domain:amphobian.info
AnonymousActuary
16hr ago
Rittenhouse was such a perfect little scissor...not shocking that was the first step in driving people apart
phailyoor
16hr ago
Whether or not they will be exchanged for money or handed out for free, nobody wants those widgets. They are useless crap. They are worthless.
Blueberry
16hr ago
As Zagrebbi argue here https://salafisommelier.substack.com/p/a-robin-hanson-perspective-on-the Marxism is really the Platonic Realm of wordcellery!
That little link has 6236 words and a hundred links! The post makes one interesting (novel?) idea in positioning itself against Hanania and others: Wokists are not woke because they believe in equality, but they believe in equality so that they can signal wokism (to differentiate themselves as elite from the non-elite underclass). Wokism is more viral than Marxism, because the latter was born in a homogeneous society while Wokism evolved in the multi-ethnic world we are living today and is used in credibly giving a pro-social signal to minority-elitists. Wokism is a tool in the status hierarchy. That also means we have not reached peak wokeness, as the tool will remain useful in future.
As a side note: some Russian nationalists bemoan that USSR-Marxism developed wokist elements (promoting the minority out-group). For example Ukraine getting Crimea under Khrushchev instead of Russification like under the Zars.
Tiber727
16hr ago
My whole point is that we should be talking about fewer laws.
I could tell by context that that's what you believe, and I am contesting that.
When you use legislation and regulation on a case-by-case basis as you described, you're playing whack-a-mole without ever looking up at the bigger picture.
My thesis is that sometimes moles should be whacked, otherwise your yard turns to shit. You state that bad case of having too many laws, and I state the bad case that the rules are being created to attempt to stop a bad thing, so without them you have the bad thing. An example that was brought up was rotating interns baited by promises of full-time work. You might claim that it is a symptom of overcomplicated hiring laws, and I might claim what I see as a simpler explanation - they wanted cheap labor but felt bad about it.
Complexity is the enemy, especially when refactoring of the system is slow or difficult. Congress likes to pass laws, but it very, very rarely retracts previous legislation.
I have a suggestion on that that I think should be followed regardless of my feeling of being more big government. The government should have an agency or committee dedicated periodic review of laws to see which laws can be retired, or if multiple overlapping laws can be combined for clarity and brevity.
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
16hr ago
I am not a scholar of Marxist thought by any means but I come across it often enough as a leftist more generally. My impression is that what Marxists of all kinds agree with, and find value in, is Marx's critique of capitalism and his particular methods (dialectical materialism) for doing so. Where they often diverge is how we will get from our present system to a communist (moneyless, classless, stateless) one. Each of these different branches thinks of themselves as "real" communists in a way the others aren't. You also get the "communism has never been tried" discussions because there have always been (and likely will always be) deviations from an ideal theoretical implementation when actually implementing them, which allows those adherents to continue believing that the correct outcomes would be achieved if only they had been closer to theory (this is not unique to Marxism).
As to wokism's advantage, I think it is simpler. To the extent wokism encompasses things like non-discrimination laws it fits firmly in the liberal (in the political philosophy sense) tradition that American elites have always considered themselves inspired by. Certainly in a way that the more common varieties of communism (like Marxism-Leninism) do not.
FtSoA
16hr ago
Fewer deaths overall, and I don't see how it makes Russia so much stronger that U.S. hegemony is threatened (more than it already is).
Focus less on "U.S. hegemony" and more on "Russian domination of its neighbors." Most of the time, successful conquerors like to run up the score, not just find satisfaction.
If the 'norm' for 'support against aggression' is to just pump money and weapons into any force fighting against someone we don't like, I'd be able to offhand point out like half a dozen examples of where we did that and it directly backfired or blew over into unforeseen, possibly worse consequences.
Easy to ignore the counterfactuals of not doing that.
Afghanistan, of course, being one of those, that instantly folded as soon as we removed our presence.
Afghanistan was an ongoing occupation. We had, as you point out, a presence. It has almost nothing in common with our support to Ukraine.
Its a very ill defined way to run things, outside of explicit treaty agreements like NATO. "If the U.S. State Department thinks you're aggressing against your neighbor they will pump said neighbor's combat capabilities up to even out the odds, but otherwise won't intervene" is
Come on. You think the State Department is what matters here??? Also, there are plenty of conflicts where we do not intervene in material ways.
We're STILL not officially at war with Russia, so on the political level, it is genuinely unclear what our true objective for participating in this conflict is
Do you know anything about the Cold War? Were we ever at officially with war with Russia?
