Musk offers to buy Twitter

Cmaier said:
Is he lying now or did he lie to Bremer?
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Yeah exactly. See I will believe Bremer, but one must consider Bremer's source.

This f'g guy Musk. How about wrap up the Twitter deal before deciding to help Putin wrap up Ukraine. Did he try to pitch a Tesla dealership in Moscow? For you Vlad a special price too.

Wonder what the odds are now for a November trial in Delaware Chancery Court.

Meanwhile Gizmodo previews some of the worst accounts could be reinstated on Twitter. Hope blocking is still in the Twitter toolbox if Musk decides to unleash Trump and some other dreadful characters on that platform again.

gizmodo.com

The Worst People Who Could Get Their Accounts Back if Elon Musk Buys Twitter

Musk and other free speech warriors, including the state of Texas, could restore Twitter to its previous cesspool status.
gizmodo.com gizmodo.com
 
What a troll

thehill.com

Elon Musk says he’s sold 10,000 of ‘Burnt Hair’ perfume

Elon Musk said he sold 10,000 bottles of “Burnt Hair” perfume through his business The Boring Company, earning more than $1 million in sales from the product. The billionaire announced …
thehill.com thehill.com

Described as "The Essence of Burning Desire" which, according to the article, "saves you the trouble of leaning over a candle."

Of course a guy named Musk is going to market perfume. How could he not?
 
And now this, looks like I bailed at the right time.

Elon Musk reportedly wants to fire most of Twitter’s employees​


www.theverge.com

Elon Musk reportedly wants to fire most of Twitter’s employees

The acquisition seems to be going forward
www.theverge.com www.theverge.com

About 7,500 people currently work at Twitter — and 75 percent of them can expect to be shown the door, The Washington Post reports. Elon Musk, who is acquiring the company, has been telling prospective investors that he plans drastic firings to bring down costs.

Musk has a deadline to close the purchase of Twitter by October 28th. In a sign the deal is proceeding, Twitter froze its employees’ equity awards, Bloomberg reported. Anonymous sources tell The Post that the deal is moving forward in good faith.

Job cuts were planned anyway. Before Musk’s bid, Twitter management planned to slice almost a quarter of the workforce, chopping $800 million from payroll. Musk’s planned cuts, which are larger, are “unimaginable,” the former head of Twitter’s spam and health metrics told The Post. Users would likely notice immediately — as Twitter is likely to experience more hacks, for instance. Musk plans to implement stack ranking, the practice famously ended at Microsoft in 2013 because it contributed to a bad culture, to shrink headcount.
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KingOfPain said:
The US government might stop the deal because they consider it as a national security risk:

arstechnica.com

US might bail Musk out by blocking Twitter deal over national security

Musk's Twitter and Starlink deals could warrant national security reviews.
arstechnica.com arstechnica.com
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Let me preface this first by saying I have never been much of a fan of Elon Musk… well before it was cool. I can appreciate his efforts to bring EVs to the mass market (despite the many flaws of Tesla) and how SpaceX has revolutionized how we access space.

According to Bloomberg’s interviews with “people familiar with the matter,” US officials were not comfortable with Musk's tweets that threatened to stop funding Starlink service in Ukraine…
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I discussed this earlier, but it appears the US and foreign government bought the Starlink ground terminals, though I’m not sure at what price. The typical consumer price for these are sold at a loss. Reportedly these governments also funded 30% of the service costs. It’s also worth noting the DoD has paid Starlink many millions ($150m in one contract alone.

No company should have to loose money selling their product/service (similarly govts shouldn’t overpay for products/service as is all too often the case). I’m sure Ratheon isn’t selling Javelins at a 70% loss.

Clearly Starlink is a vital resource and Musk should not shutoff service. Airing his grievances on Twitter should not be the way to resolve such issues… but of course that’s Elon Musk for you. As is the fact he put his company in a situation where he was partially donating services apparently without a formal contract.

…and discussed solutions to the war that would be favorable to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
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The notion that Elon Musk is supporting Russia is just ridiculous. He wouldn’t have donated 10’s of millions in satellite services to Ukraine. I read his Twitter poll as well meaning but profoundly naive. At the beginning of the war much of Eastern Ukraine was pro-Russian. There was a fair argument to cede the land and prevent hundreds of thousands of people dying, millions of refugees fleeing, billions in destruction, etc. Unfortunately the Russians have committed such heinous war crimes I’m not sure there’s many people left in Ukraine who see this as a reasonable option. Not to mention most of the civilians of the occupied regions have either fled, been murdered, or forcefully relocated to rural Russia. I think Musk sincerely wants peace, but is totally misinformed. That doesn’t mean he’s aligned with Putin.

There is also an argument to be made that if no peace deal is made (which would have to include an off-ramp for Putin, which would have to include ceding territory ie Crimea), there is a serious risk Russia could escalate to WMD’s as they lose more and more territory. That could mean further death and destruction (if not permanent destruction) for Ukraine, risk involving NATO, and causing WWIII.

So I don’t think striving for peace is anti-Ukrainian or Pro-Russian. Musks idea is certainly a poor one, but at some point concessions may have to made. In the meantime, Ukraine is devoted to regaining its territory and NATO has a profound interest in weakening Russias military as much as possible.

And believe me when I say I am very much pro-Ukraine. I actually feel like America has provided basically as little resources as possible to keep the war going as long as possible, in the interest of bleeding out Russia for as long as possible. In the interest of Ukrainian lives, I don’t believe that’s the right way of doing things.

