It wasn’t a real deal anyway. Like Dr Evil asking for one hundred billion dollars.
NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip
on 20 Feb 17:02
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Yeah. The “plan” was for Ukraine to refuse the horrifically bad deal. But, instead, Zelenskyy et al understood they are in a fight for survival and would rather be free beggars than slaves and breeding stock to putin.
Unfortunately, trump was going for the latter so he had to make up new excuses to eventually join russia’s side in the war.
Ukraine is not taking that deal? The only thing Zelensky said that Ukraine is not going to abide by a treaty for which’s negotiations its not invited, didn’t he?
shoulderoforion@fedia.io
on 20 Feb 17:06
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Dr Evil asked for 1 Million dollars (pinkie to side of mouth), that was the joke
Iheartcheese@lemmy.world
on 20 Feb 17:15
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And then the second time he asked for an absurdly high number
Then he asked for one hundred billion dollars after being informed 1 millions wasn’t that much. He came up with an unreasonable amount of money that he knew would never be accepted.
And I think you're seeing this ending up a whole lot differently than I am. I think Trump and Putin carved up Ukraine in their phone call. That Russia isn't going to allow any troops but Americans into Ukraine to secure the "negotiated peace", that they will threaten to fire on any NATO country that sets foot in Ukraine except for the Americans. Russia will keep what they invaded and took plus some, the US will get to rape Ukraine of it's rare earth minerals in the rest using Ukranian ports to export them to the US under the guise of reparations for aid given in the last 3 years. That's how I see it playing out. Europe is going to have to decide how important Ukraine is to it, and given European history, they talk a big game, but when it comes down to it, they'er going to decided to protect their own borders, rather than forcing their way into the meat grinder between the US and Russia.
The problem here is that the US doesn’t need Ukraine for any of those things. They have their own deposits. The problem is that the US or Ukraine and everyone else does not have any significant capacity to process these minerals – China does. You’re not building a rare-earths refinery in Ukraine during a war or occupation – too easy of a target. So unless the US builds such a beast at home, it’s entirely irrelevant what Ukraine has or otherwise.
Furthermore, as a nervous Canadian, I worry about the same stupid rhetoric being used on us. We don’t produce rare earths, because we don’t process rare earths. But damn do we have a lot of potential deposits. Trump only sees the value of the potential deposit and not the actual produced products. It’s boneheaded but they don’t care.
The problem here is that the US doesn’t need Ukraine for any of those things. They have their own deposits.
Trump doesn’t actually care. That’s just a cover for his real goal, which, just like his idol Putin, is a purely megalomaniacal/narcissistic desire to be remembered in history as “[Trump|Putin] the Great” for expanding the size of their respective empires.
Trump couldn’t care less which of Ukraine, or Gaza, or Greenland, or the Panama Canal Zone, or Canada that he gets a piece of, as long as he gets something. And if he fails at all of those, expect him to make up even more bullshit excuses to send the US on even more imperialist adventures.
My degree is in geophysics, so I’m somewhat professionally connected to the world of resources. So that’s where I get that angle.
Physics, as a degree, is somewhat of the universal bullshit detector, since you learn to take what people say and run back-of-napkin math to figure out what is or isn’t realistic. “Now hang on, that doesn’t sound right… let me check…”
Aside from that, I’m also a fan of historical fiction, geopolitical games (EU4, etc.), and my spare time pursuits tend to send me down research rabbit holes, disentangling the fiction from reality. Largely for my own amusement. But it comes in handy on trivia night if the topic is the Teutonic Knights or something.
In grad school I’d hang out with the philosophers, geographers, and others that were asking large questions with beer in hand. “I’ll buy you a beer if you can convince me the electron is real.” was not a pickup line, but the start to several hours of liquored debate.
I’ve been known to be mildly politically active, and sort of on top of the pulse. But never an activist or anything. Observing and predicting is fun.
Today I was in Google Earth just looking at the continent of North America, looking at it as though I were the US playing a strategy game. The major areas of contention right now for the US are: Greenland, Panama, Mexico, and Canada. It’s like he is establishing future boundaries at the edges of the continent – like it is an affront that borders exist on it. Upon further contemplation, Canada is fucked if this is what they’re doing. So I created !mapleresistance@lemmy.ca to start organizing – maybe the space will grow organically.
But, no, I don’t subscribe to higher end geopolitical info sources. That doesn’t mean I eschew them either (ISW was particularly interesting at the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine). I just integrate or search for info when questions are interesting.
The joke is, there is no rare earth deposits that can be immediately used or it will make sense to exploit. Minerals were just a pretext to gove muskovites everythong they want, problem is it probably won’t work, due to trump and his stellar teams being even dumber then everyone expected them to be.
Prime_Minister_Keyes@lemm.ee
on 20 Feb 19:38
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I agree with everything you wrote, but I don’t think they carved up only Ukraine in that phone call. At least all of Europe, possibly the entire world.
shittydwarf@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 20 Feb 16:47
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Im honestly scared. I’ve been hopeful towards every election, but that hope is gone.
The left has been surging in polls but I’m fearing a cdu+afd government.
raynethackery@lemmy.world
on 20 Feb 20:45
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Blocked
workerONE@lemmy.world
on 20 Feb 18:33
nextcollapse
When I went to Greece, I was surprised to see footage of the war on TV. In the US we’d never see anything like this. We are really isolated from the reality of what is going on in the world and the consequences of our actions. This makes it easier for our government to create policy that is wrong and immoral.
