"Importantly, The Market And Private Property By Themselves Cannot Prevent The Total Depletion Of The

Unless I'm mistaken, Russia's demands have been self-evidently absurd, constituting effective defeat (ceding of the occupied territories/breakway republics, which have already been declared part of the Russian Federation) and regime change ("demilitarization", "de-Nazification"). If Russia finds American demands for regime change unappealing, they may end the war at any time by simply withdrawing to their pre-February 2022 borders.

Additionally, why should we be required to be chartiable/discerning towards Russian state speech, while Russia is allowed to assume the worst of US/NATO's intentions? American calls for Russian regime change are "referendums on its continued existence", whereas Russian calls for Ukranian regime change are merely "bluster".

Both sides are blustering of course, but the difference is that whereas the US (no matter how bloodthirsty our politicians' speeches may get) is not going to put troops on the ground in Ukraine to try and overthrow Putin, Putin's promises to sieze Kiev are actually possible and probable due to the hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers trying to achieve that goal at this moment- all the more reason to take him at face value and assume that his motives are what he says they are!

jacobin.com

The State of Ukrainian Democracy Is Not Strong

One year after Russia’s invasion, Ukraine is backsliding away from democratic freedoms and liberal pluralism.

a very harrowing article. i had not realised just how far authoritarian tendencies in ukraine had progressed under zelensky over the course of the war: dissent and freedom of the press have been massively curtailed, opposition parties banned, and bills introduced to suppress religious freedom. accusations of treason are bandied about for the mere voicing of dissent, and due process for those accused is routinely curtailed (both within and without the official justice system). perhaps most stomach-churning was hearing that chesno, an ngo currently running a blacklist of alleged traitors, received 42% of its funding in 2021 from ned and ndi (at us taxpayer expense)

i strongly recommend reading this for anyone inclined to simplify the war into a contest between liberal democracy to the west and autocratic authoritarianism to the east

Why does no one remember Iraq? For all of Trump's faults, at least he didn't start a war that killed or maimed hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of innocent people and afflicted countless more with homelessness, hunger, trauma, and despair.

Petty bourgeois types gonna petty bourgeois; the obsession with the "middle class", traditional family structures, and hatred of taxes all point to growing class anxiety over unstoppable capitalist stratification and its effects on the family and ego. Notice that the "improvements" of circumstances of the 3rd world can only be imagined in economic terms, as the long-suffering Chinese and Africans get to throw off the yoke of progressive taxation and join the ranks of suburban small-business owners, and gratefully open up their countries as tourist destinations and tax havens for their Western saviors.

If only someone would make us powerful again by giving our kids, country, and pride back!

The joke is that the fantasy world of Qanon is a communist utopia and I’m not sure how seriously to take it.  In some sense, universal prosperity is a universal desire.  But on the other, the fact that they focus on this, rather than directly focusing on freedom or social darwinian competition or purifying violence for it’s own sake is interesting.

I'm not sure why anyone would seriously mourn the death of Ted Kazcynski, when both a) his basic critique of technology is stupidly, fundamentally flawed to anyone who thinks about it for five minutes and b) plenty of morally palatable and effective enviormentalist protestors exist. But nobody's making any "Jessica Reznicek did nothing wrong" memes.

It *is* a good argument; the point is to force the theist to acknowledge that their god is just one among thousands, none of whom have any persuasive evidence for their existence. What argument can Catholics offer me for the existence of God that are any different that that of a pagan and their "idol"?

I also think the analogy with Communist leaders is telling: regardless of your thoughts on Mao, Lenin, Che, etc., there is indisputable proof (often video evidence) that they all existed and said/did the things their followers claim they said/did. Rejecting them is a matter of political opinion, not denial of their factual existence. The second poster assumes the same of God; the facts are not in dispute, atheists are simply *rejecting* God, whose existence is as certain as Leon Trotsky.

"we're both atheists, I just believe in one god less than you" is rarely a good argument.

it is never a good argument when used to compare a pagan idol to the Lord.

There is a reason why neopaganism comes at a time of uncertainty and rests on either the reinvention of paganism or on irrationalism.

As many of you know, in my day job I’m a journalist, and one of my colleagues is covering the tumblr changes and wants to talk to anyone who has been affected, creatively or financially, by the new policy, so that we can get your story out there. If that’s you, PM me or email her at kaitlyn.tiffany@vox.com. 

I'm not a native to the rationalist part of the internet, but it seems like that idea's gotten a lot more popular since Scott Alexander created his idea of the Archipelago. It strikes me as the kind of "liberal defeatist" politics that a lot of rationalists seem to share: we should tolerate difference and let people choose their communities, but universal values don't exist or are impossible/not worth it to establish, so the best we can do is create as many cultural islands as possible and let God/Moloch/citizen choice sort it out.

OK, why do so many political and fiction writers seem enamored with this idea of breaking the world into little micro-statelets?  I think the idea is that it’s nice to have your own law shared with people who agree with you, it seems like a massive punt on the actual political problems of the day unless you live in total isolation from others.

I see this shit and I can’t help but wonder if these people think of law on purely an aesthetic level or something.

Very few believers will seriously claim that morality can only come from religion anymore (that argument seemed to die with the religious debates of the early aughts) but they've seemed to switch tactics recently to claiming that culture and religion are inseparable. This strikes me as an even worse argument: arguably, religion *destroys* culture by suppressing full human thought, creativity, and exploration of ideas- often other religions!

Once again begging anti-theists to realize that to get to a world without religion you’d have to commit cultural genocide. So maybe you shouldn’t push for that

Idea: Resolve this problem by giving workers the power to fire colleagues that they deem lazy or dangerously incompetent. Terminated workers have the right to defend themselves in a court-like environment, with consideration given to the importance/inherent danger of their job and the consequences of letting them stay or forcing them out. Terminated workers are compensated with unemployment benefits and recieve assistance from local government in finding a new occupation.

What is "corruption"?

Both liberals and libertarians believe that too many politicians serve "big business" or "crony interests" instead of the "public".

But look at from the perspective of a politician. One group of citizens may be the majority, but they have little way of influencing you outside of letters or collective actions, which are rare, and to be honest, their opinions are often uninformed and they have no control over major social organizations, so they don't matter to you all that much.

But a small minority of citizens are very important people, who direct the majority of economic activity and control the fate of your nation or- perhaps even more crucially-your home state, because they control land and resources and can choose where to invest them to create jobs. You're going to listen to what they have to say, especially since they can afford to send specialized lobbyists to wait in your office all day with lots of impressive documents and charts.

And they don't need to threaten or bribe you to get what they want; all they have to do is to make a convincing argument on why voting a certain way on a given law or regulation will benefit them (and by extensions, your constituency) or hurt them (and by extension, your constituency).

"The public may have good intentions in supporting this higher minimum wage law, or in their campaign to resist privatization," they argue, "but with all due respect to the public, they just don't know the facts. This bill will destroy jobs and hurt your state. Look, let us take you out to a nice dinner to discuss it. If you back us up on this, we'll support you come election season. Everybody wins."

"Corruption" is not the result of personal moral failing. It is the natural, inevitable symptom of a divided society, where a small percentage of owners who control almost all property and economic activity have interests that oppose that of the property-less majority. The only way to end "corruption" is to subordinate economic activity to the democratic will of society at large via the abolition of private property and the developmemt of communism.