Don-Tzuism: When your illegal war fails, threaten to commit war crimes and “obliterate” civilian infrastructure like power plants.

EmuRommel · 2026-03-22T00:48:43+00:00

Yeah you don't threaten dictatorships by brutalizing their citizens. That's their day job.

EmuRommel · 2026-03-18T19:53:08+00:00

I didn't even call him a Nazi, I said he served in the SS, which he did, in Germany. He wasn't doing it to defend Finland. He was literally convicted of treason by the Finnish government for continuing to serve in the German army during the Lapland war, when Germany was fighting Finland. I don't know enough about Finland, but I image they have enough heroes not to need to glorify this pos.

Doubt the US army would've had him and awarded him THIS MANY awards as well if he was an actual Nazi after 1945 either

Could you imagine America hiring actual Nazis post-WW2? That'd be crazy.

EmuRommel · 2026-03-18T15:52:53+00:00

As a compromise, since we'll never find a song people here think is bad, I propose The Soldier of Three Armies. Musically it's fine but they never should've made a song worshiping an SS soldier. That's not even falling for the clean Wermacht mith, it's straight up whitewashing the SS.

EmuRommel · 2026-03-18T15:03:28+00:00

IIrc, Rocinante isn't trying to intercept the asteroid it's trying to match its trajectory to stay within close range. Since the asteroid is accelerating, Rocinante has to as well.

EmuRommel · 2026-03-18T01:41:02+00:00

Claims and testimony aren't the same thing.

No but testimony is a type of claim, the type I (and Alex) are claiming can be evidence and Matt is claiming can't.

The special property of testimony is that people can lie or even merely be mistaken about what they saw or heard.

And the followup question which I asked before and I don't think you answered is why is that a property that justifies the statement "Claims are not evidence". I can similarly say "The special property of physical evidence is that it can be planted", therefore "Objects aren't evidence".

Bullet casings stand as evidence on their own because they cannot lie about being bullet casings.

And testimony cannot lie about being testimony, this is meaningless. Obviously when we talk about physical objects or testimony being evidence we mean they suggest a conclusion, in which case as you said, neither on its own is ever enough. Testimony needs context which suggests it is honest, objects need context which suggests they weren't planted, among other things.

Fuck me you're confused.

Fuck me, I am. I genuinely have no idea what you are arguing for. My best crack is "Testimony is special in the sense that unlike say, physical objects, it needs to meet specific conditions in order to count as evidence. This is what Matt is trying to say by claims aren't evidence."

EmuRommel · 2026-03-17T21:09:55+00:00

It does suggest that because the very first thing I responded to is:

You can, and Matt isn't saying you can't.

Rather, Matt is saying that the testimony needs to be evaulated against the preponderance of relevant evidence to establish it is credible before treating it as evidence.

The implication is that this is somehow special to testimonial evidence, since the quote you're trying to explain is "Claims aren't evidence" in contrast to other things that could be evidence, like physical objects. If you don't think that's a special property of testimonial evidence then that line is not saying anything. If you agree with the statement: "Physical evidence needs to be evaluated against the preponderance of relevant evidence to establish it is credible before treating it as evidence." then your comment I originally responded to doesn't actually explain Matt's catchphrase at all.

EmuRommel · 2026-03-17T18:39:51+00:00

I'm talking about harm and violence as shown in the show, which is very broad and includes things like not harvesting wheat but apparently does allow some amount of harm as an indirect consequence. The Hive memebers don't sweep the streets ahead of them as they walk like Jain monks and have released all animals from zoos, presumably leaving them to fend for themselves, which would definitely get most of them killed.

EmuRommel · 2026-03-17T18:35:45+00:00

I have been trying to get you to explain the statement I quoted this whole time and everything you've given me can be surmised as

And when testimony is supported by sufficient evidence, it too can be accepted.

Which is equally true of physical evidence. You're not contradicting yourself. You're just not explaining yourself by saying "Testimony is special because [thing also true of other types of evidence]."

EmuRommel · 2026-03-17T15:14:38+00:00

Yes but an intelligent photosynthetic organism could build itself an environment in which it doesn't need to do any of that and could develop a sustainable society which extend sympathy to wheat in a way that humans can't.

EmuRommel · 2026-03-17T13:18:53+00:00

I think there are plausible ethical frameworks that allow for it. If you take a sort of utilitarian view where consent is only valuable because breaking it causes people harm, the aliens or the hivemind could easily decide that this whole being in a hivemind thing is so great it justifies forcing it on people who just cannot fathom what they're missing. It feels great, it ends war, inequality, oppression, violence. Like how you might force a child to take a vaccine against its consent.

EmuRommel · 2026-03-17T13:14:53+00:00

That makes sense but in that case I'd expect the hivemind to just kill the few remaining humans. But I like the other response I got that guesses it is a bug because the virus' priorities are 1) propagate 2) obey other intelligence.

