domain:moultano.wordpress.com
TowardsPanna
22hr ago
You have a dangerous line of thought. You're almost downplaying the problem of police brutality and similar abuses of power.
Predators seek out vulnerability in the victim and the opportunity to get away with the crime. Finding particularly guilty people to punish does not really enter into the equation except coincidentally.
SubstantialFrivolity
I'm not even supposed to be here today
22hr ago
Yeah, I agree that those sounded good in principle. That's why I was excited for Humankind when it came out, because I thought the idea of growing your civilization over time could be a really fresh take on the genre. In practice it didn't turn out so well (at least to me, and it sounds like to you) because the lack of identity just made civs feel soulless and disconnected from any historical flavor.
Accordingly I was already skeptical with the direction for Civ 7, because they were building on ideas that I already knew I didn't like when they were in another game. And unfortunately it seems like they too have gotten things completely wrong flavor wise (seriously, why does Firaxis think that the leader is what we players care about??). Not to mention the harsh age resets, which seriously undermine the core thing people like about Civ (building stuff up over time).
I find it especially galling because according to Firaxis, this all was in service of trying to get people to finish more games of Civ, since stats show most people don't finish the game. But I do! I find the entire arc of a game of Civ fun, and while the late game isn't quite as good as the early game, it's still really fun to me. So with Civ 7 they are trying to solve a problem I don't agree that the game has, by using methods that I don't like (and which go against the core identity of the series). It's very frustrating.
ResoluteRaven
22hr ago
The fertility crisis isn't going to be solved in or by Ukraine. If a solution is found, then Ukrainian wartime casualty counts will be irrelevant assuming they stay within 20th century (i.e. WWI level or less) norms, but could make the difference between Ukraine existing or not as a sovereign state in the future. Presumably the soldiers fighting are motivated by nationalism and care about such things. If a solution isn't found, then we go extinct and this discussion is moot.
It was a conscious decision to leave it subtextual, particularly through the edit. On the one hand, the event where this was filmed was full of Motte posters, many of whom are now in various positions of authority. On the other, I felt that insights into the sort of dynamics we see here, though a particularly intense example of the sort of online spaces we spend much of the interview discussing, are generalisable. Ultimately, I didn't want an audience unfamiliar with this space to feel unable to engage with the ideas.
Pasha
Defend Kebab
22hr ago
You are spot on with the difficulty of b1->c2 and Anglos seemingly thinking they know a language at about a2 level. Passport bro Spanish might as we’ll be a new creole at this point.
But I don’t agree at all that language is just a tool. Obviously it can be wielded like one when necessary, but for most people the significance of the languages they speak and teach their children is that your language determines your group identity much better than any other marker. You literally cannot be part of a society if you cannot speak its languages to the desired degrees (in modern nation states this is often a single language spoken to native level, but historically it can be multiple languages spoken at different levels like my example of the Ottoman Greek). Any shift in culture and identity must go hand in hand with language shifts. If your children don’t speak the same languages as you you can bet they will find your culture foreign.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
22hr ago
Sorry, I misunderstood the contents of these warnings, but can you blame me for liking my version better?
ResoluteRaven
23hr ago
Without fixing its manufacturing base, the US will lose any conflict with China that isn't decided in the first few days regardless of whether we're talking about 2022 or 2025 level weapon stockpiles. The fact that running out of 155 mm shells, drones, and missiles in trying to supply Ukraine has led to military and civilian leaders realizing this is a problem and working to solve it is the best thing that could have happened for American military preparedness short of not having outsourced all of those industries in the first place, even if there is a temporary shortage as a result.
FistfullOfCrows
23hr ago
one Nigerian woman appealed her deportation eight times before deliberately joining a Nigerian terrorist organization
Honestly, in such cases I would want these people to be jailed locally for life instead, with no possibility for being released inside the US. If they've been good little chain gang workers maybe give them the option to be deported to a country of their choosing.