SirEDCaLot@lemmy.today
on 20 Feb 20:44
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When you say footage, do you mean like actual combat footage?
If so I think that’s excellent.
You are absolutely right the US is completely isolated from the reality of unpleasantness that is often in the world, often because of us.
Our only exposure to real evil and violence is in movies and TV and everything else is ‘tastefully’ censored.
So we debate policy like war and diplomacy completely isolated from the actual reality that those policies create.
Honestly loving the fire in Canadian belles I’m seeing recently.
Sterile_Technique@lemmy.world
on 20 Feb 20:30
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Sorry Ukraine. Turns out most of the US is either just fucking evil, or not bothered enough by evil to lift a fucking finger to stop it.
I really thought we were better than this. We’ve failed the entire planet.
commander@lemmings.world
on 20 Feb 20:46
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What should an individual American do?
Sterile_Technique@lemmy.world
on 20 Feb 20:51
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Answering that directly would be a violation of rule #6.
What should the individual German citizen have done in the 1920s and 1930s to prevent the Nazis from rising to power and/or to resist them once they were in power? Cuz… that.
commander@lemmings.world
on 20 Feb 20:56
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Pretty sure you could answer my question without breaking any rules.
Sterile_Technique@lemmy.world
on 20 Feb 21:04
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I mean, part of the answer isn’t against the rules: leave your cell phone at home.
It’s fine for you to suggest Americans should take up arms against their government.
That said, do you really think the individual American should do that?
Sterile_Technique@lemmy.world
on 21 Feb 07:34
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Against the government - no of course not. Against the handful of people driving it into the ground - absolutely.
… and what’s ‘fine’ is at the mods’ discretion. I’ve been temp banned several times for having basically this conversation. Thing is, the options on the table right now are sit quietly and let the Nazis continue to take over the US government (shit tons of violence on a massive scale), or in the absence of any form of checks and balances to include effective peaceful protests or voting: cut the snake’s head off (still violence, but the least violent option we have). …but pulling that trolley lever to take the less violent path is still ‘advocating for violence’ here.
We’ll find out soon if this comment crossed the line.
Unity between lefties and liberals (german communists and socialists) as a common front against the nazi threat would have worked too, but they were busy bickering. That would have helped a lot in the 1930s, but nobody was expecting what was about to happen. We know today what happens when you let fascists in the henhouse, but everyone is doing the same all over again.
This is the lefty-ist space I’m in anywhere I am on the internet.
I interacted with plenty here who claimed they would not be voting for Kamala due to Israel despite knowing all the horrible shit Trump was going to do.
Now we all get to live it.
MutilationWave@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 21 Feb 05:10
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Notice how 90% of them disappeared after the election?
yea, I was clumsy comparing the german communist and socialist party to those groups in the present-day US, especially given how vague the words left and liberal have become…but the lesson stands. Unity.
spooky2092@lemmy.blahaj.zone
on 21 Feb 01:28
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I’m fairly left as well, and whenever I brought up strategic voting I was swatted down with “genocide” like the other person. I was event told by multiple “lefty” users that they hoped Trump won just so it would hurt the democratic party and “teach them a lesson”. No matter that we’d be pouring gas on the fire and bringing shit home, they still had to TeAcH tHeM a LeSsOn. Ugh.
The only people who hate leftists more than rightoids are other leftists, and its for shit like that. Moral purity over pragmatism is no different than fanaticism in my eyes. As much as we may hate electoralism, its the only way to work within the system and not let fascists take over. But here we are.
Their constitution has protections on their rights for just such a situation, so they should be quite aware of their rights and what they’re capable of as a people.
If another jan 6 happens the capitol police should join in.
And the DC metro.
I doubt they would, but they should.
2pt_perversion@lemmy.world
on 20 Feb 20:58
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The crazy half is in control right now and there’s not much we can realistically do. With the amount of Republicans who like the current situation and bootlickers who are indifferent protests or other means aren’t likely to affect anything. Maybe if the US slides into another great depression public sentiment can shift enough to make a change but until then no one should be treating us like a rational country.
The crazy half is in control right now and there’s not much we can realistically do.
That’s defeatist. There is a lot that can be done. You could pressure your representatives to gum up congress so much with filibusters, and unnecessary votes to slow down what Trump can actually get done. You could join the democratic party with others and start demanding that they change from within. You could support local or internet grassroots campaigns who resist Trump. If the only thing you’re going to do over the next four years is wait to vote Democrat again then there’s not much you’re realistically Willing to do.
2pt_perversion@lemmy.world
on 20 Feb 21:17
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I have been, Trump’s not really using congress he’s EO banging and violating the constitution and courts are slow to react, if they even will stop him. Even in congress you have to convince Republican congresspeople whose constituents LIKE what’s happening.