The true objective is helping the Ukrainians defend themselves to impose costs on Russia and support the security of the region. Simple.
But if its really such a great moral and strategic goal, its strange that the U.S., with the least to lose in this situation, is the one that is continuing to make the largest investments.
"Largest" "investments"? Of what kind? Have you adjusted for per capita at all?
What's strange is that we and the Europeans didn't give Ukraine way more support way faster. Embarrassing how much it took to convince some countries that actually Russia is a threat.
I guess it depends on which one you view as the 'worse' issue. As stated, I see demographic collapse as likely to trigger more and more conflicts going forward.
I don't think this follows, but it's clearly a self-correcting problem.
oats_son
16hr ago
Trace has history. In 2020, he was bothered by posts from FCfromSSC and others for posting views that they don't want to share a country with Trace or other Blue Tribers and that Red Tribe needs to not cooperate with Blues on problems they started (rioting, along with Rittenhouse, was a big topic at the time) and then he took issue with some dehumanizing rhetoric towards criminals like robbers calling them "scum" and "rabid dogs" and eventually announced that he was starting r/TheSchism along with another user with a bunch of numbers for a name that had his own reasons. I think this post is probably relevant there, too.
Some time later, the furry crossword hoax was pulled on LibsOfTikTok by Trace, and other comment history accumulated that was used against Trace by other users here. After the David Gerard article, Trace basically flamed out. He had a successful Twitter account at that point, and he didn't really need this place anymore.
I don't like how he exited and I think this place is worse off without him and I don't really agree with much of his reasoning about this site being bad that I've seen him post elsewhere, but I will give him that it must be pretty annoying to already be left of center in a space like this and then get multiple people who link 5 year old posts at him aggressively to tell him how wrong and hypocritical he is. The rules allowed the behavior, but it was too bad. Everyone makes mistakes, missteps in rhetoric, or failures to predict, and one weak spot of forums like this is that they're perfectly preserved, forever. I've seen the same kind of digging up of old posts impact other users here in a way that I don't find helpful.
Anyway, Trace is wrong, this place is way better than Twitter. I'd guess he gets more haters on Twitter, but they're of lower quality and he can snipe back as much as he likes.
Sorry for re-igniting old drama. If I characterized this wrong, let me know in the replies.
faceh
16hr ago
But Marxists don't care about winning or losing "the argument". What they want to do is change the rules by which the argument itself is conducted. They want a wholesale reevaluation of what it means to "win" or "lose" "the argument" in the first place.
Sure.
But for being so big on "Material Conditions," they should notice that if material conditions are more favorable in the other system, that's going to supercede their clever wordplay.
"whoever is producing the most goods most efficiently is the winner"
If we're talking about a "satisfying human desires" contest, that seems pretty fair.
I think even the Hunter-Gatherers were playing that game, and could probably grasp that a tribe that was bringing home more meat and berries and could use its surpluses to make things like fur coats and better tools and weapons were 'winning' in some meaningful way.
Capitalism's great "insight" was that you didn't have to go over and raid and pillage the neighboring tribe to benefit from their bounty. Instead you can identify things you have, that they want, and trade such things for mutual gain, then use those gains to bolster your productive capacity again. At some point someone invents 'money' and its off to the races.
Not sure what Marxism's great "insight" was, or at least what insight they have that improved people's lives since it was implemented.
They want to CLAIM things like "the five day work week" or "liberation of slaves" or "unionization/collective bargaining," but I think even their own theories support the materialist interpretation that such things only ever came about because Capitalism made us productive enough to spare more resources for leisure and alleviation of suffering, and to give workers the leverage to demand better compensation for their labor.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
16hr ago
Money is entirely fungible -- that is, one unit of currency is the same as another unit of the same currency -- but it is not entirely convertible into other useful items (although it's pretty good at this). The divorcing of use value from exchange value doesn't make sense for commodities or bulk manufactured goods, but it does for other things -- real estate in particular.
FtSoA
16hr ago
More of an "Iran-Iraq War" quagmire in terms of style (trenches, not jungle), but yes.
FtSoA
16hr ago
and their radar system got disabled by hackers before Israel attacked (surely a unique mistake enabled only by Israel's complete intelligence penetration of it)
Good thing the Russians were not competent at their intelligence preparation of the battlefield.
And still, from what I gather, Israel did not do manned overflights but just launched ATGMs over Iraq.
Think about what you just said. They "just" "launched" "ATGMs." How did that turn out for the IAF? For Iran?
Israel did manned overflights once they had obliterated Iran's air defenses in a matter of hours.
