Your grandmother (or great grandmother depending how old you are) had to spend hours of hard labour every day to wash clothes dishes and rooms with just a tub of water a broom and a mop. Now all that takes maybe 20 minutes of light labour with a vacuum, dishwasher and washing machine. Technology absolutely has reduced drudgery

Lots of people spout this conspiracy theory, but Ive yet to hear a good reason why he had to be sued into making the purchase (after making price manipulating statements) if it was some sinister plan.

Far more likely he’s just a fuck up.

Well yes, that is dumb!

Waste burning at least seems to make sense, if its not burnt its only going to go into landfill and emit methane.

Thats right in Paypal and Tesla’s cases, he bought them and then gave himself the title of founder, but he did actually found SpaceX. Per wiki:

In early 2001, Elon Musk met Robert Zubrin and donated US$100,000 to his Mars Society, joining its board of directors for a short time.[11]: 30–31  He gave a plenary talk at their fourth convention where he announced Mars Oasis, a project to land a greenhouse and grow plants on Mars.[12][13] Musk initially attempted to acquire a Dnepr intercontinental ballistic missile for the project through Russian contacts from Jim Cantrell.[14]

Musk then returned with his team a second time to Moscow this time bringing Michael Griffin as well, but found the Russians increasingly unreceptive.[15][16] On the flight home Musk announced he could start a company to build the affordable rockets they needed instead.[16] By applying vertical integration,[15] using inexpensive commercial off-the-shelf components when possible,[16] and adopting the modular approach of modern software engineering, Musk believed SpaceX could significantly cut launch cost.[16]

In early 2002, Elon Musk started to look for staff for his company, soon to be named SpaceX. Musk approached five people for the initial positions at the fledgling company, including Michael Griffin, who declined the position of Chief Engineer,[17] Jim Cantrell and John Garvey (Cantrell and Garvey would later found the company Vector Launch), rocket engineer Tom Mueller, and Chris Thompson.[18][19] SpaceX was first headquartered in a warehouse in El Segundo, California. Early SpaceX employees, such as Tom Mueller (CTO), Gwynne Shotwell (COO), and Chris Thompson (VP of Operations), came from neighboring TRW and Boeing corporations. By November 2005, the company had 160 employees.[20] Musk personally interviewed and approved all of SpaceX’s early employees.[21]

You’re right they should, and that was (eventually) pulling out the missiles they put in Turkey first which lead the USSR to respond in kind putting missiles in Cuba. So in this analogy that would be Russia GTFO of Ukraine.

The Hungarian uprising

The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 (23 October – 4 November 1956; Hungarian: 1956-os forradalom), also known as the Hungarian Uprising, was an attempted countrywide revolution against the government of the Hungarian People’s Republic (1949–1989) and the policies caused by the government’s subordination to the Soviet Union (USSR).[nb 2] The uprising lasted 12 days before being crushed by Soviet tanks and troops on 4 November 1956. Thousands were killed and wounded and nearly a quarter of a million Hungarians fled the country.[5][6]

Consequently, Hungarians organized into revolutionary militias to fight against the ÁVH; local Hungarian communist leaders and ÁVH policemen were captured and summarily executed; and political prisoners were released and armed. To realize their political, economic, and social demands, local soviets (councils of workers) assumed control of municipal government from the Hungarian Working People’s Party (Magyar Dolgozók Pártja). The new government of Imre Nagy disbanded the ÁVH, declared Hungary’s withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact, and pledged to re-establish free elections. By the end of October the intense fighting had subsided.

The term “tankie” was originally used by dissident Marxist–Leninists to describe members of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) who followed the party line of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). Specifically, it was used to distinguish party members who spoke out in defense of the Soviet use of tanks to suppress the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and the 1968 Prague Spring, or who more broadly adhered to pro-Soviet positions.[7][8]

Plummer was further sentenced to three months in jail for interfering with national infrastructure by taking part in a slow march along Earls Court Road in west London in November 2023. Her co-defendants in that case, Chiara Sarti and Daniel Hall, received community orders.

She did exactly what you suggested, except you havent heard about it because it doesnt generate media coverage, this does.

Wishing something to be true doesnt make it so. I havent seen any credible assessments that Russia’s strategic nuclear arsenal is so bad that it would be more that 90% non-functional. That’s an insane level of broken that there is just no reason to assume it.

Put another way, way more than 10% of their tanks, planes, artillery and tactical ballistic missiles work, why would you assume that their strategic nukes are significantly worse?

All of which isnt to say we should cower before Putin’s obviously empty nuclear threat, let Ukraine release the storm shadows! But to go from there to lol dumb Russians cant fire a single ICBM is just not credible.

There is no reason to think Russia’s entire strategic nuclear arsenal is unusable. It’s entirely possible a decent chunk of it is due to corruption and neglect, but even if 10% work that’s still 160 city destroying nukes being detonated across Europe and North America if the world goes full MAD. That probably wouldn’t wipe out humanity but it would lead to hundreds of millions of people dying. Not something to be taken lightly.