Frankly what’s more concerning to me is Musk’s business deals in China regarding Tesla. He has been known to show deference to the CCP just so he can continue manufacturing and selling his cars there. Is there a way China could manipulate Twitter via Musk and Tesla, I wouldn’t be surprised. Musk is known to do very stupid things to keep his companies afloat.

Concerns about Musk drawing Twitter finances from foreign investors reportedly began escalating within the Biden administration, which is trying to avoid national security threats surrounding Musk deals.
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I think this is a fair argument, however it’s not consistent at all. The current administration doesn’t seem to care very much TikTok is owned by a Chinese firm. TikTok is perhaps one of the most, if not the most, influential social media sites for those under 24. And I don’t really buy the crap the American operators try to sell Congress about the security of users from China. They are far from convincing.

It’s not like social media companies don’t cow tow to foreign governments anyways, at least in their markets.

I have to imagine there is foreign investment in our media. As it is your have things like RT which is blatantly straight Russian propaganda, Al Jazeera is funded by the Qatari government and isn’t exactly unbiased, etc.

Hell, look at how much our government is influenced by corporate lobbyists and special interest groups.

So I have little sympathy for Musk. He made his bed, let him lay in it. If he destroys the platform (hard to believe it could be any worse than it is), then so be it. Let him and his investors eat the cost. And for those concerned about a billionaire running the platform, that’s very much the norm for large social media sites. As well as news media (ie Murdoch, Bezos, Sulzberger).
 
AG_PhamD said:
At the beginning of the war much of Eastern Ukraine was pro-Russian. There was a fair argument to cede the land and prevent hundreds of thousands of people dying, millions of refugees fleeing, billions in destruction, etc.
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What does “much of Eastern Ukraine was pro-Russian” mean? How big share of the population was it that made ceding the land a fair argument? And what is “the land” and “Eastern Ukraine” here?
 
Hi this is crazy_dave from "the other place" I guess it's called here. :) Haven't posted much recently thought I'd come over here.

AG_PhamD said:
Let me preface this first by saying I have never been much of a fan of Elon Musk… well before it was cool. I can appreciate his efforts to bring EVs to the mass market (despite the many flaws of Tesla) and how SpaceX has revolutionized how we access space.


I discussed this earlier, but it appears the US and foreign government bought the Starlink ground terminals, though I’m not sure at what price. The typical consumer price for these are sold at a loss. Reportedly these governments also funded 30% of the service costs. It’s also worth noting the DoD has paid Starlink many millions ($150m in one contract alone.

No company should have to loose money selling their product/service (similarly govts shouldn’t overpay for products/service as is all too often the case). I’m sure Ratheon isn’t selling Javelins at a 70% loss.

Clearly Starlink is a vital resource and Musk should not shutoff service. Airing his grievances on Twitter should not be the way to resolve such issues… but of course that’s Elon Musk for you. As is the fact he put his company in a situation where he was partially donating services apparently without a formal contract.


The notion that Elon Musk is supporting Russia is just ridiculous. He wouldn’t have donated 10’s of millions in satellite services to Ukraine. I read his Twitter poll as well meaning but profoundly naive. At the beginning of the war much of Eastern Ukraine was pro-Russian. There was a fair argument to cede the land and prevent hundreds of thousands of people dying, millions of refugees fleeing, billions in destruction, etc. Unfortunately the Russians have committed such heinous war crimes I’m not sure there’s many people left in Ukraine who see this as a reasonable option. Not to mention most of the civilians of the occupied regions have either fled, been murdered, or forcefully relocated to rural Russia. I think Musk sincerely wants peace, but is totally misinformed. That doesn’t mean he’s aligned with Putin.

There is also an argument to be made that if no peace deal is made (which would have to include an off-ramp for Putin, which would have to include ceding territory ie Crimea), there is a serious risk Russia could escalate to WMD’s as they lose more and more territory. That could mean further death and destruction (if not permanent destruction) for Ukraine, risk involving NATO, and causing WWIII.

So I don’t think striving for peace is anti-Ukrainian or Pro-Russian. Musks idea is certainly a poor one, but at some point concessions may have to made. In the meantime, Ukraine is devoted to regaining its territory and NATO has a profound interest in weakening Russias military as much as possible.

And believe me when I say I am very much pro-Ukraine. I actually feel like America has provided basically as little resources as possible to keep the war going as long as possible, in the interest of bleeding out Russia for as long as possible. In the interest of Ukrainian lives, I don’t believe that’s the right way of doing things.

Frankly what’s more concerning to me is Musk’s business deals in China regarding Tesla. He has been known to show deference to the CCP just so he can continue manufacturing and selling his cars there. Is there a way China could manipulate Twitter via Musk and Tesla, I wouldn’t be surprised. Musk is known to do very stupid things to keep his companies afloat.


I think this is a fair argument, however it’s not consistent at all. The current administration doesn’t seem to care very much TikTok is owned by a Chinese firm. TikTok is perhaps one of the most, if not the most, influential social media sites for those under 24. And I don’t really buy the crap the American operators try to sell Congress about the security of users from China. They are far from convincing.

It’s not like social media companies don’t cow tow to foreign governments anyways, at least in their markets.

I have to imagine there is foreign investment in our media. As it is your have things like RT which is blatantly straight Russian propaganda, Al Jazeera is funded by the Qatari government and isn’t exactly unbiased, etc.

Hell, look at how much our government is influenced by corporate lobbyists and special interest groups.

