domain:arjunpanickssery.substack.com
NunoSempere
1hr ago
Elon Musk shared a perspective from Jeffrey Sachs, outlined in more detail here or here, about how Russia was provoked by NATO expansion into invading Ukraine, in the same way that the US was provoked by Soviet cooperation with Cuba. This matters because Musk has become an important Trump advisor.
African countries face cybersecurity vulnerabilities due to foreign control over critical technological infrastructure, with notable cases of Chinese cyber espionage in African Union headquarters and Kenyan government ministries. Chinese and U.S. companies dominate the application and operating system layers.
Theravada Budhist rebel militias control most of a state (province) in Myanmar. Seems like it could tickle some people here.
Otherwise, I'm thinking about how states just seem like a bad abstraction. Alliance blocks, ideologies, religions, dynasties seem like somewhat better building blocks. In particular, states seem like an easy abstraction, but recently they have mislead me when... a) thinking about the Iran/Hamas/Hezbollah/Houthis: it seems much easier to think about them in terms of religion than in terms of their geographic boundaries; b) there are a few governments that are pretty weak, and they are so just because the west recognizes and supports them. Yemen, the former government of Afghanistan come to mind, c) borders are important, but not that important. There is free travel between Paraguay/Argentina/Brazil, between the European Union, between the US and Canada, between Russia and Belarus, etc., d) at the lower level, a few governments are just a few families in a trench coat (Saudi Arabia, El Salvador, etc.).
Longer list of items below. Some may be wrong.
Protest in Hyderabad against Punjab's construction of more canals on the Indus river.
Canada forces are training for deployment in Latvia—an a potential
Potential prophylactic against Ricin, in case somebody is wanting to recreate a Pricess Bride scene irl.
A paper in nature warns about the danger of a repeat of the 1815 Mount Tambora eruption
Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi warned of the potential spillover effects of the wars in Gaza and Lebanon, where Iran-backed groups are battling Israel. Araghchi stated that if the conflict expands, it could result in insecurity and instability spreading to other regions beyond the Middle East. I'm particularly worried about that scenario.
Biden administration "under pressure" to respond to Iran's plot to kill Trump, reports Fox News.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called for imposing a weapons embargo on Israel and severing trade relations with the country
Far-right Israeli minister calls for annexation of West Bank
IDF says it destroyed most of Hezbollah's manufacturing, storage sites
Iran is building 'defensive tunnels' in Tehran metro network to save people from Israeli air strikes
Iran might have developed chemical weapons. These would have been tactical, rather than wide-area.. British tabloid claims that Liz Truss thought that there was a 50% that Putin would use a nuclear weapon in Ukraine in the eve of her administration
The Famine Early Warning System warns that if food supplies remain blocked, then Famine (IPC Phase 5) will most likely occur in North Gaza
An Iranian MP says Iran should move forward with a nuclear test
China is building nuclear reactor to power new aircraft carrier
France sent a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier to Japan
North Korea ratifies mutual defence treaty with Russia. The treaty commits both countries to providing immediate military assistance to each other using “all means” necessary if either faces “aggression”.
NATO military chief says troops would be on ground if not for Russian nukes
US flights to Haiti banned after 3 airplanes shot. government information campaign in Norway is urging citizens to prepare for emergencies, with a checklist of supplies including water, food, candles, iodine, a radio, and cash.
Doctors Without Borders ambulance in Haiti ambushed, patients executed by police officers and vigilantes.
Colombia has declared a state of disaster following days of torrential flooding impacting tens of thousands of families.
European Forum for Disaster Risk Reduction
Canada records its first human bird flu case
Global talks to reach an agreement on better fighting pandemics will continue into next year
The largest-yet multilingual open pretraining dataset was released.
