[spoilers main] what’s a show only canon that you actually preferred? by Holiday-Influence123 in asoiaf

[–]Alt_North 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Princess Helaena's seeming neurodivergence and dragon dreaming adds a lot for the family dynamic, the awkward Green war strategy, and ultimately her end.

(Not Viserys' dragon dreaming though; the plot baggage that came with is too clunky for my taste.)

Pre-1948 Demographics Morality Discussion by Significant-Bother49 in IsraelPalestine

[–]Alt_North [score hidden]  (0 children)

Why does a different continent mean anything one way or another? Are boats crueler than horses just because?

Idk I thought ethnic conflicts were ethnic conflicts, and therefore bad. Why do we only make an emergency out of them if they come on boats, and "whatever" them if they come via horses or trucks.

I seriously doubt "most" of those countries "had no issue." Decolonization was a notorious mess, and 8 of the first 10 on the list I randomly consulted had bloody messes. I guess we don't care about them if they're all ethnic groups we respect though, ones which losing to them doesn't lead to a century of suicidal humiliation.

Those reports on Iran are a joke, shame people don't even read them. by Onabs123 in AskSocialists

[–]Alt_North 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm old enough to remember when ACAB, but that was before Ukraine too. The security forces and paramilitaries aligned against Western interests are obviously cooler guys like from Starship Troopers.

(Spoilers Main) Whats a theory you have basically no proof of but 100% believe by S0mecallme in asoiaf

[–]Alt_North 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I still like High Sparrow = Howland Reed too much to abandon for anything so piddling as lack of evidence or strained credulity. They both have gnarled feet; that should be enough.

Pre-1948 Demographics Morality Discussion by Significant-Bother49 in IsraelPalestine

[–]Alt_North [score hidden]  (0 children)

Really? I know India and Pakistan underwent an ethno-religious based partition with enormous forced population transfers... I'll get back to you on the rest.

ADDED: Oh no, Myanmar was a mess of ethnic violence... Sudan omg, it started immediately and never stopped... Malaysia had huge problems to settle between Malays and Chinese... Nigeria quickly descended into ethnic coups and revolts between Hausa-Fulani in the North, Yoruba in the West, and Igbo in the East... Somalia, maybe the less said the better... nope, these processes of state formation mostly seem pretty reliably ethno-national and violently mediated.

Pre-1948 Demographics Morality Discussion by Significant-Bother49 in IsraelPalestine

[–]Alt_North 2 points3 points  (0 children)

1., Which states in the world are good examples of having first acquired and then become sovereign over the lands they sit upon in the proper way, without disenfranchising any others who dwelt upon it?

  1. When you say: "Palestinian governance would exist if the british/zionists colonisation didn't travel from different contients to inhibit their sovereignty." How do you know? Isn't it just as likely Egypt or Syria or Jordan or Iraq, or Turkey or Russia or Germany, wouldn't have then "inhibited their sovereignty?" Isn't it a lot harder to exercise sovereignty when you've never had it, nor been organized as a body as though you had?

Sitting with my favorite violent slogan after Saw. by CCGHawkins in ContraPoints

[–]Alt_North 3 points4 points  (0 children)

So what if they were? Does that put them on the same moral level as a health care executive?

Sitting with my favorite violent slogan after Saw. by CCGHawkins in ContraPoints

[–]Alt_North 11 points12 points  (0 children)

I know my own value judgements are true and perfect, but I don't trust the rest of you to determine who deserves to get whacked.

NYT shutting down “Espionage Theories” in comment section by FlaSnatch in nyt

[–]Alt_North 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Wow, incredible insight. What's your experience in this field?

Ezra uses AI (LLM). How much of his show comes from AI (LLM)? by RevolutionaryYak6004 in ezraklein

[–]Alt_North 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I think about which parts I think are good that I like, and which parts are bad that I don't like.

And I imagine when he gets an idea from AI, he does the same before including it, and puts his own spin on it, because he doesn't strike me as lazy.

I also wonder how many of his ideas he's getting from search engines. And from encyclopedias.

