fartVader
5mo ago
Wonder Woman is a hyper sexualized Amazonian played by the top model of Israel who wears skimpy clothes while being a bad-ass and falling in love. It is literally the opposite of woke. Her rogues gallery (villains) are also women and she was never gender swapped.
A strong woman != woke movie.
If wonder woman had been made in the 90s, it would not have been THAT different.
fartVader
6mo ago
as a tighty-whitey guy, I've always wondered if boxers roll up your thighs.
I'm surprised they they are more popular than briefs / boxer-briefs in the first place.
fartVader
6mo ago
I'll bite. I say no.
Age of consent for adult-child intercourse should be treated as iron clad. The second child abuse (especially child sexual abuse) becomes quantifiable through a monetary value, pandora's box opens. These kinds of thought experiments should always be rejected by answering with a blanket no. It's on principle on what laws, morals and values mean to be society. The free-market value of human dignity is pathetically low. That is reason enough to not allow it to interact with money. Nothing good will come out of it.
People conflate questions phrased like 'should X be allowed' with 'should you do X'. What you choose to do with your own free-will is your choice. Whether society chooses to support you is a whole another question all together.
fartVader
6mo ago
Embarrassingly, I know from personal experience, that pepper spray can cause searing pain much further out than broom-distance. You can safely pepper spray (morel like bear spray) from ~10 meters out.
safety goggles, a respirator
Yeah, and building respirators and safety goggles for all Hamas members is a great way of bankrupting them. They're making pipe bombs here.
fartVader
6mo ago
Most countries in the global south did not exist as independant nation states pre ww2. Most were coming out of a colonial era of subjugation.
Most of these countries don't think about global peace. Their concerns have always been local to their geographic neighborhood.
- Our ability to carelessly navigate across international waters
- Banning the kind of explicit colonialism that marked the 19th century
- Being able to trade your resources with the highest bidder, instead of one that has an army on your shores
- ...and many more
Having global peace enforced on us by a global superpower with a certain value system has led to the deliberate creation of this modern world. The Global South does not appreciate just how anomalous this peace is and how fickle it can be if nations start pushing too many buttons and pitting competing interests against each other to a maximum extent.
fartVader
6mo ago
I'm a pesky civilian, so maybe I am missing something. But the rules of war sounds like saying that a man shouldn't kick another man in the nuts. No, if you are more armed than me and the outcome is my death, then I am going to kick you in the nuts. A few times, for good measure.
laws of war to purposely destroy the environment. But, bombs are grandfathered into everyone's expectations.
Man, war is ridiculously pedantic.
fartVader
6mo ago
Utilitarianism in war : what are some under-explored tools of war that are effective but dismissed out of hand due to bad optics ?
This isn't so much a top level post as a seed to begin a conversation. I've always found it rather barbaric that the only acceptable way for a superior power to engage in war is straight violence & bloodshed. This is especially true with a truly imbalanced siege. In almost every occasion, the 'honorable' way of doing a siege costs more money, causes more deaths and eventually leads to the same outcome.
-
Chemical warfare is horrible. But are there way to engage in chemical warfare that neutralizes the enemy without any long-term consequences to the heath of those attacked ? Why limit yourself to flashbangs and smoke grenades ? Why not use FPV drones with mass-pepper spray ? You can buy a 1000 pepper-spray FPV drones for a $1 million. Train a few people to operate them as a swarm (like a school of tuna) and they will be very hard to take out. A single deployment of the iron dome costs Israel more.
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Sound based violence has been used before, but can it be taken further ? Gaza is just across the border.
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Why not identify 1 of the tunnels on high ground and flood them ? Maybe flood them with sewage just so it is extra disgusting.
It's war. You're willing to kill by the thousands. Less than honorable means are absolutely acceptable (with long term effects accounted for) if that means a lower body count.
What are some other avenues of war that could be tried to minimize body count but increase effectiveness ? Is there some long term pandoras box reason to keep these tools of war off the table ?
fartVader
6mo ago
The vibe-cession is real and the statistics are lying.
