remzem
1mo ago
We banned freedom of association in the 60s. It's a legal thing now, not really a cultural thing. If anything the fact that people made so many attempts to still create communities since then shows that westerners are still healthy in that regard. It's just illegal, so inevitably some expansion of inclusion lawfare will torpedo any community you build. If you want to have some semblance of sanity focusing on very small local/extended family social interactions is the socially healthiest choice available.
remzem
1yr ago
You might not, but the left certainly cares based on all the cancelings: Netflix protests around Dave Chapelle, Spotify around Joe Rogan, the insane backlash to J.K. Rowling, and those are people that barely stepped out of line and were/are basically leftist in most other ways. Pretty much any right wing personality online has a hate mob that seems to be more obsessed with them than their own following is. Look at Andrew Tate recently or the other one whose name I can't remember and didn't manage to find online because a search for 'right wing twitch streamers' just brought up nytimes and cbs hit pieces complaining about them in general.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/27/technology/twitch-livestream-extremists.html
Controlling the culture is power, it's clear the left understands this, not surprising that the right is starting to. Giving an inch was their biggest mistake in the first place.
remzem
3mo ago
The leadership in the military was already captured. You aren't going to change it from the inside, DEI makes sure that people like you aren't promoted.
It seems like the political persuasion of young people, i.e. broccoli headed zoomers that fight oppressive power structures and therefore won't join, is just the other side of the same coin that prevents traditional conservative recruits from joining. So the elite's poor leadership is still at fault.
They cynically exploited oppressor / oppressed dynamics and inclusion to Trojan horse themselves into all the major institutions. Now you have a generation that grew up steeped in that ideology. On one hand many are true believers that don't realize it was just a ploy, they hate the military, think the holocaust didn't happen and want to #freepalestine. On the other hand the white conservative youths are the kids of the people you knifed in the back to get yourself into power, so of course they aren't interested in signing up. Our elites don't really do long term thinking.
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.
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
2mo ago
I mean there are really two Navalnys. There is the western mass market patron saint of liberal democracy edition Navalny and then there is the real life Navalny. They have virtually nothing in common with each other and they are marketed to entirely different audiences so it doesn't really seem that weird that they should die of different causes as well. I doubt people that are following updates from Budanov are the sort of people that the state seeks to win over or that they will be overly concerned with how real life Navalny died regardless. Budanov probably just doesn't care.
remzem
3mo ago
You never watched Black Hawk Down?
Also conducted strikes a little over a decade after that on Al-Shabaab, supported Ethiopia in the War in Somalia, and Kenya during Operation Linda Nchi. Trump pulled troops out of Somalia, though they continued airstrikes from Kenya and Djibouti. Biden has sent troops back in (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/16/us/politics/biden-military-somalia.html) and that's just the military stuff and not the economic warfare.
remzem
1yr ago
I always saw it as a way to maximize soft power gains after the allied victory in ww2. It wasn't enough that their victory was a sign that the allies were stronger, it had to become a symbol of how virtuous they are/were. The nazis practiced eugenics and were race obsessed, the nazis were evil. The allies are post-racial and blank slatist, the allies are good. That sort of thing.
It was probably important given the rise of the USSR as well. The US and other western countries iirc Britain needed to put distance between themselves and their own eugenics programs to maximize soft power gains after the war. Didn't the nazis even argue that western countries had similar programs to try and get off the hook for crimes? I don't remember tbh.
I think the other posters are right about other trends, industrialization, nation states etc. already at work, but when it comes to the bump after ww2 specifically this makes more sense to me. Might makes right was a hard sell after a war as ugly as ww2 so to continue with the aggressive expansion and feed the military-industrial devil they'd made a pact with in the west they needed to paint themselves as the good guys righting the world's wrongs.
It being mostly virtue signalling also fits with the large gaps in stated and revealed preferences when it comes to interracial marriage, school and neighborhood choice etc.
remzem
3mo ago
I'm not sure it will give Haley a boost. Older polls showed it could go either way. https://abcnews.go.com/538/stands-gain-desantis-drops-haley-christie/story?id=106101489
Frustratingly, it's not clear who DeSantis supporters in New Hampshire would flock to if DeSantis were to drop out after Iowa. According to the most recent Emerson College/WHDH-TV poll, it would be Haley — but according to a University of New Hampshire/CNN poll taken around the same time, it would be Trump. And both polls are almost two months out at this point, so really we're flying blind.
Those were from November though and most of the recent shift in Haley support seems to have come at the expense of DeSantis. Which makes me think he was bleeding votes to her for a while which would mean those that are left favoring him would be more Trump leaning. He also endorsed Trump.
