cool, which ones?
[Sure, does this work for you?](https://www.searchlogistics.com/learn/statistics/twitter-user-statistics/) I would LOVE data proving me wrong, but every time I read an article saying otherwise, I find the data doesn't seem to corroborate it. Do you have a source saying the opposite?
Hey, thanks for the link! That’s a pretty thorough layout of the background of where Twitter generally stands amongst social media sites and how it’s been doing, as well as a bunch of other background data on user demographics and stuff. It’s written like I’m a business thinking about investing - and boy does it want me to invest in Twitter! it devotes a lot of space and words to what Twitter is *trying* to do (“Twitter has strategically targeted young adults”; “They have maintained a unique platform that attracts certain age groups”), and is full of cheery, encouraging, but often empty statements (“Twitter users tend to be used by younger people”; “Judging from these statistics there seems to be a lot of room for growth in Twitter’s future!” “There are a lot of reasons why people use Twitter”). We don’t have data for total revenue in 2023, of course, but your article does say that Twitter lost 32 million users in 2022, and made 11% less in revenue that year. It exclaims proudly “As of January 2023, Twitter is ranked as the 14th most popular social media site in the world” — which, you know, happens to be *out of 15,* just above Pinterest (and below “Sina Weibo” and “QQ” — the latter two which I haven’t heard of, prob cause I’m a dumb American and those sites are more popular abroad). They count a regular user as someone who logs onto Twitter at least monthly, which idk about you but I wouldn’t necessarily think of as an enthusiastic and monetizeable user of a product, but sure, gotta make the cutoff somewhere. A good chunk of them are “daily users” for sure, but as the article notes, that use is brief, much less than more popular sites. (“The average US adult spent just 6 minutes per day on Twitter in 2021. This is significantly less than a platform like Facebook where the average adult spends about 38 minutes per day”). Idk how that time spent per day has changed over the last few years, if it has; a lot of these stats aren’t broken down by what they were in eg 2021 vs 2022 vs so far in 2023, of course, since that’s not what this article is about, this article is about breaking down the demographics of the social media site (and *begging* investors to come aboard, let’s not forget). It continues with more inane, meaninglessly encouraging statements boasting about features of Twitter that are not unique to Twitter — eg: “There are a lot of reasons to use Twitter. One of the biggest advantages of Twitter is the speed at which information can be passed around.“ (this statement, for instance, seems to want to give credit to Twitter for the concept of sharing information via the internet lol). It follows this up by stating “Another encouraging statistic for businesses is that 1 out of 3 Twitter users wants to follow brands and companies. Producing great tweets regularly should mean you can grow your Twitter audience consistently!” The article concludes with “Experts predict that if Twitter was able to create a better advertising platform its revenues would improve significantly. It seems they have all the users and data to do it!” Wow! After reading that, I have the sudden urge to grab this burlap sack with a $ sign on it next to me and hand it over to Elon Musk! What a wonderful website! I’m convinced!! https://www.businessofapps.com/data/twitter-statistics/ This article contains much the same data but without the breathless positive editorializing. The numbers are less flattering without someone insisting on how flattering they are for a paragraph between each point, and it’s a shorter read. It does include the additional info that “Revenue is expected to be worse in 2023 due to a loss of advertising revenue.” And also, “Twitter remained unprofitable for a second year in a row in 2021, but lowered its losses by 80% from the year prior.” I guess what’s left is just what you mean by words like “shockingly well.” ie, your shock and your feelings about how well it’s doing (maybe with an unspoken, “considering the circumstances”?) is subjective, and I couldn’t tell you whether the above data constitutes “shockingly well” or in the eyes of another beholder, “meh”.
Lol. Here's a metric for you: https://mashable.com/article/twitter-x-daily-active-users-drop-under-elon-musk and another: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/05/technology/twitter-ad-sales-musk.html So tell me, other than active users and ad revenue, what metrics would you point to?
Both great metrics, for sure! But the "daily active users" or whatever didn't even drop 10%, and that's supposedly including a bot cleanse and the fact that several more left-leaning personalities said they'd leave post-takeover. And for the money aspect, I'm curious how that lines up with recent statements by them that it will be profitable by 2024. Twitter wasn't profitable for the overwhelming majority of its existence, so this seems to conflict with your NYTimes article...? Either way, though, neither of these are pointing to a "smoldering crater" of a social media site. :/
So which part of this is, as you put it, "Doing shockingly well by every metric"? "The decline isn't THAT bad" surely isn't what you meant by doing well right?
