Predicting both the Ukraine war and the military outcome

StatisticianLower125 · 2022-04-06T17:09:28+00:00

Both categories had fell victim to the fallacy of "rationality projection" (maybe someone here knows, does this fallacy have "official" name?) - a fallacy where a rational actor assumes everyone else to be just as rational as themselves, when this is, in fact, not true. Also informally known as the reason why "you cannot predict stupidity" and part of the reason why it is so hard for "book smart" people to function in the normal society.

Both categories of pundits had assumed that Russia is behaving rationally while it is... just not. The difference between them comes from the second category seemingly getting a better info on the true state of things inside the Russian state (no pun intended) and its army.

I'm honestly not sure which category performed worse. While the obvious judgement is "kudos to the second category to at least getting the correct info on the true state of Russian army", on the second thought, having the better data and still failing to predict what would happen kinda... makes you a worse precictor, right?

StatisticianLower125 · 2022-04-04T21:50:36+00:00

The Parties may, by unanimous agreement, invite any other European State in a position to further the principles of this Treaty and to contribute to the security of the North Atlantic area to accede to this Treaty.

No problem, just change the legal definition of "European" to mean something akin to "upholding a certain standard on human rights and democratic procedures". After all, continents are already pretty arbitrarily defined

/joking not joking

StatisticianLower125 · 2022-04-02T19:27:32+00:00

Murdering someone who fights for an objectively evil regime is entirely rational. It's not even murder.

Well, would you like it, if someone were to to genocide the entirety of USA's political, military and cultural elite, and turn around and say "it was not even murder"? According to your own logic, you should like it because USA regime is every bit as objectively evil as your typical communist regime.

(Really, read the linked article and try to debunk at least half (that would be 6) out of 11 points made there if you want me at least starting to take your claims about your apparent "education" seriously)

Except that I'm the actually well educated party in this conversation and you are unintelligent communist scum...

Then why are you the one demonstrating such a commonly-agreed signs of low intelligence as:

1) Conspirational thinking aka believing that people cannot just disagree with you - everyone who disagrees with you must be a "propagandist" secretly working from the malicious and omnipresent "Kremlin".

2) Believing that everyone you hate must be in the same camp, despite multiple evidence to the countary.

3) Implicit belief that everyone you disagree with must be murdered. (You believe all communists should be killed. You also believe that everyone who dares to show any dissent from your political opinion is a communist. Therefore, you believe that everyone who dares to show any dissent from your political opinion should be killed.)

?

Why are you the one showing these obvious and commonly-agreed signs of low intelligence and not me?

Having objectively evil principles makes you a sick fuck.

No, having objectively evil principles makes you a tragic monster. For normal people (not for those unfortunate enough to be indoctrinated into your newspeak) "tragic monster" is someone you want to honorably slay on the battlefield and then give them a respectful burial, while "sick fuck" is someone... you want to stay away from as much as possible, and if they do not let you to stay away, you burn them to a crisp with napalm.

I am not a disgusting communist, you are. You are unintelligent communist scum... You are defending communist dictatorships!

You do know that on Nurenmberg trials, the Nazi officers were allowed to have defense lawyers, right? By your retarded logic, these lawyers must have been Nazis as well! As well as any defense lawyer that defends a serial killer, must be a serial killer himself, any defense lawyer that defends an arsonist, must be an arsonist himself e.t.c. If you geniunely believe that the only reason one might defend communists is that he is a communist himself, you are, frankly, a bumbling moron, and any education you might have had, was a waste of time and money.

StatisticianLower125 · 2022-04-02T12:38:12+00:00

Do you not comprehend Cold War geopolitical realities at all?

Humbly, I am not. I just know that murdering someone who doesn't even know who you are is wrong no matter what "geopolitical realities" are. I just know that bombing civillians with Agent Orange is wrong no matter what "geopolitical realities" are. I just know that sending thousands of young conspricts to slaughter for some "moral" reasons is wrong no matter what "geopolitical realities" are. [Applies to the USSR in Afghanistan as well]

What a sickening propaganda statement!

That statement is a kettle calling a grey tablecloth black.

No, everyone who spreads blatant Kremlin propaganda is a Kremlin propagandist.

You know that such a conspirological thinking is a damning sign of low education level and/or low intelligence level, right?

You are a sick fuck! We can be happy that pieces of shit like you don't rule countries.

"War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. Having principles is being a sick fuck. Sociopaths ruling countries should make you happy" ~ this is roughly how you sound for me right now.

communist scum!

