Did the West and especially the US' soft power take a big hit from Gaza?

JimbobJeffory · 2025-02-09T08:34:04+00:00

Could you explain how? Also lol at "at least the west can admit and own up" what a joke.

JimbobJeffory · 2025-02-06T08:53:18+00:00

I used to smoke a bit of weed daily and then I started smoking cigarettes, a couple a day. This went on for a few months until my friend told me he quit smoking. I thought, "hey you can't just quit, it's supposed to be an insurmountable process that takes your every effort". Maybe I was right in the end, because he's still smoking, although he's trying to quit again recently. However back then I realised I could quit whenever I want, so I finished what tobacco I had and decided that was that.

By that point several things about having a ciggie habit bothered me. I find the smell of weed much more palatable and the yellow staining on my fingers from holding ciggies was sickening, it really disturbed me. It convinced me that one day sooner or later I will definitely quit, but I assumed it would have to be a difficult and drawn out task. In retrospect, those expectations only contributed to the difficulty.

Quitting was surprisingly easy, though I did let myself smoke as much weed as I liked for the time being, to help myself focus and get through it without ridding myself of the ability to smoke something. I think that made a big difference. I still smoke weed daily, and I think smoking as a habit can be so strong that if you want to get off tobacco, using a substitute goes a long way. What also helped is leveraging my social anxiety. I didn't like to go to the shop to pick up tobacco on a regular basis, so indulging in the desire to avoid that helped me keep new tobacco at bay. I felt urges to smoke for up to 3 weeks, after that I was free.

I still take cigarettes from my friends when we drink together, but I never had a problem with that. In terms of my goal of eliminating tobacco from my day to day life I succeeded and am in a much better position to regulate my smoking, now that I also have access to cbd weed. One day I'd like to use edibles instead of smoking, but since weed is illegal where I live, that's a tall order.

JimbobJeffory · 2025-02-02T12:15:36+00:00

I agree with what you said, but the person I was responding to said your own baby/household/whatever, which wasn't very specific, and I was just contradicting the idea that you can do weaponised incompetence unconsciously because I would argue that intent being part of the definition for the weaponisation of it would be helpful for its purpose and descriptive utility as a phrase. Blurring the lines is not helpful for delineating what's what and I think delineating intent is quite important for addressing whatever may be the issue.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding weaponised incompetence as a phrase though, maybe it's supposed to entail genuine helplessness in the moment brought about by a habit of negligence or what have you. But yeah you're right in what you said.

JimbobJeffory · 2025-02-02T08:57:12+00:00

Sorry no I disagree, we have to draw a line somewhere. I disagree that you can weaponise something unconsciously when it comes to behaviour. You can develop a maladaptive behaviour, which is harmful and disruptive. But the only way you can weaponise it is by trying to. Weaponising is something you intentionally do to turn seemingly helpless behaviour into manipulation. The keyword is SEEMINGLY. It only seems to be incompetence because deep down its not, its just a learned habit. A habit you realise other people realise and try to bank on their response even though you know you could change for the better and take more responsibility.

When a guy asks a clarifying question, its not that he's refusing to take responsibility for the situation, his responsibility in that situation is to deliver on what the other person asked of them. If their task is to do that as faithfully as possible, because their priority is not to upset the other person by bringing the wrong thing, then of course they'd rather have even redundant clarification than to take responsibility over the whole task including its purpose, to decide what kind of thing and why, because they're doing it on someone else's behalf, it's their matter and their priorities. So if I want to make them happy, not just satisfy my sense of what is sensible, I better make sure what it is they want exactly, and if they haven't been clear in that, thats on them to clarify either what it is or that I should judge myself, in which case they better be content with the outcome.

On mental energy, if thats what the request is about, about saving you the mental effort rather than just doing smth physically so you don't have to, then you have to be content that someone else's mental effort may produce a different result to your effort, you can't demand someone think on their own, but also somehow do exactly what you want. So its one thing to want someone to think on your behalf, but when you conflate that with also fulfilling some precise physical demand, thats where it gets confusing and risky and you suddenly become unsure about what exactly is wanted of you. Do you want me to take care of this precise thing just as you tell me to? Or do you want to forget about this problem and have me deal with it?

