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chitoryu12
Apr 24, 2014

fishmech posted:

Er, the system for actually launching nukes still requires several layers of military guys to agree with the president's order, including multiple people in each actual launch site, as the arming and launching procedures generally still require simultaneous operation of interlocks - specifically designed so one crazy guy in the launch site can't launch the missiles by himself.

All evidence I've seen is that the president has ultimate authority to launch nukes. There are multiple layers so a stolen briefcase can't let a random terrorist nuke everything, but the only checks are to verify that it's really an order from the president.

Unless someone revolts and refuses to go ahead with the launch, theoretically Trump can blow up whatever.

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Prester Jane
Nov 4, 2008

by Hand Knit
Look at the insane poo poo happening on r/The_Donald right now. Hahahha oh my God I am going to overdose on schaudenfreude!

High Compaction Narrativists losing a major battle posted:

My name is OhSnapYouGotServed, and I'm here to tell you three things:

a) Unlike all of you shitlibs and globalists, The_Donald does not live on its knees. Reddit will lift all restrictions on us, or we'll make absolutely sure this is the beginning of the end for Reddit: shitlibs and fat SJWs can't stand themselves. All SJW businesses die.

Without us, there'll be nobody to shill against and Reddit will be branded as an extreme-SJW shithole. Trust me.

b) We bring massive amounts of traffic to Reddit and we get poo poo on in return by the hysterical elites through their sockpuppets and by the San Francisco-dwelling admins. We receive death threats, we get doxxed and branded like Jews in a Warsaw ghetto with mass taggings.

c) Centipedes: you have just as much right to comment anywhere on Reddit as everyone else. We urge all of you to do this as much as you drat well please. And when you're done, leave this site.

The modteam and myself have decided we will no longer accept living like slaves to SJWs on a powertrip.
Here's what we currently have had to accept from the admins:

We must block all mentions of other subreddits (while cancerous users like /u/75000_Tokkul links to us directly with calls for our dox and brigade from several retard subs with impunity).

We are no longer getting responses from admins (while they're busy cozying up to pathetic default mods like /u/agentlame, /u/DavidReiss666 and other disgusting types who have control of 150+ subs).

Our stickies are artificially hidden to the users of the site – no other sub has this.

Admins purposefully shirk their duty to protect our mods and users from doxxing and harassment. Direct calls for dox have been stickied for 2-3-4 days on ETS and places like /r/syrianrebels with admins' knowledge and no action – Trust & Safety team my loving rear end. You should be ashamed of yourselves and karma will hit you.

Admins have been accused of being the sources of user doxx in the past.

If we don't do as they say, they go on Discord to boss us around. We used to have a Slack like many other big subs, but after we repeatedly asked them to stop doxxing us, they stopped responding to it. Now they have only Slacks with their SJW friends.

The CEO himself harasses our users by editing their comments. Steve Huffman ... what a pathetic loser you are. That's right: /u/spez is a cuck. If this hurts your fee fees, feel free to edit it in the database, Steve...AGAIN!

Actions:

This post is going up on http://voat.co/v/ThePedes this second.

This post is going up on https://twitter.com/thedonaldreddit.

Go out and spread our word.

Spread this message to anyone you'd like with an archived link of this post.

Make sure we repay everything in kind and when we're done, stop giving this place our traffic.

Fight. Fight as dirty as they do.

Closing remarks:

This mod cannot be threatened. I conceal carry and I'd love to show any one of you my skills.

I'd like to thank all users and moderators who spent so many hours fighting the good fight. You are part of something special.

I love all of you. We won a Presidency together and we'll win many more in the future.

MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN

OhSnap and the modteam
Here's the archive of this to keep Spez from editing it. Spread it far and wide. Breitbart, Infowars, FOX and every Youtuber you know - PewDiePie, SargonofAkkad, StevenCrowder - anyone fighting the fight against SJWs. http://archive.is/ysbVu

chitoryu12
Apr 24, 2014

The hell is a Centipede?

Facebook Aunt
Oct 4, 2008

wiggle wiggle




chitoryu12 posted:

All evidence I've seen is that the president has ultimate authority to launch nukes. There are multiple layers so a stolen briefcase can't let a random terrorist nuke everything, but the only checks are to verify that it's really an order from the president.

Unless someone revolts and refuses to go ahead with the launch, theoretically Trump can blow up whatever.

