BilSabab

That Larry Ellison guy seems like mirror universe John McAfee who chose to be a Bond villain instead of Werner Herzog character.

That fucking anarchy, man! Calm down and buy something on Temu.

it's much more complicated than that. i don't want to turn this thread into a flame war so i'll try my best to contextualize my point.

foreign media have consistent pattern of putting together Ukrainian nationalists and actual nazis. It's not even an oversimplification - it's basically apples and oranges kind of thing. While they both are on the right wing spectrum, they are so far apart - nationalists are basically centrist as most of them stand for gradual continuous transformation of state institutions through multi-stage reforms. The biggest political nationalist organization of the past People's Movement (Narodny Rukh) was like that and even they had limited representation within state institutions. The thing is - Ukrainian politicians for the most part use nationalism as a gimmick to get into offices and do their shady dealings under guise of greater good "for the people long term let it play out" bullshit. European Solidarity led by former president Poroschenko are like that, current ruling party Servant of the People is like that, long-running populist cockroach Tymoschenko's Fatherland is literally a clickbait party that just want to hold office and steal money and they will publicly say whatever helps them with that. Even former eastern juggernaut Party of Regions used the same rhetorics while literally being a bunch of robber barons feigning legitimacy mixed with full-on collaboration. Now these guys are a problem because they can bullshit their way into decision making.

the other big thing is how nationalists and nazis define nation. nazi goes for ethnic-only definition which is fucking stupid in a historically multi-national state - their whole shtick is literally meaningless the moment you look at the ethnic layout of Ukraine through the ages until now. So we group together these sets of people who live here - Boykos, Polischuks, Lemkos, Bukovinians, Slobozhan as Ukrainians because the language is somewhat common but Kirimli, Romanians, Hungarians, Jews, Poles, Greeks, even russians etc - they also live here but they don't count and don't belong even though they're born and raised here, living here, paying taxes, doing business, literally dying to protect their homes - their whole thing falls apart quite fast because of that. Meanwhile modern nationalists define nation as political entity first bound by society, culture and territory - which is a far cry from traditional definition of nationalism. I hope I cleared this up.
These days nazis get their media exposure because they are at the frontlines fighting the enemy. basically, they exploit noble cause privilige to push their agenda but their attempts to capitalize on their newfound notorious come with mixed success and there is always a moment when the media personality with nazi leanings says something stupid and fades away. Back in the yanukovych era - those guys were literally brought to political talk shows to says wild shit so that everybody else could go - see these guys are krayzee. that's the moden nazi media cycle in Ukraine. Politically, nazis consistently lost elections on every level, they have no representation within government institutions and have niche public support that mostly exists on social media within their bubbles. And any time they actually found their way into public offices in the regions - it ended being a same old corrupt mess as every other politician - so that's that.

what's your favorite Jodo work? I used to be hardcore Incal/Metabaron fan but lately i've vibing with his prose books - dude is so good at spinning yarns - just telling stuff and fooling around.

there's a country called russia and they literally do just that. can't take over a moon landscape that once was a burgeoning village without disposing 50k personnel but sure can spam ballistic missiles on civilians for shits and giggles.

Damn. Rings true.

and pundits say Ukraine has fascist problem. there is a difference between clowns in the media saying stupid shit and clowns holding office to abuse their power.

the phone will just generate shit all the time - texts, voices, images, music - all to post on AI-gen only social media. And it doesn't even need human interaction to do that but you are legally obligated to buy 12 of these per year or you will be deported to Moldova.

my mom is a teacher and she has similar observation. It also has a lot to do with how parents treat their children. i don't know if that's a problem in US, in Ukraine my generation (born late 80s early 90s) is very insecure about their social performance and stats and it's a complete bullshit. The current middle and school kids are affected by that. There is a lot of stuff in children's heads that just needs time to settle and forcing to push through at someone's else pace is counterproductive. it is a regular pattern when a student starts with solid grades but the chase for the highest grade over the years completely wrecks them and their overall grades start to slip hard because their parents conditioned them to perform and they try to brute force their way to high grades like it's a competition when it is anything but. The burnout they go through is brutal. And by the time they finish school - it's just a performer of sorts - a person who is able to do enough for a grade or rewards but there's just no substance no passion behind it. Meanwhile, students who starts off mediocre or low grades at middle school level up significantly by the time they get to high school simply because they commit to figure it out and once they tap into what clicks for them (math, sciences, languages, arts) they just start pieces together their personality jigsaws and it is way less dramatic then with high performers who would do anything for a grade.

man, i forgot about that episode. shame on me. Grand TNG rewatch is overdue!

I actually haven't met these kinds of folks until later in life when I moved out to another city. I knew about this shit - Dnipropetrovsk maniacs was media shitshow and stuff but i had no folks like that in my immediate circle while growing up.

sounds like sound consumer strategy