domain:aporiamagazine.com
IGI-111
God was a dream of good government.
8m ago
There's the infamous /k/ thread: https://desuarchive.org/k/thread/33748578/#33748578
but you may also be remembering the classic pasta: https://desuarchive.org/k/thread/23597451/#q23597742
sun_the_second
12m ago
See, you're already adding qualifiers like "meaningfully". For you to believe "meaningfully" seems to mean that you have to accept the conclusion that brains of different ethnicities have been subjected to divergent evolution enough to have significant impact on group capabilities.
fmac
13m ago
I'm a big fan of /r/CredibleDefense , although engagement and post quality have both been on a gentle downward trend over the last year or so
The Austrian military ("Österreichs Bundesheer" on YouTube) also puts up good presentations on Ukraine semi-regularly
Perun and Mike Koffman both good, especially for Ukraine
Admittedly, I don't follow Gaza much
roystgnr
25m ago
my tentative conclusion is that they were fine with cannons
One of the coolest parts in Paine's "Common Sense" was the suggestion that we could get by without a standing navy if only we subsidized merchant ships who use some of their cargo space for cannons, to deter piracy without a dedicated navy but also to make it possible to organize a dedicated navy quickly in the event of war. The question wasn't "should people be allowed to own cannons?", it was "are we getting enough of the positive externalities of people owning cannons?"
There was a wonderful period in between the ancient "Divine Right of Kings" and the modern "Divine Right of Governments" where intellectuals seemed comfortable with the idea that governments are just made of people. Five years ago I'd hoped the left might get back to that point, since "Defund The Police (who can't be trusted) but also Ban Guns (using Police, the only ones who can be trusted with guns)" is just too clearly oxymoronic, but in hindsight my definition of "clearly" may have been overly expansive. English grammar doesn't have the concept of "transitive adverbs", which is a shame since English vocabulary has transitive adverbs.
Poultice
26m ago
This is particularly rich because so much of the justification for puberty blockers and minor transition has been a "You can have a live daughter or a dead (suicide) son!" fear mongering which turns out to have been based flawed/non-existent studies.
It's a bit silly, but those (unless we're talking WW1 era) are "antique firearms":
any firearm not intended or redesigned for using rim fire or conventional center fire ignition with fixed ammunition and manufactured in or before 1898 (including any matchlock, flintlock, percussion cap or similar type of ignition system or replica thereof, whether actually manufactured before or after the year 1898) and also any firearm using fixed ammunition manufactured in or before 1898, for which ammunition is no longer manufactured in the United States and is not readily available in the ordinary channels of commercial trade
and therefore not "large caliber weapons", and therefore not "destructive devices" and therefore not "firearms" for NFA purposes.
In practice you can buy yourself one right now for upwards of $300.
gattsuru
29m ago
Does the rule of law also impose no requirement that a court of appeals give an actual decision, rather than a member of that court sit on a dissent for the better part of a year while fast-pacing a competing case with a panel draw said judge preferred?
Because SCOTUS just condoned that, too, here.
pigeonburger
36m ago
So exactly as he said.
It sounds like what you actually want is not the freedom to do as you wish, but the power to coerce others, and particularly to deny the other what they want.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
43m ago
I'm pretty sure there's a 4chan greentext about urban youths' conducting a cannon-broadside drive-by shooting.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
47m ago
"No officer, there are no firearms in this vehicle. I do have two 18-pounders in the bed of the truck, though."
gattsuru
51m ago
Okay. I think you need to make that joke a little more often before it really will hit without a lot of leadup, but I hope you have fun chasing your unicorn.
IGI-111
God was a dream of good government.
51m ago
smoothbore cannons appear to still be legal
Only if they're muzzleloaded and therefore not firearms (for legal purposes). An M256 is a destructive device, and so is every shell you may get for it.
Lykurg
We're all living in Amerika
53m ago
What will lead the GOP?
I think trumpist campaigning plays out pretty differently when there are multiple people doing it. Im not totally happy with the following explanation of such campaigning, and expect people to dispute some things, but I feel I have to at least attempt one, and I think the conclusion that theres some void to be filled here is relatively clear from just considering the question.