The the president does have the legal authority to give that order, it is a legal order, so refusing to carry out a legal order would cost that man his career, his freedom, and possibly even his life. Even if everyone is ultimately happy the nuke wasn't launched, the guy who refused the order is hosed. Don't pin your hopes on some military guy refusing to push the button.

Especially these days. Back in the 80s we were afraid launching any nukes would lead to launching all the nukes and ending the world, but that seems a lot less likely these days. Lots of countries have some nuclear capability, but still only the USA and Russia have world-ending quantities of nukes, and we're supposedly buddies with Russia now. It seems less likely than ever that Russia would trigger MAD over a couple nukes in the middle east. Other guys have a handful of nukes, but not much capable of actually hitting US soil. If the US nukes Iran so Iran nukes Israel in retaliation, and Israel retaliates by nuking a few of their neighbours that would be terrible, but it's probably not a terrible enough possibility to encourage a US military man to refuse the order.

McGlockenshire
Dec 16, 2005

GOLLOCKS!

chitoryu12 posted:

The hell is a Centipede?
There's some video somewhere that describes a centipede as "nimbly navigating" around an obstacle or something and they thought that it was meme worthy and adopted it as a nickname.

quote:

We must block all mentions of other subreddits (while cancerous users like /u/75000_Tokkul links to us directly with calls for our dox and brigade from several retard subs with impunity).
To give this context, 75000_Tokkul moderates /r/TopMindsOfReddit, which mocks conspiracy theorists all over reddit, and /r/AgainstHateSubreddits, which documents subreddits spreading hate speech and calls on readers to report it to the admins. Numerous hate subs have been shut down thanks his(?) efforts, and he pointed out the doxxing that resulted in the bans they're currently upset about.

I'm not so sure if the current drama should fit into your framework, PJ. The general nature and wording used in the outrage is similar to other previous reddit admin actions - google "subredditdrama fatpeoplehate". The current hyperfocus on the Seth Rich conspiracy theory matches that of the Fox News hosts from the past few nights. It smells just like the usual reactionary nonsense.

fishmech
Jul 16, 2006

by VideoGames
Salad Prong

chitoryu12 posted:

All evidence I've seen is that the president has ultimate authority to launch nukes. There are multiple layers so a stolen briefcase can't let a random terrorist nuke everything, but the only checks are to verify that it's really an order from the president.

Unless someone revolts and refuses to go ahead with the launch, theoretically Trump can blow up whatever.

It doesn't matter that he has the legal authority, it's severely questionable if any of the people who actually launch the nukes would be willing to launch without verification it was done in retaliation to incoming strikes. Much less if they'd do it for Trump of all people, when he is completely untrustworthy and too stupid to understand what he's doing.

Big Hubris
Mar 8, 2011


McGlockenshire posted:

There's some video somewhere that describes a centipede as "nimbly navigating" around an obstacle or something and they thought that it was meme worthy and adopted it as a nickname.

Nope. It's the old "[Centipedes]? In my [toilet]? More likely than you think!" meme from some SA listicle mock thread. I know this because I have a photographic memory when it comes to stupid poo poo

Proletarian Mango
May 21, 2011

ErichZahn posted:

Nope. It's the old "[Centipedes]? In my [toilet]? More likely than you think!" meme from some SA listicle mock thread. I know this because I have a photographic memory when it comes to stupid poo poo

I'm confident it's referring to a series of montage videos featuring trumps various zingers from the primaries. They're called "Can't Stump the Trump vol. X" and they begin with a voice over describing the centipede as a nimble navigator and predator. They're on YouTube.

Orange Sunshine
May 10, 2011

by FactsAreUseless

Prester Jane posted:

https://twitter.com/charliespiering/status/864952690677350400



In light of the above tweet (as well as several insightful comments by posters on this thread) I am walking back my previous comments about the damage Trump might do during his meltdown being limited. It looks to me like Trump et all are going to try and use this speech to build some tough guy cred by thumping their chest at leaders of the Enemy on the Enemy's own turf. Trying this strategy while Trump is in the middle of a meltdown on top of the endless beating Trump is going to be taking back home while he is out of the country is almost like a plot to a bad movie in terms of how over-the-top the potential for this all to go sideways is. Basically Trump is not too far from being in the psychological state depicted in this rather famous clip:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YQR36fQ_Xc


And it is in this state that Trump is going to travel to loving Saudi Arabia with the intent to show off how yuge his dick is to people he and his inner circle regard as sub-human mongrels.


