Arnaud
1mo ago
is PRC... Good?
Go live there for a while, travel the country and then come to the same conclusion as pretty much every other foreigner, which is "No, god no, absolutely not".
People here have touched on the topic of the PRCs moral bankruptcy and how unpleasant the culture is, but I'm going to focus on something a little more mundane and say that if the PRC becomes ascendant and starts trying to export soft power via cultural exports, you will weep and beg for the woke media to return to save you.
It is my firm belief that Chinese opera should be classified as a form of torture and America missed a trick by not staging mandatory performances at Guantanamo. Lion dances are great though, I'm fine with them exporting that.
it seems like the UK has literally criminalized dissent on the issue of immigration, how could this possibly be?
Because you have looked at a few pieces of information and then extrapolated it to an extreme, or you adopted a worldview in 2014 and then haven't updated it since.
Reform is the party with the most momentum in British politics and is on track to form the next government on a wave of anti-immigration sentiment. I am hopeful that what we are seeing with Pathways is the last gasps of a dying culture in British politics, the finger-wagging respectable "adults in the room" with their heads in the sand.
Americans online will sometimes go on about Britain being an authoritarian dystopia, possibly because they've grown up being bombarded with folktales about the tyranny of the British crown and it feels comfortable to follow those well worn grooves, but it's always rung hollow to me. The dystopian part I'm not going to argue about, I'm amazed people can live in certain parts of England without immediately committing suicide, it's a true testament to their mental fortitude that they don't look out the window in the morning and immediately ram their heads into it and slit their throats on the broken glass. But the British political establishment isn't authoritarian, they are far too ineffectual for that, instead they nag and tut and wag their fingers. Britain does not have gulags, what it has instead is this kind of vaguely condescending and ineffectual propaganda paired with equally condescending and ineffectual harassment.
I'm sure a libertarian may feel the urge to crawl out of the woodwork here and try to bring up some protestors being arrested for being mean or a video of a policeman standing outside someones door looking like an idiot as they try to caution the homeowner for a mean tweet, but that just makes my point. I'm sure to some this is indistinguishable from 1984 and the jackboot of the Nazis, but to actual authoritarians this is laughable, it's like one of those comedy bits where the camera pans over a list of hardened criminals and then stops at Bill from accounting, who is also there.
Arnaud
1mo ago
Trump has stated he plans to seize Greenland by force, putting a tripwire force in place is simply good sense, regardless of what is happening in Ukraine.
I don't know if there's a way to say this that will be well-received, or if it possibly violates some rule for here but reading this post I can only think that you should try taking a break from internet politics and spending some time outside of whatever bubbles you're in.
Arnaud
1mo ago
I'm going to go with a perhaps controversial opinion here and say there is no doctrine here at all, Trump is acting opportunistically and for his own reasons that range from a a simplistic and transactional view of geopolitics down to petty ego. He's surrounded by yes men and getting high on the news coverage of himself, it seems most likely he's seen information about resource deposits and decided he has to have it, plus securing his place in history as a US President that expanded the nations borders with a big chunk of land.
The only "doctrine" you might be able to find will come from the courtiers whispering into his ear, trying to aim the loose cannon roughly at problems they want dealt with, but even then that's going to be filtered through Trumps own strange lens and more probably than not there will be different parties trying to push him in different directions.
This Greenland stuff is madness, there's no reasonable justification for it from a military or political standpoint, anything the US wants from Greenland they almost certainly could have negotiated for and gotten without any real hassle and certainly without threatening the existence of NATO and setting off alarm bells in Europe.
Arnaud
5mo ago
You're comparing the successes of woke in its ascendancy compared to the final days of the nagging god-botherers regime. I would say in the US you could chalk up Prohibition at least as an example of their powers of priggishness and moral busybodying, but I'm sure there are a lot more if you bother to look back.
Arnaud
7mo ago
Then your definition of victory is narrow and unsuited to this conflict, or any other of the many interminable conflicts that clutter up the history books, there are kinds of victory other than those which are absolute or permanent.
Degrading or destroying Hamas reduces the danger posed by Gaza substantially, the remaining population can be as unruly as they like, if they lack the equipment, networks or know-how of how to turn ther discontent into military force then they simply are not a threat, not in the short to medium term at least. Sure they might eventually overcome these shortcomings and become an actual threat again in the long term, but in the meantime Israel can enjoy peace and security, which is absolutely a win.
