RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
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User ID: 317
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
1yr ago
Synder is, to use your preferred terminology, retarded.
https://news.err.ee/1609348263/timothy-snyder-war-should-have-ended-in-2022-with-ukraine-s-victory
Look at the things he's willing to say! It's the same old rubbish about nominal GDP magically translating into military power. He still hasn't cottoned onto what RUSI was talking about in 2022 when it comes to shell production not actually being a function of GDP. Just today he's making wildly inappropriate metaphors for it being 1938: https://x.com/martenkokk/status/1792110889841066040
A few things have changed since 1938. The global balance of power. Nuclear weapons. Military affairs generally. Russia and Ukraine being totally different to Germany and Czechoslovakia in terms of politics, aspirations, goals, geography and industrial power...
He's a fantasyland ideologue who lacks any kind of military understanding, sophistication or nuance.
Mearsheimer is overwhelmingly superior. He actually predicts things (often decades in advance) because he has strategic models that work, not just a desperate desire to say what people want to hear. He foresaw this conflict, he foresaw China-US struggle, he foresaw that invading Middle Eastern countries wouldn't work out... What has Synder ever predicted? You're smearing Mearsheimer because he cited some other people that were themselves wrong about different matters.
Did Mearsheimer say 'Russia will stomp Ukraine instantly'? No, he said the exact opposite for years. He said that Russia would struggle to conquer even the eastern part of Ukraine but that it would incur that cost to achieve various strategic goals and that Ukraine cannot win a war of attrition with Russia. That's what we're seeing, from Ukraine's increasingly desperate conscription and Russia's recent advances.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
1yr ago
Russia wouldn't try to conquer all of Ukraine- is precisely the kind of war Russia launched.
No, Russia did not aim to conquer all of Ukraine with the thunder run to Kiev, fielding maybe 200-300,000 men in all theatres. They hoped the Ukrainian state would disintegrate and that they could install a new government.
Put another way, Mearsheimer is someone who believes in great powers dividing spheres of influence and horse-trading power blocks, without realizing he's less an Bismark and more of a Wilhelm at coalition building.
That's an interesting choice of words. The US has, in marked contrast to Mearsheimer's proposals, created a coalition of Russia, China and Iran! Wilhelm was a strategic genius compared to what passes for American leadership. Was it truly impossible to pass up on inviting such mighty powers as the Baltic States, Georgia and Ukraine into NATO, was it absolutely necessary to antagonize a great power with thousands of hydrogen bombs? Apparently so!
a NATO with a significantly stronger Baltic position and significantly greater available manpower and material capacity
Significantly? Finland and Sweden make up maybe 5% of NATO's military potential. This war has already been pretty disastrous for the West.
The effectiveness of sanctions has been greatly undermined. Russia and China are working together more and more. Europe has taken a massive hit to their economy, suffering at least a trillion dollars in damage. Apparently they had to spend 700 billion in subsidies to reduce the pain by 2023: https://www.eeas.europa.eu/eeas/singapore-speech-hrvp-borrell-shangri-la-dialogue_en
Most importantly, Western stockpiles of key weapons have been greatly diminished. Western military industrial capabilities have been revealed to be shockingly weak. What good is our spending if Russia, Iran and North Korea are outproducing us in munitions? ATGMs, MANPADs, artillery shells are all important and would be needed for war with China, especially if it escalates beyond Taiwan, into Korea and elsewhere. Stockpiles have been greatly diminished for Ukraine and cannot be quickly refilled.
A multi-year period of vulnerability is opened up right as the threat from China becomes most acute. I expect some sneer about Australian bias for Asia but let's be realistic - China is the primary threat. Ukraine is not a key node of the world economy like East Asia.
Furthermore, the war is not going well for Ukraine.
Australia not in NATO
10/10 for quibbling, we still showed up to Afghanistan and Iraq. We'd almost certainly join America in any war, unlike a good chunk of NATO. We're helping in Ukraine with Wedgetails, we sent over some Bushmasters. Australia is absolutely a party to this war. Furthermore, I am also Western and have a legitimate stake in the affairs of matters that concern the West, such as the conflict with Russia and China.
