domain:sotonye.substack.com
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
22hr ago
'the far right nazis'
No such person, there are variations. There's lots of anger about muslim rape gangs and demographic replacement.
In an alternate history of nuclear-armed Ukraine, I believe Putin will choose a different country to invade instead
...which one? Do you figure there is some priority list of countries he wants to invade? What does it look like?
In our history, Ukraine is always a somewhat Russian friendly country before Russia fucked them hard by all the means after 2000, would Russia fuck with the government of a nuclear-armed, Russian friendly Ukraine?
The Russian view there is quite different - as they contend, at some point after the early 2000s, Ukraine started responding to its economic malaise by stealing gas meant for transit to EU customers to help itself meet its own demand, with some complicity from EU states who refused to hold Ukraine responsible for this diplomatically while also working to sabotage any projects for new pipelines that would bypass Ukraine completely (in EU propaganda, this was framed as the bypass pipelines "enabling Russia to blackmail Ukraine" - as in, blackmail it with the threat of taking away the free gas). If a nuclear-armed Ukraine becomes a pariah in your scenario, is the dominant consequence that its economy is in even more shambles (so it needs to steal more gas) or that the EU objections to bypass pipelines disappear (so it never gets the opportunity to steal as much gas)?
A scenario in which Russia still depends on them for transit but now they are even more desperate to extract unnegotiated concessions for it may not be one in which Russia sees it as friendly. Certainly, my memory is that even in reality, the gas siphoning resulted in a lot of grassroots resentment towards Ukraine among Russians at the time, to the point that they could have easily been persuaded to endorse some punitive aggression against it by a thus inclined statesman.
(I find it interesting that the gas transit story is never mentioned in mainstream reporting on the war, not even with a framing that puts all the blame on Russia. Through my conspiracy goggles, this looks like another instance of a general pattern of producing simple good/evil narratives by cutting off history at a convenient point - in the media, the Israel/Palestine war started on 23-10-07, Russia/Ukraine started in 2014 with a little exemption for the Budapest Memorandum in murky prehistory, and everyone/Iran started with the Islamic Revolution. No hard questions about who shot first. Not that this is new - America/Japan, they claim, started with Pearl Harbor, too.)
I would say that the lawyer is prestigious but the consultant is not, as mentioned above. Nobody is making songs about how they want to fuck a McKinsey consultant (not in that sense, anyway)!
Plus there are gradations. There's a certain type of 'dodgy real-estate developer phenotype' lawyer that would raise alarm bells.
LiberalRetvrn
22hr ago
Well I do believe that enlightened liberal societies tend to outcompete backwards, repressive, superstitious ones. But that's not some supernatural force bending history, it's just a result of natural selection. There's a reason why countries like Israel and Ukraine can fight off much more populated but less enlightened aggressors. Liberal values lead to a competitive edge in everything, including warfare.
cjet79
22hr ago
I love being at the pool in the summer. I live in Virginia which is hot and muggy in the summer but still snows a few times in the winter. I hate cold weather. Anything freezing and below is too cold for me.
Hot weather and sweat is something I can sort of adapt to and deal with for a few hours. I've been to India in August/September. It's not pleasant if there isn't a pool I can jump into, but I'd much rather deal with that than a cold winter.
Without a pool, perfect weather is just whatever allows me to live outside as if it was inside. Post rainstorm in the summer is pretty awesome, cuz it also tends to tamp down on the bugs for a little bit.
Clementine
22hr ago
I actually think the driving example is a perfect example of how the underlying principles are not universal, since the levels of morally acceptable aggressiveness on the part of the driver and the extent to which is it pedestrians' and other drivers' job to get out of your way rather than your job to drive "nicely" varies a lot by culture.
...or on the other hand you could say that whether it's India, Italy, the Netherlands, England, the US, or Zimbabwe, there's at least a general consensus you shouldn't be killing people with your car. Except, perhaps, if you are very very wealthy. the moral Schelling point towards not killing other people who are ambiguously maybe from your tribe or a neutral tribe or an enemy tribe not currently actively engaged in hostilities against you, on a random Tuesday, does seem reasonably strong-ish
Mantergeistmann
22hr ago
It's similar to cluster munitions: a number of American allies are very willing to sign global treaties banning their use, knowing that in a shooting war, the USA will happily bust out its own stock.
