How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Sgt Joch]

2 hours ago, danfrodo said:

The rest is still horrific, and a good example of Musk's very anti-democratic and distorted mindset.

90% + of my feed on X is funny animal videos or photos of half naked women (yes I know the algorythim ). I still struggle to see why people think Twitter is a serious source of information.

[Bearstronaut]

33 minutes ago, Sgt Joch said:

90% + of my feed on X is funny animal videos or photos of half naked women (yes I know the algorythim ). I still struggle to see why people think Twitter is a serious source of information.

A lot of the OSINT accounts do really fantastic work. 

[acrashb]

17 minutes ago, Sgt Joch said:

I still struggle to see why people think Twitter is a serious source of information.

Crowdsourcing news.  It's generally faster than legacy media, and can get to items that may not interest a large audience but would interest you. And, as I posted a few days ago:

• NOELreports (Ukraine)
• OSINTdefender (now mostly middle east)
• WarMonitor (Ukraine)
• WarTranslated (Ukraine)
• Institute for the Study of War (mostly Ukraine)
• Lots of awesome cat videos
• etc.

[Lethaface]

7 hours ago, The_Capt said:

I don’t really know about Musk but this is really warped logic on the “Reich Effect”.

1. With the glorious invention of weapons…anyone can “physically defend themselves”. The right keeps blaring “guns for all” which means that females and “low T” males are able to defend themselves as well as any muscle bound super dude.

2. Isn’t the whole point of democracy to build consensus? The entire thing is about removing decision making from the hands of a few (monarchies in the old days) and put it into the hands of the many? By this logic females and “low T males” would be the best performers in a democratic system in that they are apparently hard wired by nature to seek common ground and consensus building. High T males would logically be the worst leaders in such a system as they would all be trying to “impose their wills” in every direction. There is a very important distinction between “making decisions” and “making the right decision.”

3. What the hell is “brute force manufactured consensus” in the modern age? Every screen is not saying the same thing. In fact we have got too many screens saying everything, all at the same time. I am sure there is some weird theory that the left has no independent thought and suffered from group think, and frankly there is truth to this. But the right is just as guilty of this as any. The reality is that humans are prone to group think as safety mechanism, and it does not matter how beefy or hairy they are.

4. “Only alpha high T males and anuerotypical people are able to determine if new information is in fact ‘true.’” If this is true we are doomed. Because the only people able to really see truth are in fact the worse ones to have in charge of a larger population. The good news is that there is no evidence to support this theory. In fact “objective truth” is particularly challenging as humans in generally rely on subjective truths - it is how we are all built.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjectivity_and_objectivity_(philosophy)

The fact that Elon found this “interesting” definitely puts him in the subjectivity camp.

But I do have to say that this pairing of Autism and the Republican Party does win the “Weird F#cking Duck” award of the week.

I guess the main concept in this discussion is ego management, or the lack thereof. 

My thoughts on the matter are in the sphere of 'don't we have the science of Psychology, where concepts like the different personality types (A, B , C, but there are several) have already been established?' I'm rather sure the subdivision isn't high-T males, non high-T males and females. Now psychology isn't an empiric science, but all of us use the fruits of it's labor daily. Musk has his biology mixed up with his psychology. Probably because he doesn't get enough sleep and listens Joe Rogan for fun but forgets it is entertainment, not science. He sure has certain qualities, but thought leader isn't one of them imo.

Although a sprinkle of narcissism often helps in developing the desire to 'lead' a bunch of other humans and the required acceptance to do so, too much of it and the 'high-T' becomes more of a personality disorder than anything else.

Fortunately indeed democracy helps balancing things out a bit. We need all forms of leadership, not only high-Ts and their place under the sun. 

Edited September 3 by Lethaface

[LongLeftFlank]

Remember early 1945, when US shipyards were launching a new escort carrier each week?

.... And every time I fly down to Singapore, I spot more artificial islands.

https://www.inquirer.net/412603/ph-navy-logs-largest-presence-of-chinese-ships-in-west-philippine-sea/

[danfrodo]

3 minutes ago, LongLeftFlank said:

Remember early 1945, when US shipyards were launching a new escort carrier each week?

