muzzle-cleaned-porg-42
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User ID: 1018
muzzle-cleaned-porg-42
1yr ago
My take concerning the ethical issues is very similar to yours.
I have gained a greater appreciation of just how difficult it is to write a sane law banning abortion. ... However, laws should be written to give the maximum benefit of doubt to the doctor and mother. There should be a medical emergency exception. To prosecute an abortion as not being medically necessary the state should have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the doctor was, not just wrong, but actively acting in bad faith.
I have come to conclusion that the difficulties are not about the law as written, but the societal and cultural stuff it is supposed to reflect. Namely, there is nothing to reflect. You can not write a law and have it obeyed if it doesn't "fit" the society.
(Draconian authoritarian enforcement may help, but that option comes with a risk that the draconian authoritarian enforcers will take bribes to look the other way because they don't agree with law either. Part of the risk in a police state is that it won't be the ideal Spartan "tough but just" police state but the draconian police state where widespread corruption and disrespect of the law is a norm, which is worse.)
If people have a commonly shared moral framework broadly accepted by mostly everyone, you can write a law "abortion is generally banned except in medical emergencies" and have outcomes you expect. Without the such shared moral framework, you either get "no medical emergency is serious enough, women suffer / die of complications" or "having an unwanted baby would cause some unwanted mental distress, which qualifies as a medical reason".
Thus, my opinion is that any serious [1] legal solution is downstream of values. Why people no longer want kids? Why they are viewed as a burden? If we'd solve that, and there is a possibility for long-term effective change.
[1] There is a possibility there are legal changes that could go together with a successful values reappraisal, or some marginal tweak will improve individual outcomes. But in big picture, it won't move the overall statistic / sentiment.
This prediction, a dull mainstay of science fiction from the 1950s onwards, was misinterpreted by some social media manager for the WEF as a purely optimistic forecast, and then inserted into the Facebook video.
I have upvoted / liked / thumbs up my share of WEF memes to the effect, "doesn't stakeholder capitalism sound quite much like dystopia" but not the overt conspiracy stuff. Call it mildly conspiratorial anti-WEF position and a form of protest.
hcnzosdu in a sibling thread argues otherwise, but I always assumed your take was correct: it was a message misinterpreted by some (incompetent / daft) social media manager for the WEF. Which was also the part I find troubling: that the WEF is (1) an important organization, (2) large enough to employ social media managers whose messages are seen by non-insignificant amount of people (3) the said managers think such visions are optimistic and utopian. It epitomizes the values and vision of those aligned with the WEF: I disagree with those values and vision.
I for one never believed the WEF is a dark Illuminati presided by Dark Lord Schwab who possesses detailed, itemized, decade-spanning agenda "how to take over the world". Nevertheless, it is not an insignificant thing either: many politicians go there, network which each other, discuss and share ideas ... and afterwards, those politicians tend to propose policy and legislation that is often more aligned with the WEF values than not. Some of those politicians have continue to have nice, elite careers if they lose elections and retire from political life. The WEF is not a conspiracy in the sense it is an instrumental coordinating nucleus, a critical piece of infrastructure without which nothing would exist. If Davos didn't exist, there would be other conferences and other networking opportunities that could be made appear equally sinister or equally banal and boring. Before the WEF, I recall the Bilderberg meeting was the famous conference that attracted attention of a conspiratorial mind. Everyone who attends such events has their boring informal professional networks which are probably much more important to each individual. However, the WEF exists.
I don't think it is a conspiracy theory to think conferences like the World Economic Forum have similar value as any other networking events and conferences attached to an agenda / set of ideas (I suppose you could call it a memeplex). Take NIPS/NeurIPS. It would be very weird to argue that NIPS is totally irrelevant or not worth looking at, especially would have been when it was the 2010s, it was still called NIPS, and neural networks were becoming an superbly interesting thing (again). It would be silly to claim that the NIPS Organizing Committee was a conspiratorial cabal with a project to install particular AI algorithm paradigm. But it was founded with the intention that the scientists interested in neural information processing systems could meet each other, share valuable ideas and knowledge, and have some prestigious fun (which may be more important than it sounds). All those people going to same place and talking to each other and having not-bad-time together is important: humans are social animals, it is how people organize themselves, and organized effort is more effective than one without organization.
