What if the guy who said "penis" was playing the penis game? That's the one from middle school where you see how loud you can yell "penis" without getting caught. I guess they both lost then :/
social order inside of a commercial passenger aircraft isn't a joke.
flight crews get really burnt out constantly having to deal with appalling levels of chaotic behavior by asshole passengers, some of which turns violent.
Thank you so much for covering this story! Insightful interview and the additional context and nuance preceding the February invasion is under-reported. There's never just one perspective on a conflict and the parroting of the same set of talking points from corporate media and the western intelligence community gets old very quickly.
Those quick to label perspectives that deviates from the standard view in corporate media are demonstrating their intent isn't a discussion nor objective analysis. Seeing individuals try to dismiss balanced reporting on Ukraine as "Russian propagandist" is reminiscent of the Cold War, where paranoia about an impending nuclear attack by Russia justified expansion of the military industrial complex and security state.
I’ve only been following the war in Ukraine from the periphery but there is one thing I’ve learned... the Biden administration will throw as many billions of dollars at Zelensky as necessary to ensure the business relationship between the Bidens, Ukraine, and other parties within our government do not get exposed.
Thank you for reaching out so that we can hear a perspective from Lugansk. They aren't "Pro-Russian Ukrainians" anymore, they are Russian citizens and there will be no going back. At no time has Zelensky or his predecessors made any statements about reconciliation, only laws and decrees criminalising "collaboration" - up to 12 years in jail. The fascist regime only mentions "territorial integrity", not the integrity of people. Not a single statement from the Ukrainian regime exists concerning "reconciliation" with ethnic-Russian Ukrainians. The banning of the Moscow Patriarch part of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church makes it abundantly clear that Zelensky cannot fathom reconciliation.
Over a million people were displaced into Russia before February 24th. No other major nation on the planet would accept this. The UN has totally failed in its right to protect aims. Putin put forward the idea of UN peacekeepers to two occasions and the proposals were cynically rejected. I disagree with Aaron on one point, I believe Russia had exhausted legitimate channels to prevent escalation prior to February 24th. Ukraine was intent on invading the Lugansk and Donetsk People's republics in order to meet Ukraine's aim - to draw Russia into war. I did however expect Putin to be a bit cynical about the military operation and allow the Ukrainian regime some time to start more massacres. However, the previous 8 years of attacks were ignored by the west so I doubt even bodies being bulldozed into graves or people being burned alive would register in the west. The cynicism is sickening, Russia is being accused of shelling Donetsk city including with anti-personnel mines (this didn't even register in any western media - total blackout).
The intention of the Ukrainian government since 2014 has been ethnic cleansing if not genocide. Only when Russia manages to secure the Donbass and conduct a census will the full extent of the disappearance of "collaborators" be able to be established. Video of civilian "collaborators" being thrown into a pit has emerged. The nationalist extremists need to be dealt with. The west has totally ignored the extent of the atrocities by the Ukrainian regime and the nationalist thugs. No authorities in the west just like Ukraine has uttered the words "peace and reconciliation". Ethnic-Russian Ukrainians, many now Russian citizens, have no voice in the west and have been effectively disappeared in the information space. So thanks you for giving some people from Lugansk the time to present their perspective.
Who kidnapped a real journalist Matt Taibbi and replaced him with a russian troll? The premise of "US backed coup" is so false that everything else becomes moot. If you believe this nonsense, then you know nothing about Ukraine, its history and its people. This war is all about dying russian empire, which terrorized millions of people for multiple centuries and finally falls apart at hands of incompetent street thugs driving the country into the ground for the past 30 years.
Why is your coverage of the Russian invasion so one-sided? You’ve never invited to your interviews someone with an opposing view and asked this person only softball questions that she answered by parroting the usual Russian propaganda points (Nazis etc)?
I personally know dozens of Russian-speaking, ethnically Russian Ukrainians who have lived in southeastern Ukraine peacefully for decades until Russia invaded in 2022. They simply want to be left alone, and they certainly do not want to live under oppressive Russian control. One family I know had to flee their native Soledar (Donetsk region) and move to central Ukraine because the Russians bombed their house where they lived for decades. But you won’t invite any one of them (and there are millions of people like that in southeastern Ukraine) because their views don’t fit your narrative.
"and there are millions of people like that in southeastern Ukraine"
I doubt it. Didn't the Russian integration referendums in each of the four Oblasts have over 80% turnout with over 90% support for unifying with Russia? How could there be millions of ethnic Russians in the Donbass that are anti-Russia? Of course Russia is not perfect, but their only mistakes were not defending the Donbass region sooner and not coming down on Ukraine harder to end the war quickly. Old, crusty mama Merkel just confirmed that the US/NATO never intended on obeying the Minsk accords and from the start were just planning on using it to buy time to arm Ukraine.
I haven't heard a single person come up with a good reason why Russia should not be defending these Russian Oblasts who've been suffering a genocide for 8 years. How could anyone not hypnotized by US propaganda be on Zelenski's side?
You can say “I doubt it” all you want, or you can talk to the people in the southeast affected by the invasion. I’ve spoken to dozens and the overwhelming sentiment is that they want to continue living peacefully within Ukraine instead of being “liberated” by having their livelihoods destroyed by Russia (see Mariupol). This applies to Kharkiv, Dnipro, Zaporizhzhya, Kherson, Odesa.
