tbf i can sort of see why brian berletic takes this stance and i agree that normalization would probably have been the easier regional W for the anti-imperialist bloc as well as likely the better option for overall development in the region, but telling me that normalization is the best way to pressure israel to provide a two state solution def smells like

i know fuck all about the middle east but at least to me normalization here is uncomfortably close to capitulation and the end of palestine as a polity.

worry about how the reliance on industrialization will negatively impact our evolution if we overly rely on technology to do everything for us

this is my pet concern as well and it's always struck me as being bit darwinist. i cope by telling myself that instead of environmental evolutionary pressures, it'll be social and cultural pressures instead. so long as those pressures are grounded in material reality and are able effectively act on the population at large, we won't evolutionarily overfit and get stuck in some local minimum. all the more reason to prefer socialism over liberalism.

the xinjiang stuff is actually way more insidious than cultural genocide and organ farming that msm tells you about

what they actually do is brainwash you into getting a job, during which they implant you with subliminal commands to get a mortgage and a family, programmed to activate after you complete the 'employment training'. after you fulfill these subliminal directives (with the help of targeted down payment discounts and government assigned gfs) the brainwashing wears off and suddenly all those rounded up prospective freedom fighters wake up, stuck on the hamster wheel for life

aint no one ever fed their kids on a freedom fighter's salary, lemme tell ya. these guys are just stuck being desk jockeys for the rest of their lives. fates worse than death

for me it felt like gaiman/ishiguro/murakami for kids

the main impressions i have left of it are of trippy kaleidoscopic space fabric and someone in a jar; i distinctly recall being very frustrated that the author did not bother to explain in great detail exactly how the space witch went from being a star to being a space witch

child me yearned for the spreadsheets

obligatory mentions for tengger cavalry, nine treasures and SULD

i'm a freshwater guy myself but i also do paludariums and vivariums. always wanted to try a topoff only saltwater system based around mangrove filtration with macro and seagrass but am too nervous to make the plunge lol

what is hegemony? what is the balance of power? what is security? why did we need security from iraq? from libya? who or what was this security for? what was wrought by these conflicts that changed the lives of the average american for the better or more secure?

the MIC supported continuation of vietnam, who else supported it? who stood against? why? how was it ultimately settled? what were the consequences? why were these consequences? where are these people and parties today?

you invest it in (foreign) right wing radical organizations bent on overthrowing their democratically elected government. that way, when these groups eventually succeed due to your generous contributions they will allow you to swoop in and buy up their country's previously nationalized natural monopolies at bargain bin prices through local intermediaries at which point you can cut costs and inflate prices for the citizens of the entire country and receive many orders of magnitude ROI

it's win-win so long as you propagandize enough people about how this specific thing that you're doing is actually defined as democracy, they'll be totally ok with it and won't suspect a thing

should have just called him names to begin with, this was one of the most pathetic interactions i've had online in recent memory

although i guess it's possible he's like 11 and can't really come up with anything else

they get dogpiled by nationalists and leftists on the chinese internet so they lifeboat to western platforms to bitch about china and share child porn

you expressed confusion with my use of the english language and so i have adjusted my communication style to suit your apparent needs. if you feel this somehow reflects poorly on your personal character it is no fault of mine.

the entire point of me linking the time article was to point out that it was cognitive laziness (and likely bad faith) on your part to invoke a third party 'bias checker' (that in all likelihood is itself biased) as some impartial mediator of reality. typically, the next logical step to take here would be to engage with the points of the articles in question and judge their merits through consensus based on verifiable fact, but it seems you got lost somewhere along the way and now you appear to be resisting attempts to shepherd you back on topic.

notice how i didn't prepend that post with a brief summary of rhetorical techniques like i said i would? that's because i didn't use any. ditto this post.

sorry, i thought native english speakers would be more familiar with the concept of hyperbole. i will take the time to write a brief summary of relevant semantic techniques used in subsequent posts to help out the more rhetorically challenged members of our community.

they seem to counter it by saying a western country did the same/worse, which isn't wrong but doesn't address the point?

western countries are typically higher in every respect on the HDI and yet they often have the same/worse problems as a less developed communist country. then people from said western country flock to criticize the communist country for said problems and offer only token acknowledgement of these problems in their own country. when called out on this, they reveal a superficial understanding of how the problem manifests itself in either country and withdraw to rhetorical redoubts of 'criticism is never unhelpful' and 'i also criticize my own country (but i criticize the communist one a lot more)'.

do you see how this might come across as frustrating or hypocritical?

time ran the exact same article, what is your point?

in all likelihood everyone's had this technology for a while now. i lean a bit towards giving the f35 the benefit of the doubt though, and just assume that its signature is small and fuzzy enough for it to have a smaller confidence interval than other less stealthy aircraft

same goes for submersible gliders equipped with passive sonar systems, just saturate an area with those and suddenly the ashbm kill chain is a lot more cloud cover resistant than nafo would have you believe

watching that one mutant kdrama with the SO,

weird that the SK government doesn't crack down harder on negative sentiment against american occupation in media

jfc, points for trying to turn this into a semantics game but sorry, fuck you

lets look at bbc, first result we get when we search "台独民意调查“ on google.hk because apparently google.tw is too spicy for google's techbro commissariat. whatever, close enough:

2020年的数据首先反映在统独立场。台湾人偏向“台湾独立”的支持度为27.7%，是历年最高；“尽快独立”的民意有7.4%。此外，希望“两岸统一”则占5.1%，是历年最低。选择“维持现状再决定”的民众比例为28.7%，而且在持续下降中。“永远维持现状”者占23.6%

even tries to reframe it by breaking up de facto status quo supporters into two camps but plurality still supports status quo

how about cn language natopedia

2020, NCCU (same as the bbc study):

1. “尽快独立”占7.4%
2. “偏向独立”占27.7%，为历年最高
3. “永远维持现状”占23.6%
4. “维持现状再决定”的民众比例持续下降至28.7%
5. “尽快统一”占0.7%创下新低

2021, united news:

1. “尽快独立”占18%
2. “维持现况再独立”占16%
3. “永远维持现状”占51%
4. “维持现状再统一”占6%
5. “尽快统一”占4%
6. “无意见”占3%

2022, 'taiwanese public opinion foundation' (read: cia cutout):

1. “坚持台湾独立”占27.3%
2. “赞成但不坚持台湾独立”占22.8%
3. “维持现状但偏台湾独立”占11.3%
4. “永远维持现状”占8.4%
5. “维持现状但偏两岸统一”占6.0%
6. “赞成但不坚持两岸统一”占9.4%
7. “坚持两岸统一”占2.4%

look at how they progressively split the status quo category (the size of which does not demonstrably change) into smaller and smaller demos to try and push an agenda

let's give you the benefit of the doubt and more closely examine what is obviously the most compromised source here. this is the cia cutout's (shitty and completely unprofessional) paper from this year. they'd probably lose funding if they put something as damning as actual independence vs status quo numbers out there so they decided to go with plausibly deniable second order opinion sets and STILL get blown the fuck out

just take the L dude, taiwanese are completely cognizant of the fact they're being primed to be the next ukraine and most of them understandably want no part of that

and a plurality of people believe that maintaining the status quo == independence

where is the gotcha?

i can't believe i enabled images for this

they're not even figures, they're just snippets of text from natopedia that somehow unequivocally support my claim

what am i supposed to do with this? gloat?