I do think it makes sense to note that the WEF is an organization important enough to attract the members of "elite class" (point 1 and bit of 2) and it posts social media PR (Facebook posts, Instagram stories) about owning nothing, substituting meat with vegan products, the Great Reset like they are the most cheerful thing ever (points 2 to 3).
Speaking of the Great Reset, it sounds a bit more ambitious project / campaign / attempt to seed a memeplex (?) than a simple tax reform. Archival link
The Great Reset agenda would have three main components. The first would steer the market toward fairer outcomes. To this end, governments should improve coordination (for example, in tax, regulatory, and fiscal policy), upgrade trade arrangements, and create the conditions for a “stakeholder economy.” At a time of diminishing tax bases and soaring public debt, governments have a powerful incentive to pursue such action.
Moreover, governments should implement long-overdue reforms that promote more equitable outcomes. Depending on the country, these may include changes to wealth taxes, the withdrawal of fossil-fuel subsidies, and new rules governing intellectual property, trade, and competition.
The second component of a Great Reset agenda would ensure that investments advance shared goals, such as equality and sustainability. Here, the large-scale spending programs that many governments are implementing represent a major opportunity for progress. The European Commission, for one, has unveiled plans for a €750 billion ($826 billion) recovery fund. The US, China, and Japan also have ambitious economic-stimulus plans.
Rather than using these funds, as well as investments from private entities and pension funds, to fill cracks in the old system, we should use them to create a new one that is more resilient, equitable, and sustainable in the long run. This means, for example, building “green” urban infrastructure and creating incentives for industries to improve their track record on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) metrics.
The third and final priority of a Great Reset agenda is to harness the innovations of the Fourth Industrial Revolution to support the public good, especially by addressing health and social challenges. During the COVID-19 crisis, companies, universities, and others have joined forces to develop diagnostics, therapeutics, and possible vaccines; establish testing centers; create mechanisms for tracing infections; and deliver telemedicine. Imagine what could be possible if similar concerted efforts were made in every sector.
That is much more than a global minimum corporation tax. In fact, it is not explicitly mentioned at all, taxes are a throwaway line! However, most of the index funds I had invested to have turned to applying ESG indexes. Are ESG screened indexes dystopian? Not so sure, but some stakeholder capitalist somewhere has their thumb on the scales in a different place than previously.
The World Economic Forum is a conference but also a vision. it is a thing worth paying attention to and a thing one can disagree with. How one does disagree with a vision on the internet? One can write long posts arguing against it in obscure internet forum. But if one wants to be efficient and have impact, one should share funny memes against the WEF and the vision it represents.
I am genuinely unsure if the overtly conspiratorial stuff helps or not. (I have not met genuine conspiracy theorists in non-internet social sphere. I have had some success getting reactions like "WEF is a bit weird/tacky".)
Schwab also wrote a book, titled 'The Fourth Industrial Revolution', a poorly written text that says little and which argues for what is effectively globalized neoliberal "stakeholder capitalism".
I would like to draw a comparison to the standard multinational corporate bullshit jargon. This genre of writing should be familiar to most people (think of HR and PR departments of large Western companies and other organizations). Collections of banal, unsophisticated, trivial statements. Many a corporate document is like Schwab's book, "a poorly written text that says little." Generally co-workers will agree the jargon is often silly and sometimes difficult to take seriously. Nevertheless, such jargon-laden, poorly written documents are how the generic Western corporation function, and thus they have tremendous effect in yearly performance reviews, project launches, funding decisions, real stuff in the real world. Poorly written text that says little can be important.
Sure, the Communist Manifesto had an evocative opening and said much (not all of it good nor true), but our age is less romantic.
muzzle-cleaned-porg-42
1yr ago
It appears that Finland in 1939 had much more limited materiel support and commitment from the "big players" than Ukraine today: Germany had then a treaty with the Soviets and intercepted the Italian aid (arms and planes). The US was neutral, but there was some private fundraising. The Allies (France and UK) sold planes that didn't arrive in time to affect the course of war. (However, the threat of an Allied intervention via Sweden was very likely a factor in Stalin had to take into account.)
