Eetan
1yr ago
There's a standard argument about gun control in the US that you hear a lot in the liberal bubble. Obviously, this argument does not appear to be very compelling to the anti-gun control side.
Arguments from people from "liberal bubble" are not compelling to the "gun nuts" at all.
Why? Because people from these bubble are completely, willfully and proudly ignorant. Not only about guns, not only about reality of gun violence, but also about all gun laws and regulations that are already in the books.
Typical exchange looks like this:
"Fuck AmeriKKKa! Only in this country can every child walk to gun shop, buy machine gun and bring it to school!"
"attempt to explain that this is not how it works"
"Shut up, gun nut! You have small dick!"
What could dispel this pigheaded attitude? Only personal experience. This happens - when person from "the bubble" feels directly, personally endangered, finds that police are there not to serve and protect, but to bully and brutalize, and decides as last and desperate resort to buy a gun.
Many such cases - ask any gun shop employee.
These "bubble people" are among the least welcomed patrons (after stoned/drunk/crazy people and tattoed thugs in gang colors). They would tell you tales how they had to explain these customers there are such thing as gun laws, that they cannot just pick a gun and take it home right now (and face screaming and hysterical meltdowns).
The argument comes from making a comparison between cars and guns.
This is old argument that is based on exactly this kind of ignorance.
Actually regulating guns like cars would be something that most gun owners would be extremely happy with.
https://reason.com/1999/11/01/taking-it-to-the-streets-2/
Although anti-gun lobbyists who use the car analogy are pushing for additional controls, laws that really did treat guns like cars would be much less restrictive, on the whole, than what we have now.
...
The first thing to go would be the 1986 federal ban on the manufacture of machine guns for sale to ordinary citizens. We don't ban cars like Porsches just because they are high-powered and can drive much faster than the speed limit.
...
So-called assault weapons are actually ordinary guns that fire just one bullet each time the trigger is pressed, but they happen to look like machine guns. Just as we don't ban powerful Porsches (which actually can go very fast), we don't ban less-powerful vehicles that simply look like high-performance cars.
...
Also slated for elimination under the treat-cars-like-guns rule are thousands of laws regulating the purchase of firearms and their possession on private property. The simple purchase of an automobile is subject to essentially no restrictions.
...
If you keep your automobile on private property, there are virtually no restrictions.
...
Thus, we can get rid of all the laws concerning gun storage in the home, together with the laws that ban possession of guns by various persons on private property.
...
If you have a car on your own property, you can hitch it to a trailer, have it pulled to someone else's property, and drive the car on his property (assuming you have his permission). As long as your car is just being towed, you don't need a driver's license or plates. Thus, gun owners should be allowed to transport their unloaded guns to private property (a shooting gallery, for example) for use on that property.
...
But now suppose that you want to use your car on public property, such as a street or an old logging trail in a national forest. Then a licensing system does come into play–but only because the car will be used in public. For a license that allows you to drive a car anywhere in public, most states require that you 1) be at least 15 or 16 years old; 2) take a written safety test that requires an IQ of no more than 75 to pass; and 3) show an examiner that you know how to operate a car and how to obey basic safety rules and traffic signs.
...
Making the concealed handgun licensing system exactly like the driver licensing system would involve a few tweaks, namely: 1) reducing the minimum age for a license (21 or 25 in most states); 2) reducing the fees (which can run over $100 in many states); 3) mandating a written exam in the minority of states that do not currently have one; 4) adding a practical demonstration test, which most states do not currently have (but which Texas does); and 5) making the licenses valid everywhere, instead of just in the issuing state.
...
Once you get a driver's license, you can drive your car anywhere that is open to the public. Thus, we will have to repeal all the laws against carrying guns within 1,000 feet of a school, or in bars, or on government property.
...
So the one major way in which treating guns like cars would lead to more-restrictive gun laws would be to allow federal regulators to impose design mandates on firearms.
Eetan
1yr ago
As a footnote, even though Warren now plays it off as just a little family story, it was something that she LARPed hard enough that she was publishing recipes in Native American cookbooks. There's a pretty big disconnect between living it in that peculiar fashion while also saying that it's not a big deal.
For someone who was working on their identity so hard, it made no sense to apologize and beg for forgiveness that will never come, she knows the rules better than all of us together.
She should just double down and say: "I was taught my Native identity by my grandma who was taught by her grandma, and I trust living experience of my ancestors over any "genes" "DNA" or similar whiteman "scientific" mumbo jumbo."