So I have little sympathy for Musk. He made his bed, let him lay in it. If he destroys the platform (hard to believe it could be any worse than it is), then so be it. Let him and his investors eat the cost. And for those concerned about a billionaire running the platform, that’s very much the norm for large social media sites. As well as news media (ie Murdoch, Bezos, Sulzberger).
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Pumbaa said:
What does “much of Eastern Ukraine was pro-Russian” mean? How big share of the population was it that made ceding the land a fair argument? And what is “the land” and “Eastern Ukraine” here?
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So there is little to no evidence that the majority of people in any substantial part of Ukraine wanted to rejoin Russia. Long involved history lesson: The political parties in Ukraine have almost always been centered on charismatic/wealthy individuals and split along pro-Russian and pro-European policies which means to which region/countries the parties advocate for closer ties and have been this way almost since the inception of the modern independent country 30 years ago. And the reason the independent country exists is because of a referendum in which not a single region of Ukraine wanted to stay as part of a union with Russia. Most regions were at 80-90+%, even the Donbass was over 80% and the Crimea was over 50%. Despite this pro Russian parties and politicians tended to dominate (though not completely) Ukraine's politics until the 2000s. The first pro-European president, Yuschenko, was made possible by the Orange revolution after Yanukovich - yes him - was caught trying to rig the election - with the help of you know who - and a second runoff that was deemed fair. Yanukovich would later win fairly in 2010 but was ousted after the Maidan revolution.

However, it should be noted that the casus belli for the Maidan revolution was *trade*. Simply wanting closer ties to Russia was about trade deal, even pro-Russian politicians rarely if ever talked about rejoining Russia and many voted in favor of policies to also at least curry favor with US and western leaders. Yanukovich bowed to pressure from Moscow and scrapped a EU trade deal that was favored by just about everyone and tried to ram a Russian trade deal instead. He was then so inept that he caused a constitutional crisis over this and and then so cowardly that he fled the country when the resulting popular uprising proved resistant to his unnecessarily violent repressions. So again, wanting to be part of Russia and being a "pro-Russian" politician are two separate things. Admittedly there is some overlap and some pro-Russian politicians have become collaborators, but many fewer than the Russians assumed there would be and some are even currently in the Ukrainian army fighting the Russian invasion.

The problem with Elon Musk in this particular issue (beyond his general pathologies already discussed at length here) is that he seems to be paying attention and still parroting a lot of Russian propaganda that you only get if you go deep into the woods on this issue as opposed to being merely naive. This is similar to other members of his circle of tech bros like Sacks and Thiel. So this doesn't seem to be an accident.

As for Starlink ... truthfully it's not exactly clear what's going on. Starlink did donate large numbers of terminals, but no where near what they claimed to, most have been purchased by the US, Polish, and other governments and even private Ukrainian citizens. That Starlink is losing millions upon millions of dollars comes from Starlink with little to no accounting to back it up. It's possibly true, but not guaranteed to be so. Given their behavior I would verify before trusting. When this story first broke as a result of Musks' whinging US government officials were furious because according to them this was not originally something they had planned on giving to Ukraine in the first place. Starlink donated the initial batch of terminals through US Aid (though it's possible that even then some of these were then purchased by the US government as there were reports that the US government helped harden them software/hardware against EW and cyber attack before handing them over - that is a bit more on the rumor/speculation side as I'm not sure I saw that confirmed). Now that the Ukrainians are so reliant on the system this appears to be more of a shakedown - pay up or we turn the system you now rely on but didn't ask for off. At the very least it puts their initial largess into doubt: we'll get you hooked so you'll pay up later while we reap the PR benefits of being so seemingly generous and get Starlink in the news.

Finally, having read about Elon Musk's companies ... it would appear that they function best when he isn't actually paying attention to them which happens quite often. While I'm sure a big venture like the Starlink-Ukraine deal would've probably required his attention that's also some thing to keep in mind.

Do I actually think he's full pro-Russian? No ... but he's a self-centered mercenary troll and overall isn't much bothered about authoritarianism, human rights, labor rights, or even the environment (he'll use it as a prop, but his comments on that recently have been similarly trollish) and fits right in with other self styled right-wing "masters of the universe". He kept the mask on for a long time for a lot of people to buy the "genius savior of mankind act", but to me Elon the troll is who he really is and his behavior is just another symptom of that.
 
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dada_dave said:
Hi this is crazy_dave from "the other place" I guess it's called here. :) Haven't posted much recently thought I'd come over here.





So there is little to no evidence that the majority of people in any substantial part of Ukraine wanted to rejoin Russia. Long involved history lesson: The political parties in Ukraine have almost always been centered on charismatic/wealthy individuals and split along pro-Russian and pro-European policies which means to which region/countries the parties advocate for closer ties and have been this way almost since the inception of the modern independent country 30 years ago. And the reason the independent country exists is because of a referendum in which not a single region of Ukraine wanted to stay as part of a union with Russia. Most regions were at 80-90+%, even the Donbass was over 80% and the Crimea was over 50%. Despite this pro Russian parties and politicians tended to dominate (though not completely) Ukraine's politics until the 2000s. The first pro-European president, Yuschenko, was made possible by the Orange revolution after Yanukovich - yes him - was caught trying to rig the election - with the help of you know who - and a second runoff that was deemed fair. Yanukovich would later win fairly in 2010 but was ousted after the Maidan revolution.

However, it should be noted that the casus belli for the Maidan revolution was *trade*. Simply wanting closer ties to Russia was about trade deal, even pro-Russian politicians rarely if ever talked about rejoining Russia and many voted in favor of policies to also at least curry favor with US and western leaders. Yanukovich bowed to pressure from Moscow and scrapped a EU trade deal that was favored by just about everyone and tried to ram a Russian trade deal instead. He was then so inept that he caused a constitutional crisis over this and and then so cowardly that he fled the country when the resulting popular uprising proved resistant to his unnecessarily violent repressions. So again, wanting to be part of Russia and being a "pro-Russian" politician are two separate things. Admittedly there is some overlap and some pro-Russian politicians have become collaborators, but many fewer than the Russians assumed there would be and some are even currently in the Ukrainian army fighting the Russian invasion.

