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17th October 2022, 12:22 AM | #41 |
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That's what I used to think but there are people pushing the narrative that Russia is losing because they are not being ruthless enough and these people are also vying for power.
Quote:
ETA: If Putin was concerned about his cronies' money making opportunities more than other threats to his power, this war would never have happened. |
17th October 2022, 02:08 AM | #42 |
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Murdering Putin, a laudable goal, is the ultimate in how-to projects. It would take a level of resources the ideologues don't have. You could get lucky and there's an ultra nationalist body guard who takes him out for the glory of the Motherland and then takes two in the chest.
To do a proper job of it, including moving in to take over, killing or capturing the other controllers of national power before the body is cold would take a lot of resources. |
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17th October 2022, 02:59 AM | #43 |
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Some tankies look like they may be trying to push "this war is designed to be continuous (by US/NATO military industrial complex and leaders), not to be won."
Needless to say, that's facepalm territory, as usual. |
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17th October 2022, 05:50 AM | #44 |
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17th October 2022, 05:53 AM | #45 |
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"I dont call that evolution, I call that the survival of the fittest." - Bulletmaker "I thought skeptics would usually point towards a hoax rather than a group being duped." - makaya325 Kit is not a skeptic. He is a former Bigfoot believer that changed his position to that of non believer.- Crowlogic |
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17th October 2022, 06:14 AM | #46 |
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17th October 2022, 06:19 AM | #47 |
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17th October 2022, 06:32 AM | #48 |
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"I dont call that evolution, I call that the survival of the fittest." - Bulletmaker "I thought skeptics would usually point towards a hoax rather than a group being duped." - makaya325 Kit is not a skeptic. He is a former Bigfoot believer that changed his position to that of non believer.- Crowlogic |
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17th October 2022, 06:46 AM | #49 |
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Companies aren't charities. At some point, it might have been perfectly reasonable (and just due course of business) to ask for more money.
He didn't help himself, though, by publishing his 'peace plan' before that. It just makes him look stupid and petty. |
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17th October 2022, 06:53 AM | #50 |
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17th October 2022, 07:08 AM | #51 |
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I don't twit. I've only got an account to follow some other twits. I've felt that a problem with it, from the beginning, is that it's too fast and makes it too easy to share passing thoughts with too many people. Who of us hasn't had weird thoughts (or what might be considered out-of-character thoughts)? If you don't twit them right away, you have at least a few minutes to reflect. Even here, we're able to go back and edit posts. Stream of consciousness posting brings a host of issues.
His peace plan, or on the one hand acknowledging donations, and on the other, thinking about asking for money, is something else. He should have stayed up late at night drinking with a buddy and floating those ideas then. He's a very public face on a couple of disruptive companies, and in Ukraine, lives may be hanging on his words. But, I guess, Elon is gonna do Elon... |
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17th October 2022, 08:56 AM | #52 |
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I think the most dangerous thing about this - leaving aside the possible disruption of Starlink in Ukraine - is that the Musk fanbois will now be of the opinion that the only rational thing to do is to adopt Musk's appeasement plan and force Ukraine to stop fighting by, for example, putting pressure on the US government to stop supplying weapons. I'm already seeing comments by Musk fans elsewhere to this effect.
ETA: By the way, I think your diagnosis of the problem with Twitter is right on the nail. I would add that, also, the main stream media loves it because the sound bytes are ready made. |
17th October 2022, 09:18 AM | #53 |
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17th October 2022, 09:41 AM | #54 |
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Musk is spouting off about appeasement again. From his Twitter:
If Russia is faced with the choice of losing Crimea or using battlefield nukes, they will choose the latter.So much ignorance in so few words. |
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17th October 2022, 10:00 AM | #55 |
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17th October 2022, 10:01 AM | #56 |
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I think there's a difference between appeasement - giving a bully what they say they want, in the hope/belief that this will be the end of their demands - and negotiating some kind of quid pro quo with someone who is in a strong negotiating position.
