Incidentally, that's why I don't bother reading a lot of other forums and news sites anymore. Even Tucker, the person able to get away with the most blasphemy. It's all standardized.
"Here is a new awful thing, don't you feel awful about it?"
"I do, I do! So, what's the solution, comrade?"
"I dunno, vote or tell your friends or something. But here's another awful thing that's happening!"
It makes for decent listening, during the day on the radio. Milquetoast Republican versus milquetoast Democrat on the morning show, moderate conservative jerkoff in the late morning, then 2 slapdicks in Rush's old slot. Mildly more stimulating than the 30-ish classic rock songs on other stations, but not by much, and I wouldn't sit there and focus on their monologues without zoning out as badly as when I attempted to read The Great Gatsby.
Not wrong tho. You cannot look at the crime rates and not come to that conclusion, when raised on the collective guilt stories from school. You don't go from Emmitt Till to the amount of shit that occurs today without a hard reversal in standards, an unspoken tolerance of so much evil so long as it doesn't work against the goal.
Huwhite women are a fascinating bloc that way. Desperate to be out from under the yoke of the patriarchy, allowed it, and then immediately preyed on with the loss of special, protected status. But still a lingering place of high value, leveraged for real power. Split along partisan lines, same as the men, but the face and foot soldiers of social justice. It's hard to reconcile what I would expect of a bloc, as we're doomed to live along those lines of distinction for generations now, that should be the least likely to accept being dragged through the cultural mud and commodified as sexual status indicators.
And as part of the empathetic performance, a woman who lived in a literal dictatorship, crossed a desert, and was an actual refugee, becomes a victim, as huwhite-adjacent, for the cause, while the nominal majority of Americans mill around or chastises her. It's so silly, but deadly serious, and it makes it difficult to know where I should plant my feet anymore.
Autumn in sight edition: Yearly costs are all paid for, time to donate if you can!//DA4 concept art, Anthem revamp, ME HD remaster, hey, it's something
Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!
Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!
So ICE now works on the whims of organizations explicitly aimed at getting rid of them. Leaked communications show some activist from an Abolish ICE group sending an email to request an illegal with a record of crime from being deported. ICE promptly shot the message up the chain of command, and he was given a reprieve.
They're also dispersing illegals throughout the country, planes and buses at the very least. Many of these people also have corona. That doesn't appear to matter, and the human beings who are physically dealing with this, towns and cities overrun, are left to rot.
The key point to understand here is that the government, and ICE by its employees not staging a revolt or quitting, is actively more harmful than if they did nothing at all. Consider the costs here. You have a border and agents, those are manned, costs a lot. Then when they corral people, need to have groups bring them legal and material services, more money. Then you hear their asylum claims, set up court dates to be ignored, that all costs money. Then you arrange transportation for these invaders, secret midnight planes and buses to wherever they want to go, more money. And then, on top of all this, as the ones with corona inevitably spread the disease among themselves and wherever they wind up, you get the massive medical costs.
If they did nothing at all, simply waved in the hordes and handed them $1,000 in cash, it'd do less harm and cost far less. It's madness. Like a parody of Soviet bureaucratic incompetence and malevolence. And then we have the dichotomy of corona being the most important issue of our time, requiring draconian measures, sacrifice, all to save every possible life from a terrible end. And we're actively seeding population centers with more of it. There's your human empathy, a third worlder with corona living in America is more important than stopping the virus. Stopping the virus is more important than making a living (or getting unemployment which the brilliant minds employed by the state screwed up in my case). Making a living is more important than civil liberties. Civil liberties are more important than being with dying family. Jose Sanchez, illiterate 25 year old farm worker with corona, being flown to Maine is more important than William Americanson, old Yankee stock, being at the deathbed of his mother. This is the moral system we're operating under.
In one hand, mandatory vaccines, MASKS, passports, "we're all in this together", trillions in spending, variants, and people dying miserably. In the other, "Fuck every one of you born here, this is a land for immigrants."
Touch frustrating, it is.
They're also dispersing illegals throughout the country, planes and buses at the very least. Many of these people also have corona. That doesn't appear to matter, and the human beings who are physically dealing with this, towns and cities overrun, are left to rot.
The key point to understand here is that the government, and ICE by its employees not staging a revolt or quitting, is actively more harmful than if they did nothing at all. Consider the costs here. You have a border and agents, those are manned, costs a lot. Then when they corral people, need to have groups bring them legal and material services, more money. Then you hear their asylum claims, set up court dates to be ignored, that all costs money. Then you arrange transportation for these invaders, secret midnight planes and buses to wherever they want to go, more money. And then, on top of all this, as the ones with corona inevitably spread the disease among themselves and wherever they wind up, you get the massive medical costs.
If they did nothing at all, simply waved in the hordes and handed them $1,000 in cash, it'd do less harm and cost far less. It's madness. Like a parody of Soviet bureaucratic incompetence and malevolence. And then we have the dichotomy of corona being the most important issue of our time, requiring draconian measures, sacrifice, all to save every possible life from a terrible end. And we're actively seeding population centers with more of it. There's your human empathy, a third worlder with corona living in America is more important than stopping the virus. Stopping the virus is more important than making a living (or getting unemployment which the brilliant minds employed by the state screwed up in my case). Making a living is more important than civil liberties. Civil liberties are more important than being with dying family. Jose Sanchez, illiterate 25 year old farm worker with corona, being flown to Maine is more important than William Americanson, old Yankee stock, being at the deathbed of his mother. This is the moral system we're operating under.
In one hand, mandatory vaccines, MASKS, passports, "we're all in this together", trillions in spending, variants, and people dying miserably. In the other, "Fuck every one of you born here, this is a land for immigrants."
Touch frustrating, it is.
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FrozenShadow
- Posts: 655
- Joined: August 15th, 2016, 2:38 pm
Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!
You know, reading about US leaving Afghanistan and the ever worsening situation in there....I can't help but wonder that haven't US actually learned anything from their very own history?
I mean, what's happening now in Afghanistan is exactly what happened during Vietnam war with South Vietnam. US comes to the country, takes lion share of all fighting, while training the local troops......troops, who have no real morale and are more of there to collect easy paychecks or other material benefits. And then came a day, when US withdraws all of their troops and fighting was left for South Vietnamese. Well, we all know how that ended.
And now, it seems that history will be repeating itself in Afghanistan. Even to very same about 20 years of war/fightning period that was in Vietnam War. Honestly, seems like the whole Afghanistan situation is carbon copy of Vietnam War.
I would even say that this current situation in even ironic. You would think that that Vietnam war era was so traumatic for Americans that no one wanted to repeat the mess....but lo and behold, people seemingly didn't learn a thing.
How's the saying went again......."Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”
I mean, what's happening now in Afghanistan is exactly what happened during Vietnam war with South Vietnam. US comes to the country, takes lion share of all fighting, while training the local troops......troops, who have no real morale and are more of there to collect easy paychecks or other material benefits. And then came a day, when US withdraws all of their troops and fighting was left for South Vietnamese. Well, we all know how that ended.
And now, it seems that history will be repeating itself in Afghanistan. Even to very same about 20 years of war/fightning period that was in Vietnam War. Honestly, seems like the whole Afghanistan situation is carbon copy of Vietnam War.
I would even say that this current situation in even ironic. You would think that that Vietnam war era was so traumatic for Americans that no one wanted to repeat the mess....but lo and behold, people seemingly didn't learn a thing.
How's the saying went again......."Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”
Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!
All these squares make a circle.
Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!
I just avoid reading about Afghanistan. It's just depressing. There are just no good answers. Forever War. Humanitarian clusterfuck. Pure unapologetic imperialism. These all completely suck.
Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!
Depressing in what sense though? If decades of endless cash, training, and blood hasn't done anything to make the people actually want to stand and fight, then so be it.
It is odd to watch a country fall in real time.
@Frozen: There is a very real possibility that the vast majority of the people in this country who actually make these sorts of military decisions don't know anything about the Soviet war in Afghanistan, little about Vietnam, and certainly not the knowledge borne from those conflicts. And by that I mean, they don't know. The military lads themselves surely do. The politicians and committees who hammer this shit out? Surface level education at best.
Kabul should fall by the weekend, unless we have troops there to fight for a government that failed to engender any will to fight for it from the people it governed. Or maybe we'll see a reversal, we dump men back in there, and stir up the coals for another generation. The neoliberals are in full power, with neocons at their teats. Nothing's impossible.
It is odd to watch a country fall in real time.
@Frozen: There is a very real possibility that the vast majority of the people in this country who actually make these sorts of military decisions don't know anything about the Soviet war in Afghanistan, little about Vietnam, and certainly not the knowledge borne from those conflicts. And by that I mean, they don't know. The military lads themselves surely do. The politicians and committees who hammer this shit out? Surface level education at best.
Kabul should fall by the weekend, unless we have troops there to fight for a government that failed to engender any will to fight for it from the people it governed. Or maybe we'll see a reversal, we dump men back in there, and stir up the coals for another generation. The neoliberals are in full power, with neocons at their teats. Nothing's impossible.
Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!
Vol wrote:Depressing in what sense though? If decades of endless cash, training, and blood hasn't done anything to make the people actually want to stand and fight, then so be it.
https://www.npr.org/2021/08/13/10275208 ... n-agencies
Since May, nearly 250,000 people have been forced from their homes; 80% of them are women and children, said Shabia Mantoo, a spokesperson for the U.N. refugee agency.
One in two children under age 5 in the country are suffering from severe acute malnutrition, said Mustapha Ben Messaoud, chief of field operations for UNICEF.
Inasmuch as the status quo was obviously going nowhere you can make the argument this is much like cutting off a gangrenous limb. It makes the transitions to something else, anything at all possible. It still means a limb was cut off.
Put more bluntly. Wanting us out of the hellhole and being glad we finally pulled the tooth does not preclude me feeling pity for the people of Afghanistan. My pity does them 0 good and it changes nothing but it remains. Hence why it's depressing.
Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!
Ah, right. I was reading about the Black Death today, so my empathetic barometer is calibrated by that.
I wouldn't even frame it as a gangrenous limb. We were getting something out of being there. Granted, a lot of that was opium and embezzled funds, but we were factually, if inadvertently, improving the lot of some people. More like a limb born gnarled, it kinda works, but at a point, the looks and whispers are too much.
Though I would think every major aid group is scrambling to get people over there right now, as we can all see what's coming.
I wouldn't even frame it as a gangrenous limb. We were getting something out of being there. Granted, a lot of that was opium and embezzled funds, but we were factually, if inadvertently, improving the lot of some people. More like a limb born gnarled, it kinda works, but at a point, the looks and whispers are too much.
Though I would think every major aid group is scrambling to get people over there right now, as we can all see what's coming.
Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!
Kabul appears to be under siege. We're sending in a couple thousand troops to try and extract the last of our staff, since presumably it will fall before the weekend is out. It's been fun to see the Taliban videos of the lovely offices and estates we built for the officials who fled because the military we trained and armed didn't want to fight.