No idea if eternal spy and counterspy cat and mouse game counts as part of culture wars, but here are some recent news from this area.
1/Teixeira leaks were discussed here when they happened, here is the resolution of the case.
We would all agree that 16 years of maximum security prison is price worth paying to impress your gamer buddies in Thug Shaker Central Discord.
2/In related news, important US Foreign Service officer, former ambassador to Bolivia was uncovered to be lifelong spy for ... Cuba.
Another source.
Do not laugh, Cuban DI counts among the better ones in the spook world, infiltrating Washington DC previously while running circles aroud US agents in Cuba. US is rather lucky that Cuba is shithole in every other measure.
3/Another, more pedestrian case of desperate American greed and disgraceful Chicom penny pinching. Surely US top secrets are worth more that $42,000? What insult.
Conclusion: US security is as big shitshow as it had always been. No loyalty (if you keep back stabbing everyone who trusts you, what could you expect), no grand idea inspiring self sacrificing volunteers and no rewards for service either.
Good that any superpower or wannabe superpower competitors are even worse. Notoriously insular Chinese who understand nothing about outside world and have to rely on cash and Chinese ethnic ties, and the less said about Russian Petrov & Boshirov clown show, the better.
Unlike the great and tragic struggle of the First Cold War, the second one is going to be slapstick comedy. Freedom and Democracy (TM) vs. Bright Communist Future(TM) are over.
LGBTQ+BLM vs Xi Jinping Thought is the game now. Enjoy the show.
edit: links now work
Eetan
1mo ago
I'm generally a fan of "blurry" definitions where something can qualify as X if it fulfills a few of many criteria.
I am generally a fan of strict and exact legal definitions of identity X, if X is supposed to give you considerable legal privileges and perks.
Without these priviliges, the story would be just tale of personal misfortune. Imagine you are emo (imagine there are still such things as emos) , you dress like emo, you listen to emo music, you go to emo concerts.. but you are one day expelled by your emo friends for not being a real emo.
Tragedy for you, if you based your whole personal self worth of being emo and being seen as one, but no one outside emo community would care.
Now, imagine that emos are seen as oppressed minority and there are designated hiring quotas, tax breaks for emo owned businessed and other benefits, while it is unclear what exactly "emo" means.
See this for introduction into the unholy mess what current American racial law classification is.
Eetan
3mo ago
What this really just reminds me of is that we really are, de facto, still living in the greatest time of free speech and free exchange of ideas ever.
Greatest time of free speech in history? In US, it was the sixties/seventies. Anything went at the time.
Porn of any kind? Go ahead.
Racism, fascism, antisemitism and bigotry in general? All fine.
Anti government and anti military propaganda, up to open incitement to desertion and mutiny in wartime? No problem.
Stolen top secret documents? No internet yet, you have to print them in newspaper to get them to the public. Nothing will happen to you.
Eetan
6mo ago
I am surprised that no one yet opened the most inflammatory aspect of the latest events in Israel. So I am going to do it.
Who if not me, when if not now?
So why it happened? It happened as it happened because, in words of our friends in US Dept of Justice: Israel Has a Successful Gun Control Policy.
Yes, it is from 1992, but things changed little since then. Israel has strict gun laws and they work as intended. Israel has 6,7 guns per 100 inhabitants, very good 108th place in the world. Just 2.1 more than David Hogg heaven land England and Wales, considered to be gun control movement dream and aspiration.
It is easy to understand why we do not hear about Israeli gun laws.
People who do not like guns usually do not like Israel either and would loathe to praise anything coming from there. The same reason why we never heard about Israeli health care or Israeli abortion laws despite that they would make excellent talking point for Blues against Israel loving Reds.
And people who like guns usually like Israel too (while knowing about it only from dank memes that show it as tough nation armed to the teeth).
So, you want to ask, you are blaming the victims? How dare you?
The Israelis were told by their government: "Millions of people who want to kill you live near your homes separated by wire fence. Do not panic and do not prepare to defend yourselves. Your government and your army will protect you, nothing can happen. Fear that they will cross the fence and slaughter you in your own homes is absurd and delusional. Do not be conspiracy theorist, do not be extremist, trust the plan". And, being normal human beings, they trusted because the government was right so far, because nothing happened so far. This is normal human nature, no one to blame.
Now, when something happened, and if nothing changes and Israelis will continue trusting their government as previously, yes I will blame them, and you shall too.
Are there signs that something is changing?
