felipec
unbelief
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User ID: 1796
felipec
unbelief
1yr ago
Because if you look at historical polls and elections you can see Ukraine has been pro-Russia a substantial amount of its short history, in particular the regions in the east, and in particular the regions in the east that speak Russian. If you look at recent polls like "Ukraine should continue fighting until it wins the war" you can see these regions as not particularly eager to continue fighting, it's only the western regions that want to fight, and in particular Kiev. If you look at a density map you'd see the south-eastern regions are particularly denser.
There's also the referendums where a significant part of the population voted to join Russia. Even if you consider them a complete sham, there are interviews of people voting clearly wanting to be part of Russia.
I believe people underestimate the desire for peace and having a normal life, and also the devastation of war. Which is why I don't find surprising at all the westerns part of Ukraine so eager to continue the fight: they haven't seen any of it. The regions who have been devastated by the conflict the most are the ones most eager for it to stop.
Moreover a lot of things can change, for example there's talk of Poland absorbing part of the western region of Ukraine, other neighboring countries could also do the same. If that happens Ukraine will be left without the most anti-Russian population.
Plus, Russia is already helping the new territories it has annexed, that could sway opinion in their favor.
And finally there's a lot of information in Telegram channels which if true would paint in a greener light the Russian forces and the Ukrainian ones much less so, which will eventually move public opinion.
In just don't trust Western mainstream media to paint an accurate picture of what Ukrainian people actually want.
felipec
unbelief
1yr ago
I'm a freedom of speech maximalist and I'm having a ton of fun watching the pro-censorship established media melting down about Elon Musk buying Twitter. I joined Twitter in 2007 and it's finally fun again. Trolling, memes, comebacks, I love it.
I'm glad people are questioning what "freedom of speech" actually means in this new computational era.
felipec
unbelief
1yr ago
I'm loving this #TwitterDown saga getting woke progressives melting: ‘Twitter Is Dead,’ 300 Million People Post On Twitter.
felipec
unbelief
1yr ago
Of course USA blew it up, no one else had a motive. For more than ten years they have opposed it, sanctioned it, and straight up threatened to stop it any way they possibly can. Only a person who is not paying attention or has no deductive capacity would not be able to conclude that.
Here's a noncomprehensive list of the positions of top U.S. officials and presidents:
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Obama administration opposed the pipeline
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Trump administration sanctioned any company doing work on the pipeline
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Biden administration made opposition to the pipeline a top priority
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Biden said he was "determined to do whatever I can to prevent"
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Nuland said "If Russia invades, one way or another, Nord Stream 2 Will. Not. Move. Forward."
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Biden said "If Russia invades…then there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it." and after being questioned "I promise you, we will be able to do that."
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After the attack Blinked said the bombing was a "tremendous opportunity to once and for all remove the dependence on Russian energy," and "offers tremendous strategic opportunity for years to come."
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Nuland said "Senator Cruz, like you, I am, and I think the administration is, very gratified to know that Nord Stream 2 is now, as you like to say, a hunk of metal at the bottom of the sea."
I believe Condoleezza Rice also said something along those lines.
But who could have the motive? That's a puzzler!
Here's a few more articles about the motives, which you will never find in mainstream media:
felipec
unbelief
1yr ago
A company can be comprised of 99% of geniuses, and 1% idiots at the top and fail.
All it takes is 1 idiot.
I was in Nokia with the most elite team of open source programmers and hardware engineers I've ever seen in Nokia's Skunk Works at the height of Nokia's success. Our software was way better than Android and had features many phones didn't get for more than a decade, and some they still don't have. The future was bright.
It didn't matter: one person at the top ruined everything.
felipec
unbelief
1yr ago
Do you believe people here pretend to be smarter than they are?
I've seen many people in The Motte claim something along the lines of "that's basic" as if only high-brow discussions were interesting, or as if they were the arbiters of what's "basic" and what's "advanced", or even as if they completely understood the "basic" notion.
It's almost as if the opposite of bike-shedding was sought: everyone claims they want to discuss about the plans for a nuclear power plant (very complex), not the bicycle shed materials which are way too simple.