So I am calling it now. If Trumps foreign trip actually happens then there will be at least one, if not multiple, major diplomatic incidents that will emerge out of the unhinged chaos that is Trumps inner circle at this point. I'm actually hoping that Trump only manages to humiliate the US and not start a war or inspire terrorist attacks for years to come.


I think the U.S. is headed for complete disaster.

The left, with the media on their side, have collectively decided that Trump should not be president and must be impeached. The media hates him, and will attack everything he does. Trump believes that he is being badly and unfairly mistreated and will blame everything that goes wrong on various others.

The attempt to remove Trump from office, if it has any chance at all of success, will result in civil war, or some sort of massive foreign war if he's able to see it coming in advance. The simplest way for a president to get the people on his side is to get us into a war, at which point people fall in line to support the troops and help protect the country which clearly must be in danger. Bomb North Korea, China goes nuts and threatens war against us, and suddenly nobody cares about whatever petty scandals are going on regarding Trump's staff.

If the timing is wrong or no foreign war can be started for whatever reason, large sections of the population will take up arms and march on Washington to stop the president from being removed from office by the godless liberals. The police will not be enough to handle them, and Trump's people will be calling on whatever factions of the national guard or military he can to support them.

The only possible chance of removing Trump from office without war or massive bloodshed would be if the entire republican establishment turns against him so that he's left entirely without allies. I find this to be unlikely, as this would probably shatter the republican party.

This does not end well.

Ran Mad Dog
Aug 15, 2006
Algeapea and noodles - I will take your udon!
Pretty sure I also just forgot to take my meds, and coincidentally have the same opinion.

Ice Phisherman
Apr 12, 2007

Swimming upstream
into the sunset



Orange Sunshine posted:

I think the U.S. is headed for complete disaster.

The left, with the media on their side, have collectively decided that Trump should not be president and must be impeached. The media hates him, and will attack everything he does. Trump believes that he is being badly and unfairly mistreated and will blame everything that goes wrong on various others.

The attempt to remove Trump from office, if it has any chance at all of success, will result in civil war, or some sort of massive foreign war if he's able to see it coming in advance. The simplest way for a president to get the people on his side is to get us into a war, at which point people fall in line to support the troops and help protect the country which clearly must be in danger. Bomb North Korea, China goes nuts and threatens war against us, and suddenly nobody cares about whatever petty scandals are going on regarding Trump's staff.

If the timing is wrong or no foreign war can be started for whatever reason, large sections of the population will take up arms and march on Washington to stop the president from being removed from office by the godless liberals. The police will not be enough to handle them, and Trump's people will be calling on whatever factions of the national guard or military he can to support them.

The only possible chance of removing Trump from office without war or massive bloodshed would be if the entire republican establishment turns against him so that he's left entirely without allies. I find this to be unlikely, as this would probably shatter the republican party.

This does not end well.

I think you drastically overestimate the chance of civil war. Solid republican voters are mostly in their 50's and 60's and above. They have stuff to lose. They'll grumble and rage and carry out isolated terrorist attacks and maybe converge for some small squad stuff, but the republican party base is old and not willing to sacrifice a lifetime's worth of stuff for Trump. Especially if they just get another republican president.

Also if he merely declares war for no reason the military can simply stall and get congress to move. Congress still technically has the right to tell him no. It's still on the books.

The military is largely apolitical. It is somewhat conservative, sure, but the culture is mostly apolitical. They're not going to march on Washington because there would be no agreement to do so because the military does not unilaterally support Trump. Trump has gone out of his way to displease his security apparatus and the military does not respect him enough to unilaterally march to his aid if he's impeached. There's not going to be a civil war. Trump may try to declare war on another nation to distract from his own troubles but I doubt he'll be able to get away with it long enough for the US leadership to throw him out. Starting a war is what one does historically to distract from minor to moderate internal division. Declaring war won't suddenly make him popular because he'll be unable to lay low.

