> They (the Ukrainians) requested that he re-enable it in that area specifically so that mass murder could be conducted with it
Let me see if I have this right. We know that the Russian government spends inordinate time and money intentionally spreading false propaganda on the internet. We know Russia loves Musk because he supports their illegal invasion of Ukraine. We see sneak here talking about how the "existing geopolitical engineers" (unspecified; is this a dog whistle?) hate Musk because he's so strong, and how Ukraine is committing "mass murder" for resisting the illegal invasion of their country. And I get flagged for calling him a Russian propagandist? Are we really doing the Emperor's New Clothes thing? Can we not just call a spade a spade here?
I get "assume good faith" -- it's a good rule -- but does it really have no limits? We really have to assume good faith in those who are claiming that destroying military targets that are being used by Russia in an illegal invasion of your country is tantamount to mass murder?
> We know that the Russian government spends inordinate time and money intentionally spreading false propaganda
And we know that people on the side of Ukraine, including lots of commentators in the west do the reverse. So maybe try to find the facts and use logic.
> We know Russia loves Musk because he supports their illegal invasion of Ukraine.
He is literally the most important private person helping Ukraine. That's just such an idiotic believe, its really next level stupid.
Please tell me one other private person literally in the world who has helped Ukraine more then Musk. I'll wait.
He literally gave Ukraine free material when the war started, before most governments had even reacted.
Not enabling Starlink in Crimea makes sense because that would literally enable the Russians to use it. Dynamically enabling and disabling it depending on Ukrainian war needs would be a crazy thing to do.
> I get "assume good faith" -- it's a good rule -- but does it really have no limits?
What you should maybe ask yourself is if "bad faith" assumptions has limits.
> We really have to assume good faith in those who are claiming that destroying military targets that are being used by Russia in an illegal invasion of your country is tantamount to mass murder?
I reject the concept of “just war” in general in all instances and think all war is mass murder, definitionally. “Military targets” is a euphemism designed to diffuse blame for premeditated mass slaughter of human beings. It’s not something anyone wants to do, feel, or think about, so euphemisms like these are practically essential to our ability to cope with the world. There is another conflict happening simultaneously where you can see the exact same labelling-war playing out. The scores of dead children remain dead, the hospital remains in ruins regardless of whether it was a failed terrorist missile or a solemn and justified defense of a victim of illegal invasion. It takes two to tango.
As I said, it’s not popular to be anti-war these days. Humans seem to like retribution and righting of perceived injustice more than they like peace. We still have the death penalty, for instance, a clear violation of our widely agreed-upon standard of human rights.
Furthermore, even in your worldview, an American citizen using nominally American-jurisdiction hardware to enable airstrikes in a war zone that has nothing directly to do with America is an unforced escalation in the proxy war unrelated to “illegal invasion” that invites retaliation against Americans and American space-based assets. It’s a fool’s game even if you subscribe only to Realpolitik and don’t care one whit about the lives of enslaved Russian teenagers.
> We know Russia loves Musk because he supports their illegal invasion of Ukraine.
I have seen precisely nothing to support either of the claims in this sentence. They are speculation, not fact. “If you don’t support me, you de facto support my enemy” is not sound reasoning in war. One may simply be against violence in all forms, which seems much more plausible, given what we know about humans on Earth, especially skeptics like Musk who tend to resist pro-just-war state messaging.
> I reject the concept of “just war” in general in all instances and think all war is mass murder
Okay, fair, there's a self-consistent point there we can work with. I also am extremely dubious of the idea of "just war".
> It takes two to tango.
It really only takes one to start a war. You seem to be under the assumption that Ukraine had a choice about whether it went to war or not. It didn't have that choice. War was forced upon it. Indeed Ukraine is not fighting a "just war" by any stretch.
It sounds like you're saying: it's bad that Russia is invading Ukraine, but it's also bad that Ukraine is trying to defend itself? Obviously we'd all prefer the world where Russia does not invade Ukraine. Given that Russia did invade Ukraine, what is the next best world? For me, 2nd best is that Ukraine defends its sovereignty with as little unnecessary death as possible. For you, it sounds like (and please correct me if I'm wrong) 2nd best is that Ukraine rolls over and lets Russia completely annex its territories, commit genocide on its civilians, reduce its cities to rubble and ash, execute or permanently imprison its current government, and install a puppet government, so that it is better positioned to do the exact same thing to the rest of Eastern Europe. Is that right? I think we'd both like to minimize death and suffering, but my intuition is that your 2nd best scenario has a lot more death and suffering than mine.
