I think this every 5 minutes.
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“Why are you dodging like this? They couldn’t hit an elephant at this distance.”[6] Reports that he never finished the sentence are apocryphal, although the line was among his last words.[7] He was shot by a Whitworth rifle bullet moments later under the left eye and mortally wounded.
You missed the best one.
EDIT: FWIW I clarified one thing that I think might have set you off. I don’t think ChrisV wants UKR to lose. But it’s a reasonable position to think they’re going to lose ultimately - so the quicker it happens the less bloodshed and trauma. I don’t like that position because I’d rather have hope.
Yeah but it fell well within the “well, actually…” range. Like of course we understand that not everything coming out of official mouthpieces in the UKR on twitter is going to be rock-solid confirmed education.
Why pop in the thread just to tell us that, and a few days before just to “well, actually…” all over Mearsheimer’s appeasement theory?
I can assume we’ll get another similar “well, actually…” post in a few days, which will of course set keeed off on another 30 post keeed exchange?
I’m calling out the motivation basically. Seems like ChrisV is rooting for UKR to get subjugated ASAP so the world can get back to normal (because he probably thinks they’re going to lose anyway - not because he wants them to lose). That sticks in my craw. Look at how horrible things are for the people in Belarus. I don’t see UKR heading down that path as anything remotely to root for. I may be wrong and misinterpreting. Obviously I’m pretty emotional about this issue.
I’m also making a point about the implication, however glancing, that both sides are lying, so no further digging can be done to determine the truth. This is why poisoning the well is so effective on 99% of the public. I expect better than that here.
Coverage of this war is insane. Here, on video, a sky news team literally have to escape from a bullet riddled car and run for their lives under machine gun fire. Can’t believe they all survived.
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https://twitter.com/TrentTelenko/status/1499763286392385541?s=20&t=imyu3NwMkaYkhEgtOSA4uw
https://twitter.com/TrentTelenko/status/1499763288061759492?s=20&t=imyu3NwMkaYkhEgtOSA4uw
What makes you think that?
That’s not the implication.
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If this was true they’d be dumb to brag about capturing the Pantsyr on twitter.
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One way to resist a terrible boss is to just be really really shitty at your job. That could be going all down the line in the military.
lol, cyber activities have awoken and trying to phish users who may be connected to navalny. the text talks about what navalny told people to do. it’s not addressed to anyone in particular on my site, but appears to be between two people discussing the return of captured soldiers.
when i hover over the youtube link, it’s sus as hell.
Well the only way this is over quick is if Ukraine surrenders. Every other scenario plays out of a long long time. So why go to bat for Mearsheimer if you aren’t ok with UKR being subjugated? I mean that’s his prescription - that the West should shun UKR and UKR should lie back and take whatever Russia gives them. So if we’re going to get to that point eventually - might as well do it with as little bloodshed as possible, right?
It is when you make a point to point out a UKR official lying and your only other post for the last few days was going to bat for Mearsheimer.
Remember all the discussions we’ve had around here about how the hills you pick to die on says more than your actual arguments?
@ChrisV and I are friends. I’ll let him tell me I’m an idiot, because I probably am. I’m just spouting off.
You’re not responding to my points. “Well, actually…” is a form of going to bat for something. You know this.
The people of Belarus are afraid to speak above a whisper at a family gathering. That comes directly from Putin. And now that’s what Ukraine is facing, if they live through the indiscriminate war crimes bombing they’re going through now. They will be living under a punishment phase for a long time. If that’s not cartoon villain-ish, what the hell is?
I really do think there’s a relationship between advanced capitalism and the ability to fight in a modern war. Capitalism these days is all about logistics, multiple inputs being used together to product complex outcomes.
This also applies to services, more than anything Amazon is a logistics company. Like, how to deliver 3bn separate things on time to the right place.
Each transaction in capitalism (from a takeout order to an advertising campaign) offers a chance for failure, goods are incorrect or not delivered, they’re broken, they’re expired, etc. The “pressure” to perform adequately is constant. Systematic failure cannot exist in a competitive environment, because the market is unforgiving and results are constantly tested. Screw up 70% of takeout orders or deliveries and you’re dead, out of the environment, and no longer a participant. Evolutionary selection pressure is inherent in the system.
Now, selection pressures are not absent from authoritarian or communist systems, but they are much more random and tied to things like managerial opinion, promises, the ability to withstand superficial scrutiny, etc. What Trump is to economics, Russia is to military power (except nukes obv, though probably nukes too, but even 30% operational success would be catastrophic). (Trump also shows almost every way in which an incompetent market actor can convince rubes who do not transact with that actor they are actually competent.)
China seems to have overcome many of the limitations of being authoritarian by agreeing to submit to the discipline of the market, which increases competency and filters out incapable actors. However, there does seem to be a sense in which a modern fighting force cannot exist without the habits of liberalism, which I guess part of Tom Friedman’s general Lexis/Olive Tree thesis.
With regard to the photo posted above, logistics is boring. People like Trump and Putin love to daydream about grand strategy, where reality does not disciple one’s thoughts or goals with its nagging input. There’s a spectrum, but when you hear an expert discuss something they are hemmed in by all their knowledge about points q,x,y,z that joe smoes have no idea about (see, eg, history of covid debates). It sucks, reality want to kill your dreams, but most people deal with it. However, the right people with enough self-regard are able to break on through the realm of logistics into pure strategy, where they seek to impose their will (and the systems distorts to satisfy their will, killing reliable feedback). Then, when their goals engage with the world, disaster ensures (see collectivization in the USS and China; We-Work, Theranos, my last two clients, etc).
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You’re going to the mat hard for someone saying “Hey let’s pump the brakes a bit, it’s not like Putin is that bad. He’s not a marvel villain or anything.”
Think about that.
It sure sounds like ChrisV trying to convince himself that life for Ukraine under Russia won’t be that bad. They seem to be ready to die to avoid it. I’ll go with their opinion over mine or his as the most knowledgeable on the situation. If they had rolled over anything remotely like the way the Afghan people did when the US left, then all of the Mearsheimer arguments would hold a lot more water imo.
a UKR official exaggerating is to be expected, there’s hundreds of individuals in those roles. it would be a whole lot worse if Ze was outright lying, which we don’t have yet.
fwiw, UKR are currently omitting mentions of their own casualty totals, but playing up 9+k of russian soldiers. that’s likely not strictly lawful according to whatever convention laws are in place, but of course understandable in the fog of war.
claiming that NPP could explode when it’s a 1/100000 underdog is also explainable, even if it was untrue and unwise.
pentagon continues to stay out of releasing all the intel they have on casualties, although i’m surprised their assesment hasn’t moved away from predicting kyiv’s imminent fall.
Yeah we’ve all said on here a ton of times the real death number must be somewhere between the UKR number and Russia’s number. So it’s not like anyone is taking everything coming out of the UKR at face value.
At first I thought suzzer was indeed a little harsh/unhinged but won me to his side with the Goofy counteroffensive.
Putin is indeed a cartoonishly evil person. People try to dispel that by giving his origin story, seemingly not aware that every cartoonishly evil person, both real and fictional, has an origin story.
I actually missed the marvel villain quote until goofy brought it to my attention.
meanwhile, in a tv interview Christo Grozev, the data journalist who found navalny’s poisoners, is reporting that RU’s troop and equipment reserves are ending, and may completely run out on sunday. in his opinion, that means that RU tactics over the next two days are going to become more vicious.
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