Probably, among other things, that the Russians didn't have air superiority
It's interesting that you seem to think that the extensive use of Russian helicopter gunships and drones don't show air superiority. Apparently dropping glide bombs doesn't count as air superiority either. I'm sure that reassures the poor troops on the ground dealing with FABs!
If you use some niche definition of air superiority like 'controlling the airspace directly above the grey zone so much that your aircraft can fly at all altitudes unmolested by AA' then sure, I guess the Russians don't have air superiority. Though that definition sounds rather more like air dominance. In practical terms if you're being bombed by enemy aircraft much more than your aircraft are bombing the enemy, then you don't have air superiority. In practical terms, why would the Russians fly any closer than needed to an enemy with plentiful SAMs, Manpads and so on? Do they need to be firing their cannons before they have air superiority? The practical definition is the superior definition because it actually matters and is relevant to the substance on the ground. The Russians can use air power to bomb/ATGM the Ukrainians, not with impunity but with considerable effect. That's why normal people and even such revered institutions as the Atlantic Council agreed that Russia had air superiority.
What is the point of these perverse language games?
By your ! and ? and emotional tone, I suspect you feel this was obviously a bad idea. It's less clear what you think was actually the cost incurred, the chances of success, or what you'd concede were the benefits possible.
Chance of success was negligible, they were relying on 'and then a miracle happens' like the Ardennes offensive. The goal was as you say, to sever the land bridge and threaten Crimea, just like how the Germans wanted to split up the Allied armies and repeat 1940. That makes sense. But the goal was not achievable against a well-prepared enemy with superior resources. The Ukrainians should have recognized this and refrained from attacking a superior force with what they had available.
I think it is tragic that enormous costs are being incurred in pursuit of delusional and undesirable goals.
Russia can have more military power than Europe, but not more than Ukraine with European support. If Russia were to compel / achieve a victory over Ukraine, then depending on the form it could take those forces locked down in Ukraine and move them to other potential areas. If a Russian victory meant that the Russians could move through Ukraine to the Balkans, a Russian intervention wouldn't even trigger NATO depending on the country
I'm lost for words. Europe, which contains two nuclear powers, is weaker than Ukraine with European support? Europe, with thousands of aircraft, is weaker than Ukraine which might get a few F-16s to supplement a handful of remaining Soviet aircraft? Didn't you just say the Russians were a worn-out husk?
The Russians somehow move into the Balkans? Through Romania or Hungary, NATO members that decide that the Warsaw Pact was underrated and lobby to rejoin? Russia invades Moldova, another huge and valuable territory of enormous import to world affairs? Or do they teleport across into Serbia to enjoy the unique strategic advantages of total encirclement by a hostile alliance bloc? I'd say 'These words do not mean what you appear to think they mean.' But I can't even conceive of what they might mean.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
1yr ago
False dichotomy, there's no reason to tolerate really bad behaviour among your own people or allow immigration from totally different peoples.
If your son is a total deadbeat loser who molests your daughter, you can kick him out or punish him. That you have some finite, natural obligation to family does not also mean you are also obliged to let random people into your home to stay permanently, regardless of whether they pay rent or not.
Some immigrants are obviously high-value and very economically productive. Others are negative value, El Salvadoran gangsters for instance. States should seek to siphon off the highest-value migrants while rejecting the low-value migrants. But even then, high-value migrants can be dangerous. What if they seek to manipulate your politics and embroil your country in foreign struggles? What if they employ nepotism or favoritism to privilege lower-value coethnics for future employment once they reach positions of influence? Are they loyal to your country when the chips are down or will they move on to greener pastures?
Immigration is a very sensitive and dangerous matter that should be approached with caution. The gains are concentrated (cheaper labour, expansion of consumer base, higher house prices) but the costs are harder to perceive and diffuse (social trust, pension/health costs, political unity and the erosion of institutions).
