Dean
27m ago
Further back, Great Expectations was already deconstructing the trope with Pip heading off to become someone.
I've always considered that in particular to be a good demonstration of the sin of Pride. I've known plenty of people who thought only the Important People could be prideful, as if to be full of pride required something to be justifiably proud of. I've tended to disagree- the phrase 'temporarily embarrassed millionaire' seems suitable characterization of prideful people of modest means.
Dean
1d ago
I've never known a city dwelling woman to carry any means of protection.
How many women have you known the contents of the purse of when they walk around at night?
Dean
2d ago
So, American investors were victims of fraud because Adanis claimed that their business was above ground in investment rounds. Then used American investment dollars for bribes. That is a crime in the US ?
Yup. This is why the western sanctions regimes can be so disruptive- it is really, really easy to fall into foreign jurisdictions when financial services are in play.
In international contexts, nations can assert jurisdiction fora couple of reasons, including the nationality principle (a state can punish their citizens- and corporate entities- for misconduct abroad), and the territorial principle (a state can punish misconduct on its own territory).
Both are relevant in this case, as using American investment corporations for bribes abroad is a nationality issue, and using the American financial system at all places it in American territory. That it is also in the Indian jurisdiction is irrelevant, though if the Indians wanted to pursue prosecution they'd probably be able to preempt the US effort, but the fact that Adani group is mostly based out of India is irrelevant. 'Mostly' is not enough- any exposure to another authority's jurisdiction is enough to require full compliance with those laws (hence why China or the EU can compel American social media companies to cooperate on censorship as a condition for market access).
Dean
3d ago
How are religious beliefs experienced differently?
A chaplain I knew once credited it as to experience the sublime in a way that changes your perspective afterwards on the world.
'Sublime' is a word that's often used as just another synonym for quality in art, but it can mean more than just 'pretty.' Something sublime is something that strikes one with awe- not simply being impressed, but the much more intense feeling of reverential respect mixed with fear and wonder. Once you experience it, you are forever changed, because while your feeling on the thing may change afterwards, the reverence / respect / fear / wonder changes how you see the relation of things.
This is not, to be clear, a 'solely' religious experience. It's a somewhat common attestation of astronauts who go into space and look down on the earth- seeing how small their home countries are puts the their formerly massive worlds into a new perspective. Astronauts, despite coming from often committed career professional paths of government cultures, often have a reputation for being more post-nationalist/more internationalist, not because they don't care about their countries but because their paradigm is shifted by the scale perception and how they view their homelands. That sense of being taken out of your previous perception paradigm and thrust into another has other analogs as well, often when dealing with items of scale- some people get put into awe by nature, or by mega-engineering, or by diving deep into conceptually massive items.
The point here isn't 'what' causes your perception shift, but rather that you have one, and what that means going forward. Just as an astronaut is never going to look at earth the same way again even when they return, or an environmentalist struck by the grandeur of nature will never be as impressed by industrial output, the very way people connect the world together has changed in a way that is not 'merely' a choice.
You do not choose to undergo the sublime experience (you can go look at something other people say is sublime and feel nothing), but likewise when you do experience the sublime you do not 'choose' to let it change you- instead, you are the one changed, because that is part of what strikes the reverence / respect / fear. And after that sort of experience, well... you can try to argue with a converted environmentalist that industrialization is good, and they might be swayed by specific arguments that industrialization may be a net positive for society despite it's harm to nature, but the underlying paradigms of how they put the world together has changed. You can't really argue people out of that any more than you can argue them out of their own visual perception.
Religion is a broad set of dynamics and relations, but the sublime religious experience is broad enough / shared enough that people who have experienced it can find enough of each other to validate and further the beliefs, in a similar sense that you and I both know what 'love' is as an experience despite not knowing eachother or eachother's experiences. For those touched by the sublime, something similar exists, and through it the sense of solidarity that the sublime experience, rather than being purely personal, is a shared sense of something else- and that something else is God, with all the fear / wonder / awe / reverence that implies.
