Bots are an issue if you try reading replies.
If you only focus on those you follow, and don't post much, they aren't that visible.
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Elon and Ukraine
- Thread starter nativewolf
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If you only focus on those you follow, and don't post much, they aren't that visible.
stopcrazypp
Well-Known Member
Suggesting negotiations in general (especially with Ukraine at the table, as the White House responded) is very different than asking Ukraine to give up territory.
I think Elon and defenders of his original poll still fail to understand how offensive it is to Ukrainians to ask them to give up territory, when they not only had their country and home destroyed, but likely lost family, friends, and loved ones. Any concessions of territory need to be fully Ukraine's decision and own will.
Other comparisons where brought up, for example asking South Korea to give up territory to North Korea simply because of the latter's saber rattling. The sounds ludicrous and to Ukrainians the Elon's suggestion likely sounds the same. This is as opposed to for example lifting some sanctions in exchange for North Korea giving up some of their weapons or nukes for example.
stopcrazypp
Well-Known Member
I would say it is very much self induced. That is why even people that generally support Elon's ventures don't necessarily want him participating on Twitter, especially with no filter. I think it should be very clear that Twitter is not designed to be a platform for nuanced discussions.
As I said above, when he said that he could no longer continue paying for that service, the only reasonable interpretation was as a threat to stop providing it.
People post tweets from Musk all over the damn internet. It's impossible to be on here and not see them.
Yeah, but don't you lose context? You say you can only act on what Elon says, but you don't read the source of 99% of his comments, how can you make any valid conclusions?
Or... it meant SpaceX can't afford the expense. If you live in my house and I tell you I can't afford the mortgage, the bank is the one cutting off housing, not me. FWIW, SpaceX raised $250 million in August.
What he did say:
didn't he also post a few things about redoing an election in Ukraine? And ignoring the actual independence election when Ukraine broke off in the first place? Also key Russian talking points ahead of their "election" in the region.
Hard not to believe that he was thinking of pressuring the situation. If he wasn't trying to do that, then he should have quickly walked it back.
Hard not to believe that he was thinking of pressuring the situation. If he wasn't trying to do that, then he should have quickly walked it back.
stopcrazypp
Well-Known Member
And on the subject of the letter, it has been withdrawn, and most of the people that originally signed it in June has since long changed their position given changes in the situation in Ukraine:
https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/25/politics/pramila-jayapal-ukraine-letter-democratic-backlash
Seems like Democrats shooting themselves in the foot ahead of the mid-term elections, when the letter is based on so outdated information on the war.
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JRP3
Hyperactive Member
Not to mention the letter was unequivocal in it's support for Ukraine and made no suggestion of giving up territory. Anyone who thinks what Elon suggested is in anyway similar to what the letter contained probably didn't read the letter.
Imagine the motivation for Elon's post is the anguish he feels regarding the hundreds of thousands of lives that will be lost in great agony. That would be his prime objective...to reduce human misery. Who governs, and where the lines are drawn is of lesser concern. At some point the War must end, and someone will need to redraw the lines. Most would wish for Ukraine to regain it's original borders (including Crimea), but the horror of War is the real failure.
News of Putin taking criminals from their cells, or citizens off the street, and pushing them into harsh battle against Ukrainians fighting to regain their country has got to send chills down the necks of most of us. Seeing civilian residents homes bombed into rubble, and innocent bodies being dragged out cannot be going down well with Elon.
News of Putin taking criminals from their cells, or citizens off the street, and pushing them into harsh battle against Ukrainians fighting to regain their country has got to send chills down the necks of most of us. Seeing civilian residents homes bombed into rubble, and innocent bodies being dragged out cannot be going down well with Elon.
I'm not sure: Are you suggesting that genocidal despots who invade their neighbors should be allowed to just march in with their armies and take their neighbors' territory because resisting them will cause suffering? Note please, that Putin denies that Ukraine is even an actual nation: He wants to absorb Ukraine into Russia and wipe out all traces of Ukrainian culture.
Putin was KGB in the old Soviet Union. When the USSR collapsed, he murdered and robbed his way to power and obscene wealth. His goal is to restore the old Soviet Union, with himself rather than the Bolsheviks as absolute ruler.
Appeasement of despots only encourages them to further outrages. The West should admit Ukraine into NATO and provide them with whatever they need to defend themselves from Russian aggression.
A couple of folks have marked my above post "disagree." I'd be interested if they'd post what specifically they disagree with. Do they disagree that Putin is a sociopathic murdering despot who wants to eliminate Ukraine as an entity and absorb it into Russia? Do they disagree with the simple fact that he was KGB or the presumption that he is still KGB at heart? Do they disagree that appeasement of despots is foolishness? Do they maybe regard Putin as an honest man, or maybe feel that Ukraine really should be part of Russia?
I'm seriously curious to know what specifically they disagree with.
I'm seriously curious to know what specifically they disagree with.
JRP3
Hyperactive Member
It's just one troll many of us have on ignore, for good reason.
Many of the great geniuses also were crackpots in other areas. Henry Ford was anti-Semetic and liked the Nazis. Nikola Tesla spent a lot of time communing with pigeons and announced some pretty weird ideas. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates are/were pretty odd too.