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
1yr ago
advocating for nuclear proliferation to the Germans and Japanese
The US already had nuclear weapons based in Germany and Japan in the Cold War and still has them based in Turkey. Nuclearization isn't a major change like NATO expansion eastwards towards Georgia and Ukraine, it only alters deterrence logic for those countries themselves. A nuclear Japan could be useful in countering China (another area where Mearsheimer was a decade or so ahead of the curve). Anyway, nuclear threat from Japan and Germany is less than from Turkey and far less than from Ukraine or the Baltics.
The war's progression defied multiple of Mearsheimer's prognosis, starting from whether it would start, to how it would last.
Mearsheimer did not say that a Russo-Ukrainian war wouldn't start, he described the conditions under which it would start if US/NATO foreign policy wasn't changed. He described the limitations of Russian power and the difficulties of occupying a whole country. He says that Russia will withstand considerable pain to pursue its security (this was before sanction-proofing) and that it will devastate Ukraine if the West doesn't change its policy, that logically implies war. Where did he say that Russia wouldn't go to war with Ukraine?
He even foresaw the war back in 1992, advocating that Ukraine should acquire nuclear weapons since the West was hardly likely to extend nuclear deterrence to Ukraine. He raises Crimea, mixed populations and nationalism on either side, control of the Black Sea Fleet, the fact that the Russians are always going to be stronger conventionally, historical antipathy... all factors we're dealing with decades later! He thought the Ukrainians would be less willing to bow to US pressure than they were, yet surely his predictive value is high.
Meanwhile, what have all the talented NATO Ukraine hands and generals gotten us? Hodges seemed to think the Ukrainian counteroffensive was a great idea and would succeed, despite being a telegraphed attack into a fortified and well-prepared enemy who has air superiority. Petraeus was in the same camp! What were they thinking?
https://www.newsweek.com/ukraine-breakthrough-could-come-weeks-former-us-general-says-1823389
And then there's the whole 'Putin's Russia is so weak that we can head them off by giving Ukraine more arms but so strong that he'll invade NATO if he wins' camp that is so well-represented in think tanks and media output, especially ISW. Which is it?
I maintain that Mearsheimer has been far more useful on the course of this war than the credentialed experts who seem to be hyping Ukraine.
nationality
Australian, we do show up for even the silliest US wars and will presumably be called in against China. What is the point of AUKUS if not to tie our fates together?
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
1yr ago
Mearsheimer's argument is not complex:
- Russia has more manpower
- Russia has more firepower
- Therefore Russia will win an attritional conflict in Ukraine
Unlike 'experts' like General Petraeus or Ben Hodges, Mearsheimer actually gets things right. Back in mid-2023 when he wrote that article everyone was hyping the Ukrainian counteroffensive, it promptly sank like a stone because they lacked the mass and firepower to beat the Russians. The war has continued according to Mearsheimer's prognosis. There's no magic trick to achieve victory, you just need mass and firepower. The Russians have it, the Ukrainians have much less. By the way, in 2014 he wrote that while Russia wasn't eager to get immersed in Ukraine and they lacked the power to easily conquer the country. However, Russia would devastate and wreck Ukraine if we continued leading them down the primrose path: https://www.mearsheimer.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Why-the-Ukraine-Crisis-Is.pdf
Lo and behold, he's been proven totally correct on Russian capabilities (they certainly haven't easily conquered the country) and on causal logic, if we keep immersing ourselves in Ukraine Russia will have a very bad reaction and wreck the country.
Imagine calling these guys ridiculous retards with severely lacking analysis and then watching as they're proven right for making the most obvious, straightforward arguments imaginable.
