2D3D
1mo ago
Indians appreciate public beauty so long as the cost of maintaining such beauty is borne by others. It is the tragedy of the commons writ visibly large on a societal scale.
The irony of course is that indians are actually perfectly happy, and even proud, to live in clean public spaces. The Indian elites in quaint English cottages are hardly violaters of personal space and public cleanliness like travelers or junkies; Indians do not lower property values by their presence.
No, the observable difference is in civic consciousness: Indians make no attempt to clean up their public spaces in India, because such huge costs are immediately wasted when the tide of humanity washes its excreta upon the shores of civilization to bleach in the sun with each passing day. Is it a fundamental moral deficiency, or a total collapse of state structures? A convincing case can be made for both, but when considering how much elite (and frankly non elite as well) Indians are net acretive outside of India, there must be something uniquely terrible about Indias structure that ruins the country so.
2D3D
1mo ago
A convincing case can be made that modern liberal movements have in fact tamed their rhetoric of 'universal maga supremacy' vs 2015 because of the overwhelming amount of video evidence showing blacks (and MENA for europe) committing the antisocial crimes being lambasted, with exceedingly little evidence of roving gangs of white supremacists committing supposedly white supremacist crimes.
The end goal is to castigate the proximate enemy, with the likely outcome being that the neutering of the group identity will leave state institutional capture possible by progressives. This is the reason jan 6 is endlessly repeated in liberal media (and to unearth the memory hole, Anders Brevik) , while George Floyd riots are aggressively forgotten or characterized as false flags. If at any point the Powers that be are RIGHT that black criminality is a real problem, then it invalidates the operational means being deployed to undermine said Powers.
2D3D
1mo ago
The minimal obligation expected of an aid recipient is 'don't waste it'. International aid, such little as it may be, has consistently been:
- reappropriated (martyrs fund, water pipes being reused as rocket)
- actively destroyed for no benefit (gaza greenhouses)
- corruptly siphoned (personal wealth of Arafat and Haniyeh)
No reconstruction plan can exist if the recipients actively reject such efforts, and prior events (Jordanian Black September, Kuwaiti ) shows that accommodations provided even by erstwhile allies is not appreciated, and limiting charity takes a backseat to expelling hostiles.
With the Palestinian population consistently displaying underappreciation, if not active hostility, towards aid providing entities, what recourse is there for Israel? Israel offered to return Gaza to Egypt and West Bank to Jordan, and both declined. Why must Israel bear the burden of enduring the incessant attacks of a hostile population, much less actively support said population.
2D3D
1mo ago
I have acted as the Indian Aunty to matchmake/gatekeep for my desi brother (UK born, Indian, Doctor, absolutely shit useless with women), so let me (not) assure you: the Indian aunties in the UK are recommending socially reclused mummys girls whose lives are intertwined with their mothers at the hip, or these girls have run through their address book and are finally willing to accept their parents request for a Nice Indian Boy.
These arent necessarily bad things, the girls tend to not be psychotic, but I will say that the passivity of all the girls is infuriating even for socially functional desi men. Something about the NRI cultural experience demands that the men take the active lead in all aspects, with little feedback mechanism for what constitutes a successful interaction. As the Matchmaker, I have received endless complaints from the mothers about the lack of Interaction from my brother, so if you decide to pursue those paths, do note the pitfall.
On the other hand, their passivity and your relative bargaining power (articulate Good Indian Boy with medical degree) means you can set the tone entirely. Depending on your shamelessness you can use these girls as your mandatory partner in exploring the London gastronomic scene or as sounding boards for your gushing at the wonders of the Bovington tank museum.
Finally, buxom blondes tend to come with uncertain mass distribution curves. Be prepared for disappointment should you make footfall in the West.
