JarJarJedi
Streamlined derailments and counteridea reeducation
User ID: 1118
JarJarJedi
1mo ago
It tastes like alien cat piss, it has a bunch of spooky chemicals and there's absolutely no reason to drink it when there are many better alternatives.
JarJarJedi
1mo ago
Trump can yell at GOP congressmen, but that's pretty much all he can do. He can't rain fire and brimstone on them or flood them out. And the congressmen, while being very pious in appearance, are right now very reluctant to actually follow Trump's commandments (where have I seen this kind of thing before?) and actually do things. All Trump can threaten them with is to primary them (sometime in the future) and even that may be not that much of a threat for those who has a strong local base, and given there's 220 of them, nobody gets more than 1/220 of the fault if nothing happens, which isn't a lot of fault. He can't implement the legislation alone, and there's not a lot he can do beyond yelling if GOP congressmen are dragging their feet. He can't executive order them into action.
JarJarJedi
1mo ago
Yeah being "white" and openly supporting terrorists puts one in a very convenient spot to serve as a token prosecution target. "You see, we're not ignoring it, we're doing something!". Given the same guys also called for British MPs to be assassinated, it makes them even easier target to make an example of. Now when next 1000 people are arrested for tweeting about immigration policies, the police can say they are completely even-handed and fight extremism on both sides.
JarJarJedi
1mo ago
Trump could absolutely make the job of anyone seeking to explode immigration harder by changing the law
No he absolutely can't, that's what the Congress is supposed to do.
JarJarJedi
1mo ago
Trump has temporarily gotten it back to the levels that Obama had.
You're saying it like it's a bad thing?
He's done almost nothing in regards to helping ensure that will continue long-term.
In American democracy, how would you propose to achieve ensuring some policy continues forever, regardless of what future voters or executives want, and how such a situation is different from a dictatorship?
JarJarJedi
1mo ago
Enmity between the Capitalist USA and the USSR started with the latter's birth, or preceded it.
This is true, but that initial enmity has officially ended in 1930s by FDR, and turned into an alliance in the 1940s and had highs and lows since then. You seem to be making some kind of a point that there was one constant policy over seven decades of USSR existence, but it was a multitude of different policies. Sometimes US chose to fight, sometimes they chose to sit aside, sometimes they chose to ally with USSR against common enemy.
I'm not sure what you mean by "credibility" here. My point is very simple - if US chose to never fight, it would not lose any specific wars to USSR, but it would lose everything, and in that hypothetical world, we'd still have USSR right now, probably owning most of Europe, Africa, Latin America and China owning Asia. Fortunately, we live in a better world - the one when US sometimes chose to fight, and ultimately won, even despite losing some wars. I don't see any possibility of avoiding any lost wars in advance, except giving up from start and not fighting at all.
JarJarJedi
1mo ago
You seem to be confusing different historical periods. When USSR took over Poland, there wasn't even the Cold War - in fact, most of it happened while US and USSR had been allies and fought together against Hitler. Opening that question back then would hardly be possible. However, things were much different years later, when the Cold War was in full swing.
JarJarJedi
1mo ago
I described it a number of times already, but basically the worldview that the war with and ultimate destruction of Israel is not the primary priority of Arab population and government in Gaza and PA, and skillfully combining mutually beneficial economic projects and very limited single-point military interventions, to suppress a small hard core of warmongers, it is possible to achieve security for Israel and long term peace, with Arab population living independently besides Israel as maybe not friends at first but not engaging in active hostilities. Moreover, most of the Israel elites were under impression that not only this strategy is possible in principle, it has been successfully implemented in Gaza and Hamas is largely pacified and contained, and its capabilities are confined to small-scale terror acts which can be easily kept at a minimum by routine intelligence/police work. This is why a lot of peace activists lived close to the borders of Gaza and why the music festival has been organized right there on the border - because, following this worldview, single one-off terror acts could strike anywhere and the danger is the same in Tel Aviv or Haifa (maybe even more, since terrorists tend to attack population centers) as on the Gaza border, and living close to the actual population helps bringing people together and strengthens the peace.