.... And every time I fly down to Singapore, I spot more artificial islands.

https://www.inquirer.net/412603/ph-navy-logs-largest-presence-of-chinese-ships-in-west-philippine-sea/

I see more & more concern in the private sector over doing business with china due to its turn to belligerence.  What is it they will gain that was better than the cash-tsunami they were getting from trade??????   I just don't get it.  

At my own company, investors want to know how much we rely on china before they invest.  

[Lethaface]

4 hours ago, Fernando said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asch_conformity_experiments

Asch conformity experiments

In psychology, the Asch conformity experiments or the Asch paradigm were a series of studies directed by Solomon Asch studying if and how individuals yielded to or defied a majority group and the effect of such influences on beliefs and opinions.
[...]

Rationale

Many early studies in social psychology were adaptations of earlier work on "suggestibility" whereby researchers such as Edward L. Thorndyke were able to shift the preferences of adult subjects towards majority or expert opinion.[3] Still the question remained as to whether subject opinions were actually able to be changed, or if such experiments were simply documenting a Hawthorne effect in which participants simply gave researchers the answers they wanted to hear. Solomon Asch's experiments on group conformity mark a departure from these earlier studies by removing investigator influence from experimental conditions.

[…]

Method

[...]

Groups of eight male college students participated in a simple "perceptual" task. In reality, all but one of the participants were actors, and the true focus of the study was about how the remaining participant would react to the actors' behavior.

[…]

Results

In the control group, with no pressure to conform to actors, the error rate on the critical stimuli was less than 0.7%.

In the actor condition also, the majority of participants' responses remained correct (64.3%), but a sizable minority of responses conformed to the actors' (incorrect) answer (35.7%). The responses revealed strong individual differences: 12% of participants followed the group in nearly all of the tests. 26% of the sample consistently defied majority opinion, with the rest conforming on some trials. An examination of all critical trials in the experimental group revealed that one-third of all responses were incorrect. These incorrect responses often matched the incorrect response of the majority group (i.e., actors). Overall, 74% of participants gave at least one incorrect answer out of the 12 critical trials.[1] Regarding the study results, Asch stated: "That intelligent, well-meaning young people are willing to call white black is a matter of concern."

[…]
 

That experiment unfortunately agrees in some ways with that (awful) text (the one that Musk loves so much). Lots of people (about 75% of the total) are prone to agree in some ways with an idea, as long as it is perceived coming from a general consensus.

That "conformity effect" makes things easier for dictators. If you can control the media and destroy free, independent thinking, about 75% of the people will have a natural tendency to agree in some degree with the official thinking/ideas  (i.e. Jews are guilty of destroying Germany, NATO wants to destroy Russia, etc.) as log as they are perceived as shared for the majority of the population no matter how wrong are them. 

That's one of the main reasons most political movement say "we are the people". They want to portray their ideas are product of a general consensus, then, if they manage to get that result, lots of non-aligned people will come to them by default. 

Add cognitive disonance to that conformity effect, and life for a democracy may be made harsher if their enemies manage to dominate the political discurse

While I don't disregard the results of the experiment, the text attributed to Musk about high Ts is a far stretch, unsupported, conclusion. In Dutch we have a nice saying: he has heard the bell ringing, but doesn't know where the clapper resides; or sumfink.

Anyway, some Psychology I have appreciated to gain knowledge of. There are various ways of classifying personality types, but the one most applicable to this theory is (translation by google):

A ) Troublemakers

B ) Outsiders

C ) Cowards

Most people usually reside in C, they don't like to go against the grain and stir up trouble. Just go with the flow, path of least resistance.
Although one can be a B type at work but an A type at football club,while being a C at home. The high-T's are probably often in A when there is a camera around, but It's not like the gymbro's are establishing our opinion LoLz. 
When there are books that need to be read, they are usually in C ) and follow whatever some B ) type they think is interesting, tells them. 

Edited September 3 by Lethaface

[billbindc]

7 minutes ago, danfrodo said:

I see more & more concern in the private sector over doing business with china due to its turn to belligerence.  What is it they will gain that was better than the cash-tsunami they were getting from trade??????   I just don't get it.  

At my own company, investors want to know how much we rely on china before they invest.  

