2rafa
9hr ago
Why would the Democrats replace Trump with Vance? They know the latter is more reactionary in practice, has a longer attention span, will avoid some of Trump’s worst policies for the economy (by limiting tariffs and seeking a quick resolution in Iran), is invested in staying in power for a second term, and will replace cabinet ministers chosen because Trump liked them on Fox with seasoned conservative operatives who have spent decades wargaming coming to power. That seems like a bad trade.
2rafa
9hr ago
You wouldn’t want to be friends with college law professor Obama because he would be the most annoying “um akshually” midwit at the table. That said, he could read a speech well and had good speechwriters throughout, stuck to the script, and could practice the tone shift needed to speak to both black and white audiences in a plausible and mostly likeable way. The arrogance was and is there under the surface (and seeps through the page in the texts he semi or largely writes himself), but he lacks the overt greasiness of Vance in my opinion.
2rafa
10hr ago
It remains to be seen whether the IRGC are actually capable of guerilla warfare. Iran isn’t Yemen or Afghanistan or even Iraq. Iran fell below replacement level tfr 25 years ago. Iran is more developed and educated than those nations. It lacks the strong tribal loyalty upon which the Taliban and Houthis rely. IRGC officers are used to creature comforts, not living in caves.
It is still a very high risk, of course, but it’s not guaranteed that a collapse leads to a Houthi style Shia Islamist insurgency.
2rafa
21hr ago
Have to disagree. The slowness is the point. I feel strongly that Red Dead 2 is a game designed to be played in ~10 8-hour sessions. One must be fully immersed, this is an all-day activity. That is inconvenient, but it’s hardly unique, plenty of hobbies have that kind of time commitment, just not most video games.
The slowness is the point because the game is holistically and intentionally designed to reject game convention. Like GTAIV (Rockstar’s other masterpiece, and the game closest to Red Dead 2 in both tone and style, albeit compromised by immaturity and GTA convention), it is as much about the slice of life activities and the general vibe as about the actual main storyline. The minimalist soundtrack is a masterpiece, tense beats, the occasional restrained strum, a handful of songs that fit perfectly deployed at precisely the right moment. The story is more conservative than any major comparable game, the rich inner lives and stories of Arthur’s companions fully present (and clearly known to the writers) but revealed only in fragments, rarely explicitly, just there, if you care for it. The game does not care particularly for the player, which is a great argument in its favor. You may come to camp at the right time, on the right day, in between story missions and see an entire, extensive, motion captured and voiced and acted vignette between Arthur’s companions. Other players may miss it, the game doesn’t care, unlike any other game, in which there would be a mandatory reminder to return to camp and the event would only trigger when the player did so.
2rafa
22hr ago
where a poster calls a series of broadly successful politicians uncharismatic and/or stupid
Let me be clearer. I don’t think Walz came across as intelligent in the debate and in interviews generally. Vance is very intelligent (Yale Law, the Thiel thing, with his background, I don’t think that’s deniable) but has an off-putting personality, smarmy (even now when defending the president) and is not particularly attractive.
There are plenty of successful politicians who are either uncharismatic or unintelligent. Plenty of European and Asian countries (democracies) have uncharismatic but smart leaders. And there have been charismatic but dumb leaders, too. Boris Johnson probably isn’t stupid but was academically poor (graduating with the lowest passing grade in the British college system); JFK wasn’t particularly smart.
2rafa
1d ago
Vance just isn’t personally charismatic. Yes, he beat that stupid oaf moron Walz, but so could almost anyone. Absent an upset Newsom will win if he wins the nomination, probably even against Tucker (who I doubt will run).
2rafa
1d ago
I don’t think moderation has become much more lax. Regulars were always held to lower standards (justified in many ways) and now the board is pretty much all regulars, so the spectacular flameouts of the Reddit days are few and far between (the last was what, Hlynka?).
2rafa
2d ago
Most regulars are relatively open about what they support and what their broad tribal identity is, I don’t think this is a big issue here.
2rafa
2d ago
The discussion has been fine so far. What you are noticing is that the war is contentious compared to most discussion here because while the sub has been broadly right-leaning and probably honestly strongly right wing since (at least) 2017, there is a lot of disagreement about this war. That’s not a bad thing, although it does create more work for the moderators.
The transnational thursday thread is pointless. There is essentially a separation between ‘issue’ discussion and ‘community’ discussion on the board. Issue discussion (encompassing news, politics, diplomacy, the economy, culture as it relates to the above obviously) goes on the culture war thread, community (encompassing casual social discussion, media recommendation, slice of life updates, advice, humor) goes into the various other threads.
There is only one overlap thread (Sunday) which kind of works since it’s the last thread of the week and the CW thread is quieter. Other threads are the occasional essay and links to blogs.
2rafa
2d ago
Indeed. And if you look at California, there was this huge outburst of public anger, they passed the law, SCOTUS overturned it, and then it just faded away. People gave up, demographics changed, now it’s over. Why won’t that happen everywhere else?
