domain:traditionsofconflict.com
Back in the old subreddit, I recall some contemporaneous discussion about whether or not George Floyd would go viral, and some speculating (possibly myself included, I don't remember) that it wouldn't specifically because it failed the toxoplasma criterion: in the first few weeks, it seemed that more or less everyone agreed he'd been the victim of excessive force at the hands of Chauvin et al. Perhaps the subsequent revelations about the drugs in his system allowed it to circle back around to being controversial, as for a time it seemed there was some legitimate ambiguity about whether he'd died because of Chauvin compressing his chest or because of an overdose (my understanding is the autopsy confirmed the former).
Neat!
After finishing The Secret of My Success I wanted something light, so I devoured The Murder of Roger Ackroyd in three days. Even though the ending had been inadvertently spoiled for me years ago, I couldn't put it down, and enjoyed spotting all the little clues about the killer's identity which I would have presumably overlooked if I hadn't known. After Ten Little
This morning I started reading a book my mother recommended, Free by Lea Ypi, a memoir of the author's growing up in Albania in the nineties.
I'm a half-jewish German who strongly identifies as German and effectively not at all as Jewish beyond having some family members who do strongly identify as Jewish. By what German public schooling has taught me was Nazi Racial Science, I fully qualify as a Jew to be reomved, though. My Jewish ancestors managed to flee the Nazis as well as the Soviets unharmed
Fascinating, I never knew you were Jewish. Were your Jewish ancestors Germans before 1939 (or 1933, I suppose)? Did they spend the war in Switzerland, Russia or elsewhere (Spain, America etc)? Did they return immediately after the war or many years later? If they were ur-German Jews, how did they feel (if you know) about the fact that the modern German Jewish community is 80-90%+ ex-Soviets / Eastern Bloc who fled after 1955 (and often after 1980)? I am familiar with some cultural tension. Do you know (locally) any other Germans of immediate (ie. parental) Jewish descent?
May I have a turn please
I'm the same. I can't really form proper models of people over the internet through just their self-descriptions and their usernames, and it's especially tough considering I have a hard time imagining faces in the first place. Here's you:
- Middle-aged.
- Half-Jewish German.
- Father to a daughter (who he is rather fond of).
- Married to a very dysfunctional woman with whom he has a working partner/SAHM dynamic.
- Self-described chauvinist.
- Does not think Peter Watts is a good writer.
I think it's particularly difficult to form proper conceptions of people in TheMotte in spite of how regular most users are, since this forum isn't all that personally-oriented - it tends to be arranged around debating abstract ideas and less about discussing one's own situation. Also everyone here is very concerned with OpSec because of all the wrongthink bandied around on a daily basis, and many members here have jobs and families they would like to shield from any consequences of their online speech.
You're wired differently. I have no idea what anyone here looks like, and any self-descriptions I read I forget. Mottizens are all names and sets of random factoids to me. Here's your character sheet:
- Presumably middle-aged.
- American living in Japan.
- Family man.
- I wonder about where he lives (and whether it's one of the places I've been to).
- Normie vibes.
- I doubt his name really is George Hale.
It's not exhaustive, but blame my bad memory. I barely remember anything about anyone. Which isn't meant to express any kind of low esteem that I hold mottizens in; I like you guys and am glad to have this place. It's just difficult to see you as fully-features human beings when all I get is text, and no way to square what you read with any real-world impression of you. You might all be fabulists. You might all be figments of some AI's imagination. You probably aren't, I don't treat you as if you were, but it's just not the same as talking to people in the flesh.
One obvious point seems to be that a a Geran-2 weights 200kg, 60kg of which is the warhead. When it's launched in a wave of several hundred, at night and accompanied by decoys, it currently does OK at reaching its target.
Adding hundreds of balloons to this operation (I don't think you'd want more than 2 drones per balloon, that's a large payload already for a lighter-than-air vehicle) is unlikely to decrease the cost per hit. Especially when compared to just doubling Geran-2 production again.
I still remember when the admin of my videogame forum was killed, and the Daily Mail was the first to get the basic facts of the case right (board member obsessed with the admin's girlfriend decided to murder the hypothenuse) while "respectable" outlets like the BBC were talking about wargame fanatics and dark secrets. I got reverse Gell-Mann amnesia from that, and now trust the Daily Mail more than any other British newspapers.
I wonder if the logic is something like the first sequel being an easy cash grab where you don't want to expend too much effort or creativity, since it's fundamentally a bit grubby endeavor riding on the coattails of the initial movie, and the sequel is probably going to sink into obscurity after pulling in the expected amount of extra profit. However, if the sequel does better than expected, you've got a potential successful movie series going, and you should again start putting more effort and attention into the next sequel since now you want the sequel movies to be seen as An Entire Thing again.
Here in Australia we’ve seen the latest example of ideological purity movements devouring themselves. What I find interesting about this particular case is that, to me, it accurately represents what seems to have happened in a lot of left wing movements over the last 20+ years.
Co-founder and former Queensland state leader of The Greens party, Drew Hutton, has failed in his appeal to his own party to reverse the revocation of his life membership. Hutton helped found the Greens with Bob Brown, both in Queensland (1990) and federally (1991), the initial ideological basis was for creating a party with “a historic mission to try to push the world to a more sustainable footing”. The parties platform that I recall, growing up as an Australian in the 90’s, was for combatting climate change, stopping deforestation, protecting fisheries, reefs and banning live export of cattle and other stock.
