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by adamnemecek 575 days ago
I used to root for this guy until he became pro-Putin.
4 comments

Okay, my hero lived long enough to become a villain. That's sad, but this happens.

Maybe he hopes for Russia to give me asylum? The KGB rule is much worse than he can even imagine though.

>Okay, my hero lived long enough to become a villain. That's sad, but this happens.

Yep, definitely not the first time. Just look at Scott Adams.

God Scott Adams. What a disappointment.

The Joy of Work should be required reading for every new college graduate.

Though Scott's not really a villain. Just a MAGA guy.
It doesn't make him a villain, but it does make me question his critical reasoning, and is very disappointing.
He always was a villain.

"He was arrested in 1994 for trafficking in stolen phone calling card numbers" (wikipedia)

just a fun loving, movie pirating criminal for a while.

> Okay, my hero lived long enough to become a villain. That's sad, but this happens.

Every hero ultimately becomes a villain in the current society, because current society cannot withstand people having different opinions from us.

If we cannot accept different opinions, what's even the point of having heroes ?

When you say pro-Putin, do you mean actually pro-Putin or just for ending the war in Ukraine?

At this point I feel like the people protesting the Vietnam war would be regarded by the current online zeitgeist as “pro-Mao”.

> I feel like the people protesting the Vietnam war would be regarded by the current online zeitgeist as “pro-Mao”.

Many of them were extremely strong supporters of Ho Chi Minh (they used to call him the Vietnamese George Washington), the Viet Cong and — yes — even Mao. Mao’s ‘little red book’ was a popular accessory for anti-war protesters of the time.

Which he was though? Ho Chi Minh definitely wasn't the bad guy in the Vietnam war.
He was definitely a bad guy for most of his political life. Whether he was the worst guy is debatable.
In some wars, they're all bad guys.
More akin to WWII.. not vietnam. The US was reluctant to join, and was home to millions who were quite happy with Hitler. [1][2]

"In 1940, a group of Yale University students founded the America First Committee to oppose US intervention in the European war." [1]

"In its various expressions, the pro-Nazi stance during those years was mostly focused not on creating an active military alliance with Germany or bringing the U.S. under Nazi control (something Hitler himself thought wouldn’t be possible) but rather on keeping the U.S. out of war in Europe." [2]

[1] https://exhibitions.ushmm.org/americans-and-the-holocaust/ma...

[2] https://time.com/5414055/american-nazi-sympathy-book/

I wonder what all those pro-Hitler Americans had to say in the years and decades after WWII.
"Hitler was fighting American expansionism".
From his Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Dotcom#Promotion_of_conspi...

"During the Russo-Ukrainian War, Dotcom has repeatedly spread anti-Ukrainian falsehoods, and Russian government propaganda. Critics accuse him of spreading Russian Federation propaganda such as: claims of Nazism in Ukraine, Ukrainian attacks on Russian-speaking minority, claims of American "biolaboratories" in Ukraine, and accusing the US of causing the Russian Federation's invasion of Ukraine."

As with all Wikipedia refs, review their sources yourself.

Although, the sources in this case are basically articles citing things he said on Twitter.
Does that make them invalid? Surely we’re not expecting to see Dotcom’s dangerous misinformation published in a peer reviewed scientific journal?
I believe OPs point was that there is very little ambiguity when the source is his very own words posted by him directly
Are his words untrue or just disliked?
> Critics accuse him of spreading Russian Federation propaganda such as: claims of Nazism in Ukraine, Ukrainian attacks on Russian-speaking minority, claims of American "biolaboratories" in Ukraine, and accusing the US of causing the Russian Federation's invasion of Ukraine."

At least the claim regarding nazism is very valid. Heck, Ukraine has a whole bataillon using that emblem[1], featuring a rune-like SS symbol and the freaking black sun! People having been accused of nazism in the US or Europe for way less than that.

The implication of US in the Maiden Revolution, which is one root of the problem, is also documented in serious newspapers[2].

[1] https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%A9giment_Azov#/media/Fich...

[2] https://www.lepoint.fr/monde/ukraine-la-cia-en-sous-main-05-...

The claim is that Ukraine is controlled by nazis and therefore Russian intervention is needed to free the Ukrainian people from nazi control, not that there are nazis in Ukraine (which is obviously true, the same way it's true that there are nazis in Russia, Germany, the US and many other places).
> At least the claim regarding nazism is very valid. Heck, Ukraine has a whole batallion

It was pretty funny when shortly after the war broke out Facebook had to modify their policy prohibiting praise of Azov.

