BANNED USER: repeated antagonism and bad behavior
Nantafiria
No bio...
User ID: 246
Banned by: @Amadan
Nantafiria
1yr ago
From what I've noticed, the fanatically pro-EU types are mostly blue tribe Americans who adore it as some mythological anti-red America. Most European Redditors(or Europeans in general) are pro-EU too, but lean much more nuanced than whateverthefuck goes on at any given Reddit sub.
Nantafiria
1yr ago
Italy is definitely, absolutely, entirely not a nation where the media is on the side of the EU. And neither is Hungary's or Poland's, for that matter.
Nantafiria
5mo ago
What would the alternative look like to you?
Steppe-bound nomadic peoples are poor. They live off flocks of sheep and ride around on literal ponies (yeah) and make war with arrowheads chiseled from rock and bone. They have nothing you can take from them, least of all land that is a blasted icy hellscape half of the time, and an arid plain doing little good by you the rest of it. You cannot destroy their populace, which will migrate away if you invade. You cannot even hold and garrison their land, since this is logistically impossible.
Most of the time, you make do. Once every few centuries, it goes wrong. But I do ask: what would it take to falsify, so to speak, the theory you're vaguely alluding to here?
Nantafiria
9mo ago
we as a civilization and especially academia cannot possibly acknowledge the truth of it, that'd be unthinkable.
People who insist on their harebrained pet theories as UNTHINKABLE to those obviously small-minded people they live alongside are an incredible tedious lot. Academia historians talk about minute details and obscure theories all the time. Constantly. They don't stop. The degree to which they dig into minute things honestly scares me, occasionally. If they aren't collectively convinced by one guy's substack posts, consider that they are unconvinced for a reason, and that it isn't because they just are too brainwashed by the man to see the REAL truth.0
Nantafiria
1yr ago
The people of Odessa seem to hate Russian imperialism more than they are grateful for the one time she demanded a city be built on their soil. The city of Odessa is in its inhabitants and its people, not in the empress who decreed that specific spot get a city one day.
Nantafiria
1yr ago
I frequently see Somalia trotted out as what a limited state might look like, but surely you can see why people who prefer a limited state don't find that compelling?
The opposite argument comes up in these circles on occasion - or it used to, back when more vivid leftists hadn't yet been driven off as much. Some guy or another would argue the more milquetoast defence of communism, where clearly the problem isn't the ideology, it's what the likes of Stalin did to influence it, and that without such a legacy it'd all be totally fine. The counterargument is an easy one: it keeps happening. Mini-Stalins pop up wherever some communist republic appears. It doesn't stop.
Somalia is for sure a fair critique in the same vein: it keeps happening. Call it CHAZ or post-Qing China or what have you, but pointing out that places with limited or smaller governments are uniquely prone to petty warlordism is entirely a critique that the stronger sorts of Libertarians should think of addressing with a better call than 'that's unfairrrrrr'.
Nantafiria
5mo ago
The Netherlands
After voting in our national elections yesterday, the count is out. Official results aren't due 'till tomorrow, but these results aren't vague enough for the details to matter too much: the big winners on the block are the 'traditional' anti-immigration bulwark of the PVV, the CDA splinter small-c conservative NSC, and the merged for this year's social democrat/green merger GL-PvdA. The previous ruling coalition consisted of the VVD, CDA, D66, and CU, which together have lost a whopping 37 seats (there are 150 in total); it is extremely clear that the Dutch people were mighty displeased with these lot and accordingly voted for others instead.
These results aren't terribly surprising, and largely echo what the polls had been showing in the days leading up to the election. The Dutch left has been toothless and marginalised for a fairly long while now; they have no good response to the issues of the day and seem to not really be trying. Our centre-right VVD prime minister of the past (checks calendar) thirteen years ran out of excuses also, and so people flocked to alternatives; the PVV because they are credibly opposed to Islam, and NSC because they are headed by someone who made a name for himself by being someone with an actual shred of dignity and integrity, enough that his brand baby new party is now four times the size of the CDA he was from. In particular, D66 has lost many people who felt betrayed by their comfort with more rightist parties they went to govern with, and CDA has bled many people disillusioned with their own brand of infighting and petty disputes. The VVD's relatively smaller loss is likely because they largely succeeded on a promise of their own: don't rock the boat for comfortable people.