2rafa
2d ago
Iran has a very low tfr compared to Afghanistan or even Iraq at the time of the US invasion. Broadly I agree with you but the incoming supply of young men is proportionately lower.
2rafa
2d ago
That said, in this analogy arrakis produces only a small fraction of the world’s spice.
2rafa
2d ago
Because the Gulf states have weak armies and fat populations with no strong ideological loyalty (whether they are Sunni or Shia) to their ruling monarchies. Their armies are well-equipped but have very low risk tolerance and are often staffed by essentially mercenaries and or low competence locals unable to get more lucrative employment elsewhere as an employer of last resort. Iran can keep the Hormuz closed indefinitely, and can build low-cost shaheds (essentially model planes that can be put together in an outhouse) infinitely that can make oil production and transport effectively impossible, destroying their economies which are reliant on welfare spending funding by oil sales (with one exception, Dubai, which is funded by international business and tourism - oh well!).
The Gulf countries mostly dislike the Islamic Republic. The GCC was arguably formed in hostility to Iran. Leading Iranian revolutionaries preached Islamic revolution in the Gulf. But faced with destitution and collapse as a result of asymmetric and low cost IRGC pot-shotting, and lacking any ability to invade or occupy Iran themselves, they may have no choice but to agree to a deal.
2rafa
3d ago
Masterclass in giving a man so little to lose he might say ‘fuck it’ and nuke you even with guaranteed MAD, genius. They’ve got to be kicking themselves if he really is alive.
2rafa
3d ago
Because American interceptors at bases in Iran are ones that can’t be donated to Ukraine, and are worth far more than a few cheap drones?
2rafa
3d ago
I suspect Israel’s logic is more out of desperation. The know Iran’s going to get nukes and they know a core mission of the Islamic Revolution is the elimination of the ‘Zionist Entity’ by any means necessary - why wouldn’t that include nukes? Iran after all destroyed its relationships with countless others in the region, got sanctioned by half the world and spent billions of dollars just to fund pretty much every major hostile force on Israel’s border (none of whom are ethnically Persian, many of whom aren’t even Shia). They did it solely to attack Israel, for purely ideological reasons. An Iranian nuclear first strike was always a possibility.
In that scenario, maybe the Israelis calculated that even a war with Iran with a 20% chance of destroying the government or sparking a collapse or uprising was worth it.
2rafa
3d ago
Shaheds are tiny and there’s a huge border where they can be resupplied, not least through Iraq which is majority Shia and sympathetic. Maybe you can get Putin to promise pretty please that he’s not going to supply them, but come on. So again you’re in an insurgent situation that maybe looks a little less like Afghanistan and more like a cross between what happened in Iraq, the Troubles, and the second intifada, except far larger, more entrenched and on larger territory, and with enemies happy to die.
2rafa
3d ago
Immigration is like boiling a frog. It really is too late by the time you notice it getting a little warm. Occasionally, you start thinking “man, it’s getting hot in here”, but then you’re distracted by geopolitics, or by the economy, or another financial crisis, or a pandemic, and the water temperature goes to the back of your mind.
I think this probably ought to be the greatest cause of pessimism for the Western right - you can have a few great years where immigration is the number one issue, but then there’s another recession and suddenly all anyone cares about is stimulus and unemployment and bank bailouts and it’s another decade before people remember what’s happening.
What makes you think that it failing in Iran isn’t due to specific characteristics of Iran rather than some universal strategic truth?
Let me give you an example: if Trump bombs Belgium heavily tomorrow demanding some political arrangement, they would surrender by midnight; the political leadership don’t want to fight and won’t, they would rather be ruled by America than die. Maduro’s party preferred making a deal with America to dying. The Iranians don’t.
Taiwan is neither Venezuela nor Belgium nor Iran, but its political leadership is closer - when it comes to ideological position on this - to the former than the latter. If the Islamic Revolution is overthrown then the IRGC are penniless and prosecuted at best and hunted and slaughtered at worst, probably the latter. If the Taiwanese elite accept Chinese rule relatively quickly…they get to go back to being rich in Taipei, or at worst exile themselves to America if they love democracy.
If Iran was ruled by people with the character and belief system of EU bureaucrats they would have surrendered on the day, shaking their heads.
2rafa
3d ago
Their most obvious path (diplomatic / ‘peaceful’ / semi-peaceful unification aside) is a blitz campaign (with or without attacks on US bases in the region) followed by a quick deal with whoever survives in the leadership. The options for them at that point are “make a deal with Xi” or “call in the yankees and turn my country into a wasteland and die along with hundreds of thousands of civilians and my family and friends”, and they will pick the former.
2rafa
3d ago
China has extensive overland routes, are the world leaders in renewable energy, have a year of oil reserves, have the state capacity to make unpopular decisions about limiting energy usage, can be resupplied through Russia, Central Asia etc, and has large food reserves. Terrible for an export-led economy but not something impossible to survive for a year or two.
Worse ones, of course.
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