BlueOak
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Posts posted by BlueOak
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I have actually started giving Tiktok a shot with music, its being kinder to me than youtube is that's for sure. The views are at about a 200:1 ratio. X to youtube is about 100:1 for me also, the engagement being about 50 to 1. So it tells you where to focus, drop stuff on Tiktok first, then X, then Youtube. I've no idea how to grow on instagram. (Obviously all the music sites also or use a publisher to do it for you)
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Sums up my week this. Perfect. I feel like I jumped off a cliff, and then I read this ha.
Darkly funny. He's got enough young men that will simp for him (their choice of words), that he'd probably get some votes, but unless someone with money finds him a useful idiot, he's not going anywhere. It could happen though, we are on the shadow-side of a curve still. As in people want to see the uglier qualities accepted and highlighted in their public figures. -
7 hours ago, Leo Gura said:The analogy breaks down because a nation or a party is a system more than an individual. These are systemic problems that cannot be willed out of.
Both sentences are true of people's body/mind/life also. Sure they are individuals, but they have some challenges that cannot be changed, and a system that works as what we call an individual.
Moreover, the reason a country doesn't often collapse is if you put challenges across enough people, things tend to balance better or support each other either intentionally or not, there is usually more natural competitive and collaborative adaptation rather than an individual's judged success or failure day to day. Just by the systems in place for the country to do so. The death of a country when it rarely comes is from things like the currency and cultural bonds breaking down, ripping out the things that glue the country together.
I'd say the same about the human body/mind, it's remarkably good at adapting to things, so you are not going to die often.
The problem is often the connection of the individual to the country; that's where things can fall on their face. This probably answers the OP's question. An individual can suffer and never affect the country much one way or the other, sometimes they do of course.
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21 hours ago, Raze said:Israel had a treaty with Syria to not militarize the Golan or invade that Syria followed.
Israel already annexed Golan for a buffer zone. Now they need a buffer zone for the buffer zone? That’s ridiculous, this is a land grab.
What is an example of China doing something like this?
When Putin does it he is called a war criminal and sanctioned for breaking international law
Yes. It's always a land grab. The borders shift, and then a new buffer zone is needed. It's either slow creep where the authoritarian country moves its culture in over years and reduces (or reeducates, kills or imprisons) the local population to homogenize it and moves into the resources or good land. That or a democracy buys up all the resources, sells them franchises or immitation culture, and tries to redefine the country while the locals scratch their heads, asking who wanted you here?
China? They do it every month these days, bringing out a new map. I've lost count of how many border disputes they are in, at land and sea:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_disputes_of_the_People's_Republic_of_China
I mean do you want to focus in on anything specific? Or just the rate of the expansion over time?
Though we should probably start a new thread for that rather than spam these folk. -
20 hours ago, gambler said:Israel has destabilized the middle east. Netanyahu lobbied for the West to go to war in Iraq, saying they had weapons of mass destruction that threatens "the region". Israel's subjugation of Palestinians has caused so many spill-over wars in Lebanon, not to mention brought great suffering to the Palestinians. It also bolstered the Arab Nationalism movement that gave birth to the Ba'ath party that brought us dictators like Saddam and Assad. As well as bolstering Iran's disastrous involvement in the Arab world. Israel already has two buffer zones. One inside Israel borders and the other is a wide stretch of land within Syria. Golan Heights is not Israel. It's a Syrian land inhabited by Syrians. You don't need a third buffer zone. This gaslighting of security is ridiculous. Go to the Israel deception thread and find my post where its just clips of Netanyahu successfully gaslighting the world.
You are preaching to the choir. I am not advocating it. The concept of buffer zones is now accepted as normal, and it's incredibly stupid as borders forever shift. It incentivizes people to destabilise nations exactly as you describe in a game of forever chess the world over.
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21 hours ago, Hatfort said:Vegans are weak, their diet is insufficient, and can't be healthy. For example, there's this vegan soyboy called Dave Leduc who gets his ass kicked every time he gets on a ring in what's considered one of the most violent martial art types in the world.
Your sample size of one doesn't impress me.
Not as i've got more energy than the 20 year olds I work with, even with this blasted insomnia, and I am still gaining muscle mass.
If you eat what you need you get the results you need, that's it. -
Have you ever suffered something and not changed the outcome for the better?
I have.
