GuyIncognito

@GuyIncognito@lemmy.ca

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anon wonders what went wrong⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago⁩:

  Two words: blue chew

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Woke⁩ ⁨⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  By “broad democratization” do you mean… The Soviet Union? I would hardly use the early to mid 1900s Russia to be a good example of things getting better after a loss.

  The Bolshevik revolution was in 1917, I’m referring to the 1905 revolution. But I guess if you want to be ignorant about the present world, why wouldn’t you be ignorant about history too?

  “Bombed so heavily they must surely be running low on bombs by now” is not the sign of imminent defeat you seem to think it is.

  Once again, you’re being stupid. I was talking about precision standoff munitions - expensive guided missiles which are available only in small numbers. But it’s pointless to explain that to you, because you’re a mopey incurious sadsack. Why bother caring about things if you think it’s completely pointless and hopeless? Just be like every other american pig and only care about yourself. This is what I was talking about the entire time - nihilism. “Nothing’s ever going to get better and I will actively ignore any evidence to the contrary!” Ok, well thankfully nothing is depending on you or any other American, and thank God for that. You yankee pigs can rot in your shithole, the world will move on without you.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Woke⁩ ⁨⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  Ok, to start we’re going to have to go over the military situation, because you’re really not informed about it. This dovetails very well with my original point, that people tend to despair due to a lack of knowledge rather than too much.

  The US has already verifiably lost billions of dollars worth of equipment - I say verifiably because the media censorship is very heavy. Was the USS Gerry Ford really crippled by a laundry fire? hard to say. But they’ve definitely lost a bunch of very expensive radars, including an E-3 Sentry AWACS aircraft, representing 1/16 of the entire fleet. These planes are a very high value target, and they are literally irreplaceable due to being out of production and having their successor cancelled. This is the first time the US has ever lost an AWACS to hostile fire. They’ve also lost a lot of tanker aircraft, which are also irreplaceable (though available in larger numbers), and which are vital to America’s ability to hit Iran.

  Iran is striking US assets in the region effectively and at will. Once again, this is the first time this has happened - post WW2, no US enemy has every been able to hit the US military, consistently, before an invasion has even been attempted. Conversely, the US’s ability to hit Iran is continually degrading because they’re exhausting their stocks of standoff weaponry, which are very expensive and low production. Without standoff weapons (long range cruise missiles), US and Isreli aircraft have to fly deeper into Iran, exposing them to anti-aircraft fire.

  But this is all beside the main point. The crux of this war is the strait of Hormuz and its position as a chokepoint for a large proportion of the world’s oil and natural gas. Iran has a knife to the throat of the global economy, and even more importantly, the petrodollar. The petrodollar is a cornerstone of US hegemony because it does most of the work in maintaining the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. As long as Iran is able to keep the strait closed to US aligned shipping, they’ve won, and it doesn’t look like the US has much chance of opening the strait up.

  Now for the other particulars:

  That’s entirely aside from the point though. You’re arguing the a crack in the facade of hegemony is more responsible for emotional distress than a stark reminder that your next door neighbors are horrible bigots.

  You’re misinterpreting my argument. I didn’t say that America losing is the cause for emotional distress, I said that it should be the cause of great hope, but liberals who don’t understand imperialism just have a nihilistic and despairing outlook due to this lack of understanding. Yes, your neighbours are nazi bigots, but they’re also losing.

  Will Trump losing power make my neighbor not think we should hang trans people? Will a loss of US influence in global affairs cause us to build a social safety net? Will embarrassing the US military spur a wave of environmental reforms?

  The answer to all of those is “hopefully yes”. The bigotry of your neighbours is not some intractable inherent evil, it’s been instilled in them by a propaganda machine that uses social issues to keep the public divided and unable to unite in their shared interests, such as, as you mentioned, a social safety net. As American power degrades, so will the efficacy of its propaganda.

  Regarding the environmental issue, the answer is a full-throated “yes!” The massive decline in the availability of fossil fuels caused by the closure of the strait is accelerating the green transition.

  I think you’re thinking about global politics a lot, and assuming it must be on everyone else’s mind as well. I don’t think you actually know why people are exhausted and depressed, and you sure as shit don’t know what would improve that.

  Once aghain, you’re feeding into my main point. No, American liberals do not think about geopolitics, you think about American politics, and American politics are fucking dire. I am not disagreeing with you in any way on that. Your country is filled with vile Nazis, you live in an economic pressure cooker where a run of bad luck could lead you to becoming homeless, and any kind of change seems remote and unlikely. These things are all true.

