Quick analysis: the US flushed itself down the toilet.

• Likely fact: Republicans now control all 4 towers of the castle (president, senate, house of representatives and surpreme court).

• Conclusion: the situation allows Republicans to steamroll legislation into force.

• Further conclusion: US voters really don’t understand what they are doing.

Climate: it’s bad, but one president’s rule is short. Trump will withdraw from the Paris treaty and sabotage domestic attempts to curb emissions. Europe and China will continue their attempts because they haven’t changed, and they want energy independence. Climate is a system with great inertia. We are beaten by the mistakes of previous decades, new generations will be beaten by our mistakes. Increasingly hard.

Ukraine: the situation is very bad. The Biden administration won approval for 60 billion of support in spring, but according to Zelensky, only 10% has been delivered so far. Unless the DoD hurries the hell out of itself, Trump will close the tap on aid that Biden secured. Trump will try diplomacy, but Putin’s administration is made of a different sort of people. They are running for life while Trumpists are running for lunch. Putin will politely send him where sun doesn’t shine and continue grinding meat, now with an added flavour of North Korean. Ukraine faces a very difficult choice: fight a retreating war in conditions of decreasing aid, hoping that revolutionary conditions arise in Russia… or make peace with the attacker, giving them territory. Ukraine will need all the assistance it can get from anywhere. Knowing this, and knowing the risk of a Trump re-election, I started developing a drone system 6 months ago. It has gone through many iterations and might be capable of combat in the coming month. I didn’t sign up to live in a world like this, but hey, you take what you’re given. :(

If the war in Ukraine gives Putin territory and peace as a result, Putin and his heirs know that you can get territory and peace with war: any place in Eastern Europe could be next.

In summer, Congress locked away the keys for leaving NATO, but Republicans now control both houses and Trump has cleansed the party of dissenters. Trump can credibly threaten to withdraw from NATO or actually do it.

Taiwan needs to find more alliances, because the US might become unreliable, and China knows this. The rest of the world needs to think if they can do without electronics during a Chinese attempt to conquer Taiwan.

Democracy in the US: will be dismantled in favour of something like Hungary. We will see ministers who are oligarchs like Musk or irresponsible liars like Kennedy. Since the storm is near-perfect, I predict that democracy will give way to oligarchy. Risk of disturbances, repressions and internal conflict will grow.

Until now, only unstable people wanted to assassinate Trump. Given these conditions, I predict that stable but ruthless people who see a danger to their future will join the game. They will reason as follows: “risk has reached certainty and there is still time to prevent outcomes”. If I was working in the Secret Service, I would increase protection on Trump 10 times (unless I hated him).

I live in Eastern Europe, and seriously recommend your people start researching nuclear weapons. :(

A note about Taiwan. Allegedly, Putin asked Musk for a favour for Xi - to refuse Starlink for Taiwan.

Coincidentally, negotiations between Taiwan and Starlink broke down. The Guardian reported about it on October 15:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/15/taiwan-to-have-satellite-internet-service-as-protection-in-case-of-chinese-attack

“Starlink is not available in Taiwan after negotiations reportedly fell apart over Taiwan’s requirement that a local entity have a majority share of any joint venture established.”

A person experienced in investigating such matters would take a look at the ownership structure of other Starlink local representatives, and see if Taiwan had unusually harsh demands or Musk was unusually stiff while negotiating with them. If Taiwan had harsh demands, it is plausible that no favour was done. If Musk was unusually stiff, then it’s plausible that the favour was done as requested.

Ideally, people should try to get them Jas-39 Gripen with MBDA Meteor missiles to back up the F-16 fleet.

Currently, the situation seems to be: F-16 pilots are still inexperienced and their missiles are outranged by some missiles that a Su-35 could be carrying (e.g. R-77M with 190 km range). When a Su-34 (fighter-bomber) conducts glide bombing runs from a distance of 40 km, a Su-35 (air superiority fighter) typically provides it air cover. Under such conditions, it’s a difficult task for an F-16 pilot to fire an AMRAAM at the bomber (at best 180 km range) and evade counter-fire from the fighter. Fortunately they’ve got shiny new ECM pods and hopefully Russian planes haven’t got decent radars.

However, a plane with longer range weapons (Meteor can fly for 200 km) would deter even a fighter escort of the Su-34, and likely end glide bombing as a tactic.

Alternatively, one can hope that the actual range of AMRAAM exceeds the advertised range or the actual range of R-77M falls short of advertised range - or that they have better radars, or can somehow backport Meteor to F-16, or that their ECM can beat the electronics of R-77. However, as far as I’m aware, firing an AMRAAM from maximum range needs a really big target (actual bomber, not a fighter-bomber).