And why should we nuke China's island bases? Our strategy is clearly defensive, it's far easier to present the war to third parties and voters as defensive if we're not the ones attacking. A nuclear first strike against essentially peripheral targets is certainly an interesting proposal, however I'm not quite sure it advances our position.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
1yr ago
RAND reports (rather than commentary) are decent, they're long form ebook analytical things rather than short-term news. I'm most interested in the big picture rather than little villages being captured or recaptured. Mariupol, Kherson, those are important places that well-educated people can point to on a zoomed-out map. Who'd ever heard of Bakhmut before the war? Let alone all those other places where people are talking about the salt mine or the slag pit...
https://www.rand.org/pubs.html?q=ukraine+war&content_type_s=Report&rows=24
I think Mearsheimer was also a good thinker generally, he predicted this whole war back in 2014, that Russia would move to wreck Ukraine but lacked the strength to conquer the whole country. Mearsheimer is a very high level thinker, I don't think he knows or cares about the little towns on the map either and his writing does lack the ground level detail you may be looking for. However, I think he's useful because he gets things right. He was also one of the original opponents of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, putting him head and shoulders above much of the West's top brass: https://mearsheimer.substack.com/p/the-darkness-ahead-where-the-ukraine
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
1yr ago
Wikipedia is full of Ukrainian partisans. They waited about 6-9 months after Ukraine lost Bakhmut to declare it a victory for Russia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Battle_of_Bakhmut/Archive_5#Result
The ISW put out a report (written by two Ukrainians and a neocon) saying that Russia's only chance of victory was its efforts to manipulate our perceptions of Ukraine and that we can and should mobilize our economic resources to win Ukraine the war. They cite a nominal GDP graph to back up this point. This is pretty dubious - despite a high GDP the West apparently lacks the industrial power needed to compete with Russia in munitions production. A lot of our GDP is in services, finance and real estate, not heavy industry.
Furthermore, Russia has thousands of tactical nukes. The US seriously considered using nuclear weapons in Korea and Vietnam, peripheral wars with fairly low stakes. Why should we assume that Russia would not go nuclear in a much more serious conflict in its core area of interest, should it seem that they were on the back foot?
Besides the contested logic of the matter, it's pretty perverse for two Ukrainians to be writing an article decrying Russian propaganda narratives and psy-ops while asking for unconditional, near-blind faith in Ukraine.
https://x.com/TheStudyofWar/status/1772941705903313328
I don't know about the other sources but I recommend serious caution on wikipedia and ISW. This is a hard war for anyone to be objective on.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
1yr ago
Women are looking for a good-looking, confident but humble, respectful and unconditionally loving confidant who earns more than them...
Men are looking for a harem of sweet, nubile girls who'll provide stress-free sex on tap. Or perhaps a nice, pretty, forever-loyal tradwife who'll stay at home and raise children.
Nobody is going to get what they want unless they're very lucky or high-value. There are trade-offs. The tradwife probably isn't going to be that good looking. The harem girls are probably most interested in your wealth. The good-looking men are hard to lock down. The 'nice guys' aren't so attractive, physically or socially.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
1yr ago
presidential micromanagement to not completely fuck up raises some extremely serious questions about the competence and professionalism of our military brass
Have you seen the Afghanistan papers? Or even Hanania's thread on the Afghanistan papers? The whole war was a massive farce, absolutely staggering waste and corruption. Soldiers on the ground knew this, they were grinding their teeth at our Afghan 'allies' raping children in the barracks. The Soviet Union had all kinds of problems but their puppet state had 1000x the integrity of our puppet state, theirs actually outlasted the Soviet Union, ours disintegrated before we even finished leaving.
It was barely even a war, there was no goal behind it. The revolving door of commanders (16 commanders of ISAF in about 12 years) had no idea what they were supposed to do. One guy arrived and went 'well, I may as well try and raise Afghanistan a few places on child mortality indices'. We were fighting a war based on vibes like being democratic and humanitarian, on looking good in the media.
Armies are tasked with achieving political goals, not implementing vibes. It's not as though Johnny Taliban was better trained or equipped - Coalition forces won all the firefights, they had all the firepower. The political front was even more lopsided, in the opposite direction. Our people had no idea what the goal was, they pointlessly shovelled money into the hands of the worst people on earth without any kind of coherent plan. They were given a budget and told to spend it. This made war profitable for the enemy (which became everyone who wanted our money) - blow up a bridge so you're paid to provide security and get the contract to rebuild it!
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
1yr ago
Bizarre stuff, though it is eye-opening.