Sweden provided significant support (guns, ammo, and Wikipedia page says the Swedish volunteer air wing in Finland operated a third of Swedish air force's fighter planes). Also some Hungarian support. However, Sweden and Hungary were regional powers at best.
In contrast, Ukraine has near full materiel support of NATO and EU in quantity if with some limits in quality. (Hi-tech indirect fires like HIMARS and gigantic funding packages from the US and EU: yes. Western-made fighter planes and main battle tanks: none yet). But there is a noticeable difference between the incumbent president signing a lend-lease contract vs ex-president soliciting donations for a humanitarian aid fund.
muzzle-cleaned-porg-42
1yr ago
That is an interesting idea. However, agreed, it is not going to be limited to "NPC"s. "Spook contractors" controlling discourse sounds ... not far-fatched, but a bit abstract and conspiratorial.
I suggest putting in some skin in the game. Is it feasible to get a LLM to produce a Motte post (or a full persona) that is obviously not spam, doesn't violate any of themotte.org rules, and is actually so good it get voted in as a quality contribution?
Reading Eco is good mental exercise. He is quite smart, capable and well-read, not without fault, but still well-read and smart. I think The Prague Cemetery could be something that wold interest many Motte users just for peeking at the sheer amount Eco has read about the 19th century politics to write it. (Never mind the plot.)
Concerning Eco's definition of fascism. If you read the original, it appears that Eco gets that because something fits his definition is not eternally always equal to Mussolini's fascism. Truncated quotes (apologies, but Eco does not write succinctly)
If we still think of the totalitarian governments that ruled Europe before the Second World War we can easily say that it would be difficult for them to reappear in the same form in different historical circumstances. If Mussolini’s fascism was based upon the idea of a charismatic ruler, on corporatism, on the utopia of the Imperial Fate of Rome, on an imperialistic will to conquer new territories, on an exacerbated nationalism, on the ideal of an entire nation regimented in black shirts, on the rejection of parliamentary democracy, on anti-Semitism, then I have no difficulty in acknowledging that today the Italian Alleanza Nazionale, born from the postwar Fascist Party, MSI, and certainly a right-wing party, has by now very little to do with the old fascism. In the same vein, even though I am much concerned about the various Nazi-like movements that have arisen here and there in Europe, including Russia, I do not think that Nazism, in its original form, is about to reappear as a nationwide movement.
Nevertheless, even though political regimes can be overthrown, and ideologies can be criticized and disowned, behind a regime and its ideology there is always a way of thinking and feeling, a group of cultural habits, of obscure instincts and unfathomable drives. Is there still another ghost stalking Europe (not to speak of other parts of the world)?
Italian fascism was the first right-wing dictatorship that took over a European country, and all similar movements later found a sort of archetype in Mussolini’s regime. Italian fascism was the first to establish a military liturgy, a folklore, even a way of dressing—far more influential, with its black shirts, than Armani, Benetton, or Versace would ever be. ...
Nevertheless, historical priority does not seem to me a sufficient reason to explain why the word fascism became a synecdoche, that is, a word that could be used for different totalitarian movements. This is not because fascism contained in itself, so to speak in their quintessential state, all the elements of any later form of totalitarianism. On the contrary, fascism had no quintessence. Fascism was a fuzzy totalitarianism, a collage of different philosophical and political ideas, a beehive of contradictions. Can one conceive of a truly totalitarian movement that was able to combine monarchy with revolution, the Royal Army with Mussolini’s personal milizia, the grant of privileges to the Church with state education extolling violence, absolute state control with a free market? ... [W]hen the King fired Mussolini in 1943, the party reappeared two months later, with German support, under the standard of a “social” republic, recycling its old revolutionary script, now enriched with almost Jacobin overtones. ...
