ZeStriderOfDunedain
Ze Strider
There Is Always Hope
User ID: 812
ZeStriderOfDunedain
Ze Strider
2yr ago
India and China's trade climbed over $130 billion in 2022. They may never become allies as we've seen with the PLA's military incursions beyond the LAC many times over, and given China's friendship with Pakistan. But a begrudging partnership is not out of the picture just yet. I don't think the "India factor" would be a bad enough wedge between China and Russia, even as Russia closes into their orbit. Or put another way, even China realises it's unwise to antagonise India to such an extent.
ZeStriderOfDunedain
Ze Strider
2yr ago
Following up from my Reddit API post from last week, Spez (aka Steve Huffman, Reddit CEO) hosted a disastrous AMA yesterday clarifying on the updated terms of API access. Which means, starting from July the 1st, the rate for apps that require higher usage limits is $0.24 per 1K API calls (less than $1.00 per user / month for a typical Reddit third-party app). They "promised" to talk with Pushshift to restore access to verified moderators, allow API access for bots and developers, third party apps, etc. However, apps like Appollo have announced that they aren't happy with the pricing and won't continue to operate anymore because doing so would now cost them $20 million. In reference to this, Steve replied to one of the comments, only to be exposed by Christian Selig (aka iamthatis), Appollo CEO:
Spez: His “joke” is the least of our issues. His behavior and communications with us has been all over the place—saying one thing to us while saying something completely different externally; recording and leaking a private phone call—to the point where I don’t know how we could do business with him.
iamthatis: Please feel free to give examples where I said something differently in public versus what I said to you. I give you full permission.
It turned out to be a bigger disaster than I'd anticipated. No one's buying the profitability claims, because most of this labour is carried out by unpaid volunteers and dedicated users for free. No access to pushshift means harder time for mods and academics who rely on it, as noted by user SarahAGilbert here. Over 3000 subreddits, including the big ones like r/videos, r/music, r/gaming and r/pics, are going on blackout. Some of them, indefinitely. Probably the largest blackout reddit will ever see. Boy am I glad TheMotte moved offsite.
ZeStriderOfDunedain
Ze Strider
2yr ago
Yeah I don't see this directly hurting their profitability in long run, since they make most of the money from ad revenues and premium memberships. What I found interesting is that, many of the most upvoted comments on this issue describe the lack of moderation of far right content becoming an issue, but this was never one to begin with as every alt right sub has been axed since 2019 and they aren't coming back.
Upon a bit more reading on this issue, I'd say it's probably wise to consider that this could really be little more than just compliance with GDPR regulations as adviced by their legal team. So it does seem unfair that basically everyone commenting on this issue is jumping on the "evil corporation" bandwagon, and they'd probably react the same if reddit said they weren't gonna remove Pushshift's access to their API. But honestly, I'm beyond pissed with reddit in general to really feel sorry for them now. If they keep pulling hasty decisions like this one in a way that even pisses off all the left wing users, I say let em burn and I won't grab a single bucket to douse the flames.
ZeStriderOfDunedain
Ze Strider
2yr ago
It's a little late, but I'm gonna talk a bit about the Reddit-Pushshift drama.
TL;DR: Pushshift is in violation of our Data API Terms and has been unresponsive despite multiple outreach attempts on multiple platforms, and has not addressed their violations. Because of this, we are turning off Pushshift’s access to Reddit’s Data API, starting today. If this impacts your community, our team is available to help.
Needless to say, users who moderate subreddits were less than pleased, to say the least as it is a massive blow to critical mod tools like BotDefense and access to a comprehensive list of historical posts and comments filtered by subreddit, user, date, etc. It's also a blow to users who used to rely on it for academic projects to seek out precise information using certain keywords in the right subreddits. One of the comments from that post:
The thing that is most exciting about running Pushshift has always been getting to meet and know amazing researchers in the academic field. The Reddit Dataset paper that I co-authored has been cited a whopping 630 times and it constantly grows. I don't think Reddit fully understands just how much Pushshift is used in research and the academic world -- but when we speak to the admins sometime this week, we'll try and make a strong case to keep as much functionality as we can in the API.
