JarJarJedi
Streamlined derailments and counteridea reeducation
User ID: 1118
JarJarJedi
11mo 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
11mo ago
improving the genetic stock of humanity immediately.
Fuck the genetic stock of humanity. Seriously. Our scientific understanding of population genetics is shit anyway, and so is our understanding of brain functions and much else in our bodies. We are not nearly capable of producing any judgement on the level that would allow to formulate some "improvement" programs as a society, and thousand times less as a petty low state functionary who has no idea about these high-minded things anyway. And, the experience shows all the guys that cared too much about genetic purity of humanity were not the good guys, to allow myself a huge understatement. So I think staying away from all talk about "improving genetic stock" is the only way for a decent person to behave. Not with a 100 foot pole.
I get why people assume that everything is racial
I didn't say a word about racial and did not assume it. I think this is the case of protesting too much.
JarJarJedi
7mo ago
The implication being that the pro-Ukraine side, by contrast, has a plan?
Whatever plan they may or may not have, it's certainly less stupid than Carlson's "we feed Ukraine to Putin and he'll battle China for US" or Vivek's "We feed Ukraine to Putin and there would be peace in our time". But I suspect, different "pro-Ukraine" sides - many of which aren't as pro-Ukraine as they present - have different plans. US Democrats probably try to maximize the profit (both pecuniary and political) from the war while committing to as little as possible and not letting Russia become unpredictable (because that looks like work and who needs that), most of the EU tries to show off as much as possible while doing as little as possible, Ukrainians try to survive...
Like, what's your actual conception of how this is all going to roll out?
Given current players, likely pretty badly for all involved. Probably there will be some temporary ceasefire and then a new war in 5-10 years, and so on. Until Russia finally collapses, but that can take a long while - last time it took 70 years.
But what's the endgame, here?
We all dead, sooner or later? I mean, what exactly you expect the "endgame" to be? It's not some kind of Magic The Gathering match, where you sit down, play a round, then come up and go back home. Who told you there's such a thing as "endgame" at all? The war surely will end, one way or another, at least all the previous wars did. How it will end depends on a lot of things, and anybody who says they can predict it, are lying.
What are you willing to call failure, such that you agree that it's time to cut our losses?
If you approach any task with "when are we calling it a failure finally", then yes, the question would only be when you call it a failure. But then, why you are surprised there are so many failures? You're literally rooting for it, so you're getting what you asked for.
JarJarJedi
7mo ago
...I'm not sure where to even begin with this statement. I cannot form a sensible model of a thought-process that would have this statement as its output. Could you elaborate?
Elaborate what? You pre-declare that US intervention must be a failure and the only question is when we recognize that failure. In that model, of course it'd be a failure. I just don't accept that model as something having to do with the reality.
Do you agree that the american occupation of Afghanistan was a failure?
Irrelevant for the question being discussed.
That if we had only pushed harder, been willing to commit more, worthwhile outcomes could have been secured?
No, I think if they pushed smarter, and been willing to do different things, then yes, they could be. It's not a direct function of dollars spent or boots standing on the ground. At least not that alone. But again, this is irrelevant for the question discussed.
That is a pretty wild response to someone pointing to three decades of extremely ruinous policy failure.
Again, policy failures in Afghanistan are not relevant here, as we're not talking about Afghanistan.
If no one knows anything,
I didn't say "no one knows anything", I said exact picture years ahead is not possible to predict right now. That's not the same thing at all. If you demand "before we do anything, tell me and guarantee me you can exactly predict what would happen in a multi-factor hyper-complex event 10 years ahead" - then of course you won't be able to do a single thing. That's not how things are done. You have a general goal, and general means of achieving it - in this case, trim Russia's ambition of territorial conquest in Europe, and giving Ukrainians the weapons - and then you adapt your tactics depending on the circumstances arriving.
you criticizing the people who don't want to spend a lot of money and resources escalating this war
The war is already "escalated". That choice is past us. The question is - does the "collective security" arrangement in Europe survive, or do we go back to "every little country for themselves" and the inevitable endless bloodbath that follows that. There's still a chance to preserve that order, but it is going away fast. And more we talk about "when we already recognize we lost everything and should give up?" the sooner we lose everything, including all this nice cushy civilization we enjoy so much. It's much more fragile than commonly thought.