I never said give up. Keep trying. Just other countries shouldn’t be expecting this shit to work and the US to magically be rational again in a couple months. We could be under a Republican dictatorship, a military coup, or a civil war in the next couple years for all I know. We’re unstable.
ha. well I’m not evil, I care, and I haven’t lifted a finger. why? cause the way it works here is money. if u want to do something, no matter how good or evil, you need a lot of money…
Supernova1051@sh.itjust.works
on 20 Feb 22:56
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did you vote? because a lot of people didn’t even do that.
yep. in every single election, not just presidential ones.
the richest most convincing liar usually wins and my vote doesn’t really matter… but it’s all I can do so 🤷♂️
OneOrTheOtherDontAskMe@lemmy.world
on 20 Feb 23:30
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They were saying that, if you at least voted, you’ve lifted a finger.
I feel you though. Being a lone voice in a county that went like 93% Trump, it definitely feels like my vote doesn’t matter. Hell, our mayor at the time was caught drunk driving with his niece in the car after a fundraiser, told the cop ‘do you know who i am’ and threatened his job, and he STILL won by a lot.
You can protest, and you have access to weapons thanks to 2A. Americans can do much more than people in other countries.
The richest liars want you to think that you can only vote and then present you with the choices they have vetted to maintain the oligarchy.
Sterile_Technique@lemmy.world
on 21 Feb 07:16
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yep. in every single election, not just presidential ones.
Far more than lifting a finger. That alone puts you in the non-evil third of our population.
jubilationtcornpone@sh.itjust.works
on 21 Feb 07:15
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I’ve been calling my congressman’s office to angrily rant at his staff every other day for the past few weeks. I plan to do the same tomorrow and Ukraine will be the topic of my rant.
Not sure if it will do any good since he’s a shithead Republican and probably doesn’t care about my opinion.
Sterile_Technique@lemmy.world
on 21 Feb 15:03
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Voted against it directly, voted against it indirectly in every smaller election I’ve been eligible for since 2016, phone canvassed against it, volunteer for local orgs that are targeted by it, and am vocal on and offline against the Nazi rhetoric currently taking over our government.
Why, am I only allowed to criticize evil if I’ve aimed a gun at it or something?
What about you?
Melonpoly@lemmy.world
on 20 Feb 20:34
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Ironic how people shat on Russians for not standing up to their government only for the US to do the same.
thisdude1092@lemmy.world
on 20 Feb 23:34
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People wanted Putin in at first too, no? Didn’t he do the whole “I’m the strong man who will save everyone and only I can do it” kind of bs like Trump, then once in gutted everything in order to consolidate and maintain power also kind of like Trump?
I’m actually fairly ignorant on his initial rise to power, so please don’t be too hard on me 😅
He took way longer to do it, but that’s a good summary. He left office because the prez could only serve two terms but had congress transfer most of the power to the prime ministership and he got that job, so they had a puppet president for 4 years. Then they said he just can’t serve more than 2 terms consecutively so they restored the power of the presidency and he returned to office and they modified the constitution to remove the two term limit and here we are.
notsoshaihulud@lemmy.world
on 21 Feb 03:25
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yup. but putin was young. trump is old and aging fast so the direct applicability to the US is limited.
at this point that’s the only nice thing. putin’s old, trump’s old, xi jinping is old. At least twp of them go out of commission in the next 5 years.
NikkiDimes@lemmy.world
on 21 Feb 05:04
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Imo, the problem with Trump isn’t Trump himself becoming dictator. His years are numbered, thankfully. Him possibly irrevocably consolidating power in the executive and installing sycophants throughout branches will really fuck our government up, however.
That said, you can definitely see where Trump gets his inspiration, and it sounds like Putin had direct inspiration from Hitler’s rise. Nifty!
notsoshaihulud@lemmy.world
on 21 Feb 12:19
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yup, trump’s a symptom not a straight up cause. his demise is expected to be the least consequential of this “elite” trio, as he is already getting sidelined without consequence. Old, virile trump would have fired musk a month ago.
Russia was fucked from the collapse of the Sovjet Union. Imagine if most of the US would be like Detroit in the late 90s.
Meanwhile Russians didn’t have “experience” with Democracy and the institutions were not designed yet for it.
The FSB, ex-KGB and other intelligence/military started to organize the oligarchy as a mafia.
Saying Russians in 2025 wanted Putin becauae he rose to power back then and manipulated all elections since, is a bit unfair imo.
NikkiDimes@lemmy.world
on 21 Feb 09:26
nextcollapse
No one said or implied we were talking recently… 😅
I was specifically talking about his initial rise to power, which, as you stated, was in a significant power vacuum and period of instability for Russia. Hence why I said “at first” in my previous comment.
From my country, it’s just surreal to watch the lack of reactions from Americans. It looks like they mostly support the actions of the co-nazi dictators, a really bad picture to say the least.
That’s true to some extent, but the EU did announce they were preparing their biggest aid package yet. The unconfirmed number was €700B which works out at about €1500 per citizen and I am all fucking in on that if it’s true.
theres alot of ukrainians that collaborated with russia, or were part of the immigrated from the USSR era. we had one ukrainian math prof once, but she was nice and did not like russia, judging by the reaction when someone said russia and ukraine or the same.
& it took 1 month, to-the-day, for Trump to resolve to that position, too.
There’s 44 MORE months until the purported “election” which Trump would have, to elect his-replacement, right?
The Trump/Putin/Orban/Millei/LePen/AfD/Farage/etc. global-alliance is going to be OWNING this world’s-determination, shortly, unless SOMEBODY among the various “political parties” grows some SPINE, immediately.