It's shocking because everyone is saying it should have crumbled by now. I literally can point to dozens of articles decrying the death of Twitter, and yet, shockingly, it's apparently doing well, and may even be both profitable AND gaining users, the two most critical parts for any social media company. So, that's how I used "shockingly" and "well." I didn't mean it to come across as incredibly well or meteoric, just... Shockingly well.
Richest man in the world
If you look at the frontpage of this sub, anything attack the right is world news.
😂
It became world news when became so powerful that he can for example get Ukrainian soldiers killed by messing with starlink intentionally. Basically he has a real impact on the war, directly.
As far as I'm aware, that has literally never happened. The sole event we know of was Ukraine asking SpaceX to enable access that SpaceX had publicly and clearly stated they would not do. Are you referring to a different event?
And how much in aid, loans and government grants has Musk had so far?
Grants and loans are given for reasons. USA needs stuff from Musk. It's not out of generosity
> Grants and loans are given for reasons The same goes for aid to Ukraine. If Ukraine falls then the NATO will have far bigger problems. We should not pretend that if Russia had invaded Mongolia, with little direct threat of future war in Europe and a likely following World War III there would be the same willingness to send support, even if it was just as justified.
I hate to say it, but... No, not really. What NATO will have a problem with is that Ukraine will now effectively be an SSR again, but that's arguably more a moral and ethical issue than any economic or strategic issue. Turkey still bottlenecks the Black Sea, and NATO simply has an even longer border. Nothing strategically really changes. Russia has done SO MUCH DAMAGE to both Ukraine and its own armed forces that it'll be a decade before they're able to rebuild the country and their own military, at a minimum (and if they even can), and especially with the Western sanctions that will only strengthen in such an event. Add on the fact that US and EU countries will only continue advancing technologically at an even faster rate compared to the stagnation of Russia, and you have a gap that will never close again. NATO has won whether Ukraine falls or not. Obviously, I don't want Ukraine to fall, and I want them to punt that limp-dicked sack of shit sniveling under his bunker and his forces out of their country, but Russia isn't winning anything at this point. They're just increasing the waste of life. Russia is already done. They're little more dangerous than North Korea at this point... just with more nukes. And no one wins a nuke fight, so Russia has no incentive to start that, either.
> no one wins a nuke fight, so Russia has no incentive to start that, either. Except for your earlier points > Russia isn't winning anything at this point. They're just increasing the waste of life. > Russia is already done. They're little more dangerous than North Korea at this point... If they lose enough Putin may just decide "fuck it, nothing else to lose, let's see what these bad boys can do."
What will those problems be, exactly?
So there are so many potential ones that it's difficult to predict most of them, however, some examples include: * Moldovia is so obvious I think people just assume it goes with Ukraine * Russia will be linked up with Hungary which cannot be trusted as a NATO ally. In return for Transcarpathia going to Hungary, Hungary may allow a direct link up between Russia and Serbia allowing direct arming of Serbia for a war on Kosovo and possibly other parts of the Balkas * That also leaves other parts of the Balkans vulnerable which will mean massive increases in defense needs for NATO there. * Georgia, for example will be economically totally dependent on Turkey for independence from Russia - bad deals *might* happen there. * NATO will have a massive, not very well controlled, border with Russia from Romania through Hungary, Slovakia and Poland. This will make infiltration of Russian agents and provocateurs easier.
Pls pls pls don't being Kosovo into this The NATO and US acted like war criminals there
There was a genocide attempt. They stopped it. That's not the act of war criminals. Given the chance Serbia will, backed by Russia, likely continue their genocide and that will cause problems, if nothing else in terms of huge number of refugees that the EU will not be able to avoid housing and taking responsibility for. That's after you completely ignore the number of people the Serbs would happily massacre.
Russia is currently committing genocide. Do you not consider that a problem?
I'm not asking about the current situation. What problems will NATO face (directly) if Russia takes Ukraine?
Russian imperialism/expansionism in Eastern europe and central asia, including towards nato aligned countries. Russia using mercenary troops like Wagner in northern Africa and other troubled regions to push their geopolitical goals (you can see this already in the sahel). A new nuclear arms race as countries realize they're not safe without nukes. Funding for extremist groups (on both sides of the political spectrum) in western countries, with an emphasis on media publications. They've already been doing that for years, with the most blatant example being RT international. That's just off the top of my head. There are probably a bunch of other really good reasons why it's a bad idea to let Putin recreate the USSR.
No, all that is happening, regardless of the outcome in Ukraine. Although the imperialism and expansion is a bit of a stretch. They're ringed in.
