Tintin
17d ago
Well, yeah of course morality aside. I actually think people were too easy on the germans of the time, my grandparents. We let them get away with their lies; that they didn’t believe, or profit, that they didn’t know, that they were threatened, that the war just happened to them, and that it was hard.
One reason they wanted lebensraum was to prepare for an autarkic economy because they knew their activities were going to lock them out of international markets
I think that’s more true of japan; they thought that without the resources of an empire, they could never fight and win a long war, therefore they could not threaten one, therefore they’d be relegated to the third rank of powers.
Hitler had a more dramatic, crazier theory: as more nations became industrialized and more populous, they would find it increasingly difficult to exchange their competing industrial goods for the limited food surplus from more agrarian countries, who themselves were industrializing and therefore there was less and less food surplus to trade. So he needed lebensraum to avoid the inevitable Malthusian starvation of his people. Not such a bad guy after all. Well, other people would still all starve. Anyway, it’s not that he loved autarky, it's that he thought all international trade would soon break down naturally. And then he planned to ‘keep a balance’ between the lebensraum-agrarian part (farms in the east)and the industrialized part(german factories) of his empire so that there would be no reduction of the agrarian food surplus and no starvation.
Tintin
17d ago
If you look at Nazi society it didn’t work very well for the people who were in it.
What do you mean? Morality aside, it appeared to be working great. As you say, Hitler was remarkably popular, even after the extremely costly war was lost, and all the evil was revealed to those who pretended not to see.
First, like FDR, he presided over the recovery for the worst economic crisis of the century, which by itself confers Saviour status, even though it’s likely just mean reversion. In foreign policy, he was a gambler who repeatedly won big. At first the western allies kept flinching, giving him everything for nothing, and then when push came to shove he even easily beat what was in theory the best army in the world, partly because of his own tactical input.
In domestic policy, he understood himself as both of and as a ‘friend of the people’ – as a lower middle class guy, a corporal, he disliked both the liberal elites which ran weimar and the old conservatives elites, the ‘vons’. Aside from the economic recovery/rearmament boom, he was also transferring to poor germans the wealth stolen from jews, and later, other people’s jews’, and other people’s. Because of all his achievements and popularity (which he and his regime cared very much about), for the first years there was little repression.
I would say he bribed the germans far more than he threatened them, but bribe implies that they didn’t intrinsically want to follow him in the first place. The truth is, as vile as he was, he genuinely cared about and improved the life of the common man (in peacetime at least, and with increasingly evil means), and they always loved him back.
Tintin
18d ago
It’s clear they did not expect them to fight back much. It would be the same mistake to assume that of UK-FR-DE in case of russian invasion of estonia, say. The 20th century has shown that seemingly placid people can get quite excited about war, quickly. Okay, maybe the italians wouldn't fight. Then again, that may be for the best.
Tintin
18d ago
Still buys into a hyper-agentic view of lecherous men and women as true sexual objects without desire or agency. If some top men plotted to give sexually inert women sexual freedom to satisfy their perverted male urges, it stands to reason that they also gave them the vote earlier, the right to vote and work, anti-harassment laws etc. If vague dissatisfaction with the current situation is evidence of failure, those things and more were all poison pills.
Tintin
19d ago
Should we increase aid to Ukraine? I think so, but I'm not in charge. So based on current realities, I can… still not do anything. Again, what are you suggesting I do, concretely? That I ‘advise’ ukraine? Fine, I will tell them that based on the august opinion of russian and american commenters, a total collapse of their frontline would be bad for them.
And having been so informed, what am I supposed to do if they prefer continuing the war to accepting russia’s terms? Force them against their will, ‘for their own good’, to accept the terms? Withdraw support, threaten war maybe? How much am I supposed to sacrifice to harm my own ally so that my enemy can get good terms?
we'll try and get Russia to accept the smallest amount of concessions possible.
I'm all for that. But this is achieved by increasing pressure on Russia, not Ukraine. For example, we could be far more open to threatening putin with war, like sending 'peacekeepers' to lviv, for 'security purposes'.
But I appreciate the chutzpah of a russian trying to reframe europe’s unconditional support for ukraine as somehow morally responsible for ukrainian deaths at the hand of russia.
Maybe after we threaten to withdraw support and zelensky tells us to go fuck ourselves, putin will decide he wants all of ukraine anyway, which is far easier now that ukraine has less equipment. I don’t believe putin wants peace. I don’t even believe he wants peace on the terms he just proposed. It’s all a charade for trump’s benefit, putin and zelensky playing hot potato.