What “Interesting Times” to be living-in…
( yes, that refers to the Chinese curse: “may you live in interesting-times”. )
_ /\ _
shadowDingus@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 21 Feb 04:35
nextcollapse
44 months is simultaneously optimistic and pessimistic.
He’ll either extend his tenure to a 3rd term or get himself and/or the entire U.S. killed.
ALoafOfBread@lemmy.ml
on 21 Feb 05:35
nextcollapse
Pro tip: if someone says something is anything based on race or regional group, they are likely lying to you. Double if group is asian. Double again if china. “Ancient Chinese wisdom” is actually, by some mathematical quirks, 103.7% likely to not be from china.
The whole “well shit” portion is because I usually don’t buy into that stuff, and this was legit an eye opener for me. I guess I could have easily said that in the first comment. But I’m lazy.
Draedron@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 21 Feb 07:28
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When are americans using the second amendment to overthrow this dictator? I mean its what they sacrificed all these children for right? To be able to “defend” their democracy. I always called it bs, now they have a chance to proof it
While China’s military power is still growing and not yet on par with the U.S., its ability to shape global affairs through economic and infrastructural investments is undeniable. This raises the question: Is China the world’s only superpower now?
angrystego@lemmy.world
on 21 Feb 05:37
nextcollapse
True, true! For now. I really hope US will reverse its current direction. A superpower needs both military strength and global influence through aid and presence. While the U.S. has cut foreign aid and withdrawn from international agreements, China is expanding its influence - especially in Africa.
US is not really withdrawing, just restructuring\diversifying its investments so to say, from guys like EU to guys like Milei/Netanyahu/Putin, which is not really new for US foreign policy.
It’s what Russia does that has cost it even dictatorships from among its former allies, but their strategy is based on “there’s no other place for them to go”, with Armenia and Georgia this is correct (despite all the pretentious words neither got hard backing from the west), with Central Asian nations not really, with Ukraine undecided.
The obvious difference - US really is what thieving jerks in charge of Russia pretend to be. What Russia can’t do, It can.
I don’t know why you’re getting pushback and downvotes on this, it’s factual.
Have we ALSO lost track of facts people? Are we the same as the ones who made this all go to shit, unable to separate facts from feelings? USA isn’t just “a superpower” it’s THE superpower, it’s the wealthiest nation on earth with a military force larger and more advanced than all other nations put together. What do you call that?
THIS is why it’s such a huge deal that we all fucking let the dumbest, evilest people in the world take the controls. Are you really just so nihilistic and self-obsessed that you’re willing to discard the largest and most powerful democracy on earth because you feel jaded and cynical because “America bad?”
Dude, clean your room. Seriously, this is our home, this is where we live. LETS FIX IT.
The usa is undeniably a superpower, which is scary as fuck. The last hope is that the generals will refuse an illegal order, because you know trump will do something stupid if he survives until 2028.
The EU outranks China in terms of economical and political influence, exporting standards and even laws with market and soft power. Only took a couple of years until states all over the world started copying the GDPR, noone anywhere is producing phones without USB-C charging any more, and those are just prominent examples. And people don’t even realise how big of an impact the CSDDD will have.
I am also in the US and horribly disappointed in how our population let the world’s stupidest and vilest people manipulate them into giving over control. I really had high hopes for America, democracies are really our best hope for the future.
But now I just want it to accelerate, we need the shit to really hit the fan so our population wakes up and realizes who the real enemies are, the putins and musks and trumps and millers and bannons… they are the beasts that stalk us in the modern age and need to be put down or taken away and the only way this will happen is enough people become uncomfortable enough that they forget the narratives and storylines that manipulate us so easily.
threaded - newest
Not gonna get those minerals now, Trump. Either Ukraine deals them to someone else, or Putin claims them for himself.
It wasn’t a real deal anyway. Like Dr Evil asking for one hundred billion dollars.
Yeah. The “plan” was for Ukraine to refuse the horrifically bad deal. But, instead, Zelenskyy et al understood they are in a fight for survival and would rather be free beggars than slaves and breeding stock to putin.
Unfortunately, trump was going for the latter so he had to make up new excuses to eventually join russia’s side in the war.
Ukraine is not taking that deal? The only thing Zelensky said that Ukraine is not going to abide by a treaty for which’s negotiations its not invited, didn’t he?
Dr Evil asked for 1 Million dollars (pinkie to side of mouth), that was the joke
And then the second time he asked for an absurdly high number
Then he asked for one hundred billion dollars after being informed 1 millions wasn’t that much. He came up with an unreasonable amount of money that he knew would never be accepted.
it was just a show of good faith from trump to PUTIN.
I suspect Trump hopes Putin will give him 20% anyway
And I think you're seeing this ending up a whole lot differently than I am. I think Trump and Putin carved up Ukraine in their phone call. That Russia isn't going to allow any troops but Americans into Ukraine to secure the "negotiated peace", that they will threaten to fire on any NATO country that sets foot in Ukraine except for the Americans. Russia will keep what they invaded and took plus some, the US will get to rape Ukraine of it's rare earth minerals in the rest using Ukranian ports to export them to the US under the guise of reparations for aid given in the last 3 years. That's how I see it playing out. Europe is going to have to decide how important Ukraine is to it, and given European history, they talk a big game, but when it comes down to it, they'er going to decided to protect their own borders, rather than forcing their way into the meat grinder between the US and Russia.
