Krono

@Krono@lemmy.today

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How come nobody does anything about North Korea?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  Yes I agree.

  If you use context instead of cherry picking a half-sentence then maybe you would understand that is part of the broader point I am trying to get across to a western, chauvinism-brained audience.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨the universe about to have a little minty b⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  I like how she tags Neil DeGrasse Tyson as if the funny haha tv scientist podcast man is out there writing budget proposals for CERN or Fermilab

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How come nobody does anything about North Korea?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  Since you are still completely missing the basics, let’s do a little history lesson then.

  The bombing of Afghanistan started in retaliation to 9/11. After initial bombing of Al-Quaeda training camps and Taliban headquarters, we asked the Afghan government to hand over Bin Laden. They said “yes we will hand him over if you agree to stop bombing”. George W’s famous response was " we don’t negotiate with terrorists". The bombing continued, and Bin Laden fled to Pakistan to survive for years.

  The propagandistic idea that we were there to nation build and create a liberal democracy only entered the picture a year into the brutal bombing campaign because the US populace was turning against the war.

  Then, we propped up a classic puppet government that was always destined to fail when we left. Elements of a puppet government include:

  • installing a leader from a minority faction
  • allowing them to violently repress members of the majority faction
  • brutal violence inflicted upon dissenters
  • development of natural resources for the desires of the imposing nation, a lack of sustainable development for the local people
  • creating a system with very little input from local leaders, and never giving them a reason to participate or have skin in the game

  The Afghan army had many huge problems. There is a plethora of news stories from 2008-2021 showing how the army is poorly trained, unmotivated, and largely drug addicted. Military leaders have been saying the entire time that this army would not stand on its own.

  The Afghan army did have one strong motivation though: money. It was a mercenary army. But when the US withdrew in 2021 we stole the majority of the funds from the Afghan Central Bank (over $7bln dollars was taken by the Biden administration). Not only did this immoral act of theft cripple the Afghan economy, it destroyed their ability to pay the mercenary army.

  No one who was actually paying attention expected the unpaid mercenary army to defend the puppet government once we left. Maybe, if the money kept flowing, they could have held up for a few months, but the stolen Central Bank funds ensured that was impossible.

  I’m not saying “we don’t care”. Many individual people did earnestly care, and tried their best. But the military and civilian systems created by the US were never built for the benefit of the Afghan people. Your positive spin on this war is naive and ahistorical.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How come nobody does anything about North Korea?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  So your thesis is that the 1950s war was inconsequential, and then you lay the entire blame on the Kim regime and their policies?

  My dude, how do you think the Kim regime became a dictatorship?

  Before the 1950s war, Kim was a weak puppet leader propped up by the Soviet Union. By the end of the war, the Kim regime had dictatorial power, which persists to this day.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How come nobody does anything about North Korea?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  I did not close my eyes when America turned it’s back on the thousands of Afghans who helped the American regime during the war. The people who helped America were left resourceless and with giant targets on their back. We betrayed them.

  I did not close my eyes when the flimsy and deeply flawed education system America propped up instantly failed the moment we left.

  The abandonment of Afghan allies and the destruction of girl’s education in Afghanistan are just two more data points showing the deep failures of the American model of foreign intervention.

  We did not spend truckloads of money trying to get a functioning system in place. A lasting functioning system was never the goal. I urge you to read into our military’s functions and objectives in Afghanistan, because you are deeply misinformed. Anyone who suggests our goals were “democracy and human rights” is obviously infected with US propaganda.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How come nobody does anything about North Korea?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  You have obviously misunderstood me.

  I was comparing the United States actions in the Korean War(1950s) to Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza. The mass civilian bombing campaigns, complete destruction of civilian infrastructure, manmade famine, widespread preventable disease, and imposed economic isolation are very similar between the two cases.

  I am not comparing current-day North Korea to current-day Gaza, and I agree with you that would not be a good analogy.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How come nobody does anything about North Korea?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  Kinda shocking to me how anyone can present such a whitewashed take on the Afghanistan War in 2025. It didn’t go to shit when we left, it was shit from the beginning.

  We shortsightedly allied with brutal local warlords, and the failure at local politics blew up in our faces. We bombed 100s of villages, losing the hearts and minds of the people. We sent innocent people to be tortured in Pakistani black sites, creating a fanatical resistance willing to martyr themselves. We forcefully changed the main agricultural output from wheat to opium poppy, leading to widespread drug abuse and addiction. I could go on and on…

  I’m not sure if there is a military intervention model that works, but American-style military intervention with mass civilian deaths and warcrimes from beginning to end is a proven failure.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How come nobody does anything about North Korea?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  I think the answer is simple: end the sanctions.

