Throwaway05
24m ago
Man that edit was not great.
It concerns me greatly that so many people who survived Wokeness and COVID without breaking are collapsing in response to our usual once every decade or so Middle Eastern idiocy.
Throwaway05
28m ago
From what I can tell most American vs. European argumentation mirrors the U.S. Republican vs. Democrat argumentation.
Democrats believe or complain about Republicans being evil (with often "subhuman" "moral degenerates" etc.). Republicans believe Democrats are stupid children.
Neither is particularly nice, but the "evil" belief and comments has historically resulted in Very Bad Things. "Stupid" usually results in protectionism and infantilization or ignoring.
So you'll see anti-Republican criticism that is far, far worse in objective terms and therefore clearer to deal with - Republicans don't usually wish Democrats dead (although it happens), the other way around is super common on Reddit.
I don't think the Euro/American divide is quite so bad yet, but I don't see anybody saying Europeans are subhuman pig men (except for a certain genre of racists complaining about non-euros in Europe.
Throwaway05
17hr ago
I mean I recently had called out another user on language precision, I assume that's generating some or most of the kvetching, I still stand by the central point however - the dehumanizing language etc is a notorious tactic of many of the great dangers to society and resembles what the the one we all know gets up to.
I don't think it's an exaggeration and I don't think it should be that eye catching of a statement, at the same time it clearly was. I'm not sure anything was really gained from the ink spilled here and Dase was not saved.
Throwaway05
18hr ago
Ironically this has generated an element of perverse incentive - the comment has generated a lot more engagement because of people taking issue with the word Nazi. It's superficial engagement, but it is engagement.
Throwaway05
19hr ago
My favorite bit of this was all the pretty Iranian woman trying to learn Trump's YMCA dance a few weeks ago.
Although at this point as the realities are setting in people are getting more stressed.
Throwaway05
19hr ago
I'm not sure that's related to my point.
Throwaway05
19hr ago
All of that is fair but it is what we have in terms of knowledge. We also have recent massive protests that required 1,000s of killings to stop. We also have a security apparatus observed in Iran that sure is looking like it was very hard to prevent an uprising.
Do we have any evidence for widespread support for the regime? Hiding and not wanting to get shot doesn't count.
Throwaway05
19hr ago
I don't think those are quite strong enough for how significant the espoused rhetoric was - yeah Nazi is a loaded term, but people who make that much of an effort to dehumanize are up to some bad business most of the time.
Demagoguery can result in someone being hyped for the latest tech product.
Throwaway05
20hr ago
I will use Thuggee next time.
Throwaway05
20hr ago
Counter arguments:
Stats: "A June 2024 survey by GAMAAN showed only 20% of respondents want the Islamic Republic to remain in power, with only 11% supporting the foundational principles of the 1979 revolution."
Anecdote 1: I know some people in the diaspora who are recent exiters. Everyone they know both at home and abroad not directly connected with the regime is ecstatic.
Anecdote 2: I've seen footage of bombing in Tehran where you can hear people cheering in the background.
Throwaway05
20hr ago
See my response to Southkraut.
Throwaway05
20hr ago
Systematic dehumanization of someone you dislike and leadership figures of them is a classic sign of disordered thought processes that often lead to things like the rise of authoritarian states, ethnic cleansing, justification of deaths of people in that group (ex: Charlie Kirk).
I'm not a person who throws around Nazi very often, can't remember the last time I did it - but referring to people you disagree with as subhuman animals and drawing connections to literal demons, shit that's a pretty good reason.
You can be mad at Americans and their political stances without hitting that level of rhetoric.
It's not about Nazis specifically, it's about the modes of thought that lead to behaviors the Nazis are famous for. "That's Khmer Rouge" thinking or "that's woke thinking" are equally appropriate.
Throwaway05
21hr ago
No worries, at least as of late I remember good faith engagement from you so no frustration on my part.
With respect to the millenarian bit I don't believe that at all, I haven't really heard it mentioned outside the typical TDS crowd and the amount of nonsense and propaganda right now is incredible and people are very fooled.
Throwaway05
23hr ago
Oh oops if I mixed that up but going on to add "you're ruled by millenarian fanatics worse than Shia Muslims" I'm fairly sure that's in reference to the reporting about U.S. leadership.
Also things like the later "Hegseth, Trump – are barely human but instead some degenerated swine from a Fromsoft game."