The way the politics game is played traditionally, candidates talk about their policies, are probed for gaffes and flipflops, lose some points for not aswering questions, etc. This gives voters some basis for making decisions, but it can also lead to an "emperor with no clothes" situation with politicians trying to comply with thing voters actively dislike. Trumps strategy exploited a big, interconnected bunch of such issues by rejecting this sort of accountability entirely. This includes saying the populist things, but also not caring how offensive or contradictory you are doing it, never apologising for that, etc. The goal is to trigger a preference cascade towards not judging by those standards. This obviously worked pretty well for him, but it also gives a drastically lower-resolution picture than the conventional strategy. Thats fine if youre far away from all the other candidates anyway, but what if youre not? Now youll need something to distinguish yourself, and I think the great question of the next few republican primaries will be what that should be. Here are the options as I see them:
Inertia-based
Trump won the '20 and '24 primaries because he is the Trump, noone was gonna out-trump him and so noone seriously tried. The path of least resistance going forward is propably that Trump remains in charge of trumpism, continues to voice himself prominently in the media and xitter/truth social, and expects the candidate and later president to dance by his fiddle. I expect this not to go well: People propably arent excited to vote for a president who is outshone even as a figurehead. A falling out at some point is also likely, especially since Trump will likely be more erratic when the role thats naturally the center of attention is filled by someone else. The best case scenario is propably that this goes well once, and then either Trump is too old to stay relevant, or the new guy falls out with him and manages to "win" the internal conflict before his time is up, and then the next election is something else.
The "better" version of inertia is propably some kind of "the party decides". There are plenty of countries that manage without primaries, and while occasional upsets propably cant be prevented entirely if primaries are mandatory, something more like that seems possible. However, the republicans are specifically not set up for this. The democrats have "the groups", and a kind of permanent party leadership - meanwhile, you never really hear about the RNC, except in the fixed phrase "RNC convention". They long where much more of an extension of the current president(ial cnadidate). So the somewhat-possible version of this is that Trump anoints Vance his successor, and Vance some else, they remain supportive of the new guy but in the background, and afer a few times of this you have a more substantial party leadership - but leadership at any time deciding to separate from the previous ones would likely break this, so it takes a long streak indeed.
Return of the media
Candidates go back to conventional campaigning, with a somewhat shifted overton window. This could happen if it seems like political wins were big enough that shielding yourself from the media is no longer necessary, and its also the default option if trumpism has become too unpopular for another go. If it hasnt, there will be significant hesitation before adopting this option, as rejecting it was one of the central ideas of trumpism. Those dont die easily, and its not even clear if the problems of that system where just inerta or an attractor.
There is also the question of the trumpist media. Its been 10 years of Trump on the right, new media outlets have been founded and older ones reconstructed to supporting him. Theyre not really set up to evaluate politicians in a meaningful way, and follow his lead instead. What direction they will take once there is no longer an obvious leader of trumpism is in many ways a similar question to the one Im asking here. If they just try to pivot to evaluation without any kind of more systematic ideological program, that will be one huge slapfight that propably eventually ends in one, but it sure is going to be rough until then. Writing them all off leaves only people who are in significant part not even republicans in name anymore, and propably means a collapse of the right.
Full bore
Candidates engage in an epic rap battle, whoever has the greatest stage presence, the most charismatic voice, and the best alliterative insults wins. This is theoretically the closest thing to multiple people running the original campaign unmodified. I think its unlikely to happen in a pure form, but the the problem of trumpist campaigning that I outlined is with too many candidates running like this. If noone is trying that anymore, it could be viable again. So there could be a mixed equilibrium here, where theres one candidate trying full bore in addition to whatever else ends up happening, with either winning the candidacy sometimes. And since theres no reliable way to have exactly one guy like that, sometimes candidates like that will have to face each other, and it would have to go like that.
Anything you think Ive missed?
IGI-111
God was a dream of good government.
55m ago
I'd much rather see different states experiment with different forms of regulation, but it's good news for regulatory clarity and therefore the standing of the US in this domain.
At least China won't automatically win the race from the West kneecapping itself.
Southkraut
Vibe of vibes, saith the Preacher, vibe of vibes; all is vibe.
1hr ago
Suppose two men at cards with nothing to wager save their lives. Who has not heard such a tale? A turn of the card. The whole universe for such a player has labored clanking to this moment which will tell if he is to die at that man’s hand or that man at his. What more certain validation of a man’s worth could there be? This enhancement of the game to its ultimate state admits no argument concerning the notion of fate. The selection of one man over another is a preference absolute and irrevocable and it is a dull man indeed who could reckon so profound a decision without agency or significance either one. In such games as have for their stake the annihilation of the defeated the decisions are quite clear. This man holding this particular arrangement of cards in his hand is thereby removed from existence. This is the nature of war, whose stake is at once the game and the authority and the justification. Seen so, war is the truest form of divination. It is the testing of one’s will and the will of another within that larger will which because it binds them is therefore forced to select. War is the ultimate game because war is at last a forcing of the unity of existence.
TowardsPanna
1hr ago
The pro-russian people tend to think more strategically and the pro Ukr in emotional displays. So they are eternally confused by eachother. It reminds me of the battle of the sexes.
This has got to be one of the worst claims put out on this forum in a long time.
Jazzhands
1hr ago
What, does the recent repeal of Roe v. Wade not count?
