Pasha
Defend Kebab
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User ID: 481
Pasha
Defend Kebab
1yr ago
I am a bit confused by this. Is there any logical reason for a nazi symphatiser to claim the Holocaust wasn't as murderous as the official accounts? One thing is certain, the nazi ideology is/was quite clear about the need to get rid of the Jews.
Pasha
Defend Kebab
1yr ago
Netherlands, a famous hotbed of authoritarianism and dictators, currently has its longing serving prime minister in history surpassing 3 American president terms.
Pasha
Defend Kebab
1yr ago
Others already recommended the famous Mearsheimer book, but I suppose we all know almost nobody will buy and read the whole book over this discussion. Luckily, he gave a famous 1.5h lecture about it at University of Chicago which happens to be at their YouTube account: https://youtube.com/watch?v=RTksWA1I2UI
Pasha
Defend Kebab
22d ago
people are generally riding heavy bikes very slowly in highly protected lanes
It’s true most bikes are pretty heavy. But no people definitely don’t ride them slowly. And highly protected lanes depends very much on where you are. Suburbs or newly built cities yes. On more historical cities not at all. Also virtually nobody wears helmets with e-bikes either. Scooters going in the bike lane have to use helmets since last year though.
Pedestrians weave back and forth with abandon, huge groups take up the whole path, and dogs on leashes dart in front of cyclists at will.
This is my average everyday cycle in Amsterdam city center to be honest.. but it’s not very safe and with kids in tow definitely understandable to be cautious. Don’t you think something like a “bakfiets” would be safer against rolling than a tow?
Pasha
Defend Kebab
6mo ago
With chess I can agree. The type of person who is into speed running today might had been into chess 50 years ago.
Doing sports is at least actually good for your body and people who go pro are usually not the cognitive elite.
Pasha
Defend Kebab
6mo ago
On an unrelated note, how the hell can I get through these YouTube "you must watch ads" pop-ups?? I am on safari with adguard
Pasha
Defend Kebab
6mo ago
Yes this was either a parody or this place is becoming a parody of itself.
Pasha
Defend Kebab
10mo ago
I am basically ignoring any casualty figures for the reasons I have detailed. I wouldn’t be surprised if Russians truly have significantly fewer casualties since they have a superiority on hardware and munitions and they have been very risk averse in some situations that can lead to mass casualties, preferring to just withdraw. But I wouldn’t be surprised by the opposite either.
I am sure US intelligence has a good picture of the conflict and they sometimes put it out for mass consumption when it’s useful. But I don’t think the numbers at the discord leaks was such an occasion. They were simply taking Ukrainian mod at their word for their own casualties and repeating OSINT numbers for Russian side. My expectation is that there was an intelligence sharing mess up deliberately or not deliberately.
Pasha
Defend Kebab
10mo ago
I am not so convinced by this. Ukrainians also have to tie down forces and equipment to create such a reaction. They cannot use their air assets as much so rapid deployment of force is even more difficult for them.
Pasha
Defend Kebab
10mo ago
Also most Russian women I know seem to be in rather shitty relationships. Maybe it is just my small sample size. I don't know what is up with this.
Pasha
Defend Kebab
10mo ago
Why the hell aren't they calling it a rolling blackout like everyone else? Very confusing term
Pasha
Defend Kebab
10mo ago
Imagine your dad getting fired because you want to pursue a music career and don't focus on your grades. Sounds fun.
Pasha
Defend Kebab
1yr ago
Socialist Romania and Bulgaria were also extremely nationalist, deporting a few million Germans, Bulgarians etc.)
Also quite a lot of Turks (ie just Muslims). Very significant parts of Western and Central Anatolia are full of ethnically cleansed people of Bulgaria.
Thanks for the great write up. Overall the story resonates with me quite a bit. It’s easy to come up with theories of multicultural nations prospering with complicated ethnic arrangements if you are from a wealthy family and lived under the stabilising hand of great Empires. But when the push comes to shove and millions of ordinary people find themselves with the ideological framework of nationalism, means and the opportunity to settle long standing grudges.. they are not so cosmopolitan minded.
Also what I am missing in your story is the affects of Bolshevik approach to the minority groups. I understand that generally they acted to keep national consciousness of minority groups alive through education policies, political groupings and redrawing of borders because they were trying to counteract Russian national consciousness as a threat to their rule. At least this is the impression I get from Russian nationalist sources.
Also missing is the elephant in the room, the Russians and their language. How does the fact that the current Ukraine state is clearly acting to suppress the use of their language and in general their identity, reconcile with your claim that it also accepts itself as a multi ethnic country? I can think of 3 types of successful multi ethnic countries:
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USA, Australia, UK etc. The main ethnicity has set up such a prospering country that the others integrate by themselves because it has clear massive advantages. Maybe some nudging is used but overall not much force.
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Brazil and US with slaves and native peoples. Clear disregard for the minority culture and heavy oppression. Minority cultures aren’t strong enough to resist. This is what Turkey tried and failed with Kurds.
