Earlier quoted context omitted.
Russian emperors have a long tradition of being assassinated brutally. Putin's time might be coming due.
Lindsey Graham, is that you?
There's no need to insult people like that..
Appeal to Ruby Community from Kharkiv Rubyist
81–90 of 107 posts
Re: Appeal to Ruby Community from Kharkiv Rubyist
#82There are plenty of Russians on Youtube commenting under pleas posted by Ukrainians asking them to help stop the war. And there are plenty of videos taken by people on the ground in Ukraine that show what's going on. Lots of Russians actually believe that the strikes are precision and only aimed at the military targets. There's a video recorded by a woman in Mykolaiv walking among the rubble and cursing at her Russia…
Good point about public perception. But there's a deeper problem with this: people _want_ to believe it is a justified and necessary act of violence. And this is really hard to change now. Too many years many of us/them were passively silent and now it is almost too late to take an action.
There are family ties between the countries and that may affect whatever level of violence they think is justified. Especially when they see apartment blocks being bombed into oblivion that look just like the one their niece lives in (and they have personally visited).
Re: Appeal to Ruby Community from Kharkiv Rubyist
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
So you’re against the Monroe doctrine? Thoughts on the Cuban Missile crisis? Did you see the clip of Biden in the 80s saying the only thing that would turn Russia hostile would be the Baltic states joining NATO? Finally, are you familiar with what happened in 08, 14, and 19, and the clear Russian warnings after each?
Whataboutism is the tool of useful idiots. I also don’t give two fucks what Russia “warns” us or anyone about. That literally just proves my point that you and all these other apologists believe that Russia should be the decider of what sovereign nations near them can do. This is the exact reason all these nations beg to join NATO instead of having to be forced into it.
You’re totally captured by propaganda, and unable to debate even one meaningful point.
Re: Appeal to Ruby Community from Kharkiv Rubyist
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
Only US, EU and allies (partially), there are plenty of countries (China, India, Pakistan, Brazil, etc) who didn't join the sanctions.
US GDP > GDP of China + India + Pakistan + Brazil. Global reserve currency = USD. Pakistan? Ha, comeon. Now let's add in the other US allies (EU GDP is ~$16t-$17t, roughly equal to China; Canada and Australia both have economies larger than Russia). And we're just getting warmed up. Most of the global economic might is with the US and its allies. Russia can be successfully smashed economically, and it'll be far easie…
The US is a mountain of debt under bad leadership. It doesn't actually create very much of value anymore and has not for years. It is very bad for such a country to lose trade relationships, because that's all it has.
Re: Appeal to Ruby Community from Kharkiv Rubyist
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
Aaron Maté's journalism consists of reposting things Konstantin Kilimnik told him which is why he's spent the last few years claiming every political story mentioning Russia is fake, they've never hacked the US, etc. If Russia didn't want Ukraine to turn towards the EU, they shouldn't have annexed the parts of Ukraine containing all the citizens who didn't want to do it.
> Konstantin Kilimnik Would this be the very same Konstantin Kilimnik who was the Russian Intelligence Officer found by the Special Counsel, US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and the US Treasury to have worked with Paul Manafort and the Donald Trump campaign during the 2016 election? Gee, I wonder why Aaron Maté would want to minimize Russia's moral culpability here. Snark aside, I think one of the easier t…
Yes, but that was kind of a joke so don't read too much into it. (I do remember he reported an anonymous Twitter account wasn't Kilimnik because he DMed them and asked if they were.)
The Substackers, I think, mainly moved to those positions on their own because there was space to make money on it, and polemical opinion writers and disinformation agents end up working off each other because it's convenient rather than actually conspiring. Probably.
Re: Appeal to Ruby Community from Kharkiv Rubyist
#86Ukrainian Xoogler from Odessa living in the Bay Area checking in. I stand with Ukraine. We are with you. Wrote this song a week before the war started: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZTdU21AoP Now it's time for me to live by these words. Last week, I went to Poland to help my 68 year old mother in law evacuate from Kyiv and cross over the Atlantic to safety. She saw the airport burn from her window. You can read her story her…
Is there any point of making these donations seeing so many billions are being sent by nation states? Is there a bottleneck where the Ukrainian Armed Forces need first aid kits but are unable to get them because of a lack of funds? I've thought about donating to these sorts of organisations but I question the actual efficiencies of doing so. Edit: I also worry that funding the continuation of this war will increase t…
we formed a small group here that gathered clothes and medical supplies from within our city, we got a lot of donated clothes and medical equipment, we aren't rich any means, so we are actively looking for people to help us with cars and vans or allowing us to use free space in their warehouses.
if you can, find some local communities that are actively gathering clothes and medical supplies. there are plenty of them, they need cars to take rounds or a garage to store equipment or vans to move things around. this will be more helpful than money and as these are directly connected to families there, your work and time will have a lot more direct impact.
