Eetan
8mo ago
We may be seeing the GOP becoming pro-China in real time.
We may be seeing the US becoming Brezhnev time Soviet Union in real time.
Remember when American culture ruled supreme, when other countries banned American movies, music and other cultural artefacts, including blue jeans? Remember when other countries tried at enormous expense stop American cultural influence?
And remember when the bans were not respected by anyone and widely disobeyed?
Now the shoe is on the other foot.
DO YOU WANT OUR YOUNG PEOPLE LISTEN TO FILTHY CAPITALIST RADIO? ARE YOU A TRAITOR TO OUR GLORIOUS WORKER COUNTRY?
What you want is immaterial. Young people want their TikTok and will do what it takes to get it, including installing and configuring VPN. Yes, only minority is going to do it, but active minority is what always mattered.
Eetan
8mo ago
I can scarcely put into words my profound disappointment and heartbreak learning that the CHIPs act was killed by DEI bullshit.
@DaseindustriesLtd disproven again, there are no traces of any secret cabal keeping things under control. "Von Neumanns" are not in politics (and if they are, they are busy maneuvering to climb as high as possible and divert as much money and resources for themselves as possible).
As said Dominic Mckenzie Cummings, someone with extensive experience in government:
You might think somewhere there must be a quiet calm centre like in a James Bond movie where you open the door and that is where the ninjas are who actually know what they are doing.
There are no ninjas. There is no door.
No God, no Caesar, no hero is going to save us, we are on our own.
Eetan
8mo ago
They wouldn't have suffered the cultural decay that comes with Stalinism
Cultural decay? Stalinism was well known for pushing classical art, music, literature, theatre and ballet to the masses, whether the masses appreciated it or not.
and bland American consumerism.
LOL. Whatever pure Aryan kulchur would victorious Reich produce, it would be as helpless in face of American art and music as Soviet culture was.
As long as you have the will to send to concentration camp anyone caught with unauthorized radio or bootleg negro music records, you can stop the tide with brute force. As long.
Eetan
8mo ago
doesn't that make US the bad guys?
Wrong question. Ask: Were US good or bad players of the great game?
Look at the game board. At the beginning of session, there were seven players. At the end, only two were left.
The Red player who held one sixth of the board at the start, succesfully defended himself and was able to snatch few more squares.
While the Blue player beat and outmaneuevered all others and owned or controlled everything else.
Some people who are never satisfied might bitch that Blue victory should be even more lopsided, that if Blue optimized his play to perfection he might prevent the Red from taking the few squares he gained.
Shame that Christianity that sees Jews as "Christkillers" is dead and Christianity that sees Jews as "beloved elder brothers" and "forever Chosen people" is growing by leaps and bounds world wide.
Eetan
8mo ago
Eh, I wouldn't blame all the Jews
Well, you might not, but Christians for 1900 years nearly unanimously interpreted this biblical passage that way.
Until Scofield Bible and Nostra Aetate, but this is another story.
Eetan
8mo ago
Well. the usual suspects are worried about them.
The truth is that there are few tools for removing Confederate monuments on private land. And frankly, even if constitutionally permissible, it may be unwise to try to limit landowners having the freedom to build monuments (regardless of the subject matter) on their land. However, this Article urges local governments to consider ways to minimize the impacts of such monuments.
Eetan
8mo ago
Rent a warehouse. Make a museum.
There are more (privately owned) Confederate museums and monuments than ever before.
Eetan
8mo ago
Well, Hasbro hadn't thought so and burned it all down.
True fans do not forget and do not forgive. Grey Box forever.
No idea if eternal spy and counterspy cat and mouse game counts as part of culture wars, but here are some recent news from this area.
1/Teixeira leaks were discussed here when they happened, here is the resolution of the case.
We would all agree that 16 years of maximum security prison is price worth paying to impress your gamer buddies in Thug Shaker Central Discord.
2/In related news, important US Foreign Service officer, former ambassador to Bolivia was uncovered to be lifelong spy for ... Cuba.
Another source.
Do not laugh, Cuban DI counts among the better ones in the spook world, infiltrating Washington DC previously while running circles aroud US agents in Cuba. US is rather lucky that Cuba is shithole in every other measure.
3/Another, more pedestrian case of desperate American greed and disgraceful Chicom penny pinching. Surely US top secrets are worth more that $42,000? What insult.
Conclusion: US security is as big shitshow as it had always been. No loyalty (if you keep back stabbing everyone who trusts you, what could you expect), no grand idea inspiring self sacrificing volunteers and no rewards for service either.
Good that any superpower or wannabe superpower competitors are even worse. Notoriously insular Chinese who understand nothing about outside world and have to rely on cash and Chinese ethnic ties, and the less said about Russian Petrov & Boshirov clown show, the better.