Dean
3d ago
So anyway, next time you see some dude in a dress, with long hair and breasts but a face and voice obviously male despite his best efforts, think about what kind of emotions must have driven him to that place, and have a little empathy.
And enforce rules he or she does not like anyway even if they occur at their expense, correct?
'Empathy' is not an exception to social regulation. It may be used to claim it, or demand it, or insist that it should, but the fundamental purpose of government is to tell people 'no' and enforce that objection by force if necessary. This includes, and is especially true, for demands by one on the part of others- be it life (no, they do not have to give you their lives), property (no, they do not have to give you their possessions), conscience (no, they do not have to follow your religion), or presence (no, they do not have to let you into their personal spaces).
It is precisely because the government is in the business of allocating resources and punishments that governments are ethically obliged to not do so on the basis of empathy. Empathy is, after all, easiest for those we already care about and in scarce supply for our rivals or opponents. Empathy is, additionally, easy to fake and yet hard to measure- there are any number of performative appeals to empathy, but few metrics to actually identify those who need it (often because they cannot speak for themselves). A society ruled by empathy is an often cruel place, as it is one which takes from those less emapthizable with and gives to those who are most successful in bullying social pressure to claim the profits for themselves.
This is why virtuous governments are ruled by laws, not empathy. Empathy may be a consideration in the laws a just society creates, but only in accordance with any other virtue or favor, and refusing to enforce socially validated laws in the name of empathy for a select groups is a lack of empathy for other groups.
Dean
3d ago
It looks like it was just the kinetic vehicle with no nuclear warheads.
Is that supposed to be surprising? Russia has been conducting missile strikes for years with nuclear-capable missiles (not least because most of their modern missiles are nuclear-capable).
Russia using an ICBM is just a symbolic tit-for-tat for the US ATACMs range release. It's not a particularly cost-efficient delivery platform, but is intended to play into the recent implicit saber-ratling as a demonstration of capability.
Sure, though there's a bit more to it. It's a content neutral argument- it doesn't only matter if the [insert agreement] was a good idea, it also matters how it was went about. Process matters, and American Presidents who ignore process requirements deserve to get their noses rubbed into it, but there are broader benefits as well.
Short-term utilitarianism (the effects of JCPOA are good, therefore we should ignore process to keep it) is a bad governing and international diplomacy model over time, and thus the best way to negate such bad models is to make them survive or die by their own standard. Americans should not make commitments they are not prepared- or able- to keep, and one of those checks is if they have bipartisan support. Policies that will not survive a transition of party, should not be the policy of the united states, and future presidents should remember JCPOA as a cautionary tale of how not to try and establish a legacy policy.
This is particularly true if we want a more restrained American foreign policy aparatus in the future (i.e. in a more multipolar world), where the American executive's limitations are as much as asset as a hinderance. When other parties know that American Presidents have limitations in what they offer, it increases the need for a party to get their agreement in writing through Congress (after which American courts can later overrule different administrations). This, in turn, requires clearly identifiable- and communicable- benefits to the American Congress, and thus electorate, as to why the American commitment should be made.
If the other party is not willing to make such a commitment- or cannot convince the American electorate as to why an American commitment is appropriate- this is a strong argument against the US executive making a commitment themselves and thus exposing the US to future conflicts that they American political base will not support. Since that would see the US abandon the policy regardless- and thus lose legitimacy / credibility / prestige / whatever form of favor you prefer- it is in many cases more important for Presidents to not make bad deals/commitments than it is for them to be able to make any deal they want.
Treaties are pieces of paper, ask the native american's how much the US cares about treaties. Trying to hold the US population hostage to a group of war mongering imperialists because some out of them have made agreements with other countries has nothing to do with morality. It's part of this whole conveniently framing things in bizarre ways in a weak attempt to justify your position thing you have going here that isn't convincing anyone.
Thank you for continuing to not contest the point on affordability. Thank you also for continuing the underscore your lack of counter-argument on the issue of affordability by introducing amusing divergences that demonstrate good humor.
Comedy is, after all, about the gap between expectations and delivery. For example, one might expect that a moral condemnation of broken treaties and war mongers of a century ago to be an admonishment to not break other treaties or tolerate imperialist war mongers in the present. Instead, spending treasure to honor treaties and otherwise protect independent states from a warmongering imperialist is itself the basis of condemnation.
