hydroacetylene
No bio...
User ID: 128
hydroacetylene
1hr ago
Ending reconstruction was not losing the peace for the Union. Their war goal was not racial equality in the south, or even really overturning the south's social system. The war goal was to end the southern planter class's veto power over the republic's politics- which they did quite effectively.
hydroacetylene
1hr ago
Buffalo soldiers after the war performed well- the Indians seemed to generally regard them as extremely capable, the equal of white infantry.
hydroacetylene
1hr ago
Aside from the high casualty rates, this would not have ended the Union’s ability to fight- the confederate army would probably have needed to reach, like, NYC.
hydroacetylene
1hr ago
The #1 most plausible scenario for a confederate victory is not a Fabian strategy- union logistics were too good. A Fabian strategy works by interrupting the opposing army’s logistical chain until they can no longer sustain an army large enough to win against the opposing force- which for the confederacy would have required major offensives to destroy union depots, rail facilities, etc. The U.S. army was designed to crush steppe nomads at the beginning of the war, so it was unusually good at logistics. Without that it’s just an insurgency, and insurgencies typically fail. The South’s economic basis- large, highly visible farms with an unwilling labor force that would run away if given protection for doing so- is uniquely unsuited for a guerrilla campaign.
No, the south was stuck with the strategy they adopted- attempt to win a war-ending victory in their northeastern front. They failed at this, obviously. They could have succeeded, it’s a lot more plausible than them conducting offensives into Union territory at will. But their deadline was pretty harsh- early enough in 1864 for news to reach the country’s voting population. The alternative for the Confederacy was to capture enough Union territory to force a surrender, which they likely couldn’t do- it would probably entail something like occupying all of Pennsylvania and laying siege to New York City.
hydroacetylene
22hr ago
That one was gone before 1960.
hydroacetylene
22hr ago
The loyal Trumpist position is basically 'we can just pull the plug/flood the datacenters- we don't need to worry about AI alignment because if it stops doing what we tell it to, we'll just hard reboot'. Trumpists going full Alex Jones will target Trump's enemies with ridiculous accusations(because that is what Alex Jones does; this isn't a Why Files type esotericist. He's worried about people), true, but the actual response to Skynet is to turn off the datacenters- the median red triber does not believe a computer can defeat people, for that reason.
hydroacetylene
22hr ago
The red can very easily win over decent-enough AI from big tech through a combination of normal corporate bargaining, democrats embracing socialist policies that directly threaten their bottom lines, and of course the stick.
hydroacetylene
22hr ago
The Eskimos are alcoholic welfare scroungers, not communists(there are multiple reasons to vote for far left parties, and this is by far the most common), and US investment can pump more than enough money into the country to pay for welfare- without making them follow the Marine Mammal Protection act.
hydroacetylene
22hr ago
Canada will just crack up rather than accede to US suzerainty. The US will be dictating the foreign policies of independent Quebec, Nunavut, Prairieland, etc, make no mistake, but 'Canada' the country? Never will it agree to that.
hydroacetylene
22hr ago
The US is becoming an empire. Suzerainty is a standard part of the empire package- the British empire was full of member states who governed themselves. Greenland gave up the right to an independent foreign policy, sure, that means their diplomats can't take bribes for favorable votes at the UN. Small potatoes. But the historical norm is for those kinds of small states to have no independent foreign policy anyways, and it's unlikely Greenland particularly values the ability for its eventual independence to influence world affairs.
Now, what happens with the inevitable breakup of Canada is far more interesting.
hydroacetylene
22hr ago
Greenland wants to be independent. But it's unclear it can actually make it on its own- the Marine Mammal Protection act makes actual incorporation into the US unacceptable, but a micronesia like arrangement where it gets to use the US dollar, enjoy US military protection, and get US companies as major employers(probably for mining, shipping, etc) in exchange for trade concessions seems agreeable to both parties. That's probably the eventual goal.
hydroacetylene
1d ago
the SSPX
Are politically active, hold normal careers in secular employment, use the regular suite of technology, consume normal popular culture(albeit less of it), have social media, and explicitly oppose withdrawing from broader society.
hydroacetylene
1d ago
Maybe-ish.
