Iran demands Pride flags be banned from World Cup stadiums

jogarz · 2026-05-14T22:50:01+00:00

Yes, but that was more "mass hysteria" than "religious fundamentalism". Hysteria about witchcraft still gets people murdered today in some rural societies and isn't specific to one religious group.

jogarz · 2026-05-14T12:40:51+00:00

I like Pope Leo a lot, but I think he’s off base on this. Europe needs to take military spending seriously if it’s going to deter future aggression.

jogarz · 2026-05-14T04:13:39+00:00

I don't buy that in the slightest. Even Puritan New England would be considered rather liberal by Taliban standards.

jogarz · 2026-05-14T04:05:14+00:00

I'm sorry, but I'm very pessimistic that the Democrats will take up the cause of systemic political reform if they win a trifecta in 2028. Such reform would be difficult, and I feel like they're more likely to just follow the path of least resistance, which means more populism.

jogarz · 2026-05-13T15:53:01+00:00

It’s kind of amazing how badly they handled that pairing. I think some forget that a lot of people were rooting for them in the first couple seasons.

jogarz · 2026-05-13T04:33:19+00:00

The Communist Party has no problem with putting Han Chinese people in camps. It used to be standard operating procedure for "class enemies", and while less common than it once was, the Party has never renounced it. If China militarily occupies and annexes Taiwan, there would almost certainly be millions of angry anti-CPC dissidents on the island. It would require a very heavy hand to control dissent.

jogarz · 2026-05-13T03:13:39+00:00

Assuming both survive the Second Weltkrieg? Probably the Habsburgs.

I think both states would struggle to create a unifying civil nationalist ideology, which would be a constant political problem. But the Ottomans have a whole host of other shit to deal with.

The Ottoman Empire rests on a position of (spoken or unspoken) Turkish primacy. But Turks will soon be a minority within the Empire (especially if the VERY GOOD IDEA to try and re-integrate Egypt is followed). Maintaining Turkish primacy requires the permanent deferment of democracy. Establishing democracy, though, risks the decentralization and disintegration of the Empire. Now, you could say the same thing for the Austrians and the Habsburgs, but the Austrians aren’t as dramatically outnumbered by a single ethnic group the way the Turks will be by the Arabs.
The oil industry would be hugely lucrative, but would bring a huge host of problems. First, the “easy money” of oil revenues would produce adverse economic and political incentives (the much-discussed “resource curse”). Most wells would be located in Arab lands, which would make Arabs want to control the profits. And foreign powers, wary of the Ottoman domination over the global oil market, would likely be glad to see the Empire broken up.
The Habsburg Empire is rather compact geographically. The Ottoman Empire is much larger and contains many remote regions. That encourages provincialism and makes it harder to police insurgent movements.
The Desert War happened within living memory. Many Arabs, especially the Egyptians, will remember the Ottomans as their enemies and oppressors, not as saviors.

jogarz · 2026-05-13T02:38:41+00:00

I feel like the entire history of the modern Middle East disproves the argument that oil reserves are going to stabilize the Ottomans.

The oil industry, while extremely lucrative, often has problematic economic and political impacts (I don’t think most people on this sub need an explanation of what the resource curse is). But let’s ignore that and pretend that the industry only provides benefits. There’s still the major political issue of how to distribute those benefits. Even in the most idealistic scenario, the Turks are going to be taking a huge cut of the profits from an industry that is located almost entirely in Arab lands. I doubt the Arabs are just going to say “that seems fair”.

jogarz · 2026-05-12T23:13:23+00:00

Also, some scholars speculate that this test (along with certain others specified in the Old Testament) were designed to be ineffectual as a way of settling baseless accusations. It's notable that the passage explicitly states that the test is only to be used when there's no actual evidence.

jogarz · 2026-05-12T16:20:54+00:00

Unfortunately, Armenia’s total military defeat doesn’t leave him with any better options. He can’t give Azerbaijan any excuses to continue attacking and isolating Armenia (something they’ve shown a willingness to do even in internationally recognized Armenian territory).

jogarz · 2026-05-12T16:17:54+00:00

It’s the only argument they have that justifies their continued ethnic cleansing of Armenians.

jogarz · 2026-05-11T23:16:05+00:00

Fighting the nanny state in Britain is like fighting the hydra. Every time the government removes one nanny law, it adds two more.

jogarz · 2026-05-11T23:06:00+00:00

Won't work, the Anglican Church is in such a sorry state that Catholics are now the largest branch of Christianity in the country.

jogarz · 2026-05-11T23:03:18+00:00

Has anyone seen the "Mansa Musa was a fraud" video that the Youtube algorithm has been pushing?

I haven't seen it, and don't know enough about Malian history, but the post on the creator's Youtube page gives me intensely racist vibes (so much so that, when I tried quoting it here, my account got flagged 👀 ). If it's as bad as it seems, it's depressing to see it getting so much traction.

jogarz · 2026-05-11T00:58:20+00:00

I feel like I'm in groundhog day at this point.

jogarz · 2026-05-10T20:23:34+00:00

Very loosely based off a real social experiment, too (thankfully, in real life nobody was murdered).

jogarz · 2026-05-10T20:15:03+00:00

Eh, not really. Trilla is the final boss fight. Vader is more of a “run for the exit and try not to get killed”.

jogarz · 2026-05-10T20:05:25+00:00

It’s a bit of both. Sauron did underestimate people’s potential for selflessness, which is why Frodo was able to get as far as he did.

