JarJarJedi
Streamlined derailments and counteridea reeducation
User ID: 1118
JarJarJedi
2yr ago
Ukraine has burned through multiple iterations of armaments and is now reduced to begging for active NATO matériel
That's technically correct but deeply misleading. Ukraine always has been at very deep disadvantage against Russia in almost every armament there is. Western supplies helped to reduce this disadvantage a little, but they were not even nearly enough to close the gap, and for ammunition, the supplies were always below what is being spent on the battlefield and what is necessary for overcoming Russia's size advantage. Not because the West doesn't have it - but because the West is reluctant to get deeply involved. There's nothing to "reduce" and "multiple iterations" have always been way below Ukrainian needs. So there's absolutely nothing new there. Ukraine begged for Western support since day one, and the West didn't give them enough since day one, and still doesn't.
Germany has been reluctant to send heavy weapons since day one, and even a cursory look at the ties of German elite with various Russian business enterprises and "German-Russian friendship societies" can give an ample explanation why. Exhibit 1, Boris Pistorius, Germany's minister of defense. Who has argued against sanctions on Russia, was member of parliamentary "friendship society" maintaining links with Russia's "parliament", and is a close ally of Gerhard Schroeder (of Gazprom fame). One can only wonder why such leadership is not sending modern tanks to Ukraine...
JarJarJedi
2yr ago
Everybody knows and always knew that Russian state power always lies. People are fine with it. I mean, they of course object when the lies concern something personally important to them (though it almost never has any consequences) but in general everybody accepts and endorses constant and endless stream of lies. In fact, it makes them more content - without the lies, realizing the harsh picture of reality in Russia and what is happening there would be psychologically crushing for many, because most people aren't inherently evil. However, when they have the crutch of government lies, they can believe - or at least pretend to believe, they know it's lies, but they don't care - everything is going fine, Russia is a mighty empire which the rest of the world is in envy of, they are fighting nazis, and they are winning, due to overwhelming power of Russian advanced weapons and strength of its military, etc etc. Lies is what is holding Russia together and allows the war to continue. If somehow Russian government could no longer lie, there wouldn't be any war - or any Russian government as it is now, for that matter.
JarJarJedi
2yr ago
It probably bar them from explicitly instituting a policy that mentions race. But it won't ban something like "if you come from a community that previously experienced hardship and bigotry, and is under-represented in higher education, you get +100 points", while the determination of the "community" is such that nobody white or Asian would ever qualify.
JarJarJedi
2yr ago
You could frame the whole Renaissance as basically recycling the Greek/Roman culture, if you wanted to. Recycling is not bad by itself. I don't mind somebody making another Sherlock Holmes movie or a remake of Herbert Wells stories. Or even Hamlet, for that matter. Yes, it's not original, but it doesn't mean it's necessarily worthless.
But I think the decline in originality may be because the production is now controlled by a limited set of big corporations, and they would necessarily favor safe, data-driven approach. Can you prove, with data in your hands, that your new original crazy idea would make more money than Superheroes 28, take 17? Probably not. Superheroes it is.
It doesn't mean the new thing can't happen now and then, on shoestring budget just through the power of it's own creativity. Possible. But on the volume, it would be one such thing per several years, while 99% is the safe, data-driven shlock. And once that new thing comes up, it will be milked for the next two decades, turning it inevitably to the shlock too.
JarJarJedi
2yr ago
Some data about how oppressed the struggling worker masses are (https://variety.com/2023/biz/news/wga-contract-inflation-minimums-1235564920/):
The current guild minimum for a TV writer-producer is $7,412 per week. On a network show, the median writer-producer works between 35-40 weeks, for a total of $259,420 to $296,480, if that writer is paid minimum. Most experienced writers can negotiate something above that through their agents — and for showrunners and executive producers, it’s well above that.
Schedules are shorter on streaming shows, which produce fewer episodes, according to data released earlier this month by the guild. The median writer-producer on those shows works 20-24 weeks, for a minimum salary range of $148,240 to $177,888.