Tintin
19d ago
I assume the Ukrainians know more about how much more they can take than us comfortable westerners.
This is what the EU should say, according to you: "Okay, Ukraine, thanks for all your sacrifices defending our sphere from an aggressive rival power, heroic stuff, but based on our 2000 km away expert analysis, you're going to lose everything momentarily, and this hypothetical outcome would be embarrassing for us. So to give you the proper motivation, we're going to cut off aid until you sign a terrible deal where you keep some rump state."
Does that make sense? Or does this EU sound like it’s being fed lines by russia?
All the leverage europe has over russia (sanctions, confiscated assets) has been gifted to ukraine, to do with as they please.
But why?
Because the better the deal ukraine gets, and the least russia gets, the better it is for us. While we do care about the well-being of ukraine, we also care about damaging russia, because russia is an enemy and a threat. If ukraine wants to keep on fighting, and russia takes some more losses, that is fine with us. We're certainly not going to pressure our vassal to sign a deal favourable to our enemy; that's not how any of this works.
Everybody kinda conspires to ignore the agency of the ukrainians; trump and the americans always have main character syndrome, while putin’s entire ideology, and his main reason for the war, dogmatically depends on ukraine’s lack of agency. So Putin keeps trying to talk to trump, who doesn’t care besides the vanity boost of ‘ending another war’ and certainly doesn’t control zelensky, or the europeans, who have no concession to give to him because they are not hurting, and also don’t control zelensky.
Tintin
20d ago
Why is it delusional? What I mean is, what has the state of the war to do with Europe's willingness to concede anything? Say countless Ukrainians are dead, and the Ukrainians are nearing collapse. Not Europe's problem. I wouldn't even give russia a guarantee that Ukraine not join nato. All the pressure is on ukraine, and russia. Europe will just go along with ukraine’s decision. All the leverage europe has over russia (sanctions, confiscated assets) has been gifted to ukraine, to do with as they please. I have no idea why everyone acts like europe is the one who gets to decide to keep fighting.
Tintin
22d ago
(see e.g. some German politician telling Trump that "Germans were the first victims of national socialism")
Who said this?
in WWII animated flashback scenes demonic Poles with glowing red eyes hunt down the hiding Jews
I don’t know what your media produces, but no one here thinks the poles committed the holocaust, and even you merely accuse the germans of minimizing the poles as victims in favour of the jews, not make them the perpetrators. This controversy and the related one about the ‘polish camps’ sounds like the poles are hallucinating an offense to get angry about.
Helmut Kohl's government was opposing Polish access to NATO, for reasons that largely echo current Ukraine's - that it would be "taunting" Russia. Plus ca change.
Are you implying that this unremarkable position is equivalent to the molotov-ribbentrop pact? Or that germany failed ukraine somehow? Since 1990 the germans have been nothing but friends, allies and financial supporters of the poles.
Tintin
24d ago
if a member of a couple is being killed, it's usually the wife by the husband.
It used to be 75 husbands to 100 wives murdered by their spouse, way more balanced. But now women can just divorce to get their husband's estate, while upwardly mobile husbands have only the kinetic option.
Tintin
25d ago
I mean it’s not a mystery, they’re explicitly discriminating against men. There are new EU and german laws mandating between 30 and 40 % of the board of publicly listed companies be women. Note that the employees of large automakers like daimler are 87% male.
Tintin
25d ago
I think the scandis are far worse actually, the anti-rape and anti-harassment laws are “world-beating”. Norway pioneered the 40% female board quotas we are now implementing. They have a law on the books that enlarges the scope of sexual harassment to “statements that have the effect of being offensive, frightening, hostile or degrading “. You don’t even need to go to the office, you can sexually harass a woman by contradicting a random woman on the street if she deems it so.
Tintin
25d ago
Last Sunday, I had dinner with my extended family in Germany. They’re what they call ‘Bildungsburgertum’, best class and best-in-class, educated middle class of doctors, teachers, and executives. They accordingly vote either green or social democrat, and gasp if someone dares defend the Afd or Trump.
Cousin‘s girlfriend says she’s in the running for a promotion at the bank she works for because the banking regulatory agency “suggested” they need more ”diversity“ at the top level. She might lose the job to a less competent woman because her rival is also the “director for sustainability” and the title sounds good to the powers that be. I ask her what the hell a bank has to do with sustainability . “Exactly. She just gives a silly PowerPoint presentation once a year and uses that “fulfilled mission” as an excuse to be incompetent on everything else”. Her male boss/colleague/friend did not appreciate being summarily passed over and has tended his resignation.