Either way, good to hear it happened. :) If it happens more, it might finally deter glide bombing. So far, air defense ambushes have also temporarily deterred it and drones have struck airfields where the Su-34 planes get equipped, but nothing has stopped it for long.

the experiences around Helene and Milton are just an extreme continuation of a trend where the public is increasingly getting its information from extremist figures online rather than experts

Sadly, all true.

I’ve had to remind people several times that “if you go reading Twitter, please put on your intelligence analyst glasses”. To find a grain of truth in that truckload of dust.

If conservative means “cautious and wary of unexpected results”, “disillusioned with methods that we tried and failed with” or maybe even “equipped with experience of successful and failed cooperation with various sorts of people”, then yes. Already before age 50, I’m spoiled with various good and bad experiences. I cannot exclude that as my tendency to explore decreases (psychology tends to affirm this trend), I may get prejudiced too. I may have to figure out something to counter it.

But if conservative means that I suddenly don’t want a society with equality and without hierarchy, then - nope.

it’s probably talking about YOU

Seems very unlikely. Suppose that global population is 7 billion. One percent is 70 million then. Neither “you and me” or “EU and me” are good analogies. The population of the EU is ~450 million, the population of the US is 330 million - with a bunch of additional “western” countries lumped in, let’s say - one billion. That is 14% of the global population, far above 1%.

The examined 1% includes people who are better not characterized as “being able to afford browsing Lemmy”, but rather being able to afford multiple households in a developed country (or more in an under-developed country). More or less: “people who can come up with one megabuck if they badly want”.

Some informative graphics, which by the way contradict the title claim of the post. I don’t know which one is right, the title says 1% = 95%, but Wikipedia says 1% = 46%. And it looks bad the other way too, since 55% = 1%…

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

Speculation has it that either “Palyantsia” (small turbojet drone) or “Neptun” (sizable cruise missile, antiship with ground strike capability) were used. Since part of the Russian facility was hardened and underground, I would ordinarily favour the hypothesis of “Neptun”, but it’s supposed to be out of their range and the videos recorded over Russia featured a turbojet sound and the video you linked has a small explosion (this would fit “Palyantsia”, since it’s small).

Alternatively, and perhaps more plausibly - people who are new to politics fall for a populist.

I’m a bit scared of where the world is going, but it doesn’t make me vote a local populist. One of the things that helps me recognize a scammer from distance - 3 decades of experience with garden variety politics.

As a happy user of Signal (no bugs or incidents from my viewpoint), I regardless chime in to say a word for decentralization. :)

Signal is centralized:

• there is a single Signal implementation, with a single developing entity
• you have to install its mobile version before you may run the desktop version

There exist protocols like Tox which go a step beyond Signal and offer more freedom -> have multiple clients from diverse makers (some of them unstable), don’t have centralized registration, and don’t rely on servers to distribute messages - only to distribute contact information.

In the grand comparison table of protocols (not clients), Tox is among the few lines that’s all green (Signal has one red square).

I attempted to find the source of this image and its spread seems to originate from 4chan (or at least, 4chan was one of the earliest vectors).

Chances of this being a disinformation / prank seem pretty high currently.

/me listening to the sound of a WinXP virtual machine booting under Debian Linux

They can shoot their foot with a grenade launcher next. I’m already out of range.

Alternatively or additionally, I think oxygen plasma glows blue or green, because northern lights (near the poles, at least) are greenish.

Came here to post this and say “finally”, but someone had already noticed. :)

There’s a quote that’s probably not from Churchill, but is frequently mis-attributed to him (the actual source is probably Abba Evan, an Israeli diplomat visiting Japan). The distorted quote says something that’s appropriate today:

“You can always count on the Americans to do the right thing, after they have exhausted all other possibilities.”

To resist an organized group, you communicate the problem (in an anarchist society, communicating the problem of a nascent state seems like the easy part), present evidence of the nature and severity of the problem, and ask people and existing organizations to mobilize.

Whether the next step is obstructing the state peacefully or mass production of munitions, would already depend on how bad the state has got.

The same that stops them from taking over a democracy. Sometimes.

If a society became anarchist enough to abolish state structures, there obviously had to exist a reason - there had to exist popular support.

Thus, someone attempting to recreate a state would face questions and opposition. People would try to persuade them of their error. If they declared a state, anarchists would not recognize it. If it claimed sovereignity above a territory, anarchists might not recognize that either.

