Systems that have voting mechanisms result in hive minds. It’s an inevitable result.

1st someone is much more likely to vote something up or down depending on how positive / negative it is. So it snowballs sort of like compounding interest

2nd the simplest most common denominator takes bubble to the top. Precisely because more people can understand and therefore vote.

It’s why you’ll always see some screenshot of Twitter much higher than a long in depth article. Even though the article has infinitely more value.

My point is that there are no “good guys” and “bad guys”. There are only differing levels of power. The US has been doing a lot worse for a lot longer. It’s just that past administrations were diplomatic about their use of power. This administration, being a reality TV star, is just choosing to be loud about it.

America under Biden supplied 80% of the bombs that Israel dropped on Gazan civilians. Obama led the illegal attack on Libya and killed Gaddafi and doomed Libya to anarchy and chaos. Bush destroyed Iraq and doomed them to anarchy and chaos- creating ISIS. I could go on and on.

Most American citizens (just like the citizens of virtually every country in the world) are not really concerned with geopolitics. They have to pay their rent, they’re gonna be late for work, their kid is failing a class, their girlfriend is pissed because they don’t go out enough, they’re tired from work, they’re working hard for that promotion, they’re worried about rent increases, etc.

So to answer your question. No, Americans don’t really care. And even if they care, they’re forced to worry about more pressing individual matters. Basically the same thing that happened in your home country in the 1930s.

A superpower by definition cannot really be a rogue state. A “rogue state” is a political label applied by dominant powers to states that defy the international order. For example Iran or North Korea are considered rogue states because they defy the international order. What is “the international order”?

Well, it’s the combination post-WW2 institutions created by none other than the US. The UN, IMF, NATO, etc. They set the norms of “legitimate” behavior. When the US participates in military interventions, economic sanctions, and other aggressive actions it’s framed as upholding “rules-based order” whereas identical actions by weaker states get them condemned with the label as “rogue states”.

To call the US a rogue state is to misunderstand power. Hegemony is the ability to define reality, not just defy it. In this way, the US has always been a rogue state in the sense that it does whatever it wants regardless of the international norms. I mean, just look at the mid 1900s and its actions in Latin America. It was involved in about a dozen states toppling governments and supporting military dictatorships- including sponsoring the genocide of natives in Guatemala.

You may or may not be correct in hating me but do not let my comments bring down the good name of kava

As for “doubling down so hard” I’d flip the message and ask you why you are simping for mega corps? simping for mega corps is about as fascist as you can get- a populist ideology idolizing elites

An AI is not doing anything a human wouldn’t do. You look at a bunch of content. You learn from it and incorporate it in new synthesis.

It’s not fundamentally different. So unless you can make a meaningful statement (beyond mild personal attacks) that illustrates the difference between the two, you will convince no-one

Most Americans have absolutely no clue how involved the immigration process actually is. Unless you have specific skills, have immediate family in the country you’re going, or are loaded… 95 times out of 100 you’re not going anywhere.

Although where there’s a will there’s a way. You get a tourist visa, overstay, marry a local.

I’m glad I’m a dual citizen with money stashed away in both the US and the country I was born. If shit gets too bad in the US, I can lay low elsewhere while things calm down.

first let’s get something out of the way

the actual way that copyright works is that a few giant megacorps buy up everything and they end up owning copyrights to the vast majority of recognizable content.

so for example in 2019 over half of the movies released in theaters was owned by Disney. The same company that unilaterally has the ability to change US federal law when convenient for them.

studio ghibli is no different- they’re a subsidiary of Nippon Television which has a $2B+ annual revenue

so keep in mind when you advocate here for stronger copyright protections, you are essentially saying that the biggest companies in the world deserve more money.

2nd- the “style” is not copyrightable. anybody can mimic the style. and guess what? if I make a cartoon and I make it look like studio ghibli style… people are still gonna recognize it as “studio ghibli” style. they are basically getting free marketing. they are not losing out here.

They’re trying to make some type of argument that a private studio should have exclusive rights to a specific style of art and that by openai allowing users to generate art in that style, we are slipping into anti-democratic authoritarianism.