Looks like it.
https://thereload.com/israeli-loosens-gun-carry-rules-after-unprecedented-terror-attack/
Any citizen who meets the detailed tests for carrying a private firearm due to self-defense and serving the security forces and is without a criminal or medical record will be required to undergo a telephone interview instead of a physical interview
What are the tests?
Residence in an eligible settlement, rifle veterans 07 and above, officers in the rank of lieutenant and above and combatants in the rank of major and above in the IDF and the security forces, service in special units, firefighters, policemen, and workers and volunteers in the rescue forces
So very generous. And, in addition, citizens will be able to purchase, instead of previous fifty, whole ONE HUNDRED rounds of ammo! Yay!
Eetan
8mo ago
More like blast from the past than current burning culture war battle, but one interesting fact dropped from court documents concerning FTX effective altruist saga.
Sam Bankman-Fried wanted to buy the nation of Nauru to wait out the world's end
This article is more clickbaity and sensational than factual, actual quote from the court documents docket 1886 - "Adversary case 23-50448. Complaint by FTX Trading Ltd., Alameda Research LLC" is:
One memo exchanged between Gabriel Bankman-Fried and an officer of the FTX Foundation describes a plan to purchase the sovereign nation of Nauru in order to construct a “bunker / shelter” that would be used for “some event where 50%-99.99% of people die [to] ensure that most EAs [effective altruists] survive” and to develop “sensible regulation around human genetic enhancement, and build a lab there.” The memo further noted that “probably there are other things it’s useful to do with a sovereign country, too.”
Hard to imagine worse place to be stuck in the case of TEOTWAWKI that deserted and devastated island that lacks even drinkable water.
It was never a serious plan, nothing more than one of many ideas brainstormed among elite human capital of FTX Foundation, but it is symptomatic as for elite thought and for their beliefs that everything and everyone is for sale. As people on EA forum pointed up, it could achieve nothing than give EA a bad name (if it already hadn't one).
We are not any more in the Holy Roman Empire, selling and buying sovereign principalities is, legally, not a thing anymore and trading land between sovereign states is also thing of the past.
Last case was in 1791, when Christian Friedrich Carl Alexander, last margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach sold his country to Prussia so he could enjoy comfy retirement in England (stereotypical boomer behavior, but probably the smartest move at the time).
This is nothing compared to other Ukrainian public relation efforts.
First there was picking American transgender woman as official spokesperson for Ukrainian army, who then went on unhinged rant threatening to kill "Russian propagandists" all over the world.
(speaking in English, not Russian, so it is clear that it were not Russians in Russia who were target of this threat)
This speech is there, it is something you will hear from mouth of cartoon Evil Mastermind(TM) in corny B movie, just before Action Hero(TM) storms in and drops the villain into his/her/their/zir/xir own shark tank.
Someone in charge then noticed this does not make Ukraine look exactly like Avengers team and decided to suspend Cirillo.
So sanity prevailed and all will be good (optics) from now?
Well, Zelensky just decided to make honorary "ambassador of Ukraine", of all people, Marina Abramovic, world famous performance artist.
It sounds like 4chan fake news prank, but it is real, reported by mainstream media(and then vanishing from their pages).
Ukraine knows well what it is doing, Ukraine tries hard to signal it is on the right side and win hearts and minds.
Hearts and minds of people who matter, not yours.
edit: links
Eetan
6mo ago
Eetan
7mo ago
Time for some links about breaking and not so breaking culture war news.
It is happening, Sam Bankman-Fried finally arrived in prison.
Here is exclusive dead bird thread about his first days in the big house.
2/Catholic church
The Pope gets more based and redpilled every day. On his latest visit in Mongolia, he celebrates achievements of Mongol Empire and praises unifying legacy of Genghis Khan.
No response so far, even after 800 years no one dares to disrespect memory of the greatest conqueror ever.
In contrast, when the Pope recently praised Russian tsars Peter and Catherine and called Russians do not forget their heritage, the feedback was massive.
Many people vigorously protested and pointed that Russian tsars were never friends of Catholic faith, and Ukraine put the Pope on official list of enemies.
Backlash was so big that Pope was cancelled and forced to apologize for his "faulty comments".
3/ Alt-right movement
New wild white warriors just appeared, one Christopher Pohlhaus with his Blood Tribe and became front page news overnight.
No surprise, their fashion sense is superb, their salutes are brisk, their flags are well ironed and their tattoos of Nazi and Satanic symbols are just perfect. Everone loves Nazis who look properly Nazi, and these guys cannot get any Nazier.
Why nobody heard about these people before?
