domain:archive.ph
Botond173
19m ago
As the demographic transition continues, middle-class White suburbanites (who are mostly Blue-adjacent liberal normies) will be a smaller and smaller segment of the young/youth cohort, and they are the only demographic that genuinely buys into Wokeness. I guess that's a part of it.
Botond173
28m ago
It's partly a matter of age. People generally don't change their prejudices and worldview after the age of 30. What you're exposed to between the ages 15 and 25 is more important than the same between 25 and 35 or 35 and 45 etc.
magic9mushroom
If you're going to downvote me, and nobody's already voiced your objection, please reply and tell me
31m ago
Vaccine-resistant smallpox would not be anywhere near 99% mortality; smallpox is deadly, but not that deadly (even if everyone got it). I mean, we did live with it in the Old World since the Iron Age or so.
Airborne HIV would suck pretty horribly. I imagine there'd be more survivors, though, and it'd take much less time to recover once it died out. You need something like "airborne HIV with anthrax spores" to be worse. I won't say that that's impossible, but GoF and even deliberate weaponisation isn't going to get there since AFAIK there aren't any lifelong-infection viruses without an envelope (enveloped virus = negligible environmental persistence, because envelopes aren't all that stable); you'd need a development project aimed at de novo virus synthesis and to be targetting these properties, AIUI.
quiet_NaN
31m ago
Okay, I will go first. WP:
According to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, he was the only Iranian to sit on the Shura, or guiding council, of Hezbollah. According to The Guardian, he was most likely a critical figure in coordinating Iran's relationship with Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Assad government of Syria.
Are you arguing that the main target was actually just a foot soldier, or a civilian, or that Hezbollah had not been used to prop up the Assad regime?
Given that eight times more people were killed in the Israeli airstrike than in the shooting, you don't even have to find a source claiming that one of the people shot was the main military liaison between the US and Israel. If the victims were in charge of procuring small arms from the US and the shooter had picked them for that reason, I would concede that this was purposeful violence.
(All of this is discounting that there is an obvious difference between the military leadership in autocratic countries and stable democracies. In autocratic countries, a powerful general is a coup risk, so you want someone with a close personal relationship to the leader, think Crusader Kings. In a stable democracy at peace, there is a functionally unlimited supply of loyal and competent military leaders. If Iran managed to blow up the top ten military leaders of the US, this would not hamper the effectiveness of the US military very much.)
5434a
33m ago
How to Build an LFS System
The LFS system will be built by using an already installed Linux distribution
I suppose it's Linux all the way down. Unless...?
Botond173
36m ago
Well yeah, it's true that the violent Bolshevik seizure of central power provoked a civil war between them and their enemies (not counting other aspects of the whole conflict). Nevertheless the toppling of the monarchy in March 1917 was relatively bloodless and swift, as was the dissolution of the USSR later.
coffee_enjoyer
☕️
38m ago
governimg body uses the pipes meant for water supplies to make rockets
This was debunked, I’m pretty sure.
What percentage of the deaths on October 7th do you think died to Hannibal directive? The policy rescinded in 2016.
That’s also false. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_7_Hamas-led_attack_on_Israel and there’s also a good TheGreyZone article on it.
According to a December 2023 Ynet article, there was also an "immense and complex quantity" of friendly-fire incidents during the October 7 attack.[34][35] In January 2024, an investigation by Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth concluded that the IDF had in practice applied the Hannibal Directive, ordering all combat units to stop "at all costs" any attempt by Hamas militants to return to Gaza, even if there were hostages with them.[37][36] The directive was first employed at 7:18 AM at the Erez border crossing to prevent soldiers stationed there from being taken captive. At 10:32 AM, an order was issued to all battalions in the area to fire mortars towards Gaza. Documents obtained by Haaretz and the testimonies of soldiers show that use of the Hannibal Directive was "widespread" after an order was issued to the Gaza Division at 11:22 AM that "Not a single vehicle can return to Gaza." At 2:00 p.m., all units were instructed not to leave border communities or chase anyone into Gaza, as the border was under heavy, indiscriminate fire. At 6:40 p.m., the army launched artillery raids at the border area "very close" to Kibbutz Be'eri and Kfar Azza.[379] It is unclear how many hostages were killed by friendly fire.[37][36] According to Yedioth Ahronoth, around 70 burnt-out vehicles on roads leading to Gaza had been fired on by helicopters or tanks, killing all occupants in at least some cases.[37][36]
Personally, I wouldn’t be surprised if every non military age male was killed in the Hannibal Directive rather than by Hamas. Because I don’t think Hamas went in with the RPGs required to —
In the aftermath of the attack, Israel buried hundreds of burned cars that were at the scene of the attacks "To preserve the sanctity of those murdered by Hamas
Though a video was “”released”” showing a militant with one, the original footage doesn’t show it. And by the time the IDF was firing at cars, each insurgent already had a car full of hostages. But Zionists wouldn’t stand 1000 hostages in Gaza and only militant-aged deaths, because this would mean that they would have to take their demands for freedom and justice seriously. This is my theory.
