One week in migrating Android→GrapheneOS and Google→Proton. Almost everything is the same, but I can’t tap to pay on GrapheneOS, no face camera unlock (fingerprint sensor works well), and Proton Drive is a bit slow for photos. Other than that, I’m not noticing any negatives.
Ultimately we’re both speculating. We can’t know why exactly Russia has been attacking Georgia and Ukraine. I see your point that historically Russia has tried to consolidate both territory and ethnic groups; my assessment is that if they wanted farmland there were much easier targets than Ukraine. But I think we’re in agreement that Russia is not trustworthy, having conducted all kinds of covert operations inside the EU and constantly testing European defenses.
I think that most people 10 years ago thought that Russia would just have steamrolled Ukraine, and that’s the point I tried to make with my first comment. I was the complete opposite, but for the record, I wasn’t right either! I thought that Russia knew that it wasn’t going to be able to take enough territory in Ukraine to end up with a long-term sustainable situation. So I genuinely didn’t take the threat seriously, up until they started building field hospitals at the border, and I barely believed it even then.
So I’m not at all holier than thou here. I’m just frustrated that more isn’t done to preempt the United States while they’re on a trajectory that I think they’ve been telegraphing quite clearly.
Russia has gas and agriculture. No need for them to reach for Ukraine’s. But the prospect of losing Crimea once the lease was up for their naval base on the other hand, I think Putin saw as existential. And taking it was a slippery slope, because once Ukraine diverted water from Crimea they needed the provinces upstream from Crimea, and here we are.
Again, not making excuses for Putin. As you point out, Russia has not given up on imperialism. All of Russia’s bordering states have to be constantly vigilant of this, and not just in Europe for that matter. Individual countries like Latvia can’t ward off Russia, so a defense alliance is necessary for sure.
But ultimately I think that for Europe, Russia is a nuisance compared to the United States.
Not to trivialize the threat from Russia, but as we have seen they have a very hard time taking territory from Ukraine. Of course, the US has supplied Ukraine with arms and intelligence which has helped Ukraine in that war, but it’s not the decisive factor here. The truth is that Russia does not have the strength to stand up to the EU, that’s why I used the “credible” signifier.
And I don’t want to make excuses for Putin, but economic cooperation between Russia and the EU might have worked to defuse tensions if the USA wasn’t playing their “grand chessboard” all over the world, including in Europe.
Ten years is approximately the time I’ve been saying that the USA is the only credible threat that Europe is facing, and naturally, I’ve been shunned to the periphery of this society. Unfortunately these I told you so’s aren’t very satisfying either.
This is what we expect from Americans though. They decry the loss of American lives, even when those specific persons were involved in murdering people who aren’t and don’t want to be American.
You’ll notice that people from other places don’t talk that way. Europeans don’t talk about “French lives,” Japanese don’t talk about “Japanese lives,” and Iranians don’t talk about “Iranian lives.” It’s a uniquely American thing and it’s all about an ingrained sense of American exceptionalism.
Yeah but they’re not minorities though. It’s the majority of the world’s population.
Friends don’t let friends drive drunk.
Yeah, you’re right. And the worst part is that many of us saw this coming a decade ago. The techno-fascism, the race for AI, the new wars. They’ve been telegraphing it. But Europe is all about culture war and immigration.
Progressives are dejected. We just shake our heads, complain, and let it happen. We need grassroots organization but nobody believes it can be done. We’re too small to change anything, so let’s just let the devils run amok and destroy the only planet we have.
so i can scroll unfocused windows with the mouse wheel
Thanks for the correction. This happened during my very short time on Twitter, and it was pretty disconcerting to see actual real-life decision makers make dumb decisions in real time.
As you said, up until that point Musk had been quite successful at bullshitting many real engineers into believing that he was some kind of genius. This incident helped a lot of people realize that they had been conned.
If I remember correctly the sub was supposed to be built from repurposed rocket parts?
It’s funny because a lot of people cite this exchange as the time when it finally clicked for them that Elon is a grifter.
Makes me wonder if Trump’s cult possess a similar invisible red line, or not?
Wait what, expressing my gratitude for a culture that globalized the service industry? I genuinely have no idea what that means. Am I to understand that the United States invented the service economy that Europe then adopted?
In 2018 a bunch of boys got trapped in a flooded cave in Thailand. It was a big story on Twitter, as people tried to figure out how to save those boys. Elon Musk weighed in that he had ordered SpaceX to repurpose a rocket into a boy-saving device that would traverse through the narrow tunnels, pick up a boy, and return to safety.
A British cave explorer said that nah, that’s not gonna work Elon - I’m gonna dive into the cave with extra oxygen and get the boys out. Elon got livid and called the cave explorer “Pedo guy” on account of him being British, into cave exploration, and living in Thailand. Cave explorer then proceeded to save the boys, and Elon was mad that he didn’t get to send space rockets into a narrow cave passage.
Also you can’t fire anyone without proper cause, and they are fully insured.
You seem to really know your stuff, so can you please fill us poor confused Europeans in on whether we should tip:
As a European I feel personally responsible to uphold a system where ultrarich oligarchs can pay workers sub-minimum wages, as is the Dream of all freedom-yearning people on the planet.
Alternative headline: Europeans dumped 23 metric tons of trash in front of business owner’s McMansion to demand fair wages and job security for workers.
Albania is already sold out to Zionist capital. That’s why they host terror compunds courtesy of the USA. It’s nice that they’re finally putting up some semblance of resistance but there’s a reason why Epstein 2.0 selected Albania as its next location in the first place.
America’s fall is not Trump’s fault. He’s just a very good poster boy for it, and a great accelerator.