domain:arjunpanickssery.substack.com
TequilaMockingbird
10m ago
Im fascinated by the transition period around the turn century as it is simultaneously remote and foriegn and yet at the same time immediately accessible in the sense that primary sourses are widely available and the seeds of our modern world for all its good and ill are immediately visible.
Mine is hardly a unique take (better historians than I have already written whole books on the subject) but i think that WWI was an inflection point, and the seminal tragedy of the 20th century. I say tragedy specifically because it is so hard to pick out any one cause or villian. Sure some might point to Gavrillo Princep, but he was less the cause and more the careless spark that finally lit the pile of oily rags. It almost feels fated in a way. Everyone involved seems to have been making reasonable decisions and assumptions for the information they had available the problem (if one can call it that) was that the world is messy and complex and a lot of their information wad either incomplete or just plane wrong.
In contrast the opening of WWII might as well be a Saturday morning cartoon in its simplicity.
Sure there is the argument to be made that Britain could have avoided both wars simply by reneging on previous agreements with Belgium and Poland and renouncing the RN's role as guaranteurs of maritime trade/safety but I don't see how anyone remotely familiar with early 20th century British politics and culture would consider that a realistic option. In alternate history terms we are talking alien space bats.
Regarding Cooper in particular i find it interesting that his complaints about Churchill seem to mirror a lot of the longstanding complaints about him from the far left. IE that his stubbornness and devotion to outmoded ways of thinking prevented him from meeting the socialists and anti-colonialists half-way and subsequently brought ruin to the nation. Of course the classical rejoinder from the trad right is that it is precisely this stubbornness and devotion to "outmoded ways of thinking" that made him the man for the job.
JulianRota
14m ago
Started reading And The Band Played On, about the handling of the very beginning of the AIDS epidemic in the early 80s. Seems interesting so far, and I have at least some expectation of it going against some of the things I believed.
To pre-register what I currently believe, I think it was probably handled within about a standard deviation of about as well as it could reasonably be expected to have been, considering both the highly novel nature of the disease and the behavior of the victims, including being highly reluctant both to seek medical care and to cease high-risk behaviors like sharing needles to inject drugs and highly promiscuous gay sex. I am skeptical that any reluctance of authority figures to take it seriously due to the nature of the victims was a bigger factor than either of those. Considering that even now, ~45 years later, we still don't have a great handle on medical treatment, it's hard to see doing more sooner helping much. The only thing they could have semi-realistically done differently was to crack down much harder on those high-risk behaviors, which probably would have been pretty ugly and would have further outraged the affected community. So yeah, AIDS sucks and hindsight is 20/20, but give us a realistic alternative that the people involved could actually have done if you want to really convince me that we screwed it up.
Southkraut
A tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.
21m ago
Motte Factorio Space Age Coop Campaign?
netstack
Texas is freedom land
25m ago
Sure. The study IGI was looking at said HR complaints were ~half of reports. Police rarely came into it.
I’m saying I expect MeToo takes a distant back seat compared to the traditional dating woes of insecurity and embarrassment.
magic9mushroom
If you're going to downvote me, and nobody's already voiced your objection, please reply and tell me
27m ago
I think you might be underestimating the sheer scale of Australia's food surplus; we could lose a lot of efficiency without Australians starving (as opposed to Asia starving from our exports stopping), because we've got 2.5 times the arable land/people ratio of even the USA. Transporting it is still an issue, but Australia does have some oil.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
35m ago
Austria-Hungary.
Germany gave lots of very aggressive assurances to the country, which would otherwise not have dared to provoke Russia. And not just realpolitik tactful deterrence—things like “Germany stands ready to draw the sword!” The “blank check” is the most famous, but sentiment was very much in favor of brawling. If the Schlieffen plan had paid off, if they’d stayed out of Belgium, if France had cold feet about aiding Russia, if if if…there were ways it could have panned out favorably. But no plan survives contact with the enemy, and Germany had a lot of enemies.
Wilhelm II more generally bought into the militaristic romanticism which had served Prussia and early Germany so well. He collected honorary military ranks and was quite optimistic about the indomitable German spirit. But it wasn’t 1871 anymore, and a British/French/Russian coalition was a lot more likely. He exacerbated the problem by poking at French and occasionally British colonies.
Also, he loved his boats. Thought they were the most important symbol of national prestige. Built a ton of them, directly challenging Britain for naval power. Not great support for the continental hegemon thesis. I mention this mostly to argue against the hypothetical where he’d give up the fleet to keep Britain out of war. Not a chance.
I’m going off what I’ve been reading in Massie’s Castles of Steel. If that’s out of date or revisionist, trust @Dean over me. But from what I’ve seen it holds up.
zataomm
35m ago
I don’t know how you can look at that and think “America.”
Because I think America/NATO actually achieved what Germany (according to its modern defenders) was trying to achieve, peace through unquestioned dominance on the continent of Europe. America doesn't view itself as aggressively expansionist, even as NATO expands, because its military actually is so dominant that it seems only natural that other countries should want to join our military alliance. So America is definitely not like Germany if the comparison is "young upstart power with something to prove", but America does seem similar to Germany in its view of a peaceful world order, i.e. everyone should just do what we want.
