domain:nunosempere.com
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
12m ago
That doesn't seem like a very good goal, and judging by your interactions here, it doesn't seem to be working for you all that well. If you are not currently suffering quite badly, you're faking it really well.
sliders1234
19m ago
I think a lot of what you say about the right is pre-2021 right. They realized they get no mercy and now are willing to sacrifice their principles.
I would say Desantis war with Disney is a prime example. The right traditionally would have been against punishing Disney for Free Speech, but backed Desantis when he went after Disney within the rules of the law. Even though the Spirit of Free Speech was against doing anything. When you have institutional power to punish your enemies the right seems down with it now. The no pacifist in a foxhole standard has emerged. It’s better to win sacrificing principle than lose and end up dead. Abbott has also challenged a lot of legal principles and challenged Biden to try and stop him when he’s probably wrong on the law. The right also got aggressive with abortion using bad means to do it like Texas civil suit law. My guess is if Hillary was the 2024 candidate and destroyed her hard drive and lost lock her up would be attempted versus just being a campaign slogan.
When the right feels threatened they can do more. Pinochet was on the right and his plan worked. Until recently the right didn’t realize the system was risks. It was just annoying HR ladies and an occasional weirdos to laugh about on college campuses.
It’s not like the right has been opposed to force when it’s necessary. We killed a lot of commies. The right didn’t realize they were in a war until recently.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
3hr ago
giving puppy-dog eyes and saying this is just a paperwork crime and no one was hurt won't buy you a cup of coffee before you get absolutely reamed in all the least fun ways
Not to be melodramatic, but I am once again reminded of Solzhenitsyn:
If you are arrested, can anything else remain unshattered by this cataclysm?
But the darkened mind is incapable of embracing these dis placements in our universe, and both· the most sophisticated and the veriest simpleton among us, drawing on all life's experience, can gasp out only: "Me? What for?"
And this is a question which, though repeated millions and millions of times before, has yet to receive an answer.
Arrest is an instantaneous, shattering thrust, expulsion, somer sault from one state into another.
We have been happily borne-or perhaps have unhappily dragged our weary way-down the long and crooked streets of our lives, past all kinds of walls and fences made of rotting wood, rammed earth, brick, concrete, iron railings. We have never given a'thought to what lies behind them. We have never tried to pene trate them with our vision or our understanding. But there is where the Gulag country begins, right next to us, two yards away from us. In addition, we have failed to notice an enormous num ber of closely fitted, well-disguised doors and gates in these fences. All those gates were prepared for us, every last one! And all of a sudden the fateful gate swings quickly open, and four white male hands, unaccustomed to physical labor but none theless strong and tenacious, grab us by the leg, arm, collar, cap, ear, and drag us in like a sack, and the gate behind us, the gate to our past life, is slammed shut once and for all.
That's all there is to it! You are arrested!
And you'll find nothing better to respond with than a lamblike bleat: "Me? What for?"
That's what arrest is: it's a blinding flash and a blow which shifts the present instantly into the past and the impossible into omnipotent actuality. That's all. And neither for the first hour nor for the first day will you be able to grasp anything else.
Except that in your desperation the fake circus moon will blink at you: "It's a mistake! They'll set things right!"
When you're hauled in front of "Judge" Darkeh who articulates her spitting contempt for the American Constitution, the rational expectation would be that you're about to receive justice in a pretty similar fashion to what those victims of the Soviets received, but few of us ever learn that lesson, instead clinging to the hope that eventually there will be someone that sets things right.
Soviet communism was very murderous, don't get me wrong, but that it killed 40 million Russian people is extremely unlikely. I don't even think that Soviet communism killed 40 million Soviet people or 40 million "people who were living in what used to be the Russian Empire". A figure of maybe about 10 million people who were living in what used to be the Russian Empire killed is more realistic, maybe 15 million at most.
predictions are one of the best ways available to debug one's own cognition. In this case, it seems very unlikely to me that Rittenhouse will, in fact, be dead before the next inauguration.
I'll even do you one better: not only will he be alive on inauguration day, but no attempts on his life will have been observed.
And we can go even further. Not only will he be alive, and not only will there be no attempts on his life, but he will not be prosecuted or persecuted to any extent greater than the default blue-tribe discrimination in employment. None of the self-defense cases from the Floyd Riots were killed by left-wingers; Gardner was harassed into suicide, and others were successfully prosecuted, but none of them were actually murdered, and they've already taken their shot at Rittenhouse from a legal perspective. If you want to solve a problem, it helps to not catastrophize that problem out of all proportion. The situation is bad enough without needlessly embracing despair.