Not a bad take.
The problem here is that the US doesn’t need Ukraine for any of those things. They have their own deposits. The problem is that the US or Ukraine and everyone else does not have any significant capacity to process these minerals – China does. You’re not building a rare-earths refinery in Ukraine during a war or occupation – too easy of a target. So unless the US builds such a beast at home, it’s entirely irrelevant what Ukraine has or otherwise.
Furthermore, as a nervous Canadian, I worry about the same stupid rhetoric being used on us. We don’t produce rare earths, because we don’t process rare earths. But damn do we have a lot of potential deposits. Trump only sees the value of the potential deposit and not the actual produced products. It’s boneheaded but they don’t care.
Trump doesn’t actually care. That’s just a cover for his real goal, which, just like his idol Putin, is a purely megalomaniacal/narcissistic desire to be remembered in history as “[Trump|Putin] the Great” for expanding the size of their respective empires.
Trump couldn’t care less which of Ukraine, or Gaza, or Greenland, or the Panama Canal Zone, or Canada that he gets a piece of, as long as he gets something. And if he fails at all of those, expect him to make up even more bullshit excuses to send the US on even more imperialist adventures.
You’re not wrong. I just like to point out the actual logical folly now and again so that people in the middle (if any are left) can see the folly.
May I ask: where do you and @shoulderoforion@fedia.io learn yourselves up?
Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The Economist, MIT International Security Journal…? Would love a lil digest of all
Long lazy meandering answer.
My degree is in geophysics, so I’m somewhat professionally connected to the world of resources. So that’s where I get that angle.
Physics, as a degree, is somewhat of the universal bullshit detector, since you learn to take what people say and run back-of-napkin math to figure out what is or isn’t realistic. “Now hang on, that doesn’t sound right… let me check…”
Aside from that, I’m also a fan of historical fiction, geopolitical games (EU4, etc.), and my spare time pursuits tend to send me down research rabbit holes, disentangling the fiction from reality. Largely for my own amusement. But it comes in handy on trivia night if the topic is the Teutonic Knights or something.
In grad school I’d hang out with the philosophers, geographers, and others that were asking large questions with beer in hand. “I’ll buy you a beer if you can convince me the electron is real.” was not a pickup line, but the start to several hours of liquored debate.
I’ve been known to be mildly politically active, and sort of on top of the pulse. But never an activist or anything. Observing and predicting is fun.
Today I was in Google Earth just looking at the continent of North America, looking at it as though I were the US playing a strategy game. The major areas of contention right now for the US are: Greenland, Panama, Mexico, and Canada. It’s like he is establishing future boundaries at the edges of the continent – like it is an affront that borders exist on it. Upon further contemplation, Canada is fucked if this is what they’re doing. So I created !mapleresistance@lemmy.ca to start organizing – maybe the space will grow organically.
But, no, I don’t subscribe to higher end geopolitical info sources. That doesn’t mean I eschew them either (ISW was particularly interesting at the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine). I just integrate or search for info when questions are interesting.
We went east two times before. So you can’t say we never tried.
Three times a charm.
The most interesting problem now is, the biggest dependable Nato partner which is left is Turkey. Lets see how that pans out.
The joke is, there is no rare earth deposits that can be immediately used or it will make sense to exploit. Minerals were just a pretext to gove muskovites everythong they want, problem is it probably won’t work, due to trump and his stellar teams being even dumber then everyone expected them to be.
I agree with everything you wrote, but I don’t think they carved up only Ukraine in that phone call. At least all of Europe, possibly the entire world.
<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/pictrs/image/82438e74-f1b9-4f09-913b-2e6c94ded92b.webp">
Probably smells so bad
No wonder Michelle Obama doesn’t show up to Presidential events anymore if she doesn’t have to.
<img alt="" src="https://lemmings.world/pictrs/image/18a661b0-049a-4d50-afa2-c4f0beb1d83a.png">
Such a gross, slimy monster. The xenomorph is creepy, too.
That xenomorph is sexy AF compared to the shit in the top picture!
youtu.be/2agXKbgSprI?si=AvY2NRybheTgrwIp
The US is putin’s now.
And Netanyahu’s as well. Fuck the USA AND Israel.
Here’s hoping Europe continues to step up on behalf of Ukraine.
Fuck I am naively hoping elections in Germany and Canada go well…
Im honestly scared. I’ve been hopeful towards every election, but that hope is gone. The left has been surging in polls but I’m fearing a cdu+afd government.
I’m over here hoping we’re a cautionary tale for you all right now.
The polls are complete bullshit.
Nah, we just have the same enemies…
<img alt="" src="https://lemmings.world/pictrs/image/1b06b6ae-33e4-4dfb-99a9-829c7e0dd8f7.png">
Accurate.
I feel genuinely bad for the Ukrainians who put their faith in the West.
Hopefully this will be a learning experience for all future nations, but I doubt it.
As we all know, the apartheid ethnostate gets dibs. Sorry Ukraine.
Damn, that slaps.
Beep bop bope Russian bot.
Blocked
When I went to Greece, I was surprised to see footage of the war on TV. In the US we’d never see anything like this. We are really isolated from the reality of what is going on in the world and the consequences of our actions. This makes it easier for our government to create policy that is wrong and immoral.
