cassepipe

Everyone debating a maga person now must be trained to deal effectively with the "I haven't heard about that" defense that will inevitably come up

We do. Asshole is more subjective and narcissism is an attempt at describing some specific type of assholeness that you know exist in various individuals and that you can spot by checking if it matches a few characteristics. You can now better spot them and avoid them if you want or look for knowledge about how to handle this type of person if you have to.

I feel like you are trying to paint it as a shibboleth because you feel targeted by it or you dislike the ideology of people who use it but it's probably just a banal reaction to the "doomer" adjective that I have heard before it and is even more entrenched

It just makes sense that the bigger the agora in which a debate takes place, the more nuances will fade away until you can roughly sort people into the "X bad" and "X good" buckets. Is it desirable ? I don't know. Is it some group's lobbying/conspiracy ? I don't think so

Now imagine you put a filter and instead all of the dust the fan stirs up in your room, you now breathe a particle-free air ? Who wouldn't want that ?

Would that also apply to the U.S and if not, why ?

I don't think parent was against gas because of its physical but rather because it's a fossil fuel

Article doesn't mention but says the company is BYD Energy Storage which apparenly uses Lithium Iron Phosphate (LFP) battery technology (specifically, Lithium Iron Phosphate / LiFePO₄

What was used instead before ?

I am definitely not an expert. This is from [this book review](https://www.thepsmiths.com/p/review-aztecs-by-inga-clendinne...):

"This same zero-sum competition extended to the Mexica army, which as soon as battle was joined became not an army but a swirling melee of individual glory-seekers. The purpose of the Mexica warrior was not the victory of the group, but competition with his peers, and the way to win the competition was to secure captives for sacrifice to Huitzilopochtli. This singular fact drove almost everything about Mexica combat strategy, or the lack thereof. Great warriors wore towering feather headdresses to attract opponents so that they could be disabled and sacrificed. The Mexica had projectile weapons, but specifically designed them to be non-lethal and only employed them for demoralization. The Mexica wielded long, shallow obsidian blades and flint-studded clubs that were designed to incapacitate by cutting a hamstring or crushing a knee, rather than to kill. The only way to advance as a Mexica warrior was to sacrifice more captives than your peers,8 and the incentives of the system shaped everything else."

After some more reading, it seems indeed that this Inda Clendinnen book from 1991 may be lackluster on how the aztecs actually behaved on the field

I am not sure I am entirely convinced by how you make your point but I think I agree. Here is how I would make the case for it:

The Spaniards had armor and combat formation. Having basic protection and having men march next to you closely must make you quite confident.

On the other hand Aztec fighting style seems to be "Go berserk and attract enemies to you so you can harm them to take them as captive so you can sacrifice them later for prestige". You are actually competing with your fellow warriors to show how brave you are". It seems the culture has optimized for not taking into account fear of death.

That might be a big advantage against other tribes that have the same level of tech than you but haven't bet the farm on militaristic culture but it probably breaks down pretty quickly on armies who rely on "confidence in the collective" rather than individual prestige and have somewhat of a tech edge

You are right. I should have made that warning. This is not for the faint of heart.

"If anything, the Spaniards lacked the conceptual framework to fully comprehend the industrial-scale, ever-so-civilized and bureaucratic evil of the Mexica, and so they inadvertently downplayed it

[...]

No, the mass-butchery of wailing, pleading captives of both sexes and all ages was the core activity around which their entire civilization and society revolved. Their art, their music, their poetry, their approach to warfare, their entire economic system, their kaleidoscopic array of holidays and festivals, all were singularly dedicated to the killing (often preceded by inventive torture) of helpless human beings"

Could you post a bit more about what constitutes in your eyes blatant misinformation ?

I just found out this [1] book review today about the Aztec society today and my takeway is that the Aztecs were a highly militaristic death cult. Almost all men were warriors educated for war at young age and competing with each other to get as most captives as possibles because this is what gives you status.

It doesn't mention the spanish conquest but I wouldn't be surprised if all those tribes living under Aztec rule needed a little morale boost and seeing a bunch of guys with iron weapons and armor who wanted to do away with the aztecs surely helped with that

[1](https://www.thepsmiths.com/p/review-aztecs-by-inga-clendinne...)

Was it the dems who booed Trump at his own rally ?

The 2020 Democratic skepticism was about possible political pressure to approve a vaccine before the election, it wasn't about vaccines themselves

Harris explicitly said she'd take it if Fauci and public health experts endorsed it

Once the vaccines approved, Dems went all in on vaccination and Trump didn't promote them (still took credit for it when he could) OTOH he spent a looot of time dissing health officials

I call it a awful thing to do.

I don't know what you are referring to. I suppose yet another war crime from the israeli army but this conflict generates a lot of dis/misinformation and it's hard enough to assess the trustworthiness of a source. If you don't even care to provide any source, you are just venting

It's not because you are angry about the state of the world that it absolves you of the moral duty to engage usefully with others. I know I have changed my mind on some subjects but it was never with one lazy comment like this one.

