edmund-nelson
Filthy Anime Memester
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User ID: 842
edmund-nelson
Filthy Anime Memester
1yr ago
I play co-ed hobbyist sports but nothing professional. A women who lifts takes creatine and can do Frontflips can be more athletic than 20% of men aged >40. Obviously this doesn't describe many women but this maybe describes the top 1% of women which corrisponds to roughly 100% of women on the real front lines.
I suspect that this is where the 5,000 number comes from. But if women are being used on the "frontline" to save men for the actual frontline then "frontline" is a pretty meaningless term.
There's a big issue that's hard to mention which is that "frontline" can mean "any combat role where getting shot at is a real concern" (which is why I suspect it's 2% of the UKR army) and "guy in the trenches". What of these roles that I could find on /r/combatfootage would you describe as "the front lines"
- artillery gunner who is firing at russians 30km away
- driving a tank 1 kilometer away from the enemy?
- manning a pillbox shooting a shotgun at incoming drones?
- Somebody controlling drones dropping granades?
- Manning a helicopter firing rockets?
I suspect the 5k would call all 5 "front line". I would probably exclude 4.
edmund-nelson
Filthy Anime Memester
1yr ago
The UKR army is like 800k strong which translates to roughly 225k troops on the front.
Given ukraines manpower problems having 2% of your frontliners be women might be reasonable. After all while a 23 year old man is probably better than almost any 23 year old women a 23 year old women might outperform a 45 year old man.
2% is fairly low. Frontline troops can mean Artillery gunners, FPV drone user ect, there are so many different combat roles in the military that they can find the least bad role for women to save more men for the infantrymen.
edmund-nelson
Filthy Anime Memester
1yr ago
Yeah I'll agree that both are flawed in the same direction, it's just that every other source is even more flawed aside from the austrian army.
The us naval war college doesn't post reports anywhere for example. I sometimes read Russia today but while I get info from them I find it more dubious than ISW stuff (though it's useful corroboration).
The austrian army is the best source but they are so infrequent when I need updates roughly once a week/month for forecasting reasons. I have to rely on the ISW and Wikipedia mainly. do you have any suggestions other than the ones mentioned above?
The ukraine war and godawful sources a problem
Samo Burja (sadly can't find the tweet) once said that we rely on defense ministries of the individual nations for information but at the same time lying about the state of affairs is considered respectable propaganda in a time of war.
Onto the sources
The Bad
Ukranian ministry of defense: These guy's obviously can't be trusted, they would totally lie about things if it means more american aid, lying about success in offensive operations, lying about goals and motives, or lying about defensive strategy, especially due to operational security concerns.
Russian ministry of defense: Exactly as untrustworhy as the UKR MoD but we hear less from them. What the UKR MoD and RU MoD agree on is likely "true".
Basically propaganda
The new york times: Something I wasn't expecting was how god awful the NYT's actual coverage of the ukraine war actually has been. reading their reports has been surprisingly low value. very little description of what is happening at any reasonable level. Maybe this shouldn't surprise me, the actual events of the war don't really improve how something looks narratively so you end up with little information about the facts on the ground
(this applies to most of the western print press and I won't mention any further, though Matthew chance of CNN was pretty good)
Better than most
Wikipedia: Wikipedia continues to keep winning. While it both does a good job explaining the history (talking about the invasion and conflict really starting in 2014) it also has some great parts that go unnoticed. Casualties? Reports vary widely what a great line to just throw out. Wikipedia's reporting is way above average and has better timelines than any reporting I've seen in the mainstream western press. They still have issues but sadly little actually can beat them. (I definitely find their UKR coverage worse because it's less contentious on english language groups than say their isreal gaza coverage but thankfully i'm not forecasting isreal gaza so i don't have to worry about it)
The institute for the study of war This is probably the most accurate source that you can call "respectable". Unlike other sources they do a good job of citing their sources and their citations stem from far more credible sources than the UKR MoD. The main problem with them is Bias, General David Petreus is a pretty solid general overall and while I tend to like the reports, I find the reports are slightly more anti-russian than the facts on the ground typically indicate. But unlike other reporters they actually accurately report the facts on the ground to a degree that nobody else except 1 group does. I may dislike sentences like "We do not report in detail on Russian war crimes because these activities are well-covered in Western media and do not directly affect the military operations we are assessing and forecasting." because they really should have just deleted the word Russian in that sentence. overall I like these guys and think they are the best reporting I can get regularly
The best (but so infrequent)
The AUSTRIAN ARMY Youtube channel The austrian army's reporting on the battlefield situation is top notch, I think that since they only post updates every 6 months or so their reporting tends to be a lot better at not missing the larger scale operations. Of course it's harder to cite the austrian army youtube channel and call it "respectable" but many probably would accept it.
