Yes, but they’re literally being conditioned into it. You and me too. No one is immune to propaganda.
I used to hold people accountable for their (lack of) knowledge, but there’s literally billions being poured into subverting these people daily. You can’t really hold that against (most of) them.
On the other hand I am pretty confident I am not an idiot, and if IQ tests done when I was 8 count I know I’m not. That does not mean I don’t regularly do something wrong, or learn something completely obvious. I’m sure that in those situations somebody else wonders how I lived this long.
See, the fact you think the IQ tests matters in any way means your uniformed about it, which comes back to the topic at hand.
IQ tests are bullshit; it’s been proven many times.
Yet you were told they weren’t. And that informed how you think.
I could call you stupid for bringing up an IQ test.
Or I could accept that people not having all the knowledge in the world is just part of being human, and that there are many things you know that I probably don’t.
Education is the obvious fix, but at least in America, the idiots are trying to destroy it. If people learned critical thinking, almost everything else would fall into place. If we stopped reinforcing learned helplessness and made people practice logic and learn consequences, society would see a huge benefit. People need to be held accountable for their ignorance. Otherwise, they won’t learn. Those who refuse to learn should rightfully be shunned, because they’re the biggest propaganda weapon out there.
Cognitive dissonance is another major reason for idiocracy. The MAGAts are so blatant about their love for it. “Wokeness” is healing from cognitive dissonance, which they’ve labeled as a virus.
I’m sympathetic and offer to help someone if they’re being a bit stupid (all of us have our moments), but if they refuse, that’s where they should be held accountable.
I haven’t thought of this in years but back in the '90s I participated in an email fantasy RPG where we all roleplayed Romulans. One person would write a chapter from their character’s POV and email it to the group, then the next person does one, and so on, so the story unfolded in unexpected ways. It was actually pretty fun.
It was. And then of course this one guy asked me if I wanted to take it private so our characters could have their own little love subplot. And uh… I said yes.
Do you know of a wiki or link to this about trek boards and first email? Search engines now a days are getting on my nerves about not showing what I typed into it.
Once the government actually starts cracking down on the domestic terrorists, they have no chance. With all the surveillance they’ve been doing since 9/11 they’re bound to know exactly who to arrest.
They still haven’t found the guy that was leaving pipe bombs around on 1/6 have they? I hear what you’re saying, but most capitol rioters got caught because they were fucking idiots.
If there was a true civil war the military would probably be divided with some on one side and some on the other but I really doubt there will be a civil war any time in the near future.
The military is very good about making sure that the people that participate in it adhere to the rules they are given.
People that step out of line will be dealt with abruptly and brutally. I'm not saying there won't be dissension in the ranks, but I am saying that the number of military people that will split with their command structure is going to be minuscule and easily dealt with.
I disagree. That’s all well and good when it’s a common enemy, but when you’re ordered to attack your family and friends who live in NY, that’s a different ball game.
But you do realize they’re going to shoot you. If they’re actually ordering illegal things they’re going to shoot people who don’t obey the orders too. That’s a hard decision for a teenager to make.
You just need a couple of generals to say "no my orders are legitimate, theirs aren't, mine come for the real president!" and you have a problem. And all that takes it a little bit of blackmail and bribery or a couple of high ranking useful idiots or psychopathic grifters
Theoretically yes. But if you want to know the climate of senior officers you need look no further than the Joint Chiefs actually yelling at Trump in his office and disseminating memos on exactly what the military oath says. (Loyalty to the Constitution)
A bunch of uppity, rag-tag civilians with handguns, even the handful of clown shows that call themselves “civilian militias” don’t have the resources, logistics, or numbers to combat the National Guard, let alone the rest of whatever armed forces may be brought to bear against them.
I will also point out that the National Gun of the US is the AR-15/M4 which is a .223/5.56 rifle. It can be seen committing war crimes in the Middle East and murdering children on the middle of main street.
What pathetic few gun regulations we have are mostly related to barrel length and them not being fully automatic. The former only actually matters if you need to fire out of a vehicle (and has ballistics implications). And no, riding around in your cybertruck that will shred you with spall if anyone uses even a 9 mm doesn’t count. And there is increasingly the argument that even military rifles/service weapons should not have automatic capability because a rifleman with full auto is just a waste of ammo.
Assuming that the result of a “civillian militia uprising” is not “And that is what we call a hellfire missile”: The plates in actual military body armor are fairly regularly stopping multiple AK (7.62 mm) rounds. Those hit noticeably harder and is arguably why the US military is pushing for a 6.8 mm round as their standard. If you ever watched an action movie where the protagonist shrugs off a few shots to the chest and returns fire… yeah.
Which is why I always say: if the gun nuts actually gave even a single shit about “we need to be ready to fight the government” they wouldn’t be pushing to have their emotional support assault rifles. The answer would be small caliber high velocity rounds fired from concealable pistols. That gives you good odds of getting rounds into vulnerable/less armored parts of the body and you are fucked if you are in a ranged engagement (soldiers carry a LOT of grenades and have access to air support) or a prolonged engagement (soldiers carry a LOT of grenades). Like, there is a reason that The Allies dropped so many pistols and concealable weapons to partisans in WW2.
Because any standing fighting force? They will literally be blown to hell.
And, to clarify. I don’t care if you touch yourself to pictures of trump, Lenin, reagan, or che guevara. You are just as dead when the army rolls up.
I don't get why people think this is an issue. armed Americans are generally shown going against incompetent, untrained police officers. Not the Military who is also just armed better than Americans are legally allowed to be.
Most gun law defenders also tend to overlook this too in fact. If the government wants to make armed citizens stop, they will do it.
Okay. Let’s assume that you and your buddies are a trained militia. Not “I play paintball once or twice a year” or “I spend every weekend at the range shooting”. I mean you actually have a command structure, know how to move as a unit, and are dedicated enough that you will lay down your life for the person next to you.
What are you going to do against an armored vehicle? Or a drone? Or even just indirect fire.
Because… any “reasonably” equipped military can kill millions of people with minimal effort. Just look at what is happening to Palestine.
Just because this topic interests me due to being the intersection of history, military history, “guns are cool even if I don’t think civilians should have them”, and “the thing that comes after social activism”:
Even in the 1700s, a farmer with a gun in the shed was pretty much useless. Battles were won by large groups of people and the only reasons the US managed to beat the Brits were a combination of more or less “stealing” the British military structure that had been set up to defend ourselves coupled with most combat boiling down to sheer number of people who could sort of hold up a gun and maybe fire it. A couple angry farmers might be able to kill even twice their number of soldiers. But they would be up against ten or twenty times that number and one person going down doesn’t stop the volley. And if you were actually an amazing shot with dozens of muskets and Heath Ledger to reload them for you so that you could constantly unload on anyone who approached your house on the hill? That is when they get the cannon or mortar.
It was largely the late 1800s to mid 1900s where the idea of a militia could actually fight against an army. Particularly the time around World War 2 when we saw a fundamental shift on the battlefield to where even an individual soldier, let alone a squad or company, had enough firepower to make a significant difference. Line of sight was still essential, even for indirect fire, and armored vehicles could still be consistently negated by bottles of gasoline. This is why we even famously saw things like the Wilmington insurrection of 1898 where a relatively limited number of people could cause widespread damage and be “not worth” the army intervening (racism helps a lot too)
But the tail end of the 20th century has largely negated that. Because yes, the individual soldier has more firepower than ever. But satelites and drones mean that you don’t even need line of sight to devastate with indirect fire. And those individual soldiers likely have MUCH better gear than civilians (by design and law). For example, there is a lot of talk about whether the US “still owns the night” now that consumer grade night vision is “good enough”. And that does make a significant difference in terms of raids. We likely will never be able to walk around double tapping helpless brown people (without prep work involving tying them up, cop style…) ever again. But it still means we can maneuver at night when most countries would need to take a break because their eyes hurt or they are nauseous from the FOV. Same with body armor and, probably, optics if the new rifle is any indication.
