If western countries valued peace, they would recognize that it would be more diplomatically stable to have neutral buffer States between the Russian border and the NATO countries. They also could have done more to economically integrate with post-soviet Russia in the 1990s. the reality is that NATO countries don’t actually value peace, but rather their capitalist leadership would rather “contain” capitalist Russia than integrate, so NATO expansion it has been.

Ukraine is not Russian territory, but is extremely strategically important from a military standpoint. Any discussion of NATO membership is going to be perturbed as an existential threat to Russia, this is an obvious analysis from both sides. There is no “defensive” benefit to making Ukraine a member of NATO, unless the purpose is to mantain an existential threat toward Russia.

I can’t confidently say that my analysis above justifies a Russian invasion of Ukraine, but Putin obviously doesn’t care what I think. I wish it would not have happened, but I understand what brought everything to this point, and now the Ukrainian people must suffer for decades because western imperialist forces are not interested in building a strong global peace.

Funny! I played it last year on mine lol

I didn’t actually see it myself, but I heard a lot of people thought it looked AI at first and that it was genuine (alternate angles and stuff like you said). It’s good to check up on it (sounds like you actually put the effort in) so we can try to keep our facts straight, as hard as that is these days.

Epstein has always had close ties to MIT and there was a big scandal about them accepting donations.

It’s also been own for several years that Chomsky stayed at Epstein’s Paris home at least once, and publicly apologized for his association with Epstein iirc.

Do we know anything about why there was an announcement and then a reversal and everything?

I sort of agree with you but if liberals acknowledged and understood class alignment, they wouldn’t be liberals. I do think that the “opportunity for education” approach is more effective than outright hostility.

I find that online interactions about complicated topics can be quite frustrating, since snark and “dunking” trend to prevail. This is driven by corporate social media and spills over into other online interactions.

Just FYI to people that you can get remanufactured ink cartridges for a fraction of the price (around half) of OEM. They are sometimes modified to contain more ink in the same body. The company I purchased from included a prepaid bag to send used cartridges back for reuse.

Also while I’m in PSA mode “REDUCE, REUSE, and then recycle”. Sometimes we skip over the first two steps since reducing is not marketable and reusing rarely is (although reusing printer cartridges appears to be a sustainable business).

I think that video was confirmed

Just giving the app the CBS news treatment

The entire concept of “for-profit news” is a conflict of interest.

One of the main purposes (arguably the primary purpose?) of the “well regulated militia” was to ensure that settlers could attack and exterminate American Indian tribes during westward expansion.

It isn’t though. “Propaganda” has fluid definition, so I was hoping to get on the same page so we could continue the discussion. It’s always helpful to clarify terms before we just talk past each other.

I’m familiar with the comic, but it doesn’t represent the situation here at all. Is asking any sort of clarifying question to someone who is directly in my replies “sealioning” to you? I thought it represented an undesired and obnoxious series of questions by a third party, but I’m one of the primary participants in this conversation.

First part may be true, but I really don’t think you can directly blame China for that. The app itself is a tiny factor is the rise of the far right which has a lot more to do with the “in real life circumstances”.

I would also disagree that China gains much from a divided Europe. The argument could be made in theory, but it doesn’t align with what i’ve observed From Chinese foreign policy in practice.

The approach of amplifying divisions in other countries is more of a Russian tactic than anything. Russia stands to gain more from a divided Europe, and it would be in alignment with their foreign policy in practice. That said, I also think the Russian influence on these matters is a bit overstated at times, to the point where the actually issues aren’t being discussed. I notice it on the American side of things as well.

I guess it might help if you clarify what sort of content was propaganda to you?

They’re dabbing on us every day

“Yeah the “immigration enforcement” is blatantly my personal militia, it doesn’t have to male sense to you, you can’t do anything about it anyway. Watch me send them to Italy; see? it doesn’t matter!”

Yes, they literally explicitly said this. There also wasnt even “Chinese propaganda”, the just didn’t care to censor pro-palestine content and that’s unacceptable to the US.

Technically all of these responses are political. I think we know what OP meant though, and the discussion is all the better for it!

Tbf Gold_E_Lox was being snarky in the first place

Nobody has mentioned mattermost yet. I haven’t stress tested it by any means, but I found it too be decent.

I see, unfortunately I think it’s necessary though since the local feed is provided by the instance.