The true working class is those in their 20s and 30s, and they don't have houses. They are the ones complaining. Those in their 20-30s are the vibes. This has always been true. When people complain about the plight of an era, they are talking about those who are trying to setup the foundations for life as an adult. Not those who have been at it for decades.
First, Post-covid inflation and job growth were localized phenomenon. Housing prices are down in downtown-cores and rural areas. But, there are no jobs in rural areas and downtown cores are zombie-towns no one wants to live in. Elsewhere, Housing shot up in 50-100% over covid and it never came down. So even if average salaries have gone up and average inflation has stayed within range....... the localized inflation & job growth taken together might not paint as rosy of a picture. (as an aside, If I had sudden windfall, I would spend some time doing pro-bono work on improving economic metrics. How is economics stuck with such crude metrics in 2023)
Second, a bonus is a bonus and a promotion is a promotion. That's not supposed to be natural wage growth. (or so people think). In the run-up to Covid, a lot of people were getting huge bonuses and promos. This led to people thinking they have worked themselves out of the middle class. So, they spent like it, they lived like it and the ensuing whiplash was huge. The people who got swift career growth in the late 2010s, are now realizing that all those gains have been for naught. At the same time, they are stuck with higher responsibilities and the insane hours that come with the promise of a promotion or a bonus. Now yes, their wages have kept up with inflation, so things look all good. But, to them, it feels like they had been cheated out of a better life.
Even the big-mac index becomes a bad measure when 70s McDonalds is unrecognizable from the disgusting place that it has become today. Portion sizes are smaller, fast food tastes a lot worse and everyone working there sounds so much more miserable. Inflation measured in isolation tells you nothing about the ground reality. It's like statistics that go : "The average American is a millionaire".
fartVader
6mo ago
My personal intuition is that any inferences from an 'agricultural and manufacturing' era of the world are moot in the present. PPP is hard enough to quantify in 2023. PPP becomes completely irrelevant when you're comparing across centuries. It is the most vibes-based number you can possibly find.
More directly, Every SNP 500 company relies on having a global consumer base. In every mental simulation, if the US stops being the global superpower, it will get a lot poorer, even if other nations become similarly poor alongside it.
That being said, in a fully isolationist world, the USA would easily be the richest big country by virtue of having a large consumer base and being self-sufficient in practically every resource known to man. However, I expect it to be a much poorer and more miserable world to live in on average than what we have today.
fartVader
6mo ago
Related tangent.
Your typical globalist-hater doesn't understand that America's wealth comes from being the only global superpower. While the US is more benevolent that previous aspiring claimants to that crown, they are the only ones to have actually achieved it. Now, benevolent as they may be, American supremacy is maintained through the threat of economic and physical violence.
A world where America is not the sole superpower, is a world that is unquestionably worse for Americans and the nations America protects. Now yes, some American protectorates have been coasting off the US, but that comes with them resigning their agency on matters of national determination. A world where every nation has competing alignments from its neighbors is world where the threat of war looms on every corner.
The $1.5T military spending of the US Govt, is a 'world peace spending' and in return the US gets to be the reserve currency of the world (and essential wage unilateral economic war on any nation of its choosing). Yes, that's a lot of money, but look at America's superior covid recovery vs all the other Pax-American nations. That difference is entirely owed to being able to print as many $$$$ as it likes.
From that perspective, America's military spending a total win-win. American allies get to save money on military and enjoy guaranteed peace. America gets to stay as wealthy as it likes and be the only nation that can truly impose its will on the world.
Now, the so-called global-south consists of countries that are finding their identity in a world where China is throwing its weight around. They don't value global peace, because they don't know a world before it. They don't value local peace, because they haven't enjoyed much local peace or stability during this Pax-American century. Many global south nations haven't been brainwashed (convinced) into favoring American values as baseline. They don't understand Chinese debt traps. They don't see the value in putting the nation state over the wider global religious identity. They don't value democracy in their bones, because they can't imagine majorities having favorable moderate views in their low-trust societies. Point is, they don't see the amazing win-win that Pax-Americana is. They might play along with it, they will change masters at the drop of a hat. They will dump any values they claim to hold, because it is all performative to them anyway.
