johnfabian
2yr ago
The only other time I can think of hearing this in media is Alec Baldwins character in The Departed saying something to the effect that you need to be married to: “let your bosses know your not a fag and that at least one woman can tolerate you”.
This of course was adapted from a scene in the Hong Kong original, where the Baldwin and Damon equivalents are at a driving range facing Kowloon. The boss is hitting balls towards the mainland, saying that life will be better after you settle down. It will be more stable, your standing will improve, you will have a chance at promotion. This was all rather pointedly a metaphor for Hong Kong's wedding to the PRC. Doesn't really have the same significance in the American version (especially with respect to golf as a status symbol).
I think a lot of the "Sportalists" have practical reasons to oppose a Qatari takeover as well. The English Premier League is rapidly becoming a real transfer arms race as wealthy foreign investors takeover storied clubs that for decades (or even more than a century) were rooted in their local community. Not only does this in many ways destroy the matchgoing experience of the local fan as the club switches to the foreign tourist as its source of matchday revenue, it has affected the competitive balance of the league and international football.
Say you have a local pub you like. It's got friendly locals, a knowledgeable bartender, a cozy atmosphere. Is it wrong to oppose it getting taken over and replaced by a McDonalds? "Oh but it has better revenue and economic productivity!" Who cares? The experience has been sterilized, homogenized, replaced by something you could have gotten a million other places.
At least one of the benefits of European sports organizations is that unlike the North American cartels you can reasonably vote with your wallet. FC United of Manchester was the club founded by fans opposed to the Glazers' takeover, and hopefully they'll see a rise of support. The issue of course is that a Qatari owner probably won't be too displeased to trade Manc fans for fans in Pakistan or Nigeria or Indonesia.
johnfabian
2yr ago
Most places in sub-Saharan Africa were death sentences for European settlers due to various diseases that there were no good ways of avoiding before the late 19th century.
And "death sentence" often in a very literal sense: some European countries would exile troublesome individuals to their African trading posts / islands as a means of killing them without having to execute them.
johnfabian
2yr ago
In this particular neighbourhood, not very likely. The actual Ukrainian community here is located mainly ~10ish km away. This is a well-off neighbourhood too, mostly a mix of old money WASPs and new money Chinese.
johnfabian
2yr ago
I was musing as I walked through a fairly rich neighbourhood of Toronto today (Riverdale, for reference) that if I had a good reason to cheer against Ukraine, it would be these fucking pricks. Walking past a bunch of single-family homes each worth millions of dollars decked out with Ukrainian flags (and converted Canadian flags; i.e. replace the colours of the Canadian flag with a yellow maple leaf/outer bars and blue interior) didn't exactly radicalize me, but it slightly annoyed me. These types of neighbourhoods are filled with rich, intellectually vapid bourgeois PMC types who aggressively support the newest aesthetic cause (you'll also see lots of trans-inclusive pride flags and "we love our neighbours in tents!" signs) while actively working against the material interests of everyone they claim to uplift. I don't know about Moldbug because I've not read much from him, but I bet you that DeBoer, like me, tends to be annoyed by this segment of the population more than any else (because it's the crowd I most often rub shoulders with).
I suspect much of the people who claim to have high-minded reasons to root against Ukraine are more motivated by baser and petty reasons. As is the same with most political things, I would think.
johnfabian
2yr ago
In the operational exercises the US Army conducted in the fall of 1941, 42 divisional, corps, and army commanders took part. General George Marshall (Army Chief of Staff) saw fit to relieve 31 of them afterwards. The next year, 20 of the Army's 27 division commanders were fired. Fredendall made it through both of these cullings.
That goes to show you how significant and severe the crisis of American military leadership was prior to the war, and gives you an indication of how someone like Eisenhower managed to go from Colonel to Supreme Allied Commander in under three years.