Now why is what you are talking about worse than aiming deliberately a supermarket full of civilians with a missile or hunting a grandpa with a fpv drone ? I don't really understand why you would choose to draw a line there. We already have a internationally recognized line in the sand that is somewhat actionable: War crime. It's hard to argue for genocide, it's easier to denounce and investigate suspected war crimes.

I, for one, think all war crimes are bad and should be the line in the sand where international pressure should be at its maximum.

Gaza invasion is a counterinsurgency type of war in an tighlty urbanized environment where the invader has apparently quite limited care about human life. It is not really surprising that more children would be killed there. Those are two different wars with war crimes happening in both.

I don't know what that means and I am not going to search for it. Have fun with your ingroup that uses words that only you all know what they mean to recognize each other from the outgroup.

You can. It's not because fracking has displaced coal that it's overall a net benefit (I know it is somewhat true for climate change, I don't have an informed opinion concerning environmental pollution) and it's what should have happenned.

For example either renewables + batteries or nuclear could have displaced coal. Just because there wasn't enough money/political support for it doesn't mean that we shouldn't worry about both fracking and coal usage consequences.

Epstein definitely had ties to Russia. I don't know how to assess how important those were but they did exist

And yet we can and we should still make distinctions when we talk about those subjects

Estimates for the death toll of US and British strategic bombing, for instance, range from 300,000 to 600,000 in Europe and around 330,000 in Japan (including the atomic bombings)

Now compare that with 12–17 million civilians killed deliberately by Nazi Germany and the around 6 millions killed deliberately by imperial Japan

Relevant bluesky thread for HN's dearest historian, Bret Devereaux: https://bsky.app/profile/bretdevereaux.bsky.social/post/3mw4...

It's a thought that is intuitive and intellectually satisfying but you produce no evidence for your claims.

Blair Mountain was a total defeat for the miners. Union organizing in West Virginia collapsed afterward and only recovered with New Deal labor law in the 30s

For native Americans, well, do you really want to discuss the results ?

For India you could argue that it's not non-violence but the fact the empire was exhausted militarily that worked. But it's hard to make the case that violent uprisings, who were either suppressed or contained well enough, had an effect. If anything the popularity of the insurgents may have done more that the actual violence but you can get that kind of popularity with non-violence too.

The only time when insurgency is working is when you are able to hide, endure and survive until your enemy is down for other reasons. It can be quite long. Think Mao. Was it the case for India ? Maybe but it's not obvious at all

I actually agree about Malcolm X... except it didn't actually use violence. Only violent rethoric and advocating self-defense. Annnnnd biggest wins like the Civil Rights Act (1964) and Voting Rights Act (August 6, 1965) passed before the Watts riot (August 11, 1965) and the wave of urban uprisings that followed

I support Ukraine with all my heart (and a little money) but whatabouting will get you nothing. This is a thread about the hamas-israeli war. There's no reason to change the subject and it doesn't take away ability to talk about Ukraine elsewhere.

Actually some people have mentioned the invasion and occupation of Ukraine in this comment section to draw parallels or make distinctions

Norman Finkelstein's treatment of sources is dubious at best , dishonest at worst, and he is not very good at defending his position when challenged on them

At least that was my takeaway after watching his debate with Destiny (the streamer) and Benny Morris (the historian):

You be the judge: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1X_KdkoGxSs&list=PLrAXtmErZg...

Well, Russia's use of white phosphorous during the invasion and ensuing occupation of Ukraine is well documented

I think your distinction is a valid one, Israel has some war crimes going on whereas russian invasion of Ukraine was a war crime festival but you are fighting an uphill battle because trying to make distinctions in levels of evil is generally frowned upon because to many people it looks like justification. The reason is because most people can't imagine any other value to making distinctions in evil. I personally can but each time you are going to do it, you should be prepared to defend why, in fact, making those distinctions is useful while being clear that the purpose is not justification of evil acts. It's a thin line to walk on.

It can be (and is imho) true that both Russia and Israel have broadcasted genocidal intent with the consequences being war crimes and still not look identical

It seems like the state of Ukraine frontline cities is due to intense artillery fire and air bombingn whereas gaza cities states seem to be more of systematic bulldozing of entire areas which would erase the marks of actual bombings and make the scale harder to assess

So IIUC your argument is that what do you do as a landholder when actually land development is forbidden/restricted because the absence of certain developments actually what provide the value ?

I have no idea what georgists would say about that. My guess is that being a the holder of such land would work as luxury/status-signal because you are only incurring the cost of the land and no/low revenues from it

Relevant Scott Alexander's blog post: https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/whither-tartaria

> One older man out of nowhere loudly proclaimed I was Anti-semetic

There's a bit of fringe-political subculture worth knowing here. Most self-proclaimed antifascist groups in Europe are made up of leftists who side with the Palestinians, and in Germany that scene has a long history of friction with old-school "anti-imperialists", often fairly authoritarian communists. The "antideutsche" current grew out of a rejection of exactly that, dating back to reunification in 1990, when part of the radical left decided the real danger was Germany itself. It started as a mostly intellectual critique, but in practice it came to mean waving the Israeli flag at every opportunity and giving grief to anyone in a keffiyeh.

I don't mind

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrinkle#Water-immersion_wrinkl...

Reading this comment from an hot european bathtub right now, I've been here for two hours