mildly_obsolete
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User ID: 1305
Canadians don’t have a right to complain because of the residential schools controversy
I hate the idea that the residential schools narrative (and narratives of similar nature) could be so effective. How do you even begin to deprogram such a person?
Maybe just callously adopting your local equivalent of 'Armenian genocide? made up nonsense, and they deserved it all anyway' is the meta. Admittedly I'm biased in that direction.
mildly_obsolete
1yr ago
The Palestinian terror attacks were a type of brutality I don't think anybody in the modern western world has ever seen before.
Baffling statement as far as I am concerned. Nothing I've seen so far made we wince the way some videos from Ukraine do. Then there are cartel videos, and minor events like, for example, that tourist woman getting beheaded in Morocco (?). This is of course just the tip of the brutality iceberg that's easy to access.
I've seen some videos of Israelis getting shot, some dead women, some captive scared women. Stuff that, to me, does not feel out of place in Israel, considering the unresolved conflict. Is there any actually gruesome stuff out there?
mildly_obsolete
11mo ago
It's of course easy to propose optimizing the natives away when the framing is: only parasites are victimized, and not really. How do you justify this encroachment, again? What is being built?
I admit I see this post as a high effort variant of your occasional outbursts of hostility towards the natives. If you were 'chosen', then it was a mistake.
Shock announcement indeed. I expected the US to continue to support and whitewash Israeli criminal behaviour, not literally perform janitorial duties.
Abysmal optics, all smiles and courtesies next to Bibi, announcing violent cleansing, US funded redevelopment, gift to Israel barely obfuscated by "they ALL want to leave", "uninvolved countries will pay", "everyone will live there afterwards". They way he was describing why the plan is needed today, an uninformed person would be excused if they thought a natural disaster struck Gaza, repeatedly.
mildly_obsolete
2yr ago
Just say nigger, man. We aren't in reddit any more.
I think it's improper ask this, and I don't mind the word myself at all. The point was clear, it avoided the silly 'x-word' construct, too much casual use would probably not be beneficial to the forum.
mildly_obsolete
11mo ago
I am surprised how obnoxious I'm finding this topic. Maybe selective, or maybe I no longer have patience, with war and AI looming, for endless, careful dissection of such a mundane event obviously pulled into attention for political aims. More assassinations, please.
mildly_obsolete
3mo ago
Anticipating the outline of the 5D chess explanation: this was the plan all along, training allies to meekly accept US dictates, baiting the disrespectful Chinese into cringe, standoffish behaviour. Now allies, cowed, thankful, will only negotiate 1:1, happy to put tariffs on China to avoid the terrible, terrible flood of goods. Such determination was shown that nobody will dare reduce own vulnerability to another round of similar 'negotiations'.
mildly_obsolete
1yr ago
It reminds me of 4th of July LARPing in Eastern Europe. Yes, it's actually a thing
On a quick glance all I found points back to some people setting up a theme park for people to roleplay in. Expansive tickets, fewer than 100 people, a lot of photos. I assume this is not really your threshold for something being 'a thing', and at least in my experience, 4th of July does not register for people in Poland beyond the mentions of it in the news.
mildly_obsolete
2yr ago
grand Teutonic war machine lost out to the likes of Audie Murphy and his ilk; that is absolutely the case
Seeing this repeated is too much for me. If 'Teutonic war machine' lost to anything American, it was the 1/3rd+ of global industrial output and a continent worth of resources supporting the Europeans - and it was these Europeans that Germans lost out to. List Americans responsible for the massively successful industry, if anyone.
mildly_obsolete
3mo ago
Fifth, they could simply write checks to Treasury that help us finance global public goods.
Global public goods! No, by all means, shrug this great burden aside, teach humanity a lesson, show us what the world without American self-sacrifice looks like.
I can't figure out to what extent Americans realize how off-putting their rhetoric is for people on the outside. Too drunk on power to care, or actually believe themselves to be victimized, justified in belligerence? Either way, very effective at making people root for US humiliation. If not reflected at the top of US hierarchy, I'd think it an astroturfing campaign ran by US adversaries.
mildly_obsolete
9mo ago
Iran is not a serious country
Is this anything more than just a smear?
They are not serious about total war with Israel, for often discussed reasons.
They are serious enough to develop means to strike Israeli ground targets - can't say that about Poland (assuming the requirement is that such capabilities are not dependent on the whims of allies), and we need such weapons just as much as Iranians do.
mildly_obsolete
2yr ago
I did not say America was short on them, I implied the opposite - by 'if anyone' I meant, if you're going to list any individual to represent the forces that were of foremost importance in US success in the two wars.
mildly_obsolete
2yr ago
I think they are better hidden. That said, I tend to upvote comments that I would not normally bother with as long as the score is negative, just to pull it towards 0. No delay will make it less effective, since people downvoting are probably more motivated.
