mozz

The cartoon is excellent but yes the problem is that the phrasing doesn't match the reality. "Fund the nonpolice" isn't catchy though.

Honestly, just properly funding anything that is designed to do benevolent things for the community as a whole is a tough sell with way too many US community politicians

Yeah. That part makes perfect sense to me. It's a little different from what you were saying, but someone on Lemmy was actually telling me about their experience with someplace where something like this had been implemented -- mental health people going on certain calls instead of cops, with cops assisting in cases that might turn violent, and it sounds like it works out great from all people involved's perspective. The callers are happier because people come who are better at handling the problems, the cops are happier because they don't have to deal with calls they are less qualified to deal with, the mental health people are happier because they have cops on standby for violent calls but they also get to deal with things right from the jump, instead of coming in after the cops came and just tackled and cuffed the person or whatever and now they have to come into the middle of the wreckage.

I know you were talking about things at an even much earlier level than when the 911 call happens; that sounds good to me too. The only part I was objecting to was the vindictive framing of it. Like if you want to fund mental health and homeless services that sounds great, we should do that. Coupling that idea up with punishing the police because they were bad (not saying you're doing that, but definitely some people have that in mind saying "defund the police" I think) I don't think is the way to produce progress though.

I have no knowledge at all, but this is what makes the most sense to me. I don't have a high opinion of Russia's strategic military decisions (and the truth is I have no idea what this is about), but I know that countries have ships that travel around, it is normal, and I just can't imagine any country that is run by adults that would think that sending ships to Cuba in this way would be any kind of anything provocative or whatever.

But I can easily believe that the US news media would see the words "Russian ships" and freak out and start writing all kinds of stories about it. I mean, people are clickin on it. Mission accomplished.

"Now if you're gonna stab, stab, Trigger. Don't, you know... dance."

Hm, I generally agree with the first part. I was not meaning anything to say "the US should be in charge of the world" (I mean... more than it already is). China or the EU or the Arab world as a foil to the US just getting to do whatever it wants (particularly as pertains to small countries) sounds like a good thing, yes.

I have some minor disagreements about the details of the rest of it... honestly, I see the US and China as like two guys at work who constantly are pissed at each other, bickering or trying to get one over on the other guy, and everyone else makes jokes about how they should just get married. They obviously depend on each other. The system of trade they've worked out works great for both countries and is to both of their benefit, for whatever minor efforts they make to grab bigger slices of the pie from the other from time to time. With the exception of total idiots like Trump, I don't think any of the decision makers on either side want to upset that in any genuine sense.

I'm not sure that China's economic development is set up for success. I am sorry to not be able to explain it, but I do not understand the details; someone smarter than me whose judgement I respect broke down to me why China's development is unsustainable on its current model, and I didn't follow it well enough to remember it and tell it to you. That is not to say any big crisis is brewing, just that it'll be difficult for it to continue without big changes just because it has been growing quite a lot up until now. But I wouldn't take it ascending to dominance as being a definite trajectory. IDK, if I have a chance I can ask him again and then maybe explain it to you once I actually understand it.

The US's military is massive by any measure but the pure numbers are a little misleading; a ton of stuff gets put under "military" that really isn't. A ton of basic science and technology research goes under "defense"; e.g. the internet was developed under the military budget (DARPA). Maintaining bases overseas is military, sure, but a lot of the purpose and actual day-to-day practice of it is soft power and maintaining on-the-ground relationships with other countries. They're not just fighting wars with it with every base on every given day. But yeah, it's certainly powerful enough to be terrifying if the US government falls into the hands of someone (like you-know-who) or some grouping, who will apply it to pursue for-real domination instead of just hegemony and occasional oppression.

But yeah, broadly speaking I think I agree with a lot of what you're saying. Just like anyone, the US can get oppressive if there is no counterbalancing force to provide an alternative or keep their power level in check. What I was saying was "big countries are dangerous things and that includes non capitalist ones," not "big countries are dangerous things, except the US, that one's okay!"

Dude it's fuckin weird

I watched some videos from one of those pro-Russian military Youtube channels, and the whole thing is two years worth of uninterrupted victory, steady forward progress, missions accomplished and disasters for Ukraine. And yet, there's no acknowledgement that if everything had gone as they said the Russian armed forces would have swept across Ukraine, on through Europe, and circled the globe 5 or 6 times by now, with how much progress they have made... but that in reality the eastern front line has in that time not gone anywhere.

