WestphalianPeace
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User ID: 184
WestphalianPeace
6mo ago
Such a great series.
Novawar (now Iamnova) also did an entire let's play of Legend of Dragoon for those who are irrationally attached to that ancient rpg.
By the late spring of 1941, stocks of coal in Germany were virtually non-existent and output was well short of requirement. At a meeting of the Four Year Plan at the end of June, General Hanneken reported that the German Grossraum faced an overall coal deficit of roughly 40 million tons. This reflected both the lagging production of the pits and the ever-increasing demands of Ger man industry. As a result, the occupied territories were being supplied at a rate of only 60 per cent of requirement. Within Germany, the steel industry was having its coal consumption throttled by 15 per cent and there was the threat that this might soon be increased to 25 per cent. Even the producers of electricity and gas could no longer be exempt. Cutting the coal allocated to households was not an option, since to ensure the continuity of industrial supplies in the first half of 1941, inadequate preparations had been made for laying in the necessary household stocks for the coming winter
pg 497
Behold. The masterpiece of Nazi Economic Gleichschaltung. The Party will Coordinate the whole economy. Industry and Community will become one. And shortages will become a thing of the past. The stern hand of the Leader will ensure that economic inefficiency, which is only a result of profiteering and sloth, will disappear.
WestphalianPeace
10mo ago
There's also a few Hmong in French Guiana. Instead of bringing old allied Hmong to the metropole the French basically looked around, found an equivalent jungle geography, and sent them there. And instead of getting culture-bound diseases they flourished instead!
There's also several large enclaves of Mennonites/Anabaptists. I recall specifically in Bolivia and Argentina but there are probably some elsewhere.
Brazil used to have a sizeable Japanese diaspora in the millions.
WestphalianPeace
10mo ago
My intuition is that it's
- an internal propaganda offensive to shore up internal support. Something to avoid the grinding stalemate narrative.
- a social taboo coup. US has restrictions on it's equipment being used to attack into Russian territory. Perhaps this offensive is intended to normalize the idea of fighting on Russia soil itself until the US gives permission to use donated equipment to strike inside Russia territory. There are many cases of Russia artillery attacking target in Ukraine and then scooting across the border to avoid retaliation. Get permission now and normalize the idea before the US presidential dice roll.
- There is no politics involved and it was just an intended to draw away Russian troops from further south. Russia has been slowly but successfully grinding forward there.
but mostly, be skeptical of anyone saying with certainty they know what it is.
WestphalianPeace
11mo ago
Likewise for me.
WestphalianPeace
11mo ago
I'd like to apologize to the critics of my post. Their comments deserve to be read as well.
It's a bad habit of mine to write in a fit of passion and then find myself unable to find the time or willpower to respond to critiques of my comments. But really, if you read my comment please also make time to read other people's criticism's of my case.
Should we bring back thee & thou?
We should.
As George Fox points out in his classic book titled
A Battle-Door For Teachers & Professors To Learn Singular & Plural; You to Many, and Thou to One: Singular One, Thou; Plural Many, You.
Wherein is shewed forth by Grammer, or Scripture Examples, how several Nations and People have made a distinction between Singular and Plural. And first, In the former part of this Book, Called The English Battle-Door, may be seen how several People have spoken Singular and Plural; As the Apharsathchites, the Tarpelites, the Apharsites, the Archevites, the Babylonians, the Susanchites, the Dehavites, the Elamites, the Temanites, the Naomites, the Shuites, the Buzites, the Moabites, the Hivites, the Edomites, the Philistines, Amalekites, the Sodomites, the Hittites, the Medianites, & c.
Also, In this Book is set forth Examples of the Singular and Plural, about Thou, and You, in several Languages, divided into distinct Battle-Doors, or Formes, or Examples; English, Latine, Italian, Greek, Hebrew, Caldee, Syriack, Arabick, Persiack, Ethiopick, Samaritan, Coptick, or Egyptick, Armenian, Saxon, Welch, Mence, Cornish, French, Spanish, Portugal, High-Dutch, Low-Dutch, Danish, Bohemian, Slavonian: And how Emperors and others have used the Singular word to One; and how the word You came from the Pope.