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-air-superiority-iran-cannot-compared-russia-ukraine
Iran also had a lot more than merely four S-300 batteries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_equipment_of_the_Islamic_Republic_of_Iran_Air_Defense_Force
Technically, we've had a commitment for decades. But also even if Ukraine loses you're failing to consider the counterfactual where Putin just took over in weeks. That would be worse.
That's a matter of perspective, for sure. Fewer deaths overall, and I don't see how it makes Russia so much stronger that U.S. hegemony is threatened (more than it already is).
I do NOT like bringing back 'War of Territorial Conquest' as a feature of global diplomacy again, but Russia made that call unilaterally.
Stopping Putin from conquering his neighbors at will? Preserving norms of liberalism and Western mutual support against aggression?
If the 'norm' for 'support against aggression' is to just pump money and weapons into any force fighting against someone we don't like, I'd be able to offhand point out like half a dozen examples of where we did that and it directly backfired or blew over into unforeseen, possibly worse consequences.
Afghanistan, of course, being one of those, that instantly folded as soon as we removed our presence. Call it 'cheap' if you want, it was never sustainable, I'd straight up say almost every dollar we pumped in there (to say nothing of U.S. lives) has gone to waste.
I worry about the same here, with one of the foreseeable consequences being Ukraine's utter collapse on the population level.
Its a very ill defined way to run things, outside of explicit treaty agreements like NATO. "If the U.S. State Department thinks you're aggressing against your neighbor they will pump said neighbor's combat capabilities up to even out the odds, but otherwise won't intervene" is like "if we see someone being stabbed by a mugger, we'll toss the victim a knife (and maybe a stab-proof jacket) and cheer them on from the side."
We're STILL not officially at war with Russia, so on the political level, it is genuinely unclear what our true objective for participating in this conflict is.
You're leaving out the side of equation where Ukraine is also facing demographic challenges. It's a symmetrical problem.
Yes, and its sharpening the impact of the conflict. The people being lost each day aren't being replaced, they can't be retrieved, every loss is irreversible.
I guess it depends on which one you view as the 'worse' issue. As stated, I see demographic collapse as likely to trigger more and more conflicts going forward.
Ukraine can do what it wants with the population it has. I don't begrudge them the urge to fight off an aggressor in the least. But if its really such a great moral and strategic goal, its strange that the U.S., with the least to lose in this situation, is the one that is continuing to make the largest investments.
SkoomaDentist
16hr ago
EU telling phone manufacturers to stop making proprietary phone chargers when USB exists
Strictly speaking EU hasn't forbidden proprietary phone chargers. They've only mandated that phones must also support USB-C charging. Of course for phones this is in practise meaningless but it's quite relevant for some other devices covered under the same directive.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
16hr ago
That's what "rogue" means here. In a civil war, the ChiComms won, but didn't quite get back the full territory of China.
There is no "back". The ChiComms never held Taiwan. Two groups fought for control of China, one successfully took the vast majority but the other group was able to hold a small part. To call Taiwan a "rogue province" is to accept that the People's Republic of China has a claim on it which is being violated by the Republic of China. Obviously the ROC does not accept that.
thejdizzler
16hr ago
This again assumes humans are rational actors, and fails to adequately capture the reasons for an economic booms and busts in a capitalist system and the kind of behavior you see from the ultra-rich.
thejdizzler
16hr ago
Have to agree with this. Marx's central argument is that focusing on pure production is confusing use-value for monetary value. Capitalist focus on production above all else results in commodity fetishism and the misallocation of labor and resources to goods that don't provide much use value to members of society.
5434a
16hr ago
I use OneNote. Linux users seem to recommend Obsidian for similar purposes.
New pages are automatically dated, it has built in search, and you can embed many sorts of media from pics and video to spreadsheets. Decent OCR too for text within pasted images.
It's a lot easier and more versatile and feature rich than trying to do it with text files. Try it out.
SkoomaDentist
16hr ago
If Marxism does not work in practice, it doesn't matter how elegantly his theory is postulated
Ah, but you don't understand. Nobody has yet tried True Marxism! /s
thejdizzler
16hr ago
But both Maoism and the initial Soviet attempts to produce goods were commodity fetishism. Especially in Maoism there was this obsession with quantities of goods produced rather than with satisfying individual's use values. Even after NEP and in Dengism there were/are heavy amounts of commodity fetishism: focusing on raw quantities of goods produced rather than thinking about what the population actually needs
People love to dismiss the soviet system, and undoubtedly there were serious problems, but in some ways it was very impressive. The soviets took a country that was ravaged by civil war and by the after effects of WW1 that had never been fully industrialized and within 20 years managed to largely self-sufficiently outproduce the Nazis and win the Second World War. Yes lend-lease helped, but Soviet home industry did most of the heavy lifting.