But hey, I'm just getting into this stuff for the first time, my curiosity having been sparked by the much-maligned Twitter. Maybe there is no analogy to be made, but I appreciate getting informed pushback from people who know a lot more about this than I do!
MaiqTheTrue
Renrijra Krin
45m ago
I tend to think the opposite. Most of the trouble in modern politics is too many people are invested in and care about politics, especially people who know very little about the topics at hand. People weigh in on things like AI and have no idea how it actually works. Or policing. You don’t understand crime you really shouldn’t be telling experts how to deal with crime. If anything, I think the government and political systems work much better when people are fat and happy and could care less about what’s going on in Washington.
FiveHourMarathon
c’è aria di frociaggine
56m ago
Which is precisely why assassinations are less horrifying?
MaiqTheTrue
Renrijra Krin
1hr ago
Yeah, we had assassination attempts, but we didn’t have two nearly successful attempts on the same political figure within two months of each other. That’s pretty unusual. And especially as by the second time, the SS had intelligence and knew that there was an Iranian plot to get Trump. They still can’t get their act together.
non_radical_centrist
1hr ago
Solar and battery technology have rapidly expanded, greatly reducing reliance on fossil fuels.
cjet79
1hr ago
I'll play coop when the expansion drops. Don't want to get burned out on the game before then.
AppleyOrange
1hr ago
Careful selection of "politically driven" rather than "politically motivated." July 13th doesn't seem to have an agenda aligned with either of the political sides.
Another reason for the comparison: they both have the same direct solution.
Dean
1hr ago
Always!
... ] Now back to geeking out about long-dead men.
This is the sort of enthusiasm that keeps me here with a smile at times like now.
SteveKirk
1hr ago
Fortunately a lot of Australian food can walk in flocks for quite surprising distances! They wouldn't even have to become nomads
netstack
Texas is freedom land
1hr ago
Always!
Color me skeptical, though, that you’re going to find anything revelatory on Twitter. It’s not a trove of forbidden knowledge. It’s entertainment, and edgy contrarianism is a costume like any other.
Now back to geeking out about long-dead men.
Wilhelm II’s Germany was well-armed, proud, and above all, young. He desperately wanted to move it from a second-tier power, beset by rivals on land and sea, to a hegemon. That meant colonial purchases, a massive naval buildup, and the quest for a reliable neighbor. He did alright on the first and really well on the second. Unfortunately, he ended up with Austria-Hungary.
I don’t know how you can look at that and think “America.” NATO stands in the UK position of sea dominance, commercial dominance, but limited appetite for intervention. It’s not in the German position of encirclement, and it doesn’t burn with the need for “a day in the sun.”
Conversely, American geopolitics is compatible with leaving Ukraine to Russia. That doesn’t generate a threat to the homeland, and it doesn’t violate any actual treaty. We haven’t done so because 1) we’re getting a decent return on investment and 2) we’ve got a bit of a complex about letting the bully get what he wants. That’s our job.
As I understand it, Trump could cut all weapons sales to Ukraine by revoking their ITAR license. I wouldn’t expect that to supersede any Congressional allocation of aid, but I don’t know what the proportions look like. Do I think he’d actually do this? No. Probably not. Well, it is Trump, and long-term consequences have never been his strong suit. The point is, he’s got leverage over our industrial contributions to the war.
marinuso
1hr ago
On a completely unrelated note, it still keeps surprising me how rich Americans are. People just drive around with V8 engines.
marinuso
1hr ago
Australia is not going to have a long-lasting food shortage due to our immense food production and paucity of viable nuclear targets
You may still have them once you get a fuel shortage. Growing food is one thing, trucking it to the cities is another. Planting new crops the next year will be hard without fuel for the agricultural equipment. Australia has a lot of coal, but you can't just put it in a truck. Coal can be liquified, but you'd need to have the infrastructure for that in place already, plus you'd need to modify the engines, which, modern eco-conscious computer-controlled engines aren't going to like much. You also need spare parts; this problem is, again, exacerbated by the fact that modern agricultural equipment is often locked down by the manufacturer so they can milk you for repairs, which will be a problem when their HQ in the USA gets nuked.
ThisIsSin
The boob tube emits harmful XXX-rays
1hr ago
The SKS is the ultimate successor to the Winchester 94- all the same fundamental limitations, same form factor/overall size, same power of cartridge (.30-30 is far weaker than its case size would otherwise suggest).
The AK kind of fits that description too, but only in the sense that it technically has a Win 94 compatibility mode (the Saiga rifles being the best example) rather than having been designed solely with that mode in mind.
Closedshop
話說天下大勢，分久必合，合久必分
2hr ago
They didn’t stop approaching because they were scared of being arrested for harassment
The beauty of the whole system is that you now suffer the consequences even without even ever being arrested. A woman can make a social media post about you and you get all of the social stigma of being guilty without any of the due process. Most people who suffer from this are simply thankful that only their social life, career, or both were destroyed and that they aren't in jail.
