Soriek
2yr ago
Argentina
Javier Milei surprised the world not just by winning the Argentinian election, but by beating Economy Minister Sergio Massa by a commanding 12 points. I assume this now means he is assuredly the first elected anarchist-capitalist head of state in history. While the world has been paying more and more attention to his antics in the past month, the last few days have seen a wave of “who the heck is this guy?” Pictures of his cosplay past have come up alongside his juicier quotes, and photos of his fans wearing Chainsaw Man face masks at his rally.
So what happens now? I don’t think anyone knows but in my opinion, probably not much? Milei has a minority in Congress, which means he doesn’t have a mandate to push any of his incredibly ambitious reforms through. Libertad Avanza will work together with some members of Juntos por el Cambio, the center right party that endorsed him after the runoff, but many of their members have said they have no interest dealing with Melei at all. Even with all of their seats together (LA 35 + JxC 31) they would only have a two seat majority in the Chamber of Deputies. And it seems very unlikely they’ll be able to get anywhere near that much support from JxC.
He has promised to privatize as much of the Federal Branch as he can, which supposedly excludes the sizable Health and Education Ministries because they apparently operate at the provincial level. What remains at the federal level will be shrunk from 18 down to 8. Does he have the power to do all this without input from the legislative branch? It’s not really clear to me. Interested to hear if anyone else understands the situation better.
Soriek
2yr ago
US and China
Presidents Biden and Xi Jinping finally sat down and had their summit. Opposition to Chinese interests has been one of the few things there’s bipartisan collaboration on in the American government (See: the CHIPS Act) but the US is also stretched thin with conflicts in Europe and the Middle East and has no interest in dealing with yet another boondoggle in East Asia. China, on their end, has been dealing with enough economic wonkiness that they probably also don’t want another conflict to deal with as well. Some people argue that a nationalist maneuver towards Taiwan could hypothetically distract the population from their present woes, but I would be pretty shocked if China did anything aggressive, especially without waiting to see if a more pro-Chinese candidate like Terry Gou wins in the Taiwanese elections.
So both leaders have populations opposed to each other while also having enough problems that they don’t want any more. What was accomplished from their meeting? Probably nothing very definitive, but hopefully reopening dialogue will help avoid future conflict. From the White House brief:
The two leaders made progress on a number of key issues. They welcomed the resumption of bilateral cooperation to combat global illicit drug manufacturing and trafficking, including synthetic drugs like fentanyl, and establishment of a working group for ongoing communication and law enforcement coordination on counternarcotics issues.
The two leaders welcomed the resumption of high-level military-to-military communication, as well as the U.S.-China Defense Policy Coordination Talks and the U.S.-China Military Maritime Consultative Agreement meetings. Both sides are also resuming telephone conversations between theater commanders.
The leaders affirmed the need to address the risks of advanced AI systems and improve AI safety through U.S.-China government talks.
The two leaders exchanged views on key regional and global challenges. President Biden underscored the United States’ support for a free and open Indo-Pacific that is connected, prosperous, secure, and resilient. The President reaffirmed the United States’ ironclad commitment to defending our Indo-Pacific allies. The President emphasized the United States’ enduring commitment to freedom of navigation and overflight, adherence to international law, maintaining peace and stability in the South China Sea and East China Sea, and the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
Working together on fentanyl is (in my opinion) they must substantive thing to come out of the talks, hopefully we will see more concrete measures being clarified in the future. Military communications actually haven’t been cut off for that long, only since Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan the previous year, but restoring them is a good sign, especially for preventing potential flare ups in the South China Sea.
"Planet Earth is big enough for the two countries to succeed," Xi told Biden as they and their delegations sat across from each other at a long table in an ornate conference room…
"For two large countries like China and the United States, turning their back on each other is not an option," he said. "It is unrealistic for one side to remodel the other."
Soriek
2yr ago
Israel-Palestine
Supposedly a deal is almost in place to conduct a prisoner swap, with Qatar and the US helping to manage the negotiations:
As it stands now, the tentative deal would include around 50 women and children hostages being exchanged for around 150 Israeli-held Palestinian prisoners in a first phase, according to a senior U.S. official. The numbers are subject to change. There would also be a pause of four to five days in fighting to allow for hostage exchanges and for more fuel trucks to enter Gaza.
A source familiar with the talks in the region said that Israel would choose which Palestinian prisoners it would release — pending a security check. The source also said the deal would include a suspension of overhead drone flights for up to six hours per day so that Hamas could consolidate the remaining hostages. Some hostages are being held by other groups, including Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
This could of course fall apart at any time.