That's where American global south allies come into the picture. Israel & India are the only 2 proper liberal western democracies in the region, and that matters. India is more independent and still ridding itself of its soviet scars, but Israel understands the value of Pax-Americana in its bones. And you cannot buy that kind of loyalty. It's the kind of loyalty that comes with a strong belief that any alternative than your current master is a worse one. And for that Israel gets rewarded. It is the only unconditional-American ally in the global south.
It is also why I think the America-India alliance will continue flourishing, even if India occasionally plays both sides. India (now) accepts Pax-Americana & liberal-democracy as the best overlords in their bones. Being a natural adversary to China guarantees India's 'loyalty'. Maybe not as a subject, but at least as a willing partner.
Lastly, to me, MBS (and allied Emirati Sheikhs) are the last peace of this puzzle. They might be the only practicing Muslims who have truly abandoned their global-religious identity in favor of Americanism.
The winds of change are here. The US cannot be the sole-superpower on its own. It needs allies and subjects that stay with it out of both convenience, belief and natural alignment. The EU-Korea-Japan-Canada-US nexus ensured that Global-North and its waters remained 'Peaceful' (by encircling Russia). The South exposes 2 new battle fields. Israel-Saudi-India-Australia-Japan are the 2nd front for encircling China, Oil resource & the Indian Ocean. The final front is around the South Atlantic + Southern Indian Ocean. But, Africa and South America aren't as important, so we haven't seen lines be drawn as strongly just yet. Maybe that'll emerge as the final front in 30-ish years.
So yeah, within that context, American favoritism towards Israel makes a lot of sense.
fartVader
6mo ago
There is something a pretty about a defaced statue. I much prefer that than having it be taken down. I can imagine many artistic ways of 'tastefully defacing' a statue than crudely spraying red paint on.
A statue that's taken down erases history. A defaced statue keeps all the layers of social change intact. If that's too much to ask, then I'd be all for relocating these statues to a civil war museum that accurately portrays these complex figures for who they were, without glorifying them. And please, do not replace it with George Floyd. Black people deserve better immortalized figures.
fartVader
6mo ago
which is striking symbolism of how Americans are being liquidated to be replaced by foreigners.
They would've replaced the statue with a Mexican dude if they wanted striking symbolism. Ironically, the only black people immigrating to the US are South Indians.
fartVader
6mo ago
Moreplatesmoredates would be the place to start researching it.
If looking ripped is the goal, then eat a shit ton and lift weights. Then go on Ozempic and get that 5% body fat. Will get you ripped without hair loss and acne.
fartVader
6mo ago
Leo Varadkar is the son of a Marathi Hindu from Mumbai. That already predisposes him to a certain view of Islam. He has stayed in India for a extended durations and his medical internship was in KEM hospital, one of India's premier govt. medical hospitals. This means he met a lot of poor & conservative Indians. This makes him even more likely to have a realistic view of 3rd world Islam and the baggage that comes with it.
Having someone well informed that close to power must make a difference.
fartVader
6mo ago
Is this sarcasm ? So other than ~0.1% of the world population, no one else is worthy of a partner ? What kind of utter bullshit is that ?
You need help my man. I have seen the ugliest, most useless bums find a partner who genuinely loves them, have kids and live a content life. Relationships are literally the easiest thing. There are exactly as many men as there are women. Every ancestor of yours had a relationship. It's that simple.
Dating apps is not real life. Social isolation is the real disease. Get out there, meet people, be yourself, and lose some of that cynicism. God, nothing kills a vibe like deep cynicism. Give it enough collisions, and eventually something will work out. The rich, charismatic, virtuous and attractive might find a partner with fewer collisions, but there is no upper limit on how many times you can roll.
