Eetan
1hr ago
Your impression?
Yes, the poster is troll and, regardless whether he is made of flesh or bytes, he is effective troll because he effectively calls out internal contradictions in Current Year(TM) official world wiew.
"You say you believe in God. Word of God is clear that graven images are very, very bad. Why are churches full of golden and bejeweled statues and icons?"
"SHUT UP THIS TROLL!"
Did they "deserve" to die?
Yes, every man has free will and free choice and is, ultimately, the master of his fate and captain of his soul.
Better question about the current situation is:
If Alex Pretti drew his gun first and shot the ICE agents, would you say: "If the agents were sensible, they would pick safe burger flipping or shelf stocking job. They volunteered for this work, well knowing it could be dangerous. They chose their fate. FAFO."?
Eetan
1d ago
Normal people don't have time to do this shit for 20 years. They are almost certainly sponsored by someone top-down.
Political activists are not, by definition, "normal people". This activity is not extraordinary expensive, the "sponsorship" is coming from their moms (or, for the veterans, some low effort no show jobs).
If they were ex-NKVD
If they were ex-NKVD, it would mean that comrade Lysenko was right, that glorious Soviet biology really discovered secret of eternal youth. Awesome news!
Eetan
1d ago
The Twitter poster's point, whether he is flesh and blood in realspace or bundle of bits in cyperspace, is that the right wing has absolutely nothing comparable. Leftoids organize and fight, rightoids are trusting the plan, polishing their guns and waiting for big boog.
Eetan
3d ago
other similar modernity-defying groups?
The Mennonites who are growing at brisk pace and actively spreading around the world. Most of their growth is in Latin America, but lately they are coming to Africa too.
Unlike the Orthodox Jews, they managed to keep low profile (so far). If you know who Mennonites are, you are either their immediate neighbor, serious theology nerd, 16th century history nerd or demography nerd.
Eetan
3d ago
I'd wager Kulak's twitter followers in Minnesota could do it alone.
Maybe they could, but they are not, so far, doing anything at all. And there are lots of (nonviolent, legal) things that could be done right now, no need to wait for the full boogaloo.
Where are, for example, counterprotestors, protecting ICE from liberal protestors? Imagine three sided standoff - ICE, anti-ICE protestors and anti-anti-ICE counterprotestors duking it out on the rough streets of Milwaukee (all dressed in identical camo and armed up the wazoo).
Eetan
3d ago
What glib judgement? It shows that Russians are modern people who are not satisfied with medieval style of worship. Trad style churches are empty in the Western world too.
Golden icons, singing and incense were big things for old time peasants, but modern man needs modern religion.
This is how you fill churches in 21st century.
Eetan
3d ago
then what is beyond that
Extra legal interesting times.
Times where one side has, among other things, by OP admission, "low-level insurgency infrastructure" of "early-stage urban cells" built out of nothing operating on the streets, while the other has few thousands bottom of the barrel thugs and few tens of million spectators watching and cheering these thugs on screens.
Log on your Polymarket accounts and place your bets.
Eetan
3d ago
The State's preference to persist in this Orthodox advocacy is not indicative of the popular demand for irrationalism; quite the opposite, it's another grift vector and a top-down attempt at social engineering like the insane WWII sacralization (Immortal Regiment) that the people passively accept (which is actually a massive mark against Russian culture, just a different one).
This is exactly indicative of massive popular demand for irrationalism and attempt to channel it for official state purposes. Remember explosion of astrology, shamanism, psychic powers and all sorts of occultism and woo that instantly happened when Soviet censorship eased just by a little bit. The same with WW2 cult (and cult of Stalin) - these came from the bottom, at the beginning Immortal Regiment was purely grassroot phenomenon.
Not that Russia is any exceptional, it would be hard to find true rationalist country, with low rates of belief in both traditional organized religion and astrology/witchcraft.
Eetan
5d ago
Of course, the alternative is not 'no bloodshed'
The alternative is enforcing existing laws against employers of undocumented immigrants in red states where they are concentrated the most. It is it not happening due to fear of backlash - if ICE was hauling away CEO's it would have 90% approval rate. But, instead, you have violent street circus to satisfy sadism and bloodlust of MAGA base. You really do not have to be tinfoil hat wearing conspiracy theorist to understand what is going on.
Eetan
5d ago
is L'État, c'est moi a claim to have democratic mandate as well?
No, it is exactly opposite. It does not mean "I am humble servant of the people" but "The people must serve the state, this means me".
Kings of ancient regime derived their legitimacy from divine will, royal blood and tradition, and if anyone hadn't like it, too bad for the rebel scum.
Eetan
6d ago
It is four chan style dissing of aliens and all alien lore, seeing it just as another psyop.
Eetan
6d ago
I'm sure Chinese and North Koreans pretend even harder, but nobody - including themselves - believes in this pretense. And, what is very important, nobody cares, especially in Russia - Russians are completely fine with fake elections, because they don't really value free elections - they are completely ok with fake-electing the same Tzar for life, if he doesn't treat them too badly (in this case, they'd kill him and put on a new Tzar for life). Everybody in Russia knows elections are fake and the parliament is a dressing for what Putin wants, with less power than medieval nobles' assemblies under absolute monarchs. They are absolutely fine with it.
This is the case all over the world. Every regime except Taliban and Gulf monarchies claim to represent "the people" and rule in their name, every colonel who just gained power by coup says he is really defending democracy. Last man who failed to conform to this unwritten rule was late Emperor Bokassa the First.