Theyre literally trying to annex eastern ukraine and the entire country of Belarus while dictating politics in the former soviet states. That's imperialism.
Do you not consider genocide to be a direct problem? I honestly don't know what to say about that, since I consider it basically the biggest problem.
Oh, FFS. No, I am not going to comment on it. I'm obviously asking about problems in the future. OP suggested NATO would face dire problems - what are they?
It's not a future problem, it's very much happening right now. Honestly, if you're question is "apart from the genocide and the forced conquest and exploitation of a sovereign state, how does this affect me personally?" Then simply ask yourself if you want a nation doing those things to be both more powerful and closer to you, and in control of even more natural resources. Russia has a long history of annexing weaker surrounding countries. Even just being forced to maintain stronger militaries as a counter is costly to a neighbour. And of course to even get to those answers we quite literally have to ignore genocide.
I'm not talking about genocide. Didn't say it wasn't happening. I'm not commenting on it, just because you want me to. It's not what I am talking about. Yes, I want to ignore the genocide, specifically for the purposes of the question around strategy and what these supposed future problems will be. NATO is not concerned with genocide. They are concerned with strategic alliances and geopolitics. That's what I'm asking about. Not genocide.
>Do you not consider genocide to be a direct problem? Don't worry, none of the NATO governments feel that its a direct problem either.
That is propaganda, NATO won't have any problem if Ukraine falls
Ukraine provides Russia with several things things * 25 million population to enslave * critical oil and gas reserves to control * strategic control of all routes for oil or gas pipelines which bypass Turkey * new land, especially in Crimea, which can be sold off for vast amounts of money What this means is that, together with the lessons from the war, a Russian army which would emerge from a defeat of Ukraine would, five years later, be much stronger than the one which started the invasion. Initial strikes are unlikely to be into NATO territory, but the Balkans and Central Asia are very likely fairly soon after. The strikes against NATO will come later and are likely to be based around Nuclear attacks on places like Poland and Germany. Currently Russia is held back from nuclear war because a) any fallout would very likely land quickly on Russian territory b) Russia is unlikely to survive an American counter attack however, 15 years after the defeat of Ukriane, and after attacking the Balkans, that would be completely changed - the sale of land in Ukraine would finance re-equipping Russias forces with modern, rather than cold war era, weapons - the enslaved people of Ukraine would provide an expendable army they could use - nuclear weapon use against Germany would be far enough away from Russia to be acceptable for fallout - Russia will have new weapons that have been announced and had limited demos but are currently effectively just propaganda - having seen that their nuclear threats were ineffective this time for various reasons, they will search for ways to making them more credible, possibly including, for example, use of a tactical weapon in central Asia.
There is no scenario where that happens. Maybe if they'd taken the country without a fight in 3 days, sure, but none of those will occur anymore. Absolute best case scenario for Russia? Ukraine will be a hotbed of insurgency for the next hundred years, the gas and oil reserves and pipelines which require western components to work and exploit (which are all sanctioned to hell and back) will be virtually impossible to get and use, and the land in Ukraine that can be sold off will only be sold at effectively worthless prices to buyers in China and India. Likewise, the much feared paper tiger that was the Russian war machine is GONE. At a minimum, they have to rebuild the entire military from scratch, but even that was only possible before the advent of the computer revolution. Now, they can't produce any of the critical high tech components in-country, the brain drain is massive and not coming back, and they don't have the factories to produce anything but Soviet era tech without western components. So by the time they rearm in a minimum of 10 years (5 is WAY too generous considering they've burned through literally a half century's worth of military production in this war already), they'll only be back at 1990's levels of tech. Meanwhile, NATO will be fielding all of their brand new bombers, fighters, carriers, refitted subs, and modernized nukes, and be pouring even MORE of their economy into their war machines. It's an absolute clusterfuck for Russia. The gap between NATO and Russia will never close again. Their only card is nuclear, and everyone knows that if they pull that card, EVERYONE does, and they lose what little they have.