It's not that bad out there man. If you are white, and in such a deep resentful rut, then just move to a South-East-Asian country. You'll find someone who loves you for what you are (white) and what you bring to the table (citizenship). No, that's not gold-digging. She will still love you, in the truest sense with deep gratitude for the life you provide her. Go be happy.
fartVader
6mo ago
To me, Biden's visit means more than people are giving it credit for. Biden's visit was a clear signal to Hezbollah and Iran that if they interfere, the US will fuck them up.
Hezbollah is effectively an offshore branch of the Iranian military. If Hezbollah interferes, they risk a full American intervention in Israel.
fartVader
6mo ago
Dating apps have destroyed the horniness component of social events. They haven't just enabled a new style of dating, they have completely cannibalized the previous setting.
70% men and 25% women who are in relationships
Second, call me a broken record, but : "Self-delusion, self-delusion, self-delusion". If you do an activity to date women, women smell your desperation and run away. If you do an activity because you like it, it will cater to your gender, and therefore be mostly male.
Choose an activity you can see yourself liking that single women also love. Lie and delude yourself into believing that you are doing this activity purely for the activity and not for the single women. Force yourself to show genuine interest in activity, until you eventually start getting interested in it. Now, that you're convinced you are not doing this activity to date, engage with the rest of the social group without any care for their gender. Why would you care, you aren't doing this to date. Overtime, you genuinely forget that you chose the activity for the women. If you remember, then gaslight yourself. Now you have single female friends who see you as the safe man around them. You have never made a move on them because you do this activity for self-actualization and not for women. Your platonic female friends notice that you have been single for a while. They ask you if you want to date their friend. You are reluctant because you don't do this for the ladies. But well, you are single, and their friend does seem cute. What's the harm. Afterall, you might have gaslight yourself, but self-delusion is eventually just that, delusion. You don't TRULY believe that you're happy being single. 1 date, 2 dates, 3 dates, and eventually you meet a woman who likes you back. Maybe it works out. Congrats, you now have a girl-friend.
Wait what ? How did you manage to get past women's walls, all while having started as a desperate single man ?
It's classic method acting. Play the long game. Self-delude. By the end of it you have a partner. And guess what, you are just as likely to have found some real friends and a genuine hobby in this process as well.
milieu is really unusual for having a low ratio of single women?
never drink your own koolaid. Your milieu didn't just happen. You drank your own koolaid that women like self-driven men who work on themselves. Yes they do, as long as it is the things that they find attractive. And as long as that drive puts them in common spaces with them over prolonged times.
this is what I’ve done in the past month
Consistency is key. Especially if you want to find a partner rather than just get laid. Pick 1. You did so much dude. Just rock climb, a LOT MORE. Like 3 times a week. You aren't going to date any of your rock climbing female-friends. But they might set you up with someone eventually. Keep your thirst out of the gym. bring it to dinner parties they invite to you later.
fartVader
6mo ago
Yep, fully agree.
A peaceful resolution is more so the "least violent" resolution than one that has no deaths. Mine is a fairly violent suggestion .... but still less violent than all the other options on the table. A temporary ceasefire might delay the violence, but it can't be called a resolution.
fartVader
6mo ago
Fair, the typical Harvard going brown person is pretty woke.
I might be in a bubble. My circles are first gen immigrants, STEM-school MIT/GATech types or fans of geopolitics who have a less rosy view of conflict resolution than the average starry-eyed liberal. We're past our 18-25 angry-youth phase.
Anecdotes as just anecdotes...But,
Even at their worst, my Muslim friends had "We can condemn the attacks by Hamas, while still caring for Palestine" style takes. Their response to the Gaza invasion is despair, but I have yet to see the "Israel is evil" style takes that I'm seeing from the left and middle-eastern protestors. One of my Muslim friends was humble enough to acknowledge that their biases on the Palestine issue were wrong.
The liberal Hindus around me are smart enough to not outright say it, but they have coloring their speech with a Israel-sympathetic bias.
