And here I thought you were a scientist. Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.
Frozen in Carbonite
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International U.S. launches military strikes on Venezuela, Trump says Maduro captured and flown out of the country
- Thread starter Mark Poe
- Start date
Rufus Shinra
Well-known member
And I thought you had a modicum of self-awareness. Oh well, you're still an idiot, sounds like.
Scottty
Well-known member
Well he might have been once.
Rufus Shinra
Well-known member
Oh noes, my critical thinking is being judged by the young earth creationist and the propagandist! What shall I do?!
Scottty
Well-known member
There are many possible options for you, but I personally would prefer that you respond by demonstrating in some way that you've "still got it" in terms of critical thinking ability.
It does not inspire confidence that your default resort seems to be snark and ad hominem.
Now, let's review what this little spat between yourself and Vikram was all about....
A group of Cuban men were employed to defend a Saddam-lookalike dictator, who, being on the Left, could not trust his own people... there's a lot that could be said about that, but in practical terms those Cubans were there, and trying to do their job.
This turned out to a task that they were most unequal to, in the face of an American "Delta force" team. But they tried anyway, and all died in the attempt, the poor blighters.
Was it their fault that they were never trained well enough to deal with that situation?
Even if you feel no empathy for them, being openly dismissive of their deaths is crass, and shows a lack of social intelligence on your part. It says "Rufus is a callous man, and not smart enough to hide it."
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Rufus Shinra
Well-known member
You think I want to inspire confidence from a bloody Sietcher?
Yes. Yes it was their fault: they knew precisely who they were defending Maduro against, and it wasn't against mall ninjas. That's it, end of story.
And for a Sietcher to call me callous... BTW, Vikram, check the latest stuff Scottty's friends are writing, straight from the Sietch thread (with link, obviously: https://www.the-sietch.com/index.ph...nd-discussion-thread.129/page-110#post-603921):
As a bit of a reminder of what Scottty and his pals are, and what internet also has (just as a clarification, you're part of the "billions of third-worldist scum", Vikram). And you, Scottty, you'll never get to give any lesson on morality, because you willingly associate yourself with people literally, not figuratively, desiring genocide.
Scottty
Well-known member
I think that you are emotionally invested in the image of yourself as a clever, knowledgeable fellow sufficiently that it bothers you when anyone questions that.
And yet they (reportedly at least) stood their ground. How silly and un-French of them! /sarcasm
Look, if those guys had all surrendered or fled, and the anti-West people had blamed them for it, I might have given them a Tom Bombadil quote:
"you must forgive them all, for though their hearts were faithful, to face fear of barrow-wights is not what they were made for."
But for all we know, they might actually have been trying to flee or surrender.
Do you mean what Iconoclast wrote? If you and he are really one and the same person, then I think you deserve some sort of trophy for that!
Whataboutism, ad-hominem, guilt-by-association... sigh. Vikram can see for himself that just because I post on the same forum as someone else, does not mean I share or endorse that other posters opinions or sentiments.
Rufus Shinra
Well-known member
Sorry if being reminded of your doxxing genocidal club annoys you, my boy.
It's funny watching people who Chicken Little'd about Trump being "a DiCtAtOr wOrSe tHaN hiTLeR!!!1" immediately come to the defense of an ACTUAL dictator when Trump decides to get rid of one. Lol.
Rufus Shinra
Well-known member
It's funny watching a sad clown with zero reading comprehension.
Nor did you condemn them.
Their problem isn't whether or not he's a dictator, it's that he's not THEIR dictator.
That's why I was so surprised Rufus didn't try to defend that rat. It's more common sense than I've ever seen in an online leftist.
Rufus Shinra
Well-known member
The 'online leftists' tend to mostly exist in your mind. As usual on internet, you take the most extreme cases of stupidity and generalise them because that's what works better for propaganda and self-righteous feelings. In the real world, people are not idiotically binary and can oppose the US' intervention without supporting Maduro.
Especially when Trump literally, not figuratively, explains the goal is to take control of another country and steal its natural resources. Because if I apply your own logic to this, then I can say that you disliking Maduro means you are in favour of colonialism.
