domain:alethios.substack.com
TheLoser
19hr ago
How are images of the facts on the ground curated propaganda? Is reality propaganda at this point?
urquan
Hold! What you are doing to us is wrong! Why do you do this thing?
19hr ago
· Edited 19hr ago
It seems like “romantasy” has become the default genre for young women, it's pretty startling. I also have met people who seem to be basing their conception of what romance should be like on these sorts of books. I know a young lady who's desperate for a man who also reads romantasy, which is particulary bizarre because these are books written with female protagonists from the perspective of women. I'm not sure what she expects her dream man to be getting out of these books.
Maybe that kind of thing has been around for a long time. But I know older women who like romance books, and they were never like that. My mother is an avid reader of romance, and a shipper before shipping was cool (there were, in fact, fan forums that shipped Anakin Skywalker with Padme Amidala, and yes, my mom is still sad he turned into Darth Vader).
But my father is certainly no romance novel protagonist, yet my mom talks about how funny he was when she met him, and how all the girls thought he was cute, and talks lovingly about going on drives in the country with him and listening to music, and says that even when there was tension in the relationship, it didn’t matter — “I loved him.” They’ve been married for 40 years. That’s my parents.
My mom is just a sweet lady, she likes love stories because she loves people, and romance novels are about people connecting with each other and sharing vulnerability.
I worry that maybe the market for romance stories has shifted from, “sweet story about people overcoming adversity for true love” to “escapist experience where you get to imagine yourself being seduced by one of Snow White’s magical creatures.” Also, please do not look up "scenting."
I get the feeling that older generations viewed these stories as an enjoyable narrative with an inspiring message about the sacrifices that lead to love, which could be tempered by the actual lived experience of seeing your mother and father, aunts and uncles, grandmothers and grandfathers, go through the reality of marriage and as such understand that the reality isn’t like books — and yet still worthy.
Air Force Command Pauses Use of M18 Handguns After Security Airman's Death
An Air Force command is temporarily barring the use of issued Sig Sauer sidearms amid an investigation into the death of an airman at F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming over the weekend.
For those of you who do not pay attention to small arms development or small arms procurement, the story of the M18 is an interesting one.
Several years ago, the US military published a request for a new sidearm for all of its branches, called the modular handgun system (MHS). They asked for several highly specific features, including the ability to replace grips and change slide lengths at the armorer level.
Multiple companies tendered submissions, including Glock, Beretta, HK, SIG, and a few other smaller players. After years of examination and multiple lawsuits (that are worth examination on their own), the department of defense settled on the SIG P320, which they labeled the M17 and M18, depending on the barrel and grip length.
As a result of the contract, multiple law enforcement agencies across the US standardized on the P320 as a service weapon.
Unfortunately for SIG, users discovered that the P320 was not drop safe. If dropped from several feet onto a concrete surface at the correct angle, the mass of the trigger shoe could cause the trigger to pull itself due to inertia.
While SIG did not issue a recall, it did offer a "voluntary upgrade" program that replaced the heavy trigger shoe with a lighter polymer model, which was the one used on the M17 and M18. This variant did not have enough mass to pull itself when dropped from a height onto a hard surface at a specific angle.
However, the pistol now had a reputation. It was The Gun That Goes Off For No Reason. SIG rapidly found itself playing defense against a torrent of lawsuits where individuals claimed that the pistol discharged with absolutely no user intervention. Claimants argued that since the gun was once, in specific circumstances, able to fire without human intervention, that it was fundamentally and inherently unsafe. Even though no one could ever describe a mechanism for uncommanded discharge, SIG lost two of those cases because they shipped a trigger shoe that did not have a Glock-style trigger safety, which would have hypothetically prevented an uncommanded discharge that occurred due to an undescribed mechanism.
Fast forward to now. A US Airman has died, allegedly because the service pistol fired a round while it was sitting in a holster on his desk.
A YouTuber and a redditor have both claimed to be able to repeatedly create an uncommanded discharge. The "gun community" has taken this as permission to Hate SIG, and has begun to do so with gusto.