Which, funny enough, puts us back to the 1700s. A bunch of farmers/klansmen/activists/whatever can equip themselves and even train into a cohesive unit. Sure. And they’ll kill maybe even ten to one in terms of infantry. And then an artillery strike or a missile or even just someone with a joystick inside of an APC will slaughter them and there will be nothing they can do.
Which is why the successful insurgencies are more about unrest and trying to outlast an occupation than anything else. And… that doesn’t work when the country occupying your country is… your country.
Your entire post ignores the reality of what urban small arms warfare looks like. Look at the hellish time militaries have in urban settings: Fallujah, Kabul, Aleppo, Gaza City. Yes, militaries are way better than regular civilians, but there’s something like 400 million guns in the US. This isn’t just a few people we’re talking about here. If 1% of the population puts up a half decent resistance there’s going to be a hell of a fight.
Oh I was hoping somebody would play the “the brave men and women of the mujahideen” card!
Yes. Let’s look at them
If an army does not want to destroy a population center or be seen as oppressors, they can put up a significant fight. That… mostly accomplishes nothing aside from slowly bleeding an army and leading to a withdrawal. Which, as I said, above, only works if there is somewhere to withdraw to. If that is the army’s “land” then they won’t pull out
So… let’s now look at Gaza. Hamas engaged in a horrifically evil terrorist attack. The IDF instantly used that as an excuse to level Gaza to the ground and ethnically cleanse anyone who opposed them. It doesn’t matter how great your small arms tactics are or how many ambushes you have set up if the army is willing to level a few city blocks… or a small city.
And just look at how much the Black Lives Matter movement was vilified by right wing chuds for the recipe for that.
Which gets back to: What are you and your, I am sure incredibly well trained, buddies going to do with all them guns when a tank or even just an APC rolls up? And this ain’t like the movies (… or Russia in Ukraine) where it is a lone tank only defended by Brad Pitt’s winning smile. There will be infantry as well to prevent you from running up and throwing molotovs at it (which wouldn’t even impact an Abrams since that runs so freaking hot?). What will you and your buddies do against drones that are either dropping bombs, launching missiles, or spotting for artillery?
I’m not sure where you think I argued that the civilians would win. My argument is that there would be a civil war because there would be a ton of armed people on both sides of the conflict. You bring up Gaza City like they’re all finished clearing it out. It doesn’t matter how well an army is trained or equipped, urban warfare is absolutely brutal and it would be in America too. You think that the US military could take a city like New York without heavy civilian resistance? Don’t make me laugh.
To answer your question: Me and my buddies would likely be the first to die.
It’s the exact war we spent 20 years fighting already. You don’t want your face on a network chart in a Battalion ops center. And the military wouldn’t split down the middle. It’s 50/50 blue/red but most of the conservatives in the military are wholly unimpressed with the far right. You shoot at an American and call it a war? They’re going to respond negatively.
Yeah, somehow all my gun-owning friends get all awkward and quiet when I ask them how it’s gonna feel to shoot at the 18yo army recruits and national guard when they finally “come for their guns.” I haven’t even gotten to ask what anti-drone measures they have.
Not one of them is ready for the realities of a shooting war with the American Military.
I don't know how it is now but when I was in the US Army there was a sizeable chunk of men that were militia members that hated the government but joined the military to get combat training.
Bear in mind a sizeable chunk of that sizeable chunk were probably being edgy barely-post-teenage shitheads. It’s a version of the guy who would have joined but [whatever] and besides, he’d have punched the drill (sergeant/instructor/daddy/etc.) on the first day of training. Some assholes just always have to be different.
The leadership in place is very adept in the art of maintaining the status quo while eroding the baseline slowly. For there to be any dissent among the military there would have to be a very radical shift that goes against the middle. It isn’t about trans rights, or abortion rights, or civil rights. Those, despite what both sides of the media will tell you, are centrist issues. The sides that have a side have already chosen their side and nothing will change that. There is no battle for the current extremes. If there were any sort of “civil war” it would be for issues that are detrimental to the foundation of the country which is constantly shifting based on the will of the leadership. I’m kind of talking in circles now, but the point is that as long as we have a two party system there will always be an enemy and a champion for both sides. It won’t be until that is gone that either side will have a reason to act and a way to grab the center. Give us 20 years of partisan leadership and we’ll see action. While we swap back and forth every 4-8 years no one bitches for long enough for any significant movement to form, and the military will continue to defend the middle.
Just like nearly every war ever fought ever: the poor young masses sent to their early graves over battles between the old disconnected elite chasing power.
I haven’t even gotten to ask what anti-drone measures they have.
The answer will be “none” because unless they’re ex-military, their entire contribution to any militia is usually “gun”.
Most of them wouldn’t pass fitness requirements nor take orders. Few of them have other skills such as first aid, communication tech or drone piloting.
Even when contributing their gun, you can’t assume they know how to safely and usefully handle a weapon, or that they’re mentally fit for combat, because none of that is a requirement for buying a gun.
It’s a hero fantasy they’ve literally never thought critically about, but it’s supposed to make all the mass shootings worth it.
I’m afraid you’re the one living the fantasy. Of course many of these idiots are exactly as you say. But have you been around such people?
Or are you basing your opinion on the pictures we see on the internet? The pictures thrown out there and made popular because of how foolish they make these people seem?
I’m begging you all, please don’t be so dismissive and naive.
I get off-topic for this post towards the end, fit better in the original reply:
Y’all, please, we gotta stop pretending these guys are fat losers.
Right after 01/06 I was at a gun show and bought an old army canteen off a guy. 35-40, fit, military demeanor, all that. As I was walking off, another guy saw something that clued him in that the vendor was an Oath Keeper and they had a low-key chat. He talked about their preparations! Fucking terrorist.
My neighbor is still flying his Trump flag high. Proper flagpole, well lit, all that. Young man, fit, ex-military demeanor. I refuse to speak to him, and never will. No one else has an issue with this! They are meek and complicit.
His next-door neighbor was a former friend of mine. Again, 37 and fit as hell, but not military. First night I met him he told us his brothers were at 01/06. I gave the FBI what I knew, which wasn’t much. This guy is a smart, reasonable man, and while not a supporter, still will not disavow Trump.
I’m 52, fairly fit, well-armed and practiced. I shoot every weekend at my camp for fun. Shotguns, various pistols and rifles, I shoot it all. I’m no expert, but I can shoot better than your average bear. If it came down to brass tacks, and we were equally armed, I seriously doubt I could prevail against any of those 3 men.
For the love of god, please get armed, learn safety and practice. FFS, the GOP front-runner is speaking more and more radically. He just called me “vermin” that must be eradicated. He’s speaking of “internal enemies”. He means you. And it’s not just his usual inane rhetoric, look up Project 2025. It a fleshed-out plan to take over the executive branch and impose their will.
What the fuck will it take to get libs off their ass and prepare?! Harsh words and votes are not gonna suffice if Trump gets back in. I fully expect my neighbors to come knocking once Brown Shirts are authorized. Committee of Public Safety anyone?
“Look man, we understand you don’t agree, and that’s all good, but we gotta take your guns for your own safety. Trust us, you’ll be OK, just hand 'em over.”
Your country and your very life may be on the line soon. And yes, fighting back may mean your personal extinction. But that was in the cards anyway.
You openly admit that idiots and fascists have been armed, that you wouldn’t win a fight against any of them even with your guns, and that an armed population has done absolutely nothing to stop a fascist running for president.
Yet rather than fixing any of that, your solution is “everybody buy more guns even though it doesn’t work and funds fascists by proxy”.
As best I can figure, the majority on the left are completely unaware of how dangerous things have gotten over the last few years. Unless you’re living in it, most people see it as histrionics.
We live in the deep south in what used to be an island of relative progressiveness. I have acquaintances that joined the three percenters, know former military spouting Q shit. Lost the only man I ever called brother to the insanity. Things have CHANGED in the last few years.
Our friend circle has shrunk and we no longer talk to our neighbors.
We’re moving to the northeast this summer. There’s a very real chance that it won’t be safe for us here much longer.
Like you, we’re armed and also realize that it likely won’t be enough.
History doesn’t repeat itself, but it sure does rhyme. The smart Jews with means got the fuck out of Germany before things popped off. We can’t afford to leave the country but hopefully we’ll land somewhere safer.