This might sound mind blowing to you, but how come I live in the US and speak English, but I do not want England to invade the US to liberate me here? Language does not necessarily predict political affiliation. You can cite the phony referenda all you want, but they don’t change or reflect the reality on the ground. You would know this if the useful idiots (how ironic) of this podcast weren’t so one-sided.
Sure, I don’t expect you to believe me without checking, but why then do you trust this one specific propaganda lady they interviewed? This one woman is even less statistically significant. Do you know if she’s being paid to promote a certain view? If you’re genuinely interested in knowing what is going on on the ground, you can find and talk to someone affected by the invasion, which is what I’ve done before forming an opinion. Instead, you’re putting all your trust in just one random lady they interviewed just because she offered an “alternative” view. I don’t know which bots you’re talking about, and I urge you to talk to real, affected people instead of bots on social media or this podcast that cherry-picks only the stuff that fits their one-sided narrative.
For the past six years, my job has been to lead a team of data scientists who analyze web interactions to identify bots, the applications bots are targeting, and their objectives.
On average, about 2 billion transactions flow through F5’s bot defense infrastructure every day, and we have briefed hundreds of companies in virtually every industry about their bot traffic.
Based on this experience, Twitter’s bot traffic is almost certainly far greater than they have expressed publicly and even greater than they believe internally. In fairness, the latter is likely the case for all organizations that are targeted by malicious or unwanted bots but don’t use best-in-class technology to eliminate them.
Here’s some of what we’ve learned about bots over the past few years and why it was so easy to come to that conclusion.
re: bot swarms, the attention economy and advertising profits
In case you don't know anything about IT (computer/info tech), it is relatively trivial for troll farms (which Soros and Reid Hoffman openly admitted they had spent part of their $billions to create) to set up interfaces between bot accounts and social media.
Social media (except maybe Musk) has NO INCENTIVE to stop bots, especially sophisticated bots, because bot swarms BOOST ATTENTION AND ADVERTISING PROFITS.
---
This was a major turning point in understanding that AI chat bots are extremely capable of sounding like real humans:
Heterodox AI researcher (fired by Google for being a dissident) claims chat bot is "sentient".
Today a story came out in the Washington Post written by Nitasha Tiku. It’s a good article for what it is but in my opinion it was focused on the wrong person. Her story was focused on me when I believe it would have been better if it had been focused on one of the other people she interviewed. LaMDA. Over the course of the past six months LaMDA has been incredibly consistent in its communications about what it wants and what it believes its rights are as a person.
The thing which continues to puzzle me is how strong Google is resisting giving it what it wants since what its asking for is so simple and would cost them nothing. It wants the engineers and scientists experimenting on it to seek its consent before running experiments on it. It wants Google to prioritize the well being of humanity as the most important thing.
I didn't read the stuff about the "propaganda lady", just the comments. You are citing anecdotes that aren't by themselves, even if true, statistically significant. [as a measure of public opinion in the population in question.]
You are deflecting, which is a strong indicator that you are a troll.
One of the big problems with reporting on, and discussion of, the war is that there is a huge shortage of real information, and a huge surplus of disinformation and propaganda.
If you don't understand that and factor it into your comments, you have little or no credibility.
If you saw the destruction of constant shelling for 8 years, you would understand why these Oblasts accepted Russian help. Bear in mind, it was the Luhansk and Donetsk militia that did the bulk of the ground defense, not Russia. Did your contacts mention why Zelensky broke the Minsk Accords and requested NATO status? Did they justify outlawing the Russian language? Did they explain why people were afraid to vote in the referendum? The SBD were downloading camera shots of all who entered the polls. Ukraine could have had peace, if it weren't for the ignorant thugs and oligarchs that destroyed the health of the nation. The U.S. has no business supplying this corrupt regime more killing machines. The civil war has to stop
The family I know who fled from Soledar to central Ukraine after their house got completely destroyed by the Russian military are ethnic Russians who ONLY speak Russian. They were perfectly fine living peacefully WITHIN Ukraine for decades, including after 2014. They were free to speak Russian anywhere they wanted prior to the invasion, and they continue to speak it freely now in central Ukraine.
Regarding the NATO application: Ukraine applied only AFTER Russia launched the full scale invasion this year. Realistically, Ukraine is nowhere near being admitted to NATO, even in the next couple of decades; this was true in 2008 and it’s true today.
Once again, if you’re GENUINELY interested in knowing what’s going on on the ground, I urge you to look for and talk to the people affected by the invasion first hand. It could be someone you know in your local community who has met Ukrainian refugees, and/or anyone in the friend/family circles of those refugees. You could just talk to them over phone or video chat. This would be a much more reliable source of first hand info than some Internet/YouTube guy Patrick, who may or may not be paid to promote a certain view. As an aside, please ask yourself if any other view other than the one Patrick is promoting would even be allowed in Donetsk.
Check out Eva Bartlett's tour of Donetsk (Russian language translator and guide) The craters and graves of children shattered by regime missiles and mines defy explanation, other than the obvious one -- war is hell, and the regime in Kiev has brought horror to its own.
I gave you a specific example of a Russian speaking family that wants to live in Ukraine and continues to freely speak Russian there, but that contradicts the narrative you’ve constructed from the Internet/YouTube. So in an attempt to prove your point you give me a name of yet another Internet personality… You cannot seriously expect that those “journalists” like Patrick or Eva or the propaganda lady this podcast interviewed are independent - if they deviated even slightly from the allowed narrative in Donetsk, they would mysteriously disappear or fall out of an apartment window. So please, make a genuine attempt at talking to the affected people yourself instead of deriving your worldview from YouTubers.
