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Putin has kompromat on Musk. I guarantee it.
I didn’t know these “talks” were in Saudi Arabia.
Why the fuck would Zelenskyy go to Saudi Arabia for any reason? It’s a place well-known for murdering visitors that recently signed a military agreement with Russia.
Is he praising Russia though? Seems like he’s praising trump for arranging the negotiations.
There’s so much real shit to talk about I don’t understand the obsession with deliberately misinterpreting stuff to make up fake things to get mad at.
The subtext is he’s calling Biden incompetent by praising trump’s competence. As compared to what, implying trump is incompetent in comparison to Russia? Why would he do that?
I love it, competent leadership is…
Showing up. Such a high bar.
I think not going is competent leadership by Zelenskyy.
“Yeah ok I’ll just walk right in to the lions den then durp durp”
Oh yeah, there’s no way he can legitimize this and he would if he showed up.
People who have no idea how competence works, and none of their own, tend to assign it sort of randomly or based on strange criteria. He may genuinely believe that Russia has incredibly competent leadership, because of nothing more than they make things simple and everyone else makes things complicated.
Until I learned the whole story about Musk’s takeover of Tesla, I had no idea how bad and overconfident he was at engineering and business, but once I learned that, a lot of things started to make a lot more sense.
Until I learned the whole story about Musk’s takeover of Tesla, I had no idea how bad and overconfident he was at engineering and business, but once I learned that, a lot of things started to make a lot more sense.
Yeah, my cousin used to work at SpaceX, and it’s sort of an open secret that they need to actively keep Elon away from the engineers. They have entire teams of people dedicated to shoving menial decisions and distractions in front of him, so he doesn’t have time to wander over to the engineers. Like as soon as he steps out of his office door, there are multiple people whose sole job is dedicated to subtlety redirecting him off to other non-critical wings of the building to keep him distracted. Because if he ever talks to the rocket engineers, he’ll try to one-up them by dropping some asinine “we’re going to do it this dumb way instead” decree that requires them to scrap their entire current project and start over from scratch (for the third time this week.)
Yeah. A guy I know who works at one of the Musk companies told me a much more abbreviated version of the same thing years and years ago. At the time, I along with everyone else thought Musk was a super-genius, so I just assumed the guy didn’t want to deal with the emotional pain of having his work critiqued and have to go back and make it better, and thought no more about it.
Nah, he is Putin’s puppet, just like trump. They have him on something too probably. Remember when he tried to assault a massage worker?
Here’s a look at Musk’s contact with Putin and why it matters
A person familiar with the situation, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter, confirmed to The Associated Press that Musk and Putin have had contact through calls. The person didn’t provide additional details about the frequency of the calls, when they occurred or their content.
That doesn’t tell us anything…
That doesn’t tell us anything…
I forget to link the article, my bad.
https://apnews.com/article/musk-putin-x-trump-tesla-election-russia-9cecb7cb0f23ccce49336771280ae179
It would make perfect sense. I sort of assumed that something like that was the case, but I haven’t been saying anything because I saw no actual indications or any evidence. But it would make perfect sense. Maybe they realized that Trump was too big a dope to be able to really deliver what they want, whereas Musk is the perfect supervillain to have as the new pledge trying to join their club.
That settles it then. My official prediction at this point is:
- Musk keeps fucking everything up, with no one in our sclerotic government doing anything about it, until something goes really wrong. It actually might happen that bird flu or some geopolitical event happens first, and all the Musk-induced fuckery can kind of get overlooked in the chaos, but if no external crisis happens to divert attention I think it is inevitable that Musk will eventually pull the wrong lever and fuck things up badly enough for enough people that the country gets genuinely angry for real.
- Trump blames Musk and throws him under the bus, which is a 100% predictable pattern
- Musk flees to Russia, and keeps doing his shtick there until the end of time
Making predictions about the future is a fool’s game, but every step of the process (except where that one first-step caveat is concerned) seems so absolutely inevitable that I feel comfortable tentatively laying it out as a prediction.
I think his Twitter showing is where most of us learned how bad he is. Forums over sample tech people and his dumb as a rock takes on tech exposed it all.
I mean it tracks for him, it’s literally all he’s ever done
Good point. You can’t make objective judgements of talent when you have a silver spoon shoved so far up your butt everyone lies to you about how you’re doing. You just don’t have the base of experience.
Ushakov: "The main thing to do x.com/MarioNawfal/st…
You mean that they can land an airplane? Is that what makes them competent?
He’s talking about being a passenger on an airplane.
He means departing a plane without falling, or having toilet paper on his shoe, or getting his ass beat by an umbrella.