This is funny because the punchline is that you don't actually care about unindictable spending or honoring treaties or opposing warmongering imperialists.
Dean
4d ago
For Gillibrand, another way to look at it is that is anyone were to be on a deception scheme, she'd be one of the best candidates to play along.
Gillibrand is not only on the Armed Services committee, she is specifically on the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities, which is to say she has considerably influence on how the military gets to do research and development and against what. Gillibrand is also on the Senate's Select Intelligence Committee, which is to say she has far greater access than most Congressional leaders. She would be one of the highest cleared persons in the US Senate to know and access things, from both military and intelligence understanding, and while that doesn't mean she has exercised the power it would take quite a bit of exceptional circumstances to try and stop her.
It also means, however, that Gillibrand would have incentive to play along with any 'this totally isn't us' ploy. 'Oh, we don't know who's flying these things- that's why we need more money' is a basic needs-justification for her committees to get more influence over the budget, just to give one incentive. Not spoiling her relationship with her executive branch interlocuters is another.
I respect your reasoning and you're not wrong to have skepticism, but in this context (a) she probably is among the best person in Congress best placed to know, and there are reasons who might not forthcoming even if she did. (If she does- it could also be that she doesn't.)
Dean
4d ago
It is also very useful for a nonimperialist faction to know where the nuclear line of their enemy is.
In fact, it's particularly useful to know if/when the enemy is imperialist towards them.
There's no incentive for Ukraine to give up territory without some kind of Western security guarantee (lest Putin decides to pick up where he left off at a later date),
There's an anti-incentive, even. Perun had a good section recently on the risks of a ceasefire, on how the nature of a ceasefire can actually increase risk over a short-to-medium term (months to a few years) absent other items to prevent a return to conflict.
In short, the current conflict has been as stable as it is because while Russia's force generation rate outpaces Ukraine's, so has its force expenditure. As such, even as Russia raises more stuff (men material), it expends more stuff faster (casualties / ammunition) such that the relative balance stays relatively stable (Russia having slow advances on a small part of the front) as opposed to decisive relative advantage (the opening months of 2022 where the hypermajority of Russian offensive gains were achieved).
In a ceasefire, force generation infrastructure is still there to build up advantages, but expenditures stop and transition to stockpiling. This allows periods of rest / refit / reorganization / retraining which can allow a force to constitute both greater quantity and quality for overmatch than it would if the conflict just straight continued. Because of how numeric advantages can scale non-linearly (the relative advantage of having a 3-to-1 advantage is considerably more than a 2-to-1 advantage despite having the same unit of relative advantage above 2 that 2 has over 1), a current-but-lesser disadvantage can be less dangerous than a later-but-larger disadvantage.
This is especially true if the larger force generator continues generation systems (the already established Russian 2025 war economy budget) while the smaller force ceases force generation (such as foreign supporters cutting aid flow on cost-saving grounds). It's also true if the larger force generator has reasons to believe long-term disadvantages await, and thus limited time-window incentives to act sooner than later.
This is how Russia can be (paradoxically to some) both a higher short-term threat and a lesser long-term threat in its current state circa late 2024. In the long-term, the Russian loss of much of the Soviet inheritance has degraded its strategic center of gravity, the Russian economy will go through painful rebalancing, and when the current war reserves are put back into stock there will be a long and hard period of recapitalization to get back to a post-soviet military. In the short-term, however, it retains enough that it can continue to generate forces at a rate that it's neighbors do not match. The awareness that there is an only short-term advantage in turn drives a 'use it or lose it' opportunity window.
This is why I've noted in the past there's a considerable European security interest in not having the war end in the near term. From the European security interest, the Russian force generation potential needs to be matched / beaten, and that requires the time for them to scale their industrial base even as Russia does not have the opportunity to turn attention to them before complete. And the Ukrainians, in term, have a security interest in not having a Russia able to simply out-generate them and come back for march on Kyiv but with better planning.