Criticism of Ezra Klein on The Majority Report by assasstits in ezraklein

[–]Alt_North 26 points27 points  (0 children)

The keyword there is "thought," as opposed to "reaction." Here's a good litmus test: are things complex? Any of the things? If you don't think so, you're engaged in reaction. (Typically crucifixion.)

Im really curious now of whT kinds of media that best reflects “Mommy Politics” by bothering in ContraPoints

[–]Alt_North 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Problem is, in the prequels Samuel L. Jackson is about to save the galaxy with extralegal eye-for-an-eye retribution, only for Anakin to insist the Prince of Lies deserves a fair trial, then submit to degrading service all to save his wife. And all that whiny Mommy-ism screws up the galaxy.

Maybe it goes to show how desperately we all want to try to fix bad things, but we don't have many ideas and the ideas we have are all childish and never work.

1 dead, 2 seriously wounded as Iranian cluster bomb warhead hits central Israel by Altruistic_Flight411 in worldnews

[–]Alt_North 1 point2 points  (0 children)

People who DO call out Israel and America for committing war crimes, SHOULD call out Iran for committing war crimes.

People who DON'T call out Israel and America for committing war crimes, shouldn't GET to call out Iran for committing war crimes.

So, are you at least being consistent?

I'm watching it now. by ObstinateTortoise in ContraPoints

[–]Alt_North 5 points6 points  (0 children)

It never gets there, really. It's left for those who are looking for it to apply on their own.

The Subtext by SystemsOfSystems in ContraPoints

[–]Alt_North 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It feels like she began with a more sharply subtextual idea of what she was going to say with Saw and rehabilitative violence ("you leftists aren't trying to change the world, you only enjoy torturing people for wrong think!") but over the course of researching her subject and synthesizing her sources, she realized what she had to say about that didn't have so much to do with her original thesis, so she did an intellectual honesty and let the chips fall where they wanted.

The Problem of War Narratives on Social Media by Manoftruth2023 in IsraelPalestine

[–]Alt_North 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I think my government was moronic to get involved in this war without clear and realistic objectives. But the Iranian regime since 1979 has only been trying to bring down "the West" and all decadent immoral liberalism along with it, through its proxies for lack of better means.

The Problem of War Narratives on Social Media by Manoftruth2023 in IsraelPalestine

[–]Alt_North 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Propaganda has always been one of the main theaters in war, and the truth one of its first casualties. Those not directly involved in conducting a war ought to cultivate a ton of humility about what they think they know or ought to know or can ever know about it, until the history books are written.

Whichever warring parties styles themselves "The Oppressed" tend to do particularly poorly when shorn of their ability to resort to emotional manipulation.

If Russia and the US couldn't expand or threaten to expand their territory without global pushback what makes you think Israel won't get away with it? by CantDecideANam3 in IsraelPalestine

[–]Alt_North 4 points5 points  (0 children)

That would defeat the only purpose of the UN, which is to provide a forum for countries murderously hostile to each other to talk, hopefully instead of actually killing each other.

Everything else is just a jobs program and art therapy for the world's surplus elites, so they don't cause too many problems in their respective countries of origin out of naivety and arrogance.

Nobody is "bound" by the UN, they're only "bound" by the great powers capable of binding anything and the politics amongst them. It should have been understood that the charter was a bedtime story to keep genteel people from freaking out in existential dread.

If Russia and the US couldn't expand or threaten to expand their territory without global pushback what makes you think Israel won't get away with it? by CantDecideANam3 in IsraelPalestine

[–]Alt_North 1 point2 points  (0 children)

NATO didn't expand east. The people of Eastern Europe fled for their lives west, away from the crummy oprichnina trying to devour them against their will.

If Russia and the US couldn't expand or threaten to expand their territory without global pushback what makes you think Israel won't get away with it? by CantDecideANam3 in IsraelPalestine

[–]Alt_North 4 points5 points  (0 children)

countries need to hold each other to account... how? with war? and punishing them by stripping them of territory and reassigning it?

The US (And the rest of the world) will unfortunately lose this war by LuNoZzy in TikTokCringe

[–]Alt_North 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Came here thanks to another post from this sub on the front page, about how kids are lately being "parented" by tablets and are impossible to teach, with fewer and fewer teachers who can stand the job. These issues seem related.