China is less brittle than Russia but certainly more brittle than your average Western democracy. After Deng, it has slowly morphed into a unitary dictatorship with yawning problems of demography and economy that threaten the vast successes he made possible. The party has largely completed the transformation from movement to racket and nationalism is the obvious alternative. 

[danfrodo]

2 minutes ago, Lethaface said:

While I don't disregard the results of the experiment, the text attributed to Musk about high Ts is a far stretch, unsupported, conclusion. In Dutch we have a nice saying: he has heard the bell ringing, but doesn't know where the clapper resides; or sumfink.

Anyway, some Psychology I have appreciated to gain knowledge of. There are various ways of classifying personality types, but the one most applicable to this theory is (translation by google):

A ) Troublemakers

B ) Outsiders

C ) Cowards

Most people usually reside in C, they don't like to go against the grain and stir up trouble. Just go with the flow, path of least resistance.
Although one can be a B type at work but an A type at football club,while being a C at home. The T's are probably often in A, but It's not like the gymbro's are establishing our opinion LoLz. 

This also gets into one of my great pet peeves.  That people don't seem to know that these two words actually have different meanings: confidence and competence.  I have seen in my life, over & over & over how folks say "oh he seems confident in what he's saying"  --  so what?  But is he actually competent in what he's saying?  Does he have evidence to back up his claims?  How true have his statements turned out to this point?  I've seen the most ludicrous shysters at my previous job do great by just being aggressively confident but spouting complete b--s--t.  And I've seen these folks continually fail upwards.  Mistake after mistake but are good at presenting.  Works..... until you are on a battlefield (or in a competitive market)

[The_Capt]

1 hour ago, Fernando said:

Unfortunately, peer pressure and herd mentality is a very, very real thing. Nazism and Comunism were wise enough to make extensive use of it.

Herd mentality doesn't means  stagnation of thinking, nor oppose change at all, provided the new ideas, even if they are false or erroneous, finally become a new consensus. Remember that according to Ash experiment at least a 25% of the people don't accept imposition, nor reduction of their ideas to herd thinking. Usually a minority of people coming from that 25% promote new ideas (It doesn't matter if they are good or bad) and change,  then those idea spreads enough helped by propitious economic, social and political conditions (if not, those ideas usually die) until they gather a critical mass of people to make them predominant. After that stage, herd mentality enters the game and lots of non-aligned people comes to the new ideas and accept them, even if they din't like them at first, becoming a new strong consensus.

This is all great but it does not explain why the icebergs tip. So Nazi-ism started as a fringe bunch of loonies - they were in the 25%. Same goes for communism. So how the minority can rise to put peer pressure in motion and become a majority is far more complex than Ash's experiments. There are many other forces at play in all this, human social dynamism being just one. So we can create herds but they are not static. They move, slowly at first and then they can move very violently. the 75% results do not explain how outliers can catch fire, or how mainstream can become stale and "old fish" in time.

Peer pressure works, until it doesn't. Centralized mechanisms of peer pressure do work, but they do not work forever. They are flawed and people just got to be people and make trouble.  

[Lethaface]

3 hours ago, Vlad said:

I don't mind repeatedly reading about the same stuff because for example the nukes just belong to this topic, since people like Medvedev like to use them as threats whenever they're drunk (read: all the time). Reading posts from back then is fine, even though many times I'm about to reply to a post only to realize that I'm two years late so there's no point in it. 

About the populists I hope so too. We in Slovakia have fallen victim to them in both parliamentary elections (Fico becoming the PM) and presidential elections (Peter Pelegrini is just Fico's sockpuppet - in fact they were in the same party, but Pelegrini left to start his own even though he acts as watered-down Fico and people were joking that it's just a charade). Even the third main-ish member of our coalition, Andrej Danko, is more or less just another useful idiot. He is known for visiting the Russian Duma several times (presumably for some rectal alpinism) and he became a meme machine for his frequent gaffes, where he sounded like a broken generator of random words. If you think Biden's gaffes were severe, Danko would give him a run for his money. And he was a friggin' Speaker of the Parliament. That's how bad our situation is.

On the other hand our Czech brothers handled it quite well by electing  Petr Fiala as a PM and former general Petr Pavel as president (he appears to be a male version of our former president Zuzana Čaputová) and their populists got smacked. Also the Italian elections ended well from what I gather. I don't know about France, I remember reading about new elections and if that's true, that may be a problem if Marine LePen wins.

