ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
No bio...
User ID: 626
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1mo ago
I never seen somoeone get under your skin quite so much.
I understand the frustration, but you don't need the explicit hostility to make your point. Even if your every word was coated in pure sugar, it would be hard not to reach the same conclusion as you did.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1mo ago
They're brittle and tend to shatter rather than undergo painful reforms.
What do you call Chile, Singapore, South Korea, or Taiwan, if not "undergoing painful reforms"?
Hybrid regimes like those in the Sahel or Central America
Calling them "hybrid" sounds like cope to avoid accountability for the failures of the system.
The biggest threat to democracies is rarely a big civil war, but rather descending into Orbanism.
The biggest threat to democracies is getting locked into a path constant deterioration that can't be plausibly changed through voting, like South Africa.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1mo ago
This didn't get any funnier on the 3rd time than it was on the first.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1mo ago
In the sense that they eventually we got some semblance of coherent resistance to them? Not sure how that refutes the comparison to the Mongol Horde.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1mo ago
I'd say we're still plenty tribal, but I think we successfully avoided NPC-brain.
There are several cases of countries speedrunning from mediavel to modern through a dictatorship, are there any success stories like that with democracy?
Also, your metric is rather confounded. It only makes sense to use it, if you assume all people in the world are fungible. The question is if these monarchies would fare better as democracies. Various recent experiments by the US cast a large doubt on that theory, in my opinion.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1mo ago
I'm also pretty sure you can admit that Iran specifically is already in its second, leaning into third, generation of participants.
I'll be happy to admit that. What I have trouble admitting is that the US was just minding it's business all this time, and became target of all this hatred while being completely innocent of any wrongdoing, or that they made much of an effort to normalize relations (there was Obama, but his deal got cancelled).
The senior leaders select for, and remove on a basis of a lack of, commitment to the Cause. Even the nominally elected representatives are pre-screened at the candidate selection level, and the non-elected power centers are even more deliberately managed.
That does not strike me as much different from how things are done in the west. Every public service throughout the western world, including intelligence and the military, as well as the entire education sector that hands out the credentials to serve there, is awash in Critical Theory. They send workers to mandatory courses where they get up to speed with the latest doctrines, and boot out anyone that objects. Trump may have tried to clean up the house, but there's only so much you can do in less than half a year, and even if he did it's beside the point. While I'm somewhat skeptical that people who go through periodic 2-minute-hate sessions about racist-sexist-homophobic-patriarchies are going to have a particularly rational approach to the world in general, the bigger issue is the water we swim in - the wisdom and legitmacy of western liberalism - no one who disbelieves it is getting hired for these jobs.
This selection structure is in turn enforced by an institution that would lose its perks and privileges if the hostilities were to end.
That is an argument I can accept, indeed sometimes an external threat helps to keep the population in line, and gives the regime it's purpose and legitimacy. Is it really as bad as you say? Sadly, I don't know and am not aware of a source of information that would let me confirm or deny this.
They were, but your question was not that question.
It was asked it the context of the other question. I understood "the Iranian regime keeps saying 'death to America'" as a supporting argument for why they do indeed have a blood feud, so I questioned the premise of the argument.
You quoted the section about believing someone who declares themselves an enemy, as opposed to Nybbler's characterization of a blood feud.
For brevity!
Your response questioned why to believe a self-declaration of enemyship by comparing it to any other political slogan, as opposed to any other kind of conflict. Your basis of argument specifically ignorred the sort of validating actions (that would give slogans credibility) that is the understood background context of the US-Iranian feud.
Correct, because Nybbler's argument was about their words, not their actions (as for the actions, I don't think they justify calling the conflict a "blood feud", rather than any other run-of-the mill conflict, but this is more a response to you then to him).
I wouldn't.
Partly because even irreconciliable feuds can be reconciled, because 'irreconciliable' is a judgement of the involved people's character, not an objective fact of nature. People's characters change with time and context, such that things that were impossible for them at one point are imminently possible at another.
That's kinda true, but only in the way that feel-good statements like "nothing is impossible" are true. There are actual blood feuds, in history, and perhaps even now. Tribal hatreds so strong that even if you force the two sides to the negotiating table, they'll be right back at each other's throats the moment you turn your back to them.
Reconciliation is usually by the descendants (future generations) rather than the initiators (the current Iranian leadership generation), and the more degrees of separation the better.
Again, no. History is full of conflicts that were ended by the very same people who initiated them. Sometimes it's a stalemate and the sides get tired of fighting, sometimes one side decides to cut losses, and the other the juice ain't worth the squeeze, and these conflicts don't necessarily result in lasting grudges.
Given that Nybbler's argument uses blood feud in the way Phailoor was using it- namely as Phailoor's short-hand for a conflict that is (as he put it) mostly a response to the US and which would end if the US stopped acting- and that Nybbler's point was far more about 'believe what they say' than 'there is a blood feud specifically because they say there is'- I also wouldn't read into blood feud as any sort of specific concept by either of them.
I never got a response from Nybbler in what he understood by the term. If the contention here is that Iran would remain irrationally hostile no matter how conciliatory the US was, or that they would be rationally hostile in order to maintain the legitimacy among their population, that's something that can be discussed, but needs a different argument than "believe what they say".
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1mo ago
This is way more effort than my shitpost deserves. I actually agree with you, was just having some fun.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1mo ago
Sounds like the kind of thinking that got us "banning abortion will strengthen the family."
How many said that to begin with? Most arguments against abortion I've heard of boil down to "it's evil", not some utilitarian mumbo-jumbo.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1mo ago
However, we have no fucking space.
Sir, Irish immigrants of the past would raise a dozen kids in that space. Get to it!