So we come to my second point. There was only one Nazism. We cannot label Franco’s hyper-Catholic Falangism as Nazism, since Nazism is fundamentally pagan, polytheistic, and anti-Christian. But the fascist game can be played in many forms, and the name of the game does not change. The notion of fascism is not unlike Wittgenstein’s notion of a game. A game can be either competitive or not, it can require some special skill or none, it can or cannot involve money. Games are different activities that display only some “family resemblance,” as Wittgenstein put it. ...
But in spite of this fuzziness, I think it is possible to outline a list of features that are typical of what I would like to call Ur-Fascism, or Eternal Fascism. These features cannot be organized into a system; many of them contradict each other, and are also typical of other kinds of despotism or fanaticism. But it is enough that one of them be present to allow fascism to coagulate around it.
... (insert the list with explanations) ...
We must keep alert, so that the sense of these words will not be forgotten again. Ur-Fascism is still around us, sometimes in plainclothes. It would be so much easier, for us, if there appeared on the world scene somebody saying, “I want to reopen Auschwitz, I want the Black Shirts to parade again in the Italian squares.” Life is not that simple. Ur-Fascism can come back under the most innocent of disguises. Our duty is to uncover it and to point our finger at any of its new instances—every day, in every part of the world. Franklin Roosevelt’s words of November 4, 1938, are worth recalling: “I venture the challenging statement that if American democracy ceases to move forward as a living force, seeking day and night by peaceful means to better the lot of our citizens, fascism will grow in strength in our land.” Freedom and liberation are an unending task.
More briefly, I don't think Eco would have had any problem acknowledging that his list does not overdetermine "fascism". He says he is trying to gesture at a syncretic fuzzy ball of ideas but want to argues the fuzzy ball "ur-Fascism" can meaningfully still be called "fascism" in post-Mussolini era. He quite clearly gestures that many of his points are generally unpleasant types of political thought that the free world would be better without and people wearing black shirts do not have a monopoly over them. And what would be "the most innocent of disguises" if not a political ideologue who argues to be antifascist yet deploys the same tactics and ideas?
The uncharitability is more on the people who take a distilled list of his in Wikipedia and choose to apply it like Der Hexenhammer to identify witches they want to identify as witches.
edit. this was intended as a reply to @FistfullOfCrows here edit2 @ not /u/
muzzle-cleaned-porg-42
1yr ago
It just sounds like a conspiracy that happen to the other people.
muzzle-cleaned-porg-42
1yr ago
My recollection is that Hermione's liberation front was viewed as a misguided (we see that not all elfs would adjust as well as Dobby), but the slavery system is not obviously good either.
I think that particular plot element was one the many elements of satire or should I say cynicism in the series. Remember the first chapter of the first book, almost as if penned by Roald Dahl? The world of Harry Potter is not nice: it it is unkind, uncaring, in general, quite drabby in the British kind of way. Not just Muggles, but it is often the overall undertone and outlook of Wizarding World, too, while it has more bright spots. (At least for Harry. But consider Snape.)
muzzle-cleaned-porg-42
1yr ago
It's the idea that attempting to convince someone that they should date you (or otherwise change their sexual preference/behavior) is inherently wrong and abusive.
I don't understand in which situation it would be right either.
There is a mating dance: flirting. Either party can gracefully back off. Usually, "attempt to convince" sounds a bit wrong kind off approach, no room for graceful exit or positive atmosphere afterwards. I suppose you can have a playful argument with flirtatious undertone, but it sounds a bit too much like a thing that works in a TV script but not in a real life. People can become distracted by the argument. (Big romantic gestures are a bit similar. Maybe one could pull it off, but one should be aware that attempting to initiate a 19th century courtship dance in a different time and place where likely nobody knows how to respond, it just might not work.)
