starless_sea
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User ID: 1533
starless_sea
1yr ago
So I was doing some reading on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. I was vaguely pro-Israel before with disclaimers on how both sides are bad (like most others here I presume), but I just felt more and more pro-Israel the deeper I read (I'm not trying to astroturf, this is my true feelings on the matter). The Israeli demands during the 2000 Camp David Summit seem reasonable. The Palestinian leadership seem weirdly comfortable with ridiculous conspiracy theories about Israel trying to undermine the Al-Aqsa Mosque etc. The ban on non-Muslims from the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and the ban on non-Muslim prayer on the Temple Mount, are both reprehensible. Every nook I look into, it seems like I support the Israeli side and the "both sides are bad" cases that I expected to find is largely missing.
Has anyone else had the experience of their position markedly shifting as the read up on the issue? Are the Israelis just better than PR, cunningly doing bad things to the Palestinian side under the radar, while counting on that the Palestinian reaction will be performed with much worse optics? What's the best moderate Palestinian take on an acceptable solution for a workable two-state solution?
Also, what are your predictions for the evolution of the conflict. Say that the year is 2043 and condition on no end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it: what does the conflict look like then? It seems unlikely to cool anytime soon, and the long run seems like a race between Palestinian demographics and Israeli economy, where I think Israel has the upper hand, especially if they are liberal with technological mass surveillance.
So what about the German right-wing conspiracy that got busted? On one hand, they seem pretty crazy with conspiracy theories and actually believing that the German people would support a coup. On the other hand, they don't seem like random nobodies but the kind of people you would want on your coup if you were to do a coup.
Link to news story: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-63885028
Some random thoughts:
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Was this conspiracy realistic? Or was it just a big larp? (Are all coups big larps?)
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How strong were the Russian connections? Are the arrests a blow to Putin?
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Why do the conspiracy thing when you can just do normal politics in AfD and actually get power the true and tried way [insert reference to well-known, democratically successful German right wing leader]. Or if you insist on conspiracy, you can at least march trough the institutions, it seems like the better option? And if you really need power nownow, why not just take the exit option (e.g. move to Russia and make your own auth-right comune there?)?
I'd be happy for someone who has an actual take or an interesting perspective on this to create their own top level thread.
For example: https://youtube.com/watch?v=g2oMv93EUpY or https://youtube.com/watch?v=Ufmcubp2szg or https://youtube.com/watch?v=wu7RXlIEbog
Eagle eyed viewers may notice that white men are not prominent in these clips, there's obviously a cherrypicking process where the people who answer correctly aren't included.
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It's common for youtubers to hire actors to give scripted answers in man-on-the-street skits, especially in skits were young, attractive women gets "humiliated". Seems like a certain demographic really likes this. So first I would like to verify that these are real people.
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Second, we don't know what the prep is like before the camera starts. "Hi, we're from YouTube, we are going to ask some questions, please give us your craziest funniest random answer!". So are these real answers that reflect the knowledge of the person asked?
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Third, it seems likely that the creator of these videos cherrypicked young women to interview since that's what gets the views (the right-wing audience who watches this right-wing YouTube channel doesn't want to see Bob the Redneck look clueless, they want black and Hispanic women draped in pride flags).
So I don't think these videos show anything without a lot of additional context. These videos are not scientific. They are made for entertainment, and the algorithm is strong. The "obvious cherrypicking" you notice is likely an editorial choice.
starless_sea
1yr ago
Doctors can prescribe to family members in almost all countries. It's not what's causing the US malaise.
Exactly how should Scott fix the red tape in the system? (Except for running his own experimental shoestring clinic, and talking loudly about the problem to his big and influential audience, both of which he already does.)
Here's the other side:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/4z3bWxf2twThlc3xSmdTul?si=48EYBBJsTfuJklH8hRDw4A
I didn't listen to all of it but it seems to do a kind of Motte and Baily. Paraphrasing:
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"People are always complaining about teachers and schools, nothing new under the sun." (geh, I wonder why?)
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"The real problem is poverty."
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"No-one is saying that children doesn't need phonics instruction"
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"Whole Language is a philosophy, not a practice."
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"Whole Language will not work if we don't address class size."
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"If we put a good teacher with eighteen kids and give them time and space to do what they need to do, then all of these things will be successful."
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"Sold a Story is angry that people making money while making money for this journalist."
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"The market economy of the US depends on poverty to thrive, thus market forces will never overcome poverty."
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"Social reform must precede or at least be concurrent to in-school reform, while both must seek equity, not accountability."
Anyway, thought it would be good to have some contrast. It's hard not to snark though. I can see how the argument that teachers should be autonomous and free from commercial influence from publishers, big standardized tests and political silver bullets can be convincing to some, but it's so far away from how I see the world. In my world, lack of competition or accountability will cause stagnation and rot, and idealism isn't enough to prevent this.
I disagree. If you invite the whole world to your country by voluntarily hosting the World Cup, you should expect the world to show up. If you do not want people in your country who do not conform to the rigid social taboos of your culture, you shouldn't host the World Cup.
