Elon is now using Twitter to loudly broadcast that he wants every citizen to call their reps to end aid to Ukraine.
This is grotesque.
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Russia/Ukraine conflict
- Thread starter amolina
- Start date
Elon is now using Twitter to loudly broadcast that he wants every citizen to call their reps to end aid to Ukraine.
This is grotesque.
Skotty
2014 S P85 | 2023 F-150L
I take this as a sign that we should double our aid to Ukraine.
Elon Musk and Senator Ron Johnson discuss their opposition to escalating the ongoing bloody stalemate in the War in Ukraine.Instead, advocating for peace negotiations to bring an end to the loss of lives and the destruction of Ukraine.
@elonmusk
: "My companies have probably done more to undermine Russia than anyone. Space X has taken away two-thirds of the Russian launch business. Starlink has overwhelmingly helped Ukraine.My concern is exactly what you articulated. If you have an extended war of attrition, every day that goes by, you're losing more Ukrainian people.They aren't even Ukrainian boys anymore because they are running out of boys. And if you are going to spend lives, it must be for a purpose. Not just a mile back and forth. In fact, the lines aren't moving. So, just every day, people die.As you said, there's no way Putin is going to lose. If he backs off, he will be assassinated. And for those who want regime change in Russia, they should think about who is the person that could take out Putin?Is that person likely to be a peacenik? Probably not. They're probably going to be even more hardcore than Putin."
@SenRonJohnson
: "We all have to understand that Vladimir Putin will not lose this war... Losing to Vladimir Putin is existential to Vladimir Putin. Russia has four times the population and a much larger industrial base. Russia can produce 4.5 million artillery shells per year. We're not even up to 1 million per year. The average age of a Ukrainian soldier right now is 43 years old. Some of Zelensky's top aides say that even if the U.S. and its allies deliver all the weapons they have pledged, they don't have the men to use them. If you're worried about the people of Ukraine, you have to understand that probably 100,000 of their soldiers have been killed.The only way this war ends is in a settlement, and every day that the war goes on, more Ukrainians and more Russian conscripts die, more civilians die, and more of Ukraine gets destroyed. Again, sending $60 billion as added fuel to the flames of a bloody stalemate makes no sense. As evil of a war criminal as Putin is, he's not going to lose this war, and our colleagues here just aren't willing to accept that reality. They are living in a fantasy world thinking that Ukraine can win this thing."
@elonmusk
: "My companies have probably done more to undermine Russia than anyone. Space X has taken away two-thirds of the Russian launch business. Starlink has overwhelmingly helped Ukraine.My concern is exactly what you articulated. If you have an extended war of attrition, every day that goes by, you're losing more Ukrainian people.They aren't even Ukrainian boys anymore because they are running out of boys. And if you are going to spend lives, it must be for a purpose. Not just a mile back and forth. In fact, the lines aren't moving. So, just every day, people die.As you said, there's no way Putin is going to lose. If he backs off, he will be assassinated. And for those who want regime change in Russia, they should think about who is the person that could take out Putin?Is that person likely to be a peacenik? Probably not. They're probably going to be even more hardcore than Putin."
@SenRonJohnson
: "We all have to understand that Vladimir Putin will not lose this war... Losing to Vladimir Putin is existential to Vladimir Putin. Russia has four times the population and a much larger industrial base. Russia can produce 4.5 million artillery shells per year. We're not even up to 1 million per year. The average age of a Ukrainian soldier right now is 43 years old. Some of Zelensky's top aides say that even if the U.S. and its allies deliver all the weapons they have pledged, they don't have the men to use them. If you're worried about the people of Ukraine, you have to understand that probably 100,000 of their soldiers have been killed.The only way this war ends is in a settlement, and every day that the war goes on, more Ukrainians and more Russian conscripts die, more civilians die, and more of Ukraine gets destroyed. Again, sending $60 billion as added fuel to the flames of a bloody stalemate makes no sense. As evil of a war criminal as Putin is, he's not going to lose this war, and our colleagues here just aren't willing to accept that reality. They are living in a fantasy world thinking that Ukraine can win this thing."
Every day I wish more fervently that Elon Musk was gone from Tesla. It's beyond time. His antics are hurting the brand.
There are dictators who you can throw them a bone and they will leave the world alone. Putin is not one of those dictators. Putin is an ambitious authoritarian with territorial ambitions on the scale of Hitler. Anyone who throws him a bone is just a chump who is giving him space to rebuild and do it again.
