How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[danfrodo]

13 minutes ago, Probus said:

No. You are correct. I'm that brainwashed and stupid.  Or as Socrates says,

But that's a discussion for another thread. 

If you are part of the 'woke is destroying us' crowd, then quoting socrates is not gonna make you look any smarter.  World has real problems. Wokeness, whatever the F that actually means, if probably #255 on list of actual problems.  The fact that you go there without provocation speaks ill of where you mind is.  

So the Swiss were 'woke'?  They make monstrous money shielding the wealth of the world's worst people, generation after generation.  That's woke?  Again, WTF are you even talking about???

[Lethaface]

Let's skip the fundamentally non-issues here, please.

Edited September 2 by Lethaface

[Haiduk]

Barely UKR forces stabilized more or less situation near Pokrovsk and Selidove, Russians have activated Vuhledar sector again. Already two or three days there are reports about intensive mechanized assaults (not in mass, but continuosly with platoon-size goups). Russians reportedly could breach our lines and their assault groups captured administarttive building of Pivdennoukrainska #1 coal mine, NE from Vuhledar. On other flank Russians today had adavance in Prechustivka area and reportedly seized part of the village.

Several days before Russians captured strong fortified positions near Vodiane, covering coalmine direction. This happened mostly because severe lack of personnel and total chaos in combat interaction - this is a scorge of whole OTUV "Khortystsia", defending southern part of Donbas. 

Backbone of Vuhledar sector is 72nd mech.brigade, but they are two years here without rotations and significant replenishments. And having a lack of personnel have multiple attached units like TD or separate rifle battalions (stricly saying, their remnants). This brings huge chaos in troops control and leads to conflicts between commanders. One company comamnder of TD batatlion wrote month ago their chief of teh staff was beaten by deputy commander of 72nd brigade in front of eyes of staff officers, because TD officer demanded more artillery and drone support for his battalion, which because of unrealistic tasks being put by 72nd brigade and their own battalion commander (formed retired officer), their battalion lost 1,5 companies of personnel killed and wounded for 10 days.  

Here is a map of Russian strike direcrtions. Obviuos their paln to encircle Vuhledar or come in it rear from one of these directions. Maybe Poilet Volant will make a fresh map tomorrow

 

Edited September 2 by Haiduk

[Haiduk]

Just for the scale - Russian gains during last week

[danfrodo]

13 minutes ago, Haiduk said:

Barely UKR forces stabilized more or less situation near Pokrovsk and Selidove, Russians have activated Vuhledar sector again. Already two or three days there are reports about intensive mechanized assaults (not in mass, but continuosly with platoon-size goups). Russians reportedly could breach our lines and their assault groups captured administarttive building of Pivdennoukrainska #1 coal mine, NE from Vuhledar. On other flank Russians today had adavance in Prechustivka area and reportedly seized part of the village.

Several days before Russians captured strong fortified positions near Vodiane, covering coalmine direction. This happened mostly because severe lack of personnel and total chaos in combat interaction - this is a scorge of whole OTUV "Khortystsia", defending southern part of Donbas. 

Backbone of Vuhledar sector is 72nd mech.brigade, but they are two years here without rotations and significant replenishments. And having a lack of personnel have multiple attached units like TD or separate rifle battalions (stricly saying, their remnants). This brings huge chaos in troops control and leads to conflicts between commanders. One company comamnder of TD batatlion wrote month ago their chief of teh staff was beaten by deputy commander of 72nd brigade in front of eyes of staff officers, because TD officer demanded more artillery and drone support for his battalion, which because of unrealistic tasks being put by 72nd brigade and their own battalion commander (formed retired officer), their battalion lost 1,5 companies of personnel killed and wounded for 10 days.  

Here is a map of Russian strike direcrtions. Obviuos their paln to encircle Vuhledar or come in it rear from one of these directions. Maybe Poilet Volant will make a fresh map tomorrow

 

I suppose those platoon-size assaults, are rather exhausting.  Repel one group, maybe there's some stragglers that made it into your defensive area, then there's another one.  And another one. 

Kursk is good fun but I hope UKR hasn't weakened its own lines too much.  Or maybe UKR command is OK trading this terrain in service to some other, greater good, we haven't seen yet?  Another 6-8 weeks before the mud.  

[sburke]

2 hours ago, danfrodo said:

If you are part of the 'woke is destroying us' crowd, then quoting socrates is not gonna make you look any smarter.  World has real problems. Wokeness, whatever the F that actually means, if probably #255 on list of actual problems.  The fact that you go there without provocation speaks ill of where you mind is.  