Quoting the camp commandant, Franz Stangl:
Around the turn of the year 1942/1943, following instructions from higher up, the bodies started being burned. At first a burning grid was made out of the trolley rails still available. However, these could not bear the weight of the mountains of corpses. Thereupon a bigger grid was erected by the gas chamber building, which was made of railway rails placed on concrete foundations. At first there were difficulties also with this burning installation. As a specialist for such burnings an Unterführer by the name of Floss came to Treblinka, who after some experiments brought the grid into the right position. In a pit underneath the grid a wood fire was maintained. The corpses were now placed upon the grid in layers and burned.
Concrete blocks were installed as a base to lay the rails on. About 1000 bodies were burned at a time, with 5-7,000 per day.
Quoting SS-Oberscharführer Heinrich Matthes, who was in charge of Camp III (the extermination section of Treblinka):
The cremation took place in such away that railway lines and concrete blocks were placed together. The corpses were piled on these rails. Brushwood was put under the rails. The wood was doused with petrol. In that way not only the newly accumulated corpses were cremated, but also those taken out from the graves.
Yechiel Reichmann, a Jew part of the "burning group" who was one of the several dozen who survived the mass breakout from Treblinka that ended its operation:
The SS "expert" on body burning ordered us to put women, particularly fat women, on the first layer of the grill, face down. The second layer could consist of whatever was brought – men, women, or children – and so on, layer on top of layer… Then the "expert" ordered us to lay dry branches under the grill and to light them. Within a few minutes the fire would take so it was difficult toapproach the crematorium from as far as 50 meters away.
(The "expert" referred to was SS-Standartenführer Paul Blobel.)
Once again, I would repeat that the biggest obstacle to Holocaust denialists is why exactly the Germans (as well as Ukrainian and Polish auxiliaries who testified about the cremation of corpses at the Aktion Reinhard camps) went into such imaginary and morbid detail about something that never happened. Why not just deny it all if they were innocent? Why come up with such ridiculous exaggerations and lies, and then why did the other witnesses also lie to corroborate them? Barely any Jewish victims survived the Reinhard camps to claim otherwise.
Quotes sourced from Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka : The Operation Reinhard Death Camps by Yitzkah Arad.
johnfabian
2yr ago
before Skyrim the Redguard were pretty directly analogous to African-Americans (look at the names in Oblivion for example), but then they were changed later to be a quasi-Moorish analogue
johnfabian
2yr ago
Similarly, I've seen people claim the name Cho Chang is her riffing on "Ching Chong". It's a not uncommon Chinese name (my search for it in the Pinyin form of Zhuo Zhang gave me 1,500+ results on linkedin). If your mind immediately jumps to a slur you're so obviously just looking to be offended
johnfabian
2yr ago
Few people are aware how sketchy are our sources from ancient world, how big gaps are in our knowledge, and how well is history of province of Judea documented compared to the rest of Roman Empire.
I was paraphrasing the argument of Christ mythers. I'm well aware of the kind of knowledge gaps that exist in the Classical/Medieval period.
johnfabian
2yr ago
I think the "Christ myth" example is a good analogy. People who maintain that Jesus never existed require a level of evidence that would also disqualify them believing in the vast majority of figures of Classical antiquity; yet for some reason they never extend that skepticism to Alexander or Hannibal (or my namesake, Fabius Maximus).
Originally much of the arguments against Jesus' existence centered on Pontius Pilate, who as a Roman governor would be the type of person you would expect to show up in the historical record regardless, and yet when he subsequently did so it was only in the context of his relation to Jesus. Therefore if no Pilate, no Jesus. Again, nevermind that it wasn't exactly uncommon for Roman officials to slip through the cracks of history, and if one were to require multiple independent mentions to justify the belief that a given Roman official existed you'd start running out of them fairly quickly. Luckily though a series of archaeological finds in the 1940s-60s unearthed various other contemporaneous evidence of Pilate's role as Roman governor of Judaea and that particular argument got put to rest.
Of course to this only shifted higher the burden of proof for Jesus' existence, because the root of the argument is based in its rhetorical utility against organized religion, not its factual merit.
johnfabian
2yr ago
You can also see one cop accidentally drop his camera before the beating commences, only to pick it up again immediately after they're finished in video 4.
