Mer
9mo ago
Over the years online I've encountered a few people who make this kind of argument and I have to say that it baffles me.
I'm a man and I can honestly say I've never for a moment felt envious of women and I really don't understand the people who say that if they could choose, they would choose to be born as a woman. The only thing you've really listed that bothers me is child support and custody, I've got no kids myself but I feel for the good fathers who get a raw deal from the courts.
The "minimum deal" of life for men is worse than for women. The "minimum deal" for women seems to be "get married." The minimum deal for men seems to be: become homeless and kill yourself, if you aren't murdered first.
I'll take being homeless thanks, I'd much rather be bum-fighting a junkie than live my life as any woman. I've been in plenty of fights, brawls and various other flavours of fracas over the course of my life and I've enjoyed them all thus far, I don't know what the hell your average woman does to pass the time nowadays (eat hot chip and lie?) but I have to imagine it would be deathly boring by comparison.
Mer
10mo ago
Because it's inherently engaging with the series on a very superficial level.
I'd say if you're at the point of writing fan fiction about a setting you're past the point of being "superficially" a fan of something.
A fan is not defined by how much they "get" their chosen obsession, it is defined by the level of enthusiasm/passion for it.
Being moved to write gay fanfiction that completely misses the point of the setting makes someone as much a fan as a person that memorises pointless trivia (who also misses the point of the setting, but in a male way rather than a female way).
Mer
11mo ago
And yet of the people who have made significant and immediate changes to the world, people who wish to make significant and immediate change significantly outperform their percentage of the population
In other news, new research finds that people most likely to complete marathons are those that wish to run marathons. In all seriousness, this isn't an argument in favour of extremism. Of course extremists are the most likely to achieve extreme goals, the only alternative candidates are those whose hands are forced by circumstance and those who unintentionally stumble into it.
Strength, cunning and luck are of course of overwhelming importance as well, but all three together do not change the world if the person possessing them is quite comfortable with the way things are.
This is again true, but also not particularly useful. If you have all the virtures of someone capable of shaping the world around you to your liking and you happen to like things the way they are, then you're going to deploy your virtues in pursuit of that end rather than in direct opposition to it.
It seems to me that the point you're driving at, is the importance of strength of will, or of conviction to your goals. This is definitely a quality common among extremists and it is an important part of managing to stick with difficult goals like shaping the world to match your vision, but your odds of success are a lot better if you also happen to have those other virtues as well. The idea that strength of will alone is enough to achieve your goals seems historically fairly common among those who are at a severe disadvantage in other areas, but cannot accept their disadvantageous position. Imperial Japan springs to mind as an immediate example and look how well that worked out for them.
Mer
1yr ago
Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, if you don't like sexuality permitting everything then the way to do that is stop putting sexuality in everything.
Now I'd personally be quite happy with the proposed arrangement, sounds like a damn good deal to me, I don't care for how sexualised mainstream culture is. But I'd point out that there are actually some other options. Number 1 is to just suppress minority sexualities and continue allowing the promotion of the sexuality of the majority, in fact this is substantially easier than simply suppressing sexuality all together.
Mer
1yr ago
Yes. Because everyone uses dating apps now
I'd like to see some numbers to back up that claim, I know nobody that has used dating apps for anything more than hook ups and even then, that's not exactly common. It's my experience that people find relationships through work/school or mutual friends.
My experience in general with how people talk about relationships and dating online has been one of bafflement. It's always this sturm und drang about how dating is impossible for the average man, women are ruthless harpies and the dating world has become this mad max style post apocalyptic wasteland ruled over by the new supermen. Then I look out the window and everything seems fine, people pursue relationships that aren't much changed from the kind that their parents would have pursued.
I've increasingly come round to the idea that talking about relationships online attracts a certain kind of individual, with a certain kind of world view and experiences and that this lends a certain tint to the discourse.
Mer
1yr ago
Absolutely everyone has a naked body, after all, and almost everyone has sex and a sexual side. There is no shame in having either of those, just maybe using them in specific ways.
I disagree and I think I'm not the only one here (source: widely accepted social norms around clothing, nudity and sex).
Whenever this topic comes I'm usually surprised by the number of people who try to make the case that it's not actually a big deal or how confused they are that people would get offended by deepfakes of themselves being created. Personally, if I found out that someone had made fake porn of me or anyone I care about (or distributed actual pictures of them naked/etc), I would immediately go kick their teeth in. I would do this because I would be incandescently furious that someone would do something so flagrantly insulting and disrespectful and then be dumb enough to let me find out about it.
