I'm sorry for being such a dumbass.
And also an asshole.
I've also been trying my best, for a couple months, to battle that same kind of brainrot wherever I see it online.
TESTEMONAIL: Right and Discordianism allows room for personal interpretation. You have your theories and I have mine. Unlike Christianity, Discordia allows room for ideas and opinions, and mine is well-informed and based on ancient philosophy and theology, so, my neo-Discordian friends, open your minds to my interpretation and I will open my mind to yours. That's fair enough, right? Just claiming to be discordian should mean that your mind is open and willing to learn and share ideas. You guys are fucking bashing me and your laughing at my theologies and my friends know what's up and are laughing at you and honestly this is my last shot at putting a label on my belief structure and your making me lose all hope of ever finding a ideological group I can relate to because you don't even know what the fuck I'm talking about and everything I have said is based on the founding principals of real Discordianism. Expand your mind.
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Show posts MenuQuote from: Doktor Howl on March 16, 2022, 05:03:04 PMQuote from: POFP on March 16, 2022, 03:02:48 AM
This board is literally for extensive discussion and idea interrogation, not just getting talked at by the admins in lengthy sermons and rants (I enjoy that too.). That being said, the admins have always been free to move my drivel to Randomness or the Peanut Gallery when appropriate.
There is precisely zero chance that any of this conversation is getting moved anywhere.
It is all very on topic, even if I think you're wrong.
Quote from: chaotic neutral observer on March 15, 2022, 10:58:17 PMQuote from: POFP on March 15, 2022, 10:04:28 PM
This is mostly just Straw Men, or completely missing the point/making bad assumptions about my position. I might respond to it piecemeal, later.
No need. Your worldview is too simplistic for me to engage with, and enough noise has been added to Cain's thread already.
Quote from: Faust on March 08, 2022, 12:23:02 PM
So a week in and I am still not sure what to make from it. I dont like getting my information off whats being shared on social platforms and if you were to go off of reddit news articles the Ukranians have decimated the Russians.
Does it hold up, has Russia taken enough of a black eye to consider withdrawing, or is the damage they have taken inconsequential for their goal of capturing Ukraine and all this is doing is delaying the inevitable?
How can Putin still have support from this back home surely at home in Russia there would be:
Those who oppose the war
Those who dont really care but intend to use it as a cudgel to remove Putin and take power for themselves?
Or is his own support base so unwavering that he still able to weather this?
Quote from: purpleXi on March 09, 2022, 03:16:11 PM
If successful, Putin acting out in this way and seizing Ukraine may give him.. what.. another decade of power?
How long would he have had if he never followed through on his aging threat to invade?
Quote from: Doktor Howl on March 12, 2022, 01:03:58 AM
I'm really not here to argue with people who make excuses for Putin.
Quote from: chaotic neutral observer on March 11, 2022, 01:02:49 AMQuote from: POFP on March 09, 2022, 06:21:09 PMThat's obviously not happening. The current refusal to implement a no-fly zone, and the US not facilitating the donation of Polish MIGs is not "the path of most escalation".
But there is no justification for US/NATO explicitly choosing the path of most escalation every time a decision needed to be made on the crisis.QuoteNo, they haven't given Putin "every bit of ammunition he could possibly want." Offering immediate NATO membership, or stationing NATO troops in Ukraine would be much better than Putin's stated justification of "de-nazifying Ukraine". Which is, frankly, pretty lame.
Even if the Invasion has nothing to do with Ukraine's NATO membership, for 20+ years, US/NATO have been giving Putin every bit of ammunition he could possibly want to justify an invasion.QuoteNo matter what the action movies tell you, the US is not responsible for maintaining the peace of the world.
I consider that irresponsible, and justification for the label of "complicit".QuoteI've noticed that the people who accept the narrative that NATO is responsible for the invasion also tend to have an idealistic view of socialism or communism. It's probably an artifact of where they go to get their news.
(Which could be resolved if the US pushed and fed Leftist Organized Labor Movements in Russia and Ukraine.)QuoteIt's a good thing the rest of the world isn't continuously escalating, then. (Financial sanctions aren't an escalation, they're retribution).
I know if WE were fighting a Fascist nuclear superpower on our doorstep, I wouldn't want the rest of the world to continuously escalate on every bluff that superpower made.QuoteThat's what's happening.