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1mo ago
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1mo ago
Been considering it, but something about them spooks me out.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1mo ago
What exactly did you mean by "blood feud"? Because I don't understand how what you're saying it is related to that.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1mo ago
Sure, they shouldn't be completely discounted.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1mo ago
What I'm saying is: yeah, and? Propaganda against hostile states can get pretty deranged, that doesn't mean a given regime actually believes it.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1mo ago
and that distinction is largely irrelevant when you working within a single leadership generation
I'm pretty sure we can find many historical examples beginning / ending hostilities within the same generation.
and no part of this position on the nature of animosity, which makes it a distinction without a difference. Whether the Iranians elites have a 'burning, irreconcilable hatred' or not doesn't challenge the premise.
I thought the question they were discussing was whether or not Iran has a blood feud with the US? Maybe I misunderstood something, but how would you describe the concept if not a 'burning, irreconcilable hatred'?
If someone with 'standard-issue hostility,' where 'standard' includes decades of terrorism in foreign countries against US institutions and directly supporting attacks on US forces when the US and Iran are not at war, is telling you in no uncertain terms that they are your enemy, it (still) makes sense to believe them.
I mean, yes, all those things are quite typical of states currently engaged in hostilities, and yes "hostilities" implies they are currently your enemies. "Blood feud", on the other hand, would imply that the hostilities cannot be ended by means of rational persuasion, and will continue to re-flare no matter how conciliatory one of the sides is.
I'm not even necessarily denying the idea that such a blood feud exists, I just don't know if the statements from the Iranian government, no matter how deranged, are a good argument for it's existence.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1mo ago
There is no doubt that Iran is currently hostile to the US, but the kinds of statements issued by countries currently engaged in hostilities tend to be pretty deranged generally, so I don't know if what they're saying should be enough to take them as expressions of genuine irreconcilable hatred.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1mo ago
I agree that comparing the slogans to observed actions is a good way to gauge whether or not the statements carry weight. But do the observed actions of Iran indicate a burning irreconcilable hatred, or standard-issue hostility, the likes of which various states have entered into, and exited from, countless times throughout history?
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1mo ago
They encourage chants of "Death to America". They refer to the US as the Great Satan. When someone tells you in no uncertain terms that they are your enemy, it makes sense to believe them.
Why? It makes about as much sense to me as believing any other political slogan.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1mo ago
An aversion to quagmires and wars of questionable outcome seems to make a lot of people (...) think that any American intervention is some kind of ill fated, possibly bloodthirsty action.
"An aversion to quagmires" is probably my core objection, so I was curious how you're going to address it, and I can't say you offer much of a response. To begin with, the argument is not so much "any American intervention is some kind of ill fated, possibly bloodthirsty action", and more "don't listen to literally the same people who were in charge of the previous quagmires" and "please, I am begging you, give me the barest semblance of an indication that you learned anything at all from recent history". Specifically: what do you think made the previous interventions fail, why do you think everybody arguing for them missed the factors leading to their failure, why would this intervention fare any better, and why do you think you're not missing any factors the same way interventionists missed them recently. Bonus points if you answer: what consequences will you accept if it turns out you're wrong.
Notice also that I said "interventions" in plural. Iraq was not the only example of one, and you know it. Interventionists had free rein over the region for most of my adult life, they regime-changed like half a dozen countries, and they made a mess out of everything they touched. The fact that we've spent the last decade witch-hunting literal nobodies for crimethink like "men and women are different", but these people still get to be taken seriously, is a testament to how sick our societies are.
As an aside, to illustrate where I'm coming from: In political terms I am completely disinterested in the outcomes of the world apart from America.
What are the practical consequences of this? Would you give the throne to king Zahir Shah, instead of forcing him to renounce his claim to it, if most of his country accepted his reign? Would you cut Israel loose, if it brought the rest of the Middle East into the fold?
Said regime hates the US with a burning passion
Also an aside, but I find it hard to believe. Please don't flood me with official statements of said regime, because I don't consider them particularly meaningful. I may be typical minding, but from what I can tell politics inherently demands such levels of rat-fucking, backstabbing, and shifting allegiances, that anyone who holds reins over any country, of any significant size, being able to hold to a grudge in such a principled manner would be almost admirable.
Oh yeah, I wouldn't do that on a highway. Did jumping into the conversation straight from the comment feed screw me over again?
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1mo ago
While I don't disagree, I'm not sure if naked reliance on anecdotes and confirmation bias is much better.
Why not? People are not that bad at coming up with heuristics that work for them. They have their limit's, of course, and offer no way of resolving disagreements, but it's really not a bad way of looking for the truth.q
At least """rationalists""" (I really can't type this with a straight face) pay lip service to Bayes, updating their opinions in the face of truth, etc.
Paying lip service to something, but not doing it is worse than just not doing it.
While they're still human, that at least forces one to think about their thinking occasionally.
Can't remember who it was, but someone wrote a book about how smart people aren't any less prone to falling for bad ideas, they're just a lot better at justifying them. This is all "thinking about your thinking" accomplishes.
It does take the majority of the drivers knowing what they're doing, the rest can be soft pressured into it, which is what happened to me the first time I participated in the maneuver. But it does fall apart without a critical mass that's on the same page.
It prevents jams, and OP's "switch lanes ASAP" idea is what causes them.
I’m guessing it’s not a coincidence that the video is from Idaho?
I've seen it done in big European cities, in moderate / moderate-high traffic. In fact, under low traffic you might as well not bother, since whole point is using the road efficiently, which is a lot less important when there's few other cars around.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1mo ago
So simple i makes one wonder why they didn't, and what are the chances of them not doing it in the US.
I don't.
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