Staff writers — the lowest-level writers — do not get script fees, and they also earn significantly lower weekly minimums. The median staff writer on a network show works 29 weeks for a wage of $131,834, while the median staff writer on a streaming show works 20 weeks for $90,920.
In other words, their minimum wages are about 1.5x to 3x country's median wages for essentially half-time work.
I don't think it is bad for anyone to earn a lot of money, but given that the number of decent quality shows has been extremely low for many years now, and most of those that had decent quality have been based on existing literary work, what it seems to be there is extremely overpaid bunch of people producing a very low-quality product. Still, I am sure eventually they'd get what they want - this time - because AIs aren't ready to produce scripts yet. But in 5-10 years. given the immense savings it promises? I can totally see it.
JarJarJedi
2yr ago
They especially and annoyingly split hairs in that they admit the doctors said trans teens kill themselves without treatment, but the doctors never said they would specifically. See, totally no longer pressuring the parent!
Ah yes, the regulators don't let us to tell you your kid will kill himself if not put on puberty blockers, but since we can't tell you your kid will kill himself we can tell you other kids, who are totally not your kid, kill themselves all the time, but we're not talking about your kid, because the regulators would not allow us that. So, no pressure, totally your decision whether you want your kid to kill himself or not, we have no idea what'd happen, or at least we're not allowed to tell you what's happen, only that all other kids who are completely not your kid, did kill themselves, so you can choose anything you like. Also please sign here that we totally didn't pressure you about anything like telling you your kid would kill himself.
JarJarJedi
1mo ago
If the Dems had a responsibility to actually report Biden's decline (and they absolutely did, IMO), then
There's no "if-then". The responsibility for corruption doesn't come from other guys being perfect, and a presence of other corrupt guys, true or imagined, can not excuse your own corruption. Dems lied voluminously about just every aspect of Biden's presidency, bar none, and they are responsible for this, and will be responsible forever and ever, and for all harm that it has done to the country, absolutely regardless of what Republicans ever did or will do.
P.S. And yes, Joe was totally and undoubtedly pocketing bribes from (or through, however you want to present it) Hunter. Stop living in denial, it happened. And there's really no reason to pretend otherwise anymore, Joe Biden is spent goods for the party. Relieve you conscience and accept the facts, at least in this small matter. Believing the truth is always easier than compounding lies. No lie can survive forever anyway, especially not in our age.
JarJarJedi
2yr ago
I think the academia has been preparing for this for years, moving from "objective metrics with AA bias on top" (like SAT scores, but the passing score is different for different races) to "plausible deniable 'holistic' judgements" - where one can't really prove any bias at all. Yes, if you measure by any objective merit criteria, the bias is apparent, but you see, we're not using these criteria, we are using "holistic view", which does not explicitly name race as a factor, good luck proving in court we're using it heavily. They'll just start being more careful about that and develop a newspeak that ensures discrimination is called something else. If academia is consistently good at anything it is at producing impenetrable jargon.
JarJarJedi
2yr ago
I'm not sure what is the problem here, 100% of current US Presidents are exactly the group you feel "represents" you. So you should feel much more "represented" by it then "under-represented" by White House stuff, which mostly don't take any important decisions. Like, if the US President "represents" you but a janitor "represents" the filthy Jews, why you're feeling bad?
Of course, to some this approach seems utterly insane, as I don't see why any random Jew would "represent" me just because he's also a member of 10-million ethnic group, or why any random White person would "represent" any other random White person, just because they are both have pale skin and not happen to be Jews (I guess anybody with pale skin who is not a Jew is qualified as "founding population", right?). But I guess to some people it makes sense somehow?
JarJarJedi
2yr ago
Marines are trained to kill though
Yes, that's one of the things they are trained to do. But I really hope that's not the only thing they are trained to do. Knowing when it is appropriate and not appropriate to kill should have been part of it too.
but in a way that maximizes your safety and doesn't really take into account that you'll be fighting some drug ridden mentally ill lowlife but an actual enemy combattant.