What this means for upcoming coalition negotiations isn't quite clear, but I find a PVV/VVD/NSC combination to be the most likely. Both the NSC and VVD have in the past expressed doubts about the PVV, but these were never very firm, the VVD has already kinda-sorta ruled alongside the PVV, and their seats make them somewhat too large to be ignored. A more centrist GL-PvdA/VVD/NSC combination that some floated has no majority without a fourth partner, and the PVV is frankly a little too large for them to ignore. A bit of flirting and cautious approaching on the sides of the VVD and NSC has been underway for some weeks. As for the PVV itself, Wilders has been polite enough to just tell us what he thinks for himself.
Nantafiria
7mo ago
Yep. Asian tourists in Western nations tend to do that or stay in hotels run by people of their own nationality, because they do not want to try foreign food. There are plenty of jokes about low-class Westerners sticking out like sore thumbs and refusing to adapt to where they are, but a random Brit or German can be convinced to eat half-baked fusion food that is just familiar enough to be 'exotic' far better than most Asian people abroad can be.
Nantafiria
7mo ago
why is PlayStation competitive against Xbox?
The answer is in large part 'because Japanese people WILL NOT EVER buy foreign products, whereas westerners do not mind buying Japanese'. PlayStation has a couple dozen million guaranteed customers, something Xbox has no way to replicate.
Nantafiria
9mo ago
It is not a detente; it is an alliance of convenience against blue-haired HR vampires. Do note how the religion those people imagine on their side (Islam) does not nearly get so fair a shake here.
Nantafiria
10mo ago
Germany being horribly abused
No, they weren't. They really, really weren't. The Germans sure thought they were, because they deluded themselves into thinking they weren't one people among many in Europe, but clearly superior to all else. After imposing the treaty of Frankfurt on the French, and the treaty of Brest-Litovsk on the Russians, to then bitch and moan about Versailles can only have one name: crocodile tears.
Nantafiria
10mo ago
The military lying to people in order to have them enlist is such a time-honored tradition that, clearly, we can be confident and glad that nothing has changed.
Nantafiria
1yr ago
I despair for the cause of police reform. There was a window where it might have been possible, but anywhere past the 2000s I just don't see it happening.
Put frankly, nobody really cares about this man. Nobody really cares about the median CAF victims: poor people, strippers, general lower-class coded individuals. Nobody really cares about people jailed on bogus charges, put through the justice wringer for ill-conceived reason, or shot to death by trigger-happy psychopaths. It's the just world fallacy in full effect: they probably had it coming anyway.
The median voter has never in his life gotten in trouble with the police. You'd need a hundred Uvaldes to meaningfully dent this - the sorts of tragedy I wouldn't wish on any nation. The median voter is a middle-aged comfortable person with a steady job and living who thinks everything in society basically works as it should. Oh, sure, some politicians are greedy, the kids these days are bad, but the police? Protect and serve. They keep us safe and things steady and that's all we want. If they beat up or imprison or kill someone, well, I guess that's just what their job is.
I don't know what any one nation can hope to do about this, for as long as the median age in wealthy countries keeps rising. The people who vote don't care, the people who get elected have no reason to care, and the police have made more than clear they have negative interest in policing their own.
What's a downtrodden person to do? What is anyone to do? For as long as the median voter really loves the police, I don't know that I see a way out.
Nantafiria
1yr ago
New jobs were assured.
Were they really?
No, genuinely, I don't know that they are or were. I could see people hoping to land a cushy job somewhere, but I could just as easily see that hope be vain and forlorn as it comes.
Nantafiria
1yr ago
London did not represent all of England, nor is extrapolating backward a good idea. People, women included, headed to London because they were desperate and couldn't find work elsewhere. 1887 is also a time where women would get paid far less for factory work than men, and so prostitution is what you resort to not to starve.
Likewise, lower GDP in medieval times can just as easily be read as people not having the actual funds to pay anyone for prostitution. It isn't a metric that'll reveal much either.
And finally: you're sure we should just take contemporary authors at their word? I wouldn't do that today, lest I believe the modern world is irrevocably sexist, racist, evil, and bound for climate death juuuust a couple decades hence. Our ancestors were no more honest than we are, and I'll read into what they say with as much credulity as I'll read contemporary writing.
Nantafiria
1yr ago
Back in high school, we absolutely read the things fascists wrote to learn about that ideology. When I went on to study history in university, we did much the same. None of this happened all that long ago, and it seems to have worked out pretty well, so I don't know why I'd even agree with your base assumptions here.
Also - why are you flipping first names and surnames? What is that all about?
Nantafiria
1yr ago
Didn't the EU just enact trade sanctions against Russia with a great negative impact on the cost of energy for its members?
Yes.
I don't know what the current energy situation is like in Poland, but this demonstrates that being part of that trade-group is not always helping the Polish economy.
