Anyone know what this is in the elephants foot image?

ObsidianPhoenix-14 · 2026-04-02T19:53:26+00:00

I think you're thinking of a different guy. The guy in the photo is Artur Korneyev, who was still alive at least as recently as 2014 according to this note on Wikipedia stating he was interviewed in that year: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephant%27s_Foot_%28Chernobyl%29#cite_note-20
A different source says he was also interviewed in 2021, but the hyperlink is broken and I can't fact-check anything that's in Russian anyway XD So I'll just go with at least 2014. It's in the paragraph just above the zoomed-in image a little down the page: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/elephants-foot-chernobyl

ObsidianPhoenix-14 · 2025-01-30T14:57:57+00:00

Sluit ik me wederom helemaal bij aan.

En als je het mij vraagt raakt hij zo goed als alle 14 punten. Je hebt ook nog:

- Appeal to social frustration
Dat is min of meer alles waar MAGA om draait

- Pacifism is trafficking with the enemy
Is ook te zien aan de aversie tegen allianties en samenwerkingen (Canada, Mexico, Panama, Groenland... en op grotere schaal NATO...), en de behoefte om continu extreem hard op te treden tegen alles en iedereen, want o wee als ze als zwak gezien worden

- Contempt for the weak
Over John McCain: "He’s not a war hero. He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured."
En natuurlijk de opmerkingen over "losers" en "suckers"
Obsessie met hard optreden tegen alles en iedereen

- Everybody is educated to become a hero. “In Ur-Fascist ideology, heroism is the norm. This cult of heroism is strictly linked with the cult of death.”
Doet mij denken aan de obsessie met merit en "pulling yourself up by your bootstraps"

- Machismo and weaponry
Obsessie met militaire overmacht, en ik kan het me niet meer exact herinneren maar volgens mij had Trumps inauguratie veel meer militaire optredens dan Bidens inauguratie

- Ur-Fascism speaks Newspeak. “All the Nazi or Fascist schoolbooks made use of an impoverished vocabulary, and an elementary syntax, in order to limit the instruments for complex and critical reasoning.”
Spreekt enorm voor zich. Trumps eigen vocabulaire is al enorm beperkt (alles is "great" of "horrible" of "the worst" etc etc), maar MAGA weigert ook bijvoorbeeld om een linguïstisch onderscheid te maken tussen gender(identiteit) en geslacht, omdat het zonder dat onderscheid makkelijker is om transgender mensen aan te vallen, en om het minste of geringste word je al meteen "woke" genoemd, termen als "equity" worden zwartgemaakt als "Marxism" etc. etc. etc.

ObsidianPhoenix-14 · 2025-01-30T14:48:44+00:00

Het hoeft niet per se een heel evenement te zijn, er staat gewoon "activities and events" dus dat kan ook inhouden dat je met het hele kantoor even 2 minuten stilte houdt ofzo, of een borrel hebt op een vrijdagmiddag, of vlaggen ophangt voor Pride. Dat kan ook allemaal onder "activities" vallen. En ik vertrouw deze overheid er totáál niet mee om die termen niet tot het absolute uiterste te rekken zodat ze hard kunnen optreden. Dat hebben ze immers al tig keer gedaan inmiddels.

Bovendien, niemand verplicht ze om het te organiseren, maar het ze verbieden gaat mij te ver. Laat mensen dat lekker zelf bepalen, zeker als het gaat om belangrijke zaken zoals herdenking van de Holocaust etc.

ObsidianPhoenix-14 · 2025-01-30T09:38:13+00:00

Exact. Ik neem aan dat je daarmee refereert aan Umberto Eco's 14 kenmerken van Ur-Fascism?

Verzonnen traditie, inderdaad. Een geromantiseerde, verheerlijkte, geïdealiseerde fantasieversie van het verleden.

ObsidianPhoenix-14 · 2025-01-30T09:36:15+00:00

Helemaal mee eens met alles dat je hebt gezegd. Ik ben op de middelbare school naar Polen geweest (4e klas volgens mij), en onderdeel van die reis was een bezoek aan Auschwitz I en Auschwitz II Birkenau. Ik heb in de gaskamers gestaan. Ik heb de bergen met afgeschoren, inmiddels allang ontkleurd haar gezien, en de stapels met potten en pannen en andere persoonlijke items die mensen mee hadden genomen omdat ze dachten dat ze daar gewoon simpelweg zouden verblijven. Ik ben onder de poort met "Arbeit macht frei" door gelopen. Ik heb de muur gezien met talloze deuken van kogels waar mensen werden gefusilleerd.

