functor
23hr ago
why Russia started the war in the first place
To keep NATO from militarizing Russia's southern border. Since then NATO has spent vast resources trying to do so and the Ukrainian military is largely defeated.
but between the Russian world and the west. Instead of a campaign to unify of the Russian peoples
A large portion of the Russians are now under Russian control together with the valuable land in Ukraine. Left is a dysfunctional rump state with a demographic pyramid that makes South Korea's look healthy.
Russia is succeeding with its main objective, a multipolar world order. NATO has been cutting down on military spending for 30 years and deferring expenses and investments. Vast resources have been squandered in Iraq and Afghanistan. Ammunition stockpiles are low, equiptment is old and bases are in a sad state. Most European militaries couldn't even put together a functioning brigade before this war. Russia has created an endless black hole for military resources. Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians will have to be trained over the next decades. Ukraine has the world's fourth largest air defence at the start of the war. It is effectively spent and they are currently burning through NATO's stockpile at a far higher rate than NATO can manufacture. Meanwhile SAM systems are being consumed at a high rate in the middle east. Ukraine's military is a quarter the size of the US military. Rebuilding it from ruins after the war is going to cost vast resources for many decades.
Russia's army is bigger now than at the start of the war and is fighting more effectively. Their airforce, navy and nuclear force is pretty much undamaged. The arms production has increased substantially. Between China and Russia NATO doesn't have the capacity to invade Iraq or play global hegemon. Russia doesn't have to defeat NATO, they just have to soak up resources to the point that the empire can't be sustained.
functor
2d ago
The overwhelming impact they have had on social media has absolutely played a major role. They have also sponsored multiple NGOs in Europe.
functor
2d ago
Absolutely. They have put enormous pressure on social media companies. They have also helped many pro migration NGO:s.
On top of that there are several other lobbying groups that have pushed hard for mass immigration.
functor
2d ago
Gas can be build that fast. However, that requires cheap gas. Scaling nuclear is going to take more than a decade.
functor
2d ago
The Arabs still have many homelands and there was no distinct Palestinian identity before Israeli independence.
That argument isn't going to convince Arabs, it isn't meant for the jewish population. It is an argument for Europeans meant to justify a massive refugee crisis on Europe's doorstep. The arab states have absolutely no reason in aiding a mass ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. For us in Europe we have zero reason to want to see millions of arabs move. Even if it is to other arab states it is still a disaster as it is destabilizing.
Israel has not only been involved in plenty of wars that has ended up with migrants in Europe. The ADL and plenty of other jewish groups have been pushing hard for mass migration into Europe.
So if not living in your own ethnostate makes it perfectly fine to evict people there is no problem if the rest of the world forcefully evicts all jews?
So it would have been completely fine to ethnically cleanse all Finns and Estonians pre 1918 as they had never had a state? Basques have never had an ethnostate so are they free game?
functor
2d ago
Fracking is putting the US in a screwed position in terms of power generation. Fracking produces a lot of cheap gas which outcompetes most other electricity production. However, it is finite. Fracking will essentially deliver 30 years of super cheap power and then another decade or two of cheaper power. It is going to leave a large void behind it. Texas needs to start planning for a post fracking future and considering the sorry state of western nuclear manufacturing this is going to take time.
functor
8d ago
The big class war of our era is between the people who live off the system and thsoe who pay into it. The welfare class and the sociologists are on the same side while a plumber is on the other side. The welfare class and the sociologist both want a big public sector while a plumber has little need for the welfare state. The women voting left trope isn't entirely true. Single women who get paid through the government are solidly left while women who don't fall into this category are far less radical. Women aren't really swinging the the left as much as they are increasingly single and employed in the public sector.
Much of the radicalism among the left probably stems from many in the left investing 6 years into getting a master's in something with a strong ideological bent, being entirely reliant on the government for the job and their social status. They are terrified of ending up as someone in East Germany with a masters in Leninism.
The most important thing the right can do in order to secure a long term future for itself is to reduce the size of the left's client classes.
functor
8d ago
There would likely be a lot fewer of them. Instead of owning a car people could use cars as a service.
functor
10d ago
In effect LLMS aren't smart, they are just great at recognizing patterns they are trained on. Google is great at recognizing text strings that it remembers, LLMS don't need matching strings they match on patterns and are able to combine patterns from multiple sources. LLMs aren't truly intelligent because they are dumbfounded if there isn't a good matching pattern in the training set. They are stumped in a way a human isn't if they encounter something new.
