I think people have a right to know if an org harbors sexual assaulters.
If the party is shutting down internal discussion and democracy, it’s no longer democratic centralism. The only alternative is to discuss outside of internal channels.
Iran getting a nuclear weapon would be one of the best things to happen in decades. Iran has been pushing back the imperialist machine in every way, and getting a nuke would solidify their position in a way nothing else can.
Well, assuming you are thinking about Hearts of Iron, I think you've got the wrong image of this game. Each Paradox game has entirely different teams, with different people and different visions. Victoria 3 isn't a Nazi larp simulator. While you can get to a fascist government, and simulate the rise of Nazism, it's grounded in a material analysis of things. You can tangibly see how the fascist movement is a reaction to people wanting better things, a repressive movement to keep the status quo maintained in a time of turbulence.
It's not kind of thing that appeals to the average chud HoI4 gamer. That's not to say there aren't any fascists lingering around, but Vicky3 tends significantly more left wing in the player base, from what I've seen. Like, you're basically playing economic development and imperialism simulator for most of the game, and not in a jingoistic larp sense, but in a materialist, "the game shows many of the incentives that lead to these things", and the forces and movements that arise from them.
Getting good at the game requires you to learn more about the world we live, and the economic realities much of it. While liberals and fascists can and do still play this game, with varying degrees of cognitive dissonance, it's fundamentally different in so many ways than Hearts of Iron.
Also it, explicitly really, shows that the best society is a communist one, with equal rights and open to all. It has the highest standard of living possible, and it's a great move in terms of economic development as well.
It's generally been getting better and better! There was some recent issues with the recent naval rework, but the devs at least are experimenting and trying new things to improve the game over time.
If you haven't played since the trade rework for example, it's like a whole new (better) game.
Huh? Are you talking about Hearts of Iron?
Translation is definitely one of the unambiguous goods of past AI research. A lot of the origins of the technology came from scientists trying to create better translation tools, and it shows in how well it captures language. Being able to have not-shit translations on demand is such a recent thing in the history of humanity. I think it's very good for spreading international understanding better.
The stories about AI breaching containment are bullshit. They're simply trying to drive hype, build importance, and make their product seem more capable than it actually is. These Ais aren't thinking people, and they certainly aren't Skynet.
I do think many AI tools are actually better in select use cases than many think though, especially when concentrated resources are focused on them. We mostly see bottom level generative AI used to produce Boomer slop, and that, coupled with how ghoulish the companies are, makes a certain background perception of it that's not fully accurate imo.
I don't say this to mean that all of these tools are good, or are a replacement for humans in creative fields, but I think we have to analyze their capabilities honestly. If we don't, we're ignoring a lot about the current situation. AI tools can be slop generation machines, making a lot of people dumber with how they're used by most, and making horrific social consequences. But also at the same time, highly specialized technical models can be doing very serious things, in ways that can't fully be discounted.
People are probably going to dispute me on this, but we have to remember, LLMs aren't all models like Grok or the free version of ChatGPT. If we assume that, we leave ourselves vulnerable to bad analysis.
Victoria 3 has always been pretty fun as a communist to play. It's not a perfect economic simulator, but its rooted in materialist analysis. You see it all. Building the economic forces, proletarianizing your people, and eventually building the drive for revolution. It's very fun.
The new DLC seems super promising so far, based on the dev diary. I'm so excited.
Some images:
The reason I said the first bit, is because the Falklands are one of those incredibly niche topics that can wedge Hexbear hard lol. In disputes between the UK and a colonized country, it's like, 99% of the time the UK is in the wrong. However, in this case, it's kind of that 1% for me. But that's such an uncommon thing to hand to the British, that it inflames the topic.
The island was uninhabited before European colonization. There was at one point a Spanish port there, but it was actually abandoned by them, and there was no permanent population on the island. Since like the mid 1800's the UK has control of the island. There aren't really any colonized people's on the island, so that axis of analysis doesn't hit anything.
There is the argument that it could be a colonial outpost, a launching point for other imperialism. But that doesn't really seem to play out either. It used to be a somewhat useful naval port, but the opening of the Panama canal made it entirely pointless. Naval traffic started bypassing it entirely.
We can see that reflected in the military usage of the island. Namely, that it hasn't been. There is an RAF base on the island, but it was built after the Falklands war, once Argentina had invaded and occupied it. Before the war, there was just a garrison with about 60 people on it. It was not a meaningful outpost of imperialism. Just a contingent of marines guarding the sheep as tensions rose with Argentina.