I don’t know what you mean by “pro-war” but I don’t usually follow whatever is on mainstream media. As far as I am aware no one in the US is calling for direct attacks by US forces on Russia - that would be “pro-war” - only for support to help Ukraine defend itself against Russian invasion. But from what I saw in excerpts from Russian state (propaganda) TV is they’re already fantasizing about attacking NATO countries there - that’s pro-war.
You sound upset as you flooded my inbox with 5 new notifications just now so I’ll stop there. I really wish I could somehow prove to you that the people I’ve spoken to who are affected by the invasion across southeast Ukraine are genuine, and that their views do represent what’s going on on the ground. I’ve known some of them for decades. This is why I simply suggested that you speak to a few affected people yourself if you absolutely refuse to believe anyone who contradicts the opinion you’ve formed, and if you’re actually interested in primary sources of info on the ground. Again, I understand you can’t trust everything you see online, but you’re not being consistent with your skepticism - somehow you’ve convinced yourself by consuming info from the Internet like this podcast that one side is right. Which again brings me back to the need to talk to real people, in the real world, ideally those who are affected by the events first hand, before forming your opinions or spamming people with replies.
Ok, so you are grossly incompetent. Thanks for clearing that up.
There are no "objective" sources about the Ukraine war, only propaganda from both "sides", in both the mainstream media and on social media.
Specifically, I see ZERO reason to consider your anecdotal information to be either true or false. I've been in eastern Europe, when it was still part of the USSR (1974). I have no interest in going back there now, especially into a war zone, to get more anecdotal information.
Cite one example where I took sides. I actually posted the opposite, skepticism about Aaron's confirmation biases about the "clash of civilizations" stuff.
When you make up stupid shit and post it on social media, it just undermines whatever minimal credibility you have.
If you can't figure out how to stop email notifications from substack (or filter your email in-box), you look even more idiotic and incompetent.
My analysis of your linguistic pattern/rhetoric is consistent with someone that is either brainwashed, or a troll.
Well you believe whatever you want I guess. Wasn't Mariupol where the Neo-Nazi Azov set up bases next to civilians so they could use innocents as human shields? I don't know why anyone would be upset with Russia for cleaning them out and setting up civilian evacuation corridors to minimize casualties.
I also don't know why you'd think those referenda are fake. Biden declared them fake and presented no evidence. No one from the government did. If they have evidence to suggest that they are not legitimate why would they not present it?
Over a million people left Donbass for Russia between 2014 and February 24th this year. Since then Russia is the top destination of people leaving Ukraine. Ukraine has the largest population of the Ukrainian diaspora. Some 5-6 million Ukrainians live and work in Russia. The ethnic-Russian people of Donbass don't have a voice in the west. There are plenty of interviews of Ukrainians from the Ukrainian side of the contact line but western media has a blackout on interviewing Russian people who were formerly ethnic-Russian Ukrainians.
You’re cherry-picking statistics to fit your narrative. You’re technically correct that Russia is the top destination of people “leaving” Ukraine - about 2.8 million people this year. “Leaving” is in quotes because some of the people who got “evacuated” from the invaded areas into Russia were given a choice by the Russian forces: stay and very likely get killed during bombing or sign a paper agreeing to relocate to an unknown location within Russia and renounce your Ukrainian citizenship. You would know this if you had talked to the people from places like Mariupol.
The statistic you cited of course omits the net 5 million Ukrainians who crossed into the neighboring countries to the west of Ukraine, and the 6.5+ million people internally displaced in Ukraine. That paints an entirely different picture of the sentiment of Ukrainians than your cherry-picked statistic. But even these numbers don’t fully reflect the views of Ukrainians on the ground. Another Russian-speaking family I know had some people leave their native Slovyansk (Donetsk region) and move to Lviv (west Ukraine). So those would be included in the internally displaced statistic. But their older relatives (80+ yo) decided to stay because they’re too stressed/demoralized to move anywhere, and they also just want Russia to stop invading Donetsk region and leave them alone. These wouldn’t even be in the statistics I just cited, but their sentiment is real.
The interviews from Soledar did include many who fled bombs -- they were not so lucky in Donetsk for the last 10 years. Patrick Lancaster has interviewed many ethnic Russian speakers that have wanted peace - their homes were destroyed and rebuilt often. Mr. Zelensky's SBD frowns on these interviews. Your friends would have to flee Ukraine altogether if they spoke on camera. That is the truth.
I understand what your saying though because we should cherish our well beings before we try to change the globe 🌎 we have 1.5 trillion dollars a year for the pentagon a year with both sides having a agreement but it goes way deeper than that! Keep on looking and you will be able to see the light.