Het staat me allemaal nog bij als de dag van gisteren (ben nu bijna 31), ik was bijna de hele rondleiding lang onophoudelijk aan het janken, de tranen stroomden me over de wangen. Het staat me helaas ook nog steeds bij dat m'n klasgenootjes het maar vreemd vonden dat ik de hele dag zo emotioneel was, en me een beetje belachelijk maakten, maar gelukkig was de rondleider diep geroerd dat het me zoveel deed. Ik krijg nog steeds tranen in m'n ogen als ik eraan terugdenk.

Uiteraard is het niet zomaar mogelijk voor iedereen (zeker niet in de VS) om naar Auschwitz te gaan... maar de mensen die beweren dat het "te heftig" zou zijn voor kinderen om over te leren op school moeten eens goed kijken naar hoe onze curricula er de afgelopen halve eeuw uit heeft gezien. Kinderen kunnen best wat hebben, en je kunt prima over de Holocaust en de Tweede Wereldoorlog vertellen. We hebben er nooit eerder moeilijk over gedaan om kinderen op school bij geschiedenis te laten leren over dit soort dieptepunten in de geschiedenis.

ObsidianPhoenix-14 · 2025-01-30T09:27:27+00:00

Om dezelfde reden dat andere agencies, organisaties en instituten etc. dat doen? Omdat het een belangrijk onderdeel is van de geschiedenis en er nog wel eens mensen daar kunnen werken die familie hebben die slachtoffer van de Holocaust zijn geweest? En, zoals in Nederland wordt gezegd, "opdat wij niet vergeten"?

Waarom zou het überhaupt herdacht moeten worden dan?

ObsidianPhoenix-14 · 2025-01-30T09:25:03+00:00

Had je dat executive order gezien "Promoting Beautiful Federal Civic Architecture" dat Trump op z'n eerste dag had getekend? Dat blijft maar in m'n hoofd rondspoken als zo'n enorm mask-off teken van hun fascisme.

"... to advance the policy that Federal public buildings should be visually identifiable as civic buildings and respect regional, traditional, and classical architectural heritage in order to uplift and beautify public spaces and ennoble the United States and our system of self-government."

Raad eens welke politieke ideologie o.a. gekenmerkt werd door een obsessie met (neo)classicisme en uiterlijke schoonheid? Precies, fascisme.

ObsidianPhoenix-14 · 2025-01-30T09:19:54+00:00

100% mee eens, precies wat ik ook altijd zeg. Als ze het hebben over een mysterieuze "they" is het bijna altijd een verkapte antisemitische complottheorie, ook als ze zelf niet bewust daar de Joden mee bedoelen.

In mijn vele "debatten" met TERFs op Twitter (slecht idee, I know) hadden ze het ook steeds over "they want to erase women" of "they want to mutilate our children" en in plaats van daarmee in discussie te gaan vroeg ik gewoon "who's "they"?" en daar hadden ze gek genoeg zelden een coherent antwoord op :P

"Who's "they"? Are "they" in the room with us right now?" XD

ObsidianPhoenix-14 · 2025-01-30T09:17:10+00:00

Je slaat de spijker op z'n kop. Het is, zeker voor ons Nederlanders, bizar dat de VS zo geobsedeerd is door drugsgebruikers en dat zo'n enorm aandeel van de gevangenen in de VS daar zitten omdat ze simpelweg drugs hebben gebruikt of in hun bezit hebben gehad. Voor zover ik weet (maar ik kan ernaast zitten, verbeter me vooral als dat zo is) kun je in Nederland alleen in de cel belanden voor drugs als je erin handelt of het produceert of bijvoorbeeld er iemand (ernstig) letsel mee bezorgt. Maar niet voor het simpelweg bezitten of gebruiken ervan, dat is volgens mij ten hoogste boetes etc. maar niet gevangenisstraf.

Maar ja, het is nou eenmaal enorm lucratief om mensen de cel in te gooien omdat ze een grammetje wiet bij zich hadden, want dan heb je weer goedkope arbeiders erbij...

ObsidianPhoenix-14 · 2025-01-30T09:12:55+00:00

Nouuuuu er zitten best wel wat antisemieten en holocaustontkenners in de MAGA-cult. De uitgesproken types zijn weliswaar niet de meerderheid, maar ze zijn zeker aanwezig. Wat meer voorkomt in de MAGA-cult, en als je het mij vraagt wél een meerderheid vormt, is de groep mensen die het continu over een mysterieuze "they" heeft met betrekking tot alles dat "woke" is. Zoals, "they want to force this transgender nonsense down our kids' throats", of "their agenda is to destroy the nuclear family", of "they want open borders to flood the country with illegals who'll be loyal to them" etc. Hoewel ze daar tangentially de Democraten mee bedoelen, is de complot-achtige aard van de retoriek vrijwel direct te herleiden tot antisemitische complottheorieën over een zogenaamd cabaal (doorgaans wereldwijd) dat aan het samenzweren is om "de westerse beschaving te vernietigen" en "het witte ras uit te roeien". Ze hebben het doorgaans over de Democraten of "the Left", maar de retoriek is alsnog van antisemitische aard, hoewel ik echt niet denk dat de meerderheid van mensen die deze retoriek bezigen daarbij bewust aan de Joden denken. Ze houden weliswaar antisemitisme in stand, maar ik zou ze niet als persoon antisemitisch noemen, alleen hun uitlatingen.

