It really wouldn’t be the end of NATO. Greece and Turkey have had numerous spats while both NATO countries. An Article 5 resolution can be vetoed by any other NATO member. The US would assuredly do this.

A much more worrying possibility would be Denmark specifically withdrawing from or reducing cooperation with NATO. Forget Greenland, Denmark itself is in a very strategic location, considering its place in the Baltic.

He’s one of the lesser known Snow White dwarfs. Explody.

He’s out there with a hair dryer trying to melt it faster…

I didn’t come up with the succession loophole. That’s certainly been discussed before.

Specifically, the program would have to have a name that only a tech bro could love. So it will be called Universal Basic Ketamine (UBK.)

Here age is a big factor. If Musk is planning to try and seize real political power, he doesn’t have to ever challenge Trump. Implicit in their Devil’s bargain is the understanding that, in almost any universe, Musk is going to outlive Trump by a very long time. Elon need never challenge Trump directly, as he can simply let the reaper do that work for him. If Elon is MAGA’s heir apparent, then he can take over the movement after Trump is term limited, incapacitated, or dies.

And don’t rule out the idea of Musk vying to serve as president himself. As he was not born in the US, he cannot be elected president. But in theory he could become Acting President, which in terms of powers is indistinguishable from being President. He would run two lackeys for President and Vice President. Musk would be appointed Speaker of the House. Then, once elected and sworn in, the two lackeys would immediately resign. This would immediately make Musk Acting President. The two lackeys would run their whole campaign openly announcing this as their intended action; they’re not deceiving anyone.

And, as weird as it sounds, according to a strict literalist interpretation of the Constitution, the requirements of being President only apply to being elected President, not appointed by succession as the Acting President. In theory, anyone can be Acting President. If Trump goes for a third term, it would be through this mechanism. And that same loophole would allow Elon to hold the powers of the presidency. MAGA is all about finding weird legal loopholes to seize power at any cost. With a compliant Supreme Court in your pocket? Certainly achievable. The very bargain could be something like “Trump remains president until he dies, after which Elon takes the reins.”

No. No. Ok. I have a brilliant plan. Forget conquering Britain militarily. We will simply revoke The Declaration of Independence. The Act passed through Congress doing this will be called The Declaration of Dependence.

We’re now all just in the UK, and we Demand proportional representation in Parliament.

Obviously you’re meant to read between the lines. You’re reading too literally. And also, you are wrong about this needing Denmark’s blessing.

As part of the self-rule law of 2009 (section §21), Greenland can declare full independence if they wish to pursue it, but it would have to be approved by a referendum among the Greenlandic people.

Greenlandic Independence

Since you want it spelled out, here is the process of what US ‘buying’ Greenland would look like:

1. Run a campaign announcing that the US wants to buy Greenland, and they’re willing to give each Greenland citizen $10 million in order to do it. Assuming the population could be made agreeable to it, the next steps proceed.

2. The Greenland parliament announces a referendum declaring full independence from Denmark, a right they already have under existing Danish law and that they can exercise at any time.

3. The people of Greenland approve the referendum. Greenland gains independence from Denmark.

4. The new independent nation of Greenland signs a treaty of annexation with the US. One of the terms of that treaty is that every current Greenlandic resident will receive a check for $10 million USD.

If you think “aktually, you can’t buy Greenland!!!” is a valid criticism to this idea, you’re just thinking way too literally. You can, in practice, actually buy Greenland if the people there were willing to go for it. You’re not literally buying Greenland down at the store. You’re making a huge cash payment to each citizen a term in a treaty of annexation.

If the US want to peacefully annex Greenland, they don’t have to convince Denmark of anything. Denmark has already given the citizens of Greenland the full right to choose their own fate. All you need to do is to convince the 50,000 or so Greenlanders that being annexed by the US is a good idea. And their numbers are small enough that, unlike ideas of annexing Canadian territory, it would be practical just to write massive checks to every citizen of Greenland.

“Buying Greenland” sounds like an incredibly ridiculous idea. But in terms of potential territorial expansions that Trump has floated, it’s actually the most practical by far.

Honestly, buying Greenland is the most feasible of Trump’s territorial expansion proposals. There aren’t that many Greenlanders. They number 50,000 or so, and they all have Danish and EU citizenship.

The US could cut a check for $10 million USD to every man, woman, and child in Greenland, and the cost would come to about $500 billion. That’s a song for a territory that large and of such long-term significance.

And you wouldn’t be actually taking anyone’s land. Existing land ownership would be respected. All that would change is that Greeland would be part of the US, not Denmark. And if any Greenland citizens don’t want to live in the US, they can retire to Denmark and live well off the $20 million USD a couple of two would get.

The small population of Greenland makes otherwise impractical strategies like this possible. There’s so few Greenlanders that we could just cut them each enormous checks in order to buy them all out.

