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Culture War Roundup for the week of May 13, 2024

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It's like we have become allergic to actual news or something. Why is every topic here now a snoozefest.

Here are a few suggestions. Pick up the ball and go

  • Conventional war in Eastern Europe

  • Genocide in Middle East

  • Unprecedented invasion of America

  • Unsustainable price increases in Western world

  • Canadian retroactive 'Hate Speech' laws

  • Lady flashing her tits at the Times Square portal

  • Lomez getting doxxed and turning out to be handsome, but also Jewish

  • Milei singing in a superhero costume

  • Eurovision being even more Satanic and odd than usual

  • Lizzo at the Met gala looking like a chicken nugget and being physically carried around by white attendants

  • GME and AMC popped 100% again for some reason

  • JK Rowling might get arrested for calling a man a man

  • Literally just pick a topic that's not obtuse guys. We're all collectively losing the reason to visit.

  • -15

People don't want to talk about the war because

  1. by and large, the west is losing it because of bad procurement, industrial output and planning

  2. despite their skepticism about particulars -wokism, governance, I'm betting most people here are in favor of US hegemony and see the countries involved as somehow 'theirs' - something like the nationalist delusion. No, they aren't. The countries belong to people who have power and influence in them - and that ain't you unless you're a billionaire with an entire department of lobbyists and a prominent position in CFR etc.

  3. it's a rather gnarly affair, entirely possible there's been up to half a milion dead by now, 3/4 of that Ukrainian. I'm basing that claim on the estimates of amputees being 25-50k according to press quoting charities, and the amputee/KIA ratio being certainly somewhere between 6 (GWOT) to cca 30 (WW1).

So, it's perfectly clear why we aren't talking about it.

I, for one, would love to hear from Atlanticists and Putinists as well what they think the endgame is here. No, really. Like, what?

Endgame ?

This or next year, Ukraine folds and accepts territorial loss and permanent neutrality (Finlandisation- no NATO, no EU membership). NATO is ran by idiots simply wasn't able to provide the armaments necessary for victory. Might be some fun (meaning FPVs into NATO political leaders) out of this when Ukrainians with their half million dead are going to be given no rebuilding assistance [1].

EU (specifically the centrist fraction of EU parties) is mulling a union-wide draft law, supposedly voluntary at the start, so recruiting at most 10% of age groups. So there might be remilitarization. It's required in the mid run anyway because America is likely going to go down.

Russia reforms their military procurement in preparation for WW3 (new defense minister looks up to the task) and will probably take over the Baltics out of pure vengeance when US hegemony collapses following the China war. It's nice real estate, but I guess most the young people there will flee and Russian hydrocarbon funds will go to pay for those pensions too.

[1]

"On the question of NATO's role in the reconstruction of Ukraine after the war. The first thing I will say is that first of all, you need to ensure that Ukraine prevails. Because unless Ukraine prevails, there's nothing to reconstruct in a free and independent Ukraine.

We must be able to help Ukraine prevail because it's important for Ukrainians. But also because every day this war drags on, of course, the more destruction and the more expensive, the more resource demanding it will be to do reconstruction afterwards."