“I am a Nazi.”

— Alexey Milchakov, field commander of the Rusich neo-Nazi paramilitary group in russia.

The war was never about Nazism. The russians use the word “Nazi” to describe anyone who opposes russia. The official russian position on WWII is that it started in 1941 (when Operation Barbarossa started, and not the invasion of Poland), and russia’s official position is that the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact never existed.

Russia is full of Nazis, and the russians were allied with Nazi Germany in WWII.

The war in Ukraine today is not about Naziism.

I think we often forget that Russian propaganda is also often aimed at Russians and not the west.

Nazis invaded Russia and calling their neighbors Nazis is meant to invoke fear and imminent danger to the Russian people. It’s a completely different vibe than calling right wingers Nazis in the US

It also feeds into their "Ukraine is not really a country" narrative.

Because how do we know it's not really a country? Because it's overrun with zombies (Nazis), of course.

The Russians have a strange relationship with Nazism. They enthusiastically partnered with Hitler in 1939 to take over Europe and only went 'anti nazi' when Hitler turned on them.

They now call their opponents nazis when they behave more like the German nazi party than any other country on earth. I can't help but think it's a propaganda thing to call the enemies nazis to distract from behaving that way themselves.

I mean who rolled tanks into Ukraine to grab the territory for themselves and drive their 'lesser people' into submission? Putin's invasion is pretty much a copy of Hitlers.

If by "enthusiastically" you mean sign a secret pact that was violated a few years afterwards, sure.

Molotov-Ribbentrop was not exactly shouted from rooftops, it wasn't even officially acknowledged until decades later.

At least the claim regarding nazism is very valid.

Except it's not. It's just a random collection of (by now very old) partial factoids mostly taken out of context and blown wildly out of proportion.

Why? To push your buttons, and get you riled up.

Mao didn't start the war in Vietnam.
Remember when he said he had personal knowledge about Seth Rich, I.e. lying to further a Russian disinformation campaign? I do.
So what? First of all, was that even a Russian disinformation campaign? Second, and more importantly, so what? Imagine you're fighting the government of a powerful country that's trying to imprison you because they said you committed some crimes when you never even visited that country. Wouldn't you do anything you could to try and discredit them? Kim is fighting for his life.
> was that even a Russian disinformation campaign?

According to a bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee Report and the prosecutor on the case[0], it originated with a document from the SVR.

> So what?

People (like Dotcom, who chose to pretend he had evidence), organizations (like Fox, etc who pushed this daily for months with zero evidence) and governments (like Russia’s who try to divide the U.S. by using freedom of speech as a weapon) who seek to muddy the waters of our collective information pool are scourges and should be treated as such.

[0] https://thehill.com/homenews/media/452157-russias-foreign-in...

> When you say pro-Putin, do you mean actually pro-Putin or just for ending the war in Ukraine?

Any suggestion to end the war involving Ukraine's capitulation (giving territories, being blocked from joining NATO or other defensive alliances, etc.) is being pro-Putin.

It's quite exhausting to read people like you parroting the "end the war in Ukraine" euphemism to mean "give in to Putin's demands". Chamberlain would be proud...

Yeah...it's pretty hilarious how the American left is now the pro-war side and being against it and not wanting more war after over 2 decades of it means you're a Russian asset.
It's funny how the American right used to proud of standing up to Hitler but now in a similar situation some are like yeah the invaders are cool.
The American left has always been against every war*

* Except for the war that was happening at that time

An increasingly common issue in this infantilized society.

"I'm not friends with Jacob because he likes celebrity A and I like celebrity B".

Is Putin celebrity A or celebrity B here?
Your pick!
Choose your own adventure. Hmm. Been a while since I've done one of these...
Just keep a running tally of bookmark pagenumbers so you can ctrl-z as you need. :-)
isn't this comment very infantilized in and of itself?
Projection is easier than deep thought.
That is indeed a problem.

That is not what is happening here with Dotcom though.

Kim Dotcom spreads misinformation and in doing so provides justification for russia’s invasion and genocide in Ukraine. It’s no different from someone saying about WWII that the Jews had it coming.

https://www.voanews.com/a/fact-check-pro-russian-falsehoods-...

Yeah when he started simping for elon musk I do not care what befalls him. Mega was good for piracy back in the day, and maybe still is today.