Why they walk away scot free, no matter how many crimes they do?
Where they get money for their stunts?
Do not ask, just watch the show, be very, very afraid and support whatever measures are necessary to combat the Nazi menace.
4/Ayys
UFO enthusiasts can celebrate, long awaited secret document is now there in the wild, available for download.
It is really big thing if you are part of UFO community.
This book was written about 1960 by Albert Vernon Bowen, copywriter, journalist and children book author.
The manuscript was mysteriously seized by USAF, kept classified for 39 years, and then, it was even more mysteriously declassified and sent unsolicited by mail to UFO researcher Timothy Cooper.
It was the original manusript, but with notes added by unknown hand with ballpoint pen.
Timothy Cooper gave the book to another UFO researcher Robert Wood who published it - without the ballpoint notes. Since then, Woods kept the manuscript for himself and never allowed anyone to see it.
No surprise that all these sheeningans agitated UFO community and the book achieved near mythical status.
Now, it is finally out there. Was it worth the hype?
Let us see what is Bowen's argument for alien origin of flying saucers.
Such reasoning might lead to the asking of another question: Are Major Keyhoe, Ray Palmer, Kenneth Arnold, George Adamski, Harold T. Wilkinson, Donald E. Menzel, Frank Scully — and all other writers on the subject of saucers — counter espionage agents for the U.S. Government? Are all of them, by official directive, muddying-up the greatest cover- up job of modern times?
Such a question is equally absurd in the light of the record, in the light of the fact that saucers — or of things with the same attributes of saucers have been sighted for centuries, if not for millennia.
Furthermore, it is equally inconceivable, in trying to explore the possibility of hoax, that FATE Magazine, LIFE Magazine and TRUE Magazine, with their circulations and their reputations at stake, would deliberately involve themselves in a hoax. It is inconceivable that the Readers Digest, with its millions in circulation, would reprint the LIFE article claiming that saucers are extraterrestrial, or publish J.R. Aswell's article on saucer sightings for 150 years, if its editors thought saucers were a _ hoax. It is equally inconceivable that LOOK Magazine, with its millions in circulation, would first cling to the side of scientific explanation, then follow-up with an article on the seriousness of the Air Force's search, and later on, in October 1953, publish excerpts from Major Keyhoe's book, Flying Saucers From Outer Space, even though the editors said they did not commit themselves one way or the other. It is inconceivable that LIFE would publish an article Flying Saucers Bounces Off Design Board, a completely factual report on Canada's flying saucer and how it could work, and then follow, in its November 1, 1954 issue, with an equally factual report on what various Frenchmen claimed they had seen in the way of “little men” climbing out of flying saucers in the fall of 1954. It is inconceivable that The New York World Telegram & Sun should claim, early in 1955, that the U.S. Air Force knows what flying saucers are — if WT&S had any belief that they could be a hoax.
It is likewise equally inconceivable that men of the stature of Professor Herman Oberth, international rocket authority, Air Chief Marshall Lord Dowding, Commander in Chief of the British Air Force, Dr. Maurice A. Biot, leading American aerodynamicist, Dr. Walther Riedel, once chief designer and research director of the German rocket station on Peenemunde, and now doing work for the U.S., should have expressed the belief that saucers are real — and extraterrestrial — unless they had real reason for doing so.
Yes, it is rather underwhelming - but illustrating how people in the 1950's really felt, how trust in government, media and authorities in general was real thing, even among self professed skeptics.
This ship really sailed, there is no coming back.
I think not, so how many grunts would an ancient von Neumann have been worth to Caesar's army?
With any luck, he'd have been worth a few generals, irrespective of his ability to improve on contemporary siege weaponry, and perhaps he'd have replaced Caesar himself in textbooks – which is, in fact, my point; Ceasar was a genius himself, from what we can tell.
I am afraid you way overestimate how much of ancient history survived.
We know little else than names of many scientists and thinkers considered greatest geniuses in their time.
What would history said about ancient Von Neumann? Something like this:
...
NEUMANUS of Puteoli (fl. first half of 1st BCE), ancient Greek philosopher and mathematician.
N's works are completely lost, but he was mentioned by several second century sources as mathematician and geometer. One third century source claims N. was also writing about ethics and political philosophy.
About N. life is known nothing except he was of eastern Greek origin and moved to Italy later in his life.
There are no contemporary mentions of N. and his works and only few later notices.
1/Second century collection of anecdotes from lives of famous philosophers, contains two tidbits from N's life.
