Candelestine @ Candelestine @lemmy.world

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It's actually not that complicated.

Just to illustrate, let's look at a single facet of Iranian society under their religious totalitarians. They frequently want our technology, but they don't want the creativity that actually creates it, because this liberal creative mindset would inevitably undermine their authority.

Any conservative individual can adopt this conformist style, where they go ahead and absorb "what" and "how" but are far more leery of "why" questions, simply loyally parroting what they think others want them to say while not actually internalizing the lesson material.

So, their education ends up partial. They can still become a doctor though, all that takes is a whole shitload of hard work and some intelligence.

There's always going to be some.

It's a pleasant fantasy, but unfortunately it's just not that simple. Otherwise it'd have been fixed decades ago during the civil rights movement of the 60s and 70s. Real life has no magic that just makes things end well, so they're far more likely to backfire. This isn't a hollywood story.

Just, "things" in general, fail more often than not. Businesses, trial runs, new experiments, etc. The ones that succeed are the exceptions, not the rule.

Like, the French Revolution for instance. Did "getting rid of them" work out at all?

I noticed it hit us to a lesser extent here on Lemmy too, where algorithmic influence is minimal at best. I think it's an extremely complex, multi-headed beast, where any individual could be responding to any particular combination of perhaps a dozen or two largely independently-operating variables.

Imo the largest one is actually simply the underdog effect. The Israelis are so much more powerful than the whole of Gaza, that it's hitting like a David and Goliath story. Except the sides are kinda switched from historical ethnicity.

The underdog effect has a broad appeal though, and from an American perspective, tends to hit us very hard. You can see it in our movies a lot, or even in various sports contests pretty often.

Get a roommate.

I'm no fan of the French Revolution, which just opened things up for Emperor Napoleon to take the reins and conquer most of Europe, and even take a crack at fighting the Russian winter with a bunch of guys that didn't deserve to freeze to death...

But this one was pretty funny anyway. lol

I'll take modern fascists for $200, Alex.

... the daily double...!

That's fine. We don't use opinions or outliers to determine what is/isn't clinically wrong though, it all varies too much. Humans are very unpredictable, we're a good bit more complicated than most other animals. Medicine is not supposed to be a tool for conformity, but health. So, it has to acknowledge that people just aren't logical. We're wet, sloppy, buggy computers.

That is actually a fair criticism. I simply don't think it's as strong an influence over strategic thinking. In any decent thinker anyway.

Ah, I see. So, I don't believe Bin Laden foresaw the Patriot Act in any way shape or form. From his perspective specifically, it'd be about sowing as much fear and discomfort as possible. I doubt he personally was able to predict the exact form that fear and discomfort would take, but it doesn't really matter. Surveillance harms us exactly because it creates more fear and discomfort. The specifics are an irrelevant detail though, not something he has influence over or needs to care about. Not mission-critical information.

The fear and discomfort in turn leads to more radical behavior, it helps drive folks crazy, to speak colloquially.

This is the real key that can and probably eventually will drive us from the Middle East. Without it, and the emotional feeling of disgust it creates within us, it would've taken a mammoth amount of casualties and/or economic damage to accomplish that. We have a long history of being unbelievably stubborn. Additionally, we weren't yet energy independent back then, before our fracking boom, so being there was an additional economic necessity he would've felt needed to be overcome.

Look at it this way: He wanted to create more Islamophobia. So we would leave all the Muslims alone, eventually, since genociding them isn't an option for decent folk, which we (mostly) want to be. Something we now have to wrestle with concerning Israeli actions.

It's basically how terrorism works as a political and military tool, how it attempts to accomplish its intended goals. It's not usually so successful, though. But I would say this time, fear was successfully sown, and domestic harmony effectively destroyed. We haven't really been politically functional since then, though that's my opinion, again.

At least you're willing to be honest, I respect that. I'll point out though, that the Patriot Act in isolation requires me to explain at length how a surveillance state harms American citizens, which in turn harms America. This would be a tangent. It's far easier to deal with in conjunction with American diplomatic reputation, debt, and casualties as well, wouldn't you agree? Taken all together, I think it becomes almost impossible to not see how grievous harm has been done, and continues to be.

One more time. I have at no time asserted that his stated goal was impossible or unachievable. Quit putting words in my mouth. I'm talking about how they get accomplished, yes? I've said several times now that they are possible, just not in any way quickly or straightforwardly, which I assert he likely knew, due to how painfully obvious it is and was, to anyone who picks up the briefest of US history books. Our involvement in WW1 and 2 was definitive and for very clear reason. I don't know how someone could assert that he's paying attention to Vietnam but not WW2.

You really want to get into a sidetrack about how a surveillance state harms the citizens of a democracy in a way that makes them prefer isolationism? I think it's fairly straightforward if you acknowledge our voting system, but I can explain if you wish. It's common enough sentiment in privacy circles. Importantly, it lasts until we do away with it, where war exhaustion due to casualties fades fairly quickly, historically speaking. Knowing our government, we will probably not do away with it for quite some time, though that's more an educated guess.

edit: The main reason I don't want to get into the privacy discussion, incidentally, is because we're on Lemmy, where a very large number of privacy-oriented types hang out. So it strikes me as unnecessary and a little silly, despite your questioning of it. But ask one last time and I will provide some resources for you, that's fine.