Looks like total Western cultural victory. When you start seeing various strongmen repudiating this charade and crowning themselves as kings, sultans and maharajahs, you will know that Western supremacy is fading and multipolar, multicultural world arrived for real.
Eetan
6d ago
Yes, typical anarcho communist community ends as bizarre sex cult in peace time or just another bandit gang in war zone, while anarcho capitalist community ends in massive scam and rug pull (AFAIK no one yet attempted to build anarcho capitalist paradise during some shithole country civil war).
Eetan
6d ago
If you want to call medieval Iceland (society rather unpleasant by modern standards, but so were all contemporary societies) an example of thriving anarcho-capitalism, then numerous egalitarian tribal societies where land was held in common are examples of successful anarcho-communism.
Anyway, none of these societies were viable when organized state showed up in the neighborhood. This is the hard problem of anarchy of all kinds, unsolved for 5000 years.
Eetan
6d ago
Certainly the US could take Canada, militarily.
Now, yes. Canada now is just like Ukraine in 2014.
This could change fast. Ukraine in 2014 was hopeless wreck, Ukraine in 2022 was something else.
Eetan
6d ago
Bottom left corner is anarcho-communism, not Lenin and Stalin, but Bakunin and Kropotkin. You can truthfully object that no viable example of autonomous self governing classless, stateless and moneyless worker community ever existed, but this is even more true about hard core anarcho capitalism.
Eetan
8d ago
Hungarian and Polish leadership and national heroes constantly worked with and fought for the Ottomans..
Most of these examples were from Crimean War. At this time, religious passions and crusading spirit were things of the past and these Polish heroes were fighting on Turkish side together with Western allies. If they were traitors of Christendom, so were Viscount Palmerston and Napoleon the Third.
Eetan
8d ago
A fun thought experiment is analyzing everything concretely done in an economic sector
Beware. If you do such analysis thoroughly with full historical perspective, if you follow all tracks and climb through all rabbit holes, you find out that not only our current system has nothing in common with "free market", that corporations and state institutions are just different tentacles of the same monster, and it has was always that been that way in all recorded history.
Persevere enough, and you will see yourself swiftly moving from right bottom corner to left bottom corner of political compass, you will be throwing away black-gold flags and portraits of Ayn Rand and replacing them black-red banners and pictures of more imposing Russians
Eetan
9d ago
The Western mode of directly or indirectly conquering the world because you experience moral outrage at the suffering of the poor and oppressed masses
This is applicable, if at all, only to late 19th century (mostly unprofitable) colonialism, justified, along national honor, by civilizing the natives. For the rest four centuries, the sales pitch was "Make Money Fast!".
Eetan
9d ago
The correct response is also obviously impractical and self-defeating. It notes that the video's content may be illegal, but it is impossible to tell that sight-unseen, and a policy of refusing to watch or share any video because it might be illegal is, plainly, a policy of refusing to engage with any online video at all. If Charlie followed that rule, Charlie couldn't even read Pathways itself! You might precisify it to something like "only watch online videos from trusted sources", but in almost all circumstances that amounts to the same thing.
The correct winning response is to care only about gaming and do not be interested in any political content at all. Do not be for or against anything, just sit in your room and play.
This is textbook authoritarianism, ideal of modern Putinism. If we take this game as sign of changing course, it means that TPTB gave up their attempts to make citizens into ardent woke antiracist warriors and just want totally apathetic consumers.
Eetan
11d ago
Reality sure is a very interesting place these days!
Yes, reality is unrealistic.
AGENT: Tone it down. Really, tone it all down. You are writing near future gritty cyberpunk story, not slapstick comedy!
The mega billionaire character is so over the top it is not even funny, starting with this goofy name ... ELON? And the president, Dump or what is his name... this is not even parody, this is pure hallucinatory nonsense.
Eetan
12d ago
I don't think America has failed the most basic functions of a nation state
Country can be extremely internally violent and still be able to maintain state of the art air, space and nuclear forces and face other great power in open warfare.
Eetan
12d ago
Was Venezuela not exactly this fast operation? Were their troops not cowards who would lift a single MANPAD to resist our might?
We (for value of "we"=military history nerds) will know in decades, if ever, what exactly happened this fateful night, what, if any, subterfuges and backstage deals were involved.
But, according to reports that came through, Venezuelans and Cubans stood against science fictional death ray and died, something as far from cowardice as there could be.
Anyway, lessons from Venezuela for potential confrontation between US and European countries are limited (unless you believe them to be equally rotting and decrepit shitholes).
hordes of Islamists
As relevant to potential US-EU war scenario as American mass shootings and constant gang violence, this is not at all. For example, India and Pakistan are both full of internal unrest, and it does not stop them from warring with each other in the utmost seriousness.
but you will fight and die
This is decision for European leaders and their armed forces. Will the leader give orders to resist the invasion? Will the soldiers obey? Will they do so effectively enough to cause significant US casualties?
Look, I don't know or even care really why Trump wants Greenland.
Do not ask any questions, just trust the Great Leader. Nothing can be more American in spirit.
Maybe the strikes continue, but US Navy is not announcing them anymore and keeps the snuff footage for themselves instead of proudly displaying it online. There are always many possibilities, only when, decades ahead, archives open, history nerds might start patching together what was actually happening.
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