Our help for the Ukraine went from "sending whatever we can, even though it's not much in the grand scheme of things" (S-300, MiG-29s) to crowdsourcing - I think it was this year that we collected something between 3 to 4 million Euros for Ukraine to buy what they need, despite our PM trying to downplay it by saying that "it's just a drop in the bucket". On the other hand Czechia has provided plenty of help, they led the recent effort to buy artillery ammunition from around the world and the people have even crowdfunded an upgrade T-72 tank called Tomáš (Thomas, after Thomas the Tank Engine). I know. Czechia has most of the arms industry from the former Czechislovakia and our only military company produces only the SPGs like Zuzana or Dana and the mine-clearing vehicle Božena, but still, it's about the effort and here we are clearly lacking.

I guess one of the advantages of being a constitutional Monarchy is that a royal family isn't prudent to fall for populism agenda. I think succession by birth is a stupid backward idea, but so far the alternative doesn't seem to be better in pratice lol.

Help for Ukraine is a product of politics of a country in a rather unstable world, I for one don't relate people nor individuals to their countries performance on the 'give aid to Ukraine' scale. Aid is good, different people is interesting. One day, hopefully, there will be a somewhat centrist, EU wide, political party called 'good enough compromise' that does a decent enough job of administering our Union so that voting on either side will be actually meaningful and not a step towards disaster.

 

Edited September 3 by Lethaface

[Jiggathebauce]

6 hours ago, Eug85 said:

Russian propaganda works wonders. People with diametrically opposed views unite to fight against Ukraine. This far-left character from the USA joined the Russian unit "Espanyol" created from football hooligans with far-right views to fight against "Ukrainian fascists".

 

While there is a documented and noted pattern of Marxist leninists(mainly from the Stalin apologist side of the left) who wholeheartedly embrace support of imperialist anti Western powers and think victoria Nuland singlehandedly couped Ukraine, you chose this as an example of a "far left" character and it undermines your entire argument by making it look like you can't distinguish left from right.

What about this guy to you says he is far left? I have seen interviews with this barber and he is an anti semitic homophobe who hates degenerates(ironic given that he's got an aesthetic that would give heart attacks to any babushka at church). He has white supremacist prison gang insignia on his clothing and in his barber shop. The best you could say is that he is incoherent, he brags about giving free haircuts to red army veterans. And right wingers largely are incoherent, their only consistency is wanting power for themselves and not others. 

https://youtu.be/E2TcPZCLQSk?si=TI_Yw7_bVMqSMZ2g

 

Edited September 3 by Jiggathebauce

[Lethaface]

1 hour ago, Sgt Joch said:

90% + of my feed on X is funny animal videos or photos of half naked women (yes I know the algorythim ). I still struggle to see why people think Twitter is a serious source of information.

The 10% of garbage works in subliminal ways, especially for people who don't have the time/energy to actually consume serious sources of information (which aren't always perfect, to say the least).

[Eug85]

17 minutes ago, Jiggathebauce said:

While there is a documented and noted pattern of Marxist leninists(mainly from the Stalin apologist side of the left) who wholeheartedly embrace support of imperialist anti Western powers and think victoria Nuland singlehandedly couped Ukraine, you chose this as an example of a "far left" character and it undermines your entire argument by making it look like you can't distinguish left from right.

What about this guy to you says he is far left? I have seen interviews with this barber and he is an anti semitic homophobe who hates degenerates(ironic given that he's got an aesthetic that would give heart attacks to any babushka at church). He has white supremacist prison gang insignia on his clothing and in his barber shop. The best you could say is that he is incoherent, he brags about giving free haircuts to red army veterans. And right wingers largely are incoherent, their only consistency is wanting power for themselves and not others. 

https://youtu.be/E2TcPZCLQSk?si=TI_Yw7_bVMqSMZ2g

 

Based on your post, am I wrong that the far left and far right have common goals today?

If this guy is not far left, then what do you think a far left character in the US should look like, how should he treat Jews and the "Red Army"?

[MikeyD]

52 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

So Nazi-ism started as a fringe bunch of loonies - they were in the 25%. Same goes for communism.