So everyone who aims to discuss about the nuclear power plant plans is rewarded (even if nobody really understands them), and everyone who wants to talk about something everyone can understand is punished (nobody wants to talk about what they can easily understand).
felipec
unbelief
1yr ago
Ukraine as a country isn't particularly important and the population is likely to be hostile to Russia, meaning that to integrate it into Russia proper will be difficult if not impossible.
This is an oversimplification, there's no such thing as the "Ukraine population": different people have different believes. This is like saying the "USA population" believes X. Sure, some do, but not all.
You can say the majority of the population is likely to be hostile to Russia (I have my doubts about that), but some will not.
felipec
unbelief
1yr ago
Can we consider the possibility that all of this was vaporware?
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Most people don't know what FTX is
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Most people have no idea who SBF is
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Most people have never heard of EA
Scott Alexander seems to be devastated by something most people didn't even know was a thing, much less an important thing.
felipec
unbelief
1yr ago
Can anybody who voted explain to me how the winner entry is superior to mine?
From what I can see this is what it said about intuition:
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Grady Little may have made a decision based on intuition, Joe Maddon didn't
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To improve intuition one must train
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LBJ was intuitive, Obama wasn't
That's basically it.
This is what it didn't say:
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What is intuition
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What is the opposite of intuition
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When is intuition helpful
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When is intuition unhelpful
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How complex intuition is
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What intuition is comprised of
My essay at least attempted to answer these.
To me this is clear evidence of bias in this community.
And because Mottizens are very prone to commit converse error fallacies, I shall point out that this is not something specific to my essay, I also don't see how the winner is superior to this entry: Intuition in a Scientific Age, which also does attempt to answer some of the important questions, such was: what is intuition? I also would be interested in hearing why somebody who voted for the winner considered it superior to that one.
felipec
unbelief
1yr ago
Overall, not impressed or compelled by the claims. People have already noted the singular anonymous source claiming, in an era where anonymous sourcing has been as disreputable as ever, but there are other elements that raise eyebrows.
Most importan stories are broken out with singular anonymous sources, and mainstream publications mention a single anonymous source all the time.
-The claim it was done by the pure navy, as opposed to special forces, to avoid Congressional oversight really suggests someone who is not familiar with the other forms of oversight- and security vulnerabilities- of American military branches.
It wasn't just the Navy, it was remote corner of the Navy.
There's a reason that the US black projects generally don't operate from the conventional forces, but in separate elements.
Yeah, and the reason may not have anything to do with oversight.
-The mind-reading/framing of motives is projection, or at least certainly not how the western military-security types would view items. I've yet to meet an American in a serious position of government responsibility who frames concerns over Nordstream in terms as abstract as 'threat to western dominance,' as opposed to the more concrete concerns of 'energy blackmail' or 'gas turnoffs.'
As if any politician is transparent about their true motives ever. As Noam Chomsky says: the stated motives of the government are never the true motives, therefore you can pretty much disregard the stated motives.
That being said, Condoleezza Rice did pretty much spell it out in 2014:
"But now we need to have tougher sanctions, and I am afraid at some point this is going to probably have to involve oil and gas. The Russian economy is vulnerable. 80% of the Russian exports are in oil, gas and minerals. People say that the Europeans will run out of energy. Well, the Russians will run out of cash before the Europeans run out of energy. And I understand that it is uncomfortable to have an effect on business ties in this way, but this is one of the few instruments that we have. Over the long run, you want to change the structure of energy dependence. You want to depend more on the North American energy platform, the tremendous bounty of oil and gas that we are finding"
The first thing she mentions is the Russian economy was vulnerable, suggesting they did want to attack the Russian economy.
There's also this 2019 Pentagon-funded study from the RAND Corporation: Extending Russia.
"Drawing on quantitative and qualitative data from Western and Russian sources, this report examines Russia's economic, political, and military vulnerabilities and anxieties."
They want to exploit all Russian vulnerabilities. How much spelled out do you need it to be?
It's clear USA has always been an enemy of Russia.
The proposed plans, as described, don't pass muster in the context of their own paragraph, let alone broader realism. For one, submarines don't "assault". That's the sort of language of someone larping military insight.
Why does the source have to have military insight? He could be part of the CIA, or any number of options.
This is something deserving of /r/credibledefense, but not credibility inspiring.
The fact that you don't see how something is possible doesn't mean it is impossible. That's an argument from incredulity fallacy.