Is politics literally nothing more to you than good fucking vibes?
I can't even begin to understand what you mean here, but let me assure you in one thing. Contrary to the belief popular on many college campuses, adding swearing to your argument does not make it more convincing, it just makes you look more unhinged.
Prove it. Support that statement. Why is it better? On the basis of what data? What leads you to this conclusion?
Observation of the existing facts. When somebody literally proposes as a solution for the war the situation from which the war started, I conclude he's either ignoramus or is lying to my eyes. When somebody proposes a bunch of non-sequiturs as a supposedly logical argument to a goal - I assume he is either bad at logic or is lying. Carlson has been proposing wildly illogical concept of if we let Russia consume Ukraine, Putin somehow would be friendly to the US (this is laughable to anyone who listened for the last 5 years of Russian propaganda, which has been full of mouth-foaming anti-Western paranoia, and their whole geopolitical concept is rooted at opposition to the West, which is weak and decadent and soul-less) and somehow commit himself to fighting China (despite Russia having zero motive for that and tons of motives to the contrary) - and doesn't even bother to support his fantasies with anything but other wild stories (like the stupid biolab shit). That makes about as much sense as saying if only we helped Hitler to introduce common sense banking regulations, he'd be off the whole Jews thing - about that level of silliness. Vivek is simpler, he's just playing ignorant. He's proposing a solution which he must know - since he is not actually dumb - is not solving anything because that's where the war started. But it sounds nice to people who are ignorant in the matter, and makes him sound like he has solutions for everything to people that want somebody to have solutions. And also to the people who think "fuck Ukraine, better give that money to me!" but are ashamed to say it aloud, so they are looking for someone to say the same but in a smart way, so it doesn't sound asshole-ish but geopolitically smart. That's all his play, the whole con. Fortunately, he's also irrelevant since there's no chance he'd be anywhere near any real power anytime soon.
JarJarJedi
6mo ago
The reason why Democratic views used to be more pro-Israel, is because the Israeli population used to reflect a more liberal view of the conflict, and now it really doesn't
Erm, what? What timeframe are you talking about? Israel has been moving towards more conciliatory and liberal view of the conflict for decades now. It evacuated Gaza in 2005 (forcibly uprooting many Jewish communities) and tolerates Hamas shelling the southern cities for 18 years since, with only sporadic limited response carefully calculated to punish Hamas, but not endanger their rule. One of the main reason of the current catastrophe is that Israel got so immersed in the liberal concept of "peace is inevitable, Hamas is just representing the last throes of retrogrades that can not tolerate the inevitable coming of peace, but they are weak and dying off" - that's why such thing as "peace festival" on the border with Gaza with virtually no protection beyond token security guards meant to handle people who got over their norm of mind-altering substances - became possible. That's why most of the smaller towns and villages had no armed guards and had weapons locked up - something one couldn't imagine in the vicinity of Gaza some years ago, before "peace process". Israel has been moving to the liberal side since early 90s, at least, and the more they moved there, the more the Left hated them. It's just American Jews and Israeli Left made titanic effort not to notice it, but now it became a bit hard not to notice.
we believe even terrible have the right to vote, and self-government
Do you really? The left never seems to have any problem with leftist dictatorships (too long to list here). Sure, they may recognize Kim is taking it too far, and maybe Pol Pot made a goofie or two, but otherwise dictatorship of the proletariat doesn't seem to represent any serious problem. If there are some staged "elections" where the ruling junta always wins, then everything is completely perfect. The treatment of the Islamic dictatorships seems to be very situational - while some Islamic dictatorship get some critique, most of them are silently ignored (especially the rich ones donating amply to Left's Places of Power) and surely absolutely none of them gets as much hate as Israel does.
Now, if said Palestinian government passes anti-LGBT laws or whatever
If??? If??? Are we talking about real Palestinians under Hamas (or Fatah) rule or some Celestial Palestinians existing only in Harvard classrooms? Of course, since most Palestinians that are discernibly gay are either dead or fled to Israel years ago, this is more of a theoretical question. Hamas does not "pass laws" - it just throws you off a building.
then we'll treat them like we do other countries with no leverage on us - sanctions and such until they embrace the loving arms of deviancy, or whatever
Not only this is a lie, you know this is a lie. Many Muslim countries have such laws, and there are no sanctions.
