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#41

Off the Record / Re: The EU thread

Last post by The Minsky Moment - Today at 02:47:48 AM

It's not a positve actor in my view, but whether it's Ukraine, the Middle East or Africa, Russia is a state with agency in the world in a way that Europe simply isn't (possible exception for the French).

I think that's a mirage.

Russia has agency in the Ukraine in the sense that they can and have chosen to burn the lives of hundreds of thousands of men to occupy some extra square miles of dirt and wrecked urban infrastructure, and manifest their frustrations in mass civilian atrocities.  But they utterly failed to impose their will on a smaller, weaker, and political fragile nation.  Being willing and able to do utterly stupid and counterproductive things isn't a sign of agency.

The Middle Eastern policy is shambles; they put their chips on Assad and went bust.  They are dicking around pointlessly in Libya.  They are basically meaningless in Africa; a handful of the more unsavory dictators have used some of their pseudo-mercs to bully the locals.  No one takes them seriously compared to China.

In a hard-edged, hard power multipolar world, Russia is a Chinese vassal, transferring oil at below market prices in return for some diplo cover and desperately needed imports. Russia is leaning hard on China to make its play for some continuing relevance in the West as Chinese commercial interests tighten their grasp on the resources of Russia's far eastern provinces.

"Europe" may be politically dysfunctional at the level of unified diplomatic presence but whether looked at collectively or at the larger individual states, they embody centers of manufacturing prowess, technical competence, significant players in global commerce and finance, and an affluent consumer market. Russia has none of these things.  It can play the nuclear blackmail card, which has already been overplayed.

[At sixes and sevens with you]

#42

Off the Record / Re: The Off Topic Topic

Last post by Crazy_Ivan80 - Today at 02:45:06 AM

From "Don't Cry for me, Argentina":

It won't be easy, you'll think it strange
When I try to explain how I feel
That I still need your love after all that I've done
You won't believe me, all you will see is a girl you once knew
Although she's dressed up to the nines
At sixes and sevens with you
I had to let it happen, I had to change
Couldn't stay all my life down at heel

Heh, sixes and sevens (as Evita uses it) dates back at least to Chaucer's time:

"Lat nat this wrechched wo thyn herte gnawe,
But manly set the world on sexe and seuene."
-Troilus and Criseyde

Good to know. Means I can joke to my oldest that he's using ultra-boomer language

#43

Gaming HQ / Re: Europa Universalis V confi...

Last post by Richard Hakluyt - Today at 02:24:53 AM

I was having great fun as Naples, but then Sweden conquered my vassal of Marche (an Italian province) c.1400. A few years later I noticed that Great Britain was in the process of conquering my vassal Achaea! Too silly, I have to let it rest for a couple of months or so.

#44

Off the Record / Re: Elon Musk: Always A Douche

Last post by Richard Hakluyt - Today at 02:19:53 AM

Russia and Belarus don't need twitter, they are already totally fucked.

#45

Gaming HQ / Re: Victoria 3

Last post by Syt - Today at 02:19:31 AM

The 1.12 free patch video on YouTube had an interesting tidbit I missed - the Carlist Wars are going to be special: a limited kind of "guerilla" war, with no fronts (?, IIRC) and battles generating slower. They say it's only the Carlist War, but they consider it a test case for the future.

And for an "immersion pack" they're shoving in a lot of stuff - reworked coups, colonial administrations rework, law amendments, election meddling and voter confidence, ....

#46

Off the Record / Re: What does a TRUMP presiden...

Last post by Richard Hakluyt - Today at 02:11:47 AM

In more cheery news https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cly592lzp0no

It's going to be very hard to fix the mid-terms with this level of swing against the Republicans.

#47

Off the Record / Re: The AI dooooooom thread

Last post by Josquius - Today at 02:06:04 AM

So I love Youtube. I have been on it since 2007 or so. I love all the creative and interesting things people make on it but I am starting to get worried. AI slop is really taking over. It is going to fucking ruin it.

And it is frustrating because there are really interesting and creative things people are doing on Youtube with AI but it is just being drowned out by low effort slop. And the slop is only getting more low effort and harder to distinguish from actual videos.

It hasn't entirely happened yet but you can see it coming. A slow motion trainwreck.

Sort of like how bots made the comment sections worthless awhile back. Now the robots are coming for the content creators.

Yes.
The bors are definitely there on comments. I uploaded a video a few months back and within seconds of the upload, not long enough to have watched it at all, I had a comment which didn't seem to get what the video about and was ranting about immigrants... Now I had mentioned politicians ranting about immigration a little.... But it wasn't the core point at all. I'd said nothing particularly pro or anti immigration, just anti politicians who don't shut up about it.
I really just don't bother with comments.


Videos.... Yeah. I think it depends on topic. For stuff like warhammer I find tonnes of ai. Bots just reading out fan wiki articles, or even on one occasion a really shit and clearly AI written story that didn't fit in the universe at all.

#48

Off the Record / Re: Elon Musk: Always A Douche

Last post by Josquius - Today at 02:01:02 AM

Curious thing I heard which highlights musks known sympathies....
He was ranting about the EU fining vichy 150 million for breaking the law. Despite the fact they did. And this is pocket change for him.
Someone added a note on this that Russia, Belarus, and many other countries had blocked Twitter....
He personally removed it.

#49

Off the Record / Re: Australia begins enforcing...

Last post by Josquius - Today at 01:44:29 AM

I would distinguish between social media in general and mass social media.
If kids can still access a forum, then honestly I'm fine with that.
Its the mass stuff. Vichy, Facebook, Tik Tok, etc...where the real harm comes and there needs to be controls.

As to porn.... Beware the nirvana fallacy. Of course it will always be out there and accessible. But if kids have to actually work for it then the effect is less damaging.
Of course, even if porn hub is blocked there'll still be boobmaster88, which is basically the same thing only with lower quality video and half a dozen spywarefilled pop up ads. It's not quite turning the clock back to needing to get a physical dvd or dirty mag.
But it is harder for those with a casual interest to get to - leaning on the search engines about this stuff is the logical next thing to jump to.
The downsides I see are.
1: it's a PITA for adults.
2: a myriad dodgy sites are a lot harder to regulate than a small number of legitimate ones.
3: encouraging kids to go to explore the virus filled dark corners of the Web.... National security risk?

#50

Off the Record / Re: Australia begins enforcing...

Last post by Jacob - Today at 01:19:53 AM

On the social media side of things would it be easier to lock out phones. Something like provider side parental control that parents option when the activate the phone number? There's a lot less social media option then there are porn options so easier to control. Has the benefit of not having to track users trying to figure out what agree they are or having to provide personal information.

Yeah that seems like a reasonable place to start