Non-bizarre delusions are potentially possible, although extraordinarily unlikely. For example: “The CIA is watching me 24 hours a day by satellite"
you are missing "targeting specifically me", otherwise it is not really a delusion
and in some cases it would be still true even with amendment
wayfarer
6d ago
Note that it is about small subset of "aliens". It is supposed to be:
- aliens capable of Weird Stuff
- detected by USA military
- coverup done by US military for long time
- not detected by others or they joined coverup
- all released evidence is clearly faked, unconvincing or dubious
- and so on
If FTL is possible then I expect to aliens be undetectable or just trample over us.
Not fit in weird area required for stories by UFO enthusiasts to be true at all.
I entirely believe in existence of elephants. But if my aunt starts claiming that he has herd of twenty elephants in her house, then last thing I would expect to be there is herd of living elephants.
wayfarer
6d ago
As to why the DoD/USG decided to plant misinformation in a subset of the troops and release them in to the general population to spread their stories, this was never clear.
as a joke?
Either it was entirely deliberate to end with them confused and sincerely believing aliens.
Or more likely someone was too nosy, got "I research aliens, now fuck off" as a joke and has not realized that it was a joke.
wayfarer
6d ago
Maybe I am not a human, but I dropped it as not worth watching quite soon. By first or second episode?
I watched "Your Name" and it was pretty but pity that all this animation effort has not went toward something more worth it. Maybe modern audience does not care about plot at all, but I am not obligated to spend time on stuff like that.
wayfarer
9d ago
are historically used to them and because fear of foreign threat is an emotionally powerful motivator.
also, because it is quite hard to find alternative solution (other than "I guess we surrender if we end in a serious war") but states with such approach tend to disappear for obvious reasons
do you really advocate that some people are property?
personally I will take transing fans, russian agents, antifa and flat earthers over slavery enthusiasts*
anyone that advocates for slavery or considers it as acceptable is worse that serious communists (conscription being a special case, I guess - if you want to argue it is a form of slavery)
*not that I would want either in position of authority or within 100 000 km from me
wayfarer
9d ago
Despite what Western media reporting might have you believe, the rate of petty crime in India is surprisingly low. People rarely get pick-pocketed or robbed. Do you know why?
what you mean by that? Out of lets say 25 people you know - how many were pick-pocketed within last year? How many were robbed?
If answer for first is greater than 1 and for second greater than 0, then it is "surprisingly low" only because people had low expectations from India.
(and while petty crime is annoying - what about more serious crime? Lets say that woman goes alone during night though city - is it likely that something bad will happen to her?)
wayfarer
9d ago
Is the point of your analogy that the endeavor of developing military doctrine is simply fallacious from the get-go?
no, it is that obvious solution like "just eat less" or "just militarily destroy enemy" are both true, and often not sufficient in practice as achieving them may be hard/nearly impossible
wayfarer
9d ago
OK, I got confused given that it was in thread about serious abuse (or maybe serious abuse).
wayfarer
9d ago
I guess that separate accounts and being rich may be enough to explain this.
Still, for Twitter/Reddit tales I would assume that all are faked, unless proof exists.
wayfarer
9d ago
In this case it seems particularly evident that the issue with drugs that trick you into not feeling hunger at your normal rate is that it becomes that much harder to operate normally without them.
well, the problem here is that people in the first place were unable to operate normally without them, so it is not making worse
Unlike OP, I think a world where people can only solve their problems by becoming addicted to complex and expensive drugs is a bad one.
I agree, but superior over one where the same problems are unsolvable
When people call something "a crutch" they refer to the specific chronic problems they cause in long term use, and in particular that you can get habituated to them in a way that stops you from taking the harder steps required to get back to walking normally.
which is quite idiotic phrase, given that crutches are not causing this at all AFAIK
wayfarer
9d ago
Sorry, what? You're just off the mark.
Maybe "But don't tell people that utterly destroying enemy doesn't work, because it does." would be better?
Aside from the inherent differences between adversarial processes and other dynamic processes.
trying to not overeat vs extreme marketing of hyperpalatable foods is an adversarial process
wayfarer
9d ago
May I introduce you to our lord and savior, prescription stimulants?
I am risk-avoider (at least in this variety of risk) that they do not seem safe enough for me, or would be really hard to get or are unlikely to work.
But maybe it is procrastination talking.
wayfarer
9d ago
But I wager it's far more likely to be true than not.
I am quite unusual at how much I look into where my money goes, but how you do not notice "tens of thousands of dollars" part?
And for Twitter/Reddit tales I would assume that all are faked, unless proof exists.
That bit was a joke.
ah, makes sense (motte breaks my sarcasm meter)
wayfarer
9d ago
or the usual Slavic predisposition towards melancholy.
I would rather blame extensive Russian-specific pathologies and malformed society
wayfarer
9d ago
You at the very least need to disclaim that abuse can have lasting effects, especially extreme one.
And that poor to great parenting has much lesser influence on outcomes than people expect.
It is different claim than "It's genetics or it's random."
wayfarer
9d ago
But don't tell people that changing their lifestyle doesn't work, because it does.