I realise this isn't exactly "culture war" material directly, but I believe it's relevant if a massive website like reddit with an enormous left coded user base takes a hit due to terribly received decisions like this one. We might see more and more jumping ship if this remains a one-way trend.
You probably do not actually care about this and will not deviate from whatever plan corporate has set out. Reddit will probably not actually see that big of a blow to its metrics, but I can foresee a small dip and a lot of mods leaving, perhaps protesting / closing up shop on the way out.
You continually fail to understand that you have staked the operation of your entire website on thousands of unpaid and unmanageable volunteers, of which you're now pissing off continually in half-baked schemes to wring more money out of the site. Even if this doesn't kill the site, it will definitely lead to a decrease in overall quality as the people who care more about having good communities are pushed out in favor of those who instead like seeing numbers go up when they get to mod more subs.
It's really telling how TheMotte had to move offsite due to increasing hostility with reddit and in the past year or so there was too much nonsense showing up on my feed through ads and "popular on reddit" that I have zero interest in. It seems they're just actively trying to boost engagement with currently trending posts and chat. The reddit admin claims it is to protect privacy and sites like these and removeddit violate the principle. But even with that in mind, it doesn't look like most people are buying it.
ZeStriderOfDunedain
Ze Strider
2yr ago
A big part of it is really just hypergamy, it allows them to become extremely choosy. I've met so many young liberal men who are displeased with modern feminism. I do believe that decades of affirmative action and the expansion of the dating pool for women via dating apps has finally taken its toll, and as more men become partnerless or end up with a less desirable partner, they're going to agree that society has had "enough feminism". I do not see a solution to this, even if we were actively working towards pushing for policy designs to raise the TFR like "three child policy" and improve male SMV through "masculinity training" like China is currently doing, I'm not optimistic about their scale of impact.
ZeStriderOfDunedain
Ze Strider
2yr ago
And today, we witness another white supremacist attack by a person of colour
A U-Haul truck crashed into security barriers around Lafayette Square across the street from the White House Monday night, the Secret Service said. The driver of the truck had a Nazi flag with him when he was arrested, according to court documents.
U.S. Park Police on Tuesday identified the driver as Sai Varshith Kandula, 19, of Chesterfield, Missouri. Kandula appeared in D.C. Superior Court on Tuesday afternoon, where he was determined to be a flight risk and a "significant risk to the community."
"There were no injuries to any Secret Service or White House personnel and the cause and manner of the crash remain under investigation," Secret Service spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi tweeted.
No weapons, ammunition or explosives were found in the truck, according to court documents filed by the U.S. Secret Service Tuesday and obtained by CBS News.
The officer then witnessed the suspect, identified as Kandula, walking around to the back of the U-Haul and pulling out a flag with a Nazi swastika and a backpack, the documents state.
In the interview, he made threats against President Biden, saying that he had intended to "get to the White House, seize power, and be put in charge of the nation," the documents said.
I cannot find it now, but I did see a study on twitter that geolocated 70% of all online wignats to Brazil, Mexico, India and Philippines. Perhaps the next casus belli against unfriendly brown autocrats shall be 'combatting white supremacy'.
ZeStriderOfDunedain
Ze Strider
2yr ago
I'm not sure I follow. Perhaps I'm misreading your post and if so, apologies in advance.
Are you asking whether it's rational for one to fear for their life given the stats that show how many civies actually die in these situations? It's a hostile scenario, you're in a crowded train where everyone could very well go into panic mode and make your ability to maneuver that much harder. Even if you remember the stats at the face of your fight or flight instinct, that's no guarantee that things won't escalate to fatal proportions in this situation. A crazy person going crazy in the middle of a crowd is not being rational, so if you don't already have any experience subduing crazies amidst a crowd, odds are you'd act irrationally too just to save yourself.
ZeStriderOfDunedain
Ze Strider
2yr ago
Compared to Neely I'm a force of nature. In a train car with a dozen people I doubt I could do enough damage to kill someone before being stopped. Maybe? Call it under 10%, fixating on one person with the sole goal of killing.
