> Right now, our appetite for war stops at the gas pump.
True. And sad. We are not willing to suffer even minor inconvenience in the pursuit of defeating an enemy that has repeatedly pledged and promised to destroy us and all our values. A country that pursues nukes and sponsors terrorism.
But no ... no, we aren't willing to have higher gas prices.
@ukraine_map Yes. Of course, strategic and tactical targets should be prioritized ... but any of these in or around Moscow should be near the top. When the citizens of Moscow feel the war, Putin feels his power wobble.
@DavidVance If Moscow doesn't want to burn, the Russian army can simply leave Ukraine. It's not like there's any secret formula to figure out. Stop invading peaceful neighbors and Moscow doesn't burn.
Ukraine launches TrophyLab: we are opening access to captured Russian weapon technologies for our global partners. Every missile, drone, and vehicle seized on the battlefield is now a source of knowledge for the free world.
Through this secure platform, allied governments, labs, and defense tech manufacturers gain access to deep technical data, reports, and vulnerabilities. Users can also request physical equipment for testing, significantly shortening the development cycle for countermeasures.
What was meant to be the enemy's secret advantage is being dismantled to defend democracy. Join the platform:
🔗 https://t.co/xoeCfXsIy3
I'm not so sure about that. Iran is absolutely among the current 'axis of evil' (Russia, China, Iran, North Korea) and hurting Iran significantly does indirectly hurt Russia and China both.
The US has needed to support Ukraine more firmly for a long time, but not focusing on Iran would not have changed anything for the better.
@Legal_Fil I'm pretty sure Trump hates Zelenskyy, because Zelenskyy is the kind of leader that everyone imagines they'd be ... but actually isn't. When the moment hit and Zelenskyy asked for bullets, not a ride ... he instantly showed himself as a man better than other world leaders.
The actual problem of most of these people (at least the ones based in the USA) is that they are driven by TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome). If Trump does it, it's bad. They're not looking at actual reality and understanding that Trump can do bad (not support Ukraine) AND good (attack Iran).
This explanation of the current massive push for ID Verification despite the populace being overwhelmingly opposed ... makes a tremendous amount of sense.
Like I said in a previous post on the topic of ID/Age Verification - I started digging into the topic quite a bit, especially after that Meta lobbying exposed news dropped.
What I have (and more of others) found is something that is so stupid, but also makes a whole lot of sense...in fact imo its the perfect piece of the puzzle.
I will lay out my digging through a series of events:
1. Advertisers (ie Corporations with products or services to sell), contract with big Social media platforms, paying boatloads of money for adspace. The logic is that even if 10% of the tens of millions of users buy into their ads, its worth the investment.
2. The onset of botting, has led to ads being viewers by more bots than they do humans. No matter how many bots watch your ads, they never need your products or services. So they will never give advertisers' money and business.
3. This essentially means that, Advertisers are proverbially throwing money into the drain. Paying the price with practically no ROI. Many reports indicate that this botting problem resulted in multi-billion dollar wastage on ad spending.
4. Advertisers have started grilling social media companies, especially Meta which was one of the biggest sources of the issue. This resulted in many advertisers basically threatening to pull ad money until the botting situation is controlled.
5. The botting situation became even WORSE around 2023-2025 with the Ai-Bros and Ai Companies hard pushing Ai development. The past anti-bot systems and measures lose effectiveness as Ai makes bots more sophisticated.
6. Then late 2025/2026, you can see the SNAP. The nuclear solution - Age/ID verification being pushed or implemented across multiple countries at around the same timing (within months).
7. Then now all the news about Socmed and big tech corps lobbying politicians and governments for mass ID/Age Verification on an OS/Appstore level.
8. Why? Since you pick your poison to "age verify"...a selfie, submit your ID, or Ping your credit card. Sure your age will be "verified", but it also comes with the useful byproduct of confirming you are HUMAN.
So as a takeaway, what does this mean?
Well to me at least, this quite neatly explains why BOTH Governments and large Corporations have collaborated and colluded to push for ID Verification at an alarming pace Globally. In the end, it really was about money.