Heh, funny how the constitution has no problems specifying sole power vs power, which torpedos that final argument entirely.

Who has the "sole power" of impeachment, for instance?

Paywall blocked me out. My response to the synopsis though:

This is a fucked if you do, fucked if you don't thing. Militaristic thinkers, because they only care about winning, are often very good at maneuvering their opposition into untenable positions, catch-22s. They're rationally inescapable, that's the whole point, so it's best to fall back onto your feelings, as much as I hate to say it. To paraphrase popular youtuber Ryan McBeth, don't give your enemies problems, because problems have solutions. Give them dilemmas. That's what they're doing to us. When you find yourself in one, just acknowledge pain is your future, and pick something.

I've also slowly begun to suspect that there's Russian intelligence penetration into our broader media ecosystem. I cannot otherwise explain the prevalence of Russian war propaganda coming from western outlets, and how certain American churches seem to be drifting closer and closer to Eastern Orthodoxy.

Let's just keep our eye on the ball here. We're trying to prevent the full might of the US military from falling into fascist hands unchecked by any Mike Pence type figures. It's gonna get really ugly, but we can still win this with political activism and words. We need to remember our ground game. Nobody fully trusts these glowy screens we're looking at, so its talking to your friends, knocking on doors, getting people registered, volunteering to drive voters to the polls, etc.

We win this one face-to-face, with the good ole fashioned democratic party ground n pound. It's our greatest strength anyway. Find a couple people somewhere, and talk to them, preferably nicely. Don't try to make them angry, try to get through to them.

If they're religious, you can try to gently remind them of Jesus' teachings, and how he said to pray for your enemies, to forgive others, to be kind and charitable, how the meek, not the strong shall inherit the Earth, how it's easier to pass a camel through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God, how he whipped the Pharisees for using the temple to make money, how he sacrificed himself and not someone else to save our souls, how he asked us to follow him.

There's so much more too. The height of irony in this day and age is how our greatest ally is actually probably the Jesus Christ of the scriptures. Sometimes you just have to meet people where they're at. Frankly though, if you support people like Ghandi and MLK Jr, nothing Jesus says should be too strange to you. Maybe the praying stuff, he was pretty big on prayer. Philosophically he was just ahead of his time though, and honestly fits fine into the modern world as a broader philosophical alternative to materialism. He shouldn't be blamed for what people did in his name after he died though, and his direct words are probably the only possible thing that could get through to certain sorts.

If we can remind evangelicals what it means to be a good person instead of a frightened person, though, we'll sweep this election in a landslide. If by any chance you were raised in the church, there's a very good use for those skills still. I know they're still in there, even if it upsets us a little bit because of the shitty actions of various churches in the intervening 2000 years. Jesus didn't do those things though, he just told people to play nice in a lot of different ways.

You're ignoring most of my arguments. Why the focus on Patriot Act, when it was one of three factors I listed? Why do you keep trying to say that I'm saying his stated goals were unbelievable, when I've repeatedly said I'm debating the specifics of how he expected to accomplish them? It's not a "what", it's a "how".

I've repeatedly expressed my reasonings. I cannot help it if you don't tell me the specific parts you disagree with or don't understand. I won't just keep repeating myself.

I hope they spoke very strongly, this is the time for strong language.

We probably should keep a record of this stuff somewhere publicly available so people can just look up these questions.

Most likely it was due to vulnerabilities, people setting up spambots, or posting csm, or something else of that nature. We'll need an admin to say for sure though, as I don't recall any announcement. Generally LW only defeds due to really, really noxious or illegal stuff though.

What part of the insurrection clause is so misunderstood?

Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

edit: I just don't get it. It seems like very clear language to me

tbf, the entire thing where Presidents pardon their predecessor was a very bad precedent to set. There's just not a whole lot of good that can come out of that idea.

You don't understand how people can discuss possibilities without believing in them 100%? The world must be a very confusing place. I guess that makes more sense why you just believe a terrorist though, you have to believe someone. Something has to be true, right?

People are complicated, so we discuss possibilities, alternatives, etc and think in terms of likelihood. This is fairly common in areas where we cannot scientifically prove something, like when examining motivations.

Truths belong in holy books. I have opinions, and I am discussing them. I admit I do use fairly strong hyperbole sometimes.

Like I said, the idea that America would just give up after losing a couple skyscrapers is just pants-on-head stupid, so I feel pretty comfortable swinging with some strong language.

edit: Alright, I edited my old post to add an imo, so it was clearer I was not trying to give historical fact.

I have at no time asserted it was impossible to drive the US from the Middle East. To the contrary, sowing domestic strife and global overreaction was an excellent first step towards accomplishing that in the long run.

All I'm granting him is an assumption of rationality and long term thinking. I'm not claiming any truth or facts or anything, I cannot read a dead man's mind. But I can look at what happened and draw conclusions with the aid of hindsight, and strongly prefer that over simply trusting his word.

Are you unable to see how we have harmed ourselves since then? How about how Israel is harming themselves right now?

I don't think you need to be an anthropologist to figure out that attacking someone's civilians nearly guarantees counterattack. We still needed the oil out of the region back then to boot.