pandapoo @ pandapoo @sh.itjust.works

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2 yr. ago

This is about a lot more than minerals and resources, and while you can't extricate those motivations from the larger rational, first and foremost this war was about regime security, or at least Putin's perception on the issue.

And then when it hit a brick wall almost immediately, it really increased Putin's concerns about his regime security.

The irony is that with that response, either you lost the plot, or I did. I honestly don't know which.

I genuinely don't know what you're referring to, and don't care enough to read this entire thread to try and figure it out.

If you want to post examples, I'll take a look.

I will say that if you decide not to reply and post specific examples, I will not take that to mean anything other than you not wanting to waste anymore time here in this pointless back and forth.

No, what you literally did was qualify it, and then follow that up with a fantasy game plan for your morally righteous white knighting in defense of flat earthers and (presumably) Holocaust deniers, from those that would dare speak down to them.

You can go back to smelling your own farts whenever you're ready.

That's a very roundabout way of answering, "Yes".

Also, lol.

It's not my analogy, and I've already pointed out how bad it was, but they keep insisting on using it.

But yes, I agree, it's a shit analogy.

Your analogies keep leaving out location, which is very relevant here.

A more accurate analogy would be Russia bombing a meeting between Ukrainian and American officers, that was happening in Warsaw.

I don't disagree that this is a significant event, I just disagree with your analysis and attribution.

Iranian officials are frequently assassinated while they're with meeting with elements of their proxy forces, additionally, this didn't happen on a front line or in an active war zone.

You're claiming that somehow Iran his risking escalation because Israel is assassinating their military leaders in civilian areas, that aren't active war zones. Which is like saying your risking escalation if you attempt to defend yourself after someone breaks into your home, and murders your family.

Technically, I guess that's true, but it removes the onus from the person actually doing the home invasion and murdering.

Also, your analogy is wrong. Russia killing US officers would not give Russia more cause to escalate, but the reverse....

Regardless, none of that has to do with your original comment about Iran losing deniability in this proxy war.

This is Israel trying to force an escalation, because they want to draw out a wider regional war that forces US naval assets (including marines) to intervene in.

If you walked into a conversation with someone telling flat earthers that the Earth was actually round, would you get pissy with them, ask for their sources, defend the flat earthers, and then tell the round earth advocate to get off their high horse because they're not the smartest person in the room?

If we were discussing the pros and cons of certain political systems, or other subjective topics, I would agree with you, but we aren't.

Instead, you jumped in to white knight for the people who are objectively wrong. Does that make you feel morally superior?

Get over yourself.

Deniability is not the primary driver for, or purpose of, proxy wars. They are a means of escalation management for great powers, and post-WWII, a way for nuclear armed states to go to a version of war, that doesn't carry a high risk of nuclear war.

And even in situations where deniability is a factor, that doesn't apply here. Iran has always been Hezbollah's primary benefactor, since the organization's formation, and it's not a secret that they serve as a proxy force.

The only deniability is the face saving kind, to again, help escalation management for the great powers.

So you just jump into the middle of threads to chime in about your perceptions of attitudes? Ignoring the fact that where and how you inserted yourself meant taking agreement with one side of the discussion?

Maybe you should start reading a thread from the top, and use the context clues, to understand the implications of how you insert yourself.

In case you're too lazy to do that, let me show you the comment and commenter you came in defensive of:

Some people just aren't worth engaging with. They get their entire world view from rich "leftist" tankies on twitch and think the israel vs everyone else in the middle east conflict started last fall.

Unless you feel some moral imperative to always turn the other cheek, I don't understand why my attitude is such a great offense, when you clearly had no problem with their attitude. And even came to their defense.

That's hilarious that you're pretending you didn't just spend the last 10 minutes Googling that shit.

Because if you did know all that, as you claim, you wouldn't be conflating Hezbollah with a terrorist group.

So which is it? Do you have a basic grasp of the facts?

Or do you believe they are a radical Islamic terrorist organization, just like Al-Qaeda and ISIS?