In most situations, person doing the convincing would usually make a fool of themselves. If they appear to hold some leverage (social, professional or otherwise), or person being convinced is a bit too meek, it can become quite creepy and manipulative.
muzzle-cleaned-porg-42
1yr ago
I view "sometimes my money goes people I don't like" as a price for participating in an economy. If I buy free-range eggs from a farmer, what I know of their political beliefs? And that farmer probably has to buy crops and stuff from some other people I know even less about. If I buy a Big Mac, the profits will be diluted to countless stockholders after the suits have taken their cut. As a whole, people who profit from my Big Mac have not a coherent opinion.
muzzle-cleaned-porg-42
1yr ago
Denmark had a small upwards bump after the Do It For Denmark campaign in 2015 (nat change per 1000: 1.0 -> 1.5, or some three thousand babies more) but it has since tapered off, and it is difficult tell if it was because of the campaign or other random variation.
muzzle-cleaned-porg-42
1yr ago
A great deal of things that dudes in their 20s do, consciously or unconsciously, are about getting laid. Whether you want a culture where members of the meet up is acceptable or frowned upon depends on what you're aiming for, but I think there are a number of cases, e.g recruiting more casual members, where you'd want it to be acceptable.
While this is not untrue, thinking of it like it is either acceptable or frowned upon sounds a bit too binary. What they should strive for is an environment where as far as cultural expectations of romantic and sexual shenanigans go, what happens (if it happens) is classy. The memetic "be attractive, don't be unattractive" is surprisingly apt if you add in a time dimension, too: "as far as anyone is concerned, you continue to be attractive and remain not unattractive afterwards, too".
Should EA take in to account the "dudes in their 20s consciously or subconsciously" effect or take advantage of it for recruitment and yet keep their eyes on the nominal target (longtermism and other grand causes), they should develop adequate cultural antibodies. Dudes who make attempts at romance need to those who can dance successfully, that those who can't, do not. Those who dance, should dance in a way that mitigates the reputational risk.
There are also the practical adaptations: Do not admit that it is a factor, nor do not create a situation where people would have to notice it is a factor, at least not any more than in any other high status well-respected professional endeavor. Doing one thing while not admitting doing it to avoid not-spoken thing to become too prominent is not maybe 101 level social skills, more like 201 or 301, but a successful organization may need to operate above the 101 level.
It absolutely is a red flag if you are yourself accustomed to sorting and matching your socks when you do laundry.
If you do the laundry, you have to match both your own and the other person's. (And that is going to be difficult if they never do it on their own initiative. Makes also more difficult to match your own socks. Adds entropy.) If you don't do the laundry, expect to find a closet full of mixed socks, and if you don't like it that way and want to have it your way, congratulations, you have now an extra chore because you have to do the laundry.
In my limited experience, any everyday friction items like "how to organize socks" are much more important deal-breakers for a relationship than difference in political opinions or many of the "values".
muzzle-cleaned-porg-42
11mo ago
Being a good pundit is difficult and requires specialization and probably some sort of (formal or informal) support organization. But being a pundit that gets interviewed a lot? Making a career out of it? That is quite different skillset.
1.) Yes, one suit. Plus two non-suit, more sport-ish jackets. None of them fit very well since I have progressively lost weight after every time I bought the item, but one of the jackets is not outright ridiculous. But I have several trousers / jeans / shirts / sweaters / shoes that make possible all many combinations from casual to smart casual and business casual; they do fit okay and the best ones very well. I pay attention that the quality of material; generally, good quality natural fabrics look better than any synthetics.
2.) Not quite. Suit has not been worn for several years; I am too lazy to sell it. The one jacket that is not bad gets out approximately twice a year for important but non-formal family events (birthdays, Christmas). I get invited and accept invite to weddings or otherwise formal events once per decade (that is why the suit is out-of-date). At work, most people below the senior level are very casual, so usually the casual must come before the smart in "smart casual". In most situations I find myself, the well-fitting shirt or sweater and pants alone puts me in the upper quintile.
Critics of the hereditarian hypothesis have posted critiques of the study, but, to my knowledge, no clear alternative hypotheses or explanations for the genetic model fitting basically perfectly.
Erm, I think your links present a very clear alternative hypotheses. To quote the Vince Buffalo tweet thread you yourself linked:
On the Clark paper: correlation functions often decay over various distances (genetic, environmental, spatial, etc). Observing a correlation that varies over genetic relatedness is not evidence that the cause is genetic, since many other processes create correlations that decay.
Fitting a parametric model for the rate of decay, as he does, is one way to check the plausibility of a model. However, many correlation functions have very similar forms. A good fit is not evidence of the right causal model.