2D3D
1mo ago
I'm honestly surprised I don't see Ardbegs or Bowmores in the list of mottedrinks. The Ardbeg Uiegadil, Corryvrecken and Alligator are all on the same smokiness/mouthfeel/finish curve, with the marginal improvement in quality from Uiegadil to Corryvreckan being just about justified and the Alligator being unreasonably expensive for my thinning wallet. Very light peat flourishes overall, excellent drinkability and flavour, varying smoothness on the finish depending on the variant.
The bowmores used to be my standby, but since the disconitnuation of the Black Rock I've only had the 15 as my economical standby of choice. Like a less smoky Lag 16 with a speyside sweetness.
The last drink I'm partial to is the Kavalan Solist. Prices have come down since they won the awards almost a decade ago so they are now reasonable options.
If simply getting buzzed is the objective though, I drink Chinese or Korean shochus/alcopops. Surprisingly strong and taste really good.
2D3D
30d ago
It is an absolute curse that the reality of dating frontloads immense amount of effort into visual presentation, which quickly loses its value in contributing to long term maintenance of a stable relationship. Yet, without that frontloaded focus, one cannot even reach the steady state whereby ones looks are diminished in their relative priority.
One can love their partner regardless of how they end up looking, but you must have a partner worth loving in the first place before the luxury of ignorance can be afforded. Relationships should grow like a fine wine, even if the people grow sideways within said time.
2D3D
30d ago
who is welcome to take dating lessons from me if you haven't already finished up your work as a matchmaker lol
Don't make an offer you can't back out of.
totally incompetent or halt and catch fire in the presence of two XX chromosomes.
Self consciousness is the bane of the Good Studious Asian, and it is impossible to overcome without experience, and it is impossoble to have experience without overcoming it. With the added proviso that the longer you go with no experience the more this albatross hangs over your neck.
My brother is the worst Indian to ever Indian, having never actually stepped foot in the motherland or even speaking a single word of any Indic language He is the ultimate coconut, yet has practically no experience with the fairer sex. Exhortations of 'just be yoursrpf bro' enthusiastically extolled by Indian Ultrachad don't help, nor does 'just learn to settle' from well meaning women help. The desi dating experience in the UK is really one of the most variable ones, and it brings forth madness from any who experience its troughs.
For your sake, your aunty has vetted the prospects as beyond the pits of Indian Despair. Failing which, weird clinginess might follow.
2D3D
30d ago
And dating advice from women? He's better off writing his own will, and a death certificate too since he's qualified.
Indeed, stated vs revealed preferences often betray a massive discrepancy. Nevertheless these women actually talk to other women, and pretending to at least listen to them is a bare minimum for social interactions.
Truthfully, he, like many anglicized NRIs, suffer from a bias that you yourself betrayed in your earlier statements, which is a strong preference to date outside proximate cultural companions. Even if the girls meet physical descriptors ("fair and lovely"), many indian men are, I find, terrified of the idea that the girl they date may end up like their mother.
(side note: the one major and exceedingly hilarious exception to this observed trend is the NRI communities in Jersey City, who are so far removed from the generic ABCD culture of vague parental agreeableness/overbearing and liking Indian food that other NA NRIs from Flushing to Virginia find the Jersey NRIs incomprehensible.
And before that sparks any interest in yourself, their social experience distance from generic ABCD experiences does not make them less insufferable. Just... just trust me on this one.)
Anyways, it is this specific issue of social experience distance awareness that I find most incomprehensible to the Aunty community, and thus the nice genteel/exhausted pattygoing indian girls who have finally given in are still approaching Indian matchmaking from a totally different perspective. The specific dynamic at play is interpreted differently by the four relevant parties (Fe/Male Prospect (FP/MP) and Matchmaker Fe/Male (MF/MM ) - Ignore the extremely unfortunate acronym - whereby the FP and MP are both viewed by the MF/MM as 'returning to the fold' which includes obeying the unspoken social structures of the NRI experience. By contrast, even if the FP/MP are kissless handholdless Good Indians they have been acculturated in the west, not fully versed in the expectations and more importantly obligations of the NRI cultural sphere. The gormless women have no idea what to expect to begin with (except for 'generic unvocalizable disappointment') but the exhausted partygoers will judge MP with even more harshness than the FM would because their prior expectations still exist even in this new context they ostensibly consented to participating in.
tldr hope that your obligations only require contact with a gormless girl, cause down the other path lies pain.