Meanwhile, census data is in. For the first time in recorded history, the huwhite population of the USA has dropped in both percentage and raw numbers. A milestone! Also, the far NE bloc of Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire, a long holdout against diversity, has seen some progress. The latter 2 have dipped below 90% homogeneity, I am positive their cuisine and ways of thinking will be enriched as a result.
5,000,000 person net loss, presumably mainly due to the joys of international trade, and open borders, bringing us lots of opioids. Pundits and such are of course delighted with the news, and have already started banging a drum about how a (soon to be) minority population must not be allowed to decide the politics and culture of the nation, as if we had any power to do so. I suspect there are very few WASPs with any mass cultural power. I have no doubts they intend to make good on that veiled threat, however, as we actively important millions more replacement Americans, and social vengeance programs continue to roll out. My childhood vision of a colorblind future where we all hold hands and play under a rainbow has, perhaps, been somewhat twisted over the last few decades.
Not really super upset about all this though. Sort of like that scene in the Simpsons, where Mr. Burns is shown the visual representation of his immune system as a logjam of fatal disease, so none can actually get through. That's probably healthier than getting super mad about any one ridiculous thing, absorb it all at once, and become detached, like watching an orangutan eat a banana at the zoo. "Huh, I guess that is how it works."
Meanwhile, census data is in. For the first time in recorded history, the huwhite population of the USA has dropped in both percentage and raw numbers. A milestone! Also, the far NE bloc of Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire, a long holdout against diversity, has seen some progress. The latter 2 have dipped below 90% homogeneity, I am positive their cuisine and ways of thinking will be enriched as a result.
5,000,000 person net loss, presumably mainly due to the joys of international trade, and open borders, bringing us lots of opioids. Pundits and such are of course delighted with the news, and have already started banging a drum about how a (soon to be) minority population must not be allowed to decide the politics and culture of the nation, as if we had any power to do so. I suspect there are very few WASPs with any mass cultural power. I have no doubts they intend to make good on that veiled threat, however, as we actively important millions more replacement Americans, and social vengeance programs continue to roll out. My childhood vision of a colorblind future where we all hold hands and play under a rainbow has, perhaps, been somewhat twisted over the last few decades.
Not really super upset about all this though. Sort of like that scene in the Simpsons, where Mr. Burns is shown the visual representation of his immune system as a logjam of fatal disease, so none can actually get through. That's probably healthier than getting super mad about any one ridiculous thing, absorb it all at once, and become detached, like watching an orangutan eat a banana at the zoo. "Huh, I guess that is how it works."
Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!
Fun fact that doesn't fit elsewhere: The guy who coined the "No true Scotsman" fallacy and redefined atheism as a passive position (Thus requiring no assertions), though it took until the new millennium to catch on, was a fellow named Anthony Flew. He died only within the last decade or so. Would've thought that both were centuries old otherwise.
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SciFlyBoy
- Posts: 2660
- Joined: August 8th, 2016, 1:54 pm
- Location: somewhere in the Alpha Quadrant
- Contact:
Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!
Another recall is upon us in California. I voted for Arnold last time, Davis was just the worst. Had no idea Arnold would cower after his first wound and turn into a spineless puppy dog, ugh. That still stings.
I'm personally voting to recall Newsom. We don't need him or people like him in charge. Looking into Larry Elder, don't know much about him but I'll do my fair research. I just want a selfless governor that does a good job for the people, not a good job for themselves.
I'm personally voting to recall Newsom. We don't need him or people like him in charge. Looking into Larry Elder, don't know much about him but I'll do my fair research. I just want a selfless governor that does a good job for the people, not a good job for themselves.
fancy signature
Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!
All I know of Larry Elder is that the guys on the morning radio shows like him, while the chucklefucks in Rush's spot don't talk about him. So he's probably a fairly moderate conservative. That's usually the best choice for governor, they don't mess things up, enough brains to read the room, and enough morals to not be completely corrupt.
Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!
I'd actually take some kind of Mitt Romney sans foreign adventurism standard Republican at this point. There's a lot I hate in standard Reagan Republican package but it's certainly better than the assortment of clowns and dusted off hawkish neoconservatives that are currently on offer. Biden is about as inoffensive as I think it's possible for a Democrat to be at the moment but "shovels money" is not a long term strategy for anything.
Greg Abbot is like bog standard Texas Republican governor, which is to say crazy pro-business, transparently venal and with obvious presidential aspirations, and laying on the TEK-SUS thick by threatening to secede every few years or calling out the national guard and pretending they are the army of the Texas Republic or whatever, but this latter is just expected of a Texas governor. This more or less:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udPqt7ZEWjA
This is so standard it's really not worth wasting time worrying about. These types at least keep the state budget in pretty good shape because they are so loath to spend money. The worst asshat is Dan Patrick the Lt. Gov. He's had various bribery lawsuits and such against him most of the time he's been in office.
Greg Abbot is like bog standard Texas Republican governor, which is to say crazy pro-business, transparently venal and with obvious presidential aspirations, and laying on the TEK-SUS thick by threatening to secede every few years or calling out the national guard and pretending they are the army of the Texas Republic or whatever, but this latter is just expected of a Texas governor. This more or less:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udPqt7ZEWjA
This is so standard it's really not worth wasting time worrying about. These types at least keep the state budget in pretty good shape because they are so loath to spend money. The worst asshat is Dan Patrick the Lt. Gov. He's had various bribery lawsuits and such against him most of the time he's been in office.
Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!
About books but super political so dumping here. NPR polls readers about their favorite sci-fi/fantasy books of the last ten years:
https://www.npr.org/2021/08/18/10271591 ... ast-decade
I glance over it because there might be something in there worth taking note of. They happen to give a description of the process they used for determining the end results. (Which is just bizarre, the results of the poll just are what they are or so you would think). So I look at their methodology they are blatantly providing:
https://www.npr.org/2021/06/22/10074040 ... ert-judges
And to make a long story short, this is a case study in "how can we force the results of this poll to say what we want (woke bullshit) and not what people would actually vote for (a bunch of classics and best sellers by mostly white people)."
"So we thought it would be a great time to revisit our original 2011 reader poll of favorite science fiction and fantasy. And not just because of all the fantastic new stuff that's come out in the past decade, but because that 2011 list has some notable holes in it when it comes to race and gender. (Octavia Butler fans, I am SO sorry. But we do plan to address that with a supplement to first list.)"
"This year's summer reader poll was also shaped by a series of "what ifs" — most importantly, what if, instead of looking at the entire history of the field the way we did in our 2011 poll, we only focused on what's happened in the decade since? These past 10 years have brought seismic change to science fiction and fantasy (sometimes literally, in the case of N.K. Jemisin's Broken Earth series), and we wanted to celebrate the world-shaking rush of new voices, new perspectives, new styles and new stories."
"Usually, readers will vote at least some work by our judging panel onto the list, and usually, we let the judges themselves decide whether or not to include it. But this year, I put my editorial foot down — all four judges made it to the semifinals, and had we not included them, the final product would be the less for it." Translation: You guys didn't pick these woke nobodies we picked to judge this stuff! How could you?!
The Hugos are also now heavily curated to be woke (thanks for stupidly raising the stakes and then losing Puppies! great job there!) and I've even heard that the New York Times Bestseller list screws with things to pad or tank books for various reasons (though apparently they have done this for years). This leaves the interesting question of how the hell do you even *try* to find newer non-woke books? And I mean *good* non-woke books, not popular shlock of the Nora Roberts or James Patterson persuasion. They are working their ass off to try to bury this stuff.
To be fair there's some perfectly good books in the final list, some of which are even "woke." The Goblin Emperor as one example is a truly good book and checks various woke boxes and I've gone on about The Expanse in the book thread before. It is kind of funny that Cixin Liu's Three Body Problem made the list. One book in that series features the human race getting trashed by aliens specifically because human culture had become too effete and feminine and the female guardian appointed to protect us from said aliens was too soft. But "Cixin Liu" is an obviously not white name and probably nobody on the judge panel actually read it so it makes the list!
But for point of reference for how full of shit this is here are two polls on Goodreads which are pretty much non filtered to match some agenda on people's favorite sci-fi/fantasy of the last ten years:
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/751 ... 2010_2019_
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/386 ... _the_2010s
Notice that for the most part the assorted rubbish in the curated NPR list is nowhere near the top of these? I'm not complaining about curating lists. I'm complaining that they are trying to put forward a curated list as representative of "favorites" because the reality of what people actually prefer is not the reality they want. It's right up there with all the people now trying to get rid of test scores in schools because test scores (accurately) record that some kids are worse at school than others.
NPR is also just a case study in moral panic bizarro land that went into overdrive this last year in general. I used to listen to it and while it was achingly progressive it was at least informative and had no adds. Now, I will turn on the radio while driving and immediately get something like this:
Feature focusing on a fat, black yoga instructor who is noteworthy specifically for being a fat, black yoga instructor
Interview with author who wrote (I kid you not) In Defense of Looting
I've heard people joke about doing a countdown when you start NPR to see how long before they start talking about something like this and most people averaging less than five minutes.
They get some negligible part of their funding from government money but I think I may have joined the economic libertarian "defund NPR" stuff from ten years ago.
https://www.npr.org/2021/08/18/10271591 ... ast-decade
I glance over it because there might be something in there worth taking note of. They happen to give a description of the process they used for determining the end results. (Which is just bizarre, the results of the poll just are what they are or so you would think). So I look at their methodology they are blatantly providing:
https://www.npr.org/2021/06/22/10074040 ... ert-judges
And to make a long story short, this is a case study in "how can we force the results of this poll to say what we want (woke bullshit) and not what people would actually vote for (a bunch of classics and best sellers by mostly white people)."
"So we thought it would be a great time to revisit our original 2011 reader poll of favorite science fiction and fantasy. And not just because of all the fantastic new stuff that's come out in the past decade, but because that 2011 list has some notable holes in it when it comes to race and gender. (Octavia Butler fans, I am SO sorry. But we do plan to address that with a supplement to first list.)"
"This year's summer reader poll was also shaped by a series of "what ifs" — most importantly, what if, instead of looking at the entire history of the field the way we did in our 2011 poll, we only focused on what's happened in the decade since? These past 10 years have brought seismic change to science fiction and fantasy (sometimes literally, in the case of N.K. Jemisin's Broken Earth series), and we wanted to celebrate the world-shaking rush of new voices, new perspectives, new styles and new stories."
"Usually, readers will vote at least some work by our judging panel onto the list, and usually, we let the judges themselves decide whether or not to include it. But this year, I put my editorial foot down — all four judges made it to the semifinals, and had we not included them, the final product would be the less for it." Translation: You guys didn't pick these woke nobodies we picked to judge this stuff! How could you?!
The Hugos are also now heavily curated to be woke (thanks for stupidly raising the stakes and then losing Puppies! great job there!) and I've even heard that the New York Times Bestseller list screws with things to pad or tank books for various reasons (though apparently they have done this for years). This leaves the interesting question of how the hell do you even *try* to find newer non-woke books? And I mean *good* non-woke books, not popular shlock of the Nora Roberts or James Patterson persuasion. They are working their ass off to try to bury this stuff.