Both when i've tried multiple times without success and the times I haven't tried at all. This reasoning scales up to the macro level, which lets you check its validity. -
45 minutes ago, Bobby_2021 said:Good luck dealing with Israel expanding into Syria all the way up to Iraq. They are already expanding the population in the golan heights. Next they will need buffer zone more into Syria till they can see Damascus. I think they are close enough already.
You do realize that this is literally what they are planning for right? This is a head start for the greater Israel project. They have made it clear what they want. Tell me how you plan to resist it. Or are you okay for giving up Syria for the sake of Greater Israel project?
Isreal will keep expanding to Syria and become more hawkish with Trump. Which is why I think this will end up another Afghanistan moment for Israel and the west in the long run.
I'm going to reflect it now Bobby:
Russia is okay with taking buffer zones.
China is okay with taking over their neighbors.
Iran drop proxies everywhere they can.
Why shouldn't Turkey and israel do so also? They both have valid security concerns, and its right along their border. Besides this is somewhat hyperbole, all they need is to drop a friendly government in there. -
The ego is a survival mechanism used to protect you. It is created out of fears and insecurities, which you can call 'false' if you like, but that to me is just adding words onto the experience of your life.
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To experience infinity, you had to limit yourself inside of it, otherwise you'd just be it.
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24 minutes ago, PurpleTree said:That grains taste horrible and 16 of your american weight make 1 delicious thing was mostly a joke. But then i went on to talk about gut issues and such but you guys seemingly only read what you want to see.
Its true I didn't see your other comment, and it wasn't a comment on your diet at all.
I was merely saying as someone who lived off grains for 14 years as a big part of the diet, i've learned to cook rice, pasta, couscous, and quinoa deliciously. Just recently i've upgraded to a proper rice cooker dedicated to it and with the right herbs its better than fluffy bread.
Also, I am not American not that it matters. -
Before I was vegan I barely had any conscious thoughts of animals. I was shoving fast food down my gut every week. For me at least it created a profound shift in awareness. It brought one of the biggest jumps in enlightenment i've had. Both towards my body awareness, diet and animals right down to insects.
@PurpleTree
Grain + vegetables can be delicious when cooked well with the right sauces. Your cravings come from what you are used to eating. Its a biological reaction that changes. -
Now on to Sri Lanka and 'ports' or moving into Africa more broadly.
https://theconversation.com/why-china-is-seeking-greater-presence-in-africa-the-strategy-behind-its-financial-deals-238468
or
https://nationalinterest.org/feature/takeover-trap-why-imperialist-china-invading-africa-66421
This is perhaps where I have the most problem with everyone say Imperialism, 'what'?
Ports and airbases allowing access into Africa and the Middle East is exactly how imperialism is conducted. It's how a trading empire is formed. The replacement of the dollar by a currency BRICS control is the same s*** different day. You think these people are somehow more enlightened and not driven by the exact same 6 human needs we all are? Someone threatens those ports or the resulting resources, and we have a war over it. That's EXACTLY WHAT THE US or EUROPE DOES. They don't go to war because they just feel like it one day.
Is it because China has a better image? And isn't as bad as the other guys, because they've only genocided a couple of cultures in the last century?
To All: Stop gaslighting and just own it.
*I didn't even touch on Myanmar and how when that has a coup with a significant Chinese population, nobody bats an eye. If that were anywhere near a western power every accusation under the sun would be flying. -
As you asked, try to broaden the discussion a bit beyond: 'America bad'. Because yes America bad.
@Bobby_2021
Chinese Imperialism:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_imperialism
East Turkestan or Xinjiang Conflict:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang_conflict
Which then followed the genocide of the local population:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Uyghurs_in_China
Including the use of Xinjiang internment camps
Annexation of Tibet by the People's Republic of China
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_of_Tibet_by_the_People's_Republic_of_China
Which has led to the erosion of Tibetan culture.
https://www.dw.com/en/exiled-leader-says-china-is-erasing-tibetan-culture/a-67659867
or
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinicization_of_Tibet
This is how China slowly moves its borders outward and then wants more until it hits another power stopping it.
Belt and Road initiative: Belt and Road Initiative § Accusations of neocolonialism and Debt-trap diplomacyJeffrey Reeves argues that since 2012, CCP general secretary Xi Jinping has demonstrated "a concerted imperialist policy" towards its developing neighbor states to the south and west, especially Mongolia,[ Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nepal, Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. This is associated with criticism of debt trap diplomacy.
