wonderingwanderer

You... do realize how the nation of Israel got the land that they're on, right?

You do realize what they're currently doing to Palestinians in the West Bank who have lived on that land for generations... right?

Can't tell if this says: "Strawman" or "If I only had a brain..."

I think it's more likely that the idea of a god or gods originated with humans who consumed psychoactive plants, fungus, and/or ergot-infected grain. Hardly the bossy types.

Over time though, the idea caught on and got popular, until most people had heard of or generally believed in it. Then some tightwads came in and decided that people couldn't get high anymore, so those folks had to take their drugs to secret caves and such.

Meanwhile, the tightwads appropriated the proto-religious ideas and codified them into stricter religions in order to pacify the masses who over generations had come to believe in such things as gods, and thus religions were converted into instruments of social control.

Fuck the GRU. Sometimes I imagine what the world could be like without their manipulation, and it's sad to realize how much the trajectory of history and of human sociocultural evolution has been influenced and shaped by these evil, nefarious, bad actors.

Literally so many problems we have today (the brainwashing and radicalization of the masses, the extreme polarization and divisive rhetoric) can be placed on their shoulders, and they have complete plausible deniability.

See, I don't know how to answer that because I've never watched any of those, since I don't give money to Jeff Bezos; he already has enough.

Aside from political instability and endemic violence, poverty, and lack of social mobility; there's also climate change to blame for making equatorial regions increasingly inhospitable and/or uninhabitable...

It's a bit more complicated than that. It's tempting to fixate on a simplification with one culprit to blame, but causality is rarely linear.

For instance, many Syrian refugees were fleeing Assad's brutal regime before it was toppled; Assad was being propped up by Iran. Afghan refugees were fleeing the Taliban. And while yes, there are historical factors that contributed to Assad, Khameni, and the Taliban being in power, and the West certainly doesn't have squeaky clean hands in those historical factors, it's not entirely the West's fault, either.

If you want to trace the origins of conflict back to the beginning, there's always one step further that you need to take in order to understand the set of circumstances that contributed to the particular tensions at play that gave rise to each conflict throughout history. Ultimately, there's been conflict in the region (and arguably all regions) since the dawn of civilization, and likely earlier too.

That's not a justification for colonialism, but let's not act like we would have world peace if only Europeans had decided to stay in Europe. A lot (not all) of what we call European colonialism in the Middle East began at the conclusion of WWI. There was no longer an Ottoman Empire, and after nearly five centuries of stability the region was suddenly thrust into a period of change and the potential for chaos. The victors had the responsibility to oversee a transition to a new system of governance. A lot of the results were less than ideal, but hindsight is 20/20. We can't say we would have made better decisions if we were in their shoes, limited to the knowledge that they had available to them at the time. Anyway, it's not like the Ottomans had been some egalitarian society that respected all people equally; even they had clearly defined hierarchies that were based on race and religion.

Most of the post-WWII involvement of the west in the Middle East was to combat the influence of the Soviet Union, which wouldn't have been any better. If Europe and the US had simply pulled out of the region, there would still have been a major colonialist/imperialist power in the Middle East, destabilizing civilizations and propping up puppet governments, perpetuating cycles of conflict and fueling the rise of armed militant groups, all resulting in mass displacements of people.

All in all, ethnic disputes have existed since the beginning of time, and while European colonialism may have exacerbated certain of these by placing their thumb on the scales for a period of time before suddenly removing it, let's not pretend it would all be sunshine and rainbows if they hadn't, either.

That doesn't justify conflict by any means. We should all strive for a world in which we can put away the conflicts of the past and move forward in an age of peace and cooperation. This herculean task would require us to have a comprehensive understanding of the origins of each conflict in the first place, and almost all of them go much further back than a cursory glance at 20th century history can reveal.

So I think it's also important to focus on the progress that societies have made, and acknowledge their contributions to the peace process as well.

On my first readthrough, I was imagining it as some giant artificial structure built out of an ungodly amount of crazy putty, which honestly made it all the more horrifying.

Still tragic, but somehow less nightmare-inducing...

Damn, how was 2020 six years ago?

As long as NATO stands its ground and member nations uphold their obligations to each other, russia wouldn't stand a chance.

I feel like all this sowing of doubt that we're seeing lately is part of a psyop. russia wants NATO members to believe they can't survive a war, so that they chicken out and don't support each other. That's the only scenario where Europe loses.

Misinformed take. Lukashenko is known to have channeled migrants through Belarus to Central and Western Europe, on russia's behalf, with the deliberate goal of destabilizing Europe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belarus%E2%80%93European_Union_border_crisis

And it's working. How many right-wing populist nutjobs have used the crisis to gain traction for their pro-russia parties?

Many people in Europe, even on the left, acknowledge that an uncontrolled influx of migrants is having a range of detrimental effects. The difference is some people want sensible solutions, and others want to paint with a broad brush while making rabid accusations.

It's entirely possible to still support refugees while also stymying the flow of a hostile power's weaponization of displaced people. Dismissing the problem altogether doesn't do anything but help reactionaries who paint themselves as the only ones willing to address the issue.

Whenever I try raising awareness about kremlin psyops, people make cliché tinfoil hat jokes.

Like, this isn't some bonkers conspiracy theory. It's real, it's well-funded and organized, and it's been going on for a long time...