To be fair there's some perfectly good books in the final list, some of which are even "woke." The Goblin Emperor as one example is a truly good book and checks various woke boxes and I've gone on about The Expanse in the book thread before. It is kind of funny that Cixin Liu's Three Body Problem made the list. One book in that series features the human race getting trashed by aliens specifically because human culture had become too effete and feminine and the female guardian appointed to protect us from said aliens was too soft. But "Cixin Liu" is an obviously not white name and probably nobody on the judge panel actually read it so it makes the list!
But for point of reference for how full of shit this is here are two polls on Goodreads which are pretty much non filtered to match some agenda on people's favorite sci-fi/fantasy of the last ten years:
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/751 ... 2010_2019_
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/386 ... _the_2010s
Notice that for the most part the assorted rubbish in the curated NPR list is nowhere near the top of these? I'm not complaining about curating lists. I'm complaining that they are trying to put forward a curated list as representative of "favorites" because the reality of what people actually prefer is not the reality they want. It's right up there with all the people now trying to get rid of test scores in schools because test scores (accurately) record that some kids are worse at school than others.
NPR is also just a case study in moral panic bizarro land that went into overdrive this last year in general. I used to listen to it and while it was achingly progressive it was at least informative and had no adds. Now, I will turn on the radio while driving and immediately get something like this:
Feature focusing on a fat, black yoga instructor who is noteworthy specifically for being a fat, black yoga instructor
Interview with author who wrote (I kid you not) In Defense of Looting
I've heard people joke about doing a countdown when you start NPR to see how long before they start talking about something like this and most people averaging less than five minutes.
They get some negligible part of their funding from government money but I think I may have joined the economic libertarian "defund NPR" stuff from ten years ago.
Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!
It's isekai all the way down. A fantastical past, rich in culture and mystery, but set in the overly structured modern void, but also ( I assume) all the philosophical differences tossed out. There is no escape from the Adventurer's Guild. That and the self-actualization stories. "Oh I used to be a literal object, but now I'm a woman, do you get it???" Every one of those synopsis reads like a bird slamming the sides of its cage and marveling when a feather gets out.
Heh. They didn't look all bad, flippant as I'm being. I wouldn't read any of them, unless I was in a 6 hour layover or prison, but that might happen. Though your conclusion does remind me of an amateur study some guy did of adult entertainment recently. He looked at what was most popular among amateur productions, where the actors and content is entirely up to the creators, and the success is up to actual people, against what was presented as popular by big repositories. Much like your book lists, the "real results" were significantly different than the curated results, in about the way you'd expect.
I would think anything not nu-orthodox wouldn't even get picked up for printing and publishing right now. Depending on how much that matters to your tastes, self-published or online only, I suppose. I've been looking into the academic study of the Bible, who wrote what, where, when, why. Fascinating stuff, but with an irrationally skeptical bias at times. To which I realized, any person of faith that academically gifted would be in the seminary, doing other work. I think of the state of literature like that, anyone inclined to write a brilliant story would be putting their talents to use elsewhere. We see that in vidya, comics, and other creative fields.
My hardcore dedication to free speech has been sorely tested in the last few years. Not by you guys, but by seeing what is allowed to happen given enough time and pressure.
Heh. They didn't look all bad, flippant as I'm being. I wouldn't read any of them, unless I was in a 6 hour layover or prison, but that might happen. Though your conclusion does remind me of an amateur study some guy did of adult entertainment recently. He looked at what was most popular among amateur productions, where the actors and content is entirely up to the creators, and the success is up to actual people, against what was presented as popular by big repositories. Much like your book lists, the "real results" were significantly different than the curated results, in about the way you'd expect.
I would think anything not nu-orthodox wouldn't even get picked up for printing and publishing right now. Depending on how much that matters to your tastes, self-published or online only, I suppose. I've been looking into the academic study of the Bible, who wrote what, where, when, why. Fascinating stuff, but with an irrationally skeptical bias at times. To which I realized, any person of faith that academically gifted would be in the seminary, doing other work. I think of the state of literature like that, anyone inclined to write a brilliant story would be putting their talents to use elsewhere. We see that in vidya, comics, and other creative fields.
They get some negligible part of their funding from government money but I think I may have joined the economic libertarian "defund NPR" stuff from ten years ago.
My hardcore dedication to free speech has been sorely tested in the last few years. Not by you guys, but by seeing what is allowed to happen given enough time and pressure.
Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!
It's not the Bible specifically but if you want somebody who writes about the early church and is not a skeptic there is Henry Chadwick. I read about half of one book of his but fell off because it was a print and I get distracted easily from print (The Church in Ancient Society: From Galilee to Gregory the Great).
I'd also just look into Jesuit scholars. There are many of them including in the sciences.
For serious stuff like this on the Old Testament I'd be inclined to say go find some rabbis with history degrees. They must exist.
As for finding books, I've mostly diverted to reading stuff written before 2010 which has worked pretty well. Goodreads and Amazon algorithms are also not terrible at making recommendations because they are just trying to sell things and/or get clicks for ad so they don't care what you read so long as you buy something. I do still try some new stuff now and again but the crap to decent ratio is very high. The Hugos and World Fantasy Awards from before circa 2015 are all mostly indicative of quality so I know pretty much anything nominated for one will probably be good. Looking up everything ever nominated for one of those awards before 2015 or so is dozens of potential reads by itself.
I'd also just look into Jesuit scholars. There are many of them including in the sciences.
For serious stuff like this on the Old Testament I'd be inclined to say go find some rabbis with history degrees. They must exist.
As for finding books, I've mostly diverted to reading stuff written before 2010 which has worked pretty well. Goodreads and Amazon algorithms are also not terrible at making recommendations because they are just trying to sell things and/or get clicks for ad so they don't care what you read so long as you buy something. I do still try some new stuff now and again but the crap to decent ratio is very high. The Hugos and World Fantasy Awards from before circa 2015 are all mostly indicative of quality so I know pretty much anything nominated for one will probably be good. Looking up everything ever nominated for one of those awards before 2015 or so is dozens of potential reads by itself.
Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!
More info on historical marriage patterns: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_E ... ge_pattern
Dudes in Albion's Seed were not outliers but Western Europe in general apparently is.
Dudes in Albion's Seed were not outliers but Western Europe in general apparently is.
Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!
A man, apparently a pretty standard Facebook Boomer MAGA type, rolled into the den of vipers (DC) and claimed to have a bomb in his truck. I'm hearing it was tannerite, if anything, so calling it a bomb is being a bit generous. According to messages he'd written before driving down there, he was ready to die, he'd made peace with God, and that Biden needed to bomb the Taliban, and other shit of the like. He surrendered to the cops.
I've noticed that in the rare times that the hegemony has egg on their face, on cue, some lone nutjob will do something like this. I distinctly remember having this exact same thought multiple times before, though I can't recall which events. Not to say a time of tension and anger at the nobility can't push someone on the edge over it, but it sure is weird how well it works out for them, because these guys never really execute their plan to the fullest, and always surrender.
But we'll see. If the press makes this guy the leading story, he's a fed. If they don't, he's a liar for not being willing to die for what he believes.
Also, here, an abomination: https://www.newscientist.com/article/22 ... see-light/
Keeping in mind, no one knows how the mind actually works, or the brain, or if they're the same thing. We have only strong assumptions and correlations when working with grown brains. Though regardless of that, _should_ researchers _ever_ be doing experiments of this kind? I can imagine there's some medical applications, but the ethical slippery slope is terrifying.
@Raga: I'm not opposed to skepticism, it's the irrational kind, or those who wear it like a badge, that put me off. People of high intellectual capability perverting their field of study being endemic. Secular Ken Hams. Though I'm finding the Eastern Orthodox have a pretty healthy view of the Bible in general. I'm (very, very slowly) reading a massive paper on the Orthodox take on Genesis by the late Father Seraphim Rose. Thus far, he's trying to reconcile the facts of evolution that we can know against the philosophical extrapolations that are necessarily bundled with it (Neo-Darwinism). I have no idea if he'll make a good case yet.
The only books I have made in the last decade are either technical manuals, 40k/Mass Effect schlock, Japanese light novels, and ASoIaF. How long does it normally take for the churn of literature to bring the gold out from the silt though?
I've noticed that in the rare times that the hegemony has egg on their face, on cue, some lone nutjob will do something like this. I distinctly remember having this exact same thought multiple times before, though I can't recall which events. Not to say a time of tension and anger at the nobility can't push someone on the edge over it, but it sure is weird how well it works out for them, because these guys never really execute their plan to the fullest, and always surrender.
But we'll see. If the press makes this guy the leading story, he's a fed. If they don't, he's a liar for not being willing to die for what he believes.
Also, here, an abomination: https://www.newscientist.com/article/22 ... see-light/
Keeping in mind, no one knows how the mind actually works, or the brain, or if they're the same thing. We have only strong assumptions and correlations when working with grown brains. Though regardless of that, _should_ researchers _ever_ be doing experiments of this kind? I can imagine there's some medical applications, but the ethical slippery slope is terrifying.
@Raga: I'm not opposed to skepticism, it's the irrational kind, or those who wear it like a badge, that put me off. People of high intellectual capability perverting their field of study being endemic. Secular Ken Hams. Though I'm finding the Eastern Orthodox have a pretty healthy view of the Bible in general. I'm (very, very slowly) reading a massive paper on the Orthodox take on Genesis by the late Father Seraphim Rose. Thus far, he's trying to reconcile the facts of evolution that we can know against the philosophical extrapolations that are necessarily bundled with it (Neo-Darwinism). I have no idea if he'll make a good case yet.
The only books I have made in the last decade are either technical manuals, 40k/Mass Effect schlock, Japanese light novels, and ASoIaF. How long does it normally take for the churn of literature to bring the gold out from the silt though?
Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!
Vol wrote: I'm hearing it was tannerite, if anything, so calling it a bomb is being a bit generous.
Have....have you not seen the videos of idiots messing about with that shit?
They can 100% make bombs out of that, with a fucktonne of shrapnel too.
Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!
I haven't! But to the best of my understanding, the stuff is legal to buy without any sort of license, and the times when people really cause problems with it, they're using a ridiculously large amount.
Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!
Vol wrote:I haven't! But to the best of my understanding, the stuff is legal to buy without any sort of license, and the times when people really cause problems with it, they're using a ridiculously large amount.
So are fireworks.
So is Styrofoam and "gasoline".
Hell even just a lot of contained manure will do it.
Lots of ways to make bombs.
Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!
Another creepy Cathedral thing I've started noticing:
So now when person of the week gets cancelled or sacked or whatever, the boring NPR type news will no longer even report what the person supposedly said that resulted in the cancelling. They will just say something like "X made statements that were disparaging to women" and not quote them. I assume they do this under the theory that words are violence and reprinting "bitch" or "slut" or "broad" or whatever thing was said will cause sensitive readers to shatter into so many glass shards on the spot. That's the kindest interpretation to give it. The nastier one is that they know whatever was said was really not that big a deal but they don't want to allow lay readers to determine that for themselves without doing their own research.