East China Sea disputes
Further information: East China Sea EEZ disputes
With the 1978 Chinese economic reform launched by Deng Xiaoping, China has increased its political stance, its influence and its power abroad. China has increased its influence, while using military and economic wealth and claims to island territories that have caused anxiety in neighbors to the east, such as the Philippines and Japan.
South China Sea disputes
Further information: Territorial disputes in the South China Sea
Nine-dash line
The South China Sea disputes involve both island and maritime claims of China and the claims of several neighboring sovereign states in the region, namely Brunei, the Republic of China (ROC/Taiwan), Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam. The disputes are over islands, reefs, banks, and other features in the South China Sea, including the Spratly Islands, Paracel Islands, Scarborough Shoal, boundaries in the Gulf of Tonkin, and the waters near the Indonesian Natuna Islands. The main point of criticism is that the PRC is building artificial islands to extend its claims into other nations' territorial waters and militarizing the islands. Chinese salami-slicing strategy and cabbage tactics describe the way the PRC has used small provocations to increase its strategic position.
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18 minutes ago, shree said:If you’re God and I’m God, who is fixing the mess we made?
Whatever part of you is doing that task.
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Love Egos.
Love is a lower state of consciousness.
Someone said it simply. You are everything, including these things. Including everything out there you've ever labelled bad or negative. -
There is a radical shift psychologically toward a subject when something is food or not.
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@zazen
When you talk about all sides worried about their security having reasons to fight or invade 'defensively' (this term is an oxymoron), you are in essence talking about a broader or continuous war in the future. I could agree with your premise but then I am blindly following that course. Because borders will shift, they are not static, so the problem cycles back around.
In my view you are also saying its fine to fight these wars with anyone when they are viewed through the lens of preserving the status quo of the state. Anyone can use this justification for almost anything. Yes, lots of people you hate and I also resisted said the exact same thing.
I wish I could shake some people in this thread but I can't. I have to watch intelligent, often caring people, twist themselves in knots to
1) Recreate the definition of imperialism or ignore its aspects, like Wagner or any mercenary group in Africa or funding arms, that don't fit neatly into the current world dynamic.
2) Don't factor in spheres of influence; shifting never ends, so they are arguing for perpetual war.
3) Will react negatively when another country does what Russia is doing but justifies it for them. - That's almost everyone here, even leo. Unless we are going to say all three bordering powers in Syria are fine just carving it up.
I have and will always criticise the use of force on a state level as a justification for invading another country. Buffer zones seem to be accepted now as the norm, okay well when Russia's western or eastern oblasts rebel I'll just respond with that also. Its so short-sighted when applied universally.
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Its also interesting that people forget Russia has spent as much time fighting in Africa and arming regimes this last century as anyone. Their biggest loss in Syria was the airfield and ports to project that power overseas. The Middle east have been something they've influenced for a hundred years, and now China's getting involved in Sri Lanka or building a trading empire in Uruguay. If that's not imperialism then I don't know what is.
I also feel every time a democratic coup happens people point fingers, but nobody does it in reverse. It's amusing the hypocrisy I read every day. -
@zazen
While I agree clarification is helpful, imperialism only needs clarification because its problematic for the current direction the world is moving in, and so people want more room to manoeuvre their latest justifications for violence. In previous centuries when other powers were judged, that definition was fit for purpose. Do you think 1,000 years from now people won't be looking back at it all as barbaric just the same?
You are disconnecting things that are naturally connected.
Survival leads to security, which leads to wealth and eventually power. Its all one and the same. There is nothing keeping that power in check but other powers. No moral structure which cannot be bent, twisted, or ignored in the pursuit of it. Because all it takes is any one of millions of decisions, from millions of people enacted in policy at the expense of another country or local cultures, building up over time to create that imbalance. Russia frequently takes from its poorer minorities and gives to the Muscovite regions as an example, or just takes over their land ownership.
As well as providing security or a buffer, the Ukranian regions are rich in food, ports and resources; where Turkey sits, it becomes the center of the world in a non-globalised reality, and Russia wants direct access or eventually control over much of it. It also wants manpower, because it lacks it and shorter more defensible borders to guard along the coasts and mountain ranges.
A war is a war.
Defence can be argued to be anything and is frequently argued by those you hate to be why they do what they do. Its been used as the justification for most wars for millennia.