Unlike the great and tragic struggle of the First Cold War, the second one is going to be slapstick comedy. Freedom and Democracy (TM) vs. Bright Communist Future(TM) are over.
LGBTQ+BLM vs Xi Jinping Thought is the game now. Enjoy the show.
edit: links now work
Eetan
8mo ago
I'm generally a fan of "blurry" definitions where something can qualify as X if it fulfills a few of many criteria.
I am generally a fan of strict and exact legal definitions of identity X, if X is supposed to give you considerable legal privileges and perks.
Without these priviliges, the story would be just tale of personal misfortune. Imagine you are emo (imagine there are still such things as emos) , you dress like emo, you listen to emo music, you go to emo concerts.. but you are one day expelled by your emo friends for not being a real emo.
Tragedy for you, if you based your whole personal self worth of being emo and being seen as one, but no one outside emo community would care.
Now, imagine that emos are seen as oppressed minority and there are designated hiring quotas, tax breaks for emo owned businessed and other benefits, while it is unclear what exactly "emo" means.
See this for introduction into the unholy mess what current American racial law classification is.
Eetan
8mo ago
"Comrades! It must be a mistake! I am lifelong revolutionary, old party member, decorated war veteran and distinguished worker, no way I can be a fascist spy!"
What could and should be outsider reaction to such situation, except good and hearty laughter?
Eetan
8mo ago
Look, I love Baldur's Gate as much as the next DnD geek, but its writing on its own was not very good. I love Ed Greenwood and Forgotten Realms as a setting (I am currently running a DnD game set near Neverwinter right now) but his writing is, well saying derivative is putting it very kindly.
Yea, worldbuilding and attention to detail are Ed's strenghts, if you like fantasy kitchen sink world of pseudohistorical cultures where everyone has lots of fun.
Ed answering his fans questions on Realms discussion forum, Twitter or Discord is example of this creativity.
"Dear Ed, in 1992 supplement "The Shithole Lands" in chapter five "The Plague Swamp" on page 142 there is map of town of Rotting Hollow. On the map key number 116 marks house of Grug the Grumpy. Who is Grug and what happened to him he is so crotchety?"
And Ed immediately answers with long detailed treatise about Grug, his origins, his family, his friends, his exploits, his business deals, his hobbies and his sex life.
Eetan
8mo ago
The mainstream debate and the structures attempting to enforce the issues are so far out of touch with the realities of the situation that their ignorance is probably actively dangerous to our society's continued function.
And it is not about gun issue alone. The best and brightest's understanding of crucial science, technology, energy, military, health, environment etc. issues is on the same level. Evil masterminds exist only in movies and comic books.
Eetan
8mo ago
Understanding what is going on, understanding that the experts are not to be trusted, understanding that the elites are not the best and brightest, understanding that the authorities are not there to serve and protect you, can make very real difference in your personal life, even if you are alone or one among very few with such understanding.
Eetan
8mo ago
If you want to change things, if you want your cause win, yes, complaining online (or offline) solves nothing. You should become part (or full) time activist and dedicate your life to educating, agitating and organizing. Of course, there will be very substantial costs to be paid for very unclear benefits (most causes in history failed badly, most idealists wasted their lives for nothing).
You do not have to start from point zero - all causes you listed aready have many people fighting for them.
But what's the point?
This place is not activist space, this place is debate space for curious people who want to understand how the world where they live works.
Eetan
9mo ago
In The Philippines, highly devout Roman Catholics will literally nail themselves to crosses during Good Friday to absolve themselves of sin and demonstrate their true devotion to the faith.
Does there exist a secular analogue to this tradition? Where can I be publicly crucified to profess my undying love for the prevailing secular orthodoxy?
Numerous atheist/secular/nonreligious people sacrificed their lives for causes they believed in.
For some current non-lethal example of extreme dedication, see, for example, various performative environmentalist actions.
Eetan
9mo ago
90 billion Biden and Obama sent to Iran
Biden’s $90 Billion Bailout to Tehran
The JCPOA infused Iran with cash. Right before the United States reimposed sanctions in 2018, Iran’s central bank controlled more than $120 billion in foreign exchange reserves. U.S. sanctions locked tens of those billions away in escrow accounts, and financial pressure forced Iran to draw down the accounts that remained open. U.S. sanctions locked tens of those billions away in escrow accounts, and financial pressure forced Iran to draw down the accounts that remained open. After only two years of the maximum pressure campaign, Iran was down to a meager $4 billion in reserves. Meanwhile, U.S. energy sanctions cut Iran’s oil exports by more than 2 million barrels per day, depriving the regime of $70 billion that typically funds its budget.
If I steal your money and then give you some back, I am sure you will be thankful for such generous handout.
Eetan
9mo ago
TLDR: modern Irish nationalism is for various reasons surprisingly anti-Irish. Make sure that you have genuine ground roots support before making language teaching compulsory. Otherwise, sponsor making cool stuff in that language.