If I recall correctly (I may not ), it was about the same percentage in the American colonies who agitated for separation from Britain. Canada's population was significantly boosted by the Loyalists streaming across the border, electing to not participate in the 'great experiment'. I suspect it was the same 25% who turned Afghanistan Taliban. 25% seems to be a threshold number, beyond which the ability to control civic discord gets overwhelmed,

[Lethaface]

12 minutes ago, Eug85 said:

Based on your post, am I wrong that the far left and far right have common goals today?

If this guy is not far left, then what do you think a far left character in the US should look like, how should he treat Jews and the "Red Army"?

Not to take a position, but what is the difference between extreme left and extreme right?

[Jiggathebauce]

25 minutes ago, Eug85 said:

Based on your post, am I wrong that the far left and far right have common goals today?

If this guy is not far left, then what do you think a far left character in the US should look like, how should he treat Jews and the "Red Army"?

You are only partially right, the left is not a monolith (in fact, it is known for extensive infighting and debate both prosuctive and unproductive).

There are principled anti imperialists who oppose capitalist great powers of all stripes, I as a trotskyist hate the Russian federations policies for largely the same reasons I hate those of the western powers.  I hope workers of all nations unite against the prevailing order and thwart the inevitable slide toward a horrific and pointless war between China and others. 

Your second set of questions is also firmly answered in trotskyist perspective. Revolution should be led and supported by the most oppressed, to include Jews, women , people of color and lgbt who are always on the chopping block to get messed with every election cycle on top of the systems economic fluctuations. 

 

the USSR was a degenerated workers state whose revolution was hijacked by Stalin's bureaucracy, but nevertheless it's army provided a lions share of the blood to end Hitler's Germany.   It's not that hard of a conundrum, the red army was a net positive in that war. 

Edited September 3 by Jiggathebauce

[The_Capt]

12 minutes ago, Lethaface said:

Not to take a position, but what is the difference between extreme left and extreme right?

Depends on the page margins….

Edited September 3 by The_Capt

[Jiggathebauce]

15 minutes ago, Lethaface said:

Not to take a position, but what is the difference between extreme left and extreme right?

One side thinks EVERYONE should have their needs met and the other thinks that only certain people should be allowed to exist .

One side thinks people are fundamentally equal and the other thinks some should inherently serve and be served.

Edited September 3 by Jiggathebauce

[Fernando]

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

This is all great but it does not explain why the icebergs tip. So Nazi-ism started as a fringe bunch of loonies - they were in the 25%. Same goes for communism. So how the minority can rise to put peer pressure in motion and become a majority is far more complex than Ash's experiments. There are many other forces at play in all this, human social dynamism being just one. So we can create herds but they are not static. They move, slowly at first and then they can move very violently. the 75% results do not explain how outliers can catch fire, or how mainstream can become stale and "old fish" in time.

Peer pressure works, until it doesn't. Centralized mechanisms of peer pressure do work, but they do not work forever. They are flawed and people just got to be people and make trouble.  

History is very dynamic and subject to continuous change (I should know because I have got a degree and a master in Early Modern History; from late 15th century to the French Revolution there were LOTS of changes), because social, economic, politic and military situation flows like a river. Sometimes it flows slowly, sometimes it flows very fast.

By definition herds don't guide anyone. On the contrary, they are usually guided by a minority. The problem is that Trump, Musk, Hitler, Stalin or  Napoleon, think/thought they were/are from the  minority who leads the herd, and once they manage to be succesful, the herd effect and the generation of consensus (no matter how false the assumptions of that consensus are ) have a tendency to help them. That's the reason they usually look for that consensus (by trying to seduce the 75% that is part of the herd, and exterminating the 25% that is not part of it).

[danfrodo]

some good stuff here today, but mostly bad.  More RU attacks killing civilians.  But Romania sending a patriot battery (or 3?  hard to understand whether that's a 3 piece battery or 3 batteries).  