It’s almost like he’s a screaming drugged out pile of shit with all our fucking money
Insane Clown Country.
Ah yes, the same government that put a price on the heads of American soldiers in Afghanistan?
I hate that there aren’t actual timestamps on these.
I’m confused. Russians are great, but you’re sending guns and bullets to Ukraine…who are fighting Russia?
Yeah the Ukrainians have some nerve fighting the Russians when all the Russians are doing is invading their country.
No, WolfmanEightySix is saying that Elon is saying that “Russians are great”, yet the USA government is sending bullets to Ukraine.
Why would they praise Russia, while helping Russia’s enemy?
That’s how I understood it anyway.
That’s what I meant. I probably have just put exactly what I meant.
It’s muddy though because it’s not that hard to understand what’s going on here.
The USA was supported Ukraine until Trump and his I mary band of fascists got in charge. Now they support Russia. It’s not hard to understand that a change of leadership could result in a change of policy.
So why are the USians so pally with Russia? Cause that’s how it looks….
Are they sending guns and bullets to Ukraine? I thought Musk and Trump were redirecting all of that to Isreal while deciding how to split Ukraine’s resources with Russia and themselves
Might be out the loop on this one. The USA government has been quite busy, I can’t keep up.
russia leapfrogging large economies to become the 4th largest in the world while under ??? how many us sanctions? how do you explain it if not affording them their competence at meeting those challenges imposed?
You never answered me the other day when I asked you how many human rights organizations you were a member of. Why is that?
because you’re a troll who thinks trump is out to genocide your gay daughter. - that was your response to my being critical of democrats for genocide… frankly, i don’t trust you to be fair enough to engage with and you’ve been targeting me quite a bit.
because you’re a troll who thinks trump is out to genocide your gay daughter. - that was your response to my being critical of democrats for genocide…
What on Earth are you talking about? Basically none of that was correct.
Also, that’s a pretty weird dodge around the fact that you are not a member of any human rights campaigns. You would have looked less silly if you had just lied and said Amnesty International or something.
well i’m not gonna go through your history to prove my point but you and i both know that was your sentiment in essence.
I know no such thing. My daughter isn’t even in danger from Trump.
Russia is either the 11th largest economy or the 8th largest economy. It depends on which reputable source you use. In no world is it the fourth largest economy. It’s not even larger than California’s economy.
It has the eleventh-largest economy in the world by nominal GDP and the fourth-largest economy by GDP (PPP) (purchasing power parity)
- its a fair point you make, there are various and contested metrics for comparing economies.
even acknowledging and conceding my argument is contestable and just one of many ways to perceive the claim, i have not done enough and must now eat my downvotes, fair play, i’ll keep trying to bring better reasoned arguments that don’t rely on simply dismissing my opponents as radical or irrational and continue to eat the downvotes, i just want others to see what it looks like when you actually try to have a conversation in some of these corners.
what i say is not the message so much as your reaction
What conversation??? And who the heck you think you’re writing, anyway? You provided no source, not even for your “alternative facts”.
This what you think a conversation is? No wonder you have no success. 🙄
That guy feels like such a bot.
Unfortunately you’re probably just training it.
That would explain the completely weird “quote” in the reply. You’re probably right.
exactly: what conversation??? you only speak to hurl insults, go back to the woodwork and practice your downvotes if that’s all you’re good for.
GDP is a funny thing. So because Russia’s currency has cratered like a Boeing aircraft, the PPP-adjusted value of its GDP has skyrocketed. That doesn’t mean it’s doing well.
Russian inflation is at 10% and its government is spending almost half its federal budget on the war, and still not winning. 11% of the world is Russia, by far the largest country on Earth, and yet the total amount of revenue its government has to spend half of on that war is just above Spain’s, which might explain why it is failing to defeat an enemy which it outweighs, outnumbers, and is outspending all by at least 10 to 1. Its standard of living for ordinary people is 50th in the world, roughly even with famously pleasant places like Kuwait and Romania (And no hate to people who live in those places, just saying your government is badly representing your interests. Give me another year here in the US and I might well be in that part of the list alongside you, or lower.)
I have no room to be giving criticism to any government, living in the US as mentioned, but if you are holding up Russia as an example of competent government you are reading the chart upside down.
its doing a lot better than the us gives it credit, you can admit that surely. ‘still not winning’ is certainly debatable because you need to be winning before you’ve won… that victory looms very clearly on the horizon when compared to ukraine and the west’s ambitions falling short. so if russia is not winning, ukraine must not be losing, either.
Cousin, it is fighting an enemy smaller than some of its individual US-state-equivalents, also mobilizing its entire economy behind the effort, for more than twice as long now as the US was in World War 2, and has still managed to lose some of its own territory. It is not surprising to me that Ukraine is suffering and its victory is not assured. It is surprising to me that Russia is still struggling so much to penetrate further than 100 km beyond the border.
