domain:eigenrobot.substack.com
Rosencrantz2
20hr ago
The erosion of shame as a social force is one of the biggest impacts of the Trump presidencies.
You see pretty often in this forum and in right-wing circles people expressing pride that they have got free of the distorting power of empathy and shame. Elon Musk's claim that empathy is the most dangerous force in society would be the peak example of this phenomenon. As a result of this, they go even beyond biting the bullet of e.g. it being disgraceful that an old man has been wrongly deported. They actually enjoy said bullet like a delicious amuse bouche, and imply that it is a GOOD sign if it's true that he has been deported and that his family wrongly told he was dead, because it implies the administration is acting at speed and focusing on the big picture, not worrying overly about individual liberty.
I'm pretty sure those who embrace this conclusion are making a major strategic mistake that will come back to haunt them. By thinking they can jettison the concept of shame, they are storing it up to be brought down on their asses in much larger quantities later. Shame is not a force humans can, ultimately, live without.
MaiqTheTrue
Renrijra Krin
20hr ago
And I mean what exactly has happened to make any of that credible? Putin is not putting forces anywhere near other borders. He’s not issuing threats to anyone else. It’s just not there and as such anyone claiming that “Ze Ruzzan tanks will shortly roll across the Baltics” just isn’t dealing in the facts on the ground. It’s an excellent excuse to pour more treasure into Ukraine to the tune of trillions in weapons. The winners of this are not the Western powers, but the weapons manufacturers who made bank off of that money. And for all that, we managed to turn a six week war into a two year war that went the way it was always going to go, except with more deaths and more destruction, more ordinance buried under now useless farmland.
And as far as the West goes, tensions between the West and BRICS wouldn’t be high at all if we’d simply minded our own business. Russians didn’t have a problem with us, China didn’t, Iran only hated us over Israel and really not that much. Us propping up Ukraine and fighting that proxy war in Ukraine and trying to cut Russia off from tge world banking and market systems told those countries that those markets were merely used to reinforce Western hegemony and that anyone who didn’t play by our rules showed them not to trust our markets or banks. Had we stayed out, Russia would be just fine with the status quo.
As far as Taiwan, we gave a lot of money and weapons to Ukraine. If we keep doing that we won’t have enough in reserve to fight for Taiwan.
faceh
20hr ago
This is kind of why I despise the inherent Pro-Ukraine bias of most western reporters/forums, they can't reliably report on Russian successes since that reads as treason to the good guys, even if its more accurate as to the situation on the ground.
That and the tendency to outright lie. I still remember the Ghost of Kyiv story, and that was just the most egregious of several from that time.
Primaprimaprima
...something all admit only "TRUMP", and the Trump Administration, can do.
20hr ago
I was more saying that the forum can be perceived as a "right wing secret club" because, for example, a feminist might consider some of the writings about feminism to be boo outgroup, only there are no feminists here.
To some extent this is grounded in the objective facts of the matter. We were chased off of two different subreddits because we allowed discussion of controversial views. The controversial views that the authorities took issue with were, invariably, right wing.
The mods try their best to be neutral but they’re only human. There is a set of consensus views here, that does affect the moderation and it affects how users perceive different types of posts, and that’s simply going to be an unavoidable fact of any discussion space you ever enter ever.
MathWizard
Good things are good
20hr ago
That's probably fine though, because the image you build in your head will be built on the implicit stereotypes that you derive from reading their words. Which means that if you subconsciously ascribe certain properties to someone here based on how you imagine they look, those properties will likely be accurate. You're essentially going Words -> Impression -> Imagined Appearance -> Impression rather than going Appearance -> Impression and biasing your perceptions (the way everybody does in real life).
The battle lines are moving pretty fast by Ukraine war standards. Pokravsk and Konstantivka are surrounded. Bilohorovka has finally fallen, tightening the Russian cauldron around Siverisk. The result of these three sieges is that the final 2014 era Ukrainian hardened defensive line through Sloviansk-Kramantorsk-Konstantivka is on the verge of being cauldroned.
Additionally, Kupiansk on the northern end of the eastern defensive line is almost encircled. In the south there’s a slow moving but consistent Russian breakout coming from the Avdiivka-Vuhledar direction.
In far north-central Ukraine, the offensive salient into Kursk has been fully rolled back. Russian troops are beginning to push into Ukraine towards Sumy.
Taking all these things together, it means you could see a complete collapse of the front in about six months.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
20hr ago
I expect legal procedure is gonna converge on "you need to give meaningful notice to deportees unless they already have a final order of removal".
That's pretty much where it was except for the AEA stuff, and that's going the same way, yes.
(Maryland Dad DID have a final order of removal, he just also had an order that said he couldn't be sent to El Salvador specifically)
faceh
20hr ago
Yeah, my priors are VERY high on this just being a meat grinder of men dying in droves to secure a couple square miles of additional territory.
The only viable play (for either side) seems to be to acquire as much leverage as possible when talks finally occur.
I'm not counting out a breakthrough (Prighozin's little adventure two years ago could have shifted outcomes, for example) but claiming a breakthrough is too easy without actual real territorial gain to show for it.