I would just want them to keep some pressure on and provide resources to extend the Defense.QuoteRussia's slow progress in the invasion suggests that they badly underestimated Ukraine. They thought this would be over in a few days. That's not the kind of judgement you make of someone you consider a "threat". Destroying Ukraine wasn't part of the original plan; rather, it's Putin's alternative to losing. His first choice was a subdued, mostly intact client state, with his goons in control of the government. His second choice is doing whatever it takes to hold onto power, up to and including scorched earth. Because if he loses this war, he'll lose his presidency, if not his life.
The fact that Russia is currently targeting civilian structures, which they would need to expend resources to rebuild if they were intending to absorb them into an Empire, demonstrates to me that they really do consider the NATO membership aspect to be an existential threat (Their words.). They're decimating Ukraine to ensure it's no longer a threat.Quote"We" are already executing other options.
We need to decide soon if we want to entertain other options besides further escalation, and letting them burn all of Ukraine to the ground.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on March 09, 2022, 11:55:19 PMQuote from: POFP on March 09, 2022, 06:21:09 PMQuote from: Doktor Howl on March 09, 2022, 12:27:13 AMQuote from: POFP on March 02, 2022, 02:29:38 AMQuote from: Doktor Howl on March 02, 2022, 02:08:15 AM
Sometimes a war happens and America isn't the bad guy.
Call me crazy, but there you are.
I didn't say America was solely responsible. They didn't invade Ukraine. That's Putin's sin. I'm saying America's inaction, through either laziness or ignorance, helped build the conditions that made it a reality. They are complicit, and if they continue down this line of reasoning with Russia, we're no longer going to be alive to bitch about it. It's our responsibility to pressure our government to do better.
Giving them the out is like giving American Corporate Oligarchs an out for having lived through and been brainwashed by Capitalist Propaganda into thinking their persistent exploitation of their fellow countrymen and the environment is okay because profits are up this quarter. They chose to keep overwhelming Power. They are culpable for how they've used and abused it, regardless of whether they understand their role in the resulting dystopia.
Russia is solely responsible. Nobody held a gun to Putin's head and told him to invade.
I'm not disagreeing with that. But there is no justification for US/NATO explicitly choosing the path of most escalation every time a decision needed to be made on the crisis. Even if the Invasion has nothing to do with Ukraine's NATO membership, for 20+ years, US/NATO have been giving Putin every bit of ammunition he could possibly want to justify an invasion. I consider that irresponsible, and justification for the label of "complicit".
Well, obviously. Nothing badeverusually happens if the USA isn't there tomake it happenignore the warnings of foreign policy specialists, humanitarians, and academics for years, and openly support and directly fund predatory, Imperialist murder campaigns that push every country South of the Equator, Left of George Bush, and previously/currently opposed to American Hegemony further into existential crises that prop up Populist/Fascist Dictators, or provide false hope to geo-strategically fucked countries sitting next to them.
Quote from: purpleXi on March 10, 2022, 01:26:43 AMQuote from: POFP on May 24, 2021, 05:09:17 AM
I would like to say, I'm intrigued by the Proxy Voting System, not as a primary form of voting, but maybe as an extremely transient and optional feature when looking to vote in Elections, and more supported when voting on actual Legislation.
If it it were more supported on actual legislative issues, and you could interact as much or little as wanted - why would we need voting?
Quote from: purpleXi on March 10, 2022, 01:26:43 AMQuote from: POFP on May 24, 2021, 05:09:17 AM
The main concern I have with this being used in Elections (Where votes should be Anonymous),
But why? What is the maximum size of a conspiracy? How many evil power-hungry factory owners do we imagine are going to risk jail time by coercing the hundreds/thousands of people required to make a difference in the outcome? Why shouldn't the public at large be held accountable for our dumb collective decisions? Would you check out your boss' voting record before going in for an interview?
Quote from: purpleXi on March 10, 2022, 01:26:43 AMQuote from: POFP on May 24, 2021, 05:09:17 AM
however, is potential bad actors saying one thing to gain Proxy Votes in order to actually direct them at the exact opposite Nominee that the Proxiers expected. Destabilization of the structure would be extremely easy in this case. Proxying should be extremely restricted or not allowed for Elections. This is not an issue when voting on Legislation, however, since Legislation Votes should be Public, just as they are now
That problem is removed when proxy-voting isn't anoymous. I can't think of a non-tedious non-gamificationable solution otherwise.