His model has 2 degrees of freedom: heritability (h²) and corr. due to assortative mating (m). The genetic trait correlation function ρ(k) = h²((1+m)/2)ᵏ will fit data from many different non-genetic processes very well, which we know would also be decreasing over distances.
So, my take is the dataset is interesting, and yes the "genetic" model fits. But so would many, many alternative models that aren't in the paper. That the genetic model fits is not evidence genetics is the cause of the good fit. Many models with 2 df fit decay in correlations.
To put it bit more bluntly: If I measure how many Christmas postcards people send to each other (during 90s when people sent Christmas postcards), I would be surprised if I did not observe excellent fit for a genetic model with two free parameters for correlations of much postcards people send to each other: parents and children send more frequently postcards to each other, siblings quite and grandchildren and grandparents quite often , uncles and aunts less, cousins and other more distant relations less, decaying more and more as relations become more distant. It is not due to genetics causing postcard-activity (in a Platonian state, where children won't know their parents, sending postcards to them would quite difficult indeed!). It is because we intentionally organize ourselves socially in a way that closely mirrors our genetic relationship (for various good reasons), barring some random accidents.
Or here is what Turkheim says:
"Except for wealth"? Isn't wealth the alternative hypothesis? And that is what the modeling does: observes surprising persistence of family effects out to fourth cousins, for which there are at least two hypotheses: environmental family effects (C) and assortative mating (AM). /1
The models don't include C, by fiat. They just show that if you are willing to push AM up high enough, you can get a genetic model that fits the data. Kind of like doing a twin study, observing rDZ=rMZ, and concluding that it fits an additive genetic model with enough AM. /2
Assortative mating covers a huge amount of territory here, basically lumping all stratification processes-- genetic, environmental or phenotypic-- under a single rubric with an implausibly high value. Ignoring family environment is justified post hoc. /3
If you had told me a year ago that 2023 was going to bring a wave of maximalist genetic explanations of social structure, I would have said you were alarmist. Now? In a progressive era of surprisingly thin GWAS findings? But here we are. More soon. /end
To be scientifically more convincing, the study would need is a setup that could falsify a genetically determined environmental explanation. Lack of it is quite surprising because the object of the study is social status in the UK. Social status of king Charles is hereditary, yet not caused by any action attributable his genes themselves. I am surprised hereditarians would put so much stock on this study -- there are much better other evidence for a hereditarian positions, such as GWAS studies which usually attempt to control for this sort of thing (usually including principal components of genotype as covariates in regression models, which doesn't necessarily always work convincingly but probably results in directionally better estimates than no control at all). The Clark study, despite the impressive N, is quite weak evidence: if there is other more convincing evidence (that can rule out genetically-correlated social environment), then it is only confirmatory observation. If there is no such evidence, it won't convince a critic on its own merits.
muzzle-cleaned-porg-42
10mo ago
I don't know of Jefferson's biography to discuss the merits so let's grant the quoted monologue is correct. Jefferson didn't believe in it, just wrote it rouse the rabble. Then the question becomes, why those words to rouse the rabble instead of some other words? Aftereffects of choices made then have been felt for centuries.
It is a case study of power in ideas and common knowledge what are the ascendant ideas: the memes don't care whether the substrate believes or not, as long as they propagate.
muzzle-cleaned-porg-42
9mo ago
they're the same people that middle class families in 1900 employed to change diapers
I am uncertain. I have not survey data to back me up, so maybe I am fooled by fictionalized portrayals, but I'd imagine a 19th century nanny (/ domestic servant doing nanny-adjacent tasks) coming from a lower-class background could still be a conscientious, quite functional person: live very "clean", possibly both she and employer finding it acceptable for her to live in a room room in employer's home, likelier than not to go church every Sunday morning and act with moral fiber of believing the sermon in her everyday tasks. In contrast, I have hard time imagining I could find a working class let alone genuine underclass person who is both still poor enough to accept the limited salary a person who is not a quite comfortable indeed can pay and yet trustworthy enough of a person to let them in my home. On the other hand, in context of the late 19th century, it is much easier to imagine to able to find that sort of person from "lower classes", considering how during the time frame in question, domestic service was still one of largest forms of employment, especially for women, considering the whole national population. Today a capable, conscientious woman has many other equally or better paying and certainly more respected jobs to consider.