In the long run, if this is all old news by Election Day 2024, it'll likely be forgotten
I'm not sure how it matters if it isn't. I see no group on the Left that even theoretically could switch their vote or stay home (in significant numbers) except one - American Jews. For some of them, it has been really shocking how much their parteigenossen hate them. But, unfortunately, I do not see any way that would move them to vote for Trump. It's just not something decent people do. Maybe some of them will stay home, but given that most of them live in deep blue areas anyway, it won't change anything. So, some Democrat will be elected with 70% of votes instead of the usual 89% - who cares. So, my prediction - absolutely nothing will change in 2024.
JarJarJedi
11mo 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.
JarJarJedi
3mo ago
Israel is aggressively preventing any kind of aid from going into the region
This is obviously false, there are numerous photos and videos of hundreds of aid trucks rolling into Gaza (and Hamas taking over them and shooting at residents trying to get to them before Hamas does), and there are Jordanians doing air supply drops (obviously with Israel approval). It is true that Israel limits the amount of supplies and the kind of supplies, because they know (and it is true) that Hamas is going to control and benefit from them, but it is absolutely false that Israel is preventing "any kind of aid" from going into Gaza.
JarJarJedi
7mo ago
Why do you think it is wrong? On the one side, he may gain some support from people to whom the White House may listen. On the other side, he loses the support of people who has repeatedly declared they hate him and won't give him a dime anyway. Why do you think his strategy is wrong? Not from American, but from purely transactional side with the goal of getting the most help possible the fastest way possible?
JarJarJedi
10mo ago
pregnant people, but not women.
Doubleplusgood duckspeak! I do bellyfeel.
JarJarJedi
11mo 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
11mo ago
Something I am still struggling with - shouldn't a Marine know how to hold/disable somebody without killing him? I know next to nothing on Marine training, but I imagine there are situations where you want to capture the enemy soldier (e.g. to interrogate him later) and there must be ways to hold somebody relatively safely to oneself without choking them to death. Am I wrong? Also, being a Marine, he should have known what a long chokehold would do to a person. Did he mean to kill the guy? If yes, did he not foresee killing a guy in public in this fashion - after he is clearly subdued already and not presenting clear and present danger - would end up in serious charges, especially in New York? How did he expect this would end up?
JarJarJedi
3mo ago
Some people have their own facts, and denying the existence of Israel is, unfortunately, only a small part of a myriad of falsities from which their worldview is composed. Pretty much everything they know and say about Israel is false, but they can't help themselves and reveal it by denying even the most obvious of facts - such as the very existence of the state of Israel. It is actually a good thing - it clearly indicates people that are not going to be open to reasonable argument.
JarJarJedi
5mo ago
the unprovoked displacement
What "unprovoked" displacement? Local Arabs had been fighting Jews for several decades by then, and had several successful mass murders under their belts. What does the word "unprovoked" mean in your dictionary?
Of course, the "disaster" was that the goal that they - local Arab population and outside Arab countries - set out to achieve, which is, in modern terms, genocide of the Jews and ethnic cleansing of Israel's territory - not only has not been achieved, but led to significant worsening of the situation for many Arabs. It is a completely accurate description of the result of their decisions to reject a peaceful coexistence and go for the war of elimination instead. That ended in a disaster for them.
JarJarJedi
11mo 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
7mo ago
I feel it's more the reverse - more Republicans are jumping on the bandwagon of "we are sending billions to Ukraine while (insert your actual point)" - which btw is a good example of "technically true as accounting goes but wildly misleading in substance" - mostly because it's easy and resonates with certain contingent. And that locks them into anti-Ukraine position, because you can't say that and then vote for sending more help to Ukraine - you'd be called a blowhard and a hypocrite (which most politicians are, but they hate that fact being highlighted). And given that, Zelensky doesn't have any incentive to take them into account anymore - if they are locked in into a position that doesn't help him anyway, they are lost cause, and there's no reason not to suck up to their enemies - with those at least there's a chance.
JarJarJedi
10mo ago
The use of race or ethnicity as the basis for the higher or highest classes of society was far more explicit in previous empires, that's my point
I understood the point, but I am not convinced at all that is is actually true.