Hope nothing happens and all the worry has been for nothing. I really want to be wrong.
They think with enough “gotchas!” and revelations of hypocrisy they can win hearts and minds. Nah. We’re miles past that. Miles past logic, truth and talking rationally.
Things have indeed changed radically. My guess is that many liberals are missing it because they’re in their own little political bubble. Imagine trying to convince someone from Washington State or San Francisco how crazy it’s become.
Anyway, I don’t have the money to run, and don’t wish to. I’ll stay and fight for America if it comes to that. I’m middle-aged, and have had a full life, so that’s not bravado speaking.
I have a wife, daughter, and son. My daughter is queer. My son is a teen. There isn’t a future here for them. My daughter, especially, will be in danger.
I’ve had to cut all contact with my family.
We’ve been saving since 2020.
If it was just me, I’d stay.
I pass as a bearded white guy good ol boy. The shit I hear. These people aren’t coming back. Even if nothing happens with the next election, I don’t know how they rejoin reality.
I don’t know what happens to this country. I kind of hope there is a bloodless balkanization.
Man, this hit home for me. I’m a queer woman and I know my dad worries about me tremendously. I don’t really have anything to add to the conversation, just wanted to comment. Hopefully things won’t get too bad…
For your old man’s sake, have a plan. Have a go-bag, include SS card and birth certificate. Try and keep your vehicle 3/4 full. Chances are, you will have time to run to a safe state on one of the coasts. Pre-plan two routes, one for back roads and the other for highways and interstates, print it out. If you can, keep a minimum of $500 on hand and more like $1-2k.
I strongly recommend a handgun, take it to the range and practice enough to be proficient loading and shooting at 7 yards. A single woman is usually welcomed at ranges. Just don’t talk politics and if anyone asks, you’ve got a bad ex-husband. The more straight you appear, the easier it will be.
Sorry for the unsolicited advice/novel. Stay safe.
Haha, no worries. I appreciate it, stranger. Thankfully, I currently reside in California and I have Canadian citizenship to fall back on, so I’m not too worried if shit does manage to hit the fan that hard.
In Project 2025’s manifesto, Severino, who is the Heritage Foundation’s vice-president on domestic policy, writes that the Food and Drug Administration is “ethically and legally obliged to revisit and withdraw its initial approval” of mifepristone and misoprostol.[21] He also recommends that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention “update its public messaging about the unsurpassed effectiveness of modern fertility awareness-based methods” of contraception.[21] Severino says that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services should require that “every state report exactly how many abortions take place within its borders, at what gestational age of the child, for what reason, the mother’s state of residence, and by what method.”[21]
Fucking hell. They are honestly trying to say that pulling out a few times a month is more effective than the morning after pill? Or are they implying that abortion only exists as a measure of birth control, and want to bog down whatever they can’t stop with bureaucratic busywork.
And that’s just abortion. I’m still reading the Wikipedia page and came across plenty of vile unamerican shit in the alphabetically-sorted “Overview” section before abortion.
I swear the writing on the wall is perfectly fucking clear and if Trump wins in November because of a few hundered well-intentioned but fucking deluded far-leftists voting for spoiler candidates, again…I don’t know. What the fuck. Go to another country? Looks like America is just the beginning. Half of Europe and a fair bit of the UK is going down the same far right rabbit hole. Pretty soon gonna be left with just “authoritarian shithole countries” or “original shithole countries”.
Congrats, conservatives. You finally found the New World Order you were looking for.
Edit: more…
When discussing the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Severino called for the rescinding of regulations “prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, transgender status, sex characteristics, etc.”[38]
Fucking hell. Who was “having anti-discrimination laws” hurting? Any answer to that is patently absurd. The do this just to rub LGBTQ faces in the dirt. Fucking schoolyard bullies. Part of their master plan is to change the rules to make it okay to punch the queer kids.
And you know they are just gonna start there because it’s the most least out-group today. They’ll start rolling back in reverse chronological order. Next it will be the Asians, and then the Italians and Irish won’t be white anymore. Then they’ll just rip off the bandaid on the whole color and race thing. It’s just tricky to do when Italians are still white.
Edit again…
In the foreword of Project 2025’s manifesto, Roberts writes,[38]
Pornography, manifested today in the omnipresent propagation of transgender ideology and sexualization of children, for instance, is not a political Gordian knot inextricably binding up disparate claims about free speech, property rights, sexual liberation, and child welfare. It has no claim to First Amendment protection. Its purveyors are child predators and misogynistic exploiters of women. Their product is as addictive as any illicit drug and as psychologically destructive as any crime. Pornography should be outlawed. The people who produce and distribute it should be imprisoned. Educators and public librarians who purvey it should be classed as registered sex offenders. And telecommunications and technology firms that facilitate its spread should be shuttered.[21]
Where exactly is this omnipresent transgender kiddy porn? Asking for a friend. I think Mr Robert’s needs to be informed that C:Pictures isn’t actually on the internet, even if you open it in Internet Explorer. I know, your “nephew” told you that the “C” is for children, the colon is for where you want to put your peen, and the backslash is to indicate transgendered. It’s not true. He played you for the idiot you are.
You know the size of the US military. Even in the extremely unlikely scenario that those militias manage to band together, right under the FBI’s nose, they wouldn’t stand a chance.
And even if they did, it would hardly be a nation split. Most people would just see it as “our military vs. some extremist crackpots (or terrorists)”
The states have armies. That is the national guard. Some states have defense forces as well.
So if we have a civil war, there are plenty of armies to go around.
I hear lots of rumblings about a civil war but I don’t think we are close to one. You hear it from all sides. California wants to leave. Texas wants to lead. East Oregon wants to join Idaho.
I just see people bitching as they always do.
While I may dislike my current president. I’m not going to pick up a rifle for any of these jokers to try to change my government. Overall our system works. Something drastic would have to happen to change my mind.
Yeah it’s called actually following checks and balances.
The main issue is humans are naturally corrupted by power. Due to that fact we need a system that actually upholds the rules for the people in power. This whole notion that someone in a position of authority can get away with breaking any laws or rules is the problem. People with power should be held to a higher standard and extremely scrutinized. Even the smallest mistakes should be blasted throughout the news reels and should have immediate punishment.
When you’re actually willing and able to punish the corrupt people in your system you lower the amount of corruption overall.
But for some reason most people think that people with authority are untouchable and as a result they practically are.
That’s what we were going for. Thing is, any "system* of checks and balances is composed of the corrupt individuals it’s designed to check and balance. Sociopaths gravitate to positions of power, and are really great at campaigning for them.
What’s your alternative to the present system, sortition?
Why I said overall. I feel corruption has increased significantly in my lifetime but we are working to punish corruption. I count that as overall it’s working. Now if we don’t clean it up, then I’ll reconsider that
I guess my main point is “intent matters” doesn’t apply equally.
Common crime intent means nothing in most courts. Like in some states if you perform a crime and someone dies regardless of if you were involved with their death in anyway you’ll be charged with murder just for simply being there.
Meanwhile a corporation can poison it’s customers and because it wasn’t completely obviously intentional* they barely even get a fine.
*I say it that way because they know damn well what they’re doing and know that even if they get fined it’s cheaper to just pay the fine and keep breaking the law. Looking at you McDonald’s.
It literally happens constantly to me. I used to have a pretty good greater sense of time, and I can still remember/estimate pretty well when things happened until 2019, but time’s a weird black hole after that
The states have armies. That is the national guard. Some states have defense forces as well.
Yeah there isn’t a National Guard unit out there that stands a chance against an Active Duty unit of the same size. They do important work but the get a train up when they’re federalized for a reason.
Not sure you get what a civil war is. It’s when the country fights itself. The national guard would be heavily involved in a civil war. Just like they were in the first civil war.
The most likely scenario is an action that causes the majority of the military to rebel such as what happened in Syria. That’s partially why the military swears an oath to the Constitution and not the standing government.
For that to happen you need an inciting incident that is at least perceived to be against the Constitution by the majority of the military including a significant portion of the top brass.