This is not a stupid concept per se - Israel has achieved similar position with Egypt, Jordan, Syria and even in PA you could argue it is moving in that direction. So in theory, without empirical adjustment, this was possible, and certainly very attractive, humanistic and optimistic. The problem is, that's not at all what Hamas and Gaza population were. Unfortunately, this things do not work by analogy or statistically - if most snakes aren't venomous, it doesn't mean that particular one about to bite you isn't. You can't rely on statistics in such cases, and you can't make hope your main strategy, ignoring empiric data that point otherwise. Unfortunately, that's what Israel had been doing for at least 18 years (in fact, even longer, pretty much since Oslo agreements). They wanted this nice peace picture so much, they ignored the reality that did not match it.
JarJarJedi
1mo ago
I agree that thinking academia admins fold to wokes because they are just pussies is wrong. They fold because they sympathize to them, but want plausible deniability. They don't want chant "kill the Jews" by themselves, but they are OK with shielding people who are willing to, from any negative consequences (and may throw in a couple of positive ones). It's not only about the Jews of course. Now Harvard seems to have abandoned the fig leaf completely, while Colombia is still pretending. It's certainly be interesting to see which strategy works for them and whether their remaining cultural status would allow them to openly defy Federal law.
JarJarJedi
1mo ago
If they don't believe those things, they should shut their mouths about them.
Oh but they never would. Just as "socialist" and "oligarchy fighter" Bernie Sanders would never give up his third house and be left with only two, to help the poor. Just as various rich "eco warriors" would never give up their personal jets. And they wouldn't need to - their followers, as it is evident, are fine with that.
JarJarJedi
1mo ago
The US DID give up Poland without trying! That's a thing that really happened!
Nope. Solidarnosc had a lot of support from the US, though it was not all in the open. Reagan lead a lot of it.
With Hungary and Czechia it was different - those were already considered owned by USSR, so it was USSR atrocities in their own space rather than the US losing to them.
From this we can deduce that US global prestige suffered less from scenarios in which they didn't try than scenarios in which they tried and lost.
If it didn't try, what "prestige" you are talking about? Prestige of doing what? Sitting in their corner of the world and silently watching as USSR eats the rest of it?
JarJarJedi
1mo ago
They have separate drinking fountains and lecture halls "for whites only"? I kinda find it hard to believe, any documentation to that?
JarJarJedi
1mo ago
Why would the US have suddenly given in because Vietnam went Red?
No, you approaching it with the wrong end. The US that would willingly give up Vietnam to the reds, without trying to do anything, would also give up without trying Poland, Afghanistan, and many other things that together brought the Cold War to victory. By itself, the loss of Vietnam obviously weren't fatal - obviously! - but becoming a type of country that doesn't even try to fight may be fatal for the chances to ultimate victory.
We can tell because US prestige declined after the defeat in Vietnam!
You are comparing it to the situation where US won in Vietnam. Compare to situation where it didn't even try.
JarJarJedi
1mo ago
Churches are directly protected by the Constitution, so the government has to be kind of careful around them. Even if specific part of what the church does is not protected, a friendly judge can always spin it that way, and attacking a religious institution is an automatic PR problem for the government. Universities used to have same kind of deference, but their wokification lost them this stance on the right, and given that the left regularly sets their own university campuses on fire, if they claim "you don't respect The Sacred Institution enough!" nobody would really believe it by now. So right now they are much less protected than the churches.
Columbia University, the concept, can't be forced to do anything, except maybe close its doors.
I'm not sure what "the concept" here means, but the government can put Columbia in a world of hurt, causing them a lot of direct (fines, lost court cases) and indirect (limiting their access to things) trouble. Of course, technically this is not "forcing" to do them anything, the same way as "give me your wallet or be shot" is not forcing - you can choose to be shot, a lot of people survived being shot. But I don't think any sane board would be willing to fully explore how deep the rabbit hole goes. Because with Feds it can go very deep.
