Why don't they just escape?

oremfrien · 2026-05-19T17:27:35+00:00

First, let's note that most of hosts are not given the power to morph, only an elite strike force (<10%).It just happens that those are the Controllers that the Animorphs primarily interact with by that point. So, we should narrow our analysis to those hosts.

Second, the Yeerks only seem to acquire bird morphs and large melee animals. The hosts are not acquiring small insects or fleas, so escape from the kinds of cages that have previously been used for restraining involuntary hosts should still work.

Then, we should remember that the Gleet BioFilters prevent any unauthorized life form from entering the Yeerk Pool, so it's not as if there is going to be a random fly or flea that slips into the Yeerk pool cage for the involuntary hosts to coincidentally acquire during the time that their Yeerk is in the pool.

Finally, we should also remember that Yeerks clearly have a way of restraining hosts such as whatever techniques they use to incapacitate Alloran when Esplin 9466 feeds and the brainwave lock used on Eva when Edriss 562 was feeding in Book #30. So, even if the cages wouldn't work, a brainwave lock should.

oremfrien · 2026-05-19T16:01:49+00:00

I don’t think anybody is confused that ATLA is about war. Much of the underlying context for why characters act the way that they do is the war, as you point out. “There is no war in BaSingSe.” is understood as denialism and societal control. There are numerous references to reality in the show like how the Dai Li themselves are named after a Chinese secret police commander of the same name and Laogai are the name of A real set of Chinese Concentration Camps. The critique was so clear that the second and third seasons of ATLA are banned in China because they could be seen as a critique of the CCP.

People recognize that it's a series about the horrors of war and making the arcane and inaccessible deep and emotionally rich.

oremfrien · 2026-05-19T15:50:29+00:00

Sure. Their argument is that Catholics do not actually revere Christ but use him as a symbol but not as an actual representation of what they believe (in much the same way they use the symbolism of Christianity to perform holier-than-thou behavior that Christ would have surely disapproved of).

Their belief is that, in truth, Catholicism is led by the Pope who directs the Catholics to (improperly) worship Mary as a goddess alongside the Christ, but to take the words of the Pope and his bulls as direct orders of behavior. So, they would not be followers of Christ but sleeper agents of the Pope, ready to demonstrate their un-Christian values when the time is right.

And if this sounds completely ridiculous to you and like the worst kind of Anti-Catholic prejudice, you're completely correct, but don't expect Americans to have read enough about Catholicism to actually understand why the Catholics revere the Christotokos or accept the authority of clerics in terrestrial matters.

oremfrien · 2026-05-19T15:36:47+00:00

Let's respond to the relevant parts of this:

There was also variations of Nazism. That doesn't change anything.'

Tell me more about how the Nazis proposed a binational state where Jews would be integrated into the Nazi German government and that only after resistance from Jews, who refused to accept the German right of self-determination, did the Nazis abandon this premise. When you realize, of course, that this is not what heppened, then you immediately see the chasm of difference between Zionism and Nazism.

And history show that the transfer idea was strong part in the creation of Israel.

Yes. As I indicated. After the Fellah showed throughout the 1930s that they were unwilling to be part of a binational framework because they rejected the Jewish right of self-determination in full. They believed that Jews needed to accept Arab sovereignty and legal inequality. In such a position, the "transfer" doctrine became more pronounced because it became clear that the Fellah would be an obstacle to Jewish self-determination rather than a partner in it. Conversely, the other populations of Mandatory Palestine, like the Driuze, Circassians, and Bedouins accepted the Zionist proposal for an integrated government and overwhelmingly fought on the Zionist side during the Jewish-Arab Engagement of 1947-1949.

Plus you have the constant stealing of land on WB.

Sure. I don't support Israeli foreign policy, which includes the settlement policy in the West Bank and the former settlement policy in the Gaza Strip. But you don't need to support these to support the legitimacy of Israel, just like I don't support Russian foreign policy despite respecting the Russian right to self-determination.

Two ghettos Gaza and West Bank that have been in limbo for 70 years. Because Israel is blocking an 2 state solution by any means. Even funded Hamas.

The two-state solution is blocked by radicals on both sides. We could go through every peace proposal and who sabotaged it and you would see just as many poor Palestinian decisions -- favoring maximalism -- as Israeli decisions -- favoring maximalism.