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
17d ago
It's continually baffling to me how the majority of this forum thinks that defending your own lands from a hostile foreign invader somehow makes you a puppet.
and it seems like bad faith to me when globalists are suddenly completely certain that nationalism is universally supported and good. Even the more right wing people I chat with aren't purely line on a map nationalists that ignore cultural differences. Ukraine is an especially poorly partitioned country where you have entire regions that are mostly Russian speaking, then others that are Ukrainian speaking, and still more that are heavily Hungarian. The place is a complete mess. It doesn't matter if they fix the "conscription issues" (which is a very clinical way to say that 10k+ a month are dying and their older male population is so exhausted the only way to keep the front from collapsing is to lower the conscription age and get rid of any opportunity for long term conscripts to demobilize)
credibledefense bans all opposing views... it's an echochamber like most of reddit.
remzem
19d ago
I think Bibi needs a war to stay in power. The west has been looking to replace him with someone more global west friendly for a while. Israel probably also recognizes that it's long term prospects are quite bad. Demographic issues. Surrounded by enemies and probably the most hated country in the world with large parts of Africa and almost all of the ME being against it for religious regions. West also seems to be losing support especially younger generations due to increase in immigrants and the upper classes obsession with oppressor/oppressed dynamics that they then racialize and apply to the global population. It probably feels now or never for them.
remzem
3mo ago
I'll usually get up and move around if the movie is over 2 hours. It's just nice to stretch a bit, gives a chance to get more snacks or use the restroom.
Mostly I just don't watch movies though, they are somehow both too long and too short at the same time. When it comes to entertaining devoting nearly 3 hours to watching a movie feels like it takes up all the time I have to visit with people. TV shows work better since you can still grab a bite to eat, cook something, watch an episode, then socialize more after or just watch another.
At the same time with a book series or a tv series you can get far more into the characters and world because they last a lot longer than a movie. So when it comes to my own solo entertainment I prefer books > video games > tv shows > movies.
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
27d ago
These two points are circular. A complacent and lazy Europe leads to a complacent and lazy Russia where the priority is people enriching themselves instead of furthering national goals. That's why recent events are such a disaster for the west. Russia is adapting to foreign pressure, which means this kind of corruption is decreasing as a necessity lest they lose to the US and get color revolutioned into a failed state.
remzem
1yr ago
Makes sense if you see the lawsuit as being actually about the company recouping losses and reputation. If you see it as the Cathedral trying to destroy anything that threatens them i.e. wanting to destroy fox news in general, then going after their top show makes more sense.
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.
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.
It gives me 2000s edgy atheist vibes. Come on my podcast and offer hard evidence that god exists! That sort of thing.
Of course there isn't hard evidence. That's how the secret ballot works, if you manage to make the switch successfully no one can prove otherwise because you can't trace the votes back. The evidence simply doesn't exist unless one of the conspirators leaks it or fucks up. If they fucked it up the evidence would already be out there. It's not really a debatable issue, you could flip it on OP and ask him to provide hard evidence that the votes that were counted were in fact the votes cast by the voters and they wouldn't be able to prove that either.
You can point to other things like motive, ability, etc. Talk about how institutions and 3 letter agencies were openly coordinating against Trump and even foreign government spy agencies like mi6 appear to have coordinated with them. It's not hard evidence though, so OP can sit around and twirl their fedora all day.
remzem
6mo ago
This propaganda has been circulating from both sides since early in the war. It seems unlikely considering neither side has seen mass desertions. One bit of info that seems to be missing from this more mainstream take is that there are different groups fighting in Ukraine. Usually the propaganda goes on about how professional soldiers like VDV are shooting the conscripted prisoners, or the ultra-nationalist like Azov and Kraken are shooting the recent conscripts ripped from the street. I guess if this were true then how it effects morale would be variable, as neither side is just some homogeneous group. I agree with everyone else that it's probably happened but sporadically and is exaggerated by both sides for propaganda purposes.
remzem
10hr ago
Probably just lobbyists? Farmer lobby is big money and Fetterman seems very willing to go to bat for his donors even if it goes against progressive dogma.
Seems like an accidental good thing though. Lab meat© would have a lot of the same issues GMOs have, not so much health impacts, but legal impacts that put control of the food supply increasingly in the hands of our would be masters. With our climate too delicate to handle cow farts lab meat© becoming competitive would give authoritarian centralizing forces a better argument to ban meat. Or maybe just put carbon taxes on cows and subsidize meat© to the point no one can make a profit on meat and all the farms go under. Then an entire section of the food pyramid will require specialized clean rooms and labs to even exist. Things that the average person will not have access to.
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.
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