This is why, absent security guarantees that would credibly prevent a Russian aggression, the logic of continuing to apply an economic-attritional war still applies, even if the US reigns in support. It's not that slowly losing the Donbas is good, or wouldn't happen faster with less US aid, it's that the costs of doing so are lower than the costs of trying to stop Russia attempting march on Kiev v2 with a year of buildup and reset. (Not least of which because a slow but steady series of bad news can change the US political calculus to re-enable aid, but more rapid defeat in the later scenario would preclude the time for American aid to make as much of a difference before whatever status quo extension hits.)
The question of how likely that is will matter quite a bit to people who dismiss the risk... but this in turn returns to the question of who expected the Russians to invade in 2022. And this, in turn, turns to Putin, and his credibility of convincing other actors that he totally wouldn't break his word that he poses no threat to Ukraine yet another time.
Dean
4d ago
I can be serious and I can be silly, and tend to retort in kind. Arguing a shared memes on the part of Trump Jr. are meaningfully demonstrative of Trump's viewpoint is silly. Noting that the Trump selectees for Trump's cabinet are Ukraine skeptics is serious... but so is noting that many of Trump's selectees are pro-Ukraine, which undercuts the credibility of a hardline anti-Ukraine position.
If Trump is supposed to have strong opinions on the Ukraine war, he certainly isn't manning his administration to reflect that, as the adage 'personnel are policy' applies here. Trump Jr. is a person of interest in the Trump administration, but he is far from the only person, and we can just selectively choose quotes whichever way we want.
That Obama tried to circumvent the treaty process by creating a treaty in all-but-name without getting the domestic political support for the not-treaty to exist beyond his own partisan tribe's span of power, mostly by trying to argue that the consequences of ending it were too big to let it end.
This was both bad statecraft and bad precedent, and would have posed exceptional risk to US policy stability if Presidents got accustomed to trying to engineer too-big-to-fail international agreements to bind their opposition-party successors. International relations is a field that relies on stability and predictability, which is undermined if you build castles on sand and then dare your political opponents not to shake them too much. This is a bit like building near a fault line but hoping there isn't an earthquake, and the best way for sound building codes to be enforced is for the occasional reminder of why building codes are needed.
The end of JCPOA was a salutory reminder to most parties involved that (a) if you want an agreement with the US get it in binding writing, (b) if you want a binding written agreement with the US it needs to be politically palatable to the American democratic representatives, and (c) if you want a proposal to be palatable to American democratic representatives, you should probably not be killing Americans via a proxy warfare policy.
Thank you for not contesting the point of affordability, I appreciate the concession in good humor. You do, however, bring an interesting question.
What are the maximum, and the minimum, non-indictable levels of military spending?
For the level of spending to be an indictment implies a non-indictable level of spending. That amount, in turn, would morally need to align with the legal obligations that the American legislature has passed on the American government, which includes things like security treaties.
Perhaps it's too soon to say?
If it is too soon to say, then it's too soon to claim victory either, which is to say one lacks the grounds to claim a policy success.
Moreover, if conditions you want are occurring for reasons other than your policy- like the American public continuing it's trend towards disinterest in European affairs- then the resources you invested in your policy for an effect that was already going to happen were wasted. Sure, you can pay the weatherman money until you get a sunny day, but a policy of paying weathermen for sunny days is a bad policy even if you get sunny days.
Fortunately we can refer to victory conditions that Russian authorities established nearly four years ago, instead of inventing new arbitrary victory criteria. :-)
Dean
5d ago
I'm sorry, I may misunderstand. You think that Trump or his administration is going to reduce government spending?
Dean
5d ago
But you are putting in the thought, and as they say plans inevitably fail but planning is priceless. It's easier to recalibrate an imperfect model than to try and create a new inevitably flawed model instead.
I doubt that either Russia/Ukraine can afford to basically totally avoid talking to Trump until the German election; they both have a bit too much to lose.
Yup. And we've seen evidence of that on both ends, including Zelensky's late-election engagements with Trump.
