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[+] -7 points 1 year ago (21 children)

Do you say the same thing about Russian billionaires funding the war against Ukraine?

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  • [–] 11 points 1 year ago (15 children)

    They said :

    they all need to go

    All being the operative word here, which is inclusive of Russian billionaires.

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  • [+] -12 points 1 year ago (14 children)

    Are you ByteJunk? Is ByteJunk a name for a group of people or why do you say « they »?

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (13 children)

    No. I am dependencyInjection.

    I said they, as I was referencing ByteJunk and what they literally said (typed, if you want to be a pedant) in the comment you replied to.

    Are you happy now? Do you need anything else blatantly obvious to be clarified for you?

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago* (9 children)

    Bogus is just doing that new anti-trans-panic performance the nazis do now where they pretend English hasn’t used they/them for unspecified gender for hundreds of years. She’s a troll.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (7 children)

    Yeah it’s an odd one. You could say my friend Bob is also going and they will meet you in the reception.

    Perfectly normal way of speaking and nothing to do with transgender stuff.

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  • [–] -3 points 1 year ago (6 children)

    Ah, great idea for progress in English, they have. Not only 'the' for all sexes, but 'they' for all, now they say. Great idea they have, yes. 🤣

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    Singular they had existed for centuries before your miserable existence.

    It's a way to refer to someone in the 3rd person without knowing their gender. If you do know their gender, you can use the proper gendered pronouns.

    Not only ‘the’ for all sexes

    'The' has always been gender neutral in English because English doesn't assign gender to nouns. Thus grammatically, a gender-specific "the" isn't necessary unlike in German or Spanish where all nouns have grammatical genders. And if you come back at me with "'the' isn't even that old, it used to be spelled 'ye'", well the problem there is that it was only printed that way for convenience, the pronunciation was never with a "y".

    "It" is incorrect for using about a person as well, unless referring to a baby or a small child. Why? It's just how English has been spoken for a long time now, and how it's still used. Language rules should reflect usage, not the other way around.

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  • [–] -1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    …. before your miserable existence.

    You should not be looking into the mirror too long. It seems that you got a pretty brain damage.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    I'm not the one making deliberately obtuse comments about completely valid grammatical constructs to make a political point.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago

    Well, apparently I communicate sufficiently in English for you to address my points accordingly. And it also shows a certain mental poverty, especially a lack of self-reflection, not just to nitpick infantile grammatical errors, but also to stick your nose into things where you know you'll get virtually slapped. But as I already mentioned: I can't turn donkeys like you into a racehorse. This mental effort, if possible for you at all, should come from you.

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  • [–] -3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Ah, ByteJunk, one person it is not, many, it is. Got it. But how they decide what to comment, hmm? Take much time, it must 😂

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    Ideas transcend people.

    Written language transcends you.

    I see dependencyInjection clearly would have better used his time elsewhere, so let's learn from his endeavours and tag you appropriately, so we can avoid future waste.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    There's really no such thing as "Russian billionaires", at least not in the western sense. Also not in the oligarch sense, oligarchy implies rule by few, that's not the case in Russia, it's an autocracy, rule by one: There's the Tsar and he doeth bequeath wealth upon loyal viceroys in the form of fiefdoms to exploit. The Tsar giveth, and the Tsar taketh away. Shit hasn't changed since the times of the Russian Empire but this time around it's less about territories and the people on it but factories and industries.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (3 children)

    Certainly, the Russian system was and is totally a hierarchical system based on- like everywhere - on power and influence (both intermingle). But this does not exclude that there are very wealthy people in Russia who are funding the war, being it because they are forced to (I hardly believe) or because they make profit out of it. Don’t you think so?

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (2 children)

    The war is funded partly by the taxpayer, partly by inflation. The viceroys might be making less of a profit right now as they can't engage in their usual level of grift but Putin doesn't, and isn't going to, touch their villas and fancy cars.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    Please take a look at these articles:

    Le Monde

    The Cyber Voice

    And even the Moscow Times

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago*

    That's not contradicting anything I said, on the contrary it's contradicting your assertion that those people would be funding the war. Their wealth is largely unaffected, still making profits (even if a bit lower) because they're still fulfilling their purpose as loyal viceroys.

    Like, usually they could e.g. produce ballistic vests out of cardboard, bill the army full price for the things, and pocket the difference. That doesn't fly any more but that doesn't mean that suddenly their businesses are unprofitable.

    Among kremlinologists there's generally an acknowledgement that the viceroys aren't exactly thrilled about the war because it's cutting into their profits and they're not seeing any point in it, OTOH they're also not willing to bite the hand that feeds them. Few have armies large enough to march on Moscow, none have armies large enough to face down the actual one, and none of them wants to end like Prigozhin. They also don't like not being able to travel to Monaco. They're assholes captured between a rock and a hard place. Normal Russian circumstances, one might say.

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