On the other side, if you learn Irish Gaelic, you can be translator of official EU documents into this language.
And no one will ever check whether your translation is any good, no one will ever read EU regulations of banana size and curvature in Gaelic. Dream job for life.
Eetan
9mo ago
You forgot:
US holds proud 6th place in incarceration rate and most people here would say it is too low, would say that many more Americans belong in prison.
Nevertheless, keeping millions in prisons is expensive. Why not kill two birds with one stone, why not offer the prisoners option to expiate their guilt in service to the motherland somewhere far away, like Yemen or Iran?
Eetan
9mo ago
I am amazed that you don't think WWII is considered sacred and an unambiguous moral conflict in America.
The Western front is. All these heroic movies full of dead Nazis are set there.
Not the Pacific war (it is seen now as brutal white lynching of innocent Asian people), and definitely not Eastern front.
This thread was explicitly about Eastern front, and no one in mainstream media sees Soviets as the "good guys", no Hollywood movies celebrate heroic Red army mowing down these nasty Nazis. Today, most of Westerm normies are unsure if Russia took part in WW2 and on what side.
Eetan
9mo ago
This is a funny way to put it, because the whole gas chamber story is really what aims to resolve the ambiguity not just on the Eastern front, but on the entire war. Imagine how ambiguous the entire war effort and war consequences become if you take the gas chamber story away.
"Great Patriotic War" is considered sacred only in Russia, much more so in recent post-Soviet times than during USSR.
In the West, modern academic consensus is now that WW2 (at least the 90% of it that happened in the East) was fight between 100% evil and 99,9% evil.
Ernst Nolte was cancelled in his time, but his thesis won, to the dismay of remaining old time leftists.
And this trend will accelerate, both due to WW2 receding in historical memory and current events in Eastern Europe and Middle East.
No one is going to build any memorials to Nazi Germans any time soon, but Soviet monuments are going down everywhere outside Putin country.
Looks like mission accomplished, and without any questioning of "gas chamber story."
Eetan
10mo ago
I expect the exact opposite would happen. I expect that materialists, “Scientists”, the “IFL Science” crowd, debunkers, and Atheists would be the ones that will be least likely at accept a new paradigm.
Well, we should then observe that atheists/agnostics/nonreligious would be much less likely believe in existence of intelligent aliens, compared to believers.
Do we observe it?
Religious Americans less likely to believe intelligent life exists on other planets
By comparison, roughly three-quarters of those who say that religion is less important in their lives (76%) say that intelligent life exists elsewhere. Adults who pray daily are also less likely than those who seldom or never pray to say intelligent life exists on other planets (54% vs. 80%).
White evangelical Protestants, who tend to be highly religious, are less likely than other religious groups to say intelligent life probably exists on other planets; 40% hold this view. Most White non-evangelical Protestants (65%), Catholics (67%) and religiously unaffiliated adults (80%) say their best guess is that there is intelligent life beyond Earth. Black Protestants are more divided on the topic, with 55% saying their best guess is that intelligent life exists on other planets and 44% expressing the opposite opinion. (Due to sample size limitations, this analysis does not show some smaller religious groups, including Jewish and Muslim Americans.)
Real world grim and stupid politics snipped, let us move to our favorite fantasy world (for the same thing, but WITH DRAGONS!)
Obssessive political crap is over, obssessive nerd crap starts now!
elf brahmins
Can there be such thing?
Of course!
Ed Greenwood's fantasy kitchen sink world is place for everything and everyone, and place of pseudo-Hindu fantasy copycat culture are the Shining Lands.
Var, Durpar and Estagund are lands following the Adama faith, religion based on reincarnation, oneness of all things and strict caste boundaries.
And since Shining Lands are properly free of racism and speciesism (as it should be in these types of fantasy world to prevent them from being even bigger Grand Guignol charnel houses that they are)
Just like the gods were aspects of the Adama, so too were the various species of the world. No follower of the Adama would turn away anyone based on their race alone.
yes, when Baldur Gate 4 comes out, you can legitimately and canonically play elf brahmin.
Yes, even DARK ELF BRAHMIN! Here comes Nivray the Rotspider, ready to save the world with his wise and brilliant advice!
edit: yes, the links work now
Imagine we are in alternate world, where anyone who is someone says that South Africa is our greatest ally, that "our values" came from Pretoria, that United States would not exist without South Africa, where every American politician travels to South Africa to honor the Voortrekker memorial and swears to support South Africa to the end, supply it with unlimited money and weapons, and send US armed force to defend South Africa if necessary.
And when someone objects,people are asking: Why are you so obssessed with Afrikaners? Why you hate them so much? Do you want to send them to concentration camps again?
More options
Context Copy link