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DnD Central / Re: The Awesomesauce of Globalism
Last post by ersi -
White House has warned Kyiv that continued [Ukrainian] strikes on [Russian] oil and gas infrastructure could harm Joe Biden’s re-election chances
So it's not just Trump promising to end the war in Ukraine by giving up Ukraine. It's also Biden giving up Ukraine because it would improve Biden's domestic situation.



There's this guy called Peter Zeihan whose thesis is that USA has given up on its world police role, turned inward to isolationism, and the rest of the world is on its own now, resulting in, among others, regional bullies extorting their neighbours. I have resented his thesis partly, because to me it seems that USA has always policed the world selectively and suppressed regional bullies selectively, occasionally switching sides. Instead of world police enforcing common rules, USA has been operating as the supreme colonial power to whom other (arguably ex-)colonial powers look up to as a primus inter pares.

So the post-Soviet-collapse World Order, in the Western mentality, has been:
1. USA, the supreme global colonial power
2. Currently lesser (ex-)colonial powers, mainly Old/Western Europe
3. (Re-)Emerging powers, such as India, China or Russia, which are termed "regional bullies" if antagonistic to the above-named elements
4. Smaller countries

The thing to note here is that smaller countries always ever were the last consideration under the Order (as they also are under any disorder). Smaller countries only received constructive attention as long as the (re-)emerging powers were not considered antagonistic to the primary powers of the Order. That is, #4 received the benefits of the Order as long as #1 and #2 thought that #3 were nice enough to have good relations with. In terms of trade and supply lines, the benefits of the Order to #4 may, geography permitting, have flown directly from #1 and #2, but the political will enabling this only flowed through #3.

Now Russia is considered a regional bully, and this disrupts the flow of political will of providing benefits of the Order to all smaller countries neighbouring Russia. That is, the flow of political will from #1 and #2 towards #4, which necessarily goes through #3 according to my thesis, is disrupted insofar as Russia's neighbours are concerned. Such affected neighbours are not only Georgia or Ukraine, which do not belong to EU or Nato, but also the Baltic countries, which belong to EU and Nato. That is, it affects all Russia's neighbours regardless of affiliation with global organisations. The same way as the Baltic countries received the benefits of the Order during peacetime because the Western Europe and USA had high hopes regarding Russia, they are now denied the benefits because Western Europe and USA no longer entertain high hopes regarding Russia.[1]

In other words, global/regional political organisations, which should institute and embody values (in this case the Western or alleged democratic values) and distribute the economic benefits, do not matter. The Order does not work according to the values. It works according to the relations laid out above plus geographic proximity.

Under this paradigm, the current support for Ukraine did not and is not demonstrating anything about Western values for democracy or whatever. Remember that the support first emerged in the Baltic countries and Poland, i.e. countries neighbouring Ukraine and Russia. The support emerged due to "survivalism" or "alarmism" in Russia's shadow, something that the Old/Western Europe resents and wants nothing to do with. The support spread from the East to the West because lack of support for Ukraine would have exposed Western lack of values. But now it's clear that they do not care to be exposed. The West are global #1 and #2 after all and a bit of reputational damage would not change it.

The formula is that Russia looks so bad right now that the West can afford to look a bit bad too. So the World Order aligns itself according to the worst common denominator.

This century, nothing has gone well for USA in terms of foreign policy. The "War on Terror" promising to export democracy to Afghanistan and Iraq failed to export anything constructive at all. Expansion of Nato antagonised Putin, so there are ever louder voices calling for the abolishment of Nato. And when USA's global policing does not go well, USA turns inward. All foreign policy is converted to domestic talking points in hyperpartisan bickering, and if it does not convert, then it does not exist. Currently there is no foreign policy at all in USA, and this makes Zeihan's thesis look right.

Sad to concede it to Zeihan, but with some modifications he is right. Because I know I am.

Corollaries: The West has once again betrayed Ukraine. Ukraine, territorially the largest country in Europe and population-wise among the largest, is ranked #4 according to the paradigm, due to its proximity to Russia which is #3. Under tolerable relations with Russia, both were considered candidates to the Western "system of values", but now under inflamed relations with Russia, the West is making territorial concessions to Putin, resulting in radically diminished country of Ukraine, so that Ukraine becomes more easily treated as #4.

