remzem
8mo ago
I just intended it as a "use the word in a sentence example" way. Not saying it's specific to covid. I do think there are changes to the way information is disseminated in current times that make NPC different from earlier flavors of conformists. It's mostly the mindlessly following beliefs that rapidly change and are often contradictory though.
remzem
8mo ago
- Extroversion: 3
- Emotional Stability 93
- Agreeableness 13
- Conscientiousness 97
- Intellect/Imagination 96
The person you don't invite to parties.
remzem
8mo ago
Isn't that more of a metroidvania? Terraria maybe? It's more minecrafty, not a lot of coop metroidvania though.
Mario is more platformer, the new one coming to switch soon, wonder? is co op iirc. Maybe Bread and Fred for heavy emphasis on the platforming and co op elements.
I'm surprised no one has commented on the far more ominous and frightening thing happening here. The very obvious political motivation behind the hit pieces.
Brand has been a, "rock star" sex pest and drug addict for pretty much ever. More recently however he's become increasingly disillusioned with the establishment and used his platform to criticize everything from vaccines and the covid response to russiagate. I don't follow him much, but it seemed to be around the 2020and covid when he fully divorced from his controlled opposition, Bernie Sanders with a bit of anarchy, type politics and started interacting with the Assange, Greenwald, Tucker style deplorables. It appears that in response to this the same media that gave him a platform for years and cheered on his lifestyle started calling up every one of his "1000 women" in order to get dirt on him.
This to me is far more frightening than the rapes, assuming they happened. It's more evidence that we live in a fully captured regime. Even if Brand were an out of control rapist existing in a world that had no modern safeguards against crime, at most he could harm, what? a few hundred or so? Before a ticked off relative is going to smash his skull in. The increasing merger between the political class, media and intelligence agencies in the west has, based off historic examples, the potential to get millions abused or killed. The sense of entitlement journalists seem to believe they have to "the narrative", history, truth, culture, etc. is rape on an industrial scale.
remzem
8mo ago
Isn't Greenwald that as well? I mean maybe not as far left as Brand. Brand always seemed more of an anarchist to me, anti corporation but anti-state as well, so I don't see it as reaping what he sowed, as he was opposed to communist style centralized power iirc. I mean he was a celebrity not a politician though so I don't know how consistent he was with his ideology.
remzem
8mo ago
It's a bit of a first they came for Russel Brand feeling situation I guess? Though we're well past 1st.
I think pushing back against power is just a constant. Everyone has their grand solutions for the perfect political system, but none of them actually are perfect. Eventually loopholes are found and power begins to accumulate. I don't think it's wrong to always be opposed to that and it's different from just always being contrarian. It's why people like Tucker and Brand can find common ground despite having very little in common ideologically.
remzem
7mo ago
Bit of an update on some things I saw this week on this.
Looks like Youtube has already demonetized his account. Guilty until proven innocent.
https://apnews.com/article/russell-brand-youtube-sex-assault-ecf7aeecb3b66a02a4f3eb74282dc1c8
YouTube said Tuesday that Russell Brand will no longer make money from the video streaming site after several women made allegations of sexual assault against the comedian-turned-influencer.
The BBC removed some of Brand’s material from its streaming archive, joining a growing list of organizations distancing themselves from the performer, who denies sexual assault and has not been charged with any criminal offenses.
YouTube said monetization of Brand’s account, which has 6.6 million subscribers, has been suspended “following serious allegations against the creator.”
“This decision applies to all channels that may be owned or operated by Russell Brand,” the Google-owned video service said.
Something that popped up in my feeds today that seems even more concerning is this from alt-media site Rumble though.
https://twitter.com/rumblevideo/status/1704584927834960196
They received an email from British parliament inquiring as to whether Russel Brand was still monetized on their website.
Dear Chris,
I am writing concerning the serious allegations regarding Russel Brand, in the context of his being a content provider on Rumble with more than 1.4 million followers.
The Culture, Media and Sport Committee is raising questions with the broadcasters and production companies who previously employed Mr. Brand to examine both the culture of the industry in the past and whether that culture still prevails today.
However, we are also looking at his use of social media, including on Rumble where he issued his pre-emptive response to the accusations made against him by The Sunday Times and Channel 4's Dispatches. While we recognize that Rumble is not the creator of the content published by Mr. Brand, we are concerned that he may be able to profit from his content on the platform.
We would be grateful if you could confirm whether Mr. Brand is able to monetize his content, including his videos relating to the serious accusations against him. If so, we would like to know whether Rumble intends to join YouTube in suspending Mr Brand's ability to earn money on the platform.
