TRIGGERnometry - April 23, 2024


Ukraine and the Age of Cowards - Konstantin Kisin

The Russian Revolution： An In-Depth Guide - Antony Beevor The Modern Dating Catastrophe, Sex Recession & Population Collapse - Louise Perry

Episode Stats


Length

6 minutes

Words per minute

186.1

Word count

1,188

Sentence count

64

People

Guests:
Konstantin Kisin
Also mentioned:
Beautiful Noise Vladimir Putin Sweet Caroline Kherson Peter Hitchens Jack Posobiec Peter Thiel David Sachs Dave Smith Biden

Harmful content

Hate speech

6

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Learn English with Peter Thiel. Peter Thiel is a venture capitalist and venture capitalist who has invested heavily in venture capital and has been a long-time supporter of Ukraine s struggle to maintain its independence. He is a regular contributor to The New York Times and the Financial Times, and is one of the most well-known critics of Vladimir Putin. In this episode, he explains why he thinks it s time to call an end to the Ukraine conflict.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.700 Broadway's smash hit, The Neil Diamond Musical, A Beautiful Noise, is coming to Toronto.
00:00:06.520 The true story of a kid from Brooklyn destined for something more, featuring all the songs you love,
00:00:11.780 including America, Forever in Blue Jeans, and Sweet Caroline.
00:00:15.780 Like Jersey Boys and Beautiful, the next musical mega hit is here, The Neil Diamond Musical, A Beautiful Noise.
00:00:22.660 April 28th through June 7th, 2026, The Princess of Wales Theatre.
00:00:27.120 Get tickets at Mirvish.com.
00:00:30.480 The great American investor Peter Thiel said in a speech in 2014 that in the modern West,
00:00:36.320 courage is in shorter supply than genius.
00:00:38.900 It doesn't feel like it, but 2014 is now a full decade in the past,
00:00:43.020 and in that time, the supply of courage has continued to fall off a cliff.
00:00:47.000 There could be no greater example of this than our increasingly abhorrent treatment of Ukraine.
00:00:51.720 By way of brief reminder, I am a staunch supporter of Ukraine's struggle to maintain its independence.
00:00:56.520 My mother is Ukrainian. So is my wife.
00:00:59.100 I have aunts, uncles, cousins, and other relatives living in almost every part of the country,
00:01:03.720 many of them within an hour's drive of the front line.
00:01:06.580 While many Western commentators were claiming Russia would never attack,
00:01:10.080 even as Putin's troops were amassing on Ukraine's borders,
00:01:12.940 I warned that an invasion was imminent.
00:01:15.700 When it did inevitably happen, I went on every media platform I could find
00:01:19.620 to encourage Western leaders to help the Ukrainians fight off the invaders.
00:01:23.640 On a single trigonometry livestream, we raised over £55,000 in an hour to help with the humanitarian effort.
00:01:31.080 My wife and I have spent thousands of pounds in supplies and cash to support our friends and family in Ukraine.
00:01:36.500 And yet, four months ago, I wrote an article in which I argued that it was time to bring the war to an end.
00:01:41.960 My argument was simple. As I said at the time, to be clear, none of what follows is to suggest that Ukraine was wrong to defend itself,
00:01:49.620 that we were wrong to encourage them, that we were wrong to commit considerable financial and other resources to supporting them or anything of the kind.
00:01:57.660 On the contrary, with our support, Ukraine has achieved what almost no one could have predicted when Putin first invaded.
00:02:03.860 Using our help, the Ukrainians first repelled their attacks on Kiev, Chernigov and Kharkov, 0.76
00:02:09.000 before recapturing huge swathes of land and even forcing Russia to withdraw from Kherson.
00:02:13.880 As a result, Ukrainian sovereignty is no longer in question.
00:02:17.560 Vladimir Putin has paid a heavy price for his invasion, and the West has discovered a unity few expected, myself included.
00:02:24.660 But all of these gains occurred many months and tens of thousands of deaths ago.
00:02:28.660 The last major Ukrainian victory, the liberation of Kherson, took place exactly a year ago, in November 2022.
00:02:36.460 Since then, the lines on the map have barely moved, while Ukrainian boys pay with their lives for every nameless village they take and retake. 1.00
00:02:44.220 That was what I said at the time, four months ago.
00:02:47.040 And it is entirely the fault of Western leaders, who are too cowardly to admit a truth that sources in the British Ministry of Defense confessed with heavy sighs.