Everybody else in rank #4 must take note: Values, such as territorial integrity or who is guilty of starting the war, do not matter. The thing that matters is your rank.
What benefits are denied? Most painfully, the values such as right to self-determination and territorial integrity, which is clear as day by now with the fate of Ukraine. In a smaller way, this has been evident all along with the West's siding with Russia's point of view in absolutely every single individual bit of geopolitical matters that concern the smaller countries, such as (mostly imagined) ethnic conflicts, citizenship policy, border disputes and membership in international organisations. Denial of values and hypocrisy with "narratives" is glaringly obvious for people from the smaller countries, but Westerners treat it as either irrelevant or not there at all. However, more traceable for everyone is the geoeconomic inequality, denial of equal trade opportunities, manifest in e.g. disparate fees within the EU (more expensive for smaller countries closer to Russia) when using platforms like Amazon or Booking, pushing Russian propaganda content over media services (which Easterners fight against, but Westerners don't, thus Westerners curiously fall overall more victim to it than Easterners), and prices and availability of consumer products.
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DnD Central / Re: Wealth Redistribution -- What, if any, is the justification for it?
Last post by ersi -
The wealthiest man in the world receives an award for being the wealthiest man in the world.

Emmanuel Macron a remis mercredi 13 mars au soir la grand-croix de la Légion d’honneur au PDG du géant français du luxe LVMH, Bernard Arnault. [...] Aux manettes du leader mondial du luxe, M. Arnault est aujourd’hui l’homme le plus riche du monde, avec un patrimoine estimé à 230 milliards de dollars, devant Elon Musk et ses 210 milliards de dollars, selon le classement Forbes. Bernard Arnault qui est entré dernièrement en négociations exclusives avec le groupe Lagardère, passé en novembre 2023 dans le giron de Vincent Bolloré, pour racheter l’hebdomadaire Paris Match.
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DnD Central / Re: What's Your Favorite U.S. Supreme Court decision?
Last post by ersi -
This one, restoring Trump to presidential candidacy in Colorado, may yet take the cake for being the worst SCOTUS decision ever. It's all the more tragic because it was formally unanimous. [1] And some comments were unwarranted, such as the one saying that the court is turning "the national temperature down" on a politically charged issue. How do you turn the temperature down by enabling an insurrectionist?

The ruling is flatly wrong. The constitution, Amendment 14 Section 3, says that insurrectionists do not belong to state office. This is how straightforward it is. How was it possible to mess this up? The court focused on Section 5 which says, in full, "The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article." From this the court decided that the states cannot apply the sections of the amendment on their own. However, in reality the states have much liberty and variety in applying for example Section 1, the citizenship and civil rights section.

Moreover, we are talking about a candidate of the presidential elections. Had SCOTUS members read the constitution about presidential elections, instead of relying on stupid political propaganda, they'd know that such a thing as a candidate of presidential elections is not prescribed to the states by the constitution. Entire USA is widely brainwashed into thinking that the voting population choose the president. This is false. According to the constitution, the states appoint electors and the only requirement for the presidential candidates, insofar as the electors are concerned, is that at least one of them is not from the same state as the electors are. So, essentially, Colorado was in full liberty to remove Trump from candidacy, have a list of candidates as they themselves please, and instruct their electors as they please. If constitution matters, that is. To SCOTUS something else matters.

Now, what did Colorado do when this ruling was handed down to them by SCOTUS? Did they whine like liberals that their rights and liberties are being trampled on? That it is a witch hunt and persecution? No. They put Trump back on the ballot and bowed themselves to the SCOTUS idiocy in the name of formally upholding the rule of law. This is squarely contrasting to Trump's behaviour, who in every indictment against him whines like a liberal that his rights and liberties are being trampled on, that it is a witch hunt and persecution, while himself being an insurrectionist who cares nothing about the rule of law.

Also, SCOTUS deployed some technicalities in taking Trump's absolute immunity argument for consideration in order to delay the documents investigation case. Thus SCOTUS aims to ensure that Trump not only remains on the ballot as an insurrectionist, but also as the thief and distributor of state secrets, an asset of foreign powers.

SCOTUS evidently has decided that USA is ripe for doom and Trump is up for the job. However, according to reasonable projections, Biden will win, if he survives until inauguration. But I'd say that even when Trump loses, it is a very bad mark on USA that the country's highest justices stepped in to prevent justice from happening.
In reality, the assenting comments sounded occasionally close to dissent. There is evidence of actual dissent according to those who have examined the metadata of the document.
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DnD Central / Re: Maps-Maps-Maps! ?
Last post by jax -
It is a fairly unusual scenario. Children are supposed to be home for dinner, and if both families eat at roughly same time there would be no waiting around. Even when they don't, unless they are far from each other, it would as you said better to go home and meet later.

Only case I can remember is if other family already was eating when I arrived, then it would make sense to wait a few minutes till they were done.

Children flowing around houses aren't considered "guests" though. If they were actually travelling to someone, being brought somewhere else by adults, this would be different. In that case shared dinner would be in order, dependent on timing.