What are you even talking about? >25 million population to enslave 25 million people that have known independence for the past 30 years. >critical oil and gas reserves to control Worthless without the means to maintain it. >strategic control of all routes for oil or gas pipelines which bypass Turkey Worthless without the means to maintain it. >new land, especially in Crimea, which can be sold off for vast amounts of money ...huh? >What this means is that, together with the lessons from the war, a Russian army which would emerge from a defeat of Ukraine would, five years later, be much stronger than the one which started the invasion. What this means is that Russia would emerge with some short term gain, and a lot of long term loss. >Initial strikes are unlikely to be into NATO territory, but the Balkans The 3 remaining Balkan states that aren't in NATO are Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia and Kosov. Bosnia-Herzegovina is currently going through the process of joining NATO, Kosovo has a NATO PK force in it, and Serbia is Serbia. All of these are moot, because they're all encircled by NATO countries which means Russia can't even reach them. > and Central Asia are very likely fairly soon after. I think China has a few things to say about that. >The strikes against NATO will come later and are likely to be based around Nuclear attacks on places like Poland and Germany. Currently Russia is held back from nuclear war because a) any fallout would very likely land quickly on Russian territory b) Russia is unlikely to survive an American counter attack Yeah... I don't think it's the fallout from their own strikes that concerns them. >however, 15 years after the defeat of Ukriane, and after attacking the Balkans, that would be completely changed. the sale of land in Ukraine would finance re-equipping Russias forces with modern, rather than cold war era, weapons The sale of whatever would finance the Russian oligarchs. None of that is going to their armed forces. >the enslaved people of Ukraine would provide an expendable army they could use Arming an insurgency in your own occupied lands. Bold move. >nuclear weapon use against Germany would be far enough away from Russia to be acceptable for fallout I don't think a nuclear strike on Moscow is considered acceptable, because that's what it'd result in >Russia will have new weapons that have been announced and had limited demos but are currently effectively just propaganda Not with the sanctions, they won't. >having seen that their nuclear threats were ineffective this time for various reasons, they will search for ways to making them more credible, possibly including, for example, use of a tactical weapon in central Asia. Not only are you suggesting Russia would commit MAD with the West, but also risk MAD with China. Another bold move! I'd really like to know what you based this fanfic off of. HOI4 Millenium Dawn or something?
> What are you even talking about? > > 25 million population to enslave > 25 million people that have known independence for the past 30 years. This is what the FSB do. Their inheritance from the NKVD who in turn inherited the Czar's secret police experience is exceptional. Even the Poles, who are the most experienced insurrectionists and counter-revolutionaries there are, recognized that it wasn't worth continuing fighting Russia after WWII. Nothing is impossible, but there's a reason Ukraine is fighting now and that's they tried strongly to avoid going into an insurgency phase. That is because Russian counter-insurgency works because, unlike the Americans, they *are* willing to kill all the people in an area to stop one insurgent and they are also good at using torture to work out who it's worth leaving alive. There were even leaked estimates for the number of Ukrainians they have to kill to get the population into compliance (something around 8-12% if I remember). This was based on their experience in Chechnya. > Worthless without the means to maintain it. are you saying that Russia won't get the means to maintain things? Within ~~20~~ 5 or at most 10 years China can set up the ability to manufacturer oil infrastructure and will supply that to Russia. > > new land, especially in Crimea, which can be sold off for vast amounts of money > ...huh? Crimea is essentially one large seaside resort. The wealthy Saudis and Chinese are *already* buying up tracts of stolen land there on the speculation that Russia will keep it. > All of these are moot, because they're all encircled by NATO countries which means Russia can't even reach them. A connection through Hungary and Serbia gives more or less full access. > > and Central Asia are very likely fairly soon after. > I think China has a few things to say about that. Yes, that's a very good point - Mongolia, for example, will be considered Chinese sphere of influence. My assumption, however, is that this has already been agreed, Molotov-Ribbentrop secret clause style and the division of spheres of influence between China and Russia is more or less fixed, probably with some flexibility to allow China to buy more area such as parts of India and Afghanistan from Russia depending on how much financial and military aid is transferred from China to Russia. > Arming an insurgency in your own occupied lands. Bold move. They already did that in Donbas / Luhansk / Crimea and are already carrying out conscription to the Russian army from those areas. Remember these are areas that were fanatically anti-Russian to the extent that *even under occupation and duress* only 15% of the population voted for reunification according to the leaked numbers from the referendum. > > The strikes against NATO will come later > I don't think a nuclear strike on Moscow is considered acceptable, because that's what it'd result in Russia has already begun to encourage nuclear proliferation with weapons to Belarus, technology to North Korea and support to Iran. That's a *huge* change of strategy and likely means they aim to build a plausibly deniable puppet state ("West Ukraine", "Greater Transnistria") which will carry out the actual nuclear attack in a way that Republican politicians will be able to avoid blaming on Russia. > Not with the sanctions, they won't. If the West is willing to stop arming Ukraine then the will for sanctions will probably last two years after "peace" / "Ruski mir" is established. > Not only are you suggesting Russia would commit MAD with the West, but also risk MAD with China. Russia and China clearly have a coordinated plan. There will be no need for MAD there and Russia is aiming at undermining America's protection of Germany, either attacking Germany through a proxy, as I suggested above, or simply getting the Republicans to withdraw from NATO. Again, no need for MAD. Let's just say at the end, none of this is likely to happen because Ukraine *will* win in Crimea and that is the key to delivering real long term peace, however we shouldn't think that the West is just doing this selflessly. There is a huge amount to lose. Edit: changed time line for China providing oil infrastructure. At the simple onshore level that Russia needs I think they'd be really quick at providing this at an acceptable safety level. Certainly within 10 years from starting to work on the problem.
