All this talk about human trafficking, smh. Sad.

What about we sell his mother for a commission?

Except the soldiers probably don’t realize that. On the other hand, if they don’t fight fiercely, or defect even, then their families are held responsible.

North Korea is still an independent sovereign entity, and the last thing they want is to let their troops be used by Russians in a shitty way.

… without proper compensation. I’m just guessing here, when I suspect that Russia has more USD in stock than the DPRK. But what I’m pretty certain of is, that the Kims would let you do anything to their people for the right amount of cash.

IDK what agreement Putin and Kim has, but if it in any way considers DPRK soldiers as something resembling living creatures, for other than pumping up compensation, then I’d be very surprised.

OK, sure, the ones that survive will have combat experience. But that’s not why they’re there.

This AI craze has gone too far. Please don’t actually produce random AI generated product ideas.

I like money

Frito Pendejo

The republicans tried, but you can’t become president if you were born a South African

So not the coworker who heats fish in the break room microwave? They’re not rich nor Russian … at least I don’t think so. I better be safe and just do it.

No, I’m married, I don’t do offline pron

DownThemAll is one of those extensions which get installed immediately for me. If I didn’t have DownThemAll and uBlock origin, I’d might as well just use edge smh

Wow! 95%? President Tebboune is really popular! Nobody gets 95% of the vote without being very popular. /s

Why do people do this? Is it a show of force? Like “imagine what I can do to you, if I’m able to cheat this boldly”.

deleted by creator

The Mouse, uh, finds a way…

I definitely wouldn’t want to steal from Mr Mouse

From what I can gather, the proposed battery will have a capacity of 8.5GWh with a nominal output of 85MW. But it can store 85MW (not MWh) for 100 hours? Either that article is written by someone who doesn’t really know what they’re relaying, or that’s some serious standby power dissipation.

Anybody here who passed high school physics and have some insights?

I have all the autodesk products available in software center from my job. Decided to give fusion a try, as it includes what was once eagle as well as enough 3d for my use… Online only? Where file? No offline stl because conversion is done online? GTFO! I’m back to using inventor and an ancient eagle version.

Welsh ham? Now there’s a search phrase for pornhub

Sorry for letting you hang, I’ve been swamped.

I believe he was going to LATAM and he couldn’t continue while transiting through russia.

That’s what I recall, too. That he was going to Latin America from Hong Kong through Sheremetyevo. But then on the Wikipedia page it said that Russian authorities have claimed that Snowden applied for asylum before departing Hong Kong. But again, probably propaganda.

Why is his collaborating with the russians not a fair circumstance to take in account? If he is being forced to work with them, then shouldn’t we disregard what he says as being suspect? Aren’t there better spokespersons for the FOSS/digital privacy movement that can be promoted instead?

Disregarding any statements that originates within Russia’s sphere of influence should be default. But on account of what Snowden did more than 10 years ago, he’s still given a voice in tech media.

He is almost certainly trying to leverage his fame and influence to promote russian security services goals; i.e. try to sow discord in the US.

I agree that Snowden’s fame is being leveraged, but I don’t think that it’s necessarily done on Snowden’s initiative. As you said it yourself, Snowden is a tool in the Russian propaganda toolkit.

for example in europe they were involved with green organizations in order to counteract the possibility of a rise in shale gas production in Europe.

Yeah, a Russian woman, who had received 45k EUR from the SVR run Pravfond, was just arrested in Denmark. She had run a legal counseling service for Russians in Denmark and ran for municipal elections for the socialist communists. I wonder how many people Russia has planted to run these low intensity operations around the world.

I would even speculate that he has internalized a lot of their goals (he is a russian citizen after all).

He definitely could have internalized the Russian state’s goals. But I don’t think that him being a Russian citizen should be an indication. That’s probably more of a middle finger from Putin in the direction of the US. Sorta like “Congratulations, that application for citizenship you didn’t fill out, has been approved. Go say your lines little puppet”

In 2013 we all still believed that Putin wasn’t the madman that he has turned out to be. I remember thinking that our biggest threats were right wing terrorists, Iranian nukes, and maybe North Korea. Sure we had seen what happened to Abkhazia and South Ossetia in 2008, but I don’t think anybody in the NATO countries saw that as the test it turned out to be. My point being that when Snowden flew to Russia in 2013, intent on seeking asylum, it may not have been his first choice, but it was as crazy an idea as it would be today…

With that said, I’d like to relate to some your post:

What I am saying is it is legitimate to criticize him and highlight his collaboration with the russians.