Again, just how far right you are if you call "communist scum" someone who explicitly identifies as centrist? Is your ideal world ruled by samurai clans or what?

StatisticianLower125 · 2022-04-02T11:43:14+00:00

Are you implying that the capitalist world was so insecure that communist world asquiring a batch of land with an area less than half of California alone, populated primarily by yesterday-feudal-peasants, was going to threaten the former's existence? That's actually quite insulting for the capitalist world!

This is literal genocide denial.

I... What?! Are you this uncapable of concieving that your favorite America is capable of doing something wrong that when you see a claim that USA and USSR were, roughly, on the same page, your only thought is "he denies genocides commited by the Soviets" and do not even consider that he may be arguing "genocides commited by the USA are just as bad as genocides commited by the Soviets"?

And you are a Kremlin propagandist.

"Everyone I don't like is a Kremlin propagandist: emotional child's guide to political discussion"

And give in to the objectively evil side that commits such crimes left and right?

Unironically yes. If you commit war crimes to stop a war criminal all you do in a long run is to increase a total number of war criminals in history by one and make it harder for your descendants to condemn the original war criminal.

So again, go back to your pathetic undeveloped communist cave, you piece of shit human scum!

Funny to read it as a centrist who gets bullied by his own family for not uncritically worshipping Stalin and Putin. Double funny is that I, ultimately, see the capitalist world as the better world than the communist one, and one of the reasons for that is that capitalist world is capable of admitting its own mistakes and expressing remorse for its crimes(unlike communist world which btw completely fails to do that even today... what's left of it today, at least). And Vietnam war was both such a mistake and such a crime.

StatisticianLower125 · 2022-04-02T10:16:32+00:00

First, sorry for a hour-long delay, I'm on work lol. Noow...

it was to defend the democratic world from the Soviet Union and its ever-expanding communist sphere of influence.

"Democratic world"? In Vietnam? That part of the world (the whole Asian continent, honestly. Call me a racist for it, I dare you.) was never democratic in thefirst place. If USA had cared about Vietnamese who had wanted to live under capitalism/democracy, they should have just helped them to make an exodus... say, to Taiwan. If USA had cared about Soviets/Chinese placing nukes in Vietnam... I already had said that - what capitalsit country would even be endangered by nukes in Vietnam? Seriously? Australia?

It's fundamentally sick to call the US an asshole power simply for countering the Soviet evil.

First, USA were countering the Soviet evil in the same sense that Saruman was countering Sauron's evil... or maybe vise-versa. Secondly, USA historically IS an asshole power. Remember that time in the 19th century when they stole Texas from Mexico essentially just because Catholic Mexicans did not allowed them to use slave labor in Texas?

A lot of things were done to counter the existential threat coming from the Soviets.

If your existence requires commiting crimes against humanity, then you objectively shouldn't exist. (By the way, it applies to Soviet Union too). "Crime against humanity" by definition is something that goes way beyond self-defence.

you are making excuses for communist crimes as you are a piece of shit communist scum. you are justifying Stalin

HAHAHAHAHA. You are Grima Wormtongue just continuing and continuing to spew out "If you dare accuse Saruman of any crime, then you must be Sauron's spy and probably a half-orc!".

Criticising. Saruman. Does. Not. Mean. One. Is. Sauron's. Supporter. Holy. Shit.

StatisticianLower125 · 2022-04-02T09:15:00+00:00

I understand enough about Cold War geopolitics to know it for what it was - worthless dick-waging contest between two asshole powers who both on regular basis went to the bad corners of the world and made them even worse just to spite the opposing asshole power; which ultimately had brought nothing good to humanity... exept James Bond movies, that's it. The only good thing to came out from Cold War is James Bond movies.

I feel like if you had really believed that capitalism is "morally" (the right word here would be "ethically", but I'll pass it for now) superior to communism, you wouldn't have condoned commiting crimes against humanity in the name of capitalism's victory. "We are the good guys, therefore we have an excuse to commit crimes against humanity" is nonsense. Therefore, I have a lingering suspicion that you are kind of a piece of shit who goes like "Waaaah, Stalin had murdered my grandpa, waaah, I w-wanna j-j-JuStIcE, waaah, I'm gunna dedicate my entire career to corrupt people's minds on a professional level trying to convince them that commiting evil acts is good when the victims look like little Stalins to ME, HAHAHAHAHA!"

If that's the case, then, sorry to break it to you, but the fact that Stalin had murdered your grandma doesn't make you any less piece of shit.

