7 ms·

I find it very frustrating to read about such oppressive regimes. It fills me with anger, I cannot help myself, I just hate injustice.

txsh 9y ago
You’re probably writing this from a country that drops bombs on people without first knowing who they are or why they are there, just that they appear to be male and over a certain height in an area of terrorist activity. No courts. No oversight. No accountability. What Turkey is doing is terrible but mild in comparison to the drone war.
- integricho 9y ago
  Actually I'm quite close to Turkey (I'm from Serbia), though we're not yet that much oppressed.
- tobltobs 9y ago
  And what do you want to tell us with your whataboutism?
  - yesenadam 9y ago
    Well, that's a glib remark if I've ever heard one. "Whataboutism" - so that's.. said to people who tiresomely derail discussion of seriously wrongdoing with their pat diagnosis and dismiss the original topic as naive. Unfortunately you have done that same thing by using the word. I get why it's useful to have a name for the phenomenon, but there's nothing commendable about the way you used it, it came across sounding like a jerk who thinks they're superior. And made me wonder about what you "want to tell us". edit: Could the downvoters explain why? Thanks. I tried to say something substantive, I thought successfully. (joosters, I totally agree)
    - joosters 9y ago
      IMO the person they were replying to sounded superior. There will always be a more important issue than the one being discussed. (in the eyes of someone, at least). That's no reason to prevent talking about anything else.
- torstenvl 9y ago
  Very few such countries exist, and most people in them aren't native English-speakers.
  - com_kieffer 9y ago
    I'm pretty sure that most people in the US speak English. See "signature strikes": https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jul/01/obama-continue-signature-strikes-drones-civilian-deaths https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jul/01/obama-contin... Quoting from the article: > So-called “signature strikes”, targeting people whose behavior is assessed to be similar enough to those of terrorists to mark them for death, will continue, according to senior US officials. > Human-rights groups have long denounced the practice – whose criteria can be as vague as killing “military-aged males” in regions where terrorists operate – as anonymous killing.
    - torstenvl 9y ago
      The cited source does not support the stated proposition. It merely contains an unsourced, parenthetical, editorial comment to that effect. The alleged practice is not something the United States does.
- kingofpandora 9y ago
  > What Turkey is doing is terrible but mild in comparison to the drone war. Turkey does that too, though. It has been using combat drones inside its own borders, Iraq and Syria, and the Turkish Air Force has previous for bombing civilians.
sillysaurus3 9y ago
Embrace it. Let's burn the world and rebuild. And replace it with our own unjust systems, ad infinitum. It's worth doing. The big will screw the small just because they can. But this always happens, everywhere. How does it feel being a slave to a paycheck and a career? It's such an ingrained concept that few people question why businesses are allowed to extract 10 hours of your life five days a week. That's time you won't ever get back, and for what? Money? To do what? You won't reach that three million mark. And those who have three million can kick back and live off $125k/yr returns with no effort. The whole system, everywhere, is fucked. And it's hard to restrain disgust for it.
- integricho 9y ago
  I might be an optimist, but I still have hopes that humanity might free itself with from the grunt work with full robotic automation and AI, and switch to a universal basic income model to provide for the needs of the people.
  - sillysaurus3 9y ago
    Mm. And you believe those on top will allow this to happen? You're raw material to them. Something they can consume. You're a chess piece. One reason I conceal my identity is because my father has some very strange political beliefs, and I'd be embarrassed to be associated with his writings. But as time wears on, the belief that war is the inevitable outcome keeps pressing at me, gnawing at me, like a scratch on the roof of your mouth. History shows that war is the natural state of things. For roughly a million years, we have been at war. The peace brought by nuclear weapons has been maintained, thankfully. But we see how fragile the world is; this state of affairs holds up until the next generation becomes unhinged, and no longer. What do you think will happen when the top captures so much wealth production that the rest of the world cannot self-suffice? Truly. Put yourself there, mentally. Get into the mindset of the greedy nature of those at the top. Those who wish to grow their portfolios and dominate the world. The ambitious. Those who own the automation pipelines. Those who own the government. What possible incentive do they have to give up their control? They own you. And like the middle ages, we have no recourse. We'd lose this fight. And they know it. Forever. The lever of technology has become so large and terrifying that no one can possibly win. The only way is to subvert it. And as we approach 8 billion people, achieving any consensus becomes less and less likely. How high shall we go? Ten billion? Twenty? A hundred? How far are we from the limit? These thoughts are uncomfortable. Better compartmentalize them and follow the crowd: don't think about it, pretend it's not true, focus on math and programming and what little you can change.
lovelearning 9y ago
Me too. I find it inexplicable that while our species has progressed so much after 6000 years of civilization, one thing that doesn't seem to have changed is the desire of large sections of people to be led by oppressive maniacs. It's almost like many of us just love handing away our freedoms. Have sociologists studied this phenomenon?
- legacynl 9y ago
  low quality education.
  - joosters 9y ago
    I doubt that the people involved are stupid, or are trying to punish their opponents because of a lack of education. Better education might lead to more effective attacks, it won't stop them.
- skocznymroczny 9y ago
  It seems that both sides of the political scene want to control others, it's just one side does it to "maintain order and morals", while the other side does it to "fight hate speech and combat fake news".
- simonh 9y ago
  I think it’s that many of us just love handing away other people’s freedoms. ‘They’ are the ones we’re oppressing, ‘they’ deserve it. It’s seen as an easy shortcut to oppress ‘them’. Then you get the Syrian Christians who voted for Trump in droves because if his anti-Muslim stance, but who’s communities are being gutted by deportations because it turns out all the laws being used against Syrian Muslim immigrants apply just as well to Syrian Christians. Oops.
  - ythn 9y ago
    How many people have been deported under Trump? I'm having trouble finding any statistics on it
  - 9y ago
madaxe_again 9y ago
The thing that makes my head hurt is that some of the people described in the article as having been swept up in this dragnet are still authoritarian nationalists. How having an experience such as this can’t shake your belief that the state is infallible I really can’t comprehend. It’s almost like Stockholm syndrome.
- chatmasta 9y ago
  What do you expect these people to tell a newspaper when asked about what they “did?” Of course they’re going to declare their enduring love and support for their wonderful leader. Saying anything else would result in a prison sentence.
  - madaxe_again 9y ago
    It doesn’t change that they’re still authoritarian nationalists. If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, publicly supports the big duck that likes hurting other ducks rather than simply keeping its beak shut...
- pas 9y ago
  https://slavischestudies.wordpress.com/2015/10/18/gulags-and-communism/ https://slavischestudies.wordpress.com/2015/10/18/gulags-and...