The problem with Elon Musk in this particular issue (beyond his general pathologies already discussed at length here) is that he seems to be paying attention and still parroting a lot of Russian propaganda that you only get if you go deep into the woods on this issue as opposed to being merely naive. This is similar to other members of his circle of tech bros like Sacks and Thiel. So this doesn't seem to be an accident.

As for Starlink ... truthfully it's not exactly clear what's going on. Starlink did donate large numbers of terminals, but no where near what they claimed to, most have been purchased by the US, Polish, and other governments and even private Ukrainian citizens. That Starlink is losing millions upon millions of dollars comes from Starlink with little to no accounting to back it up. It's possibly true, but not guaranteed to be so. Given their behavior I would verify before trusting. When this story first broke as a result of Musks' whinging US government officials were furious because according to them this was not originally something they had planned on giving to Ukraine in the first place. Starlink donated the initial batch of terminals through US Aid (though it's possible that even then some of these were then purchased by the US government as there were reports that the US government helped harden them software/hardware against EW and cyber attack before handing them over - that is a bit more on the rumor/speculation side as I'm not sure I saw that confirmed). Now that the Ukrainians are so reliant on the system this appears to be more of a shakedown - pay up or we turn the system you now rely on but didn't ask for off. At the very least it puts their initial largess into doubt: we'll get you hooked so you'll pay up later while we reap the PR benefits of being so seemingly generous and get Starlink in the news.

Finally, having read about Elon Musk's companies ... it would appear that they function best when he isn't actually paying attention to them which happens quite often. While I'm sure a big venture like the Starlink-Ukraine deal would've probably required his attention that's also some thing to keep in mind.

Do I actually think he's full pro-Russian? No ... but he's a self-centered mercenary troll and overall isn't much bothered about authoritarianism, human rights, labor rights, or even the environment (he'll use it as a prop, but his comments on that recently have been similarly trollish) and fits right in with other self styled right-wing "masters of the universe". He kept the mask on for a long time for a lot of people to buy the "genius savior of mankind act", but to me Elon the troll is who he really is and his behavior is just another symptom of that.
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I think part of the problem is A. How these surveys are conducted and B. Who is conducting them. As this WaPo article states, Ukraine says only 16% of those in the Donbas want to join Russia while according to Russia 70% of want to. As you might imagine, independent polling from the WaPo yields much more convoluted results.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...kraine-donbas-donetsk-luhansk-public-opinion/

Note: This WaPo study was conducted prior to invasion in 2022 but is consistent with 2020 results.

I think it’s fair to say, regardless of these past results, if you were to poll these same people or the results might very different due to the brutality of the Russian military and their scorched earth campaign.

And the true flaw with Musk’s plan is that many/most of the people in the currently occupied region are either refugees, dead, or relocated to Russia. So holding any sort of referendum, even with international oversight, is rather meaningless at this point.

But is it really surprising Musk says and does things without thinking about the details and consequences. Not at all. Just like buying Twitter. Just like all his promises to investors on product timelines. Just like 420 funding secured. Just like supplying Starlink evidently without a formal contract in place as to who will fund the cost after a certain point.
 
AG_PhamD said:
I think part of the problem is A. How these surveys are conducted and B. Who is conducting them. As this WaPo article states, Ukraine says only 16% of those in the Donbas want to join Russia while according to Russia 70% of want to. As you might imagine, independent polling from the WaPo yields much more convoluted results.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...kraine-donbas-donetsk-luhansk-public-opinion/

Note: This WaPo study was conducted prior to invasion in 2022 but is consistent with 2020 results.

I think it’s fair to say, regardless of these past results, if you were to poll these same people or the results might very different due to the brutality of the Russian military and their scorched earth campaign.
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What I was quoting was not a survey or poll but the independence referendum from the 1990s - which was the last time to my knowledge that the question was put to the voters and was deemed fair and accepted by all parties. I don't know of any poll or survey that asked that question before 2014 - the initial the Russian invasion, which as you and the article pointed out makes any later polling almost impossible but once again (as your article pointed out as well) there is little reason to believe that a fair vote in any of these regions would have led to the breaking away of these regions much less joining Russia.

Another example of this? Almost all the initial leaders of the so-called "people's republics", Girkin et al., were Russian military/intelligence officers. Few if any were Ukrainian and those that were had previously been political obscurities or even convicts. Some turned into war criminal maniacs that the Russians themselves had to deal with (at least in 2014 they cared a little about the optics as they wanted to present themselves as saving the people of the Donbass rather than invaders). So it's not like they had support from prominent members of the communities they were supposedly representing. In fact when one of those Russian leaders stepped down (who is now a member of the Russian Duma and again ex-intelligence/army who helped create the exact same kind of breakaway province of Transnistria in the 1990s - I mean seriously same exact playbook) he even stated it was because it looked bad that all the leaders were Russian. And largely their attempts to take the East on their own failed, which given the sorry state of the Ukrainian army in 2014 is quite a testament to how weak the separatist forces were. In fact, it would've been completely rolled back except that the regular Russian army got involved and propped them up. Interestingly, and this is a side note, while the Crimean invasion of 2014 was clearly planned and executed at the highest levels, there is debate over whether in the Donbass Girkin et al tried to go full "Man who would be king", or they had the backing of the FSB but not the Kremlin/MOD, or this was a fully sanctioned operation by Putin. That's less clear and getting answers to this is one of the (minor) reasons why Ukraine (never mind the Dutch for MH17) want Girkin captured alive so badly now that he's back in the fight (sort of, in uniform again, but still on Russian soil as far as his last geo-locatable photo).