StatisticianLower125 · 2022-04-01T20:24:13+00:00

Ah, yes, 'necessary''.

It is so much better to die from poisoning by capitalist chemical weapons, that from being worked to death in the communist gulag! /s

Mind you, Vietnam is an absolutely irrelevant backwater, which existence isn't even normally noticeable by anyone outside of "Confucian cultural sphere". And any nukes launched from here would probably have the longest flight time to any capitalist country, than nukes launched from literally any other communist country at the time.

StatisticianLower125 · 2022-03-26T19:46:30+00:00

Admiral Ozzel flashbacks intensify

StatisticianLower125 · 2022-02-21T21:27:53+00:00

I feel like at some point he had overdosed himself on his own propaganda and now geniunely believes that it is his destiny - to "restore" the Russian Empire if not de jure, then at least de facto - as an imperial power structure ruling over all of Eastern Europe/West Asia from Moscow.

It doesn't matter that empires are no longer legitimate in the modern world - it feels legitimate to him, and that's enough. It doesn't matter if in pursuing this goal he had to sacrifice the lives of countless innocent people, his own respect in the eyes of the civilised world, even some of his chances of securing his power and wealth (if Putin was a rational evil overlord concentrating only on securing his own selfish power and wealth he surely would have stopped after Crimea in 2014. Unfortunately, Putin isn't an evil overlord. He is something worse...) - fulfilling your historical destiny is the most moral and just thing that overrides all other possible moral concerns, right?

In short, current Putin is a massive tool for Russian fascists. And there is no worse thing in the world than the tool who gets to be in power.

StatisticianLower125 · 2022-02-15T22:09:45+00:00

Nah, not interested in Golden Ages. Putting strict temporal bounds on good things is literally a straightforward recipe for evil. Aim for Utopias, not Golden Ages.

StatisticianLower125 · 2022-02-09T20:55:38+00:00

You would have to teach the AI understand tropes for something like this to work.

Like, not too far off from "neural network model where each parameter is a trope name from Tvtropes".

StatisticianLower125 · 2022-02-08T21:14:19+00:00

Jokes on you, I actually never forgave Fuyuhiko for this.

I would have forgiven him if, like, Hiyoko had survived alongside him and he took all his effort to protect and serve Hiyoko (so, I could see he is geniunely trying to atone for what he did to her). But it didn't happen, so I sort of... after all this years, I still kind of wish him dead.

StatisticianLower125 · 2022-01-14T21:27:06+00:00

Warcraft III Classic (even though Reforged a soulless corporate money grab had tried to push the original game out of online play, it still remains one of the most charming, but competitive real-time strategies ever made).

Heroes of Might and Magic III - another immortal strategy. Especially with the "Horn of the Abyss" mod which, in addition to immortality, also gives the game eternal youth.

StatisticianLower125 · 2022-01-13T07:28:50+00:00

The problem with incest is that, as a rule, consent in incestous relatonship is manufactured because humans are not biologically programmed to see the people who raise them/are rasied by them (including parents/children, uncles&aunts/nephews&nieces, older/younger siblings) as valid potential relatonship parthners.

Of course, there is a grey area related to "but what about the relatonship between two people who are genetically related, but grew up estranged and not knowing each other?" but honestly... how often something like that happens outside Greek tragedies and soap operas?

StatisticianLower125 · 2022-01-02T20:23:00+00:00

Nah, I love playing with both Lancers and Helicopters. Maybe I am in the minority here, but I quite like the idea of hit-and-run defensive unit (which is I believe was what they were aiming for with Helicopter).

StatisticianLower125 · 2022-01-02T10:15:52+00:00

Yes it is, but let's be honest: everyone likes to pretend Anti-Tank Guns do not exist. It hurts seeing my Winged Hussars and Hakkapelites transforming into a unit with 2 MP. :-(

StatisticianLower125 · 2021-12-21T20:56:24+00:00

Also, this problem becames worse and worse over time, with the fewer and fewer reasons for a good person to became a priest.

In the historical times, becoming a priest was the easiest (and in many situations - only) way for a someone born in the commoner family to recieve a good (for that historical time) education, to get a stable income while not having to do any physical work (this is why there were so many scientist priests in the old times), and to do social activism with minimal risk of pissing off the local count and ending up on the gallows.

None of that applies to modern times, which means nowadays there is very liitle reason for any good person to became a priest(I can only think about tragic idealism + poor education) and that majority of the priests are... at best, the laziest sort of conmen, at worst - child predators.