muzzle-cleaned-porg-42
8mo ago
But terror bombing(e.g. striking civilian targets for the purpose of lowering the enemy morale) is generally not used because time and time again it was proved ineffective and even damaging to its goal. I can't recall any country that engaged in the open terror bombing campaigns from, again, WW2, and if you decide to go this route you should be open about it. Main effect is on morale, it should be supported by propaganda and fiery speeches of inevitable death in case of continued defiance.
I'm interested in the process that happens before such strike as imagined by people who disagree with me. Does Russian/Ukrainian command has a secret policy of terror bombings but to keep it secret limits it to some fraction of its forces? What do they or some random rogue commander hope to gain from it? How do they justify wasting precious ammunition on targets that aren't relevant to the war effort?
I see two, no, three possible thought process that are not too alien to me.
Maybe I don't believe terror bombings are ineffective. It is difficult to judge whether extreme measures are truly ineffective, especially if you view some forms of violence positively and/or iare distrustful of progressive-liberal-coded research findings. I can imagine that a military commander, especially from a less Westernized military culture thinks that tough, aggressive, brutal measures are the effective measures, thinking the findings suggesting otherwise are mistaken or just outright liberal propaganda to serve the liberal sentiments.
Second explanation draws from banal realities of bureaucracy and greater number of civilian targets. The boss demands that important targets are hit. Successfully hitting hardened military targets may be difficult, especially after you have already sent missiles to all permanent military targets you knew of before the war, several times over: either are already destroyed, difficult to destroy, and-or the enemy found new locations. Hitting mobile or relocated targets requires current and correct intelligence of their whereabouts, which is slow and expensive. So maybe shoot some missiles to a school building (high chance of success) and dress it up as a critical infrastructure or troop location or important demoralizing terror attack in a report to the superior. This will be good for you as long as the superior will not reprimand you for terror attacks (or reprimands are not worse than reprimands for inaction or for failed attempts to hit the enemy HQ bunker hardened against nuclear attack).
Third: pure vindictiveness and vengeance (not necessary proportional) in retaliation for strikes and crimes by the opponent (real or perceived, recent or past).
Rand had a paper to the effect that The golden ratio for hostile occupations of conquered people is 1 soldier per 50 civilians... that's what was used in Germany after WW2 and Kosovo, America's 2 successful occupations.
Agreed with the general direction of your argument, but nitpick concerning post-war Germany: Firstly, the presence of the Soviet zone with Soviet occupation methods provided an additional "good cop/bad cop" dynamic. Secondly, it's not like the West German state was built ex nihilo without any relation to pre-war regime (probably it would have been impossible as everyone who strove to be someone had no option than associate with pre-war regime or become resistance fighter, a heroic but also often a dead-end career choice; random google result.)
The point is, replicating the feat that was "post-war Germany" would require more than 1 to 50 ratio of soldiers, but also a big stick in form of a "worse option" (better yet, a common enemy) and a buy-in from the prominent members of civil society and state apparatus. The case for post-war Japan had many similarities; less sure about post-war South Korea, but they had a military dictatorship. Conclusion: If wants to run an occupation with sheer force only, counting sufficient soldiers, one would need to study other case studies, from someone else's books. Maybe Soviet methods, which generally worked for maintaining the Soviet control for some time (at a cost which they finally were no longer willing to pay, thus not lasting a full century).
And all of the above is ignoring the difference between fighting a state or a polity (who have state-like-goals) and fighting a drug enterprise (which have other kind of goals). What good is sending 2m soldiers to fight the War on Drugs in the enemy territory if the enemy general's reaction is "many potential customers have moved closer to supply, saving on the logistics costs"?
muzzle-cleaned-porg-42
8mo ago
Left and right votes would be thematically appropriate for this forum.