Yes, the brutality of the Russians has further eroded whatever support they might've had, but given the above, the problem with Musk and others equating voting for pro-Russian parties with being fine with joining Russia should be much more clear even if Russia weren't being so brutal.

AG_PhamD said:
And the true flaw with Musk’s plan is that many/most of the people in the currently occupied region are either refugees, dead, or relocated to Russia. So holding any sort of referendum, even with international oversight, is rather meaningless at this point.
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It's even worse than that. The Russians would use that time to regroup and consolidate their holdings (read - commit more crimes against humanity and dig in further). It would make the war go on longer and harder since the Russians wouldn't respect any vote even if it could be held including the refugees (which as you point out is a near impossibility already), wouldn't care if it was deemed fair by international observers, and wouldn't care about the results one way or the other. Democratic rights and values are not why they're there. The Russians and the Assad regime used cease fires and the promise peace in Syria to do this all the time: recoup, commit more crimes, and launch new offensives. And I think Musk knows this. He just doesn't care. As I said, he's paying attention and as I mentioned in the last post about what happens when he starts paying attention and actually meddling things generally get worse.

AG_PhamD said:
But is it really surprising Musk says and does things without thinking about the details and consequences. Not at all. Just like buying Twitter. Just like all his promises to investors on product timelines. Just like 420 funding secured. Just like supplying Starlink evidently without a formal contract in place as to who will fund the cost after a certain point.
Click to expand...

I feel it is much darker than that and connecting to the overall thesis of this forum topic. Yes, he's impulsive and no where near as smart as he thinks he is, but his actions cannot be ascribed to just that alone. Basically he's an asshole and viewed through that lens, buying Twitter to appeal to right-wing culture warrior trolls, the Starlink brouhaha, and his trolling of just about everyone in this conflict (he also trolls the Russians) all make a lot more sense. Not in the sense that it is rational, but he's an asshole and these are things that an asshole would do. Hell he even suggested just letting China have Taiwan and not even bothering to try to couch in popular opinion of the Taiwanese for that one (because you really can't) which shows democratic rights and values aren't high on his priority list either. And these views are not unique to him, but shared widely by his coterie of fellow tech-bro assholes. So this is not just him. He's just the most prominent and sadly influential and set to become even more so if the acquisition of Twitter goes through.

EDIT: I don't think you and I are very far off from each other, but I wanted to provide additional context to show that his comments are even more disingenuous and trollish than him simply not thinking things through. That would be bad enough, but I feel that his actions and statements are indicative of far more and worse flaws than mere impulsiveness and unreliability, which would be bad enough in someone of his stature.
 
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dada_dave said:
What I was quoting was not a survey or poll but the independence referendum from the 1990s - which was the last time to my knowledge that the question was put to the voters and was deemed fair and accepted by all parties. I don't know of any poll or survey that asked that question before 2014 - the initial the Russian invasion, which as you and the article pointed out makes any later polling almost impossible but once again (as your article pointed out as well) there is little reason to believe that a fair vote in any of these regions would have led to the breaking away of these regions much less joining Russia.

Another example of this? Almost all the initial leaders of the so-called "people's republics", Girkin et al., were Russian military/intelligence officers. Few if any were Ukrainian and those that were had previously been political obscurities or even convicts. Some turned into war criminal maniacs that the Russians themselves had to deal with (at least in 2014 they cared a little about the optics as they wanted to present themselves as saving the people of the Donbass rather than invaders). So it's not like they had support from prominent members of the communities they were supposedly representing. In fact when one of those Russian leaders stepped down (who is now a member of the Russian Duma and again ex-intelligence/army who helped create the exact same kind of breakaway province of Transnistria in the 1990s - I mean seriously same exact playbook) he even stated it was because it looked bad that all the leaders were Russian. And largely their attempts to take the East on their own failed, which given the sorry state of the Ukrainian army in 2014 is quite a testament to how weak the separatist forces were. In fact, it would've been completely rolled back except that the regular Russian army got involved and propped them up. Interestingly, and this is a side note, while the Crimean invasion of 2014 was clearly planned and executed at the highest levels, there is debate over whether in the Donbass Girkin et al tried to go full "Man who would be king", or they had the backing of the FSB but not the Kremlin/MOD, or this was a fully sanctioned operation by Putin. That's less clear and getting answers to this is one of the (minor) reasons why Ukraine (never mind the Dutch for MH17) want Girkin captured alive so badly now that he's back in the fight (sort of, in uniform again, but still on Russian soil as far as his last geo-locatable photo).

Yes, the brutality of the Russians has further eroded whatever support they might've had, but given the above, the problem with Musk and others equating voting for pro-Russian parties with being fine with joining Russia should be much more clear even if Russia weren't being so brutal.



It's even worse than that. The Russians would use that time to regroup and consolidate their holdings (read - commit more crimes against humanity and dig in further). It would make the war go on longer and harder since the Russians wouldn't respect any vote even if it could be held including the refugees (which as you point out is a near impossibility already), wouldn't care if it was deemed fair by international observers, and wouldn't care about the results one way or the other. Democratic rights and values are not why they're there. The Russians and the Assad regime used cease fires and the promise peace in Syria to do this all the time: recoup, commit more crimes, and launch new offensives. And I think Musk knows this. He just doesn't care. As I said, he's paying attention and as I mentioned in the last post about what happens when he starts paying attention and actually meddling things generally get worse.