Either way, the amount of handling of the audience is creepy and fucked up.
So now when person of the week gets cancelled or sacked or whatever, the boring NPR type news will no longer even report what the person supposedly said that resulted in the cancelling. They will just say something like "X made statements that were disparaging to women" and not quote them. I assume they do this under the theory that words are violence and reprinting "bitch" or "slut" or "broad" or whatever thing was said will cause sensitive readers to shatter into so many glass shards on the spot. That's the kindest interpretation to give it. The nastier one is that they know whatever was said was really not that big a deal but they don't want to allow lay readers to determine that for themselves without doing their own research.
Either way, the amount of handling of the audience is creepy and fucked up.
Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!
Mazder wrote:So are fireworks.
So is Styrofoam and "gasoline".
Hell even just a lot of contained manure will do it.
Lots of ways to make bombs.
Right, you can also use fertilizer, or have a high school level working knowledge of chemistry, or get an anarchist book. Making a bomb, by the dictionary definition, is relatively easy.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/19/us-capi ... gress.html
He didn't appear to actually have one though. And he's crazy. But his claim was that he had 2.5 lbs of tannerite and 7 lbs of gunpowder. I don't know how much that is, but in terms of explosive potential, would that clear an office? A room? Collapse a building? No idea, at that quantity, shrapnel seems the bigger danger.
Ragabul wrote:Another creepy Cathedral thing I've started noticing:
So now when person of the week gets cancelled or sacked or whatever, the boring NPR type news will no longer even report what the person supposedly said that resulted in the cancelling. They will just say something like "X made statements that were disparaging to women" and not quote them. I assume they do this under the theory that words are violence and reprinting "bitch" or "slut" or "broad" or whatever thing was said will cause sensitive readers to shatter into so many glass shards on the spot. That's the kindest interpretation to give it. The nastier one is that they know whatever was said was really not that big a deal but they don't want to allow lay readers to determine that for themselves without doing their own research.
Either way, the amount of handling of the audience is creepy and fucked up.
The idea here is that certain words have actual metaphysical power, that's the unspoken presupposition. So it's not fuddy-duddy schoolmarms censoring raunchy language to preserve our moral purity, it's more akin to countermeasures against bigoted sorcerers.
Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!
Vol wrote:Right, you can also use fertilizer, or have a high school level working knowledge of chemistry, or get an anarchist book. Making a bomb, by the dictionary definition, is relatively easy.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/19/us-capi ... gress.html
He didn't appear to actually have one though. And he's crazy. But his claim was that he had 2.5 lbs of tannerite and 7 lbs of gunpowder. I don't know how much that is, but in terms of explosive potential, would that clear an office? A room? Collapse a building? No idea, at that quantity, shrapnel seems the bigger danger.
Sounds like he was intending to use the truck as shrapnel material.
And if it was in an office the concussive blast would have done the most damage.
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Mobius_118
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Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!
Gunpowder for an ignition and conflagration, tanerite for a little extra push.
Explosives kill with overpressure. His explosive would've made a good fireball, but overall it's just 9.5 of explosive that's more of a pushing charge. Absolutely, he was planning on using his truck has the casing to send shrapnel. Would it have been effective? Not really. The gunpowder itself would be more quick burning fireball. The tanerite would've been a little more concussive, BUT, it's a mild explosive designed for rifle targets and clearing stumps.
It would not have the intended effect. Basically it would've scared the shit out of everyone and killed people within 10 meters if they weren't in cover.
Proper VBIED's have hundreds of pounds of ammonium nitrate and a proper detonator. With that, the most memorable of VBIEDs I can recall is the Oklahoma City Bombing from Timothy McVeigh, who had thousands of pounds of fertilizer in a cargo truck.
This little bastard and his...smoke bomb...is just another example of how the far-right is just as poorly educated as one would expect.
Explosives kill with overpressure. His explosive would've made a good fireball, but overall it's just 9.5 of explosive that's more of a pushing charge. Absolutely, he was planning on using his truck has the casing to send shrapnel. Would it have been effective? Not really. The gunpowder itself would be more quick burning fireball. The tanerite would've been a little more concussive, BUT, it's a mild explosive designed for rifle targets and clearing stumps.
It would not have the intended effect. Basically it would've scared the shit out of everyone and killed people within 10 meters if they weren't in cover.
Proper VBIED's have hundreds of pounds of ammonium nitrate and a proper detonator. With that, the most memorable of VBIEDs I can recall is the Oklahoma City Bombing from Timothy McVeigh, who had thousands of pounds of fertilizer in a cargo truck.
This little bastard and his...smoke bomb...is just another example of how the far-right is just as poorly educated as one would expect.
"So you walk eternally through the shadow realms, standing against evil where all others falter. May your thirst for retribution never quench, may the blood on your sword never dry, and may we never need you again" Corrax Entry 7:17
Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!
There we go, an expert opinion. I figured that anything capable of a truly big explosion wouldn't be in this guy's truck, or he'd need so much of it he couldn't haul it in that pickup. Given he was tossing $1 bills around before this, and didn't actually have a bomb, we can conclude he's not a master chemist.
Nice to put some actual technical knowledge to it. But in terms of "general terrorism," is tannerite useful at all? I would think the knowledge and material needed to make crude grenades and mines would be a waste of time given any goal domestic terrorists might have. Pointless bombings brings everyone together against you real fast.
Nice to put some actual technical knowledge to it. But in terms of "general terrorism," is tannerite useful at all? I would think the knowledge and material needed to make crude grenades and mines would be a waste of time given any goal domestic terrorists might have. Pointless bombings brings everyone together against you real fast.
Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!
Being pointless doesn't really stop people from doing it necessarily. The Weather Underground spent years blowing up toilets with small bombs.
I can't find it now but I once read a dismissive, satirical short poem some newspaper printed back in the day about the Weathermen blowing up a lavatory for point of reference of how unseriously people started taking it.
Most terrorists don't succeed at their political goals. Now terrorist paired with actual guerilla warfare can succeed but terrorism by itself mostly does not unless your goal is mass destabilization and the society you are targeting is shaky already.
I can't find it now but I once read a dismissive, satirical short poem some newspaper printed back in the day about the Weathermen blowing up a lavatory for point of reference of how unseriously people started taking it.
Most terrorists don't succeed at their political goals. Now terrorist paired with actual guerilla warfare can succeed but terrorism by itself mostly does not unless your goal is mass destabilization and the society you are targeting is shaky already.
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Mobius_118
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Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!
Vol wrote:There we go, an expert opinion. I figured that anything capable of a truly big explosion wouldn't be in this guy's truck, or he'd need so much of it he couldn't haul it in that pickup. Given he was tossing $1 bills around before this, and didn't actually have a bomb, we can conclude he's not a master chemist.
Nice to put some actual technical knowledge to it. But in terms of "general terrorism," is tannerite useful at all? I would think the knowledge and material needed to make crude grenades and mines would be a waste of time given any goal domestic terrorists might have. Pointless bombings brings everyone together against you real fast.
Tanerite is widely available and easy to use. Its small yield is offset by how much you buy, how you process it, and how you pack it into a container. It's specifically designed to be low yield. Giving these dumb motherfuckers an explosive source is a surefire way to see more shit like this. Most of the time out here I see it used for rifle targets to make long range shots a bit more noticeable. My more foolish associates use it for shits and giggles. Now we'll see it heavily regulated some more by requiring a credit card to buy, or it'll get pulled off the market completely.
So yeah, it's absolutely useful. For a high-yield explosive, not so much, but it could be used as an initiator for a bigger explosive. All it'll take is a smart right wing terrorist to realize how to use the tools they can get.
"So you walk eternally through the shadow realms, standing against evil where all others falter. May your thirst for retribution never quench, may the blood on your sword never dry, and may we never need you again" Corrax Entry 7:17
Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!
Sounds like it'd have been smarter to load up his truck with gunpower, fireworks and a pissload of shit.
Mind you seeing as Biden is doing a Russia manufacturing ban it's going to make the whole ammo market kinda fucky from what my 2A friends say.
So maybe more fireworks, lol.
Mind you seeing as Biden is doing a Russia manufacturing ban it's going to make the whole ammo market kinda fucky from what my 2A friends say.
So maybe more fireworks, lol.
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Mobius_118
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Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!
Yeah I'm gonna miss cheap shotgun shells from Wolf.
Oh well. Buckshot is buckshot. All my other rounds are Federal or Winchester.
Oh well. Buckshot is buckshot. All my other rounds are Federal or Winchester.
"So you walk eternally through the shadow realms, standing against evil where all others falter. May your thirst for retribution never quench, may the blood on your sword never dry, and may we never need you again" Corrax Entry 7:17
Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... er/619853/
I'm interpreting this as a fight between a group of Democrats who actually just want to pass laws and a group of Democrats who are mostly just interested in getting to point fingers at the GOP and say "those guys are why we can't get anything done."
Everybody knows the 3.5T deal will likely die in the Senate. The *only* reason to tie the infrastructure bill which already passed the Senate to the fate of the budget bill in the Senate is so you can blame the GOP for the failure of both bills even though they passed one. That or the progressives really have achieved their goal of becoming the Tea Party, which is to say lots of performance but getting 0 done.
It's no particular skin off my back if either fail given how atrocious our rate of spending in general is but the infrastructure bill at least looked like something half-assedly resembling an investment and not just shoveling money into a hole.
*Edit* NVM looking like 3.5 did pass the Senate? I am getting conflicting stuff. Okay, no. The Senate passed a budget resolution calling for an additional 3.5T but that actual bill still has to go back through.
I'm interpreting this as a fight between a group of Democrats who actually just want to pass laws and a group of Democrats who are mostly just interested in getting to point fingers at the GOP and say "those guys are why we can't get anything done."
Everybody knows the 3.5T deal will likely die in the Senate. The *only* reason to tie the infrastructure bill which already passed the Senate to the fate of the budget bill in the Senate is so you can blame the GOP for the failure of both bills even though they passed one. That or the progressives really have achieved their goal of becoming the Tea Party, which is to say lots of performance but getting 0 done.
It's no particular skin off my back if either fail given how atrocious our rate of spending in general is but the infrastructure bill at least looked like something half-assedly resembling an investment and not just shoveling money into a hole.
*Edit* NVM looking like 3.5 did pass the Senate? I am getting conflicting stuff. Okay, no. The Senate passed a budget resolution calling for an additional 3.5T but that actual bill still has to go back through.
Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!
Ragabul wrote:Being pointless doesn't really stop people from doing it necessarily. The Weather Underground spent years blowing up toilets with small bombs.
I can't find it now but I once read a dismissive, satirical short poem some newspaper printed back in the day about the Weathermen blowing up a lavatory for point of reference of how unseriously people started taking it.
Most terrorists don't succeed at their political goals. Now terrorist paired with actual guerilla warfare can succeed but terrorism by itself mostly does not unless your goal is mass destabilization and the society you are targeting is shaky already.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Ayers
Not all terrorism is created equal. These ones _did_ succeed at their goal, though it took a bit longer. It's a principle I've noted before, that only certain kinds of political violence are actually "bad. The Turner Diaries parroted this idea, that while it was cathartic for the Neo-Nazis to randomly kill their enemies with great, sudden violence, it achieved nothing but more government repression that everyone else welcomed. I imagine the author was looking at the 70's for his inspiration.