Hell, Syria's civil war seemed to be at standstill then all at once Assad was suddenly ousted and on a plane to Moscow. It can happen, but good luck predicting it precisely in advance unless you were one of the people planning it.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
20hr ago
Civ dates back to the early 90s
It frustrates me occasionally that the first and second installments in the franchise have never been (legally) available digitally that I can tell. I played them as a kid but the CDs got lost over the years. I wouldn't mind trying the first one again.
birb_cromble
20hr ago
If the institute for the study of war is trustworthy, or at least consistently biased enough to use as a metric, it does look like the Russians are making some real pushes.
Check today's map from one on this day two years ago for comparison. They're nibbling at the edges of the northern border.
oats_son
20hr ago
I appear to have missed the words "video game equivalents of crack to me" in my statement. My bad!
My dad was a 90s computer gamer, so I probably have a more unique view on gaming than most. From my perspective, I discuss games from more recently more than I talk about old stuff. My favorites from the 90s were probably Fallout 1, Planescape: Torment, and Marathon, which had some pretty meaty things to talk about, and Fallout was totally oozing style. But more recently (and using the term "recently" loosely), there's stuff like Hotline Miami, Spec Ops: The Line, LISA: The Painful, OFF, Katana Zero, and Dark Souls that put together some very unique combination of mechanics and writing that are really fun to think about and interact with, basically all of them having honed their own unique style in a way that was impossible back then. Maybe it depends more on the genre you like? Like, CRPGs have definitely suffered, I think. But if you are writing off indie games, I think that's generally a bad idea, because those are a lot more true to the company culture that composed 90s gaming companies.
I don't care if I've heard it before, I like reading about things I'm interested in. Please, write more about video games, all the time, everywhere. If my examples seem dated, that's mostly because I'm cheap and only buy cheap old games.
Turniper
20hr ago
Yeah, they're interesting people. But she recently came back cancer free, so that's nice at least.
anon_
20hr ago
I expect legal procedure is gonna converge on "you need to give meaningful notice to deportees unless they already have a final order of removal".
anon_
20hr ago
Not that I disagree. But the Biden policy was ridiculous even though their leader/figurehead (whichever, dgaf) tried to maintain that he was a serious person.
IOW, ridiculous figure or not, we get ridiculous policy.
Stefferi
Chief Suomiposter
20hr ago
The pro-Russians have called the slow pace of grinding village conquests by Russians an escalating pace or words to the same effect for close to three years now, the same time they've predicted the imminent collapse of the front, Zelensky getting couped and so on.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
20hr ago
Suggestion:
Phrase your replies as prompts for Grok or any of the image generators.
For example, @FiveHourMarathon would obviously be:
an anthropomorphized wawa sandwich that lifts a lot of heavy barbells, Graffiti art style.
FtSoA
20hr ago
I don't know why anyone take him seriously after the hilariously manufactured pipeline attack story.
FtSoA
20hr ago
I can't think of a worse set of arguments made by proponents of the US letting Ukraine suffer a defeat.
- Putin defeating Ukraine and then being emboldened to threaten small NATO neighbors increases risk of WWIII way more than supporting Ukraine does.
- The US/West failing to sufficiently back Ukraine emboldens China and other would-be aggressors when they do their risk calculations.
faceh
20hr ago
Ukraine didn't want to agree too even though they have, at present, a snowball's chance in hell of regaining any territory and are inexorably losing more at an escalating pace.
Curious about where the "escalating pace" point comes from.
I'm too bubbled up on this, I think. I occasionally see videos of Russians getting mowed down by FPV drones or the Ukrainians pulling off a strike inside Russian motherland territory, and then usually Russian retaliation, but very few updates on battle line movement.
SubstantialFrivolity
I'm not even supposed to be here today
20hr ago
I'm trying to suggest that Ada Lovelace (much as I respect her) wasn't a leader of people by any stretch of the imagination. You can at least argue for Tubman in that she was a kind of leader. It's not a very good case, but you can make it. Lovelace? There's absolutely nothing there besides pure diversity quota thinking.
SubstantialFrivolity
I'm not even supposed to be here today
20hr ago
I'm not arguing that gaming crack never existed before today's time
That is definitely what I understood you to be arguing when you said "All of the video game equivalents of crack cocaine have generally released within the last 15 years". If that's not the case, fair enough.
Either way I disagree with your broader point, lol. Gaming really is in a slump after the golden age of the 90s-00s imo. But I don't have any arguments you probably haven't seen before, so we can agree to disagree on that point.
TowardsPanna
20hr ago
Are you trying to suggest that Harriet Tubman was not one of the great leaders and stateswomen of civilizations? Do better.
SubstantialFrivolity
I'm not even supposed to be here today
20hr ago
Oh yeah, already played that one. It's very fun and the beavers are cute. Timberborn has actually been the reference point I've been giving friends for CoI, because both games kind of feel like someone had fun programming a physics engine (water/soil), and then came up with a game to make use of it. Which isn't a knock on either game, I think they're both great! Just a funny similarity that stood out to me.
Oh, come on. The US has been the Great Satan from Day 1.
Certainly we'd get along much better with Russia if we'd done nothing at all to stop them from rolling over Ukraine. I'm fairly sure this would have soured relations with Russia's other neighbors, however. And China would be a lot happier with us if we weren't the main obstacle to them taking Taiwan, but again, I don't think allowing them to do so nets out to a win.
Taiwan is a naval battle first; I don't think we've been supplying much naval weaponry to Ukraine.
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