How does it make any difference? I'm sure if you choke an enemy combatant for 15 minutes he'd die just as well as a mentally ill lowlife. Anybody would. That's what I don't understand - he knew what would happen and he must have had other options. Why did he choose this one?
JarJarJedi
2yr ago
Not sending tanks does not prove collusion, collusion explains not sending tanks. German elites were in bed with Russia way before the question of tanks has arisen - and, tbh, nobody was really bothered by it too much, exactly because they didn't foresee they'd have to send tanks. But now, when it is obvious that Russia is not what the kumbaya squad though it was, that collusion explains why they are so reluctant to change their actions.
JarJarJedi
2yr ago
I think there's a lot of reasons there, but the main reason is simpler. This is a thing made by people that aren't in love with Tolkien and his world. They are doing it for money, or for culture war reason, or for any other reason - but their primary goal seems to be something other than to cherish and enhance the Professor's legacy. This is the only way I can explain the decisions that were made and the approaches that were taken there. Dissecting the details can have its own fascination, but for me the main reason stays the same.
This is why, as a long-time (since the 80s, probably?) Tolkien fan, I am not even mad at them. As noted above, and I agree, it's just not Tolkien. It's using Tolkien for... whatever, I can't even care about it. Best thing that can be done about it is to file it to a dusty shelf of history where the weird curiosities are stored, and only take it out when we need to feel better by looking at something extremely cringe-worthy.
JarJarJedi
2yr ago
The headline talks about rationalists, but the article actually talks a lot about people who aren't rationalists at all. Like journalists. Or Krugman. Which are very easy to dupe, because they want to be duped. They actively go out and look for people who can be used as props to launder their agenda through them, and in some cases if they fail, they manufacture it (somehow this is considered to be much worse behavior than cherry-picking props, while being essentially the same). This is an easy trap to fall into - and I am sure many people declaring themselves rationalist fell in it too, because they are human. If you build a trap skillfully and put tasty enough cheese inside (different cheese for different people), a lot of people will get caught. Some of them may be calling themselves "rationalists", some of them may even try and become less easy to get caught - but they are imperfect humans, so they'll get caught anyway. That is to be expected. Doubly so if they actually profit in one way or another from getting caught (like journalists or political activists - which are pretty much one and the same nowdays). For those, passing a good "boo outgroup" story is almost inhumanly hard, so here are most of your examples.
JarJarJedi
7mo ago
Yeah, they still can't. It makes zero sense.
JarJarJedi
1yr ago
I feel like moon landing or flat earth is a kinda weak conspiracy theory examples. For the method to be powerful it needs to be tested on something real and strong, not some fringe lizardman conspiracy theory that is proclaimed more for lulz than anything else. Let's go to Wikipedia and get some fresh, pungent conspiracy theories and see how many you can knock out with OCH. Note for the purposes of this experiment I trust that anything that Wikipedia would call a conspiracy theory actually is. Full disclosure: I personally believe some of these are proven facts, some of them are very likely to be facts but can't be proven, at least for now, some I have no slightest idea whether they are true or false, and for some I am convinced they are false, and only a kook could believe in them. I am not going to disclose which are which.
So, in no particular order, which of these could you knock out:
- There is a concerted sustained multi-generational effort from the leftists in academia, entertainment and other institutions to subvert and transform Western society to undermine traditional Western values and make the society accept Marxist values instead. Identity politics, political correctness, and other culture war phenomena are part of this effort.
- Obama have been born outside the US and his birth certificate was faked, and this fakery is supported by government officials for partisan political reasons
- North Steam gas pipeline has been blown up by Ukrainians or the CIA (or both in collusion)
- JFK was assassinated by the CIA, either controlling Lee Harwey Oslwald or murdering him by other means and framing LHO.
- DNC emails were leaked by somebody from inside of DNC and not stolen by Russians, but Russia was blamed in service of the political narrative.
- Epstein did not kill himself
- George Floyd died of drug overdose, but for political and ideological reasons his death was presented otherwise, and the following legal proceedings were heavily influenced by political pressure to produce necessary convictions.
- COVID originated from Wuhan Virology Institute, where it has been either engineered as bioweapon or modified for research and has inadvertently leaked out.