Are these women incapable of picking (understandably less attractive) simp/soyboy/nerdy men (perjorative terms used to denote an archetype succinctly) who would be flattered by any female attention and very likely take it slowly with sex? No, they have to go after the fratty chad/dudebros who all want to have anal sex and constantly pressure them. Who even wants to have anal sex with women? There's a hole specifically designed for penis, free of feces and it's right there!
The author's career as an onlyfans star shows that she knows that there are a bunch of unassertive and unthreatening men who are very interested in relationships with women, men she plans to exploit financially! A 7 goes for 9s and 10s and is shocked to discover the 10 has more options and is less likely to settle, what a cruel world... Only this 7 is busy doing the exact same thing to 5s and 4s on a ruthless, depersonalized, industrial scale.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
1yr ago
I can't help but see such "inclusion" as actually being rather alienating to women
I recall some of the dehumanizing language they used for women:
https://www.jostrust.org.uk/professionals/health-professionals/nurse-gp/trans-non-binary/language
Bonus hole – An alternative word for the vagina preferred by some trans men and/or non-binary people with a cervix. It is important to check which words someone would prefer to use.
There's also 'birthing persons' for to denote what would otherwise (problematically) be called real women.
Inclusion can mean throwing these novel terms at people, getting everyone to announce their pronouns even though there aren't any trans people there. Creating new words puts people on the back foot, amateurs/students who don't know the technical jargon. It gets people to low-level signal their conformity and acceptance of the party line, mostly out of not wanting to be rude.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
1yr ago
You could short Ukrainian bonds perhaps? I don't know how to do that though, seems like Advanced Finance. Blackrock also has a 'Ukraine development fund' for post-war rebuilding, though that's a very small part of their operations.
The big problem is that this whole area is dominated by nation-state actors who can shut down trading and act as they please. Blackrock is almost a state actor, they're so big. I'm sure opportunities for profiting exist but they're mostly taken by people who can steal from govt contracts (the guys who get paid to laid down Dragon's Teeth, dump them in a pile and say 'job's done').
There are normal markets where you expect things to change quickly based on new information and then there are Special Economic Operations. Lockheed Martin didn't make such big moves as the war began. It went from 350 to about 440 in late '21 to 22 and it's stuck in that range since, decent but not great. Microsoft did better as a longer-term investment, over roughly the same period. BAE has done much better though, I don't know why. You might well think 'defeat in Ukraine will prompt higher militarization in the West' but the US and the West aren't actually militarizing, not since the war began. Munitions production remains pretty low. The US has been roughly treading water in defence spending after you adjust for inflation. These markets don't make sense and you should tread carefully.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
1yr ago
It does rather undermine international law if America cheers and applauds when the ICC issues arrest warrants for non members in Russia and calls for arrests against non-members China and Iran, while threatening sanctions and force should Israelis or Americans be targeted. Then they complain about double standards!
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
1yr ago
US leadership has been behaving somewhat hysterically with this latest war, they've been going around threatening the ICC with the gravest consequences if they dare charge Netanyahu:
https://www.politico.com/f/?id=0000018f-4e0e-d759-a9ff-ff4ee9420000
Issuing arrest warrants for the leaders of Israel would not only be unjustified, it would expose your organization’s hypocrisy and double standards. Your office has not issued arrest warrants for Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei or any other Iranian official, Syrian President Bashar al Assad or any other Syrian official, or Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh or any other Hamas official. Nor have you issued an arrest warrant for the genocidal General Secretary of the People’s Republic of China, Xi Jinping, or any other Chinese official.
Finally, neither Israel nor the United States are members of the ICC and are therefore outside of your organization’s supposed jurisdiction. If you issue a warrant for the arrest of the Israeli leadership, we will interpret this not only as a threat to Israel’s sovereignty but to the sovereignty of the United States. Our country demonstrated in the American Service-Members' Protection Act [also known as the Hague Invasion Act] the lengths to which we will go to protect that sovereignty.
The United States will not tolerate politicized attacks by the ICC on our allies. Target Israel and we will target you. If you move forward with the measures indicated in the report, we will move to end all American support for the ICC, sanction your employees and associates, and bar you and your families from the United States. You have been warned.