Would hamas accept a two state solution on these borders?
I think so, yes
NunoSempere
46m ago
Geopolitics
Americas
US launched its second ICBM test this year
Africa
Christians in Africa are being prosecuted somewhat systematically, particularly in northern Nigeria by Boko Haram. "In 2024 alone, over 4,500 Christians in 12 countries across the Sahel region were killed for their faith, 114,000 Christians forcibly displaced, 16,000 homes destroyed, and over 1,700 churches impacted"
Sudan's army chief names former UN official as new prime minister
U.S. will impose sanctions on Sudan for using chemical weapons
Middle East
Russia's Hmeimim airbase in Syria is under attack. I remember thinking that Lisa thought this was important
Iran
Israel 'preparing strike on Iran's nuclear facilities'
Oil prices rise on signs of faltering U.S.-Iran nuclear talks
U.S. media reports: Should U.S.-Iran nuclear talks fail, Israel is prepared to quickly strike Iranian nuclear facilities.
Gaza
14,000 babies could die in Gaza within 48 hours without aid: UN
Israel allowed some aid into Gaza
Britain, Canada, France condemn Israel's blocking of aid in Gaza, threaten sanctions
Gaza reports 326 malnutrition deaths, more than 300 miscarriages due to lack of essentials
New Gaza offensive
Yemen
Yemen's Houthis target Israel's Ben Gurion Airport, 3rd missile strike in 24 hours
Houthis declare naval blockade of Haifa port
Asia
China is integrating civil and military networks. "By connecting high-tech enterprises and facilitating data-driven collaborations, the platform accelerates the matching of military needs with available resources, resulting in timely and effective responses to various challenges. The platform features a comprehensive database that includes over ten thousand high-tech companies, hundreds of thousands of skilled personnel"
United States Develops "Orbital Aircraft Carriers" Endangering Space Safety, says China
Accelerate the building of China's independent military knowledge system. Another article in a similar vein as above.
China says ready to boost military-to-military ties with Russia
MEMRI warning about "China's Imminent Invasion Of Taiwan"
House Select Committee Warns: "The Window to Deter War with China is Closing Fast"
Oropuche virus rapidly spreading in Latin America; over 20K infected individuals ince late 2023
Riding the Waves! Full Throttle Live Fire Drill with Missile Speedboats
A squadron of missile boats from the Navy of the Eastern Theater Command has recently engaged in a comprehensive live-fire training exercise. This high-intensity session included a variety of drills such as maritime search and rescue operations, fleet patrols, and missile attack simulations, all aimed at enhancing the operational combat skills of the soldiers involved.
The training took place around the clock and involved multi-subject scenarios, systematically validating and improving the readiness of the naval forces for potential maritime combat situations.
India/Pakistan
3/4th of India's population at 'high' to 'very high' heat risk: CEEW study
Airlines Prepare for Nuclear War
Europe
Poland intervenes after Russian 'shadow fleet' ship detected near Baltic Sea cable
Russia stops Greek tanker leaving Estonia in tit-for-tat Baltic move
Bio
A paper in Nature looks at an outbreak of multidrug-resistant dysentery from 2021 to 2023 in Mexico
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has called for increased American involvement and support for the Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS)-led administration in Syria to prevent its potential collapse
Study shows that the 2022 mpox outbreak started in 2014
Tech and AI
xAI’s Grok 3 comes to Microsoft Azure
VEO 3 generates some pretty nifty videos
veo3 is a new model by Google that is able to create convincing (and addictive) video
Misc
Chances of a mega-tsunami hitting California about 15% over the next 50 years?
Also covered here
Briefing to the UN on the state of the protection of civilians in armed conflict
Netanyahu press conference
orthoxerox
If you can read this, you're using a custom theme
1hr ago
A desktop environment is fundamentally a complex thing. You need an experienced product owner to manage a product of this complexity, but good product owners can earn more money and fame managing more hyped stuff like AI. OSX is getting worse, Windows is getting worse and Linux has never been as good as either.
self_made_human
Kai su, teknon?