The Poles are the nation most in favor of sanctions, and would love for them to be stricter. Arguing that it's bad for Poland when the Poles (with broad popular support) disagree with you is peak tier ivory tower thinking.
While Putin's views of history come with their own bias/inconsistencies/falsehoods perhaps, but at least his vision takes into account history.
This is a meaningless sentence.
What is the EU's views of history?
Putin is one man, and the EU is one of the most disjointed and inconsistent autonomous political entities in the world. If it has a version of history, it isn't the stupid caricature you're talking about. Instead, it'd look like the following:
'Before, Europe routinely tore itself to shreds, from the dark ages all the way to 1945. Today, we recognise this was a terrible thing, full of death and pain and destruction; we never want to go back to that, and we will be better off for unifying under the blue flag with golden stars, whatever that ends up looking like.'
So far, the EU has managed to do this. Between Yugoslavia, Armenia, Georgia, and now Ukraine, I'd argue that the unprecedented peace of the past seventy years inside the EU has been a resounding success, and no amount of wrongheaded bitching about immigrants or gays from ornery foreign rightists is going to convince me that such a peace as we have isn't worth it.
Nantafiria
7mo ago
Lots of things that aren't 'abiding by market forces' aren't theft. Until the day we live in AnCapTopia and everything is left to the free market, that's the world we live in, and things seem to work out pretty well. The archetypical case of theft is robbery: taking something that isn't yours. A thousand employees banding together and demanding higher wages or they'll quit isn't that.*
*Yes, American law makes a mess of that principle. Too bad.
Nantafiria
7mo ago
There are lots of things violating the market principles of spherical cow land that nobody would call stealing. It isn't helpful, and it makes stealing look better more than it makes unions look bad.
Nantafiria
11mo ago
The world had social democrats before anyone had dreamt up disparate impact, and it will have social democrats once people forget about such a concept too.
Nantafiria
1yr ago
You'd think so, but the drive to go against the grain is ever a strong one in some. Well-written criticism of Donald Trump just isn't edgy enough.
Nantafiria
1yr ago
Biden is savvier than some give him credit for, and I think playing dumb is the right move here. If he gets himself actively involved in his brother and son's shady dealings, well, that raises the risk of being dragged down if they're caught. If you speak against them loudly and distance yourself as much as possible, as you say, you will have convinced approximately nobody that you're clean and have attracted approximately five million sharks who smell blood in the water.
Or you play dumb, do your own thing, and don't begrudge your family some cash paid by shady parties who think giving your relatives cushy jobs will buy them influence.
I mean - really, think about it. Suppose Biden came out tomorrow, and spoke out against his family. Suppose he condemned their influence-seeking and money-grubbing ways, coasting by on their surnames. That he'd swear up and down he had nothing to do with it, honest, fingers crossed.
Do you see that as a good move? Do you think that'll convince any single one of the people currently in doubt? Do you think it'll put the matter to rest even slightly?
I don't think it would. And in doing so he'd get people he loves and cherishes thoroughly incensed with him while just getting his opponents more ammunition: 'He knew all along! What isn't he telling us?!'
Better to play dumb. It is what it is.
Nantafiria
1yr ago
It's dumb if your goal is autistic truth-seeking. If your goal is keeping together the Ukrainian nation and keeping out the Russian invader, it really really isn't.
Nantafiria
1yr ago
I don't see anything "conservative", at least as understood in America, in widespread premarital sex, with people with whom you intend to part ways in the morning. Thinking this is lifestyle for which the state should permit the sacrifice of unborn children, doubly so
Well, the words 'as understood in America' are the words doing the real work here, aren't they? A 60-year-old can look at abortion and see it has been legal since he was twelve. He can look at people having sex less, he can see people turn out basically fine, and he can conclude that it's kinda whatever, society seems fine. Conservatism is just that: don't fix what isn't broken. Judging by the failed efforts of some states to ban abortion in their legislature, and the success of most to keep it legal, I'd say 'it's basically fine' is even the median normal person's position.
But yes, the definition of 'Conservatism in America' is the real crux of the issue here. It is increasingly not a movement of stable normal people, and moreso a strange alliance of the ancient, the fervently religious, the fabulously wealthy. Good for them - let them have their movement - but not particularly small-c conservative.
Between this post and others, I don't think your model of how Europeans think and feel is a good one, east or west, nor do I think you quite understand what the EU does or even can do with its member states. Stefferi's post up there would be a good start for you to read; in short, immigration isn't as big a deal as you imply it is, and the EU has little influence on any particular nation's handling of it anyway.
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