Am I wrong and maybe sort of paranoid, or is there a concentrated and obvious effort in the Western public
It is a difficult question to settle without any citations to primary evidence than recollections. I have not kept a detailed diary neither, but I thought that looting, poor equipment and logistics were mostly discussed in spring 2022 (when the initial invasion had started showing ever increasing cracks and subsequently Kiev invasion was given up). Russian Kharkov front collapse / retreat, later in the autumn, sounds quite much like poorly trained and equipped soldiers running away ("fleeing in masse"). Retreat from Kherson, muddled picture. Then much debate whether the fight for Bakhmut made sense and was the loss ratio favorable to Ukrainians or Russians. I forget when the Iranian drones entered the picture. Since then there has been much waiting for the grand counter-offensive to yield noticeable results on the map and hand-wringing why is that (all of it keeps reminding me of reading about WW1 trench warfare period after Marne and Race to the Sea, massive battles that result only in small visible changes in the overall picture as civilians reading the news can see); only recently, since August or so, there has been reported changes in lines near Robotyne, which may or may not be a breakthrough (my general feeling is of pro-Ukrainian pundits appearing cautiously optimistic but noncommittal about relevance its success: though that describes the attitude of some pundits already back in May, so no change there).
The world in general and wars in particular are chaotic. I believe pundits often attempt to tell more consistent stories than the reality warrants. Low-quality pundits will reiterate soundbites. It would be quite expected that reported bits of information have changed because the relevant facts on the ground keep changing, may have shifted multiple times, with different information coming from different units with variable experiences. Let's consider the equipment situation of the Russians. It is not uncommon that troops in retreat or soon to start retreating have bad material situation (which necessitates the retreat); this explains reports of very poorly equipped Russians retreating. Yet, one purpose of strategic retreat is to improve the strategical situation, including logistics; who knows, possibly Russians succeeded in improving the situation, explaining there are reports compatible better equipped Russian troops (after the retreat). Likewise, which side has better drone tech and doctrine and relevant parties' perception of their relative strength may have changed several times over.
It is difficult to discuss this kind of question ("am I wrong ... or is there a concentrated and obvious effort ... to retcon") without specific articles and events to discuss. Attempts to litigate is such retcon attempt "obvious"? Even more difficult without such references of who said what and when. Maybe the "Narrative" has switched, or maybe the different voices are more prominent then previously; maybe the overall atmosphere among the audience reading the mostly similar information content has changed, or maybe it is not the overall atmosphere but individual perception.
muzzle-cleaned-porg-42
5mo ago
I have been upgrading my priors to the effect "more shocking the video, higher likelihood it is AI generated", but this is not shocking enough.
If I were to guess, it is something mundane, and the tables have turned and past stereotypes have become a funhouse mirror: these days it's the Chinese who come from such a well-ordered society that they amaze Westerners with their ability to stand in line waiting for their turn.
muzzle-cleaned-porg-42
4mo ago
I agree KnotGodel is near the right track but not exactly, and GP had a point. In Culture Wars of the way way past, we have stuff like 30 Years' War, or iconoclasts, or Akhenaten's cult. What is the common thread?
My theory: in culture wars, culture is the fuel, war is the process, but the engine is the mass media technology. Each form of technology comes with its particular equilibrium where the locus of control is. (To torture the metaphor, it is a twin-engine aircraft and the other engine is the technology for waging war, but that is no longer the culture war, just the regular war.)
Outcome is likely to be Cuius regio, eius religio once again.
I agree he wasn't a good match, but "rule of cool" wasn't the reason. Star Wars is a space opera conceived as "WW2 fighter planes, Jidaigeki, and Wild West, ... IN SPACE." In other words, rule of cool. None of the rich details of the exotic universe make sense, they are there because they look cool. Lucas wanted to cast a Japanese period drama samurai star as Obi-Wan Kenobi because of "how cool that'd be". Consistency is maintained in OT and prequels because of inertia and involving a single auteur whose vision of "cool" didn't change too much.
Hiring a "rule of cool" director was a good idea. The mistake of was that Johnson's brand of cool was different. Hiring a director who worships "canon" isn't necessarily a bad idea, it can work for some time, but eventually it will result in milking the original vision empty, producing soulless merchandise.
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