This all assumes that the Gazans decide that yes, they really are going to learn nothing from this whole experience and just repeat the exact same mistakes that lead to them being bombed flat for 0 gain, which I really don't think is guaranteed. Yes the Gazans aren't going to come out of this experience overflowing with love for Israel, but I can't imagine they'll be very happy with Hamas either, or anyone who has the really bright idea of triggering an unwinnable war over what amounted to a very violent PR stunt. By all accounts Palestinians before the war had a delusional perspective on the conflict and their chances of victory against Israel, vastly overestimating their own population and vastly underestimating that of the Israelis, there is a chance that this conflict might knock some sense into them.
Arnaud
7mo ago
The strategy seems to be based on eroding the power base of Hamas, possibly with a side of forcing Gazans to confront the reality of their situation and their complete military defeat.
Apparently Hamas had previously been seizing food and using it to maintain power and influence by controlling who got what, which the new system pushed by Israel and the US is designed to thwart. This makes sense and seems like it would be effective, so I wouldn't be surprised if Hamas and those aligned with them would do a great deal to try and undermine that effort.
Arnaud
7mo ago
Unless I've been reading maps really wrong up to this point, North Koreas main adversary is immediately to its south and connected by a land border.
Speaking as a man who was once described as "manorexic", who genuinely believed I was a fat blob when in reality I was just a regular guy with some muscles, I'm not entirely sure how you deal with this specific case, but I certainly have experience dealing with and eventually overcoming comparable issues so maybe you'll be able to extract some value from that.
I will say, a previous comment seems to have hit a number of salient points, that this occured at a point in my life when I felt I had very little control and that the extremes I went to in pursuing my fitness and diet goals were an attempt to regain control over some aspect of my life. It later turned out I was trying to ignore/brute force a whole bunch of issues and that this really wasn't sustainable long term. As soon as I was removed from the stressors and able to accept the issues I was facing, I was actually recalibrate mentally, that burning need to reshape my body evaporated and now I have a much healthier approach to fitness in general.
Another big factor for me was the content I consumed and the websites I frequented online. I spent a lot of time in bodybuilding and weight lifting forums and it definitely distorted my idea of what was normal.
All of that said, I think it would be great if you could get your girlfriend into fitness in general and weightlifting in particular. While it is possible to go too far and harm yourself, it's a hell of a lot harder than it is with simply starving yourself. The thing that will really help to shift that mindset I think will be her watching female fitness influencers and getting her into that whole eco-system, one where women are striving to be more than just skinny, but actually fit and healthy. The company you keep does influence you and your outlook on life and to our monkey brains, influencers and social media types are company. Also it might help to explain that looking attractive is not simply a question of bodyfat percentages, but also what is underneath the fat. The video I linked earlier actually has a decent breakdown of bf% versus muscle mass for men and what that looks like.
Oh and it would probably be a good idea to one day figure out the source of the problem, I'd seriously recommend looking up things like what female autism looks like and just trying to explore things of that nature. It can seem somewhat orthogonal to the problem at hand, but the mind is a funny thing.
Arnaud
7mo ago
the ancient Christians, who steamrolled over the strength-is-beauty-is-justice pagan ethos of Rome, did not need mustache-twirling wordcels in high places berating anyone on their behalf to gain followers, nor did the French Revolution with its cries for égalité.
I'm going to take issue with both examples here, both nascent Christianity and especially the French Revolution had wordy intellectuals at the hearts of their movements. Robespierre wasn't just selling like, vibes man.
Arnaud
7mo ago
Can't speak for the cane sugar, but the gluten sensitivity thing is real from my experience.
Cut out gluten in a desperate attempt to sort out some digestive issues years ago and it helped a lot.
If I eat gluten in moderate quantities nowadays it results, like clockwork, in a headache, brain fog and later indigestion.
So yeah, sample size of one but I'm sold.
Arnaud
7mo ago
The kid is sleeping like a log
Sleeping through bombardment, a veteran already.
Arnaud
7mo ago
In fairness, SEALs have something of a reputation of being the idiot frat boys of the special forces world. Pretty much every negative story I've heard about US special forces was about the SEALs.
Probably comes from them being able to walk in off the street and sign up, rather than the more usual system of only allowing applicants that are already in the military.
Arnaud
8mo ago
But im pretty sure they weren’t choosing fashions or foods or other products because they were associated with abolition.
They absolutely were.