- Biden family had extensive corrupt business in Ukraine, China and/or other foreign countries, and Joe Biden has been personally aware and participated in it.
- 2020 election has had sufficient cases of electoral fraud to meaningfully influence the results
- Bin Laden was not actually killed but the whole operation was staged to benefit Obama politically.
- The federal government is purposefully sabotaging immigration enforcement in order to change the demographic composition of the country
- White farmers in South Africa are systematically targeted and attacked, to drive them out from their land
- COVID mRNA vaccines have dangerous side effects well beyond recognized by current medical establishment consensus, and the reason for this lack of recognition is political or financial
- Global warming is not as big of a threat as presented by most climate scientists, and its threat is being exaggerated for political and ideological reasons, while any research suggesting otherwise is being actively suppressed.
- Vaccines have meaningful casual connection to development of autism but the medical establishment is concealing this fact, for either pecuniary or other reasons.
- Accusation about Trump being in collusion with Russia has been fabricated by Clinton campaign with no evidence, and has been supported by the intelligence community for partisan political reasons.
- COVID deaths were systematically overcounted to create the atmosphere of panic and enable drastic measures the politicians wanted to take
- There exists a phenomenon called "deep state", where most of top federal government officials do not represent the will of the electorate and do not serve the interests of the people and the good governance, and are largely out of control of elected nominal leadership, but instead are concerned with extending their power and their political influence, and perpetuating and enhancing their control over every aspect of the society. The "deep state" is generally aligned with Democratic party and largely hostile to the Republican party policies.
- Antifa is an organized violent leftist movement with cohesive political goals, organizational structure, financing, recruiting and support networks, membership, goals, and not a vague idea of "opposing fascism" that anybody could use - and routinely does - as a mask.
- Violent leftist movements are funded by certain very rich people (such as George Soros, but not exclusively) in order to affect massive political transformation in the US.
- There exists a massive pedophile network encompassing large number of members of the political elite, which use pizza symbols to communicate and are involved in child sex trafficking. Discussion if this fact is forcefully suppressed by the members of the elite.
- On January 6, there was a large number of FBI (or other law enforcement) agents in the crowd, which played significant role in instigating the violence and provoking the protestors into lawless actions.
- US or some powers within US (e.g. CIA) purposefully provoked Russia to instigate Ukraine invasion and begin a large war, in order to profit from it and increase its political influence.
- UFOs - or at least some of them - are of extra-terrestrial origin, and certain officials in the government are in possession of the conclusive evidence of that fact but are hiding it, for selfish or political reasons.
- There exist governmental projects for clandestinely implanting RFID chips or similar technology into humans, without their consent, for purposes of tracking, identification or others.
JarJarJedi
2yr ago
Welcome to early Ingsoc. As more content goes digital, there won't even be any (legal) way to possess content that is deemed oldthinking and thoughtcriminal. The books would be edited right in your electronic device, and they would always have been like that.
JarJarJedi
2yr ago
To be fair, it does not. American government could do most of its business (excluding some spy matters, etc.) without lying, and it wouldn't break anything much. Of course, it doesn't matter American government does not lie - unfortunately, especially recently, it lies a lot, but these lies are more aimed at subverting the government to use it for private or partisan needs than a foundational necessity of governing. As it exists in Russia now, the lies are foundational for the government there. If American politicians stopped lying, we'd have a bit less rich politicians, and maybe some shuffling of the names on the doors, but the government would be largely the same. If Russian politicians stopped lying, Russia would descend into chaos.
JarJarJedi
2yr ago
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There was a person mentioned in Hunter Biden communications under the alias "the Big Guy" to which, as the communications allude, went part of the profits. It is widely assumed that it is Joe Biden, and he was a knowing partner in Hunter's dealings, but so far there's no direct proof of that AFAIK.