I feel it is much darker than that and connecting to the overall thesis of this forum topic. Yes, he's impulsive and no where near as smart as he thinks he is, but his actions cannot be ascribed to just that alone. Basically he's an asshole and viewed through that lens, buying Twitter to appeal to right-wing culture warrior trolls, the Starlink brouhaha, and his trolling of just about everyone in this conflict (he also trolls the Russians) all make a lot more sense. Not in the sense that it is rational, but he's an asshole and these are things that an asshole would do. Hell he even suggested just letting China have Taiwan and not even bothering to try to couch in popular opinion of the Taiwanese for that one (because you really can't) which shows democratic rights and values aren't high on his priority list either. And these views are not unique to him, but shared widely by his coterie of fellow tech-bro assholes. So this is not just him. He's just the most prominent and sadly influential and set to become even more so if the acquisition of Twitter goes through.

EDIT: I don't think you and I are very far off from each other, but I wanted to provide additional context to show that his comments are even more disingenuous and trollish than him simply not thinking things through. That would be bad enough, but I feel that his actions and statements are indicative of far more and worse flaws than mere impulsiveness and unreliability, which would be bad enough in someone of his stature.
Click to expand...

Yes, I think we’re essentially in agreement. Thank you for the detailed history. My main point was I think it’s silly when people say or imply to propose a peace deal that happens to align with some of Russia’s interests automatically makes that person a Putin puppet. I think wanting to put an end to the death and destruction occurring in Ukraine is a well intentioned argument… it just the proposed resolution has no basis in reality. Similarly, I find it rather patronizing when people say that the US/NATO should be pushing for peace rather than more war- when clearly its the Ukrainians decision whether they want to fight or not, and clearly they do. When Russia invaded there was no guarantee the West would provide aid or at least to the degree that we currently are. I imagine if we ceased providing arms Ukraine would continue fighting, finding clever solutions to their problems just as they’ve had to do this entire time.

Similarly I think it’s ridiculous Rand Paul was criticized for his concerns over the accountability of where our weapons are ending up. European governments had concerns about weapons ending up within their own countries. That said it’s a war, things are clearly going to be a mess, particularly in the beginning. but having an inspector general doesn’t sound unreasonable.

Then you have the 30 democrats who were lambasted for writing a letter encouraging the Biden administration to have dialogue with Russia to create a ceasefire- so much so they had to retract the letter. To my knowledge they said nothing about ceding territory or stopping weapons shipments. I think it’s naive to think Putin’s words can be trusted in the slightest, he has proved himself untrustworthy time after time after time. And frankly I’m not confident there is anything that can even be negotiated at the moment- Russia has very little to even offer and no exit ramp. But I don’t think it’s fake to criticize people as Putin supporters who strive for a peaceful resolution, despite their impractical views.

I think Musk is given a lot more credit than he deserves. He didn’t found Tesla, he bought it. He didn’t invent their batteries. He didn’t design the engines in SpaceX rockets. People make it sound like he is the only engineer at these companies. Tunnel boring is nothing new. The “hyperloop” idea is 100+ years old and consistency found to be entirely infeasible. Etc. And for the guy who claims he knows more about manufacturing cars, his belief in over-automation nearly ran Tesla into the ground- something every other car company has known for decades. And if I’m not mistaken they’re still building their cars of mediocre quality under tents. If Musk is a genius I think it’s in his ability to be a visionary and perhaps his ability to attract talent and funding while extracting the maximum value out of his employees to achieve that vision.

When you have someone with the social skill deficits as Musk, it’s not really surprising his thoughts on foreign policy would be completely impractical. Supposedly he is on the autism spectrum, which wouldn’t surprise me. It explains why he thinks he can take a deeply complicated, emotionally and politically charged situation, and process the situation to a logical solution like a robot devoid of the human aspect and practical real word issues that can’t just be disregarded, even if he does so in his mind.

It’s also worth noting regarding the WaPo survey results, we have no idea how strongly people felt about those opinions. It’s possible that the majority of people voting for separation from Ukraine were rather ambivalent about it in the first place. Or we’re under the impression the grass is greener on the other side, until they realize it’s not.
 
AG_PhamD said:
Yes, I think we’re essentially in agreement. Thank you for the detailed history. My main point was I think it’s silly when people say or imply to propose a peace deal that happens to align with some of Russia’s interests automatically makes that person a Putin puppet. I think wanting to put an end to the death and destruction occurring in Ukraine is a well intentioned argument… it just the proposed resolution has no basis in reality. Similarly, I find it rather patronizing when people say that the US/NATO should be pushing for peace rather than more war- when clearly its the Ukrainians decision whether they want to fight or not, and clearly they do. When Russia invaded there was no guarantee the West would provide aid or at least to the degree that we currently are. I imagine if we ceased providing arms Ukraine would continue fighting, finding clever solutions to their problems just as they’ve had to do this entire time.

Similarly I think it’s ridiculous Rand Paul was criticized for his concerns over the accountability of where our weapons are ending up. European governments had concerns about weapons ending up within their own countries. That said it’s a war, things are clearly going to be a mess, particularly in the beginning. but having an inspector general doesn’t sound unreasonable.

Then you have the 30 democrats who were lambasted for writing a letter encouraging the Biden administration to have dialogue with Russia to create a ceasefire- so much so they had to retract the letter. To my knowledge they said nothing about ceding territory or stopping weapons shipments. I think it’s naive to think Putin’s words can be trusted in the slightest, he has proved himself untrustworthy time after time after time. And frankly I’m not confident there is anything that can even be negotiated at the moment- Russia has very little to even offer and no exit ramp. But I don’t think it’s fake to criticize people as Putin supporters who strive for a peaceful resolution, despite their impractical views.