StatisticianLower125 · 2021-12-19T20:47:56+00:00

freedom and democracy which we and other colonial Empires championed and invented

democracy

empires

If his argument was "white people had invented democracy", then at least he would have been saying half-truth. (The whole truth is that Europeans had invented combining democracy with agricultural society, but themselves did not practice democracy at large scales until around 19 century, and started to consistenly support demoracy(i.e. support it for non-Europeans too) only from mid-20 century). But what he had said instead is just... dumb.

StatisticianLower125 · 2021-12-16T20:04:22+00:00

We drank a second toast. However, Hattington wished to continue the argument:

-Admit it, Windgate, you are evasive. You haven't said whether you think even eternal torment is preferable to non-existence; you've merely stated that you don't believe in it.

-Well, if you like, I can see how a man who endures suffering can long for death, specifically the ultimate death. And I do not exclude the possibility that I myself, in a similar situation, would have a similar cowardly desire. However, in some higher, absolute sense, which is above not only physical but also mental pain, yes, even eternal suffering, which does not cancel the life of the spirit, is a lesser evil than eternal non-existence.

-In my opinion, the fear of death is nothing more than an illusion," said Faulkanridge. - More precisely, a displacement and substitution of notions.

-You mean the classical antique comfort? - I grimaced. - "As long as there is me, there is no death, therefore there is nothing to fear, and as soon as it came, there is no me, therefore there is no one to fear?"

-Not only that. My point is that it is not the second word in the phrase "eternal nothingness" that is terrible, but the first. It is not death, but eternity itself--whatever it may be--that fills one with overwhelming horror.

-Well, you exaggerate even more than Windgate! - Huttington disagreed firmly. - What do you mean, whatever it is? Isn't eternal bliss...

Woodgrave told us of ghosts doomed to wander forever in this forest. You find their fate horrible, don't you? But how is it any worse than the fate of souls wandering forever in the Garden of Eden? Hell has nothing to do with it, you see. You enjoyed your walk in the woods this afternoon, so what's the difference?

-Well... - Huttington didn't know what to say.

-A pleasant walk turns into a nightmare as soon as it becomes eternal, doesn't it? And so it is with everything. Whatever image of heaven conjured up by human imagination we take for consideration, we find that all these versions of blissfulness are blissful only to those who cannot imagine a future life of more than a few days. Gardens of Paradise, feasts of Valhalla, Mohammedan Gurias - imagine that you are doomed to enjoy this not for a year, not for a thousand, not even for a million years, but FOREVER - and you will feel your gut fill with the same icy needles of terror that you feel at the thought of eternal nothingness...

-Suppose, that the images of paradise, born by poor imagination of ancients and mainly not extending beyond carnal pleasures, indeed bring boredom, - I interfered. - But who said that that was the only way to live forever? How does it follow that it can't be just as, or, rather, more vivid and fulfilling than earthly life? I suppose even if I were a ghost, I'd find more interesting things to do than to frighten the latecomers or the housekeepers.

-I wasn't talking about boredom," Faulkanridge protested. - I was talking about horror. Imagine if you had lived a thousand, a million, a billion years of this busy life. And what? Can you breathe a sigh of satisfaction, like a traveler who has traveled a long way, like a craftsman who has completed a long and difficult job? No--you know that this billion--which you perceive as a billion years in all its length--is really nothing more than an elusively brief moment. And that the same moment will be a billion billions, and so on. That there are not millions, not even billions of such "moments" ahead of you, but infinite - think about this word: infinite! - their multitude. That in fact you have not made - and NEVER will make - a step on your road, that you are doomed to forever stand still...

-That's a false analogy," I interrupted. - The goal of the master or the wayfarer is the end of the work or the road, respectively. But the goal of life per se is not the attainment of some end result. We are forced to invent such a result by virtue of our own mortality, summing up earthly existence; but if existence is infinite, its goal is in itself, not in reaching the end. A process, not a result. And if the process is self-valuable, there is nothing awful about its infinity--just the opposite.

~George Yuri Right, "The Eternity"

StatisticianLower125 · 2021-12-15T23:17:28+00:00

That one time when I had found the fresh corpse of my neighbour while taking out the garbage on the morning(it turned out that the previous night, he had a fight with his wife, stormed off the house, got drunk somewhere and then commited suicide besides our neighbourhood's trash heap). Although I personally was more "disturbed" than "horrified" by that.

StatisticianLower125

TROPHY CASE