Zuzak [fae/faer, she/her]

It fuels my rage every time I see people talk about an increase in military spending “only” being a small percentage of the current budget, as if the budget wasn’t ridiculously bloated. The way this is phrased makes it sound as though the money came out of the Pentagon’s budget, too.

Great comment

Nooooo I only got a billion dollars last month

That’s the point. He did basically what you said he should do. It’s like you’re saying, “I agree with his decisions, I just don’t agree with the outcomes they led too.” I don’t have any information on when precisely Stalin decided he wanted Trotsky dead, but you can’t just assume that he can write his name in a death note and have him drop immediately, and if one guy surviving ten years in a foreign country can destroy an entire revolutionary project just by writing then tbh it seems like the whole thing was doomed from the start. You can’t predict every such case, it’s not a valid criticism.

Stalin did have Trotsky killed though, eventually. I just feel like you’re looking back with the benefit of hindsight and seeing things, not necessarily with Trotsky specifically, but generally being like, “The problem is they let bad people come to power instead of good people,” and that’s not a valid criticism if it’s something that you can only see in hindsight. Did Stalin let people he thought were reactionary/revisionist hang around? If so, why, if not, then was Stalin’s method of determining who was bad flawed, and in what way? You can’t just say “these people shouldn’t have come to power” you have to look at why they came to power and how they could have been identified and prevented.

I meant for Mao, but for Stalin is also relevant. I still don’t see criticism or suggestions, just “these people were concerning.”

But what’s the specific criticism, about what should’ve been done differently?

Liberals rallying around China bad vs Maoists rallying around China bad

If Mao was so great, why did he create the conditions for “bourgeois elements to emerge and seize power,” and what should he have done differently? Cultural Revolution, but harder? There’s never any serious analysis of that question, at least that I’ve seen. The material conditions of the people of China improved with both Mao and Deng and the others.

The trouble is consciously rejecting an idea you were raised with doesn’t immediately rid you of the various biases that idea instilled in you. And nobody is more susceptible to bias than people who don’t think they have any, which describes a lot of people in that sphere. This is where the absurd phrase “culturally Christian” comes from, because they realize the beliefs they were raised with are bullshit, but then they notice that that belief system has all the prejudices that they have (because they were raised with it), so rather than confronting those biases and doing self-crit (emotional self-awareness and humility ew ew gross) they instead just come up with some bizarre twisted rationalization (using FACTS and LOGIC) and accept that. The brain is very good at rationalizations like that and can invent all sorts of convoluted lines of logic if it means fitting in with one’s tribe.

Canadian parliament accidentally honours Nazi - with Zelensky and Trudeau applauding - The Independent

The Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Centre said Mr Rota’s remarks ignore “the horrific fact that Hunka served in the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS, a Nazi military unit whose crimes against humanity during the Holocaust are well-documented”.

Since his invasion in February 2022, Russian president Vladimir Putin has repeatedly made unsubstantiated claims that Ukraine “harbours neo-Nazis”.

Those are the last two lines.

Tbf I guess in this case it’s technically not a neo-Nazi

I’ve been watching Voyager for the first time and just got to the episode. I think I agree with the decision (as a lever-puller) but it does raise some interesting questions. As Janeway mentions, if they’d been able to do it immediately, she’d have done it without question, but after two weeks of Tuvix integrating with the crew it’s a more difficult question. If Tuvix had been around for say 5 years I think I’d disagree with separating him. I think the way I look at it is that the social bonds possessed by Tuvok and Neelix are more important than the mere two week old bonds of Tuvix, but if Tuvok and Neelix were long dead and their loved ones had already mourned them, while Tuvix had had more time to become a fixture in people’s lives, then the circumstances would be different. Tbh I disagree with the idea that Tuvok and Neelix get the biggest say - I think that the input of Kes and the rest of the crew is valuable, and Kes pleads to get Neelix back while none of the crew back Tuvix.

