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Earlier quoted context omitted.
Weapons sanctions are guaranteed way to hit the Gulf monarchies hard. They are extremely dependent on US tech as far as I know.
The russians would be very happy to help probably.
Now that they know, they can try to swap out for a burner phone along the way.
I've been thinking about having a service that lets someone else randomize the location of your phone. That was the primary goal and it evolved to food delivery couriers having additional services where they charge people's phones in a lockbox while they run around all day. Result: Many people's location is erroneous data. No single person's use of the service is suspicious and merely reflecting a societal sentiment…
Engaging security forces to chase women. Do they also give medals for bravery for that?
I share your concern and anger. This particular phrasing could sound like reinforcing a historical perception of women as innately weak and needing protection. I prefer to think of it as people needing help due to circumstances , and the circumstances in this case perhaps due in part to such historical perceptions.
First, the “people” are being prosecuted because they have vaginas - they are women.
Second, given the Newtonian consequences of 80lb of fully armed soldier, I think the OPs original sarcasm at their cowardice is not out of place.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Weapons sanctions are guaranteed way to hit the Gulf monarchies hard. They are extremely dependent on US tech as far as I know.
The russians would be very happy to help probably.
Since the start of the cold war middle eastern states have balanced/played off against each other between the US (and the west) and Russia (previously USSR) when it comes to weapons and lots of other things.
I mean the Egyptians had soviet supplied fighters flown by actual soviet pilots fighting against the Isreali's in American and French supplied air craft.[1]
The US sold Israel better fighters, the soviets sold their potential enemies better SAM's.
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Iraq and Libya, both of which seemed moderate compared to SA (Saddam less so then Qaddafi). Neither Iraq nor Libya have, to my knowledge, ever been used as an argument for why "we" have to unconditionally support SA, though. Neither of them have been an ally before "spreading democracy", so they don't make good analogies either imho. Also, "unwavering ally" and "we'll remove their state and let the country fall into…
I believe the point is that sometimes a tyrant is worse than cutting off the head and seeing the hydra. Of course it’s possible Iraq would’ve gone different without the Coalition Provisional Authority’s early orders.
If the last several dictators ousted from nations in the middle east teaches us anything it's that we do not want the hydra. It cost trillions of dollars and thousands of lives to dump all the crap out of the Iraq vacuum. Egypt was teetering on the edge for quite awhile after the arab spring. Libya is still in ruins. Syria speaks for itself. Afghanistan is slipping back into Taliban control. Every time we touch it it gets worse.
While I think we can all agree that totalitarian rulers are not the global maximum they seem to be a pretty clear local maximum in the middle east. The situations that develop in their absence are so much worse on a "suffering per time" basis that it's basically impossible to justify trying to oust them.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Weapons sanctions are guaranteed way to hit the Gulf monarchies hard. They are extremely dependent on US tech as far as I know.
The russians would be very happy to help probably.
Of course, it COULD be bad. Real bad. Hand-waving away such concerns is irresponsible. Having a major oil source friendly to an often hostile nation could have real, even deadly drawbacks.
But so too does always turning a blind eye. If we had gotten into this relationship and worked to reduce the threat (such as investing in other energy sources) we'd be in a better position, we could be at a point to change the relationship at reduced risk. We didn't, and we need to face the concrete realities we're supporting out of fear of hypotheticals.
Because now we may be safer, but we're supporting what we proclaim to be against. When we wield moral superiority, it's undercut. When we tell our children to be patriotic, we know the legacy we're leaving them.
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Yes. Hence the 'death by a thousand cuts'. We couldn't fight every battle. We lost.
Hence the 'death by a thousand cuts'. We couldn't fight every battle. We lost. So does the future belong to those who can administer the "thousand cuts?" In 2019, that means those who own the Cloud server farms and control the organizations that hire hordes of programmers. Does that mean that privacy is dead by an inexorable process? Doesn't that imply that individual liberty is also, eventually, dead? How can we, th…
Yes.
>Doesn't that imply that individual liberty is also, eventually, dead?
Yes.
>How can we, the people, administer the thousand cuts?
Stop carrying a cell phone.
There was a brief period of time, from 1990 to 8:40 AM, September 11th, 2001, when you could do all sorts of stuff online, and the powers that be either didn't, or couldn't, monitor it. That's changed, and that freedom will never come back.
However, no matter how bad the modern surveillance state gets, contrast it to the ancestral environment: a village of 50 to 200 people, most of whom are related to you, watch your every move, and can determine if you live or die. Hunter gatherers don't even have a word for "privacy". It would take real creativity for things to get that bad today.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've been thinking about having a service that lets someone else randomize the location of your phone. That was the primary goal and it evolved to food delivery couriers having additional services where they charge people's phones in a lockbox while they run around all day. Result: Many people's location is erroneous data. No single person's use of the service is suspicious and merely reflecting a societal sentiment…
Can't the cell towers triangulate the phone location anyway.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I share your concern and anger. This particular phrasing could sound like reinforcing a historical perception of women as innately weak and needing protection. I prefer to think of it as people needing help due to circumstances , and the circumstances in this case perhaps due in part to such historical perceptions.
Hmm 200 lb Sudanese fully armed mercenaries vs 120 lb “people” First, the “people” are being prosecuted because they have vaginas - they are women. Second, given the Newtonian consequences of 80lb of fully armed soldier, I think the OPs original sarcasm at their cowardice is not out of place.