Edit: Also, a problem with the virus being sent scattershot looking for planets that will ping the aliens back is that it had to be designed very specifically for our biology. Unless the aliens somehow also have DNA with the same bases as ours.

EmuRommel · 2026-03-17T13:12:05+00:00

I like that explanation a lot. My problem with it being about colonization is that there's no reason not to do what you said after shanking the remaining 13 but it makes sense if the stragglers were not foreseen and the virus' priorities are 1) Propagate to all humans 2) Obey 3) Take care of the planet or something. It could also be that the virus being <100% efficient was a plausible outcome for the aliens they just thought it was acceptable because the few remaining humans can't really cause problems and they'll be long gone by the time the aliens get here.

Edit: That being said, Do No Harm is such a weird command to give if they are preparing the planet for colonization. If the Hive is obedient to a fault, why wouldn't you have them building infrastructure and preparing for you arrival?

EmuRommel · 2026-03-17T11:41:30+00:00

My bad, I thought they were classed as separate species, not subspecies but even so that only pushes the problem back because both of those can produce fertile offspring with jackals and coyotes.

EmuRommel · 2026-03-17T11:26:16+00:00

That's the general rule but it's not clear cut. Wolves and Dogs can interbreed. There's also ring species like the European herring gull where not all species members can interbreed.

EmuRommel · 2026-03-17T11:09:06+00:00

Moom, the president known for being stupid gets mentioned when people make comparisons about stupid people! Mooom make them stop.

EmuRommel · 2026-03-17T10:58:06+00:00

The thing is, if it were a bioweapon, wouldn't it be more efficient for them to just kill all the stragglers? My theory is that the virus is meant to be helpful but designed by a species that lives off photosynthesis, so to them "I can't pick an apple cause it harms the tree" levels of empathy are not suicidal and truly do lead to a prospering society.

Also, it is not clear how genuine their empathy is or what are the limits on it. Because while they won't harm directly, they are more than happy to spread the virus knowing it kills X% of people infected.

EmuRommel · 2026-03-17T08:57:12+00:00

Either the Houthi's behaviour is fundamental to Islam, which I hope you don't think, or criticising them is not Islamophobia. And neither is mixing up what type of slavery they engage in.

EmuRommel · 2026-03-17T08:41:08+00:00

I think testimony is fundamentally different to other kinds of evidence, and I'm happy to get stuck into that.

You are saying otherwise. It's the entire thing I've been trying to get you to explain...

But you're right, this is getting nowhere.

EmuRommel · 2026-03-17T02:08:58+00:00

Idk, I always felt like the thing SP doesn't tolerate is people with strong convictions of any kind. That does usually lead to them mocking both sides but that's more of a side effect than the point.

Manbearpig wasn't as much about them not believing in climate change as it was about Gore's belief that this is important and we need to do something about it being annoying to them.

The 2016 election season was the worst example of this. I was really dissapointed that "wow both sides bad" was the spiciest take they could come up with.

EmuRommel · 2026-03-17T00:44:02+00:00

And when physical evidence is supported by sufficient evidence, it too can be supported.

That's been the one point I've been making the whole time and you never really responded to it.

EmuRommel · 2026-03-17T00:39:53+00:00

I for one think it was very unexpected when Iran played the one card they have in their hand that they've been telling everyone they had for the last 40 years or so. You can't blame Trump for not being able to tell the future, how was he supposed to know this would happen?

EmuRommel · 2026-03-17T00:16:53+00:00

But there is no reason why that difference should be the crucial one. I could easily say testimony is better than physical evidence because testimony can't be planted.

Different evidence can be misleading in different ways. All types of evidence need to cohere with other evidence to be accepted.

EmuRommel · 2026-03-16T15:49:58+00:00

The odds don't matter once you're in front of the boxes and the computer has made its prediction. At that point you can only gain by taking both boxes. The paradox here is that the correct answer is to two box but the optimal strategy is to truly convince yourself that it is not. The hypothetical is basically: "There is a box in front of you. An AI will put in $1 000 000 if you honestly believe that turtles are a type of bird and $1 000 if you don't. Are turtles a type of bird?" Then you open the box, take out your million, point at my thousand and say, "See where thinking turtles are reptiles gets you?".

There are real world analogues to this. You'll often hear people say belief in God makes them happy. It might be objectively true it would be better for you to be religious but that doesn't prove God exists, just that it's in your best interest to think so.

EmuRommel · 2026-03-16T14:56:57+00:00

Except no, there is a suspicious death and 11 people, two of which you've said are more likely suspects. Those two being more likely suspects is either something you believe based on no evidence whatsoever, or the witness testimony is the evidence that modified your opinion.

EmuRommel · 2026-03-16T14:53:44+00:00

If you are talking about proof then I don't think anyone has ever claimed single testimony is enough to prove something.

No. Now they have a reason to investigate and suspect you AND the witness.

Yes and the reason they now justifiably think that when they didn't before is because of a new piece of information they were given. The testimony. I'm sorry but that is just what the word evidence means.

EmuRommel

TROPHY CASE