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Ray Epps is a person who took active participation in the events of January 6, by his own admission "I orchestrated it", and was seen inciting certain violent actions, but who for reasons unknown is treated in a radically different way from all other protestors by Democrats, and not only his prosecution was dropped without any plausible explanation, but he was invited to testify in front of Jan 6 commission, and during that testimony the interrogators basically fed him (pun!) the answers. It is suggested by some that the reason for all that is that he is one of the many FBI informants that we know were present at the scene (and in general most right organizations, such as Oath Keepers or Proud Boys, are infested with FBI informants, which makes it plausible that there should be some at the scene on Jan 6) or an agent of some other governmental agency.
JarJarJedi
1mo ago
I wasn't trying to bring new evidence. If the mass of evidence already widely available on the topic did not convince you, it's the matter of choice, not the quality of evidence. It's like O.J Simpson looking for the "real killer", or Jussie Smollett still claiming MAGA thugs assaulted him. It's not about quantity or quality of evidence by this point. More evidence will inevitably appear, as it always does, but nothing prevents people who do not want to believe it from rejecting it too. Frankly, I do not see any way available for me - or anyone - to convince anybody who has decided on not being convinced. There must be a voluntary act of opening oneself to this possibility.
JarJarJedi
1yr ago
But I think it’s beyond clear that Poland couldn’t be conquored by Russia
Whole Poland? Probably not, at least not in the near future. But some borderline territories, for starters? Say, the corridor leading to Königsberg, now known as Kaliningrad? Why not. Do you imagine President Ocasio-Cortez sending the best US troops into the harm's way to defend places with names like Szypliszki and Stańczyki, which no CNN commentator could even pronounce - especially if it comes with the risk of global nuclear war? I think a lot of people would object to that.
JarJarJedi
2yr ago
Unfortunately, yes, some of the right-wingers have the right instincts but are profoundly ignorant about the actual facts and events, especially about places like Russian and Ukraine. So they choose on the basis of "if Biden says Putin is bad, then Putin must be awesome based dude, let's worship him". And "if Biden says there's war in Ukraine, it's all fake and there's no war at all". It is a very sad reality. I hope these stupid guys are a minority, because otherwise the US politics would be completely depressing sight for a foreseeable future.
JarJarJedi
2yr ago
I wonder how the disclosure of Covid origins information became right-coded.
The Left committed early to the "bat soup" theory and declared anybody who doubts it racist, and instituted a censorship blockade of any opposition (or even critical discussion) to this. While they were forced to roll it back a little because dissent went high and wide enough in scientific circles that it wasn't possible any more to block, the initial commitment still weights heavily on the topic, and was not acknowledged as wrong even at "mistakes were made" level, and this colors every critique of this position as attacking the Party Line.
JarJarJedi
2yr ago
Because an army of mindless psychopathic murderers is a bad way to conduct wars. And releasing them into society when they're done service would be even worse.
JarJarJedi
2yr ago
why I’m a grown man who let myself be treated like a pathetic plaything by individuals who are my social and biological inferiors in every imaginable way
This part sounds bad. I am not sure whether you intended it or not, but it sounds like you'd be ok if you were humiliated by you social or biological superiors (wtf is that anyway? More Aryan? More muscular? Longer dick?), but the fact that wrong people assaulted you is upsetting. I don't think it is a very good position.
When I am flying, if I check in the bag, they weigh it and if it's over some specific number (50lbs? Don't remember, but it doesn't matter) they demand I pay ridiculous money for it being overly massive. Unless I, right in front on them, take some stuff out of the checked bag and put it into my carry-on bag, which they know I will be taking with me onboard. Last time we did this dance over 2 pounds. How does it make any sense? I understand carrying more mass takes more fuel, but putting it into my carry-on does not change the mass, and I could be traveling with a box full of lead bricks and nobody would tell me a word if it fits the carry-on size. One could suppose maybe the handlers are not allowed to lift over 50lbs - but if I pay the ridiculous payment, they suddenly become allowed?
I'm not even saying they charge the same for 2 yo kid and for 400lbs landwhale, so clearly the mass is not that important here. Why are they doing it? Just to piss me off because airlines secretly agreed their goal must be to maximize the amount of frustration in the Universe? Or there's some logical reason for it?
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