ApplesauceIrishCream
32m ago
Are you familiar with the Thief series? The first one (Thief: The Dark Project, upgraded to Thief Gold) is an old-school classic that ticks nearly every box in your list (the MC uses bows, not guns).
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
1hr ago
So, why are federal gun laws enforced in gun-friendly states?
I can think of several factors that contribute to this.
First, what does it mean for a state to be "gun-friendly"? I mean, most people on the pro-gun side support "reasonable" restrictions — where "reasonable" is often heavily influenced by status-quo bias (the conservative side of the leftward ratchet) — and the "2nd Amendment right to personal nukes" position is mostly just a few fringe (if vocal) libertarian types. And states are not politically homogenous; even your most "gun-friendly" state is going to have plenty of people — particularly in the cities — who support increasing gun restrictions.
In particular, the people in state government — particularly the lawyers and paper-pushing bureaucrats — you'd be counting on to push and coordinate this resistance to enforcement skew both urban and especially college-educated, which means they skew left and anti-gun. (Personnel is policy, and modern forms of government ensure urban leftist personnel.)
Second, way too many on the right are believers in "the rule of law." Like the sportsman who will not respond to a cheating opponent by cheating back because he has too much "respect for the game," they believe in the importance of procedure over outcome — following the rules and doing the right thing over getting better results. They are deontologists and virtue ethicists, not utilitarians. Fiat justitia ruat caelum. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? Better to suffer defeat, torture, and death while upholding your values than to attain a political victory by compromising them. (Because God will reward you for the former and damn you for the latter.)
Indeed, for any "the left is doing [x], why isn't the right doing [x] back?" question you can pose, you're sure to find someone on the right insisting that our steadfast, virtuous refusal to do [x] is the thing that separates us from the left, that to do [x] back would not just be sinking to the level of our enemies, it would be to become our enemy, and that anyone who would consider doing [x] is a leftist, no matter their other positions.
Third, quod licet Jovi, non licet bovi. The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house. What works for the left against the right will not necessarily work for the right against the left. Leftists can get away with doing things for left-wing causes that would see rightists punished severely if they tried to use them for right-wing ones. It's not hypocrisy, it's hierarchy.
you-get-an-upvote
Hyperbole is bad
1hr ago
Since you now know this comment exists and haven't modded it... it seems like my comment was accurate?
I'm mentally unhealthy enough that I've tracked my reports and gone back to see if mods actually did anything, and I've concluded my reports just waste moderator time.
gattsuru
1hr ago
Along with the the impeachment process -- in New York, technically just 'removal', requires recommendation from the governor followed by two-thirds of the State Senate, gfl -- trial-level criminal court judges are appointed by the Mayor of New York City for a lengthy period, mandatory retirement at age 70. Judge Abena Darkeh's current term is set to expire in 2030, so you could just hold the New York City mayoral office for six years time, along with taking over the recommendation system. Again, gfl.
((There's also a rule about residence, but I have no clue if/how it's enforced.))
raakaa
2hr ago
Could see this being of help to lonely people. But then after getting into a dependent relationship with AI they'll be even more stuck in their own bubble than before, as far as actual human contact is concerned.
The scary thing is, it’s not their own bubble. The service is wholly controlled by OpenAI. For these lonely people, the majority of their “human contact” be with the avatar of a megacorp. The implications are staggering. People will pour out their hearts and souls to this thing; don’t you think that a lot of actors, both private and governmental, would love to have access to all that data? Your deepest insecurities, sexual proclivities, problematic politics….
And it’s not just a one-way-street where the data flows from the user to the AI. The AI can then manipulate the user. I mean, it’s so easy to fall in love with one of these things, and love can change a person. So all of a sudden, your girlfriend will start subtly suggesting that you buy certain products, buy into certain ideologies….
I’m on mobile, so thankfully, this is the farthest I’ll be taking this schizo rant. But, for the record, this is why I refuse to engage with any non-open-source “AI girlfriend” initiatives, even if I’m in the target audience.
Felagund
1hr ago
So it could be an attractive short term play for a certain "Pay me now" segment of the population.
And a terrible long term one. This does not belong in the Overton window.
What I've been saying here all along that within this new landscape of worldwide fiat currencies MMT is the only way to play.
Let me try to understand your model. You are saying something like: the US prints money to buy foreign goods. (Or alternatively, buys loans which it expects to finance by printing money later.) The net effect of this is that we have more goods in the US.
Two thoughts on this:
High inflation is risky, because that could affect how desirable dollars are, which could be bad for trade.
