Mantergeistmann
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User ID: 323
Mantergeistmann
2d ago
Why would you do that? Announce it on twitter or tiktok or youtube or wherever normal people are.
You'd be surprised at how many people think that having an X account means you're financially supporting Nazism via ad revenue.
Mantergeistmann
3d ago
(Still not quite as ridiculous a take as the 20-something who complained about "anti-Semitic microaggressions" in a Mel Brooks movie.)
Is that more or less ridiculous a take than the people who complained that Blazing Saddles was racist?
Mantergeistmann
4d ago
Everyone knows (I say jokingly) that it's actually that JK Rowling expressed a bit of subtlety and restraint by not outright referring to them as gnomes instead.
I have seen people claim it's because the illustrations (which she approved) look like stereotypes of anti-Jewish propaganda (due largely to the noses), but I haven't done the comparisons myself.
Mantergeistmann
4d ago
I'm just so profoundly exhausted by it all. Why do these people have to make it so fucking hard to just enjoy things?
I've seen it described as gang tags, basically: if you can tag (or in this case, say) "Sharks Suck!" and make it clear it's a hostile environment to anyone saying "Jets Suck" or "Sharks Rule", well, it's demonstrably your space now.
Mantergeistmann
5d ago
I just don't think disproportionate violence is okay, even if provoked
Is there a (consistent) way to win a war without disproportionate violence? If you're better at fighting than your opponent, you will inflict more violence upon them than they do upon you (and if you're fighting in enemy territory/homeland, their civilians will suffer more than yours).
Mantergeistmann
5d ago
As a rule of thumb, international agreements never require states to do anything that would be to their strategic disadvantage. If they did then no state would ever agree to them in the first place.
Indeed, even the Geneva Conventions generally say things like "if your opponent makes use of this for their advantage, it loses protection under these conventions in that instance". They really wanted to discourage people trying to gain a strategic advantage by breaking the rules and hoping their opponent was too moral to then ignore said rules.
Mantergeistmann
6d ago
I'll go a bit further: if Hamas were white evangelicals wearing MAGA hats, rather than brownish Muslims, a large amount of the people claiming Israel is doing warcrimes would be calling for the IDF to take its gloves off and turn the land into a parking lot.
Mantergeistmann
7d ago
Whatever the hell Moose are.
Mantergeistmann
9d ago
No man who has endeavored to carry out an enterprise where many hands were needed, but has been well-nigh appalled at times by the imbecility of the average man--the inability or unwillingness to concentrate on a thing and do it. Slipshod assistance, foolish inattention, dowdy indifference, and half-hearted work seem the rule; and no man succeeds, unless by hook or crook or threat he forces or bribes other men to assist him [...]
this incapacity for independent action, this moral stupidity, this infirmity of the will, this unwillingness to cheerfully catch hold and lift--these are the things that put pure Socialism so far into the future. If men will not act for themselves, what will they do when the benefit of their effort is for all? A first mate with knotted club seems necessary; and the dread of getting "the bounce" Saturday night holds many a worker to his place. Advertise for a stenographer, and nine out of ten who apply can neither spell nor punctuate--and do not think it necessary to. [...]
"You see that bookkeeper," said a foreman to me in a large factory. "Yes; what about him?" "Well, he's a fine accountant, but if I'd send him up-town on an errand, he might accomplish the errand all right, and on the other hand, might stop at four saloons on the way, and when he got to Main Street would forget what he had been sent for."
"A Message to Garcia", Elbert Hubbard, 1899.
I sometimes wonder if I've just been very lucky in my professional career, or if people are actually significantly more competent and professional and capable as a baseline than they used to be.
Mantergeistmann
10d ago
"Defensive" in that it's a direct response to offensive action, not that they're currently holding ground and trying not to get pushed back by a sustained opposing offensive.
Mantergeistmann
11d ago
that's because what, 1200 Israelis died, and they've killed more than 12,000. We're up to what, almost 60k?
You really can't compare raw numbers, given a) Israel tried to keep its own people alive, b) Hamas tries to put its own people in harms way, c) the war is being fought in Gaza and not in Israel proper, and d) Israel is the stronger faction. Nobody would say, "Well, only X US soldiers and civilians were killed in Pearl Harbor, and now that the US is winning in the Philippines, the casualty ratio is shifting significantly, that means the US is doing warfare wrong and needs to sue for peace".