Does that mean the worth of lives is based on popularity? Not generally, but I do think that social connections are a relevant thing to consider. Part of what makes murder bad is not just the loss of the individual’s life, but also what it means for everyone else. If you could press a button to create a life then press another to end it, would you have made the world a worse place by doing so? I don’t think so. But if you press a button to create a life then go out and murder someone who already existed, then I think you have.

I’d also say that the captain’s responsibilities in her role as captain are relevant and also support the decision.

Have you noticed that our caps have actually got little pictures of skulls on them? Hans… are we the baddies?

If anyone’s wondering where they got the clickbait title from:

“Even the position of washing machine operator had to be staffed by an officer.”

In other words he has a security guard do the cleaning, according to an alleged former guard.

I was raised Catholic and left it at a young age and spent a lot of time uprooting the brainworms so I don’t think there’s much left. However, whenever I can’t find something I really need and start getting stressed, I’ll still recite, “Dear St. Anthony, please come around, my X has been lost and cannot be found.” It’s a useful way to calm down and focus instead of freaking out and panicking.

Other than that, I still retain a lot of the theology I learned in high school, and I can still sometimes get a little opinionated about various things even though I have no dog in the fight.

Years ago I tried my hand gambling on politics on PredictIt, and I didn’t lose all that much, but there were a couple bets I lost that seemed like sure things. Mostly the lesson I learned is that talk is cheap and there’s no real consequences for people saying one thing and doing the other.

For example, in the 2016 election, there was a market on whether no-name Carly Fiona would qualify for the CNN debate, and by the rules they set she didn’t qualify, but there hadn’t been as many polls in the right timeframe as had been expected. Still, they released a statement days before the debate, saying “rules are rules,” so I took a bet at like 90% odds thinking it was completely safe - then they let her in at the last minute and I lost big. I don’t remember the exact circumstances, but I think I lost a fair bit on a market about Trump meeting with Kim Jong Un, which was a pretty chaotic market. The most chaotic market I ever saw, which I avoided and wanted no part of, was whether Bernie would win Iowa in 2020, and watching it closely in real time made it very obvious that some really shady stuff was going on. Probably the most I ever lost was Biden winning the 2020 primary, which is about when I got out of it.

I would not recommend gambling like that because if you have money on the line there’s an incentive to be glued to the news in a way that can be really unhealthy. Honestly the stress was worse than the money I lost. It’s more trouble than it’s worth, the fees will get you, also it’s generally more about predicting what the market will think so you can profit off the swings, and personally I think it’s kind of a distasteful way to engage in politics. At the same time, it can be a learning experience - it definitely got me in the habit of asking “And what consequences will this person face if they’re lying off their ass?” every time I see a headline about someone saying something, and of not paying as much attention to statements in general.

Tfw your subscription-based private court rules that weapon emplacements pointed directly at your neighbor’s house are not a NAP violation

The way it works is that the military industrial complex wants constant low scale war with the constant looming threat of a large scale war - but generally, the people in power don’t want a war that’s going to be an actual existential threat, because they’re already on top of the world and have too much to lose. The real danger imo comes from the people at the top riling up the hogs too much, to the point that somebody who believes all the propaganda and is actually crazy enough to do it is able to get into a position to go through with it.

It very obviously goes against the interests of every human being on the planet (and most animals, and even plants) but I will not bet on Americans being rational.

Tfw you’re hanging out in a cell getting ready to testify against a bunch of super-powerful people, in a prison that’s prevented every attempted suicide in decades, after having made repeated statements that you have absolutely no intention of killing yourself, and then suddenly both the guards leave to go take a nap, and at that exact time, you notice that the multiple cameras watching your cell all randomly glitch off at the same time, so at that moment you decide to kill yourself using a method that’s indistinguishable from being murdered

I thought that there was one guy named Michael J—son who used his fame as an NBA star to launch a career as pop singer, radically changing his appearance in the process. I don’t think I realized they were different people until high school.