JarJarJedi
1mo ago
If you're doing low weight exercises with bad form, it's probably not a huge deal since you'd just be training different muscle groups that you intended to, but I don't think it'll be much harm. If however you start to go heavy, and your form sucks, and you don't know it, the possibility of the injury raises significantly. So I'd say for personal trainer it's probably bad sign not to teach the proper form, but if I saw somebody who knows on their own what they are doing with a form that looks questionable to me, I'd think maybe they are just doing something I don't know about. That's like grammar - one should be taught proper grammar, but if you're e e cummings, go wild.
JarJarJedi
1mo ago
So, the calls to murder are not literal, because no murders are happening. I mean, murders are definitely happening, but not all at once, just over the years. And it's a local tradition so nothing to be done about it. In general, murdering people there is very common, so murdering white people is nothing to worry about, and people who want to leave the place where murdering is very common have no legit reason to do so. Also, nobody is trying to take their property. I mean, millions of people try to take their property, but they are poor, so that's fine, and has nothing to do with politics, they just want to take their property. And it's not expropriation without payment, because even though their property got taken from them, and they received no payment, the government "tried to encourage" them to sell, so it doesn't count. And since the government did not explicitly command the takings by official decree, they have no responsibility for it, even though multiple members of the government promised to do exactly what happened. Ah yes, and also government made a thorough investigation and declared itself innocent of all charges, which makes the case settled completely.
One needs long, thorough years of brainwashing to be able to believe shit like this. Fortunately, this is exactly what we as the taxpayers are paying the US education system to do.
JarJarJedi
1mo ago
I hate European censorship laws, but when once in a while somebody really worth stomping gets caught into it, and I wish the Metropolitan Police all the success in stomping on them. It's like the police beating up a known child predator - I am against police brutality, but I am not a saint, in some cases I will (hypocritically maybe) be willing to look the other way. I like living in a country where people like Kanye can do their shit without the police intervening, but I can't do anything about UK police, so I am at least glad in maybe 1% of the cases they get it right...
JarJarJedi
1mo ago
the Federal Government can't actually force Columbia to do anything
It can force it to comply with Federal law. All of it. Including all those juicy parts about hostile workplace, discrimination, etc. which the ancestors of the current wokes worked so hard to institute. None of it is predicated on getting any federal funding. And then there's federally funded education loans. Check out how many students use those - is Columbia ready to develop its own loan system (and ensure Feds can't dismantle it for violating one of approximately 10 million banking regulations in existence)? And those juicy kuffye-wearing foreign students - guess who controls their visas? Federal Government is a monster - the Left worked for many decades, since the forefather of all, FDR - to ensure it can force anybody to do anything they want. So I have no sympathy for them if that monster turns on them now - but they would underestimate its power at their own peril. Their only hope is friendly federal judges would allow them to stretch things out, and Trump only has 4 years...
JarJarJedi
1mo ago
The protestors were objectively correct about basically everything they said
Yes, but no. The protestors (not each of them personally, but in general the movement) was part of the reason why US lost this war. And if US didn't lose the war, Vietnam could be what South Korea is now. Which is better than what it is now. So is the lost war "worth it"? Probably not, that's why it's called a lost one. But if you approach every war with the premise that you may lose and therefore you can't fight, then you lose all the wars in advance. And one of the reasons that Vietnam is now quasi-capitalist is because the US did not lose some other wars, including winning the main one - the Cold War. Did Vietnam war make the world better? No, it did not, because the good guys lost. If they didn't, it would. That happened in other places where the good guys didn't lose.
compared to a counterfactual in which the United States simply let North Vietnam reunite with the South without outside interference
In that counterfactual the US stops fighting the Cold War, USSR still exists now, owns major parts of the world, and half of the US is thinking when we stop being so stupid and join the societal model that is clearly winning, namely socialism. I don't think it's a good future to be in. Yes, losing a war sucks. But losing all wars in advance would suck much more.