The people on the island have also voted to be British citizens and not to join Argentina, which again makes sense, as there were no meaningful populations of people on the island before British settling of the island.
At this point, I think it's right to just respect the self-determination of the people on the island.
Did that season have a connection to the Falklands? I listened to the main part, but don’t remember one. Did I miss a bonus episode?
I normally try to avoid Falklands posting on Hexbear, but this is such a funny development that I couldn't resist.
Israeli ministers call for sanctions on Britain over Falkland Islands
Smotrich, Israel's finance minister, called for the expulsion of the British ambassador to Israel and said: "We will not be a trampled doormat of an antisemitic government, in a country conquered by radical Islam, trying to save itself from economic and social decline by attacking Jews and the State of Israel. The British Mandate in the Land of Israel is over."
Ben Gvir wrote: "It's time for the state of Israel to publicly recognize that the Malvinas Islands [the Argentine name for the Falkland Islands] are Argentine territory under occupation, which the British violently steal from the Argentine people.
Ben Gvir added: "I call upon Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to recognise Argentina's sovereignty over the Malvinas Islands and to impose sanctions on Great Britain as long as the occupation continues."
The comments by Ben Gvir and Smotrich are understood to come in response to Britain's plans to unveil a raft of policies targeting Israeli settlements on Tuesday, including a trade ban.
This is one of the most classic and serious types of fuckup in history. Thank god the leadership is so stupid that they won’t properly realize that, and that respond like they need to.
The demonstrators arrived late at night with a plan to set off fireworks as part of a noise demonstration to show solidarity with those detained inside. A few of the protesters spontaneously broke off from the main group and vandalized cars in the parking lot, a guard shack, slashed the tires on a government van and broke a security camera. When a police officer arrived on the scene and drew his weapon, one of the activists fired an AR-15 from the woods, hitting the officer in the shoulder. The officer survived.
Zachary Evetts, Autumn Hill, Savanna Batten, Elizabeth Soto and Meagan Morris were sentenced to 50 years in prison. Maricela Rueda, another demonstrator, was sentenced to 70 years in prison. Benjamin Song, who fired the gun at the police officer, was sentenced to 100 years in prison
The ninth defendant, Daniel Sanchez-Estrada was not at the protest, but was convicted of corruptly concealing a document or record after prosecutors said he moved leftwing zines and other materials at the request of Rueda, his wife, after she was arrested. Sanchez-Estrada was sentenced to 30 years in prison on Tuesday.
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30 years for moving some pamphlets.
A little peek into some very depressing happenings on 
See the first link at the bottom, for the main evidence dump and collation.
For a brief tldr, a convicted pedophile abuser, Brynn, got uncovered as a mod in a subreddit for trans women, /r/mtf. In leaked discord convos, the head mod, CedarWolf, was shown downplaying it, and suggesting they swap their account for a new, anonymous one. Cedarwolf is a mod on over 100 subreddits, most of them LGBT related.
With the news blown, instead of like dealing with it responsibly, they just locked down, deleted, and banned anyone who mentioned it on subreddits they controlled. They're going all in on damage control and pedo defense. They made a few posts trying to downplay the news as misleading or harassment, but the community was not accepting it. For a while, they locked the subreddit entirely, but apparently Cedarwolf stopped looking at it for a bit, as it's now entirely filled again with posts calling for them to resign.
The news stayed relatively quiet for a bit, but now it's to the point that Elon discovered it and is tweeting about it. Needless to say, this is fucked in so many ways. It's likely people were put at risk or harmed by the mod teams behaviors and actions, and it's also perfect propaganda bait for right wing shitheads as the news continues to slowly grow. Predictably, Reddit admins are choosing to stay uninvolved, given their "libertarian" lean.
(Also the pronoun use in regards to CedarWolf is deliberate. They aren't a trans woman, despite running a trans woman subreddit. They're he/they/she non-transitioning bigender).
I don't have the full list of all assorted evidence, as this is more just me being depressed and venting, but here's a few bits and pieces.
Main collection of evidence. User since deleted their account, so it's an archive link. Has pictures of discord screenshots, plus snips of the mod's sex offender registry. An ex, who's a reddit mod of /r/egg_irl, posted in the thread alleging that the modremovedd and abused her.
Post with various response/discussion links
Sex offender registry of Brynn
Elon Musk discovering the story through a TERF propaganda outlet and massively amplifying it.
Link - xcancel
Platner really is a level of organic stupid that we should be proud of. He's the pinnacle of American culture.
Love my non-political anime