I've been saying all along that there are corners Russia/Putin could be backed into where escalating use of nuclear weapons seems like their best option. And I've been saying all along that I would rather try to keep from backing Russia into one of those corners - even if it means negotiating some sort of quid pro quo. If you go back to the beginning of this thread, there's been a fairly consistent narrative that NATO* cannot intervene more robustly or decisively, because Russia has nukes and nobody wants to incite them to start a nuclear war. We'd rather help the Ukrainians grind out however many Ukrainian casualties it takes to win this the "safe" way, rather than just end it tomorrow and then find out whether Putin is bluffing or not. So it's a bit rich now to see people saying we should just keep grinding this out until Russia's destruction and humiliation is so thorough that nukes are the only thing they have left, and they cannot imagine conceding. If it's gonna be like that, then we should just let slip the dogs of NATO* air power tonight, and put Ukraine in Crimea by the end of the week. Get it over with. |
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17th October 2022, 10:01 AM | #57 |
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17th October 2022, 10:50 AM | #58 |
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17th October 2022, 10:54 AM | #59 |
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“Don’t blame me. I voted for Kodos.” |
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17th October 2022, 11:05 AM | #60 |
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17th October 2022, 11:10 AM | #61 |
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Yes the quid is returning to the Jan 1st 2014 borders, paying reparations in full for all damages caused in Ukraine, returning those kidnapped, and admitting publicly in view of everybody that Russia, at all levels, committed war crimes and crimes against humanity. The quo is Putain doesn't get his head separated from his neck.
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17th October 2022, 11:12 AM | #62 |
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17th October 2022, 11:21 AM | #63 |
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17th October 2022, 11:28 AM | #64 |
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A Russian military aircraft has crashed into a residential block in Russia:
https://twitter.com/IAPonomarenko/st...45969709174784 I'm a complete layman, but this seems like something that should absolutely never happen in completely uncontested territory. |
17th October 2022, 11:30 AM | #65 |
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17th October 2022, 11:48 AM | #66 |
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I mean... an analog of that did happen in peace time by the USAAF* over American soil.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1945_E...ing_B-25_crash That said, navigation aids have come along ways in 77 years I'm told, but maybe not for Russia? *SIC |
17th October 2022, 11:58 AM | #67 |
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Russia's stuff is in such bad shape I wouldn't be surprised at all if one of them just decided to randomly fall out of the sky.
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17th October 2022, 12:00 PM | #68 |
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I've been saying roughly the same since this started. And I was at no point, kidding.
For any logical person being defeated because NATO is sharing technology, equipment, and intelligence is no different than being defeated because NATO pilots are in the air over Ukraine. Russia's response to being defeated SHOULD be no different in either case. So, if NATO keeps supporting Ukraine well enough that Russia's defeat through conventional arms is inevitable, and its inevitable that Russia then resorts to WMD... and its inevitable that that leads to WW3, well lets just get it over with with a pre-emptive strike. If we hit them first then the damage they can deal will be greatly reduced. I'm not kidding, and I don't have a death wish. I have, however, realized that there's actual logic and then there's "Russia logic". So in that manner maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it does matter to Putin that there aren't actual NATO pilots over Ukraine? I mean it was no secret that the Soviets had pilots over Korea (and secretly but known over Vietnam) yet we didn't start WW3 over it. |
17th October 2022, 12:03 PM | #69 |
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Apparently staying at the controls in order to try and avoid any ground casualties isn't a thing in Russia.
https://twitter.com/KralovecStepan/s...70616978378752 |
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17th October 2022, 12:04 PM | #70 |
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17th October 2022, 12:09 PM | #71 |
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My preferred solution is some sort of diplomatic-intelligence arrangement with some faction close to Putin, that has a vested interest in ousting Putin, withdrawing from Ukraine, licking their wounds, and living to try again some other day - a day that will likely never come, or in any case won't come soon enough to prevent us from working out some other better long term outcome.