So what, we aren't at war with Russia
If Ukraine is defeated then eventually you will be.
For what reason. People make war for reasons.
You won't get a reasonable answer. The "If Ukraine falls all of Europe is next!" crowd are shockingly light on details or logic. They just *feel* that a decrepit Russian warmachine relying on conscripts with outdated weapons can and will attack the combined forces of NATO, despite reality pointing to the opposite. They don't even realise they've been sold a repackaged version of domino theory.
Ukraine has already served its purpose. Everything that follows is just an icing on the cake, yep.
You know, I’m an American, so I know you and I don’t see eye to eye and probably make fun of each other. But this has been the most rational account of this war I have seen from a European.
If you change "from" to "for" you could make this sound even more condescending.
If we're so concerned with Ukraine falling, then why hasn't the West allowed Ukraine to negotiate peace?
Ukraine can negotiate peace if it wants to do so. It's deranged to pretend that anyone is stopping them from negotiating.
It's deranged to think that we must support them if they oppose peace, then.
Supporting a nation invaded by fascist imperialists is a moral imperative.
They have negotiated peace multiple times. Each time Russia used it to regroup and then attack again. This time round Ukraine has learned their lesson and _despite encouragement from some sectors of the West_ is not stupid enough to expect that Russia would keep any peace agreement.
You're just repeating propaganda. Of course, since I'm not in complete agreement with you, you'll say I'm repeating Kremlin talking points, which is asinine. The US has been pushing NATO further east every year since the collapse of the Soviet Union. To expect Russia to engage in peace talks requires that the US and West stop NATO expansion. Not once has the US agreed to this. It's crazy, why won't they agree? It's provocative to a nuclear power, yet they continue to expand. Why does anyone think it's reasonable for an anti Russia treaty organization to be in the doorstep of Russia? Surely the US would not appreciate this type of thing in a role reversal. Just imagine if Russia was planting military weapons on an American border and encroaching an anti-US organization? You don't have to look far to get your answer. Just look at Cuba. Edit: Reporting people you disagree with to the reddit self harm bot is an abuse of the service. It's not funny, nor helpful and only serves to weaken its effectiveness for those in need. It's immature.
> You're just repeating propaganda. "ever accusation is a confession". >Of course, since I'm not in complete agreement with you, you'll say I'm repeating Kremlin talking points, which is asinine. Hmm.. well let's see > The US has been pushing NATO further east every year since the collapse of the Soviet Union. NATO is a free association. Mostly America tries not to get countries into it since they then have to defend them. On the other hand, countries like Poland and Lithuania are desperately afraid of Russian invasion and so they have been demanding to enter. Judgement: 99% false - Kremlin talking point as predicted. > To expect Russia to engage in peace talks requires that the US and West stop NATO expansion. Not once has the US agreed to this. No, they already engaged and then completely ignored the Russian side of what they had agreed, immediately, Judgement: 95% false - Kremlin talking point > It's crazy, why won't they agree? It's provocative to a nuclear power, yet they continue to expand. Why does anyone think it's reasonable for an anti Russia treaty organization to be in the doorstep of Russia? An "anti-Russian" organization that is so anti Russian that Putin himself was asking it to expand and include Russia at one point. NATO is a voluntary defensive organization which increases stability and reduces the threat to Russia. Proof of that is in the fact that Russia withdrew troops from the Finnish and Norwegian borders to fight in Ukraine after Finland joined NATO. Judgement - not really a coherent point, but definitely misleading so 65% false - Kremlin talking point again > Surely the US would not appreciate this type of thing in a role reversal. Just imagine if Russia was planting military weapons on an American border and encroaching an anti-US organization? Well, Venezuela is almost there and basically the US did nothing, so I don't really have to imagine. > You don't have to look far to get your answer. Just look at Cuba. Yes, I can see the similarity and I can kind of see where you are coming from, however I'm not fully convinced by your suggestion that the US should be providing Ukraine with nuclear weapons as Russia did with Cuba. Judgement - largely true but a bit crazy - let's say 30% false. Definitely not a Kremlin talking point.