And again: the idea that Ukraine defending its sovereignty is "just as bad" as Russia invading it is yet another common Russian propaganda line. It may be complete coincidence that your statements happen to exactly match Russian propaganda lines, but they do. If you talk about how you found some cheap viagra at some link you post, you may feel like you have a legit reason for doing so and that you're not a "true" spammer. But to everyone else, you're just another spammer.
“He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, senseless brutality, deplorable love-of-country stance, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be a part of so base an action! It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.“
I will abstain from attributing the quote in an effort to avoid an appeal to authority, but this neatly sums up my feelings on it.
I am also of the belief that death is preferable to participating in war.
> I reject the concept of “just war” in general in all instances and think all war is mass murder, definitionally.
Then you must be for a swift Ukrainian victory right?, cause anything else just raises tensions in the region and increases the chance of another war in the near future.
> Furthermore, even in your worldview, an American citizen using nominally American-jurisdiction hardware to enable airstrikes in a war zone that has nothing directly to do with America is an unforced escalation in the proxy war unrelated to “illegal invasion” that invites retaliation against Americans and American space-based assets.
The war in Ukraine isn’t a proxy war it’s just a plain old war between Russia and Ukraine with both sides having allies that help supply them, and I’m not sure why “illegal invasion” is in quotation marks that’s exactly what it is.
> One may simply be against violence in all forms, which seems much more plausible, given what we know about humans on Earth, especially skeptics like Musk who tend to resist pro-just-war state messaging.
This is an easy view to have when you live the luxury of being able to choice whether or not to be involved in a war.
Ukrainians had no such choice war was forced upon them by the Russians.
AT&T wouldn't be happy with you pulling their cell tower repeaters into a warzone either. Using shared infrastructure for war purposes exposes it to retaliation.
Humans who subscribe to game theory have gambled against Russia with much higher stakes than these in years past. I would not depend on “nobody can launch satellites” being sufficient deterrent when GTO brinksmanship with the USSR put only Stanislav Petrov between reality and total human extinction.
If you believe, as I do, that Ukraine’s ability to export shale gas to the west is a literal existential crisis for Russia as a state in the long term, then it makes sense that they would go to quite significant extents indeed to ensure that that remains impossible, right up to things that would mostly destroy Russian society in the process, tragically.
If the first were true, I doubt Russia would be spending so much in the way of resources on simple territorial expansion (with the implicit long term expense of huge resources governing the conquered/occupied territory).
The invasion isn’t good ROI for them otherwise, even if it went well, which it does not appear to be.
I think the USSR restoration empire building narrative is overblown.
Also, if what you say about red lines were true, the US would
not be so hesitant to provide lots of advanced aircraft to Ukraine, which they have not done as yet despite this clearly being a full enemy-of-my-enemy proxy war.
Signs point to everyone trying to avoid escalation.
> Also, if what you say about red lines were true, the US would not be so hesitant to provide lots of advanced aircraft to Ukraine, which they have not done as yet despite this clearly being a full enemy-of-my-enemy proxy war.
They are literally starting training on the aircraft next month iirc, and will receive them in 4-6 months after that.
Nothing happened when all of Russias red lines were crossed, the Americans are merely boiling the frog to avoid escalation.
I think Russias red lines are akin to chinas final warning now days, a joke.
Yes, obviously, they are at war with Russia. All combatants in all non-proxy wars are involved in the systematic premeditated murder of as many of the Other Guys as possible.
> They (the Ukrainians) requested that he re-enable it in that area specifically so that mass murder could be conducted with it, and he declined. (This is an example of the geopolitical power he wields, and it will only increase after Starship.) Couching it in “strategic policy decisions” euphemism doesn’t change the fact that they tried to draft him into a conspiracy to slaughter hundreds of teenage Russian conscripts.
A lot of this paragraph is objectively false I don’t think conscripts are the ones that man boats and submarines.
Destroying those Russian missile boats and submarines would have taken out a large amount of the ships that where intentionally targeting Ukrainian civilians with cruise missiles.