One extremely implausibly describes his mathematical prowess, while another is obviously meant as over-the-top parody of warmongering demagogue (it would be clear to all contemporaries that no Greek could be ever allowed to step in Roman Senate, least of all to implore the Senate to declare war against Parthian Empire in cartoonishly bloodthirsty speech).
2/Fourth century military writer in chapter about siege warfare includes apocryphal story how N. was one of Caesar's influential advisors and attributes to him invention of several war machines (current scholarly consensus is the story is later interpolation).
3/Fourth or fifth century pagan anti-Christian polemic quoted by fifth century Christian writer lists N. among famous learned and wise men who were pious worshippers of pagan gods (reading of name is disputed).
4/Seventh century Jewish chronicle lists N. among Jewish apostates and renegades who betrayed their faith (reading of name is disputed).
edit: typos, my fingers keep forgetting this site needs higher quality input than Reddit ;-)
Eetan
5mo ago
It's insane that any GoF research is allowed in the first place. Those jokers aren't even doing it to create new vaccines?
This is the most blackpilling thing about the whole COVID incident.
Modern apocalyptic and post apocalyptic science fiction was wrong. Armageddon will not come because of power hunger of big governments or greed of mega corporations.
Old time pulp fiction was wrong too. Armageddon will not come becaue of brilliant and audacious plans of genius mad scientist, and definitely will not be averted at last minute by slack jawed Action Hero.
Apocalypse will come due to few hundred, thousand at most, rather mediocre people, people with names, faces and adresses out there who are not protected and hiding at all, playing russian roulette with all mankind, openly and brazenly.
For ultimate power? For unlimited wealth? To create paradise on earth? To have revenge on the whole world?
Nope. They do it to publish few articles no one will ever read in prestigious journals to burnish their citation metrics. Nothing personal, just scientific bureaucratic process working as intended.
And mankind as a whole is fine with it.
Everything keeps going, everyone is waiting for the next oops.
Only reaction, after three years so far, is ... one country's proposal to stop public funding of this pastime. Better than nothing, but not by very much.
Conclusion: Just stop worrying. Humanity is NGMI, and fully deservedly so.
Eetan
5mo ago
What did you learn from leaked documents?
So many interesting topics here, let me start with this year's Teixeira leaks.
Yes, they are genuine, they are work of lone national air guardsman who just wanted to show off and boast to his anon friends on "Thug Shaker Central" discord channel. Not unique at all, many such cases when people posted classified documents on the net just for lulz.
Before summer, there was slight chance that Teixeira is sacrificial pawn/does not exist and the leaks are modern day Operation Mincemeat meant to disguise Ukrainian strength before mighty summer offensive smashes the front lines.
They show that Ukraine is black hole. Money, equipment and supplies come in, nothing comes out. Pentagon has no independent sources of informations from Ukraine and fully relies on Ukrainian official data (and Oryx).
Pentagon is aware of it, but could do nothing about it.
The document summarizes Russian and Ukrainian equipment and human losses, at what the intelligence community refers to with "moderate" confidence. "We have low confidence in Russian (RUS) and Ukrainian (UKR) attrition rates and inventories because of information gaps," the document says, not only questioning Russia's numbers but also "potential bias in UKR [Ukraine] information sharing."
TL;DR: Ukraine is not American puppet, Ukraine is not animal that you feed and it obeys you and performs tricks for you, it is animal that eats your food and in exchange it does what it wants.
Ukraine is not American dog, Ukraine is American cat.
Eetan
5mo ago
Utilitarianism in war : what are some under-explored tools of war that are effective but dismissed out of hand due to bad optics ?
Monetary incentives, as proposed both by rootless cosmopolitan Bryan Caplan and Tatar patriot Kamil Galeev.
Bribery as weapon of war - not secret offers to enemy generals as in Iraq but public offer of cash for enemy soldiers en masse is super weapon exactly tailored to strength of Western US+NATO bloc. US dollar is still the king, despite printing press going into overdrive, everyone knows what dollars are and everyone wants them. The printing press is American true superpower, why not use it?
Of course, paying enemies to surrender would be extremely unpopular among your own troops - this plan must be compounded with even more generous reward for bringing live POW's. The dirty secret of war is that most killing of POW's happens not because of sadism, hatred and revenge, but just because soldiers cannot/do not want to guard and care for the prisoners and have no incentive to keep them alive.
Had something like it been ever tried? Check Operation Moolah.