So if Europe go to war with Russia over them meddling in Poland and Romania I’ll turn around to you and say Europe is defending its eastern flank from Russia overthrowing their governments.
Then people will argue whose sphere it is in. If Russia owns Ukraine you or someone with your view will argue its on their doorstep, and thus justified.Over any length of time where borders or spheres shift, it's all nonsensical, and I really wish that could be agreed upon, but we're still having to go over this, with you or others threading needles to tell me violence on any large scale has any justification whatsoever. People the world over need to handle their own insecurities and resource or security challenges via cooperation and not force. - That means every country. No ifs buts or why nots. It means everyone reading this eats their hatred of the other and does what they can to stop it.
China keep expanding their borders, BTW, eradicating problematic cultures or absorbing them. I think it was you who asked me for a list of Chinese wars or atrocities last time? I can list them here if that helps. They have African ambitions for resources, and in the South China Sea, they want to replace the dollar in a trading empire. It’s the same pattern that any power wants to emulate until they meet a force or resistance to it. -
8 hours ago, Leo Gura said:Russia doesn't have to be imperialist just because it fights some wars around its borders where many Russian people live.
It's not like Russia is trying to conquer Poland or Kazakhstan. Russia is fighting for geopolitical influence in its own sphere of the world where is has been historically dominant. Russia is trying to stop Western encroachment into its sphere.
You can call it wrong, but it's not really imperial. At least not yet.
That's all anyone ever does. Extend their sphere of influence outward until they can't anymore.
All you are saying to me is the proximity makes it less imperialist. Russia is an empire of cultures and provinces, and its trying to extend it. Thus the problem will always be 'close' to hand and never ending.
I think England invading ireland or scotland for example was extremely imperialist, and that distance is closer than what we are talking about.
It makes little odds where in the world someone is fighting to conquer, only that they are doing it for the people involved. Once Russia gets X country they will push for Y just like everyone else does, its what they've been doing since the 90s and centuries before that. So let's be generous and say 20 years go by, Russia absorbs another culture just like @Scholar says, then considers the land 'Russian' and keeps going again.
I think the problem I have with Han and Muscovite cultures specifically is they like to absorb other cultures into themselves (or eradicate 'problematic' cultures in the latter case), thus creating a never-ending problem.
The Definition of Imperialism might help:Imperialism is the maintaining and extending of power over foreign nations, particularly through expansionism, employing both hard power (military and economic power) and soft power (diplomatic power and cultural imperialism). Imperialism focuses on establishing or maintaining hegemony and a more or less formal empire.[3][4][5] While related to the concept of colonialism, imperialism is a distinct concept that can apply to other forms of expansion and many forms of government.[6]
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1) Without replying USA to me. How can you say Russia isn't imperialist when it has fought 8 wars to rebuild and reconquer former USSR territories?
2) Your mind believes that wars with neighbours over land or influencing spheres are more morally justified than wars over oil or trade. Why?
@zazen
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@Nilsi
I'll drop you a pm as this can take between a couple of sentences or several days to get across to someone, and so not to spam the forum, if any coders want to get in contact feel free to reach out. -
57 minutes ago, NoSelfSelf said:Okay i get it but also even if you are in the village,desert or mars who you are does it change?
Does it matter if she has lines of guys if she has a boyfriend this is all defeatist mindsets.
This is first problem that needs to be adressed location is easier to change.
Are you the guy shes gonna pick from everyone or if she doesnt why do you care?
Its about numbers.
If you walk around in a city you see more women.
If you work in customer service you meet more women.
If you work outside or travel around more in your job you meet more women.
All it usually is about is meeting plenty of women and talking to them.
In a rural area this means you meet less people. I have direct experience of both types of locations as well as working in customer service vs a factory or small office for example.
I don't buy that anyone in life can't find a woman, its just meeting enough of them.
in Society, Politics, Government, Environment, Current Events
Posted · Edited by BlueOak
People equate intelligence as the guiding principle.
So I got into a discussion about how intelligent people don't fight wars over land with a few people a week ago, and got laughed at. Which is fair.
How do you approach these things? If you were to find yourself in the middle of it, (it started off on another topic.) Using the word more conscious doesn't mean anything to most people. Arguing about suffering gets a nod but no real change in their perspective.
I've realised over life many look at an intelligent person and think he must know better because he's intelligent, they do the same with successful people, or equate the two these days. So they excuse things that way. As consciousness is difficult to measure currently, its hard to use as a thing to point people at.