China arms itself for potential trade war with Donald Trump. "You think you’ve priced-in geopolitical risk and US-China trade warfare, but you haven’t, because China hasn’t seriously retaliated yet"
Ukraine could build a crude nuclear bomb within months, similar to the Fat Man bomb dropped in Nagasaki, from spent plutonium
An elephant seal colony lost 95%+ of its pups because of H5N1
An Australian site makes the point that misinformation laws prevent converging to the truth when the official version is wrong, as it was in the early days of covid when the mechanism for transmission was thought to be droplets, rather than the virus being more generally airborne.
ChinaTalk reports on the state of model testing in China
I'm reluctant to post this last part because I don't expect anyone to take this seriously.
Listen, I'm just a crazy spirit helping out my diety, so my opinion and $6 will get you a nice festive White Peppermint Mocha from Starbucks, but I take your experience as serious as a heart attack and completely believe that it happened to you exactly as you described it. In my own family my paternal grandmother was infamous for her presence in her home after she passed away until my grandfather joined her several years later. Both he and my uncle received occasional guidance from her and at least one direct message, usually when they were looking for something. Sounds woo woo and hokey, right? But how would you feel if you were wondering where that screw was that dropped out of your glasses and a thought came unbidden into your mind and said, "it's in the heel of your shoe!" It blew my grandfather's mind for sure. While I never had a personal experience involving her after her passing, it felt like she was hanging around the house to me, too. In fact, I'd say that her presence was palpable while he still lived. I've had many other personal experiences in my life as well, more than enough to satisfy my own questions about life, death, the afterlife, etc.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go torment some drunken writer/poet...
mrvanillasky
1hr ago
Those are his not mine lol. I have never been in a relationship, I simply wanted to know what you guys thought, universally panned 🤣
Here
2hr ago
The University of Michigan Central Student Government voted to impeach their president and vice president for (i) incitement to violence (an instagram post on the "SHUT IT DOWN" account encouraging students to pack a CSG budget meeting in early October); (ii) cybertheft of CSG property (changing the password on the student government instagram account and voicing support for the student protestors; and (iii) dereliction of duty (attempting to defund student orgs at Michigan and attempt to send the money to Gaza).
The student leaders had explicitly run on a "shut it down" ticket, receiving 47% of the vote back in March (granted, less than 20% of the student body voted). The leaders had pledged to "halt all CSG activity and associated funding until the University fully divests from companies profiting off Israel’s military campaign in Gaza," were voted in, and then proceeded to do... exactly what they had promised. But living up to their promises is, apparently, enough to impeach them for.
There were some challenges to their campaign, citing unfair election tactics, but they were ultimately sworn in to their posts back in April - and only now has impeachment been brought forth, eight months later.
Is this a window into a changing tide of how culture war issues are discussed on college campuses, or do students just get frustrated when they start feeling the actual impact of their actions (no funding for their organizations)? Is "support" for Gaza dying, and if yes, what is the new cause de jour that will rise to take its place?
mrvanillasky
2hr ago
"Do not redeem" makes me crack up everytime 🤣.
A whole bunch of registered rape cases here are where the girls withdraws consent later, I was told about this by a reactionary girl I was into a while back
Yeah, India can't build, the even if you had classified tech, stuff would barely get built due to the bureaucracy and infra issues alongside the shoe string budget which attracts very few able competent types.
roystgnr
2hr ago
These aren't the cases you really need euthanasia for, though. Morphine and all its more modern alternatives are some strong shit; we know how to handle physical pain right before the end. The metastasized tumors in my mother's lungs made her more and more tired for months, until she never woke up again, but with the pain counteracted there was no reason for her not to want to get as many awakenings as possible.
What we can't do anything about is mental suffering. My father's tumor went metastatic before treatment killed it, and its progeny recurred inside his skull, where the fight with them became an existential horror, crushing various chunks of his memories and personality one by one, leaving an increasingly confused and terrified remnant behind. I try to reassure myself that, a week or two before the end when his frequent screaming sessions changed from "Help! Help!" to "Hell! Hell!", it was surely only because he'd lost more fine motor control, not because he was making a deliberate evaluation of his situation.