Wearing an armband is not shitting on anyone's culture or forcing anything on anyone. Being annoyed when your invited guests wear innocuous armbands that are perfectly fine in their culture is rude.
starless_sea
1yr ago
Neither. By killing 40 million Americans, you would arguably (likely IMO) end up with worse global warming, since that devastating blow to the American economy would delay the invention and adaption of technology that replace fossil fuels and enable carbon capture. Dito for the Angolans.
So the counterfactual is that Sweden was super happy to form a joint investigation. In which case, I could well imagine some Motte-poster writing how this indicates that the saboteur was a state actor within NATO, as the likely explanation is that Sweden is paying NATO ransom by basically handing over the investigation to NATO Denmark and NATO Germany. The Motte-poster would go on: If Russia was the suspected culprit, Sweden would like to do its own, thorough investigation to verify against the statements of Denmark and Germany to check the trustworthiness of their old friends and hopefully-new allies (and also to hone their skills at these kinds of investigations). Such an thorough investigation would be dangerous if it risked finding the "wrong" culprit, as the investigation results might leak: much safer to involve NATO Denmark and NATO Germany if the results might be "wrong". Heck, it might even be the US pressing Sweden to do their own investigation, since they don't trust the Germans.
Did anyone say "Sweden not joining the investigation would indicate NATO culpability" before the news broke? Or just supply some stronger reasoning to as why this indicates a NATO culprit, taking the counterfactual into account?
starless_sea
1yr ago
Related hypothesis: UFOs are a US intelligence recruiting effort. "Come work for the government and learn if any world-shattering conspiracies are actually true or not."
starless_sea
1yr ago
Here's my proposal:
10% of what a kid pays in income taxes instead goes to their parents*. Kids can opt out of the program** and just pay regular taxes instead if the want to.
This aligns all incentives pretty well. There's a degree of luck in the program but it doesn't look like the kind of luck people dislike or feel is unfair.
*payments are in proportion to time spent being primary custodian during ages 0-17, to handle adoptees, strange family situations and avoid an adult-adoption loophole.
**opt-out is granular, e.g. you can chose to opt out your dad but not your mom.
starless_sea
1yr ago
A common trope is that spies gets tapes of some politician doing something immoral or illegal, which is then used for blackmail. Allegations of this is rife, e.g. Trump in Moscow, Epstein, etc. Do we have any clear example of this actually working? E.g. some politician pushes policy X. Years later it is revealed that this was because of blackmail from Y. An example of failed blackmail would also be interesting, e.g. some politician saying "Y has an embarrassing video of me which they are using for blackmail, but I won't give in!" followed by Y releasing the video.
(I guess most of the time the blackmail is more a way to generally pressure someone and keep them in line. I also know that most cases probably wouldn't become known to the public)
You should of course listen to the actual podcast if you want the contrast, my bullets are cherrypicked (but not unfair IMO). You can check out the guys blog as well: https://radicalscholarship.com/2022/11/05/sold-a-story-continues-science-of-reading-misinformation-campaign-a-reader/
It has some interesting perspectives:
Let me start with a caveat: Don’t debate “science of reading” (SoR) advocates on social media.
Ok, so I suspect some of you will enter the fray, and I must caution that you are not going to change the minds of SoR advocates; therefore, if you enter into a social media debate, you must keep your focus on informing others who may read that debate, others who genuinely want a discussion and are looking to be better informed (SoR advocates are not open to debate and do not want an honest discussion).
I think this reflects the academic mainstream position. "The outgroup is not open to debate so I refuse to debate them."
starless_sea
1yr ago
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So "larp" is colloquial and sloppy. With things like these, that seem to have little chance of success and members that are quite detached from reality, it's often inferred that the reason these guys are loading up on guns and talking about coups is not that they actually want to do a coup, but instead more that they want to be the kind of person who does a coup. Hence the "larp". I guess there's danger in psycho-analysing people through the news though. Still, I would imagine that ex-special forces guys know a thing or two about coups and wouldn't plan something that's obviously doomed to fail. But maybe I'm just overestimating the jarheads.
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Seems like the likely scenario.
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I guess I just assume people are rational and intelligent and that people with strong political convictions take reasonable steps to reach their political goals. I just need to downgrade that prior, when I read it aloud I myself realize it's stupid.
starless_sea
1yr ago
Threat of bombing caused surrenders in early WW2, when Germany invaded the Low Countries.
starless_sea
1yr ago
"Russia" is not a monolith. There are plenty of Russians, some quite powerful, with lots to gain from destroying the pipeline.
starless_sea
1yr ago
The "imagine a guy" was just me using some rhetoric to make the writing less dry. I don't really see how I could argue that the counterfactual is relevant without making a hypothesis like this.
This would fit better in the Friday Fun thread IMO (that's a compliment).
Some assumptions:
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The spaceship is going to an unpopulated planet. (If it is going to terraformed Mars, pop. 1 billion, you might as well have a less outlandish scenario like requing people from a sinking ship or a medical organ donation dilemma.)
