BahRamYou
17hr ago
I actually agree with this pretty strongly. I wrote the other day that I think part of why people object so strongly to ICE is just the aesthetics of their uniforms. I also heard (anecdotally) a lawyer say that he would never, ever wear a black suit to a jury trial- it has a huge biasing effect on people.
I thought that police traditionally used blue for this very reason? It's a color that conveys the right mix of authority and calm. I have no idea why they insist on wearing black- are they trying to sneak around in the dark like ninjas? But even ninjas wore blue!
BahRamYou
1d ago
This guy has been showing up in my feed a lot lately, and I think he has a good perspective on the situation. Notably there's some history I didn't know: Xi Jinping's father was once "purged," but he wasn't executed, just removed from power for a while. He was eventually allowed to come back. So being "purged" is maybe not as severe a punishment as westerners might think.
The other thing is that there's always a certain amount of petty corruption going on there. For the most part they allow it and tolerate it. It's only used as an excuse to purge someone when they want to remove someone for other reasons. (That said... giving away nuclear secrets seems a lot more severe than petty corruption? but who knows)
So his conclusion is that this is essentially a move by Xi Jinping to consolidate power for himself and the CCP, taking power away from the top military leaders. You might ask why he'd want to do that, since he's already got plenty of power and you'd think he has enough on his plate trying to run a country of 1.4 billion people. But this would give him more power to do something dangerous and unpopular... like, say, start an invasion of Taiwan.
I really, really, really hope that doesn't happen. I've been to Taiwan and it's a nice place. I also think the US and its allies are in a bad state right now, not ready for this kind of major full-scale war.
BahRamYou
1d ago
See, for me, it was playing the strategy game "Romance of the 3 Kingdoms" series on NES. Which tells you absolutely nothing about these characters except their stats. You can recruit all of them, but there's a hidden loyalty stat for how the story is supposed to go. So I kept trying to recruit Lu Bu because he had the best combat stat, and he kept on betraying me XD. I suppose that's a very authentic experience to the story!
BahRamYou
1d ago
I have bent over backwards to try and host spaces for people to hang out casually and meet without much expectations but also clearance to flirt, and somehow I virtually NEVER (like, once or twice in the past year?) get invited to spaces hosted by other people.
Just want to say, you're doing god's work and you'll get your reward in heaven (but probably not in this life).
BahRamYou
1d ago
I mean... it's really long, and really old, and really Chinese. It's not something you can just read casually. It's practically a whole field of study in itself.
I grew up playing Koei games like the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" series. If you're... a certain sort of nerd, you'll appreciate them. The downside is, they sort of assume you already know the story, so they can be confusing. But they'll still give you part of the story, and a good appreciation for the overall strategic situation and map.
"Dynasty Warriors" is more story based. It's pretty much nonsense, but it gives a good sense for the myths and legends, which is what most people remember it for anyway.
For a slightly more academic approach, I really enjoyed this blog series: Chinese history for white people. Still very limited and oversimplified, but it's a good read.
Beyond that, I think you just have to read Wikipedia articles about the specific people and battles involved. Or commit yourself to learning Chinese lol. I think it's still lacking in proper English-language material.
BahRamYou
2d ago
Seems like there's roughly 4 types of Democrats on this issue:
- is the relatively moderate, centrist opinion. They're happy to accept legal immigrants, especially to fill job vacancies or reunite families, but they still want to enforce immigration law. Obama would be the most prominent example of this.
- is the more pragmatic, squishy, vague position. They're still in principle against illegal immigration, but they don't really want to do anything to enforce it either. There seems to be a strong sense of "but how else would we get the work done without them?" here, especially in certain industries like meat processing that are pretty nasty work for low pay. I think this is how Biden thought about it.
- is the more emotional position. They just hate seeing anyone get hurt, so pictures of people who are not visibly committing a crime getting arrested really triggers them. The actual issue isn't really important, especially when it's a smaller, weaker, more photogenic person getting arrested by an armed federal agent in a black uniform. Kamala Harris, Tim Walz, and most of the street protestors seem to have this position.
- is the more academic position. They see the US as being a vast chunk of unused territory, stolen from the native americans, which has no right to be nationalistic. They want to help the overall world GDP by moving as many immigrants as possible into the US, and also create a huge voting advantage for leftists. To that end, they really don't care whether immigrants are legal or illegal, and would prefer open borders. You don't see this view a lot from elected officials (at least not openly), but plenty of people express it online, especially from college students and their lefty professors.
BahRamYou
5d ago
Well, there's different reasons to not trust a country. Denmark seems like a nice country, and we've historically had good relations. But they just don't have the capability to do anything in the Arctic or in space. If they decide they dont trust the US and want to kick them out from Thule military base in Greenland... what exactly is Denmark going to do about it? Send some dogsleds?
BahRamYou
5d ago
Probably not. Even 1 year was enough for me to develop some bad habits. 20 years of that lifestyle would be insane.
BahRamYou
5d ago
$1k per month is roughly what I got when I lost my job in 2020 because of Covid. It wasn't exactly riches, but it certainly wasn't "nothing." It was... an interesting experience, getting checks in the mail from the government for doing absolutely nothing, while public figures told me to stay inside for public health. I was glad that it helped me keep my life going and not become homeless, but it also encouraged me to be lazy so... I don't know. It's a hard question.
BahRamYou
6d ago
Rubio is the one with a real job and specific powers. It just happens that his job is particularly in focus right now.
Vance has a very vaguely defined job and nothing much to do right now. It doesn't change the fact that he's still a very important person and the most likely next Republican candidate for president.
BahRamYou
6d ago
There's a great quote from a Tom Wolfe book along these lines...
“Like more than one Englishman in New York, he looked upon Americans as hopeless children whom Providence had perversely provided with this great swollen fat fowl of a continent. Any way one chose to relieve them of their riches, short of violence, was sporting, if not morally justifiable, since they would only squander it in some tasteless and useless fashion, in any event.”
As an American, I'm a little defensive but... there is some truth in that. I admit that we were very, very lucky with our geographically- some might say supernaturally blessed. And our foreign policy has often been naive to the point of stupidity (sending factory equipment to the USSR, or granting China trade advantages come to mind). Our intelligence operations often result in embarassing failures, and Hollywood routinely portrays ourselves as evil.
Nonetheless, we do have some strengths that aren't just luck. I won't bother to list them here, I think anyone can think of a few. The 21st century will be interesting though...
BahRamYou
6d ago
There seems to be such a huge split between the left and right on this!
From the left, I hear that Americans are broke. Living with their parents, no healthcare, no job (or a really crappy job), struggling to survive. The official statistics are either made up, or highly misleading (like, a handful of billionares have all the money while the rest of us have nothing).
From the right, I hear that America is the wealthiest country that has ever existed. Way more money than China or Europe. The economy has boomed thanks to Reagonomics, the Bush tax cuts, and Trumps... tweets. We can easily spend a trillion for Greenland, or missile defense, or battleships, or whatever, because we have essentially infinite money.
I think the libertarians are the most correct on this. Whichever party is currently in power will say we have plenty of money to pursue their goals. Whichever party is out of power will say that we're broke, we can't afford it, we need to pay down the debt, etc...
Yeah, and the red uniforms were (alledgedly?) to distinguish them from the clouds of gunpowder smoke. Makes sense at that time but... there's a good reason soldiers don't wear bright red uniforms anymore. Colors matter!
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