Mantergeistmann
22hr ago
My understanding is that from a realpolitik standpoint, the issue is that it becomes a fertile ground for terrorists and extremist groups. In the case of Iran, given hiw much support they already provide to Hezbollah/Hamas/Houthis... how much more could a disintegrated nation export?
Mantergeistmann
22hr ago
Yes. I think if Iran were preaching peace with their neighbors instead of having a countdown clock to Israel's annihilation, the world would treat Iran's nuclear program very differently.
09milk
22hr ago
I always refer to this video lecture as a counter argument of why, at the time, the decision to invade Iraq can be justified by US/UK head of governement
It detailed the information available at the time for US/UK, then laid out the potential internal political backfire in case of Iraq actually having WMD and used it
After listening to the lecture, to me it always seems like invading Iraq is the rational move at the time with the available intel, while simultaneously and evidently a wrong decision after the fact as we gain more information due to the war
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
23hr ago
Strong agree. Evidence of craziness is just literally exhibit A: basic factual comprehension. There's literally no need to assassinate Klobuchar to free up space for Walz to run for the Senate, because the other Senator Tina Smith, is retiring already in 2026, so there's already a free spot -- a spot which, by the way, Walz himself decided against running for. For reasons not totally explained by science yet, some small percentage of men just seem to snap at some point in their lives. Although I'm not sure how much exactly to put it into this category: guy was allegedly a classic prepper, and the plan itself wasn't actually all that badly thought out (in fact I'm impressed, props to the police, that he was caught on only the second house, though a mask in combination with a police uniform still seems like anti-synergy, for lack of a better word; are you trying to hide your identity or get closer/infiltrate your targets? Pick one).
At any rate, OP, you should feel a little bit of shame for this dreadful post, by the way You are treating these absurd claims as if they are possibly credible and at face value. You are bringing out the classic "they" in conspiracy framings. Who is "they"? Yeah, yeah, Antifa and BLM, but they aren't like, actually well-organized groups (at least not on any kind of national level). I think you can make a case for loosely coordinated actions on a local level, but a new Weather Underground this is not. Consciously attempting to "recruit susceptible members" is a pretty big claim and requires actual cognizance, not something that happens stochastically or by chance.
If you want to make an actual argument about how "Antifa, BLM" are moving towards an actual "targeted assassination" strategy, make the argument, don't piggypack on some random news story and stop at innuendo.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
23hr ago
Disclaimer: I was like 10 at the time, so directly I most remember just like, graphics on TV of the invasion with arrows and stuff.
I very much agree. I think what's also missing in the conversation is that it seems to me that the US population was also still pretty bloodthirsty at the time and honestly was relatively easy to convince. A lot of post-9/11 anger still without easy outlets (Afghanistan's insurgency hadn't yet kicked into major gear and was relatively quiet, Bin Laden was elusive, etc) was still in the air. Sure, Bush coined the Axis of Evil but a ton of people ate that stuff right up (maybe we didn't learn the Cold War lessons as deeply as we should have...) All of this means that when Iraq's stability had majorly deteriorated by early to mid 2004, at the same time that year the big post-op intel reports were coming out to the public and were pretty damning. In that context, I think there's a very human motivation to try and wash your own hands and absolve yourself of responsibility, and it's very easy and cheap to say "I was tricked". And even then, there's some major revisionism going on. Polling data and the behavior of politicians both seem to agree that a lot of the regret only started to spike when Iraq and then later Afghanistan war deaths continued to rise, which was well after the facts of Iraq's WMD's were well known. So yeah, people also "backdated" their opposition to the war quite a bit. All you need to do is simply look at the contrast of the 2004 and 2008 election seasons.
crushedoranges
23hr ago
the Ayatollah is hiding in some Persian bunker, wondering if the Americans or the Israelis will give him the martyrdom he's being hoping for.
Bibi is on Fox News, talking about his friend Trump.
I think Israel is winning.
kky
23hr ago
C’mon, “was a nutjob” is the free square in any impersonal murder outside of actual government assassination or gang violence (but I repeat myself). They’re always nutjobs! It’s in the job description! There’s nothing productive that can possibly come of random violence. In order for it to be productive, it needs to be highly regular and difficult to prevent, but random lone wolf killers are never regular and can’t convince people to change their actions outside of getting better security detail. And that’s assuming the killer even has a putative political agenda and isn’t just lashing out.