Hundred have been evacuated from the Al-Shifa hospital Israel targeted the previous week (more discussion on the main thread here), and currently tanks have surrounded an Indonesian run hospital. It’s unclear to me if this is a suspected Hamas base of organizations like Al-Shifa was or if this is just a response to a random attack:
The Israeli military said its forces targeted "terrorists" who had opened fire at them from within the hospital.
The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said he was "appalled"...
The official Palestinian news agency, Wafa, cited medical sources as saying that dozens of Israeli armoured vehicles were in the surrounding area and that snipers were on rooftops, preventing ambulances from reaching the hospital.
The health ministry said 12 wounded patients and people with them were killed and dozens more were wounded when an Israeli shell reportedly hit the second floor of the facility.
Take the latter two sources with a grain of salt, but a dozen casualties actually seems plausible and civilians and patients do both seem to be evacuating.
Soriek
2yr ago
Yemen
The Houthis, who recently declared war on Israel and started by firing rockets at them, have now also seized a “British-owned and Japanese-operated cargo ship in the southern Red Sea”.
This raises questions both about whether the Houthis are going to actually manage to make themselves a nuisance, and also if the world community needs to be concerned about free movement of shipping in the Red Sea as well as the Persian Gulf. Jury is out on Iranian involvement:
While Tehran has denied aiding the Yemen rebel group in launching their attack Sunday, the targeted ship before the assault passed by an American-sanctioned Iranian cargo vessel suspected as serving as a forward spying base in the Red Sea…
While their body-camera footage serves as a propaganda coup to bolster their own position in Yemen amid some protests against their rule, it also signals a new maritime front has opened in a region long focused on the Persian Gulf and its narrow mouth at the Strait of Hormuz. It also puts new pressure on commercial shippers traveling through those waters, threatens to increase insurance costs that will get passed onto consumers and likely further stretches the U.S. Navy as it tries to serve as the region’s security guarantor.
Tragically, no one could have seen this coming:
The attack off the coast of Yemen comes just days after the Houthis issued a graphic with captions in Hebrew, Arabic and English that said, “We will sink your ships.” The graphic showed an Israeli commercial ship on fire.
Soriek
2yr ago
Ecuador
Underdog businessman Daniel Noboa will be sworn in as President next week. In the meantime, he has dealt with his minority in the legislature by, surprisingly, working together with the leftist party he ran of removing from power.
Hopefully this means whatever emerges from the next few years will be a moderate mix of the better parts of both parties.
Ecuador's National Assembly chose a conservative as its president on Friday as the new legislative period began, amid a deal between the parties of President-elect Daniel Noboa and ex-President Rafael Correa to form a majority….
The conservative Social Christian Party (PSC), Correa's Citizens' Revolution movement, and Noboa's National Democratic Action (ADN) had agreed to form a legislative majority of at least 85 votes.
The Construye party of assassinated anti-corruption presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio, which has 18 seats, has said it will not join the coalition because of its opposition to Correa….
Venezuela
The past few weeks have been dizzying for Venezuela’s diplomatic relations. First they agreed to hold a free and fair election (remains to be seen) in exchange for the United States lifting sanctions and repatriating Venezuelans. Then they turned around and started holding a referendum on whether they should just annex two thirds of Guyana. This week they’ve decided to play the statesmen again and have restored diplomatic relations with Paraguay.
Paraguay got its first leftist President, Fernando Lugo, in 2008 and the two countries got close for a little while until Venezuela expelled Paraguay’s diplomats in 2012, supposedly in protest of Lugo's impeachment. With the Colorado Party (Paraguay’s ruling party in the dictatorship, which has continued to be dominant) back in power relations turned frosty again quickly. Paraguayan President Mario Abdo Benítez finally cut off relations in 2019 by formally recognizing Juan Guaido as the leader of Venezuela. With Guaido effectively out of the picture, current President Santiago Peña (still of the Colorado Party) has apparently agreed to mend relations. It’ll be to interesting to see why people think the call was made.
Liberia
The nail biter Liberian runoff election has finally ended with incumbent George Weah losing to challenger Joseph Bokai. More importantly, Weah has already conceded. Weah’s own election was Liberia's first peaceful transfer of power since their civil war and dictatorship so this marks another major milestone in a fledgling democracy, and a welcome sign in a region buffeted by coups and juntas. So far things have remained calm, though a car crash just killed possibly up to 10 Bokai supporters - it remains unclear whether it was an accident or political violence.
Soriek
2yr ago
Slovakia
Former and now returned populist President Robert Fico has had his coalition formally voted into government.
