That is super fuckin awesome! If we are going to live in dystopian times, then we should have ways of learning dystopian knowledge!
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The sports world continues to do much better than the rest.
YT algo recommendationâŚ
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Seemingly in anticipation of such calls to take Chelsea from him, Abramovich reportedly still has a major trump card in the form of a $2 billion loan from him to Chelsea. Should the United Kingdom go after his assets, itâs apparently conceivable he could call on the loan and financially ruin Chelsea.
This sounds bizarre. In this scenario the country is already stripping his assetsâŚ
This American Life rebroadcast an episode about Putin this week. I remember listening to it the first time, itâs one of their best episodes I can recall:
Kyiv keeps wheels of state turning under Russian bombardment
Government, economy and banking systems still function even as Putinâs troops surround the capital
âWe were told the first obligation is you have to stay alive; the second obligation is you cannot be captured by Russian forces, because if the Russian forces have MPs under their control, we will be forced to vote at gunpoint for some kind of capitulation.â"
Those apartments would make some pretty swank shelters for the homeless.
Good to see more tech getting in on the action.
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The complete 100% mobilisation of the entire business, banking, tech, sports, commerce and everything else against Russia is completely nuts. Oil companies taking billion dollar write-downs to bail on co-Russian projects? Switzerland breaking its normal stance of neutrality? Itâs all insane.
I didnât expect this at all. Has there ever been a conflict or other cause that has had such a swift and one-sided response? I canât think of one.
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It definitely feels unprecedented on certain of those fronts. My takes is their response is a bit of an awareness that this is more or less Russia âcrossing the Fuldaâ that was feared about decades prior so itâs time to put up or loose all respect.
I certainly feel for those who are in Russia and are, or about to be, majorly deuced on by all this economic decline; but, glad to see something actually being done.
Itâs undoubtedly historic, and the results will have huge impacts on the future of diplomacy. Weâve seen heavy sanctions used in the past in Cuba, Iran, etc. But will this work? If most of the world agrees that one nation is misbehaving, and agrees to just cut them off, is that strong enough to avert a more extreme military conflict? I hope so.
I try to imagine if this had happened to the US after we did some evil invading shit. THAT would have been very interesting.
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Appleâs going a bit slow here, but theyâre going. It would be pretty exciting if they disabled access to all Apple services in Russia. Just all iCloud, Apple TV, app store, no apple maps, everything just turned off if youâre in Russia. Would be cool if everyone else did the same. Of course, they still have their Yandex or whatev, but nothing can be done about that.
I think whatâs going to be really telling.
IF (huge if), somehow Ukraine is not conquered, what will happen then? How much will the rest of the world truly come to their aid? And I donât mean the large amount of self-interested, profiteering, foreign investment that will rush in. I mean sustained generous support for the long haul. The kind of thing that Iâve basically never seen given to any country ever.
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Can I âwell actuallyâ you about the Marshall Plan? It seems that youâre describing exactly that.
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Yes, you can. I was only thinking of the more recent times.
This war in Ukraine is the same war. Weâre still in the same times.
I supposed yes, a few millennia from now historians might see it that way. Iâm sure in the middle ages they didnât consider all those different conflicts to all just be part of the 100 yearsâ war.
Despite the fact that the roots of many of these wars go way back, there has been dramatic social and technological change in much of the world in our lives. So even if we view this as a continuation of the 20th century, the context in which it is taking place is dramatically different.
Of course, there are so many parallels to draw. I canât help but see how the citizen digital activism happening now isnât much different than the old âbuy war bonds.â
No, itâs not that it will be seen that way millennia in the future, but itâs the only way to see it now.
At the end of WWII, the Marshall plan funded the development of Western Europe, with specific measures to increase trade and cooperation between nations, which led to things like the European Union. The Russians had âcomparableâ plans for Eastern Europe, but were mostly about keeping control from Moscow, and in some cases reaping reparations from them for being axis aligned.
The current war in Ukraine is literally a continuation of the Cold War, which was a continuation of WWII. Thereâs no way to disentangle it, and no current historians try to do so.
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No The Batman for RussiaâŚ
Just an observation:
Have had to unfollow several people on the socials this week for repeatedly implying or promoting the idea that the presence of Nazis and racism in Ukraine somehow makes them unworthy of sympathy or support. Feels like the Russian propaganda machine is running at full throttle right now and the veil of good faith is slipping for many of its more subtle operatives.
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