Mobius_118 wrote:Yeah I'm gonna miss cheap shotgun shells from Wolf.
Oh well. Buckshot is buckshot. All my other rounds are Federal or Winchester.
Much like the GPU shortage, I've not heard ammo was well stocked in a long time now. Though with the success of the Taliban, I imagine a lot of rocking chair revolutionaries think they can stock up and pull of the same feat.
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Mobius_118
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Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!
Vol wrote:Mobius_118 wrote:Yeah I'm gonna miss cheap shotgun shells from Wolf.
Oh well. Buckshot is buckshot. All my other rounds are Federal or Winchester.
Much like the GPU shortage, I've not heard ammo was well stocked in a long time now. Though with the success of the Taliban, I imagine a lot of rocking chair revolutionaries think they can stock up and pull of the same feat.
Ammo isn't too hard to find, I can find tracer rounds for my AR, buckshot of any type for my Maverick, and .45 Hydrashok real easy.
But these dudes wanna stock up enough rounds each to take and hold a position against the government which has belt fed MGs. Sorry, not sorry, they'll get shredded.
"So you walk eternally through the shadow realms, standing against evil where all others falter. May your thirst for retribution never quench, may the blood on your sword never dry, and may we never need you again" Corrax Entry 7:17
Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!
Vol wrote:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Ayers
Not all terrorism is created equal. These ones _did_ succeed at their goal, though it took a bit longer.
I wouldn't really call some members of the Weather Underground managing to money launder themselves into relevance as part of the very system they were trying to overthrow a success. This would be the equivalent of a bonafide night riding Klansman laundering himself into an immigration skeptic social conservative that managed to win a House race in Alabama. Like, yeah, he "won" on some metric but only by completely giving up on his original methods and goals.
The Weathermen were an abject failure at their stated purpose. They did not start a revolution. They did not overthrow capitalism or end imperialism or whatever. They blew up some toilets, the same statue of a cop several times, a few of their own members, and maybe one guy it's never been possible to prove for sure they killed. Some of them managed to sheepishly return to normal life and hide their past. Some managed to launder themselves into success in some crazy left wing foundations.
*Edit*
Actually, if you want an example of successful terrorism: the First Klan was successful. It succeeded in so exhausting the North that it got them to withdraw and leave the South to itself.
It's probably the case that terrorism to get an occupier to leave is probably one of the more consistently successful varieties.
Also, noteworthy I think for why the kind of activism that finally got rid of Jim Crow in the South was nonviolence lead by black Southern pastors + cameras and lawsuits. The Northern variety of resistance was more like the Black Panthers and that's mostly been useless.
Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!
It would be fun to see like some dude who was in The Order and found Jeebus in prison get pardoned just to watch the fireworks. There is a double standard. That part I'm not denying.
Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!
Mobius_118 wrote:
Ammo isn't too hard to find, I can find tracer rounds for my AR, buckshot of any type for my Maverick, and .45 Hydrashok real easy.
But these dudes wanna stock up enough rounds each to take and hold a position against the government which has belt fed MGs. Sorry, not sorry, they'll get shredded.
Didn't seem to matter to the Taliban, who I assume are still using the Soviet surplus their grandfathers carried. More that American dissidents are raised on luxury and secular chiliasm, regardless of what they personally believe. Going all Red Dawn and waging a guerilla campaign of attrition is a hard sell when you have no legacy or strong principles.
Ragabul wrote:
Also, noteworthy I think for why the kind of activism that finally got rid of Jim Crow in the South was nonviolence lead by black Southern pastors + cameras and lawsuits. The Northern variety of resistance was more like the Black Panthers and that's mostly been useless.
I've made a game of, when reading an article about MLK, if when his proper title is used, they include "the Reverend" before "Doctor (of theology)." Similar to how I was taught about the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade, it never came up that it was a bunch of Quakers and priests that used moral pleading to get the ball rolling.
The theory I've always heard was that it was a 2-pronged approach. And the violence and the peace complemented each other, because it scared people into action, then presented the soft alternative that would otherwise be ignored. Offer something people don't want, they'll refuse it. Offer something they don't want, then something far worse, and they'll take it. There's a kernel of truth in there.
Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!
Also noteworthy that a nontrivial percentage of the military demographic is working class redneck type and many of these wannabe paramilitary outfits prize people with actual military experience. Back in the day during the 1970s at the height of the white power movement, the military had problems with stuff getting stolen from bases because there were active duty sympathizers who were willing to pass stuff along. A band of 50 Bubbas in tactical Underoos is obviously not going to stand a chance against the government. But in some hypothetical *actually* effective insurrection, I would assume some former or current members of the military would join it. This is currently exceedingly unlikely and highly speculative. I imagine that technologically speaking the military is much more capable of monitoring its inventory of stuff and what its personnel are up to in their free time than in the 1970s, but I have 0 idea if they are actually doing this well just because they should be theoretically able to do it well.
On Civil Rights, I'm extremely skeptical of the carrot/stick theory. It is true that there was a mirror more secular northern aspect of the nonviolent movement in the forms of things like SNCC, but these guys still mostly did boring politics 101 stuff like getting people registered to vote, marches, and sit-ins. The actual militant stuff like the Black Panthers became more popular in the later part of the 1960s (mostly because various radicals got sick of incrementalism) and the most overtly violent stuff was late 60s and early 70s. The worst year for rioting was 1968 after MLK was assassinated. As far as I can tell, this is the period when people really soured on left wing activism and went into retrenchment mode. They voted for Nixon and eventually they got so sick of it they voted for Reagan. The big successes for Civil Rights mostly come at the end of the 1950s and beginning of the 1960s during the "nice" period and the public turns colder as the violence mounts.
*Edit* It is true that Malcolm X was in the "nice" period but even he mostly preached a kind of black separationism from white people and not as much violent revolutionary stuff and it's hard to call him an unabashed militant when he started souring on the Nation of Islam because of its violence.
On Civil Rights, I'm extremely skeptical of the carrot/stick theory. It is true that there was a mirror more secular northern aspect of the nonviolent movement in the forms of things like SNCC, but these guys still mostly did boring politics 101 stuff like getting people registered to vote, marches, and sit-ins. The actual militant stuff like the Black Panthers became more popular in the later part of the 1960s (mostly because various radicals got sick of incrementalism) and the most overtly violent stuff was late 60s and early 70s. The worst year for rioting was 1968 after MLK was assassinated. As far as I can tell, this is the period when people really soured on left wing activism and went into retrenchment mode. They voted for Nixon and eventually they got so sick of it they voted for Reagan. The big successes for Civil Rights mostly come at the end of the 1950s and beginning of the 1960s during the "nice" period and the public turns colder as the violence mounts.
*Edit* It is true that Malcolm X was in the "nice" period but even he mostly preached a kind of black separationism from white people and not as much violent revolutionary stuff and it's hard to call him an unabashed militant when he started souring on the Nation of Islam because of its violence.
Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!
What do you know, one of the few flat out socialists I routinely read talking about the uselessness of directionless violence compared to people who organize and do boring activism: https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/an ... less-child
Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!
well we danes had to release 3 prisoners (refugies) as we couldn't send them back to Afghanistan because of the Taliban situation.
the post is over, stop reading and move on.
Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!
I feel like I'm having a harder time than normal trying to penetrate the Blob in order to have some sort of halfassedley sensible opinion about Afghanistan. A few things seem pretty much indisputable:
The Afghan government was a house of cards that was going to fall no matter what our time table for leaving was.
There was always going to be backlash against various Westerners who remained and people who helped Westerners once we left.
There were always going to be more people who wanted out of Afghanistan than we could or would be willing to move out.
The level of commitment of what was needed for "success" (whatever the hell that even is) was never something the non-military establishment was ever going to provide because it would be unpopular with the American public yet no establishment (military or otherwise) wanted to admit it wasn't working so they just kept treading water for years.
These are all excellent reasons for leaving now instead of some ill-defined "right" time in the future. The question that's pertinent right now is: Was our current leaving uniquely botched in a way it wouldn't have been if we did X thing somewhat different instead?
I'm reading things like "Biden evacuated all the military people first which let the Taliban take over Kabul and trap various civilians who now can't evacuate. He should have gotten them first and then moved out the troops."
But I'm also reading things like "the State department told Americans to leave weeks to months ago and the leader of Afghanistan specifically asked to postpone evacuations of Afghans because it would make his government look weak and bad."
There's also the counterfactual of "Okay, say the Biden administration evacuated everybody they possibly could weeks ago: journalists, interpreters who helped us, human rights workers, professional women who fear they will be attacked for daring to be doctors or whatever, American civilian personnel, whatever incidental non Afghan national is around who is afraid of getting stuck, in short *everybody* who has even a smidgen of reason to fear the Taliban." These people all happen to 100% neatly coincide with the people you will need to stay there in order to make some hypothetical non fundamentalist state functional. If you believe the US backed regime was going to collapse no matter what, this would make 0 difference and is obviously the morally correct thing to evacuate them. But if you *don't* believe it will collapse or if you believe you will be blamed for causing the collapse because you removed all the important people, evacuating all these people months or weeks ago makes much less sense.
I can't decide if it's stupidity in thinking the Afghan state wouldn't fall, fear at being blamed for causing the collapse, or actual savviness (it's probably better to get blamed for a sloppy exit in which some people die than to get blamed for personally undermining 20 years of work; this way it's at least unambiguous that the Afghan government collapsed because it was a house of cards and not because we poached all its people).
I'm sure something will get written in 10 years that answers this question when nobody cares.
*Edit* I am also kinda glad Biden did this instead of Trump because whether or not it was a monumental fuck-up, Biden's choice to leave (the correct choice) was never going to receive the level of backlash that Trump's would have. I wanted us out and this way the establishment failures of the past 20 years cannot be hidden under the smokescreen of "everything was fine until Trump ruined it!"
The Afghan government was a house of cards that was going to fall no matter what our time table for leaving was.
There was always going to be backlash against various Westerners who remained and people who helped Westerners once we left.
There were always going to be more people who wanted out of Afghanistan than we could or would be willing to move out.
The level of commitment of what was needed for "success" (whatever the hell that even is) was never something the non-military establishment was ever going to provide because it would be unpopular with the American public yet no establishment (military or otherwise) wanted to admit it wasn't working so they just kept treading water for years.
These are all excellent reasons for leaving now instead of some ill-defined "right" time in the future. The question that's pertinent right now is: Was our current leaving uniquely botched in a way it wouldn't have been if we did X thing somewhat different instead?
I'm reading things like "Biden evacuated all the military people first which let the Taliban take over Kabul and trap various civilians who now can't evacuate. He should have gotten them first and then moved out the troops."
But I'm also reading things like "the State department told Americans to leave weeks to months ago and the leader of Afghanistan specifically asked to postpone evacuations of Afghans because it would make his government look weak and bad."