Your point still holds though. I steer clear of the Ivy-league types, so I might just be insulated from the worst of them.
Can we stop using brown as a proxy term for muslims ?
There are 1:1 as many Hindus as Muslims in the middle-east + south-asia. If you mean muslims, say muslims. An average brown person is just as likely to be rabidly pro-Israel (hindus) as they are to be pro-Palestine (muslims).
That being said, the average hindu immigrant in the US is a typical corporate coconut in every sense of the word. They will parrot what the coastal white elite tell them. So I have been seeing a lot of the diaspora respond with 'Hamas are terrorists, Gazan Civilians have been suffering under Israel for decades' style social media both-sides pandering while privately being sympathetic to the Israeli reaction.
fartVader
6mo ago
none of these movements have been eliminated once and for all
Looking outside Muslim communities, Tamil terror in Sri Lanka was successfully eradicated through incredible violence. Unfortunately, this article might be right. Because the Sinhalese killed all the next-of-kin of the LTTE leadership. Left no room for revenge.
alternatives that have legitimacy within the societies from which these young men emerge.
This is why the rapid liberalization of Saudi society is so important. Iran can try as much as it likes, but Sunnis will always bear resentment towards them as Shias. If Mecca/Medina becomes westernized, then these men will finally have internal leaders with legitimacy who can steer these young men away.
humiliated young men
El salvador has managed to lock up 100k men almost overnight. So it can be done. It seems like the most achievable peaceful resolution to this war. Kill the terrorists and imprison all young and likely suspects. Let the absolute gravy-train of aid flow into restoring society for women and young children. Employ all older men with families in hard labor towards rebuilding Gaza on the south side of the strip. Ideally on a patch of land in west bank, but that's unlikely to work.
You can release the once angry youth back into society once peace has been restored over 20 years or so. Once stable society exists and the majority has known an improving life for the last couple of decades, the residents lose the appetite for violence. Most non-murderous Tamil, Sikh and Naga insurgents in India were happy to integrate into India when it became clear that they can still wield local power in a democracy without violence. But maybe Islam draws out a different kind of anger.
An ugly solution, but somehow still sounds better than all the other alternatives.
fartVader
7mo ago
Muslims make up 1.3% of the US population. Even if you assumed that the Democrats completely disenfranchised the Muslims, they simply aren't a big enough voting bloc to make a difference. Now, Muslims can't exactly swing Republican. Also, we're talking about specifically targeting Hamas, and the global Muslim ego getting hurt as proxy. This isn't some targeted disenfranchisement of Muslim.
From a political calculus perspective, going full pro-Israel + anti-Hamas is not disastrous for democrats. I know that there are more emotional and ideological factors at play here. But it would be unbelievably stupid for the democrats to keep digging their grave here. There simply aren't enough Muslims for being Pro-palestine to be worth it.
You're right. External change of the type that Sam Harris wants can only be facilitated through genocide. Or atleast soviet style totalitarianism.
However, internal change is entirely possible...... but that needs some cunning politicking.
Islam stays stuck in the 1st millenium because the global islamic idenitity is flows through a small network of highly conservative Arabs. Break the Muslims away from the middle east, and only then can you begin to reverse the rot. Thankfully, South Asia and SEA are ethnically distinct enough that it should be kind of possible with them.
Second, coopt scripturally nonviolent muslims into the global elite and dangle the carrot. Ahmediayyas are mandatorily nonviolent muslims and have a decent track record to back it up. Some sufi and african-animist muslims have stayed decent non violent. At the same time, dilute islam. Saudis are trying the capitalistic approach to dilution, but coopting prediluted muslin subgroups is another approach that works well.
What's most important with internal change, is that the instruments of change need to be onboard. Your muslim global elite needs to put in effort into this sort of conversion. That's the impossinle part. Somehow, the global muslim elite seems to love their conservatives and sympathizes with violent terrorists. Somehow, the more 'westernized' they are the even louder their support for conservatives. Yeah, that's a non starter.
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