First off, we don't know how many people go to the SSPX. They probably don't either. I would guess that their average Sunday attendance is 350-400K, based on their claim of a priest/people ratio of 1:500(this number sanity checks off of priest assignments to individual chapels very well). 600,000 is almost certainly an overestimate; even the SSPX admits this.
Growing isn't clear. We know that when the tradcath community in a given area is growing, the SSPX is usually part of that growth... but usually slower than regular union chapels. Nobody really disputes that pre-July '26 they were growing, but the sources of that growth are in strong dispute(high fertility vs adults joining). It's not clear whether the growth trend has continued- there's plenty of evidence that it has at least curbed.
One thing that is worth saying is that the SSPX leadership is not the same group as the bishops. Yes, this is weird, but they're led by a priest, not a bishop, elected by the general chapter(also of priests, not bishops). This is probably an intentional move to make their canonical status less clearly schismatic. The SSPX is also poor by tradcath standards; SSPX bishops and senior priests would make significantly more money if they joined a regular diocese. Typically in areas with multiple TLM options, the SSPX one has the lowest average income among the attendees. The SSPX as an institution also faces real financial constraints and regularly has to shelve projects due to funding(the FSSP almost never does this- they will raise the money for things they genuinely need to do. The ICRSS raises the money a bit faster. The diocese would just take on debt).
hydroacetylene
1d ago
Columbus day is political today, obviously, but when it was first introduced, it was political in a different direction- it was pro-italian.
hydroacetylene
1d ago
If AI safety becomes a partisan issue(as it probably will), then conservative media will start releasing Aella lore. Probably NYpost, then OneAmerica news takes it and runs with a 'TDS AI safetyists are controlled by a pedophile-sympathizing hooker' angle.
hydroacetylene
1d ago
Was this in a heavily Jewish area, perchance?
hydroacetylene
1d ago
American Grandmas are eager adopters of iphones- you can set them to large print without needing to break out your glasses, and they let you see pictures of your grandkids easily(there's even shared album features), and you can have arbitrarily large family groupchats...
It is true that American boomers(much more likely to actually be grandparents than Chinese ones) tend to use AI for gifs of dancing kittens, rather than generating grandkids.
hydroacetylene
2d ago
The haredim are the only people that take halakha seriously… and canon law is not actually very similar to sharia.
hydroacetylene
2d ago
Nah, they’d have a field day with Aella.
hydroacetylene
2d ago
Eventually, the EA people’s personal lives will be in the tabloids, and it will make the whole ‘AI safety’ thing look ridiculous to most of the public.
hydroacetylene
2d ago
No, because 'Josephite' is already term in recognized but fairly uncommon religious use in the Christian tradition.
Mormon is, technically, the name of an angel who appears in the LDS tradition but not other ones; it would be the equivalent of referring to Catholics as 'Raphaelans' because protestants don't believe in that particular archangel, and actual LDS do not prefer it. 'Mormon' is already the equivalent of calling mussulman 'mohammedans'.
hydroacetylene
2d ago
The early mormon church believed in a kind of communal ownership(to fund its scams), polygamy, had a racial dynamic the quorum and president try to downplay, claimed its scriptures were actually the ancient egyptian for mormon stories, etc. Early mormonism was much weirder than today's version.
hydroacetylene
2d ago
You can just live that lifestyle at the cost of personal friction
hydroacetylene
2d ago
Politics is totally entertainment. That’s why we have President Trump.
What a fabian strategy actually is is to deny the enemy the ability to field war-winning armies over large portions of the theater by interrupting their logistics- Fabius did this by defeating Hannibal's foraging parties so that he was unable to move his army away from allies, giving Rome a free hand to campaign wherever Hannibal was not.
This... isn't something the south could do. For one thing, the US and Russian armies had far better logistics than most victorian armies did; they were set up to pursue steppe nomads from friendly bases. Due to railroads, depot networks, and conestoga wagons, the union simply had a far longer logistical leash than ancient armies- more than long enough to take war-winning amounts of territory without foraging or advancing their logistical infrastructure into confederate controlled territory. Secondly, the confederacy did try a fabian strategy against general Sherman- it didn't work, he had the manpower to simply eat the casualties, and rice plantations in the tidewater functioned as large supply concentrations enabling more effective foraging. Plantation agriculture is simply not well suited to sustaining guerrilla warfare compared to smallholding.
More options
Context Copy link