I have no idea what the most likely outcome is. If I had to guess, I would say it would be a partition of the country and a peace agreement, however much the Ukrainian leadership doesn’t want that. But, I also would have guessed that Zelensky would be dead and the country defeated within a month of the 2022 offensive.
right but you’re leaving out the united states’ full backing and complicity within the eu which justifies harmful russophobia and threatens to extend this conflict indefinitely- it has been laid out time and again that russia must also have security guarantees, but the west in their infinite arrogance will not entertain such thoughts. (except to buy time to re-arm and prepare ukraine for war)
how many billions of people are under US sanctions in the world? its a non zero integer
right but you’re leaving out the united states’ full backing
I am not. That’s why I said 10 to 1 instead of much more. That said, I actually had it a little bit wrong, I just now looked up the real numbers.
The US plus all partners has sent about $150 billion in total, it looks like, up until the middle of last year: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1303432/total-bilateral-aid-to-ukraine/
As of the beginning of last year, Russia had spent about $211 billion: https://www.defensenews.com/pentagon/2024/02/16/ukraine-war-has-cost-russia-up-to-211-billion-pentagon-says/
We can add to that a little, maybe 25% to say that the war went on for six more months before it’s an apples-to-apples comparison more or less, but the point is, by that metric, Russia outspent Ukraine-plus-allies by just under 2-to-1. Without counting PPP.
I actually couldn’t find exact PPP numbers for Russia, and it’s been going wild during the war. All I could find was that in 2022 it was 29 to 1. I’m not going to try to claim that’s the number, that was right during the currency crash. That does explain why their PPP-adjusted GDP is so high. They’re doing great!
So, the punchline (I’ve been digging up numbers as writing this): This is, more or less, what I was looking at that made me say Russia was outspending Ukraine+allies by 10 to 1: https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2025/02/12/russias-2024-military-spending-surpassed-eu-uk-combined-in-ppp-terms-study-a87974
Russia’s PPP-adjusted defense spending is just under half a trillion per year. That’s what I understood it to be. So, they’ve been fighting for three years now, means a trillion and a half dollars on their side, versus $150 billion on the other side from allies plus whatever minuscule amount of money Ukraine was able to add to that. Plus rivers of Ukrainian blood. Means Russia is fielding 10 times more military kit than Ukraine is, and still not winning, and they’ve been at it for three years.
They may be making progress (they’re inching forward month by month, yes), and Ukraine may collapse because of any number of reasons. It’s still not a good advertisement for Russia’s military or economic prowess. They have been mobilizing their entire formidably-sized country to try to win this thing.
but are you prepared to laugh at russia’s incompetence as OP does? that’s where this begins… the hubris and arrogance to ridicule a nation under what were intended to be CRUSHING sanctions-- for merely persisting and succeeding in their efforts… what do you suppose that territory gained by russia amounts to in the way of resource wealth? 60 percent of the rare earths in ukraine are in the east and or controlled by russia- if early peace talks were successful, ukraine would be more whole than it is- and as long as it continues, it will likely lose more ground… that is my prediction anyway.
the hubris and arrogance to ridicule a nation under what were intended to be CRUSHING sanctions-- for merely persisting and succeeding in their efforts
Yeah, the arrogance. Imagine the gall for us to be sending rockets and drones into their apartment buildings and power stations, and then giving them haughty lectures about peace and our urgent need for “security.” I wish the US weren’t doing that. It sure is a war crime, and something we should stop doing.
Oh damn, what a sick alternate timeline. Too bad I am not able to see this for myself
ah yes, two sides of an argument surely cannot exist at once.
It’s not the 4th largest economy in the world, but it does contain 11% of the Earth’s habitable land. It would be sad if they couldn’t create a large economy with all that land.
by some metrics no, others yes. as i mentioned before and you’re free to take issue with: gdp as measured by purchasing power parity places it at 4th largest… we like to lambast russia for being a weak economy but what of the rest of our european allies? who is doing better than russia?
we like to lambast russia for being a weak economy but what of the rest of our european allies? who is doing better than russia?
Oh yes, our European allies. Since both of us are Europeans, and “we” like to lambast Russia. Obviously. But you, as a fellow ally of Europe, you’re wisely pointing me to a thing that you and I may need to consider about Russia, that you and I may have missed.
sorry i don’t wear a flag on my sleeve and i must rely upon assumptions now and then with regard my anonymous counterparts.
I wasn’t trying to say that you wore a flag. I am certainly American, I just was responding to the “we.”
