ResoluteRaven
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User ID: 867
ResoluteRaven
2d ago
Myanmar
The Burmese Civil War rumbles on, with rebel forces pulling back from Myawaddy on the Thai border, because apparently the Karen National Army and the Karen National Liberation Army don't get along. All the same, the map still isn't looking good for the central government, with attacks on all fronts, fighting on the outskirts of Mandalay, and the Arakan Army closing in on the regional capital of Sittwe. At this point the partition of the country into 5 or more states seems inevitable, which seems like it will be mostly a victory for traffickers of drugs, arms, and people, who can thrive in the chaos of a half dozen failed states. But hey, maybe one of these ethnic groups will thrive without the Bamar boot on their neck and end up building a successful and prosperous society. Here's hoping.
ResoluteRaven
2d ago
Every time I've gone online since I was 10 years old I've seen some braindead take or fallacious reasoning or contradictory position being expressed. The world is full of people who are ignorant, immature, incoherent, insane, and intransigent and no amount of arguing on my part is going to make a dent in their number. If I tried anyway and blew up at every instance of what appeared to me to be deranged hysteria, I would in fact become one of those deranged hysterics myself (I believe we call them Twitter People). Since that still wouldn't accomplish anything and is, as the kids say, a bad look, I choose to channel my time and energy towards more productive tasks instead. That's all there is to it.
ResoluteRaven
3d ago
That could help adjudicate the question of whether the Ukrainian resistance is an authentic homegrown phenomenon, or if it's largely being sustained by Western pressure.
I am confused by the belief many here express that Ukrainians are being hoodwinked into fighting against their own interests and better judgement, considering the number of examples we have of the West trying to convince a people to fight with the full force of economic and political propaganda and failing spectacularly e.g. Bay of Pigs, South Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Venezuela. There's simply no way you can sustain a high-intensity war for over two years on smoke and mirrors if the population is ambivalent, and the moment they become so the front lines will collapse like those of Tsarist Russia or Imperial Germany in 1917-18.
As to your point about the draft, it seems to me like it would only be dystopian if you see the entire concept of nation-states as such. You don't stop being a citizen of your country when you go overseas; they can still make you pay taxes, have you extradited to stand trial for crimes, and compel you in any number of ways. The suspension of consular services for a month is a relatively mild measure as far as these things go, and will probably just create a small undocumented population in several countries. If the Polish or Estonian governments ever start grabbing Ukrainian refugees off the streets and deporting them to the front lines in unmarked vans at Zelensky's request (and if I were a refugee who didn't want to fight, I would definitely want to stay out of countries that hate Russia so much that this is even conceivable), I'll agree that they've gone too far.
ResoluteRaven
2d ago
The point is that those are the same people. They say the same things in person that they do online because below a certain age there isn't a difference in their minds and you have to treat it as such.
ResoluteRaven
2d ago
Under a worst-case scenario I would expect Chinese economic and political support and perhaps a limited military intervention to stabilize the Kachin and Shan statelets on their border as a buffer zone. There isn't any other country that would want to get involved, so they might even be able to get the UN to foot the bill for such an operation if they play their cards right.
ResoluteRaven
3d ago
It appears that humans have between 350 and 400 olfactory receptors, so I suppose once we fully describe them we'll have as good a model for smell as we can get. Taste seems to be a lot simpler, and yet people are still finding new receptors there as well (though having tasted salt licorice I would say that's one better left unstimulated).
ResoluteRaven
5d ago
This line of argument goes at least as far back as Gibbon's claim that Christianity fatally weakened the Roman Empire and the modern online form includes a heavy dose of Nietzschean master-slave morality in the way they contrast supposedly Pagan and Christian ethics. In a sense they are correct, in that if one is committed to permanent racial separatism and inequality then any universalist and egalitarian ideology, be it Christianity, Communism, etc. represents a beachhead from which future moral attacks may be launched on your position. What they don't have is any sort of workable replacement, retreating instead into memes and BAP-type shitposting rather than doing the hard work of building a philosophy to replace the one they continue to hack away at even as it holds up the ground beneath their feet.
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