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[altered]

Get the popcorn ready. McCarthy kowtowed to the Qanon crew so hard that now his more moderate allies are about to say Absolutely Not. The coming vote on the new rules package is going to be HILARIOUS.

[chaotic neutral observer]

https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/highlights-prince-harrys-biography-spare-2023-01-05/

Harry says he killed 25 people when serving as a helicopter pilot in Afghanistan. He says he participated in six missions, all of which involved deaths, but says he saw them as justifiable as Taliban insurgents wanted to kill his comrades.

"It wasn't a statistic that filled me with pride but nor did it leave me ashamed. When I found myself plunged in the heat and confusion of combat I didn't think of those 25 as people. They were chess pieces removed from the board, Bad people eliminated before they could kill Good people."

A royal person, thinking of the people he killed as pieces in a game?  Bravo, sir, bravo.  When he made a widely-publicized documentary about his love-life, in which he complained about media attention, I just thought he was a hypocrite.  Now, I see him as a cancerous, diseased emblem of those same privileged, aristocratic, colonial attitudes that, if combined with real power, trigger revolutions.

Despite their claims to the contrary, the royals appear to have failed entirely to adapt to the modern world.  They're just as awful as ever they were.

Edit:  Also, I'm now entirely disinclined to believe that the Nazi costume was an innocent mistake.

[Faust]

The fucking taliban made a statement I agree with on that, the fucking TALIBAN

They said thinking of human lives like that is monstrous but at least he is admitting it which most of his army comrads wouldn't.

[Scribbly]

I'm more surprised that people are surprised to be honest.

This is what armies have done for hundreds of years - step one is to dehumanise the enemy. You can't kill 'em if you think they are people. Not as easily anyway.

The Taliban do exactly the same thing just the targets are different.

Don't get me wrong, it's awful and we probably shouldn't be doing it. But the pearl-clutching from military personnel is particularly funny to me. Sorry your boy said the quiet bit out loud I guess? Guy's still my enemy but it's good to see people confronted with what military service - especially in a time of war - actually means.

[Nibor the Priest]

I didn't think of those 25 as people. They were chess pieces removed from the board

At least 9 of them must have been on his own side, then

[chaotic neutral observer]

I'm more surprised that people are surprised to be honest.

This is what armies have done for hundreds of years - step one is to dehumanise the enemy. You can't kill 'em if you think they are people. Not as easily anyway.

The Taliban do exactly the same thing just the targets are different.

Don't get me wrong, it's awful and we probably shouldn't be doing it. But the pearl-clutching from military personnel is particularly funny to me. Sorry your boy said the quiet bit out loud I guess? Guy's still my enemy but it's good to see people confronted with what military service - especially in a time of war - actually means.

Demuhanizing the enemy in the heat of battle is hardly unheard of.  But afterward, a human being should feel some regret for their actions, even if they would do the same thing all over again if the situation was repeated.

What a person says and thinks afterwards informs you of their character.  His character is less "I killed people, and I regret it, but it was necessary under the circumstances", and more "I killed people, but it was just a game to me."

Maybe that quote reads differently in context, I don't know.

[Faust]

To be fair it's probably not a far yhrow from thier Christmas day hunt of the serfs on thier land, he might have been nostalgic

[Scribbly]

I'm more surprised that people are surprised to be honest.

This is what armies have done for hundreds of years - step one is to dehumanise the enemy. You can't kill 'em if you think they are people. Not as easily anyway.

The Taliban do exactly the same thing just the targets are different.

Don't get me wrong, it's awful and we probably shouldn't be doing it. But the pearl-clutching from military personnel is particularly funny to me. Sorry your boy said the quiet bit out loud I guess? Guy's still my enemy but it's good to see people confronted with what military service - especially in a time of war - actually means.

Demuhanizing the enemy in the heat of battle is hardly unheard of.  But afterward, a human being should feel some regret for their actions, even if they would do the same thing all over again if the situation was repeated.

What a person says and thinks afterwards informs you of their character.  His character is less "I killed people, and I regret it, but it was necessary under the circumstances", and more "I killed people, but it was just a game to me."

Maybe that quote reads differently in context, I don't know.

I agree they should.

The majority of the purpose of military training is to teach them not to.

That's what it is there for. It has been successful. It's wild to me that there's a bunch of people now surprised at this. I think it's great that Harry has just outright said how he saw it and I think it's fair to call him a monster for it; but this is the system working precisely as it is supposed to. This is not (just) a personal moral failing.

[Cain]

The quote was taken out of context by the British press, as part of their ongoing crusade against Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.