The chance of removing Trump from office without war is very high. Without bloodshed? Sure, there will be bloodshed, but not as much you think. Lots of it probably. Thousands of attacks could happen but it'll peter out because republicans are reliant on the system to survive just like almost all Americans. Many people have less than three days of food in their fridge. Who delivers food to insurgents? No one. Republicans are too drat old and the youth culture largely doesn't exist to draw upon because the youth are the ones who catch bullets. Republicans have made sure not to replenish their numbers by appealing to the youth vote at all. Check out the addiction crisis to see what happened to rural youth. American youth in rural areas are mostly dead or fled, or on their way to just that.

You're overreacting.

Ice Phisherman fucked around with this message at 05:28 on May 19, 2017

Adeline Weishaupt
Oct 16, 2013

by Lowtax
Ditto what Ice P said, PJ has demonstrated that Narrativists are cowards at heart. They only attack if they feel like the consequences to their actions are minor-to-nonexistent. They will attack if they have the police on their side (which at this moment they believe; hence the headlines about the police being "trump's soldiers"), but when the rubber hits the road the police are loyal to protecting the peace and maintaining order. Some departments are going to let a little violence slide when it's a part of the local police culture (i.e. violence toward minorities in racist areas); but when something that'll make headlines happen, and jobs are on the line, then Police aren't going to be too kind towards any 'True Patriots'.

If American insurgents crop up, it will the hardest of hardliners, the guys that are unlikely to have anything to lose; like Ice P noticed. And the people who do have nothing to lose are the people who had very little to begin with; the unemployed, the loners who only associated with other narrativists, and people who invested themselves so heavily into the narrative that the idea of Trump being impeached is a sign of the 'end of days'.

But as crazy as narrativists are, not as many voted for Trump as you'd llike to believe; a large amount of Trump voters didn't vote for him because he appealed to their inner narratives. A large number ov voters were frustrated by both parties, the kind who were hit hard by the old-guard Republican policies and were frustrated by the gridlock that defined the Obama years. They hoped that by getting an outsider in the system that there would be an advocate for the regular person; rather than what we actually have. Plus, with the constant compaction cycles, narrativists have been burning out and that trend is likely to continue.

So violence will happen, and despite what I've said it'll be hard to predict the scale. If we're lucky, there will be only one major attack, and that will put public sympathy in whatever police officer (or if thing get unstable enough at that point, National Guard serviceman and Military Police) gives their life to protect innocent people. And putting a cooling effect on further groups. It never going to be as big or as devastating as something like the Troubles in Ireland. Again, the majority of narrativists are older folk who have too much to risk; the young blood were bled-out of the Republican party through their constant pandering to Baby Boomers, and the Alt-Right have no loyalty towards Trump and mostly act for their own amusement (they won't plan any attacks, but they'll laugh at it same way SA laughed at 9/11).

chitoryu12
Apr 24, 2014

Also the US bombing North Korea is going to result in a lot of things, but China declaring war on the US isn't one of them. Regardless of any official animosity because China likes to behave like a tool sometimes, they're one of our biggest trading partners. A war would have zero benefit for either country and be more likely to ruin both than anything, and the people in charge on both sides know that.

Hieronymous Alloy
Jan 30, 2009


Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!




Morbid Hound

chitoryu12 posted:

Also the US bombing North Korea is going to result in a lot of things, but China declaring war on the US isn't one of them. Regardless of any official animosity because China likes to behave like a tool sometimes, they're one of our biggest trading partners. A war would have zero benefit for either country and be more likely to ruin both than anything, and the people in charge on both sides know that.

This was literally and precisely the most common argument as to why World War One would never happen.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Illusion

chitoryu12
Apr 24, 2014

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

This was literally and precisely the most common argument as to why World War One would never happen.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Illusion

Is the political and military field of 2017 the same as that of 1914 Europe?

fishmech
Jul 16, 2006

by VideoGames
Salad Prong
China is far closer to being an ally with the US against North Korea, than World War I Germany and France were to be allies against each other.

Rocko Bonaparte
Mar 12, 2002

Every day is Friday!

