Elon Musk: Always A Douche

[Syt]

And we are still doing it. How can anyone sunk so low as to dignify Trump's Panama and Greenland BS by asking him about it and writing about it?

Because he's the elected leader of the country with the most powerful military in the world. Even if he's trolling it matters, geopolitically.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

And we are still doing it. How can anyone sunk so low as to dignify Trump's Panama and Greenland BS by asking him about it and writing about it?

Because he's the elected leader of the country with the most powerful military in the world. Even if he's trolling it matters, geopolitically.

Supposedly the most powerful army in the world. The US hasn't fought a peer or near-peer in ages and while they're no Russians (yet, with all the oligarchs in power) they're in Ukraine has shown that labels of 'most powerful' or similar are just words in the wind until fact-checked during war.
In other words, we assume it's the most powerful, and it probably is, but we don't know.

[Syt]

Either way, he's not a madman talking to himself on a streecorner, he's a madman whose words are (in theory) backed by nuclear weapons (to borrow a phrase from Civ2), so unfortunately ignoring and letting it go away is not much of an option.

[Josquius]

A random thought I've had on Trump and Greenland, probably overthinking it and giving him too much credit, but hey, spitballing.... What if what he wants is an excuse to close down the US military presence in Greenland?
Money saved, happy master in Moscow, Europe forced to spend more on defence.

And we are still doing it. How can anyone sunk so low as to dignify Trump's Panama and Greenland BS by asking him about it and writing about it?

Because he's the elected leader of the country with the most powerful military in the world. Even if he's trolling it matters, geopolitically.

Supposedly the most powerful army in the world. The US hasn't fought a peer or near-peer in ages and while they're no Russians (yet, with all the oligarchs in power) they're in Ukraine has shown that labels of 'most powerful' or similar are just words in the wind until fact-checked during war.
In other words, we assume it's the most powerful, and it probably is, but we don't know.

I mean yeah, nothing in life is certain.
But I've seen nothing to suggest the US doesn't remain the most powerful. For all of America's issues, China has far more .
That being said though, the key to winning wars that last longer than 5 minutes is usually industrial capacity, and China is the one knocking out all those cheap chips and drones....

Zuckerberg announcing big changes at Facebook. 

Facebook being a far right cess pool where anything goes and misinformation dominates predates Twitter becoming the same.
Sounds to me like he's just throwing up his hands and going "You know what, the political winds are blowing this way and we have lost the under 45 audience already, so we're not even gonna pretend to try anymore"

[Sheilbh]

FWIW I think he wants Greenland and the Panama Canal.

I think he views the world through things like natural resources and with the Panama Canal a famous economically important shipping route. In some ways I'm not sure that's necessarily wrong, as I think it's also how China views the world and behaves. I think it's probably closer to reality than thinking world politics can somehow float untethered to the realities of resources, production, trade. (I also feel like there's a few things he's specifically said about the arctic so I suspect someone has gotten to him with some maps, especially of resources.)

I think the contradiction with Trump is that actually the US-led system provides the US with far more control over all of that than actually trying to control it would.

And again I do think he basically thinks the Western hemisphere is America's sphere of influence and it's for America to control. I think he also basically thinks Russia and China have their spheres of influence.

[garbon]

Either way, he's not a madman talking to himself on a streecorner, he's a madman whose words are (in theory) backed by nuclear weapons (to borrow a phrase from Civ2), so unfortunately ignoring and letting it go away is not much of an option.

It is for most of us. It doesn't make sense to every half thought he puts out as so many things never end up happening.

[Syt]

That's true. But ignoring it entirely is also not advisable.

[Sheilbh]

I can't imagine reading let alone paying for the drivel served up my the NYT.

Point taken. But I think it is generally bad that a lot of sources for passive online information have basically closed unless you pay for them which means you have to be really interested and able/willing to pay.

[Admiral Yi]

Sounds like Trump is a Risk fan.  Mexico is next.

[Syt]

Sounds like Trump is a Risk fan.  Mexico is next.

Like so?

[Admiral Yi]

Five extra armies a turn is no laughing matter.

[Josquius]

Love how they're arbitrarily (...) selective with which Canadians get votes.

[Syt]

Justn noticed they added the Bahamas, too.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

The united nations of c.u.m (Canada, USA, Mexico)

[crazy canuck]

Garbon referred to the NYTimes as not being worth reading and being "drivel".  Is that a widely held view amongst Americans and if so, when did it change from the paper of record to not being worth reading?

And if Garbon is correct, where do Americans get their news?

Garbon, where do you get your news?