Okay but this is the comment you're replying to:
It seems pretty clear that Neely was a bad dude with a history of violence. While the people on the train likely didn’t know that, violent weirdos give off an aura.
Second his language certainly indicated he was willing to do extreme things.
Third, people read of crazy people like Neely doing crazy dangerous violent things.
Bystander effect aside, you can be an MMA fighter and still be paralysed by the fear factor in such circumstances if you've never been in one in the first place. Very important to keep in mind that one is a contained, monitored environment where everyone has to follow the same rules and medical help will be readily available when necessary. One the other hand, a young man raised in the slums of Rio and who had seen stabbings, people being beat to death, etc. and had to fight for himself a few times would still stand a better chance than the big macho guy who does MMA on the weekends if it was an unexpected, deadly encounter. Because he won't be as prone to hesitate or be paralysed with the fear response. And he will be be more prone to reflexively use his environment and to fight hard and dirty instead of trying to follow a mechanistic, paint by numbers system.
ZeStriderOfDunedain
Ze Strider
2yr ago
I'd say it's a multitude of factors playing together.
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The debates surrounding Israel and American policy in the Middle East in general has been red hot since 9/11 and the Iraq War. The nuclear holocaust scare that came with the Cold War mentality against Russia never really went away and if anything, has just taken an adrenaline shot in the last year. China is a relatively new "threat" in comparison. Whereas a full generation of American thinkers cut their teeth on Russia/MENA.
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The US has been the uncontested superpower between 1990-2010, as a result a lot of American foreign policy thinkers believe there will always be enough resources to do anything, anytime, anywhere.
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Lots more big and rich allies are in Europe, so European concerns will trump Asian ones. How many "true" Asian allies in the most traditional sense, let alone allies (as in, not including "major partners" like India) to whom China is the number 1 security threat, besides Japan and SK? The "pivot" to Asia is just not happening soon enough.
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And yes, China has historically bided its time, got in bed with American elites and kept their purses protruding. It's deeply integrated with Wall Street and Hollywood and makes American supply chains dependent on it. How many films have you seen of suave American action stars taking on the robotic, reticent KGB agent as opposed to a Chinese one? Hell do most Americans even know what the Chinese intelligence agency is called?
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You also require a lot more creativity and deep policy reforms to meaningfully counter China, Russia is much smaller and therefore easier to pick on in comparison. Just keep doing what you do now and Russia will eventually bleed.
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America is divided. The Great American Culture War is it's biggest novel cultural export. It's very difficult to spend time on social media without seeing something about an American culture war issue one way or the other. Various political tribes hate one another far more than they hate any external foe. Recall how to a lot of American progressives, the notion that Trump, their number 1 enemy, could be a "Russian plant" is a strong unifier against Russia. That's right, a fellow American, a former POTUS no less, can radicalise an entire party and its voters against Russia. And even now, some Republicans do believe that Russia "rightfully" belongs in the western bloc. The China scare just couldn't unite the culture war factions.
ZeStriderOfDunedain
Ze Strider
2yr ago
On the pseudo-theological note, and apparently to jive with the Neely debate, this twitter thread about George Stinney Jr's execution popped up in my TL. Now whether one believes teenagers should be tried as adults for violent crimes is a moral quandary I won't get into for the moment. But it's very telling how it's become accepted fact that Stinney was an innocent black boy wrongfully arrested and convicted of rape and murder of two young white girls by a racist court, even though the South Carolina Judge who vacated his conviction 7 decades later made it a point that her judgement pertained to the procedure, not his guilt (or lack thereof).
ZeStriderOfDunedain
Ze Strider
2yr ago
This would just render the previous law meaningless if they're just going to take the kid's word for it when they claim to be trans. It's disheartening how we came about to completely dismantle the family, a basic foundations of society, through a literal culture war.