Quote from: purpleXi on March 10, 2022, 01:26:43 AMQuote from: POFP on May 24, 2021, 05:09:17 AM
(When cast by Representatives of course - Not in the case of Direct Democracy, which I don't agree with for reasons Dok et al have already clarified.).
The difference between Direct Democracy and Proxy Voting is the difference between good dental hygiene and just chewing gum before a date.
Quote from: purpleXi on March 10, 2022, 01:26:43 AMQuote from: POFP on May 24, 2021, 05:09:17 AM
Personally, I think this thread has been looking at the Voting and Legislative process problems from the wrong angle (To be fair, I only read the first few pages, some pages in the middle, and the last few pages, so some of this may have been brought up here or other places already.). The problems in today's society are generally caused by Legal/Late Stage Capitalism's (Different from Free Market Capitalism, in that the State has formalized and blessed its natural failures and Monopolies.) natural support for Hierarchical, Bureaucratic Organizational Structures through:
- Overcomplication of legal and business processes
Those legal and business processes require it to maintain their continued existence though, so they have their own sentience.
Quote from: purpleXi on March 10, 2022, 01:26:43 AMQuote from: POFP on May 24, 2021, 05:09:17 AM
- Hoarding/Gatekeeping of knowledge of these processes within highly specialized Domains of the Private Sector
It's a boys club mostly, though more and more non-men are learning to play the same game each year - yay progress!
Quote from: purpleXi on March 10, 2022, 01:26:43 AMQuote from: POFP on May 24, 2021, 05:09:17 AM
We solve these problems by enforcing simplification of Legislation through standardization of its
language, and through the use of Encapsulation (Often used in Programming and other linguistics
fields to establish intuitive Abstraction Layers within written Instruction that allow you to reference
groups of smaller instructions with simpler high-level instructions.).
That might be too big to fit on a billboard - how do we gain mass support for this concept?
Quote from: purpleXi on March 10, 2022, 01:26:43 AMQuote from: POFP on May 24, 2021, 05:09:17 AM
Why treat legislation like Software? Because Legislation is a formal, syntactically specific form of instruction, and because States all over are already starting to do this (kind of) as they've begun transcribing legislation and legal codes into websites. Recursive linking is already implemented through the Article, Section, etc. Structure. This should be extrapolated out into the fundamental syntax of legal language. The establishment of a structured syntax standard that specializes in Object/Domain Orientation and Encapsulation would make it easier for the Layman to understand the Legislation being voted on without requiring a Law Degree or special training. It also increases re-usability of Legislation Components in the same way it makes Software Modules reusable. It would facilitate the average Citizen's ability to drag and drop high-level Legislative snippets and ideas into a proposed bill as high-level components (That still contain all the low-level, expanded legalese that make up those components) and submit the full proposals in almost no time at all, even using popular/preferres components from existing and successful pieces of Legislation. If done properly, it should be possible for someone in the Electorate to identify a problem and submit fully functional, repeatable Legislation in a day that can be quickly assessed and amended by the Legislature before going to a vote.
I see what you mean, totally - the fact that the public can't do this right now means that skill is not being developed.
Quote from: purpleXi on March 10, 2022, 01:26:43 AMQuote from: POFP on May 24, 2021, 05:09:17 AM
I recommend a modified form of Participatory Politics, where Democratic Hierarchies in all branches of government are formed as needed from the ground up through Community organization around Governing Domains (Hierarchies of Categorization of Legislation topics, as well as governing jurisdiction by population density and location.). My primary concern with it's suggested implementation on Wikipedia is that everyone is required to participate as a council member at the bottom rung, at least. I think we could easily replace the structure of the current State's major components with something that resembles their proposed "Parpolity" structure without replacing it entirely with a system where every single person is directly involved, since a significant number of people won't care to be involved in government and their involvement will likely impede those who do care. Besides, I think the assumption in their proposed implementation was that anyone who wasn't involved was simply ignored by the system, either defaulting non-participants to Anarchism or surrounding State Rule, which is hilariously unrealistic. As long as the Electoral and Legislative Proposal processes are open to all citizens that fall under corresponding Jurisdictions, Agencies, Legislatures, and Courts, I think we're okay with actual Council participation being optional, but immediately accessible by the individual, if preferred. It's also important not to lose the current Organizations and Infrastructure that currently exist by rebuilding each Agency/Legislature/Court from the ground up again. It's possible to transition existing Organizations to the new Structure and re-adjust the scale afterwards as needed using the new system's predefined processes.
