Arnaud
3mo ago
This is true insomuch as you will be dead in all 4 cases, but it's a rather facile observation considering the differences in magnitude of destructive power, not to mention the very serious dangers posed by radioactive fallout.
A full scale nuclear war between east and west in the mid to late cold war (assuming both sides launch their own weapons) would have resulted in the deaths of the majority of the population of all the countries involved, with any population centre worth mentioning being the target of multiple nuclear weapons, as well as sites of strategic importance such as airports, military installations, major hubs of industry, etc. The less important parts of the country that still remain would be very likely covered in radioactive fallout from the (relatively) close detonation of the aforementioned hundreds of nuclear weapons, which would kill a large proportion of the population in a matter of weeks, water, soil and food would be contaminated. Societal collapse would be unavoidable, those that managed to survive the first few months would still find themselves at a greatly increased risk for various cancers and their children would have a substantially increased risk of birth defects.
All of this is without mentioning the as of yet unforseen consequences of detonating tens of thousands of nuclear weapons at once, which I am going to assume would probably not be great.
Themotte likes to talk about "skin in the game" a lot, well if you want a good example of that then I'd point you to the fact that most nuclear planners and those informed about the nature of nuclear war stopped trying to build bomb shelters or bolt holes for themselves and their families at some point in the 60s.
But the deaths suffered by Ukrainian conscripts (and yes Russian conscripts too) are very real. We are trading the deaths of real people for theoretical future benefits. And we are destroying an entire country in the process. Why not go to the bargaining table and end this cruel and pointless war?
Because Putin has shown 0 interest in meaingfully negotiating, his minimum position is "I win, you lose" and this is obviously unacceptable to Ukraine/'the west'. Putin has shown again and again and again that any compromise will be taken as a sign of weakness that emboldens him to push further. If you wish to minimise human suffering, focus on winning the war and defeating Russia to the point where it stops launching such stupid and wasteful wars in the first place.
I have to ask, at this point, why does the West still support Ukraine?
Because 'the west' broadly empathises with the desire of Ukrainians to not be Russians, I certainly know that I'd be fighting and dying if I was in their shoes and would appreciate all the help that I could be given. While there are certainly those who are seeking to control this war for more cynical ends (looking at you, idiots in the US state department) they are by far and away in the minority, popular support for Ukraine in the west is driven much more by sympathy for the plight of their fellow Europeans, resisting aggression and a desire to reassert the taboo against major wars in Europe. Russia and its foreign cheerleaders have taken great pains to try and depict this war as one between NATO and Russia, with the Ukrainians cast as pawns in the greater struggle, but this is a complete misreading of the situation designed to flatter the egos of the Russian people and portray the west as villains. The reality is that if the Ukrainians didn't want to fight, they wouldn't fight and certainly they would not fight with the tenacity and resourcefulness that they've shown.
It's hard to get good numbers as both Russia and Ukraine lie about everything. But it feels that Ukraine is exhausted and will soon lose this war. My heuristic for this is reading between the lines of the news.
"My source? It was revealed to me in a dream."
The narratives around this war have been as changeable as a wind sock, turning to match each gust of changing fortune. I wouldn't bother trying to guess how this will all end, nobody can tell from where we are now.
Arnaud
6mo ago
The elite see this as weird, but it’s actually the default state of humanity. Most people throughout history have made moral decisions based on their religion, and most humans do today.
I would disagree quite strenuously with this, the default state of humanity is a hunter-gatherer with no concept of what we would understand as "religion". I would even go further and say that conflating religion with morality is a relatively "modern" development. In most pagan religions the relationship individuals and groups have with the gods is a very practical and transactional affair, you give offerings to gods in an attempt to gain their support and help, morality does not really enter into it. To a pagan gods are basically just very powerful people and a fact of life that you have to deal with. In fact, I would say that you can also see traces of this thinking in christianity, particularly in the old testament before god had a kid and mellowed out a bit. You really get the impression that the hebrew god is worshipped because he is unfathomably powerful and terrifying rather than because he is some font of morality.
Arnaud
6mo ago
I'm partial to a nice game of chess myself, provided neither of you is a Kasparov or other chess savant, it should provide a good way to pass some time together.
Chess is a great man activity like that, it provides something for you both to focus on and lets you bond without having to do anything so gay as talking about each other.
Arnaud
6mo ago
The US presidents security needs only to deal with threats from sub-state level actors, lone nutters, small terrorist cells and the like.