And I know that everyone imagines these kind of things already, but there is a world of difference between imagining and actually producing/sharing a video/picture. In the same way that pretty much everyone is digesting food but I don't want to see it and I definitely don't want it on or near me.
The odds of the progressive types changing their mind on such an issue over a single debate is very low indeed, as it's one of their sacred cows.
Someones willingness to research a topic has no bearing on the seriousness with which that person looks at the topic.
Mer
9mo ago
cold logical rationality's argument can be reduced to "my survival is a priority"
It can also be reduced to letting others survive at the expense of yourself, what is logical depends entirely on what your values and goals are.
Mer
11mo ago
Extremists die in ditches. The strong, the canny and the lucky make history.
The number of extremists that have achieved success and changed the world are far outnumbered by those that achieve nothing and usually end up lining the inside of a mass grave. The Paris Commune did not fail due to a lack of extreme beliefs, it failed because extremists are by their very nature terrible at making the kind of compromises you need to make in order to advance your goals.
Mer
11mo ago
Maybe if for example the US had stayed out of WWI it would not have been quite the decisive victory for the allies and thus the terms might have been not as bad for Germany. With less bad terms, maybe Hitler never rises to power and thus we never encounter “peace in our time” rhetoric.
It's a fairly persistent narrative that it was the harsh terms of the treaty of versailles that lead to the second world war, but it's always struck me as a load of rubbish. If your enemy is still strong enough to make another serious go of invading you a generation after you have decisively defeated them, it's an argument that you were not thorough enough in their hobbling, not the reverse. You don't hear many people saying that the Romans were in danger of the hurt feelings of the Carthaginians causing another great war when they made their desert and called it peace.
The problem with the post-WW1 peace was that it did not change the fundemental conditions that lead to the outbreak of WW1. It left a Germany that was humiliated and embittered, but still in pretty much the same place it was before the war. If your aim is to prevent the rise of Hitler and WW2, you need to disarm its military at the end of the war, rather than letting them go home under arms, occupy the country and then dissolve Germany as a nation. Of course I'm referring to the nation as a political entity and not advocating for some sort of mass disintegration of all Germans, but I think having Germany forcibly broken up into a series of smaller nations is a fair price to pay for starting the greatest war in history and then making the rather inadvisable decision of losing it.
I would say that WW2 was a consequence of firstly, that special brand of German pig-headedness that convinces them that everything must be done the German way. And secondly, a dangerous cocktail of American softness mixed with the bitterness of two empires that had just spent the lives of a generation of their men (and a whole lot of money) with very little to show for it.
Somewhat tangential to this point, I'm not typically given to writing great long essays for the internet, but I do feel that one day I will be compelled to research and write a great screed about the US and it's approach to international relations and diplomacy. I'm thinking of opening it with "American diplomats and their consequences have been a disaster for the human race".
Mer
1yr ago
Thanks to the US, Western Europe has been pushed into a proxy war against their energy supplier.
No this is still very much thanks to Russia, the US may benefit from this, but Russia chose to launch this utterly idiotic and needless invasion in the first place.
Mer
11mo ago
I think you've chosen a very interesting place to stop your chain of logic here, not examining why Britain "wanted to get involved from the very start". Given that Britains war aims were essentially to keep the continent pretty much as it was before the war and preserve the balance of power in Europe, it is in fact accurate to say that Britain chose to use the excuse of maintaining Belgian independence in order to join the war in support of Britains true goal of supporting Belgian independence.
Mer
1yr ago
I'm not saying I want anything, I'm saying that it's not a question of "can't" but "won't".
There are a few different ways to approach the problem of "insufficient houses to meet demand", ranging from building commie blocks/pods all the way to just dropping regulations and allowing shanty towns to spring up.
I really hate when someone says they can't do something when they actually mean they won't do something.
Mer
1yr ago
For me it seems pretty apparent that Rowling was drawing off of a cultural stereotype about bankers/money-lenders that itself either draws from/is linked to stereotypes about Jews.
I'm also confident enough to say that there are enough degrees of cultural seperation that it isn't anti-semitic to include said stereotypes in a work, because they've essentially been laundered of their initial meaning through centuries of use.