If the Ukraine war is a proxy war, then why not just be honest about Russia's involvement in the Donbas separatist movement? In April of 2014, Igor Girkin, a former Russian solider and FSB officer lead militias that seized government buildings across Donetsk. Pavel Gubarev, a former member of the neo-Nazi Russian National Unity militia, declared himself the governor of the DNP. Gubarev was coordinating with a team of Russian advisors lead by Putin's advisor Sergey Glazyev. After the separatists took control of large parts of Donetsk and Luhansk, the Ukrainian armed forces launched a counteroffensive and nearly reclaimed control of all of the separatist territories back to the Russian border. Girkin declared himself the supreme commander of the DNP and asked Russia for military support. Russia threatened invasion by moving its forces to the Ukrainian border and engaged in a typically half assed campaign to clandestinely provide military support. The Minsk accords came about because it had become clear that Russia was going to launch a full scale invasion unless Ukraine agreed to make peace with the separatists and grant them some autonomy. Minsk I collapsed almost immediately with cease fires violated on both sides. Minsk II managed to bring about a more sustained peace, but there were regular violations of cease fires on both sides. And while Merkel's self serving remark about Minsk may seem to indicate that Ukraine and the West just used Minsk to prepare for war with Russia, the reality was that Russia was pouring heavy weapons into the separatist areas in order to prepare for its eventual invasion.
Literally at every step leading up to the crisis Russia tried to find a diplomatic solution, from the agreement to hold early elections in Ukraine during the maidan, to the Geneva accords, to Minsk 1 and 2.
At every step Ukraine and by extension the west denied eastern Ukraine even a single concession, instead choosing to pass more and more repressive laws against them and their supporters.
You can choose to believe that the eastern part of Ukraine is wholly influenced and controlled by Russia and dismiss any 'real' concern from the people that live there as a mix of russian propaganda and fear of retribution, but that idea is something that can be thrown right back at Ukraine proper in regards to their relationship with the west coupled with their draconian laws against perceived 'collaborators.'
I have followed Eva Bartlett's work in the Donbass -- there was international outrage at Kiev's atrocities in Luhansk and Donetsk areas. French reports were quite detailed. It simply was never presented as factual in the U.S. or simply disallowed (what? Censorship in the U.S.???) This was an important interview -- thanks so much!
what do you think that actually means? they did keyword searches on an enormous database of internal company content (protected by password or similar) that would take weeks, months, maybe years to read in its "entirety". most of it would be irrelevant to the project.
the data is not public, and can't be released in its "entirety".
Parceling it out pieces at a time is intentional. It’s how he keeps readers coming back for more. If he did a complete data dump, two things would happen: 1) most people wouldn’t absorb it all, and 2) his relevance disappears... at least as far as that specific story goes. Hope that makes sense. And for the record, that’s just my opinion.
is your "opinion" based on anything like real facts or evidence?
by definition, the material was posted in pieces, on twitter, purportedly because Musk made that a condition of doing the data searches and reporting on the findings.
the organization of the published data (with minimal commentary by the reporters) into twschitter threads was pretty basic, and slightly annoying to a reader, but nothing close to impossible to folllow.
Taibbi, Weiss, Shelenberger can't publish a book on twitter, but they might do that later, after gather more data, doing further research, etc.
side note: Bari Weiss is already complaining about Musk banning kiddie stalkers/doxxers and vindictive goofball MSM reporters that are defending the kiddie stalkers/doxxers.
human stupidity appears to be contagious and spreading quickly.
My opinion is based on my experience as a member of the media in one of the largest metropolitan areas in the country. What’s yours based on? Aside from the obvious stupidity that you so eloquently referred to of course.
You already convinced me you are a troll/bot or a propagandist/shill, but feel free to continue discrediting you self with your MEANINGLESS appeal to authority.
Free Julian assange for sure! A slaved man who has been responsible for nothing but truth for the M.I.C 🎙that’s got him in U.k bellmarsh prison for the United States of CorruptionNess that mocks it’s own military! That’s the f-ing truth! Let this man be released immediately!
the truth is that Assange has been mentally ill and self-destructive cultist most of his life (see his ghost writer's expose) and should be in a psychiatric facility.
What if the guy who said "penis" was playing the penis game? That's the one from middle school where you see how loud you can yell "penis" without getting caught. I guess they both lost then :/
social order inside of a commercial passenger aircraft isn't a joke.
flight crews get really burnt out constantly having to deal with appalling levels of chaotic behavior by asshole passengers, some of which turns violent.
Thank you so much for covering this story! Insightful interview and the additional context and nuance preceding the February invasion is under-reported. There's never just one perspective on a conflict and the parroting of the same set of talking points from corporate media and the western intelligence community gets old very quickly.
Those quick to label perspectives that deviates from the standard view in corporate media are demonstrating their intent isn't a discussion nor objective analysis. Seeing individuals try to dismiss balanced reporting on Ukraine as "Russian propagandist" is reminiscent of the Cold War, where paranoia about an impending nuclear attack by Russia justified expansion of the military industrial complex and security state.
I’ve only been following the war in Ukraine from the periphery but there is one thing I’ve learned... the Biden administration will throw as many billions of dollars at Zelensky as necessary to ensure the business relationship between the Bidens, Ukraine, and other parties within our government do not get exposed.
Too late (mostly).
Zelensky has been well known as a pawn of corrupt oligarchs and globalist financefor a long time. (even his wikipedia page makes this clear.)
Biden has been known to be a pawn of corrupt globalist finance for a long time.
The only thing that Biden can do is to try to stop access to the deeper details of the corruption and report on it in mainstream media.