So the Swiss were 'woke'?  They make monstrous money shielding the wealth of the world's worst people, generation after generation.  That's woke?  Again, WTF are you even talking about???

woke originally meant simply being aware to things you probably weren't before.  It is about increased knowledge and understanding - i.e. education.

Now it is just a buzz word that carries no meaning whatsoever, but simply an insult of some sort.

in this context... I have no idea what it means either.  

[danfrodo]

Pokrovsk:  this feller claims that UKR sent reinforcements who arrived like an angry dwarf with a war axe (my paraphrase).  But he doesn't have much evidence.  Says UKR sent around 2000 soldiers and they attacked basically off the march.  

Anyone have anything to back up this hopeful (wishful) claim?

 

Edited September 3 by danfrodo

[danfrodo]

Sorry, going a bit off topic but this has some relevance because so much of our information comes via X.  And there seems to be a lot of ignorance about who Musk actually is.  For the crowd that thinks that Elon is not a rotten villain, here's the latest. 

In an earlier post, Acrashb showed something to make the point "looks, here's something nice from X, therefore no problem".  The heinous bit of narcissistic egomania, below, is the kind of stuff Elon reposts, often.  He seems to go for racist, mysogynistic stuff, but today went with plutocracy and a nice topping of nazi.  'Reich effect" -- he finds this interesting?  This is a straight up call to end democracy, the rights of most of the population, certainly the rights of women.  

America's favorite neo-nazi billionaire at it again.  And before responding , remember that this is Elon's doing, not mine.  There's a billion things he can retweet and of that multitude what he actually chooses to retweet tells us plenty about who he actually is.

So, yeah, anyone want to defend Musk?  

 

[Blazing 88's]

3 hours ago, danfrodo said:

Pokrovsk:  this feller claims that UKR sent reinforcements who arrived like an angry dwarf with a war axe (my paraphrase).  But he doesn't have much evidence.  Says UKR sent around 2000 soldiers and they attacked basically off the march.  

Anyone have anything to back up this hopeful (wishful) claim?

 

 

I like both 'Ukraine Matters' and this channel below...
'Military & History'
He talks about the reinforcements sent to Prokovsk. He mentioned the reinforcements in his previous video too.

 

 

Edited September 3 by Blazing 88's

[Maciej Zwolinski]

3 hours ago, danfrodo said:

So, yeah, anyone want to defend Musk?  

I would be happy to, but that would be totally off topic and spoil the thread for a lot of people. Let's don't.

[Carolus]

 

A bit about the Ukrainian Expeditionary Force in Kursk.

[The_Capt]

7 hours ago, danfrodo said:

Sorry, going a bit off topic but this has some relevance because so much of our information comes via X.  And there seems to be a lot of ignorance about who Musk actually is.  For the crowd that thinks that Elon is not a rotten villain, here's the latest. 

In an earlier post, Acrashb showed something to make the point "looks, here's something nice from X, therefore no problem".  The heinous bit of narcissistic egomania, below, is the kind of stuff Elon reposts, often.  He seems to go for racist, mysogynistic stuff, but today went with plutocracy and a nice topping of nazi.  'Reich effect" -- he finds this interesting?  This is a straight up call to end democracy, the rights of most of the population, certainly the rights of women.  

America's favorite neo-nazi billionaire at it again.  And before responding , remember that this is Elon's doing, not mine.  There's a billion things he can retweet and of that multitude what he actually chooses to retweet tells us plenty about who he actually is.

So, yeah, anyone want to defend Musk?  

 

 

I don’t really know about Musk but this is really warped logic on the “Reich Effect”.

1. With the glorious invention of weapons…anyone can “physically defend themselves”. The right keeps blaring “guns for all” which means that females and “low T” males are able to defend themselves as well as any muscle bound super dude.

2. Isn’t the whole point of democracy to build consensus? The entire thing is about removing decision making from the hands of a few (monarchies in the old days) and put it into the hands of the many? By this logic females and “low T males” would be the best performers in a democratic system in that they are apparently hard wired by nature to seek common ground and consensus building. High T males would logically be the worst leaders in such a system as they would all be trying to “impose their wills” in every direction. There is a very important distinction between “making decisions” and “making the right decision.”

3. What the hell is “brute force manufactured consensus” in the modern age? Every screen is not saying the same thing. In fact we have got too many screens saying everything, all at the same time. I am sure there is some weird theory that the left has no independent thought and suffered from group think, and frankly there is truth to this. But the right is just as guilty of this as any. The reality is that humans are prone to group think as safety mechanism, and it does not matter how beefy or hairy they are.