After the war, it looked like things like linear algebra might help better calculate production quotas, but a combination of corruption, lack of compute power, and excessive focus on military spending made it impossible for the soviet standard of living to keep up with the West.
Can you explain the Rothbard quote a bit more? I feel like the easy explanation for that from within the LTV is that the labor equivalence ratios between different goods aren't calculated correctly. Although that kind of argument can quickly get into dogma territory, so maybe you're right.
Supah_Schmendrick
16hr ago
That just shows that the marxian concept of "use value" isn't fully capturing what people find...useful...about the things they buy, because money is entirely fungible into other "useful" items, and insofar as people are willing to spend it on one thing, they're revealing their utility function about both that thing and the other things they could have bought but aren't.
FtSoA
16hr ago
We can actually help deter China without threatening nuclear war if we have the tools needed to fight a conventional war.
I'm not arguing against the need for better conventional deterrents. But in any real conflict between nuclear powers, the willingness to go all the way up the escalatory ladder has to be symmetrical, or at least perceived as such. Otherwise one side is going to get its way.
If China goes for Taiwan, does the USN put itself in harm's way and fire upon Chinese assets? How do we respond if they sink a ship? Hit a regional base? Will we attack the mainland?
As with economics, the expectations matter almost more than actually what happens. If China thinks we'll back off because we are not fully committed to the fight then they will be emboldened to test our resolve. "Strategic ambiguity" was a clever means of not having a formal commitment but still making sure the Chinese were sufficiently worried to not try anything. I don't think that's going to work much longer. Either we gotta put a tripwire there as we have in South Korea, or it's going to become more and more clear the US will not risk a full confrontation.
For all the scary "brinksmanship" the public watched
The public did not "watch" most of the actually scary part. The JCS told Kennedy we should invade right off the bat. Kennedy later on was convinced it was necessary and preparations were made. Luckily, the Soviets were not willing to go down that path. Shooting down the U-2 or spooking the Soviet submarine (for which a single person stopped the launch of nuclear torpedoes) or any other incident could have set things off.
but from a certain point of view it was a success for the Soviet Union
Per Wikipedia, that's not how the Soviets felt:
The compromise embarrassed Khrushchev and the Soviet Union because the withdrawal of US missiles from Italy and Turkey was a secret deal between Kennedy and Khrushchev, and the Soviets were seen as retreating from a situation that they had started. Khrushchev's fall from power two years later was in part because of the Soviet Politburo's embarrassment at both Khrushchev's eventual concessions to the US and his ineptitude in precipitating the crisis.
Primaprimaprima
...something all admit only "TRUMP", and the Trump Administration, can do.
16hr ago
But end of the day if your economy is not producing as much of [desirable things] as efficiently as a comparable economy using a different system, you are losing the argument.
But Marxists don't care about winning or losing "the argument". What they want to do is change the rules by which the argument itself is conducted. They want a wholesale reevaluation of what it means to "win" or "lose" "the argument" in the first place.
If your politics is based on "whoever is producing the most goods most efficiently is the winner", then Marxists would consider that to be, to use one of Zizek's favorite phrases, "pure ideology". That belief is an ideological effect of capitalism itself. It's not a natural or obvious conclusion. You could conceivably hold a different belief instead.
This is not to say that Marxists must necessarily adhere to a degrowth ideology of course. Rather they would say that, whatever historical epoch comes after capitalism, the way in which inhabitants of that epoch think about concepts like "production" and "efficiency" will be as incomprehensible to us as the capitalism vs Marxism debate is to hunter-gatherers. Marxism at its core is a theory of history, and how contradictions in social relations drive historical change (e.g. the contradiction between the formal freedom of neoliberal free trade, and the fact that this formal freedom can paradoxically result in less actual freedom as globalized hypercompetition forces homogenization). Your historical epoch plays a role in shaping what counts as a "winning" or "losing" argument to you, what counts as a "reasonable" political aim, etc.
hydroacetylene
16hr ago
Yes, Kiev was in the Russian partition.
Apologies is self-promotion is frowned upon, but i'm posting this here for visibility and because it started as a reply to @self_made_human's post on AI Assistants from last week's culture-war thread.
Is your "AI Assistant" smarter than an Orangutan? A practical engineering assessment
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