On March 20, 1953, the Joint Chiefs of Staff approved the plan. The approved operation was forwarded on April 1, 1953, to the Joint Psychological Committee at FEAF in Tokyo, Japan, where it was staffed, approved, and advanced to Clark. He dubbed the plan Operation Moolah. The plan offered $50,000 to any pilot who flew a fully mission capable MiG-15 to South Korea. The first pilot to defect would be awarded an additional $50,000. The plan also included complete political asylum, resettlement in a non-Communist country, and anonymity if desired.
What was the impact on enemy activity?
According to General Clark, immediately after the drop of the leaflets on April 26, UN aircraft did not make visual contact with any MiG aircraft for the following eight days. Though weather may have been a factor, he opines that the leaflets had a direct effect and believes that senior Communist military leaders began to screen for politically unreliable pilots.
But not everyone was happy.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower did not support Operation Moolah. He thought it unethical to offer money to a defector and was concerned about the North Korean reaction to the defection due to the uneasy armistice agreement.
As all professional ethicists will tell you, it is much more ethical to kill people than pay them.
This plan would never come to fruition, because it is as extremely dishonorable as it is extremely rational, utilitarian and effectively altruistic. No surprise - we do not live on dath-ilan, we live on planet of the apes. Conduct yourself accordingly.
Eetan
8mo ago
Since religion is also part of culture wars, it is time for sharing some latest religious culture war battles, this time on Judeo-Christian front, originating from the crucified bird site.
1/ Case of Lizzie Marbach
Lizzie Marbach, Republican and anti abortion activist from Ohio, person with 7k followers and otherwise not notable, posted this.
There's no hope for any of us outside of having faith in Jesus Christ alone.
This is Christianity 101, this is exactly what Christian is supposed to say and believe. There is no reason for anyone to be surprised.
Except Max Miller, Jewish Republican representative of Ohio with 52k followers who was not amused.
This is one of the most bigoted tweets I have ever seen
Mega dead bird storm ensued, and many people came to Lizzie's side to support her.
Including Ilhan Omar.
Things went so far that Max Miller was forced to apologize.
GOP lawmaker apologizes for ‘religious freedom’ tweet
But, nevertheless, Lizzie Marbach lost her job.
By sheer coincidence, Miller’s wife, Emily Moreno Miller, sits on the board of Ohio Right to Life.
This thing will continue, and it is not looking good for official GOP.
2/ Case of Darryl Cooper, rather lighter one.
Darryl Cooper, known as Martyr Made on the interwebs, substacker, podcaster on several sites and dead birder with 173k followers.
So this is rather important person, in internet terms, who suddenly decided that this is the time, of all things, to preach to Jewish people and convert them to Christianity.
It turned out that lot of his followers are Jews who do not appreciate being evangelized, especially by such D- apologetic piece. Massive dead bird storm ensued, and DC doubled, quartupled and octupled his efforts.
Darryl Cooper himself seems to be rather unorthodox Christian of somewhat Marcionite tinge. This makes the whole thing more confusing, what exactly are his Jewish followers supposed to convert to?
What have these cases in common? They illustrate the difficulty of actual interfaith cooperation between sincere believers in different faiths. If you really believe in truth of your religion, it is realy hard to desist from preaching and evangelizing, and even harder to do not take offence if you are (or perceive to be) preached at and evangelized by your fellows.
It's surely nice to get a win once in a while, but don't order the champagne just yet.
It is important precedent, remember that very idea of right wing boycott was seen as joke, and rightly so.
Now it is important to do not give up, do not be bought and appeased by patriotic veteran beer, it is important to continue until Anheuser-Busch is driven to bankruptcy.
It is not about some shitty beer, it is about making an example and sending a message.
Eetan
1yr ago
They often have a completely different mindset. I'm currently dating a Russian woman and I can talk quite freely with her about political matters, even sensitive topics like HBD or feminism. It's not just her, many Russian women I've found are far more open to criticisms of the values that Western women hold sacred.
It does not mean that Russians are more open minded, it means what is "sensitive" and "sacred" widely differs between cultures.
Try to criticize the values that Russian women (and men) hold sacred, if you want to see some fireworks.
(for example: is Ukraine really Jewish Nazi homosexual country that unprovokedly attacked Russia? is Crimea really ancient Russian land? was Russia/USSR really the good guy during WW2?)
Eetan
1yr ago
How do wokes/social constructionists/etc reconcile their views with the actual state of scientific knowledge or even basic logic?
Simply and effectively: they deny it.
Just like literal six days creationists see geology and paleontology as satanic lie, wokes see genetics and evolutionary science as racist lie.