Anyone who doesn't see that is a fool, or is an ally of Putin, or both.
But then I'd have to kill you.
And you are right, traffic analysis is much more powerful than most people realize. Look up "the Zendian Problem".
Yep, this is more or less how I see things.
The other factor is Elon is inclined to oppose what Biden is for...
This is part of a recent right wing narrative in the US which is unfortunate, traditional mainstream republicans would be backing Ukraine to the hilt... Wars against communists used to be republican's favourite kind of war.
Elon is mixing with some people we very strange ideas at present,,,
Artful Dodger
"Neko no me"
That's okay, I'm already Zaphod Beeblebrox for tax purposes. Shud rename my Model Y "Heart of Gold".
You mean a hub'n'spoke topology could reveal the identity of HQ's? And at multiple levels, since each packet sent has associated routing information? That sounds risky...
I wonder why the U.S. Military is getting their own dedicated version of Skynet. Hmmm...
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Artful Dodger
"Neko no me"
I'd be okay with that. Either fight to win, or quit. Don't play this bloody game where we only give them enough to keep fighting indefinately, w. neverending causualties. Stalemate benefits only the arms industry (fond memories of high profits during the Cold War).
Now, with extra blood.
navguy12
Active Member
Russia-Ukraine war at a glance: what we know on day 720
Zircon hypersonic missile hits Kyiv, Ukrainian experts believe; Mongolian leader trolls Vladimir Putin over size of defunct Eurasian empires
www.theguardian.com
Republicans say Trump call for Russia to attack Nato allies was just fine, actually
Tom Cotton echoes fellow GOP senators, saying former president was ‘simply ringing the warning bell’
www.theguardian.com
And the irony is that Biden is a big advocate for both electric cars and alternative energy. It creates a situation that makes your head swim if you try to map it out.
We've had one arm of the media telling us that down is up and up is down for so long it's actually happened.
Steve Scalise will return to the House very soon and rumor is that Johnson is going to put it on the floor so they Republicans can kill it for good. The special election for NY-3 is Tuesday. The Democrats have an opportunity to flip that seat.
Yeah at $55/kWh the outcome of that war is already decided. It's just a matter of scaling, no subsidies needed for anyone. We have enough LFP for everyone, just gotta refine enough lithium and build the battery factories. Soon the cars will be cheaper to build, easier to own and already they are cheaper to operate, safer, more comfortable etc.
China will decimate the ICE legacy companies who fail to adapt. Tesla's "not a price war" price war is forcing legacy to scale BEV now before it's too late or go extinct, it seems they are choosing the latter.
SwedishAdvocate
Active Member
Someone's been smoking again. This time at a rather big refinery in the Moscow region. The Gazpromneft refinery in Kapotnya allegedly provides 40% of Moscow’s needs for petrol and 50% for diesel fuel. It's also the main supplier of fuel for the capital’s airports. As of now it seems to be unclear if production has been affected. Moscow with burbs has a population of some 22 million people.
Gazpromneft refinery fire in Moscow
POV 55.667773°, 37.782732°
Krasnodarskaya Ulitsa near Mar'inskiy Pkwy
Area of fire 55.650050°, 37.802248°
twitter.com/BruckenRuski/status/1757240380259696763?s=20
Gazpromneft refinery fire in Moscow
POV 55.667773°, 37.782732°
Krasnodarskaya Ulitsa near Mar'inskiy Pkwy
Area of fire 55.650050°, 37.802248°
twitter.com/BruckenRuski/status/1757240380259696763?s=20
And once again when you hear Elon lays out his reasoning, it's very logical and rational. You may disagree with his assumptions or the value he's optimizing for, but you're delusional if you think he's only doing this to look cool to his friends.
No he's not, otherwise he wouldn't be discriminating against Tesla who is literally the only western company building BEVs at scale. Biden wanted to kneecap Tesla by giving more IRA incentives to unions, only Manchin's intervention saved Tesla from being discriminated.
This tells me more about the company Elon keeps these days. It sounds like Russian talking points.
This war is existential for Ukraine, not Russia. Calling this existential for Russia is just bizarre.
Russia is not invincible. They've lost plenty of wars.
If Ukrainians wish to fight for their freedom then this choice is theirs and theirs alone. They are not a client state of the US. Arming them saves lives.
Aid passes the senate.
Speaker Johnson is looking like he's not going to give it a vote.
Efforts are underway for a discharge petition around this.