Mantergeistmann
11d ago
one thing that quickly became clear in that case was that the disorder had developed and been reinforced primarily because it provided a feeling of power and control in a life that had been very heavily controlled by others. Part of the solution was to logically explain just how self-destructive the disorder was, but a bigger part was to improve the level of and awareness of more wholesome ways to assert self-control, and to aid in that self-control in a way that made me seem like an ally rather than just another oppressive external source of control
I don't suppose you could elaborate on that? I know someone who I suspect may be in a similar situation, but it's not an eating disorder.
Mantergeistmann
14d ago
I remember waiting a full year for the government to complete a task... at which point I reached out to my local Senator's office, and within two weeks, shockingly it was done.
Mantergeistmann
14d ago
I don't think this is a WEIRD vs not situation. I'd expect anyone in a Western society, faced with a blank bureaucracy and a dire situation, to reach out to someone who might know someone who might know something about the situation.
Mantergeistmann
14d ago
Pepsi Throwback (in a can) was better than Pepsi (in a can), but I don't know what else changed in the recipe.
Mantergeistmann
14d ago
Civ 6 is currently free (including expansions and DLC) on Epic, for anyone who doesn't have it yet.
Mantergeistmann
14d ago
The grandpa's brother had a contact in the Chilean government? This sounds less like "simple leatherworker" and more like maybe something is going on that is not being reported.
To be fair, I am no high-class fellow, and yet in a governmental crisis, my family could probably make calls to contacts to contact their contacts to contact their contacts and, eventually, find someone who might have heard something.
Mantergeistmann
14d ago
Nataly — who has asked her surname not be used to protect her family
... as opposed to her Grandfather's surname?
According to Nataly, a Chilean government contact of Leon’s brother was able to reach an official here who told him Leon had been taken to Minnesota, then to Guatemala.
I mean, that should have been easily verifiable - can't be that many flights, commerical or otherwise, from Minnesota to Guatemala.
Yeah, there's a lot going on here, but admittedly, the resources of a small-ish local paper are not going to be that great for pursuing stories, as opposed to just going by what they're being told. At some point, they're probably hoping a large outlet can pick it up and do the investigation, since it's outside their bailiwick.
Mantergeistmann
14d ago
No one says “shame on all doctors” or “shame on medicine as an institution” just because thousands of people die from medical errors yearly.
"I often say a great doctor kills more people than a great general." -- Gottfried Leibniz
Mantergeistmann
14d ago
I'd say it's more coming into a bar, and wondering why some of the regulars are discussing with the bartender whether another of the regulars (who, over the course of many nights before you got here, established a rep as a bit belligerent once they've had too many) should be cut off. Doesn’t mean it's not a drinking establishment, or that you're not welcome to belly up and order, but that there's backstory and conflict (like with any established group!) that you weren't around for. Don't let that worry you.
Mantergeistmann
14d ago
the fact that such a story is even believable speaks volumes
I'll be honest with you, that's one of my least favorite arguments, and says more about the sayer than the situation. "The fact that I'm able to believe something terrible about my outgroup, even if false, is just another indication about how bad they are!" It's tiresome whether it's the Left, the Right, the Orange, the Purple, the Monarchists, or the Revolutionaries. "I may be wrong about this" should be cause for self-reflection about other cases where oneself may be wrong--"I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken"--not as an excuse to double-down against the group being unfairly maligned.
After all, if my hunch/info turns out to be incorrect, and the situation as originally presented was 100% truthful, would you say to me (with sincerity) "That's alright: the fact that you considered it believable that the news might be misrepresenting the situation or jumping the gun speaks volumes about how terrible and inaccurate the reporting usually is on these things?"
Mantergeistmann
14d ago
Just finished Master & Commander. It was very good! I found the writing style a bit slow to read, but it was a page-turner all the same.
Mantergeistmann
14d ago
I suppose it depends on who you believe: the fellow's family, or the Guatemalan government
The Guatemalan Migration Institute said in a statement that it coordinates with ICE on all deportations from the United States and that no one matched Leon’s name, age or citizenship.
So! If your story as presented is full and true... it's absolutely god-awful, a horrible overreach, and there should be some sort of massive legal reaction against the levers of power that made it happen. If not... well, it's yet one more reason why I find it difficult to get worked up when I'm told about a horrible news story with political implications, especially a breaking one.
Mantergeistmann
14d ago
I've seen it said that with your standard press-releases-as-articles, most papers will just chop it up a bit and regurgitate it. The Daily Mail will send someone round to interview neighbors for a juicy take on it instead.
Now I want an effortpost on wines... I personally am only really familiar with the Niagara region, but would like to become more worldly.
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