Prester Jane posted:

There was a fad among many Narrativists and Narrativist groups at the time called "radki" (short for radical ki). This was the idea that you could gain DBZ style powers by training your ki. While it was moderately a fad on its own, the vast majority of radki's adherents were Narrativists who incorporated radki into their inner narrative. Anywho back in 2005 there was a Goon group called "Bullshido" that focused on exposing bullshit martial arts training. As you might expect practitioners of radki wound up on Bullshido's radar and one of their members issued a "radki challenge". The idea was that an actually trained martial artist would spar with a radki adherent.
I think this explains a lot of the crap I had to see online against Aikido in general and why I never participated in the martial arts discussions. The really old folks in my style have seen Aikido's popularity rise and fall for good and bad reasons both ways. However, a place where I grew up commented about the 1970s being something of a dark time for them due to some strange hippy energy bullshit. I guess that came back around in some new way. It of course doesn't help that the founder had some bizzaro notions.

weak wrists big dick
Dec 18, 2012

good job. you are getting legitametly upset because I won't confrom to your secret internet cliques gross social standards. Sorry I don't like anime. Sorry I don't like being gross on the internet. Sorry that you are getting caremad.


your stupid shit internet argument is also only half true once I get probated, so checkmate anyways but nice try.

]
So it turns out the internet is actually just Foucault's Panopticon

Prester Jane
Nov 4, 2008

by Hand Knit
For those who don't know Chuck Woolery was the original host on both Wheel of Fortune as well as Love Connection.

https://twitter.com/chuckwoolery/status/865576964752461824

https://twitter.com/chuckwoolery/status/865578811882061826

https://twitter.com/chuckwoolery/status/865576431060787201

https://twitter.com/chuckwoolery/status/865580881888530432

https://twitter.com/chuckwoolery/status/865574705679409153



And for dessert check out the projection in this one:

https://twitter.com/chuckwoolery/status/865314712376025088





Edit: I genuinely think that Russia has created their own (probably cruder) theory of Narrativism with the specific goal of using it to help weaponize their PR. I very strongly suspect that Russian propagandists have figured out Narrativism just enough to bend it to their own goals.

https://twitter.com/RussianEmbassy/status/865571158862811136

Prester Jane fucked around with this message at 16:25 on May 19, 2017

Ice Phisherman
Apr 12, 2007

Swimming upstream
into the sunset



Hieronymous Alloy posted:

This was literally and precisely the most common argument as to why World War One would never happen.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Illusion

Yeah. I was thinking just this right after I read his response.

Never expect the expectation of prosperity get in the way of people's desire to kill one another. When things build up to a head they can always boil over. Trade has a moderating effect, but it doesn't pacify.

Adeline Weishaupt
Oct 16, 2013

by Lowtax
There's one major factor that's different between Pre-WWI Europe and the 2017 Geoploitical stage, nobody actually wants a war.

The old-world mentality was that War was a honorable event that helped build character.

With modern military technology, as well as the effects of modern warfare, Americans on average don't want an honest-to-god war. The military doesn't want to put soldiers on the ground; as shipping men to North Korea/Iran/Anywhere is difficult, expensive, and dangerous. Remote warfare helps with insurgent warfare and relatively small-scale conflict, but the kind of war that this thread is talking about requires hardware, infrastructure, and morale. Things that are hard to gather when we have one of America's mosted disliked president in charge. If the president declares war, there will be more push-back from the Military and Congress.

Only thing that would change that is if America experiences another 9/11; at which point all of that stuff I mentioned is moot. Nobody is going to waste a good tragedy.

Fuschia tude
Dec 26, 2004

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2019

umalt posted:

Only thing that would change that is if America experiences another 9/11; at which point all of that stuff I mentioned is moot. Nobody is going to waste a good tragedy.

That really is the biggest risk of this administration. Cheney, Rumsfeld, and friends were positioned to take that shock and run with it to institute their policies and international actions, and today the people with ideologies waiting in the wings just itching for an excuse to implement them are people like Bannon, Pence, and Ryan.

Hieronymous Alloy
Jan 30, 2009


Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!




Morbid Hound

umalt posted:

There's one major factor that's different between Pre-WWI Europe and the 2017 Geoploitical stage, nobody actually wants a war.


People said the same thing before WW 1 (thought admittedly it was far less true then).

The problem is that there are current actors who might think a "short, glorious" war would be to their immediate benefit. See, e.g., Putin's invasion of Crimea. Another event like that could spiral badly out of control right now because we lack the leadership to contain it.

ISeeCuckedPeople
Feb 7, 2017

by Smythe

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

People said the same thing before WW 1 (thought admittedly it was far less true then).

The problem is that there are current actors who might think a "short, glorious" war would be to their immediate benefit. See, e.g., Putin's invasion of Crimea. Another event like that could spiral badly out of control right now because we lack the leadership to contain it.