But where I draw a line is in trying to claim that the only reason someone could object to the use of "barbarian" to describe immigrants (illegal if you want that qualifier) is that they are some kind of social progressive
I didn't ever mention progressives, but everybody knows who are the clowns, right? ;) But it's not exactly what I meant. What I meant is that there are people who are interested in discussing issues, and there are people who are interested in policing other people's behavior, online and offline. That comment was intended to emphasize that I am not interested in the second part, I consider them largely clowns, regardless of their political affiliation (though truth be told, they mostly lean to the left). And if there's a tiny part of them that are not clowns but seriously worry that people may inadvertently and unknowingly cause offense and they would be helpful if they tactfully point it out - this case is not that case. This usage is specific usage in context, and I explained the context and the intent. I do not require your "charity" here - it's not "charity" to not call me a liar and attribute me something that is contrary to my explicitly expressed intent, it's just basic decency, and default expected behavior for which one gets no bonus points.
If you doubt this, go and talk to any of the non-progressive immigrants you are talking about and call them that, see what happens.
I talk to them (us) every day, and what I usually find is that they (us) are much less triggered by words - especially taken out of context - than the clown crowd.
JarJarJedi
10mo ago
Not immediately. It's part of the process - which involves turning more and more to outside where current citizens are unwilling to invest in supporting the empire anymore. It's not a binary switch caused by one specific decision - it's a long process and this decision just illustrates the direction.
JarJarJedi
6mo ago
I'm probably too far away to see minor differences, but I don't think I have seen/heard/read a lot of "progressive democrats" criticizing leftist dictators and their approach to elections. I mean, when did I have the last opportunity to see a leftist protest demanding to hold free elections in Cuba? Venezuela? North Korea? China? Anywhere where a leftist or islamist dictator holds power? I mean, a lot of Americans have opinions, as we recently found out, about how Israel's democracy must be managed, but none have any opinions on any of those? Doesn't it look a little bit weird?
JarJarJedi
9mo ago
I wouldn't mind that. Even with (slightly improved) freedom of speech Twitter looks like a net negative.
JarJarJedi
10mo ago
Is is a consequence of shitty behavior no longer being unacceptable. These shows are the symptom of the enshittening of the culture. Which, I suspect, is a consequence of post-modernism, ultimately - if nothing has any meaning or value, then everything is equally shitty, so why bother not being shitty? Some people find their answers to that question, but many don't.
JarJarJedi
8mo ago
considering the endurance the US has shown in unpopular and not particularly televised campaigns since 1945
That was a different US. Right now, the question of support for Ukraine has become intensely tribal, and the red tribe wants nothing to do with it. The blues want to support it, but how long it will last? The example of Afghanistan shows us the 180 degree turn is possible at any second, and when it happens, nobody would try to do a smooth transition - the mode of operation would be "dump and run".
Ukraine's main problem right now seems to be that it's "kept on its toes" and can't actually catch a break to accumulate supplies and temporarily swing the balance
They don't have any supplies to accumulate, their own production facility is tiny and can't be upgraded to the necessary level for a long time, at least not without a massive Western investment. Ukrainians spent a lot of time in the last decades selling off their stockpile and production capacities - including to Russia, btw - because they didn't believe Russia would dare to launch the full invasion. Getting their own capacities to the level they could do more that temporarily hold off the Russians would take many years. The years which Russia wouldn't be sitting and waiting.
On the other, Russia's economic sprezzatura has to crack eventually
Why? No it hasn't. Russians have certain problems with both selling the hydrocarbons and obtaining the technologies, which limit their capacities somewhat, but not ruinously so. They still largely have enough weapons to essentially grind the situation to an expensive stalemate, and they can keep on keeping on like that for a very long while. Yes, the life of an ordinary citizen of Russia under such regime would be somewhat shitty, but the life of an ordinary citizen of Russia has been somewhat shitty for centuries, it's absolutely nothing new. Economically, Russia is not close to breaking and the current level of sanctions won't break it, at least not for a very long time. They can muddle through just enough to get to the point where the West gets tired and removes the sanctions, or at least weakens the support of Ukraine, at which time they'll resupply everything they need to grab a bit more territory and repeat. They are banking on Western attention span being short and resolve being weaker with time and expense, and I can't honestly say that it's a completely baseless assumption.