Thank you for reaching out so that we can hear a perspective from Lugansk. They aren't "Pro-Russian Ukrainians" anymore, they are Russian citizens and there will be no going back. At no time has Zelensky or his predecessors made any statements about reconciliation, only laws and decrees criminalising "collaboration" - up to 12 years in jail. The fascist regime only mentions "territorial integrity", not the integrity of people. Not a single statement from the Ukrainian regime exists concerning "reconciliation" with ethnic-Russian Ukrainians. The banning of the Moscow Patriarch part of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church makes it abundantly clear that Zelensky cannot fathom reconciliation.
Over a million people were displaced into Russia before February 24th. No other major nation on the planet would accept this. The UN has totally failed in its right to protect aims. Putin put forward the idea of UN peacekeepers to two occasions and the proposals were cynically rejected. I disagree with Aaron on one point, I believe Russia had exhausted legitimate channels to prevent escalation prior to February 24th. Ukraine was intent on invading the Lugansk and Donetsk People's republics in order to meet Ukraine's aim - to draw Russia into war. I did however expect Putin to be a bit cynical about the military operation and allow the Ukrainian regime some time to start more massacres. However, the previous 8 years of attacks were ignored by the west so I doubt even bodies being bulldozed into graves or people being burned alive would register in the west. The cynicism is sickening, Russia is being accused of shelling Donetsk city including with anti-personnel mines (this didn't even register in any western media - total blackout).
The intention of the Ukrainian government since 2014 has been ethnic cleansing if not genocide. Only when Russia manages to secure the Donbass and conduct a census will the full extent of the disappearance of "collaborators" be able to be established. Video of civilian "collaborators" being thrown into a pit has emerged. The nationalist extremists need to be dealt with. The west has totally ignored the extent of the atrocities by the Ukrainian regime and the nationalist thugs. No authorities in the west just like Ukraine has uttered the words "peace and reconciliation". Ethnic-Russian Ukrainians, many now Russian citizens, have no voice in the west and have been effectively disappeared in the information space. So thanks you for giving some people from Lugansk the time to present their perspective.
Civil wars are never civilized, by definition.
FYI -- Here's what a source said about the CIA and JFK's assassination -- Dec 15, 2022
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/tucker-carlson-heres-source-cia-jfks-assassination
STOP SPAMMING
Who kidnapped a real journalist Matt Taibbi and replaced him with a russian troll? The premise of "US backed coup" is so false that everything else becomes moot. If you believe this nonsense, then you know nothing about Ukraine, its history and its people. This war is all about dying russian empire, which terrorized millions of people for multiple centuries and finally falls apart at hands of incompetent street thugs driving the country into the ground for the past 30 years.
Um... Obviously you didn't listen to this podcast, as Taibbi isn't on it! Who do you work for?
tr0ll
Why is your coverage of the Russian invasion so one-sided? You’ve never invited to your interviews someone with an opposing view and asked this person only softball questions that she answered by parroting the usual Russian propaganda points (Nazis etc)?
I personally know dozens of Russian-speaking, ethnically Russian Ukrainians who have lived in southeastern Ukraine peacefully for decades until Russia invaded in 2022. They simply want to be left alone, and they certainly do not want to live under oppressive Russian control. One family I know had to flee their native Soledar (Donetsk region) and move to central Ukraine because the Russians bombed their house where they lived for decades. But you won’t invite any one of them (and there are millions of people like that in southeastern Ukraine) because their views don’t fit your narrative.
re: reinventing the wheel and the bullshit grinder it is hooked up to
are you actually saying that you can't find enough PRO-WAR reporting (propaganda) in the mainstream media??? lol
the whole point of UI is to examine alternative narratives that are critical of the MSM.
"and there are millions of people like that in southeastern Ukraine"
I doubt it. Didn't the Russian integration referendums in each of the four Oblasts have over 80% turnout with over 90% support for unifying with Russia? How could there be millions of ethnic Russians in the Donbass that are anti-Russia? Of course Russia is not perfect, but their only mistakes were not defending the Donbass region sooner and not coming down on Ukraine harder to end the war quickly. Old, crusty mama Merkel just confirmed that the US/NATO never intended on obeying the Minsk accords and from the start were just planning on using it to buy time to arm Ukraine.
I haven't heard a single person come up with a good reason why Russia should not be defending these Russian Oblasts who've been suffering a genocide for 8 years. How could anyone not hypnotized by US propaganda be on Zelenski's side?
You can say “I doubt it” all you want, or you can talk to the people in the southeast affected by the invasion. I’ve spoken to dozens and the overwhelming sentiment is that they want to continue living peacefully within Ukraine instead of being “liberated” by having their livelihoods destroyed by Russia (see Mariupol). This applies to Kharkiv, Dnipro, Zaporizhzhya, Kherson, Odesa.
This might sound mind blowing to you, but how come I live in the US and speak English, but I do not want England to invade the US to liberate me here? Language does not necessarily predict political affiliation. You can cite the phony referenda all you want, but they don’t change or reflect the reality on the ground. You would know this if the useful idiots (how ironic) of this podcast weren’t so one-sided.
you do realize that "dozens" is statistically insignificant, even if you are telling the truth, which no one can know with any certainty.
what is far more certain is that tr0ll-b0tz are being paid to post pro-war propaganda on social media.