Now feature I would really like is an option to add a tag to a collapsed top comment. Maybe two types of collapsing as well - some top comments I'm not interested in at all and want to collapse for good, others only temporarily. Would be nice to be able to tell these apart at a glance.
This is just so, so much fun to witness. At this point the mere sight of comrade Xi makes me chuckle. Praying they do not undo or delay the tariffs.
I do worry a little that policy this stupid will push the elites in formerly friendly countries more towards waiting Trump out than responding harshly. "This can't possibly go on, let's wait", deadly complacency.
mildly_obsolete
1yr ago
Bear pickers would get what they deserve. At least you can expect a man, if he's forced to eat you, to kill you before he begins.
mildly_obsolete
1yr ago
One perspective on Navalny death is that it was meant as a signal for Europeans: "Current regime feels itself strong enough to drop the act that a reset is at all feasible. Russia is winning in Ukraine and will dictate when and how the conflict ends. Putin is the only person Europe can negotiate with".
Ukraine would be interested in Europe not treating this signal seriously, saying it was just a clot helps. It's quite a stretch though.
mildly_obsolete
3mo ago
When you say 'own battles', do you mean Ukraine, or something else?
It hardly qualifies as a theory of victory, but something to mention is the Mar-a-lago accords. I can’t find any discussion of these on TheMotte; it is loosely connected to "Are US gold reserves still in Fort Knox?" Musk/Trump talking point, so maybe this was discussed then.
The rough idea appears to be for allies to baghold US debt (a "soft" default? garnishing interest as back pay for the security the US provided in the past?) and to significantly devalue the dollar, giving US industries a shot at competitiveness. More a rumor woven from US officials’ grumbling than a concrete plan, but it raises questions:
How feasible is it for the US to overhaul the financial system in its own favor, again? Can drastic steps even make a dent? Or would it all implode if tried?
mildly_obsolete
6mo ago
The panic in Canada, Mexico, and Europe over Trump's tariff proposals
My impression is that this 'panic' is considerably overstated, triumphalism and wishful thinking that translates into deranged twitter takes about Trump charming entire rooms of pliant European elites. Reminds me a little of the "we're the good guys again!" atmosphere among American plebs and elites both after the war in Ukraine began.
mildly_obsolete
1yr ago
saying the quiet part out loud
If the 'quiet' part is merely that performative activism is a common phenomenon in the context of any high profile issue, Israeli conduct included, I think it's actually a pretty widely acknowledged fact.
If the 'quiet' part is that opposition to Israeli conduct is just a hysteria and a performance, therefore illegitimate, then this assumes a consensus that does not exist.
The very first thing she says in the video is that stating her opinion on the conflict 'would make absolutely no difference to anyone'. I consider this a weaker strain of 'let them kill each other', and distrust people pushing it to western audiences. Why is it reasonable and proper for plebs to be neutral if their state supports one side?
They are increasingly popular in Poland. A tattoo place I pass by once in a while is called "ACOTATANATO" (translates to "but what will daddy say to this?", a mystery why it's not "ACOTATONATO" which is still correct and flows better) - a vapid, somewhat common reason, I imagine. Rebellion in the face overbearing authority, except such prepackaged rebellion is common, and authority in retreat.
mildly_obsolete
1yr ago
I found the voice so grating I closed one of the demos on an impulse. Turns out I categorically do not want someone else's mechanism to talk to me in such a bubbly, ingratiating, worryingly palatable manner unprompted.
I was surprised that no asked asked what, concretely, is so harmful about Holocaust education
I am surprised you feel this was absent from the thread below.
If by holocaust education you mean dedicating a single high school history lesson to the topic - nothing particularly harmful.
If you mean Holocaust education as it exists, and as SS suggests it might evolve, it is a ploy to secure and solidify power by a group I don't belong to. Concretely and currently, it helps enable Jewish organizations to use USA as a bludgeon to further their goals. Among them, the attempt to extract rents my country - Poland - with the flimsy excuse of claiming the property of Polish citizens of Jewish ethnicity who were murdered during the war and did not leave any descendants.
mildly_obsolete
24d ago
Trump tweeted ‘get out of Tehran now’ and there were immediately massive traffic jams leaving Tehran
What a claim. There were traffic jams leaving the city from day one. And still, the traffic probably did pick up after he made the threat, US & Trump is understood to be slavishly devoted to Israelis, likely to sign off on and aid a nuclear strike on the city.
far less clearly involved in than Ukraine
Direct involvement in air defence, active support in the bombing campaign. This is less than in the first weeks in Ukraine?
If you're male, I find it very hard to believe you don't see his point. You can discard it as a primitive, outdated consideration if you so choose, but don't call it bizarre - it decidedly is not.
Myself, I can't overstate just how much this scenario makes me recoil. If such mercenary behavior is straightforwardly permissible, then the idea of fighting for a nation falls apart, and you're just meat to be sacrificed to further elite interests. You don't exactly get to loot your way into leaving a war better off these days. War in Ukraine is utter hell, demanding solidarity on homefront is perfectly normal.
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