  McDonalds and Starbucks can take down the Kim regime much more effectively than B-2 bombers and Hellfire missiles.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How come nobody does anything about North Korea?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  America already tried to save the North Koreans once. It was called the “Korean War”.

  We bombed them back to the stone age, then permanently isolated them from most of the world. Despite having good reasons for the start of the war, America treated NK like Israel currently treats Gaza.

  Even if North Koreans tried to forget that America bombed every hospital, every water purification plant, all the electricity production, etc; the Kim regime’s propaganda will make sure they never forget.

  If we actually wanted to help those people, the first step would be removal of economic sanctions. There is no clean way to remove dictatorship, but the “Arab Spring” model is much more effective and humane than the “Afghanistan War” model.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Yemeni shopkeeper during US bombing.⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Whenever I see Removed here on .world, I think to myself:

  thank you for your service comrade

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Yemeni shopkeeper during US bombing.⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  If “economic hurt” justifies a bombing campaign, then imagine what else would be justified. America economically devastated Iraq, so it’s only fair that the Iraqi airforce comes over and drops a few hundred tons of bombs on us.

  By your logic, Iraqi bombs should be dropping on your house and killing your family. And following your insane logic, it would be your fault that your family is dead, because you should have taken it upon yourself to overthrow the Republican Party regime.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Memory Wiped⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Yes the British film Battle for Haditha received funding from the DoD’s Entertainment Media Office. It is difficult to find any military film that has not been funded in part by this propagada office.

  I do have one fact incorrect though, they did not receive millions. It appears they received much less, although I couldnt find an exact number.

  But here you are ignoring the thrust of my argument, that the insidious free market propaganda by the US is much more effective than the heavy handed authoritarian propaganda by China. Yes, you can go get an advanced degree and learn about Haditha freely, but that knowledge is effectively prevented from reaching the broader public.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Memory Wiped⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Both US and China actively deny and suppress information. The Chinese method is more authoritarian, the US method is more effective.

  I argue this point on another comment in this thread.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Memory Wiped⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Well I thought we were discussing education, but as far as information supression is concerned, I think both countries are heavily supresssing information, but the US method is simply much more effective.

  Take for example an event similar in scale to the Tiananmen massacre, the Haditha massacre. The US military actively suppressed all info after it happened, classifying everything related to the killings. The only information from the state dept about this incident were leaks to the press downplaying the severity of the incident. Later, the DoD spends millions funding a Hollywood film to whitewash the incident, focusing on the perspective of the poor sad soldiers who did the massacre.

  The result, I would argue, is that the Haditha massacre has been whitewashed, justified, and erased from history much more effectively than the Tiananmen massacre.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Memory Wiped⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  So you were left ignorant of the other half of the atrocities I mentioned, just like we suspect Chinese citizens are ignorant of Tiananmen?

  I went to high school in North Dakota btw.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Memory Wiped⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I think there are many events in American history that could be analogous to Tiananmen.

  Were you ever educated on the 1985 MOVE bombing? The destruction of black wall street? The house un-american activities committee? The battle of Blair Mountain?

  Were you ever taught about any of the coups we did to overthrow democratic governments in latin america? The death squads we trained? The authoritarians and fascists we put into power, and the oppression and death they caused?

  Or, in general, the 70-or-so countries we invaded since WWII? I think most Americans can only name Iraq, Afghanistan, and Vietnam.

  And that’s just the stuff I can name off the top of my head, I’m sure there are countless American atrocities that I am unaware of.

  Personally, the American education system taught me none of that. Many of these subjects are not discussed in broad American culture.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Sad⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Lemmy as a whole is left leaning, but this is LW, Lemmy’s home for blueMAGA.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Would Kamala Harris have won the 2024 election if Latinos didn't shift hard to the right?⁩ ⁨⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m not proposing a “solution” here, but the logic is obvious: as the Democratic Party moves to the right, their traditional base becomes more alienated and less incentivized to vote.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Would Kamala Harris have won the 2024 election if Latinos didn't shift hard to the right?⁩ ⁨⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Your narrative is that Latinos “shifted right” but I think this is a false framing- it was the Biden/Harris administration that shifted hard right on its proposed immigration policies and it left many Latino voters feeling politically abandoned.

