TheLepidopterists

joined 4 years ago
[–] TheLepidopterists@hexbear.net 11 points 2 hours ago

This is so weird, I JUST listened to Stavros Halkias talk to a dude about this on his podcast. Although that guy was married, and it was his wife who hated his friend's wife for being a Disney adult.

Rolf can see another millennial from a distance of twenty goats.

That might help if the whole thing wasn't in bad faith but I'm not confident of that.

[–] TheLepidopterists@hexbear.net 35 points 1 day ago (3 children)

I strongly disagree with almost everything in your post, but I don't want to get into a huge line by line discussion about everything, so I'm just going to address the emotionally loaded propaganda phrasing that you keep using.

Furthermore if not a full scale invasion, then what was the push for Kiev when the war started?

An invasion. You can just say invasion. You know that that accurately describes what happened, but "full scale" makes it sound more sinister while providing zero information.

What does full scale even mean? Total war like in WW2? Troops in every part of the invaded country? All of the invading country's armed forces entering the invaded country?

It clearly can't be any of those because none of those are true. It doesn't mean anything. Russia invaded Ukraine is a fact. "Russia's full scale invasion of Ukraine" is a propaganda line from a Washington Post article.

[–] TheLepidopterists@hexbear.net 12 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

That's so weird

elect-black-democrats dot com

This little rat man pete-eat looks like a white dude from Indiana to me

There's like, a hobby where people get old paintings from goodwill and paint ghosts or aliens or mischievous neighborhood kids or whatever on them. I thought at first that maybe it was that?

Or even just adding existing drawn/painted people in MS paint or something .

In retrospect that was foolish of me.

[–] TheLepidopterists@hexbear.net 33 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (9 children)

Full scale invasion is a phrase that you keep using, and it makes you sound like you're getting all your information from redditors, because it just means invasion but sounds worse, like regime vs government.

The issue is you can say all the same about Russia in this case, except for not being NATO aligned.

First of all, that's not true. Russia wasn't overthrown a decade ago by neo-nazis and they weren't creating neo-nazi brigades within their military and using them to harass minority language speakers while also banning them from public life.

Secondly being NATO aligned is an incredibly big deal. For one, it puts you within the political bloc that's committing a modern Holocaust, amongst a bunch of other horrific crimes.

And trying to destroy a Nazi government is much different than the CIA couping a country to install a Nazi government what are you talking about?

I'm asking for reasons as to why to critically support Russia as opposed to Ukraine and if the strategic advantage is worth the moral repercussions.

You sound like a liberal. I've pretty much only ever seen good posts from lemmygrad so this is shocking to me.

[–] TheLepidopterists@hexbear.net 17 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Their reply is definitely AI and not just painted over right? The path next to the fence looks weird, the cloud patterns are different, the cars look really modern, everyone is standing in the flowers, it still kind of has the DHS seal in spite of the clouds behind the seal changing.

[–] TheLepidopterists@hexbear.net 43 points 1 day ago (12 children)

There's a lot to dislike about modern Russia but I'm not sure why a Marxist would strongly object to them for being at war with a US aligned, neo-nazi aligned NATO proxy that was running an ethnic cleansing campaign right on the Russian border.

Comments are absolutely garbage for the most part, but a few gems are scattered throughout.

[–] TheLepidopterists@hexbear.net 42 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Yeah I don't think that if we became single issue focused on class struggle we'd be inviting "shitlibs and filthy centrists" into our "tent."

These people are almost definitionally anti-working class.

 

Full spoilers for both of these Season 3 Star Trek TNG episodes:

Season 3 Episode 14 "The High Ground"

In this episode the Enterprise is on a "mission of mercy" to deliver medical supplies to Rutia IV a planet which nominally has a planetary government, but which is dealing with an insurgency from a group called the Ansata who clearly view the planetary government has a colonialist entity.

While Cpt Picard, Dr Crusher and a few others are relaxing in a cafe after the delivery there is a bombing. Picard orders everyone to beam up to the ship but Crusher insists on staying behind to treat the wounded. She is captured by Ansata members using personal teleporter technology.

At this point the perspective splits in two, following Crusher as she lives with and learns about the resistance movement, as well as other crew of the Enterprise talking to the head of security forces in the occupied continent, and brainstorming how to get Dr Crusher back.

In the Dr. Crusher scenes, you learn that the planetary government has wiped out whole cities regularly tortures people, and killed the leader of the resistance movement's 13-year-old son while he was in detention, but considers the guerrilla actions/asymmetrical warfare of the resistance to be terrorism, which apparently Starfleet agrees about?

Data and Picard have a conversation in which Picard states that terrorism is never justified and that he doesn't believe that "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun" lenin-dont-laugh and Data points out that sometimes a political movement has no other viable choices, and that "terrorism" has successfully achieved political aims in the past, mentioning a couple of examples including the 2024 unification of Ireland connolly-shining . Side note episode was produced while the Troubles were ongoing and did not air in the United Kingdom or Ireland to my understanding, and wasn't available completely unedited until the mid-oughts in the United Kingdom.

The Enterprise crew works with the Rutian of security, who hints that she would like to have access to Starfleet weapons to put an end to the war, and they say no because they consider themselves neutral in this conflict, but do agree to help her track down the until now hidden headquarters of the Ansata rebels in an attempt to rescue their doctor.

Crusher and Kyril Finn, the leader of the Ansata have a discussion where he points out that using violence to accomplish your political aims is only considered terrorism by the people in power when their enemies do it, or by historians when documenting failed attempts to gain power. He compares himself to George Washington which feels unfair to the Ansata to me, because as far as I can tell none of them are pro-slavery. Beverly is offended and defends Washington against being compared to these objectively better people (amerikkka TV show after all).