I want legal euthanasia, with the explicit ability to create a medical directive that instructs and allows my family to be the ones to order euthanasia at some defined point after I'm too far gone to do so myself. There's a bit of a paradox in the fact that the only circumstances under which I'd want to kill myself are those where I would be non compos mentis and so both personally and legally unable to do it.
mrvanillasky
2hr ago
I can't unsee it now kek
mrvanillasky
2hr ago
They should be deported en masse asap, no two ways around it. This stuff makes the good kind look bad since.
BaronVSS
Sort by controversial
2hr ago
Kitboga has done immense damage to India's reputation
Thanks to him, I cannot think about the word "redeem" without automatically associating it with India.
I wonder if the yelling scammer guy is aware of his own popularity.
There's always someone complaining about dating. Both males and females. Of all races.
White men , unlike Indians and Asians, don't complain about racial barriers specifically. The other groups have all of the standard grievances plus the feeling that their race is disfavored by the majority.
So they're probably the winners, as a race.
FiveHourMarathon
Listen to Pierre
2hr ago
The male disaster action hero fantasy is characterized by the main character specifically having a chance to massively increase their relative social standing and personal control over their life.
The female equivalent is the increase of one's social status massively, by way of her sexual value being threatened/desired for control by multiple parties. If you're a pink collar woman in HR, you have maybe an inattentive leaf-eating boyfriend or husband who doesn't really get that worked up over you or value control over you. In Handmaid's Tale type fantasy/dystopia the entirety of society is built around controlling and possessing you and your sexuality.
DradisPing
2hr ago
I really liked the Jacques McKeown audiobooks (Will Save the Galaxy for Food, Will Destroy the Galaxy for Cash, Will Leave the Galaxy for Good). He reads them himself so you get his presentation skills.
I am particularly fond of spaceships, so it got points for that. It's a light and funny listen that's easy to follow. So it's great if you're doing chores or going for a walk where there may be some distractions.
I played it on a drive with my father and he asked me to turn it off because he liked it but it was too distracting. Usually he's fine with audiobooks on drives.
I had trouble getting into "Differently Morphous". I'm less familiar with some of the Lovecraftian & Harry Potterish material that the story involves. Plus there are POV jumps that make it harder to follow in while playing the background.
I'm planning to give it another try.
His books are not anything dense or deep, but I find them enjoyable.
Tanista
2hr ago
I'm biased against progressives on certain issues so I'm inclined to think that the reason the trans thing is such a red line is precisely because it's just not true and is the most obviously ridiculous stance Democrats take. So you have to suppress any hostile discussion of it or basically go with DARVO. If you can't discuss trans stuff besides "it isn't happening" or "you're the weird one for caring" then you need to be able to control the tempo of the discussion because that is just bullshitting. At this point I think progressive takes on crime have also worn out their welcome so it can happen on multiple issues.
Another answer that doesn't depend on people we disagree with being secretly doubtful of their most cherished beliefs is that Democrats thought they had cultural hegemony so they had less to gain from going on to other sites. Twitter is only a couple of years out from being a left-wing stronghold that was more dangerous than Reddit given how it allowed the cool kids to set up cancellations. Rogan was attacked precisely because he felt like an oasis - and he wasn't even right wing! They legit thought they could have closed off all meaningful alternatives. At least for people not hooked on Fox News.
In that sort of environment it may feel like the incumbent has more to lose from stretching themselves than they have to gain. Meanwhile Trumpists have to take any platform offered.
As for liberals putting up signs: you have seen it, everywhere. It's the rainbow flag.