LLMs aren't going to replace humans because the set of all data is miniscule to the set of all potential patterns in the world.
functor
14d ago
The left has become too dogmatic to be appealing. When each comment has to be approved by committee it becomes hard to be adaptive, participate in podcasts or even have humor. There was a post yesterday about how Tucker was talk about UFOs being demons. There are probably lots of people in the left with equally far out ideas but they don't say them because the self censorship is much stronger.
The left not doing long format podcasts isn't just an American phenomenon, it is noticeable here in Europe as well. Their speech is too curated allow effective campaigning. It also makes them rigid and slow to adapt. Boomers with though control won't attract young people.
functor
15d ago
With Trump and Elon being friends and Trump even talking about Starship and starlink during the victory speech I think it is likely that we might actually go to the moon. Trump's new friends are tech heavy and Elon is a main character and a true space nerd.
functor
22d ago
They were pushed into Gaza by militia groups that ethnically cleansed the towns they came from. They can return to the place they were forced out of.
functor
22d ago
They are locking them in to tiny area and bombing them. They should take in the civilians from the area they are bombing. Also there are far less destructive ways to fight than blasting a city from the air. The UK didn't blast entire districts of Belfast.
functor
22d ago
Yes, they attacked military outposts engaged in acts of war against them. That a few drugged out hippies were still partying the next day and got blasted by the IDF who started firing indiscriminantly is unfortunate but the civilian casualty rate was still well under what many other military operations have.
functor
22d ago
Like the British in Northern Ireland who managed to diffuse the situation. It is the only realistic long term plan for Israel.
functor
22d ago
And this is why there's always a distinction between jus ad bellum and jus in bello. Palestinians might have very good reasons to go to war, but they also break the rules of war seemingly as a hobby.
Not really, they are engaged in classic guerilla warfare. They are far, far more well behaved than the "moderate jihadists" that the US and Israel supported in Syria. They are fighting a cleaner war than Israel.
functor
23d ago
The big trend with the GWB was the abolishment of the rules of war. There were no prisoners of war, only terrorists who can be tortured in any which way. There can be no negotiation because the enemy are terrorists and are just fundamentally evil. Pashtuns can't have any reason to oppose the Afghan government.
Palestinians are completely justified in having armed resistance and participating in an armed conflict. They are not terrorists, they are armed combatants participating in an armed conflict. There is no special terrorist clause in the Geneva convention.
Israel is an occupying force and is responsible for the people they are occupying. Israel is clearly trying to depopulate Gaza in order to steal the land.
functor
28d ago
The sports teams understand this and invest heavily in sports for children. A talented child will be given all the coaching they need long before they can compete at a high level.
Big tech needs to start the same with math. Specialized coaching in math barely even happens at the undergrad level. The elite in math should be picked up early by the organizations that want elite mathematicians. Even if they don't reach the stars there is plenty of room for people who are fairly good at math but not world elite. While the hundreth best high jumper in the world provides little benefit the millionth best at math can generate value to society.
functor
28d ago
The trans issue isn't there to win voters. People who are militantly pro trans to the point that it steers their vote aren't voting conservative in the first place. The goal with trans is to keep the left wing activit crowd from being engaged in occupy wall street style ideas, anti war stuff and complaining about expensive health care.
The trans issue is a way for the left to give something to their base while pushing policies that benefit their oligarch donors. Except for woke issues there are few issues on which the donor elite and the activist base agree on.
functor
30d ago
While Trump is making a correct move by being among his voters and not hiding in an ivory tower McDonalds isn't exactly a great brand to be associated with. Why associate yourself with unhealthy, bland consumerist food? Mcdonalds should represent the opposite of what the right stands for. It is the antithesis of tradition, beauty, culture, small business and family.
functor
1mo ago
They are largely middle eastern jews. In other words, lower IQ than eastern European jews. A nation of bazaar hagglers isn't really that martial. Israel performs abysmally in international sport for a reason. They aren't a physical people.
functor
1mo ago
functor
1mo ago
They are commiting war crimes on a regular basis. They have fought with exceptional brutality.
They also have to deal with people who are sick of AIPAC influencing the US, Europeans who don't want Ben Gvir to move the population of Gaza to Europe and those who dislike Israel when they are ethnically cleansing christians.
To a great extent yes. Ukraine has lost more officers than Russia. They are running into German WWI problems where they take their best men and put them into elite units and send those men out first. Ukraine leads more from the front which causes higher death levels among officers. Ukraine rebuilt its military in a more western fashion with a professional NCO corps which is much harder to replace casualties in.
Russians have done a far better job at scaling manufacturing during this war. Also They aren't trying to control the middle east and fight a war against China.
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