SeventyTwoTrillion [he/him]
“Crises teasingly hold out the possibility of dramatic reversals only to be followed by surreal continuity as the old order cadaverously fights back.”
it was unfortunate, I liked his combative attitude towards weak-willed liberals, but his inability to just calm down for a second and not tilt at every windmill he saw resulted in a lot of friendly fire and the moderators on the site could only put up with that for so long, understandably. the fact that he lasted as long as he did was pretty impressive given that his second account’s name was literally just synonyms of his original one, and without any meaningful change in behaviour, which is a clear-cut case of ban evasion.
he’ll be welcomed back with open arms if he demonstrates that he can stop beligerently attacking other people
"To indulge in personal attacks, pick quarrels, vent personal spite or seek revenge instead of entering into an argument and struggling against incorrect views for the sake of unity or progress or getting the work done properly. This is a fifth type.”
as somebody who upbears everything they see before I even read it (and then removes it if I dislike what the person is saying) whenever I get into mini-debates on here and the other person doesn’t upbear my comment before replying, for about five seconds I perceive that as “fuck you, 72T.” before I then realize that many people are like you and just don’t upbear things that often.
I guess it’s just a holdover from reddit culture where you’ll see a comment thread 50 comments deep where both commenters have 0 votes on each comment because they’re both downvoting each other, and on here, not voting is the closest thing you have to a downvote
Lebanon’s been in a state of collapse for a while with presidents coming and going, Hezbollah is the strongest political force there AFAIK and they’re pretty well-entrenched and overthrowing them would be basically impossible, so the “only” difference would be the widespread murder of Lebanese people by Israeli bombing runs.
Yemen’s an interesting one because we could either see a partition or the opposite, a sort of unification of the different groups as a result of Israeli attacks - but there’s not much that the West can do to Yemen that they haven’t already experienced over the last decade or two, so an official collapse of Ansarallah seems basically impossible.
Iraq’s government could collapse, but even if it did, another group would take power and it would probably be on Iran’s side still.
Iran isn’t collapsing unless they get nuked, and even then they might still survive as a government. Regardless, if Iran gets nuked, Hezbollah and Iran will make every village, town, and city in Israel indistinguishable from Gaza under the rain of half a million missiles.
Syria’s government is the most vulnerable in the whole region IMO because a significant chunk of the country isn’t under his control but I’m convinced that Assad has some magical powers at this point so I wouldn’t be surprised if his government somehow survives.
I think Israel’s tiny size means that a full war more-or-less guarantees their collapse. The only way that they could survive is if the Resistance agrees - for whatever reason - to hold off on striking the power grid and desalination and ports and such, and only hits obscure military installations (meanwhile, Israeli jets will absolutely be beelining towards every enemy power station and oil refinery in the region). It’s why the Samson option exists at all - you don’t need mutually assured destruction if you aren’t at massive risk of being destroyed.
I was actually thinking that, hesitating before I committed to it, like “what if some big socialist subreddit or other community collapses this week and then they emigrate to Hexbear and one of the first things they see is “Child of the Week: Hassan LargePenis””
sometimes you just have to follow your heart though
Absolute genius. Israel just hits Iran once per week, thus forcing Iran to completely re-do all their plans in order to have a slightly more damaging response. Repeat until you’ve gone 256 weeks and you hit the integer overflow limit in which case Iran will have to do a negative response - that is, sends aid to Israel
What is the most likely scenario for the Ukrainian meat grinder to end at this point?
I think we’re looking at it right now. Russia gets past the fortifications it’s been gradually grinding down for 2 years and then marches its forces into relatively undefended Ukrainian territory as quickly as that territory can be reinforced and held by Russia and its forces kept safe from drones, missiles, and Ukrainian aircraft. this will still probably be pretty slow all things considered, I imagine they’ll grab a bunch of territory, stop and consolidate for some time, grab more, consolidate, and so on, but this is leagues faster than the 10 meters per day we had during most of 2023.
then, either Russia reaches the Dniper and has a great natural defensive formation to reinforce (and possibly advance further from if peace is still made impossible by the West), or Ukraine finally sues for peace before Russia gets there and Russia gets whatever terms it wants within reason.
I hesitate to say we’re nearing the end of the war - in fact, we probably have a year, two, possibly more and we might only be halfway through or even less than that - but without direct NATO involvement I just don’t see how Ukraine alters the war in any meaningful way from its current course. maybe it had a shadow of a chance in 2022, maybe even in 2023 with some exceptionally good organizing and training, but in late 2024? what’s going on in Kursk is a farce of their 2023 counteroffensive, which was already pretty farcical. there’s not much to do in this war anymore other than throw men at Russia and hope that a meteorite hits the Kremlin or something.
we’ve been saying that the outcome has been pretty much baked in since the war began due to many factors, but there was always a chance of a Russian fuckup (and there have been a few!) that meant Ukraine could somehow figure out a way to win, or at least not lose, or at least lose but in such a way that they remain a viable nation-state. crazier things have happened in wars, even between opponents of mismatched strength. but now the outcome is just totally determined. Ukraine could take all of Kursk and I still think Russia ultimately wins in every universe.
Kadyrov is what happens if you take a Andrew Tate-esque figure, make him live in Russia for two decades all expenses paid and no limits on his worst impulses, and then gave him a sizable army to command
every entertaining thing he does is inevitably overshadowed by him being just the shittiest person alive within 100 miles of his current location