We almost got there with all the January 6th shenanigans but the inciting incident involved the military sitting down and not listening to the Executive branch’s unethical orders.
I’ll be the old stodger voice and mention that taking 5 minutes from time to time to not be stimulated is good for mental health, and apparently creativity too.
… And then I’ll put in my vote for Simon Tatham’s puzzle collection. (In F-droid as Puzzles, app by Chris Boyle)
Just a nice collection of quick, simple puzzles. A perfect time killer. It’s a staple that I’ve got on all the devices in my old 2000s PDA collection since it was also built for Windows Mobile and PalmOS.
I’ll have to try and remember where I found the Windows Mobile version of it. While there’s a humongous website for downloading PalmOS programs, I haven’t found one for Windows Mobile yet.
There has been some good answers, but I’m not entirely satisfied with the details, so I will add my own response.
Culturally Russia sees itself as outside the rest of the world. At the very minimum, an equal to historical empires of Europe or Asia, but part of neither. It sees the USA as an ethnic mongrel with no culture or history, and hates the US power it projects globally.
Russia sees the former Soviet Union countries as property of the Rus people, and NATO involvement as outsider influence in affairs that do not concern them.
Globally, the world values stability more than they value justice or peace. When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014, it came after several other invasions of other former Soviet countries. There was little global response on any occasion.
Putin did expect the invasion to be fast and achieve their goals quickly. It was a mistake on his behalf.
This invasion was taken differently than any previous invasion because it upset global stability. Gas, oil and grain were traded openly with Russia and Ukraine and a war upset the market right when the world was trying to stabilise markets rocked by inflation, pandemic recovery and suppy chain problems.
The result was many countries around the world pledging military support. This was always older generation materiel which essentially costs those countries to maintain. It was the global equivalent of giving a homeless man the doggy bag you didn’t want anyway.
Why did they do this? They wanted Russia to pull back, return to its 2014 lines and go back to stability so that global markets could resume. So they gave Ukraine just enough to defend itself, but not enough to win.
Why did they do this? Because the world wants stability more than peace. Of the pledges of materiel, almost none has actually come to fruition. About 1/4 of the armor promised has arrived that was promised. Ukraine continues to beg for alms (or in this case arms), and they do amazing things with the little they are given.
Western powers could arm Ukraine and it would win. They have had no problem spending trillions of dollars over decades to protect their influence. It does not in this case as the World is only just coming to terms that Russia will not stop just for stability.
Putin will cease to be leader if he pulls back. The Russian leader would be seen as weak, and the Russian culture loves a Tsar. Putin believes in luck and will continue the sunk cost in the hope that some outside factor or random event will go in his favor.
The West is already getting bored and tired of a war they aren’t even fighting. There is a possibility that pro-Russian Republicans could regain office or power in the US. All Putin has to do is hold and eventually the West will even start telling Ukraine to capitulate to them.
Putin does not care how many troops he loses. Russia doesn’t really care how many people it loses unless those people are from the cities. Russian culture dehumanises the poor and mixed ethnicities.
This current grinding stalemate is a direct result of world policy. The world supplies Ukraine with just enough so they don’t lose, but not enough that they can win. In the meantime, the arms dealers are circling like sharks. India and China are cashing in on filling global supply gaps and taking advantage of Russias need for materiel frozen by sanctions. The hope would be that world leaders realise before it’s too late that the only way Ukraine can win, is that if Russia loses.
Putin did expect the invasion to be fast and achieve their goals quickly. It was a mistake on his behalf.
Except that now we have Ukrainian chief negotiator having come out and openly admitted that Russia and Ukraine were on a verge of making a deal back in last March before Boris Johnson sabotaged it. The only reason this was is still going on is because the west couldn’t accept peace and decided to cynically push Ukraine into further conflict.
The result was many countries around the world pledging military support.
What actually happened was that NATO countries wanted to break and balkanize Russia, which was openly said by lots of western officials. The west made a mistake thinking that they could easily break Russian economy using sanctions while using Ukraine as a proxy without having to put NATO boots on the ground. Now we’re seeing this massively backfire with western economies going into a recession while Russian economy is now growing.
Western powers could arm Ukraine and it would win.
They literally can’t, and even NATO officials now admit that the west lacks industrial capacity to keep up with Russia even in basic things such as shell production.
They have had no problem spending trillions of dollars over decades to protect their influence.
This is not a problem that can be fixed by throwing money at it. This requires building factories, training workers, creating supply chains and so on. These things simply can’t be done overnight. All throwing money at the problem does is raise prices as anybody with even a modicum of economic knowledge could’ve predicted
Putin does not care how many troops he loses. Russia doesn’t really care how many people it loses unless those people are from the cities. Russian culture dehumanises the poor and mixed ethnicities.
How to say you’re a racist without saying you’re a racist.
The hope would be that world leaders realise before it’s too late that the only way Ukraine can win, is that if Russia loses.
There was never any scenario in which Ukraine could win and it’s absolutely incredible that western propaganda machine managed to convince so many people of this insane fantasy. Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians lost their lives in a NATO proxy war with Russia, and Ukraine will likely cease to exist as a functioning state at the end of all this. All for the insatiable need for NATO expansion. Stoltenberg finally let the cat out of the bag and told us that this was the real reason for the war:
Except that now we have Ukrainian chief negotiator having come out and openly admitted that Russia and Ukraine were on a verge of making a deal back in last March before Boris Johnson sabotaged it.
Source? Because the only “deal” I can find is basically a surrender of Crimea and the Donbas in 2022.
Now we’re seeing this massively backfire with western economies going into a recession while Russian economy is now growing.
Again, source? Sure, this is true if you look at single numbers, but there are huge difference between Europe shifting away from over a decade of quantitative easing and into repair mode, and Russia who is nationalizing businesses left and right and forcing companies to sell them foreign currencies at a discount to prop up the ruble. The need for foreign capital is so massive, due to capital flight, you can land 15% interest in Russia right now.
The three things propping up the Russian economy are the high oil price, China and massive government intervention.
even NATO officials now admit that the west lacks industrial capacity to keep up with Russia even in basic things such as shell production.
Because lobbing shells at eachother is Soviet doctrine, not NATO. NATO doctrine is to bomb the everloving shit out of someone with massive air superiority. If NATO decided to send 200 F35s to Ukraine, there would be no need to more 155mm shells.
And because it’s not doctrine, nobody really wants to build more artillery factories that will sell great now, and get mothballed in 5 years. If Russia steps into NATO territory, those factories will sprout like mushrooms, but it’s simply a bad business decision to do so now.
He wanted us to remove our military infrastructure in all Allies that have joined NATO since 1997, meaning half of NATO, all the Central and Eastern Europe
And tell me, when a dictator known for annexing other countries demands appeasement, how effective has that been historically? I don’t even need Czechoslovakia for this example, although it’s a classic. Did Russia stop after, say, two Chechen wars, Georgia, Abkhazia?
“There wouldn’t have been a war if putin got what he wanted without one” is a shit take
Europe is in deep shit because it got cut off from cheap pipeline gas. Plain and simple. Now, Europe is forced to buy LNG on the spot market at an order of magnitude higher price, and a large chunk of this LNG still comes from Russia. The only difference is that now it’s sold through middlemen at even higher markup. German industry is no longer competitive with China, and it’s now shutting down
The three things propping up the Russian economy are the high oil price, China and massive government intervention.
Russian factory activity grew at fastest pace in over six years in September. This should not be a surprise to anyone because western companies left a void that’s now being filled domestically
Because lobbing shells at eachother is Soviet doctrine, not NATO. NATO doctrine is to bomb the everloving shit out of someone with massive air superiority. If NATO decided to send 200 F35s to Ukraine, there would be no need to more 155mm shells.
Because lobbing shells is what actually works. Vast majority of casualties in the war come from artillery fire. That’s the reality. All the magic NATO wunderwaffe failed to make any visible impact in the conflict. IF NATO decided to send 200 F35s to Ukraine, they would just be shot down by Russian air defence. Also, the fact that you think F35s would make any difference in this kind of war shows your profound lack of understanding of the subject you’re attempting to debate here.
