4366 pts · September 8, 2017
I do not support this guy's actions, and i dont think he had good ideas or whatever. It is however relatively easy to logically move from progressive ideas to authoritarian action; the history of the Soviet Union and a lot of other 20th century leftist revolutions are exactly that. Its an easy and wrong "path to progress" that will get you nowhere, but the alternative is vague, slow, and has no guarantees of success.
I'd argue that "conspiracy thinking" is a more correct description. Anyway, it doesnt seem that anyone on the Russian side knew that this guy had some important relatives or whatever.
Yea thats what happened it seems. The guy was into progressive ideas, hated the US and capitalism, joined weird groups, and eventually dived too deep into conspiracy. This quote says everything: "My life’s purpose is to build supercritical water oxidization infrastructure. In order to end ecological pollution and pollution related illness and death i.e: cancer, lymphoma, and all the hormonal problems related to microplastics and estrogenics in the water.”
This puts you in a shaky legal position tho. You probably wont be able to work legally with a tourist visa and there might be other limitations too. Also those rules are somewhat easier to change compared to residence permit stuff.
WTF, you had to REGISTER on 4chan? I thought this crap was supposed to be anonymous, like you go there and post stuff right away.
The issue with this thinking is that Mars is too close to Earth anyway. Any cosmic threat to Earth would be either preventable with less tech than needed for terraforming Mars, or would wipe both planets anyway.
Theres no need for a planet-sized magnet. The paper OP posted suggests that a 10 km radius superconducting magnet would be enough to do the job, and thats a size of a large asteroid. However the same paper shows that it would require too much rare earth materials and its more feasible to build the magnet on Mars instead.
Eh, its kinda more complex than that AFAIK. Zelensky's popularity was slowly going down since 2023, and if the war doesnt end decisively in favor of Ukraine he might lose. He could easily win against other big Ukrainian politicians, but his opponent will likely be some new figure, likely with military background, and that will be much harder. Right now the obvious candidate is Zaluzhny, but there'll be more once the war ends and elections are called.
what?
Both can be true though. The police doesnt have infinite resources - they have a limited amount of personnel, equipment, detention facilities, etc. So if 1K protesters show up, the police can just arrest everyone. If its 10K+ they'll have to use tear gas and stuff like that and the more ppl show up the less dangerous it is for any single protester. Obviously the government will ALWAYS win if it can avoid internal conflicts and keep control over the police and army, but thats not the point here.
Eh, i dont think thats any news at all, let alone breaking. Scooter attacks were a thing for at least several months, and thats not even close to being the stupidest tactical move out there. Theres a lot of talk about manpower and equipment issues in the Russian army, but it doesnt seem that those issues are significant enough. Maybe we will see sudden changes at some point, but we're not there yet.
Lukashenko
Eh, i think there is some truth to it and being too involved in online politics stuff can be dangerous, especially now when it can be extremely depressing. It seems like the person who wrote this article had some good ideas, but they failed to process those ideas and make the right conclusions.
Well, online posting might be somewhat more efficient in terms of growing the movement. Mutual aid and other offline activities are better for organising the movement tho. And none of that is actually that good if you want systemic change. If you want that in a democratic society, you have to get elected; all other activities should be seen as tools to get your people in power and make the stuff you want into law. The "moms for liberty" example they have in the article shows exactly that.
Adding to that other comment: i do believe that something like a "moral suicide" can happen, and its somewhat correctly described there. Basically if a system benefits you, and fighting it would be dangerous, you might be inclined to explain away its evil side. No one wants to be on the evil side really. I dont think the author offers us any way out of it though. All he says is essentially "dont be evil", to which the "dead" will answer "well im not evil, i can explain everything"
Well, i believe those are not connected. The "you're next" argument is essentially about limiting state power. Like even if i think people who are oppressed now kinda deserve it, i might be against that oppression because i can be next. Now if i think they dont deserve it and whats happening is evil, i dont need any other arguments to oppose it.
Its not a plan, but it wont work just as well without one. You can say that they will come for me next and that might be true, but that doesnt matter if we cant do something to stop them, and thats why we need a plan.