I don't really see much of a meaningful distinction between "Covid was too infectious to be controlled" and "it is possible to control Covid, provided your country is a geographically isolated island nation without land borders and you keep your borders shut indefinitely". It's so telling that "zero Covid" types always fall back on the examples of Australia and New Zealand to demonstrate that of course lockdowns work at controlling Covid (and it's just a complete coincidence that both countries are geogprahically isolated island nations without land borders). Show me an example of a country which isn't a geographically isolated island nation with land borders which was able to control Covid with vaccines and NPIs. I'm going to assume we can't. Given that most countries are not geographically isolated island nations without land borders, it seems perfectly reasonable to argue that, for 90%+ of countries on earth, Covid is too infectious to be controlled.
And insofar as you're labelling the decision to reopen the Australian borders a "conservative" one, we both know full well that if Anthony Albanese (Labor party) had taken office a few months earlier, he would have made the same decision. In point of fact, Albanese did take office in May 2022, and did not immediately reverse the previous administration's decision to reopen the border. New Zealand reopened its borders a few months after Australia did, a decision made by a Labor prime minister (who was previously, consistently praised for her aggressive response to Covid and "girlboss" energy throughout the Anglosphere), and saw the same dramatic spike in Covid deaths. Are you just defining "conservative" policies as any policies which do not pursue the minimisation of Covid deaths as a terminal goal, at the expense of all other considerations? Or are you only interested in discussing the relative rates of Covid deaths when you can blame conservative decisions for them, and studiously ignoring progressive politicians who make almost identical decisions in almost identical circumstances?
If elderly lives are worth radically less, why does murdering someone in their 80s carry the same penalty?
I never said elderly lives are worth radically less. You claimed that Covid is more lethal than AIDS, but this is obviously untrue for the simple reason that it is much easier to kill a sick elderly person than a young healthy person.
it took a year just to work out that it was sexually transmitted, and you couldn't just post that information on a website because the internet didn't really exist
TIL the Internet was the first ever medium for disseminating medical information. In point of fact the CDC (among other bodies) ran massive nationwide campaigns throughout the 1980s intended to raise awareness of the disease and how to avoid catching it, as did various governmental bodies in the UK. There was a very brief window, only a few years, in which a person who'd contracted AIDS could legitimately plead ignorance and say they didn't now better.
With AIDS, avoiding it would have required not having any relationships for the next decade or two
Or, you know, wearing a condom.
With COVID, you were asked to wear a mask and avoid big parties for a few months.
Yes, we were asked to do that. But even getting massive buy-in from the public on both counts had virtually zero demonstrable impact on the rate of transmission of the virus. China was unable to control Covid even using vastly more punitive measures (like literally locking people inside their apartment buildings) than any Western government, even in 2022 after 90%+ of their adult population had been vaccinated. I mean, even in your preferred example of Australia, even while their borders were shut, people still died. Or are you claiming that Australia really could have gotten its Covid death rate down to zero if literally everyone had always worn a mask outside the home?
Failure to do so placed everyone around you at risk.
Well, no: it placed every old and immunocompromised person around you at risk. Most people are neither, and Covid poses little more threat to them than the flu.
DelendaEst
2hr ago
If you are in favor of ideals then Republican immigration policy sounds like it would be a better fit for you. In order for American Ideals to continue to be American Ideals we need to assimilate immigrants into them, and that means taking in a manageable flow, and preferably from all sorts of places. Too large a flow and the existing culture and ideals get diluted too quickly. Too much from a single source means they form enclaves which makes assimilation harder (I am especially thinking of the majority muslim areas of Michigan here). Republican policy preferences are the ones that will meet this goal the best.
stuckinbathroom
2hr ago
MaiqTheTrue
Renrijra Krin
2hr ago
Nobody is saying it’s easy, but Trump leaning people do exactly that. Trump’s base has absolutely no problem going onto any platform available to them. They have no problem putting up signs — even in hostile places — or wearing Trump gear, or posting pro-Trump messages on social media. Trumpers are like CrossFit fans, you don’t have to ask, because they will absolutely tell you.