  Look at the Democrats’ 2024 immigration bill- it is deportations, immigration quotas, and building the wall - while including nothing “left of center” such as amnesty. It is literally a Trump 2016 wishlist.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Every show with a suicide now has a disclaimer with a suicide hotline at the beginning. Is there any evidence that these warnings make a positive difference?⁩ ⁨⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s not about the production cost, its about the opportunity cost.

  A quick google search tells me a national ad costs $200k-$1m for a 30s slot. That means 5 seconds of screen time costs $30k-$150k.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Ban the MBFC bot⁩ ⁨⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  You keep suggesting that I am uninformed and unresearched, so please correct me if I got any of the facts wrong.

  You keep suggesting that my criticism is just a loud cry, but this is just hand waving the problem away. You have failed to directly address any of my concerns.

  To add to my list of cocerns, here is a new one: Have you or any other LW mods/admins been paid by MBFC?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Ban the MBFC bot⁩ ⁨⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Wow so you’re telling me mbfc isn’t staffed by volunteers, instead they are trying to get paid by subs and ad revenue?

  The more I learn about mbfc the worse it gets.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Ban the MBFC bot⁩ ⁨⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Wow you continue to surprise me, I would have never expected this kind of communication to come publically from a mod.

  I think I have made my criticisms of MBFC fairly clear, and your characterization of my criticisms is an obvious strawman.

  But since I have your attention, let me try to rephrase the problem: Lemmy was built on principles of open source, transparency, freedom of speech, and community input. The MBFC bot does not follow any of these principles.

  In it’s current form, the MBFC bot is a stain on the integrity of LW. I urge you to make a change.

  The community has largely made their voice heard on the subject, as evidenced by the large number of downvotes on the bot and on your posts here. I urge you to listen to them.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Ban the MBFC bot⁩ ⁨⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Wow I had no idea the LW team made this bot, how disappointing.

  Do the consistant downvotes on the bot give you any concern that you are making a mistake here?

  I always thought of LW as the “default” sub here on Lemmy, but all of this: the rightwing bot itself, ‘please block the bot instead of downvoting’, the thinly veiled threats of ban; all of it is pretty strong evidence you are attempting to cultivate an ideological echo chamber here.

  Anyway, I’ll continue to do my civic duty and downvote the misinformation bot whenever I happen to see it.

  Thanks

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Ban the MBFC bot⁩ ⁨⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Currently the bot’s media ratings come from just some guy, who is unaccountable and has an obvious rightwing bias.

  If I were to suggest a fix, as you so rudely demanded, I would suggest making the ratings instead come from an open sourced and crowdsourced system. A system where everyone could give their inputs and have transparency, similar to an upvote/downvote system.

  Such a system would take many hours to design and maintain, it is not something I personally am willing to contribute, nor would I ask it of any volunteers. This is why I believe the cleanest, easiest, and best solution is to simply ban the bot.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Ban the MBFC bot⁩ ⁨⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m saying that if you take “rightwing” information and intentionally mislabel it as “leftwing”, yes that is misinformation.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Ban the MBFC bot⁩ ⁨⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Why did you comment? You could just block me if you dont like my suggestion.

  To be serious, I think it’s much better for the community if we do not allow misinformation bots to spam every post.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Ban the MBFC bot⁩ ⁨⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  What this bot does is analyze US media companies that you Euros would consider “centre right” and mislabels them instead as left.

  This is done to shift what we Yanks call “the Overton window” to the right.

  The Overton window has been shifting right for decades, which is why “left” and “right” have such a different meaning over here across the pond.

• Ban the MBFC bot
  Submitted ⁨⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩ to ⁨support@lemmy.world⁩ | ⁨73⁩ ⁨comments⁩
• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How come drug dealers seem to have a messed up house or at least a messed up car with a bunch of trash in it?⁩ ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  When I started dealing drugs, I did it because my friends and I were smoking trash weed and we wanted to secure a good supply of quality product. It worked out well. My car was clean. I didn’t sell much.

  A few years later when I turned 23 I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. My life fell apart, I was bedridden, I went through a medical bankruptcy. That is when I began to deal drugs to survive. For a few years I paid my bills by selling weed, ecstasy, adderall, mushrooms, acid from the bed where I spent 95% of my time. My car was dirty.

  Was I just a regular person? I dont know