cfgaussian

cfgaussian @lemmygrad.ml 11h ago

Same. Every action comes with a reaction. The more aggressive the US gets the more pushback there will be. They are accelerating their own imperial decline.

There are good reasons why, for so long, the US largely refrained from blatant aggression (except where they could weave a credible narrative to justify it as "defensive") and direct use of hard power coercion, and preferred soft power subversion instead.

It wasn't because they couldn't use hard power - if anything they were more militarily dominant in the past - but because domination through economic superiority is preferable. It creates much less resistance.

The imperialists of the past were no less brutal or ruthless, but they weren't stupid. They understood that maintaining western hegemony depended on the illusion of international law.

The fact that they are now having to resort to direct aggression is the opposite of a sign of strength, it's a sign of weakness and desperation.

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cfgaussian @lemmygrad.ml 11h ago

It's r/China so it's actually pretty good for Reddit standards. I liked this comment in particular:

You are now in the position of a flat earther on the space station. You can see with your own eyes the shape of the earth. So why are you insisting it's flat?

cfgaussian @lemmygrad.ml 11h ago

Nothing to see here. Just another confused liberal.

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cfgaussian @lemmygrad.ml 12h ago

When you start from the axiomatic assumption that the anti-China propagandists cannot be lying, you have to assume that it is reality itself that is lying to you.

cfgaussian @lemmygrad.ml 12h ago

In my estimation, the western empire acts quite a lot like a cult as narrative and loyalty goes.

You've really hit the nail on the head. It is exactly like a cult. Up to and including the threat of very real and brutal consequences as a result of ostracization by the cult.

See: EU extrajudicial sanctions against people who have a different opinion on Russia-Ukraine than the one allowed.

They will literally try to starve you and your family with no trial and no legal recourse. And people in the cult will justify and celebrate it.

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cfgaussian @lemmygrad.ml 12h ago

Of course they would have, if the US imposed a blockade and criminally hijacked tankers off the high seas. What are they supposed to do, pick a fight with the US Navy? It's not a question of will, it's a question of capabilities. Material reality. Maduro does not have superpowers to magically teleport oil to Cuba and neither did Chavez. I haven't seen the interim administration of Venezuela do anything so far that Maduro or Chavez wouldn't have done in the same circumstances.

It's obviously not ideal, but you have to play the hand you are dealt. For now Venezuela and Cuba are both practicing strategic patience. They are betting they can outlast whatever the US can throw at them in the short term.

Because everyone can see that, in the long term, the US is in decline.

cfgaussian @lemmygrad.ml 13h ago

Don't believe your lying eyes!

cfgaussian @lemmygrad.ml 14h ago

Perhaps. We will see. They need to do something to save face, something that can be spun as a "win". Very likely there will be some kind of attack, because they cannot be seen to back down now.

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cfgaussian @lemmygrad.ml 15h ago

I don't think that the assessment about Venezuela was wrong at all. The reason they went for a kidnapping rather than trying to actually occupy it or get embroiled in a protracted invasion is because they know it would have been a disaster. The kidnapping was an easy PR win but it changed nothing in terms of the Bolivarian socialist path that Venezuela is on.

The US captured Maduro within a few hours, if that.

Easy to do when Maduro made no secret of where he was at any time and the fact that he chose not to hide. He remained out in the public eye showing that he was not afraid. He kept the Venezuelan military in a peacetime posture, and constantly emphasized in speeches that he wanted nothing but peace.

I wouldn't be surprised if he gave explicit orders to the military to not engage against a US incursion. Whatever the case, it is clear that a strategic choice was made by the Venezuelan government to not give the US any possible pretext of "responding to Venezuelan aggression".

The US has come out of this looking like criminal violators of international law for all in the world to see, with an unjustifiable act of aggression against a peaceful country. This was not a win for the US. Such rogue acts only accelerate the transition to multipolarity.

Anyway the comparison with Venezuela is asinine because Iran's military is on an entirely different footing and on an entirely different level.

The US has more than enough forces for a sustained bombing campaign if the choice is made.

Yeah, for a couple of weeks. Then they will sue for peace again just like last time, especially once Iran starts hitting their bases in the middle east and shutting down the Persian Gulf. No matter how many forces the US amasses it is still a bluff. Iran can outlast them.

The US/Israel are betting on an internal revolt following some kind of "decapitation strike" to overthrow the government because they buy their own propaganda. They fundamentally underestimate the domestic support of the Iranian government.