Of the 143 lawmakers present in the 150-seat Parliament, 78 voted in favor of the three-party coalition government that was sworn in on Oct 25.
Fico returned to power and took over as prime minister for the fourth time after his scandal-tainted leftist Smer, or Direction, party won Slovakia’s Sept 30 parliamentary election on a pro-Russian and anti-American platform.
Fico formed a parliamentary majority by signing a coalition government deal with the leftist Hlas, or Voice, party and the ultranationalist Slovak National Party…
Fico has stopped the military aid. He also opposes EU sanctions on Russia and wants to block Ukraine from joining NATO…
Fico vowed to pursue a “sovereign” foreign policy, promised a tough stance against migration and non-governmental organizations and campaigned against LGBTQ+ rights. Some elite investigators and police officials who deal with corruption cases have been ordered to stay at home or dismissed and the government plans to ease punishment for corruption, among other changes in the legal system.
Since the group of people you dislike excludes many if not most jews and relevant jewish organizations, and includes many, many non-jews, why not just complain about intersectionalists instead of jews?
I feel like for a long time you were one of the few clarion voices here against the wave of low effort bigotry so I gotta say man, it’s disappointing from somebody who respects you.
Soriek
2yr ago
I guess I struggle to see what’s really different about your views and theirs here. You both think (if I understand) that jewish people are driver of the things you don’t like in civilization and want some kind of power dynamic change that makes that stop happening. It’s hard to accept that “race is bullshit” is really part of this belief when you’re suddenly foregrounding all your criticisms of society in explicitly racialized terms, talking about jewish brain parasites and whatnot.
More to the point, I don’t remember you ever saying this stuff in all the years I’ve been here. But I DO remember you debating WNs and criticizing their weird obsession with jews. After years of telling them to kick rocks, you decided they were just right?
Soriek
2yr ago
Honestly you may well be right - it sounds like you’ve see much more of the show than I have!
Soriek
2yr ago
Machado is in favor of Venezuela gaining the land, but is opposed to the referendum / claiming it without going through the appropriate legal channels, which is basically equivalent to ackowledging they won't get it:
María Corina Machado, the presidential candidate of Venezuela’s main opposition coalition, has urged the government to adhere to the process at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to resolve the Essequibo territorial controversy with Guyana. Speaking to publication EFE, Machado said Venezuela should hire the best defense to “win” the case, a stance contrary to the Maduro regime’s rejection of the ICJ’s involvement.
Soriek
2yr ago
Sure, there are totally very deep themes to be explored and grappled with - but were those the philosophical questions the Golden Age Greeks were wrestling with or the Dark Age Greeks?
Soriek
2yr ago
Haha what a resume padder. I would definitely be interested in reading more.
Soriek
2yr ago
Sorry I should have been more specific I'm talking about Greece. At least my impression is that when far right folks invoke the Bronze Age, they are also mostly talking about Greece and using the Iliad vs Odyssey as primary material instead of Gilgamesh or the the Story of Sinuhe
Great counterexamples. Maybe if there's a thread that runs througout it's a British distrust more of the dirty business of politics, contrasted to a larger trust in the permanent bureaucracy; "Diplomacy is about surviving until the next century, politics is about suriving until Friday afternoon." Even when the civil servants in Yes Minister are portrayed as completely cynical, they still seem like a beacon of competence and stability throughout the larger society.
In contrast the American depiction of democracy itself is more optimistic (or at least it was in the early 2000s) but their suspicion of the entrenched bureaucracy is much higher.
But there's a meaningful difference between your capacity to win wars and your actual, underlying values (is what I think @cjet79 is getting at as well).
The British Empire, for instance, was for much of its duration a society that was very internally concerned with progressive values and uplifting its conquered people rather than celebrating grinding them into the dirt (whether they actually accomplished this is of course highly debatable). But if all historians had were the wreckage of ships from the Royal West African Squadron, but no writings, we wouldn't know that the point of all that military capacity was to carry out a moral mission to end slavery. If all historians had from the American intervention in the Vietnam War were cannisters of Agent Orange, but no records of the peace movement at home, we would have a very impoverished, circumscribed understanding of popularity morality at the time and how comfortable society was with violence.
My argument is how do we know we aren't just doing the same thing here - inventing an artificial morality for the Golden Age Greeks based on only being able to see their societies from an extreme distance, and filtered through the cultural values of a later peoples?
Soriek
2yr ago
@hydroacetylene's comment is an excellent reply; I'd also point you to Brett Devereaux's Fremen Mirage cataloging 800 years of conflict between Rome and the barbarians, with Rome overwhelmingly the consistent winner.