Rufus Shinra
Well-known member
The thing is, your reasoning is 'If you disagree with the US op, you must be a fan of Maduro.', so I get to apply to you a similarly flawed 'If you disliked Maduro, you must be a fan of outright colonialism for explicit resource plundering goals.' reasoning.
Flawed? Yes. But if you rightfuly refuse to be painted in this light, then maybe you could envision that the first reasoning is incorrect as well. As for abusive generalisations from online sources, maybe I should start saying that all US schools are getting shot on a weekly basis because I only hear about US schools online when they get shot.
It is internet. There is so much stuff on it that what we see is already curated and selected based on our habits, social environment and previous activities, in addition to whatever message the media owners want to pass:
If you want trusted data, go for serious polling institutes and peer-reviewed scientific journals. Social media feeds are NOT trusted sources.
Scottty
Well-known member
It's not my job to condemn people.
Scottty
Well-known member
I love that part.
Angry Leftist: "Americans are such hypocrites! They talk big about spreading democracy and human rights, but really it's just about-"
Man In Red Cap: "Yeah we know, it's about taking the oil. Trump said so plainly."
AL: "But that's... I mean..."
MIRC: "America First, bro!"
Dear god, no. It's that the online left does seem to believe the same. I respect those who are anti-war while also denouncing Maduro.
Their blatant immorality stole the left's thunder. No longer does the Left have a monopoly on shamelessness.
Rufus Shinra
Well-known member
If only. The most amusing thing is the sheer incompetence of the whole thing, since Trump talks big but in the end, the US isn't getting jack shit in reasonable volumes. Nor is controlling the country.
What's even better, it was Trump's sanctions from his first term, that forced the US refineries to quit buying Venezuelan crude, and retool themselves to use Canadian oil. Mind you, retooling a refinery is neither fast (involves complete shutdown of the unit in question), nor cheap, so they reaaally hate it if they have to do it every decade. Also they only bought preprocessed crude, but the Venezuelan facility have been effectively destroyed and looted in meantime, so until it's rebuilt they'd have to the processing themselves.
Strange how the companies itself are not very keen on the whole adventure ...
Rufus Shinra
Well-known member
If you have to be evil or assholish, be COMPETENT at it. The Russians and the Colonials are utterly incompetent at their shittery, unlike the Chinese who, while being assholes, are competent ones.
Hold that thought.
Rufus Shinra
Well-known member
Yeah, they're pretty competent. They managed to become the largest industry in the world, let their opponents destroy themselves, grab the markets, scientists and soft power worldwide, all the while securing their power. They're competent villains, which is why they're winning.
Scottty
Well-known member
Slightly more competent. But exploding chemical plants come to mind. Along with smog so bad people cannot see to the other side of the street.
If that's all supposed to be part of some sort of evil supervillain master plan, I'm seeing more "evil" there than "super".
China does arguably have the advantage of a relative political monoculture, which means they can do long range evil master plans without a rival faction trying to sabotage them for self-serving reasons. The West has the problem Folti mentioned, where you cannot make any long-term hardware investment without the risk of some idiot politician shutting it all down.
Maybe politicians shouldn't be allowed to do that.
Rufus Shinra
Well-known member
Welcome to the notion of the 'deep state'. Not the fantasy one from Hollywood and MAGAs, but the Civil Service from England or ENA alumni from France - at least, during their glory days. Technocrats with some margin of action outside the spotlights who can and will get shit done but within the perimeter of the law and under government oversight.
Thing is, it works as long as you still have the culture that gets things done. In the French case, ENA alumni from the Fifties to Seventies might have been communists, liberals, democrats, royalists, socialists, etc., they usually were former Resistance fighters, so even a hardcore Marxist usually had enough respect for a royalist brother-in-arms to work rationally with them. Cue nukes, nuclear power, TGV, Minitel and Concorde.
Right now, China has its internal political debate pretty well structured - stumbled on some fascinating RAND reports about the healthy but controlled political debate inside the CCP - which helps its engineer-based leadership to push a consistent development strategy. They're competent, or at least more competent than their rivals.