And because it’s not doctrine, nobody really wants to build more artillery factories that will sell great now, and get mothballed in 5 years.
NATO isn’t building artillery factories because NATO shipped all its industry overseas and isn’t capable for producing the basics that any army needs.
And tell me, when a dictator known for annexing other countries demands appeasement, how effective has that been historically? I
Once again you show deep and profound ignorance of the subject you’re opining on. To help you get a bit of an understanding, let’s take a look at a few slides from this lecture that Mearsheimer gave back in 2015 to get a bit of background on the subject. Mearsheimer is certainly not pro Russian in any sense, and a proponent of US global hegemony. First, here’s the demographic breakdown of Ukraine:
As we can clearly see from the voting patterns in both elections, the country is divided exactly across the current line of conflict. Furthermore, a survey conducted in 2015 further shows that there is a sharp division between people of eastern and western Ukraine on which economic bloc they would rather belong to:
Ukraine is clearly not some homogeneous blob, but a large country with complex cultural and ethnic situations.
In fact, what we see in Ukraine is directly modelled on what NATO did in Yugoslavia where NATO recognized breakaway regions and then had them invite NATO to help break up Yugoslavia. Russia recognized LPR and DPR and then had them invite Russia to help. So, if you want to know how that works out then you can look at modern Serbia and the breakway regions.
“There wouldn’t have been a war if putin got what he wanted without one” is a shit take
There wouldn’t be a war if NATO just got to do what it wanted is the only shit take here.
This invasion was taken differently than any previous invasion because it upset global stability.
I think the fact that Kyiv didn’t fall within hours like everybody thought it would, and the morale/inspiration/call to action effect of “I need ammunition, not a ride,” shouldn’t be taken lightly either.
I agree with what you said and appreciate the insight. Thanks for writing it.
I think part of it from Russia’s side is definitely an attempt to rebuild Stalin’s buffer to the west, but there are echoes of the appeasement that took place before WW2. Crimea was quick and done.
Then, it’s a repeat years later in an attempt to grab more. Thing is, since then there was a lot of election tampering in the form of misinformation and it continues as an attempt to turn Americans against each other. Russia is waging war via the Internet and it’s working.
I think the US government is unable to control it because there is no direct control of social media companies, and social media companies are ineffective. Their interests are purely financial and to truly be effective, it would require significant investment.
The US is instead providing just enough support, but I think it’s purposely done. What happens if they were to provide double? Ukraine pushes Russia back to the border and then what? They continue forward? That’s WW3. Even if they stop at the border, Putin may be forced to stop and may lose power. Then you’re dealing with a potentially worse successor who wants to destroy at all costs…again a dangerous unknown.
They’re doing it this way on purpose to bleed Russia slowly over time. Russia expected to drive a 40 mile column into the capital and finish fast. A long war is not sustainable for Russia economically and the population isn’t interested either (as shown by the huge expatriation that took place when conscription was announced).
If enough western countries continue to provide arms, it will damage Russia for a long time to come.
Culturally Russia sees itself as outside the rest of the world. At the very minimum, an equal to historical empires of Europe or Asia, but part of neither. It sees the USA as an ethnic mongrel with no culture or history, and hates the US power it projects globally.
I was wondering if you could provide something to back this up since these are rather sweeping claims.
The only thing I can think of that comes close is Dugin’s writings but I have never seen anything that could suggest that his ideas are widely accepted or adopted as the state’s doctrines.
Timothy Snyder makes a pretty convincing case for it in “The Road to Unfreedom.” It was published in 2018 so probably written in 2016 and 2017 at the latest, and it looks ridiculously prescient now.
Can you help me towards some starting points in the book where he explains this? Here are some digital copies of the book in case you don’t have one at hand: libgen.is/search.php?req=the+road+to+unfreedom&lg…
This seems mostly right, but I want to add a few points.
The first is that the Ukrainians won’t stop fighting if the west stops supporting them. They may suffer some severe defeats and the nature of the war may shift to being more of a guerrilla insurgency, but they won’t stop fighting.
The second is that even if the US withdraws support, it’s not likely that European nations will necessarily follow, and between Germany and the UK and France, the Europeans can easily continue to support Ukraine at or above current levels.
My final point is that Ukraine actually is making slow progress in pushing back the Russians, it’s just not going anywhere near as fast as anyone would like.
I also really dislike the term “stalemate” because it implies a static state of affairs as in a chess game where there are only so many pieces and moves, when in fact war is much different in the sense that additional pieces and moves can and probably will be added to the equation.
But the EU countries also dont want Ukraine to decisively push the Russians out. The longer the war goes, the more Russia will weaken itself, being less of a threat in the long run.
Also Germany is a puppet of the US, when it comes to military decisions. They will do what the US tells them to do and if Trump tells them to kiss Putins ass they will do that. They already did that before without the US telling them.
Then why did Germany hesitate to promise equipment and unserselivered on its promises?
Also Germany did nit put boots on the ground in Iraq, which would be unconstitutional anyways, but it did provide extensive support to the US. US army bases in Germany were integral to the logistics and control of the US invasion. Germany did everything it could to support the Iraq invasion within its own legal limits.
Before swinging big accusations, maybe consider judging politics by actions instead of words
Simple, trust no one. Get a no-reported-logs VPN, don’t download anything that has a strange file size or extension, look at comments, look at the number of seeders if it’s a torrent. If you can, join something like a private tracker where there’s moderation too. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck then it’s probably not the movie you were looking for and there might be a Trojan army inside waiting for you to let the duck enter your computer… That metaphor may have fallen apart on me…
Slowness and bandwith limitations are still an issue and it’s likely that they will always be. It’s already too slow to torrent large files over Tor and it also takes away the bandwith of other users. Tor also still doesn’t support UDP connections, which may cause data leaks.
you do not have to use exit nodes. you can p2p with other tor users. piracy imo is important due to the censorship that countries can have on legitimate content.
Regarding your last point, I agree, however it is not as important and it does take up resources that could otherwise be used for the people who need it (journalists utilizing tor, victims trying to get away from abusers etc).
Especially given that there are still alternatives to piracy without tor, whereas there are far fewer alternatives for these people.
That said, you’re still right, it’s minimal. Overall though, options for piracy without tor are accessible and should still be used when possible. From my understanding, few circumstances arise where pirating over tor is a better method for you and for others
Basically, use tor for legitimate content to help make tor safer for others using it.
From what are you protecting yourself? Piracy? Then go with a VPN that has been tested in court and didn’t turn over any logs. The second one of these providers turns over their logs in court they are out of business because no one will ever trust them again. That’s all you really need for the seven seas.
Can the NSA see what you’re doing? Who cares. If they can, they aren’t revealing that to help anyone in a civil case.
You conflate VPN providers have an incentive to store no logs with it’s impossible to verify whether VPN providers store logs. It’s like trusting your friend to keep a secret. They promise not to write down what you say, but you can’t be sure. You accept that risk in your threat model, and that’s fine. But newcomers should judge that risk themselves. I feel like “Don’t worry bro, they don’t keep logs.” is an inappropriate response to people that’re about to commit a crime that can land them in jail.
I added the word “reported” because I don’t trust VPN providers to not keep logs, but ideally they should report that they don’t keep logs and have an established history of not providing logs. Tor is really not ideal if you’re trying to download anything large and you’re still vulnerable depending on who controls the exit nodes.
Shenanigans are always possible of course so you shouldn’t 100% blindly trust anyone, but all the available evidence seems to point to them being pretty legit IMO.
I can’t call DNS blacklists part of defense in depth. DNS blacklists are a poor man’s version of existing and pre-installed anti-malware software.
DNS blacklists block only older known malware, similar to existing anti-malware, but less effective.
DNS blacklists block hijacked, but legit websites that host malware, contrary to existing anti-malware.
DNS blacklists? What is that? I use DoH, get fucked. Contrary to existing anti-malware.
They’re completely bypassable, they boast a high false positive rate due to how threat actors host malware, and they don’t even block newer malware. Just use Windows Defender. It ain’t perfect, but it’s leagues better than any DNS blacklist.
Blocking older known malware still blocks them, so that’s good (and saves bandwidth because the connection never happens, so this is really good).