She claims that Starfleet is neutral in all this, but he points out that by trading with the Rutian government, especially providing medical supplies only to their side of the conflict (she is a bit disdainful of the fact that the Ansata stole some of the medical supplies for their own wounded) they've involved themselves.

Eventually they use their personal teleporters to try to blow up the Enterprise, to draw the Federation into war with them, because they believe that they will have an easier time negotiating, if the Federation is a third chair that negotiating table. But are unable to detonate the bomb before it's teleported into space. They do capture Picard during the attempt.

After this, the Enterprise crew and the colonial government conduct a raid on the Ansata Base that Enterprise has located. During the raid Kyril Finn is murdered by the head of Rutian security, which the Enterprise crew objects to but does nothing to punish, she says that as a prisoner he would have generated violence, but she believes that as a martyr the violence will calm down. This seems backwards to me just from a practical standpoint?

Regardless, a teenager who is a member of the resistance picks up a laser rifle and points it at the head of security, but the Enterprise crew convinced him to put his gun down, at which point Rutian soldiers arrest him and haul him away, presumably to torture him to death in detention like they did to Finn's son.

A Starfleet officer opines that maybe this is how peace starts, with one boy putting down his gun. Of course, this ignores that the colonialism that precipitated all of its violence is no longer being resisted presumably?

Overall, this episode strongly reminded me of the current genocide in Gaza, and fortified. My opinion that actually Starfleet is not that good. Lying to themselves about being neutral in an imperialist struggle while materially supporting the imperialists and helping to track down the resistance is pretty disgusting.

A second episode that recently left a mark,

Season 3, Episode 16 "The Offspring"

Data gets back from a robotics conference, and ensconces himself in his lab for a while. Eventually, he reveals that he has created a new Android with a positronic brain, who he has named Lal, which apparently means "Beloved" in Hindi.

Lal has a strangely featureless face, and no genitals. This is because Data is a very good father, and plans to allow his child to choose their own gender and appearance.

Several different heartwarming and or wacky events occur throughout the episode, due to Data's daughter (she chooses to be a female human) lacking experience with human culture, and basic knowledge of the world around her, while Data spins the episode raising her and asking Beverly Crusher for parenting advice.

Eventually some piece of shit admiral from Starfleet (again, Starfleet bad, kinda) comes along and demands that Lal be handed over to Starfleet Research to be raised. This causes a big conflict because, at this point in the show we've already established that Androids are people with the full rights and freedoms of any other member of the Federation. As a result, this is essentially breaking up a family for absolutely no reason, and Lal, having developed emotions, becomes terrified of the thought of being separated from her father causing a cascading positronic brain failure. Data tries to repair her brain, but is unable to do so and spends her last few moments attempting to comfort her. She tells him that she loves him, and he says that he wishes he could share the feeling. She tells him that she will feel it for both of them. At this point I started sobbing. Shortly after Data tells the rest of the bridge crew that his daughter has passed. Give him their condolences, but he states that she'd made such an impact on him that he could not consign her to oblivion, and transferred her memories into his own.

I don't think this one would have hit me as hard before I had kids, but at this point in my life it's gut-wrenching.

On a lighter note, there is a scene where she's observing flirting while working Guinan's bar trying to learn about human social interaction. When Rokwr walks into the bar, she picks him up from behind the bar and gives him a kiss, and at this exact moment Data also walks in, witnesses the scene and asks Riker "What are your intentions with my daughter?" This was pretty funny.

 

Uh, spoilers I guess for TNG season 2 generally and TMoaM specifically.


We're watching TNG for the first time (not counting seeing random out of order episodes when my aunt was watching me decades ago) and so far season 2 is definitely better, but the dehumanization of Data has been driving me up a wall.

This fuckin doctor who isn't Beverly Crusher consistently treating him like a thing and even being smug about it as she learns that she's wrong was bad enough to start with

But now we have this asshole calling him "it" repeatedly and saying that he's Starfleet property, doing the "well if one of Data's best friends doesn't make a sincere argument that he's a nonperson, I'll just immediately declare that he's a nonperson" etc.

Just unreal "justice system" brain worms. Oh is the question of whether this individual, who clearly has feelings and desires, deserves to have literally any personal rights more fitting for "saints and philosophers" you dumb lawyer hog

And finally the smug science nerd space fascist right here.

This guy's insistence that in spite of not understanding Data's construction at all basically, he should be allowed to vivisect him and poke around in his brain was absurd. Like, once people start asking him any questions about his plans for the experiment he immediately makes it clear that he doesn't know shit and hasn't considered the dangers to Data at all. The moment during the trial when Picard demands that he distinguish the traits that Picard demands has and Data lacks that makes only Picard sentient and he whines that the question is "difficult" holy shit I was funing. He loses the court case obviously but frankly I am mad that (and I know that TNG isn't this show) nobody shot him in the head with a phaser.

 

So I was just on SLS yelling at some lib that was complaining that the sub is not targeted at libs, but was actually left on left infighting because we "didn't propose solutions and were aggressive toward pro Kamala posters" or whatever.

When it started getting circular I reported them for genocide apologism and they quit responding (I assume they caught a sub ban) and then like 2 minutes later I got a permanent site ban for "harassment or bullying" pointing at a week old top level comment I made on /r/bisexual on a deleted thread calling for people to vote Kamala to stop project 2025. The comment was "I will never vote for genocide and fuck anyone who will."

Now I can't talk about ttrpgs or other similar shit on reddit, but that is what I get for communist-posting and nerd-posting on the same profile.

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