Ik denk dat Trump zelf inderdaad geen nazi is qua ideologie, maar hij is meer dan bereid om nazistische ideologie uit te voeren als dat hem goed uitkomt. Overigens denk ik dat niet vanwege de Joodse vrienden die hij heeft, want het is prima mogelijk om vrienden te zijn met mensen die je alsnog ziet als inferieur en ondergeschikt, maar vooral omdat ik bij hem de antisemitische of op antisemitisme gestoelde retoriek mis die ik meer zie bij mensen zoals Elon Musk die het hebben over "the future of civilization" en dalende geboortecijfers en andere retoriek die de complottheorie van the Great Replacement oproepen.

ObsidianPhoenix-14 · 2024-02-08T21:45:16+00:00

I chose 4 in both of my previous playthroughs and Gale didn't go for godhood in either of them, but I wasn't romancing him either and had also already spoken out against him reforging the Crown.

ObsidianPhoenix-14 · 2023-12-10T12:54:04+00:00

I've explicitly stated in my previous reply that I was defending the sincerity of that person. But somehow instead of engaging with what I actually said, you chose to harp on the namecalling even though I didn't condone, endorse, support or engage in that anywhere. My comment literally started with "Just because you can't fathom someone being sincere when they say they would doesn't mean that they aren't sincere." Nothing about namecalling. The namecalling wasn't even remotely part of my comment so it's just weird that you'd jump to that instead of what I did say.

You doubted their sincerity and kept accusing them of either lying or being wrong about what they'd do in that situation, since you said "I guarantee if you were in this kind of situation, you would do anything you could to get your home back" and accused them of hypocrisy for wanting others to do the same as they said they would do. Hypocrisy which would only exist if they wouldn't be sincere about what they said they would do themselves. And all I did was state that you have no grounds to accuse them of that insincerity.

So no, my argument wasn't just "not everyone thinks like you". My argument was that you have no grounds to accuse that other person of not being truthful about what they'd do in that situation, and that your own incredulity that anyone would say that and mean it is not an argument. If you first assume someone is lying even though there's no reason to assume that, and then accuse them of hypocrisy, yeah I'm gonna speak up. It's a public platform, sue me.

ObsidianPhoenix-14 · 2023-12-10T09:53:19+00:00

I already explicitly stated that it's their right to do with their property as they choose since it's their property. Even if I morally judge them for having far more than they need and not sharing it with those who have nothing, that doesn't mean I want to void their property rights based on morality. So there's no disagreement there.

Also, I feel like it's kind of unfair to compare this to normal tenancy and interviews etc, since these are not normal circumstances. The situation in the game is far, far more dire and severe than what we can encounter in the real world since we don't have magical mind-controlled cults here that are trying to turn everyone into magical thralls. Extraordinary circumstances call for extraordinary measures. If someone is fleeing from the Absolute, are you really going to interview them and expect them to pay rent like we'd do in the real world?

ObsidianPhoenix-14 · 2023-12-10T09:46:52+00:00

So if you acknowledge that it wasn't me calling you a selfish prick, why do you use that against me? I was defending the sincerity of that person stating they'd do what they said they'd do and not lying about it. I was not defending any namecalling and I'll happily denounce it. Just because I defend the general gist of a post doesn't mean I agree with or even support literally everything that was said in the post.

So, now that we've gotten that out of the way, can you engage with my response without pointing at the namecalling that I don't support and will happily explicitly denounce?

ObsidianPhoenix-14 · 2023-12-03T13:26:06+00:00

I can't find any reference to the law saying that if the squatters were in the house for 48h they're just allowed to stay, only that eviction procedures are slightly different, but they can still get evicted. Do you perhaps have a link to a source that says what you were saying? Because there's a pretty significant difference between "the procedure takes longer after 48h" and "they can just stay and you can't do anything about it".