JarJarJedi
1mo ago
EU wouldn't be much of a problem. If they are in Harvard inventing cool shit, the profits from it sponsor the wokes in Harvard. The cool shit probably would make my life better, but the wokes would make it worse. If they move to EU and keep inventing the cool shit, I'd likely benefit from it no less - maybe I'd pay a bit more because tariffs or get it a little later, but on the bottom line it wouldn't make me substantially worse, as I don't get direct profit from Harvard owning cool shit and indirect profits are nearly the same. On the other hand, all the wokeness will be then concentrated in EU, and it hardly can be worse there already, so to be honest, I don't see much downside. Of course, it would be cool if I could get the benefits without the wokeness at all, but I'm not sure how to achieve that option.
JarJarJedi
1mo ago
no university has a department of data fabrication.
You don't need a department of data fabrication to fabricate data, just as you don't need a "department of antisemitism" to be antisemitic. It happens naturally as a product of incentives and cultural trends. There's enough horrible studies, especially in woke "sciences" (though reality-based ones are in no way exempt also). I haven't tracked how Columbia specifically performs on this, but there's no reason why they in particular would be an outlier.
JarJarJedi
1mo ago
Interestingly enough, in the movie they also felt the decision processes are not specified at all so they felt it's necessary to introduce a scene where Dr. Mensah essentially tells everybody what to do and then they stand in a circle, hold hands and hum (literally). Given that the show makers can be assumed to be extremely woke by default, it's interesting how they decided to present this. First, they obviously see the need to make decisions, and they go for the natural authoritarian approach (not even a vote!) but then they insert some kind of obscure ritual to woke-wash it and resolve the natural question of "how other people who have no decision power tolerate it?". Simply - they hum.
how amazing the feminist environmentalist communist etc. preservation alliance is
For me it looked very light on details on how exactly amazing it is - like, how their economy actually works? I get it, everything is free and there's no money, but how does it work? Is it just a huge hippie commune? BTW, how huge - how many people actually live there - it is 100 people, a thousand, a million? Never discussed. Who's in charge and what being in charge actually means? How the governance works - who decides what to do and where the external money - which they use - come from, and who decides how much of that money is spent on what? There are some officers - like chief of police - but who appoints them and how? Pretty much none of that is covered except as a third-hand mention in passing by Murderbot who barely understands what it means and really can't even contextualize it, so it just accepts it as "it's how it is with those weird humans but it's my humans so whatever they do must be a good thing". Again, this looks very much like indoctrination process of a college freshman who's not great in critical thinking because it has been successfully educated out of him. This vagueness is a double edged sword and the Murderbot is explicitly an extremely unreliable narrator in all matters human.
the author herself is openly very far left and has in interviews quite clearly talked about the anti-capitalist messages in the murderbot series
That's why I usually avoid authors' interviews (and same for actors, producers, etc.) as much as I can. Usually nothing good comes from it but spoiling a good work of art.
JarJarJedi
1mo ago
Well, if you target the cultural elites, the narrative "racists tried to ethnically cleanse my people" gets you lots of sympathy, but the narrative "commies murdered 5 millions of my people while trying to establish the worker's paradise" gets you shrugs and "well, you can't build worker's paradise without breaking some eggs...". So it's hard to fault them for playing with the deck they've been dealt.
This is so real. When I got off added sugar drinks, after a while I discovered there are more tastes than "MOAR SUGAR!". And in fact, a lot of things have their own tastes which don't benefit from MOAR SUGAR. Which also unfortunately made about 90% of US sweets completely un-consumable for me because it's a gustatory equivalent of being tied up to a biggest meanest loudspeaker at a heavy metal concert. You can't do subtle tastes if people are addicted to MOAR SUGAR.
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