When you say footage, do you mean like actual combat footage? If so I think that’s excellent. You are absolutely right the US is completely isolated from the reality of unpleasantness that is often in the world, often because of us. Our only exposure to real evil and violence is in movies and TV and everything else is ‘tastefully’ censored. So we debate policy like war and diplomacy completely isolated from the actual reality that those policies create.
Yeah combat footage was on the news
Absolutely. We need to go to websites like krudplug or kaotic in order to see actual war footage.
I think it’s intentional. If more Westerners could see the horrors of war outside of hollywood movies, they might be more inclined to stop it.
Spent a week in the UK visiting my sister recently. There is an overwhelmingly positive amount of support on the TV there.
I get the view that they called the current shit show before the rest of us.
Canada has similar feelings.
But we still support our Ukranian friends, despite the crisis our downstairs neighbor is experiencing.
Honestly loving the fire in Canadian belles I’m seeing recently.
Sorry Ukraine. Turns out most of the US is either just fucking evil, or not bothered enough by evil to lift a fucking finger to stop it.
I really thought we were better than this. We’ve failed the entire planet.
What should an individual American do?
Answering that directly would be a violation of rule #6.
What should the individual German citizen have done in the 1920s and 1930s to prevent the Nazis from rising to power and/or to resist them once they were in power? Cuz… that.
Pretty sure you could answer my question without breaking any rules.
I mean, part of the answer isn’t against the rules: leave your cell phone at home.
It’s fine for you to suggest Americans should take up arms against their government.
That said, do you really think the individual American should do that?
Against the government - no of course not. Against the handful of people driving it into the ground - absolutely.
… and what’s ‘fine’ is at the mods’ discretion. I’ve been temp banned several times for having basically this conversation. Thing is, the options on the table right now are sit quietly and let the Nazis continue to take over the US government (shit tons of violence on a massive scale), or in the absence of any form of checks and balances to include effective peaceful protests or voting: cut the snake’s head off (still violence, but the least violent option we have). …but pulling that trolley lever to take the less violent path is still ‘advocating for violence’ here.
We’ll find out soon if this comment crossed the line.
We need more Luigis, that’s for sure.
*expanded previous comment - original version was posted from mobile which is significantly more tedious to rant on.
And yes, more Luigis please!!
Unity
between lefties and liberals(german communists and socialists) as a common front against the nazi threat would have worked too, but they were busy bickering. That would have helped a lot in the 1930s, but nobody was expecting what was about to happen. We know today what happens when you let fascists in the henhouse, but everyone is doing the same all over again.Lefties supported Kamala. I dunno where you are getting that they didn’t.
That is not the impression I got on Lemmy in the lead up to the election.
All I heard was “genocide”. Trying to bring up anything else was pointless.
Lemmy isn’t exactly “the left”
I’m sure I wasn’t the only one not disagreeing with the genocide that made the calculated decision to vote straight ticket dem anyway.
This is the lefty-ist space I’m in anywhere I am on the internet.
I interacted with plenty here who claimed they would not be voting for Kamala due to Israel despite knowing all the horrible shit Trump was going to do.
Now we all get to live it.
Notice how 90% of them disappeared after the election?
yea, I was clumsy comparing the german communist and socialist party to those groups in the present-day US, especially given how vague the words left and liberal have become…but the lesson stands. Unity.
Agreed, we must all hang together…
I’m fairly left as well, and whenever I brought up strategic voting I was swatted down with “genocide” like the other person. I was event told by multiple “lefty” users that they hoped Trump won just so it would hurt the democratic party and “teach them a lesson”. No matter that we’d be pouring gas on the fire and bringing shit home, they still had to TeAcH tHeM a LeSsOn. Ugh.
The only people who hate leftists more than rightoids are other leftists, and its for shit like that. Moral purity over pragmatism is no different than fanaticism in my eyes. As much as we may hate electoralism, its the only way to work within the system and not let fascists take over. But here we are.
Reading your post I am reminded of the contempt I felt for the priority police.
Their constitution has protections on their rights for just such a situation, so they should be quite aware of their rights and what they’re capable of as a people.
Are you suggesting individuals should take up arms against their government?
How exactly do you expect that to look? Did you see what happened Jan 6?
Yeah, they got their leader elected… and got pardoned and are walking free, smug as shit.
If another jan 6 happens the capitol police should join in.
And the DC metro.
I doubt they would, but they should.
The crazy half is in control right now and there’s not much we can realistically do. With the amount of Republicans who like the current situation and bootlickers who are indifferent protests or other means aren’t likely to affect anything. Maybe if the US slides into another great depression public sentiment can shift enough to make a change but until then no one should be treating us like a rational country.
That’s defeatist. There is a lot that can be done. You could pressure your representatives to gum up congress so much with filibusters, and unnecessary votes to slow down what Trump can actually get done. You could join the democratic party with others and start demanding that they change from within. You could support local or internet grassroots campaigns who resist Trump. If the only thing you’re going to do over the next four years is wait to vote Democrat again then there’s not much you’re realistically Willing to do.
I have been, Trump’s not really using congress he’s EO banging and violating the constitution and courts are slow to react, if they even will stop him. Even in congress you have to convince Republican congresspeople whose constituents LIKE what’s happening.