1hr ago
In a vacuum? Who gives a shit?
When I'm trying to attract women, and looking to settle down and marry before the decade is out? Then what other people think of you matters.
While it's polite to underplay how much of a difference being attractive makes in real life, that's somewhere between cope and an attempt to make people feel better about themselves. I have a handsome younger brother. I'm facially average, but thankfully I'm tall. Even if love him, I can't help but feel a twinge of jealousy at how trivially he could have just about any woman he wants. When it turned out that he's borderline asexual, all I could do is groan at the waste. Some people need to hustle for a meal, others are just taking up space at a buffet table and not even trying the appetizers.
I think my self-esteem is at a reasonable place. I've got plenty to be proud about. Yet self-esteem is far from the only thing that matters. Someone with schizophrenia, bipolar during mania, or other personality disorders, might well have great self-esteem while their life falls apart.
Seems like a hedonistic treadmill effect. Maybe this is the key to your everlasting happiness, but I doubt it.
I'm not doing this to be ensure everlasting happiness. I'm doing this to be more attractive, primarily for the purposes of being more appealing to the opposite sex. That bit is durable, even if my happy afterglow fades.
self_made_human
Kai su, teknon?
1hr ago
No but I'm always worried about surgery because we can't know how good it can go and people many times end up getting multiple. If you go through with this, please do not get multiple things fixed, many never stop post their first though you are unlikely to be compulsive
You can still do a cost benefit analysis, and doctors/surgeons do those all the time. In this case, I need to weigh up looking significantly better versus maybe 2-3k USD and a 3% risk of complications. Given the obvious benefits of being more handsome, I'm willing to take the gamble. I'm averse to more complex surgeries like jaw shaving, and don't think they're warranted yet. I might consider a rhinoplasty in the future.
I wanted just buccal fat removed, but he made a strong case that I also have large masseter muscles, which makes my face squarer, and rounded with the fat added on. What drew me here was the relatively minimal invasiveness of the procedure, and to be fair, the things he's recommending adding on aren't big adds.
Working out is different in that it helps one inculcate other qualities beyond the physical appearance, Steve Maxwell is 72, has visible abs and still rolls, he wrote a blog post on this topic stating that in a good trainee, the discipline you showcase and the virtue you develop are reflected physically. Undergoing a decent regimen makes you stronger on the inside, it won't make you into a medieval knight, but it does make you better. Still I'm not the psychiatrist here or a very good or experienced physical culturalist.
I've started working out again, and intend to stick to it! It's comparatively low hanging fruit, and I'll grab what I can.
AmericanSaxeCoburgGothic
Happy to be here! Goal is to post the most exclamation points.
1hr ago
I honestly think self esteem is a choice. Who cares what other people think? Only you can decide to feel inferior. As a man, who you are, what you do, and thirdly what you believe matters more. If you already have high educational attainment and social status, why do you care about how others perceive you? Seems like a hedonistic treadmill effect. Maybe this is the key to your everlasting happiness, but I doubt it.
mrvanillasky
Indo Aryan Thot Leader
1hr ago
No but I'm always worried about surgery because we can't know how good it can go and people many times end up getting multiple. If you go through with this, please do not get multiple things fixed, many never stop post their first though you are unlikely to be compulsive.
Working out is different in that it helps one inculcate other qualities beyond the physical appearance, Steve Maxwell is 72, has visible abs and still rolls, he wrote a blog post on this topic stating that in a good trainee, the discipline you showcase and the virtue you develop are reflected physically. Undergoing a decent regimen makes you stronger on the inside, it won't make you into a medieval knight, but it does make you better. Still I'm not the psychiatrist here or a very good or experienced physical culturalist.
self_made_human
Kai su, teknon?
1hr ago
I probably will. It's certainly much cheaper in India versus what it would be in the UK. The buccal fat removal is permanent (without fillers or transplants to reverse it), but I can always forego the botox in the future.
hanikrummihundursvin
1hr ago
He's a jew who did some holocaust denial work in the 90's. It's of great cathartic importance for some people here to notice and comment on his woes.
self_made_human
Kai su, teknon?
1hr ago
I was considering that I'd go on a minor rant about transhumanism and better living through medicine in my original post, but I'd risk becoming a walking stereotype or one-trick pony haha. Evidently, it wasn't even necessary with my reputation.
My facial features are average. When I'm well groomed and dressed up, I'd dare call myself a 7/10 on a genuine gaussian curve, i.e 70th percentile for Indian men. If I'm not trying? 5-6/10. I have other appealing characteristics, but I only look decent enough for it to not sway the scales either way, positively or negatively.