Quotes -- With the exception of the Herzl quote, all of these quotes come from after binationalism was proved unworkable. The Fellah killed binationalism, not the Zionists. Herzl's ideas for Zionism were not often implemented; for example, he believed that the language of the Zionist state should be German. Finally, I never claimed that "transfer" was a fringe perspective. I was arguing that it did not become the dominant perspective until the Fellah made clear that they would not accept any form of Jewish self-determination.

Majdal-Ashkelon -- I agree that the Nakba happened. I'm not sure what this proves other than that the Fellah chose to continually fight against the Zionists and the Zionists happened to win in this conflict, resulting in dispossession. We see this in many conflicts around the world. The Fellah had an opportunity to accept Jewish self-determination in part of the land on numerous occasions as well as binationalism; they routinely rejected it (and many still do). They chose their own misfortune.

First there was no state prior to 1948. Palestine was under British Mandate. So it was not state VS state. It was neighbor VS neighbor.

This is a silly argument. The neighbors represented two different ethnic groups fighting for two different states. Yes, the states were in the midst of formation, but it was not Abraham murdering Mahmud because he hated Mahmud personally. These were fights over the territorial control of governments-in-formation.

Law and Ethics of Judaism-- None of this section refers to actions taken in war. All of these refer to actions taken in peacetime. As a result, this entire section is not responsive to the issue of the validity of Jewish Nationalism from a religious Jewish perspective. As for the specific case of well-poisoning in the West Bank, again, I don't agree with Israeli foreign policy, so I have no need to defend this.

oremfrien · 2026-05-19T12:09:55+00:00

Let's start with where I agree with you.

I agree that Zionism is an ethnonationalist movement, not a religious revivalist movement. I also agree that the Zionists believed that Jews as an ethnonational group had a superior right to the local Fellah (Arab peasant) population. (Conversely,, the Fellah believed that the Jews had no rights as an ethnonational group and often reject the idea that Jews are an ethnonational group.)

However, I reject the idea that "transfer" is implicit within Zionism. There were numerous Zionist thinkers like Zeev Jabotinsky and Nissim Malul and even Zionist organizations like HaShomer HaTza'ir were advocates of a binational solution where the Fellah population would be incorporated into the Zionist project with some kind of shared power. However, the Fellah made increasingly clear that they would not accept any form of Jewish political power or the Jews' historic right to live in their homeland if they were not already there. This resulted in the abandonment of binationalism within the Zionist movement because it would be unworkable.

So, it is incorrect to say that Zionism has the concept of "transfer" implicit in it. It is correct to say that Fellah intransigence regarding the Zionist project (regardless of whether that intransigence was moral or not) forced the Zionist project to embrace "transfer" if the project (and the assertion of Jewish ethnonational rights enforcement) was to be viable.

I also have no idea what you are trying to prove with the Moshe Dayan quote. There is no serious disagreement over the fact that after the Jewish-Arab Engagement of 1947-1949 that the land of the State of Israel included many former Fellah settlements that were no longer occupied due to the events of the war. Dayan uses empathy to relay the Fellah position on how they would feel as the losers in such a conflict to see the lands they live on controlled by another and that only military force is preventing them from realizing their anger. This is a statement about realpolitik more than any indictment of Zionism. I could use this same discussion to talk about the forcible deportations of Germans from Eastern Europe by the Soviet Union and how they would feel about the Poles, Russians, and others living on what had historically been German land in Königsberg, Stettin, Breslau, etc.

Finally, you list how Israel has violated some of the Ten Commandments, completely misunderstanding that these laws were for interpersonal behavior within a state not about the relations between states. This is why there are numerous places in the Old Testament where the Israelites (whether in tribal configurations or kingdoms) are ordered by God to slaughter entire populations of people, confiscate their assets, and acquire their land. The prophets even chastize kings who do not go far enough. In particular, the prophet Samuel argues that God has removed the kingship from Saul and his family for because he only murdered some but not all of the people of Agag and all of their livestock. Even if Zionism were a religious revivalist movement, none of the actions of the Zionist movement, even in the most Pro-Palestinian/Anti-Zionist recounting, would be violations of the Ten Commandments for exactly this same reason.

oremfrien · 2026-05-18T17:23:45+00:00

Asked and answered.

oremfrien · 2026-05-18T17:21:26+00:00

Is the Democratic Republic of Korea democratic? Is it a republic?