Probably a good time for those of us who are US citizens to call our reps.
Though people don't always make the most rational decisions. Sometimes the better and/or cheaper technology wins out. However, there are many times inferior tech maintains a solid marketshare, or even wins out. For example the Amiga computer was way ahead of its time, but it's a footnote in the history of the personal computer.
As far as irrational decisions go, a lot of people have voted against their best interests because of brand loyalty. Up thread there have been some comments about groups in the US who have done this.
And EVs are a political issue now. EVs also have some drawbacks that will allow ICE to maintain at least a small market share for some time to come. For example if you care going some distance from services, you can carry extra fuel for an ICE easier than you can carry extra energy for an EV. You can charge an EV with solar, but you would either need to lug a large number of panels and other equipment along (taking up a lot of space), or spend a long time charging. One 5 gallon jerry can of fuel has around 166 KHh of energy. A vastly denser energy source than any battery.
ICE also don't suffer as badly on range degradation when towing as an EV. it's because ICE are so inefficient to begin with that a little less inefficiency doesn't kill you, but it's still a factor that people are finding with EV pickups.
It's just another twist in this fall down the rabbit hole. There really is a push for alternative energy and electric vehicles from this administration, but they are trying to ignore the most successful and biggest company in the field which is also an American company at the same time.
The whole thing is like trying to make sense of an Escher painting.
When Elon starts talking military stuff, he Dunning-Krugers himself. He thinks he knows everything about everything these days. He can run circles around me in EV tech and rocketry, but he doesn't know what he's talking about when it comes to military matters. There are people who know more than I do about military matters, but I know a fair bit after studying military history for over 50 years as well as knowing a bit about engineering of military equipment.
I know enough to know when someone is talking out of their hat.
I see people argue that Elon is right to favor the certainty of Ukraine surrendering vs the uncertainty of Russia losing. They say that maybe it's better to save all those souls from dying in battle and missile strikes, and fight on in a guerilla capacity, weakening Russia from inside. Someone quoted the book "What we owe the future" as Elon's main inspiration for 'saving the flower of youth in Ukraine'.
The problem with this framing is that the thought experiment has been run many times in real life. My own country, Estonia, surrendered to the USSR during WWII without a shot fired largely on the same hope - perhaps we can save the people and then fight another day. The result was that the very first day of occupation every single officer of the Defence Force was imprisoned and executed, their relatives (and countless others) were imprisoned and sent to GULAGs (forced labor death camps), many tens of thousands more (including women and children) were deported in packed animal carriages to Siberia to fight for survival in uninhabited wastelands. Some three hundred thousand ethnic Russians were brought in to live in their confiscated homes, sowing the seeds for future russification and eradication of the local populace and culture. Note that Estonia has a population of just 1 million.
In the end we did prevail, but the sheer amount of lost, destroyed, brutalized lives and robbed and squandered potential is too much to linger on... Contrast this to Finland, which did fight and was victorious twice against the USSR. Estonia was slightly ahead of Finland on many economic indicators before WWII, now we are just catching up, but Finland is still almost twice as prosperous.
What we owe the future is to prevent this from happening again.
The problem with this framing is that the thought experiment has been run many times in real life. My own country, Estonia, surrendered to the USSR during WWII without a shot fired largely on the same hope - perhaps we can save the people and then fight another day. The result was that the very first day of occupation every single officer of the Defence Force was imprisoned and executed, their relatives (and countless others) were imprisoned and sent to GULAGs (forced labor death camps), many tens of thousands more (including women and children) were deported in packed animal carriages to Siberia to fight for survival in uninhabited wastelands. Some three hundred thousand ethnic Russians were brought in to live in their confiscated homes, sowing the seeds for future russification and eradication of the local populace and culture. Note that Estonia has a population of just 1 million.
In the end we did prevail, but the sheer amount of lost, destroyed, brutalized lives and robbed and squandered potential is too much to linger on... Contrast this to Finland, which did fight and was victorious twice against the USSR. Estonia was slightly ahead of Finland on many economic indicators before WWII, now we are just catching up, but Finland is still almost twice as prosperous.
What we owe the future is to prevent this from happening again.
Elon is not arguing that Ukraine should surrender and become Russia. He is arguing that peace talk should be held and some concessions be made, for example let Russia keep Crimea and Donbas. Peace sucks and is totally unfair. But he thinks letting the war go on another year, no progress have been made or worse Russia has gained more ground and then have to make the same decision sucks even more.