They know nothing about "actual state of scientific knowledge" and proudly refuse to learn anything it - why waste your time with some fascist garbage?
Try to show genetic data, IQ tables and bell curve graphs in any woke place and see how fast you get banned, regardless how many impeccable scientific citations your stuff gets.
Eetan
3mo ago
Yes, list of banned books should contain books that are actually banned now and here, not in 18th century.
Maybe the books should be sorted by tiers.
Brass: Not found on Amazon
Bronze: Not found in large university library
Silver: Not found in Library of Congress
Gold: Not found on libgen and similar pirate sites
Diamond: Possession will send you to prison in Western country
Eetan
11mo ago
Time for report about another culture war battle that just flared up.
This time not current titanic struggle concerning fate of all mankind, but small reminiscence of another titanic struggle of remote past.
On May 1, New Hampshire Department of Natural & Cultural Resources unveiled in town of Concord new memorial marker honoring famous daughter of the city, one Elizabeth Gurley Flynn.
EGF was famous woman in her time, her adventurous life culminated in position of first chairwoman of Communist Party USA and after her death she was honored with official state funeral at Red Square.
It is easy to understand why many people are not amused with this decision.
Executive Councilor Dave Wheeler (R-Milford) brought up the marker during Wednesday’s Executive Council meeting, expressing his outrage that the state would approve a memorial to an enemy of the United States.
Wheeler said Flynn’s maker in Concord is an insult to every Granite Stater who ever served in the military, including the veteran who led the council’s Pledge of Allegiance before the meeting. “I’m just totally offended by that. I think it’s a slap in the face to the veteran who did our Pledge of Allegiance this morning,” Wheeler said.
Fellow Republican Joe Kenney also voiced his opposition.
“This is a devout Communist. We are the ‘Live Free or Die’ state,” Kenney said. “How can we possibly promote her propaganda, which still exists now through this sign in downtown Concord?”
...
Gov. Chris Sununu learned of the marker Wednesday morning and was not happy with what he heard during the Governor’s Council meeting.
So far, this stays local teapot tempest, blame game going between the state and the city, but it can easily escalate into major Culture War battle, it could take only some national right wing politicians or influencers take notice.
Concord better get ready for long hot summer of battles between red hat crowds trying to tear down the sign and black flag ones trying to defend it.
We had on this forum long and hard debates about historical statues and memorials, Confederate in the US, colonialist and slave trader in the UK, Soviet and Czarist in Eastern Europe, both debates about who deserves to be publicly honored and meta debates about who deserves to decide who gets to be publicly honored.
My take? If there is any issue fit for democratic decision of the people, it is exactly this one. Let people, actual people of the city, debate and vote who deserves to be memorialized.
If the citizens want statue of Czar, Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Satan or Nathan Bedford Forrest on their town square, it is their choice and no one else.
It looks that this forum either missed, or lacked interest in latest OSINT/spook world apocalyptic scandal.
Normie introduction:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Pentagon_document_leaks
Twitter thread with more links:
https://twitter.com/RidT/status/1645048624294895619
TL;DR: Classified Pentagon documents suddenly appeared out of nowhere on front page of New York Times obscure Discord server. From this place, they circulated among less and less obscure Discord servers until they, in about a month, percolated into Russian Z telegram channels (who, in fit of genius, crudely changed in photoshop the casualties numbers, to make Russia look less bad).
According to Pentagon insiders and online autists, the documents look genuine - internal consistency, consistency with open source information, the style, the powerpoint presentation, the bureaucratic lingo - all is correct. It is either work of expert team who studied Pentagon documents for their whole lives, or it is the real deal, the real leak.
The frantic behavior of TPTP - banning the responsible telegram channel, scrubbing the documents from Twitter and similar desperate fortifying the barn door when the horse is far beyond the horizon, also suggests authenticity.
How important they are? If FSB or GRU were monitoring "Thug Shaker Central" Discord channel and got the info when it was fresh, it could have very serious consequences. Now it is mostly of historical interest. Big mistake.
Now, the implications.
1/ US OPSEC is not as shitty as usual, it is getting worse. Any loser could walk around with his phone, take pictures of everything he wants and no one GAF. It is fortunate that no enemy agents managed to infiltrate Pentagon, only gamers who want to impress their buddies.
2/ Quality and loyalty of US personnel is getting way worse. The man responsible is supposed to be /pol/ style racist gun nut. Exactly the kind of person who is not wanted by the system, who should be stopped by even most basic background check. Another F for failure.