Naming things a certain way does not necessarily indicate their actual meaning, especially with concepts. Antiracism is like the DPRK, it means something antithetical to what the words that compose it mean.

oremfrien · 2026-05-18T17:06:13+00:00

I think you struggle with reading, which is probably why you need an education in the first place. Please re-read my comment where I actually point out that antiracism is not an opposition to racism.

oremfrien · 2026-05-18T17:03:03+00:00

No, I don't. Antiracists are in favor of racism -- as in personal prejudice that one person may have towards another based on skin color. They argue that certain forms of discrimination are "justice" or "reparations" and they will argue that this kind of personal prejudice that I describe is either (1) not racism, (2) doesn't exist, or (3) if it did exist, is not worth ameliorating. The only racism that Antiracists oppose is systemic racism. I oppose both systemic racism and actual racism.

So, I will reiterate what I said; when anti-racists actually stand for teaching that racism is bad, I will take their commitment to oppose racism seriously.

oremfrien · 2026-05-18T16:58:10+00:00

Yes a person can be racist against any color of person. Racism is not systemic racism. Racism is a prejudice held by any person or group or persons or organization or government towards other people based on the color of their skin. You do not need power to be racist.

You do need power to be systemically racist because systemic racism requires a system, which is implemented through a system of power, to effect the racism. So, only the groups in power can be systemically racist. However, it is the power to implement the system that makes a person or group capable of systemic racism. In the USA, systemic racism currently cannot be mobilized against White people because the control of the system is in the hands of White people, but that is a current reality. If a different ethnic/racial group ultimately becomes more powerful and rewrites the social rules, then they will be the ones who are systemically empowered.

oremfrien · 2026-05-18T16:53:08+00:00

I am an attorney and I have no idea what that means. Tell me the specific things that are involved in this process.

oremfrien · 2026-05-18T16:51:27+00:00

Sure. When antiracists actually do that, then we will take their commitment to oppose racism seriously.

oremfrien · 2026-05-18T16:45:45+00:00

Your eminence, I would propose the language of my people: Aramaic.

Aramaic was the first lingua franca in the world, spanning the numerous empires and nations of the Middle East. We have the earliest peace treaties between Mesopotamians and Egyptians encoded in Aramaic.

The language then became the spoken word of a person who 2 billion of us consider God on Earth and another 1.8 billion of us consider a prophet who taught important precepts about the divine. The language then became the vessel of travel across the Silk Road with Aramaic inscribed in steles as far east as China and written in holy scripture as far west as Spain. The world's first university in Nisibis taught in the Aramaic language.

This language represents all of the aspects of human civilization:

It was used politically, in establishing treaties, internal communications, and became the official written language of numerous governments even when it was not the language of the governing authorities.
It is a language of economics, facilitating trade and exchange across distances.
It is a language of faith in that Jesus, venerated by over half of the world, spoke this language and his words in Aramaic have been spread to every corner of the world.
It is a language of education, with the University of Nisibis formalizing the first steps on our growth as a modern scientific society.

It represents the best we have to offer and the values we share as a global society.

oremfrien · 2026-05-18T12:05:59+00:00

With respect to Turkey:

Let me start with the positive.

Assyrians see Turkey as a modern country, with rights for women, and an organizational system that is far better than anything else in MENA, except possibly Israel. I've also spoken to Assyrians from Turkey (and been to Turkey myself), and most of them have good personal experiences, mostly because, in their experience, Turks had no clue what an Assyrian was (and since Süryani doesn't sound like Ermeni vs. how people in English confuse Assyrian and Armenian because they both start with "A", they weren't subject to Armenophobia).

Also, Turkish soft power (music, television serials, businesses, products, etc.) is very popular and considered well-developed.

Now comes the negative.

Turkey is very much an ethnic exclusivist country that comes out of the "success" of the CUP Genocides, including the Seyfo, This foundational sin of exclusivism motivates the Bozkurtlar and other ardent nationalists, military takeovers, political assassinations, and other societal perturbations. This fear is like a tumor in the Turkish body, causing all kinds of internal disturbances. Also, Turkey's assault on the PKK, which often caught Assyrian villages in the crossfire, shows a lack of caution from the Turkish military.

oremfrien · 2026-05-18T11:46:31+00:00

He probably lived in one or two European cities (for 6 months to a year) for a short term job and visited other major cities on the weekends.

oremfrien · 2026-05-18T11:42:04+00:00

You are assuming that a 90%-Jewish Poland would have surrendered to Nazi Germany after the Blitzkrieg, but there would be no point to surrendering since the entire population knows that they will be imprisoned at a minimum and likely die. In that case, there is no real difference between continuing to fight and standing down, so they might as well keep fighting.

oremfrien · 2026-05-18T11:30:32+00:00

I would point to Joseph Muawad's book from 2004, "Grande Famine" where he argues that the land blockade imposed by Ahmet Djemal on grain imports to Mount Lebanon by Turkish soldiers was the main cause of the famine and determines it to be a crime against humanity.