But both Bob Brown and Drew Hutton have long since departed from the front lines of the parties political battles. In their place we have seen a succession of leaders that promote environmentalism, but increasingly campaign on social justice issues. A party that (until the recent federal election) were making the majority of their electoral ground in inner city electorates (inner Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane).
Hutton was embroiled in drama from a twitter post (what else could cause so much drama) made over a year ago, which led to him being labelled a trans-phobe and promptly to the revocation of his life membership after he refused demands to delete the post and the comments below it. Today it was announced that the year long appeal process has not landed in his favour, but is in fact keeping with the original revocation. But if he’s espousing hatred and division online while somewhat representing his political party that he cofounded, then surely that’s a just result?
My initial thoughts were along the lines of “grandpa didn’t keep up to date with the terminology and unknowingly crossed the line”, however, after a bit of research it becomes clear that Hutton didn’t even make the hurtful comments, rather that he “provided a platform for others to do so”. Which after further research, revealed that he had publicly questioned his Party in their actions of removing membership from a different member for voicing concerns over a proposed amendment from the NSW Greens to change “pregnant people” from “pregnant women” in an upcoming act.
Interesting. I’ve run out of steam now, it’s a been a long day on site, but I wanted to post this and hear what other thoughts The Motte have - Australian and International.
Links:
If that's how someone sees "worse", then touché, I suppose.
They are worse. They fact check and are not hell bent on any ideology other than traffic.
so the liver only has to do about half of the work, comparatively speaking.
HFCS is usually also about half glucose (by dry weight).
The most common forms of HFCS used for food and beverage manufacturing contain fructose in either 42% ("HFCS 42") or 55% ("HFCS 55") by dry weight, as described in the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations (21 CFR 184.1866).[5]
I feel a little bad about the deluge of requests you're gonna get. Though you really should have expected this, hah.
You're half correct. Malaysian Chinese, (semi-)short black hair which stands on end as if I've been electrocuted, buzzed on the sides. Dude, 24, wears glasses (is hopelessly shortsighted), perpetual smirk, wears almost exclusively white shirts. Imagining a more well put-together version of L from Death Note probably gets you 95% of the way there.
Well I'm not Kreskin, I just tend to picture people in my head.
As for the no I'm not famous part, that's what you would say if you're keeping it from the rest of us.
Well… you’re right about white, American, and not bald! Sadly you struck out on the rest. Although I’m intrigued by that last part. Hopefully at some point in my life I’ll make you right about that!
Forties, white, I imagine you in an Oxford button down, white or blue. I keep seeing everyone in short sleeves but maybe just because it's hot AF. Not bald, hair probably dark. American. Famous in some way that you keep from the rest of us.
Obama wasn't a community organizer when he ran for Senate, he had been a state senator and a constitutional law lecturer for years.
C'mon George, 90% of Indian men end up with a pot-belly eventually, no points for that guess haha. Of course, Ozempic must have its say.
conservatively cut
Hair sounds right, but I have faded sides and back. No overbite, I have excellent teeth! At least 2 people have asked me, unsolicited, if I had them done in Turkey, though they were very drunk.
I, apparently, have surgeon's hands. A surgeon said so! Ignore the fact that said surgeon is my dad. But women do like 'em.
Hmm.. On the colors. I think you're on to something there.
Still not a fan of those spikes off the field.
Genius is never appreciated in its time. Alas.
You could be a sympathetic minor character in a Spielberg movie set in New Delhi, but you get revealed as evil in the end.
I do not know what this implies, but I suppose getting eaten by a dinosaur isn't the weirdest thing that could happen in Delhi.
For "worth the time" I'd nominate Monsters University, Finding Dory, the Toy Story sequels, and Ralph Breaks the Internet. My kids would add Frozen II.
The only Disney sequel (arguably) as good as or better than the original is Toy Story 3.
My kids would swear that Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure (TV series sequel) was at least as good as the movie. I watched enough with them to say that's surprisingly plausible but not enough to agree or disagree.
Even with adult movies it's rare that a sequel surpasses the original, probably for the reasons you state. Aliens, Terminator 2, Last Crusade, Dark Knight, and for especially the first three it was still downhill afterward.
I can’t resist the temptation. Do me do me do me!
Yeah, weekends or evenings.
I've seen this excuse used approximately a thousand times, and look: what if your priors just are wrong here? What if the Democratic party and its surrounding establishment just aren't the all-powerful, almighty band of operators that this theory presumes that they are? What if genuinely is information that they haven't obtained, at least in usable form, until it comes out?
The theory presumes nothing of the sort. But they had control of the executive branch. If Trump has info that he could be hiding for personal reasons, there is no reason to think Biden's people wouldn't have had it too. If anything, the Dems ought to have a much stronger prior for having access because so much of the IC and deep state was supporting them. What possible chain of events could have taken place to make some killshot link between Trump and Epstein available to the Trump admin now, but not to the Biden admin any time in the last four years?
You also need to manage IP addresses and browser fingerprinting. It's quite frankly a lot of work to do well, especially at scale.
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