The tricky part is actually achieving it. I do not have this specific problem (eating so much that I cannot move under own power) but I have some other problems with obvious solutions that I have failed to do so far.
For example winning war can be obviously done by destroying enemy warfighting capacity. It can be done, was done multiple times and it works. But telling this to Russia/Ukraine/Hamas/Israel and telling them that they are stupid failures because they have not achieved it so far despite trying to win a war is not going to be an useful advise.
wayfarer
9d ago
When people get on their high horse and claim that using drugs to solve your problems is a crutch
Well obviously.
But when I broke my leg I got a crutch.
What the fuck I was supposed to do? Crawl? Walk on leg with broken bone, injure it further and howl in agony?
Crutches exist for a reason! There are stupid way to use them, I guess, but typical use of crutches is extremely useful in an obvious way!
I do not have problems solved by Ozempic as far as I know, but if I could pop a safe pill to solve procrastination issues I would do it!
wayfarer
9d ago
Is it worth it to specifically criminalize such behavior?
Probably no: this type of bizarre stupidity seems rare and treating regulation as exciting adventure ends with EU or worse.
And you will get unintended consequences - for example if someone was send to prison for crime not disqualifying them from being parent or was innocent then "obvious" rule would make contact them with them a criminal offense. And it is only first and obvious problem I noticed, within first 10 seconds.
(note: how likely is that story is altogether faked?)
As a wise mullah once said: "What is the cure for such disorders? Beatings."
outlawing extremely rare stupidity and legalizing common stupidity seems backward
wayfarer
10d ago
Well, and some numbers deflated and some claims turned to be lies like that story about soap made out of human fat.
I have no problems with investigating Holocaust and looking into claims, but if someone starts claiming that millions of Polish Jews all just migrated somehow to USSR and similar "explanations" then I am going to interact with them like with flat landers and moon landing hoaxers.
wayfarer
10d ago
Well, Hitler and Stalin were not murdering people in person either.
I am happy to blame both for murders they caused.
The same in Congo. You can be responsible for murder in indirect way (at some point it stops counting, or responsibility is greatly diminished but large part of deaths in Congo has not reached this).
wayfarer
10d ago
I am pretty sure that Great Depression was not intentionally engineered to murder people (unlike Holodomor) or direct result of blatantly cretinous ideas that failed in an obvious fashion (see Mao and 10 - 50 million dead Chinese, in just one of his fuckups) or both (Pol Pot).
Communist regimes have more famines and more likely to have famines in the same situation because communism is evil inefficient scheme. It gets worse when it is run by Russian state as it brings own share of evil and fuckups.
And "Great Depression was bad and killed many people" is not some contrarian idea anyway.
every famine in a communist country is automatically and intentional act of mass murder and must be treated as such.
I mentioned specifically Great Chinese Famine without claiming that it was intentional act of mass murder. Because it was not.
And to be clear, from what I know it dear leader Mao starved millions of people by accident, though as direct result of his evil and stupid ideas. Ideas were stupid and evil, but starving multiple Holocaust worth of Chinese people was not intentional. What makes it probably worst fuckup in history of humanity.
Pol Pot, Hitler, Stalin were evil as fuck but murdered in large part people they wanted to be murdered. Mao murdered primarily people he has not wanted to murder.
(...) United States are all the understandable effects of blight, weather patterns and supply chain issues
Dust Bowl has not reached real famine levels and was clearly not intentionally created, and was not so obviously predicable as what Mao did.
Trail of Tears involved people starving to death, but AFAIK not blaming it on responsible people is a minority position.
I am not aware of Great Chinese Famine or Holocaust equivalents in USA history. I bet that say some Indian tribes were deliberately starved to death in part, but nothing even close to scale of this two.
Tsarist Russia
I can complain long about Tsarist Russia but I am not aware about deliberately-man made famines among their crimes. Unlike USSR Russia which did it.
If you know about any, I would be glad to learn about it to further confirm my bias about Russia.
every famine in a communist country is automatically and intentional act of mass murder and must be treated as such.
not every, but if you deliberately starve people to death then you get people mentioning it for quite long time
if communists wanted to avoid getting blamed for murdering people on large scale, then they could have not done so
Ireland, British India, Africa, ancient regime France, ancient China
I have not mentioned them as I am less familiar with histories here.
But I am willing to bet that ancient regime France, ancient China were oppressing peasants but famines were not deliberately man made and rather result of blight, weather patterns and supply chain issues and lack of mechanized farming. Though deaths would be lower if nobility would be less into their typical activities of nobility.
Revolutionary France did mass murder of Vendeans but AFAIK man-made famine has not featured much there.
wayfarer
10d ago
I believed the Holocaust happened but the reaction of confused outrage from certain people who are used to essentially having an auto win button in these arguments is silly.
is past tense intentional?
if yes, do you plan to stop believing that WW II happened because everyone involved produced piles of propaganda and after few decades a lot of it is believed?
Also, believing that does not block "CIA is watching me 24 hours a day by satellite" anyway.
If I am not captured by CIA visual/radio/etc monitoring continuously, with breaks between captures measured in minutes not days or hours (over a typical day) then I would be deeply surprised.
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