I would therefore actually expect that in 5 years, a rested, rearmed, hardened and sure-footed Ukraine could roll over a Russia
If you expect that you are horrendously deluded. Nobody is "rolling over" anybody there, not with Ukrainian capacities. They are smart and brave people, but in this war God is on the side of big battalions. They just don't have the capacity to roll anything, without substantial air force, naval capabilities, far strike capabilities and with numerical and resource disadvantage. They are much better warriors than Russians, but it's just not enough. The absolute best Ukraine can hope for is slowly (and very, very expensively) pushing Russians back to pre-2014 borders, and that would cost a lot and require a lot more Western help that is being given now. If Russia is given time to resupply and rearm and upgrade their technological level and turn all the occupied territories into a massive fortification, the best Ukrainians can hope is when the Russians attack the next time (and it will be them attacking, Ukrainians would never dare to break the peace and risk jeopardizing the Western support) it won't cost them more than a couple of minor cities until the Russians are ground to a stop again. Then there would be the next time, and the next time after that, until the West would reasonably decide that since 40% of Ukraine territory is occupied by Russia anyway, and in the current form it's not economically viable, it's better to broker a permanent solution where Ukraine becomes Russia's bitch protectorate and the war finally stops. And all the armchair strategists would lament that we should have done it decades before and saved all the effort and trillions spent.
For the latter, I think that after Ukraine's resilience surprised most Western commentators in the opening days
That is true, Ukrainians proved to be much more capable warriors than the West expected. That's the reason why Ukraine still exists as a nation. But it's not enough. Long war is a question of resources, and Ukrainian's own resources are small compared to Russia. If the West is not willing to commit enough resources to overcome that disadvantage, the Ukrainians will lose. And if Russia is able to resupply and refit their resources, then the disadvantage will only become more pronounced. Heroism can only take you so far.
JarJarJedi
8mo ago
In Israel there's no "refugee camps" as far as I know. They are either on "territories" - which are under military administration, and yes, military administration can - and does - set up checkpoints, as needed for security, but they are not exclusive to the places called "refugee camps"; or they are in "Palestinian Authority" territory - inside which they are in security control. When entering Israel-controlled territory, again, from PA-controlled territory, there would be security checks - as there would be when crossing any border between areas where people don't exactly trust each other. But this has nothing to do with "refugees". I don't think PA limits movement inside their zone of control - I may be wrong here, not too up to date on the details of their security. Israel does limit entrance for non-citizens - but that applies for every non-citizen, nothing special for "refugees" here, every country I know would somehow regulate entry of non-citizens.
people who lost their homes.
That's the point. None of them lost their homes. None of their parents lost their homes. Maybe their grandparents abandoned their homes 75 years ago - but how many generations should be enough to start getting some other homes finally? By pretending there are some mythical "homes", which current occupants of these places "lost" - despite none of them every living there and most of those not existing already, and those that exist having no chances to be given to them after 75 years - they are only perpetuating the situation where living a normal life is so much harder. I don't think it is reasonable - and probably hasn't been reasonable for half a century now.
JarJarJedi
8mo ago
as an aside, a Palestinian woman once told me that people joked the Israeli Palestinian refugee camps
"Refugee camps" is such an abused phrase. One can not seriously be a "refugee" for three generations. These are what in the whole other world called towns, or villages, but since certain political forces don't want to recognize Israel exists and is not going away, they still pretend people that fled from there in 1940s-50s are just temporary "refugees" and are about to return there any minute. And of course, people in those "refugee camps" try to live their lives just as they do in any other place. In Lebanon it's probably tougher, because it's a place of constant warfare and also because nobody really is interested in Palestinians setting there permanently (especially given the history of how that worked so far) - but in West Bank there are much better conditions for permanent living.
JarJarJedi
9mo ago
It was a part of the Russian Empire and of the Warsaw Pact. And everything there was considered "Soviet Territory", ask Hungary and Czechoslovakia if you don't believe me.
That's an obvious lie, neither Israel (as an official policy goes) wants it nor it's doing it. With overwhelming power superiority Israel has, if they wanted to massacre a million people in Gaza, or West Bank, that would have already happened. There's literally nothing that could prevent Israel from doing that, militarily. But Israel does not want to do it, and didn't.
And please, spare me out-of-context quotes from early 90-s where some Israeli politician said something like "I'd be happy if all Palestinians went to hell". It's not policy, and if you think it has anything to do with the official policy, you are not qualified to have any opinion on any Middle East policy at all.
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