Inflating currency doesn't increase purchasing power, if ownership of it is distributed the same way as before. So if I understood your model rightly, that you want to use it buy foreign goods and services, then the inflating part isn't relevant so much as the spend a lot of money on foreign goods part. But I don't think there's really any reason to spend more resources (Yes, resources. They'll use those dollars, or at least, many of them, if they're not sitting in a foreign exchange reserve or something. And if in a foreign exchange reserve, it's only in expectation of future value, that is, resources.) on foreign goods rather than on development of US resources and investment into our own economy. So why not just let the price system allocate things efficiently, as it will tend to, rather than attempt to force things with government spending funded by a tax on dollars?
What do you think of all the places that decided to hyperinflate their currency? Did it work out well for them?
You don't go back to a gold or crypto deflationary hoarding mentality where the economy is constrained by tokens of wealth.(This caused a few major problems in the past if you recall)
Namely?
You treat money like what it is, an idea to be experimented and played with for the betterment of your country, to get the most real resources for the least value in return.
Sure. That's just not what your policy does, I don't think.
Corrected this to "What it did accomplish was to murder 25 million Russian people, plus or minus 15 million,". 25 million seems to be the midpoint of the mainstream scholarly estimates, with a low of around 10 and a high of around 40, according to Wikipedia.
Personally, I find R.J. Rummel credible, and he put the Soviet number at 60 million in his book Death by Government [source], but I lean toward using more conservative numbers, lest someone be tempted to pick nits as an excuse to ignore the thrust of the argument. They will probably find another excuse anyway, but I want to do due diligence.
Currently, I do think it's a nitpick to insist that "Russian" means "ethnically Russian", but I will check with my Russian friends and see what they think.
Thanks for the correction.
Perhaps he's one of these guys?
Folamh3
16m ago
I've tried to play it several times but it never really clicked for me. The same was true of System Shock 2, which finally did click for me two years ago. I bought Thief shortly afterwards as part of the same "old school immersive sim" stable, and have been meaning to give it a try for a few months.
Stefferi
Chief Suomiposter
17m ago
Yes, the biggest Soviet killings would have been the Holodomor, Kazakh famine, ethnic campaigns and the Great Purge, the three first of which mainly implicitly or explicitly targeted other ethnicities than Russians (unless one is Great-Russian enough in mentality to just consider Ukrainians to be funny-speaking Russians) and the last targetting communists of all ethnicities.
epohon
1hr ago
In a century the scientists will wonder why it suddenly jumped to 170 to 1 during the previous few decades, and will conclude that it was because of patriarchy and toxic masculinity.
epohon
1hr ago
Hard time?! Can you name even one right-winger not bending over and taking a hard woke tool in his ass?! There is no escape!!!
faul_sname
Fuck around once, find out once. Do it again, now it's science.
42m ago
The_Nybbler
Does not have a yacht
3hr ago
No, judges have absolute immunity for their official acts.
epohon
1hr ago
Why do you care about ink smudges on dead wood? The only thing that matters is who can kill or indefinitely imprison whom without any consequences. There is no tooth fairy, and there is no constitution.
What Big Teeth You Have!
Identity Politics and the Russian Revolution
1. Introduction
The Oxford English Dictionary defines wokeness as being alert to injustice and discrimination in society, especially racism. To be woke, by that definition, is to be a noble thing indeed: a defender of the oppressed and downtrodden. This is the ethos of a fairy tale hero like Robin Hood, or Prince Charming, or the valiant huntsman who vanquishes the big bad wolf and saves Little Red Riding Hood and her sick, old grandma. Not coincidentally, it has also been the stated agenda of every mass murdering tyrant in modern history.
The propaganda of Soviet communism was rife with woke sounding platitudes. For example,
The problem is that Soviet communism did not really accomplish any of those things. What it did accomplish was to murder 25 million Russian people, plus or minus 15 million, and to terrorize hundreds of millions more over multiple generations. The people of the former Russian empire, including many of the soon-to-be victims of Soviet terror, for the most part did not see this coming. As Aleksander Solzhenitsyn wrote,
I invite you to consider the scenes Solzhenitsyn describes above, imagine them as vividly as you can, and multiply by 40 million. Next, imagine the continuous, lifelong fear that you could be next no matter what you do, and that you will be next if you say publicly certain things that you know to be true; multiply that by 300 million (over three generations), and add to the total. If you can get your head around that quantity of human suffering, then you have grasped the magnitude of the evil of Soviet Communism.
As merciless and malevolent as Soviet communism was, how could the Russian people, especially the intelligentsia, have failed to apprehend its true nature until it was too late? First, the Bolshevik revolutionaries didn't say they were merciless and malevolent; quite the opposite! Who could be against their stated agenda of fighting tyranny no matter what class of the people it affects? or self-determination for oppressed peoples? or abolishing oppression of some by others? One of the lessons of the Russian Revolution -- along with the histories of Naziism and of Chinese communism which followed later in the same century -- is that when the leaders of a political movement expound the lofty mission of defending the downtrodden and looking out for the little guy, that may not be what they are actually up to. Often, indeed, they are up to the very opposite, and it is not always easy to tell.