Likewise some Examples, in the Polonian, Lithvanian, Irish, and East-Indian, together with the Singular and Plural words, thou and you, in Sweedish, Turkish, Muscovian, and Curlandian, tongues.
In the latter part of this Book are contained severall bad unsavoury Words, gathered forth of certain School-Books, which have been taught Boyes in England, which is a Rod and a Whip to the School-Masters in England and elsewhere who teach such Books
We should value our language.
WestphalianPeace
11mo ago
The problem with trying to make language rules explicit for students is that it violates two department's inclinations.
Linguistics majors are predisposed to fetishize change. They find language stability boring. Stability isn't why they got into this niche subject.
Meanwhile Education majors find education programs that work tremendously boring. They hate Direct Instruction, the 'Banking Model' of education, and they hate repetition. Doing sentence diagrams day after day isn't what inspired them to get into teaching.
What happens when you combine a group that finds teaching sentence structure boring with a group that thinks teaching kids grammar at all is inherently evil is that each group feeds into the other. The teachers are given an worldview that says they never need to teach sentence diagrams, they don't need to repeatedly explain the same concepts over and over again, and they don't have to awkwardly watch as some kids get it and some don't. The teachers in turn advocate for the linguist worldview. A Gordian knot is born.
WestphalianPeace
11mo ago
Sid Meir observed that people simply cannot process probabilities.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=MtzCLd93SyU&t=1168
"We found that there is this point, and it's kinda around 3 to 1, 4 to 1, where people do expect to pretty much win everytime"
30% doesn't mean about 1 in 3. It means impossible. He had to manipulate how the numbers played out in the background so that it fit with people's sense of what probabilities mean, rather than actual probabilities playing themselves out.
So far the only luck i've ever had explaining it to people is to say "most pollsters thought it was impossible. Silver said it was unlikely but about the same chance as hitting a baseball. and people do hit baseballs"
For some reason the baseball analogy is the only thing that seems to crack the innumeracy.
WestphalianPeace
11mo ago
- the amount of calories in X doesn't count because 'it's good for you'.
- dividing 4 by 2 is too much math. calories counts are whatever it says in bold. checking serving amounts is an unreasonable and absurd ask
- "you can't expect me to just not socialize" when it's pointed that dieting and then a full meal at a restaurant twice a week is futile
WestphalianPeace
11mo ago
Your 'Magic Wand Thinking' term is eerily familiar. I've internally termed it some variation of 'Tribal Brain' or 'Shaman Brain'. Just that acute sense that how the world must work is that there is Good Stuff and Bad Stuff. You either need to find the good stuff and it will all be better, or you need to excise the bad stuff and it will all be better. "The Dose Makes The Poison" makes no sense in this magic world. Good things are absolutely good and more is always good. Bad things are absolutely bad and the smallest dose will ruin everything.
But it's hard for me to be too harsh, even if it's despairing. Because whenever I read of one of those obscure African tribes that attribute all ills to witches or cargo cults in the Pacific it just feels like that's basement humanity. That's what we all instinctually revert to if we don't have constant social pressure from birth, or predisposition luck, to be otherwise.
I think there is also a gigantic intuition in the brain to go with whatever is the local social default. Human despise figuring thing out from first principles over and over again. Whatever others are having must be what's normal. Whatever others are having must be what you personally should want. Which makes sense in an amazonian, PNG, or savannah tribal context. But portion sizes have shifted to ridiculous extremes and now everyone is trapped is a default = poison context.
Wesphalian Peace mentioned in proxy!
Occasional reminder that the Nazi's rhetorical explanation for giving up at the end of ww2 was "if this continues the devastation will approach that of the 30 years war and we don't want that"
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