It’s what bugs me about every manifesto. People are fidgeting in their seats waiting for the PDF to drop, but I can tell you what’s behind door number one through infinity of this particular game show: nothing but lunacy. The only suspense is whether you’re going to get literal nonsense schizo ravings, a poorly-hacked-together litany of grievances against various parties who were all but assuredly NOT shot in the event, or personal impotence carefully disguised as a political theory with sweeping claims about Western Civilization. But that’s just picking favorite flavors when it’s already a given that the nut has cracked.
I believe this is near where you stand on the issue too, but trying to make sense of motives for random killers is like reading tea leaves from a cup of drip coffee. These people say things, but the sheer baffling idiocy of the crime makes it clear that whatever they say is absolute drivel and the real reason is that their brains are broken, they are not capable of making up sane lines of reasoning any longer, it’s just a matter of how much horsepower is left to pretty the diseased thoughts up. That’s why Ted Kaczynski has such staying power: his writing is so good and his rhetoric so strong that he can distract you from the obvious fact that his natural conclusion to the question of getting a controversial book published was to mail bombs. Insane, insane. My crank of a grandpa just self-published instead, and they’ve both had the same effect on actual mainline theory.
So yeah, the guy’s a nutjob, the next one will be too, and the one after that all the way down to the last man. It’s always been this way, but I guess there’s lurid pleasure in reading something really bent. And maybe it’ll wind up being suitably specious cannon fodder in this or that culture war, as a treat.
09milk
23hr ago
In an alternate history of nuclear-armed Ukraine, I believe Putin will choose a different country to invade instead
The alt-path will likely start with Ukraine not signing the Budapest Memorandum thus keeping their Soviet nukes, while Ukraine will likely suffer some form of international trade sanction (but not a lot, as the newly created Russia will likely not sanction them to cripple they own nation)
Going into the 2000s, I believe Ukraine will achieve a status similar to pre-2022 Finland, where they will be a Friend of Russia economically, with the promise of not joining NATO, after all, everyone knows there is no benefit for Ukraine to join NATO when they have nukes, thus Russia unironically will feel a lot safer from Ukraine compare to our history
In our history, Ukraine is always a somewhat Russian friendly country before Russia fucked them hard by all the means after 2000, would Russia fuck with the government of a nuclear-armed, Russian friendly Ukraine?
As long as Ukraine demonstrate their discipline on international affairs and don't actively fuck with others, they likely achive at worst the status of Pakistan (who hosted Osama bin Laden without real consequences), likely the status of India (internationally not one give a fuck on what they do internally), at best the status of pre-2022 Finland (Staying friendly to everyone, everyone want them to be the buffer state while giving you some form of trade access), all depends on what Ukrainian can achieve diplomatically
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
23hr ago
This system is for transactions, not for savings. Sending money all the way to a European or Asian bank, and converting it to and from US dollars just so that it can cross a single border within Africa, adds a bunch of extra delay and extra fees.
Delay isn't mentioned in the news article, but an FAQ page on PAPSS's website says:
With Instant payment, participants no longer need to convert local currencies into hard currencies which then entailed the funds leaving Africa to be converted before being sent back again to the beneficiary bank—adding days to the transaction time. In addition, compliance, legal and sanctions checks are performed instantly within the system. Near-instant payments process within 120 seconds.
Because that has never worked, not even once, in the history of humanity?
Wars simply cannot be won by assassinations. This has been tried again and again. It doesn't work. It didn't work on Al-Qaeda. US blows up their leaders all the time (Ayman al-Zawahiri in 2022, who nobody has heard of) and they're still around, doing their thing, building camps in Afghanistan... It didn't work on ISIS. US blew up Al Baghdadi to no effect. What defeated ISIS was losing their territory and army, even then they're still lurking underground.
Israel tried this on Hamas. They blow up Hamas leaders all the time. It has no effect, Hamas is still fighting.
To win a war, there are no sneaky tricks, you have to actually achieve your military goals on the battlefield, in service of a broad political goal. Assassination is a tactic to achieve some kind of short-term, minor advantage - like sniper fire. It's not a strategy and cannot substitute for victory. Until recent counter-insurgency wars nobody was even silly enough to try this and for good reason.
If Iran blew up Donald Trump and Hegseth plus some generals what effect would this have on America? Would the country collapse? Would there even be any significant impairment to capabilities? No, it wouldn't do anything beyond sparking lots of discourse and cause some stock market shenanigans.
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