  What I’m trying to get across is that the US government’s power is premised on being the global hegemon, and that hegemony being under attack also means the state’s power is under attack. In 1905, when Russia humiliatingly lost a war against Japan (a non-European power, so this came as a huge shock), the result was a wave of strikes, revolts, and mutinies that resulted in a revolution - the end of Tsarist autocracy, the establishment of a constitutional monarchy, and a broad democratization. There is plenty of precedent for a humiliating defeat being the catalyst for change.

  In any case, you’re still taking a very American-centric view. Ok, suppose that the loss of global hegemony doesn’t result in anything getting better for Americans. So? There’s an entire world out there with billions of people, as opposed to your country of 350 million. If Americans can’t use this opportunity to better their lot, the world still gets the imperial boot off its neck.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Woke⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  Feel free to think that the world is simple and unchanging - the bad guys are in power and always will be. That’s what they want you to think, after all, so why shouldn’t you? It’s out of your hands now. Americans could have changed America, and they still can, but not with that stupid defeatist attitude. The world will change without you, and you will be left in the dust.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Woke⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  Because the explanation is more complex. Things aren’t the way they are for no reason, there’s historical context and theoretical frameworks that allow you to understand how and why the world came to be as it is, and how it is likely to change. If you understand this, then you also know not only that things are not going to be this way forever, you know that the world is changing right now. That we are closer to liberation than you think.

  Knowledge is power, and understanding the world also means that you are more able to change it.

  Do you really feel like this Iran incursion is somehow significant feeling compared to Iraq or Afghanistan?

  The Iran situation is more significant than Iraq or Afghanistan, because Iran is going to win. This is a far worse situation for the United States government than both Iraq and Afghanistan combined, because it is breaking their aura of invincibility. They aren’t being slowly exhausted in a guerilla war, they’re being struck both militarily and economically by a country they haven’t even invaded, and will not be able to invade.

  Do you actually think that the hegemonic status of the US really enters into the consideration of most people, to say nothing of having a significant impact on their emotions? Do you think an awareness of that would actually make people feel better?

  You’re mixing up what is and what should be. No, most Americans don’t particularly care about the world outside their borders. If people understood that the power of the US government, of Donald Trump and his cronies, was based on American global hegemony - on the empire - and they further understood that that hegemony was crumbling and is indeed at a breaking point, they would understand that there is plenty reason to be hopeful.

  Your oppressors, who are also the world’s oppressors, are being defeated! They depend both at home and abroad on the illusion of invincibility and the illusion that nothing will ever change. Those illusions are more broken today than they were yesterday, and were more broken yesterday than the day before. In the coming weeks and months, they will continue to break.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Woke⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah, definitely, but the world is much more complex than that. The current state of affairs is a result of historical contingency, and it isn’t going to last forever. As I have attempted to get across, the tide is already changing.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Woke⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Oh. Yes, I think we can. It will come with progress. Racism is a powerful tool the ruling class uses to keep people divided and weak, but it can’t last forever.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Woke⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  How would we what? I’m not sure what you mean.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Woke⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  That is indeed a simpler explanation. Much too simple.

  I’m not saying people are nihilistic because of a loss of American influence in the global south, I’m saying they’re being nihilistic because they don’t see anything good happening. This extends to the current situation with the global south because you don’t see any “good guys”, you just see evil vs. evil. You said it yourself: “shitbags vs. shitbags”. You don’t have perspective.

  Don’t see this as me calling you out, think of it as a good faith attempt to enlighten you.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Woke⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  My point is that, even if the meme is true and woke people tend to be sadder than reactionaries, it’s because they aren’t woke enough. For instance, you have generally well-intentioned progressive liberals who support equal rights and oppressed people at home, i.e. they support gay and transgender people against social reactionaries, but when they see Iran and its religious and socially conservative allies actually striking hard at the fascist empire, actually turning the tide back, and rather than being happy about it they just see it as two equal evils fighting each other. They don’t see the broader situation and context - they’re woke to discrimination, but they aren’t woke to imperialism.

  For the last 600 years, the world has been dominated by European empires. These empires enriched themselves through their colonies, using that wealth to grow ever more powerful and take over a greater and greater proportion of the world, eventually overcoming and dominating their former equals in India and China.

