Tretiak

@Tretiak@lemmy.ml

See you over at themotte.org.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

Tretiak,

So it's actually happening...

Tretiak,

Indeed it is. All I really want is a place where I can intellectually engage with people in good faith, even when people disagree with me; finding it productive, fun and maybe learning a thing or two. Constantly being called a "bigot," "fascist," "asshole," "idiot," "moron," really leaves it wanting.

Tretiak,

Most of the changes will happen behind the scenes as they usually do. Reddit rarely conducts it's extremely underhanded shit out in the open, unless the publicity is going to be unavoidable.

Tretiak,

If we're partitioning user engagement from the growth in echo chambers, Reddit's seen continued drop off in community engagement for nearly a decade now. This only marks the bigger nail in the coffin.

How has ur lemmy experience been so far?

Im joining in on the reddit ditching thing, and was kinda worried at first that i wouldnt be able to like use it the way i did reddit as it feels like a whole new place, but after engaging with posts and people and actually being a part of lemmy rather than being lurk mode all the time i was pleasantly surprised with how easy it...

Tretiak, (edited )

So far? Lemmy is filled with Russian shills. I hope we outnumber them soon.

Ah, the good ole everybody challenging the western propaganda narrative against Russia is a secret Putin shill. I can see Reddit is leaking, already.

Tretiak,

Oh, look, you have an opinion about tiananmen, what a surprise!

Lol, imagine being criticized for 'having an opinion'. If that doesn't tell me all I need to know about you.

Tretiak, (edited )

Excellent then! Please expose to us your opinion about the tiananmen events. We are listening. Don’t be shy.

You stupid? My comment history is right there.

Edit: Aw. Don't get butthurt, homie. Lol. Tool.

Tretiak,

Ukraine doesn’t need more justification. Russia is occupying their territory.

That doesn’t justify Ukraine’s shelling of the eastern territories in the Donbass. If that requires military intervention by Russia, that’s unfortunate for the western propaganda narrative of Russian military aggression.

Tretiak,

Considering what Seymour Hersh's uncovered regarding the Nord Stream Pipeline, I won't put this one past the US, being involved in it. Yes, reputation matters.

Tretiak,

Accusations of whataboutism are a thought-terminating cliché that, ironically, usually just help the accuser avoid engaging with a critical argument.

Thank God someone else said it. I always get dogpiled by a posse of morons, whenever I point out that 'whataboutism' doesn't exist.

Tretiak,

Good perhaps according to your political sentiments. But that’s no different than anyone who scores a point in favor of what they deem to be progressive. “Anything that goes the way I want it to is a good thing.” Hardly a principled position if one cares about freedom and liberty.

Tretiak,

I don’t agree with most of the domestic policies in the US, but I respect freedom and liberty enough to hold to it, even when the outcomes it produces oppose my political beliefs; by 180 degrees. If you abandon the principle which says states as experiments are permitted to adopt an official religion, should they choose to follow that path, you’re not someone that cares about freedom and liberty. Full stop.

This same argument is at play even among most liberal idiots who hated Donald Trump, but still refused to condemn the western democratic values and process that put someone like him into office. They either hold to the ideal, or they’re (more plausibly) too stupid to recognize such an explicit contradiction in their own beliefs.

Tretiak, (edited )

What are states compromised of if not the very individuals they’re tasked with representing? Seems to me like you’re trying to use some very tortured logic to have it both ways. If Utah voted in Mormonism as the official state religion, I certainly wouldn’t like it nor want to live there. Nor would I ‘have’ to live there. But that comes with the territory of allowing states (not the federal government), to vote in an official religion, ‘if that’s what the people vote for’. And you’re not at liberty to deny them that. Your basic rights as a citizen you’re still entitled to under federal law, and no state can take that away from you.

Now if you don’t care about representative democracy, then fine; fair enough. But don’t hide your argument behind a pretense about how a political belief you agree with supersedes the will of the population, ‘even if it were opposed by the will and dictates of the citizens and they held otherwise’, and then claim to care about the principle, even if as a counter-factual. Of course I don’t like or respect ’every’ politician, but that isn’t the point of the argument. And I think the word “reform” is doing you far too much work, in disguising the intent of liberals who in reality, would desire to remake the entire political system in their own image. Even as a pretty far right leaning conservative (though not Republican) myself, I wouldn’t desire that, even on my side of the aisle.

Tretiak,

http://bash.org/?506275

Tretiak,

Reminds me of the term “defend forward” in the NSA’s lexicon. Made me laugh my ass off when I first heard it.

Tretiak,

I agree.

Tretiak,

One thing western liberals will never understand is that once you branch out into the world, and really have the opportunity to live and experience the customs of difference societies, you'll quickly realize that different countries have 'vastly' different ideas about what they believe their relationship to the government should be.