4. “Only alpha high T males and anuerotypical people are able to determine if new information is in fact ‘true.’” If this is true we are doomed. Because the only people able to really see truth are in fact the worse ones to have in charge of a larger population. The good news is that there is no evidence to support this theory. In fact “objective truth” is particularly challenging as humans in generally rely on subjective truths - it is how we are all built.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjectivity_and_objectivity_(philosophy)

The fact that Elon found this “interesting” definitely puts him in the subjectivity camp.

But I do have to say that this pairing of Autism and the Republican Party does win the “Weird F#cking Duck” award of the week.

Edited September 3 by The_Capt

[Eug85]

Russian propaganda works wonders. People with diametrically opposed views unite to fight against Ukraine. This far-left character from the USA joined the Russian unit "Espanyol" created from football hooligans with far-right views to fight against "Ukrainian fascists".

Something similar is happening inside Russia itself, where communists and fascists support Putin's policies. After all, some hope to build a Soviet Union, and others a Russian empire.

By the way, this situation is beginning to be seen in Europe, where both the far left and the far right are ardent supporters of Putin.

[Sgt Joch]

7 hours ago, danfrodo said:

So, yeah, anyone want to defend Musk?  

You do realize that is a not very subtle dig at Robert Reich (i.e. “low T men”)who has been calling for Musk’s arrest a few days ago? There have been tweets aimed at R.Reich for days in my feed. Childish yes, but It has nothing to do with the Third Reich.

Edited September 3 by Sgt Joch

[The_Capt]

1 hour ago, Sgt Joch said:

You do realize that is a not very subtle dig at Robert Reich (i.e. “low T men”)who has been calling for Musk’s arrest a few days ago? There have been tweets aimed at R.Reich for days in my feed. Childish yes, but It has nothing to do with the Third Reich.

I am in my mid-fifties now. My T's strain to ensure I can still pee regularly.

[Fernando]

10 hours ago, danfrodo said:

So, yeah, anyone want to defend Musk?  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asch_conformity_experiments

Asch conformity experiments

In psychology, the Asch conformity experiments or the Asch paradigm were a series of studies directed by Solomon Asch studying if and how individuals yielded to or defied a majority group and the effect of such influences on beliefs and opinions.
[...]

Rationale

Many early studies in social psychology were adaptations of earlier work on "suggestibility" whereby researchers such as Edward L. Thorndyke were able to shift the preferences of adult subjects towards majority or expert opinion.[3] Still the question remained as to whether subject opinions were actually able to be changed, or if such experiments were simply documenting a Hawthorne effect in which participants simply gave researchers the answers they wanted to hear. Solomon Asch's experiments on group conformity mark a departure from these earlier studies by removing investigator influence from experimental conditions.

[…]

Method

[...]

Groups of eight male college students participated in a simple "perceptual" task. In reality, all but one of the participants were actors, and the true focus of the study was about how the remaining participant would react to the actors' behavior.

[…]

Results

In the control group, with no pressure to conform to actors, the error rate on the critical stimuli was less than 0.7%.

In the actor condition also, the majority of participants' responses remained correct (64.3%), but a sizable minority of responses conformed to the actors' (incorrect) answer (35.7%). The responses revealed strong individual differences: 12% of participants followed the group in nearly all of the tests. 26% of the sample consistently defied majority opinion, with the rest conforming on some trials. An examination of all critical trials in the experimental group revealed that one-third of all responses were incorrect. These incorrect responses often matched the incorrect response of the majority group (i.e., actors). Overall, 74% of participants gave at least one incorrect answer out of the 12 critical trials.[1] Regarding the study results, Asch stated: "That intelligent, well-meaning young people are willing to call white black is a matter of concern."

[…]
 

That experiment unfortunately agrees in some ways with that (awful) text (the one that Musk loves so much). Lots of people (about 75% of the total) are prone to agree in some ways with an idea, as long as it is perceived coming from a general consensus.

That "conformity effect" makes things easier for dictators. If you can control the media and destroy free, independent thinking, about 75% of the people will have a natural tendency to agree in some degree with the official thinking/ideas  (i.e. Jews are guilty of destroying Germany, NATO wants to destroy Russia, etc.) as log as they are perceived as shared for the majority of the population no matter how wrong are them. 

That's one of the main reasons most political movement say "we are the people". They want to portray their ideas are product of a general consensus, then, if they manage to get that result, lots of non-aligned people will come to them by default. 