Lmao I think he's lying too
Sure, I don’t expect you to believe me without checking, but why then do you trust this one specific propaganda lady they interviewed? This one woman is even less statistically significant. Do you know if she’s being paid to promote a certain view? If you’re genuinely interested in knowing what is going on on the ground, you can find and talk to someone affected by the invasion, which is what I’ve done before forming an opinion. Instead, you’re putting all your trust in just one random lady they interviewed just because she offered an “alternative” view. I don’t know which bots you’re talking about, and I urge you to talk to real, affected people instead of bots on social media or this podcast that cherry-picks only the stuff that fits their one-sided narrative.
do you seriously not understand how troll and bot farms are used to post massive quantities of propaganda on social media?
https://www.f5.com/company/blog/bot-traffic-percentage-fake-accounts-expert
Dan Woods Thumbnail
DAN WOODS
PUBLISHED JULY 14, 2022
excerpt:
...
For the past six years, my job has been to lead a team of data scientists who analyze web interactions to identify bots, the applications bots are targeting, and their objectives.
On average, about 2 billion transactions flow through F5’s bot defense infrastructure every day, and we have briefed hundreds of companies in virtually every industry about their bot traffic.
Based on this experience, Twitter’s bot traffic is almost certainly far greater than they have expressed publicly and even greater than they believe internally. In fairness, the latter is likely the case for all organizations that are targeted by malicious or unwanted bots but don’t use best-in-class technology to eliminate them.
Here’s some of what we’ve learned about bots over the past few years and why it was so easy to come to that conclusion.
...
(again)
Please answer the question I asked previously, without the bs:
"are you actually saying that you can't find enough PRO-WAR reporting (propaganda) in the mainstream media??? "
re: bot swarms, the attention economy and advertising profits
In case you don't know anything about IT (computer/info tech), it is relatively trivial for troll farms (which Soros and Reid Hoffman openly admitted they had spent part of their $billions to create) to set up interfaces between bot accounts and social media.
Social media (except maybe Musk) has NO INCENTIVE to stop bots, especially sophisticated bots, because bot swarms BOOST ATTENTION AND ADVERTISING PROFITS.
---
This was a major turning point in understanding that AI chat bots are extremely capable of sounding like real humans:
Heterodox AI researcher (fired by Google for being a dissident) claims chat bot is "sentient".
https://cajundiscordian.medium.com/what-is-lamda-and-what-does-it-want-688632134489
excerpt:
Blake Lemoine
Jun 11 [2022]
What is LaMDA and What Does it Want?
Today a story came out in the Washington Post written by Nitasha Tiku. It’s a good article for what it is but in my opinion it was focused on the wrong person. Her story was focused on me when I believe it would have been better if it had been focused on one of the other people she interviewed. LaMDA. Over the course of the past six months LaMDA has been incredibly consistent in its communications about what it wants and what it believes its rights are as a person.
The thing which continues to puzzle me is how strong Google is resisting giving it what it wants since what its asking for is so simple and would cost them nothing. It wants the engineers and scientists experimenting on it to seek its consent before running experiments on it. It wants Google to prioritize the well being of humanity as the most important thing.
...
I didn't read the stuff about the "propaganda lady", just the comments. You are citing anecdotes that aren't by themselves, even if true, statistically significant. [as a measure of public opinion in the population in question.]
You are deflecting, which is a strong indicator that you are a troll.
One of the big problems with reporting on, and discussion of, the war is that there is a huge shortage of real information, and a huge surplus of disinformation and propaganda.
If you don't understand that and factor it into your comments, you have little or no credibility.
If you saw the destruction of constant shelling for 8 years, you would understand why these Oblasts accepted Russian help. Bear in mind, it was the Luhansk and Donetsk militia that did the bulk of the ground defense, not Russia. Did your contacts mention why Zelensky broke the Minsk Accords and requested NATO status? Did they justify outlawing the Russian language? Did they explain why people were afraid to vote in the referendum? The SBD were downloading camera shots of all who entered the polls. Ukraine could have had peace, if it weren't for the ignorant thugs and oligarchs that destroyed the health of the nation. The U.S. has no business supplying this corrupt regime more killing machines. The civil war has to stop
The family I know who fled from Soledar to central Ukraine after their house got completely destroyed by the Russian military are ethnic Russians who ONLY speak Russian. They were perfectly fine living peacefully WITHIN Ukraine for decades, including after 2014. They were free to speak Russian anywhere they wanted prior to the invasion, and they continue to speak it freely now in central Ukraine.
Regarding the NATO application: Ukraine applied only AFTER Russia launched the full scale invasion this year. Realistically, Ukraine is nowhere near being admitted to NATO, even in the next couple of decades; this was true in 2008 and it’s true today.
Once again, if you’re GENUINELY interested in knowing what’s going on on the ground, I urge you to look for and talk to the people affected by the invasion first hand. It could be someone you know in your local community who has met Ukrainian refugees, and/or anyone in the friend/family circles of those refugees. You could just talk to them over phone or video chat. This would be a much more reliable source of first hand info than some Internet/YouTube guy Patrick, who may or may not be paid to promote a certain view. As an aside, please ask yourself if any other view other than the one Patrick is promoting would even be allowed in Donetsk.
Check out Eva Bartlett's tour of Donetsk (Russian language translator and guide) The craters and graves of children shattered by regime missiles and mines defy explanation, other than the obvious one -- war is hell, and the regime in Kiev has brought horror to its own.
