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The gradual extinction of softness

hippocampusmagazine.com

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Re: The gradual extinction of softness

#81

Post by prmph »

jokethrowaway wrote: post #43
gunfighthacksaw wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea, I think when comparing the deadliness of ideologies, the true measure should be something like mortality/(time x population) For example, the Nazis killed 11M over 12 years and the German population was about 70M in 1939. Thus, their deadliness is 11/(70x12) ~ 1/70 The USSR killed 40M (a middling estimate) over about 70 years and the Soviet population was 170M in 1939, so their deadliness is 40/(170x80) ~ 1/340…

I wouldn't call deaths in the USSR "accidental". Starving and executing kulaks was no accident, they were punishing the rich. People worked to death in the gulags were not an accident. They may have killed less people per year compared to Nazis but that doesn't make them less deadly. In terms of sheer human loss for society, they were 4 times worse than the Nazis (according to your estimate). If you consider how much…

The difference is that the nazis were killing people based on who they were; the communists purged people based based on their belief that they had committed crimes against the state or were working against it.

One can dispute this belief, and no doubt they were both brutal, but there is a difference between a genocidal policy with the aim of extermination, and the state exerting its power to punish those it thinks are working against its interests.

Put another way, you could, in theory, avoid punishment in the Soviet Union by avoiding certain actions (although I know this is stretching things quite a bit), whereas those who were targeted by the nazis had no hope of escape.

Re: The gradual extinction of softness

#82

Post by scollet »

emodendroket wrote: post #62

> I’ve often wondered why, in a poor country where women work as hard as men to feed their children, feminine softness is so highly prized. As for me, I no longer consider it a valuable attribute. Isn't this its own answer? It's prized precisely because it is unattainable for most.

What?

Re: The gradual extinction of softness

#83

Post by mattigames »

Any positive insight after reading this piece is quickly tarnished by the only user's comment posted right now, someone who wrote "And this is what the people supporting BLM are working to. What a bunch of fools", Internet never fails to make me lose hope in humanity a bit more.

Re: The gradual extinction of softness

#84

Post by johncolanduoni »

rastapasta42 wrote: post #11
bamboozled wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not a military strategist, but I don’t understand. That article you cited about America should w say the US would lose a battle with China ? What about all the ICBMs, long range bombers, subs etc etc which would be used if something like that happened ?

What happens when Chinese intercept and disable all our sub's nuclear launch radio signals coming from Alaska, and all our subs become worthless?

The submarines establish that the US has collapsed as a result of nuclear war with China, and execute their orders to retaliate. That’s the entire point of ballistic missile submarines.

Re: The gradual extinction of softness

#85

Post by saiya-jin »

mattigames wrote: post #83

Any positive insight after reading this piece is quickly tarnished by the only user's comment posted right now, someone who wrote "And this is what the people supporting BLM are working to. What a bunch of fools", Internet never fails to make me lose hope in humanity a bit more.

Don't let few primitives who spit their hate all around them poison the whole image. The thing is, if you're stupid and also wrong you don't know either of that, and facts won't change that.

Re: The gradual extinction of softness

#86

Post by fxtentacle »

emodendroket wrote: post #62

> I’ve often wondered why, in a poor country where women work as hard as men to feed their children, feminine softness is so highly prized. As for me, I no longer consider it a valuable attribute. Isn't this its own answer? It's prized precisely because it is unattainable for most.

That explanation doesn't work for me. Women in Germany at my age never had a shortage of anything. Yet most of them present themselves as strong and fiercely competitive. It's rare to see a German woman embrace her softer side or act playfully in public.

Re: The gradual extinction of softness

#87

Post by saiya-jin »

watwut wrote: post #80
BurningFrog wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For example, the Nazis killed 11M over 12 years and the German population was about 70M in 1939. Thus, their deadliness is 11/(70x12) ~ 1/70 I don't have real numbers, but I'd guess at least 95% of the people the Nazis killed were foreigners. So that math makes little sense.

Yep. Even ignoring non-Jewish victims, majority of holocaust victims were foreign Jews and not Germans of Jewish descent. Mostly because Europe and Africa as a whole had more Jews then Germany itself. Ignoring Jews, Germans were more ruthless and murderous toward Polish or Russian people then toward western ones. And they much more ruthless and murderous toward western then toward Germans themself. (And yes they were…

Slavs generally, gypsies and other 'non-aryan' races. They had plans for the world after conquering it, which would basically wipe all local population in vast swaths of euroasia to make room for them. Jews were just first in line because Hitler was a war and childhood traumatized psychopath.

Re: The gradual extinction of softness

#90

Post by goto11 »

jokethrowaway wrote: post #43
gunfighthacksaw wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea, I think when comparing the deadliness of ideologies, the true measure should be something like mortality/(time x population) For example, the Nazis killed 11M over 12 years and the German population was about 70M in 1939. Thus, their deadliness is 11/(70x12) ~ 1/70 The USSR killed 40M (a middling estimate) over about 70 years and the Soviet population was 170M in 1939, so their deadliness is 40/(170x80) ~ 1/340…

I wouldn't call deaths in the USSR "accidental". Starving and executing kulaks was no accident, they were punishing the rich. People worked to death in the gulags were not an accident. They may have killed less people per year compared to Nazis but that doesn't make them less deadly. In terms of sheer human loss for society, they were 4 times worse than the Nazis (according to your estimate). If you consider how much…

> Communists often get a moral pass somehow, unlike Nazi and I wonder if it's because most schools and history teachers are biased

I think there is a simpler explanation (assuming you went to school in a Western country). The USSR under Stalin was allied with the western powers during WWII. Presenting Stalin as "just as bad" as Hitler would cast doubt on the whole moral justification of the war and would undermine the image of the western powers as the good guys who fought the evil Nazis to save the world from tyranny.

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