However, if we're confident that Putin and his cronies won't resort to nukes no matter how hard they are pressed in Ukraine, or how thoroughly they are driven from the country, then why not escalate right now, and get this over with right now? Why do Ukrainians have to keep fighting and dying, week after week, month after month, while we trickle in our leftovers and hand-me-downs? On the other hand, if we're seriously concerned that we could at some point push Putin into a nuclear corner, by continued progress in liberating Ukraine, then I would "prefer" something like this: * Having figured out more or less where Putin's breaking point is likely to be, and * Being reasonable certain that point has been or soon will be reached, * Offer him some amount of territory already occupied (Crimea, for example), and * Some reduction of sanctions and some renunciation of war crimes prosecutions; * In exchange for cessation of hostilities, renunciation of further claims in Ukraine, and repatriation of all the kidnapped Ukrainians. ETA: As for selling it to Ukraine, that part is obvious. |
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17th October 2022, 12:18 PM | #72 |
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I think we* didn't start WW3 over Soviet involvement in earlier proxy wars because in that period we were pretty confident that we were playing Brinkmanship with rational actors who understood game theory and its geopolitical applications.
I've seen it proposed (on reddit, so grain of salt etc.) that prolonging Russia's humiliation only cements their sense of injustice and despair, and only increases their likelihood of preferring nuclear war to continued suffering. And therefor that a swift and decisive end to the conflict is more likely to shock them into accepting the defeat and giving up the dream of Ukraine or Death. |
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17th October 2022, 12:51 PM | #73 |
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I see that as well.
Scenario A: NATO goes in guns a blazing. Wars over in days, the vast majority of the Russian military surrenders and becomes PoW's. They're allowed to call their wife or mother back home and let them know they are OK. Most Russian's are probably going to be for a negotiated peace to get their sons and husbands back. Putins backed into a corner, but the Russian people are in no mood to support a nuclear strike. Scenario B: the war keeps on dragging on over the winter. The conscripts that Putin sent to Ukraine mostly either come back home in a body bag, WIA, or missing a limb or two from frostbite. This is exactly what Putin wants. Practically everyone back in Russia knows a soldier who has died or is crippled by the war. There's widespread absolute hatred of Ukrainians and "the west". Victory in Ukraine by any means is widely supported. Putin knows if he's ousted he's dead and the only means to survive is force Ukrainians surrender with nuclear weapons and then hope that the West doesn't strike back. |
17th October 2022, 01:18 PM | #74 |
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17th October 2022, 01:19 PM | #75 |
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It will take one Russian hero to give the Russians an out.
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"I dont call that evolution, I call that the survival of the fittest." - Bulletmaker "I thought skeptics would usually point towards a hoax rather than a group being duped." - makaya325 Kit is not a skeptic. He is a former Bigfoot believer that changed his position to that of non believer.- Crowlogic |
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17th October 2022, 02:11 PM | #76 |
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Yes. I remember hearing that fighter jets like that are horrible at unpowered gliding, so in fairness to the pilot, he might have been out of options and did eject at almost the last moment (I've actually read reports that there were two people who ejected).
I'm not holding my breath for a proper investigation though. Can't have the military look bad for plowing into a residential block. I doubt this would have happened if Russia wasn't stretching itself thin to keep their occupation going, so now they get to add their own civilians to the list of causalties they've caused. |
17th October 2022, 03:13 PM | #77 |
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Last year, the Brits flew a brand-new F-35B into the Mediterranean bathtub, due to an ingested intake cover. Stuff happens in the military. The Russians have demonstrated gross incompetence in this conflict, but it may be too early to tie this to the conflict, specifically.
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17th October 2022, 04:53 PM | #78 |
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17th October 2022, 04:55 PM | #79 |
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Pacifism is a shifty doctrine under which a man accepts the benefits of the social group without being willing to pay - and claims a halo for his dishonesty. Robert Heinlein. |
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17th October 2022, 04:59 PM | #80 |
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Pacifism is a shifty doctrine under which a man accepts the benefits of the social group without being willing to pay - and claims a halo for his dishonesty. Robert Heinlein. |
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