I think Musk is given a lot more credit than he deserves. He didn’t found Tesla, he bought it. He didn’t invent their batteries. He didn’t design the engines in SpaceX rockets. People make it sound like he is the only engineer at these companies. Tunnel boring is nothing new. The “hyperloop” idea is 100+ years old and consistency found to be entirely infeasible. Etc. And for the guy who claims he knows more about manufacturing cars, his belief in over-automation nearly ran Tesla into the ground- something every other car company has known for decades. And if I’m not mistaken they’re still building their cars of mediocre quality under tents. If Musk is a genius I think it’s in his ability to be a visionary and perhaps his ability to attract talent and funding while extracting the maximum value out of his employees to achieve that vision.

When you have someone with the social skill deficits as Musk, it’s not really surprising his thoughts on foreign policy would be completely impractical. Supposedly he is on the autism spectrum, which wouldn’t surprise me. It explains why he thinks he can take a deeply complicated, emotionally and politically charged situation, and process the situation to a logical solution like a robot devoid of the human aspect and practical real word issues that can’t just be disregarded, even if he does so in his mind.
Click to expand...

A couple points of disagreement:

1) Rand Paul is a **** and his concerns are almost always disingenuous. Frankly if he said the clear sky was blue I'd poke my head out to check. But also when all was said and done nobody has actually found anything untoward about the western weapon shipments to Ukraine - a lot of the big headlines when you actually read the stories was mere speculation on the order of: Ukraine has corruption (which it does and they know it) and in other conflicts weapons have been trafficked, so therefore it must be happening here without anything substantial beyond that. And yes the Russians did try to push that line to try to limit weapon shipments (thankfully, like most of their recent propaganda attempts, they were very, very lazy when doing it). They do now have an inspector general and you're right it isn't inappropriate to have such a thing even if nothing bad is actually happening with Western weapon shipments. This is not to say that Ukraine's military or especially their intelligence agencies are completely corruption free, they ain't (and news agencies, Ukrainian ones, have detailed when there have been actual problems there, not speculative ones), but according to everyone who has actually looked, western weapons aren't actually going missing, never have, and frankly couldn't be on any significant scale because the Ukrainians wouldn't have been able to do what they've done if they were given the initial disparities in equipment between the two armies.

2) Most of the push back on the letter was not that the 30 representatives in question are secret Putin supporters - yeah some people on the internet will respond that way to just about everything, but most of it was just how blindingly naive and even harmful it was. You already mentioned the naivety. But it's worse than that. The letter explicitly said "sure the notion that we shouldn't negotiate about Ukraine without Ukraine is nice but we should explore doing that anyway" which is just mind bogglingly colonialist of them (something Raskin who signed the letter alluded to in his own retraction) and "oh the Russian manipulations of the world economy and US gas prices is totally working and a good reason to force a cease fire". As one wit put it: TIL that the progressive option is being neo-colonialists to get lower gas prices. Basically it's something that gives the Russian hope that their strategy to reduce Western support by disrupting the world economy will work if they keep it up as ceasefires benefit them, not the Ukrainians as I mentioned in my last post. Freezing the conflict is very much in their interests. And as congresspeople it is their ****ing job to be aware of that. So I was pretty pissed when I read that letter even if some of them try to defend it as having been written and signed months earlier - frankly it was bad then too. The fact that it was released right before the midterms undercutting the message of their own party and administration was just an extra chef's kiss incompetence. And then they blamed the release and lack of vetting on the staff. To be clear: there names of people I otherwise like on that letter (most of the ones I really like haven't tried to defend it or their names being on it and agreed it was a mistake). In the long run it probably won't matter very much, but the people who wrote and signed the letter very much deserved the scorching they got - both from the public and reportedly from their own democratic colleagues/the administration who understood the significance of such a letter apparently better than those who signed it did.

AG_PhamD said:
It’s also worth noting regarding the WaPo survey results, we have no idea how strongly people felt about those opinions. It’s possible that the majority of people voting for separation from Ukraine were rather ambivalent about it in the first place. Or we’re under the impression the grass is greener on the other side, until they realize it’s not.
Click to expand...

Sure and I should add that both in Crimea and the Donbass there would still be sizable fractions of people who may indeed have wanted to join Russia - after all ~40% and 20% of people in the 1990s didn't want to leave in the first place and maybe more changed their mind in each later. It's just important to note that the only time an actual vote was held, not a single part of modern Ukraine wanted to stay attached to Russia and my earlier counterpoints were that you can't equate voting for pro-Russian politicians with wanting or even being okay with joining Russia as Musk did (I recognize that you didn't and don't). That's almost the equivalent of saying Canadians really want to be annexed by the US because they voted for politicians in favor of NAFTA. I'm exaggerating only slightly.
 
dada_dave said:
A couple points of disagreement:

1) Rand Paul is a **** and his concerns are almost always disingenuous. Frankly if he said the clear sky was blue I'd poke my head out to check. But also when all was said and done nobody has actually found anything untoward about the western weapon shipments to Ukraine - a lot of the big headlines when you actually read the stories was mere speculation on the order of: Ukraine has corruption (which it does and they know it) and in other conflicts weapons have been trafficked, so therefore it must be happening here without anything substantial beyond that. And yes the Russians did try to push that line to try to limit weapon shipments (thankfully, like most of their recent propaganda attempts, they were very, very lazy when doing it). They do now have an inspector general and you're right it isn't inappropriate to have such a thing even if nothing bad is actually happening with Western weapon shipments. This is not to say that Ukraine's military or especially their intelligence agencies are completely corruption free, they ain't (and news agencies, Ukrainian ones, have detailed when there have been actual problems there, not speculative ones), but according to everyone who has actually looked, western weapons aren't actually going missing, never have, and frankly couldn't be on any significant scale because the Ukrainians wouldn't have been able to do what they've done if they were given the initial disparities in equipment between the two armies.