We would also like to know what Rumble is doing to ensure that creators are not able to use the platform to undermine the welfare of victims of inappropriate and potentially illegal behavior.
It's twitter and rumble along with a few other alternative media sites like post-millennial reporting on it so far, so it could be a hoax. It would be interesting if true. It looks like they are using this not just as a way to silence Brand entirely by cutting off his income, but also as a pretext to "examine the culture of the industry," i.e. pressure media both old and new in a more general sense beyond Brand.
remzem
7mo ago
I just take those plus vitamin c and creatine.
Vitamin C because it's an excuse to eat an orange flavored gummy candy that might be benefiting my genetically garbage skin a bit.
Creatine I took at first for working out, worked for me there, maybe an extra rep or so per set. No real side effects beyond 5 lbs of water weight gain, but no weight in the midsection because clothes fit the same.
Might be just me but I feel like it helps my mental energy / focus as well. Maybe it's a placebo from having a bit more physical energy? Kinda like with the weightlifting it's like I can push through a little bit longer on some mental task where I'd normally want to take a break. Anyone else get this? It's supposed to be very safe unless you have bad kidneys so I usually stay on it even if I'm not working out as much.
remzem
7mo ago
You'd need a mod, it was a random string of characters like jfnyrgi or something. Not memorable.
get weapons to save a thousand of Ukrainian lives
This is a bit off topic, but as a realist I really wonder at the neocon thinking here. I'm asking you since you are vocal about your beliefs, but really anyone jumping into this question would be fine.
Assume you are an average Ukrainian. For reference that is someone probably working Ukraine's most common job, a factory worker, making the Ukrainian median salary of 600usd a month. If you live in the South from Odessa to Dontesk, or the east from Donetsk to Kharkiv than you more than likely already speak Russian, especially if you are in a city. You've lived in a country that was a Soviet territory, then a Russian puppet state, and now a western puppet state. What would most likely happen to you in the following scenarios:
-Russia invaded and the Ukrainian leadership completely capitulated and the war was over before it even started.
-Russia invades and you fight back, the west is initially supportive but pulls its support when it becomes clear the war has become one of attrition and there is no path to victory. You lose the war a couple years later, sometime in 2024-25. (current timeline)
-Russia invades and you fight back, the west gives you whatever support you want, the war drags on for years and years as more and more are sent to a front increasingly supplied by more modern and deadly weapons systems.
To me if I'm the average Ukrainian I prefer scenario 1. I probably still have a pretty below average life, maybe I keep a good mindset about it, maybe alcohol is cheap enough it doesn't matter. I don't die though, no conscription, and as long as I'm not part of the ultra nationalist movement I'm unlikely to see much of a difference, there is a new set of corrupt officials to bribe here and there to get through daily life, but life is mostly the same. At worst there is a major uptick in terrorist attacks as ultra nationalists shift to insurgency type tactics. Though without western support it's not clear how long these would last.
Since I anticipate you will take issue with the framing and suggest a hypothetical where Ukraine gets all the aid it wants and then wins and takes back all it's territory and for some reason Russia decides to never look west again... What wonder weapon would result in this actually happening? Even if we gave them nukes that seems to just result in a stalemate, since if Ukraine nuked Crimea* or Moscow, surely Russia would make sure Kiev no longer existed. In fact given the sheer number of nukes Russia has it might make sure most of Western Europe and the US no longer exist as well. Other than that there doesn't seem to be any conventional weapon that doesn't simply result in more escalation. They are already scraping the bottom of the barrel for conscripts and are at a serious population disadvantage. Sometimes surrender is the better move and the one that saves more lives, if it didn't and everyone that surrendered instantly died than it really wouldn't exist as an option.
Did you not read the rest? I want an explanation of how that is possible before we entertain it. Since there doesn't seem to be any weapon that would win the war for Ukraine and every new weapons system we supply further risks nuclear apocalypse.
Since I anticipate you will take issue with the framing and suggest a hypothetical where Ukraine gets all the aid it wants and then wins and takes back all it's territory and for some reason Russia decides to never look west again... What wonder weapon would result in this actually happening? Even if we gave them nukes that seems to just result in a stalemate, since if Ukraine nuked Crimea* or Moscow, surely Russia would make sure Kiev no longer existed. In fact given the sheer number of nukes Russia has it might make sure most of Western Europe and the US no longer exist as well. Other than that there doesn't seem to be any conventional weapon that doesn't simply result in more escalation. They are already scraping the bottom of the barrel for conscripts and are at a serious population disadvantage. Sometimes surrender is the better move and the one that saves more lives, if it didn't and everyone that surrendered instantly died than it really wouldn't exist as an option.
remzem
7mo ago
and with what pilots would the planes fly? A massive airforce requires even more massive logistics to keep it running, Ukraine has had difficulties even keeping their tiny airforce from being targeted and is forced to regularly fly them from place to place so they don't get taken out by Russian missile strikes. There is no way we can just park a few 100 f16s somewhere in Ukraine and maintain them without them being targeted even if there was such a location where they could be kept and maintained which there isn't...