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India. Increasingly Western Europe. Some overarching culture is adopted as the dominant culture. Anglo culture in both cases. This smoothes the tensions between different groups.
The theoreticians you listed mostly clearly imagined something like the first model. All early nationalist theoreticians were very optimistic after all about how great their nation would turn out to be. But the resulting country is clearly rather shit and Russians aren’t integrating so voluntarily. Their framework doesn’t offer any real alternatives. Soviet Union tried to use the Russian culture as the overarching framework but that failed and now not an option. Ukrainian state has been trying the second option but it’s quite risky especially if the minority population has a gigantic mother country nearby who has geopolitical interests in invading you.
In the end maybe this war resolves the problem “organically”. People of Ukraine are being forced to choose a side and if UAF somehow doesn’t manage to re-conquer the annexed territories, it will have a much more ethnically pure albeit smaller country in the future with almost all citizens dedicated to the nationalist project.
Pasha
Defend Kebab
1yr ago
Yes that’s exactly my point. Denmark doesn’t have that much of a choice. Most they can affect is to replace the Iraqis with Romanians in the short term. Slight improvement
Pasha
Defend Kebab
1yr ago
I see them as bolstering the Vysehrad Tendency: in favour of the EU, but also strong on sovereignty issues, especially regarding borders
I strongly doubt this. Given how extraordinarily they will be indebted to the US and EU at the end of the war, I don’t think Ukraine will be at any position to have a political spine against the EU institutions. Something like Romania is much more likely. Very corrupt country going totally under the radar in the EU institutions since they vote with German line on every issue.
But of course no EU entrant country, not even Bulgaria, was as demographically, politically, economically fucked up as Ukraine. It’s also quite a large and populous country in comparison so I have doubts if the EU can spare funds necessary for its development even if they wanted. So this whole saga might also develop into a strange farce by time.
Pasha
Defend Kebab
1yr ago
actions of the Russian Orthodox Church (statements by Kirill, most notably) are quite relevant to the current war
How so?
Pasha
Defend Kebab
1yr ago
I truly hope so because I am worried about some people I know who is going down this path.
Pasha
Defend Kebab
1yr ago
Ukrainians have only shown resolve the entire time
That sounds like a very much anachronistic claim to me.
Pasha
Defend Kebab
1yr ago
Rutte is basically a walking corpse at this point. He was supposed to retire before covid, but ended up staying "one more term" as the country would probably have multiple repeat elections and coalition failures during corona if he left. Now he is entirely toast in polling and probably won't survive 4 years. Scholz isn't much more popular as a leader either and has to appease FDP. A newer bigger euro crisis just when the creditor nations cannot make difficult political decisions would be the perfect storm
Pasha
Defend Kebab
6mo ago
https://x.com/Ike_Saul/status/1711780282725011520
It is a bit lame to post a twitter link and say I agree with it, but this piece resonates with me so much that I wanted to share it here. I still believe this place is majority composed of reasonable people, notwithstanding the couple of accounts that has spent the last couple of weeks plotting genocide scenarios and reliving their war on terror "they hate us for our freedoms" high one last time.
To delve deeper into the uncomfortable topic of the looming genocide, I also increasingly get the feeling that contrary to the expectations of some whose view of geopolitics is eerily similar to RTS mechanics, the genocidal military power IDF is displaying right now is ultimately going to harm Israel a lot more than it helps. I think it mainly has to do with political/military leadership trying to cover their ass and muffle their enormous failures with the sound of bombs. If IDF really goes through with their plan which seems likely to cost civilian lives in the hundreds of thousands, I don't think the nation of Israel will ever recover from this.
It is a country that is already losing two of its most powerful weapons:
- Endlessly idealistic and intelligent Ashkenazi founders who knew to out-think and out-work their opponents at very turn, and most importantly to not lose the sight of their goal even when they had to take very nasty decisions at times: to create a people. Not to destroy one. These people are not only losing out in demography but also they are losing the soul of the nation. Their spirit will not survive a Gazan genocide.
- Zionist influence in the Western world. Through a combination of dedication, money, human quality, well-crafted propaganda, historical guilt and Cold War positioning, Zionists has always had a very unique power position in Western institutions, especially the US ones. This is quickly disappearing. Western Jews are assimilating into the PMC deracinated blob at a breathtaking pace. They are losing the set of assumptions that motivated them to identify with their kin in Israel, and they are losing the power that comes from ethnic favoritism. A Gazan genocide is very likely going to be the final nail in the coffin here.
I fully agree that the situation with Gaza is entirely unsustainable. But if Israelis go through with what they are plotting right now, they will slowly but surely find out that they are 7 million souls surviving in an ocean of half a billion through miracles, and they are pissing in the miracle potion.
Tinder/Bumble/whatever is popular in the area. You can practically never discover a place better than what a local can show you. You get to make interesting and distinct memories everywhere because you will be able to associate trips or cities with different persons.
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