To somewhat back up my point: Genrikh Yagoda was appointed as the first head of NKVD in 1934, executed in 1938. Nikolay Yezhov was appointed in 1936, executed in 1940. Lavrentiy Beriya appointed in 1938, executed in 1953. Sure at least some of those guys should have seen it coming, right?
I think what both arguments lack is some sort of a plan to move forward. Sure even a perfect plan isnt guaranteed to work, but without an alternative people will support any status quo, no matter how evil or dangerous it is. The Soviet officials who worked to implement Stalin's purges knew perfectly well that they could be next, but they couldnt organize and dismantle the system so they just carried on with their jobs.
There is a somewhat similar discussion in the Russian opposition community, with some people saying we should reclaim the flag, and others saying its too corrupted and we need a new one. Personally i dont think thats going to happen even in Russia, and its much less likely for you guys in the US.
This isnt a war, this is a special military operation
I guess thats how you can have progress in superhero comics. You can have a superhero vs supervillain conflict for some time, and you can add other antagonists without power creeping the hero, but eventually it gets repetitive and boring. And the only way to make it cool again is to increase the scale of conflict. Obviously its better to end the story before you get to that point, but the superhero comics industry doesnt like that stuff apparently
Nah that stuff is fine. The only thing that bothers me is that weird MTG person. Im always like "WTF, how is that related to Magic: The Gathering?"
Yea i heard that. But its obvious that Ukraine wont agree to do that, and Putin wont agree either. Look how we went from Trump calling for a total ceasefire to completely vague stuff like "maybe we agree to stop bombing certain unspecified objects that we might specify later". The 2022 peace talks looked more promising and those still went nowhere.
It kinda does though. Its like that thief vs idiot concept: a thief can steal your stuff, but whatever he steals will at least be used by someone else. An idiot on the other hand can take your stuff and destroy it, which isnt a big deal for you but is more harmful to the society. Trump isnt a thief stealing Ukrainian stuff to enrich the US or even himself, he's an idiot who just destroys things.
Sure he's trying to, but it doesnt mean he will succeed. Think about it: if the Ukrainians could sell something to another country or corporation and get more money for weapons, they would do that already. Since they cant make such a deal with Trump that means its either politically impossible for the Ukrainian government, or theres nothing to sell in the first place.
I do not support this guy's actions, and i dont think he had good ideas or whatever. It is however relatively easy to logically move from progressive ideas to authoritarian action; the history of the Soviet Union and a lot of other 20th century leftist revolutions are exactly that. Its an easy and wrong "path to progress" that will get you nowhere, but the alternative is vague, slow, and has no guarantees of success.
I'd argue that "conspiracy thinking" is a more correct description. Anyway, it doesnt seem that anyone on the Russian side knew that this guy had some important relatives or whatever.
Yea thats what happened it seems. The guy was into progressive ideas, hated the US and capitalism, joined weird groups, and eventually dived too deep into conspiracy. This quote says everything: "My life’s purpose is to build supercritical water oxidization infrastructure. In order to end ecological pollution and pollution related illness and death i.e: cancer, lymphoma, and all the hormonal problems related to microplastics and estrogenics in the water.”
This puts you in a shaky legal position tho. You probably wont be able to work legally with a tourist visa and there might be other limitations too. Also those rules are somewhat easier to change compared to residence permit stuff.
WTF, you had to REGISTER on 4chan? I thought this crap was supposed to be anonymous, like you go there and post stuff right away.
The issue with this thinking is that Mars is too close to Earth anyway. Any cosmic threat to Earth would be either preventable with less tech than needed for terraforming Mars, or would wipe both planets anyway.
Theres no need for a planet-sized magnet. The paper OP posted suggests that a 10 km radius superconducting magnet would be enough to do the job, and thats a size of a large asteroid. However the same paper shows that it would require too much rare earth materials and its more feasible to build the magnet on Mars instead.
Eh, its kinda more complex than that AFAIK. Zelensky's popularity was slowly going down since 2023, and if the war doesnt end decisively in favor of Ukraine he might lose. He could easily win against other big Ukrainian politicians, but his opponent will likely be some new figure, likely with military background, and that will be much harder. Right now the obvious candidate is Zaluzhny, but there'll be more once the war ends and elections are called.
what?