Here's the thing: both the YouTuber and the redditor manipulate the trigger in their reproduction steps. The YouTuber shove a screw into the trigger assembly, and the redditor literally pulls the trigger with his finger.
To my knowledge, no one has figured out how to make the gun fire without touching the trigger.
I feel like this series of events has culture war implications.
The first reason is because it seems like a lot of culture war activity seems similar to a concept in the gun world called "fuddlore". "Fuddlore", to those who haven't heard about it, is received wisdom that has only a tenuous connection to reality at best, but is nonetheless extremely sticky in the mind of a certain class of person. An example would be someone saying something like "I'd never use an AR-15 because it shits where it eats and constantly jams". You could show them dozens of long duration tests across multiple environments and duty schedules, from multiple sources with different biases, that all prove the modern AR-15 is a solid, dependable rifle that will keep firing in even the most vile conditions. They'll nod their head, then a week later say "I'd never use an AR-15 because it shits where it eats and constantly jams". In the case of the M18, it's the Gun That Goes Off For No reason now, and it's firmly embedded in the fuddlore even though nobody can figure out how to do it.
You might recognize that same mindset from stories here. I've seen people mention it around politics, romantic relationships, COVID, and Lord only knows what else.
The second parallel to the culture war is that a lot of people hate SIG for a few different reasons. Some are fanboys of other brands. Some think they're cheating on the federal contracts. Others just think they're Too Jewish (don't ask me. I don't get it). The end result is that they're using motivated reasoning to make a point of believing the stories. It feels similar to Scott's old arguments as soldiers story.
I don't if I have anywhere else to go with this, but it's wild to see concepts discussed here show up in a different subculture.
urquan
Hold! What you are doing to us is wrong! Why do you do this thing?
19hr ago
Are you an insanely charismatic man in excellent shape, who's impeccably dressed and whose every word and gesture are a near world-class work of performance art? No? Plenty of people have happy relationships - or non-catastrophic relationships - with women with BMIs of 30, 40, 50, even 60.
Huh, this feels like the conclusion of a narrative arc. Never thought we'd hear this message from you, brother. And you're not wrong.
Did you ever find a girlfriend?
YE_GUILTY
19hr ago
Thank you for this.
One piece of context, as near as I can tell, is that Lewis came to Christianity by way of Platonism. As such, a lot of his metaphysics (particularly anti-materialism) come from that perspective.
Plato does loom large over a lot of Lewis's writing: The Silver Chair's climax is the Allegory of the Cave, and The Last Battle portrays the Kingdom of God as being the Realm of the Forms. The latter especially is not exactly orthodox (small-o) Christianity: the influence of Plato is something controversial in Christianity ("What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?") especially as Platonism wants absolute primacy of the immaterial over the material, which reacts with Christianity to get very Gnostic.
But it does provide the map he uses here.
urquan
Hold! What you are doing to us is wrong! Why do you do this thing?
19hr ago
This is the usual way I read the motte.
You do have to be careful, though -- sometimes you can end up with a perfect comment responding to what you thought a discussion was based on a reply to a reply to a reply, and then you realize you spent all that time reverse-engineering what was already stated or dismissed in the discussion.
crushedoranges
Can Marx explain the used panties market?
19hr ago
If a thousand more Israelis died on 10/7, Gaza would be a smoking, burning crater.
It's not hyperbole to say that Israel has no strategic depth. The distance an American drives to say, Walmart (10 miles) is further than Israel is at its narrowest width. Even a scrappy band of jihadis with no air cover can hold such a small band for a few days. With hostages? Indefinitely.
Israel doesn't get a chance to make a mistake, while its enemies only have to get lucky once to do significant damage.
oats_son
19hr ago
Wow, you've described my job to a T. Very little seems to be expected of me and I am increasingly finding it difficult to actually force myself to work on anything, but nobody seems to have noticed or care, and getting on with my coworker/boss is more important. We both do a lot of screwing around. It's decent pay for a single man, but I feel some crazy pressure on me to improve my skills and move on, which feels like it's going to be more difficult the longer I stay, and even though I have a decent amount of free time, my commute and my laziness make it feel like a lot less if I want to actually do stuff, which I usually don't.