Sure, it’s legitimate to criticize anything. But without taking all the circumstances into account, the critique loses relevance. At least for me it does, and that’s what I’m arguing.

Well let me tell you as someone living in Ukraine (and was born in Donbas with my hometown being occupied in 2014 and relatives having to leave everything because of the russian occupation);

This is on a completely unrelated note. I’d like to apologize to you and every other Ukrainian, for the incompetence of my country’s politicians. We promised you +100 leopard 1 tanks, but due to the ineptitude of our politicians, their investments, and the resulting organization, we haven’t been able to deliver a single working tank. Whenever our politicians “donate” equipment it is blown out of proportions by our media. But when it comes to delivering useful kit, it fails over and over again. Rest assured that our present government is not going to be reelected. Their replacement will not be competent either though. Anyway, I wish we would do more than ship you our outdated equipment like it was some sort of humanitarian mission. It’s not a humanitarian mission, it’s fucking war and half assing war is stupid… Slava Ukraini! And death to Russian orks.

You full well know that there are real consequences from Snowden’s collaboration with the russians.

And we’re back in the discussion at hand :) the only consequences I can think of, that comes from Snowden collaboration is the propaganda tool he is now, and the intelligence he had to offer 11 years ago. Disregard him to mitigate the propaganda consequences.

I hope that whatever intel Snowden gave the Russians, it was limited. I think that a person with Snowden’s background would be able to encrypt the information he traveled with properly.

I’d like to know if I’ve missed something here. I really don’t mean to troll you. If you believe that I’m misinformed, please inform me.

Trying to survive is fair. But putting him on the pedestal and labelling him as “untouchable saviour who can do wrong” is not normal.

I don’t think that I’m putting Snowden on a pedestal. All I’m saying is that, like everyone else in Russia, who have a public profile, Snowden knows that he can either toe the party line, or plunge to his death from a basement window. What we really need to do, is to realize that anything coming from the mouths of anybody in Russia, is the result of a proverbial gun to their heads and should be treated thusly.

He could have chosen to not collaborate with the russians

Yes, he could indeed. He could be the metaphorical guy with the bags standing in front of a line tanks. But why should he?

This might not a big deal for you, but on a purely theoretical level, you don’t see how this hypocrisy could be important for others?

If you insist on applying a purely theoretical analysis, on the actions of a very real person with very real concerns for his safety, then I think I’ve found the problem with this discussion. You can’t lift this problem to this level of abstract theoretical morality.

But to answer your question more clearly: no, I don’t see how this perceived hypocrisy could be important for others.

Do you sincerely believe, that Snowden should have stayed put and faced a firing squad for whistle blowing? Snowden is trying to survive, and if daddy Putin says “go on TV and say these lines”, then the sentence doesn’t have to end with “or else”. Snowden did what he had to do for his country, by telling the public about the surveillance, now he’s paying for it. Why should Snowden be fighting for the Russian people as well?

Very few places that wouldn’t extradite Snowden instantly, even fewer that can’t be paid to do it. With Russia, Venezuela, and North Korea remaining his options, then Russia was the obvious choice. At least survival in Russia came with a price, had he stayed then the pay-to-play model for life wasn’t available.

we never do aggressive things

Lady, some guys are at the door looking for you, asking “WTF?!?” In Chechen, Ossetian, and Ukrainian… Oh wait there’s a guy loudly yelling in Finnish coming around the corner with his buddies from Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania… OMG they’ve got torches and pitchforks, saying that they’re looking for their friends on this list https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suspicious_deaths_of_notable_Russians_(2022–2024)

I do realize that she’s talking about individual Russians not being aggressive. And I know that I shouldn’t find it so funny, that she’s having this wake up call from the world… But I find it absolutely hilarious. You want others to like you? How about treating people better? And if your country’s the problem then revolt.