distic
4mo ago
The US doesn't want to commit to a security guarantee because they know that there's a real chance they would have to intervene because of the same worry.
What purpose does serve an army if you prove everyone you will never use it?
distic
5mo ago
Every human group in existence today owes its continued existence to the fact that its predecessors took land and resources from other groups
Just like you have rapists, thiefs and/or murderers among your ancestors (because everybody does), however murder and rape are still evil.
Now, I’m perfectly happy to discuss whether or not other, more recently-emergent models of geopolitical coexistence have effectively obviated the underlying logic of wars of expansion.
It's not about models of geopolitical co existence, they are just a result of modern democracy and the abolition of slavery. It makes no sense for the US to invade Canada, because what do you do with Canadian citizens? You can give them voting rights, but then it would be a merge more than an invasion; you can give them no rights, but then it creates a class of sub-citizens (it looks pretty unconstitutionnal); you can kill them all, but if you don't think it's bad then I don't know what will be (don't bother me with "we do none of the bad things the fascists did" if you don't believe there are bad things).
It’s very easy to say “fighting wars to obtain terriorItory is wrong” when you’re the United States, surrounded on both coasts by massive oceans, who defeated the last worthy competitor to any of its contiguous territory 150 years ago.
That is a good thing that we were speaking about the US invading territories, then...
The question is very concrete and clear: is it bad for Donald Trump and Elon Musk to threaten to invade several countries which until now considered themselves as US allies?
distic
1yr ago
As I've touched upon before I think liberals tend treat the relative peace and prosperity of societies such as the US and EU as though it were a physical law (like gravity), rather than something that has to be actively cultivated and maintained
But that is precisely why losers should be required to provide proofs when they contest an election! Otherwise no peace is possible because the losers will always contest the results because it will always be in their best interest.
distic
2yr ago
In practice, neutrality would have meant that Ukraine will always remain weaker than Russia and can be invaded at any time. Russia would just have to wait for a time where NATO is occupied somewhere else. Russia violated the Budapest memorandum and the Minsk agreement. How could Ukraine trust them to not invade them?
Moreover, the fact that Ukraine is or is not in NATO is not very relevant for the security of Russia. They are American nukes in the baltic countries, so the threat would not be any bigger. On the other side, Russia would still have nukes, so the invasion risks aren't any higher. So if Ukraine joining NATO does not change anything for Russia security, you have to find another reason why it matters to them. The only thing Russia can do if Ukraine is "neutral" but not if it is in NATO is invading them.
has destroyed the country
No, the invasion has.
has cost enormous sums of money
The invasion has. The US are not responsible for it.
has wasted American influence in Ukraine
Are you kidding? American influence is stronger than ever in Ukraine.
has pressured Russia into developing better drone technology
No, their invasion has pressured them to do so.
has finalized the alienation of Russia from the West
Once again, it's their choice to invade Ukraine that has alienated them. Even after 2014 the west was totally OK negotiating with Russia. Have you heard about Nord Stream 2?
has influenced Arab nations into cozying with Russia
They always did... They are not democratic countries, they have an interest in helping authoritarian regimes. It has not much to do with Ukraine.
and all we get in return is some dead Russians
And the reassurance that you won't abandon your allies, which was in doubt after the Afghanistan retreat.
distic
2yr ago
Racists are far-right, homophobes are far-right, and homophobia means not being enthusiastic about everything you are told to be enthusiastic about.
I'm sorry, where do you read this in the wikipedia article? Especially the part in bold?
distic
2mo ago
Optimistically, the academics leaving the USA are the ones most ideologically captured, such that their contributions to knowledge production is easily replaceable or even a net negative, as is the case for much of what is purportedly being cut by DOGE.
How fast from "there is no such thing as a limited freedom of speech" to "just fire them"...
distic
1yr ago
I don't think the main point against eating animal meat is the fact that it kills animals, but the impact on environment and the land efficiency. To eat a pound of beef, you need the cow to eat a lot of grass, which takes a lot more land than producing a pound of vegetables. Moreover, cows produce a lot of CO which has a huge climate impact.
distic
2yr ago
There is a problem with your claim. Game-theory was once the best argument in favor of individualism. Game theory predicted that communism would fail because of the incentives. If people had been ready to ignore their own interests for the greater good, then individualism would have had a harder time. And how do you justify the sacrifices for individualism, if you are individualistic? It seems to me it makes no sense.
I think it touches the core of the problem, the heart of the internal contradiction of the american patriotism (or any kind of disinterested attachment to individualism). On one side, there is the individualism that you have learnt to love, and on the other side the attachment that you feel for it; you feel it so strongly that you are ready to sacrifice yourself for it. The problem is that both are contradictory.
Game theory is individualistic (it assumes everyone follows his own interests), yet it predicts that individualism will sometime be sub-optimal. It's like saying that saving America requires more state intervention, but more state intervention will destroy what America stands for. If what I just said is true, then America (or the world individualist party if you prefer) is doomed.
distic
2mo ago
A few years months ago, before Elon Musk bought twitter, there was a very popular opinion here on the motte, and probably also among conservatives, that freedom of speech should not be limited in any way, whether directly by the government, or by powerful actors like social medias. When big tech fired people due to their right wing political opinions, conservatives were defending them while liberals were saying things like "they are bigots, they must be improductive anyway".
I don't know what happened, but it seems that a lot of people who had a very broad definition of free speech switched to a very precise and restricted one.
distic
2mo ago
Getting fired has nothing to do with free speech. The principle of free speech is that the government cannot prevent you from speaking.