I gave you a specific example of a Russian speaking family that wants to live in Ukraine and continues to freely speak Russian there, but that contradicts the narrative you’ve constructed from the Internet/YouTube. So in an attempt to prove your point you give me a name of yet another Internet personality… You cannot seriously expect that those “journalists” like Patrick or Eva or the propaganda lady this podcast interviewed are independent - if they deviated even slightly from the allowed narrative in Donetsk, they would mysteriously disappear or fall out of an apartment window. So please, make a genuine attempt at talking to the affected people yourself instead of deriving your worldview from YouTubers.
Please answer the question I asked previously, without the bs:
"are you actually saying that you can't find enough PRO-WAR reporting (propaganda) in the mainstream media??? "
I don’t know what you mean by “pro-war” but I don’t usually follow whatever is on mainstream media. As far as I am aware no one in the US is calling for direct attacks by US forces on Russia - that would be “pro-war” - only for support to help Ukraine defend itself against Russian invasion. But from what I saw in excerpts from Russian state (propaganda) TV is they’re already fantasizing about attacking NATO countries there - that’s pro-war.
You sound upset as you flooded my inbox with 5 new notifications just now so I’ll stop there. I really wish I could somehow prove to you that the people I’ve spoken to who are affected by the invasion across southeast Ukraine are genuine, and that their views do represent what’s going on on the ground. I’ve known some of them for decades. This is why I simply suggested that you speak to a few affected people yourself if you absolutely refuse to believe anyone who contradicts the opinion you’ve formed, and if you’re actually interested in primary sources of info on the ground. Again, I understand you can’t trust everything you see online, but you’re not being consistent with your skepticism - somehow you’ve convinced yourself by consuming info from the Internet like this podcast that one side is right. Which again brings me back to the need to talk to real people, in the real world, ideally those who are affected by the events first hand, before forming your opinions or spamming people with replies.
more bizarre incoherence:
https://cogdis.substack.com/p/covid-19-vaccine-purchases-by-the
Ok, so you are grossly incompetent. Thanks for clearing that up.
There are no "objective" sources about the Ukraine war, only propaganda from both "sides", in both the mainstream media and on social media.
Specifically, I see ZERO reason to consider your anecdotal information to be either true or false. I've been in eastern Europe, when it was still part of the USSR (1974). I have no interest in going back there now, especially into a war zone, to get more anecdotal information.
Cite one example where I took sides. I actually posted the opposite, skepticism about Aaron's confirmation biases about the "clash of civilizations" stuff.
When you make up stupid shit and post it on social media, it just undermines whatever minimal credibility you have.
If you can't figure out how to stop email notifications from substack (or filter your email in-box), you look even more idiotic and incompetent.
My analysis of your linguistic pattern/rhetoric is consistent with someone that is either brainwashed, or a troll.
Well you believe whatever you want I guess. Wasn't Mariupol where the Neo-Nazi Azov set up bases next to civilians so they could use innocents as human shields? I don't know why anyone would be upset with Russia for cleaning them out and setting up civilian evacuation corridors to minimize casualties.
I also don't know why you'd think those referenda are fake. Biden declared them fake and presented no evidence. No one from the government did. If they have evidence to suggest that they are not legitimate why would they not present it?
Over a million people left Donbass for Russia between 2014 and February 24th this year. Since then Russia is the top destination of people leaving Ukraine. Ukraine has the largest population of the Ukrainian diaspora. Some 5-6 million Ukrainians live and work in Russia. The ethnic-Russian people of Donbass don't have a voice in the west. There are plenty of interviews of Ukrainians from the Ukrainian side of the contact line but western media has a blackout on interviewing Russian people who were formerly ethnic-Russian Ukrainians.
You’re cherry-picking statistics to fit your narrative. You’re technically correct that Russia is the top destination of people “leaving” Ukraine - about 2.8 million people this year. “Leaving” is in quotes because some of the people who got “evacuated” from the invaded areas into Russia were given a choice by the Russian forces: stay and very likely get killed during bombing or sign a paper agreeing to relocate to an unknown location within Russia and renounce your Ukrainian citizenship. You would know this if you had talked to the people from places like Mariupol.
The statistic you cited of course omits the net 5 million Ukrainians who crossed into the neighboring countries to the west of Ukraine, and the 6.5+ million people internally displaced in Ukraine. That paints an entirely different picture of the sentiment of Ukrainians than your cherry-picked statistic. But even these numbers don’t fully reflect the views of Ukrainians on the ground. Another Russian-speaking family I know had some people leave their native Slovyansk (Donetsk region) and move to Lviv (west Ukraine). So those would be included in the internally displaced statistic. But their older relatives (80+ yo) decided to stay because they’re too stressed/demoralized to move anywhere, and they also just want Russia to stop invading Donetsk region and leave them alone. These wouldn’t even be in the statistics I just cited, but their sentiment is real.
The interviews from Soledar did include many who fled bombs -- they were not so lucky in Donetsk for the last 10 years. Patrick Lancaster has interviewed many ethnic Russian speakers that have wanted peace - their homes were destroyed and rebuilt often. Mr. Zelensky's SBD frowns on these interviews. Your friends would have to flee Ukraine altogether if they spoke on camera. That is the truth.
Oh it goes way deeper than a flesh wound than that keep on digging and you may see the Light 💡
I understand what your saying though because we should cherish our well beings before we try to change the globe 🌎 we have 1.5 trillion dollars a year for the pentagon a year with both sides having a agreement but it goes way deeper than that! Keep on looking and you will be able to see the light.