When we go through trauma, we can emotionally get stuck in that trauma and some people don't emotionally mature past that stage. Elon has struck me for some time as someone who is still emotionally stuck as a teenage kid getting abused by his classmates and father. It probably contributes to why he's been through so many romantic partners.
He's also had many people telling him the last 15 years what a super genius he is and how he can do anything. So he's beginning to believe what people are telling him and he opines on subjects where he really doesn't know what he's talking about. He's Dunning-Krugering himself.
I had a girlfriend many years ago who was in the Triple Nine Society (for people with IQs in the top 0.1%). She went to a Triple Nine gathering once and she said the group was bifurcated, half were successful and had their life together and the other half were socially awkward and lived lives that were train wrecks. She was eccentric, but pretty much had her life together.
I reluctantly started looking at Twitter because that's where the best quality information about the war is. The short form format you're forced into with many social media formats drives me nuts. I find it very difficult to explain my thoughts in a few words. When I try I end up having to write an essay anyway because I just confuse people.
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There is a lot of good information on Twitter, but I agree the format is poor.
Elon didn't ask Ukraine to give up territory, he doesn't have the power to do that. He simply put a peace proposal up for a vote, and even so the proposal merely suggested that the people in the Russian held territory self-determines where they want to go, nowhere did he suggest it should be given to Russia outright.
And many here are against any negotiation and compromise with Russia on principal ("because Putin can't be trusted"), not just the details of Elon's peace proposal which is unimportant anyway.
Just like Elon has given up his proposal due to strong opposition, no difference here.
So what? Elon is unequivocal in his support for Ukraine too.
"seek a realistic framework for a ceasefire" very much suggested that some occupied territory could remain in Russia's hands.
You're under the impression that he cares about PR, he doesn't, there's a reason he eliminated Tesla's PR department. He simply does what he thought is correct. The point of my post is to show that his thinking wrt Ukraine peace negotiation - regardless of whether it's correct or not - is not at all unique or limited to right wing, like some of you suggested.
I'm not at all interested in debating who's right wrt Ukraine or Putin, since nobody here has the credential to support their claims, it'll just end up with a string of "yes he is", "no he isn't". What I am interested in is to use credible evidence to show many of you have a biased attitude towards Elon Musk, most likely due to being influenced by the main stream media.
stopcrazypp
Well-Known Member
He said straight up to give up Crimea to Russia:
His proposal for a vote for the 4 regions would likely give them to Russia, given the most of the people who would vote against Russia have been displaced already and Russia would never allow them back unless the Russian army was already out of the region (in which case there is no need for such a vote in the first place). Not to mention having UN observers is very weak comfort to those that might consider voting against Russia, when Russia has demonstrated they are willing to take revenge and will likely not take no for an answer.
People can be against negotiation with Putin for other reasons and still see that Elon's proposal is far worse and offensive to the Ukrainian people. That is not unimportant or Elon's wouldn't have gotten as big a backlash as he did.
The difference is they didn't say explicitly for Ukraine to give up land. And the opposition they got is less than Elon got. Elon got "ratioed" in Twitter speak, and actually got strong official responses from Ukraine against his proposal, while there wasn't an equivalent for the letter (it mainly got pushback from other Democrats, but not nearly as much international response). His tweet also made mainstream news and had wide coverage (even internationally, coupled with his equally ridiculous plan for peace for China vs Taiwan), while the whole democrat letter thing seemed to have relatively less coverage.
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JRP3
Hyperactive Member
You're simply factually incorrect about this entire situation including what Elon actually said and the ramifications, as pointed out above.
While not your main point, it's worth noting that this doesn't quite hit the mark.
Elon absolutely understands (and cares about) the importance of influencing perception/opinion--which ultimately is the goal of PR/Marketing/Comms. He just doesn't like the traditional implementation of that via a PR department. Elon is nothing if not uniquely outspoken, and any intermediary between Elon and his audience is only going to distill his message.
Make no mistake, Elon is keenly aware that he has his thumb on the Court of Public Opinion every time he says/tweets/does something.
Well yeah, given Russia has annexed Crimea for 8 years and nobody - I mean literally nobody who's crying against Elon - has lift a finger to free it from Russia, it's not hard to conclude that this is the status quo everybody can accept.
All small details, doesn't change the fact that he didn't propose to give these land to Russia.
Those people are hypocrites and idiots who are against literally anything Elon does, their opinion is irrelevant and wrong as I have proven numerous times. Should be obvious that there're a few idiots in Elon thread that will dunk on him no matter what he does, they're no different from TSLAQ and thunderf00t.
And I don't see any way you can measure the backlash accurately at this point, we'll know more once some polls come out.
They implicitly implied it, and they didn't get a strong opposition because they caved in under 24 hours, Elon's initial poll probably lasted longer than that.
As for Elon's tweet getting wide coverage, how is this surprising? The main stream media is willing to do anything to discredit him, the whole Rahul Ligma episode should make it abundantly clear.
And of course no main stream media dare to mention that the Ukraine drone boats are probably using Starlink because "Elon is against Ukraine and democracy" or some such nonsense:
mil.in.ua
Ukrainian forces showcase an attack on Russian vessels using USVs
A video from the cameras of unmanned surface vehicles featuring an attack on the vessels of the Russian Black Sea Fleet has been published for free access
mil.in.ua