ZeStriderOfDunedain
Ze Strider
2yr ago
This sums it up, really. 15% of Gen Z's are apparently queer, but I think they just saw the biggest zeitgeist in society that also comes with a very easy ticket and went about seeking validation and care they never received at home elsewhere. Many socially maladjusted folk join online subcultures because of this too.
ZeStriderOfDunedain
Ze Strider
2yr ago
Extremist politics online is mostly just virtue signal to seek any kind of validation. I remember seeing a map on twitter which geolocated most racists online. I can't speak for its veracity nor do I remember the exact source, but it produced some interesting results. Apparently, upwards of 70% of online wignats live in India, Brazil, Mexico and Philippines. Perhaps I shouldn't be surprised after the twitter race war between Blacks and Indians.
What dilemma does he face? He's walked back on his own free speech absolutist promises with American users, see Alex Jones, Ye and the leftist journalists he'd temporarily suspended. He cares about India insofar as it is an important revenue source. He's a businessman, doesn't care about Indian politics, has an axe to grind with American progressives and doesn't want to be blocked off from such a huge market. The Indian government has made it plenty clear multiple times that they don't take kindly to foreign criticisms over internal affairs, be it those farm bills/protests that led to the 2021 debacle with twitter or the BBC doc or the Canadian commentary on the recent crackdowns on separatists in Punjab. A line that Elon is more than willing to toe and doesn't believe he needs to answer for.
Do Hindu nationalists have a "utilitarian perspective" on society? (Honest question.)
This is probably answered by the sentence just prior.
Foreigners in a society aren't going to care about it as much as people who are actually indigenous to that society.
HinduNats believe they're entitled to a certain society that they haven't quite achieved (in their view), a society that's purely territorial and can only be achieved on the subcontinent. When subcontinental issues become part of UK culture wars, then yeah, they're gonna feel especially more loyal to their society of heritage and not their hosts. Because the one thing I can tell you is that Indians take things super personal. Are Brit Pakistanis who routinely demand that the UK must bring up Kashmir more loyal to British society or they are more loyal to Pakistan? After all, the tidings in Kashmir don't directly affect the average English in any way. It's just a rat race to "prove" that the other side must not be believed, but perhaps the Indians will find a bit more purchase because their demand (at least, insofar as Indian officials are concerned) is that foreigners stop making issues domestic to South Asia their own, stop obsessing about it so much and "mind their own business"?
ZeStriderOfDunedain
Ze Strider
2yr ago
Forgive me if I'm misreading you, but I take it you mean black pill beliefs don't necessarily stem from reality? If so, I don't really disagree. My point is that the response itself need not be reasonable and there could be more to the data than the OKCupid stats for example might reflect. But if some asocial Asian fellow in an Ivy League school sincerely believes that even if he shoots for a Lanny Joon physique, he'll never match the SMV of an average white athlete in his class, and ends up deciding that it's all too much effort for too little gain that isn't even guaranteed (in his mind), is it really just a coping mechanism or has he prematurely given up on life altogether? There's still a section of woke who'd sympathise with fat activists, but a maladjusted young male who effectively exists as a ghost in society, who can literally disappear today and no one will notice and let alone miss him, is fair game for shaming regardless of his ethnicity.
ZeStriderOfDunedain
Ze Strider
2yr ago
I don't think much is going to change besides some aesthetics. I do suspect Tory Indians will end up deporting the grooming gangs to signal to the more right coded voters that they're the 'right kind' of minority. Stoking the immigration debate and other culture war issues is a neat way for the party to distract the public from the mess the country's found itself in in the last 10-15 years. Then going on to sanction Russian oil just two years after formally withdrawing from the EU. And it turns out, importing subcontinental issues like Kashmir was not wise. It snowballed into everything from the Modi-Boris leaflets in Batley and Spen to Leicester to Khalistanis vandalising the Indian High Commission a few weeks ago apparently to protest the Indian government's crackdown on insurgents in Punjab, prompting Jaishankar to make more abrasive statements about western hypocrisy just months after he took a shot at the west for 'preferring Pakistan's military dictatorship over India while Russia stood by them' (obviously in reference to the 1971 war and genocide). You can't expect multiculturalism to succeed whilst also signaling strong stances as the 'correct stance' on divisive issues that have historically escalated into conflict.