Add cognitive disonance to that conformity effect, and life for a democracy may be made harsher if their enemies manage to dominate the political discurse

Edited September 3 by Fernando

[danfrodo]

3 hours ago, Sgt Joch said:

You do realize that is a not very subtle dig at Robert Reich (i.e. “low T men”)who has been calling for Musk’s arrest a few days ago? There have been tweets aimed at R.Reich for days in my feed. Childish yes, but It has nothing to do with the Third Reich.

Well, damn, that is flat out embarrassing.  Thank you for correcting me, Sgt Joch.  I apologize for the 'Reich' part of my post.  I was wrong on that part, completely. 

The rest is still horrific, and a good example of Musk's very anti-democratic and distorted mindset.

Edited September 3 by danfrodo

[The_Capt]

56 minutes ago, Fernando said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asch_conformity_experiments

Asch conformity experiments

In psychology, the Asch conformity experiments or the Asch paradigm were a series of studies directed by Solomon Asch studying if and how individuals yielded to or defied a majority group and the effect of such influences on beliefs and opinions.
[...]

Rationale

Many early studies in social psychology were adaptations of earlier work on "suggestibility" whereby researchers such as Edward L. Thorndyke were able to shift the preferences of adult subjects towards majority or expert opinion.[3] Still the question remained as to whether subject opinions were actually able to be changed, or if such experiments were simply documenting a Hawthorne effect in which participants simply gave researchers the answers they wanted to hear. Solomon Asch's experiments on group conformity mark a departure from these earlier studies by removing investigator influence from experimental conditions.

[…]

Method

[...]

Groups of eight male college students participated in a simple "perceptual" task. In reality, all but one of the participants were actors, and the true focus of the study was about how the remaining participant would react to the actors' behavior.

[…]

Results

In the control group, with no pressure to conform to actors, the error rate on the critical stimuli was less than 0.7%.

In the actor condition also, the majority of participants' responses remained correct (64.3%), but a sizable minority of responses conformed to the actors' (incorrect) answer (35.7%). The responses revealed strong individual differences: 12% of participants followed the group in nearly all of the tests. 26% of the sample consistently defied majority opinion, with the rest conforming on some trials. An examination of all critical trials in the experimental group revealed that one-third of all responses were incorrect. These incorrect responses often matched the incorrect response of the majority group (i.e., actors). Overall, 74% of participants gave at least one incorrect answer out of the 12 critical trials.[1] Regarding the study results, Asch stated: "That intelligent, well-meaning young people are willing to call white black is a matter of concern."

[…]
 

That experiment unfortunately agrees in some ways with that (awful) text (the one that Musk loves so much). Lots of people (about 75% of the total) are prone to agree in some ways with an idea, as long as it is perceived coming from a general consensus.

That "conformity effect" makes things easier for dictators. If you can control the media and destroy free, independent thinking, about 75% of the people will usually agree in some degree with the official thinking/ideas  (i.e. Jews are guilty of destroying Germany, NATO wants to destroy Russia, etc.) no matter how wrong are them. 

That's one of the main reasons most political movement say "we are the people". They want to portray their ideas are product of a general consensus, then, if they manage to get that result, lots of non-aligned people will come to them by default. 

Add cognitive disonance to that conformity effect, and life for a democracy may be made harsher if their enemies manage to dominate the political discurse

Let's be careful of these gross oversimplifications. Humans have herd mentality but it is far more complex than a 75% threshold or weird college experiments to prove peer pressure is a thing.

Of course groupthink happens, but it is not the dominant form of human discourse. If it was then we would live in the freakin Kingdom of Heaven by now. Instead we have all sorts of social eruptions big and small. From revolution to crime, the divergent minority appears to be alive and well. Hell, I have one living in my basement now.

I will ask a very simple question - "who gives a flying f#ck" what Elon Musk thinks or does not think? He may be lining up to be the Trump-after-Trump or maybe is just proving that every billionaire gets bored and will eventually hunt humans for sport. This whole "X" conspiracy theory does not hold water at all, as last I checked no one is really agreeing with anyone else. 1984 is not any closer, but frankly the music was better then. 

[Vlad]

21 hours ago, Lethaface said:

Welcome!  reading the first 720 pages is already quite an achievement. Sometimes there might be a bit of a lull of real developments and recurring discussions about nukes and other stuff which I'd feel free to skip after the first couple of iterations ;-).