2) Most of the push back on the letter was not that the 30 representatives in question are secret Putin supporters - yeah some people on the internet will respond that way to just about everything, but most of it was just how blindingly naive and even harmful it was. You already mentioned the naivety. But it's worse than that. The letter explicitly said "sure the notion that we shouldn't negotiate about Ukraine without Ukraine is nice but we should explore doing that anyway" which is just mind bogglingly colonialist of them (something Raskin who signed the letter alluded to in his own retraction) and "oh the Russian manipulations of the world economy and US gas prices is totally working and a good reason to force a cease fire". As one wit put it: TIL that the progressive option is being neo-colonialists to get lower gas prices. Basically it's something that gives the Russian hope that their strategy to reduce Western support by disrupting the world economy will work if they keep it up as ceasefires benefit them, not the Ukrainians as I mentioned in my last post. Freezing the conflict is very much in their interests. And as congresspeople it is their ****ing job to be aware of that. So I was pretty pissed when I read that letter even if some of them try to defend it as having been written and signed months earlier - frankly it was bad then too. The fact that it was released right before the midterms undercutting the message of their own party and administration was just an extra chef's kiss incompetence. And then they blamed the release and lack of vetting on the staff. To be clear: there names of people I otherwise like on that letter (most of the ones I really like haven't tried to defend it or their names being on it and agreed it was a mistake). In the long run it probably won't matter very much, but the people who wrote and signed the letter very much deserved the scorching they got - both from the public and reportedly from their own democratic colleagues/the administration who understood the significance of such a letter apparently better than those who signed it did.



Sure and I should add that both in Crimea and the Donbass there would still be sizable fractions of people who may indeed have wanted to join Russia - after all ~40% and 20% of people in the 1990s didn't want to leave in the first place and maybe more changed their mind in each later. It's just important to note that the only time an actual vote was held, not a single part of modern Ukraine wanted to stay attached to Russia and my earlier counterpoints were that you can't equate voting for pro-Russian politicians with wanting or even being okay with joining Russia as Musk did (I recognize that you didn't and don't). That's almost the equivalent of saying Canadians really want to be annexed by the US because they voted for politicians in favor of NAFTA. I'm exaggerating only slightly.
Click to expand...

I’m not at all a Rand Paul fan, but I prefer to give the benefit of the doubt when it comes to motive unless it’s blatantly obvious. I’ve never seen anything that makes him appear he is or on the side of Ukraine or did not support aid, rather he was against aid without accountability. I would say he consistently the stingiest politician in US government, as consistent as a politician can be. Given what happened in Afghanistan I don’t think it’s unreasonable.

As a result, Ukraine put Rand Paul on the “Putin Propagandist” blacklist, which is really just insane to me. As much as I’m not a fan of his, he represents his constituents (presumably) and he has every right to put what he sees as the interests of the US above all else. Just because someone’s interests by consequence benefit Russia does not make them a Putin ally.

It’s the same story with Israel. Clearly they condemn Russia’s actions, they have publicly numerous times and have supported Ukraine by means other than directly supplying weapons. Israel is afraid to cross Russia and consequently lose Russia’s interest in keeping Iran under relative control against Ukraine, not to mention their influence in nuclear talks. That doesn’t mean they support Russia’s heinous actions. It means they’re in the unenviable position of having to put their own existential anxieties with Iran (which is very much real) above that of Ukraine’s terrible situation. Otherwise they could find themselves in similar situation, except with Iran.

There was a lot of speculation on the part of the media as to whether or not the weapons were reaching their destination. I would assume the overwhelming majority did considering the Ukrainian resolve.

Europool however did report intelligence of Ukrainian arms dealers colluding with European criminal organizations. Who knows if these were Ukrainian or Western weapons, if these deals even happened, or if they were intercepted. While it’s entirely possible some corrupt element within the Ukrainian military or government diverted or planned to divert weapons, I would think the more likely scenario is when the Ukrainian government gives a bunch of arms out to civilians (not always keeping records by their own admission), you have civilians with no idea what to do with the gun, meanwhile their lives and livelihoods are falling apart. It wouldn’t be so shocking for people sell or trade these guns to some criminal in order to better support themselves, their uncertain future, or their ability to get to safety if required. I would think a fair amount of people would take the money over guns if they were under the impression the Russians were going to roll in in matter of days and take over (in the early days of the war). This is especially true if you don’t have a lot of resources, as is the case with many Ukrainians.

That’s not to speak poorly of Ukrainians, I’m merely pointing out human nature… or more accurately animal nature- the flight or flight response and the calculations all of us would make if in the same circumstances.

I will be the first to say surveys are not the most reliable source of data. But drawing conclusions from a referendum held in 1994(?), coming of the tail of the collapse of the Soviet Union, shouldn’t inherently be considered a representation of pre-February 2022 opinion ~28 years later.

Regardless, we clearly both agree whatever the opinions were before they’re irrelevant now. And that there’s no feasible way get a legitimate referendum on that. And that by no means means Russia has a right to annex the territory.

Even if for example the Donbas or Crimea held the most legitimate referendum voting overwhelmingly to join Russia , I would imagine under Ukrainian law this would mean nothing. I would imagine there’s a lot more involved if it’s even allowed at all. It’s not like Texas hold a referendum to declare itself part of Mexico again and US government would wave them off with well wishes in their new endeavor.
 

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