Re: Appeal to Ruby Community from Kharkiv Rubyist
#87There are plenty of Russians on Youtube commenting under pleas posted by Ukrainians asking them to help stop the war. And there are plenty of videos taken by people on the ground in Ukraine that show what's going on. Lots of Russians actually believe that the strikes are precision and only aimed at the military targets. There's a video recorded by a woman in Mykolaiv walking among the rubble and cursing at her Russia…
You wrote: > Thank you for saying it out loud. To be fair, I think you can safely replace "Russians" with many other people. Certainly, US media loves the term "precision strikes". They are nonsense. I also once believed in them. As a thought experiment, imagine a bus stop is bombed with precision guided bombs (or a missile if you like). Imagine that bus stop is in the same neighborhood as your office or home. Imagin…
Yeah, but as bad as "precision strikes" are, there's a difference between at least having a target, and indiscriminate shelling.
Russians are doing the latter.
In your thought experiment, imagine there's a baddie at the bus stop.
The shells hit your office, the hospital, the library, two apartment buildings, five buses, eleven cars - all miles away from the station.
The station is intact though.
That's what Russia is doing now.
Re: Appeal to Ruby Community from Kharkiv Rubyist
#88There are plenty of Russians on Youtube commenting under pleas posted by Ukrainians asking them to help stop the war. And there are plenty of videos taken by people on the ground in Ukraine that show what's going on. Lots of Russians actually believe that the strikes are precision and only aimed at the military targets. There's a video recorded by a woman in Mykolaiv walking among the rubble and cursing at her Russia…
Good point about public perception. But there's a deeper problem with this: people _want_ to believe it is a justified and necessary act of violence. And this is really hard to change now. Too many years many of us/them were passively silent and now it is almost too late to take an action.
>people _want_ to believe it is a justified and necessary act of violence.
Well of course, because otherwise, the guilt and shame is too overwhelming.
Sadly, shame is the first casualty of the War on Truth.
And without shame, there is no truth, because one can just say whatever makes one feel good at the moment. Do it long enough, you might even believe what you say.
Re: Appeal to Ruby Community from Kharkiv Rubyist
#89There are plenty of Russians on Youtube commenting under pleas posted by Ukrainians asking them to help stop the war. And there are plenty of videos taken by people on the ground in Ukraine that show what's going on. Lots of Russians actually believe that the strikes are precision and only aimed at the military targets. There's a video recorded by a woman in Mykolaiv walking among the rubble and cursing at her Russia…
>Lots of Russians actually believe that the strikes are precision (Speaking as a Russian who was in similar situation back in 198x in USSR) Russians have lost all mental critical thinking capacity when it comes to government propaganda, and the propaganda makers know and use it. For example about precision strikes - the official Russian TV made a glorifying report https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrekdY2FgD0 on such a…
That's the outcome of the war on truth.
Two decades of TV saying one thing today, and the opposite thing the other day, while the internet offers a thousand mutually incompatible (and often, self-contradicting) accounts for any event worth talking about have annihilated people's ability to believe that truth exists.
To them, everyone lies, everything is a lie. Putin, in comparison, is therefore honest - because he doesn't pretend he's not lying!
Only fools believe. The smart people know that everyone lies. The game is to stick with the better lie.
And what lie can be better than the one that makes you feel good and makes "the other side" furious? A grain of truth, a barrel of bullshit, and a complete detachment from reality - and you have the lie du jour.
Putin isn't convincing people to believe in what he says. He just offers them better lies.
Re: Appeal to Ruby Community from Kharkiv Rubyist
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
My understanding is that Germany buys natural gas regularly throughout the year, and stores it. During the winter the stored gas is rapidly used up, much faster than can be replenished. It is not like the gas flows directly from Russia to people's homes.
And this previous year, Gazprom didn't fill the tanks.
They reliably held up their end of the contract.
It was quarterly-thinking MBAs in hahaha who are the reason for that.