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Notes -
New week is here, it is time for some culture war (and culture war by other means) news, news not concerning plebeian ball games, aspiring upper class winter games, or top elite human capital tropical island games.
1/ From Demography is Destiny files
It seems world's TFR as a whole is below replacement by now. It is just rough estimate from highly questionable data by anonymous xitter demography nerds, possibly the inflection point already happened few years ago.
What is certain that the exponential growth that began in early 1700's (due to potato, maize and wise leadership of European and Manchu statesmen of the time) is finally over. The line leveled up and will start going down.
Whether it is matter for mourning or celebration, is up to you.
2/ From Elite Human Capital files
Even the most elite human capital is made of flesh and blood(so far) and all flesh must perish.
How billionaires die?
TL;DR: The lessons are: if you are a billionaire, avoid choppers, it is not worth it. Also, do not be a woman.
3/ From Cold War geopolitics files
Cuba is on the ropes, strangled by intensified US blockade, and, unlike in the past, no help is coming.
It is clear now that Venezuelan operation was about regime change in Cuba.
Politically speaking, it can be Donald's crowning achievement.
Marco Rubio will have his revenge, Red tribe boomers get to enjoy one final triumph over dirty commies before they expire (imagine Donald Trump personally tearing down statues of Fidel and Che in Havana just before the midterms), the remaining old style leftists are humiliated one more time. Cuban people gain freedom and democracy (whether Mexico, Colombia or Haiti style is to be seen), ICE finally gets to round up Cubans and return them home. Everyone wins.
4/ From South Asia files
Resistance in Baluchistan embraces grandma power, and is on the roll.
One struggle against colonialism, imperialism, racism, sexism and ageism.
Whether real or PR, it is interesting they think this particular PR is needed. It could be another case of provincials being slightly out of touch with Current Year(TM) zeitgeist, or it could be prescient vision that in negative population growth world, the elderly will be expendable and disposable meat (as we already see in East Europe).
5/ From Eastern European files
Most high-level assassination attempt of the current East European unpleasantness. The target was lieutenant general Vladimir Stepanovich Alekseyev
He seems to be IRL action movie hero, who successfully fought the assassin after being shot in the back twice (while the assassin seems to be boomer who was using gun for the first time in his life)
6/ Gamer affairs + more Eastern European current events files
Most oppressed people in the world, the gamers, are fighting back.
16 years old Muscovite Artem killed one Alexey Belyaev deputy head of Roskomnadzor, Russian media and internet censorship agency. There is severe media blackout about this issue, as if someone was worried.
Xitter anonymous shitposter reactions are overwhelmingly positive. Zoomer gamers are strongly Kulak pilled. As Kulak predicted.
From pure technical point of view, compared with previous event, the difference is palpable.
Lone Zoomer with knife and grudge >>>>> Boomer with gun working for big three letter organization for promise of big payoff. (only mistake Artem made was letting to be taken alive to be raped and tortured for the rest of his life, but no one is perfect)
The Age of Boomers is over. The Time of the Zoomer has come.
Is it possible that this is all some elaborate Russian plot? War hero gets shot 3 times in the back, but lives and fights off his assassin bare-handed. They blame it on the Ukrainians. Makes for great propaganda value. (I'm probably biased because I've been reading Tom Clancy spy novels recently so Maskirovka is on my brain. The Russians are always doing this sort of thing in his books.)
What sense would that make? Russians (the ones that can be reached by staged terrorist attacks on a general, at least) don't seem to need further motivation to continue prosecuting the war; fence-sitters will surely not become more inclined to stay on the fence with further evidence that internal control is weak; everyone who is against them, meanwhile, will be cheering on the attempt and consider it absolutely justified and further proof of Ukrainian pluck and skill. Any general norms against dirty tricks played on enemy leadership were long kicked to the curb by Americans and Israelis.
Killing a high ranking military official isn't terrorism. Either he was killed by the Ukranians, in which case he's a completely legitimate military target, or he was killed by the Russians, in which case it's just their ordinary procedure for replacing high level functionaries.