Both can be true though. The police doesnt have infinite resources - they have a limited amount of personnel, equipment, detention facilities, etc. So if 1K protesters show up, the police can just arrest everyone. If its 10K+ they'll have to use tear gas and stuff like that and the more ppl show up the less dangerous it is for any single protester. Obviously the government will ALWAYS win if it can avoid internal conflicts and keep control over the police and army, but thats not the point here.
Eh, i dont think thats any news at all, let alone breaking. Scooter attacks were a thing for at least several months, and thats not even close to being the stupidest tactical move out there. Theres a lot of talk about manpower and equipment issues in the Russian army, but it doesnt seem that those issues are significant enough. Maybe we will see sudden changes at some point, but we're not there yet.
Lukashenko
Eh, i think there is some truth to it and being too involved in online politics stuff can be dangerous, especially now when it can be extremely depressing. It seems like the person who wrote this article had some good ideas, but they failed to process those ideas and make the right conclusions.
Well, online posting might be somewhat more efficient in terms of growing the movement. Mutual aid and other offline activities are better for organising the movement tho. And none of that is actually that good if you want systemic change. If you want that in a democratic society, you have to get elected; all other activities should be seen as tools to get your people in power and make the stuff you want into law. The "moms for liberty" example they have in the article shows exactly that.
Adding to that other comment: i do believe that something like a "moral suicide" can happen, and its somewhat correctly described there. Basically if a system benefits you, and fighting it would be dangerous, you might be inclined to explain away its evil side. No one wants to be on the evil side really. I dont think the author offers us any way out of it though. All he says is essentially "dont be evil", to which the "dead" will answer "well im not evil, i can explain everything"
Well, i believe those are not connected. The "you're next" argument is essentially about limiting state power. Like even if i think people who are oppressed now kinda deserve it, i might be against that oppression because i can be next. Now if i think they dont deserve it and whats happening is evil, i dont need any other arguments to oppose it.
Its not a plan, but it wont work just as well without one. You can say that they will come for me next and that might be true, but that doesnt matter if we cant do something to stop them, and thats why we need a plan.
To somewhat back up my point: Genrikh Yagoda was appointed as the first head of NKVD in 1934, executed in 1938. Nikolay Yezhov was appointed in 1936, executed in 1940. Lavrentiy Beriya appointed in 1938, executed in 1953. Sure at least some of those guys should have seen it coming, right?
I think what both arguments lack is some sort of a plan to move forward. Sure even a perfect plan isnt guaranteed to work, but without an alternative people will support any status quo, no matter how evil or dangerous it is. The Soviet officials who worked to implement Stalin's purges knew perfectly well that they could be next, but they couldnt organize and dismantle the system so they just carried on with their jobs.
There is a somewhat similar discussion in the Russian opposition community, with some people saying we should reclaim the flag, and others saying its too corrupted and we need a new one. Personally i dont think thats going to happen even in Russia, and its much less likely for you guys in the US.
This isnt a war, this is a special military operation
I guess thats how you can have progress in superhero comics. You can have a superhero vs supervillain conflict for some time, and you can add other antagonists without power creeping the hero, but eventually it gets repetitive and boring. And the only way to make it cool again is to increase the scale of conflict. Obviously its better to end the story before you get to that point, but the superhero comics industry doesnt like that stuff apparently
Nah that stuff is fine. The only thing that bothers me is that weird MTG person. Im always like "WTF, how is that related to Magic: The Gathering?"
Yea i heard that. But its obvious that Ukraine wont agree to do that, and Putin wont agree either. Look how we went from Trump calling for a total ceasefire to completely vague stuff like "maybe we agree to stop bombing certain unspecified objects that we might specify later". The 2022 peace talks looked more promising and those still went nowhere.
It kinda does though. Its like that thief vs idiot concept: a thief can steal your stuff, but whatever he steals will at least be used by someone else. An idiot on the other hand can take your stuff and destroy it, which isnt a big deal for you but is more harmful to the society. Trump isnt a thief stealing Ukrainian stuff to enrich the US or even himself, he's an idiot who just destroys things.
Sure he's trying to, but it doesnt mean he will succeed. Think about it: if the Ukrainians could sell something to another country or corporation and get more money for weapons, they would do that already. Since they cant make such a deal with Trump that means its either politically impossible for the Ukrainian government, or theres nothing to sell in the first place.