If you mean directly, the last time I recall was some media interview or townhall in 2023 I believe, or otherwise early in the campaign season, in which Trump was making one of his claims that he'd get talks and get both sides to agree to [generic good term] deal. The interviewer/moderator asked what he'd do if Putin didn't agree, and the immediate response that Ukraine would get more aid.
That was generally unremarked at the time, and has long since been buried in the sea of media articles by Trump opponents (and some supporters) that try to insinuate / claim he's threatening to cut off aid.
If you mean indirectly, as in by proxy associated with him, the latest notable version that was used in international media to claim a Trump intent to cut off because of reportedly favorable reception was in June 2024, when former Trump National Security Council advisors Kellogg and Fleitz briefed Trump on a strategy to bring about cease fire talks. This was formally rejected by the Trump campaign as unofficial/unauthorized/not to be considered authoritative, but this proposal is what most 2024 media reporting alludes to when they claim Trump is considering cutting off aid to force a cease fire.
This is the document, which is hosted on the America First Institute.
While typically characterized as the 'peace at any cost' / 'force Ukraine into a ceasefire' plan, what the report actually says is pretty mild.
Specifically, it would mean a formal U.S. policy to seek a cease-fire and negotiated settlement of the Ukraine conflict. The United States would continue to arm Ukraine and strengthen its defenses to ensure Russia will make no further advances and will not attack again after a cease-fire or peace agreement. Future American military aid, however, will require Ukraine to participate in peace talks with Russia.
To convince Putin to join peace talks, President Biden and other NATO leaders should offer to put off NATO membership for Ukraine for an extended period in exchange for a comprehensive and verifiable peace deal with security guarantees. In their April 2023 Foreign Affairs article, Richard Haass and Charles Kupchan proposed that in exchange for abiding by a cease-fire, a demilitarized zone, and participating in peace talks, Russia could be offered some limited sanctions relief. Ukraine would not be asked to relinquish the goal of regaining all its territory, but it would agree to use diplomacy, not force, with the understanding that this would require a future diplomatic breakthrough which probably will not occur before Putin leaves office. Until that happens, the United States and its allies would pledge to only fully lift sanctions against Russia and normalize relations after it signs a peace agreement acceptable to Ukraine. We also call for placing levies on Russian energy sales to pay for Ukrainian reconstruction.
In short- by the standards of 'the Trump Plan' (as detractors and advocates characterize it, even though Trump has never formally endorsed/agreed to it), the Trump plan is to give Ukraine more aid. Ukraine aid is conditional to participating to peace talks with Russia, no peace deal required, but concessions to russia such as NATO denial and verifiable security deal guarantees are dependent on Russia accepting a peace deal. Full Russian sanction relief is separately conditional on a deal acceptable to Ukraine, but aid to Ukraine is continuous so long as it participates in talks.
The claim that Trump's plan is to cut off aid to Ukraine until it agrees to a ceasefire is dependent on reading coverage of the plan, not the plan itself, or anything Trump has said (which in 2024 has been strategic ambiguity).
Bartender_Venator
2hr ago
I seem to recommend a lot of history podcasts here, but I'll plug When Diplomacy Fails's current series on the July Crisis. Covers a lot that popular accounts don't, including the historiography around the run-up to war.
Having had a British education, I mostly found it surprising how much British diplomacy appears to have been done by a small cabal acting behind the backs of the public, who intended to manipulate the country into a largely unnecessary rivalry with Germany. However, this seems to have been a general trend - the high diplomats of many of the Great Powers were effectively off the leash and playing all kinds of too-clever-by-half schemes which then blew up in their faces (and Germany was particularly guilty of letting Austria-Hungary do this).
My historical understanding is stronger on colonial politics than internal European diplomacy, but I will point out that the continuity of England's balance-of-power politics is generally overplayed (because her balance-of-power diplomacy in 1914 looks superficially similar to 1815). In reality, much of the century before Russia's defeat by Japan in 1905 was based on colonial rivalries, in particular with Russia in Asia and France in Africa - it was only when Russia was revealed as a paper tiger that British policymakers began to look around and realize that Britain's worldwide imperial politics may have been coming at the cost of security in her backyard. My reading is that the British mistakenly believed that aligning with France and Russia would provide a stable balance of power instead of creating two evenly matched blocs ready for war, and totally missed that, in trading off imperial security for European security, she would lose both to long-term rising powers on the periphery (the US and a revitalized Russia). The breakdown of the Dreikaiserbund/Reinsurance Treaty was also a symptom of myopia, with the Great Powers focusing on short-term concerns rather than the greater long-term dangers of revolution and irredentist nationalism.
So, I guess the takeaway is that policymakers have to think long-term. Which, uh, good luck.
No, see, this is exactly what I was hoping to elicit, and thank you: a version of my dad with similar ideology that can make the non-vapid arguments that he can't. I don't think he's even heard of game theory, or knows why defecting is bad, or finds results using it as an argument compelling. I'm sure that stronger arguments for his position exist, and I've got a couple sketched in my back pocket that I'm withholding to avoid bias, I'm just trying to get them from a wider audience than my own head.
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