This is the problem with all the wishful thinking of the pro Ukraine side. There is no depth to it. It's just endless handwaving away all the issues. How do you completely and unanimously win against Russia? Oh just give them airplanes. Wow. Insightful. Meanwhile 200-400k Ukrainians are dead up to 50k just from this doomed summer offensive and all those fancy western Leopards and Challengers are useless because war has evolved and between drones and remote mining they are sitting ducks. Ukrainians are crawling through tree lines at night to lead assaults on trenches after softening them up with artillery. That's so far the only strategy that gets them any progress. So forgive me if I doubt that America winning against 3rd worlders via airplanes isn't a guaranteed win.
remzem
7mo ago
I don't think they have to push further into Ukraine though. They have the combat power to maintain the pressure they're putting on Ukraine, whereas Ukraine does not. Ukraine lacks any industry to produce more weapons so without western support they'd be short on those. They also lack people, so even with western support if its just a long war of attrition eventually Ukraine collapses. Attritional wars are ugly and boring, which makes western public interest less likely to stay high. If Russia were to make big gains the western MIC could sell that as a threat and push for more support, if Ukraine makes gains people keep supporting them because they think they can win. Long ugly stalemate of a meat grinder with Ukraine eventually collapsing seems the most likely outcome with current western support.
I don't know that they'd go for a peace treaty after the last one was just used to arm and organize Ukraine. If they did it'd be seen as just a pause in the war while both sides reorganized imo, not a real peace.
I agree with most of what was said below, but I think the education rift / credentialism as well was a big factor. Though that could really just fit under the same "political realignment" label that everyone else is commenting on.
Culture and race are big dividing lines that led to the realignment, but realistically so many americans are white (or see themselves as white like a lot of asians and hispanics) that dems couldn't realign purely around minority identity, not yet at least. A big portion of their new voting base are the upper class educated white people.
Globalism, outsourcing, low trade barriers etc. tends to be less of a threat to the more highly educated, as education and development levels are generally lower in foreign countries. So you're effectively increasing demand for high skill jobs by giving them access to a larger market where their skills are more in demand. On the other hand for low skill jobs things feel the opposite. Labor goes on strike and they just ship your job overseas. They can find plenty of people that can work in a factory in east asia. Or import them here from south of the border. They've effectively increased the supply of low skill labor.
I guess according to neolibs the low skill americans still benefited as overall the pie grew more, prices were lower, etc. Not sure if that mattered when their power relative to the upper class educated was reduced, their cultural power eroded, status was gone and professions like plumbers were the butt of every joke.
Can see why the urban and educated upper class would feel more positive towards globalism while the rural less educated lower class felt cheated by it. So they ended up in opposite camps politically and I think that has changed the calculus for leadership in both political camps as well. With dems no longer being protectionist towards labor and republicans doing a 180 on their earlier neolib econ ideas that kinda kicked off globalism. Though it's kind of wild to watch them try to fit this change in with their older communism vs capitalism vision of the world. Mass immigration is treated as a sort of welfare for the 3rd world by the left, even though it's hurting labor at home and brain draining foreign countries into permanent poverty. On the right people want to overthrow the elite! but not like those commies, in a cultural sense, not a material one. Basically just read the lyrics of 'rich men of north richmond' to get the picture.
This general attitude towards globalism has also influenced attitudes towards foreign policy, that's why anytime you go on a republican leaning subreddit it's spammed to death by people called RandomWord1234 that say, "We're getting a great deal! weakening our enemy for pennies on the dollar!"
A big focus is on how the elites are spending money on their foreign pet projects while people rot at home, so most of the commentary to try and influence conservative minds revolves around that.
"It's not things you could actually use to have a better life, it's old surplus military equipment that would've gotten thrown away anyways."
Though that one has dropped off now that it's become more apparent that we are spending a lot to keep their government and services afloat.
remzem
7mo ago
Russia has plenty of AD systems but Ukraine can still hit them. Problem right now is that drones are too cheap relative to the cost of any of the intercept systems. Can easily just over saturate and overwhelm them.
To get to exist as a people
See this right here makes no sense to me. Are you claiming that all of Ukraine will be killed if Russia wins? Some kind of Nazi concentration camps but on an even grander scale? That seems incredibly unlikely, probably not even possible given logistics of attempting to round up all of the Ukrainians to exterminate them, unless Russia goes total mobilization or something.