It also means quite simply in my opinion - these Corporations and Governments, NEVER really cared about "the children". "Think of the Children" imo, has always been, and will continue to be the convenient excuse for these corporations and politicians to implement this privacy-invasive system.
Because if only PROVEN humans can use social media, or other similar sites/services - Advertisers will be mollified and continue to throw money at these Big Tech corporations for continued ad space.
This ALSO means - that the so-called parents and people like the Riceman who run defence of ID Verification, are either very stupid, or complicit in this.
Either way, the only winners are the Advertisers, the Big Tech Corpos, and the Politicians. We all however, lose.
I can't stand it ... Trump's horrific actions toward Zelenskyy make no sense whatsoever. What I do know ... is that Kamala would have been worse for the USA in every way. But I love Ukraine ... I lived there for years ... and my heart bleeds for Ukrainians. And it disgusts me how Trump treats Ukraine.
This took place in the beginning of the full-scale war, on March 10, 2022.
Russian troops had planned to capture a bridgehead for an offensive on Kyiv from the left bank, but suffered a crushing defeat.
📹 securityservice_ukraine/Instagram
I'm Gen X ... so when I say this, please understand that it's a momentary rant that I'll let drop into apathy the moment it's done.
Gen X aren't boomers. In fact, we're the first generation that 'suffered' from what boomers are because they were our parents. They were off living their narcissistic leftist lives while we lived the latchkey kid experience.
And we were fine ... much better than being helicopter-parented, in my opinion. But then we grew up and more than a few of us wanted to make things different. But we're Gen X ... a tiny generation smashed between Boomers and Millennials. And Millennials came up with all their "social causes" and soy latte life and crushed any productive change Gen X was about to do with the world.
So here Gen X sits ... smashed on both ends by generations that don't get it -- Boomers and Millennials -- and unable to do much about it. That might be why the only place you see us is in podcasts 😅
My Gen X:
* Has an independent and creative spirit
* Doesn't care about likes on a screen
* Reflexively rebels against any attempts at control by government, business, or anyone else
* Doesn't expect help from anyone, is gonna get it done themselves
* Cares about privacy
* Develops deep friendships because family wasn't there
* Looks reality in the face and doesn't get offended by words, differing opinions, or debate
I feel like we had all the answers ... but the sandwich of Boomers and Millennials never let those answers manifest into society at-large. But guess what? I don't expect anyone to do anything about it ... so I'm just gonna get along myself and keep makin' it through this life they way I choose.
I hate the way Vance talks about the US administration's policy on Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
He's being completely truthful ... which is the problem.
The admin just wants it to 'stop'. It doesn't care about the evil of the aggressor or the fate of those stuck behind enemy lines. The war is considered as a 'distraction' to the US administration and it just wants it to go away.
Yet Ukraine is the clearest case of a freedom-loving people standing up for everything the US once stood for against an evil tyrant bent on destroying them. The US should be rushing to help ... but we apparently abandoned our principles long, long ago (and no, Biden wasn't good either ... he also had no courage to go in and truly defend Ukraine).
@maria_drutska Sadly ... yes. The war against Iran is good for Ukraine because it takes Iran away from helping/supplying Russia and gives Ukraine leverage with the USA and Israel ... but bad for Ukraine because Russian oil becomes very desirable for a lot of countries.
@SecrtAgntSquirl What's even more ridiculously scary is that there is an entire population out there who doesn't understand the implications and thinks its a good idea.
@AuronMacintyre Sure ... but if you look at the amount of gov't interference in the selling of TVs vs medical care and education ... you see how the distortion of capitalism ruins it and causes more pain for us all. The comparison is an excellent teacher of why we need to get gov't out.
@alyssaleann It all boils down to a taught philosophy of "maximize profits" rather than a taught philosophy of "create great products".
If we got rid of MBAs ... we'd get rid of this issue.
The war with Iran puts Ukraine in a very unique position. While the strain on oil markets is not good for Ukraine (as it puts Russia in a position of being an oil supplier that nations are interested in), the expertise Ukraine has in fighting drones makes it incredibly valuable on the world stage and Ukraine now "holds the cards" while helping the US, Israel, and multiple Gulf states.
Played right ... Ukraine will be much more powerful and influential because of the Iran conflict.