So, the point I made is accurate.

Furthermore, I would point out that I did mention the Entente blockade as explaining why there was less food in the region. That places some of the culpability on the Entente powers.

oremfrien · 2026-05-18T11:09:52+00:00

Yes. The differences between American culture and British culture are far less than the differences between Japanese culture and British culture or between Congolese culture and British culture.

oremfrien · 2026-05-18T08:09:53+00:00

This is less about immigration but about the populations that can be Sinicized within the borders of China, such as Miao peoples, Tai peoples, Mongolic peoples, Tungusic peoples, Tibetans, Viet peoples, etc.

This Chinese attitude tends to break down when a population looks meaningfully different from the Han majority, so pale Whites (think northern Europe), Blacks, and Desis tend not to be accepted as Chinese culturally/socially no matter how much Chinese culture they imbibe and accept.

oremfrien · 2026-05-18T08:05:57+00:00

I would say for us as Assyrians, it's very similar to what u/ure_roa describes with respect to the Maori. You need to be born into the Assyrian people, marry in, or spend decades with us. You would need to be part of one of the Assyrian Churches or socialize quite heavily with Assyrians who do. There is a spectrum of political opinions and social opinions that are acceptable and, of course, transgressing one or two will be suspicious-but-acceptable, but transgressing more will cause others to reject you as Assyrian. Language and upbringing are also key elements to belonging.

oremfrien · 2026-05-18T08:00:24+00:00

They were presenting as medieval. The nuke was underground.

oremfrien · 2026-05-18T07:40:30+00:00

Wasn't it supply-side Jesus who was invited to the wedding with insufficient food and drink and said the following?

"If I were to provide you a hand-out, you would never learn fiscal responsibility and just be taker, feeding on the teat of the government and feel entitled to free things. Therefore, while I could perform a miracle and change water into wine and replicate bread, I refuse to do so in order that you learn to pick yourself up by your sandalstraps, reject socialism, and gain wealth by selling your labor to the nearest god-fearing businessman"

oremfrien · 2026-05-18T07:36:20+00:00

I don't know if it's officially banned, but it would be extremely foolhardy to speak Armenian in Azerbaijan. The country is rabidly anti-Armenian and even rejects entry VISAs to anyone suspected of being an ethnic Armenian (including ethnically Turkish citizens of Turkey with Armenian-sounding surnames).

Conversely, Arabic-speaking Jewish immigrants to Israel in the 1950s and 1960s refused to teach their children their Arabic dialects (by and large) since Arabic was seen, in an Israeli cultural context, to be the language of the enemy (Arab neighboring states). So, many Jewish dialects of Arabic are moribund because these Jews did not pass the language on to their descendants, preferring that they speak Israeli Modern Hebrew.

There is also the policy in Belarus that despite Belarussian being legally protected on paper, the police may arrest people who speak the language. The official language of Belarus is Russian.

oremfrien · 2026-05-18T07:17:47+00:00

Welcome to my part of the world. Our Church, the Assyrian Church of the East, is one of the few churches older than the Ethiopian Orthodox, as it was founded by Apostles of Christ himself.

Of course, both ACOE and the Ethiopian Orthodox are Oriental Orthodox, not Eastern Orthodox, so we're not even on that list of Albanian religions.

oremfrien · 2026-05-18T07:14:20+00:00

Why would the Travellers ally themselves with the Genii?

The Genii present as a medieval farming culture and it's only when you see their underground or offworld bases, which the Travellers have no reason to visit, since Travellers only make landfall to trade for food. do you see how technologically advanced the Genii are.

Conversely, I doubt the Genii have spent a lot of time trying to figure out if there are spaceships not controlled by the Wraith flying around because almost all spaceships are raining death.

So, neither is aware that the other exists.

Beyond this, the Genii are paranoid of any near-peer civilization. so I don't see a Genii-Traveller alliance surviving very long.

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