3/ Ukraine is not US puppet, Ukrainian government is in charge and keeps their plans and information for itself. Pentagon does not have any insider knowledge what is going on there - even their classified info is copy of official UKR announcements.
Now, what will be the consequences?
Not good for anyone. No one responsible will be punished (except the leaker, who will be made example of), and hammer will hard on anything resembling racism, transphobia and other unapproved thought. Take care.
Edit: leaker is named.
As expected. Racial science discovered long ago that while Hispanics are noble oppressed victims of white racism, Lusitanics are no good and should never be trusted.
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/09/15/who-is-hispanic/
People with ancestries in Brazil, Portugal and the Philippines do not fit the federal government’s official definition of “Hispanic” because the countries are not Spanish-speaking. For the most part, people who trace their ancestry to just these countries are not counted as Hispanic by the Census Bureau even if they identify as Hispanic. Only about 2%-3% of immigrants from Brazil are counted as Hispanic, as are about 1%-2% of immigrants from Portugal and the Philippines, according to the 2010- 2019 American Community Surveys.
Eetan
1yr ago
The most fun/silly culture war argument in a while: STOVES!
Yes, the brand new gas stove question.
Why not, it is welcome respite from the eternally recurring gas chamber question ;-)
If the question is: "Gas Stove: Death Machine or Torch of Freedom?" it is indeed silly.
If the question is: "Should some anonymous, unaccountable comissars suddenly decide that things that were fine for a long time are not fine any more and take them away from you with no recourse?" it is less silly.
Eetan
1yr ago
If it is fight over stoves, it is indeed silly and non threatening.
If it is fight over constant and neverending bullying in the name of "safety" or "mother Earth", no matter how dubious,no matter how pointless and absurd it could be serious.
"No, you cannot have flushing toilets that really flush. No, you cannot have plastic straws. No, you cannot have incadescent light bulbs. No, no, no. Trust the experts."
Repeated thousand times over our lifetimes, with no end in sight. Stand must be made somewhere, why not over stoves?
https://twitter.com/GovRonDeSantis/status/1613556347488079872
Remember, only conservative movement that really conserved something is gun right movement - and not only conserved RKBA, but rolled back gun control laws nation wide.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Right_to_Carry,_timeline.gif
No matter how you feel about guns, it is proof that something can be done, that people banning and outlawing everything do not have to be on the "right side of history".
Are guns special case because of second amendment, or could this success be generalized? This is the question.
No good news are coming from anywhere, whether from culture wars or the real ones. As fitting for Friday the 13th.
Except one thing that is large, and good.
First word discovered in unopened Herculaneum scroll by 21yo computer science student
Crucified bird thread
For ancient history nerds, this is big, really big. Imagine how will space nerds feel if/when Elon delivers what he promised and gets his Starship to the orbit. This big.
So what is the hype about?
Ancient books were in form of scrolls made of papyrus that had to be constantly rolled and unrolled in order to be read. This was hard on the material, and ancient books had limited shelf time(pun intended).
Ancient libraries needed constant recopying of books to stay functional, and this was laborious and expensive (no need to blame Christians or Muslims for destruction of ancient literature, ordinary daily wear and tear would be sufficient). No surprise that new revolutionary technology of bound book took the world by storm.
All ancient libraries are long gone - except one, found in Herculaneum under 100 feet of volcanic ash. And not ordinary library, but library of wealthy Roman, owner of one of most luxurious villas known from the Roman Empire.
You can visit modern replica in California.
Nearly two thousands of ancient scrolls, unfortunately they now looked like this.
For 250 years, ancient history nerds didn't gave up and tried to find ways to read the scrolls. Mostly destructive ways
but they sometimes worked.
Now we can finally do better. So what can we hope for?
Do not expect lost masterpieces of classical literature.
Owner of the library was single mindedly dedicated to philosophy, particularly Epicurean philosophy. Expect more writings by Philodemus of Gadara, Zeno of Sidon and Epicurus himself.
Epicureans, these pig ignorant fedora atheists whose teachings can appeal only to the worst degenerates, as Stoics, Jews and Christians said (and as their major competitors, they had to know best)?
(after 2000 years, "epicurean" is still insult used for secular Jews by their observant brothers)
Or Epicureans, founders of science and inventors of modern enlightened values?
We could finally find out, we could read Epicurus' and Epicureans own words instead of fragments and more or less hostile refutations. For true ancient history nerd, this would be as exciting as finding new poem by Sappho or new play by Euripides.
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