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/9/3/2267550/-Russian-stuff-blowing-up-Russian-missile-attack-kills-more-than-50-in-Poltava?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=trending&pm_medium=web

 

[The_Capt]

28 minutes ago, Fernando said:

By definition herds don't guide anyone. On the contrary, they are usually guided by a minority. The problem is that Trump, Musk, Hitler, Stalin or  Napoleon, think/thought they were/are from the  minority who leads the herd, and once they manage to be succesful, the herd effect and the generation of consensus (no matter how false the assumptions of that consensus are ) have a tendency to help them. That's the reason they usually look for that consensus (by trying to seduce the 75% that is part of the herd, and exterminating the 25% that is not part of it).

I am sorry but that does not track. Herds provide the peer pressure to conform you cite in your first post. Herds build identity and then enshrine it in culture. Try going against the force of culture…it is a fools errand.

Seduction of the herd rings true, however, that is a complex thing. Ones gets into informal leadership, unstated norms and inertia. And then we see situations where the herd just suddenly decides to go “nope”. It is highly unpredictable and rarely is led.

The picture you paint of sheeple being led around the nose by a clever few is far too simplistic in my opinion. In reality it is an ongoing negotiation for the most part. Micro-social forces are incredibly strong but have very short ranges. So even the idea of a herd 75% is in fact a bunch of concentric herd circles where the decision calculus shifts. 

[Lethaface]

1 hour ago, Jiggathebauce said:

One side thinks EVERYONE should have their needs met and the other thinks that only certain people should be allowed to exist .

One side thinks people are fundamentally equal and the other thinks some should inherently serve and be served.

Interesting response, although I don't think it's fair. While I realize people in Europe / NL are in general on the bloody socialist line if considered from a USA pov, I'm certainly not 'extreme left' while I do adhere to the principle that all people are of equal worth and they should all be allowed to exist like the rest of us.
Humanism isn't extreme left

Edited September 3 by Lethaface

[Battlefront.com]

4 hours ago, Sgt Joch said:

90% + of my feed on X is funny animal videos or photos of half naked women (yes I know the algorythim ). I still struggle to see why people think Twitter is a serious source of information.

As a guest I get slammed with borderline scams and right wing messaging more than cute animals.  Back before Musk there was way more animals and way less political garbage.  Oddly enough, I rarely got the half naked women then or now.

There is definitely a lot of quality stuff on X still.  But... there's many factual studies that show the rise of nutjob/extremism has increased since he fired almost all the content moderators.

Steve

[Fernando]

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

I am sorry but that does not track. Herds provide the peer pressure to conform you cite in your first post. Herds build identity and then enshrine it in culture. Try going against the force of culture…it is a fools errand.

1. I don't to get embroiled in a discussion. I have no time for it.
2. You are recurring to a straw man falacy. You take conclusions that are your conclusions, not mine.
3. Herds pressure some kind of people that conforms up to 75% of the population, but fortunately 25% of the people seems inmune to it.
3. Herds don't build identity. They get it from others.

Quote

Seduction of the herd rings true, however, that is a complex thing. Ones gets into informal leadership, unstated norms and inertia. And then we see situations where the herd just suddenly decides to go “nope”. It is highly unpredictable and rarely is led

The herd is ALWAYS led by a minority (or minorities in competition) for some time, until a different minority or minorities takes control for some time. OTOH leading a herd doesn't mean owning them. You may ride the herd, use it for your purposes for a time, no matter how short or long is that time, but you never own it. Another one may make take the herd from you.

Quote

The picture you paint of sheeple being led around the nose by a clever few is far too simplistic in my opinion. In reality it is an ongoing negotiation for the most part. Micro-social forces are incredibly strong but have very short ranges. So even the idea of a herd 75% is in fact a bunch of concentric herd circles where the decision calculus shifts. 

Unfortunately, most people (according to Ash, up to 75%) can be led by a clever few. At least for some time. That is my personal experience.

I am not in a political post, but it is very close of it (I don't want to disclose details). I have seen every day for the last 5 or 6 years how some clever, but at the same time ruthless and amoral people are creating a false "truth" by a clever use of dirty, unscrupulous propaganda and plain lies. Those lies, repeated hundreds of times, have managed to slowly create a mass of consensus within our collective which is reaching a critical level now, so that level has become high is enough to produce the effects of the herd pressure on the people prone to it. It would be quite fascinating ...if the people around me and I wouldn't be on the receiving end.

Edited September 3 by Fernando