txsh 9y ago

You’re probably writing this from a country that drops bombs on people without first knowing who they are or why they are there, just that they appear to be male and over a certain height in an area of terrorist activity. No courts. No oversight. No accountability. What Turkey is doing is terrible but mild in comparison to the drone war.

integricho 9y ago
Actually I'm quite close to Turkey (I'm from Serbia), though we're not yet that much oppressed.
tobltobs 9y ago
And what do you want to tell us with your whataboutism?
- yesenadam 9y ago
  Well, that's a glib remark if I've ever heard one. "Whataboutism" - so that's.. said to people who tiresomely derail discussion of seriously wrongdoing with their pat diagnosis and dismiss the original topic as naive. Unfortunately you have done that same thing by using the word. I get why it's useful to have a name for the phenomenon, but there's nothing commendable about the way you used it, it came across sounding like a jerk who thinks they're superior. And made me wonder about what you "want to tell us". edit: Could the downvoters explain why? Thanks. I tried to say something substantive, I thought successfully. (joosters, I totally agree)
  - joosters 9y ago
    IMO the person they were replying to sounded superior. There will always be a more important issue than the one being discussed. (in the eyes of someone, at least). That's no reason to prevent talking about anything else.
torstenvl 9y ago
Very few such countries exist, and most people in them aren't native English-speakers.
- com_kieffer 9y ago
  I'm pretty sure that most people in the US speak English. See "signature strikes": https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jul/01/obama-continue-signature-strikes-drones-civilian-deaths https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jul/01/obama-contin... Quoting from the article: > So-called “signature strikes”, targeting people whose behavior is assessed to be similar enough to those of terrorists to mark them for death, will continue, according to senior US officials. > Human-rights groups have long denounced the practice – whose criteria can be as vague as killing “military-aged males” in regions where terrorists operate – as anonymous killing.
  - torstenvl 9y ago
    The cited source does not support the stated proposition. It merely contains an unsourced, parenthetical, editorial comment to that effect. The alleged practice is not something the United States does.
kingofpandora 9y ago
> What Turkey is doing is terrible but mild in comparison to the drone war. Turkey does that too, though. It has been using combat drones inside its own borders, Iraq and Syria, and the Turkish Air Force has previous for bombing civilians.