If the site is hijacked, it needs blocked till it’s unhijacked. So this is good as well.
This is not really a point?
Number one above, stopping the connection before it happens, is really the best benefit, in my opinion. And if they boast a high false positive, you need better lists. You keep saying “they don’t block this or block that.” They are (nothing is) a one stop shop. Simply because they don’t block what you’re cherry picking does not make them bad. Use multiple layers. You say “don’t use a blocklist, use MS Defender instead.” Why not use both the blocklist, MS Defender, and even more stuff? Multiple layers. Defense in depth.
Because Defender already covers what DNS blacklists block and more with less false positives and a proper way to manage exceptions for non-technical people. Older malware is a solved problem for Defender since it’s literally pre-installed everywhere. VPN providers don’t have a way to manage DNS blacklist exceptions, so have fun disabling your VPN to do any research. You also don’t get to choose the blacklists your VPN provider uses. Saying 3. is not a point is like saying malware that’s always able to bypass your anti-malware solution is irrelevant.
I was trying to give general advice, since it didn’t sound like they had a trusted private tracker already it’s a good idea to have a VPN to mask your IP. I agree, it probably won’t help against malware.
“Climate issues won’t end humanity, X will instead”
Or even
“Climate issues will end humanity”
That just sounds like the 21st century version of “memento mori”. We’ve decided a long time ago that that was not a good credo. So, I like to live by “we’re not dead yet”. The odds were against humanity existing at all, but we’re here anyways. So no matter the odds, there’s always a chance we’ll continue existing.
I’m not a huge fan of this attitude. It’s the same attitude people have when they say “THE EARTH WILL BE FINE WEATHER WE ARE HERE OR NOT” or “HUMANITY WILL SURVIVE CLIMATE CHANGE”
Like yeah, in all likelyhood it’s not going to be the end of humanity. But that’s not the issue and never has been, it’s making the world shitty for humans to live on, it’s causing untold suffering from famine and wars and drowning and weather disasters and that’s what the urgency is about. THATS what people who care about climate change want to prevent.
They are hardline Marxist-Leninists, something that is very rare in the western world even amongst those who identify as leftist or socialist. If their views make you uncomfortable, then you’re not a ML, which is okay.
Left-wing politics is a very broad spectrum, and a lot of Lemmy users lean towards the more moderate end which brings them into conflict with the more radical communities that are Lemmygrad and Hexbear.
They are defederated from a lot of instances, from their own side or the other’s (my instance is defederated from LG and HB defederated itself from my instance)
A correction: Lemmygrad and Hexbear are two different instances, and it’s an oversimplification to lump them in together. Lemmygrad does not defederate from any real instance, we have possibly one of the smallest block lists of any bigger instances.
The leading cause of death among Russian journalists is suicide by jumping from a building with two gunshot wounds in the back of your skull after eating a bunch of polonium
I don’t think anyone below the age of 50 has seriously believed in “happy wife, happy life”. It’s very much a boomer mentality of “pick someone you don’t love and suffer through the relationship forever”
I did for a bit but the years went by and sure she’s happy, but am I?
It’s been 5 years and we’re still together.
I think we both know it’s time.
It’s rough, man. Kids.
My dreams are screaming at me.
Am I supposed to ‘follow my dreams’? Is it literal?
I’m not sure what I want anymore, whether I’d be happier single. My subconscious yawps but I ignore it.
Last night I was cheating with 3 of my ex’s, at once, in my sleep. She said I was sleep screaming again, but I only remember the spice I felt for life. It’s been so long.
It looks worse than it is because I tried to make it poetic. Though, therapy only works if you’re actually honest with your therapist about everything (and you can truthfully say you aren’t comfortable discussing something at that time, remaining honest and expressing boundaries) but I’m not even being honest with myself. When I can get to that point and get the courage to make the choices I know deep down are right for me, then maybe I’ll try therapy again.
A weird fetish for guns and a completely unregulated gun lobby.
In Switzerland every male between 18 and 40 that hasn’t actively decided against it, has an assault riffle under their bed (for some that’s meant literally…). Althoughwe don’t let them have ammunition as well.
Anyway, you can buy guns here and people do. It’s just not that we think we need them to defend ourselves against the government (which judging by the power of the us military is totally ridiculous anyway). We also don’t allow you to carry it around, let alone loaded ones.
America is a ridiculous cesspool of stupidity, missed educational opportunities and weird, culty patriotism that guns are somehow a part of. The internet made it easier tk spread this and so conservatives have been more successful in spreading their crap around.
The US military hasn’t ever won an asymmetrical guerrilla war, so it’s not as absurd as you think. In that Instance, millions of people would likely die, but it’s still more likely that guerrillas survive for decades than it is the US wins.
The US has won against guerrillas before. They won in the Philippines and had mostly won in Iraq before the Iraqi government pissed off their Sunni minority and ISIS spilled over from Syria. The US also crushed the Viet Cong during the Tet Offensive and most of the war after that was fought by regular North Vietnamese Army units not VC guerrillas.
Most insurgencies fail Max Boot wrote a book called Invisible Armies where he analyzed insurgencies throughout the 20th century and determined that only about a quarter of them succeeded and more than half failed outright. Not only that, many of the successful ones took place in the context of colonization and the Cold Warz where they had weak imperial opponents, super power backers, or both.
It’s also unlikely the US Military, being citizens of the United States themselves, would have a high degree of adherence to such orders to bomb and destroy their fellow man.
That anyone thinks such is realistic is indicative of the depth of delusion.
And this fact would be true regardless if their populations had guns or not, which means once again, the guns dont factor in all that much at success of resistance of government
I mean the US has a history of bombing city blocks from helicopters, commiting unethical human experimentation, both on individual people and by releasing poisonous agents into the air around their own cities and generally not being particular human rights focused with their own citizens.
Believing that the US army is above turning on their “fellow man” seems a bit optimistic to me.
The naivety there isn’t so much that soldiers would be incapable of fighting the US citizenry in a large scale war, but more that the framing of the question is false to begin with. It’s way easier for soldiers to commit small scale acts of terror than large scale genocides, and it’s always easier to commit acts of terror on minorities or the “other” rather than on the gen pop. If we were to see any domestic american guerilla warfare (I find this kind of unlikely compared to the rising amount of lone wolf, stochastic incidents), then it’s likely that even the regular population would get fed a ton of bullshit about the opposition being subhuman, or something to that effect. Larger scale versions of how, every time a black guy gets shot by the police, everyone trots out every encounter he’s ever had with the police within like 12 hours of the incident. Character assassination, but at a group level, instead of on the individual level.
In the context of the Ukraine war i’ve read something akin to “once someone close to you, a fellow friend and comrade is killed, it is less about the original how and why, but just about revenge.”
Using cult of personality, the in-group mentality that is strongly advanced in the military, dehumanising of the enemy and other tactics have shown very effective time and time again in human history. There is many countries in history and today, where the military is turned against its own population and i fail to see any moral highground the US could claim to protect against that. The US society is too hungry, too injust, too tribalist and too violent, for there to be effective safeguards. Heck we all saw what happened January 6
Hollywood powered violence desensitization baby. The US army police force has bombed civilian cities in US soil. They were against black communities, but it has happened. No one in the chain of command even protested the order. Anything is possible when you have R A C I S M
EDIT: corrected the state security force involved, but the explosives were provided by the army.
My two pennies: We had a generation of people raised by baby boomers, people notorious for their inability to manage emotions, or empathize with different or morally ambiguous people. It’s intergenerational trauma from such an upbringing, manifesting as mental illness and marked by delusions of grandeur, paranoia, victim mentality, and stunted emotional and social development. That, and obviously the proliferation of weapons has made mass murder accessible, and in the minds of some people as described above, acceptable.
That, and obviously the proliferation of weapons has made mass murder accessible, and in the minds of some people as described above.
Are you under the impression such things were ever not accessible?
At what point did we start regularly testing and proving out water? When did we start ensuring school bake sale food must be store-bought? You seem incredibly short-sighted.
Right on. Part of the weird fetish is that perceived need to defend themselves from the government.