The thing is Putin and Russia can be contained far more now than they could during the Cold War.

Putin and Russia do not have much threat on their surrounding regions as the USSR did during the Cold War.

Europe has not done much in terms of bulking up their military.

So how can they go to war?

fishmech
Jul 16, 2006

by VideoGames
Salad Prong

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

People said the same thing before WW 1 (thought admittedly it was far less true then).

The problem is that there are current actors who might think a "short, glorious" war would be to their immediate benefit. See, e.g., Putin's invasion of Crimea. Another event like that could spiral badly out of control right now because we lack the leadership to contain it.

Ok once again: the combatants in WWI were actually in opposing alliances. This had heavy consequences for bringing war to countries that would not otherwise have done so.

In the case of North Korea, literally everyone around North Korea is opposed to North Korea, and no longer is in functioning military alliance with them. China is much closer to being onboard with the US than they are with North Korea, and South Korea+Japan are of course explicit US allies. War with China over North Korea would be very unlikely without US/South Korean forces directly and repeatedly firing on Chinese troops intentionally after invasion.

Russia isn't really allied with the US or China, but they're also definitely not militarily allied with North Korea either.

Bar Ran Dun
Jan 22, 2006




fishmech posted:

Er, the system for actually launching nukes still requires several layers of military guys to agree with the president's order, including multiple people in each actual launch site, as the arming and launching procedures generally still require simultaneous operation of interlocks - specifically designed so one crazy guy in the launch site can't launch the missiles by himself.

Except all those people are selected so as to not question the one crazy guy at the top. Listen to the program.

fishmech
Jul 16, 2006

by VideoGames
Salad Prong

BrandorKP posted:

Except all those people are selected so as to not question the one crazy guy at the top. Listen to the program.

We've already had multiple instances of people refusing to launch during the cold war. Why would they trust Donny Brain Bees more than a radar showing a false first strike?

They were just as trained on both sides after all.

Dr. Arbitrary
Mar 15, 2006

Bleak Gremlin
North Korea, Botswana, Angola, Burkina Faso and Madagascar vs. the world

Ice Phisherman
Apr 12, 2007

Swimming upstream
into the sunset



fishmech posted:

Ok once again: the combatants in WWI were actually in opposing alliances. This had heavy consequences for bringing war to countries that would not otherwise have done so.

In the case of North Korea, literally everyone around North Korea is opposed to North Korea, and no longer is in functioning military alliance with them. China is much closer to being onboard with the US than they are with North Korea, and South Korea+Japan are of course explicit US allies. War with China over North Korea would be very unlikely without US/South Korean forces directly and repeatedly firing on Chinese troops intentionally after invasion.

Russia isn't really allied with the US or China, but they're also definitely not militarily allied with North Korea either.

The network of alliances and the balance of power in Europe was last set up by Otto Von Bismark. One of the greatest diplomatic minds of not only his age, but possibly ever. When he was fired by the German Kaiser no one really understood fully how it worked and the framework began to groan under the weight of people who didn't understand it screwing with it. One of the problems about having brilliant people set things up is that when those brilliant people are gone the people who aren't as brilliant at their jobs may not be able to do the job that was done before. Entropy sets in. Things break down.

As for people saying "It'll be a short, glorious war", this has been the tagline of every person trying to sell a war to any dumb motherfucker forever. It's a line that you feed stupid people that war is somehow going to be short, bloodless and cheap when normally the opposite is true.

LonsomeSon
Nov 22, 2009

A fishperson in an intimidating hat!

chitoryu12 posted:

Is the political and military field of 2017 the same as that of 1914 Europe?

Realpolitik equations remain more or less the same regardless of how much we build or innovate, and the lesson I feel like we should take from the general wars of the Twentieth Century is that Wars Happen Over Stupid poo poo, regardless of whether it's a guy and his wife being perforated in Serbia or an ex-corporal from the infantry's blithe assumption that all Slavs are servile, weak fighters who would just meekly submit to being systematically exterminated.

How frequent are political assassinations on average across all of Earth? How many people do any of us know personally who would be willing to sign on to some custom-tailored form of National Socialism as long as they personally didn't have to carry a rifle or crack any skulls, and maybe got some tax credits and showy infrastructure spending out of the deal?

quote:

Big Red Button Chat

If the thought "I'm sure a general nuclear exchange won't happen" ends with some variation of "because a military service member at some point in the chain between a national leader and missiles leaving the silos will refuse to comply," then you are putting an awful lot of weight on an extremely slender reed.