  World War I was fought to divide up the world between blocs of these empires, with the Anglo-French-American bloc triumphing and taking the holdings of Germany and the old Ottoman empire (a relic of the previous era), and breaking up Austria-Hungary. But this arrangement was not stable - Germany wasn’t down for the count, and more importantly, the old European empires were declining while America was rising.

  This was settled into a more stable system with the end of WW2 and the decolonization that followed, but this decolonization was only giving way to a new kind of imperialism - that of finance, currency manipulation, loans with conditions that made extraction easier. Soft power, in other words, with the occasional bout of violent domination. But the violent domination wasn’t official conquest - rather, new and more amenable governments were installed, enabling the continued expropriation of labour and resources from the colonized countries. Thus, the new empire, formed from the old European empires but headed by America, came to dominate the world from World War 2 until today.

  Social progress tends to follow from economic progress. The women’s rights movement was born out of women entering the workplace. The gay rights movement emerged in the post-war period of prosperity. The colonized countries of the global south did not have these same prosperity, and social progress came to them later than in the imperial core. At the same time, aspects of social progress often came to seen as aspects of colonialism and foreign domination, clashing with traditional culture. Indeed, the imperial core uses socially regressive attitudes and policies in the colonized world to justify our domination over them. Just look at the war with Iran (the repressive mullah regime that executes gays and makes women wear veils) for an example. They aren’t as developed as us, and therefore we must crush and dominate them, and seize their natural resources for private capital. Thus, a lack of social progress in the global south (or third world, or whatever you want to call it) creates the justification for imperial domination, while imperial domination creates the conditions that hinder progress.

  The victory of the colonized and the overthrow of the imperial yoke will create the conditions that foster social progress. It’s a precondition, so interpreting the socially conservative Iranian state resisting the American empire as “one evil fighting another” is wrong-headed. It’s historically progressive. The victory of Iran will be a victory for the world, which will help move history forth into a new post-imperial era. 600 years of this, over half a millennia, and it’s finally coming to a close. There is therefore every reason to hope and little reason to despair. Woke liberals do not see this, because they are not woke enough.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Woke⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  That’s only because most “woke” people are radical liberals, who have good intentions but don’t have a scientific view of political economy and still have a soft-imperialist worldview. As conditions in the imperial core decline, they succumb to despair. The failing power of the empire and the rising resistance of the global south instills them with a sense of nihilism, because we are supposed to be enlightened and civilized (though we can no longer be said to be, with the rise of overt fascism in the west), while our enemies are regressive, authoritarian barbarians - two equal evils fighting each other, with no hope for anything better.

  You only need to gain a greater understanding of the world, and particularly of imperialism, to break out of this mindset. We’ve occupied a privileged place in the world, bought off by the oligarchs to ensure support at home while they plunder the world. But this was always a gilded cage. It’s easy to look at the gold leaf peeling off the cage, revealing the rusting steel beneath it, and despair at how the world is getting uglier, but this only reveals that you haven’t imagined a life outside the cage. The rust is ugly, but it also weakens the substrate.

  In short, the tide has already turned, and the day of liberation is approaching. It can’t come quick enough, but it’s coming nevertheless. If wokeness has made you despair, it’s only because you’re half awake - gripped by sleep paralysis and tormented by shadows. You only need to wake up, to become more woke, to see that the sun is beginning to rise!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Motorcycle parts⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Synopsis
  A biker finds a motorcycle at an old mechanic shop that has a pussy in the seat so you can fuck it while riding. He has to keep it a secret because all the guys in his biker gang would want to fuck it

  Excerpt
  “Why do you have to zip up your pants every time you get off that hog, Travis,” Punchy said. I nearly fell off the bike, aghast. “You got a pussy in that thing?” I coughed and gulped. “Hahahaha, nice one, Punchy,” I said

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why are people so rude on Reddit compared to the Fediverse?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m plenty rude on here, motherfucker

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Jensen Huang says gamers are 'completely wrong' about DLSS 5 — Nvidia CEO responds to DLSS 5 backlash⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  May every tech office and chip fab in the Middle East meet Iran’s drones and missiles

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Do rich people get addicted to drugs?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Elon Musk uses so much ketamine he ruined his bladder. He’s also a nazi pedophile, but that isn’t related

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Pornography depicting sexual relationships between step-relatives set to be banned⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Oi! You got a loicense fer that stepmum?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is Cuba okay?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  They’re under siege you fucking moron

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Image

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anon time travels⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Not on your life, they’ll have AI-powered Google Maps!