No. The Red-equivalent of RvW would be for abortion to be banned in all states for the next 50 years. Putting an end to Blue imposition of their values on everyone is not the same.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
1hr ago
Could you elaborate on the intra-state impacts of AI you'd expect states to want to regulate? I don't think any of the AI companies even tell you where their data centers are based, so "this all happened in Oregon" seems unlikely to even be true. Isn't most regulation of the Internet as a whole at the federal level? Even nationwide collection of state sales tax online didn't happen broadly until 2017.
kky
1hr ago
Okay, let’s lay Rule of Law aside for a minute. There’s a much, much more serious problem here.
First off:
It turns out that Red Tribe is not allowed to have actual Supreme Court victories.
What, does the recent repeal of Roe v. Wade not count? The “Blue Tribe” had pinned a huge policy platform of abortion on it, and it was totally undone. Abortion was returned to being a state legislative issue. And this is not merely in words only; there are real and meaningful differences in how states treat abortion. General opinion, and especially Democrat or Democrat-adjacent opinion, is clear that this was a major sea level change. The fact that it does not seem to register to you as a win is really, seriously bad. And I think the rest of the post makes it clear why:
A Supreme Court victory means you get your way, and those who disagree are shit out of luck.
It sounds like what you actually want is not the freedom to do as you wish, but the power to coerce others, and particularly to deny the other what they want. In a perfect world, I wouldn’t have to elaborate on why that’s a bad thing, and especially a bad thing for you in particular, but here we are.
First off, there’s nothing wrong with wanting things. Everyone does. There’s also nothing wrong with wanting exclusive things, wanting things that by their nature prevent someone else having something. That’s life; there’s not always enough to go around, especially of the really valuable stuff. But wanting specifically to exert your power over another is something different. Its envy, or at least, is rooted in the same. Envy is seeing what someone else has, hating them for it, and wanting to destroy it. It’s bringing someone low because you can’t stand seeing them up. What people tend to hate about the great and powerful is that they just don’t seem to care; the eggs hating how casually they get tossed in the omelette. The powerful don’t care. Things need to get done, and you can’t please everyone. Envy goes a step further. Omelette be damned; I’m going to break those fucking eggs.
Envy is a deep part of human nature, and by deep I mean base. It is the primitive ape who can’t help but see the world as zero-sum. Kill or deprive the strong man, and I’ll get more, as sure as shit rolls downhill. But as the wise of all ages have told us, we are more than that. I won’t belabor you with the spiritual and philosophical elements on why we can all of us be uplifted into greatness, the last will be first, the tardy day-laborer will get his full drachma, etc etc. I’m sure you’ve heard them all. The same goes for the economic: cooperation and interconnected systems yield greater production and profit, removing the powerful just disrupts the system and impoverishes everyone, something something communism. Nor do I need to detail how the most powerful empires rise on this positive-sum thought and perish on zero-sum dissent, Roman Empire and socii, abiyyah or whatever it’s called, you get the drift. But on the mere psychological level, envy means you will never appreciate what you have. The mere existence of another is enough to make you fly into a rage. The things you have are irrelevant compared to the comparison. And doesn’t that sound miserable?
What’s worse, it makes politics impossible. What you want is not a laundry list of items that you can get and be satisfied with. It’s specifically to remove what the other has. Who can negotiate with that? Yes, obviously the Democrats have behaved very badly. They’re naughty boys and girls and deserve to be punished for what they did. I won’t argue against that for even a second; that is MY opinion. But that has nothing to do with you. Your problem is: right now, in America, there are a lot of people who don’t really like the Democrats, they think they’re overstepping. But if they caught the idea that the Republican Party was thinking like YOU, they’d vote to suspend habeas before they voted Red. You’re scary as shit, man.
5434a
1hr ago
It's a way to trivialise a serious matter and avoid an expectation of treating it seriously. Much of the time it's probably a habit they do subconsciously without considering how it affects the framing.
It's also an implied admission of distance (physical/social/psychological); those weapons are far away and pointed at someone else. Nobody describes a weapon as a toy when it's present and pointed at themself.
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite
1hr ago
It is worth noting that the change to the first post is large, and load-bearing. The 25 points began with the union of all Germans, not all German citizens - it was a specific pledge to incorporate Austria, the Czech Sudetenland, the Polish Corridor etc. into the Reich. @AvocadoPanic could have said "All Americans" instead with the implied dog-whistle that Albertans are included, and it would have been closer to the original and still relevant to MAGA policy.
Hieronymus
1hr ago
I wish that passage were given more weight, but I don't think it's that open-ended. It's most likely a reference to rights established by the English constitution as the authors understood it, with an emphasis on those in the Declaration of Right. It may also include some common-law rights.
If read in that light, I think it would have some radical implications. But it wouldn't establish a compelling interest test for each and every federal law.
satanistgoblin
1hr ago
In AI safely news, the "big, beautiful bill" Republicans are pushing through includes 10 year ban on states regulating AI. Seems pretty reckless, who could even imagine what AI could do in 10 years.
There is no other form political power comes in.
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