I think Russia is pretty good at creating believable bullshit (they are certainly good at influencing elections), but when faced with an actual problem that objectively exists in the real world, it just looks hilarious to see them attacking it for 2 years continuously by simply insisting with absolute passionate confidence that they are solving it better than anything you've ever seen, and they're on the verge of yet another great and crushing success, as everyone can see, just watch.

Yeah. Team sports is a hell of a drug.

Trying to do brinksmanship only works if there is believability to the idea of you crossing the brink. Putin who doesn't want anyone to be allowed to sit near him, constantly asks his friend-countries if they've been hanging out with NATO behind his back, and managed to fuck up one war with one tiny country this badly with the whole weight of the biggest nation in the world behind the effort, is very different from Khrushchev overseeing the cold war and the development of the nuclear arsenal and directly challenging the Cuba blockade, banging his shoe on the podium at the UN and screaming "We will bury you!" Putin may view the threat that he will attack the US as believable, but I do not think that anyone in the US or Russian government considers it a strong possibility and like I said I think the "not touching you" game (if that is in fact what he's doing) just makes him look weaker to both parties TBH.

(I hadn't even really considered the death sentence that is attacking the US with nukes as on the table for Russia; the nuclear option I was envisioning was attacking Ukraine and gambling that the rest of the world would be so against starting WW3 that they could get away with it.)

Hm... I thought that the Ukrainian navy was pretty much fucked as a branch of service after the fall of Crimea -- most of the naval vessels captured by Russia, other countries talking about giving them some ships but not following through (or not yet), naval drones being piloted by members of the GUR instead of by someone affiliated with "Navy of Ukraine." I sort of put all that stuff in a category with airplanes being flown by the army of a country that doesn't have a dedicated air force -- like yes they have boats but they don't have a navy. IDK, I don't know the formal status and I could be wrong in my thinking; that was just how I was looking at it.

As to his Israel policy, it's not as good as you think.

It's fuckin terrible. I didn't say it was good. I said I think he is unhappy that the Gaza "war" is happening at all. If you want to blame him for not taking the step from there to saying "and that's why fuck Israel, they won't get any more weapons and we support the ICC warrant" (ideally after climbing in a time machine so he can do it in October or November of last year), I can get behind you on that idea, too.

Especially combined with some of the most extreme border policies we've ever had.

What's your take on my summary of the border situation here?

IDK what the thinking is with this, but "let's frighten the US by sending 4 ships over nearby to them after losing 29 of our vessels in a war with a country 15 times smaller, that doesn't have a navy" seems like a non starter of an idea. Once people reach adolescence, this "I'm not touching you I'm not touching you, are you uncomfortable" crap just comes across as a highlight of how carefully you are adhering to the boundary you are walking up to so aggressive-looking-ly.

If that even is the thinking. IDK, maybe they are just doing exercises, and there's no particular intent behind it and the US press is writing a bunch about it just because it is notable that it's happening.

ActivityPub is so loosely designed (in my opinion as somewhat of an outsider) that the opportunity was squandered to be able to have all different services interact smoothly with each other. It's basically one little fiefdom per app, and if Pixelfed wants to make itself compatible with Mastodon's fiefdom, then fine, and likewise for Mbin with Lemmy and etc, but it's not really "cross compatible" between the whole universe of apps, in the same way as other better-designed protocols like email work, where it's just "email" with no app specificity to it. It is a shame and a missed opportunity with how the protocol was designed, I think.

I think in general, the fediverse people are working on solutions, but we're sort of stuck into the present setup which has this not really ideal compartmentalization and there's not a good way to fix it. Certainly not from the Lemmy side that I'm aware of. Two possibilities though:

• Pixelfed has in-progress work on groups support, which is apparently very close to reality and at which point it should be able to interoperate with both Mastodon and Lemmy, which are the two main fiefdoms at present. And, Dan seems like he takes it pretty seriously the idea of maintaining compatibility all around (incl specifically with Lemmy).
• You can do kbin/mbin, which is more "Lemmy like" and is the best currently-working option I'm aware of for interoperating with Mastodon and Lemmy both (incl following Mrs. Hedge on Pixelfed and also any Lemmy communities). That's why I am using mbin currently FWIW.