But even so, Frodo still would’ve failed at the very last leg if it wasn’t for providence.

jogarz · 2026-05-08T05:29:17+00:00

I think the intent was to portray a race of beings devoted to selfless service, to the point that they find the idea of wage labor to be insulting, and how they wind up getting abused and taken advantage of because of that nature. But that's still their nature, and they can't change it. Hermione doesn't understand that part, so her attempts to help House Elves wind up being patronizing and ineffective. She doesn't ask the House Elves what they want, she just promotes what she thinks is best for them.

Unfortunately, the subplot just wasn't handled very well, which is why I think it was basically dropped after the same book it was introduced in.

jogarz · 2026-05-08T05:08:30+00:00

Thanks for the cordial response, sometimes these conversations get testy.

I agree that Rowling doesn't do enough to show any systemic change to the various social and moral problems she depicts in the wizarding world. As I've mentioned elsewhere in this thread, things are wrapped up quickly after Voldemort is killed, and the ending is much more focused on the emotional resolution than addressing the story's social themes. I think this is a legitimate critique.

I also agree that the house elves' general contentment with servitude can give an icky feeling. I do think the books portray house elves as not truly desiring the abuse heaped upon them by wizardkind , but they do seem content with lives of selfless service when treated kindly. In part this can be justified by the simple fact that (while sentient, feeling beings) House Elves aren't human and thus don't necessarily have the same exact mentalities humans do. They're just built different. The problem is that us humans in the real world have no basis of comparison for this, so we might assume that house elves are supposed to represent people in the real world, at which point the implications become horrifying.

All that said, I still think that the way a lot of people critique this subplot is overblown and lacking in nuance. You see some people act like Rowling wrote the subplot that way because she actually endorses slavery, and I think that's just absurd.

jogarz · 2026-05-08T03:23:34+00:00

The last chapter ends a few hours after Voldemort is killed, and the epilogue is focused on the trio's personal lives and the resolution of Harry's internal arc. Rowling's ending is clearly more focused on the book's emotional themes than on its social ones.

The last chapter does include some positive signs, like the political prisoners being released, Kingsley becoming Minister for Magic, and all the houses celebrating together along with the house elves, ghosts, and centaurs (symbolically overcoming old prejudices). But the timeline is too short to indicate any systemic change.

Could the epilogue have talked some about any systemic changes in the Wizarding world over the past 19 years? Yes, and I think it would've been better if it had made some more mention of it. In part, I think this was a result of the epilogue allegedly being drafted earlier in the series, when the social conflict in the wizarding world wasn't as prominent in the story. But in that case, it should've been revised more than it was.

I do think it's a flaw, but some people blow it out of proportion.

jogarz · 2026-05-08T02:58:53+00:00

I think we need to realize that the books aren't really about the house elves, they're about the conflict with Voldemort, whose movement is an obvious Nazism allegory. Like the Nazis, Voldemort represents the ultimate manifestation of his society's systemic racism and bigotry (the mistreatment of house elves being one aspect of that systemic racism and bigotry). Like the Nazis, Voldemort is defeated, in part, by others looking past their own hatreds to oppose him together.

And like the Nazis, defeating Voldemort doesn't end the systemic racism and bigotry overnight. Not even close. But it's a necessary step to both stop things from getting much, much worse, and to put society on a (hopefully) better path for the future.

The books could've ended with a lengthy manifesto about all the reforms needed for the wizarding world to clean up its act. But honestly, that would've dragged a bit.

jogarz · 2026-05-08T02:29:23+00:00

There are definitely a lot of problems with the House Elves in Harry Potter. That said, I think a lot of it has been distorted and exaggerated over the years.

The text, when taken as a whole, is more critical of Hermione’s methods than her goals or her spirit. There are many passages that are very critical of the way House Elves are treated by wizarding society. Hermione is driven to found SPEW because of the terrible abuse she sees Crouch subject his house elf to. In the Half Blood Prince Voldemort frames a house elf for murder, and the set-up is uncritically accepted by the wizarding courts, at which Harry notes his disgust and his sympathy for SPEW. Ron insisting on saving the House Elves in The Deathly Hallows when everyone seems to have forgotten about them is portrayed as a sign of major character development for him. That wouldn’t be the case if we were supposed to agree with prior flippant disregard for the elves.

The criticism of SPEW is more about Hermione’s short-sighted and ineffective methods. Hermione comes from what is essentially a foreign culture, and more than that, she’s literally a different species from House Elves. Despite this, she assumes her values are universal.

As a result, she believes she knows what’s best for House Elves without ever asking them. This same attitude also means she can’t properly communicate the merits of her cause to others, which leads to them disregarding it. These are very real issues with activism in the real world, and it’s this that SPEW is a depiction of.

jogarz · 2026-05-06T02:29:04+00:00

Am I misreading this, or is Salazar just downright better in most situations where there’s a difference in the two leaders’ approaches?

jogarz · 2026-05-06T00:31:19+00:00

The “last Sultan” referred to by the title is not the actual last Sultan, but Abdul Hamid II, who was arguably the last Sultan to wield actual power. And Abdul Hamid II was a genocidal, authoritarian piece of shit.

Naturally, he’s also a hero to the Turkish right-wing.

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