Notices by enoch_exe_inc (enoch_exe_inc@mastodon.social), page 2

@rysiek @enoch_exe_inc It’s a “dick move” in that it’s unnecessarily excessive. Despite what the wartime propaganda would have you believe, there *are* in fact a lot of far-right Ukrainian nationalists and literal Nazis—but invading the country is hardly a way to get rid of them. Oh, wait, what was that about containment and the Vietnam War?

In fighting ‘to the last drop of Ukrainian blood’, whose blood will we use when once the last drop of blood has been spilt?

@rysiek @enoch_exe_inc By the way, what counts as “bullying”? Oh, I agree that invading Ukraine is a dick move by Russia…but, compared to the United States, it’s a single drop of blood compared to the bucketfuls of blood that repeatedly pour over the heads of nearly every single country in the Global South. Again, not a justification or a defence, but have to face facts: #WeAreTheBaddies.

@rysiek @enoch_exe_inc Can’t we have peace talks? Negotiations? A violent revolution in Russia, Ukraine, and the United States that overthrows their imperialist governments? Nope. I guess that while these are certainly solutions that would benefit the people living in these countries, it certainly wouldn’t benefit the ruling class nor line the pockets of the military-industrial complex.

@rysiek @enoch_exe_inc I’m thinking in longer terms than that. What happens if throwing more weapons at the problem results in a forever war that leaves Ukraine utterly devastated and forever dependent on foreign economic aid? That’s actually one of the reasons why Ukraine got into this mess in the first place, but I digress.

Can’t we do better than perpetual war? History says we can, but won’t…and that’s unacceptable.

@rysiek The ‘liberal position’ of unconditionally supporting Ukraine past the point of reclaiming their territories and invading Russia back actually scares me more than the Russian invasion itself. Western media is scarily competent at whipping up the public into bloodthirsty frenzy, and they manage to do all this without the prompting of their governments.

@rysiek What kind of tankies would support *either* side of the war?! Most of whom I would call tankies just oppose war, period. And those who aren’t tankies…well, no support for the imperialist proxy war.

I *would* like for Russia to stop the senseless fighting altogether and leave Donbas, Donetsk, and Luhansk, and I do not believe this can be accomplished by throwing more weapons at Ukraine.

@GossiTheDog Can’t the US government do anything to stop him? Deny him his security clearance, seize his property and assets, or just refuse to let him do as he pleases? He may be extremely wealthy, but he’s also a private citizen subject to the laws of the state, right?

Right?

@aral @enoch_exe_inc @bontchev Really? I’m sorry; I can’t tell.

@aral @bontchev *Everyone* would do it? Humanity may be crappy to itself at times, but not that crap.

@ElBeeToots @mykhaylo It was/is, but that’s no excuse for invasion and occupation. Whether it’s this war or the Yugoslav Wars.

@RuiSeabra @enoch_exe_inc In every other way, though, it doesn’t look like we’ll ever see eye to eye. I consider pluralism to be an unsolved problem in political science much like the P vs NP problem in computer science.

@RuiSeabra @enoch_exe_inc On that, I agree. “Literally 1984” memes have it all wrong. It’s not the revision and creation of new words that’s Orwellian; it’s the annihilation of words and the dictionary getting thinner. In terms of linguistics, Newspeak would never work, but that hasn’t and isn’t stopping people from trying.

@RuiSeabra @enoch_exe_inc That may be true, but it’s not what freedom of speech is taken to mean, at least not in all the countries that proclaim to have it. Supposedly, freedom of speech prevents the government from removing opinions it doesn’t like, but that is, at best, binding only to those with lots of money; and, at worst, a blatant lie. Also, it’s usually those with lots of money who get the power to determine which opinions are sanctioned and which may send you to the secret prisons.

@RuiSeabra @enoch_exe_inc Personally, I see the paradox of tolerance like I see Russell’s paradox in set theory: unavoidable and inevitable in retrospect. However, another way of seeing it is that if there were no limitations on freedom of speech, people would make them anyway, and in an environment where all ideas are equal, tend towards their extremest versions.

@RuiSeabra @enoch_exe_inc I’m not defending censorship. In fact, I want to maximise free speech. However, because some speech naturally drowns out other speech, the relative power of some speech must be restricted, unfortunately, but necessarily.

@RuiSeabra @aral @ammdias Karl Popper could’ve read his classics better, for he misunderstood Plato and Platonism quite badly. He also wasn’t the first to discover the tolerance paradox; only the first to call it as such. To my knowledge, this was first laid out by political philosopher (and literal Nazi) Carl Schmitt in his book Political Theology (1922), arguing that liberals and their love of free speech would defend the free speech of those who sought to destroy it.

@ryanhoulihan Got it. Beginning new research project on practical means of electronic harassment and less-lethal directed-energy weapons for self-defensive active area denial against law enforcement during protests.

@ikanreed @ark_lamp_umbrella @privateger @seraph Unless you have no choice but to use regular etwitterpressions. At least they’re better than simple substitution. Clbuttic mistake. #ScunthorpeProblem

@GottaLaff @enoch_exe_inc Also, “nation of laws” is almost objectively untrue. I don’t know how 340 million+ people can believe it, but your society is organised into strict socioeconomic classes in which those at the top can blatantly break the law whereas those at the bottom are disproportionate punished for even minor infractions, all because the law assumes every person is totally identical and treated equally when this is obviously not the case.

@GottaLaff But, we CAN make him stop. Just arrest him and throw him in jail. There doesn’t need to be a legitimate reason; loads and loads of people are regularly tossed into jail for no good reason all the time, and America is arguably the world capital of mass incarceration.