2D3D
30d ago
While it is true that the modern crop of leaders in Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the UAE all exhibit competent understanding of geopolitical considerations and the obligations therein, I would caution against presuming the general public in each country has made the similar calculation. Main Street in every arab capital was filled with racuous celebration of Oct 7, and arabic twitter and telegram was afire with excited pronunciations of Israels destruction by the Iranian strike before the lack of Tel Avivs destruction became too evident for such celebrations to continue. Even now arab twitter has merely shifted conspiracism from 'the coverup of Israels destruction must be so great if they cannot bear to show a single destroyed building l' to 'Israeli/American perfidy causing the Arab government to betray the realization of Israels destruction'. Israel remains a thorn in the Middle East, a permanent reminder of failure that started with the loss in 1948, and will always remain so even if the Israelis all take a 20 year cruise and let the Arab civil war commence 2 seconds after the last jew sips their welcome margarita.
2D3D
30d ago
The overlap between 'general' and 'political faction leader' in nondemocratic countries is often a very small circle. While there may be limited military value in a single general being killed, any relationships he had are killed along with him. Organizational continuity being disrupted, if not outright destroyed, has a very high value even in an ostensibly unified policy. No one may remain to verify which ongoing operation needs its next tranche of funding, for example.
Nevertheless, the Iranian attack straddles the line between 'attempted saturation attack' and 'internal stakeholder presentation'. The lack of concurrent Hezbollah launches leans towards the latter, but the fact that Hezbollah still hasn't been triggered means this was a costly exercise. There were other ways to demonstrate an attempt at striking the Little Satan without revealing launch sites and expending a limited ballistic missile inventory.
Import an indian girl from the old country once you get your green card. Get that 1m dowry and a downpayment on a Loudon County white picket fence. Chances are she'll be moderately westernized herself past the point of gormless insufferability. Don't trust the aunties, deep down they're hoping any match they find for you is a proxy for their own daughter.
As for the attempts of the aunty network, it has all been failures. The girls have ranged from fully-passing halfies to 8/10 modern elites to tradwife factory template to the leavings of ultrachad, and all have rejected the match. My boy has flamed out with literally every girl in the last 15 years, except for one I accidentally introduced to him. Hence, by dint weight of historical track, I have been tasked with this sacred mandate.
2D3D
30d ago
The girl I knew who took up the offer did so in desperation after her situationships all failed simultaneously, just as she thought she could convert at least a few of them into simultaneous dating arrangements. She did play the millennial power woman dating meat market well while her cards remained in her favour, but alas punjabi genetics caught up to her, and the circle of orbiters all escaped immediately.
The man came over, she discovered she preferred singlehood to domesticity with a dweeb, then she went to california and discovered the joy of being a precious commodity. I give it 3 years till the next shot of punjabi genetic affectation hits her, and she'll take up her moms offers once again.
2D3D
30d ago
I mean, you could upgrade? get dowry 1, divorce, rebrand yourself for dowry 2. give back the initial capital, but keep any reinvested profits.
No, he's reached the stage where he can attempt on a new crop of sisters and juniors. He just has negative game, so uppity juniors likely get confused as to whats going on with him.
2D3D
30d ago
I'm not a woman, I just was assigned as the matchmaking aunty because the women failed. To be best girl one must be a man.
The big unspoken issue is the fact that he only looks indian, and he fails at presenting as such to the indian community of aunties, hence the failures within the opaque (but, frankly, not incomprehensible) Indian matchmaking dynamics. Yet at the same time he is, if judging as a white man, terribly normie, besotted with the self consciousness of a man who, like many of us here, is/was plagued by self consciousness and a small degree of 'optimization' paralysis in pursuing strategies to make oneself more competent at attracting the other sex. Difficult to help a man who wargames any date he's on to Inevitable Failure and then acts that way throughout a date.