FistfullOfCrows
23hr ago
Maryland wife beater might have been a violation of procedure ( idk if it even was ) but was not a violation of the spirit.
ResoluteRaven
23hr ago
Ukrainians are by any measure I can think of more different from Russians than Taiwanese are from Chinese or South Koreans from North Koreans. Kiev began diverging from Moscow at the time of the Mongol invasions in the 13th century.
FistfullOfCrows
23hr ago
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.
Team blue has been mashing defect so hard for so long all the while moralizing about "decent human beings" that at this point there is literally no shame to be had. I could post a certain Sam Hyde quote here, but i will not, just know the mood on the right/alt-right is decidedly tinged in vengeance, and all of the left-blob's client identitarian groups will suffer for it.
Fruck
Lacks all conviction
23hr ago
San Andreas and Chinatown wars play pretty well on mobile, at least the stand alone versions did and they controlled surprisingly well (maybe even preposterously well - I got up to Las Venturas before I got distracted by something else, and if you had ever heard me bitch about touch controls for phones and tablets you'd be very impressed. Although based on the reviews it sounds like Netflix did something to tank the performance - no doubt adding some data mining shit. Considering GTASA ran perfectly well on my pixel 3 there is no reason it shouldn't run well on pretty much anything available today.
FistfullOfCrows
23hr ago
I am convinced it was kabuki by the very fact the White Helmets were involved.
FistfullOfCrows
23hr ago
Town of Pokrovsk (~70k before war) whose supply lines have been interdicted for months now & ofc town itself has been under constant attrition is getting ever more cut off.
I don't get this. Supplying water to a town without electric power/pumping stations infrastructure is impossible, are the Russians going out of their way NOT to starve the town into oblivion in 7 days?
FtSoA
1d ago
slippery slope arguments seem farfetched
Point of order: You have your geopolitical metaphors out of whack. You're looking for "domino theory."
I don’t know how you can observe the last 3 years of war and think Russia would roll over a NATO country
I don't know how you can observe the last 3 years of war and think Russia would roll over Ukraine, frankly. But they sure are trying!
So I don't trust Putin et al as totally rational actors for that very reason. They're bad at risk evals and self-awareness. Every day Russia's bogged down in Ukraine lessens the risk of further conflict. Had Russia taken Kyiv in weeks it would be a much worse situation.
But also you don't seem to be considering that Putin enjoys grayzone warfare and if Ukraine is removed as the primary focus for that, it would allow for more fuckery with other countries. Article 5 is tricky if you're fighting "separatists." It's not just about full invasions and take overs. Russia being able to better dominate neighbors is not a good outcome.
FtSoA
1d ago
Yes, there are certain munitions that are hard to replace fast enough, and both Ukraine and Israel have needed them.
Guess what though? In a shooting war with North Korea or China we're gonna need a lot more e.g. interceptors than what has been used so far, and so if anything we should be grateful for the stress testing of our stockpiles and supply chains.
But I think it's pretty obvious that the U.S. is less able to intervene in various conflicts than it would be in the world where the Ukraine war didn't pop off.
Well, yes. However, given that Russia, our #2 main rival, is having its military trashed pretty hard it's not like we aren't getting a pretty great ROI.
getting desperate enough to try and seize territory and resources to stave off disaster.
One would think that a rational person responding to the risk of population collapse would not start and maintain a bloody war killing off and maiming working-age males.
I'm sorry but I really can't take Peter Zeihan seriously at all. Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014 and 2022 because it views the risk of Ukraine becoming aligned with the West economically, politically, and militarily to be too serious a threat to its interests of regional dominance.
Dean
Flairless
1d ago
You’re trying to have it both ways. You claim that Antony Blinkin and the State Department do not speak for Ukraine, then you turn around and list all the ways that they have MASSIVE LEVERAGE over Ukraine. So which is it?
Both! One does not need to speak for someone to have influence over them. There is no contradiction of Ukraine not wanting to needlessly offend the Biden administration (not doing a stunning rebuking a gesture of support), and the Secretary of State not speaking for Ukraine.