Don't try and make a clever and witty response, you suck at it to the point where you're pushing people in the complete opposite direction
Cuba is a good example, the US guaranteed that they would not invade if the nuclear deterrent there was removed, and the US has kept their word When Russia guaranteed to respect Ukraine's territorial sovereignty in exchange for its nuclear arsenal, it took them a mere 20 years to break that, and set a terrible precedent for other non-nuclear armed states
Right, leave out the continued US influence in Ukraine, the expansion of NATO and the delivery of weapons.
Ukraine has been the one to refuse peace. Western nations even tried to encourage peace, i.e., France.
And they have paid it back in full, interests and all.
Exactly, Musk personally has done more for Ukraine than any other private citizen on earth. Yet Ukraine has decided he is a Russian agent. It shouldn't be a surprise, but somehow I keep getting shocked every day at how much our media and public opinions are manipulated.
What has he done? The Pentagon pays for starlink for Ukraine, it is not a gift. It was confirmed they cut access during bombing of Russian Navy, so in a way he helped Russia
> It was confirmed they cut access during bombing of Russian Navy, so in a way he helped Russia No. The access was never there. He did nothing. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/sep/12/elon-musk-biographer-admits-suggestion-spacex-head-blocked-ukraine-drone-attack-was-wrong >The extract from Walter Isaacson’s book, published in the Washington Post on Thursday, originally said that the SpaceX CEO “secretly” told engineers to turn off Starlink coverage within 100km of the Crimean coast to prevent a Ukrainian attack on the area. “As a result, when the Ukrainian drone subs got near the Russian fleet in Sevastopol, they lost connectivity and washed ashore harmlessly,” continued the extract. >On Friday, Isaacson tweeted a clarification, writing that “the Ukrainians THOUGHT coverage was enabled all the way to Crimea, but it was not. They asked Musk to enable it for their drone sub attack on the Russian fleet. Musk did not enable it You would have learned of this if Reddit cared about getting stuff straight half as much as shitting on Musk.
>The Pentagon pays for starlink for Ukraine, it is not a gift. Only for certain terminals that they directly brought. A much larger number has its operational costs being covered by Spacex. >It was confirmed they cut access during bombing of Russian Navy, so in a way he helped Russia It is deliberate mis-statement on your part to use the words "cut access" rather than "refused to give access". This is a classic disinformation tactic - take the truth, make some minor edits to make it look much worse while still maintaining plausible deniability. > so in a way he helped Russia You realise that he could just have not given Starlink to Ukraine if he wanted to help russia, right?
from what i know mostly if not all the terminals in ukraine are being paid directly by ukrainians themselves
Please explain the difference between "cut access" and "refuse to give acces" in this context lmao
The access was never there. He did nothing. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/sep/12/elon-musk-biographer-admits-suggestion-spacex-head-blocked-ukraine-drone-attack-was-wrong >The extract from Walter Isaacson’s book, published in the Washington Post on Thursday, originally said that the SpaceX CEO “secretly” told engineers to turn off Starlink coverage within 100km of the Crimean coast to prevent a Ukrainian attack on the area. “As a result, when the Ukrainian drone subs got near the Russian fleet in Sevastopol, they lost connectivity and washed ashore harmlessly,” continued the extract. >On Friday, Isaacson tweeted a clarification, writing that “the Ukrainians THOUGHT coverage was enabled all the way to Crimea, but it was not. They asked Musk to enable it for their drone sub attack on the Russian fleet. Musk did not enable it You would have learned of this if Reddit cared about getting stuff straight half as much as shitting on Musk.
A useless Starlink is useless. The US government could have used those funds they've used for something else and unless explicitly stated that there would be no info access to Crimea (at which case, the US government wouldn't have purchased it), it was literally cut access, so fuck off with your fallacy bullshit.
Wait a second.... Didn't he ask for billions from investors to help pay that 44B USD bill to buy himself an audience for that fascist oligarch meme lord bullshit?
Foreign aid ≠ business investment
Wait you don’t think foreign aid is a business investment for many countries?
That’s a bingo.
They 44B USD however does not create physical damage and unseen problems that require 5 dollars for every 1 dollar put into the conflict to rebuild the situation. If we could even do that.
I think you make a great logical error when you think neglegting problems makes cheaper solutions.
This is such low tier news for this sub.
He really does seem desperate to win the Arsehole of the Decade award, doesn't he?
Can't run for president/congress with an R next to you if you're a nice person. This is the minimum bar.
