3 ms·

When reading pieces like that, and watching a lot of documentaries on the First and Second World War I always am reminded of a quote my SO presented me once: "

When reading pieces like that, and watching a lot of documentaries on the First and Second World War I always am reminded of a quote my SO presented me once: "In war, people who do not know each other kill each other on the orders of people who know each other but do not kill each other." But on topic: I just don't know what happened to the world and to political doctrine in the last 20 to 30 years. I just don't understand this world anymore. I grew up near the iron curtain on the western side. Filled with propaganda about how the West (and especially the US) were the better system. How democracy made people free and how socialism put people behind walls and made them unfree. I grew up in a system of socially responsible capitalism with the government and other institutions somewhat ensuring that the everybody participated in economic uplift. After the Wall fell it seems to me the west did not habe to pretend anymore and more and more restraints fell. Everything became capitalized as well as we are allowed to do everything because we are the good guys seems to have become a thing (or more of that at least). I can't understand killing civilians with drone strikes at weddings (or anywhere), waiting for the ambulance and others to help and then striking again. I don't understand pushing Russia even closer towards China. I don't understand the EU pulling refugee boats back into the Mediterranean to sink there. Somehow I am only in my forties and the world doesn't make any sense to me anymore.

hmmmzzz 5y ago
- sdoering 5y ago
  Wow. Now it is my duplicity? I colonized half the world? Sorry, but this generalization doesn't necessarily strengthen your argument. And just as a question: When did Germany ever use a nuclear weapon against another nation? Because you vitriolic rant is surely targeted against the wrong populace. Would love to know what made you think that adhominem attacking me would make me think positively about you.
  - pasabagi 5y ago
    > When did Germany ever use a nuclear weapon against another nation? A war crime that Germany has not committed! Although, for lack of technical capacity, not lack of will. Seriously though: I don't think he was attacking you- it was the plural 'you', 'you, the west'. And westerners are largely the unreformed heirs of the colonial system - Germans included! There's a reason why the conference that initiated the carving up of Africa was held in Berlin.
- rayiner 5y ago
  Lol. If non-western countries had the power and technology, they would have done much worse. Try getting anyone in my educated and left-leaning Bangladeshi family to even pretend to care about what we did to suppress the country’s hill people: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chittagong_Hill_Tracts_conflict https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chittagong_Hill_Tracts_conflic.... Crickets. It doesn’t even register within their thought process. Just like how European countries are the only ones where anyone gives a shit about the Uyghurs—“fellow Muslims” with business ties to China (e.g. Pakistan) certainly don’t.
SuoDuanDao 5y ago
I found Game of Thrones a huge help in making sense of the world - it's always been a bunch of inbred families working out their inbred family's dramas. A good leader sees their citizenry as a valuable resource and a bad one sees them as a liability, but their goals are always in respect to the other players, not their people. Maybe we actually had better leaders before the turn of the century, it's hard for me to be sure. But either way, the sheer arbitrariness of it all being down to humans as idiosyncratic as the people I know in my daily life made a lot more sense after I watched game of thrones.

hmmmzzz 5y ago

sdoering 5y ago
Wow. Now it is my duplicity? I colonized half the world? Sorry, but this generalization doesn't necessarily strengthen your argument. And just as a question: When did Germany ever use a nuclear weapon against another nation? Because you vitriolic rant is surely targeted against the wrong populace. Would love to know what made you think that adhominem attacking me would make me think positively about you.
- pasabagi 5y ago
  > When did Germany ever use a nuclear weapon against another nation? A war crime that Germany has not committed! Although, for lack of technical capacity, not lack of will. Seriously though: I don't think he was attacking you- it was the plural 'you', 'you, the west'. And westerners are largely the unreformed heirs of the colonial system - Germans included! There's a reason why the conference that initiated the carving up of Africa was held in Berlin.
rayiner 5y ago
Lol. If non-western countries had the power and technology, they would have done much worse. Try getting anyone in my educated and left-leaning Bangladeshi family to even pretend to care about what we did to suppress the country’s hill people: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chittagong_Hill_Tracts_conflict https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chittagong_Hill_Tracts_conflic.... Crickets. It doesn’t even register within their thought process. Just like how European countries are the only ones where anyone gives a shit about the Uyghurs—“fellow Muslims” with business ties to China (e.g. Pakistan) certainly don’t.

SuoDuanDao 5y ago

I found Game of Thrones a huge help in making sense of the world - it's always been a bunch of inbred families working out their inbred family's dramas. A good leader sees their citizenry as a valuable resource and a bad one sees them as a liability, but their goals are always in respect to the other players, not their people. Maybe we actually had better leaders before the turn of the century, it's hard for me to be sure. But either way, the sheer arbitrariness of it all being down to humans as idiosyncratic as the people I know in my daily life made a lot more sense after I watched game of thrones.