After the ladies retire to the boudoir, a different cousin’s husband, who works in IT at a large company, picking up on my skepticism, sits next to me and whispers : “It’s pointless if you’re male.” He tells me he just refused a promotion because he doesn’t want to deal with the headache of having women under him, and the constant humiliation of forced diversity. One of his colleague’s career was apparently ruined after a sexism accusation, although he didn’t give details.
He recently had a woman in a junior post who could not do a simple task and would cry sexism(“I feel like you’re always contradicting me and not the others”) if corrected in public or reminded of her duties. He just did her job for her and never corrected her again.
Final words: “I’m not a masculinist or feminist, I hate all those things. I just wanted to do my job. Now I do the bare minimum, I don’t care anymore, I’m a loser” (I had brought up Rao’s archetypes of Psychopaths, Clueless, and Losers earlier).
There was some controversy recently over Helen Andrews’ essay on the feminization of the workplace. I consider all internet discourse a priori overdramatic and disconnected from real people who just touch grass at a barbecue in ignorant bliss. But this couple of anecdotes suggests real life (in Germany, at least) is actually worse than the widely-decried-as-misogynistic Andrews take: open widespread discrimination against men (obviously), ubiquitous fear of one-sided legal and professional penalties, declining competence at all levels.
Tintin
26d ago
If upvotes mean ‘more of this’ and (like most commenters) fuckduck was largely upvoted, shouldn’t there be a presumption of adding value to the forum, that cannot be annulled by you simply finding me annoying?
I admit, I’m not a high-effort, longform poster. More of a mid-effort reply guy. I get bored on the fourth paragraph describing an idea. I don’t have the impeccable prose of a rafa. But we can’t all be rock stars. I’m not a rock, I identify more as the glue, or cement, in a forum like this. I argue with everyone. Someone has to purge by fire all the crank theories and showerthoughts that make up the AAQC. This can come off as hostile ‘call-outs’, ‘shit-stirring’ and ‘condescension’, but I’d say it’s valuable – and I never tried to get anyone I argued with banned, hostile or not.
Mostly, I blame my vulgar name for how things turned out. I never had much problems with other alts before or since. Much like trannyporno, I fell victim to nominative determinism. Milgram’s experiment of sorts: first named as a villain, then treated as one, sooner or later I ended up as one.
Anyway, since I often defended trannyporno, darwin, hlynka, burdensomecount and almost everyone else who was slowly banned or chased away by heavy-handed moderation, I thought I might as well put in a kind word for myself. @The_Nybbler , @Primaprimaprima , thanks for the appeal.
Tintin
1mo ago
I think it's worth it. If an expert debater and religious authority with a knack for youth online culture like yourself isn't going to dispel their harmful illusions, who is?
Tintin
1mo ago
I think this is remarkably wrong. A big part of the reason these yutes complaining about capitalism, or sexism/racism, or the ‚destruction of the planet‘ are unhappy, is because those are deeply incorrect, anxiety-and-depression inducing beliefs! You could actually solve most of their long-term problems by convincing them they are false (which isn‘t easy, I grant), instead of patronizing them every day by making them feel good for 5 minutes. They could have talked about the weather if they wanted to wallow in their misery, but no, they‘re practically begging you to save them, and you say „no thanks you‘re just being phatic kiddo“, tap them on the head and go on your way.
Tintin
1mo ago
What a garbage theory. Astrology for geopolitics. "And on the second moon of the third year of war, the russian, as always, will have learned his lesson and win". Predicting future events from nothing more than the eternal essence of the participants.
So, do the americans, or the french, not learn, in war? You say his essence makes the russian learn slow, yet, sometimes, against the turk, the russian still learns fast. And the theory predicts the russian ends up winning, but of course, russians lost quite a lot of wars, even in wars where they appeared to be slowly learning at first, in accordance with their eternal destiny.
Tintin
8mo ago
Some unskilled 55 year old I know has been pushing a button at Porsche for 15 years, makes 30 Euros/hour base pay. He‘s being offered free early retirement packages (which are insanely good in germany). He‘s also addicted to coke and in bankruptcy proceedings, but that‘s another story.