sillysaurus3 9y ago

Embrace it. Let's burn the world and rebuild. And replace it with our own unjust systems, ad infinitum. It's worth doing. The big will screw the small just because they can. But this always happens, everywhere. How does it feel being a slave to a paycheck and a career? It's such an ingrained concept that few people question why businesses are allowed to extract 10 hours of your life five days a week. That's time you won't ever get back, and for what? Money? To do what? You won't reach that three million mark. And those who have three million can kick back and live off $125k/yr returns with no effort. The whole system, everywhere, is fucked. And it's hard to restrain disgust for it.

integricho 9y ago
I might be an optimist, but I still have hopes that humanity might free itself with from the grunt work with full robotic automation and AI, and switch to a universal basic income model to provide for the needs of the people.
- sillysaurus3 9y ago
  Mm. And you believe those on top will allow this to happen? You're raw material to them. Something they can consume. You're a chess piece. One reason I conceal my identity is because my father has some very strange political beliefs, and I'd be embarrassed to be associated with his writings. But as time wears on, the belief that war is the inevitable outcome keeps pressing at me, gnawing at me, like a scratch on the roof of your mouth. History shows that war is the natural state of things. For roughly a million years, we have been at war. The peace brought by nuclear weapons has been maintained, thankfully. But we see how fragile the world is; this state of affairs holds up until the next generation becomes unhinged, and no longer. What do you think will happen when the top captures so much wealth production that the rest of the world cannot self-suffice? Truly. Put yourself there, mentally. Get into the mindset of the greedy nature of those at the top. Those who wish to grow their portfolios and dominate the world. The ambitious. Those who own the automation pipelines. Those who own the government. What possible incentive do they have to give up their control? They own you. And like the middle ages, we have no recourse. We'd lose this fight. And they know it. Forever. The lever of technology has become so large and terrifying that no one can possibly win. The only way is to subvert it. And as we approach 8 billion people, achieving any consensus becomes less and less likely. How high shall we go? Ten billion? Twenty? A hundred? How far are we from the limit? These thoughts are uncomfortable. Better compartmentalize them and follow the crowd: don't think about it, pretend it's not true, focus on math and programming and what little you can change.

lovelearning 9y ago

Me too. I find it inexplicable that while our species has progressed so much after 6000 years of civilization, one thing that doesn't seem to have changed is the desire of large sections of people to be led by oppressive maniacs. It's almost like many of us just love handing away our freedoms. Have sociologists studied this phenomenon?

legacynl 9y ago
low quality education.
- joosters 9y ago
  I doubt that the people involved are stupid, or are trying to punish their opponents because of a lack of education. Better education might lead to more effective attacks, it won't stop them.
skocznymroczny 9y ago
It seems that both sides of the political scene want to control others, it's just one side does it to "maintain order and morals", while the other side does it to "fight hate speech and combat fake news".
simonh 9y ago
I think it’s that many of us just love handing away other people’s freedoms. ‘They’ are the ones we’re oppressing, ‘they’ deserve it. It’s seen as an easy shortcut to oppress ‘them’. Then you get the Syrian Christians who voted for Trump in droves because if his anti-Muslim stance, but who’s communities are being gutted by deportations because it turns out all the laws being used against Syrian Muslim immigrants apply just as well to Syrian Christians. Oops.
- ythn 9y ago
  How many people have been deported under Trump? I'm having trouble finding any statistics on it
- 9y ago

madaxe_again 9y ago

The thing that makes my head hurt is that some of the people described in the article as having been swept up in this dragnet are still authoritarian nationalists. How having an experience such as this can’t shake your belief that the state is infallible I really can’t comprehend. It’s almost like Stockholm syndrome.

chatmasta 9y ago
What do you expect these people to tell a newspaper when asked about what they “did?” Of course they’re going to declare their enduring love and support for their wonderful leader. Saying anything else would result in a prison sentence.
- madaxe_again 9y ago
  It doesn’t change that they’re still authoritarian nationalists. If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, publicly supports the big duck that likes hurting other ducks rather than simply keeping its beak shut...
pas 9y ago
https://slavischestudies.wordpress.com/2015/10/18/gulags-and-communism/ https://slavischestudies.wordpress.com/2015/10/18/gulags-and...