Modern politics isn’t politics as they would have understood it. It’s more of a lifestyle brand in our culture. And in a lot of ways I think I would compare our way of thinking about our political party affiliation much like someone pre-enlightenment might have thought about religious denominations.
Religion was central to politics in medieval Europe, not a distinct thing that was seperate and fenced off. The distinction between the nationalist killing a communist and a catholic killing a protestant is on a conceptual level, not that different. In both cases it is an argument over how the world as we understand it is arranged and who is handing out bread.
Ultimately I think you're starting from a false premise here, or have an odd definition of politics. At the end of the day humans are going to be humans and love showing how much they are part of the tribe through how they dress, act, eat, etc. I mean, just look at the history of nationalism and nationalist movements.
Arnaud
8mo ago
Anyone know any games, roleplaying or otherwise, which end up encouraging real/historical tactics?
That is an impressively vague question and one which I can only really answer by saying "yes" and "more than I could list in a single comment".
To start with there's the entire world of tabletop historical wargaming, which (as it says on the tin) is supposed to encourage historically accurate/authentic gameplay. Now, sometimes you end up with games like Team Yankee, which somehow managed to make a Cold War game look more like a Napoleonic one thanks to a business decision to use a miniature scale that is too large for the rules. Games I would recommend include Chain of Command for WW2, Warmaster is good for a fairly wide period of real world history, as well as fantasy. Speaking of fantasy, the Lord of the Rings/Middle Earth tabletop game from Games Workshop is actually great and does an excellent job of capturing the "heroic" but still quite grounded combat you'd expect from that kind of story and out of all the stuff I list here is most likely to be the kind of thing you're looking for. There are tonnes of other good games but those are just ones from the top of my head.
In terms of computer games you're slightly more limited but there's still a pretty decent selection, in terms of realism/authenticity I struggle to think of much that can top the Field of Glory/Combat Mission/Graviteam games. The last two are really not games for the faint of heart though, it turns out that in our modern age, real world tactics are actually quite complicated and unintuitive.
I was playing D:OS2 this weekend and found myself thinking, "wow, all these spear-wielding magisters have zero incentive to form up and fight in ranks." It's a chaotic free-for-all.
This is what really killed my interest in that game, it's all so incredibly over the top. It's more than a little silly how everyone seems to be able to do these incredibly over the top attacks and have these incredible abilities and yet it is still somehow a standard issue medieval fantasy world.
Arnaud
9mo ago
What weapons? Who were 'some' ? Even though US has some thousands of armored vehicles in storage, it's known all the critical weapons -air defense, artillery are in short supply. Any sort of useful weapon system (good air defense, cruise missiles) that might make big trouble for Russians is in very short supply. At this point, only some sort of wunderwaffe like AI-powered FPVs AND China not cutting off supplies of parts there in a brutal manner could save Ukrainians.
I think I disagree with the idea that thousands of armoured vehicles are useless and I suspect that Ukraine would agree with me, I can think of at least a few good uses for a large quantity of Bradleys and Abrams, hell even the M113 could be put to use. The Russians seem to be pretty close to burning through their soviet inheritance of armoured vehicles, hence the increasing presence of things like Mad Maxified Ladas and golf cart riding stormtruppen, so armoured vehicles that are donated from now on should produce a greater impact on the battlefield as the Russians become increasingly resource constrained.
Russians are confident they can keep this going and Ukraine will give in, so why'd they accept a peace that'd not solve the issues they have.
It probably is worth mentioning here that Putin was confident that the "special military operation" would have been over in days and that he also has a tendency towards "missing the bus" when it comes to strategic decisions, procrastinating and making decisions weeks and months after they would have had the most effect. Putin is quite lucky that the western world lives in abject terror of actually winning a war for change (Defeating your enemies? Sounds awfully escalatory that) and that we are instead treated to this tragic comedy of errors.
Arnaud
9mo ago
Even the ancient greeks acknowledged that Zeus was something of a cunt, what with constantly cheating on his wife by raping women and all the other petty stuff greek gods got up to.
Arnaud
10mo ago
I know you say that Warhammer isn't for you, but I would actually recommend you give the Ciaphas Cain series a go, it's very different from anything else in Warhammer, very light hearted, fun and unusually sensible for the setting.