If you're claiming some kind of more hazy spiritual collective sense, then I think you really misunderstand how divided things are in Ukraine.
remzem
7mo ago
They have around 4x the population of Ukraine, for Russia to run out of manpower before Ukraine they would need to have a more than 4:1 loss ratio. I don't think even the Ukrainians are claiming that and they're been claiming absolutely absurd things the whole time.
The military production is up in the air, but so far Russian production appears to be up significantly from what it was prior to the war. They might've exhausted soviet stockpiles but they're producing 1k tanks per year, we're sending 31 Abrams. The US is trying to up artillery shell production but it costs 10x as much to make a single shell here. We've gone and strong armed basically every ally we have to provide them with their spares and even sent cluster munitions when that ran out.
It's just not realistic thinking. It's cynical as hell to boot, basically saying eventually enough Ukrainians will die that Ukraine will win.
remzem
7mo ago
You referring to the Admiral that showed up on tv today?
The only thing that has made a difference in the war so far has been numbers. Ukraine had more of them at the beginning of the war. Their offensive on Kherson pulled enough Russians from the north that they were able to roll through the Kharkov areas. Russia bailed on holding Kherson to make the front more defensible until they could catch up. Russia mobilized more and that mostly equalized the forces and since then Ukraine has made no real gains despite the huge injection of western kit for their Spring offensive.
that is blatant nonsense and repeating russian propaganda warmongering
This is childish and not an argument.
remzem
7mo ago
Yea the logic is clearly there for why Russia would nuke Ukraine. The whole point of nuclear deterrence is to keep other great powers from waging war on you directly. If a great power can wage a war by slow boiling how direct the conflict is until they're eventually providing everything from intelligence and guidance for your cruise missiles to the missiles themselves, everything short of the meat doing the fighting than nuclear deterrence isn't effective.
On top of that the repercussions just aren't there on the other side. In nuclear power vs nuclear power engagement neither side wants to use nukes as it means they both get wiped out. In a proxy vs proxy war there is no real point in using nukes as it's a massive escalation and a loss on either side isn't an existential threat to either nuclear power. With the proxy in direct conflict with a nuclear power situation that changes. The nuclear power directly engaged still has the incentive to make sure it wins, it's existence could be at stake depending on how the situation unfolds. The nuclear power backing the proxy doesn't have the same skin in the game. If their proxy is nuked they are still fine and escalating to a nuclear exchange brings us back to situation one, where both sides get wiped out.
remzem
7mo ago
but sadly they actually believed that they are still superpower entitled to rule over central and eastern Europe
How do you arrive at this conclusion from Russia invading what was literally their own satellite state for 20 years after the USSR fell until the US took it away? It's just completely out of touch with reality.
remzem
7mo ago
The Arab spring was the US as well... Saying Iraq would've been destabilized anyways because the US would start destabilizing MENA countries again a decade later doesn't really make US foreign policy look better.
remzem
7mo ago
I'm not claiming that Russia = USSR.
USSR controlled Ukraine more or less directly up until 91.
Ukraine was then it's own state on paper, but in reality a Russian satellite state up until 2014. "A russian satellite state for 20 years" Technically 23.
It only entered the western orbit after the coup in 2014. (Well the western part of it)
Russia isn't trying to expand its sphere of influence to USSR levels, that would mean going as far west as Germany. It's just trying to maintain it at post USSR levels and even that is seen as some extreme aggressive act while NATO bombs and murders everyone outside of the west indiscriminately and people that think they're civilized make endless excuses for the abuse.
It's only peanuts because youre comparing it to the world's most inflated and ridiculous military budget. 100 billion is more than any country other than China spends on defense. Also both the US and China are rather larger countries than Ukraine with more people to defend.
2023 population estimates for Ukraine are around 36million. The US alone has spent 113 billion according to cnn 6 days ago.
Per Ukrainian we're spending 3138 USD
2023 population estimates for the US is 332 million. Budget is 773 billion a year.
Per American we spend 2328 USD x 1.5 since the war has been more than a year. 3492. We're spending nearly as much per Ukrainian as we are per US citizen, and realistically most of that budget isn't defending us, it's supporting imperialist projects abroad.
remzem
7mo ago
Yea the US is not at war, weird how we still end up spending on this garbage. Why don't the people on this forum that are so concerned about Ukraine ship themselves there? They are taking foreign recruits.
I thought the hug an asian part made the time period of the quote pretty clear. There weren't many other time periods where we went from hugging Chinese people (Trumps china travel ban), to shaming people for buying up PPE (even trained professional don't always wear it properly!), to shaming people for not following strict PPE guidelines.
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