@TURBORETARD9000 @admitsWrongIfProven the US has participated in a lot of atrocities, no doubt. but a couple of things distinguish Israel/Palestine from other sometime atrocious interventions. first, most interventions were reasonably connected to some genuinely important state interest. vietnam and korea where horrible wars, full of US (though not just US) atrocity. but they both represented reactions to revising status quo borders by force, deterrence of which remains important. 1/
@TURBORETARD9000 @admitsWrongIfProven second, the character of atrocity is Israel/Palestine is quite distinct from pretty much anything the US has been involved in. a large civilian population is trapped, blockaded, starving in huge numbers. the closest post-WWII antecedents are Cambodia and Korea, where the US indiscriminately bombed huge numbers of civilians. but even there, populations weren’t trapped, blockaded, actively starved. 2/
@TURBORETARD9000 @admitsWrongIfProven the world is replete with horrors. if we are just counting bodies, it is the Soviets who suffered most in WWII, not the Jews, and Soviet and Chinese internal events (the holodomor and many similar, famine provoked by Cultural Revolution) and events we barely notice in Africa (Congo’s endless wars) that are probably worst. 3/
@TURBORETARD9000 @admitsWrongIfProven But when we judge these things, we are not just counting bodies. There are questions of the character of atrocity (which is what distinguishes the Nazi Holocaust much more than its scale) and questions of whether the context in which they occur also serves some positive cause which must weigh in the balance. 4/
@TURBORETARD9000 @admitsWrongIfProven I support the US continuing and quite accelerating sending armaments to Ukraine, even though I know the effect of that will likely you be to prolong the war and the casualties and destruction that results. The same ugly fact that compelled intervention in Vietnam and Korea compels at least this much intervention in Ukraine: borders must not be revised by force, of if that is more than we can enforce, it must have been very costly. 5/
@TURBORETARD9000 @admitsWrongIfProven Enforcing that norm is what makes Ukraine justifiable, and Ukraine’s conduct of the war, while undoubtedly involving some atrocity (all war does, don’t imagine there is a “moral army” once you’ve captured the guy who just blew away your friend), has been solid grading on the horrible curve of warfighting. 6/
@TURBORETARD9000 @admitsWrongIfProven With Israel/Palestine, it’s not at all clear what valuable norm the war is serving, and Israel’s conduct has been atrocious. 7/
@TURBORETARD9000 @admitsWrongIfProven even in hell, there are important distinctions to be drawn. /fin
a very, very good critique of Effective Altruism by #LeifWenar, perhaps the best of the genre. https://www.wired.com/story/deaths-of-effective-altruism/ ht @deanwampler
@LouisIngenthron just wait ‘til they close for the holidays of every religion!
soon our authorized deep-fake spatial videoconferencing avatars will be so much better acted than we are IRL, in-person interaction will come to seem flat, off.
spending some time over at the other site always restores my faith in misanthropy.
“the internet interprets privacy as damage, and routes around it.”
“Marine Le Pen, the leader of France’s anti-immigrant National Rally party, argues that true exile ‘is not to be banished from your country, but to live in it and no longer recognize it.’”
my dear Marine, that is not exile. that is called getting old, and disagreeable as it can be, it’s what awaits all of us, if we are lucky.
quote from https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/31/world/europe/angry-farmers-are-reshaping-europe.html
@admitsWrongIfProven the US has no interest in, a contrary interest to, participating in a military operation most of the world considers sheer atrocity. Israel misperceives its own interest in considering its conduct of this war advisable. this catastrophe has been in no party’s interest, other than the most amoral sort of Palestinian nationalist who sees mass “martydom” as “worth it” if it advances their cause, which this war certainly has.
@admitsWrongIfProven there are questions of deeper interests than a party recognizes of itself. in that sense the US may have been less devoted as an ally. we’ve abetted Israel as it destroys its own project, as well as thousands of innocent lives, simply by giving them what they’ve asked for. absent some sharp change in how they conduct themselves, a decade from now there will be few people left who wish Israel well.
@admitsWrongIfProven being concerned about and supporting the interests of the other.
what if Biden trolled everybody and declared March 31 as the furry day of visibility too and dressed up as the Easter Bunny and bounced around the South Lawn while photo-op kids hunt for colored eggs?
@dpp it’d be quite the dramatization if your device becomes vulnerable and gets pwned while netflix app is streaming the show!
q: why do your focus your criticism on the anti-cthulhu movement, rather than on people working to bring cthulhu upon us?
a: well, look. just about everyone in establishment authority is anti-cthulhu. that kind of monoculture of power is dangerous, while the cthuhists are mostly oddballs and weirdos without access to the levers of the state. therefore it follows that it’s the anti-cthulhists who must be taken down. fight the power.
prediction: a dramatization of the xz backdoor story will be streaming to netflix shortly.
@travisfw great answer.
A fascinating essay by #TannerGreer on Wang Huning as a kind of Chinese Tocqueville of the late 20th Century. Long but worth it. https://scholarstage.substack.com/p/american-nightmares ht #TylerCowen
(fixed broken link, thanks @marick)
Compare with #NSLyons, who frequently offers a much darker take on the views and role of Wang Huning, e.g. https://www.palladiummag.com/2021/10/11/the-triumph-and-terror-of-wang-huning/
to whom have you cozied up?
captchas are ripe for automation. https://gleasonator.com/objects/f2763f22-676e-49e1-b35b-4e30adad65fc
@anneroth under the standard logic of capitalism, high quality parenting needs to become a specialist occupation. it is too demanding for a hobby. it interferes too much with participation in the steep tournaments for wealth and status that now shape our lives.
there's no question that the United States has been a very devoted ally to Israel.
has Israel been a devoted ally to the United States?