Quantumfreakonomics
19hr ago
We don’t have to imagine fake Canadian history, we can imagine real American history. Let’s say tomorrow the Navajo decide they’re done being the white man’s bitch and attack the Grand Canyon with smuggled Iranian weaponry. They kill about a thousand people and take a few hundred tourists hostage. The entire white population of the Navajo reservation is evacuated. Twitter is overflowing with clips of Navajo warriors doing the ghost dance over the dead bodies of raped American girls. Big Chief Leaping Antelope declares no surrender until the entire Colorado basin is free of American influence. Bands of raiders take potshots at towns across the Southwest. Dozens of American troops are killed or wounded every week during the attempted occupation by ununiformed partisans blending in with the population.
You know exactly what would happen next, the same thing that happened to all the other tribes who refused to accept American sovereignty.
coffee_enjoyer
☕️
20hr ago
indiscriminate
Indiscriminate means “not marked by careful distinction : deficient in discrimination and discernment”. What definition were you looking at? It does not mean that they fire on everyone they see.
ammo
M855 ammo passes through soft tissue more readily, meaning in a large crowd there will be more casualties per shot; his point is that this is a terrible choice for crowd control. Police doing crowd control use rubber bullets etc. In fact the IDF specifically uses .22 LR in Ruger 10/22 rifles for riots in the West Bank. You weren’t aware of this? NATO is not supplying these munitions so I don’t know why you’ve mentioned NATO.
Taking rubber bullets into a situation where you might well get shot at with real bullets is incredibly dumb
It’s an unarmed civilian population receiving food. Rubber bullets are a smart way to do crowd control.
Would that be the thread with several x-ray images of full power rifle rounds, with no deformation whatsoever, in the middle of children's heads?
It was the one confirmed by numerous third party experts who dealt with gunshot wounds. I’m not sure how Israeli pundits responded to it but they may have called them forgeries.
obvious errors
Hm, I don’t see a single error in his testimony. Which error did you have in mind?
aqouta
20hr ago
Even in a chiller workplace like the VA Attending psychiatrists start out at around $250k, Which is a little north of what newly minted Bank VP can expect. Bank VPs definitely have some more variability.
DradisPing
20hr ago
Still working on my Minecraft API with MCP for AI integration. I got Dockerization working so I can theoretically deploy it somewhere easily. It's not really ready for that as I haven't bothered adding any security to the API yet.
Previous comments here taught me that I can use different LLMs from VSCode, so I've been having some fun with that.
Going forward I really want to let the AI do building construction, so I've been planning out a component system where it can pass component names, options, and bounding boxes and subcomponents will handle the internal details.
I want it to be similar enough to React that it'll be able to transfer over some of that training. Curious to see if I'll run into limits with the context side.
Huh, the more you know. I wonder if they'll make the switch at some point in the future to shorten supply chains further.
P-Necromancer
20hr ago
It's the constant prevarications that make it so hard for me to take these complaints seriously.
Israelis open fire indiscriminately on civilians seeking aid.
Oh, OK, that sounds really, really bad.
That’s 14 days of meals. So, out of 64 days, we’ve provided 14 days of meals to the entire population in the enclave of Gaza.
Wait, what? If they're firing indiscriminately on civilians seeking aid, how is this number not zero? Is the claim that Palestinians are charging these aid stations under fire, climbing through concertina wire, and some few manage to escape with food? ... Or are they not actually firing indiscriminately on civilians seeking aid? I don't doubt civilians have been shot in these places -- It wouldn't even be hard convince me this is a deliberate strategy to deter Palestinians from accepting food aid! -- but that's not what the word 'indiscriminate' means.
The sites have not only become death traps, they were designed as death traps. All four distribution locations were intentionally, deliberately constructed, planned and built in the middle of an active combat zone. Some may argue, “Well, all of Gaza is a war zone.” That may be true, but there are parts of Gaza that are direct — or, determined to be active, operational combat zones where Israeli Defense Forces are operating. Those sites were built in the middle of those areas intentionally.
The things that I just described are not just opinions, they’re facts.