I never said give up. Keep trying. Just other countries shouldn’t be expecting this shit to work and the US to magically be rational again in a couple months. We could be under a Republican dictatorship, a military coup, or a civil war in the next couple years for all I know. We’re unstable.
My rep doesn’t give a shit lol, he’s cheering it on
ha. well I’m not evil, I care, and I haven’t lifted a finger. why? cause the way it works here is money. if u want to do something, no matter how good or evil, you need a lot of money…
did you vote? because a lot of people didn’t even do that.
yep. in every single election, not just presidential ones.
the
richestmost convincing liar usually wins and my vote doesn’t really matter… but it’s all I can do so 🤷♂️They were saying that, if you at least voted, you’ve lifted a finger.
I feel you though. Being a lone voice in a county that went like 93% Trump, it definitely feels like my vote doesn’t matter. Hell, our mayor at the time was caught drunk driving with his niece in the car after a fundraiser, told the cop ‘do you know who i am’ and threatened his job, and he STILL won by a lot.
oh lol. I’m a bit thick sometimes
You can protest, and you have access to weapons thanks to 2A. Americans can do much more than people in other countries.
The richest liars want you to think that you can only vote and then present you with the choices they have vetted to maintain the oligarchy.
Far more than lifting a finger. That alone puts you in the non-evil third of our population.
I’ve been calling my congressman’s office to angrily rant at his staff every other day for the past few weeks. I plan to do the same tomorrow and Ukraine will be the topic of my rant.
Not sure if it will do any good since he’s a shithead Republican and probably doesn’t care about my opinion.
What have you done to stop this?
Voted against it directly, voted against it indirectly in every smaller election I’ve been eligible for since 2016, phone canvassed against it, volunteer for local orgs that are targeted by it, and am vocal on and offline against the Nazi rhetoric currently taking over our government.
Why, am I only allowed to criticize evil if I’ve aimed a gun at it or something?
What about you?
Ironic how people shat on Russians for not standing up to their government only for the US to do the same.
Nah. We wanted trump in.
People wanted Putin in at first too, no? Didn’t he do the whole “I’m the strong man who will save everyone and only I can do it” kind of bs like Trump, then once in gutted everything in order to consolidate and maintain power also kind of like Trump?
I’m actually fairly ignorant on his initial rise to power, so please don’t be too hard on me 😅
He took way longer to do it, but that’s a good summary. He left office because the prez could only serve two terms but had congress transfer most of the power to the prime ministership and he got that job, so they had a puppet president for 4 years. Then they said he just can’t serve more than 2 terms consecutively so they restored the power of the presidency and he returned to office and they modified the constitution to remove the two term limit and here we are.
yup. but putin was young. trump is old and aging fast so the direct applicability to the US is limited. at this point that’s the only nice thing. putin’s old, trump’s old, xi jinping is old. At least twp of them go out of commission in the next 5 years.
Imo, the problem with Trump isn’t Trump himself becoming dictator. His years are numbered, thankfully. Him possibly irrevocably consolidating power in the executive and installing sycophants throughout branches will really fuck our government up, however.
That said, you can definitely see where Trump gets his inspiration, and it sounds like Putin had direct inspiration from Hitler’s rise. Nifty!
yup, trump’s a symptom not a straight up cause. his demise is expected to be the least consequential of this “elite” trio, as he is already getting sidelined without consequence. Old, virile trump would have fired musk a month ago.
When will the boomers fucking die already?
Putin also did red flag bombing on an apartment complex so he could justify going to war in Chechnya again.
Russia was fucked from the collapse of the Sovjet Union. Imagine if most of the US would be like Detroit in the late 90s.
Meanwhile Russians didn’t have “experience” with Democracy and the institutions were not designed yet for it.
The FSB, ex-KGB and other intelligence/military started to organize the oligarchy as a mafia.
Saying Russians in 2025 wanted Putin becauae he rose to power back then and manipulated all elections since, is a bit unfair imo.
No one said or implied we were talking recently… 😅
I was specifically talking about his initial rise to power, which, as you stated, was in a significant power vacuum and period of instability for Russia. Hence why I said “at first” in my previous comment.
Seems there was more than a fair amount of manipulation in the voting, the MSM and Putin’s social media psyops program here too.
I shit on 'em both.
I read that in the accent of the French soldier from Holy Grail.
From my country, it’s just surreal to watch the lack of reactions from Americans. It looks like they mostly support the actions of the co-nazi dictators, a really bad picture to say the least.
What action would you suggest, that will stop this in any way?
Like, actual mass protesting? The only problem is people being so brainwashed that they don’t realize they have the power AND numbers.
Yo Zelenskyy!
You haven’t lost all of us. There are still those who support the Ukranian people and believe in your efforts.
Unfortunately, he lost the people who have the power to actually help him.
That’s true to some extent, but the EU did announce they were preparing their biggest aid package yet. The unconfirmed number was €700B which works out at about €1500 per citizen and I am all fucking in on that if it’s true.
I just meant the people in the US with the power to help him. Hopefully the EU will be able to step in since the US has decided to go full Nazi.
If any good can come from this it could be a stronger Europe, working towards their own goals and own futures with less concern for American hegemony.
Agreed, as long as Europe can avoid falling to fascism like we have. Far-right parties have been doing alarmingly well there lately.
Hey I’m sending thoughts and prayers, the official sponsor of not doing shit to save children from being murdered.