For everyone else, having the full wrath of the United States government mobilised against them outweighs whatever they might hope to achieve by assassinating the US president. Also it does help that Israel actually does have a military of its own and is probably quite eager to not get caught flat footed again.
Arnaud
6mo ago
I really need to get around to reading some Jeeves and Wooster, I've been a fan of the tv series ever since I was a lad and my Dad has always gone to great lengths to impress upon me just how good the books are.
Arnaud
6mo ago
Frankly I'm more surprised that more women aren't frightened of childbirth, everything I've heard about it makes it seem incredibly unpleasant.
Arnaud
6mo ago
Feelings of inferiority
By “feelings of inferiority” we mean not only inferiority feelings in the strict sense but a whole spectrum of related traits; low self-esteem, feelings of powerlessness, depressive tendencies, defeatism, guilt, self-hatred, etc. We argue that modern leftists tend to have some such feelings (possibly more or less repressed) and that these feelings are decisive in determining the direction of modern leftism.
Leftists tend to hate anything that has an image of being strong, good and successful. They hate America, they hate Western civilization, they hate white males, they hate rationality. The reasons that leftists give for hating the West, etc. clearly do not correspond with their real motives. They SAY they hate the West because it is warlike, imperialistic, sexist, ethnocentric and so forth, but where these same faults appear in socialist countries or in primitive cultures, the leftist finds excuses for them, or at best he GRUDGINGLY admits that they exist; whereas he ENTHUSIASTICALLY points out (and often greatly exaggerates) these faults where they appear in Western civilization. Thus it is clear that these faults are not the leftist’s real motive for hating America and the West. He hates America and the West because they are strong and successful.
From Industrial Society and Its Future.
Arnaud
7mo ago
I find it pretty funny that nobody else has apparently thought of the actual term, tomboys and have instead fallen into the age old argument of "which form of gay is less gay".
Arnaud
7mo ago
I am completely indifferent to if you look good or bad, if you have an agenda or are simply asking questions. My post was nothing more than a stream of consciousness in response to a prompt.
the end of slavery
For the record, slavery is still very much present in the world today and probably won't be going anywhere any time soon.
It seems to me, Hamas just did a YOLO attack for really no long term gain
The future is uncertain, by preventing recognition of Israel today, they are effectively buying another roll of the dice tomorrow and hoping for more favourable conditions to emerge that can then be exploited. Superficially this sounds like YOLO'ing it, but it's a more considered strategy.
I felt like Israel was really starting to lose support in the West
Reminding people that these are the kinds of people Israel has to deal with will garner them a lot of support and they also stupidly filmed their atrocities and put it on social media
You're thinking like a westerner and focusing far too much on a peripheral audience. Filming atrocities energises their arab/islamic base and will push Israel into pursuing a harder line and probably killing a bunch of Palestinian civilians to boot, which makes for useful propaganda. It's a win/win for Hamas on the PR front as far as they're concerned.
At this point the ball is very much in Israels court, it'll be interesting to see what tack Israel takes in this next phase of the war.
Arnaud
7mo ago
Ideally I would live in a world where nobody felt the need to sell their dignity.
Arnaud
7mo ago
Ted Kaczynski is not only a good emissary for antitechnological thought, he is the greatest emissary by a vast margin. You can turn up your nose at his terrorist campaign, but the fact is that it achieved its objective of spreading his manifesto into the wider world and is the only reason anybody outside of academia has even considered these ideas.
Which ignores that Kaczynski's ur-father, Jacques Ellul (and Ellul's own ur-mother Simone Weil) was an ardent and committed pacifist.
Which is why nobody has ever heard of him outside of niche academic circles and why I am less inclined to take his work seriously compared to Kaczynski, who has demonstrated a far greater practical understanding of how things work in the real world.
They absolutely can be a problem, just because feminists like to harp on about lad/bro culture doesn't mean that it's this flawless beacon of jovial good natured fun and they're just jealous harpies trying to drag us down.
I've definitely seen people be seriously hurt, physically and emotionally by both pranks and jokes, being the cause of some of that hurt myself over the years. It's pretty easy for banter and fun to get out of hand and there should be a way to tamp down on that energy and get things under control if the aforementioned lads can't self regulate and are causing problems. Feminists and progressives see no value in lad/bro culture and are therefore completely fine just ripping the whole thing out root and stem, but to deny the possibility of problems or bad behaviour that might need moderating/limiting to me feels like a knee-jerk "defend against the out-group" response.
More options
Context Copy link