Interesting to read about your POV in Slovakia. Let's hope Europe and USA don't fall for the nasty populists that are currently on the rise. We have one here in NL as the largest party, but he could only form a government if he accepted a 'reasonable' government (although that remains to be seen) with a neutral PM, so there will be no extreme stuff like kicking out all unwanted immigrants. Also support for Ukraine was mandatory condition. I guess it could have been worse, hopefully this will contain his voter support but I'm not fully optimistic to say the least.

However, the Nordstream stuff and similar things could become fuel for his fire. Today he tweeted whether our PM (on a visit in Ukraine, Zaporisha) was only there to bring money, or whether the rampant corruption was also a subject. 

In less economic prosperity, those at the bottom of the income pyramid feel inflation and rising costs the hardest; while they have the least capability to understand that sending a few Bn to Ukraine won't really make a difference in our economy. Our politicians have to come with a strong narrative how that all connects together and is actually better for the average Joe on the long run. 
It is possible, but first they have to start not trying to fight the populists with their own weapons.
I have, unfortunately, not seen many good politicians in Europe in our time; who can convene and present such a narrative.

I don't mind repeatedly reading about the same stuff because for example the nukes just belong to this topic, since people like Medvedev like to use them as threats whenever they're drunk (read: all the time). Reading posts from back then is fine, even though many times I'm about to reply to a post only to realize that I'm two years late so there's no point in it. 

About the populists I hope so too. We in Slovakia have fallen victim to them in both parliamentary elections (Fico becoming the PM) and presidential elections (Peter Pelegrini is just Fico's sockpuppet - in fact they were in the same party, but Pelegrini left to start his own even though he acts as watered-down Fico and people were joking that it's just a charade). Even the third main-ish member of our coalition, Andrej Danko, is more or less just another useful idiot. He is known for visiting the Russian Duma several times (presumably for some rectal alpinism) and he became a meme machine for his frequent gaffes, where he sounded like a broken generator of random words. If you think Biden's gaffes were severe, Danko would give him a run for his money. And he was a friggin' Speaker of the Parliament. That's how bad our situation is.

On the other hand our Czech brothers handled it quite well by electing  Petr Fiala as a PM and former general Petr Pavel as president (he appears to be a male version of our former president Zuzana Čaputová) and their populists got smacked. Also the Italian elections ended well from what I gather. I don't know about France, I remember reading about new elections and if that's true, that may be a problem if Marine LePen wins.

Our help for the Ukraine went from "sending whatever we can, even though it's not much in the grand scheme of things" (S-300, MiG-29s) to crowdsourcing - I think it was this year that we collected something between 3 to 4 million Euros for Ukraine to buy what they need, despite our PM trying to downplay it by saying that "it's just a drop in the bucket". On the other hand Czechia has provided plenty of help, they led the recent effort to buy artillery ammunition from around the world and the people have even crowdfunded an upgrade T-72 tank called Tomáš (Thomas, after Thomas the Tank Engine). I know. Czechia has most of the arms industry from the former Czechislovakia and our only military company produces only the SPGs like Zuzana or Dana and the mine-clearing vehicle Božena, but still, it's about the effort and here we are clearly lacking.

Edited September 3 by Vlad

[billbindc]

3 hours ago, Sgt Joch said:

You do realize that is a not very subtle dig at Robert Reich (i.e. “low T men”)who has been calling for Musk’s arrest a few days ago? There have been tweets aimed at R.Reich for days in my feed. Childish yes, but It has nothing to do with the Third Reich.

Well...except for the part about how a particular type of person is who should autocratically run nations. 

[Carolus]

Changes in the Ukrainian cabinet:

Quote

The Minister of Strategic Industries, Kamyshin, the Minister of Justice, Malyuska, the Minister of Environmental Protection, Strelets, and the head of the State Property Fund, Koval, submitted their resignations.

https://t.me/ssternenko/33235

[danfrodo]

18 minutes ago, Carolus said:

Changes in the Ukrainian cabinet:

https://t.me/ssternenko/33235

We often talk about how political upheaval/collapse on RU side could end the war in some fashion.  But not much about how political disunity and infighting on UKR side could also lead to a negotiated cease fire from a position of weakness for UKR.  Not sure what this means but hope it's not a sign of a faltering of the always fragile national unity.

Edited September 3 by danfrodo

[billbindc]

53 minutes ago, danfrodo said:

We often talk about how political upheaval/collapse on RU side could end the war in some fashion.  But not much about how political disunity and infighting on UKR side could also lead to a negotiated cease fire from a position of weakness for UKR.  Not sure what this means but hope it's not a sign of a faltering of the always fragile national unity.