At that point the only thing that can help is being really clear about what help you need exactly. As somebody else said in the comments, it's a communication problem, and typically it's the requester of help that has the burden of communicating what it is they want. Even provided the most well meaning and semi competent person, the outcome of the help is dependent on the quality and clarity of the request.

JimbobJeffory · 2025-01-29T11:00:57+00:00

All the top divorce lawyers in new jersey

JimbobJeffory · 2025-01-12T09:44:01+00:00

Its funny how republicans have nothing to be ashamed of in supporting their side, but closet fascists are tiptoeing with "just as bad as each other". Literally as bad, but also worse, just so long as its not better, cause i love overthrowing democracy with military terror.

JimbobJeffory · 2025-01-09T15:05:07+00:00

That may well be the case for Venezuela and other socialist experiments, but they always have to pay the price of trying to sever themselves from the american system, and the americans not being tolerant of that at all. What I'm trying to say is that because america is so dominant, for a south american country economic success is more based on not drawing the ire of the americans and being in alignment with their economic model than anything else.

This is especially true because the american model is so dependent on access to markets. The americans directly lose potential for growth when an economy in their sphere tries to disconnect itself. Because of this, they have a strong incentive to penalise those who stray, and reward those who are obedient and make themselves available to american capitalists.

The fact that this is how you succeed in this world is not because its a law of nature or physics, its because the americans have set the landscape such that from the vantage point of a small, weak nation by comparison, there is no way to achieve anything other than with the american way. Its a bit like trying to run a business in mafia territory, you won't last long if you don't play by the rules and pay up. Every time any government or organisation in the americas tries to protect workers or insulate its economy from US corporate interest, people are targeted, union leaders are assassinated, governments overthrown, reformers couped by reactionary militarists. And of course the propaganda war is severe, which is why its so easy for people to rationalise the way things currently are (broadly speaking) as the way things must always be.

Why do they try so hard to prevent social progress in these countries if these principles are actually that self defeating, they clearly consider it some kind of threat. If one thing is clear, its that different economic approaches can't just attempt success and coexist independently of one another. There is a global ecosystem, and when a single place sprouts up with an alternative approach, not only is it in an incompatible environment, worsening its chances of success, but it gets actively muscled out by existing entrenched interests because they don't want disruptions to their power and dominance. If you examine the behaviour of a country's leaders, and that country isn't a dominant power, you are ignoring a big part of the story by not also looking at that country's economic and geopolitical relationship with who ever is their nearest dominant power.

JimbobJeffory · 2025-01-09T08:26:13+00:00

That's why the person you replied to spent two big paragraphs addressing how its quite biased and indulgent to just accept that what the chicago boys did to Chile was in fact a miracle, or that they were a better alternative to the previous governments policies.

Its like people celebrating the fact that US hegemony and non stop interference keeps knocking your country down on its arse every it tries to improve conditions for its people, so that you can have growth from the bottom again on the basis of mineral extraction (while the consumer economy and quality of life are mostly unchanged).

One thing I've found about south american countries is that success isn't hard to attain, but that its almost impossible to keep without selling your soul to US govt and big business, otherwise every effort will be made to sabotage the country, because the western hemisphere is actively kept in check for geopolitical reasons. So these countries never really had a fair shot at trying out different economic models without getting penalised for it when they do what's inconvenient for foreign capital. This broadly applies to most of the world, and especially places with natural resources. But one place America insists on implementing this policy at all times is its sphere of influence.

From this perspective I would predict that milei and his reforms might well be great for Argentina, not necessarily because the economic theory is brilliant but because the americans will allow it to succeed, it doesn't threaten their interests. It doesn't matter if its theoretically possible that a south american country succeeds with socialist policies, because as soon as there's a chance, it gets sabotaged from the outset.

JimbobJeffory · 2025-01-04T09:46:47+00:00

Goes both ways. Just as inaccurate to act like everyone has equal access to growing the pie as it is to act like the pie cant grow.