I'll never forget the British chick on some UK television program, that was stumped by an ISIS sympathizer in the UK when she asked him "what happens to most people who don't want to obey the law in your country?," and he replied back, "what happens to most people who don't want to obey the law of Britain? 'They get arrested'." She froze on the panel and got dead silent, before pivoting to something else.

Tretiak,

Well. The person you replied to is a moron IMO, but I can kind of see what he's saying. 'Decent' can 'potentially' be a reasonable standard by seeing the way that people vote with their feet. American citizens aren't looking to escape the US to get into Afghanistan, but plenty of Afghan's would love to escape into the American heartland if they had the opportunity. 'Godless secular republic', all things considered.

What he wouldn't understand is that the US was a leading forerunner that explains why that country remains an undeveloped shithole in the first place.

Tretiak,

It also precludes the fact that prior to State formation and complex agriculture, tribal society wasn't exactly all that peaceful either. Violence is fundamental to human behavior.

Tretiak,

... responds to people just making their voices heard with cannons and guns...

And that's where the difficulty lies.

Tretiak,

Being human means that by our very nature, we possess the ability to change our nature. Just because violence is part of who we are doesn’t mean it has to be a part of who we become.

True, but I'd suggest that to anyone looking at the weight of history, it's far beyond any doubt to make the correct observation that people 'tend' to. Simply sort of hand-waving it away and saying "well there's no law of nature that says it has to be that way," to me is analogous to saying "yeah, and there's no law of nature that says we couldn't build an elevator to the moon, either."

Nature is violence, but its arguably more about cooperation. especially in highly social species like us.

Eh, I'd say this is debatable. I'm not saying cooperation isn't part of who we are, but humanity's overwhelming tendency to indolence explains why violence is often a consideration that makes its way through our minds at the first pass. Most people don't have a respect for the law out of high minded morality or a desire to be cooperative. They obey it because they're afraid of violent social retribution. Human beings are moral scavengers driven by opportunity and prudence, 'more' than, but not exclusively, moral ideals out of a sake of 'doing the right thing'.

It's always easier to beat a child than it is to raise it. It's always easier to steal money than it is to earn it. It's always easier to cheat your way through your work, than to do it the correct way. I don't see that attitude changing anytime soon. But I don't disagree with the core point I think you're getting at.

Tretiak,

Well, to each his own. I'm not a Marxist.

Tretiak,

Right. I understand the point. But it shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone to think State’s exercise violence in a much greater capacity, because State’s are much more powerful than individuals.

To me it’s a criticism that ranks right up there with the complaint that State’s are inherently dishonest, and they are, to be sure. But if State’s are inherently violent/dishonest, it’s only because people are inherently violent and dishonest. That’s something that sits at the root of what humans are, and by extension, wraps itself up in qualms of everything humans do and create for themselves.

Cooperation is definitely a part of who we are, to be sure. My whole point though is that if you look at civilization, their existence isn’t a spontaneous occurrence, despite the fact that civilizations require an ‘enormous’ level of cooperation to sustain themselves. It isn’t ‘natural’, in that sense. Cooperation follows coercion, which is needed to keep the peace, just as it’s more easily and eagerly used to conduct violence.

US's Blinken says no to any Ukraine peace deal that doesn't include total Russian withdrawal (apnews.com)

“We believe the prerequisite for meaningful diplomacy and real peace is a stronger Ukraine, capable of deterring and defending against any future aggression,” Blinken said in a speech in Finland, which recently became NATO’s newest member and shares a long border with Russia.

Tretiak, (edited )

… where is all the evidence you speak of that that Russia invading Ukraine is somehow justified?…

Did you even read what I wrote?:

Nobody here has explicitly said what Russia did wasn’t illegal or immoral, because it is.

Apparently not.

Take a mental journey and imagine yourself in the same position of the victims of war, then how wrong it is to somehow try to justify any of it.

I have. Have you? Did Putin not make peaceful overtures to Ukraine? Did he not want to come to a mutually beneficial arrangement? Did Ukraine not 'agree' to the Minsk Accords?

Tretiak, (edited )

A war can be considered legal if it meets the criteria and conditions set forth by international law.

Practically every war throughout history violates that standard. Are there people out there who are truly this naive?

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • JUstTest
  • ngwrru68w68
  • thenastyranch
  • osvaldo12
  • cubers
  • InstantRegret
  • DreamBathrooms
  • cisconetworking
  • magazineikmin
  • Youngstown
  • Durango
  • mdbf
  • slotface
  • rosin
  • provamag3
  • kavyap
  • tacticalgear
  • modclub
  • khanakhh
  • anitta
  • ethstaker
  • tester
  • everett
  • GTA5RPClips
  • normalnudes
  • megavids
  • Leos
  • lostlight
  • All magazines
    •