Zelensky has played this much, much safer (and smarter) than many of his European peers. When a lot of the European elites were happy to publicly dump on Trump after he left in 2020 on the assumption he'd never be back, Zelensky never took the opportunities he might have had to join in to the partisan delight of the current-month losers. While there are doubtless countless Ukrainians who perceive Trump as pro-Russian as many Europeans do, Zelensky maintained a neutrality with Trump directly- even at the cost of enduring swipes- that has kept Trump relatively restrained as well, and thus in a position to work with.
If I had to make my own decision tree metaphor, I'd expect Zelensky's preference/plan to be that he views going along with Trump enough to keep Trump from doing a cut-off, but also more than happy to let negotiations fail so that Trump blames Russia. There are a lot of ways for Russia, or even the Europeans, to snarl talks in a way that Trump doesn't blame Ukraine/Zelensky. If Trump is empowered to do the talks, but the talks then fail, most of the threat of a Trump cut-off go away.
A possible sticking point / friction is the European-held Russian foreign assets and European sanctions on Russia, including gas sales, which are a medium-term need for Russia to re-fund it's economic rebalancing. Regaining those funds and restoring gas sales has been a major reoccuring demand to date, and it is something I think Americans who just want an end to the war underestimate Russia's willingness to press on. It matters in our discussion context because it's an issue the Ukrainians have no actual leverage on- the Ukrainians can't compel the Europeans to agree- and Trump in turn can't blame the Ukrainians if the Europeans refuse despite Ukrainians 'willingness.'
This may be a major asset for the Europeans to keep Trump supporting Ukraine, if only because it can also be used to backstop more or less 'bribes' to convince Trump to continue support. Things like 'the frozen funds will be used to cover the costs of American arms / buy American,' either directly (interest on the investments going to loans for buying American arms) or indirectly (the Germans agree to spend their new debt on buy american). Especially since it would be relatively politically popular in Europe to refuse a Trump demand for a concession to Russia that can be used to help the Ukrainians, which is three distinct politically popular things.
Dean
5d ago
I, too, find people other than Trump sharing memes to be very credible insights into Trump's intentions.
Remember that time Trump shared the CNN-wrestling GIF, which foreshadowed the campaign of amateur wrestling stunts at the expense of journalists?
Dean
5d ago
Basically all we can do is keep Ukraine from losing for a while, at a cost of billions a month,
Do you think billions a month is a burdonsome amount in the context of government policy?
As a reminder- last year the Americans allocated $820 billion to national defense in 2023. As of earlier this year, the Americans spent about $64 billion in military assistance across the 30-ish since the Feb 22 invasion.
Over 3 years the entire Ukraine War military support costs has been less than 8% of 1 year of American DoD spending, or less than 3% per year on an annual spending level. 3% isn't nothing, but it would take decades for the current level of Ukraine War spending to match (1) year of 'normal' DoD spending.
DoD spending which is, by US treaty-law, required to enable/prepare the US to fight... Russia. Who incurs the harm and cost of every munition provided to the Ukrainians used against them. A war-preparation requirement which is increasingly less likely as the Russians lose their cold war strategic stockpiles and devolve into a Soviet Era military which will require years to decades of recapitalization, particularly if the Russians bork themselves by unsustainable spending for medium/longterm economic overheating issues.
There are plenty of other arguments one can make about Ukraine, and I'm not going to argue them in this point, but 'we're spending unsustainable amounts of money' is the opposite of reality. The business case / government finance case is for supporting the Ukraine War, not against it.
Dean
5d ago
And I'd like to say again I agree with your conclusion on Russia nuclear weapon usage and saber rattling!
This was purely a dissent on how the Russian state communicates threats. :-)
Dean
5d ago
This would be your reminder that Genghis Khan not only failed to conquer the world, but failed to conquer Japan, and vice-versa when Japan's occupation of Korea did not in turn to conquering the steppe (or even China).
Ultimately, strategy game snowballs mechanics of win more to win more don't actually pan out in reality. Even the historical domino theory was simultaneously vindicated (the fall of Vietnam to communists did lead to communist takeovers of the Indo-China peninsula) and it's disrepute (the fall of Indo-China did not translate to ever-building momentum for further communist takeovers).