Mer
1yr ago
I've heard this from quite a few people now on this topic and I have to say I find it a little disingenuous to be surprised that people would draw the parallels between fictional characters and established real world stereotypes/historical tropes.
It would be fair to be surprised if they were trying to draw parallels between something in fiction and between real world groups when the two just don't align at all (I've seen this a lot with people of varying shades of political alignment trying to draw parallels between orcs/orks and black people, which I've always found quite unconvincing).
Mer
1yr ago
I suspect that it's a case of people venting forth on topics that were previously forbidden.
It's made the motte somewhat dissapointing to open recently, as I don't particularly care either way on the matter and it feels like it drowns out more worthy topics.
Mer
10mo ago
if you filter out all the dumb people, only smart people end up forming groups
More likely you get no groups forming at all, as the number of smart people who also want to join or form radical terrorist groups in the US is so small that the odds of enough of them actually connecting with one another to make a meaningfully sized network are practically non-existant. The exception to this is when you have places where smart malcontents may end up naturally gathering, like universities, which you should be monitoring closely to break up any nascent networks in their infancy.
Clearly the FBI are good at their jobs, the kind of attacks that the modern US regularly faces are not ones conducted by organised groups, but are instead almost always lone wolves and lack any sort of staying power, usually being "one and done" terrorists.
Mer
10mo ago
I think presumably the implication is that the FBI believes that ISIS truly does recruit online and that by re-routing some of the would-be terrorists to them, they are taking away "real" terrorists.
That's similar to my thinking, I would imagine that the justification is that they're clearing out the proverbial deadwood. This approach also has the added benefit of reducing the probability of these kinds of people forming their own groups and deterring smarter people from attempting to reach out and join/form their own groups.
I would say it's a sound strategy.
Mer
1yr ago
This reply feels like a non-sequitur, I think you've replied to the wrong comment.
Also for the record, anyone bleating about how nobody has just tried to talk with Russia is either ignorant of the situation or pretending to be so, plenty of people and groups have attempted to provide an avenue for a negotiated end to hostilities, Russia has simply rejected them by insisting that the only "negotiation" they'll accept is one where they get everything they want.
If you want to bring Russia to the negotiating table you'll apparently need to pave the road to it with tens of thousands of Russian dead.
Mer
1yr ago
And the reasoning of many people who call Z-Russians "orcs" is the same as yours
The reasoning behind calling Russian soldiers orcs is actually pretty apt as far as analogies go, since the orcs of the Lord of the Rings were based (in individual character and personality) on some of the enlisted he interacted with during his service in WW1 and (on a larger, more general scale) the armies of eastern despots. Admittedly the eastern despots he was being inspired by were far more likely to be called Darius than Vladimir, but it's still a surprisingly apt comparison.
I think you're underselling it - the Russian position has been, since before the conflict even started, that they view western missile interdiction systems being placed in Ukraine as an existential threat (as they believe it would give the US government the false impression that they could initiate a nuclear exchange without reprisal). There aren't just dead russian soldiers and destroyed russian weapons on those roads - there are plenty of mushroom clouds as well.
Their position was blatant posturing then, it's blatant posturing now. The Russian leadership is not stupid and they are not suicidal, the use of nuclear weapons, in any quantity, by Russia in this war is the fastest way for them to lose this war and in ways infinitely worse for the Russian leadership than any loss that can be inflicted on them upon the battlefield in Ukraine. The very best outcome that can be reasonably expected is that Russia loses the last friendly relations they currently have, as China (a nation very strongly invested in maintaining the nuclear taboo) turns against Russia and the country becomes a true pariah, followed not long after by near complete economic collapse. The worst outcome is that the entire Russian leadership and everyone they care about dies, either in a blinding flash of light, or from an agonizingly protracted death from radiation poisoning, along with their entire civilisation. Russia won't use nuclear weapons until tanks are hours away from Moscow and even then it's not terribly likely beyond tactical nuclear weapons, the consequences of using nuclear weapons in the modern age are, in almost every case, an order of magnitude worse than the consequences of not using them.
Russia is attempting to leverage its ridiculously oversized nuclear arsenal to frighten civilians in the west, ignorant of nuclear strategy, into pressuring western leaders to reduce support for Ukraine. They've put down "red line" after "red line" only to do nothing when they are crossed, because they know the consequences if they do try and play the nuclear card and they want absolutely nothing to do with it. The strategy hasn't been a total failure, the threats give those in the west eager for reasons to ditch Ukraine an argument they can trot out and I'm fairly certain it's at least partially responsible for the slow roll out of western weapons to Ukraine, but I'd personally put that down more towards western politicians trying to win the war with the least possible expense, not understanding that this strategy will instead prolong the war.