My opinion is that you can’t own “styles” of art and that there’s nothing wrong here. Legally speaking I can copy any art style I want.

but_what_about_.jpg

whataboutism isn’t some magical phrase that you can utter every time someone brings up hypocrisy

if we’re going to support sanctioning civilians based on their countries breaking international law, then we should not have double standards. otherwise it’s very clear to anyone paying attention that this is a geopolitical issue and not a moral one.

and that’s what this is actually about. the US sanctions on Russia are a geopolitical tool meant to make the Russian re-subjugation of Ukraine more expensive. that’s it. US doesn’t actually care about Ukraine- neither this administration or the last.

to me, that doesn’t justify banning individuals from participating in OSS projects. anybody that wants to contribute should be able to.

Attacks against civilian targets are war crimes. When you do it through sanctions its OK.

I’m just asking that we are more honest about it. For example instead of putting sanctions on Venezuela we could have just done what Israel is doing to Gaza and gotten similar death toll.

Research has shown it has historically had very little to no impact on policy. What it does do is harm the lowest rungs of society.

For example a 2019 report on Trump’s Venezeuala sanctions estimate up to 40,000 people died. Mostly poor people who went without healthcare and medicine because the US froze all of the government’s funds and access to credit.

In my opinion, I’d prefer if we just bombed civilians in the countries we sanction. It’s more honest. It really is a form of low level warfare. Something akin to a medieval raiding party

When the big tech guys showed up to the inauguration and sat in the front row to pay tribute it was such a clear example of how capital always yields to authoritarians.

The US supplied 80% of the bombs dropped on Gaza.

Do you believe US civilians should be prohibited from interacting with the rest of the world?

not a problem. sometimes i assume everybody knows the history and context because they speak so confidently about the situation but i think a lot of people just get bits and pieces from the mainstream news

so to summarize

ukraine has a bit of a history with neo nazis. it goes all the way back to WW2 with famous figures like Stephen Bandera who is a sort of national hero because he was a nationalist who fought for Ukrainian independence. It just happens he also held Nazi views and collaborated with the Nazi government- even though they eventually threw him in jail because the Germans did not consider slavs “white”.

Anyhow that isn’t to say Ukraine as a whole is Nazi or that Russia’s invasion was justified or whatever. Just some context. There’s always a bit of truth in a lie, so when Russia says they’re invading to “de-nazify” Ukraine that isn’t the real reason but there are some deep-seated undercurrents of white supremacy in Ukrainian society.

So what about Azov Battalion? In 2014, there was an event called Euromaidan. This event was a series of protests against the then president of Ukraine which was a pro-Russian one. He was democratically elected of course and at that point, there was a split in Ukrainian society between pro-West and pro-Russia mostly divided up by geography. West Ukraine leaned towards West, East Ukraine leaned towards East. This makes sense and you would see very high rates of Russian-language speaking in the East. For example I think in Crimea like 80% of people spoke Russian as primary language even though it was ostensibly part of Ukraine.

Euromaidan was funded and supported by far-right nationalist / neonazi groups. These protests got more violent (largely due to instigation by neonazi groups) and eventually the president had to flee the country. The legislative body then appointed a temporary government, of which about 1/3rd was comprised of leaders from these far-right groups.

So why the hell does that matter? There’s a lot more to be said about Euromaidan but I’ll be brief (I can expand if you’d like).

Before 2014, Ukraine was firmly inside of Russia’s sphere of influence and had been for centuries. After 2014, the new government immediately started pivoting to the West. Essentially- Ukraine declared a war of independence.

So like 3 or 4 days after that new government appointed, Russia sent tanks into Crimea and sent covert forces into Donbas (they were popularly dubbed “little green men”)

This essentially started a low-level proxy war. Russia annexed Crimea fairly quickly and the Donbas provinces declared independence and Ukraine was essentially in civil war with the rebels supported by Russia.

Azov Brigade was a paramilitary organization. Remember the far-right organizations I mentioned before? The leaders of those organizations founded a militia, essentially. I’ll name some examples below and wikipedia links so you can read more

• Social-National Assembly

• Automaidan

• Patriot of Ukraine

• Tryzub

• Social-National Party of Ukraine

• National Corps

So Andriy Biletsky, the guy I quoted above, was involved with a lot of these organizations. And in 2014, when Russia invaded Crimea and the civil war started, he and a group of other far-right leaders founded Azov Brigade.