-The argument about no longer being a covert option because of the Biden Administration's public statements on Nordstream are nonsense.
Is it? The exact moment I saw the clip of Joe Biden saying they would put an end to it after it was blown up I put two and two together, and so did many people.
This is a red flag for credibility. Covert options aren't covert because you have a known capability, but rather the secrecy.
But if everyone already suspects the USA did it--as it happened--then the secret would be much harder to keep, because people will not stop investigating--as it happened.
The more eyes, the harder to hide. How is that not obvious? Your desire to not see the obvious seems like motivated reasoning from you.
-The whole Norway angle is just comedic.
Once again this is a fallacy. The fact that you find something comedic doesn't imply that it didn't happen.
The narrative flops between the need for operational and legal secrecy as needed, without actually explaining why informing the Norwegians is necessary to carry out the operation...
It was explained that it wasn't necessary, but it would facilitate the operation. Plain and simple.
-The timeline is also all over the place.
Events unfold that way many times, so what? Things happen and plans change. That happens all the time.
-The argument on Russian mine-detection technology is getting into the military spy-fiction, and not the good kind.
Argument from incredulity fallacy.
This isn't the first part of the article to do this, but it's reocurring enough to note, especially since the 1970s Church hearings drove very significant changes in the American intelligence community... changes that are being implicitly covered over by the appeal to the 70s for narrative continuity.
It wasn't the intelligence community who ordered this, it was the neocon administration. The hatred for Russia runs deep, as anyone familiar with Victoria Nuland knows.
Aircraft are easily observable on a number of sensors or by regional naval traffic.
So? You just pick an aircraft that is going to travel that route anyway for whatever reason.
Once again: argument from incredulity fallacy.
All told, I do not find it credible, and would lower my judgement of someone who found it compelling.
I find all your arguments weak and relying precisely on what you accuse Seymour Hersh of doing: preying on the laziness of the reader. Many of your arguments boil down to "I don't see how this is possible", as if you were an semi-omniscient being. You may not see how X is possible, but I do. So what?
It's also a clear Gish gallop strategy: overwhelming an interlocutor with as many arguments as possible, without regard for accuracy or strength of the arguments. It's no surprise that your comment received zero replies. Who would sit down and read the entire thing, think about critically, and then reply. Well, I just did.
If you are trying to analyze this critically and actually give the article a fair shot, I would pick a single argument against it, your strongest argument, and defend it at depth, not throw dozens which in my opinion are weak.
felipec
unbelief
1yr ago
I’m throwing in all these links not (just) because I expect it to annoy you, but because I find it amusing that you’ve done all this work to agree with some blog posts from 2008.
Who cares if you find it amusing?
It has not been established that I did agree with that litany of articles you linked, you just stated that. And how is anyone supposed to refute your claim? Presumably they would need to spend around 8 hours to read all that information, and then refute it, which you know nobody is going to do.
So you intentionally raised the bar so high as to make your claim virtually irrefutable. Congratulations, you "win".
felipec
unbelief
1yr ago
Did their officials and presidents also spent a whole decade publicly in opposition to it, sanctioned it, and threatened that no matter what they will not allow it?
felipec
unbelief
1yr ago
In my opinion a good writer is able to explain complex concepts with simple words. Obfuscation is a sign that the person is signaling intelligence rather than truly displaying it--or that he/she is a bad writer.
felipec
unbelief
1yr ago
felipec
unbelief
1yr ago
That is coming only from blatant pro Russia-propaganda.
I do not follow Russian sources. If you want me to follow up on my sources I can do that, but to dismiss everything if that turned out to be unsubstantiated is a fallacy.
felipec
unbelief
1yr ago
I agree. Climate change is one of the areas I'm most skeptical about. I believe that if true it's one of the most important issues of our time, and I've seen evidence that climate change is indeed happening, and it's indeed caused by human activity, but evidence isn't proof.
I have also seen enough evidence to be skeptical about the amount of damage human activity is actually causing--as opposed to random fluctuations. And also to be skeptical about the irreversible damage, for which there's evidence that it's actually reversing.
So my conclusion so far is the default position: I don't know.
felipec
unbelief
1yr ago
No need to be salty.
That's specifically why I mentioned the converse error fallacy. Just because somebody appears to be salty doesn't mean that he is.
I am asking the people who voted for the winner if they could explain why. I am genuinely curious.