Of course families could arrange that a child would eat with the other family, but the child would likely consider that to be very awkward (but families and children vary).
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DnD Central / Re: Maps-Maps-Maps! ?
Last post by Frenzie -
Here you'd leave to go home or you'd ask to eat along, and your friend's parents would normally ask about your dinner arrangements before making dinner.
And of course you'd have to call your parents to ask if it's okay that you're not eating with them unless you arranged it in advance. They have meals to plan too.
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DnD Central / Re: Maps-Maps-Maps! ?
Last post by Frenzie -
Quote
Times have changed, too – today, it’s a different story. In Sweden now, if you have one child who comes over, they would likely get food as well. It’s not so much the way it was 20, 30 or 40 years ago, when I was growing up. But even then, it really wasn’t the “big deal” people on Twitter are making it sound like it was. Everyone did it. You just continued playing with dolls (or whatever it was) while your friend ate with their mum and dad.
This particular scenario of sticking around while the family is eating does sound odd to me as a non-Swede. Here you'd leave to go home or you'd ask to eat along, and your friend's parents would normally ask about your dinner arrangements before making dinner. For lunch it's different because lunch is bread-based; that doesn't require any planning. I think there's also a factor of summer vs winter, which is to say parents generally want you to come home before it's dark.

But this does go back to my question as to what exactly the map is trying to say. If it's that by default we might head home around 17:30 to 18, while eating along is common enough but not the default, then that might be true. But I think that's something very different than what the map seems to be trying to imply.
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DnD Central / Re: Maps-Maps-Maps! ?
Last post by jax -
Seems to be some reverberations of Twitter #swedengate


I’m Swedish – it’s true that we don’t serve food to guests. What’s the problem?



(Basically, families don't feed other people's children, that would be imposing. Somebody with immigrant background described that as traumatising as a child. Add Twitter, and there we go.)

Scandinavians drink less coffee now, but it used to be impossible to enter any home without being offered a cup of coffee, probably with something aside (cake, waffle or whatever).

As children, when visiting my mother's home village we had to do the round to announce ourselves to the neighbours, meaning drinking something like 6-8 cups of coffee, so we were pretty caffeinated by the time we'd finished.
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DnD Central / Re: Maps-Maps-Maps! ?
Last post by Frenzie -
First, when you are a guest for at least half an hour, you invariably get tea/coffee/juice/water suggested  everywhere outside the red area.
I don't know where you'd come up with the idea that we don't offer anything to drink. :)

In dark blue areas, this invariably includes wholesome snacks like sandwiches.
As stated, that depends on the time of day. If you expect sandwiches at 14:30 you could be disappointed, though there'll be a variety of snacks and pastries.

In red areas it is expected, e.g. when there is a party, everyone bring own drinks.
Umm… what? [Edit: that's not to say that what's called a potluck in English doesn't exist but I think the default is that there's a host.]

And finally, nobody except the red area people are puzzled about what the "context" of this kind of map might be.
I asked what the context was because it's either nonsense or it's talking about something specific.

Edit:
For example here is a Danish person discussing the same map, doesn't really sound any different either https://old.reddit.com/r/AskEurope/comments/vz9a5d/will_you_receive_food_as_a_guest_at_someones_house/
Quote
Yes, ofc. It is seen as basic decency and hospitality. Ofcourse you're not going to be offered to stay for dinner up-front if you arrive ~1 pm., but when dinnertime approaches, it is normal that people offer their guests to stay for dinner. Or if you visit around lunchtime, and the host hasn't had lunch, it is common to ask the guests to join for lunch.

What would the alternative be? Just have your guests seated at the table, but without offering them food?
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DnD Central / Re: Maps-Maps-Maps! ?
Last post by ersi -
In my experience, the map is quite accurately indicative of several cultural differences. First, when you are a guest for at least half an hour, you invariably get tea/coffee/juice/water suggested  everywhere outside the red area. In dark blue areas, this invariably includes wholesome snacks like sandwiches. In red area, a similar suggestion may (or may not) come up when you are a guest for half a day or so.

"Suggested" is different from "shoved in your face" but it is true that there are cultures where you cannot always refuse. For example when offered vodka in Russia, there is hardly a way out.

Also, in blue areas it seems to me that there is hospitality and liberal sharing when the guest brings nothing of his own. In red areas it is expected, e.g. when there is a party, everyone bring own drinks. In other areas it is more common that the host offers everything—the guest may suggest his own inputs, and depending on the culture/situation these suggestions are either happily accepted or politely declined.

(Edit: In some places in the dark blue area where I have been, it is expected that the guest suggest his own input and enter into an argument about it for a minute or so. It is not about the guest's input, but the guest making the suggestion and going through an argument about it. It is considered impolite to fail to make the suggestion and impolite to drop the argument too quickly. Tricky one, I know.)

And finally, nobody except the red area people are puzzled about what the "context" of this kind of map might be.
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DnD Central / Re: Maps-Maps-Maps! ?
Last post by Frenzie -
That map is severely lacking in context. All I can say is that it smells grossly inaccurate, unless they mean something more subtle. For example, it's conceivable that we don't shove food in people's faces at 14 o'clock while down south they insist you should stuff yourself even though you probably just ate lunch.