Soriek
2yr ago
I believe you and I fully accept that morality was highly different back then. But notably the two areas you referenced are Egypt and Assyria. What do we know about the Greeks? I would honestly totally accept just being pointed to archeology from then, I just haven't found much in my own casual online research.
Soriek
2yr ago
I’d just attack the central point: the average man has *more *agency than in the past, and the leaders are reluctant because the followers are rebellious. Who wants to babysit a hundred Han Solos? In the land where every man is king, who wears a crown?
This is a good point that would throw things for a loop. I think it's relevant the heroes were talking about aren't necessarily being asked to lead (I think that's one of the bigger differences between older reluctant hero tropes like King Arthur or Cincinatus and say Hunger Games), they're being asked to oppose the current leaders. And the leadership structure they need to fight against (whether government or corporate) is often depicted as all encompassing, dictatorial, and easily capable of squashing dissenters who fancy themselves Han Solos. If people have more agency and it's harder to lead now, this certainly isn't how we're depicting the broader society in our fiction.
Obligatory anti-woke rant: I’m not sure we’re going to be able to do art criticism much longer, since so much of recent art is corrupted by the artist’s conscious metadecision to ask that same question ‘what is this piece saying about our society?’ . What can a soviet or nazi morality tale tell us about their societies? Not much more than what they wanted us to think. It would be ludicrous to claim that soviet realist movies reflect the reality that soviet man felt oppressed by capitalism. In that vein, perhaps the iliad is nothing more than the condemnation/exhortation of a mirage, rather than a reflection of something real.
Maybe, but I'm not so sure this argument can't be made about previous works as well. Whether conciously or not, a lot of great works largely tell us what their creators wanted us to think about society - the Iliad no exception!
Soriek
2yr ago
If I recall correctly, there were some other details that the Iliad gets right. For example (and this is from memory) I believe that chariots were mentioned as a method of warfare. This would have been true in the Bronze Age, but not 500 years later when the Iliad was first written down.
On the flip side, I've heard that most of the tech is more rooted in their modern era, and the period-accurate stuff is more the exception:
[The Iliad's] final form was probably secured in the 700-600s BC, and most of the technology, art, and so forth described in the poem matches the archeology of this period. But hidden in the Iliad are remnants of an earlier era. The third slide of this presentation includes an image of a boar tusk helmet dug up from a 14th century BC archaeological site and a passage from the Iliad describing this same sort of helmet. Its appearance in the narrative would be something like a galleon from the Spanish Armada appearing in a World War II drama.
Interesting point that the rigid structure of the poetry might make it easier to keep the story preserved via strict guardrails.
Soriek
2yr ago
I was going to suggest getting married or having kids. I'm forced to sit on the couch and watch idiotic television for, often, 2 hours a night.
Ironically I've thought about doing this for sort of the opposite reason - I figure if I'm going to keep myself busy anyway I might as well be doing something genuinely productive like raising kids haha.
The maximum amount of unproductive pleasure you should force yourself to partake in is taking time to read before bed or on the couch with your coffee.
This is something I actually want to start doing, at least before I go to bed, in party because I assume it might also be a healthier way to prepare for sleep than screentime.
every human should be able to disconnect for the time it takes someone else to pee
Wise words.
Soriek
2yr ago
I'd say I do experience stress and fatigue from it, but definitely not at a debilitating level
It's funny how these particular behaviors are applicable to me, someone with ADHD, but for entirely opposite reasons. For example, I just spent a few hours studying on Ritalin, and while the drug hasn't worn off completely, here I am procrasturbating by posting on the Motte. Many (most) of my posts, good or bad, are written when writing seems like a refuge from the work I should much more sensibly be doing.
Haha I think part of this is because I'm extremely generous with what I consider "productivity," as long as I'm doing something I'll categorize it like that, so that probably includes stuff other people would use to distract themselves. We both just spend more time producing content than consuming it, here at least, which does feel a little different.
In your case, I would advise committing to a specific chunk of time, say an hour or two, which you mentally label as "me time" and steadfastly refuse to do anything remotely describable as productive during it. Maybe get your wife to scold you if you lapse. Specific mental compartmentalization should work better in a highly conscientious individual, but what do I know about that? ;)
I know something like this is most likely the answer, I just have a strange habit of turning "me-time" or relaxation into another comparmentalized scheduled item. It's like on the meta level i just relate to everything I do on a very controlled, regimented level, but hey that's something I can work on too.
Has their rule policy-wise just not been very different from the previous governments?
More options
Context Copy link