I mean that's Nazi talk. The level of dehumanization is I think new and totally collapses much of value of the contribution since you know it's all hiigghhhhly colored.
Throwaway05
1d ago
I doubt it. The Iranian people have significant support for the US and Israel.
Leadership is either too religious and thinks the infidels should quietly sit down and be destroyed or are going to understand that state planned terrorism is a dangerous game.
Throwaway05
1d ago
Look - I used to find your comments and insight to be a part of the special sauce that this place brought that I couldn't seem to find anywhere else.
But lately I've lost that feeling, and if I recall correctly you are a hair's breadth from catching a major ban.
I don't want that to happen, but you have to stop with some of this stuff. I'm not sure if it's meant to be rhetorical flourish but some of what you are saying sounds just as bad the worst TDS /r/politics user.
Yes the U.S. and the current admin has plenty worth complaining about, but saying the U.S. is a "clearly fascist nation committing genocide in the name of a crude ethnosupermacist theological doctrine" is wrong on so many levels that it has to have taken work to come up with that.
Calling Americans barely human? Come on man.
Like what the fuck are you doing.
If I was to try and deliberately write a comment to get me banned and convince Americans that Europeans have nothing worth listening to it would be like what you wrote.
What happened??????
Throwaway05
1d ago
I had thought Singapore - asked someone here once who was following closer but they weren't sure.
Regardless of where I saw he is still active on Royal Road so maybe he'll write again soon. :/
Throwaway05
1d ago
because simply listing all countries that had been attacked and implying that some of them lacked US Military bases or Troops would be ambiguous and useless in a good faith discussion.
I think this implies you understood what I meant and decided not to interpret it correctly?
Throwaway05
1d ago
I'm sorry - based off of your response I think you may have misread my comment, or at least you are not responding to what I actually said.
Given the specifics of the way you jumped in here it could be as part of some didactic exercise, please clarify if so.
Thank you!
Throwaway05
1d ago
I mean it's deeply unethical but it isn't a bad choice if you don't care about that. "Don't attack us or we'll make you regret it" requires carrying out the threat. And again their whole vibe has often been well, terrorism.
The random pain inflicted is part of the point.
Throwaway05
1d ago
Like I said, people pretend it didn't happen.
You can be mad at how the government and our institutions did things without pretending it wasn't real.
I work in healthcare. I saw the bodies. I had colleagues and friends die. I saw the way our system nearly snapped. I saw the longterm bad health outcomes, decrease in quality of care, and dislike for healthcare that the situation generated.
Most of the COVID complainers aren't acknowledging what really happened.
This thing is you don't need to do that to make the point! What actually happened was bad enough, you don't need to building and burn a conspiracy theory straw man to get the job down.
Throwaway05
1d ago
How so? Initial flattening the curve was a real thing that actually helped, public health institutions, cowardly politicians, and Karen energy betrayed the parts that worked and kept things going indefinitely. Banning people from parks and from fucking being outside was nonsense and only made sense (if ever) in dense urban environments). Don't punish people who live in places where shit made sense!
Anger at broken institutions, excess of conservatism and so on? Sure!
Acting like COVID didn't happen? ...tis nonsense.
Throwaway05
1d ago
If you define random as "missiles unable to target adequately and therefore landing at random locations" they certainly to do lots of that.
If you define random as "flailing around targeting nearly every country in the area (every country but Syria?) intentionally and unintentionally for unclear reasons*" then that sounds random and that's happening.
Both are running at the same time.
*likely to sow terror and expense, which has been a frequent part of their strategic posture.
Throwaway05
1d ago
I imagine much of the frustration comes come from the middle/common sense feeling eroded- as someone who was mostly anti-lockdown (well pro common sense lockdown, which was swiftly abandoned) it certainly feels like a lot of anti-lockdown people deny COVID ever happened.
Having lived it through it...that's infuriating. I haven't reported but I can see a lot of people with personal experiences (like deaths in the family) freaking out.
I think there are arguments on both sides for this being a win for Russia and China vs. loss, but we aren't going to know until well after the fact.
If Iran collapses that's a loss for instance. Sources in the military are saying that part of our posture is to show off assets to Russia and China, if China does not invade Taiwan because of this misadventure we may not find out about it until decades later.
On the other hand if they go now it becomes a bit more obvious it was an own goal.
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