There's also the counterfactual of "Okay, say the Biden administration evacuated everybody they possibly could weeks ago: journalists, interpreters who helped us, human rights workers, professional women who fear they will be attacked for daring to be doctors or whatever, American civilian personnel, whatever incidental non Afghan national is around who is afraid of getting stuck, in short *everybody* who has even a smidgen of reason to fear the Taliban." These people all happen to 100% neatly coincide with the people you will need to stay there in order to make some hypothetical non fundamentalist state functional. If you believe the US backed regime was going to collapse no matter what, this would make 0 difference and is obviously the morally correct thing to evacuate them. But if you *don't* believe it will collapse or if you believe you will be blamed for causing the collapse because you removed all the important people, evacuating all these people months or weeks ago makes much less sense.
I can't decide if it's stupidity in thinking the Afghan state wouldn't fall, fear at being blamed for causing the collapse, or actual savviness (it's probably better to get blamed for a sloppy exit in which some people die than to get blamed for personally undermining 20 years of work; this way it's at least unambiguous that the Afghan government collapsed because it was a house of cards and not because we poached all its people).
I'm sure something will get written in 10 years that answers this question when nobody cares.
*Edit* I am also kinda glad Biden did this instead of Trump because whether or not it was a monumental fuck-up, Biden's choice to leave (the correct choice) was never going to receive the level of backlash that Trump's would have. I wanted us out and this way the establishment failures of the past 20 years cannot be hidden under the smokescreen of "everything was fine until Trump ruined it!"
Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!
One more and then I'm done with thread spam. One thing I have realized in recent days is one aspect of how singularly fucked this always was from the beginning. The times when Afghanistan news occupied front page news space was way way before I really cared much about news so I never really tried to learn much about it. Even then I knew we were wasting all this money and time on Pakistan as a key ally in the region and that they were actively undermining our efforts at they same time they were pocketing aid money. I just thought this was sort of generically stupid on our part but didn't realize how hopeless this really was.
Now knowing some more about Pakistan from having read more history since then, it becomes clear how *monumentally* stupid trying to work with Pakistan ever was. Pakistan does not give a rat's ass about Afghanistan. They care about India and Kashmir. They are deeply, deeply paranoid and have a persecution complex regarding India and have had since the Partition and the bad blood between Nehru and Muhammad Ali Jinnah. You may enter Pakistan through the passes of Kashmir and Afghanistan. Pakistan has been actively working to keep Afghanistan a disorganized mess mostly run by Islamic militias for this reason. Expecting them to help you set up a democratic (and thus more likely to be friendly with India) regime in Afghanistan is roughly as stupid as trying to get the Russians to help you get Ukraine to join NATO.
Bizarrely our best potential ally on Afghanistan at the beginning of this mess may have been Russia because they control access indirectly from the north and George Bush and Putin sort of famously got along reasonably well, at least compared to everything since then.
*Edit*
An article from an Afghan general about why the Afghan army collapse: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/25/opin ... -army.html
"So why did the Afghan military collapse? The answer is threefold.
First, former President Donald Trump’s February 2020 peace deal with the Taliban in Doha doomed us. It put an expiration date on American interest in the region. Second, we lost contractor logistics and maintenance support critical to our combat operations. Third, the corruption endemic in Mr. Ghani’s government that flowed to senior military leadership and long crippled our forces on the ground irreparably hobbled us."
...So you cannot fight 1) if the USA announces a finite date when they will cease fighting the Forever War, 2) without ongoing logistical support which you can't do yourselves, and 3) because the civilian government you are fighting to defend is a corrupted joke that doesn't help you.
Now, it's absolutely true that the USA fighting the Forever War is the main reason your army is in this state but this also provides 0 compelling evidence for why the Afghan army would ever become capable of standing alone and why the USA should keep being its crutch forever.
Valid criticism though:
"The Afghan forces were trained by the Americans using the U.S. military model based on highly technical special reconnaissance units, helicopters and airstrikes. We lost our superiority to the Taliban when our air support dried up and our ammunition ran out."
We apparently trained them in a style that would be useless if we weren't there and should probably have been training them to fight low tech war. Is this even something our military knows how to do, though?
Now knowing some more about Pakistan from having read more history since then, it becomes clear how *monumentally* stupid trying to work with Pakistan ever was. Pakistan does not give a rat's ass about Afghanistan. They care about India and Kashmir. They are deeply, deeply paranoid and have a persecution complex regarding India and have had since the Partition and the bad blood between Nehru and Muhammad Ali Jinnah. You may enter Pakistan through the passes of Kashmir and Afghanistan. Pakistan has been actively working to keep Afghanistan a disorganized mess mostly run by Islamic militias for this reason. Expecting them to help you set up a democratic (and thus more likely to be friendly with India) regime in Afghanistan is roughly as stupid as trying to get the Russians to help you get Ukraine to join NATO.
Bizarrely our best potential ally on Afghanistan at the beginning of this mess may have been Russia because they control access indirectly from the north and George Bush and Putin sort of famously got along reasonably well, at least compared to everything since then.
*Edit*
An article from an Afghan general about why the Afghan army collapse: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/25/opin ... -army.html
"So why did the Afghan military collapse? The answer is threefold.
First, former President Donald Trump’s February 2020 peace deal with the Taliban in Doha doomed us. It put an expiration date on American interest in the region. Second, we lost contractor logistics and maintenance support critical to our combat operations. Third, the corruption endemic in Mr. Ghani’s government that flowed to senior military leadership and long crippled our forces on the ground irreparably hobbled us."
...So you cannot fight 1) if the USA announces a finite date when they will cease fighting the Forever War, 2) without ongoing logistical support which you can't do yourselves, and 3) because the civilian government you are fighting to defend is a corrupted joke that doesn't help you.
Now, it's absolutely true that the USA fighting the Forever War is the main reason your army is in this state but this also provides 0 compelling evidence for why the Afghan army would ever become capable of standing alone and why the USA should keep being its crutch forever.
Valid criticism though:
"The Afghan forces were trained by the Americans using the U.S. military model based on highly technical special reconnaissance units, helicopters and airstrikes. We lost our superiority to the Taliban when our air support dried up and our ammunition ran out."
We apparently trained them in a style that would be useless if we weren't there and should probably have been training them to fight low tech war. Is this even something our military knows how to do, though?
-
NCLanceman
- Posts: 297
- Joined: August 5th, 2016, 6:15 pm
Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!
A couple of notes here:
I remember years ago my Dad asked me about my opinion on the War in Afghanistan, I replied to him that the biggest problem was that the idea that Afghanistan is a whole and complete singular country was a complete misconception. There's the City-State of Kabul and numerous surrounding valleys that treat their neighbors like fucking subhumans. I came to this conclusion from a cursory glance at the news over a very long period. Every now and again you'd read the news and there'd be an article about Army Captains through Generals talking with Afghan tribal leaders about various issues. Thing is, a tribal system is very different from the cultural framework we have in our western nation-states. This would get contrasted with news articles from Iraq, where Army Captains through Generals would be talking with Iraqi councils, departments, and elected officials. If we gave up Afghanistan instead of Iraq during the Obama years, by sheer virtue of geography, I fully believe that the variant of ISIS that would arise in that country would be less potent because there are much fewer conveinent targets for any military action. And Iraq would be closer to a Middle Eastern South Korea today, where South Korea is a fully realized western nation supporting our (our as in Western Civilization) interests against those of the surrounding areas.
Second, it's theoretically possible that the Afghan National Army could've stood as a single nation against the Taliban. An important detail that's often overlooked is when the US started fielding A-29 Super Tucando's as a military airplane.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkgeladdlaI
If you don't pay attention to this sort of thing, a propeller driven airplane in a modern Air Force seems like an anachronism. I for one think it's an excellent idea. It's cost effective, for one thing, compared to the A-10 Thunderbolt, which is the current reigning queen of close air support. But there's an important issue here: The A-10 was developed in the late 1970's under the idea that it was going to be used if the Soviets ever decided to take Europe. It's a plane built around a 30mm autocannon designed to kill T-55's. If you don't believe me, here's the coloring book. We kept using it because Republic Fairchild never designed anything better at the kind of close air support our armies make an assumption of.
But the A-29? This thing is good enough for Brazil so it's good enough for Afghanistan. And if we could get Afghanistan up to Brazil levels of effectiveness, that would justify the sunk cost fallacy that's kept this war going since I was in the eighth grade.
And that's the real crux of it all. In 2001, we couldn't let Afghanistan go on the way it was because it was a fallow field for terrorists. You let them grow and train there and they get all the drug money they ever want by selling opium and other poppy derivatives to whoever wants it, then use their excess of military ages young males (polygamy among wealthier classes is not a binding structure for society) to do whatever any chieftain tells them they can. So we conquered them and tried to make the Afghan government into a real boy. It didn't work out because the geographical constraints of Afghanistan didn't work to that effect.
To wit: the logical extent of an empire is defined by it's ability to communicate and send armies. If an outpost of that empire is too far for communication when it cecedes, by the time a military detachment comes to reclaim it, it's too well entrenched to reclaim. Kabul was not capable of being the capital of Afghanistan without significant railroads, roads, telegraphs, and most importantly the spirit of nationalism. We tried to make it easier for Kabul to conquer Afghanistan and we assumed that they would have to continue to conquer Afghanistan when we left. But alas. The only reason we ever thought of Afghanistan as an entire country was because the British lied to the Russians so that the Czar wouldn't look at a map hard enough to think he could conquer the British Raj. Some lies die hard.
Anyway, when you see articles about all the military equipment that just fell into the hand of the Taliban, make a note that A-29 Super Tuscando's were there because of a political decision to make an effort for the Afghan government to run itself.
As for what happened afterwords, it was inevitable. But I think it wouldn't have fallen apart as quickly under a Trump adminstration rather than a Biden Administration. I base this off of a reading of Charlie Wilson's War. In it, Gust Avarakatos and other people in the CIA make a point of the Afghan character and what they needed to defeat the Soviets. "Don't trust them. Don't give them a lot of money. But if you give them enough support, they will fight to the death." This is something we knew in the 80's. But politicians aren't constrained by reality, they are elected to make their dreams come to life. I can't fault them for that, but an educated voting populace should remain aware of that and treat their ideas with a grain of salt. However, when you talk about 'strength' in international relations, the willingness to go from zero to "airstrikes on the way" is a big deal. Donald Trump, for all his many, many flaws, was great at negotiation. The Art of the Deal can be summed up as "Walk into a room and say something stupid, then walk out. Let them sweat, then fifteen minutes later come back in and offer something vaguely reasonable and mostly on your terms. The opposition will take that deal most of the time out of sheer relief." This worked rather well for President Trump in the Middle East. Joe Biden has no such perception of his spine. So like any type of predator, the Taliban is preying on our people because they think they can. They're not wrong.