Analysis and speculation
William spaniel While mostly a channel about strategic implications he actually does a pretty good job talking about how leaders can actually think. The Naval war college regularly cites him so I consider him much more credible than average. (though the naval war college also plays Polis to discuss the Peloponnesian war so they're definitely more willing to be a little less hinged than you'd expect)
Perun IDK how this guy got so big but /r/credibledefense loves him and I like his powerpoints.
So onto the actual conflict.
Right now the big story is that the russian army is making a move from the north while Ukraine is slowly losing territory on the southeast, not much to be sure, if this were mar 2022 you'd call the approach a massive slowdown. However the long slow push of russia into ukr territory is happening after a failed UKR 2023 counteroffensive. The war continues with what I would call world war 1 tactics with 2024 weapons. Trenches, Artillery, and spotters dominate the war, while in WW1 it was biplanes, in the Ukraine russian war it's the drone. The drone is creating this weird war where visibility is at an all time high, if you look at the survivability onion you'll notice that stealth comprimises most of the survival tactics Evasive manuvers are almost a last resort. This means it's much harder to conduct certain operations without getting troops killed. I wonder how much the conflict will change in the coming months, the 1 prediction which tends to hold true is that almost nothing happens because this is the second coming of world war 1
edmund-nelson
Filthy Anime Memester
1yr ago
I was going to make one on the Ukraine war, but most of my post would be whining about how hard it is to get good sources and how much I have to rely on either aggregators of semi-unreliable sources (ISW ,War mapper, Task and Purpose youtube) extremely unreliable sources (NYT, Huffpo, ect.) or the primary sources themselves (when you're citing the Russian catgirls telegram you know you're in bad shape)
I could describe how bad my sources are in the post and describe what is probably true from what may or may not be true but that would be a pretty bad post
edmund-nelson
Filthy Anime Memester
1yr ago
The best one available is GTOwizard.com though note that it's a monthly subscription, after a bit of using it you can graduate to using Piosolver https://piosolver.com/ yourself
edmund-nelson
Filthy Anime Memester
1yr ago
Modern BJJ is nothing like modern MMA and I'll fight you (literally) on that.
For starters as far as I can tell, basically every current MMA fighter focus's on Just standing up out of bottom position rather than fighting from bottom position.
Next from top position MMA guys emphasize holding the other person down and punching them, prefering to remain with their legs tangled in wrestling rides rather than passing the legs
BJJ's big 4 submissions are the Rear Naked choke, The armbar, the inside heel hook and the outside heel hook, when was the last time you saw a heel hook win an MMA fight? It's literally the 2nd and 3rd most common submission in top level bjj yet in mma both combine to about 6th? Like the Arm triangle is more common than both combined, when the arm triangle is 9th in bjj.
My MMA skills are rusty and I'd need to get back on the juice before I'm ready to fight anybody for real, but modern BJJ and modern MMA grappling have diverged to such an extent that to call the 2 the same is crazy.
edmund-nelson
Filthy Anime Memester
1yr ago
TBH I might be completely wrong but that's the minor impression I get when watching their content.
edmund-nelson
Filthy Anime Memester
1yr ago
Oooh finally something I have personal experience on.
I was in one of the bluest parts of the country, and maybe the planet, Campbell California and yet when training at the gym the politics of the gym goers were... far to the right of the city but probably slighly left of the country as a whole (though at the magnitude we're talking here it's basically impossible for any actually Right wing opinion to be even discussed since things like "what about that city supervisor" have basically universal agreement. The few times national issues were discussed (mainly oct 7 when the isreali guy said that he has to take some time off to talk to his family) the opinion was definitely in the "RW but mainstream" group. Like they'll talk about Jocko Wilnik's podcast, or Huberman lab, or they'll watch Rennisance periodization https://youtube.com/@RenaissancePeriodization and other right ish aligned groups. Not crazy people but definitely not... super mainstream left. I'm somehow a normal guy for getting my news from Wikipedia instead of the NYT
I have no idea as to mechanisms, but the phenomenon is VERY strong, I remember a slatestarcodex article https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/10/02/different-worlds/ that discusses how you can get into very strong filter bubbles, going and playing a sport with other guys possibly the gayest sport ever produces some of the strongest filter for Right wing opinion in the state of California yet there we go.
I'll note something odd, there's sort of this weird valley effect, the "mildly fit by incidental lifestyle" people (other than construction workers) were mostly college educated yuppie (I really wish there was a better word than Yuppie/Redneck for the rural city split)but then when I go to the place where people are active to a level most people haven't seen (I lost 50 pounds via pure fat shaming by being around them) are quite right wing . It's like if your lifestyle incidentally makes you more fit (or you only try a little bit) you're much more likely to be Left wing, but those who are actively trying super hard are pretty right wing for the city.
