TechCrunch has that article tagged as “evergreens”, which I think is their code for “we can probably get away with reposting this later and pretending it’s brand new.”

Case in point, this article was published in 2023.

I’m calling the knight. (Catbox alt)

But enough about that.

Add some bling and join the… Shadow Wizard Money Gang.

“We’ll try again when you’re not paying attention/when can figure out how to force or trick you into it.”

although they can probably mitigate the effects by moving to one of their 500 houses that’s in a safe zone

That’s why they don’t care.

Climate change hits the poorest first and hardest (see: hurricanes in the Caribbean and SEA).

Billionaires can fly in, enjoy the sunshine, fly out and not get a drop of water on their skin.

And they’ll keep “outrunning” climate change on an individual level, and only feel it when it hurts their net worth*.

There is a viable alternative to the problems raised by Bill Gates in his irate letter to computer hobbyists concerning “ripping off” software. When software is free, or so inexpensive that it’s easier to pay for it than to duplicate it, then it won’t be “stolen”.

—Jim Warren, July 1976

All of your comments in my inbox are immature attacks.

Since you’re not even trying to engage in an argument with me, I’m blocking you.

Wealthy capitalists, if they’re not based in the US

Are you talking about this part? If so, what I was saying was that billionaires moved to either the US or the three countries I mentioned.

That means the billionaires from China also did not move to Taiwan.

You can also look at the wiki for Taiwan’s billionaires. Only one was born in China and not Taiwan (Hong Kong, specifically), and I’m pretty sure he moved to Taiwan way before the events we’re taking about in this thread.

That would be… so lame.

This was the statement I was responding to:

It’s basically an island that all the wealthy capitalists ran away to after China imposed economic democracy.

Here was my response :

Wealthy capitalists, if they’re not based in the US, have moved to [Singapore (or Switzerland, or the UAE)], not to Taiwan.

Where was what I said dishonest or irrelevant?

Edit: reorganized for legibility

It’s possible, but he didn’t say that, and our argument continued without your help.

It is weird that you’re white-knighting so hard for him.

Why are you here?

I was saying that the billionaires were not moving to the island of Taiwan.

You’re talking about US Empire, which, as mentioned in my other responses in this thread, is irrelevant to the physical movements of billionaires.

Even if Taiwan declared itself to be US Empire island #76, it would not change the fact that billionaires did not move to the island of Taiwan.

The NPR article I linked above was citing a Russian source.

The AP article was citing Russian legislation, which I assume (and I could be wrong) is public record.

I usually try to cite multiple sources because one or all may be biased, but it’s less likely that multiple sources will misrepresent reality in exactly the same way.

It is possible, but it is less likely.

I quoted all three in my original response, and he only responded negatively to the one based in UK, implying that he considered the other two met some minimum standard of quality.

He also quoted those same sources in his responses to me. If he thought the same way you do, I would have expected him to dismiss them outright, like you are.

I think you are nothing more than a troll who argues for the sake of it, without a single honest bone in your body. You are the epitome of a reddit debate bro

You won’t or can’t address my argument above, so you switch to personal attacks.

You introduced the word “press-gang” and tried to turn this into an argument about the dictionary definition of the word.

You also tried to retroactively rewrite my argument. (You’re not talking about the draft, you’re talking about the reserves. You’re not talking about the draft, you’re talking about “calling up to the front line.”)

And you claim that I’m trolling?

My position has been that Russia has been coercing citizens into military service and I’ve been consistent on that point.

An intermediary.

A native of a colonised country who acts as the agent of the coloniser.

I don’t get the point you’re trying to make.

I said the wealthy capitalists went to not!Taiwan because the billionaires in Taiwan were already there.

Who is or is not a comprador has nothing to do with where wealthy capitalists relocate.

That’s three times now. We’ll add:

• Claiming I’m trying to “fabricate a narrative” as if there’s some massive conspiracy.

to the list.

Do you seriously think I’m some part of some government operation to “weave a story”?

I’m a rando on the internet who thinks Russia is coercing men who don’t want to be in a war to become soldiers.

Whether they corner them with infrastructural tactics or send armed men in unmarked vans to kidnap them off the street is immaterial.

Whether these tactics are practiced by Russia or by “many nations, including US allies” is immaterial.

It would be press-ganging and coercion if Ukraine did the same thing. It’s press-ganging and coercion if the United States does it.

Standing on ceremony behind a dictionary definition and whether government says it’s legal is such a weird stance to take when the issue is these people don’t want to serve in the military, and the government is coercing them into it.

You’ve tried to move the goalposts twice now, by:

• Claiming my argument is about a “call up to the front line”. (I’ve said draft/conscription since the beginning.)
• Claiming my argument is that an increase in conscription is happening. (I implied press-ganging was happening, and said nothing about a change in the amount of conscription happening.)

I am and have been ignoring anything you threw out that tried to weasel away from the central argument:

The Russian government is coercing (which is how press-ganging is used to mean in normal conversations; this is not an academic conference) people into military service.

Conscription/the draft already technically meets that definition, but piling on prison sentences, suspending drivers licences, banning leaving the country, and restricting bank transactions all make it clear that Russian men are being coerced into military service.

I think I see what you mean about Taiwan as a proxy state for the US.

I don’t think they see themselves as that, but they do basically owe their continued independence from China to the fact that the US values them as a pawn in the battle for global power.

You keep changing the argument you claim I’m making.

Here’s the comment, as a reminder.

I called into question your claim that press ganging (coercion into military service) wasn’t happening, by citing sources that the Russian government was changing the rules of the draft and imposing severe penalties on people who tried to avoid it.