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Cake day: January 26th, 2024

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  • “Slavic Adventure”

    Maybe support for Ukraine lol. Zelensky just honored Andrey Melnik, a twentieth-century Ukrainian fascist leader and Nazi collaborator who fought with the Nazi’s against the Red Army (NYTimes)

    EDIT: I do believe this could be connected. Here is recent article by a Ukrainian Scholar without pro-Russian slant that looks at the proliferation of Nazi symbolism in Ukraine’s military, in official channels, insignia, names and merchandise.

    The use of Nazi symbols in Ukraine’s military is not merely an aesthetic problem. It is moral, political, historical, and legal.

    First, it represents a form of historical revisionism and the gradual rehabilitation of Nazism itself — a direct challenge to the postwar Western consensus built on the memory of World War II. Within far-right military culture, Nazi imagery is often wrapped in romanticized narratives about anti-Soviet struggle. In practice this trivializes the sacrifice of the seven million Ukrainians who fought Nazism in the ranks of the Red Army alongside the Western allies (in contrast to the 300,000 who served in various military formations and police units on the side of Nazi Germany).

    This might actually explain how ignorant people might come to think this is acceptable or just a bit edgy. Partly because speaking about this gets you branded a traitor.This might actually explain how ignorant people might come to think this is acceptable or just a bit edgy. Because there is no pushback or scandal and it just gets swept under the rug it must be ok right? Unconditional support for Ukraine - but at what cost?












  • Ok ok fine, sorry, you have some rare second hand though anecdotal evidence.

    But I simply do not want to hear how bad Iran is and this both sideism and lets talk every monday about how the regime in Iran is a dictatorship (wrong) and so on. Because we know where it leads. Sanctions, agitation, and now war.

    With both-sides-bad you’re STILL attacking Iran while they are defending against the USA. You’re helping the imperialists. That is the effect of stories like OP.

    Iran is a country that has been under siege, under economic attack by the USA and everyone the USA controls. When the USA does sanctions, they threaten sanctions against anyone who breaks their unilateral sanctions. And still they are not just hanging on but managed to fight back the unprovoked and illegal US and Israel attacks.

    And again, they MUST go hardline on protesters. What other choice do they have? Surrender to the USA? Killing a few hundred protesters is unfortunately preferable if that prevents a regime change. Do you think they like it? I’m sure they don’t. But they feel they must, to keep in power, which is absolutely their duty. They are at war, and the sanctions are explicitly meant to create unrest.

    I wish the Iranian people more freedom and peace. Personally not a fan of Islam. I wish I could see how they would do without being under attack by the largest superpower in the world.


  • “The Iranian regime is horrible” but how do we know this? You say this as if it’s a fact. As if you believe every mainstream article you read since you were a kid. As if you’ve allowed yourself to be shown only the most extreme anecdotes.

    But worst is that you talk as if it’s your business. It’s not. It’s the Iranian people’s business.

    The more you support anti-Iranian propaganda, the more hardline Iran has to become. The US and CIA couped Iran once, now tried a second time very openly, but they are constantly supporting “non-profit pro-democracy organizations” which are just there to destabilize. THIS you don’t seem to understand. It’s like a bully constantly punching someone weaker and when they fight back by cracking down on spies and foreign funded organizations meant to destabilize their nation, you come and say “Oh how horrible! They poor people only wanted freedum! I can be your white savior and explain democracy to you!”

    Ok ok, I went way overboard there lol, sorry. Nothing against you. But this is the general mechanism. Destabilize with color revolutions, paint a picture in imperial media, then condemn when the “shithole country” defends itself.

    Don’t forget, there has never been any evidence that Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapon even CIA admitted that. And yet still the iranian people have faced crippling sanctions which ultimately destroyed the middle class which is important to build a more robust democracy. US Empire doesn’t like democracy, definitely not in countries which natural resources it wants to steal.

    So frankly no, two things aren’t true at the same time. One is much truer than the other. One is what you and your empire or alliance does. The other thing is what you heard about a foreign, far away country which resources we want to steal from their population. Leave Britney alone!


  • Well I agree that we’re seeing some kneejerk reactions to things, and unwillingness to engage or argue with perceived enemies. Like I’m so done talking politely with fascists but it swings both ways. Like that same trained behavior (because it is exhausting and painful) and good vs evil thinking has been redirected e.g. against anyone defending Russia or China or Iran. But strangely the same thing failed in trying to curtail criticism against Palestine.

    But I think part of it is BECAUSE there is no legal recourse against inciting hatred against ethnicity or genders. The US and the US owned social media are very extreme and have totally changed how people talk. Before we didn’t have people just constantly dogwhistling about race etc. So because there is no defense the only thing left is being offended. There is no moderation. We are left with impotent rage.

    And of course the lawsuit in OP weaponizes that “freedom of speech” extremism. Tolerance is being sold as intolerance against the intolerant.


  • The solution is for every shit post or comment we need to make 10. Every advertising you see, you need to create an anti ad. You need to multiple their effort in the reverse. It costs them money. It costs us just time and effort.

    I’m curious if one could do the math on this, if it can work. Like a cost analysis. I’m pretty sure it’s not, like impossible by an order of magnitude.

    They have billions of dollars to spend and can dominate and push speech at a much cheaper price. It costs them peanuts to buy votes or sockpuppets or bots. Or they own the algorithm. Meanwhile we have to work to survive and have limited time and energy. I think one of the biggest misconception is that ideas win, but reality is that we have an army of millions on one side and an army of thousands on the other, and there is no doubt who will win.

    And worse yet, much of this isn’t even deliberate, it’s a side effect of tuning algorithms to maximize engagement. The more you yell the more they yell their more the engagement numbers go up and they win. Polarization and divisiveness is good business.

    No clue if this is true or if this can even be researched, you’d probably need data from the social media providers. The only winning move I see would be to nationalize all social media and turn them into non-profit cooperatives that are controlled by their own workers.



  • No the lawsuit should have no standing at all. There should be no basis on being allowed to sue for being “religiously offended”. But one should be allowed to sue because hate speech like someone is inciting hatred against an ethnic group or gender or other identity.

    My point is that saying “sticks and stones bla bla but words can never hurt me lalala” like the lady in the video - that’s wrong because words do turn into stones. And her argument would shut both hypothetical lawsuits down.

    Liberal AntiFa successfully sued the KKK out of existence, but it took a lot of effort because the US has no hate speech laws.




  • And local and under your control. As a “second brain” that isn’t sentient but intelligent to assist you AI has great potential. In a few years we’ll probably have the models and new hardware to run good enough models locally on cheap enough hardware.

    But by then they’ll have drummed enough support for “muh copyright” to buy legislation for AI licensing and make all AI models have to pay a license fee to… “someone”. Like that poor writer who had his work illegally read by an AI. So then no open source models can exist and they have the monopoly. Big win for the little guy lol.