remzem
10mo ago
Maybe I'm just burnt out on 4d chess takes after the Trump era, but I feel like it's real, even as someone that is entirely anti-nato to the point I would turncoat in a second if i had a chance to damage the alliance. Prigozhin actually reminds me of Trump after following the war the last year. Issues with emotional regulation that border on mental illness, or maybe drug issues, or both. Something goes well and he's singing everyones praises, something doesn't go well and he jumps on telegram and calls everyone names and goes on a rant.
Seemed like earlier in the war he banked on the successes of Wagner relative to the rest of the Russia military and Shoigu who fucked up the initial invasion and took forever to reorient. Used his successes in Bakhmut as currency to keep himself afloat after his outbursts and tirades.
Then going into the Ukrainian Counteroffensive he seemed to be banking on continued Russian failures to keep him untouchable but when they didn't materialize and even western sources started to comment that Russia is starting to adapt and get the rust off he's now found himself in a corner. All the insubordinate outbursts were remembered but now he is losing his pull due to the regular Russian military finally (sorta) getting it's shit together.
Think it could be real and he is just that desperate. Seems more straightforward than all the other theories, Occam and what not.
Russia recently required PMC groups to all sign up so they are under direct command of Russian MoD. Prigozhin refused, and if he doesn't sign up his funding gets cut and even with his money he won't be keeping a 30k+ mercenary group afloat for more than a couple months.
I really think he was banking on Russia's failures in Ukraine vs his successes to catapult him into power. He released a really bizarre, even by the standards of propaganda in this war bizarre, video a few days ago. Claimed that the Ukrainian offensive was actually going well for them and that the Russian military was failing, Ukraine was already occupying Tokmak, Russia lied about Donbas shelling because the Oligarchs needed the war. Yes, the Oligarchs that the west thought would rise up and oust Putin for getting their western assets seized wanted the war... Really out there stuff given even western sources don't claim much success so far and there is video and picture evidence that the territorial losses aren't real.
Maybe he just realized his time was up and figured this is his only shot at Shoigu. Too often people try to ascribe rational motivations to other humans when really people aren't very rational. Prigozhin more than most.
I think the more interesting question is why is Wagner following him? Are they following? Is it just a loyal core? Because without some assurances or other info they'd have to be suicidal as well. He's not a military leader, he doesn't actually direct Wagner forces, he's just the frontman. I'm more interested in what the power players within Wagner are up to.
remzem
10mo ago
Ok, I will post high effort sneers like the rest of the posters from now on.
remzem
10mo ago
It seems bizarre to me that the paleocon sorts, after having been cast aside by their masters, so quickly fall back into nationalism. They endlessly complain about how identity politics are wrong because they treat groups as monolothic blocs when in fact those groups are made up of individuals that may or may not benefit from the policies being pushed, or are often just being used by grifters for cynical gains. Then they seem to completely lack the ability to take that same perspective and apply it to international relationships. It's almost like they aren't truly protesting identity politics, they are just sad that the masters hand is on a different dog.
There is no foreign poilcy that benefits Americans. There is no policy that benefits Americans because America is broken divided place full of different factions that have competing and contrary interests. The enemy of my enemy is my friend might be an exaggeration, but in these situations the enemy of my enemy is useful seems like a fair statement.
The average anti-nato person isn't rooting for Russia to take over the world and create a universal empire. They are simply rooting for their local elites to lose a bit of face and power. Yes that means the foreign pawns of those elites might also lose power, no that doesn't mean that every Ukranian is going to be tortured to death, because anti-nato sorts are capable of nuance and recognize that Ukraine, much like the US, isn't a monolith with a lockstep populace.
It's just embarrassing to see people rooting for an empire that hates them. All so they can continue with some empty moralizing, the illusion that the country has some kind of benevolent ideology and there is more to politics than power.
remzem
10mo ago
Other competing elites and their viewpoints gain power. Specifically in this instance the US maximalists and war profiteers that want / think they can keep the US as the sole superpower despite it's obvious decline and decay give way to the "America first" group. More isolationist and at least grudgingly accepting of a more multipolar world elites and the ideas / policy that come with them.
Instead of a Biden starting wars you get a Trump ending them. Though preferably someone that is more stable than Trump and doesn't need to dick measure for ego with rival nations as often.
I did, OP is directly quoting me in that "completely oblivious" section in an obvious low-effort (effort doesn't equate to word count, despite what mods here believe) boo outgroup post. I reported and called him out on it and as is more and more common in the west these days the authorities ignore the crime and go after the person calling it out.