Seriously. The rule should be, “occupy whatever the hell you want. Just don’t create a fire hazard or prevent people from doing their job.” Want to sit-in on the hallway outside the university president’s office? Fine. Just keep the number small enough to not be a fire hazard. Feel free to shout whatever you want at them while they walk to their door. Don’t do anything stupid like chaining yourself to the university president, and you’ll be fine.

Yeah, it would be a bit annoying to be that president and to have to walk past protesters during terms. But so what? You signed up to be the president of the university, the human face of the campus administration. You’re the highest paid person on campus, behind only the football coach. Don’t want to deal with blue haired teenagers shouting at you? Don’t sign up to be a university president!

Nah. Just quietly file a secret indictment and arrest warrant against Musk. Inevitably he’ll forget about it and move on. Then a few years later, gallivanting about the world like billionaires do, he’ll step foot in Britain on some random business. That’s when you grab him. Arrest him then and put him on trial for violating various espionage and foreign interference laws.

I think King Charles should instead order Elon Musk dissolved.

Satire is dead.

No no. We need to better recreate the climate of Palestine if we’re going to ask millions of Israelis to relocate. You need a warm, coastal and arid Mediterranean climate. And we need an area that’s currently largely underpopulated.

Thus, we must…REUNIFY CALIFORNIA! For too long have Baja and Alta been disunited. It is time to annex Baja California, to reunify it with its Northern neighbor! Then we will offer large stretches of land in Baja California for Israeli Jews to settle in. That way they can have a homeland without oppressing the native Muslim population.

Timberborn! I do love those beavers.

If they are actually trying to create a unified and moderate government, Israel will likely have every top official killed within a few years. It’s a deliberate long-term strategy of Israel to turn neighboring countries into failed states and to keep them that way. It’s hard to seize Lebensraum from a peaceful democracy next door. But if you turn your neighboring country into a no-man’s land of violent anarchy where the only order is through warlords and militant groups, it’s easy to claim territory for a “buffer zone.” Well, a buffer zone to replace the previous buffer zone that you let your people settle inside.

Wow. I’m an idiot. Read this as NFTs. Ugh. I need some coffee.

Filthy money launderers.

Whoops.

How much money do they actually spend on the development of Firefox? That’s a figure I haven’t been able to find. However, in 2023, they had $1.5 billion in assets.

The only justification for a high-paying CEO is if they need to coordinate some large scale fundraising effort - schmoozing with other rich fucks to gain further donations, and plotting elaborate strategies to get more donations.

They have $1.5 billion in assets. How much more do they really need? Need someone to manage Mozilla’s assets? Make me the CEO. I’ll do it for you. In fact, I’ll do it for free. That will be my contribution to the Firefox project. I’ll stick that $1.5 billion in simple bond and index funds and withdraw at a very conservative 2% rate. And that will provide $30 million a year to spend on developers to improve Firefox and other projects. And we can just keep doing that forever. I’ll purposefully withdraw funds at a rate lower than the market averages, so the real value of the endowment grows over time. And that will allow us to slowly expand the scope of operations and start new projects. And while I won’t spend any time or effort to schmooze and jet set across the country to kiss the ass of some billionaire, if one wants to throw some money in the pot, we’ll have a donation button on the website.

Our cursed future:

We will figure out how to create a VR system that can continuously simulate a truly immersive reality. We create something like the Holodeck in Star Trek or the Matrix from…the Matrix.

Unfortunately it will take 10 GW of power to maintain such a simulation. 10 GW…per person.

In the end, all our grand techno dreams will come true. We’ll figure out how to build deuterium-based fusion reactors, and we’ll use godlike robotics to rapidly expand our infrastructure and power production. We’ll even imagine a social utopia. Everyone gets access to the tech, and 10 GW of power just isn’t that expensive anymore.

We create the perfect power source, able to be fueled from the deuterium, that can be easily drawn from any natural source of water. We create a virtual paradise world of ultimate bliss, a cyberpunk post-scarcity utopia built on unparalleled robotics and abundant fusion energy.

Then in a century, we drink the oceans dry. If 10 GW isn’t enough to do it, our per-capita energy demand will only continue its exponential rise. The reason we don’t see any other civilizations out there amongst the stars is that technological civilizations are like firecrackers in the night. Wants are infinite. And as soon as the pool of available resources grows, new uses are found for these resources. Build a Dyson sphere around the Sun to capture its entire output, and there will be some bastard arguing that we need to disassemble the damn Sun to optimize total lifetime energy output.

Civilizations like ours are explosions on the cosmic scene. Our energy needs increase exponentially until we, in relatively short order, either exhausts all reserves or burn in our own waste heat.

We are a firecracker in the night.