2D3D
30d ago
The boning is a player reward for cashing out an emotional investment, not the conclusion of a plotted story point. I blame immersiveness, specifically the transposition of the player into the third person avatar, as the root cause of most narrative weakness in the highly variable and interactive videogame medium. The necessity of respecting player agency disincentivizes railroading, while keeping plots coherent requires branching paths. 'Play the game your way' necessarily means that the player has a strong chance to blow up a really compelling plotline with major consequences. Killing Caesar in Fallout New Vegas should be an immensely consequential decision, but it makes 0 difference beyond some vague dialogue changes at the end of the game. The very nature of videogames as an interactive medium means developers are forced into 'respecting' player agency even if agency results in shitty stories and shitty action. (for example Bioshock is famously railroaded and ends up having only a single narrative path snd is all the better for it, and we have already expounded on the failures of DAI and ME elsewhere in this thread)
In the end though, I do think that most videogame writers were also given a really free reign to write whatever the hell they wanted because most people didn't bother with narration. I could play marathon or doom or jazz jackrabbit or wolfenstein with only twitch reflexes activated and skip through all the cutscenes, since my dopamine hit comes from blowing up the obvious bad guys. In a narrative focused game, the dopamine hit is the denouement of the characters invested struggle, and that just brings the weaknesses of writing to the fore.
2D3D
30d ago
The legacy of the tidus laugh forever stains all emotional moments in videogame cutscenes.
2D3D
30d ago
Ukrainians and Israelis both are capable of adapting to a world without US support, that they received US support is because it is in the US interest to keep the conflicts within a narrow bound.
Most obviously, the cheap drones being lobbed smugly by vatniks and jihadis can be replicated with miminal effort by even a semi functional state. With no external support at all, nothing is stopping Ukrainians from kitbashing a kamikaze drone from shit ordered off aliexpress and an arduiono with the midterm output of a computer vision junior and slamming them into Russian oil refineries. Similarly, Israel is already conducting cross border kinetic actions that destabilize US intererts - Eliat is hardly an important port and if the Red Sea chokes why does Israel care about that more than Tel Aviv.
No, the US support is ultimately a bribe to keep spillover effects, not a show of solidarity. Ukraine and Israel and even Taiwan are not mountain locked Kurds or Panjshir Afghans, these state actors have their own capabilities and dangers that can threaten second order US interests with far greater consequence than what we see now.
2D3D
30d ago
The pro-migrant and internationalist left flank had not gotten fully humiliated by the migrant busses and Afghanistan yet, and that wing wanted their pound of flesh upfront.
2D3D
30d ago
Its not Noticing when the writers state their worldview upfront. You pointed out the two young leads as white and black, yes, but the last lead is a white man... who in the very first scene of the show has his black daughter front and center with him.
It is obvious to Hollywood that there is a deliberate attempt from inside the house to promote blackness, but it is more about reputation laundering than encouraging women to seek black men (dogfart does far more work on that front).
The real dissonance stems from the incongruity of blacks occupying primarily high status and competence positions in modern hollywood portrayals when doing a single Google search on a Name when crime is committed in real life shows where the true disparity lies.
2D3D
29d ago
I actually largely agree with your specific points, though the statements I made were to service a different argument. Don't get me wrong, I was hardly implying that the Ukrainians were winning or had a clear path to victory laid out before them. The Russian mistakes of 2022 have been largely corrected and Ukraine is set for a slow and inevitable defeat, as befits the poorest and most corrupt nation (stated in order to highlight the lack of state capacity not to denigrate the Ukrainians) in Europe going up against the Russian Armed Forces who out of sheer pride would - and have - endured humiliating loss ratios to eke out a path to victory. Similarly, my statement on Israel being able to live off the US teat merely shifts the existential burden more on Israeli shoulders, largely in line with all the points you raised.