To be honest, I do think my post is better than the winner too
I agree as well.
TheMotte like all places has its tastes and our job was to cater to that taste.
No, our job was to write an essay about intuition, the price was the motivation, not the goal. Just like the goal of a newspaper is supposed to be to inform the truth, not to make money. Pandering to a specific audience wasn't supposed to be the goal.
felipec
unbelief
1yr ago
Cognitive biases are not priors. They make you misjudge your priors, and update the probability in a skewed way.
felipec
unbelief
1yr ago
That's right. Rationalists claim it was rational to trust Sam Bankman-Fried, because if his pitch was part of an academic exam to see if this person was credible, trust would be the right answer.
But that's the thing: we are not in an academic exam, this is the real world, and people are going to try to exploit your blind spots.
I often wonder if these people play poker, video games, or any kind of board game were deception is part of the game.
felipec
unbelief
1yr ago
I think this topic is sensitive to Americans, since it basically means they aren't the Good Guys that they were led to believe.
Yes, but reality doesn't care about your feelings. If you follow anti-imperialists like Aron Mate and Max Blumenthal, it's obvious that USA has not been the good guys in the past few decades, and if you read Noam Chomsky you realize that has never been the case. Of course most people from USA are not aware of that.
How many Americans know they are occupying one third of Syria right now to get their oil? I bet not many.
We should also make a distinction between the US Govt and the American people.
Of course.
Instead of grappling with this issue from a structural basis, folks have been trying to personally smear Hersh.
It's always the same tactic. The Hunter Biden laptop story was a "conspiracy theory" and anyone who tried to investigate it like Glenn Greenwald was smeared. Max Blumenthal and The Grayzone wikipedia pages are completely vandalized. They tried to do the same with Seymour Hersh (somebody added that he was a conspiracy theorist), but it seems there was pushback because Hersh is more reknowned.
It will work, because even though Americans know the mainstream media lies, they for some reason believe that when it truly matters they'll tell the truth.
whereas much of the rest of the world will just go on
I don't think the citizens in Germany will just go on, they'll see it for what it is: a supposed ally engaged in clandestine energy sabotage without regards to what would happen to their economy, just to punish Russia for geopolitical reasons, and destroying their industry in the process.
I bet many Germans are realizing just now that USA is not their ally.
felipec
unbelief
1yr ago
his recent factually incorrect takes on the Syria gas attacks
OK. Starts of poisoning the well by claiming something is false without evidence. This might work on people with no critical thinking skills, but not me.
Especially because I know the attacks have been thoroughly debunked by Aron Mate.
Not going to waste my time.
felipec
unbelief
1yr ago
I want to come back to it as well. I didn't research anything at all, I just thought about it a lot. But doing a bit of research afterwards I've found some resources of interest for people who want to explore the topic more.
felipec
unbelief
1yr ago
felipec
unbelief
1yr ago
I want to prompt all the contestants: @TheDag, @f3zinker, @felipec, and @Pitt19802.
Did you find the topic difficult to write about?
I think people judging our essays might be very quick to criticize and say: why didn't the writer mention X? how didn't the writer connect Y with Z? (it's obvious)
I think the readers might not be aware of the vast idea space that can be explored. It takes time to explore a branch, and as you do you realize there's many more branches that can be explored that probably would take even longer time. And if you do take the time to explore other branches, you realize that the first branch you explored was not as important as you initially thought, and might not even be worth mentioning (there's plenty of examples I ended up not mentioning).
This is particularly worse if you've never written about the topic (as I), and then of course the time limit doesn't help (although without it I probably would have delayed the work even more than I did).
It's very easy to criticize, but I think only the people that actually sat down and tried to write about the topic would understand why a particular try might not have turned out to be as fruitful as many readers would hope, but it's still worthy of praise. Also, the end result might not necessarily be a reflection of your thoughts on the subject, which are probably evolving as we speak (the very next day I had yet another insight that I feel should be worthy of writing about).
Turns out USA did blew out Nord Stream: How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline.
It was obvious to anyone paying attention, but now it's pretty much confirmed.
Of course I already see the people married to the opposite conclusion trying to discredit the journalist (on of the most decorated and impactful journalists of all time), and his sources: anonymous: (as if established publications didn't use anonymous sources).
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