Tintin
8mo ago
That these countries and Trump say they 'approach it as a negotiation', are open to negotiations‘ conveys no information. Russia was ‚open to negotiations‘ right before they invaded, Ukraine and Russia have been ‚open to negotiations‘ the whole war. They, like Trump and the EU, have incompatible understandings of reality.
I guess we‘ll soon see who‘s right. If the tariffs are largely lifted after some compromise, you were right, hardball negotiating tactic.
Tintin
8mo ago
I think you misunderstand Trump, you misunderstand the EU, and your own position is incoherent.
Trump does not actually believe international trade, negative balance trade at least, is mutually beneficial, and this sets him apart from the EU and most of the rest of the world. He‘s not negotiating, he really prefers no trade to a trade deficit. He‘s been saying so for decades, but his supporters, and even the market until recently, refused to believe him.
Your attempts to read a sinister motive into the EU‘s trade policy : yeah, they want markets for their exporters – and the very next sentence, they say they support foreigners in their attempts to export to them. They acknowledge most countries have some tariffs in place – this means Trump unilaterally 5Xing every tariff is ‚moving towards the global norm‘?
You once made the bizarre argument that the US ‚gave‘ europe a trade surplus against itself in exchange for (europe‘s) military support. This is a zero-sum trumpian understanding of international trade. If europe cancels this ‚agreement‘, what trade is there to negotiate? The ‚subventions‘ (US trade deficit) will simply stop. Just like the ‚subventions‘ to cambodia and fiji and the rest of the world.
Tintin
8mo ago
tariffs that will raise prices on everything by at least 30%.
I think tariffs are harmful, but that‘s a very high estimate. US Foreign trade to gdp ratio is only 25% (for comparison, canada 67% or germany 83%). Why would all prices increase by the tariff rate when most goods are produced in the US?
Tintin
8mo ago
There is a middle path where the globalist agenda is crushed via onshoring manufacturing which yes,will increase costs for the coastal elite who own big corporations, but will also raise wages for the working and middle class.
It could also decrease those wages, in fact it‘s very likely. First there‘s the obvious loss in purchasing power through tariff-induced inflation. And secondly, the american consumer loves consooming too much. He will eat the seed corn if you leave him alone with it. Other countries used to make up for it with their savings, ensuring the american worker‘s productivity was higher than it would be if he had to rely on his own meager savings for investment.
I find this economic story at least as plausible as trump‘s ‚my trade deficit is your profit‘ . Partly because my theory doesn‘t rely on the very adventurous claim that the rich guy is actually being exploited by the poor foreigners who send him the stuff he consumes.
Dubious and clashing economic narratives aside, you have to concede that the argument in favour of tariffs is necessarily weak and specific to certain non-typical situations, else tariffs between US states would be a good idea.
Tintin
8mo ago
If other countries DON'T take active steps to reduce tariffs or otherwise negotiate, I will have to admit that my model of the world is drastically misinformed.
Say you‘re the median trade partner with the US, you have a trade surplus towards it, and about a 5% tariff on US goods. Out comes trump with a 20% tariff, with a 10 % minimum, and not based on anything you actually do (or whether you are friend or foe), just balance of trade. And you think they will cancel their own tariffs and offer mineral concessions ?
From the POV of the rest of the world, this is extremely high 'trade aggression'. If you answer this with concessions, you are the most spineless weakling that ever noodled.
The only question being debated right now from brussels to peking and tokyo to london is how much to retaliate. The most extreme pro-american, pro-free trade position being to ignore it and wait for his tantrum, or his presidency, to end.
You‘re very lucky empirically because your theory has been tested and disproved within 24 hours. China has retaliated with a 34% tariff on US goods.
Tintin
9mo ago
Or forget about hate speech, focus on attempts to overthrow the government. The lesson from that time may well be: in cases like the beer hall putsch and january 6, hand out death sentences like candy. ok for Jan 6, they looked like a collection of village idiots, they may be spared under low IQ threshold rules, but a man of sound mind, attempting to grab supreme executive power? That‘s do or die for the state, and therefore, death for the man.
He sounded like he was referring to a real, specific incident ("some German politician telling Trump that": "Germans were the first victims of national socialism"), not some vague disculpatory vibes ("it wasn't really us") in another country. This strongly reinforces my priors of polish hallucinations.
I do think these old legal cases about reparations, still hanging around, are poisoning the discourse. It's like listening to lawyers arguing about a plane crash. Neither side has a primary interest in the truth. The cases should be either chucked or settled for all time, now. Flip a coin if you have to, I don't care, but get it over with.
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