You’re assuming FB cares enough to have opinions on most things. It only cares about generating traffic. Spreading disinformation and generating echo chambers is only a side-effect.

If FB was losing revenue (through boycott or regulation) because it was allowing rampant fake news, the easiest thing it could do would be to hire a pool of people with Wikipedia experience. Do you have a better solution?

But dying is the one thing you can be certain of…

The relations between nations are closer to anarchy than anything “international law” would imply. Nations declare war or fantastically a war on some idea (“terror”) or never declare as they see fit. It’s mostly for internal consumption, these days. But time and again, we see might makes right.

Yes, that’s not working so well, obviously. But there is a cynical assault on truth. It’s literally a 1984 meme today. We need to get back to journalistic standards for publishing news. For the most part, the hordes of Wikipedia contributors do a good job at it.

Nope. It’s just a little taste of Putin’s own medicine. The little green men have wings, now.

Because that be inconvenient for you?

If Russia was that important, they wouldn’t feel so threaten by NATO. Saudi Arabia can single-handedly swing world prices. I’m curious as to their recent silence. They are probably just enjoying the situation, rebuilding their cash reserves from the last time they crushed Russian and fracking competition by flooding the market.

Do not discount the power of sleepless obsessives. The volunteers at Wikipedia are compulsive about the rules. Facebook needs to hire them to fact check.

Ukraine continues to thinly deny, but the US confirmed today it was the Ukrainians.

That uptick is quite striking:

https://www.google.com/finance/quote/RUB-USD?window=5Y

but it’s still pennies on the dollar. Their threat of a 4M ruble sanction on Wikipedia for documenting the Ukrainian invasion was only $49k. You could put that on a credit card.

Technically, not at the moment, being invaded by Russia and all. But my point is that afterwards, Ukrainian deposits will be fast-tracked for development by foreign capital where as Russia will be starved for it. Belt and Road might be their only option.

The exchange rate makes burning rubles quite competitive.

You’re tacitly admitting Russia got kicked out of the G8. And you know who has oil and gas? Ukraine. Guess where all that sweet, sweet foreign capital is going to be redirected? And probably Russia’s frozen foreign currency reserves, too.

I would imagine Zelenskyy would be the primary target. But, yes. Navalny’s underwear was poisoned. Kara-Murza was poisoned twice. Litvinenko poisoned with polonium on UK soil. Why do you think Putin appears in his bunker at the end of ridiculously long table? It’s an FSB specialty.

The biggest misconception is that it’s uncontrollably dangerous. Yes, like all sources of power, it can be dangerous, if not used responsibly. Coal and electricity kill you, too. But the fossil fuel industry has been waging a disinformation campaign against nuclear energy for decades.

The truth is that France has used nuclear for most of it’s energy needs for more than half a century. The US Navy has run 1st generation reactors for even longer, without incident. And the design of the fourth generation reactors is built to be passively safe. Unlike Chernobyl, if you cut power to them, they simply shut off, not melt down.

Another misconception is regarding nuclear waste. Current fourth generation reactors use the “spent” fuel rods of our first generation reactors as their fuel! This transmutes them from isotopes with ten thousand year half-lives to much more manageable isotopes with fifty year half-lives. So the solution to the nuclear waste disposal problem we already have now is to generate even more zero-carbon power from nuclear energy!

Here’s some high res footage of the munitions cooking off:

https://old.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/tm4h7p/run_boy_run_a_ropuchai_class_russian_navy/

Russia is offering certificates of ownership, rather than delivery. People being to suspect it doesn’t all exist, at that point.

Lol, are you rushing to sign up for a Russian back account? I hear the exchange rate for rubles is starting to look like satoshis. And China plays so many games with their currency that nobody trusts it now. Seriously, keep wishing as hard as you can, but there’s nothing better yet.

I think the point is, nobody trusts them enough to accept certificates. They’ll sell it – at discount – when they put it on a train and deliver bullion.

Those monopolistic practices have created a software ecosystem that’s dominated by their OS. They aren’t the only solution anymore, but they are still the largest.