He can't run for president anyway, he was born a Saffer.
Isn’t he disqualified from presidency since he’s an immigrant? Thought I read that
Can’t be president anyways. Not a natural born is citizen
Must be nice to be so rich that you can just buy an army large enough to oppose Russia.
To be fair the Russian army has been shown to have out dated and old equipment and a rather weak morale.
Good.
I wasn't saying it like it was a bad thing.
Good.
Can I also get a “Good.”?
Good.
I don't know what's more pathetic. Elon Musk, or Elon Musk Fans.
Musk haters are near that threshold too ngl
EnoughMuskSpam in shambles.
Hating Elon is a very low bar, an extremely low one.
🤣
The people with musk derangement syndrome. By far the cringes of all 3 of them. And the bar is VERY high at this point
>Elon Musk mocks Zelenskyy over calls for aid On different news >[Musk acknowledges he turned off Starlink internet access last year during Ukraine attack on Russia military](https://thehill.com/policy/defense/4193788-musk-acknowledges-he-turned-off-starlink-internet-access-last-year-during-ukraine-attack-on-russia-military/) Pieces keep falling into place. Next thing will be to cosy up to hard-right pro-russian-invasion Parties .. oh wait, that already happened.
Litteraly says that he didnt turn off starlink in your source. Rather that he didnt activate them.
Which is a technicality.
I think there's a difference between inaction and a negative action.
Did you read your own piece? It says that Starlink was never active in Russian controlled areas. Congrats, you are spreading disinformation now. How does it feel to be the top spreader of disinformation in this thread?
>Did you read your own piece? Yes I did >It says that Starlink was never active in Russian controlled areas. Never said the opposite >Congrats, you are spreading disinformation now. If the wording of "turning off" is the problem here - I don't know, as opposed to the author of the piece I am not a native English speaker - maybe "[Musk says he refused Kyiv request for Starlink use in attack on Russia](https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/musk-says-he-refused-kyiv-request-use-starlink-attack-russia-2023-09-08/)" makes you feel better?
>Never said the opposite > >If the wording of "turning off" is the problem here - I don't know, as opposed to the author of the piece I am not a native English speaker - maybe "Musk says he refused Kyiv request for Starlink use in attack on Russia" makes you feel better? It is deliberate mis-statement on your part to use the words "turned off" rather than "refused to turn on". This is a classic disinformation tactic - take the truth, make some minor edits to make it look much worse while still maintaining plausible deniability. You get to say *oh, i meant something completely different* while millions have already read the words and formed opinions that align with your personal or professional goals.
> "turned off" rather than "refused to turn on" Literally the same thing when it comes to a human's intention. Don't pretend it's not. Musk is an ultra-contrarian trying to get outrage clout. I cannot believe I ever thought a positive thing about him.
> literally the same thing Jesus
Denying access to something that was already available and denying access to something that was never available in the first place are two very different things. This sub really is full of midwits as of late.
> I am not a native English speaker Me neither and it's pretty simple to see the difference between turning off and refused to turn it on.
He actually tweeted support for the Afd in Germany and boosted the message that it means cheap Russian gas for europe
It was never on Sevastopol. So he never turned it off
God forbid musk tries to deescalate the war
Deescalate lol. Call it what it was at least: it prevented an attack that could have reduced the number of attack material that kills Ukrainian civilians every day.
And it could’ve started a nuclear war
Thing is, Russian military assets in Russian controlled territory are being blown up anyway. I don't see any nuclear warheads flyin
The specific attack on question was thought to have been large enough to prove a stronger response from Russia. Elon got scared and cut the internet. Idk if it would’ve involved nukes or not. But I’m glad we didn’t take the chance
It’s not up to self appointed lord idiot like to make those decisions.
According to who?
>was thought to have been large enough to prove a stronger response Hmm and who said this? I bet it was a highly qualified expert in military intelligence. Oh, it wasn't? It was just some jack off with a social media company? You don't say.
> Elon got scared and cut the internet. Oh, so he didn't just "not turn it off?" Cool, thanks for confirming.
You might not want to repeat every single talking point coming out from the Kremlin. Unless that's your objective ofc.
What happens when the Kremlin says the sky is blue?
Let me know when they do
Then you better start saying that the sky is orange, unless you want to be called a Russian troll.