It's a running problem. Someone posts a 5000 word (((Parentheses))) screed on here and you have no idea what to do about it, maybe they get a warning several thread derailments later. Someone calls the poster a schizo moron (which they are) and they're banned.
remzem
10mo ago
Only really true in a technical sense. Trump negotiated the 2021 Withdrawal and oversaw the reduction of troops. Biden delayed it from May to August. It was clear the establishment, whom Biden represents, wanted the war to continue as they had been dragging their feet and not actually preparing things. Establishment politicians in congress also regularly tried to stop other troop reductions during Trump's term.
like so
https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/03/politics/ndaa-trump-germany-troop-cuts/index.html
bipartisan from what I remember, but the isolationist elite / warmonger elite distinction isn't as straightforward as Republican / Democrat despite Trump and Biden being republican and democrat and being the most notable representatives of the respective factions.
remzem
10mo ago
Currently in Germany, 1 in 5 voters say they're unhappy with their coalition government, for example.
Is this considered bad in Germany? 20% are unhappy? (I checked and its not a typo the article says the same thing)
Seems like politicians anywhere else would be overjoyed to poll that well.
remzem
9mo ago
We tried it and it doesn't work.
The problem with this system is that all it takes is one person or group noticing and it falls apart. There are even incentives to defect.
People 0-998: Race doesn't matter, people are all basically the same and race doesn't impact their potential.
Person 999: Here are well sourced statistics showing blacks are x times more likely to be murdered, blacks are x times more likely to be imprisoned, poor, etc.
Those stats being provably true gives the persons argument more weight and gives them a path to political power. While at the same time ignoring reality has left a huge ideological weak point in your system. Even if you pivot to pointing out that blacks have far higher murder rates and mostly interact with blacks, which explains the increased chance of being murdered, you are now a hypocrite because you've spent years saying race doesn't matter and your system of polite white lies has ended.
remzem
9mo ago
There might not be a communist revolution every time, but there is a constant churn of people offering fixes to the supposed problem of inequality. They then obtain sinecures for themselves and waste tax payer dollars on a problem that we wouldn't have if people accepted hbd and didn't ignore differences in iq or things like time preference.
Also, accepting is different than ignoring. Accepting explicitly requires you to not ignore. You have to first admit that race differences exist to then accept them and move on. After that yeah you can just behave as if they don't exist if you want, but that awareness has to be there in society. Otherwise someone can defect and say, "Did you know black people are poorer than whites?" In the world where people are aware of and accept but otherwise ignore race differences people will simply point out the 1 SD iq differences. In a world where race differences are entirely ignored that person becomes the mayor of Chicago or something.
remzem
8mo ago
remzem
8mo ago
That's true, they seem to specifically conform to authority figure narratives. It seems like more of a very online American thing, maybe they're still functionally conformists in the 'good neighbor', or religious sheep sense, but due to America's decaying social fabric lack any sort of social group to conform to and so tend to adhere mostly to w/e the prevalent authority narratives are.
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.
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.
Who do you guys think blew up the dam?
Russia pros
makes the area downriver nearly impassable in the short term, with the counter offensive kicking off kills that front.
could make crossing even upriver more difficult with much more mud to cross for a landing? This would allow them to concentrate forces on the donetsk / zaparozhne lines
Russia cons
humanitarian disaster and large escalation. Would make western populations more willing to keep writing the blank checks for the MIC
could threaten the nuclear plant within their own territory (this seems like a con for anyone in the region, Russian or Ukrainian though)
most models show more damage to the left bank of the Dnieper which they control and have fortified after the Kherson withdrawal.
cuts off a large supply of water to Crimea
Ukraine pros
Escalation, assuming a successful false flag would allow them to push for more western military aide. Ukraine's war is less against Russia and more against the minds of western populations as their continued support with elections upcoming is all that is keeping them afloat.
Long term (weeks to months for the banks to dry) easier to cross upriver to regain the nuclear plant.
potentially wipe out Russian minefields, troops and fortifications located downstream.
Ukraine cons
freezes the entire Kherson front right as the counter offensive seems to be kicking off.
damages their own territory, humanitarian disaster, threatens nuclear plant.
Edgecases:
God is laughing his ass off, Historic high levels and lack of maintenance due to war lead to failure of the dam on accident right as a major offensive is about to start and major escalations (attacks on civilians in Russian territory etc.) had just begun.
Some crazy high quality deep fakes? I guess it could lead to chaos and unbalance things downriver? Throw one side off? Would think they'd have better information sources for either side than twitter posts though.
More options
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