This is adequate. It's not ideal. My younger brother lucked out on the genetic lottery, and could probably work as a model. I've seen the very obvious differences in how women act around him, and think "Lord, I've seen what you've done for others, and want that for myself."
I could probably go through the rest of my life without plastic surgery, and do fine. I'd have to work out harder, lose more weight, but there's only so much that can do. Yet, I think this is an intervention with positive expected value, if I can bump myself up ten percentile points for a few thousand USD, I struggle to think of anything better. The risks, while present, aren't that bad.
In a frenzy of self-improvement, I'm hitting the gym like it owes me money, and ordered some semaglutide to boot. My transhumanism isn't lip service, I put my money where my mouth and surrounding fat is.
CertainlyWorse
No one is coming. It's just you.
1hr ago
All good points. Why not give it a go then? If its low risk (you've done a credential check) and affordable you can give it a trial and see if you like the results.
Pigeon
coo coo
1hr ago
Amongst my close friends in undergrad, there used to be a guy who had a ~150 IQ (he was the only member of the group who had it measured "properly" by a professional - he had a psychologist friend and he agreed to be one of the test subjects for something), and he was noticeably duller than the rest of us in [hard STEM subject we all studied] - this was evidenced objectively in exam results (and he worked to try get good results) I'm not sure if he is just one of those unfortunate people on the vertex of the functionality/IQ ellipse, or if it really was just a "culture" issue (maybe he was just overloaded with extra-curriculars, he had test-anxiety, etc - normally I'd discount those explanations as cope - but then... 150 IQ!)
It could possibly be a test with a different SD score, though I'm not sure why that would be the case since I think? most Western tests are calibrated to be SD15 or SD16. I recall hearing about a K-pop star with an IQ of 148 and then finding out [that it was 148 on a different scale (with an SD of 24), as was the standard in Korean school testing at the time (?)
150 would be gifted but not that exceptional in that case.
self_made_human
Kai su, teknon?
1hr ago
Botox just works that way. I'm not sure I'd consider it a surgery in the first place. The others should, at least in ideal circumstances, be one and done. While I'm far from a plastic surgeon, I think his points were reasonable.
I came out of it with a relatively positive impression of the surgeon, he seemed quite prudent and even suggested that I take time to think this through. Unfortunately, I'm flying back to the UK soon, and it's going to cost me an order of magnitude more. For what it's worth, his credentials are impeccable, so I'd struggle to find someone else in the time frame I'm working under.
Southkraut
Vibe of vibes, saith the Preacher, vibe of vibes; all is vibe.
2hr ago
You're the transhumanist; off you go to self-modify at once!
I mean, my advise would be to just live with your face, which probabl, isn't that bad to begin with, but I dom't suppose you're the target audience for that.
CertainlyWorse
No one is coming. It's just you.
2hr ago
I'm not particularly keen on semi-annual injections into my face, but I think it's worth a shot.
I'd consider getting a second opinion to make sure there isn't some 'one and done' permanent surgery available rather than this SaaS (Surgery as a Service) ongoing maintenance payment.
Oh yes, this is true! (I recall alluding to this difference in a reply I made regarding DeepSeek being uncannily good at classical Chinese poetry -- it's able to identify words that rhymed back in the day, but not in standard Mandarin.) Even in Middle Chinese these often wouldn't be exactly the same, so it would really mostly be a guide rather than an absolute. Nonetheless, they often sound similar enough that it's significantly less effort than if it were completely random, in the same way that Middle English sote is different but kind of similar to sweet (and not at all to mistletoe) in sound.
The way simplification really broke things is by removing many phonetic guides completely, like 廣 to 广. I happen to be more of a fan of the simplification done in 新字体 shinjitai, but even it kind of breaks things sometimes -- 廣 is now 広, for example, which has a misleading phonetic component. (Of course, it matters less in the Japanese case, as 広い is hiroi, and many compound words use ひろ hiro native pronunciation rather than こう kou borrowed (from China) pronunciation.)
mrvanillasky
Indo Aryan Thot Leader
2hr ago
Great suggestion, I look forward to doing as soon as I can. I enjoy the process of learning and ultimately wish to be a really good hacker, be really competent and aware of as many relevant working parts as possible or necessary.
One thing I will note here is that Australia is not as far gone; we have two major parties, and both are hardline anti-riot regardless of valence. I think part of it is that the SJ rioters are in the Greens, not the centre-left Labour Party which is one of our "two parties", and as such the latter is totally fine with cracking down on SJ riots.
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