I think a far more likely motivation for Putin holding forces back in reserve is to prepare for a potential NATO escalation that involves US troops being deployed in force, and this matches up to both the statements of the Russian government and the current situation on the ground.
If you believe that then I've got a bridge to sell you. The US isn't putting serious numbers of boots on the ground in Ukraine, most you'd possibly see is the USAF deployed to do some Desert Storm type missions in support of the Ukrainians on the ground, but that's extremely unlikely. The reality is that the American establishment simply does not care enough about Russia to do something like that, not when China is eyeing Taiwan and trying to extend its influence. Russia has been effectively contained, even if they win in Ukraine they're spent for a generation at least, probably forever. Finland has joined NATO and Sweden has in all but name, Europe is collectively rearming in a way that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago and will be able to deal with Russia without having to heavily rely on american intervention. Of course the US would prefer a Ukrainian victory (although they're divided internally over what that looks like), but they're not willing to expend much to achieve that victory and certainly not American blood.
I don't think that Putin is scared of the domestic consequences - his approval rating has gone up since the conflict started. Hell, he's actually doing substantially better in terms of approval rating than Biden is. I find it rather amusing that your framing of this paints a picture of Putin's government being substantially more beholden to and dependent upon public opinion than the USA
The position of an autocrat is a strange one, they are less beholden to their people than leaders in more democratic societies, but are simultaneously in greater fear of them. The threshold for discontent that would cause a leader to be replaced in a democratic society may be far lower than that found in autocratic societies, however a similar relationship exists in terms of the consequences for the deposed leader. Democratic leaders get to retire into private life, autocrats are dragged out of pipes and sodomised to death with bayonets. The fate of Gaddafi apparently deeply affected Putin and has influenced much of his thinking since, Tsar Nicholas the second probably also weighs quite heavily on his mind these days. If I were him I'd be pretty damn cautious right about now, it doesn't help that the nature of autocratic systems means they tend to stifle the warning signs until everything goes up.
Mer
10mo ago
Russians can also now launch operations from the North and Ukraine has to defend.
They could, but they probably won't. Russia has shown zero real desire to start seriously engaging along another front since they withdrew from north of Kiev. More likely Russia sends some bottom of the barrel troops to hold the line, perhaps even resorting to sending conscripts, but Putin seems very scared of involving any of them in the war, even when the law says he could. Offensive operations require motivated troops, which Russia has been burning through with alacrity and they'd be better used fighting somewhere that matters. Overall the Ukrainians running the war have shown themselves to be competent, they've mostly been making sensible moves on the macro level, they know the situation on the ground better than probably anyone else and I don't think they'd do something as big as launching raids into Russia unless they felt that it was really advantageous.
Overall I believe actions that might force further mobilisation in Russia are not good for Ukraine.
Further mobilisation is going to happen regardless, the only thing that's going to stop another wave of mobilisation is if one side folds before it gets to that, which seems exceedingly unlikely at this point. Or Putin decides that it's too politically risky and he'd rather lose the war, which also seems unlikely. You don't win wars by being afraid of seriously hurting your enemy, you do so by shattering their will or ability to fight. Putin has made it clear that the roads to those objectives are paved with dead russian soldiers and destroyed russian weapons.
They are massively benefitting from Russian leadership’s desire to make the war invisible to daily lives of ordinary Russians, and because of this they are able to keep parity in soldier numbers against a much more populous rival.
The number of able bodied men within a country and the number of soldiers a country can field are not the same. Again and again in this conflict people act as if Russia is "going easy" on Ukraine, rather than fighting to the best of the ability that the political leadership feels it can. Putin is very clearly scared of the domestic consequences of acknowledging the seriousness of the situation and putting Russia onto a real war footing, delaying important decisions like mobilisation or major withdrawals until it is impossible to do so any longer. Putin isn't afraid of losing this war by having Ukrainian tanks rolling into Moscow, he's afraid of being hung from a lamppost by his own people. Ukraines total population is smaller, but has a far higher level of motivation per capita than Russia does and will be able to mobilise a much greater proportion of society towards fighting the war.
They hated him for he spoke the truth.
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