Just one look at the numbers and you can tell a lot of these articles by politico or whoever are just making stuff up. Information warfare.

So are the numbers you are quoting. The build-up itself is a form of psychological warfare. So is overstating US capabilities and spreading false narratives about the 12-day war. It is meant to intimidate Iran and its supporters by portraying the US/Israel as invincible with their "stealth wunderwaffen". It hasn't worked and it won't work. There are no wonder weapons.

The window for action is narrow.

The window of action has already passed. Iran has more than enough capabilities to survive and embroil the US in an unwinnable war that would devastate the global economy. Trump wants a quick PR win, that is the lesson that you should learn from Venezuela.

The build-up is part of his typical brutish "negotiating tactics" of applying pressure and intimidating the other side into making a deal. Just like he did with the tariffs, which were also a bluff, and one that China called just like Iran is calling this bluff.

cfgaussian @lemmygrad.ml 16h ago

Well, isn't it? Last i heard they own more than 25% of the shares and sit on the board.

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cfgaussian @lemmygrad.ml 18h ago

I'm confused. What is anti-semitic there?

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cfgaussian @lemmygrad.ml 18h ago

Good. Settlers and their accomplices should leave occupied Palestine. A bluff is still a bluff even if calling it forces a double down as the only way to save face when the intimidation attempt fails. Whether the US backs down or whether they are forced to launch a disastrous (for the US and the Zionist colony) war, which they cannot win that will further drag their empire down, is still a win for Iran. The only way for Iran to lose is to allow itself to be intimidated by US threats.

cfgaussian @lemmygrad.ml 22h ago

Great article, and very reflective of my own thoughts on the matter.

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cfgaussian @lemmygrad.ml 2d ago

Honestly no, no I don't. I find it distracting and it often gives me a headache. I much prefer the flat lighting of older games (by which i mean pre-2012...Skyrim was one of the last games where the lighting engine didn't give me a headache). I think there's a difference between games and movies, and trying to make games look like movies is not a great idea. What works in one doesn't necessarily work in the other. With games it's not just about having something visually appealing to look at. In games you need to be able to parse the spatial geometry of the environment and identify the important things in that environment, and reflections and high contrast shadows make that much more difficult. For most games i play, i turn off the fancy shaders if i can. Shaders in Minecraft for instance can make for a nice cinematic but actually playing with them, for me, is not possible. But, you know...to each their own.

And this is a bit of a tangent but speaking of "photorealistic": often what makes for an "artistic" photo or movie isn't actually all that realistic. For instance when you use a low depth of field you can make something look more "artistic" and "aesthetic", but it's not really how we see things in real life. Yes, we don't see everything in focus at the same time, but we can adjust our focus to see things at various distances clearly. So if you wanted a more "realistic" feel you would actually want a very high depth of field, ideally where everything is in focus so that you can pick and choose freely what to look at, not being forced by the composer of the image where to look. Even though this is not technically "photorealistic".

It works similarly with shadows and high contrast. Yes there are shadows and lots of differences in light levels in real life. But IRL your eyes can adjust going from one environment to another. Yet when this is done in games it often just doesn't translate well, at least for me. I find it very uncomfortable to have to strain to see what is in the darker areas when there is blindingly bright light in some parts of a scene and very little light in others. And when they try to simulate "adjusting to the darkness" when entering, say, a cave, it feels very off-putting and disorienting. I prefer a flatter, albeit "unrealistic" lighting model, the way you used to have in the very early 3D titles of the late 90s, early 2000s. (The one exception i guess would be certain horror games where the darkness is the point, but not in like, normal RPGs or action games.)

cfgaussian @lemmygrad.ml 2d ago

They don't even let Russian athletes compete under the Russian flag.

cfgaussian @lemmygrad.ml 2d ago

Yeah, no problem. I understand wanting to see an impressive, flashy result. But this isn't a propaganda video. As i said, it's more about showing what grassroots democracy in action looks like.

Democracy is not drawing a cross in a little box on a voting ballot every two to four years (which changes nothing anyway) while having little to no power over the things that affect you in your day to day life, where your landlord and your boss and politicians who only answer to the donor class make all the rules.

Democracy is about getting the people involved in the things that most immediately affect their own lives. Sometimes it's very small things at the communal level, other times not so small. For instance, when China builds big infrastructure projects, the government almost always works with the local community to find out what best suits everyone's needs and to hear out their opinions and concerns.