Similarly I would suggest for Warhammer Fantasy the Gotrek and Felix series, at least up to Beastslayer, after which I've found myself falling off the series. It's good fun fantasy adventuring, the first book is different from the others in that it's more of an anthology of short adventures rather than a single narrative. I quite enjoyed it but the second books introduction of the skaven and their schemes really adds a lot of humour.
Arnaud
10mo ago
An individual didn't; Roman peasants didn't supplicate the gods in penance for their sins, personally. The senate managed the relationship between the Romans(all of them) and the gods.
This is simply incorrect, individuals routinely made offerings to gods, both minor and major, to try and influence events in their life. IE, a Roman sailor might give an offering to Neptune to protect him on his next voyage, or a soldier might do the same to Mars to protect him before a battle. Also you don't seem to grasp the primarily transactional nature of a lot of (most? all??) polytheistic ancient religions, you offer things to the gods because you want them to intercede on your behalf, in the same way that you might try to bribe a judge or a prominent politician. You worship and flatter the gods because they are powerful and can do things for you, not because they are paragons of morality.
I would also add that trying to reduce the worldviews of all the members of "traditional societies" into less than a paragraph is nonsensical, there were major differences in worldview between a Roman alive during the reign of Augustus and a Roman that was alive during the reign of Diocletian, let alone between an Assyrian labourer and a Gothic chieftain. The omnipresent threat of bandits and pirates puts paid to the idea that ancient societies were a monolith, before we even talk about the various historical\mythical figures who were very much just in it for themselves (Odysseus being a personal favourite of mine).
I think this has become a growing pet peeve of mine, listening to people try and make political points by referring to a funhouse mirror version of history that they have in their heads. It happens right across the political spectrum and I understand that by the nature of things no one will ever have a truly accurate understanding of the way things were (in fact I think nobody will ever truly have an accurate understanding of the way things are at any point in time), but I swear to god if I see one more twitter account with a greek statue profile picture complaining about how degenerate the modern world is, with its homos and pedophiles, I'm going to have an aneurysm.
Arnaud
11mo ago
The program that worked best for me (a man in his twenties) and my dad (a man in his fifties) was Stronglifts 5x5.
In both cases we made fairly rapid and sustained strength gains, it requires practically no thinking since you just slot your stats into a spreadsheet and it plans your progression out for you. Don't make the mistake I did and think you can skip ahead a few weeks at the start because the weight seems kind of small, it goes up pretty damn quick.
You can also transition straight into Madcow 5x5 when you're up to intermediate lifting.
Also I would also second the motion that cardio be added to your routine in some form, stretching is also a good idea but I've never been able to get that habit to stick, so I would feel something of a hypocrite. From personal experience I would say that getting enough protein, sleep and making sure to actually listen to your body and not push yourself beyond your limits is often enough to prevent injury, I say this as the weightlifter that has had the least injuries among all the weightlifters I know.
Arnaud
1yr ago
You say context matters and then proceed to ignore the context that this is a discussion of immigration to Britain and that "recent' in this context is a lot longer than you seem to assume.
Arnaud
1yr ago
Speaking as someone who is British I would consider someone a "recent" immigrant if their family has only lived in Britain for the past few hundred years. Once you're past the three hundred year mark I think you probably have some right to be called local.
Arnaud
1yr ago
There is no reason except the donors to value Israel higher than Palestine.
Well I can think of a few, the israelis are culturally much closer to the west than the palestinians, which breeds sympathy. Frankly I don't think Palestine would enjoy any western support were it not for general ignorance of most westerners to palestinian culture and a certain knee jerk reaction among some westerners to support any underdog or group that opposes the west.
To western sensibilities the palestinians are barbarous and generally unpleasant. I personally find their combination of weakness and belligerence to be particularly repellant, demanding humane treatment that they themselves would never even consider granting their enemies were the situations reversed.
The people in the middle east aren't going to like Israel more if they do nothing either, so that's something of a moot point. Iran is also not particularly popular with large sections of the middle east due to religious differences and the fact that Iran has been funding proxies and trying to destabilise the region to their advantage for decades now, to the detriment of Israeli/US interests as well.
You are nakedly a partisan on this issue and therefore probably emotionally obliged to try and spin this as both a massive blunder and an act of unprovoked evil from Israel, but what they are doing now is entirely logical from a military/geo-political perspective given the circumstances, Iran is probably Israels greatest long term enemy and they're on the ropes, they would be stupid not to attack now.
As a wise man once said, "If fighting is sure to result in victory, then you must fight".
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