It’s as stupid as it is antiquated and was never a thing among patriots and decent Americans, only among people who were literally rebels: slavers and separatists, the exact people the Second Amendment was written to protect against.
The words “security of the state” are the express, stated purpose of the Second Amendment, right there in the text, and rebellion was expressly cited at the Convention by the framers.
Ah - I see we’re not only cherry-picking, but we’re depending on a preamble e.g. a preparatory or introductory statement as somehow limiting of scope or indicative of audience to which a right was granted.
It’s part of your army kit. As we have a mandatory military service. But, soldiers have now the option to leave it at their military Base.
Which was introduced to lower the risk of suicide. No idea the impact of this policy though.
One important point is that, swiss people aren’t strongly divided or proudly displaying their, political affiliations. I think their are fights, protest and riot. But never it would come in the mind of anyone to bring a gun to such events.
Mass shooting are very rare and even though OP says people buy guns. I dont know anyone who has one. Beside for hunting.
We also have a pretty good social security and different safety nets. So this help.
All great information, but none of it really answers the original question.
Not meaning that as an insult, but I was also wondering what point it serves to have the weapon at home but to not be allowed to have ammunition for said weapon.
It being part of the “army kit” certainly makes sense, but that only reinforces the validity of the question; if the rifle is part of the kit, surely the ammo is too. And if the ammo is part of the kit but has to stay on base, then it seems nonsensical to have the weapon stored in a different location…for the same stated reason.
Well, they’re both wrong. If you have a permit to own a particular type of weapon, you can buy the ammunition. Military rifles are a weird category of their own. Up until fairly recently, you were given a sealed, 50-round box of ammo for your service rifle, so that you could respond quickly if the militia was called up. That’s been discontinued. But you can still quite legally buy ammunition for your service rifle as long as you have permits for that type of firearm otherwise. (This is based on what I can find and read regarding gun regulation in Switzerland, although some of this may have changed since the EU imposed new restrictions on member states.)
There is some variance in application of gun laws, as many of the permits are ‘may issue’ rather than ‘shall issue’.
I could be wrong. I would suggest consulting with someone that specializes in Swiss firearms law, as some writeups are giving contradictory answers.
Regardless: Swiss gun ownership is estimated to be among the highest in the world, with the US being highest by far. Despite their very high rates of gun ownership, they also have a very, very low homicide rate in general, and their rate of gun crime is microscopic.
Assuming the guns are target trained, it is much more easy to store a pile of ammunition somewhere and tell everyone to come and get some in an emergency, than having to transfer the rifles whenever someone decides to move. The alternative of course is no personal ownership of the rifles, but aside from the familiarity and training it also adds a symbolic sense of responsibility and association. The scene in jarhead comes to my mind where they are told to make this “there is many like this, but this one is mine” chant over their marksman rifles.
I’m not sure what you’re referring to as a “fetish” or an “unregulated” lobby. If you were referring to nonsense like the NRA and their fundraising efforts, you’d be obligated to highlight Everytown etc. and their blue-aligned fundraising. You can’t point out a wedge issue and one side without recognizing the other side and its equivalent benefit.
If one has a clean criminal history, is a legal adult, and - in most states - has undergone some additional scrutiny or proof of proficiency, then sure - they can buy a firearm.
Given how Afghanistan turned out, I’m not sure how you think the concept of resisting the armed forces of a government as a distributed and well-armed populace is somehow unthinkable.
It’s fair to say we’ve a cesspool of stupidity - but only due to our politicians continued neglect of actual underlying issues in favor of partisan wedge-driving and profiteering of the ad revenue of sensationalized violence.
It’s also worth noting (though Lemmy is a horrible venue for discourse on the topic) that the prevalence of firearm ownership in the US is itself a function (likely an intended one, by the framers) of 2A.
So many of the measures that could, immediately or eventually, be used either directly or as a legal springboard, to move toward gun restrictions or confiscations see immediate and stiff resistance from the GOP, gun lobby, and most importantly big chunks of the population who are fun owners, who are basically given a personal stake and being incentivized to do so.
So many of the gun control measures being proposed would be dead on arrival due to the dual truths that guns are already widespread in the country and that many such laws would make criminals out of law abiding citizens. This makes it hard or impossible for them to gain any traction whatsoever.
While I agree that the “I need my guns for when the government turns on its people next week” crowd is delusional, I also feel that it’s a chicken/egg situation: part of the reason why that’s an unreasonable threat is because guns are so ubiquitous. The government doesn’t even attempt to go down that rabbit hole partially because it’s such an impossible feat.
I also think that while yes, that doomsday scenario isn’t happening anytime soon, that it certainly could happen, after many decades of gradual change and gradual decline. And while personal gun ownership may not do much good against the government now, in the event that the course of the future took us down that dark route, personal firearms could very well do a private citizen a lot of good then in resisting any opponent, government or otherwise. But of course they wouldn’t be able to get their guns back in that scenario if they allowed them to be taken away beforehand…and prevalence of ownership and political resistance is the best and easiest insurance against all of that.
the prevalence of firearm ownership in the US is itself a function (likely an intended one, by the framers) of 2A.
No, it was 100% intentional. All able bodied men below a certain age were legally obligated to muster with their local militia, and they were likewise legally obligated to provide their own firearm. The gov’t had already granted itself the right to raise and equip an army, so the idea that 2A applies to the gov’t being allowed to arm itself is patently ridiculous. No, the idea was that individuals would own firearms, and would undertake some form of training (or regulation) in their use, and that would make them fit for militia duty.
From that perspective, it’s clear that the founders intended the people to have access to and own weapons fit for military service.
I agree that it’s unlikely that the people should need arms to resist the gov’t, buuuuuuuuuuut it’s happened, and it’s happened in recent memory. The Bundy clan had an armed standoff with the gov’t in the 2010s over their illegal grazing on BLM land, and the gov’t ended up being the ones to blink first. (Also, the Bundy’s won in court over that; the gov’t did some pretty egregiously illegal things, and te judge tossed the whole case out with prejudice.) You can also go back to standoffs and insurrections by Native Americans in the 70s, standoffs that the Native Americans ultimately won. Moreover, we have a strong current of fascism running through our current politics; IMO, the idea of willingly giving up arms when the fascism supporters control the House, and have overrun the judiciary is madness.
If you’re under the impression that the military could win against the armed populace of the United States, you really shouldn’t be commenting on this topic due to your lack of knowledge.
And you are going to do what exactly against an F-35 or drone strike with your guns? Please explain how you would stop the US military with any amount of guns.
You’re one nuke away from getting proven how shit your take is.
This isn’t the 1800s. War isn’t just whose side has the biggest numbers or the fanciest guns or the smartest strategies. You will die in a full-on confrontation against your government. You and your quickly propelled metal hold no power in the face of the type of destruction that has now been possible for decades.
But yeah, go ahead and hold on to those guns, it seems like it helps you sleep at night.
Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.
Oh yeah, America is totally gonna use that second amendment to rise up against an oppresive government, not just buy guns from corpos and be distracted from any form of oppression because they just have to stand in line to get the newest iphone /s
That would really depend on some kind of big event that riles everyone up. That’s precisely why the goalposts are moved slowly.
The important thing I think is to be able to defend against crooked cops on a smaller scale as well as the crack heads problem they’re not really fixing.
It’s statements like these that make me wish those morons actually tried to run into Area 51, just so we have a case of a) Military definitely shooting at their own citizens (your cops are quite good at this anyway I heard) and b) a demonstration of the sheer efficiency of a trained military squad against mostly untrained civilians who think they are the greatest of them all….
It would make more sense to build habitat craters, dug deep enough into the ground that the surface air pressure would be at a level tolerable to humans (even if the atmosphere mixture was bad, being able to simply wear a respirator instead of an entire suit would be huge).
I did some math once, on Mars a crater several miles deep would have a pressure similar to Earth’s surface.
I think the Moon was like 40 miles or something, which at that point would probably run into other problems that I am not smart enough to worry about lol
Well the craters could be domed off to maintain a healthy Earth-like atmosphere, and because the pressure is maintained by the depth of the crater the dome itself wouldn’t actually have to hold the air pressure in against a low pressure environment.
