SubstantialNothingness [comrade/them]

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I did a deep dive several months back and I get the impression that many US bureaucrats/analysts see countering China on Taiwan as not feasible let alone beneficial for the US. [edit: I think some made the point that the US needs China for solar, steel, and other goods to have any meaningful green transition.]

I got the impression that they encourage de-escalation and a timeline of 10-20 years for a handover to occur. It seems to me like it’s the elected politicians who are using war-mongering to whip up votes among propagandized voters, using heated rhetoric and driving the resurgence of jingoism. 20 years gives them plenty of time to redirect their propaganda toward another, weaker nation.

Of course there is a very real fear of the propagandists drinking their own koolaid, or the crumbling empire lashing out. But every day the US’ edge is diminished more.

I don’t know what is best for China to do but I know that they shouldn’t wait forever to do it - however they are keen on playing the long game and good at it, and if they can afford to do so without hurting themselves, I think you’re “best possible outcome” is pretty likely.

I don’t think 20 years is going to be an acceptable timeline but I also don’t think it’s going to take 20 years for US force projection to collapse.

I agree that a lot is going to depend on who gets put into positions of power around Trump. Some outcomes seem more reliable than others but personally I don’t feel I can predict much with any reliability until there is a clearer picture of what the administration is going to look like.

(And if the admin sees turnover similar to the last one, then it’s going to be even harder to make reliable long-term predictions.)

With that said, I also share your cautious optimism. (e: Speaking in terms of the international political picture - I’m less optimistic about the immediate effects that many of our comrades around the world could experience.)

If I was Putin there’s no way I would settle for something like this immediately out of the gate.

I would at least try to wait for materiel to dry up and take easy territory gains requiring minimal cost in terms of money, resources, personnel.

Why settle for your demands of the old status quo when the new one benefits you even more?

Sometimes it takes awhile for people to recognize their own beliefs being spoken to them through another’s words.

At least the ones throwing their hands up and saying electoralism is out of their control are correct. Maybe they’ll even take the next step and commit to dual power, although I won’t hold my breath and wait on them.

Apparently the FBI foiled a right-winger looking to take out a power station in Tennessee.

https://archive.ph/YcmoA

Sometimes some of us get hyper-critical about ourselves. I don’t know why it happens - maybe it’s a symptom of some condition, or the effect of being neurodivergent in a neurotypical world.

When you get to feeling that way, I encourage you to tell yourself that it doesn’t matter how the symptoms manifest, the simple fact that you are struggling is what legitimizes your condition.

The categorization of conditions is useful to calibrate treatment and support but many people’s conditions do not manifest as all of the textbook symptoms, and neither do their responses to treatment. The professionals should understand this because they work with it day in and day out. The improved descriptions of conditions has allowed advancements in treatment but remember that the ultimate goal of is not to perfectly understand arbitrarily delineated conditions (and invalidate care for those who don’t match them perfectly). The ultimate goal is to reduce actual suffering experienced by individuals. So what matters in terms of “deserving” treatment and support is not the specifics of your condition, but simply whether or not you are struggling (e: whether or not you realize it! if you’re questioning it at all then you probably are!). If you are struggling it doesn’t really matter why you are struggling, all that matters is that you get the help that you need.

I hope this perspective helps next time these thoughts pop up. You deserve to live the best life that is available to you.

Updates on floods in West and Central Africa this year, and a discussion of climatic trends in these regions (not good):

[Phys.org] Climate change-worsened floods wreak havoc in Africa

Look at that, the climate change subs captured by climate change deniers are on the list.

I would bet that almost every sub on their list is already full of astroturfers talking to themselves lol

This is a binary reality - it’s warmer or it’s not. And it takes like 5 seconds to confirm that it is. But this many people haven’t taken even 5 seconds to check over the past 24 years.

There’s no way that all those sensors over the past 100 years have been erroneous in just the right way to create a consistent illusion of warming. That’s like the smallest tail risk in the history of statistics lol

And the question doesn’t ask anything why there might be warming, it’s a simple quantitative question and these people still can’t face the reality.

It’s about liberals accepting atrocities under Biden that they would not under Trump

I agree with the sentiment, but in my experience it depends on what you consider “accepting.”

They also accepted everything under Trump imo - they just accepted it with the occasional fruitless protest thrown in the mix.

Had millions of people not been killed by COVID, would the world be less tolerant to genocide?

Only marginally, I think. The world was already primed before covid imo.

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