How exactly a threat to Israel could be a threat to the sovereignty of the USA is hard to comprehend, though it does explain the stance of the Republican Party.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
1yr ago
Because they'd rather lose goods to shoplifting than pay employees
They've been telling their employees NOT to interfere with robbers, this isn't a matter of penny-pinching. Plug 'employee fired for obstructing theft in store' into your search engine.
Nor does law enforcement care to crack down on basics like robberies, car theft, vagrants, drug dealing and so on (unless of course Xi Xingping is coming to town). See the open air drug markets in US cities, or how some US train stations are used for enjoying narcotics rather than travelling by train: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-03-14/horror-the-deadly-use-of-drugs-on-metro-trains
It's not just corporations, it's a breakdown in society generally. The corporations don't want theft of their products but they're clearly more afraid of inconveniencing criminals, just like every other institution.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
1yr ago
Fact check "Young white men vote Trump": Mostly True
"For example, young White men supported President Trump by 6 points (51% vs 45%)"
https://circle.tufts.edu/latest-research/election-week-2020#the-views-of-young-trump-voters
Though you're also correct in that young people vote Democrat and that young white men don't overwhelmingly vote Republican: Young White voters preferred Biden by 6 points (51% vs. 45%).
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
1yr ago
Isn't it whites that created the desirable accommodation and the jobs? The entire industries in question? The institutions that allow economic prosperity?
You're complaining that the people who developed the world economy, implemented free trade and organized mass migration aren't getting out of the way quickly enough, so you can reap more spoils from a presumably highly paid software job?
I have to admire your straightforwardness and consistency in this position.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
1yr ago
How about King Charles's mildly satanic painting?
I don't know why you'd make yourself look like you're bathed in blood or wreathed in unholy flame. Rand Al Thor can pull it off but he is the Dragon Reborn, greatest hero of two ages. When King Charles takes a cursed sa'angreal sword from an ancient fortress and faces down the forces of darkness, then he can appropriate fantasy hero aesthetics for official portraits.
I've argued in the past that there is a certain malign or subversive element in some elite art, consider people like Cleon Peterson or the Pope's rather unusual looking sculpture. Apparently that has all this special Christian symbolism - I would've thought that a cross would be more appropriate but what do I know?
There's also this (somewhat nsfw?) painting of a child getting throatfucked which somebody vandalized, much to the displeasure of Macron: https://x.com/Censor__This/status/1658938149844791300/photo/1
I could add in the CIA plot to spread abstract and modern art, though it's only relevant in the broader sense that art is political and related to politics. I don't have much of a thesis aside from 'a lot of modern art is quite disturbing and indicative of cultural trends towards shock value and dubious tolerance'. There's a time and a place for everything and sometimes that place is sites like bestgore, liveleaks or the artistic equivalent of AO3 rather than art galleries, in my mind.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
1yr ago
Yes, Kierkegaard mentions that asterisk and notes that it doesn't significantly change the conclusions one should draw. It's rather hard to get a high sample size for white on black rape if it doesn't exist.
I think you meant rape is largely intraracial, which it is.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
1yr ago
Yes, there's a whole twitter account of commercials that go out of their way to make white men look like fools: https://twitter.com/StupidWhiteAds
https://twitter.com/StupidWhiteAds/status/1781491226354585957
"Why yes, we at Doritos imagine our customers as impulsive white manchildren who are treated with contempt by their despairing (white) girlfriends"
Even Joe Biden is talking about it:
“I challenge you: Find today, when you turn on the stations, sit on one station for two hours. And I don’t know how many commercials you’ll see, eight to five, two to three out of five have mixed-race couples in them. That’s not by accident. They’re selling soap, man,” Biden said to a laughing crowd in Tulsa, Oklahoma. “Not a joke,” he added.
There's more at the below link. Sure, sometimes they're reaching for anti-white animus where there is none. But there's certainly something happening in the Netflix 'viewshaming' ad, you'd have to be pretty dumb to mix the subtext. Or the British anti-grooming film that was rejected because it dared feature a South Asian man grooming a white girl, it needed to be replaced with a white teen grooming other whites (and one African-Carribbean girl).