C'mon now, you don't really believe the Times, Sun, Mail and Telegraph give a single fuck about Muslim lives and wouldn't be cheering on this distorted account in any other circumstance, do you?

[Cain]

But I'm sure if anything can be said about the British press, it's how fairly they treat people who have undertaken (and won) legal action against them for libel in the past. 

[chaotic neutral observer]

The quote was taken out of context by the British press, as part of their ongoing crusade against Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.

C'mon now, you don't really believe the Times, Sun, Mail and Telegraph give a single fuck about Muslim lives and wouldn't be cheering on this distorted account in any other circumstance, do you?

Dear god.  In context, the meaning is almost exactly the opposite of how it was presented.  I already knew to ignore the likes of the Daily Mail, but I thought Reuters was reputable.  I have been played.

I originally heard about this on Canadian television, but I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt, and assume they dumbly parroted what they were fed... like I did.

[Faust]

The quote was taken out of context by the British press, as part of their ongoing crusade against Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.

C'mon now, you don't really believe the Times, Sun, Mail and Telegraph give a single fuck about Muslim lives and wouldn't be cheering on this distorted account in any other circumstance, do you?

I didnt look at where reuters source led, ewww.

[Cain]

The quote was taken out of context by the British press, as part of their ongoing crusade against Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.

C'mon now, you don't really believe the Times, Sun, Mail and Telegraph give a single fuck about Muslim lives and wouldn't be cheering on this distorted account in any other circumstance, do you?

Dear god.  In context, the meaning is almost exactly the opposite of how it was presented.  I already knew to ignore the likes of the Daily Mail, but I thought Reuters was reputable.  I have been played.

I originally heard about this on Canadian television, but I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt, and assume they dumbly parroted what they were fed... like I did.

Yeah, this is standard British press approach for people on the shit list. "The full Corbyn", as it were. And Harry is well up on the shitlist, because he's constantly calling out the British press as a malign institution that has an unhealthy relationship with the Royal Family, that threatens and bullies to get you to play along to their agenda and does this sort of thing if you don't.

It's also my understanding a lot of newspapers have actually had trouble getting advance copies of the book, which means the British press's poisonous response has been quite effective in shaping the discourse around the book in the opening days. But yeah, I treat anything I hear about certain people with a massive grain of salt because of the brain worms the press has here, and Harry is very high up on that list.

[Scribbly]

Wasn't sure where to post this but it didn't feel worth its own thread.

Breaking News: World's Smartest Man Thinks Divorced Wife is Figment of His Imagination, She Agrees.

https://consequence.net/2022/10/elon-musk-grimes-simulation/

“She [Grimes] told me repeatedly that Musk has this theory of her that she’s not real,” Gordon told the BBC (via Cosmopolitan). “That she’s a simulation who was created by him and exists in his cerebral cortex as sort of the perfect companion to him. Which sounds a little crazy and maybe even a little creepy, except, she agrees with it. She said she does feel like this simulation which was perfectly created for him.”

He added, “Her interests are all the same as his and her music is very technologically oriented,” explaining that they “both made a similar nerdy joke about a scary AI theory of the future.”

Gordon interviewed Grimes for an April Vanity Fair cover story where she expressed similar sentiments: “We keep having this conversation where E’s like, ‘Are you real? Or are we living in my memory, and you’re like a synthesized companion that was created to be my companion here? ’”

She also said, “The degree to which I feel engineered to have been this, like, perfect companion is crazy.”

[chaotic neutral observer]

“She [Grimes] told me repeatedly that Musk has this theory of her that she’s not real,” Gordon told the BBC (via Cosmopolitan). “That she’s a simulation who was created by him and exists in his cerebral cortex as sort of the perfect companion to him. Which sounds a little crazy and maybe even a little creepy, except, she agrees with it. She said she does feel like this simulation which was perfectly created for him.”

He added, “Her interests are all the same as his and her music is very technologically oriented,” explaining that they “both made a similar nerdy joke about a scary AI theory of the future.”

At first glance, this is creepy as fuck, especially if she agrees with it.

But, on second thought, it's very easily tested.  If she exists only in his imagination, it would be physically impossible for her to kill him.

Which is why I would never hint at any such brain-damaged idea to my "perfect woman" (should I ever meet such a creature).  Because if she was my ideal woman, and we both believed she existed only in my head, she would definitely try to kill me, FOR SCIENCE.  (My perfect woman would be intelligent, very curious, and rather bloody-minded.)

I get very tired of people who think they're "nerdy", but lack the imagination to consider even the first-order implications of their navel-gazing.