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What’s the US gonna do? Slink away in the middle of the night again?

  • BodyBySisyphus [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    11 months ago

    Referring to people as “tankies”

    Openly cheerleading a military intervention and while directly acknowledging that the US’s stated goal of spreading democracy abroad is actually just a form of punishing politically opposed governments

    Someone tell me what’s going on here. Is it possible to go beyond lack of self-awareness into negative self-awareness?

    • GrouchyGrouse [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      11 months ago

      I’m writing a star trek parody with tankies called star tenk where the proton torpedoes are powered by releasing self-awareness and anti-self-awareness particles to blow up NATO imperialists.

    • D61 [any]@hexbear.net
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      11 months ago

      The counter rolls back from 0 to +255, its a weird bug in the system that nobody’s ever patched out.

  • Frank [he/him, he/him]@hexbear.net
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    11 months ago

    The US has never found a solution to the “what if we murder hundreds of thousands or even millions of civillians but they don’t surrender and keep fighting us?” Problem.

  • PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmygrad.ml
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    11 months ago

    As predicted we really arrived at the point where “tankie” means just anyone who won’t bootlick US while emitting loud slurping sounds all over the internet.

    • sooper_dooper_roofer [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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      11 months ago

      The mountains in Yemen are also 6000-8000 ft above sea level on average, while those in Vietnam were only 2000
      Pretty much every city is surrounded by 8000 ft mountains. Because if they weren’t, there’d be no rain there and there’d be no city in the first place

      And if there’s one thing that white people aren’t evolutionarily accustomed to, it’s mountains (and flavor and sugar and sunlight etc)

  • Pluto [he/him, he/him]@hexbear.net
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    11 months ago

    TikTok > YouTube

    It has less right-wing content creators, it pisses off Congress, and it’s more “flat” in terms of who can strike it big there, which generally means all sorts of people can get platformed (whereas YouTube leans towards rich white men striking it big there).

    • AnarchoAnarchist [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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      11 months ago

      TicTok is great, but there are some creators on YouTube and some long form content, that is simply never going to work on TikTok.

      I see YouTube as being a bit like Reddit, useful but it requires a lot of curating to make sure your feed is not full of absolute garbage. And unfortunately unlike Reddit, it’s not easily replaceable.

    • LanyrdSkynrd [comrade/them, any]@hexbear.net
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      11 months ago

      My theory is that everybody thinks the platform they use is the best and most aligned with their politics because they’ve trained the algorithm to feed them the content they like.

      YouTube hasn’t shown me anything remotely right wing in ages, but every time I try tiktok I have to thumbs down 10 different channels that repost Joe Rogan and Elon musk clips.

      • oregoncom [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        11 months ago

        Just look go to youtube in incognito mode. It’s chud central. Or look at the gender ratios, or age breakdown. The majority of Tiktok consists of normal zoomers who go outside and will bully chuds. Youtube mostly consists of neckbeard males of various ages stuck in an echo chanber since 2008.

    • GrouchyGrouse [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      11 months ago

      Remember when they fired that commander for actually giving a shit about his crew during one of the early COVID waves? Pinnacle of strategic thinking is turning your navy into coffin ships.

      • edge [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        11 months ago

        Remember when they lost a war game against Iran so they called time out and just changed the rules to make themselves win?

        • GrouchyGrouse [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          11 months ago

          There were some legitimate problems with the millennium challenge but it’s still funny how it made them look bad and bootlickers get mad if you talk about it

          • CrushKillDestroySwag@hexbear.net
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            11 months ago

            IIRC the marine general who played as Iran was basically trying to find every rules exploit he could think of because nobody would listen to him when he pointed out that the game was broken, but there is a pretty big overlap between the tactics he employed and what successful US resistances have used.

            • ProfessorOwl_PhD [any]@hexbear.net
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              11 months ago

              He was doing stuff like using simulated motorcycles to deliver messages by courier to get around the information blockade, and risky mass attacks to overwhelm individual ships.

              This was deemed unrealistic, because… I dunno, Americas enemies would never be desperate enough to use unconventional tactics? There was a legitimate complaint in him being able to negate some of the systems by having inside knowledge of their workings, but at the same time you should probably be prepared for your enemies to have some sort of intelligence on you and your tactics.

            • GrouchyGrouse [he/him]@hexbear.net
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              11 months ago

              Yeah its been ages since I looked up the details but that does sound super familiar to what I kinda remember. And of course being the closest to the old school nobility officer corps the navy brass was pissed off about it when it happened.

        • Tunnelvision [they/them]@hexbear.net
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          11 months ago

          It was also before the invention of hypersonic missiles, so the outcome would be even worse now. I don’t think Iran has them, but I wouldn’t doubt China or Russia would provide them.

        • Saeculum [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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          11 months ago

          IIRC, the rules they changed were that motorcycle messengers could instantly teleport across the map without being intercepted, and that the fleet of missile motorboats he was using to attack the US navy couldn’t actually mount the weapons they were previously allowed to, because the missiles alone were heavier than their actual maximum weight even without an attached launching system.

          Supposedly, a computer error also teleported the US fleet directly into motorboat range.

          It doesn’t really seem like losing a game against Iran rather than the game being extremely flawed.

          • nohaybanda [he/him]@hexbear.net
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            11 months ago

            Which is its own kind of pathetic. Imagine running a simulation and you’ve not covered basic things like “causality” and “maximum parameter value means you can’t go above that number”.

            • keepcarrot [she/her]@hexbear.net
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              11 months ago

              I’ve noted 40k has a rules commentary that has statements like that, and I know some gamer somewhere has had that conversation.

              I know I’ve seen “it doesn’t say anywhere that a model removed from play can’t act” in the wild, which I feel like is pushing the limits of semantic readability of game rules.

              • GinAndJuche@hexbear.net
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                11 months ago

                I know I’ve seen “it doesn’t say anywhere that a model removed from play can’t act” in the wild,

                Amazing

                • keepcarrot [she/her]@hexbear.net
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                  11 months ago

                  I read a story on 40konline back in the day where someone placed a character on top of another model and then moved the other (much faster) model around. It’s pretty wild what shit people will pull.

                  If I’m doing tabletop rules writing, I try to be clear without getting trapped in the weeds of arguing with that sort of player. :/

    • windowlicker [she/her]@hexbear.net
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      11 months ago

      a lot of pro-imperialists make this joke because they are aware its not actual democracy, they just celebrate racist violence more than they will ever celebrate their vague idea of “democracy”

    • zed_proclaimer [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      11 months ago

      they’re past the stage where they believe the empire’s bullshit rationalizations. They still support the empire because they’re chauvinists, but they’re in an ironic stage where they are embracing the true nature of imperial violence.

      It’s similar to the landlord LARPing as an oppressed class, People of Land, talking about how evil tenets are, etc. that happens in neoliberal corners of Reddit

  • zed_proclaimer [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    11 months ago

    hilarious to call us “tankies” while so obviously getting off on the idea of war and one-sided destruction. I thought rolling in military vehicles to oppress and invade was the entire ‘critique’ of the term “tankie” but it’s them chastising and mocking those calling for peace