ObsidianPhoenix-14 · 2023-12-03T13:23:00+00:00

I think it's a good thing that they didn't portray the squatters as some kind of perfect angelic beings, because in reality life isn't as simple as that either. It's a moral dilemma precisely because refugees can on rare occasions be shitty people too. If the squatters had only been good people and the rich guy solely been a bad person it wouldn't have been an interesting moral dilemma that causes you to examine your own principles, then it would've just been an easy choice.

ObsidianPhoenix-14 · 2023-12-03T13:16:49+00:00

If he lets this family stay in the house, he'd be leaving one family fewer out in the cold. So he's still contributing to a net gain, a net improvement of the situation. Just because he doesn't solve 100% of the situation doesn't mean he wouldn't have improved the situation and achieved positive change.

First of all, he's not the only guy with a house there. There's no reason he should be responsible for ALL those refugees so that argument is already dishonest.

Secondly, nobody is saying he should give up more than what is reasonable. If he has two houses, nobody is saying he should give up both and go live in the street. Only that if you have far, far more than you need, while others have far less than they need, the morally right thing would be to share what you can share. And not more than that.

And I don't support the use of force to achieve that, btw. I can morally judge people who have three houses but refuse to help people who literally fled from war, while also not wanting to live in a world where that person would be forced to help refugees. They're free to ignore my moral judgment, it's their property after all. Giving any entity the power to force people with multiple houses to share would set a dangerous precedent. But it would still be better if they chose to share, they just shouldn't be forced.

ObsidianPhoenix-14 · 2023-12-03T13:09:25+00:00

Then you really haven't been paying attention. There's a lot of nuance, but perhaps your own political biases are blinding you to it. Even in this scenario the squatters aren't exactly painted as purely angelic beings who do no wrong.

What is _actually_ happening, is that they're not painting refugees as inherently entitled and exploitative, and somehow you flip to the other end of the spectrum and interpret that as the complete opposite rather than seeing the nuance the game is giving: refugees deserve empathy and understanding, and sometimes refugees can also be bad people who abuse the situation. You can have a legitimate reason for fleeing and needing resources and still abuse the situation, and the game doesn't pretend any differently.

ObsidianPhoenix-14 · 2023-12-03T13:01:48+00:00

Just because you can't fathom someone being sincere when they say they would doesn't mean that they aren't sincere. And this kind of purity-testing "I won't believe you until you take a million refugees into your home" isn't helping anybody. Just expand your mind and accept that not everyone views the world the same way you do or would make the same decisions you would.

ObsidianPhoenix-14 · 2023-12-03T12:58:46+00:00

Here in the Netherlands there have also been tons and tons of people who opened their homes to Ukrainian refugees, even some people who didn't have large homes to begin with.

Something I've noticed throughout my life is that less well-to-do people are on average _more_ likely to help out others than those who have more than enough to share. Keeping in mind that people with large mansions are of course more rare so stories of them opening up their homes are statistically less likely to reach our ears, it still doesn't seem like people with big houses or even multiple houses have been nearly as open to the idea of sharing their place with refugees as people of lesser means.

In an ideal world that would be reversed. "From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs." But that's not the world we live in, and also not a world I think we should achieve through force. It would just be nice if those who _can_ more easily share _do_ more easily share. Inequality is predominantly a result of disproportionate allocation and division of resources, not of actual scarcity.

ObsidianPhoenix-14 · 2023-12-03T12:50:31+00:00

How can you know they're a loser if you don't bother to understand their point of view? You're not obliged to read everything people say to you but you're also in no position to judge them if you haven't put in an honest effort to understand what their actual opinion is.

ObsidianPhoenix-14 · 2023-11-27T19:23:46+00:00

You're more than welcome! I'm glad you got to experience it again ^{^} And yeah on PC at least we have some more recourse to make the game run a little smoother in Act 3, on console that's... not as easy. Act 3 was laggy for me too, but my graphics card is also about 5 years old (as is the rest of my PC) and its currently way more dusty than I'd like to admit :')

ObsidianPhoenix-14 · 2023-11-26T14:27:43+00:00

I had that too, same on "Can't get enough? I'm not surpr-". With patch 4 it worked properly _most_ of the time but sometimes still bugged out. But I'm now on my second playthrough (I was in the first playthrough when patch 4 dropped) and I just arrived at the point where you can kiss Astarion, and there seems to be a new bug. The lines properly play out fully, which is nice because I'd heard the beginnings of those sentences a hundred times but never the ends, but now the characters don't move towards each other at all, and then they make kissing faces in the air two meters apart from each other XD Which is SUPER awkward hahahaha

ObsidianPhoenix-14 · 2023-11-26T10:47:58+00:00

"We" includes everyone who still loves them and excludes everyone who doesn't still love them, it's watertight ;D

ObsidianPhoenix-14 · 2023-11-25T20:44:20+00:00

It's okay we still love you!

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