It says nothing of the sort. If "neurodivergent" people are going to imagine insults where there are none, that cannot be helped.
6,129 karma · joined July 8, 2022
Ignorance is bliss I guess? I prefer to know. Usually I don't call people out, but I still prefer to know.
The other billionaire funded disruptive space startup has proven themselves less competent than "old space". Jeff Bezos founded Blue Origin two years before SpaceX, and they've still accomplished a fat lot of nothing. Their most significant accomplishment to date is stalling ULA's Vulcan rocket for years, because they couldn't deliver engines on time. They still haven't been to orbit.
> All the conquistador really has to do is gallop in and show what is possible.
They were massively outnumbered, lost all their artillery and most of their horses. Nothing about what they did was easy, they only survived because they were better at politics than the Aztecs, and made many regional alliances. And because they got extremely lucky. It defies logic and all rational expectation that so many were able to escape Tenochtitlan with their lives. If not for their native allies, they surely never would have been heard from again.
> But when you get past that disruption phase the conquistadors often fall down.
Broken analogy. Despite their rocky start, the conquistadors would come to utterly dominated the native cultures (including their former allies.)
> Steve Jobs 2.0 (the return) vs ugly beige box PCs.
And we're all worse off for it. We, the aggregate computer consumers, have chosen a shiny prison instead of shabby freedom. Despite increased public awareness for environmental concerns, our computers have become increasingly less repairable. Apple's most significant innovation has been turning computers into fashion items that get replaced while still useful to avoid looking uncool.
> it remains to be seen if SpaceX will hold it together.
No more than the rest of the space industry, who are all still very far behind SpaceX. The whole thing may collapse if nerds ever figure out that Mars colonies aren't happening, but by all rights that realization should have come years ago.
I don't give a damn what your god thinks. Or are you responding to C.S. Lewis's beliefs? Quoting a Christian doesn't make me a Christian, least of all when the quote doesn't even present a religious argument.
That's how the road to hell is paved.
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
- C. S. Lewis
Indeed. With every day that goes by without NATO publicly publishing proof of Russia being the culprit, Russian responsibility seems less likely. If Russia did it, going public with that proof would be great for America/NATO and harmful to Russia.
The language "trouble surviving the winter" plainly suggests massive numbers of Germans freezing to death, which isn't going to happen. Even if I grant that this claim is talking about damage to the German economy (I don't) it is unlikely that the German economy will collapse during this winter. The economic ramifications will be felt for many years to come but there is no chance of Germany ceasing to exist this winter as claimed above.
> And let’s not forget that economic harm inflicted from abroad is precisely what gave rise to WWII.
Fear of that sort of scenario should mostly be focused on Russia, who are going to lose a war as Germany lost WW1, and will be looking for scapegoats. Besides Russia, I can think of other countries which have suffered far more economic damage due to this war than Germany. Particularly, the one that actually got invaded. Germany's economy is still strong and healthy compared to Ukraine's.
Or maybe those courts which could somehow force Russia to pay fines for turning off gas should force Russia to pay fines for invading Ukraine.
That's a shakey presumption. 3 out of 4 may have been a compromise between the arguments for taking out the pipelines and the arguments against it. We cannot know for certain how many pipelines the attacker, whoever it was, intended to destroy.
Exaggerating (very real) economic harm as an existential matter of survival is silly. Germany's survival is not in doubt.
Which pipeline? They don't have pipelines to Asia that can handle the gas they meant to send through Nordstream.
Not weakness. A proxy war is much safer than an overt war between nuclear powers. It would be irrational to escalate unless there was no other choice. Since feigning ignorance is a choice, that's preferable to escalation. The ability to maintain this status quo, in which Russia depletes itself in a quagmire, is very advantageous to NATO. Maintaining this status quo is a show of NATO's strength.
If NATO let itself get baited into an overt war with Russia, that would be weakness.
Relax, they're going to be fine.
A targeted attack against a strategic resource, during a war, with no [direct] civilian casualties. This doesn't meet the common definitions of terrorism. This is equivalent to bombing train yards, not city centers. The best argument for it being terrorism is the civilians who may freeze to death this winter, but even that is dubious.
Doubtful. I think the most rational reason Russia might have done it was to remove a bargaining chip from any Russian challengers to Putin. But this seems like a stretch; if Putin thought some gazprom executive was going to use the pipeline to negotiate a peace with Europe, he'd probably just order that executive and his family murdered. That seems to be the way he operates.
Self-sabotage to preempt coups is not unheard of though. The organizational dysfunction and poorly trained state of several militaries around the world is probably attributable in part to self-sabotage, by politicians who fear military coups.
Yes, that's a distinct possibility. The US and UK are tight, particularly with underwater stuff. They have a history of sharing submarine secrets with each other. Even reactor technology and screw/pumpjet design. That's some of the most secret stuff America and the UK have, and they share it with each other. It's fair to suspect that one may have consulted with the other before doing something like this.