How is it, exactly, that Aguilar can confidently make statements of fact about others' intentions? Did they tell him that? If they did, I'm pretty sure he'd have said. Is he a mind reader? Actually, I rather doubt he's met whoever decided on the placement of the distribution locations; he can read minds at a distance, I suppose. Again, I'm not even saying that's not the intention! I don't know! But he doesn't either, and presenting this as though it's certain is dishonest.
The equipment, the equipment that we were issued, fully automatic weapons, which, in and of itself, is not a violation of protocol. However, we were issued M855 green-tipped ammunition. That’s important, because green-tipped ammunition is a steel-jacketed copper round that’s designed to — specifically designed to penetrate armor. It’s designed to kill. It’s designed to shoot through reinforced objects, to kill someone on the other side of it. That’s what all the UG Solutions contractors are equipped with right now in country. Everyone carries a standard basic load of 210 rounds of M855 armor-piercing military combat ammunition. Why would anyone need that, even if to defend themselves for their — defend their lives, against an unarmed population? It’s inappropriate. That, in and of itself, that action there, is a war crime.
What nonsense is this? Are the distribution locations in active combat zones or not? Anyway, armor-piercing rounds are, obviously, intended for piercing armor. Against unarmored targets, they're less lethal than hollow points. Unarmed civilians, notably, are unlikely to have armor. As for the capacity to penetrate cover: I thought these locations were designed to be death traps? Why would they leave convenient cover in the killing field? Anyway, I don't see the logic in permitting the individuals guarding the site to have weapons, but only so long as they'll be ineffective against a prepared adversary. (Especially after admitting there are prepared adversaries in the area.) I have to say, it seems very weird to me this would be a war crime. Let me do some reading...
Oh, it's not a war crime.
The M855 green tip (the American version of the SS109) is the standard issue round for all of NATO! It's actually not some super special armor-piercing variant, it's what they give every last grunt. Safe to say, issuing this round is not illegal.
It sure is designed to kill, that's true -- is this former green beret confused about the purpose of firearms and their ammunition? Or is he just so contemptuous of his audience that he believes they are? As I noted, they're less deadly against unarmored civilians than hollow points, but here's something I didn't know until I looked into it: using those is (arguably) a war crime! I'm deeply curious what round Aguilar believes would be appropriate; unfortunately, he doesn't say. Rubber bullets? Taking rubber bullets into a situation where you might well get shot at with real bullets is incredibly dumb, but that's not the real problem with the idea: no one even makes rubber bullets in 5.56. They don't exist. Blanks, perhaps?
Aguilar makes some other points that are harder to contest -- for all I know, they are using concertina wire inappropriately -- but I see very little reason to take anything he says seriously given the obvious errors -- I struggle not to say 'lie,' but unlike him, I'm willing to extend the charity to allow he might just be incorrect -- I found briefly skimming the article.
Maynard also suspects that the IDF is deliberately shooting children for sport, which other doctors have said in the past (I wrote a post on this a year ago or so).
Would that be the thread with several x-ray images of full power rifle rounds, with no deformation whatsoever, in the middle of children's heads? I'm genuinely asking; it might be something else. But that's the one I remember, because it was a transparent hoax.
Once again, I'm perfectly willing to believe the IDF is misbehaving in Gaza -- actually, I'd go so far as to say I do believe it, at least to some extent -- but if there's such overwhelming evidence for it, why do their opponents insist on mixing in obvious falsehoods? Just tactically, I'm certain it does far more damage to their position than just sticking to points that aren't trivially refuted.
SkookumTree
20hr ago
The man's 57.
I've known people who feel this way and aren't young. especially healthcare workers.
nomenym
20hr ago
There have only ever been three options: ethnic cleansing, ethnic cleansing, or forever war. Pick one. All are terrible and wrong.
SkookumTree
20hr ago
Haul my demented ass into the Alaskan wilderness for one last walk in the woods. If I come back, I'm not too demented; if I don't, good for the local wildlife.
SkookumTree
20hr ago
I mean - the blackpilled monk types will either not pay for their care or suck-start shotguns, depending.
SkookumTree
20hr ago
The exercise in futility is the point. The pointlessness is itself the point. You are building character through an exercise in futility.