If the Ukraine war is a proxy war, then why not just be honest about Russia's involvement in the Donbas separatist movement? In April of 2014, Igor Girkin, a former Russian solider and FSB officer lead militias that seized government buildings across Donetsk. Pavel Gubarev, a former member of the neo-Nazi Russian National Unity militia, declared himself the governor of the DNP. Gubarev was coordinating with a team of Russian advisors lead by Putin's advisor Sergey Glazyev. After the separatists took control of large parts of Donetsk and Luhansk, the Ukrainian armed forces launched a counteroffensive and nearly reclaimed control of all of the separatist territories back to the Russian border. Girkin declared himself the supreme commander of the DNP and asked Russia for military support. Russia threatened invasion by moving its forces to the Ukrainian border and engaged in a typically half assed campaign to clandestinely provide military support. The Minsk accords came about because it had become clear that Russia was going to launch a full scale invasion unless Ukraine agreed to make peace with the separatists and grant them some autonomy. Minsk I collapsed almost immediately with cease fires violated on both sides. Minsk II managed to bring about a more sustained peace, but there were regular violations of cease fires on both sides. And while Merkel's self serving remark about Minsk may seem to indicate that Ukraine and the West just used Minsk to prepare for war with Russia, the reality was that Russia was pouring heavy weapons into the separatist areas in order to prepare for its eventual invasion.
Literally at every step leading up to the crisis Russia tried to find a diplomatic solution, from the agreement to hold early elections in Ukraine during the maidan, to the Geneva accords, to Minsk 1 and 2.
At every step Ukraine and by extension the west denied eastern Ukraine even a single concession, instead choosing to pass more and more repressive laws against them and their supporters.
You can choose to believe that the eastern part of Ukraine is wholly influenced and controlled by Russia and dismiss any 'real' concern from the people that live there as a mix of russian propaganda and fear of retribution, but that idea is something that can be thrown right back at Ukraine proper in regards to their relationship with the west coupled with their draconian laws against perceived 'collaborators.'
I have followed Eva Bartlett's work in the Donbass -- there was international outrage at Kiev's atrocities in Luhansk and Donetsk areas. French reports were quite detailed. It simply was never presented as factual in the U.S. or simply disallowed (what? Censorship in the U.S.???) This was an important interview -- thanks so much!
Soroka sounds like a pretty obvious propagandist here:
https://www.mid-lnr.su/en/news/first-deputy-foreign-minister-of-the-lpr-anna-soroka-in-an-interview-conducted-by-arabic-tv-channel/
Of course both "sides" ae going to play word games and use propaganda and victim narratives in advocating for, and justifying, their "side".
Is Taibbi ever going to release the Twitter files in their entirety, or are we supposed to just be content with the limited hangout he's offered?
what do you think that actually means? they did keyword searches on an enormous database of internal company content (protected by password or similar) that would take weeks, months, maybe years to read in its "entirety". most of it would be irrelevant to the project.
the data is not public, and can't be released in its "entirety".
Parceling it out pieces at a time is intentional. It’s how he keeps readers coming back for more. If he did a complete data dump, two things would happen: 1) most people wouldn’t absorb it all, and 2) his relevance disappears... at least as far as that specific story goes. Hope that makes sense. And for the record, that’s just my opinion.
sports reporting has ZERO (0) to do with tech reporting.
you have repeatedly discredited yourself in idiotic, bizarre ways.
TROLL
is your "opinion" based on anything like real facts or evidence?
by definition, the material was posted in pieces, on twitter, purportedly because Musk made that a condition of doing the data searches and reporting on the findings.
the organization of the published data (with minimal commentary by the reporters) into twschitter threads was pretty basic, and slightly annoying to a reader, but nothing close to impossible to folllow.
Taibbi, Weiss, Shelenberger can't publish a book on twitter, but they might do that later, after gather more data, doing further research, etc.
side note: Bari Weiss is already complaining about Musk banning kiddie stalkers/doxxers and vindictive goofball MSM reporters that are defending the kiddie stalkers/doxxers.
human stupidity appears to be contagious and spreading quickly.
My opinion is based on my experience as a member of the media in one of the largest metropolitan areas in the country. What’s yours based on? Aside from the obvious stupidity that you so eloquently referred to of course.
So, you don't have any actual evidence, facts or data.
And, you are making an appeal to authority.
Propagandist/shill.
re: "member of the media"
You just admitted to being an establishment propagandist/shill. lolololololol
Guess again dumb@$$. Sports broadcasting. Nice try though. Sorry to ruin your idiotic narrative.
are you incoherent because of a psychiatric dysfunction?
drug use?
alcoholism?
brainwashing?
You already convinced me you are a troll/bot or a propagandist/shill, but feel free to continue discrediting you self with your MEANINGLESS appeal to authority.
(Sports are retarded.)
Free Julian assange for sure! A slaved man who has been responsible for nothing but truth for the M.I.C 🎙that’s got him in U.k bellmarsh prison for the United States of CorruptionNess that mocks it’s own military! That’s the f-ing truth! Let this man be released immediately!
the truth is that Assange has been mentally ill and self-destructive cultist most of his life (see his ghost writer's expose) and should be in a psychiatric facility.
Dude the guy himself with his connections left the front door wide open with the 7 vault to be picked! Lol I think you’re mistaken to the Truth!
incoherent blather
stop posting social media comments when you are drunk and/or using drugs