Dean
5d ago
No sounding risk there! I fully support a vie is that he's writing to his topic, and not other relevant topics, which makes my point only a quibble that has weight if he doesn't write on them because he doesn't think of them. If he thinks of them, but chooses to write to other points, that is in no way a failing of him (as opposed to just an unavoidable limitation of limited materiel).
Of course, I would like to know more about the coalition dynamics and how they could come into play. Do you think the Europeans are getting their business up to snuff enough that even if Trump tries to utilize this "concept of a plan" dual-threat that Europe will be able to promise enough support for Ukraine in the event that America abandons them that Ukraine's estimate of the costs won't shift enough to overcome the bargaining friction? Or is there some other dynamic of the coalition management that you think is more salient to be thinking about?
Shrugs No one knows. The coalition is in the process of changing right now, and no one can actually speak for what the next form will reflect.
Part of this is the Trump ambiguity, but another is Germany, who is a key requirements to answering that question and will become clear in March, when the German election occurs. One of the key points of the German government decision to trigger early elections is to break the debt limit so that they can spend more aggressively to support things like Ukraine.
IF that happens, then there is a much greater chance for Ukraine aid to continue going forward because Germany may be able to help offer 'enough' to keep the Ukrainians willing to fight. This, in turn, changes any Trump calculus- not only would Trump have less leverage (Ukraine is not solely dependent on him), but he might even take credit for the expenditures ('see what I could do that Biden couldn't') and even conditionally support expanding aid ('Germany, I'll give you a good aid to buy more ammo from me on the cheap'). On the other hand, if the post-election coalition can't change the debt limit, then Trump has more leverage... but that leverage may be translated not into actually revoking Ukraine aid, but getting other policy concessions.
I think it would be a good video for the good professor, who will absolutely do some good lines on maps if it becomes more relevant!
I'd add onto this that it's not just powerlessness, but a dismissal of what people thinks gives them value in favor of something the victimizer cares about more. It's not just enough to be powerless, it's to be pursued and victimized because you could otherwise be something better as you see it, but that isn't the value in you that the tormenter sees and so your values are disregarded.
In Stepford Wives, the women could be better than stepford wives- more independent / autonomous / successful - but what they were valued for, and taken for, was their superficial femininity instead. The thing they cared about as raising them above Stepford Wives (independence / ability) was not what they were valued for, and so was thrown away. Similar things in the Handmaid Tale- the personal value is in the potential for emotionally fullfilling relationships (love on a personal level), but the oppressor is valuing women for another value (breeding).
In a very loose sense, this is analogous for the horror of 'the devil comes for your soul' genre horror. In those, the value people feel they have (the ability to live a good life / have healthy relationship) is disregarding for something they often care little about but which hell cares very much about- the soul. By taking the soul and damning the rest, the value of life and living is dismissed as irrelevant in the eyes of that higher power.
This contrasts with genres of existential horror in which the subjects have no value whatsoever. Worse than malice is disregard, as the negative consequences don't even have the selfvalidation of 'well my soul has value.' Lovecraftian cosmic horror is most notable for this in the sense that the old ones likes Cthulu don't portend the end of humanity because they hate us or need us gone for their plans, but simply as a consequence of their movements and our fragile, meaningless existence.
But this is less common than it appears outside of existential horror. There's a weird psychological dynamic in a fair bit of horror in that it is self-validating in some way.
For example, a revenge-horror rests on the premise that you once were strong and were able to torment your now-tormenter. Punishment-for-your-sins horror elevates the protagonist's agency as central to the events- if they had not sinned, this would not occur, so their sinfulness was important. Even monster horror typically places the protagonists in some form of competition or power relation in the context of the monster- either the monster is a result of human folly (humans have agency/responsibility), or this is a contest of survival (even if doomed, you had a chance and thus have ability), or even if you are prey the thing wants you (Alien is interspecies rape-murder, but you still have value to the cycle).
A lot of horror thus targets what people their place in the world is, but in doing so helps cement their centrality to it. Even if impotent, they are stilll important enough to be tormented.
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