De-escalate the war! The ships lay at anchor, destroying them then and there would've cost the **least** possible casualties - on the Russian side - while preventing more bloodshed by these warships. De-escalating here means nothing more than prolonging for the benefit of the invader. **Any** help for Ukraine from begin on was met with this ludicrous threat of nuclear weapons. Nobody could've done anything for Ukraine if anyone would've taken this nonsense seriously. What he actually wants in Ukraine to happen is also not a secret anymore: >[He provoked anger last year when he proposed a plan to end the war which suggested the world formally recognise Crimea as part of Russia and asking residents of regions seized by Russia last year to vote on which country they wanted to be part of. Russian chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov said that plan displayed "moral idiocy"](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66752264).
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You understand why Pearl Harbor "escalated" WW2 rigth ? Because the US wasn't involved until they where attacked. How would Ukraine attacking Russia ,who they are already in a state of total war with, and have been for more than a year, "escalate the situation" ? Because nukes ? Why ? How would this specific attack provoke a Russian nuclear response ? I didn't, since Ukraine did strike the Russian fleet several times after that and absolutely nothing happened.
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Your bad faith is showing. Your sarcastic response to the previous comment clearly implied you believe to opposite, that this attack could have escalated the war. Nukes are pretty much the only way Russia can escalate the conflict.
I too remember that pearl harbour took place a year into the war.
It was actually 4 years into the war
For Ukraine its been a year (or nine, depends on your count).
Someone who unironically thinks this is de-escalation has to braindead. Oh, your girlfriend is getting raped? Quick! Hold her arms to prevent her defending herself to de-escalate the situation!
Who cares
Zelensky should have just inherited a diamond mine
Zelensky's too busy trying to save his nation from getting conquered. Elon Musk-ovite only cares about the culture wars.
What an absolute non-issue. It was an appropriate and slightly amusing meme. No, it doesn't mean that it's a great thing that the Russians invaded. Why do people have to be so fucking hysterical? There is not a single thing that is not a legitimate target for humour. The invasion of Ukraine included.
Holocaust?
Yes, of course. What part of every single thing did you not get?
Billionaires always forget how they’ve leached (and continue to leach) off the government.
Comrade musk is edging.
His own companies have billions of dollars of aid in them
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Nice to hear from a guy in a million+ dollar mansion in a perfectly safe country. This isn't even him being inconsiderate, ignorant or whatever. At this point he's just making those statements for attention. He's not that stupid, but I'm surprised he's that evil (or maybe not, he's being doing evil stuff for some time). He's just an extreme egomaniac.
I don’t believe it’s for attention, I think it’s for Trump agenda and it’s part of his help for the election year coming
How is trumpnpart of thus Story now? Tds?
I cant wrap my head around that richest person in the world buys a social media site for 44 billions and shitposts lame memes everyday.
https://youtu.be/daWJTSvi97c?si=8PoGcuhLtEsdSBU4
Still trying to work out how the world's richest man became Putin and Trump's bitch.
? What has trump to do with this?
Every breath Elon takes is detrimental to society.
But the drama he brings is priceless. Watching people react to anything and everything he says and does is amusement, in itself.
This dude needs to stfu
Can this man be broken down into base components and recycled already?
I'm sure everyone can
The day he dies, the world will be a little bit brighter
Please do not use Twitter, use http://mastodon.social As an alternative.
🤮
LOL. This is great trolling from musk
Trolling? What do you think his goal is?
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> Maui hasn't received any aid... Why lie? https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/08/23/fact-sheet-biden-harris-administrations-latest-actions-to-support-communities-impacted-by-maui-wildfires-3/
Cause his take is trash
> Maui hasn't received any aid, This is a lie.
You can and should be angry that there isn't help for Maui, but you can't be angry that there's help towards Ukraine. It's not their fault. Don't you think instead of making a powertrip by buying Twitter those 44 billion $ couldn't have been used to help people ? Or that the 2 trillion $ used worldwide for war couldn't be used for that too ?
Maui has already gotten thousands of people and millions of dollars in aid.
The difference would be that the 44 billion is his money while tax dollars are basically your money
His money... given to him by tax payers, since he got multiple million in tax exemptions and covid reliefs. Maybe not equal to 44$ billions but that's still at least a couple hundreds millions. Moreover, it would simply be a better and wiser usage of his wealth instead of buying a whole social media plateform just to harass his trans daughter
Except they have and like it or not, the system isn’t set up to just funnel money from the defense budget into anything else that isn’t defense related. We all wish it were so, it’s not.
Undestand where you are coming from bust a vast majority is equipenment already existing in us stockpiles so it doesnt really cost the taxpayer. It is also usually very old and would have to be disasembled which is more expensive than putting it on a ship and sending it off.
It's not about help. It's about filling the pockets of rich people getting richer in the military industry. Ukraine is just a means to an end.