Also, presumably the reason a habitat would be planet-side is to take advantage of mineral resources, so a lot of digging will happen anyway.
Craters also have the added benefit of sheltering the occupants from radiation and falling debris that the non-existent atmosphere couldn’t protect from
You won’t even need to dig the hole! If you do this before much other habitations on the planet, you could precisely direct astroids to impact the same place to dig the whole for you. I think Cody’s Lab did a video about it, but I can’t find it right now.
Ehhh not really. On consumer devices yes, but when you start dealing with automated deployment and group policy and things like that, you can automate disabling telemetry services.
Now if you’re using something like azure or intune, you just have control of the spyware.
If you’re on M365 you get the added hit of them renaming portals, moving or downright removing settings. God forbid ymthe setting you need is powershell only and not ocumented online, cause support doesn’t even know their own products.
How often does this even happen? In the past 3 years I’ve not met a single person who’s had a Windows update trigger randomly or had Windows make breaking changes.
If you expect me to prove Microsoft’s still doing what they’ve been infamous for doing for twenty straight years, the answer is no. Even if they magically stopped fucking people over this way - this doesn’t justify your dismissal of someone’s complaints about those stupid problems Microsoft created. It still happened to them, and they hated it, and you had to pipe up and say ‘well what about the parts where it didn’t fuck you.’
I’m not dismissing whether they ever happened. I’m questioning whether they still happen. I’m not going to hold a grudge against someone who stole an eraser from me in the 1st grade. I’m similarly not going to hold a grudge with Microsoft for one or two forced updates back when Windows 10 launched. If you wanted to talk about the issues with Windows Modern Standby or with Xbox’s treatment of the Minecraft community, then fine. Those issues still don’t ruin the other 90% of Windows, especially when considering the alternatives.
Yeah. And I answered them before you wrote them. You know damn well Microsoft constantly includes infuriating bullshit - whether or not it’s the example I gave, dismissing your ridiculous hair-splitting. An example we have not established is even wrong. I just don’t fucking care whether it’s still a thing, because regardless, it’s part of a pattern.
The root of this pointless bickering is that someone said there’s parts of Windows they fucking despise, and you countered by saying Windows has many parts. Which is not a fucking counter.
I’ve always felt theres multiple sides to Microsoft. Theres devs making a damn good and simple product. Then comes the enterprise devs that over-engineer the product. Then theres the marketing coming in and try to buy up competition or bundle the product with other products to force it on people (MS way of advertising). And THEN the suits either ruin the product for money or shutting it down for not either making enough money or for not helping their enterprise products make money (like for example VSCode is a product that helps MS make money on Azure).
I edited a page for a new OS update that was coming out. The page was FULL of misinformation, and I cleaned it up, linked official documentation as sources, etc.
My edits were reverted by some butt hurt guy who originally wrote the page full of misinformation, 0 sources, and broken English.
I reverted back to mine.
He reverted back to his.
He spammed my profile page calling me names, and then reported me to Wiki admins. I was told not to revert changes or I would be perma-banned. I explained how the original page was broken English, misinformation, and 0 sources were cited. They straight up told me they did NOT care.
Stopped editing wiki pages, and stopped trusting them. They didn’t care about factual information. They just wanted to enforce their reverting rule.
Their profile was banned last time I looked about a year ago. My profile I deleted because it was permanently tainted by that asshole spamming my talk page.
I remember posting about it on Reddit back when it happened a few years ago, and everyone in the comments told me how they’ve had similar experiences. Really just made me weary about trusting Wikipedia. I mean sure, if they get the date of a movie wrong that’s fine, but as for more serious topics, I just can’t really trust it.
Even sources can be garbage. I’ve seen plenty of blog spam cited as sources, which means nothing.
Yep, about a decade ago an expert on a subject was talking about it. He corrected a page because the info presented with tons of sources all ended up taking their info from a single unreliable source. He had to edit things multiple times, making sure to follow guidelines, basically creating a new section that condensed his work on the subject to explain the controversy and so on… The page was edited back to its previous version every time because he didn’t have enough local reputation and “older sources are more reliable”…
There will always be someone there to take its place. Maybe a more transparent and decentralised alternative like how fan-wikis used to be before Fandom bough them.
I think assuming a better alternative will appear is a bad idea. Most likely some company sees an opening to control the information and monetize it. They can’t really now because Wikipedia is the default, but I don’t doubt someone would try if they see the hold Wikipedia has falter.
Tbh those pieces of trivia don’t feel like encyclopedic information in the first place. A reader need not know specific intro songs to have an encyclopedic overview of wrestling, just that intro songs are often used.
A list containing the specific intro songs is vastly more suited for a fandom repository than an encyclopedia.
I have to disagree. Wrestling is all about the show, so a dedicated table of wrestlers’ entrance themes, finishers and signature moves seems very on-brand for Wikipedia. It’s also unclear if this was just a line item listed on every wrestlers’ individual page or if this was a table, but either seems pretty on brand. Maybe there’s a dedicated page for entrance theme music and a table of who used what song makes sense there?
To reference something I actually know about almost every Wikipedia page for a railroad will include a detailed route map. One could argue that that’s not encyclopedia-like and should be reserved for a travel site or train chasing guide yet here we are
That sucks, but I also kind of empathize with wiki mods, cause it’s really hard to know when to cut stuff down. I remember seeing a while back a bunch of people that migrated out from wikipedia to some completely unknown new wiki nobody will ever hear about, because they were working on chronicling all the roads in america with screenshots and notes of location and historical details about it all. Wikipedia didn’t really get it, as it’s more like a kind of academic and news aggregate, and there was nothing really there to aggregate, it was just an infodump of a bunch of different stuff. If wikipedia was a 1-1 map of the world, then it would be the size of the world. Or bigger, if you include historical stuff. No way you’re fitting all that on a 102 gig drive, or whatever the size of wikipedia is. Plus there’s hosting costs to consider, so it’s not like they could do that even if they really wanted.
This is the third insightful comment from you on this thread against him. Are you by any chance, the alt of the user who wrote the original article on Wiki of the OS?
It’s not an uncommon tale about Wikipedia, that’s their biggest known issue with getting new blood into the community, which they’ve acknowledged themselves.
TBH that doesn’t surprise me… I had a minor spat over the existence of a local supermarket, of all the stupid things… Wiki said it had been refused planning permission and never built. I had shopped in there many times, and could link to many articles about the fully built existing supermarket. I gave up after the second revert because it’s just not worth it.
there is a bureaucracy for dealing with the situation you described. the other editor gamed it, but if you were right, a little persistence would have left your edits in place.
you’re right. when transitioning away from reddit, i took the time to understand how to navigate the wikipedia editor bureaucracy. I understood most of it in a week. now i just monitor a few articles in which i have an interest, and add to that list periodically.
i wish it were easier. MY SUGGESTION is to just go ahead and use the talk page instead of the main article as your first place to make an edit. if it’s a good edit, it’s likely someone else will write the edit themselves. if they don’t and you dont see objetions, that will help your edit stand up if there is an edit war.
That’s what I did recently with my first contribution (not that I had any other option since the article wasn’t accepting contributions from new users): One paragraph mentioned something and listed it as missing source, then the next paragraph mentioned it again and included a source. I went to the talk page and commented that the source was already there and it quickly got linked.
I’m a lot less active than I used to be, and I no longer have the time or energy to fight. Nowadays I stick to dry technical topics, personal hobbies and the wiki in my mothertongue.
I didn’t know what to do. I was being threatened with a ban, even after explaining myself and my edits.
At the end of the day the Wikipedia page didn’t matter to me that much. Who cares if people get misinformation about an OS update. I quite literally didn’t get paid enough to deal with that.
It just really changed my perspective on Wikipedia. Unless you look at the history and check out profiles of people who get in edit battles, you really don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes.
At the end of the day the Wikipedia page I was trying to edit ended up being corrected by someone else (who completely disregarded all of my effort), but it took a month, and someone else to do it, before the page wasn’t full of misinformation anymore. RIP to anyone who visited that page within that month and never returned, because they were fed 80% misinformation.
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