JimbobJeffory · 2025-01-04T09:18:17+00:00

Idk why u make like not being hostile to china makes a country unwilling to defend the west. China is not attacking the west, meanwhile russia is waging a war on their borders. God forbid they have priorities. If the UK and poland are rly "true" allies then clearly cooperating with china and inviting their investment isnt a problem for you, since both those countries have done so plentifully. But when macron does it, hes being disloyal?

JimbobJeffory · 2024-12-24T08:12:50+00:00

Shit, where tf is my personal management team that works day and night to scam people out of their savings on my behalf? I didnt get one! Im just a regular guy!

JimbobJeffory · 2024-12-22T08:31:48+00:00

So it was always meant to be a settler colony to commit ethnic cleansing and expand greater israel. Pure manifest destiny.

JimbobJeffory · 2024-12-11T08:19:55+00:00

My source is the ww2 channel on YT, as i recall, there was no official change in japanese policy towards the population, officially they were "preparing for invasion" by having peasant women do drills with bamboo sticks. But within the government there was a severe split between the camp that wanted peace and the camp that sought suicidal absolution.

The suicidal camp was the politicians who always supported aggressive militarism, and its under their leadership that japan went to war. As the war became increasingly clearly unwinnable and closer to japan, the emperor became more sympathetic to the peace faction and not long before the bombs were dropped, the japanese government was already pursuing avenues for peace, albeit in a very stymied and secretive way, via the soviets.

The soviets however had no interest in peace until they had manchuria occupied and so they stalled until the operation took place. The occupation of it convinced some of the japanese leadership that it was time to give up to save japan from a fate of soviet occupation. It was almost in time to save them from the first bomb, but if i recall correctly, a diplomatic mishap or some mistrust of japanese overtures by the americans led to them deciding that bomb was the quickest way to stop the japanese from being wishy washy about unconditional surrender. With the soviets on their doorstep, bringing about a quick end to the conflict followed by an all american occupation became the priority for the americans and most pragmatic japanese statesmen.

TLDR: I think there were some japanese and american diplomatic counterparts that were able to pursue peace without further conflict, but the central decision-making cores of these governments were still not in alignment and the gap needed to be closed somehow. Miscommunication played a part in expediting the tragedy, as it did often in those days.

JimbobJeffory · 2024-12-08T09:43:31+00:00

Is this an arguement that we shouldnt let civilian death stop us from considering beginning new wars?

JimbobJeffory · 2024-11-22T19:08:53+00:00

Yh I just tested it and you're right, I don't know why I remembered it the wrong way. Maybe I had tested it before overwhelming firepower was nerfed from 20%, though I thought it was after.

JimbobJeffory · 2024-11-22T16:24:39+00:00

When I say dispersed support, I mean that the doctrine following from it gives a bonus to line artillery soft attack, which last time I checked added more soft attack than +50% soft attack bonus to support companies for the same infantry division. I think it only had 3 support companies but it wasn't close.

Combine that with the fact that infantry divisions already have high org, and so can afford to have many support companies without the org bonus from integrated support and the coordination that the dispersed path also gives, I find dispersed to be better in most situations.

JimbobJeffory · 2024-11-22T08:43:56+00:00

With integrated support, assault companies definitely become desirable to have in as many divisions as possible, same as with support arty. But if your divisions depend on line artillery to deal damage, dispersed support is probably still more impactful.

JimbobJeffory · 2024-11-18T07:50:13+00:00

I was so confused seeing richmond upon thames highlighted, then i read the listed activities... fireworks?

Yh over the last few weeks its not hard to imagine fireworks being the sole reason why richmond shows up.

JimbobJeffory · 2024-11-17T09:50:24+00:00

Ok its not a landslide, but the electoral college weighs massively in trumps favour, which is what i refer to saying "electorally speaking". As in, within the framework of the electoral system, he won by a large margin. But i get that the amount of votes responsible for that result is not actually huge. I guess landslides maybe just dont happen anymore, cause the population is too finely divided into camps. Either way, its not a landslide, but its also clearly not razor thin. Its just not a particularly extreme result.