I'm sure some other convenient "data loss" or "camera malfunctions" could've happened if necessary.
johnfabian
2yr ago
Is it actually productive to try and understand Russian motivations?
Even if only from a strategic perspective, the answer is yes. Knowing Russian motivations allows western nations to better counteract them politically and militarily. I don't know what the specific goals of Putin are (or the Russian security state) or why he chose February 2022 to be the time to achieve them, but presumably the CIA has a decent idea and this is forming part of their strategy to undermine the Russian state capacity to wage war.
Ukraine (and the west) of course might not be in this position if we had better understood Russian motivations, either because an acceptable peaceful compromise was reached, or because Ukraine was better prepared.
johnfabian
2yr ago
They're a race of fictional creatures that help with chores. I think people are trying way too hard about this.
Whenever I see someone on reddit go on this big rant about how awful it is that the characters in Harry Potter aren't constantly denouncing house elves I just roll my eyes. Boy, could you imagine how embarrassing it would be if we exploited animals in real life?
johnfabian
2yr ago
There's a new road/rail bridge over the Kerch strait (though it has also come under attack and might be considered vulnerable), and with control of the Black Sea Russia can supply Crimea via sea as long as it wants. The Soviets (and subsequently Germans) both maintained Crimea after its land connections were severed in WWII.
My understanding is that Crimea's main vulnerability was its water supply, which might be a longterm consideration in peacetime but isn't so crucial during the war.
johnfabian
2yr ago
Crimea is extremely defensible, so I would put low odds on it being recaptured militarily. On the other hand, if Putin is ousted/killed somehow I think the odds of Crimea being offered up as a way for Russia to exit the war are fairly good.
johnfabian
2yr ago
I'm in 100%, total agreement with you, as a big fan of the book and someone very interested in the world wars. I've mentioned before here that the depiction of the Germans as over-eager in the final days of the war isn't just a baffling reversal of the book's finish, but also likely to give the average viewer the completely wrong impression about what the German morale and position was like come November 1918.
Over time I've become less and less tolerant for movies that take historical liberties. I don't really care about names or places or specific dates, or getting all the period details of dress and costume and dialogue correct. But the average person should be able to get, emotionally and intellectually, a roughly accurate impression of the era depicted. The average person knows fuck all about history EXCEPT for what they get from pop culture, and so in that respect I do feel that film/tv/video game creatives have some responsibility to get the broad stuff right. In an age of decreased literacy they do shoulder more of the burden (extremely sadly) for explaining history. And I think it's much more important that the larger public have a decent sense of our shared history than most people would reckon.
johnfabian
2yr ago
I don't see how Russia ever would've been bold enough to attack Finland. Not only are there practically zero Russians in Finland, the country is thoroughly ensconced within western Europe culturally (even if not militarily/diplomatically). The international sympathy it would draw if it were the victim of Russian aggression would dwarf that of Ukraine. Also it has a very competent military, and a state that is vastly more coherent and capable.
johnfabian
2yr ago
Not to mention giving the European countries in NATO a big kick in the ass for both their own military contributions and their strategic independence from American enemies
johnfabian
2yr ago
I mean the very first thing that came up on google when I searched for a representative article was a WSJ op-ed with the the sub-headline "Don’t believe this week’s denials. Progressive Democrats really are coming for your kitchen appliances."
At least among Canadian conservatives the response was similar. For example from the Toronto Sun: Just the gas stove? No, green zealots want your furnace, hot water tank, too
I'm not a partisan in this debate. I think it would be good if gas stoves get eased out in the near future (more important in areas with high renewable energy production), but there are valid practical, aesthetic, and survival reasons for having a gas stove.
johnfabian
2yr ago
Im guessing cast iron type pans are banned on induction stoves. Because they don’t work on electric either as I’ve learned and ruined the glass surface before and had to replace it.