Oh bull shit, if Iran blew up a cabinet secretary you would be weeping tears of blood and calling for nuclear strikes.
I couldn't really care less about a random politician in whatever country you think I'm from getting killed. However, to the extent that I would favour retaliation, I would do so because it is an act of war, not because everything I don't like is magically "terrorism".
However, if my country had invaded Iran and Iran responded by killing a high-ranking military officer, who is, let's be clear, not a member of the cabinet, not a civilian, and obviously a completely legit military target, then I obviously would be off my rocker if I wanted them nuked in response.
You don't want your military personnel to get killed? Don't invade other countries lol.
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Yes, but not because it's terrorism.
Blowing up a cabinet secretary would be an act of war, and if Iran wants a war then "Bring It On" is a reasonable response - doubly so if they start it with a perfidious surprise attack rather than by declaring war.
Ukraine and Russia are already at war, at Russia's choice. It is a defensive war for Ukraine, and if they are successfully defending themselves by blowing up Russian cabinet secretaries, then Russia should either suck less or start fewer wars. As a matter of international law, Ukraine can defend themselves all the way to Vladivostok if they want to and have the military ability to.
@GBRK @The_Nybbler I still call bullshit. If that happened your response would not be “well we’ve been propping up their regional adversary and bombing the hell out of them for three years so fair play I guess”
What is the point of this obstinacy? They're all correct, it is an act of war. We constantly commit acts of war by bombing the shit out of Ukrainian residential blocks, and this gets called terrorism because civilians become collateral damage, even if terror is not the point (terror is the point in human safari and arguably in infrastructure destruction though). If Russia could surgically annihilate Ukrainian generals no matter where they are, that's be merely war.
Ukrainians do commit terrorism, but not in this case.
Because I am subjected to a perfidious media apparatus and the casuists on this forum that constantly justify the most appalling horrors on the basis of spurious “who, whom?” logic and thought terminating cliches, and it has made me salty.
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If it happened I would say "Well, looks like they're fucking around so we should make them find out". But it's still war, not terrorism. The boundaries can be blurry sometimes (because it's advantageous for states to blur them) but the hypothetical here is that Iran is doing it, not one of their associated "terrorist" militias, right?
Contra MadMonzer above, I would say it's not "perfidious", but just because it's "fair play" doesn't mean the US doesn't get to respond.
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Wait, why would Iran have to declare war for it to not be a perfidious surprise attack? The US government recently bombed Iran, so Iranian retaliation would not be a strike out of the blue.
Good point. You can plausibly argue that the US and Iran have been in a state of undeclared war since the embassy siege. (Which was a perfidious surprise attack)
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The US declared a unilateral ceasefire after that bombing operation completed. Iran doesn't have to accept it, but if they choose not to they shouldn't be surprised at a kinetic response.
Sure, they shouldn't be surprised by it. My point is just that an Iranian attack would not be some Pearl Harbor style surprise attack.
The US unilateral ceasefire is in my opinion meaningless since it seems clear to me that in reality the US reserves the right to bomb Iran whenever it chooses, and if it chooses to do so will just come up with some narrative about how it was justified despite the supposed ceasefire. At most the ceasefire just means that the US would wait a bit between spinning up the narrative and launching the actual attack, in order to make it look as if it had observed the ceasefire.
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I mean, it probably depends on the cabinet member... But anyways non-nuclear strikes would be justified. Not on the basis that that's an act of terrorism, but on the basis that it's an act of war. And yes, I understand hat the trump has commited plenty of such acts on iran. If they ever use one as a casus belli I'm not going to be shocked or surprised. Mostly I'd just be wondering what took them so long.
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Yeah, because it would be an act of war.
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I think it's borderline, but insofar as the idea is to signal to the Russian upper brass that they are not even safe in their apartment blocks, it meets dictionary definitions such as Merriam-Webster's "the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion".
The problem with such a loose definition is that for example completely legal executions (which seek to deter crimes by tapping into would-be criminals fear of getting fried) fit the definition equally well.
If I said "the racist notion that black people are of higher risk of sickle cell anemia", I am technically correct, but I am also at the same time quite obviously full of shit.
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