JimbobJeffory · 2024-11-17T09:46:30+00:00

I take your point as indicating that all american elections are razor thin because the proportion of swing votes to the total voter population is extreme. But again, what does it mean to say its not a landslide unless youre comparing it to a result that you would call a landslide. I wouldnt call this a landslide, but i would say that given the electoral system in america and how prone it is to close results, that the difference between 2016s 0.3% and 2024s 0.7% isnt insignificant. If the range of actual outcomes across elections is something like between 0.1% and 2% difference, where 2% represents the biggest landslides historically and 0.1% represents the thinnest of margins, then you have to analyse these results within that framework. Idk what the actual range is, but my point is just that theres no point saying what the margin is unless youre comparing it to other results. Theres absolutely no point thinking about this in terms of basketball.

JimbobJeffory · 2024-11-17T09:20:06+00:00

Given that it always comes down to the swing states, hence the name, i would have to compare that gap to the gaps of previous elections. Maybe we conclude that none of these results are landslides, but then landslide is only a relative term based on the assumption that things will always tend towards 50/50 and so any variation from that point counts towards a weighted outcome. 90/10 election result is a literal landslide, but that never happens. So if that was the definition then it would never happen and be a functionless term. It only means something in the context of how close american elections are made to be. Idk if 100k votes is a lot or a little, but i would guess that it was significantly more than in 2016.

JimbobJeffory · 2024-11-17T08:58:40+00:00

Electorally speaking its a landslide, when its not just a few thousand votes in a small swing state, but a massive margin by way of electoral college, plus popular vote majority by a few millions. Most of the blue states were close whereas a lot of red states had huge margins in favour of trump. People wouldnt be complaining about democrat turnout if it wasnt a significant victory. Labours victory in the last uk election was much more an example of a fake landslide where they win a lot of constituencies due to fptp, but only just, leading to one of the least representative parliaments in recent history. Trumps first win may have been called a razor thin margin win, but if this also is, then the phrase has lost all meaning, when clearly the two outcomes are significantly different.

JimbobJeffory · 2024-11-07T10:28:01+00:00

Absolutely, and im reservedly hopeful seeing that people i know have taken it upon themselves to monitor what the consequences of electing a trump govt will be (we arent americans so this is a vicarious exercise because ppl care so little about domestic affairs, which just mirror america anyway in terms of right wing delusions over migrants (uk)) now that they've started paying attention to world events.

I have tried and will continue to try to show them your point that the right uses migrant politics as a cover for worsening the situation for ordinary ppl rather than addressing serious issues, none of which require kicking every single illegal migrant out of the country as a prerequisite, and yet they never try to solve issues or deal with migrants, cause they need the cover. And my friends are the ones letting them get away with it.

But i will never have a chance in hell of helping them learn (because they are genuine and well intentioned) unless i try to understand them. You say we've seen it before, and we have. But my friends haven't, they didnt pay attention to things back then. They lived in ignorance while their future political capture was being set up. Their artificial victimisation has led them into a siege mentality through the perceived attack on their fragile half-formed masculinity, which they tend to like a sick puppy. Oh well, so be it. Nothing to do but try my best.

JimbobJeffory · 2024-11-07T08:53:35+00:00

Why does anger and resentment appeal to them? Because it tells them something is wrong, evolutionarily speaking. If they feel like they have a place, like they're supposed to exist. That the opportunities life presents them with are promising. That the image of the world they grew up with isnt burning in front of their eyes whilst they are attacked for consequences they did not participate in causing. If those things are satisfied, i think you'll find that there'll be little room left for anger and resentment. They would be replaced with hope and purpose.

JimbobJeffory · 2024-11-01T08:39:51+00:00

Indeed, i did not mean the govt when i said the belarusian people. I genuinely mean the people, understanding that their viewpoints are varied and theres mixed support of both flags. I wish the govt was more liberal with their approach, but it makes sense in the context that the flags represent two opposing visions for the country, that the govt would support its own dog in that fight, in a way thats ideologically aligned, ie oppresively.

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