One thing I will note is that every one that took Testosterone replacment therapy (TRT) instantly became more right wing soon after starting TRT, they also became dramatically stronger faster and trained way harder, I do not know if this is the actual effect or if it's more of a "people who do sports are just straight up built different" effect. But I would like to see a study on that, does taking TRT change behavior? https://www.cell.com/trends/cognitive-sciences/abstract/S1364-6613(11)00078-7 is hard to read, but indicates plausibly yes, but I'm so bad at google that i can't find any studies on TRT directly impacting behavior.
edmund-nelson
Filthy Anime Memester
3yr ago
https://tcec-chess.com/ has such a tournament
edmund-nelson
Filthy Anime Memester
3yr ago
Yeah this thing is weird tbh, it's obvious that it looked super fishy, based on the way Hans played and followup analysis, but I think Hans was just extremely lucky that magnus fell into his prep, it's clear that he was basing it off of a game betwen magnus and so in 2019 not the 2018 game he said because of the way he played the opening, but it is still strange that Magnus blundered so hard in the middlegame and that Hans was even able to capitalize on the mistake.
It's one of those things that makes me question how good cheat detection is, and if we get more false positives than false negatives, (remember pipi in your pampers?
edmund-nelson
Filthy Anime Memester
3yr ago
I went from benching 260 to 230 after going off of stanozolol, and my 5k time went from 18 minutes to 20 after I was weaned off EPO. That's a pretty dramatic difference in strength/speed.
edmund-nelson
Filthy Anime Memester
3yr ago
So this forum actually allows linking directly use [text](link) to create a link
I wish there was a tutorial on how to use the features of this site somewhere ;/
edmund-nelson
Filthy Anime Memester
3yr ago
Stanozolol can cause liver problems, also there is some evidence that it can cause heart problems, I would in general not reccomend PED's unless you have a doctor regulating your dosage, there's way too many variables that can fuck you over.
edmund-nelson
Filthy Anime Memester
3yr ago
Google is an employer and has to stick to rules like "you can quit" which the US army is unconstrained by. Google also can't control the other medications its employees take .
The Google version would be closer to having a company doctor that prescribes most Software engineers with Adderall, telling them the exact dosage to take and how to use it.
In the military meanwhile they can do things like put the meds directly on your breakfast platter, and give intense physical training that basically mandates you take this stuff to survive them. Social conformity is a powerful thing, if people were encouraged to take such drugs to remain in the special forces I suspect most people who are dedicated enough to enlist in the first place would take them. If the Army doctor regulates your PED use then it is a heck of a lot less dangerous than the normal PED regimen that everyone in American Kickboxing Academy uses.
edmund-nelson
Filthy Anime Memester
3yr ago
Stanozolol can let you wear heavier armor which can protect your body from bullets.
Yeah, obviously certain things (missles mostly) can't really be defended by body armor, but the AK-47 can (even though scouring youtube for body armor hasn't found anything that worked).
Maybe in the future with super Stanozolol you become Master Chief from halo and wear insanely heavy body armor with heavy weapons. Infantry currently carry 120 pounds onto the battlefield, if they were carrying an extra 50 pounds who knows what they could do.
edmund-nelson
Filthy Anime Memester
3yr ago
I've fought some amateur Mixed martial arts and I was on Testosterone, human growth hormone, Stanozolol, and Erythropoietin. My doctor was extremely tight with regulating my use of these substances and it was probably quite dangerous.
However when on them I felt superhuman, I could run for days without feeling any effect, I could lift weight I've never dreamed of lifting and I recovered from things at an inhuman rate. EPO made me able to run for hours on end, and the Stanozolol made my strength insane, the HGH apparently significantly improved my recovery, and I don't remember what the doctor said the test actually did. I was focused on maintaining discipline with taking some PED's rather than making sure I understood what it all did, my doctor had to make sure I wasn't gonna get hurt from that.
I straight up don't understand why anyone would expect any army division to consist of natty's. Isn't the whole idea of fighting a war the idea that you are going sacrifice young able bodied men for your country? I'm shocked at the idea that members of the US army are not cycling on Stanozolol/EPO at least, What kind of self-respecting army doesn't use wonder chemicals to turn its soldiers into super soldiers. I would have expected the army to have its own research division that researches new powerful PED's to feed soldiers. If athletes in the underground can make wonderdrugs that are this strong, imagine what a government research team can do to an Army. Unrestricted by things like "pissing hot" you could build Stanozolol that lets soldiers carry 200 pounds of armor/weapons to the battlefield, while running 8 miles on their new super EPO. Staying awake and alert for 45 hours thanks to their new modafanil.
Yeah these drugs probably will kill the health of soldiers long term, but by the time that happens they aren't in the army anymore. Having a bad time when you're 70 is much better than not living to see 35 due to dying to a Klashnikov.
All the sparring I did with Makachev's disciples has made me not want to do real MMA ever again. How do you even win fights when the other guy puts you in reverse lockdown and punches you. It's a suffocating style that removes all the fun BJj ground game stuff I'm used to. I have to play the "JUST STAND THE FUCK UP" game against them to even feel like I stand a chance >.>
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