Yeah, I think there may be more than one way it could be implemented though - the hard part is selling something that the public doesn't want because they don't understand why they would want it.
Quote from: purpleXi on March 10, 2022, 01:26:43 AMQuote from: POFP on May 24, 2021, 05:09:17 AM
It's also suggested that Parecon (Participatory Economics) is paired with this to ensure similar Democratization of the Means of Production, but I have the same concerns with this structure that I had with the other. I think we've seen enough Democratic Workplace structures succeed (Like Co-Ops, and similar structures.) that we can come up with a mix that enforces Socialization of the Means of Production without resulting in a planned economy like they suggest. Market Socialism is probably ideal, and I think it would be best implemented using concepts from Parecon - Not the whole thing. Mostly just the decentralized organization of Democratic Labor, but with Personal and Shared Ownership of Property giving way to a fully featured Market that is less likely to leave its constituents starving or dependent on Slave Labor or Planetary destruction to survive.
Happy to talk specifics, either in this thread, or in another. This was a very high-level overview.
Looked into Sociocracy a little last year.. happy to see more and more worker co-ops coming into existence.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on March 09, 2022, 12:27:13 AMQuote from: POFP on March 02, 2022, 02:29:38 AMQuote from: Doktor Howl on March 02, 2022, 02:08:15 AM
Sometimes a war happens and America isn't the bad guy.
Call me crazy, but there you are.
I didn't say America was solely responsible. They didn't invade Ukraine. That's Putin's sin. I'm saying America's inaction, through either laziness or ignorance, helped build the conditions that made it a reality. They are complicit, and if they continue down this line of reasoning with Russia, we're no longer going to be alive to bitch about it. It's our responsibility to pressure our government to do better.
Giving them the out is like giving American Corporate Oligarchs an out for having lived through and been brainwashed by Capitalist Propaganda into thinking their persistent exploitation of their fellow countrymen and the environment is okay because profits are up this quarter. They chose to keep overwhelming Power. They are culpable for how they've used and abused it, regardless of whether they understand their role in the resulting dystopia.
Russia is solely responsible. Nobody held a gun to Putin's head and told him to invade.
Quote from: Q. G. Pennyworth on February 11, 2022, 08:09:48 PM
Let it be known that humans are cabbages sometimes
And greyfaces are jokesters sometimes
That bipeds sometimes drop to all fours
And sheeple are sometimes woke
Let it be known that enlightenment is not a destination
But a way that people sometimes are
And sometimes are not
And this is not a flaw, but a feature
Let us not shit on people for being on a downswing
Or prevent them from moving back
Towards the kind of person
We'd like to hang out with
Let us not place blame except where it is due
Or where its funny
Quote from: Cain on March 02, 2022, 10:13:23 AMQuote from: POFP on March 02, 2022, 03:20:45 AM
It doesn't even matter at this point. NATO all but just collectively agreed to shoot down Russian planes in their air space. Because backing a solipsistic nut job with Nuclear Launch Codes, who's just humiliated himself in front of the entire World, even further into a corner is sure to work out well for everyone.
I mean, seriously? Is no one else getting "Don't Look Up" vibes right now? What in the actual fuck is going on?
"All but agreed?"Quote from: NATO Secretary General Jens StoltenbergNATO is not going to send the troops into Ukraine or move planes into Ukrainian airspace.Quote from: President of Poland Andrzej DudaGentlemen, as Secretary General has now said, we are not sending any jets to Ukraine because that would open a military interference in the Ukrainian conflict. We are not joining that conflict. NATO is not a party to that conflict. However as I said, we are supporting Ukrainians with humanity aid. However, we are not going to send any jets to the Ukrainian airspace.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on March 02, 2022, 02:08:15 AM
Sometimes a war happens and America isn't the bad guy.
Call me crazy, but there you are.