It's more or less analogous to folks post-election trying to make themselves feel better because Mattis was being tapped for Secretary of Defense. Sure, there aren't many other well-known retired generals whom I'd rather act as the cabinet-level nuclear strike interrupter for this administration, but are you loving making GBS threads me. Things are not all right.

quote:

Alliance Chat


Do note however that NATO for instance, and other similar entities, operate on related principles and similar rationales as the strategic alliance chains which define the initial belligerents of World War One. The main differences, other than the raw volume and value of international trade, between 2017 and 1914 are that nations are now excruciatingly aware of how destructive nuclear weapons are and are generally terrified that if someone uses one somewhere then everyone will start, as well as that human societies learned collectively just how loving expensive conventional warfare on a global scale is.

I also honestly believe that, in the event that some regional conflict began starting to spill over into becoming a general war, there would be titanic efforts enacted diplomatically in order to head it off, contain it, or at least limit it in some way.

All of those and probably a thousand other factors I didn't list or am unaware of act to mitigate the chances that a general war will break out, but anytime anyone with enough bodies to man enough tanks and enough industry to keep throughput up for X period decides that they might be able to get ahead with a war and that they have a surefire plan to keep it shorter than X, they roll the dice and find out whether whatever they're doing is going to destabilize their region or not, and then if it does the rest of us roll dice to see whether that poo poo is going to spread. Any time it spreads is a chance for the kind of conflict that could escalate into a general war to show up, and like I said everything that can be done against it is mitigation. And at least here in America we're seeing the awareness of what a real war is (compared to what we've been doing since Vietnam) and what it costs fade out of our social consciousness.

Laid out like that (or in some actually-good way), any individual person might just conclude that the answer is to not keep rolling dice, but if human history has taught anyone anything it's that humans in groups will insist on continuing to roll these loving metaphorical dice, presumably until every last one of us is finally dead. Our main hope is that we're all dead at that time because some other global group of societies whose individuals largely share our biology but are possessed of more-sophisticated intellectual and emotional suites have taken our place, is all.

Of course, right now we're in a state where I, a semi-educated manufacturing worker from the wealthiest nation in the world who also has an interest in human history and a fascination born from a lack of understanding about humanity's inhumanity to humans, have been able to come to this conclusion largely via my own investigations (also I was in a war for a little bit). I'd say when we're at a point where there's a 50/50 chance that any given individual from any given impoverished rural town is not only educated enough to understand this but also has enough leisure time that they would actually consider something beyond first the day-to-day grind of survival and second stealing whatever scraps of happiness and entertainment they can afford to from the jaws of an unforgiving universe we could say my above condition has finally come to pass.

LonsomeSon fucked around with this message at 06:48 on May 20, 2017

Deteriorata
Feb 6, 2005

BrandorKP posted:

Except all those people are selected so as to not question the one crazy guy at the top. Listen to the program.

They know better than that. They're morally responsible for ignoring crazy or immoral orders. A bunch of guys got hung at Nuremberg for "just following orders."

While the confusion of an active war zone can produce some ambiguity, an order for nuclear first strike without provocation is not going to get very far down the chain of command.

Ice Phisherman
Apr 12, 2007

Swimming upstream
into the sunset



Apparently The Donald on reddit is now private. It looks like some are migrating to voat (and other smaller forums in tiny amounts) where the remnants of r/fatpeoplehate and r/coontown fled when reddit kicked them out. Voat is also looking like its dying so TD can't rebase there. Also if it did it wouldn't be able to generate the same eyes. Far away on a reddit clone barely a fraction the size they'd probably shed members quickly.

Apparently they're doxxing people again while the privacy ban is on and its the mods that are organizing it and if they keep poking reddit the sub is probably going to get banned. TD is the largest forum for these narrativists and it would, for good or ill, probably scatter them all over the internet. Kicking them off reddit completely would deny them a recruiting ground but add to the idea that they're persecuted. Also apparently now free from reddit's and their own mods' rules on other forums the racism, bigotry and misogyny is really coming out as they shed what little outer narrative they had left.