One of my states local congresspeople is a Ukrainian Immigrant.
She’s a Republican.
An inside agent.
There’s always has to be the “Fuck You I Got My Own” factor
There needs to be some sort of empathy test to weed out the selfish dipshits that wanna run for authority positions.
Unfortunately, while the people who want power shouldn’t have it, the people who should be in power don’t want it.
And people who should be in power also tend to get assassinated.
Indeed. Some Ukranians collaborated with Russia and presumably some still do…
theres alot of ukrainians that collaborated with russia, or were part of the immigrated from the USSR era. we had one ukrainian math prof once, but she was nice and did not like russia, judging by the reaction when someone said russia and ukraine or the same.
Immigrants from Eastern Europe tend to have such alignments. Ukrainians even more than Russians.
Exactly as I’ve been predicting.
& it took 1 month, to-the-day, for Trump to resolve to that position, too.
There’s 44 MORE months until the purported “election” which Trump would have, to elect his-replacement, right?
The Trump/Putin/Orban/Millei/LePen/AfD/Farage/etc. global-alliance is going to be OWNING this world’s-determination, shortly, unless SOMEBODY among the various “political parties” grows some SPINE, immediately.
What “Interesting Times” to be living-in…
( yes, that refers to the Chinese curse: “may you live in interesting-times”. )
_ /\ _
44 months is simultaneously optimistic and pessimistic.
He’ll either extend his tenure to a 3rd term or get himself and/or the entire U.S. killed.
(…wikipedia.org/…/May_you_live_in_interesting_time… - not chinese)
Well shit. TIL!
Pro tip: if someone says something is anything based on race or regional group, they are likely lying to you. Double if group is asian. Double again if china. “Ancient Chinese wisdom” is actually, by some mathematical quirks, 103.7% likely to not be from china.
The whole “well shit” portion is because I usually don’t buy into that stuff, and this was legit an eye opener for me. I guess I could have easily said that in the first comment. But I’m lazy.
When are americans using the second amendment to overthrow this dictator? I mean its what they sacrificed all these children for right? To be able to “defend” their democracy. I always called it bs, now they have a chance to proof it
The Venn diagram of people who are all over 2A rights and people who are trump supporters has significant overlap.
MAGA was never your friend. They are in it for themselves only and think Putin is THEIR friend.
Which if you think of it is weird as they should want to crush Russia and then extort cheap oil and resources from them
nice pfp
While China’s military power is still growing and not yet on par with the U.S., its ability to shape global affairs through economic and infrastructural investments is undeniable. This raises the question: Is China the world’s only superpower now?
US is still a superpower.
True, true! For now. I really hope US will reverse its current direction. A superpower needs both military strength and global influence through aid and presence. While the U.S. has cut foreign aid and withdrawn from international agreements, China is expanding its influence - especially in Africa.
US is not really withdrawing, just restructuring\diversifying its investments so to say, from guys like EU to guys like Milei/Netanyahu/Putin, which is not really new for US foreign policy.
It’s what Russia does that has cost it even dictatorships from among its former allies, but their strategy is based on “there’s no other place for them to go”, with Armenia and Georgia this is correct (despite all the pretentious words neither got hard backing from the west), with Central Asian nations not really, with Ukraine undecided.
The obvious difference - US really is what thieving jerks in charge of Russia pretend to be. What Russia can’t do, It can.
What?
Ah, you missed that they voted now to change it to a superreich. To the rest it will be known as a superclowner
The United States, presented by the Ringling Brothers.
A superpower that has yet to win a war.
That’s not what matters. Superpowers make supermesses.
LOL
I don’t know why you’re getting pushback and downvotes on this, it’s factual.
Have we ALSO lost track of facts people? Are we the same as the ones who made this all go to shit, unable to separate facts from feelings? USA isn’t just “a superpower” it’s THE superpower, it’s the wealthiest nation on earth with a military force larger and more advanced than all other nations put together. What do you call that?
THIS is why it’s such a huge deal that we all fucking let the dumbest, evilest people in the world take the controls. Are you really just so nihilistic and self-obsessed that you’re willing to discard the largest and most powerful democracy on earth because you feel jaded and cynical because “America bad?”
Dude, clean your room. Seriously, this is our home, this is where we live. LETS FIX IT.
The usa is undeniably a superpower, which is scary as fuck. The last hope is that the generals will refuse an illegal order, because you know trump will do something stupid if he survives until 2028.
Here’s cheering for McDonald’s!
The EU outranks China in terms of economical and political influence, exporting standards and even laws with market and soft power. Only took a couple of years until states all over the world started copying the GDPR, noone anywhere is producing phones without USB-C charging any more, and those are just prominent examples. And people don’t even realise how big of an impact the CSDDD will have.
As somebody from the US, I can’t wait to see our country fall. The world isn’t going stand by and let us fuck with them anymore
I am also in the US and horribly disappointed in how our population let the world’s stupidest and vilest people manipulate them into giving over control. I really had high hopes for America, democracies are really our best hope for the future.
But now I just want it to accelerate, we need the shit to really hit the fan so our population wakes up and realizes who the real enemies are, the putins and musks and trumps and millers and bannons… they are the beasts that stalk us in the modern age and need to be put down or taken away and the only way this will happen is enough people become uncomfortable enough that they forget the narratives and storylines that manipulate us so easily.