One: that comment you deleted where you put the dollar sign ($) in the wrong spot – nobody does that.

Two: your “American English” (while excellent) sounds … off, when read aloud.

Three: you can read the following Shibboleth aloud and you’ll have no idea what it means:

ooh day ooh yay eek spay ig pay at in lay?

Lol. Yeah, exclude opposing opinions obnoxious, idiotic noise, go live in your liberal echo chamber

FTFY

Also, why do you have such a hardon for Trump when you aren’t an American?

So it is a racial slur, thanks for the confirmation

Yes, the notoriously racially homogeneous nation of Russia. Clearly it’s a race thing, and not a nationality thing. And clearly they’re talking about the entire ethnic “russian” population – not the state itself and its leadership.

I agree that there’s a lot of direct trolling online, but I wouldn’t discount the number of “useful idiots”.

Remember Q-anon? The core of that entire “movement” was a handful of people on an obscure website steering discourse and pumping out conspiracy theories to a few hundred dedicated direct followers. That audience served as both a testbed for ideas and a free “localization service” – they’d take an unpolished core idea and through discourse transform it into something marketable for wider consumption. Said followers obscure the source of the messaging, amplify it, spread it to traditional social media / the real world, “fight” dissidents, etc.

Those “useful idiots” are a fundamental part of an efficient, cost effective, and successful disinformation campaign.

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Yeah, the majority of them aren’t “bots”. It’s mostly people acting as useful idiots, parroting talking points put forth by Kremlin backed trolls. The shit reeks of 2018’s totally organic “Walk Away” movement – the arguments and slogans practically rhyme.

I don’t like the “bots” thing either since it’s inaccurate to what’s actually going on, but at the same time I don’t know a concise way to call out pretty obvious Russian state backed AstroTurfing.

$50 says Putin demanded an audit of their military from top to bottom several weeks into the invasion of Ukraine, and he was very upset to learn the true state of their nuclear capabilities.

“Appear strong where you are weak” is 90% of Putin’s MO.

They are used for planes. The problem is the usable ones are stupidly expensive and/or classified millitary hardware.

Targeting a smaller, receptive audience is actually better than going after larger and more diverse ones. With the later you’re more likely to get called out for your bullshit.

The former is more likely to listen, and a small echo-chamber will eliminate dissidents. That relatively small core group will gladly modify the message to better appeal to the local/culture they belong to, and spread it wide-and-far while obscuring the original source.

It’s a highly effective strategy: look at Qanon. It started on 8chan of all places, with a tiny userbase behind it.

Not a bad idea, but you’d be relying on the IDF and Hamas not to fuck it up. The odds of a fuck-up increases exponentially with every idiot you add to a situation.

Right? Raw shock value is only useful when something isn’t well known. Everyone knows about climate change and has a position.

Great, use “shock value”: but make a worthwhile statement with it too. The goal is to force people to confront an issue, not effortlessly write it off as a childish tantrum and ignore it.

It’s a dumb action, and this is from someone that supports direct action. How people are talking about an action is critical: the context matters.

The first thing people are going to ask is “why did you do this?” and the answer needs to make sense. Throwing soup on an oil exec, painting their office, etc – something sparks a conversation in a way you can exploit to further the cause.

“Vandalizing” a famous piece of art not even tangentially related to your cause is just going to make people think you’re an asshole and shuts down that potential for a productive discussion.

I wouldn’t want to live close to a dispensary, there’s almost always a “stench”.

I pass by dispensarys all the time and never notice a smell. The only places that smell are those that allow smoking on premise – which with our state’s indoor smoking laws are very rare.

It’s no different than tobacco, really.

Original Position Fallacy.

Because they believe in many of the same “traditional values” as nazis – they’re natural allies.

Of course those dipshits don’t realize the nazis only want their help now because they’re desperate for numbers. As soon as the nazis no longer need their help they’re getting their own Night of the Long Knives.

… you do realize lemmy users skew older, and it’s not just kids saying “eat the rich”, right?

I understand that quote, but these days it’s a dumb one. Gone are the days of “settling down” into a bubble once you hit 30.

If they use nuclear weapons, it will end in one of two ways.

1. Escalation to full scale nuclear exchange. Putin dies or has to live in the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust.

2. The rest of the world saying “that’s enough”. Nobody in power wants using nukes to be normalized. It’s so profoundly destabilizing to the status quo that everyone sees it as a threat given it will inevitably lead to escalation. Every intelligence agency in the world will be making phone calls, offering sweet deals, and promising support to unhappy, powerful people in Russia to deal with the “Putin” problem. Ideological enemies will work together to eliminate this threat to their stability.

I’d point out Vietnam and Afghanistan for the USA, or Afghanistan vs the USSR. Those were tiny, poorly equipped countries fighting against the most powerful militaries in the world. Said small countries eventually started receiving materiel, training, and intelligence support from powerful allies.

They didn’t have to kill all their enemies or push them off the land they held – they weren’t capable of it. They won by just dragging the conflict on and making it as expensive and difficult as possible for the other side. A common path to victory is the enemy saying “this fight is no longer politically/economically worth it” and withdrawing.

The US only occupies countries hostile to the US. Guyana is already allowing US companies to extract their oil under license: they’re going to get the Kuwait deal.

– and “stabilizing element” in the middle east. Israel gets a lot of leeway because they’ve proven they have a capable military, intelligence agency, etc. And they’re not at all squeamish about using them.