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#7 | Posted by LampLighter at 2026-06-04 10:02 PM
... Volodymyr Zelensky has called for a face-to-face meeting between himself and Vladimir Putin in a renewed bid to end the war.
In an open letter to the Russian president, the Ukrainian leader said it would be "wrong to simply wait" until the war in Europe becomes the focus of the US's attention once more, adding peace could only come "through direct engagement between" Ukraine and Russia.
Shrewd move, he is both preempting and "freezing out" more attempts by Putin to put pressure on Ukraine by "negotiating" through third parties and more specifically, his "messenger pigeons" Trump-Witkoff-Kushner et al.
He also knows Putin wouldn't accept it, but he is sending a much stronger message to both Putin and flaky European allies that "times, they are a-changing" and that Russia is in much weaker position to dictate terms of combat and what's acceptable for "peace deal" and ceasefire(s).
From the letter:
"When you led Russia more than 26 years ago, many in Ukraine had a positive attitude towards you. ... That is already in the past.
Now the absolute majority of Ukrainians perceive positively the fact that our long-range drones visited the opening of your forum in St. Petersburg, having overcome a distance of more than 1,000 kilometers. As you well know, this distance is not the limit of our capabilities.
... Almost half of your 26 years of power in Russia you have spent in the war against Ukraine.
Whatever you say about NATO, geopolitics and the Russian language, this war is your personal choice - a war without a real reason. This is how history will remember it.
We often hear that war suits you. Of course, not when it comes to the safety of your residence in Valdai or the parade in Moscow. Your own life is valuable to you.
But now we all see that this finally ceases to suit the Russians...
They do not like our drones and missiles.
They do not like the shortage of gasoline and the constant rise in prices...
They do not like your intention to organize a second wave of mobilization to expand the war...
They do not like the fact that there is no end in sight to your war.
Yes, you can still force the Russians to exist like this.
But your resources are significantly reduced.
You will not have enough money and political power to continue buying the loyalty of the Russians, as you have done for 26 years. We will do everything to ensure that the world takes care of this.
It is not that we in Ukraine are worried about the Russians. ... But I care about the Ukrainians.
... You are the first Russian ruler who was forced to turn to Pyongyang for help.
And today you are completely dependent on China - also for the first time in Russian history.
We have seen intelligence documents that you are now considering war plans for 2027 and 2028. We also know that you hope that ballistics will do for you what everything else has not.
Everyone has heard your representatives, smiling, saying that I can come to Moscow. But after such 26 years, there is nothing for the Ukrainian leader in your capital, as well as the Russian leader in Kyiv, to do.
There are countries that traditionally receive leaders to resolve issues of war and peace. Switzerland, Turkey... - many can and want to host this meeting.
... If you personally do not agree that it is time to end this war, Ukraine will continue to fight for its existence...
But you will also have to fight much more for your existence - not Russia's, but your own. ... These are facts of Russian history that you know well: when Russia gets tired, changes happen."
We can work on such fatigue. ...
Glory to Ukraine!"
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1. Musk in 2025: AI Will Take All Jobs - complete BS, as usual...
So far, there has been little, if any ROI on enterprise AI rollouts, and companies found they are blowing their budgets by token-maxxing, and that was even before deploying agentic AI, when they don't know how many tokens the model's agents will burn doing requested tasks, and then get surprised with the bill:
fortune.com - "'The cost of compute is far beyond the costs of the employee': Nvidia executive says right now AI is more expensive than paying human workers" - 2026-06-14
* 18% of organizations now orchestrating multiple agents across workflows, up from 9% in the previous period
* A $0.04 chat can become a $1.20 orchestration when it requires tool retrieval, planning and subagents
* AI coding costs are expected to surpass average developer salaries by 2028
* Despite enterprises spending an average of $11.5 million on AI in 2026, most struggle to demonstrate any clear return on investment.
* Recent tests have shown Chinese models to be much cheaper "per task" (not necessarily per token) and do almost as good a job as best US models, like Mythos, that run on more advanced hardware.
2. ... But Standard of Living Won't Fall
True, but it's more of Musk selling "Utopian" future (remember "Occupy Mars!" or Hyperloop or "Saving the Earth with EVs and solar panels") if only everyone buys into his "vision" and his "X-tools" - recently merged with SpaceX, xAI has just been rebranded as SpaceXAI (makes it easier to hide financial losses from xAI / Grok / eX-Twitter etc):
fortune.com - Can Elon Musk really save the world? - 2023-09-23
The real reason that "standard of living" won't fall is not because of bogus "AI will take all jobs... but you will like it" and Musk's upselling non-workable dystopian "UBI" into Utopian "UHI" - typically, "standard of living" and employment has risen with new, revolutionary or evolutionary technology, while often displacing some occupations and jobs. "AI" is not that much different - more technologically advanced, better educated societies replace brawn with brains:
www.forbes.com - Ford Hiring 350 Engineers After AI Failed Shows Human Value In AI Era - 2026-06-30
geekspin.co - Unions are furious after GM replaces 1,000 workers with 50 cobots - 2026-06-23
3. Tesla CEO says work will soon be optional... - more BS, never worked, even when "From each according to their ability, to each according to their need" was fashionable - this is how it ends up:
en.wikipedia.org(The_Twilight_Zone) - To Serve Man (The Twilight Zone) (1962)
4. ... as AI takes over all labour. - as in the "Horseshoe theory" it's a fine line just where and how this Musk's dystopian vision turns into Musk's Utopian vision; see point 1.
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