I'm confused as to why cast iron wouldn't work on electric. I use cast iron for maybe >80% of my cooking (either my skillet or Dutch oven) and I've had no problems.
Cast iron is presumably perfect for induction because of how ferrous it is, but I've not had the chance to try it myself.
johnfabian
2yr ago
The most fun/silly culture war argument in a while: STOVES!
Hey, did you hear the Democrats are coming for your gas stoves? Variations on that were the instigation of a bizarre culture war spat last week. Apparently some government official speculated about banning gas stoves because of health concerns, and that started the now-predictable cycle of "No, you're wrong!" bouncing around social media. I saw various reactions to this in different spaces and they were interesting in the way they were filtered through the various political lenses. In the US gas stoves are mainly a blue-state / higher-end restaurant phenomenon, so I found the conservative media response to be a bit baffling because it's not really their fortress under assault here. On the other hand saw lots of bourgeois PMC foodies declaring that you would only take their gas stoves from charred, dead hands.
I'm a hobbyist cook. I love trying new foods, experimenting with new recipes, and making food for friends and family. I'm the one who gets chained to the stove all through Christmas time (I like it though). So I found this a refreshingly fun (amid the inherent stupidity) culture war. My short opinion, having cooked with both gas and electric (rare to have gas in Canada); average gas stoves are better than average electrics, but among better ranges it depends what you want to do. I have a nice electric stove right now and I reckon I prefer it to gas because it is a lot more powerful which helps for high-temperature cooking (good for meat, Chinese food), and also is more constant at low temperatures (I make a lot of soft-scrambled eggs). But gas generally has much finer temperature control which is very practical for restaurant applications and to a certain extent rewards higher skill in a cook.
Gas does have real health/environmental implications. Yes, good ventilation goes a long way to preventing serious health risks, but it's not nothing. And gas is much less efficient energy-wise; not only does it shed a lot of heat in the energy transfer to the cooking vessel, it's in general less efficient than electric (but often cheaper depending on your locale). How much these considerations weigh against the legitimate reasons people have for preferring gas for cooking depends on the individual. But certainly people resent a top-down government intervention to force them to change their preference, and are skeptical of the reasoning presented.
But you know what this really reminds me of? The hot culture war debate of 20 years ago: incandescent lightbulbs vs. fluorescents. I've mentioned this a few times before here, but it's one of those culture wars that just disappeared, and I think many people would be genuinely forgetful or surprised if you brought it up to them now. It was a big thing at the time: as a kid I would remember reading the op-ed section of the newspaper and see endless letters to the editor about how using incandescent bulbs were our God-given right or you were a heartless rapist of the earth if you didn't immediately switch to fluorescents. The breakdown of that culture war was pretty simply liberal/conservative (should be obvious which side was which), whereas this one doesn't align people so neatly. But what the real comparison to the present is what ended the previous culture war: a new technology came along that made both previous ones (and their partisans) obsolete. LEDs ended up just being simply superior to both in every way. Progress ended the culture war.
Enter: induction cooking. It's electric. No particulate emissions. It's extremely powerful. It has fantastic temperature control. It's getting cheaper. You can have a traditional range, or just a hotplate: it's flexible and scalable. It's much safer, both for risk of burns and for starting fires. The only downside is that some existing cookware isn't compatible with it (you need ferrous metals in your vessel for it to work).
My prediction is that by the end of the decade induction replaces all gas stoves and most electrics. And twenty years later people will be bemused and embarrassed that we had such a silly argument over this.
johnfabian
2yr ago
johnfabian
2yr ago
This is only tangentially related, but this reminds me of a comment on reddit the other day about how public art is often divorced from a practical purpose, meaning that ultimate finished product is bizarre and unsettling even if it is executed well.
I never got those vibes of identarian feminist from her. Not that I have ever read anything she's written outside of the Harry Potter books, but the books are completely bereft of anything that smacks of that (besides the occasional joke about how boys are sometimes emotionally uncomplex)
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