SkookumTree
20hr ago
Start working in healthcare, or volunteering there. Ideally, it'd be a clinic or something in a rough part of town. That will give you a much better idea of the long-term health consequences of varying degrees of fatness.
Are you an insanely charismatic man in excellent shape, who's impeccably dressed and whose every word and gesture are a near world-class work of performance art? No? Plenty of people have happy relationships - or non-catastrophic relationships - with women with BMIs of 30, 40, 50, even 60.
Disgust is MUCH more malleable than most people think. Work in healthcare or something like that for a year or two. Your disgust response will calibrate itself better. You'll still dislike gross things - but they'll become dangerous to you, not gross - more like vats of acid than human shit.
ABigGuy4U
20hr ago
I’m sure this is an opinion that will manage to piss off everyone for different reasons, but I think the IDF is highly overrated, both historically and in its current form. It’s basically what the Russian Army would be like if they had never fought in Ukraine or Afghanistan or Chechnya, and were 1/20th in size.
Their technological achievements are mostly in the field of air defense and certain high-impact intelligence operations, both of which are genuinely impressive but aren’t necessarily going to help in an October 7th kind of situation, especially when the command and communications systems have completely broken down.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
20hr ago
Vance did not make a statement "that citizenship in the US should be based on ancestry instead of individual choices and beliefs". He said that choices and beliefs were neither necessary nor sufficient. He implies ancestry is sufficient, but not that it is necessary.
You are not stuck in traffic, you are traffic. I am responding with a modhat but this is not a warning and will not be noted on your account, even though your past posting history weighs against you on this.
The reason this is not a warning is because you are plausibly making an effort to understand something, which is good.
The reason I am responding with a modhat is because we have a growing problem with posts like this, namely, posts that begin with the framing that "the Motte" can be helpfully or usefully addressed collectively in connection with particular ideological commitments. I believe this is mistaken as a matter of substance, but even if it weren't, it would be a violation of the rules:
Post about specific groups, not general groups, wherever possible.
Don't attempt to build consensus or enforce ideological conformity.
The paradigmatic consensus-building post is "I'm sure you'd all agree..." Lately I have seen too many people approach that from a position of disagreement instead--as here:
I am under the impression that most posters here who care about American politics would 99% endorse this statement
You've couched this in sufficiently perspective-taking language that it's not an egregious violation of the rules, but it is nevertheless not the way to approach questions like this. You could (and should) have written your entire post as a clear question without reference to a monolithic Motte: "what do you [whoever is reading] think about these ideas, or this claim?" You don't need to accuse your readers in advance of being wrong about something; if you have a question about what people believe, ask them, don't tell them. If there's a specific ideological position you want to address, address the position, not the people you imagine to be holding it.
"This place" is a website
for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.
That's all. You may see some people in other parts of the Internet characterize this as a site catering to some particular ideology, but those people are wrong, often maliciously so, and they tend to spread misconceptions about the community that are harmful to the community. I can't do anything about that in other spaces, but I do what I can to try to stop it from happening here.
(And that is actually kind of an answer to your question, if "the Motte" is what you are interested in understanding: the foundation generally manifests as individualistic and meritocratic, because individuals (not groups) post here and individuals (not groups) get upvotes or downvotes, AAQCs or warnings or bans. But individuals here have many different views on meritocracy and individualism, I'm sure, and honestly I'd be surprised if even 60% of participants here held the beliefs you have, entirely without evidence, attributed to the entire group.)
I mean I can give you links, but they're all going to add up to "Israeli official says they're not stopping the UN" so I don't think that will do much for you, since you are unwilling to believe anything an Israeli official says.
The AP:
MSN:
Interesting that the AP claims the UN doesn't want military escorts because it could bring harm to civilians, while MSN gives us the UN claiming they can't send their aid in because their trucks might be ransacked by gangs. So which is it: do they not want an escort because of potential civilian harms, or are they saying they can't do it without an escort because they'll get robbed? It seems to me that they just want the new Israeli aid organization to fail so that they will let UNRWA back in, and any excuse to keep aid out of Gaza is good enough to blame on the Israelis.
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