I remember years ago my Dad asked me about my opinion on the War in Afghanistan, I replied to him that the biggest problem was that the idea that Afghanistan is a whole and complete singular country was a complete misconception. There's the City-State of Kabul and numerous surrounding valleys that treat their neighbors like fucking subhumans. I came to this conclusion from a cursory glance at the news over a very long period. Every now and again you'd read the news and there'd be an article about Army Captains through Generals talking with Afghan tribal leaders about various issues. Thing is, a tribal system is very different from the cultural framework we have in our western nation-states. This would get contrasted with news articles from Iraq, where Army Captains through Generals would be talking with Iraqi councils, departments, and elected officials. If we gave up Afghanistan instead of Iraq during the Obama years, by sheer virtue of geography, I fully believe that the variant of ISIS that would arise in that country would be less potent because there are much fewer conveinent targets for any military action. And Iraq would be closer to a Middle Eastern South Korea today, where South Korea is a fully realized western nation supporting our (our as in Western Civilization) interests against those of the surrounding areas.
Second, it's theoretically possible that the Afghan National Army could've stood as a single nation against the Taliban. An important detail that's often overlooked is when the US started fielding A-29 Super Tucando's as a military airplane.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkgeladdlaI
If you don't pay attention to this sort of thing, a propeller driven airplane in a modern Air Force seems like an anachronism. I for one think it's an excellent idea. It's cost effective, for one thing, compared to the A-10 Thunderbolt, which is the current reigning queen of close air support. But there's an important issue here: The A-10 was developed in the late 1970's under the idea that it was going to be used if the Soviets ever decided to take Europe. It's a plane built around a 30mm autocannon designed to kill T-55's. If you don't believe me, here's the coloring book. We kept using it because Republic Fairchild never designed anything better at the kind of close air support our armies make an assumption of.
But the A-29? This thing is good enough for Brazil so it's good enough for Afghanistan. And if we could get Afghanistan up to Brazil levels of effectiveness, that would justify the sunk cost fallacy that's kept this war going since I was in the eighth grade.
And that's the real crux of it all. In 2001, we couldn't let Afghanistan go on the way it was because it was a fallow field for terrorists. You let them grow and train there and they get all the drug money they ever want by selling opium and other poppy derivatives to whoever wants it, then use their excess of military ages young males (polygamy among wealthier classes is not a binding structure for society) to do whatever any chieftain tells them they can. So we conquered them and tried to make the Afghan government into a real boy. It didn't work out because the geographical constraints of Afghanistan didn't work to that effect.
To wit: the logical extent of an empire is defined by it's ability to communicate and send armies. If an outpost of that empire is too far for communication when it cecedes, by the time a military detachment comes to reclaim it, it's too well entrenched to reclaim. Kabul was not capable of being the capital of Afghanistan without significant railroads, roads, telegraphs, and most importantly the spirit of nationalism. We tried to make it easier for Kabul to conquer Afghanistan and we assumed that they would have to continue to conquer Afghanistan when we left. But alas. The only reason we ever thought of Afghanistan as an entire country was because the British lied to the Russians so that the Czar wouldn't look at a map hard enough to think he could conquer the British Raj. Some lies die hard.
Anyway, when you see articles about all the military equipment that just fell into the hand of the Taliban, make a note that A-29 Super Tuscando's were there because of a political decision to make an effort for the Afghan government to run itself.
As for what happened afterwords, it was inevitable. But I think it wouldn't have fallen apart as quickly under a Trump adminstration rather than a Biden Administration. I base this off of a reading of Charlie Wilson's War. In it, Gust Avarakatos and other people in the CIA make a point of the Afghan character and what they needed to defeat the Soviets. "Don't trust them. Don't give them a lot of money. But if you give them enough support, they will fight to the death." This is something we knew in the 80's. But politicians aren't constrained by reality, they are elected to make their dreams come to life. I can't fault them for that, but an educated voting populace should remain aware of that and treat their ideas with a grain of salt. However, when you talk about 'strength' in international relations, the willingness to go from zero to "airstrikes on the way" is a big deal. Donald Trump, for all his many, many flaws, was great at negotiation. The Art of the Deal can be summed up as "Walk into a room and say something stupid, then walk out. Let them sweat, then fifteen minutes later come back in and offer something vaguely reasonable and mostly on your terms. The opposition will take that deal most of the time out of sheer relief." This worked rather well for President Trump in the Middle East. Joe Biden has no such perception of his spine. So like any type of predator, the Taliban is preying on our people because they think they can. They're not wrong.
Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!
In an interesting turn the SCOTUS denied an injunction against a Texas law banning abortion past the fetal heartbeart window (about 10 weeks, before many women have any idea they're pregnant), with no exception for rape and incest, and only in the case of a threat to the life of the mother (and I assume nonviable fetuses). This means the case will need to work its way up the courts proper, they made a note this isn't really about the merits of Roe v Wade so much as some novel, complicated circumstances, but obviously organizations need to fundraise, so the hysterics have been whipped up.
Quite a surprise. I don't think it'll survive the proper challenge, the abortion lobby is significantly more powerful and deep-rooted than the anti-abortion crowd. But until then, it'll be interesting to see what happens. However, given this is Texas, it probably won't be perceptible. The population boom is from transplants and invasion, whereas of the subset of women who get accidently pregnant and would otherwise get an abortion is relatively small, and bottlenecked by gestation.
But, if nothing else, more people will get to live than would have. And with a bit of luck, their mothers will come to love them or give up to someone who will. Some of the hot takes I've seen have made a point that Downs Syndrome isn't usually detectable by 10 weeks, especially since it's not obvious you're pregnant then (I have no idea if that's true). It really does appear like we're going to cycle through all the theories and consequences of the last century.
Quite a surprise. I don't think it'll survive the proper challenge, the abortion lobby is significantly more powerful and deep-rooted than the anti-abortion crowd. But until then, it'll be interesting to see what happens. However, given this is Texas, it probably won't be perceptible. The population boom is from transplants and invasion, whereas of the subset of women who get accidently pregnant and would otherwise get an abortion is relatively small, and bottlenecked by gestation.
But, if nothing else, more people will get to live than would have. And with a bit of luck, their mothers will come to love them or give up to someone who will. Some of the hot takes I've seen have made a point that Downs Syndrome isn't usually detectable by 10 weeks, especially since it's not obvious you're pregnant then (I have no idea if that's true). It really does appear like we're going to cycle through all the theories and consequences of the last century.
Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!
I'll be sincerely surprised if the court just outright overturns Roe. Less surprised if they uphold the Texas law. I'm uncertain what they will do with it. I'm an abortion moderate. My actual position is something like "abortion in first trimester for any reason should be legal, abortion in last illegal for anything except life of the mother, nonviability or extreme abnormality of the fetus, rape, and possibly some rule allowing it for girls below 18 or who are themselves extremely mentally impaired, states should make individual rules about the second trimester, and this should not ever be paid for with federal money."
I more or less approve of the throwing everything that will stick at abortion jurisprudence because *maybe* it will accelerate the point where this is mostly decided at the state level and we can stop fighting about it. On those polls that ask you to list what you care about most when voting anything to do with abortion is usually dead last for me. I have an opinion for what I think is fair and ideal, but in overall issue terms I don't care if we live in abortions are handed out like popcorn land or women are hanged for having abortions land. (Obviously either of those positions would mean that something larger had gone seriously wrong and I would have other concerns but for the topic itself I just don't care that much).
It is not hard to avoid pregnancy. It is *inconvenient* to avoid pregnancy. It means spending 5-30 bucks a month on something you had rather not spend 5-30 bucks on. It means if you screw up (the condom broke, I forgot my pill, whatever) going and spending 40ish dollars on the oops pill. It means going to get examined by a doctor every 2 years to get a prescription. To that end, I'm totally fine with laws, programs, and funding that make it easier to deal with the inconvenience of avoiding pregnancy. Getting women to get IUDs is the absolute best approach to take for this in terms of effectiveness versus cost. They cost about $1200 and last 5 years and have a 98%+ success rate. They also reduce or completely end periods saving people money on pads and tampons as well.
But anyway because of this reality I am not motivated by the scare image of coathanger abortions or whatever. We are not going back to that world. We may end up in "women order abortion pills over the internet in red states" world. I wish this going to the states would mean we stop fighting about it and get on with things that really matter, but the diehards on this topic will probably keep beating their heads against this wall forever.
I more or less approve of the throwing everything that will stick at abortion jurisprudence because *maybe* it will accelerate the point where this is mostly decided at the state level and we can stop fighting about it. On those polls that ask you to list what you care about most when voting anything to do with abortion is usually dead last for me. I have an opinion for what I think is fair and ideal, but in overall issue terms I don't care if we live in abortions are handed out like popcorn land or women are hanged for having abortions land. (Obviously either of those positions would mean that something larger had gone seriously wrong and I would have other concerns but for the topic itself I just don't care that much).
It is not hard to avoid pregnancy. It is *inconvenient* to avoid pregnancy. It means spending 5-30 bucks a month on something you had rather not spend 5-30 bucks on. It means if you screw up (the condom broke, I forgot my pill, whatever) going and spending 40ish dollars on the oops pill. It means going to get examined by a doctor every 2 years to get a prescription. To that end, I'm totally fine with laws, programs, and funding that make it easier to deal with the inconvenience of avoiding pregnancy. Getting women to get IUDs is the absolute best approach to take for this in terms of effectiveness versus cost. They cost about $1200 and last 5 years and have a 98%+ success rate. They also reduce or completely end periods saving people money on pads and tampons as well.
But anyway because of this reality I am not motivated by the scare image of coathanger abortions or whatever. We are not going back to that world. We may end up in "women order abortion pills over the internet in red states" world. I wish this going to the states would mean we stop fighting about it and get on with things that really matter, but the diehards on this topic will probably keep beating their heads against this wall forever.
Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!
Once again the shit-tier levels of American medical "care" rear it's ugly head.
As far as I know abortions are done through the NHS so they're essentially free on use and they're not treated as a contraceptive because that's not medically advisable as far as I know. They are used as a last option kind of thing and are withheld as an option in terms of rape cases and the like.
On top of the actual procedure being free the GP (doctors) visit/consultation is free, and if any complications occur the treatment for that is also free.
The taxes used to have a resource everyone can use just works.
In the UK you can get an abortion up to the 24th week of pregnancy. Anything after that and it's only done if there is great risk to either mother or child, if there are abnormalities with the foetus or if the child would be handicapped due to complications (and even then that's optional for the mother).
I know the USA has sex clinics and has resources to use, such as free condoms and stuff like that, much like we also do here so the paying for condoms is not necessarily needed if that is the case, but that's an area by area basis I'd assume.
In the UK a box of 30 condoms is £10.48 ( $14.53) so unless you're doing it every night you're able to make sure you have some on hand to be safe. And they're Durex so it's not as if they're some cheap brand.
The only thing that can fuck you over there is fate/bad luck (or more accurately poor manufacturing).
I do wish that this bullshit also didn't fall into those red states that also don't want to teach sex education because "abstinence is all you need!" Yeah, no, fuck off with that horse shit. That's how you grow sexually repressed teens who are so touch starved that when they do finally follow their biological urges they'll get pregnant at an age they really fucking shouldn't.