00:02:55.320 We failed to give the Ukrainians what they needed after their initial successes. 0.98
00:03:00.220 Last summer's much-vaunted counter-offensive failed for two reasons.
00:03:03.960 We did not give the Ukrainians the hardware they needed, and we made them wait too long for what we did provide.
00:03:09.260 The result of this is that the bravery of Ukrainians is becoming their own worst enemy. 1.00
00:03:13.880 In the words of one British military officer who spoke to me on condition of anonymity,
00:03:18.400 our main focus now is to make any equipment we send as user-friendly as possible.
00:03:23.280 Why, I asked him?
00:03:24.220 Because most of the people using it have been on the front lines for less than a month.
00:03:29.040 There are, of course, many conspiracy theories about why we continue to encourage Ukraine to fight
00:03:33.720 with empty promises of help that never comes.
00:03:36.340 From their rapaciousness of the military-industrial complex
00:03:39.340 to the desire to erode Russia's strength by fighting to the last Ukrainian.
00:03:43.760 But the wildest conspiracy theory of all is that we keep cheering them on
00:03:47.360 because we want them to win and believe they can.
00:03:50.220 The real reason is sadly both far simpler and far uglier.
00:03:53.420 Western leaders cheer on the fight while continually failing to provide the help Ukraine needs
00:03:58.340 because they're afraid of being the first one to break ranks.
00:04:01.880 The fear is understandable, too.
00:04:03.780 When I wrote the article I just quoted to you,
00:04:06.400 every single person with whom I've ever debated or disagreed over Ukraine
00:04:10.020 came out triumphantly to claim that they'd been right all along.
00:04:13.660 Peter Hitchens, David Sachs, Dave Smith, Jack Posobiec, and countless others,
00:04:18.740 none of whom had actually read the article in question,
00:04:21.840 all claimed that I had finally changed my mind and come round to the correct position.
00:04:26.580 Arden, Ukraine supporters, on the other hand,
00:04:28.640 who'd been sharing my commentary enthusiastically all along,
00:04:31.760 suddenly discovered that I was in fact born in Moscow.
00:04:34.220 I immediately became suspect and persona non grata in their circles.
00:04:38.820 Both groups are naturally entirely wrong.
00:04:41.340 I never changed my mind about the decision to support Ukraine.
00:04:44.420 But as I explained in the first few days of the war,
00:04:47.140 the point of our support was to help Ukraine get the best deal possible.
00:04:50.860 This is, I'm afraid, a fight that Ukrainians have to win. 1.00
00:04:53.760 The only way this conflict ends is at the negotiating table.
00:04:56.920 The only way for us to get to the negotiating table
00:04:59.200 is for Ukrainians to put up a fight that is strong enough 1.00
00:05:02.740 that Putin wants to come to the negotiating table.
00:05:05.840 This would always involve territorial concessions
00:05:08.460 in exchange for long-term security.
00:05:11.360 From the get-go, the reason we helped Ukraine fight
00:05:14.120 is so that they could make the best possible peace.
00:05:17.520 Western politicians know that the war is moving in the wrong direction.
00:05:21.020 President Biden, who milked applause from his own side
00:05:23.740 during his recent State of the Union address
00:05:25.800 for sounding defiant about his support for Ukraine,
00:05:29.040 is surely better informed than I am about how things are going.
00:05:32.860 But no doubt, still reeling from his calamitous withdrawal from Afghanistan,
00:05:36.800 he is afraid of looking weak precisely because he is weak
00:05:39.780 and brave Ukrainians are paying for his cowardice with their lives.
00:05:43.920 If you enjoyed these videos,
00:05:45.460 you should know that they're available on my sub-stacks
00:05:47.660 weeks and sometimes even months ahead of coming out here.
00:05:50.860 So head on over now and make sure you subscribe.
00:05:53.240 Broadway's smash hit,
00:05:55.860 The Neil Diamond Musical,
00:05:57.280 A Beautiful Noise,
00:05:58.680 is coming to Toronto.
00:06:00.140 The true story of a kid from Brooklyn
00:06:01.980 destined for something more,
00:06:03.660 featuring all the songs you love,
00:06:05.400 including America,
00:06:06.680 Forever in Blue Jeans,
00:06:07.860 and Sweet Caroline.
00:06:09.400 Like Jersey Boys and Beautiful,
00:06:11.180 the next musical mega hit is here,
00:06:13.480 The Neil Diamond Musical,
00:06:15.060 A Beautiful Noise.
00:06:16.140 April 28th through June 7th,
00:06:18.240 2026,
00:06:19.300 The Princess of Wales Theatre.
00:06:21.200 Get tickets at Mirvish.com.