On the other hand it is not impossible to tell. Tyrannical movements may wear sheep's clothing, but they cannot hide their fangs. The hallmarks of tyranny, which are often evident even in the early stages of tyrannical movements, include identity politics, censorship, thuggery, and authoritarianism. Soviet communism exhibited all four of these hallmarks from its beginnings, as did the Naziism in Germany and communism in China. This essay will discuss the visible role of identity politics in the early stages of the communist movement in Russia.
2. Identity Politics in Soviet Russia
The chief intellectual and political leader of the Russian communist revolution was a one Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, better known today as Vladimir Lenin. Like the thinker Karl Marx before him, the doer Lenin often spoke in terms of "class enemies": not individuals who had exploited other individuals, but kinds of people who had historically exploited other kinds of people. For example, in 1905 Lenin wrote (in the fashion of Marx):
For Lenin and the Bolshevik party he led, the exploiting class, aka the bourgeoisie, consisted of (1) the aristocracy, (2) kulaks (farmers who owned over 8 acres of land), (3) industrialists, and (4) ideological enemies -- meaning basically any white-collar worker who was not a communist. Anyone denounced as fitting one of these four descriptions would be marked for persecution and often death in the USSR, regardless of their personal history as an alleged exploiter.
On the one hand, it is true that working class Russians of Lenin's time often lived in grinding poverty, that many aristocrats and industrialists enriched themselves at the expense of that working class, and that these same aristocrats and industrialists often exhibited depraved indifference to the wellbeing of their fellow men. At the same time, it is true that not all landowners and industrialists were equally exploitative, and that many showed more kindness toward their fellow men than the workers would have been in their shoes. It is also true, especially of the kulaks, that many earned their way, partly or wholly, into their positions of relative wealth by their own diligence and foresight. But the communist picture of the world washed over the whole story of individual difference in merit, conduct, or culpability. Lenin's narrative of class struggle conveniently drew a circle around everyone who owned land or other valuables, labeling them as "parasites" and "class exploiters". This in turn licensed the indiscriminate looting and confiscation of those valuables -- at first by rioting thugs and later by the Communist government -- not only with a clear conscience, but with a pretext of righteous indignation.
In 1916, just before coming to power, Lenin's tone was confrontational, but not as overtly malicious as it would later become. On the eve of his successful coup d'etat, Lenin wrote that violence would probably be necessary to bring about the revolution, but that it might not, and that in some sense he hoped it would not:
In hindsight the last clause (violence is alien to our ideals) was a complete lie. Within two months of assuming to power, Lenin's tone became far more menacing:
and we now know that Lenin's talk of war and death was not just talk. After seizing control of the government, the Bolsheviks rapidly instituted the Cheka, the first incarnation of the Soviet secret police. The immediate business of the Cheka was to carry out the Red Terror, which would take the lives of tens of thousands of allegedly "bourgeois" Russian civilians. This terror campaign was consciously named and patterned after the infamous Reign of Terror that had followed the French Revolution in the late 18'th century. One difference, however, is that the French pogrom was labeled a "Reign of terror" by its enemies, while the Russian version was called that by its own architects and implementers.
Just as important as exterminating (Lenin's word) the bourgeoisie, another job of the Cheka was to systematically confiscate the belongings "enemies of the people" -- where an enemy of the people was, again, anyone with enough property to be worth stealing. There were some obstacles to achieving this objective: gold, jewels, and works of art, and such could be carefully hidden and it often were. Indeed, the stories of targeted families desperately hiding themselves and anything of owned of value is one of the most poignant chapters in the story of the revolution. But the Cheka found a solution to that problem, which became part of their standard playbook: (1) kidnap a member of the bourgeois offender's family, (2) guess how much the family could pay and ask it in ransom, and (3) collect whatever payment the family could come up with, or kill the captive, or both. Thousands of the deaths in the Red Terror were the results of this scheme.
Martin Latsis, one of the men appointed to oversee the Cheka, wrote explicitly of the role of identity politics in the Red Terror:
Publicly, Lenin stated that Latsis's methods were excessive and that he talked too much about collective punishment -- but my opinion is that Lenin simply didn't want the quite part said out loud. Lenin never removed Latsis from his position, and Latsis's views, as reflected in the quotation above, essentially governed the tactics of the Cheka under Lenin's command. The Red Terror was the first modern experiment in social justice -- carried out under the same pretext embraced by the modern social justice movement (historical class exploitation), and with indiscriminate cruelty that was scarcely hinted at before the fact.
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