The new state might encounter problems - unwilling residents would leave and be accepted in anarchy, annoyed anarchists would organize trade boycotts and sanctions, ultimately it could go badly and armed confrontation could follow. In some scenarios, the state might remain and attract people who want to live there. In some scenarios, war would follow - and if the majority really was anarchist, the state would lose and disappear.

Also notably, the Kronstadt anarchists held a general assembly to dicsuss the question of “shall we accept Lenin’s ultimatum, or fight a battle against the Red Army?” and decided democratically to fight.

(The battle was extremely bloody, anarchists lost and the Red Army won, at the cost of losing at least 5 times more people. Considerable numbers of anarchists escaped to Finland.)

In short: anarchists can use heavy artillery when needed, even if they know that war is not healthy - neither for them or the society they want.

YPG, the militia formed during the seperation of Rojava from the Syrian government, have been accused by Human Rights groups of using Child Soldiers.

Correct… and notably, unlike the other forces around them (Syrian dictatorship, Turkish-sponsored islamists, ISIS, etc) they responded to the accusation within a month:

In June 2020, United Nations reported the YPG/YPJ as the largest faction in the Syrian civil war by the number of recruited child soldiers with 283 child soldiers followed by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham with 245 child soldiers.[141]

On 15 July 2020, SDF issued a new military order prohibiting child recruitment. The NGO Fight For Humanity conducted multiple training sessions with hundreds of SDF commanders about the UN-SDF Action Plan To Prevent Child Recruitment, and distributed informational posters and flyers about it written in both Arabic and Kurdish, as part of an ongoing educational process. Syria-based researcher Thomas McClure observed that “SDF are less likely to engage in such practices than any of the other forces in Syria, but seek to hold themselves to a higher standard of accountability and human rights.”[142]

On 29 August 2020, SDF announced the creation of a new system that anyone can use to confidentially report to specialized Child Protection offices any suspected case of child recruitment, in accordance with the action plan that the SDF signed with the United Nations in the summer of 2019.[143][144]

Jälle mingid natsid välja ujunud, oligi liiga kaua vaikne pärast Odini tolguseid. :(

Kahjuks võin kinnitada rühmituse olemasolu ning kanda nende saldole ka ühe kakluse (kus üks tuttav osalema pidi) ning tõenäoliselt ka kuskil toimunud sümboolika sodimise. Tänavu jõudsid nad ka kapo aastaraamatusse.

Siin on pmst paar asja, mida inimene tänavalt teha saab.

• Kui näed, et keegi natsleb, kritiseeri ja selgita, et nii pole normaalne.
• Kui isik on tuttav, võib proovida küsida küsimusi. Jutluse pidamine enamasti inimest normaalseks ei päästa, aga küsimus selle kohta, millel tema arvates ta arvamus põhineb, ja kas see on ikka tõene - võib helgemal hetkel talle meelde tulla.
• Kui paistab, et asi on ohtlik, siis sellega tegelemiseks on politsei.

Mõnel maal, kus probleemid on suuremad, on muide eksperimenteeritud deradikaliseerumise tugirühmadega, pakkumaks abi gängist ära tulemisega.

Mina loodan, et liikumine sureb välja. See on 95% tõenäoline - hästi palju poliitilisi liikumisi surevad iseenesest välja süstemaatiliste siseprobleemide tõttu. Natsid ei hiilga toreda organisatsioonikultuuriga, mistõttu natsiliikumisi sureb tavalisest rohkemgi välja. Lähevad omavahel raksu, tihti on seltskond ka piisavalt vägivaldne, et natsi suurim vaenlane on teine nats löögiriistaga.

Kui ei sure välja, eks siis millalgi hakkavad avalikult pead tõstma ja piire kompama. Anarhistina tean et minusugused on kahjuks siis eesliinitöötajad, kellele üritatakse kallale kippuda ja kes vastu tegutsevad, kui politsei tihtipeale veel õndsa und magab. Õnneks on nii, et kus leidub natsi, seal leidub ka rohtu natsi vastu. Soome kolleegid on pidanud asjaga tegelema ja mõnevõrra abi on leitud süva-ajakirjandusest - põhjalikult tausta uurimisest, et iga nats nägupidi tuntud oleks. Jah, seaduse piirimail ja natsile kindlasti veidi hirmutav. Potentsiaalsele natsile - hoiatav, sõnumiga “ära nende sekka mine, nende üle peetakse ühekaupa arvet”.

Sadly, until the IDF starts investigating and prosecuting their members for war crimes (and stops assigning people without the required education, skills and psychological traits to essentially do police duties) - some parts of the IDF will continue to perform the role of recruiting Palestinians into extremist and militant organizations. :(

I would not be surprised if one of the dead man’s relatives decides at some point to take up weapons.