That's why conservatives have no problem with private bodies (e.g. social media) censoring right wing opinions I suppose.
distic
3mo ago
You are strawmanning, you know. If Russia wanted to decrease the threat at their borders there are other ways, like building trust. With their invasion they only increased the perceived threat from the other side and therefore their own threat level. Given that they were perfectly able to predict it the perceived NATO threat is just a pathetic excuse and you know it
distic
5mo ago
"Make America Great Again" sounds pretty palingenetic and nationalist to be fair. And threatening to invade foreign countries is quite militaristic and nationalistic, I'd say.
I agree, however, that there is no totalitarianism in the US right now.
distic
1yr ago
Your core point is not clear because it is an anti-analogy. Analogies are not helpful to begin with, but anti-analogies are even worse. It needs to be clarified, but let me help.
I agree that any citizen committed to democracy should make sure that the electoral process is fair. This means, above all, that the legal procedures in place have been respected, and also that nothing has occurred which cannot be codified but which seriously calls into question the sincerity of the ballot. I think you agree, but contradict me if you don't.
However, here's where it gets complicated: questioning the results (in bad faith) is also a way of trying to cheat. So a citizen committed to democracy should also view any accusations of fraud with circumspection.
He or she should therefore demand that anyone making such accusations provides, perhaps not evidence, but factual elements that lead him or her to believe that irregularities have been committed and that they are of such a nature as to call the results into question. Tell me where I'm wrong.
distic
5mo ago
I'm not saying you're not trying, but honestly it's not just a minor problem. If the goal was really to engage with people you don't agree with, this website is a failure. I only come here when I want to know what a specific part of the right thinks.
A good starting point would be to drastically improve the quality of the so-called quality contributions. They should be held to the highest standard, so people can go there and see what's expected of them. What I got from doing that is that your message should be long, written in good english and be right wing. That will garantee you a place there with a 50% probability. Following the rules in their letter and spirit is obviously optionnal.
distic
5mo ago
We have had these arguments (and internal mod discussions) since the reddit days, and whenever someone proposes a "solution" that will achieve perfect balance, it turns out that solution maps precisely to "moderate exactly to the degree that would make this place conform to my preferred state."
"User driven moderation" or whatever you call it was a bad idea and a very good way to overmoderate any users in the minority. The only thing that makes sense is rules-based moderation...
distic
1yr ago
The land used for the grass and the cereals could be used for something else (growing trees, for example). And by eating the grass and anything green in the grass cow do prevent trees to grow.
Moreover the grass produces CO2 if it's not eaten by some other animal while the cow produces CH4. CH4 has a stronger greenhouse effect than CO2 and then it quite rapidly degrades and becomes CO2.
distic
1yr ago
I don't know how the beef lobby computes it (and whether they import cereal from foreign countries) but if you take account for all animal feed (not just beef) it is more than 7%:
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-cereals-animal-feed?tab=chart
release more methane than would be released by the natural decomposition of the forage material?
Honestly I don't know but the point is not to let the cereal decompose, that would be dumb. It's to use those lands to produce something else, something that wouldn't produce any CH4 and ideally that would absorb a bit of it. Anyway it would be better to burn the cereals and to produce energy with it (we get no CH4 - worse than CO2 - and more energy).
distic
1yr ago
I meant CH4, and the problem is not the ranching it's the cereal production to feed cows.
distic
1yr ago
Anarchism has never worked, what are you speaking about when you say "able to exist without a state to protect them"?
Anyway that is not really relevant. The fact is that companies get some advantages from modern states. They are more prosperous when the state protects them. So they have to accept the downsides that come with this prosperity.
distic
2yr ago
An angry Bob in middle America has no power to formulate plans for middle East invasions and then put them into action.
Democracy means that everyone is responsible for what happens. Especially everyone which was in favor of the choice that was made. Sure, a guy in middle America wouldn't have been able to change anything himself, but it would have made a huge difference if a lot of angry Bob in middle America had opposed the war, instead of being in favor of it. The jews weren't a majority of the Bush electorate, and it's pretty clear that the Bush electorate supported the war.
Many Americans wanted revenge for 9/11. The direction those emotions were guided in and the actions those emotions were used to justify were completely the work of neocons and zionists. To pretend those two movements are not extremely jewish goes beyond any reason.
People were angry. They wanted a war. So they are not completely innocent. Moreover, the problem of the war in Irak was more the war than the fact that it happened in Irak. All the other possible targets of the "revenge" were even worse: Pakistan has nukes, Saudi Arabia has oil. Other countries had no responsibilities in 9/11. They could have argued for peace, but you know very well that it wouldn't have worked. Some people have tried (some of them jewish), but they have never been heard. So the neocons provided you with what you wanted: the best (or the least bad) target they could find. That was not the main problem. The problem was that an angry mob was asking for blood. Being dumb and emotional is no excuse.
distic
3mo ago
They lost the soft war, so had to settle for a hard one.
No they "had to" nothing. The best way to ensure security is to build trust with your neighboors and not to sponsor corrupted autocratic governments
distic
2yr ago
A random person has not much power. But if the media were all agreeing about war, it's not because they are jewish, but because there was no market fir opposing war. The media could have opposed the war as much as they could, people would have looked at other media. They had as much appetite for anti war media as a AOC supporter for looking Tucker Carlson show. So after that blaming the media and the establishment is ridiculous. Just like it would be ridiculous for Bush to blame it on the people.
The rest of the world never got anything for free. The domination of the US over Europe was beneficial for the US. In exchange for protection, the US could push for its military technologies through STANAGS and use ITAR regulations to control Europe's defense production. Trump and the US right think that the US only owe their success to their superior economy. It seems obvious to me that it is in a very large part a result of the network of allies they built in the world. We will who is right in the future.
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