As far as I know abortions are done through the NHS so they're essentially free on use and they're not treated as a contraceptive because that's not medically advisable as far as I know. They are used as a last option kind of thing and are withheld as an option in terms of rape cases and the like.
On top of the actual procedure being free the GP (doctors) visit/consultation is free, and if any complications occur the treatment for that is also free.
The taxes used to have a resource everyone can use just works.
In the UK you can get an abortion up to the 24th week of pregnancy. Anything after that and it's only done if there is great risk to either mother or child, if there are abnormalities with the foetus or if the child would be handicapped due to complications (and even then that's optional for the mother).
I know the USA has sex clinics and has resources to use, such as free condoms and stuff like that, much like we also do here so the paying for condoms is not necessarily needed if that is the case, but that's an area by area basis I'd assume.
In the UK a box of 30 condoms is £10.48 ( $14.53) so unless you're doing it every night you're able to make sure you have some on hand to be safe. And they're Durex so it's not as if they're some cheap brand.
The only thing that can fuck you over there is fate/bad luck (or more accurately poor manufacturing).
I do wish that this bullshit also didn't fall into those red states that also don't want to teach sex education because "abstinence is all you need!" Yeah, no, fuck off with that horse shit. That's how you grow sexually repressed teens who are so touch starved that when they do finally follow their biological urges they'll get pregnant at an age they really fucking shouldn't.
Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets ... uxbndlbing
Once again, some pretty awful numbers against expectations. I can speak to this on the ground, work's been anemic, and mainly only millionaires wanting a few rooms done up here and there. Though the federal unemployment is supposed to fully end very soon, if not already, so that might kickstart everything this month. Haven't heard anything terrible now that the eviction moratorium has expired, so it might just be an artificial depression due to government factors.
Once again, some pretty awful numbers against expectations. I can speak to this on the ground, work's been anemic, and mainly only millionaires wanting a few rooms done up here and there. Though the federal unemployment is supposed to fully end very soon, if not already, so that might kickstart everything this month. Haven't heard anything terrible now that the eviction moratorium has expired, so it might just be an artificial depression due to government factors.
Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!
Teen pregnancy is a sort of a bugaboo anyway. It's been declining for years and is at record lows. The overall rate of people getting abortions has also declined independently of regulatory factors. Contraception is just cheaper, better, and more widely approved of and available than it's ever been. It's also dirt cheap or free with most insurance including Medicaid, which is provided by the government for low income people.
In the TMI category my Mirena cost me $0 and the process to get it included 3 doctors visits and the device itself (one for standard well woman exam and to request it, one to actually get it, and a follow-up to make sure there were no complications). The inconvenience of getting it was far greater than the expense or the complication of finding out about it. The only one of those that is technically necessary is the one for placement. The other two are mostly just excuses for the doctor to bill insurance or Medicaid or whatever.
@ Vol
I've seen a lot of pet theories about what's going on with the economy. The takeaway seems to be "the economy is being weird and nobody really knows exactly why."
Anecdotally I would have expected last year to a be a boom period for contractors. I spent more money on miscellaneous house repairs last year than any other year I'd been in the house so far. I got the stimulus money, was spending way less on gasoline, and I was stuck at home with nothing better to do than work on the yard and house. It might be a regional thing. I dunno.
In the TMI category my Mirena cost me $0 and the process to get it included 3 doctors visits and the device itself (one for standard well woman exam and to request it, one to actually get it, and a follow-up to make sure there were no complications). The inconvenience of getting it was far greater than the expense or the complication of finding out about it. The only one of those that is technically necessary is the one for placement. The other two are mostly just excuses for the doctor to bill insurance or Medicaid or whatever.
@ Vol
I've seen a lot of pet theories about what's going on with the economy. The takeaway seems to be "the economy is being weird and nobody really knows exactly why."
Anecdotally I would have expected last year to a be a boom period for contractors. I spent more money on miscellaneous house repairs last year than any other year I'd been in the house so far. I got the stimulus money, was spending way less on gasoline, and I was stuck at home with nothing better to do than work on the yard and house. It might be a regional thing. I dunno.
Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!
Ragabul wrote:I'll be sincerely surprised if the court just outright overturns Roe. Less surprised if they uphold the Texas law. I'm uncertain what they will do with it.
That's where I expect this to lead. Red states de facto ban all but the mortality cases, and enterprising people set up clinics on the borders. If the SCOTUS did a full overturn, I'd be completely baffled.
I'm an abortion moderate. My actual position is something like "abortion in first trimester for any reason should be legal, abortion in last illegal for anything except life of the mother, nonviability or extreme abnormality of the fetus, rape, and possibly some rule allowing it for girls below 18 or who are themselves extremely mentally impaired, states should make individual rules about the second trimester, and this should not ever be paid for with federal money."
I used to be, because that was how I was raised to think. Then I got into a more pro-life position, quibbling about stages of fetus development, MRA stuff, but still in favor of the practice overall, because, "We have too many people anyway." Then I considered the impossibility of defining a moment when personhood begins, and the theoretical arguments that would deny personhood even after birth or while unconscious. Additionally, the history of the practice, the way in which it was sold and instituted here, the motte and bailey regarding usage, the eugenics, and on and on. Then finally slotting it all into a more matured philosophical framework, we get here.
So the least evil position to me is to reject it wholesale, unless the mother is in mortal danger and/or the fetus is nonviable/severely malformed. Then from there, it is in the best interest of the people that universal Baby Moses laws are implemented, good orphanages are built, fostering is encouraged (though not rewarded), and so on. We've spent trillions rewarding war profiteering and healthcare for the very sick, we can spare some to encourage life to continue too. That the current America is too sickly to enact these measures, or raise children in functional homes as a whole, is a secondary concern to minimizing unnecessary death, then suffering, then crappy lives, in that order.
The best counter-argument I've heard is a nihilist take. There is no value to life, or propagation, so whatever the survivors arbitrarily decide is fair is as fair as anything can be, and to impose any restrictions on that would be defying a paradigm everyone's either comfortable with or capable of living with. There's nothing to attack in that moral void, either metaphysically or in the sense of encouraging the sole materialist function of DNA, as opposed to every other position, and it enjoys fairly popular support if you ever dig into people.
I more or less approve of the throwing everything that will stick at abortion jurisprudence because *maybe* it will accelerate the point where this is mostly decided at the state level and we can stop fighting about it. On those polls that ask you to list what you care about most when voting anything to do with abortion is usually dead last for me. I have an opinion for what I think is fair and ideal, but in overall issue terms I don't care if we live in abortions are handed out like popcorn land or women are hanged for having abortions land. (Obviously either of those positions would mean that something larger had gone seriously wrong and I would have other concerns but for the topic itself I just don't care that much).
I think of it less like a singular vital issue, but as a lynchpin of several related cultural, legal, and moral issues that converge here. I'd rather vote for someone who is firmly pro-choice, but has an unwavering dedication to undoing the last century, than a pro-life candidate who'll never move the ball. It's important, given the topic is human life, but relatively less so than a war hawk vs a dove, say, because the human being killed is completely unaware they exist yet on a conscious level.
Mazder wrote:As far as I know abortions are done through the NHS so they're essentially free on use and they're not treated as a contraceptive because that's not medically advisable as far as I know. They are used as a last option kind of thing and are withheld as an option in terms of rape cases and the like.
On top of the actual procedure being free the GP (doctors) visit/consultation is free, and if any complications occur the treatment for that is also free.
The taxes used to have a resource everyone can use just works.
The logic that makes the NHS a moral system to advocate for, and fund, runs contrary to the practice of actively preventing future tax payers from existing. If it's good to provide free medical care to everyone, and importing people to work on it to expand access is also good, then it is evil to knowingly reduce the future funding of the system. To provide abortion through the NHS is to reduce the potential of the NHS to provide better service.
Something to think about. How can it be good to prevent future good from occurring?
I do wish that this bullshit also didn't fall into those red states that also don't want to teach sex education because "abstinence is all you need!" Yeah, no, fuck off with that horse shit. That's how you grow sexually repressed teens who are so touch starved that when they do finally follow their biological urges they'll get pregnant at an age they really fucking shouldn't.
Abstinence is the only absolutely reliable method. Followed by multiple forms of contraception used correctly. Followed by one form of contraception used correctly. Followed by the way people actually act. No amount of education and free contraceptives is going to stop all accidental pregnancies, but it sure will reduce the number of them, and as a corollary, the number of intentional pregnancies too.
Given 45% or so of US abortions come from black people, who are not uneducated, touch-starved, or repressed, we can conclude other factors can result in many accidental pregnancies. For what reason do you think any abortions are performed on women who didn't know what sex is for?
Ragabul wrote:Teen pregnancy is a sort of a bugaboo anyway. It's been declining for years and is at record lows. The overall rate of people getting abortions has also declined independently of regulatory factors. Contraception is just cheaper, better, and more widely approved of and available than it's ever been. It's also dirt cheap or free with most insurance including Medicaid, which is provided by the government for low income people.
In the TMI category my Mirena cost me $0 and the process to get it included 3 doctors visits and the device itself (one for standard well woman exam and to request it, one to actually get it, and a follow-up to make sure there were no complications). The inconvenience of getting it was far greater than the expense or the complication of finding out about it. The only one of those that is technically necessary is the one for placement. The other two are mostly just excuses for the doctor to bill insurance or Medicaid or whatever.
It's funny, because the reason it was a bugaboo was the moral corruption. But we tossed all that out the window, and kept the rule, so now it's bad because it hampers her future as an economic unit or something. Though at the same time, people are banging significantly less, so we can't isolate the outcomes as easily.
How many unwanted pregnancies would occur if everyone was fully educated on it, but no contraceptives or abortions were allowed?
How many if only contraceptives?
How many if everything was allowed, but people weren't failing to find partners?
etc.
IUDs are about the ideal, because every other measure is too permanent or too prone to user failure. I remember my college had bowls of free rubbers in the free health clinic, and upon inspection, they had clearly gotten them from the cheapest possible supplier, from a nation with a poor understanding of how circulation works. They were worse than nothing, because a young man might put far too much faith in their structural integrity.
Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!
Ragabul wrote:I've seen a lot of pet theories about what's going on with the economy. The takeaway seems to be "the economy is being weird and nobody really knows exactly why."
Anecdotally I would have expected last year to a be a boom period for contractors. I spent more money on miscellaneous house repairs last year than any other year I'd been in the house so far. I got the stimulus money, was spending way less on gasoline, and I was stuck at home with nothing better to do than work on the yard and house. It might be a regional thing. I dunno.
Pretty much. It's like the concept of a sword master fearing a duel with a buffoon more than a fellow master. Except the collective "we" is the master, the buffoon is the government, and the swords are the economy.
Regional. NJ is mostly a few cities and then suburban sprawl, so the housewives were terrified during our lockdowns, the people who normally hire us were pinching their pennies, and the rich people bailed out to the coast or other states to ride it out. Those were the few decent jobs, McMansions at the shore and some exterior work in nicer neighborhoods. Things picked up this year, but right as the Delta variant caught tailwinds, dried up again. Though new construction is booming, which we don't do.
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