Changes in leadership conducted in a normal way are a sign of stability, not the opposite. Ukraine isn't an authoritarian system maintained by interest groups who must be appeased in order to function but rather is maintained by institutions that must be served in the interests of the people. Firing or replacing ministers, generals et cetera when necessary is essential. 

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, Vlad said:

I don't mind repeatedly reading about the same stuff because for example the nukes just belong to this topic, since people like Medvedev like to use them as threats whenever they're drunk (read: all the time). Reading posts from back then is fine, even though many times I'm about to reply to a post only to realize that I'm two years late so there's no point in it. 

About the populists I hope so too. We in Slovakia have fallen victim to them in both parliamentary elections (Fico becoming the PM) and presidential elections (Peter Pelegrini is just Fico's sockpuppet - in fact they were in the same party, but Pelegrini left to start his own even though he acts as watered-down Fico and people were joking that it's just a charade). Even the third main-ish member of our coalition, Andrej Danko, is more or less just another useful idiot. He is known for visiting the Russian Duma several times (presumably for some rectal alpinism) and he became a meme machine for his frequent gaffes, where he sounded like a broken generator of random words. If you think Biden's gaffes were severe, Danko would give him a run for his money. And he was a friggin' Speaker of the Parliament. That's how bad our situation is.

On the other hand our Czech brothers handled it quite well by electing  Petr Fiala as a PM and former general Petr Pavel as president (he appears to be a male version of our former president Zuzana Čaputová) and their populists got smacked. Also the Italian elections ended well from what I gather. I don't know about France, I remember reading about new elections and if that's true, that may be a problem if Marine LePen wins.

Our help for the Ukraine went from "sending whatever we can, even though it's not much in the grand scheme of things" (S-300, MiG-29s) to crowdsourcing - I think it was this year that we collected something between 3 to 4 million Euros for Ukraine to buy what they need, despite our PM trying to downplay it by saying that "it's just a drop in the bucket". On the other hand Czechia has provided plenty of help, they led the recent effort to buy artillery ammunition from around the world and the people have even crowdfunded an upgrade T-72 tank called Tomáš (Thomas, after Thomas the Tank Engine). I know. Czechia has most of the arms industry from the former Czechislovakia and our only military company produces only the SPGs like Zuzana or Dana and the mine-clearing vehicle Božena, but still, it's about the effort and here we are clearly lacking.

I'm a little late with the traditional "welcome to the thread" message, but better late than never

One of the core values of this thread is having relevant information brought into our discussion from a wide array of countries.  It's important for a proper understanding of how this war is viewed and the complex nature of the politics surrounding it.  Slovakia gets very little attention in US press, so it's especially nice to have your views here.

And kudos for you going back and reading this thread from the start!  I'm sure it could make a good book if someone went through and purged all the silly stuff that creeps in from time to time.

Steve

[Fernando]

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

Let's be careful of these gross oversimplifications. Humans have herd mentality but it is far more complex than a 75% threshold or weird college experiments to prove peer pressure is a thing.

Of course groupthink happens, but it is not the dominant form of human discourse. If it was then we would live in the freakin Kingdom of Heaven by now. Instead we have all sorts of social eruptions big and small. From revolution to crime, the divergent minority appears to be alive and well. Hell, I have one living in my basement now.

I will ask a very simple question - "who gives a flying f#ck" what Elon Musk thinks or does not think? He may be lining up to be the Trump-after-Trump or maybe is just proving that every billionaire gets bored and will eventually hunt humans for sport. This whole "X" conspiracy theory does not hold water at all, as last I checked no one is really agreeing with anyone else. 1984 is not any closer, but frankly the music was better then. 

Unfortunately, peer pressure and herd mentality is a very, very real thing. Nazism and Comunism were wise enough to make extensive use of it.

Herd mentality doesn't means  stagnation of thinking, nor oppose change at all, provided the new ideas, even if they are false or erroneous, finally become a new consensus. Remember that according to Ash experiment at least a 25% of the people don't accept imposition, nor reduction of their ideas to herd thinking. Usually a minority of people coming from that 25% promote new ideas (It doesn't matter if they are good or bad) and change,  then those idea spreads enough helped by propitious economic, social and political conditions (if not, those ideas usually die) until they gather a critical mass of people to make them predominant. After that stage, herd mentality enters the game and lots of non-aligned people comes to the new ideas and accept them, even if they din't like them at first, becoming a new strong consensus.

Edited September 3 by Fernando