It's weird to be a fly on the wall of a compaction event. I see Trump's constant fuckups cause these people to be driven into a compaction event. They freak out, turn on outsiders and then turn on one another. They form other groups elsewhere where they're even more radicalized than before, but smaller. Also I'm glad that it's not happening physically and near me because I think such an event would freak me the gently caress out.

After this event TD is probably going to still be on reddit. At least for a while. But it'll be smaller since they're trying to find a place more accepting of them. The ones that are left are crazier than before and they'll probably continually poke reddit into booting them off the website entirely by continually breaking their rules. I think they'll get the ax pretty soon as they continue to break rules, continue to grow crazier and as Trump becomes more and more toxic. They'll attempt to migrate into other forums and create their own and I'd guess get moderated mostly into obscurity. At least on reddit, and that's the only place where they can get mainstream appeal since the chans are culturally impenetrable to most people.

ISeeCuckedPeople
Feb 7, 2017

by Smythe
So it seems increasingly likely that the GOP and Donald are not going to fund the Obamacare subsidies.

Lol how is 2018 going to look when 20 million people instantly lost health insurance overnight?

Bar Ran Dun
Jan 22, 2006




Deteriorata posted:

They know better than that. They're morally responsible for ignoring crazy or immoral orders. A bunch of guys got hung at Nuremberg for "just following orders."

Radiolab episode I posted is basically someone one getting drummed out for asking that question. Prior to listening to it, I thought what you are describing was the case.

Prester Jane
Nov 4, 2008

by Hand Knit
I don't have much to add to this except to say that I so seriously wish I was wrong about everything that I don't even know how to react to seeing things like this list.


https://twitter.com/broderick/status/866319455328116738

https://twitter.com/broderick/status/866319987824308226

https://twitter.com/broderick/status/866320954552721408

Prester Jane fucked around with this message at 18:17 on May 21, 2017

weak wrists big dick
Dec 18, 2012

good job. you are getting legitametly upset because I won't confrom to your secret internet cliques gross social standards. Sorry I don't like anime. Sorry I don't like being gross on the internet. Sorry that you are getting caremad.


your stupid shit internet argument is also only half true once I get probated, so checkmate anyways but nice try.

]

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

People said the same thing before WW 1 (thought admittedly it was far less true then).

The problem is that there are current actors who might think a "short, glorious" war would be to their immediate benefit. See, e.g., Putin's invasion of Crimea. Another event like that could spiral badly out of control right now because we lack the leadership to contain it.

You really want this war to happen. We've had several Gutenberg-level advances in the past few decades, if any two countries of significance went all out we would all die (read: total annihilation.)Putin isn't stupid enough to push for a war and everyone else in the vast system of checks and balances isn't stupid enough to let a war happen on the US's end. The US and Russia aren't gonna fight.

The war on terror was never declared by congress because insurgent wars are pitiful compared to a real war in our current situation.

Me dying on the front-lines will be my toxx.

weak wrists big dick fucked around with this message at 04:05 on May 22, 2017

Prester Jane
Nov 4, 2008

by Hand Knit
Quoting this from the Trump thread. Elected officials are now laying the groundwork in their constituents minds to turn violent when Trump is eventually impeached. In this case an elected officials is calling for those who wish to remove Confederate monuments to be "lynched". The GOP has so far refused to condemn or comment on this.

Paracaidas posted:

In a remarkable irony, economic anxiety even reigns in Money, Mississippi.

https://twitter.com/jmartNYT/status/866628938860244992

For those who don't know why that town is familiar to you:
https://twitter.com/AdamSerwer/status/866632290075627520

chitoryu12
Apr 24, 2014

Why would you willingly get elected mayor of Money, MS? Everyone is going to make jokes at your expense that you "represent Money" the moment you do anything even vaguely corrupt.

FabioClone
Oct 3, 2004

by LITERALLY AN ADMIN

chitoryu12 posted:

Why would you willingly get elected mayor of Money, MS? Everyone is going to make jokes at your expense that you "represent Money" the moment you do anything even vaguely corrupt.

They passed a law back in 2016 that requires everything in politics to be funny now.

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Pavlov
Oct 21, 2012

I've long been fascinated with how the alt-right develops elaborate and obscure dog whistles to try to communicate their meaning without having to say it out loud
Stepan Andreyevich Bandera being the most prominent example of that
Isn't that inciting violence?

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