Quote from: Cain on March 01, 2022, 02:03:50 PM
The thing is, if Russia's going to threaten to invade if Ukraine's part of NATO or not, then they might as well join, since the opportunity cost is exactly the same. "Neutrality" isn't really an option here, even that will be taken as trying to remove themselves from Russia's sphere of influence. That's what is so damning about the whole thing, the Minsk agreement would have effectively made them neutral, but that apparently wasn't acceptable enough to Putin's people.
Quote from: Cain on February 26, 2022, 09:46:06 AM
I think you're giving too much credit to the US here and too little agency to the Russians.
Let's be very clear here: Russia had a choice. I thought up until about a week ago that this was simply then playing hardball on the Minsk agreement - a framework agreed upon by Russia, the US, the EU and Ukraine that in theory would have resolved Russia's concerns about NATO on their borders without dismembering Ukraine entirely. The essence of it would have been that the separatist regions of Ukraine would have been recognised as having a special regional status and greater freedoms to institute their own laws but in return would get a veto over future national security arrangements. This would have allowed for Russia to covertly control them from behind the scenes and use them to keep them out of the NATO framework. Again, this was agreed to by the US, though Ukraine was dragging it's feet on implementing it.
However, we can now clearly see that was not the case. Indeed, Russia was engaging in duplicitous diplomacy with France and Germany right up until the point the invasion started precisely to convince them that this was their aim.
Furthermore, the Ukraine of today is not the Ukraine of ten years ago. Despite not being a member of NATO, it's armed forces have been considerably hardened by US and EU aid, most notably advanced Stingers and MANPADs were unlocked for sale a couple of months back - in conjunction with everything else they've been given over the past eight years, they have the means to turn Ukraine into a hellish insurgent landscape. The kind of urban fighting that commanders hate and irregular fighters love - that's what awaits the Russians currently in Kiev and Odessa, and they are going to be bloodied night and day until they leave. Bombs on the street, rat poison and glass in their food...it's never going to end and they'll be looking over their backs every moment they're there.
Finally, Russia's economy cannot afford a protracted conflict, and nor can their military. They are trying to run a superpower on an economy the size of Texas. Three-quarters of their available manpower is now concentrated on Ukraine or the borders around it. That means they are weaker everywhere else - and the longer this goes on, the weaker they will get. NATO won't take direct advantage of this, because no-one wants two nuclear powers fighting - but you can bet Russia's partners in the Middle East, the Caucasians and in Central Asia will feel their absence.
In short, there were a lot of reasons to believe that Russia would not invade, because invading is about the dumbest thing Putin could do. But he did. Putin chose to wage a war of aggression, when he had other options available, and the reasons for that are complicated but essentially there is a revanchist, nationalistic movement within the Russian "mainstream" that wishes to rectify the "mistakes" of history, such as the dissolution of the Russian Empire and it's successor state in the Soviet Union.
This movement views countries like Ukraine and even Belarus as illegitimate creations of the Soviet state that should have returned to a Russian status at the end of the Cold War. It's this movement which managed to get a vote through the Russian Parliament that those Ukrainian regions be recognised as independent - and certainly it can be argued that such a proposal never would have made it through without being agreed on from higher up. But Russia is not a straightforward dictatorship where a single man rules - there are factions and key constituencies who need to be listened to and supported, and there is negotiation back and forth between these groups and various power centres in the Russian state, which includes oligarchs who stand to profit not only from a conflict in Ukraine but the establishment of new markets where sanctions are not applied to them. These power centres, for their various reasons, decided a Ukrainian invasion was the way to go, and so allowed the vote to go ahead.
That's not to say that the US and NATO do not share some blame - they certainly could have done more, both historically and in the present to try and assure Russia of it's security aims. At the same time, given what has already been provided, it's hard to say what would have actually convinced the Russians to back off, without a complete change in NATO policy going back to the early 1990s or similar. A democratic Ukraine was always going to be on contentious ground with an autocratic Russia - and would naturally seek allies and frameworks agreed on with them to try and blunt any Russian aggression. The lack of natural barriers - barring the Dnieper - in the region mean security is always going to be fraught and hard to obtain in any concrete way except through these alliances and agreements, and short of telling Ukraine to fend for itself and leaving it to the Russians to absorb, I think any degree of assistance was always going to be looked upon by a suspicious Kremlin as the first step in a NATO agreement. In short, Russia views Ukraine in a simple binary position of either it is with them, or it is against them. Clearly it is not with them for now, so the only thing to do is secure a regime change to ensure that is not the case in the future.