What sources?

Do I have to cite the Bill of Rights every time I mention the second amendment?

Water is wet, the Earth is round, and Hezbollah was formed in response to Israel's invasions of Lebanon in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

More accurately, it was a consolidation of various militant Shia factions and groups.

In case you're unaware, modern Islamic terrorism is almost exclusively a Sunni phenomenon, or more accurately, more fundamental offshoots and subsets of Sunni Islam e.g. Wahhabism.

But sure, that's just my recollection of past readings and I'm not going to go find the books I read to provide a bibliography.

If I got anything grossly wrong in there, please call me out and show everyone how misinformed I really am.

I did not endorse Azov, or attribute any sense of morality to them.

They were an apt analogy to Hezbollah e.g. militant resistant groups, but not terrorists.

The fact that you all actually believe Hezbollah is akin to Al-Qaeda or ISIS is the real insanity here.

But I get it, you've been told that your entire life from mainstream Western outlets, and it's a hard to leave that propaganda bubble entirely.

I did enjoy how you dismissed me as some "tankie" and Twitch viewer...? Given that I don't use Twitch, am not a tankie, and have an academic background in related fields that give me at least a slightly above average insight and perspective into this subject.

That's not even close to whataboutism...I explicitly stated that Hezbollah was not a terrorist organization, unlike the IDF and Israeli security state.

Next time maybe ask ChatGPT before burping out the first thought that pops in your head, it might save you from future embarrassment.

Hezbollah is as much a terrorist organization as the Asov battalion is.

That is to say, you may not like their politics, but they're resistance groups formed to fight against an occupation.

To that end, Iran is their sponsor, so of course their is coordination between the two, especially at the highest levels.

The irony, is that you're saying this not even two weeks after thousands of consumer electronics were turned into bombs, and detonated inside Lebanon, and then multiple residential buildings flattened via airstrikes, both actions taken by the Israelis.

I guess to you, any civilians killed in those instances were just collateral damage, and definitely not victims of terrorism.

Dell's inside sales team probably has a much flatter bell curve, performance wise, then their outside (traveling) reps.

So yes, they are looking to do a layoff without the headlines, or severance, but probably aren't as concerned where on the bell curve those employees rank.

Middle and lower management of those teams is absolutely sweating bullets about their teams getting wrecked, but big picture, whatever impact the C Suite is expecting, clearly isn't enough to outweigh whatever net outcome they're hoping for here.

Edit: also, I pretty much guarantee that any of their far high-end outliers on the inside sales team bell curve, will be given an exemption by whoever is 2 or 3 levels above their direct manager.

Handjobs are never worth it, and at this point in my life, if I ever received a good handjob, it would set off all my red flags alerts and alarms.

Of course, I am speaking as a straight man. I'm assuming gay men don't have this problem, but can't speak to that with any authority.

Sure, as long as the device doesn't automatically connect to open networks, and if it does, you don't live in an apartment, or moderate density area with available open wi-fi networks in range.

"I keep overcooking my steak, any advice?"

"I haven't had meat in 40 years, have you considered simply going vegetarian?"

Edit: FYI the key to cooking a good steak is salt, butter, and to flip it every 30 secs, until you've reached your preferred level of doneness. If you're really trying to impress, and don't care about a heart attack, you can also baste with butter in between each flip.

Now, learning how much time it takes for each different type of cut and the variations within, that mostly comes with experience.

If there are open wifi networks near your TV that you can't lockdown, you'll want to confirm it your make/model is known to automatically connect to those, and then take whatever mitigation steps are justified for your own use case.

For example, if you have multiple TVs, maybe you can swap models around based on their capabilities and location, or look up the schematic for the TV and see if it's easy to block it's internal antennas.

Or maybe that seems like too much of a hassle and you just say fuck it, and don't worry about it. Which is always an option, because given how much data already gets sucked up by surveillance capitalism, my evening TV viewing habits have to be some of the lowest value data points, as I already block ads and avoid all ad supported services.