Mewis
1yr ago
Is it actually productive to try and understand Russian motivations? Regardless of their motivations, they're trying to use force to conquer an independent nation, one that was attempting to align itself with the West. The fact that they might see this as part of a broader conflict with the West isn't news, and it doesn't change matters on the ground.
In addition, it seems like most people in Western countries, including many people here, come at the issue of trying to understand Russia from the perspective of trying to justify war - the Russians are inherently authoritarian/imperialistic/belligerent/orcish, and therefore must be destroyed. I don't think this attitude is helpful or should be encouraged.
Mewis
1yr ago
This is meant to be taken as a thesis, and as a start of a discussion of what conservatives actually want to achieve rather than soap-boxing.
As I've pointed out here in the past, conservatives do not actually want to achieve anything - they don't have a grand utopian vision that they want to realize. They are perfectly happy to do nothing, so long as nobody else gets to do anything either.
Mewis
4mo ago
Moral considerations aside, a large number of commentators thought that it would be foolish to sue for peace under pretty much any circumstances because Putin wouldn’t keep to it.
People believe what they want to believe - warmongers like to believe war is inevitable because it relieves them from having to seek peace. So now any number of Ukrainians and Russians can be fed into meatgrinders because there's no alternative.
Mewis
5mo ago
If that care is almost certain to be ineffective, then it's not, regardless of the good intentions of the would be saviour. Suppose my baby was dying and a charlatan offered to exorcise it of the demon that was surely killing it. It would not be murder for me to ignore this claim, or the claims of anyone else who proffered some dubious miracle cure.
Mewis
7mo ago
Russell Brand is an idiot and we're better off not hearing from him. One of the most annoying and vapid commentators around.
Mewis
10mo ago
You can refute it as many times as you like. The promises of NATO to Russia are, by this point, worth nothing, even if the West wasn't openly discussing partitioning Russia.
Mewis
4mo ago
Oh, so the war must continue until either every Ukrainian or every Russian is dead. That's what I'm getting here, unless you want to take the opportunity to elaborate.
Mewis
8mo ago
I don't see that they're clearly required. When determining eligibility, the government doesn't have to consider due process - it doesn't have to prove anything beyond a reasonable doubt. And due process is to do with rights. There's no right to run for president.
Mewis
1yr ago
The Georgist LVT is equivalent to the government owning all the land and leasing it out to the highest bidder.
You say that like it's a bad thing, but shouldn't we want land to be controlled by the people who can create the most value on it? How is that different to landlords owning all the land and leasing it out to the highest bidder?
Mewis
4mo ago
The state can go fuck itself, frankly, if I ever get married or have kids it won't be to shore up the state. One wonders what's even the point of a state that places its own nebulously defined interest above that of its subjects.
Mewis
1yr ago
Why not? I think it would be better for cars to be controlled by say, families, or people with long commutes, as opposed to students or people living in cities, who would get less use out of them. This isn't a hard principle - I'm sure there are plenty of individuals in either situation who might get more or less value out of owning a car, depending on their circumstances.
Mewis
1yr ago
Why is that weird? I think it's natural that people would complain about a problem that they see around them every day - even if they are part of it. I don't think it's hypocritical to complain about the length of a queue that you're standing in, for example.
Mewis
1mo ago
Lifting weights to build muscle is probably detrimental to long term longevity, particularly coupled with a high BW. If you care about that sort of thing.
Mewis
3mo ago
It was always dumb of DeSantis to try and beat Trump. Trump is like 90 years old, just wait for him to die.
Mewis
4mo ago
Distrust is not what is at issue here. Distrusting Putin is rational. Claiming to be able to read his mind and predict what he might do in five years is not rational.
Mewis
5mo ago
You literally linked to such evidence in your post, just to dismiss it because it didn't fit your prior.
Plus, the whole point of Bayesianism is that there is no 'ironclad evidence'. You accumulate a lot of little bits of evidence that revise your opinion one way or another. That evidence can be anecdotes or case studies, or it can be more robust scientific meta-analyses.
Mewis
8mo ago
If you're low functioning enough to struggle to maintain housing/job, that makes it easier to move, not harder. We're not talking about people who have an established career path or a mortgage or are pillars of their community. If you just lost your burger flipping job and are getting evicted and don't have any friends... Nothing is keeping you anywhere, other than inertia! Pack a suitcase and get on a bus.
(This is, of course, how a lot of people end up in California in the first place.)
Mewis
1yr ago
What does this have to do with big heroes? Prioritizing the safety of your 2 year old child over abstract principles is not an eccentricity - it is entirely normal, predictable human behavior.
Mewis
1yr ago
He and She are words already in my lexicon, as is they - they're not particularly loaded down with baggage in the same way that Gloomraven is.
Mewis
1yr ago
That's not what NATO has said in the past (I believe the United States said that Ukraine would be allowed to join a few years ago) and it's not what Ukraine is saying now.
But you know, commentators like you would have told us that of course Poland or the Baltics or Finland would never be allowed to join NATO in the mid-90s. A commitment, like others, that the United States reneged upon. Funny how doing stuff like that isn't damaging to 'credibility' - almost like the only thing that matters in international relations is power and money. Russia's mistake was being weak and poor, and now all that's left is to decide whether they want to lose now or later.
Mewis
2mo ago
My inclination is that if anything, strict drug laws make events like this more likely, because even very rich people end up getting drugs from underground sources. who knows where this batch of fentanyl originated? Where if drugs were legal, this kid would probably have gotten top-brand shit.
Mewis
6mo ago
Like I said about conservatism, it's not constructive to try and identify a goal for white nationalism. Ultimately, these guys are moving according to particular values and drives and according to a particular theory of the world, not to try and reach a particular destination.
Shutting down legal immigration entirely? Fair enough, but most Western countries have already been so "demographically transformed" such that a white ethnostate is impossible to achieve through immigration reform alone.
As the saying goes, when in a hole, quit digging.
Most people nowadays have a non-white friend, family member, partner, or work colleague. White nationalism would mean severing these important relationships. In sum, white nationalism is dead on arrival as a political movement.
Many people nowadays are willing to sever important relationships in the name of politics. Divisiveness might be a obstacle, but I don't think it's what kills the movement. If cutting off a friend over race seems ridiculous but pronoun use does not, that simply seems to be because we've absorbed liberal norms around colour-blindness.
Mewis
8mo ago
I've never quite believed this kind of pat 'if you don't cuddle your baby hard enough they will definitely become a traumatized psychopath' explanation. Children these days receive a vast amount of stimulation and social engagement, far more than in premodern society, but we still have rapists and murderers among us. Not do I see how this is an increasing problem. Parents spend more time with their children than ever. And of course, the 'blame the nuclear family' trick, the latest fashion. We've been loving in nuclear families for oh, only about four hundred years now. How is this a new problem?
Mewis
8mo ago
Sure, on the level of individuals, group differences are hard to Notice. That doesn't mean they don't exist, or aren't meaningful, or that they don't have implications for the future. Individual trees do not a forest make, but forests are still real and you can get lost in them.
The UK was not ready for war in 1938 either. Those who bring up the example are simply bloodthirsty warmongers.
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