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The planet is not a death-world full of monsters where physical prowess is crucial for survival. I presume that actual survival is easy when you don't have to compete with other humans and when the first generations have access to cool spaceship technology. (Given this assumption, none of the participants seem to have issues that strongly impacts survival ("physical disability" can be anything. Most disabilities are mild.).))
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If we are competent enough to design an interplanetary spacecraft, we are competent enough to send along a large sample of frozen sperm and the means of artificial insemination. This removes the worry about inbreeding other commenters bring up.
I want a thriving human civilization and reduced x-risk. Both requires us to repopulate as fast as possible. The optimal plan is then to pick the persons who aren't confirmed to be either men or non-fertile (i.e. everyone but 7, 10, 11 and 12).
(Culture could be important, but I expect culture to change drastically in a couple of generations anyway. The cultural values of the founding population seem secondary to the population growth goal.)
Solution: Send persons 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9 and a sperm bank. Boot person 1 (most likely to be a man) to make room for the sperm bank if needed. (Yes, person 1 is more likely a man than person 9: 13% of cops are women, women are as racist as men in most measures.)
starless_sea
1yr ago
Thanks for your take. I think you're mostly right. I'm still confused by the social rank of some of the revolutionaries, but I just need to lower my opinion of people in general.
starless_sea
1yr ago
I don't see the contradiction. The Qatari government is bad for expecting their guest to conform to their rigid social norms. FIFA is bad for allowing Qatar to host the World Cup. People should not go to the World Cup. Three true statement, no contradiction.
starless_sea
1yr ago
Maybe decide on no videogames for a week, and as much videogames as you want after that. You can survive one week, right? Then just take the time where you would have been playing videogames to sit in a chair and be bored. You can survive being bored as well. (Hopefully this will make you so bored that work feels like fun. It works for me.)
starless_sea
1yr ago
It seems entirely plausible that whomever had the video released it just to ruin Crawthorn without attempting to do any blackmail. Or that they did a "traditional" blackmail for money, not the kind of political favors blackmail I'm discussing here. And if they did a blackmail, why wouldn't Crawthorn tell the details, or go to the police?
There's always a plan. The US had a plan to invade Canada in 1930. The question is if it was the plan?
The answer is probably yes but we don't know. Some say that the declassified Warsaw Pact war plan of 1964 involves nuclear attacks on Sweden, but I can't find the original sources and confirm it. Even if the plan calls for such strikes, it's hard to know if this plan is the plan, but it seems like it. Then we can discuss if Sweden was truly neutral, or if it was an open secret that it was actually unofficially part of NATO. I would err on saying that Sweden was neutral.
Change your Instagram password to something random you cannot remember. Remove the Instagram app if you have it installed on your phone. If you use Instagram on a laptop, change the zoom to be maximized and use your addblocker (you use an addblocker, right?) to block everything on the site.
Edit: You say you use third-party browser apps to access their accounts. Remove those apps now! Use your addblocker to block everything on their page in the appstore. Set zoom on those pages to 500 %. Basically same as above.
All of this can be reversed/circumvented if you really want to, the goal is to make to make it too many clicks to be worth the effort, and to give you time to reconsider.
Economy+politics 101 question for someone who knows: Let's say that the central bank of country A raises the interest rate a little bit. Which groups gain and which groups loses from this? What if the reverse happens and the central bank lowers the interest rate, are the winners and losers reversed as well then? It seems self-evident that people with lots of loans and few assets (e.g. new families with unpaid student loans who just took on another loan to buy an expensive home) would lose from higher interest rates, is that correct? What's a fuller picture of the interest rate special-interest groups?
Let's say I'm a young professional with a good wage, some minor investments and no major loans. For purely selfish reasons, should I want interest rates to go up or down?
(Much of the media discussion about monetary policy centers on what's "good for the economy", I think we should discuss the redistributive effects more. Does that make sense?)
To anyone who has discussed the issue with pro-Putin people.
Why do people support Russia fighting against Ukraine, with a strange militaristic fervor, instead of supporting ending the war by bringing the troops home?
Some points:
-the war is severely impoverishing Russia due to sanctions
-the war is destroying Russia ( population + infrastructures / institutions)
-continuing the war increases the chances of a world war
Is it cheering for the possible destruction of Ukraine?
Something to do with the current leadership of Ukraine, pro-LGBTQ, "western values"?
Notion that 'if we don't stop NATO expansion now they will never stop no matter what'? Is it something about broadly standing up against NATO expansion of one state vs another, supporting the 'underdog'?
The issue with that one is that Russia has nuclear weapons and NATO expansions doesn't change the MAD calculus.
Sending another 100k Russians to the meatgrinder for that end seems a little bit harsh coming from people with very little skin in the game.
Just signaling what they are told is the correct opinion?
Is it about saving face, sunk cost at this point?
What would be the best case scenario for a Russia/Alt-right victory?
To my understanding, Zelensky is not the most radical or dangerous politician in Ukraine, and an Russian occupation of Ukraine would cause similar problems to the US occupation of Iraq. Ukrainians for example would not appear very Russia-friendly once 'liberated' by Russia.
Not only that, but economic crisis in Russia could generate additional security risks.
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