Also in 2014, he ran as an independent candidate for Ukraine’s congress (called Verkhovna Rada) in district 217 which is the Kiev’s district. He ended up getting 33.75% of the votes and won the election. Consider the implications. 33% of the votes in the nation’s capital were for an open white nationalist. From 2014 - 2019 he was an official member of congress from the Kiev (capital of Ukraine) district.

Anyhow, he’s a far right nationalist. Hates Jews, wants white supremacy, etc etc. He founded and led many far-right organizations. Back to the Azov Brigade.

On two separate occasions the US actually blocked military aid to Azov because they were a neo-nazi organization. There were also a couple votes to place them on the Foreign Terrorist Organization list, although the votes failed each time. Mostly because even though they’re Nazis they’re fighting Russia so they’re good enough.

This group became famous because they helped defend Mariupol and the area around the Azov Sea during the fighting with Russia. This basically caused them to be very popular in Ukraine, so a lot of people volunteered to serve under Azov. The Ukrainian government realized this was a nice way to get recruits and so they actually officially integrated the Azov Brigade into the Ukrainian military. Now the leaders of Azov, which were all extremist neonazis, are now high ranking members of the Ukrainian military.

For example Denys Prokopenko who is a Podpolkovnik (equivalent to lieutenant colonel).

Not sure what you know about army ranks but it’s essentially the 7th highest military rank out of 39 ranks

SO to summarize

Azov was founded by neo-nazis like Biletsky. Biletsky was elected to Ukraine’s federal legislative body. Biletsky is an outspoken white supremacist. Azov is now an official and integrated part of the Ukrainian military.

what are the conclusions?

there is a strong undercurrent of neonazis in Ukraine and they have a disproportionate influence. they are relatively small if you look at the numbers, but they essentially helped overthrow the Ukrainian government in 2014 during Euromaidan, made up 1/3rd of the federal government after Euromaidan, and managed to get integrated into the military.

Please don’t misunderstand me. Majority of Ukraine is not neonazi. They have a small group of very organized, dedicated, and well-funded far-right extremists. That group of people managed to shift the path of Ukrainian history to what we see today.

That doesn’t mean Russia’s invasion is justified. That doesn’t mean the average Ukrainian hates Jews. Etc. I’m just going over the context and a little bit of the history. There’s so much more to talk about please let me know if you have any questions

I think a lot of people don’t understand the history or context of this war whatsoever and just accept mainstream media’s interpretation as fact. Which is wild to me because those same people recognize others lies- for example when the New York Times writes apologist propaganda for Israel. But for whatever reason, this war in particular people have an ideological blind spot for.

i wouldn’t fight for the US either

but I’ll bet you won’t find a federally elected politician that says something this blatantly nazi

Apart from the question of purity, we must also pay attention to the full value of a Race. Ukrainians are a part (and, at that, one of the largest and most qualitative) of the European White Race. the Race-Creator of a great civilization the highest human achievements. The historic mission of our Nation in this crucial century is to lead the White Peoples of the world in the last crusade for their existence. A crusade against the sub-humanity led by the Semites

here in the US you have to use dog whistles

where?

i don’t disagree. i think this one specifically is currently taking aim at muslims specifically while the other was more generalized

not sure if sarcastic 🤔

i’m sorry but a country that elects a neo-nazi into parliament or idolizes nazi-collaborators is not one that i would consider fighting for if i’m anti fascist.

russia isn’t any better. but the ukraine v russia war is an independence war where one set of oligarchs wanted to break free from the subjugation from another set of oligarchs.

i won’t edit anything i’ll stand behind what i say

Kamala is part of the problem. Unchecked neoliberal capitalism has created Trump. Yes, obviously, I would prefer the status quo over fascism. We all would.

But as long as the majority of the country is financially insecure fascism will rise. Establishment DNC is just as guilty as the establishment GOP in causing this tragedy

you keep feeding the oligarchs long enough and they attempt a coup.

they’re likely federal agents that are used to working behind desks

according to reuters 80% of ATF agents for example have been assigned immigration work

25% of DEA workload has been transferred to immigration

some portion of IRS agents as well are doing immigration

and then even some federal agencies people have never heard of that handles stuff like document fraud (visas, passports) are now participating in manhunts for illegals

it’s essentially all hands on deck