Are the documented statements by official representatives of the American government that Ukraine will have elections when they have Crimea (read: when pigs fly and the sun rises in the west) a legitimate statement of policy of not?
Of course not. That's not how national policies work, particularly when the American government representatives saying so is no longer an American government representative, and has been fired / traded out for someone willing to execute a new policy.
Why should I ignore the rantings of Ukraine’s very rich, very influential benefactor that could scotch their war effort on a whim?
Aside from that rantings are safely ignored in general, because Antony Blinkin is not Ukrain'es very rich, very influential benefactor anymore. He is, in a sense, an unemployed bum.
Blinken's influence was tied to his status-at-the-time of being President Biden's Secretary of State. While the Secretary of State, Blinken had substantial sway over the Biden administration's dispersal of material and monetary aid. This is why he was very rich- as rich as the American government cared to be- and very influential- with influence at the highest levels of the American government.
The status went out the door when current Secretary of State Marco Rubio became the very rich, very influential benefactor that could scotch their war effort at a whim. Rubio has not, to date, taken any position on the urgency (or infinite delay) in Ukrainian elections. When he does, he is not bound by Antony Blinkin's preference or prior statements.
JarJarJedi
1d ago
The Soviet Union had no western style prisons
Of course they had. Well, not "western-style" - much, much worse - but they existed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Prisons_in_the_Soviet_Union The problem was that building a physical prison - with walls, doors, grates, beds, plumbing, etc. - was too expensive and too slow for the number of inmates the NKVD machine needed to process. So most were directed to "camps" which were much cheaper to maintain (and way worse to be in, of course).
That’s where the scary tattooed Vor V’Zakone that later became the Russian mafia came from.
Err, no, Vory as a socio-cultural phenomenon existed way before the Glorious Socialist Revolution. But, since Soviet style mass imprisonment was not practiced in Russia before, at least not in the way USSR practiced it (look up how the revolutionaries sentenced to be deported to remote areas were handled by the Tsar - they were basically free to do whatever they liked there, including access to firearms for hunting, with the only requirement to periodically check in with the police. And yes, they were allowed to be accompanied by their wives, too) - the fertile ground for development of real comprehensive mafia-like structure only appeared with Gulag. Though given that many other mafias also started gaining power at the same time (e.g. Cosa Nostra, which existed way before, but started to become really powerful in the US by mid-century), I wonder if it's not part of some larger trend.
That’s part of why being in a gulag was so hellish, the company wasn’t great.
It didn't matter too much, it was hell regardless of who was around - it was designed and implemented that way. Of course, none of the above establishes that the majority of Gulag inmates are career criminals, as claimed, that point remains unproven.
Lorian_Aristedes
1d ago
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:
Note: reposted to this weeks thread as I foolishly did not check the day of the week.
FtSoA
1d ago
Well, can you? The closest we have seen to an attempt to get it over a country with a modern multi-layered air defense system was in fact Russia over Ukraine, and it failed.
Does Iran not count as having a modern multi-layered air defense system? They had S-300s, so second-tier Russian tech, which is mostly Ukraine had when the war started.
Of course, the question is to what extent the conclusion should be "Russia sucks" and to what extent it should be "this is a hard problem"
Russia does suck quite a lot. But it's not proven how well say the F-35 et al can do against the S-400 by either the US or Israel with top-tier SEAD. But since, somehow, the fucking Turks have a couple of batteries I'm guessing we have a pretty good idea of how to take 'em out at low risk.
but it's not like Ukraine can fly manned planes close to Russian-held territory either.
Does Ukraine have even a smidgen of the air combat power e.g. the US Marines have?
People tend to forget that one of the Syrian civil war's proximate instigating sparks- the events that might not have been necessary but helped push uncontrolled protests into violent rebellion- was a sniper campaign against protestors.