I think it’s a belief problem. Liberals don’t seem to actually believe in the message. They don’t advertise in hostile environments, they don’t put out signs or wear gear, they don’t talk about it with friends and family. They mostly flee.
SophisticatedHillbilly
2hr ago
Objectively, pretty much just white men in the like 25-45 range (definitely blurry at the edges there) who are some combination of wealthyish, charismatic, and healthy (or maybe just agentic? I’ve always felt that was a bigger factor.)
The thing is, you assume that 'ideals-based identity' and 'ancestral identity' are separate and orthogonal to one another. But even if we put aside tribal allegiance, it's pretty clear that emotional predispositions (openness, authoritarianism, neuroticism, etc.) are at least partially genetic. And this is going to correlate somewhat with race, because most places have had fairly stable demographics for hundreds or thousands of years.
The ideal of "free speech" is going to look very different in a country of high-openness, high-extroversion people vs high-neuroticism, low-openness. Likewise "self-governance". Moved from one country that considers itself meritocratic, self-governing and devoted to free speech to a very ethnically-different country with the same ideals really drove that home for me.
American notions of what their founding ideals mean has already shifted pretty clearly since the country was founded, and I doubt that's independent of the demographic changes that America has been through since the founding. Anyone who wants to preserve modern American values has to consider the demographics of the population upholding those values and passing them down to their children.
(Look at how much work it took for Roosevelt et al to get federal jobs allocated by exam scores not patronage. Both factions considered themselves thoroughly American, but one defined 'merit' as 'decades of loyal service' and the other as 'intelligence and diligence").
Tanista
3hr ago
It's weird because a lot of the manosphere is black. Especially in the post-Kevin Samuels era.
They have zero interest in HBD on race (though they are quite fine with male-female differences and questions that could be considered racist if asked of them like "name 10 female inventors").
In some cases these black redpillers have larger platforms than people like Fuentes they're platforming. Fresh and Fit was making a ludicrous amount of money bashing Miami women and lost it to platform antisemites whose beef with the Jews is that they let in black migrants as "biological weapons" as they put it.
Primaprimaprima
Bigfoot is an interdimensional being
3hr ago
a certain kind of entitlement to other people’s money
I know what you’re talking about, but I have to wonder to what extent it’s due to actual objective differences in the “national character”, or whether it’s due to my own political biases, or perhaps whether it’s due to America’s (my country of residence) geopolitical relationship with the countries in question.
India and China both come off to me as being notably entitled (not just in terms of “other people’s money”, but more broadly). But I don’t feel that way about Russia, or Japan, or Latin America, or basically anywhere else in the world.
there342
3hr ago
If you're at the point of freeing all your nation's prisoners to stir up trouble and keep the heat off yourself, I have to wonder if you're still the one defending the nation or just what it needs defending from.
HorthyMiklosKatonaja
3hr ago
The recent huge, unprecedented influx of low-intelligence Indians into Canada, IMO, plays a huge role in the spread of the "pajeet" stereotype.
faceh
3hr ago
If it truly is a situation of molochian hypercompetition, NOBODY is getting the "better" end of it. Everyone is working harder than ever for less reward than ever.
It's crab buckets everywhere, and any perception that it is better somewhere else is just grass is greener effect.
There's at least people getting the "less bad" end of it compared to each other, even if true "better" might be far in the past or future, and "white men in the like 25-45 range" does seem to be the least bad male demographic to be in. I long ago noticed in OKCupid blog data that men do have better odds as they get older, and looking now at the "Reply Rate by Race - Male Sender" graphic from the old OKCupid blog, it does look like white men had it less bad than other men - with nearly 30% of women they messaged willing to acknowledge they exist!
Disclaimer: all data above is at least 15 years old, OKCupid was since bought out for being too functional a competitor to commercial dating apps, and there is no reason to believe the descent away from "better" has abated. Even limiting our complains to the situation of men seems myopic; women hardly seem much happier with modern dating, with very different but similarly serious complaints.
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