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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   751 thread views

Transnational Thursday for March 13, 2025

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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I think unspecified threats to your career and your social circle suddenly treating you like you were a kiddie-diddler is far more effective. Your monkeybrain can grok direct threats and you might go "fuck you" depending on your situation, even if your demise is 100% guaranteed, but it has far more trouble processing the kind of social ostracism that was deployed during covid. Most people can't handle it, and come up with ways to not ask too many questions even in the privacy of their own brain.

That’s just because you can picture social ostracization better, because it’s something we all risk every day. It’s more real to you. You’ve (hopefully) never had someone sit you down and put a briefcase full of money on one side of the table, and a list of the names and addresses of your entire family on the other side. Years of field data in places like Mexico show that such techniques can compel an otherwise good person to keep quiet, or even participate in, just about anything.

and a list of the names and addresses of your entire family on the other side.

Yeah, fair, that would be quite effective.

Such a standard policy for dealing with the Latin American judicial systems that it has a specific name- Plato o plomo. Literally ‘silver or lead’ but really ‘money or gunfire’.

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