No, I should be explicit in what I mean: US aid is not charity, or even soft power projection to hurt US enemies. US aid is there to keep dangerous dogs leashed and to keep them from making further disruptions. Unchecked, Ukraine may decide to go down swinging and in turn utterly destroy all manner of Europe bound infrastructure because hurting Russia is all that matters. Similarly Israel may give zero shits about the delicate balance of power in the mideast and take 'decisive' action against Iran, regsrdless of its implications to the Strait of Hormuz.
US allies aren't just recipients of US generosity, they wed themselves to continual compliance with the restrictions imposed from the top lest the tap shut. The converse also applies, if the tap shuts then the 'allies' become free to wreck shit.
Drunk indians go 'baseline personality x10 (i.e. more gregarious or more anxious)' and then just pass out. There is no clearing the clouds.
Re the misgendering, you can blame it on a long history of being aunty killer, and that translates into being part of the Trusted Circle once time went on. Fun as it is to drink with the uncles and reminisce about rambunctious youthful escapades, I can at least learn something about how to make deep fried cheese samosas from the aunties in the kitchen. And as a man I can still drink shitloads of whisky even in there, so its the best of both worlds.
2D3D
29d ago
Propaganda about female infidelity while men die in the trenches is as old as language has been invented. Even now there are constant jokes about Navy wives being Coastie girlfriends, and thats peacetime. This propaganda is more for internal consumption of the propaganda generator (look how stupid they are for continuing to fight us!) instead of the propaganda receiver.
I also think 'residents want to part of russia anyways' is pretty disingenuous. Slovyansk and Mariupol both told Russia to fuck off, not to mention Odessa and Kharkiv. Crimea, meaning Sevastapol only, is about the only case where arguing for Russian loyalty is possible, since Donestk and Luhansk needed Little Green Men to invade. Nevertheless, Donestk and aluhansk likely hold little love for Kyiv, so Novorissiya is still extant.
The simple fact is that Ukrainians aren't fighting for NATO, they're fighting to not he Russia. There is direct evidence of how Russia treated its holdings in Ukraine, with Mariupol being a wasteland and torture centers being set up in Kherson. One can readily calculate that while the west may be hypocrites, the Russians will not be kind masters as weirdly envisioned by anti-progressives.
2D3D
29d ago
If Ukrainians didn't want to fight, they won't. People have their own agency, and no amount of cajoling and money got the Pashtuns to fight for 'Afghanistan' or Cubans to fight against Castro. Remember that Azov started as a wholly domestic Mariupol militia because they really really hated Russians, and Slovyansk had a shitload of people leave because they did not want to stay under Russian - sorry 'Novorossiya' rule. I maintain that if the west pulled all support entirely to Ukraine we would see many more one way suicide drone strikes against refineries, and that the west is maintaining support to Ukraine to avoid further collapse of energy market infrastructure
Most arguments about Russia busting sanctions and their army being regenerated are cope. Muscovy resents being looked down on; their pretensions of continued luxury with their cheap chinese knockoffs and inability to be seen buying the real deal in Paris or Milan smarts far more than just not wearing it, not to mention the endless bitching from Muscovites about their life now being more difficult. Similarly, the Russian army going from BMPT (or more realistically BMP3) to MTLB and BMP1 is hardly an upmuscling of the RuAF (a different argument about whether upgrading from MTLB to BMP3 makes any difference can be made but thats separate to this thread.)
Ultimately, the Russians are likely to grind through the Ukrainians regardless, but the sanctions will leave them an embittered and lesser (in their own eyes) people, deservedly disrespected for their incompetence at defeating their weak and corrupt cousins at the outset and resorting to WW2 era cope.
The failures evident within India contrast against pretensions articulated by cogent members of the diaspora, hence the ready mocking of 'Superpower 2020' By contrast, there is no illusion that anyone even entertains a single claim of the Pakistanis. With the record of failure being unwritten because it is automatically presumed, why would anyone waste brain cells mocking these failures.
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