This is / was a more common suppression method in the broader autocrat toolbox in the early 2010s, especially Russia-aligned. In theory, you can not only use the the violence from the snipers to take out key organizers, or to frighten / scatter crowds, but you can even use it as a pretext to send in armed forces to 'protect the people,' including escalating your own use of force.
In practice, government snipers backfired terribly in both Syria (2011) and Ukraine (2014). Digital media distribution, more capable phone-cameras, and now adays drones make it far easier to publicize/highlight/share the presence of snipers emplaced for longer periods of time. Once the presence of the snipers is known, it changes the political context and response vis-a-vis an unknown shot from unknown source.
That may / may not be 'stupid,' and the Arab Spring challenged a lot of underlying assumptions, but it an inclination towards a certain sort of murderous brutality.
FtSoA
1d ago
Losing civil wars has consequences. Both China and Taiwan have a "one China policy" I do believe.
Taiwan is in reality a rogue province that exists only because the US could keep the ChiComms from finishing out the civil war. It's doomed to being reabsorbed, if present trends continue.
In contrast, Ukraine is a sovereign nation, which was recognized by all parties at the time, and is making things very nasty for the Russians.
In both the international law sense (kinda fake) as of 1971, and the force of arms sense (ultimately the main thing), Taiwan is not much of a country as would be made immediately clear as soon as the US stops giving it strategic ambiguity as a defense.
ResoluteRaven
1d ago
Also there's been a pretty large divergence between Malaysian Chinese (Largely spun off of southern Hokkien/Teochew/Cantonese/Hakka speakers who have remained in touch with mainland trends via the cultural sinosphere) and Mainland-Chinese, even when speaking Mandarin.
I wouldn't say that the language differences between Malaysia and the Mainland are that great, certainly not compared to the variation within China itself. You could find plenty of grandmother-granddaughter pairs from Fujian (and more from Taiwan, while we're at it) that would sound about the same, as their ancestors all spoke Hokkien. Perhaps the youngest and most highly educated generation of Mainlanders are converging on a Beijing accent regardless of hometown, but such a change has only just begun and will take decades or perhaps centuries to complete.
DoctorMonarch
♬We're so happy that we live in 1800's Alabama 'cause it's sunny and there is no crime!♬
1d ago
Honestly, I was(/am?) still on the fence about the Assad gas attacks because it would be such an insanely stupid thing for him to do, but I'm more inclined to believe he makes incredibly stupid decisions since he lost in the way he did.
What's funny is that this exact series of events (male founding figure of a Green party focused on environmental policy becomes ostracised and removed from power by the next generation of overwhelmingly female party apparatchiks who want the party to revolve mainly around woke identitarian politics) is now turning into a recurring trope across Western democracies, virtually always following the same beats.
The Austrian Greens sabotaged Peter Pilz, a founding figure of the party and a star investigative journalist who uncovered (and to this day still keeps uncovering) some of the biggest political scandals in modern Austrian history. After he was denied a safe seat for an upcoming election, despite being a senior leadership figure, he left the party to found his own movement, after which the vengeful Green party leaked years-old internal party protocols that revealed he had once called his secretary "Schatzi" (essentially the German form of calling someone "honey"), she had complained, and they had resolved the issue internally without further problem. This complete nothing-story was of course blown up to the scale of serial predation (this happened in MeToo years) and Pilz was pressured to resign all political functions and retire from politics.
An almost identical scandal happened in Germany in the run-up for this years election, Stefan Gelbhaar - an established, handsome, charming, popular male Green partisan - was slated to receive a safe seat for the Greens until one of the fattest, ugliest women in the Greens party structure started spreading anonymous false accusations against him that collapsed the second anyone tried to verify their legitimacy - but by then it was too late, as the Greens had already decided to remove Gelbhaar from his seat without even sharing the nature of the allegations with him. As the head of the Young Greens said, regarding the matter - "the presumption of innocence exists in the courts, not in the Green party".
I think there's a similar story within the French Greens, but I'm not that knowledgeable about them since they're a largely irrelevant presence in French politics.
More options
Context Copy link