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
1yr ago
BMWF couples are well over-represented
I recall a far-right talking point 'black on white rape 20,000, white on black rape 0'.
This link goes into detail on that and provides a fair few charts that show black women are generally considered unattractive: https://emilkirkegaard.dk/en/2023/02/white-on-black-vs-black-on-white-rape-statistics/
Personally I don't know why we'd need charts to show that black women are unattractive but they're there! The OkCupid and reply rate data is pretty clear, if gut instinct wasn't enough.
Kierkegaard also argues that black women who date white men are smarter than white women who date black men, which also makes sense. https://twitter.com/wayotworld/status/1789038821981495741/photo/1
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
1yr ago
There could be complex cyclical trends in the Middle East. People get overly domesticated and decadent, then the next wave of steppe nomads arrive and conquer them, infusing more aggression and willingness to die. Effete intellectuals in Baghdad hit hardest by latest horde (or any disruptions really), ignorant peasants in the countryside are valued taxpayers and food suppliers. Cities were likely IQ shredders for millennia, you'd have plague and urban fertility reduction burning off natural enhancements in intellect, perhaps there was a delicate homeostasis, periods of rise and fall.
There's good reason why people dismiss HBD as explaining too much, just storytelling. But this is the social sciences. Few things are simple, there are all kinds of factors we can't measure.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
1yr ago
In Australia we just expelled a Chinese student for working on linking drones together to navigate through environments without GPS, since it was apparently 'WMD-related'. You should tread carefully, a lot of people are getting very excited/scared about drone navigation and targeting.
Honestly they're not wrong, I'm waiting for the moment 10,000 kill bots swarm out of a shipping container somewhere, they'll make 9/11 look like a joke.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
1yr ago
Anti-colonialism.
If you look at Irish history, they had settlement and land expropriation from their stronger, religiously distinct, ultra-Western neighbour. They had vicious and protracted wars with Britain, insurgency, atrocities and terrorism.
It's quite similar to Palestine v Israel. More Western vs less Western, stronger vs weaker, religious conflict, land confiscation. Britain has been closely aligned with Israel since Suez.
No, Mearsheimer proposed competition with China and rapprochement with Russia and Iran, or at least not going out of our way to antagonize them.
Have you actually read Mearsheimer's books or journal articles? If so, you clearly haven't understood them. At no point does he say this. He has a structural model of international relations where the great powers act according to various motivations. This is pretty basic undergraduate-level stuff.
Kherson and the other counteroffensives in 2022 were successful because the Russian army was barely there or decided to withdraw, assessing that it was too risky to be potentially cut off behind a river. The differences between the 2022 pre-mobilization Russian army, spread more widely across unfortified or difficult-to-defend land and the situation in 2023 are considerable.
You need to understand that Russia possessed air superiority and that air superiority is NOT the sole determinant of battles (I think I understand why US struggles so much with COIN with this mindset). Attacking an absent enemy with air superiority is one thing, a fortified and numerous enemy with air superiority is something totally different.
I'm especially staggered that you spend a paragraph lambasting me for motte and bailey and then admit the Russians had the 'superior air position' through the whole war. You just invented a synonym for air superiority that perfectly undermines both your motte-and-bailey argument and your 'Russia didn't have air superiority' point. Wake up! You're defending positions so silly even the Atlantic Council has written them off.
No, they don't. Between Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Poland and Turkey... they can muster a larger army than Ukraine with active troops alone, let alone reservists (or disabled draftees). They are much stronger than Ukraine. This isn't a debate, you're just wrong. Check wikipedia if you like, it's pretty obvious how much larger the European NATO armies are than Ukraine's.
Sounds pretty worn out to me. But I'm sure you can conjure up some elaborate meaning where worn-out means something totally different. And of course you can create some fantasy world where the face-tanked, unmodern (but not worn out!) Soviet stocks are capable of struggling with Ukraine but would beat Europe's far larger and better militaries.
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