🇺🇦 The only topic in town

The Lounge General Discussion
#1

The only topic on people’s minds can be found below. It is unlisted to avoid attracting unwanted attention which has already occured. The topic is not possible to moderate without significant ‘extra-curricular’ time investment in a decidedly off-topic subject for the purposes of the forum’s main intent. It is however, the only topic on our minds.

So if you feel the need to discuss this here then do so with respect to others and the moderators by keeping the rhetoric toned down. Please resist flagging for the purposes of removing a comment you just don’t like. Please accept that there may be inflammatory thoughts presented, try to ignore these except if they would be troublesome during ordinary times. Then flag the post rather than escalating matters.

The topic was automatically closed due to an excessive flag count, it will be necessary to manually close it if you don’t try to post responsibly enough given the likelihood for causing friction.

Un-listing the topic is a compromise. It doesn’t imply that it can be a free-for-all. Please flag only when strictly necessary. If info posted is incorrect, calmly debunk it and just accept that the internet is full of people we can’t align with.

:ukraine: Discuss responsibly here …

This linking topic is opened for bumps only

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Keep it civil.

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The synth/modular business of the two conflicting countries
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#4

Edit : It has recently re-opened automatically from a system threshold closure

#5

Please, only bumps in this topic !

Please only contribute respectfully and with tolerance in the linked topic in the opening post which is beyond the reach of google etc. Kindly avoid inflammatory posts (and flags unless strictly necessary).

Apologies to those who lost visibility of this, bumping mitigates this a bit even though it’s a sticky topic.

#6

Bump away - every bump is for solidarity

#7

Bump

plus a pointer to a tangent ‘gear aspects’ topic"

#8

If you wanna help:

That’s a list of organizations a ukrainian friend gave me.

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#9

Bump & link

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#11
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#12

Screenshot_20220304-164158
Screenshot_20220304-1641581080×1405 322 KB

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#13

“donating 100 USD from every pedal sold to support Ukraine!”

https://gamechangeraudio.com/shop/

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#15

I had not previously heard of Turquoise Companies, so looked them up.

#16

Empress Effects emailed this to customers such as myself:

At the same time that we celebrate our little victories, we are deeply saddened by the destruction and loss of life in Ukraine caused by the Russian invasion. Therefore, we will be donating 25% of the proceeds of web sales from our website for the next three days to the Ukrainian Humanitarian Crisis Appeal.

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#17

Didn’t find this before when I wrote about them in instruments topics.
Worth adding that since then SOMA didn’t announce any donation or even any kind or moral support to Ukraine. The only thing Vlad expressed in his personal blog (on a very pro-russian platform vk dot com) was his call to do not trust ‘informational bombardment against rouble’.

It is also worth to remember/know that Vlad is from Donetsk, Ukraine. He left the city when the war broke out and went to live in moscow, russia — ie, to the invading country. Up until 2017 I think he still gave shows with music-poetry collective organised by Serhiy Zhadan, a famous Ukrainian poet highly regarded for his political stance and activism. But that was before the SOMA business went popular.

SOMA keeps making up a story about them being ‘horizontal company’ with the EU branches somehow separate from the russian mother company, but at the same time, never during the war this independent European branch even mentioned Ukraine. not in their facebook posts full of joy and self-pride, not during their many events eg Superbooth.

they try to distance themselves as much as possible from their russian roots in this manner, without realising that this is what makes them look only worse. if you search by ‘Ukraine’ through their facebook all you see are users asking questions which are never answered by anyone at Soma, only their fanboys ridiculing those who wonder why…

I will leave it up to the readers of this to make their judgement, but those are the facts.
imo, the picture is clear.

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#18

IMO, we‘ve got to remember that Vlad is living in Russia so is limited in what he and his company can do/say. Otherwise, he might find that he’s accidentally fallen out of a window.

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#19

once again: Vlad does, but they insist Soma EU is independent. nothing would happen to Vlad if they at least said a word or posted in fb something in support of Ukraine. many russians do. are you aware fb is officially banned and unavailable w/o VPN in russia anyway?

also, did you read me quoting his own reaction next days after the war broke out and Ukraine was literally bombarded all around? he said ‘please don’t fall into info bombardment’, etc… because he cared for people start cashing out roubles from their accounts. I can translate the entire post and responses, it was in russian social network

now, Vlad could at least abstain from having fun in May 2022, just one month after the Bucha massacre, but he just couldn’t resist.
I speak about this: ILLUMINATOR live performance demo (SOMA labs) - YouTube

worse, was it necessary to have words ‘GLORY TO RUSSIA’ in this video (7:15) Kakos Nonos (documentary about the RoAT creator) - YouTube

the last one is quite telling, but people would still close their eyes blind

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#20

What were you doing in May 2022, one month after the Bucha massacre? Did you abstain from all fun? This type of witch hunt because a synth company didn’t post the correct things on social media is ridiculous IMO.

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#22

yes I did. I’ve been so all this year. and still.
but this is very personal thing, I do NOT demand it from everyone in their private life. Just you you know, PUBLIC persons going for PR fun, well, publicly, not in private, are different. Even more so russian citizens. Even more so those who were born in Ukraine. Even more so those who exclaim ‘stop info bombings’ when bombs fall upon Ukraine.

What would you say about ‘glory to russia’ in the vid? also acceptable?

c’mon. it’s not witch hunt. it’s called social responsibility.
and it’s needed all the more from businesses, you know. not to mention russian ones

#23

I would say that you’re reaching. A transition snippet in a documentary where they briefly drive past a neon sign is not the same as an endorsement, and digging through these videos searching for a reason to boycott somebody is not healthy behaviour IMO.

You don’t know Kreimer’s personal history - I can think of a few reasons why a Russian born in Donetsk could have a dislike for the Ukrainian government. Or as someone else pointed out, he may well have a dislike for the Russian government but be afraid of persecution.

Social responsibility is great - I quit using Spotify when it came out that they were investing in defense contractors. I just don’t think being silent about Ukraine on social media is on the same level.

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