ZeStriderOfDunedain
Ze Strider
2yr ago
Dating apps have a severely skewed gender ratio, so the competition is indeed stiff no matter how much work men put on their profiles. Throughout university and even after graduating, I've always found my dates through shared hobbies and mutual friends. Never installed a dating app on my phone and don't plan to.
The most frustrated young men seek companionship in online echo chambers filled with depression, anxiety and body dysmorphic disorder. None of them have learned to talk about their problems. It feels easier to take what they call "the black pill", the belief that you are genetically predisposed to be ignored by women.
Well I partially agree, though I'm not sure it's easier to take the black pill that you're inescapably fucked genetically instead of just deferring your happiness to the future. "I'll get there but I'm finding myself right now" is an easier coping mechanism than "It doesn't matter how much I lift, how much I read and how much I spend on clothes, I didn't win the lottery at birth and all that awaits me is a lifetime of desolation and solitude". Guys who take the black pill genuinely do believe what they say, they aren't merely making excuses to avoid overhauling their lifestyle and routines. And the only medium of human interaction they're exposed to confirms every negative bias they have about themselves, be it through what randoms say online about them or through "experiences" of men like them. You see this kind of behaviour the most among Asian-centric spaces, particularly South, East and South East Asians. So they give up, because they do believe it is futile to try.
ZeStriderOfDunedain
Ze Strider
2yr ago
Feminist history has always latched on to a superficial oppressor-oppressed analysis of gender roles and anthropology, rather than a natural order followed across most cultures and time periods throughout the world. History has become a battleground for the culture war, and current politics incentivises it.
ZeStriderOfDunedain
Ze Strider
2yr ago
Then the vast majority of the people on the planet for the vast majority of human history would be "mentally deranged", so what is mentally healthy? I think the query you're trying to pose here is whether intelligent and well educated people (that is, neither mentally disabled nor ignorant) can hold irrational beliefs, to which I would say yes.
ZeStriderOfDunedain
Ze Strider
2yr ago
The fact that they kept Arwen white made the blowback a lot worse in some wignat circles on twitter. Although the reverse wouldn't have calmed the backlash to a significant extent either, I think.
ZeStriderOfDunedain
Ze Strider
2yr ago
Height is overrated. And when I say this, I don't mean women don't care about it much which is demonstrably not true. No, what I mean is, men keep stressing too much importance on this aspect of themselves. The outcomes can be positive if they work on areas that are within their control.
My anecdote: I'm actually below average in height, but I am fit and used to be in damn good shape before the 8 hour desk job got me craving to sink back into bed the moment I get home. I did get decent game in college, quite a few interracial successes too. Despite having been an introvert all my life, I managed to be a social butterfly. I knew someone in literally every store in the suburb I lived in, hell I don't recall even once paying for my movie tickets during my time there. And I wasn't even from the country.
And then there are two of my oldest friends. One of them is 6'2", mildly overweight, very social but too shy to ask anyone out, and somewhat below average on facial features. The other is 6'0, fit, very attractive but not too social. Both of them have well paying jobs. And both are still virgins.
ZeStriderOfDunedain
Ze Strider
2yr ago
That's an extreme example though. A 5'6" guy can reach most places he'd have to realistically reach, with more difficulty obviously.
ZeStriderOfDunedain
Ze Strider
2yr ago
If he asks her out on a date, which is the more conventional thing....this situation is maybe what...80% of what it is? I don't think it's THAT sizable of a difference.
Why so? If he'd simply asked her if she'd be keen for a cup of coffee the next morning (as in, make a harmless offer and make it clear refusal is a valid option) and she'd politely refused, it would be very different. Sure, she might feel weird around him for a little while, knowing that he has some interest in her as a potential date, but will likely still talk to him. And if he'd started seeing someone else (her proof that he's no longer trying to pursue her), it would be like he never asked her out at all. Definitely won't get into "permanently strained and impossible to mend" territory.
This reminds me of Jihadi John, honestly.
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